The Ramsey Show - App - My Husband and I Don’t Trust Each Other With Money (Hour 3)

Episode Date: February 28, 2023

Ken Coleman & Kristina Ellis answer your questions and discuss:  "Is it worth going back to school?" The Supreme Court hearing arguments about student loan forgiveness, "My mom talked me into getting a car loan", "My husband and I don’t trust each other with money" Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Take our FREE 3 minute assessment: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving, and storage studio, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where we help you win in your life, specifically your money, your work, and your relationships. I'm Ken Coleman, and I'm joined by my colleague, Christina Ellis. We're here for you this hour, 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Let's get to the phones, shall we? Yami is joining us in Orlando, Florida. Yami, how can we help? Hi. Well, as you know, my name is Yami. Hi, everyone.

Basically, I went to school a little later in life, like maybe two years after I graduated. I had a really good paying job. I worked in a bank. But I had a passion to do ministry, and I'm a really good singer. So actually, my old youth pastor said, maybe you should go to school to become a worship pastor. So I decided to go. Yeah, I decided to go to SCU at an extension site where I was basically working full-time, doing schooling for time, but they were actually paying for most of my schooling up until COVID hit. And during COVID, since I wasn't able to work at the church full time, I was having to take out a loan. And mind you, I never ever wanted to take out a loan. That was

like my biggest fear. But during COVID, I absolutely had to or I wouldn't be able to pay for schooling. So what ended up happening was that I didn't really read the fine print, and I made a huge mistake, and it turns out that they had been placing those loans on my account, my student loans, as well as recently I just did my taxes and I owe like almost $700 because I was working part-time at a preschool and they were like a self-employed kind of deal. So now I owe money back. Anyway, all that to say, I have a passion for people and helping people. And and during COVID I was really depressed and I was able to get out of that depression so my my passions kind of shifted and I decided that I would love to be a therapist one day trying to figure out what's the smartest thing to do if I should wait before going back to school

to pay off these loans or if I should defer them going back to school to pay off these loans, or if I should defer them, or I guess that's what it's called, and then just hop right into school, or if I should even get the degree at all, considering the state of the world and inflation. And yeah, I'm just kind of lost. And what I want to do is help people in my life. Sure. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you called today. And I think the very first thing is kind of just slowing down. I feel like there's a lot of kind of chaos in all of this, especially even with the way you got your last degree and the confusion with COVID and taking out the loan and not knowing what's going on and now wanting to shift and not really sure.

I think you're heading somewhere, but sometimes it's good to just go, okay, let's stop. Let's stop and be real strategic about this. And I think that's what you're doing with calling today. So, I'm glad you did that. So, with the degree that you got, what was the major? So, I majored in ministerial leadership. So, it wasn't necessarily a worship pastoring degree. It was more just about biblical studies and public speaking and leadership abilities and things like that. Plus, I got a minor in psychology, and it's accredited, so that's good. So what are you doing right now? What is your career at the

current moment? Right now, I'm working at a Bath and Body Works, and I'm trying to find a job that may be hopefully going to be able to pay for the master's degree if I decide to go that route. Okay, I feel like this conversation makes me think of what Ken and I talked about recently about grad school. I think a lot of people go to grad school when they feel confused. They feel like maybe their undergrad degree didn't lead exactly to the career that they wanted, or wasn't as easy when they when they graduated they're they're working in a job that they're not wanting to stay in they feel confused so they're like you know what if I go to grad school then I don't have to feel weird right now I can get an education and I know I'm heading to something and it just kind of like puts a

band-aid on it really I'm not saying grad school is not the right decision I'm not saying that it's not a good thing but it's not the right decision when you're trying to figure out when you're trying to find yourself and that's kind of where you're at right now i think your undergrad degree could possibly lead to a great job that you really love you say you love working with people and you want to help people there's a lot of jobs out there that you could get with a four-year degree that you have right now without having to go take on the commitment and the time and the effort of a grad degree. And I know, Ken, you probably have strong opinions on this. I want to dig in here because if I heard you correctly, there was a season where you were enjoying working in a church setting, a ministry setting, and you also loved to sing.

And so I'm just curious. I understand that you went through some tough stuff during the pandemic. And when you came out of that, this passion for being a counselor coming out of your own depression, I understand how that presented itself. So I don't want in any way to minimize that. So I want to make sure you hear what I'm asking. What changed about the music and the ministerial position? What changed other than maybe what you went through and then coming out of it? And I just wonder if you saw a path to where you could win financially, would that have changed your mind? Tell me what you're feeling when I ask you that. Well, I just, I started, well, my, the church that I interned at, it was a really like, it was a bigger church. And even then I,

I, I didn't really realize that that position exactly like being a maybe a worship pastor wasn't going to be like a full-time thing um or like something that i could make a decent amount of money doing um to survive i guess um not only that but um i just wasn't trained as well as i as i thought i would be like essentially i was placed where i I was needed because it was a big organization. All right, so for just the interest of time, this was not some burning desire to be in ministry long-term. This was something you just kind of fell into. Is that what I'm hearing?

Yes. All right, so I want to give it back to Christina on this, but I would just simply say if you feel absolutely called, and I'm going to give you my Get Clear Career Assessment to take. It's about an 18-minute assessment. I'm going to give it to you for free. I want to see if that purpose statement and your results line up with the therapy, and it'll be really clear. But if that is in fact what you really want to do and you know you have what it takes to do it, then let's delay getting into that graduate degree until you can afford it. Christina? Yeah, I'm with you on that, Ken. And I also think we should give her from paycheck to purpose,

because I think there's a lot of feeling of lack of purpose right now. You're feeling confused and frustrated that where you're working is not where you envisioned. And I think you can get to a much better job that's more in line with something you'd be excited about. And I think, too, you could work in a field that maybe you do eventually want to get a grad degree, but test the field first. And so if I'm in your shoes, I'm not going back to school yet. I'm taking some time. I'm taking the assessment. I'm reading Ken's book. And then I'm finding a job that's exciting to me right now in this moment, paying off my student loans, and then we can talk about grad school. That's right. It's going to be there, Christina. Her grad school

opportunity and her future will be there after she gets debt free. And that's what we want for you, Yami. So hang on the line. Appreciate where your heart is at. We're going to give you the Get Clear Assessment, which is like a compass. And then the book from Paycheck to Purpose is the guide to help you climb up the mountain. Hang on the line. Austin will get that for you. Thank you so much for calling. Don't move. More Ramsey Show coming right up. Hey, you guys, health insurance costs are only moving one way and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy.

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I feel like everybody's hiring, but we are definitely hiring. Here's a fact about Ramsey Solutions that we're very, very proud of. We've never laid anyone off. Now, we've had to fire some duds, but we don't lay people off. So that's nice. For the past 30 years, we've been doing what we preach. We run a cash-based business, which means we budget for everything. That includes salaries and comp for our team members. You deserve the right to work for somebody you can

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download the free resume guide, and use the template because our resume template does tend to get noticed. That's all I'm going to say. It's not good. There you go. All right, Christina, you got an update of sorts. We are standing by with bated breath to see what is going on with the loan forgiveness program in the Supreme Court. What do you got for us? Y'all, it started today, February 28th. It is the day that student loan forgiveness is going before the Supreme Court. So it feels like we have waited 83 years for anything to move on this.

You're going to wait 83 more years, in my humble opinion. We'll see. It is finally time for at least arguments to be heard and hopefully some decision to be made. And just in, an article was posted because it started this morning and the headline says, Supreme Court majority signals skepticism over Biden's student loan forgiveness plan. It's interesting. It says the conservative majority signaled deep skepticism Tuesday about Biden's plan to wipe out $400 billion in student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans, suggesting the president overstepped his powers under the law.

Really? Tell us your opinion, Ken. I'm just providing sound effects so far. During the course of more than three hours of closely watched arguments, the justices prodded the Biden administration for answers about why the student loan plan was different from other emergency policies the White House attempted to implement in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, but were struck down. In one series of troubling signs for the plan, the Chief Justice questioned a central premise of Biden's argument, that the president has the authority to cancel student loans without

explicit authority from Congress. He doesn't. It's getting spicy, y'all. Well, there's this thing called the Constitution that you didn't tune in to to hear about but if you'd ever like to know send me an email and i'll give you guys a crash course on this lovely document if you can't tell ken ken has an opinion oh but i'm being a really good boy right now i'm keeping it contained focused uh don't hold your breath is my point and by the way i've been saying this yeah on the record dave and when it first came out, we were very strong on this. It's not going to happen. And the number one reason why it's not going to happen is because if it was going to happen, the Biden administration would shut down the federal student loan program because they're continuing to give out loans.

So it doesn't smell right, look right. If you, and we've been saying, we've been saying from the beginning, keep paying off these loans. There's not interest occurring right now. This is the time to think about it. But if you've been waiting, this is the time where they're deliberating. And I hope you again can feel that wake up call that it's dicey. It's dicey. We don't know what's going to happen,

but it's not looking promising. We will keep you updated as things come about. It's not expected that a decision will be reached immediately. This could be a little time, but we'll keep you posted. I'm posting updates on my Instagram. We'll tell you updates here on the show.

Tell people your Instagram handle. At I am Christina Ellis. There you go. Christina with a K. So yeah, we'll keep you posted y'all. And I know there's a lot of people feeling anxiety about it, but hopefully that can come to rest soon. One way or another, we will have a decision. I'm trying to tell people, go ahead and forget it. You're not going to get your loans forgiven. Go ahead and start paying it off. Pay it

off. I don't mind being wrong. It's not going to happen though. All right, let's go to the phones. Casey joins us in Phoenix, Arizonazona casey how can we help hi guys hey so i recently made a decision that felt like i had to make my mom she has a way of making me feel like i'm doing something wrong unless it's not the way she's doing it. Ouch. She tells me to do it. Did you say you had to make this decision? I felt like I had to. You know, I'm working on that with myself. Because mom made her feel it.

How old are you, Casey? Yeah. How old am I? How old am I? I'm 28. Casey. Just turned 28. Casey.

The 9th of February. Casey, you're a grown woman. And you know you're a grown woman. I know. Like, you have got to get to the point where you get over disappointing your mom, because based on what you said and the way you're acting, I believe you 100%. And I'm just going to say something that may hurt your feelings, but you need to hear it. Your mom is manipulating you.

You know, yeah, yeah. So stop. She doesn't get to do that anymore. She's going to love you even when you disappoint her because you've been a really good girl growing up, and you're a pretty great lady as an adult. True or false? Or she might not.

We don't know the mom, and boundaries are still healthy. Fair. You know what? That's a very good point. But I just don't think that – do you and your mom have a fairly healthy relationship outside of this kind of stuff? No, no. Oh. Not that. outside of this kind of stuff? No, no.

Oh. Not that. You know, one thing I wish is that my parents were more of financial awareness amongst us, too. And growing up, I'm suffering with that. I did everything the wrong way. So tell us this financial decision that you felt pressured into. Okay, well, I'll take it back to October. October, debt-free.

You know, I'm peaceful mind. I'm feeling good. I drive a clunker, but it's getting by. I have a credit card, though, because my mom says, you know, you got to start credit somehow to get a credit card. Okay, fine. But I'm going to be better with it. I don't want to be like mom and have all this credit debt.

So I pay it all off. I pay it currently. Today, after listening and, you know, trying to do my research, I don't need the credit card. So I canceled it today. Good. Zero balance. Yay. So I felt good about that.

I felt really good. We got to hurry up. Yay. So I felt good about that. I felt really good. We've got to hurry up because we've only got about two minutes with you. So how much, what's the car situation? November, lost my car. November, lost my clunker. I got a car loan. I have a car loan now. It's $13,000.

I don't feel good about it. Mom says I should have got a higher car. I should have got a better car. We don't care what mom says anymore on this issue. What's the car worth? So I have the car's 13K. I bought it for $12,000. I got the extended warranty for $29,000.

I put $4,000 down, so now it sits at $13,100. I haven't even had a first payment yet due to $25,000. What is the car worth? Could you sell it today? What could you sell it for? I don't know. I just got it. I literally just bought it from the dealership. So this is your only debt. This is your only debt, correct? This is my only debt. I have about 12 and a half in cash in the bank. I have 44 of my emergency

funds. I just lowered my 401k to 3%. Should I turn the 401k off and put everything to this car? Can I pay off this car tomorrow? I don't know what that'll do to the bank because I've never just signed a loan and then paid it off the next day. I'm going to let Christina answer because we've got about a minute left, so pay attention. She's going to walk you through this. You said you have $12,000 in the bank

and the loan is $13,000. Is that correct? I got her on hold because we're already running to break. It sounds like you have the cash. She's mentioned another $44,000. If you have? I got her on hold because we're already running to break. Yeah, it sounds like you have the cash. She's mentioned another $44,000. So it's like, if you have the cash right now, I want you to pay it off. Don't borrow from your 401k loan. I couldn't tell if she was trying to hint at that. She's saying, should I pause

401k contribution to pay it off? Normally, yes, but I think you can pay this completely off. By my math, it was $9,000 you owe. You got $12,000 plus another $4,000. Pay it off today. Pay it off today. Be debt-free. Go get yourself a cheap $3,000, $4,000 car. And we're going to gift you FPU. We want you to take it and stop listening to mom. This is your financial journey. Yes. Thank you so much, Casey, for the call. You got this. Don't move. More Ramsey Show coming up. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman,

joined by my colleague, Christina Ellis. We're here for you this hour, talking about your money, your work, and your relationships. 888-825-5225 is the number. 888-825-5225. Let's go to Charlotte, North Carolina now. Jessica joins us there. Jessica, how can we help? Hi. I am about $10,000 in debt. I just recently started working in September to try to begin paying this off as I've been a stay-at-home mom. Me and my husband recently received taxes.

We received about $8,000. He paid his credit cards off with that $8,000. And we have some left. And we have about $2,400. And he, well, we don't agree that I should pay what's left, the $2,400, on my card. He feels that it won't help and it won't put a dent into where I'm at. And so I don't really know what to do. I definitely feel this, and I'm not sure. Okay, so it feels like if I'm hearing you right, there's a lot of he and there's me, and I'm not hearing any we.

That feels like this is a big problem. Yeah, definitely. Well, I'm confused because you said I have $10,000 in debt, and then he paid off his $8,000. So you all have debt. Like if you have $10,000, it's y'all's $10,000 in debt. That's not how you guys are playing this out, correct? Right, correct. And he doesn't want you to take the remaining $2,400, if I heard you right, and put it on your credit card, which would knock it down from $10,000 to, what is the math on that?

$6,600? Yeah. So how do we get to this point? Like, how long have y'all been married? We've been married for 10 years. I think we've gotten to this point because I tend to be reckless with money and I have been. And at the same time, I have grown, just maybe not that much. I'm still trying, but I don't think, I think it comes down to him not

trusting me. Yeah, but wait a second. And I did my math wrong. It'd be $7,600 left if you put $2,400 on there. So why, he says that doesn't make a dent. That's a pretty good size dent. Yeah. And that would actually leave me with four cards and two of those cards i've already made payment plan arrangements with those credit card companies and um so why does what does he want you to do with that money i he wants to save it because he thinks it would be better for our family because we're hoping to buy a house soon because we are currently renting and we need to bring obviously what we're paying monthly and living costs down. How's your relationship outside of this issue? I would say we have a pretty good relationship. We definitely, finances is definitely the hardest

thing to talk about together. Jessica, I'm going to ask you a question. I want you to be really honest. Like take a, you know, take a second to self-reflect. You said that he doesn't trust you with money. Are you trustworthy at this point? At this point where I'm at? Yeah. Like once this debt is paid off, you're going to close all these cards. Yes. Like they're going to be gone forever and you're gonna close all these cards yeah like they're gonna be gone forever and you're never going back in debt no never like have you had that I've had a moment because we we've seen this over and over again where people freak out for a second they pay off their debt and then they're back in it a year later yeah no I definitely feel like I've been

here for a while that's why I got a job in September. So that is why I haven't been able to catch up because I'm so behind that minimum payments are $60 plus on nine cards. Well, and that's the thing is like you feel the heat now, but we want to make sure even once you're caught up on payments, when you're not just like feeling this heat that this continues as a lifestyle. So have y'all taken Financial Peace University yet? No. Okay, that's step one. And we'll gift it to you. Hang on the line after the call.

Austin will get it to you. And that'll be our gift to you guys. Now, I want y'all to go through. And if you can find a local community, so we have Financial Peace University happening all over the country. And I want you all to go in person and go to this class and walk it out every week. At some point, you're going to have to literally cut up your credit cards and be done with

them. And I want you all to just get on the same page because I think you're at that spot where you're ready. But this is this is pretty deep. And I mean, he is probably it's like I feel for both. I feel, you know, you're on the call and you're wanting to move forward. But he also has legitimate reasons for being a little bit nervous about this. But the thing that I'm most concerned about is there's no unity on this.

And this is really troubling. I mean, finances are the number one cause of divorce. And you guys are playing with fire. And I'm curious, do you have separate bank accounts as well? We do now, yes. Okay, what do you mean now? We didn't before. Before what?

Before I got a job, I apologize. So you've done stuff with money where he supposedly doesn't trust you, and then you go out and get a job to try to deal with some of the mess that you've made, and that's when he says, let's get separate accounts? Yeah, he ended up getting his direct deposit shifted somewhere else to make sure that I wouldn't use it. Was that during the phase where debt was racking up? Yeah, because, yeah. Okay, so you guys got to go see a marital counselor yes i'm dead serious because i don't want to unpack all this for the audience because quite frankly it doesn't matter

we don't need to get down deep right but you broke trust or or well you know what i think you broke trust but i think he also used that. I could be wrong, but both of you are wounded and acting wounded. While you broke trust, the right response was not for him to go create a separate account, and now you guys have these two separate things. That's not the right response. I want to address that. Go see a professional marital counselor, and let's get to the bottom of this because if he wants to get healthy and you guys are healthy in every other area of your marriage, then he's going to willingly do this and you can rewind this and he can watch

this on YouTube. But I'll just tell you, bro, yes, she may have wounded you and you lost trust, but it's not okay for you to now all of a sudden create more separation. Two wrongs don't make a right. And I'd get some marital counseling, and I'd shove all those accounts together. I would also tell you to call these people today when you get off this phone call and close the cards. Okay. Literally close the accounts. You don't have to pay them off to close them. Close them.

Cut the credit cards up. You're never going back to this again. You've got to fight for your marriage. You've got to fight for back to this again. You've got to fight for your marriage. You've got to fight for your husband's heart. You've got to fight for unity on this. Do you understand what I'm saying? I don't want to sugarcoat this. I'm not getting all worked up for no reason.

This is serious, serious stuff. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, and if this stuff isn't okay, your marriage isn't okay. Even just with Ken asking the question of how is your marriage outside, it's not okay if stuff isn't okay your marriage isn't okay like even just with ken asking the question of like how is your marriage outside like it's not okay if this isn't okay because this is just like a symptom there's distrust there's all of these different things going on and i'm right there with you you need a counselor and i think in this process like you're

both gonna have to really be humble like i think you both have your fists up and you guys you're defensive and you're cautious and you're distrusting. And it's like this for this to win for you all to win with your money. Like, it's going to take humility with both of you. You both are going to go, oh, we've both done things wrong. Like, we're both wrong. We both have made mistakes. We both have been distrusting.

And let's forgive what's happened. Obviously, work through it with a counselor. But at some point, you will have to reach a spot where you say, I forgive you and he forgives you. And then you go, let's start from here. Like all, all the shame, all the guilt, all the bad things that have happened in our past, that's behind us. And now we're going to build, like we're going to build strong and we're going to build fresh and we're not going to hold all that stuff against each other. Yeah. Jessica, hang on the line. We're going to get you into Financial Peace University as our gift. And let's commit. Let's do whatever it takes for the two of you to go

through this. Let's also get to some marital counseling. This stuff is all stuff that you can overcome. I don't want the seriousness of my tone to convey that it is not something you can overcome, but it is very serious that we overcome it. And there are many, many people who can help you all, certainly in the Charlotte area. Let's get you in an FPU class. Let's also get some counseling all at the same time. I would treat this as trauma because it is. So thank you for the call. Hang on. We'll take good care of you. Folks, the numbers don't lie. When you aren't on the same page with your spouse on money, it creates a tremendous rift in your relationships and it is the cause of many,

many of the divorce. So don't just treat this as mine and yours. It's ours. Don't move. More of your calls coming right up. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by my colleague, Christina Ellis. Today's Scripture of the Day, Proverbs 21.3. To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. Our quote today, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the time is always right to do what is right. The man had a way with words and pathos that I just don't know if we'll ever see again.

I believe he could have read the phone book and gave people goosebumps. You know, just a phenomenal, phenomenal communicator. Great stuff there. All right, let a phenomenal, phenomenal communicator. Great stuff there. All right, let's get back to the phones. Dawson is joining us now in Lansing, Michigan. Dawson, how can we help? Yeah, so I'm a high school senior, and I'm kind of looking to go into college next year, debt-free. And my question is, I've been applying for several scholarships for school. And so my question was, so my faith is a big part of my life. And I was just wondering, like, how open I should be about it, like, when I write, like, scholarship essay.

Yeah. Do you have an example of, like, a question that you were considering answering with a faith-based answer? So, yeah. So there was one question that said, like, describe a period of, like, personal growth in your life. And at a young life camp, I really experienced kind of a turning point in my life and started to take my Christian faith more seriously. So, I was wondering, like, kind of, could I talk about that as, like, the answer? Well, there's... Talk about, like, war and death or be vague about it? Yeah, that's such a good. Well, there's... Talk about like more in depth or be vague about it. Yeah, that's such a good question. And there's not really a right or wrong answer

because, I mean, a scholarship application in those essays, they're trying to find out who you are. It's about writing about your personal story and what's important to you. So if that was a big part of your life and that is the experience you want to talk about, then I would say talk about it. Now, the bigger question on should you talk about faith in a scholarship application just in general?

I mean, we're in a tricky place in the world right now where there's just so many different opinions about religion and political issues and all these different things. I would say, and this may be, I'm scared I'm going to get in trouble. Like, don't write just to try to preach at the judge. Like, if you're like, man, I'm going to try to write through my scholarship application to try to make some point. One of the things I've talked about in one of my books is there's a lot of political things that you could get into in scholarship applications. There's a lot of religious things. There's a lot of gender things and culture things and all these different things. And, you know, I do talk about being mindful of your audience and you know just being smart like if

there is a political issue that you feel passionate about i wouldn't say that a scholarship application is your place to try to make some sort of political point but if your religious experience was a huge part of your life journey and you going to this experience transformed you then i wouldn't hide it i would just go ahead and write about it okay yeah yeah any other kind yeah for sure um and would you have any other like kind of tips or advice like my time my scholarship essays yeah does she does she all right so where do i start i should order the book good oh good my time for my scholarship essays. Yeah. Does she? Does she? I'm like, where do I start? I actually ordered you a book.

Good. Oh, good. So, Chris, how much money did you, I want people to hear this, and you would never just say it, so tell people, you did all this research, applied, you wrote, wrote, wrote, wrote, wrote until your fingers bled. How much money did you get? I won over a half a million dollars in scholarships. Half a million dollars in scholarships. And man, I could talk about this literally all day.

It gets me so excited. He's ready. Give him a couple things. What does Dawson need to do right now? Yeah, well, you're already motivated. You're calling here, getting tips on it. Treat it like a part-time job. Set a goal. It's easy for people to get really stoked about scholarships on a weekend and then apply for a bunch of scholarships and then get burned out and then not apply after that. So I want you to set a goal over six months. Like even if it's just you apply for four a week, you know, over six months, that's going to be a ton of scholarships, like over 100 scholarships. So it's like, you know, set a goal where you can carry it out over time. And with essays specifically. So I feel like essays essays that's an area where a lot

of people just kind of either get freaked out or like stops them because a lot of people don't want to write essays forgive me I'm gonna I really don't know this is gonna be great for other people yeah so is this where you're applying maybe to a foundation or to some private entity and they're saying send us an essay and then based on the merits or whatever in the essay, we'll decide whether or not we award you scholarship money? Yeah, it's part of the application. Yeah, so there are many factors we're looking at, and one part is essays. And one of the cool things that a lot of people don't realize when they sit down to do scholarship applications, let's say you're applying for 100 scholarships, the idea of writing 100 essays, that sounds overwhelming.

I just broke out into a cold sweat. I'm struggling right now. But you don't have to write 100 essays. So I typically recommend that students write, you know, between five and 10 essays. A lot of these applications are asking the same question or a similar question. So you write some around, you recycle them, basically. So you have your core essays, about seven core essays. And then each time you have a new application, you kind of go through your Rolodex of essays and say, OK, which essay is closely related to this question? And then you can reuse it on future applications.

So it's like once you filled out a few scholarship applications, the process gets easier. You can reuse those materials. How do you stand out? Well, one of the things that first came to mind too, just with like writing these different essays, especially if you're talking about your faith, get feedback, ask several people for feedback on these essays. So whenever I was applying for one of the most competitive scholarships that I won, I literally asked like seven people to look at my essays. I asked English teachers. I asked mentors. I wanted people to tell me, does this resonate with you? Does this move you? Because these scholarship

judges, I think it sounds like they're these big, fancy official people sitting on some untouchable hill, but they're real people. Like, you know, they're alumni from different scholarships. They're teachers. They're people who care about students. So it's like, if you can get your essay solid enough that it impacts your teacher, that it impacts your parents, your coaches, then it's like, that is going to be a really solid essay that has a higher likelihood of actually impacting the judges reading it. And that sounds like a lot of effort, but again, once you have those solid essays, those can be recycled for future applications. Oh, I like that. All right, Dawson, real quick.

Where are you wanting to go or do you have some ideas? What's the path? I'd love to just kind of hit this rock star, Christina, with a real-life scenario and see what she spits out to you. So what are you thinking? Yeah, so right now I'm planning on going to a small Christian college. So maybe there's one called Taylor University, one called North Greenville in South Carolina. Those are just two. What are you pursuing?

What do you think you want to pursue? Yeah, so right now mechanical engineering is probably my number one, and then maybe civil or chemical chemical kind of below that so like one thing is like i don't have a ton of like i guess experience aside from like math classes i've taken to kind of like apply for like stem i guess more stem scholarships yeah so but that's kind of like my passion is kind of like math and science a lot all right so christina i know i'm putting you on the spot but again this is like, you could wake up at three in the morning and spit out a couple of things based on what little bit

of information he gave you. Where is he looking? What type of things is he trying to look for? Are you a senior right now or a junior? I'm a senior. So it's kind of a little bit late. Yeah. You're in crunch time.

Have you applied to these colleges yet? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So I've gotten into most of them. And then I think I'll probably have to have like around $15,000 to $20,000 to pay for a full year. Okay. And with these STEM scholarships, are you seeing requirements that you have certain STEM experience or what's kind of holding you back from applying for these? So none of them like require that, but some of them kind of like ask like, okay, like what are STEM activities that you've been involved in in high school?

I would encourage you to dig deep and be creative, because a lot of times I've talked to people who think they don't have certain experiences. I talk a lot about how to build out your resume, and they're like, man, I don't have a lot to put on my resume. And I'm like, well, have you ever volunteered at your church? And they're like, yeah, I serve every Sunday. And I'm like, do you ever serve in your community? And they're like, yeah, I serve, I serve every Sunday. And I'm like, do you ever serve in your community? And they're like, yeah, I babysit for my neighbor all the time. And it's like, those are all things you can put in your scholarship resume. So I encourage you when thinking about STEM things, are there

any things that you have done that could at least show some glimmer of interest? And then also with these essays, consider talking about maybe something you want to do in the future in STEM. so if you don't have a ton to talk about looking back historically dream about the future like i would like to change the world this way i'm really passionate about impacting people this way oh i can give you something now finally all right so here it is young man here's what i want you to do i want you to take what christina just said and i as it relates to engineering and all that kind of world i want you to to in your, write about a problem that you want to solve. The people that that solution will impact. Share a narrative, a dream, a vision.

That will be huge because they want to give people a chance to change the world and say they had something to do with it. Hey, we've got to get out of here before we do. Christina Ellis, great hour. James Childs, our fearless captain behind the glass and the support crew. Thank you, guys. And you, America, thank you for listening. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Ken.

If you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey baby steps, go to RamseySolutions.com and click on the Get Started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation. Again, that's ramseysolutions.com and click get started.