The Ramsey Show - App - They Paid Off $161K in 23 Months! (Hour 1)

Episode Date: June 7, 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 am Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money.

Don is with us in Orlando. Hey, Don, how are you guys? Good. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? All right. I have kind of a unique situation, and I've got to give you a quick rundown real quick.

So basically, my wife and I picked up Complete Guide to Money back in 2012. And with gazelle intensity, got ourselves out of debt to where we are currently now. We just owe on our house for about five more years. Good. We have a $10,000 emergency fund saved up. However, as of recently, I just graduated with my master's degree. And it was based off of a tuition reimbursement program where I work. Um, I'm a fire chief and I am also an instructor at the local college. I bring in about 80,000 a

year. Um, now this is where it gets a little bit interesting. I've recently been, uh, offered a job with the federal government where the pay is about $110,000 a year. If I take it, I will not stay with my organization currently the amount of time they require in order to take advantage of that tuition reimbursement. In other words, I'll owe the money back. How much? I could. It's about $11,000 is what I owe. But you make $30,000 more a year, one? I'll make $30,000 more a year, yeah, and also I'll only have to work one job as opposed to two.

I have the money. I have it between my savings and my emergency fund. You said you have $10,000 in your emergency fund. We have $10,000 in my emergency fund right now. But, you know, between that and just my regular savings. Well, the first thing I'm going to do is try to not drain the emergency fund. Will your existing municipality not allow you to pay it off, like, over 12 months or something? 90 days. 90 days.

Yeah. All right. You can almost cash flow it in 90 days. Yeah, I guess. I mean, you've got a $30,000 a year raise. That's $2,500 a month. Yeah. Over 90 days, that's $7,500.

Increased income. Now, you'll have some taxes out of that, but your income has gone up $2,500 a month. Okay. So I'd have to crunch the numbers on it. I mean, if I have to touch the emergency fund at all, should it be completely off limits? No, I'm taking the job. We're going to work this, but the emergency fund really should be used for emergencies, and I'm going to try

to make this an emergency. Okay. Because I don't want you to, what I want to do is leave it alone as my first option. My second option is in worst case scenario, do that, but you ought to be able to cash flow at well over half of this during the 90 days just due to your raise alone plus plus you don't have any debt no okay so that

means you ought to be able to cash flow even more of it i think i think you just cash flow it i mean what is it 30 3300300 a month is what you need? Yeah. Or what happens if you pay them late? To be honest, I don't know. I don't either. No one's ever done that that I know of. So I can't pay it over 90 days, but I'll pay you back over four months.

Okay. And just say no and sue. What are they going to do? Sue you for 30 days? No, they're not. But, yeah, I don't mind. I mean, I want you to honor the agreement that you made with them, which is to repay it.

But let's do that in a way that's wise. But here's the thing. Let's say that you got within $2,000. Well, yeah, you take that out of the emergency fund if you have to. And then the next month you put it back, right? But I think you can budget $3,300 a month and just do it. Okay. Because you got a raise of $2,500 a month.

You following me? So when you were paying off debt, how much debt were you paying off a month? We hit it really hard. We hit all of our student loans loans and it was probably about fifty thousand dollars and we got it paid off within a year okay that's more than what we're talking about that's four thousand bucks a month yeah if you did four thousand a month on your debt you can do four thousand a month with a twenty five hundred dollar raise on this yeah yeah is this making sense yeah yeah so i think you just pay them and definitely take the job for sure.

It sounds like it's what you want to do with your life, number one, but number two is $30,000 more and you work less. Life's good here. This is good all the way around. Andrew is with us. Andrew is in Phoenix, Arizona. Hi, Andrew. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Thanks for taking my call, Dave. Sure. What's up? My wife and I moved back to Arizona back in October of last year, and I started at the current place that I'm at, and so I didn't have health insurance. My wife had a... She basically passed out at a parking lot, and I had to take her to the hospital because she wasn't responding. They admitted her. Within three hours, she was completely responsive. My pastor came, and we prayed for her, and she started responding, but in that three hours, she was completely responsive. My pastor came, and we prayed for her,

and she started responding. But in that three hours, they hooked her up to an IV, did an MRI, did a CAT scan. They could not find anything wrong with her, and the doctor came after about two and a half hours, said that it was stress-induced, go home and get some rest. And we said, oh, okay, you know. And then two weeks later later we got a bill for ten thousand dollars so did you dispute the bill did you dispute the bill at the time i tried to dispute the bill they said the only thing they could do was was try to um uh give me a relief on it but i couldn't make more than thirty five hundred dollars a month what now this is not an income issue this is you did not provide ten thousand,000 worth of services.

Right, and that's what we tried to tell them. They said, look, there's nothing really we can do. Yeah, there is. They can do whatever they want to. They didn't remove her freaking appendix. They put an IV in. So what happened is that we just found out over the weekend that this hospital declared bankruptcy and is closed. Their doors are closed.

And we haven't made any payments to them because they said, look, if you don't make any payments, like, we'll just send you to collections. And my wife and I were like, okay, fine, we'll just, we'll make a deal with the collection agency then when it goes to collections and we'll try to make it, you know, make a deal with them then. But now that they've declared bankruptcy and their doors are closed, what should we do now? Should we just leave it alone until somebody contacts us?

Or has that argument to them been forgiven because it was forgiven to them? No, it is not forgiven. Your debt to them is an asset of theirs, like the furniture that was in the hospital. Everything that is an asset of theirs will be sold to someone. That someone will be in touch with you, and you will have to settle with them. They likely will pay a nickel on the dollar for this, though, which is going to help you to settle with them. And that's what we were

planning on. I thought that's what we were hoping to do, that we can probably settle with them on a one-time payment thing. The biggest problem is you're going to have some damaged credit that's going to continue until you get this solved. But other than that, you don't have a problem. You're going to have to wait and figure out who ends up owning this debt.

Okay. Because you can't just pay it to anybody. You've got to pay it. But all of their debts, there's probably, you know, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars of their debts that are in collections, and they will all be sold to someone, a debt buyer, that will then try to collect those debts. The debt buyer will pay probably a nickel on the dollar for it, though. So, yeah, you're going to end up getting this settled.

In the future, go ahead and deal with something up front and push and push and push and try to get something that's a fair amount and go ahead and pay it. But on this one, just play it out now. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. This is big news, guys. You need to stop and listen. The Fed decided not to raise interest rates. That means you've got a small window of time before rates rise again. Here's the deal. Most people are paying too much interest on their largest expense, their home.

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Ryan is in Roanoke, Virginia. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Ryan. How are you? All right, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? I was wondering if I should take out a loan to consolidate all my credit cards. Oh, you can. How much credit card debt have you got? About $17,000. Okay. And what is your interest rates?

One credit card is 4%, and the other two are 20% and 22%. Okay. What's the balance on the 4%? About $8,000. Okay. So half of it's at 4%. Have you been offered a consolidation loan? My bank is currently offering a secured loan with an interest rate of 3.6%. Secured by what? Which is why I was thinking of this.

Secured by what? Secured by them. No, a secured loan has collateral that you're putting up something with a lien on it. Are they taking a lien on your house, a lien on your car, a lien on a bank account? What? It would be my husband. Okay. All right.

And what is your income, sir? My take-home income is about $12,000 a year. Okay. Why? Are you a student? I work full-time in retail, actually. My wife does the same. What's your household income?

$24,000 coming into the house. Okay. All right. You got a couple of lousy jobs, don't you? Yes, we do. I'm trying to change that. I'm not picking on you. I'm just going, dude, I think you can make more money.

You can make more money delivering pizzas than you're making right now. Are you working 40 hours at retail? Yes, sir. How old are you? 38 years old. Okay. All right. I did 10 years in the Army.

I got out of the Army two years ago, and unfortunately this is the only thing that's happened so far in my life gotcha okay well i think more than a credit card crisis you have an income crisis and i think you would agree with me because you were already looking to do better and uh i mean i truthfully you can deliver pizzas and make more money than you're making now you make 1500 bucks a month delivering pizza at night that's 18 000 a, and that's just doing it at night. Now, obviously, you'd have to take your retail. If you've got evening shifts, you'd have to take those off, but you'd make more.

But that's all a temporary stopgap. What I want you to do is say, what am I going to be doing when I'm 48 that makes me not $12,000 a year, but makes me $65,000 a year, or whatever number. You pick up a number that's a lot more, and what are the steps I've got to do to get myself into that career? What have I got to learn that I don't know? What skills have I got to develop that I don't know? Do I need to take a class, a certification? I don't care. What do you want to be in the next phase of your life?

And what are the steps to get there that makes you more money? That's the big deal. Now, here's the thing. You cannot borrow your way out of debt i would not take out a credit card consolidation loan on your home you're taking an unsecured debt that's very small and turning it into a secured debt against your home i don't want this lien against your home especially with your income as low as it is right now i'm going going to leave it alone. Let's say that you guys could do something to increase your income pretty dramatically, and you cleared this debt or a lot of it within a couple of years.

The amount of money you save on interest on half of your loan, because really only half of it's savings. Half of it, $8,000 of the $17,000, is at 4%. So the other half is really what's expensive. And so really you've got $8,000 that you're saving about $1,000 a year in interest on. $1,000 a year is not your problem on $17,000 worth of debt. What you need is $17,000 more. And that's where we go back to the income side of the equation. The working part-time jobs, six of them, selling everything in sight, and working your long-term career choices and decisions.

But, you know, we tell you to list your debts smallest to largest and attack them in that order. So, oddly enough, your smallest debts are your highest interest rate debts in your case. And so that first $9,000 worth of debt that you pay off will be the 20% interest stuff because it's the smaller debts than the $8,000 at 4%. And so we list our debts smallest to largest regardless of interest rate. In your case, it happens to be also correlating properly with the interest rate. And you just attack and go in that order from this point forward, go right on down the list and make sure you know what's going on.

So that's what I would do. I would spend 90% of my efforts right now on developing income for the short term with extra part-time jobs six of them whether it's dog walking cutting grass delivering pizzas i don't care maybe you're an internet expert and you start building websites for people i don't care but we're going to do side hustle of some kind hustle and grind hustle and grind we're going to sell stuff and then long term we're going to get your incomes way up because we're going to really, really, really focus on what that long-term career is and what are the steps to move into it that makes you four or five times what you make now. Because the biggest thing you're facing here is not a big pile of debt.

It's a lack of income in your situation. And again, please hear me. That's not to shame you. I appreciate your service to the country. I want you to go win. Hold on. I'm going to send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover,

which will walk you through exactly what to do, how to do it, and where we go from here. Thanks for the call. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. Gary is on Twitter. He says, Dave, what's the difference between an ELP and a SmartVestor Pro?

Well, I'll go beyond that. I have three kinds of things that I do endorsements for that don't work for me, and I don't own any part of their companies. I simply found them. They do what I teach, and our listeners needed them, and they pay me for their endorsements. Endorsement number one is a simple radio endorsement. In some of your cities, you might hear a heating and air company, and I endorse that heating and air company. I don't own anything there. They paid me an endorsement fee.

We're very careful not to endorse companies we haven't checked out and that we wouldn't send my sister to. You know, if you wouldn't send your relative there, we don't endorse them, and we don't send our listeners there. That includes national advertisers like Churchill Mortgage has been with me for 25 years. Zander Insurance has been with me for over 20 years. I don't own anything, any part of those companies. I'm not in those businesses. I'm not in the insurance business.

I'm not in the insurance business. I'm not in the mortgage business. And we have sent millions and millions and millions of customers their way over several decades, and they pay us for the radio ads, which include my endorsement. The second thing, the second kind of endorsement is the ELPs, the endorsed local providers. There are several types of those. Real estate agents, they're local in your area. I endorse them. They pay us a fee for the endorsement.

We've checked them out in great detail. It's a different department in our company than advertisers. Advertisers are handled in the broadcast department. ELP and strategic alliances are its own separate department that is heavily staffed because Thank you. areas, we have endorsed local providers that help you do that in all of those areas. And then the third category are people only in the investing world. And it's a type of an endorsement as well. I don't own any of those companies. I'm not licensed in that world.

Haven't been in 30 years. Don't want to be. And so I give investment advice all the time. But I've had all the licenses. I've had all the licenses. I've had all the background. I've had all the stuff. I just am not in those businesses. I don't sell investments. I don't sell insurance.

I don't sell tax services. We endorse companies that do, that we trust, that we have checked out and that have the heart of a teacher and they give advice consistent with what you hear here. So for investments only, it's another type of investment. Click SmartVestor at DaveRamsey.com. It'll drop down a list of the SmartVestor pros in your area when you enter your information and you select from among the ones that we recommend in your area. And again, they pay us an endorsement fee for that.

But we spend a lot of time and money and effort and sweat on due diligence on the elps and on the smart tester pros to make sure that they're on the up and up we do on the advertisers as well but much more so on the others We'll be right back. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Ron and Nancy are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Great, Dave. How are you, Dave? Better than with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Great, Dave. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. Where are you guys from?

Bailey, Colorado, which is about an hour out of Denver in the foothills. Oh, yeah. Very nice. Good. Well, welcome. Good to have you guys all the way over here to Tennessee to do a debt-free scream. Yes. How much have you paid off?

We have paid off $161,242. Love it. How long did this take? 23 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? $120 to about $150. Good.

What do you guys do for a living? We are self-employed independent distributors for Pepperidge Farm. Oh, okay. We have two routes, and I also have a fun job. I'm a part-time bridal consultant. Oh, cool. Good for you guys. How fun.

So what kind of debt was this $161,000? Well, we had a car loan. We had a business loan. And we paid off our house, our mortgage. Oh, look at it, weird people. 100% debt-free touchdown. I love it. our house our mortgage oh look at the weird people a hundred percent debt free touchdown i love it well done very cool now did you sell some stuff or did you have some money on the side or no i mean you have been living on beans and rice and pepperidge farms or something i don't

know we just eat the stales we eat the stale stale product. No, we didn't sell a thing. You're making $150,000 paying off $80,000 a year. That's crunching it. We are blessed. We live in a teepee. So what's the house worth? I would say,

well, the house prices in Colorado have gone crazy. So probably between $300 and $350. I love it. Way to go, you guys. Very cool. So tell me the story. What happened that lit you on fire 23 months ago?

Well, it actually was three years ago. I'm an avid sports fan. I love the Denver Broncos. I love the Colorado Rockies. And one day, I'm trying to find the Rockies game on the radio. And there's this guy on the radio. Messing up the game. Messing up the game.

And I don't know where. I was like, where's the Rockies? But then I started listening to you. Never heard of you before three years ago until then. And I sat in my car for three hours listening to your entire show. In the garage. In the garage. Because I didn't want to miss anything.

Even the commercial breaks. I go, well, if I run in the house, I'm going to miss part of the show. Ron, that's weird. It's weird. It's weird. It's weird. I love it, but it's weird. It's weird.

So then I became addicted to Dave Ramsey. I listen to you every day. And we wanted to attend a Financial Peace University class. But all the classes were an hour away. Not good. Not good. So I heard you say one day on the radio show that you don't need to have graduated from FPU to lead a class. You just need to be able to stick a DVD in a player and put chairs in a circle.

I'm like, I can do that. So we started an FPU class at our church up there in Bailey, and we've led four classes now. Wow. Okay, so what was the difference between three years ago when you first started listening? What kicked it into gear 23 months ago? We started that first FPU class. Oh, then it was game on. Then it was game on.

Okay, so Nancy, he goes into the garage and joins a cult. Yes. And what did you say to all of this? I thought he was crazy. Yeah. Yes. So how did he get you on board? Well, when he finally started giving me cash.

He paid you. You got bribed. He did, yes. Okay, that's good. That me cash. He paid you. You got bribed. He did, yes. Okay, that's good. That's not bad. Not bad. Seriously, I mean, you guys are teaching the class together. Right.

And at some point along the way, you had to go, okay, yeah, this guy's, he's kind of bit off, he's kind of going crazy on Dave Ramsey stuff, but this looks to make sense. When did that happen, Nancy? Oh, gosh. I think two years ago. Okay. About the time you started teaching the class. Started teaching the class.

In fact, three days before I started the first class, I bought a car, brand new. What are you, like, eating chocolate before you go on a diet? Exactly. Exactly. And I was so convicted, I didn't even want to drive that car to teach the class. Good. Yeah, and so that was the first thing I paid off because the thing just stared at me every day saying, you're a hypocrite. And I paid that car off.

I had a five-year loan. I paid it off in seven months because I just threw every extra penny at that car. So what do you tell people now? You paid off $161,000 in 23 months. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? First by paying cash for items and then doing a budget. We did a budget. We've been married 34 years.

Have you ever been debt-free before now? No. We are the experts at borrowing money. We were the experts of borrowing money we were the experts of borrowing money um it's we in 32 years of marriage we never did a budget i did a budget it was all up here she just wouldn't follow it because she couldn't see it because she couldn't see it that's right and i would say absolutely doing the budget we're both together we do the every dollar i can see what she's spending she sees what i am and. And it just made sense to put everything in order. Very cool. I'm proud of

you guys. Well done. Thank you. Very, very well done. How's it feel? You don't even have a house payment. No, it's very freeing. Now we're more prepared for retirement. We're taking some great trips and then now contributing to our grandchildren and our children. Amen. We're taking some great trips and then now contributing to our grandchildren and our children. Amen. That's good. I would say

one of our biggest regrets in our life is that our own kids, we have four kids, had to take out student loans. Mm-hmm. And it's our hope by contributing

to our grandchildren's 529s that they will hopefully not have to have any student debt when they grow up and go to college. Love it, love it. And thanks to your smart, what did they call him? Oh, your smart investor. Yeah.

Smart investor. We met with him because, I mean, you know, six months after I'm teaching the class, I'm on fire. I'm like, I'm 54 years old. I've got to get going on this retirement thing. I'm going to work until I'm 80. So we met with old. I got to get going on this retirement thing. I'm going to work until I'm 80. So we met with him. I had an old 401K I had to roll into something.

And I told him, I said, I really want to get started on this retirement. And your smart investor says, well, we don't recommend that because you're in baby step number two. He says, get those debts paid off, then come talk to us. So this March, when we paid off that last thing i called him up so we're ready you know it's good people that tell you not to buy their product yeah and he gave me great advice i had a medical procedure coming up and he says do you have an hsa account and i'm like like, well, no, what's that? He explained the whole HSA thing. He said, it'll save you probably $1,500 on your taxes. I was like, you know, so just little stuff that I learned from them.

It was amazing. That's great. Well, way to go, you guys. Very well done. People cheering you on while you're doing all this? You know, I would think. Some. Some.

Probably our FPU classes they turn us on. But the great motivation is you. Yeah, the motivation was your podcast. It comes on in a weird hour in Denver. We're asleep when you come on in Denver. So the podcasts were a great help because I can listen to them while I'm working during the day. And that was my motivation every day. And I'd come home and say, Nancy, you've got to hear what Dave said today.

They've got to hear this one. So, yeah, you motivated me. Well, we're proud of you. Well done. You guys are heroes. Thank you. In your mid-50s, everything's paid for. House and everything, man.

Yes, sir. Got a copy of Chris Hogan's retire-inspired book. Because you're right. You're on to that next step to become a millionaire. And you're pretty close. And you'll be be there soon and then be outrageously generous as you go along and I love the idea of changing the grandkids generation with funding those 529s and very very cool stuff well done you guys you're great you're impressive Ron and Nancy from Colorado 161,242 dollars paid off in 23 months.

House and everything. If you're watching on YouTube, you're looking at weird people. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! And this is how it's done. Ba-ba-boom, just like that.

Wow. Man, oh, man, oh, man. I love it. How fun is that? See, you can do this. I don't care if you're 50 or you're 25 or you're 65 and you're 45. I don't care. What, you think you're different?

Math is just math, baby doll. Time to get after it. This is a system that works when you're going to do it. It's the only question you can answer. This is the Dave Ramsey Show, a show about you. Thank you for joining us, everyone. We're glad you're here. This is the Dave Ramsey Show, a show about you. Adasha is with us in Las Vegas.

Hey, Adasha, how are you? Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, Dave, I've been listening to you for a very long time. Like almost every day I listen to you on YouTube while I'm at work with my headset. So just so you know, daily I listen to you.

And I pretty much have lots of questions, but this is the main question that I probably need help on. It's kind of like a dispute between me and my husband. I basically want a second job. My first job is housekeeping, and it's very strenuous work. So my second job will have to be like little to no work. So I was thinking about like maybe just something small like a gas station job. But my husband doesn't want me to do that type of job because we live in a bad neighborhood and he doesn't want to lose his wife. Basically, we're only making right now $42,000 a year.

I'm bringing in $34,000. He's bringing in roughly around $6,000 to $8,000. And he just started a new job. So this is his second week training on his new job. And he'll be working with the school district, making like $22,000. So within the next year, we'll be up to $56,000. But I just feel like I need to put more into the pot because we're $50,000 in debt. And I feel like it needs to go away as soon as possible.

So I need help, Dave. I really do. He's right. I wouldn't put myself in jeopardy for the few dollars that you would make, you know, sitting in a market, but working an extra job is not a bad idea. I just think we need a different one.

Yes, sir. And I think, I think you're, you know, you narrowed it down to one possible choice and that's a bad choice. So if, if it's that or nothing,

do nothing. But I don't think that's the actual equation. I think there's some other things you can do. Now, you know, yeah, cleaning houses is hard work, but, you know, getting out of debt is hard work. Work is called hard work. So, you know, it is strenuous, yes. But you're young. Both of you are young.

And you could do all kinds of different things to create income. It doesn't have to be that you put yourself in a situation where your safety is in question. But I wouldn't put my safety in question for minimum wage. No, thank you. And I agree with him on that. But is there something else you can do? Yes. I just don't know what it is today.

But I think you guys together need to have a goal together of using his new income, your all's new good household income, plus any extra job money that the two of you can generate to get out of debt. And, yeah, I would create some extra income, but I just wouldn't do it there. Charles is with us in Portland, Oregon. Hey, Charles, how are you? Hey, Dave, wonderful talking with you.

You too. Hey, I just graduated seminary. My wife and I have been at it since, well, we've been on the Dave Ramsey plan since August, and praise God, we've been able to kill 17,000 debt worth of credit card and personal loans. Good for you. And we actually cash flowed the last semester, so you'll be happy to hear that. That's awesome. Well done.

Yeah. The problem is now I have $178,000 in debt, and I'm not a doctor or lawyer, and neither is my wife. $178,000 for seminary? Seminary, flight school, my undergrad, and her undergrad. Flight school? And a lot of bad decisions along the way. Okay. So what is your career path and what is her career path? What are you guys going to be making? Right now my wife's a social worker. That's what she went to school for.

She's making $42,000 and having just graduated in April I was doing construction and side jobs. That's what kind of got us out of that $17,000, because she was making ends meet and my money was going towards debt. So I'm called to be a pastor. We're hoping in two years to be out of debt. I know it sounds crazy, but we believe it's possible through your plan and through God. So we want to plant churches internationally,

and everything we want to do, the debt's standing in our way, so we're sick of it. We have such a big calling on our lives that we know God wants to take us there, but what I'm wondering is do I take a pastor gig for the next couple years that makes $30,000 and do a ton of side jobs, or do I do ministry for the next couple of years as a side gig? Whichever one makes the most money. Because at this stage of the game, what you've discovered is the very real truth that the borrower is slave to the lender. You don't have choices.

Your choices were given up when you signed the papers for $178,000 in student loan debt. So what you guys have got to do in order to be able to do your calling at some point into the future, you guys have got to create as much possible income as you can, both of you. Okay. So your callings are held back by this, so let's do anything to be able to get towards the calling, and that is even if you do nothing in the calling right now, either one of you, and you can make three times more money, then go do that for a short period of time, three or four years to clean up this mess.

You've just got to have a good-sized shovel because you've got a big hole. Right, and we feel responsible 100%. Good. All the side jobs, we've been killing it, working hard. My wife's fully on board. I've read three of your books, so we're pumped up, man. We're just sick of the debt. I'm proud of you.

I mean, I think you've got the bull by the horns. It's just a big old bull. Right. You know, you're getting after it. You've got the right attitude. And so, you know, if you can work construction and make twice as much and and you know just your your ministry stuff is side job or volunteer or whatever and that keeps that portion of your calling tickled uh while you knock this out then go go do that

that's okay and that's just the price you're paying for the decisions in the past it's reaping what you've sown and and so uh but the good news is it's not a 10-year problem. I mean, it's a 3-, 4-, 5-year problem depending on how much you guys can make. So anywhere from 3 to 5 years from now, you're debt-free depending on how much income you can generate between the two of you, doing anything and everything that's legal and moral. And the faster you get this thing out of your life, the faster you can lean back and go, okay, God, what do you want to do now?

Let's play. And it's okay to ask him for help, by the way, because you're driving your life right straight into his calling of your calling on you. So, God, help me do this. Show me how to make money. Show me where I can make some money. God, lead me into good jobs that pay very, very well to clean up this mess. It's interesting when you repent, turn away from bad decisions.

That's what repent means. You know that. It's interesting how God blesses the new direction. Sometimes you get out twice as fast as you got in, but it still took you, you know, five, six years to make the mess. So it may take you three or four years to get out, that kind of thing. Hannah's with us in Los Angeles. Hey, Hannah, how can I help right quick before I run out of time? I hit Brian instead of Hannah.

I've messed up everything now. I'm just going to go to this email. Kaylee is on Twitter and says, Dave, do you need umbrella insurance if you don't have any assets yet? No. Umbrella insurance is once you start to build some wealth. If you've got a half million dollars or you've got a million dollars in assets, something like that, you start to be a target and you pick up an umbrella policy, which is an inexpensive additional liability policy that sits on top of your homeowners, your car insurance, and takes you where you want to go.

And, you know, that's the direction to go. But, no, you do not need an umbrella policy. But a million-dollar umbrella policy, for those of you that are starting to build some assets, only $200, $300, depending on where you live, something like that. It's very inexpensive. It's one of the better buys in all of the insurance world, for that matter. Again, extra million dollars in liability coverage. If you're starting to have some assets that somebody could sue you and take away, for instance, if you were in a bad car wreck or if someone got hurt on your property or something like that where you could end up having a real problem financially.

And that liability umbrella is an easy thing to get an add-on when you do that. But you don't need to do that until you have assets. I wouldn't spend the money to have extra liability insurance when there's nothing for somebody to get. You're not exactly a target at that point. If you want to learn more about that or just getting a better deal on your car and homeowners insurance, just click ELP for insurance at DaveRamsey.com and they'll help you out. Those great brokers will shop around and get you the best possible deal out there and cause it to work for you. This is the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hey, it's Blake Thompson, Senior Executive Producer for the show. You know, you can listen or watch anywhere with the Dave Ramsey Show app on your smartphone. Catch the full show or watch the highlights and check out Dave's upcoming guests. Head to the App Store and download it today.