The Ramsey Show - App - Is It Tacky to Quit a Job After Just One Year? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: June 19, 2018

The show about you

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave 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. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. This is your show at 888-825-5225. Adriana is with us in Norfolk, Virginia. Hi, Adriana. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm blessed. Good. How can I help? Okay, so to give you the short of it, I'm married.

I married my husband back in October, and we took a few for kind of our engagement, getting ready for everything we had on the same page. And now we have a baby on the way. Yay! Yeah. We were in baby step two, but we've kind of backslid to baby step one with my prenatal care. Okay. So my question is, before we went to SPU, before we got engaged, we went ring shopping, and we got some very expensive rings. The other thing is we have other rings that we picked up for everyday use

because my husband works in a restaurant. So my question is, should we sell the rings to kind of put back our emergency fund for Baby Step 1? What does your husband make? Right now he's making about $30,000 a year, but he got a promotion at his job. They told him he was going to be making about $40,000. Good. And how much are you making? I'm not actually making anything right now.

However, I am looking for some work to do at home, whether it's like if I start Etsy or do like remote data entry or something like that. Okay. How much debt do you have? How much debt? Total, we have $51,000. On what? We have, what's that? On what?

Credit cards is $11,000, and that's actually some of the ring debt as well personal loans we have 8 500 and for student loans it's 31 500 no car debt um that is probably uh personal loans the I think he owes $700 on it. On his car? Yes. Okay. But your car is paid for? Yes.

What is his car worth? I have a Beater BMW. I'm very proud of it. You have a what? I have a Beater BMW, and I'm very proud of it. A Beater BMW. Okay. And what is his car worth?

That I really don't know. I think he told me he got it for around $10,000. Okay. $10,000. All right. And your rings, you paid $11,000 for them? No, it's part of the credit card. Oh, what did you pay for your rings?

When we got them, it was $6,000. We have $5,000 left over on it. Mm-hmm. Okay. And when you sell them, you'll sell them for $1,500? Probably. Yeah. No, keep them.

Okay. No. probably yeah no keep them okay no you you've got all kinds of other issues but the rings are not your issue um they don't if they were 15 000 in this situation i might think about it with a 40 000 income and a wife pregnant at home and 51 000 in debt i might think about it but they're not 15 000 they're 1500 probably when you turn around and try to sell them back or sell them in some way. So, no, I think I'm going to keep them. But I think you guys are going to continue to just really lean in on your budget, and he's going to be working a lot. Anything he can do, not only at his main job,

but anything he can do to pick up extra income and anything you can do to pick up some income, as you you said from home while you're in this prenatal situation and um yeah i think if you guys will be really really tight on your budget watch what you're doing be very very careful i'd put the student loans and hardship deferral right now and let's get some headway on some of these other things and get them cleaned up as quickly as you can. And then you guys just continue to lean on this and lean on it as hard as you can. But I think you're going to be okay. You're going to work your way through it.

Baby comes, you're back to work. You know, your income doubles again. I think you're going to be heading in the right way that time. So, hey, thanks for the call. We appreciate you joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Thank you for being with us, America. Brian is in Winter Haven, Florida. Hi, Brian.

How are you? Hi. Good afternoon, Mr. Ramsey. How are you doing, sir? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, sir, my wife and I have been on our debt-free journey since December. And might I say our marriage has always been great,

but it's just been much better with our communication and everything going on. But essentially, long story short, we started with $105,000 in the consumer debt, and now we're down to $44,000. Our goal is to be done with this at the end of next year. We just want to know if you agree. What's your income? Well, we currently make $115,000. Okay, and you're going to pay off how much by the end of next year?

So 18 months, is that what we're thinking? Yes, sir. Okay, and you're... And might I say, sir, that the last six months, a lot of the heavy lifting has been done. I sold my car so that we were able to eliminate $11,000 immediately, and we were able to receive a $17,000 student loan forgiveness. Right. And you've got, that's wonderful.

Okay, so you've got $60,000 remaining. Is that what you said? No, sir, $44,000. $44,000. Oh, yeah, you can do that in 18 months, making $110,000. Okay, perfect. Definitely. That's very doable. Yeah do that in 18 months, making 110. Okay, perfect. Definitely. That's very doable.

Yeah, you're on track, man. You're killing it. Yeah. And you're so spot on. I mean, you know exactly where every dollar is and where it's going, and just very well handled, man. I love it. That is just excellent.

Great job. Thanks for calling in. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Amanda is on our, we have our own little private Facebook page community that you can join if you'd like. We'd love to have you guys out there. It's called The, because it's the official, The Ramsey Baby Steps Facebook Community. And so if you want to be on facebook community with us our team is on there and uh bazillions of you are on there the ramsey baby steps facebook community how do i do

this if my spouse is not on board he says he is he says he wants to pay off our debt and save money but his actions say differently so is it possible to do when he isn't supportive or on board? Kiddo, if you start running off every time you and your husband aren't in agreement and running into a china shop and being the bull by yourself, you're never going to have a good marriage. You guys have got to learn to work together. Can you do it by yourself and get out of debt? Maybe.

Maybe. But it's probably going to do a lot of damage to your relationship you're already pretty disgusted with him just by your wording and so where i would tell you to concentrate is on your relationship and on him hearing you very clearly with the tv off and the kids in bed and no noise or background saying, this is very important to me. You actually doing this, not just saying you're going to, would be an act of love towards me that would be a very big deal to me. He hasn't heard that yet. When he hears that, he'll come along.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show. You know, so many people have such a negative attitude about life insurance when it's actually one of the most caring and giving things you can do for your family. But still, seven out of ten families have no life insurance or not enough. I don't get it. Look around. People die at all ages. It's sad, but that's reality. What's worse is when they leave their family without financial protection creating even

more hardship, yet somehow people find reasons not to get it done. It can't be price. Term life insurance is just plain cheap. And that's why I've been recommending Zander Insurance for over 20 years. Not just because they're an advertiser, but because they offer a crucial service that helps us all provide financial security to our families. Call them at 800-356-4282 or check out their rates at zander.com. In the end, you need to get past the unpleasant images. Just get your family protected.

Be responsible and feel good about what you've accomplished. That's zander.com. Thanks for joining us, America. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Bridget is in Austin, Texas. Hi, Bridget. How are you? I'm fine, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? So, Dave, I have a question. I just started doing the Total Money Makeover, like literally just started it. I want to get out of debt. I'm just sick of everything that I've done to myself. And I have a question regarding our home right now. We live in a home.

It's valued at $360,000. We owe about what we've paid. We owe about $200,000, and I think it's like $35,000. And I want to buy a tax foreclosure home so that we don't have a mortgage anymore and then just make that home what we want it. And I don't know if I should even do that or not right now or if i should just get going with the total money makeover and make a decision once we get into that yeah well let's do that um what is the um have you bought foreclosures before um no but i have a family member that buys them on a regular basis she does this and i've

been talking to her about it. My dad is a contractor, so he does the roofing. He does all the build, all that different stuff he does. And I've kind of talked to him, and he said he would help us with pulling the home together with anything that we need to work on. Okay. And how much debt do you have, not counting your home? Not counting the home, we have, and I haven't looked at all of

yet I'm going to say probably about $70,000 that's a mix of car loans credit cards and things like that that we have. And what's your household income? I am not working I'm working work from home making half of what I used to make which is about about $54,000. My husband makes about $60,000 to $80,000. He's a semiconductor, and it depends on the industry. Okay, so you're making around $100,000, $110,000, give or take. That's what we were making. Yeah, and that's what you're making now or not? No, no, because I'm not working the job that I had before.

Okay, what is your household income now? Right now, our household income is probably about, I would say, maybe $80,000, $70,000 to $80,000. Okay. All right. And how much do you own your cars? On my car, I owe a little less than $10,000. His car was fairly new, so he probably owes about $20,000-some-odd on it because he bought it pre-owned. Yeah. So you've got $30,000 in car debt alone.

That's a bigger issue than your house. Okay. And, you know, you may want to relook some of those decisions unless your income is going to go up dramatically. You've got an awful lot tied up in cars that are going down in value. I bought and sold foreclosures for years. And tax sales are a needle in a haystack. They're very, very difficult to find a deal on where you can get clean title and get the title insured because there's not a recourse on the thing. And, you know, you can get yourself in a real bind fooling with that stuff.

Maybe your family member really knows what they're doing. Apparently they do. That sounds fine. But you're not going to get a $360,000 house for $100,000 very often. I've probably done in excess of 2,000 real estate deals, and I've probably done just a handful that look like that. They're very, very, very rare that those kinds of ratios are there. So for you to end up with a debt-free house in the scenario you're giving me is,

I would say there's a 1% chance of that happening or less in what you're doing. And I've done a bunch of it, a bunch of it. So no, I think you work your total money makeover. You assess these cars and decide are they worth keeping because they're a big chunk of your problem. And you guys get into your budget. You start working that. I think you're going to figure out what's going on when you do that. Kate is with us in Pittsburgh.

Hi, Kate. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm great. It's an honor to talk to you. You too. What's up? So, I'm great. It's an honor to talk to you. You too. What's up? So I'm an attorney. My fiance is currently studying for the bar this summer,

which means that I'm marrying somebody with a sizable mortgage on their brain, and I also have one of those. But I'm wondering, so I've been working. I'm coming up on my first year of practice, and I'm getting great experience. I'm working for a legal aid and working on some federal grants. But that being said, right now we're only making about $65,000 a year together and we have about $340,000 of student loan and then my fiance's car. And I'm wondering, you know, can I, should I be looking for a new job because I know my earning capacity

is much bigger? Yes. Yeah. Yes, you need to make as much money as you can make. You have a huge mess. Right. You don't have the luxury of taking something for the experience. You have $340,000 in debt.

Okay. So even though I'm only a year into practice, it's not burning. Am I burning a bridge? I'm just not sure how to exit click-free. Well, I mean, you've got to do that with some class and thoughtfully, but I don't know that you have to. You didn't marry them. You went to work for them.

Right. Right. And so, you know, no, I don't know how you'd be burning a bridge. If you can go make twice as much, you should. And he should, too. Now, later on, once you're debt-free and, you know, you've piled up some money, if you want to make some different choices in your career track and, you know, move over into an area of the law that doesn't pay as well because it's fulfilling to you, that's fine.

But today, today, you've got a mess. Right. And that's what I was thinking, too. Yeah, both of you. When are you getting married? In October, October 6th. It's going to be a big year this year. Yeah, a really big year.

So hopefully he passes the bar, and yeah. And we get married, and our income goes way up. Yes. There's going to be a lot going on. Good for you. Very cool. Hey, thanks for the call. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

You jump in. We'll talk about your life, your money. Thanks for the call. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life, your money. Micah is with us in Austin, Texas. Hey, Micah, how are you? Pretty good. How about yourself? Better than I deserve.

What's up? Hey, so me and my wife, we just recently relocated to Austin, Texas. And we've been using every dollar. We haven't done financial peace university, but basically what we're trying to figure out with our debt right now, if we should sell my car or not, because I bought it new, got a good deal on it. My dad works at Honda, so I got a good deal on it, but just trying to figure out right now if it would be the best decision to sell it based on what we make and how much we owe. So what's your household income?

Right now, not much. She's making about $40,000, and then I just got into real estate, so I'm in the process of getting my license right now. You don't have a job? So I'm just Ubering right now. i'm ubering and i'm about to take my exam next week oh my goodness okay um and so what do you owe on the honda on the honda i owe 19 okay thousand yeah okay well the rule of thumb that I use is this. If you have more than half your annual income invested in things that have motors and wheels, you have too much tied up in things that are going down in value,

because everything with motors and wheels goes down in value. Right. And so you're at that point, without a doubt. I'm sure you've got another car, right? Yeah. What's the other car worth? Her car, we owe about $5 5500 on it yeah okay and so you're over half your annual income today now as soon as you start making money in real estate that won't be true you you know so if you make if you can go make

40 or 50 000 this year in real estate um or in the coming 12 months not just this calendar year but if you can do that then then the car is a keeper, assuming you don't have so much other debt that you can't pay it off. The second rule of thumb I use on cars is, can you be debt-free but your house in two years or less and keep this car? Well, we don't actually own right now. We're renting right now. I just left my car.

How much debt do you have other than these two cars? So we owe about $200,000. Okay. No, you don't need to be driving a $20,000 car payment with a $200,000 debt. So, yeah, you get the student loan-itis, it sounds like. What a mess. Wow. Yeah, you've got to go make some money, man,

and you're going gonna have to live on nothing for a while you've made some decisions that'll put you in the corner when you paint yourself into the corner you get paint on your feet this is the Dave Ramsey Show We'll be right back. Folks, turnover is bad for business and it's expensive. That's why I recommend ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter is a place where growing businesses connect qualified candidates. They make it so easy. When you post your job with ZipRecruiter, they send it to over 100 of the web's leading job boards. But they don't stop there.

With their powerful matching technology, ZipRecruiter scans thousands of resumes to find people with the right experience and invite them to apply to your job. As applications come in, ZipRecruiter analyzes each one and spotlights the top candidates so you never miss a great match. It's so effective that 80% of employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site within the first day. With results like that, it's no wonder that ZipRecruiter is the highest-rated hiring site in America. And right now, my listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Dave. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash Dave. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash Dave. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Angel and Johanna are with us. Hey, guys, how are you?

Hi, David. How are you? Welcome. Where are you guys from? We're from New City, New York. It's about 30 minutes north of New York City. Perfect. Well, good to have you in Nashville.

Thanks for joining us. And all the way down here to do a debt-free screen. Yes, sir. Love it. How much have you paid off? We paid off $70,128 in 12 months. In 12 months. Good for you.

And your range of income during that time? We started at around $270, a little north of $300. Good for you. What do you guys do for a living? I'm a nurse practitioner. I also was doing health and fitness at the time. I'm a New York City police officer for 23 years. Very cool. Good for you guys. Well, great incomes and careers. So what was the $70,000 worth of debt? $30,000 was a small mortgage, one of those balloon mortgages.

The rest was cars, credit cards, and PayPal. Okay. All right. So what happened 12 months ago that lit you guys on fire? Because you went after it. Yes, yes. So about five years ago, I heard of your name and your baby steps through one of the physicians I worked with at the time. And I went home and Googled your name and kind of created my own version of your program.

I decided that I was going to skip one, go to two, maybe do three and four together. I also kind of blamed that we lived in New York City and that it was too expensive and that it wouldn't work for New Yorkers. So I kind of like didn't really do it. And last year when we did our W-2s and did our taxes, I couldn't believe all the money and where the money had gone. And kind of went into panic mode knowing that we were pretty much, we weren't being good stewards, you know, of what we had. And we weren't really saving for college the way we should or making sure that we would retire with dignity. Make too much money to be this broke.

Exactly. So we kind of, you know, I decided to listen to your podcast, and I was going to listen for 15 minutes, and I couldn't shut you down. It's been tried before. Yes. I thought I was going to get it in 15 minutes. So after four hours of listening to you, I came home super, super excited and told my husband, we're doing the Dave Ramsey baby steps. And he said, oh, no, we're not.

Oh, man. Every time she mentioned her, I mentioned your name. I was like, oh, here she goes again with the Dave Ramsey guy all over. Here we go, cussing in the house again. Oh, my gosh. So, Dave, I needed a strategy to bring him in that night. I downloaded your every dollar budgeting tool and input all the all of our income for the month and gave every dollar name like you recommend. And I couldn't believe we had an excess of four thousand dollars. And I said, oh, my God, we can pay off our car.

And for the first time in our marriage, we won't have a car payment. So I show him that that wasn't our smallest debt but i know it will give him the biggest impact and so we did and uh he agreed and uh next month we were we signed in for financial peace university oh just like that just like that boom so you get that you you hooked him not really because the first six months of the process, he really still didn't want to do it. He wouldn't want to do the budget with me. Uh-oh. Well, you know what it is, Dave?

You said something that really struck a chord with me. And you said, those who are in debt, you're robbing the kids' future. And I was driving home one night, and when you said that, I couldn't believe it. It really struck a chord with me, and that's when we kicked it into high gear. And actually, the last six months is when we really started just gazelle intensity. Yeah, we were getting ready to coordinate Financial Peace University, and I said to him, we can't stand in front of our church members and preach something that you're not

really doing. Oh, yeah. Well, teaching it will make you do it. That's for sure. For sure. And understanding the nobility of your kids, taking care of your kids and changing your family tree, that calls a man out. That really does.

Yeah. It sure does. Good for you guys. I'm proud of you guys. Well done. Thank you. Thank you. We both come from low-income families, so we knew that, you know,

we have an opportunity to really change the legacy of our children. So did you have people cheering you on while you were doing this? I don't know. I think most people, especially from New York, they thought it was a completely different, like, idea they never heard of, or not having a credit card or being debt free. That would be true everywhere. That's not unique to New York. So I think

after a while, and they saw that we were consistent, most people will come back and ask for the name of the program we were following. But for the most part, I think people were neutral. Yeah, they were neutral. Some people thought this was a scam or anything. Absolutely not. This is if you follow the steps it'll work for you yeah absolutely well

done you guys very very well done what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is um i think it's uh for couples not only um dreaming together but executing together you know you have to really put it into action together because when he locked arm with me and we did it together, we really kicked it up the last six months because we were both on the same path. We were clear about our why. So I think that's key. And budgeting. You have to respect the budget. I always did the budget but I never

respected the budget. So respecting those numbers and really and really um taking you know those little decisions that you make every day that compound over time those are the small decisions that can come on and bite you so deciding whether we were going out to dinner or we were going to put it you know towards the debt little things like that for me was it was uh you got to trust the process you have to trust the process you cannot cherry pick step one and then go all the way to baby step four and then okay i'm going to revisit baby step one again it just doesn't work that way you have to be consistent and stay

with the process it works perfect prayer works as well amen amen big deal yeah very well done you guys thank you sir good. Very proud of you. Congratulations. How does it feel? Great. Fantastic. It feels good to know that our kids, you know, we won't have to have a conversation with them a couple of years from now that, hey, remember those vacations we took?

There goes your college money. That's for you. Hey, remember those dinners we took? So knowing that we're planning for their future and being able to launch them properly, debt-free, it feels amazing to be in control for sure. Amen. Amen. Well, we've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Retire Inspired.

I want that to be the next chapter in your story where you're not only debt-free, but now you work towards being millionaires. You're well on your way. You've got a great income. You've got control. You learn to work together. You've got a great income. You've got control. You learn to work together. You've got all the elements of what you need to do. Very well done.

You guys are heroes. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you, Dave. I want to say something. When we took Financial Peace University, we had a couple from New Jersey. They were very vulnerable in their story and very transparent.

And every Sunday when I went there, I felt like so inspired that if they were doing it, we could do it too. So for our class now, I hope you guys get here one day too. Amen. Amen. So what are your kids' names and ages? Alejandro, he's 12, and Isabella, she's 10. All right.

Very cool. All right. It's Angel and Johanna. $70,000 paid off in 12 months, making $270,000 to $300,000. Count it down! Let's hear a debt-free scream! You guys ready? Three, two, one. We're

debt-free! Woo-hoo! That's how it's done right there, man. I love it! Way to go, you guys. Wow! Wow! That's just done right there, man. I love it. Way to go, you guys. Wow. Wow. So you can do it. I mean, if you live in New York City or you live in California, you don't get a pass on math.

Math works in those places, too. You've just got to decide how you're going to live. And, you know, most of you listening to this show, there's exceptions, I understand, but most of you make too much money to be broke. You're just not handling it well. I did the same thing. I tried to out-earn my stupidity for a long time. But when I started controlling where the dollars were going and making every dollar behave,

making every dollar have a mission, Making every dollar have an assignment. That's when everything changed. Everything changed. It doesn't change until then. And like she said, you've got to use every dollar. You've got to get on the Every Dollar Budgeting Program. It takes about 10 minutes to set up. It's free.

Did I mention that every dollar is free? Go to everydollar.com. You can download it for your iPhone or your Android. You can use it on your desktop, whatever you want to do. It's amazing. But if you don't start making your money behave, you're going to always wonder where it went. You're either going to tell it what to do, your money, or you're going to wonder where it went. This is the Dave Ramsey Show.

Folks, the real estate market is on fire all over the country. If you're looking to buy a home and you need a mortgage, don't sell yourself short by going and getting a typical pre-approval. That's a false sense of security, and it's just not good enough in today's fast-moving market. Instead, call Churchill Mortgage and get their certified homebuyer program. I'm telling you, it's a game changer. Churchill helps my listeners become fully approved before they go house shopping.

In other words, Churchill does up front what most lenders wait to do at the last minute. This gives you an advantage over other buyers and helps you close really fast. Plus, Churchill won't let you get into more house than you can afford. So become a certified homebuyer and get ahead of the game. I trust Churchill Mortgage. Call 888-LOAN-200 or visit churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. Equal Housing Lender 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. You know, running your own business is, it's rewarding, but it's a lot of work.

It's a lot of work. And, you know, and on top of that, you've got to fool your taxes. So let me ask you this. Are your taxes causing you to enter a crazy cycle like, you know, like you're stressed out crazy? You know what I'm talking about? I hate taxes. And I hate doing taxes. So long ago I decided I'm going to delegate that. I'm going to get a tax professional and handle my taxes. By choosing to have a pro handle your taxes, you're choosing to take back about six weeks of your valuable time to actually run your business.

That's how much just keeping up with this stuff is. You can make next tax season a breeze. Get one of our tax-endorsed local providers to help you grow your business and get everything in a zone where you don't have anything except a rhythm with your taxes instead of crazy land with your taxes. Yeah, just go to DaveRamsey.com slash ELP, and then you'll see the ELPs, the Endorsed Local Providers for Tax Preparation.

They can really help you if you're running a small business. Casey's with us in Miami. Hi, Casey. How are you? Hello, Mr. Ramsey. How are you doing today? Better than I deserve. What's up?

So recently, me and my fiance, we started listening to your show and started following some of the advice that you've given us to help better our debt and better our credit. And one thing that I noticed was there was one big debt on my credit report that was bigger than the rest by multiples. I've got a $16,000 medical debt that's from four years ago and so i figured i'd start you know doing a little digging on this asking for validation etc etc and come to find out yesterday from the original creditor that the information in the file was wrong on the on the uh original debt so with this, do I have a standing to go to the collector and fight this, or how does that work now that I know that it's not the correct information? What's incorrect?

The Social Security number on it, sir. Was it you? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so how did they get the wrong Social Security number on the file if the date is really yours? I'm not sure, sir. Maybe they entered it wrong when it first happened. Maybe there was a miscommunication. How did you find that out?

I called the hospital yesterday, and I basically asked for the dates of when the medical bill was processed, when everything was sent to collections, et cetera, et cetera. And they tried to search up my social security number in their system and couldn't find it. They said, let's try your last name. So I gave them my last name and they said, oh, that's why in our system under this file, it's a different one. So I just didn't know if this was pertinent information or if this was something that I could use or what. No, probably not. I mean, it doesn't matter.

You legitimately owe the debt. They've just got a clerical error on the Social Security number. That's what you're telling me. So it doesn't mean you don't owe the debt or anything like that. How long ago was the debt four years sir four years at 16 and was 16 000 the original amount uh yes sir yes sir okay all right and how much money can you scrape together i mean probably between two and four but i called the collection agency before i found this information out. This was

about a week or so ago, and I asked them if, hey, is there any way we can make a deal on settling? And they were very hardballed me very badly. They just straight up said, no, we never settle. Okay, then you never get any money. Okay.

Everybody can play hardball. Here's the deal. I got a big pile of debt over here i'm trying to decide whether to file bankruptcy on all of it or not and um and you're you're the biggest one actually and so i'm gonna go get rid of all the rest of them or i'm gonna file bk um but if you want four thousand dollars i have four thousand dollars i'll give you that as settlement. Now, here's what I would do. It's very interesting that the hospital even talked to you.

Most of the time, they're pretty hardcore once they've handed it over that they won't even have a discussion with you because that keeps people from in running the collection agency. The fact that they discussed this with you is very cool. So what I would do is call that lady. Or who you talk to you remember who you talked to it was some kind of billing expert quote unquote at the hospital i don't remember a name perfect we'll call over there and and uh try to just connect back up with that person and say now you guys have the wrong Social Security on that. Did they correct it that day? No, sir. They were very adamant when I said, well, that's very interesting

because obviously that's not supposed to happen. And they said, well, yeah, we're not going to do anything to it because once we give the follower the collections, we never touch it again. That's what they usually say, yeah. So anyway, I would call back over there and see if you can get an appointment to sit down and talk to somebody in person and offer the hospital $4,000. Mm-hmm. Do you mind if I ask you one more small question, sir? Sure.

Another thing that I found very interesting was with this particular debt, I was never contacted about it. It's been four years, and I was i was never called emailed or mailed about it is that is that unordinary to you yeah no that's normal because they're just incompetent okay they don't care they're incompetent and then when you get them on the phone they're butts and that's what that's what you got so i would try to sit down the hospital and offer them for i call the collector back and just throw hardball across you know right across his plate as well and go dude you know you're an idiot. If you want $4,000, I've got $4,000.

You can have it right now as soon as you give it to me in writing that $4,000 settles this account. You won't get a dime until you get it in writing. And as soon as you give it to me in writing, I'll wire the money over to you right now. You'll have it today, and this account will be off your books. If you don't work with me, here's what you're going to get. Nothing. Okay. Ever.

Okay. We'll sue you. No, you won't. You're lying. If you're going to sue me, you've already done it. It's been four freaking years. When are you going to sue me? You know?

And so you have to talk to these people like they're idiots. Why? Because they're idiots. It's the only way to deal with it. And they don't understand anything except a board in the face. And so it's just how you have to deal with them. They're scum. It's unbelievable.

Hey, yeah, call them and beat the snot out of them and get it settled and get it out of your life. Michelle is with us in Portland, Maine. Hi, Michelle. How are you? I'm well, thank you. I'm a new listener to your show. I appreciate you taking my call. I'm honored. Thanks for being here. How can I help? I have a teenager who has a college fund of about $50,000. She recently got a small part-time job, and I'm trying to decide,

do we continue to plug away with college funding? Do we open up a retirement account for her? What are your thoughts? She doesn't need a retirement account if she only has $50,000. Are you going to pay for the rest of her college? Potentially. Potentially? Right. She'll probably get some.

She's a good student and will be hopefully eligible for some scholarships. We do have the funds to bankroll the rest of her college if needed. Okay. All right. Yeah, let's just make sure she gets through college and chooses a college that the two of you together can afford. I'm really not concerned about her starting retirement until she gets out of college debt-free.

If I can get a kid through college debt-free and they graduate with a degree in something that's actually usable, I call that a big victory. And let's just get there. And then they've got plenty of time. Because they're debt-free, they'll be able to start their retirement immediately with their first job, and they'll easily be headed towards millionaire status. Again, assuming we're getting a degree in a field that is actually marketable that you can actually make a living in.

Sure. One other question I have for you. Okay. She has a small amount of money, like $1,200 or so, in double E bonds that she got as a baby, and that's not earning very much anywhere from 1.6 to 2 point something percent what about cashing those out and putting that towards any sort of retirement account or college i put it in college i'd put it in our in our mutual funds because it's not earning anything but um but no i would not build a

retirement fund unless you guys are multimillionaires and college is just a slam dunk and there's just zero question. I want to make sure she gets through school before we worry about her retirement fund. Really a big deal. We can get there. That's a huge breakthrough. Hey, thank you for being a new listener. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Blake, Chief Production Officer for the show, and here's a little tip for 2018. Go download

our revamped Dave Ramsey Show app from the App Store. We're always listening to your feedback and adding new features to make it even better. Check it out. Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options? Do you wish you could find an affordable biblical solution to your health care costs? Based on New Testament principles, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, helps Christian families, churches, and ministries join together as the body of Christ

to share their major health care costs. Christian Health Care Ministries is the original health cost-sharing ministry. A Better Business Bureau-accredited organization, CHM members share to pay each other's medical bills. It's not insurance. It's Christians financially and spiritually supporting each other. It's what Christian Healthcare Ministries has done for over 35 years, and our members have shared over $2.5 billion

in medical bills. To learn more, visit chministries.org. That's chministries.org. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org.