The Ramsey Show - App - If You Don’t Deal With the Core Issue You’ll Always Struggle With Money (Hour 1)

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose. And he is our guy that helps you develop in your whole area of your work where you can be a better person and make more money. He's here helping us today. So you've got questions about jobs, careers, all that kind of junk.

Well, hey, we're ready. And we'll even talk to you about whatever it is you want to talk about. That's what we're here for. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Mindy is in beautiful Portland, Maine, to start off this hour. Love your city, Mindy. How are you? I'm well.

How are you? Better than I deserve. Serious. Just walk down to the dock and get some fresh lobster any time you dadgum want. It's amazing, yep. How can we help today? So my husband is a firefighter and kind of young, but is actually can retire at this time.

He's not going to be 50 until this summer, but he has put his time in. So they are starting a program at the fire station where it's a retire-rehire. So he will start to, so he'll stay basically doing his job, but he'll start to get his pension plus his salary. In talking to him, we've been working the baby steps for the last, oh gosh, almost 10 years, I guess. And we are debt free. And he's saying he wants to put his pension straight into retirement, but we still have $112,000 on the house. So we still have a mortgage. And so I'm kind of wanted to talk to you about is that really the right place and the other background I just think that's important to know

is I have a chronic heart condition so I'm in my mid-40s. I was born with it and it's something that I probably won't be able to you know know, really work for a long, long time. I'm not eligible for term life insurance because of it. And about a year ago, a year and a half ago, I had a big medical event. And it really made me weigh my life of I want to do more before I can't. So I'm hoping in the next, you know, five years, maybe 10, that our mortgage will be gone and I'll be able to go down in hours of my job. I do love my job, so that's not it.

No, it's just a matter of the strain, yeah. Well, good question. So you sound like you've been listening a little bit, and you know some of the things we talk about but not not the whole thing, based on what you're saying. Well, I think I do, but I think he's off on this one. Well, he's off because you know the answer, then. You're setting him up for a fall because you know the answer. The answer is we're going to tell you to work the baby steps, and it sounds like you're debt-free with an emergency fund not counting your house, right?

That is correct, yes. Which puts you at baby steps four, five, and six, and and you're putting 15 away for retirement already of your household income yes we are both of us okay if your income goes up because of retire rehire then you would raise the 15 up to be 15 of your new income but you would not put your entire his entire new retirement into back into retirement we would continue with baby steps four five six kids grown and gone do you need to save anything for kids college nope we have an 11 year old so we are working okay so kids college needs to be addressed and beyond that we pay on the house which is your goal so you already knew you won the argument with us yeah but you know what i didn't

actually think of it as a new income because i was just kind of thinking it very separate so this is actually really helpful no he got a raise yeah that's all it is i mean he goes out on retirement he starts getting his retirement and he goes back to work for the same pay because they need help that's why they're doing this they don't want him to leave they're short of help right that's why they're doing this. They don't want him to leave. They're short of help, right? That's correct, yeah. It's really hard to find. And they're afraid he's just going to retire and not come back.

They need him. So they're allowing him to retire and then come back. And that's a very cool thing for y'all because dadgum, that's probably a sweet income. So what will your household income be after retiree hire? So he also does some side hustles because he's a firefighter and doesn't work. I mean, he works, but odd hours. This boy ain't scared of work, is he? Yeah, good. No, not at all.

Not at all. Probably works too much. I would say we would probably be in the high $200, low $300. And your mortgage is how much? $112, right now. Okay, so you guys just need to sit down and say, what would it look like to pay off the mortgage in 14 months or 12 months? Yep. That's $10,000 a month.

You can do that. Totally can do that. And then we'll call and scream at you. Yeah, exactly. And you can scream and then Totally can do that. And then we'll call and scream at you. Yeah, exactly. And you can scream and then you can take less hours and, you know, enjoy. It's only early 12 months from your goal of being able to chill a little bit with your condition, right? Yeah. If you frame it up that way, maybe he's a little.

Because after that, you're at baby step seven. And then all you've got left to do is enjoy life, be generous, and invest. And so he can go to investing a whole bunch of stuff after you knock this mortgage out, but he's only 12 months from that goal. And I'm curious, what's his pension in relation to your take home? So I actually am the one that my hourly salary is about double his salary. What do you do? I'm a nurse program manager. I help with heart attack patients in the state of Maine.

Oh, wow. So, again, the question still remains the same. I just wanted you to run these numbers out. What's your take-home compared to his pension? Yeah, how much of a raise is he going to get to offset the fact you don't work as much so his pension will probably be about i don't know exactly but let's say 50,000 and i make about 100,000 okay so if you quit cold yeah and he got a 50 raise the household's only down 50 and you do that after the mortgage is gone that That's a very doable thing is what Ken's asking.

That's right. That's where you were going, right? Yeah, because I want you to get to that place of enjoyment because you now can. And I want you to be able to cast that vision to him. Hey, we're still going to be great on retirement. We're still fine with our baby steps. We've completed them. We've got a paid-for house, and I've got a better health situation.

Or, Mindy, the weird thing happens when you don't have to work anymore. It's easier to work. Yeah, that's right. And so, you know, maybe you're putting in 60 hours and you can go to actually 40 or 35 or 30 and make a really nice living and you don't have to be there. So all of a sudden it changes how you walk in the building. And the stress, you know in the building and the stress the

you know the stress because what's your she said she had a hard thing and she works in a hard area it's very missional isn't it yeah there you go so i mean but it's stressful yeah and so yeah the um i i'm gonna guess and say you probably won't want to quit cold you'll probably you probably enjoy enough of your work to do some of it and the fact that they probably need you like they need him you guys have picked two great careers you're going to be multi-millionaires and um you know you will have enjoyed your life through the process and served your community both of you firefighter and nurse yeah these are these are uh acts of service both of them i love that retire rehire man whoo stacks of cash strong strong of them. I love that retire, rehire, man. Stacks of cash.

Strong, strong, strong. I love it, love it, love it for you guys. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer,

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CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Well, a big week around Ramsey Publishing over here. Two books going on pre-sale. Rachel launched a number one best-selling children's book in the fall. I'm glad for what I have. The follow-up book, she's going to do a series of these apparently now i'm learning this but um there you go uh is i'm glad for where i am you'll be content with home

and the other one's content with what you have only this one's about gratitude the other one's about contentment and uh fabulous illustrations award-winning illustrator, just really great. I read these to my grandkids this weekend. I had different ones at different times for Easter, and the oldest ones, of course, don't let me read to them, but the little ones, just, Papa Dave, give me a book. So there you go, Papa Dave will read to you, because I tell you what, it makes you smart when people read to you when you're little.

So I read all the time I get, anytime I can. So there you go. And increasing the intelligence of that next generation so they never live in my basement. And that's what we're trying to do. But, yeah, there you go. That one's coming out the 16th of the month of April, and it's on presale now. I'm glad for where I am. And Ken Coleman's got a new one coming out this is a

different kind of book find the work you're wired to do now he's done two number one bestsellers before this one is more of a how to take the assessment book that's right or how to interpret the assessment that's right the assessment and this short book together and get clear assessment the get clear career assessment that's right so essentially you get the assessment and then this book picks you up with your results so here's what it does in short for uh for short questions teaches you to speak i can't speak but i can write no it's it's answering who you are why you are wired that way what you want to do professionally and how you get there so that's what this is going to deliver for you there's awareness so you walk away with great clarity on direction confidence that you

can actually do it and then how do i tactically get there and so it's a combination of the assessment and this short book is me essentially guiding you coaching you you with your results. And there's nothing like it in the marketplace because it's not a personality profile, as you know. No, it's not. There's enough of those out there. This is how am I wired? What do I do well? What do I enjoy doing? And then what motivates me? And this is the key, by the way, to winning professionally so that you win financially. 96% of millionaires, according to the largest study on millionaires ever done by Ramsey Solutions, 96% said they enjoyed their work. And that's essentially, if you want to boil it down to a money audience, that's what this product does.

Well, I mean- What's the work that I would enjoy? You very seldom prosper at something long-term. It's not sustainable if you hate your job. That's right. And so if you hate your job or you hate the place you work and you're confused i want to do something different i don't know what to do i got to get out of here is all i know that's right whatever here is right it could be a whole new career path it could be a whole new job it could just be doing the same thing you do but not with toxic jerks it could be all of that can be revealed when you take the get clear

assessment that's exactly right. And this new book, Find the Work You're Wired to Do, will help you analyze the findings of the Get Clear assessment. I took it. It was very interesting when it was in beta. That's right. When we were doing it, just to see if it exposed who Dave really is. And it did.

Yeah. It did. And I like these kinds of things. I like know thyself. Yeah. Let me tell you what this is. In a day and age where people want results fast, this gives it to you. And it really does answer those questions. Who am I?

And we're talking about the world of work. What makes you really good? By the way, if you know what makes you really good at what you do, it's going to help you convince other people who are going to hire you. And by the way, pay you really well. So building wealth, the secret to wealth is in the professional side of it is knowing your unique role. Where do I fit? So the deal is the Get Clear Assessment has been available on our website for quite a while. Almost 100,000 people have taken it already. We've sold it to that many folks already.

And you can buy it today. Or you can buy this book in pre-sale. It comes with the Get Clear assessment in pre-sale. And you also get the audio book and the e-book of this as well with the pre-sale. So you get those two assets. Yeah, when you do pre-sale on all our stuff, that's what we do. And so that book actually comes out the 7th of May. We'll ship it to you, the street date on it. It'll be in Amazon and Target and all those places during that time, starting then. And Rachel's book is 4-16, so just a couple of weeks away. Two new books coming out by Ramsey Publishing. Hey, I do want to say this really fast.

If you're looking for a graduation gift for the high school grad or the college grad, I would just point out this is something really practical that the high school grad and college grad in about 15 minutes of the assessment and no more than an hour and a half of reading that book that's how quick it is it's a short read there it is i'm gonna hold it upside down there we go dave is auditioning to be the new vanna white yeah and he's flunking horribly yeah on many fronts. But, yeah, there we go. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Melissa is in Ann Arbor. Hi, Melissa.

How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm good. How are you? Thank you for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? I'm calling because kind of a long story of how we got here,

but the long and short of it is we have some debt, part of it's student loan, part of it's consumer debt. But our rent has gone up, you know, like 18% in the last two years. And we got offered to, my folks have a basement apartment, and in order to mutually help us and help them to try to better prepare for future, save up stuff, help them pay stuff down. They offered to let us move in and, you know, split bills with them. And I'm just kind of trying to, we're going to talk it out together, obviously,

but kind of trying to see what your take is on that. How old are you? My husband and I are 36. How many children? No children. Okay. What do you all do for a living? We have multiple jobs, actually.

My primary job is a medical coder. I also have a small business. I have a contracted job through our church. And my husband is a warehouse supply clerk and also has a small business. Okay. All right. I am not opposed to families jumping in together, and that includes a grown child, quote, moving back home, which would be you.

What I don't want you to do, and I don't want them to do, is I don't want you to use that move to mask the real problems okay and so i'll just be can i be real straight with you for a minute absolutely your real problem is not 18 increase in rent it revealed the fact that you both have weak careers am i wrong um not necessarily i've spent um i have a degree and a certification in my field and it's taken me about 12 years to work my way up in the hospital to get where i am so what's your household income um so uh i pulled the after um taxes and insurance is about uh around 70 000 and that's working four jobs two each well yeah five i guess if you count the church yeah so that's that's what i'm worried about

okay you guys are working your y'all are like a hamster in a wheel man y'all go you ain't afraid to work y'all work hard yeah and a lot how much debt do you have um right now i originally gave them about 79 000 on the phone but i forgot about there's about 3 900 for um that we're paying to a relative for a vehicle at zero interest. Yeah. So what are you, $83,000? Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah, thereabouts.

Yeah. That's a part of the problem, too. So if you go home, make it a plan to pass through there on the way to prosperity yeah not land there because the world is mean and rent went up and i can't make it out there and dave i'm also concerned about the boundary that's a safety net not a hammock and don't get guilted into helping them with their bills, because I heard that too. So there needs to be a boundary there. You guys aren't doing them a favor. Right. Well, that was what they had said was that, you know, this would be primarily to,

because I'm an only child, so I want to live near them anyway because, you know, as they age. So we only live like 10 minutes away from them as it is. That's good. I want you to help them. I want you to be a good daughter. And I don't mind you going through there on your way to prosperity. But make sure you're addressing your core issues. And I don't think you are because you didn't like what I said.

I might be wrong, but you ought to look at that. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thanks for hanging out with us. Hey, guys, thank you. We appreciate you. The number of you that are out there and the number of you that are talking about this show is apparent because we keep showing up in number 1, three four five slot on apple out of all the

two million apple podcasts we're one of the top five almost every day every week oftentimes number one and so we bounce around with mr joe rogan which is an honor to be mentioned in the same sentence with him and uh certainly all the different murder mysteries that npr puts out they're all over the place and so we uh we bounce around with those have you ever listened to one of those no i gave one of them a shot it's not my genre yeah we've got we got members of our family including my wife that are okay and blake thompson to our senior producer he's way into that stuff but anyway if there's other stuff out there if you don't want that but we're thank you thank you and thank you for the numbers our numbers on youtube and on our radio stations are just in sirius xm all those platforms are just through the roof and it's all because of you guys

thank you if if you want to help us we can use the help still we really can uh leave a nice five star review click the share button or click a link cut cut a link out, and send it to somebody. Say, listen to this, whether it's subscribe, follow. Anytime you do any of those things, it bumps those algorithms on those platforms around and pushes our show to the front and makes it offered to more people who have never heard of it before. And it's our only marketing plan, so you're it. We don't own like a football stadium or anything like so far. So it's just us. And so us and you, it's me and you, baby, against the world.

So thank you. Thank you for all the help. All right. Jasper is with us in Oregon. Hi, Jasper. Welcome to the Ramsey show. Hey, thank you. Glad to be on.

Sure. What's up? Good advice. So basically, I'm a truck driver. I'm an owner-operator. So I kind of hate this job, though, because I'm always on the road. And to leave and go take time off even for a few days costs me money. So I want to get out of this business.

I've been in it for about two years. How old are you? I'm 28. Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry. Oh, no worries. So my buddy Chris, he watches your guys' show, and he told me, because I got a new car, and normally I never want to get a loan, but I did.

So I'm about $33,000 owed on it. It's about $633 a month for it. It also is about $ and something dollars for insurance how bad do you want to quit your job oh man i feel like a slave i hate it sell a stupid car i know but i put like no i just asked you how bad you want to quit your job i now you just told me you don't because you signed up for a $600 payment. You want to know what you're a slave to? You're a slave to the stupid car. That's what you're a slave to.

True. I regretted it as soon as I talked to my brother. Not enough to sell it. You started crawfishing on me. You lobstered right back into the hole as soon as I said sell it. You backed up, didn't you? How would I sell it? How would I go about it?

Okay, well, let's finish the numbers. You were saying you put how much down? I put about $15,000 down on it. Okay, and what's it worth right now if you sell it, private seller? Well, I haven't put much miles on it, so I'm guessing probably about $38,000, $ 38 40 000 depending it does what was the sale price when you purchased it i was stupid and i got that extra uh mileage on it the dealer that tries to tell you so i probably bought it about for about 43 000 when it's because it has that extra

mileage you mean you got an extended warranty? Yeah. Oh, you can get the list, and when you cancel that, you'll get most of that back. So you owe $28,000, and you think it's worth $38,000? I think it's probably worth – it's a Honda CR-V hybrid, so it's pretty popular. I don't know how quick it would sell or for what people would offer me. Well, it doesn't matter. You're not upside down. So if you pull it up on private sale on Kelley Blue Book, kbb.com, you can find out what you could sell it to an individual for. If you sold it, you're convinced at this moment, you can find out in a few minutes with that

analysis. But it sounds like you're going to put some money in your pocket when you sell it. Am I right? Oh, yeah. I would get some money back for myself. So you could go buy you a hoopty car and quit your lousy job. Yeah, I could. Yeah. Okay. So now let's move on to quitting the lousy job, because that's the only thing standing in your way. Yeah.

Yeah, and the other thing is, is if I'm a truck driver and I hate my job, okay, I am using all of that amazing amount of time when I'm behind the wheel of that truck. I'm making phone calls. I'm talking to everybody and everybody that they know, and I'm going to land a job while I'm in the cab, so therefore I don't have an interruption of income. But we've already solved the first problem. You can sell the car, get it back. You're in the truck most of the time anyway.

So I would be landing something, making phone calls, learning. If I've got to get a certificate program to move into something else, I'm listening to that while I'm in the truck. Any idea what you want to do? So I just want to go back to school is the issue. Why? For what? To hide. An engineering degree. Oh, an engineering degree. Because you want to go back to school is the issue. Why? For what? To hide?

An engineering degree. Oh, an engineering degree. Because you want to be an engineer. Yeah, I like energy. If possible, something to do, some kind of electrical engineering. I figure I would get a better idea when I go into school. No, no, no, no. Let me save you a step.

I want you to be on the phone, and when you're not in the cab and you got some days off, you're hanging out with electrical engineers. It's the number one way to figure out if I want to do something. If I want to go into carpentry, I'm going to spend a day, at least a half day, shadowing a carpenter. Why? Because Jasper, I want to know the good, the bad. I want to hear him gripe about it. I want to hear him tell me what he likes. I want to know what he makes. I want to know the good, the bad. I want to hear him gripe about it. I want to hear him tell me what he likes. I want to know what he makes. I want to know how long it took him to make that. The way we figure out if I want to go into electrical engineering is not to go to school for it.

You go talk to those professors who have never done it. That's right. He's an electric engineer, except, I mean, he develops, like, weapon systems. So it's a bit separate from what I would be interested in. Well, again, I'm all for this. I'm just telling you, don't choose to go to school to figure out if I want to do something. Hang out with people that are doing it. Do research on it.

And then your head and heart will either say ding, ding, ding or eh. And I'm telling you, I'm saving you time and money, my friend. I think you've got got an idea but let's go get confirmation on the best way to get confirmation is hanging around somebody who's doing it a lot of people Jasper a lot of people and you're a sharp young guy so I'm trying to keep you from doing this a lot of a lot of people a lot of people go to school to hide from life and when my life isn't working and my job and i hate my job i'm going to go to school to see if i like it is code for i'm going to go over there and hide for a little bit because my

life has sucked driving this truck i don't want you to hide i want you to embrace it i want you to stand on the mountaintop and freaking roar i want you to step into this whatever it is with gusto i mean somehow when you were making the decision to be a truck driver you didn't realize you were going to be gone all the time you kind of missed that part and now you hate that part so um i i really would not go to school until you are a thousand percent sure the school is the only way to get to be the thing you want to be it's not where you go to discover yourself at 28 years old. All you will discover there is student loan debt. That's right.

So sell the car and begin to put together a process of discovery to see where you need to land, and we'll participate. We're going to give you a copy of Ken's free – I'm going to give you a free copy of this. This is a nice gift I'm giving you. It's the Get Clear Career Assessment. Hang on, and Austin and the team will pick up. We'll get you signed up for that.

Take that, and then you can even call Ken back on the Ken Coleman Show if you want, or go to kencoleman.com. He'll help you with the whole thing. But you've got to figure out a very clear, wise adult process of discovering where you go next. Kids, children go to school to discover themselves. You're not a child anymore you're like a full-grown man and stuff so you don't have that option anymore you now need to be wiser than that kids should be too but you need to be wiser that's right and just to just to land

this for a lot of you out there that are listening and watching thinking through this there's a difference between interested dave and invested and and what I'm interested is great, but I got to know enough about it to where I go ding, ding, ding. And the tuning fork inside your chest goes, that I want to do. And that's the difference. Interested, yeah, that's great. But I'm not going to make a decision until I've tasted enough of it, seen enough of it, heard enough of it to go, I want to invest time and money for the future. It's a big deal. Go test it first.

Yeah. Go sell your car either way. Yeah. Today. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality is my co-host. John is with us. John is in Chicago.

How are you, John? I'm doing well. How about you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up? So I appreciate you taking the call, but I'm kind of in a little bit of a blender here, and that's why I'm reaching out. But essentially, I got about $76,000 in student loans.

63 of that would be private. 13 would be federal. I can give you the interest rates if you want those. But I'm currently making around $45,000 a year. I graduated from school with a marketing degree. So I'm working at a marketing agency and it's going okay. Not necessarily enjoying it as much kind of doing a half roll of sales, half roll of internal optimization for kind of Google Ads campaigns, et cetera. Coming to have learned I do not like the sales aspect of it at all, but starting to cross

my mind, I should probably start looking for probably better jobs because there isn't really a lot of room to grow. And after asking for some help and training, my bosses haven't really given me that time and effort to do that. so kind of the situation there um but essentially i got a i'm just going to lay it all out sorry for rambling here but got a got a car that i bought off my grandma um it's got 135 000 miles it's kind of reaching the end of its life so it's currently in the shop today actually because i had a flat tire what kind of car it is a 2005 buick with saber okay um flat tire is not the end of a car's life it's the end of the tire's life no yeah 135 000 miles on a car is not that much today no so they usually reach the end of their life somewhere around 335 000 but um yeah um and

grandma took better care of that car than you have, so you're probably in pretty good shape. So what do you make? I agree. So I make around $45,000 a year right now. And you just got out of college with a four-year degree in marketing? Correct. In Chicago?

So I'm an hour outside of Chicago. I'm in Indiana, but I'm a halfway hour drive around the lake. Yeah. And you've been out of school how long? I graduated in 2022. I played golf in college, and so I gave professional golf a shot. How long have you been in this job? I've been in this job for about nine months.

Okay. Yeah, it's entry level. I'm guessing a small marketing agency. Is that true? Correct. Yep, About 10 employees. So that's part of the issue. I'm just going to address really quick the income because I can do it in 20 seconds. You need, as a young guy, unless you're married and you're anchored with kids and all that, you need to be looking at a much bigger market. And I'm talking about a city where the marketing agencies are bigger and there's

room for growth, and there's a good chance you might get about a $10,000 to $15,000 bump just by simply working at a larger agency in a bigger market. I think small-town Indiana is not the place to grow a marketing career. No, I agree with you there. Yeah, so that I think, you know, addressing the income side of the equation, yeah, you're not making much for your marketing degree overall. No. If you told me you were making $75,000, I would tell you quit your whining and go to work. But I'm tending to agree with you right now because I think some of the lack of attention you're getting

is also symptomatic of the fact you're in a very small firm and they're just stepping and fetching trying to make payroll on Friday bless their hearts that's right yes yeah I agree with you there so I don't think they're I don't think they're bad guys they're just not large enough to have the income to pay you much or to be very sophisticated in their leadership development tracks yeah and so I know I'm and I've learned all throughout college and growing up from family friends and everyone to always you know start working away at your 401k early so no you got it you're you're right now you're whoever told you that's wrong you got to get this debt gone but so what i would have you do is get a you know talk about your income side of the

equation we call it the shovel to hole ratio you have a 45 000 shovel you have a hole uh you know it's like 80 grand 70 grand right so you know that that's that's a pretty big ratio so i would do what ken's talking about let's talk about changing jobs getting our income up if it means a move so what go do it go it's an adventure nothing is forever so go give it a run go make some stinking money and don't do anything don't buy a car on payments for god's sakes drive that buick until it lays down and dies not as a flat tire and then then let's get let's get rid of this eighty thousand dollars so let's pretend you were making 80k and you lived on 40 you'd be debt free in two years and if you lived on uh 20 which is beans and rice, and you worked a side job,

then you'd be out of debt in like one year. Wow. Okay. John, I'm going to shoot you straight. Rough math. What do you have to do to be able to put $3,000 a month away at debt? And that's going to get you right at the two-year mark on the $76,000. That's quick math, but that's realistic, right? What do you have to do as a young guy who's single

to be able to put three grand a month towards the debt? That's $36,000 a year, and you're basically there in two years. This is doable. Three words with one of them hyphenated, no more happy hour. That's it. That's the truth. that's it you'll be you'll be working now john you'll be working we're gonna clean up this dadgum mess because when you don't have any debt then you build an emergency fund then you buy you a better car and then we start looking around to see how we can start our 401k and build the adventure that is called your life you're a

sharp young guy you got a lot a lot of upside my, a lot of upside, and we're here to help you. Thank you for calling in. Nick is with us in Connecticut. Hi, Nick. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Well, thanks a lot. I appreciate you taking the call, guys. I've been a long-time listener.

Sure. How can we help? Well, just a quick question. I just sold my house about a week or so ago, and it was income property, rather, and I'm renting right now in a different state, moved here for a job, and within the past couple hours,

I just paid approximately $100,000 of debt off. Good for you. That's fun. Wow. From your equity and the sale of the income property. Well, with all the equity plus I've been working like a dog the last year or so. So you wrote a check. Are you debt free? No, not yet.

How much debt have you got left? Me and my wife have a total of about $110,000 student loans left. I have about 80 of that. My wife has around total of about $110,000 student loans left. I have about 80 of that. My wife has around 30 of it. But you cleared off 100 more than that today. Correct. So you were 210 before. Wow.

That's got to feel like you lost a bunch of weight or something. I feel pretty great about it, but that's what I want to keep you feeling. And I just wanted to pick your brains about, you know, I've been living in the new area for about a year and a half and we've been renting and rent is extremely high in this region. Um, and since we're going to kind of get a, we're looking into possibly getting another house and I am a veteran. I have the VA loans and the rent would be equivalent to what I would pay for a VA loan pretty much right now. But here's the thing is I don't have the down payment for it,

and so my question was would I be better off paying off the student loans? Yes. Okay. You've been listening a long time. You knew what I was going to say. Yeah, but I've never told somebody to buy a house who had $110,000 worth of student loan debt in 32 years. Yeah. Ever.

I just haven't, and so I don't want you to. No. And it's not about the monthly rent today. It's about what is better for you 10 years from today. And buying a house when you're a broke person, you have to buy an extra bedroom for Sally May, for God's sakes. And so, no, you can't do this. You got to stay clean. I know rent's high.

Rent as cheaply as you possibly can because rent is throwing money away for the short term to be able to win in the long term. It's a price we pay to win long term. And so I want you to just rent as cheaply as you can. I want you to get out of debt as fast as you can, work as many jobs as you can, spend as little money as you can, and get out of debt as fast as you can so that you can buy a house as fast as you can without any debt. When you're debt-free and you have your emergency fund, then I would save up my down payment and I would buy a house. I would not do it. I know. I mean, you just spent all your equity money paying off debt.

So you're trying to get out of debt. If you were that jonesing to buy a house, you could have stayed in debt, all that debt, and turn around and use that $100,000 to buy a house. And you knew that wasn't the right thing to do. You knew you should pay it on debt. But now it leaves you broke, no money, and still got $110,000 to go. So just keep plowing,owing man you're doing the right thing don't quit you knew what i was going to say you said i've been listening long time listener

i heard you when you came on the air and so you knew exactly what ken and i were going to tell you so you're telling me there was a chance no chance none this is The Ramsey Show. Thank you.