The Ramsey Show - App - Using Cash Is a Game Changer (Hour 2)

Episode Date: December 24, 2018

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show. Where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. This is your show. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for hanging out with us, America. It's a free call, 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.

Mary is with us, and Mary is in Denver. Merry Christmas to you, Mary. How are you? Merry Christmas, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I have a question about a private student loan. My husband and I came into this marriage in two very different financial situations. I came in with a lot of student loan debt, maybe not a lot to some, but a lot to me. And he came in with debt-free except the house,

with a full emergency fund and then time. And we've been married for about four years, and we're just starting to combine our finances now. I know that we're late to the game, but that's what we're doing. And I have a private student loan from Sally Mae, which is now Navient, and the loan amount now is $23,000. The original borrowed amount was $13,000. And as I'm talking about this with my husband, my husband says, you know, if you can negotiate a settlement with them, I'll just pay it off in cash and we can just get them out of our lives.

And my question is, ethically, should I let him do that? Because it's my debt that I came into this marriage with. And also, if so, how do I go about doing that? Ethically, should you negotiate a settlement, or ethically, should your husband pay your bills? Ethically, should I let my husband pay that off? If not, you shouldn't have gotten married. Because when you got married, it's no longer your bill it's now our bill okay in sickness and in health for richer and for poorer remember yeah and i that's what i'm struggling with that's why we haven't combined our finances thus far is Your pride?

Yeah, I feel like it's my responsibility. It's not your responsibility anymore. If you have the flu, it's not your responsibility anymore. If you get cancer, it's not your responsibility anymore. It's now his and yours. Okay. He's going to take care of you if you get sick, right? Yeah. You're going to take care of him if he gets sick, right? Yeah You're going to take care of him if he gets sick, right?

Yeah, of course Yeah, we've combined our lives In sickness and in health For richer, for poorer The old wedding vows that not a lot of people use anymore From the Book of Common Prayer say Unto thee all my worldly goods I pledge Interesting wedding vow Unto thee all my worldly goods I pledge.

Interesting wedding vow. Because what it means is that we are combining our lives completely. And when you get married, we change our pronouns. We become French. It's we, we. It's not you and me. You and me is a roommate. And when you do that, when you accept help from him, you're financially have cancer right now and he's offering help.

This is not a business negotiation between roommates. This is a husband and a wife. A husband who cherishes and loves his wife. A wife who cherishes and loves her husband. That's a lot different. This is not a business transaction where somebody's just offering to help you out out of the kindness of their heart.

This is your freaking husband. That's a different thing. It really is. And I appreciate you bringing it up and letting me talk about it a little bit because I think there's a lot of people that have some confusion about that because there'll be a breakthrough in your relationship when you intertwine yourselves

at that level. And that's kind of what I've been seeing. I've seen our marriage grow since we started doing this. Now, I don't know that Navient is going to settle this debt. I'm assuming you're current on your payments. It's a little bit behind. It's not super delinquent, though. It's like $120 behind.

Well, they are doing a better job than the Sallie Mae servicers used to do, and they're trying. We've actually had some of their executives be in touch with us, and we've looked at some of their programs, and they are trying to do better. And so I'm going to give them a shot if I'm you and call up and say, okay, the original balance was $13,000. How much of the extra balance up to $23,000 is interest, and how much of that is penalties and late charges?

And if you knock those off, I think we can come up to a deal and pay this off. I don't think they're going to knock off the interest or the principal, but you might negotiate away late charges or collections fees or whatever that are just stacked on there. How long ago did you quit paying on the loan for it to get up this high? How long did you not pay on it i mean there was probably a year of time that i didn't pay on it um after my dad died i kind of just like stopped paying on a bunch of stuff only one year yeah and it went from 13 000 to 23 000 in one year

no i was making it well it was accruing interest when I was in school as well, so five years from the date that I got the loan. And then there was a year that I wasn't making payments on it. And the original amount when you very first started was $13,000. Yeah. Okay, and your interest rate is? I don't know the answer to that question. Okay, well, let's kind of do some quick math. Let's pretend for easy math it was 10%.

Okay. $1,300 a year times six. Okay? Mm-hmm. Interest would be $7,000 at the most. Okay. Out of the $10,000 that $5,000 of late charges and collections fees or whatever they want to dream up that they name it,

added on to what you really owe. So you can probably negotiate something down, but you're not going to negotiate this in half. Okay. Okay, and your husband takes a little different tact on this if he's listening to me, and he says, okay, we're going to gang up on this. Let's see what kind of deal we can get so we can get this cleared up. Not if you can get them to take less, I'll do you a favor and pay it off.

No, you're the husband. You're part of the program. You're paying it off either way, buddy. So we're going to clean up up the mess that's what we're doing here and you know you you don't get to marry part of the girl you get the whole girl you don't get to marry part of the guy you get the whole guy just as sharon bless her heart goes with the whole thing uh open phones at triple eight eight825-5225. Thank you for jumping in.

William is on Twitter, at Dave Ramsey. 850,000 of you are. Should I do a monthly power bill or pay a yearly average per month? Doesn't matter. Makes it easier. You can pay an average per month. I just pay mine. I have a pretty good estimate on it.

It's in my budget. Changes, depending on whether it's summer or winter. If it's easier for you, especially when you're first starting, you can do the average plan. The thing is, if your average is off, they're going to pop you at the end of the year and catch you up. Because you don't get out of paying the bill just because you did the average plan. So, as long as the average is correct, and it usually is, they do a pretty good job with it in most utilities. But let's just walk it through that way. This is the Dave budget each month.

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Joshua's in Indiana. I'm graduating with my degree in finance this December. Cool. I'm struggling to choose which career field I should get into. I have full-time job offers as a financial advisor, a personal banker, and a real estate agent. Should I choose the personal banker path with more job and income security or choose the financial advisor and real estate path with less security but higher income potential? There's no wrong answer to that, Joshua.

The thing I would tell you as an entrepreneur and as someone who has done real estate and has done financial advising, but I've never been in banking, you're only as secure as your ability to get a new job when that one leaves. Security with a corporation is an illusion. And don't give it too much credence. So if you took the job as a personal banker and you lost the job as a personal banker because that bank got sold to another bank and things changed over there. Your ability to land another job is your security. Your income, your talent, your education, your success, your moxie is your security, not the field that you're in. Now, is the income less volatile in banking? Yes.

Is it smaller? Depends on if you do well in the others. If you do lousy at real estate, you can have a really small income. Same thing as a financial advisor. Lots of people tried those businesses and didn't make it. So I guess the question I would ask yourself is this. In real estate and as a financial advisor, most of the time you're in more of a marketing role. You're serving people, helping them find a home, or you're serving people by helping them build their investment portfolio.

But in both cases, you are presenting yourself and your ability to serve them. Do you want to sell? Do you want to sell? Do you want to serve? Or do you want to be somewhere where you're not having to do that? Because that's the big difference in these two positions. Both are going to be giving financial advice. Both are going to be utilizing your degree.

But the real estate and the financial advising side is more of a personal sales position than the personal banking side. And ask yourself which of those you want to do. I personally think selling, if you approach it properly, as serving. Think of a server in a high-end restaurant. What are they doing? When they present the specials to you and the white tablecloth is there and they bring the wine list to you and all of that, they're serving you. That's why we call them servers.

But you know what they're doing the whole time? They're selling you your dinner. And, yeah, you walked in and asked to be sold a dinner because you had a reservation at that restaurant. But the same thing is true when you walk in and sit down with your financial advisor. You ask them to sell me some investments. You've just got to show me what it is, how it is, and why I would buy the special, right? And the swordfish is excellent tonight, sir, you know, and so forth, right?

So serving is the proper way to view selling. People who try to sell and aren't servants fail, and they because they're pushy nobody likes pushy right but if you can see your way to being a marketer a personal marketer and see yourself as a servant in that way your income will be much higher in either real estate on average or as a financial advisor if you the idea of serving or selling, like I'm talking about, just absolutely makes your stomach not up, then that's what, you know, you stay away from that and you take the banking job.

And that's what I would do. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Vancouver, Washington. Jason is with us. Hi, Jason. How are you? Doing pretty good. How are you, Dave?

Better than I deserve. How can I help? I'm on Baby Step 6, my wife and I are, and we have a house and a duplex rental property, and I was wanting to know if it's a good idea to sell the duplex rental property. We have about 50% equity in the duplex and about 20% equity in our home. How much do you owe on your home? $336,000. Okay. What's your household income? About $150,000. Good for you. It's heading up, though. Good, good. And what do you owe on the duplex? $170,000. Okay. And so you could pull about $170,000 out of it if you sold it? You said you're in a 50% equity position, right?

Yes. Okay, so $100,500 or so comes out of that against the $330,000. Okay, all right. Well, if you're heading north on this income, both of these are going to be paid off in just a matter of years. Correct. If you want to hold them. Do you like the duplex?

Is it a big deal? I mean, boy, if I didn't own it, I'd want to buy it. Yeah, we actually lived in it for three years, and it's been really good to us, and we remodeled the whole thing, and, yeah, we really do like it, and it's in a good spot, and the rents are really high and going up. Good. Then I probably would, you know, take your income that's heading north and just lean into your house and get it paid off.

I mean, you could probably do it in, like, five years right and during that time that one five or six yeah during that time that 170 is going to be going on down on that duplex and go ahead and knock it out so i mean you can do that there's nothing wrong with that um if the duplex is good and i would not buy any more real estate and i would never borrow money again during this time ever for that matter but certainly during this time so don't call me back later and go i bought three more rentals no you missed the point okay no i'm ready to be out dave okay to be out all right cool so you're on the way then and is what we're saying but in either way it's fine but given your income heading north i think you're done in five years or less,

depending on how quickly your income curves up, what those numbers look like on the home, and by then the duplex will be paid way down, probably another year and a half, two years, knock it out. Okay. So how old are you? 34. Yeah, I'm 34. So by 45, both of these are done. Correct.

Yeah. I'm probably holding it if that's me. As long as we're heading out of debt and not into debt, and we've got that thing lined up as to which is first and how it's going. And if you get any windfalls, just knock them out, right? I mean, if you get a little stock bonus plan or something, and you can just cash it out and any inheritance or anything like that, you just throw it at it and knock it out. So good question, man.

Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Keisha's in Detroit. Merry Christmas, Keisha. Merry Christmas. What's up? I am 40. I'm about to get divorced probably in the next couple of months.

I work a job where I make about $36,000 a year. I've been off on medical leave for almost a year at another job because the restrictions were way different here. And so I'll be going back to my main job in a couple of weeks. And the thing with that is I was in school, I racked up $19,000 of debt and I'm not even done yet for a career to try to get out of that field because that field is so physical for me. So now it's like I'm $19,000 in, I need to finish getting divorced, got other debt. Yes, I'm just trying to to figure out where like how to do this in these steps now we're nobody's in a rush to move which i think is strange in this situation that we're in but we're like quote unquote peacefully living together so i'm trying to figure out like okay

that's going to be weird should i just go ahead ahead and move or, you know, start the steps and, you know, just, yeah. Okay. Children? We have two. One adult, he's in school, and a four-year-old. And a what? Four, yeah. A four-year-old, okay.

Yes. All right. Well, you cannot take any steps that take you further into debt. Right. Period. And you've got to decide what's first and what's second. It's very important that you prioritize this process. I think you sit down with your pastor, your marriage counselor, and get some coaching on whether this has got any chance or not.

And if it doesn't have any chance, you know, then you guys need some assistance in making the call and calling it. One question I get asked all the time is, do I need life insurance? Listen, the whole point of life insurance is to replace your income for someone who counts on you. So if you have a spouse or you have kids, yes, you need term life insurance. It's the only way to protect them until you're out of debt and have built up your wealth. You're only digging a deeper hole if you waste money on cash value plans since it robs you of the ability to make real progress. And that's why I send you to Zander Insurance, and I have for 20 years. That's where I get all my insurance, and they only offer the plans I recommend. It is not expensive. It's not

complicated. And Zander will be there as your guide every step of the way. Visit Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. You need to get this taken care of. I can give you the advice and I can tell you where to go. But it's really up to you to take that important step to get your family protected. That's Zander.com or 800-356-4282. Thanks for joining us, America. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Sean and Sarah are with us. Merry Christmas, guys.

How are you? We're great. Merry Christmas. And where do you guys live? From Houston, Texas. Oh, cool. Well, welcome to Nashville. And all the way here to do your debt Houston, Texas. Oh, cool. Well, welcome to Nashville. And all the way here to do your debt-free scream.

Yes, sir. And how much have you paid off? We paid off over $93,000 in two years. Two years. Way to go. And we pushed pause a little bit because we found out we were expecting our second. So we would have been done in about 18 months, but we pressed pause. Good.

That's the way you're supposed to do it. Yeah. And your income range during those two years? A steady $184,000. That's pretty good. What do you guys do for a living? We're both engineers, offshore oil and gas. Okay.

And it was a miracle that we actually kept our jobs for these past two years. So we're very blessed and thankful that that happened. Yeah, that worked out great. What kind of debt was the $93,000? About $63,000 was the leftovers of our student loans. We'd already paid it down significantly, but that was $63,000 left when we started, and then the other $30,000 was our car. Okay.

Wow. Good for you. Very cool. So how long have you been married? It's been about five years, a little over five years. Six years. What happened two years ago that started you on this journey? Two years ago, our daughter Emma was born, and I was still on maternity leave, which we had planned for.

We'd saved up all of our income to replace my lack of income while on leave. And I just remember sitting at home with her thinking, you know, I want to have freedom to do what we want to do with her. I knew I wanted to work, but maybe I didn't want to work so much. Maybe I didn't want to work such an abandoned job. And we didn't have any of those options at that time. Okay. Yeah. So then what'd you do? I mean, you had this itch that you, how'd you scratch it? So Sean came home one day and I handed him the baby and, and I said, Hey, we're going to read this book called the total money makeover. And not only are we going to read it, we're going to read it out loud to each other. Whoa. Um, because I knew if I read it,

I wouldn't really get him on board. And him reading it might work. But I said, let's just read it out loud together. And that was a really kind of awkward experience to start out with. That's kind of weird, yeah. It was. But it's very effective. It was.

And it was a lot of fun to stop and talk about how we interpreted the different anecdotes. Because I remember one of them, he said, wow, I thought about it this way. And I said, really? Like, I saw this in that anecdote. And it was fun to sit there and talk about how we interpreted each story and hear how everyone or how we thought about it. That's cool. Yeah.

It's very engineer-esque. Yeah. Yeah. We definitely learned where each other was, where we're coming from. And we found out we came from very different backgrounds when it comes to how we look at money. Okay. What was the difference? I grew up kind of, can you afford the monthly payment mindset?

My wife was definitely, what's the principle? What's the total we're going to be paying? Right. Okay. And part of reading this book together, we were able to identify those differences, but come together as a couple and then move forward and, you know, really plan out our goals and get on the same page. So that's what got me on board. But really what lit the fire was we went to FPU together at our church.

Okay. All right. Then we're game on. Yeah. We got a little bit of a slow start after reading the book. And then when we started FPU, we went game on. We stopped the retirement. We went to cash, which was a big game changer for us.

And it was game on. $93,000 paid off in two years. What do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is? Well, you've got to be dedicated. You really have to want it. But you also, you have to be able to refocus and realize that if you get off your budget, it's okay. You don't just throw it out the window and quit. There are several times where, you know, maybe two or three months, I saw the look on my wife's eye and I said, okay, we're veering too much. We need to recenter.

And giving yourself the grace to not be perfect because it really is a month to month battle and you you have to recenter and refocus and life happens life happens we have two kids now you know we have a house so everything that comes with buying a house you know the ac issues everything yep so just... So the AC went out? We had some issues with it. Yeah. Okay. Right before the daughter was born, so, you know...

Oh, yeah, that's the way that works, yeah. Yeah. Murphy moves in. In Houston. Yeah. Where they have no humidity. Yeah. Exactly.

Exactly. We didn't have any major events. We had a couple tire situations. We had to replace some tires, but nothing that passed over the $1,000 merchant. But isn't it interesting how when you're game on and you're so focused, something like a blown tire is looked at as an obstacle. Yeah. And you go, wait a minute, that just took some of my get-out-of-debt money.

Yeah, we got mad. Yeah, or the heating and air not working. It's like, no, wait a minute, you know. And before, it was just like, well, fix it and keep going, you know, because you weren't paying attention. But once you're paying attention, it's like every one of, fix it and keep going because you weren't paying attention. But once you're paying attention, it's like every one of those things hurts a little differently. Yeah, that's very interesting.

Well done, you two. Well done. I'm proud of you. So did you have more cheerleaders or more people calling you weird? We had a good number of cheerleaders. We had family behind us. They sometimes asked us, well, why? What are you guys doing? We heard a lot ever since we graduated college was, well, why? What are you guys doing?

We heard a lot ever since we graduated college was, well, you guys are engineers. You make plenty of money. Everything's easy for you. It's like, well, we've got the student loans that came with those two degrees. But it's not easy, even with that income. We're very blessed to have that income. But, I mean, we are very intentional with our budget. And through the process, every single line item in our budget came into question. Can we do this better?

Can we do this cheaper, more efficiently? Everything from we refinanced our house. We changed our insurance around, our life insurance. I mean, we looked at every single line item. But we had a good number of cheerleaders that were excited for us and celebrated with us. People in our small group at church and co-workers. The FPU group, for sure. Exactly, yeah.

Okay, well, cool. Well done, you guys. Well done. Proud of you. Well, we got a copy of Chris Hogan's number one bestseller, Retire Inspired, for you. That's the next chapter in your story. We want you to be millionaires and you're well on your way.

Got a great income and no debt. Ding. And you know how to handle money now. Wow, ding, ding. Yeah, good. And so millionaires are outrageously generous along the way, okay? So congratulations. Now, the kiddos are with you?

They are. They're fussy right now. Okay, we're not going to put them in. That's cool. And their names and ages, though, are? We have Emma, who's two, and Jack, who's three months old. Okay, cool. Perfect.

So Emma and Jack, on your behalf, change your family tree, baby. Sean and Sarah, $93,000 paid off in two years, making $184,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Well done, you guys.

Very well done. Oh, man, that is fabulous. Congratulations, you guys. So very proud of you. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. We appreciate you joining us.

Dave, we live in Pennsylvania, and our furnace is on its last breath. Our $1,000 emergency fund won't cover it. We have two babies. What should we do? I don't know how you know a furnace is on its last breath. I'm 57. I've owned a lot of furnaces they either work or they don't work they're not sort of gradually breaking down now could you have a very old heating and air system that you're

worried about yes but furnaces don't have a last breath actually they do but you just don't know that until that comes i mean so i don't know what you're basing this on i i i don't. I mean, I'm not saying it's not real. I just think you have two babies. Now, you know, I guess you've got to assess the situation and say, am I willing to delay getting out of debt to save up and fix this furnace right now, or can I put, can I just try to squeeze the last breath out of this thing while I do that? I mean, in Tennessee, it gets down to you know zero degrees here in the winter too not as much as it does in pennsylvania but we do get cold weather here and lots of 20s and 30s and my children while we were getting out of debt we had heating and air

problems but we we were never cold due to being broke and we we work to this exact system. So I kind of think you're being a drama queen. Could be wrong, but you just decide how you're going to work it. You have to be careful, though, when you start trying to figure out ways to rationalize stuff. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thanks for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in.

We'll talk about your life and your money. Tom's with us in Cleveland, Ohio. Merry Christmas, Tom. How are you? Good, good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

I have a question. I currently, the job I work for, I've got a Roth 401k. And what I decided to do is over the summertime, I took on a small job cutting lawns. And I take that money and I put it into an IRA. Some people have said put all your money into just the 401k and to do it that way. Is it okay to have money in two different spots like that? Sure. I've gotten about seven.

Why? Why does it have have money in two different spots like that? Sure. I've gotten about seven. Why? Why does it have to be in one place? I've always heard that it should be, you know, like you don't want to have too many retirement funds out there. You want to keep everything. Always heard that. Where? I never heard that. Oh, so it's okay to have an IRA and a 401K.

It's actually preferable. Oh, okay. I didn't know. Anytime you spread your investments around, It's actually preferable. Oh, okay. I didn't know. Anytime you spread your investments around, that's called diversification. And when you're buying a mutual fund, you're diversifying. Instead of putting all your money in one stock, by putting the same amount of money in a mutual fund, you're spreading it across 90 to 200 stocks.

And so if I don't have all my money at my 401k, I have some of it in my Roth IRAs at home, and that's in different mutual funds. Then I've got more diversification. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact, it is a preferred thing, because the more diversified you are, the safer you are. Diversification creates safety. Think about it. If you have all your money in one company, that company goes broke, you're gone. If you have your money in 100 different companies and one company goes broke, you're far from gone.

You don't even notice. That's the power of diversification. Spreading your money around is what that means. And the same would be true of your retirement plans. Now, is it necessary to go get a whole bunch of different retirement plans? No. But there's absolutely nothing that says don't do it. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Linda is with us in Philadelphia. Hi, Linda. How are you?

I'm well, thank you. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. How can I help? So I am a newly single mom. I'm in the middle of a divorce, and I have never really paid attention to my finances. But now that, you know, all this is happening, I need to get my act together, right? So not including my mortgage, I have approximately $55,000 in debt. Ooh. Yeah. And I recently... What is that on?

Car, credit card. How much do you owe on your car? The car at this point is like $32,000. Okay, and what do you make a year? Well, I used to make around... No, what do you make a year now? What are you going to be making next year? That is to be determined.

I recently started my business, so the goal is to be six figures next year, but it's sort of, you know, I'm not quite, you know what I mean? I don't have those. What kind of a business did you start? It's a non-medical home care agency and medical concierge. I'm a registered nurse. Oh, okay. All right.

So you think based on what you've done in the past, you can make six figures? Yes, yes. Good. I mean, even a million, that's the goal, and within three years. But prior to that, you know, I need to get my financial situation under control so I have no debt. I need to teach my daughters about finances. How much do you owe on your home? My home is about $350,000.

And in the divorce, you're going to get the home and all this other debt too. Well, we sold our home, so this is a separate, we each have our separate living spaces. So this is actually my home. I own my own, well, you know, I own my own home. You're going to get this house in the divorce? No, no, no. So the marital house, it has been sold. No, the house that you're in, you're going to end up with it in the divorce, right?

Right, because I bought it. Honey, you're not divorced yet. Okay. Okay. So, you know, after the divorce, that's when you'll know if it's yours, because the judge is going to approve this. You don't get to just act like you're not married when you're still married. That's not how the law works. So, okay, so you've got a $350,000 house that you're likely to end up with.

You think you're going to make $100,000. You've got $55,000 in debt. So what you're going to be doing is you're going to be getting on a written budget. Go to everydollar.com, download the app, and start doing your written budget, and then begin to attack this debt as fast as you can if you do not make the kind of money that you think you're going to you are not going to be able to stay in that house and you're certainly not going to keep that car not even close but if you can make a hundred grand year one then you'll be able to pay off that debt

and keep that house and then you can move towards prosperity and start moving that direction but if this is a pipe dream and you are full of it and you don't make that kind of money then this these things you bought are not even going to be close so um yeah uh hold on i'm going to send you a copy of the book the uh total money makeover which will walk you through the process of exactly what you need to do to learn about handling money laying out a game plan a step-by-step process to be able to win with this and it's very very doable bob is with us in grand rapids michigan hey bob how are you i, Bob, how are you? I'm doing great. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I actually had a question about an emergency fund. My wife and I have a substantial

amount of student loan debt, and we drive two very old cars. We're looking at a plan of about three and a half years to get out of this mess, and I was afraid that $1,000 is kind of risky for having two old cars that might cost more than that when one of them breaks. So what's your opinion on bumping that up? What are the cars worth? Oh, geez, I put washer fluid in mine the other day, and I think I totaled it. So not much.

Okay, so they're throwaway cars. Oh, yeah. So you're not going to be doing $1,000 worth of repairs to them? You might be replacing them, but you wouldn't be doing $1,000 worth of repairs. Okay. Does that make sense? You don't do $1,000 worth of repairs to a $1,000 car. That's illogical.

So, I mean, you do minor repairs, and you keep the hoopies running. What's your household income? About $110,000. Okay. So if car number one blows up and you take your $1,000 and go buy a $1,000 car, a month or two later, if you stopped your debt snowball temporarily, you could buy a $2,000 car or a $3,000 car with your income. It's very doable.

No, I would not keep more than $1,000. And I'm going to lean into this student loan debt as hard as I can to see if we can't get it done a little faster than you're talking about by really, really, really picking up extra jobs, selling things. What else can we do? It sounds like you're pretty intense. But, no, I'm, you know, I drove crappy stuff like this when I was cleaning up my mess. And so I know it's a pain. And I know the possibility is there that the thing could just go sideways on you but i'm amazed at how these

old cars will run they just run and run and run and run like you wish it would die so you could get rid of it but it won't die you know i mean they just run and it's amazing what you can get that how much life you can squeeze out of a $2,000 car. It really is. And so that's what I'm going to do because I'm trying to get out of debt, and we're focusing all of our financial, emotional, spiritual, mathematical energy on that goal. And I really wouldn't change that. Thanks for the call.

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