The Ramsey Show - App - My College Is Free but I Don't Want To Go (Hour 1)

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

George Kamel & Dr. John Delony discuss: Whether or not a 30-year mortgage can be better than a 15-year, How to build wealth after college, Why you shouldn’t try to “game” the credit card system.

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. I'm Ramsey personality George Campbell, joined today by the effervescent Dr. John Deloney. Right next to me, best-selling author and host of The Dr. John Deloney Show. You were not expecting effervescent. Where are you, John? That's one of, besides stable and relaxing, that's the other word that people used to describe me. Yeah, you're like a Tums, you know?

Exactly. I'm like a walking Xanax. A bomb to the soul. That's exactly right. Well, we are here to take your calls about life, money, like a Tums, you know? I'm like a walking Xanax. A bomb to the soul. That's exactly right. Well, we are here to take your calls about life, money, mental health, relationships, boundaries, lack thereof. We are here to help you take the right next step for your life. Wherever you might find yourself, whatever is keeping you up at night, we want to help.

So give us a call, 888-825-5225. Chris is kicking off this hour. He's in Los Angeles, California. Chris, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, thanks for taking my call. Absolutely. My question is, is there ever a time when a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage loan would make more sense than a 15-year?

Great question. Is this a personal situation you're walking through right now? It is. So my wife and I, we have about 200K gross income. Our debt is about $10,000 on one car. We have a two and a half year old daughter. We're maxing out our Roth IRAs. We're contributing to our 529. And I believe, well, with interest rates going up, we don't know where that'll be in a few months, but I believe we could afford a 15 year mortgage loan. it'll probably be right at about 25% of our take-home income. Okay. But it doesn't really leave us much margin for anything else.

Chris, what's your car payment? Yep. Car payment is $340 a month. Would you have more margin if you had 340 a month extra we would so why don't we go ahead and pay off that car uh should we just go ahead so we do have six months emergency savings and then we probably have a little bit additional um but we're thinking about doing uh a renovation in the house. We're not going to go overboard, but it is somewhat of a fixer-upper.

So, you know, we want to do the renovation. And also to answer your question, our financial advisor said, you know, a car, well, this was advice he gave us a few years ago before COVID. He said a car depreciates in value, so there's no point in paying it all off at once. Fire your financial advisor today. Yeah, and instead of that financial advisor, just go find somebody who's sitting at a coffee shop and just ask them. They're going to be better advised than that advice. This is moronic. So, Chris, here's the deal.

You're doing Chris's plan. I'm not mad at you. You're doing some great things. You're maxing out the Roth, the 529. You guys have a great income, but you're not doing the Ramsey plan, and that's okay. But if you want to do our plan, you've got to pay off all of your debt before we get on the emergency fund, before we go to investing, and you can save up and put a good down payment on this house and do it on a 15-year fixed. The 30-year loan is really a shortcut that leads to you paying a whole bunch more in interest. How old are you, Chris? My wife and I, we're 38. You're 38. If

you get a 30-year mortgage today, you're buying a coffin. And if you do a 15-year, what I found, and this is based on actual data, the people following the Ramsey plan end up paying off their house in about seven years. Now think about that. You are then 45 years old with a paid-for house, and you still have another 20 years of your working life where you have all of your income back at your disposal, your greatest wealth-building tool. Hey, I want to circle back. Walk me through your financial advisor's advice here. Help me with this. He was saying, so our interest on the car is, I don't know, it's like 3%. I think he was saying-

Oh, invest the difference and I can make you millions. Right. Like, the market's going to earn you 12%, so you're just throwing 9% down the toilet. John, you'd be a great financial advisor. You sound just like him. Here's where that's insane. You're paying a monthly payment against a depreciating asset. See what I'm saying?

So every month... It's just nuts.'s just you're paying more interest while the car is worth less and less and you're holding the exposure so if you get fired he's made his money on that gap by being able to sell more of his product to you and you're the one holding the car note that you now watch get towed away out of your driveway and so it's easy for him to say, well, that's stupid. You should float this because he doesn't hold the other end of the bag. If something goes sideways and it's easy to say, nothing goes sideways. Our whole job exists

because things go sideways. Um, I hate to tell you this, but it doesn't sound like y'all are in a position to buy a car. I mean, to buy a home. if your mortgage, if you can only do it at this, you're going to be so leveraged that you can't breathe. Don't do it, man. It's not worth it. Keep renting. And I know that stings. Yeah. Okay. So a couple of things. With a 30-year mortgage, if we do have margin and then we have bonuses and whatnot come in end of the year, couldn't we apply that towards the principal? Absolutely, you could. Listen, 100% you could.

Our data tells us that 97% of people don't. They can't. Something comes up. Every month a thing comes up, or I want a thing, or we need to go somewhere. And the bonus becomes a vacation and a new car instead of going towards the principal. And so this is where this is less of a math problem. I mean, there is a math problem.

You're going to pay infinitely more in interest on a 30-year note. But this is a psychology problem, and this is just the human condition problem. That's why all these YouTube scammers who are like, bro, all you can do, note down, they can do some mathematical gymnastics to make it work. But what we do is we sit with people that the wheels have completely fallen off, which is millions and millions and millions and millions of Americans. And we say, hey, I know the math looks good.

That's just not how we're wired. And the companies know this. They wouldn't offer it if it wasn't going to make them a ton more money. And so, yeah, you could in theory. You're exactly right. 97% of people will not. One more thing.

Let me just play devil's advocate. Absolutely. We do a 30-year, and so we have a little bit more margin, assuming that we'll go ahead and pay off our car. Just a recommended advice. 30-year, and then we have a margin.

We might think about having another kid, or the other car that's paid off it's got 150,000 miles on it we don't know how much longer it's going to last I mean so here's what you're doing you are paying for those other things with debt

you're just rearranging it so it's mortgage debt not car note debt see what I'm doing? you're paying another $100,000, $200,000, $300,000, $400,000 on your mortgage to have a little bit of flexibility so you can buy a car in the right now.

You're just trading debt for debt. See what I'm saying? It doesn't sound like you're in a place where you can afford a house right now. Chris, you guys make $200,000. Let's do a budget. Let's figure out where all this money is going and that will will help you create the margin, not a 30 year loan. You got this, man. This is from Ramsey. It's called Gazelle, and it's a digital banking experience that will help you spend and save the Ramsey way with banking services provided by Pathword NA.

You'll get a single spending account with no monthly fees, and it's FDIC-insured through Pathword NA. We're offering early access to our beta customers, so you can help us make it the best experience it can be. Just go to ramseysolutions.com slash gazelle to sign up for the wait list today. Triple A, 825-5225. This is the Ramsey Show. Let's go out to Douglas in Charlotte, North Carolina Hey Douglas, what's going on? Hey, you in there alright?

Yeah, I can hear you great What's going on man? Hey man, I just finally got in a long ago I had a question I'm a company driver right now A CDL driver I'm wanting to make a switch to owner-operator someday And I was curious Should I pay off my consumer debt first,

then buy truck cash, or pay off my consumer debt and my mortgage, and then buy truck cash? Well, either way, I want you to pay cash for the truck. Now let's talk about the consumer debt. What do you have in consumer debt? So I just sold my car. I guess I just found out you got some real...

You're getting serious about it, man. Yes, I'm a huge car guy and I put a lot of money in that car, but I sold it. Paid off my truck, too. Wow.

So I got some student loans, one credit card, and mortgage, and that's about it. So what's your non-mortgage debt total? Last time I added it up, it's about $56,000. $86,000?

$56,000. $56,000. Okay, what's your income? Right now I am making about $65,000, but I'm leaving this job next week to go to another job that increased about $30,000 per year income. So you're going to go up to about $95,000? Yep. Douglas, way to go, man.

That's a huge jump. That's going to help you pay off this debt. How much do you owe on your mortgage? $145,000. $145,000. Well, if I'm in your shoes, I'm using this income to my benefit. I'm going to keep living how I've been living, keep living like you're broke, and get rid of this $56,000 in debt and get your emergency fund in place,

and then I'd be saving up to pay cash for that truck. Before paying off the mortgage. Yeah. I don't think you have any reason to have to pay off the mortgage before starting this business. That's not part of it. But I do want this consumer debt out of your life because, number one, it's going to free up a whole bunch of money for you to pay cash for that truck, and it's going to put a lot less stress on you as you try to launch out on your own.

How much is your own truck in your area? For a decent truck, about $40,000. About $40,000? Okay. So you've got a two, two-and-a-half, three-year journey here, right? Yeah, I'm looking at, I want it to be debt-free, not including the mortgage, about $30,000. I'm $27,000 now. Oh, you'll be debt-free way sooner than that. I think you can probably own this truck by then too free and clear if you get after it. Wonderful.

Yeah. I love your heart, man. Man, congratulations on busting it and getting out of there. That's big. I love the heart of wanting to start out

on your own and when you do that with no payments, it changes everything. And I love that he said, I'm a car guy and I'm selling my cars. That's a lot of sacrifice.

Shifting my identity from depreciating assets to, I guess I can't say that anymore because car values keep refusing to go down. Now cars are appreciating assets. They're appreciating assets. But I'm a car guy, too. They're still toys. I'm a free guy, and that's an identity that's worth shifting for. Let's go out to Andrew in Huntsville, Alabama.

What's up, Brother Andrew? How we doing? Hi. I'm an engineering student. I'm a senior right now, and I'll graduate in May. And I've already got a job lined up for after school. It'll be a salary position making about $45,000, well, a little more than $45,000.

But I'm wondering, you know, I'm looking at probably getting married in five years or so and doing some other things. I'm wondering what probably getting married in five years or so and doing some other things. I'm wondering what can I do to try to springboard and build wealth quickly when I'm young besides just like an IRA and maybe getting another second job or something. Let me rephrase that. How do I get rich quick? Is that what you're asking? Yeah. Yeah. What can I do to, not necessarily quick, but that would, I want to make sure that I do the things I need to do now to be where I want to be when I'm, you know, 40. And I know that I can be prepared for retirement, and I've budgeted out, you know, taking six grand out every year for maxing out my IRA, but I would like to try to find something I can do

to make a kind of alternate stream of income to be able to enjoy while I'm young, like through raising a family and things like that. Okay. So I was wondering if you all had any advice on that. Well, I've heard you could draw art pictures on your computer and sell them for millions. He's talking about NFTs. Don't listen to him, Andrew.

Millions. Don't listen to him. And I heard also you could get imaginary zeros and ones pictures and sell them in imaginary places on the internet. That's true. And get rich. If you're selling them, it might be a good business. But, Andrew, here's what I hear you saying. I want to live life on my terms, and I don't want to wait until retirement to do it.

And I love that spirit, and I think you can get there, but I think you've got to have a bigger picture than just how do I invest like a crazy person and make some money quick. I want you to think bigger than that and go, how do I invest in myself? How do I set up my family for success? Do you have any debt right now? I have about $9,500 in student loan debt. And that's it? No car payments, no credit cards? No, no car payments. I just paid off my car a couple months ago. Awesome. So here's what I want you to do. If you walk through these baby

steps, if you graduate and you pay off this $9,500 really fast and you save up three to six months of expenses, which you're going to be able to do pretty quickly when you don't have any debt and you're making $45,000, $50,000, then I want you to start investing 15% of your income into retirement. So that will look like if you've got a 401k at work, I want you to invest into the match. Beyond that, you can invest into that Roth IRA and then back to the 401k if they have one at work. Once you hit that 15%, you might want to save up for a house, right? Right.

So that's got to be part of this equation. We can't just take every dime we can and throw it into investments. We have other pieces of our life that we have to pay attention to. And if you're talking about wanting to be married in five years, are you dating someone or is this just kind of aspirational? Hey, I'd like to be married in five years. I am dating someone. I've been dating for about 17 months now. And I mean, I wouldn't be dating him if I didn't think it was possible in five years or in a couple of years, however long. So you're feeling good about this relationship. I want to prepare for that. Yes, sir. Let me ask you this. What kind of engineer are you? I have a mechanical electrical engineering technology degree. And right now I'll be taking a job as a automotive design engineer with a company here locally.

Was that the first option you received? Well, no, not necessarily. But I've worked there or I've worked kind of training up through here since my senior high school. And they have trained me on several different things to step into this design. I'll be stepping into pretty much the senior design engineer position. position and then within three years have another evaluation where um they would evaluate my kind of contribution and i would be able to have a um sharing of the profits of certain jobs like a percentage-based sharing so it would be a significant pay increase i want you to be eyes wide open you've you have a relationship with company, and you've been with them since you were young. And when that happens, especially when we're young, we have an affinity for them.

But sometimes that affinity, sometimes that familiarity can cost us tens and twenties and thirties of thousands of dollars. And so $40,000 for a – I just have too many students I've worked with and know who have left college with engineering degrees that are making 85 first job. And then two years in, they're at 120. And then they're at equity stake when they make – so I know that you know this group, and I know it's local, and you're going to be able to hang out in the old places and talk to the old high school buddies. But I want you to be highly intentional about your trajectory. One of the things we say here often is your greatest wealth building tool, your greatest, fastest way to get ahead is to make a great salary, not to come up with some get rich quick scheme. And I was kidding about NFTs and I was kidding about Bitcoins and buying imaginary things

and imaginary universes. I want you to be really intentional about your salary, okay, and what your value is, what you're worth. And, of course, you never go to a place that's going to kill you, that you hate to make more money. But, man, I also say you don't stay at a place that makes you feel comfortable, especially when you're young and you're supposed to be grinding it out in these years, for half of your market value, for a third of your market value, right?

So be super intentional about that salary. If they're going to give you a track, make sure you got it in writing that this is the plan because I've heard too many, yeah, in a couple of years, we're really going to reimagine this or reevaluate this. And a couple of years goes by real fast and there's not a lot of reimagination. Stay the course, man. You can do this and I want you to have a paid for house and then you can get into real estate investments and create that passive income. You're so young, you got your whole life ahead of you. Be patient. Stay the course. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined today by Dr. John Deloney. And in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Greg and Becky join us.

How are you guys? We're great. Where are you from? Darth Mankato, Minnesota. Minnesota. All the way to do a debt-free scream. That's right. How much have you guys paid off?

$158,000. Let's go. How long did that take? Four years and nine months. Nice. Awesome. And what was the range of income during that time? $85,000 to $115,000.

All right. What do you guys do for a living? I'm a controls tech, and Becky is a fitness instructor and manager at a gym. Awesome. What is a controls tech? That hurt my brain. I do programming with programmable logic controllers, PLCs. Do you understand the words? I do not understand those words, but it sounds like you're a really smart and that you could blow us all up. So I love you and I'm glad that you're here. It's awesome. He knows enough to be dangerous. Okay, so this

$158,000, what kind of debt was this? It was mostly a lot of it was student loans and then it's our house too. Wow! Okay, mic drop. We're looking at weird people, John. We've got a Minnesota house. That's amazing. It's exciting. So casual. Yeah, just loans and a house. No big deal. Dude, he's a control tech. He doesn't have to look. Yeah. That's amazing. It's exciting. So casual. Yeah, just some loans and a house.

No big deal. Dude, he's a control tech. He doesn't have to. Look at him. He's awesome. Like a cyborg. They're so chill. Wow, this is incredible.

Okay, so let's talk about this. Four years and nine months ago, you guys had the loans. You also had the mortgage, and you just went, we're just doing this thing. What happened? Well, we were invited. We were meeting with some friends, and they were all going to go on this sandals trip and they invited us to go but we were like well we weren't married yet we wanted to be married we were like well we have all this debt too and we don't want to go on this trip and like have all these other expenses and come back and be stressed out still so for us

it was let's take the time now and pay off this debt. And then we can go on these trips and actually go and enjoy them and have fun. Wait, you guys just like made an adult decision to just have patience? We really did. Haven't you seen the Sandals brochures though? They're beautiful. I know. They still have brochures, John. I don't know. On the covered wagon I take home. So were you guys always kind of disciplined, but just kind of ish? I think I always, I bet, was working really hard to get debt free before I met Greg. And he was definitely more financially savvy than I was. And then once we met and we were talking about getting married, he was like, have you ever heard of Dave Ramsey or these other finance whatever?

And I was like, no, I don't know anything about it. I'm just trying to pay my car off. And he was really good at guiding me and getting me on track with that. How did you get connected, Greg, with our crazy crew? I think just internet research, just reading and learning about what is money, what should you do, what should you not do, and it came upon Dave Ramsey. Wow. Anyway, this guy's got a good head on his shoulders.

Let's go with his plan instead of mine. Yeah, exactly. Wow. Well, four years and nine months, that's a long journey to a lot of people to become debt free. I mean, obviously house and everything. That's absolutely incredible. How did you guys stay motivated on this path? Well, some big motivations where we have really good friends who have paid off their mortgages too. So that was huge. My mom paid off hers too. Wow. It just was like when they would do that, it was more inspiring for us to be like,

okay, our friends can do this. We can do this too. We can crack down and keep going and get this done. So you saw it done from people that are just like you, and you went, wait, if they can do it, we can do this. Exactly. We're not that different. Exactly.

So over the last four and a half years, recount your most legendary marital fight over this budget. Well, budgeting for me is always just a little stressful and very emotional, and I pretty much cry every time I do it. Wow. Because Greg has like, I would like to do it this way, and I think we should really watch this, and I'm like, ah, so I'm the more emotional one for sure.

The way you watch. It's a little bit this and this, and I cry every time. That's fantastic. Greg, what about you, man? I just remember, well, the first time she cried. We were talking about, we were actually getting rid of a little credit card. And we fell for the Delta thing where hey we're going to get a bunch of points and get those sky miles yep and so annoying yeah so we we were trying to

then redeem and it was such a hassle and it turned out we couldn't redeem and get like the trip we wanted to get and oh it turns out there's all these hoops to jump through and it just didn't work yeah if you want to go to ne to Nebraska in 2027 on a Tuesday, we got the points for you. That's right. And you're on a Delta flight. So that's right. Wow.

And here you guys are house paid for and everything. Yes. Talk to that couple who may be sitting there with $158,000 and they go, well, we're just never going to pay this off. Oh, it, I mean,

it definitely, we talked about it on our drive down yesterday, how like getting to the end point was just, but just writing out the goals and having like visuals and, and listening to the show and hearing other people pay off their houses too, is huge and inspiring and kept us motivated. I mean, it's definitely, it's hard, but when you really sit and think about like the rewards at the end and to start out like we're gonna have a baby soon and so we know like we don't have to worry about that stuff congratulations nice yeah yes bring him bring it into the world debt-free yeah that's the way to do it exactly exactly yeah and when you surround yourself with a bunch of uh you

know negative nancies who go no you will always have a car payment no one pays off there it's actually stupid to pay off your house actually i've talked about that too how they were my cheerleaders as well like i loved when people said that to me because i was like i'm gonna show you that i'm gonna get this done i don't want to have a car payment i don't want to have a mortgage for the rest of my life i want to live our lives and travel and like you know do what we want to do so it was just motivating when people would tell us, oh, no, you'll have that forever. You love both.

You love the support and you love the negativity. Both fueled you in their own ways. So you've done this stuff. Greg, what do you tell that husband who's sitting with his wife over across the table and they're doing their first budget and she just starts crying? I think just be patient. And you might have figured out mathematically how this could

be done the best, but listen to her because she may have a really good solution that you just didn't think of. Dude, you should start a marriage podcast. Hold on. The key to a good marriage is patience and listen. Yes. And I know you've got it all figured out, but maybe she's got an idea too. Dude, you're a genius. This guy has got it. Wow. So you've done this stuff. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is?

Well, we definitely like, we know everyone says budget. And it is. It's huge. It's huge to work on that budget and do the zero-based and figure out where your money is going is just, yeah, it's the best part. So yeah, for us, that was the biggest thing. And, like, say no. And just keep listening to the Ramsey Show and keep listening to other people

as they pay off and, like, fight through these things too. Have you had the moment yet when you've got your checks deposited and you don't have any payments? It's our money. Yeah, it's really crazy. It still doesn't feel that real, but we're a few months into the new year and we're like, oh, we can do what we want with this.

It's just all deposits and it's all, look at Greg, look at you smiling, man. It's a good feeling. That's the biggest text smile I've ever seen. That's fantastic. He's beaming. So how does it feel to be completely 100% debt-free and not owe anyone anything? It's awesome. Very good. Yes. So how does it feel to be completely 100% debt-free and not owe anyone anything?

It's awesome. Very good. Yes. It's incredible. We love it. It's hard not to love, John. Yeah. There's a lot to love there when you don't have any payments to make at the end of the month and you get to keep it.

Now you can go to Sandals like every month if you want to. Oh, sure. Yes. That sounds great. And your friends are going, hey, we can't. Sorry. We're broke. And gender reveal, little girl, little boy? It's a little boy Oh, sure. Yes. And your friends can go, hey, we can't. Sorry. We're broke. And gender reveal,

little girl, little boy? It's a little boy. Little boy? Yes. I'm just saying, John is a better name than George. Congratulations. Congratulations. Both are kind of lame, but you know, you can do better is all I'm saying. Well, guys, we're so proud of you. You guys are heroes, and you're going to inspire a lot of couples out there who didn't think

it was possible, who may be in the journey with you trying to pay off this house, and they heard Greg and Becky and they went, this is keeping us going. Yeah. So thank you for being here. Thanks for making the trip. We got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires. That's Dave's number one national bestselling book. That's the next chapter for you guys as you build wealth and give outrageously for the rest of your entire lives. And we also have a copy of Total Money Makeover. And I want you to give it to that person who was super negative and go, hey, just slip it over and say, I know this is going to be a coaster for a little while, but you'll get there.

And maybe next year you can come to Sandals with us. Boom. Boom. I like that. Well, let's get to the big moment here. It's Greg and Becky, Minneapolis, Minnesota area, $158,000 paid off, house and everything, in four years and nine months, making $85,000 up to $115,000. Count it down, guys.

Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Just like that, another couple gets set free. We love to hear it. This is The Ramsey Show. 888-825-5225. Find out for yourself why blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window covering.

You get free samples, free shipping, and with the promos, they run every month. You'll save even more. Use promo code RAMSEY to get the best deal. Today's question comes from Anthony in South Carolina. Our household income is $190,000, and our only debts are a $1,500 car loan and our mortgage. We have about one and a half months income in our emergency fund. I want to accelerate building this up and save cash for a new car to replace the 11-year-old family car. My wife thinks we need to find a better credit card that offers points and rewards and pay it off every month. A friend of hers pays

for all of their family vacations this way, and she thinks we are, quote, missing out on the benefits. Even if the math works, and this is true, the human behavior component is too big a factor to ignore, and I don't want to entertain this. How can I convince her that we will serve our finances better by avoiding this? We do well enough financially that we should be avoiding any new debt altogether and building wealth, not gaming credit card companies for vacations. A lot of wisdom here from Anthony. He gets it. I don't even know if there's a question here. Well, the question is, how do I convince my wife? She is not on board with this plan. So do you have, like you did an episode of this new show, do you have a, like a two or three bullet points

that you can pass along to a friend? When somebody asks me this, like they find out I work here and they're like, all right, bro, but seriously, like come on, bro. The thing I always go back to is I love Southwest.

I fly Southwest whenever I can. They are not my friend. They are not looking out for me. They are trying to run a business that makes a bunch of money. And so when they hand me something that they say is for free, I have to instinctively know it's not. This is costing somebody something, whether it's those who have struggled with behavior issues, and that's me. Whenever somebody gives me free points for this free, they're not doing that because they're altruistic, right?

That's always my default. There's going to come out in the wash somewhere, the cost here. So on the credit card rewards episode we did on the Fine Print, the podcast that you're talking about, I interviewed an ex-employee at Capital One. Okay. And she told me they run thousands and thousands of experiments on humans to figure out what's going to get them to spend more.

And so what they found is, hey, instead of it being cashback, we should make it points. Because then you go, I have 100,000 points. I'm winning. Oh, that's $100. Whoops. And oh, I can only use it on these certain dates and these certain flights, and I can only go to Boise in July. Right. And so there's all kinds of stipulations with points.

Shout out to Boise. Love you guys. Big fan. But there's always going to be a trap, and if you think you're winning, that's what they want you to think. Yeah. They want you to think, man, I'm really sticking it to them. I'm making so much money off of American Express and Discover Card.

What I found is you are the best cash back program that exists. When you do a budget, when you get out of debt and you stay out of debt, you can fund your own trips without having to hope that you have enough points and that you did the offer at the right time and that you spent enough money to hit the reward incentive program. Goodness, that's exhausting. What a tiring way to live to keep up like that. So one thing I would tell you, Anthony,

listen together to that episode of The Fine Print on credit card rewards, and we equated it to Chuck up like that. So one thing I would tell you, Anthony, listen together to that episode of The Fine Print on credit card rewards. And we equated it to Chuck E. Cheese. You go in with $10, you get some coins, you have some fun playing the games, you get 45 tickets, and you think, man, we really crushed it. And then you go and you get a sticky hand because that's all you can afford. And that sticky hand costs you $10. You can't afford the boom box up on the top shelf. That's $7,000 to earn enough tickets to get the boom box. And so you're not going to win from this. And like you're saying, John, it does come down to behavior.

It comes down to who is benefiting from this and who is the one paying for these rewards. Is it the single mom who can't afford to pay her credit card bill? So she's stuck with interest and fees that funded my vacation? Maybe. Is it a broken system and a toxic money culture and company that's funding this? I don't want that either. That's the part that got me is ultimately when I lived with a credit card that had points, I was super diligent, right? I was paranoid about getting back into debt. So I was super diligent. This is before I came here. And when it occurred to me, oh,

if they're not making money specifically off me, it's somebody on the margins who has been sucked into this deal to try to make rent, to try to feed their kids. And they're funding my quote-unquote free vacation. And I couldn't sleep with that. I want out

of that game completely. I want all hooks out of that system. I don't want to contribute to somebody else hurting. Dude, I'm just going to pay for my own vacations, man. Well, and here's the hilarious part. They make $190,000. If you can't save up for a $10,000 car, you suck at money management. There's some serious issues in your life.

You can never out-earn your stupidity at that point. Right. If you have a $1,500 car loan, pay it off yesterday. With the emergency fund, you guys are doing things out of order here. I think if you did a $1,500 car loan, pay it off yesterday. With the emergency fund, you guys are doing things out of order here. I think if you did it in order, you'd feel the progress,

you'd feel the momentum, and then you go, all right, the car loan's paid off, let's rebuild this emergency fund, we have financial peace, we have a foundation, now the world's our oyster.

We can save up and pay for that vacation. We can get the new car three months from now, but we need some delayed gratification. One month from now with $190,000, right?

You can do that real, real quick. It's a great question, though. It's hard to get spouses to come together and agree on something like this. So that's why Financial Peace University is so powerful. It gives us common language, shared goals, and we go, all right, it's not just me against you now. It's, oh, millions of people have done it this way,

and that works. Maybe let's listen to that. So I had a guy named Dr. Lane Norton on my show the other day talking about exercise, and he's one of the best in the world when it comes to nutrition and exercise. Ultimately, he passed along the same wisdom that I've heard over and over, which is there's so many gadgets. There's so many late-night things. There's so many, what is it, Curtis Rays out in the world.

There's so many people selling you a hack to a thing. And it's like, what's the best workout I can do? The one you'll just do every day. The one you'll just be consistent with three times a week, five times a week, six times, whatever the thing is,

just be consistent. And if you can't show up and do five reps of 10, do three, right? Show up and keep showing up. And over time, you'll be fine. And that same principle works here.

I think we get so out of whack. What's the this and the that? Stop playing games. Just be consistent over time. Don't get in bed with some of these people that are hurting other people. Just make it consistent. Make it simple and just keep going. And that's money.

That's fitness. That's your mental health. That's relationships. That's conversations with your spouse. It's just the same principles. Be consistent and just show up and show up. All right. Let's go to Candice in Chicago, man. These kind of conversations get in my soul a little bit. What's up, Candice? Hi, how's it going, guys? Awesome. How are you? Thank you.

What's up? I'm doing fantastic. So I have a question on saving for college. I am 36 years old. I'm a single mom of three, and I graduate from nursing school with my associates next year. You're a rock star. Way to go. Thank you. And I'm super excited for it. So excited that I'm trying to plan now for my bachelor's because I absolutely do not want student loans. And if I were to save right now, I could get $10,000 to cash flow my bachelor's, but I also have $20,000 in debt that I need to pay. Should I do my debt snowball first,

or should I save for my bachelor's first? What's the urgency on the bachelor's? So if I were to start my bachelor's next year when I graduate, I would be done in a year, and then I would be able to move south, ideally, like I'd like to, with a higher chance of getting where I want to go. Okay. Well, I like the plan of you cash flowing school. That is your A1. So I'd rather you cash flow school and put pause on the debt snowball, and as soon as you graduate and we know there's no future debt in your life, let's attack this thing, and you're A1. So I'd rather you cash flow school and put pause on the debt snowball. And as soon as you graduate and we know there's no future debt in your life, let's attack this thing. And you're going to have a much higher income, right? That's correct. I'll almost double my income. Yeah. The last I checked the difference between an associates and nursing and bachelors,

that's a significant pay increase. Yeah, that too. I would go in as a new grant and I have a foot in already at the hospital that I work at now because I work as a CNA. So I have a foot in there either on the unit that I'm on or some connections that I have in the ICU. So I have a foot in already. That's fantastic. Let's invest in Candace right now and we'll get to the debt when we get to the debt. As soon as we graduate, we have that new income. You're going to crush that so fast. I can already tell you're just that kind of person, but let's focus on not going into more debt at this point. Okay. And then should I, so my job that I'm also at now has tuition reimbursement. Should I plan for any of that to go into my school funding also?

Absolutely. Or should I just kind of save that off? any of that to go into my school funding also? Absolutely. No, absolutely, man. Anytime you can find a business that will help you pay for your college tuition, take that for sure. For sure. You're a rock star, Candice. Hey, that's the first hour in the books here on The Ramsey Show. I'd like to thank George Campbell, the co-host, and all of the good friends of mine in the booth. Thank y'all so, so much. And America, we'll be right back on The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's John Deloney, co-host of The Ramsey Show.

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