The Ramsey Show - App - My Husband Makes $975,000 but Wants Me To Work (Hour 1)

Episode Date: February 19, 2021

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, 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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Chris Hogan, Ramsey Personality No. 1 best-selling author, is my co-host this hour. Open phones at 888-825-5225. We're going to talk about your life and your money. And it turns out, Chris, that those two things are interwoven.

Oh, Dave, I'm going to tell you, you know, my boys used to play with Legos. And I've stepped on a couple of those things in the middle of the night, went down like I was shot. But the point is, is that those pieces fit together. Better than a burglar alarm. Yeah, it is better. Spread them in front of the front door. But they fit connected. And you're right.

This life and money stuff, it's going to go together and you can't pry them apart. Yeah. And this idea that, you know, we Americans with the way we have learned kind of a Greek methodology of thought, of critical thinking, we'd like to compartmentalize things. Like some things are on Sunday, like church, and then people do weird, wacky stuff that ain't getting to do with church on Monday. And, you know, they compartmentalize different parts of it. Well, that has nothing to do with that.

Well, it has everything to do with that because it's all part of the mosaic. It's all part of the pictureosaic. It's all part of the picture. And these things all work together. Your dreams, your fears, your goals, your why, your family tree, your upbringing, your jobs, your careers, your character or lack thereof. All of these things end up being woven together. And we've seen over the decades of doing this all the data points that ensure that, that show that that's true. So we're here to help you with your life and your money.

Tiffany is with us in New York. Hi, Tiffany, how are you? Hi, thank you so much for taking my call. Sure, what's up? So I've been dating a guy for about three months, and last night we were hanging out, and he dropped that he plans on spending about $525 on a psychic. I immediately felt uncomfortable.

I told him that I thought it was a silly idea. We kind of like talked through it a bit as to why he felt like this person, what this person could do for him. But, you know, things have been going well up until this point. But definitely I think I've been doing the baby steps for almost two years. I started with $70,000 of debt. I'm down to about $12,000. So I'm on the tail end of my journey.

And so hearing that definitely, you know, perked my ears and made me nervous. So I guess I'm wondering, like, What is it that makes you nervous? The $525 or the psychic? Both. I mean, and also just... Now, when you put the two things together, it gets, like, really nervous.

Is that what you're saying? Exactly. Thinking that he could be irresponsible with money and thinking about, you know, future casting. I think I had a flash forward to five years from now. I thought, oh, my gosh, like, if I marry this guy, is he going to... Tiffany, how long have you dated this guy? She said three months. Yeah, three months. Okay. Well, how long have you dated this guy? She said three months. Didn't you?

Yeah, three months. Okay. Well, she started off with long-term and then said three months. Oh, I thought, okay, yeah. That don't – Well, that's cool. So, okay, so how can we help? I guess my – you know, I've kind of been hit with this a lot in the early dating.

You know, I'm a single woman in New York City, and I guess I wonder what are the filters in terms of money, because I found myself thinking, oh, are we not financially compatible? Well, I mean, there's two issues. Yeah, there's two issues. Number one, having talked with a lot of the single ladies that work on our team here, and, you know, I get to hear some very interesting conversations over here, some very interesting conversations.

In Tennessee, we call it slim pickings. There's not a lot of good ones out there to pick from, right? And this guy has kind of proven this theory to be true. So, you know, the $525, if he were spending it on something else, doesn't necessarily scare me. But you called me and Chris, and we're people of faith, and so we think psychics are funny. I am also a person of faith, and I think psychics are funny. We're not a respecter of that methodology. Yeah, that's a lot of money to spend on voodoo.

For sure. Yeah. Have you talked to him about your financial goals? Has he told you what his are? I'm not super clear on what his are, but, I mean, you know how it is when you get into this journey. You can't help but talk about it all the time. So, yeah, he knows my goals. How old are you guys? I'm 29. Okay. All right. I've got a, my daughters are slightly older than

you. My son's about your age. The only way I know how to answer this is Papa Dave and it has nothing to do with financial really. It's your values are not aligned. You believe different things. And that's more important than the $525. The $525 is an exceptional amount of money to spend on something where your values aren't aligned, so it really caused you to go, dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee. But, you know, if you were one of my kids and we were having a cup of coffee, I would just go, this guy's not the one. And the reason is that if you can't agree on spiritual things, if you can't agree on

money, you can't agree on kids, and you can't agree on in-laws, those are the four things that break everybody up later on. And as you said, I fast forward, and now he's spending $5,000 with the psychic because she's now our marriage counselor. And that's what you're fast-forwarding yourself into. So that's just Papa Dave saying you fast forwarding yourself into so i'm just that's just papa dave saying you don't have the same set of values now if you both were into psychics i guess you could go forward but the fact that one of you is not into that then that's going to be a deal

breaker you you got to be aligned on the important things and religion is one of them yeah tiffany yeah run don't don't don't stroll away i want you to treat this like debt and run yeah yeah okay yeah you're you're you're gonna be okay honey just just when as you meet the next one here's the thing find out crazy early and then avoid it here's what's interesting okay you put your money towards what's important to you yeah and so if you put a lot of money towards something it says it's very important to you. So this guy's not like a recreational psychic guy. He's in deep. Recreational psychic is a $50 drive-by for kicks at some fair or something, right?

Or a $25. Let's see what the palm reader says. Ha, ha, ha. That's like a recreational gambler. But this guy dropped $25 dollars on the blackjack table and you don't believe in gambling it get that's what got your attention there was enough money that it's like wow and uh so there's there is a one-two punch here that's a really good conversation you said that dollar amount my wallet twitched in my pocket yeah well that's because

your wallet's pretty tight you just hush you're mouth. You're just tight. You're a tight one. But that's, I mean. You're a friendly tight one. You have to look at that and you say, that is a red flag, right? Again, what we're talking about coming in to the opening of the show today is that your values, there is an integrated thing here. And so sometimes people say, well, Dave, I'll take dave ramsey but without the religion well then it wouldn't be dave ramsey because uh i truly believe that what you believe causes you to handle money a certain way and so as a person of faith when i believe that the borrower is truly slave to the lender then that causes a separate set of actions reactions and

attitudes yes and to the extent i'm not aligned with someone on that, then I can't be in a deal with them. That's right. No, no. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. How often can you get the best of both worlds? Not very often, right? Well, with the Rate Secured program at Churchill Mortgage, it's possible. You can secure a low rate now to nail down your budget, and if rates drop while you're shopping for a home, they'll give you the lower

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Don't tolerate it. Say never again. Go to DaveRamsey.com slash ELP and click on insurance and get started right now. That's DaveRamsey.com slash ELP. Mercedes is with us in Toronto, Canada. Hi, Mercedes. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi.

Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I'm currently on maternity leave until February, and I want to ask how to ask my husband to be able to kind of be a stay-at-home mom. I don't really feel like I want to go back to work. I feel like I really want to spend time raising our little one. Cool.

What a great goal. So does he make enough money for you to live on? Yeah. Like, he makes about $975,000. What's that mean? Oh, like $975,000. What's that mean? Oh, like $975,000. $975,000 a year? Yeah.

Okay. I think you could probably freaking struggle through. It's not so much the finances as it is. I think he has a worry that I'll never go back to work. So? Like, I don't know. I think because his mom worked, like, three jobs. Well, so?

I know. He makes $975,000. I know. Mercedes, when you were working, how much did you make? About $90,000. did you make? About 90. Okay. Nice income. Yeah.

Except that we're comparing it to his. Right. And how many kids do you have? Just one. Just one. Oh, okay. Okay, here's the deal. So, Sharon Ramsey went home to be a full-time mom when our first daughter was born 34 years ago.

Yeah. She has never worked in the workplace since. She is engaged in a lot of ministry boards. She sits on hospital boards. She is engaged in being a full-time Mimi to six grandbabies. She raised three wonderful children. I call that an incredible career. I do too. Okay. I just don't know how to get my husband on the same page.

It's a matter, it's going to be sitting down and talking to him from the heart. I mean, just point blank. I mean, it's not like you guys need the money. This is why this is so flabbergasting. Yeah. I know. Why does he go do all of that if it's not so that your family can do what they want to do? I know. Like, I just don't see the point in paying, like, a nanny in your daycare to do what I can do because we're fortunate enough to be able to afford it. Well, and not since you don't want to.

Okay? Yeah. So if you want to be outside the home and have a career and that's your aspiration and you want to do that, then no shame on that either. Absolutely. But this idea that somehow motherhood is full-time motherhood is somehow to be shamed or to be looked down upon is absolute BS. Well, and I think, Mercedes, that's where you've got to talk to him and lead with the heart and talk about how you are, you wanting to work, but you're wanting to work with your kid. But it doesn't make you a freaking second-class citizen. No, not at all.

I know. But why do you? I guess I kind of feel that way, and I don't know whether it's more. But, you know, we call that mom guilt. We call that mom guilt. Yeah, sure christy wright talks about that a lot mom moms can't win because if they work they're guilty and if they don't work they're guilty i know it's like mom like guilt is built into the whole program or something i don't know what it is but how long have you all been married mercedes uh only a year and a half yeah what's boy child do for a living together about seven

um she's an investment advisor i guess he is writer okay okay wow it's so impressive he's doing so well i don't know i i i think that um number one i just want to give you uh encouragement and say a this is not crazy it's not irresponsible irresponsible. As a matter of fact, it is a high-dignity position worthy of, I mean, someone was Abraham Lincoln's mother. Someone was Billy Graham's mother. Someone was, you know, and these are high call. This is a high calling. And so someone was Martin Luther King Jr.'s mother.

I mean, this is a high calling. And it has dignity, it has value, it has worth, equivalent to anything you could do in the workplace. No shame, no guilt, and there should be no hesitation financially or economically. I agree, and Mercedes, I'm going to tell you this. Don't go into this thinking this is a one-time conversation that you're going to sway him or get him. This is going to be a series of conversations, but I want you to lead with your heart. Don't try to go factual. Don't go any of that. Just what your heart wants. And then what happens is it boils down to, he has an opinion and you have an opinion. And now you got to begin to work

through this and you may have to reach out to your pastor or to a therapist and go have this conversation but if you don't stand for it and show you're serious about it then he's not going to believe you yeah just turn off the television take his phone away from him set the baby in his lap and point at the baby and say what's more important than that or take off for about a week let him handle it he will him handle it. He will find you, honey. I'm going to tell you right now. Your value just went. I told Sharon years ago, I said, if you leave, I'm coming with you. If you decide you're going to run off, I'm coming too. I was expecting for her to say that she made the majority of the money.

And, you know, and it was a financial. That's some bizarre numbers. That is. Wow. I can't breathe. Tony's in New York. Hey, Tony, how are you? Hey, Dave.

Better than I deserve, man. Thanks for taking my call. Absolutely. How can Chris and I help? Yeah, so I actually just discovered you guys about a week ago. So maybe a blessing in disguise. How can Chris and I help? Yeah, so I actually just discovered you guys about a week ago. So maybe a blessing in disguise. So I'm 24, and I'm making about $175 right now. Where do these people come from?

What do you do for a living? I work for a Silicon Valley tech startup. I guess you do. What do you do? I sell. I'm in the sales department. startup. I guess you do. What do you do? I sell. I'm in the sales department. Man, you are killing it. You're a stud, man.

I'm so proud of you. Well done. Okay, now that I'm over my shock, how can we help? Yeah, well, here's what the thing is. Two weeks ago, I decided, you know what? I'm sick and tired of renting. New Jersey rents, as you know, are crazy. And I guess so are property tax and all that jazz. But I did some quick math and realized I spent

about $52,000 in the last two years renting and it just went, you know, kaboom. You know, I never see that money again. So I made a decision. I'm like, okay, let's look into buying a house or not a house, but a condo. Right. Um, so over the last two years, I've got about a hundred K in the market and then another 30 K and just like emergency fund savings that I pushed up because of COVID. Um, so I'm sitting on some pretty good money, but I also have this student loan debt. That's about 42, 42 000 write a check and pay it off today yeah i knew you're going to suggest that it's at zero percent who cares it's at zero percent who cares and i'm like what if it was 400 million you'd still pay it off today even if it was zero percent you don't want to hang it over your head so what do you think do i because i don't want to take money

out of i guess the the market and the indexes so do you think? Because I don't want to take money out of, I guess, the market and the indexes. So do you think I should rent again for a year because I have to sign a year lease? Wait a minute. I thought you told me you had $130,000 and $42,000 in student loan debt. That leaves $90,000. Yeah, exactly, but that would be mostly in the market. And I was saying I don't really want to take the money out of the market. I kind of want to continue that.

Well, there's two different markets we're talking about here. There's a real estate market you can put it in, or there's the stock market you can put it in. If I woke up in your shoes, sir, you are killing it on the income side. Yep. I would be debt-free, I'd have an emergency fund, and I would buy a property with the other down payment. Tony, pay it off, buddy. Pay it off. By the way, there's a girl named Tiffany in New York that used to date a guy that liked psychics, and she'd probably like to get to know you.

This is The Ramsey Show. If you really want to win with money, you have to learn to spend less. A great tool that's helping my listeners save money is called Honey. Honey is a free online shopping tool that finds some of the best promo codes and applies them to your cart for you. One listener said, almost every time I shop online, Honey saves me anywhere from 10 to 30% and allows me to put that extra cash towards my debt. Add Honey to your browser today. Go to joinhoney.com slash Ramsey personality joins me today as my co-host I am Dave Ramsey your host open phones at 888-825-5225 on the dead free stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions Kirk and Emily

are with us hey guys how are, how are you? Great. We're good. Welcome. Where do you guys live? Springfield, Illinois. All right. Welcome. And how much debt have you paid off?

$77,000 in five years. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? Started around $25,000 and it's up to about $55,000. Cool. What do you guys do for a living? I was a stay-at-home mom during this time.

And I worked in insurance and then taught guitar lessons on the side. Okay. Very good. What kind of debt was your $77,000? It was our house. All house. Paid off your house! I'm looking at weird people! You have no debt in the world. Nope. It's pretty great.

Yeah. How old are you guys we're i'm 30 and 32 and you're paid for house you are straight up weird i love it i'm so proud of y'all well done what's this house worth around 80 90 okay and you own it by god yep all right what caused this who started this journey? Well, definitely our kids. We found out three years ago. We were expecting. That's what really spurred us on. In the month after we found out we were pregnant with our first,

our air conditioner and furnace had to be replaced too. We were already on the path of paying off the house early by that time. But in the three months after that, we saved about $20,000. Wow. Yeah, I worked like seven days a week, about 12, 13-hour days every day. Yeah. So you had to get some money, so you went and got some money. Yeah.

Yeah, that's where you get it, work, I've heard. Yeah, definitely. That's fantastic. So, all right, which one of you is the saver and which one's the spender he's probably the saver okay i'm probably a little bit more of a spender just a little yeah just a little bit so it sounds like you guys have been very on task yeah yeah yep it definitely um i feel like we were we've always been like like when I met Kirk, he never had debt. And we went to open our checking account after we got married and he didn't have a credit score. And so they were like, well, we don't know how to, he had to have all this extra identification and stuff for opening the checking account.

And I was like, well, that's kind of weird. He's off the grid pretty much. You know, when I was pretty young, I read Steve Martin's autobiography. Yeah. And when he talked about never having a credit card and never wanting one, it just really struck me because I just, I hate the idea of the burden of owing anybody. And when we got approved for our mortgage, I was like, well, that's great, but I don't want this. And we just worked as hard as we could to get it paid off. I love it. Very cool. You definitely made some serious sacrifices working as much as you did. I mean, that's a big deal. It really is. What did you learn about this process of paying off the house?

You got to do something that you like. Yeah. And, um, you know, sometimes you just have to get past the feeling of wanting to buy like whatever you want. For me, it's guitars. I love guitars, but I have enough of those. And, uh, you know, every, every spare penny that we had, if you would find change on the ground, it's like never spend found money. We would just take that and put it away. We also started a business on the side. I play violin. And so basically all week he would work and then teach guitar lessons in the evenings. And then pretty much every weekend we would play a wedding. So we started playing weddings and we just worked so hard and learned to be patient too. It was something that took a lot

longer than, I don't know. I'm normally not a very patient person. So learning long-term, setting long-term goals was really good. But she's really the budget whiz. Emily's actually studying to be a CPA right now. All right. So, you know, the biggest lesson that we've learned is listen to your spouse, whoever it is, just listen to each other. There you go. Very good. Very good. So who were your biggest cheerleaders outside the two of you?

Who was cheering you on? You had a paid-for house at 30 and 32, right? Yep. Family, for sure. Parents. My brother helped me fix every single thing on our cars, and he taught me from a really young age how to fix my own car. That helped out a lot.

Oh, yeah. I helped a a lot oh yeah having a car payment for a long time did your friends think you all were weird yeah we didn't tell a lot of people um and then yeah i think now that we're mentioning it to people more they're like well that's kind of strange well i wouldn't want to live like that, so that's fine. I had some friends think I was weird when we asked for a VCR instead of getting Disney Plus. Yeah, that might be weird. Very cool, guys. I'm so proud of y'all. Well done, heroes.

How does it feel to not have a payment in the world? Pretty great. Wonderful. Especially in the middle of weird times like we're in. That's actually how we finished this was we got our stimulus payment and put it towards the world. Pretty great. Wonderful. Especially in the middle of weird times like we're in. That's actually how we finished this was we got our stimulus payment and put it towards the house. So we

had savings set aside for emergency fund and then the extra expenses after. We just decided that at that point it would even out. If we paid off the mortgage at that time we could still save that much more and get it back to where it was. So we took care of it.

Fabulous. Well done, you guys. We've got a copy of Chris's book for you, Everyday Millionaires. And that's definitely the next chapter in your story. So we'll get the kiddos in the picture for the debt-free screen. What are their names and ages? Sammy is two and a half. And Henry is nine months.

All right. Go, Henry. Here we go, buddy. I love it. Very cool. All right. Kirk and Emily, Sammy and Henry, $77,000 paid off in five years. They have a paid-for house and everything at 30 and 32 years old.

Ding! Did that making $25,000 to $55,000 a year. They are heroes. Well done, guys. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. One, two, three. We're debt-free!

Hey! Oh, man, oh, man, oh, man. Way to go. That's about killing it right there. Yeah, it's a big deal. 30 and 32 years old. If you're out there and you're sitting and you're going, well, man, oh, man, how'd they do it? Well, they decided.

And then they made sacrifices. And then they worked a plan that actually worked. You have an opportunity to do that as well. Just make the decision today and then decide. And truly, get plugged in. This plan works and it's helped millions of people and we're helping the young young people own homes outright which is awesome yeah i mean it's you're so right chris that you know the only difference in their story and some of you

listening if you've been listening a while if you're listening first time today you're just trying to figure all this stuff out but their only difference is is they decided yeah they just decided really do and some of you know you've done that about other things where you just decide you you know the old joke yogi bear you say when you come to a fork in the road take it right but you know that's a decision yeah you got to go somewhere and so you remember that time you decided to ask her to marry you remember that time you decided to go get that degree you Remember that time you decided to go get that degree? Remember that time you decided to move to that other city? And it changed everything.

Yeah. It changed the whole trajectory of your life. And so decisions are so powerful. And the interesting thing is they're not necessarily permanent. You don't have to decide something and then never change it again. Right. But if you decide something positive, you could never change it. That's right.

That would work. You know, find something. There's some things I never, ever again do again in my again. Right. But if you decide something positive, you could never change it. That's right. That would work. You know, find something. There's some things I never, ever again do again in my life. Yes. You know, there's some things I always do in my life. Those are decisions I always tithe as a Christian. I always give a tenth of my income. I always save for emergencies.

I always invest. I'm always an incredible tipper. I always, I mean, you've got to have some decisions that you make. And, you know, I never, ever will do business with American Express again under any circumstances. There's some decisions you need to make, right? Absolutely. There's some decisions you make, and you say, I'm not going to be treated like that. That's right.

And you know what the beautiful thing is? We live in the greatest country on this planet, and I'm biased because it's the only one I've lived in. We don't need anybody's permission. We get a chance to decide and try. You don't need a permission slip. Like when you used to go out to the hallway with your kids. To field trips.

Yeah. Mama Hogan had to sign them. Yeah. Not anymore. You're like a grown-up. I'm a grown-up. You don't need a permission slip anymore. That's exactly right. You can just a grown-up. I'm a grown-up. You don't need a permission slip anymore. That's exactly right.

You can just give yourself permission to pay off your house. Way to go, Kirk and Emily! Proud of you guys. Touchdown, baby! This is The Ramsey Show. I'm out. Chris Hogan Ramsey personality is my co-host today here on the air. Open phones at 888-825-5225. David is with us in Chicago. Hi, David.

Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, good afternoon, Dave and Chris. It's an absolute pleasure. Absolutely. How can we help, brother? Hey, so I work for a large manufacturing company with locations throughout the U.S., and I aspire to be in management. And the company culture is to every three to five years go to a different division and a different position and role. that cadence, I am debt-free, but I'm looking for some guidance on renting versus buying as you're climbing the ladder of a career.

Most of the time with a three to a five-year range, you would buy. The only thing you don't want to do is to buy in a market where the, I mean, in a city where the real estate market is stagnant. And so, you know, like for instance, if you're going in and you say, well, I've got a four-year window at this city, you would ask the real estate agent for some indicators of how hot the market is. What's the, in the neighborhood that I'm looking in, what's the DOM, the average days on the market? How fast does a house sell?

And if you hear 28 days, then you've got a real hot market. If you hear 280 days, it takes nine months. No, that's a slow, stagnant market in that case. And the other thing you want to ask them about is about appreciation during that time. How much is the house going to go up in value? Or how much of homes in that area, in that neighborhood, gone up in value? They can pull those stats from the MLS very quickly. It's not hard to do.

And so if you've got – usually they run together, by the way. If you've got a real hot market and the houses sell quickly, then usually you have a good high appreciation, the things going up enough per year that you'll make enough on the house to not only pay the expenses but make a profit uh and of course if you live there five years then that's it if you ended up changing jobs and staying then that's it too so you're you're owning the house the whole time now if you're going to be there only two years you're going to find some markets where you're not there

enough to house won't go up enough in value you'd'd end up losing money selling it, even if it was a hot market. Right. Yeah. And David, the other thing I'd remind you to do, and this is what's gotten a lot of people into trouble is as they buy a house and they move because they're transferred, they try to hold on to that house and then have it as a rental property. Well, again, you don't want to go that route. So the thing I would tell you is to make sure if you are going to be there over that two years or that three-year window, just make sure you sell said house before you move on to the next one. Okay. Yeah, that sounds good.

I've had that idea before, so that clears that up. Yeah. Very good, man. Hey, thank you for the call. That's some good questions. He is. He's thinking. Sam's in Baltimore, Maryland.

Hey, Sam, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How's it going?'s in Baltimore, Maryland. Hey, Sam, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How's it going? Better than I deserve. How can we help? All right. So the short and sweet of it is I have a car. I'd like to sell it, buy something in cash with the proceeds of the sale of the vehicle

because I have some positive equity in it, and then use the money that would have went to monthly payments for the next three years to pay down debt and to go towards retirement. Problem is, my wife doesn't want me to do that. Your wife doesn't want to get out of debt? Well, her opinion is we're going to get out of debt quick enough without having to do that, and she thinks I'll be unhappy if I get rid of my car. I kind of agree with her, but also I think logically and watching your show over the last couple weeks just got to

India. It makes more sense to get rid of the car. How long have you been married, Sam? 11 years. Okay. And what other debt do you have outside of the car? So we have $25,000 in credit cards. We have a debt consolidation loan that's about $15,000. I will say this. We have about $30,000 in inheritance that we should be receiving in the next month or so.

So that's essentially going to knock it down to about $10,000 left. We have a really good income also. So we make about $235,000 annually. What do you owe on the car? So the car, I owe $32,000. My multi-payments are about $690,000. I could sell it, and the value of the car is about $50, so I'd have just under about $20,000 to buy something used.

Why do you have so much supposed vehicle equity? Did you put a lot down on this thing, or did you get a great deal? Yes. Well, both. Yeah. Put a lot down on it. I'm pretty decent at negotiating, and I had quite a bit down. Okay. So let me get this straight.

After the inheritance comes in, you have a $32,000 car payment, and you have a $10,000 debt. $42,000, and you make $250,000. About $235,000. Okay. My wife also has a car that's $30,000. That's at a 0% interest rate. We just got that that's we actually

put quite a bit down on that as well um so i figured i'd throw that in the picture too okay so you don't have do you have any other debt other than we've heard so far it was like a thousand dollars she still owes for student loans but that can be paid off pretty quick and we have a surplus every month of like around five thousand dollars after taxes and gas and groceries and bills and stuff. So that's why I'm saying we can pay the loans down. But I'd rather, even if we didn't have any debt, I'd rather take that extra money every month at $690 and put more towards retirement. Okay. Here's what i'm hearing you're not doing a detailed written budget and

both of you are not agreeing on it because you're just taking broad swings at these numbers as i'm asking you these questions that's number one number two uh she and you are not on the same page on how important it is to get out of debt, and there is no intensity. It's just something you're kind of wandering along poking at. I absolutely agree with the second thing. The first one, we do actually have a pretty good budget. Well, you suck at it then because out of $235,000, you only found $60,000 freed up. I know.

You need to tighten that puppy up. That tells me there's no intensity. You are right about that for sure. Yeah, that's what I meant. That's why I thought you didn't have a budget, because that's not enough. I mean, you should – here's the thing. If you guys – I think if you were intense and both of you were dialed in and you were willing to sacrifice, I'd say you keep both cars, pay them through.

You're going to be done really, really fast. It's only $70,000 out of $235,000. You should have that done in like nine months or eight months. And then, yeah, I wouldn't move down out of that car making that kind of money. I'd stay right there in that car. And you like the car. You did say that. So I would agree with her then.

I do not agree with her not being intense on getting out of debt and thinking you're going to wander your butt out of it in the next three years, making a quarter of a million dollars a year. So her suggestion with her lack of intensity don't go together. So you need to decide which one you're going to be. If you want to be intense and focused and be done with it in seven or eight months, keep them both and pay them off, and both of you roll up your sleeves and get on beans and rice and get this mess cleaned up. And then you've got more than $790. You've got her car payment, your car payment, no payments, all of that to invest,

and you move right on up into baby step four. You will free it up. And that's really what you ought to do. But if you're going to wander around in this crap for three or four years and just be you know half butt doing it then you know yeah sell a car sell it all sell her car too yeah but i think you know sam you sitting down and talking with her and finding out what's the hesitation what's the thing that's going on and really get connected like you guys you got too much of an income coming in to be wandering around in this situation. And here's the problem.

If you don't put some guidelines in place, you guys will add a boat, a motorcycle, and a bigger home in a matter of years. And you look up, and you will really be wondering what happened. So it's time to wake up, buddy. You guys get connected. This is Turn Up the Heat. You guys are going to get on the same page on that part of it. Because the problem is you're running down two different tracks, and so you're coming to two different conclusions.

And that's what's happening. So there's not a right or a wrong answer in this moment. The right answer is when we get on the same track, that's going to give you the – you're going to have a parallel conclusion then. And you'll both be going, yeah, sell the car, or don't sell the car. I don't think you need to sell it. I think you need to get – both of you get intense, both of you get sacrificial, and just get the dadgum mess cleaned up.

That's what I would do if I were in your shoes. Hey, man, we appreciate you listening. Thanks for calling in. Chris Hogan, good hour. Thank you, sir. It was fun. James Childs, our producer. Kelly Daniel, our associate producer and phone screener.

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, and we'll be back. Hey guys, this is Kelly, associate producer for The Ramsey Show. Did you know that over 16 million people listen to The Ramsey Show every week? And a lot of those people listen on one of our 600 plus radio stations across the country. To find a station near you, head to DaveRamsey.com slash show. Feel like you're in a rut and living life just going through the motions? Build confidence in yourself and learn to trust the God who created you. Check out the Christi Wright Show, where Christi inspires you to break through your limitations and create the life you're proud to live. Hey y'all. I'm Christi Wright.

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