The Ramsey Show - App - I’m Scared for Y’all, This Is Freaking Insanity! (Hour 3)

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss: "My wife is afraid of the debt payoff process" Paying for home repairs while paying off debt, Why you shouldn't take a job just for the 401(k) match, Why the best "debt relief program" is getting a job, "Our home is 40% of our take home pay" Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 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 studios, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they really love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walsh, our Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Thank you for jumping in. Jake is with us in Tampa, Florida.

Hi, Jake. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How are you today? Better than I deserve. What's up? So, you know, I've been following the podcast, and I'm really ready to grab, you know, the bull by the horns here and really get cranking on this debt that me and my wife has. But I'm finding that she's very fearful of the process, so much so where she's almost getting paralyzed with fear

and, you know, doing nothing instead of, you know, getting after it basically. What's she afraid of? Um, she's afraid of dipping into the savings, um, getting rid of our vehicles to, you know, get cheaper ones, worrying about them breaking down, you know, a cheaper vehicle breaking down that sort of thing. And, you know, I'm really trying to get going here. She's fine with putting a little bit of extra money towards credit cards, but anything major like that, she just can't seem to get past it. So you've got a lump of cash sitting there that you've been saving up and you're wanting to put it on the debt and that's

making her feel funky. Is that right? Yeah, well, lump is the word for it. It's only about $5,000, but yeah. How much do you owe on your car? You know, it's better than nothing. How much do you owe on your car? Well, we have two trucks. You're going to kill me. me i got um 30 39 000 loan on my pickup and we have about 27 left on hers yeah what do you guys make a year you make about 130 a year y'all are freaking insane yeah that's insanity how old are you 26 uh 27 and my wife's 25 yeah like i've done this before okay

wow all right so what's happening is is that you've recognized there's a problem and that you're gonna that's a pretty extreme problem and you're gonna have to take some extreme measures to fix an extreme problem and she hasn't even recognized that there's an extreme problem yet. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, she knows there's a problem, but it doesn't seem to be. No, no, no, no. She does not think there is a problem. Not like this. Oh, we could pay a little extra on the credit cards.

That doesn't say there's a problem. You guys are freaking broke. You can't breathe. You got $80, dollars worth of stupid cars oh my god yeah i mean wow no i'm not gonna kill you i'm crying for you it's scaring me i'm more scared than your wife is and it's not even my house those those cars is that the only debt or is there more laying around uh we got the truck and then we have uh 21 000 in credit cards oh yeah well of course you do because you can't pay your bills because you have car payments so my guess is a lot of her fear you guys have never gone through financial peace you're you're picking this up from listening to

the show is that am i right I right? Yeah. Yeah. You know, my wife, or my mom used to have, you know, Dave on the radio and I, you know, listen here and there. And I, you know, I kind of realized the predicament that I'm in and I realized I really need to do something here. So my guess is that she, you're just relaying this information to her and she might be getting bits and pieces of it but she's not maybe heard it laid out in the way that she needs to in order to kind of trust this process and really see that there's a problem it sounds like you've been listening and your eyes are wide open and she's still focused on yeah but i want to be comfortable she's she's still seeing comfort more than she's seeing

like the house is on fire she doesn't see that yet yeah she's like i smell smoke but i think you can put it out yeah and you and i are like uh the house is burning down around you uh-huh yep you know we sat down we did our budget and you know she knows the numbers and you know we we went through all that but it just it just seems to be affecting me more. Because she's seeing that as normal. So you cannot start this until she is as informed and as enthused about cleaning up this mess as you are because it's simply not going to work. Because it's not that she's afraid.

It's that she's uninformed. She does not understand where you all are. She may have glanced at the numbers, but she has not swallowed them and put them in her heart. Because otherwise, she'd have heartburn. Exactly. You guys need to sit down and have a real conversation about this. And honestly, you probably need to go through Financial Peace University, which if Austin can pick up at the end of this call, he can give that to you

because that's really – If we give you that class, nine-week class, one class a week for nine weeks, and even if you took two a week for five weeks and knocked it out, will you start it with her? And can you get her to sit down and watch this with you? I can. Yes, I can do it. Okay.

Okay, because it's better if Dave. Honey, I need you to do this as a favor to me. This stuff's driving me crazy. You're not worried about it, but I can't sleep. I need your help. Please look at this with me. And let Dave and John and all the other personalities in there be the one to drive this message home and let them be the bad guy instead of you.

No, it's not a bad guy. It's not a bad guy. We're all on the same team here. We all want one thing, and that's for Jake and his wife to prosper. We want them to win. We love you. We want you to win. None of us are bad guys.

You're not a bad guy. She's not a bad guy. She just hasn't recognized where she is yet. That's right. I want her so fired up that she's like jake why haven't you already sold your truck right but if he's the one going in every night and it's like honey we need to do this with she's gonna be like so let us be the one yeah to tell her if she once she catches the vision of this she doesn't have the vision

for it that's all it is and once she catches the vision for it then it's not fear fear is not the right word it's she simply doesn't want to do it she's not afraid she's just saying no she likes being able to go and swipe that credit card i like this i like this i like this thirty thousand dollar car why why would i not like it yeah until you figure out that you're dadgum right on the verge of bankruptcy. Yeah, nobody wants to go from a nice $40,000 car to a to an old $8,000. Like that doesn't feel good, but you got to do it. Yeah, I mean when your best idea is honey we're going to sell your car, that usually doesn't go well. Yeah, so but yeah both of these

cars got to go and you all are going to get on beans and rice, and you're going to learn to live on less than you make. You make too much money to be this broke. Both of you need to get disgusted. Once you guys get out of these trucks, this is going to go lickety split. These trucks are the problem. The credit cards are not there because of credit card spending. The credit cards are there because they can't afford to live after they pay these truck payments. That's what it is.

They're squeezed. Yeah, that's been the quote safety net. And the credit card's picking up slack. So when there is no slack, then boom. You know, you'll knock them out, and you're going to have this mess cleaned up once you get rid of these ridiculous vehicles. But yeah, you have a truck that needs to be amputated. You have a truck amputation coming in the future. Amputate the Tahoe.

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Canada is next. Abram is with us. Hi, Abram. How are you? Not too bad, sir. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Wonderful. I'm just trying to wrap my head around how to prioritize some house rentals that need to happen. Now, these house rentals are more than your basic cosmetic, making it look good. They are some actual structural things, but the house is structurally sound. It's not going to fall down tomorrow, so it's not a panic structure. But I'm thinking my gut feeling is in the next five years to the max 10 years these rooms need to be dealt with. I'm just trying to wrap my head around what kind of funds do we throw at this? Is it worth throwing funds at it, knowing that our eventual goal is an acreage,

even though that price tag just seems so unachievable? Just kind of trying to prioritize that. We are on baby step two right now. Just sold our $40,000 dump yesterday and paid the dump tax on it. Okay, so what does the repairs cost? As of right now, I don't have a number, but my guess is I'm going to be anywhere between $10,000 and $30, 30, depending on what we deal with. We're actually dealing with some actual subfloors and some floor structure issues

that's translated into linoleum cracking and drywall issues. Sounds like you've got to do that to sell it anyway, don't you? Most likely, yes. Oh, okay. What's the house worth fixed? Probably around $200. Okay. What's the house worth fixed? Probably around $200. Okay. What do you make?

Between $80 and $100. And how much is in your baby step two? Well, we got $152 left on the house. That's not a baby step two. Okay. Yeah, we're just working through your book right now. Don't mind me. Okay.

Baby step two is all your debts except the house, working the debt snowball, listing them smallest to largest, and attacking them in that order. Right. Okay, so how much non-house debt do you have? $3,500 on a credit card. Got $1,100 in student loans and $ loans and 15 in a line of credit. Okay.

How long do you think it's going to take you to knock that out? I'm thinking we, my guess is a year. Okay. Well, if I added that correctly as you were saying it, it's really close to $30,000, isn't it? Pretty near, yeah. Yeah. So if you do that in a year and then you're done,

in another year, you'd have the money for the repairs. Yeah. That's what I would do. I mean, you said that these repairs are not like life-threatening. It's not like the house is going to fall in a little bit more than cosmetic, right? It can wait a year. Yeah. It's not like you just had this big water damage and you've got to, you know, do something. This is what you want to do to make the house look better. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's my own itch. Wherever I live, I got to make it better. Oh, yeah. You need to hold off on that. You got bigger goals. You got bigger goals to focus on. You got to just kind of, you know, when you're sitting on the couch at night just

just look at the tv don't look at the carpet don't look at how much better the floors could be you don't be looking at tv you need to be working and getting this debt paid off there you go even better even better yeah yeah work so much you're barely at home try that one that works too yeah so you know a repair when you're in baby step two that has to be done for safety or, you know, something that's extreme. Yes, we've got to stop and do that. But even in our case, Jade, when we were going broke all those years ago, we had no money and we're working our way through this stuff we had a leak in the roof and it was dripping down the light fixture over the kitchen table a little scary so i went over to the hardware store and got some of that black tar stuff pretty pretty white trashy yeah that i was gonna say that's the uncle boo-boo yeah that's pretty much pretty much uh

redneck dave up there on the roof smearing this this tar around right and i got that that's that tar smeared around stop the leak it looked like crap though i bet and but you know what it didn't it wasn't going to burn the house down because it wasn't running down the electrical fixture right and uh it didn't leak it just really looked awful and sharon's like embarrassed it's in the back of the house nobody i mean only the neighbors behind saw it it's not not the people on the street saw it but uh anyway it only lasted like um you know it was only like a year and a half before we paid before we paid cash and put a roof on it but we had to get the other stuff messed you know we had to just stop the leak temporarily until we could go and get the cash together

and get the debts paid off. You got to channel your inner MacGyver. That's it. That's what we did. And, you know. It's hard, though, folks, because folks are watching HGTV. I know. And they're watching all of these shows.

And everybody can just. Listen, when you're broke. Renovate. Chip and Joanna can't help. Okay. When you're broke chip and joanna can't help okay when you're broke they're no help at all they're sweet but they're they're when you're not broke you can't afford magnolia stuff i mean you're broke you know we were broke we're trying to feed kids we weren't trying to show off and so they're sweet people we like chip and joanna they're wonderful but that's that's not for broke people and they don't think their stuff's We weren't trying to show off. And so they're sweet people. We like Chip and Joanne. They're wonderful. Yeah, but we can't afford that in Baby Step 2.

But that's not for broke people. And they don't think their stuff's for broke people. No, but they've got everybody walking into their house and looking around going, oh, well, maybe I need to change these floors. Or, you know, we haven't painted in a while. Let's see. Quartz countertops or feed the baby. Yeah.

Let me think here. Hmm. Suddenly you notice the light fixture in your bathroom. Like you've never seen it before, but suddenly you notice it and you go, oh, that kind of. Yeah, I think I need one of those. I need a new one to be happy. I'll be happy then.

Thomas is with us in Las Vegas. Hey, Thomas, what's up? Hey, Dave and James. It's so great to be able to talk to you guys. I'm a little bit nervous, but excited to talk to you to you no trouble we've never lost a patient how can we help yeah i've got uh kind of a two-part question for you a career move uh right now i'm currently getting paid i'm in a niche type field called medical physics i make make $175,000. And right now, I got a job offer for another job as a medical physicist up in Utah. But the downside is that I'd be getting paid $165,000. But the retirement

contribution is 14%, which is very unique. And 3% right now is what I'm getting. And so I just kind of had two questions is how should I evaluate if I should take that job? And then also, if I do take the other job that has a 14% contribution to retirement, does that change my 15% babysat for answer to that is no, you are putting putting in 15 regardless of what they're putting in period that doesn't change okay now the question you don't take a job over retirement match that's a good point just don't okay take a job because it's the right job because i want to live in that city the upward potential is there but if you're down to where the only thing that's different is a retirement match you know that's going to wear off fast who's the best company to work for which environment is

toxic which environment's not toxic are these people known as being great people are they weird um you know what's your upside if you're if you got more upside in vegas than you do in salt lake or wherever it is in utah That's how you take the job. And where does your family want to live? You know, we love it here. We hate it here. That matters. That matters.

That's part of the equation. Take your job based on that. The retirement's just part of the thing, although that is a great match. It is. That's wonderful. But we don't take a job based on the match. Bad fishing lure. This is. That's wonderful. But we don't take a job based on the match. Bad fishing

lure. This is the Ramsey Show. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey Personality is my co-host in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. On the debt-free stage, Nathan and Ella are with us. Hey, guys.

How are you? Good. How are you? Better than we deserve. How much debt have you guys paid off? $165,000. Cool. How long did this take you?

20 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? We range from $115,000 to $175,000. Excellent. What do you all do for a living? I'm a project manager and i'm an occupational therapist in the school system phenomenal and where do you guys live we live

in raleigh north carolina oh cool welcome to nashville good so uh what kind of debt was the 165 every dime of it was my student loans whoa oh and you said occupational therapy yeah very cool okay so uh nathan that's what you signed up for it is how long you guys been married about two years how long you've been out of school uh i graduated when the world ended in may of 2020 great timing ella right fantastic just in time for the world to end just in time so what happened 20 months you know 20 months ago that you graduate you get married and pandemic hits all at the same time and you've got this huge student loan debt well tell us this story well uh you know before we got married when we were engaged we uh i was decided to start saving up money uh knowing that this was coming and part of our pre-marriage counseling we um we did financial peace university and yay pastor

way to go pastor that was self-imposed it was not required we decided to do it well way to go you two yeah we actually did it during the uh the free trials that y'all were offering at that time so yeah when the world ended we gave everybody free fpu yeah i remember yeah yeah and then uh once we got married we uh hit the ground running hit hit uh send on all of uh the money that i had saved up during that time and that she had also paid off during that time, too. How much money did you save? About $50,000. Wow.

You get married and go, all right. I made her push the button. I couldn't do it. There were tears involved. Man, that's true love right there. That's true love. I love it. It's well well done it's the way you should do it and we're joking around but it still kind of gives you a gulp yeah moment both of you

really because you're going he just took his 50k and put on my yeah and now we really are one now we really are married yeah that's that's real that's real that's good very good you guys a lot of maturity shown there excellent okay so we take 165 we drop 50 on it we're down to 115 we're making 115 now you get your new gig as an occupational therapist that kicks in come up and we go game on yep just like that just like that well and we did lots of side hustles you you know, grocery delivery. I did babysitting. I got a PRN job at a skilled nursing facility. So we did just about everything that we could. Yeah.

Even social media, TikTok, that stuff too. Wait, what do you mean by that? So we actually have a dog that's famous on TikTok right now. So the funny thing about that is, yeah, George follows her. Well, I need to know more. That her her name is maple yeah like very cool what kind of dog is that it's a vishla oh they're great dogs fantastic i've got a friend that has three of them they are fabulous so she's famous on tiktok yes she does all kinds of funny stuff i bet yeah she pays her own bills. And then some. Very cool.

Very cool. I need to get a dog that's famous on TikTok. I know, right? Get something out of these animals. Way to go. Way to go. All right, what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Well, for me, it's learning to say no so you can say yes later.

For me, it would be making a budget and sticking to it first time you did that huh yes yeah well i mean nathan you had been saying no because you have money saved yes so but it was a different kind of no this time because you're doing it together with somebody it knits you together in your first few years of marriage like nothing else does to attack this stuff. It does. It definitely gives you a purpose. Yeah. That's so good. I'm just curious.

So you had the $50,000 saved. How did that make you feel, Ella, when he was like, I'm writing the check or you push the button. But how did that make you feel when he were like, hey, this is our money. He believes that. I believe that. No shame, no guilt. We're in this

together like how did that make you feel it made me feel very loved but then I also felt very guilty every single budget meeting we had I cried because I just carried so much shame and guilt that it was my fault that we were doing this that we had to go through it how'd you get out like how did you overcome that a step one for me is always tears. And then I feel like we just talked about it a lot. And never once did he hold it over my head or blame me or anything. It was always, it's okay.

It sucks right now. But I mean, we're going to be done. And then we get to move on and do the next big thing. And now you are. Yeah. So proud of y'all well done thank you you're a neat couple very cool who uh other than the two of you who was cheering you on well i would say our family probably thought we were pretty crazy but they were very supportive of our

goal yeah you're a little weird but we love you anyway yeah yeah they're putting their dog on tiktok all right very cool well congratulations you guys we're proud of you excellent job heroes excellent job you two are heroes for sure we've got the live and give bundle for you to celebrate the baby steps millionaire's number one best-selling book and of course that's the next step for you you're on your way to doing that you knock out 165 you can have a million it's doable it's very very doable you got great careers you know how to work together and you you set yourself up to attack anything if you can slay this dragon together you can slay any other kind of dragon that comes at you uh the total money makeover book as well you'll be able to give that to somebody and that's inspired by your story that'll get started a financial peace university membership and either use it or give that as well. You'll be able to give that to somebody that's inspired by your story that'll get started. A Financial Peace

University membership and either use it or give that as well. It's all the live and give bundle. So you get to do all of it or give all of it or however you want to do it. So very very very well done. Nathan and Ella Raleigh, North Carolina

$165,000 paid off in 20 months. First order of business after graduation and marriage. Very well done. $115,000 to $175,000 income during that time. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one.

We're debt-free! Yeah! Woo-hoo-hoo! This is how it's done! Jay, people listening to that can go past, and even that young couple, rather, Nathan and Ellen, can go past real quickly. You and Sam and Sharon and I can't go past real quickly

that the number one cause of divorce in North America today is money fights and money problems. They're not going to have those. Nope. Nope. They're not going to have those. And what stood out to me very much about that is he had, for the lack of this conversation, he had his money before they were married

that he had saved. And he was willing to say, this is ours. And like she said, he didn't make us feel bad about it. With no guilt. No guilt. No guilt tripping. No guilt tripping. And I mean, she had to work through that,

but he's there all along going, no, this is ours. This is how we signed up for. When you do that. That's, you know, when you learn to be generous together, to invest together, to spend wisely together, when you control all of that, Jesus said your treasures where your heart is. When you are in agreement about where the money is going, you are in agreement about your life. Yeah. And they did that as a first order of business in their marriage. Highly unusual. It also sets them up to win there are couples that have been married 35 years that don't even

know what the other one has no well it's um it's maturity and it's letting go of your ego your ego and your need to be power trip and control that is what says no this is mine i'm going to keep this over here everything else we'll do together but I'm going to keep this over here. Everything else we'll do together, but I'm going to keep this separate to the side. It makes no sense. But if you do that. It is ego and it is power tripping. You're exactly right.

If you do that, nothing's getting in between you. Powerful couple right there, boys and girls. Y'all can take a lesson from them, regardless of your age or how long you've been married. That's how you do it right. The probability from the data we have that that couple is going to be very wealthy is very high. This is The Ramsey Show.

Our scripture of the day, Acts 20 and 24, However, I consider my life worth nothing to me. My only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me, the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace. Quincy Jones said, Every day my daddy told me the same thing. Once a task is just begun, never leave it until it's done. Be the labor great or small, do it well or not at all. I like that. Very cool.

Our question of the day comes from our sponsor, Neighborly. They are pretty incredible. They're your hub for home services. Take your home's efficiency and style to the next level with convenient solutions from shelf genie window genie and glass doctor visit neighborly.com to schedule home service professionals near you all right today's question of the day comes from damien in georgia he says i'm 45 years old and have two thousand dollars of debt i'm thinking about using a debt relief program to help get rid of that debt. Is that a mistake? Now, let's talk about this. $2,000 of debt, I don't really know why you would need any type

of consolidation for that unless maybe there's a typo and you meant $20,000 or $200,000. No matter how much debt, I would never go the consolidation route. And for several reasons. Number one, you know, when people seek out consolidation, I think they're just kind of trying to hit that easy button and find an easy way out. And they end up, you know, shifting the debt around as opposed to actually paying it off. And it's one of those things that with those consolidation companies, they're calling up the credit card companies or they're making deals that you can actually call in and do yourself. You know, I remember when Sam

and I were in debt, I'd call up the credit card companies and I try to get breaks on the interest and they do it. Or I try to move the payment date. You know, the 18th doesn't work for me. Can we move it to the third? All those things that they're doing for you, you can do that yourself and you don't need to pay somebody to do it. The other thing with those consolidation companies are, of course, they're taking all those debts. Maybe you've got 12 different ones and they're grouping it into one debt. And you're thinking, hey, I'm going to get a better interest rate on this. But that's not always the case because they're using your interest rate. It's consolidated at your interest rate based on your credit. And chances are, if you're to the point that you need a consolidation company or you think you do,

your credit's probably tanked. And so that interest rate's probably going to be worse off than what you were before. Hey, Damon, your debt relief program is called Get a Job. Yeah, you got $2,000 of debt. $2,000. Okay, dude, seriously, go mow some grass. I got to believe this is a typo two thousand dollars no it's not it's not it's it but you're exactly right jay the problem is that we're trying to

look for a way to make this easy and the way you pay off two thousand dollars is you go get two thousand dollars that's how you do it if my guy is 45 years old and is honestly thinking debt consolidation for $2,000. He is. He is. Damon, income. Go get some. That's the answer to your question. Joy's in Minneapolis. Hi, Joy. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave and Jade. How are you? Great. How can we help? Well, we're technically house poor with my irregular income, and we're so tired of being in debt. Irregular income doesn't make you house poor.

Low income makes you house poor. Okay. Okay. So my job has super irregular hours in the winter, so my husband, with just his income, we technically don't have enough income for our house. Do you work or not? I do. Why can't we count your income?

Well, just that it's really irregular. Well, I mean, how much do you make in a month? Last year, I brought in $24,000. In the year the year okay how much do you make in a month around two um around two yeah yeah okay that's not what's causing your problem it's the fact that you're not making money so what's your husband i have two kids that are... It's okay. What's your husband make? My husband made $56,000 last year. Okay. And so you have a $80,000 household income. What's your house payment?

$1806.71. Good Lord. Yeah. I know. We moved right when the whole house thing... Yeah, but you bought a house you can't afford yeah there's a yes joy i'm hearing a lot of excuses every time dave says something you're going yeah but well but and we had to do this and we had i i think you got to

get it straight in your head what's really gone on, which is you've got the irregular income. You had the irregular income before you bought the house, and you guys chose to buy a house and spend too much for it. I feel like you've got to get that straight in your head because if you don't get those facts straight in your head, we're not going to be able to solve any problems for you today. So one of two things is going to happen. Your income is going to go up dramatically in the next 24 months,

or you're going to have to sell this house. You bought a house you can't afford. Okay. That's the numbers. I'm sorry. But it's killing you. That's why you called, wasn't it? I don't know.

I'm tired of being in debt. We're on step three. I understand. I understand. But the reason is the reason you're crying is you're starving to death. So if your irregular income was $24,000 in one month and nothing, the rest of the year and you use the 24, that's the most extreme irregular income I can think of,

right? That's a lot of irregular. Um, and you could just spread out the 24 000 throughout the year and you put it with his 56 it doesn't pay this house payment does it well i crunched the numbers and if we took if we could win gazelle intense for six years six years you can't hold off a 40 a payment that's 40 of your income you can't do that for six years. Six years? You can't hold off a 40% payment that's 40% of your income. You can't do that for six years. Nope.

It's going to blow up somewhere. Something's going to happen, and there's going to be debt starting to pop up other places because you can't pay your bills, you can't eat. It's killing you. It's killing you. Is there a way that your 24K can increase or become or his yeah can we see can we see either one of your incomes coming up dramatically um not his he's already working 50 60 hours a week and i but can he change careers could he do something with this career that goes up um not per se i mean i could work more days a week but when we did that last year

our marriage almost ended no yeah it's not worth it it's just a house a stupid house on every corner i'm not putting my kids or my marriage on the block of a stupid house so y'all sit down look look at this tonight, okay, and just write it all out and look at it and go, I think this thing is taking more of our joy than it's adding. Okay. Because I think that's what the math is telling me. I think it's stealing your, you're tired, you're stressed,

everything's got, there's no margin. Everything's metal on metal. It sparks. You know, there's nothing smooth anymore. It's all rough. Does that sound right? I mean, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel when we finished step two. Six years? Yeah.

So your take-home pay on 80 is about 5K, and your payment's almost 2K. Did I miss something? Our taxable income last year was 80, yeah. Yeah, I know, 80. It's your take-home pay, but we're on 5. That's about right a month. I think so.

Yeah. You guys got to sit down and look at what you've got coming in, because that's where all this is coming from. You can try whatever you want to try. You're grown-ups, but you called us, and we're going to tell you, I wouldn't live with a house payment at 40% of my take-home pay for six years because that's a ticking time bomb. When the transmission goes on the car, you've got no margin. When you need a new car and you've got to save up and pay cash for it, you don't have the margin to do it.

When the kid's sick, you don't have the margin to cover it. There's no margin. It's metal on metal. Everything's friction. Everything sparks. And it's just too short. And, you know, I'm going to work overtime for a house only because I bought something I can't afford. I wouldn't.

Yeah. I wouldn't. Jade, good hour. Thanks for a good show, rather. Thanks for being with me. Good stuff. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it.

In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade. Look, if you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey Baby Steps, go to ramseysolutions.com and click the Get Started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation. That's ramseysolutions.com and click Get Started.