The Ramsey Show - App - Is Filing Bankruptcy the Right Option? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

From Ramsey Network, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, joined by Jade Warshaw. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You call in and we will help you build wealth, do work that you love, and create amazing relationships. At least that's the goal. I can't promise that we'll accomplish all of that in a single hour, but it's a lofty goal, and we aim to please. We'll do our best. So give us a call, 888-825-5225.

Alex kicks us off here in Orlando, Florida. Welcome to the show, Alex. How we doing? Thank you. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. How can Jade and I help? I'm just trying to figure out if I should file bankruptcy or not. Pretty simple.

That's a pretty serious thing you just lobbed out there. It's like, I'm not sure if I should go with Coke or Pepsi at dinner tonight. What do you guys think? Goodness, that's pretty serious, Alex. What caused you to come to this point? Well, just been out of work for about three and a half months, had about 30,000 saved down to my last 10,000. I know it costs money to file bankruptcy because I've done it back in 2008. Oh, gosh. Not your first rodeo. So how much debt do you have that's making it bad? I got $100,000 in credit card debt and a lease, which is about $15,000.

So you didn't learn your lesson from 2008? Is that what you're telling us? No, I actually went through a separation in 2021 and our life savings was taken by my ex and I became a single father at the time. You didn't get anything from the divorce? It wasn't actually a divorce. It was just a kind of snatch and grab. What? Yeah. A snatch and grab. So there was no legality to it?

No, no. I didn't pursue it. I do well when I'm working. So, I mean, she needed it more than i did and i had my son so okay just focused on that are you saying this is like a robbery like they like cleaned out your bank account like well they probably needed it more than i did so uh no i said that but yeah she did clean out the bank account so she cleaned out the bank account you walk away with nothing is that what this hundred thousand in credit cards cards is? Tell us what that came from.

Well, some of the debt I did tell her to transfer because I kind of seen the relationship or the marriage coming to an end. So like I said, I do better than her when I'm working. And I just was trying to be, you know, the bigger man. How much was the life savings? $100,000. Okay. So she took a hundred thousand and then she took 80. Okay. And so, and then there was also debt that she transferred. How much debt did she transfer? About 60,000. And then you went $40,000 into debt over the last few months? No, it's been since 2021. Okay. And what kind of, what caught, where did that come from? Is that you trying to keep food on the table? Just, just, just,

uh, robbing Peter to pay Paul balance transferings or percent paying off all the balance transfers and just kind of caught up to me now. Okay. And what I'm trying to get to the bottom of this, cause I never want you to have to consider bankruptcy again. So if you hear me asking you a lot of questions, it's not me trying to drill you into the wall.

It's me trying to understand what's going on. So I just want to throw that out there. So you're transferring balances, but you also said that you've made a better living than her. And you obviously felt like, hey, let me take some of this debt on. I'm not going to fight it. You kind of were taking that stance. So what was taking place right after the fact that suddenly it's like, I'm robbing Peter to pay Paul. I'm not, help us understand what took place. Just transferring from state to state. Because of work? Yeah, moving around a lot. What kind of work do you do? Alex, you with us? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. What line of work are you in?

I manage car dealerships and motorcycle dealerships for a living. Got it. Okay, so you're in car dealerships. What are you earning? Like, what's a normal take-home pay for you every month? Anywhere from $8 to $10 take-home after taxes, net. And that's currently? You said you've been out of work for three and a half months.

What happened over the last hundred days where you've been unable to earn a single dollar? I've just been looking, swinging and missing. Just made a move. I was at a place, made a move. It was a wrong move. It wasn't a good fit. And then grass is not greener, waterier grass type deal. But can you work at a dealership?

Does it have to be managing one? could you get some job in that world i probably could but i've been i've been managing for many many years so it's kind of it feels like a downgrade like a fish out of water how many um how many um shots have you taken at this? I got 32 applications on Indeed right now currently. Okay. And they're all for car dealership management roles? Car, power sports, yeah, motorcycles or cars. Do you know anybody in these roles? Because Ken Coleman would say proximity principle.

Okay, so you've made your calls and you've said, hey, I'm applying, tell so-and-so, put my resume at the top. Absolutely. Networked with about 20 different people at 20 different dealerships. And I've worked at probably eight different dealerships in Orlando. Met some people and everybody spread out. But yeah, I'm networking. Okay.

Do you feel optimistic? Because it sounds like not if you're talking about bankruptcy. Well, just because I have nothing coming in and I don't have so much left. So what I say all the time is any job until you get the job. Because I wouldn't want to sit and piddle away. Can you drive for Uber? Yeah. Yeah, with my lease of 10,000 miles a year, sure.

I mean, you're sitting here with a whole lot of debt and no job prospects. I get it. I get it. Whatever it is. It is hilarious when people drive up in luxury cars doing Uber as a side hustle because they're trying to get out of debt. And I got nothing but respect for someone just trying to get a better life, even if they made some mistakes. Yeah, because your choice is you piddle away or, you know,

you burn through $30, dollars of savings or at the twenty thousand mark you go okay this is it i gotta do something what does it take what's your bare bones budget what's it take every month for you to just keep things running comfortably seven thousand not comfortably bare bones seven thousand okay seven thousand do you have a mortgage no no i sold my home okay so you're renting right now you got the car lease and a hundred $7,000. Okay, $7,000. Do you have a mortgage? No, no. I sold my home. Okay, so you're renting right now. You've got the car lease and $100,000 in credit card debt.

That's it? Yeah. And you've got $10,000 to your name? That's it. Okay. What's the interest rate on these credit cards? Are we talking like 22% APR? We're talking anywhere from $15,999 already up to about $27.99.

Obviously, when you get into debt, they raise the interest rate. Are you paying like $2,500 in interest a month right now? Gosh, I don't know. When the promotion, the 0% promotion end, which I wasn't aware of, they actually charge you the interest on your balance plus your minimum payment. Here's what I would do. I'm going to go do my homework and calculate exactly how much interest I'm paying, exactly how much I'm getting screwed, because I think we need to turn some anger into action here. And sometimes you got to pull that rubber band back to feel some pain because you've been living pretty good,lex i mean aside from the life circumstances you know

you've had a great income you've your expenses are high you've got a lifestyle and now it's hard to come down from that isn't it oh yeah what's your home tell us about your living situation um renting renting okay yeah oh boy yeah any job until you get the job and i'm talking about any and every job you can get your hands on because you got seven thousand dollars a month to make my friend and you don't have much time to do it you have 30 days to lock down something and if not then you're gonna have to look at deflating this lifestyle in some way shape or form we've got to get back to making six figures fast and then then we can easily avoid bankruptcy. We can clean up this debt in a few years with some sacrifice and bringing our lifestyle down, but income is what you need

right now. I don't care how you get it and how much pride you have to swallow to get there, you need this. Hope that helps. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm your host, George Campbell, joined by Jade Warshaw today. If you're enjoying the show today or any other day, do us a quick favor. It costs you nothing and it means a whole lot to us, and that is hit the share button on the show. Leave us a kind review. Hit the subscribe or follow button. It may just take you a second, but it pays dividends

to helping us reach more people and showing the algorithms that, you know, we're out there. We're trying to displace all the toxicity and filth out there with some hope for people and their life and their finances. So if you could take a moment and do that, it would mean the world. All right, let's get to the phone lines. Erin joins us up next in dallas texas erin welcome to the show hi hey how can we help well i was calling today to see what your recommendation would be on not having health insurance per se a year or two to knock out debt this is not real you're not really asking this are you erin oh absolutely my husband and i went four and a half years when our children were young without health insurance and um and you

know it was a blessing at the time because we needed that thousand dollars a month to pay bills but that was just luck that's like saying well i used to play in traffic as a kid and i never got hit so right y'all were like oh i just see it as it's sixteen thousand dollars a year that really has no return oh just wait until you get a medical bill i'm changing your name to john bon jovi because you're living on a prayer well but you know i mean it's like it's just realistically like during that time period you know it was one of those things when all three of my children needed to have shots for school yeah and you know the pediatrician it was going to be six hundred dollars at this place it was going to be four hundred dollars i went to the you know health department and it was fifty six

dollars sure so you know there's options out there there's lots of free clinics i love the deal but what happens if somebody like really breaks their arm or you we had a call recently where the she went through four brain surgeries yeah oh you just don't know what life's gonna throw at you i know i get it this is kind of like okay let's talk about the reasoning behind this all. Why would you do this? Just to knock out the... So, okay. As of this morning, I had $155,000 of debt in two car loans, a student loan, and my solar panels. I paid off the two car loans and the student debt, which just leaves me the solar panels. How much are those? I guess it's $86,000 Oh, my goodness. Wow. You got smoked on these solar panels. Well, I mean, not...

Well, no. Yes, but what's your income? Income is $25,000 a month. Okay, so you guys have a killer income. You make $25,000 a month, and we're worried about $16,000 a year for health care? I know, right? Seems wrong, but... Why not just use your amazing income and be done with the solar debt within, you know, six months?

Right. Well, and that, you know, is definitely doable, especially since I just, you know, knocked out $2,000 a month of other debt. But I was just curious to know your opinion, because I always go back and forth on like, I'm raising my hand again. Why I'm raising my hand again. Did you say you knocked down $2,000 a month of debt? Of the payments? Yes. So this morning I paid off. Okay. 2,000 payments. And payments. Got you. Okay. I was about to say, okay, so your take-home pay is $25,000 a month? I'm sorry? Your take-home pay is $25,000 a month?

Yes. And how long has it been that? Just only over the past, like, say, two and a half years. So is this you and your husband combined? Do you own a business? Tell us more about why. Yeah, so I'm self-employed. Okay, self-employed. That's why you don't want to buy health insurance because it's so expensive all right yeah riddle me this

you guys make 300k a year take home you have 86 left in debt right right you have 25 000 a month coming in what are your expenses going out you guys have a crazy lifestyle? Well, yes and no. You know, I do have six acres of land with a nice house, a nice barn. I mean, for the house payment, which I've just increased. What do you mean you increased? The house payment. Well, I increased how much I'm paying. Oh, got it. Okay. What's the payment? I upped that. So that is $3,600. And then on average, real estate taxes and insurance is about $1,000 a month. And then you have like, what, a little over like $1,500 for healthcare? Right. Yes. So where is the other, like, I don't know, $20,000 going every month?

Well, it was $2,000 a month going to car payments. Okay, 18 left. Keep going. Let's see. Let's see. Keep going. Are you investing? My question is, why aren't we having $15,000 in margin every month to throw at our debt?

Yes. So, yes, I should tell you that the money that my husband made, so like last year, I saved 100% of his income, which typically can be anywhere from $4,000 to $6,000 a month. Okay. So, yes, I had saved all of his income. So, how much do you have in savings? Well, other than this morning, I had a lot, but, you know, I just spent it down. What happened this morning? That's when she paid off the debts.

Oh, you paid off. So, you, in a lump sum, got rid of know, I just spent it down. What happened this morning? That's when she paid off the debts. Oh, you paid off. So you in a lump sum got rid of a bunch of debts today. Yeah. And what was the total amount that you got rid of today? $77,000. Okay. See, this is what I like to hear. I love that you're making headway.

I think you're doing the right thing. I don't want to have to convince you to buy health insurance. You can afford health insurance. That's a blessing. And I think that I'm not going to insult your intelligence by telling you why it's important. I think that you know that. And I think that you need to just go on ahead and get insurance. And if you don't, you're really playing with fire.

And it's the same reason you have home insurance. Same reason you have auto insurance. You're transferring the risk that you can't carry over to an insurance company. And in exchange, they ask for a premium. And so that's what you're saying. You're doing the same thing with health insurance. If your house burns up in a fire, you don't have the money to go replace the house today, right? And it's the same thing with your health. And so that's the way I think about it. It makes me feel better about dishing out that coin. And you guys are blessed with an amazing income. And the truth is, if you put $14,000 of your amazing income a month toward

the solar panels, they're gone in six months. It's second grade math. And so if you just do that, auto pay $14,000 to your solar panels, $14,000, can you live off $11,000 for the next six months? I mean, yes, we really could. If you you can't your lifestyle is out of control if you can't live off eleven thousand dollars a month and take home pay all of america is slamming their heads against the steering wheel right now going oh my goodness if i had eleven thousand dollars a month my life would change right do you have a spending i agree spending like coping mechanism i feel like you you're like living la vida loca but you're not quite telling us well no she is i am the numbers okay so now i will say like over the past two years because

you know yes my business has been so well that you know it really has been just kind of like a you know again i've you know% of my husband's money just went into savings. And then it was like, whatever I made, spend it. Yeah. Okay. So you have the budget definition that I used to have, which is as long as I'm taking care of the most important things, rent, cell phones, groceries, I know that amount, everything else is for treat yourself, right? That money should be up for grabs. And before you get off the phone, I'm going to give you a copy of the book. Money is not a math problem because you guys need to get on a budget and a good budget means deciding how you're going

to spend every single dime ahead before the month even begins. And it's not to say that you're not going to have any fun or that you can't do some of the things that you want to do with your income. You can do a lot of the things that you want to do, but it's about having a plan so that you don't look up and go, I don't know what I'm spending $25,000 a month on. It just kind of evaporates, right? You don't want that because at the end of the day, we are stewards of this money. And so I, you need every dollar. We're going to make sure you get hooked up with that. And I'm going to take it a step further because something tells me if you don't have health insurance, you probably don't have any term life insurance. You probably don't have a will. These are all things that when you are in a family or you have somebody else that is

now part of your life, they are so, so important to have in place. You need health insurance. You need term life. You need a will. We're going to make sure you get hooked up with that um this is how you love yourself and your family well you can't just be out here living on a prayer you got to make sure these things are in place and by the way for anybody else listening insurances those things that we just spoke about they are not a baby step they do not wait until after baby step two is over you institute those things as now now

now that you know about it you got to do it now because like George said, they shelter you from the things that you can't afford if they should happen. Your car breaks down, your house burns. God forbid someone passes away. These are the things that protect you from life storms. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash checkup. We make it easy for you to figure out exactly what you need and how much. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show.

I'm George Campbell, joined by Jade Warshaw. The number to call is 888-825-5225. We're old school around here. You got to make an actual phone call. No DMs, no emailing in. You got to talk to us right to our face. And might I add, be open to the opinions. Y'all are calling in to ask us our opinion and what we might do. Yeah, that's a good call out, Jade.

Some people calling in looking for validation and justification of what they're going to do, what they did do. Yeah. And I'm not here to cast judgment. We just want to help you with the next right step. That's right. And we're confident that it will work if you do it. But I feel like sometimes we get off a call and we're like, and America knows it too.

They go, they're not doing it. They're not doing it. They're not doing that. So that's fine. But we got people to help. And so if you want to waste our time, like don't hog up our phone lines. Just know we love you. We want what's best for you.

We're not trying to make good radio we really are thinking about what's gonna serve you in your situation and we want you to get out of debt and we want you to have all those great things and it's what we would do and it's what we have done yes these sacrifices we tell you would do tell you y'all to do yeah we would do them ourselves and jay's lived it paid off half a million dollars in debt with her and her husband over seven years. I've done Uber and Lyft, and I've ate the Lean Cuisines. I'm sorry you had to do that, George. I'm done with that life, Jade.

Now I go to the grocery store, I walk right past the Lean Cuisines. Good, as you should. I don't care if they're on sale or not. You're not going to tempt me. It was just a season. It was worth it. It was a season. All right, Steve is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Steve, welcome to the show. How can we help today? Yeah. Hi guys. Thanks for taking my call. Appreciate you. Yeah. What's going on? Yeah. So in a nutshell, how do I prioritize? I'll just ask the question. How do I prioritize baby step two with where I think where my career could be in the future? So, um, I left the wastewater field, wastewater treatment. Um, and a few months ago, because there was a very little room for growth. Kind of got to wait for somebody to retire or leave to get promoted. But I really, I did like it. I don't love the incentives of municipal government. It's slow paced. If you're a go-getter, people are telling you to pump their brakes. But I got headhunted to go back into that field. So I left the field about four months ago, five, I guess, five months ago. Private sector, customer service, I've never done

this before, but I really like it. Like being in the private sector where if you're a go-getter, they don't tell you to pump your brakes. So I really like that. But I got headhunted to go to a different municipal facility that would pay $1,200 a month more than I'm making now just to start. And that's a pretty serious raise. It's a pretty serious raise. So well, how much more would you have to do with your current job in order to make an extra $1,200 a month? It would take a promotion, a few. Yeah. And so it's tough though, too, because this in the municipal wastewater, I started a side hustle. I do it on the side as well for private mobile home parks and campgrounds. They need somebody with my certification. So I do that on the side, and I'm looking to grow that.

So that's another positive to the job. And how much do you earn from that? Last year I made about $20,000. Okay. Nice. How much debt do you have? Just about $66,000. All right. What kind of debt is that? Just about $66,000. All right.

What kind of debt is that? Vast majority is student loans. So it's going to be like $60,000 is student loans, one home equity loan because our boiler went out for $5,000, and then credit cards are about $1,000. Okay. So let's play out the scenario where you take this new job, you get the pay raise. What will you be making a year yeah so uh well i know the numbers per month um what's it from like so from right now it's 33 so it'd be 4500 per month um okay yeah and you said 4,500 per month that's not including the side business

and I take home 1,500 on top of that okay like six six grand a month is what you take home yes that's 72 grand and take home all right what about your wife or somebody you said our boiler went out yeah my my wife she stays home with our three kids how old are the kids uh four two and five months okay mama is working okay well here's the deal you're making you're making 72 versus what you're making now which is what 40 somewhere in there uh last year i paid taxes on just under 70, but that wasn't, that wasn't take home. It was more like 50 or 45 take home. Well, with your 66K, I'm thinking that you're going to be able to pay off this debt a whole lot faster by taking this new role. And it's not a forever thing. You know, it sounds like you enjoyed both. Who knows? You might jump to this new role and go, wow,

they're giving me far more leeway now because I'm in a more senior position. They're letting me make more decisions. I'm moving faster. I'm able to make more. You're able to do the side hustle. I think the upsides here are wonderful. And it's not like you hated that job. It's just what you wanted to move at a different pace and make more. And now you're going to be able to do that. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. I appreciate that. Yeah. Cause I mean the debt, the debt, it's really scary to me. I mean, we're barely paying anything towards it. Yeah. What's your total payments across your student loans, the home equity loan, the credit cards. Are we talking, you know, a thousand,

1500 bucks a month going toward payments? It would be that way, but we make so little that we're in the save program. And that's just for a short-term thing. I don't want to do that, but we didn't really have an option. We bought a house that we couldn't, I mean, we're house poor. It's not a big house, but we should rent $675. It's nothing. Oh, so what do you mean you're house poor? Yeah so what do you mean your house yeah what do you mean i i i mean just stuff breaks on an old house and you know you try to you try to get get traction on on your debt snowball and every time you try to get traction you drop 200 on this 500 on this so let me give you a little peace of mind let me give you a little peace of mind with these

student loans because when it comes to the safe plan, like you mentioned, I actually do think that when you're working, actively working with intensity of debt snowball, the save plan can be a tool for you to keep your minimum payments low so that you have as many dollars as possible to throw towards your smallest debt. So if you're doing that right now, yeah, that's a good move for you to keep that intensity, throwing it towards your smallest debt, which if you're doing that right now, yeah, that's a good move for you to keep that intensity, throwing it towards your smallest debt, which I think you said was a credit card of a thousand dollars. And then you'll move on to this home equity line of credit or the home equity loan. Now your student loans, is it one big one for 60 or is it broken down into a lot of little

guys? It's a bunch. Yeah. It's like eight or nine, you know, between $1,000 and $5,000. Okay. And then there's one big $20,000 loan that we consolidated that was a bunch of private ones. So when you do your debts... That'll be our last one. Well, contrary, when you do your debt snowball, I want you to do it thinking about these little these individual little loans because what's going to happen is when you when you pay your payment you're satisfying the interest for all of those little guys and you're satisfying you know whatever the the payment is for all those little guys but

when you go in and say i'm going to make an extra payment you've got to call in and say which loan you want to go to that which loan you want your principal payment to go towards so even though you're saying jade i've got sixty thousand of student loans, if you have a student loan individually for $1,000, you're going to call in and say, I want to pay off this $1,000 loan and it will be gone. And when you do that, your overall payment's going to go down. And so that's the way I want you to attack those because it might be that in line of smallest to largest, you may have a couple of student loans that come before this home equity loan. And if that's the case, do that because that's going to make you sleep a lot better at night to know, okay, I just knocked out a $3,000

one. I just knocked down a $2,000 one. And so that's what I would do. And Steve, what are your monthly expenses to cover your household, insurance bills, you know, the mortgage plus your minimums on your debts. What does that add up to? Yeah. So if there's nothing unforeseen, we have $800 a month left over. So right now I take home about $4,300. So about $35. So you'd have an extra $1,700 a month if you took this job plus the side hustle on top of the $8. Now we're talking $2,500 going toward your debt. Mm-hmm. So that's $66,000 getting knocked out quick. Yeah, it would just be the $1,700, though, because the business income was included in the $43,000.

Got it. That'll still get you debt-free a whole lot faster, my man. That's right. I like Jay's advice. Prioritize the little guy. That's a motto I live by, Jay. Thank you for that. You're welcome.

This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Jade Warshaw. Well, Jade, as springtime and summer rolls around, people start looking for houses, maybe thinking about selling their house. And you got to do this the right way. And selling the house the Ramsey way makes home ownership a blessing instead of a selling the house the Ramsey way makes home ownership a blessing instead of a burden. And the Ramsey Trusted Program is the only way to find an agent that you can trust to help keep you on track with what we teach here at Ramsey and get the best offer for your house or find the right house for you. And we're going to send you some of the top

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Let's go to the phones. Dean awaits in Tampa, Florida. What's going on, Dean? Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. How can Jade and I help? Okay.

So I have low income and I have high debt for my income, but I'm probably going to be needing a new car here pretty soon. And I'm just wondering at what point should I be getting the car? I don't want to buy the car, like, financing it. I want to buy the car, like, outright. Good. Love that. Good.

That's the spirit. Debt is not an option. And so let's help you find some margin here. How old is your car? Like, how soon does this thing need to be replaced? It's a 2008 car. I'm surprised it's still running.

What kind? Because that matters a whole lot. Saturn Aurora. It's a 2008 Saturn Aurora. You don't find many Saturns on the road these days. I wish it were different. I do. That thing has seen some things. What's it worth?

Probably when I've looked, it's been anywhere from like $700 to like $2,000. Okay. Okay. Let's say it's worth $2,000. How much debt do you have? So right now, I have about $4,500 of debt. About $4,000 of that is credit cards and then $500 is for medical debt. Okay, not bad. And what's your income?

So right now, that's kind of the issue. So at my current employer, I'm making $20 an hour, but I'm only working one to two days a week because there's not a lot of patients coming in, but I'm planning to start a new job on the 15th of next month, and that will be $18.10 an hour. And that's a full-time job, and I'll keep my current employer for like seven days for a 12-hour shift. Oh, nice. That'll be like a side hustle then. You said $18 an hour? Yeah, my new job will be 18 an hour and I'll start that on the 15th and then my current employer is $20 an hour. Okay, so you'll move up to making about 36 grand plus you're keeping your one to two days. All right, so with that, you know, you could pay off that $4,500 fairly quickly, right? Are your expenses pretty low? That's the other thing. I have decently high expenses because I'm a single parent.

Dad helps, but it's still hard. What are some of your highest expenses? What's rent? So I'm living with my mom, so I'm not paying rent specifically, but I'm paying other things like the internet and the electricity and the water. Okay. Is that like $300 a month? What are we talking? $400? In total, for all of my expenses, I would say it's probably $1,000, honestly.

Okay. So that's great. That's not expensive for anyone, even a single parent. $1,000 a month is great. Think about this. Let's say you're making your $36,000, right? That's $3,000 a month. Okay.

And your take-home might be closer, a little over $2,000. Okay. And your expenses are $1,000. That means you have over $1,000 you can throw at your debt. Yeah. And $4,500 is gone in four months. Okay. are a thousand that means you have over a thousand dollars you can throw at your debt yeah and 4500 it's gone in four months okay so i think just a little bit then can you will your car survive another six months or so i think so um it's just like every once in a while there's like a major

thing that happens that i have to fix with the car like i just had to fix um like something with the tire like the something with the tire, like the mechanics and the tire and stuff like that. And how much are you shelling out on average every time? Um, like a thousand, 800, 600,

a thousand dollars. And you have the money to do that each time with cash? Not really. Are you putting it on the credit card? No, I, I have not put anything on my credit card. So you've been cash flowing it.

What about dad? What's he contributing and can you count on it at all? Dad recently has been contributing for like the past two to three months. He's been contributing and it's like $300 a month, which is enough, which is almost enough for my son's daycare. Okay. Is that court ordered or either way, do you feel like he's going to continue that? Um, I think so. I hope so. Is there anything court ordered? What was the situation with child support or alimony?

Um, I was never married. Um, it's been a fight up until recently. So it's just now that I've gotten him to start like taking on his responsibility as a parent. Okay. Got it. Well, we'll consider that bonus money. I hope it's always there, but let's live, you know, as if it's all up to Dean to figure this out. Yeah. And how long is this no rent situation good for?

Are you in this for a couple of years or has there been a date that you need to move on? No, my mom's actually like, my mom's the best. No, she has not said anything like that. No, she hasn't said that. Does she have a car as well that you could use if yours was in the shop or if yours broke down for some reason? Yes. My mom has two cars and I could borrow one if I had to. What? Does she need two cars? Could she sell you one for cheap? No, because she has one car that's like a 2013 and then her other car is like a 95. Okay. So the 2013 is more than what you'd want to pay, I'm guessing, at this stage. Well, let's say the Saturn broke down. Would she sell you the 95 for $1,000?

Highly doubt it. Is it sentimental? What's the deal with this 95? Her whole thing is, like, if she has car issues. She wants to have it. If she has car issues, yeah. I'm not mad at that. I think as long as it's there for both of you as a backup

option, then great. I mean, she has a 2013. She should be fine. And I'm just making sure you've got a backup in case you have more car trouble as you're getting out of this debt. But it sounds like as you get this new job next month, four months later, you're completely debt free. Then we can start saving up to switch our car out. It might be a $5,000 car for now that you upgrade to. Then you get the emergency fund, begin investing, and then you can upgrade that car over time. And so just stair step it and take it one step at a time. I want to think more into the future because I think that you're going to solve the problems at hand relatively quickly with the plan we gave you.

Career-wise, what are your aspirations? So I'm actually in school right now. I'm going to school full-time online. I'm supposed to get my bachelor's in like 2025, 2026. Okay. And then I want to open my own business doing event planning. And then I also, like, I work in the emergency room right now in the hospital in my area. Okay. So I want to continue to do that. I just don't want to

ever, like, I'm kind of counting on myself here. So I don't want to come to a point to where like, I'm not making money in my, you know, in my self-employment aspect. And then I, I'm screwed for my child. So that's kind of what's your degree in? What are you getting? It's going to be a bachelor's in business administration. Okay. So will that, that, that is to help with the event planning or will that help you with the work you're doing now? Both.

Okay. Both. So with the work you're doing now, how will that raise your pay? Is there a ladder you can climb on the administration side? So with my current job, the $20 an hour, I can't simply because someone would have to leave for me to be able to get a better position. But with the employer that I'm going to, it seems like there is room for growth because that company is nationwide. So I think I would be able to grow there. Okay. I would just, yeah, I would love to, for you to be really clear on what that looks like numbers wise for you because I'm guessing you're paying something out of pocket to make this education happen. And I love the event planning idea. I like having your eggs in more than one basket. Just want to to give you some ideas to find that margin, some encouragement along the way. And it's going to help you avoid ever going into debt again. But we are wishing you the best. And it comes down to margin, Jade. Spend less, make more. I know it's not the most exciting advice we could give, but that is the only true proven path to freedom. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Thank you to Jade Warshaw, my co-host, all the folks in the booth, including Kelly Daniel, filling in wonderfully for James

Childs, who needs James anyways, and you, America. Who is James? We'll be back before you next time.