The Ramsey Show - App - My Ex-Boyfriend Is Calling Me a Thief

Episode Date: May 3, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Dr. John Delony discuss: Should I cash flow law school or become a mortgage broker? What happens when you combine finances in a toxic relationship, How you should handle interest-free debt in the debt snowball. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the 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. Number one best-selling author, yeah! Ramsey personality Dr. John Deloney joins me this hour, this day, as my co-host. We're going to help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create absolutely amazing and real relationships. So this is the first time you've been back on the air with me anyway, since you officially made Own Your Past, Change Your Future a number one bestseller. Pretty cool, huh? It's very cool.

Very proud of you. Thank you, man. I appreciate all your help getting the thing out there. Very well done. And what that means is the not-so-complicated approach to relationships, mental health, and wellness is helping a lot, tens of thousands of people in the first week that it came out. And the sales have been astronomical.

Thank you guys out there, all of you. You're the ones actually that made it to number one. But the fact that you, Dr. John, had something to say that people need to hear, this idea of own your past and change your future and you know i kind of think that the subject matter is caught caught a wave of i'm hearing a lot of other stuff said the same the same stuff said different ways and coming from a lot of people right now yeah i think there's about 15 or 20 years of research and practice and people just so frustrated and there's been some constriction on you know by by these

national groups like we don't say this and we don't say that and i think people are starting to peel off and say enough's enough we got to do something different yeah well in terms of the uh psychological jargon and the nerd world but i'm more saying that you know coming out of covid coming out of uh you know and coming headlong into inflation, headlong into interest rates raising, gas prices are ridiculous, geopolitical climate's completely unstable. In the middle of all that, a lot of people are going, now, wait a minute. Yeah. You know, all this stuff I've been feeling, all these, I mean, the gears are,

the oil's out of the engine, the water gears are, the oil's out of the engine, the water, whatever, the water's out of the tank, whatever phrase you want to use, and I'm down to nothing. I'm empty. And so owning your past, owning what we've all just been through, is part of walking out of this, not just through it. That's right. And then deciding, what am I going to do next?

Yeah. And I've, and I think I'm hoping that we're reaching a tipping point or have already fallen over the edge of, I've got to stop going to this electronic box or this media system or this entertainment system to try to fill in those gaps, to try to numb myself through these days. I need to go back to doing things like moving my body and being around people that i love and laughing and going bowling again for god's sake doing some things together right if you're living on the news channels you are perpetually afraid or perpetually

angry or both you're choosing misery that's i mean it's a i'm choosing to be more miserable the same thing is true when i you know the only relationships i have are on a smartphone in my hand and those aren't real relationships. And so I think people are waking up to that. I do think so. I think there's a relationship revolution. Facebook stock is down. Yeah.

People are waking up going, those aren't real friends. Yeah. Or they were at one time, and we shared some funny memories, but I've got to live in my neighborhood today, right now. Yeah. It turns out the guy I knew in high school, I like him. He's fine, but he's not my best friend anymore. Don't really care about his dog. That's right.

I don't. And we threw the gauntlet down for Dallas. Dallas showed up, man. Yeah, they did. And here's the thing. Both in Phoenix and in Dallas, we got together for book signings and talking. I was at places as varied

as I spoke at the University of North Texas Health Science Center to their medical, to the faculty and administrators and students of the medical school.

Then I spoke to U-Haul and I spoke to a group of people who run a coffee company, Dutch Bros. Everybody in between, everybody's wrestling with the same stuff.

Yep. And it's time for collectively to say, you know what? I'm putting all the nuts. I'm turning the off buttons off, and we're going to get together. Yep. We're just going to get together. The energy in the room was not far exceeded how good this book is. Let me say that.

There was people ready to get back together. They're going to burn it down, whether it's a mosh pit or it's a Barnes & Noble. They're getting together, and I'm just excited to be out here in this moment. It's the truth. It's the truth. The book is Own Your Past, Change Your Future. The phone number here, 888-825-5225. Brittany starts this hour in Canada. Hi, Brittany. How are you?

Hello, Dave. Hello, Dr. John. I'm feeling great today. How are you? Better than we deserve. What's up? I'm glad to hear it. Well, I just found out last night that I got into law school. Wow. So, yep, I'm very excited. I've worked so hard for this and, you know, put myself through university while being a single mother, and I'm working full-time to save up to cash flow law school. However, prior to learning of my acceptance just last night, I was throwing around the idea of taking the mortgage broker training, which only costs $500 versus the law school tuition at 20K per year. And I'm starting to, now that I'm excited, but I'm feeling a little

bit nervous because it is such a huge financial commitment. And I just kind of wanted to walk through that with you and get some insight. I have worked with, I mean, I was the Dean of Students at a law school, so I've got an insider view of that. I don't know a lot about mortgage brokers. I can let Dave speak to that. What I would tell you is if you have the opportunity to cashflow law school and be a licensed attorney, and that's something that you have passion and interest in, whether it's, you want to help people navigate complex contract issues. You want to help innocent people get out of jail.

Um, you want to be like protected, whatever the reason is, man, there is, there's few investments, more powerful. There's few positions more powerful than being a licensed attorney. You can help people in ways that guys like me can't. The other side of that is people go to law school because they want prestige. They want to be rich. And the data is showing us that that's not the case for the vast majority of attorneys. They're getting out.

And they're getting out with a ton of debt. And they're making $65,000 to $85, bucks a year here in the US. And it's just a slog. It's a hard, hard job. And so I think you have to ask yourself, why would I want to do that? If you had the money and you said, I really want to be an attorney, I would high five you all the way. Dave, I don't know about mortgage brokers. As an outsider, the last industry I want to get into when I'm looking down the barrel of the next 24, 36 months is dealing with finance, any kind of trading or any of that kind of stuff. But I may be off there. Yeah, I talked to a guy yesterday in Phoenix that the mortgage broker he worked for laid off 100 of them Thursday.

Because with interest rates ticking up, the refis have slowed way down. And a lot of their business was based on refis more so than purchases. And purchases have slowed down because there's no inventory. So regardless of that, mortgage brokering is a valid long-term career plan. It might be a hard six months or something coming up, but it's a valid long-term career plan if that's what you want to do. But that isn't what I'm concerned about, just in the way you told the story. I've always dreamed of.

I was so excited when I finally, everything was perfect when I got law school. Oh, wait a minute, there's a mortgage broker over there. Squirrel. Squirrel. And you kind of sound like a dog chasing a car, and you caught it and didn't know what to do. Yeah. I think it scared you a little bit that now you've got to live this dream that you've been working hard a little bit. And I think you throw your shoulders back and have some courage and go be a lawyer.

Yeah. That's just Papa Dave talking. That's not necessarily career advice. I was just listening to the way you talked it through. That's all. This is the Ramsey Show. You've got a lot on your plate. A job, your home, your marriage, and your growing family.

While you're enjoying the present, you can't help home, your marriage, and your growing family. While you're enjoying the present, you can't help but think about your future and your finances. As you explore your options, consider Christian Healthcare Ministries, or CHM, for your health care. Their generous maternity program and budget-friendly monthly programs have been a blessing to members welcoming children into their families. Visit chministries.org slash budget to see if it's right for you. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a Ramsey Trusted Provider. Number one bestselling author and Ramsey personality, Dr. John Deloney, is my co-host today. Well, it's event week, you guys.

Hey, Las Vegas, I hope you're ready because we're going to be seeing you guys for a Building Wealth live event in just two days. We will be there this Thursday evening. Dr. John Deloney, Ken Coleman, Rachel Cruz, George Camo, and I. If you haven't reserved your seats yet, what are you waiting for? Come see us. It's going to be an action-packed night. We're going to walk you through the crazy stuff going on out there in the world of money, teach you how to build real wealth,

and we're going to have a good discussion with all the Ramsey personalities about what's going on out here in the society in general. This culture is something that we all have to learn to walk around in right now without losing our principles and also not losing our freaking minds in the process. So again, Rachel Cruz, George Camel, Dr. John Deloney, Ken Coleman, hosting a free bonus session about work and relationships before the event. You don't want to miss that. Vegas, there are some seats left. We still can see you on Thursday. Orlando, same situation. Orlando is very close to being sold out.

It's in two weeks, and we're coming to see you very, very quickly. And then in the fall, we have launched the Building Wealth Series in Sacramento, Minneapolis, and San Antonio in November, 1, 10, and 15, respectively. Tickets are $25 for any of these Building Wealth events. A four-pack is $60. So get a couple of your friends. Come. It's less than the cost of a pizza.

So it's going to be a lot of fun. You'll learn stuff. You'll come away inspired, informed. You'll have new information you didn't have before. And you'll go home thinking, you know what? I can do this. RamseySolutions.com slash events to get your tickets right now. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com.

Find out for yourself why Blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings, free samples, free shipping. With the new promos they run all the time, you save even more. The promo code is Ramsey. Today's question comes from marissa in new mexico marissa writes i introduced the baby steps to my ex-boyfriend we were in an emotionally unhealthy relationship but decided to live together we opened a joint emergency fund account and a joint checking account to pay our bills and we both brought ten thousand dollars to the

emergency fund. He had no debt, but I owed 4,800 bucks when we opened the checking account. So we paid that off. We broke up last week and now he wants the money back. He's calling me a thief, a scammer, and is threatening to post on social that I used all his money. I'm afraid he will make me lose my job or go to my daughter's school to post signs saying I'm a thief. I want to do the right thing, but it seems like since we paid the debt

and we decided to join our incomes, I do not owe him anything even if we broke up two weeks after. What is your advice? So sometimes, Dave, people get tied up in these relationships and it gets real close and someone's telling me a story and I'll stop them and say, hey, that's harassment or that's abuse. And you watch the light bulb go on and they go,

oh, I didn't, oh, right. And so I think there's something to be said. We can have a conversation about money. But if you are afraid that somebody is going to make you lose your job, if you're afraid that someone's going to go to your kid's school and harass them, embarrass you, then you need to call the authorities and get people involved in this conversation

because this is bigger than you. This is different than just a bad breakup. This is somebody who you're afraid is going to actively try to seek to destroy your life. So there's my little discussion on that, Dave. All right, so help me with this question, Dave. What do you think? Well, I grew up in a neighborhood where the first thing we learned was what you do with a bully is you hit them in the nose. You don't give them more power.

Right. You take their power away immediately. so that's my uh redneck reaction it's your new book that's my redneck reaction that's it just pop them in the nose and then then then they can stop and think about their mouth okay um but the of course we're not literally physically recommending that these days. But, yeah, that happened in a different generation. But it does set the DNA of something like this. So, consequently, I still, to this day, I don't do a good job. I don't always use good wisdom when I'm dealing with a bully. Because my first reaction is just, game on, you know. And that's not always the best reaction. So that's what we're dealing with here. This guy with a bully because my first reaction is just game on you know uh and that's not always the best reaction yeah so that's what we're dealing with here this guy's a bully that's right

and um so I don't want you to pay the 4800 even if I thought you owed it right now because your reason for doing it is fear and that is not the right reason to do it if you want to pay the 4800 your reason for doing it needs to be on principle that you feel like, yeah, I owe him that money. I owe him that money because the way this deal went down, it's not right, and I should do it. And I kind of think that's true. I kind of think you do owe him the money.

But I don't want you to do it until your heart rate changes and drops down because right now your heart's beating a thousand miles a minute because you're scared of somebody yeah right and and that's and he thinks and i actually don't want him to think he got the money because of that either because he because he he bowed up on you yeah and it's like yeah he's gonna he's gonna threaten you and so because then what's he gonna threaten you for next time that's's right. You know, and so, but, and so, and the other part of this is the, and you can speak to this better than I can, but the, we were in an emotionally unhealthy relationship, but we moved in together anyway. Which, you know what that tells me?

It tells me you're going to go back. Yeah, or you're going to find another emotionally unhealthy relationship're going to go back you're going to go back to this guy if you're not careful and so what i want for you is for him to never see you speak to you or have any voices in your head ever again correct when this is done right uh and the next time you see an unhealthy relationship i want you to go no wait i'm a princess i'm valuable and i'm i'm so valuable that i don't need to be entering into an unhealthy relationship translation i don't need to sleep with a bully right and so here's a couple things you can do you can go to your boss ahead of time and say hey um here's a good example this actually happened dave a year ago um something back from my past came up and i

called i emailed you right away and said hey just so you know everything's clear here this came up and i i preemptively got ahead of this thing right i came and told you it ended up being nothing ended up not being a thing but i'd go to my boss and say hey i've got an out of control somebody ex-boyfriend who's gonna post a bunch of nonsense and i don't know if he's gonna see you or not but just in case he did just know you just need to know this guy's a bozo and He'll come in looking like a clown and you'll know he's a clown. Same at the school. Hey, if this guy comes around,

call 911, get him off your property. Get the security guys out here and remove him. Just be on guard. Also, I've already let the authorities know and I'm filing for a restraining order. That's right. Once you've done all that, then don't go back! And don't find another

one to replace him okay so you know what do you anytime i do something stupid i try to figure out what it was so i don't do it again if i'm gonna do stupid stuff it needs to be new stupid stuff okay that's your next book new stupid stuff by david we got a lot of books coming out today okay bestsellers everywhere redneck reaction and yeah new stupid stuff stupid stuff but the uh um but you know the thing is that i i i think there's a tremendous statistical probability that she cycles back if she doesn't break the mold on this that's right and it feels like uh marissa you're trying to soft land this thing. Yeah. And you want to keep this guy in the relationship.

You want to figure out how to keep your money but not have to do it. It's all about you're terrified. I want you to stone cold this guy and give him the money back. Block him on everything. Okay, so let's get into that. They got together. Well, they shouldn't have done any of this. None of it. Yeah, I read.

I introduced him to your baby steps. I want to say, no, you didn't. You're like a weird part of the baby steps. they got together well they shouldn't have done any of this none of it yeah i read um i introduced them to your baby steps i want to say no you didn't you like a weird part of the baby steps well you made up your own plan where we can live together in an unhealthy relationship and then combine our money when we're not married that we have never told anybody anything except never do that because of this because of this right here this moment this is what happens when you shack up with people you aren't married to and you play house because you want to wear the shoes for a week before you actually buy them. So I've got no debt. I owe $4,800.

They paid it off. He paid it off. Technically. I think they both put $10,000 in there. So there's $20,000 in there. And then they paid off $4,800 out of that. Sounds like. Maybe she splits it.

He needs to get his $10,000 back back total and it's probably down by something walk away yeah and then but kiddo love yourself enough put the stiff arm on the bozo permanently block him on everything and anybody that even smells like him ever again oh wait a minute wait a minute that i smell bozo no walk away Thank you. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage. Mike and Kat are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Good, how are you? Good. Welcome. Where do you guys live? are you? Good, how are you? Good.

Welcome. Where do you guys live? Cape Cod. It's complicated at the moment. Okay, Cape Cod, I'm going with it. Run with it. I love it, I love it. Well, I got to visit there back in the fall for the first time in my life, and I absolutely loved it.

Beautiful area. It is. Absolutely a lot of fun. Well, welcome to Nashville, and you're here to do a debt-free scream how much have you paid off 206 000 how long did this take 31 months dad gum and your range of income during that time we went from uh 67 000 to 256 000 in two and a half years yes sir that's a story in and of itself. What do you guys do for a living, and what in the world happened to your income? I went from delivering beer to driving entertainment personnel. Put it that way.

Okay. All right. And I went from trying to run a small business just out of college, doing about $17,000 a year, to realizing I was terrible at it, and throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and going back to the drawing board, and I'm now a project manager. Oh, very good. Very good. Okay.

Wow. So both of you maximized your careers during this period of time, obviously. Changed directions, went a lot of different stuff. So it sounds like you do a little bit of personal security as well, Mike. Yes. Okay. All right, perfect. Good for you.

What kind of debt was the $206,000? you name it we had credit cards we had legal fees we had irs debt we had we i did a lot between the two of us um that was i would say literally everything y'all were kind of normal oh we were normal yes normal Yes. Normal, like a mess. Yeah, like a hot mess. I didn't even realize it. How long have you been married? Oh, a little while now. We haven't had the ceremony yet during all this process.

So, to me, not yet, because I want that big party eventually. Okay. All right. Cool. I've got the paper. The paper and the kids. We're working on the celebrating part. Ah, okay. All right. So, we have to circle back on that. Yes. Okay. All right, cool. I've got the paper. The paper and the kids. We're working on the celebrating part. Ah, okay.

All right, so we have to circle back on that. Yes, sir. All right. What got all this started 31 months ago where you say, this Ramsey stuff, this hillbilly down south, we've got to check this out. I'm going to blame it on her. Good, good. I like blaming it on her.

We did about 10 months of it prior. I had a book from my ex-fiance's father called Total Money Makeover hanging out on my shelf. And I had tried to get a mortgage doing all the paperwork and realized we were not going to do well. And I finally sat down and read said book. And in the book was $1,000 for Baby Step 1 as I finally read what had been on my shelf for five years. So that was the beginning of the end and realizing like

I needed to get him on board and what we could do to get there and that we needed a bigger shovel. So Mike, she walks in with all these ideas.

What'd you say? Lily looked and was like, this is impossible. Absolutely not. And then I kind of, I cash flowed a lawyer and was like, oh, I can actually do this. This is the first time of, I cash flowed a lawyer and was like, oh, I can actually do this.

This is the first time I've ever cash flowed a lawyer. I've always had to pay for it out of get a loan from my mother or get a loan from somebody else, like a friend. And that was pretty much when I cash flowed,

I was like, I can actually do this? Oh my God, I can do this. All right. So then it started going, let's do this, let's do this. And having her pretty much be the nerd of the whole thing, I'm the free spirit.

I want to, let's go here, let's go travel. I want to go places. And she was just like, no, we have to hammer down and buckle down. So that's pretty much it. That's when I started jumping on and drinking the Kool-Aid. So when you saw it working, you're like, got to do it.

Yeah. Every emergency we cash flowed got him a little bit more through the door. It sounds like y'all have been living emergency to emergency for the last however many years. What was it like finally? I mean, y'all went from getting by to making stupid money. What's it like really crossing that financial threshold, but then all of a sudden you've got her saying, hey, we've got to keep grinding, got to keep grinding?

That's got to be hard, right? It's so hard. But it's like to look at it half and half and be like, we're going to be debt-free. We're going to live. We can go wherever we want. Once we're debt-free, we can go wherever we want. Once we're debt free, we can go wherever we want. We can do whatever we want once we're debt free.

Giving up the Jeep for him, I think, was the hardest part. Oh, you sold his Jeep. Yes. And we sold it under $3,000. We still had to pay off $3,000 when we sold it to get it from under that payment. How much did it sell for? It went for about $22,000. It was pretty all the crazy. So it went for about $22,000 and we still owed $27,000 on it how much how much did it sell for uh it went for about 22 it was pretty all the crazy

um so it went for about 22 and we we still owed 27 on it so it was rough okay but it's gone and now we get on to the next thing and on to the next thing and on to the next thing and but i i think john was recognizing something that i saw too in the way you all were talking about this you went from a place where most of your life money had happened to you, and now you start happening to it. Money's not, yes. You kind of went over the edge, and you went, now we're in control by God. Yes. This stuff's not going to boss me around.

I'm going to boss it around. Exactly, sir. I was in a place in my life when this all started where I was literally paying $45 on a credit card to get it down from that maximum to buy groceries or put gas in the car and then it would max back out and then I'd pay the next one off because that was the one that was due that month. It was not paycheck to paycheck.

It was credit card payment to credit card payment. Just hide the P. Yes, exactly. Hide the P under a shell. What is it, for two folks who have never experienced this, explain in your own words what does it feel like

on the other side of this thing? Like you're completely free. Now that you're free. I'm weightless. Yeah. I literally have no stress on my shoulders. I'm like, whatever.

Like, oh, I can go here. We came to Nashville. Like, oh, let's go to Nashville. Like, okay, let's go. No problem. Whereas I'm confused and stressed out and trying to figure out

what to do now that I have managed to accomplish all the little bullet points in my list and it's amazing but it's like all of a sudden looking at baby step three and it happened so quickly and now we're into 3b trying to save for a house and it's just kind of a what's next it's wild yeah you're you're you've done amazing incredible because here's what happened um you didn't just get your money straight you transformed the way you look at it the way you think about it there's a heart transformation that occurred just looking at the two of you can see it on your face you can see in your body language

it's impressive you guys are heroes you did some really hard work is what i'm saying thank you this is i can see it i mean some people are just like oh we're gonna do this but you guys went from ah to we're in control. That's right. And that's from, I'm going to keep running this business no matter what, no matter what, no matter what, to I've got to look in the mirror and say, what's reality here? And I've got to do something different. Project manager. Come on.

Hey, I don't know how you figured out making more money delivering people than beer, but congratulations on that one. Thank you. Well done. But now, hey, now you're in a place where... Now delivering people full of beer. Yeah, that's right. Very similar. But now you can decide if a job comes by and you're like, something in my gut says I'm going to pass,

you can pass. Exactly. Right? Totally. You can pass. That's freedom. That's freedom, man. I don't have to worry about sitting back and being like, oh, do I have to go to work today? I can now go, no, I'm going to pass that tour off or I'm going to pass that project off. Those aren't people I think I want to work with this week. Right.

And he was downplaying it because he went through three job changes trying to get there. He went from beer delivery to tours on the road and wanted to come back for family when we had that. Then attempted his dream at Firefighter. We did a lot of Ken Coleman listening to in this and realized he wanted the money and went back into entertainment. And so he really, really threw everything out and started over. Yes. Both of you did.

Yeah. That's powerful. It's incredible, guys. Woo! I love it. We got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for you. That is the next chapter in your story for sure. No doubt you are on track to do that.

And we'll give you another copy of Total Money Makeover. You can give it to someone to sit on their shelf, and five years from now, they'll pull it off at exactly the right time. Right. It is the world's best-selling coffee table coaster. It holds lots of coffee cups all over America until just the right moment when it opens up. So proud of you guys. Very, very, very well done. Good stuff.

And the kiddos' names and ages, I understand they're sitting off to the side. Yes, they are. We have Ryder, who's three, and Liliana, who is two months. Oh, fun. Very, very cool. All right, it's Mike and Kat with a complete transformation while they pay off $206,000 in 31 months, making from $67 to $256. Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! I love it. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. dr john deloney ramsey personality my co-host today open phones at 888-825-5225 warren buffett is quoted as saying he wouldn't take all the Bitcoin in the world for $25. That might be a bit of an indictment, folks.

I don't know. We've been telling you not to buy that stuff from day one. Well, Dave, anybody over the age of 58 is clearly out of touch and A dinosaur and doesn't know what they're doing. And even if you happen to be one of the richest men in the world, because of your financial... Acumen. Acumen. But aside from that... Idiot. Yeah, he's an idiot.

He doesn't know what he's doing. And the fact that Bitcoin's gone from, what, $50,000 to $32,000 in the last... It's happened in a rough few weeks. ...20 minutes. It's like when when you're on the back end of the largest uh bull run i don't know on the planet's history and people started creating imaginary things to sell it's awesome and then all of a sudden when gas is expensive and food is expensive imaginary things aren't so fun anymore oh the unicorn The unicorns come crashing down. It turns out the NFTs and the Bitcoins are imaginary.

So wild. Virtual means not really. Sort of, kind of. Almost. If I virtually send my wife flowers, she doesn't like it. I meant to, but they didn't quite get there. All right. Andrew is in Atlanta, Georgia.

Hi, Andrew. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, how are you guys doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? All right. So I have about $1,500 in credit card debt. I'm cutting it down.

I'm not using that credit card anymore. But my question is, I have $1,694 in interest-free credit card debt. It's interest-free for 33 more months. It's equipment for my music stuff. I'm a musician, and I do stuff like that. So I was just wondering, what should I take first? What should I do with that interest-free debt? Should I just pay the payments until it's done or just pay it off? Okay.

Well, so you have $1,600 in debt and you have how much other debt? That's the only debt I have. You only have $1,600 in debt. That's all your debt. That's in the interest-free, yeah. No, I'm saying period, period. Any kind of debt. You have student loan, car debt, other credit cards?

No student loans, no car debt, so I get a paid-off car. So total, with interest-free and one with interest, I have about $3,000 in debt. Okay. All right. And your household income is what? I make about $16,000 a year. Okay. uh i make about 1600 or 16 000 a year okay with that that's including music stuff and my part-time job as well and i'm a full-time student so oh okay there's that okay because i was getting ready to say your job sucks okay um a full-time job making 16k puts you at the poverty level so we don't want

to call that a career track okay uh so we need to so what are you going to do when are you getting out of school what's your plan i've got about two years left in school i'm still at home so i don't have any rent um i don't have i don't have a mortgage or anything like that after that um what are you studying graduating uh marketing good okay so i want to go into sales all right so you're a college student that lives at home with three thousand dollars in debt and how how is school paid for my father pays for that very nice okay are you running up are you buying music equipment are you playing shows on the weekend trying to make it or is it just a hobby no yeah i mean that was

that's the dream but i also want to back that plan because I don't want to, you know, go move up to Nashville and, you know, not make it and be stuck. I'd be stuck at that point. How do you get the next country music star's attention in Nashville? Waiter. Yeah. That's right. All right.

Okay. Okay. Number one, you got a good overall plan number two if you're making sixteen hundred dollars or seventeen thousand dollars a year you should pay this debt off with no way out of pocket expenses to mount anything very very quickly would you agree with me that you're going to be done with the entire amount of debt within three to six months? Is that doable? It is, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Okay. And so really, the interest rate doesn't matter because you're going to be done in three to six months. Now, what we teach to answer your question technically, Andrew, is to list your debts smallest to largest. And it sounds like they're about the same size. Regardless of interest rate, pay minimum payments on everything but your smallest debt. Attack the smallest debt first regardless of interest rate.

So the fact that it's a 0% interest does not impress me, does not change the order in which I pay it off. I would pay off the smallest one first regardless of the interest rate because I want you to have the emotional advantage of traction, seeing that you're starting to win, rather than living off of these credit cards, you're putting them under your heel and grinding them and being done with them. similar i mean if they're both sixteen seventeen hundred dollars each then then you got three thousand dollars total then you know just uh you can put whichever one you want first but be done with the whole thing in six months but let's just say you had 10 different debts and one of them was a thousand one of them was ten thousand uh but the the the one thousand was interest free would i still put it first yes i would because I want you to get the traction, the advantage of the psychological income of winning.

It's called hope, and it causes people to continue to move through this. And that's how we at Ramsey have gotten more people out of debt than probably any other organization on the planet, at least currently operating. And, Andrew, let me speak to you here. There is a Gibson Flying V electric guitar that I've been eyeballing for like six months. And I can afford it, but my wife and I have made some goals and some plans,

and so I'm holding off, I'm holding off, and now Instagram listens to me and they just send me these pictures of the guitar and another one and another one. You're going to have to not buy music equipment for a season. Just stop. You think you need a new thing for this and a new – You don't.

You don't need it. There's no end to it. It just will continue to consume you, and I'm in the middle of that myself. Any people that play music have an addictive problem for their instruments. Music people, car people, gun people, it just happens. So you've got to stop buying equipment. Say, i'm not going to buy another thing piece of gear for another year and then i'm going to get out of debt wait a minute if i need another gun that's different that's that's right that's right don't get leave the cars alone right leave my cars alone

yeah no no it's the same thing you get you get you get to where and the truth is there's almost nothing in america that we buy that qualifies as a need. Very few. Almost everything we buy qualifies as a want. Very few. I mean, we pretty much are all overfed and have too many clothes. And we pretty much all have a place to sleep. So food, shelter, clothing, transportation, we got it covered.

You know, I mean, it's not an issue. And so that's not the problem in america now there's nothing wrong with spending money on once but we just tell folks to be really careful and be emotionally mature enough to say that is a want right and once for sure you pay cash for and for sure they've got to go in line with your overall goals yep yeah yeah so one of the issues that rachel cruz talks about a lot and i do too as well we're talking about teaching kids about money is teaching them contentment to learn to sit in what you have and being good with it um and you know that how far you could go in the music business with the music equipment you already have is amazing.

Yep. And without ever buying another thing. It's amazing. And how, you feel, I will be comfortable when, I'll be satiated when I get that next thing. And, you know, that's the driving force of the most marketed to, advertised to culture in the history of mankind, in the history of the human race. And you live right square in the middle of it, and so do I.

We see 4,000 to 8,000 advertisements a day. of the human race and you live right square in the middle of it and so do i we see four to eight thousand advertisements a day there are advertisements in the bathroom for god's sakes on the front and the back of the door they're everywhere ridiculous yes you know and so you're not getting away from it and say what you have to learn is the spiritual and emotional, psychological discipline to say, No! No, I'm not doing it. It's a complete sentence. I'm not doing it.

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