The Ramsey Show - App - I’m Having an Ethical Dilemma About Student Loan Forgiveness (Hour 1)

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

Take our Audience Survey & Enter to Win a $500 Visa Gift Card: Click here to take the survey   Dave Ramsey & Kristina Ellis discuss: Moving from credit cards to cash, Should I apply for student loan forgiveness (an ethical dilemma)? Missing out on the 401(k) match while paying off debt.   Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6   Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. We help people build wealth, do work that they actually love, and create real, amazing relationships. This is a show about your life and your money.

Christina Ellis Ramsey, personality, is my co-host today. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Joe's in Lansing, Michigan to start off this hour. Hey, Joe, what's up? Hey, Dave, it's an honor to speak with you. You too. How can we help?

So I'm a little nervous to say this to Dave Ramsey himself, but I typically use credit cards for all my day-to-day transactions. What? I know. I know. I'm actually wanting to switch over to cash, but every time I do switch to spending with cash, it seems like I actually spend more, even if I do stay within my budget. For example, if I'm like at the grocery store and I have say $50 left in my budget towards the end

of the month, um, if I'm using cash and it's sitting there in my envelope, I'll go and grab a couple of steaks, maybe a case of beer or something. Whereas if I'm using a credit card already knowing that I've racked up 400 bucks on this month's statement, it really keeps me away from spending that little extra money and making that statement hurt that much more when it comes in the mail. So my question is basically, how can I kind of get over that mental hurdle and switch to using cash so I don't have to do business with people like Visa and MasterCard. Okay. Well, the principle of this whole thing, the old grandma's old envelope system, and if you have a grocery envelope and you have the money for your grocery budget in the envelope, you can't spend that money on anything except groceries.

And you can't spend, you know, it's all and when it's empty you quit buying and so your problem is you're ending up with money left over which means you might be over funding the envelope okay you might be over you might be over funding the category but the overall idea behind the thing is and uh is that we figured out years ago at ramsey that personal finance is 80 behavior and so when we can do things that create friction that create mental and emotional recognition of spending then it tends to lower and control spending within a category so for instance a more sophisticated version of that is on a website, if you have to click too many times and do too many hoops to make the purchase, people will bail on the cart.

Yeah, I've done that plenty of times. Jump out because there's too much friction. The opposite end of that is Amazon Prime. You click buy now and it's on your porch in an hour or two, you know, and so that's the ultimate in low friction situation. But what the research tells us and research done by mit is that when people spend cash it activates the pain centers of their brain when you spend plastic it does not and so you've heard you say that yeah but

it's not it's not working with you for some reason i don't know what's wrong with your brain but right right so i don't care i don't care what i would tell you to do if you want to is uh switch to a debit card not a credit card and that's coming out of your checking account and that way there's no chance that you accidentally overspend a category and end up in debt and then if you want to do that that's fine uh years ago i did that for instance with the gas pump when i started teaching this you still had to go inside the store to pay for your gas that i mean this 35 years ago right and uh not and then they put those things at the pump where you don't even have to walk inside and you stick your card in there and you know what's interesting is the up evil on high gas prices when you had to walk in the store and pay cash the political uh firestorm was much higher because people noticed what they were paying but

when you don't even have to walk inside and you just put your little card in there and the only aggravation is you see a large number but that's the only thing then the political firestorm associated with high gas prices isn't as high uh because they're really stringing the president up the first time it went to five dollars and we all paid cash now it's just kind of like yeah well it's one of those things and so um but that's what's going on so i would use your debit card christina you got a suggestion yeah i'm curious you said that you'll walk into the grocery store sometimes with 50 and then go get some steaks and a case of beer that sounds like more than 50 have you had the experience yeah what kind of cheap steak are you eating have you had the experience when you get to check out and it's more than the 50 or what's kind of been your parameters with that i more meant one or the

other not both at the same time yeah that put me over 50 dollars i'm like that's kind of awesome my default setting is very frugal i'm well under my means as is i maybe i'm just you know getting too nitpicky about it but yeah um no i think i think you know what what i'm asked to is you don't get um uh you you very seldom were overspending before you met us. Right. And so all we're doing is giving you some guidelines and some mechanical processes. Yeah, what baby step are you in right now? I guess technically I'm in six, but I'm doing more than the 15% in my retirement. That's awesome. Yeah.

Very good. It doesn't feel like I'm in six yet. I still feel like I'm a young'un. You know what? You need to buy more stuff. You. Very good. It doesn't feel like I'm in fiction. I still feel like I'm a youngin'. You know what? You need to buy more stuff. You're too cheap. You need to enjoy some of your money. Really?

I feel like I don't have any to enjoy still. I know. I'm thinking, well, you had some left over and didn't want to buy a steak. I mean, so I want you to enjoy some of your money a little bit at the grocery store. That's okay. You don't have to be on beans and rice at this stage. And so here's the thing. a steak i mean so i want you to enjoy some of your money a little bit at the grocery store that's okay you don't have to be on beans and rice at this stage and so here's the thing a lot of people most people that we deal with are spenders in our culture but occasionally we run into a frugal person like you and we all have to learn all three we have to develop all three money muscles the

generosity muscle the saving investing muscle and the generosity muscle, the saving investing muscle, and the spending muscle. And the spending muscle means wise spending, but doing something. We have to enjoy money. We have to save and invest it. And we have to be generous. And if you're not doing, and frugal people tend to leave that one off and spenders tend to not do either one of the other ones because they just spend it all on themselves. But that's what we run into. Right. I don't think that he expected such an affirming response after calling it about credit cards well there is that but yeah yeah i would chop up the credit card for sure and get a debit card that's not a question um and you

know we're we're anti-credit card here there's just so many things that can go wrong with the use of a credit card and the the debit card will do everything the credit card will do has the same fraud protections i travel all over the world my debit cards i don't have any issues with them that are any of you don't have with your credit card all of us get the fraud alert you know sometimes and you know and all this and did you buy three dollars worth of gas in can. Nope, I didn't. So something wrong there. We all get those things, right? But, you know, so I carry debit cards. That's all I carry. Our company has debit cards, hundreds of them, with our team that travels and everything else.

And they use cash as well. We don't have a company credit card at Ramsey. None of us do. And I certainly don't have a company credit card at Ramsey. None of us do. And I certainly don't have any at home. Although, Christina, full disclosure, after 30 years of doing this, I'm still trying to get Sharon to call it a debit card. What does she call it? She still says, hand me the credit card. After 35 years of me telling people not to use a credit card.

My own wife is a traitor. No, I'm kidding. Now, she actually knows what it is, but she just forgets. She's like, give me the credit card. And I'm like, no, don't say that out loud. Somebody will hear you. You're sharing freaking Ramsey.

You'll start a rumor. There'll be a whole Reddit thread over you. This is the Ramsey Show. so We'll be right back. Christina Ellis, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Heather is with us in Richmond, Virginia. Hi, Heather. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave and Christina. Thanks so much for taking my call today. Absolutely. How can we help?

So I paid my, I had student loans starting from 2012, and I have been actively paying exactly as I should never went into deferment paid all the way through the pandemic and then decided to make a lump sum to pay off pay them completely off in January of 2021. Wonderful. I recently found but I recently found out that I would qualify for that I very likely would qualify for the Biden student loan forgiveness, and I'm wondering if there should be any moral dilemmas or misgivings about this, because I don't, you know, I don't need this money. I'm on baby steps four, five, and six, and so should I have any misgivings about possibly applying for this forgiveness?

I don't know if I'm allowed to tell you what your morals are. So I can tell you where... Okay, so let's talk about a couple of metaphors, all right, to kind of walk alongside this on ethics. A lot of ethics things are if you if you answer them uh and say how would i want to be treated if i were on the other side of this if you're on the other side of something from another party then you can look at that that's a little difficult here because this is the government you're on the other side of so it's kind of like who gives a rip

on that part of it but like you know we tell people not to use credit cards we're just talking about that and then we have sometimes a business owner who's gone through financial peace university paid off a bunch of credit cards gotten rid of all their credit cards only has debit cards and they hate credit cards and they own a pizza restaurant now do i is it a moral dilemma for them to take a credit card um i tell them it's not a moral dilemma for them to take a credit card um i tell them it's not a moral dilemma for them to take a credit card uh because they don't i'm a public figure i come out tell people don't use credit cards so for me to use a credit card would be pretty much straight up hypocrisy right i came out in the state of tennessee passed uh this ridiculous lotto a few years ago and i knew

the data on the lotto before they passed it. The data on lottos, if you guys out there don't know, is the state of Tennessee uses a lot of money to send people to college, okay? You get three, four thousand dollars, five thousand dollars, or whatever if you live in the state of Tennessee towards your college from the lotto fund. However, the lotto is primarily played by people people in poor zip codes so it's pretty much poor people sending rich people middle class people to school and so i i raised hell about that when they're passing in the state of tennessee i lost the state passed it it's been going for a decade or more and when my kids went to college you know they qualify for it's not

income-based at all everybody can get the three thousand bucks so do i go get the three thousand bucks no i'm a public figure that campaigned against it for me to go take that money then would be hypocritical but heather on the other hand you're more like the pizza store owner you haven't publicly come out and decried on the front page of the Wall Street Journal that this whole thing is a scam and a bunch of freaking communists running D.C., you know, like I have, right? And so you're not in the same position of the Ramsey personalities. Any Ramsey personality to take student loan forgiveness,

as hard as we've come out against it would be inconsistent but but you know uh it if our uh a young lady 25 years old is a creative and works somewhere inside of Ramsey is she morally wrong to take the forgiveness no it's a government program she didn't steal anything she didn't do anything wrong it's not uh she's not being a ne'er-do-well so I don't think you have a moral uh thing I also am okay if you decide you don't want to take it on moral grounds either one would be fine with me is what I'm trying to say I don't know you got you got a lot of thoughts about this yeah I've talked to a lot of people the last several weeks I've done a lot of Facebook and Instagram lives hearing people's opinions and it's just all over the

place a lot of people are really upset about it A lot of people are really upset about it. A lot of people are super excited about it. And there's just the whole, whole range of emotions. And I think it's hard because I actually put a poll out on my Instagram to see, you know, how people felt. And about 80% of the people that responded had negative reactions. They weren't happy about the forgiveness and, and all of that. So I could understand if maybe your friends are frustrated about the forgiveness that you're probably a little bit hesitant. And I also I think it's okay to say, hey, you know, I don't know that Washington should have made this decision. Maybe you disagree with the decision and also still go but the decision's been made. And I'm going to go ahead and get the forgiveness. Like I think, like Dave said, it really just depends on your own morals and what you decide.

But I think you can feel multiple emotions at the same time. Be frustrated if you want to be frustrated about the decision, but also realize the decision's been made. Possibly, obviously, there's still some loopholes that have to be gone through. We'll see. We'll see, but also still get the forgiveness. I don't think it's really, you know, bad if you end up getting some of that money back. Yeah, and you know, I guess another metaphor, and this is probably a little bit harsh of a metaphor, but a lady called in one time that was a single mom who had lost her job and had two little kids.

And she said, I'm morally opposed to welfare, but I need to take it to feed my kids right now. And I said, well, are you going to take it as a way of life for the next 50 years? No, just till I can find something to work to do and I said honey that's what welfare is for go get your kids some food as a taxpayer that's paying for that I'm okay with that now do I want to finance you doing that the rest of your life no that's not good for you it steals your dignity but but I'm not I'm not saying you're some kind of horrible, deadbeat, single mom beating your kid with a welfare check.

I mean, you know, until you're able to land a job. And so that's the same kind of thing. That's probably even more visceral or harsh than this discussion. But so, yeah, I'm going to be your friend either way, Heather, is what I'm saying. It doesn't bother me. But I think that people would judge me harshly were I to take that or my family were to take that after I've taken a public person's stand on it, and I think that would be accurate to judge me that way because I think that would be hypocritical.

You see what I'm saying? Yeah. I just was feeling a little conflicted being that you know i i on one hand i can think of a lot of ways that i can you know i have a 529 for my daughter that i could put that money into i'm adopting next year but then at the same time i know that i don't need that money when so many so many other people do that it's really intended you're not taking it from someone that that that would have gotten it and if you weren't around like they're not going to go hey heather got hers and we're out so joan you don't get any because heather took it there's not that's not how the program's going to

work okay so it's just going to be now i will tell you one other thing to think about and this is to thoroughly not answer your question is i the other thing i do sometimes particularly when we're dealing with uh things where i i think i'm i'm i'm feel like i'm right on something but i'll just do it anyway uh out of kindness or generosity because and the rule i use on that is when i'm 82 laying on my deathbed am i which way am I going to be happy I did this? Inside my heart of hearts, in my soul. Am I going to be happy I gave this a little bit more, even though the server was horrible but I left a little bit bigger tip?

I'm never going to be mad at myself when I'm 82 laying on my deathbed doing that. But shorten them, I might come up later and go, gosh, I wish wish i'd been nicer you know and so it when in doubt don't kind of thing and that makes you further further conflicted but the the biggest concern i got about the whole thing is you're worried about it which kind of means you shouldn't do it in a way that's what i'm saying but but that's not a a moral blanket i would throw over everyone out there listening to this conversation i think we've made that clear but yeah um Yeah, people are pissed.

And we can wrap it up with this. I kind of don't think it's going to happen anyway. I really don't. Because they announced this, and they never told the Department of Education anything about it before they announced it. And they never told studentloan.gov. And they never told none of the website, none of the administrative things. There's 33 million people they've got to process,

and they didn't even tell the agencies that are going to process before they announced it. It kind of makes me think they think it's not going to happen. Man, but if it doesn't happen at this point, it's going to be a train wreck either direction. We'll see. They'll blame it on the Republicans. This is The Ramsey personality is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage Patrick and Kelly are with us. Hey guys, how are you? Awesome, Dave. How are you and Christina? Better than we deserve. We're so honored to have y'all. Where do y'all live? We are traveling in from the Richmond, Virginia area,

Chesterfield, Virginia. Fun. That's a nice area. Welcome to Nashville. How much debt have you paid off? $332,000. Way to go. And how long did this take? Just a little bit under six years. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? We started out about $90,000 and finished up around $130,000. Good. What do you guys do for a living? I was a sales rep for a company and became a training manager. Okay. I was a prenatal educator with one of the local health facilities, but I'm now retired. Oh, good for you.

Way to go. Okay. $332,000 over six years. I'm going to guess and say that might be your house. It does include the house. I'm looking at weird people. Yes. Yes.

That's awesome. The house was just weird people! Yes. That's awesome. The house was just about half of it. Oh, wow. So we had $188,000 of consumer debt. Whoa. And it took us three years to clean that mess up. What in the world did you borrow on? Dave, I had this red credit card with the little white circles on it that had about 20,000 on it.

You were able to hit the target. Yes, we were. Yes, I did. Too many times. Hit it and hit it and hit it again. Seriously, that was, how much of the 188 was target? 18. Yeah.

18,000? Yeah. Okay, well, 10% of it. What was the rest of it? We had two cars and a bunch of other credit cards. We actually have this frame that we cut up our credit cards and put them into. Oh, yeah. I've got it on the screen. Yeah.

Excellent. That's what 32 credit cards looks like. Oh! Yeah. Whoa! We share that with our classes that we teach or coordinate for FPU. Thank you. Yes.

It's a big lesson and you know, what not to do with, with credit cards. So some guy comes in there with seven credit cards. He don't feel dumb after seeing that. Way to go you guys. Thank you. We also,

we also had a $54,000 student loan for our youngest daughter, Carly and Dave. It's that's a story in itself. One night I woke up and I was like, we thought we were debt free. We paid off a 90,000. We thought we were debt free. I woke up in the middle of the night and I was like, we got a student loan we co-signed for. And I got up, I started Googling what would Dave say about co-signed student loans. And then at six o'clock in the morning, Kelly woke up, and I'm like, hey, we're not debt-free. Look, this is what Dave says. And she started crying.

We had thought we were so close. But we knew that was ours, so we took that on and hit it with Gazelle Intensity also. And that was the last component of that $188,000 188 000 wow well you guys have been getting after it for a long time yeah i mean this is a this is a pull yeah so what really started the journey what lit that fire to get you guys on the road i have to let kelly answer that oh that's all on me we were gifted by our one of our daughters um the total Money Makeover. And I looked at it, and just before she gave us that book, I was doing the bills, and it was ugly. I was sick to my stomach every time I had to rob Peter to pay Paul.

And it wasn't working, so I read your book in a day. And I took it to him, and I said, we're in a mess, and we've got to figure out how to take care of it. I said, I want you to look at what this man recommends. And he looked. He says, that's not going to work. He could tell by the cover. Yeah, exactly.

So then he finally sucked it up and said, all right, let's give it a try. Let's do it his way. Well, in the meantime, our church was just starting some groups, and FPU was listed. I signed us up for them, and I didn't tell them. Uh-oh. I told them we did sign up for a marriage group, so I said I signed up for two groups.

One's a marriage group, and the other one's just another group that we're going to attend. And he went reluctantly. By the second class, I think he was ready to go. Yeah, Dave, you say, if it's not working my way, then I should try somebody else's way. I think my pride broke through during that second class, and I became open-minded. But she did trick me into going to FBU, and it was one of the best things that ever happened to us.

That's a good wife right there. Yes. I mean, six years and over $300,000, that's a long journey. And then you had that surprise with the student loan, $50,000. How did you stay motivated for that long? Yeah, the motivation came from teaching or coordinating the FPU classes. We will actually start our 15th class next Wednesday. You're like super coordinated.

And friends that are here with us, Scotty and Shelly Bryan, they have been very supportive throughout the process. They've continued to cheerlead for us. They went through our class in 2019. And Dave, just to share, they also just paid off their house last Friday. All right. So they are now Baby Step 7 seven also yeah this is great we got a group right here man this is fun you guys are amazing okay after all this now you wake up at six o'clock in the morning and there's not a payment in the world not even a house payment

how old are you two so i'll be 50 or i just turned 55. How long y'all been married? 33 years. Have you ever been debt free before now? No. Now when you wake up at six in the morning and you don't have a payment in the world how does it feel? It is so awesome Dave. We added a line item to our budget as we became debt free. It's our gift line item. So above and beyond tithing, we now are able to bless others and share. Yeah. Yeah. That's the most fun you'll ever have. It sure is. You guys are amazing. Y'all are amazing. Thank you so much for leading 15 Financial Peace University classes classes sharing this story you guys are troopers what do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is because you're

experts staying on budget and being content with what you have yeah that's a that was a huge lesson for me dave we didn't just try to keep up with the joneses we actually tried to be the Joneses. And so we were living, pretending to be wealthy. And now we can actually work our way to truly living like we should. Yeah. You're on your way. Very, very cool. We talked to a lot of people who have a ton of consumer debt. I love that you guys paid off the consumer debt and the mortgage. And these people are looking at six figures of debt thinking there's no way I could ever do this. What would you tell those people? It's all about the desire to do it, as well as the motivation. And together, we just put our head down, really focused on the debt and uh the budget the budget is so critical and and being

content and being happy to say you know we this is not us today this is not for us today we'll we'll get it when when time no means not yet yeah that's right right that's for y'all hey we got a copy of baby steps millionaires for you that's the next chapter in your story if you're not already there and uh according also a total money makeover book for you to give away and disturb some other couple i like that and a financial peace university one-year membership i'm sure you'll find a good use for that as super coordinators find somebody that's deserving that you can send through that so all of those are gifts for you to re-gift and uh at our pleasure and we thank you thank you guys for sharing we're so proud of y'all you're amazing thank you you're heroes man you did it yeah baby this is how it works patrick and kelly richmond virginia

332 000 paid off in six years making 90 to 130 debt-free house and everything. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Well, what's the moral of the story? The moral of the story is you can do this.

If you're listening to this right now, you're watching this right now, you can do this. It's very doable. It's hard, but it's doable. This is The Ramsey Show. Субтитры подогнал «Симон» Christine Alice Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Joe is with us in Orlando, Florida. Hi, Joe. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Huge fan. Thanks for having me. How are you today?

Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? Yeah, so I want to say thanks to that last couple for the great testimony and for being the toughest act to follow ever but uh so uh you know my good news is is that leading up into 2020 completed all the baby steps uh was really rolling have up to uh 75k in retirement funds as a 32-year-old. In 2020, I got married and then we both got master's degrees. So my big downer is that we actually now have $85,000 in student loan debt. And when I talk to the very successful people, they tell me, well, you should start paying that off, but also, no matter what, contribute to your 401k so you get the match. But I have a feeling you're going to tell me that I should completely stop contributing to that 401k to pay off the debt.

Why do you have that feeling? I've watched you a few times, but I haven't had to revisit the Dave Ramsey scriptures since 2020. So I'm calling to maybe get a kick in the butt and curious what you would say to those wealthy folks who took that strategy of still contributing to their 401k while paying off debt i would say that they are not as wealthy as maybe they're projecting themselves to be or that they're unusual i'll answer that question first when we studied the millionaires 10 167 people who became millionaires 90 of which became millionaires starting from nothing. They did not inherit money to make them millionaires, meaning they built wealth. The vast majority of them, there were some that followed the plan you're talking about, but the vast majority of them concentrated on getting rid of debt and then used the freed-up income to build wealth with

because your most powerful wealth- building tool is your income. Now, can the way you're working it or you're talking about working it work? Yes, it can. The reason that we've had more success than a lot of people in helping people build wealth is not because of the mathematics of this discussion, but because of the behavior aspects of this discussion. And what we found is, and it kind of runs against my math nerd brain, but what we found is the psychology of this whole thing is more important than the math is. You get the psychology right, the math ends up taking care of itself. Here's what I mean. Very few people can be consistent and intense on three things at once.

That lack of focus, that lack of being dialed in on a singular goal, causes people to not accomplish the goal. So it's very difficult to, i'll use something you said get your master's degree uh while running 10 marathons in a year okay you could they're both they're both excellent goals they're both there's nothing wrong with both but it requires a level of diligence and singularity of focus to complete herculean tasks and uh when you screw around with them you end up not doing the marathons or not doing the nba or worse not doing both because you try to do too many things at once and so much stuff on your plate and uh earl nightingale the father of

motivational speaking grandfather motivational speaking used used to say that the difficulty of achieving the goal is not what keeps people from achieving the goal as often as the things that they try to do while they're trying to do the goal. And so all of that is my pitch for singularity of purpose, meaning, yeah, I'm stopping everything temporarily. What's your household income, by the way? About $160,000 a year. Okay, so you're going to be debt-free in under two years.

Okay. Yeah, if we really behaved ourselves, that would be the case. I'm presupposing that with this whole discussion, because if you don't behave yourself, other people's plan doesn't work either. Understood, yeah. If you don't behave yourself, other people's plan doesn't work either. Understood. Yeah, I mean, I was on a three-year plan given some, you know, emergency fund expenses. Yeah, you're still going out to eat.

You're still going on vacations. You're still screwing around. A little bit. Yeah. I mean, $160,000, you ought to be able to find 40 of it in a year. That's two years. Really? Yeah. It's pretty wimpy yeah well I think it feels hard because you've already worked through the baby steps and you you got that pride and that excitement in 2020 of having everything paid off and now

it's kind of like a drag to have to go back and go oh man we got to do this again and I love that you called in knowing what Dave's gonna to say. I mean, you already know that you got to go back through this. You know that it's going to be hard. You're familiar with the work and the effort. I think it's just really accepting deep down that this journey is, you know, starting again, that you're back in baby step two. And with that, I would encourage you to go back through FPU or maybe even coordinate a class, you know, listening to the last step free scream. You know, they really helped other people while they were helping themselves and that produces motivation. So I think the biggest challenge right now is like deep digging deep in your soul to

figure out, you know, how are we going to get that? But don't go lead a class if you're going to keep doing this other plan. Okay. That'd be hypocritical. We don't need, we don't need coordinators half butt doing stuff. Okay. So if you're going to half butt do it, don't, don't need we don't need coordinators half butt doing stuff okay so if you're going to half butt do it don't don't do the class that doesn't work so you know here's the thing joe you're going to do what you're going to do you you know you're obviously not dumb people you make almost a couple hundred thousand dollars a year you both have graduate degrees you're not dumb people you just got to decide what the fastest right way with the highest probability of success in the shortest period of time is our plan has taught 10

million people and made more millionaires than all your little friends sipping their lattes talking together put together half so you just gotta decide who you're gonna listen to uh this is not this i'm not a i'm not a college professor who never made payroll this i'm not operating on tenure here this is real people doing real stuff 10 freaking million people have gone through financial peace university there are tens of thousands more millionaires all over america just because they did exactly what we said to do now you can decide you don't want to do that and that doesn't mean you're dumb the other way will work but the question is what is the fastest right way that has the highest probability of success least probability of failure along the way and it is getting rid of this debt in under two years

completely focusing beans and rice rice and beans you fell off the wagon you went eighty thousand dollars in debt look in the mirror and go stupid i gotta fix this and that's the fastest right way to address it now you can screw around with all these other people's plans and you know you can watch tiktok and they've all got an opinion about money but there's a reason they're on tiktok okay so think about it uh you know you got to look at this You got to figure it out. And but, you know, here's the thing. If I hire a personal trainer, he walks in, he's got an eight pack and I got a keg. I got to decide if I'm going to do his plan or my plan. You know, you just got to decide which one I'm going to go with here.

Yeah. And I love what you said about very few people can be consistent and intense on three things at once. You can't. That is really powerful. I think a lot of people are seeing all this get rich quick stuff out in the market now and they think that they can do all these things and they're the one that's going to figure out the strategy of how to invest in all these cool fancy things and they're going to pay off their debt at the same time and then they wake up five years later and it did not work. Yeah. I mean it's listen that's why this whole idea of life balance is so stupid

it just doesn't work you don't have a quality life if every single day is parsed out balanced across the nine areas of your life your spiritual walk you know your physical fitness your marriage your kids your education your intellect your work life you know when you spread all those things out and try to do them all in one day nothing gets done it's true you're training for a marathon your your bible study may end up sitting to the side a little bit you're trying to read through the bible in a year you may not end up hitting the street every day and running five miles every day and it's not you're gonna something something gonna trade off baby in order for you to win at the other thing and and over the scope of your life you

need to touch all these areas but in a given day a given week or even a given season no you're not supposed to have life balance well and you'll get to those goals later and you'll get to building wealth you'll get to hang off your house that's going to come in the baby steps but be willing to make the sacrifices and do the hard now so that you can really win with those goals later live like no one else so later you can live and give like no one else. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but it yields a harvest of righteousness. This is The Ramsey Show. Dave here. We just launched a brand new audience survey for The Ramsey Show, and we'd love your feedback.

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