The Ramsey Show - App - This Is an ADD Plan… You Need To Focus! (Hour 3)

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss: "Should I go directly into business or get a degree first?" Why you need to slow down and focus when starting a business, "We're living in a camper with 2 kids and a dog..." "My investments are shrinking, what can I do?" "Taking out a personal loan to fix the car" Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Join a Personality-led FPU class. Click here! Enter The Ramsey Cash Giveaway for a chance at $3,000! https://bit.ly/TRSgvwy Shop our bestsellers during the $10 Sale! https://bit.ly/TRS10Sale 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. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Maggie starts this hour off in Seattle. Hey, Maggie, how are you?

I'm great, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'm currently a junior in high school. I am enrolled in a program at my local community college that will allow me to graduate high school with my high school diploma as well as my associate's degree, and I'm not paying tuition for it because I'm still in high school. So I've been able to pay for my first two years of college with cash just going through it i work a little i work as much as i can um and so

that dumb girl you're a genius yeah it's a pretty great program i'm really happy to talk to you to do this how'd you figure this out i'm not sure they just told me there was a program and they said i didn't have to pay tuition who's they sign me up who's they the college well my high school really recommends it because i think all are cooperative. Yeah. So they recommend doing it so you're not paying tuition. So yeah, it's a great deal. I have that.

You know, it's really just cost of books or whatever. So you were smart enough to take that deal. Good for you. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. So my dream for the future and a career would really to be owning my own LLC in the trades. I love the trades. I love working with my hands. I love kind of the job security,

and I love entrepreneurship. My dad himself owns a small business, and so I've seen the ups and downs, and it's a path that I think I would really like to take. When you say the trades, what do you mean? Ideally construction. My dad does a trade very specifically. So I think I do more broad construction, potentially maybe roofing, just something that is a constant need, at least until robots replace us. But as far as I'm concerned for now, I just would really like to do potentially construction or roofing. And that's a pretty big hit in my small town in Washington. So that's something I'd like to pursue. And so because of that, my dad, you know, doing his trade, he has lots of colleagues that have done and very, very, very successful businessmen. And so my biggest question for you is I'm at that

age where I have to start preparing and kind of signing up for college and doing all of that. And college is just kind of something I figured I would do until I got older and I started understanding finances and I started understanding how detrimental debt can be. And I just really, it's been weighing on me. That's not where I want to be. And I have some family members who did the college route and, you know, they are quite a debt and I just I don't know I just don't want that to be me only like two years yeah yeah two years but the problem is is that they tell you it's going to be two years and then you go to sign up for it and then they require a bunch of other classes well no no you know what it is you know what it is going in.

Yeah. Have you actually gone and had that experience? To a university? Yeah, like looked at your associates and it won't cover the first two years? It does, but the problem is I'm just getting like a general transfer, which means that if I go so specifically there's a local university that I would really like to look at their business administration and entrepreneurship program, and they require a bunch of prereqs.

You have to satisfy the pre-major in order to declare that as your major, and some of those classes the community college doesn't offer. So I would have to go take that year. So it really wouldn't be two years. It'd be three be three go to a different school that doesn't have all those requirements okay why are you trapped you're not trapped i think you need to do a little more research to see what institutions will accept your community college classes and and start you out in your junior year and find a place that's

inexpensive and you can pay cash for two more years. And good Lord, you're going to be a whole 19 years old when you graduate from college. Yeah. Don't, don't, don't not go to college because you're afraid of debt because there's ways to go to college without debt. Okay. You know what I'm saying? And I kind of heard, I heard you saying that and I don't want you to make that choice based on fear.

I want you to make that choice based on if you would like to go to college you can go to college and work and pay for it if you choose the right school does that make sense let me let's back this roll back just a second okay you've got an associate's degree not because uh because you agreed to go to a school that allowed you to do that right you? You could have chosen another school, and you would have put in the same amount of time and not come out with an associate's degree. But you conceded that this school allowed me to have this situation. So I want you to concede again and find a school

that allows you to graduate in just two more years with a simple business degree or a marketing degree or whatever, something like that. And here's why. Okay, here's the reason I'm pushing this. It's not because all education is good and all education is necessary. It's not. But you said to me you want to run a business.

All right, now here's what happens in the trades. We work in Entrez leadership with tradesmen of all kinds, roofers, heat and air people, builders, general contractors, remodelers. We get thousands of these guys I work with. I grew up in the business, in the building business. My parents were in the building business. So I know the business. Here's what happens. You get a guy, or in your case, a gal, who knows a trade.

Let's say you know how to put on a roof and you know how to run a roofing crew and so you're a good roofer but that enables you to put on roofs right that does not enable you to run a business there it is yeah okay running a business is a different skill and knowledge base than putting on a roof the business happens to be putting on roofs but what happens is a guy's in the he works for heating and air company for five or six years and then he says hey i've got all my licenses i know how to fix any kind of heating and air i can just go open up my own heating and air thing which is true he can and probably should go do that but then he grows the business and has six people working for him.

Now he has this leadership issues. Right. Now he has accounting issues. Now he has marketing issues. Now he has administrative issues and licensing issues. And none of that has anything to do with fixing a heat and air. Right. Right.

But it has to do with running a business. So as bright as you are and as much of a head start as you got, I would say get a basic business degree that puts those tools to run the business in your business tool belt. And then you also know how to do roofing if that's the side you're going to go into. And you're managing a roofing crew and you know about roofs and you know about the different applications, whether it's commercial application of the flat roof and rubber or whether it's asphalt shingle on a residential or whatever I mean you know you're going to learn all of these things yeah they're specific to that trade but the trade is different than running a business that is so Dave you hit the nail on the head oh see what I did there I saw what you did oh you hit the nail you really did hit the nail on the head because it happens all the time.

You get in contact with these guys and you're like, can you come do the work for me? And it's like all of the business stuff surrounding it, it just falls to pieces. Yeah. You know? Just because you can cut hair doesn't mean you need to own a salon. The billing, the correspondence. Just because you can cook doesn't mean you need to run a restaurant. I know. That's right. But Maggie is cool. Maggie is smart. Maggie is amazing. Yeah. The billing, the correspondence. Just because you can cook doesn't mean you need to run a restaurant. I know, that's right.

But Maggie is cool. Maggie is smart. Maggie is amazing. Yeah, she's a good one. You do know the roofing nail is a particularly large head. Get you hit.

Is that what it is? The nail on the head. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey Personality jade warshall ramsey personality is my co-host today well it's here it's here dave one of my favorite things to do is give away your money did you know that it's a spiritual gift you have that's right i'm super excited to tell our listeners that we're giving away $500 every week with a grand prize of $3,000 in May. This is our Ramsey Cash Giveaway. This is fun. Wow.

And no purchase necessary. You've got to be 18. And you can enter up to once a day. If you enter more than that, the computer throws you out. So give it a shot, though. Come to RamseySolutions.com slash giveaway. And while you're there, celebrate the $10 special with you, with us. That means that all of our number one bestselling books and number two bestselling books are on sale for $10. Oh, $10. Yeah, that's it, man. So Dr. John Deloney's Own Your Past, Change Your Future.

Ken Coleman's Paycheck to Purpose. My latest, Baby Steps Millionaires. Of course, Total Money Makeover, $10 each. your past change your future uh ken coleman's paycheck to purpose uh my latest baby steps millionaires of course total money makeover ten dollars each that means you get like 10 books for 100 bucks wow do y'all we are giving your money away deal that's a deal it's a serious deal ten dollar sale does not last forever this is the month of may with a 500 giveaway every week and a three thousand dollar grand prize at the end. No purchase is necessary. Check out the $10 sale at ramseysolutions.com. By the way, a reminder that Mike Rowe is in the house.

And he and I will be doing an event tonight at the Ramsey Live Event Center on the hill right behind me, America's Labor Crisis, with five of the leading experts on what is going on with work in america today it's a completely free live stream here on star wars day may the fourth be with you and so go to ramsey solutions dot com and click on the live stream and watch it with us tonight we would love to have you we'll have about a thousand of our closest friends and our audience there hanging out with us and watching this and mike is just brilliant and uh as are these five folks we've got it coming on and i'm just honored to be a wiener in a steakhouse it's gonna be amazing so let's get with it ramsey solutions.com and america's labor crisis if you are struggling

with the philosophy of work in america today you're trying to hire people right now you're running a business you know what you're up against it's the hardest toughest labor market we've ever been in in the history of america right now really this is pretty amazing so we actually have a negative unemployment rate four thousand people a month quitting their jobs sheesh it's crazy out there. So we're going to talk about it and talk about some solutions for you business folk, you leadership folk out there. So join us again, RamseySolutions.com, America's Labor Crisis Tonight. The question of the day is sponsored by Neighborly, your hub for home services.

If you own rental properties, Neighborly's local real property management offices can help you manage them and optimize your ROI and your peace of mind. Go to Neighborly.com to schedule a consultation with real property management pros near you. All right, today's question comes from Sarah in Maryland. She says, my husband and I will open a new business soon, and this is our very first restaurant. We've been waiting for this opportunity for a long time. And once we open, we plan to divide our focus with my husband, focusing on our next goal of opening a second business. And I will then focus on our family goals of having a kid and buying a house. Will this plan work? Or should we wait for the second business to be open first to have a kid and buy a house?

Lord. All right. There's a lot going on here. I'm going to warn you, Sarah. I'm going to give you some good advice and I hope you don't mistake it for dream crushing because that's not what I'm going for here. I think that you've got a lot of major things that you're trying to focus on. These are made, I mean, you're starting a business. It doesn't say here, Dave, if these are cash businesses, but something tells me they're probably not. And that scares me. I think you guys need to pick one thing to focus on. Now, here comes a little bit of dream crushing. You've just opened this restaurant business. And I don't want to say this, but 60% of restaurants fail in the first year. So let's not open a second business yet. And that's why. That's one of the many reasons why. And 80% fail in five years. So I want to

put those stats out there. You probably already know that, but I wanted to let you know that. And then you're talking about a house. You're talking about kids. I don't know if you have debt or not. It doesn't tell us here, but you are trying to float a lot of boats right now in a bathtub and it is not working. So I think you need to focus. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes. It's so much. It's so much to juggle. Yeah, do one thing. And if owning a business has always been your dream, there's a right way to do that. All right. And I'm going to walk you through what I think, if it were Jade, what the steps would be to doing that. If you guys have got, number one, I want you to do the business in cash. When it comes to restaurants, that's going to be very difficult, but you can do it.

And it's probably going to start with you getting your personal finances in line first so that you can do this. And so if you have any debt, you're going to need to pay off that debt. I'd want you to walk through our baby steps, which, you know, we'll put the information there on the screen for the baby steps. You can go to ramseysolutions.com and get that information. That's thing one, getting your personal finances in place. Because for most of us, if we want to start our own business, we think, oh, it's business money. No, it's your personal

money. It takes your personal money to start a business. There's no magical cloud of business money that appears when it's time to start a business. So that's thing one, get your money under control. And then if, look, if starting a restaurant is So that's thing one, get your money under control. And then if, look, if starting a restaurant is what you want to do, you've got to get a plan in action for how you're going to do that in cash. Now, in the midst of that, if you have kids, all of that, having the kids is not the problem. Buying a home, that might present a problem because that's expensive. We got to save for a down payment for that. So it's really going to be you guys deciding if you're going to get on a plan if you're going to use our plan because the way our plan is going

to do it you're going to have to go through these baby steps maybe in order to do it so that's how that works you're going to increase your probability of failure 10x by trying to do 73 things at once you're going to suck at all of them because you're not gonna be paying enough attention to them this is an add plan right here squirrel yeah yeah you know and so you've got it you got to just restaurant business is hard yeah hard work long hours so much physically draining, focus on the restaurant business. Get it up and running. Nothing else. It's going to take all you got.

You're going to have to leave it all on the field to get that restaurant profitable and get it running. If you don't want to run a restaurant, then sell it. Get it up and running and sell it. But don't open a second business. I run one business. Other guys that have my net worth put money in all these other venture capital deals. Dave, you need to buy into this.

You need to buy into that. You need to buy into this. And if I did that, I would have my eyes on all of those things instead of on Ramsey, and Ramsey would not be here. The reason Ramsey's here is i do one thing dave you're a one trick pony yep and i'm an expert trick pony okay so i don't do nothing else complete laser focus that's so important light that is focused will do surgery cut metal when it's dispersed it simply lights a room come on that's so good you know yeah focus focus then have your

babies get you a house later and if you want a second business sell the restaurant before you open the second one what you said dave is a. I think that, and this is not an insult, this is just the truth, few people can do one thing. Yeah, well. Almost no one. Almost no one. That's why we all stand back and go, well, that guy's successful.

That woman's successful. Because they do one thing well. And anything more is, you're a unicorn, right? And there's very, very, very, very, very, very few of those. Those are very rare now. They don't exist. I'm just a wiener in a steakhouse. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but I had to use that again.

It's a great line. That was wonderful. It's a classic line. Seriously, you've got a lot of energy, honey, and you're a sharp young woman. And sometimes the best thing you can do is be just a little bit dumber so that all you can do is do one thing thank god i'm not smart enough to do 63 things because i probably wouldn't have not got any of them done because it required children and restaurants require all of your energy this is is The Ramsey Show. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey Personalities. My co-host, Julie, is with us in Springfield, Missouri. Hi,

Julie. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So we sold our house back in August, and we are still sitting on the money that we got back from it. So my question is, should we throw all that money towards debt, and could we use part of it as a down payment for our house, or should we put it all onto debt? How much money do you have? $17,000. And how much debt do you have?

$23,700. And how much debt do you have? $23,700. And what's your household income? It actually just increased. It went from $50,000 and we're around $90,000 now. Good for you. Okay. Thank you. And where are you living now?

We are actually in a camper. We bought a used fifth wheel whenever we sold our house. So we're going a little crazy. We have two kids and two dogs in a 40-foot so how old are you yeah i'm 28 my husband's 32 why'd you sell your house i don't have a good reason um the market was good we knew we'd get a chunk back that's that's okay okay um 17k from the home sale um 23.7 a debt are you work currently working the snowball have you started paying off other debts yet we haven't no okay do you have a thousand dollars saved we do okay so that's true so we'll start with a thousand dollars saved i i guess what i'm looking for i want to make sure that you're committed to a process going forward because it's going to take

you being committed to this process or else you're going to go she told me to take this money and pay off my debt and then and you're going to feel like you were up a creek so you've got to rent a house go rent a house sell the camper and pay off your debt. Okay. And pay off your debt by Christmas. Okay. And then build an emergency fund and then build a down payment and buy another house. Okay.

And with our pay range, what would you suggest for the amount of house we should get? You know, so we've got a calculator that's located on our site, but the parameters there is we never want the payment, your monthly payment, to be any more than 25% of your take-home pay. And that's everything all in. That's taxes, insurance, HOA fees, everything. And then when you go to buy the house, you want it to be on a 15-year fixed-rate conventional mortgage. That's what you're looking for.

Okay. Thank you guys so much. So here's the thing. Here's what it's going to feel like, Julie. Number one, you're going to get your sanity back this week. Go find a rental house. Okay. Something reasonable because you're going to be there for a year

maybe a year and a half so get something okay and then sell the camper sell the camper what will the camper bring uh we bought it used for 20 i'm assuming we could only get about like 17 out of it okay so now if you take that 17 and your other 17, you're debt-free. Yes. Then you're going to build up three to six months of expenses. So you're going to be sitting on another 15,000 cash is your next goal. Okay. But you're going to be there pretty quick. You may be there by Christmas.

Now that I got the camper sold, I forgot about how much it was going to bring. Okay. So we're dealing with 34. You're dealing with $9,000 in your savings account after you sell the camper and pay off $17,000. Okay. No, I'm sorry. You're dealing with, you're going to have your emergency fund.

Pretty close. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. $34,000. No, you're going to have $9,000 in there. So, yeah, you've got to go and you've got to put another $6,000 in by Christmas. And here's the thing. You got to breathe this in for a second.

You're living in a nice rental home, not super pot, not super expensive because we don't want to spend too much. Okay. But a whole lot better in your situation today. Okay. There's a little bit of physical room for your family to relax. Yes, and I do. Let me breathe this in. I want you to get this picture.

The kids are calm. There's a little physical privacy and space. There's $15,000 cash in the bank. You don't have a payment in the world. That feels pretty darn good. Yes, yes, for sure. Now we save up a big down payment. We buy a house in the world that feels pretty darn good yes yes for sure now we save up a big down payment we buy a house in the next two years and you're doing that from a position of strength not desperation and frantic i gotta get out of this camper yeah that's exactly where i am right now

yeah i hear you i would i would be too so does that make sense? It's called financial peace. If you work the system, that's what you get. That's right. You've got to be committed to it. That's how it works. There's a process here. So Jade was exactly right. You've got to lay a process in there, step-by-step game plan to attack this.

Renting is not a sin, folks. It's patience while you get your crap together that's right and that's what we laid out here my husband and i we rented for 10 years while we paid off our debt well you paid off 465 000 in debt that's right but we understood what was on the the end of it which is why i say when you go into these things understand it's a plan it's something for the long haul and you've got to understand that going in. Otherwise, midway through, you'll bail on it. Absolutely.

Bev is in San Antonio. Hey, Bev, what's up? Well, hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. Sure, what's up? My question is, I want to know, how do I preserve my money and have it grow? Because I worry about the money lasting me for the rest of my life. I'm 72.

I don't owe any money to anything, but my income is not great. So how much of a nest egg do you have? What I have is I've got about, well, I have $823,000. Wow, that's pretty good. I know about that. So, Bev, how much is your house worth? My house is worth about $400,000. And it's paid for?

It is. Have you stopped and thought about the fact that you're a millionaire? I have. That's pretty dadgum cool. My income. I know. about the fact that you're a millionaire i have that's pretty dadgum cool my income i know so if your 83 000 was making 10 that'd be 80 000 a year what do you got your 800 000 invested in i have it with uh a professional person that's managing it for yeah how much income is it throwing off well it you know in the last this is my problem in the last year and a half

two years i've just been watching it shrink no it didn't and it's gone down no it didn't my money it shouldn't have shrunk because the market's even year over year the last 12 months the stock market is very very slightly up 12 months ago today okay well my problem is that i've you know i've got a sep ira i've got a raw and i've got a savings account what's it invested in um in mutual funds um with this with a professional person yeah i know but you're the professional person you're the one with eight hundred thousand dollars so i want you to go sit down with them again and give them one chance to be a teacher because i don't want to hear a professional person i want to next time i talk to you i want to know what your money's invested in and you can't even tell me no just mutual fund and

you got fear around this because you don't understand it right yeah you need to understand what's going on with your money and if your investment professional can't grow a teacher bone you need to fire them and get one that has a teacher bone because you are in charge of eight hundred thousand dollars because if you were getting ten percent off that you get eighty thousand dollars a year and i bet you you could live on that what are you drawing off of it now bev? I'm not drawing anything. I'm living on just my Social Security and a little annuity. I'm living on, for a year, $33,000 a year. Why?

Is that by choice? That is because I'm afraid to take any money out. I had to take out my required withdrawal. So let me ask you, if you were going to guess, based on your family history, how long does Bev live? I'm going to guess well into my 90s. Okay, so we've got 20 years. Uh-huh. Okay, divide 800 by 20.

Even if you don't make any money on it, you're not going to go out of it. No, okay. I just needed to hear this from somebody like you. Yeah, you need to be drawing more off, but you also need to understand more of it because you don't have peace around it. And if you can't get this person to get you a little base of knowledge where you feel more comfortable about knowing what's going on with your stuff, then you need to sit down with someone new and check SmartVestor Pro at RamseySolutions.com.

They don't work for us, but they're the people with the heart of a teacher. They got a teacher bone, and they'll help you with this. That's what's missing here. You got plenty of money, girl. You're going to be okay. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, James 1.22, be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves yoda we're quoting yoda may the fourth be with you oh there it is okay

why am i quoting do or do do not. There is no try. Can you do it with the voice? No. Can you? Don't ask me to try. Can you? I don't even know what Yoda's voice is. It's weird.

It's like do or do. I don't know. It's like an old person's voice. Yes. Yeah. Don't ask me to try. Yeah. Okay.

Oh, I did. You asked me to try. That's true. That's true. It's a fair trade. I embarrassed myself, though. Yoda, may the fourth be with you. Okay. I'm catching. yeah okay oh i did you asked me to try that's true that's true it's a fair trade i embarrassed myself though yoda may the fourth be with you okay i'm okay it does sound like something you would say uh it's not like something i would say no it does sound like it does sound like something

do or not do there is no try no you would do it in your it's about as good as i can get your yelling voice do or do not! Don't try! Yeah, the Dave Ramsey rant voice. Yeah, there we go. That's good. I like that. Garrett's with us. Garrett's in Kansas City. Hi, Garrett. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm doing great.

Thank you so much for giving me the time. My dad actually, when I was living in California,ia he said hey garrett you need to listen to this i know you my dad's nuts and yet i put that in there and since 2007 i have been debt free okay uh it was a hard you know it was like as soon as i read uh listened to your disc i just like man this guy knows what he's talking about you know okay and so i have been driving i have a course i had a bmw i've had everything and the day that I was told, if you can't afford it, you don't deserve it, you know?

Is it a want or is it a need? And that day that I read that, I realized, it doesn't matter what kind of car or what I want or what I need. It's what needs. It has to happen. And you opened my eyes, and the reason I'm calling you is because I have followed your steps since like 2002. I'm debt free,

no credit card debt, all that bull stuff. Um, but I'm looking at buying a rental property. I've never owned anything. I have actually rented my whole life. Are you an over-the-road truck driver? No.

Okay, why do you not own a house? Because I've been a nomad. I just move. I move with the times. I move with the money. Well, you don't need to own a rental house then. What? You don't need to own a rental house then.

Well, I'm actually looking to plant seeds. Then buy a house to live in. Not rent it, like a duplex. If you want to buy a duplex, that's okay, but live in part of it. Okay, so that's why I called. I wanted to ask you, in this market, would you invest in a home or a rental property? A home.

A home. A home. Do you know why he's saying that? Yes, I would love you to tell me. Because you need to be if number one you've never owned anything so and you said that by your own admission that you're a nomad we would want you to own the home i've never owned a home i've owned a lot of cars i've owned a lot of motorcycles it's not the same a home is the biggest investment you're going to have. Yeah, so you need to just put down roots.

Get your house. It's the next stage in your personal growth. And you don't need to spend a whole lot of money on it. Just get you a place to live in and then keep earning money. Make sure that gets paid off. When that's paid off, if you want to buy a rental, save up and pay cash for the rental. But I would not tell someone to buy a rental property before they bought a personal residence and paid it off i would first do that because that lays down um a foundation for your overall

financial plan more than rental property does and you learn what it what home ownership looks like you understand the repairs you understand all of those things all the crap it's gonna break yeah yeah that's it what it feels like to feel the payment when your rental doesn't pay it when your renter doesn't pay it scott's with us in san antonio hey scott how are you um doing good appreciate that sure how can we help? So right now I'm in kind of a financial decision right here regarding my car repair that I still owe $2,500 left on my vehicle. And now I got news that my transmission is shot and the repair for it is going to be $3,600.

That's my only vehicle. And so I don't have the funds to pay for the repair. How much do you make a year? I make $48,000. Okay. Where's all your money going? I go to rent and then just the car payment and groceries and insurance. Pretty much it. Are you married?

Yes. How many kids You married? Yes. How many kids you got? None. She work outside the home? Just little small gigs. Why? My wife is in a workers' comp. Why?

Is she injured? Yes. What happened? It was an injury at a daycare. It hurt her back, so she's getting treatment for that. So there's other kinds of work she could do? A little bit, yeah. No, there's a lot that don't involve your back, like a myriad of things.

Okay, so when you get your income up, you guys are starving to death, and you're disorganized, and this stuff is all happening to you instead of you happening to it i've been there it is a desperate but feeling i can hear the fear down under your voice and i because i was the same way man i know exactly how you feel this is not fun i'm sorry i'm sorry you're facing this so here's the thing your car is a piece of crap and i wouldn't spend thirty six hundred dollars to fix it because when you get done, the whole stupid thing is not worth that. Am I wrong? No, no, you're pretty much right.

I mean, it's a decent vehicle, but yeah. So what I would do, can you scrape up $1,000? Yes. Real fast. Go get you a garage sale car to get back to work. And she's got to go to work, dude. She needs to a job and it's not it's not something with her back i'm not saying she's lazy but she's been through this trauma of this workers comp thing and the the people in that world tell her to sit on her butt and you guys need her to make 20 000 bucks a year because it'll

change your life yeah and if you do that then you're going to pay off the 2500 and by christmas you're going to buy a five thousand dollar car and that, then you're going to pay off the $2,500, and by Christmas you're going to buy a $5,000 car and pay cash because you're going to be on a really tight budget, living on nothing and no more eating out. You're broke people. Am I missing something? No, that's pretty clear-cut. Yeah, so here's the thing. We can do it.

Yeah, and I'm going to help you. Jay and I are going to help you. We're going to put you into our nine-week class, Financial Peace University. It's going to cost you nothing except a promise that you, by God, go change your life, and you do everything I tell you to do. Because if you'll do this stuff, dude, in 15 years, you're going to be a millionaire. I promise you. But it'll take 15 years, and the next year is going to be a pain in the butt for you but you're going

to be on top of the world compared to where you are right now because you guys have been living from crisis to crisis to crisis to crisis bullcrap to bullcrap to bullcrap since you've been an adult am i missing something no yeah clear cut i was the same way man i was exactly the same way so i can i can hear it oh yeah smell it on you hey get in my class hey she's going to be leading a class you want to get in her class get in my class we start monday i'm cool let's do it you and your wife i'm going to pay for it it's going to cost you nothing okay you promise you'll do it if i give it to you free we're open we're listening let's go let's do it hang on get you a000 car, and then we're going to pay off this stupid car and sell it to the junkyard for $2,500.

It ain't even worth $2,500, especially the transmission, how the dumb thing. And then as soon as you get all on top of this, and we're going to move you up out of a $1,000 car into a $5,000 car and pay cash, and then we're going to make sure you're debt free, and you have an emergency fund in place, and you guys are going to be working all the time because you need $35,000 or $40,000 will completely change your whole life. And that's all it takes. That's amazing. That's not much.

You can do this. You totally can do this. Hey, hang on. We'll get you signed up for free, man. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.

Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade. Look, if you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey Baby Steps, go to ramseysolutions.com and click the Get Started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation. That's ramseysolutions.com and click Get Started.