The Ramsey Show - App - I’m Afraid To Pay Off My Debt (Hour 1)

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

...

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 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. Open phones this hour at 888-825-5225. Number one bestselling author, Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, and author of the latest bestseller, Find the Work You're Wired to Do. Ken is my co-host today.
Starting point is 00:00:52 Fresh back from doing your Jim Cantore impression. He was in Barbados with his family just in time for the hurricane to hit. So exciting. So you're a hurricane survivor now. I am. Very exciting. Thankfully,'re a hurricane survivor now. I am. Very exciting. Thankfully, it went south of us, about 100 miles south of us, and so we didn't have too much of an issue with it. If you watch the news, it blew Barbados away.
Starting point is 00:01:13 I know. Well, it was terrifying to everybody else but me, and I got in trouble in my own house. Are you storm dad? Do you go out and stand and watch the storm outside? Are you storm dad? I had the sliding doors open. Sliding doors.
Starting point is 00:01:26 Glass sliding doors. Yeah, I had them open until about midnight as it approached, and they said it was going to hit the island at about, or it was going to come close to us. At this point, we felt pretty good. It was going to go south of us, but, yeah, it was freaking the kids out. But I was enjoying the blustery winds at that point, and when we lost power at 2.30, everybody else was a little freaked out.
Starting point is 00:01:47 And I did go outside for a bit. Because at that point, it was tropical storm winds. I wasn't in danger. And I am the guy who does stick his nose out there to see what's going on. I'm a little curious, probably too curious. I stand in the middle of the street watching for tornadoes. I'm storm dad. I'm like that too.
Starting point is 00:02:02 My kids call me. Yeah. Very much. Consequently, I've got. What does that say about us i don't know we don't i mean you're not you just called a hurricane blustery well it's what you i just heard that well it was a tropical storm thanks to hurricanes blustery no it was at in in our neck of the woods it went south of us for the record i grew up i grew up in virgin on the coast, so I've been through these scares my whole life, so that's why the pulse rate was pretty low. But I will tell you that anything 80 to 100 miles away, you're not in danger. Meaning the outer band of the storm, nobody cares, but this is my gym kid.
Starting point is 00:02:39 The outer bands, the right side of a hurricane, is always the most dangerous. So when you're about 80 to 100 miles out, there's really nothing to be scared about. And so I wasn't. I was watching it. I was paying attention. But my wife pulled me aside at one point. By the way, Sharon, Ramsey and Stacey were texting. Sharon was checking in on us. Dave, not worried about me at all. I just emailed and said, are you alive? I know. It was funny funny i appreciate it but uh stacy pulled me aside said you need to be more sensitive to the kids fears they were irritated that i was so calm about it in other words dismissive you should add to the drama that's that's the that's not the dad's job thank you it's not the dad's job to add to the drama
Starting point is 00:03:23 yeah which i did unless going outside and getting conked on the head with a palm tree because you're standing outside in the middle of a hurricane well you'll be proud of me i did call the property owner and i introduced a new concept of them in barbados i said do you board up the windows our master bedroom we had rented a house and it had glass windows everything else had wood shutters on it so it it was fine. And he said, we don't do that here. I said, well, listen, I'm not going to ask you to do it, but I think for the people who own this property, they'd probably appreciate it.
Starting point is 00:03:51 And two hours later, Dave, plywood going up on the window. So I introduced a – this is what we do in Virginia. You made Home Depot Barbados some money. I did. So I did introduce that, and I told the kids, we're fine. We've got the windows boarded up so everybody can relax. I love it. Ginger's in New York.
Starting point is 00:04:09 Hi, Ginger. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Good afternoon. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? I'm from, of course, New York, and I have an opportunity. I can't afford my lifestyle here, and I do have an opportunity, another job in another state down south.
Starting point is 00:04:30 Being that I'm, you know, currently in a lot of debt at the moment, I just was trying to get, you know, a little understanding of what your viewpoint might be. Do I stay in my city that I'm comfortable with, or do I now relocate again? You can't afford your lifestyle. No. How is that comfortable?
Starting point is 00:04:55 It's not. I think you're professionally comfortable is what you're saying. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. Yeah. Let me ask this. The job down south, does it forward you in your career or is it a complete pivot? It's something I did previously. It would be, um, children's services.
Starting point is 00:05:13 I've done children's services before, not saying I will want to do it again. I am in school for, um, court reporting. So that's something I am caring towards. So do they have court reporters in the South? They do, of course. Okay. And so how much of a pay bump would there be if you go down South? No. New York. How much more money would you be making if you
Starting point is 00:05:38 take this new job in the South? No, I wouldn't be making more. I'd probably be making maybe almost the same but the cost of living how much have you factored in cost of living being less yes i have factored cost of living being less how much new margin and i'm talking about real money in a budget would that now present to you if we take this job each month you would now have this much more money because of cost of living reduction what What would that look like?
Starting point is 00:06:05 I think that would be at least $400 to $500. It's a no-brainer. It's a no-brainer for me, and I'll tell you why. You're in school to be a court reporter. You can't afford to live where you are now. You're not going to stay in the career that you're in in New York City, and let's go reduce our expenses while we're getting qualified. Maybe even have to press pause
Starting point is 00:06:25 for a little bit on the court reporting school. That's a possibility to press pause because then we get our mess cleaned up from the debt standpoint, create more margin, and I can pivot into court reporting in the South. Or if I want to come back to the Northeast after I've got my mess cleaned up, then I can do that. But I just think going South right now is a great option for you. Yeah, you got ginger. You called me up and said, Dave, I'm drowning, but the water's warm. That's right. Yeah, no, you're gone. You've set out, there's just a little fear, insecurity.
Starting point is 00:06:59 It's a change. You know, change is always difficult, but also sinking and drowning is difficult. So, you know, we're going to choose our pain here, and we're going to choose pain that has a good upside, and it's not that painful. So, yeah, I think you've identified correctly what you've got to do. You opened your first line when I picked up the phone was, I can't afford my lifestyle here. And so that means something has to change because you're not in Congress,
Starting point is 00:07:28 so you can't print money, so we've got to have some other game plan. And so Ken's exactly right. And, hey, here's the other thing. Always remember, none of this has to be permanent. That's correct. You can go south, have an adventure, get your income way up, and decide you want to come back to New York. There's nothing wrong with that idea.
Starting point is 00:07:53 But coming back to New York, you know, with a victory parade where you then can afford your lifestyle. And because you cleaned up the mess, got the income up, got the career up got the career shift done and did all of that in a in a cheaper cost of living area and got your foundation like so it's not as if this is a decision that has to be a permanent decision um it is it's you don't want to jump and move every three weeks it's expensive emotionally and financially but but sometimes folks go i'll never be back yeah you can be back you just decide to this is the ramsey show
Starting point is 00:08:30 ken coleman ramsey personality is my co-host today malachi's in tuc Arizona. Hey Malachi, how are you? Pretty good. How about yourself? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I have myself in kind of a financial hole that I'm finding harder to get out of than I expected. I have debt that I'm trying to get rid of, but it just seems like it's not getting anywhere. That's no fun. How much debt have you got, brother? I have just about $260,000 of debt. Okay. Give me a little breakdown on that.
Starting point is 00:09:13 What's the categories? So $250,000 of that is my house, and the other, I'd say about $10,000 is money that I owe family. So you don't owe anything on a car or a credit card or a student loan? I do owe $4,000 on my car. Okay. All right. And what else? Anything else?
Starting point is 00:09:42 No, other than that, that's it. Okay. And so what's your income, sir? My income is at $90,000 per year right now. Okay. So why can you not pay these bills with $90,000? Well, I've been eating away at the debt of my home in just over six months.
Starting point is 00:10:02 I've paid $110,000 of it. That's far from being stuck, sir. That's actually incredible progress. Yeah, it just doesn't quite feel that way. I have no money in the bank. Well, you paid it all on debt. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're not going to have money in the bank until you clear the debt so i would back up and knock the four thousand dollar car debt and the ten thousand dollar family debt out next before i pay any extra on the house and then i would put an emergency fund in place of three to six months of expenses and so i'd put fifteen thousand000 in a high-yield savings account that's sitting there just for emergencies. And so I just gave you $30,000 worth of an assignment.
Starting point is 00:10:50 How quick can you knock $30,000 out? Well, I would have to figure about six months, maybe less. Yeah, that sounds right. Because you're living on nothing. You're game on. I mean, you've not got any lifestyle eat eating this up or you wouldn't be making this kind of mathematical progress yeah you're already pretty stinking frugal aren't you yeah very much so yeah i'm thinking basically top ramen every day there you go yeah i got a
Starting point is 00:11:17 different word for you malachi you don't have an elimination problem you have an allocation problem and our baby steps the snowball uh is where you start here and all of a sudden this momentum is going to just be unbelievable for you you've just been going about it the wrong way get the family and the car off your back and emergency fund in place of 15 000 that's 30 000 worth then you go back and start talking about the house again and you don't have to be so intense on the house you're going to wander out of that house you don't have to be quite so fired up about it so um it's interesting though the way you opened the phone call with us it sounded like you were on the verge of bankruptcy or something like you were stuck and you said and then quite the opposite is true you're making incredible
Starting point is 00:12:01 progress and you you're living on nothing and applying all of your money towards your goals. So, you know, you're way ahead of the game. You're far from stuck, sir. You're actually very successful. Well, I mean, you know, I'm 23 years old, just turned 23. And I just felt, I guess, off that i have no money in the bank and you know well that's fair okay but but you know you you're you understand the progress you're making mathematically it's pretty incredible i can see that yes okay all right i want you to own that
Starting point is 00:12:39 because that's that helps you continue because if you feel like you're you're like you're doing something wrong you know you lose your emotional momentum to fight on through but get the family off your back not like they're on your back they may or may not be and get the car off your back it is definitely there and um have 15 000 of the bank i think that'll put you in a different emotional spot and then let's let's turn up the lifestyle a little bit, like have a life, and slow down a little bit on paying off the house. I want you to pay it off in, you know, four or five years, three or four years. So like, I don't know, you're 27 with a paid-for house in Tucson, Arizona. That would be a weird Gen Z thing to do.
Starting point is 00:13:23 Lovely. You know, I want to point out to our audience, we have a lot of new people joining us all the time. And I'm glad, Dave, that you're here on this call because this is an example of why so many years ago you created the baby steps to create not just financial momentum, but actually emotional momentum. And so here's a guy who's got his act together. The studio audience is shocked.
Starting point is 00:13:45 There's a 23-year-old, and he's like, I feel like I'm stuck. Well, he's been putting all of his money on the biggest piece of his debt, which is the house, and therefore he has no emotional momentum, and that's why he presents this way. And that's the magic of what you created all these years ago. Yeah, the power of baby steps is you can go anywhere you want to go if you just keep walking. Right. It's just one step at a time. Right. And so he feels like he's in a hamster wheel right
Starting point is 00:14:11 now because he's going at it the wrong order. Yeah. Yeah. And so knock out the little stuff, you start achieving some of the goals. So hang on Malachi, I'm going to send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover. About 10 million people have got it so it's working and uh the baby steps are outlined in that and it'll show you exactly what to do and it'll change that because ken's right what we figured out malachi and for the rest of you is is that personal finance is 80 behavior it's only 20 head knowledge the mathematics of wealth building you learn by the sixth grade it's not rocket science this is not med school you don't have to have a master's degree in finance and statistics to become wealthy it's literally sixth grade math so math is not our problem
Starting point is 00:15:00 it's not bothering to pay attention to the guy in the mirror and his decisions malachi is paying attention to the guy in the mirror and is making great progress we're just going to redirect his progress a little bit so he feels it that's exactly right and the uh and if you feel it then that matters because this is behavior so it's all about feedback loops the psychologist would tell you so you're not going to keep going to the gym and not quit eating and not stay away from donuts if you don't lose weight as a result you're like bring on the donuts and i'm not sweating if i'm going to lose if i'm going to not lose weight or i'm going to gain weight i might as well enjoy it you know but if you go to the gym and you stay away from donuts i'm talking to dave um then you can drop some poundage right and then
Starting point is 00:15:52 you go oh well that behavior resulted in a result that i like so i get a feedback that's exactly i get feed positive feedback keeps me doing it yes that's a feedback loop and that's that's where all this comes from and where it goes to so very very good stuff devin is in kansas city hi devin welcome to the ramsey show hey thank you guys for taking my call sure what's up hey so me and my wife are wanting to know if we are in a good financial spot to make her a stay-at-home mom. Can you live on your income? I believe so. It's going to be tighter than what we're used to. Well, of course. After budgeting it out and doing our every dollar budget. What do you make?
Starting point is 00:16:35 After all, I make about $56,000 a year. What does she make? She makes about between $20,000 and $25,000. How many kids have you got? So we've got one right now and one on the way due in about november okay well daycare and some professional clothing is just about eating up her income yes she works in a daycare luckily, well, then it's not. Then it's not. So she gets $25,000 plus she gets a deal on the baby daycare, right? Yeah, and I think we would technically qualify for daycare assistance in Kansas.
Starting point is 00:17:17 So that would help out as well. I don't even know what that is, but okay. We have daycare assistance. All right, good. That's another government program it sounds it sounds like it sounds like a joy to me but the um but i don't guess you need that if she's going to be at home yeah correct yeah yeah so so here's what you do man run not only run your budget uh between now and the time she quits live two or three months on your income without touching hers. And apply all of her income or more to your
Starting point is 00:17:50 baby steps and prove to yourself that you can live on your income. Just act like she doesn't have an income and run your household. Because if she quits, she ain't gonna have an income. You better get used to that. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. The
Starting point is 00:18:14 best way to make the most of your money is a plan. Tell your money what to do instead of wondering where it went. Most people, the money comes in, the money goes out. Only the names are changed to protect the innocent. We don't know where it went. That's most people. And then you scratch your head and wonder why you're broke. If you ran a company and your job was to manage money and you manage money the way you manage money for you, you'd get fired for incompetence. So, cause if you, if you work in in a business you're supposed to have a budget and then you're supposed to like stick to it and stuff hello that's kind of basic y'all i mean it's really not hard but it's hard because it's dealing with me and i gotta look at the teenager and go no
Starting point is 00:19:01 and i gotta have a discussion with my spouse about spending and you know we gotta quit eating out every freaking night of our lives and then wondering why we have no retirement because we're eating it that's why basic stuff like that comes up when you do a budget hello that's why we came that That's why we came up with the idea that every dollar needs an assignment. Every dollar needs a name. Every dollar of your money before the month begins needs a mission beside it. You need to send it out there to do stuff for you. You work too hard to be broke. And the only thing that fixes that is giving every dollar an assignment. That's why we named the world's best budgeting app EveryDollar.
Starting point is 00:19:53 And that's why tens of millions, no exaggeration, tens of millions of people are using EveryDollar every month, the budgeting app, to run their budget with their spouse. Download EveryDollar for free in the app store or google play or go to everydollar.com and let's get started boys and girls it's time to do this open phones at 888-825-5225 john's in new york hey john how are you hi dave how are you sir better than i deserve what's up good so um i'm around uh 20 i'm 23 years old and um i had around 57 000 liquid cash in the bank and um i got kind of screwed over by the car industry uh twice now um when i was 19
Starting point is 00:20:37 i uh bought a new mustang hindsight very bad mistake um and obviously i was upside down and then uh now i have a cadillac obviously i got a pre-owned and now that loan is around at 35 000 i just got it about eight nine months ago and then i have student loans of about 25 000 they're not crazy high because i went to community college i've been listening to you guys for a while and i just wanted to what do you make what's that what do you make around 80 000 what do you do i'm a bartender at my family's restaurant okay very cool very cool thank you okay and so your question's what should i because i've watched a couple of your videos if i should just take the 57 000 and dump it into all the debt and just clear it, but then I have nothing left in my account? Or do I do thousands at a time and knock it down as quick as I can?
Starting point is 00:21:36 Okay. Is your goal to be wealthy? Yes, yeah. Okay, because you make a lot of money. You're doing really good. Thank you. You must work really hard. I do, yeah.
Starting point is 00:21:51 I work six days a week, yeah. Yeah, and some serious hours, too. Yeah, good for you. Thank you. Good for you. I mean, you're a pretty sweet spot for 23 years old overall. I mean, you've done some stupid stuff. So, all right, a couple of things that
Starting point is 00:22:05 come out of the conversation is one you did not get screwed by the car industry you got screwed by you because you walked on to the car lot and you bought a car you couldn't afford because you were acting like a child is that fair yeah yeah of course okay you're not a victim dude you caused this all right both times so i don't know what a guy making 80,000 bucks that's 23 years old, working his butt off needs with a $35,000 Cadillac. I don't know why you have to have that. Right. You might rather have the cash than that.
Starting point is 00:22:40 Right. So one option, sell a car and buy a ten thousand dollar car right for cash and then you don't have to give up all your cash you just give up the cadillac that's the main thing i want to avoid is i don't want to just deplete all my savings i worked for well i mean it then the cadillac's on the on the block so uh i mean if you want to keep the cadillac you need to pay it off right see you're all your money's already gone paying it off you just admit it yeah you've already spent the money you just hadn't admitted it yet by paying off the debt of course yeah so you know it's so you can under but you can you can choose okay do
Starting point is 00:23:25 i want because basically if you sold the car for 35 000 bucks um and you took ten thousand dollars of your and you broke even got out of it cleared it right will it bring 35 no i think it'll bring 24 because i got i was upside down from the other oh you rolled negative into it okay yeah i was around 9 000 negative and then i put five so you're gonna spend 10 of your money even if you sell it and you're gonna spend another 10 of your money to buy a car and you're gonna spend some money to pay off the student loan debt right and you said so you said 25 in student loans yes sir okay so you're 60 and you got 57 so you don't have enough to pay off everything yeah quite but i mean you're making money and you're used to stacking cash because you
Starting point is 00:24:13 so all right the premise is this if we could get you where you had no payments student loan the car payments gone through whatever mechanism either paying it off or selling the car either one you choose okay if we can get you where you don't have any payments but your most of your money is through whatever mechanism, either paying it off or selling the car, either one. You choose, okay? If we can get you where you don't have any payments, but most of your money is gone, without any payments making 80K, you could stack that cash up real quick again. It won't take long, just a few months. I mean, you probably save $5,000, $6,000 a month, can't you, if you don't have any payments? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:24:43 Are you living at home? I am, yeah. Me and my mom and dad live above the restaurant yeah so you got almost no overhead i thought that okay so that's how that's how the 57 got there i got some quick numbers here uh i want to run with you here i think you're still walking away with dave's plan with 11 000 in cash because if you owe 11 so you're going to pull 11 out to because you're upside down you're going to spend 10 on another car so that's 21 57 money 21 is 36 we owe 25 in student loan that leaves you with 11k and no payments no payments in a paid for $10,000 car and you live at home with a pretty secure job and you're stacking cash like a boss
Starting point is 00:25:23 man right you could you stack six thousand i mean in 10 months you'd have 60 000 bucks on top of the 11 you have 71 000 in 10 months i mean i also have uh 10 000 in an ira that i'm maxing out every month as well i would i would stop that until we get this mess cleaned up but if you're going to clean up the mess in one fell swoop you don't have to stop it but you can stack cash you're gonna follow me especially if you don't have a car payment 35 grand yeah and so my you know i'm going to use up all my money yeah for a hot second because a month later you're going to have ten thousand dollars more and a month later you're going to have eight thousand dollars more in a month later you're going to have eight thousand dollars more and a month later you're going to have you follow me gotcha yeah yeah so you're not going to be out of cash for
Starting point is 00:26:08 but just for a few days well you still have eleven thousand i know you got eleven but i'm saying he's fifty sevens down to eleven and that's causing emotional distress heartburn heartburn yeah right yeah yeah so but the point is it is it's a temporary situation, and it's the best path for you to become wealthy. Because your most powerful wealth-building tool is your income, and you don't give it all to car companies and student loan companies. You get to keep it. And that causes wealth-building, and that's what I'm going to tell you to do. So I would be debt-free either by selling the Cadillac or not immediately,
Starting point is 00:26:45 even if it caused my heart to burn. And because, keep in mind, your heart's not going to burn for very long because with no payments and serious motivation called a little bit of fear, you're going to stack that cash real fast. And you'll be right back where you are by Christmas. And you'll be a whole 23 years old. Wow. You got lots of time to be smart now.
Starting point is 00:27:12 This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Guys, we could use your help if you will click subscribe or follow on YouTube or Spotify or podcasting or whatever, Apple,
Starting point is 00:27:37 wherever you are. If you subscribe to us, follow us, it changes the numbers dramatically on how those platforms push our show forward and new people discover us because you subscribed or followed because you left a five-star review
Starting point is 00:27:51 because you shared the show some of these platforms have a share button where you can just share send it to your buddy and say hey give these guys a listen or cut the link out and send it in an email or if you're listening on talk radio just say hey i listen to the station you ought to try these guys out just like you tell your friend about a good movie or a good book same thing or good netflix thing you need to binge watch i'll give you one of those have you seen the steve martin documentary no but i'm a big steve martin apple tv okay two two sections the old days when he becomes famous yeah and his current days yeah and it is it's lights out i'm in because i'm a big fan of his well i mean you the behind the scenes stuff he pulls out of his journals when he was about to fail and he almost
Starting point is 00:28:37 quit yep and it's it's uh and then he has breakthroughs you know and it's just it's pretty cool yeah so i'll just see. I just shared with you guys. I shared you something. I just gave him a free plug, and you're welcome, Steve. And he needed our help, I'm sure. Yeah. I'm sure. But it's good.
Starting point is 00:28:54 It's a great documentary, and he's, of course, doing his sister. His parents were, it was a wild family situation, man, and his sister's on there talking about it. It's pretty cool yeah pretty hard to cover any of his bluegrass music oh yeah yeah it's quite the um if the casual fan doesn't know it he's a wonderful banjo player world class like incredible yeah i've been on the grand ole opry with it yeah it's crazy elise is with us in sacramento hi elise how are you hi thank you so much for having me i've been listening to the show for almost 10 years now, so it's an honor.
Starting point is 00:29:26 So thank you for all you do for us. Well, we're honored to have you. How can we help? I have a career question. So my question is a little background. Essentially, I am in a niche area of nursing, and I've made a couple changes in my career the last two years because I essentially was burnt out in what I was doing and I was ready for a change. And so I've made that change. And
Starting point is 00:29:52 now I'm almost looking into whether I should go back to that other career or essentially reassurance that I'm good where I'm at. Okay. What's making you question this move? I think it's because I have multiple passions in the niche nursing areas that I'm in. And so I have the unique opportunity to be able to also what we call float back and go back and forth. But my questioning to myself was the stress questioning to myself but it wasn't fun yeah yes i didn't like it why would i float back to something i don't like i think it delved into i enjoyed what i did but the stress eventually got to me right so the question becomes though so let's stay right there for a quick second.
Starting point is 00:30:51 The question is, was that circumstantial or is that a part of the actual gig? And it doesn't matter what hospital system I'm in, what state, it's the nature of the role or was it circumstantial to the environment? That's the real question. The stress. The nature of the role. The stress. It's the nature of the role in multiple hospitals all right so here's the deal so then you have to say are there things that i have control over that i can do that i didn't do in the past that would allow me to manage the stress in other words you know it really well so are there physical things you could do differently this time are there boundary issues when you're not at work that's my question is there anything that you could do differently this time? Are there boundary issues when you're not at work? That's my question. Is there anything that you could do the second time around that would alleviate the stress?
Starting point is 00:31:34 Possibly. I don't know that I necessarily have any control over it because it's a hospital, right? Things happen and that's the nature of the job. Okay, so that's my point. So that's our answer. Yeah. If you can't control some of the stressors, and there's not something that you can do that would allow you to be in the role and thus manage the stress, then I think that's your answer. It just doesn't make any sense for you to go back to it. Just because you can. Yeah. It has a detrimental effect on you physically, mentally, emotionally. I was overstressed. And now I'm going to walk back and do the exact same thing again. That's what you're saying.
Starting point is 00:32:15 That's not logical. That's my exact worry that kept coming back. And I think I'm looking into, I'm an overthinker, so I'm looking into, oh, I missed that role. I missed a lot of aspects of it. But I'm very happy where I'm at now, and I make the same amount of money. And so I think to myself, work happier, smarter, less stress, save money. You're having selective memory about the good parts of the old job that you left because you hated it yeah there's something deep there's
Starting point is 00:32:51 you let it go something deeper here and i would just say uh you have to dig a little bit deeper into this over analytical side of your brain boy do i you're talking to an overthinker so let me just say i I get that, but there's something deeper there that makes you keep wondering, am I missing out? Am I missing out? And I think you, I'm going to tell you, I'll take a stab at it. And I think maybe a session with a counselor might help or a really good friend. I think that you don't trust your own judgment. And I think there's something deeper there, but I think that's the source of this. And again, when I get into this kind of loop myself in my own life, I'm being very vulnerable and transparent to say, when I overthink, it's because I got to
Starting point is 00:33:36 go back inside and go, what do I not trust in my own judgment? What's behind it? I think that's probably the source of it, just to try to help you out here, because all the common sense and all the factors here lead to don't go back, which is why Dave and I are saying stop thinking, stay where you are. Yeah. Gary is with us. Gary is in Greensboro, North Carolina. Hi, Gary. How are you? I'm doing well. Quick question. When you get out of debt, how do you rewire your thinking or change your thinking so you're not afraid that you might go back into debt? That's a great question.
Starting point is 00:34:20 Well, I think what I did when I went broke was i did an autopsy on my stupidity right and i'm like okay that was stupid and that was stupid and i was stupid when i did that and that was stupid and so i try not i do a lot of stupid stuff but i try never to do the same stupid thing over so if i just go okay that's one less stupid thing i know not to do and so if i if i do stupid things now it's new stupid things. Right? You know what I'm saying? And that's kind of how I looked at the debt thing.
Starting point is 00:34:49 I looked at it and went, that didn't work. Why would I go back to something that didn't work? It did not bring me joy, you know. It does not bring me joy. Thank you, Marie. I guess I was thinking you worry about having a major housing expense that you can't, that you're not quite fully funded. Well, that's called savings.
Starting point is 00:35:10 Right. But what do you do in the meantime before your savings gets to that level? That's kind of where we're at. We're out of debt. We're working on. That's a different kind of a. Okay, so that's fear of an outside variable coming at you, not you relapsing into stupid.
Starting point is 00:35:28 Okay. That's a different fear, right? Okay, so I misunderstood you. I'm sorry. I thought you were talking... So you're saying, I don't have enough money to put heat and air in. If my heat and air goes out, what am I going to do? Exactly.
Starting point is 00:35:39 Okay. So how much money have you got saved? Right now, we've got about $6,000 to $7,000 in savings account. All right. And what's your household income? About $54,000. Okay. So you'd have to have a $10,000 expense before anything really bad,
Starting point is 00:35:57 before you were back to actually facing the decision about debt. Because if you had a $3,000 expense, you'd just do it, right? Correct. If you had a $5,000 expense, you'd just do it, right? Correct. If you had a $5,000 expense, you'd just do it. It would hurt, but you'd just do it. Right. Yeah. What would you say to your kids if they came home one day and said,
Starting point is 00:36:14 Dad, I'm worried about what's going to happen on this sports team that I just signed up for two, three games in? What would you say to them? Work hard and do your best. Yeah, not worried about you're not you're worrying about something hadn't happened today has enough worry of its own yeah don't worry about tomorrow dale carnegie did a whole segment on uh worry and he said this the statisticians tell us that 80 of what we worry about never occurs. Yeah, that's fascinating. So the number of personal emergencies that a guy making $54,000 has that's over $6,000 is virtually zero.
Starting point is 00:36:53 Virtually zero. So, yeah, your statistical probability of that happening is almost none. So you're worrying about something's not going to happen. Keep piling up cash, my man. You're going to be fine. This is Ramsey Show.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.