The Ramsey Show - App - Once You Get Your Eye on the Ball, You'll Be Able to Catch It (Hour 3)

Episode Date: December 28, 2020

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today here on the air. We are answering your questions about life and about money. It's a free call at 888-825-5225 that's 888-825-5225 tal is with us in washington dc hey tal what's up hi i have a question so i'm on baby step five and six so i'm a single parent and i wanted to see what your

thoughts were what percentage should i put to step five and my other thought was if i have paid my house down by then what are your thoughts on getting a home equity to pay for college if i don't have enough by then okay no on b we're not going out of debt just to return no the purpose is to get out and never go back. Okay. Now, once we got that out of the way. So how old are you? I'm sorry.

You broke up a little bit. I said, how old are you? Oh, I'll be 40 next week. How old's your baby? He's nine. Okay, good. And what do you make a year? 120.

Good for you. You are doing so great. Congratulations, Tal. Well what do you make a year? $120. Good for you. You are doing so great. Congratulations, Tal. Well done. Thank you. Okay. Well, there's a couple of ways to approach it.

The only way I would put Baby Step 6, paying off your house and doing almost nothing for college in the way, is if that made you be able to cash flow college. Sometimes people will knock their house out and then they go, I'm able to cash flow college. Sometimes people will knock their house out, and then they go, I'm going to cash flow college instead of saving for college and paying off the house a little bit slower. The other end of the spectrum is sometimes people say, I'm just going to pay the minimum on the house until I really pile up enough and I can check the box. There's so much money.

I've got a 13-year-old four years from now that has $150,000 in his account. I'm done. Now I'm going to move on and pay off the house. That's the safest, easiest way because you know college is done. You don't have to think about it again. And then you can move on and pay off the house. But sometimes people do go the other way, and they say, I'm going to pay $50 a month into the college fund.

You've got to do something in Baby Step 5 five you have to touch the stone okay but uh uh but pass that if you want to pay 50 bucks a month and then just knock the house out but the only way is if you think the math is going to allow you to cash flow college and that of course has everything to do with your income for and college choice where you choose to send the nine-year-old. But either way is okay because Baby Steps 4, for those of you listening, Baby Step 4 is after you're out of debt and you have your emergency fund in place, you're putting 15% of your income into retirement. Five is kids' college.

Six is pay off the house early. We do those three simultaneously. The first three are not simultaneous. You do one at a time in order on the first three but the last three are simultaneous and the 15 you really do put you continually are doing that that's what i mean by simultaneous but you don't slow that one down i'm going to put two percent into my retirement and load up college no 15 into retirement then we're going to do something for college and something on the house and the average person is paying off their home in seven years doing that which oddly enough is about where she is she would have the

house paid for she said by the time he got to college so i that that one speaks to me i've just worked with so many college kids that they don't know where they're going to end up or what they're going to do. I want to go to this school, this school. And then at the last second, they meet some girl at summer camp and they end up going to this, whatever the thing may be. I like the idea of not having a house payment. Going the other way. Yeah, I like that. But again, I'm not there yet.

And then cash flow in college. Cash flow in college. The way we ended up doing it, and it was just the way our life worked out. It really wasn't the, quote, game plan at the beginning. We said we're going to start saving for college, and we did start saving for college. In those days, there weren't 529s. You just do it in the kid's name. It was a custodial account.

So we had a mutual fund in the kid's name. That simple. And we had that going along. Well, by the time they got to school, we were at the other end of this journey from having gone broke to becoming wealthy right so we cash flowed college and didn't even touch their college and then when they graduated we handed in that mutual fund full of money yeah i had a couple of buddies that had that that and that was a really nice way to kick off each of the ramsey kids adulthood um you know and made you know made their their transition out the door that much easier and so forth.

But we could have used the money, but really they went to University of Tennessee. It wasn't super expensive, and we were making plenty of money, so we just wrote a check, covered the dorm, covered the apartment, whatever it was, and covered the tuition and stuff, and they had a little budget they were on and that kind of stuff. If you do have it not in a mutual fund and it's in the 529 what is the exit strategy if you get in that situation you need to use it you got to spend it you need to use it because it's a shell game at that point right it has to be used for if it's in a 529 you don't get the tax break if you pull it out and

use it for something other than higher ed okay or than education. Now, you can use it for any family member. You could use it to send mom to get her Ph.D. Right. You know, but, you know, it doesn't have to be for the person on the 529. You can transfer it now. But it's just the same. You need to plan to use it. And even if they get scholarships, you can withdraw the amount of the scholarship out of the 529.

So they get a $13,000 scholarship. I take $13,000 out of the 529, no taxes. Wow, that's a good setup. Yeah. So that's a way to get, if they, you know, I don't want to do 529 because they might get scholarships. Well, don't worry about it. You take the value of the scholarship out. If it's an athletic scholarship, you just take the value of the scholarship. And the university will give you the documentation to do that with.

And you're set up for that. Autumn is with us in Columbus, Ohio. Hey, Autumn, how are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, so my husband and I both have pension plans through our employer.

I have to contribute 10%, and he has to contribute 12%, and we cannot adjust that. So I was wondering, since that is 22% towards retirement, if we should, and not adjustable, I was wondering if we should do more towards retirement or what? Your math is wrong to start with. It's not 22% of your household income. It's 10% and 12%, right? Right.

So when you take the total amount out of your checks as a percentage of your household income, it's going to be, depending on who's what, but it's going to be somewhere around 10% of your household income. You see what I'm doing? Okay. Yeah, you don't add the two figures together that's not how the math works so but anyway the uh your question is still valid the question is since i've got this mandatory freaking pension does that change my baby step four is that your question yeah i just want to know if that's enough? No, it's not enough because you're not in control of the pension. Right.

You have no say at all over what happens with this pension. I'm not predicting that it crashes. Some of them do. But I wouldn't want my whole thing bet on the competency of a pension fund manager. And so I don't know that you need to save 15% of your household income in addition to this, but you need to save a good chunk, maybe 10% in addition to this, because you have absolutely no control over this. It may underperform. It may fail.

They may change the terms of it based on who's putting in about the time you're going out. And they get into all kinds of actuarial crossroads there, and they change stuff up to protect themselves, not you. And so, I mean, I'm sorry you have to do it. It's mandatory, but I'd put in an additional 10% into 401Ks or Roth IRAs. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. When we talk about living and giving like no one else, I'm always so impressed with Zander Insurance and their continued commitment to helping others during the holiday season.

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Open phones at 888-825-5225. Erin is in Nashville. Hi, Erin. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. I'm so excited to talk to you. You too. I'm hoping you'll be able to settle a friendly debate my husband and I have.

Uh-oh. So just to give a little back story, you're very proudly on baby step four, five, and six. We paid off about 40 grand in 388 days. So we were really strict on budget as in me, I'm super frugal. So that leads me to my question. I've always dreamed of upgrading my wedding set and we're coming up to our 10-year anniversary this may so the deal is that i will be able to upgrade well now i'm starting my research and realizing since we got married there's you know these beautiful new more frugal options such as lab-grown diamonds so i'm unsure lab-grown yeahgrown, yeah. Oh, fake. So I'm unsure. So that's kind of the debate that we're hearing. You know, you hear that lab-grown are, you know, essentially they're just as real as real diamonds, but they're far cheaper. So my thing is to understand, you know, is it worth paying far less up front and not having-

Diamonds shouldn't be an investment. I know they are not, but they will never be able to be reselled much for anything, if at all, or spend the extra money up front and have something that you know is real. It doesn't matter is the answer to that. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Here's the thing, okay? You know, Sharon got married 38 years ago with a.23 spec. .23 carats.

You have to get a magnifying glass to find the freaking rock, okay, on her hand. Sure. That is in a safe, and the woman has a freaking headlight on her hands so um and so i in between those two i've made several upgrades and uh have participated in some young men marrying my daughters meaning i didn't participate and buy it but i was involved in the diamond purchases and involved in lots of diamond purchases all over sharon's ears and arms and everything else. And so, you know, we reached a point a few years ago that, you know, what I really started to understand is, is they do not go up in value, period. Okay. And the only person that cares, unless you get one big enough to blind people in the room, the only person that cares is you.

Six months after I buy that diamond, I have to get a file out and try to figure out what I paid for it. I don't even remember. I don't even care. The only one that cares is Sharon. It's on her hand. And so that's what I mean. The only one that cares is you.

You're not going to go around going, this one's fake, unless you're weird. You're just going to be walking around with this thing. You forgot it's on your hand even. And you go, okay, my personality is I couldn't give a rip less if it's real. I bought the lab grade fake one, right? Or whatever you call that. Or I really wanted it to be real. It means something to me emotionally. And it's a thing.'ve got the money and i just bought it there's nothing wrong

with either one but you can't really say oh one's not going to be worth anything because it wasn't worth anything when you bought it you're not going to pay much for it or it's it's going to be worth about what you paid for it if you can find a market for it if you got ready to sell it. Erin, why do you want to upgrade your wedding set after a decade? It's always been a dream. There's also a lot of baggage in that previous life when it comes to rings. So this is kind of the only piece of nice jewelry that I ever care to own. And I just want something that, yeah, that could knock somebody out when I look at them. So Dave's right. It's not going to knock people out.

It's going to make you happy for a minute, and it's not going to have the desired effect on other people. What are you talking about spending on this? Between, well, lab grown would be about $3,000. Real, you'd be looking at about $55. $100? Yes. Real, you'd be looking at about 55. $100? Yes. Oh, by the real.

Crap, I thought it was like $100 versus 10,000. No, no. Our whole thing, the debate was that I thought you would go with lab-grown because it's far less expensive. Now, there's zero market for that crap. Agreed. And so it's less expensive, there's zero market for that crap agreed nobody there's no and so it's less expensive but it's worth zero the other one at least probably is going to be worth five thousand dollars ten years from now and that's what we're looking for that was kind of the debate

it was one of those you know i thought there was a i thought there was more of a value uh more of a diverse value set bigger value separation and a cost separation than there is with that separation there's no question i'd buy the 5500 it's not a lot of money you got the money you're in good shape you didn't tell me it's 55 000 that's why i said 100 i want to make sure i don't know what but yeah i if it was me you do what you want to do there's nothing there's no wrong answer i already gave you all the other stuff that you can think through, but just from a money standpoint, I'd buy the 5500. And if you've waited a

decade and it's still what you want, we tell people to wait 24 hours, right? If you wait 10 years, get the one that you want, right? Yeah. And you got the money, good for you. Don't be a tightwad on this one. There's so much other, the way you phrased your sentences when you start talking about the baggage and the background and the whole thing.

There's something there about the nice one. It told me you still wanted the 5,500. That's right. That's what it told me. And I would do it. I wouldn't think anything about it. This is why we do this stuff. You live like no one else, so later you can live and give like no one else, and you can make a decision like this.

But, yeah, that's what I would do. But, you know, I'm not going to call you stupid for doing the other. If you want to do the other, it's fine. There's nothing wrong with it. So there's like this, because I'm just two guys talking about something we don't know anymore we're talking about. But I actually do know a little bit about diamonds an $80,000 ring that is for travel. Okay. So when you're traveling, you don't take your real stuff.

Okay. Because it doesn't get stolen if you've got, like, super expensive stuff. I don't know what you call that, but apparently that's a thing, too. And that's what was in my head, the way she was talking about it. But those are, like, plastic. So am I – I guess I just – all my alarm bells go off. If you can't go on a trip without making sure everybody knows – this isn't the real one, but I got one at home, I promise. You know what I mean?

Like maybe I'm missing something. Just not wear anything on the trip. Or wear a wedding band or – If you're that worried about it, yeah. Yeah, and I guess I'm just thinking like what do you – what is the – Well, if you're going to wear a headlight on your hand, if you're gonna wear a headlight on your hand you're gonna wear a headlight on your hand on a trip i mean it's the same thing so i mean that's fair and uh but yeah i mean and you know most of us that travel have lost stuff i've had stuff stolen oh yeah it's not

an unusual thing so you got to be super careful huh it's a very interesting it's a very interesting way of looking i've never heard of the words lab-grown diamond. I guess they're trying to grow cows and pigs and horses and labs, too. I was thinking of Dolly the sheep myself. Whatever, man. Right through my head, it's lab-grown. That gives a rock a little bit more love than it deserves, but that's all. Becky is in Salt Lake City.

Hi, Becky. How are you? I'm trying to get through some stuff. Uh-oh. So I'm going through a divorce right now. Yuck. And definitely not something I wanted to have happen. And so my question for you is more financial-based.

I'm glad John's there because my therapist is out of town this week. So that's convenient. So I'm a realtor, and I've always had, like, rollercoaster income with it. And really not great income with it, but I love it. And I think that part of the reason why my income wasn't so great was because I didn't have the emotional bandwidth to handle as many clients as I wanted to before because my marriage has been falling apart for two or three years.

And it's only been a four-year marriage. That's very reasonable. Yeah, so that's good to hear. So I have a few deals that are closing this month, or two that are, one that's closing this month, and then two that'll close next month. And then I don't have anything else in my pipeline. But since I won't have my husband's income to, you know, to carry me through stuff, I am just trying to figure out what I should do. I mean, obviously get more in my pipeline. Yeah, I'll tell you what.

Hang on. When we come back from this break, we want to make sure you give us a good, solid answer. You're in a real pickle right now. We want to make sure we're careful with this. So hang on. We'll be right back. This is The Day Ramsey Show. We're talking with Becky in Salt Lake City, going through a divorce.

She's been a real estate agent and has had an irregular income, meaning that some months she did really well. She's got a couple deals in the pipeline getting ready to close. After that, nothing else in the pipeline. She's worried about her income pending the divorce. Is that a fair summary of what you told us? If I push the button, I could talk to her. Hi, Becky. Is that a fair summary of what you told us

yes it is cool all right so when is the divorce final or when was it final um so i don't know it'll take at least 30 days i my husband wanted me to sign some papers last night um but i just realized that i wasn't ready to sign anything last night, and so I tried to get him to come back instead, which he wasn't going to do. So it was 30 days from whenever I signed the papers. Okay. And do you have children? No.

How long have you been married? Almost four years. What does he make? About $33,000 a year. Actually, no, he's sorry, that went up again, so he's up at $36,000. There's no children. He makes $33,000. Is there any money involved in this at all?

Any assets? Do you own a house? Do you have any money? We have debt that we're splitting. The asset we had was a car that was above water okay the debt that you're splitting whose names are on it um so he has his student loan and i have my student loan and then uh we have credit cards that are pretty much all in just my name and he was just an authorized user on them.

And then we haven't used them for over a year. What's the balance on those? The total of the credit card is about $7,000. Okay. If he promises to pay some of those and doesn't, you will have to anyway, regardless of the divorce. A divorce decree does not take you off of debt. Yeah. It just holds him accountable to pay it.

But if he doesn't, the bank has the right still to come after you. So keep that in mind. I think you need an attorney to do a divorce. You always need an attorney to do a divorce. It sounds like a fairly simple one, a fairly clean one, when you're ready to do a divorce it sounds like a fairly simple one a fairly clean one when you're ready to do that um so back to your original question then you're in the middle of heartbreak and you've been dealing with a messed up situation so you weren't didn't have you the phrase you said you didn't have the emotional bandwidth to address and to fully apply yourself to the real estate business, right? Right. Okay. So when there is some finality to this, it should open up that bandwidth, shouldn't it?

Yeah, it actually already has because my husband was just so wishy-washy about wanting to stay together for a couple years. And so finally, in August, he finally told me that he just wanted a divorce. And two of these three deals came from. Has he moved out? He moved out in March. Okay. All right.

I'm sorry you're going through this. I can hear the pain in your voice. How old are you again? I'm 25. Okay. I think think you're gonna be a great real estate agent i don't think you're gonna have any trouble because you're gonna have two things one you're gonna have your emotional bandwidth back when you when you've got finality to this and uh two is you're gonna have a level of desperation it's gonna cause your little butt to go to work and i think you're gonna have a really full pipeline pretty quick

once you can actually put your eye on the ball, I think you'll be able to catch the ball. Yeah. Yeah, but right now you're looking like six directions, and the ball goes right by you, right? Yeah. By your own account. What am I missing, John? Yeah, Becky, I want you to honor this as though there's a death. So it hurts right now, and you have those papers, and it feels heavy.

When you sign them, you're going to have feelings that you've probably never felt before. And then in 30 days when you get that final letter, it will be as though somebody told you someone you loved has passed away, and I want you to honor it like that. We hear about divorce all the time, and it just sounds like it just happens and we minimize it and people get blindsided with the dump truck of emotions and pain that it actually is on the other side of it you're 25 and i want to promise you there's healing and light on the back end of this deal and a better man out there there's somebody's going to love you and honor you and be with you and not drag you through six months seven months eight months um and they're going to honor you and be with you and not drag you through six months, seven months, eight months. And they're going to honor you for just the wonderful woman you are.

So honor this. Get some people in your life. They're going to sit with you during this messy time. And like Dave said, you're going to have no other option but to take on a bunch of clients and to work real, real hard. But don't miss the point. Don't miss the time when you're going to grieve this the right way. Okay. Honor it. Just honor it. And I don't think you sign papers to grieve this the right way. Okay. Honor it.

Just honor it. It's going to suck. I don't think you sign papers that you haven't had an attorney look at. Absolutely. Don't sign a piece of paper before an attorney looks at it. That's worth the $500 or the $1,000 you're going to spend on it. Yep. Okay.

We're not trying to pick a fight. We're trying to make sure he didn't sneak one in on you. Yeah. Okay. I don't believe in picking a fight. I just want to make sure that you don't go oh well look what he did later because you were upset and half read something or you missed something with your emotionally clouded eyes if i were in your situation there's no way i would

make that deal without uh without having somebody look at it absolutely not i wouldn't either because you know i i know when i'm mad or when i'm hurting that my that i my editing skills aren't real good when i'm reading a contract i reached i read stuff that's not even there i mean i just make up stuff in my little head i did the exact same thing and so uh you just that that's what happens to all of us when we have that so that is what you're facing hey you call us anytime you need help, okay? I hate that for you, Becky. Just know there's light on the back end of this deal.

On the debt-free stage and a better story is Christine from Kansas City here in the Ramsey Solutions Lobby to do a debt-free scream. Congratulations. Thank you. How much have you paid off? About $60,000. Way to go. How long did that take?

So the first $20,000 I paid off in 60 grand way to go how long did that take so the first um 20 i paid off in about three years and the last 40 it was just two okay so five year journey yes okay and your income during that five years range yes so the first um three years was crazy uh i worked three jobs about twenty thousand dollars and then now i'm at Good for you. What do you do for a living? Right now, I'm a health educator at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Army Wellness Center. Oh, very cool. Are you in the military? I'm not.

Oh, so you're a civilian. Yes, yes. All right. Very cool. Good for you. What kind of debt was the 60K? Student loans. All student loans?

Yep. It took five years to get Sally Mae evicted. Yes. Five years from when I graduated. Well done. Yes. So what from when I graduated. Well done. Yes. So what puts you on this journey? Yeah, my dad, who's here with me today, my dad and my brother.

All right. They're both in the military, so they were big influences on me. And my dad actually took me to FPU at his church when I was about to graduate college. Ah. That was subtle. Yes, right? I honestly had no idea what I was getting myself into. And so I was just like, yeah, sure. I'll go with you. Um, and it really shed a light on what I was about to embark on and I got really nervous, but then I also

just had this great accountability in my dad. Um, literally could not have done it without him i am just so thankful that he was there for me to help me through all my things i moved three times in those five years wow so it was crazy and then i even got my car stolen oh wow before i was gonna pay off i got stolen actually in january um and so um he would he just like really helped me out financially and was my accountability partner through the entire thing so perfect very cool very cool well that's uh that's what makes you the rock star that you are well done you're a hero i'm proud of you thank you very i know he is yes very very well done so uh what was the toughest part of this toughest part was part was just keeping going.

Yeah, for five years. Five years is a long time. Yeah, really. And, you know, being in the health and wellness field, it is really hard to find a job and to pay enough, right, and to be single and by yourself. And so that's why I was so thankful to have my family. But, yeah, just buckling down. Well, we're proud of you. Thank you.

Well done. Well done. Thanks for coming to do your debt-free screen. We've we're proud of you. Well done. Well done. Thanks for coming to do your debt-free scream. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Everyday Millionaires. You're going to be one. Yes. Here it comes. I can tell.

And I'm going to bring my dad up, and he's going to scream with me because he's also going to be a millionaire one day. I love it. Good. All right. Christine and her dad from Kansas City, $60,000 paid off in two years, three years, making $20,000 to $50,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one.

I'm debt-free! Yeah! Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Wow! Well done. Very well done. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Matthew 5, 16, In the same way, let your light shine before others

so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Alex Trebek said, Don't tell me what you believe in. I'll observe how you behave and I will make my own determination. That's it. That's it.

There you go. I think I may have told you I was working, doing an internship with a child psychologist and I had a young son at the time and I was double dipping where I would ask quote unquote questions about, but I was really asking parenting questions.

I'll never forget when I asked him, hey, man, how are you supposed to – what are you supposed to say to a young little boy to help him respect women in the appropriate way? And he looked at me and kind of smiled and said, you can say whatever you want, man, but he's just going to watch how you treat your wife. And if you want to teach your son how to respect women, then treat your wife right. And then he just walked into the next room, and that phrase, they don't listen to you, they watch you, just stuck with me, right? Rachel always says, more is caught than taught. That's right. Yeah.

Yeah. So Financial Peace University is one of the things that you get to go through when you are a member of the all-access membership at Ramsey Plus. Ramsey Plus is a year-long membership, and it has the best money tools and content. Everything is there. Financial Peace University, which actually works, every dollar, the premium version is there. The Baby Steps Tracker, there are groups there that you can participate in. You can go to a local class. If there's a physical one being held in your area, some of them are, some of them aren't.

There are tens of thousands of virtual classes going on right now you can get into. And there is no reason for you to not have the impact that that last couple and that whole family had. Over 6 million families, people, have gone through Financial Peace University. It is the class on how to handle money, and it is included in your Ramsey Plus membership where you get all the tools, all the support, The coaches are in there. Everything's there to make sure that you can do the stuff that we talk about here every day on the air. Can you white-knuckle it and do it by yourself? Sure. But why not put the world's best tools at your fingertips to make it as easy as possible?

It's a difficult journey at best. It's very hard to do this stuff, but you can do it. So, oh, by the way, since it's all digital, you can download the workbook even. Everything's there, right? You can skip all the chaos. It makes a great Christmas giveaway. So just go to DaveRamsey.com

slash store Ramsey Plus, and if you want to give it as a gift, if you want to just jump in and start doing it, you can get a free trial as well. And just check it out and see how it works for you. You can get started anyway. And just go to DaveRamsey.com slash store.

Get in the store and you can pick that up. While you're there, you can pick up John Deloney's new book, Redefining Anxiety, What It Is, What It's not, and how to get your life back. Anxiety, a top-of-mind concept, a top-of-mind subject these days, especially in the year known as anxiety. When you look 2020 up, it is the numbers that mean anxiety. That's the ancient Greek, 2020. It's the numerology. That's right.

Hey, Dave, I don't know if I'm allowed to plug it this way, but I'm going to. My wife and I use that EveryDollar app. Why? So it's not just something that's – Why would you not be allowed to do that? Well, sometimes I just think it's important that some of these things aren't just pitches. These aren't just things that we put out into the marketplace, but these are things that we use behind closed doors too. And that has helped.

I actually told our team this morning, make sure you're going through Financial Peace University, and if you don't get a will and you die, I'm going to kill you. That's exactly right. Dave announced to the company, if you don't get a will and you die, I'm going to kill you. Because we furnish a will as an employee benefit. That's right. You know, through the Mama Bear stuff and all that, right? and then they don't go get one it's free i'm gonna

kill them that's it but this app my wife and i use it it helps us communicate it helps us talk helps us stay accountable it's a good thing man i i i appreciate it it's not something we're just up here throwing out into the wind trying to sell we use it we use this stuff too and it's it's legit and i'm an almost app free guy like i don't i like a pen and a paper and this thing's great man yeah oh absolutely well it is the world's best i mean our guys the the technology team that we've got on it it's so uh robust i mean it does everything and uh it's easy to use so and it's included you know the premium version that connects to your bank is included when you're in Remsey Plus. It all ties together. I mean, you can go over here and just do every dollar if you want to do that.

Or you can go over here and just do this or just do that. It's all together. You can get a yellow pad and do it. I mean, you can do a budget with a yellow pad. You can live on less than you make. You'll be all right. You know, you're going to work it out. It's just a matter of which is the most efficient thing and the process that we've been doing this for 30 years so that we've honed it in and knocked the rough edges off and it's the, you know, the least heavy lifting of a very heavy lift to completely change your life.

So, again, RamseyPlus at DaveRamsey.com. Just click into the store. Justin's with us in Arizona. I'm sorry, Glendale to be exact. Hi, Justin. How are you? I'm doing all right, Dave. How are you doing?

Better than I deserve. How can I help? Awesome. Well, first of all, I want to thank you guys for taking the call. I appreciate that a lot, actually. So I'll try to keep it as short as I can. My fiance and I, we recently had a baby six months ago, and we've been renting a home from her uncle. And recently her uncle came and told us that because it's a seller's market right now, he wants to sell the home.

So he believes that when, I guess, when Trump's out of office, there's going to be a crash, I guess. So he told us we have until he's out of office to kind of get out. And right now I'm unable to work because of a workplace injury a little over a year and a half ago. And the pandemic pushed my fiance out of work two days before giving birth to our daughter. So we have no verifiable income to actually prove we have finances. And due to really poor choices in both of our adolescents, our scores are in the low 500s for his credit. And when we've been trying to find places to rent, we've even offered a year's rent up front and we've still been being turned down.

So you have the money? With all that. Yes. Currently we have $34,000 saved. Okay. Because we were trying to fix our debt issues with a lot of your methods that we had seen and that's how we were saving money prior to us both losing our jobs yeah how old are you two i'm 28 and she's 27 what's the nature of your workplace injury

uh it's a neurological issue i uh i was a semi-truck driver and i was lifting some rebar and it popped something in my back and due to that i ended up getting diagnosed with peripheral sensory anaxial neuropathy so i have constant uh nerve pain in my feet and hands and back so it's like electrical zaps burning um throbbing and then and then swelling. What is your long-term plan with all of that? Because that sounds very painful. What's your long-term plan for your income to provide for your child? Right now, the doctors told me my best bet is to apply for a disability, which they've been trying to help me do.

But it's a very long process. What did your fiancé do before she lost her job? She was a food and beverage manager at a hotel she would like i guess manage the restaurant and parts of the hotel and do all the cooking like she helped with that she helped make the good news is that we'll be back and uh the good news is is that you're with what you're describing you have a pretty severe disability and so you would qualify. It'll just take some time to get that through. SSI is difficult.

You're dealing with the feds, but you'll get through. What you've got to do is find a landlord who will listen to your whole story and not just look at your credit score. If you told me your story and you showed me you had $34,000 and you showed me that she's planning to go back to work as soon as she can find something in the food and beverage field and you're going to prepay for one year. I'm probably giving you a shot. If I look at you and you just convey irresponsibility all over the place, even with $34,000, I'm not giving you a shot.

But there are reasonable explanations in your life with what's going on here. Now, are you going to get this average apartment manager that's 26 years old and works for somebody who's out of town to do this? No. But you're going to find a landlord that has a small house somewhere that you can move into and go do that. So I'm sorry her uncle's freaking out, but probably better to get out of there anyway since he's freaking out. That puts us out of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace,

and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of Ramsey advice in their life? Let them know about the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast. It's a quick hit of advice about life and money in under 10 minutes. Check out the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.