The Ramsey Show - App - Should We Use Our Emergency Fund To Pay Off Our House? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Kristina Ellis discuss: Handling taxes on giving a large financial gift, Using the emergency fund to pay off the house, Doing emergency appliance repairs in baby step 2. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods of Moving and Storage Studio, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Christina Ellis, number one best-selling author and Ramsey personality, is my co-host today as we take your questions about your life and your money.

The phone number is 888-825-5225. You jump in and we will talk. Christina, big announcement today. It's been a week of big announcements, by the way. Good announcements. We launched the Gazelle debit card on Monday. And today we are announcing the coolest thing I've done and I don't know when. So for those of you that don't know, we have a campus here south of Nashville in Franklin, Tennessee, beautiful Franklin, Tennessee, with a couple of, you know, about 400,000 square foot of office space that will hold up to 2,000 people.

We've got about 1,100 in it, including our lobby and our broadcast studios, which are on the lobby. And we've usually got 50 to 200 people out here watching the show every day when we're doing it. We don't charge for that because it's pretty much like watching ugly paint dry, but we're glad you're here, studio audience. Thanks for hanging out with us. And up on top of the hill on this campus, we started construction of the Ramsey Event Center. It will be completed at the first of the year and holds about 2,500 people. And so we've been trying to figure out what our launch event is in this massive $50 million event center

that is absolutely lights out, fancy, cool, fun, and we're excited about it. So what we decided to do was to do a smart conference, but a special kind of smart conference for a Nashville experience. Smart conference traditionally has started early on Saturday morning and gone all freaking day on Saturday. And we touch on every area of your life. We just did one in Dallas the other day. We talk about career and money and Christina was there. Jade Warshaw, our newest Ramsey personality was there. Of course, Ken Coleman, Dr. John Deloney, George Camel, Rachel Cruz, me. We had Craig and Amy Groeschel in from Life.Church to speak on marriage.

So we talk about money and marriage and mental health and career and every area of your life all day long. That's a smart conference. We've been doing those for about five or six years and with various different speakers over the years. So this is a new thing. We're going to start on Friday night and go all day Saturday, as well as some special Nashville. Well, we're in Nashville. It's got to be some special Nashville guests, don't you think, Christina?

Of course. And since I don't know who they are yet, we can't tell you who they are yet. But I'm probably going to call in a couple of favors with some of my buddies that are in the business here. And it'd be pretty cool to get, it'd be cool if we could get some cool people to show up. In addition to the cool people that work at Ramsey. So it's going to be a Nashville experience. The issue is this. The Smart Conference in Dallas was 6,000 tickets sold.

It's typically a 6,000 to an 8,000 ticket event. The conference center, the new events center, only holds 2,400 people. So that's a problem for you people because this thing is going to sell out in a freaking heartbeat, especially VIP seats and platinum seats and they go on sale right now ready set go at this instant you can go for the first time ever to ramsey solutions.com slash events and get your tickets right this second the dates are april 14th and 15th it's a nashville experience friday night and saturday and so what you're going to do because nashville's a cool vibe i mean you're going to come come in on friday morning you're going to do, because Nashville's a cool vibe, I mean, you're going to come in on Friday morning. You're going to go to the event on Friday night and Saturday.

Saturday night you'll have off in Nashville, and you get to stay over the weekend, and you get to make a Nashville thing out of it, and you'll plan the rest of your trip. But we're going to give you an anchor point here with the Smart Conference as the inaugural event at the Ramsey events center you'll get commemorative tickets so when the nashville predators came and opened up uh whatever

it was 15 years ago 12 years ago or whatever uh my son daniel and i went to the very first game whoa and they gave out you know commemorative pucks and tickets that were you know fancy fancy fancy tickets i've still got those on the you know stored away as memorabilia at the ramsey household just because i was there the day that it started well that's kind of what this is you're going to be there the day that the new ramsey events center starts and oh by the way while you're here all weekend we're going to change give you the information change your life and you'll be smarter that is awesome this event we just did last weekend was so cool and i can't wait to bring it to our own center yeah it was my first ramsey live event and man the energy was just electric the feedback we've gotten the team just coming back

everybody is just kind of bouncing off the walls so excited about how it went yeah so we launched the brand new gazelle debit card on monday we're launching live events left and right the building wealth events the new dates for the spring and today april 14th and 15th with commemorative tickets surprise guests um a different format a friday night and all day saturday smart conference and a very limited seating because traditionally these are 6,000 to 8,000, and we've only got 2,400 seats up there. So we're going to sell 2,400 commemorative tickets, and you'll have your Nashville experience lined out for the spring.

It's a cool thing, so get your tickets while you can. RamseySolutions.com slash events. Smart Conference on sale right now. Ready, set, go. I love it. Yes. I'm personally excited about these surprise guests. We have so many people that are amazing right in our backyard.

I'm eager to see who you're going to bring in, Dave. They just show up around here occasionally and pop in and pop out. Those of you who don't know, the Ramsey Show, starting as the Money Game don't know the Ramsey show starting as the money game. And later the Dave Ramsey show has been on the air here in Nashville for 30 years. And so I've gotten to know most of the music community through the process. And, uh,

um, you know, they, they pretty much fall into one of two buckets. Very, very, very business savvy and good with money or completely freaking clueless with money.

One of the two they follow. So I've gotten to meet with them in both cases and, uh, you know, have dinner with them and help them out in either case. And when they did stupid with zeros on the end, or when they were doing something really smart and just asking my opinion. And,

um, and I've gotten the pleasure of getting to know them. There's a lot of good folks in the music community in Nashville. So we'll see if any of them show up, no promises. Cause I don't have them booked and I can't't go to air with stuff I don't have booked. So we'll just kind of tease it out there that it's going to be a special Nashville event, and you don't want to miss it.

April 14th and 15th. Oh, that's like tax day. That's perfect. Huh. Yeah. Quite the celebration. We ought to celebrate that. And we'll probably have some firearms involved.

No, I'm kidding. Oh, my gosh. All right. Open phones at 888-825-5225. We invite you to jump in, and we'll talk about your life and your money. It's what we're doing here. Again, the Gazelle card, the debit card from Ramsey, is now available, and it allows you to spend and save the Ramsey way at RamseySolutions.com slash Gazelle.

We've had tens of thousands of you already open an account, already download the app, and we've got your Gazelle cards being printed and shipped to you very soon. And no fees. Hooks seamlessly with every dollar. You don't want to miss out on that. So lots of fun stuff happening around here this week. It's a good week to be at work here.

Funny, funny, funny. Good stuff. Open phones at 8 here. Funny, funny, funny. Good stuff. Open phones at 888-825-5225. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you,

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That's chministries.org slash budgets. Christina Ellis, number one best-selling author. Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Jake is with us. Jake's in Chicago. Hi, Jake. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, thanks for taking my call. Sure, what's up? So my brother and sister have been married for a number of years and they've been trying very hard to start a family. They've been unsuccessful and they're now attempting IVF.

And I've been the most blessed out of all of us kids financially and I want to help them with that financially and calling to figure out what is the best way to do that from a tax perspective. Last year I itemized my taxes so I'd like to have that nice chunk as a write-off but I also don't want them to, I just want them to have the maximum amount of that sum. Yeah, it won't be a write-off for you because they're not a non-profit. Okay. But you can keep them from being taxed on it or you from getting a gift tax on it a couple of ways. What is your total net worth? Over $300,000.

Okay, over $300,000. And how much money are you talking about giving them? $10,000, up to $10,000. Okay, it's very easy. An individual can give another individual up to $16,000 in this calendar year, in 22, without having any gift tax or any problems. So if you just write them a check for 10 grand, it's perfectly okay. It's not deductible.

There won't be any gift tax on it and they won't have any income tax on it. Yeah. But you're not, but it's not deductible. How would I go about doing a deductible if I wanted to do that? Like they have a GoFundMe right now. Um, but I know that take a, that's not a GoFundMe. GoFundMes aren't deductible. They're not? not no absolutely not not unless they're associated with us 501c3 yeah you've got to have a 501c3 and you can't run

something through go fund me and just determine you know i'm raising money for my chihuahuas nail clipping on go fund me and all the other crap that's on there. And, um, you know, and suddenly it becomes a tax deductible ministry. It's just not, um, the only way I could think you could do it is if, um, you gave it to your church and they gave it to her, but that, that could fall under directed giving and it could cause the church a problem in the event of an audit. Honestly, if I'm in your shoes, I wouldn't screw with it. I would just give them the money and not worry about the taxes. Okay.

I think you're going to get your – there's too many loops to jump through, too many potential pitfalls with you trying to create a deduction for doing it and just not worry about it. What if they had some sort of non-profit that they went through for fundraising for example i know like life song for orphans we've given to a family who was trying to adopt a child and they partnered with them it was kind of like a go fund me for that and that was a 501c3 but that's not a go fund me that's a is a 501c3 that's supporting this family and you can give money to them and so so you can give money to the Red Cross and they give it to a family.

That's deductible. Okay. But you can't just go fund me is not. Go fund me is not. No. But you have to be careful. There's a thing the IRS calls directed giving where you're trying to create a tax deduction where there really shouldn't be one and you're running it through something like that.

They'll step on that pretty hard. they're really tough on churches on it and so um you can do it but you have to be just very careful and there's a lot of little fine print and for the deduction on 10 grand it's just not worth it it's not worth it it's not gonna save you that much and i i would just help them you've got the money uh just right if it was us now if you want to get super fancy, you know, like the Ramsey Family Foundation, we can give to individuals. Like we help single moms in situations. We'll buy somebody a car or we'll do something like that in different situations. Or we could do help somebody with an adoption, something like that. But the foundation is set up as a 501c3. one c3 and its charter the way it's put together with the you know the paperwork with the irs

allows us to do individual to minister to individuals as well as also give to ministries and so um in our case but that's a super expensive thing to i mean we put a lot of money through the foundation every year and it's all tax deductible but uh and some of it goes to individuals in situations like that and it's perfectly legal that way but that's not for 10 grand it's all tax deductible. And some of it goes to individuals in situations like that, and it's perfectly legal that way. But for $10,000, it's just not worth the trouble. It might cost you $15,000 to set up a foundation like that in legal fees. So it's just not worth fooling with. You know, it is funny.

Let's expand it just a little bit. We need to say $16,000 an individual can give an individual. So if it's a married couple giving another married couple for instance mom and dad passing some money to their kid okay a married couple to buy a house maybe or something like that you can give 16 000 individual to individual so you can pass four times that mom gives son 16 and daughter-in-law 16 dad gives son 16 and daughter-in-law 16 okay and so now we've got what is that 64 000 right four times 16 going you can move without but you have to write four checks be very specific that this is from her to her from her to him and so on and so that if you get audited then you you don't get into a gift tax situation.

So you can move that much without any taxes as well if you're just trying to avoid gift tax. All right, up next is going to be Jessica in Louisville, Kentucky. Hi, Jessica. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi. Oh, my gosh, thank you so much for taking my call. I am the biggest fan, and I listen to you every single day,

and my three teenage boys listen to you in the car, and so they're really learning some great stuff, too. But just to keep it brief, my question is, my husband and I are on baby sticks. We are down to the last $25,000 that we owe on the mortgage, and we have been hitting it hard like the last four months, because they'll and cut out all spending only buying groceries gas just the necessities and so my question is um originally we were going to pay it off may of 20 or june of 2023 we've moved it up to march of 2023 and now

that the end is getting to the point where it's in sight, my son the other night asked if we could take him to Nashville at the end of December for the Titans-Cowboys game. And I said, the only way I'm going to Nashville is if I can go see Dave and of our emergency fund to pay off the mortgage, or should we just be patient and pay it off March 1st like we were planning? Well, it's not an emergency. No. Okay. So we generally use an emergency fund for emergencies, right? Absolutely.

Okay. How much is in your emergency fund? So right now we have $37,000 in the emergency fund and then like just $6,000 in like a sinking fund for cars. So that $37,000, if we did pay off the mortgage, our monthly expenses would be right at $3,000. So if we took that down to like $17,000 or $20,000, we would still have that six months in that emergency fund to cover an expense. Well, if you've got six months in your emergency fund, when the smoke clears on this question,

then you've got an emergency fund that's overfunded. Right. And with our mortgage, it's close to to being right it's still a little bit over but like if we take the household income um we're north of 200 000 probably 250 with my side hustle i would use the car money in a heartbeat okay okay well just to lay behind a car we'll get the house paid off because you're really focused on the house payoff i'm willing to do that um and i'm willing to bring the emergency fund down as long as it's not dangerous i just don't want to invite murphy because when you don't have an emergency fund you're sending an

engraved invitation to crap to come visit you oh and he's shown up ever since we got really aggressive like we had a 2700 car repair we had an unexpected water so yeah yeah if you have three of those and then you end up making two hundred thousand dollars a year with a paid for house and you're broke and can't eat i don't like that plan okay so you gotta you gotta stay above that right but if you're sitting there with 20k and you can still make it and you use the car money does that sound okay to you yeah absolutely my first thought is yeah what if your roof leaks what if you know the car breaks down on the way to Nashville? There's so many things that could happen.

Yeah, you just don't want to go down too close. You don't want to violate where you're below the three to six months of expenses guideline because you're just asking for crap. And if you can do it and not get below that, then yeah, I'm definitely using the car money. That's a no-brainer. But I think you're going to make it. I got a feeling. I got a feeling. I got a feeling. You're focused. Well, and you've got such a great

income. It's like, I think if you're all pretty aggressive between now and then, you've got a good shot. Yeah. And by the way, we don't recommend it's not our program to be that intense when you're at Baby Step 6, but it's okay if you want to be. This is The Ramsey Show. Are you sick of planned obsolescence?

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How are you? Hi. We're great. We're doing great. Good. Welcome. Good to have you. Where do you live?

We live in McKinney, Texas. Oh, we were just there. Oh, yes. We saw you on Saturday. Okay. We were there. We were there, too. Heading over the airport.

Drove right through McKinney. Yeah. Oh, cool. Right afterwards. Yeah. Very cool. Good to have you guys. All right.

How much debt you paid off? Well, this last stretch was $77,470. Okay, how long did that take? Seven months. All right, and your range of income during that time? Well, going back all the way, when we started this journey, it was about $65,000. Now it's about $180,000. Okay, so you sound like you've had a given a take.

So give us the story. What happened here? Well, back in 2010, when we all started this debt-free journey, it was started because of foreclosure. In California. Just broke and hopeless and lost the condo, eating ramen and noodles and oatmeal three times a day. So she'd have food and Jackson had food.

And that's when we found you. Wow. Through some friends of ours. So it took us about two years to pay off that initial $58,000 of consumer debt. And then we ended up moving out of California to Texas. We fled California. Yes.

Oh! I had to get it in there. Spoken like McKinney. Yes. I like it. We ended up settling in McKinney. We bought a house in there. Spoken like McKinney. Yes. I like it. We ended up settling McKinney. We bought a house in 2013. And as we started staring down the figures and we broke that six-figure mark, we're like,

okay, how do we get this done now? Yeah. And that was in January. And then in July, we sold it. Or sorry, we paid it off. We paid it off. Sorry. So this is house and everything.

House and everything. So this story goes from foreclosure to paid for house. Yes, sir. Yes, in 13 years. Wow. Nice story arc. Well done, y'all. Thank you.

Thank you. Very cool. From desperation to completely peaceful and satisfied. Oh, yeah. It's all her. She's the one been driving this train and doing a lot of the lifting, and I've been on it as well but i mean it doesn't happen without her she's kept track of all the money and and made sure everything

gets done the way it's supposed to and it's it's her well this is the man that will sacrifice for our family though we drove hoopties i'm sure the horrible car about the same color as your car will pop up here. There it is. I hate that car. The AC went out in Texas and he drove it. He drove it to work and back. Our parents gave us cars at different times to help us get through because we didn't have the money and we were saving and we were working so hard. So this is a man that will do whatever it takes to get it done. So it's the patience and the perseverance and all the planning. It's really, 13 years is

a long time, but I wouldn't change it. Amen. That's amazing. Y'all have really committed to this journey. Y'all had a big income jump. What was that? So 10 years ago when we were in McKinney, um, uh, a lady sitting across the table from me, she's here today. Um, supporting us.

She moved away to Texas and she said, would you like to be, um, a hairdresser? And I was a hairdresser in California, but she asked if I would take over her business. That was a huge blessing having her move away. But,

um, that has basically doubled our income. So I went back to work basically. Okay. That's what it was. And I got a couple of promotions here and there and moving up. And what do you do? I work for Toyota.

Okay. Doing what? I work for, I'm basically a liaison between Toyota Financial and a handful of dealerships in Texas and Oklahoma. Okay. Very cool. So driving that hoopty, working at Toyota. Yeah.

Yeah. I got a lot of flack for that. I'll bet you did. A special kind of flack. in Texas and Oklahoma. So driving that hoopty, working at Toyota, yeah. I got a lot of flack for that. I'll bet you did. A special kind of flack. Oh, yes. So y'all sacrificed, you upped your income. Of all the things you did,

what would you tell people is the key to getting out of debt? I would say just be persistent and be patient. I mean, there were times where you just look at all the debt and go, how are we going to do this? But, you know, you find ways to get it done, whether it's, you know, changing your shopping habits, whether it's giving plasma or driving Uber or,

you know, driving things that you don't really want to drive, knowing that's just for a time, just remembering it's just for a time. I think I had that Dave Ramsey voice in my ear a lot saying that it's just for a time, it's just for a time and um so just keeping your eye on the goal the end goal was to change things for us but change things for them too yeah we wanted to give them a better opportunity and show them a different way so it was more about more than just us that we're thinking about yeah live like no one else and so later you can live and give like no one and based on that car we lived like no one else i had children making fun of my vehicle sometimes like hey listen if you haven't driven a car people made fun of you and lived yeah life is good you need a car you need a car at one point in your life that's so bad it needs a name yes i had old blue old blue

was a piece of crap yeah yeah you got to have one of those and so you can tell the grandkids back in the day we drove you gotta you gotta have something to tell them right yeah walked uphill both ways in the snow yeah it's just yeah you gotta be able to do that so well done you guys very well done how's it feel to be free house and everything feels great yeah when we got back from the bank you know and we paid our final check I remember coming back to the house thinking, I own that weed, and I own that pool, and I own everything about this house. It's all mine, and everything else is just pure profit from here on out. It's just going to go up. You know, we're finally out of the pit, and y'all said on Saturday,

we're standing at the top of this pile of mistakes that we've made, and we put our flag on the top, and we said no more, and we're standing at the top of this pile of mistakes that we've made and we put our flag on the top and we said no more and we're done and we did it yeah um so I'm just oh it just feels so good yeah well you know the funny thing about paying off the house too we walked in the bank to actually make that final payment they didn't know how to process it yeah I think we were there like 40 minutes like we wait. You just take your time. You're going to figure it out. We're not going anywhere. We're not leaving. We're not leaving.

Not today, boys and girls. Yeah. I love it. Well, well done, you guys. Very, very well done. So what's next? Now that you have no house payment, no debt. Yeah, what's your first big buy, first big expenditure?

Well. A car. No. Well, no. We sold my truck this year to get that last seventy seven thousand dollars knocked out so so he sold his tundra somewhere we'll get another car i'll get another truck somewhere you know to be in texas and have your tundra it's kind of like yeah i can feel the pain yeah i can feel you know i didn't want him to sell it i was like no you never have anything nice this is your nice

truck it's paid for why would we get rid of it but he said becky it's so that we can all have more freedom we'll get another truck down the road it doesn't matter there's always another vehicle until you have your home paid off you can't explain to other people how it feels yeah it doesn't matter it's just because you know all that research we did says that 100 of the foreclosures occur on a home with a mortgage you know and you don't have one and there. That's true. And you don't have one. And there's just something that snaps when you don't have that, and the peace floods in. So well done, y'all.

Thank you. Very, very well done. Hey, we got a copy of Total Money Makeover for you to give away to somebody. You know somebody that's on the journey. You can't help but talk about this stuff because it's changed your life. And the Baby Steps steps millionaire book uh which is your next chapter in your story you're on your way to being that what's the house worth well there's some debate probably around 490 to 500 and how much is in retirement um about another

435 so you're right on the cusp of being baby step millionaire we're just there so really from foreclosure to millionaire not not just paid for house, but to millionaire in 13 years. Yes. Yeah, from the very, very bottom, the worst of the worst, to where you stand. You guys are rock stars. Absolutely amazing couple. We appreciate your help. Thank you.

Very, very well done. Also got a one-year membership to Financial Peace University. Again, use it or give it away. Re-gift it to someone. That's what the purpose of the Live and Give Bund bundle is for, for you to enjoy it and to give it to other folks. All right, bring the guys up. Let's introduce them and give them their ages.

They've been on this journey as well. This is Austin. He's 11. And this is Jackson. He's 15. All right. Well, they look like they've been fed pretty good. They're okay.

I think they're all right. They're not too skinny. No. So life's pretty good. And they're sitting in a dadgum millionaire household. That's pretty cool. Did okay i think they're all right yeah they're not too they're not too skinny no life's pretty good and they're sitting in a dadgum millionaire household that's pretty cool did you ever think that that's pretty cool very neat very well done all right greg and becky jackson and austin mckinney texas baby steps millionaires are almost with 77 000 house and everything paid off last seven months the whole the whole journey, 65 to 180. Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Yeah! That's how it's done! Woo! That's a true definition of a Baby Steps millionaire.

That's what happens when you go through financial peace. You work the plan. You do the stuff. This is how it works, boys and girls. This is how it works. This is the Ramsey Show. សូវាប់ពីបានប់ពីបានប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពី Christina Ellis, Ramsey Personality No. 1 bestselling author, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Jack is with us. Jack is in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Jack. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, how are you? Better than we deserve, sir. How can we help? So I got a little bit of an emergency going on I just got

told that my furnace is an unrepairable what can be repaired but the cost of it would be as much as a new one and I was and I'm on baby step two I got my thousand dollar emergency fund and I just wanted to get a little bit of advice on how to approach this. Is it okay to borrow for the difference to buy a new furnace? Because Winder is around the corner. And I just know I should ask you because you'll tell me what to do. I'll definitely tell you what to do.

I'm always good at that. I'll also tell you what not to do. So how old are you? 23. And are you? 23. And are you married? No. Okay.

How old is the house? 80-ish. How old is the furnace? 31 years. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, the heating and air business has two types of people in it, honest and dishonest.

And one of the techniques that is often used in the heating and air business is they come out to inspect your repair with the sole goal of replacing your furnace. And I don't know which one you've gotten a hold of here. It sounds like your furnace is ancient. And I also know that the price range of getting things fixed and or replaced will vary dramatically depending on who you talk to in the business. You're 23 years old and you're broke you need you do not need to make a furnace investment here you just simply need heat so the cheapest methodology for you to have heat this winter is what i'm after okay so what that tells me is is you need to talk to uh two or three more heating and air people.

And what I would love for you to find is a small-time heating and air person that some of your parents, friends know, or something like that that has maybe one truck. And maybe he's going to come over because he's not going to be retail, and he's going to help you figure out a way to put a little duct tape on this and get the get the thing going right because that's really what we're trying to do all right we're trying to not put 5 000 bucks that you don't have into this exactly yeah no i i know exactly i know what's wrong with it um the control board was bad on it um but he he got a new one put in but then he started testing the other stuff and it still wasn't firing. Well, he is assuming that because the pressure switch isn't activating that the exchanger is clogged and is behind everything. He told me it was just going to be labor-intensive, and to get it unclogged, you have to unhook everything.

And then he said also the gas valve is stuck. So what's the quote? What's the quote? About 4,000. To fix quote? About $4,000. To fix it? Yeah, to fix it. That's a lot of labor to unclog an extension. No, no, no.

Exchanger. Exchanger. I'm going to rest my case here. I'm going to say you need to get somebody else to look at this and get another opinion or two or three because the option you have on the table sucks. Even if it's accurate, it's a bad option because you don't have four thousand dollars and i'm not going to tell you to borrow the money so i went through this exact same thing i was 28 years old and going through bankruptcy and they came out and the guy threatened to turn off to turn it over to the gas company and

turn it off because it was dangerous which i found out later was a complete lie and was a technique to get me to buy a furnace from him i threw him out of my house and ended up getting the thing fixed for 350 bucks from another guy it wasn't fixed well it didn't last five years for that but it made it through the winter and i was too broke to do otherwise i later had to buy a furnace i need to do yeah i later had to buy a furnace but what i want you to do is the patch cheap to get through one year until you can get some money saved up and then we'll talk about what we do with an 80 year old furnace in an 80 year old or 31 year old furnace in an 80 year old house right okay but yeah i i i i'm not i'm not saying this guy's a crook i'm saying that there really is guys in the business that their deal is to just come over and go whoop you gotta have a new one and it's really their repairs are a loss leader for sale for sales of a furnace is what they're after and i'm not saying

this guy's that guy and i'm not saying all big big retail uh with with 27 trucks do that there's a lot of those guys are great guys i endorse them in a whole bunch of cities. But what you're looking for is the broke 23-year-old, help me please because I'm dying here, get through the winter. Okay. And I got $1,000. Thank you for calming me down. Yeah, and I got $1,000.

Yeah. And so you got a little time before you're going to freeze to death here. So you're in Des Moines, so it's going to happen faster than it does to us in Tennessee but you know you haven't got three months to fix this but you do have a couple weeks and you can take your time and shop around and uh well Dave let's say hypothetically speaking somebody's listening and their AC actually went out like can't be repaired and ac is different sorry heating heating technical ac i'll tell you about fan shut up you get those for 12.95 at walmart right but all right so their heat goes out yeah and they have a thousand dollar emergency fund baby step two what would you tell

them i'm gonna find a way to heat the house for the money that i have okay don't replace it just i am not gonna spend three thousand dollars i'm not going into debt i quit borrowing money and the thing is this here's what's interesting when you draw a line in the sand and you say that's like like we talk about with you with student loans with the student with the students we're talking student loans when you take debt off the table it's you find other ways to do it right maybe there's something you can sell Maybe there's an extra job you can pick up. I mean, you may not get. That's two really good things I didn't even bring up. Have a huge garage sale this weekend.

Right. And sell everything in sight. You know, sell all the stuff, you know. I mean, what's more important to you than heat? Not much. Right. You know, food and heat. Those are two biggies.

And so, you know, what have I got that I can get rid of? Well, I got this old car that's an extra car. I was kind going to work me up it's gone gotta have heat yeah and maybe the next four weekends you know you're just working 14 hours a day non-stop or the next you know three weeks you're working 90 hours a week just uber in your little butt off you know and uh you you can find some money you're right i should have brought both those things up that's really good input uh i got i got sidetracked with the heat and air business there for a minute but um but yeah that's yeah extra work extra work extra work garage sales sell stuff uh craigslist whatever i mean anything you can do to get rid of to get you some money uh because murphy can still hit in baby

step two and it's like you just got to get really strategic and be willing to hustle yeah i mean we we did all kinds of stuff when we were broke sharon and i and we had no money at all none and you know we just had to figure out a way to survive and piece something together and barely fix something until we had the money i mean we put uh this uh tar stuff on the roof where it was leaking and it looked like white trash i mean but instead of like shingles up there it was all smeared but it quit leaking and i didn't have six thousand dollars put a roof on the house a year later i put a roof on the house with six thousand dollars but i didn't have six thousand dollars right then and it's dripping through the fixture onto the kitchen table we had to do something so and we're not borrowing money we were through borrowing money

because until you're through borrowing money everyone in america solves all their problems by running out and borrowing money and you just have to take it off the table and say this is not an option once you break that bone you will never go back you'll never go back it's amazing when debt is completely off the table then you find these creative solutions when that that is not an option, you will be willing to do things like a patch job. You'll be willing to work 90 hours for the next few weeks because it's not an option. You have no other choice. You're willing to go to community college for the first two years because it's free and all those credits transfer to the state school and you go to in-state tuition and you work your butt off and you save up and you pay cash and then you don't graduate with $97,000

in student loan debt with a degree in left-handed puppetry or polka history you know and then wonder why you can't get a job and you're up up to your eyeballs in debt hoping biden is going to save your little butt you know and it just doesn't work that way so you just got to think different you've got to have a sense of hustle and grind a sense of personal dignity and responsibility and jack's a cool guy i mean he's 23 years old he's asking this question that you know what that means i mean he's got the rest of his life to be smart jack this is very cool it's very cool that he's 23 and asking this question very very very well done that puts us out of the ramsey show in the books Dave here. You can find all of our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone.

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