The Ramsey Show - App - The Deeper You Sacrifice the Faster You Win (Hour 1)

Episode Date: April 12, 2019

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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. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

That's 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Austin is starting off this hour in St. Louis. Hey, Austin, how are you? Good, Dave. How are you? It's an honor to speak with you. You too, sir. What's up? Oh, I just got a question about paying back student loans. So my wife graduates next month, and I graduated at the end of 2017 and started paying. So I'm wondering if we should wait to where her payments have to start being paid at the end of this year or go ahead and start because I waited. So I'm just trying to figure out if we should start on that immediately or wait. Well, what we teach folks to do is to get out of debt using a thing called the debt snowball,

where you list all of your debts, not counting your home, smallest to largest, yours and hers, because now it's we because we are married okay and we pay minimum payments on everything but the smallest debt now hers right now minimum payment is zero right correct okay so i would pay minimum payments on that one until i got to it on the debt snowball and then when i got to it on the debt snowball. And then when I got to it on the debt snowball, whether or not I was through the grace period, I would attack it with a vengeance and knock it out. All right. So has she got some small debts that would be towards the top of your debt snowball and

you would get to them before they came out of the grace period? Yes. Okay. Most of the grace periods have interest accruing during the grace period yes okay most of the grace periods have interest accruing during the grace period do these yes well then there's no point in delaying it the sooner you get rid of it the sooner you get rid of the interest right correct you're just not gaining any ground by getting rid of a payment because it doesn't yet have a payment that's all yeah but it's a. So how much student loan debt have you got and how much has she got?

I have about $49,000 left. And hers, I believe, she'll have about $35,000, $36,000. Okay. And your household income is what? About $50,000 right now. She starts working right after she graduates. When will she graduate? May, next month from yesterday.

Oh, great. And what will she be doing? She's going to be an RN. Oh, wonderful. So she can work like a crazy person. Lots of hours. Lots of hours. Very good. Yep. So your income is going to more than double? Yes. She ought to be making $70,000 with OT straight out of the chute in St. Louis. Yeah, definitely. And so you've got $120,000 household income, okay? And you've got $85,000 to clean up.

So it sounds like two years to me. All right. The whole puppy's done. Get after it, dude. You got this. you can do it thanks for calling in keith switherson new york city hi keith how are you i'm good how are you sir better than i deserve what's up well my wife and i are 120 000 in debt and right now i'm kind of confused on what to do we have car loans we have a lot of different things going on, and I'm lost.

Well, I understand. I don't know where to start. Sounds like a little overwhelming. Break that debt down for me. How much is owed on the cars? Okay, on the cars we have $53,000. Okay. So you've got about $70,000 in other stuff. What is that?

Okay, we have credit cards. That are what? About $55,000 in credit cards. Okay. And, excuse me, the other debt is timeshare debt. Timeshare. Okay. You don't have student loans? No, no student loans. That's good news.

What's your household income? Well, right now we bring home about $8,400 a month. Good. Okay. Cool. And are you putting money into your 401ks now? A couple of dollars, yes. Okay.

All right. And are you living on a budget yet? No, not yet. All right. And are you living on a budget yet? No, not yet. All right. Is she as overwhelmed and frustrated and scared as you are? Yes. Yes. Because what happened was she decided, oh, we can get a new car. And we went and leased a new car. And that kind of hurt. Okay. Well, everything, you know, I heard a guy tell me one time he was talking about just being successful in general he said the problem with setting goals that cause you to

become successful is not what you're willing to do to hit the goal uh it's really it's what you're willing to give up you know i'll work my butt off that's one thing but what am i willing to give up and if you want to be debt free making 130 000 a year which you guys are 135 000 a year and be debt free you're gonna have to give up some stuff and i don't know if you're scared enough to do that yet or not. That will be up to you. These are emotional, personal decisions. Now, I know, having walked in this personal finance stuff, my wife Sharon and I, for 40 years now, 35 years now,

and walked with millions of people, literally, without exaggeration, over the last 25 years. I know where you'll end up if you'll do these things, so it's real easy for me to give up your stuff. Okay? Because I can see the end of it for you. I can see how you're going to win. But I don't know if you can see that yet or not.

See, I can see that with the kind of money you make, you could be 100% debt-free and be on the path to being a millionaire in about a year and a half. A year and a half? Yeah, but i've sold both of your cars oh yeah yeah see what i did see you want this knife back yeah reach around behind your back it's between your shoulder blades dude wow you know because see i don't leave so we have to wait for the lease no you don't you sell it you just sell it and uh cover the lease and you know you'll have you'll be upside down you have to cover some upside down and but you make a ton

you make so much money and you're so broke it's so pitiful yeah i just don't want that for you man i want you to win and so i know you'll get if you'll drive like no one else later you can drive like no one else i know if you'll live like no one else later you can give and live like no one else because i've done it and i've seen so many other people do it but you're kind of brand new to this whole idea but the deeper you sacrifice the faster you win. You know? Wow. It's like if you... I'm going to retire in five years. Yeah. Well, you know, you're broke.

I know. Yeah. So we got to do something different, don't we? It's up to you how radical you want to get. But the more radical you get, the more radical your results are going to be in a good way. Hold on. I'll send you a copy of the book,

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Sophia is with us in Orlando. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Sophia. Hi, how are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? I just had a question for you. I wanted to know what were your thoughts about adding a second room to my house as opposed to buying a new house? Okay. I have a newborn and I have a two-story house.

And going upstairs at night just is not really working. So my thoughts were to add a second room downstairs. But my husband just wants to buy a new house. Okay. What is your home worth? Right now, $240,000, $250,000. Okay. And what are the homes on your street and within the surrounding two or three streets

sell for? What is the range? That's about the range $220,000 to $260,000. $220,000 to $260,000, and yours is priced at $250,000? Mm-hmm. Yes, sir. Okay. So you're near the top, and this room would cost how much to add?

I'm calculating $5,000 to $10,000, depending on the size. That'll probably add a closet. Well, I found someone that was willing to do it for that amount. No, they're not. Like a 10 by 10 room. That won't even cover the materials. Are you talking, is there an existing garage you're going to finish out or an existing porch or something?

If you have to build a roof structure and a whole extension to the house, it's going to be more like $25,000. Okay. So I don't know, I don't think you've got accurate numbers. Okay. You need to look into this a little bit more. I mean, is there a garage you're wanting to finish out or some kind of a thing that already has a roof structure over it um my husband's not really interested into making the garage into a room um i would be open to it but that's not what i'm asking i'm saying the five thousand dollar bid is ludicrous okay like like completely off the

charts not right if you're talking about extending an actual structure to a house in north america yeah there's already a door it was just kind of add a room yeah but you need to move twenty five thousand dollars your husband runs the argument you need to move because it's going to cost so much to do this to add a, that you're not going to get the value out. Because you'd have to get $20,000 more than anything else in the neighborhood sold for in order to break even after all this crap. Just to get a room, just so you don't have to go upstairs. So, no, I would just move. I'm with your husband.

I think you're better off from a real estate perspective to move. And I don't think you're better off from a real estate perspective to move and um and i don't think you're dealing with real numbers here yet anyway so thanks for the call frankie's with us in san francisco hey frankie how are you how are you doing sir big fan thank you how can i help um so i'm i just got out of nursing school i set up up my Roth IRA. I've been contributing to it. But I want to start saving for a house. Cool. So I want to keep contributing to my Roth in my traditional,

but I also want to save up for a house. And I feel like there's got to be a better way than just building it, like stacking it in a checking account. Like is there some kind of like, is there any way to gain interest while I try and save for that? Is there a plan that you know of? Interest is not going to cause you to have money for a down payment. You putting money in there is going to cause you to have money because you won't be doing it long enough for the investment returns

to be the answer to your problem. If you're investing for 60 years, your returns are going to be the vast amount of what's in there, 93% to 97% of what's in your account if you're investing for 60 years, your returns are going to be the vast amount of what's in there. 93% to 97% of what's in your account, if you're investing for 40 years, will be returns, not what you put in. But in three years, it's the reverse. 3% of what's in the account will be returns, even if you've got really nice interest rates. So that's not going to bail you out. What's going to bail you out is you've got to want your down payment to be big enough, fast enough that you're willing to work extra or cut your budget in other areas in order to fund that.

What are you making? I'm making a door dash delivery. I mean, I was in a painting union, but now I had to stop to go to nursing school, and now I'm about to graduate in a month. Oh, good. And I'm just trying to get the call. With your LPN or RN? I'm just trying to have a plan. I'm trying to have a plan.

Okay, that's cool. LPN or RN? RN, sir. Perfect. When you pass your boards, your whole life's going to change income-wise. Yeah, I really hope so. Yeah, in San Francisco, the good news about RN is you can... I live in Marin, too.

I live in Marin, too, so it's even better. Perfect. Yeah, it's even better, yeah. So the point being, though, that you can work all the time, and there's all kinds of overtime opportunities in the ER and other stuff for RNs in addition to your regular 40-hour job. And so it is a wonderful job to create extra income, a wonderful career field. And you can turn that up for a little while and then turn it back down later

once you've saved up some money for your house. But, yeah, I mean, you're getting ready to go from making nothing to $70,000, $80,000, $90,000 a year in that marketplace with that. But, again, I'm talking about working 60, 80 hours a week here. I'm not talking about working 35 and partying all the time. So if you want to if you want to go get some money with work you are in a great place to do that you're in a great career field and you'll be able to make this work so you need to be out of debt have your emergency fund in

place of three to six months of expenses and then start saving like crazy if you want to throw continue to throw that roth in, there's nothing wrong with that. You want to limit your retirement temporarily to that. We call it baby step 3B when people delay baby step 4 retirement or do just a partial baby step 4 retirement while they save for a house. And that's right where you are, and you're just going to chunk money away. And you'll get there. You're doing good, man. You've got a good plan for your career, and you're going to to chunk money away. And you'll get there. You're doing good, man.

You've got a good plan for your career, and you're going to make some money. Life is good. Stacey's with us in Cincinnati. Hi, Stacey. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

What's up? Today's my birthday, so your advice is going to be the greatest gift. Well, happy birthday. Thank you. I am wondering what your opinion is, if you think that I'm in a position to purchase a building for about $200,000 after I do the upgrades, and I'm going to start another business out of that. Okay. Currently, I owe $43,000 on my home.

It's valued at about $350,000. I owe about $15,000 in scattered medical bills, which all of that, if we followed our plan, we would be paid off about February because I'm paying over $1,000 a week. So you don't have $200,000? No, I have $200,000? Write a check today and pay off those debts. Well, you had other debt. Yeah, well, you have money sitting in savings? I don't know, just security.

We have three businesses, so I like to have a little extra in the back. Well, you're asking what I would do if I were in your shoes. What I would do if I were in your shoes is I would become debt-free as fast as I possibly could, and I would not buy real estate to operate a business out of unless I paid cash for it. So, no, I would not purchase that building because you will end up with the tail wagging the dog, meaning you will end up doing all kinds of crap for this piece of real estate instead of doing the thing that's making you money, which is running your business. Rent.

This would start a new business. Rent. It's also a new business. Rent. It's also purchasing a business. Rent. Rent. Rent. Okay. All right.

I did for years, and then I saved up and paid cash for the building that we're sitting in, and then I've saved up and paid cash for the building that we're building, that we're moving to, and it's the only way that real estate doesn't end up messing up your business. I love real estate, but people buy a building and then they stay in the wrong location because they own the building. Or they get so worried about paying their payments on the building that they quit thinking about how to run and grow a business. So you're much better off to let your growing, thriving, starting business have room to expand by moving and not by owning. So let's get the business stabilized, get it up and running, get it making some money, and get yourself in a position you can pay cash. You'll be really glad you did it that way.

Don't get distracted with real estate purchases when you're running a business. Make that a secondary issue. 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, Thank you. CHM members share to pay each other's medical bills. It's not insurance. It's Christians financially and spiritually supporting each other. It's what Christian Healthcare Ministries has done for over 35 years. And our members have shared over $2.5 billion in medical bills.

To learn more, visit chministries.org. That's chministries.org. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org. Felix and Dawn are with us in Honolulu. Hey, guys, how are you? Hi, Dave. Hey, Dave. I see on my screen you're debt-free.

Congratulations. How much you paid off? $140,000 in 17 months. Woo! Look at you. And how long, and 17 months, and what was your range of income during that time? We started at around $180,000 and we went down to $150,000. Okay, cool. What do you all do for a living?

So I work for the federal government and Felix. I am a truck driver. And he just retired from the Army. Oh, okay. Thank you for your service, sir. Very cool. You're welcome. What kind of debt was the 140? Everything.

We had cars. I had a business debt. Just remodeling and a couple of rentals. Everything. Did you sell stuff? Everything. What did you sell? We sold three cars, but only two of them cash flowed we sold 6300 worth of stuff in between the facebook marketplace and garage sales wow

we sold stuff we found at the bulk trash we sold everything did you say you had a rental did you sell the rental we didn't sell the rental. You kept the rental, kept your house. But everything else we sold, living room, furniture, because we went from 3,000 square feet to 800 square feet in Honolulu. Wow. So you moved way down then.

Yes. We moved from Huntsville, Alabama to Honolulu. So we cash flowed that move too. That was about $15,000. Okay. Wow. So what did the total of the stuff you sold out of the $140,000, because I'm trying to make this math work, how much of that $140,000 was selling stuff? Like $60,000?

$85,000. Well, we did $6,300 in garage sales and another $8,000 in cars, and then the rest of it we cash flowed. That's $14,000 off of $140,000, and you were making $180,000, and you did it in 17 months. You guys have lived on beans and rice. Yes. You've done nothing. Wow. What got you so fired up 17 months ago?

I was picking my job and wanted to change jobs. I was burnt out and then felix was retiring it's the same year and then felix retired in 17 so i met felix in 16 and then we started doing some things as a single as singles and then we got married july of 17 okay and then um felix was retiring um and you took the job and so you took the job in Honolulu? Yes. Wow. What an adventure.

Yes, it's been. Yeah, very cool. Where'd you grow up? Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Okay. I was in the Navy. That's how we came back to Honolulu. I got you.

Okay. All right. So you were familiar with it then. All right. Yes. Well, thank you for your service as well then. Very cool. How does it feel, Felix, to be debt-free?

It feels amazing. And it takes away the stress of how you're going to continue to pay off these bills. Yeah. It just makes you feel, you just wake up with a smile on your face. Yeah. It just makes you feel, you just wake up with a smile on your face. Yeah. I mean, you've got $150,000 household income right now and no debt. Right. That's like money.

It is. Wow. Very cool. What do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is? Teamwork. Teamwork and communication. And a zero-based budget. And selling everything in sight Because you did

If it wasn't nailed down, it's gone I love it Very cool Where's the rental? It's in Huntsville Okay, alright Very cool, good for you guys Very well done

Who was your biggest cheerleaders? I met a friend named sherry she showed me how to do this a while ago and it took me i was doing dave ish and then she was like you have to do the program the right way you keep doing dave ish and so she was the one that kept saying you're not doing it right you're not doing it right you have to do it this way and so i decided to listen wow so that would be Sherry. Okay, cool. And Felix, when she comes in and says, okay, we're going to start selling everything in sight,

we're cleaning this up, what did you say? I was all in because I was sick and tired of being sick and tired of not being able to get those credit card bills to go away. I hear you. I sold like the lamps, the canisters out the kitchen. He would go look for them they would be gone it would be stuff gone and he's just like where's that i'm like oh that's gone well when you want it bad enough you'll do what it takes to get there right that's correct and when you make 150 a year you can buy new stuff right

life has been sweet and we we actually lived off the same budget. We have not changed our budget. So I get $52 a week, and Felix gets $52 every two weeks. Felix gets $55. Well, Felix, you get a lot more than her, man. Yeah, I don't appreciate that too much. You guys are fun. I'm so proud of you.

Very well done. Very well done. Very well done. What a great story. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Everyday Millionaires, how ordinary people built extraordinary wealth and how you can, too. And you're on your way to being an everyday millionaire. That's the next chapter in you guys' story. Way to go.

Very proud of you. Felix and Dawn, Honolulu, Hawaii, $140,000 paid off in 17 months, making $180,000 to $150,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Love it! Well done, you guys.

Very well done. Rachel is in Dallas. Rachel, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you, Dave. What's up? Well, we want... Okay, so we have a loan student loan debt, and my husband wants to buy a house

because he's tired of paying money into rent every month, and he wants it to go into something, you know, that is more of an investment. And so, but we can't because of our debt-to-income ratio. Good. And so. You don't need to buy a house. You're broke. Yeah.

Yeah. And so you need to rent as cheap as you can possibly rent and begin to attack these student loans. What's your household income? It's about $102,000 a year. $102,000? Yeah. Okay. What do you guys do for a living?

He's a chiropractor, and I am just like an admin. Okay. And how much student loan debt do you all have? $360,000. Oh, my admin. Okay. And how much student loan debt do you all have? $360,000. Oh, my God. Yeah. How much of that is just chiropractic? Well, he went to dental school for a few years and then realized he didn't want to be a dentist,

and so then he went to chiropractic school and became a chiropractor. So, like, about over $100,000 of it chiropractic, and the rest is the dental. So none of it's you? No, I already paid off my student loan debt before we got married. Okay. And how long has he been a chiropractor? About seven years. Seven years?

Six or seven years, yeah. And he makes what? Well, he started out really low, like $50,000. What does he make now? You said the household income is $102,000. You make $30,000 and he makes $72,000. He makes $72,000. Yeah, so he's at the bottom range of what chiropractors make after seven years.

What are we going to do to get his practice going? Well, he doesn't own the practice. He works for someone else. Yeah, but there's lots of chiropractors that work for someone else that make $100. Yeah. In Dallas, Texas. Yeah. And you need to do that since you spent all this freaking money on student loans.

So we've got to get your income up, for one thing, and then you guys are going to have to start living like you're broke and putting all your money on debt as fast as you can. Rachel, if you guys do not become very, very serious about this, this is going to overwhelm your family and set you back decades. Yeah. You're going to have to become very serious. I don't want you freaked out. I don't want you worried.

But I want you extremely focused and angry at that debt, both you and him. He's just as lackadaisical as he can be. I can tell by the way this whole story's gone down, and I'm not okay with that. Run up $360,000 in debt and sit on your thumbs. That won't

work, kiddo. You're going to have to get with it here. You're going to have to get mad and focused, and not at him, and him not at you, but focused. Because this is a mess. This is a mess. He has made a mess.

And you're going to have to clean it up. It's not going away. There's no magic student loan fairy. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thanks for joining us, America. We're glad you are here. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. That means even if you mismeasure, you pick the wrong color, they will remake your blinds for free.

You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Use the promo code RAMSY to get the best possible deal. Rules and restrictions apply. Today's question comes from Wesley in Utah. He visits DaveRamsay.com and says, Dave, my name is Wesley. I'm 17. I'm a junior in high school. Wondering what I can do now to start building the best financial future for myself what are my options in terms of saving and investing i have about five thousand dollars saved in the bank and i make about two thousand dollars a summer well wesley i know there's a lot

of people barking about college out there right now college is just too expensive and you just can't afford to go to college and you can't get a job if you go to college, and all that kind of crap is floating around out there. So here's my perspective as a guy who actually has 854 people working on our team, meaning I hired them. Going to college and studying something that is usable in the marketplace is, by and large, a really good idea. So getting a degree in communications or business or you want to move into the medical field and be a nurse or a doc or whatever,

those are all wonderful things to study. Now, studying something useless and doing it in a university that costs 26 times too much and you get a degree in left-handed puppetry is a bad idea, okay? But there's people that do that. They come out with a PhD in German polka history and then wonder why they can't get a job. But that's dumber than a rock. And then they're $200,000 in debt because they went to some stupid prestigious school that they couldn't afford. Now, if you want to go to a prestigious school, I'm fine with that as long as you pay cash for it. So all of that to say, Wesley, what I would plan on doing if I'm 17 years old

is I can prove to you mathematically the best possible investment you could make would be into Wesley. The rate of return on a reasonably priced education in a field of study that actually is applicable in the marketplace, you're going to make more money on what you spend to go to a state school than it will cost you, and you'll make more money on you for the rest of your life because of that than you would on a mutual fund investment. So I could show you some tricky numbers and do double backflips, and we could do all this compound interest stuff, and it would be really sexy and cool.

If you're 17 years old and you invest $5,000, when 87 years old you'll have eight four eighty four million dollars or whatever it's not that but i mean i could show you all that stuff because it's actually amazing if you start investing in an early age what you will have but the truth is the best rate of return is a budget conscious high quality education in a field of study that is usable. It's the best advice I can give you. So if I'm 17 and I have $5,000 and I make $2,000 a summer, I'm piling up money to make sure I go to college debt-free. And I'm going to go to an in-state school,

maybe to a community college for the first two years and get the basics out of the way, at a third the cost, a fourth the cost a fourth the cost or zero cost depending on what state you're in and then i'm going to go to a good state school in state tuition and study something that's actually usable in the marketplace and so you know i've got a friend of mine his son just graduated with an engineering degree i got another friend of mine uh his son his daughter just graduated and son too but his daughter got a degree in uh supply chain and logistics and uh those young people are coming out with an undergraduate degree making eighty thousand dollars a year straight out of school and they have they can they can make upward of six figures within five years in the marketplace

that is a very usable degree. And it's kind of fun if you're a math nerd like me. But anyway, it's what do you want to study? What do you want to be? I understand that. You need to find something you're passionate about. But for God's sakes, do not get a PhD in gender studies and then wonder why you're broke.

That's just dumb. Okay? If you want to study that, that's fine. And if okay? If you want to study that, that's fine. And if you've got the money to study that, that's fine. I'm not mad at you. But society does not owe you a job. So go at it, folks. But let's not all decide college is a ripoff.

College is a ripoff if you don't need to go to college. Some people need to go be a heat and air person or study, be a welder at the trade school and be an apprentice electrician. You can make really good money doing those things. If you want to go do that and work with your hands and that's the way you're wired, great. Go do that. I've got no issue with any of that. Not everybody needs to go to college.

But this idea that nobody needs to go to college because we've got a bunch of idiots that have run up $1.6 trillion in student loan debt getting degrees that are useless, that's ridiculous. Your critical thinking skills are off, which is kind of humorous when we're discussing education and you have no critical thinking skills. So anyway, all that to say, Wesley, one more time one more time you son are your best possible investment i would save up and pay cash for college and that's what i would do if i were in your shoes oh by the way it's what i did i didn't quite pay cash i had thirty six hundred dollars of student loan debt when i got out um in 1982 when i graduated when the dinosaurs roamed the earth. All right, Heidi is with us in Vancouver, Washington. Hey, Heidi, how are you?

Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I am a 44-year-old stay-at-home mom, and my husband is 48. He makes $175,000 a year. And we have yet to get term life insurance, and a bit of a mistake. So we're trying to correct that.

But I'm curious to know if it's a wise investment for one reason. He is a type 1 diabetic, and he's also a nicotine user. So the best estimates that we have gotten from any insurance agent has been over $300 a month. So I'm wondering if we should still go about doing that. And we were looking at a 20-year term that's giving us about $200,000. Yeah, that's really very, very expensive. I agree. Having no insurance is not a good idea.

What does he do for a living? He is a VP of sales and marketing. Okay. Type one is, I'm not a medical person, but I've just been around the insurance business and financial planning business for a thousand years. It's often diet controlled, correct? This is actually, he is insulin controlled. He's on a pump, and he is in good control. The thing that actually makes it... Is he still overweight? No, he's not overweight. The thing that actually makes it more expensive is the nicotine. Yeah, that doubles everything. Yes, but as of right now, that doesn't seem to be changing,

and so I just have to go with that. So you smell bad, you have bad breath you're not going to die from it and your insurance is double or triple but we don't want to lay them down yeah okay that's dumber than a rock station yeah and i just got to leave it alone for now oh and they cost money i don't like like a lot yeah yeah but so my the consideration is that I was looking at a 20-year term. Yeah, I think you take a shorter term, and you may have to take less coverage because of his health and his habits. Your life insurance is just ridiculously expensive. But I'm scared to death if you walk around with nothing, though.

Yeah. If something happens to him you make he makes 175 how many kids have you got we have two kids uh the youngest is 15 the older one is 18 my reason for looking at the 20-year term though was because i have not worked outside the home in almost 20 years um i was looking at it as a, he's 48, so therefore it would get me to retirement age. Well, the thing is, you're making plenty, he's making plenty of money,

so you should be able to get the kids out of the house and be debt-free, you know, working our system. And then your need for life insurance goes way down at that point. You would just need it. If you had a half-million dollar, million dollars in mutual funds, no dad and no kids at home and he dies, you'd be okay. You'd be, and that's what I'd be working towards.

I wouldn't be working towards keeping insurance for your whole life, but you guys need to get real disciplined on your work, working our baby steps and that'll help you. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for the Dave Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit DaveRamsey.com slash show and register. We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story.