The Ramsey Show - App - Michael Hyatt Joins Dave In Studio (Hour 2)

Episode Date: April 9, 2019

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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 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. You jump in, we'll talk about your life, your money. It's a free call at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Amy is on the line in Panama City Beach.

Hi, Amy. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'm a new listener by like two or three days. I've been listening and watching a ton of your videos. I'm 51. I'm divorced. No kids. Sorry. How long have you been divorced?

Oh, that's been years, years and years. The main concern is I just lost my job. Oh, okay. It's been about two months. Sorry, I'm trying to get a hold of myself. And I'm blowing through the savings that I have. How much savings do you have? I have $4, thousand in my checking and i have eight thousand

in another um investment account which uh cryptocurrencies which i just watched your video on that so i am currently down on that um get that out today get that out today okay and just put it in a savings account. You don't need to be risking money right now. You're broke and out of a job. So what did you use to make it your job? $100,000. What did you do?

I did project management, and I've also, prior to moving to Florida, I did real estate sales for 14 years. How long have you been in Florida? That's a long story. I'm here for six months. I was here last year for about seven. And then I was on the West Coast for a short amount of time. So I've had a lot of moves, which hasn't helped.

I have zero retirement. No health insurance um where where are you going to settle down and make your life i have no idea you need to decide that because you need to get a job yeah well the work that i was doing was remote so i can work from anywhere. Um, and I am currently attempting to replace that. I've been applying like a maniac, um, and getting interviews. And I think honestly, it's because my rate is high that I'm not able to get something more quickly. my debt is so high. How much debt do you have? So I have $50,000 in credit cards. The minimums on that are $1,500 a month, just for the minimums. I owe $24,000 to the IRS for 2017.

I'm currently on a payment plan with them of about $300 a month, which I'll pay off when I'm 110, apparently. I haven't filed for 2018 yet. I was actually going to do an extension just because I'm scared. Okay, let's give you some steps. Let's look at some steps, okay? What is happening is you have stuff flying at you, and you're giving me these bits of information that tells me it's flying at you from 14 different directions, and you're completely overwhelmed, and that's where all the emotion is coming from.

It just makes you scared because you don't even know where to start, okay? So, number one, you don't pay the credit cards a dime until you get a job. Okay. Number two, you get the cryptocurrency out today. Today. And you put it in a savings account. That gives you $12,000 to work with. Okay?

So, we're not worried about food. What is your rent? It's $1,500. Okay. Why? Because I live in Panama City Beach. No, because you live in a really nice place in Panama City Beach. Yeah, well, I live in an apartment, and long-term housing here is really hard to find because that's all short-term housing.

Okay. And that's all because of... So where are you going to settle? I don't know. You're going to have to decide. You're going to have to decide. Yeah. This gypsy stuff is not working for you.

No. And it's not working for me if I'm trying to employ you either. Right. So I need to see some stability if I want to employ you, if I'm looking on the other side of your equation here. Okay. Pay nothing on the other side of your equation here okay and pay nothing on the credit cards you are down to food shelter lights and water and transportation do you have

debt on your car also no my car is i own it outright it's nine years old good okay so gas in the car food lights and water rent you don't pay money for anything else right now. Oh, you keep the $300 going on the IRS. I don't want them after you. You file your tax return on time even if you're unable to pay. There is a failure to file penalty in addition to a failure to pay penalty, and there's no reason for you to have extra tax bills right now. And that's even if i file an extension correct no yeah you'll get filing extension does not get you out of the uh failure to pay you might as well

file filing extension doesn't do any good all it does is put off the fact that you didn't file the return it does not help you with the financial the money is still due whether you file the return. It does not help you with the financial. The money is still due whether you file the extension or not, so you might as well just file. You don't get an extension on the taxes. You only get an extension on the paperwork. Correct, yes. Okay, so go ahead and file, and there's no failure to file penalty that way,

and then we're going to start to work on those taxes as well. Then you've just got to get settled and decide what you're going to do. And here's an idea. Before you run out of money, take something for $50,000 and let's get food on the table, right? Yeah, and that was one of my questions is because I've been trying to replace what I was making, and it's obviously harder to get a $100,000 job.

Well, it is also, though, with the way you're doing things because you're running around in circles. Yeah, I feel like I'm out of control. Yeah, you have got to settle in and go, I'm going to live here. I'm going to live here. I'm going to live there. And based on that, these are my expenses. Based on that, I can go, you can go wait tables and make your basic bills. True. You don't have to.

I don't want you to. But you can probably pick up a few, you know, just freelance projects on project management that's not even a full-time contract and get enough money coming in to cover basic stuff until you get your income back up to the hundred range the good news is you know how to make a hundred thousand and you'll go back to making it eventually but i don't want you to run out of this eight this twelve thousand dollars we got before that happens so do not pay anyone except the ir, food, shelter, clothing, transportation, utilities. Get the tax return file. Get the crypto out today.

Get yourself stabilized. Then you're going to be able to develop a plan for working through the rest of this. And we certainly can show you how to do all of that. Then we can get to stuff like getting out of debt, getting the IRS paid off. You can pay off $24,000 worth of IRS in one year if you're back to making $100,000 again. It's not a big deal. You can do that. You'll be able to clear up the $50,000 worth of debt, the $25,000 worth of IRS in one year if you're back to making $100,000 again. It's not a big deal. You can do that. You'll be able to clear up the $50,000 worth of debt, the $25,000 of the IRS.

You can clear up every bit of that in two years. Once you get back to making money and you get stabilized again. But right now, you're just doing backflips all the time. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. One Dental is a company I've been telling my listeners about because I know these guys will save you money at the dentist. One Dental is a dental savings program that allows you to go to one of over 158,000 dental practice locations nationwide and save on things like cleanings, dentures, root canals, crowns, and even orthodontics. Here's the really cool part. You can join One Dental right now and you don't have to worry about high deductibles, waiting periods, or pre-existing conditions. Just find your highly qualified dentist in the network, make the appointment, and start saving every time you go to the dentist. This is a great

cost-saving alternative to expensive dental services and a great alternative to costly dental insurance. It really is that simple. And unless you want to blow your emergency fund, everyone needs to go to the dentist. Folks, this is a no-brainer. Join today at OneDental.com. That's OneDental.com. Well, one of my good friends, Michael Hyatt, stopped by. We've been talking about books for 20-some-odd years together. That long? Yeah.

Well, I mean, Total Money Makeover came out in 2003, so. I know. And it was before that we were talking about them. And actually, Michael was the CEO at that time of Thomas Nelson, and Total Money Makeover was actually, that title was his idea, and the concept was your idea. Well, pretty exciting to see what that book's done, how many millions of people it's helped. It's still going. It's just an ever-ready bunny.

And Michael is an accomplished author, is the CEO of Michael Hyatt & Company now, leadership development firm specializing in helping leaders and helping them to focus. This is his ninth book called Free to Focus, and his platform book was a huge book a few years ago, and he's done very, very well as a writer and a speaker and a teacher and a life coach in these areas and a leadership coach and neighbor of ours, friend of ours, he and Gail, for many, many years. Welcome.

Good to have you back. Thank you, Dave. Great to be with you. Free to focus. When I got the book, I, of course, knew it was classic Michael Hyatt stuff, and it was dead on target. You and your brain and mine think a lot alike automatically. I think we probably have some of the same kind of leadership dnas and

there's a lot of talk right now about the subject of focus and about the subject of distractions people's inability to focus screens interrupting emails interrupting inbox uh ocd to have to clean out my inbox and there's the ability to focus is is going to set people apart isn't it absolutely it's a superpower if you can do it you can do your most creative thinking solve the toughest problems and really move the needle on your business in your life but the problem is we're in a distraction economy where all the social media companies are literally spending billions of dollars to steal your focus and keep them you know know, repackage it and sell it to advertisers. And that's the war we're in.

But the people that can focus are going to be the people that are going to win. So this book helps them do that. I mean, it's something as simple as we tell people, stop everything when you're doing the debt snowball. Completely focus on this. Right. It's complete focus. That's the only reason it works.

It's the only reason it works. And like, to give an example, one of the things I recommend later in the book is this concept of the daily big three. Because the average person has about 15 items on their to-do list. And if you think about the Pareto principle applied to your to-do list, you know, 20% of the effort is going to produce 80% of the results. So probably three out of those 15 items are going to be the ones that really move the needle. And if you can focus on those every day and forget all the other stuff that's a distraction, And you do that 250 days a year, 750 important things you accomplish in a year. That can change everything.

I'm convinced it's why we're the number three talk radio station or show in America is we just did not quit for 25 years. And everybody else just didn't stick with it. And it just showed up every day and i focus three hours a day doing this every day and it's the same questions it's the same answers and i'm not bored and the listeners aren't bored and it's working and it's just complete focus i it it's a game changer in marriage it's a game changer in raising kids it's a game changer in financial it's a game changer in career to just be able to focus you say stop,

cut, and act. Yes. Talk that through. Okay. So those are the three sections of the book. And the first third of the book is about stopping. Now, this sounds completely counterintuitive because you think a book on productivity, you got to get in the game, get some momentum, do something, take some action. But I'm saying that most people are on a hamster wheel where they're very busy, but they don't know where it's going. And all they're doing is it's total work all the time. And I say, stop. First of all, formulate a productivity vision. My premise is that productivity is a means to an end. It's not the end. The average person goes to a productivity seminar, learns a productivity hack, cut their hours maybe down from 10 hours a day to eight

hours a day. And then what do they do? They fill it back up with work. I say, no, it's the means to the end. In the end, similar to finances, to me, the end of productivity is I want more freedom. You know, I want the freedom to really be able to focus, to not be distracted by all the stuff that's incoming. I want the freedom to be totally present so that if I'm at work and I'm in a meeting, I can focus on my colleagues and focus on the work at hand. But on the other hand, if I'm out to dinner with my wife, I don't want to be distracted with my smartphone. I want also the freedom to be spontaneous so that my life is not so scheduled that when

my grandkids drop by, I want to be able to drop what I'm doing and enjoy them. And then sometimes just the freedom to do nothing. Gil and I spent a month in Italy last year. And one of the things we learned from the Italians is this whole idea of the sweetness of doing nothing. Gil and I spent a month in Italy last year. And one of the things we learned from the Italians is this whole idea of the sweetness of doing nothing. And the science bears it out because typically the creative breakthroughs you get, the problem solving breakthroughs happen when you're the most relaxed. And you've got to give yourself space or margin.

And I kind of equate that whole margin thing to a savings account. You know, you've got to have margin in your life if you're going to be healthy. You know, I was being coached the other day on a physical exercise. We were doing some handgun training, and the handgun guy was teaching us speed. And he said the way to go fast is go slow. Yes. And I thought of that when we were doing this. Slow down enough that you can manipulate the firearm, you know, and it speeds up the natural result.

And it seems true in anything. What you're saying is stop. Yes. And not only do you get the creative things, not only do you clear your mind, and not only do you be able to focus, but it's interesting that you end up going faster by going slower. This is why rejuvenation, which is also another chapter in that first part of the book, is so important. Oh, it's huge. Nothing makes you more focused and more productive than getting a good night's sleep. And yet there are people out there that say, hey, cheat sleep, get up a little bit earlier, hustle.

And the problem is that hustling for a time is fine. But when you do it over a long period of time, it's like borrowing from your health, borrowing from your most important relationships, you're going to get in debt, and you're going to have a breakdown. That's exactly what happens. And it's all the proven productivity studies that show when you take one day off a week, a Sabbath,

that you are more productive. Well, no kidding. Turns out God's smart. So this concept of working in your desire zone. I love that. Oh, this is cool. I bet when you were talking to Ken Coleman, he was loving that. Yeah, he loved that.

He ate that up. So so here's the deal. So I call this the freedom compass and it's chapter two of the book. But I say if you imagine a compass that has four zones and north is where your passion and your proficiency intersect. So stuff you love doing, stuff you're great at, but at the same time, you know, it's got to be something that really moves the needle in your business. So we live in Nashville, Tennessee,

where we have a lot of people that love music. They're really good at it, but they're waiting tables. So it's got to be something that drives the results in your business. So for most people, that's a very few things. For me, it's three things that are in my desire zone. Due south on the freedom compass is what things that are in my desire zone. Do self on the freedom compass is what I call the drudgery zone. This is the stuff you don't love, and it doesn't really produce the results in your business, and you're not very good at it.

So it's different for everybody, thankfully. But for me, it'd be managing my email, managing my calendar, booking travel. But my assistant, Jim, loves that stuff. That's in his desire zone. So thankfully, the way God's made everything, you know, we can complement one another and build our organizations in a way that we can get the most efficiency that way. The other zone that's interesting is the distraction zone, where you enjoy doing it, but you're not very good at it. And frankly, it's a place you go to hide or escape the most important work that really does drive the business. Just because it's in your desire zone doesn't mean it's going to be easy, right? So when I'm doing my desire zone activities, which are creating content, delivering content,

casting vision for my team, those three things are my desire zone activities. Those are hard work. I've got to do a lot of hard thinking. It's got to be focused. I can't be interrupted. But the distraction zone is sometimes where I'll go if I'm not careful to escape that really important work. There you go. That's exactly how it works.

Good stuff. So when someone reads Free to Focus, they're going to have a moment where they go, oh, what is that? Where are they going to find that? It's when they realize the premise of the book is to achieve more by doing less. Most productivity systems, the promise is basically achieve more by doing more. But here's the thing. When you're doing those desire zone activities, I call those high leverage activities. And you realize, oh, my gosh, if I really focused on those high leverage activities and not the low leverage work, not the downhill work, not the easy work, but really focused on those high leverage activities,

then it really is going to be possible to achieve more. My business last year, and we're an eight-figure business now, last year we grew 62%, but I took 160 days off. That included every weekend and 11 weeks of vacation. My family has never been in better shape. My health has never been in better shape. My health has never been in better shape. But I'm after the double win, where we can win at work and succeed at life. And I think that's the promise of this book, that you don't have to have one or the other.

It could be both ends. The book is Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt. A total productivity system to achieve more by doing less. FreeToFocusBook.com, Amazon.com, anywhere great books are sold. You always want to read what Michael Hyatt's writing. I do. I always endorse it. Michael, thank you for being here, brother.

Good to see you. Appreciate it. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Tax fraud, medical ID theft, account takeover, employment fraud, these are just a few of the identity theft events that Zander's ID theft team has helped resolve for their clients lately. The reality is breaches are all too common and hackers are using new, sophisticated methods to steal and use your personal information. Everyone is at risk, even your children. This is why it's crucial to have ID theft protection

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It's just a mistake to be unprotected anymore. Call 800-356-4282 or visit zander.com. Thanks for joining us, America. Taylor is with us in Cincinnati. Hi, Taylor. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? So I kind of have, it's almost a two-part type question. My fiancé and I are getting married next March March and we're both working on 3B on saving for a house. And essentially I'm trying to figure out whether do we need to wait a year or two years to put that down payment because we both have been able to put back quite a bit within the past year. And then my second question is when we go and we put this down payment on our house either a year or two years from now, how much should we possibly put back for an emergency fund because i've been used to

myself living on my single income versus actually having a house and having another income into the mix well i think you'd calculate what your estimate of expenses are and just take your monthly expenses times three to six months of expenses and that's how you set your emergency fund aside and you're right i think it would be more than that it is now with the house coming on but you'd also have more income to deal with as well so that's good news how old are you two um we're both 24. How much have you got saved for a house? For me right now, I've got about $32,000 put back, and then he has about $2,000 put back right now. Has $2,000? $10,000.

$10,000, and you've got $32,000. So $42,000. Way to go. Good job. And you're waiting a year to get married. Why? The reason is because we had some family emergencies that happened this past year so there's a lack of pto and um availability to get married this next year

oh okay cool all right um well you would not buy a home until you're married together for certain for certain and then your question is whether to do it right then or whether to wait a year um the the advantage of waiting a year is you will probably make a different decision on the home okay uh because after living together for a year being married for a year knowing each other for a year it take always laugh and say it takes about a year to know how close to your mother-in-law to buy okay but all that means is you're getting to know each other for a year it take always laugh and say it takes about a year to know how close to your mother-in-law to buy okay but all that means is you're getting to know each other and you'll you'll probably make different decisions so i would wait at least six months um not because

you need to from a money standpoint but i just think you'll make a different decision on the house i think you rent a little you know take, take a six-month lease on a little apartment and just pile up cash, some more cash while you're doing this, and just enjoy being married. Enjoy that phase of your life starting off, and then start looking for a property. And, you know, you're going to learn about each other. You're just going to relate differently once you are married than you do now.

It's subtle, but it's true. And I just think you'll make a more wise decision. And there's no rush to buy a house. There's nothing evil about not owning a home for a short period of time while you're having patience to make a better, wiser choice. And that's what I would do. Lauren is with us in Phoenix. Hi, Lauren.

Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I would love to get your insight on a big decision that I need to make. I've recently had a new job opportunity come to me. I currently make about $89 in a regular salary position, and it has really good leadership pathways.

But the opportunity is to transition to contract work with another company, making a potential $120 to $130 a year. And I've never done contract work, so the risk makes me nervous when we're paying off our debt. But the opportunity to pay it off faster with higher income is really enticing. Okay. Which one gives you the best life 10 years from now? You know, that's hard to say because right now it's safer to be in a regular salary position. I would probably say the job I'm sitting in now. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. Okay. We're trying to pay off our debt, so the opportunity to make more money over the next couple of years is enticing, so we can get all of our debt done and then I feel like I could go down different pathways with my job if I wanted to and I'd have that freedom of not having debt. Oh you want to go down a different pathway with your job when you're debt free? Potentially I'm not sure I just mean it would it would allow me to explore different pathways if I wanted to I wouldn't feel that I needed to stay in the field I'm in.

Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. Well, I mean, long-term, your current position is probably your best bet, unless you want to hop careers. If you want to hop careers, then let's just go make the most money we can make doing anything for a short period of time and then hop careers, because that is long-term taking you where you want to hop careers, then let's just go make the most money we can make doing anything for a short period of time and then hop careers. Because that is long-term taking you where you want to be.

So it might be time to do a little soul searching on that. Again, what do you want to be doing 10 years from now and which of these steps takes you there the best? I want to be debt-free so that I can do X, Y, or Z with my career. I don't care which it is. And then look back on it. Because what you don't want to do is take this deal just because it's short-term thinking to take the contract deal unless you're going to be short-term anyway because you're hopping careers.

And here's the thing. With contract, you're going to pick up seven and seven point six five percent more in taxes you pick up the other half of your payroll tax called self-employment tax okay and so that's going to amount to about twelve thousand dollars here and so if you make 120 on contract minus 12 the spread on this is not that great. Right. You know, 90 to 108 or whatever it is, that's not a huge, huge jump. Right. And I don't know what else you're losing in terms of benefits and other stuff as well, health care. I mean, you're probably not making a $10,000 spread if you've got a decent benefits package where you are on this jump. So it's not as big as it sounds.

And that's if you get $130,000. I mean $120,000. So you're going to pick up some extra taxes. You're going to have to pick up all the benefits. And like you said, you're taking more risk probably. But I have a feeling that you're probably pretty marketable anyway. So you're going to land on something so i i don't i don't think but a good way to help your critical thinking skills i always use it and when i'm looking at something is you know if i buy this

if i do this if i make this move does it further where i want to be 20 years from now or does it just make me feel good in the moment? If it makes you feel good in the moment, it's usually the wrong decision. If it's a money and a career decision. What I want to do is the right thing. If it happens to feel good in the moment, that's great, too. But broke people always have short planning windows. People who build wealth have long planning windows and that's what i'm talking

about so you just look out there 10 years and ask yourself well the 10 year from now version of me like me for doing this does it make does it make the 10 year version of me 10 year from now version of me smile that i did this and um you know in that case you pull the trigger on it and you go do it. I'm okay with either one. This is not a huge raise. It's not a huge raise. So there needs to be a real reason to do it. Justin is in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, Justin.

How are you? I'm good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I kind of have a different question for you. I don't have any different question for you. I don't have any debt.

I found you a couple years ago. Like, own my car, no credit cards, nothing like that. It's more of like a life question. I make like $40,000 a year at my job at the distribution center I work at. And I'm considering, should I go back to school? Because I got straight into work out of high school. Cool. So do I go back to school, do something like that, or do I keep... How old are you?

23. Okay. What do you want to study? I've always wanted to be a teacher. Like, I loved helping kids. I'm a soccer coach now. Cool. Yeah.

I'd go back to school and be a teacher. Pay cash for it. Yeah, of course. Right. Yeah. I'd definitely do that school and be a teacher. Pay cash for it. Yeah, of course, right. Yeah, I'd definitely do that. All right, it's just... Listen, here's how I answered that. 33-year-old version of you, just like I was just saying a minute ago to the other caller.

33-year-old version of you, you're 23 now, is going to be smiling when you're a teacher. They're not going to be smiling if you're in the distribution center. Right. Go be a teacher, brother. We need good teachers. Have at it. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you're here.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Helen is in Boston. Hi, Helen. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you for everything you do. Thank you. How can I help?

Well, I took your financial peace university course at a local church, and it was amazing. Thank you for that. Thank you. And you actually sent me the program, so I was able to do it. I had called before. And one of the questions that a few of us had in the program was, do you tithe while you are saving for your $1,000 emergency fund, or do you save the $1,000 first? You must have not gotten all the way through the program.

Did you go through all nine weeks? The pastor said I have to save the $1,000. Did you go all the way through all nine weeks said did you go all the way that i have to save a thousand dollars did you go all the way through the nine weeks yes sir okay the ninth lesson is on giving and tithing in that lesson we talk about that biblically the tithe is first fruits it's before you do anything it comes off the top of your budget it's not a baby step before you do anything uh evangelical christians this is what we have believed and taught for 1500 years that the tithe goes to the local church which is a new a new testament representation of the old testament storehouse and that the tithe is a tenth of your income and it comes off the top other giving

that you do anywhere else or of any other amount would be called an offering and i would not do other offerings unless god specifically tells you to beyond the tithe until you're out of baby step three um but i teach and all of our materials teach to tithe off the top before you do anything before you know you first first line on your budget forms first line in your every dollar app is that i now i saw that and i've been doing that good now having said that i'm not that's the the biblical academic answer okay now let's back up a step though and say uh God is not mad at people that don't tithe God will bless people that don't tithe it's not it's not anything like that he just teaches us that a baseline to start our generosity journey is to be giving a tenth of our income. But he doesn't, you know, it's not a salvation issue.

It's not God loves tithers better than non-tithers. It's none of that. It is merely for your benefit to learn to be a giver and that's why god has it in there but having said that i believe as a as a as a christian that knows the bible i believe and i have personally tithed since the first time i met god you know since i since i accepted jesus i remember that and so i tithed all the way in, all the way out. It doesn't make you prosper. It doesn't make you do any of those things.

But what it does do is it teaches you, it's your generosity muscle. It's like when we're teaching little kids how to handle money. We teach them four things, work, give, save, spend. Work, give, save, spend. And one of those is give. We want to teach little kids to build their generosity muscle so that when they're older they're a generous person because people just do not win at life that don't have generosity and that's what god's trying to teach us there so there's the technical academic answer that it's first fruits off the top before you do anything

but don't make that into a legalistic toxic thing because it's not about God's love. It's not about grace. It's not about salvation. It's not about any of that. It's simply how you handle money properly. It's the same thing of the debt. You know, debt all through Scripture is a negative mention.

Don't do debt. Don't do debt. It's all in the Bible. All kinds of every mention of debt is negative. There's never a positive thing said about it. But you can have a MasterCard and go to heaven. It's not a salvation issue, you know. And God doesn't like love debt-free people more than he loves people that are in debt or something like that.

So you just can't get it all twisted up and turn it into a legalistic toxic thing. And as long as you don't do that then tithing's off the top before you do anything that's what i do and that's what i teach and it's all in the class and if you go back through the last lesson on giving it there's actually a blank in there that says tithing is first fruits means off the top it's one of the blanks you fill in in your workbook jonathan is with us in Richmond, Virginia. Hey, Jonathan, how are you? Hi, God's been good. How about yourself? Just the same, sir. How can I help? Awesome. So I'm recently engaged. Yay! Thank you. We're getting married in about a year.

We're currently in college, just about to enter our senior year, so we're going to get married right when we get out. Love it. Good for you. What are you studying? Yeah, nursing. Good. What about her?

She is studying social work. Good. Very good. Yeah. So my question is, we're going to get out and get married, and I just don't know how much to spend on the wedding. I'm going to be coming out of college with about $30 in debt um and she with about 80 000 um so she's had a borrow for her whole school um and so a total of about 110 in debt so i'm just not yeah i'm just not sure about how much to spend if anything on that wedding.

So you two are having to pay for the wedding. There's no family help? Yes, sir, no family help. Okay, all right. Well, I can tell you a couple things to go by. Okay. Are you making some money to save towards the wedding? You both have jobs?

I'm working part-time in construction. I have been since high school. Let's do it this way. What are you thinking of spending on the wedding when the two of you talk about it? We've been talking anywhere from about $5,000 to $10,000 for it. Okay, that's fine. That's fine. Yeah, and that's definitely keeping it short. I just know, for me, I would be fine being married at City Hall,

but I know for her it's really important. Yeah, I mean, $5,000 to $ five to ten, you can do a really nice wedding, watching what you're doing, getting creative with some of the issues like flowers and photography. Those are two that will bite you. And certainly dress is another one, her dress. So, you know, and the big ticket, I mean, we've done three weddings. All three of our kids are married. And, you know, we're event people, meaning we put on events around here.

So when we put on a wedding, it's a big deal, right? But by far, the biggest ticket that sucks all the money is the reception. And so if you just figure out some creative way to do the reception, you can cut your costs way, way down when you're doing a wedding on the cheap so i would do something the five to ten range is fine save up and pay cash for it that's not gonna make that big a difference in 110 okay if you said i want to spend 50 000 on the wedding while i have 110 i would call you irresponsible yeah you. You follow me? Because, you see, the difference is that would actually move the needle on the 110. $7,000 on 110 doesn't move the needle. Mm-hmm.

It's not that. As long as we pay cash for that wedding. Yeah, pay cash in the 5 to 10 range, yes, I would do that. And, yes, you're going to have to be very careful. And treat this like it's a project. Okay. Because it is. And we're going to lay out a, okay, this is our number.

And then if, and so if we have $7,000 and you lay out a budget, if you have $7,000 as your number, I just made that up, right? Then what are we going to spend on the dress? Put a number down. What are we going to spend on the reception? Put a number down. What are we going to spend on the photographer? Put a number down. What are we going to spend on the photographer? Put a number down, right? And then you've got to make it work within those numbers so that the total number still stays below seven, right?

Okay. But where people mess up is they just start spending, and then they go, oh, God, it's all the money's gone, and now we still don't have these three things done. And then all of a sudden now you're going into credit card debt or something stupid like that for a wedding. And no, you wouldn't do that. So lay out a budget. Treat it like a project. And make it an adventure.

You've got a year to work on it and find a way to do it inexpensively and creatively. And I think you're going to be great. And then you guys get married and start your life. And we're going to get on a written budget. And we're going to be on beans and rice. And we're going to be on beans and rice. And we're going to clean up this $110,000 as fast as we possibly can. And, you know, get in gear. Both of you get your careers going.

Let's get this thing going. That's what we're going to do. So, hey, good question. And congratulations on the wedding. Hold on. I'm going to send you a copy, early wedding present. A copy of the Total Money Makeover book, which will show you, too, how to do a lot of this stuff. And we'll

get you started off on the right foot. Well, that puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. Our thanks to James Childs, our producer, Kelly Daniel, our associate producer and phone screener. I am Dave Ramsey, your host, and we'll be back. Hey, guys, it's Blake Thompson, senior executive producer for The Dave Ramsey Show.

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