The Ramsey Show - App - Payday Lenders Are the Worst of the Worst Scum (Hour 2)

Episode Date: December 3, 2018

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show. Where debt is done, 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. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. It's a free call at 888-825-5225. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. It is, again, a free call. Merry Christmas to you. Well, our nation is mourning the loss of George H.W. Bush this weekend.

And you're hard-pressed to find someone trollish enough to say something bad or angry about him right now. A lot of people disagreed with different things, and that's certainly OK. The thing that seems to die with him or have died with his generation of presidents was the ability to be to disagree without being disagreeable. This idea that if you don't like someone's ideas, you must completely destroy them, not just the ideas of the people, is absolutely ridiculous. And the left and the right are both out of control. The loss of civility. I know politics has always been rough and tumble, but it is at an all,

I mean, we're at an all-time low with the way people treat each other. Entire handbooks went out for how to deal with the Thanksgiving dinner discussion for people in your family that were supporters of Trump, if you aren't. As if they're, you know, it's having Thanksgiving dinner with morons. I mean, it's unbelievable.

It's unbelievable. Entire handbooks went out on how to deal with the crazy liberal in your family at Thanksgiving dinner. It's unbelievable. Yeah, I get it. I get it. There are people out there that are nutty, and some of them are in your family. I get it. There are people out there that are nutty, and some of them are in your family. I get that. But, you know, it's just this idea that you have to be, you know,

it all comes down to a personal character attack every single time. And, you know, the first time I really remember that, and I know it's happened in history over time at different times, was the idea that character matters in leadership. And that came up the first time really loudly in the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. Does character matter when you're leading was the discussion. Of course it matters when you're leading. No question about it. Does that keep you from being the president of the United States?

Obviously it didn't. But, you know, I mean, even that discussion was much more civil. I mean, you look at the way we confirmed a chief justice and the way people talk to each other in the 60s, the 50s, the 70s even, even the 80s. I mean, the first time we had the horrible, out-of-control, screaming, like a beagle chasing a rabbit, was Bork, Robert Bork. And they now call it being Borked, if you go before the Senate Judiciary Committee, or you go before the Senate to be confirmed to be in the Supreme Court. The other party, whichever party it is, is going to attack you personally and viscerally at every possible angle off of their political agenda and their ideal. That's what an ideologue does.

They lose the ability to be civil. And so this is what we've lost with this passing of President H.W. He had that ability to disagree without being disagreeable. He would argue and fight and scrap for what he believed in. But it's very difficult to find a soundbite. It's very difficult to find a piece of video of him being a complete jerk. And it is not difficult to find that today on any of our leaders on either side. Supposed leaders.

The people in office. It's ridiculous. So we mourn his passing for that reason among many others. A great kind man, a good man. And my cousin ends up doing a viral cartoon on this. Marshall Ramsey is my cousin, and he does editorial cartoons in Jackson, Mississippi. And he's been Pulitzer Prize nominated a couple of times. He did the first version of the Junior Kids books for us.

He illustrated them for us. And he's just a world-class cartoonist and illustrator and when barbara bush passed he did a cartoon of barbara walking into heaven and being reunited with their three-year-old daughter who had died of leukemia robin and the bush family saw the cartoon and commented on it and it went viral viral. And I guess that was, what, six or eight months ago when Barbara passed, right? And something like that. And then when H.W. passed, he did a cartoon over the weekend with his fighter. He was a fighter pilot with his airplane landing in heaven.

And the comment is, Barbara and Robinin standing there going we were waiting on you and so uh again ah i'm getting choked up but the uh again they went viral and so marshall my cousin's been on cnn and fox and friends and all these other news outlets over the past 48 hours with this uh cartoon going nuts but it's very well done, very heart-rending and wrenching and just fabulous proud of him and his work but very well said

and as I'm sitting here saying this, the news feed is running on Fox in front of me with the military lining up to receive at Andrews Air Force Base to receive President Bush's remains. And certainly in front of the Ramsey Solutions building, the flag is at half-mast, without a doubt. So anyway, I don't talk about politics a lot on this show.

I've got pretty strong opinions, and most of you know them, and I'm okay with that. Some of you don't like me for that, and I'm okay with that. I can deal with it. I'm fine. But this is a moment in our nation's history. It ought to give you pause and think about more than just an ex-president past. There's things that are happening in front of you right now that you need to watch in the culture and that sometimes you're a part of.

It's crazy out there. It's crazy because what has happened is that people can become bullies. You know, in the past, you could be a bully only if you had power. Now you can be a bully if you can log on to the Internet and you can say anything bully if you can log on to the Internet.

And you can say anything and make up things, lies, and post them. Just in order to get people to watch your channel. The more obnoxious and weird and crazy you can be, the more people will log on to that. The number of articles that are written on why I disagree with Dave Ramsey, why Dave Ramsey is a fool, why Dave Ramsey is stupid, why Dave Ramsey this or that or this or that, there's thousands of those articles written and posts of all kinds and video and audio and on Twitter and everything else. And it's a simple social media tactic.

It's called clickbait. Because if I actually mention one of those doofuses to 15 million listeners, all of a sudden their blog changes by a bazillion visitors and now they've got something they can sell to an advertiser because right now nobody visits their blog. It's clickbait. They throw bait out there to see if a celebrity or someone of power will do it. But they lie. And they just make up stuff. And I can't respond. Because if I i respond i'm a bully no i'm the bull standing in the field by myself not being bothered and a mean little butt kid jumped the fence and punched me in the face and then i go at him

and then they go oh he's a bully no you were an idiot for messing with the bull mess with the bull get the with the bull, get the horns. That's how that works. I get asked all the time, when in the baby steps is the right time to buy life insurance? My answer is typically now. Life insurance is not part of the baby steps because it's needed when your family has debt and not enough savings to provide for their financial needs. That's when they're at the highest risk. And no matter where you are in your baby steps, it's a necessity, not a choice. This includes working husbands and wives, as well as stay-at-home parents.

It's pretty expensive to replace those stay-at-home parent responsibilities. I only recommend term life insurance since it's the most affordable way to get the right amount of coverage and not break your budget. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. These are the guys I personally use. Term life insurance is inexpensive and your family needs this no matter where you are in your baby steps. That's Zander.com. Or call 800-356-4282. Zander.com. Thanks for joining us, America.

We're glad you're here. James is with us in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Hi, James. How are you? Hey, Dave. I'm doing great. Yourself? Better than I deserve.

What's up? Awesome. Okay, so I've recently switched from W-2 to 1099. I fear taxes, and I want to get past that fear and move on and do the best thing I can with paying those taxes or refunds and opening a corporation, LLC. I don't know which way to go, including debt that I have with the house and the vehicle. Okay, so are you just contract labor? Yes, but it's not labor at all. It's just signing contracts and getting work for these people. But, I mean, you're getting paid $10.99.

Do you have expenses? Yes. How many? What? Gas, mileage, food, clothes, office supply, field supply, measuring tools, and things like that. Okay. All right. You need to open a separate checking account in the name of your business. You do not need a corporation or an LLC. That will create extra expense you don't need right now.

Put all of your 1099 income only, all of it only, into that checking account. Only pay business deductible expenses out of that account. The minimum that you can spend, by the way, because that maximizes your profit.

Okay? Okay. So you don't buy groceries out of that account. You got it? Yes. That was a question I wanted to ask you. Let me finish. And in most cases, you can't deduct your clothes.

So clothing doesn't count. That same with boots? Because I get on roofs all the time with shoes and boots. Well, that's possible. You can ask your tax professional about that. But don't get all caught up in trying to act like something is a deductible event just so you can run it through your business account. That's what I'm saying.

Thank you. Yes, I want to be as honest as possible with receipts. Not only that, you don't want to get audited and have the whole thing taken down on you. So then, if only legitimate expenses are coming out of the account and only business income is going into the account, by definition what's left over in the account is called profit. Right? Yes.

Okay. Now, then when you get ready to pay some bills at home, like pay off your debts or eat or that kind of stuff, you take money out of that account. Every time you take money out of that account to take it home, split it 75-25. 75% goes into your personal account for you to use. 25% goes into a little savings account for taxes. Got it.

Withhold 25% of your profits that you take out of that account. You don't have to pay it until you take it out unless you leave it in over a year end. I mean, you can't leave $20,000 over a year end. And, well, you might within the tax law right now. You might actually pull that off. But anyway, you do not have to worry about the taxes until you take it out, by and large. Okay? But when you take it out, set aside a fourth of it for income taxes and self-employment tax.

Because you've got both sides of FICA, which is 15.3, that percent right there. And then your income tax, if you don't make over $60,000 or $80,000 net profit, you won't have income tax in excess of 10% net effective yield. So that's what you're looking at. And so 25% will cover you. And then what you're supposed to do is once a quarter, you're supposed to file a quarterly estimate with the IRS, which shows your income of the business, your expenses of the business, thus the profit of the business, times your tax rate.

And that tells you how much you're supposed to put in with your quarterly filings. A fourth of your... Okay, and I do that. And I could do that with my CPA every quarter? Yep, and you should. Okay. It's really a one-page form. It's very easy to do.

But the point is you will have the money to pay your quarterlies in that little savings account because you withheld on yourself. Okay. See, and I'm already withholding 30% of every check now just to be safe because I don't know about this fully, and that's why I contacted you. Well, you're in pretty good shape, but you don't have to do it of every check because you've got some expenses coming out. And so your net profit is not the same as your income. Okay. And with that separate checking account, it's going to be a debit card,

so everything's recorded through the bank, but still save every receipt and document everything paper and pencil? Yeah. Well, no, you don't have to. If you're running a debit card on it, that's fine. As long as you've got access to the – you might hit print on your website, you know, on your bank statement, and drop a copy of your bank statement into your file

because you might not have access to it three years from now if you got audited. And so, you know, you keep good records that way. Your CPA can advise you on how to best do your record keeping to survive an audit. You don't have to get too anal about it, but you do want to keep up with this stuff and be able to prove that you actually spent the money on something for business. That's all you've got to do. But you'll be in good shape. You're doing good work there.

And, you know, your 30% is probably too much because it's of gross, not net, and because it's 30% instead of 25%. I think you'll be fine there. But that's what I would do. And you just open it in a DBA. Open the checking account under DBA, doing business as, and, you know, that's just James, so-and-so, DBA, doing business as, James's company, whatever it's called, right?

And that's what's on your checking account. It's a DBA account. You open it with your Social Security number. You don't even have to have a federal ID number. You can do it that way. It's perfectly legal. And then when you file your tax return at the end of the year, it's just a Schedule C on your taxes. And, you know, you'll run that out.

And if that comes out better than the standard deduction, then you'll be, you know, you'll run that out. And if that comes out better than the standard deduction, then you'll be, you know, you'll use your Schedule C. So your tax guy can walk you through every bit of this. It's real basic bookkeeping, but just run it as a separate entity that is a business-only entity, separate and apart from your personal. And then when you take the money home, the more you work, the more money you can take home. When you take that money home, then boom, there we are.

We've now got the ability to pay bills and to pay off debts and so forth. Jennifer is in Buffalo, New York. Hi, Jennifer. How are you? Dave, I'm feeling very blessed to talk to you. How are you? Just the same. How can I help?

Well, I am a recent master's degree graduate with some substantial debt to go with at about $47,000. I currently have a full-time job, but I'm considering taking a different job that is now in my career field. Cool. What's your master's in? Dietetics. I'm a registered dietitian. Great. What are you making in the new gig? The new gig, it's hourly $19 an hour, and I'd be be dropping from 25 an hour plus time and a half on weekends why because i'm currently doing nothing related to my field and i could go to work for a not-for-profit why because i want to be in my field so badly that you'll take a pay cut yes why don't you go get a job in your field that gets you a pay raise?

Because I just feel very called to do this work, to this specific job. Yeah, but you're $47,000 in debt, and you're taking a pay cut. Right, but I do have an IRA from a um career that would cover that if i were to to empty that i'm 33 yeah if you empty it you'll be taxed at your tax rate which is probably 20 plus a 10 tax penalty so you'll be borrowing money at 30 interest to pay off your student loan debt that would be dumb okay. Okay. No, I would not do that. And how old are you? 33.

Okay. You're single? Yes. Okay. All right. Well, I think I would look at maybe some other ways to skin this cat. Just because you're doing work you're called to does not necessitate a pay cut. I do work I'm called to, and I'm better paid than I've ever been paid in my life.

And we presuppose that work that has meaning has to be at a nonprofit. We presuppose that work that we're called to has to pay less, or somehow it's not holy. And I really want to push back against that presupposition. It's not accurate. It's not holy. And I really want to push back against that presupposition. It's not accurate. It's not logical. So I want you to spend some time in prayer. I'm not saying do something that you're not called to ultimately with your life. I am not saying do that.

But I just think there might be other ways to get at your calling and what you've trained for without having to take a pay cut. You just took something that somebody offered you that might be less than your worth, probably is less than your worth. And given that you've got to clean up $47,000 in debt, $19 an hour doesn't sound very appealing. Hope that helps. Thanks for the call. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. There's nothing smart about smartphones if your wireless plan is blowing your budget each month. Pure Talk USA offers smarter wireless with unlimited plans starting as low as $20 per month.

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Hey, guys, how are you? Hi. Hey, good. Welcome, welcome. Where do you guys live? Woodstock, Georgia. Oh, the Atlanta area. Yeah.

Very good. Welcome to Nashville. And you're here to do your debt-free screen. Yeah. And how much have you paid off? $28,971. Love it. How long did this take? 12 months. 12 months. And your

range of income during that time? Started at 70, ended at 85, but mostly at 75. Cool. And what do you guys do for a living? I'm a system analyst. I'm a stay-at-home mom. Very good. Good job, guys. So what kind of debt was the $29,000? About $12 12 000 of it was our car and about almost 17 000 of it was student loans okay and how long have you two been married four and a half years okay so what happened 12 months ago uh well we had our son and we decided that we needed to get a bigger house and all that kind of stuff and when we started looking at prices of things, we didn't know how we were going to be able to do that. And, um, I'm kind of the manager, most of the part of like the finances and he makes the money and I try to make it go as far as I can. And I was doing a horrible job. I'm a spender for sure. And, um, he's always talked

about how he wanted to be at a point financially where, you know, we could go to the store and it wasn't a big deal if we just needed to get a couple of things. And I was kind of making it harder because I wasn't, I didn't know how to budget, didn't know how to do all that. And the student loans were all mine. And even though we bought the car together, it was the car that I was driving. So I felt like a huge weight that I was doing a horrible job managing

and I wasn't doing my part. Um, so that is very heavy. Yeah. So, and you know, it just, it put a lot of guilt. I had a hard time going to the grocery store, um, and feeling guilty, just buying a gallon of milk. And cause I was like, I don't know if I'm should be doing this and that kind of thing. Um, so I started looking around and I found your name and then started to join a couple of random Facebook groups and kind of reading on it. And then I eventually came to Jason, and I was like, hey, so this is what I want to do. And that means that we've got to put everything from our savings except $1,000 into this, and we've got to stop retirement. And that was kind of like a big pill to swallow on his part.

Yeah, you start selling all the stuff you were going to do to fix the money money and you couldn't even get a gallon of milk the week before yeah yeah oh my gosh so it was just kind of you know it it was nice to have a plan though and that was always kind of his thing is he just wanted a plan and i hadn't come up with a plan and hadn't even thought we really i thought we were doing okay and i know when i read your book one of the biggest things that stood out to me in the book was uh mediocrity is kind of the end of greatness and it's like we're two fairly smart people yeah we could be better than mediocre yeah and so that kind of became part of a driving force to to get rid of this and so so the total money makeover is what you read then yes i read that um and i read it in like a day, and I had highlighted it. He's not much of a reader, so I kind of went through and was highlighting everything,

and we kind of like SparkNotes it for him. You got the CliffNotes version. Yes, we kind of spent a few nights doing that. Now, the Christian abbreviated version. Yes. That's okay. You got the information. Okay, good.

And so, Jason, she comes to you with this crazy plan all of a sudden, and what did you say? Pretty much like she said, you know, my big thing was let's just have a plan, you know, whether it's, you know, snowball or avalanche or whatever, let's pick a plan and let's attack it. You know, just doing the minimums isn't going to get us anywhere right so that that was all i really was looking for was coming up with something that we both could agree on and move forward with okay so the spender now becomes a tightwad yes and uh we knock out twenty nine thousand dollars in 12 months making only seventy seventy five thousand dollars a year

that's pretty impressive thanks i mean you were on beans and rice for sure. Yeah. I would do like four months of challenges of like spend almost nothing on groceries unless we eat everything in our kitchen. Oh, wow. So I became very creative with what we ate for dinner. Oh, my goodness. She transitioned to shop once a month for all the groceries for the month.

Oh, wow. You became the ultimate planner, didn't you? Yeah. I'm definitely the planner. Yeah. Wow. Very good. Well, congratulations. Yeah. Let's see how well we can pull it off. You became the ultimate planner, didn't you? Yeah. I'm definitely the planner of two of those years. Yeah. Wow. Very good. Well, congratulations. Thank you.

Thank you. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is now that you've done it? For me, it's the budget and the cash envelope. If I even my debit card, I have a hard time with. So those are like my two biggest things because I would pretty much just look at it at the end of the month and just do damage control and be like, we have $3 to get to four more days. And now the pressure is relieved now. So that's kind of the biggest thing is the budget and the cash envelope for us.

What about you, Jason? You experienced it from the other side. Yeah. So mine is, you know, pick a plan, whatever the plan is, just stick to it and, you know, be lucky and marry someone like her. Marry up. That's a good idea. That's cool. Well, congratulations, you guys.

Who are your biggest cheerleaders outside of the two of you? I would say my mom, for sure. I pretty much talk to her about everything and, you know, try to bounce ideas off and be like, how can I save here? And if I was venting about, you know, things are getting hard, she was who I went to, you know. She'd let you whine a little. Pretty much. She would let me get it out. Very good.

And we often joked with both sides of the family that if they offered dinner or a meal, we were going to be there. We're not going to say no. Hint, hint. Love it. Very well done. Very cool. That's fun. Well, and you know the Ramsey Baby Steps Facebook group is now official. We have it.

There's about 100,000 folks in there. So you'll have to jump in and join that one as well. A Facebook group person. That'll be perfect. Well, congratulations again. We've got copy of chris hogan's book for you retire inspired for you to take with you today and as of today we're now giving our debt-free screamers the everyday millionaire book by chris as well thank you ship that to you in uh in january when it comes out as well and so you get two today. One we'll take with you and one then. Because that's what you're on your way to being is everyday millionaires.

That's the next step up, right? Yes, for sure. Move on to be wealthy and outrageously generous along the way. Well done. How old are you two? I'm 28. 29. Not even 30 and you're debt free.

Yep. Will you ever go back? No. Oh, no. No. I like it. Good answer. Jason and Kristen, Atlanta, Georgia, Woodstock area, $29,000 paid off in 12 months, making $70,000 to $85,000.

Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free. Yeah. Woo-hoo. Love it! Great job, you guys.

Great job. Love it, love it, love it. That's as good as it gets. Our question of the day comes from blinds.com. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. That means even if you goof up, if you mismeasure, you pick the wrong color, 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. Katrina is in Virginia. I have two large $2,000 and $3,000 payday loans, which cost me over $900 a month, and I'm not sure what to do. Should I just allow myself to get behind on everything else for two months and pay them off? Yes. Or do I just keep paying little by little?

You'll never get out little by little. We both work two jobs. I've sold everything we possibly can. I've been working on this since August of 2017, and even though we're finally current, it's just a matter of time we'll not be current. Yeah, you've got to knock those out before you do anything. You have to stop everything to do that. I mean, don't stop your lights and water and don't stop your rent and don't stop your food.

But if you've got other debts, go ahead and get behind on them and take as many hours as you can get. Work like crazy people. Like you said, sell everything. Have a garage sale, anything you can come up with, and really scrape the bottom and let's clean out everything and get these things cleaned up, Katrina. These payday lenders are scum. This is an 850% interest rate on average on a payday loan. So, Katrina, here's the deal. Once you pay these off, don't you ever go back in that building again.

Don't you ever even step foot in the parking lot again. None of you should ever go anywhere near one of those places. This is the worst of the worst. And you know who takes these things out? These hardworking people that don't have the money to pay this kind of interest. They take advantage of the poor. The poor is what they do.

You don't see these payday lenders and the rich into town, do you? No, they oppress the poor. The Bible has some things to say about doing that. Bad idea, people. Scummy. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us, America. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. We're glad you are here.

Mark is in Canada. Hi, Mark. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you, Dave. Sure. How can I help? Dave, I make about $120,000 a year.

And in the last 11 months on your program in Baby Step 2, we've paid off about $60,000 in consumer debt. Thank you. We've got about $60,000 in consumer debt. Good. We've got, thank you, we've got about $5,000 left to go. And then our mortgage on top of that. We just have our $1,000 baby emergency fund. We haven't started into step three yet. We were just notified a couple months ago that my wife's mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. She's currently doing chemo and radiation. She's not a surgical candidate. And so the long term survival rates are fairly low. She's very sick right now. But on the other end of this, she should have a period later on this spring where she feels quite well and energetic. And during that time, we'd like to take her on a vacation. She's been low income all her life, and we want to kind of bless her with that type of thing for both my wife and for her.

I estimate we can do the vacation that we'd like to do to Vancouver Island for around $5,000 or $6,000. And we would do it all in cash. But it will mean that we have to push pause on everything, and I'm not sure if it's smart to do that without the emergency fund. It's an extreme situation. And so what you're saying is we're just pushing pause on our whole thing to take care of this deal. That's what you're saying. It's not really pushing pause on our whole thing to take care of this deal. You know, that's what you're saying.

It's not really pushing pause on a baby step or not skipping a baby step or something like that. We're just saying we're going to take the total money makeover thing and push pause and set it to the side because we've got to deal with cancer and we've got to deal with mom's survivability and all that kind of stuff. And so it's an extreme situation. So let me get this right. You paid off $60,000 in 12 months, making $120,000. It was actually 10 months total. And I believe right now we're at like $62,300 that we've paid off.

That's right. And you only have $5,000 left? That's right. We're pretty intense. We're not going to fall off the wagon. Okay. Here's where I'm confused, okay? This is December.

If you did $60,000 a year, that's $5,000 a month. At the end of January, you would be debt-free. At the end of February, you'd have the money for the vacation. Or vice versa. The way that we were able to pay so much off is because we sold everything that wasn't bolted down, and we've pretty much run out of things to sell. So we have about $1,500 extra every month to pay off debt. $1,500 a month is $18,000 out of $120.

That's not a very tight budget. That's a fair statement. So, yes, I would stop and I would save the $5,000. But I also would tighten up my budget like it mattered to save the $5,000 because it does matter a lot. And then as soon as I have the $5,000, I'm going to push go again and we're going to go ahead and knock it out i'm going to have the game plan in my head if i'm you that we're going to go so bananas here that we do both of these things by the by march

okay or a little or a little after i mean i don't know when you're talking about the vacation but um you said spring but um you know end of, I don't know when you're talking about the vacation, but you said spring. But end of March, I don't care. Whenever the vacation is, let's just say we save for the vacation first, so that's done. Check, right? That's January, early February, whatever, right? Rest of December, whatever you want to measure it out. Okay?

Check. Done. Then we've got to knock out the other $5,000, and it's just a matter of we're doing this thing to prove it to ourselves that we're going to have that done by the time we go on vacation, too. It doesn't mean you don't go on vacation if you don't make it, but I want to lay the math out that way and be that aggressive. That sounds smart. Yeah, and the two of you go, okay, this is you and your wife sitting there. Okay, we're going to do this because this matters that we take this trip with you. You take this trip with your mom. This Okay, we're going to do this because this matters that we take this trip with you. You take this trip with your mom.

This matters. We're going to do that. It matters so much that we're going to cut this, this, this, and this, and we're going to be in a position to do both things by the time vacation gets here. I mean, that's the kind of, you know, what you're doing is you're retraining your muscle memory on how you're handling money when you cut that deep. You're resetting. And then you'll have plenty of time to lighten up and do other stuff later.

You're making good money. You're getting ready to be debt free. And you've got a real sad situation right now. Especially here during the holidays and all. Yes, I would do every bit of that. I agree with you. My only caveat is let's tighten it up a little. Good question. Thanks for calling in. Aaron is in Lexington, Kentucky. Hi, Aaron. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? My wife and I are looking to move to a suburb just outside of Lexington for work. It's considerably cheaper than in the city, obviously, but some of the areas aren't as nice, obviously,

and we're still working on paying off some debt, so we're renting, and we've got, you know, a couple of options where we're going, but they seem to be, like, if we wanted to live in, like, a safer, you know, nicer environment, obviously, they're still probably a little bit above our budget. I just wanted to get your take on do we, you know, pay a little bit more and maybe me go deliver some pizzas or something to be able to, you know, have, you know, like a nicer neighborhood because I've got a newborn and my wife doesn't work. She stays at home.

So what is your rent now? Right now we're at 875 a month and what would it be if you moved into the thing you're talking about uh about 950 and why are you moving uh because uh it's going to be work's going to be a little bit closer um where i'm potentially taking a new job here soon and i mean what 10 minutes closer? You're in Lexington. Yeah, so it'll still be roughly, you know, we're probably 40 minutes closer. Sorry. Yeah, about 45 minutes closer where we're going to move to.

It'll kind of keep us in between because we've got all of our family in Lexington, and my job will be about 45, 50 minutes away from the other direction from where we're moving. And where is your job? It's in Corbin, Kentucky. Okay. Which is about an hour north of Knoxville. Yeah, I know. Okay. Beautiful area of the country, either way.

I mean, you can do what you want to do. That doesn't sound like a good plan for just a lifestyle thing. I have a seven-minute commute, so I'm a little spoiled, okay? But this idea of commuting 45 minutes so that I can be a little closer to her mama, that's a little weird. I mean, that's probably because you do the little closer to mama once every week or two weeks. You do the work thing twice a day, driving over there and then driving back. And so I'm probably going to move closer to work even yet, which might change this equation.

Yeah, the only issue was, you know, the further down you get, like, into the London-Corbin area, it's really hard to find, you know, like, nice real estate down there, and it's very few and far between. Yeah, Corbin's a pretty small town in the mountains, yeah, without a doubt. Yeah, and so, you know, that was the only reason that Berea, Kentucky, was as far south as I wanted to go because it's, you know, you kind of lose some civilization between Berea and Corbin.

I think you need to go shopping down there one more time before you make that statement. Okay. I don't disagree with you, but there's some pretty low areas down there. Sure, yeah. I mean, there's a couple of hollers you go up, you're going to hear, you ain't from around here, with you, but there's some pretty lawyers down there. Sure, yeah. I mean, there's a couple of hollers you go up, you're going to hear, you ain't from around here, are you, boy? I understand. That's how I grew up, too, so I understand.

Right. But, you know, let's keep gathering up here. Here's the thing. I find when I have options in front of me that I don't like when I'm making a decision. Sometimes the problem is I don't have enough options. And so I want you to gather more information. Gather more. I mean, delivering pizzas in Berea doesn't sound fun. You know, it's not that big a town.

So, I mean, I want you to gather options. So go do some more research down around the work area. Go do some research in some other areas. Just spend a little time on this. And all of a sudden, you'll start to see some housing areas or some subdivisions or some rentals, individual rentals pop up in front of you. And you go, oh, okay, well, maybe Dave is right. Maybe there's another way to do this. Because everything you spend on rent is burning while you're trying to hit your other goals.

And the more you spend on rent, the slower you get out of debt and the slower before you buy. So I want to spend as less on rent as I possibly can and as less on gas commuting as I possibly can. So that's what I'm looking at. Hope that helps. This is the Dave Ramsey Show Hey guys, it's Blake Thompson Chief Production Officer for the Dave Ramsey Show This hour's up, but you'll find more on our YouTube channel

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