The Ramsey Show - App - I’ve Been Hiding Debt From My Husband (Hour 1)

Episode Date: October 3, 2023

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it is The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I am Jade Warshaw, your host, joined by John Deloney, Dr. John Deloney on the ones and twos. And today we are taking calls about your life, your money, your mental health. So give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225. And John, today's a big day for you, buddy. Launch day! Launch day! Dude, building a non-anxious life is out into the wild so if you did not participate in the um

are bribing you to pre-order then it's at every store you can imagine Target and Barnes and Noble and Amazon everywhere go pick it up it is uh it's pretty rad I'm pretty excited. How does that feel John are you just like busting out of your skin right now can I slap you just to see if you're awake? I mean you slap me all the time so you can do that again if you want um no it's

actually like a real uh it's the next few weeks will be a lot of nerves because it's out there yeah and i can i can you know play the music and beat the drum roll out but the proof is in the pudding if somebody sits down and dedicates some time to it, which they can never get back. Yeah. That's the, so it's, it's when people start saying, all right, I need to have a hard conversation with my husband,

or I got to figure out how to re imagine my life with my kids. That's when it starts. You go, okay, it hit. So now the nerves start big time today. There's no way this is not going to hit John. I'm so proud of you.

I'm so excited for you. I, anybody who has not yet picked up this book, I am telling you, please go pick it up. Building a Non-Anxious Life by John Deloney. Today is the Disney. It's out. It's out. I'm so excited. I hope that Andrea in Nashville, Tennessee is equally as excited about this book coming out. Andrea from Nashville, what's going on, girl? Hi, thanks for taking my call. We're doing good. You're welcome. What's up? Yes. So I have a question. Our mortgage is more than that 25% take home, 25% within the take home pay that you recommend. And so my question is,

my husband started a business a couple of years ago and his income has doubled each year. So that's great. So I'm wondering if you think we should go ahead and get that mortgage sale and get a mortgage within that 25 percent number or if you think that we should just hold off. Well, what percentage is it? It's more like 35%. So, yeah, at the current rate, and this is before his income, like what he's making right now, it's 35%. Correct. How quickly do you think, with his income continuing to go up, how quickly do you think you could get to a place where it's 30, at least 30, 29?

Like how quickly do you think that you can make that transition? I mean, I think within the next year, he'll be at a point where it's like probably in that 28, 29 range. And then I feel like it will continue to grow. It's just kind of tight on us at the moment. We love where we live though. We live in a gated neighborhood that we feel really safe with our kids. Do you work? So I do, I do. So I make, I make about 120 and he makes about currently 75. And do you have room to grow as well? Yes.

Yes. I have room for promotion. You know what? If I'm you, I'm probably going to stay put. But I am going to put a cap on this because you don't want to live strapped like this for, you know, two and three years so I'd probably put a cap and say hey in in a year and a half in two years if we are still like if we haven't seen the needle move and if we haven't seen it move significantly then we need to think about getting out of this because right now you probably don't have a lot of margin to do the things that we would teach you know are you able to invest 15%? So my company offers a 401k match. So I am contributing up to the match, which is,

which is a total of 12%. Okay. And then what about your husband? He is currently not at the moment as he works to grow the business. Yeah. I love the 12%. I love the match that you have. It's excellent. We always treat that as just icing on the cake. We want folks to get in the habit of using their own money to invest 15% because God forbid something happens. Maybe you switch jobs. Maybe you go somewhere where the perks aren't as good. We want to make sure that you're building that muscle of 15% of my income always goes to retirement. So for that that reason also the reason of you know right now you guys are strapped with this mortgage I would put a time frame on this

and you can talk with your husband no more than two years I wouldn't stay in this situation for any more than two years because I think that it has the ability to play out in a lot of different ways even in your relationship right John when you live in your home and it's taking up so much of your take-home pay, that's not, I mean, it just creates frustration. Yeah. Andrea, can I ask a personal question? Yes. I mean, you're calling for a reason and you went looking for this plan and these ideas. Is there that, it's just that underlying tension about money in the home? Is that exist there? Or is this just you guys, everything's fine and wonderful,

but you're just trying to play by a different set of rules now? Well, yes, there's definitely a little bit of tension. You know, I would love to have extra wiggle room in the budget and it's been a little stressful with him starting the business. So I'm super proud of what he's done, but it has put a financial, you know, uncertainty and strain a little bit on our relationship. Absolutely. And so what we, what we, people fight us over the math of it all. What's a big deal to me is that a husband and wife team don't wake up in five years. And this is just the way their life is.

Because I've seen it over and over. I've lived in this world over and over. You can only take so much. Your physical body can only take so much of that tension before you start finding ways to take the edge off that tension. And it might be another drink. It might be a distraction. It might be a distraction. It might be just scrolling the day away. It might be someone at your office that laughs at your

jokes and he makes you feel special. And suddenly you're responding to texts and flipping your phone over. It just slowly, slowly starts happening that way. When there's this constant burn in the house underneath everything. And again, your husband sounds like he, y'all agreed on this. He jumped with both feet. He's working his butt off. He's got this business up to 75 grand and he's got potential to grow it more. That doesn't mean anybody's doing anything wrong.

But I think what Jade said is so critical. Man, going out for a long run feels so good and training for something is good. But if you don't have a finish line, all of a sudden your body at some point your body just says i quit right if you just start running and running and running so i love the idea of y'all sitting down saying we're we want to have more peace in our home if you come to him and say hey you got to get right in two years or um so we can get this

under 25 or you're gonna have to quit well now he's got to fight you because you just started to fight if you sit down and say i'm willing have an anxious, stressy home for a couple more years because I see your vision and I see what we're building together. But in two years, we're going to have a hard conversation about, is this sustainable for the life we want for our kids? And it might mean we're going to move. We're going to keep the business. It might mean 50 different things, but let's put a finish line to sit down and say, have we crossed that line yet? Are we there? Are we safe? Do we feel good as a couple? Or do we need to make some hard choices about what comes next? I love that. That's a really great question that you asked, Andrea, and I'm really glad that you were thinking

ahead. Very, very good stuff. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. What's up, guys? You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I am Jade Warshaw, one of your hosts for the day, joined by Dr. John Deloney, who has a new book coming out today, Building a Non-Anxious Life. Make sure you pick it up. We would so appreciate that. I know John would. And one other thing, if you listen to the show, if you enjoy the Ramsey show, if it's done anything for you, we would sure love it if you would like the show on whatever platform you're looking, you know, listening to, you know, there's a little heart button. You can like it or love it. You can subscribe on YouTube. You can smash that subscribe button, right? You can share it with your friends um whether that's via text

however you like to share it that does so much um not only for the folks in your community because you're sharing something that's very valuable but it also helps us as a a network more and more people get to listen to the show and see it uh pop up as a suggestion for them and that is really really important it's totally free john i mean do you share it like when you when you like something do you hit the like button do you leave mean, do you share it? Like when you, when you like something, do you hit the like button? Do you leave a comment? Do you share it? I'm not a big commenter. But when I listen to a podcast and it, I think, oh man, my buddy needs to hear this, or this is a good one for my wife to hear. I'll forward it to him. And that way we can have a joint conversation about the same, the same podcast podcast. We can listen to it, which is awesome. I love that.

Or if I know people are going to be in the car with me, I'll have it on to where it's kind of quiet. And then they'll be like, hey, what is that? I'm like, oh, that? That is the Ramsey Show. That's what my brother did. That's how I found out about Dave Ramsey on the Ramsey Show. He had it playing in the car and shared it with me.

And that was his median of sharing it. So yeah, like, like subscribe share it um we surely do appreciate that and with that let's go to the phone lines we've got kate in albany new york what's going on in your world kate hi there um so i i have a bit of debt um and i'm kind of new to listening to the ranting Show, and I'm so glad that I found it. Hey, welcome to the gang. Welcome to the gang. Thanks. I know, that's right.

Hey, we're a weird crew, and so we welcome everybody. We're glad you're here. When you say weird, John, are you just talking about you? No, all of it. All of it. Very weird. But we're glad to have you. We're glad to have you.

What's up? Thank you. So my husband and I have a bit of debt I would say he knows probably about three quarters of it but he probably doesn't know the amount of some of it and having listened to the show I know that I need to tell him but I definitely need to get like a game plan in place you know from now to retirement, he and I are both state workers in New York. And that's like another question mark too, as far as like, do we hold out for that state retirement and stuff, but we need to take care of what is in front of us first, for sure.

Yeah. Big, big question here. It sounds like you have some hesitation to even bring this up to him. Am I, am I reading into that wrong? A little bit, just because, you know, we've been together for 14 years and we are really good. You know, he's known about some of the debt before. We've, you know, kind of taken care of it together. Why do you feel like, sorry, you keep saying he's known about the debt. Is it debt that you're accruing, or is it debt that you're both accruing, and he's just kind of mindless about it? Can you explain that a little bit?

Yeah, so it's debt that I'm kind of accruing, so it's kind of twofold. One of them is credit card debt. Does he know, Kate? Hey, Kate, does he know? About the credit card debt? does he know how bad it is he knows not totally okay i'm just gonna be super honest with you okay um yeah what i heard in your voice when you started talking my mind immediately went to

if you are having an affair have you told him the truth about everything? And just a few minutes later, you say, no, I haven't told him everything. So this conversation has been very much about him, about him, about him, about him. I think this conversation is very much about y'all and very much about you. And it sounds like you're tired

of not being fully honest inside your own home with the man you said I do with. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. I would say that that's accurate. Okay. Yep. What else are you not telling him? I mean, that's kind of the main thing is the credit card debt. How much is it? You know, it's probably hovering around 15 right now. Okay. Is he going to be stunned? Is he going to be all angry? What's his response going to be? I think he'll be shocked.

I think he'll be shocked. And we have good jobs. I don't care about that. This is about you've been keeping secrets, and there's a tension, and he's felt that tension, and here's my promise. He has thought in his own weird New York guy way that that tension was somehow his fault.

And he's probably been trying to fix it for a long time in his weird way. Well, there might be another side to that, John. You think? Here's where Jade's brain goes. And only Kate is going to know really where it falls. But I'm interested to what sorts of things are being purchased because

here's the thing when i walk in with a target bag my husband's like what'd you get and i'm like oh yeah i got this thing or i got this lamp or if i walk in with a big shopping bag from zara he's like oh what'd you get uh so are you so there's there's part of me that's wondering is he not paying attention yeah no he No, he sees it. He sees it coming in. He does for sure. We have two kids, so I do buy stuff for the kids. You know, I, I, so he's seen the house fill up with things.

He's seen the house fill up with things and he's also not asking questions. So there's, there's some things going on here, John. It's a both in. Yeah. So when you talk about a game plan, only game plan game plan i've seen work long term is you to a change the environment you got to get them out of your house and you'll have to go somewhere and have this conversation because it's gonna be a hard one and you have to say i haven't been honest with you i haven't cheated on you i'd get that out there quick unless you have

um no no but i haven't been honest with you and i want to come clean and i want us to get on the same page and start getting safe with our money here's the truth and i think that's the way to start and i think ask him i'm gonna ask you to stay with me on this i know it's gonna be a shock i know you're gonna get upset and you're right to get upset i've hidden it from you or maybe like jade said maybe he hasn't been a safe place to just come home and say, Hey, we, the kids need some stuff. Yeah. And, um, so there's good, there may be, there's two sides to all this, but somebody has to be courageous offsite and go, here's the truth. We got to build something new. Now, when I tell you that, what is your body's instant response? Like no way. Or that sounds amazing to have that honestly it's like my

body's instant response is relief okay perfect that's awesome then i want you to set that up this weekend um and jade can walk you through the actual finances it feels like a million dollars i don't think you have as much debt as you think you do i think you have um it feels like a million dollars i know it does but i think it's the weight of the lack of integrity in your home. That's what's weighing on you more than that dollar amount. Yeah. Um, is it just the 15,000 or is there other debt laying around as well?

So what else do you have? So having watched the show, I've been watching the show. I know what's out there. So, um, so there's about 15 in, um, credit card debt. There is student loans that are about 30. Okay. credit card debt. There is student loans that are about 30. There are two other unsecured loans that are about 30.

There is our cars, which call it 50. Between the two of them. Can you break those two down separately for me? Car one and car two? Yeah, so mine is about 21 and his is about 30. Is that it or there's more?

Uh, we have a home equity loan that we haven't spent all of yet. Um, but that when it's done, it'll be about 40 and then our mortgage. How much is the mortgage? So our mortgage, we, we have a lot of sweat equity into our house. So we owe about $220, $250. And if we were to sell it right now, I would think we could get at least $500 for it. The reason I was asking about that line of credit or loan that you have through the house is if it was more than half i would save it for later but since it's pretty low i'd add it in with your debt snowball um which is what you're going to do to attack this debt now i'm looking at these vehicles

if i'm you do you do offhand do you know what they're worth mine i'm upside down and uh unfortunately i carried some negative equity from the previous vehicle. I thought that I was going to get out from under it with getting something else and I have not yet. Yeah. If I'm you, if I'm you, I'm looking at his vehicle. I'm going to try to get out of it. I'm going to try to get out of yours. Even if you're upside down, if you're upside down five or six thousand, I'm still probably going to take the hit and do that. You guys have got a lot to work through. John is right. It's about getting out of debt and it's about holding each other accountable going forward. You're not going to get out of this

until you guys agree. We're both in this. This debt is both of our issue and we've got to change our behavior and hold each other accountable to whatever plan you guys decide to put in action. This is The Ramsey Show.

What's going on? You are listening to The Ramsey Show. What's going on? You are listening to The Ramsey Show. I am Jade Warshaw, joined by the man, the legend, Dr. John Deloney with a new book coming out today. Lunch day!

Lunch day. It's here, man. Tell the folks about it, John. Building a non-anxious life. If we couldn't bribe you to buy it on pre-sale, it's now in every store you can imagine and you can find it at Target, at Barnes & Noble, at Books

A Million, on Amazon, wherever you buy books, you can go to johndeloney.com or ramsaystolutions.com. No more excuses. And if you're sick and tired of that burnout, that always stress, there's always electricity in your house. When you walk in to your home, the one place on planet earth where you should be able to drop your shoulders

and your bag and laugh, drop your bag, drop your shoulders and say, welcome home. But instead, your body tenses up. This book's for you. Go get it, go get it, go get it. It's 20 bucks and probably cheaper at other locations, but go pick it go get it go get it it's 20 bucks and and probably cheaper other locations but go pick it up and change your change your family man so okay this is just for me i read your previous book on your past change your future um i've started this book but i'm not all the way through it yet how if you read that first book how is this one totally different uh basically that first book is a a it's almost a reverse engineering it's a way to look back and say oh this is why all this is happening in my life and then at the end in own your past there's a um there's a path there but it's more esoteric

it's more start considering some things yes this book is book is a roadmap. Step by step. It is a blueprint. So as in West Texas, the farmer may say, you're going to head over yonder. That was on your past. This is waves on your phone. It's going to get you exactly where you need to go. I love that explanation.

Love that. It's almost like baby steps. Right. This is the baby steps for non-anxious life. Love that. Love it. Love it. Well, John, I'm excited for you. I know it it's gonna go bananas because that's just the kind of guy you

are so very very good well done let's go to the phone lines i'm bananas you i'm just saying you're very good at what you do is all i'm saying the people know that though if you've ever listened to the dr john deloney show you already know that john comes with the heat he definitely knows his business so without further ado we will go to the phone lines. We've got Carlton in Detroit, Michigan. What's going on, Carlton? Hey, Jayden, John. How y'all doing today?

We're partying. We're partying. That's right. What's up, man? Detroit Rock City. I know, I know, I know. We got the Lions. Everything's going crazy.

Going good right now. Hey, you know what? You know what? I'm just going to give you that one. Y'all need a win. Y'all need a win. I'm going to give you the Lions. We need everyone, and we should be undefeated.

We're not going to get there. We're not going to go there yet. That's all right. We all know it should have happened, so we're going to give you that one. Congratulations, man. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. I'm a little nervous but i'm curious um i got a question so um i i gotta i only have one loan uh well one uh debt and that's my car i owe about just under uh eight thousand like seven thousand eight hundred dollars okay and so i have about $4,000 in my checking. And then I have another just under like three-ish in my Robinhood account, in my investments. In single stocks?

In single stocks. Some kind of mutual funds. But I was wondering, should I pretty much go zero and pay this car loan off it's my only one and i live at home at the moment and i you know eventually want to move out and stuff but i want to pay this car first and coincidentally i i am like a car salesman now so that was kind of like yeah i deal with this every day so i just i want to get mine done for sure carlton how old are you 24 24 all right i i love the way you're thinking i'm right with you i'd be wanting to get mine done. For sure. Carlton, how old are you? 24.

24. All right. I love the way you're thinking. I'm right with you. I'd be wanting to get out of this house and I'd be wanting to set myself up to make that happen so that when you make that transition, you're in a good position. It's stress free. So what I would do is I would keep $1,000 aside just as a starter emergency fund, just

a little cushion and i would i take the other six thousand and i'd put it towards the car and pay the other two thousand off super fast you know cash flow it from your paycheck how much are you making from your paychecks by the way each month so i just kind of started this job so i just started working pretty much for honda in april and i just got much, let's say I just got the hang of it just about a month ago. I just had a really decent month and I'm starting off really nice as well. So like it's going good. I'm expected to make, you know, by next year, at least about 80 to 80,000.

Maybe. What was your decent month? What was your decent month last month? My decent month last month is about $5,000. Okay, good. Good. so you're getting off hey that's not with interest rates the way they have been there's a lot of parked cars in those lots and so that's that means you are hustling which is awesome yeah that's good so yeah yeah you got the five thousand a month you're living at home this month you'll be able to pay off the car because you don't need

five thousand dollars a month when you don't have rent and you don't have debt. Right. So I think that you'll be able to pay off this car. Tell me, tell me a reason I might be wrong. But am I wrong? Just no, you're not wrong. It's just I was wondering, like, yes, should I almost if I if I am making like if I am to make a little more money, should I hold off on? Can I save my livelihood account pretty much?

I wouldn't because that's not the way you should be. That's not the way I would advise you or that I myself would invest to begin with. Because you're just nickeling and diming over there. You're doing single stocks. What I really would want you to do is open up a Roth IRA. You know, I'm guessing. Do you have any benefits through Honda yet? Well, I do. I need to look into that a little bit more. You know, I'm guessing, do you have any benefits through Honda yet? Well, I do. I need to look into that a little bit more, but yes, I do.

Okay. Well, if they have a 401k, if they have a 401k, eventually, you know, we might look at investing there. But the first, first things first, and what I laid out for you, Carlton, is our framework, but let me kind of put labels on it so you understand what it is. It's a series of seven baby steps that are ultimately going to get you not only to debt freedom, but like financial peace, right? And wealth building. So the first baby step, you get a thousand dollars saved. That's why I told you to set us out a thousand dollars aside. The second baby step is you pay off all of your debt except your mortgage. So that's what we're doing by clearing out your savings, clearing out your Robinhood account. And then after that, what you do is you build three to six months of expenses. In your case, you're a car salesman. It's just you. You're thinking about moving out. I would

build six months of what you project will be your basic expenses. So go start doing the research and say, okay, if I get an apartment, here's what the rent will be. And here's what I would need, you know, for groceries, basic groceries. Here's what I need for basic gas. Here's what my utilities are, you know, and get that baseline of what you would need for six months of expenses. And after you pay off this car, that's what comes next. And then once you've done that, you can start going, okay, now what's it going to take to move out? I'm probably going to need first and last month's rent, right? I'm probably going to need, I'm going to have to get me a little U-Haul or, you know, ask Uncle Boo Boo if I can borrow his truck, right? We figure out what that is. What's it going to cost? Do I have to buy him a pizza? Do I have to throw,

you know, Venmo him $75? Get all that listed out to find out what it's going to cost. And so we're just walking down the line. You finally move out. Everything's good and settled. Now you're on baby step four. You've been at your job for several months and now you're going in there and you're saying, hey, I think I heard you say I have a 401k. I want to start investing 15% of my paycheck into my 401k. And that's how this works. And you're going to look up in January of next year, you're going to be what is known as a responsible, financially literate adult. And you're going to be like, man, I'm killing the game.

That's the plan. That's the plan. I've been listening to you guys since 2020. So I've been on and off, but yeah. Well, it's on now. I want you to get a Sharpie, and I would tell you to write this on your forearm, but you're probably going to wear,

well, maybe you're going to wear long sleeves for the next few months, because I want you to get a Sharpie, and I would tell you to write this on your forearm, but you're probably going to wear, well, maybe you're going to wear long sleeves for the next few months because I want you to absorb this, okay? You're going to get a ton of what I call bro wisdom. It's going to come from Instagram, from TikTok. You're going to have people at the car lot when you're all just standing around waiting for customers like, you're not, you don't got to rob. You're crazy. You could be making.

Here's what I want you to stamp into your soul. You're solving, you don't got to rob. You're crazy. You could be making. Here's what I want you to stamp into your soul. You're solving for freedom. Nobody is going to tell Carlton what to do. Nobody. Carlton will be owed by no one. Not a car dealership, not a mortgage company, not a student loan company. And when you get married

when you start having a family Carlton will always be the director of Carlton's life. And so I, John, me and my family me and my wife we're more than willing to concede a couple of potential maybe percentage points in a Robinhood account

versus a savings account long-term account, because we sleep at night. Because I don't want nobody telling me what to do with my life. So we're going to solve for freedom. Jade just gave you the path. Hang on the line. We're going to send you FPU as our gift. You are listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warsharshaw I am joined by Dr. John Deloney and you can give us a call the number is 888-825-5225 we'd be happy to take your call and give us

look we'll do our best to advise you in the right direction thanks for trusting us with your issues by the way I think it's something that you guys call in here and ask about your life your money and your mental health and they trust us of all people john to to give them a little guidance in the right direction i don't know if i ever told you this but when i first started my show i didn't know anything about radio or any of this stuff uh-huh and um james was the uh producer there bang up jody job he was doing too, by the way. But I remember the first few times people call and I would say, why are you calling me? And every person answered the same.

Hey man, I got nobody. And so at first I was kind of taken aback. And then I realized, oh, we've created a very lonely world. And people who just keep showing up on the radio with the same voices and the same consistent message and the same care and the same love and the same willingness to call bullcrap when we see it. That's the most trusted resource people have these days. And it's an indictment on our culture, but it's also, man, I'm happy that we're here. Well, look, you got the letters to prove it, though.

I mean, you got the stuff to back it up. Let's be honest about that. Well, I mean, you can, you can back it up with letters. You can also back it up with experiences. You can, you can, I mean, there's something. That's all I have is experience. If they had letters after like my financial experience, it would not be, it would be like B-O-Z-O. Like I, I clowned finances starting and now, you know, I understand it, you know, when you come out of it. So thank you guys for trusting us. And by the way, if you are new to the Ramsey Show, there are several co-hosts. You're going to see a lot of people, you know, move through these chairs. We got George Camel and Ken Coleman, Rachel Cruz,

obviously Dave, myself, John. We're always switching through here and we all have different expertises in different areas. And you're going to hear us talk about all sorts of lingo, you know, baby steps. John's got the things that he talks about. We all speak kind of a Ramsey ease around here. And if you're not sure what that is, we want you to hop over to RamseySolutions.com and you can click the get started button. And when you go over there, we're really just going to give you your best next step. We're going to walk you through and say, hey, when we, we're going to look at your situation and tell you exactly what your next step is. And you'll kind of learn the lingo, baby steps and gazelle intense. And what do we mean, you know, when we're talking about mortgages and all these different things. So if you're looking

for that, head over to ramsaysolutions.com, click the get started button. We're glad that you're looking for that, head over to RamseySolutions.com. Click the Get Started button. We're glad that you're hanging here with us. And the other day, myself and Ken Coleman, who is our career coach, he's really into getting people into work that matters. We were in Washington, D.C., John. Yeah, I saw that. We were just talking off break. Last week for you was Nashville to New York City, back to Nashville, back to, I mean, over to Washington, D.C.,

and then you're back like day after day. You've had it, man. Dude, yeah. It's good, though. Shout out, Sam, for keeping the fort down, man. Look, Sam was keeping the fort down with these two little kids, these three and five years old.

They had three square meals. That's right, they did. You know, they had sunlight. They did good. They survived, that's right. But yeah, it was pretty rad to see you and ken out there and it was it made such an impact we were talking about it off the show it wasn't just a bit for us this is this was important for everybody well yeah you know we've been in a a student loan pause since 2020

so three years people have gotten used to having extra money in their pocket having extra money in their budget which it's a good thing because inflation has been crazy interest rates have gone crazy like it's so expensive to live you know in america as an adult right now and so everybody got used to this extra money and now uh officially payments started back with student loans on october 1st and so we really wanted to be in the place where it all went down uh on october 1st and really just get on the ground and see what people are saying. And it was such a good, it was so good. Yesterday we went live on the show. And so if you haven't seen it, go back on YouTube and watch that episode. Ken interviewed a

congressman here from the state of Tennessee live. And we just gave our input on what we talked to, what we saw with folks. And we did a lot of man on the street interviews. And I know that James and the gurus back there are going to drip out that information as the time comes. But it was really cool. You know, I found, John, something that we heard yesterday that was so interesting is in this whole debate about forgiveness, right? It's like America so much wants things to be divided and you're either for it or you're against it. And, you know, that kind of thing. But so many people that we talked to, and by the way, they had no idea when we stopped

people on the streets, they had no idea that we were from Ramsey Solutions, you know, a money show. They had no idea. We just said, hey, we'd love your opinion on what you think about student loans. And so many people said, you know, this idea of forgiveness. Yeah, it would have been cool. Like, it's always nice at the idea of Santa Claus coming and, you know, dropping a present off in this case, you know, forgiveness of loans. But everyone agreed that although that would be nice, it was kind of like a like selfishly, I would love this, but I know it's not

good for the American people. It's not good for the economy. It's not good. It's not a good precedent to set going forward that this is what we do is people get into trouble and we just forgive their debt. And by the way, it's not everybody. It's just these small group of people that we chose at this moment. Everybody agreed that, yeah, that's probably not the answer. There's something better. So there's this psychological construct. It's an idea. And I just, it just left my head. I think it's called the Abilene paradox. It's somewhere around there, but it's an idea and i just it just left my head i think it's called the abilene paradox um it's somewhere around there but it's this notion that when you get a group of people together often the whole group will end up making a decision that nobody in the group wants because

everyone the group thinks everyone else is in for it and so you find out throughout history, people go along with insane leaders, right? Because they think, well, I don't want to, I think this leader's nuts, but everyone keeps saying they're great. So I don't want to go along. And everybody starts going along with it. And I think similarly, when somebody gets up and goes, I'm going to make all this go away. Yes.

Everybody knows we're going to have to pay that off somehow. And I even borrowed money, but I don't think that's fair, but I don't want to be the one. And so suddenly the whole herd heads in one direction and no one in that herd thinks it's the right direction. And everybody flies off a cliff. And there was something important about this notion that if, um, from the great Nassim Taleb says, if you see fraud and you don't say fraud, if you don't yell out fraud, you're a fraud.

Oh, you're complicit, yeah. You have to be a part of saying, this is nuts. And when you got back, and we were talking earlier before the show, it actually makes me feel good. Me too. That people, the American public isn't dumb. No.

Would it be nice nice of course it would be but we have to start speaking up yeah there's still that um there's still that that true north there where people go yeah but and they circle back around but is it right is it fair no it's not and everybody was able to um voice that but something else uh john that came out of that which look we've still got work to do here at Ramsey because a lot of folks I talked to, I said, so do you think it's possible? There were two possibilities I asked. Do you think it's possible to go to college without debt? And do you think it's possible if you have gotten into debt, do you really think it's possible

to pay it off? And that part, I was a little sad at what people, I mean, the responses I got were pretty incredulous. It was like, oh, pay off? Like, I've never even thought about paying it off. Like, well, I mean, it's going to take 20 years. You know, it was really this thought that if you have student loan debt, it's going to take 20, 25 years to pay off if that, if you ever get out. And, you know, on the show, the point is opening people's minds to the possibility that you can actually do hard things. It's not normal in culture to just go out there and say, I've got $100,000 of debt. I'm just paid off.

I'm going to do the work for two and a half years and pay it off. That's not normal. And so it was interesting talking to especially young cats, 18, 19, 19 20 21 years old and that had never even entered their brain which means their parents aren't talking like that so what we're doing here is big work yeah it's total paradigm shift total mental shift and letting people see that so there's another psychological construct um the idea is learned helplessness and there's some old studies that they did with with dogs and and i think ended up into some other animals too but they would shock the animal and of course i can't

do these experiments today but they would shock the animal and there was no way for the animal to get out and eventually the animal accepts their fate and they just there's a there's a visible collapse well then they would move them to somewhere else where there wasn't a shock. The animal wouldn't move. It just accepted this is the way things are. And I think that's why this show is important and other voices out there are important

because we have to give people their power back. They've just come to accept this is the way this is. And it's not. That's right. It doesn't have to be. And we talked about this before, John, but you guys listening, you can do your part by changing the conversation around you. When you talk about the fact that you paid off debt, when you talk about the fact

that you're sticking to a budget, when you talk about the fact that in two years you're going to be debt free, it changes the conversation in the air and it opens people's minds up to what's possible. Keep talking, America. They're listening. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way.

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