The Ramsey Show - App - This Can Make You a Millionaire in 10 Years (Hour 2)

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Rachel Cruze answer your questions and discuss:  "Roll my credit card debt into my mortgage?" "Should I leave everything to my wife in the will?" "Is the goal of wealth realistic at 70 years old?" Should we move in with my in-laws to save money?" Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Join a Personality-led FPU class. Click here! Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving, and storage studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm your host, Rachel Cruz, number one best-selling author, co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour, Ramsey Personality, and my daughter is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Shane starts this hour in Baltimore. Hi, Shane. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? All right. So I feel like I know the answer to this question, which I hate, but I wanted to hear from you. Hey, Dave. How you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? All right. So I feel like I know the answer to this question, which I hate, but I wanted to hear from you. So I recently purchased a home from my grandmother who passed, and I knew it was essentially a figure out if I should roll my credit card debt into that home, into the equity of the home, and then pay that off with gazelle intensity. I have $26,000 in debt, credit card debt, and I make $85,000 you're single i'm single what's the answer to your question you know it i know what it is i just but it would free up 400 a month for me if i were to roll it

but i it's funny i tell my mom like my problem is not the debt. My problem is that I'm not disciplined enough to knock it out. Like, why do I need to consolidate it into my equity? And that answer is what, Shane? That, I mean, I feel like I'm getting to a point where the answer is that I shouldn't do it. I know exactly what I should do. I just wanted to make sure it was the right thing to do. The thing that scares me is the interest rate. Let's kind of back up for a second.

$400 a month is not true. That's $4,800 a year. You're not saving that on $27,000 worth of debt in interest. The only way you're saving $400 a month is if you're going to be in debt longer. Gotcha. Which is absolutely not your goal. No, it's not. Okay.

So you're just trying to dumb this down to make it easy, and it's not going to get easy. You know, this is Band-Aid fast-off versus Band-A-Aid slow off and you get gangrene. True that. Gross. Hey, Shane and I are okay, Rachel. You don't have to worry about it. If you don't want in, it's okay. I just have like Google imaging.

Oh, Shane. Okay, so what's the so here's the deal yeah get fired up and lay it out lay out the math and go what is it you make again by the way 85 okay so 27 so you're by yourself you don't have to talk anybody into this you're how old 29 okay one year You don't have to talk anybody into this. You're how old? 29. Okay. One year. You really think I can do it in one year? I'm positive you can do it in one year. Gosh, I knew you were going to say this. And here's the problem, Shane.

You're going to have no life for a whole year. All you're going to do is work and eat ramen noodles and pay debt. No going out. No eating out. No eating out. No vacation. Work, work, work, work, work, work, work, and you're done in a year. See, this is only about $2,300 a month.

And you're done in one year. All right. Shane, what is the debt? I mean, I know it's credit card debt, but was it just life? It's life over about eight years. So that's what's going to be hard, Shane, is it's not like this is just a car loan and you made one purchase that puts you in this.

These are multiple decisions, you know what I mean, over life, and you're used to living that kind of lifestyle of $26,000 above what you've been making. So it's going to feel even more sacrificial in a sense. So just as a heads up. Here's the thing. If you'll do this, it'll make you a multimillionaire. And here's why it'll make you a multimillionaire. Here's why. Because anytime you get ready to be chaotic and sloppy and disorganized and slip back into credit card debt, you will remember the year from hell, and you will not let yourself do it. Dang.

But if you wander your butt just kind of lollygagging along out of debt, you will wander back in. Dang. But if you have to pay a price, I mean if you got the the year from hell in your consciousness and you go crap no i'm not buying that there is no way i'm not going on a month without a budget i remember where that put me before oh and this is this is it's settled in your brain it's settled in your body it's settled in your spirit and It's settled in your body. It's settled in your spirit. And that's why I'm telling you to do it. It's not just because it gets you out of debt, and it's not just because it's absolutely the highest probability you will win,

but what we're doing here is we're resetting the way you handle money for the rest of your life. Yep. And that's going to make you – it's going to make – you're only 27. It's going to make you 29. It's going to make you $10 million. I mean, I promise you you the math says it because you know how to make money and you've not been horrible with money i mean you're not like as bad as like congress or something i mean you're not you know

you're not you're not ridiculous you only got 27 000 but it's just sloppy it's like the the enemy of the it's pretty intense that doesn't have to shame Shane, but like $26,000 in credit card debt from just life though, like it's going to be a shift, Shane. Like you've got to hear that, but it needs to happen. It needs to happen. Like you said, it wasn't like this explosion of stupidity. It was gradual. You know, like you said, that's the truth.

And so the danger of that is, is the enemy of excellence is not horrible. The enemy of excellence is okay. Complacency, yep. This is good enough. And we used to say this, Redneck saying, I don't know if they say this kind of stuff anymore, close enough for government work. Have you ever heard that one?

Close enough for government work. Nope. Which means half butt do your job okay that's what it means in the neighborhood i grew up in and so you know it's mediocrity yeah you know and so and and you know shane you're fighting what all of america is fighting this slip into mediocrity and you've got the ability here to completely change that and the cool thing is you already knew every bit of it before you called here now you gotta do is go do it i'm proud of you man proud of you great shane i can't wait to do your debt-free scream with you in a year when you

hate the old shane so bad that you will never go back to him and you were breaking up with him never going back with him and so we're going to be organized diligent have money budgeted for fun money budgeted for luxuries and we're going to go become very wealthy and outrageously generous and that's in your future you could be a millionaire in 10 years you really can be from where you're sitting right now you're in really because mainly because of headspace. Your headspace is excellent. As long as the gangrene doesn't get them. Rip that band-aid off, Shane.

So gross. Watch out for the amputation. This is The Ramsey Show. Every team that wins has a good offense and a good defense. Money's the same way. Offense is you get out of debt, you invest, and you're generous. Defense is insurance. You need good insurance.

You need to protect your finances from the big emergencies. There's 10 kinds of insurance coverage you might need based on what your life looks like today. And we built a tool called the Coverage Checkup, which shows you the types you need to add, the junk you need to drop, and the adjustments you need to make. And we'll even rank your coverage list by importance, email it to you, and connect you to a Ramsey-trusted insurance provider to help you get this new plan in place fast. None of it costs you a dime. Matter of fact, you're probably going to save some money as a result. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash checkup.

Completely free. ramseysolutions.com slash checkup, completely free. RamseySolutions.com slash checkup. Do not let emergencies sneak up on you. Russ is with us in South Bend. Hi, Russ. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Thanks so much.

Dave, we are a young married couple in our early 70s, and we're financially free. And at this stage of life, we've got about $80,000 in cash. We've gone through Financial Peace University and designated the emergency fund out of that. But my question is twofold. What's the best thing to do with that money? Obviously, sitting in the bank is probably not the best thing to do. The second question is, is the goal of wealth realistic at this stage in our lives? We have to define wealth, extreme wealth, unless you make really, really good money. No, because time is not on your side. But can we build a nice nest egg, a plump one? Sure, sure. And, of course, that depends on a whole host of other factors

and variables that you can control, some of, and some of you can affect. But, yeah, so, but, I mean, 60,000 invested in good mutual funds, if it averages 10%, would double every seven years. So it would be if you don't add anything to it. So it would be, you know, if you're 70, when you're 77, it would be 120. And if you're 84, it would be 240, give or take. But, I mean, that's's pretty close and that's if you don't add anything to it now of course you've got income you've got other things going on but you know a quarter million dollars uh as a plump little nest egg in your early 80s is certainly better than a whole

host of people absolutely and you know neighborhood i grew up in, we called that rich, but it's probably not really rich. No, that's great. So mutual funds would be the way to go in your opinion. If you're going to leave your hands off of it, yeah. If you can leave your hands off of it. You have an emergency fund in addition, and you have income to live on? Yeah, we both pull in about $60 60 grand a year, about 30 apiece.

At this stage, I've got a financial stream from my old insurance business. I live on residuals and occasional referrals. She also is on Social Security, and she's working at an accounting firm, and she does a little part-time work for that. So this is semi-retirement for us and there is income streams for both of us along that amount of money. Good. Perfect. Excellent. Well done. Yeah, I mean, so you're secure and so we can allow this money to grow.

We might even be able to add a little bit to it as we go along uh if you wanted to there's no no panic here it's not like the house is on fire but you've done it i mean you set yourself up to where you should be able to prosper with that it's great for us yeah absolutely ashley's with us ashley's in los angeles hi ashley how are you hi thank you so much for taking my call. Huge fan. My question is, my husband and I are on baby step six. We have about $450,000 left on our mortgage, just under a million dollars in equity. And my husband would like to take about the, about $150,000 that we have in our savings to possibly invest that in, in real estate and in investments. And so my, in my opinion is that we should, we're $450,000 to completely being debt-free that we could we should continue to chip away at that mortgage payment

rather than invest now. So we just aren't sure where to go from here. Yeah, it's a good question, Ashley. I mean, it's one that I feel like a lot of people are asking these days. This comes up a lot that I see. So yeah, I'm more of your line of thinking. I would throw that money at your primary home, pay it off, and then make it a goal for you guys to buy an investment property, which may be tough in Los Angeles to do it with cash, but that's how we recommend doing it. How much do you guys make a year? So combined income is just about $225,000. Okay. So he... Go ahead.

Well, what do you guys do for a living? So I'm in real estate, so that's why I love taking those commission checks and throwing them at our mortgage and just pretty much living off of his income, which he's in law enforcement. What does he make of the $250,000? About $150,000 to $175,000.

Okay, so if you throw $100,000 a year at this plus the $150,000, you're done in three years. Okay. How old are you? 38. Yeah. So you're a whole 41 years old. You own a house at that point that's worth a million and a half

to $2 million, and it's completely paid for, and you make $250,000 a year. That sets you up to build a lot of wealth in the future. And if you go put $150,000 down on a $600,000 or $700,000 rental property, it'll barely cash flow. Barely cash flow. And so there's no blessing there so it's so the answer to the question is not real estate or what can you do or that the answer is should the lens to look at it is okay what gets us when we're 50 to the highest net worth which method which method and i can promise you the method that does that is paying

off your mortgage first and then paying cash for your first rental property. And you can do all of that before you're 50. Yeah, because there's still this myth out there, Ashley, with real estate and investment real estate. I see it everywhere. It's just like, it feels higher than it has in a long time of people wanting to get in and do stuff. And because there's kind of It's just like, I just, it feels higher than it has in a long time of people wanting to get in and do stuff. And because there's kind of this mentality of like, oh my gosh, how great. It's kind of fun. And like we have this other property and we get rental income and it feels like this cool thing to do. But in reality, it's a, it's a side business. I mean, you're going to be dealing with tenants. And on top of that, the money never ends up being what people

think it is with the headache and everything like what you guys end up after fixing stuff in the house, paying the mortgage because you're taking mortgage out on it. If the rent isn't paid, I mean, there's just so much that goes into it that's not as glamorous as it seems. And it's great. We love real estate. We are a real estate family. My husband does real estate. Dad, Dave loves real estate. So it's not that we're against it. In fact, it's a wonderful thing, but you want to do it the right way. Because if you go into it like you guys are thinking, it doesn't end up being as wonderful and great as an Instagram reel makes it out to be that you see all the time. Yeah, for real. Nothing ends up as great as an Instagram reel in reality. So, but yeah, you know you're dealing, folks,

with someone who doesn't know anything about real estate when they say things like, well, the tenant will pay the bill. That means you've never had a tenant. That's what that means. That means you've never had a hot water heater go out the same month that the tenant moved out and broke the contract. And you don't even know where they are. They've just left. Oh, and this was in a nice house, not a junkie house.

And they trashed it. The same month. So I'm putting in heat and air. I'm having to paint it because these morons spray painted the wall for some reason. They decided to do this as they broke the contract and left and disappeared in the middle of the night. And now I got no payment coming in. I got a lot of money going out. This is landlording. This is landlording right here. Now, can you make money net net of all of that? Yeah, because you put a tenant back in, you're going to get rent, and you don't have any payments. You don't have any payments, but if you put down $150,000, you've lost your hiney under the thing I just described.

You'll look back there, and it's gone. This is The Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today as we take your questions at 888-825-5225. Our question of the day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. Don't wait until the AC or something else goes out. Neighborly helps you find local providers like AirServe, Mr. Appliance, Dryer Vent Wizard, and Precision Door Service. Go to Neighborly.com. Great company.

They'll help you out. Yeah, so today's question comes from Jeremy in Pennsylvania. I am doing a will. I'm 55 years old and have a wife and two adult children. I'm split between leaving everything to my wife or going ahead and leaving things to my kids as well. There are certain things I want my kids to have, but I don't want my wife to think that I don't trust her to carry out my wishes if I proceed her. Is it weird not to leave everything to my wife?

I mean, not necessarily. It is her money too, though. I mean, like it's not just your money and your stuff. It's you guys together. But I think if you were to say, hey, if I pass away, what does it look like for your life? This is you talking to your wife of what do things look like for you what um what will you have will you be taking care of making sure she's your priority first because your adult children are second in that and then if everything is fine and good like i'm okay with you saying okay you know do we want

to get leave them you know x amount and x? But all of that is communicated with her because this is her money too. That's what I would say. There's two things built into your question that are disturbing. The way you state this is almost like there's a possibility this is your second wife and these kids aren't hers. Oh. And if that's the case, then you've got to have this discussion and go, I am going to leave you this amount to take care of you and this amount for them because I want to do that. If that's the case.

If not, the other thing that may be hidden in here is there's like some reason that you feel like she's not going to do this. She's been irresponsible or you all haven't been unified in your decision making on money. And so you have a reason to kind of worry that she's not going to follow through on your wishes. If that's the case, then that's another issue that's different than a will. That's a marriage issue, a trust issue that you've got to get into. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And so that's two possibilities.

I mean, the third possibility is as simple as these are her kids, your kids, and you can do whatever you want to do with your money, but it's also hers, as Rachel stated. So we ought to talk about this and just figure it out together. What is your motivation on that? And primary is that she's taken care of. If you don't leave her enough to have a wonderful life because you gave too much to your kids, your grown kids,

I would not agree with that. Your primary responsibility is to her. Okay, so I just thought of this question as we were talking this out. If you did have a second marriage and all grown kids or even teen i mean maybe even well i'd say grown kids you said yeah what is the what is the responsibility if someone is bringing in money to a marriage and they are one now yeah but she has four adult kids and he has two and it they're later in life. You know what I mean?

Like, does he have a responsibility to leave money to those four kids or it's going to be left to her? So she's probably going to, you know what I mean? Gets really complicated. Yeah. Because, you know, second marriage could be 25 years long. You know, it could be longer than the first. Yeah. And wouldn't be that unusual.

And so, and, you know know the grown kids are all okay and he wants first to make sure his new wife is taken care of that wouldn't be bad yeah wouldn't be bad sure so you just got to think that through but there's no inherent entitlement that these grown kids are in tight adult children are entitled morally, ethically, spiritually, none of that. And it's not unusual in a situation with a stepmom, as an example, for the adult kids to resent her getting anything. And that's a sense of entitlement. That is wrong.

That sense of entitlement is wrong. But so I've got a wealthy friend who's in his 70s i got remarried uh and um recently and i don't know what his estate plan is but his kids are perfectly his grown kids are perfectly functional yep they don't need anything yep uh so you know were i his situation, I will make sure she's taken care of and I won't leave some to them. And he's got the ability to do both in that case. But what's primary? I think your spouse is probably going to be primary even then.

If you had to look at it. But do you think the stepkids are entitled to? Yeah. Not necessarily, no. I mean, that's almost prenup stuff. Yeah. Yeah. entitled to yeah not necessarily no yeah i mean that's almost prenup stuff yeah yeah uh but it's it's it's the complications of yours mine and ours and uh it requires even that much more uh constant communication and discussion about the estate plan you you know? So like your brother and your husband are in an estate planning meeting

with me and your mom tomorrow, you know? And Winston, you know, is not in my bloodline, but he's married to you and handles a lot of our real estate. And so, yeah, we're going to be there tomorrow talking through, you know, some changes, what we're doing, you know, what's that look like? Everybody's got to be in it, you know?

Everybody's got to know what's going on. Am I getting cut out of the will, Dave? No, you're not getting cut out of the will. Really, you know what's that look like everybody's got to be in it you know everybody's got to know what's going on i'm getting cut out of the wheel dave no i'm getting cut out of the wheel really you know changes it's so freaking complicated we have to review it ever so often yeah no totally to make sure we remember what we said we were doing and and i think it's that's another piece to this too that i think is important another element is as an adult child right as we all are but that's why doing this in your 20s your 30s your 40s is setting your own family up right regardless of where your parents depended upon your parents or any messiness that comes out of wills and all of this like that you

are in a position that you're taking care of yourself yeah and that and any of that's just gravy yes yes gravy on the biscuit that's exactly right and then the second thing that comes out of another point that comes out of this discussion is a you need a will yes everybody does and 78 of americans die without a will stupid it's just stupid get your will done go to mama legal mama bear legal forms.com get your will done the second thing is tell everybody what's going to happen. Like if you've got stepchildren, we're talking about her kids, and she did not bring wealth into the marriage, or she did, and they're going to get hers, but they're not going to get yours, tell them. Yep.

Tell them. So, you know, or tell them, I'm going to take, tell your kids, I'm going to take care of my new wife with this and whatever's left over, you're going to get. And so they don't go, well, I'm going to go ahead and get all that out of the way. You know, let's just tell everybody where it is. Go ahead and have a reading of the will. And if somebody's going to be pissed off, let them do it while you're alive. Yep.

You know, and another question we get all the time is how do i help my parents talk about this stuff how do i get my parents to do a will how do i start these kind of conversations because of importance so if that if you are in that situation that was in one of my fpu classes that i when i coordinated it uh we're done now but one of the questions that came through a couple weeks ago yeah it was a lady that um she said that she was like i my husband's parents told him that he's gonna have to be the executor of everything but he didn't know what's in it and he didn't you know and so i'm like sitting down and saying hey we want we want this communicated really clearly so that your wishes are granted and your legacy how you want it is to be you know to be honest so that's a reason to get it i refuse to be the executor of something

and i don't know what it is yeah that's asinine it's a secret but we want you to be in charge of the secret no not a chance not signing up for your toxic bs no thank you and that's exactly what was going on yeah so no we're not not doing that. We're going to sit down. Everybody's going to know. We're all going to talk about it. And then I can execute. I don't care if I get any money. I'm not after the money.

I just want to help you execute your wishes. That's what the executor does is execute your wishes. But execute your secrets and your toxic BS. Not a chance. Not doing that. There's a great line at the end of a Taylor Swift song, and it's a hero. What's the line? She says, I had a chance. Not doing that. There's a great line at the end of a Taylor Swift song, and it's a hero. What's the line? She says, I had a dream.

Well, I don't know if you have time to quote the whole thing, but she had a dream that her stepdaughter married for the money and then found out she wasn't in the will, and they all said, she's looking up from hell smiling. I can't even. You can't finish it for laughing. This is The Ramsey Show. It's so good.

Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality. Taylor Swift, song quoter. I butchered it, too. I butchered it. Is my co-host today. You giggled all the way through it. Nobody knew what you said. I had a dream.

My daughter-in-law kills me for the money. thinks i left them in the will is it and then they all have the reading and they realize you know they're not in it and then the last line is they're all screaming she's laughing up at us from hell can i say that yes oh i guess we don't get fined for hell i don't know i mean as far as i know yeah all right remember when you thought asinine was a cuss word? Yeah. Well, there's that. Michelle is in Rochester, New York. Hey, Michelle, how are you?

Hi. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So my husband and I are trying to decide if we should move in with our mother-in-law. We are going to be seniors in college. We've been married two years now. And there's two main reasons why we would move. The first is we would save money probably. We'd still pay her rent, but we'd probably save $400 a month.

And the second reason is because she's a single mom and her son is moving out to get married. So now she'll be in the house alone and she doesn't like to be alone. Is her son your husband? The one that's getting married? What? It's my husband's twin brother. Oh, okay. Yeah, so Michelle, a reason to move in with an in-law under the um motivation because she doesn't

like to be alone that starts to really entangle a relationship because it sounds like you're being kind but it actually ends up being extremely dysfunctional that she's depending it upon you guys so the only way she's not alone is her grown children stay home with her that's dysfunctional i'll just say it that way yeah okay i'm sorry this late it's a normal thing to cry when your grown kids leave and cheer 20 minutes later It's a normal thing to do that. You do both, okay? And to just cry, and I don't want to, she needs to have a life outside of her children.

Okay, I will say she is very self-sufficient. She still works full-time. No, she's not. Not emotionally. It's not that she, I mean, it was just sort of an idea that was brought up, and we would only live with her for a year, and she knows that. And she also, like, I don't know, I guess in the situation, the tide is dry, but I'm not as much concerned about her,

because we've talked about not moving in, and she would just go on with life. It's not like a necessitated thing. Yeah, I think it's going to be better for y'all and her emotionally and relationally. That's not a psychologist or a therapist speaking or a pastor speaking. That's just an old man telling you.

Okay. You do whatever you want to do. And do you guys, is there a reason, you know, you said you're going to save $400? But there are juniors in college, you said, right? We'll be seniors this year. Coming up. But the twin brother and his new wife aren't staying. Well, they're living in the new wife's apartment with her parents.

So they sort of have their own situation. We had just talked about it, like, because it was our last year of college, it might be nice to save money and take some of the strain off of ourselves. If you want to do it, it's fine. The way you presented it sounded weird. Okay. Okay. Sorry. No, that was not.

I guess. You didn't. It's not that it sounded weird. It's just that our answer changes, or I'll say my answer is more cautious for you, Michelle, because of the end of that. It's not that we're doing this for a financial goal, because some people do that, right? I mean, we talk to people a lot. They're like, hey, we're going to make this move because we have this goal, and then we're going to be out financial goal because some people do that right i mean we we talk to people a lot that they're like hey we're gonna make this move uh because we have this goal and

then we're gonna be out there's a date it's very specific all of that i'm not completely against that it was the last part when you said and because she doesn't like to be alone that's where my flag went up just for you michelle like woman to woman it goes up for her it goes up for your husband too yeah that's what's weird i mean that is weird so if that part wasn't the end of it though and if your only question was hey it's our last year of college and we're able to save some money if we do this you know what do you guys think about that if that was it i would say and you're all in yeah and i would say i mean yeah if that's what you guys choose to do and but i would have an end date i would not be living with my in-laws over a long extended period of

time as young newlyweds I don't think that I think you guys figuring out life just you guys together is really healthy um I would prefer that you didn't I think you guys just figuring out life together is is great um but if you wanted to and had an end date and all of that you it could be an option it won't like destroy but it's that end that other part of the question that i'm like oh just don't you know what what i heard was just codependence and i don't i wouldn't i don't recommend that for anybody um you know if uh because there's not an end there's not an end of that that needy that neediness is not something that needs to be fed it needs to be healed and that's that's all i was saying just

from again that's just old man talking so it's not there's no professional quote guidance there you called us and ask our opinion so and i don't think she's a bad lady i think she's just normal it's normal she's got two twin boys are the last two to leave yeah and sob my eyes out and she's a single mom and they they've been her world and that's a normal grieving yes yes but it's also a release that and you know she doesn't have a choice she's got to move on with the next chapter of her life and you guys can't run over there every time she's lonely yeah um. That's, yeah, okay. Anyway, set our pace. Be careful, be careful, be careful.

Janice is with us. Janice is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Janice, how are you? Hi, I'm scared to death. Why, what are you scared of? Well, I'm going to be 63 in a couple of weeks. I have no retirement. I'm still working.

Made some very poor decisions with money over my life. Raised up in a Christian home, but the only scripture I remember about money was the one that says don't store up for yourselves.

Things that would, you know. Be poor. Yeah, I got you. I remember that script. Yeah, and I never really learned money management from my parents. They were poor. Before I run tight on time, how can we help you, hon?

Well, I've got $300 in my emergency fund so far, and I want to get started. What do you make? I'm afraid. What do I make? I bring home about $3,000 a month. Good. All right. And you have no money.

How much debt do you have? I have a $20,000 car. I have a $10,000 credit card, a $4,000 credit card, a $1,200 credit card, and a $3,000 personal loan at the bank. Well, there's reasonable reasons to be scared. Not terrorized, but scared. Because this is an unhealthy situation and you're and you're recognizing i have to address it um and so i would let that if fear tells me to not touch a hot stove or get out of the road a car is coming that's good fear yeah and it's i don't want it to be debilitating fear fear that keeps you up at night causes you have to take anxiety medicine that's

not what i'm talking about but i mean if fear tells you to get out of the road you're getting ready to get hit by a car that's good fear so and that's kind of where you are you got a mess and you're going i got to deal with this so what we'll do is we'll help you okay we'll walk with you uh it's not going to be easy you're going to get your income up you're probably going to sell this car and you're going to do some difficult things but we we'll show you how in Financial Peace University. It's our nine-week class. You'll have people around you that are holding you accountable and encouraging you because you're scared, and you need some encouragement. We'll gift that to you, Jana, so stay on the line.

Oh, yeah, we're not going to charge you for it. And Austin will pick up and do that for you. Be completely free for you. And the thing is this. Be afraid enough to do something, but not so afraid that you're frozen. So get out of the road. Don't freeze in the headlights. And we'll walk you out of the road and get you to the sidewalk and then walk you to uptown.

And the good thing about this too, Janice, is that there's going gonna be a lot of quick progress in this that you're gonna see and because of all these these debts there's a lot of them so it feels overwhelming even as you listed it but you're gonna start with the debt snowball you're gonna start knocking this stuff out and it's gonna take some years you know it's it's a marathon it's not a sprint but continuing to make those decisions day in and day out you're gonna see to see progress, Janice. You really will, probably for the first time in your life, actually get traction the right way. Hold on, we'll help you. Hey, it's Rachel Cruz.

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