The Ramsey Show - App - The Key to Building Wealth Is Maximizing Your Earning Potential

Episode Date: September 2, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the 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. This is the Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, find work, and do work that they actually love, and create amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, host of the Ken Coleman Show, is my co-host today. He's also a number one best-selling author and expert in the worlds of career and work. We're here to help you. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Al and Raleigh starts off this hour. Hey, Al, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. How are you? I got Raleigh and Allie all tied up there for a second. So I'm beautiful, man. How can I help? All right. So I'm calling because it's career advice. I got out of the military last year, and since then I've been between a few jobs.

I'm currently working as a trucker now, and I'm a full-time college student. I'm going to school online. About halfway through with that, I'm on baby steps four, five, and six. Thank you for that. And basically, I'm having a lot of self-doubt and kind of falling out of love with my degree program and more in love with my job right now. And I don't know which one I should pursue more heavily. If I should buckle down and keep going, finish up my degree and hope I fall back in love with the program. What's the degree?

What's the degree direction? Electrical engineering. Interesting. And you've fallen in love with trucking, huh? Driving the truck? I have. I'm very fortunate right now to be working a local position, so I don't have to go over the road or nothing.

Monday through Friday, you know, reasonable times to be with the family on the weekend I'm very fortunate with that That's a pretty all-inclusive gig in the truck and you either love that or you hate it. I don't find a lot of guys that are middle ground on that and I think that's really interesting I think you have to listen to that. The question I have is

if you were to slow down you're halfway through and I'm assuming you got the GI bill so you're not paying out of pocket for the degree correct that's correct and you chose electrical engineering i'm wondering because maybe you did some of that type of work in the military or no was it just out of left field no no no um so prior to the military um i was on the robotics team in high school i really enjoyed it yeah, but after doing 11 years in the infantry, I kind of, I got tired of being a dumb grunt and I wanted to go back and use my brain, but it feels like things are piling up. And like I said, I'm having some self doubt on it.

What's piling up. There's the answer. What's piling up. Describe what you mean. Um, well, as the course load gets more and more difficult, I find myself having difficulty concentrating on the work. When I'm on and the days are going well, I get it and everything clicks and everything moves along. But on the days I'm not, and there's quite a lot of them, just getting my thoughts together is really, really hard. Okay, so what I want you to focus then is what led you into the electrical engineering degree. And obviously there's something from your past, robotics. You love to work with your head and your hands. You've got that kind of wiring in your brain,

but it doesn't mean that this particular path is the best path for you. And so I would not make any decision to walk away from the degree right now, but I would take 30 days just as a ballpark figure to really dive into what are some fields that I am intrigued by, I am interested in, that would involve that type of engineering brain that wouldn't require the degree and that class work and that type of work because i think there's there's some silver lining in here and that you've done some robotics in the past you're intrigued on some days you're thriving on some days and not on others and that could be course related and the type of work so instead of throwing it all out i want you to actually dive in a little bit more and it's almost an old school exercise i've got a

pad hold on one second dave i got a pad right here and I'm going to go to those classes on the days that I'm struggling. I want to write down what, what's making me struggle, what's causing me to struggle and the days that I'm thriving, why am I thriving? I would dive into that a little bit more over 30 days before deciding to get out of the degree experience. Absolutely. I completely agree. Hey, Al, when I was in college, I went in this one class, and when I left there the third day, I felt really dumb. It was really hard. Are you struggling with that? Academically, it was straining my brain.

No, no. Academically, I mean, I maintain good grades, but there's just some self-doubt creeping in just because. Yeah, you mentioned dumb grunt earlier. Yeah, just that. And I'm a little bit afraid that this is like your first academic challenge, and I kind of want to encourage you to push through it because I think you got the stuff. Okay. Because I think it's self-doubt.

I don't think it's reality. Am I wrong? No, I don't think you're wrong. Okay. And you may need some, during the 30 days, you may need to set your study habits pattern up better because it sounds like your catch-as-catch can, and if you've got something that's deep

and that is scratching the back of your brain, like I'm talking about that's very hard academically, it's like thick and weighty and hard to push through i've been in those classes and i don't like them because it pisses me off when i can't get something quick and um you know if you have to do that the only way to push through that is a study habit pattern that gets you real quiet real centered away from humans no distractions and you push through the concepts and get your head around them and that's the that that's going to take you on through the if you got

a heavy academic thing it'll push you through the study habits will do it and the study setting the setting and if you're trying to do this like while you eat dinner at the truck stop that ain't gonna work man al i'm curious is there a job in your mind that if we offered that to you today, we fast-forwarded all the degree stuff and you got to go do it, if you got something in your mind right now, would you do that over trucking if you didn't have to struggle through all this and all the doubt went away and we just gave you the opportunity to step into it? Yes, 100%. You would 100% take that type of work over trucking? Absolutely. Okay, so there's the answer. My absolutely okay so there's the answer yeah so there's the answer so again yeah the exercise i gave you plus what dave is telling you

um you have to identify what's causing the self-doubt and that's the source of this once we get to the bottom of so fear is i'm afraid something bad is going to happen it's cousin is doubt and doubt is i don't think something good can happen. And that's what you're dealing with. I don't know. I'm two years in. I don't know that I can get through this, that anybody will hire me because I was just a military grunt.

I'm just a truck driver. I think, Dave, that's the source. It's a narrative in Al's head that he's not good enough. That's exactly. That's what I was getting at. Yeah. Yeah. And what I'm hearing is he's not good enough. That's exactly. That's what I was getting at. Yeah. And what I'm hearing is

actually you are good enough. You've actually got the stuff. Because you didn't tell me like, there's no way I can do this. I mean, you didn't say that. You're like, I can do it. I'm getting the grades. I've just got to get my head around. I've got to get the habits and the rhythm. You know what else you might do? You might visit someone that is actually doing what you want to do someday.

Spend time with them. Maybe hang out with them. Maybe who you're hanging out with is telling you you can't do it. You got to be careful who you hang out with. I asked you, Al, if we give it to you, would you take it? You said 100%. Then go get it. So go take it. Go get it.

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NMLS ID 1591. NMLS consumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. We're so glad you're here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Regina is with us in Las Vegas. Hi, Regina. How are you? Hi, Dave.

Hi, Ken. Thanks for taking the call. Sure. What's up? Well, I need some perspective. I appreciate the last caller because I think you gave me a little bit on that call, but I'm looking for some more. I'm currently on baby step two. Been four years gazelle intense, and I'm going to be looking at a court date here tomorrow

that's going to end up increasing that debt to about the tune of $25,000. I have literally been gazelle intense for four years, even during COVID, and my gas tank is on empty. I'm just not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and I don't know if I can keep the pace that i've been doing i have three jobs and i'm just my gas tank is empty i'm sorry so i don't know if i'm i'm looking at a bankruptcy or if i have to do something not stupid i'm sorry um how much debt have you got not counting tomorrow 10 grand and. And I literally was, I was coming for a debt-free screen in October. And what's your income? My income is 45 a year. I've upped it to 55 even during COVID. But the problem I'm having is I end up in court because all these extra debts are attorney fees. And every time I go to court, i don't seem to be in good favor with the

court um my child support is increased so it's a very long journey and i'm just tired you you you pay child support i do we have 50 50 custody and it doesn't work out in my favor anytime I go to court because he's a full-time student making $10.50 an hour. Okay. And what's the $25,000 tomorrow? Tomorrow is the attorney's fee for the last two years of litigation. You owe $25,000 to an attorney? Yes, sir. Over child support?

Yes, sir. Over child support? Yes, sir. It was because of COVID, it was extended, extended, extended, extended, extended, so it's just... Well, if he wasn't working while it's extended, why did the bill keep going up? Because my ex-husband made sure that the bill kept going. He kept putting things in there, and we kept having to respond. So, you know, as each response happened, it's that $2.50 an hour, you know.

So it just really spun out of control. Yeah, you needed a new attorney. Pardon me? You needed a new attorney $25,000 ago. I agree with you, sir, but unfortunately I gave him a retainer and I had nothing left in the tank after that that was my emergency fund when you make sixty thousand and you spend twenty five thousand on child support that's not in balance that's a I'm not fussing at you i'm just crying with you

um please no you don't need to be fussed at you've gotten fussed at enough um you just got a best kiddo yep so you owe the attorney's fees and the attorney has sued you for the fees yeah tomorrow is the day and we go to the judge we've stayed off we've done everything to try and yeah you're gonna lose because you owe the money yeah exactly yeah yeah i'm gonna lose yeah well you owe the money i mean it's not a it's not not there's not really a thing to you know he sucks as an attorney is not a defense um for the debt for the attorney fees i mean you took them on. Yes. And this guy knows that you make $60,000 a year. He represented me for two and a half years. And he knows that you don't have any money.

He knows that. What does he think this is going to accomplish? Do we have any idea? I truly don't know. I just guess he wants to garnish my wages, which is going to basically leave me and my daughter in a big deficit yeah it's going to change our world yeah so do you have i'm looking for options i guess or perspective um i would just tell him that we're either going to have to work something out that is a tremendous discount, and I'll go scrape some money together

and give you a lump sum at a tremendous discount, or I'm going to help you to get zero because that's called a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. And that's kind of what I did on my own because I knew what I was up against. You told him that? Yeah, I basically said, you know what I have and you can go forward with this, but you know what's going to happen. And I basically, you know, laid it on to him and he pushed the button. So I'm looking at this bankruptcy head on and I just, I want to know I'm doing the right

thing. Trying to stay a step above and a step ahead for my daughter's sake um well i i would i always tell folks if you're going to file bankruptcy and i'm i never recommend it it's a horrible process to go through but if you're going to make sure you've tried every single thing you can try before you do it because it is a life-altering thing it's in the same category as a divorce it's something you want to avoid if there's any way you can so you try everything now you've tried almost everything here but here's the thing he even if he gets the judgment tomorrow and he probably will um then he has to act on it. And until he actually does act on it, it just sits there.

Well, he's already filed the motion to garnish my wages. But there's not even a judgment. Is there a judgment already? Well, we put a stay on it, is my understanding. On the judgment? Because we want an oral argument. That's correct. Okay.

Well, the day the garnishment you know the day the garnishment hits that might be the day that you make your decision that you've done everything you can do well the day the garnishment hits i'm gonna have to move i mean i'm i'm that tight no no no no no no no if you file chapter 7 bankruptcy there's no garnishment it goes away understood okay so i'm saying if he if he actually does do that not just threatens it If you file Chapter 7 bankruptcy, there's no garnishment. It goes away. Understood. Okay. So I'm saying if he actually does do that, not just threatens it. And so what we want to be careful of is that we've, you know, one more time I'll talk to him. One more time I'll say, listen, if you do this, and just say it out loud,

just say, you're not getting a garnishment. Okay. I had this negotiation one time. I was negotiating for a business guy that had a bank debt with a local bank. And I'm sitting with the banker and the banker says, we're going to foreclose on the property, which obviously for a bankruptcy stops a foreclosure. And, um, I said, no, you're not. He goes, Oh yeah, I am. Yeah, I am. I said, no, we're either going to, there's two options. We're either going to work out something as we sit here with you guys and negotiate out some kind of settlement, or the guy's going into a Chapter 11 bankruptcy or a 7 bankruptcy,

but you're not foreclosing on the property. I can keep you from foreclosing on the property. So let's establish that you're not going to foreclose. Now, it's either because of a bankruptcy or because we worked something out. So which one do you want to do? It's your choice. Because, well, and then he comes up, well, we're going to foreclose. I'm like, dude, you're not real smart, are you?

What I just said was you're not going to be allowed to foreclose. Federal court's going to stop you or you're going to come to an agreement today. But foreclosure's not going to occur. That's the type of conversation I would have with this attorney, okay? There's not going to be a garnishment. Either I'm going to stop you with a chapter seven and you're going to get zero in that case. Or you and I work something out. And, you know, and then, but that, and those type of ultimatum discussions in a negotiation are sometimes the last thing you can do,

and you want to do everything you can do to try to avoid this. You've fought so hard, you've come so close, and it would be a bloody shame for this one thing to take you down. Yeah, and practically speaking here, whatever the amount is, I'm assuming, Dave, that the lawyer has shared what the amount is, the garnish would be, and so we've got a figure. So if he's going to get anything, it's that number or less that he agrees to, and then you look at, okay, can I keep doing three jobs? And it doesn't sound like she can do three more jobs. I mean, three jobs, much more. Her tank is empty. Well, her tank's empty because she just keeps getting piled on. Yeah, but if she can push through and manage to make that money, a better second job, a better paying second job, that's that last resort to okay if i can settle this with this guy and not go into bankruptcy

i'll give him five grand cash and go borrow it that's interesting yeah you know that's what i because you know rather have 25 i'd rather have five grand debt than 25 yeah that's true but i mean we'll settle with you one way or another here. But try some stuff like that, Regina, because sometimes these guys, you have to explain it to them. They're not smart sometimes. I mean, dumb lawyers are everywhere. Oh, Lord have mercy. I'm sorry, honey.

Hey, hang on. We're going to hook you up with one of our coaches, one of our financial coaches, see if they can walk you through this. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get ten different answers. Economic growth or a recession. Business taxes will go up or down. AI will help us work or it will replace us all.

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And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you can spend less time looking backward and more time focusing on what's next. And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Ashley's in Greenville, South Carolina. Hi, Ashley. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? All right. So my question is a business-related one. Not this past September, but the year before, I purchased a bakery that was eight years old. It was a mom-and-pop bakery for about $105,000.

It was really small. Over the year, we improved it. We did some renovations on our own dollar. We didn't pay for them. And unfortunately, it's not been successful, and I'm having to close it. I'm sorry. That's okay. It is what it is.

And my question is, originally, my landlord, I have five more years left on the lease. My landlord said, that's fine. You can, I'll let you out My landlord said, that's fine. You can, I'll let you out of it. Um, and that was great. However, um, I, he called last, last week and asked me how things were going, how things are moving out. And I mentioned that I was moving some of the equipment out. Um, he was under the assumption that the equipment that was built around the face that was built around the equipment he owned. However, the couple that I purchased the bakery from actually sold it to me. I have purchased documents for it.

And he is holding my equipment hostage by not letting me out of the lease unless I leave the equipment. I have considered, I've looked up Chapter 7 bankruptcy because that would give me 60 days to assume or reject the lease, of which I would reject the lease, and then my assets, including the equipment, would be sold to pay off my debt. However, I do not have any debt for the business. It's an LLC, and I decided to get out of the business before I went into debt. Did you sign the lease personally? I did, yes. Okay. The lease is not in the LLC's name. It's in your name, so. It is. It is in the LLC's name, yes. Oh, did you guarantee it personally? Yes. Okay. Doesn't matter. It's your personal lease. You're personally liable on the lease is what you're telling me.

Okay. Right? Yes. Okay. And how much is the lease payments monthly? They are currently $62240. They go up by a certain percentage every year starting in October. So you have five years of $7000 so you've got somewhere around $35,000 exposure, right?

Correct. What's the equipment worth? It's less than $10,000 worth of equipment. Why do you want it? Because I'm hopeful that I can maybe start it again one day and it would relieve some of the startup costs down the road. Do you have any money um i have about twenty thousand dollars in personal savings and that's about it i sunk

all of my um all of my life savings into the first business if you were going to buy this equipment right now in your situation used what would you be willing to pay for it if you found it on it if you let's say you let him have it and the next day you walked into a garage sale and you found this same piece of equipment sitting in someone's basement what would you buy it for or would you buy it tomorrow would you wait till later um i that's a really great great question. The one piece of equipment that I'm hanging on to is the oven, because it's an old oven, and the old ones are the best. And you found it in someone's basement tomorrow at a garage sale.

What would you pay for it? I would pay probably upwards of $1,000 for it. $1,000. Correct. Okay. All right. a thousand dollars for it one thousand dollars correct okay all right so um i think you can sit number one the first thing you need to do is with this landlord you need to sit down in person yes we are we're meeting on wednesday good good because you're an honorable

person i think he's not a dishonorable person as a matter of fact he's got a lot of mercy he's just letting you out of thirty five thousand dollars he's already got someone lined up that he will he's letting you out of thirty five thousand dollars that's not a bad i mean it's not a bad guy he could have held you to it uh for a thousand dollar oven i mean it's not a bad trade so at the end of the day if i have to negotiate away the thousand dollar oven in order to get out of a $35,000 exposure, it's gone. He can have the oven. But I would ask him about it and just say, listen, we've honestly, I think you're an honest guy and you think I'm honest. And we just did not have alignment on this one subject. Would you be willing to sell me the oven, because it's the only piece I'm particularly interested in,

at whatever it's salvage price, which is probably $500 or $1,000. That's the only thing that I care about. And the rest of it is I care about getting out of the lease. Could we work that out? Yeah, it still just gets me that I've already bought the oven, so I don't want to pay him for it. You're missing the part where you got out of a $35,000 liability. That probably gets him that the tentative had just decided they weren't going to pay. Yeah, but he's wanted me out of there since I signed the lease. Because he can charge double for the people that have already lined up for it okay

um you do what you want to do that's what i would do i would consider this a blessing and i would um in a horrible situation with a heartbreak um i'd let him keep the oven or i'd give him a thousand or five hundred bucks for it and get the documents signed to completely relieve you of any liability, LLC or personal, further on this lease so that he can go forward. I guess if you want to play hardball from a negotiating standpoint, you could because it sounds like he's chomping at the bit to get you out of there. And you could just say, you know what, I think I'm just going to give you another $600 to

stay here a while and make him lose his potential tenant because you keep paying. Yeah. If he doesn't let you. If you won't let me have the oven, I think I'm just going to keep paying the rent because I think the oven's mine. I've got a bill of sale for it. But, you know, honestly, I personally wouldn't do that. I personally would.

This is a horrible thing you're going through. It's an emotional thing you're going through. The failure of a business is a crisis of identity. Anytime I close a major area that we tried here at Ramsey, it's me admitting that I was stupid, and I hate admitting that, yet sometimes I am stupid. But I get the opportunity running a business to admit it occasionally, and it's not fun. It's really not fun. I'm sorry. It really is emotional.

I wouldn't screw this whole thing up over a grand. I promise you I wouldn't. You're going to lose that the first time you meet with an attorney. They charge you $1,000 for driving past their office, just like it's a drive-by fee. know i mean it's like yes well i think you made a very good point that she fails to see obviously there's some tension there and she feels like well he has somebody else lined up i found him she mentioned that so she feels like she's doing some good but we cannot forget the fact that this guy is going to let her out of 35 000 contracted commitment you can't forget that and i could wrong, but maybe the new tenant needs the oven. I think there's a reason.

This guy is not a jerk. I think he's like, you know what? I'll let you out at 35. I'm going to keep the oven. That's a pretty fair trade. You know, it's a tenant improvement, and you're walking away scot-free. And so if I were the landlord on the other side, even if I had another tenant lined up, I would think that's a fair deal.

I think it's a very fair deal. So it's up to you, though. You can do what you want to do. Let me ask you this, Dave. You can drag it out. If he's got the other tenant and he could lose the other tenant by you delaying him, that's a way to screw with it if you want to do it. But do so at your own peril. But I was going to ask you, because you've been a landlord, you are a landlord.

If she hacks him off in some way or just starts negotiating,'s like wait a second i'm letting you out of this deal and i don't want the stinking of it and he gets he could hold her to this contract and he could hold her the 35 000 you could put her in some but she says she says that he's got somebody wanting to pay double so you know that's the leverage back and forth i don't know i mean to me that's almost irrelevant, though. It's what the deal is to you. Yeah. The deal is you personally put your pen to paper and said, I will pay you $35,000.

And he says, hey, you brought me another tenant. I'll let you out. That's an act of mercy. It's not a legal requirement or a moral or an ethical requirement. And, you know, if he misunderstood and thought the tenant improvements became his after the act of mercy, then that's something you can discuss with him, and I'm recommending you discuss it. But I wouldn't push it too hard. It's $1,000 for $35.

It's a good trade. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So, if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based alternative to health insurance, Christian

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customized to you so you can actually pay your bill. That's pretty cool. It's a good way to get the whole thing straightened out. Go to Yrefy.com slash Ramsey today. That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Might not be available in all states. Today's question comes from Aiden in Virginia. I had a work accident that put me out of work for a few weeks. When I returned to work on light duty, I was assigned to a different department. I enjoy it and have been asked to stay in this position, which will come with a hefty pay increase. The only downside is that if I choose to stay in this position, a work friend of mine will probably be fired.

He's the person who encouraged me to grow in my relationship with God and to do the baby steps to tackle my finance issues. How do I save my friendship with my coworker if they fire him and give me his position? I'm scared that he will think I've been faking the friendship and just trying to take his job. I don't want to lose this opportunity at work, but also don't want to be the cause of my friend losing his job. Well, Aiden, I'm a little confused with the way the question is worded because they've put you in a position, and they want you to stay in this position. And I don't see the connection to where that position was his position because he's still

there. So if you know something we don't know and you've got a hunch here, if your hunch is right, this is a pretty sticky situation. It's a pretty tough situation. And I don't have a quick answer to that, although what I would do is they've asked you to stay in this position. So that implies they like you and you've got a little bit of leverage to say, hey, here's a question. If I take this, I've heard this or I'm feeling this, is this true? Because you've got some hunch or somebody's told you something and I would go to the leader in a private meeting and I would ask the leader if this is in fact true. I would not assume anything.

I think you've added drama to this. Yeah. I don't know if that's true. The way you've worded this, it doesn't sound like it's a lock. So here's the thing. Business ethics are fairly easy. Treat other people like you want to be treated. Okay, so you switch shoes.

How would you want your friend to treat you if it was you? I can tell you what I'd want them to do. I'd want them to come clean, tell the whole bunch. If I'm you, I'd walk in the boss's office and I'd say, Boss, thank you for this position. I am so grateful. I'm so excited. But I've got to tell you, if it means that my friend gets fired, I can't do it to him.

I'm not going to be the cause of my friend losing his job. As much as I want this, I would love to have this job, but I will not. I cannot do that. It's wrong for me to cause my friend to get his head chopped off. No, that's the answer. I agree. And, and if you lose the job, you lose the job you lose the job but you can't you got to sleep with aiden you got to look in the mirror you got to you put your head on the pillow at night and go whoo i feel pretty good yeah that sucked i lost that position but i did the right thing i gotta tell you man you can sleep when you do the right thing even if the right thing hurts even the right thing leaves a mark you can sleep and And you don't get to your deathbed, you know, many years from now with this stuff swimming around in your head wishing you hadn't done this crap. Yeah, I agree.

But let's get to the bottom and let's make sure this is in fact the case. It doesn't feel like that the way it's been set up here. If you just put all this stuff on the table, it makes everybody that's trying to do stuff behind the curtain pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. You rip the curtain open, shine a spotlight on the whole thing, and just say it all out loud. As Deloney says, turn all the lights on. And by the way, that advice, when he says it that way, he's taking the high road. And in that situation, he can read the body language, read the tone, read the stumbling, the stammering, if in fact that happens. And now he has a really good idea and he doesn't hurt his brand within the building. It's a win, win, win all the way

around to handle it that way. Absolutely. And if they're willing to lie and go behind your friend's back they'll do it and slit his throat you're next buddy that's true it makes you think you're different so this ain't the sweetest job in the world all of a sudden it's a toxic environment and you want to get out of there anyway so this this this you know the process of flipping on all the lights reveals everything here. All right, boys and girls. It's like, Ken, one of my favorite things, not sarcasm, is someone comes in my office and says, you know, I need to tell you something about such and such, but you can't use my name. And I'm like, well, you can't tell me.

Right. Because you're what's known as a gutless wonder. Right. You know? And no, you can't tell me. If you can't stand behind your problem, then you're just a gossip. And I'm not going to, as a leader, I'm not going to act on anonymous sources. You can kiss my anonymous source. Not a chance we're doing that.

No way. That's just gutless, man. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Crazy. Zach is on the line. Zach is in Calgary. Hey, Zach, what's up?

Hey, can you hear me all right? Absolutely. How can we help? Perfect. Yeah, so I've been looking for an outside opinion on my situation here. And I know you guys are going to give me a straight answer so you can count on that brother yeah um so we are a little tight on mortgage me and my wife um we knew that what's that mean you know well it's probably north of 40% of our take-home monthly pay.

We're trying to get some advice on what we should do. What is the probability that your income is going to increase dramatically quickly? Unless I take side jobs consistently and work 12 hours plus a day, not likely. You want to do all that just to keep a house? I don't. No, not really. You sell the house, you bought a house, you can't afford. Yeah.

Um, if your income's not going to go, if your income's not going to go up fairly quick, not, I mean, you know, in in the next year two years or something like that to where this is where the house payment ends up being 25 maybe 30 percent of your take home rather than 40 percent you're you're you know you're in an unsustainable mathematical situation you don't have any wiggle room in your dadgum budget you are what we call house the house owns you you don't own the house oh i feel it yeah um our other our other idea was with a job offer about two weeks ago that's in a smaller town that pays less but we could buy a house cash or have a very small mortgage and maybe 100k what would keep you from doing that

it's a small small town you don't want to live there okay that's? It's a small, small town. You don't want to live there. Okay, that's fine. That's good. That's a good answer. Yeah. Nothing wrong with any of this. And so here's another option.

Get a better job. Yeah. And stay where you are. Well, that's the thing. I'm a plumber, and I got one of the better paying jobs in Calgary. What's your wife do? She would stay home. Okay. Home school and her kiddos. Okay. I'm a plumber, and I got one of the better-paying jobs in Calgary. What's your wife do? She's a stay-at-home mom. She's homeschooling her kiddos.

All right. Yeah, you guys just got house fever, which causes the brain to stop working and causes us to purchase something we can't afford. And then the fever went away, and the bill is still there, and you woke up and realized you'd made a mistake. And so I'm sorry. You either have to get your income up or you have to get rid of this house. These are your two options.

There's nothing else that's going to work here, man. What you're sitting in, and you've discovered this. You knew it before you called us. It's unsustainable. You cannot win. Everything you do after you pay this house payment is hard because the house payment is just eating your lunch. No pun intended. So, I mean, it's just, it's hard. I've done it too, Zach. I

mean, I've done that kind of thing and you go, oh crap, what did I do? You know, you get, oh man, it's hard, but the good news is you can sell it and you know, it's not, uh, it's hard. But the good news is you can sell it. And, you know, it's not a tattoo. It's not going to be there forever. So you can get rid of it. That's a plan. Get rid of it. Sell the house. Sorry.

That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and the books. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the 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. Ken Coleman, number one best-selling author, Ramsey personality, host of the Ken Coleman Show, is my co-host today. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. So you've got questions about your life, your career, your money, we're here to help. Open phones, 888-825-5225. Caleb is in Charlotte, North Carolina

to start this hour off. Hi, Caleb, how are you? Good, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. My pleasure. How can we help? So I'm in the middle, or I guess I should say the beginning stages of starting a business. And I'm wondering if it is the best idea to take any profit and put it straight back into the business so I can keep doing it debt free, or would it be better to take the profit and pay off personal debt, which would be, because right now we're in kind of the middle stages of baby step two on our personal debt. I currently have a full-time job, which is in addition to the business, so the business

is separate. Okay. And so you can get out of debt on your full-time job. Are you married? Yes, yeah, I'm married. Does your wife work outside the home? No, my wife is a stay-at-home mom. Okay.

So what do you make in the day job? About $140,000. Good for you. Okay. How much debt have you got? Right now, it's probably around $18,000. Okay. Yeah, stop your whining and get out of debt. Really, seriously. $140,000 around $18,000. Okay. Yeah, stop your whining and get out of debt.

Really, seriously. $140,000 over $18,000? Knock it out, dude. Well, that's a new, it was a big jump recently. Okay, good. I'm messing with you. The bottom line is your numbers are fabulous. You've got a big old shovel and a small hole.

So let's just knock out that $18,000, And that's the good news. Now you got the side business and you can afford to take all the side business and pour your money back in out of that. We're not borrowing money for business ever. You will ensure your failure if you do for multiple reasons. Yeah. Especially in a small business situation. I mean, this is throwing off a lot of cash. What is the expense that you're thinking about that you'd have to cash flow versus going to debt? Well, it's not. So it's going to be a baseball training facility.

We'll be leasing the building, so I won't be in debt for that. It'll just be equipment and how fast or how much equipment I want to start out with versus, you know, just kind of growing a little more organically. Yeah. Organically. Stick with organic, man. It's just, you don't want to stress yourself out. And this I'm guessing is the dream. Is this something you eventually want to step into full-time or you want to keep it on the side? Eventually I would like it to be full-time um i baseball is kind of my background has been for a long time and the job i'm in right now i love um um but it it may not be more than a 10 year thing you know um so eventually i would like it to be able to support my family full-time sure well good then organic is the way to go or else that dream could become a nightmare dave's right

you just don't need debt on this. And you're so close to being debt-free. Here's a couple things, Caleb, we teach in Entrez Leadership on this. When you grow a business with actual cash, you purchase different things at a different speed than you do when you use other people's money. You're more careful about what you buy and you're more careful about what you pay for what you buy because it's like real money, you know, and that's, there's a reality to that. The second thing that happens is you, it forces you to grow, to make your purchases slower and you're going to be learning about the business. You're going to get what we always laughingly

call learnings, which are mistakes that leave scars and you're going to, you know business you're going to get what we always laughingly call learnings which are mistakes that leave scars and you're going to you know you're going to learn stuff that would tell you not to purchase something that you might have if you'd gone ahead of the learning and the cash holds you back and kind of keeps you by dealing with only cash it keeps you from going ahead of what what you've got to learn yet. And so you don't make as, you know, and then the third thing is when we borrow, here's the deal. I've been doing this business for 30 plus years. 90% of my ideas suck. about, and this is a world-class, nationally known brand, and all of the 10 million people that have gone through Financial Peace University,

22 million people listening to this, all of that impact is because of about 10% of our ideas. The other 90% of our ideas, we survived them because they were stupid. And the problem is when you're going for your walk in the morning or you're running in the morning or you're sitting on the back porch with a cup of coffee, all your ideas are brilliant. And when you put them out there in the real world, you just determine that they're not.

And when you borrow money into the wrong thing, you magnify the size of the mistake because you do stupid on steroids and so when you use cash it causes you to go at the speed of your learning it you'll learn you'll make better purchases and more careful purchases and you don't magnify your mistakes because there's 100 of the time you're going to make mistakes it's brilliant and one thing to add to that, Caleb, cash increases your innovation. Because if you're borrowing money, you go, I'm going to buy this equipment and this equipment because everybody else does it. And when you've got to go cash, you go, how do I teach the baseball swing?

Or how do I do this without a bunch of fancy equipment? It really does increase your innovation because when you don't have the cash, but you still want to grow it you go how can i do this the least expensive way and the imagination takes over and that's what leads to innovation craig rochelle talks about this so that i was just going to mention him the limited resources when you realize your resources are limited and everybody's resources are limited but the borrowing of takes away that effect temporarily but the limited resource forces the creativity that's correct and it forces you to get scrappy and you scratch a new claw and scrappy always wins and uh the some of the more shameful errors we have made at ramsey were when we got a little bit fat and we had a little bit

of cash we had a little bit of room and we just went well what is my there and then all of a sudden you you lose that scrappiness you lose that creativity you lose uh you know forcing to learn the techniques blocking and tackling goes to the side and we think we're too good for it and um you know and and you're looking for an easy button and there's just not a freaking easy button that's right so you're you're really doing a good thing here caleb you're really doing a good thing yeah you've got a great situation with a great day job to pay off your debts and to continue building your finances and 100 of the profits on that business can go back into that business grow it organically grow at the speed of cash you know we built this building uh three years ago

four years ago whatever it was uh the only thing the newspaper actually got right because they never get anything right on me um they make up crap when they want to but um anyway they ramsey is building the building at the speed of cash. Yeah. And that was the headline. Oh, good. And after you got past the headline, nothing in the article was accurate. But, you know, like it never is, right? That's why you're an accurate headline. But, I mean, that's it.

That's all they got. That's what I told the little guy. We're building the building at the speed of cash. In other words, if we run out of cash, we're going to stop building. Ha! There you go. This is the Ramsey Show. Thanks for joining us, America.

We're glad you're here. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Mark is with us. Mark is in Atlanta, Georgia. Hey, Mark, how are you? Hey, good afternoon for me here. Great to talk to you and Ken. I'm 56 years old.

I have a 47-year-old wife, three boys. Just got laid off unexpectedly from a $250K per year job. Thought I'd have it for at least a couple more years. Had net worth over $3 million. Of that, $1.5 million now in an IRA, half a million in funds and stocks, and a $1 million paid for house. No debt whatsoever. My question is, well, for one, does that seem like enough to retire on if need be? But I'm also thinking about pursuing teaching. So I'm not going to be able to get any cash. I have a hundred, you know, 150,000 in cash, but I can't tap my IRA until I'm 59 and a

half. But you've got a half million in investments, non IRA. I do. Okay. And, uh, I could, I could use that, but I don't really, I don't really want to use that though. I mean, my, I had a financial advisor, you know, recommend, you know recommend tapping my mortgage temporarily because it would be cheaper than tapping the IRA.

Well, your financial advisor is a dumb butt. You're kidding me. He's telling you to go into debt, and you have a $3 million net worth with a half a million dollar investment portfolio that's non-retirement? Just use your money, man. Just sell stocks, pay taxes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, let's not forget, Mark, you told us briefly you wanted to teach, so you're not teaching for free. So based on your financial situation, how much money do you need to make to where you wouldn't even have to tap any of that money or very little? Yeah, I mean, that's what I'm wondering. I mean, I think we'll need – you know, I got three boys, you know, soon to be college. Most of that's going to be handled already, but, um, you know, but we, you know, the teaching, it's going to take a little while to get certified and that's probably a $56,000 a year job.

That's correct. More, you know, almost, you know, more like a little volunteer work. Why are you, so would you have wanted to transition to teaching? It's interesting, you said, I was hoping to do that for a couple more years. Had you already begun to think, I'm going to keep my quarter-million-dollar job for two or three more years, then go into teaching? Was that already the plan before the layoff? Yeah, absolutely. Just, you know, I want to give back.

I'm an Army veteran. What were you doing? Ever since my Army days, you know, I want to give back. I'm an Army veteran. What were you doing? Ever since my Army days. You mean my job? Yeah. It was institutional capital markets. Here's a question I have. I just wonder why you aren't looking to get back in the game,

making about the same, maybe even more, and get back on track with the plan you already had. It just feels like you've accepted this idea that, well, I got laid off two or three years earlier than my ideal timeline, and so now all I can do is draw some retirement here. And I just wonder why not get back in the game. Yeah, it's either that or start getting into teaching, which will take a year or two to get certified.

We'll get back in the game. We'll get back in the game. And get the teaching certification. Yeah. Go make a half million dollars while you're getting your teaching certification. $250 a year. It'll take a half a year or so to get a job. How do you know?

If I can find one. Because I've been looking around a little bit. Yeah. When did you get laid off? A month ago. Yeah. Okay. When you say looking around, what does that mean? When did you get light off? A month ago. Oh, okay. When you say looking around, what does that mean?

And I mean specifically. What are you doing actively? Talking to people that are in the industry. I mean, basically what I did was a very unique capital markets job, and it's not easily replaceable. It's something that basically is some of it's going to be automated and some of it's just managed away. Okay. So hold on a second. So I can hear it all over you. You feel like I was so niche, I can't do anything else. And that's not true. You have skills and experience that were related to a very specific job that are transferable in a similar industry.

Yes or no? Yes. Then again, I mean, listen, let me acknowledge something, Mark. The data says that losing a job, being laid off, has the same psychological and emotional impact on us as losing a loved one. So that was a month ago. And so I want to make sure that it doesn't feel like I'm pushing you too hard here. I think this has rocked your world. It's thrown your timeline off and it's understandable. And so you've got to process and heal from this. But I think part of the residue that's on you from this real loss

is that you think that you are extremely limited. And if you hear nothing else from me and Dave, you're not limited. You've you're 56. You're not 96. You've got a lot of skill, a lot of experience. And dare I say, you have a lot of connections too. Yes or no? Absolutely. Mark, I want you to feel a hug through the phone here. You got to get back in there, man. You got a lot to offer, and I think this plan you have, and by the way, thank you for serving our country. You're a great American. You're a great American, and you've got a lot to give still.

Dave, that's what I'm feeling. Okay, let's say that I'm called immediately to teach, and I hear what you're saying, and that sounds good. You're not. You're escaping to it. That's you waving a white flag because you're saying that sounds good you're not you're escaping to it that's that's you waving a white flag because you're hurting well if you were called immediately to teach you would have quit and gone got your teaching certificate you got laid off and then decided and then you're going to try to tell me you're called i'm not buying buying it. Yeah, I hear you.

Okay. But here's the deal, Mark. Even if you don't want to go the route of get back on the path to a two- to three-year plan, what Dave and I are saying is go get gainfully employed. Make as much money as possible. Don't just fall back on that retirement reserve. Well, then you can use the half million, but we're not borrowing on a HELOC. Absolutely not. You probably need a new financial advisor.

Okay, so let me ask you this. I'm curious, okay? What is it that you're wanting to teach and why? Ultimately, I want to teach high school business and finance because I have so much to give and so much knowledge that's going to waste if I don't give it back. What would be wrong with doing that at the college level? I'm not interested. You know, it's definitely harder.

You know, it would be more strenuous on me. I don't want to go into that type of environment. I like kids that are still molded, you know, that are in their, you know, in their teens. You know, as an old army sergeant, you know, I feel like, you know, I can be a, you know, a stake in the ground as far as right and wrong to a lot of these kids. One of my favorite finance professors teaching real estate syndication in my senior year was teaching a graduate level class that I jumped over and took, even though I wasn't doing grad work, was a practitioner like you. He was not a PhD. He was not a certified professor.

He stepped over and taught three different high-end finance classes to college seniors when I was in college and to this day I remember that guy and we I actually he actually had a cookout for the class at his house we went to his house I can drive to his house right now and that was 43 years ago I bet he doesn't live there anymore but uh but I mean I I think you might be that guy and oh by the way that pays a lot more than $56,000 a year. Yeah, that's exactly right. And honestly, the stuff that you know, high school seniors can't comprehend the stuff you've been doing. It's graduate level and senior finance level stuff.

You can go do this if you want to. I'm just challenging the overarching thing that this is what giving back necessarily means so if you want to teach basic financial literacy hey we'll give you a financial piece we'll give you the foundations and personal finance high school curriculum that's been taught in 48 of the high schools and you can go teach it for your high school once you get certified to be a math teacher but it seems a little crazy to me that a guy that is as qualified as you has to go get certified to teach math to seniors in high school because you can do math in your sleep. Yeah. What we want you to hear, Mark, is you got options and you felt like a guy,

you present like a guy who doesn't have many options. And one option you don't have is a HELOC. That is absolutely unnecessary. And heal from this. Get your head up, shoulders back, and look at some options to get back on that two- to three-year plan. I think things are going to develop as you begin to look for them. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage Ty and Lottie are with us hey guys how are you good how are you good how you doing better than we deserve welcome good to have you guys where do you live Amarillo Texas all

right bit of a haul over to Nashville just a little bit yeah good to have you guys how much debt have you paid off 582 000 goodness how long did this take we started in 2013 uh and then just finished up here like it was in july or august so 10 years 10 years yeah wow and your range of income during that decade uh it was anywhere from 65 000 to 114 i mean we sold some houses and i sold a business in the midst of that too so it kind of had some variation there too gotcha okay but that was my w-2 income what you what do you guys do for a living now i actually work for the department of energy but before this i've always traded commodities or traded some type of feed so that I just didn't like that and

actually I read Kim Coleman's book and decided to take a change in life really how's that working out love it good it's a great we're on a we're on a we're on the 13th day of our road trip to get here just to have a vacation and Dollywood and everything oh come see you guys yeah come see y'all guys wow there you go five go. Five-year planned trip right here. There we go. Lottie, what do you do? I'm a stay-at-home mom. Good.

We have four kids going on five. Wow. Congratulations. Well done. All right. What kind of debt was the $582,000? Oh, we had it all. Some of it was just I farmed and ran cattle, so I had a lot of farm debt.

I had a house, a $50,000 Duramax, man, zero interest. They'll do it every day of the week for you. Wow. I had a Nissan car, and we had our house. It was about $235,000. Tiffany's rings for this young lady. They financed that too. Don't worry.

I had about $ uh twenty thousand dollars with a student loan that she paid for because she saved money before we got married so uh she came into a mess before she decided to take me on uh and then yeah i had some some farm debts and stuff like that and then some uh i also took even a five thousand dollar trading class to learn how to trade commodities but or trade futures or online come to find out you can't trade unless you have money so yeah it's kind of a show it's kind of table stakes yeah yeah yeah she tried to tell me that was i'm going to claim that one's one of my stupid tax right i don't i don't have any money because i just spent it all on the class that tells me i need to have

money yeah i was kind of sitting there about halfway through it thinking, man, this is dumb. I think there's something on my shoe. I think I stepped in it. Yeah. Wow. Good for you, man. That's so cool. Yeah. So you went from playa to cleaning up the mess, because everything you said there was like, I do everything, man. Oh, yeah. And now you're just like, boom, straight and narrow. Yeah. Really what drove me onto this deal is when I first came out of college, I bought cattle for a major packet company. I spent a lot of time in western Kansas, and there was only AM radio over there. There was Dave Ramsey, Focus on the Family, and Rush Limbaugh. That was my theology in life.

And every day I would just spend time riding around looking at cattle and listening to you. And basically that started in 2006 and never stopped. Wow. Well, thank you. We appreciate you being out there. Yeah. Good stuff.

Okay. So who decides 10 years ago we're actually going to do this stuff? Well, we started off trying to kind of cheat it a little bit because some people say I'm cheap. I like to say frugal. But when I saw the price of the envelopes I was like we don't need the envelopes we'll just kind of do it you know and so after about a year of that and we were still fighting about money um we decided we need to take this seriously um you know if it's not broke don't fix it so we went ahead and kind of got the um we lived

out in the country so we just got the at home study program and watched through that together. Atropage University at home. Yeah. Bought the envelopes, started doing the cash system, set up our budget. Um, we had to do that budget meeting, you know, every month sitting down together and kind of getting that going. Um, so that was kind of the hard part at first, but then once we got the ball rolling, um, we found other things to fight about, but we didn't find about money anymore and so um it just it kind of made everything organized we knew what to expect of each other and where we were at and it just kind of went from there and like you say it's just that boring consistency you just do the same thing over and over and then you see it make progress and it gets really exciting yeah yeah

and for her just it was a security thing. Like, I mean, that was one thing that I noticed that really, uh, she just, that was the rough part for her. And it,

even for me, I've, I've been growing up as a kid. I mean, my parents, they're, they're good people, but we just,

we had some financial problems growing up. We had bankruptcy and man, that just, that I don't want that for my kids. Yeah. And I want them to know that what we've done as a sacrifice, as a couple. Yeah. Now you're free.

Yeah. Yeah, you're free. When you talk about the grass feeling different, there's some truth to that. Yeah, there is a lot of truth to it. And that's one of the, I mean, I don't know if we, we actually, before we got our debt paid off, we passed the millionaire mark. And it was just, I don't know. I still don't believe it. I kept looking at the spreadsheet because I was a spreadsheeter before you had the EveryDollar app.

And kept looking. I'm like, that can't be possible. But it's just a lot of dedication and a lot of time. And that was probably the hardest part for me. A decade in, you're 100% debt free and baby steps millionaires. Yeah. And we just, it was the consistency. Like there'd be some times where you're just like, and baby steps millionaires yeah and we just we that was the consistency like there'd be some times where you're just like man i when does this end and but there was if you saw

it on the paperwork you know it eventually was coming to an end i want you to talk about that stay right there because a lot of people that are in the middle of their journey and they're we know they're watching and listening and they feel they're feeling it today they're going i don't know if i can finish yeah what did you do or what would you tell how'd you keep going what'd you tell well you know honestly that one that was i'll bring our faith into that one i mean god was good to us even i'll admit when we were we we made the least amount of money we made the most because we were the best with it at that time you know more money more problems type scenario and that's probably where we were as a group, you know,

as me and her and even the Lord in our life, that's where we really, we had to bunker down and just be tough and not go, you know what, forget about it. We're just going to go on vacation. We just didn't do that kind of stuff. You know, you just have to stay strong. And it comes through. You didn't wig out.

Yeah, I didn't wig out, yeah. I think we both got to the point where you realize you make a mess of your life, you know, and that really God's the only one that can fix it. So it's great to have a program and it has great principles in it. But if you don't have God at the center where you can take your mess to him, then the principles only get you so far. And so God really was central to our story and got us through a lot of the hard things that we went through amen amen well and it it you know when you're a person of faith and you're leaning into that and you realize the system i'm using has the principles from his word in the system then that tells you also i'm gonna be okay yeah you know i got reassurance from that when sharon and i were walking that out you know it's like okay i get it that some of you people don't understand but i don't care this is what dad says

to do and dad's really smart my heavenly father and sometimes even what he says doesn't make sense and you don't understand it i just have to assume he's smarter than me exactly i'm gonna go with it because i'm not doing so good on my own so yeah, he's smarter than me. I know that. I'm sure of that. Yeah. I've never made a world, so I'm pretty sure he's smarter than me. That whole, you know, the debtor is slave to the lender. I mean, I took my first loan out was with the USDA when I was nine years old on some cattle. And so I wrote my life away at nine years old, and I knew nothing else until me and her got married. Yeah.

And now the other day, your baby steps millionaire is not a debt in the world. Yeah. Amen on that one. I will tell you what not to do because you talk about some people are the nerd and some are the fun spenders. Well, he's definitely more of the nerd. And so he's a spreadsheet guy, like you said. But he would make his spreadsheet and he would bring it to bed and be all excited.

Like, look at this. Oh, boy. We we gotta have some boundaries here yes you're a romantic to bed and show me we'll talk about that over coffee in the morning i'm thinking i don't want to see the spreadsheet now i could be wrong oh my gosh wow yeah that's nerdy for us so he's definitely the nerd i love you you guys. You're fun. Well done. Hey, we've got a copy of the Baby Steps Millionaires book because that's you. Total Money Makeover book because that's you. And Financial Peace University because that's you.

You can give those away. You can read them, whatever you want to. They're our gift to you. Bring the kiddos up and let's have a debt-free scream. What are their names and ages? We have Adeline, which is our oldest, and she's 10. We have August at 7. Then we have Piper. She's 5. And then we have uh adeline which is our oldest and she's 10 we have august at seven and then we have piper she's five and then we have dax and he's fixing to be two in november and then number five will be born in march love it 582 000 paid in 10 years making 65 to 114 count it down let's

hear a debt-free scream you guys ready three two one that's how they do it now morella boys and girls i love it ken coleman is my co-host jim is in San Antonio. Hi, Jimmy. How are you? Hey there, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Yeah, I sent it a question. Your dude got in contact with me, and now I got to ask it to you in person. So in today's world of like five round interviews, automatic rejection systems, and like thousands of people applying for the same jobs, how do you think that a 20-something year old dude might try and stand out in today's job market? Personal connection, to the extent that you can find it. And I say this, this is general advice, and I understand that at times it can be more difficult than others. But if you can find a personal connection, and it may be one to one, it's more likely one to two, meaning two or three people between you and a person in that building. So if you're applying for company ABC, and the first thing you want to do is just figure out through all of your connections, your close social ties, that's your friends and family, people you're

doing life with, and then all of your relationships from acquaintances to former friends at college, Facebook, the socials, all of that. You start to see if you can find somebody that knows somebody in the building at ABC. And what we're trying to do there is through the credibility of relationships, will that person at company ABC take your resume? And even though you got to go through all the other stuff, the AI and all the filters, will they take your resume in and talk to the hiring manager and go, hey, listen, here's how I know Jimmy. And this is what I know about Jimmy. And I think Jimmy's probably a really good candidate to look at. We really want to be that simple. We want to be that analog in a very digital world. That's going

to make you stand out. There's some credibility. Now, there's no guarantee for that. The second piece of advice I would give is if you get into the interview process, the way to stand out in today's world, and I think has always been the way to stand out, is the questions you ask in the interview. Most people don't treat an interview, Jimmy, like the interview is just as much for them as it is for the company that's looking at you. This is a digging thing. What are some good questions he could ask? Great. So first question I would ask is, tell me the kind of person that wins in this role. This is to the hiring manager. Describe the person that you think is going to win in this role.

Another question is, describe your leadership and management style. What would someone need to know to thrive and connect well with you? These are two very interesting questions that require that hiring manager to actually think. And in this process, if they've actually thought about that and they have an answer, they're going to give you an answer. You get to assess if you think you're a good fit there. The second thing it will do is whether they got a great answer for it or not, you're going to stand out because you put them on their heels in a good way.

In other words, you didn't ask a twerp question. You asked an insightful question that implies that you want to fill that role. And that's the way you ask it. Those are two samples, but I've got a how to win the interview resource at KenColeman.com that's free, that goes into great detail. So I don't have to list all those out but that's how you stand out in today's interview process well and it it kind of um I I think it's always just a good idea to put the employer shoes on yes so I I'm I mean I I as an employer I don't personally do interviews at Ramsey anymore ever I'm not good at it for one thing, but what I'm looking for is if they're asking questions that tell me they're a taker, how much does this pay? Yeah, that's exactly right. How much time off I get?

Right. You're just trying to figure out how little amount of work you can do for how much money, right? Instead, I like questions, they're not a taker. They're they're they're not subtraction. They're addition. That's right. They're not division. They're multiplication. And so, you know, how can I add value? How can I you're the question you asked? I like that one. It's like what kind of person wins here? Yeah. You know, if I came in here and, you know, what's the advice you would say to move ahead at Ramsey? Yeah, that's a great question.

And how can I add value? How can I make you more than I cost you? Because that's really what's running through an employer's head is can I ROI this payroll item? That's what they're asking. It's like if I hire a technician, I'm in the heat and air business. He's got to do more heat and air work than I pay him to make a profit on having hired him. Otherwise, I don't get to keep him because I can't afford him. Here's another question. Describe how this team that you lead, describe how they work together. What's that? How would you describe, if you're going to pick a one word

to describe this current team? Again, an insightful question that yields an answer for you, and it actually gives you some sense of what it's actually like there. Yeah. And what kind of, what kind of team member, what would I need to be to be a great team member? That's right. To,

to add value to this team and to add, what kind of synergy can I add or lift? Can I add? And so, by the way, if you get a nothing answer or a crap answer, so if it sounds like a politician on a Sunday morning show, that's the nothing answer. A lot of words, no substance, or you get a really kind of crappy answer.

That's a warning sign that maybe I don't want to be a part of this team. If I can't sit with a leader and a leader, tell me this is the kind of person who wins here. You do this, you win. We reward this here. And they, by the way the way will show you now ramsey example you ask that question at ramsey and and a leader is going to show you somebody in our company they'll point this way this way and this way and say now they started out in this

position now they're here i always think of that old story of the guy walking along the dirt path and he comes along a guy and the guy says what were the people like in that town you just left over there and he said well what were they like in the last town yeah he goes they were wonderful he goes you'll find it'll be wonderful he runs another guy and he said what the people like over there and he goes what'd you find in the last town he goes oh they were horrible they were just awful he goes well you're gonna find that over there too and so so if somebody sits down all they tell me is all the horrible things about all the places they've worked yeah and the only common denominator is them there you go i'm done that's right done so you come in and victim mentality your interview you screwed up your interview

um so because it's possible that you are actually a victim of a toxic thing but not repeatedly that's highly unlikely unless you are like attracting this. Well, that's a very good point. I mean, you don't know how to sniff it out. You keep allowing yourself to go to these situations. Well, I mean, yeah, or you're just a drama queen. You're part of the toxicity. Yeah, you're the core of the issue.

There we go. Hi, guys. For all of you that are listening to the show right this second on YouTube or on a podcast, at the top of the are listening to the show right this second on YouTube or on a podcast, at the top of the hour here, the show is going to end. And the other 40 minutes of the show is available for free on the new Ramsey Network app. As a matter of fact, all three segments of the entire show is available, the first part and the last part, on the Ramsey Network app, video and audio.

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And jump over there and get that done. And you can click on the show notes if you want to get the free app, too. That'll be another way you can get it and get it done. I can promise you this. The value is going to be worth the cost it's free it's free okay this is not hard quit your cry don't be crying about it it's free yeah ramsey network check it out this is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The 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.

We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. Thank you for joining us. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book, Paycheck to Purpose, is my co-host today. We'll be answering your questions about everything you want to talk about. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Samantha starts this hour in Minnesota. Hi, Samantha. How are Minnesota. Hi, Samantha.

How are you? Hi, Samantha. Hi, Dave. This is Allison. Thanks for taking my call. Oh, shoot. I'm sorry. I said my name.

Oh, boy. Starting off good here. My question is that I am wondering whether I need to sell my home to pay off the rest of my debt or whether I need to accept a gift from my parents to pay off the rest of my debt or whether I need to, um, accept a gift from my parents to, um, pay off the debt. Okay. Uh, how old are you? I'm 35. And how much do you own your home? I owe about two 50. How much other debt do you have? About 12,000. I have marked that down quite a bit thanks to your help, but I keep on bouncing back and forth between baby step one and two now just based on recent events that keep putting things in my path. Okay, like what?

Like last summer my AC went out. This, I've had a lot of vet bills. What do you make? I make $80,000 a year. Well, vet bills and an AC should not cripple you making $80,000 a year. I have made a lot of progress. I'm sorry? Yeah, I have made a lot of progress. So how quick would you pay off $12,000 if we took all this out of the equation,

if it was just up to you? Just up to me, I could probably get it out, you know, and then, I mean, if I took on like another weekend job, probably, you know, six, eight months. Yeah, that sounds right. Okay, and so you don't have to sell your house to get out of debt. My house is a little bit more than the 25% that you recommend. A little bit more doesn't make me sell it. Okay, your house is not out of line. I mean, your house is close to out of line, but it's not 50% of your take-home pay. No, no. You know, it might be 28 or something right no well with the hoa it's 30 yeah that's not going to kill you with my debt

it's not going to kill you this is a guideline to keep you from being house poor so it's not a it's not a pharisee thing where if you're one and a half percent over you got to sell your house it's not it's not what we're doing we're just trying to say don't be house poor and you're not house poor i'd rather you be a little bit lower but i don't think you have to sell your house unless you want to sell your house okay so if mom and dad give you twelve thousand dollars uh what's the downside of that are they controlling are they going to be giving you a hard time or no no i think you know the i would want to pay it back to them you know anyway just you know before they retire that's not it's not a gift that's a loan

so the downside is they don't really have the 12 000 they're too broke they have it how much do they have are they millionaires yes then they don't need twelve thousand dollars from you it's a gift hello yeah i'm here okay it's a gift what's what's got why can you not accept a gift i just don't want to be feel like I'm enabling myself in a situation that is going to that is that isn't good for me like because for example the loan I have on my house is a 30-year loan it's not a 15-year loan like you recommend so I you know I've been kind of coaching myself to get in more of the mindset where I get into you know a, 15-year loan set, you know, interest rate,

and then potentially sell this house. And I just feel like if I accept that gift from them, I'm kind of enabling myself. The $12,000 is going away still. The house is still exactly the same situation. So it's not enabling the house.'s enabling the debt but you've already broken the cycle on the debt haven't you yeah i i think so um i hope so i mean just the fact that yeah have they given you money before and you've messed back up and fallen off the wagon they have given they helped me with the down payment on my house and i did

pay that back to them though okay all right okay here's the thing you're 35 years old you do not have to prove your maturity to your parents by repaying it's not like well she needs to learn her lesson no you don't that's not that's not the thing okay to learn her lesson. No, you don't. That's not the thing, okay? That's just not a thing. If you can accept the gift and there's no strings attached and your parents aren't freaks and they're not dogging you about going on vacation after you got a $12,000 gift from them or something like that, then I think you should learn to accept the gift.

You need to learn to be a receiver as well as a giver. And no, it is not a loan do not take it as a loan either don't take it or take it as a gift and um and i don't think that makes you irresponsible and i don't think you're enabling nothing you've told me indicates that i would tell you you know i would dave i think i hear some self-loathing or some you're still punishing yourself like you've bought into the baby steps and you believe it. And listen, you've done a great job to get to this moment. You don't need to feel guilty about receiving a gift that will fast forward you being able to start paying your house off.

And I just sense that you feel just the fact that you said, I don't want to enable like you're still feeling shame and guilt over maybe past financial decisions. I think you got to be free from that. Yeah. Rear view mirrors are smaller than windshields, and that's called grace. So you look in the rear view mirror enough to stay aligned, but it doesn't define your future. Your future is defined by the windshield. So here's what I would do if I woke up in your shoes.

And then you can go do whatever you want. Okay? Number one, as I said, I'm not going to do anything as a loan period no relative loans no loans we're out of the debt business period shifting it from relative to relative debt from credit card debts dumb idea just pay it off forget it okay if you're going to take it take it as a gift and a smile no strings attached no problems number one number two as far that leaves us with just the house then and the eighty thousand dollar income and a 30-year mortgage is the 30 percent of your income including hoa do you have to sell that no should you re-evaluate it yes and i would what i would

do if i woke up in your shoes as i'd take the gift i'd pay off the debt i'd set my budget up and i'd work on my career to get my income up enough that I could start paying this house like a 15 at a reasonable rate so if you got your income to 100,000 this whole thing changes and so I'm going to give myself 36 months to get my income to 100 to 110 otherwise I'm going to talk about selling the house if I'm stuck at 80 for the next five years I'm probably going to sell the house but if I can see a curve on my income going up and this house starts to be a smaller and smaller percentage of my income therefore i can put it on a 15-year schedule because i'm debt-free because i accepted the gift and i'm on a budget then i'm keeping the house but um nothing um uh you are you are a very precise very detailed person and that works to your

advantage in this case you are have got a little bit of paralysis of the analysis. And so, in other words, cut yourself some slack, kiddo. You're doing so much better than your emotions and your sentence structure tells us you think you're doing. So I think you're doing great. That's how I would play it if you want to. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Tracy is with us in Fort Myers, Florida. Hi, Tracy. How are you? Hi. It's a pleasure to speak to you both. You too. How can we help? So, yesterday I was laid off.

Whoa. Well, you know. Sounds like it was unexpected. It was. However, I'm in a rare situation from, I think, a lot of people in that I recently came into some inheritance, a decent chunk. I am completely debt free, including the house. So and it's within like my mom died on Christmas Day,

and it's all, this has been a heck of a year. Anyway, thank you. And so I, my job, I'm in HR. I had fleet privileges where I work, and so the irony is I sold my personal car that I hadn't driven in a year last week, and now I have 13 days to get a car. So no notice at all on this layoff that's just weird no yeah i mean it's it is what it is i'm just trying to roll with the punches and

i think the the scariest part for me is i now have more money than i've ever had and i still and you know you're not supposed to make big major decisions with grief being so recent. What was the car that you sold last week? What was it? It was a 2012 Hyundai Elantra. And what did you sell it for? $4,000, and they put it online for $8,900. Whoa, they turned around and re-flipped it on you, huh? Oh, yeah.

I mean, the pictures, while I was waiting for them to come back with how much they were going to give me, the pictures that I had to place and everything on it that they end up bringing back to me. So it was crazy. Okay, so how much money do you have in cash? Oh, I have over $500,000. Okay, so go buy a car? What's the problem? Well, because I am not used to having this kind of money in my

mindset is still that i should go get a cheap car a hoopty but i know after working in the realm that i've worked in where i could drive a different car all the time i know what i want i'm just afraid to spend that kind of money because i've never had that choice before so i just feel like i need permission from you to say yeah go out and spend 40 spend $40,000 on a Jeep. I really wanted a Jeep Grand Cherokee, but they're expensive. Okay. Are you buying a one-year-old one or something? A couple years, yeah. I don't know that I'd want to go more than two or three. Okay. What did you make at your job that you got lost? $75,000. And what are you going to make at the next job? $85,000? I hope so. And honestly, I'm kind of, I'm not,

I don't know that I need to look right now with the holidays. I need to, it's going to be crazy with the first year without my mom. She died on Christmas Day. So I think this is a sign that I should just kind of not rush into anything until maybe after the first of the year, you guys tell me, but that's kind of where I'm thinking right now. Okay. There's two separate questions on the table. Number one, let's deal with the easy one.

Go buy a car. And yes, you can afford a $40,000 car. You have a half million dollars cash in the bank. You make $80,000 a year. You do not want to buy a $70,000 car. No, I would never. You do not need to buy it. Well, you might.

I mean, I'm just making sure. Okay. Okay. And, but I mean, if I wouldn't spend more than half of what you think you're going to be making. Okay. And so 40 with you making 80 is okay. 60 with you making 80 is not okay. Right. It just, cause you got the money. Okay. So that, that, that would be my guideline. And so that gives you permission to do a lot. Okay. And take your time on that. Go rent you a car for a week so you're not in a hurry and pay too much for a car.

And that's what I was afraid of. Yeah. Just slow down. Just go down to the rental car place and rent a car for a week. Okay. And just rent what you think you want to drive, by the way. Go ahead and rent you a Jeep Cherokee. Well, the irony is that I just got laid off from a rental car company so that's why i know what i want to drive okay this gets better and better

every minute yeah okay i've had almost two years i've had almost two years of driving pretty much whatever i like so i know what i want let's move on to the next question and i want my career expert next to me to step in but i'm gonna before he does I'm just gonna be Papa Dave okay okay you lost your mom and then you surprise got kicked in the teeth and you walked in and got devalued instantaneously last week so you're confident your confidence is a little bit shaken and um I would prefer you get back on the horse quicker than the first of the year for that reason because I want you to get back on the horse because I want you to regain some of your swagger and just the grieving of your mom, which is fine and normal and you should.

But also in the middle of that, you had somebody walk in and say, you don't have any value hit the street and i i want to tell you you got a lot of value thank you and when you land that new job that's them telling you you got a lot of value and i don't want you to wait till the first year to hear that message again okay that's just papa dave talking but ken no i appreciate it no i agree with that um because you're really a victim of a lot of fear out there around recession and things like this. And a lot of companies, they staff up, then they staff down. And it really wasn't personal at all.

It's why you really didn't even see it coming. We hear about this every day. My question is, do you have a severance at all? Yeah, just two weeks because I've not been there quite two years. Yeah. Well, I think I would echo Dave. And what I want you to do, though, is I like the idea of reflection. And you've got at least a month, you know, of just kind of going, where do I want to go and looking into all of the possibilities.

But, you know, one of the big hiring times for a lot of companies is in November. And so I would actually take advantage of getting back on the horse pre-holiday. We still have a very hot job economy. So I want you thinking now, because you've got financial freedom, what is it that you really want to do and why do you want to do it?

And I'm just curious, you got something at the top of your mind without trying to make it sound pretty? What is something that you would do? What is it? Tell me. I've always wanted to be in real estate but i'm afraid because the market is so saturated with realtors markets slowed down that calls them out pretty quick yeah i mean i've thought about this for 10 years and i've just never done it

because because the people who are in it that i've that i've asked the questions i mean they're real you're gonna pay a lot of things out of your own pocket. You might not make money the first year. You know, it's that scary. Now I have that freedom. I know I could, but I'm still, it's still hard. It's hard for me to wrap my head around the amount of money that I have. And so in my mind, I keep trying to forget about it so that I don't go crazy. Well, okay. So I want Dave to comment on the real estate. The guy's been in real estate a long time and he knows, but I just want to tell you something that now is the time for you to do this. You've been thinking about this for 10 years. You didn't ask for permission from me on this issue. I'm going to give you permission without you asking. You need to get qualified now. Now is the time for you to get studied up.

And I want you to find some different real estate people who have a much different outlook. You've been hanging around some people who are giving you the negatives. I don't need to know the context of those conversations, but the fact is you can win and you can win big even in this real estate economy if you are committed to do it, committed to get good at it, committed to work with a broker who's going to mentor you and guide you and invest in you. You can do this. Yeah, and you need to do it starting next week. Go ahead and get your license signed up for to take your test and jump in and find a broker and get all your groundwork and everything done this fall to where January 1 you hit the ground running wide open.

Cooking with gas in January 1. Yeah, in a used Jeep Cherokee. Yeah. Thank you. And listen, if you make zero money for six months and it starts to scare you, go get a job. Okay. After January. Okay. Right. But I think you take the time, align yourself with a great broker, get the groundwork, because it's going to take a little while to study for, sit for, take the test, get the results back, get signed up to the board of realtors, all the stuff you do. You got to, you know, it takes a hot minute to get set up.

You don't just walk in and in a week you're selling real estate, in most cases anyway. And so, yeah, that's exactly what I'd do. I would start, I would just go ahead. It's time. Burn the ships. You know, it's an old phrase. Just you approach the island, you burn the ship, I'm all in. I all in i'm not going to fail way home no way out of this deal you know dave that is true about real estate or any sales job that's that straight commission you at some point you got

to commit to go i'm not going to quit i'm gonna do whatever it takes and and you know in fort myers florida you're gonna be just fine yeah're going to be just fine. Yeah. You're going to be just fine. That's correct. It's not exactly a slow market. Yeah, and it's not like you have to wait until winter's over. You're in Fort freaking Myers. I mean, come on. So, it's not.

The way the snow thaws. I don't think so. It's not going to be a problem. It's true. All right. There you go. Get after it, kiddo. Let us know how it turns out.

This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage. Abby's with us. Hi, Abby. How are you? Hi. Better than I deserve. How are you? Better than I deserve. Welcome. Where do you live? Frederick, Maryland. Oh, fun. Well, thanks for being with us. Thanks for hanging out. How much debt have you paid off? $67,912. Good for you. And how long did that take? Six years. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? $44,000 to $68,000. Okay. And what kind of debt was the $68,000? Student loans and a car. Ah, okay. Cool. How old are you? 27. I turned 28 in December. Okay, so this journey starts when you're 21. Yes. Tell us about it and how'd you get connected to us? Yeah, so back in 2011 when I was in high school, my parents took FPU and I remember

in my bedroom having envelopes on the back of my door where I had to put cash that I would get for allowance and things like that into different categories. Hardcore. Exactly, I know. They're having envelopes on the back of my door where I had to put cash that I would get for allowance and things like that into different categories. Hardcore. Exactly. I know they're so tough, aren't they? Um, but it, it invested that principle into me in the beginning. And then I went to college and then after college I graduated in 2017 and my parents had been starting to take it more seriously and I was exactly of where all my money was going. I knew generally how much I should have or how much I was spending, but I didn't really know for sure.

And I was living at home for a few years to help pay off my debt. And so that's where it really started. I wanted to get rid of it right away and not wait till I was in my 40s and 50s to pay all this stuff off when I was single and living at home to try to pay off as much as I could. So I got started then and really took it seriously. I took financial peace in 2020. We had to go virtual in March, right when COVID started. So I took that in 2020 and then I've just been getting after it ever since. So that's kind of how I got started.

So a lot of this has been the last three years. Yeah, yeah, a big bulk of it has, absolutely. So you go from high school student where your nerdy dad made you have envelopes on the back of the door. I love nerdy dad, there you go. But then still go get a car loan and a student loan. Yeah, they were-

How's that happen? They said, we were just talking about it before I came on. They were like, yeah, we weren't really taking it seriously until about 2017, 2016. So they were a little, except for the envelope part, they were a little ish. I know. And then that infected you. Yes. Ah, okay.

Well, I'll give you a pass then. Okay. That's cool. It all worked out. All right. And, and, but the end of the story is awesome. Yeah, absolutely. Very cool. So I love that this is a six-year journey for someone your age you stayed with it you didn't get distracted you know you stayed with it yeah what's the key if you were

talking to other people your age and they're going all right i'm graduating with some student loan debt or maybe they got the car whatever it is we have a lot of young people joining the show all the time what would you say to them is the key to maybe your generation sticking with this plan? What would you say to them? Yeah, I have two things that come to mind. First of all, my faith is so big to me and this journey taught me more about God's faithfulness and provision than probably anything else in my life. So realizing that it's not my money. God actually trusts me with this money and I'm to steward it well. And so if I'm being reckless, that's not being a good steward. So being able to recognize that made it easier for me to be sacrificial and let go of things because it's not mine at the end of the day. But secondly, budgeting is just so important.

Like I said, I knew previously, like vaguely, how much money I was spending. But once my dad and I put together a little Excel spreadsheet and worked it all out and he got all the formulas for me and everything. That budget really, really helps me. And I look forward to it every month. And I tell all my friends, I'm doing my budget this weekend and having to ask my roommates to pay me back money for things so that my budget can be equal. You know, it's it's it's challenging, but it really pays off in the end and being able to say no to things like during COVID all of my stimulus checks $1,400 going to Advantage hurt but was different than all my other was that all of my friends were doing with their stimulus checks and things like that so I paid during the whole pandemic so just that self-denial of things that you might want right here and now

and looking forward to the future so how's it feel to be free it feels great it feels so great with all the student loan stuff coming back and not having a care in the world i'm like not me exactly i'm not signed up for your loser plan yes exactly i'm trying to tell my friends i'm like get on this you can i was just texting someone last night she's making like so much money i'm like you could be debt free in a year just do it it's gonna be tough it's gonna be hard but just I'm like, you could be debt-free in a year. Just do it. It's going to be tough. It's going to be hard, but just stick with it, and you got it. So I'm trying to inspire all my friends to get on the train. How are they reacting to the fact that their payments are now due?

They're stressed. People are very stressed. I think especially if you weren't paying during the big pause, it feels like this big boulder coming at you. So they're really overwhelmed, and I actually think it's a good thing for right now because my dad and I are actually teaching FPU at my church this spring. And I lead a young adults ministry.

And so I'm trying to get all of my friends to come. And I'm like, guys, you can get in control of this. And once you're in control and you know what's going on, your anxiety is going to ease so much. So, yeah. That's a big deal. Congratulations. Thank you. what do you tell

people the key to getting out of debt is um that that's sacrifice being able to deny yourself and it's going to be okay you don't need everything um which is a hard concept to learn um but it teaches you that you know that's that self-sacrifice and again goes back to my faith that jesus died for me and denied himself and so I can deny myself you know a new pair of shoes or wanting to go on a trip or something like that for a longer goal that's going to be able to let me bless other people in the long run so yeah well said very well said well congratulations other than mom and dad who was cheering you on um my brother and sister Brooks and Emily and then my brother-in-law, Scott. Scott watches you all the time.

He and I were going back on the phone last night talking about, what's he going to say? And he has all your impersonations down pat. Oh, my impersonations. Yeah, he does a good job. He really nails it. So yeah, my family and then my roommates, they all know. And all my friends, and all my friends really

all my friends cheer me on i don't really have too many people telling me that i'm crazy or anything like that so that's good yeah that's good it's one of the reasons you win you got to be careful who you have around you yes absolutely you become who you hang around with right so well done well done congratulations we're proud of you hero thank you very good job hey we've got the live and give box for you. That's the Baby Steps Millionaires book, which is your next stop. Amen. For sure.

The Total Money Makeover book and the Financial Peace University membership and all of that will work to help you in the ministry that you're doing and for you to enjoy as well. Thank you. Thanks for making the trip from Maryland. You're a fireball. You're fun. Thank you. Yeah, it's been awesome.

Very well done. Good job on the air. And man, what a great story. At 28 years old, right? 27, right. I wanted to be debt-free before I turned 28. That's what it was. 27 years old.

Exactly. 68,000 paid off in six years, making 40 to 68. Abby from Maryland, count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free! Yeah! Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop.

Now, what is fascinating about her story, if you listen carefully to it, and this happens with a lot of debt-free scream people that are in here on the stage, we hear this often. She had a six-year journey, but the majority of it was done in three. And what was the difference? Was it the income? No. It was her outlook. When she decided, I can sacrifice a pair of shoes.

I can sacrifice this to get control of my life. I can sacrifice. I can sacrifice. I can do needs and wants are different things. I can get control of this. And once she decided that, and then the income came with it too, man, the last three years, it's like, boom well there's something powerful too we know this from tons of psychology studies to put a date on something

there's something about 28 years old yeah and that really motivated her you could tell that she she was like i oh i'm not 28 yet dave because i said i was going to be debt free and by golly she did it and there's something powerful about putting, hell again, life happens. So I don't want anybody thinking, well, it has to be by that date, but it certainly helps. There's something about seeing the finish line. We know this about runners. I only ran one race, Dave. I retired, you know, because you guilted

me into one race, but I learned one thing. Having a mark that you're trying to hit does drive you towards it. You want me to get out the world's smallest violin now? Where I guilted you into doing something incredible. But it was actually great for me. I learned a lot. So who came alongside you in the last mile when you were struggling to finish?

I looked like a wounded wildebeest in those nature shows. And Dave came alongside as I was cramping up and got me through. But setting a time, setting a goal. I'm not sure his feet touched the ground the last mile i think we carried i did oh no i actually ran but it was it was all guts and there was no glory by the way ever none oh bless his heart this is the ramsey show our scripture of the day psalms 128 2 you will eat the fruit of your labor blessings and prosperity will be yours claude mcdonald said if hard work is the key to success most people would rather pick the lock and that's the truth katie is with us in Concord, New Hampshire.

Hi, Katie. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Oh, God, this is actually happening. Okay. Breathe, Katie. It's going to be good. Holy moly.

What's up? How can we help? I want to overwhelm with gratitude. This is crazy. Okay. First, I need to thank you for everything. Thank you. How can we help?

So, okay, Dave, you have to promise not to yell at me. My boyfriend and I have combined all of our debt and our bank accounts, and we are Denzel and Tense on our debt and our bank accounts, and we are, um, can sell intense on, um, our debt. Um, we have about, uh, $89,000 left. Um, we have smashed out all the credit cards. There's no more credit card debt, which is very freeing. Um, so now we're working on student loan and auto loan. Um, but my question is, um, my, my family and I have recently joined a church that, um, you know, my children and I were baptized in and, um, every month, you know, uh, we have our budget meeting, you know, and, um, I'm the planner and he gets to change my plan, which I don't really

like very much. But, um, my question is, month after month after month, the church column is a bunch of zero. Because I feel like I don't really have anything to give. And I just, I want to be able to give the 10% of our income. When are you getting married? Ask him. I've actually had this conversation with him. I've actually been married twice before. How long have you been dating?

We've been dating for over a year. If you're willing to completely combine your finances, you should never do that unless you're married. Yeah. And then you should do it immediately. But this is very dangerous for you. Very vulnerable. Yeah.

Yeah. So either take your finances back apart or get married. What was his response when you brought it up to him? Marriage. So we talk about it. We want to get married. His thing is, like, he wants to be able to provide picture perfect for me. Sorry, that's not an option.

Yeah. There's no such thing. I got a hunch here real quick. Katie, what does he make income-wise, and what do you make? Separate those. Okay. Okay. So I make, like, $4,000 a month, give or take.

Okay. What does he make? And he makes about $55,000, roughly. Okay. And I actually have more debt than he does. Okay. Well, number one, let's just back up, back the bus up here. Either get married in the next 30 days or separate your finances.

Yeah. This is very dangerous for you. I'm scared for you. Okay? You should not be paying his debt. He should not be paying your debt when you're not married. You are going to get, it's going to put a strain on the relationship. Something's going to blow up and one of you is going to get left in an unfair disadvantage

due to this broken system that you should not be using. I'm not yelling at you. I just want good for you. I love you. I want you to win. Then once you've made the decision to either separate your finances or combine them because you're getting married immediately, not next year, okay, then, I mean, this is not something you need to plan for two years. Painter, get off the ladder. And then once you decide all that, then we can come to your question. How do we put, you've just started attending church,

how do you put church in the budget? Well, you don't put church in the budget. You put God and generosity in the budget. And for those of us that are evangelical Christians, the first stage of baseline generosity is a tenth of our income going to the local church. But that is an act of worship. That's an act of not trying to buy God's favor. He doesn't need your money.

He says to do this because he wants to turn you into a generous person because generous people are much better children, and you and I are better children of God when we are generous. And so he's trying to turn us into that, and that's what the tithe was established for. It's not established as a rule. It's not established as a shaming mechanism by religious zealots. It's established as a method of teaching us the power of generosity when it's a regular

rhythm in our lives. And so were I you, I would live on 90% of my income and be giving a tenth of my income to my local church if I'm a person of faith. That's not a condemnation, but it's what I have done for 40 years, and it's worked really, really well for me. And there's no guarantee you're not going to have bad times. There's no guarantee of anything. It's just an act of generosity, and it's teaching us the rhythm of generosity, a baseline start. And I was in a church when I was going bankrupt, Katie, in my 20s as a baby Christian,

and there were people there that would say things like, well, you know, God protects you if you tithe. And I went, I missed that part, went bankrupt. I missed that. Well, and then I had one old blue haired lady say, well, you just didn't have enough faith. And I said, honey, I didn't have anything left but faith. They took everything else. So, I mean, come on.

Yeah. So broken doctrine, broken theology. But and so you can get twisted up in all that toxic garbage, or you can just say, hey, I'm going to live life with an open hand, and I'm going to be a generous person, because generous people smile more. Generous people are less often depressed. Generous people are better at relationships, because who wants to be in a relationship with a selfish person?

No one, right? And so the act of generosity becomes a character quality, and it changes your whole life. And so, yeah, I'm going to put that at the top of my list of things to do. Absolutely. But not as a legalism rule. Yeah. Absolutely right. That is really scary doctrine, and it's what drives a lot of people away from the faith.

If you think you've got to give God money to get something good from him, that is a recipe for frustration and desperation. Yeah. As if he needs your permission to bless you. Right. You know, and as if his blessing is dependent upon you giving him a nickel. Good gracious. If he wanted your money, he'd take it to a big greasy spot where you were sitting. I mean, he's God.

I mean, come on, he doesn't need your money. That's not the point. The point, and so don't be shamed by it, Katie, and don't be going, because I heard the guilt, oh, every month I feel bad because there's nothing in the church column. Well, I mean, put something in there, but don't do it out of shame. Do it out of, hey, I want to learn a different way of living that includes generosity, and it includes a smile,

and it includes being married to this guy you've fallen in love with and combining your whole life, not just your money. And let's do the whole deal. Let's go game on. But don't pay someone's debts ever, and don't let someone pay your debts that you're not married to. You're going to get yourself in a pinch. I've been doing this a long time, and I never see good of it. It ends, as Deloney says all the time, this ends in ash. That's a pretty harsh statement, but it does.

It just, the thing burns to the ground. So I want you to win, kiddo. We love you, and I'm happy that you're in your family or in a good church and it sounds like you're starting your journey there um and or resetting your journey there that's awesome any of that i'm cheering you on ken's cheering you on we want you to win um and um no we're not yelling at you that's not what we do um we we yell at concepts not people but um yeah don't you know those of you that are shacking up and aren't getting married you can do that if you want to do it i won't be mad at you i'm not gonna yell at you um but don't combine your money don't combine your money because you're gonna get burned don't buy a house with somebody you're not married to you're gonna get burned i get it all the time

in here it's all the time and you're setting yourself up burned. I get it all the time in here. It's all the time. And you just set yourself up. You make dumb decisions like that. You get yourself burned. We don't want that for you. That puts this hour of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.