The Ramsey Show - App - It's Not Too Early to Plan Your Christmas Budget (Hour 1)

Episode Date: October 4, 2018

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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. Thank you for joining us, America. We're so glad you're here. Open phones this hour as we talk about your life and your money. It's a free call at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Starting off this hour is going to be Jay in San Diego.

Hi, Jay. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Morning, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? So recently this week, I found out that my wife had kind of racked up about $40K in credit card debt behind the scenes. So kind of just slapped in the face, you know, I kind of found out this week, this last weekend. So it's pretty tough to swallow. So she was hiding it from you yeah um and i you know i can't just blame her i mean i gotta take some credit because i never kind of went and looked and kind of uh paid any attention and this is the second time so about two and a half years ago kind of the same thing and i kind of laid out a budget and then kind of

slipped away from that budget and i think it was it just kind of rolled same thing, and I kind of laid out a budget and then kind of slipped away from that budget, and I think it was, it just kind of rolled back into it. I assumed everything was going okay, but it just kind of wasn't. Okay, so you gave her all of the responsibility of handling the money, and you weren't involved in the money? 100%. Okay, yeah. Yeah, it is your fault. know yeah um and it's her fault uh but basically she was out of control didn't know what to do and uh just borrowed her way into a mess and

neither one of you had your head in the game correct okay so uh are y' all ready to stop this cycle? I can show you how. Yeah, 100%. And this weekend, so there's, I don't want to say more to the problem as a solution, but on Wednesday this week, I received a $29,000 inheritance check that I haven't put in the bank yet because I wanted to wait until I spoke with you to see how I go attack this. I don't want to do any other dumb things. I want to start from scratch, pay off the debt, but I've got to do it the right way. Okay. Well, let me ask you this then.

It sounds like you're taking ownership for having kind of dumped this on your wife and abandoned her. Is she taking ownership for the shame, the fact she was ashamed, and so she hid this from you because she didn't know what to do, but she knew she was screwing it up? Yeah, we had a couple conversations for our church, and we have some marriage enrichment stuff, and we've got to look into doing some more of that to kind of get us in track.

I mean, I don't want to say I'm the easiest guy to talk to, but I think, yes, we've accepted responsibility. Yeah, I don't know that you were necessarily hard to talk to. You just abandoned her. Yeah, you just left her out in the cold. She was doing the best she could, and she screwed it up really bad and was really ashamed to tell you. It sounds like that's the way it goes.

The reason I'm asking and the reason I'm poking at you a little bit is because it changes what to do with the 29 000 okay now the other possibility is and i don't think that's what's going on here but you tell me because i'm asking you is the other possibility is uh this woman is a deceiver she's a liar and she's running around hiding stuff because she's buying whatever she wants. And there's an arrogance to this, not a repentance to this. I don't think I hear that. No. Okay. Then all we got to do is commit both of you to say never again.

And every time I do something really stupid and it leaves a big mark on me, you know, it leaves a big scar. I always get a never again out of it. You know? Like, never again do I do business with American Express, because they called my wife one time when we were going broke and asked her why she'd stay with a man that wouldn't pay his bills, and she called me crying because she was thinking the same thing, right? So I don't do business with American Express.

Never again. Never again. That was 35 years ago. I still remember it. I'm still redneck pissed about it, right? So never again. Never again do I borrow money. Never again do you two go a single month without both of you agreeing on the spending and knowing where the money is and where it's gone to.

The rest of your lives, both of you are managing this company called You Incorporated together. Now, one of you has an administrative gift that will actually write the checks more than the other one but the other one whoever that that probably is her actually it sounds like um it might be you i don't know whoever writes the checks i don't care but we're going to be in agreement on paper on all of our spending for the rest of our lives and we're going to pinky swear and spit shake. We're never going to spend over $500 again without talking to the other person ever under any circumstances because we're married and we'd like to stay that way.

Yes. Okay, if you can do that, then pretty simple. We'll just take the $29,000 and start working our way out of this mess, and you guys start doing a budget together. Jump on every dollar. I'm going to sign you up for every dollar plus. I'm going to pay for it because you guys need to be on the same page on each of your phones. You can put it on your phone and connect it to your bank accounts.

And every time they're spending, it'll pop up on each of you's phone. Gives you this built-in accountability, built-in agreement that the budget is being executed as agreed. And we write up the budget on every dollar every month before the month begins. Every dollar has an assignment. We decide what we're going to do with it together. And then if one of you writes the checks, that's fine. on every dollar, every month, before the month begins, every dollar has an assignment. We decide what we're going to do with it together. And then if one of you writes the checks, that's fine. But together, and we don't do anything ever with money except what we have agreed to on this paper.

This paper is a contract before the month begins. You following me? Following. If you guys will do that. Now, who's the nerd and who's the free spirit? Who's the detail person? Which one of you? Me.

You're the detail person? Yeah. Administratively gifted? Yes. Okay. And you ask the free spirit to do the gift, to do the accounting? Well, man, you double-dipped and dumb. Okay.

So you got to do it. You're probably the natural person to write the checks out. You like details. She hates them. Correct. Yeah. natural person to write the checks out you like details she hates them correct yeah so i mean you if we were going to hire someone for you incorporated to do the accounting we would hire you to do the accounting not her to do the accounting and it's not a male female thing it's an administrative gifting thing yep okay so that's probably what we're gonna do but we're both gonna be in agreement in other words we're not taking all of this away from her and giving it to you to do without her input.

We're not going to swing the pendulum the other way. Both of you agree on all of your spending. And let me just tell you, 90 days of doing this, you'll get in a rhythm. Six months of doing it, your trust and your communication will be 25-fold what it is right now in your marriage. It's really going to have a positive impact on your marriage, because Jesus said your treasure is where your heart is, and when you spend your money together, you're agreeing on your dreams, you're agreeing on your fears, you're agreeing on your values, you're agreeing

on your priorities, and when you're in agreement on that, it takes a good marriage and makes it great. And I really think you probably got a pretty decent marriage or you probably would have killed each other before you called me. Yeah, we got a great marriage and that's what I want to look forward to is making it better and then doing this together and like you said, not leaving her out to dry. That was definitely my fault and I appreciate the poke. Yeah, well, I mean, I'm trying to figure out in dry, you know, that was definitely my fault. I appreciate the poke.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm trying to figure out in that, number one, I mean, she screwed up too. Okay. I can throw some on her. But I was just trying to figure out who she is because now we just take that $29,000 and we start working the baby steps, which means we're going to apply most of it to the $40,000 and start clearing up these credit cards and shop them all up into little bitty pieces. So hold on.

We'll get you signed up. Give him a year of every dollar plus. Okay? I'm not even sure how to do that, but we'll figure it out. Okay. Somebody knows how to do it in the building. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options?

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chministries.org. That last call is a very interesting topic this topic of financial infidelity redbook magazine did a survey that said 38 of you lie to your spouse about money wow and you wonder why your marriage isn't topping out, isn't awesome. Now, I mean, it can be little white lies, the Target bags under the bed, snicker, snicker, right? Or it can be big-time credit card debt. It can be one of you is running a business and is running up debt down at the business and not telling your spouse

because you're trying to live your dream and it's turning into a nightmare let me just kind of clarify this for you there is no positive effect to your marriage when you lie to your spouse was that helpful you didn't already know that did you yeah well i'm trying to avoid a fight. All you're doing is cooking it up. It's going to be a bigger fight once it cooks up. You might as well have a smaller fight quickly. So here's the thing.

If you're afraid to discuss with your spouse a purchase or a financial issue that you want to discuss, that is not a financial problem. That's a relationship problem. Now, I got to tell you, there's times, I mean, I have a ton of money. I'm a multimillionaire. There's times I think I want to buy something, and I'm going to sit down and talk to Sharon. Hey, I want to buy this toy. I'm going to buy another gun. She's like, you I want to buy this toy. I want to buy another gun.

She's like, you don't need another gun. You have too many guns already. People already would think you were crazy if they knew how many guns you had. I collect guns, by the way. So, yeah, if it ever comes out, you know, they're going to find out that I was like one of those crazy guys or something. I'm not, but I collect, okay? I collect. So, you know, you don't need another car.

You don't need another boat. You don't need another boat. You don't need another inner tube to pull behind the boat. I actually collect those. I've got too many lake toys, right, for the grandkids and for the kids to play on. And so, you know, I get ready to buy a toy, and it doesn't even show up on our – but I still have to have this moment, and I go, I actually got to make sure i talk to sharon about this she gets ready to buy a purse that's too expensive which is one of the few things that

she buys that's too expensive but like she says one of those purses is equal to one of those guns so uh well maybe maybe two guns but uh you know, isn't it funny how adults that have the money even, where there's not a stress on the finances, have a little bit of a dread about talking to each other. So you really have to push yourself and make yourself. And Rachel talks about this in her book, Love Your Life, Not Theirs. One of the seven habits is talk about money even when it's hard, and it's almost always hard. So about it keep it clean and if your spouse is hiding money from you it

generally does fall under one of three areas one is you've got a broken relationship and they are intimidated by you to the spouse is an arrogant rebellious immature prince or princess that just wants to do whatever they want to do with their little lip stuck out and they don't like being told no spoiled child in a grown-up body and goes and buys whatever they want to buy but know that it's wrong so they hide it from you um most often we find hidden debt though it's the what the guy was on the last call one of the spouses has been given all of the responsibility all of the weight of all of the decision making isn't doing the money handling well ends up running into debt because they're not doing a good job with it, and now the shame is multiplied,

and it's shame-based hiding. It's guilty, condemnation-based hiding. So they're hiding it because they're ashamed that they haven't done a good job handling the money, in which case, if that's your spouse, you are partially responsible, just like that guy said he was. He owned it because he should have been more involved. He shouldn't have dumped this on his wife and you shouldn't dump it all on your husband you shouldn't dump it all on either one of

you both of you should be involved now one of you again can carry the administrative weight once all the decisions are made but everybody ought to know where every dollar is going pretty simple stuff so you probably never heard the story but i actually was the guy who had almost been on oprah more than anybody oprah called like five six times their producers did and would tease us like we could get on i've been on every other show back in the day you know i've been on uh 60 minutes i had been on larry king remember when larry king was on the air and And Sally Jesse Raphael. You remember her with the red glasses? You know, all that.

I had been on all these different shows. You know, everything out there. Except I couldn't get on Oprah. And they would call and tease us. So finally, they call, and we get our Oprah appearance. And it was three different families on Oprah, and I was supposed to advise them in their trouble

on Oprah. and the very first family of course i knew what i was getting into and the families knew what they were getting into uh sort of and uh the very first couple i'm sitting up there i get in an argument with oprah why would i do that? Because Oprah was wrong. That's what happened. So here was the deal. The wife had run up like $70,000 worth of debt, and her husband had no idea.

And I had told the producers, I said, well, it's partially his fault because he's not involved in his wife's life enough. He's not loving his wife enough to even know what's going on in her life enough that she can run up seventy eight thousand dollars if unless she's just like a psychopath in her level of deception this guy hadn't got he doesn't know what's going on under his own roof he's freaking clueless in his relationship and so oprah's reading the script and she's like and dave you say that it's partially his fault and he owes her an apology i don't think i agree with that and i said well you would be wrong he does owe her an apology because he hasn't been walking with his wife to the point she runs up 78 000 with a debt he doesn't even know what the flip's going on

under his own roof and she's like well he delegated it to her. I said, Oprah, this is not a business. You don't delegate stuff to your spouse and just dump it on them. And even if you delegated it in business, you would always inspect what you expect. You would never just walk away and hope it happened. You would know what's going on in business. And besides that, this is a marriage. It's not a joint venture. God did not say, and now you not a joint venture god did not say and now you are a joint venture he said and now you are one and these two are not one they're not on the same page and so you know the poor lady's sitting there crying because she's so ashamed and overwhelmed and the guy's angry because he's finding out he got 80 grand in debt that he didn't know he had and oh man they look like a jerry springer episode or something and uh you know

and i may i'm standing i'm making him apologize to her for not being a good husband because if your wife can run up your husband can run up a hundred thousand dollars in debt you have no idea what's going on you have chosen to not be involved in your own spouse's life or they're a psychopathic liar one of the two but most of the time it's you just did you just dump it on them and then and then you gripe because they didn't do it right after you dumped it on them and walked away and closed your eyes and went well i thought they were handling it well yeah you thought but you didn't even care enough to get involved and know what was going on. And so Oprah's all upset with Dave because Oprah was wrong. Didn't work out well the rest of the show, but we got through it.

So here's the rule of thumb then. We see couples who have a good marriage, have been married 10 years or 15 years or 20 years, sit down and start doing a basic budget together where every dollar has an assignment, every dollar has a mission, every dollar has a name before the month begins on paper, on purpose, every month before the month begins, a unique budget. It takes about 10 minutes once you've been doing it a while. But it takes about three months of doing it to get really on the same page and get a rhythm going. We see couples that agree on their spending before the month begins on paper, on purpose, increase their level of communication tenfold.

Increase their level of communication tenfold. Increase their level of cooperation tenfold. Increase their empathy for each other for the stress the other one's been carrying that they didn't even realize tenfold. They begin to agree on their goals and their productivity with their money goes through the roof. You'll feel like you got a raise when you learn to do this together on paper, on purpose before the month begins. Give every dollar a name. That's why we named the world's best budgeting software. Every dollar,

the best app for your phone, every dollar, give every dollar a name. One question I get asked all the time is, do I need life insurance? Listen, the whole point of life insurance is to replace your income for someone who counts on you. So if you have a spouse or you have kids, yes, you need term life insurance. It's the only way to protect them until you're out of debt and have built up your wealth. You're only digging a deeper hole if you waste money on cash value plans since it robs you of the ability to make real progress. And that's why I send you to Zander Insurance, and I have for 20 years. That's where I get all my insurance, and

they only offer the plans I recommend. It is not expensive. It's not complicated. And Zander will be there as your guide every step of the way. Visit Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. You need to get this taken care of. I can give you the advice and I can tell you where to go. But it's really up to you to take that important step to get your family protected. That's Zander.com or 800-356-4282. Calling from Dallas, Texas. Chooks and Virginia are with us.

Hey, guys, how are you? Doing well. Hey, Dave. Hey, I see on my screen you're debt-free. Congratulations. Yes, thank you. We're calling to do our debt-free screen. Love it.

How much have you guys paid off? $418,000. Whoa! How long did that take? About 24 months. Man, and your range of income during that time? Yeah, we started off at about $100,000, and then we kicked it up to about $300,000. Wow.

What do you guys do for a living? So I'm an executive recruiter for GE, and then I also teach part-time with a multitude of online universities. And I'm associate director in HR for Gateway Church in South Lake, Texas. Oh, good. That's my friends. Very cool. So you're working for Robert?

Yep. Okay, cool. That's a blast. Good for you guys. Well, what a great income. $418,000. What kind of debt was that? Yeah, it was basically student loans, the majority of it, about $369,000 about student loans. And then tax bill, we had about $29,000.

And then two small credit cards about forty five hundred and then we cash flowed a wedding and about fifteen thousand man you guys had a lot of student loan debt oh yeah yeah were you guys just were you just overwhelmed by that debt oh yeah that's a lot of debt so uh did you cash flow every bit of this uh yeah yeah we did i mean you just that that's an amazing number in 24 months even with the fabulous income you've had that's still very incredible very well done so tell me your story what happened 24 months ago um yeah so um chooks and i were were engaged and we kind of came to the table with like his college education and then my college education. And it was astronomical. So we just realized like that was unsettling and very uneasy for us. So pretty much when we first started our

marriage, we immediately got on the bandwagon to pay off our student loans. And my sister, she had actually introduced you to our family about 15 years ago. And I remember feeling, I remember the feeling of being overwhelmed. And I told Chooks, I was like, hey, you know, Dave Ramsey really helped with just the budgeting to get this out of the way. And so we just kind of knew, like, we didn't have the peace really to just live life with a student loan. So we both made the decision to just start off. And really from the very beginning, we're like, we're going to do this. This is insane.

This is very extreme. But we are going to do this. I mean, you guys guys you had an extreme situation so you brought extreme measures to deal with it yes yes very cool very cool no other choice wow amazing so what do you tell people the key to paying because i mean you're the story everybody's talking about you know in in the news and all these these young people are overwhelmed with student loan debt they're all dying they're gonna you know their whole, in the news and all these young people are overwhelmed with student loan debt.

They're all dying. They're going to, you know, their whole generation is stunted and all this stuff. And yet, 24 months later, you're done with $418,000. You're impressive. That's amazing. So what in the world, what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? I would probably say just getting on the same page. You know, we've been married now for about two and a half years,

and I think just getting out of debt and being on the same page in terms of our money, I think that was really huge. So just getting on the same page and also not being afraid of hard work. I think one of the things that you say constantly, and I really like it, you say that when you decide to get smart with your money, it's kind of like God looks down and says, hey, I can trust that one. And, you know, I think that's something that kind of happened with us because, you know, a lot of different opportunities started coming our way in terms of just income and just, of course, a lot of increases came our way as well. And so God just began opening those doors and we were

able to, you know, pay off at a much quicker rate, a lot quicker than we thought. Because like Virginia even mentioned, in the beginning, it was definitely very overwhelming. I mean, just looking at all the student loans, we thought, how are we going to pay this off? How are we going to get a home, do all these different things, start a family? But, you know, definitely God was on our side. And, of course, you know, he was able to open up those doors for us to get on the same page and be able to pay off this in a pretty quick time. How do you explain to other people? Because I know what the answer is, but how do you explain to other people the level of intensity that this required?

Because you guys, I mean, it was not panic, but you were focused to the point that you sacrificed so deeply that normal people looking at you all had to think you'd lost your minds. I mean, you guys were on, you were game on. Yeah, I think so. Where do you get that fire from? Was it desperation? Yeah, I think it was mostly that living with a student loan was unacceptable for us, and we just had made the decision in our heart that we weren't going to do that.

And so we had just individuals that kind of had the perspective that living with a student loan was, you know, it was normal, you know, it was just a mediocrity and, like, that was just a part of life. Yeah, Sally Mae's going to be our roommate for life. Right, right, yeah. So people, you know, are some responses that we got were like, you know, you don't need to do that. Or, you know, that you could fit this into your life. But we had just made the decision like, you know, our student loan was just so astronomical that we couldn't live with it. And so we were really, we were ready and willing to do, to do the zero budget, you know, the zero

expense budget, everything out and every dollar had an assignment. And every extra dollar went to our student loans. So we were making payments like in the grants. We were making payments. $10,000, $15,000 a month. Right. We had to have a big shovel.

And so we put everything we had towards it. And we had like zero left for like just everyday living, like eating out, going shopping, socializing, entertainment, like, that did not meet our budget. There was no line item in that for our budget, and so, you know, the sacrifice was overwhelming, and the consistency, like, it was really a marathon to the degree that it was extremely painful to live two years, like, in that lifestyle, but I would have to say, like, during two years, like, in that lifestyle. Yeah. But I would have to say, like, during those times, like, prayer was everything. Like, I really had, Chukes and I really had to pray through just the frustration of that type of lifestyle

and really be uplifted in the Spirit to really be focused and to maintain that lifestyle. And Chukes kind of, he had countless hours that he worked, countless hours, like 12, 14, 16-hour days for weeks and months at a time. But he was just very focused and just stayed in prayer to really kind of meet the marathon that we were experiencing and the pains of it. Was it worth it? Absolutely, yes. now you're completely free yeah yeah it feels good you know what else you get out of this it's like when you climb a wall

that's that tall you kind of come away going we can freaking do anything yeah i mean through christ who strengthens me but i mean we can anything. Because in the first 24 months of your marriage, of your married life, you know, you didn't sit on the couch and watch Oprah reruns and whine and suck your thumb. You went out, killed it, drug it home, and paid off $418,000 in debt. Y'all are so impressive. That was good. It's pretty cool. It's pretty stinking cool.

We got a copy of Chris hogan's book for you retire inspired we want that to be the next chapter in your story and it definitely will to be outrageously generous and of course millionaires along the way so you're right on track to do all of that i'm so proud of you guys i know your families and i know your pastor is proud of you thank you make sure you tell robert this story he'll want to hear this yeah if he doesn't know it he wants to hear this i'm telling you he'll love it all right guys way to go all right it's chooks in virginia dallas texas 418 000 paid off in 24 months making 100 to 300 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one to god be the glory hear a debt-free scream! 3, 2, 1.

To God be the glory, we're debt-free! That's it, man! $418,000. Don't you tell me millennials are losers. Don't you tell me, because I know too many of them like those two. Those people are rock stars.

You just wish you were them. Man, that's amazing. Well done, you guys. Well done. Hey, there's some of every generation that decide to be losers. Not those two, and not the ones I get to meet. And, you know, that's an interesting thing. You know what they did?

They just decided. They decided. This is overwhelming. It's scary, and we're going to do something about it. So what are you going to do? Are you going to decide? Are you going to do something about it? Today's your day, baby.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thanks for joining us, America. Austin is with us in Cincinnati. Hi, Austin. How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, my wife and I, we are coming up on our one-year anniversary, and in that amount of time, we've saved up about $12,000 in our account and we have about a $3,000 emergency fund. We have, not including our house, about $26,000 in debt.

And my question is, I don't know what we should do with that money. I'm going to school to be a nurse. I'm just starting my first year. And I want to know what i should do with this money should i um put it towards our house should i put it towards the car or towards school and cash flow school okay um well if you're working our plan not counting school we'll come back to that you would do what we call the baby steps. And the first baby step is you save $1,000 as a starter emergency fund. Anything above that, and we stop all retirement temporarily.

Anything above that we throw at our debts, not counting our house, using the debt snowball, and that's where you list your debts, not counting your house, smallest to largest, pay minimum payments on everything but the little one and attack the little one so that would dictate that we would throw a lot of this money at that then baby once you're out of debt but the house then baby step three is you return to the one thousand dollar account raise it up to three to six months of expenses, and then past that, you restart your retirement. Start putting 15% away for retirement. Start saving for kids' college. Pay off your house early as baby step six.

So the house is way down the list. So it's not even going to come up. You're not getting to the house right now. You don't have the money. So then we bring in this idea of I'm going back to school to be a nurse, which is an awesome goal. Not only will you be very employable, you have the ability to make really good money and can really adjust your schedule in crazy ways to really double your income if you want to for short periods of time. I mean, you've got all kinds of options in nursing that are going to be really good for you and your family.

So the return on investment, the investment into Austin is a really good investment because of your field of study. You know, you're not getting a degree in left-handed puppetry here. This is actually a good degree. And so it's worth every penny you're spending on it, and a bunch more is what I'm saying. So if our goal is to get out of debt so that we can build wealth, then the first step of that before we start anything else is say, no more new debt. You can't get out of debt while you're getting into debt. You can't get out of a hole digging out the bottom, right?

So that means we've got to cash flow college. So what's college going to cost? It's about $3,000 a semester. How many semesters? Probably, it's at least three years' worth of school. Three years? Three years of school, so I'm thinking 12 maybe. So you didn't complete your undergrad already then?

No, I mean, I'm a baby in college. I'm just now starting. I mean, this is semester one. I haven't, you know, this is my fifth year. Okay, but you don't have an undergrad under your belt that you're adding a nursing degree to. Right, right. Okay, so you've got to finish up some undergrad or do some undergrad and then move into nursing so you need uh three thousand a semester times three or i'm sorry for three years you said is what's going to take you and

so six thousand dollars a year for three years eighteen $18,000, right? Yeah, something like that. Okay. Okay. And what's your household income? It was about $60,000, and my wife, we're having our first baby next, well, in the beginning of November. What's your household income during the next three years going to average? Probably around $40,000 to $45,000. Oh. Okay.

So you're not going to have a lot of cash to finish school. And you have how much in savings? $12,000. Okay. Well, I guess including that emergency fund, $14,000. Your emergency fund is small. Yeah. Okay, so I think your total money makeover baby steps are on hold until we get college paid for.

Okay? So I'm going to set the $12,000 over in my college fund, and it needs to be $18,000 as my very first goal. And then when it gets to $18,000, then we can talk about taking the emergency fund down to $1,000 and start working on the other debts. How much other debt have you got, not counting your house? Just a car. How much do you owe on the car? It's about $25,000. Oh, Lord.

And you make $45,000? Well, at the time, like I said, we made about $60,000 to $65,000. Okay, but this car, if you're going to be making $45,000, this car does not fit in your goals for the next three years. Okay. It's mathematical insanity. I mean, look at these numbers. We've got an $18,000 investment into Austin, which we've agreed is a really good investment.

We've got $3,000 to our name. We've got a $45,000 household income and a $25,000 car? No, I need to hear like $5,000 car is what I need to hear. Okay. In the middle of this. Because a car is not your goal right now. Your goal is to get all this mess cleaned up and get your education under your belt and double your income, which is what's going to happen.

Okay. Agreed? Yeah. Sell a car. Okay. Get you a much, much, much cheaper car so that you hit these goals. Because what you're doing is you're paying a price to win. You're living like no one else so that later you get to live like no one else but this car is it stands out as you have this have this really logical really smart a whole

thing going on until we got to the car and then we went to stupid land it just it just sticks out it doesn't it doesn't fit in your equation it doesn't even fit in your life it's like y'all had a you know a really bad impulse one day and day and just went off the ranch or something. I don't know. But even if you're making 65, it didn't fit. It was a ridiculous purchase. So it's just way too high. And even if you'd paid cash for it in all of the middle of all of this, so it wouldn't have made sense.

So time to move that puppy, and then let's live our lives. Because the good news is you can drive anything you want man Because your income is going to be 80 When y'all are finished with this And you're going to be able to pay cash And you know But you can't have these blockers In your way that you're trying to get around

This elephant in the room That's this car It's the only thing killing you It's killing your plan It's death So anyway that's what I's killing your plan. It's just death. So anyway, that's what I would do. And I think you guys are really smart, and I think you'll do it. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Doug is on Twitter. Is it normal to continually adjust my budget during the first month? Yes. And it is okay to adjust your budget continually during the first month if it is not because you're out of control being immature and impulsing if it is instead because you didn't estimate properly like for instance you didn't have enough set aside for food and it wasn't because you went out to eat every night and you were a jerk. It was because you just didn't have enough set aside for food.

You had an unrealistic budget for food, and you're discovering life looks different than your theory, and you adjust that. But I have to continually adjust my budget so that I get to do whatever the flip I want? No, that's not a good idea. People want. No, that's not a good idea. People do that, but that's not a good idea. So your budget is to give you a guideline, but it takes about three months of doing your budget, trial and error,

adjust, trial, experiment, trial, adjust, experiment, adjust, experiment, adjust, to get it completely dialed in. And the first month you're going to have, we always laugh and say, you're going to have 42 emergency budget committee meetings. But those are to adjust only the things that you misestimated or you just forgot. And it is something that's real and something that's important. It's not like, oh, we've been on a budget for two days and I'm like really tired of that. I want to go out to eat.

No, that's not what I'm talking about. No, I just, you know, I'm really, you know, this is really stressful. I've been doing it for three hours now. No, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about you just missed your food budget or you didn't put anything aside for car repairs and you didn't think about it and then you have a car repair. So you have to stop and adjust for that and pay for that. And so, yeah, you're going to continually adjust for three months. Your first month, the worst. Second month, the next worst. Third month, it'll start to work. That's how it's going to play out for you.

But make sure it's not to adjust to your impulses. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, guys, this is James Childs, producer of the Dave Ramsey Show. I'm excited to announce that we're now carried on 600 radio stations across the country. To find one near you, head to DaveRamsey.com slash show.