The Ramsey Show - App - Is It Ever a Good Idea to Just Keep Renting? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Dr. John Delony discuss: Paying off the car in the debt snowball, The pain of going through a messy divorce, Is it ever a good idea to keep renting? Hoarding cash vs. paying off debt. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, best-selling author and host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, is my co-host today as we take your questions about your mental wellness, your boundaries, your relationships, your money, your career, your job, your life right here on the Ramsey Show. The phone number is 888-825-5225. The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Spencer is with us in Indiana to start off this hour. Hey, Spencer, what's up?

Hey, Dave. I have quite a mess I've made for myself, but me and my wife are working on trying to get out. Cool. We're on baby step two. And, um, I have a whole bunch of student loans. Um, I haven't consolidated them yet. Um, partly because of the, the way that the prepayment is right now, everything's kind of on forbearance. I've been making the minimum payment despite the forbearance. I've been making the minimum payment despite the forbearance. But my question is this,

I have a car loan that's about $30,000 and I have a bunch of student loans. Well, I have some student loans that are less than $30,000, but my payment for my car is about $500, and my payment for each of the student loans are like altogether are about $1,000. And normally, if I'm following your plan right, I would pay the smallest loans off first, but I'm just wondering if I'll have more money to pay back with if I pay my car off first. Nope. Works exactly the same math. Math doesn't change okay the um you're because you let's just pretend you're paying two thousand dollars or three

thousand dollars a month on debt okay and then you're banking a car payment or you're not making a car payment either one you're still going to plow through the total of the debt in exactly the same amount of time it does not speed it up to get rid of the big payment at all the only thing that would speed it up is if you got rid of a bigger interest rate which is not what we teach but that would actually speed it up um but paying but getting rid of the bigger payment that you're making anyway doesn't change a thing. So what do you guys make a year? $320,000. Well, that's good. What do you do for a living?

I'm a nurse anesthetist. Ah, and there's the student loans. So what kind of mess did you make? How much is the student loan debt? Right now it's at $275,000. Atta boy. Jeez. That's a lot.

What else? What else? Well, I have, we have, one of our cars is almost paid off. We have about $5,000 left on it, and then our other car is about $30,000. Okay. That's it? Student loans and cars? Yeah. Well, I mean, we have a house.

We have a mortgage, and we actually have two houses. One is getting rented out, but we only have our mortgage, but that's the rest of our debt. What's that rental house worth? It's worth maybe $200,000. What do you owe on it? About that. worth uh it's worth maybe 200 what do y'all want about that we just it was really like i said it's kind of messy so yeah i got i would go ahead i would go and get that sold that's not a blessing that's a curse well the reason i didn't sell it was because i haven't had it for that long and i'm worried i'd pay a whole bunch of taxes on it you're not paying taxes you're not going to make any money okay if you don't make money on it you

don't pay taxes okay and was it a residence yeah we we were in it for just a few months but it how long have you been out of it how long have you been out of it about two months oh you can sell it with no taxes at all, no matter what your profit is, up to a half million dollars married filing jointly. Yeah, you need to get rid of that thing ASAP, brother, because it's a vampire. It is not going to do anything except suck your blood. So you need to be done with that puppy. And then from there, you know, basically what we're dealing with are the

big numbers here are we going to pay 150 a year on this and be done in two years and have no life yeah and that's what i would prescribe that's what i would prescribe quit acting like you make a lot of money and instead act like you're a broke person because, by the way, you're a broke person who actually makes a lot of money, which is wonderful. Great news is you have a horrible hole that you're in and you have a big old shovel to dig out. So that's wonderful. But, I mean, if you live on $100,000 a year

and you put the rest of it towards this debt, you could be done in two years. That's what we're hoping. Yeah. Well, it's not hope. I mean, last year I was making $130,000, I think. Yeah. $140,000. Yeah.

So for training, we can get better. Spencer. Yeah. I'm going to ask you two questions right in a row and just answer yes or no. Did you take out $275,000 student loans? Yes. Okay, cool, period. That conversation's over.

I can hear you walking around with your head staring at the ground, and a gazelle can't run away staring at one foot in front of it because it's going to trip and fall on its own face. Hold your head up high. You did it. It's over. You own it, and now we're going to be about what comes next and now you're nursing this this is which makes a buttload of money a ton of money you so you have people be alive yeah so now go clean up the mess and in two years you'll be done and you'll look back five years from now with a big old pile of money and you go god man i almost busted it there thank

god i decided to yes decided to lean into this. Yeah, so lean into it with a smile and go, game on, baby. Be aggressive. Go get it. Game on, man. Game on. Get it. Get it.

I hope it just to hope it works. No. No, it's not going to get it. It's no hope. Smack it down. It's math. It's not a wish. By God, it's math.

I mean, you make $320,000. Let's put $150,000 a year on $275,000. And in two years, it's math i mean you make two you make 320 000 let's put 150 a year on 275 and in two years it's magically gone you know i mean it's this is how it works but i and i don't really care what your nurse anesthetist friends are doing because they're mathematically stupid so don't listen to them okay i really don't care if they're buying houses or bmws or whatever sell the stupid house you just moved out of get rid of it it's a problem it's not a blessing uh you can keep the cars just because you make so stinking much money if you want to keep that thirty thousand dollar car it's okay if you're going to get out of debt in two years or less if you're not going to get out of debt in two years or less and you sell the thirty

thousand dollar car but you need to you really you really need to get you need to get this done. And you can do it. It's very doable. It's, man, sometimes I talk to people that have $275,000 in debt, and they make $100,000. Or they make $65,000. And that's a bigger problem, man. I mean, that's a little bitty shovel in a big old hole. You know, you can't do that. So, you know, the good news is you have the blessing of this income, so you have to dial it in and be game on, committed, you and your wife,

and go, we don't make $320,000 a year. We're not going to act like we make $320,000 a year because we have a mess that is bigger than this, and we have to live on nothing, beans and rice, rice and beans. You don't need to see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there. You don't need to go on vacation of a restaurant unless you're working there. You don't need to go on vacation. You need to get out of debt.

And you can do it. You can do it. You can do it. I can see it. And I can't wait to hear your debt-free scream. It's going to be amazing. This is The Ramsey Show. you've got a lot on your plate a job your home your marriage and your growing, and your growing family. While you're enjoying the present, you can't help but think about your future and your finances. As you explore your

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We hear you, and we're the same way around here, and that's why we're bringing back our life-changing live events. We're going back on the road, and we are not holding back this year. First up is Wealth Building Live. It's coming to Orlando on Thursday, May 19th. This thing is selling fast. It's almost sold out already. You can still get tickets, though, if you do it.

If you're waiting around to buy your ticket, don't. It's about gone. This event is going on tour this year. We're going to have other locations to tell you about really soon another one this uh this spring it's a city that sounds kind of like las vegas but we'll just see it sounds suspiciously like that when you say it but i'll let you know when i have the contract signed that we can actually go so uh good stuff and four more cities in the fall including in the our in addition to that in the fall we we're going to be doing our Smart Conference.

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more about all of our live events as they come online you can keep up with them at ramsey solutions.com slash events gonna be good to be back on stage doing these smart conferences again john i can't wait can't wait can't wait i be back on the stage doing these smart conferences again, John. I can't wait. Can't wait. Can't wait. I've been on the road a lot the last few months, and I can't wait to get on. But I've been by myself.

And staying in hotels, working with businesses all across the country, I can't wait to get back on the road with the gang. Yeah. It's going to be fun. Get the band back together, baby. It's time. All right. Lynn is with us in Minneapolis.

Hi, Lynn. How are you? Hi, Dave. Hi, John. Thank you you? Hi, Dave. Hi, Don. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. I am a huge, huge fan, and I'm debt-free thanks to you and your program. Way to go.

I am 60 years old. I make $55,000 a year as an administrative assistant, and yet I still live paycheck to paycheck because of my high rent. But I love where I live. My take-home pay is $2,600 a month, and my rent is $1,655, which is over half of my take-home pay for a one-bedroom apartment. I've been looking at purchasing a condo, but the ones I like get outbidded, and the older condos are more affordable to buy have a high like $700 in HOA fees and I'm not comfortable with that high of a fee. So my question for you today is I really like the convenience of renting. I'm wondering if it's in my best interest to purchase something or if it's okay to keep renting. I could find a cheaper apartment that's not as nice,

but it would be like $200 less a month. Okay. Your $2,600 number, if you make $50,000, is wrong. Is wrong? Yeah. Well, $2,600 is $30,000. You don't have $20,000 in taxes. Hmm. You make $50,000 a year.

Is that what your salary is based on? Are you getting a huge refund, or are you counting stuff that's coming out of your check other than taxes when you're telling me what your take-home pay is? Oh, that's what comes out for my benefits and my retirement. Okay. How much are you putting in retirement? Okay.

I do 4%, which is required for an 8% match, and then I do another 1% on top of that. So that comes to $28.57 a year. Okay. Are your benefits expensive? No. Or are you getting a big tax refund every year? I'm not because I also get fossil support, and I have to pay taxes on that.

Okay. So I just keep out what I need for taxes, and I got hit really big this year for some reason. I'm still struggling with how we go from a $50,000 income to a $30,000 take-home pay. I'm trying to find out where that money is going. It didn't go to retirement. My paychecks are like $1,384, and I do get paid 26 times a year. Okay. Well, that's a little bit better.

We're up to about $35,000 at this point. But still, there's something, there's still some money. I mean, I'm not saying it's missing. I just don't know what you're doing with it exactly. So, okay. The answer to your question overall, without trying to figure out what to do today about it, is that if you're 60, for the next 30 years, Answering your question overall, without trying to figure out what to do today about it,

is that if you're 60, for the next 30 years, can you imagine what rents are going to do? Yeah, that scares me. Yeah. Because I had an increase one year of $150 a month. Yeah, and it's like that's the problem with being a renter in perpetuation. Yeah. problem with being a renter in perpetuation is it's the largest portion of your income goes to housing and you lose control of how much it increases when you are at the mercy of the landlord and so you don't want to be a renter for the next 30 years because that's going to you know it's going to increase versus if you bought that condo, you know, you've locked in what it costs

you, not counting the HOA fees, but you've locked in your cost per month for the next 30 years. And so I'm moving in some way towards one of these condos and some method figuring out how I'm going to get there. And what have I got to do to cause that to happen? Because that's a better long-term play for you. We also know that the folks that reach, you know, that reach a million-dollar net worth, the vast majority of them, well over 80% of them, the primary source of their wealth is two things, their retirement plans and their paid-for house. And so, you know, if you end up with a $700,000, $800,000 net worth,

you know, in 10 or 15 years over time here, which you probably could do, a portion of that, a third of that, a half of that or whatever would be your paid-for condo that you got paid off in the next 15 years. So I want that stability in your long-term plan that's why we don't want to be a renter long term but it doesn't mean we're stupid in the short term and you go out there in the name of not renting anymore you go do something foolish and

buy something you can't afford yeah which is what a lot of young couples do when they get married they have to rush out and buy a house that they can't afford. Or you get in a bidding war and suddenly you're way out on thin ice. She was very wise to walk away from those bidding wars. She said, I went up and I tapped out. That's very, very smart. Michael is in Pasadena, California. Hey, Michael, what's up?

How's it going? Thank you for taking my call, Dr. John and Dave. Appreciate you both. Sure. How can we help yeah so we're in a little bit of a situation i'll give you the briefest uh the briefest uh explanation that i can so basically my wife and i we live in in california currently um we're actually building a house in arizona that's where we're from. So we're building a brand new build. We have money from the previous sale of our house. Before we moved here, we have the cash in our account. We can pay off all of our student loans and potentially have a little bit

in savings before we go back to Phoenix. So we're trying to figure out if we should keep the cash or pay down all of our debt like really aggressively i'd be dead free by the end of the day okay now how are you going to close on the new build if you don't have any cash so that's the thing we have cash now we have like i know i just i just got rid of all your cash. I offered that as an option. How are you planning on closing on the new build? Well, we have a little bit of cash, but it won't be as much because we have to pay some money up front just to get the process started. I want you to hold out just enough to close on the new build, barely, and hold out a little bit of an emergency fund,

and then I want you to throw the rest of it at this debt and move to Arizona debt-free into a new house. It's going to change your whole attitude about everything when you do that. It sounds reckless and crazy, but you're going to be free, and that's what I would do today. This is The ramsey show Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. On the debt-free stage, Stephen and Kaylee are with us. Hey, guys, how are you?

Wonderful. Thank you for having us, Dave. Good. Honored to have you. Where do you guys live? Grand Rapids, Michigan. Oh, we love Grand Rapids. Welcome to Nashville.

Good to have you. And how much debt have you paid off? $231,000 and some change. Way to go. And how long did this take you? 25 months. Wow, you're kicking it. And your range of income during that time?

We started around $190,000 and finished around $260,000. Goodness. What do you guys do for a living? I'm a physician assistant. Oh. And I'm in dental sales. Oh, both. Wow.

Okay, that's ringing the bell on the income. Well done. So I'm going to guess and say 231 might be a bunch of student loans for the PA. Both of us. Both of you. All right. All right. Very cool. Yep. Student loans and we both had car loans and credit cards. Yeah. I lived my mid-20s like... She was looking at him. Well, he looked at her for student loans, and she got him back with the credit cards. So it's good.

Same team, right? You got to trade the look back and forth there. It's pretty good, yeah. That's good. Okay, how long y'all been married? Just six, five months. Oh, my gosh. So you started this separately and then

combined it and knocked it out so yeah we're a little different where we i mean i'll let kaylee tell the story and how we got so we started this just while we were dating um we i remember i was sitting at a wedding and like looking around and i was, one day we'll probably want to get married. How are we ever going to afford this? And I remembered hearing your name a little bit growing up, and I Googled Dave Ramsey and saw the Total Money Makeover. You're sitting at a wedding, and you Googled Dave Ramsey? No. I was just going, my goodness.

Eat the cake. Okay, but the wedding woke you up, then when you got home, you Googled Dave Ramsey. Yeah, and um so saw total money makeover and steven picked it up for me at uh barnes noble and i read it the following weekend and probably within the next month kind of slowly decided to pay off my car and tell him about it a little bit and then we both kind of really got on board um but we did it was interesting because we were just dating we weren't even engaged at the time and we both were doing our own debt snowballs so it was kind of unique in that way yeah so i bought her that book and watched her just get after it and

i had my own i guess you can you can say I was Dave-ish um paying off like trying to aggressively pay off my credit cards but then I saw how aggressive she was being with her car and I was like I want to marry this woman I got it I I got it either I'm either have to be all in or all out and I decided to be yeah you just can't be left in the dust here you got to keep up I mean come on I love how you said like I started aggressively getting after it and then i looked over she was actually aggressively getting much more aggressive than i was so you had two cars at the time and yeah i don't know you paid the one off yeah i had a work vehicle and a regular vehicle and i was like dave would not love that and uh so i uh i sold my work vehicle and used my personal vehicle as both work and personal

and started the debt snowball from there. Yeah. Way to go, you guys. This is amazing. I mean, once you decided to do it, both of you were just, you knocked it down big time. Yeah. So in the middle of this debt is also, did y'all cash flow a wedding too? Yep.

We cash flowed about two-thirds of our wedding. Yep. And it wasn't just our jobs. We had a lot of side gigs. Yeah. She picked up shifts in urgent care. She made a ton of money. That's the lucrative thing, yeah.

Yep. Picking up other people's garbage and refurbishing it and selling it on Facebook Marketplace. Oh, wow. Okay. And I have a little side lawn mowing on Facebook Marketplace. Oh, wow. Okay. And I have a little side lawn mowing business in the summer. So, yeah, we definitely worked a lot more than we played. Yeah. For sure.

Okay. But you're free. We're free. Yeah, and we were able to pay both of us pay our debt off by the week before our wedding. Correct. Oh, okay. Yeah. So that was your finish line goal.

We want to marry each other debt-free. Well, it wasn't initially, though. And you talk about this on the show a lot. We thought it would maybe be this year. We thought that she'd inherit a little bit of my debt, and it'd be about five months after the wedding, six months prior to the wedding. And even though we were doing it separately,

it felt like we were doing it together. You know, constant communication, holding each other accountable and encouraging and encouraging and um we looked at it competitive yeah yeah she won she always will my brother yeah i know so five months before the wedding we're like wow we can if we if we put our heads down this summer we can we can do this before the wedding and the weekend before we got married. We paid it all off. I love it. Wow.

Good for you. That's amazing. Thank you. Well done, you guys. Very well done. So what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Constant communication and just being there for each other because we are unique. We weren't married yet.

We attacked our snowballs separately, but it didn't feel like that because we were constantly going over our budget and holding each other accountable to our budget. I mean, she took me, who in my mid-20s would take my tax return and go to Nashville and blow it all when I had a ton of debt. The irony is you're in Nashville today. So holding each other accountable and continuously having that open communication and being on the same page. What's the best boyfriend-girlfriend disagreement you had over the budgets? I would say when she...

I know what you're going to say. The vehicles? Oh, no. No. You go ahead. This is the newlywed game, right? Yeah. Answer very carefully, Steven.

For me, when she was being very aggressive at paying off her vehicle, and I was like, why did I get her that book? That's when she kind of came to me and was like you know you should definitely think about this too you have two vehicles and I I remember kind of fighting around that for a while just because that's just the way I had lived throughout my 20s um what was oh in my mind it was kind of our like Stephen was saying we would sit down and budget every week probably and our um I would um underestimate I guess the the budget and I would um he would always say you probably need just a little bit more money for that and so we would that would just be like a week a weekly thing

where we would kind of have different mindsets on things. So now that we're married and that we make our budget together, that was an adjustment as well. Like we just have different minds on things. You guys talk about savers and spenders and just probably having little disagreements about, you're probably going to pay a little bit more for groceries than that this week. And I'm like, no, I can probably get by.

$2 is enough. There were weeks where like $25 had to get us through for groceries. Yeah. Don't think that's going to work. But now you all make a bunch of money and you have to keep all of it. It's so cool, man. It's fun. We went to New York around Christmas.

We're here this weekend. Didn't feel bad about spending $9 on a beer on Broadway like I used to. It's more than that. It wasn't finance. You paid for it today instead of four months from now, so congratulations. And because we had just gotten done paying off a debt, we really didn't go on a real honeymoon, so we're going to Italy in a month. Hey, ding, ding.

I love it. Good for you guys. Well, I'm proud of you. Thank you. You did very well. Who were your biggest cheerleaders outside the two of you? Outside the two of us, my parents were really big supporters. Both of them cheered us on along the way.

Yeah, my parents have always been there on the way to support me with whatever I choose to do. We have my college roommate and good friend. Him and his wife live in Lansing, Michigan, Nick and Rachel. They're in the journey with us. Recently debt-free, too. Yeah, they're recently debt-free, too. So having people our age getting after it with us along the same and hanging out with them and talking about the frustrations of it all, it really helped. Yeah.

Way to go, guys. Way to go. We're proud of you well done well done we got a copy of baby steps millionaires for you because that's the next chapter baby that's the next chapter in this story making 260 you ought to be there in 20 minutes i mean it shouldn't shouldn't take long at all you got no payments life is good how ordinary people build extraordinary wealth how you can too 231000 paid off in 25 months. Did it separately and together, sort of, by communicating.

$190,000 to $260,000 income. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yes! Yes! Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!

Well done. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Zach is with us in Oklahoma City. Hey, Zach, how are you? I am doing all right, I guess. Okay, cool. How can we help? Well, this is where the I guess part comes in.

It looks like about a 90% chance that I'm going to end up divorced here soon. And I'm trying to figure, hoping Dr. John can help with some advice on how to just kind of stay focused because this is screwing with me a little bit and I'm not doing perform well at work and stuff so are you are you asking about that okay so back me out here you said about 90 percent and then I got sidetracked here so I'm assuming you you're not into this this isn't your idea nope okay so what happened um the short version is that she struggles with borderline personality disorder and does not believe that she needs help and she has just started making a bunch of ridiculous impulse decisions and then blaming me for the fact that nothing is working out and that we can't afford the marriage counseling and stuff that we need and and she just finally dipped out. Okay. So you say there's 10% chance that this isn't going to happen. Is that a realistic percentage, or is that you just hanging on to hope?

The latter. Okay. Is there attorneys involved yet? Has she filed on you? She's not filed anything if i'm being truthful i bet that if this goes through i'll probably end up having to pay for it when i finally get sick of waiting to just decide to move on myself but all right so in this situation here's the person you can deal with you and i can hear the bitterness dripping from your language which i don't i

don't i don't blame you. I'd be bitter too. I'd be frustrated and sad and upset and all that. But that is clouding all of your judgment, all of your decisions, all the words that come out of your mouth, all the thoughts in your head, your inability to get up and go for a walk or a run in the morning, your work performance, everything. Okay? So you tell me you can't afford to go talk to somebody i'm telling you you can't afford not to

figure it out okay call call some friends call a pastor call i'm not talking about her i'm talking about you okay this isn't about her right now this is about you because you can't control what she's doing and she stepped out on you. Okay? Do you hear what I'm saying? Yeah, I know what you mean. And I apologize if I started through this. It happens when I get frustrated with situations like this. It's okay. It's okay. What I was trying to say is like she

was the reckless spender in our relationship. I kept trying to wiggle between trying to budget for all of the help that we needed while trying to keep her happy with the impulse purchases she wanted to make. And I'm going to go see somebody because it sounds kind of bad, but now that she's walked out, I can afford to do so because I end up having to spend on her reckless decisions. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I just told you. Stop talking about her.

And you immediately came back and started blaming her for other stuff. Sorry. No, don't be sorry. Just listen to how much this has poisoned your heart. Okay? And the only thing on planet Earth you can control is your thoughts and your actions. And that's it.

And that is a powerless, helpless feeling in these moments when someone you love has said, I don't love you anymore. I'm out of here. It's heartbreaking. It's devastating. And yet, the only thing you can control is your thoughts and your actions. So I'd make a phone call today and say, I'm not okay. Every minute of my life is venom and poison towards my wife. She's leaving me and I'm not okay anymore. And I'm using anger and rage and

all these other tools to try to prop myself up through this heartbreak and I need to look somebody in the eye and say I'm not okay that's what I mean and so the language that you used like when we start talking about the you can afford counseling, you circled back and said, well, now that she's out of the way, you see what I'm doing? Instead of just going, yeah, I've actually got the money now. There's two different sets of language saying the exact same thing.

But that's just due to your pain. We can hear the pain in your word choices and even in your voice tone. And that's what's throwing you. Because I'm going to guess, John, that if I were in this situation, I know what I would be doing. If I were losing focus, it would be because all I'm doing is replaying all of these tapes in my head over and over. And I should have said, and what if I had done this? And I could have done that. And then if she had done that, and I'd have said that,

and all these ruminations, all these things you're never really going to do. These conversations you plan out that are never going to happen, and you ruminate on them and play on them and play on them and play on them and play on them and play on them, and all of a sudden the car's driving down the shoulder instead of the middle of the road. That's exactly right. And you hear the warning track, and you go, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, I'm not even driving.

And so, Zach. Real quick, now that Dave mentioned it, I forgot one of the main reasons why I wanted to call and ask about this. I drive a truck for a living. I'm alone for three to four weeks at a time. Okay. That's part of why I think this anger has caused me problems, the way I realized I need help.

Yeah, that makes sense. And I know enough about bipolar that a gap missing another person can be devastating to that. So I bet if she was to call, she might be saying, hey, I've been missing my husband for months at a time for years over year over year. And why do I tell you that? Most of the time in these situations, unless there's just an out-of-control abuse situation, everybody's playing a role. And so this vitriol, this anger, this rage, all you're doing is poisoning yourself, hoping it rubs off on her, and it's not.

It's killing you. So breathe it out, man. Stop having these imaginary conversations with her and go talk to somebody. And if you can't afford a counselor, because people are listening and going, I can't, I'd be nice, find a couple of friends it goes back to that it demands a witness your heartbreak and your grief and your sadness you got to have other people you can say

hey i'm not okay with and i don't need your advice i need you just to say man i'm so sorry i'll get the next round yeah as far as the money thing goes until you get through this process you're probably not going to make any traction on your finances because um you know it's expensive it's distracting and so you're in the middle of a hurricane and when you're in the middle of a hurricane you don't work the total money make over baby steps you you push pause and you pile up cash to get through the hurricane and when the hurricane goes by and it's over then we assess the damage and we start rebuilding from there. We push play again. We start working the baby steps. And that's how you're going to do that as far as

your finances go. Trevor is in Salt Lake City. Hi, Trevor. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, Dr. John. Thank you for taking my call. I'll try and give you a quick download here. My wife and I are in baby step seven.

And I just found out yesterday that the company I've been working for for eight years is going to be closing down the division that I work in in the next 12 to 18 months. Cool. What do you do for a living? A little bit of time. I work in manufacturing. What do you do for a living? A little bit of time. I work in manufacturing. What do you do? For dental products. I'm a manager. You're a manufacturing manager.

Okay. What do you make? Yes. Dental products. Now, how much money do you make? Oh, sorry. $85,000 a year. Okay.

Cool. This opportunity for you to get a better job. Yeah. So the company is shutting down the division that I work in. They are trying to reabsorb some of the people into other divisions of the company. I like the company. It's got a great culture, and I want to stay there. My question is, should I just continue kind of doing what I've been doing with my finances, or should I go into sort of a storm mode and just kind of save up some cash until I know things are stable again?

What would your advice be? Well, I think I would go get my new job. Yeah. And I'd never skip a beat. Okay. Or at least be having conversations all over the place. I mean, don't get a job making $110 and leave tomorrow. As soon as you get that job.

Why are you going to... You don't need to stay on the Titanic as it goes down. This doesn't do anything for you. It's not your boat. So you wouldn't look at moving to other departments within the company? Unless it paid more. Okay. I wouldn't take a moving to other departments within the company? Unless it paid more. Okay. It wouldn't take a pay cut to stay with them.

They're not healthy. They're not doing well. Or if you were AIM-A player, they would have said, hey, we're closing the division, but you, we're having a meeting with you because we're making sure we keep you. Exactly. That would have happened. It didn't happen. Yeah, human nature is that this thing always ends up with a pay cut.

And I have often seen it when you decide otherwise, ending up a pay increase. But you need to decide otherwise and start planning now. Don't wait on this to sneak up on you. They've already told you it's coming. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's John Deloney, co-host of The Ramsey Show. Did you know over 18 million people listen to The Ramsey Show every week? A lot of those people listen on one of our 600-plus radio stations across the country. To find a station near you, go to RamseySolutions.com slash show.