The Ramsey Show - App - School Is Not Your Priority - YOU Are Your Priority (Hour 3)

Episode Date: April 16, 2020

Anthony ONeal, Debt Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR 

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studio. This is the Dave Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. Sitting in for Dave Ramsey. My name is Anthony O'Neill, Ramsey personality, national best-selling author and speaker. And a guy who is just passionate about helping millennials and young people create a solid foundation for their life. And if you are a young person listening in today or anybody you have a question about life about what's going on how do we start preparing for life after this pandemic i want you to give me a call 888-825-5225 888-825-5225

or you can jump on over to the Dave Ramsey YouTube channel. I'm logged in there. I'm seeing the questions coming in and I'm chiming in. I'm here with you for this full hour. They have a conversation about your life and your money. We're going to go out to Illinois and have a conversation with Haley. Haley, how can I help you today?

Hi, thank you for taking my call. I have a question related to college. What advice do you have for a 25-year-old in Baby Step 2 who wants to go back to college but has to start the beginning and has to work a full-time job? Okay, so give me a little bit more information. Is that you or are you calling in for a friend? Me. All right, all right. So here's what I'm going to suggest. Give me a little bit more information before i give you some suggestions um how much are you making right now uh at your job uh maybe you need a month say it again oh the month um maybe like two thousand twenty two hundred

okay twenty two hundred dollars is what you bring in. How much debt do you have? I don't know the exact. We're probably down to 10. Okay. 10K? Yes. And what do we have? Do we have like some credit cards?

Do we have, is that a car? I actually just sent off the check for my car loan today. So that's going to be paid off and then i have one my last student loan and um a license debacle thing all right all right and you're saying you want to go back to college give me a little bit give me a little bit of information about this what exactly when you what do you want to go back to college for i'm'm not entirely sure. The first time I went to, quote, college, I kind of just picked something because I felt like I was behind and I'm afraid that I'm kind of feeling that again. So I'm very hesitant to just pick something. And I'm not really sure if it's the something I want or if I'm just picking it because I'm feeling desperate.

Cool, cool, cool. And I appreciate you for being honest with me. So we can both agree that you don't need this degree that you want to go back for. You're trying to figure out if you should go back just to maybe make some more money. Am I correct? Right. Yeah. OK, here's my suggestion to you, Haley, is I want you to consider holding off on going back to college. What I want you to consider holding off on going back to college.

What I want you to do is go ahead and create a solid foundation for your life. I want you to go ahead and pay off all your debt. You have 10K left in debt. You're making $2,200 a month. If you really aggressively go after this, you could be debt-free within the next six to eight months if you've really focused and maybe pick up a job, a side job, an extra job to help you go after this debt. But the key thing here is that before you go off and rack up and spend any more money, make sure you have a solid foundation. And America, I love how she said, hey, I don't know what I want to do. And I think that's that was an honest, honest answer was, you know, I don't know. I don't know if I need it. I don't know if I should do it. And then I want to also listen to it. I'm

not picking on her, but I really want to make sure that we're pulling things out so we can hear what exactly she's saying, because a lot of people are doing this, too. A lot of people going to college and really do not know what they want to do. They're just going to college just because. And I strongly disagree with that. If you're going to spend any kind of money on anything, you should have a plan. You should know what you're doing with that particular degree. I am an advocate of education, but you guys know me.

I wrote the book, Debt Free Degree. And I'm always telling young people, the very first thing is you have to have a vision. What do you want to do? Do you want to be a doctor? Do you want to be a lawyer? Do you want to be a carpenter? If you want to do? Do you want to be a doctor? Do you want to be a lawyer? Do you want to be a carpenter? If you want to be a carpenter, you don't need a four year degree. You need to go to trade school. Do you want to have your own hair salon? If you want to have your own hair salon, you don't need to go to a four year school,

go to hair school. You know, there are so many, so many different paths that we can go. But the problem is a lot of us are not stepping back and we're not really having a clear vision. So, Haley, my suggestion is take your time. You know, you sound like a very bright, smart young lady. You're close to becoming debt free. You know, follow the baby steps. Baby step number two is pay off all debt, excluding the house and just get out of debt that way. Get you three to six months.

And then if school is still something that you want to do, then I have no problem with that. But make sure you do it completely debt-free. We're going to go out to D.C. and talk to Judy. Judy, good afternoon, and how can I help you? Yes. Hi, Anthony. Thanks so much for taking my call. I'd like to know how to do a true cost-expense analysis of living on campus versus off for our rising junior at a state school.

Okay. Give me a little bit more information. Where is your daughter or your son? My son. Excuse me, my daughter in Virginia. Okay, your son. Okay, so what school do you want to go to? What's the cost of the school? Well, actually, she has been there there we keep our kids on campus for two years just just a a family rule because we think wait wait wait to be on huh well why is that a family rule well where's your boss behind that well because we think that with the kids being on campus for two years it's just a little bit safer. But then after two years, they're always itching to get off campus to live with friends and be a little bit more independent.

And they always say that it's cheaper to live off campus. And if I'm not mistaken, you're in Washington, so I just want to make sure I heard this clearly. They're going to go out of state, right? No, we are i know that they said that i was outside of dc but we really are just a mile in virginia from dc okay we're on in the state of virginia so we keep them in state in state okay so in state um how far are they from this particular school from your house is it a 30 minute drive two hour two hours two hours two hour drive okay um and you want to know what's the best thing

at this present time and what you can do as far as in true cost analysis correct right what do we what do we look at outside of you know just rent versus room and board are there other things that we should consider when we look at the analysis of saying keeping them on campus versus off? Yeah, you know, this is what I'm going to say, Judy. I feel a lot better that they're staying in-state, okay? That's what I am going to say. Yes, you've got to look at the tuition. You've got to look at the room and the board.

You're going to have to look at their food. You're going to have to look at the cost of their books. You're going to have to look at the travel expenses as far as if they have have if they have a car i'm going to be an advocate of trying to figure out maybe my son or daughter can live a little bit closer to me because i am a big fan i heard you say that you you want them to live on campus for two years i'm actually going to say i want my son or daughter to be uh in my house for their first four years as far as in their whole college experience and here's why because the average school is going to cost you about ten thousand dollars for room and board all right that's forty thousand dollars that you can save and that you can actually invest into

their future all right and so i'm not going against what you're saying but what i'm saying is this here i'm going to look at everything and make sure if you're paying cash for it i have no problem with it judy uh but you can save money that way america we can save money by making sure we choose the in-state school and make sure that we are uh saving as much money by staying home this is the dave ramsey show and i'll be right back folks i love telling you about well-made well-thought-out products today i'm talking about grip six belts i don't know about you but I'm not a fan of traditional belts. They never fit right, and they're uncomfortable. Grip6 belts are unique.

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To learn more and get this month's Dave Ramsey special, visit GRIP6.com. That's GRIP6.com. April is National Financial Literacy Month, and our team is celebrating teachers in all the hard work and dedication they give every single day with our teacher appreciation giveaway. And get this, we've had such a great response, you guys, to this giveaway that we're adding

a second grand prize. Let me say this one more time. A second grand prize. That means two amazing teachers will get $5,000 to use however they like. $5,000 to use however they like. Come on. Come on now, you guys.

Teachers, teachers, you do not want to miss this. Please go to DaveRamsey.com slash teacher. DaveRamsey.com slash teacher to enter for your chance to win some incredible prizes. This giveaway is sponsored by Jackson Charitable Foundation, and it ends on April 30th. And if you're not a teacher, be sure to tell the teachers in your life to go to DaveRamsey.com slash teacher to enter. I would encourage you right now if you have middle school students or high school students and they're at home and they are doing virtual schools and their teachers are teaching them on the air right now, man, suggest that they go to our website, DaveRamsey.com forward slash teacher and fill it out, fill it out. You know, I've had

the opportunity to be raised by some amazing teachers and every year I reach out to them and tell them thank you and I suggest that they fill this out five thousand dollars you guys that's got some good money right now we're going to go out uh and talk to Imani uh Imani how are you doing this afternoon how can I help you hi Anthony how are you I'm doing well did I say your name correctly yes all right nailed it on the head. How can I help you? So when school was in session, I helped develop a one-week program that taught my peers how to prepare for life after high school.

Okay. And some of those topics were setting goals and budgeting. It was well-received. So my question is, what should my next steps be while my peers are still interested? Oh, man. So give me a little bit more information about how old are you, actually, as a matter of fact. So my question is, what should my next steps be while my peers are still interested? Oh, man. So give me a little bit more information about how old are you, actually, as a matter of fact. Can I ask that question?

I'm 15. You're 15 years old and you're helping your peers? Yes. Come on. What grade are you in? 10th. You're in the 10th grade and you're thinking, oh, man. All right. So how are your peers receiving this program

right now? Are they liking it? Are they loving it? Tell me a little bit more about the program. Tell the world a little bit more about what's all in this program. Yeah, so we actually covered a few different topics. So setting goals, budgeting, as well as how to save for college and other things, buying versus renting, and, of course, debt. And so, like I said, it was a one-week program, and I had a couple of my teachers help me develop it, and it turned out great. And it seemed like my peers really enjoyed it, and they got some really valuable information out of it. You know, Imani, I'm going to tell you right now, because I'm pretty sure you're at home, right?

You're not in school. And I think that this is something that you should definitely put if you really want to expand this, that you need to create a YouTube channel. And you need to put this information that you are teaching on YouTube, you know, on YouTube. There's a lot of, you know, fun stuff on there, but nothing really on there that's helping peers your age, young people your age to really expand their thinking, expand their mind. One of the key things that I'm always saying, Imani, is to young people to mind their business because their mind is a business. And what you're doing is you're helping them and you're training them how to set a goal, how to have vision. You know, what's the difference between a credit card and a debit card? You know, you're pretty much doing my job. And so I love what you're doing. So that's one thing I would recommend that you do is take this information, jump on YouTube and just really start teaching

this information and teach it your way. OK, I want you to don't try and be like someone else. No, be young, be 15, you know, do what you all do, but just actually make sure that you teach them something. I'm so proud of you. You know, Imani, that is absolutely amazing. And I'm looking forward to actually do me a favor. When you do launch a YouTube channel, I want you to get on my YouTube channel. Let me know you launched it.

And what I'm going to do is I'm going to help push you because I love what you're doing. I'm going to support you. You guys, just recently I launched a brand new quick read called Destroy Your Student Loan Debt. It's a step-by-step plan to pay off your student loans faster. Not only did I just come out with this brand new quick read, which is about 60, 64 pages long, 64 pages long,

take you about maybe hour and a half to two hours to read it. I hate reading out loud and it takes me about two hours. So if I can read it in two hours, I'm gonna say you can read it in about an hour and a half. Now, but then also you can get the audio book at Dave Ramsey.com forward slash store. You can go to Anthony O'Neill.com.

And the audio book is me. You can have the opportunity to have me. I know a lot of you all like listening to Chris Hogan, but I think I have a better voice than Chris Hogan. And so we're going to talk about how to pay off your student loans faster, especially during this season. Because right now we see that the government has already pushed off paying off student loans for six months and then also they pushed off the interest so now you have the opportunity to where if you are in a decent financial situation if you still have a job if you still have income coming in and if you're on baby step number two which is to get out of debt excluding your house using the debt snowball and let, for an example, the only thing that's inside of your debt snowball are your student loans. Then you guys, this is the perfect,

perfect book for you to get. It's a quick read. It's simple. And I really do a deep dive. I talk about, you know, when is it OK to refine that refinance your loan? What's my honest thoughts and opinion on student loan forgiveness and why I do not like the student loan forgiveness program because clearly it hasn't worked. How do we get extra jobs and where do we apply the money? How do we make sure that we get through this? So I'm telling you right now, go to DaveRamsey.com, 4SAS store, or you can go to AnthonyO.com. It is $10. And then also with this, I launched a tool to help you see how you can go to anthonyneal.com it is ten dollars and then also with this i launched a tool to help you see how you can pay off your student loans quicker it's a student loan payoff calculator

go to anthonyneal.com you'll see it there and i'm telling you right now it will be an absolutely blessing for you i'm gonna go over to instagram take a questionnaire uh Zoe. Zoe says, would you recommend that I dip into my savings to completely pay off my credit cards? I don't have any other debt besides student loans, but I'm afraid that I will fall into bad spending behavior. OK, Zoe, would I recommend that you dip into my savings account completely to pay off my credit cards? Absolutely. OK, here's what we teach you guys this is what we teach we teach the steps you're gonna have a thousand dollars baby step number one then after that you're gonna have um no more in that account you're gonna pay off all your debt you're gonna line your debt up from smallest to largest so that's gonna be your credit cards and that's gonna be your student loans okay and then you're gonna attack your debt there i

know a lot of people say anything. Well, a thousand dollars is not a lot of money. It's not. And it's not. Babysit number one is not meant for it to be a lot of money. We want you to feel it a little bit so you can get out of babysit number two and get into babysit number three, which is stacking up your money, which is three to six months. OK, so Zoe, yes, I'm going to recommend that you pull out your money.

If you have, for an example, $5,000 in baby set number one, I want you to pull out $4,000. Leave $1,000 in there and attack your debt snowball. I want you to really think about it. Think about how you will feel when you have absolutely no debt. I want you to think about when you wake up on the first of the month

and you have three months sitting in your savings account and you have no debt, just your rent or your mortgage payment. Can you get excited about that? I remember when I paid my last debt. Y'all went to church. I ran around the church.

And when I ran around the church, man I ran around the church man I felt so good because I had freedom I had my life back I had joy I could do whatever I wanted to do with my money I could invest it I could I could go where I want to go when I want to go there I could be a blessing to my parents I could give more to my church. Can you imagine the doors that will open, the freedom you will feel, the joy you will have when you are 100% debt-free, excluding your home mortgage?

That's going to be absolutely amazing. So Zoe and to the world, to those of you all who are probably thinking just like him, should you have a large savings account and a lot of debt? No want you to have a thousand dollars attack the debt then let's not only just build a large savings account let's start investing in building wealth this is anthony i'll be right back So so If you do this one simple thing that we all do, you are literally at risk of being hacked and someone stealing what you've worked so hard for.

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protect up to seven Internet devices, and keep all of your Internet connections secure. That's CyberGhost VPN. Download it today from your app store and be secure in seconds. Going out to Florida, I have on the line Sadie from the beautiful, beautiful state of Florida. Sadie, how is it out there in Florida right now? It's actually pretty rainy outside. It's raining?

So that's not as beautiful as I thought then. Thank you for answering my call. Yes, yes. How can I help you? Um, I'm in eighth grade. My question is, um, what do I need to be doing to be prepared for college? Um, I live in a place where I can get a job like right now. Um, so should I get a job right now or should I wait until high school?

Oh, man. You know, I love these kind of calls. When you have an eighth grader calling, how old are you, Sadie? I'm 14. 14 years old and you're thinking about college already? Yeah. Now let me ask you this question. Are you thinking about college because that's what you want or is that

because what your parents want you to start thinking about right now? This is definitely what I want. I love it. So let's talk about it. What do you want to do? Do you have an idea what you want to major in or what's the career path you want to go down? I want to be a teacher. Oh, you want to be a school what's the career path you want to go down? I want to be a teacher.

Oh, you want to be a school teacher? Do you know what grade? Second grade. Second grade. You want to help the kids that I just cannot do that. Yes, okay. Let's talk about it. So you said you can get a job right now, right?

Yes. Okay, what can you do? I could work at at Publix. If I wanted to, I could wait a year and go to Chick-fil-A. Okay. But those are the only two options I know of right now. Okay, cool. How do your parents feel about you getting a job right now?

My mom's a little overprotective. Okay, that's mothers. So she, I don't know. I think that they would support me. Okay, okay. I think here's the very first thing. I think before you have a deep conversation with your family, let me help you out. I love the fact that you're thinking about your future. And I even love the fact that you're willing to work. And I do believe that you should be working a little bit, especially right now throughout the summer. I think it's gold. It's a golden opportunity.

I definitely want to say this. Your education and your grades is your number one priority right now. All right. And so I would say sit down. I want you to write down what's your vision. Tell your mom and dad, like, hey, I want to be a school teacher. Look up that. Look at the school you want to go to. You know, do you know maybe like two or three colleges or universities you may want to may want to attend in state? Not in state. I'm definitely thinking of going to some community colleges for a few years.

Okay. To get like my associates. Okay. But my big dream is to go to BYU. BYU. Okay. All right. All right.

And I'm not even going to knock your dream right now because I love the way you're thinking. You're thinking about I'm starting it right now. I don't have a problem with you going wherever you want to go as long as you do what? You know what I'm about to say? As long as you do it debt free. You understand that and so um if that's where you want to go that's fine so say to what i want you to do is tonight do this tonight go home and write down okay mom dad hey i want to go to college i'm willing to do the first two years at a community college i'm going to get my grades i'm up to par and keep them up to par. I mean, in the process of that, I would like to help you all out. Here's my game plan on how I am willing to help. I would love to get a job working at a grocery store now. I can work maybe 10 hours a week, nothing much, just to do that. And then out of the paycheck that I get, I'm willing to put in some money into the savings account to help pay for my college experience.

I think if you lay it out to your mom and into your father that way, they'll be on board. Now, they may say, hey, you know what? Okay, daughter, you can do this, you can do that, but you can't do this. That's fine. But the fact that you're willing to think about the process now in eighth grade, Sadie, you will be successful and you will go to college debt-free. Um, have you read my book debt-free degree? Yes. Um, I got it at your convention at Orlando. Oh, you was in Orlando. That's what, this is why I'm loving you. I love it. I have you,

um, do you have my teen entrepreneur toolbox kit? Um, I do not, but I have the app downloaded on my phone. Cool, great, because here's another option. If your parents say, hey, they don't want you to have a job right now, I want you to stay on the line. I'm gonna have them send you out a free teen entrepreneur toolbox kit, okay? Because you can actually maybe just work from home.

Maybe you can babysit. Maybe you can, you know, walk some dogs. So stay on the line, Sadie. I'm so proud of what you're doing, and you are truly going to be a successful i mean america do y'all hear this a 15 i mean a 14 year old young lady in the eighth grade just called in and said you know what i want to start taking uh control of my life i want to start taking the initiative to start thinking about my future. That is what we need from all of our

young people right now, especially with them sitting at home. Get them off of the Xbox, you know, take their phones away from it. Stop letting them be on Instagram and Snapchat and TikTok for eight, 10 hours a day and start helping them start thinking about their future. What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? How do you want to do it? Why do you want to do it? Because when they can start thinking early, early on in the seventh grade, which is what I talk about in my book, Debt-Free Degree, is, hey, here's when the conversation needs to be serious in the seventh grade. Start asking them questions. You know, hey, son, daughter, you want to be a teacher? You want to be a doctor? You want to be a lawyer? And it may change by the time they get into the 12th grade.

It may even change by the time they turn 20, 21. But here's the thing. You're starting the conversation. You're getting the brain to start thinking outside of the norm. And what Sadie is doing right now, that is absolutely, absolutely amazing. I'm just so proud of this young lady. Going out to Georgia, I want to talk to Terri. Terri, how can I help you this afternoon?

Hey, Anthony, how are you? I'm doing good. How about yourself? I'm great. I have a question, please. Sure. My daughter, she did dual enrollment in school, and she stayed home, and we did that debt-free to finish up the portion of the degree that she could do.

However, she's at a point now wanting to be a speech-language pathologist. She'll have to go on to the next level to finish up that degree. And just wanted to know some ideas as to how to get that done debt-free because she worked the whole time and everything, but now at this point she'll be doing clinicals and rotations, so that's kind of going to knock out a little bit of that. Just want to know some other ways that we can finish this thing up debt-free. You know, let's talk about it.

So is she going to stay in-state, correct? Yes, absolutely. Okay, and what school is she looking at going to in Georgia? She'll be going to Valdosta okay valdosta is that the only program that offers because i mean valdosta is actually not a cheap school so is that the only school that offers that particular program that she needs well there's university of georgia and um looking at the the cost there valdosta was a little bit cheaper so okay valaldosta was a little bit cheaper. Okay, Valdosta was a little bit cheaper than Georgia.

Okay, cool. This is what she's going to have to do. I mean, actually, bottom line, she's going to have to still work. She's going to have to maybe, if she wants to do this thing completely debt-free, she's going to have to maybe graduate a little bit. How do I say this? Not in a normal two years that she has left in the program. It may take her three years because she's going to cash flow it, but I'd rather her take three years to finish a program than actually get done

on time with her taking out debt. All right. And so has she looked up any grants or scholarships as well within also within that particular program? We've been applying for some, but we had to get to the point where she finished her bachelor's to be accepted as, you know, into the speech program to qualify for those. So we're still kind of waiting to see. Cool. Great. Here's another great, great, great website. You can go to my website as well, AnthonyRoneo.com.

But another one I've seen, Ashley, a lot of great scholarships around this program is MyScholarly. I want her to go to MyScholarly, sign up for it. The app is like two, three bucks a month, but they have a lot of scholarships around that particular program that she can apply for. And I think that will help her out as well. Also, she needs to become best friends with the financial aid office. She needs to go in there and tell them, hey, up front, this is where I'm at. This is what I'm dealing with. Can you keep me in mind for anything that comes available?

But here's the thing, Terry. Do not let her borrow any money. That program would take her about two years. I'm fine with it taking her three years. She's going to have to live with intentionality. She's going to put in the hard work. She's going to have to work a little bit, take some ownership, and she will get through the program 100% debt free. And she'll be grateful that she didn't do it. She'll be grateful that she did not graduate with $35,000 in student loan debt like the average

person. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. business leaders hiring right now may be the furthest thing from your mind but the fact of the matter is we will recover. One of the smartest things you can do for your business is to be prepared. I want you to know that my friends at LinkedIn are ready to help you find the right people for your business when you're ready to hire them. LinkedIn Jobs matches your role with qualified candidates so you can find the right person quickly. LinkedIn Jobs looks at things like collaboration, creativity, adaptability, and puts your job post in front of qualified candidates every day. So your job is seen by people looking for jobs just like yours.

That's why we use LinkedIn Jobs when we hire here at Ramsey. When the time comes to hire for your business, you can get $50 off your first job post at LinkedIn.com slash Ramsey. That's LinkedIn.com slash Ramsey. Terms and conditions apply. New data shows the government's coronavirus stimulus checks are providing much needed relief to americans struggling with the day-to-day living costs the data compiled by digital bank current found uh currently found members who received stimulus payments over the past five days have spent 16 on money 16 of the money on food, including takeout and delivery.

An additional 9% of spending was on groceries and 10% went towards groceries. I was reading this article that CNBC just printed out today, and it said that 16% of the stimulus check that people receive went towards food. Another 14% of it went towards money transfers to friends and family i kind of questioned that one right there uh 10 went towards gas i like that uh groceries another nine percent so now wait we're spending nine percent plus 16 which was on food so this is about 25 on food i'm to talk about that in a little bit. And then ATM withdrawals, 9% video games,

5% of their check was going towards video games. And then, uh, 4% was going towards, uh, bill pay. Uh, you guys,

there's no secret to about what I'm about to say to this. I mean, I love the article, uh, for the most part, we're seeing that the stimulus check, uh, it is, it is helping people live and pay some of their bills. But when you get this check, make sure you're making a wise decisions with it. All right. I've heard some people get a check all up to $3,900, depending on how many kids that you have. Make sure you're covering your four walls.

Make sure you're getting your food. Okay. And when I say food, I'm talking about you're buying groceries. You don't need to be doing Uber Eats every single day. I can get it on Friday night with your family. You're ordering a pizza or something like that. That's that's great. You know, and make sure you tip the driver a good tip. But get some food so you can eat. You know, be wise with your groceries. Number two, make sure that you are actually paying your utility bills do not push your utility bills off because they just because they're offering a forbearance situation it's really going to allow you to miss two months

at the end of that forbearance whether that's with your student loans whether that's with your mortgage whether that's with your utilities you will have to pay all that in one lump sum so do not stack a burden that's just waiting for you. All right. Go ahead and take care of it if you can. And then also as well, make sure you're taking care of your rent and or your mortgage. There are some mortgage companies right now that are also saying, hey, we'll do a forbearance plan. Do not do it. When I called in to make a mortgage payment on my mortgage, which is the only debt that I have. And they said, hey, you know, we can go ahead and, you know, send this out for you for three months, if you would like,

Mr. O'Neill, part of our forbearance COVID plan. I said, oh, no, I'm good. Not only am I going to make a payment, I want to make two payments. I'm trying to get out of debt quicker. But when I understood how this forbearance plan works, let's say for an example, you have a $2,000 mortgage, you're living in California. So that means what they're saying is they'll push off $6,000 to the end of forbearance plan. And then when you go to pay that, you got to pay the 6,000 plus the current month,

which is 8,000. Like Dave said on the radio a couple of days ago, he and I said, it's just a pretty much, we have patience, but when our patience wear out, you got to pay us all of our money so what are we saying you guys no be smart with the money if you have the money to pay your rent and or your mortgage please pay it and then finally take care and make sure that you have gas in your car for when you do have an emergency but something that bothered me on here is video games.

Why are we spending money on video games right now? No, this is not wise, okay? No, this is not wise, okay? You don't need any more video games. What you need to do is live. You need to make it through these times. And video games, no. Play the old ones, all right?

We're gonna go out to Illinois and we're gonna have a conversation Here with Jamal Jamal thanks for calling in man How can I help you? Yes It's I'm In Illinois I'm 24

And I went to school for like A year maybe a year and a half Then I ran out of money So I was just wondering like I wanna go back to school But then I don't because Just in that year and a half, then I ran out of money. So I was just wondering, like, I want to go back to school, but then I don't because just in that year and a half,

I accumulated about, say, $30,000 in debt. And that was not really my intention. Wait, wait, wait. Jamal, you said you went to school for a year and a half, and you racked up $30,000 in debt? Yeah. What school did you go to? Western Illinois. How much did you go to? Western Illinois.

How much was it a year? Was it always on student loan debt? It's like part financial aid. Part of it is like grants and whatever and then part of it is like federal loans. Okay. Alright.

So you still have the student loan debt right now? Yes. Okay. And you're thinking about going back to school. Are you currently working right now? Um, you know, because of the virus and everything, no, but before then I was trying to work as much as I could. Okay. All right. All right. So right now you don't need to go back to college right now. It sounds like. Correct.

It wouldn't be the worst thing if I didn't. But I don't know. Some part of me just regret not finishing it. Yeah. Trust me. I understand. I did a year and a half with the school and I graduated about not thirty five thousand dollars in debt. I took out ten thousand dollars to the loans when I didn't even need it. But here's the thing, Jamal. Right now, it sounds like school is not the priority. It sounds like you need to become the priority, you know, because it says you said you was working odd jobs before the coronavirus. Sounds like you need to actually lay a solid foundation. OK, so, Jamal, this is what I'm going to recommend that you do is that you step back. I need you to get on get on a plan. I need you to write out a vision for your life. All right. What do you want to do? Start asking yourself, do you, what do you

want to do? What are you good at? And also what I really want you to do is check out my good friend, Ken Coleman. He can help you really walk you through that journey on to what are your visions? What's your passion? And really get you into that sweet spot for your career. Because it sounds like before you even think about going off to college, before you even think about paying for college, you need to know exactly what you want to do. And that's one thing I tell all young people and anyone that tells me to go off to college, you better sell me on your vision. And I need to hear that, yes, you need to go to college to accomplish that vision. And you have a plan on how you're going to college, how are you going to go to college to accomplish that vision. And you have a plan on how you're going to college.

How are you going to go to college and graduate 100 percent debt free? But Jamal, right now you need a vision, man. And I love the fact that you are thinking about education, but get a vision, write the vision down. And once you write down that vision, then see if going to college or is this particular route of getting education is mandatory. But I really do. I'm praying for you, man. We're going to go out to Florida and we're going to have a conversation with Joy. Joy, thank you so much for calling in. How can I help you? Yes. Hello. Thank you.

So I'm 18 and I want to go to college and study finance. Right now I don't have a job, and I was going to – I have two questions. My first question is do you have any advice on what I can do to, you know, get started since I currently, like, don't have a job or anything? Okay. And my second question is do you think it would be a good idea for me to go to college and get a finance degree because i'm not trying to end up in debt yeah yeah and that's explaining to me what are your grades looking

like right now i have all a's and b's all a's and b's so you had a 3.5 or higher gpa yeah okay cool and what school do you want to go to because i mean if you do if you depending on what you're gonna do in a finance world if you're going to be a financial advisor yes you if you're going to be a financial advisor, yes, you've got to go to school. For pretty much anything around finances, you need to go to school. So what school are you considering going to at this time? Polk State College. Say it again. You went out on me. Polk State College.

Okay, cool. How much is that? I've never heard of that college. How much is that school a year, the tuition? Around like $3,000 to $4,000 a year. $3,000 to $4,000 a year. I love it. Yes. So this is what I'm going to recommend that you do, Joy. I'm going to recommend that you go to that school.

If you want to study finance, I'm going to recommend that you look into that. $3,000 to $4,000 is solid. Go ahead and get you a job right now. Okay? Stay away from credit card debt and i heard you say that you were scared of racking up debt well with three to four thousand dollars you should not have to even it's not even a thought all right so what you're going to do if you work 10 to 19 hours per week studies are showing that you can honestly pay uh that mass let's say for

an example if it costs you ten thousand dollars a year and you work 10 to 19 hours a week, that's only about a grand that you will need a month. So if you work 10 to 20 hours a week, you can make a grand. It's going to be less for you. Borrow about five, $500 a month to go ahead and cover that.

So absolutely. I'm going to say go to school, pay cash for it, and you will actually graduate 100% debt free. I want to thank the producer, James Childs, and filling in for our social producer, Kelly Daniel, Zach Bennett on the phones.

Remember, the caliber of all of our futures will be determined by decisions we make today. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. In the middle of these uncertain times, Ramsey Solutions wants to give you some hope. For the very first time ever, we're giving you Financial Peace University free for 14 days. Go to DaveRamsey.com slash hope so you can watch from home.