The Ramsey Show - App - Normal Looks Good...but It Sucks! (Hour 1)
Episode Date: July 8, 2021Debt, Career, Savings, Investing, Relationships Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey+ TODAY: https://bit.ly/3rZTUAx Tools to get you started: Debt Calculator: https://bit.ly/2Q64HME Insurance ...Coverage Checkup: https://bit.ly/3sXwUn5 Complete Guide to Budgeting: https://bit.ly/3utmVXi Check out more Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3fHhbVE
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Thank you. 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, Dr. John Deloney.
Ramsey Personality, best-selling author and host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, is my co-host today.
He has a couple of PhDs.
He's the smartest guy in the building, and if you don't believe me, ask him.
Also the most humble.
I agree. I agree. Continue. Continue. But anyway, ask him. Also the most humble. I agree.
I agree.
Continue.
Continue.
But anyway, you need to listen to his show.
It's all about mental health and boundaries and relationships.
And you weren't scheduled to be involved in the show yesterday, but you got involved behind the scenes a little bit.
Yeah.
For those of you that were not around yesterday for whatever reason, I don't usually tell you what yesterday is with all that,
but this is the time we're going to stop and do that.
We had a young lady call in with Rachel and I on the air
that it became apparent during the call that she was a victim of domestic violence.
I don't even like saying that that way because it sounds so antiseptic
she was a victim of her boyfriend beating the crap out of her is a better way of saying the truth
and uh we determined that and uh then uh while we were on the call we determined he was
in the room that he had walked in and was not happy and so um so it went from a financial question to a question of her safety
and her child's safety and so forth on the air, live.
It was pretty wicked weird and wild, but I walked her through that a little bit,
and John just happened to walk by the studio and stepped in,
and I put her on hold,
and he has done a lot of trauma and crisis intervention-type counseling over the years,
and so trained in that but also experienced in that.
So you got on the phone with her, and we were able to get the uh the police over there very quickly and uh the young
man is sitting where he should be now in a cage um which is where people like that belong um
and so i think they call that a jail but i called it a cage um very similar either one is either
one's fine with me but they're both similar situation here this is where this little guy
needs to be and uh
that was pretty wild discussion you were having in there off air yeah i i noticed at one point i
didn't know who would who was in there you know you kind of zone out and lock try to lock in in
face to face you lock eyes but in those situations you lock hearts with somebody and then i noticed
you'd come in there after a while but yet it was intense mainly because it was live it was happening live and she was not it wasn't philosophically unsafe
she was unsafe now and somebody else had her kid and then you've got a mom who needs to protect
herself but i'm not gonna leave my baby unprotected and now you've got a messy situation
and um whenever i show up to something like that,
I'm always looking at escalation trends.
Is this thing slowing down?
Are people separating and they're just yelling at each other?
Or is it moving up?
And this one moved up real rapidly.
And luckily, that police department there was super responsive
and they showed up and I'm grateful to them.
And at the end of the day, man, we're talking to a really brave,
brave young woman woman brave new mom
and she's got a hard row ahead of her but yeah things got pretty dicey there for a minute yeah
and that's not that's not us hollywoodizing this thing no it got pretty dicey it was it was very
real yeah and uh he's a violent dude and uh so the uh yeah of course so the end of the story is she's safe.
Her family's around her.
And, of course, we've plugged her in with financial counseling.
She does have some crisis financial situation as well.
We've got her some resources there.
But that really was not even on the table for discussion yesterday.
But our team is rallying around her.
We're plugging her in with counselors. Of course, no charge.
And we're just going to walk with her and make sure she gets her life changed in a different direction
because it sure was going down the toilet pretty fast.
And we did.
We connected her to some domestic violence resources there in Tampa, too,
so that she can have a local community that can be hands-on there.
Yeah.
So she's safe and good.
For those of you that were listening, a lot of you have been emailing us and yeah so so she's safe and good for those of you that were listening a lot of you
been you know emailing us and worried and so forth and uh so we thought we would give you guys a bit
of an update and you know it's odd you and i were talking i think it was last week on the air
about this correlation between um extreme control over money issues and domestic violence yeah that
there's a correlation between that because there's this where where a husband or a boyfriend it will not let you pick the cereal at the grocery store you
can't go grocery shopping by yourself you can't buy detergent you can't do anything without his
approval on every little nuanced thing where there's that level of weird toxic control over a lady a woman uh with the money it's it's a high statistical indicator
that he's probably hitting her it's just about power right and i'll take that power wherever i
can get it yeah it's about power and control and boy you know that was going on yesterday and you
could smell it in the air so i put her on the air air it was um it didn't take a genius to figure
out what was to you know to figure out what I was dealing with,
what we were going into there.
But I think the thing that you can't get away from on the positive side
or the negative side of toxic behaviors is that personal finance is 80 behavior it's only 20 had knowledge so the
chances of you being in a relationship that are that dysfunctional and being wealthy yeah uh
becoming wealthy in a dysfunctional setting is just almost impossible right because these things
don't live in one nice little compartment over here uh and then not bleed over or not not bad bad metaphor but
don't don't reach over into the other areas of your life so i mean you can't be
a punching bag in one area of your life and then suddenly be prosperous and healthy and
winning at your career and winning at your wealth building and that kind of thing they just don't
it's not we can't compartmentalize that tight.
Right. And one of the challenge with relational abuse of any kind is you accept that as a given.
You accept that as, well, some days are good days.
Occasionally he'll come in crying saying he's sorry and it's going to be okay.
And so you start trying to solve that inner chaos at the margins.
You start trying to think of, well, maybe I can get a better interest rate,
or maybe I should trade my car in, or it's probably my job.
And you distance yourself from this core nuclear reactor issue that is,
hey, you're not safe.
Your baby's not safe.
And this thing just escalates this way, right?
So to anyone listening.
Well, the decisions you make on the money on the fringe is to avoid the nuclear reactor at the center are never good decisions.
They're not.
Because you're making them out of chaos, right?
Well, and you're making them in order to mask.
That's right.
And instead of dealing with the core issues.
And so, you know, Larry Burkett used to say, debt is not the problem, it's the symptom.
There you go.
And so it's a symptom of a behavior.
Well, I heard you say something yesterday through the window
that I think is worth reiterating.
You listened to her and you said,
hey, hon, you are worth being safe.
You're worth more than this.
And so anybody listening is in any sort of abusive
situation,
exhale and drop your shoulders for a second
and look up in the rearview mirror as you drive
and look in the mirror at your house. You're worth
being saved.
This
is The Ramsey Show. Your number one wealth building tool is your income.
For business owners, this comes as no surprise.
As you're used to putting in extra hours and watching your bottom line. That's why Christian Healthcare Ministries or CHM is a great option for those who are faith
focused and budget conscious. CHM is not health insurance, rather it's a health cost sharing
program. It's not harder, but it is different. To learn if CHM is a fit for you or your business,
visit chministries.org slash budget. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today.
Ellen is in New Jersey.
Hi, Ellen. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.
Hi, how are you today?
Better than I deserve. What's up?
I was just curious.
Me and my husband were trying to figure out what to do about our money
because he's working at a sales job and he's not paying as much as we were hoping to be your phone
your phone sucks can you speak directly into it we're having trouble understanding you
uh sure um hang on let me see if you leave me my fan is too loud hold on
okay is that better yes ma'am thank you i'm sorry start again so maybe we can
understand you now yeah um my husband is a sales uh insurance salesman and we're projected to make
a certain amount of money but because of uh issues with his job and things we're not making enough
um he has a bad history of like work history so we've been trying
to repair it by keeping it jobs for a certain length of time but we're not really making enough
money to make ends meet so i'm not sure what we should do so he's on straight commission and y'all
are starving to death well he has a little bit uh He gets like $2,000 a month of, almost $2,000 a month of base pay.
So he can get that at least.
Yes.
But he's obviously not a good insurance salesman.
No, unfortunately.
Okay, so he does need another job.
I don't care what his work history is.
Yeah, when you say he has a bad work history, you're trying to repair.
What does that mean?
It means he's not stayed on the job very long yeah he had a history of not staying
on jobs very long why a few years we've been working on fixing that why um when he was working
with his family his family needed a lot of help he's kind of off the work a lot and he'd get fired
for those reasons but um i'm sorry he'd get fired because his family needed a lot of help.
You mean because he didn't go to work because he was helping his family?
Yeah.
Okay.
When did that stop?
That stopped, actually, after he started dating me.
I started pushing him to work harder, and he did start working a lot harder.
How long ago?
He's been working a whole lot since then.
That's about 2000, and I'd say it's about 2018 it really started improving.
Okay, so he's held a job since 2018 fairly steadily?
Yeah, he's held different jobs, but he's not, like, been fired from any of them.
He's been working all the time.
So that he has been doing.
Here's the deal.
He's got to go get another job.
He's got to get two or three of them,
and he's not going to make a lot of money at the hourly wage,
but he needs to start making some money.
That's where you're at.
And I know you'll have a dream right now of,
hey, we're going to make this,
and this is going to be the job that bails him out of all the other bad jobs.
That's not where you're at right now.
You've got to eat.
You're in an emergency.
So he's got to go to Lowe's, and he's got to go drive uber at night and he's got to get up and i don't think
they have paper routes anymore he's got to find a morning job too and he's going to be working
three days three jobs six days a week seven days a week and he's just got to get cracking so um
ellen you sound like you're taking care of a little boy to me that's exactly right
like he doesn't want to work much like he's lazy and you're covering for him in this call
that was the case originally that's not anymore i'm actually a state home mom
but he's been doing most of the actual working i know but he but he's not working. It's not working.
Yeah.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, like the reason he sucks as an insurance salesman is because he doesn't do it.
He's not making sales.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, so what do you need to do?
Are you guys in a good church?
Actually, we just joined a better church. Wonderful. We were a church that was too far away, but now you guys in a good church actually just joined a better church
wonderful church was too far away but now we're at a good one wonderful okay i want you to i want
him to plug in with some guys they're a little bit older than him and start to develop some
relationships with some guys who have a high quality work ethic and and who have big goals for their lives
and let him start hanging around with those guys
because I think no one has ever taught him how to do those things.
He's got some family challenges.
I get that.
Well, I think his family that didn't allow him to work much,
so he had to stop and help them, they don't work much.
That's what I'm saying.
He doesn't have any picture of what that even looks like.
It's like, you know, yeah.
But I also know guys like this that it's always a scheme.
It's the next thing.
Yeah.
And, well, you look for, when you're desperate, you look for stupid ideas.
There you go.
You just need to work real hard for a long time.
Yeah.
And don't jump on pipe dreams.
Just go get something where you can hustle and grind and grind out some money
and just be steady and be the tortoise. And somebody will quit ahead of you and you'll get hey i need you to take
this shift we're going to make you assistant maybe that's how that'll work just just if you just show
up work and work while you're at work and smile while you're at work and work while you're at work
and smile while you're at work and you show up all the time and you do that all of a sudden magic
stuff starts happening it just does i mean it's just incredible what ends up happening.
Because here's the thing.
Most people don't show up and work at work.
Or they show up at work and they're jerks to be around.
Yeah.
That's the magic.
Do your job and don't be an idiot.
Ta-da.
Make a million dollars.
That's like the slogan.
I'm going to write that book.
Do your job and don't be an idiot.
How about that?
But, I mean, that's all of it.
That's kind of it.
It's like, you know, if you just show up and care fun to be around and care all day long and smile while you're there dad gum man you're just like you're just like in the top percent right there
before you did anything else you don't even have to be that good out of the bar for life gets so
low just show up to the job that you...
It's not just him.
No, I know it's not.
Ellen, we're not talking
about your husband.
We're talking about everybody now.
Yes.
Okay, so just, yeah.
Be at work
while you're at work.
Work real hard.
It's a formula.
And don't be an idiot.
Get off of Facebook.
You're supposed to be working.
You're supposed to be working. You're supposed to be working.
Don't be watching YouTube cat videos.
You're supposed to be working.
To every guy.
Work while you're at work.
Who has had a past where they've struggled.
And now you're in it.
And you've got an incredible woman like this by your side.
And this is going to be the job.
And you get in and you're trying to sell.
You're trying to sell.
And it's not working.
Be honest.
Be open about it. and transition to something else.
Don't think you're saving anybody by drowning your whole family.
And that's how people end up, you know, two years later and $60,000 in secret credit card debt, nonsense like that.
Scott's in Dallas, Texas.
Hey, Scott, how are you?
I'm doing all right.
How are you guys?
Better than we deserve.
How can we help?
Okay, I got a question for you.
I am 47 years old, and my fiancé is 39 years old.
We are getting married for the second time.
Each of our second marriages next month.
We've been together for about six years.
She's a super great woman, and I'm very confident that this one's going to work for me.
But we're at two ends of the spectrum when it comes to our finances. She is a 10-year professional.
She's an audiologist, and she has about $160,000 in debt, most of it student loans.
And I have approximate net worth of $1.9 million debt-free except for my house.
So my question is, how do we attack it?
Attack her debt? Attack it? Attack her debt?
Attack what?
Attack our debt.
It's not our debt until you're married.
Once you're married, you write a check and you pay off our debt.
I don't have that much cash.
Why? You have $1.6 million.
$1.9 million, you don't have $160,000?
What's it in?
I have four paid-off rental properties, and I have about $375,000 in retirement. Mm-hmm. And I am down to 60 grand in cash,
and that's why I feel comfortable
because I'm a small business owner,
and I got 30 grand in my business
and 30 grand in my emergency.
I'd sell a rental property.
Sell a rental property, maybe debt-free.
After you're married.
I'm not walking around with $160,000 in student loan debt and rental properties on the books.
Comes with a package, brother.
Yeah.
This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Dr. John Deloney Ramsey, is my co-host today.
Open phones at 888-825-5225.
Heath and Morgan are with us in Columbus, Ohio.
Says on my screen, you guys are debt-free.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Awesomeness.
How much have you paid off?
$127,000 in two years and 19 days.
Good for you.
Wow.
Good job.
Well done.
And your range of income during that two years?
Right around $108,000 to like $123,000.
Cool.
What do you all do for a living?
I'm a project manager at a public utility.
Your phone cut out. You're a what, Heather? I'm sorry, Morgan.
I'm a teacher.
You're a teacher. Great. Okay, wonderful.
So what kind of debt was your $127,000?
It was like $96,000 in student loans, like $25,000 in cars, and around $6,000 or so in credit cards.
So how long have you all been married? About five years?
Yes.
Because that's about the level of stupid stuff you were doing.
You have about five years worth of stupid.
Y'all were normal, huh? What happened? What woke you up two years ago?
So I was at work one day, and a co-worker dropped your name on my way home i
listened to the podcast and a couple did their debt-free scream with almost the exact same income
and the exact same amount of debt oh there it is oh man now you're doing that to someone yeah yeah
i learned how possible it could be and uh if I recall correctly, I think they were right around the two-year mark as well.
So I came home, told Morgan about this plan, and she was on board from day one.
Wow, just like that.
Yeah.
A podcast on the drive home after a quick mention.
That's right.
And boom, here you go.
You guys are easy to convince.
And so Morgan, he comes home and says, hey, I've got this wild idea.
And you said, high five, let's do it?
Yeah, because the student loan debt was mine.
Okay.
And there was no fun going on with all this stuff, right?
It wasn't joyous.
Oh, no.
No, there were some dramatic moments, I'm sure.
Yeah.
Morgan, I know the answer to this question, but I just want you to tell America.
So put us in the teacher lounge at whatever school you're teaching. And as teachers sit
around the table and talk as they do, you've got $96,000 in student loans for a teacher's
certificate. And I know you're not the only one. What is the debt burden like on these teachers?
It's quite extensive. A lot of teachers have student
loan debt, and a lot of them only have bachelor's degrees. I ended up with a master's degree,
so that increased that loan, obviously. But yeah, I would say probably 80% of the teachers
that I know have student loan debt. Well, congratulations on working hard and getting
out. So good. Thank out so good proud of you
guys you're just amazing what you've done so when one of them asks you how did you do it what do you
tell them the key to getting out of debt is so one we we were both on board and both we held each
other accountable uh we were willing to make the big sacrifices like downgrading in our vehicle choice and working together.
And then also having a support group.
We had a couple of friends that really helped us through the journey and did the journey with us on their own accord.
Oh, cool.
Okay, so you had some cheerleaders and they were also working it.
Absolutely.
Our friends Treg and Courtney were our biggest cheerleaders by far.
Very cool. Good. So you got all the information you, were our biggest cheerleaders by far. Very cool.
Good. So you got all the information you needed off the podcast, or did you do something further?
We took Financial Peace University. After the podcast, I said, well, what else is there?
I'm a teacher, so I need rules and expectations. And he was like, well, there's a book,
The Total Money Makeoverover so we both read that
and then after that and listening to podcasts we went ahead and purchased financial peace university
and and went through that to help and we still use the every dollar app to this day for our budget
awesome yeah and all the baby steps from there so very cool very cool well thanks for plugging
into ramsey plus and doing all that i'm'm so proud of you guys. Very well done.
Well, that's how I'm like you. Once somebody convinces me of something, I'm like, okay, what's the plan?
Right.
What's the plan? What's the path? I need a path. Just show me what to do, and I'll go do it. I'm not real smart, but I can go do that. So, yeah. So, way to go, you guys. Very, very well done. Very well done.
What was the hardest part of the last two years um i would say just staying the course you know the the first couple months are fun and exciting
because you're making big progress and then the last 16 months are not that fun and exciting but
if you keep your goal out in front of you and just stay the course, stick with the plan, and just don't give up.
Yeah.
Okay.
Way to go, guys.
It's awesome.
Very, very, very well done.
We've got a copy of the Legacy Journey for you because that's the next chapter in your story for sure.
You've changed the legacy of your whole family in the last two years and 19 days.
You changed the whole direction.
You're really powerful people.
Very well done, heroes. Very well done,
heroes. Very well done. Thank you. And I also got a copy of the Total Money Makeover for you. You
already have one, but I'm not giving it to you for you. I'm giving it to you so you can give it
away and pay it forward and get someone else started, and you can be their cheerleaders,
just like that guy that had the same numbers as you and called in and did his debt-free scream,
and y'all are doing yours today. So very very well done i'm sure somebody's listening that's going to have the exact same
numbers as you that's the way this works guys it always works this way it always works this way
nothing happens in a vacuum so cool yeah very well done all right heath and morgan columbus ohio Columbus, Ohio, $127,000 paid off in two years and 19 days.
They did it on $108,000 to $123,000 income.
Count it down.
Let's hear a debt-free scream.
Three, two, one.
We're debt-free!
Yeah!
Yeah!
I love it.
Now, you've got to understand the math here, okay?
They've got $108,000 coming in, and they paid off $50,000 a year,
and they downgraded their car.
And they had two little kids.
And after taxes, that means they lived on nothing.
And she was a teacher during COVID.
Beans and rice. Rice and beans.
That's what they did. And if you're listening,
you are out of excuses.
You're out.
No more whining
allowed. You can't.
They lived on nothing.
So shut up.
Ah, man.
No more excuses. Yeah, really?
Heath and Morgan, incredible.
Yeah, that's just, but you know.
Well, you know, I have my Starbucks every day.
I can't not go out to eat.
I mean, what kind of life would it be to not go on vacation for two years?
Got rid of $127,000 worth of debt.
It's a life of 50 years of going wherever you want to go.
Hey, there it is.
Man.
Good for you guys.
So Dr. John Deloney and Rachel Cruz will be doing another money and marriage live stream
one week from this Friday.
That is on July the 16th, and it'll be a live stream.
That's why we call it that.
It's live.
The two of them talking about money and marriage. They are fun and funny. Up in the chaos this time. It's going to be a live stream. That's why we call it that. It's live. The two of them talking about money and marriage.
They are fun and funny.
We're up in the chaos this time.
It's going to be a hoot, man.
I bet it's going to be a hoot.
It's going to be a hoot, man.
It's only $20 to go through it.
And you need to go ahead and get your ticket now.
You can do that by texting MARRIAGE to 33-789.
MARRIAGE to 33-789.
Or you could just go ahead and go over to ramsey plus and sign up for financial
peace university and ramsey plus and take a free trial by the way if you're in ramsey plus you
guess what get to watch the if you're a member you get to watch the money and marriage event as
a part of your membership and i had people ask hey can i watch if i'm dating somebody of course
can i watch it if i'm not dating anybody? I just want to learn.
Yes.
It's a good time, man.
It'll be fun.
Yeah.
It's going to be fun, funny.
And actually, it's great pre-marriage counseling.
Yeah.
And it's great middle of marriage, what are we doing counseling?
She's like, whoa!
Yeah.
There you go.
So the proven plan that is Financial Peace University, that's what they did.
They went and signed up for it and got out of debt.
And if you're a member, you do that at Ramsey Plus.
And if you want a free trial of that, just text TRIAL to 33789.
TRIAL to 33789.
This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host.
I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for joining us.
Phone number is 888-825-5225.
Brian is with us. Brian's in Pittsburgh. How are you, Brian?
Dave, I'm good. Thanks for taking a minute to talk with me.
My pleasure, sir. How can we help? So I want to tell you, about six weeks ago,
I ran into a friend of mine that retired, and he was telling me how great it was and
asked me, how much longer do you have? I said, 12 years. And he started telling me,
get ready, debt free. That's the only way to go i hear him don't pay a lot of
attention to it my son tells me a week after that hey i'm listening to this ramsey show
never heard of it before i said what is he new howard stern i don't know i've never heard of it
yes he is a couple more hours got much better hair than i've got yeah um So he tells me this a couple more times.
I'm on a trip for work.
I got a lot of windshield time.
I turn it on.
I listen to six podcasts back to back to back, and I'm going to tell you, I'm hooked.
I get it.
I am bought in.
Wow.
So I heard you say, hey, you got to know everything that's going out, everything that's coming in, and what's your debt.
So I did that.
I spent about 30 hours on that last week. And let me tell you, it's scary. It's emotional. It was tough. And so I've
got some debt. And my question for you is, I have about 12,000 and change that we have invested in
the stock market, single stocks. And is it smarter to leave that there as a savings?
I know there's a risk there.
Or is it better to pull every penny out of that
and put it towards the debt that we have?
And that might take care of, I don't know, 20%, 25% of it.
But my goal, I mean, I want to be debt-free.
I've got 12 more years to retire, and I want to be debt-free when we get there.
And I wanted to do it.
I made my wife spot in on it now.
Okay.
So you've got about $50,000 worth of debt and $12,000 in stock.
$66,247 to be exact.
All right.
Good deal.
What's your household income?
About $180,000, $190,000 annually.
Okay.
All right.
So you've been listening, and you know some of the lingo now and some of the process and the baby steps and all of that, right?
And so baby step two is where you are, paying off all debt except a house using the debt snowball, listing your debts smallest to largest, paying minimum payments on everything but the little one, attack the little one. We stop all investing temporarily, and we use all money that we can get our hands on
that is not in a retirement account to throw at baby step two.
And that's a standard baby step two answer,
which would lead us to cashing out your stock
and paying off a fourth of your debt.
Okay.
Not saving a lot.
When you talk about emergency funds let me leave that there
i mean we got no cash saving how much cash do you have in savings uh i don't know 11 12 grand
something like that okay we always baby step one is one thousand dollars saved anything above that
goes on baby step two until baby step two is done and so i'm going to use that money as well down
to one thousand dollars which is going to scare the p. Wadden out of you, by the way.
That scares the hell out of me.
I know, I know.
And it should, but you're not going to live there for very long
because now we've paid off $23,000 of your $66,000,
if I did my math right just now,
and you have enough income to clear the rest of it very, very quickly.
And as soon as it's cleared, then the first order of business is maybe step three,
and that's build your emergency fund back up to a full three to six months of expenses,
which it's not now.
It's kind of anemic right now.
It's weak.
The two together would make a decent emergency fund if you didn't have any debt.
But that's what we teach.
And here's the reason.
It's not to induce fear, but the fear will also help be one of your motivators.
That oh crap moment you just had, that thing where your stomach just kind of jumped up in your throat,
just at the mere suggestion of doing this.
And we haven't even done it.
But just the idea, you go, you know, we we all do that we all have a physical reaction to that um that is going
to drive you to stick with the plan now to suggest that you keep a one thousand dollar emergency fund
for five years or something would be ludicrous and i don't suggest that but we're talking about
just mere months here again what was your household income 180 190 okay so how fast
do you pay off fifty thousand dollars six months 40 or no i'm sorry forty thousand dollars like
what i mean less than six months right well my goal was two years i mean i wanted to do it before
i'm 50 so that's that sucks that's way too long you make 180 000 a year i need 40 000 of 180
this is six months how much is this is five thousand i want five thousand dollars a month
on this debt i want you to smack the crap out of it all right and then you're so you're done
by christmas dude now chris by christmas you're done by Christmas, dude.
Now, Chris, by Christmas, you're starting to rebuild this emergency fund from $1,000 up.
And then as soon as you've got that three to six months of expenses, then you restart your 401K.
Oh, by the way, you putting money in the 401K right now?
I took your advice and I backed it down to the minimum that the company matches.
Okay.
That wasn't my advice. My advice was advice was stop it oh stop it altogether well i misunderstood i thought you you were saying
you know don't let the free money go to the company matches no no not when you're in the
hole man you're just getting started on all this you're trying so what i'm what i'm doing is i'm
not making fun of you and i'm not picking at you but i'm giving you the the the detail that you
haven't gotten in the last couple weeks of exposure yet.
And so what I need to do is I'm going to send you the game plan with all the nuanced detail,
the baby steps on steroids.
It's a best-selling book called The Total Money Makeover, and I'm going to give it to you as a gift.
Hold on.
Kelly's going to pick up.
I'm going to mail you one.
And you read that thing, and your wife read that thing, and you'll see what I'm talking about.
180 minus 40, you can make it on okay or 90 minus 40 90 in the next six months
minus 40 and you're done by christmas you can make it on and i just put 11 and 12 on the debt
so i know i put 23 out of there so it's 43 left. And so, yeah, you're there. You're going to be there.
And that's what I would do if I woke up in your shoes.
The great news is you've found a new thing here, and you're fired up about it, but it's about to get real.
So imagine this.
This is the feeling you had, Brian.
When you spent 30 hours, and you put that debt down and you got emotional,
that's you on the plains of Africa and you're a gazelle
and you just stuck your head up and you just saw that lion in the grass.
And now you've got to take off running, man,
and that's what the next six, seven months is going to be.
It's going to be an all-out, gut-wrenching sprint.
Gazelle intensity. That's right. Because they're all intensity.
That's right.
Because they're coming for you, man.
They're coming.
You've got to run!
I want to mention this.
I don't want this to fly by, Dave.
I know this makes me sound sappy.
It takes a special level of courage for a grown man making this kind of money,
which means he's got some ego, some strength.
His son came in and said,
Dad, I think you should look
at this and most dads in this situation go shut up and he listened he just listened that the
approach on the call was humble it was a humble call and i want everybody out there if your son
comes says hey can we just talk dad take that talk take that that breakfast take that conversation
man um that took a lot of courage for a son to do
and I'm proud of him, but I'm proud of that dad for listening,
man. That's cool. Yeah, it doesn't happen very often.
Brian's got a thing
going on. He does, man. I like Brian.
He's comfortable in his own skin,
strong, but making good decisions.
So yeah, you're going to go do this,
Brian, and then you're going to call us back, do your
debt-free scream. We're going to hear a great story from you.
It's going to be awesome. You know what I love about Brian is I guarantee you he's a leader.
And as a leader, he approached this with the appropriate skepticism,
and then he did the math.
And then as a good leader, he went, oh, crap.
You know what I mean?
That's a good leader, man.
Not that everything's perfect.
Not that I've got to come up with some stupid excuse.
But I can see the data, and I can go, whoops, we need to change course quick.
I don't think I did that one right.
I love it, man.
I love it.
There's a formula here for course quick. Yeah. I don't think I did that one right. I love it, man. I love it. There's a formula here for everybody listening that involves life change.
The Bible says, be not conformed to this world.
This world's broke.
Yep.
I mean, normal is looking good and no money.
Yep.
Normal is you're driving a car with a big butt payment on it.
Normal is you've got a student loan that's been around so long you think it's a pet.
Normal is you've discovered MasterCard.
Yes.
And discovered bondage and American distress.
This is normal.
Normal sucks.
But it looks good.
Everybody's walking around with a smile on their face.
You and your wife don't like each other.
Living in the land of denial.
And you don't sleep.
I'm talking about a river in Egypt.
You know, I mean, seriously.
But when you stick your head up and you go, game on, baby.
I'm not going to be normal anymore.
Be not conformed to this world.
Be transformed by what Brian's doing.
The renewing of your mind.
New information will set you free, baby.
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