The Ramsey Show - App - Should My Wife Stay Home or Go Back to Work? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental 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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Open phones this hour at 888-825-5225. I'm solo today, plus or minus a few pounds of turkey left over from the week earlier, but we'll be hanging out together, you, me, and the turkey.

The phone number is 888-825-5225. Common sense for your dollars and cents. Common sense that is so rare that now having it in our culture is like having a superpower. Joseph is with us. Joseph is in Dallas, Texas. Hi, Joseph. How are you? Hey, Dave.

I'm doing very well. Good. What's up? I love the show. I've been listening to your podcast for the last several months. I wanted to ask your thoughts about making the decision. My wife and I, I'm currently working. She's been a stay-at-home mom for the last five and a half years,

and her former boss reached out to her to ask if she would be interested in coming back to work. And we have a two-year-old and a five-year-old. So the boys are getting ready to start preschool and kindergarten. And so the timing of it seems like it might make sense, but I was interested in what your thoughts were as far as making the decision to go from staying at home to working parents. Yeah. Well, there's nothing wrong with it. Lots of working parents are great parents.

It doesn't require you to stay home to be a good mom. But there's also nothing wrong with deciding I want to stay home and spend my time on my kids. So there's, you know, people get judged for either one, I can tell you that, but not here. I'm going to support you either way, whatever you decide to do. What I wouldn't, so I'm not going to throw a blanket on this and go, well she must go back to work or oh no she can't go back to work i would never do that that's not i think the question is how much are they going to pay her a lot more than

me how much uh 115 000 okay Pretty tempting then, huh? Yeah. Is it tempting to her? Yes. I mean, we're both excited at the opportunity. We're baby step two right now, so we'd be able to become debt-free very quickly, like by the end of next year. And the trade-off is what? What's the trade-off?

What's the tradeoff? What's the loss? Time with our kids, having to hire, you know, a nanny or daycare to take care of them. That's the primary thing. Okay. Well, the two-year-old from two to five, you're never going to get those years back. But there's certainly nothing wrong with, again, having daycare, having a nanny, having after-school care, whatever the process is. People do it every day. And it's not immoral. It's not wrong.

You're not a bad parent. But you've just got to decide, okay, what kind of boundaries can I put on this? I mean, this guy's wanting to work 40 hours, not 80, right? Yes, correct. That's a boundary number one uh then uh i don't know maybe there's some flexibility around school time about when she shows up or when she doesn't show up at the office right yeah especially now uh their work from home i think 50 of the time so well that's a big deal she's going to be at home 50% of the time? Correct. Oh, wow.

Okay. So we're only talking about two and a half days or two days a week of problem then, right? Right. Who watches the kid at home while she's working? Nanny? Yeah, we don't know that yet. We would have to find somebody. Well, I think what you got to do, if Sharon and I are doing this decision, we have to put down exactly how this is going to go down

and then look at that and say, we're trading that for $115,000. That's a trade. Is it a good trade? And if it's a good trade, we'll do the trade. You know, and lots of people look up and they go, the trade is not worth it. My wife desperately wants to be at home full time with the kids and not work. And there's not really any amount of money that you can put on the other side of that scale that makes it tip. And so then they choose to stay home.

And there's nothing wrong with that. And there's nothing wrong with going, dadgum, this is quite honoring. An old boss from five years ago calls up and offers us the brinks truck let's this is on that's honoring to her it says a lot about who she is right absolutely which is that that's a nice compliment and it makes it really tempting as well because they obviously have huge respect for her so good stuff good stuff um there's not a right or wrong answer brother but i would get down and say this is our life is currently x if we do this exactly what does our life look like change exactly what are we going to do exactly how are we going to handle it then you know the trade you're making because you're trading 115 000 for whatever stress or absenteeism or time away from the kids you're putting on the table.

And if it's minimal away from the kids, you know, it's really tempting to look at. Really tempting. Mark's with us in New York City. Hey, Mark, welcome to the Ramsey Show. What's up in your world? Hey, Dave, thank you for having me on the show. Sure. I'll make it very simple.

Over the past few years, I've made some poor financial decisions, and I've ended up in $150,000 of credit card debt. Good Lord, what'd you buy? I didn't buy anything. I was going through a phase of drug addiction and things spiraled out of control. I was very good with money in a past life, and I had a high credit score, and I blew through everything. Now, the reason that happened to me was because my father died a tragic death, and I went through a lawsuit, which recently settled. So I just don't know how to get my life back in order. I am employed, gainfully employed. However, it's just so overwhelming.

What do you make? Just under $200. Cool. cool how long you been dry 30 what's that how long you've been dry what three years three years what was it uh prescription painkillers okay how old are you i was i i'm gonna turn 31 okay i'm sorry about your dad how long ago did he pass uh october 2017 obviously your hero no well yes of course i mean yeah well i mean if it was devastating to you he meant about it yeah um what other uh what other family and friends and support have you got around you while you're walking out your sobriety? I mean, everyone is behind me. I mean, it's like really a thing of the past.

I mean, I'm so blessed. I mean, you got good support. You know what? Good support. I didn't know the dangers. You know, i was i was uh getting some surgery during the time i saw how he died and i mean it just snaps you become dependent on these things oh yeah they're good to you i mean it's embarrassing to even say i mean

uh goodness i mean oh when you're hurting and you're not hurting anymore they're good to you and it just it compounds i. I've heard about it. All right. I'll tell you what. I think you've got the chemistry to make it. You just need a game plan that's going to give you a little bit of hope. Can you hang on with me through the break and let's work on that? Absolutely.

You've got all the components to win this, dude. I think you can win it, and I think I can show you how. We'll work on it together in a minute. Hang with me. This is The ramsey show people put off buying life insurance and getting the protection they need for a variety of reasons so let's clear up a few myths to make sure you get your family protected. First, term life insurance, it's not expensive. In many cases, it's just plain cheap. Most people are surprised by how much less expensive it is than they thought. Second,

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RamseySolutions.com slash checkup. It's completely free. All right, we're talking with Mark in New York City. He makes $200,000 a year. He's got $150,000 in credit card debt. Ran it up during three years ago. He's been driving for three years off of his prescription drug addiction, which occurred after the loss of his dad, tragically. He's in his 30s and wanting to know if he's bankrupt. Is that a fair summary of what you told me so far, sir?

Yes, there's one other X factor. Because, you know, with my dad's situation, I recently settled a lawsuit. So now I have a settlement. And I just don't know how to best use this as a tool to repair what I've done. Okay. And how much is the settlement? I don't want to say a year, but seven figures. Over a million? Yeah.

Okay. All right. Cool. And your debt's $150,000? Yeah. Okay. Well, obviously you're not bankrupt. No, sir. I'm very blessed. Okay. All right. uh i misunderstood the the question then okay because you can't file bankruptcy the judge would just take some of your money and pay your bills it wouldn't and laugh at you but you know he wouldn't do it so um so the 150 000 how is it all current or are you behind on it or what no i, I haven't even looked at it in three years.

I mean, part of those three years I was kind of out of commission. Yeah, so the $150,000 figure comes from the last time you looked at it or recently you just called all of them and got the new numbers? That's the last time I looked at it. I don't even know where the debt is or who bought it or where it is in the debt. Yeah. All right. But you have an idea where it started?

Yeah. How many different credit cards? About five. Okay. All right. Are you doing anonymous? Are you doing 12- no no it's uh listen i went down that road and that was part of that three years thing um i just you know i grew up catholic i just returned to

my faith in christ and and what's important to me but as far as spending my life in a 12-step program, I wasn't asking you to do that. I was just trying to get context to where your head is because 12-steppers have a framework in which they look at things, and I was trying to see if that's what you were doing. That's okay. No problem. I'm not trying to sell you on 12-step.

I think it's great for some people. It's just not for me. Okay. That's fine. You're dry. I'm going with dry, okay? That's a big thing. You stay sober.

I'm not arguing with you. I'm not arguing with that. It's money and hard work. Yeah, so what you've got to do is you have some hard work to do. You've got a business to run here, and your business is I'm going to – let's just pretend. I'm not going to, but let's pretend I hired you for $100,000 a year as a part-time job in addition to your regular job. And your job for $100,000 a year is go back and clean up this guy's mess named Mark. And your job, how would you do that?

You would go back to the last source of anything you had, and you would out okay the you know i borrowed twelve thousand dollars from city bank and then i contact city bank and they've added on 73 million fees and now it's 22 000 so i've got two figures i got a 12 and i got a 22 okay and then i do the same thing with uh jp morgan i do the same thing with whoever wherever you got the stinking cards okay and you go back and you try to source them they've probably sold them now here's what i want you to understand if they have sold them to a debt buyer which they likely have if it's three-year-old debt a debt buyer will buy that money approximately a nickel on the dollar and so they're going to buy a a one thousand dollar credit card debt for $50. Got it? Got it.

And then they dump you into a phone room, a boiler room, 9,000 people in cubicles with fluorescent lights calling people all day long, trying to get money out of them, and couldn't get a better job, so they've got a really bad job called credit card collector. It sucks as a job. And they don't last very long on the job and they lie and they yell and they do anything they can do to get money out of you and so that's who you're dealing with on the other end pretty much scum of the earth

okay understood and so your job then is to say okay you paid a nickel on the dollar you're trying to get two dollars for every dollar that was owed we're not going to do that i will pay you today what the original balance was as settlement in full and you can do that easily you have plenty of money and you get it in writing from them they will do that deal all day long they'll probably take a quarter on the dollar but you're probably going to argue with them a lot more and you have the money to pay your bill so you legitimately borrowed twelve thousand dollars you've got over a million you can pay the guy twelve thousand dollars okay so you pay them twelve thousand bucks it's what you owe and so but you don't pay them twenty two

thousand because that's what they're going to try to stick you with is all the stuff they send. Go ahead. Forgive me. Let me ask you. Should I use a debt consolidation service or should I hire an attorney? No, you should go do this. Do this myself? Yes. So give me the best deal personally? Yes.

Well, it's a hassle. I gave you a new job. It's a hassle. I understand. But let me tell you, debt consolidation doesn't work at all. They're just going to throw the thing in another pile and create another mess for you. That's another scam group. And an attorney, by the time you finish paying them, you're going to wish you'd done it yourself,

and they are not going to be as efficient as you're going to be. It's your new hobby. How many different accounts do you think there is? Open for debt, probably five. Only five? You borrow $30 000 bucks a piece on these things yeah oh well this is a lot easier than i thought then you have to do five deals by phone come on man all right i just don't even know who to call well you're the last person that had the account and they'll tell you they just call america we sold

it also where they send the debt yeah who you know i'm calling about this account we sold it who'd you sell it to i need to get in touch with them i need to settle it and also pull up a copy of your credit bureau report it'll pop up on there maybe who owns it because they're probably dinging you like crazy trying to get the money out of you there. Definitely. But you need to correlate. So here's the thing, okay? Do not pay more than the original principal balance. You don't morally owe more than that. They're going to come after you for a lot more than that.

If you want to argue for a little less, you're welcome to, but you've got the money I wouldn't. I would just pay what I owe. It's only $150,000 after all said and done here done here okay the third thing is always get it in writing they get no money unless you have in writing before you send money in writing exactly what the amount is and the last thing is under no circumstances do you give them electronic access to your checking account because they lie and they will take the $22,000 out after you settled with them for $12,000. And try getting it back then. Yeah, that's a pain in the butt.

Email, okay. Email is fine. I want it in writing. And you can either take a prepaid debit card for each one of these, or $30,000 apiece approximately. Or you can have a separate checking account that just has that money in it only but do not allow them access to multiple dollars beyond what you are settling with them for in writing five different people you got to track down and do deals with and this is your

penance this is you paying back you know this is you working through and cleaning up the mess that you made and it's not that hard actually you can do it and and i'm proud of you for attempting it and if you need some help as you're working through it you call me back anytime in writing no electronic access to your checking account don't give them any more than was originally owed when this all started We'll be right back. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Walter is with us. Hey, Walter, how are you? Better than I deserve, Dave. I love it.

Good answer, man. Where do you live? In Fayette, Missouri. Okay. What's Fayette near? Not really anything. It's like right between Kansas City and St. Louis. Like, you know, third dart, you'll find it.

Got it. Okay. Very cool. Very cool. Well, welcome to Nashville, and you're here to do a debt-free scream. How much have you paid off? About $26,392, I think. Okay.

Very good. How long did this take? 31 months. 31 months. And your range of income during that time? It went from $28,000 a year to $38,000. Good for you. What do you do for a living?

Now I'm a probation officer. Okay, all right. And you paid off almost $1,000 a month, making about $30,000. That's pretty impressive. I mean, are you working extra, doing some side gigs, or what? No, I just, God bless me, this whole time. The first job I had, worked through it, eventually had to leave it, went to another job. This was all during 2020, by the way.

Of course. Worst time possible. And then went from the one job to my probation job, and all within the same year, had to move in the meantime, had to buy a new car. Oh, wow. 2020 was a fun year, as we all know. Not. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Well, good for you, man. So what kind of debt was this $26,000? All student loans. Okay. Yeah. All right.

Very cool. Good for you. So what's your degree in? Sociology. All right. Good. Well, probation officer makes sense then. Yeah.

Yeah. Again, I've been blessed to have all jobs in the field that I actually studied in. So it's just been crazy. Yeah. Good. So what woke you up two and a half years ago? Because that's before the pandemic, really. Right.

Well, okay. So this actually goes back a long time. My family's been listening to you since we lived on the East Coast. This was almost 20 years ago, basically. They were listening to you, and I wasn't listening to them. Getting out of high school, I decided to be rebellious or stupid, depending on your point of view. And gotten to student loan debt, didn't work through college, and then I was just like, oh, I have a lot of debt. I got to get this fixed. So my dad and mom, they taught financial

peace for the church, and as a college gift, they brought me through it, went through financial peace, and I was just like, all right, laser intense, working the job, just paying every single extra cent I could towards the student loans. Okay, so you just came straight out of college and did this? Yeah. Okay, how old are you? 25. Okay, awesome.

Very good. All right. Well, that's a good way to do it. A financial peace baby then. Yep, absolutely. Good, good. That's cool, man. Well, Mom and Dad got to be proud then.

Yeah, Dad's actually right next to me here in the studio. So, yeah, we took a trip down here. I actually had an email folder in my Gmail account that said, Trip to Ramsey Solutions. Every time I paid off a loan through that email in that folder, so I was able to look back and see, okay, it's going down. It's going down. I like it.

This was a goal the whole time. Very good. So they were cheering you on for sure. Oh, absolutely. They were my best coaches. Very good. Okay, so your mom and dad teach fpu you've been through fpu and you've paid off 30 26 000 in 31 months all of this makes you an expert now uh so no i mean because listen let me just tell you there's a lot of people with opinions that haven't done squat right and you've actually done it yes you did pay off the debt you hero. Now, so you're a guy who really did it, really making about $30K.

You really paid off $1,000 a month, roughly. Yeah. And that really is beans and rice. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? There's a couple keys. One, the dollar store is your best friend. But otherwise, for me personally, it was my faith, just believing, okay, God, I know this job's rough. I'm going to have to change soon.

I'm going to trust you with this interview with whatever happens. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And God absolutely blessed me. And I interviewed a job. They offered me the job. It was crazy just how much it worked towards his glory. And a $10,000 raise.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's nice. Oh, yeah. Well, and fun fact, actually, from the first job to the second job i actually took a pay cut um it was closer to where i was living but it was still a pretty decent cut and then i went to the probation job which then was ten thousand overall yeah okay all right so a little sidekick okay yeah good good for you man well done very well done so what was the hardest part of this whole thing um hardest part

i mean not going out with friends all the time that was pretty hard and actually from work i have um so i got a book with your financial piece um it was the total guide to money i think i believe it was and i would bring that to my training with me and during lunch i wouldn't go out to lunch i'd sit there and be reading your book just pouring through it and i'd have co-workers come in just be like what are you doing there? I'm like, well, I'm trying to get debt free and gain wealth. And they're like, oh, are you going to be a Scrooge when you grow up? I'm like, no, I'm going to be giving away a lot of money once I get rich. I'm just getting out of debt first. And they kept saying like, oh, well, everyone has debt. I'm like, well, I don't

want to be like everyone. I want to be, you know, strive for a little bit higher than just average. So that was still hard just hearing that constant, you know, hey, little bit higher than just average yeah so that was that was still hard just hearing that constant you know hey you can't do this you can't do this type of thing it requires not giving a rip what other people think to go win at almost anything in our culture because there's always some idiot with an opinion right i mean they're everywhere and so it's just it's amazing well congratulations thank you I'm so very proud of you. How does it feel to be free? Oh, it was amazing.

I sent out the last check back in July. I sent a text to my group of friends. We do a Bible study together. I'm just like, hey, I just sent Sally Mae the eviction notice, and my buddy says, wait, does that mean you're debt-free? I'm like, as soon as this check clears, I am absolutely debt-free. Wow. Very cool. Very cool.

Good for you so when you started this you're fresh out of college you got twenty eight thousand dollar income you got a twenty six thousand dollar debt you're standing at the base of mount everest yeah and you got to climb this freaking big hill it's intimidating it's overwhelming right yeah oh yeah what was easier than you thought it was going to be when you were standing at the bottom looking up um i mean just honestly then this is a kind of a weird thing but just sending the checks was a lot easier than i thought would be um after going through financial peace i'm i've been using your every dollar app ever since i went through financial peace and just being able to okay, I only have this much for food, this much for entertainment, this much for all this stuff.

Oh, I can send that much? All right, cool. Let's write that check. Send it in the mail. Forgot about it. That was so much easier than I thought because, you know, I'm like, man, that's my money. I don't want to let it go. But it was easy.

Well, it's gamified. I mean, you see yourself get in traction. Right. And, I mean, a budget is gamification of wealth building is really what it is. easy yeah well you it's gamified i mean you see yourself getting traction right and uh i mean a budget is gamification of wealth building is really what it is it shows you progress shows you traction towards what you're getting to win and you were really doing it no and a fun thing i did um i bought a bunch of just envelopes at walmart like the security envelopes and i taped a little um notepad piece of paper on there and i just wrote tickets to freedom i had them pre-printed

for the student loan company so all i had to do is slap a stamp on there, throw the check in, pop it in the mail. And I printed way more of those envelopes than I needed because I got done a lot faster than I was even guessing. So yeah, I still have a bunch of those in my house. I'm going to be setting up a nice little bonfire when I get back. Yeah, they'll make good kindling. That'll make good kindling. You can light the fire with those puppies. We're done. We're free. Absolutely. We're free. So what are you going to do now? Right now I'm focusing on baby step three. Just decided to take this little vacation down here with my dad.

We're just seeing the sights, going around, having some fun. Going to get baby step three done and then kind of go move forward and just kind of see where God takes me because he's been taking me a little bit of everywhere over the past couple years. So it's like his will be done. Amen. Amen. done, you know? Amen. Amen.

Well, you're free to do that now. Yes, I am. You've got one master to serve, not two. Good for you. Well done. Well done. Well, we've got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for you. It comes out January 11th, but you're going to get one of the early release copies just for you because that's the next chapter of your story.

Go on and become outrageously wealthy so that you're outrageously generous, just like you were telling those folks in the break room. That's exactly how it works. We'll give you a copy of the total money makeover. Maybe one of those guys in the break room will chew on it for a little while. I hope so. We can hand it to them as a pay it forward, and maybe they'll be up here before we know it standing and doing their debt-free scream

because that's what we want for folks to be able to win. Well, congratulations, sir. Thank you. We're proud of you. You're a hero well done walter from missouri 26 000 paid off in 31 months making 28 to 38 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream all right lord jesus thank you for getting me to this point by your grace alone i'm dead free yeah that'll do that'll do yeah that's exactly how it works now yeah if uh if you want to know why i come down here every day still when i haven't had to work for years it's because i get to meet people like walter he's incredible look at that man that's pretty cool right there very very well done and

some of you are wondering if you could do it a young man just did that on 30 000 bucks a year please shut up and park your ambulance and get your butt in gear i mean walter if walter didn't just throw you under the shame bus nobody did get your butt in gear. I mean, if Walter didn't just throw you under the shame bus, nobody did. Get your butt in gear, people. Let's go. This is the Ramsey Show. Blinds.com gives us our question of the day. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee that means even if you mess up, and sometimes you do mess up because sometimes I mess up on these things.

Like you mismeasure, or this one I do all the time, pick the wrong color because I'm like horrible at that stuff. Good at math, not good at aesthetics, right? Well, if you mess up, they'll make your blinds over for free. Their 100% satisfaction guarantee means even if you screw up, they cover you. You get free samples, free shipping, and new promos all the time. Always use the promo code Ramsey to get the best possible deal. Dawson is in Virginia. I'm a 19 year old college student currently in my junior year year, was wondering if I should invest in and build an Airbnb business with my brother.

The only debt I have is $3,000 in student loans. I have $30,000 in stocks and $8,000 in savings. We have a lot of knowledge in this business because my brother already owns one. We plan on paying cash for it and I'd save until I had the amount for my half would it be a good idea to go in 50-50 with my brother on a property that would cost 110k if you're debt-free and you have an emergency fund in place and you pay cash for it, it's fine. The downside is this. There are several downsides.

Beware of anything when you've done it once and you call yourself an expert. Your brother has one of these. And Airbnb, if Airbnb is the only way the property purchase makes sense, don't buy it. It needs to also make sense in a traditional rental if Airbnb goes away because there's a lot of municipalities coming down on them and shutting them down in different areas. There's a lot of problems with it.

The other thing is that this is the highest hassle highest possible hassle rental that you can have you're basically running a freaking hotel and it's a lot of work and a lot of problems and so the numbers that you see this thing making on the stage, I mean, on the page, on the pro forma of this, are not going to happen. It's going to be less than that. And you have not really anticipated the level of work. And if you let this stupid property distract you from getting your degree, then don't do it at all. The second downside, other than that in this situation, is that you are now in a partnership with your brother. You are single.

I don't know if he is. And it may work well for a few years, and then you may need to sell out of it because it's probably not something you're going to own together when you're 80. And so you need a detailed, written partnership agreement that states what happens to this property or what happens in the event one of you wants out, in the event that one of you can't pay for their half or can't do their part of their half of the work or the bills in the event that one of you goes down the toilet and becomes a drug addict or becomes disabled or dies or gets divorced and now you end up owning an Airbnb with his ex-wife because the judge awards her his half. Yeah, that sounds like fun. Not. These are the unanticipated things that happen when you go into a partnership,

even with your own brother. And so I'm not a big fan of that. My preference would be that you save up your own money and you go buy your own after you get out of college and you pay cash for it. It sounds like you've got the ability to put some money together, and that's probably the direction I would go. Also, you said you had, let me get my numbers right here. You have $3,000 in debt, $30,000 in stocks, and $8,000 in savings.

You should write a check today and pay off your debt. There's no reason for you to carry that debt with that much money sitting around. So let's pile up the rest of the cash, make sure you graduate from college, and pay cash for your own Airbnb would be my preference. That's what I would rather you do. Rather than

jumping ahead here. It's just, all that glitters is not gold. And there's a lot more to this, and a lot more work than I sense that you realize. I may be wrong, but that's my sense on it. Holly is with us. Holly is in Charleston, West Virginia. Hi, Holly.

How are you? I'm great. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I'm all ready. So I made my husband watch Borrowed Future about a month ago, and he's finally on board with paying off our student loans.

Together we have about $350,000. Good Lord. Who's the doctor or lawyer? We're both physician assistants. Okay. Well, that's good. You're both PAs. So what's your household income?

About $200,000. Good. Good. Okay. And today is actually his birthday. He turned 42 today yes he's kind of concerned that he doesn't have any retirement well he should be at all he should be yeah yeah so he's wanting to put some away for that i was just wondering no you're broke yeah you're,000 in debt. Right.

When you're talking about being an investor, you're broke. Yeah. And I've got about $30,000 in my retirement. So do I need to put that on hold and just really set with everything? You need to put your life on hold. You don't need to go on vacation or go out to eat. You don't need to eat anything but beans and rice. You need to live off of coupons and stay at home and play board games

and work all the time, as much hours as you can get. And you need to pay this off in three years. All right. Three years. When you're 45, I want you to call me and tell me you're debt-free. All right. I will. Thank you so much.

Can you do that? I think we can. He's working two jobs. I can work extra, and we've been doing the every dollar budget for about a month, and we've already paid off $3,500. So I think we're right on track. I just wasn't sure what to do. No, you're not on track.

No, no, no, no. I'm sorry. You're not on track. You need to pay off $8,000 a month. Oh, okay. You make $200,000 a year. Yep. thousand a month oh okay you make two hundred thousand dollars a year yep okay a hundred thousand dollars a year for three years and you're done yeah we've got four kids and a child support too so there's some other payments in there but we can definitely save more than we have been

yeah stop all your retirement temporarily. Stop all spending temporarily. And attack this like your house is on fire. The faster you get out, the more likely you are to get out, and the more wealth you'll build for retirement. All right, that's what I needed to hear. Thank you so much. Thank you. This is the Ramsey Show.

She's not going gonna do that open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five but we'll do some form of it and hopefully we'll get it dialed in and get there yeah how fast can i get off the phone with dave because it's making me really nervous justin's in charlotte north carolina hi Justin. How are you? Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure, man. What's up? So I'm a college football coach,

and my wife and I have been on fire on your program since 2018. We've paid off $100,000 worth of debt. Good for you. We've got our emergency fund and now we're on baby step four five six uh my question is our goal we're in our mid-30s 33 and 34 and our goal is to be baby step millionaires by the time we're 45 good and we know from your teaching that you know home ownership is going to be a big part of your first million dollars of net worth. And the reason I told you that I'm a football coach is because you may know or you may not know that, you know, we move around a lot.

And, you know, I've been coaching for about 13 years. And the longest I've stayed anywhere is three years. And so knowing that information, we've been struggling. You know, we've followed your plan to a T, but we've been struggling on how do we navigate baby step six. How do we, you know, we want to buy a home. We want to own a home. We want to pay it off quickly.

You know, what should we do is the question. Can we keep running the rest of our career? I've got about 30-plus years left in coaching. Or do we buy a home and try to pay it off quickly? I'd buy a home and pay it off quickly, and I would sell it when you get ready to move. Because you never know when you end up landing the place where you'd stay a while. It's not always. It's not like the military.

We know in the military you're going to move every two to three years. We know that. But we don't know that with you. It's just a matter of whether the regime changes or not and you go with them or you go to a different job. And some of that you have control over. Some of it you don't. But I would buy it because you're probably buying in good metro areas

too. So I'm just going to buy and get it paid off as fast as I can. Sell it when you move. This is James Childs, a producer of The Ramsey Show. You can listen to all our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone. Browse by topic or even send clips to your friends. Download the Ramsey Network app in your favorite app store today