The Ramsey Show - App - Moving On After Divorce, Debt and Job Loss (Hour 1)

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm Ramsey personality, George Campbell, joined by my good friend and one of America's favorite Johns, Dr. John Deloney. And we are here for you, America, taking your calls at 888-825-5225. Maybe you need some advice, some motivation. Maybe you need to take that next step with that broken relationship, the toxic boss, the debt that's been hanging over your head for far too long, and you're just ready to make some changes and live a better, more peaceful life. That's what we're all about on this show. Mary is going to kick us off in Cleveland, Ohio. Mary, welcome to the show. Hi, how are you doing today?

Doing well. How are you? I'm going to be honest, I'm a little nervous and anxious right now. We got you, Mary. It's just us here. Just us girls. Let's talk. Okay. What's going on? So I'm calling in because my husband is a gambling addict and has been since January of this year when it became legal in Ohio. It has caused the heaviest toll on our marriage, um, on our relationship, our family.

And I'm at the point where I have tried many routes with this, trying to be very gracious on how I go about it, trying to be respectful as a wife, trying to support his mistakes, but trying to get him the help he needs and nothing is working. Um, and at this point he is very adamant about continuing to do it. And I'm at the point where I feel that I need to, you know, take my daughter and take a step away. Not divorce, but maybe take some separation until he figures it out. But I honestly don't want to have to do that. But I don't know what else to do right now.

What makes you think that or what's happening that you feel like I need to get me and my daughter out of this to be safe I think you're right I think you're right by the way but I want you just to articulate what something else is going on like what's happening in your home it's just an extremely tense environment. We argue all the time. Are you arguing because he's losing thousands and thousands of dollars or arguing because he's just glued to his phone all the time and he's angry because he wins and loses? Or, as is most of the time,

the gambling behavior and the addictive actions that are keep like this compulsion is indicative of a much bigger issue in your marriage. Y'all don't talk to each other. You don't listen to each other. There's no intimacy. It's just become a mess and gambling is the way he's choosing to handle that, that global dysfunction inside your home.

Correct. Okay. All of it. Yes. And I mean, the line is the biggest thing as well. So anytime somebody has a boundary inside of a marriage that they're thinking about laying down, right? Like this is my final straw.

This is my line that I won't cross anymore. I always want to encourage them to have an or what statement because the person they laid the boundary down is going to want to know. Can you give an example? Yes. So you need to have an or what statement. You sit down with your husband and say,

if we don't go to marriage counseling by the end of this weekend, or if we don't have a date on the calendar by the end of this weekend and it's next week. And if you don't go, here's the, or what me and our daughter are moving out. Okay. Period. You just have to be prepared for the, or what, because the, or what comes with a lot of complexity. And I know it sounds super cool to be like, you like you're going to, you can Google this and on these stupid websites, they're going to tell you like, just leave him.

You don't deserve. That sounds all well and good. But there is a significant financial complexity to this, right? Yeah. I mean, I really don't want it to have to come to that. Of course not. I still love him. Of course you do.

And we have a family together. Of course you do. I want you to keep this front and center as you move forward. You are simply doing what you have to do to keep your family safe and responding to somebody that's thrown a grenade inside your home. Yeah. You're not the one doing this, and he will paint you as the villain here. He has.

That's right. Because he gets to do whatever he wants to to do whenever he wants to do it with quote-unquote y'all's money and he can you're just whining and nagging and complaining and on online gambling online sports gambling is destroying individuals and homes across this country period and dude i always watch the fights. I love watching the games. I love having some fun with my friends. So it's not that I'm like this fuddy-duddy that sits in my house and plays bingo all the time.

I love the whole environment. And yet, this is destroying people. Yeah. And you've told him that. And he has told you, I don't really care what you have to say. I'm going to keep doing whatever I want to do. Yeah. And, I mean, it's been the past few months, I guess to give just some quick context.

So pretty much in a lump sum, he has spent between $30,000 to $40,000. Has he lost it? Oh, yeah, like he's lost all of it. Okay. We don't, there's no, I mean, he's, you know, won a couple thousand here or a hundred here, things like that. But it's, he's all together since the beginning of this year. It's been around $40,000.

And can we be honest? This is what you know about. I promise there's more. This is all I know about. That's right. I promise there's more. Let me ask you a very tactical question. If you move out, do you have, do you have a job? Do you have money? Yes, I have a job, but we, so he's in nursing school. So hold on, hold on. He is making choices. You're keeping yourself safe. If he's in nursing school, then he gets to take care of his, pay for nursing.

He gets to make all those choices on his own. You need to have your four walls covered for you and your baby if you choose to separate. Do you have your own bank account? Yes, I actually did. Probably about two months ago at this point, that was one of the steps I took was separating our finances. We never recommend that except in this moment. Does your check direct deposit into that account? It's still in our joint. And I will just say, so pretty much because we don't have any, like we don't have any financial security right now. So with my job and his job, we get paid each

week. So I get paid and then he gets paid the following and so on and so forth. So with our money that we have right now, I want to take money from my check and put it into ours. But then all the bills come out from our joint because we haven't switched any of those yet. So all of like pretty much each paycheck that we get each week is going towards bills, going towards groceries and gas. And then there's nothing left. I want you to get with a friend and I want you to map this out. Okay? Okay. And you're going to have to move your direct deposit to your new account.

And you know as well as I do, he's going to hit the roof, isn't he? Yeah, he already did when I, I mean, everything I do, he does. That's right. Are you safe? Yes. Okay. He's not going to hit. Are you safe? Yes. Okay. He's not going to hit you or hurt you? No.

Okay. So we are getting with a friend, and we're going to map this out. What's an apartment going to cost? What are the light and water bill going to cost? And we're going to get all this mapped out and lined out. We're going to make sure that our check can cover that, and you might need to get some new hours and all that kind of stuff, childcare, all those things.

And then we're going to sit down and be very articulate and clear about my or what statement. This changes, or here's what I'm going to do. You can't control anything he does. You can only control what you do. I hate that you're in this situation. Stay on the line. We're going to hook you up with every dollar so you can begin to control what you can control if and when you have to step away. We'll be right back. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, joined by Dr. John Deloney. Give us a call at 888-825-5225.

If you want to jump into the conversation and talk about your money, your life, your relationships, your mental health, your boundaries, or lack thereof, we want to help you take the right next step. Shelly joins us up next in Dallas, Texas. Shelly, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for taking my calls. I'm really just calling because I've been listening to the show a lot, and I know the baby steps and everything. And I know that I'm in a position where I can afford therapy. But my question is, well, it's not more of a question. It's just an emotional issue around spending the money on therapy.

I just feel bad. I know I need it and my husband supports me. But, you know, it just makes me feel bad to spend. It costs a lot, and my insurance doesn't cover the licensed therapy part of it. So what's it going to cost for you to get this help? Well, I've been looking at, like, BetterHelp, and, you know, I even saw some more affordable options too but um so i did sign up with better help but i'm just feeling like i'll try it for you know the first four weeks and then cancel it i i start something you know i'll start it and and i started therapy before but it was just costing like a

hundred a week and then do you feel like this is a wasteful expense in your budget right now like hey this money should be going toward this what's behind that i think i start feeling like i i don't know it's and it's part of my anxiety it's part of the reason why i think i need therapy well i i think it has nothing to do with money i think money is the excuse that presents itself that gives you an out so that you don't have to go through this fire where healing's on the other side of it. Yeah, it could be. I don't know. I think you should go. It's all confusing. Honestly, the feelings might be confusing, but even if you guys were up to your eyeballs in debt

and you needed to go to counseling, we would tell you to stop paying off your debt, pause, and go to counseling. Get the help, you can care that you need. Yeah, I'm trying to wrap, I'm trying to, you can tell yourself, I know this is so important, my health,

but it just feels, it just hurts to pay it. I don't know. I was raised poor. I grew up in a poor family, and we're doing really well now, and I just feel like we need to pay for the future. You know why? Because when you grew up, other people, those people over there,

they got counseling. They took, quote, unquote, took care of themselves themselves we don't got time for that we don't need that only weaklings and wimps do that yeah right those people it was you didn't even want to say oh i need therapists because you would in my family it would be like oh well you're crazy you know what in your family tell me if i'm wrong in your family you didn't say that you needed anything no i i actually struggled with eating disorder and everything starting when i was a teenager now i'm in my 40s and having panic attacks and i had a traumatic event last year medical with neuropathy for chronic pain for like eight months in my face

it's time and it's time I can't sleep without heavy medicine. It's time. It's time. Whatever it takes. If there was a medication, Shelley, that was $300 a month, but it changed your life, would you say that was a worthy $300 to spend that wasn't wasteful? Yeah.

Well, I am spending a lot on my psychiatrist for the medicine, so I have to have that or I just can't function. But your psychiatrist has been telling you for a long time, I'm going to give you these meds, but you need to go talk to somebody, haven't they? Yeah, he did say CBT would help me. Correct. It's time. I think we need to refile this in our brain as this is not a wasteful thing

that I could be spending in this. And this is, it's too much in our budget into, hey, this is like paying for insurance. This is keeping the lights on. This is paying for the internet bill. This is going to add so much utility and value to my life that I can't imagine not doing it. And it may not be forever. This may be a season that you go through and then it's over. Yeah. Yeah. I was kind of wondering about, I know everyone's different, but I was wondering about like on average, kind of how, how could take you know i've had friends tell me oh it took so and so a year to to to really but if you struggle listen if you struggle with a tunnel if if you've struggled with disordered eating since you're a child and you grew up in a pretty tough place and it's pretty tough situation. And if you think so little of yourself that the idea of spending money to make

sure you're whole and well so that you can show up for you and for your husband and for others, if that shuts your body down or sets off your body's alarms, it's going to be a while. So I think it's counterproductive. I'm telling you it's counterproductive to say, okay, I'll give you four and then I quit. That's like going to the car dealer and saying, or to the mechanic and saying, hey, everything's broken on the car, you got 30 minutes,

and then I'm just going to come pick it up. Yeah. I want you to completely reframe this. I put this dress on myself that I feel like I have to hurry and fix myself in this amount of time. Right, and you're not somebody, listen, I used a bad analogy, you're not somebody to be fixed, okay?

You're not broken. Your body's working exactly as it should given the set of circumstances you grew up in plus some genetics and what you're going to learn is different ways your body can get through a day. That's what counseling is going to do. It's going to let you practice. It's going to teach you relationship. It's going to teach you some new skills. Over time, your body's going to learn, hey, we weren't safe then. We're safe now. All of that is worthy of an investment. Go. Don't think twice about it. And listen to

this. This is important. Your feelings are not designed to tell you the truth. Your feelings are designed to keep you safe given a set of circumstances. So this morning, I did not feel like writing in a journal. I didn't. But I did it because I'm a better husband and a better dad on the other side of that. When I get all this crap out of my head and out of my body and onto a piece of paper, I will not feel like working out when I get home tonight. I won't feel like it at all. I'm tired. It's the weekend and I'm going to go do it because I promised myself I would. And it makes me a better fill in the blank, a fill in the blank. So your feelings, I feel like I want to quit. Cool. I get that. I'm going to acknowledge those feelings. That's real.

And then I'm going to keep going. And I feel like I'm wasting money. Cool. Your body grew up poor. It put a GPS pin in poverty. It put a GPS pin and stopped spending money on quote unquote, you getting well. Cool. I feel that. And I'm going to go anyway because I'm going to get well. I'm worth being well. That's a good word, John. And tactically, to go anyway, because I'm going to get well. I'm worth being well. That's a good word, John. And tactically, Shelly, adding this as a line item in your every dollar budget that says Shelly's therapy. And then what's going to happen is December, it's going to feel like, oh gosh, that $300 came out for those sessions. Then January, it's like, oh yeah, we have that in the budget. Then February, it's like, oh yeah,

we've had this in the budget. And all of a sudden it becomes normal, especially as you excel through the baby steps and you get to a different place financially. There's expenses in my wife and I's budget that, you know, 23 year old George would be like, whoa, that guy's blowing some money into us. It's no, we're buying ourselves peace. We're buying our time back with some of these things. And it's therapy is not a luxury. It is financially for people who can't afford it, but it's not a frivolous expense. It's definitely worth being well. And John talks about this in his new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, which I'd love to send Shelly a copy of that, John, if you don't mind. Absolutely. And stay on the line. I'm going to hook you up with three free months of better

help with my friends there, okay? I'm going to take that excuse away. Three free months of better help. But if you and your therapist decide, hey, it's probably best if you keep going, I want you to keep going and stay plugged in. That's very kind of you, John. You wield that kind of power here on the Ramsey Show. I don't. I've got an extraordinary partner with BetterHelp and they really, really care about people getting well. And so it's their generosity, not mine. That's very kind. So hang on the line, Shelley. We're going to send you a copy of Dr. John Deloney's bestselling book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, and three months of better help on us to get you started on this path. We are cheering you on, and I'm proud of you.

That's not an easy thing to call into a national radio show and put that all out there and go, I'm struggling with this. I want to get the help I need. And I know a lot of people are benefiting from this call who probably need to take that next step too, John. Dude, I remember being a six foot two, 195 pound Texas male sitting at my kitchen table while my little boy was asleep and my wife was asleep in the other room,

weeping at my kitchen table because I knew I had to. And I also felt like such a wimp and such a weakling and such a coward and all those things. And I went felt like such a wimp and such a weakling and such a coward and all those things. And I went and it's changed everything. Go get the help and care that you need. Thanks so much for the call, Shelly. More of your calls coming up. The number is 888-825-5225. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. We've got a lot going on right now at the Ramsey Solutions store on our website at ramseysolutions.com slash store, including our $12 sale. We can get a lot of meaningful gifts for Christmas right now. Best-selling books like The Total Money Makeover, Baby Steps Millionaires, Own Your Past, Change Your Future, just $12 each, and Questions for Humans Conversations cards from my friend, Dr. John Deloney, as low as $10 right now. And the Christmas edition is back. That one sells out

quick. You'll also notice a whole bunch of new stuff. Our friend, Jade Warshaw, launched a new quick read this week called Money's Not a Math Problem. Rachel Cruz has a great new kids book out, beautifully illustrated, called I'm Glad for What I Have. We've got the 2024 Ramsey Goal Planner. And of course, my new book, Breaking Free from Broke, is now on presale. And the support has been overwhelming.

So thank you to all of you who have pre-ordered that book and have made your shopping list a little easier with the ramsaysolutions.com slash store. Getting meaningful gifts, John. That's what it's all about. I don't know what you buy for christmas are you getting your kids anything exciting dude i'm i have a problem yeah do you want to talk about this off air it feels i mean i just i just i i just love buying gifts and so uh that's very kind of you there was there was many years when i couldn't and so now you're making up for lost time yeah but it's it's sometimes about me and not about them and so it's very self-aware

i told i i said on the show the other day i told my son like we were out having a meal together and i said hey this year like we're not just getting a bunch of junk and i'm gonna get you a couple of of really important things and a this and a this. And he just smiled at me and goes, you can't do that, Dad. And he went, watch me. Well, he was right. He's like, Dad, we don't need the stuff, but you can't do it. So, cool.

Wow. It was good. So, I called his bluff. He didn't get crap this year. Just kidding. He'll get a bunch of stuff. Take that. That's very kind of you.

I just like buying gifts. I can't wait to see what you get me this year. Just kidding. He'll get a bunch of stuff. Take that. That's very kind of you. I just like buying gifts. I can't wait to see what you get me this Christmas, John. Yeah. Maybe three months of BetterHelp is in the cards for me. That would be nice. No, I got you a Razor. A scooter? No.

Oh, for my face. For your face. I should not have been that excited about a Razor scooter. You should have. I'm going to be honest. Oh, my goodness. All right. Let's get to the lines.

Ryan awaits in Syracuse, New York. Ryan, welcome to the show. Hey, guys, can you hear me? Yes. How can we help today? All right. Thanks for having me on. Very blessed to be here. Absolutely. And we'll congrats on the new book as well. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.

I just wanted to get your guys' take. My wife and I just were starting to get more of a budget together. We download the EveryDollar app. We've been trying to get more responsible with budgeting and everything. We do have some debt that we want to try clearing up over the course of the next few years, hopefully. We have two kids and balancing that life and debt and everything. I just wanted to get your guys' take on it as soon as possible. Okay. Well, give us a little more specificity here.

What's your income and how much debt do you have? So, yeah. So, more specifically, the big things are we have a HELOC, unfortunately, that we did take out. That's about $11,800 for renovations in the home. I specifically have about $170,000 in student loans, and my wife has about $50,000. Bro, are you a surgeon? No. I'm a hospital pharmacist. Um, I, I actually just, um, I did get just passport

certification for, to be specialized in infectious disease. So I'm hoping that takes me a little farther in my career. Um, and my wife is, um, she's an elementary teacher and she has her master's in, in education. Um, the $50,000 is her graduate master's, and then I did do quite a few years of schooling. So I guess my question is, we've been trying to get better with budgeting. Our take-home monthly between her and I is about $10,500. So it's about $125,000 a year take home.

We ran the numbers. We're wondering where the heck is all this money going because we do have a little bit left over at the end of each month. So I think right around about $2,200, $2,300. To throw out the debt? That's with, yeah, so that's with minimum payments on the debt. That's taking into account trying to pay the HELOC off a little bit earlier and putting a little bit extra money towards that.

And then budgeting for, you know, anything, you know, for the kids and for us and all of that, just with life and everything. Okay. Well, your plan right now sounds like a 10-year plan to get rid of this debt, right? That kind of sucks. I want to live life more freely in the meantime. So what if you could sacrifice for like three years and be totally done with this debt? Yeah. And so then you start doing math and you go, all right, that looks weirdly like you got $231,000 in debt over three years. That's $77,000 a year. You tracking?

Yep. And now that means every single month we need to be throwing $6,400 at this debt. That gives us a real goal. Right now you're like, we're trying to pay off some debt and I think it's going to be a little while. Let's get really tactical and go, we need $6,400 going toward debt. How do we make that happen? And for you guys, that probably looks like getting income up ASAP. That might mean taking some jobs you normally wouldn't take

because you're a fancy hospital pharmacist. But right now, the extra thousand bucks a month could change our life. Okay. And it might mean we got to cut expenses down and Christmas looks different this year. And we're going to pick one cut expenses down and Christmas looks different this year and we're going to pick one person to get the gift for instead of getting something for everyone, even though we're fancy teachers and pharmacists. You know what I mean? Right.

There's going to be sacrifices here on both sides of spending less and making more because I want to see you out of debt in three years. And I think it's possible, but we're going to have to make some lifestyle changes. I want you to shoot for two and a half years. Yeah. Okay. And listen, possible but we're gonna have to make some lifestyle changes i want you to shoot for two and a half years yeah okay and listen you're i've been where you are with my little fancy graduate degree pulling into the parking lot with my other colleagues and their bmws and their lexus and their nice cars yep you can either choose to be free or not man and that means people are

gonna look at you in the parking lot and be like, bro, I know what you make. What are you doing? Aren't you the pharmacist? Yep. And I'm driving an old Corolla. I sold my other car because my identity is not in that. My identity is in freedom.

Yeah. And I'm going to work Saturdays and Sundays because you can pick up extra shifts. You can go over to Walgreens and pick up a shift there too. You can work as much as you want to work. It's like, yeah, but I want to, don't miss this. I don't want to miss that. Man, please get this stuff out of your life as soon as possible. Yeah.

Okay. So you're looking at, yeah, go ahead. I want to help you out as well with the budgeting side, because it sounds like you guys are starting to actually go, where is this money going? And that's a great step to take. I'm going to take it one step further and give you every dollar premium for a year to really get down to the nuts and bolts. Connect to your bank account, use the paycheck planning tool, the financial roadmap tool, get both you and your wife downloading this app, looking at it every day, tracking that two or three transactions,

making a plan going, all right, are we on track to put that $6,000 towards debt this month? What do we got to do to get there? All right, we're not going out to eat for a while. We're going to scrimp on the groceries. We're not taking that vacation. It's going to be three years, two and a half years of intensity, but you're going to have 30 years on the backside of freedom. Right. Okay.

You don't sound like you like that answer. Well, I know. I, I mean, I, I, I do.

Um, you know, it, it does sound good. Um, we, you know, my wife and I are,

are, we are focused too on, on making sure that the, that our two girls are, you know, taken care of. And we, you know,

we, we're, I guess it was more of, we wanted to try to find a balance between paying off the debt. There won't be. I guess my goal was, yeah, it's got to be either one or the other. Let me tell you this, and I'm saying this unequivocally, and this is neuroscience and this is physiology, and you know this.

You and I have read the same journal articles. The greatest gift you can give your kids is not lessons in a thing. The greatest gift you can give your kids is not lessons in a thing the greatest gift you can give your kids is not a great present or a cool trip the greatest gift you can give your kids is a non-anxious regulated adult in their home, two of them

and so the greatest gift you can give your kids is not attendance to every single solitary soccer game and so for 24 and a half or 24 months plus Greatest gift you can give your kids is not attendance to every single solitary soccer game. And so for 24 and a half or 24 months plus six more, 30 months, the kids are going to deal, man. You could dig a hole in your backyard and fill it up with mud and whipped cream. And your kids will tell that story at your funeral. More so than the trips and soccer games you think they got to have. What they need is two

parents that don't know anybody, anything, and their heart rates stay below 70 all the time, and they sleep all night, and they love each other, and there is peace in that home. Give them that, not balance. Thanks for the call, Ryan. Hang on the line. We're going to gift you every dollar. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. If you enjoy this show in any capacity, which the charts tell us that you guys are liking what you hear, you love hearing these stories from the callers, the inspiration, sometimes, you know, the tough love, please consider liking the show, consider subscribing, leave us a review wherever you're listening, hit the follow button, share it with a friend, text the family group chat,

and let people know, hey, I'm into this show. I think you would like it too. And you never know how that could get someone started on their journey to wellness, whether it's financial, relational, or career related. Thanks for doing that. Richard joins us up next in Buffalo, New York. Richard, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Thanks for taking my question. I really appreciate it. Absolutely.

How can John and I help? So I'm a 24-year-old former children's pastor. I had to resign under duress. I'm going through a divorce right now. I have, you know, $42,000 in debt between student loans and maxed out credit card debt. And I just need to know, want to know if it's health, she is struggling with bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder. And there was an incident allegedly where I was physically pushed in a private meeting. And so I had to take off, and then a lot of the debt, I can't say all of it.

I wish I could, uh, the credit card debt was a lot of, um, you know, medical, medical debt, you know, just trying to survive, uh, at a 26 case salary. So it wasn't a whole lot to work with. Um, but, uh, she requested the divorce, uh, shortly thereafter. Uh, and so now I'm back home trying to figure things out trying to rebuild my life gotcha well I hate that you went through all that I can assure you there's light on the other side of this okay and you could go work at McDonald's and make more than $26,000 right now so this is is not, this is not an economic issue. I think you're gonna have to be wrestling with the identity part because in your head you are a quote unquote pastor and you are a quote unquote

childhood expert and you are a quote unquote married and now you're none of those things. Yeah. And so I think the moment, the first time we think we've got this identity wrapped up, and especially when it's a job title, and the first time it gets ripped away from us, or we get opportunity to do something else,

it's unmooring, right? It feels like the ground just melted away out from under us and we're falling, right? You're not. What I want to challenge you on, Joe's going to walk, I mean, George is going to walk you through the financial part of this, but here's what I want to challenge you. Go do something tomorrow. Okay. The challenge is

for you not to sit at home and wallow. Another job will come, whether that's a pastor's job, whether that's working with kids. You can go be a school teacher and double your salary tomorrow, right? You can get a job starting in the second semester. You may say, I never want to see another kid again as long as I live. Who knows? But I want you to go call it Christmas tree farm, call McDonald's, call Subway, get a job tomorrow. Okay? Yeah. Start getting some income in your home and start having a thing that you need to go do and work towards. Do not, don't, quote unquote, follow your passion. You need a job. Yeah.

Okay? Let's start loving people and taking care of them wherever you happen to be because that's who you are. And then in the process, we'll heal from this divorce. We'll heal from this. The things that were said, if you were in the home with somebody with bipolar disorder or with unmanaged borderline personality disorder you've been through hell and back right yeah yeah i um yeah and then your church turns on you and

that feels unmooring because they have you know the whole thing man it's a mess you're gonna have to grieve this for a season but also you got to go to work. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk money, Richard. You're living with your parents right now. Is that right? Yes. Yes, I am. Rent free. My mom is the best. Wonderful. God bless moms. So what are your expenses? Have you actually looked at what it takes to run Richard's life right now per month? Yes. Yes, I have. What does that amount to? So, you know, thankfully my salary kind of limited my poor decisions. So at the bare minimum... There's silver lining. Not always. Not always, Richard. Yeah. Yeah. No, I honestly, I'm thankful for it because if i if i had more money i probably would

have been in the exact spot but way worse uh so uh with everything and it's it's uh i have a car payment uh my minimum credit card payment is uh 365 you know triple a my phone um and i'm trying to door dash on the side once i get you know I'm hoping to get a little more minimum wage, but it takes about $1,500 a month at the bare minimum if I'm just paying minimum payments to run my life. Even without the rent. So $1,500 is the number we're aiming at just to kind of cover your bases. Yeah, that would be like I would be netting like zero.

Got it. Yeah. So beyond that, if we can make more than that, that can all go towards paying extra on our smallest debt. Yes. Do you have any money in the bank right now? That's not the reaction you want to hear. Laughter. Okay. He made 26 grand, George. Yeah. Well, that helps me just go, all right, our A1 is getting a thousand dollar starter emergency fund. So before we start tackling the debt, just keep the minimum payments going. When you get that job tomorrow, your A1, bill the $1,000.

That's it. Okay. After that, debt snowball. Smallest to largest debts in order. We're going to attack the little one with a vengeance, make minimum payments on the rest. And you can do this. This is a fixable problem because you're about to get a raise. No matter what job you get,

you just got a raise. So that's the good news. And if you can make, let's say, 40, 50 grand working a few jobs over the next 12 months, could you put 20K at this debt in a year?

Yeah. I mean, I don't see any reason why not. I've been crunching the numbers. I can tell you why. I can tell you why. Ego. Yeah.

Because I want to move out of my parents' house. Because I want to be a minister and not be able to eat, but that's what I want to do. And it's going to be ego. Ego. If you sit down with your mom tonight and say, Mom, I want to make a 12 month commitment to you i gotta get this stuff paid off you're not gonna see me much you might see remnants of me coming and going like a ghost but i'm gonna work seven jobs i have to be done with this madness

when you're 25 you're gonna stand six inches taller than you do right now because you got the nail on the head. I thought I was just going to get financial advice, but you're preaching to me. No, dude. You knew the math was bad. You made $26,000 a year. That's what my son makes cleaning horse stalls in the woods.

Not really. He doesn't make anywhere close to that, but good God, $26,000 in New York? Jeez Louise. I did get housing at the time so that helped uh but i have yeah i have golly the thought that just came in my head i'm glad i didn't say because they would have been diving for the dump button back there and it would have got me canceled that is what people use sometimes to give people unlivable wages it's cruel okay and you're a good man and you're young

and you wanted to get in a foot in the door and partridge in a pear tree yada yada yada go get several jobs what's the car loan what's left on that i i got it last year um when I got into a head-on collision. The monthly payment is $450,000. What's the total on? It is $18,000. That is a lot of car. Even for a guy who was making $26,000, is the car worth $18,000 still? Thankfully, yes. Yes, it is.

It's only got like 40,000 miles on it. Is that part of your $42,000 in debt? Or is that extra on top of the student loans and the credit cards that are maxed out? That would be extra, actually, yeah. I think this car needs to go, my man. It's gone this weekend. Can you borrow mom's car to get to and from work? Her cars are in really bad shape.

Not as bad as your financial shape. That is true. That is true. And the thing that I'm worried about, and this is, I think, because I've been talking to my friends and they all say the same thing, but I think an expert opinion will put me at ease. What I'm worried about is selling the car and getting, because I don't mind what I drive.

I really don't care. I'll drive a can of... What are you worried about, Richard? Go. We're up to the clock. One word. I'm worried about if I get a 100k mile car. Oh my goodness. Get over yourself, homie. My truck has 200,000

with a 2. And it's awesome. It's not that awesome, actually, at all. But it works. Richard, you know what to do, man. Sell this car this weekend. You've got to stop making excuses and just move forward with your life. Thanks for the call. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books.