The Ramsey Show - App - Know the Difference Between a Want and a Need (Hour 3)

Episode Date: May 25, 2020

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions Broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumped, 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. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Starting off this hour is going to be Debbie in Rockford, Illinois.

Hi, Debbie. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. I'm really looking forward to getting your advice on this topic that I have today. Cool. What's up? My husband and I are 54 years old, and we have a 14-year-old daughter that's going to be going into high school. So we are considering moving into a better school district.

Our house would probably sell at a pretty good price, and we would make a decent profit on it. So my question is, what would I do with the profit that I make on my house in terms of baby steps four, five, and six? And also, if we do move, I don't think it would be our forever home, so I was wondering if we should rent or we should buy a home. How long would you be in the area if you were to move? Just for four years, just until she's out of high school. Is that area an area where you can make some money on the house in four years? Yes. You would automatically move at the end of four years?

No, not necessarily. I mean, we're looking to move primarily for education. If it's someplace we decide to stay, fine. If not, we'd be willing to move again then. Okay. And how much equity do you have in your current home that you'd get in your hands if you sold it? Like in terms of the profit that we would make? Yeah.

We would probably have a profit of about $175,000. Okay. And so you would move and you would put down all or most of that as your down payment. Assume you said you're on 4, 5, 6, so you're out of debt except your home. You have your emergency fund, so we don't need to use any of it for that. If you wanted to pull, you know, 15 or 20 out or something and kind of get her college fund started, that'd be okay. But I'd put the rest of it as your down payment on the next place. And no more than a 15-year fixed rate.

And then let's buy the house like we plan to stay there. But that does not ever excuse paying too much for a house or buying a bad house or something like that. Let's buy a good house. It'll be marketable when you get ready to sell it. And, you know, it's got a good floor plan. You're getting a good price on it. It's got a good location. It's got good curb appeal, those kinds of things, so that when you do get ready to sell

it, whether that be five years or whether it be ten years, you've got something that's marketable and that you would have made some money on. But in the Chicagoland area, you should have enough appreciation in four years to be glad you own something rather than rented something. And there's a reasonable probability that you're going to be there longer than four years. Okay, so you would recommend potentially maybe buying the house then mortgage-free and not growing. Oh, if you could, can you? Pardon me?

The school system you move into, could you buy a $175,000 house in your area? Yes. Oh, that'd be awesome. Yeah. I just thought maybe I should throw more into her college fund and totally invest into that. No, she's 14. You got five years with no house payment? So it'd be better to pay off a house and then just invest into her college.

If you had to choose, yeah. Yeah, but I mean, yeah, if you can buy a $175,000 house, I wasn't guessing that you could do that. I was guessing it was going to be more expensive than that. But yeah, that would be wonderful. What's your household income? About $150,000. Oh, phenomenal. And your current house payment is what?

$1,500. Okay. So, I mean, easily you start chunking $2,000. Oh, phenomenal. And your current house payment is what? $1,500. Okay. So, I mean, easily you start chunking $2,000 a month aside. That's $24,000 a year. For five years, that's $100,000, not counting growth. This kid's going to school. Yeah. But we're also in our middle 50s.

I didn't know how to do that in terms of... Well, if you just pay the house payment that you would have had into her college, you don't have to worry about it, right? And you do 15% of your income or more into retirement, but you'd be fine. You'd be in great shape to do that. You'd make plenty of money to do both. Right. Yeah, you're going to be great.

You should definitely do that. That seals the deal, man. That makes it a no-brainer. I thought we were buying a $400,000 house with $175,000 down or something. I didn't know what you were doing. So that could be just incredible. Allie is with us in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hi, Allie.

Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. It's nice to talk to you. You too. What's up? So I am a graduating senior. I'm graduating with a degree in public relations in May. I have about $45,000 in student loan debt. If I go right out of college into my degree field, I will be making about $32,000 to $36,000 a year. I have an opportunity to take a construction office job,

kind of being a jack-of-all-trades for about three to six months, making $6,000 to $7,000 a month to, you know, start paying down some of that debt, start really following your baby steps. Wait a minute. An office manager with a PR degree at a construction firm makes $72,000 a year straight out of college? No, no, no, no, no. I would be doing, like, jack-of-all-trades kind of thing, being a runner for the construction site, doing some office stuff, being a fill-in person for wherever they need.

For $72,000 a year? No. You said $72,000 a year? No. You said $7,000 a month. I don't, I said. Did I misunderstand you? $67,000. No, no, no. You're right.

$67,000 a month. That's what I was quoted. The job isn't anywhere near where I live now. It's out in Texas, and it's not a a fun living condition so that's why they pay higher um okay so you're getting you're getting you're getting prairie combat pay yeah yeah um so it wouldn't be by any such of imagination it wouldn't be a fun job right out of college okay Okay. It would be simply to pay off the debt, get going on that. I got you. Okay.

So while I'm doing this, I would want to, you know, maintain certifications, get more certifications, and probably do some freelance work. You have certifications in PR? Yeah, you can get, like, accreditations and PR. You can get different social media marketing certifications for the different platforms. Yeah, you can get that. Okay. I've seen that. Yeah. All right.

Yeah, so getting all those, doing some freelance work while I'm out there. I just, my, obviously I want to keep up on my resume. I don't know if it's... You have $45,000 in student loan debt, right? Yes, sir. I think if you will go into your career field, you'll be making close to what you're talking about within a couple of years. And I don't know why you need to do combat pay.

Okay. years and um i don't know why you need to do combat pay okay um i mean if you want to do it for six months or something that's fine but i yeah that's what i was thinking you know i that'd be okay it's just kind of an adventure but it's not even a cool adventure is what you're describing but um yeah if you want to do that i, you're basically doubling your income for six months. And you probably could knock out most of that student loan debt and then just come home and then go. Gives you a head start a little bit. That's fine. But then dive into your other stuff. I'm okay if you take your regular job straight out of school.

I think you can do that and do a bunch of side hustle stuff in the PR front, in the SEO side of things, in the digital world. And I think you can make enough money to clean this up pretty quick on your own. Either one's okay. Do you know who is a prime target for identity theft? Your children. Kids have no debts or credit history. Their personal information is just as easy to get, but the theft could go completely undetected for years.

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Call them at 800-356-4282 or visit zander.com. It's just the smarter, more affordable way to protect your entire family. And it's the only plan I provide to my team. zander.com or 800-356-4282. We'll be right back. Chris is on Facebook. Sometimes I think people ask these questions with a hint of sarcasm in their voice. I have to read that into some of these questions. Chris says, should I buy a $9,300 Tempur-Pedic mattress with interest-free financing? I have to think you're being sarcastic.

Otherwise, I think you're stupid beyond words. And so I have to go with sarcastic. Tongue-in-cheek question, right? This is the stir-up Dave Ramsey question, right? See if we can get Dave ranting. And so I have to go with sarcastic tongue in cheek question. Right. Just this is the stir up Dave Ramsey question. Right. See if we can get Dave ranting. So, I mean, what else is Facebook for? I mean, really? Seriously.

So we'll answer it as if it were a serious question by a stupid person. So, oh, God, really, seriously. If you want to pay $10,000 for your bed, you should first have a lot of money, which would thereby mean that you were not even asking this question. So I'll just go ahead and start with you can't afford this mattress. And otherwise, if you could afford this mattress, you would have never asked this question.

But no, we don't buy anything on debt ever in any circumstance, interest-free or otherwise. If you cannot pay cash for it, don't buy it. Well, Dave, that's a little extravagant of me to get you to take that $10,000 invested. And listen, if you need to worry about investing $10,000, you don't need to be buying a $10,000 mattress. If investing $10,000 is going to change your life, then you don't need to be buying a $10,000 mattress.

Meaning, if you got a million dollars invested, $10,000 doesn't change your life much. And you could probably afford to write a check and buy a $10,000 mattress, right? And not think anything about it if you want to do that. But if $10,000 is such a big freaking deal that you have to do an analysis on it mathematically, then that by definition means you don't need to be spending it on a mattress under any circumstances, financed or otherwise. If you have to have this discussion, it's kind of like if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it.

You ever heard that? That's kind of where this falls into that category. This is like an uber luxury item. $10,000 for a mattress is an uber luxury item ten thousand dollars for a mattress is an uber luxury item this is the freaking bentley of mattresses and you don't need to drive a bentley when you're broke even if it's interest-free and so here's the thing as we've studied millionaires, people who actually have money, not people who have a theory about money, but people who actually have money, we have found that there are two primary things that they do.

They invest consistently because, number two, they don't borrow money. They don't have any payments. They do not borrow money. They don't have any payments. They do not borrow money. And therefore, they have money to invest consistently, and therefore, they became wealthy. It really is a fairly simple formula. But we complicate it because we have this little child down inside of us, the one that throws a temper tantrum on the cereal aisle.

You ever seen that kid? He lives inside of every one of us. His name is Immaturity. His name is I Want It and I Can't Afford It. Big hat, no cattle. BHNC. Big hat, no cattle. BHNC. HashtC. Big hat, no cattle. B-H-N-C.

Hashtag B-H-N-C. Right? Big hat, no cattle. These are a bunch of immature children walking around inside of every one of us. One definition of maturity is learning to delay pleasure. Adults devise a plan and follow it. Children do what feels good. So, no, Chris, you should not buy a $9,300 Tempur-Pedic bed with interest-free financing.

You can't afford it. By virtue of this simple fact, you ask this question, tells us you actually cannot afford it. Nick is in Atlanta. Hi, Nick. How are you? Good, Mr. David. How are you? Better than I deserve, sir.

What's up in your life? We got a lot of stuff going on. I'm a 30-year-old male. My wife and I just have an eight-month baby at home. Our firstborn. And we're in about

43 and stood alone just about 12 and a car and we were trying to decide so I guess in total about what is that 54? 55,000? Yeah. 60

65,000 65. No no no I'm sorry it's 55 you're right 55 I apologize. Your phone is cutting in and out. What the crap is going on with your phone? I'm sorry about that. Maybe I'm just too excited. Okay.

I don't know how that causes the phone to operate, but anyway. But in any case, we're in a home right now that we are very quickly outgrowing. We own the home. Today we are estimating to be right around $60,000 worth of equity. My question to you is, you know, we did the zero-based budgeting, and we're on track to pay off all the debt in about 34 months. What's your household income? Household income is $85,000.

Why is it taking you three years then? Just based on our monthly expenses, our debt expenses, and then kind of our leftover. You know, we're thinking around $1,700 as leftover. Yeah, you haven't cut your budget enough yet. Okay. Because basically $55,000 divided by two is $27,000 a year out of 85 should be doable in two years. In two years? $27,000 a year out of 85 sounds doable to me.

That's more like $2,300 a month. Okay. Yeah, my calculations. Maybe I'll go back and I'll re-budget everything. But my question is, we're outgrowing our homes. So, you know, we understood that we needed to do a life change, and, you know, we're on that road, we're on that path. We're a couple months into this now.

My question is, do you advise us, you know, putting the house up in the market and potentially using the equity that we get and pay off that debt immediately and then save up for the next three years in order to... Okay, so one way you do this is you bolt down and you pay it off in two years like I'm talking about. And you keep your house and then you sell the house and move up because you're outgrowing the house.

How many kids have you got? We've only got one. So how small is this house? The house is only realistically about 1,500 square feet, but it's just for, you know, our plans in the near future will be. You want to have more children? Yes, sir. Okay.

And how many bedrooms is the house? Right now it's three. Three very, very small bedrooms, may, sir. Okay. And how many bedrooms is the house? Right now it's three. Three very, very small bedrooms, may I add. Okay. Well, I grew up in a house that was 1,020 square feet, and I had a sister. There were two children and two adults living in 1,020 square feet until I was 14 years old from age three. So, so far it has not led to tremendous dysfunction in my life. But, so, you know, I think you moving up in-house is a serious want here.

What I would do if I were in your shoes is I would bolt down and save like crazy. I mean, pay like crazy. Let's get this debt paid off in two years. And then build your emergency fund. And then if you want to move up in-house, I would move up in-house at that point by selling the house that you have, taking that equity and using it to move up. At that point, buying no more than a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage. We're really only talking about three years here before you move up in-house. And I think you guys can probably survive that if the only problem is 1,500 square feet is cramping your style

because that's a want versus a need. Shelter is a need. Increased square footage for luxury purposes is a want, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with spending money on a want once you got yourself cleared up. So let's get out of debt. This is the cheapest place to live while you're getting out of debt. And then let's move up in-house after you have your emergency fund in place where your payment's no more than a fourth of your take-home pay on a 15-year fixed.

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How are you doing, Dave? Welcome, welcome. Where do you guys live? Sacramento, California. All right. Welcome to Nashville. Thank you. And all the way to Tennessee to do a debt-free screen. All the way. Love it. How much have you guys paid off? $165,400. $165,400. That makes more sense. Cool. And how long did this take?

16 months. Wow. And your range of income during that time? $120,000 to $180,000. Well, good for you. What do you guys do for a living? I'm a public relations consultant. I'm a physical therapist. Cool. So why did your income go up $60,000 in 16 months? I graduated college and started working. Oh, there's that.

Okay. And she also started working with a different company, so it bumped her income up as well. Gotcha. So both of you just hit the jackpotpot because, man, you're killing it. Way to go, you guys. Thank you. Very well done. What kind of debt was this $165,000?

I'm guessing Sally Mae's in there. You know it. Almost $90,000 in student loans. We had a little car in there. We also had a little bit of credit card debt and medical debt. Yeah. And we had some, how do you want to call it, some inherited debt. He supposedly co-signed for some debt.

Oh, you helped somebody that didn't help. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Done that myself. That's some stupid tax. Okay. Cool.

So how much stuff did you sell? We sold, I think, four vehicles. Goodness. You were car poor. Yeah, we sold four cars. You had four cars, really? Well, over the course of time. We had some junkers, and we sold cars. Oh, I see.

We sold cars that we had loans on, and so we refinanced it, and then we sold it, and then we got another car that was just cheaper and just moved a lot of stuff around to make stuff make sense. Just kind of, you're working your butt off, making all the moves you've got to make so you clear this thing in 16 months. Exactly. And one car, we weren't going to sell it. We wanted to keep it and pay it off, but then it got crashed, and then we got a settlement

on it, and that totally paid off the car and some more to the debt also oh got a totaling check exactly from the insurance company getting totaled wow okay cool so what happened 16 months ago that you go that lights your fire is this when you got out of school and you said we got to get serious or what i'll let my wife start that story so um my brother i believe introduced me to your show and i do a lot of driving for my job and i'm listening listening to the show, and it's really interesting because it's so much good information, but you don't have to pay for the secrets to financial stuff. I can do this. It's free. I'll just listen to it.

And one day you're talking about term life insurance and whole life insurance, and you're telling me whole life insurance is crap, and I go home, and I'm like, oh, gosh, which kind of life insurance do we have? And I go home and ask, do we have term or whole life insurance is crap. And I go home and I'm like, oh gosh, which kind of life insurance do we have? And I go home and ask, do we have term or whole life insurance? When she walked through the door and said, do we have whole life or term life? I looked at her and said, we have term life. And who have you been talking to?

Where have you been? Because why do you not care about this all of a sudden? I was kind of the nerd in some aspects. She was the nerd in others. When it comes to insurance and interest rates, that was me. So when she said that, I knew somebody had been chirping in her ear. So then it sparked my curiosity. And she's like, yeah, Dave said, we need term life.

I said, who the heck is Dave? So from then on, you got her to care about interest rates. So I was all on board. Wow. Very cool. All right. Cool. So then you guys sit down and you start looking at the debt at that point?

Or tell me, what was the next step? So I think we had already been trying to get our money together in general. I mean, once you get that student loan bill that's more than your rent, you realize, I have a problem and I need to get rid of this problem. But you were giving us a how to get rid of that problem. And so I just showed it to him. I'm like, hey, he's got it written down, seven steps. Actually, this is only the second step to get through that problem.

And he was on board. We put our checking accounts together. We came into an agreement. And it was really good because it was like me and him against the debt instead of me and him against each other. Yeah. Now, very cool. How long have you all been married? Ten years.

Okay. First time you've been debt-free in the ten years? Yes. Wow. Very cool. Well, congratulations. Thank you. So now that you've done it, what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is?

Since there's no secrets. Right. Definitely having an SWI account helps. That's one thing that helped us a little bit. But no, seriously, I think the biggest thing was not trying to cheat the process. We have a, we're in a microwave generation and our, our friends. So a lot of us just, there's a lot of processes, whether it's getting into shape, whether it's building a healthy marriage or getting out of debt, we can't cheat the process.

And I think the second most important thing is FTDI, is follow the dang instructions. You spend a lot of time, I'm sure, putting these steps together. And for us to come in and say, oh, yeah, I think we should do it this way, that would be very arrogant of us. So the steps were perfect. I think it was very interesting. I was like, get out of debt is step two. I was like, what's three, four, five, six, and seven? So that was very helpful for me.

One of the first things that got him on board, he said, who's Dave? And I said, Dave Ramsey. So he Googled your net worth. And he was like, yeah, I think we can listen to him. He looks like he probably knows something. Yeah, I've listened to broker people before. Well, and the funny thing is, is that's even wrong. Right.

Right, it was good. Abraham Lincoln said everything on the Internet is the truth. So there you go. Well, it worked. I would say the secret is creating a safe place for the budget. We did the budget every single time we got paid. I mean, like we reviewed the meat and potatoes of the budget every single time we got paid. And it was a safe place.

It wasn't no jabs at each other. You spent. I spent. It was't no jabs at each other. You spent, I spent. It was just us and him, and we're just reminding ourselves that we are continuously attacking this enemy, which is debt. And it was good. It was a boost for us every single time we sat down to do the budget. Very cool. Well, way to go, you guys.

Do you have cheerleaders or are people saying you were crazy? Oh, eventually they became cheerleaders, but we were looked at a couple strange ways a little bit uh because it's again having a paid for home let alone being debt-free was uh unimaginable we don't know anybody who's necessarily debt-free we don't know anybody with a paid off home so it's very foreign concepts uh to not have car payments and not have these payments so uh even us were like, we wrapped our mind around it. You know, we go to a really a faith church and we talk about being debt free.

And so it wasn't too foreign for us. But once we actually started implementing the steps, getting rid of things, downgrading from my iPhone to a LG flip phone or whatever it was, that got us a couple of crazy looks too. So, yeah. And well, it goes from theory to really doing it. Right. And now you're going from theory to you're really here.

You don't have any payments. How's it feeling not having any payments? It feels great. I mean, I think I would like it better if everybody around us were doing it, too. Because they're cheerleaders. They're like, that's great that you're doing that. I'm not going to. I'm just like, well, this is what we're about to do because it feels great and i don't need to pay anybody any more money ever again yeah i definitely

equated it to um because this is like financial boot camp and you're like a financial bodybuilder so it's like trying to convince somebody to work out six days a week and eat your vegetarian diet it's very uncomfortable and i'm not gonna just hop on that you know so for me i had to have a big enough why. Like I said, my father passed in the beginning of these steps and that was the first time we had to deal with somebody's, like it was just me and my sister. So like his financial dealings, his, you know, things that needed to be taken care of. And so that really kind of rocked us once we started with that.

And I was like, okay, well, this is never going to happen for our children. You know, there's a lot of things in there that we learned from. And they're like, all right, well, this is it. We're on the plan. So I changed it. Never again. Change the family tree. Exactly.

And you brought the girls. What are their names and ages? Yes. We brought our beautiful daughters. This is Tayla. She is five. And this one here is Jada. She is 10.

All right. Very cool. All right. Very cool. All right. We got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Retire Inspired. We want that to be the next chapter in the story. And that is where you're not only debt-free, but now you're millionaires. You're on your way to doing that. This is great income.

You're going to kill it. This is amazing. And not only millionaires, but outrageously generous as you go. So well done. Beautiful family. You guys are incredible. Thank you. All right.

Brandon and Sharin and Jaden and Taylor from Sacramento, $165,000 paid off in 16 months, making $120,000 to $180,000. They sold everything, even got rid of the smartphone. Wow. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free!

I love it. Great job. Boom! Wow. Love it, love it, love it. Man, oh man. Proud of you guys. Very well done.

When you think about investing, what do you think about? I'm young. I've got plenty of time. Or it's too late. I missed my chance. Most people say one of the two. Neither one are true. You need to get with it right now.

Jump on DaveRamsey.com. Click SmartVestor. Put in your info. It'll drop down a list of the SmartVestor pros in your area. Pick one. Get your baby step four stuff going. Get your investing going now. Folks, since you're spending more time at home these days, why not make the most of it? Now, I know not everyone has the means to do a full renovation, but thanks to our friends at Blinds.com,

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Rules and restrictions apply. Our scripture of the day, Colossians 3.16. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom, teaching, and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Margaret Wheatley said, leadership is a series of behaviors rather than a role for heroes. Our question of the day comes from blinds.com. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee guarantee which is weird their guarantee includes if you goof up like if you're measuring for your window blinds and you measure wrong or you pick

the wrong color which would be me i can't even dress myself well so you pick yourself with them pick the wrong color you get free samples they'll remake your window blinds for free if you goof up if you goof up not them you goof up, not them. Now, that's pretty cool. This is an incredible company. We've enjoyed endorsing them for years. I got some of their window blinds on my deck. I'll add it down when the sun's getting hot in the afternoon.

Not a problem right now, but it will be in a few months. And we love these guys. Use the promo code Ramsey to get the best deal. The question is from Jamie in Illinois. Dave, I've got a new job, but I still have a pension at my last job for 15 years. Should I leave it there or roll it to my new 401k or to a Roth? I would roll it to a traditional IRA. That way there's no taxes on it.

If you roll it into the new 401k, you have a limited number of options. With a traditional IRA, you've got 8,000 mutual funds to choose from from if you roll it to a roth you're going to get taxed and i don't want you to pay taxes right now i'm assuming you're still paying off debt and doing some other stuff so once you're debt free 100 house and everything if you want to convert to a roth and pay some taxes that's cool but right now let's just roll it into a traditional regular ira across four types of mutual funds growth growth and income aggressive growth and international so if you want to uh find hateful people let me tell you where to find them twitter yeah i'm just scrolling at the break, and this woman's like, I don't like that you are so spiritual. Why don't you just stick to money?

Well, let me help you with that. I can help you with that. There's two things you need to understand about that. Number one, I'll give you the logical answer, and then I'll give you the smart aleck answer. The logical answer is that personal finance is 80% behavior. It's only 20% head knowledge. Do you know where your behaviors come from? Your spiritual worldview.

Your belief system is where your behaviors come from. And so if you have a belief system that affects behaviors in a positive way, then it should be tied into your personal finance. The problem with your Greek methodology of thinking is that it compartmentalizes your life in a way that is not how life is lived. See, you don't get to break apart your spirituality, your money, your marriage, your physical body. You don't get to break all of these, your physical condition, your stress level, your mental health. You don't get to break all of these in neat little compartments. They are all interwoven in a tapestry.

And so when you pull on one of the threads, darling, it pulls on everything. When you straighten out your money, the number of people that lose weight while they're getting out of debt is amazing. And it's not because they're not eating. It's because they discovered this thing called self-control. When you pull on one of the threads of the tapestry of your life, it affects the other parts of your life. The number of times I meet someone that says, we went through Financial Peace University and it saved our marriage, that's not a marriage class.

The sex class was down the hall. But what happened? Because you're working on your money together, you increase communication, you combine your value systems, and when you share your dreams, your visions, and your goals, your marriage increases. And when you do a budget, you're forced to share your dreams and your vision. These things work together. Personal finances, behavior. So to ignore the spiritual, and we can discuss whichever spiritual angle you want.

I happen to be an evangelical Christian. You might be an atheist or a Muslim or whatever you are. But if you ignore the spiritual discussion as a part of a subject that is 80% behavior, that makes you ignorant. Because it doesn't work. It's dumb. You can't do that. It's logistically, practically impossible because your worldview, which is your spiritual view, affects every one of your decisions, whether you realize it or not. It changes everything. Your view of morality, of character, is a spiritual view.

Again, your spiritual view can be whatever you want it to be. I'm not mad at you. You can be whatever you want to be, and I'll help you. I don't care which of the brands or thing you're tied up in. I'll help you. We don't have to agree on Jesus for you to call in here and me help you. I'm here to help you. I'm going to help you either way.

If you're going to be mad at me, I'm just going to block you, okay? And I'm not going to get on here and argue with you. That's the thing. But we're going to help you if you're going to be mad at me, I'm just going to block you, okay? And I'm not going to get on here and argue with you. That's the thing. But we're going to help you if you want help. We're here to help you. But you can't. It's intellectually insincere to address something that is 80% behavior without looking at it through the spiritual lens.

It just doesn't work. It's spiritual lens. It just doesn't work. It's impractical. It doesn't work. Now, that's the real answer. The smart aleck answer is, this is called the Dave Ramsey show, which means I own it, and I'm going to say whatever the flip I want to say. And if you don't want to listen, hit the scan button, baby. You're not paying me.

You don't like it? Change the channel. Vote with your finger. Push the little button on your car. Go somewhere else if you're offended. But your offense does not give you the right to tell me how to run my business or the content of this show. Your intolerance of my tolerance is not okay with me. This is the Dave Ramsey Show.

Translation, it's about what I think, and I am an expert on my opinion. So you get to do whatever you want to do, kiddo. I don't care. But you politically correct morons that think you get to tell whatever you want to do, kiddo. I don't care. But you politically correct morons that think you get to tell everybody else what to do? You can jump in the freaking creek. Okay? You're confused about how this works. I get to do what I want to do until none of you are listening,

and then I might have enough money to do it anyway. So it's okay. So far, 15 million people aren't so angry that they all left every week. I may manage to make them all mad, and all of you may leave eventually. Or I may not be able to string a sentence together because my brain quits working or something. That's okay. That happens to all of us eventually. But as for today, this is who we is.

And it comes with a package, baby. baby comes with a package you don't get to slice and dice me this is who i is and we are not even a little bit ashamed of that we love you and we're going to help you but you are confused if you think you're going to dictate the content of this show you You're seriously confused. I am too old and too much of a hillbilly to be told what to do. So it just doesn't work that way, kiddo. Sorry. I'm sorry you're offended, but just get in line.

There's a whole bunch of you. Open phones this hour at 888-825-5225. Dave, I got four credit cards going into collections and are starting the debt snowball. Where do I put them? Well, if you can get them current before you start your debt snowball, that would be preferable because you're going to do less damage to your credit. I'm not trying to save your credit, but you're going to be honoring your word if you can get current or get on some kind of a plan where you're paying them a payment. Now, if you're way, way, way behind, you might just let them go

until you get your other debts paid and then go back and work out with them. But if you're like three months behind of $22 or something like that, then get the $22 together and get caught up, you know, and then start your debt snowball because then you're honoring your word. And it's not so much I'm worried about them or not so much I'm worried about that. But when you have a sense of character and you have a sense of wholeness, like we were just talking about a minute ago, when you do that, it's going to you're going to square

your shoulders. You're going to feel different about you. And that's going to impact your completion level, your completion probability of knocking this plan out. So you got this, James. You can do it, man. We appreciate you hanging out with us. Appreciate you hanging. And that's James from Twitter.

So there's a good guy on Twitter. There's a couple of them left. Not many. Oh, that puts us out of the Dave Ramsey show in the books. We will be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there is ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. In the middle of these uncertain times, Ramsey Solutions wants to give you some hope.

For the very first time ever, we're giving you Financial Peace University free for 14 days. Go to DaveRamsey.com slash hope so you can watch from home.