The Ramsey Show - App - Laid Off, What’s My Next Step to Get Back on Track? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: October 17, 2019

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Music Music Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where dad is dumb, cash is king, and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. We're going to start this hour off with Caitlin in Illinois. Hi, Caitlin. Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. I'm a little nervous, so hopefully I can get this all out. We've never lost a patient.

You'll be okay. Okay. All right. So my husband and I have owned our home for almost two years, and we've so far been able to pay off $5,000 of it, of a $68,000 loan. I'm, like, so motivated to get this thing paid off that I'm willing to get more work to make more money, but my husband doesn't want me to stress myself out too much because we can live off what he makes, and we have been able to pay extra every month. So do you think that I'm being a little too gung-ho on this?

Because we also want to have children, like we want to start our family, so he doesn't want me to put too much on my plate. Okay. Well, if you don't have children, that would be the time to put something on your plate right yeah exactly you know if you got kiddos at home and moms at work that you know at night work an extra gig or something that's a lot harder uh if you were so if you were going to do it this would be the time to do it basically what you're telling me is you're out of debt except your home you have your emergency fund in place so you you're doing Baby Steps 4, 5, 6, right? Yes.

Okay. And at that point is when we tell folks to not be gazelle intense, not be beans and rice, rice and beans. When you get to the point you're saving for retirement, you find extra money, you pay it on your house and that kind of a thing. If you've got kids, you're saving for kids' college, Baby Steps 4, 5, and 6. We're going to be very intentional, but we're not going to be beans and rice, scorched earth, no vacations, no eating out, no all the stuff that you cut off when you're getting out of

debt, everything but the house. So in that sense, we're not, you know, we're not, the accelerator is not all the way to the floor anymore. Does that make sense? So what, and that is, as I outlined that, that sounds more like him, and it sounds like you're going for it. But if you guys want to agree to say, okay, for a period of time here to get a bigger jump start on the mortgage, I'm willing to do this, this, and this,

you know, and you can agree on that, then that's fine. It doesn't have to be a pattern that extends past when you have children. Yeah. So when we got married, neither of us had debt. I've never in my life had debt, so I think that's why I'm so like, I've got to get this paid off. I want to get it done because I would love to have our house paid off before we're 30. Okay.

How old are you? We're both 24. Okay. So six years, $60,000, $10,000 a year, right? Yeah. Okay, and you paid off how much so far? $5,000 of it. In one year, or how long did that take?

That took almost, so we've almost been in it two years. So it took two years to pay an extra $5,000. So we, it will be two years in December that we've lived there. Stop. I'm helping you do math here. Let's just walk through it, okay? Okay. If you need to be doing $10,000 a year to hit your goal,

and you only did $5,000 in two years, that's a problem, right? Yeah. Okay. So you're not going to hit your goal doing what you're doing. Well, that's why I'm going to get another job. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with your goal. It's a great goal.

And so you've just got to be in agreement about how hard you're going to go after this. And, you know, don't lose the war of working together for your big goals with your husband by winning a few battles here or there on just earning a little extra money. Okay? So you guys just sit down, and why don't you come to agreement on what your goal is and exactly how you're going to get there? Okay. Because one thing, you can set a goal, but then you have to ask yourself,

what has to be true? Well, what has to be true in your case is you've got to average $10,000 a year or you're not going to hit debt free of $30,000, right? Yeah. And that's $833 a month. Yeah. And that's $210 a week. Yeah.

I babysit so I could get another kid and then make an extra $800 a month. And if I get two kids, it's $1,600 a month. Okay. And until his income goes up or you can find that in the budget that gets you back on the goal the question is are you willing to sacrifice and is he willing to sacrifice to hit that goal or is this goal just arbitrary so that's what you sit down and look at and go okay are you willing to do this are you willing to do what it takes to get there but a goal that isn't broken down in the sense that you say, okay, what has to be true for that to happen is not a goal.

It's a wish. It's I hope someday. And nobody ever gets that done. If you have a goal of writing a book with 12 chapters and you're going to do it in a year, you need to write a chapter a month. I mean, you know, and that means you're going to have a word count per day that you've got to get done. And so you just get in the rhythm of doing the little things day in and day out that hits you to the overarching goal over your next decade or whatever it is you're planning on. And that's how people win out there. The people that don't win just don't have goals and haven't ever broken down exactly what the steps are going to be to get there.

You did good. See, you didn't die on the air or anything. All let's see if i can get there we go alex is in illinois hey alex how are you hi dave how are you better than i deserve what's up hey so i had a question uh when i was 18 my parents kind of sat me down and uh got me with their life insurance guy who set up a whole life insurance policy for me. So they made generational stupidity, huh? I'm thinking that might be the case. I've been listening to you for a few weeks now, and I think you kind of touched on this about a week ago or so, but basically, I think $50,000 policy, and then whenever I turn 65, I think it's going to pay out around $70,000 projected. I pay $50 a month for that. What I'm thinking is it's got a cash value right now of $1,700, roughly. What I'm thinking is

to pull that out and get that policy canceled and then start working on the baby steps yeah but make sure you have the appropriate amount of term life insurance in place before you cancel the old policy because we don't want you to die with no insurance in between so okay you know get get are you married you I do not, no. How old are you? I'm 24. Okay. And so if you die mathematically, financially, who cares? Who is dependent upon you?

No one. No one right now. Do you have any money saved? No, I do not. Okay. You may want to buy a small policy that would take care of your funeral expenses, maybe your final medical bills or something so your parents didn't get saddled with them if something happened to you.

Since you're canceling the policy, they sat you down and helped you buy. But you can buy a $100,000 term policy on somebody 24 years old for, like, spit. I mean, I'm not even sure they'll write one. The premiums are so small. Okay? And so just get you a little term policy until you've got some money saved and then drop this. Now, once you've got your emergency fund of $10,000 or $15,000 in place, and that'll bury you, then you're self-insured because no one's counting on your income to eat.

You're married and you've got little kids. Wife and kids are counting on your income to eat. You need big-time life insurance at that point. And that's when you need term life insurance, the appropriate amount. But, yeah, cash value life insurance is the payday lender of the middle class. It's a horrible rate of return. You pay 20 times more for it. And when you die, they keep your savings.

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That's Zander.com or 800-356-4282. aubrey is in georgia welcome to the dave ramsey show aubrey hi dave thank you so much for taking my call sure um my husband and i want to know if we should sell a house that we just purchased uh so some background, about two months ago, we bought a house and a car. And after we started listening to you, we realized that those were probably stupid mistakes. So we have $25,000 on the car, which I'll have paid off by the end of this month, just leaving me with a $1,000 emergency emergency fund and i'll build up from there you're paying off twenty five thousand dollars in one month i have um money saved up so we weren't following the baby steps originally so i'll wipe that clean so what's your household income

we will grow to about 270 this year to go. How old are you guys? 33. Wow, you're killing it. What do you guys do for a living? We're both in middle management. Okay. Well, middle management ain't paying bad these days. All right.

Good, good. All right. But we ended up taking out a 30-year mortgage instead of the recommended 15. And once we get the car debt paid off, which is the only debt that we have, we're concerned that we won't have a lot of money left over at the end of the month after we have all of our expenses. What's your house payment? Because it's with taxes and insurance is about $4,200 a month.

Okay. And what's your take-home pay? Our take-home pay is close to $15,000 a month because right now I'm still having my retirement come out and I have daycare come out of that. But I think it's... Yeah, but I'm not talking about that you're not be 18,000 a month roughly give or take um not counting retirement okay taxes coming out your take-home pay ought to be around 18,000 you have a 4,200 house payment um that's not crippling um I like to keep it at about a fourth of your take-home pay on a 15-year fixed. What's your interest rate?

3.875. Okay. All right. Now, by the time you raise this 30 to a 15, you're going to be over the 25%, but you're not going to be over 30%. It's still not going to be crippling, and you have a wonderful income. Is the trajectory of your income upward or you feel like you're stagnant um i think it will continue to move upwards okay so like five years

from now what do you think you'd be making at least 300 okay which then these numbers change again right okay it's another two thousand dollars a month take-home pay right that extra five hundred dollars a month being a fourth of that uh raises this easily to a 15 year fixed see if you pay a 30 like a 15 it goes away in 15 mathematically meaning if you calculate the principal and interest payment on your current balance at 15 years and you calculate it at 30 years and you pay that difference as an extra principal payment every month it will pay off a 30 and 15 exactly so even though that's not within my 20 my fourth of my take home right now it will be soon it will be soon and you have a ridiculous income too okay and so you know if you're if you take eighteen thousand dollars and you put six thousand

dollars of that on your house which is way more than a fourth right that's more like a third okay and um that gets you to 15 years. That still leaves you $12,000 a month to live on after your house payments paid, and you have no other payments because you just paid the car off. Follow me? Right. So you got, because of your income, you have what's called a large disposable income, meaning that you have lots of room, lots of margin in this. Now, if we took a zero off of your income, all of a sudden lots of room, lots of margin in this.

Now, if we took a zero off of your income, all of a sudden we're biting into the food budget to pay a 15-year. All I'm biting into here is you might take one less Mediterranean cruise. Okay? Understood. That's all. I mean, because you got just this fabulous income. So you got a lot of wiggle room because you're doing so well. So I'm not panicked.

I would get your car paid off, get your emergency fund put in place at three to six months of expenses, start putting 15% of your income away to retirement, and let's adjust your budget. Start doing a written detail budget where you're very intentional with the dollars you have. Adjust your house payment to 15 years and then as you get bonuses as you get other things let's start throwing them at kids college or at paying off the house early and you'll be there you're doing pretty good you're doing pretty good obviously your income is incredible what you don't want to fall for and what you did in the past was you think you can out earn your stupidity and you can't do that i tried it um because i no matter how much I made, I was dumber.

Man, stupid grows faster than income. It just always does, and I couldn't stop it. So I had to start being very intentional with every dollar regardless of what I made, and then the dollars started to come again. All right, Jay is going to be with us. He's in Florida. Hi, Jay. How are you?

Pretty sad. Uh-oh. Yeah. to be with us he's in florida hi jay how are you um pretty sad oh um yeah um i have a son that's going into college next year um my wife and i don't have any money um we're in debt we made a lot of first mistakes and um i don't know if I should send him because we don't have the money, and I don't want him to take out any student loans, so I'm kind of, I don't know what to do at this point. Okay. So what's your household income? We make about $90,000 together. That's nice. Okay.

Where do you live in Florida? Orlando. Okay. All right. So have you priced your Florida? Orlando. Okay. All right. So have you priced UCF? What's that? Have you got a price on UCF? Yeah, it's around, I think around, we're going to send his guidance counselor,

recommended him going to a two-year first, the community college. So it's about $3,000, maybe $4,000 a year. No, it's not. It's not much. $3,000 or $4,000 a year might be community college. UCF isn't. Well, how much is that? I don't know. It's probably going to be $8,000 or $10,000 a year.

Well, no, no, no. Community college I'm talking about. Okay. All right. That's fine. Community000 or $10,000 a year. Well, no, no, no. Community college, I'm talking about. Okay, all right, that's fine. Community college for $3,000 a year. So $3,000 a year is $250 a month. Right. You can do that in $90,000. Yeah, maybe, but we have...

Maybe? You make $90,000 a year, $250 a month? Oh, by the way, Junior can deliver pizzas, too. Has Junior got a car? No, not yet, but he's working at Target after school. Well, Target sucks. You can't work for Target and make any money. They're paying him $7.

They're killing him. He needs to go make some money. You can make $1,500 a month delivering pizza at night while he goes to school during the day. Right. How old is he? He's 17. So he graduates in May? Yeah, next May.

So we need $3,000 between now and September for his first year. Put his butt in a car and let him deliver pizzas. Okay. Let him cut some grass. Buy a leaf blower. rich people are afraid of leaves and what if he doesn't want to do it then what then he can sit his butt at home because if he won't work he ain't gonna go to school did you go to school i went yeah i got a two-year i ain't finishedyear. Did you work while you were in school? No, I didn't.

Actually, yeah, I had a part-time job. I got a four-year degree. I worked 40 to 60 hours a week for four years. That's amazing. My dad said if you want something, you better leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home because I'm not paying for it. And so I went out and I killed stuff. Yeah, he can do it. I feel bad paying for it. And so I went out and I killed stuff. Yeah, he can do it.

I feel bad because, yeah. Well, I know you feel bad, but you're not. Listen, if you call me up and you're worth $2 million and you're sitting on a big pile of money and you just don't want to pay your kid's college, I'll smack you around, okay? But you don't need to be smacked around. You're just a guy making $90,000 that's got no money. But listen, the kid can go to school. You did the right thing.

You're choosing the way the first two years in community. Transfer it over to UCF after that. It's right there in your community. Great college. It's the largest college in America today, as a matter of fact. University of Central Florida. It's an incredible place. And it's in-state tuition.

It's right there in your backyard. He can live in your basement. He can deliver pizzas and cut grass. And he can work his butt off during the summer, the winter, the evenings, and he can pay for every bit of this, and you can throw in $250 a month because you are going to get on a budget, and you make $90,000 a year. So you guys can get through this together. Hold on.

I'm going to send you a copy of Anthony O'Neill's book, Debt-Free Degree. It's a bestseller, and, well, it's going to help you guys do this. This is the Dave Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the debt-free stage, Ben and Allison are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hey, Dave, what's going on? Welcome, welcome. Good to have you. And here to do your debt-free scream.

Yes. Where do you guys live? Cincinnati, Ohio. Okay. Well, that does not explain the t-shirts. Oh, I've been a Titans fan ever since I was a little kid. Pretty much since they existed. And you live in Cincinnati.

I mean, have you seen the Bengals? Seen the Titans. I have, unfortunately, and I will on Sunday, too. Yes. We love coming to Nashville. So you got a Titans t-shirt, and those that are looking deeply into their radio and having trouble seeing it, what does it say? It says, tighten up the budget. Yeah, tighten up, which is one of the cheers that the Titans have, the budget.

I love it. Good for you guys. How much did you pay off? We paid off $102,000. Good for you. And how long did this take? 17 months. Love it. Good for you guys. How much did you pay off? We paid off $102,000. Good for you. And how long did this take? 17 months. Love it.

And your range of income? So we started off separately before we got married. And then once we got married, our combined income was $135,000. Cool. What do you all do for a living? I am a registered dietitian and sales manager for a medical equipment company. Cool. Yes.

So I am an assistant to a flavorist. So I work at a flavoring company. Oh, that's fun. Yeah, that's cool. Okay. So $135,000 income, 102 paid off in 17 months. What kind of debt was this? A majority of it was school loans. We had two cars to pay off as well, and then we had a few small credit cards. But I would say probably 80% of it was all student loans. And you said you started separately. So when did you get married? One year and 11 days ago. So we just celebrated our one-year anniversary.

Well, happy anniversary. Thank you. What a way to celebrate it. Yes. So did one of you have some savings or something to throw at this when you started? Because that's a lot in 17 months with that income. Yeah, so in September of 2017, my uncle had passed away. He was what you call an everyday millionaire.

Yeah. And I received about $35,000 to $40,000 in cash that we were able to throw towards our debt. So I would say, yeah, about $60,000 to $65,000 was of our own working money. Yeah, okay. Okay, now those numbers fit better000 was of our own working money. Yeah, okay. Okay, now those numbers fit better. Good. Yes. Because there wasn't room to eat.

I couldn't figure out how you ate. Okay. Yeah. So that gives me the wiggle room margin-wise. Good for you guys. Well done. How's it feel? It's amazing, Dave.

It's amazing. So what started you on this journey? I mean, you start before you get married, and after you get married, the game's on, right? Right. So tell me the story. So it really all started with my Uncle Ralph and my Grandpa George. After I graduated college, for about three years, they had been telling me, pay off all your student loans as quickly as you can, you know, begin investing 15% into retirement,

you know, exactly what you preach here. And I was hearing what they were saying. I, you know, really tried to listen to them. And I was like, yes, I need to do this. I need to do this. But I kept putting it off. As you would say, I was being a child just doing what felt right. And after the passing of both my uncle and my grandfather, that's when I realized I really need to do this.

I also looked at my total number of student loans and my debt. And I talked to Ben about what his total number was, and we put that together. And we were like, oh, boy. Oh, my goodness. This could be a mortgage and what we have in student loans and cars and credit cards. So I started listening to the podcast. I was a road warrior at the time in sales, and I began listening to the podcast for about two months. And then right after the passing of my grandfather, I introduced Ben to the podcast and he was on board at first,

but I think he was a little skeptical. So yeah. Yeah. It was a little, uh, different, you know, when she first showed me the podcast, there's this guy just yelling at people on the radio and I'm like, Hey, I can get on board with this. So I think I went to work that next Monday, and I listened to every podcast that you had available for the next four or five days, and then listened to the Total Money Makeover, and then after that, I was all in. Okay. All right. So this fire hose approach, huh?

Yes. I do think once he found out that Ramsey solutions was located in nashville he was like all right yeah and we're doing a debt-free scream here are the titans and so i'm gonna we're gonna work this into my debt-free scream we're gonna go to a game yes i got it okay a whole new reason to have a goal exactly whatever works whatever works so what have you learned in the process of all of that that you actually look back when someone says wow you're a sharp young couple you paid off a hundred and two thousand dollars you're how old how old are you guys i'm 31 and i'm 28 yeah i mean that's very impressive and when people

go wow that's so cool how did you do that you say well you can do it too you just did it what do you tell them so i think the biggest thing that we say is start with the budget. I mean, I've never budgeted before until we got into this process. And, you know, once we got the budget rolling and actually figured it out after the first couple of months, it just, you understood where your money was going. And a big thing for us was we actually made out a calendar each month and put all the dinner plans we were going to eat. So that way, we wouldn't have to think about it every night. We knew we weren't going to go spend money at a restaurant and we could just plan out each week and budget it out. So I think that was a big help

for us. That's a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. I think too, also delaying gratification, you know, especially at our age, it's easy to compare ourselves to our friends and the individuals around us who are going on elaborate vacations and, you know, leasing really, really nice cars. And I read Rachel's Love Your Life, Not Theirs, and that really helped me. I was quite a spender when we first got engaged, and that really helped me to realize it's worth the sacrifice. And now, you know, even with not having the debt, I'm like, oh, I want to buy this. And then I sleep on it.

And the next day, I'm like, I don't need that. So delaying the gratification and not comparing yourself to the neighbors and the friends around you. Yeah, that's very cool. Rachel will be glad to hear that. Yeah. She'll be glad to hear that.

She's out today having a baby. Yeah, congratulations. That's exciting. Yeah, we just That's exciting. We just had number six. Yeah. He arrived last night. No troubles.

Mommy and baby are great. That's great. Good job, you guys. Well, congratulations. We're proud of you guys. Thank you, Dave. Well done. Who were your biggest cheerleaders? I'd say our parents, most definitely.

They've been cheering us along along the way. And then my two older sisters, they were also taking, you know, following the baby steps, working on paying off their student loans. So we kind of worked alongside them and we're cheering each other on. And then my Aunt Molly and Uncle Doug and several other family members have been cheering us on. I'm thinking Ralph and Grandpa are cheering you on from heaven. Yes, from heaven. Yeah, yeah. I wish they could be here, but I know they're cheering with us.

They're like, yeah, you had to wait until I was dead to work on this. Yeah, I know. It's okay. You're doing it now. I love it. That's great. That's great. That's awesome.

As a grandpa, I like that story. So that's good. Good way to go, you guys. Very, very well done. So we've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Everyday Millionaires. You will be one before you know it. I mean, you're 30 years old. You paid off $102,000 in 17 months.

Very impressive. Very impressive. And I hope you can share our Titans onto a win on Sunday. I'll be there. We hope so, too. They're due for one. They are. That's good.

Good stuff. All right. It is Ben and Allison, the Cincinnati, Ohio. $102,000 paid off in 17 months. That includes $40,000 from an inheritance and $135,000 income and lots of budgeting. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one.

We're debt-free! Tighten up. Yeah! Woo-hoo! I love it well done you guys very very well done man that's absolutely incredible very cool

I gotta tell you I think I'm just gonna package a whole group of these millennial debt free screams from these 25, 30, 31 31 28 27 year olds that come on here almost every single day and do their debt-free screams paying off their debts they're here all the time and and every time i see some idiot write an article about the millennials being deadbeats i'm just going to send him about 5 000 links on youtube to all these debt-free screams from

these millennials who are kicking butt and taking names they get stuff done this is a great generation they are going to do amazing things when they set their minds to something there is no stopping them what a sharp young couple guys that gives you hope for america right there man that's hope right there. I mean, I think we ought to send them to Washington if they could just run off the rest of the goobs. People like them could run the place. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Thank you for joining us, America. This is the Dave Ramsey Show.

So, if you don't know, one of my favorite things is, when I started out in my life, I was just, as a young adult, I was just plain stupid. I mean, I really was dumb. Intellectually, I could grasp things, but I had no wisdom. And I met God in my early 20s, and somebody told me, if you read the book of Proverbs, it's the wisest man that ever lived wrote it. It's the book of wisdom in scriptures that you'll get wisdom. I thought, well, I probably need a little.

I probably need a lot and so a friend of mine that was really a very very wise guy and a guy that i uh a very smart man a good man said look there's 31 proverbs read one a day and if you do that every day for the rest of your life you'll become very very wise over time and i have done that pretty well every month for 30 something years over and over and over if you read proverbs over and over and over and you begin to understand that you'll have like a master's degree in finance it's in there it'll blow your mind if you start to grasp it and a friend of mine andy stanley wrote a book on proverbs 22 3 he called it the principle of the

path here's the path listen to this the prudent that's not a word we use anymore, but I like it. It's a good word. The prudent, the wise, see danger and take refuge. But the simple keep going and pay the penalty. Or one version says are punished. So it's like, how many times have you, I've done this, and I know you've done this, you see something that is dangerous, and you go, you know, I don't need to go over there. I know that's not going to work.

I don't need to buy that. That isn't going to be smart and you know down inside this is dumb and you go and do it anyway and then you pay a price later how many times you buy something big and you get home and you have the next morning what's called buyer's remorse regret that you're stupid and you bought something you couldn't afford that's what that is you're you you wake up and you go i you couldn't afford. That's what that is. You wake up and you go, I am an idiot. That was such a big payment.

I can't. That's not an easy payment. Like there's any easy payments. The prudence see danger and change course. They take refuge. The simple keep going and pay the penalty. Now, this is not about your raw intelligence. It's not about your intelligence quotient, your IQ. This is about your judgment, my judgment.

Are you wise? When you see danger, what do you do? I'm just going to keep going because it doesn't apply to me, and I can afford it. I can afford that payment. And you just keep going, right? And then you pay the – you're can afford it. I can afford that payment. And you just keep going, right? And then you pay, you're punished for it. Because when you do something dumb, inevitably it ends up bringing pain into your life, doesn't it? I mean, I have.

So the reward of wisdom and good planning is a fountain of life. And when you think about this in the context of money then you start saying i need to do a budget i've got to do some planning i can't go buy stuff i can't afford because it comes back and bites me in the butt later and you can do you know i don't have the right kinds of insurance in place i mean how many times have i talked to somebody on the air here in 30 years ago you know i've got fifty thousand dollars in medical bills why well i didn't have medical insurance why well i couldn't afford it well obviously you couldn't afford not to have it you got fifty thousand dollars in bills now because you didn't buy it you can figure out some way to get coverage on yourself you know and how many times have i talked

to someone that their spouse passed away and they have absolutely no life insurance? And the spouse is in a mess. The one left behind is in a mess because they have no money and little kids to raise. Because they didn't do, they saw the danger, but they did nothing about it, and now they're punished. I knew I needed to make my husband get life insurance. We never did. He died in a car wreck at 37, and I've been trying to raise these kids below the poverty line ever since.

You get punished for it, don't you? So in five minutes, you can do our coverage checkup tool. It's completely free. There's eight kinds of insurance that you need to do. You need to get your will in place. You need to get your credit report and make sure that people aren't stealing your identity. You know, there's some basic things you need to do to address potential dangers and take refuge. And Wendy says, you know, had I not checked other insurance companies for over four years because I had one moving violation, after I took the five-minute checkup, I'm now saving $976 a year on my homeowners and my auto insurance

because I just bothered to look at it. Look at it. Get it bid out. Get some insurance people to look at it. You know, get an independent insurance broker to bid these things out. But the five-minute coverage checkup will do it. Here's how you do it. Go to devramsey.com, slash checkup.

It's completely free. It takes five minutes. It'll help you see the danger. And then you have the opportunity to take refuge instead of go forward and be punished. Text the word checkup to 33789. 33789. 33789. 33-789.

Tiffany is with us in Minnesota. Hi, Tiffany. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm nervous and scared, but also excited and hopeful. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

I am in an overwhelmed kind of position here. I just found out about you two months ago, and it's been changing my life. I've got your Andre Leadership and Total Money Makeover, and I've got Christy Wright's Business Boutique books, and I was just laid off two days ago, and I've got a six-week severance, and now I'm kind of in this position where I'm not sure, should I be looking for a new job right away, or should I take a week or two to try and get my small business ramped up and off the ground? Why don't you do both? To see if I can't replace my expenses.

Do both! Let's get the small business started, and let's go look for a job. And whichever one pops first, we jump on. All right. So should I spend like half a day on one? It's not like you're going to spend 14 hours a day on one or the other. Right. You've got plenty of time.

You don't have a job. Should I? Yeah, and that's kind of, you know, I've got all this time now, and I don't want to waste this opportunity. I don't think you're wasting it. I think you're on fire. Because a little bit of desperation, a little bit of fear like you've got right now, well, you've got some money. They gave you a severance package. But, you know, at the end of six weeks, things are going to get real dire real fast.

And so that amount of fear will motivate your butt to go change your life this is awesome i'm so excited for you yeah i'm excited and i mean like i said you guys are changing my life what kind of business are you want to start it's a um i want to be making printing clothing from manhole covers um Street printing is what it's called. Okay. Who's buying it? Just ordinary folks in my community and my neighborhood. I'd like to have an online shop also.

Well, you need an online shop because you've got to sell a bunch of clothing to make a living. Right. Unless you're selling them for $2,000 a piece or something. But, I mean, it sounds like it's kind of a niche market, kind of a fun, fatty type of a thing, right? Yeah, yeah. It's really cool. You get to kind of wear a piece of your street, of your community, you know, being part of where you are.

They look really cool. Cool. Fun. They're really fun to make. Can you get the printing or the imprints to do it for other communities other than just yours? Yeah. You have to physically go to the location, or can you just download it?

No, you do it on the street. So you go and you put water-based ink on the actual manhole cover. Yeah, so you're going to have to drive. If you wanted to do this in another town, you'd have to drive to another town or fly to another town. Yeah, it's real physical work, but it's neat because it gets me outside. Well, that's great. I mean, let's get you outside, but I don't care a crap about whether you're outside or not. I'm trying to make some money because you need some.

Yeah, right. So what's this stuff sell for? A couple other folks do it. Maybe a shirt would sell for, you know, maybe $40 or $50, depending on... Start adding up how many of those you've got to sell to eat. And let's work on that while you're looking for a job, and then compare the two when the job comes up. You might be able to do both.

You might make this your side hustle and get the new job. Hang on, I'm going to send you another book, a copy of Ken Coleman's book, The Proximity Principle, to help you land that job. Do not wait around. Let's get both of these things moving right now. Ready, set, go. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but if you heard about a product or service and didn't have a chance to write it down,

don't worry. We list everything that is mentioned during this episode in the podcast show notes section. Thanks for listening.