The Ramsey Show - App - Stop Making Childish Money Decisions. Grow Up! (Hour 1)

Episode Date: April 5, 2019

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions Broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave 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 are here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Imani starts off this hour in Dallas. Hi, Imani, how are you? Hi, I'm good, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I'm so excited.
Starting point is 00:01:08 So I'm currently on baby step number two, and I have $80,000 in student loan debt that I'm working on paying off. Wow. And I also have a, I know, now that I'm taking an SPU, I'm just like, I should have never did that. But so I have a leased car, and it's up in April. So right now the current buyout is $17,000. But it's saying, like, the value of the car right now is less than that.
Starting point is 00:01:34 So if I try to sell it, I know I'm going to be upside down. I guess my question is, should I try to sell the car before the lease is up and just stay before a cash card? Or should I just, like, add it to the debt snowball once the lease is up and just stay before a cash car, or should I just add it to the debt snowball once the lease is over? It's going to have a residual value of $12,300. So you can buy the car for $12,000 at the end of the lease? Yeah, and I make $50,000 a year right now as a teacher. And I'll get a raise next year, but currently I'm taking home about $3,100 a month.
Starting point is 00:02:05 Yeah, I'm probably going to drive it through April because I don't think you're going to get out of it for less than a year's worth of payments. You're probably upside down more than that. And so math is going to work for you to drive it through April and then turn it in and get you a cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap paid-for car. Okay. And that way you can work on your eighty thousand dollars worth of student loan debt but no i wouldn't borrow money at the end of the lease to buy the car you're you know
Starting point is 00:02:30 you're trying to get out of debt we're not trying to get into debt so we're going to move away from it at the end of april but the cheapest way to get out of it's probably drive it up to april hand them the keys and then um they don't get you an inexpensive hoopty to drive while you knock out this $80,000 worth of debt. Mia is in Miami. Hi, Mia. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hey, what's up?
Starting point is 00:02:54 So basically I just pulled my credit report today, and five of my credit cards with Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, and American Express totaling up to $35,000 debt. They all show charged off on my credit report, but I now have come up with about half of that money. So I wanted to ask for your expert opinion on what should my next step be so that I can start clearing my debt and cleaning up my credit report, please. Yeah. I would list them smallest to largest. I would call the smallest one and offer them about 25 cents on the dollar.
Starting point is 00:03:37 How old is this debt? How long since you paid on it? It's been a year and a half to two years that I have not made payments. Okay. You probably settled it for about a quarter on the dollar. And so, you know, make them a cash offer of a quarter on the dollar. Two things you must remember. Well, three things.
Starting point is 00:03:55 One is you're going to be dealing with nasty human beings. You've probably already experienced that dealing with credit card collectors. And then number two, you can tell they're lying if their mouth is moving. And so do not send them any money unless you have this in writing. So you have to have an email. You have to have something with the deal that you do with them in writing before you send them any money. The second thing is do not allow someone who's angry with you like this
Starting point is 00:04:24 to have access to your checking account. So under no circumstances, under no circumstances do you send them money unless you have it in writing. And under no circumstances do you allow access to your checking account for these people. So you can get a prepaid debit card and give them that number with just the amount in it only. And that way they can't get more than you agreed to because they'll take more out of your account, and there's not a lot you can do about it because you owe them more. And so it's a little tough to argue with that then.
Starting point is 00:04:55 So you want to get it in writing, no electronic access to your checking account. You can even wire the money, use prepaid debit, use a separate checking account, but you can't have any more in it than you are agreeing to settle because they'll take whatever's in there. We've had them do it a bunch of times, and I know you just named off household names and people think that American Express is not crooks and Citibank's not crooks. They are. When it comes to their credit card collectors, they will do whatever they want to do.
Starting point is 00:05:25 And they say anything, they do anything they want to do. It's ridiculous. And so you just cannot, you know, you've got to tie it down in writing and no electronic access to your checking account. Nathan's in Chicago. Hi, Nathan. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, thanks so much, Dave.
Starting point is 00:05:44 I'm happy to be here. Good. How can I help? Well, let me get on my plate. I just launched my first company. I got a new car. I got some other business ventures I'm working on. You have to speak directly into your phone. You're being muffled. I can't hear you.
Starting point is 00:06:02 Am I? Okay. Thank you. Well, basically, can you hear me now i okay thank you well um basically basically i uh can you hear me now yes sir yes okay well i uh i just lost a new company i uh i grew up on new and i i got some other you know little debts i want to work on and some business ventures in the future i'm working on but I'm just a bad saver. I used to be a natural saver, and then a little incident happened, and it just kind of changed me when I was younger. Wait a minute.
Starting point is 00:06:31 What happened? What happened? Well, when I was pretty young, I had an allowance, and my pop would give me some money every week or so, and I just saved it for about six weeks. And then one night I was out in the town with or so, and I just saved it for about six weeks. And then one night I was out in the town about Pop, and I just lost it. I had it all on a family track. It was kind of a funny thing, but it just all was gone.
Starting point is 00:06:55 And I was, for a young guy, I mean, it was a lot of money to me, so I was devastated. I was like, if I get some money, I'm going to spend it. Well, I think you've identified that a child made a childish decision over the loss of some money, and now you're still functioning in that. And so as an adult, you're calling me and saying, you know, grown-ups understand that we have to have saved money. The loss of a fanny pack when you're four doesn't, you know, that doesn't enter into the equation anymore. You're now a grown-up.
Starting point is 00:07:31 And so you've got to sit down and look at this and say, what is important in my life? Where do I want to be? Because there's really only one way to end up with money. Save it. Kind of simple, isn't it? You can't earn enough to end up with money unless you learn to save it. Because there's lots of people that make a ton of money and have none.
Starting point is 00:07:57 There's lots of people. I mean, we see these NFL players lose, you know, make $10 million. Hollywood music types, whatever, make $100 million. They got nothing. So it really doesn't matter what you earn. What matters is what you keep from a standpoint of wealth building. And so this is a part of your brain you have to fix. And I'm not a natural saver, so I never even had the luxury of my story starting the way you are.
Starting point is 00:08:21 But what I did figure out is I love giving money, and I love enjoying money. And in order to give money and be generous, and in order to enjoy money, I have to have some. And the best way to have some, the best way to build wealth, is to learn to steadily save and steadily invest. And so you just need a reason to do it, and then, you know, you make this decision now as a grown-up person. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. it and then you know you make this decision now as a grown-up person this is the dave ramsey show there's nothing smart about smartphones if your wireless plan is blowing your budget each month
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Starting point is 00:09:49 Enter promo code SAVEDAVE and receive 50% off your first month. That's puretalkusa.com. Thanks for joining us, America. John's in Boston, Massachusetts. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, John. Hi. Hey, what's up? I've got a question. Well, I'm going to sell my house. Okay.
Starting point is 00:10:22 It's too big for what we need. Do I buy right away? There's a house right down the street, much smaller. Or do I rent for the next couple of years? Because we're in, I think, a real estate bubble. I'm not sure. The house, when I sell it, I'll end up with probably $700,000 in the bank. Do I invest that money, and that helps pay for the rental, or do I outright just buy another house? When you say there's a real estate bubble, do you mean the neighborhood or the Boston market, or do you mean nationally? Boston market's going insane.
Starting point is 00:11:09 Okay. Well, there are some markets that have experienced bubbles independent of the national market, where a city or an area went up and it overgrew, and then it corrected while the rest of the economy was just doing whatever it did, right? That is very unusual. Most of the time, if a market is somewhat overheated and the economy turns down, the heat will turn down on the market. It seldom collapses. There's only been really two times that we've had pretty distinct losses
Starting point is 00:11:48 in residential real estate values, you know, with rare exceptions. But, I mean, there's a few market adjustments that have happened. But overall, I mean, 2008 and the Great Depression, that's about the only time you've seen loss in real estate values. And so I would buy. And, you know, if I were selling my home, Nashville's market is quite hot. And if I were selling my home today, which I'm not, I would just turn around and buy again in the market. And so if I were you, I would just take your cash and buy the smaller house down the street that you want and invest the rest of it.
Starting point is 00:12:32 And, you know, invest it according to what you think is going to happen. But I think your personal residence is going to be just fine. That's my belief. I mean, there's no guarantee. There's not an FDIC guarantee on the value of real estate. But when you look at the actual historic data of real estate values, there's very few times you've seen a substantial downturn in value across the board. Really, only two times nationally in modern history in the last 200, 150 years. And that would be the Great Depression in 2008. And what happened there for
Starting point is 00:13:05 instance vegas was oh was probably the most distinct bubble uh it was the fastest growing city in america and it became a wasteland for a short period of time following 2008 and so because it was so overdone it became one of the worst markets when the market overall, when the economy went down in 08. But I don't think that's happening again. You never know. You never know. But a paid-for house that you're living in is really not a bad place to have money. Julie is with us in Chicago.
Starting point is 00:13:39 Hi, Julie. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave Ramsey. Pleasure to be on. I'm very excited. Well, my situation is very odd. After 30-some years, my husband left. Wow.
Starting point is 00:13:52 Not knowing I started living on my father's inheritance he had given me, not knowing that was coming. I'm now married 36 years. Five and a half have passed Mr. Ramsey. And as of July of 2015, I am owed every month alimony. And he stopped working intentionally. And hundreds of thousands of dollars showed up in various accounts, including China. And all of the rulings, as I said, Mr. Ramsey, were in my favor.
Starting point is 00:14:30 However, all I actually physically received was a $10,000 purge for him lying in front of the judge in the first place. Is the divorce final? No, sir. After six years. It's actually, no. See, what happened is he started sneaking around in another state. Why is the divorce not final? Well, because I've been subjecting myself to the Florida courts for four years,
Starting point is 00:15:05 and I've waited to get one month of all these months of alimony. It hasn't happened. Okay, I don't understand. The divorce being final does not keep you from getting alimony that's back due. Well, the divorce isn't final yet because I've just kept going to court and listening to my lawyer. Who's been collecting lawyer's fees for five years. No, it's been going on for, well, I guess it's pretty close to that now.
Starting point is 00:15:36 But like I said, July of 2014. How old are you? I'm actually 61. And do you have any money now now not counting what he's what he owes you um well i've been watching my grandchildren and when i had one grandchild to watch i was not quite do you have any of this inheritance left from your father darling we're we're at the end mr ramsey we are really at the end You've used up all the money. Almost there.
Starting point is 00:16:07 Okay. All right. And so what it amounts to is we've got a court system, a lawyer, and a husband, none of which are behaving, and you're going to have to take control of your income. At 61 years old, you have a new career. Ta-da you need to go make some money for you to eat and to live you have bathed in this emotional acid for five six seven years now it's all you think about it's eating you alive and um you need to get some income coming in so that you're independent of this acid bath for your food and your lights and your water and your future.
Starting point is 00:16:53 And so that's a career choice for you. That's you doing something other than watching your grandbabies because that's not enough money. And you're only 61. And I'm only 58. I got a lot of life left. I could do it again if i had to right now ready set go i don't want to it's not pleasant i'm sorry you're facing this um but you have this has absorbed you it's become your whole life it's like someone fighting cancer only with cancer you
Starting point is 00:17:20 can't get away from it with this guy you can get away from him and um so i think i'm going to fire my attorney and i'm going to get one that completes this divorce soon and then i'm going to continue to go after the guy and get my money out of him i don't mind that at all but um a divorce that goes on five or six years is record-breaking that's that's a new record there's very few of them that do that and so uh a really, really, really long one is 12, 14 months. And people do it, I know. But the problem is it emotionally sucks the marrow out of your bones. And there's no future.
Starting point is 00:17:57 We're spending all our time looking at the past and being pissed. And you've got a right to be pissed. You've got a right to look at the past. That's allowed. I understand that. Your heart's broken. He trumpled all over you with muddy boots. I get all of that, but it's not helping you.
Starting point is 00:18:14 So the windshield's the big window. The rearview mirror's the little window. Let's figure out where we're going, not where we've been. And let's start working on that one. And that just helps you with grace and helps you with your life i'm so sorry honey i can hear the pain i can hear the anger i can hear all of it in your voice and i would have every bit of that if i were you i'd be right where you are i'd be ready to kill somebody um only i probably would have redirected my ire at the attorneys by now but
Starting point is 00:18:43 anyway um you either get tell them it's time to paint or get off the ladder down there in Florida, folk. I mean, you're going to have to get this thing moving. And, you know, you've got four months to wrap it up. If not, we're going to get some new people because I've given you about all I can give you. And get your career going for your future. Because I don't think Mr. Scumbag is going to give you any money. He's worked for six years to hide it all. You might.
Starting point is 00:19:10 Justice says you get money. But I'm not sure you'll see justice. So I want you to have a life outside of justice. I'm so sorry. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Thanks for joining us, America. We're glad you are here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. If you want to be part of our team, our mission of giving hope to millions of people,
Starting point is 00:20:33 well, check out all the opportunities we have open at DaveRamsey.com. Click on the button Dave's Hiring. Like, for instance, experienced web designers, marketing directors, UX designers, senior Ruby on Rails people, top sales people, top admin people. Yeah, we hired about 200 folks last year, and we're continuing that process. We need some help. Got a lot of people that need the help that we provide here, and this place is exploding. And it's up to you. We want you. We'll be right back. Nashville 10 times. And you know why? They're the best place to work in Nashville. All right.
Starting point is 00:21:25 Courtney is with us. Courtney's in Providence, Rhode Island. Hi, Courtney. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for asking. I think I need help prioritizing what we should do with our money. Okay.
Starting point is 00:21:39 So we're kind of going through a phase right now of thinking doing house renovations, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea right now. You were thinking what? House renovations? Yeah. Okay. So the only debt that we do have is a mortgage, and by now I thought that we'd have more paid towards it. We still have $215 000 um left on it and i feel like i feel like if we
Starting point is 00:22:10 did a house renovation we're getting rid of like half of our savings okay what we teach for prioritizing is a process we call the baby steps and baby step one baby step one's a thousand dollars two we have is to be debt free other than your home sounds like you've done that three is your emergency fund how much is in your emergency fund huh over 15 000 okay we have close to 23 15 000 or 23 what do you have we have close to 23 combined okay so you have eight thousand dollars above you have eight thousand dollars above your emergency fund yeah okay then that goes on baby steps four five and six four is 15 of your income should be going into retirement. Are you doing that? I am doing, I think, 13%. Okay.
Starting point is 00:23:08 And they do a little bit of an adjustment there. Do you have children? Yes. We have a 10-year-old and an 18-month-old. Do you have any college savings going for them? That's baby step five. No, we don't. Okay.
Starting point is 00:23:21 That would be something we could use the $8,000 for. And then baby step six is pay off the house. We need to get something started for the college. And how much are we talking about doing in renovations? Well, I'm thinking something small like a porch. I don't know how much. Somebody's coming Saturday to figure that out. But I'm a little afraid to do that because my husband's truck is kind of not doing
Starting point is 00:23:46 so hot okay well that's logical so if you need to buy a truck we're going to use the 8 000 for that if we're going to do some renovations we could use the 8 000 for that what's your household income um together it's 150 000 okay good well i don't know that the renovations are necessarily wrong. I'm probably putting something towards the kids' college and something towards a truck that's dying before I add luxuries to my home. Yeah. That's kind of like doing grown-up stuff. And then we'll go back and do the renovations out of the 150,000.
Starting point is 00:24:20 Let's budget, save up some money, and do the renovation. But I don't think we use the 8,000. We're certainly not using the emergency fund for any of this. You know that, right? No, yeah, let's budget, save up some money, and do the renovation. But I don't think we use the $8,000. We're certainly not using the emergency fund for any of this. You know that, right? Oh, yeah, absolutely not. But I don't think you're ready to start paying down on your house. You have three things right now grabbing at the money above the emergency fund. Well, four things.
Starting point is 00:24:40 Number one, you need to adjust your retirement and get to 15%. Number two, we've got to do something with this truck. Number three, we need to get something moving into Baby Step 5 towards these kids. And then number four, we've got the possible renovation. So 8,000 is not going to cover all that. So you've just got to decide between those four things which are the most important. I'm going to look at the truck, decide what we're doing with that. And then based on that, that's going to tell me what I've got left, if anything, to go towards kids, college.
Starting point is 00:25:07 And then I'm going to save with cash and do my, you know, do my renovations as my last project of the four. The first project is adjust your 13% to 15% and get Baby Step 4 going before we even have a discussion. And that's exactly how I would do it. But that's how the priorities work. And, you know, it's just, you know, what we're saying is not what do i want to do you know that and when i say that that's kind of like the four-year-old inside of me
Starting point is 00:25:32 i'd like to do this well we all have that stuff everyone does but then what's the smart thing to do is what i'm always asking what's wise and it would be unwise as you just said so you can go ahead and cancel the bid on the guy coming tomorrow. He doesn't need to give you a bid on the porch. Because you don't need to do the porch right now. You need to get something started towards the kids' college and you need to address this truck. When those two things are going, then we'll talk about saving up some money and doing a porch. If you want to get the bid, you can get the bid, I guess.
Starting point is 00:26:02 But that's not to do it now and you're not to get you know sold and sign up and get porch fever and do something stupid but you don't you don't put a porch on the back of the house and have to buy a truck and go in debt that's just that's ridiculous no that's just dumb we wouldn't do that ria is with us in sacramento hi ria how are you i am well how are you better than, I'm well. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I am trying to make a decision on, I've been looking for another job. I now work for a coffee shop. I'm a supervisor. It doesn't pay much, but it does come with a super cool benefit, which is they pay for part of my college. So I can work kind of towards my degree,
Starting point is 00:26:45 but as I'm going through the program, I'm kind of realizing I'm not getting as much back as I would like. And so I'm trying to decide whether or not I could afford to find a maybe higher-paying job and just pay for college myself. So how much are they paying for the, how much tuition are they paying? They're paying about 50%, so it's about $2,500 after federal leave. Per year? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:27:16 Okay. So you need a job that pays more than $2,500 more than you're making now. Okay. Does that make sense? What do you make now? I guess that makes sense. I make about, well, $2,500 gross. I take home $1,800.
Starting point is 00:27:32 $2,500 a month, you're making $30,000 a year gross? Yeah. Okay. Then, you know, all we're saying is you've got to make $3,250. $3,250. In Sacramento, that's not much. I mean... No. So, I mean, if you go get a job making $50,500. $32,500. In Sacramento, that's not much. No.
Starting point is 00:27:50 So, I mean, if you go get a job making $50,000, I think you can afford your own tuition. You see the difference? You're making $20,000 more. You lost a $2,500 benefit. Whoopee. Yeah. Yeah. You think you can do that?
Starting point is 00:28:00 It's tough. I think as I progress in my college, maybe. You know, a certain amount of experience you get somewhere. Okay. Are you working 40 hours? About 35. Okay. All right. Well, of course, the other thing you could do is you could just jack up a part-time job for temporarily
Starting point is 00:28:17 until you get some stuff going and make another $20,000 doing that and keep the tuition benefit keep the 30 000 because you're not there you're not working much i mean 35 hours is that's not you have that's not you know you got a lot of time left you got a lot of time in your week uh to screw around so i mean you know there's a lot of stuff you you could go do you can go to college big time faster you can crank it up on that you can crank up another whole nother career on the side um but yeah you need to throw a brick through your television and let's go find a different use for your time uh i i really think you do need to move out of something uh long term for sure
Starting point is 00:28:58 short term maybe maybe not you can play it through like that hey be uh be checking out ken coleman.com that That's Ken's website. He's our Ramsey personality. He deals with career questions. And he's got great stuff on there on interviewing, great stuff on resumes, great stuff on finding your way in your career. New book coming out called Proximity Principle, Finding the Career You Love. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:29:23 This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thanks for joining us, America. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Lucas is with us in North Dakota. Hi, Lucas. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hello, sir. How are you?
Starting point is 00:30:19 Better than I deserve. What's up? So, I have a question for you. So, me and my wife got sick debt paid off our debt and we sold our home that we had and um we're wanting to buy a new home but we're sick of debt so we want to put a hundred percent down um so we were wondering should we just outright save that money or should we put that into some sort of an account to let it grow? We're looking at about a $100,000 home. Okay.
Starting point is 00:30:46 How long will it take you to get it together? It'll probably take us, I'd say, three years of saving. Okay. Well, the problem is with mutual funds. I love mutual funds as long-term investing, and that's really about your only choice other than just like a money market account. A money market account is not going to really make you anything. And the problem is they go up and down. I mean, they're volatile.
Starting point is 00:31:14 The stock market is unpredictable. Over the long haul, you can predict that it's going to go up and you'll be fine. And so the numbers tell us that 90-some-odd percent of the five-year periods in history have made money in a mutual fund in the stock market. But if you drop down to three years, only 67%, two out of three times. I don't like those odds. I'm not that big a risk taker. So when you've got a three-year window, I'm probably going to, if I'm in your shoes, I'm going to use just a money market account. It's not going to pay anything.
Starting point is 00:31:50 It's sickening, Lucas. But you're not going to lose anything either. And so I would hate for your $100,000 to turn into $70,000 or something like that where the market moved down on you and it messed up your plan. I would rather you guys just say, but you've got the ability to put the money together fairly quickly. You don't need the return on the investment to get to your goal. You're just doing it with money out of your income, your cash flow, and you're putting $35,000 a year aside for three years and $3,000 a month.
Starting point is 00:32:23 And I think I would just do that and not worry about trying to make money on the money because I don't want the risk. Jackie's in Baltimore. Hi, Jackie. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for having me. Sure.
Starting point is 00:32:36 What's up? Okay, so I have a quick question. I'm a hairstylist, and my salon does not offer a set schedule at all. And the hours are always punctuating. So it's always different every single week. And there are some days where I don't go in on time because they have to push me back if it's slow. And so it's really hard for me to save up money. I just purchased the money makeover kit last month.
Starting point is 00:33:02 So I've been reading the book, and it's really hard for me to save up for baby step number one right now, especially that I'm kind of living almost paycheck to paycheck. I might have an extra like $100 or $200. Now, your problem is not your unpredictable income. Your problem is you don't have much income. Right. When you have an unpredictable income that creates $300,000 a year, you wouldn't be calling me with this. No. So your problem is you're not working much. So what are you making?
Starting point is 00:33:30 What's your average month? Okay, my average month would probably be about $2,000. Yeah. And you're single? Yes. In Baltimore, Maryland, and you're how old? I'm 25. Okay.
Starting point is 00:33:43 Yeah, you're not making a living. That's your problem. And so, I mean, if this moves from $2,000 to $1,500 in a month, you've got serious problems. That $500 is everything, isn't it? Yeah. And so we need to do something. You need a different salon where you can build a clientele and build some hours and work like a crazy person and double your income that's the problem yeah i just i just i feel like i'm not um i don't have the right mindset because i feel like i'm not strong enough to work in a higher salon i buy salon i work in
Starting point is 00:34:17 right now as a more chain salon and it has a lot of walk-in base so and i was trying to build my clientele there we just don't do any color we only cut hair and that's what i really enjoyed doing i don't enjoy coloring hair so i felt like this was my best outcome the problem is right now you're enjoying being broke right so you may have to do some things you don't enjoy right you've got an income problem jackie yeah you've got an income problem there's no amount of manipulation that's going to make $24,000 a year in Baltimore, Maryland, fun. Yeah. So we've got to do something to adjust your income. When you do that, then we can talk about how to best lay out an irregular income budget.
Starting point is 00:35:01 There's a form in the back of the Total Money Makeover book to show you how to do that. All you're doing is doing a prioritization, and you take care of the most important things down to the least important things, and that will help somewhat. But you have got to do something long-term and short-term to get your income up. If you just want to work some hours at a different salon, that's fine. If they allow you to work two different places, two different ends of town or something that's fine um or you can you need to start building your career because this is not going where you want to go right now uh you're you're at their beck and call and it's not working for you
Starting point is 00:35:39 tamasha is in boise hi tam, Tamasha. How are you? I'm doing wonderful, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. Is it Tamisha? Tamisha. Okay, I said it wrong. Okay. How can I help? Dave, we're in a little bit of a dispute right now, my husband and I. He's currently bringing in around $ 2,500 a month after taxes and we have a vehicle we're renting, we're paying about $950 in rent and he is dead set on purchasing another vehicle.
Starting point is 00:36:18 Um, and not to mention, I am also 32 weeks pregnant. Um, so my question is, how can I go about explaining to him, because I've gone over all the financials and all the logical reasons why that's not a financially sound decision right now. What could I do to help him kind of understand and not make a rash decision and purchase another vehicle right now? Or it's just, it's not making sense to me. So I'm kind of needing some help. Do you have the cash to buy the vehicle? No. So he's wanting to go into debt to buy a vehicle when you're renting and you have $900 in rent
Starting point is 00:36:59 and a $2,500 income and a baby on the way. Right. How old is this guy? We also pay $370 a month for the way right how old is this guy 370 a month how old is this guy that we have right now you have a 370 car payment now yes good lord right and he wants another car payment um well if he doesn't get a car payment his thing is i feel like it's somehow, someway I've got to get another car. Why? Is he a child? How old is this guy?
Starting point is 00:37:30 He's 31. Okay, it's really time he learns to do math. This is disgusting. I hear you. No, I mean, there's not a grown 31-year-old that looks at $900 in rent, $370 in car payment, and a $2,500 take-home pay and a baby on the way and can't figure out there's not room for more car payments and how that's not going to prosper his family and is stomping his foot like a 4-year-old on the cereal aisle. I want a car, Mommy.
Starting point is 00:38:01 Mommy, I want a car. I mean, really, I'm ready to smack this guy's ears. So, I mean, I guess in his mind, what we would have coming for a tax return is what he plans on utilizing a portion of that to either put a down payment or just get a car. Yeah, so that helps you get into a bigger mess. Exactly. There's no logic in this whatsoever. This is not a Dave Ramsey thing.
Starting point is 00:38:29 This is a stupid thing. I mean, this is just straight-up dumb. This kid is being four years old. He really is. I want a car, Mommy. I mean, I've done that. I used to be that guy. That's how I recognize him. And that's why I get angry at him, because I was that guy how i used to be that guy that's how i recognize him
Starting point is 00:38:45 and that's why i get angry at him because i was that guy i used to do crap like that to my wife and um i gotta tell you man it's not good and your mama bear uh carrying that baby intuition is dead on this is dumber than a rock this is this is really really dumb and. And I'm going to threaten this guy with his life, metaphorically speaking. I mean, you shouldn't have to try to logically explain this to someone who can do sixth grade math. This is absolutely... Okay. Good luck with it, Arlen. I hope you can help.
Starting point is 00:39:23 I can't help you. I'm sorry. I'm just fussing at you. You're right. That's all I can tell you. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, guys. It's Blake Thompson, senior executive producer for the Dave Ramsey Show.
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