The Ramsey Show - App - Student Loan Forgiveness Isn't a Magic Wand that Erases Debt (Hour 3)

Episode Date: June 26, 2019

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studio, this is the Dave Ramsey Show, where America, we hang out and have a conversation about your life and your money. I'm Chris Hogan, filling in for Dave, and we're ready to take your questions, and we want to hear from you right now. So guess what, America? I need you to call me. The phone number to call is 888-825-5225. Again, that's 888-825-5225. Or look us up on social.

You can find us at at Ramsey Show. And if you prefer, you can also send me a question at ChrisHogan360. Either way, we want to hear from you. Why? Because when you have questions and you get the right information, it can help you move in the right direction. And that's what we're all about here at Ramsey Solutions. So I'm going to the phone lines.

I've got, let's see here, I've got TJ on the line down in Gulfport, Mississippi. TJ, how can I help you? Hey, Mr. Hogan, how you doing? I'm doing good, my friend, and I'm just Chris. How can I help you? Hey, Mr. Hogan, how you doing? I'm doing good, my friend, and I'm just Chris. How can I help you? Yes, sir. So my wife and I, we are in agreement with the financial, the Dave Ramsey plan. We're currently in the Financial Peace University.

We just started about a month ago. Fantastic. We're on baby step number two. All right. The debt snowballed. Okay. So, our thing is, it seems scary because we're seeing all the testimonies of everybody else on the program. They're paying off their debt in two to four years.

Right. With our amount of debt, $183,000, and that's just the student loans. It seems like we're going to be in that baby step, too, for a mighty long time. My wife has the option to pay off her student loan at about $300 a month for 120 consecutive months, and it will be forgiven. And so that will be about $36,000 in 10 years, and it will be forgiven. So my question is, should we continue to put extra on our debt snowball plan, which we can currently do right now?

It's about $700 extra. Or should we just pay, go along with the student, I mean, the debt snowball? Right. Continue that. Okay. That's the scary part that we have. All right. No, I get it, TJ.

Well, listen, first and foremost, I want to congratulate you guys for being plugged into Financial Peace University because that tells me a couple of things. You know what, TJ? It tells me you guys are in agreement. You understand the direction, and you're working together. And that's important. Now, I know you hear the testimonials of other people, and you start to go, boy, we got a little bit more debt than they do, or it's going to take us a little bit longer. And I don't want you to compare your now to their then. Okay.

Meaning the bottom line is you guys are moving in a direction. And what I have seen is that people that get intentional to start attacking debt, they start to move even faster when they start to figure it out and they get clear. Okay. So I'm proud of you. And, and no, you're not going to be able to blink and just fix this right but you're going to work toward it and that's what can happen so tell me about the debt you say you got 183 000 in student loan debt what other debts do you all have

we have a total of three debts um the lowest one is the credit card debt that's about two thousand dollars um we're not worried about that. We can do that. The next one is about a $9,000 personal loan, so we're not too concerned about that. And then the next one is the student loan debt. Hers is $169,000, and mine is about $13,000. Okay. And so the personal loan of $9,000, what was that used for? Mostly medical bills at the000. Okay. And so the personal loan of $9,000, what was that used for? Mostly medical bills at the time. Okay.

Medical bills and different household stuff. Okay. All right. And you've got to be careful of those, okay? Because, I mean, those companies, once you start getting out there and start using them, what happens is they will mail you things that will constantly hit in your mailbox, and they'll catch you at a weak point. Okay? So we don't go there. So, number one, we know we can't borrow our way to better. you things that will constantly hit in your mailbox and it'll catch you at a weak point. Okay.

So we don't, we won't go there. So number one, we know we can't borrow our way to better, right? Uh, you can't, right? So you're going to get focused and get intentional. Here's the thing. You asked me about the loan forgiveness, TJ, I'm going to shoot you straight. Here's the thing that makes me nervous about these programs. I rarely hear of anybody telling me that it happened.

Okay. And what I mean by that is, as you read the guidelines to that program, here's what I've found. Haven't worked with people typically in those guidelines. And it'll tell you, like they told you pay 300 a month for 120 months. And then X, Y, Z will forgive. Typically there's typically little, little information in there that says, but if you miss a payment or if you're late by one hour or three seconds, you're disqualified. So I would tell you guys to look at it, know the program guidelines, know what it is, the parameters, but be clear and understand.

Remember, they could change their mind on the criteria of their program at any moment. So the best long range plan for that is you guys either dig in and know the details and know what's going on so you're crystal clear or you get focused on it and say you know what this is our thing we're gonna have to clean it up okay so i want you to get the program what does your wife do for a living uh she's a therapist okay and so she's got it in writing that of the 169 000 in student in student loan debt she has, if she pays $300 a month for 120 months, they're going to forgive $169,000. Oh, yes, sir. Really? Okay.

I don't know if it's in writing, guess what? It ain't real, right? And so I want to, yeah, I do. I really want you all to get the details on that. Read through it and know what you're dealing with. Because that to me, it's one of those that sounds too good to be true, right? And if it is, if it sounds that way, typically it ends up being that way. And so I don't want us to fall for anything or for you guys to have false hope in something that's not going to pan out. So look at it, identify it, but I want you all to know, right, there's not a magic wand, but you all can fix this. And, you know, America, TJ brought up

something that I want to camp on here for a minute, and it's this whole comparison thing, right? Rachel Cruz, my colleague, Dave's daughter, she talks about this in her book, Love Your Life, Not Theirs, that the whole issue with comparison is that we don't have any understanding of what other people have gone through. We just see this exterior, right? We just see it. And when you start to compare what you're dealing with or what you've gone through to compare to where they are, what happens is we lose sense of reality. And I love that Rachel hit on this because if we just stay focused on our situation, right, and we look at it, I'm not worried about what someone else is doing, right, and I'm not going to compare. I'm just going to look and own my effort and my progress.

What happens? I'm going to guarantee you something. You're going to move faster, right? And I think it's okay to acknowledge what someone else is doing and to appreciate it, right? Like genuine appreciation. And that's just where you're glad that somebody has achieved something or done something. And you say, hey, great job. It doesn't have to become anything about you.

But just appreciating or acknowledging someone did a great job. But you can also stay motivated for you. And I think when we're keyed in and we understand the dream of what we're trying to accomplish, it helps us do more, which is exactly why I led with the dream and talking about our IQ, the retire inspired quotient. This is helping people to understand and identify what is it they want to do in retirement. What does it look like? Well, in that free tool of the RIQ, you start off with the dream.

Because when people know what they want, you know what happens? You end up being crystal clear on what you don't want, right? And I don't want you having to work longer than you have to. I do want you living your dreams. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options? Do you wish you could find an affordable, biblical solution to your health care costs? Based on New Testament principles, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM,

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Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org. Hello, America. You are listening to The Dave Ramsey Show. I'm Chris Hogan filling in for Dave. And boy, we've had some fantastic callers. I want to hear more. If you've got a question on money or leadership or life, whatever you want to talk about, give us a call. The number to call is 888-825-5225, or that's 888-825-5225. Or you can find us at Ramsey show on social.

And speaking of social, someone told me they were like, Chris, I didn't realize you guys, all of you personalities. And let's define that for a minute. Okay. So there's a group of us that,

that, that are kind of the speakers inside of the company. Dave, of course, is the primary. And then there's Rachel. There's Anthony O'Neill, Ken Coleman, Christy and myself. But a lot of people aren't aware that we have social media

accounts. And so you can connect with us via social. So, for example, Rachel Cruz, you can find her all over the place. And it's just at Rachel Cruz. She's got an Instagram. She's got YouTube. Obviously, she's Rachel Cruzcruz.com and her website. You can find that the same with Anthony O'Neill, who joined me in the previous hours. His website is Anthony O'Neill. You've got Ken Coleman, who has the Ken Coleman Show that you can find him. Again, his website is kencoleman.com. Ken is focused on the career space and really helping people understand how do you find that career that

you love. And so you need to tune in to him. He does a fantastic job. And Christy Wright, she's ChristyWright.com, where she's really digging in to help women. And she's very focused. Again, so we're available. And of course, myself, I'm ChrisHogan360.com and digging in on money and leadership and helping people with building wealth. And of course, this whole millionaire movement thing, as we did the largest research study that's ever been done on millionaires, talked to over 10,000 of them to really dig in and find out the truth about how people are building wealth.

And so, again, just wanted to let you know, we are out there on social media. You can connect with us. We'd love to connect with you and hear from you as well. So I'm getting back to the phones because that's what we do. I've got Hope on the line in Indiana. Hope, how are you? Hi, how are you? Oh, I'm focused and not finished, young lady.

How can I help you? Okay. So about eight years ago, my mother passed away. I'm sorry. It's okay. But I ended up getting a trust fund from her when she passed. Now, I didn't get that until I was 18 years old, which was kind of a stupid age, in my opinion, to get it. But the funds started out at $120,000.

And after only three years, it's down to $23,880.71. Wow. Because I was pretty much living off of it. I was stupid. I'm going to kind of admit that. Okay. I just had my daughter about a year ago. Uh-huh.

Now I'm trying to make this kind of into an emergency slash college fund for her. Okay. And I didn't know if you had any advice on how I can make it grow back up to that point, who I should maybe talk to. Okay. But I don't know a whole lot about this. No, I understand, Hope, and I appreciate you reaching out. How did you hear about us?

I actually heard about you guys from a mom group. They said, because i was having some financial problems and they said oh you should just call the dave ramsey show that is fantastic how many people are in that mom group probably 8.3k oh a bunch of them yeah okay that's fantastic well i appreciate you reaching out calling us um but but walking this, first of all, congratulations on being a mom. Thank you so much. And did you have a little boy or a little girl? I had a little girl.

It changes things, doesn't it? It does. Me and my boyfriend have changed so much since having her, but she's a blessing. Absolutely. And so tell me this. Are you brand new to us? Do you know about Baby Steps at all? I do not know about Baby Steps.

I actually just started watching you guys probably like a week and a half ago. You are brand new. I like this. Okay. All right. Here's the deal. All right, Hope. Most of the time, people try to accomplish things like all at once, right?

And then what happens is when you years ago after walking through his own financial situation was realized walking out of it and being able to deal with money requires a plan. And so what he did was came up with the seven baby steps. Now, the baby steps mean we're going to focus on some things so we can make progress. So baby step number one would be getting $1,000. Okay. And you have $1,000 saved up because that way you've got cushion. So if life happens, you've got money you can reach to. Baby step number two is where we attack debt

and we're gonna get our money back because we realize when you have debt, you're making other people rich and you're not able to build your own wealth. So we want people to attack the debt and then once you attack debt and you get your money back, I want you to build up a serious cushion of three to six months of an emergency fund, which you referred to as emergency fund.

And then once you do those three, then you can start to do multiple things at once, investing, saving for college and paying off the house. So that's kind of an overview, but I'm curious, what, what do you owe on right now? What do you have debt on in your life? Me personally, I have none. Okay. I don't have credit cards or student loans. That's kind of what some of this money got wasted to when I thought I wanted to go to college and then dropped out. Okay.

So you paid off all the debt. Yes. And credit cards that you had, are they closed? Yes. Yes, they are. Okay. I never had any, but my boyfriend actually has one credit card. We live together in a house that we own.

So if that helps with anything. Okay. Yeah. And so the mindset-wise around this is in walking through the process, you're able to attack debt and you're able to move forward. So love that you don't have debt. Only thing, the house, are you renting or do you own it? Uh, I, I don't own it, but he does. Okay.

I'm with you. And so with this, here's the thing, this money that you're looking at in the trust fund, number one, you were blessed because your mother was intentional, right? To leave you this money. Um, and now you're wanting to, to look at this and go, okay, wow, it was at X amount. Now it's down a little bit. And so what do you do? Well, I think the first thing is this because the trust is the owner of the money, not you. Okay. Which means it's coming to you. So really the goal of it is it's sitting

there right now. All right. And so mindset wise, what I want you to do is you could look at this in a couple of ways. You could look at that $23,000 in there as your emergency fund. Are you working right now or not? I am not. I am actually a stay-at-home mom. Okay. All right. And so you could look at this as your emergency fund.

And then as you begin to work or however you guys figure it out, once you get married, you can start to talk about this stuff together. Okay? Deal with money. But now you looking at it, you can look at this as an emergency fund, but I think it being there is a good cushion to have between you and life, and then it's a matter of looking to invest and moving forward, again, with even saving for college for your daughter. It is in CDs and bonds as well. It has the potential to grow,

but for me spending it so much, it just kept going down. No, you're right. Absolutely. But here's the thing. You at least were spending cash as opposed to taking out debt. Does that make sense?

Right, right. And so, but you've got a wake-up call now because you look at this and you realize, uh-oh, okay, it was at 120 and now it's down to 23. I need to pause. And at least you had that kind of awareness, and I'm proud of you for pausing. And so here's what I'm going to do. I like new people.

I like them coming in because they're listening, they're focused. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to send you Dave's number one best- book, the total money makeover. This book was a game changer for me. And so I'm going to send you that, but I'm also going to send you financial peace university. I'm going to gift you that as well, because you are willing to listen. Uh, hope I like that you're teachable and people that are willing to listen can make some stuff happen. And here's the thing. If your mother cared enough and she left you that dollar amount because she cared, I know you're intentional and you want to do the same for your daughter. And so, again, you've got an opportunity to be able to learn. You don't have any debt. You've got a little bit of savings.

Now what we want to do is to grow your money and also give you an opportunity to be able to push forward. And that's what happens when we look at stuff a little bit different. We understand that we've got opportunity. I got a social media question. I'm telling people about social media. And he asks, when do you suggest stop paying full coverage insurance on a vehicle? Well, that's a great question, Adam. Here's the thing.

As you look at this and you realize the value of the car, right, you've got this thing paid off, and you look at it and you go, okay, if something were to happen to this vehicle, it's either going to, A, total it, or I'm just going to have to get another one. And so you don't want to have that on a vehicle that's really old or older. And so, again, it's a cost-saving measure to be able to drop it and to allow you to be able to spend that money elsewhere. So, be smart. Reach out to an insurance ELP. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Hello, America. You are listening to The Dave Ramsey Show. I'm Chris Hogan, filling in for Dave.

And you all have been on the ball with your questions. Doing a fantastic job. The phone lines are lit up. Kelly is in there running like she's on fire, making things happen. This is fantastic. Keep the calls coming in. Okay, the number to call is 888-825-5225. Again, that's 888-825-5225.

Also on social media, you can find us at Ramsey show. Now I was brought to my attention as I'm talking about all the personality social that I told you about. The Ramsey show also has some social media as well at Ramsey show. So make sure you follow it on all the social media platforms and plug in. And by the way, if you don't know, Dave does have a YouTube channel and the Dave Ramsey show

where you can plug in and really get involved. Uh, there are a few other ways you can get involved. We have the Ramsey baby step community, which is on Facebook. It's a Facebook group. Uh, and you can find them by going to facebook.com, uh, slash groups and just search for the Ramsey Baby Step community. This community is absolutely growing and they're very engaged. I also have a group, the Everyday Millionaires group, which you can search for by, again, going to ChrisHogan360.com slash groups or Facebook.com slash groups and hunt for Hogan's Everyday Millionaires. This group is also extremely active and encouraging. And I think the point with this is,

is understanding that community is essential, right? Life is not meant to be done alone. We need people around us. We need people to cheer us on, to encourage us so we can understand that where we are right now doesn't have to be where we end up unless we stop, right? We have options. So again, love for you to get plugged into one or all of those communities

and really start to experience it. Someone asked me, Chris, what's the age range? Listen, it's from 18 to 80, right? There is no age range in there. There's all types because it's about people that are chasing down progress. So it's a great opportunity. Once again, we've got the Ramsey Baby Step community on Facebook, Hogan's Everyday Millionaire group on Facebook, and then we also have the YouTube channel with the Ramsey Show. My YouTube at ChrisHogan360 is available as well. All right, I'm back to the phones. I've got Scott on the line calling me from Vegas. Scott, how are you? I'm doing great. How are you? Oh, I'm focused and not finished,

my friend. How can I help you today? Yeah, I have a question. I do have a little debt, but I'm really, I'm actually scared about my retirement. I'm going to be 50 in November. Okay. We make 93K combined income. Okay. And I've only got 7,000 in my 401K. All right. I have approximately 6K in debt. I pretty much started the baby steps in April. We already have our emergency fund.

I paid off 2,400 in debt just this month. Okay. But I do not have a house, so I figured I'll be done with the rest of the $6,000 in debt that I have by at the latest October. Good. Hopefully sooner. Okay. Um, but the only thing that I see is, uh, with,

with the no housing is my goal is to have, uh, my fully funded emergency fund and at least 20% down for a 15 year fixed and try to pay off my mortgage in seven years. So in 10 years, I think, uh, yeah,

I'll have the house and everything else. Realistically, how, uh, I mean, what am I looking at for retirement being, I'll be 60 by then. And even with the 15%, I'm really scared about the retirement part. Well, I understand. I mean, and looking at it, and any time you try to look at a broad area, you know, it's real easy to look and identify where you haven't done something, right? But I think, Scott, the best thing to do with fear is to have a plan. See, fear doesn't want you to have a plan.

It wants you to just stay there and just wallow in it. And so the reality is is you've identified what exactly what you need to do it's being intentional you've paid off debt the 2400 in debt that you paid off this past month what was that uh 1250 on tax uh debt and then uh a couple a credit card and some medical bills. Okay. See, I like that. That means you're understanding and identifying that debt's not your friend. So you've got to attack it so you get your money back.

And so you look at this and you start to realize, okay, I've got $7,000 in my 401K, right? You guys are making a good income. How many kids do you have? Do you have any? I have two, but they're grown okay so they're grown uh what uh what line of work are you in uh i'm in manufacturing okay and you've been doing that how long 31 years oh wow and so did you ever have a 401k or did you have one and you cashed it out yes i uh went in the housing market we had a house i tried to save my house with my

401k and it still never worked out and i ended up short selling so i still got another year before i got you how much did you pull out of your 401k 40 000 i got you see i knew it had to be had to be something right um and so again look again, look, you glance at it, you glance back, but we focus forward, right? Yes. And I'm telling you that, Scott, because here's the thing. We naturally will keep beating ourselves up over and over again, right? And the reality is, is what will end up happening? You beat yourself up, and guess what?

You're unmotivated, your feelings are hurt, and you're frustrated. None of those things do anything for tomorrow. Right. So you glance back, but we focus forward. So I want you to realize that, hey, you've got an opportunity with income. Kids are grown. So they're out of the picture. You're attacking debt.

You're being intentional. I like this idea. I like the idea of you being plugged in and attacking debt, following the baby steps, then building up a fully funded emergency fund. And then I need you to slow down and be smart about the kind of house you buy. We all know how the Nevada market is, right? You said short sale, and I went back to 08 when I was taking phone calls from people dealing with short sales and deed in lieu of foreclosures, all that drama. So I want you to just breathe, my friend. Okay? The fact that you're nervous about retirement, I respect that.

But more importantly, I want you to be intentional with your plan. And I'm going to send you both of my books because I believe in you, Scott. I know you can do this. And so retirement has nothing to do with your age. It's a financial number. So now what it is, now you need a plan financially. I want you to go straight to my website right now, ChrisHogan360.com. And I want you to look at the RIQ, the retire inspired

quotient. It's a free tool. The most important thing I want you to do is that dream date part. This is where you start to dream out loud. I'm not looking at where I'm at right now. I'm thinking about what do I want to be and what am I willing to do to get there? Those are the kinds of things that will encourage you. So whenever that negative thought pops in your head, Scott, that you're too old or you shouldn't have pulled the money out of the 401k, I just want you to tell it this. I just want you to hush that voice because that voice isn't going to help you now. I want you to hear me saying, I believe in you and I know you can do this. And that's the thing that you play louder, right? You amplify the positives.

We're going to, we don't have time. We're going to mute the negatives. I'm staying focused on what I can control. And your attitude, your actions, and your outlook are three things that you can always control moving forward. Thank you very, very much for your call, my friend. I'm back on the phone. I've got Thomas in Kansas City.

Thomas, how are you? I'm good. How about yourself, sir? Oh, I'm focused and not finished, my friend. How, how are you? I'm good. How about yourself, sir? Oh, I'm focused and not finished, my friend. How can I help you? Hey, I just had a quick question. I'm a new listener. I found Dave and yourself

several months ago, and I guess in listening to several of the episodes on YouTube and in the car on the sales commission paid to engineer, so I'm on the road quite a bit. And I guess I would be doing what people call Dave-ish, and I guess I just kind of stumbled upon that I was doing that in listening to previous trailers.

Right. Yes. My question is, I'm kind of trying to figure out, I've done all the numbers in 30 times, and I'm going to put myself in baby step two, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to go about this to get out of debt and kind of move forward with my future as I see fit. Okay. How much debt do you have, Thomas? The only debt I have other than my house,

so taking a step back further, we actually paid off $50,000 in student loans and then $12,000 on a solar loan we had for our house. That was just over the past 12 months. Now we are down to the cars, which is about $40,000 between the two of them, and then $340,000 for the house. Okay, I want you to hang tight because when we come back from this break, we're going to dig in. I've got somebody saying he's doing Dave-ish. We don't do ish. We do it. We're going to talk about it when we got somebody saying he's doing Dave-ish. We don't do ish. We do it.

We're going to talk about it when we come back. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Hello, America. hello america you are listening to the dave ramsey show i'm chris hogan filling in for dave and we've had an absolute blast before we went to break i was talking to thomas and thomas is an engineer that's in the commission world and he was trying to talk about kind of the baby steps and figure out kind of where he is what what's going on in his plan. Now, Thomas, you said you were doing the Dave Ish plan. What does Ish look like? What were you doing? Well, I see a couple things that I've done that I guess are not in line with the plan. Okay. One of which, my mom's a big saver. She's not a big investor, but she told me to have a three- to six-month safety net.

Okay. I've got about $12,000 in cash. Okay. I also have an employee stock purchase plan at work that's got about $8,000 in there. $4,000 of that is coming in about four days. That'll be long-term capital gains. The other four is short-term capital gains. Okay.

I have been investing, although I'm not out of debt, I've been investing about 10% of my income towards retirement. I've got about $60K in a Roth 401 and then $10K in a traditional that I'm in the process of converting to a Roth. All right, fantastic. So you're plugged in. You're knowledgeable on this money stuff. Now take me over to crazy land. Tell me about the debt. The debt is, like I said, roughly $40,000 between my wife's car and me.

Both of us, when we graduated college, said, hey, we've made it. Let's go buy brand new cars. So we did that. The total value of those cars is about $70,000. So we've plugged a decent amount towards them. We're down to about $40,000 left. And then no credit card debt, and like I said, the student loans and the solar have been paid off. Okay, fantastic.

Okay, so you've attacked some debt. What is your household income, Thomas? So, tricky question. Base salary is $130,000 between the two of us. Right. I have a profit-sharing bonus that's roughly $20,000 to $40,000 a year. Okay. And I'm a commission salesperson on top of us. I have a profit sharing bonus that's roughly $20,000 to $40,000 a year. I'm a commission salesperson on top of that. The sky's the limit with that. One of the gentlemen in our company made a million last year. Another one made $100,000. It depends.

Tell me this. You being a commission salesperson, how long have you been doing this career? I just started in January. You just started. What did you do prior? Same company. I was just on the engineering side. Okay. And now I'm on the commission side and they basically just moved my salary over, which it will take a hit next year. You know, they give you about a year to ramp up. Right. So what's your goal for 2019? I know you and talking to you. You are goal-oriented and motivated. So what are you going to make this year? With everything I have laid out in my pipeline, I'll probably be around $250 to $300 total between my life and myself.

Okay. See, I figured you'd be in that range. So here's the deal, and I know you know this. We're going to attack and pay off these cars, and we're going to drive them, right? Anything else you do moving forward, you're going to do with cash. You've been investing. You've got an emergency fund, so you're right. You had some ish going.

You did some stuff out of order. Bottom line is now you're focused because you've been attacking debt. You paid off the credit cards. You paid off the student loan. Now you've got these two cars. You've got $40,000 standing in the way. And then all you're going to do is shift and go from investing 10% to get up to 15%, right? And then you start to just kind of work forward with the baby steps.

Investing 15%, baby step four. Saving for college, for kids, right? Attacking the house, paying it off. Then build wealth and give. And you don't have a cap on your income. So you've got an opportunity. Thomas, let me tell you something, my friend, you know, the thing you got to watch out for is deserve. Yeah. Oh, y'all don't know about deserve. Yeah. Oh yeah. That's a terrible disease, right? Cause you feel like you deserve some stuff.

And the problem is, is that you want it because you're working hard or you'll do it and people will end up doing it with debt. And so it comes with a penalty. And so I'm okay with people having some stuff. Once you get yourself out of debt, I just want you to save up and pay cash for it. It just feels better. And it's better for you long term. Thomas, thank you for tuning in. Thank you for calling in, my friend.

And I wish you well on your journey. All right, I'm going back to the phone. I've got Ashley on the line. Ashley is in Denver, Colorado. Thank you for calling. Hi, Chris. Thanks for having me. Oh, you're very welcome, young lady. How can I help you? Me and my husband have been married for two years, and we're about to buy a home, and then we came across Dave Ramsey, and so we've kind of put those things on hold for right now, trying to pay off our debt. However, we came into a little bit of a crossroads where he wants to do something else and I want to do something else as far as our savings and our retirement contribution goes.

So I'm trying to figure out what's the best route for us to go together. Oh, I like this. Okay, so relatively newlywed, you've been married two years. Okay. And you guys are... And we have one child. Oh, you got onewed. You've been married two years. Okay. And you guys are... And we have one child. Oh, you got one kid. How old is your kid?

Two months. Two months. Congratulations. Thank you. I hear it in your voice. Ashley, you're more tired now than you've ever been, aren't you? Yeah. Huh?

Without a doubt. Yeah, I... Yes, you are. So tell me, what is it you and your husband are disagreeing on? So right now we have a $100,000 growth income. Take home is about $75,000. And we have about $33,000 in debt. Currently we have $6,000 in savings.

And I'm putting 9% into my retirement with a $5,500. And so my husband wants to keep the savings and keep my retirement contribution because he believes our income is sufficient enough to get our debt paid off in a year. Whereas I'm fully invested and just doing exactly what Dave Ramsey says and just, you know, putting, keeping that $1,000 in savings and, you know, putting zero into my retirement for right now. Right. Okay. And so break down the $33,000 in debt that you have. What is it? It's $18,000 of student and that's combined with my husband and myself and then about $15,000 in a car.

Okay. Whose car is it? It's mine and my husband's. Okay. I mean, who's the daily driver of the vehicle? Myself. Okay. All right.

And so looking at this, you got plugged into Dave how long ago? About three weeks ago. Okay. Oh, so relatively new. Yeah. Yeah. So what caused you to go from not knowing to knowing about Dave to now wanting to do it 100%? Because of my dad.

He gave me a book for Dave Ramsey probably back when I was in high school, and I never got to reading it. Uh-huh. And we were actually kind of packing some stuff up when we were talking about buying a home, and then I came across it and it and now i'm wanting to listen to my dad absolutely and you know what i think you becoming a parent yourself also has kind of helped you to think a little bit more longer term and you see things differently don't you oh sure and changing our family tree that's exactly right those are beautiful words right there. And so now what is it you do? You get plugged in. So actually, I want to tell you, I want to I want to tell you something.

Your husband is is thinking right kind of based on how the world would think. Right. And you're thinking based on information you were taught and what you're seeing. So what I want you to do is give him an opportunity to understand what it is you're talking about and how it's different. See, you guys aren't talking two totally different languages. You're just dealing at a different rate of speed. Like he's jogging and you're wanting to sprint, right? And what can happen is when you have that difference in approach, it's easy to get frustrated with somebody. Right. And so you go, hold on. We both want what's best for the family.

So which method works? You know, and actually ours is the method that's helped over five million people learn to budget, to get out of debt, to be able to build wealth and give. So give him an opportunity to tap into that. Because I agree with you. Based on the debt that you guys have, $33,000 in debt, $18,000 in student loan, $15,000 in car. You know, right now you've got $6,000 in savings and you're investing 9%. If you're focused on doing it the Dave way, what happens is 5,000 of that comes out of savings, leaving $1,000, baby step one, and immediately goes toward the car, right? That check gets written tonight. I pause the investing, right?

Because what am I doing? I'm saying every dime is going toward debt, and then when I get that done, I'm going to build up an emergency fund. That's the process, right? I'm telling you, we've got 5 million people have done this. The recipe works. So what do you do? Well, if I want the end result that other people are having, I'm going to follow the recipe. And that's exactly what I did.

So, Ashley, give your husband a chance. I'm going to send you the total money makeover as a gift for you all as a married couple, and I know you can do this thing. Just give him some time. He's got to catch up to you. I want to thank producer James Childs, associate producer Kelly Daniel, and you, America, for tuning in. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. This hour's over, but you can find more great content on our YouTube channel.

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