The Ramsey Show - App - Use a Machete to Get Out of Debt, Not a Chisel! (Hour 2)

Episode Date: December 10, 2019

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Mike is with us in Arizona. Hey, Mike, how are you? Good. How are you doing, Dave?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, so my question is about my daughter. She's 13 years old. She's got a settlement that she'll, I'm the conservator of the account right now. And when she turns 18, the money is hers. She lost her mother about nine years ago in a car accident. And my question is really, how do I, do I tell her about the money now and kind of groom her along the way, or my concern is that she turns 18 and she wins the lottery. Yeah.

How much is in there? It's about a million. Whoa. What's it invested in? Really conservative mutual funds. Good. Okay, perfect. Well done, sir.

And so was she harmed in the accident she wasn't her mom obviously passed away and so based on that they awarded her the money that's interesting yeah it was a wrongful death. Was this your wife? It was my ex-wife. Oh, okay. That's why you didn't get the money. Okay. Normally it would go to the husband.

That's what I was thinking. Okay. Now it's starting to make sense. Right. Okay. Okay. Well, in our house, we approach it through the lens of faith because we're a family of faith. We're Christians. And so that's one way you could approach it um if you're not a family of faith then you can approach it from

a nobility kind of standpoint um but the way we talk about it is not a lottery ticket and so having wealth uh you know when you say you sometimes you say so and so is a person of privilege and what that means is they have the privilege in our house of handling money for god handling money for the good of others and you get to use some of it for you, but you will get your best life if you view this as the opportunity to manage this for the good of your future children, to manage this for the good of the community and the income you can create off of it, and that kind of thing. Or you can be one of those sad stories that's written up in a magazine

where you live the rest of your life with regret because you dealt with this like you were four years old and you ate too much candy in the candy store and you threw up. And that's what people feel like when they go through this kind of inheritance. And so we started talking conceptually about all of that, and then as they approached the age that they would be managing the money, we started revealing the amounts. But we didn't just spring it on them at adulthood.

And so you said she's 13 now? Yes. Okay. She's aware there is money there. All she knows is now there's money for college she doesn't know any amounts or anything okay that's what i mean then i would just start a conversation that sounds like this the money is there for college and there's some other money there it represents enough money that I'm concerned for you if you don't have a proper view of it. Because money will hurt people when they don't have a proper view of it. When they have a proper view of it, it becomes a tool in their hands.

Okay? And so 13 is a great time to start having this discussion. And it's not a father-to-little-girl discussion. It's a father-to-a-woman discussion. You're growing her up into the woman you want her to become, okay? And she trusts you already. I assume you're raising her, right? Yes.

Okay. And so you're the dad. She already looks up to you. That's a good thing, even though you're not perfect. It's just the nature of how, especially daughters with dads, and just what we want to do is just start talking about, you know, honey, when you get some money, that that's a responsibility. It's not a, it's not, you know, the responsibility is to manage it well.

And in our case, we say, you know, we're managing this for God. God owns it. We're managers. We're stewards. And that's all Christian lingo, of course. But you've got to decide, you know, what the lens is you talk about this through. But the idea simply being it's not all about you. If it's all about you, you're a child.

Adults have other people in mind. They're other-centered. So you think I should tell her at the same time? I think you should tell her today that there's some money there, and that it represents a risk to her. If she doesn't handle it well, it could harm her, and we need to, over the next three or four years, start talking about how to handle money and you need to regularly in the rhythm of life talk about like you you know she's 13 so you're going to start talking about how to have if you haven't already uh how to properly uh analyze the young man that's at the front door is he a wuss is he a jerk or is he a prospect right now we're doing this she's got the three envelopes and she's saving well there you go well you got a real good that's a good framework that's a good framework

and just go okay so what i my job for and i talked to my teenagers about this when they were 13 and 11 and 12 and 15 my job is not to make you look good today. My job is to grow you into an adult that looks good. I don't want good kids. I want kids that become good adults. Sometimes they're the same thing, but my job is to teach you critical thinking skills. My job is for you to have a philosophy of life, a theology of life that will serve you into your future.

And just keep it on a real high plane like that and then begin to unfold it. And you put more and more and more weight on this discussion the closer we get to 18. And I would say somewhere around 16 we tell her how much it is. Okay. To where she, you know, but by then there's a foundation laid and it's not just surprise right right and i can't wait two years until my dad's out of the way and i can go do whatever i want to do no yeah and you know what i would do what we did too is i showed them some examples get a financial calculator uh just jump online use one of ours and go you know if you took a hundred

thousand dollars at 18 years old go ahead and show a 13 year old this if you took a hundred thousand dollars at 18 years old and you invested it at age 40 here's how much it'd be at age 60 here's how much it'd be a hundred thousand dollars can make you worth tens of millions of dollars if you didn't spend it all, if you instead invested it. And giving is part of the equation. You've got three envelopes, give, save, spend. All money should have some giving, some saving, and some spending. And the trick is to not let this, if you surprise her with it, it'll probably won't go well.

So I gradually laid that. So by the time our kids were in their 20s and we opened up actually how much money we do make and what our net worth was and they would be responsible for as managers when we die, they did not feel like they hit the lottery. They felt the weight of the responsibility, which is what you want to have happen. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Support a small business this holiday season that does business right. I'm talking about Grip6 Belts. It's the only belt you can get online with no holes,

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Grip6.com. well i love christmas time merry christmas oh oh oh i love it i love this time. Merry Christmas. Oh, oh, oh, I love it. I love this time of year. I love the generosity that it represents. I love people giving. I like to be one of the people that's giving. I'm having a blast right now. And sometimes the smallest gift or act of kindness ends up becoming magnified. We call that the generosity effect. If you've not seen

my blog post on it, it's one of the more popular ones now. Ten million people have read it. It took off. Everybody wanted to read about the generosity effect. It's kind of like the butterfly effect. You know, the butterfly flaps his wings, and two years later, 4,000 miles away, a hurricane occurs, right? Sometimes if you give away $20, the person that you blessed remembers it, and years later they give away millions of dollars in a sense in your name. And we've been getting stories like this on the generosity effect from all over the place. And we just want to spread the idea that generosity is not a one-and-done thing. When you give, it affects people more than just the money.

And so we've been taking some calls from some of you to tell your giving stories. Janelle is in California with a great generosity story. Hey, Janelle, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Thanks for having me on the show. Absolutely. Tell me your generosity story. So it was about, I think it was like the week before Christmas.

I was laid off from my job unexpectedly, and it was fine because the job was terrible, but it's just you know bad timing of it's the holidays and you're not sure you know what you're going to do for Christmas and for bills and at the time we had an 11 month old that we needed to pay for daycare and things for and so I was able to get unemployment and handle things, but we were still just a little bit short for what we would have needed for the daycare for that coming month in January. And so all we did was we're really active in our church, so we had our admin send out an email just asking for prayers for us, for me and the job hunt. And then that following Sunday, we were at church and later we went home, we were cleaning out our diaper bag and in the diaper bag, we found an envelope and it was just blank on the outside. And I asked my husband, he said, do you know who this is from? And he said, oh no, I didn't even

notice that. And we opened it up and it was a typed letter and it had some scriptures in it and and it was a thousand dollars and we had no idea who it was from there was nothing identifying the person whatsoever so we still don't know to this day who gave us that money um but it was what we needed to cover for our son's daycare um and so and then there was a little bit extra too for things so that just made the holidays and everything just way less stressful not having to worry about that expense yeah i mean that takes that takes a huge lift off of you lifts a huge burden off of you. Very, very cool. Now, how long ago was this? It was three years ago.

Okay. And so your finances are doing better now? Kind of. We're on baby step two, so we had heard about you, but we did Dave-ish. So now we're getting ourselves on board, now we we have our budget and we're working um our snowball perfect good for you well done well you'll be in a position to leave a thousand dollars anonymously in someone's diaper bag before you know it and i bet you will do it that's what i'm hoping for yeah maybe like 10 times yeah. That would be a lot of fun, wouldn't it?

Wow. Very cool. Well, congratulations. That's very neat. I appreciate the generosity story. That's a great one. It doesn't require a lot of thought. It doesn't require a lot of work.

Now, earning the money to give away does require thought and work, obviously. But when you've earned some money and you have a pile of it, and you see a couple like that leaving $1,000 in their diaper bag anonymously in cash is just straight-up fun. Generous people make us smile. Generous people make my eyes leak sometimes. I love generous people. And they come in all kinds of packages.

They don't look the same. They don't walk the same. They don't think the same, except about generosity. So this is really good stuff this time of year. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. Find out for yourself why Blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings. You get free samples, free shipping,

and with the new promos that they run every month, you'll save even more. Use the promo code RAMSY to get the best possible deal. Rules and restrictions apply. A question comes from Mike in Colorado. Dave, I'm looking to make a Christmas purchase for my wife on some jewelry. We shopped together to find her the right gift, and the store is offering an option to save some money by opening a credit card with their store. We don't intend to keep this card, but we could save a few hundred dollars with this purchase.

What are the potential downfalls or things we should be aware of before opening this line of credit? I would tell that store that if they do not give me the discount without opening the credit card, that I will buy a piece of jewelry somewhere else. Get the manager in front of you and go, you have got to be kidding me. You have got to be kidding me. You're going to hold me hostage to give me a discount. No, you're not. You're going to give me a discount or I'm going to walk.

No, I'm not opening a credit card to get a discount ever. If you play with snakes, you will be bitten. You open that card up, somebody steals your identity, and all of a sudden that has a big balance on it, and now you're going to spend the next two years screwing around with this, trying to get your identity theft mess straightened out that you would have never had if you didn't try to screw around with some store credit card offer where you got a discount.

Listen, these companies, these retailers make more on credit card interest than they do on the sale of the stuff. All of them do. Victoria's Secret makes much more on their store card than they do on their undies. They are not in the underwear business. They're in the credit business with some underwear out front. This jewelry store is not in the jewelry store business. They're in the credit business with some stuff out front to get you into this deal. Don't fall for it.

Don't play their game. Well, they won't sell me anything. Then tell them to stick it and go buy it somewhere else. I'm not doing business with somebody that treats me that way, that you're going to blackmail me into getting your stupid store card. Don't offer me a discount if I sign up for your card because then I'm going to demand the discount anyway. I'm not going to be abused by you retailers.

I'm your freaking customer. Besides that, a mall jewelry store is not the best place to buy that probably anyway. Jewelry has the most markup on it about anything out there other than furniture. So it's a good idea to think about maybe buying that somewhere else to start with. But you can give them one shot if you want. Give me the discount anyway. No, I am not taking out a credit card. No, I'm not putting my family at risk for a little bit of a discount on something you should have given me a discount on to start with guys when you end a best buy they make more on extended warranties and on credit than they do on the sale of the merchandise best buy actually is a good buy they don't have a lot of margin in

their flat screen tvs there's no huge markup there. Not big, big, you know, they don't have hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a $1,000 item. It's just a few dollars. That's why when you go up to checkout at Best Buy, I mean, if you're buying a pencil, they'll put an extended warranty on it and finance it for you. Because they want you to be in debt to them and to buy their extended warranties. It's where they make all their money. Translation, you shouldn't do either one.

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chministries.org. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Jeremy and Danielle are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. Merry Christmas. Welcome. Merry Christmas.

Where do you guys live? Paducah, Kentucky. All right. Very cool. Well, it's good to have you guys. All the way here to do a debt-free scream. How much have you paid live? Paducah, Kentucky. All right. Very cool. Well, it's good to have you guys. All the way here to do a debt-free scream. How much have you paid off? $160,000. Wow. How long did this take? Right at 27 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? Started out around $140,000 and ended up around $190,000. Okay. Very cool. What do y'all do for

a living? I work for a barge line in operations. And I'm a teacher. Awesome. Very cool. Very cool. What do you all do for a living? I work for a barge line in operations. And I'm a teacher. Awesome. Very cool. Very cool. So what kind of debt was the $160,000? Everything. What kind of debt?

We didn't like. We loved it all. We had 79 items on our first debt snowball. Wow. Yeah. Lawnmower, credit cards, student loans, furniture, you name it, we had it. You financed the lawnmower? We were normal. we had it you financed the lawnmower we're normal how much did you borrow on your lawnmower five thousand oh that's a nice lawnmower all right wow car loans student loans is the house in this no no it's everything but the house yes

sir all right you did it in 27 months very Very impressive. Well, tell me your story. What happened? Well, when I was 19 years old, my dad gave me your book, Total Money Makeover. And I read it, bought into it hook, line, and sinker. And I put it back on the shelf and went and done stupid stuff with money. And fast forward several years, I meet Danielle. We're a couple months away from getting married. And I'll let you tell your favorite part. Yeah, and then we went to a conference of yours in Raleigh and we were standing in line, just

had nosebleed tickets. We were so excited. I remember making silly faces at each other. Well, lo and behold, this young girl starts walking towards us and it's Rachel Ramsey. No way. Yeah. And we were like, oh, hi. And she said, I will give you front row tickets and $200 worth of merchandise if you just

tell how much debt you have in front of the whole auditorium. And we're like, yeah, of course we'll do that. So we did, and we have kept these lanyards ever since. Oh, wow. She gave you $200 worth of stuff? Yeah. And front row seats. Yeah.

Wow. She's generous. It was pretty awesome. But it took us seven years to really get on board. Fast forward, baby, number four come along. He was two months old. She went all the way to Raleigh. You went home and didn't do it.

No. From the front row seat. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I'm a failure. Wow. No, we knew it. It just took a while to kick in.

And we had a pretty severe gut-wrenching I've-had-it moment. We were on fall break. We drove eight hours to West Virginia, visit family, dropped off the kids. We saw a minivan. Of course, we need a new van. We needed the best. Sure. So we drove eight more hours to Chesapeake, Virginia. Said, we want to

finance this minivan. And they said, great. Y'all go to lunch. We'll call you. We'll do it. Well, of course, I had to go to Target while we were waiting for the phone call. And our card got declined for a $50 purchase. Oh. Yeah. And I was like, I didn't know.

I didn't do the budget. I didn't know anything about it. And I was like, what's going on? So I embarrassed, walk outside. And I said, Jeremy, why don't we have $50? What's going on? And, of course, our credit card's maxed out. There was no other option.

And about 10 minutes later, we got a call that said, hey, we can't finance you guys. And so we had no gas money to get home. We were 16 hours away from our home. So we had to call his mom and ask for the money to get home. And we said, we're done. We make too much money to be this broke. Still stings pretty hard. And not many people know that story.

Only 12 million people now well that's a well but you know what um yeah embarrassment is a motivator and a 16 hour ride home with a mad wife yeah oh okay well it was partially my fault because i wasn't involved but from that time on i got involved in here we are today because of it so we took took us seven years to get her to read your book yeah okay once you did i was in trouble we were so that that uh target decline was 27 months ago yes yes sir and so you came home you okay front row tickets book whatever we got to do, game on. We sold everything. We sold the boat.

We sold the car. Put a Dave Ramsey decal on the back just for motivation. And everything that wasn't nailed down, I was selling. Putting it on Facebook markets. Anywhere I could put it, I was selling it. I never want that feeling again. Never again. Of not knowing what's going on and of having the rug jerked out from under me and I'm standing there embarrassed and scared.

Yeah. Very scared. Never again. With four little faces looking at us saying, you know. As a husband and a father, that was, it was just sobering. And knowing I'll never have to worry about that again is the best. Absolutely best. Yeah.

Wow. 85% head knowledge knowledge 15 percent discipline and i guess i had to marry the discipline because i had the head knowledge since i was 19 but anyhow yeah it we're here well there's knowing it and then there's doing it that's the difference wow you guys are fun this is amazing great job i'm proud of you it took a while but we got it yeah for sure the last 27 months we'll call a success. Yeah. Thank you.

The rest of it, I'm not sure where we let you down. But, oh, my gosh. Amazing. The book didn't do it. The front row tickets didn't do it. The free merchandise didn't do it. You had to get declined in Target for it to happen. There we go.

But it worked. Well, it's effective. It's effective. That's a man. Nothing like humility. Humiliation. Yeah. Yeah. Oh. It's effective. That's a man. Nothing like humility. Humiliation. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh. Yeah. Wow. Well, congratulations, y'all. Thank you. How does it feel now that you're there? Like we can breathe. Yeah.

For that 27 months, do people think you lost your mind, or did you have cheerleaders? We had a few cheerleaders, and my mom was obviously our biggest. She helped me get the gas to get back home that night. And she didn't want to do that anymore. And then we had some friends and family along the way and our church members. You know, once we got into a good home church in Paducah, once we moved there and started tithing, that's when things really picked up for us. You can't out give God. That's just all there is to it. And once we started being faithful in that, that's when

these debt snowball items started getting knocked out. Amen. Wow. Way to go. Very, very cool. Very cool. And you brought the kiddos with you. Bring them up here. Let's see them. What are their names and ages? Charlotte, seven. Emily is four. Levi is six.

And Jack is a little over two. Jack's two. All right. Good-looking guys. They're ready for Christmas, aren't they? Yes, sir. They are.

Ready to see Santa Claus. Awesome stuff. Well done, guys. Very well done. Well, congratulations. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Everyday Millionaires. That'll be the next chapter in your story that we need to do. So keep playing, guys.

Keep playing. Don't put the book on the shelf. Keep rocking it. We'll keep going. We're your story that we need to do. So keep playing, guys. Keep playing. Don't put the book on the shelf. Keep rocking it. We'll keep going. Proud of you guys. Well done. All right. It's Jeremy, Danielle, Charlotte, Levi, Emily, and Jack from Paducah, Kentucky.

$160,000 paid off in 27 months, making $140,000 to $190,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. You ready? Three, two, one. We're debt-free! I love it! Wow! Well done, you guys. Very well done. Proud of you. You know, I look back on when we were going broke, and I had so many of those moments where I was not only embarrassed, but at times I was shamed. I remember I went into Sears, which is, of course, bankrupt now and closed.

But everybody had a Sears card in my generation. It was one of the first cards you got. They give you a Sears card when you're 14. And I went into Sears when we were going broke. We were behind on the Sears card. It was Christmastime, and I walked up to buy stuff at the counter. I was standing in line with a guy I went to high school with. The Sears was in my neighborhood where I had grown up my whole life. So people around me knew me standing there.

And I go up to use the card and the lady says, sir, I have to, I said, the card's declined. She said, the card's declined. I said, okay, well, that's all right. And I was just going to walk off. She said, no, I have to take the card. I have to confiscate the card. Well, that embarrassed me in front of these people standing there humiliated me i got mad and i wouldn't give it to her i said get the store manager out here you know i'm not gonna give you this card at all i don't have any idea what you're gonna do with it i want to see somebody cut this card right here in front of me i'll give it to you when you cut it up and you know i never went back into sears again for the next 30 years i never went back into sears again. For the next 30 years, I never went back into Sears.

I was so angry with them for the way they treated me. And you know whose fault it was? It was mine. Because I went in there and put stuff on credit and couldn't pay it. But the way they handled the situation, I was done with them forever. Ever. Forever. That's what happens in these situations. You're done forever. That's what happens in these situations.

You're done forever. Never going back. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. If you've talked about selling your home before, you probably heard this from your know-it-all neighbor. The market's good. You'll have no problem selling. But what your neighbor doesn't tell you is that not even a good real estate market can guarantee your home sells for what it's worth and that it actually closes. The biggest factor that goes into selling your home for what it's worth isn't a hot real estate market. It's your choice to work with an experienced agent who knows how to actually sell houses. And this means they price your home right. They know how to properly market it. They get the

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Jim is in Georgia. Hi, Jim. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? I had a question.

Earlier this year, basically in January, I was unemployed and began my job search, basically ran up credit card debt probably the first four months of 2019. The next three months, I sold assets, etc. And the last probably since about September of this year, had to fall behind on my mortgages, stayed in contact with them, basically. You've still not gotten a job? I do now, yes. I do now. Okay, and what do you make now? Well, that's the other side of the coin.

I was making $140,000, and now I'm making $70,000, so basically half. Doing what? Accounting. You were doing accounting and making $140,000? Yes. Okay. I was VP level. Okay.

So with that level, the time I'm doing my search was, well, let me back up. The first quarter of this year, I was kind of hanging on to the company to see if things, because they were in a bad position, and I was trying to see if things would turn around. And so I started using up, you know, I started incurring credit card debt. And then after I kind of got through that, I started selling off assets I eventually got a job but I'm at the point now where I you know basically I've entered into a loan modification program with the mortgage lender and I kind of had a can't come to Jesus moment prepare the budget and basically getted all non-essential utilities.

I had life insurance policies. So basically, your hard utilities, your internet service, your power bills, that type thing. And I'm at a point now where... What is your house worth? It says $297 on the estimate. Okay, probably. That's not necessarily accurate. What do you owe? No, it's not.

What do you owe? $251. And how far behind are you? I'm at four months right now. Okay. And now you're paying a payment and a quarter or a payment and a half to get current? Well, now I would need, I've got that, to get current in order to either do bankruptcy and or if something magical came along, I would need...

I thought you had a payment plan worked out with your mortgage company well i i went to forbearance yeah that's what i mean okay and then forbearance i went through the forbearance and i did not have a job at the time and i only had like nine nine ten thousand in the bank with what I was down to. So I paid like $20 for the forbearance per month. And this week I contacted them and let them know or actually it was last week I contacted them and let

them know that I had a job. And they said well that's great. Let's get you to a loan modification program. And when I'm done, I've done my budget for basically just my my car my mortgage child support other than the mortgage how much debt do you have and your how much do you owe in the car uh forty thousand okay why do you still have it well I I when going back to June, my credit was about $7.87 in June.

And when I started holding back payments to the credit cards, obviously it took a hit. And then when I went through the forbearance program with the mortgage company, it took a hit. Okay, so you have $40,000 owed on a car. How much credit card debt do you have? $28,000 owed on a car. How much credit card debt do you have? $28,000. Okay. And what other debt do you have other than your house, your car, and your credit cards? Nothing.

Okay. All right. In a Chapter 7, all unsecured debt becomes zero. All secured debt, you turn in the asset, or you agree to bring it current and pay the payments. Yes, sir. And so if you kept the car and kept the house in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, you would only be filing bankruptcy on $28,000 worth of credit cards, which is ridiculous.

Right. Okay. In a Chapter cards, which is ridiculous. Right. Okay. In a Chapter 13, you pay payments on everything. If you could pay payments on everything, we wouldn't be having this discussion. I know. That's a double-edged sword. So bankruptcy does not do anything for you. The only thing that's going to do something for you is selling the house and selling the car,

which is what you need to do. So with the car, if I sell the car, I ran into this earlier with that, okay, with my credit, which is about $550 now, obviously buying a used car and tacking on $4,000 worth of negative equity for my current car is going to basically put me up around $500 monthly payment. So I'm saving $500. Listen, here's the thing. Your problem is that you're a little bit too smart with numbers, and you're trying to trick your way through this.

There's no trick. You need to take them them there's no scalpel going to work you're at the stage you need to use a machete this is blunt instrument time not nuanced calculations so you have got to not have a $40,000 car payment when you make $70,000 a year. It was asinine when you made $140,000 that you did that. It's just triple crazy that you still even own this car under any possible scenario. So, yes, you have to borrow the money to cover the negative and get you a $1,000 car, and then you can work your way out of that debt, and you sell your house, and you move into an apartment, and you'll get your life back. This is the price you're paying for not working for a year

while you try to screw around with this company that was broke. You got yourself so far behind you can't catch up, dude. Right. With the house, if I go to an apartment, they're going to run credit. Maybe. Or maybe you can find a landlord that will just work with you and say, I'm an accountant, I make $70,000 a year. I've gone through losing some things, so I've got some dings on my credit if you pull it,

but I'm in a position now that I can afford to pay your apartment bill and I can show you my budget. Not all apartments require a high credit score to rent. Listen, you can rationalize the crap out of keeping all this stuff if you want, but you're not going to make it if you keep all this stuff. This stuff is going to leave. It's going to leave voluntarily or they're going to start taking it because you don't have the money to pay these bills. That's what you call me about.

If I'm you, I'm amputating the crap out of some stuff and get your life back. Then you can get your career back in order and start rebuilding from there. Sorry, man. I'm really sorry you're going through this. But you have got to take some action for the first time in this whole story. 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.

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