The Ramsey Show - App - Quit Chasing the Latest Financial Trends! (Hour 2)
Episode Date: October 4, 2023...
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Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show,
where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships.
I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney this hour.
This is your show, America, so call in at 888-825-
5225.
And I'm in an incredibly good mood today because
I'm wearing my Deloney shirt in
honor of Dr. John Deloney's book launch
week, month,
year. It feels like you're one of those
girls who's like, it's my birthday month. And I'm like,
that's not a thing. You get one day.
It's my book day. But this entire
last month has felt like i
feel like your book coming out i've heard more about your book drama than mine drama yes i didn't
know about the drama do you like this color what's the right color what do you think about the
backside that is what about this i don't know about the book like the amount of decisions that
go into making a book it's unbelievable so And the amount of second guessing you put on decisions
that you've already made
is pretty amazing.
But now you know
what it's like
to walk through the world
feeling like Deloney.
Feels good, doesn't it?
Well, I feel insecure.
You feel insecure?
I don't know if it's the shirt.
I feel exposed.
And both powerful and insecure.
I think the exposure part is...
That's a big piece of it.
You're not really
a short-sleeved kind of guy.
Yeah.
But I think you...
I don't have the muscle mass
to support it. You're both insecure and feel powerful. Now you know how I feel. That's the Deloney of it. He's not really a short-sleeved kind of guy. Yeah. But I think you both... I don't have the muscle mass to support it.
You're both insecure and feel powerful.
That's the Deloney way.
Well, hey, we are here for you, America,
and Eric is here in Wichita on the line.
Eric, what's going on?
Hey, how's it going, guys?
Doing well.
How are you?
Good, good.
I have a quick question.
So my wife and I, my beautiful wife and I,
have been doing this. That's a quick question. So my wife and I, my beautiful wife and I, have been doing this.
That's a great caveat.
Here's what I guarantee he's about to do.
He's about to say he thinks something and she thinks different.
Am I right?
And you think she's wrong.
Absolutely.
Yes.
Yes, you're right.
And I think she's listening.
So guys say my beautiful wife and women say my amazing husband when they're about to say,
and I think they're an idiot.
The other person's an idiot.
So go ahead.
Tell us how your beautiful wife may be an idiot, Eric.
All right.
You said it, not me.
Smart man. We had, we've been doing the steps and we are now down to just my student loans, which is about $9,000 left.
And she has an opinion that we should not pay the student loans and we should just start saving that through the three to six months of expenses.
Because there is a very high chance that her car is going to go out within the next year or so.
And we just have $1,000 of emergencies, so I don't know what you guys think about that.
Should we just tackle the—
How much money do you have in the bank?
Probably about—we have about $3,500
okay so you got a little more than that baby step one
emergency fund and what's your income
$150 a year
so these student loans are paid off
within a few months
max
the student loans
if we really buckle down
we could do it within three to four months, I think.
Three months.
So 90 days from now, the student loans are gone.
You said her car could die within a year.
And what else could happen after that?
We're going to have a presidential election.
You know what that means.
It's all going down.
Russia could invade.
And after that, a meteorite could come.
And after that?
Yeah.
Can her car not also be repaired?
I mean, it's
pretty old. This is 2006
and she'll
drive it until it doesn't go
anymore. That's the type of woman she is.
I think we
use, if she's that scared, she should
use that fire to fuel the debt
free journey to go, we got to get out of debt fast.
We got the emergency fund fast.
Then we got to start the car savings fund fast
because I know this thing's going to be dead in a year.
Versus leapfrogging.
You said, hey, we're doing these steps.
Well, the steps are in order for a reason.
They work.
And if you try to do multiple at once, it doesn't work.
Let's be honest, though.
I get, how much debt have y'all paid off?
We own a business, so it's been about, it was about $35,000, but I sold my business
as well, so that actually helped us a lot.
Okay.
I sold my business and then paid everything else off.
How long have y'all been chipping away at this?
About, well, really about three years. Okay. Because our business was kind of going downhill
and... So I remember, I remember like year two, year three, Mark, we've been hammering away and hammering away and hammering away at this and i felt like i should get my new car now and then my wife and i were just at zero
right we just we did all that work to just get to zero and now you're telling me i gotta go two
more years and save up to buy the car that i want, which is a used car, by the way.
So I get her looking down the barrel of,
are you serious right now?
Like we have nine,
we're going to go crazy and get this thing done in 90 days.
And then we start the savings thing all over again
for my car.
Is this just our life?
And so I think there's some truth to just sitting
and going, yeah, that does stink, man.
We worked really hard for three and a half years. We've grind and we scratched and clawed and we paid everything off
and now we got to scratch and claw again to save up to buy your new car
right that is hard and that's reality eric what is y'all's take-home pay is it about nine grand
uh it's nine grand yeah she yeah make $60,000 and she makes...
And we're not investing right now for paying off debt, right?
Right.
Okay.
So making $9,000 a month, can you find $4,500?
Can you take half of that and throw it at the debt and be done in two months?
If you buckle down?
We could.
I would have to look at it again.
But think about that.
Then in two months, you free up $4,500 you were throwing at it
plus that student loan payment.
That means nine months from then, you'd have $40,000 saved.
You'd have your emergency fund plus enough to get an upgrade for the car.
Right.
I mean, we're talking less than 12 months from now. And so,
if you start to paint that picture and go, hey, honey, I hear you. I'm not trying to become bad
of here. I'm just saying, look at these numbers. We can do this and do it quickly if we buckle down.
Do you have something you could put on the table? I'm not going to go out to eat for lunch with my
workmates for a month. I'm going to make lunch. Yeah, I mean, I could do that.
I'm just wondering if there's something
you could put on the table that says,
hey, I'm all in.
She sees you're serious.
I'm all in.
I want these student loans gone out of my life.
Here, George and I say,
it's ludicrous to not pay student loans
and start saving up for a car,
for another car that might die in a year.
That's madness.
You've got debt staring you right in the face.
Pay it off.
Get rid of that stuff.
Man, I think
a conversation about, okay, here's, instead
of presenting the,
we're just going to go crazy for 90 more days.
I love George's plan. Let's
sit down and come up with a 12-month plan.
Here's how this works. If I
buckle down, I'm going to make this commitment because I
know you're going to need a car, but I've got to get these student loans out of our house. We have to get these student loans out of here. Let's how this works. If I buckle down, I'm going to make this commitment because I know you're going to need a car,
but I got to get these student loans out of our house.
We have to get these student loans out of here.
Let's make a plan.
And then in 12 months, we're going to look up and we're going to have an emergency fund and you're going to have a new car.
Or maybe not a new car, but a used new car.
A new to you car.
Right.
Right.
It's that simple and it's that hard, Eric.
I wish it was a shortcut.
Yeah, math and reality are no fun sometimes.
Sometimes they're awesome, but sometimes they're no fun.
We feel like fuddy-duddies over here being like, you got to just pay out.
But that's how it works, and it's worked for so many people.
We believe in it that much.
We're that confident in this plan.
You got to do it in order with intensity.
That's the only way it works.
Thanks so much for the call, Eric.
This is The Ramsey Show.
Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, co-host, of course, of this show, but also of Smart Money Happy Hour with my friend Rachel Cruz and the George Camel YouTube channel,
which you can check out on the tubes. And of course, I'm joined by Dr. John Deloney,
who's got a fantastic show that he hosts right next door, I'm joined by Dr. John Deloney, who's got a fantastic show that
he hosts right next door to this studio called the Dr. John Deloney Show. And you guys are
crushing it over there, John. You just passed 200,000 subscribers on YouTube. I can't catch up,
man. You'll have me caught by the end of the month. It's a losing battle. I see what you're
doing there. Well, the team's done amazing work. The George Campbell Show will pass my show and
YouTube subscribers soon. Well, you just launched this mini documentary episode on your YouTube channel.
That is amazing.
Yeah, that is pretty rad.
Yeah, we actually, they came to us and said, hey, we want you to follow somebody for 90
days.
And let's call your bluff.
Let's see if these little steps to building an audience.
The six choices you talk about in the book.
Let's see if this actually works.
And so we put out a call and we
ended up with an incredible guy who came forward and said i'm willing to film the whole thing
and um and then his wife ends up coming along halfway through the the the shoot but um what
the film team was able to do what this guy was able to do he's just a brave dude man um and they
got to see the behind the scenes me answering calls saying i was wrong me going
whoa this is a big deal and there's not a big deal kind of some inside baseball on how the
coaching process works but um yeah it's pretty incredible go to go to johndeloney.com on i'm
sorry go to youtube slash john deloney and you can check it out it's an amazing um one episode
series and yeah it's about 28 minutes and it is well worth your time.
The team did an incredible job.
It's a TV show.
Yeah, they did a great job, man.
That's the start, John.
Next up, Netflix is calling you.
All right, well, John,
I've got an article here
that it made me happy,
and a lot of people
have sent this to me,
and I shouldn't be as happy as I am,
but there's those
I told you so moments
that I rarely get,
and this is one of them.
You love those.
Here it is from Business Insider.
Here's the headline.
95% of theft market may now
be worthless study finds no to which i retorted they were always worthless it was just people
stupid enough to pay for them you mean um digital clip art is now suddenly not worth billions john
it has a scientific name non-fungible token. It's clip art.
Fair point.
Really fancy clip art.
Fair point.
That Bill Gates gave us
originally for free.
Just for free.
Wow.
Through Microsoft.
Through Microsoft.
Clippy.
Here's some pictures
y'all can have.
And here we are in 2023
still talking about it.
Here's what it says.
Are NFTs dead?
A recent study
looking at the price
of thousands of collections
seems to suggest the answer is yes.
And so here's the report.
Out of 73,000 NFT collections, the researchers looked at almost 70,000 of them.
And slightly over 95% had a market cap of zero, which is a fancy way of saying it's worthless.
So by their estimate, almost 23 million people hold these worthless assets this daunting reality
should serve as a sobering check on the euphoria that has often surrounded the nft space ouch and
79 of all nft collections currently remain unsold the surplus of supply it's digital there's not
really a surplus of supply of a digital they claim you know it's it's john this is the one token
but here's what nfts really are it's it's john this is the one token but
here's what nfcs really are it's like a treasure map that points to the treasure that you're buying
you're buying a url link that goes to the photo you don't even own the photo john the original
artist owns the photo you own the url that's a flex on your friends that says i'm the sole owner
of this one photo that you can screenshot instantly it's that insane like we thought
timeshares were insane this is like a sense of ownership of a sense of ownership if you said hey
um i discovered a a pipe that i can drill down into the ground and get water so all of us don't
die i would say cool i would like to i would like to buy into that or if you said hey um i got
another drill and i drilled down into a reservoir
of oil or i created clean energy it's going to be free for everybody the things that provide value
i would say i'm gonna buy that if you said hey have i got a deal for you for four million dollars
i'm gonna give you a picture of a link to a digital picture that you can't really show anybody
because it's not really the thing, but you just have the link to it.
And be like, not even a piece of art?
Go buy a Picasso.
I'm all about that.
Hang art up in your house.
I've got art in my house.
I deeply value art.
Support local artists.
But I can't have it in my house?
No, no, no.
It's not even that kind.
It's an NFT.
I would just have to say, I don't know any of the words you're saying.
And so for that reason, I'm out.
Oh, boy. Well, you'm out. Oh, boy.
Well, you didn't miss out, John.
Fewer than 1% have a price tag above $6,000 now,
which is a far cry from the regular million-dollar deals of two years ago.
So much hype.
And here's the thing.
The people that were excited about it were the people selling it,
which I told people.
I said, hey, the people, like, get into NFTs if you're going to make them
and sell them.
Good for you if you want to hustle people out of a buck. But but don't buy it thinking it's an investment i'm gonna resell it
for profit which is the only reason people were buying them anytime somebody drums up something
and like goes ah and there's not evidence you're not like on this show you could say fpu it's an
nft no there's a tracker there's 10 million people right it's not just a guy on the street corner going buy my thing it's millions of
people there's debt-free screams almost every day like no no i follow the planet and my family's
free anytime a group of people are like you should do it too just be weary just be weary because man
dude well that's the nail in the digital coffin, John.
And you can buy a link if you want to see a picture of that digital coffin for the low, low price of $6,000.
Or the market cap of zero.
Ouch.
So there you go.
There's my segment of I told you so.
Thanks for that.
All right.
Ken joins us up next in Orlando.
Ken, welcome to the show.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my All right, Ken joins us up next in Orlando. Ken, welcome to the show. Hey, guys.
Thanks for taking my call.
Sure.
My wife and I have been listening for a long time following the steps,
and lately we've been discussing baby step number six,
and every now and then I'll hear in the other room of the house,
we're debt-free.
So I knew I had to call you guys to really discuss my mortgage and paying that down.
Okay. Because I'm more about the investment side and she really wants to get rid of the debt.
So just a brief background of both in our 50s, I'm 54, she's 51 and I'm a physician.
She's an occupational therapist and we have four kids in their late
teens and early twenties, essentially. I have, I bought a house, um, after it was in 2021,
uh, is $1.5 million. And I was able to put just about a million down and I took out a
conventional loan at five 25, 525,000 at 2.5% 20-year term.
So there's 17 years left and about $120,000 worth of interest.
On the number four side of things, I've been investing every month into mutual funds, which has grown nicely over the years. And I could afford to take out approximately $350,000 to pay off
a significant amount of that loan. What's left on the mortgage?
It's 17 years. What's the balance? $474,000. Okay. And you're saying you have non-retirement investing happening
in like a brokerage account? Yeah. Okay. What's in there? Mutually. Index funds,
about $450,000 to $500,000. Whoa. So you could pay off the house today?
Yeah. I don't want to go down to zero though, but yeah, I could put a good...
That's the question because your wife wants to go down to zero and free up that mortgage payment. But what you're saying is, but babe,
we could make so much more leaving it in these mutual funds the way the market's going, right?
That's the argument. Yeah, over the years, it's traditionally gotten seven to 8%.
Yeah. That's truly a hard thing to grapple with for the folks who love to see those numbers go
up.
And we love investing around here.
But are you already investing in retirement?
Yeah, I'm fully funded 401k.
It's done very well.
Amazing.
And you're in your 50s.
What's your household income?
Gross, $450,000 to $500,000.
So riddle me this.
Could you not invest? Could you not get back up to $500,000 in a brokerage account within a few years, Max?
Two years.
Without a mortgage payment?
I don't know about two years, but without a mortgage.
Yeah, no mortgage payment.
Could you put $200,000 out of $500,000 into that brokerage account?
Yes.
There we go.
Yeah, I would double my investment monthly on a monthly basis
pretty quickly. You're going to retire a multi-multi-millionaire, Ken. And in the meantime,
I want you to have peace and freedom and owe nobody anything and allow yourself to enjoy
these moments with these kids before they're all out of the house. Cash it out, baby. Go on amazing
vacations. Cash it out, baby. Pay that house off. And remember, if you hate being debt-free, no mortgage payment, just go get yourself into more
debt. They'll always give you a loan against that house, Ken. So I hope you become debt-free. I
think you're going to enjoy it. I don't think you'll look back, man. Thanks so much for the
call. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show.
I'm George Camel, joined by Dr. John Deloney this hour.
Give us a call at 888-825-5225.
And if you're wondering why I'm wearing a shirt that just says Deloney on it,
it's because I'm here to support my friend John Deloney during his book launch week.
We're all very excited about it around here.
And I'm excited we have a launch party tomorrow here at the event center.
It's going off, man.
Can't wait.
We've never done one of these.
We haven't.
Not with the level of complexity slash level of work I still have to do
in the next 24 hours to get this thing off.
We are throwing a rager on the clock.
But it's going to be pretty wild.
I'm excited about it.
Well, it's well deserved.
Bring your plugs.
It's going to be loud.
Yes. All right. Let's get to Carol excited about it. Well, it's well-deserved. Bring your plugs. It's going to be loud. Yes.
All right.
Let's get to Carol in Indianapolis.
Carol, how's it going?
Good.
Thank you.
How can we help today?
My husband and I are debt-free, net worth about a million.
We have six months emergency savings.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So after seeing multiple homes over
the last few years, we bought a very sought after lot. So much so we're being contacted by like
private builders asking if we want to sell, but we're currently very happy in what we thought
would be a temporary home, but we are growing out of it. My main question is, is now a good time to build? Since I owned a lot, do I need a realtor for custom build?
We have about 75 grand saved up for what we think we're going to build.
Okay.
Have you started reaching out to builders?
Because that's really the only people you need to work with at this point.
Oh, do you think it's a good time to build?
Well, the right time to build is when you have the money and so
that's the beauty of of having that financial freedom so if you're asking is the right time
to build is as far as the economy goes rates or what because you guys are going to take on a
mortgage to do this economy we will we would have to i mean our current home is worth about 480
and you would sell that five that we have that? I don't know if we should rent it?
I think you should sell it.
No, please don't take money out of it.
Please, please, please, please, please, please
don't take money out of it.
Don't put one house on the block for another house.
That's a way to lose them both.
We would still need to take out a small mortgage,
maybe $200,000.
Okay.
So if you sold the house?
Yes. So you sell the house, you get, you know, let's say 440 out of it.
And then you have your 75. That puts you at a little over 500. And you're saying,
hey, it's going to cost 700 all in. We take out a mortgage for 200 of that.
It might be more closer to eight now that I think about it.
Okay. It's just so expensive.
Well, what's your household income? Our household income, it varies from month to month, but I could say on average about $12,000. Fantastic. So let's say, hey, we really need to keep this mortgage
around $3,000. And if we're going to do that on a 15-year, we can start crunching the numbers to go,
are we ready for this build? Are we ready to take on an $800,000 project? Or do we need to wait and save up another 50 grand, 100 grand to make this make sense?
Right. We could easily hold off in this house for no more than two years.
Okay. But it's not too early to do the homework and go, hey, let's contact a builder. Let's start
to see what this would actually cost. Let's see how much mortgage we could actually afford based
on our income. And that will give you some actual facts versus just, I think, and maybe, and I feel
I like to have some real numbers on it. The facts. Okay. And do I need a realtor for a custom build?
No, you own the land. You're going to have to, I would recommend getting several builders and
having them give you a bid and have some sort of idea of what you want the house to look like.
And maybe when your husband can go through plans online or hand them to a builder and say,
here's what we're interested in, or look around and ask people at your local church,
whoever who have used a custom builder, we had great experience we had a terrible experience and then interview them at your house they work for you right and then
ask them to give you all in costs and go through that whole process now the spot where a realtor
could come in carol is their expertise their relationships with builders in the area their
negotiation skills uh project oversight, resale considerations,
things like that, I would still say, hey, there's a lot of value in having a realtor involved.
But do you need a realtor in order to build a home if you own the lot? Not necessarily.
How do you say goodbye to them since they helped us buy the lot and our current home?
So are they wanting in on this? Because you already have a current realtor that you love?
Yes, she helped us buy our current home and the lot.
And she's mentioned, when you're ready to build,
contact me, contact me.
And I haven't had the guts to say goodbye.
Well, so maybe do this.
Call her and ask her,
what does a realtor help me do?
What's the value?
How are you making money from this?
What does this relationship look like?
And then if it doesn't make sense for you guys,
just say, hey, thank you so much.
You've been amazing,
but we're going to continue forward
without a realtor on this one.
And maybe you do work with her
and maybe it's a huge blessing,
but if the question is,
do I absolutely need one?
No.
Okay.
I'm saving up to have some work done at my place
and it has never occurred to me to call a realtor.
Maybe that's on me.
Maybe I'm wrong on that one, but that's never occurred to me.
I have reached out to several folks who would be either general contractors
or builders to come out and help me.
And if I did keep her, I would pay her out of my pocket, correct?
You'd probably pay a percentage of the total build.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what I'm curious about, how the deal would be structured, if she's willing to negotiate
on that.
But you're not buying a house, she's not finding you a house, she's not searching through MLS,
and she's not putting you into a system.
Correct.
It's not a traditional realtor relationship.
Yeah.
Gotcha.
So maybe you're going to pay her 0.5% or 1% to help find you the right builder.
And I don't think she's going to be serving as a general contractor, making sure everything that
the builder's going to do. And so I don't exactly know what that relationship would be, but if you
have a good relationship with her, she's been trustworthy. Sounds like she's been awesome.
Sit down and say like, what would you bring to this equation? Because otherwise I was going to
call, start calling builders and begin to thumb through them that way.
Love it.
Best of luck, Carol.
That's a big project.
Excited for you guys.
All right.
Christian joins us in Los Angeles.
Christian, welcome to the show.
Hey, thanks for taking my call.
Sure.
How can we help?
So I'm 27.
I live at home debt free at my parents' house parents' house. Uh, so I have no bills.
Uh, they don't pay, they don't charge me any rent. Um, I'm currently making gross 80,000 a year
in savings. I have 80,000 cash, 130 liquid, and I'm looking, I don't invest in anything except
for just my, uh just my pension plan.
So I'm not going to be able to touch that anytime soon.
But I'm looking to invest essentially.
And I looked at the market, CDs, and or if I were to throw it at the stock market into like a mutual fund.
I do plan on using my money to purchase a home within the next two years once I have enough for a down payment,
which is going to be about
$150,000 for what I'm looking at in my range. So I'm looking at... My money is not doing anything
for me right now. Essentially, like I said, it's $80,000 sitting in the bank. When I say liquid,
I purchased a truck cash just because I never had a new vehicle. And honestly, I'm considering
just selling it. I'll get $50,000 for it right. You said 130 liquid. That's including if you sold the truck.
Exactly. I have 80,000 cash though. And so I'm looking to just invest since I'm not,
I can't buy a home right now. I mean, the prices are just crazy.
They're not going to go down, man. I hate to, I know everyone says that they're not.
Yeah. I understand that. I'm looking to, I guess my long-term goal is like my five-year plan
essentially is I'm going to just, you know, stay at home, not pretty much pay no bill,
just my minimal regular bills, but. Can I push back on that? Why?
I know it makes economic sense. I get that, but man, you got to go out and live your life. You
got to learn how to pay bills.
You've got to learn how to live on your own, have your friends.
Yeah, no, I get that.
I'm just, I don't want to, yeah, I can go out and get, like, a cheaper condo.
I don't want to get wrapped up in HOAs, I guess.
Right now, the home prices that I'm looking at, it's like $900,000.
Hey, go rent.
You're a 27, 28-year-old man making 80 grand a year living with his mom.
Yeah.
You're saying I should just go on rent?
Yes.
Because listen, this is the math problem.
You're right.
The math problem.
I am able to save this much money at my mom and dad's house.
Yes.
There is the psychosocial development side of this where you learn how to be an adult,
how to be a grown man and
lean on yourself, that discomfort of having a place, making the calls, having to set up your
own electricity, call it when the bill's wrong. All of those things are about being an adult,
going to your neighbors and saying, hey, we all turn the music down. Those are all skills your
body needs to learn that you don't get when mommy's doing your laundry for you at 30 years
of age. So Christian, sell the truck too much of your world. Get something reasonable. Don't
invest this money. Put it in a high yield savings account because that time horizon is way too short,
my friend. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ramsey personality, George Campbell,
joined by my colleague, Dr. John Bologna. Strictly colleagues, sometimes friends.
Best friends.
And we are here for you, America. The number to call, 888-825-5225. We love having a conversation with you, helping you take the right next step with your money, your life, your relationships, all of it.
Taylor's up next in Milwaukee.
Taylor, welcome to the show.
Hey, how's it going, guys?
Great, how are you?
You're a little muffled.
Speak directly into your phone for me.
A little muffled, is that better?
That's better.
Okay, so my fiance and I have been struggling to pay off a little bit of our credit card debt.
And I was thinking the other night, she works, she makes about 14, 1450 a month take home and she's paying, we're paying $1,200
a month in daycare. Um, and so I thought to myself, why we do do Instacart, um, and DoorDash
and stuff on the side. Um, and I thought to myself, why don't you just quit your job, put
your two week notice in. She's starting cosmetology school in the spring anyway,
so she's going to have to be leaving her job.
Why don't you quit your job and just do Instacart, DoorDash, stuff like that,
full-time with our son, staying at home more with him.
And it's kind of funny.
I was listening to you guys' show a couple days ago,
and I kind of feel like a little desperate right now,
and I picked up something that stuck with me,
and it said that when you're feeling desperate,
you're going to be stupid.
You're going to make a stupid choice.
Yes.
Good call, man.
So I thought, man, you know,
maybe I could get out here and talk to you guys
and see how you guys feel about this.
What do you feel desperate about, brother?
Just so
we're currently, so
when listening to your show, we've been
paying off and we've been throwing all of our
extra pennies
at our credit card. So we have
just over 20, about
$23,000 in debt
and we want to take care of it because we
want to buy a house. So we've been throwing all of our
extra pennies at it. Well, I had to
pay for books
for my school.
I'm an apprentice electrician, IBEW
and books came due.
So I had to pay for my books and I thought I was adding
my credit card payment, but I paid the whole thing.
So that was a couple weeks ago.
So the last couple weeks we've been kind of
literally living paycheck to paycheck working out of a negative bank out trying to catch up
because we totally did not expect that. Cause then a couple of days later, her, our payment
for daycare, um, glitched and it double paid that week. So we paid out like $1,500 extra that we
were not expecting that week. And so we're finally just, that was a couple weeks ago,
we're finally just tomorrow, you know, when she gets paid,
we won't be working out of a negative account.
We can get back on track, you know, working at her debt.
She just got into a car accident Friday, which it might help.
It wasn't her fault.
Someone pulled out in front of her.
So in a roundabout way, we might
not have to pay her car loan anymore, you know, and we'll just buy a beater car and
just cause God, I don't want to pay. I don't want to know. Uh, do you know another car
loan?
So is the 23,000 total between the car loan and the credit cards?
No, I'm not including that car loan into this. If we include that, it's up over 40, but I
don't think we're going to have to.
What's your income?
My income right now
is $2,400 a
month
take home.
I work a lot of overtime
with my job and it's
temporarily permanent
overtime, I guess,
because with being a... Hold on, whiz are opposite words. With overtime, I guess, because with being a...
Hold on, whiz are opposite words.
With overtime, you're bringing them $2,400 a month?
No, no, no.
With overtime, it's like $3,300 a month.
And that's consistent for...
I know, but that's $500 extra, right?
No, I'm sorry, $3,300, $900 extra.
But I wanted to use...
I don't want to count on that overtime
because at any point it could get eliminated, right?
Okay, you've got money chaos, but let me just cut right to it, dude.
Underneath that, you've got other chaos.
What is it?
Well, so a couple years ago, we really wanted to buy a house,
so we thought we could move into my parents' house and
save up some money.
Well, that didn't work. COVID
hit and this hit and we got frugal
with the money and it just, it just
Underneath that,
what's underneath that?
Here's what you sound like to me.
Okay? You sound like a dad.
You got one kid or two kids?
Two.
Two kids.
Is this woman your wife?
No, we're engaged.
We've been engaged for about eight years.
Why?
I don't know.
We just have...
So when we...
Hold on.
We don't have time to go through the whole thing.
Here's what it sounds like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You sound like a guy who is fraying at the edges
in a way that makes me nervous for you.
The money is symptomatic of a life,
of a guy playing whack-a-mole with his life.
Yeah.
I'm going to ask you a hard question.
You don't have to answer it.
Are you using right now
um I
drink no
yes here's how I know that
the way you are living your
body was not designed
to handle the whack-a-mole
stress you put on it and you have to have something
to shut that system down
either you got to have something to speed up that system to keep up with it or you got to have something to shut that system down? Either you got to have something to speed up that system
to keep up with it, or you got to have something to shut it down. I'm a very anxious person. Yes.
Yes. What you need, my man, is to, you have to have a plan, but you got to have something beneath
all of this, dude. Let me ask you, what are you running from?
Failure, I guess.
Yes. Why? What are you scared of, man?
You have a woman who loves you, you got two healthy kids.
I mean, honestly, this might sound kind of crazy, but
I've always been commitment.
I'm afraid of commitment. I've always been
really good at everything I do,
but I can't ever just stick with one thing.
Okay.
But when you get lasered in on something,
I bet you're freaking amazing, aren't you?
I'm enjoying my career right now, yes.
That's right.
But are you the kind of guy that's going to get certified
and get a great job, and six months later,
you're going to be like, oh, look over here?
No. Okay. I can no okay i can't i can't so here's the deal 33 i don't want to start over yeah i love i love what i do i really do that's amazing that's amazing
you are i need you i want you to do something crazy when we get off this call and it's going
to sound insane okay i want you to make a fist and i want you to put something crazy when we get off this call, and it's going to sound insane, okay? I want you to make a fist, and I want you to put it right in the middle of your chest,
and I want you to walk into your bathroom and shut the door and say these words out loud,
I love this guy.
And I want you to stare yourself in the eyes.
And I'd be willing to bet money that's going to be hard for you to do.
Because right now, you have a woman telling you, I love you so much. I will play your little
commitment gymnastics, even though we're together for eight years, because she loves you that much.
And you got two kids you love. You got parents who are like, dude, move on in.
You have a boss that's like, do we want you so bad around here? We're going to give you extra time because we need you and your skillset and your character
around here. The only person I hear in your life that doesn't believe in you is you.
And that has to stop today. You got two little boys. You got two little kids looking up to you,
man. I just called an electrician and spent an ungodly amount of money you know what i looked
at that guy and i said i said i trust you to take care of my family because you have a skill set i
don't have please help and he came in he said i got you that's what you do for guys like me yeah
every day i do that but you have to address the drinking and you have to address the anxiety
and you have to address this pretend I'm not getting married
because I don't like commitment, but I'm with the same person.
I've built a family and a home, but sort of with this woman.
Marry her and be done with that so your body can rest, right?
And then we'll give you a plan on the money.
We'll give you a plan on the money, man.
You just got to follow the plan.
Okay. Does that sound good on the money, man. You just got to follow the plan. Okay.
Does that sound good?
It does, yeah.
Taylor, I don't think the solution here is,
man, if she just stays home, our problems are over.
You're just trading one problem for another.
It's whack-a-mole.
It's whack-a-mole.
And it's not going to get you out of the money mess.
It's not going to be a big dent in the financial hole you guys have created.
But you got to get serious about this.
If she can get her income up, that will help the problem.
We're going to hook you up.
Listen, I'm going to send you Building a Non-Anxious Life, my new book.
I want you to follow it.
The second thing is I'm going to send you Every Dollar,
the best money app for you all two to use together for a year for free.
I'm going to send you the FPU lessons for free.
But y'all got to do them as a couple and make some commitments.
And I want you to send me a wedding invitation in the next 30 days. Game on, my brother. I'll go with you, John. It'll be fun. Taylor, thanks so much for
the call. Hang on the line. Austin will pick up. We'll get you all those goodies, man. Wishing you
guys the best. That puts thishost of The Ramsey Show.
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