The Ramsey Show - App - If You Play Stupid Games, You Win Stupid Prizes

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book Breaking Free from Broke, and host of The George Campbell Show. He's my co-host here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Brittany's in Knoxville. Hi, Brittany.

How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? Oh, man. I'm just kind of in a tough spot.

I've been married for two years. I've taken a few of your courses, and I've paid off around $30,000 of debt and I still owe around $40,000 more. But when my husband and I first got married, we always had the intention on combining our income and all of our finances, but I hate to even say this about him, but I feel like he's maybe taking Adderall and taking more than he should. And I noticed him maybe having a few beers in the afternoon, which is out of character for him. So I'm just starting to worry if maybe those are the reasons he's not wanting to combine our finances or what I should do. You think he's worried because you'll find out he's spending way too much money on alcohol?

Yes. And I'm just, I'm kind of overwhelmed right now, I guess, because I'm working two jobs. I watch our two sons from home full-time, and anytime we have any child care, I'm paying for that. Our mortgage is in his name only, and I'm paying about 80% of that mortgage every month. So it's just, I'm getting very overwhelmed. Did you buy the home after you got married? No, the home was his before we got married. Is your name on the deed? No. This is very scary. They've offered to put the name in my house.

It's not necessary in Tennessee. If you're married, you now have marital rights to the house. It's your marital residence. In some states, you need your name on the deed. In some states, you're married, you now have marital rights to the house. It's your marital residence. So in some states, you need your name on the deed. In some states, you don't. You don't have to. That's not what's concerning here. What's concerning here is just the disconnect in your marriage.

Your marriage is a mess, kiddo. It is. And, you know, I'm not even worried about the house. If I leave financially, I'm fine. I make really good money. What do you make? I just said about $130,000 good money. What do you make? About $130,000 a year.

What does he make? He makes around $80,000 a year, and he has no debt, no car payment, no student loans. I mean, really responsible guy up until the last year or so. What changed in the last year? What do you think caused this new behavior? I am not sure. I mean, we had two sons sons he loves being a dad he's very active a great dad but i just i don't know i almost feel like it's the adderall and i feel like he thinks that he has it under control and that he doesn't have a problem but i don't know if it's that or not but i do know this um if you sit down and attack him on

that basis uh you're probably not going to get anywhere if i were in your shoes i would just say look our marriage is not going well i'm not okay with the way this is going i'm not okay with i'm the only one taking care of the mortgage i'm the only one taking care of the mortgage. I'm the only one taking care of the kids. You haven't, you come up with an excuse on combining finances, your behavior with alcohol and with Adderall. I'm just not okay right now. And, um, you know, we're not, we're not doing well. And so we need to see a marriage counselor. And if you won't go, I'm going without you. And you need to schedule a marriage counseling session call your church and ask them who a great christian counselor in the area is and sit down hopefully you can get him to go yeah and then you the counselor can pull out but i i think the

adderall or the or the uh, either one, is not the problem. It's a symptom. There's other stuff going on here that y'all need to get to the bottom of. And it's really all relational. Yeah. I'm just worried. I feel like he thinks that everything's fine. Well, you're about to turn the lights on, as Deloney says.

Yeah. You know, you're going to walk in the room, turn all the lights on, and go, nope. Nope. Everything's not fine. I'm not fine. One person thinks it's not fine. I'm not fine. You're not fine.

This is not fine. I'm not okay. Yeah. We are going to work on this. Yeah. You don't have to be mean or loud or angry, but you do need to be forceful. Yeah. And don't turn this into, you've got to stop drinking and take an Adderall.

Yeah. Because that's not the issue. Okay? If you go there, it's not going to work. Because I'm not sure what he's doing there. But you guys need to get to the bottom of it. You need to have a relationship that is so intimate with your husband and the quality of communication and such a level of unity that you have no concerns about him being an addict

and you just call two guys you don't even know and ask us if he's an addict yeah that's how that's how bad this is so yeah that's how bad your relationship is so you've got to get to work on this it's a major marriage meltdown is what it is. And you guys are functioning. And, um, so it makes you act like everything's okay, but it's not just, just cause you're getting through the day and nobody's, you know, nobody's throwing a brick through a window or nobody got hurt. That doesn't mean you're functioning.

Okay. Because where they're going, the trajectory of where they're going is not. This is not going to end well. It's going to end in ashes. So we need to reassess. It's not on fire, but for her it is. It's getting real close. It's getting real close.

Yeah. When you reach a point of disconnection with your spouse to the point that you see them having two beers and that makes you go to the leap of they're an addict, well, then that means there's a whole bunch of other stuff going on. That's a pretty fair leap. Usually more where that came from as you start to turn over that rock. Yeah. It goes a lot deeper.

Exactly. Julianne's with us in Virginia Beach. Hi, Julianne. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help? I'm just feeling the stress of, I'm not working. I'm home with my baby right now, and I'm just feeling the stress of adjusting to that and then not sure if we should adjust to it

more or pay off the student loans that we have left? How much student loans do you have? Combined with me and my husband, we have 24. And what's in your savings account? How much liquid cash do you have? About $115, but that would be all. Well, that's plenty. Well, why don't you pay it off today? What is the deal?

You won't even notice. The the difference between 90 sitting in your checking account 115 is nothing i just feel like since i quit my job everything uh 90 000 what do you need a year and a half of expenses for like um is your husband's job stable yes okay let's pay Can you live on his income? Yes. Well, then pay off the student loans, girl. I just feel like I'm becoming more anxious about money than when I was working and making him more stressed than we have to be because of it. You could be.

You could be becoming more anxious. Or you could be like waking up and going, this is stupid. We need to change it. It's burning enough brain calories. That's different than anxious. So I'd pay off. That's becoming convinced. Convinced is different than anxious.

Anxious. So yeah, write a check. Good Lord. Today. This is the Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and in the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever. Because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's.

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It's on sale during August. We're having a big sale here in August for $19.99. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash store or click the link in the description if you're listening on YouTube or on a podcast. Rebecca's in Springfield, Michigan. Hi, Rebecca. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hello there, Mr. Ramsey.

It's Springfield, Missouri. Oh, I'm sorry. And that's okay. They're both in my state. I talked to your gentleman earlier, and I hear you talk a lot about negative against credit cards. And I have a situation where my husband and I are retired and on Social Security. So once a month, we get our nice little check. I put our checks in an interest-bearing checking account that a bank offers to senior citizens. And in the meantime, we use one Capital One credit card, the only one we have, and I buy our necessities.

We don't go out and buy for the fun stuff. Rarely do we go out to eat. We buy grass groceries. We buy our gas. We buy our medications. We pay for our doctor's visits. I pay our utility bills. You know, the necessity, the things that you have to pay with this. At the end of the month, I take the money out of our interest-bearing account, pay off the credit card. The credit card gives me 2% to 5% reward for everything I buy.

In the last year and a half, we've obtained $1,800 in rewards and have not paid one cent interest on that credit card. When I get these rewards, I put them in a savings account, and I have the TV. Rebecca, what's your question yes well i just said why is it wrong to have a credit card the amount of calories you've burned in the last three minutes for 1800 bucks is amazing you're working your butt off for them you they work you like a slave mule i mean you're just you're running around in circles you're

running around circles for two grand rebecca i could have saved you 1800 bucks if you just saved the brain calories used your own money and used it more wisely and here's why i know i interviewed an ex-capital one employee a manager over there over their reward program and they told me exactly how they screw people over they create these programs you just said two to five percent well guess what five percent is on entertainment and travel and the luxury stuff you said you don't spend money on right it rotates every month we do travel we do travel once a year okay we take a big long one rebecca you're not gonna go bankrupt with this but you're not building wealth with this and it's not morally wrong it's not morally you're not a bad person you're you're you've been sucked into their system

and and it's you know i'm not paying any money yeah you are yeah you are yeah you're spending money you wouldn't spend otherwise now not much because you don't have much it's only your social security money it's not enough money to spit i. I mean, we have to buy groceries, right? I know, but you bought you 100% of the people that use plastic, including a debit card, including me, spend differently than we spend when we spend cash. We spend differently. If I have cash, I spend it on stuff. You can argue with me if you want, but you're wrong, okay? Okay.

The studies, the research are out there, research studies, our research project upon research project, this studies human behavior. Those of us that sell people things, we know a thing called friction, and the easier we make it for you to buy, and the more we gamify it, make you think you're getting something back, the more you disconnect from the actual price and the quantity of what you're buying, and you have a tendency to spend more. Now, you're not spending much more because you don't have any money. This is not like you're going through $10,000 a month with this thing. You're not. It's a couple of grand. And all of this work you're doing is netting you about $1,800,

and you easily spent more than $1,800 during that same year that you would not have spent. You don't think you do, which is the humorous part of the discussion. That means they got you exactly where they want you. Now, again, there's nothing morally wrong with it, but you've only looked at one side of this equation, and that is that you're gaining, again, there's nothing morally wrong with it, but you've only looked at one side of this equation, and that is that you're gaining, gaining, gaining, gaining, and you did not see the other side of the equation. They don't work for free. They don't work for free. And so they're making their money. Believe me, they're making their

money. Well, it takes $90,000 to create an $1,800 return with 2%. That's basic math, which means you've probably spent close to $90,000 that you otherwise would not have. I guarantee you. $90,000? 2%. That's right. That's what she just said. How the heck did you get $1,800? Well, it rotates, Dave. It's not your Social Security check. It is a lot of money. All that to say, basic math tells me this is not a win. And on top of that, Dave, you mentioned the study. I've got it right here. 2021, MIT did an fMRI study, and here's what they found. Not only do credit cards release the brakes on spending,

they also cause our brain to step on the gas, driving us to spend even more. So to sum it up, when it hurts less, it costs more. When it's someone else's money I pay later, I'm going to treat it differently than my money now. Exactly. And I think I'm gamified. I think I'm getting money back. So you made $1,800.

2% would be $90,000. So if you have a mix of 2% to 5%, we could even dumb it down to $70,000. $70,000? But you still went through $70,000. Six grand a month dollars and you don't think you overspent a single dime of course you did so here's my theory could you make eighteen hundred bucks a year by doing a budget spending less and i guarantee rebecca for one month try using your own debit card and see how much less you spent in that month and i guarantee you if it's you know what are we talking working you if you had worked while you were working for them if you make more than 150 bucks

150 bucks a month is what we're talking i think you can say you're not gonna go bankrupt you can keep doing your little game if you want to but mathematically you're a fail it's an epic fail okay you got 70 000 bucks going out to get 1800 back and you act like you're winning. Okay. And you act like you're not overspending. You are overspending. Now, are you dramatically overspending? Are you someone who's undisciplined and completely out of control?

No, you're a very disciplined person, a very detailed person, which is the kind of person they really like to get a hold of because they make you, they can make you believe that they, that you're winning with them and they've done it. They got you. They got you. So great marketing. You do whatever you want to do. I am going to spend my money with a cash or with a debit card. And I'm very conscious then that I've actually made a purchase, and it makes me stop and think about what I'm purchasing. And, yes, you have to buy groceries anyway. But even groceries are different when you're walking through with a piece of plastic. It's a different thing. And, by the way, grocery stores are the best merchandisers on the planet.

They study exactly how to shop. I was talking to a guy that works for one of the big cereal companies the other day. He's one of the national sales managers. And he was explaining to me how much they pay to put certain boxes of their cereal at certain heights. Children's height, adult height, at the front of of the aisle the back of the aisle because they can measure very distinctly with every chain they do business with how much that increases sales and the chains charge them for that shelf position so go check out where the oreos are they're right at eye level for children and if you're my height so that depends depends. Well, I didn't say that. You said that.

But yeah. Well, Dave, there's other ways now. We've come a long way. But so you, Rebecca, you do whatever you want to do. We're not mad at you. But the answer to your question, which is not really a question, it's a passive aggressive statement, that you've beat the system. That's your statement is you didn't beat the system. The system's beating you.

You're spending $70,000 to $80,000 of your money to get $1,800 back, and you're working your butt off at this whole thing and act like you just had some kind of huge win here. You didn't win. At best, you broke even with this whole thing. At best. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, George Camel here with a not-so-fun fact. Every American social security number, including our children's, has been hacked and is now on the dark web. And this is not a scare tactic. This isn't fear-mongering. It's a reality that could turn into a nightmare for a lot of people. And believe me, I've been a victim of identity theft, and I would prefer it never happen again.

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They've been protecting my family for over a decade, and I trust them to protect yours too. So get enrolled today by calling 800-356-4282 or just visit zander.com. That's Z-A-N-D-E-R.com. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Jason and Lori are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Doing great, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. Where do you live? We're from just outside of Columbus, Ohio, a little town called Pickerington.

I love it. Welcome to Nashville. And how much debt have you paid? About $65,580.90. Good for you. How long did that take?,580.90. Good for you. How long did that take? Six and a half months. Good for you.

And your range of income during that time? $165,000. Oh, well, good. What do you all do for a living? I'm an account manager for a plastics manufacturer. I'm a business manager for a trucking company. Excellent. What kind of debt was the $66,000?

It was our house. You paid off your house! Looking at a couple of weird people. I like it. Good for you. So broke free, and then that's your last name on the t-shirt, right? Yes, sir. Very good.

Excellent. Broke free. You are not broke anymore. Free from being broke. It's like someone should write a book called breaking free from broke i think that's a great title yes oh wait it is oh wait that's funny he did thank you guys for the nod that's right we didn't pay him anything great great job guys what's the house worth thank you uh the house is worth about 340 000 wow how much in your 401ks and retirement account uh 360

right now so 700 altogether all right heading towards baby steps millionaires we'll be there soon very soon way to go you guys yeah so proud of you okay tell us your story what happened what changed that made you decide to not be a normal person out there well um our journey with you actually goes back to 2011 when we had 2424,000 in credit card debt. And we didn't realize, we didn't realize that until a friend told me, John and Ann Algy, have to shout out to them. They had told us about the Total Money Makeover. So I got the book, read it within two days. Him and I sat down and discussed money pretty much for the first time. And at that point, six years of marriage so uh I was like let's see what our debt is it was 24,000 I was just bartending at the time got a full-time job and a side hustle

and we paid that off in 14 months and then we just kind of lived life never went back into debt and then was it January a new New Year's of 2023 I went to to bed thinking, hmm, I wonder if we could pay off our house next year, like this coming year. That would be amazing. And then we weren't very intentional about it. And the New Year's of 24, I had that same thought. And I'm like, I'm not going to feel this way in 25. Wow.

So what happened? Because this is a lot. I mean, we're talking like 10K a month here. Did you guys sell something? Was there extra jobs? We actually had $30,000 in savings. Oh oh so we brought that down so it was about 35 that we put together had a really good bonus this year kind of put that all together and took it out and made our final payment there in june above your emergency fund yes correct yes yes absolutely yes i like

to have an emergency fund for the emergency fund so we use that on the house that's what we used on the house because i like to have a debt-free house too yes exactly way to go you guys thank you how's it feel to not have a payment in the world it's amazing it's amazing it's truly amazing never thought i would ever be here and it's it's it's a wonderful feeling how long y'all been married 19 years next month congratulations have you ever been without debt no no this is the first time now you're 100 free yes we are it's so cool you got so much money it's 165 000 and no payments what are you gonna do to celebrate this oh no i mean what are you gonna do you're gonna need to go big we're actually we're

going to take the kids to orlando for spring break good there we go in april so we're gonna do that there we go i'm curious what was the interest rate on this mortgage uh it was uh three and a quarter it was a it was a va loan because i hear a lot of these you know gurus out there telling me well george it makes more sense to you should invest why pay down the mortgage no how did you guys go? You know what? No, we're not, we're just going to pay it down. They don't pay our bills. What's the story? I didn't want a payment anymore. I just got tired of hitting that button and sending money away for, you know, it just, it was time. Wow. How long had you been paying a mortgage up until then? It was a 30 year loan. Originally we ended up paying it off in 17 years.

Wow. Shaved off for you life that's amazing you gained some life back by hanging off the mortgage that's a cool way to think about it did it in six and a half months once i decided isn't that crazy you just decide and it's gone because if you had known 17 years ago we could attack this with intentionality and it could be done you would have done it a long time ago but you didn't believe at that point it wasn't a strong enough feeling as they were feeling the feeling and you wake up at new year's after new year's and go i want this mortgage gone did it take some work to convince him to get intense no no i was i was ready i was right there

with her so it was time yeah just uh it's interesting that you can manufacture the disgust it doesn't have to be like something comes something negative has to occur to wake you up So it's interesting that you can manufacture the disgust. It doesn't have to be like something negative has to occur to wake you up. You can just wake up and go, I don't like this feeling. You know, I'm not going to live like this. That was pretty much it. That's it. And if you want to manufacture it, go look at the interest you pay on that amortization schedule.

And you go, we paid how much still? Right. They got 800 bucks just for fun? No, thank you. Yeah. Your amortization calculator on your website is what got me going. I kept looking at it. And you go, we paid how much still? Right. They got 800 bucks just for fun? No, thank you. Yeah, yeah. Your amortization calculator on your website is what got me going. I kept looking at it. I was like, okay, we need to add this much more every month, and we can get there.

Yeah. And then the every dollar budget we use, we love it. It's helped us. Yeah, the app helped you get through it. Absolutely. Good, good. Well, way to go, you two. We're very proud of you. What do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is?

Budget, contentment. Intentionality, being intentional with everything. On purpose and the budget. How do you reach contentment in a world that's full of discontent? That's a good question. I don't know. Just being happy with what you've got. When we were paying off the credit card debt, that was a big hit to us because we were always going out to eat.

And, oh, we deserve this. We deserve that. And it's like, do we? Do we really? So then we learned to be content and just love what we have. I've never been one for big, lavish, luxury things anyway. So that made it a little easier. Yeah.

Well, good for you guys. Well done. All right. Bring the kiddos up. Let's get their names and ages. We've got Calvin here. He's 11 years old. And Lily Beth is 13.

All right. With the matching shirts. And they've been following along through this whole process. They know what it's like now. Yes, they do. And they get to go to Orlando. Hello. Yes, they do.

There we go. I like it. And we have an extra gift for you. We got two subscriptions to Every Dollar Premium, so you can pass that along. You said that was the key. Give it to someone else to say, I believe in you. Here's a tool that's going to help. Wonderful.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Good stuff. Jason and Lori, Calvin and Lily Beth from Columbus, Ohio. $66,000 paid off. tool that's going to help thank you thank you very much good stuff jason and laurie calvin and lily beth from columbus ohio 66 000 paid off house and everything heading right towards baby step millionaires they did it in six and a half months making 165 on the budget being intentional and being content count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one great job you guys absolutely incredible heroes man take control of their life see this is what millionaires look like if you want to know what a millionaire looks like look at those people don't look next year the stoplight at

the fancy car that ain't it most of the time unless it's dave ramsey well that guy's i mean he's content he's in good shape he's not worried about it he doesn't care what you think got a paid for house though they're running their own race and i've said if you run someone else's race there is there is no finish line it's just this endless chase of, I got to keep up with the Joneses. Did you see the vacation they went on? And they're going, we're going to Orlando. We don't have a mortgage payment. Don't care what we saw on Instagram.

Yeah. That's a difficult thing to do in today's world. Yeah. If you just turned off Instagram, it wouldn't be. Turn off the inputs. That's it. Wow. It's pretty cool.

Very cool. It's a great place to be. And, um, you know, no older than they are, they're going to be multimillionaires by the time this story is over, because we're just about to get to the first million, but then about every seven years after that, it's going to double again. And so I don't know, 10, 12, 14, by the time they retire. You got time on your side still, unlike a lot of people that go into retirement, carrying the mortgage saying, well, one day we'll get to it. Maybe.

Everybody's got a car payment. Everybody's got a mortgage. No Eeyores over here. Except Jason and Lori. Yep. Here we go. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys.

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numbers are just way up thank you for that and thanks for telling people about it we really really appreciate it caitlin's with us in salt lake city hi cait. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I fell into a financial hole this last year, and I've been following your steps. I'm 34, but since I was 17, I have my daughter, and I've been trying to stay out of debt and build wealth, and I just keep falling out of step four. But I got married. My husband opened some credit cards last year because against my will, I've never owned a credit card until last year. And so currently I'm standing with student loans, unfortunately, like $120,000 of debt. And I'm trying to figure out the best way to get out of it i have

three vehicles one of them's completely paid off one of them only has six thousand left on it and then my husband bought a brand new car two years ago against my will and so currently i can sell my six thousand dollar truck i can maybe trade in my one that's paid off it's not gonna help okay you're gonna keep doing the same crap i know your husband just goes and buys whatever he wants and there's no you can't you can't get out of debt faster and he gets in it honey yeah you don't have a debt problem you You've got a husband problem. I do. I put him on a budget. I took away all of his cards.

He's not a child. I know. We're not punishing him. We want him to be a grown man and actually make good decisions. Yes. Instead of a spoiled little brat that goes and buys a truck that he can't afford. Yeah. How old is this guy? He's 43 dear lord okay well you know this is a marriage problem number one you keep borrowing money a little bit

because you're not disciplined and he does whatever the flip he wants and you all aren't going to fix this until you fix the people in your mirror. Yeah. You and your husband need to sit down together and say, honey, this is not working. What we're doing is stupid. We keep going backward and backward and backward and backward. We're acting like a couple of children and this is not okay. This is the discussion the two of you need to have.

It's time for y'all to start making some grown-up decisions instead of just buying crap just because you feel like it. Yeah. The impulsiveness in this story just keeps circling back around and circling back around, and that's what you guys have got to deal with. And I don't think he wants to. I don't think he thinks there's a problem

i can agree with you we've actually had a conversation a couple days ago i've been trying to pull us out of this yeah you can't you've got to stop that the first the only way you're going to pull you guys out of this is if he helps yeah you have a shovel he has a bulldozer and he's going to keep destroying this thing and so he you guys are missing you haven't fallen into debt you've jumped into debt yeah it was a very intentional act you didn't accident fallen indicates an accident it was not an accident you did it on purpose so not quite using words like i fell into the you didn't fall i jumped back in yeah yeah and just got so the two of you you need

to sit down with him and say honey this terrifies me i can't live like this i don't like feeling out of control i don't like these people owning our lives i don't like feeling out of control. I don't like these people owning our lives. I don't like feeling like we're working our tail off and we got nothing to show for but payments. And I don't like not being able to trust you because of your immaturity and your impulsiveness. I want us to get on the same page and have some long goals and start sacrificing to hit those goals. I've got to have that because this is killing me yeah now the one thing about this guy that is a possible redeeming feature is maybe he actually loves his wife if he does and his wife says to him honey i'm scared help me

this is killing me i can't stand this he has to respond to that if he loves his wife. Yeah. But if he's a complete narcissist and just is going to go off and do whatever he wants to do anyway, then you've got a bigger issue than a money issue, kiddo. And it's a problem. So you've got to try to get him to the table and talk about growing up and talking about doing things on purpose with intentionality george i gotta tell you i see this stuff i recognize it so clearly

because it's exactly what i did when i read in proverbs it says he who is impulsive exalts folly. And I studied that a little bit and I realized the word folly is a fool in action. So if you're impulsive, when I was impulsive and I'm pretty stinking was, I was like the king of it. I made that guy look like a genius. Okay. That's how bad I was.

But when I realized, you know, those that are impulsive are a fool in action. That's a fool in motion. And I thought, and this is not, this is a biblical fool. This is not like, hey, fool, it's not a greeting. This is like an idiot. And I looked at myself and I'm like, I'm a fool in action. A biblical proportion. A biblical proportion.

It woke me up, man. What was behind that? Was it a pride? Was it arrogance? Was it a greed? Was it all of it? Because there's got to be a piece of this where you go, I feel like I know better. I know what I'm doing. I'm going to be the genius who gets us out

of this. Or is it just an immaturity? Just an emotional. For me, it was immaturity. Spiritual immaturity. I have no control. It's impulsive. An impulse. You act on impulse rather than on thought or intentionality.

The opposite of it is wisdom. The opposite of it is steady, careful, thoughtful. That's the opposite of impulsive impulsive as a child delayed gratification and instant gratification exactly and you know when you think about what what is it when you buy something and they say that's an impulse item you heard that right what is that that's something you'd get you gave absolutely no thought to. And it was done without consideration of anything else. Just sort of as you're checking out, you see the little item there, and you go, yeah, that sounds good.

It's of no consequence. And yet when you add it up, it's all of consequence. It is the consequence. Consequence is you're broke. And, man, I feel sorry for that guy and her. I mean, poor Caitlin. She's got a mess on her hands because it is a childish behavior. It's an immature.

And when I was doing it, I was like the king of it. And people say things like, well, I work hard, so I deserve it. That's what they say when they do something stupid like that. I used to say that. It's like, I deserve. What do you deserve? I deserve to be broke and in debt, but I got a nice car because I have no abs. I have no off button at all.

I just do whatever feeling comes into my little self. And man, I was that guy. And I just went, I don't like this guy. And he's broke all the time. He's a problem child. I can understand it if you're just a single guy, no responsibilities, but for a guy with a wife and kids, I don't understand. It's not okay.

There's no demographic that makes being immature and self-centered, selfish, and shallow okay, and I was ever bit of that. It's okay if you're single to do that. Well, it affects other people. Yeah, poor okay if you're single to do that no it's not it affects other people when there's well it yeah poor caitlin she's trying to swim over here and he keeps throwing her a concrete block instead of a life preserver and uh here hold this honey here's a new truck payment you know i'm gonna can't breathe i can't breathe here hold another one until you get to the root of it it, you're not going to get anywhere.

Yeah. That's a tough one. And what's weird is when you are impulsive, you'll impulse some big stuff like a car or a $50,000 truck, you know? And I think that's one of the things that going broke and learning this biblical money stuff helped me to grow up and go through that. I mean, by the time I went broke, I wasn't impulsive anymore at that degree, but it's always been easy for me to make decisions. I'm a decisive person, and you can kind of like say, well, I make decisions quick. No, you're just a four-year-old. You're just an immature little child. That's different than making decisions quickly.

Most of life is just pushing down the inner toddler, going, no, not today. That's it. That's it. The inner toddler. That's my problem. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love,

and create actual amazing relationships. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Patrick is in Boston. Hey, Patrick, how are you? I'm doing great, sir. It's a pleasure to speak with you. You too. What's up?

Well, sir, two years ago, I got divorced, and the house was kind of left in limbo. I didn't sell it. I couldn't buy my ex-wife out of the house. She couldn't buy me out, so the deal was that I basically stay in the house until either I sell it or our son comes of age. And I'm kind of stuck between whether I should sell the house now because it does have some equity in it. Or if I stay in the house, I owe her half of the proceeds of the sale. And I'm just not sure whether I want to be giving her all of those, all that equity that I'm putting into the house at this point. Every repair you do, she gets half of every payment you pay. She gets half of, this is not a good deal for you.

Yeah. And it's something I've been thinking about for a little while, and there's plenty of equity in the house to give her right now. I would sell it. All right. The sooner you sell, the less damage you're doing by paying more of her share. That or refinance it and buy her out. Can you refinance and get a mortgage and pay out her half? It's possible. Since rates went up, I haven't really looked into that very deeply, but that's certainly a possibility. and pay out her half? It's possible.

Since rates went up, I haven't really looked into that very deeply, but that's certainly a possibility. Do you want to stay there? Yeah. Do you want the house? To be honest, no. I don't want to stay here. I'm not from New England originally, and I would like to leave.

So that's also something I've been thinking about. That's fairly easy then. It becomes a no-brainer. I would do it as soon as possible. And if you need a guy you can trust, a gal you can trust, you can go to RamseySolutions.com slash agent, and those are the folks in your area who we trust, who we vet to help you with these transactions. Ron is in Indianapolis. Hey, Ron, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure, what's up? A quick background. I'm 74 years old, active, refused to quit working. I've got about four streams of income coming in, but I'm late to the party. I do have a paid-for rental house. I've got $38,000 in a HELOC on my primary residence, and I've only got $22,000 in my IRA. I've got about $1,800 in savings. So I have $4,100 in a credit card besides the HELOC.

The credit card will be paid off in September. What do you make? I make between $58,000 and $6,000 a month. Okay. All right. I would plow through the credit card and the HELOC and build your emergency fund of three to six months of expenses and then start investing for retirement. Okay.

So that was one of my questions. I should pay off the HELOC and not do investing in HELOC? No, you should get rid of the HELOC and the credit card first, as fast as you can. I mean, really, really, really fast, like living on beans and rice fast. Well, I'm hoping I'll have that paid off by September, the credit card, and then I'm hoping to, I was thinking I should build my emergency fund after that. After the HELOC's done.

After the HELOC. What's the balance on the HELOC? It's just 20 grand, wasn't it? $38,600. Yeah, and you're making $70,000 or $80,000 a year. I would knock that thing out like it was a credit card. Okay. And then you'd be 100% debt-free, house and everything, right? Yes. Yeah okay and then you'd be a hundred percent debt free house

and everything right yes yeah and then you build your emergency fund and then you start investing into retirement that's exactly what i would do in that situation and time is of the essence you're 74 i want to see you retire with dignity one day when you can't work i know you're choosing to work right now which is cool but one day you know you might not be able to and i want to see you with no payments yeah that he liked being gone is a big deal here. It's a really big deal. George is in San Diego. Hey, George, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, how you doing? Hey, how can we help? Hey, so I'm just looking over my finances the other day, and let me be a speaker. And me me and my wife we just got to a point

where we're making a hundred thousand dollars a year after taxes and um we have no money really to do anything it's seeing it feels like uh we only have a couple of bills a couple of hard costs and then all of our fixed costs um like, like, you know, living gas, uh, groceries, et cetera, um, pretty much take up everything. And, um, I'm wondering what, what would you, how do I look at this? How do I look at this? Cause I, what I think of, you know, we're making a hundred thousand dollars, um, about $8,000 a month when you average it all up and we're still not able to, it feels like we're still kind of living paycheck to paycheck is that normal or is there what should i be looking at here to well you're you've got an idea in your head but you're not doing a written plan if you

worked for a company and your job was to manage the division of your company that brought in a hundred thousand dollars a year and part of your job was you had a P&L responsibility, meaning you had to budget that division. They would fire you because you haven't written a thing down. This is all in your head. And so you need a detailed written budget that you and your spouse both agree to and then you need to stick to it then you'll figure out where the money's going and figure out what the problem is there's no outside forces here that are conspiring against you

so how much are you paying how much is your house payment well right now so we just moved out of the place we are currently living at uh a couple of weeks ago we're staying at my wife's mom's for three months why and um and right now because we we were we got put in a weird situation we rented from a sub lease uh landlord um and then three okay so what are you going to do for housing well for right now we're staying here we're paying 500 bucks a month i know but you're a landlord, and then three months. Okay, so what are you going to do for housing? Well, for right now, we're staying here. We're paying $500 a month.

I know, but you're not going to stay there long. No, we want to be out of here three months maximum. Okay, what are you going to do at the end of three months? Right now, we're searching pretty much every day on Zillow. For a purchase or a rental? Two children and a dog. Rental. Okay, and what do you think your rental is going to run? Right now, I mean, for what we're looking for,

I mean, everything that we see is going to be in the $3,500 at a bare minimum to $4,000 range. You can't do that on $8,000. That's half of your take-home pay. You cannot have a rent payment that's half of your take-home pay. It's not sustainable. What's a healthy percentage? 25%.

Two grand. I don't think you could. Yeah, so we were paying 25. We had a one-bedroom, 600-square-foot, really small place. Here's the thing. You have $100,000 to work with. The math doesn't change just because you live in an expensive area. You, you know, you still are constrained by that. You still are going to be broke your whole life and struggling and stressed out. If you take a rental payment, that's 50% of your take-home pay.

You've got to get it down towards that 25% mark. If you can't, then that means you can't afford to live in the area you're looking in. You move further out, increase the income. George, go to everydollar.com, list out that income, list out every single expense, and you'll figure out real quick where it's all going and what you need to do. It's not sustainable. You don't get a pass on math because you live in San Diego. This is the Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 different answers. Economic growth or a recession. Business taxes will go up or down. AI will help us work, or it will replace us all.

But there's no such thing as a crystal ball. That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future-proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud enterprise resource planning system. Ramsey Solutions uses NetSuite, and you should too. Whether your company's earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. With one unified business management suite, there's only one source of truth

for the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. NetSuite's real-time insights and forecasting help you see into the future with actionable data. And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you can spend less time looking backward and more time focusing on what's next. And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Today's question of the day is brought to you by Y Refi. If you're in over your head with private student loans and tired of getting calls from collection agencies, you may need Y-Refi. Y-Refi refinances defaulted private student loans that other places won't touch.

They give you a low fixed rate loan built for you. Go to Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey today. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Chad in South Carolina. He says, I work full time and I have a lawn care business on the side. Part of my business income was paid in cash and partly by payment apps like Venmo, etc. I've been paying taxes on everything except the cash,

and I was wondering morally and legally how I should handle that income. Obviously, I already pay a lot of taxes, and I'm trying to save money where I can. Should I feel bad about this, and if so, should I clear everything up with the IRS and pay back what's due to them? You can decide if you want to go back or not and deal with it and how far back you want to go. But income in Americaica regardless of how it's received is taxed that's the law and so it is a moral and ethical thing to pay taxes on money you receive as cash period um and i pay taxes i mean if we get paid in cash for something here it all goes into the revenue and it all goes into the calculation and we pay taxes. I mean, if we get paid in cash for something here, it all goes into the revenue, and it all goes into the calculation, and we pay taxes on it, just like we do everything else.

So mechanically, how you can do it is when you get paid in cash, just deposit it into the business bank account, and then it'll be reflected there as income, and that'll help you do the totals and figure out what you're supposed to do with your quarterly estimates on your business. That's the mechanics of it. So, Chad, one of the things I read several years ago that really leans into this, George, as far as I'm concerned, is Tom Stanley, the great Tom Stanley who did the original book, The Millionaire Next Door. He and I became friends before he passed away. His daughter, Sarah, we interact with her now. She still does research on millionaires and billionaires and so forth. He did another book called The Millionaire Mindset Later. There's two books by that name,

but he did one by that name and where he studied billionaires that wasn't millionaires, they were billionaires. And he studied people who had accumulated a billion dollars from nothing. And so these were very, billion is a thousand million. And he went at this research a little bit different. He tried to find the correlating things in their life. You know, marriage, were they married one time had they been married six times uh what was their education you know what were the things in their life that led them to be in a position to do this and he found 37 different items or things that he correlated and the then he forced ranked them in how often they appeared so number 37 appeared the least often among the billionaires and number one appeared in every one

of them and number one that appeared in these people who became billionaires from nothing was that they had fanatical levels of integrity character every time he interviewed a competitor a friend an employee a former employee his kids his wife when they spoke of this man they always spoke of impeccable integrity, not just honesty, but integrity is a wholeness to it. And it's a, he's the same on Sunday as he is on Monday. If he says, if he says this guy's falling duck, I mean, this guy is impeccable, fanatical about his integrity. And that reinforced to me that when I don't pay my taxes, it has nothing to do with whether the taxes are just or not. It has to do with I'm not doing the right thing. It's my integrity. It doesn't reflect on them. Anybody who has walking around since pretty much agrees that the federal government and the IRS and the income tax system is a complete moronic train wreck.

It's absolutely unfair and horrible. But that doesn't say anything about my integrity. My integrity is I'm going to follow the law exactly. It's what they said to do. I'm not looking for a shortcut. And so we report every stinking dime that we take in at the Ramseys because it makes a statement about me, not about them. And then I'm going to also make another statement about me i'm going to spend a lot of money with attorneys and cpa firms to try to figure out what i legally don't have to pay and i'm not paying a stinking dime more than i got to on the other side of that because i hate them but still my dislike of the tax system is not going to be reflected, not going to change me as a person of integrity, because I want to be on that list that Tom Stanley did.

You know, I want to be in that lineup with that Hall of Fame right there. If you want to build sustainable wealth and have your integrity intact, pay your taxes, Chad. So that's it. It's that simple. And, you know, I'll go so far as this. Let me just let's just carry that on out a little bit. Fanatical integrity means, like, when you work for someone and they pay you to work there,

when you're not working, you're stealing. When you're sitting on your Facebook account for three hours while you're being paid to do work that you're not doing, that's not integrity. That's stealing. It's not cute. Everybody does it, but everybody's broke and everybody doesn't have a good life and everybody struggles in their relationships. And everybody can't deal with anything except their anxiety and their heart attacks and their obesity and everything else so everybody you don't

want to be like so here's what's weird even if it's not popular with your co-workers while you're Work. All day. Every day. Because that makes a statement about you. Not about them. It's not about, well, my boss is toxic. Oh, kiss my butt. Because they wanted you to work. Now you have a toxic boss.

It's a toxic work environment. They expect me to work and I can't live on facebook you're killing me here dad come snowflakes work while you're at work it's an integrity issue you know and so it carries through every part of your life get there five minutes early get there five minutes late leave five minutes late don't be the first one screeching the tires out of the dadgum parking lot every afternoon you know it's not that hard that's a sign of integrity it's a sign of integrity and i figured out being on time is integrity i hate that one once i figured it out though i'm i'm i'm trains run on time around here we put a little clock up on things staff meetings got a little countdown

clock and we start at 8 30 we don't start at 8 32 you start at 8 30 and you come wandering your little butt in six minutes late it's you know well there's traffic well there's traffic every day there's nothing new about that you know there's traffic of course there's traffic you know i had to get the kids ready for school every day you know it's not a surprise you know we do you know i had to get the kids ready for school every day you know it's not a surprise you know we do you know if i tell sharon i'm gonna be home for dinner at 5 30 i come walking in at 5 37 she's like it's getting cold food's cold getting cold you said 5 30 you know and she's not a butt about it i'm not a butt to our team about this stuff but these are things i had to start talking to myself about and that type of character is the type of character that grows billionaires chad and so pay your taxes honey every dime of them

hope that was clear it is true though it's interesting how that carries through every part of your life, your career, your marriage, your relationships, your finances. Being the person you said you were going to be. Being a person of character. Do what I said I was going to do. Follow through. Follow through. Follow through.

And, you know, God, I can't stand being late. Because it says I didn't think they were important enough to get there on time. It's arrogance. I can't stand it. St enough to get there on time. It's arrogance. Can't stand it. Stinking airlines. Unbelievable, man. What's Delta mean when you look it up in the Greek? We ain't going to be there.

That's what it means. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage Matt and Corey are with us hey guys how are you hi better than we deserve yes welcome good to have you guys where do y'all live Dallas Texas all fun welcome to Nashville and how much debt have you two paid off three hundred eleven thousand dollars wow how long did that take eight years one month good job and uh your range of income during that time started out at 48 000 and finished out at 172 cool what do y'all do for a

living i'm in law enforcement and i'm in restaurant management very good very good good for you guys what kind of debt was the 311 so we had two car loans, my student loans, and our house. Yeah! Look at a couple of weird people with a paid-for house. Just throw that in there for fun. Why not? Excellent! So how much is this house worth?

410. Love it. And how much in your retirement accounts? Just over 100. Okay, you're on your way. How old are you two? 32. And I'm 30.

With a paid $400,000 house in Dallas. That's weird. Yes, sir. What put you on this journey eight years ago? Well, eight months into marriage, I was coming home from work, just got off an evening shift, and I was driving home, and Corey thought she might have been pregnant. I was not, but I was worried about it.

And I just finished college exit counseling. My first student loan payment was coming due. We had the car loans and kind of lit a fire under me to say, what are we going to do? How are we going to do this? We kind of always knew we were sort of poor. And then we realized, oh, wow, we are actually very poor. Lit a fire. So I started looking around.

I'd heard your name a couple times and Googled you and found the podcast. I was working a job where I could listen all three hours every day. So that's what I did and started working the baby steps. All right. And Corey's on board. Yes, I am the spender and free spirit. But it wasn't a hard battle. We started our monthly budget meetings right away,

went from just kind of a scrappy paper budget to the EveryDollar app. And honestly, we have had monthly budget meetings every month since then, and it really made it easy to come together on it. Yeah. Well, it helps your marriage because you're communicating. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And working together on stuff is a big deal but working together on money is everything yeah that money's a reflection of your values and your calendar so worst case he knows what's going on next week because we got to go buy this thing yes sir that's a really cool tool and i'm curious you guys are real young so to start this thing i mean you were what 24 yes sir yeah i was about 21 22 yeah that is wild to go you know what we're not gonna wait on let's see who's in the office next see if they're gonna forgive these student loans well i mean the student was ready and the teacher appeared so

and i think if you say dave's name three times he appears you hear it enough times the show will just magically appear on your social media feeds that's incredible wow so what was the hardest part because you just went straight through the consumer debt into the emergency fund into investing into the mortgage how did that all work um i mean i would say the hardest part was just at the beginning um i mean our uh debt to income ratio it was it's not a good um not a good ratio um so the hardest part because i mean we were both fresh out of college. Um, I, well, I had just finished and he was still finishing up college. And so, um, just being so young, we, we hadn't even started our careers. We hadn't even really picked our careers at the time. So I'd say the hardest part was just, um, just starting off, um, with so little income,

but you know, through a couple job and career changes here and there, we realized we were on the right path and just started growing where we were with our jobs. And it really, really took off. We were very fortunate with where we are and the bosses that I have have been amazing. Well, you worked your tails off to triple your income in that time. Yes, sir. Overtime is pretty common is pretty common yeah i say we have basically unlimited overtime in our careers so that was a huge help early on and it's been a huge blessing to cut back on that so yeah you got back to you don't have to do anything now wow right feels like you're working part-time it does wow good for you how's it feel to not have a payment in the world

at 30 years old very light yes very floaty floaty floaty floating around you know well we talk about debt having an actual physical weight on our bodies and we see debt free screamers and they could levitate there's just a freedom and joy there that i think people you can't put it on paper and go hey this is what you're going to have on the other side right now we're gonna have to provide a tether so they don't that was smart so they don't so they don't drift off the stage lock your feet into the debt-free stage good what's the next thing you're gonna do 32 paid for house so this and then uh she needs a minivan yes she's six foot one and been driving around a camry for i don't know how long. We have a feeling. We need some headroom.

We've got our two-year-old son back there that'll join us in a little bit and then baby brother is joining us in a few months so they won't fit in the Camry very well. We're going for the minivan next. That's right. Move mom up. Upgrade. Obviously paying cash and

easy to do that with not a payment in the world. Absolutely. Very, very cool. Do you feel unstoppable? Because is there anything else? If there's a financial goal, you go, yeah, we could do that. Yeah. I think we're excited too.

I mean, we talk about the dream snowball. Yes, we move from the debt snowball to the dream snowball. It just kind of picks up speed. That's what we call it. I mean, the compound interest and the way everything goes and when you work on your career and everything, it takes off and so we're doing the minivan and then you know a sauna to help build a non-anxious life just you know i love that you build the life that you don't have to get away from and you're very content to be there so that's very excited very cool you guys there's a maturity that happens in those eight years of just going delay gratification nope we're going to say no we're going to say no and at 32 you guys have gained so much wisdom and maturity following

this plan so i'm so proud of you guys thank you way to go heroes thank you we're proud of you who was cheering you on as you went through this our parents for sure um obviously cooking us a meal takes a little bit more than the average person so they cooked us a. And that helped relieve us from the beans and rice a little bit. Literally, chicken, beans, and rice three times a day for a while. So that was a big help. And, of course, cheering us on and being proud for us. And we've had a lot of help from friends and family, but also outrageous generosity as well. Yeah.

Experienced it in a lot of just unique ways along the journey. And so we're very excited to be able to do that for other people now and to get to be those people yeah you'll be you'll be the pay it forward folk absolutely i like it very good you guys excellent job all right we're going to bring a young man into the picture here before we do our debt-free scream what's his name and age his name is william and he's almost two years old all right so cute all right our our uh william just turned is getting ready to turn 11 my grandson william he's our oldest yeah that's a great great name good good job you guys we've

got a gift for you too don't we dave we're gonna get we're gonna gift them uh two years of every dollar premium so two different cards you can gift on you said you want to pay it forward this is a great way to do that by gifting someone the budget and saying hey this is the tool we used two years of every dollar premium. So two different cards you can gift on. You said you want to pay it forward. This is a great way to do that by gifting someone the budget and saying, hey, this is the tool we used. If you want to know how we did it, this is the plan right here. Yes, sir.

Love it. Matt, Corey, and William, Dallas, Texas, $311,000 paid off. That's the house and everything. They did it in eight years and one month making 48 to 172 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one we're dead free way to go, you guys. The kid's had his family tree changed.

He doesn't know it. Mom and dad are going to be millionaires before he even knows what he's doing. I was just thinking about that. He's going to go back on YouTube and watch this one day and go, oh, that's why I have the life that I have. My parents paid a price so that I could have this life. That's privilege that is earned. Yeah, that's exactly right.

Very well done. Very, very well played. Yeah, that's exactly right. Very well done. Very, very well played. Yeah, and, you know, the classic thing, get on a budget. The classic thing, take the overtime. The classic thing, you work, and guess what? Your income goes up. Oh, it's an amazing correlation. Not a lot of life hacks here.

It just looks like hard work. Well, I got to tell you, these debt-free screams, they often sound like, oh, that looks easy. It's not easy. Like, well, Dave, they had a great income. Yeah, they worked their tails off. They worked overtime. It started at $48,000 a year. Shut up.

I mean, get it done. I don't, you know, stop your whining and put your shoulder to the wheel. Let's go. We got stuff to do here, boys and girls. Got life to live. This is The ramsey show george camel ramsey personality is my co-host if you're buying a home out there in this mess right now you're selling a home in this mess out there right now you need a professional in your

corner someone that knows what they're doing they can guide you through this crazy market and help you get the right purchase, help you get the right sale, the right buyer to come in, actually get it closed. The top agents in the world are doing well right now. The ones that are struggling are typically the people that haven't got a lot of experience and didn't have much octane to start with. We endorse real estate agents all over America, and we have for decades, and we vet them for performance. We coach them.

They're high octane, 30 to 300 houses a year being sold. They didn't just get their license yesterday. And if you want to find a Ramsey-trusted real estate agent for free, just go to ramseysolutions.com slash agent. A Ramsey-trusted real estate agent for free, RamseySolutions.com slash agent. Teresa is in Portland, Oregon. Hi, Teresa. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi. Thank you for having me on. Sure. What's up? Well, my HOA just signed me up for $22,000 worth of debt through a special assessment. This is after I've lived here for two years and my HOA dues have increased 44% in that timeframe. And my understanding is that there's going to be another special assessment coming for another $22,000 in debt plus more dues increase as years go on. This place is falling apart, isn't it?

Yeah. No, it's not. I mean, it's got some work that needs to be done that has not been, and I don't think they've been keeping up with the maintenance. Yeah. So now they're trying to. Trying to catch up and get deferred maintenance done. Yeah.

So they've been undercharging for the HOA dues for years. Either undercharging or not handling the money well. Yeah, probably both, yeah. What are you paying now for your HOA fee? Right now it's $552. It was $380 when I moved in. That's per month? Per month.

Okay. So what, I mean, do you see an end in sight to this, or have you just gotten in a bad situation that you need to sell and get out of there? Well, that's the thing is I'm not really sure right now. I think the owners are trying to band together. Nobody's happy about this, and they're trying to band together and get... The HOA is the owners. Home Owners Association.

Yeah. The people who live here, I guess I should say, who own the condos, like each condo here, they're trying to do some stuff. But I think... I don't know. When I got this information, i was angry and freaked out and i knee jerked and i called some realtors and i've just and i realized i was making i was going to make an emotional decision so i'm trying to make a very logical like you know think through all

this trying to figure out what numbers make sense to keep the condo what numbers make sense to sell the condo and make a good financial decision not an emotional i'm mad and it's not emotional to judge the pattern that the maintenance deferred maintenance is going to continue to cause me to have special assessments and increased fees i don't want to do that that's not emotional that's just. Yeah. And so if you think this is going to continue, this erratic behavior and misbehavior, and it's not misbehavior, but I mean these constant special assessments because we can't seem to get the management of this HOA under control, the management of the maintenance of these condos.

So are they old and they need roofs and you need parking lot, that's what's happened that kind of stuff no so what what this one is is they took they're going to take out a 1.2 million dollar loan to fix the the main objective of this particular project is to repair and replace the entryways to three of the buildings do some siding repairs paint the buildings and possibly some siding repairs, paint the buildings, and possibly some ground drain repairs. There's some landscaping issues, trees that need to be dealt with, stuff like that. That's just phase one. There's another phase coming down the line of some other issues as well. It's unusual that a bank will loan to an hoa because they don't have a they don't have a lien

i i don't know anything about how that works it's pretty unusual it's also unusual for an hoa to vote to go into debt now the special assessment's not unusual at all if there's deferred maintenance and problems like this but it doesn't sound like they had much in the reserves either. Yeah, they didn't have any reserves. No, I don't think so. It has not been run well, if that's the case. No. Do you enjoy living here?

Could you go live somewhere else and be just as happy? I really like my place. I like the area I live in. I've been looking at other properties in other areas. I've kind of lived all over the kind of greater Portland area, and where I'm at I like because I can get pretty much anywhere in no time at all. Yeah, here's the problem, okay? They take out a million-two loan, and they don't collect all of the assessments.

The million-two loan is going to get in trouble. Okay. And then you've got maintenance problems and trouble. I don't think I want to stay here. The loan was a deal-breaker for me. I was bad enough when you got two special assessments and a 40% increase in your fees, and you don't feel like it's being run well.

But now on top of that, they're not even going to have the actual cash in hand to do the work, which the special assessment should give them the cash over time if they would slow down just a little bit. But somebody's running in there and jacking this thing around. It sounds like the management company is throwing their weight around a lot here. You do what you want to do. I'm hearing a lot of things make me nervous if I'm an owner in there. Well, that interest gets passed on to the owners. Exactly. And if they don't collect enough HOA fees, let's just say a bunch of the owners don't or can't pay. How are they going to pay the bill? They got to eat it or pass it on to the other owners.

You're going to end up with some kind of a lien on this property, and it's not going to be good. Yeah, I don't like this scenario at all. Robert is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Robert, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Before we do that, Robert, I'll tell you what. Instead of that, I'm going to do something James just told me to do. I forgot to tell you guys that the last 40 minutes of today's show and every show can be heard only on talk radio or on the Ramsey Network mobile app.

It is completely free. You can listen to the whole show. Watch the whole show on the Ramsey Network app. You can download it on the App Store or Google Play. It's completely free. It's completely free. It's completely free. If you're listening on radio, it doesn't change a thing.

You do what you've always done. But those of you that are watching on YouTube or listening on a podcast, the last 40 minutes of the show is now available only on the Ramsey Network app. It's all free wherever you're doing it, so none of that changes. And you can jump over there pretty easy. A lot of people are just using the app now because they can send in emails to us. We try to answer those emails periodically. They can search the app for certain subjects.

And so, Dave, I got a call about an HOA that went up on my fees. All right. How many calls are we taking like that? A lot of them over the years. Search HOA. And so they'll be searching the HOA fees. There'll be some times that we've talked about that, a car lease or credit card debt or whatever. You can find anything we've talked about. You can searchable by subject in the Ramsey Network app. Uh, and the Ramsey network app is blowing up as you might guess, cause you can get the last 40 minutes of today and every day only on the app. Did I mention that it's free? So go over there and check it out. It's very easy to do

download the app onto your phone or whatever your listening device is. You can do, again, the App Store, Google Play, whatever you need to do. And you'll be able to watch and or listen and or search and or email. Oh, and there's other stuff on there, like maybe some audio book players and stuff like that. There's pretty cool stuff on there. Shows, audio books, it's all there. It's all Ramsey all the time. All Ramsey. And Dave, can I brag for a moment?

Last week, we were talking about the app, and I was telling about the search function, and I said, don't search horse. And hundreds of people did it, and it was the number one search term in the app was horse. And so I take credit for that. I'm not number one in a lot of things in this life, but we had people are searching retirement, debt-free scream, baby steps millionaire. But what won by a long shot was horse you're welcome i have absolutely no thoughts on that okay i'll save that offline no there's things i could say that i shouldn't say i'm saying is people are using the app and they're enjoying the search function they're doing what george

told them to do search horse that's a win i don't like to swing my power around here a lot. Like the time George told a woman to sell her horse. Okay, you know what? Yeah, there's that one. That's on there too. And it's free. I asked them to delete that. And it should be free. This is the Ramsey Show. 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. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us at 888-825-5225.

Robert is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Robert, welcome to the Ramsey Show. What's up? Hey, guys. Long time fan. I just had a quick question. Me and my fiance, we currently live in an apartment together, and it's about $1,500 a month, and she commutes an hour to work every day.

And we're deciding on, and I'm going back to college. I have about a year and a half left, and we're deciding on if we should move to get closer to her job. But it would also take me about 30 minutes to get to college. And where her job is, it's a significant amount more for living costs. And my parents offered us for us to join them and live with them. And we would only pay about $500 in rent there. But morally, I feel like I shouldn't because I chose the big boy life to live on my own. So I don't know if I should go back with my parents

or we should just suck it up and pay the increase in rent. What's the plan after that? When you guys get married, what are you going to do? Because she works somewhere that you guys can't afford to live. So what's the long-term solution? So we're both 21 years old, and she already has her master's degree and she works with the government. Um, and I'm still trying to finish up college.

Um, when are, when is the wedding for another two years? Why two years? Um, because we were, we've been together for almost six years now and we've actually been saving up, um, to buy a house. So we feel like we want to me graduate college first and then buy a house and then get married. Oh, you're doing it backwards. You should get married now.

I mean, you're already acting like you're married. What's the difference that's true we do we have account or a conjoined bank account yeah i know it's really stinking dangerous you guys are you're walking a tightrope here for no reason at all i mean just just because you got this thing backwards i want to buy a house for i get married you're supposed to get married then buy a house so you got it backward and you know yeah get married and get yourself through school and um if you want to live in your parents basement for six months or something that's okay i guess not my favorite thing but if i were in your shoes i go get married next week okay and then um and then you know if you want to plan a celebration next spring and

save up for that that's fine and if you want to move in their basement or don't that's okay but have all of this be taking you to your plan that two years from now when i graduate from school here's what our life's going to look like how are we going to step into that that's what i want to do so have you have you can you said you joined bank account have you have you got a savings account that the two of you have built up uh yes we have about 30 grand in our savings account okay all right well again you're 21 you're allowed to do what you want to do but you did call and ask so we'll tell you what we think that's like our rule and um if i woke up i was 21 years old and i had 30 000 you've been dating this girl six years i would go i would plan a wedding in the next 60 days i'd spend about 10 grand on it and

have a nice little wedding and have a wonderful celebration get married and get my life started and then if i'm you i'm gonna pick up some work while I'm going through college, let her do anything she can. She's probably not getting the best income she can get out of a master's working for the government, probably could make more working somewhere else. And I don't know, I didn't ask what field she's in, but usually that would be the case. So I'm going to do anything I can to get our income up, and I'm not going to worry about buying a house till we get out of school and we get these careers

settled figure out where your jobs are going to be you know where you camp in the meantime with your new bride uh is irrelevant to me but um that's what i would do if i woke up in your shoes robert i'd have twenty thousand dollars in the bank be adding to that as a newly married couple to save up for a down payment on a house after we both graduate and both get good jobs and then we decide where we're going to live and she decides if she wants this long commute with for not great job probably not probably needs to change jobs and um because you can't life change can't afford to live over there so you know you got a lot of different things you've got to face as you go through that. But that's how I would play it. I don't know that you will, but you asked, so you get to find out.

That's what we would do. Good question. Thank you for joining us. I give up, George. How do you say this? Katasha. That's my best guess. Katasha in Jackson, Miss.

Was I right, Katasha? I don't know. Katasha, is that my best guess. Katasha in Jackson, Miss. Was I right, Katasha? I don't know. Katasha, is that close? That's correct. Oh, George wins the, gets the award. How can we help, Katasha? Okay, I have a couple questions. I am a new Dave Ramsey, I guess, person.

I've been working on getting out of debt myself over the last few years. I've cleared out about $90,000. Way to go. Wow. This year, I've decided to quit my job, and I started my own company. And it started last year, and I did pretty good. It's like something on the side. So this year, I was able to quit.

However, I had a little back step. The lady that was doing my taxes, it turns out she wasn't doing them correctly. So the IRS, $26,000. So to me, that's a little back step um the lady that was doing my taxes this turns out she wasn't doing them correctly so the irs 26 000 said to me that's a little back step yeah i haven't how did you fire them yet yes yes but i haven't hired anybody else so that's why i'm kind of on my own doing my own thing right now until i get someone else so i guess i kind of want to i guess ask a couple questions sure so um right now i'm averaging between $20,000 and $24,000 a month. Wow. Profit or gross?

That's before taxes, before anything. That's just my all. Okay. How much an expense comes out of that? I pay, I have two girls that work for me. They run me about $6,000 a month month and then i take three thousand a month which what i'm trying to do is keep my income where it was so i work prn for a job i make two thousand for it and then i put three thousand out of that income to that so that's five thousand that i put

over there and so that's kind of what i that's only nine thousand where's the rest of 24 going um i don't know what to do with it that That's got to work. A big old pile of cash over there? Yes. How much is over there? Right now, it's 70. Have you paid the taxes? No. Well, write a check.

Just definitely pay it today. You got $70,000 laying there. You owe the government 26. You don't want to be messing with them. Yeah, okay. Write that check. You're done. You're down to 50 now, okay? Okay. Write that check. You're done. You're down to 50 now.

Okay. Okay. Well, okay. Okay. Yeah. Well, the 90 is what I had. I paid off. I have 220,000 more to pay off.

In taxes? No, in debt. In debt. I know, but I pay your taxes today, and you owe 220 more? In expenses that I have in bill, yes. Okay. And so what I was trying to do... Does that include your mortgage? No, it does not include my mortgage. What is that? That's student loan. Let's see, I have student loan, credit card. I'll tell you what, hold on, we'll come back from this break. We'll pick up and we'll try to make sure we get your detail and help you out. This on. We'll come back from this break. We'll pick up and we'll try to make sure we get your detail and help you out.

This is The Ramsey Show. All right. Katasha is on the line with us. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. Let me recap here. You've currently got $26,000 you owe to the IRS. You have $70,000 in cash. You owe $220,000 in other debt.

Is that right? I just looked at my every dollar, and I owe $212,000. So when I pay the $26,000 off, it would be like $180,000. Okay, so that includes it. Okay, so $26,000 plus $180,000. So what is the $185,000? That is student loans. How much? $25, that is student loan how much 25,000 student loan is 100 i've got it okay what's the other 85 um 20 35 is a car and the rest is um credit card

okay so 50 in credit cards okay all right and you're making um what i did was and i guess what i guess i don't know what to do with my work income so what i did was i kept my household income where it was and so that um my husband makes about seven thousand a month take home and i was doing five thousand take home so i kept my household income as that so you got 12 000 there and you've already paid off 90 000 in debt in the future in the past right yes okay but the 24 000 on the side hustle you're paying yourself three and the other ladies six and so that's nine out of 24 right i have about a thousand in like phone expenses so 10 so you're making you're $14,000 a month over there. Yes.

Okay. But I guess that's the thing, too. So I signed up and I did a SEP, S-E-P, for my retirement. And so I don't know because I'm kind of on my own until I find someone else. So I know I have to pay taxes, and I know I'll have to pay into my retirement to lower my taxes. No, no, you need to stop. You need to stop all retirement right now.

You got $200,000 in debt. We got to clean up before we start doing retirement. I'm 50. I don't care. You're going to be done in no time. You're making bank. You're making 14 plus 12, making $26,000 a month. You should be done in a year okay

does your husband have any debt or is that everything that's everything okay that's everything okay so he puts it all right i got i got 70 in cash i pay the irs for i pay anybody now go get go to ramsey solutions.com and get a tax ELP and get your taxes set up and have the right amount withheld on your taxes each month out of your profits okay so that you don't get behind with your taxes okay okay then increased his taxes on his side but I know that's not enough to matter but well the thing is the whole picture we don't want to be behind we want to be setting aside enough this business is making a lot of money we don't want to be behind. We want to be setting aside enough. This business is making a lot of money.

We want to make sure we set the taxes aside so it doesn't bite you later. Okay. You've already been bit once. Yes. Okay. So let's get somebody helping you lay all that out. Then I want you to scrape all the money together from the profits of that business. Leave $2,000 a month in the business, in savings in the business. Take the $70,000 out, pay cash for the IRS, and pay off all the credit cards.

I mean, yeah, pay off all the credit cards and then start on the car. And chop the credit cards up and quit using them. Okay. Big deal, isn't it? Yeah. Okay. Now, you don't have any IRS, you don't have any credit cards, and we've got $15,000, $20,000 a month to throw at the remaining $135,000.

20 into 130 is seven, eight months. Okay. You're done. Then you're 51 and you don't have any payments in the world. I did in my house. Then you start, then you start your retirement. Okay. And then you start paying extra on the house okay so that by the time you're 60 you have a substantial nest egg and a paid for house okay this is the plan it'll work too you are killing it way to go girl can i ask what kind of business this is um i do a medical consulting so i do everything from setting up practices to billing to anything that's needed collections everything that's incredible, collections, everything. That's incredible.

Well, you're really good at it. Did you get the order of what I laid out there clearly? Yes. IRS is gone today. Credit cards are gone today. They're chopped up. We're going to take everything out of the business but $2,000 a month from now on, and we're going to build up a little bit of cash over in

the business but not much meanwhile we're going to take everything else home and put with your husband's income with your other income and we're going to pay off 135 000 worth of student loans and car in seven months okay okay you can do that and then you build an emergency fund so this we're talking about by spring your life is completely different okay what would it feel like to have no payments i don't know i haven't got there yet you're about to find out run your household debt free run your business debt free you're going to catch up big time in the next decade if you do it this way you're going to save a lot of money big time investor you. You are wonderful. Very well done.

Gibson is with us in Philadelphia. Hi, Gibson. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, how are you doing? Better than I deserve. How can we help? I'm just calling because my wife and I just got married two months ago. Congrats.

Thank you. And we went out and put down payment and everything on the house that we closed on at the end of the month. And she just informed me last night that we are expecting. Yay! Way to go! That's awesome. Was that a big shock to you? Yeah, absolutely. Now, my only problem with this is we are about $35,000 in debt doing baby step two.

Yeah. And I just need to know what should we stop paying off our debt now and save for this baby coming up? Yep. And really build a big emergency fund? You're about to be in stork mode. So the debt, this is one of the only times we say pause the baby steps. If you've got a baby on the way or you've got a storm, a job loss, something like that, and this is going to be stork mode where you just pile up cash.

Once mom and baby are home safe, that money that wasn't used, you can throw at the debt and keep on going on the debt snowball hey gebson when did you decide you were in baby step two after we got our thousand dollars saved when was that after before after you bought the house that was after okay so you found us after you were under contract for the house? Yes, sir. Okay, all right. Because you don't buy a house when you're in baby step one and two and three,

if you're following us, but you already had that underway. No, that now. All right, all right, good. But you're seeing why now, Gibson, because it adds stress. You can't control all these other variables. Like, babies come when they need to come. So, way to go. They tell you it's a lot less before and then when you're getting your quotes

and then you actually find out how much sewer and water and insurance is going to cost. Yeah, it's... Closing costs. Broke people shouldn't buy houses. It makes you broker. But you're there. You're young, broke, married, pregnant. Oh, man, you got it all.

It's just getting started, my man. And you're going to pay off this debt because that baby is going to give you a reason to get out of debt real fast. And no spending money on the nursery, but spending money only to make sure that if the child or the mom needs anything. So we're just going to pile up cash as high as we can pile it, hopefully not use any of it. And instead, after mommy and baby come home, we'll take that money, push play on the baby steps again, which means you'll drop all that money on a debt

and start clearing that 35 out as quick as possible after the baby comes. By then you're also moved into the house. And oh my gosh, that's a lot of life change at once. Yeah. Be careful. Be careful. There's a lot of stuff there that can trip you up on spending and that money will disappear into something stupid and be real careful. The's a lot of stuff there that can trip you up on spending, and that money will disappear into something stupid. And be real careful. The two of you need to focus, focus, focus, because you got too much coming at you at one time. I can hear the stress in your voice, and it's right.

It's right that that stress is there. I'm going to be a daddy, a homeowner. I got $35,000 in debt. Dad, come. This should all be happy, and right now it doesn't feel happy. It feels like stress because it's all coming at you at once so pile up the cash as high as you can pile it don't touch it in the middle of that stress don't touch it unless there's a medical need for mommy or baby other than that we're going to take all that money and put it on the debt after the baby comes

home that simple this is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. We're glad you're with us, America. Did you know that 7 out of 10 people in America still die without a will? God, that's dumb. You're just asking for lawyers to be in your life yuck you're asking for some judge to decide what happens to your kids yuck going through probate without a will can take months and it adds 10x the expense

doesn't take but just a minute to get a will done with Mama Bear Legal Forms. I want you to check these guys out. And it took six years for Prince's estate to be settled because he didn't have a will. That was a crazy story. 2016. You're kidding. His estate was $200 million. Prince had something that was crazy?

Who knew? Crazy. $200 million estate. And the government and the judges, lawyers, they had to figure all this out. The estate paid over 10 million dollars in court appointed fees and a six-year battle but you don't have to do that uh it's will month and uh you can check it out we want you to uh go to mama bear legal forms and do that we've got a will quiz out there. In less than five minutes, you can find out if an online will or if you need to sit with an attorney. Go to ramseysolutions.com

slash wills quiz. ramseysolutions.com slash wills quiz. This is completely free. 25% off this month with the promo code will month. Yeah, the wills quiz is free, and then you decide if you want to go to Mama Bear and do an online Will or if you want to get with an attorney. If Mama Bear will get it done, if you don't have something super complicated, do the inexpensive Will. But get a Will done, people. Yeah, Whitney and I got ours done through Mama Bear online, and it was a great experience. We actually just updated it because we had a baby. So every time you have a life change, you've got to update these things.

That's how that works. Sarah's in Louisville. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Thank you for having me. Sure. What's up?

Well, I'm getting ready to enter into a new chapter of my life. I've been a stay-at-home mom for 17 years, and my children have grown up, and I decided to go to college and in december i graduate and i'll be a nurse yay thank you and we've only had the one income so i've never brought in income before you know we live a good life um this month we pay off our home wow and then next month uh we only have two thousand dollars in credit card debt so i'll pay that off too and then we have no car payment so we're debt free and i have this new job coming and we have plans uh for what we're going to do with my our money that i'll be making okay and then I saw you on like a TikTok,

and I heard you say if you take $500 a month for, you know, every month for, you know, 20 years, you'll have $5 million, right? Does that sound about right? Probably, yeah. Okay. So I was wondering if I took $ four thousand dollars a month of the income that i'll be making as a nurse and invested it in five years would i have about five million i don't know i have to put in the calculator to be sure

but um that's 50 grand a year in years, you would have put in 250 grand. No, I don't think it would be 5 million. Not in just five years. You need more time for compound growth to really get working. Yeah. But you will be able to build wealth very quickly when you start talking about saving $4,000 or $5,000 a month. So what I would tell you to do is get with a SmartVestor Pro and get some investments set up. That automatic draft out of your checking account go straight into the mutual funds I spread my mutual fund investing across four types growth growth and income aggressive growth

and international and that's what I would do if I were you would make uh you you might have 600 000 or something like that i found 300 grand that's after five years because five years not a lot of time for the money to grow 10 years later it's almost 800 grand okay that sounds right and so if you you keep moving that up 15 years 1.5 million 205 million, 20 years, $2.8 million. And so you kind of keep climbing from there. That's $50,000 a year if you just put that in. Yeah, straight, $4,000 and some change a month. It's going to take closer to 25 years to get to that $5 million.

But your income is going to go up over time. And so you might keep investing as your house gets paid off. You can invest as much as you'd like as you increase your other goals. Yeah, yeah. And I don't think it was $500 a month for 20 years. It was 5 million, by the way. I think it was $500 a month for 40 years. It was 5 million from age 30 to age 70, or it might've been from 30 to 60. It might've been 30 years, but somewhere in there. Six grand a year for 40 years at 12% return 4.6 million. So that's closer.

This is about 20 years. But who knows? It was a tick tock. You know, have you seen these fake memes about you out there, Dave? You mean there's fake? They're actually really funny. It's a Dave tweet and it says it's from you, quote unquote. And it says you can't shoot a deer from your 401k by the gun.

They're just I don't even understand. They're just stupid memes encouraging people to go buy, you know. Oh, buy something. To go buy something. I got you. You know. Okay. So there you go.

I need to show them to you. You'd really enjoy them. Sounds like a blast. Kaylee's in Phoenix. Hi, Kaylee. How are you? I'm okay. Thank you for taking my call.

Sure. What's up? Here's a little bit of background. My husband makes $46,000 a year. I'm a stay-at-home mom, and I go to school. We have $16,000 in debt, and my husband made a really huge mistake. He was in an accident where he was under the influence. And now we have some payments like a Charney Cheese and just stuff associated with it that we weren't expecting. So my question is, should I go down to part-time for school,

or should I just stop it altogether to clear some of this debt? He makes $46,000. How much in debt? How much were the attorney's fees? So it's about $6,000. we we couldn't pay it up front so we're just doing monthly of 266 and then um so you know six what else do you owe on the situation um so i forgot to mention he injured his back so we think that he'd have to take off some time from work. So he was in a wreck?

Yeah, he was in an accident under the influence. Okay. How bad is his back injury? He's still working, but we're not. So he's a utility locator. Okay. All right. we're not um so he's a utility locator okay all right and um so do you have any other debt other than the six thousand of the attorney no so sixteen thousand um and then the six thousand with what's the $16,000 made up of? Loans that we took out during a rough time in our marriage.

Personal loans? Yeah. What does a rough time in your marriage mean alone? I don't understand. No, he lost his father and quit working for a little bit, and so we took out a loan. But this was a long time ago. What's a long time ago?

Three years. Okay, all right. So here's what he needs to do. He needs to be working six jobs and clean up the dadgum mess that he made. Yeah. And you're going to be working six jobs until you clean up the dadgum mess that your husband made. And the two of you are going to have to start thinking a little bigger and have a brighter vision about your life. Your vision for your life is pretty dull.

It's like existence. Barely get home on Friday. Thank God it's Friday. Oh God, it's Monday. I want you to start thinking about the future and sacrificing to get to the future and clean up your act on what y'all are doing.

There's a whole lot of stuff going on in this conversation that you didn't even bring up. You guys need to really focus on becoming grownups and leaning in. Lots and lots and lots of hours working in the next six months. Get clear of all this debt and pile you up a little money. Then get in school and let's get school going and let's get

to our goals. Our scripture of the day, 1 Peter 4.10, each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. Steve Martin said, thankfully, perseverance is a great substitute for talent. There we go. Emily is with us in Tucson. Hi, Emily. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

I am blessed to be here. Thank you. Good to have you. How can we help? So a very long story short. I have been unemployed now for over a month. Um, I have been applying like crazy for jobs around my area. Um, nobody's calling me back.

I've had a few interviews and they decided to go with other people for positions, which is great for them. Like I'm, I'm blessed for them. Um, the problem is, is that I am now behind on my card payment and credit card payments, and I feel like my hope is gone. I'm struggling to hold on to the hope that God will get me through this. Scary. I'm sorry. Thank you.

Okay. The first thing we need to do is you've got to get the wolf away from the door. And by that, I mean the immediate needs need to be covered. Okay. You can do that with DoorDash. You can do that by applying at Walmart or Target, and you'll get hired today. And go down there and make $20 an hour and start working your tail end off. And you can make enough to pay for food, lights and water and your car

payment. If your credit cards get behind, it's not the end of the world, but I want you to take care of, you know, a place to live, water and electric and food and transportation. Okay? And you can make that much money at a not great job, but you just go get it real quick. Okay? We're not doing that for long. That's not your permanent assignment, but it's to get this immediate pressure off. Okay?

Okay. So, and you can get those jobs by the end of the day. Yes, sir. Yeah. so and you can get those jobs by the end of the day yes sir yeah go go to five pizza places target costco walmart whatever and tell them you can start work tomorrow and they're paying 20 bucks an hour right now all of them and they'll start you almost immediately okay so wash your face put your makeup on brush your teeth smile go down there and be your best emily and land you a whole bunch of stuff by the end of tomorrow i want you to have three jobs okay and that'll help because you can get a thousand bucks a week coming in doing that stuff now that's not your permanent solution but that gets this terrifying this terror off your doorstep because this is terrifying it is you know a lot of my friends

have you know husbands and family that they can rely on and it's just me i don't well you're enough you're enough you can do it you're enough you're enough. You can do it. You're enough. You're sharp enough. You can do it. I trust you. I think you can. Okay. And again, so that's the first step. Now, if you've got a thousand dollars a month coming in, I mean, a thousand dollars a week coming in and you are working 40 hours at miscellaneous jobs that you don't want to do for the rest of your life. Now we've got to start talking about a career job. Now the job that you lost, what were you making? I was making $20 an hour.

I'm sorry, I'm not great at math, so I'm not sure how much that was in a year. What were you doing? About $40,000. About $40,000. I was a front desk receptionist. And why did you lose the job? The job was dissolved. desk receptionist. And why did you lose the job? The job was dissolved. Okay.

Okay. And you're how old? I will be 30 in November. Okay. And do you have a degree? Unfortunately, I do not. That's okay. So for 10 years of your life, you've been a front desk receptionist?

No. The first six years of me just working in the field, I worked in daycare. I've been a call center supervisor, and I've also worked property management. So I've kind of been all over the place. Okay. So what I want you to do also, first thing is get some money coming in to get rid of this terror. You got that part, yes okay then i want you to start thinking about what 40 year old emily is going to be doing that pays eighty thousand dollars a year

or more what is it you're going to be doing that gives you a great life that you love doing? Now, I'm going to send you some tools of Ken Coleman's to help you do that. The find the work you're wired to do book has in it the get clear assessment that will help you get clear on your gifts, talents, passions, and what to aim those at in a career. Does that make sense? Yes, sir. This is my gift to you. It costs you nothing, okay?

Thank you so much. You take the assessment, and then you sit with that, sit with some friends, sit with a parent if you have functional parents, and say this is what this report is telling me. Does that line up with what you know about me? Then I want you to start laying out a strategy that says, I want to be X. I want a new dream. I'm going to be one of those things. And if that means you've got to go take a class or get a certificate or whatever to go be one of those things, I't care go take a class while you're working these other things and then i'm also going to send you ken's book the proximity principle because you've just been

running around applying at places trying to get a job you weren't really trying to go do something big with your life you were just trying to get some money coming in so you weren't hungry right and you weren't you you weren't uh thinking about where you just ran in there heard they were hiring and ran in there and filled out an application you and 15 000 other people filled out the same application and the proximity principle teaches you how to go get a job that you love in a career field that is directed by you and taking you to a place that's going to be different. So you're going to be a very fulfilled, wealthy 40-year-old if you do what I'm teaching you to do. Thank you so much. I just want to be a blessing to others, and I'm just, I don't want to keep drowning. I want to be able to be a blessing someday to somebody. Well, that's the interesting thing about the marketplace is when you do a

really good job helping people, they give you certificates of appreciation with president's faces on them. When you are a blessing to people in the capitalistic system that we have, you make money. And there is nothing wrong with that. It's a great trade that we have out here. So it turns out that if I sell somebody a book for $26 or whatever we sell these books for these days, and it helps them get out of thousands of dollars in debt and makes them into a millionaire, they were blessed and i got 26 bucks do that a couple million times it'll work out for you you know i help a couple million

people i got several million dollars as a result it worked out and they all got help too see isn't it a wonderful trade you get to be a blessing and the natural result is you get blessed. So you're going to be fine. And you're going to be fine. It doesn't have to be that you somehow diminish in order for you to be of good, be doing good. Yeah. And one other thing, Emily, if the car is worth a whole bunch, let's say it's, you know, you got a $10,000 loan, but the car is worth 20, it'd be wise to just sell that thing, get out from under the payment and go buy you a cheaper car because you need some breathing room right now.

Yeah, if you've got some room in it. Yeah, depending on the situation. If you're underwater, it's not going to make sense. Yeah, that's exactly right. But, man, I want to just get you some margin. Go get some income coming in right now from any old body. It doesn't matter. But a, quote, 40-hour 40 hour a week day job making the

same thing you make a target you know that's not there's no there's no future in that so let's go figure out what we're going to be and go that direction you hang on christian will pick up we'll get you uh get you those books out and we'll start helping you and if you need some more help you call us back we're here to help help you. You're going to be fine. You got the right spirit, the right heart. Um, but don't just throw your application in a pile of jobs that nobody wants, but you'll take anyway, cause you're scared. That's not your best life. It's not your best destiny. You're worth more than that. Thanks for calling in Emily. You holler. If you need some help, we're here for you. We think you're awesome. You're going to be okay.

That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. you