The Ramsey Show - App - Struggling To Get on the Same Page in Relationships (Hour 1)

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where we help you win in your life, specifically with your money, your relationships, and in your work. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. That's 888-825-5225 is the phone number. That's 888-825-5225. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by John Deloney, and we are here for you this hour. The good doctor is in. The sign is hanging on the door. So that means relationship, the mental health questions related to money are just in that

category. And we have a lot of fun together. And we'll talk about your work as well if you feel like i need a bigger shovel i need more money to get through those baby steps i feel like i'm overlooked i don't know what i want to do whatever so we're taking all those questions your your money your relationships your work 888-825-5225 question for you before we take a quick call when you check in at a hotel do you drop the doctor on them no you've earned it no i don't i appreciate that i don't because

we have a mutual friend dr les parrot and i'm outing him he watches the show so this is for him he watches on tbn when he checks in he goes dr les no he doesn't i promise you oh no and it irritates me yeah and so this is my in my case my mom and my my wife were dr deloney long before i was right and so you didn't feel like well by the time i got around to it they're like oh that's cute and they patted me on the head and we'd already done the celebrating so so there you go sorry les we love you my mom named me john there it is. I love it. All right, let's get to Ryan, who's joining us now in Orlando, Florida.

Ryan, how can we help? Good afternoon, guys, and thanks for taking the time to talk to me today. Sure. What's going on? Well, I would like to know, my question outright is, should I hire a CPA to help get my wife on board with budgeting? Are you serious? hire a CPA to help get my wife on board with budgeting. And so, as the good doctor here had said, I know avoidance cannot be a strategy. And I think that's why I'm reaching out is because we are avoiding, we, we don't fight about money because the conversation never gets started.

And we've been married 11 years. Okay. Usually I seek out a professional when me trying to do it will, A, I can't do the task, whether it's changing the shocks on my car or re-roofing my house or trimming trees. I don't know how to do it. Or me trying to do it is going to make it really bad. So have you tried to talk budgeting with your wife? I have. And I would tell you that in the past, you know, she has shut down. She's had panic attacks.

I usually get an I can't today or will defer to I trust you, babe. And, you know, I take it as a compliment, but it leaves me nowhere. Do you come at her with spreadsheets? I have provided one. I've never put it in her face, but I said, when you're ready to talk about it, I have one made, and I've had one made for 11 years. Let me ask a question here. You said she gave you two answers, not today or I trust you, babe. So when she says I trust you, babe, do you actually then create the budget and execute on it? Absolutely. Does she fight

against it? Nope. So why do you need to hire a CPA when she's essentially following the budget? She just doesn't want to do it. Here's the doozy. We keep separate accounts because she is paranoid of having any financial responsibility. All of the cars, the house, everything's in my name because she chooses to not have her name on it. She does not want that. I get it. Do you budget money for her or is it her income goes in her account? And so this budget we've been talking about is just your income in your account. Explain that to us. Correct. But I do track and I know what her cyclicals are. I just don't influence them in any way. Oh, man. John, the onion is unpeeling

for us here. So here's the best way I can say this. This is just me as a guy who grew up living in Texas. I walk to you and I can say, hey, my name is John. What's your name? Or I can walk up to you. You're in Orlando. Say, hola, me llamo Juan. Como estas? Muy bien, gracias. You too? When you come at your wife

with a spreadsheet and say, hey, I would like to talk budgets with you. She knows, A, she can't compete with you. B, somewhere along the line in her world, the fear of being left underneath the weight of a bunch of expenditures has set her body into a fight or flight. And solving that with insta-data is almost never the right way to approach it. If you were to approach her with, hey, honey, I'm scared to death to do this by myself,

or I'm so lonely. Would you please talk to me about this? Because I feel like I'm on an island. Now you're talking a different language. You're talking to language that somebody who's whose emotions feel like they're on fire whose feelings feel hot now i can understand that language i understand what you're trying to say to me the spreadsheet we get to after we get through all of the layers yeah but john i gotta jump in i think that's great advice but the first issue is they have separate accounts well and you you're nail the trauma issue. But she can't, for some reason, she doesn't trust this guy. That's what I'm getting at. That's the bigger issue.

It's not the budget. That's where I think he has to come in and say, hey, I haven't proven myself trustworthy to you yet for any number of reasons. And it might not be you, but laying it out that way and saying, I'm giving you an invitation here. Hiring a CPA is just hiring a bigger spreadsheet and calculator. By the way, the CPA is going to hate you.

Yeah. Because once he realizes what you've hired him for, he's going to be like, I'm out. Yeah. You need a marriage counselor before you need a CPA, brother. Yeah. Because the roots of this thing, Ken's right, the roots of this thing are deeper than budgets. Do you know, Ryan,'s what the roots are here that she's what's going on where she is this way doesn't want to have a joint account she had a

financially controlling stepfather that kept them on the wrong side of uh they were withheld from everything growing up ta-da ding ding ding and here's the thing um she had a a tough um a tough childhood and it sucks and the the pain there is real the trauma there's real the nervous system wiring is real and then she looked at you and said i do and so now she has a choice am i going to bury this marriage in in memorial to the trauma i had i'm going to recreate it here. Or I'm going to do the terrifying, scary thing and I am going to seek healing.

That's a choice she has to make. You don't start with that choice with a tenki, with a calculator. You start that choice with I want to build a united marriage. I promise you that's not the only thing y'all are separate on. Fair? I don't know.

We get along great. We have regular talks. I feel like this is the only thing. I would love to talk to her. I guarantee you. How long have you guys been married? 11 years, 11 and a half years. Yeah, John, I'm interested to see what you think of this.

I want to recommend to Ryan that he pay for counseling sessions. Yeah, absolutely. Him lead here. Nice dinners or whatever beforehand to where she feels super safe and supported. Not like, hey, I'm taking you here to get this fixed. But I do agree with you. This is a therapy. This is a bigger issue.

My promise, if you have everything in your life is on point, it's all together, you're connected, and it's just this, you're connected, and it's just this weird thing over here, that happens so, so rarely. There's something in her world that says she's not safe. I think that's where we start. What do you think about a free copy for his wife, Own Your Past? Absolutely. Own Your Past and Building an Unanxious Life.

That can give you a roadmap to creating something in your house so you can talk about money. Ryan, hang on the line. Austin will get you both books. It's a gift, but don't force some honor. Just bless her with it. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman.

Dr. John Deloney joins me in studio here this hour. 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. Hey, if you've been listening to the show or watching the show for a while and you've got a question but you're nervous, can I just tell you, we're going to make you feel really comfortable, at least try.

And we're not against you or for you. And we're not here to shame you. We're here to support you. So give us a call. 888-825-5225. Money question, relationship question, mental health question, work-related questions. We're here for you. Logan is up in Helena, Montana. Logan, how can we help? Hi, guys. I just want to say thank you, first off, for taking the time to answer this question, so I purchased a vehicle a couple years ago,

took out a vehicle loan on it, and when I told all my friends about this, we made a bet that I would have it paid off by the end of the year. Otherwise, I would have to call you guys. That was a year ago. Uh-oh. And since then, I have not paid it off still and have also taken out a loan on a truck as well.

So you doubled down in some strange way. You're like, hey, brother, hold my beer. I can make my situation way worse. A little bit. A little bit. Hey, real quick, before we dive into this, what was the other side of the bet? What if you have paid it off? What would they have to have done? Just kind of be okay that I had taken out a loan. That's a lame bet. I was going to say, really boring.

I kind of feel like Rachel Lee Cook on She's All That. Like, I'm just a bet. All right, go ahead. We're just a bet. I think I got the poor end of this thing. Well, you made the dumb bet. You did. Yeah. All right, so what can we do to poor end of this thing. Well, you made the dumb bet. You did. Yeah.

All right. So what can we do to help? What's your question? Now that you have two loans. Yes. So I guess my question is, is it better for me to sell both vehicles, go out and buy a five-houser car in cash? Probably.

I have the one. Give us the numbers. The first one's up for sale. So the first car I owe about $7,500 on. What's it worth? About $15,000. Okay. And then the truck, I owe $11,500 on, and it's worth about $14,000.

Yeah, well, the math on this is really simple. How much do you make? About, before taxes, $60,000 a year. So bring home $45,000. Okay. Well, okay. So we always try to answer these things based on what we would do. And if I'm looking at this right here, I'm going to sell – we got three.

I mean, I'm going to get rid of the – I'm trying to get to zero here. You only need one car anyway, right? Am I correct? Right. I have no need for two vehicles. I would probably sell the car and take the equity and pay the truck right off. That's what I'm'm thinking and then you've got a multi-use vehicle you get 7500 on vehicle one is what i wrote down and the only oh but it's worth 15 it's worth 15 so yeah that's

what i would do i take that 7500 roll it into the 11 to the 11.5 note that you have yeah and get it get that thing paid off in the next four months, and then don't be a knucklehead anymore. That's what I would do. It's pretty simple stuff. I mean, you can do it whichever way you want to, but yeah, I'm selling one and paying off the other. But I want to get it done quickly.

And hey, we have kind of a Ramsey policy, if you will, just some guidelines. The things that you own with wheels don't add up to more than half of your income. You're kind of right there-ish, a little bit-ish, sort of, but not quite. Right? Yeah. So.

Yep. If they were paid off, then I think I'd be okay. But they're not. Right. And even in what I like about this conversation is it's one step beneath the principles. Do you need two cars? No. All right, well, sell the car.

That's what I want to dive into. I'm just curious, Logan, not to criticize you, but I kind of want to get into what happened, John, in this situation so it doesn't happen again. Because the good news is you can get out of this. This is not a deep hole. But I'm just curious. You've got some buddies who obviously believe like we believe, no debt,

and they make this bet, and not only do you not pay it off, you go get another one. So what was going on in your head that led you to buy two vehicles when you only need one? Yeah, that's a good question. So the idea all along was for me to buy a truck. The car has been for sale now for a little while. And the idea the entire time was to pay that off and then take that equity, put it into this truck. But then the truck came up for sale

before I had had the car sold. And then I ended up with car loan on the truck, car loan on the car. So you have trouble with self-control? At times, yeah. All right. So the only way this works long-term is you're going to find yourself in this exact situation in a few months because someone's going to say, hey man, the gas prices or whatever. And you're going to think, yeah, I need to keep my eyes open for just a small car. And then one's going to pop up. And you're going to be like, ah, I'll get a loan. Same thing's going to happen again until you decide

I'm never going to borrow money on a car again, period. It's never going to again. It becomes part of my identity. It's who I am. I don't do that. And I have an 06 truck right now that the locking mechanism doesn't work so every time i open the car to close it again i have to stick a pin or a key in it i just haven't taken it to get it fixed and dude i just i'm not gonna go buy a new truck see what i'm saying like because i

just don't do that it's just not a thing yeah i load it listen, you can do this. First of all, you know what to do. You need to do it. But the bigger issue is how did I get myself in this mess? And I'm lucky, I would say you're lucky here, that you didn't get into a bigger hole. Because people do this with homes. People do this with crazy stuff. $100,000 trucks. I mean, I could go on and on and on.

How long have you had your car for sale? Three or four months. Yeah, lower the price, dude. That's the other issue. Check the Kelly Blue Book and make it attractive. Yeah, make it attractive. Get underneath it. Get rid of the car.

The burden is more important than I'm going to get that extra $500 or whatever. Who cares? Sell a car. Yeah. All right, Logan, let's do this. You lost a bet, so you had to call the Ramsey Show. How familiar are you with our baby steps and that process?

Oh, completely. I've been listening to you guys for years. Oh, okay. I made some dumb decisions, and I knew it. Alright, hey, listen. There's no shame in your game. I mean, that's not what we're getting at. I just was going to give you some resources, maybe kind of get you started on every dollar, something along those lines. Because if you begin to take control of this, we all have impulse control, right? Like, I have to be careful how many bags of nacho chips are in my house, John. I've got to be careful about the candy. Because when I walk into the pantry, if I see two or three bags or a bag, there's a real chance that I might get into one of them late at night, so the impulse control. So the idea is, so now I've got to set some disciplines in place

to where I go, all right, I shouldn't eat after seven o'clock, right? Or whatever. And so in this case, you know you've got some impulse control. And like john said i'm never going to take out a loan again like ever and you got to make that commitment that's a big decision john maxwell said this years ago john i remember sitting there and listened to it before i ever met him and i'm sitting there and he talked he was talking all these young guys young leaders and he says make the big decisions in life early and then manage them the rest of your life I love that you know well and here and that's psychology it is but but like you said it means go go upstream what what's going upstream in the Coleman house we don't I can't buy chips because I'm gonna eat them right right I could but I don't I don't want to fight that fight every day I'm just gonna

buy them right in my house I'm not don't bring. I could, but I don't want to fight that fight every day because I'm going to buy them. In my house, don't bring candy into the house because you're going to eat all of it. You just are. And yes, I could white knuckle it and I could figure it out. I could get to the bottom of what I eat. Just don't bring it in the house. Similar here, if I'm Logan, I would go put a freeze on my credit report so that

somebody can't just pull a report. I at least put a hurdle in front of me. The next time I get an impulse to go get the car right now, at least somebody's going to stop me and say, hey, we can't do this alone. You need to make a phone call. And then that may be your moment. But do some things upriver to put some hurdles in your way.

And that's what John Maxwell's talking about. That's managing those big rocks. It's so much easier, isn't it? When we go, I'm making this commitment, and now what do I have to do to keep this commitment? Well, it's easy to not eat chips. You don't have any chips in the house. That's true. Gosh, I love some chips. I do too. I could use some chips.

I'm telling you. We'll see what happens, folks. Don't move. We've got to do a couple quick commercial messages. You know how it works, but we're not going anywhere. Don't you either. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Dr. John Deloney joins me. 888-825-5225. This is your show, America, because we talk about your life. Specifically, are you winning with your money? Are you winning in your work? Are you winning in your relationships?

I can tell you this. If just one of those is a dumpster fire, it's going to affect the others. And many times, they're all interconnected. It's why we talk about it that way. And that's why we take calls on all of those topics. Would love to hear from you today. 888-825-5225. Let's go to Detroit, the Motor City. It's the Rock City. Detroit Rock City. Detroit Rock. Well, it's the Motor City, technically, but I like it. Mary, how are you? Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I am just wondering how to best support my husband in being the leader of our home, especially when it comes to finances, because he would definitely prefer that I take the reins in pretty much everything in our life. And I know that's really unhealthy for him. And I just don't know where to start.

Are you somebody who would let the reins go? I have to work really hard to always try and make him make the decision, if that makes sense. Yeah, but I'm not sure that you answered. I don't think you answered John's question. Let's say that your hubs comes in today and go, hey, I haven't been leading like I ought to. I'm going to take over this, this, this, and this. What's your reaction?

Do you really let go? Yeah. Or, hey, honey, we're going to eat here tonight. And you go, great. I don't say great, but I would say sure, or I would say like... Hold on, Mary. Can I jump in as a guy who's been married 25 years? If Stacey says sure to me, I have a follow-up question.

Every time. John, am I right? Hey, can we eat here? Sure. Then I go, well, where would you... My immediate reaction to that from Stacey is, where would you like to eat? Am I right? Okay. Mary, let me ask you this I would

say I would love to if he's offering to take me out to eat then I would say yes to whatever he wants okay paint me I want you to step back a little bit the word lead means a diff something different to everybody paint me a picture of what leadership what you want from him specifically give me two or three things very specifically you would like him to take the lead on and let you fully exhale in your home. What is it? Finances for sure. Okay. What does that mean?

Him go make more money or he pays the bills? We are going shopping. We are going shopping on Saturday. This is how much we have. Would you please maybe get a list together for me of what you think is missing or what we should be looking for? So you want him to make the shopping list and go do the shopping? He doesn't have to make the list, but just basically making a plan and committing to it. Okay. Or if he says that we're going to do something as

a family, then being like, okay, this is what we need to budget for it. This is when I want it to happen. What's the next thing? What's another picture of leadership that you have? Knowing that, let's say, I need to work so many hours in a week or he needs to work so many hours in a week and then making that happen. Or we need to sell these things in the house.

Okay, this Saturday we're going to spend four hours just going through this room and putting stuff on my plate. You're not talking about leadership. You're talking about you want someone to be engaged in your marriage and in your life. Yeah, I want to do a follow-up. Let's go back to the second one. He tells me he knows how many hours he needs to work and he does it. That to me, we got deep pretty quick there.

That tells me, unless I misunderstood that tells me uh he's not being proactive or at least you don't think he's being proactive in working as much i.e making as much money as he could be is that correct or am i wrong um no like he works like he works a full-time job and he was working um an evening job because like, we really, really need the income. Um, but we decided that I make more money per hour than he does. And my work is pretty flexible. Like I work at part-time for an accounting firm, but I could work as many hours as I want in the evenings. So we had made the decision that he was going to put in his two weeks at his evening job, and then I would work in the evenings.

But it keeps turning into, oh, hey, can we do this first? Or, oh, hey, this needs to be done. And I feel like I don't want to be like, okay, I'm ready to walk out the door as soon as he gets home, and I just leave. I feel like that's rude. Okay, and here's what you've said multiple times. I feel, I feel, I feel, I feel. And I'm speaking on his behalf. You haven't sat down and said, hey, you lied to me. We have those conversations. Okay, all right. Or I feel like you are completely unengaged in this marriage and in this house. Unintentional, right? You're married to a child and you're tired of being his

mom too. Fair? Right. I don't want to be. Yes. Okay. I don't think that's my job. You're exactly right. And every time I try and and step back we are all of a sudden three months behind in rent or we have our accounts been overdrawn for days in a row and it's like where did the money go oh you're supposed to be working oh but you asked like so i keep trying to work more but i also we also have two young kids yeah have you sat down with him and said, honey, I'm scared to my bones? Mm-hmm. And what does he say? After the live stream.

What does he say? He apologizes. Okay. And then we have the same conversation, you know, once a week about it. What do you know about his background? What do you think? Tell John what you think is going on with him. He grew up with his mom running his life.

Gotcha. He grew up with his mom running his life. So we could say, and I'm not trying to hang something on this guy, but we're talking to his wife, John. Is it immaturity? I feel like this is an extremely immature situation. Yes. And where I have no compassion for him,

just as a guy who works really hard to be a good husband and be a good dad and to work really hard at my job, like I don't have, I get not having compassion there. On the other side, I have great compassion for a guy who simply opens up his toolkit to help out when he has a wife saying, I'm scared. I need your help. And he looks in his toolkit and there's no tools in there. Yeah. And that's where the reason I asked you to be very specific is this doesn't feel sexy. It doesn't feel romantic. It doesn't feel like Hollywood said it was. It doesn't feel like the notebook, but he may need some very clear guidance.

I need you to do this. Yeah. And if you've already done that and he looked at you and you remember behavior is a language if he either said these words or acted these words i don't really care what makes you feel safe i'm i don't really care i'm not gonna do that then you have to stop doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result you have to choose reality and reality is i am married to a guy that does not care about his wife or his kids he cares about yeah yeah and he lives like he lives he he lives more like by his emotions so like if we have a conversation or or like i have a meltdown a breakdown in front of him and he has a conversation then he apologizes and he

goes into what i call like the puppy dog stage yep where he's like nervous about everything he said and that's that's why i started this whole call i started this whole call hours i started the whole call asking you is he allowed to lead in his own home do you have do you lead do you live by your emotions too and leadership for you means you never feel scared or uncomfortable or sad or tired because if that's what leadership is for you it doesn't exist if you talk i don't understand what you're asking i'm saying if leadership means i want a man that i never feel sad or scared or worried about money or frustrated or tired, that's not leadership. That's fantasy.

It's not real. Oh, right. No, I understand. If you want a co-parent and a co-partner, if you want that and you want him to take the lead on some things, yeah, man, that's all in. You've got to be very, very specific. And if he looks at you and says, I can't do this, and tell him, I don't want a puppy dog. I don't want, oh, I'm okay. I'm asking you. I need you to do these things. And then if he chooses not to, then you have to live in that reality. And I'd go see a counselor ASAP.

Got to right away. Hey, Austin, hook them up with one of our financial coaches to get this process started. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Dr. John Deloney joins me. We're here for you this hour, 888-825-5225. Let's go to the City of Angels, Los Angeles, California. Christine joins us there. Christine, how can we help? Hi. Oh, wow. How are you doing? Well, we're having a blast. How are you? You handle it? Deep breath? Ready to go? We're here to help. I'm good. Hi. So I'm 31. I'm married. I have a daughter. Me and my husband have been listening for about like five months now. We're on baby step number two with $14,000 in credit card debt. Now, my question isn't with that.

My question is actually I decided to go back to school, nursing school, and private school will be around like $70,000, and it will be done in two years. But also there's another choice of like community college, but it will be done with like three to five years depending on how fast i do it how much will that cost it's going to be around like less than 15,000 so it'll be 15,000 and tell me what the different five years yeah but three to five based on how much you can do. So do you know what the hours would be, let's just say on a week or a month, in order to get done in three years at 15K? What would that require of you time-wise?

That's actually the good thing about the community college is because they have night classes. So I can still work in the morning and like do at least three to four classes every semester. Well, and that gets you done in three years? Yes. I bet, Christine, you can do it faster. This is a no brainer. Here's why. Private schools often will put you in what they call a cohort.

And it's very prescribed. Every hour is written out for you everybody does the same class in the same order at the same time and a community college feels more um it feel it's more like it's like a buffet come get what you want when you want it and they're gonna tell you it's gonna take about three to five years because that's the average it takes somebody who's taken two classes at a time, maybe a third class, and then I've got to drive back to one class because I've got a kid that's sick. And so it takes about three to five years. That's how I started, actually.

Do what? That's how I started. I actually already started with community college with one class. Okay, well, listen, the course load to licensure is the same. Yeah. Okay, so that means to licensure is the same. Yeah. Okay. So that means you can do this in two years. You just have to follow that level of curriculum that you would be doing in the private school,

just taking the right amount of classes at the right time. Or do it in three years and get on with your life, right? Christine, I wonder if this is not about the money. Because you just had already thought this through. As soon as I said, well, is it possible for you, for your family, for your day job to do this? You were like, oh, yeah, well, I could do this. This is a three-night job. So you've already run this through.

So is there a deeper concern that you have as it relates to? It's more the time. What? as it relates to what it's more the time of like it being three to five years or like two years just finish it they'll do it like you know they already have the set schedule for you but also the money that I'll be missing because I'll be part-time at my work so you're gonna have to be part-time to do the private school option yeah but my school. Yeah, but my point is, I think that's off the table, and I think you know that. When you called, I think you were leaning towards community college,

except you were like, oh, is it going to take longer? My point is, do you remember the last time you saw a nurse yourself? A nurse? I worked in hospice. Okay, but I'm saying, I want you to want you the last time you were a patient and a nurse worked with you do you remember that yes okay did you ask the nurse where she went to school actually yes okay what'd she say she went to community college did she kill you did did you all of a sudden judge her because of that yeah she started jabbing you with needles all willy

nilly and crazy all right that's my point. No. No, she was amazing. She was amazing, of course. Let me tell you something, Christine. This is very simple. This is a conversation with your husband to look at what is life going to look like to knock this out in two to three years, to John's point. I've got to take X amount

of night classes to knock it out quickly. I'm saving a lot of money by doing this. It's just going to cost me time. Can we do this? Hubs is on board. Your child, your daughter, how old is she? She's six. Six. She has no concept of time. She's going to be fine. This is a family meeting about time and how our family's going to have to adjust to this. We're going to count the cost. Because from the money standpoint, this is not even a conversation. Well, I get what you...

Community college all the way. Well, hold on. But Christine, somebody told you this math. They said, hey, you're going to make $85,000 as a nurse here in Los Angeles, or $100,000. Yeah. And if you get done one year faster, you're going to make about $55,000 or $60,000 more. Well, that's how much you're paying extra to go to private school, so why don't you just get it done? Where that falls on its head is you are paying the private school $60,000 to force you to get this done in two years.

Just do it yourself. Save $60,000. Remove the stupid tax. Everybody else buys that that's exactly the story you knew do what? you knew the story that someone told me of course they did

we've heard it before yeah that's fair but that's not your case now if you fart around and do like one class and then one class and then your kid is suddenly 11 or 12 and you have two classes left

and it's five years yeah but that's on you. I'm not going to pay a school $60,000 to force me in to do something. I'm just going to go do it. It's a marketing message, Christine. There's a reason why all those colleges have really big and nice buildings because they charge lots and lots of dollars. And they know how to market it.

They got a compelling conversation in their head that they've tested, and it works on you. So we just deconstructed it. But use your common sense here. This is awesome. You're going to be a nurse quicker than you think. Fantastic.

You're going to save $60,000. Oh, my gosh. I mean, it's mind-blowing to me. It's mind-blowing. Just absolutely crazy. All right, let's go to James in Cincinnati. James, how can we help? Hey, guys.

Thanks for taking my call, Ken. John. You bet. Good to hear from you. So, like a lot of callers, I'm in a mountain of debt. I'm 40 years old. I'm behind on my retirement goal that I hope to achieve someday. And I have an opportunity to double my income.

I work remotely and currently have a job, and I have an opportunity to double my income. I work remotely and currently have a job and I have an opportunity to take a second job on top of that. So I'm looking for advice on, you know, do I do it? Can I pull the trigger and say yes to that? What would be the reason why you wouldn't do it knowing that you're in a lot of debt and behind on your retirement goals? Right. I don't have one. Then it's a pretty simple answer. It's called bigger shovel. Dave Ramsey's talked about that for a long time. More income, bigger shovel. I mean, calendar management and stress, calendar management and stress be the only kind of downfall.

Which is why I asked you, what would be the reason not to do it? Is that a big fear, or can that be managed? I hope so. Well, no, no. No. We don't hope so. But you're stressed right now at how much you owe and how behind you are. So it's stress versus stress.

It's three years of, this is going to suck. Is that worth the rest of your life, the back 45 years of your life to be free? If not, cool. Well, let me kind of paint a picture then. I've got a seven-year-old. I've got a baby on the way in April. My wife's not going to work when the baby comes. Yep.

And I'm looking at probably 13 months and will be free. Yes. It's a no-brainer. This is absolutely every day of the week and twice on Sunday you say yes to this second job. No-brainer. Your wife's going to be home to take care of the kids. You're fine. You'll be tired.

You'll be okay. But this is a no-brainer. You have to do this your seven-year-old will turn eight and not have any memory of this and your newborn won't remember any of it and your wife will say thank god i have a man who went and did what we had to do so that i could stay home with this baby that's a breath of fresh air i appreciate you and by the way james will this be fun no we'll be terrible yes will you be mad halfway through oh it'll be furious do it anyway yeah do it anyway. Yeah. Do it anyway.

You're going to exchange the stress of debt. I like how you put this for a stress of activity. For instance, I was working out last night. I'm in a new routine, John, and I'm not going to lie to you. I hate this part of it. Hate it. It sucked really bad. Felt great an hour later.

I was sitting at home. I told my wife. I go, man, I feel pretty good. I did not feel that way in the middle of the routine of that workout so it's what you're getting on the other side here james so buckle up this is going to change your life forever absolutely yes yes yes and yes good man way to step up love it congrats by the way on the new one a little one that's going to be a lot of fun and boy are you going to be setting that child up for a great future as a result of this 13-month grind. That's how you're looking at this. John Deloney, great hour. James Childs, our fearless leader, thank you and the crew for keeping us on the air. And you, America, for listening. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you.