The Ramsey Show - App - I'm Struggling To Find Motivation While in Nursing School (Hour 1)

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studio. This is the Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. My name is Anthony O'Neill, Ramsey personality, and also host of the popular YouTube and podcast show, Call to Table, with your one and only Anthony O'Neill. And today I am hosting the show in the absence of the great man himself, the legend, my mentor and boss man, Dave Ramsey, and the other personalities who are out there impacting the world in Dallas, Texas, encouraging and uplifting and inspiring entrepreneurs to become better. And so I'm here taking your phone calls.

We're going to be talking about everything around life, around money, around relationships, around starting a business. And so if you want to give us a call, phone lines are open. We have about maybe one or two lines open right now. Kelly's on standby. She's the boss today. So she'll let me know if I can talk to you or not. So give us a call, 888-825-5225, 888-825-5225.

Let Kelly know that you would love to jump on the phone with me, and we're going to talk about your money. We're going to talk about your life. We're going to talk about how to secure the bag, a.k.a. how to make money and keep the money, how to pay off your debt, you know, and also to, you know, oftentimes when I'm on a show, we get a lot of relationship questions and I want to be clear. I want to be clear. I am not the relationship personality. I am not a relationship expert.

I think for me, I speak from the area of being a single man, and I believe that relationships impact how we deal with money. It impacts how we look at money. I remember growing up, some of the reasons why I got into debt, when I really stepped back and I look at my story, I was 18 and a half years old, $35,000 in debt. In America, when I look at what I spent on that money, fifteen thousand dollars of that was credit card debt. Ten thousand dollars of that was student loan debt when I didn't even need student loans. And then another ten thousand dollars of that was on furniture.

All of that, I would say about seventy five percent of that was to impress the peers that I had, was to impress the ladies that I was trying to attract was to impress the brothers I was trying to attract I remember my very first credit card my very first credit card was $500 I spent it in a matter of 13 hours $150 in Red Lobster within a matter of four hours of having the credit card $150 I took a young lady out to red lobster we had all you can eat biscuits that was free all you can eat crab legs all you can eat you know whatever you want at red lobster and so when a lot of people ask me anthony why do you talk about relationships like are you are you what's wrong because i believe that relationships especially for young

people not just young people all people um tend to impact how we look at money, how we respond to money, how we why we spend the things that we want. You may go buy this particular car because you want to impress the people that are within your particular circle. You may go buy this particular purse as we may go buy this particular bag just so you can impress the people that are around you. And can I keep it real with y'all in America? Because it's just me today. David and my app. I still, as a money guy,

I still have to remind myself every single day to be a good steward over your money and to check my emotions and to check my personal things that I deal with. Because every single day when I get the money, I'm like, yo, I can go do this. I can go do that. And every single day I gotta wake up and tell myself,

no, no, Anthony, no, no, you don't need this. You don't need two cars. You don't need this big old house. You don't need this. You don't need that. And sometimes I have to gut check myself. And so that's what we're talking about today. We're just going to keep it real right here on the Ramsey

Show. Give us a call. 888-825-5225. Again, the number here is 888-825-5225. And Franklin is with us in Atlanta, Georgia. Good afternoon, Franklin. How can we help? Good afternoon, Anthony. How are you doing?

Man, I'm doing all right, man. You know, if Dave was here, he would, you know, say a lot of good stuff. But for me, I'm just going to say I'm all right today, man. How can I help you? Well, we are wondering if it would be unwise to move up in-house, kind of appropriate given what you were just talking about. So just calling in for a gut check. Okay. Okay. Okay. Talk to me. You already own a home right now? Yeah, we have two homes. We've got a primary residence. It's about 800 and we owe 320 on it. Okay. We have a rental property that's about 300 and we owe 100 on it. Okay. Other than that, no debt. Current income about 230, shortly about to be 270 to 300. Okay. What do you do?

I do events, and my wife is in health care. Oh, nice, man. You do events. I like that, brother. We may need to talk offline because we need to bring events back to America. Okay. So we have no debt. How much money do you have in your savings account right now?

We've got three months outside, you know, emergency fund, and then we've got about another $170,000 in a taxable account. Okay. All right. All right. So we've got about three months. All right. Sounds good.

Now, let me answer this question. Because you're making good money, you have no debt, you have a fully funded savings account, so it sounds like you're in a healthy place. So let's, financially, you are there. Why do you want to go up in-house? We've been there for about nine years. I think my wife and I both kind of have an itch to move. I recently had two children and we're on a pretty busy street there in Atlanta.

Okay. And it's also a 100-year-old house that lacks some of the, I mean, it's a nice house, but it's, you know, just lacks some of the amenities that, I mean, it's a nice house, but it's, you know, just lack some of the amenities that you have in a newer home. Okay. All right. Sounds good.

Um, 800 K you owe 300 on it. Uh, so you have about five, 500 K in equity. When you say you want to go up in house, are we talking about crossing over to seven figures for a home? Uh,

probably be, yeah, right at a million. I think so. We're looking at right at a million. I think, is what we're looking at. Right at a million. All right, cool. Let me answer this question.

Do you need it? Do we need it? No. Okay. The other thing is, you know, we're going to have both homes paid off in the next four years. I think the plan is to move then anyway. Move to where? I'm wondering if you're away from Georgia. Just a new house.

No, just stay in Georgia. Just a nicer house, not on a busy street. Come on the neighborhood where the kids can play. OK, cool, cool, cool, cool. I kind of like this plan of paying off in four. And would you sell this primary and keep your rental so you can go ahead and take that eight hundred thousand dollars in equity and put it towards more than likely your dream home then? Correct. OK, all right. I like that. And break down your dream home then? Correct. Okay. All right. I like that.

And break down your dream home for me real quick. Is this a 5,000-square-foot home, 6,000-square-foot home? Is this, you know, pool? Like, what's making this a home better, a better option for where you currently are today? Really the same size. We're just looking for, you know, all our bathrooms are super small. You know, 100 years ago, closets were super small.

Everything about it's just kind of not geared towards life. And, again, I think the bigger thing is a different location where we can be in a better school district neighborhood where someone with a kid can run around and not worry about getting run over on this busy street. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Well, here's the thing, Franklin. I would tell you this. If I was in your shoes, I would go ahead and hold off. I will go ahead and pay off my rental property. I will go ahead and pay off this home, then use that equity, $800,000 put towards that. And then I'm going to tell you what I also would do. I would go ahead and just try and pay cash for the next home, put $200,000 with it.

You're making the income to get there and then from there man you have a dream home paid for cash rental property paid for cash and you're sitting good so I'm not saying no don't do it now what I'm saying is just delay it a little bit hold off a little bit and then go go after your dreams hey y'all this is Anthony O'Neill right here on the Ramsey show I'm taking your phone calls 888-825-5225. We'll be right back. Your number one wealth building tool is your income. For business owners, this comes as no surprise, as you're used to putting in extra hours and watching your bottom line. That's why Christian Healthcare Ministries, or CHM, is a great option for those who are faith-focused and budget-conscious.

CHM is not health insurance. Rather, it's a health cost-sharing program. It's not harder, but it is different. To learn if CHM is a fit for you or your business, visit chministries.org slash budget. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show here, America. Did you all know that our famous $10 sale is almost over? Learn how to make faster and real progress with your money when you check out our famous $10 sale. Save up to 60% on over 40 best-selling books and budgeting tools like the one and only The Graduate Survival Guide and The Total Money Makeover. Plus, these make for great gifts. Shop our $10 sale at the online store, ramsolutions.com.

Plus, check this out. We have a huge gift for you as well. You can enter to win our Ramsey Cash giveaway. But hurry on up. The giveaway ends at the end of this month, May 31st. We're giving away $500 cash every week and a grand prize. Wait for it. $5,000. We're giving away $500 cash every week and a grand prize. Wait for it.

$5,000. Oh, my goodness. Enter daily for extra chances to win. No purchase necessary. Must be 18 or older to win. Text cash to 33789 to enter our giveaway right now. And let me say this, too, because this is something I think is very, very important. The average college student will graduate with about $35,000 in student loan debt. A fifth of these young people will graduate with a mortgage payment, don't even own

real estate. So they'll graduate with $100,000, $200,000, $300,000 in student loans, and they don't own anything but a piece of paper and so one of the best books that i think you can get right now during this graduating season is the graduate survivor guide here's why i love the graduate survivor guide because i think it's one of the best books out there we go through the five mistakes you can't afford to make in college and these are all the five mistakes that i made in college okay then on top of that rachel cruz dave's daughter comes in and she talks about how she avoided these five mistakes so what i love about this book is it's not a bunch of fluff it's not a bunch of hey go drink no

anthony made these mistakes here's why and how i made these mistakes here's what i learned from these mistakes and rachel and i talk about how you can avoid them and how rachel avoid them this is a great book to give to every high school student who is graduating um and even if they've already graduated even if they are a freshman in in college it's a great book and to get it for ten dollars right now you know, Dave is gone. But I'm a talk to him when he comes back, because I mean, that's cheap. That's very, very cheap to give away my book for ten dollars. And so I'm a talk to the boss, man, and let him know, like, hey, you know, we need to we need to end this real quick, because that's a great book for ten bucks.

So I want you to take advantage of it, because promise you um it will bless a high school student um all you gotta do is text grad i want you to do this right now text grad to 33789 text grad g-r-a-d to 33789 and you can get this book for this book for ten dollars to bless and help our young people avoid the student loan crap that is going on right now. We want to set them up to win in their future. We don't want to set them up to fail. We're not saying that college is bad. We're just saying that graduating college with student loans, that's not the move. That's not what we want.

And so I'm excited about that $10 sale. But let's go out to my home city, man, Oceanside, California. Let's talk to RJ. What's going on man how are you this afternoon I am doing great Anthony how about you man man I'm doing real good I have not on this show I cannot remember I won't be am I correct yeah I have not talked to anyone from Oceanside California you know I went right there to Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School went to El Camino High School for one semester. Which is cool. So, you know, I love it, man.

Camp Pendleton. Home of Camp Pendleton. So, let's go. Let's go. How can we help, man? Let's go. I just got married to the love of my life in the beginning of March. Congrats.

Thank you. Thank you so much. And last night we sat down to see how much do we have saved up for a home purchase. And we're at $25,000. Okay. And our goal is to get to 50. And I'm just trying to think, is that too low of a goal? Like we can easily hit that within a year. I'm trying to think if she would say save up for more or less, especially since we're just starting out our marriage. Yeah, man, that's such a great question. Again, congrats on being married to the the love of your life that is a huge accomplishment so i want to take a little bit of time to celebrate that um let's let's let's dive

in here a little bit rj um because before i can talk to you about a mortgage do y'all have debt with y'all just now getting married no she paid off her car loan as my birthday present to me, and we are debt-free, and we have a $10,000 emergency fund. Okay, so we have a 10K emergency fund already in California. Is that three months? That sounds a little low for three months. That is about three months' worth. I mean, we can move up to $15,000, but we already have it saved up. Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.

I would suggest in Cali, especially in Oceanside, I would suggest move that up to about $5,000 more, to $15,000. And then the key thing here is we don't really have a set dollar amount. We have a set percent on what we want you to focus on. The goal, of course course let's just be real is you put down 100 all right but we're not going to do that in this situation the second goal is 20 down and 20 is so that you can avoid pmi uh then the bare minimum goal r RJ, is 10%. So how much of a house are you trying to get into? What's your budget? We were thinking about a $500,000 home in Oceanside.

That's what we're going for. That's two bedrooms, two baths. And if we needed to get a condo before we did that, we were also thinking about that, maybe a $400,000 or $300,000. How old are you two? I'm 27, and she turns 30 tomorrow okay you got you an older woman haha let's go i know i'm married up and you're married on up brother i like that very own up i like that i need to take some notes from you bro um okay so here here we

go so if you're going for a a five hundred thousand dollar home right so if you do the bare minimum of what not the bare minimum but if you do the bare minimum of what, not the bare minimum, but if you do the goal of 20%, that's $100,000, all right? And so that's 20%. Now, if we take $500,000 and times that by 10%,

then yeah, you'll be at $50,000 and you said you can hit that within one year. I kind of like the fact, and I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just going to give you some options. If you want to get the home in Oceanside, California at a half a mil, then yeah, you can go for that. I would definitely say do the bare minimum of $50,000.

And if you can wait two more years, save up another $50,000, go ahead and get the $100,000 to buy in your house. But if I'm young yourself in my 20s um and just hitting the 30s with my spouse i i would look into a condo first just to get our feet wet into the mortgage world into you know the ownership world and then as our income grows because what's your income right now uh i'm at 42 000 and she's at 52,000. Okay. So you have 52. All right. So we're at 94,000. So $94,000 divided that into 12, we're looking at about 78. So y'all probably bringing home about, about $6,200 a month times that by 25%.

Your mortgage is only going to be about $1,500 a month. Okay. If you look at 25% of your take home pay. All right. And so that's going to be a little bit less than $500,000. All right. So what I'm going to suggest to you is to look into a condo, maybe get a condo for right around three 50, put down the $50,000. You get into it very smoothly. You all are living very comfortably, especially at a new, um, in a new season of your life, being married. Now here's the next thing I'm gonna tell you with you all just now getting married. I would sit for a year. I would sit for a year, shop around, write down some goals. You

and your wife sit down and write down what is the ultimate goal for you all? Where do y'all want to eventually retire at? How many kids do you want? What kind of income do you want to have? Do y'all want to eventually retire at how many kids do you want what kind of income do you want to have do y'all want to start a business down the road i think that you all need to establish a clear vision for the for the family and a clear why and then backtrack yourself there but as far as in a mortgage man i'm sticking with the condo in the very beginning so that way you all live in very comfortably because i think you're going to need to be right around $350,000 to be comfortable, especially within the start of this marriage, man. Sounds good?

Sounds good. Thanks for the advice. Hey, man. Thank you so much for calling in from the beautiful city of Oceanside, California, man. Some of the best water out there. I remember growing up out there, man. It was a beautiful city.

I almost said something, but I don't want to get in trouble with Nashville, but it's such a beautiful city. Oceanside, California. The weather is beautiful. Nashville weather is... It's Nashville. Hey, this is Anthony

O'Neal right here on The Ramsey Show. I'm taking your phone calls. 888-825-522525 we'd love to talk to you about your life your money give us a call we'll be right back welcome back to the ramsey show my name is anthony o'neill ramsey personality and host of the popular uh podcast and youtube show the table with anthony o'neill make sure you go over to youtube and check it on out type in the name anthony o'neill and check out some of the latest videos that I have. One of the most recent videos that I have is with one of my good friends, Sarah Jakes Roberts, the daughter of Bishop T.D. Jakes and the CEO and president of Woman Evolve. And we dive in deep. She actually took over my show and started asking me some personal questions about myself and why i'm single and uh and so i answered those questions honestly so if you want to know those answers you don't get it on the

ramdy show you only can get it on my show but uh with youtube being one of my largest platforms and talking ben sent in a question on youtube and ben says hey anthony how's how is someone supposed to pay for college in cash right out of high school if their parents didn't set up an ESA? And for those of you are wondering what is ESA, it's called an educational savings account. And now some banks are no longer offering ESAs. They're only offering 529 savings account and these are both college accounts that parents can open up to start saving and investing money into to get some compound interest to only go towards college well this is a great question one of the questions that i am asked often especially on youtube on my

instagram and even when i'm out traveling which is one of the main reasons why i wrote my book debt-free degree um the step-by-step guide on how to get into college 100 debt free because a lot of people think you cannot pay cash for college but let me be honest with you ben some of the ways i'm going to say are not popular they're not cool um some of your friends may look at you weird but we first got to identify where are we going and why do we want to go to college? Because not every career field requires a this great state of Tennessee, here in Nashville, Tennessee. He doesn't have a four year degree, but he did go to barber school and his barber school only cost him maybe about six grand to get his license. And the man can cut real good. And you know what?

He owns two shops and he's starting to open up a actual barber school but it was a six thousand dollar investment let's say if you want to be a school teacher yes you need a four-year degree but you don't have to go to uh four years immediately you maybe you can go to a two-year school and if you live here in the state of tennessee if your grades are right through tennessee promise you can get it paid for for free and then you could transfer to a local in-state school now let's let's live right there ben okay uh local in-state school on average going to cost you anywhere between 8 000 and 10 000 max 11 000 a year for tuition and for books now if you stay home if you eat at home, if you transport yourself back and forth to school from home,

that's only about $850 a month that you would need to come up with to go to school for free. Now, if you work part-time, let's say 20 hours minimum, 20 to 25 hours a week, making bare minimum about $15 to $16 an hour, you can pay cash for school, okay? So I think what we really have to do is start stepping back and looking at all of our options.

So Ben, the very first thing is you gotta take debt off of the table. That's the very first thing. Student loans, private loans, credit cards, none of that is an option. When we take debt off of the table, then let's look at, OK, what do I want to do? If I want to be a school teacher, if I want to be a doctor, if I want to be a lawyer, then I have to go to school. If I want to be a welder, if I want to be a carpenter, if I want to work on a season, let me tell you all something. I just had my AC looked at i paid this man 250 for one out

for one hour that's a lot of money i'm like i i'm in the wrong field how you made 250 an hour you know just come here to tell me i need to add a little bit of cooling to my ac so listen there are so many different routes that you could do, but you can go to trade school. You can do an apprentice program. You can go to a two year university. You can go to a four year university. But you got to step back and look at all of your options. You can go into the military, serve four years there and then take care of your school.

You can go get a job in some programs, not programs but some jobs like here at rams solutions we offer tuition reimbursement so if you want to graduate college debt free you can here's the problem that i see in america people do not want to put up the work up front what they want to do is go the easy route and then it costs them 20 to 30 years later. The average person is walking into school, taking out student loans, Ben, and say, you know what, I'm going to get this job and I'll be able to pay off my student loans within three years. That's not factual. The average person is taking them 20 years minimum to pay back their student loans. On average, we're seeing anywhere between 20 and 30 years. So, Ben, I would honestly not worry about, you know, taking out student loans. I would just step back and look at all of your options and see, does this particular career field require a four year degree? absolutely nothing wrong with trade school. There is absolutely nothing wrong with getting, you know, going to a community college. The key thing is graduate, get the education you need,

100% debt free. Russell is with us in Houston, Texas. Good afternoon, Russell. How can I help? Hey, Anthony. Thanks for taking my call and thanks for all you're doing, man. Your ministry's awesome. You and Dave are helping a lot of people out, so I appreciate it. Oh man, thank you. Yeah, so I don't necessarily have too much of a question. It's more just kind of like looking for encouragement from you guys. I'm in nursing school, so I'm 37 years old and I quit a pretty decent paying job. I'm married for four years and my amazing wife is, you know, working a cute little tail off to keep the lights on and everything. Yeah, I'm halfway through my two-year program.

You know, learning during COVID is definitely a challenge. And, you know, I just want to, I guess, get some words of encouragement for you guys being halfway through the program and it being, you know, kind of challenging, you know, just to make sure that, you know, the future is super bright for this decision I made. Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. Why did you make this decision? A number of reasons. We had our daughter about two years ago, and the care that we received at the hospital was amazing. It really touched my heart, and, you know, I have a heart for people, and the job that I was doing, I was the manager of a restaurant. And, uh, that was like

my biggest skillset was being able to, you know, to relate to people and complete strangers. And, um, you know, I know I'm in the right, right position. It's just like, man, the, the incline is just, it's, it's, it's steep right now with this third and fourth semester coming up, you know? Yeah, yeah. It sounds like you experience something at the hospital that you want to duplicate and do as well. You want to help people have good experiences when they walk into the hospital. Am I correct? Yeah.

And then also, you know, the opportunities that the position or that I guess the job market for nurses entails, uh, it's, it's pretty epic. You know, I'd be able to, we'd be able to move our family if we wanted to and get work pretty much anywhere and, and you can work as much as you want and still get, you know, and get over time. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Here's the thing what I want to recommend, uh,

to you Russell is I want you to spend some time with you and your wife. And I want you to step back, you know, put your kids to sleep, cut off social media, cut off the phones. And I say this often. And I really want you to write down your why. And I want you to ask yourself why five times when you when you answer the first question of why answer. Ask that question again well why do you want that you see one of the things that keeps me motivated is not something that really makes me smile sometimes it's something that makes me emotional and cry you see because i believe if your why if our why doesn't make us cry then the price of commitment will make us cry so i would

really ask yourself and ask your wife, why are we making the decisions that we are making? Why does this impact us so much? Why do we want this so much? And when you get that why deep down in your soul, deep down in your gut, you're not going to really need too much more motivation because your why is going to push you. Your why is going to stretch you. Your why is going to give you the energy that you need when you feel like giving up because that why is so deep. When you think about that why, it makes you cry. You see, America, I came into this world crying, but I'm going to leave this world smiling because I'm going to leave this world giving peace, joy, freedom, options, and business and wealth to my kids. That's my why. That's why I do what I do.

This is The ramsey show welcome back to the ramsey show my name is anth O'Neill, Ramsey personality and host of the popular podcast and YouTube show, The Table with Anthony O'Neill. I want to encourage you to go over there and check it on out. I promise you, you will be blessed and you'll enjoy it. But right now, we're on the Ramsey Show and I'm taking your phone calls. 888-825-5225. And Chris is with us out of Dallas, Texas. Good afternoon, Chris. How can I help?

Hi, Anthony. How are you doing? Man, I'm doing well, man. Thanks so much for calling in, man. How can I help? Awesome. I have a question about budgeting and my student loans slash with a thinking fund for housing. A little bit about my story

and background. I'm 26 and my fiancee, I'm engaged. She's 24. Okay. Congrats, man. And thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that.

She's in law school. She just finished her second year. She has one more year left. And I'm currently a high school teacher for special education. It's my first year of teaching. So my monthly, my net income is $3,498. And then also, unfortunately, we do have student loans combined. We're about a hundred thousand and we were doing some budgeting and we're trying to,

cause we want to attack our student loans as fast as we can. But since she's not working right now, um, she's making small income, but not a lot. Uh, we only have maybe around like $200 extra to throw at the loans each month, which is really not a lot until she gets a job next year. So I kind of wanted some guidance on that. And then also just the housing fund, because I wanted to do a thinking fund so we can stay in a good part of Dallas, or not even a good part, but just a safe place, and just to have that money set aside, because I don't know what the 25% budget, I don't know if I'll be able to stay there. Yeah.

For my, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So the good thing is, you're in Dallas, Texas. Are you in Dallas, or are you in the outskirts of Dallas, Chris? I'm in the outskirts. I live in Louisville. Okay, I know exactly where Louisville is. My god sister, Ashley, is a middle school teacher out there. And so I know exactly where you are,

man. And the good thing, though, is the cost of living is not that expensive in Dallas. So that's a good thing. Okay. Here's what I want to, let's backtrack here. You have $100,000 in student loans. What other kind of debt do you have? That's it. That's it. I did have a credit card, but I paid that off. Okay. Did you cut it up, Chris?

Yes, cut it up. I did it. I went no more parts of that. Okay. Does your fiance have any credit cards? No. Okay. Did you cut it up, Chris? Yes, cut it up. I did it. I went no more parts of that. Okay. Does your fiance have any credit cards? No. Okay. All right. Sounds good. When are y'all getting married? August 21st. August 21st, right around the corner. Okay, cool. How y'all paying for the marriage, for the wedding?

We're actually paying for it ourselves. We have help from our parents and her, but primarily we're paying for it. And honestly, this is a little praise for it, but we saved up about $8,000 within two months. Okay, now wait, now hold on. Wait, wait, wait. Let's rewind because we may need to talk about this wedding. We got $8,000 going towards the wedding. We got $100,000 in debt. I mean, talk to me.

I don't want to knock the dreams. Right. We wanted something a little bit more traditional in a way. We didn't really want to do the courthouse. But I said we can do the best we can and then let's just maximize what we can do. We wanted something somewhat nice. Okay. I ain't mad at it.

I mean, I'm not mad at it. The average wedding in America right now is way more than $8,000. So I'm not mad at that. But let monthly expenses and then also with my tax return and then the stimulus checks i just do all that money together i got you i got you all right so here here's here's the thing when you get married you're not going to be living at home you're all going to be you know exactly getting your own apartment all right and so um here's what i'm going to recommend, Chris, is you're going to have to figure out how to get your income up a little bit more and not just a little bit more, a lot more. This may mean that maybe your your your fiance may have to consider working something when she's out of out of school for the day. How does she pick up stuff on the weekend? If you all really want to get out of debt at your age, I want to see both of you all, not both of you all because you're about to be married,

I want to see you all out of debt before you turn 29, 30 years old. I want you debt-free by that time. And so we need to figure out how do we get some extra income coming in. Maybe you drive for Uber when you get out of school maybe you figure out something to do i know you're about to be newly married and i i cannot give you advice on marriage i do not want to give you advice on marriage uh call back in and talk to dave about that part but i would definitely say this that i want you to really take these next three years seriously you all living way below your means figure out

what can you all do to get an extra two grand into the house that you can put all towards your debt okay that's 24 that's going to be about an extra $24,000 you know a

year and then if you can do that man y'all could be debt free within a matter of, I'll say three to four years by the time you turn 30, you know? And so right now, the key thing is how do we figure out how to live way below your means? When you all go out, man, your rent should be right around 20% because rent is not going to be that expensive in Dallas. You can find something right around a thousand max, twelve hundred bucks a month. Then from there, if you don't have any car notes, if you don't have anything, you all just have your regular monthly expenses. So you should be right at about about two thousand

dollars that you all are using to spend and to live. So you got like another fourteen hundred bucks that you can play around with to put on top of these student loans. I don't want you to focus on trying to build up a sinking fund to get a house. No, I want you to focus on just put $1,000 in your emergency account, then knock out these student loans.

Then let's go ahead and build up the savings account to our fully three to six months. And for both of you all having good solid careers, man, I'm cool with y'all having three months, bare minimum. That's cool. I'm cool with y'all having three months bare minimum that's cool I don't need y'all to stretch to six months

then let's focus on building a sinking fund to go ahead and get a home but right now I want you to really be gazelle intense about getting this debt out of the pocket within the next three years and to do it within three years you need to figure out a way to do

$33,000 pretty much. Awesome. Okay. And that's not going to be too hard with two people. Okay. You know, it's not going to be too hard. You guys are young. I mean, I wish I had someone talk to me at 26 and at 24 years old,

tell me to, you know, keep grinding. And you have a great career, man. I mean, and shoot, you're a school teacher. I mean, what did you get your degree in? Is it in, are you in math? What's your degree in? Actually, my degree was in criminal justice. And then I kind of switched it up after I graduated

and I went into an alternative certification program and got my teaching through that. So have you thought about maybe tutoring on the side? Maybe tutoring online? I haven't thought about it, no. Because I kind of really don't know what i would tutor except for maybe like social studies that's where i kind of strong suit in okay hey man i'll go to tutor.com i'm gonna give you that right now tutor.com and uh type in your specialty uh tell them you i mean they'll ask you some good questions

and i'm telling you right now you'll make some good money. I know people making anywhere from fifty five to one hundred and ten dollars an hour on Tudor dot com. So if you can figure out if you can see if social studies is a need on Tudor dot com, which I think it will be, you know, if that's your strong point, man, why not go ahead and make some money on the side using that gift and that skill? If you want to keep your fiance from working so she can focus on graduating here in the near future. But I would definitely recommend looking at that and figuring out how can we get an extra two grand in. Sounds good? Awesome.

Awesome. Thank you, Anthony. I appreciate it. Thank you, Chris. Appreciate you. You see, one of the things, America, that we really have to step back and really look at, if you really want success, if you really want to be debt free, you have to be willing to do the things that unsuccessful people are not willing to do. second job to get three jobs. I remember watching my, my biological mother work three jobs. She'll work her eight to five job in the school district in the morning. She'll get off and go to the Christian bookstore.

Then after that, on the weekend, she'll work for target back in the days, not target Kmart. Kmart is no longer around, but she did that because we just needed that to survive. So, Hey,

you want to be successful? Be willing to do the things that unsuccessful people are not willing to do. And unsuccessful people are not willing to put in some extra hours or a card and do the things that they need to be doing. But that's not what we're doing here on The Ramsey Show. Hey, that's a wrap for this hour. Thank you all so much. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Kelly,

associate producer for The Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but if you heard about an event, product, or service and didn't have a chance to write it down, don't worry. We list everything you've heard about during this episode in the podcast show notes section or head to theramseyshow.com. Thanks for listening.