The Ramsey Show - App - Next Steps for College Students Who Are Graduating Debt-Free (Hour 3)

Episode Date: April 30, 2019

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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 am Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. We're glad you are here. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Haley is with us in Cookville. Hi, Haley. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve deserve what's up i am fixing to graduate with my master's degree in may i have my emergency fund i've got all my debt paid off i have a Roth IRA and i still live at home and all of my college is paid for i have no student debt way to go my question is what would

be your advice to go from this point of my life on? Okay. What's your master's in? Business. Good for you. You've got an MBA. Cool. You've got a job lined up?

I work as an accountant, actually, in Cookville. Okay. And you're going to continue doing that? Yes. Okay. Excellent. Well done. Love it.

Love it. So we just work you right up the baby steps. The first baby step is to become debt-free and have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. You've done those. That's the first three, right? Right. And then we suggest you start investing 15% of your income while you pay off your home. You don't own a home yet. Sometimes people at this stage pause, push pause for a second on the retirement and don't start it yet and use that

extra cash flow to build up a huge down payment on a house. And we always call that baby step 3B. So after your emergency fund's in place and you're debt free and you don't own a home yet, before you start baby step 4 with retirement, sometimes folks will say, okay, I'm going to sidetrack here for 12 or 18 months and build up a juicy down payment and get me a nice home. Are you in a position you want to buy a home at this stage of the game? Not at this moment, but, I mean, eventually.

Okay. But, I mean, is it time to start saving towards that for the next 18 months or so, or not? There is potential marriage within the next couple of years, so that would probably be a good idea. Okay, yeah. Then let's, you know, you can either start your baby step four with 15% of your income going towards retirement, and that will lower how much you throw in the down payment fund, or you can say, I'm not going to touch retirement for the next two years, and then I'm going to get after it hard after that, so I can build up a really sweet down payment as well.

And, of course, the other thing is if he has debt that's not going to be cleared prior to marriage, you would be saving up, piling up cash to get ready to pay that off after the marriage. So that, you know, you come home from the honeymoon, write checks, combine all your finances, and as a couple, you become debt-free that way right out of the honeymoon if he's in that situation. So those are the things you're looking at. Good question. Thank you for joining us. Angel is with us in Baltimore.

Hi, Angel. How are you? I'm doing well, Dave. Thank you for taking my. Angel is with us in Baltimore. Hi, Angel. How are you? I'm doing well, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I wanted to know if it's financially safe for me and my husband to go on a vacation. We're newlyweds, and we owe taxes, and I have some school debt, and I just wanted to get your opinion.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, the thing I have figured out is that what you concentrate on is what happens in your life. And, you know, can you go on vacation? Well, you're adults. You have the money. You can go on vacation, or you can put on vacation? Well, you're adults. You have the money. You can go on vacation, or you can put it on a credit card. You're adults, right? I mean, you get to make these choices.

You don't need my permission to go on vacation. Would I go on vacation if I had a tax bill laying there? Not in a million years. Okay. And how much student loan debt have you two got? He doesn't have any, but I had some. It's about $6,000 or $7,000, I think. And what's your household income?

$30,000. $30,000. And how much do you owe in taxes? I think it's $1,167. Okay. Just one of you working? We're both working. I'm working for the school system as an AA, and he works for a law firm.

He just got certified as a paralegal. Okay. Paralegals make more than $30,000 a year in Baltimore. Well, he just got certified, so it hasn't come in the mail yet. It's going to come in June, so he's looking for a job as a paralegal right now. He's working in the call center for size and curve. Oh, okay. Okay.

So your household income is getting ready to change. Okay, so let me restate this another way. I'm going to be really nasty for a second, okay? Hold on. You ready? You got a grip? You got a grip? I got a grip.

You're broke freaking newlyweds. You just are starting your career and your life. You haven't even paid your tax bill. No, you don't need to go on vacation. He's saying, like, we can go in a group and pay each or something make it cheaper what do you think about that i think if you put a lipstick on a pig it's still a pig i think so too um yeah yeah this is immaturity no you guys need to get your freaking act together get your big girl big boy. Start making you some money.

Clean up these messes. And a year from now, when you got a little money in the bank and you got no debt, then go on vacation, pay cash for it. You'll enjoy it a lot more. You're going to feel stupid on vacation right now. Because if you go on vacation right now, you're going to be stupid. Would it be safe to just a day trip, like go to an amusement park, instead of making it like a whole week or something?

Kiddo, you can do whatever you want to do, okay? You're allowed to do whatever you want to do. You're grown-ups. You're allowed to do whatever you want to do. I'm telling you what to do. But you can do whatever you want to do. Megan is with us. Megan is in Indianapolis.

Hi, Megan. How are you? I'm great. It is an honor to speak with you. to do. Megan is with us. Megan is in Indianapolis. Hi, Megan. How are you? I'm great. It is an honor to speak with you. You too. What's up? My question is, how do you can gently encourage someone who does not believe that being debt-free is possible when they are a farmer? Well, farming, especially on a large scale, is very difficult to get there, and it's not something you're going to do in 12 days or 12 months even. How big a farm operation have you all got?

Well, it's my boyfriend, and they probably farm, I'm guessing, 800 to 1,200 acres. Okay, so they're buying $100,000, $200, to 1,200 acres. Okay. So they're buying $100,000, $200,000 tractors. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You don't just save those up in 12 months usually. Yeah.

So can you be a home builder and do it debt-free? Yeah, but you have to work up to it, right? Can you own a car lot? Yeah. Can you own a car lot and be debt-free and have a whole inventory of cars? Yes, you can. Do most do it? No. Do most go broke every time there's a downturn? car lot yeah can you own a car lot and be debt free and have a whole inventory of cars yes you can do most do it no do most go broke every time there's a downturn yes do a lot of farmers work their absolute butts off and all they do is pay banks and make no money yeah they work harder than

any human on the planet and they owe more than any human on the planet they give all their dadgum money to the bank so i think it's a shame that these banks own these farmers. But the farmers signed up for the trip. So how you gently do it is you say, you know, it's going to take a few years and we're going to have to aim at it, but it is definitely possible. There are lots of farmers that are debt-free, but they're very careful about it, and they made a conscious decision to not be owned by a bank in the name of having a tractor with a GPS in there.

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About eight months ago, I was $10,000 in debt, but thanks to your babysit plans, those simple steps there, I'm debt-free. Good for you. Thank you, sir. I've got some good questions for you, though. Now, I am recently married, about 10 days ago. Oh, congratulations. Thank you. Things are moving quick here. I've got a few things, just three things that I'm concerned about financially, and maybe you can help me out on. First thing is that my wife, she is a pharmacist, and she has about $18,000 in student loan debt, but it's to her parents.

Her parents have already paid it off, so there's no interest there. And we're in the process of looking for a house in the Great Binary in Texas. Together, we make about $185, 185 before tax and i wanted to know our price range okay and the last thing i wanted to tell you is i told my wife i'd have to tell you that about her car payment uh my car is paid off i'm uh got a little point a to point b vehicle she has a lincoln a new Lincoln, and her car payment is about $550 right now. What's the balance

on the Lincoln? When she bought it, I think this is a $44,000 vehicle. If she keeps up with that payment, she'll pay about a year. About a year. Okay. So she'll pay off in about three years. How long ago did she buy it? About a year.

Okay. So she probably owes $30-something. Probably. Okay. Well, what we teach folks to do, Caleb, is to be debt-free and have an emergency fund plus a down payment before you buy a house. And so if I woke up in your shoes, I would be stopping the house hunt and paying off the parents and the car.

You make really good money. You ought to be able to do that really fast. And as soon as that's done, then I would build an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses, and then I would build a really nice down payment. So it's next spring when you're looking at houses. Okay, right now we have about $25,000 set aside. $5,000 would be an emergency fund.

No, $5,000 is not an emergency fund. An emergency fund is three to six months of expenses. $5,000 isn't even an emergency fund for this car payment. Okay. Three to six months of your household expenses it's three to six times that okay and besides that okay let's stop a second you said i made some assumptions i shouldn't have made you said you paid off ten thousand dollars because of listening to me no let's stop what we teach are what are called the baby steps the very first thing you should do is have only one thousand

dollars saved no investing going on. Stop all of your 401ks. And that means we would clean out all of that money down to $1,000 and start paying off these debts. The first thing I do is write a check to mom and dad tonight. I'd be debt free. Then I would write a check for the difference down to $1,000 on the $44,000 car. I would pay that $44,000 car off in the next, what, four months or so. You need to really get with it.

And you're not going to quite do it in four months. It's going to take a little longer than that, but not much. I mean, you're making some serious bank here. And so you guys need to clean up this mess. This car is within reason in your situation. It's an expensive car, but it's within reason. Then when you're 100% debt-free, then you take the $1,000 car, and I guess we're talking about, what, September now,

and you raise it up, the $1,000 balance on that emergency fund, you raise it up to three to six months of expenses. In your house, that's $20,000, okay, at least. And that's your emergency fund. Then you start saving your down payment on your home. And that's why I say it's going to be next spring to put up a nice down payment on the home and have the emergency fund in place and be 100% debt-free. Now, you get to do what you want to do.

The problem is you're married to a lady that makes a lot of money and has been spending money like she's in Congress. So whether or not you guys will actually do this plan, I don't know. But that is the shortest way to building wealth and the best way to make a decision on a home. By the way, I don't suggest young married couples buy a home in their first year of marriage anyway. It takes a year of marriage to know how close to your mother-in-law to buy. You need to get to know each other for a year. Okay?

And you're going to be spending a year cleaning up these messes anyway and building an emergency fund and building a down payment. And that's what I would tell you to do. And whether I can get you to do that 10 days after you're married while you're in love, I don't know. But that's what you should do. And this time next year, you buy a home, put down a really nice down payment, and we tell you how much house should you buy?

No more than a fourth of your take-home pay in a payment on a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage, which puts you into a very nice home next spring. And you're going to be in a really good place to do that, and you'll have a nice car, and Mom and Dad will be out of your hair, and everything else. Everything else is good. But that's what I would do if I woke up in your shoes. Again, I probably have an uphill battle talking to you guys into doing this.

You're probably going to go make some more mistakes, and then you're going to call me back, tell me about your mistakes. But that's what I would do if I were in your shoes. Chris is in Virginia. Hi, Chris. How are you? Good. How are you doing?

Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Well, I've run a business for 10 years. We just had our 10-year anniversary. But I'm kind of celebrating by considering Chapter 11. And, I mean, I've been over everything and racking my brains, trying everything I could, and it just seems like that's probably the best play right now to fix some of the problems in there.

And so I just, I mean, I know you've been through bankruptcy of one form or another, and I just, any advice as far as making sure that that is the right trigger to pull? Well, I just, you know, the thing, bankruptcy is in the same category as divorce. It's the last thing you do after you've tried everything else. So I don't recommend it. I went through it, but that doesn't mean I recommend it. It's not a method of building wealth, that's for sure. So how much debt have you got on this business?

It's about $250,000 right now. It's a seasonal business. What is the debt on? $100,000 is a business line of credit. $100,000 is a rapid advance type of deal. Rapid advance. Yeah, at the time it seemed like I was trying everything else, right? And the service on that every month is really what's killing us.

I mean, the business is starting to appear. We're getting into a busier time, but we're just so far behind. Okay. And what's the other $50,000? There's about $30,000 on a credit card and then about $20,000 between family members. Okay. All right. And the line of credit, the business line of credit, is this secured on your home? I'm not 100% sure. I know that the other $100,000 is.

The rapid advances on your home? Well, here's the deal. I signed for it. You signed for all of it. Well, right. They don't make loans to businesses like yours unless you sign for them. This is all personal debt, technically speaking, but we did it for the business. Right.

Okay, what kind of business? Moving. Okay. And what were you buying with all this stuff, just trying to stay open? Yeah, it was just... Okay, so what kind of profits are you paying taxes on? I'm not even sure what our profits are right now. You know, it's a $1.4 million business.

For the longest time, we had a workman's compensation insurance premium of over $12,000 a month. We had a couple of claims that pushed us up there. We went from $1,800 to $12,000 in the space of a few months. We maintained that for a few years, but then we started taking out the debt to get us through the slow time. And that was a big part of it. So, you know, the first thing you have to figure out before you need to file Chapter 11 is you need to figure out if you're making a profit or not. You may not need to file Chapter 11. You may need to just close it.

Well, really. Operating something that's not profitable is kind of silly. That's like a hobby. So I tell you what, hold on a minute. When we come back from this break, I'll talk to you a little bit more. And hang with me. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Okay, I am talking with Chris in Virginia. He's got $250,000 out in a line of credit and rapid advance and family on a moving business that's seasonal

and doesn't know if he's making a profit, hasn't seen a P&L. He's got a top line of over a million dollars, he thinks, and wondering if he's in Chapter 11. You with me so far, Chris? Yeah. Okay. The first thing you've got to do, and you're going to have to do this without Chapter 11 anyway, is you're going to have to build a P&L.

You need to build a profit and loss statement. And it can start primitive and get a little bit more sophisticated with a million-dollar business. It doesn't have to have a ton of sophistication, but basically your income minus your outgo equals your profit. You know that. Right, right, right. And the first step is do it on a yellow pad. The second step is sit down with an accountant and begin to lay that out. Have you not been paying your taxes? No, no.

Virtually everything is paid up to this point. Okay, so if you've been paying your taxes, how did you everything is paid up to this point but okay so if you've been paying your taxes how did you do that without a pnl well we have we have an accounting team okay we had accountants into that actual accountants firm it's not in-house or anything um that developed your tax returns which which shows your profit. Right. And I've been talking to them. They said, we don't understand. You should be profitable. You should be profitable.

And, you know, we looked at, like, the cost of goods was 39%. You know, or, excuse me, production wages was at 39%. They made the suggestion that we cut that down to 29%. But if you have a million-two and you've got $400,000 or $450,000. But if you have $1,000,002 and you've got $400,000 or $450,000 in production expenses, meaning your labor costs, that seems even low. It's probably above that.

Then what other expenses have you got? You've got insurance and you've got your you talked about your workers comp is high. That would be normal in your business. And then you've got truck operations and rental and truck operations and insurance. Do you own a building or have you got a rental building? We are leasing right now.

Okay. How much is your lease a month? About $8,000. Okay. That's $100,000 a year. All right. So you should be profitable. Let's pretend that we do all of this and you find $200,000 a year profit,

which you should have with the numbers you're giving me. Unless there's something I'm missing in this boat, then I think more than anything you are disorganized. You can say that, yeah. And when you get organized and you go, wow, where's all this money going, that might solve the problem. Chapter 11 doesn't make you organized. And you'll lose the business if you don't get your arms around it.

You're going down because you're not running the business. The business is running you. You're stressed out. Yeah. You're just trying to out-earn your disorganization. You're trying to make just trying to out earn your disorganization you're trying to make enough money to cover up all the crap right the fact that you've been you know you work really hard lifting furniture but you don't work hard at your business well you see the running the running of your business if i was going to hire you for an operations manager, I would fire you, and you would too.

Because I'm talking to you. You can't tell me if you're profitable, right? I can tell you what I've been told by the accountant. No, you own the business. You own the business. You're responsible for it. So I don't give a crap what your accountants say. I want you to get on the phone with them when you get off of me and get a yellow pad out.

And on the top of that yellow pad, I want you to put your gross revenues. And then I want you to just find out from them on the tax return where the money went. And then get your checkbook out and figure out where the money went. Do you have an accounting system with your checkbook? Yes. I mean, we use QuickBooks. We actually use it. Okay.

Then it ought to give you a monthly P&L, dude. QuickBooks does a P&L for you. Get your accountant in there and help you work through that if you don't know how to work through it, and let's figure out what your profits are. Because if you're making $200,000 a year, you just put your household on starvation diet, and let's get this mess cleaned up as i understand chapter 11 that puts some of the debt on hold at least for a little while i know it's a big black eye but that gives you a chance to you're not even listening to me are you right you're not even listening to me are you you? You're not bankrupt. You don't even know if you're bankrupt.

We're out of money. That's what I know at this point. Okay, dude. If you want to fix this, I told you how to fix it. But chapter 11 is not your answer. You're going to go chapter 7, and you're going to lose the whole business if you go into 11. That's what's going to happen. Because you don't know what's going on in your business.

You're going to have to run your business to turn this thing around. If you do that, you're probably not a Chapter 11. If you don't do that, a Chapter 11 is going to ensure you lose the whole thing. That's what's going to happen for you. I hope that doesn't happen. All right, in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions is Kelsey from Wisconsin. Hi, Kelsey, how are you? I'm well, Dave. How are you? Thanks for coming all the way here to do your debt-free scream. How much have you paid off?

I paid off $27,000. How long did that take? About 19 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? It started about 30 and now is about 50. Way to go. What do you do for a living? I'm a customer service representative at a promotional products company. Good for you. And how old are you? 27. Cool. So what kind of debt was the $27,000? A student loan and a very small car loan. All right. All right. So 19 months ago, did you get out of school then? No, I've been out of school since 2013. Okay. So what happened 19 months ago that put you on this journey? We actually had a tragedy in our family. My big brother died by suicide.

My goodness. And we found out that he had a lot of debt and a lot of money stress. Wow. And that makes you go, I'm not going to live like that. Never, ever. In his memory, you're going to clean it up. Wow. How old was he? 29. i'm so sorry what a horrible thing to motivate you yeah but what a thorough motivator

definitely oh my gosh never never never will be here is this your mom and dad with you it is yeah wow what you guys have been through i'm so sorry. So what did you do after all of that horrible tragedy and you said, I'm going to get out? What did you do to get out of debt? I already had a second job, but I picked up probably three times the amount of shifts at my second job. So I was bartending on weekends and just working as much as possible. So your secret to get out of debt is work your butt off. Yeah, definitely. And it worked, huh? Yes. Good for you. Proud of you. Well done. I know your mom and dad are proud of you.

Wow. Very, very cool. What do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is? I put words in your mouth, but you tell them what you think it is. It is work your butt off, but definitely budget and have an awesome cheering section because between my parents and our church and some family members, I've definitely had a lot of people in my corner. Yeah. Wow. Absolutely.

Very cool. Well, you had a lot of reasons to do it. Pretty amazing. Pretty amazing. And so how does it feel now that you don't have any debt? Pretty light. Like, I can do anything. It's kind of fun now.

Actually, if I want something, I don't have to whine about it that I can't have it. I can actually just go buy it. Well, you make $50,000 a year. Did you say 27 years old? Yeah. And no debt at all. Not a debt at all. Put you in a really strong place.

Yes. Yeah, you're going to be able to do anything you want to do, kiddo. You've got control of that. It gets control of a whole lot of areas of your life when you're doing that and when it's out of control it's a whole lot of areas of your life so wow wow absolutely amazing good for you what was the hardest part for you um probably giving up a decent part of my social life saying no to vacations um and just picking up all of the extra shifts which it's actually a fun second job but it's it's nice to be able to go to nashville or you know wherever

i want to now yeah make the trip down here to do the debt-free scream yes all right cool so how old was your brother again 29 and what was his name luke luke all right very cool well what a horrible thing you guys have been through but but I'm so proud of you. Thank you. And I know your mom and dad are, and you've used that horrible tragedy to motivate you to do something really positive and get control of an area of your life. Very well done. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book, Retire Inspired, for you.

You're going to be a millionaire someday, kiddo. Can't wait. Right before you know it, and you'll be outrageously generous along the way. Definitely. So, all right. It's Kelsey from Oshkosh, Wisconsin. $27,000 paid off in 19 months at 27 years old. Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free! Woo-hoo! Wow. Wow. wow i just about didn't get through that one our scripture of the day e Ephesians 429, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. Catherine the Great said, I praise loudly, I blame softly. There you go. Our question of the day comes from blinds.com. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

That means even if you screw up, if you mismeasure, you pick the wrong color, like sometimes I might do, they'll remake your window blinds for free. Site-wide savings is happening right now. Plus, you can take an additional 5% off at blinds.com slash Ramsey. Blinds.com slash Ramsey. Blinds.com slash Ramsey. Today's question comes from Robert in California. He visits and says, we're on baby step 3B, saving up for a down payment on a house, debt-free,

accept the house, and have our emergency fund in place, trying to figure out what we can afford. I know you say house payment should be around 25% of your take-home pay on a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage, but houses in Southern California where we live are so expensive. What do you suggest for hot markets like ours? We feel like we can't find anything reasonable that's going to fit in that range. Robert, if you live in California or you live in Southern California

or you live in San Francisco or you live in San Francisco, or you live in Manhattan, they do not issue a pass on mathematics. Math doesn't count. You're in California. Sorry. It counts. And the bottom line of our guideline is simply this. Regardless of where you live, whatever reason you use,

and however valid the reason is or isn't, if you end up with a house payment that is a large percentage of your take-home pay, you're going to struggle financially. Duh. We call that house poor. And if you want to be house poor and blame it on Southern California real estate prices,

it's a reasonable blame. I mean, yeah, prices are high. The thing is, can you afford to live there? If you don't make enough to live there, then we've got another issue. And, you know, there are people that do not make enough money to live in Manhattan. It's too expensive. There are people that don't make enough money to live in X neighborhood, whatever neighborhood you want to name, or whatever city or sub-city or borough or county or whatever.

It's too expensive. So the thing is, you cannot tie up 40%, 50% of your income just because you live in an expensive area. That means you don't make enough to live in that area, is what it says. And so it's up to you. You can do whatever you want to do. But I can tell you that it is very difficult to prosper financially when you get a house payment that's north of 30% of your take-home pay. You can qualify for that much, and people do it all the time, and they rationalize it, but they don't prosper financially. Because they're so far in debt, they can't breathe.

The house owns them. They don't own it. The house becomes a curse rather than a blessing. You don't get a pass on math because you live in an expensive market. We've got some of these other markets that the prices are just exploding. Phoenix is exploding. Denver. Denver's gotten really expensive.

And, you know, there's entire articles and studies being done on the people to work at service type jobs cannot afford to live in Silicon Valley. So they're having to ship in people to work at service jobs because you can't afford to live there. I mean, it's a multi-bazillion dollar market as an example. You know, and it's just you can't afford to live there. You can't afford to live there. And this is a micro of that same discussion. And so you've got to decide, are we going to live in a house in an area with a bit of a commute or in an area that's not necessarily our first choice in order to prosper financially? Or does this make us stop and say, well, we don't really have to make enough to live here?

Maybe we need to think about that. Cindy's with us in Boston. Hi, Cindy. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you, Dave. How can I help? I have kind of an in-depth question in regards to my student loans. I'm a single mom.

I have chronic myeloid leukemia. I'm 49 years old. I started back in 1997. So I wanted to know, um, because I'm on SSDI and I have a PCA job on the side, which is about, uh, 24,000 a year for income. Should I go through with the student loan forgiveness? And in order to increase my income, go ahead and skip some of those baby steps to go to college funding? Well, I mean, your own Social Security disability is what you're telling me. Yes, unfortunately. Okay. That does qualify you for federal student loan forgiveness 100%. Now, if you haven't already figured it out, it's a hassle.

But it's worth the hassle. How much do you owe in student loans? About $24,000. What is your income a year? Well, my income is about $20,000, but my PCA job is kind of, I'm in hospice, and I do private care. So, you know, it could go at any moment. Okay. All right.

Well, you know, what I would do is go ahead and apply for, and you're going to have to submit all the same documentation you had to submit before. But once you've been SSI approved, it should be a slam dunk. Once you do, you know, you push through all the paperwork for your federally insured student loans to be 100% forgiven when you are on disability, federal disability. So, yes, I would pursue that. And let's get that out of the way. Then once that's out of the way, then you look at whatever you want to do on your career and whatever you want to do on paying cash for whatever student whatever whatever uh degree

field you want to pursue at that point and so um you said chronic leukemia. I'm not a medical person. I'm putting these two and two together. So this has got a long-term prognosis? Yes, it is. Okay. You've had this since 97? I've had this since I was 31, actually, so 2010. Okay.

One child. Okay, and you're a single mom. how old is your child my son is 17 years old and he was just diagnosed with gastritis so i'm homeschooling him now okay it gets worse but you know what um thanks to you i'm starting to get hope back um i am a very strong faithful woman and my only other goal next, other than getting a deeper relationship with God, is to get my finances in order. Cool. Have you gone through Financial Peace University yet?

You know I bought your book. I wanted to see you in Boston, and I said, you know what, I can't afford it, so I'm not going to go. I thought you'd be proud of me. Well, sort of. Not that I want your money. I just wish I could have helped you. I want you to go through Financial Peace as our guest. I'm already halfway through your book. proud of me well sort of uh not that i want your money i just wish i could have helped you i want

you to go through financial peace as our guest i'm already halfway through your book i want you to go through financial peace as my guest i'm going to give it to you okay you're walking a hard you're walking a hard road and i want to walk with you and we'll help you do that so you hang on and kelly will pick up and we'll get you signed up. For those of you that don't know, Financial Peace University is a one-year membership. The initial set of classes are nine lessons that you go to. We're going to send her out a kit, and she's also got online access to all nine lessons, plus the new addition we've just done is the Legacy Journey is now part of the membership, which is the follow

up class for financial peace university so when you buy the one year membership you've got access to all of that online audio video everything you also got the every dollar plus which ties to your bank all tied into the whole thing ready to go and that that's all included. And we're going to ship you the kit. And then you join a group at a local church in your area and go through the first nine lessons together as a part of the group experience. And you get the community around you and all the tools around you to be able to win with money. And it's a pretty incredible value nowadays. So we're real proud of it. Hold on.

We're going to get that out to you and take care of you, Miss Cindy. You call me back if you need more help. That puts this hour of the day Ramsey Show in the books. We will be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there is ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Rise Jesus. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but if you heard about a product or service and didn't have a chance to write it down, don't worry. We list everything that is mentioned during this episode in the podcast show notes section.

Thanks for listening.