The Ramsey Show - App - In Debt For A Masters In Jazz Singing?! (Hour 1)

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where we help you win in your life, specifically your money, your work, and your relationship. The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. I'm Ken Coleman, thrilled to be joined by George Camel with a K. And we are here for you this hour. George is our resident money expert today. I'll help you in areas of work that is very much tied to your money when we're talking about income.

So if you're feeling stuck, confused, burned out, overlooked, and you're a little bit worried about whether or not you can make a professional move, while in the baby steps, I assure you, you can. And I'm here to help on those questions. We team up on all of it. George, you ready to go? We have a good time, Ken. Always a good Friday when I'm joined with you.

It's always good to see what you're wearing today. I like that you've got an ensemble here. I'm going for the fall, you know, the autumnal wardrobe. You look like you've stepped out of a J.Crew ad. I was going for more of a Tim the Toolman Taylor, but I'll take J.Crew. Yeah, I don't think you'll ever achieve Tim the Toolman Taylor. I can turn a wrench if need be. Yeah, so can I, but just in the air.

I can turn a wrench around. That's where we're served best. George and I stay away from the tools, but we can help you. And by the way, before we get to the phones, I want to acknowledge a fabulous crowd out in the studio, live studio audience in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. So great to have people to look at. Yeah, we're very excited. Sometimes when it's empty, we get depressed, but these people out there, fabulous looking. They look very excited to be here. We know they're disappointed that Dave isn't, but they're pressing through. They're pressing through.

That's your tagline, press on. Press on. So thank you very much. Let's go. 888-825-5225. Tim joins us in the Windy City, Chicago, Illinois. Tim, how can we help? Hey, guys.

How are you doing today? We're having a blast. What's up? Hey, so just, I guess, a two-part question. So looking at a potential layoff at my place of employment, so they came in and reduced the workforce by roughly 30%. To my surprise, I was not one. I was fully expecting to be one let go, but I wasn't, and I've been assured that there's no more cuts coming. So my question is, you know, what could I do to prepare myself financially

in the event that that comes? You know, do I start seeking other employment? Do I make a generous salary? So do I ride it out? All right, let's jump in there. So had there not been company layoffs, would you be asking me the question about looking at someplace else? So potential, I mean, I've always explored other opportunities, Would you be asking me the question about looking at someplace else? So, potential.

I mean, I've always explored other opportunities, but never really, you know, thoroughly gone through with anything. But, you know, I was kind of actively looking, but I guess I was one foot in, one foot out. Okay. Well, since you were actively looking, I would continue to look. It doesn't mean you have to leap, And we actually don't teach that you leap anyway. If we're talking about really leaping to something or just kind of, well, I'm going to leave and then I'm going to go find something. So if you were already looking, Tim, I would continue to look. There were reasons why you were looking. I'd continue to look, but I wouldn't be

looking out of fear. I would be looking towards my future. Where know, where do I want to be in five years, 10 years, 15 years down the line? That needs to be the dominant question here because you're not truly happy or fulfilled or you wouldn't be looking. Is that fair? Yeah, it's a fair statement. I mean, my end goal is I want to, you know, somewhat part-time, go part-time around 50. You know, myself and my wife, we've worked extremely hard to clear our debts. So we don't have much overhead debt. I do some freelance real estate stuff. I try and flip

a house a year. I just got my first rental this year. But with that said, I also have that flexibility with my current job, whereas I'm afraid if I jump somewhere else, that flexibility will be gone. Something to think about. And, you know, one thing I would mention too, instead of just flipping all the time, because flipping requires a purchase, there's risk there. If you've got your real estate license, I don't know if you do, but if you do, and you've got work flexibility, you know, I'd be trying to sell five to 10 houses a year, or let's set a goal for three houses. And we put that money aside.

That's why I want to bring George in. I give people advice to always have some extra income. Some side income is good. I think he's got that with the real estate play. But just from a planning standpoint, we shouldn't be walking around George expecting to get laid off all the time, but we should have a plan. Where do you fall on a three to six month emergency fund versus being used for major emergencies versus a layoff? Because I would tell people, get back to work as quick as possible. What's your advice financially? How do we prepare financially, not just professionally? For sure. Well, one is getting out of debt. It sounds like, Tim, you don't have any consumer debt right now? So we have one auto loan, which is my pickup truck, and then

our primary home that we live in, and then my rental property, and that's literally it. Okay. So the auto loan needs to be your priority right now. If you're truly worried about this layoff happening, I want no debt in my life. I want to owe less people money so that I can float by longer if I need to use that emergency fund. I'm guessing you don't have an emergency fund then? Yeah, I'm sitting on a little bit of cash, which is, you know, I was planning on using towards our next property purchase. So I'd say probably right around $15,000 in cash. And what's left on the auto loan? Probably $33,000. What do you guys make? So my wife, she just started doing some work. So she's

knocking down maybe $400 or $500 a week. And I think this year I'll probably do $115,000 in my primary source of income. Okay. Awesome. So you've got a great income there, but I want to see this auto loan debt cleaned up. So I'm going to use the majority of that cash to clean up this debt. That'll leave you with about half of the auto loan. And the next few months, if you're truly worried, I would want no debt. And so that would be my next goal is to get rid of the auto loan and then restock the emergency fund up to three to six months of expenses. I'd probably lean towards six months. If this is going to be looming in your future, I would just stack up as much cash as I could. And once things stabilize, we'll know more, we'll start investing. But it

sounds like you're doing a lot at once. You're trying to pay off some debt. You're trying to save. You're probably doing some investing right now. You're buying property and flipping it. Is that fair? Yeah, that's 100% accurate. Is the rental income that you mentioned to George, the rental debt, is that the next flip, or is that something you're holding on to? No, this one I'm going to hold. I think, uh, as we, you know,

the, the first flip I did last year is what helped me purchase this one. Plus tuck my money back in my pocket. Um, and we were, you know, we were getting top, top dollar for the houses that were flipping versus the purchase price.

So the, the ROI, the ROI was really good, but, um, I mean, I definitely want to get more into rentals as that, you know, past long-term passive income, you know, keeps coming in.

How are you financing these flips currently? Just a 30-year mortgage. With the current rates, and then you're trying to get rid of them fast. Yeah, I think it's 7.5% interest on that one. If I'm in your shoes, I'm slowing down on this flipping business, and I'm going to get my financial house in order. I'm going to let this layoff scenario just be a good wake-up call to go, hey, let's get completely out of debt. Let's have an emergency fund. Let's be investing for the future. And then future flips, I would encourage you to pay cash,

which is controversial in the real estate investing world. But man, it's a different ballgame and you do with a whole lot more peace and a whole lot more profit. Oh, absolutely. If I had that kind of capital to go in and offer cash, that's cost us a lot of properties too because we don't have that cash flow built up. Well, you know what to do, man. I hope you do it, but I'm going to push pause

and take a look in the financial mirror before I continue the flipping game. Sounds like you're great at it, but when you start doing it with cash and no debt and you have that stable income, it's going to be a whole different ballgame. You want to get yourself to a point, folks, where you are layoff proof, and you can do that. If you follow the financial principles that we teach, you can get to a place where, hey, it still sucks to get laid off, but you're not freaking out. All right, good stuff. George Campbell, Ken Coleman, with you, America. This is The Ramsey Show.

Don't move. More coming up. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show, America. Thrilled that you are with us. 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225 is the number to jump in. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell joins me.

We're here to answer your questions. I'll take any work-related questions as it relates to your income, maybe even your stress, the anxiety at work, any of that stuff. We'll talk about your work. We'll talk about your money. George is here for your money questions, and we're thrilled that all of you have joined us today. Kara is up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

How can we help? Hi. Thanks for taking my call. You bet. Yeah. So I'm new to Dave Ramsey by like five days. Wow. That's awesome.

Yeah. Welcome. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I'm excited and terrified. So I have a master's degree that I've been working on for three years, and I only have three credits left. And I obviously am not going to borrow money to finish it,

but I'd like to finish in the spring. So I have a IRA, a SEP IRA from a previous employer. Um, and that business has since closed. I don't work there and there's nothing being contributed to it at this point. Um, but it has about $5,000 and it would cover the tuition to finish my master's. So I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on, should I cash out the IRA and pay for school that way, or should I just kind of put off graduating and keep working and saving? And, yeah, so that's what I'm asking. Well, it's a great question.

And since you're new to the program, first of all, welcome. And second of all, if you keep listening to the show, you'll probably hear us say, don't rob yourself of your retirement. And there's a few reasons for that. Number one, if you cash out from the SEP IRA, you're going to miss out on all the future compound growth. And if you want to know what I'm talking about, you can go punch that into our investment calculator and put in, you know, how much money's in there right now? $5,000. Okay. So if you put in $5,000 and you just didn't touch it for the next 20 years, you would realize why it would be a mistake to cash that out. Number two, you're going to pay penalties because you're not at the age where you can withdraw it without tax penalties. So it's going to count as income. You'll get hit with a tax penalty on

top of that. And for that reason, I'm going to say, let's pause. Let's not touch that account and let's cashflow the rest of your schooling with future income. And number three, Kara, $5,000 isn't enough. You can generate $5,000. So how much do you need to come up with to finish this master's? If I had 18, I don't know how much cash. Yeah, because you're not going to take a loan. Right, and I'd rather not dip into what I've saved for my baby steps. So I, let's see, if I, I don't think, so I have I have the thousand dollars for step one and then I have 2000, I have 2000 additionally in my savings. So I could use 2000 of it and then just have to come up with 3000.

But I feel funny about taking money out of savings for grad school. I don't know. Okay, so what do you need to finish the three classes? What's the total? It's just three credits. What do you need? What's the number? How much?

$5,400. All right, so here's the point. You need to use the baby steps. I mean, work the baby steps, yes. But just in addition to what George said, you can come up with a 5,400 to get those three credits, and it's worth waiting to get the 5,400 cash. Go work, go do whatever, sell stuff. The point is, don't overthink this. You're doing the right thing by asking this question, but now let's just go get the cash. What's your current income? So together with my husband, we're $110,000 a year. That's amazing. Yeah, that's great. You can do this. So how long would it take, realistically, to save up another $3,000, $4,000 with future paychecks? Well, yeah, I'm not sure because we have $287,000 in student loans.

Ouch. It's terrible. Yeah. And what is this grad school going to do for you as far as your career and your income? Well, you're going to laugh. This is my second master's. Kara, what are we running from here

with just chasing more education? Well, I think what happened is during COVID, when I wasn't allowed to leave my house, I got bored, and I was like, well, let's just do personal development. Well, go to Europe or something. It's called Breed of a Book. Listen to a podcast, for heaven's sakes. Listen. I know.

Hey, Kara, the damage is done. So can I tell you press pause I've heard enough to know that you don't need these three credit hours any anytime soon yeah so I have six years to finish the degree and I'm uh three years in so I could but hold on hold on you guys you can you need to focus on getting out of debt. We're not worried about the three extra years. There's time between now and three years where you can finish that degree. Right now, you don't need it. You don't need to be focusing on it. That's $5,400 that needs to be going to something else. Yes, George? Yes. And you both need more jobs. We need to increase this income

because you got a great shovel, but the hole is massive. I mean, you've got $300,000 in debt making $100,000. It's going to take you forever to pay this off. One master's degree is enough for you right now to go make some money to dig out of this, okay? Yeah. Some of it's my husband. He had to get a doctoral degree in physical therapy. No, no.

You guys both have it. It's not his. Right. Yeah. He had to get a doctoral degree in physical therapy. No, no, it's both. You guys both have it. It's not his. Right, yeah. It's all together, 287. How do we get you both making six figures? What are you doing for work? I own a music school, and we've got a good amount of students and, like, five teachers.

How much do you make? After, you know, all the, everything, probably like net for the business is $50,000. So you're paying yourself $50,000? Yeah. Yeah, I think you've got to be realistically looking at how can I make $30,000 to $ 30 to 50 more quickly? Like what must be true given the skill set you have, the experience you have? For heaven's sakes, you've already got one master's. What's your first master's in? Jazz vocal performance. I'd be playing gigs. I'd be doing

private lessons, whatever you need to do on the side, even if it's outside of the music school. I mean, you say that, but unless you can make decent money, like, I don't know. I mean, if there's some great jazz bars where you can sing on Friday nights, Saturday nights. Can you get hired at weddings? Weddings? Yeah, wedding gigs.

You're going to send her to weddings? That can't be a good idea. Nobody wants a jazz singer at the wedding. people pay good money to hire jazz bands really classy very tasteful yeah like private events to be fair i've been married 25 years been a long time since i've been to think about like a nice ramsay event we do a nice cocktail reception all right a little jazz band we hire kara here's the point though though. Done. I'm not, listen, I'm all for you using your gift.

Yeah. But I don't know that it's going to ROI right now. And so I want to be making, again, I'm not kidding when I say, what must be true for Kara to make

an additional $30,000 to $50,000? If you can do that, jazzing it up at the weddings, great. I don't know that you can. Or scale up the business. Can we scale the business exponentially? The music school? Yeah. Can you scale that and get that? Yeah. I mean, I remember, yeah, right now we're doing private lessons, but we could offer like group lessons and try and get more income that way. Yeah. Start brainstorming with the team for some revenue generating ideas. Like Kara, this is massive is the point we're making. That's a lot of debt. And if you let it stay around, it becomes almost paralyzing. The interest alone is going to

be crushing if you guys don't get on top of this soon. Yeah. I mean, luckily, we both drive crappy cars. And we've been trying. We've paid off like a personal loan for $10,000, we both drive crappy cars, and we've been trying. We've paid off a personal loan for $10,000, but we haven't done it kind of in the order. We haven't done it in the order that makes sense. I'm going to help you guys with that order. We're going to give you one year of Financial Peace University as well as one year of Every Dollar Premium so that you and your husband can get on the same page, get fired up, and get angry at this debt. I don't think you're angry enough right now.

And that's what we need to do to get rid of $287,000 in consumer debt. We are pushing for you. Hang on the line. Jen is going to pick up. We'll gift you those resources. I hope it helps. Is Jazzercise still a thing? I don't want it to be a thing, but I think it is. I will look that up during the break. Ken will come back with some Jazzercise aerobics.

We'll be back with an update on Jazzercise. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to

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slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by George Camel. We're here for you this hour, 888-825-5225. Now, you know, we've got all these social pages

and I'm sure if you're engaged with us, you're on some type of social platform. By the way, follow me on Instagram at Ken Coleman. Follow George at George Camel, K-A-M-E-L. But we've got these fun community pages. I've got like a Ken Coleman official, I don't know, Facebook group. But our Baby Steps community page on Facebook, a lot of fun stuff happening over there, George. There's over 410,000 people now in that group. That's right. That's massive. Massive group.

So what we've got here in my hands is some of the confessions. This just kind of spiked up, I guess, in the group. Klarna confessions? Oh, yeah. These buy now, pay later companies. Exactly. And so we've got a list here from the thread of some where uh people admitted the dumbest thing they have bought now paid later oof so now george you don't remember this because you're younger than me

but we used to call that like layaway oh yeah that was like a thing you know what i mean and so now it's buy now pay later well now you can get it now with layaway you had to actually you had to wait for it but they they would put it on hold. It would sit up in the top of the store. You could go in and see the thing. My mom would go, well, we're going to get that in a month. You know, that kind of thing. Get you a Stretch Armstrong for Christmas or something.

I hope they didn't lay away the Stretch Armstrong. But here we go. So we're going to read a few of these. So Jenna says the dumbest thing that she bought now, paid later, were house plants from Etsy. Rare house plants, apparently. She goes on to say they're still alive and beautiful, but boy, that was dumb. What a reminder every day is you look at that, you water that plant, and you go, still paying for that thing. Still paying for it.

That sucks. Give me an idea, George, what a cost of a plant. It feels like you would know this. A rare house plant, I imagine, could fetch upwards of over a hundred dollars okay on etsy wow and said blankets and nugget play couches now are those couches that look like chicken nuggets well no they're just soft play couches for like kids and stuff oh i googled you look at me like that was a bad i had to google it i hear nugget i hear play i think what mcdonald's has got their line of toy chicken nugget couches. It's a strange name.

Okay, thank you. I'll go with you on that. What is the studio audience? You think it wasn't that weird, was it? She has one? Oh, boy. Some guy's point. Do you have kids?

Speaking of, you'll be sleeping on said couch tonight after pointing that out. Guy, we got to teach him. That's relationship 101 stuff. Yep. Yeah. Play now, pay later. Yeah. There we go. All right. What's next? Peloton. That's relationship 101 stuff. Yep. Yeah. Play now, pay later. Yeah. There we go.

All right. What's next? Peloton. That's not really that surprising. Yeah. Because that's a bigger purchase. I think those bikes were over two grand. Yeah.

Not anymore. I feel like they've gone down since COVID. They have indeed. The market has gone down. We both had one at one point, Ken, didn't we? We both did. No, I sold it. Yeah, me too.

Yeah. I thought I was more athletic than I was. I was into it for a while, but then I just got tired of it. Well, I'm too frugal. You're paying $50 a month for this membership and I'm not riding this thing. It became a clothes hanger soon after that. Was it a clothes hanger for you? Yeah, I gave up. I'm not that motivated. Joy said $100 worth of makeup that I could totally afford at the time just didn't feel like feeling the money go out all at once.

That's the most common reason people use this. Even if they have the money, they go, I just didn't feel like spending it all today. Now they'll spend it all later too. Which I'm guessing that's the game. That's the game. That's how they get,

because you have a $40 item. Right below that, add to cart button, it says, hey, why not pay $10 today and pay 10 bucks for the next three, four weeks? So it tricks the brain, I'm guessing, George, into thinking you got a discount. Exactly. And let me tell you, Ken, Klarna brags about this to retailers on their website. They

say consumers will spend 45% more in their cart if you put one of these options on your website. Angela gets my award for dumbest buy now pay later papa john's gift card because we couldn't afford food on the financed vacation okay so you're broke you go on vacation on the credit card you have no money you're maxed out and she goes we're gonna finance a papa john's card wow wow buy now pay later pizza that's a dark place you've got to be in life. I mean, you got a payment and heartburn? For Papa John's. Now, Rachel Cruz loves Papa John's. Is that her favorite pizza?

Yeah. Very interesting. Her favorite chain pizza. I don't want to put that on her, that it beats true Italian pizza. By the way, she's the only person I have ever met that can eat the amount of pizza that she eats and doesn't gain an ounce. That's genetic blessing from the ramsey uh crew right there kate said dog food that's pretty rough you're i see what you did there it took me a second and you pointed at me i went what am i supposed to get oh rough i had to cue ken for that wow how about michael with the lawnmower blades for a zero-turn mower? Again, had the money, but the installment plan sounded too easy to pass up.

Exhibit A, Your Honor. Wow. Guys, don't fall for this. Gina said, I used Afterpay and went to History to see what I've spent. When I added it all up, I spent $8,500 on random stuff, mainly nail stuff from Revel Nails, Tory Burch stuff halloween decor and nikes yikes well the tori birch stuff is pretty pricey she said tony birch but i imagine it's tori right i saw you corrected it is there a tony birch who's who's this please tell me it's not a knockoff of

tori birch that's got to be a typo yeah i think she fat fingered it there on facebook i've been in the tori birch store. That's pretty pricey. You know that brand. Mrs. Coleman likes it. Not to the tune of $8,500, hopefully. Well, if I'm paying that, I budgeted for it, George, and I paid cash. You're not paying later. I tell you that right now.

Last but not least, Jamie, given Angela a run with the Papa John gift card, Jamie bought movie tickets. Financed, $40 movie tickets. I hope they didn't go see Barbie. Oh, wow. Yeah, you better hope that movie was good. It was dreadful, I'm told. To pay that plus interest and fees. I didn't see it.

My daughter went to see it, but good gracious. Well, let me tell you this, Ken. This is a stat I pulled up. A third of U.S. consumers who use these buy now, pay later options fall behind on one or more payments, which can trigger crazy interest of up to 30% along with late fees.

So everyone says, Ken, well, I'll pay it later. I have the money now. I could pay it now. Until you forget. I'll kick it down the road. Could you imagine paying 30% interest on Papa John's pizza? That's insult to injury. It's just bad.

Or a bad movie. Insult to indigestion is what that is. No, thank you. Folks, don't fall for these buy now, pay later options. Psychologically, you think, well, why pay 40 when I could pay 10? I'll free up some money in the budget. That's what these companies want you to think. Here's their taglines, Ken.

After pay, get what you want. We've got your back. Affirm. Pay at your own pace. Klarna, get financial breathing room. Nothing says breathing room like having to pay for something three months later after you've digested it. Yeah, it literally is a scam. That's amazing.

They're using our own language. Give me after pay. After pay. Get what you want. We've got your back. You know what that is? You deserve it. That's the cool uncle that used to go to his house and he'd go, hey, candy jars over top of the stove.

Go in there and get yourself some candy. You know know you smoked a pack of marlboro's gay kid go get yourself well i was trying to give my best uncle larry's voice you know but i mean it's like that's absurd it's literally like be immature we all had that uncle or the grandparent that just didn't care you know what i mean they're playing into our immaturity they're playing into the toddler inside all of us who says i I want it now. I don't want to wait. That's it. And so then they're gaming us.

It's insane. And it's caused a generation of broke people. And if you search this on Twitter, people brag about how broke they are because of these buy now, pay later services. I'll tell you the one that gets me is the groceries. You know, like a pack of soda or something. I've seen that. Walmart, you could get a pack of like soda or something like i've seen that walmart you could get a pack of cokes yeah you showed it to me on payments of you know what 37 cents a dollar 78

for the next three months it's nonsensical and would they charge you interest if you didn't do that oh 100 they all have different terms and conditions but the bigger thing can is that it causes you to overspend i mean you saw that stat I showed you from Klarna bragging to retailers. You're going to spend 45% more if you're psychologically thinking, well, I'm spending less today, therefore I can put more in the cart. If I can spend 25% of that amount, I'll feel better about packing that cart. George, this speaks to the fact that these businesses exist and they're crushing it. They're becoming billion dollar industries. Somebody just woke up. These are smart people, by the way. You may say they're evil, sure, but they're crushing it. They're becoming billion-dollar industries. Somebody just woke up. These are smart people, by the way.

You may say they're evil, sure, but maybe they're not. They're just smart. They're going, you know what? We have a culture of people who think they deserve everything, and they deserve it now. And nobody has the money now because they're all broke. Yeah, but they don't have any money because they're too busy getting stuff they deserve that they can't afford. And this really is a behavioral issue. We have a lot of new people joining us all the time and a little mini rant on that. You've got to get to a point

where you realize that delayed gratification is the secret sauce to success in any area of your life, relationally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, financially, professionally. Learn how to say no to yourself. It's a game changer. Short-term convenience has a long-term cost, Ken. Don't fall for it. I don't have a mic in my hand, but I have a pencil, or otherwise known as a kensel, and I'll drop that.

There it is, the Barbie reference, full circle. Stick it for me, I'm done. Don't move. More Ramsey Show coming right up welcome back to the ramsay show i'm ken coleman i'm joined by george camel the phone number for you to jump in this hour is 888-825-5225 let's go to naisha in dallas texasisha, how can we help? Hi, I am calling in because I need help with a budget, and my income is not – I don't have enough income to cover my budget, and I'm behind. Okay. I'm in repo, and I just – I need to know where do I start.

Well, you've got the dynamic duo for those two issues. Let's get the budget under control first. George, take it away, and then we'll work on some income stuff. Yeah, Naisha, give us a financial picture. How much do you make and how much debt do you have? Okay. I make about $56,000 a year, and I receive child support about $10,000 a year, and I have about $215,000 in debt,

and that does include my mortgage and my car. Okay, so let's separate the mortgage out. We'll save that for later on down the road. What does the other debt add up to? So my car, that's $23,000. I have $9,500 in student loans, and I have about $12,000 in credit cards. Okay. This helps me now. So once we parse out the mortgage, it's looking like you have, let's see, about $45,000 in consumer debt? Yes. Okay. That gives us a number we can work with.

Now, you said the car is about to get repoed. Are you behind on payments? Yes. How far behind? I'm like two payments behind, and October, I think, will make three payments. Okay. I think October, May, three payments.

Can you sell the car? What's it worth? So, I've tried to sell the car, and dealers are offering me like $11,000. Well, dealers are the worst place to go to sell a car because they're in it to make money. Yeah. You want to sell a private party to someone who can give you a lot more for it. Have you looked at the Kelley Blue Book value private party for what it's worth? Not private party. I haven't. Okay. I've only did it. Okay. My guess is that's going to be

closer to 15, 16. What is it? What kind of car is it? It's a 2017 Infiniti QX60. That should sell for a pretty penny. How many miles? I have 130,000 miles. 2017 Infiniti QX60, 130,000 miles. Ken's doing some beautiful mind math in here somehow. Well, I actually, you know, I've been, I'm shopping for cars for teenagers. I'm pretty well versed in this. That should be getting private party. You should be getting in the $16,000 to $20,000 range. There we go. I absolutely believe that'll hold up. I think it's closer to $20,000. So we've got to look at that as a viable option. We will come back to that if we have time, but you have got to get some help if you're not confident in that, how to put it on Facebook Marketplace. Look up Kelly Blue Book today. Put the VIN number

in. This will take you three minutes to get an actual real number, okay? Please do that because I think you've got to look at that because that's going to change your life if you get rid of that debt. Yeah, and that car is staring you down. I think getting rid of that would give you a lot of peace. It would just give you the student loan and the credit card to focus on, right? Yes. Okay, and do you have any money currently? I just have a budget. So I got paid today, and that was a short check, so I don't have any savings right now. No savings. I've already started trying to sell things so I can have an emergency fund. Are you current on all of your other bills?

I have $1,200 right now. Okay, you got $1,200 and you're current on all of the bills except for the car payment? So my mortgage, I did a repayment plan with that. My mortgage is normally $1,500 a month. The repayment plan added $1,000 onto my mortgage. So starting November 1st, my mortgage payments will be $2,500. You can't afford that, can you? No, I can't. What is this repayment plan about with the mortgage company? Because I got behind. Are you able to afford this house long-term or do we need to get rid of it? Long-term I can afford the house if I stick to a budget and I've got off my budget issue. It

really wasn't a budget. It was just I was paying bills regularly. How long do you have to pay the extra thousand for? Six months. It's six payments. That's most of your take-home pay. Right. So which means we're going to get behind on the other payments, which means we're going to stay in this vicious cycle forever. How many kids do you have?

I have four. Two are in college. They have four rides, so they have tuition taken care of, and I have two toddlers. Okay. Bless you. How much is the house worth, do you think, if you were to put it on the market? The house can sell for about $100,000 and I think $70,000 or $80,000.

I've even considered putting it up for sale. No, do not do for sale by owner, if that's what you're talking about. No, actually, I had a realtor. Okay. And we were going to put it on the market. The only thing is what we needed to list it for, I needed more than that to find me another place to live

and to pay my debt out. Okay, well, you can go rent for a while, couldn't you? I could, and the rent will be more than my mortgage. Even with this payment plan? It's not going to be more than $2,500. So for me to find an apartment here in the Dallas area, two bedrooms are starting at like $1,400, $1,500. Can you move further outside of the city? I've considered that.

And I have to be somewhat close to daycare. And I don't want to sound like I'm making excuses, but I've tried all of this. Yeah. We don't hear excuses. We don't hear that. We sound someone who is a warrior, who has been through a lot, who is in a really tough pinch. So we're not here to yell at you. We want to help you.

We're trying to look at all of the options to help you get out of this mess as fast as possible. That's right. And we're not saying that you need to sell the house. We're just asking, is that a viable option? Because to the extent that we relieve pressure on you, the quickest that we can, that's what we're trying to do. I'd rather you be in control of the home sale versus it being forced through a foreclosure. I agree. And you're staring down the barrel of that.

Because with the children daycare, do you have the ability to work more, to make some more money? Do you feel like I'm going to give you the increase your income bundle? Okay, it's got a bunch of goodies in it, because I think we've got to increase your income, and to the extent like quickly, to give you some breathing room. I have. I've applied for another full-time job to work, like, on the weekends.

I'm working overtime in my job. I also do crafts on the side. And I sell those. It's not consistent. It's not a consistent income revenue that I could even consider. I'm currently in two courses, two free courses, that is, to get my life insurance license and to get my real estate license. I wrote a policy last night, so I'll receive that income, but it's not immediately. It's delayed.

Okay. All right. So here's what we need to do. I want to give it back to George for a second, but what we are going to do. Naisha, we're going to get you some free sessions on us with one of our financial coaches. We can't go into all the details that you need right now on the air, and our coaches, it is going to be our gift to you. And so we're going to, so you, I want you to stay on the line in just a moment. And we're going to get you connected and they're going to walk you through the nitty gritty of the budget. And so here's what I wanted to tee George up on just to encourage you. George, what can she do right now? We're going to get over the coach, but the budget side of things, I think if she begins to

get control of the money, she's going to have a better chance of digging out. Yeah. Your A1 is to create some margin. And the only ways to do that is to make more and to spend less. And it sounds like you're doing both of those things to the best of your ability. I think we might need to go to our credit union and get a small loan to cover the difference that you might be missing on that car when you sell it and get you something cheap right now, maybe a $6,000 car, $5,000 car to get you around for now. That will get you out of this hole and give you some hope for the future. So hang on the line. Jen is going to pick up. We'll give you the increase your income bundle and those financial coaching sessions. We wish you the best. Nisha, you're

going to get out of this. Hang on. We believe in you. This is The Ramsey way. Go to RamseySolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's RamseySolutions.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.