The Ramsey Show - App - The New Dolphin King: Andy Andrews Joins Dave in Studio (Hour 2)

Episode Date: June 12, 2019

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions Broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Bruce starts this hour in Seattle.

Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Bruce. Thanks for taking my call, Mr. Ramsey. Sure. What's up? So I've been really hitting this debt thing really hard for the past couple of months here. I've started following you. Ramsey. Sure. What's up? Uh, so I've been really hitting this debt thing really hard for the past couple of months here. Um, I've started following you big fan. Um, I've paid off about $17,000 of debt in three months. Wow. Um, yeah. So I'm looking at now I'm going scorched earth and getting pretty radical with this. I have a home that has about a hundred thousand equity and I'm looking at selling that,

moving across the country, back to my family, with my family, to save even more money, take that equity, attack the debt even more so, and then live cheaper for a while. And so I kind of wanted to know what you thought about that idea. It's a significant move, a significant lifestyle change. Nothing is permanent, but it would get me closer to debt free faster by using this equity. That's your only reason for doing it? The other reason is being closer to family. I've got a third child on the way, so that would be nice, but it's basically in the middle of nowhere, so it's going to be a lifestyle change that my wife and I are not super stoked about. But at the same time, getting rid of debt is a huge deal for us.

How much debt do you have? We have close to $150,000 in debt. On what? Student loans, some credit cards, and cars. What do you owe on your cars? Total cost, we have two cars, one $20,000 and one about $8,000. What's your household income? I'm the only one that works, so I work two jobs right now,

and I'm making close to $300,000 a year. Okay. No, I would stay where you are. Hmm. Because you don't want to move. I don't really want to, but I also... You make $300,000 a year. You're going to pay off $150,000 in two years.

I wouldn't go through all this disruption. Besides that, you're not going to make $300,000 where you're moving to. Well, I will. I work remote. That's the plan is to live as cheap as I can. What do you do? For a while. Software development. Yeah.

But you're in the middle of software development heaven right there. Correct. And when you move to the middle of nowhere, it is going to affect your income, even though you work remote. Yes. Because the proximity that you're in to the business that you do does matter, even when you're remote.

The companies I work for are in the Midwest. I work remote for them for a couple years now. Okay. But, I mean, bottom line is that if you were debt-free, you wouldn't be talking about this. That's correct. I'm just trying to get there as fast as I can. But you make a ton of money.

You do very well. Congratulations. You have a fabulous income. And you're on fire. You're a project-driven, task-oriented guy. You're going to get there. You're going to be done with this in, I mean, two years easy. Less than two years.

Sure. You've already done $17,000 in three months. Right. You're going to be fine. I'm just going to sit there and plow through this. If you want to get froggy, sell the big car, but I don't even do that in this case. Because here's what I'm looking at. I'm looking at the ratio of $300,000 to $150,000.

And so $75,000 a year for two years, you're done out of $300,000. That's mail in a den. Yeah. Okay. But if you did $150,000 out of $ 150 out of 300 you're done in one year right not counting taxes you know sure that's still not exactly roughing it no it's not at all but it's just one of those things where i've gotten the bug and i'm yeah on fire and what i'm just trying to tell you the bug is you know you're going to turn

and undo all this disruption to your family later and emotional disruption. And moving is expensive, and it's going to knock you further off the track than it's going to get you on the track. You've already got the secret sauce. The secret sauce is how fired up you are and your ratio of income to debt, your ratio of shovel to the hole that you're in. You have a very large shovel um and you have a you know a large debt and your very large shovel is going to dig you out of this hole very very quickly now that you're on now that you're game on there's nothing stopping you dude i mean you're what you're willing you're willing to go live under a bridge to do this which means

you're going to do it yeah yeah yeah i don't think you guys want to move i don't think you guys want to move to family at all yeah we don't really want to but there's a proximity to family question okay um if you want to live there that's different but that was not the discussion we were having no it's not really yeah you make 300 grand buy some airline tickets and take the babies over there and show grandpa yeah it's a good point you know it's not it's just not that expensive i mean you you can do it um now you know if but if you guys want to be there and want to raise your kids and in the proximity of family and that kind of stuff and you want to live in thing but you told me straight up you and your wife were dreading joining uh dreading

living in podunk that's what exactly what you said so don't go live in podunk man i mean you know some people that's what that's their dream is to get to live there but it's your nightmare don't do it you've got you've got and definitely don't do it just to get out of debt hey thanks for the call open phones at 888-825-5225 thank you for joining us america our question today comes from Blinds.com. Find out for yourself why they are the number one online retailer of custom window coverings with free samples, free shipping, the new promos they run every month. You'll save even more.

The promo code is Ramsey. Questions from Audra in Indiana. My company offers a Roth 401k option. I've been contributing 15% of my income as a baby step forward today the advisor with the 401k company suggested i opt for the regular 401k to reduce taxable income if i owed on my taxes last year does this make any sense no your advisor stupid don't take his advice doesn't know what he's talking about. The money that you save on taxes by doing a traditional 401K is going to be destroyed by the fact that your entire 401K,

when you're rich with millions of dollars in it, is going to be taxable later because of this idiot's advice. No. Most of the money that is in it, when you have have a million dollars and you will have if you're saving 15 of your income you look up and you add up how much you have put in you're going to find that 92 of what is in that account is growth eight percent is what you put in. You save taxes on 8% by, for now, not forever, but just for now, by doing a traditional. That's your advisor talking. That's a goofball. Okay?

Now, but 92% you're going to get taxed on. So out of $1 million, $900,000 is going to get taxed if you follow this guy's advice. If you do the Roth, it's not going to get taxed. So his advice is if you pay 25% or so, if you pay, what, $250,000 in taxes, that's how bad his advice is. It just costs you $250,000 per million. I don't know how many millions you'll have, but you'll have at least one. That's just dumb. No, don't know how many millions you'll have, but you'll have at least one. That's just dumb. No, don't do that.

Do a Roth. The good news is this stuff's not hard once you start paying attention. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options? Do you wish you could find an affordable, biblical solution to your health care costs? Based on New Testament principles, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, helps Christian families, churches, and ministries join together as the body of Christ to share their major health care costs.

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Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org. Well, look who stopped by. Number one best-selling author, my good friend Andy Andrews, hailed by the New York Times reporter as someone who has quietly become one of the most influential people in America. That's strange. I never thought of you as quiet. Well, I think it's quietly become that you're just like who is this guy that's very quiet perfect new book out called the bottom of the pool sounds kind of like a horror movie doesn't it does it i was wondering i was scared about

because i mean when i got stuck at the bottom i'm not going to talk about until you do the yeah until you do the subtitle thinking beyond your boundaries to achieve extraordinary results so a childhood game that's the focus of the bottom of the pool talk about that yeah you know when i was a little kid they used to drop us at the pool back when you could drop kids at the pool leave them all day we stayed all summer you get tired of marco polo and Blue Rover, which is just like Red Rover, except it's in the water. And so we made up our own game. We played Dolphin.

This was back when Flipper was a big deal. You remember Flipper. A lot of people don't know. It was Lassie in a wetsuit, same thing. And we got tired of all these games, so we created our own game, which we called Dolphin. We'd go to the middle of the deep end and circle up and tread water, and one by one people would go in the middle and try to do what Flipper did,

come out of the water. And the game was to see who could get the highest. And we had this kid who was always winning. His name was Aaron Perry. He won all the time. But he was bigger than us, older than us. He had big feet, big hands, and he could grab water. He could really get out.

And he won so much that we just almost got sick of it. Everybody almost quit until the day that my best friend Kevin Perkins actually destroyed him. And it was just a beautiful thing, Dave. Legendary at the pool. Yeah, it was unbelievable because we're out there, and we've done this day after day, and everybody's kind of tired, and we've watched Aaron trying to figure out how he holds his hands and feet and suddenly kevin gets out now aaron's already taken his turn and so everybody kind of already knows we're already beaten but then kevin goes out are you ready we're like yes go are you sure you're yes

please just go and he goes down instead of up and he's's going down, and we're treading water, and we're trying to figure out what is he doing down there, and he goes all the way to the bottom and squats down. Then before we knew what was happening, he pushes against the bottom, and he comes rocketing through the top of the water, and we're like, oh, my gosh, we have a new dolphin king. I mean, we're just like out of our minds delirious and of course immediately aaron and his little toadies are like well you cheated and it was like where's the rule that says you can't go down

before you go up it was okay it was you know it's not it's not a rule so we So we can all do that now. And everybody started doing it. And soon Aaron was winning again. But Kevin was always the legend. And I thought about this for years. Because I thought, you know, we're the only place playing this as little kids. So conceivably, we're the best dolphin players on the planet. And Aaron is the best of all of us. And if you'd ask us then, are you doing the best you can do to beat him?

Are you doing the best you can do? We just said, yes, we're doing the best we could do. And what we didn't know is that there was another level. Because we were doing the best we could do, but we weren't doing the best that could be done. And it was very curious to me as I thought about it that we were doing the best we could do. We were trying. I mean, we would look at how he did it, and we'd try to do it like him. And we really worked hard, and it was obvious how to do it. Everybody knew how to do it everybody knew how to do it at least it was obvious until

one kid went down instead of up and then everything that had been so obvious wasn't even true and i began to find as an adult that there is value in looking outside that industry standard. There is a way people do things. There's the industry standard. There's the best practices. We know how to do it. Okay, you can get good results. In fact, there's a book called Good to Great.

You can get great results doing it like everybody's doing it. But if you would rather ignore good to great and go good to best, you better do something different than everybody else is doing. And I have found over and over that there is a way to think to the bottom of the pool, to the foundation.

It's until you get to that foundation and plant your feet against that firm foundation, that concrete, you could never harness all the power that's there. What happens is people go along, go along, go along, and if you get kind of in that comfort zone, you get lulled to sleep, you don't have any reason to go to the bottom. Right. You don't have any reason to do something different. And so the enemy of the best is very seldom the worst.

That's right. Because if things are bad, you're going to do something different. That's exactly right. But the enemy of the best is good enough. That's right. Because good enough, you just go along with good enough, good enough, good enough. And so sometimes you hear of somebody, so-and-so had a breakthrough in their physical health. They had a breakthrough in their business. They had a breakthrough in their career. They had a breakthrough in their physical health. They had a breakthrough in their business.

They had a breakthrough in their career. They had a breakthrough in their marriage. They had a breakthrough in their finances. And what it was, they did something radically different than not only that they had been doing, but then was, quote, normal. Boy, that's exactly right. What a great way of explaining it. And that breakthrough seemed so radical to everybody because nobody ever seen a breakthrough like that because you're right they did something so different i think

sometimes the hardest people to work with i guess i work with a lot of people but the hardest people to work with are people who have had a great deal of success and who are doing fine because well you know they sometimes you get from success only the fear of losing it. That's true. You know, and you're stuck then because I can't put all this at risk. I worked too hard to get here. I can't put it at risk. Right.

You know, I wonder sometimes – and that's one thing I would like to say to people. I don't think you have to put everything at risk right to add more gas to the fire you have and so but but doing something hugely different so how you get the bottom what's the what do you what do you ask yourself that causes you to color outside the lines like that okay it's a thought process and and the easy way to explain it is to explain it with the simple question, why? And most people ask why when something's wrong. You know, why is this not working like it is? Why are we having a problem here?

And then when they get the answer and it's fine again, they quit asking why. All right? Now, there's a way to go to the bottom of the pool with why by continuing to ask why when things are working. Why is this working like it is? Why is this working so well on Thursdays? And all of a sudden, you'll begin to understand aspects of a principle that nobody knows. I mean, there's tons of people who understand a principle, know how to use it. But until you know why it works as it does, you'll never be able to use it in other areas

than everybody else has used it forever. And then the other way of using that why is to take it down. Most people stop when they get an answer. You know, why is this happening like it is? Well, it's just because, you know, it's like. No matter what the answer to your why question is, ask why again. Yeah, until there is nowhere else to go. And you'll know you're at the bottom.

It's the eight-year-old little boy that I always ask why about everything. Yeah. Over and over, to the point it's annoying. And our parents knock it out of us. and so we don't do it anymore but you can if you said why is this not working like it used to well times have changed oh yeah okay well that's it and even if people go another level go you know what do you mean times have changed why have times changed well it's just we're different people and different technology okay and people just kind of stop there but whatever it is you can take it to the bottom

of the pool and you'll find answers that nobody else is finding because everybody else is playing on the surface then you get to rock it above the surface yep yep yep yep andy andrews my guest the book is the bottom of the pool new york York Times bestselling author of The Noticer and The Traveler's Gift. Make sure you check this out. This is a life-changing concept right here. The Bottom of the Pool. Thanks for dropping by, my friend. Thank you, Bill.

God bless you. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. So long. So long. So long. So long. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Jeff and Susan are with us. Jeff is a new team member here at Ramsey Solutions, ready to do a debt-free scream. Hey, guys, how are you? We're doing good.

Welcome, welcome. So how much have you two paid off? We have paid off $272,000. And how long did this take? Six years, seven months. All right. And your range of income during that time, I can ask that because Jeff just started here, so we don't have to disclose his income. But up until the time you started here, what was your household income?

We started about $191 and finished up at $228. Okay. All right. Cool. Very good. Good for you guys. Well, and Jeff, you work on our Entrez leadership team. Yes.

On our sales and marketing team there. Absolutely. Very cool. Good. Good. Yes. On our Sales and Marketing Team there. Absolutely. Very cool. Good, good. Cool. So what kind of debt was this $272,000? Just a mortgage. You paid off your house?

Yes, we did. Weird people in the house. I love it. Way to go. How long have you guys been married? 22 years. 22. Have you ever been 100% debt free in the 22 years?

No. Wow. Yeah. Sharon and I were for about 30 minutes, and we stopped at a gas station and put gas on a credit card on our way to our honeymoon. From then on, we weren't until we went broke and got out of debt. Wow. Way to go, guys.

House. What's this house worth? About $500. Woo-hoo! I love it. Way to go. How's that feel? Pretty good.

I bet. It's weird. Yeah. No house payment, man. That's just awesome. Cool. So, you've been plugged into us for six years before you came on the team? A little longer than that.

Probably 2010, 12, something like that. Okay, so tell us your story. How did you make the decision, we're going to pay off our house in six years? In 2010, we took FPU, and that helped us build our emergency fund. And then we read Retired Inspired. And from that point on, we were very intentional. And we started coordinating FPU at our church. We started, and that totally kept us accountable.

Oh, yeah. You just keep trucking when you're doing that. Right. Very cool. And just set our sights on the mortgage. And we promised the kids that when we paid off the mortgage, we would come and do our-free screen and so here you are and uh lo and behold dad works here now yeah there you go i love it wow very cool guys so when you're doing an fpu class now i mean you're like you're like a case study you're a shining example of you can do this uh you can't argue with you guys

because you're you know a man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an opinion. You did it. And so what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? I think for us it was A, staying content with what we had. B, was just trying to look past the daunting task of paying off a huge mortgage. We were in California trying to do that as well as cash paying off a huge mortgage. We were in California trying to do that as well as cash flow private school for the kids. And so it was just focusing

on the goal. We put the mortgage number with those old preschool letters up on the refrigerator. So when they got here to Tennessee this last weekend, there was a big zero on the board. I love it. Wow. So part of the equation too, though, there was a big zero up on the board. I love it. Wow. So part of the equation, too, though, was selling a house, it sounds like, in California and moving to Tennessee. Correct. Which that helped the numbers.

Absolutely. We were probably about a year and a half, two years out from paying off the house in California, but it was a very small house. So now we sold that, moved here here dipped into a little bit of our bridge fund and paid cash for this one wow paid cash for it and a much bigger house obviously yes tennessee costs of real estate a lot different than california a little bit well very cool guys very very cool we're proud of you i'm proud of you as a team member a bunch of your team down here to cheer for you and gathered around around and so forth. So very cool.

Very cool. So who were your biggest cheerleaders along the way? I'd say actually our FPU class. We got text messages and just they kept us motivated. Most people just thought we were weird with our finances. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you are.

You're officially weird. You have a paid for house and you know how old are you two i'm 46 i'm 49 so you're not even 50 years old you have paid for house that's very weird in america yeah it is very weird it's very weird to have one paid for period but to do it as young as you guys are and the first time in 22 years you're free in your marriage and free debt free so way to go guys very well done so the name your kiddos names and ages so this is david who's 15 and gianna who's 12 awesome very cool guys well we've got another chris hogan book for you you've got the uh retire inspired it was part of

your journey part of your story the next chapter is certainly to be everyday millionaires and uh no question that you're on your way to doing that and uh so we'll give you a copy of that if you don't already have it if you do you can have whatever you want but you work here you can get whatever you want anyway so there you go so good stuff all right jeff and susan david and gianna from right here in nashville ramsey team member house and everything 272 000 off. It's a six-year journey teaching Financial Peace University along the way. $191,000 to $228,000 income during that time. Great story, guys.

Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Love it! And the team drops balloons on them. I love it. Very fun.

Very cool, guys. Congratulations. We're so proud for you. Excellent stuff. Excellent stuff. Peter is with us in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Hi, Peter. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. I just want to say thank you because your show has been so helpful to my life, especially when I was in a dark place. So thank you. Sure. How can I help? Dave, I used to work in information technology and I transitioned into flipping houses. I flipped a couple houses. First house I made $100,000 on. First house I made $100,000 on. Second house I made $200,000 on.

So I'm doing pretty good at it, except I have a lot of debt. I've been using a lot of debt, and I want to now be debt-free. I don't want to use debt. But I don't want to pay too much debt off at one time and not have enough cash flow to continue my business. So I was wondering if you have any tips about that. Well, yeah. I have a friend, for instance, that had a car dealership,

and debt is normal in flipping houses. Debt is normal in a car dealership. Debt's normal if you're a home builder and you're doing spec houses. It's a normal thing there. And any of those types of businesses, this kind of an idea will work. All he did was he said, well, I can't pay off all of this. He was running, you know, the standard floor plan, you call it, where you, you know, you run debt on your inventory. And every time you sell a car, you replace the car with more debt, you know.

And so you just, you know, you a basically a line of credit that you're running the cars on and off of and so what he decided to do was uh at the end of the first year he wanted to have 25 percent of his cars not on the floor plan in other words debt-free cars sitting on the lot at the end of the second year he wanted 50 of the cars sitting on the lot not on the floor plan third year and you see where this is going. It took him four years of every time he'd sell a car, he'd set back, you know, a quarter on the dollar or 50 cents on the dollar or whatever he could set back to where then he didn't do it. I've got a friend that also is a home builder. He's a third generation.

His grandpa did that, and his dad and his uncles never borrowed money, ever, and built big, nice, expensive homes and did it with cash because grandpa had worked his way up to this point. Because once you get enough to do a flip with cash, you increase your margins, you decrease your risk, and, you know, you made $300,000 on two deals. That alone, if you didn't need money out of that $300,000 to eat, you know, that $300,000 would have bought another house. Yeah.

And so you just work your way towards it. Maybe the next deal you do is not debt-free, but you say, okay, two deals later, I'm going to back down on the size of properties I'm flipping, and I'm going to crank up and, you know, take these profits and roll them back in, and you should be able to pay cash two or three deals later for your next deal, shouldn't you? I think so. That's a perfect plan. Yeah. So just, you know, the trick is just you're not going to get there instantaneously.

It's going to be a an incremental process. And it feels weird because you're continuing to actively borrow money. But it's less and less each time with a game plan of being free soon. We get the noose off your neck soon. So I think it's a great plan to flip houses with cash. And I'd get there as soon as I could. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. thanks for joining us america we're glad you're here open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five j Jason is in Chicago. Hi, Jason. Welcome to the show. Hey, Dave. Thank you.

Sure. What's up? So, I'm 24 years old in August. I'm starting my master's program in September. I've already got about $50,000 in undergrad debt from all over the place. And then this next program is going to cost about $72,000 a year. What are you getting a master's in that's $72,000 a year? It's a degree in marriage and family therapy from Northwestern University. Go get it somewhere else.

I don't know. This is just kind of the way that the doors have opened, and to be honest with you, this is just kind of how... Yeah, you're overpaying. If you've got the cash laying around, that's fine, but you're describing me, somebody that's broke, that's overpaying 3X for this master's degree. Yeah, well, this is what I wanted to ask you.

After school, you know, the median salary for a position like this, at least in the Chicagoland area, is somewhere between $65,000 and $85,000 starting salary. Yeah, which does not justify $75,000 for a master's degree per year, did you say? Yeah, yeah. $150,000 for a master's degree in marriage and marriage therapy that should be

costing you no more than 40 or 50 grand sorry northwestern no sale no sale so um deciding let's say deciding to go to northwestern and finish the degree there with the student loans and everything while I'm in school. I have like, I don't know, about 10,000 left on my car and then like 6,000 of credit card debt, which I'm kind of knocking out this the rest of the summer. I did just recently get into an injury. I got hit by a car while I was skateboarding, and my lawyer told me that I could get somewhere between like $5,000 and $25,000. And with that chunk of money, I was wondering if I should just throw that on top of all my current student loans or find a way of investing that money. I'm not really sure what I should do with that. Okay. Well, you should use it to pay cash for a marriage and family therapy degree

at another university you cannot afford this one more time mathematics works like this okay a 60 to an 80 000 your job is not justified by spending 150 000 a degree, a master's degree, that you could get for $30,000 or $40,000 somewhere else. It's not logical. It's very illogical. I'm being nice. I'm trying not to say it's stupid. I know you want to say it's stupid.

I know. Don't do it, man. Don't do it. Please, don't do that to yourself. This is how people get into student loan debt that's untenable, this discussion right here. You read about people like you in the newspaper when we read these ridiculous situations. See, you have right in front of you the opportunity to do this and actually pay cash for your master's degree and not do any more harm to yourself you have a ten thousand dollar car debt fifty thousand dollars

on undergrad you're going to add a hundred and fifty all to get a job that pays sixty to eighty thousand dollars i want you to be a marriage and family therapist i just don't want you to overpay for the opportunity now if you told me you had a free ride to Northwestern or you told me your grandpa left you $200,000 and this is how you want to spend that cash, I'm not going to argue with you so much. I still think it's probably a bad return on investment, but you're going into debt $150,000 for a degree that should cost you $30,000 or $40,000. Dude, that's ludicrous.

Please don't do it. I don't think I talked you out of it, but I want to make real sure that I tried. Thanks for the call. Open phones at 888-825-5225. See, this is why we should end the federally insured student loan program right here. This is why Congress should stop harming the American people. I think we can all safely say out loud that the student loan program is an epic failure. It's an epic failure.

It has caused people to go deeply into debt to get degrees that they overpay for or to get useless degrees. In some cases, go deeply into debt to get degrees that are actually worth what they paid for them and actually good degrees that are usable in the marketplace. Education is not the great evil here. Universities are not the great evil but let me tell you what will happen to the cost of college if we stop the federally insured student loan program this flood of federal money that these universities are more than happy to spend would go away and when the supply of money goes away do you know what happens in economics to the price? It goes down because no one is buying anything at the high price. The only reason these prices have gone up is they have the money.

If suddenly no one was willing to pay that to go to school there, these universities would start using their endowments they've got billions of dollars they're sitting on and they can send anybody through the school they want to send and they just keep building their endowments over and over and over again but when the federal government has when you and i were it's the you and i are the taxpayer is ensuring that that young man who's not doing math well, we're ensuring his loan against default. You and I just made that guy $150,000 loan if I didn't talk him out of that. This has got to stop, y'all. You know, Elizabeth Warren's talking about,

Bernie's talking about forgiving student loans. That's great. How are you going to forgive student loans when you keep making them, you doobers? First thing you've got to do is stop making the loans. Then we can start talking about getting out. But you politicians with your head fakes, you know, an article in the Wall Street Journal last week just destroying the whole student loan myth. And the lady that actually, that was the, Rison, Rison I think was her name, was the mother of the student loan program.

She was in the Johnson administration when it was formed. They interviewed her before she passed away last year. And she said the student loan program is an absolute disaster. It's a monster that's out of control. And so, Congress, you need to stop this you need to stop it this is ridiculous well it helps you it helps poor people go to college no let me tell you poor people gone to college for a long long time it's called scholarships and work and go to a freaking college you can afford the average in-state tuition in america right now is twelve thousand dollars you can make fifteen hundred a month that's eighteen thousand dollars delivering pizza at night

go to school during the day and pay your tuition poor people can go to college. I went to college. I was poor. I didn't have any money. I worked my butt off 40 to 60 hours a week while I was in school. People in the neighborhood I grew up in, I mean, we didn't know what privilege was. Some of you people are, privilege.

There's no privilege here. Only privilege I had was growing up where people knew how to work hard. It's the only privilege I had. There's no existential privilege for people that come out of a neighborhood like I grew up in. No, we just had to go gut it out. And you go gut it out. But the problem is that people are making these decisions like this, and there's no one telling them no. No one. There's no one telling them no. No one.

There's no boundaries on this at all. And people are goobs, man. And if you didn't grow up in a family that was educated, if you're the first in your neighborhood to get a college degree, the first on your street, nobody on your street got a college degree because you grew up in a neighborhood like that, like I did. There were 15 kids in my neighborhood. I think three of us got four-year degrees none of our parents had four-year degrees hardly and so nobody knew how to tell us how to go to college and if nobody knows how to tell you how to go to college you know what you do stupid butt stuff like pay four times too much for a degree and go in debt to do it. That's what you do if nobody knows how to tell you how to do it.

And in the process, you and I, the taxpayers, are insuring these loans $1.6 trillion. The default rate goes up every day. Don't talk to me about forgiving student loans. Don't talk to me about free college until you stop making these stupid butt loans, Congress. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Once again, you made The Dave Ramsey Show one of the top five most downloaded podcasts last year. To get your daily dose of motivation and inspiration,

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