The Ramsey Show - App - The Rule of Thumb for Splurging on Stuff (Hour 2)

Episode Date: January 28, 2020

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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. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Greg is going to start us off this hour in Tennessee. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Greg.

Thank you, sir. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? My question is, I have been on a list of yours for decades and never took my natural peace, but I followed it. Pretty much your rules, 99 times out of 100. My question is, for those of us who have become debt-free and we have no debt, at what point in time do we realize hey i've busted my butt say for decades

when do i determine when can i start splurging some of my finances you know buy a little not really know like a toy or a car or whatever yeah probably about five years ago for you people tell me i'm cheap every day you're probably late you're probably late what happens to us is what happens to us is that we live like no one else so that later we can live and give like no one else and then we forget to do it okay so you've lived like no one else you've you know you've been on rice and beans and you got out of that and you got used to living on the cheap and you've been piling up money and you've've done a great job, and you're probably debt-free, probably got a big pile of money. And now it's emotionally hard to loosen up a little bit because you're afraid you're going to screw it up.

Exactly. that when I'm working with people who have built some wealth and struggling with that, and sometimes, honestly, Sharon and I struggle with it, because our money has grown more than our emotional grasp of it. We still feel like we are worth a lot less than we're actually mathematically worth. You know what I'm saying? Correct. Yeah. And so what we say is if we're going to splurge, if we're going to buy something that's just a crazy,

what we used to would call a crazy luxury item, like when we were broke people and we would say, no one should ever spend that on that. Have you ever heard that? Yeah. And you're getting ready to now. You're getting ready to spend that on that, which is very cool. You should buy that car, you know.

So the rule of thumb I use is this. What is the ratio of that to my net worth? Okay. So let's pretend. Let's use an example. Let's pretend you had a million dollars in mutual funds in your 401K. How much have you got? Just in 401K or all total all total about 1.7 million okay

cool i was guessing i'm about right okay so way to go congratulations you did it okay so let's say you bought a crazy butt 100 000 car okay okay and you didn't even put insurance on it $100,000 car. Okay. And you didn't even put insurance on it, and you forgot to set the brake, and it went off the cliff and burned. Now you're worth $1.6 million. Well, whoop-de-doop-dee. Now that's kind of a bizarre example,

but if you just completely set $100,000 on fire in your backyard and watched it burn, it literally wouldn't change your life at all. Okay. So you can splurge like that, and, you know, but now if you start talking about you're going to spend $800,000 on something crazy, now that's half your freaking world. We've got to stop and think about this one right you see what i'm doing now i've got a friend that's where i got a friend that's worth 200 million wow so him buying a 200 000 car is like most people buying a biscuit right ratio wise it doesn't matter it doesn't affect his life and yet you know where i grew up in the way i grew up no one should ever spend that on a car well he makes he's got hundreds of millions of dollars it's irrelevant he gives more than that in charity in 20 minutes the ministries he

supports with zeros and zeros zeros on the end and he has a nice car and people gripe at him about his car of course you know but, of course, you know. But the guy's got, you know, it's a small percentage of his world. So the way you know you're not screwing up is if you set fire to that much money, would it screw up your life? Correct. And so if you want to go on a vacation and you've always wanted to take a cruise around the world and it's $28,000 or it's $128,000.

You can do it and enjoy that vacation, and it really will not affect your life. You've earned the right mathematically. If you want to give that much to somebody, do you find a charity, a ministry, and God says for you to, you know, let's build this thing, a small house over here for $100,000 or something. You can do that, and it will not affect your life. But that's how we gauge it is. If after this thing, if it just was set fire to, are we still okay? Are we still, did we even notice?

And if the answer is no, then we're not spending too much on that. And so, does that make sense? Yeah, but you don't really have like a percentage that you have. No, I would just say, you know, I mean, it's kind of a common sense thing, though. If it's approaching 50%, it would be too much, right? This proves to me how cheap I am. I'm just looking at splurging, maybe spending 15 grand on a car. Yeah, you're too cheap.

You need to go buy that today. This is why you did all this.'ve worked your butt off man you came from nothing and you have 1.7 million am i right correct no one gave you this money you didn't hit the lottery you've been working your butt off and being diligent you've earned the right to enjoy your money i used to work 60 hours a week yep i know years you don't get to have 1.7 million working 30 hours a week you know correct you're an everyday millionaire you fit the typology exactly and all i'm doing is saying yes you you you not only permission, you almost have the emotional obligation to treat yourself to some things. And you need to make sure you're doing some generosity things that match that, too. I get more joy out of that than I do being the selfish person behind it for my personal self.

Absolutely. So that's another thing we do is if we spend $15,000 on an item, we might go buy three used cars for single moms and spend $15,000 on them. Excellent. Sometimes we match ourselves. And maybe that's just because we're, you know, so we don't feel guilty or something, but maybe it's also just keeping us in balance. Because if you've got generosity and spending running about the same level and neither one of them are draining you down to where you're broke,

you're living a good life. Okay, well, thank you very much for your advice. Hey, I appreciate getting to talk to you. Thank you for letting me get up on my soapbox. That's wonderful, because I don't get to take that call very often. Most of the time, as you guys are on the other side, you're trying to learn to be that guy. You want to be him when you grow up. But live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else.

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but it yields a harvest of righteousness, Scripture says. The diligent prosper, Scripture says. Not the lazy, not the ones who run their mouth. The diligent. Did you hear him? What did he say? 60 hours a week. I heard it.

Great place to go when you're broke. To work. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. I heard a statistic recently that absolutely blew my mind. In the U.S. alone, over 3,000 people die every day without life insurance. Now, I don't want to sound unsympathetic, but this drives me crazy. What are people thinking? I don't understand how taking care of your family is not a top priority. Most of you probably just spent a bundle on Christmas on things you really didn't even need.

And now you're making New Year's resolutions that are focused on yourself. But if you want to use the New Year as a reason to do something right, like protecting your family, then take care of it right now before it's too late. Term life insurance is something every family needs, and that's why I talk about it every day. It's not complicated, it's not expensive, and Zander Insurance is the only place I recommend. Go to Zander.com or call them at 800-356-4282. Please learn from other people's

mistakes and get this taken care of. That's Zander.com the number one online retailer of custom window coverings you get free samples free shipping and with the new promos they run all the time you can save even more always use the promo code ramsey it's a magic word it'll get you a better deal dave my eyes from tyler in arkansas my truck has an amazing warranty that lasts for the duration of the loan i have on it so far the warranty's covered over five thousand dollars worth of work that's been done to it sounds like your truck sucks uh should i pay off my truck and lose the warranty? Yes.

And if it continues to break down like that, you need to get a different truck. And be debt-free. Or use profit from selling property to put as a down payment on a house. You should pay it off. You should pay off your truck. I've got a really nice Raptor, and if it costs me $5,000 in repairs pretty regularly, I will be getting rid of my really nice Raptor.

By the way, it has a great Ford warranty on it, bumper to bumper, that came with it that I did not pay for except in the price of the car. It was not an add-on extended warranty that was tied to my stupid loan. So if your truck is breaking down to the tune of $5,000 a year, your truck is horrible. You need to get a different truck. That's what that means. Yeah, you need to get out of debt, dude.

There's not any, you cannot figure out a way that staying in car debt is going to make you anything but broke going forward. Zab is with us in California. Hi, Zab. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call. My pleasure. So my wife and I, we flipped a property here in Southern California, and we're about to make

a profit of approximately $180,000. Woo! I love it. Good for you. Yeah, thank you. I'm an in-house architect for a real estate developer, and they kind of just passed this deal on to me, and now they're telling me, okay, you're closing this Friday, or 31st. If you want another deal, let us know.

We can give you one. Or I have $70,000 worth in debt that includes small student loan, consumer debt, and my autos, my wife and my car. And we want to build an accessory blowing unit in the rear of the house that we own. So my question to you is, should I pay some of my debt off and then continue on another deal or pay it all off and then keep saving to pay for my ADU's cash, which will later cash fill about $3,000 a month? What do you make? What's your household income?

On my house. Combined, we're about $180,000. Wow, killing it it good for you so what was the deal they they're passing on something they traded for and giving it giving it to you at a deal so you're able to flip it and make money on it so they're flippers themselves but they also wholesale deals so sometimes when they have too many houses on the market, they'll just wholesale me one for a small wholesale fee. Okay. So the one that's $180, what did you pay for it?

The one you're profiting $180 on. We paid $730, and it's selling for $1.4. Wow. You must have put some money in it then. Yeah. Total cash that we put in, it was actually a loan, was $100,000. So we're getting that back, paying that off. And then aside from that, we have... If you paid $730,000 and you put $100,000 in it, that's $830,000.

And you sold it for $1.4 million. How are you only getting 200 profit? Our repair was, or the constructing cost was close to 300. It was like 280. Oh, and where did all that money come from? It's a hard money loan. Okay. All right, so you borrowed a million dollars plus.

Yes, pretty much, right. You're a million dollars in debt, and you made 180. Okay. All right, so you borrowed a million dollars plus. Yes, pretty much, right. You're a million dollars in debt, and you made 180. Okay. Well, I used to do that for a living many, many years ago. I bought and sold property for a living, and I flipped properties using debt to do it. And I was pretty good at it. I mean, I did several thousand deals over a period of years. Uh, I've owned over a couple thousand pieces of real estate in my life.

Um, and I got caught, uh, doing it because I ended up with too much debt and then I couldn't move the house. Uh, you, you, you moved to this house and it worked for you. And it's almost like you're the guy that dropped a quarter in the slot machine as he walked by and he hit. And so now he could, he has a chance of putting his, his mortgage all back into the slot machine because he, one time he hit your, your, it's almost like the worst thing that can happen in Vegas is for you to win, you know? And that's almost your situation. You might, you might get out of it again, but if something happened and the Chinese or the Iranians or Trump burps and the economy sits still for 90 days, you could really be bankrupted by one of these deals

if you couldn't move the property. So that's the danger of debt on flippers. So I never borrow money for real estate, period, and I never recommend people borrow money for real estate except the home that they're in. So even though you had a really good experience, and I'm happy for you. I'm glad you made $180,000, but you took a lot more risk than you than you felt in your stomach it didn't feel like to you you took this much risk but you really walked out on some pretty thin ice there and you got across you got across the river but uh and you know and you made 180

grand so i'm happy for you but i just i can't tell you that that's going to happen every time and i can't tell you that you're not going to get caught with your pants down eventually here. So if I were in your shoes, what would I do? You make really good money. I'd pay off all my debt, just exactly what you're talking about, using this money. Some found money you got at work this time. And then since you like doing these kinds of deals, I'd start saving after you get your home paid off towards doing some flips with cash.

Had you done the deal you were doing there with cash, it was an okay deal. It was a little tight, but it was an okay deal. If you're going to do flips, you need to be down around 70% of value, and you were a little higher than that, including repairs. And so, you know, your margins were a little tight on this even

though the actual dollars that came out of it are impressive but uh you know your your margins for a flipper were a little tight a little tighter and i don't want it done uh even with cash so anyway what i do i would take this money get debt free and i would use my income to finish off paying off my home and then i would save up and I would pay cash and do some flips, which means it's probably going to be three years or more before you do one. And that's okay. You'll live through it. Or you can keep trying this, and I'm afraid eventually you're going to put your hand over there

and, you know, it's going to be bad. I'm afraid you're going to get caught with your hand in the cookie jar. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Josh is with us in North Carolina. Hey, Josh, how are you? Hey, Dave.

I'm doing well. How are you, sir? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, let me give you a bit of a background. I've got some health issues, and I'm kind of in debt up to 27,000 roundabout. At 25 years old, I'm 39 now, 25 I was diagnosed with kidney failure. A year later, I was put on dialysis for the first time. And then in February 2010, I had my first kidney.

Three years later, it failed, and I was put back on dialysis for five years. And then in April, actually April 16th of last year, I had my second kidney. In September, that kidney started to fail, but thankfully the doctors was able to get it back up and going and getting it on track. And then on New Year's Eve, I was diagnosed with cancer. Oh, my goodness. And now I'm on chemo. Yes. Yes, sir. It's been a rough year.

I guess. To say the least. Rough decade. Yeah. It's been an up and down journey for the last 13 years um i had tried to uh get term life insurance and i've actually what what kind of cancer have you got it's a b cell lymphonia. And what stage? Stage four. Stage four. I found out. I was in a hall.

I found out. I was on New Year's Eve. All right, Josh. Hold with me. Hold with me. Hold with me. I'll come back to you right after this break, and we'll walk through this together. Oh, my goodness.

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Is that a fair summary of what you told me so far, sir? That's very correct. And then what I was saying before the break was I was diagnosed on New Year's of cancer, and then on Thursday, either Thursday or Friday that that same week I was told that it was stage four and when things couldn't even get any worse my mother was also admitted into a hospital 70 miles away in my hometown and with a double pneumonia and right now she has somehow in the matter of she's out of the hospital, thankfully, but she's broken her foot and can't really walk. She's in a boot and trying to figure that out.

So it's been a rough start of the year, to say the least. Yeah, I think we could turn 2020 in for a different year. If you can trade it in, I think you should. So are you married? I am single. You're single? Okay. Yes.

And do you have a career? I do. I was working part-time. I've been with the company for four years. Part-time? The whole four years? On a part-time basis. Because of the medical issues?

Yes. Okay. Yes, and I was on disability. I had went through the Social Security Ticket to Work program. Gotcha. At one point, and so, yeah, I had to be part-time. Yeah, gotcha. Okay.

And so your Social Security income is how much? They actually, I don't have any Social Security anymore. Oh, it's gone. Yeah, it's gone because I had, because of work, I had worked too many hours, and I now owe them $18,664. Oh, okay. So that's part of the debt. That's part of your $27,000 then.

Okay. Yes. All right. And so what is your main question today? How can I best help you in this, sir? Well, I mean, I know I can't get term insurance. I've already talked to a midsander. I'm not able to get any kind of insurance because of pre-existing condition with the cancer.

And I'm just wondering, you know, even though it is stage four, and thankfully the chemo, this cancer responds well to the chemo, so that's good news. So what is the prognosis then well just that is what they're saying it responds well meaning that uh so is this a terminal diagnosis it's not now if it comes back they say that it could be okay but as of right now it's not okay um you just got a lot of illness then all right so what are you doing what are you doing to eat and pay lights and water and rent i live with my parents and i don't have i don't have any income um okay so as of right now because of this okay all right well what i

would tell you to do is this um you can tell your creditors that they're not going to get anything. Okay. Because you don't have anything. Right. And you have one full-time job, Josh. Fight and whip cancer. Yes, sir. Beat it.

That's your job. Because you're not earning an income, and there's no income to give them, and there's no magic pill. And honestly, whether Social Security ever gets paid or that other creditor gets paid is way down the list of things to worry about when you have stage 4 lymphoma. Okay. Right?

I mean, it's like that's a 1 and the big C is a 10, right? So, I mean, just work on the important stuff here, which is beat the crap out of this, stay alive, right? Yeah, that's what I've been trying to do. Yeah. I mean, and what I'm trying to do is to tell you emotionally, I want to give you permission to set those bills in a drawer and don't think about them for a year. Okay.

Just don't worry about them. There's nothing they can take. You don't have anything. Right. You're what we call judgment proof. And if they call you up, just call, you know, just laugh at them and go, dude, I got, you know, I got one foot in the grave. You think I'm worried about you people? Right.

I mean, and that's the thing too, is Social Security has already said that they could take money out of my taxes, my income taxes at the end of the year. Yeah. How are you getting the income taxes from? Yeah, they could. They can garnish wages, but you don't have any wages. Right. A little tough for them to take money out of your income taxes if you don't have any income.

Right. So good luck with that. Yeah. I mean, like Mom said, you can't get blood out of a turnip. Exactly. I've seen people hit a brick with a hammer and never saw it bleed. Yeah. So, you know, it just doesn't work.

So, listen, I want you to pay your bill. You want to pay your bill, and I'll help you with that. But you've got bigger fish to fry than to worry about that. If you get your health back to a degree that you can start earning some money, then start working on getting these bills paid off, right? Sure. All right. But right now, you don't have an income.

You live with your parents. You're fighting stage four. I'm not worried about Social Security and jumping the creek. Is that okay? Okay. Yeah, that's fine. I'll just give them a tell when they come out. Yeah, just tell them Dave Ramsey said to jump in the creek, okay?

Because I just did. Yes, sir. And then, you know, like they care what I say. But here's the thing. If you start earning an income, though, then you're going to turn around. That means you're starting to heal physically and able to reset your life and take the next stages forward in your life. Then you're going to want to pull these out of the drawer and address them.

Agreed? Agreed. Yeah, and you call me then, and I'll help you with it for sure. But there's nothing any of these people can get unless there's a is there a lean as a car loan car sitting in the driveway yeah the car doesn't have a loan on it okay well you probably need to sell that because they're going to come get it if you don't pay it right and you can't you know okay you can't how much do you own it uh a little over three thousand dollars okay all right well i mean you don't have any way to scrape together any money right A little over $3,000. Okay. All right.

Well, I mean, you don't have any way to scrape together any money, right? I'm finding little ways here and there. I've got a GoFundMe page. I'm just thinking you might need the car to get to treatment. Yeah. Well, I can find other ways of getting into treatments if i need to yeah well i mean the car if you don't pay it they're going to repo it agreed agreed so i probably and i don't want that to happen i'd probably go ahead and sell it then and then let's talk about you know figuring this thing out from there what's the car worth uh good question i'm not sure right off the top of my head.

Think it's worth more than three? I would think so, yes. Okay. If I were in your shoes, I would sell it and I would put the difference in cash in a shoe box. Okay. Do not put it in a bank. Okay.

And that way nobody can get it. Okay. And then you get the other side of this health problem, and that's your seed money to get started again. You get your little $1,000 car or something, and you get back to work when you can, and then we'll attack these other debts and start getting them cleaned up. Is there anything else sitting around that has a lien on it?

No. Okay. All right. Well, here's the deal, brother. You call me back and let me know how you're doing. And when you get back on your feet and start getting some income coming in, I'll walk with you and we'll walk out of these stupid money problems. But they are a minor detail compared to what you're facing.

All right. Well, Dave, thank you so much for taking my call. I appreciate your advice and everything that you do, sir. Well, I'm honored to talk to you, sir. And I'm sorry for what you're facing. We'll be praying for you. Just in case you thought you had a problem today, this is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. one of my favorite parts of this show is hearing your debt-free screams.

You guys are our heroes. You've kicked debt to the curb and you've saved for the future. Now we want to celebrate with you. If you have lived like no one else and are currently in baby steps four through seven, well, it's time to enjoy some money. And the perfect place to do that is on board our first ever Live Like No One else cruise in March. That's right, just a couple of months away.

But get this, it's not too late to book your cabin. So don't miss your chance. This Caribbean cruise is going to be an incredible seven days at sea on a stunning new ship with amazing experiences. I'm talking all of our Ramsey personalities and other world-class entertainers. We're stopping in the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, and Turks and Caicos. It's going to be an amazing, debt-free celebration designed just for you. Don't miss the boat. Head over to RamseyCruise.com today to reserve your room. Thanks for joining us, America. We're glad you're here.

One of the smartest things you can do with money in the new year is to protect it. If you're going to make money, you also have to have a defense to keep from losing it. Offense and defense are required to win the game. And so you need to have the right insurance in place checking your credit report regularly make sure your will's updated and we built a tool that will show you which of these you need to adjust in just five minutes we'll even email you a to-do list and tell you exactly what to do first the free tool is called the coverage checkup and it could be the most important five minutes you spend this year. Tracy saved over $900 a year on home and auto insurance and reworked her will. Now, not everybody's going to have that happen.

Some of you don't have enough coverage, but rest assured you're going to know the right thing after you take the coverage checkup tool. So how do you get it? It's free. Get your phone out, text the word checkup to 33-789 or go to DaveRamsey.com slash checkup. Text checkup to 33-789. Donna is in North Carolina. Hey, Donna, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. It's Deanna. Oh, I'm sorry, Deanna. I missed it.

I apologize. How can I help? Okay. I have over $100,000 in student loans that's currently on hold but are current interest because I'm in bankruptcy, and I'm trying to figure out how do I factor that into my debt snowball. Well, if it's in the Chapter 13 bankruptcy, everything that's in the Chapter 13 bankruptcy should be the last item in your debt snowball.

Your bankruptcy, in other words, would be. How many debts do you have that are not in the chapter 13 bankruptcy just a student loan the student loan's not in it no okay the bankruptcy does not put it on hold if it's not in the bankruptcy well it's in the bankruptcy but i don't pay towards it. So it's still, I don't get calls and I can't access my information online. I can call and ask for how much the balance is, and I can ask questions, but it's really not nothing for me to pay when at this time, like a set amount that I'm paying. So I'm trying to get ahead of it. So the set amount that you're paying is not doing anything for the student loan, and student loans are not bankruptable, meaning

if you convert it from a 13 to a 7, it doesn't go away. So you're still going to have this $100,000 in debt. How much debt do you have other than that that's in the bankruptcy? That's left or, because I only have like less than a year left. Okay. How much is left in the bankruptcy? $3,000. Oh, almost nothing. Good.

So you're getting ready to come out the back of this thing and that $100,000 is going to be staring at you. Right. I got you. Okay. And what other debts do you have that are not in the bankruptcy? I do have a 401k loan that I took out some years ago that I had chose the lowest amount to pay that comes out of my check. I do have some medical bills that I'm paying one through a company that consolidates,

and then the other ones are just some ones that's been coming in. And then I do have some two low-balance cards that by next month I'll be able to pay off and cut up. Good. Okay. So what is your household income? I bring home about $48,000. And you're single? Yes, with a child. Okay. How old is your child? 16.

How much is your house payment? $715 is my rent. How much is your car payment? The car was included into the bankers. So it'll be paid off in the year? Yes. Okay. All right.

Okay, let me tell you what I heard. And you can push back and tell me I'm wrong. Okay. But I hear a pattern of you got out of control with money and you went into bankruptcy. You stayed out of control with money, so you couldn't pay your medical bills. You stayed out of control with money, so you took out a loan on your 401K, and you stayed out of control with money, so you used credit cards.

All of these things happened after you filed bankruptcy almost five years ago. No, no. My bankruptcy only been three years ago ago so the 401k is before that but the thing is i was out of control and i kicked myself in the butt october last year and said that i am getting in control in 2020 okay good because here's thing. If you keep reaching for these traps as your way out, you're never going to get out. You reached for a 401k loan, you reached for credit cards, you reached for bankruptcy,, but it didn't get you out. What gets you out is living substantially on less than you make with a written budget. And so how long have you been a single mom? I've been a single mom since 2006.

You've been fighting this a while. Mm-hmm. Yeah, by yourself. Okay. Right. I got you all right so what we have to do is we have to change your overall habits with money pretty drastically so that your income is going to be way more than your outgo your rent is not out of control you're getting ready to have a paid-off car. The credit cards are almost gone. So you've got some cleanup to do with the 401K loan,

and you've got some cleanup to do with the medical bills, and then we get to tear into knocking out this mammoth Mount Everest of a student loan, right? Right. So I'd call the student loan people when you come out the back of the bankruptcy and just say hardship, hardship. I can't pay anything right now because you can't. And in the meantime, let's really tear into while you're in this last year, let's tear into and clearing up the 401k loan and the medical bills. Because if you got no payments when you come out the back of the bankruptcy and you're on a tight budget and you're under control and you can start throwing

some money towards this student loan in a very real way, you probably can turn this around and get that student loan whacked out. You're going to be working extra when your child finishes up and leaves home. You're probably going to 60, 80 hours a week for a little while to clean up this mess. What do you do for a living? I'm a billing clerk, and there are set hours, so I don't get opportunities. So I've been looking for little, right now, looking for little things that I can do that doesn't take too much away from my son. Yeah, that's good. And then you can expand that when he's 18 and gone, or 20 and gone, right?

So, yeah, if you're a billing clerk you got the ability to do side hustle helping small businesses with their bookkeeping or something right you could do that so or something along those lines i don't care but you need some more money coming in because we need to throw i mean if we throw two thousand dollars a month at the student loan, that still takes us four years. Mm-hmm. And you don't have $2,000 a month right now. Right. So we could probably find $1,000 a month in this mess once you get the other stuff off of you and get on a tight budget.

You increase your income by $1,000 a month. That's your $2,000. But you've got four hard years of that. And you can make this go away because four years, 48 months of 2000 is right at 100. Mm-hmm. We can get there. I can show you how to get there, and I'll walk with you, okay? Okay.

But you cannot keep going back to, I'm out of control, I lose hope, I get scared, and so I plug my finger in the stupid socket. Right. You've got to stop it because you've done it like four times or five times in this story. You see the pattern that I'm seeing? Yes. Okay, and I want to help you change that. I'm not picking on you because I did dumber than you did.

That's how I learned this stuff, all right? No, I needed to hear it, so that's fine. Hey, we're on the same team. We're on the same team. I'm here to help you. You hold on, and I'm going to sign you up for Financial Peace fine. Hey, we're on the same team. We're on the same team. I'm here to help you. You hold on, and I'm going to sign you up for Financial Peace University. I want you to go through the class. I'm going to pay for it and help you, okay?

Okay, thank you, Dave. All right, darling, you hold on. We'll take good care of you. You call me back if you've got questions, and I'll pick on you again. Because I love you. Thank you for calling. That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. Hey, guys, it's Blake Thompson, senior executive producer for the Dave Ramsey Show.

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