The Ramsey Show - App - Personal Finance Is 80% Behavior & 20% Knowledge (Hour 1)

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Dr. John Delony discuss: Changing careers while paying off debt, Buying a campground with a loan, Using savings to buy a car, Starting a marriage with debt, Attacking almost a million dollars in debt. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage 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. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, number one best-selling author

and host of The Dr. John Deloney Show. Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. As we take your questions about your life and your money, open phones, 888-825-5225 merry christmas america we're glad you're with us zach is with us in seattle to start off this hour hi zach welcome to the ramsey show hey thanks for having me uh you guys are so my heroes and it's uh it's real cool to be on the show um i had a question for you guys. So I currently work at a tech company and I'm looking to make a career change. The problem is I make really good money where I'm at right now.

And what I'm wanting to go into is a significant pay cut. So I make about 110,000 per year right now with potential to move up. I just started the company. So there's, there's a lot of growth there, but I not a fan of what I do. I took Ken Coleman's career assessment, giving some great ideas. And what I'm wanting to go into is firefighting, which starting salary is about 30,000 less a year. And we're currently in baby step two and we've got with snowballing things, it'll probably take a year or less to get everything paid off from kind of the snowball calculator we did on your guys' website. So my question is, should I wait to do any sort of career change until I've got baby step two taken care of, three to six months in a savings fund, and then a down payment for a house while I have the higher paying career? Or do I take the risk and go to a lower paying job and kind of take longer to get, you know, our finances all set up

and a down payment for a house? Because that's ultimately where we'd like to go. Does that make sense? So you want to abandon a perfectly safe computer and run into burning houses? Yeah, I want to do something that's meaningful. just i i work from home and i'm just like poking my eyes out and i'm like i want to do something that's meaningful to me and that sounds a heck of a lot more meaningful have you have you gone on a ride along yet or if you do you have buddies you're firefighters yeah so i got a buddy that's a firefighter um i've been doing a lot of research into the career itself kind of what it the day-to-day looks like and all of it kind of fires me up the people i've talked to have loved it everyone

that's kind of in public service i got an uncle that's a cop he's like i wish i'd been a firefighter but a lot of positive things about it from the kind of the research i've been doing so far okay all right yeah i would do the ride-alongs too, by the way. Yeah. What does the on-ramp look like? How much training? How much downtime? You walk out of 110 and you walk into 80? Is that what we said?

Or 70? What was it? Yeah, you walk into – they have it all scaled out so it's 82 okay so you're gonna walk out of 110 walk into 82 day one or after training or day one they're gonna pay you that while they train you yeah because you have to go to fire school is that what they call it yeah yeah yeah so it's about 16 weeks it's from what i believe it's 82 it might be a little less than that but it's within that ballpark regardless um where it's about a thirty thousand dollar pay cut yeah yeah and are you married yeah married three kids um all under the age of four what's she make she should stay at home mom uh she stay at home

yeah she stay home good players keeps that way stays at home. Yeah, she stays at home. The plan just keeps it that way. Can you make your budget on that? Yes. It'll just take longer to do the things we want. Well, after 16 weeks, you have what firefighters call an extra job because you generally work three on, and you build decks or paint houses on the other four. Right.

Most firefighters I know make as much on their side gig as they do fighting fires, because they've got this wonderful schedule of blocks set aside. Yeah. I know one guy made 100 grand building decks last year. And I had a buddy who got certified while he was in fire academy for... Academy, that's it, not school a well welding or uh some kind of engineer i don't know he got some kind of incredible certifications where he's making a jillion dollars on the side yeah yeah so you're not going to work three beyond four

all four you're going to work three and you're going to work four yeah yeah that's the plan that's that's the other so your income's not going down on side hustle yeah that's the plan. That's the other thing. So your income's not going down. Yeah, that's true. So you need to also engineer your side hustle. Yeah. And it can be a great, it just needs to be a great self-employed opportunity because you can control the schedule and you can work around. And if you're going to paint houses, you just let them know I'm not going to be there those three days. That's my fire gig.

Right. And, you know, again, I think you'll find around the firehouse that's my fire gig and right you know and um you know again i think you'll find around the firehouse that's a pretty standard operation so let me let me throw this at you i always want folks who have multiple kids like you do under the age of three four or five to exhale for a minute because everything in your life feels chaotic. You feel like you have no purpose because you're funding the lives of three kids who are too young to even recognize you exist other than you make them get in the bath and they don't want to do that and change their underwear semi-regularly and they don't want to do that either. And there's something about you start searching for a place where you can find meaning that's not

at your home and so i dave i i would i would tell you if you were just my buddy and we're just hanging out i would tell you get yourself do a year sprint and get out of debt at least take that brick out of your backpack at least take take that anxiety producing thing in your life, take it off the table. And in the meantime, do some ride alongs, get to reading about firefighting is one thing, holding somebody in their front yard while their house burns down or pulling somebody out of a building and trying to get them onto an EMS truck is a totally different thing. Some people are wired for that some people are not and so you're in a unique position where you could experience that and not have before you've you

know completely jumped off the dock um but that'd be my recommendation to you and then not a bad idea go serve man i love that idea we need more firefighters and police officers out there yeah thank you for your willingness yeah i think the um your side gig might be your technology thing rather than building decks or painting houses. I might have been wrong on that first wave. That could be incredible. Yeah, because, I mean, apparently you can work from home and not work much. See? And get her like a job doing that and stuff.

So, you know. Or some of the data says people are working from home and they won't stop. Yeah, like 73 jobs. Exactly. Well, I have four jobs, four full-time jobs working from home and they work they won't stop yeah like 73 jobs exactly well they have i have four jobs four full-time jobs working from home see so by definition you aren't doing any of them full-time but anyway okay by definition so anyway but yeah that so you could probably do a lot of i don't know what you're doing if you're writing code though i mean there's a lot of freelance stuff you could do a lot of contract stuff you could do and with honor with ethics

and say i don't do it except on these four days um if you're doing the three on four off gig or you could get into one of those scams they call consulting that would be awesome i'd be buying so bitcoin oh wait that's gone yeah okay sorry yeah that'd be great that's gone too yeah oh well oh there we go that's how we start the day merry Merry Christmas, America. This is the Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time. Merry Christmas America Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality number one one bestselling author, is my co-host today. Anthony's with us in Panama City, Florida.

Hi, Anthony. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, thanks for having me on. I'm grateful to have the opportunity to talk to you and John. Sure. How can we help? I've got a question. Just wanted to get some opinion, have some men speak some knowledge into this.

My wife and I want to own a campground someday. We've come to this. We call it our vocation. We want to own one, and we don't know what that's going to look like as far as something that we would fund fully with cash to acquire a campground, like an RV park campground, or if you get you get alone take on that to do so so this is like a dream in the future yes okay cool how old are you guys i'm i had to think about that for a second i'm 30 no i was 28 okay cool when you turn 30 you hear i mean you start losing your hearing yeah i mean in your memory. And your speech patterns. Exactly.

So, hey, why camping, man? What is it about camping? Well, we both love it. It's funny. I'm like kind of a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. You know, I'd like to do everything. And we've been spending a lot of time at night, you know, talking about what we want to do with our future. And we've settled on this idea that, yeah, this is something that could really get the gears turning for us and keep us busy.

And we work really well together and we'd like to do it together. And we plan to live there, too. So, like, we see ourselves living on a campground, or at least in close proximity, absorbing and, you know, taking on the lifestyle of being campground owners gotcha okay well the first time you run a business of any kind uh you start finding out that you didn't know what you didn't know there's all these little surprises that go you know i had no idea yep you had no idea that's why we got you. And you're going to discover that regardless of what kind of business you own, the first time you own a business and run a business. And it's more than just keeping the toilets cleaned in this case

or the electrical hookups working or whatever, whatever jack-of-all-trades things. You've got all this other stuff called accounting and marketing and collections and payment systems and, oh, a website, because that's how everyone does everything now, right? Oh, maybe even an app, right? And so, yeah, that's a long way from running wiring to the picnic shed, okay? And so, you know, there's a lot of different skills you're going to have to have running

a business that you need to develop over time. And you don't want to discover those with big hairy payments coming at your face every month. I would rather you discover those more gently than that. So let's say that since this is just a dream at this point, let's just adapt what some middle steps are. You're wanting to go from zero to a hundred in one leap and how can we do this in the middle? And I'll give you an example. I don't borrow money and I'm not going to tell you to borrow money so we're going to work our way through there because that doesn't mean I'm a dream killer either. I want you to live a dream but I don't want your dream to be a nightmare. So I love, in your case you love campgrounds. I love real estate. And a building that we moved into, 55,000 square feet, was a $5 million building,

and that was 20 years ago, I think, something like that. Let's just call it 20 years ago. And we didn't have $5 million, but I really, really wanted to own this building, kind of like you want to own a campground. Are you following me? Yes. Okay. So what did i do i leased it with an option to purchase it for five years i didn't have half a million dollars much less five million dollars but i started collecting all the nickels out of the corner of the couch for the next five years and barely scraped together the money at the last minute and exercised the option after five years thank god i

did because by then the building was worth 13 million and i the option after five years. Thank God I did, because by then the building was worth 13 million and I bought it for five. So what's known as a freaking deal, right? And but I did not borrow money. And I was telling God all along while I was looking for the nickels in the corner of the couch, if you don't send the money, I'm not buying this because I'm not going to borrow money, period. And me and God had a lot of conversations about that. So I kind of had to lay my guidelines out. But during that time, I lot of conversations about that. So I kind of had to lay my guidelines out. But during that time, I learned a lot about that building. We learned that the former owner had not taken care of the roof and the former owner had not taken care of the heat and air.

And we learned that the heat and air was from another century. And we had to go in and rework a bunch of that and boiler, you know, bailing wire and duct tape. How does this run parallel to what you're saying? Maybe a way to do something similar might be go to work for a campground, be the general manager, and maybe they provide housing, and you stay there, and you run the whole thing for an absentee owner, and that includes you doing the repairs, and you learning how to do the accounting, and you learning from the owner how he did marketing for the past 20 years

because he was doing this stuff when you were knee-high to nothing and uh let's get in there and just get it all over you a little bit and you might discover you freaking hate it but you might discover it's even better than you thought and this is like awesome and then you might be able to option it and buy it from him with the profits instead of with debt okay i'm making up a dream scenario but i'd rather make up one of those and you go get an sba loan and call me up four months later and go i'm broke oh by the way covet hit and they don't allow camping anymore yeah because that never happens i like the slower move into it like you guys say when i watch so you don't want to jump or leap into it because we're both being fully employed I watch the show, you don't want to jump or leap into it

because we're both being fully employed now, and we're just thinking of the options. How do we keep our jobs? But, I mean, let's just say, what do you make a year? Combined, we're about $150,000. No, no, what do you make? Before taxes. $82,000. Okay.

Well, let's say he paid you $60,000 to run the campground. You took a pay cut, but you got an option to buy the thing from him any time in the next seven years as a part of operating it for him i'm modeling after my little building deal and you can make it up you can make up a different narrative a different story but the point is walk into it don't leap into it and lay your structure out to do that yeah i love i the word that keeps coming to mind is let's practice. Before we go to the major leagues, let's practice. Let's at least take some batting practice before we realize –

before we decide this is what we're going to do forever. I love that idea. And even if you can't get a job at a campground in your local area, get a job at working the evening shift at a local hotel, the hospitality industry, because the campground industry – It's tough. It's a lot of people, man. It's a tough – that's a tough, tough gig. Well, and these are – if something's broken, it's tough it's a lot of people man it's a tough that's a

tough tough gig well and these are you know if something's broken it's broken like right then yeah and it doesn't matter if it's 2 a.m that's right it's broken and if you live on the reason they let you live on site is because they're going to come knock on your door you are you are the emergency toilet guy that's your job man and i mean welcome to doing it that's part of it's okay it's part of the gig and there's nothing no downside of that, except that that's who it is. Good stuff. Kalen's with us. Kalen is in Atlanta.

Hi, Kalen. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Good afternoon. How are you, sir? Better than I deserve. Merry Christmas. How can we help? So I am wondering, I have about $17,000 saved up personally.

And I was wondering if I should, 9,000 is my, uh, three or my six month emergency fund. And I would like to buy a car if I need something a little more professional for my business. And, um, I was wondering how much of that remaining, uh, would 8,000 I should use to buy a car or should I, you know, put off buying that car and start a Roth IRA because I've been putting that off as well. What's your income? My income is $33,600. So what is your profession that you need to look more professional for? So I own a landscaping company and the truck that I've been driving that looks professional will be going to my new crew. And so I need a vehicle while they're using that truck to work to go run estimates and errands and stuff like that.

Okay. All right. Well, I've had a professional landscaper doing my office work and my lawn personal lawn for uh 20 21 years i do not know what he drives okay nor do i care okay all i really care about does a dadgum lawnmower work exactly caitlin do you know what I drive? What do you drive? It's an embarrassment to me and my family. It's an embarrassment to all of us.

But you don't know. That's the point, right? That's the point. You now know it's an embarrassment. It's not great. It's not great. So, no, I would not look professional. I would buy something that's reliable and that gets the job done.

That's what you always want to do in business. There's very few things in business that you buy to impress people that work. Most of the things that you buy in business should just give you a return on investment, meaning they should get the job done for the cheapest possible dollar. So get you a nice little truck that's dependable, that'll do the estimates, and that's all you need and if you ever lose a customer due to the truck you drive you call me and I will pay what he would have paid you to cut the grass it will never happen man thisoney, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. With Christmas only a couple days away, we're fully in the season of giving. And that means we've got a way we can give that you can give like no one else. You can give high school students across the country the gift of hope. That same hope you found maybe when you went

through financial peace university or you found listening to this show our foundations in personal finance high school curriculum teaches students the same life-changing principles you learn so when they get out of high school they got common sense they can avoid debt they avoid worry avoid the stress here's the problem a lot of schools don't have the funding for these critical resources, and that's where you can help. Some of you are sitting there where you're able to give, and through our curriculum sponsorship program, you can team up with us to get this curriculum in the hands of teachers

and ultimately change students' lives. You found freedom because you chose to take the principles we teach and apply them in your life. Now you can help students to do the same thing. Freedom. Foundations. Foundations and personal finance for high school. If you want to help us, go to RamseySolutions.com slash sponsor.

RamseySolutions.com slash sponsor. Ethan is with us in Traverse City, Michigan. Hi, Ethan. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, John. It's good to be able to talk to you guys. You too. So you're in the same town with our friend Meg Meeker. Good to have you. Merry Christmas. How can we help? Thank you. Thank you. Merry Christmas to you guys. So my wife and I were just recently married five months ago. Congratulations.

Thank you. I appreciate it. So since getting married, I adopted a bit of debt, which is something that I'm not too familiar with. You adopted it? Well, most of it is not mine. It came with a package. Oh okay okay okay man i was slowing the uptake on that one dude my bad sorry so she had a bunch of debt that's now y'all's debt yes exactly hey listen on behalf of wives everywhere thank you for your gentle language

that you adopted it as though it was like a sweet puppy. Yeah, it was her cat. That was very loving of you, man. Her ugly cat. Good for you. So how much debt did you adopt? So a little under $100,000. So you adopted like a hippopotamus. Like not a puppy. I said not a puppy. Okay not a puppy okay okay a large a

large puppy yeah all right 100 grand and what's your household income yeah my household income is uh it's about uh 58 okay and you two are on the same page about attacking all of this i assume uh yes there we are good how can we help so um i guess my question is um just uh you know that is something that i'm not too familiar with so uh yeah we got that that's your nice way of saying stressing your butt out i got you so i guess it's uh advice on how to how how to tackle this debt as promptly as possible while still being able to enjoy being newly married and kind of establishing our house and our bringing in, you know,

furniture, furniture, furniture into our apartment. And also a dream of ours is to one day start a business together. you know, furniture into our apartment and also a dream of ours is to one day start a business together. So how to just I guess navigate all that. Do you want the truthful answer or do you want

the Pinterest answer? Truth or answer, I'm not huge on Pinterest. I'm not into Pinterest. I didn't know Pinterest was a lot. It's just pretty pictures is what i'm saying yeah yeah yeah yeah um yeah truthful answer please i think my wife and i were married 10 years because of the hole i dug when we both were participated but mostly me um to the tune of six figures and a whole bunch of degrees, before I finally was able to buy a headboard on Craigslist that I spray painted in my backyard.

Here's what I'm telling you. Long-term in your marriage, the smartest thing to do right now is to pay your debts off. Borrow furniture, get crummy furniture, get to the next stage, man. But you have this picture of what you thought your first year of marriage was going to be like, and you'll have six figures in debt. And you can have all the pretty furniture in the world and all the nice cars in the world and all the new businesses, and that debt will bury your marriage and I know that because I've done it I lived it and I kept punting it and moving it around and trying to do this and putting things off instead of just sucking it up and getting that stupid stuff paid off here here's what's weird um when you guys decide together

and you take her two hands and your two hands, you look into her eyes and you decide to spend the next 24 months on a garage sale couch that cost $13 and is pinkish blue, but we're not sure what color really. When you decide to do that, you're going to laugh about those days later, and you're certainly going to be. But the weird thing is it's actually going to increase the quality of your relationship and your marriage more than the new couch will. By 100 miles.

Because we're working together for a common goal, and we're sacrificing together for a common goal and we're sacrificing together for a common goal and when you guys do that when you pay a price for something you both believe in early in your marriage together it knits you together more beautifully than buying everything looking perfect than a hundred thousand dollar wedding a two hundred thousand dollar car and a three hundred thousand dollar new business um and you know so a crummy wedding day when it rains and the mushroom caps float in the little thing and because you did it outside and you didn't think it was going to rain and that knits you together a you know it sounds weird like i don't want to sign you up for suffering but

you've already adopted it so there you go you signed you up for something so let's get after so working extra jobs living on a budget the both of you being in agreement not you dragging her along because you have anxiety about debt but her being in agreement that hey this is a mess we're both going to work on this we're both going to lock arms we're going to put equal emotional effort into it and we're going to sacrifice to win for a short period of time we're going to live like no one else so that later we can live and give like no one else. Your business opening is going to be down the line after you're out of debt, have an emergency fund saved, and then save up some money to start your business.

Right now, you're just going to work your butts off, both of you. And both of you aren't working enough. You've got to work more. Here's another cool thing. You'll buy a different couch in 30 months than you would right now because you know how much a dollar is worth and how much a thousand dollars is worth. And you're not going to buy a $5,000 couch. Yeah. And so I start doing math if I'm you, okay. $33,000 a year. It means I'm out of debt in three years. $50,000 a year means I'm out of debt

in two years. And how am I going to do that making 58? I've got to make more money. I've got to have more money coming in. And I can't spend money on anything because I don't have any money. We're not going out to eat. We're not going on vacation. You're not going to see the inside of a restaurant unless you're freaking working there. But guess what?

You're the second generation that thought you had to eat out every night your first year of marriage. Every other generation, the bride had the pleasure of every night your first year of marriage every other generation the bride had the pleasure of burning meals for a year trying to figure it out and then you can laugh about that too and my wife is actually a good southern cook but she still screwed up a lot of stuff the first year and you know how much i screwed up none because i didn't do nothing so there you go i screwed that up too so there you go but uh so i just got the pleasure of her being mad when i was making fun of her but anyway it's all good so you know but no i mean this is how life works y'all it's okay it's okay to for everything to not look like uh instagram because

that's someone else's highlight reel their kids still pooped in the floor three minutes before they did those little white suits and put them all together. Three minutes before. In the floor? What are you thinking? You know they did. I know they did. Those kids that wear those white suits, you know they did that. There's cha-cha everywhere in that house. Everywhere.

So, yeah, don't follow other people's highlight reels. Sacrifice to win. Pay it off now. Pay it off now. The two of you have a shared vision, very detailed, very laid out, where both of you are in agreement on it, and then get your butt in attack mode. That'll be the best thing ever happened to a young marriage, is to learn to accomplish goals together through sacrifice, through goal setting, through hard work. You can do that. You can do anything, my friend,

anything. Nothing will stop you. This is The Ramsey Show. Merry Christmas, America. We're glad you're with us. This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, host of The Dr. John Deloney Show. I said Dr. John Deloney Show is what I said, but that's okay. Still, it's all here in one person. That's right. All right, let's just move on.

Leah is with us in New York City. Hi, Leah, how are you? Hi, how are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Well, I'm calling because I have a debt problem. I have over $1 million in debt. That includes a home, college loans, and credit card debt.

Okay. How much is your home? How much is the debt on your home? It's about $500,000. And what is the house worth? It's worth about $700,000 now. Okay. All right. And so you have $500,000 in other debt. I'm guessing a larger portion of that is student loans. Yes, student loans. How much? About $300,000.

You have $200,000 in credit card debt? No, no, student loans. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You said you had a million. You got $500,000 on the house, $300,000 in student loans. That leaves $200,000 in credit card debt. No, no.

Actually, it's maybe less than. It's about $30,000 in credit card debt. $30,000? Yes.'s maybe less than. It's about $30 in credit card debt. $30? Yeah. So $470 in student loans? I have about $300,000. So you don't have a million dollars in debt? No, I don't. I thought it was a million, but maybe I just... Okay, so $500 on the mortgage, $300 on the student loans, and $30 on the credit cards, and that's all your debt well yeah that's not and I have a so what is your what is your you another loan what's the other loan it's a car loan how much do you own your car it's

about 24,000 okay and so are you a doctor or a lawyer neither I just work in health care. $300,000 to do what? What's your degree in? It's more like a management type degree, like a certificate that I just got or end up getting a really good job. So what's your income? It's about $120 a year. Are you married? I'm married, but I'm mostly responsible for my own bills. Not anymore. What is his income? I don't know. It's not a,

you know, I don't know. How long have you been married? About 12 years. Okay. If you were going to guess, does he make $60,000 or does he make $600,000? I'd say he's in the, what is it about the, he makes maybe about $100,000, I would say. Okay. I don't know the exact amount. Okay. All right. And I assume he's on the mortgage as well right yes yes that's important all right but he won't he won't have a conversation

with you about money no I I've read your books I've tried but he's not interested what reason does he tell you he doesn't want to talk about money i i don't know yeah you do yeah what did he say he just doesn't he just smiles and says nope and then he says pass the nachos no yep just no it's very very rare that somebody has that sort of disdain for the human being they share a life with that doesn't also come with other abuse or other sorts of deception or affairs or things like that okay well you know what you're talking about okay are you safe now? Yes. Okay.

Okay, I don't know if she was agreeing with your statement. Okay, I'm so lost right now. All right. Okay, let me go back a second. I'm going to pan back, way back, Leah. How long have you been listening to this? You said you've got a lot of books and stuff. What does that mean? Yes, I've been listening to you, I'd say, for maybe two years now,

when I first heard about you, like right around COVID. So the wonderful thing that we discovered 25 years ago or so is that personal finance is more personal than it is finance. It's 80% behavior. It's 20% head knowledge. Your math that you're describing to me is very stressful for you, terrifying for you um and it is the result of um the the series of decisions that you brought into your life including this dysfunctional marriage um and so the math is not going to get better until you get better uh and so the the way out of this is is a different level of wholeness than i've heard in this

conversation i'm not putting you down i'm not shaming you i'm just saying that you and your husband working together making 220 000 a year living in a house that you owe a half million dollars on trying to pay off your debts and having a wonderful flourishing marriage where there's great communication and shared goals and shared dreams is the way the only way I know how to teach you to get out of this debt because this is so such a personal situation and the more the more you have to fight against dysfunction while you're trying to clean up this mess, the harder it's going to be. Does that sound unloving when I say that? No, no. I've heard it before.

Okay. Do you believe with your student loan, with your car, with the other loan that you were unable to leave? Um, yes, a little bit. And you, you know, I'm, I'm just, um, I'm, I know you're being very, very measured and careful in what you're saying. And I get that. And I want to honor that. I also, um, and I, I honor that. I also... And I'm, you know, because student loans are in deferment,

I haven't really, you know, touched that for a while, and it's... So $350,000 solves your problem. If you do that $35,000, it takes 10 years. If you do it at $70,000 a year, it takes five years. And if you do it at $150,000 a year, it's done in two and a half years, which is what your combined finances would allow you to do if both of you had a shared goal and a flourishing relationship.

Or you, by yourself, without this mortgage on your back um have to say i make 120 i've got cleaned up 330 how fast can i do that um and it's not and by yourself i mean that is like by yourself now you're not with him anymore kind of by yourself so uh i want good things for you we love you we want you to win I want 10 years from now you to have a good life and it doesn't sound like much fun right now from where I'm observing and so if I'm you I'm going to start taking some steps to force the fun to come yeah and I want to recognize that what i'm about to say i'm is it's a much different me saying it on this side of the of the robo tracks versus the side that you're on but your safety and your wholeness within a marriage and your ability to communicate

and your ability to be able to fully go to sleep in a home that you feel safe in is um is not doesn't have a dollar amount on it and whether you need to call somebody and let them know that you need some help or you need to reach out to an organization in your community or reach out to some friends or to family members, whatever that may be. It sounds like you are there. And again, I want to honor the fact that you don't want to go into too much detail and you want to kind of let us know what's going on without really letting us know what's going on. But it sounds like you are not safe. And it sounds like you owe a lot of money. And if you were to leave today, you don't believe that you have enough money to pay your bills and i don't want that fear which is very real to stop you from making a phone call let somebody know that i'm not okay because like dave said i want in 10 years man i

want to i want to meet you in person i want you to be smiling from ear to ear because you chose today is the day that i'm worth more than that i put puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. Hey, it's John Deloney, co-host of The Ramsey Show. Did you know over 18 million people listen to The Ramsey Show every week? A lot of those people listen on one of our 600-plus radio stations across the country. To find a station near you, go to RamseySolutions.com slash show.