The Ramsey Show - App - If You Want To Win You Have To Go Against the Grain! (Hour 1)

Episode Date: October 5, 2023

🎵 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 am Ramsey personality Rachel Cruz, co-hosting this hour with the wonderful Jade Warshaw in my co-host chair right there. And we are taking your calls. It's a free call anywhere in the country at 888-825-5225. And again, talking about your life and your money. So give us a call. So first up this hour, we have Laura in Toronto, Canada.

Hey, Laura, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you so much. I'm so excited to be able to talk to you guys today. Thank you for having me on. Yeah, Laura, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you so much. I'm so excited to be able to talk to you guys today. Thank you for having me on. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for calling. How can we help? So I've been listening to your show daily for the last few months and I read Total Money Makeover and now I need some advice. So we've always been fairly responsible and frugal with our money. But since listening to you guys recently, I've wanted to start doing more. So I've been selling off a lot of things that we don't need or use anymore,

kind of like how everybody suggests to sell everything until the kids think they're next. My three-year-old and my five-year-old are now starting to notice and have started asking more questions about money and what I'm saving for and where it's going. So my question is, do you have any advice on how to talk to kids about money and at what age? And is there a way to teach them to respect it without causing any kind of anxiety? I know my girls are still little, but I don't want to burden them with adult things like debt and mortgages. But I want to try and start them off right. Yeah, we don't want to talk about government shutdown and stuff with our five-year-old.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think it's a great question, Laura. And I think even your intentionality behind it early on is huge. And then I would say, too, I give you props that your kids are picking up on what you're doing. Because we always say, if you're a parent, you know more is caught than taught. Like your kids are watching so much of the choices you're making in life. And even your emotions around it, right? They pick up so much.

And so the fact that they're seeing change in you, Laura, I think is amazing because that means you're changing, right? You're doing something different when it comes to your money and they're seeing that. So props to you in that regard. But yeah, I mean, I would keep it very age appropriate. I think we do find families that are in a season of sacrifice to make a financial goal like getting out of debt or

having money saved to bring the kids along in that and make it a family themed idea right that like as a family we are choosing to do this and it's not just mom and dad in isolation doing it and so talking yeah so talking to them and I think again age appropriately and just saying yeah you know mom and dad we don't want money to be a stress point in our life. So for us, whether it's you're getting out of debt, so we actually, when mom and dad make money from work, we get to keep it and decide what we want to do with it instead of sending it. You can even talk to them about payments and what that looks like, what debt is. And so, yeah, it's, again, very age appropriate, but starting those conversations, uh, I think is, is key. Yeah. Laura, I talked to him. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Jade. I was going to

say, I, you know, my, my kids, they see this show and they see us talking about money and debt all day. And my son has started asking like, what is debt? And so we've talked to him about it. I mean, we've explained that when you borrow money, you have to give it back. And here's what that looks like. And even as simple as sometimes I'll go if I buy something and he just thinks, you know, you can go to Target and pick whatever you want off the shelf. And I'm like, no, when mama leaves every day, I'm going to earn money. And then when we earn that money, we get to decide how to spend it. So there's part of it that just introducing them to the idea that you go and you work and then this is what you get for your time and it's not unlimited right and I think that's been a big one and then two just um the

choices in your language right because Dr. John and I were talking about this the other day your kids remember things mentally but their body also remembers how things felt and so when you're going through a season of getting out of debt, if you guys are feeling anxiety and stress and, oh, we gotta do this and we gotta do it like this and we gotta do it now, I would challenge you to make the feeling like,

oh, this is so good for us. We're sacrificing. We're gonna have freedom. We're gonna have choices. It's exciting. And make it an exciting thing, a thing that feels like liberating, empowering. And then their bodies are gonna remember that feeling. feeling oh man when mom and dad took control of

their life i mean i've never seen them more confident so i think there's a lot that can be done with the mood that you're creating um in the house surrounding getting out of debt and that sort of thing yeah that's good uh i know i'm reading i'm reading a book right now uh sissy goff wrote and it's all about anxiety in kids. And she talks about that as a parent, if you have anxiety, your kids are seven times more likely for that. So I think that's key, Laura, the environment you create. It is. It impacts your kids.

And then the other thing, Laura, I would also say with your kids. So everything we just kind of spoke on was the perspective of, you know, you as the parent reacting to your money situation to your kids. But let your kids feel and experience money on their own. And so having them even at their age, you know, they can do a couple of chores here and there and pay them and teaching them, especially you're older when you're five year old, you know, give, save and spend. It's like these three basic buckets of money, but it's buckets that as adults, that's basically what we can do with money. We can give it, we can save it and spend it.

And we want to do all three. And so you kind of start letting them experience the emotion and the principle, you know, habit building ideas around money themselves, even at a young age. So Laura, if you hang on the line, Austin's going to pick up and I want to give you Financial Peace Junior because that's our set of teaching young kids how to

handle money and Smart Money, Smart Kids. It's the first book I wrote with my dad. It was a New York Times bestseller because it's all about the perspective from the child of growing up in a home where money is talked about and it's in a perspective that is healthy and obviously dad was the parent and that and what they did so um i'm going to give you those laura because i think this is this is the part of this show that we talk about changing your family tree absolutely because there's a generational uh habit that is built and what your kids see and what they experience and what they believe about money is passed down to them and you can do it well uh and intentional like you are or sometimes it's just accidental and your kids get what they get right and and so i think the intentional routes

is really it's important because money's such a stressful part of life and when your kids can see that healthy perspective it's big so thanks laura for the call we appreciate it so jade what's been the biggest stuff because your kids are how old two uh three and five so you have exactly their perspective, it's big. So thanks, Laura, for the call. We appreciate it. So Jade, what's been the biggest stuff? Because your kids are how old? Two, three and five. So you have exactly their age. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And my oldest, he's just at the point where it's like, oh, okay, so he does chores and he gets, you know, a little bit of money for his chores, but still going into the store, he doesn't understand like, this only buys so much. So we're constantly explaining like, you only have so much. And if you want more, only have so much and if you want more you have to work more and the more you work the more money you have and you can buy things that are more expensive so we're kind of in that phase

right now um my youngest you know she's she's she's not there yet yeah yeah yeah no no she's not there yet but yeah yeah i know and it's it's so funny too to watch your kids and I have a eight-year-old and a six-year-old and for sure there are personalities when it comes to it where I'm like I know which way you're gonna be bent um and I just announced today actually I'm I have a kid's book coming out in November it's called I'm Glad for What I Have and it's dedicated to my middle daughter because it's all about contentment yeah and's for younger kids, but it's learning that contentment piece is huge that it's okay to have nice stuff, but we don't want our nice stuff to have us. And our kids think that the Amazon delivery guy is like part of the family, right?

So I'm like, they can get in this rhythm of like what, what stuff is today? What's crazy is our kids don't even see money. They don't see cash anymore. They don't see even debit cards or credit cards. It's on your phone. You're buying online. So making's crazy is our kids don't even see money. They don't see cash anymore. They don't see even debit cards or credit cards. It's on your phone. That's right. You're buying online. So making that connection for our kids in a real life scenario is so key. So key. So thanks again, Laura, for the call. And we'll be back. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I am Rachel Cruz hosting this hour with Ramsey personality Jade Warshaw. And if you guys enjoy the show, it's so helpful if you share the. Because we want the show in front of as many people as possible because we want to be able to help them when it comes to their life and their money. So it's always helpful when you guys do that.

And we know you do it because we see the response and the numbers and all of it. So we're so grateful for that. And again, trying to get this country under control, Jade. I know, that's right. One show at a time. One show at a time. One episode at a time. All right, up next we have Phillip in Birmingham. Hey, Phillip's right. One show at a time. One episode at a time. All right. Up next,

we have Phillip in Birmingham. Hey, Phillip, welcome to the show. Hey, guys. Thanks for having me on. Absolutely. How can we help? So I got maybe more of a two-part question. I'll start with the first part. So I've been listening pretty intently for the past week. I did financial peace when me and my wife first got married six years ago and haven't really followed it as closely as we probably should have. We currently have $13,000 in unhealthy debt that we own on a car and we have $135,000. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. When you say unhealthy debt, what do you mean by that? And tell me what the healthy debt is.

The only reason I say that is I'm just putting my mind in the right perspective that I want to get rid of all of our debt. Okay. So you do know there's not really like healthy debt per se? Absolutely. Plenty of people would say it's completely necessary to get a car. Yes. And that's fine. And I don't want to go with the grain on that. Okay, good. So I'm trying to allow myself emotionally to catch up to lifestyle changes

that me and my wife are starting to make over the past few weeks. And the first start is just mentally saying, okay, we're going to have a little bit of a verbal battle with what the world typically tells people. You're changing your language. I see. I like it. I like it. I like it.

You're not getting anything past Jade and Phillip. So watch out. $13,000 in debt, which is unhealthy as it all is. So what else you got? Correct. And then, and then our mortgage, which we owe $135,000. We got that three years ago. Thankfully, before things got really crazy, but still we owe $135,000 on that. Aside from that, we have zero debt, zero medical bills, zero student loans. So we're okay on that

side, but we still want to get ahead of the curve. And that's the first part of just saying, hey, this is everything we have going on right now. And the second part of my question was, I do want to get rid of the debt we have in our car, but I also haven't invested nearly as much into our retirement as I want to. I currently invest into a Roth IRA. And my question was, should I keep hitting, like should I maximize as much as I can to my Roth IRA and still try to pay extra on the car? Or should I put that on hold, knock out the car first,

and then hit my Roth IRA and mutual funds heavy after that? I see the benefit of both sides. I just, I don't want to, I'm already, I'm going to be 31. Yeah, I think you're, I think you're freaking out. And I think you're freaking out. And I don't think you need to freak out as, as bad as you are. I like that you're on top of this. I like that you're looking at the future and you're going, all right,

what do I need to do to make sure that we're set up in the best possible way? But you know, you're, you're not new to our teaching our teaching, so you know we walk through a series of baby steps. And so what do you think that I'm going to say? We need to get rid of our car loan. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah. And do you know why though? Do you know kind of the principle behind that? Sure. So what is it? You're the teacher right now because I think you know this. I do. It just helps having a third party who's unbiased. I'm not unbiased. I'm not unbiased. So Phillip, I think what you can get in your head because you sound, we always say there's like either the nerd or the free spirit are you probably the nerd i'm gonna assume a little bit yeah a little bit okay

yeah yeah i thought i was right uh you know you're running numbers and calculations and all of this and you're seeing oh my gosh you know my roth and my retirement all of it and i understand that i really really do and again what you said at the beginning of the call is we're going against the grain and what the grain would say is yeah go, go ahead. You fund retirement. You do that. You try to keep up with your credit card balance. And you can pay a little bit on your car, some on your house. You just spread everything around. And you kind of just get mediocre, right? Mediocrity is what the result ends up being because there's not intentional focus on one thing. And so the great thing for you, Phillip, is that you're 31.

And so retirement, if you hold off a few years, because how much do you guys make a year? How much do you and your wife make? Anywhere between $65,000 and $60,000. Okay, yeah. So you guys will have some time to pay off this car. And maybe it's, you know, maybe it's you take an extra job. You guys are cutting stuff. You're selling stuff.

You do all that. You know, maybe it's a maybe it's an 18 month turnaround. Right. 12 months. It's a year. OK, that's not going to be detrimental to your retirement. It's really not. I mean, overall, because you're going to be able to invest more money.

If you think about just even if you took that car payment and added that to your Roth on top of what you would have done, right? Like, I mean, it just, it starts to compound. And that's the great thing is that you're going to catch up. And here's the deal too, Phillip, if you were 61, our advice would be the same regardless. And so, so where you are is in a great spot. You are in a, you're in a healthy spot. You see the problem, attack that car, get it out of here. And then that's going to free you guys up to have some savings in an emergency fund. Do you all have any money saved right now? Just our emergency fund. We had some medical bills.

We had a daughter this year, and I was paying the taxes from rolling over my 401k to a Roth IRA. Okay, yeah, yeah. After my wife being on maternity leave which we planned ahead for that but it kind of puts us back to just having an emergency fund so we have around three thousand dollars in savings right now okay um that's that's all we have at the moment okay that's great um and i would be curious you don't need to sell the car because i think you guys can pay this off but even if you wanted to run the numbers for fun philip i mean there's some people that call the show and they're like i went out of debt tomorrow like like me out. And they would take a hit on the car,

take a smaller loan, you know, get a B. I mean, they'll go through that process. You don't need to. The math is on your side in that, in that regard. You're not in that urgent of a state, but I would say, yeah, run some numbers while y'all are kind of going against the grain. Just keep pushing at it. Yeah. I think you'd be surprised how quickly that you'll pay off this 13K if you get intense. I think it'll go by way faster than you thought. That's encouraging. Yeah. Yep, absolutely. Well, thanks for calling, Phillip. I appreciate it. And good luck to you guys and congrats on the new addition. Most definitely. The new baby. Yeah, this is, I feel like, one of the things that is a, it's kind of a myth in the personal finance space

is that you can do 18 things at once. And the secret is, if there is a secret, is especially early on when you're getting out of debt and you're wanting to save a chunk of money in an emergency fund, when you are focused and you point everything at one thing and you actually spend time on it, even if it takes a year, if it takes two months, 24 months,

the progress you see in that is where the idea that personal finance is 80% behavior, it's only 20% head knowledge comes into play. Like when you start to win and you start to see progress, not like teeny, teeny things here and there and random things like big steps, big progress in one area, like off debt it's it's motivating well yeah because if if you don't focus right let's say you've got 500 extra dollars at the end of the month and you're like i'm gonna start paying off debt and each debt gets 50 like you never see the needle move and before you know it you're like this is not working and you just lose your motivation and you go back to your old habits but when when you suddenly take that $500 and you throw it at a credit card bill, that's 2000 and you're done in four months, you're like, wait a second,

like I can keep going. I can do this forever. And so there's definitely something to be said for focused intensity, turning it, you know, turning the light into a laser beam and you're burning through that debt. So, I mean, that's, that's the way to do it. That's the way that works. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. And then again, the, the idea that people get caught up just like he did, Philip, it's such a, that's such a normal mindset of freaking out about retirement, because we do see these charts of compound interest that if you started at 18, you know, what you would have made all of it, which is all great. And it's true. Yeah, time is your friend, but.

Yes, but getting things in order and having a peaceful foundation under you financially before you start going and looking far in the future, it changes everything. It changes the emotion around money. It really does. So thanks again, Phillip, for the call. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. So Jade, I'm so excited. I think it's in two weekends from now. Yes. October 19th through the 21st, our Money and Marriage event is happening here at the Ramsey Event Center right up the hill. If you're here and it's going to be a multi-day event over the weekend. Dr. John Zaloni and I are kind of heading it up and we're really diving into these topics of money and marriage for a full weekend. And Jade, you're going to be here, too.

I am. I'm so excited. But we were just talking about how this is very different than some of the other events that we've done in a very good way. Yes. So yeah, it's a lot of really, I think like just a point of connection we want to have with the audience because it's couples that are going to be there. And again, it's these two subjects that can be really difficult to talk about at times.

And so it's going to be very casual. It's going to be really fun. We want to give you the tools to be able to cast a vision, maybe challenge you in some areas to be able to walk away. But there's some fun guests. John and I, we're doing a panel, actually. My husband, Winston, is going to be there. And John's wife, Sheila, which this is a big deal. This never happens.

The spouses never end up coming, but we rope them in. Jade, you're going to be there for your session with Sam. Sam's going to be there too? Yeah. Your husband. Wow. It's going to be a hangout. We have evening things planned for you guys,

so it's going to be really fun. So our VIP and platinum tickets are already sold out. So there's a few more just general admissions. So if you want to go, go to ramseysolutions.com slash events. It's $799 a couple. Wow, that's great. Yes, we want you out of debt, of course. We want you on baby steps four, five, or six.

But I'm saying for two people, it's $799? Yeah, for two. Wow, that's great. Yep. So again, multi-day events. And it's going to be really fun here in Nashville. So get some time away from the kids. Get away from your normal life.

Come hang out in Nashville with us. Money and Marriage, October 19th through the 21st. Again, go to ramseysolutions.com slash events to join us. Love it. All right, up next, we have Sean in Louisville. Hey, Sean, welcome to the show. Hi, Jade. Hi, Rachel.

Thank you so much for taking my call. Absolutely. How can we help? Well, my wife and I are on baby steps four, five, and six, and we found out that we are going to have our second child sometime around June. congratulations thank you so fun so our question is what your thoughts are on um pausing um pausing four five and six to uh to save up for for the baby okay so are you guys i'm just clarifying, you have no debt. How much savings do you have in your emergency fund? 11 or 12,000. Okay. That's great. How much, how much do you need for the baby? Like what's your deductible going to be? Excuse me. It's, I've looked at so many numbers actually trying to figure out what plan we're going on next year.

So like out of pocket, I think would be like 7,000. Okay. And you're investing 15% right now? Right. I would probably pause the other two. I would keep investing. I wouldn't stop investing. I think still investing your 15%. But if you guys want to kind of like pull back from paying off that,

you know, if you're putting extra towards the house or something, and you want to pull back and save up what that's going to be, I think that's a good rule of thumb. Because we always do tell people to pause the debt snowball if you're getting out of debt, to pause that and pile up cash if you're expecting a baby. But besides that, Sean, yeah, I mean, I wouldn't pause retirement. How much do you guys make a year? $70K. Okay. Have you run out the numbers, what that would look like without pausing?

And how much are you able to save up like 450 a month but it it doesn't uh it still doesn't quite get us to the to that 7 000 mark i think that's where the um where the concern is what does it get you to i can do the math real quick it's i want to say like i want to say like 5 000 maybe what i would do um i honestly i'll be honest i wouldn't pause retirement for that i would and then as the bills come in i'd pay the bills as they come in and you might be surprised because i'm thinking i'm trying to think back through this rachel of when i had babies and some of the stuff came in right away some of it i prepaid yeah and then most of it's at the end yeah most of it's at the end and they start rolling in

but it's not like it's not like in one day you have to write a check for $7,000 right so I'd probably just cash flow it I'd cash flow the bills

as they come in and Sean if you guys get to the end of it and you need $1,000 from your emergency funds then it's not the end of the world yeah grab the $1,000

that you have saved there keep fund of retirement put your $1,000 you know back into there. Keep funding retirement. Put your $1,000 back into the emergency fund. Refill it. And you guys just keep going. But I would hate for you to lose steam on that. Now, if you were telling me that you needed $17,000 or something. That's a little different.

Yeah, then we can talk about it. But the fact that you guys are so close to be able to cash flow it. And the bigger thing, too, here is I wouldn't want to. For me, it's a habit forming thing, I wouldn't want to build the habit of when we need to do something, we stop retirement. Does that make sense? Even though this is very important, I think there's something to be said for that resourcefulness. Okay, how can we make this work? Because going forward, there are going to be things that you need to do, not just want to do, but need to do that are going to be, you know, very expensive. And I don't want to build the thought of, well, we could pause retirement for a little while to

make it happen. Does that make sense? That's kind of where my mind is going on this. And if it were, if this were the conversation going on in my house with Sam, that's the, that's the argument that I would bring up. I'd be like, well, Sam, you know, I think that we can do this without building that habit. So. Yep, absolutely. So, yeah, we'd cash flow a dip into the emergency fund at the end if you need to. But like Jade said, I think you'll be surprised. I think you guys will be able to get through this. So thanks for the call. Up next, we have Blake in Salt Lake City, Utah. Hey, Blake, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks so much for having me. Absolutely. How can we help? So I am 23 years old. I'm a flooring contractor married with a two-year-old son

and we have racked up about 30, well, we racked up $33,000 worth of debt and I've paid about 3000 of it off. Um, we're looking at like, looking at my note here, $2,200 left in credit cards, um, $12,000 on a truck for my job and $17,000 on a car for my wife. And I want to plan, go to school here in the next two or three years for an associate's degree in mechatronic engineering. And I just want to know how I can best tackle this debt and actually start saving and putting stuff away so I can cash flow that school. I don't want to go into debt for an associate's degree. And I love that. It's kind of just lost. Yeah, no, totally. How much are you making right now? I make about $70,000 a year gross. That's great. What about your wife? She is not working. She is just at home with our boy.

Okay, good. So my first thought is there's always the idea that you've got to increase your income. The faster you want to pay off the debt, obviously the more income coming in is going to be helpful for that. So my mind immediately goes to, is there anything that you can do to increase your income? And is there anything that your wife can do to get some income coming in? Because when it comes to paying off debt, a thousand extra dollars a month does a world of difference. $2,000 extra a month does a world of difference. So that's my first question to you. I know she's staying home with a young one, but is there something that she could do while she's at home? She's a, before we had our son, she actually got certified as a child birth doula.

So that she did that for a while when we were first married. And, you know, every once in a while she's brought in, you know, a couple thousand bucks here and there she just is so anxious about like spending time away from her from our boy just because she didn't have a dad growing up and yeah and i totally yeah i hear that and i would say for a season not a pattern over life but for a season maybe that's something you guys look into and then also blake she you guys have almost thirty thousand dollars in car debt oh yeah i would look at $17,000 car and see how much it's worth. If you guys could sell that. I mean, that knocks down your debt significantly.

Even if you're upside down. Yeah, yeah. Taking a smaller loan. And then, I mean, that gets you guys far ahead. So, Blake, honestly, for me, I would look at the cars to get a jump start on that. So, thanks for the call. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I am Rachel Cruz hosting this hour with Ramsey person, Jade Warshaw. We're taking your calls. It's a free call anywhere in the country at 888-825-5225. Up next, we have jay in orlando hey jay welcome to the show hey girls how you guys doing

doing well how are you awesome awesome i just uh jumped right into my question here yes um i've got uh paid for house it's worth about 300 000 but we have about,000 in student loans and car debt. So I'm wondering, is it wise to sell that home, pay off every single penny of debt, rent for maybe a year or two, and then buy another home down the road? What's your income? I'm working right now myself. My wife is finishing PTA school. She'll be starting in probably April or May. So right now we're at about $65,000 a year. And what will she be making when

she starts? She'll be probably around the same $65,000, $70,000, somewhere in that range. Okay. So you've got the student loans and can you break down the student loans versus the cars yeah we've got about 110 student loans okay and then uh about 30 for the car and the rest in credit cards and a stupid refrigerator oh gosh so about 10 000 yes okay uh Yes. Okay, or $20,000. So this car, you owe $30,000 on it. What's it worth? We're upside down probably about $7,000.

So it's probably worth about $22,000 or $23,000 right now. Is that private sale? Private sale, yes. Well, if it were me, I'd probably be trying to get out of it um i'd probably take the seven thousand dollar hit and to owe less um to knock this debt down significantly um i'll be honest with you i wouldn't sell the house i just wouldn't it's such an amazing asset it's going up in value if you were to get out of it now, my guess is your interest rate now is far better than it would be

in the next year or so if you were to save up and try to buy. It's like, I almost feel like you'd be going backwards to try to go forward when right now, literally, you can just go forward. Yeah, and Jay, and your wife,

when is she going to start work? When did you say she graduates? She graduates in December. She's taking her board in april so she'll probably uh be working like the end of april early may next year okay okay so you still you guys have about six months to that so i mean honestly your life changes dramatically jay once she starts working so you guys i mean it'll take you guys you know a few years to do this but i would rather spend a few years getting out of this consumer debt than taking a hit on an asset like a home like I just don't think um selling it and here's another thing

Jay that I always caution people not that it's always and you can go do what you want and some people will they want to sell their house they want out of debt they want to do it but but here's the problem too when you get a lump sum of money this is even true with an inheritance or you know if you had an insurance claim and you you know got some cash a big sweep of just getting some cash just to clear out the debt yes that's great because we want you debt free but also there is something about behavior change that is so crucial and behavior change is caused when you feel a level of pain you feel a level of sacrifice and you actually win like when you go through that journey that's what changes you jay and so not that oh yo if you get a bunch of money we want you to pay it off right

i'm not saying not to do it but also in the same time it doesn't always change jay it doesn't always change you it doesn't change your wife when you just can you know just do this full sweep so you know rachel i think i am gonna say not to do it not to sell the house yeah we did yeah yeah yeah i think we're gonna like yeah don't sell the house yeah we did yeah yeah yeah I think we're gonna like yeah don't sell the house make yourself go through this process you guys need to do it and and you're gonna get a jump start on this process in six months like these next six months you're gonna feel it Christmas Jay is not gonna look like Christmas last year like you're gonna be cutting back on things and that's okay for a season and then when your wife starts working

that's gonna be gasoline on this and like Jade Jade said, and if you sell the car, then that brings you guys back down to what? 120, 125. I mean, you're just starting to knock this stuff out. And so- And you've got, okay, so they've got the 20,000 in credit cards and refrigerator loans. Yes.

That to me, that's the kind of debt that keeps you motivated because it's like $2 dollars here and a thousand. Like those are the quick wins that you start to go, oh, oh, yeah, we can do this. So the way I'll just say the way your debt is set up, it's the kind that's like, yes, like we can really see this traction. We can see the movement forward. So, yeah, do not sell that house. Walk through it. Yep. Absolutely. Does that help, Jay? Yes, that absolutely helps thank

you so much i appreciate that absolutely and remember always you guys and those of you listening or watching that you know the the deeper you sacrifice and the deeper you say we're not going on a summer trip next summer we're not doing christmas like we'd like you just have a season where things are cut back and it's not forever it's not forever it's for a season to get this progress to get this debt paid off and then jay you guys are what's crazy to me is i'm like you know after this journey of maybe what two years three years of doing this yeah you guys are going to be sitting in a paid for home with you know you guys are going to be making i mean oh my gosh oh yeah a lot yeah yeah 130. I mean, like it's powerful to know

what your income is gonna be able to do when all this debt is cleaned up. So the future's there. We see it for you. Not to mention so many people, Rachel, right now are like this housing market is so hard. Oh, it's terrible. Like with interest rates and everything,

it's so hard to save enough down payment. I'm like, if you can avoid that because you already have property, I would not wanna jump into that if I didn't have to. Nope. Nope. Not at all. All right, Jay, thanks for the call. Up next, we got Jen in Sacramento. Hey, Jen, welcome to the show.

Hi, Rachel and Jay. Thank you so much for taking my call. Absolutely. How can we help? So I'm wondering if I should change jobs while pregnant or stay at my current job, which is far away. My husband and I currently on baby step number two, and we just found out that we're expecting our second child next June. Oh, congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. So we both work a hybrid schedule. We're two and a half hours away and it pays more. He stays with his family two nights out of the week just to stay close to

work. And I go in twice a week, which is a five hour commute each day. Oh my gosh. Yeah. We've been doing this for almost a year now. And so now that we're expecting our second child, this is kind of on my mind. What are you guys earning at this job to make it worth it or is it not worth it? It is worth it so he works actually two jobs he works at a hospital an admin and he also got a side hustle as a adjunct professor uh-huh um my job i've been getting a raise since i started but it doesn't pay as i mean it pays pretty decent what is it i'm i'm I'm an administrative coordinator. Yeah, but what are you guys earning?

In healthcare. Oh, so our total take-home income a month is $15,200. Okay. And we have $100,000 in student loans, a car loan balance of $7,900. We have a mortgage with $377K left. And then we also have a loan for a solar panel, which is about $23,000. Okay. So I don't know if I want to work part-time, but that would like cut into like our goal of like trying to pay off debt and also work like closer. I'm considering like a change in career, like maybe a preschool teacher, but I don't know.

I definitely think that the two and a half hours is not sustainable. Like you can't continue to do that, especially with the kids coming. That being said, I do think you need to find a happy median because going from 15,000 a month when you have this debt down to preschool teachers, you know what I mean? That's a big jump down. So I think that there's got to be a way when you have this debt down to preschool teachers you know what i mean that's a big jump down so i think that there's got to be a way that you can meet in the middle um in order to make this happen um and kind of do it gradually to where you're still having a nice shovel to pay off this debt because the hard thing to walk away from is such a high income when you do have that debt and with that income you could knock it out so quickly yeah 100 grand in student loans right I mean and that's I'm sure for was it for you and your husband

yeah yeah majority of it's mine yeah and okay you know like don't get me wrong you're pregnant there's some things that go into that obviously once you have a baby but I try to ride this out until as long as you can until you've got to make that switch because when the baby's born for sure you're gonna have to make that switch and you should start preparing now yeah and if you're six months pregnant and you want to be sitting in a car for five hours that's very understandable Jen so so looking at yeah how long you can do that and when you switch jobs though the insurance is big so you want to make sure your insurance is covered because with the pregnancy and everything make sure you don't miss that

because it may be worth it to stay in just for the insurance to make sure you and baby are good so make sure to cover that Jen but yeah this is the hard thing with debt you have it and it's like oh my gosh we have to pay this off and some sacrifices have to be made so congrats though on the new baby Jen and thanks for the call

alright that puts this hour in the books thank you Jade for being a great co-host thanks to all the guys in the booth for helping us out. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Rachel Cruz. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending

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