The Ramsey Show - App - My Husband Hid $140,000 in Debt! (Hour 3)

Episode Date: February 3, 2020

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions Broadcasting, from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.

Kim is starting off this hour in Florida. Hi, Kim. How are you? Doing great. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? Well, let's see. I learned about nine months ago that my husband had acquired some debt I did not know about. I've always lived completely debt-free prior to us getting married, which I didn't get married until I was 36, and owned a house at the time and paid cash for my car brand new. Didn't know about you at that moment, but, um, so married and then, uh, you know, 14

years into the marriage, not sure what happened. He is a big follower of you and we've attended two of your live events. Um, I introduced him to you when we first started dating and he's even taught FPU before at our church in our last place where we were living. So I learned out of the blue that he had charged on a credit card about $50,000 and there were a couple of other credit cards as well that he eventually admitted to. And he had also taken withdrawals from his IRA in the amount of about $80,000. So needless to say, this is quite devastating to a marriage and to me.

So this is so inconsistent with everything else that you know about him, it tells us that there must be some extreme thing going on. Yes. Like he's leading a double life for some reason, which indicates an affair or an addiction or something like that. What's going on? Right. I asked him point blank, denies any sort of affair,

although me being the person that i am i ordered all the credit card statements um and looked at those and i can't there are things on there that would lead me to think and believe that that could have possibly gone on well there's something that's inconsistent i mean because he's leading a double life, agreed. I mean, he not only lied about this and hid it, it is an extreme amount. And it's not like he was, you know, this is a guy who taught Financial Peace University, claims to live one way, and is doing things that are absolutely perpendicular to that, which tells us there's some kind of extreme switch has flipped in his head, right? I would think. Now, I will tell you that

we had made a big move and he had gone through several job changes and had gone from making close to $200,000 a year to less than half of that. And in the midst of all of that, bought a house. And I kept saying, let's find out exactly what we want to pay for a mortgage and let's look at all our investments. And that was kind of ignored. And we, we bought the home and his jobs continue to change and not get better. Um, and so, and in the meanwhile, we were renovating some on this house. So he has led me to believe that this was all due to that and things were just behind and they got out of control and he couldn't share were you not involved enough in the budget to know where all the current money that he was making was going therefore knowing

it wasn't enough right because he took over all of the finances. Which is also inconsistent with everything else you told me about what he's been taught. Right. So are you all seeing a marriage counselor? Well, we started before I knew about all of this. And, of course, because that was not based on all of the absolute truth, we had stopped seeing that gentleman saying, well, he's not really helping. And then I went back to my own counselor and I have been seeing that person and he has read a book and told me he thinks he's codependent.

And I am not certain. Your he thinks he's codependent, and I am not certain where he is. Your husband thinks he's codependent? Right. I'm not certain where he is. No, he's not codependent. He's a liar. That's different than codependence. He's a deceiver.

I don't know what the root of his deception is, but that's not codependence. I mean, he's lied, and not just a little. I mean, extreme amounts of lies and hiding, and has worked very, very hard to hide this from you and what's most disturbing is not just that is that he that it is so perpendicular to everything he claimed to be and so it and i don't know in my experience and if you were my friends and you two sat down at the table with a cup of coffee with sharon and me um i would not be very gentle with him. I would have been ripping him to shreds, not because he didn't follow my stuff, but because I'm going to try to find out what's really going on down in here, because something,

some kind of a switch flip that is not good. There is an addiction or there's an affair. I'll give you a 90% probability of one or the other. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. There's a gambling addiction. There's a honey on the side. There's a pornography thing going on with prostitution.

And I'm not trying to be melodramatic. It's just too extreme. It's too extreme the dichotomy of who it's so opposite and so so perpendicular to everything we know about this man until we learn this and then he doesn't come clean right he tries to rationalize it away and sweep it under the rug which that tells me more addiction than a fair but i don't know i'm i'm not a mental health counselor i've just worked with them in situations like this for 30 years and so i can just smell these rats so um the i'm so sorry what a horrible thing for you all to go through and horrible that he went through this job loss

and it led to whatever this other thing is because their self-esteem hit on all that is it's probably precipitated some of it but um very much an alpha male um you know um yeah for sure the self-esteem and you know i want to help him whether we're together or not yeah i want him to be healed and whatever it is because well this is the for you you, a normal mentally stable person in your shoes would have all the same emotions of $140,000 of hidden debt. We call it financial infidelity in our world because you process the same trust emotions being broken as if he had come in and said he had an affair with the secretary. It touches the same button as if for you if you're a normal human being and so what that means is that you need to get really good counseling and not financial counseling but a good counselor in your corner and if he wants to engage in uh some healing with a quality marriage counselor that'll call out all the bs that i'm seeing and you're seeing in his life

and help him start to clean it out. You guys have a chance of turning this around. Gosh, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. i love talking about companies that know how to do business right you've heard of grip six belts right well if you haven't it's the only belt you can get online with no holes, no flap, and no bulk. I'm talking weightless, and the buckles come in really cool designs and are interchangeable. I personally own a number of these belts, and they're so comfortable you forget

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Do it yourself. Some things you can do it yourself. But we live in a culture today where people know what they're doing. They're called experts, and they can help you change everything. That includes doing your taxes if you have complicated taxes. Now, if you have a very uncomplicated tax return, you do not need to pay a pro a bunch of money to do this. But if you have a complicated tax return, a few things here or there,

you very well likely could save enough money on your taxes to pay the pro i can promise you i do not work on my own car i opened the hood the other day the whole thing looks plastic you have to remove like seven things just to see the engine i the chances of me knowing what to do under that hood is zero now and i used to fix all the stuff when I was 16, 18, 25 years old. But I can't do that now. And I don't do my own taxes anymore either. But when I was 20, I did my own taxes. But everything was simple.

The car was simple then, and the taxes were simple then. And they're not now. So go to DaveRamsey.com slash tax quiz and take our quick assessment. In five minutes, we'll help you figure out if you should file yourself or if you're better off using a tax pro. And we will tell you the truth. Go to DaveRamsey.com slash tax quiz to start the quiz today. Tim is with us. Tim is in Missouri.

Hi, Tim. How are you? Hey, Dave. I'm doing well. How is in Missouri. Hi, Tim. How are you? Hey, Dave. I'm doing well. How about yourself? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I'm currently working through the baby steps.

I'm currently on baby steps three being four, saving 15% of my income for retirement, and then also saving a bunch of money for hopefully a house down payment and an upcoming wedding in 18 months. All right. I was trying to figure out what intensity I should go with because my fiance has debt, and I'm saving up money for that as well, so I wasn't sure. Should I be doing gazelle intensity, or should I just be kind of living life, maybe buying some furniture here, upgrading my car, things like that? I think paying for a wedding is more important than a car. buying some furniture here, upgrading my car, things like that.

I think paying for a wedding is more important than a car. So I don't think I'd do the car until I had the wedding done. I think the day that you get married and come home from the honeymoon, writing a check and paying off her dad's more important than you upgrading a car. I think, you know, a few other things there so just i mean i'm using the car upgrade as an example of a luxurious taking it easy kind of thing that's the example you used right um so yeah yeah but i mean what i always do is stuff like this man is i just sit down and say okay what do i want the most it's not that i can't get the other it's that i'm going to get it second or third or fourth or fifth.

And so what do I want most? And if I'm in your shoes, I want this wedding. That's the most exciting thing in your life right now, isn't it? Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah, for sure. Sorry, I'm just more taken back. First time calling and listening for a few years. Okay.

I mean, when I was your age, that's all I could think about. If I was getting married, that's the whole thing. It's a financial goal, too, because paying for the wedding is a big deal. How much do you need for the wedding? I'm thinking about $15,000. Have you all set a budget yet?

Still in the early stages of planning, but we're thinking it will probably be around 15 or 20 okay well then you need to say i got 18 months to save that and so if it's 18 months for 18,000 that's a thousand dollars a month right yeah okay and so we got to have that budget oh by the way if you got there in nine months you could move on to your next goal you don't have to wait 18 months to get there matter of fact you can't because you're not going to have to pay for most of it before you get there so um but yeah you need to lay out your goals are exactly what it is and then you know what i do say

all right i'm going to stay gazelle intense till i get that done and then i'm going to stay gazelle intense till i have enough additional savings to pay off her debt when we get home from the honeymoon. And, yeah, and only then would I start talking about buying furniture or upgrading. Because, in a sense, buying furniture or upgrading is causing her debt to hang around longer after you're married. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Yeah, so i'm just prioritizing i'm just listing what do i want first what do i want second what do i want third and we'll get there to all the houses down the list it's on down the list um before i say for a house in your situation i might move up in car or i might do some luxury things or whatever. Those are possible plays as well.

So, but, you know, you can just kind of list it out and say, this is what we want to do. This is what we want to do first. This is what we want to do second. And it was a great, I remember the first time I actually implemented that strategy, folks. It was like this awakening because we had always, I think we were just being melodramatic hillbillies. You know, we were just like, everything was all or nothing, right? And and it's like you have to fight like to the death because it's all or nothing and we finally just realized it's not no it's just which is first it's yes to both everything on his list is a yes the wedding the car the house purchase, paying off her debt,

increasing the quality of his lifestyle, loosening up, all of those are yeses. Just which yes comes first. That's all it is. And it's saying no to some things, so I can say yes to others. You're always going to do that because money is always finite. But my wife was driving one of those um this is a thousand years ago y'all remember those two-tone ugly blue astro vans they were nasty looking but we thought at the time they were cool had like bucket seats and it was like a minivan but it wasn't a minivan

it was like between a real van and a minivan kind of thing. And back in the day, right, and the kids, you know, we had kids. So this was our kid hauler. Well, we drove the wheels off that thing, and we raised several dogs and several kids in that van, and it was nasty. And it was worn completely freaking out. It was on the second transmission. The old engine was on its last leg.

And, you know, so we're out of debt finally. We're booking along. We're doing pretty good, but we still got this nasty butt old van, right? And the business was growing, and I had this particular thing I could do down here at the business. It was like $25,000, and I was pretty sure that if I took that $25,000 and placed it there, it was going to make me $100,000.

Pretty sure. I mean, it would take a few years to get it all back, but it was a really, it was an investment, it was a growth thing in the business I just really, really, really wanted to do. And my wife is not wanting, she's really, really, really, really wanting to no longer drive this ugly but old Astro van. And so we get in this big argument about it, and it's like, well, you know, it's like as if we had to do one and not the other.

And I remember that fight because it was a breakthrough. And we finally just said, wait a minute. We can actually do both. We just need $50,000 instead of $25,000. And if we're going to buy a $25,000 car or do a $25,000 investment at the office, oh, we need $50,000 if we're going to do both, right? And so we've got to have, so where are we going to get? So it's not a matter of never doing one or the other.

It's just which one goes first. Well, as you might imagine, the purchase of the $25,000 Suburban, which was a five-year overdue upgrade to this car, considering all the hell my wife had been through with me in this process, and it was a small percentage of her income and everything else but as you might imagine the first 25 went to her getting this the white suburban oh that thing was a land yacht too it was so long but they still are they still make the same body same same wheelbase on that thing it's a big old freaking car. Anyway, we bought her that before we moved on and did the business.

And then we went ahead and did the business upgrade as well. But it wasn't no to both. It's just which one is first. And that's really Tim's dichotomy. Not yes or no, which one's first. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. No matter what time of year it is, focusing on your family's financial plan is always a smart move. I get questions all the time about where to start and what to do first. One of the most crucial and affordable first steps to take is to protect your family and get term life insurance. I know it's not glamorous,

but all the other steps mean a lot less if something happens to you and your family has no financial protection. Getting term life insurance needs to be a top priority. I recommend 10 to 12 times your income and lock in rates for 15 to 20 years. This gives you plenty of time to get out of debt and build wealth. I've been recommending Zander Insurance for to 20 years. This gives you plenty of time to get out of debt and build wealth. I've been recommending Zander Insurance for over 20 years and they understand and live this strategy and will take the time to help you find the most affordable term life rates. Go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282. It's not that expensive, it's not complicated, and you need to do it now. in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt-free stage jaya is with us hi jaya how are you i can't hear her try one more time try again jaya no still can't hear her you Try one more time. Try again, Jaya. No, still can't hear her. You got it now? Can you hear

me? Now I can hear you. It's magical when we push the right buttons back here. Okay, how are you? I'm doing great and yourself? Better than I deserve. Where do you live? I live in Salem, Oregon, but I'm from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Cool. And all the way to Nashville from Oregon to do a debt-free scream. Yes. Good for you. How much have you paid off? I paid off $84,400. Good for you. And how long did this take you? 18 months. Wow. And your range of income during that time? $106,000 to $136,000. Look at you. What do you do for a living? I am a nurse practitioner specializing in nurse midwifery. Of course. Specializing in nurse what? Midwifery.

Oh, I didn't get the wifery part there. Okay. Took me a second. I'm a little slow on the uptick. All right. $84,000 in debt, maybe to be a nurse practitioner, maybe student loan? So it was $59,400 for student loans, and the rest were my credit cards. I moved to Salem, Oregon, bought a beautiful home. I was almost 100 years old and kept swiping my card.

I need this. I need that. I need this. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. That's what happens. I see some things I need after I buy the house. Buying a house is expensive, but then filling it up is worse. It is worse, especially when it's 100 years old and you walk into plumbing, electrical. Yeah. Yeah, I need that for sure. Wow. Wow. Good for you. Okay, so 18 months ago, you're living in the house, wiping the card, just happy, happy, happy, just broke as a, just broke as broke. And what happened? What woke you up? Well, it was normal, but then I finally became really frustrated. I was putting money into retirement.

I bought the new home and I felt like I am just working to pay off debt and it's not going anywhere. I've been 15 years and I'm still looking at 50, you know, 84,000 and I'm like, why is this not going away? Yeah. And something, I don't know, I was looking on YouTube and you came across and I was like, who's this guy with this country accent? What's, what is this? This is crazy hillbilly. And then I just started listening to you every day on YouTube, made people at work be real irritated about hearing you, but

it's, that's what worked for me. Yeah. Well, very cool. So that made you stop and go, okay, maybe I need to adjust some stuff. Cause what I've been doing hasn't been working. Absolutely. So I started doing Airbnb in my home. Oh yeah. I live in the attic. So I have two rooms on the first level and I just thought something has to give. I started working extra shifts and I started seeing when that first student loan was paid off. I was like, oh my gosh, it works. Wow. I just kept going. I can do this and get those credit cards paid off and get them chopped up and not absolutely. Yeah. Way to go. So how's it feel? It feels amazing. And I had discovered card and I was like, you're not

discovering anything. All I have is discovered is I was like, you're not discovering anything. All I have discovered is I don't like you people. Yes. That's all I have discovered. Yes. And now I can just live life, and I can travel and see family and friends. And the weight is off my chest, and I'm like, I did it. Yeah. It was amazing.

It's almost like when you graduated from school, right? Yes. Like you pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed to get that goal, and then you finally get there. And I lost 30 pounds. Oh, look at you. Way to go. Yeah.

That's awesome. It is. Well, discipline begets discipline, I hear. It does. So well done. Man, that is amazing. All right, so your friends that were going, okay, I'm tired of listening to the country guy with the accent on YouTube.

But then they find out you paid off $84,000 in debt, and they say, wait a minute. Wait a minute. How did you do that? What do you tell them the key is? The key is knowing why you want to be free. Why did you want to be free? I wanted to be free to travel the world, and I don't want my job to own me. I want my money to work for me, me not

working for my money. Same with the job. Yeah. Very good. So where are you going to travel now that you're out? Well, I'm going to Vietnam in August. Oh, nice. And when I actually became debt-free September 7th of 2019, I went to the DR and that's actually where I did my first debt-free scrim. Ah, okay. On the beach, huh? On the beach. Just yelling up at the stars. I love it. Listen to me, God, I'm debt free. That's right. I love it. Good for you. Good for you. So having a good why is a part of getting out of debt. I agree with that. What else did you tactically do to get out? I had people keep me accountable. So there was a time when I wasn't listening to you as much. And my MAs would say, well, why isn't Dave on? And I was like, oh, yeah, I'm supposed to be sticking

with it because that would be when I'm like, well, I want to go out for lunch. That's not part of the Dave Ramsey plan. You're right. And so as soon as they were like, you're not listening, I was like, OK, I'll get back to it. So I got to get back to it because I'm not going to get out if I don't get to it. Right. I had to listen all the time. And if I couldn't at work because I'm seeing patients, then I would make sure when I went home, I'd listen. I'd be at the gym listening, cooking dinner, listening in the car. So I drive an hour to Portland. So the podcast just wore you out. No, I still love it. I still watch it. All right. But I mean, you had it on all the time. All the time. Yeah. Yeah. time yeah yeah oh my gosh wow that's absolutely amazing well congratulations thank you who were your biggest cheerleaders your mas my mas were my biggest cheerleader and one of

them is here one of my good friends cindy my mom's love and support yeah yeah you so what did your mom do grow when you were growing up? What did she do for a living? My mom's a flight attendant. A flight attendant. Okay. And you grew up where? I grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

You said that earlier. Yeah. Okay. All right. And so she's watching her daughter, who got the medical degree, clean up this mess. She's got to be really proud. She is. Got to be really proud.

It's like looking at your kids win like that. You change your family tree. It's good for your mom's soul yeah good for you very well done congratulations proud of you well we got a copy of uh chris hogan's book for you everyday millionaires because that's definitely the next chapter in your story i mean you're making 100 136 000 a year and uh you don't have any payments. Did you know that? I sure don't have any payments. That's amazing.

I'm so proud of you. Very, very well done. Jaya from Salem, Oregon, $84,000 paid off in 18 months, making $106,000 to $136,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free!

Yeah! Woo-hoo! This is how it's done. This is how it's done. Proud of you. you very very good stuff it takes an incredible amount of discipline and intellect to get through the um the medical studies that jaya did uh to be able to get to be who she is and then to turn after that and apply that same kind of discipline and intellect to this situation and say $84,000 in debt. I'm not getting traction.

I've got to change some things. And isn't it interesting how you just also need a voice in your head? We all need accountability, someone that's just going to go, hey, don't be stupid. And then we also need somebody that's encouraging and says, you can this you got this i'm proud of you i know you can do this and you know there's this combination that one two punch between don't be stupid and you got this we gotta have both we gotta have people that love us enough and that's me i'm here because i love you and i want you to win and i want you to be able to do this stuff and i'm gonna i'm gonna straight up tell you when you're stupid you know know that. You call here on the air, you'll get that.

But I'll also tell you, you can do it. You can win. You can become wealthy in America today. You can live your dreams. You can change your family tree. You can set yourself in a position that you completely change the entire trajectory of everyone with your last name that follows you. Wow. Hey, there once was an old man Vanderbilt that was the guy that started it, right?

There was an old man Rockefeller that was the guy that started it, right? There was an old man or old lady, count it down. You name the name, someone changed that family tree to where now it's a household name. Many, many, many, many generations later. Why not you? It's just a series of decisions. You get to decide. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 2, 7,

He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity. Florence Nightingale said, I attribute my success to this. I never gave or took any excuse. Paul is with us. Paul is in Texas. Hi, Paul.

How are you? Hi, Dave. It's a pleasure to speak with you. I've been a long-time listener, first-time caller. Well, thanks. How can I help? Easy numbers. Powers of three.

I've got about $300,000 in a TSP. I have a $100,000 note left on my mortgage. I rent the house out, and I live in a one-bedroom. I rent out the house in a five-bedroom. And the question is, should I pay off the house on schedule in 10 years and let the renters continue to pay the rent and the property taxes as part of the rent, or should I pay the house off in 24 to 36 months? My thought was, take all of my money and continue to max it out on my TSP. How old are you? I'm 50, no children, twice married, now retired from

marriage, and I have no debt and $30,000 in the bank. Okay. And then the $300,000 is the TSP. Well, you've done a great job. You can't touch the money that is currently in the TSP until you're 59 1⁄2 without penalty. Right. So we can't touch that money. The only question is how much we put into the TSP versus how much we pay down towards paying off your home early.

That's the only question. And what we would tell you to do is the same formula we use for everyone else, and that's maybe step four is 15% of your income should be going into retirement. Are you putting more than 15% into TSP or less? I'm maxing out everything, and I'm also doing the 50 years or older catch-up TSP. So basically... Are you putting more than 15% of your income into TSP? I don't think you can.

Yeah, so well, it depends on what you make as to how much you can put in there. So, okay, how much are you putting into TSP, including catch-up? Probably $25,000. Okay, and what do you make a year? With the rental income. No. Okay, that's fine. Not counting rental income, what do you make a year?

Probably $120,000. Okay. So you are putting 21% of your income into the TSP. So I would back that down a little bit, and you just basically say, you said you're making $120, right? Right. Okay, so $120, I would just take that and just say $120 and.15 is $18,000 is what you should be putting into your TSP. No more. Everything above that should go to pay off your mortgage until your mortgage is paid off.

And then when you get the mortgage paid off, then you can max out everything, and you're in baby step seven, we would call it at this point. Here's the thing, Paul. The saying that people say, and you said it a while ago is not accurate and that saying is the renters are paying off my house and paying off the taxes and all that no they're not the renters are paying rent you are taking your rental income and choosing to pay on the house but the renters aren't paying anything. They're paying rent. And they're going to pay rent whether the house is paid off or whether the house isn't paid off. They're going to pay rent.

And so, you know, the fact that you have renters paying income does not mean you would do something different with the income. You still say 15% of your income into retirement, and then let's get the house paid off. Now, you do what you want to do, but that's what I would do if i woke up in your shoes cole is in mississippi hi cole welcome to the dave ramsey show hey how are you better than i deserve how can i help um so i just have a question um just i'm graduating with a bachelor's in may and i'll start a master's program for the

Reef Force Masters, being one of my sponsors once I graduate. What are you studying? What advice would you have? Biomedical engineering. Wow. What are you going to do? Hopefully, maybe make an artificial heart, new prosthetic legs, something like that. Okay. new prosthetic legs something like that okay so that's the type of industry that you can go into

with the uh training that you've had correct good cool that's awesome man well congratulations you're obviously very bright it's exciting and so uh thank you so what's your question um so i'll make i'll be able to pocket um um, five, $600 while I'm, uh, in my master's program. Um, what advice would you give me as far as like, after I graduate the master's, you know, renting a house, buying, investing, like what advice would you give for like a newly grad like that? Okay.

Do you have any debt? No. Um, I got a bunch of scholarships for my bachelor's and my sponsor is going to be paying my tuition and i'll make about two thousand dollars before taxes a month good and uh so you don't have a card you don't have card debt you don't have any kind of debt no credit cards no nothing correct way to go cole good for you Thanks. All right. And so when you come out of school, is your job already lined up with the sponsor? Well, for my master's program, it's already lined up. No, I mean when you finish your master's is what you were asking me about.

You said what to do after I finish my education. Yes, after I finish, I won't have a job lined up. You know, I'll work on that in a year and say when I get close to graduating. While I'm in my master's there, I'll make a few hundred. Gotcha. I got that part. Okay. But it doesn't necessarily feed straight in.

It's not like an internship or anything like that. It's just from there you will decide what you're going to, you know, in your last year of your master's, you'll start looking for that big career job land as of graduation. So what do you estimate you'll make? Starting 65 to 75. Really? A year.

Is that all? Yeah. I would have thought double that. I mean, yeah, well, it can get pretty high high but you just need some experience first it's a very specific field very interesting okay i would have guessed a master's degree in something as complicated as that and going into the field of medical device field would have paid a lot more i just didn't know i've never run into that that's very interesting okay cool well here's what i would do i would pile up cash as high as you can possibly pile it in something simple, something like a simple savings account,

a money market account, that kind of a thing. If you want to put a little bit of it in something like an S&P 500 index fund, you can. It's not going to really make you any money. The biggest value that this pile of money is going to bring to you is not the investment returns. The biggest value that this pile of money is going to bring to you is not the investment returns. The biggest value it's going to give you is the flexibility to move to wherever this new job is that pays the most. So let me give you an example. If you have no money to make a move and someone offers you the best job in the world, but it's going to cost you $5,000 to move, it's harder to take that job. And you might take a lesser job to keep from having to go into all the move, right? But if you need to move across the country or something, and you

can get this big time gig and it pays twice as much, but you got 10 ten thousand bucks saved up makes it really easy to do it so your biggest point of transition in your life and transition always has expense to it is is upon graduation or it's one of the biggest points is right after graduation so um your main thing to concentrate on here sir is finish this degree it sounds like you're awfully uh academically talented stick with that push on through finish up no debt whatsoever for any thing save up save up save up save up and then that gives you the money to make the move buy a nicer car when you move actually buy you a couch when you move and you get the new job job, and you don't have to live sleeping on the floor for the first three weeks of your new job waiting on a paycheck to buy a mattress and that kind of stuff.

And people do that all the time coming out of college, or they go into debt to keep from doing that. And so that's all this money is good for. It'll help you make the transition smoothly, and it'll be worth every, it'll give you a complete real return on investment. It'll be worth the trouble that you went to to do this. So very cool, man. Good to talk to you, Cole. Thank you very, very much for joining us. We appreciate you hanging out. That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. Our thanks to Zach Bennett filling in for James Childs today,

Ellie Daniel, our associate producer and phone screener. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Once again, you made The Dave Ramsey Show one of the top five most downloaded podcasts last year. To get your daily dose of motivation and inspiration, subscribe today.