The Ramsey Show - App - The Facts About Biden's New SAVE Plan For Student Loans (Hour 1)

Episode Date: August 23, 2023

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, it's The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life, about your money. I am your host, Jade Warshaw. I am joined by Ken coleman america's career coach in the house in the house thank you ken uh and like i said we're here to talk about

your life and money so give us a call the number is 888-825-5225 and we will chop it up with you let's go straight to the phone lines we got amber in los Los Angeles, California. What's going on in California, Amber? Hey, how are you? Doing good. How are you? Good. Thanks for taking my call. I'm a new listener. I still went across the YouTube channel about probably like a day after I paid for financial guidance. I'm 33. I'm single. I'm in California. I'm a registered nurse. But growing up, I never really had any financial guidance. I saw my parents struggle going through bankruptcy and I kind of feel like I'm going in the same footsteps. After I found the show, I enrolled in Financial Peace University, but I'm kind of stuck on Baby Step 1.

I don't really have any extra funds left over to cover minimum payments for my debt. So I'm kind of just stuck. What do I do in that situation? That's such a good question. And I think a lot of people find themselves there. Typically, when you find that you don't have any margin left, you're barely covering minimum payments, there's no money there, it's usually a combination of a couple of things. One, your actual core income is probably not high enough. It's not sustaining your life. It also could be that you need to cut back in your lifestyle, or it might be a combination of the two. So let's get a little bit more information from you. What's your current income? I make about $90,000 a year.

My debt is a lot of student loans, but there's also consumer debt there. Can you break that down? Sure. My student loans, probably about $194,000 because I went to a private school. It's pretty expensive. And then credit cards, $20,000. Personal loans, $38,000. $38,000. Okay. What kind of degree do you have? I have my bachelor's, but I'm in school for my master's. I'll be done next April. What field is it? Nursing, sorry. Okay. So you do have a lot of student loans what's the minimum payment on those student loans the minimum is like 1500 a month because that's such a high interest rate yeah because

they're private what is it like 7.5 um one of them is the other is 11.5 yeah those things get those things get high fast okay so we're working full time. We're in our field. Like you said, these student loans are just, and you've been paying them the whole time because they were never put on pause, right? Because they're private. Right. What is, what have you been doing? Have you just been barely getting by? Are you using the credit cards to fill in the gap? Is that where the credit card debt is coming from? Right. Exactly. The credit cards and the personal loans. Yeah. It started started with I had to pay taxes one year for work and I didn't have that emergency fund or any kind of money saved so I had to go out

and get a loan and then kind of just snowballed from there are you currently on a budget I did um look through I enrolled in every dollar um and I looked at everything and I'm not really spending much outside of my bills. I don't really have extra to spend. So constantly have like a negative account or I have to borrow from like family or friends. So what I want, what I would say is I want you to get back on that every dollar budget because it's just good to keep those numbers in front of you. Plus you're going to start working to get more income coming in because that's the only solution to this problem. If you've got a big hole, you need to have a big shovel. So for you, that's going to look like doing extra work, picking up extra shifts, side hustles, whatever you can do to get that extra margin. I mean,

$1,000 would make a huge difference for you right now going towards your debt, right? Yes. Yeah. What is your rent or mortgage situation? My rent is $2,100 a month. Okay. And it's kind of hard to find something cheaper. I don't really have family that I could live with.

That's what I originally thought of. How many kiddos? You said you're a single mom? No, I don't have any kids. I'm sorry. So you are single. Mm-hmm. Okay. I don't have any kids. I'm sorry. So you are single. Okay. I'm looking for a roommate.

I know that's right. I think Jade's absolutely right on you need to make more income, and I'll add to that in a second. But if I'm you, I'm finding a roommate stat. Los Angeles, there's got to be plenty of other single ladies out there that you can interview and you get good sense and just find somebody who's willing to live with you because they need to cut as well. And let me just tell you something. If you get a roommate, do you have two bedrooms?

No, just one. Oh, geez. Well, I'd get a bunk bed, honestly. You know, I understand if you've got a one bedroom, that's a little bit different. So I didn't want to go too far down that, but I would be looking at stuff like that. You know, do they have a, do you have a couch and would someone like to save $1,100 a month? I know you would. Am I right? You're right. Why wouldn't you try that? You have nothing to lose, but that's $1,100 raise by getting a roommate. Look, I'm Amber just tell you i you're single when my husband and

i were paying off our student loans which by the way um there was one of them that was around 194 000 uh we got roommates as married people ken why not and look 10 out of 10 would not recommend that but if you're getting out of debt for a short short season. For a short season, go on and do it. Y'all used your brain. You used your brain. Heck yeah. You had some discernment. You probably had a process.

They weren't ax murderers. No, they were old friends. And we decided that we would try it for a year, Amber. And after a year, we were like, okay, that's enough. But in your case, you might be able to have a better situation because it's just you. It's not for people to navigate a space. Look, let it's totally worth it. $1,100 times 12 months, you know what that equals. Would that change your life dramatically, Amber? It would definitely help out. All right. Now that I know, and I misunderstood,

I thought you were single mama. So now I'm going all in. All right? You're single. You're a nurse. I'd be pulling every extra shift that I could possibly get. And Amber, I'm not talking out of my motivational hat here. I remember about a year ago, I was on with Dave Ramsey on this very show, and a nurse stood across the studio to us on the debt-free stage and talked about how she was working 60 and 70 hours a week and she paid off $260,000 worth of debt. So Amber, you've got a very nice profession. You have got an opportunity to go out and work. I know that the nursing industry is strapped and there is opportunity for you, yes or no?

Yes, and I've actually just recently got hired for a per diem job, so I know I'll be able to do it, but I think I'm just scared about it. I don't have the tools. You do. I didn't grow up with that. No, Amber, listen, we're going to walk with you. We're going to walk with you. You've got every dollar.

You've got FPU. You're going to get in a class. You're going to sit among other people who are trying to figure it out and we have got the baby steps all you got to do is walk it out i also want to give you something i'm going to give you uh dave's wildly best-selling book total money makeover to read one chapter a day while you're going through fpu you know what to do and amber Amber, you can do it. I'm not betting against you, but you better go get busy, get a roommate on that couch, and get you a whole lot more hours. And before you know it, you're going to be rocking this thing. And in the meantime,

I want you to go sign up for Rachel Cruz's Every Dollar Webinar. She's going to teach you exactly how to do it. That's August 24th. Be there, Amber. You need this. All right, you're listening to The Ramsey Show. I am Jade Warshaw, joined by Ken Coleman. And you can give us a call if you want to talk about whatever's on your mind, 888-825-5225. But I'm going to tell you guys what is on my mind, and it's probably on your mind as well, and that is student loans, Ken. Watch out, folks. I'm warning you. She's amazing. She's delightful, but she's about ready to fire it up. I mean, look, here's where it lands. You guys know. I'm going to talk about student loans until I'm blue in the face, and you probably know that the Biden administration opened up a new loan

repayment plan. It is called the SAVE plan. It says this new repayment program opens today for more than 20 million student loan borrowers. And these payments are based on their income and their family size. OK, the Biden administration announced that the savings on a valuable education program. That's the acronym. I don't know why they do that. They just want something to sound good. So it's really just called the SAVE plan, okay? Freaking bureaucrats. That's all they do. They just want it to sound special. Just know it's called the SAVE plan, okay? It's one of the many, I should say one of the four income-driven repayment plans. This is the newest

one because the program will calculate your monthly payment, like I said, based on your income, your family size, and the hope that they're hoping is that it will help you, quote, save money on payments. Now let's stop right there. The way we teach, I don't want you to save money on payments. I want you to pay the thing off. So I don't want your payment to go lower necessarily. I want you to spend more money monthly towards your debt so it can go away faster. Right. Can I point out that there's some shenanigans in this? There are some shenanigans. This is what you need to understand. And don't get sucked into this. I'm going to give it right back to you where you were, but I want to point out why Jade's right. This program is an end around the Supreme Court's decision.

The Supreme Court said that Biden acted illegally in trying to forgive student loans. So what does the Biden administration do? They come up with this nifty little program, and this is in the fine print. This program will calculate monthly payments based on borers income and family size the administration estimates that under this new save program more than a million borrow borrowers listen to this will qualify for zero payments zero dollars in payment it's an end around this is what they're saying is to americans we feel your pain and they're going we're going to try to fix it to where you don't have to pay anything back and then they're going to go well

based on this uh some will only will save about a thousand dollars a year but this is all about making sure that the interest doesn't balloon but this is another political tactic and if you go along with this you're going to say thank you uncle joe you're never gonna pay this off well here's the thing you know and and i want to talk about this practically because what i see on social media is folks saying jade why wouldn't i do this the interest is not going to accrue it doesn't matter what my payment is at the end of this term no interest will accrue and they'll forgive whatever's left not gonna happen well here the thing. No one is thinking about how long this is. Okay. You, even if you had, it starts at $19,000, right? If you have student loans as low as $19,000, you're still in for a bare minimum of 10 years. You would have to pay a bare minimum

of 10 years to get that proclaimed for freedom at the end. And then for every thousand dollars above that, another year. Okay. So for most people, they're going to be looking just, and this is just averages. All right. Most people are going to be around 30,

25 to 30 years paying back. Right. That's not worth it. Can I just tell, let me, let me tell you guys a little story. Most of you guys know that Sam and I had around $280,000 of student loans.

And a lot of ours were private loans, okay? So we didn't have all these options. They were not talking about repayment, okay? This was back during the Great Recession that we started paying our loans off, Ken. So, you know, the world was going crazy, very similar to how it is right now. Now it's inflation. Back then it was the housing market, gas prices, the world was going crazy, very similar to how it is right now. Now it's inflation.

Back then it was the housing market, gas prices, all that crazy stuff. And let me tell you, my husband and I, there were different types of payment plans back then. And we hopped on a couple because it was like, okay, our student loans are so expensive. We could not handle them. Like we could not pay them. We didn't have enough money. And I can tell you, even when you go on a payment plan and it lowers your payment from $500 to $84,

you still feel the weight. You still know those loans are there. They're sitting there. They're waiting for you. I cannot physically imagine having that there for the next 25 years. You want to talk about cutting years off your life the stress the amount of stress just knowing they were there now here's what i do want

to say because i'm about to flip the script on some of y'all when it comes to these income-driven repayment plans the only time and i say only in big, bold letters with lots of exclamation points next to it, okay? The only time I would ever consider a payment plan like this is with the intention of lowering my monthly payment temporarily, Ken, so that I can get as much money in my budget to throw it at the smallest debt in my debt snowball. Sure. You got it? That makes sense.

Do y'all feel what I'm saying? I wrote it down in case I forget because I get in trouble. Okay. I don't want nobody getting in trouble. She's laying it out there. If you sign up for one of these income-driven repayment plans, just simply to kick the can down the road, thinking you're going to get forgiveness after 25 years,

y'all need to stop right now. You're just playing yourself. But if you really want to play it right, what you need to do is like, okay, if my payment, matter of fact, I have actually a picture of one of Sam and I's payments that we had. This was from, is this Navient? This was just one set of the many loans we had. And you can see there, the payment is somewhere around 500 and some odd dollars. And we were able to work with them to get the payment down to $257. And we did that to free up more money to go to our smallest debt on our debt snowball. We did that temporarily. And then

when it came time to pay that debt, we were hitting that thing with a machine gun as quickly as we could. So there is some smart guidance around this, Ken. But what I really don't want people doing is saying, oh, great, I can pay zero dollars. I'll just ride that wave forever. That's a terrible idea. Yeah, because here's the deal. You don't know what administration's coming in next and who's going to be in charge. And this idea that someone from the government is eventually going to agree with this person. Folks, I mean, you don't have control over that. No. I don't like that idea of holding it and holding it and holding it and holding it. And think about it.

These are the people who helped put you in this position. The government cannot put you first, guys. It's true. They have never put you first. Yeah. It's impossible for them to put you first. There's too many of us. They're going to do what's best for whatever administration is at the time. Only you can put you first. There's too many of us. They're going to do what's best for whatever administration is at the time. Only you can put you first. Well, let's remember that there's been no conversation in

Washington, D.C. about stopping the federal student loan program. That's a fact. So while all these people are supposedly being forgiven or hope to be forgiven, they're still doling them out to this new fresh crop of high school students that are about ready to go into the next year. And so you've got to understand, folks, this is a game that you haven't set the rules for. That's right. You either play the game or get out of the game. And we're here to help you get out of the game. I know that's right. And we're doing that. We are doing a student loan. This is awesome. Livestream. Guys, this is what we need to be telling you about. You and Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruz teaming up. That's right. September 12th. It's free. Is it? It's free. It's absolutely free. Yeah. Guys, we're going to walk you through because I know half the folks can are like,

stop talking and just tell me what to do. Tell me what I'm supposed to do. We are going to tell you exactly what to do. Matter of fact, I was in a meeting yesterday with the big eagle himself, Dave Ramsey. And he was like, I don't want to- The big eagle as opposed to the bald eagle? I see what you did there. The big eagle, man. He was like, I don't want to spend a lot of time with any fluff. I want to get down to business. These people want to know it. And that's what we're going to do, guys. Sign up. We want to just save your seat. It's a live stream. We want to know that you're coming. So sign up. It's September 12th. You can go to ramseysolutions.com slash student loans. And while you're there, there's also some things that you can start doing today to start preparing

for these payments because they're coming back. Ken, they're coming with a vengeance. I want you folks to post this. If you're a part of our tribe and you want to help others, you have a lot of power on social media. Post the link, ramsaysolutions.com slash studentloans. It'll bring up a really cool graphic, make you look like you know what you're doing on social media. Tell people, it's free. Even if you don't have student loans, you know someone who has student loans. Oh, it's going to be great. I love it. This is what it's all about, guys. We want to bring that hope. It's not hopeless. Please, please believe me.

If I'm standing here with zero dollars of student loan debt, so can you. The time is going to pass anyway. Most people are able to do it in 24, 36 months. We see it every day. This is The Ramsey Show. All right, you guys are listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. This is Ken Coleman. And you may not know this, but all month long, we are giving away cash here at Ramsey Solutions.

And you could have the chance to win. We do this a couple of ways. Each week, we give away $500. And then at the end, we give away $3,000 to a lucky winner, which is pretty cool. You can do this, guys. You can sign up to win and cast your vote or whatever by going to RamseySolutions.com slash cash giveaway.

I got to be honest. I love this because people need this cash to pay off debt, Ken Coleman. We are walking through baby steps. Any little bit helps. And it's funny because people come through here all the time and they're like, Jade, I can't believe it. I actually walking through baby steps. Any little bit helps. And it's funny because people come through here all the time and they're like, Jade, I can't believe it. I actually won the cash giveaway. Right. And I love it because it's Dave's money, not my money. Okay. I know that's right. Although we do love being generous. With Dave's money. Not even with a little bit of Ken Coleman's

money. I do. It just sounds more fun to say it that way. But no, it is. This is something we always look forward to. It's an annual tradition and you can enter to win once a day. So keep coming back. That always increases the old chances, I'm guessing. I don't know. You just keep signing up, signing up, signing up. And there's also some great deals on a lot of our products as well. So August is always like a second Christmas around here. Yeah. Some people say Christmas in July. We say Christmas in August. That's right. But yeah, all those books are on there. And you know, we got John Deloney's books. Your books are on there. You can get these books for as low as $12. I'd like to point out that I have two teenage boys, so I need help with groceries.

So you can make your donation by buying one of my books. A lot of bacon. That's right. A lot of bacon. There's also the Questions for Humans cards that are there, which are such a big hit. I love those. Yeah. Have you have you ever used them yeah but i'd rather you talk about my products because i don't get paid on all right king you know what king coleman let me set you up right now i'm just no stop no i am this is real this is too many jokes today on facebook i was looking at

our ramsey baby steps community which has got a bagillion people in it. That's a lot. And there was a girl in there. She was like, I cannot figure out, I'm 19. I can't figure out what I want to do with my life. I was like, I know just the thing. Ken Coleman's career assessment. There it is. So we gifted it to her. Clear assessment. That's a great product. That's there as well. And again, all proceeds go to groceries. Groceries for kids. Ken's kids. I'm not above groveling about my grocery bill with two teenage boys. They literally have hollow legs. You know this is coming.

Hollow legs. Yeah, they can eat and eat and eat and eat and eat. That's just part of being a teenage boy. You know what I mean? Look. One day your little man is going to be eating you out. He already is. Is he already?

My guy can eat, okay? He can eat this boy. I'm like, how are you eating the same as me all right that's it guys head over there we want you to go to ramsey solutions.com slash giveaway you can sign up to win you can get yourself some books some content some questions for humans all at a discounted rate and you do not have to donate to ken's kids fund okay you don't have to. Let's go to Audrey in Macon, Georgia. What's going on, Audrey? Hi.

Hey, how are you doing? Good, how are you? Good, how can we help? I guess my question is, am I crazy for thinking I'm going to be able to buy a home before I'm 36? I read a statistic the other day

and the new average for first-time homebuyers is 36. Well, you know, do you want to know how I feel about that kind of stuff? I don't really let it get to me because at the end of the day, like, stats are great, but you get to choose if you're going to be part of the statistics based on your actual situation in the situation that you create for yourself, right? Numbers change when people change. So let's get into the specifics here. What do you need to get out of? What kind of debt do you have? How long would it take you to get up a nice down payment the way that we teach? So what are your realities? I am in my last semester of college. I have about $2,000 on my credit card from school. So I don't have, I don't technically have student

debt. So that's good. And I pay on that credit card monthly. No, I have no other debt. Are you single? No. So that's the other half. My boyfriend, we plan to get married. They say it's easier if you buy a house when you're married. Let's talk about that. How old are you?

Okay, go into that. Yeah. I am 23. 23 okay you're 23 you've got a boo and you guys are planning on getting married when um we don't really have a timeline on it okay how long why i mean we're thinking she's young ken she's no. You see, you took that why the wrong way. I want to know, is this the guy? Is this the guy for you?

I'm not rushing you. I'm just saying. This is the guy. Does he think that you're the lady? She said, comma, however. I would hope so. Well, you better know so. That's my whole point, right?

Well, that's why they're not married yet kanky she doesn't just it's not she don't know yet i know but my point is don't go into this thing like well i might get married because of a house it's like no no no no yes you see where i'm coming yeah she put in the cart before we know we want we know we want to get married i just never put a big i've never i've never been one to be like we have to get married at this time so um okay so let's let's approach this as though it's just waiting on me to get out of college before we move forward okay I'm fine with that that's fine Jade you took issue with saying what she said it's I've been told it's easier yeah to get a house in your mirror and you were like whoa yeah what's going on with you um one thing doesn't really have to

do with the other for me okay so you you deciding to get married or not get married to this dude that's one choice and then home purchasing is a complete other thing separate from that so let's talk about buying a house when you're buying a house what denotes um audrey when it's time to buy a house is if you can afford to buy a house that's really the biggest thing based on based on your income based on how much you're able to put down based on if you are in a secure job that you're going to be able to continue. You know, there's so many things there. So in your situation, what's your living situation right now? I just live at home. I virtually have no expenses. Okay. So what I would tell you to do, I'd say, Audrey, set aside $1,000 today as a starter

emergency fund. And then I would say, audrey pay off this two thousand dollars in credit card debt and cut up the card never to be seen again and then i would say audrey i want you to build up three to six months of expenses because i don't want you buying a house without savings if you buy a house without savings that is known as a disaster because home ownership costs money okay money don't get me started okay Don't get me started. Okay. Don't get me started on a house. I'm looking at a roof right now. A roof situation. The AC. The AC. Water leaks. Yeah. And these don't cost a little bit. These cost the most. So you need that three to six months. And then you want to start looking at setting aside a down payment,

okay? Down payment, you're looking at 20%, you know, no less than 10%. Like we want to get that down payment up there. But then you also have to think of other things that go along with buying a house like closing costs and earnest money and all these things. So you need to have a nice stack of cash is what I'm saying. All right. Right. And that's what I've been trying to do is put away cash. I'm just scared it's not enough. Well, what you can do is Ramsey Solutions has a really great, it's a how much home can I afford calculator. That's great.

And you can go in there and you can plug in your numbers because at the end of the day, here's what we're looking for. This is the formulation for success we want the payment to be no more than 25 percent of your take-home pay right so if you end up getting married after you got married if you two did buy a house no more than 25 percent of your combined take-home pay right that's what you're looking for on a 15-year fixed mortgage. Yes? None of this 30-year business. So that's what we're looking for.

So use that calculator and see. Are you making any money yet? I am, but it's only part-time. I'm an intern at an accounting office. Yeah, so first things first, we got to get the money rolling in consistently. We got to figure out, you know, I don't know that that's the next step for you moving forward. It sounds like there's some relational business that needs to be sorted out. That's what I'm saying.

Let's commit. Come on. I'm old school. Let's commit. What is this dating for 10 years? We've been offered a family heirloom, so we're on the way there. Oh, I like where this is headed. That's what I'm talking about. So, you know, it's first things first.

You know, if it turns out it doesn't work out with this guy, you still know the blueprint. And maybe on down the line, you'll get a home. However it happens, it's going to happen the right way because you've got the right information, girl. This is The Ramsey Show. All right, you guys are listening to The Ramsey Show. I am your host today, Jade Warshaw, joined by one of my favorite co-hosts ever, Ken Coleman. There it is, folks.

That's money well spent right there. Get you a compliment like that. I say that about all the co-hosts. You do, don't you? I love you all. Yes, we love you as well. Well, give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225.

We want to hear from you. We want to answer your questions. We want to know what is it that's going on in your life that's making things frustrating with your money? Is it somebody in your family? Is it your kids? Is it student loans? Tell us what's going on.

We will do our best to help you out. But I also want to say for all of our folks who are listening for the first time, you might be listening and you're like, man, y'all are out here talking about all sorts of stuff that I don't understand. I heard you talk about the baby steps. I heard you mention a debt snowball. I am new here and I want to get the lingo. I want to make sure I'm on board with you guys. So if you're a new listener and you want to dive deeper into our Ramsey baby steps, I would tell you to go to ramseysolutions.com and click on the little get started button. I think it's up there in the right corner.

We'll help you figure out what the best next step is for your financial journey based on where you're at today, okay? So that's ramseysolutions.com and click that get started button and we'll be there to help you out. In the meantime, let's go to Bailey in Green Bay, Wisconsin. What's going on, Bailey?

Hey, thanks for taking my call, everyone. Awesome. How are you? I'm doing fantastic. How are you? Doing good. So what's going on? So as a lot of people my generation, I went to college. I got a four-year. I worked about two or three jobs every semester so I could minimize my debt and I didn't need to take out certain loans. I'm currently around 22.5 in my student loans and looking at repayment right now coming to us like a giant looming cloud over the horizon.

Torpedo. Exactly. I was just kind of wondering, I had also a little bit of personal debt, but I'm getting that paid off shortly, thankfully. What's that? The personal debt? I had a couple of things with my car go wrong and then a couple other things. Okay. So it's around like, it was around like $3,000, but I'm just getting out of that, thankfully. So that's it? It's just the $22,500 and the $3,000 for the car? Yeah, pretty much.

When you say pretty much, sorry, I got to be clear. Pretty much or that's it? It is. It is. Sorry. So I was wondering, I've already sat down and I've calculated how much interest I'm going to lose on each of the loans. And I know that debt snowball says, hey, do the smallest one first. But if I can knock out one that's just slightly bigger than the smallest one, that's going to lose me more money in the long run. Should I get that done right away or should I go for the smallest one, in your opinion? You know, I'm team debt snowball and I'm team, you know, paying off the smallest debt first. And here's why. Mathematically, it does make sense what you're saying. Oh, pick the one with the highest interest rate and do that one first. Mathematically speaking, make sense what you're saying oh pick the one with the best interest with

the highest interest rate and do that one first mathematically speaking i get why you're saying that but there's more to it than that and we have found that when people start with interest rates or they try to do these other things it takes longer and it takes you longer to feel you know that adrenaline hit from getting a win. And so when my husband and I were paying off our student loans, we listed them smallest to largest, even though some of his private loans, man, those interest rates were upwards of seven and a half percent, 11%. And we chose to pay off one of my student loans first because it was a lower payment and it was a lower, I mean, the balance was lower lower so we did that one first and it felt great it was like oh my gosh we did this and then you go to the next one you're like oh we did it and it just creates that motivation so there's a reason

to do it that way so I would suggest listing them from smallest to largest and paying them that way and honestly if you go back if you're intense about this if you go back you're going to realize um the money that you may have missed out in interest it's negligible if you're intense about this if you go back you're going to realize um the money that you may have missed out in interest it's it's negligible because you're going to knock these out so quick i mean it's 22 000 you're going to knock this out within the year okay yeah and like looking at other people i've graduated with and like my siblings uh shout out to my siblings um my sister actually just got out of student debt. Congrats, sis. Anyway, just seeing how much people pull out is just insane. And like,

I came out with less than a year of my debt, thankfully. It's a lot of work. But yeah, so that's pretty much all I was asking was asking about i appreciate it a lot absolutely i think by the time uh if i you know go right to the grindstone with it um i think i'll get about 25 of my loans done before payments resume look that's what i'm talking about how much are you going to be putting towards this monthly oh my gosh uh I just got the the email speaking of looming clouds or torpedoes it was about 281 and I was like oh I could do without that yeah absolutely yeah hit these things with a vengeance how much are you bringing in each month uh about 3,500 I just switched jobs so that's kind of why I was in between a little

bit with the personal loan. So yeah, if I were you, I would, are you single? I am. I did meet the person though with the last caller. I definitely know for sure we're committed. So. Okay. Okay. Well then yeah. Pay these things off, go hard in the paint, pick up some extra work. I think that if you went crazy, you would be surprised how quickly you'd pay these off. I think if you went bananas. Yeah. You're single, dude. You should be working obscene hours selling everything that you don't need. I mean, just the intensity of this to knock this out it's very very doable 22 000 seems like a large number but uh it can go pretty quickly with steady activity and right now is the time before you put a ring on it before you close the

deal and get the deal done and start a married life I would try to get this done if it were me and I'm saying you have to but I would try to pay this off before I got married I would not want to bring that to the marriage that's what I would do I love it that's a great call real quickly let's go to Mary she's in Buffalo New York what's going on Mary hi um I got a summons from um attorneys to collect a debt um Um, just before I called, I called them to set up a payment plan. They wanted 30% down and $300 a month. This debt is 900, 9,902. Um, I, I told them that I could not pay this. Um, I did offer a hundred dollars down because that's all that I can do and $25 a month.

And when I say that's all I can do, I mean, we don't have Disney or Netflix or any streaming services. We're not eating out. We're like bare bones. We have paid off other credit cards and stuff like that. So, I mean, we're doing the baby steps, but they want this now. And at this summons, I had 20 days to respond. And I responded. And the woman that I spoke to was rude. She was like, if you can't pay me, why are you even calling me?

These people are mean. These people that you're dealing with, Mary, are the worst of the worst. They are scummy, mean people. They are. And they're going to try to strong arm you and they're going to try to intimidate you to do this. What I would do if I were you is I would stack up a bunch of money as much as I could, because at the end of the day, they are going to settle this with you. So I would stack up money and forget all this 30% down nonsense. I would move this to the front of the list because you're getting sued. So I would stack up money and I'd say, hey, this is all I have.

Take it or leave it. And you're going to have to push on them a lot in order to make this happen. But once you get that offer, I want you getting it written in cash. Or I'm sorry, not in cash. I want you to get it written down, sent to you via email, print it out, keep it forever, right? And then you're going to go and get a money order and send them that check. Do not ever give them your account information. Don't give them anything about your debit card information because these people are certainly scummy. And it sounds like they're kind of being manipulative a little bit and they're kind of trying to bully you. Yeah, it's emotion. They

have to get her afraid. The more afraid you are the more they feel like they can manipulate how much you give them you're in charge remember this they want your money yeah so they can't get it if you don't got it so you're driving this train now do it exactly the way jay told you you take control of the conversation and you guys get serious. Go make some more money. Sell some stuff. Take control of this. You are in charge, not them. That's right. That's what I would do. Those companies, man,

they're the worst of the worst. I've dealt with them. It's part of the game, right? They're trying to manipulate you. You got to tell them to put it in their pipe and smoke it. Uh-oh. That does it for this hour of The Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time. Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to Ramsey

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