The Ramsey Show - App - Walking Beside You on Your Debt Free Journey (Hour 1)

Episode Date: April 8, 2019

The show about you

Music 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 pain of home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. We're glad you're here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Alan starts off this hour in Sacramento. Hey,

Alan, how are you? Good. How are you, sir? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Well, I'd like to thank you. first of all you kind of have helped save my life in a way uh your your calm radio voices uh suit my uh turbulent life a little so thank you uh i'm going through kind of an ugly divorce uh i've been in California for two years. Moved out here with my family. I have four kids. My ex-wife took all the money out of the savings. Like, I literally have no furniture.

I'm going to be moving my mother out of here in like two months, and she is going to put a down payment down on a house, and we're going to live together. I just don't know what to do. My new job has a 401k that I haven't started yet. I have an old 401k that I'm not sure if I'm going to get the entire proceeds because my ex took all the savings. We're still working on that. I was just wondering, do I cash out the 401k to furnish a new house when I get it? And I'm also going to be taking a small loan for the new house in between 50 and 80 from what I've been looking at.

So I just don't know where to start, sir. Okay. How old are you? I'm 45. What do you make? Right now I'm making 50. Okay. How long were you make? Right now I make $50. Okay. How long were you married?

18 years. I'm sorry. Well, I can hear the heartbreak in your voice, and it sounds like you've been through a really, really tough process emotionally. Very tough, sir. Anytime someone is in that kind of a situation, it is a death of sorts. Sometimes it's a real death, but in this case it's the death of an 18-year dream, marriage, right? But anytime there's a death of magnitude, meaning it's close to you, so it has an impact on you like this one has had on you,

it is very unwise to make large decisions while you're in the gumbo. Like, for instance, let's say a lady calls me on the air, and she's been married 50 years, and her husband died three weeks ago, and she wants to go buy a house with her son. I would tell her no. Bad idea. It could be a good idea. It is a really bad time for you to be making big house decisions.

And you're going in partners with your mommy after your wife just, no, this has got bad medicine. Not a chance. I would not do this. Here's the thing, too, Dave. My mother's getting up there in years. She's 80. So one of you buy the house and the other one live there.

But I would not do a partnership that you're tied into, and three years from now something happens. Do you have siblings? I do. I have a sister. She lives have siblings? I do. I do. I have a sister. She lives in New York. Yeah.

And so she decides she wants to lay claim on this house you own part of. This is just a messy legal thing that you're getting ready to enter into. It could be that your heart heals and you want to get remarried, but you feel stuck with your mom four years from now. I don't know. But I don't mind you taking care of your mom if she needs care. And if she wants to buy a house and you stay with her for a while and care for her and help her in the transition until the next phase of your life opens up, that's an okay

thing. But going in partners and you taking out a loan and her taking out a loan and y'all be on the same deed, I would not do that. I also would not put money in a 401k right now i'd not put money in anything except in a bank account piled up or in cash piled up in a tackle box under your bed i don't care until this divorce is 100 final and you know exactly where you stand then you would restart your baby steps okay but anything you start right now could be gotten a hold of by her in this settlement and um i'm not saying hide stuff from her but i am saying you just need to be very very liquid it's

a big pile of money covers a lot of time for you to heal and time for you to work through this grieving process. Because, dude, I can hear it in your voice. This knocked you on your back. Oh, completely. I moved out here for her because she wanted to take care of her grandmother with our four kids. Yeah. And I have no family out here. I have no friends.

I feel completely abandoned. Yeah. And I have no family out here. I have no friends. I feel completely abandoned. Yeah. But the thing, too, Dave, is I have two minor kids still. And I need child support is $1,000 a month for everything, spousal support, child support. But furniture is not that big a deal, and you don't need to cash out 401Ks and have all the penalties just to get some furniture. You're a single guy again.

You go to a garage sale, and you buy an old leather couch, and you throw it in the one-bedroom apartment, and you sleep on it. Life's okay. It's a temporary thing. This time next year, you'll be set up somewhere doing something. But you don't need to rush in to furnish a whole freaking house. You're a single guy. If your mom wants to furnish a house she's buying, she can do that,

and you can live there and take care of her, and that would give you a safety net emotionally to heal. But you don't need to go in debt. You don't need to be borrowing money to buy a house. You don't need to be cashing out 401K debt. You don't need to be borrowing money to buy a house. You don't need to be cashing out 401ks. You don't need to be making big decisions. Make as many small decisions as you can and give yourself some time. I went and visited my friend a few years ago who had had a massive car wreck.

When I walked into the room, you could hardly recognize him. He got T-boned, and it smashed the whole side of his face in. Ended up losing one of his eyes. He was so swollen all over, I thought I was in the wrong room. I didn't recognize him, and I'd known the guy for 15 years, and that's what you sound like. It took him a little while for the swelling to go down. It took him a little while to recover from that car wreck. It took him a little while to not flinch at every stoplight. It takes a little while to heal from a major car wreck, and that's what you're going through, man. Give yourself some room. Don't make major decisions in the middle of this. Don't buy

houses. Don't cash out 401ks. Don't go get loans. Do go find a good local church. You just told me you're alone, and there's no reason for you to be alone. There's some great, wonderful houses of worship that will put their arms around you all over Sacramento. I know a bunch of them. And they'd love to be your family right now while you're hurting. We'll be praying for you, man. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. One Dental is a company I've been telling my listeners about because I know these guys will save you money at the dentist.

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at OneDental.com. That's OneDental.com. Thank you for joining us, America. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Common sense for your dollars and cents. God's and Grandma's ways of handling money and life. Jen is with us in Philadelphia. Hi, Jen. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up? I wanted to call because my father has trouble with gambling, and he had gotten a little bit of an inheritance from my grandmother after she passed, about $11,000, and he gambled it all away, and he's about to come into a larger sum of inheritance from her after her house sells about $90,000. And I wanted to see what you thought about either being a cosigner on some kind of account with him so he can't get to it and gamble it away or have it in my name and then may kind of be the guardian over it and hold on to it until he's into retirement and give it to him at that point.

Okay. It's not a cosigner. You don't want to be a cosigner with this guy on anything because it could open you up to liability for other stuff he does. So you don't want that. It might be. Is he willing to let you control this money for his benefit? He's kind of in a position since my grandmother

had passed, my uncle was a state over everything and then he had passed, so now his wife is over a state of everything and my uncle who had passed originally had wanted me to get the money and not my father because of the gambling problem.

I would like him to have something going into retirement. That is not your uncle's option. Yeah. The executor of the estate does not get to change the terms of the will because the heir is misbehaving. Okay. They cannot give the money to you unless it was dictated to you in the will.

That would be illegal. Okay. in the will. That would be illegal. Your aunt is getting ready to get herself in a mess if your dad decided to press charges. It's like stealing $90,000 from him, even though it's in his best interest. So unless the terms of the will were changed or the court, if a judge, if she goes before the judge as the executrix of the estate and says, this guy is going to gamble this away, I recommend moving it into her,

into his daughter's name managed for his good. If the judge dictates that, then your aunt would be safe. But your aunt cannot just write you the check because she doesn't like the situation. That's straight up illegal. Okay. So what would be the best way to handle it? You either have to get the judge to dictate this, or your dad has to do it willingly.

And if he's willing to? If he's willing to, then you need to see an attorney and spend about $1,000 on legal fees and have a trust set up. And your dad is the beneficiary of the trust, and you are the trustee. You know, the trustee has all the control, the beneficiary receives all the benefits. And so anything good that comes off of the money does not go to you, it goes to him, but you are in charge of the money for his benefit. Okay.

As if he were a child who had inherited this money, and you were managing it for a child until they became, you know, in this case I might say if he was dry for 60 months and he wanted to get control of his own money, that'd be fine. But I'd want five years of dry if I were him and if I were you, because gambling addiction is really prevalent right now. Yeah, and I just, my grandma worked a long time for it. What do you think the probability

is he will do this voluntarily? I think it's possible. He knows that he has trouble with it. 50-50? I think it's possible. And he doesn't have any retirement.

I mean, if you can talk him into it, it is a great act of love on your part. But it needs to be set up as a trust with an attorney doing the trust. He's the beneficiary. You're the trustee. Do you understand that? Yes. And the terms of the trust are however he wants and you want to manage this money for his benefit.

But the money cannot be given to you against his will unless a judge says so you both you all will get yourself in a mess because all he's got to do is hire an attorney and smack all of you into next week and he would win because you do not have the right to just change the terms of a will or an estate plan um because you don't like the heirs um otherwise nobody'd ever get any money uh poughkeepsie new york jennifer is with us hi jennifer welcome to the dave ramsey show hi thank you for taking my call sure what's up um so my husband and i have been on baby steps four five and six um since september of last year. Good. We've already paid off $33,000 on the mortgage. Yay. It's not going quite as fast as I would like it to,

and I wanted to run some numbers by you to see if we could potentially accelerate our baby step six. Okay. What do you owe on the house? So we owe $172,000 on the house. Good. And what's your household income? We make about $185,000 a year. Okay, good. What's your question? So we have a camper, which represented almost all of our baby step two. We are selling that. That should bring about $20,000 to throw on the mortgage. We already have $30,000 saved for college. My husband will have two pensions, one from the military and one from the state. I have $40,000 in a pension account that I can't actually touch and invest. And then the big one is I already have $460,000 in my 401K.

How old are you guys? I'm 45 and my husband is 49. How old are your kids? One is 14 and one is 12. Okay. You're pretty slim on college. We are. And my plan now, even if we can't accelerate Baby Step 6 by potentially reducing my 401K down to the company match,

that was kind of what my question really was, if that would be a good idea. No, I would leave Debut Step 4 at 15%. That's not going to change your numbers that much, because 15% of $180,000 is only about $25,000. And if you just cut that in half, $12,000 towards $170,000 doesn't move the needle. Okay. It doesn't do as much as it feels like in your mind it's doing. Selling the camper and throwing that money at it

and maybe cranking the $30,000 or $33,000 you've done since September, which is about a $40,000 pace, you're done in three to four years. Right. The plan was to be done before my oldest graduates from high school. Yeah. You're going to be done right around then, depending on raises and depending on how much other things happen that you can use to accelerate this. I'm with you on throwing the camper at it and chunking other things at it. I would leave my baby step four at 15% because I think you're going to make it.

You're going to be fine. Okay. And you make a good amount of money. And here's the thing. You've got $30,000. You could send them to school. Technically, it's not my favorite plan, but you can cash flow everything once the house is paid off on both kids.

Right. That's what I was hoping. And we've brainwashed them like you recommended, so they know they're going to community college for the first two years if they don't have scholarships. Yay. Reasonably priced college. There's a new idea.

Yeah. You can do it if you want to do it i wouldn't i think you're going to be fine um i think you're going to be fine because if you'll look back and emotionally give yourself credit for how far you have come since you started your baby step two you guys have been very impressive jennifer this is very very well played you've done a good job and then once you broke through that you've already knocked 33 out since september this is april i mean that's on a sixty thousand dollar a year schedule right there give or take plus throw 20 at it um really that's about three years you're going to have this thing knocked out. 20 off of 170 gets us to 150. 50 a year for three years, you're done. And you did that while putting 15% away.

And I'm fine if that's your plan, but I wouldn't. I very, very seldom, unless highly unusual numbers, that I stopped baby step four to pay off the house. If your house was $20,000, you wanted to stop it for six months or something or three months, fine. But we're talking about three or four years here at 45 years old that you're missing out. You're going to be wealthy no matter which direction you go, whether you go your way or my way. Because you're on fire. You're watching every detail.

You're making every dollar behave. You're being every detail. You're making every dollar behave. You're being very intentional. And that's how people win. So this is a minor discussion. You can go your way if you want. I personally would go the way I teach you. I'm going to be consistent. But neither one of these are under the stupid column

if you'd look for a check. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Do you know who is a prime target for identity theft? Your children. Kids have no debts or credit history. Their personal information is just as easy to get, but the theft could go completely undetected for years. Every day all over the country, young adults are starting down their own path in life by opening a bank account or renting their first apartment, only to find out that they somehow already have credit card debt, a mortgage, or even a criminal record. It's devastating, but it can be fixed when you have an ID theft protection plan from Zander Insurance.

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Hi, it's so great. We're good. Welcome. Where do you guys live? St. George, Utah. Oh, cool. Welcome to Nashville. Thank you.

And all the way over to Tennessee to do a debt-free screen. Yeah. I love it. How much have you paid off? $50, cool. Welcome to Nashville. Thank you. And all the way over to Tennessee to do a debt-free screen. Yeah. I love it. How much have you paid off? $50,000. And how long did it take? 22 months. Way to go.

And your range of income during that time? $60,000 to $85,000. Okay. And what do you all do for a living? I work in health care management. Mm-hmm. And she stays at home and takes care of kids. All right.

Very cool. What kind of debt was your $50,000? Well, we had some cars, and we had some credit cards, and we had some bike, a mountain bike to pay off. Okay. All right. And how long have you guys been married? Almost 13 years this month.

So what happened 22 months ago that lit the fuse on this? So I started a business with some people, and I failed miserably like five years ago. Oh. And as part of that, I was supposed to be receiving income, and it wasn't coming. And so we used credit cards to live on. Oh. And so we had about $25,000 in credit card debt. Mm-hmm.

And I started a job at a new company, and they, in January, 22 months ago or so, introduced a new program that was called the Smart Dollar. All right. Very good. And I thought, hey, maybe it's time. So we finally owned up to the money and decided nobody was ever going to pay us for that, even though we thought it was owed or whatever, and just took care of it ourselves. There you go.

Very cool. So we're going to attack this and take responsibility. If we ever get the money later, it'll just be gravy on the biscuit. Exactly. Very cool. For those of you who don't know, Smart Dollar is a program like Financial Peace University, very similar, that is taught in companies. Companies buy it and teach it as an employee benefit, and that's what you guys had there, right?

Yep. Very cool. What's the name of your company? Family Healthcare. Awesome. Well, tell them thanks for teaching it. We appreciate them being a customer and taking good care of you. Yeah.

Well done. Well done. So how's it feel? You're debt-free. Awesome. Worth the trouble? Yeah. Okay.

What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? I think one of the big keys is to trust in God. We've always been tithe payers, so we just continued to do that and then changed our mindset and said, you know, it's in your hands. We'll do our part if you can help us out and fill in the gaps. Well, you were already doing the tithe, but you had to do something different yourself, right? That's right. What did you do different?

Well, we decided to set a budget. And this budget was a tool. I always thought of budgets as just like an exercise in pinching. Where else can we pinch, right? But budget can be a tool in empowering us, and we actually get to be intentional about choosing where our money goes. Well, that's good. Very, very cool. Well, congratulations. Okay, so some of the folks at work were doing this while you were doing it. I hope you had a cheerleader or two there.

Where else did you have some cheerleaders telling you this will work? Well, we had lots of cheerleaders. I have a really good friend who I work with who's already debt-free. And actually for my birthday, we'd started in January and then in May, it was my birthday and he gave me a check and it had a picture of your face next to it. And you were cutting up a credit card

and it said, Dave Ramsey says get debt-free. And then it had an amount on it and then it said on the memo line, debt. Wow. It was sort of a kickstart. The first four months, we actually only had like $300 extra to put toward anything, and it was toward that mountain bike because it had to be paid off or we were going to start getting interest.

Right. So we just had to tighten up, and we had like a $250 food budget for six people. And we just went for it, and he was a huge cheerleader. My parents have always lived debt free, which is awesome. So we just went for it. And he was a huge cheerleader. My parents have always lived debt-free, which is awesome. So we just had a lot of people. Her dad's a banker, and he's always been a good example, too. So we had a lot of help that way. Very cool.

Well, well done, you guys. We're proud of you. We got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Everyday Millionaires, number one bestseller. That is the next chapter in your story for you guys to go on and build some wealth now. Next step. Next step. You brought the kiddos with you on the trip?

We did. Okay. What are their names and ages? Let's introduce them. This is Phoebe. She's 10. Piper's 7. Hawkins is 5.

And Maverick's 4. All right. Very cool. Well, congratulations, you guys. We're very, very proud of you. All right. There we go. I love it. Cameron and Marie, Phoebe, Piper, Hawkins, congratulations, you guys. We're very, very proud of you. All right. There we go. I love it.

Cameron and Marie, Phoebe Piper, Hawkins and Maverick from St. George, Utah. $50,000 paid off in 22 months. Make it 60 to 85. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Okay. Three, two, one. We're dead free!

Woo! Well done, you guys. Very, very well done. Proud of you. Great job. That is exactly how you do that. 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 deal. Our question comes from Jordan in Iowa. I'm wondering if I should contribute,

should continue to invest 15% of my monthly income when I have a pension plan that will be 80% of my top three highest years pay. I will top out at 79,000. I plan on retiring in 28 years. Yes. You should always be putting 15% of your income into retirement when you're in baby step four. There's very, very few exceptions. I would not sit around and count on a pension, as many of them as are poorly managed,

and get people in trouble all the time. I would not sit around and wait on someone else to control my destiny. I think you'll get the pension. I don't think it's going broke. I'm not predicting the end of pensions, but I do not let my destiny sit in other people's hands. And that's what you're doing when you say, I'm going to count on the pension, or I'm going to count on social security, or I'm going to count on Social Security, or I'm going to count on whatever, and so therefore I'm not going to build wealth. With the 401k, the Roth IRAs, and so forth, you are building wealth that you control. You have to control the controllables. There are things you can't control in this life, but there are things you can control,

and you have to control the ones you can control in order to win at anything but certainly at building wealth without a doubt phil is in new york hi phil welcome to the day ramsey show hi mr ramsey how are you better than i deserve what's up hi i just i guess i have a refinancing question so i read your total money makeover book, and my plan is to be debt-free by the end of 2020. I also looked into refinancing so I could free up some more money to put towards my debt. And right now, my interest rate is about 3.625%, but I have a PMI, which is $200 a month. So my mortgage is coming out to be $2,700 a month. The refinance that they offered me was $2,576 without a PMI,

but they're going to give me a 4.6% interest rate. I owe about $325,000 on my house. And I don't really know if it ends up being worth it. I bought the house about five years ago. You do not need to refinance with those numbers. You're going up in interest rate more than you're saving on PMI. The only reason your payment's going down is you're agreeing to be in debt longer. Right.

Otherwise, your payment would have gone up. Now, if you could have gotten rid of a tiny bit of interest rate and gotten rid of the pmi it might have been close to making sense but it might not even then because you've got closing costs associated with this but there's no way this deal works moving up a full percentage point um and all you're gaining is resetting the loan it's called recasting the loan. Starting over on the loan is why your payment's going down and the fact you got rid of the PMI.

But you went up an interest rate, which, you know, is 1%, one times your current balance. And that'll tell you how much you're losing every year doing this. So now I think you're sitting right where you're sitting you're going to keep plowing through i'm proud of you you got a good start don't stop keep on moving this is the dave ramsey show Thank you. If you're going to win with money, you have to learn to play offense and defense. You have to make more and invest more, and you have to protect it. That's the defense. That's boxing when you keep your guard up so that you don't get your block knocked off

while you're trying to make a swing, right? And I get a lot of insurance questions on this show, and when you boil your guard up so that you don't get your block knocked off while you're trying to make a swing, right? And I get a lot of insurance questions on this show, and when you boil it all down, there's really about eight kinds of insurance and two other kinds of coverage that you need to be fully protected on. And the rest of it's a bunch of gimmicks and a bunch of advertising slogans, and that's all it is. So instead of researching 10 different things, we actually built a free tool for you to use. It's called our 5-Minute Coverage Checkup, and it'll show you exactly which of these things you need to do,

which ones not to do, and how to get it, and how to get the best prices. Five minutes. It's completely free. We'll even rank your to-do list on what to do first get out your phone right now text get out your phone and text check up to 33 789 let's check up to 33 789 or visit Dave Ramsey dot com checkup today. Chrissy is in Nashville. Hi, Chrissy.

Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, so I have no idea what I'm doing. So that's why I'm calling you. So a little background is I'm 24 and I'm a single mom. My parents, I can't really look to them for advice because not only have they filed Chapter 7, they filed Chapter 13 as well.

So with my recent income tax return, I paid off everything but my car. Good. So I don't have any more student loans or anything like that. Good. So I owe about $4,000 more on my car. My question is, I'm about to have a settlement. It's a malpractice settlement of $30,000. Really?

That's coming in in the next month or so. I just got out of litigation and all that. And then my second question is, something to do with my blood type or something like that. I'm going to get testing done for like the next year. They're going to take my blood and all this good other stuff. Well, every other month, they're going to send me a check for $5,000 for every time I go in and let them take my blood, essentially.

So over the next year, I'll basically be getting $30,000 more just for medical tests and stuff and what do you make a year what i make about two thousand dollars a month after taxes okay and what do you do um i clean houses good and how old is your child um i have a five-year-old a four-year-old and a seven-month-old whoa yeah i don't and i'm ordered it nine hundred dollars a month but he doesn't pay it no what's your attorney saying about that we're in the process of trying to take it back but until that kind of you know until he decides to pay i'm not really counting that as income yeah well i wouldn't let him decide to pay i would let the judge decide to put him in jail instead of supporting his children oh for sure like he's he's gone out of his way to avoid it yeah make sure he goes to jail um this guy's scum

okay anyway next uh so you've got a twenty four thousand dollar income what I would tell you to do is let's do two or three things. One is I want you to work on your career long term to get your income up long term. You've got these two other sources of money that are coming whenever it comes, and we'll deal with that in just a minute. But long term, like the 30 year old you what are you going to be doing when these kids are uh six years older than they are now and you are too and what are you i'm in school for my rn oh you are in school for your rn now yes sir and how are you paying for that i'm paying for it i don't have any loans. How? Well, I took out a

$5,000 loan last year and I just paid that off. And with grants and everything with the Tennessee Reconnect, it's actually allowing me to go back to school. Excellent. When will you complete your RN? In about 18 months. Look at you. I'm so proud

of you. Well done. Very well done. Because that's going to triple your income. Yeah, I'm hoping. It will. It will. I'm so proud of you. Well done. Very well done, because that's going to triple your income. Yeah, I'm hoping. It will. It will. I mean, and you can work all you want to work, all you can afford to work with three kids running around. But, wow, that's just a great choice, and I'm glad Tennessee Reconnect's doing that. That's a good program.

Yeah, it definitely is. That's excellent. Okay, then, so we've got a career plan, and in the meantime, I'm going to live on beans and rice, which is $2,000 a month with three kids. For sure, that's beans and rice, okay? A tight budget. Every month, every dollar has an assignment on paper. We have an app that is free to use called EveryDollar.

It helps you put your budget together in 10 minutes, and you're going to make every one of those few dollars that you have behave. Because I'd like for these other two sources to be your leapfrog away from the doorstep of poverty, because you're just outside the doorstep of poverty, right? And I want you to leapfrog away from that with these other two things. So the first thing we're going to do is pay off your car. The second thing, that will make you 100% debt-free, right, when the money comes in. Yes, sir.

Then the second thing I'm going to do with either one of these sets of money, the blood money, so to speak, or the – that's a bad term – but the money from the testing, I should say, or the money from the settlement. Whichever comes first, here's what we're going to do with it. You're living on your income. You're not touching that. And you don't need money to eat. You're going to live on your income.

Okay? Can you do that? Yes, for sure. Okay. First thing we're going to do is pay off the car. Second thing we're going to do is build an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. In your house, that's $8,000 or $10,000, something like that. Okay.

So if you've got a $30,000 check-in, I just used 12 of it. Do you hear me? Mm-hmm. You've got four on the car and eight in your rainy day fund, and you don't touch the rainy day fund even if it rains. You just don't touch that money. That money keeps the wolf away from your door. It keeps a feeling of desperation because, listen to this,

18 months from now, your income is going to go way up when you pass your boards. You're going to have $8,000 already in the bank, and you're going to have no payments in the world. That's going to feel really good. Yeah. That sounds like Chrissy has a future. Yeah. Mathematically. Do you hear it happening?

Oh, yeah. Okay. My parents, before my income tax came in, they were trying to get me to file bankruptcy like they did. So that sounds a whole lot better. You're not even close to bankrupt. You have a bright future. You've just got to manage the money that you've got coming in and manage your life very, very carefully until these three sources,

the RN, the testing, and the settlement all come together. But two years from today, you're going to be sitting in tall cotton, kiddo. I'm hoping. You will be. I mean, think about it. If you have no payments and $8,000 in the bank or $10,000 in the bank, and you're making $60,000 or $70,000 a year, your whole world has changed. That's what I'm hoping for.

That's the 26-year-old you. I can see it as clear as a bell. All you've got to do is pass your bars, and you can do that. You're sharp as a tack. Yes. All right. So now we're going to do that, and then once we've got the emergency fund in place, I just want you to get out of school then.

I want you to just pile up cash as high as you can pile it until you get out of school. Once you're out of school, then we can start talking about saving for a house and starting your retirement savings at that point. And I want to teach you how to handle money. You said earlier, my parents didn't teach me. I can't trust them to teach me. They haven't done well. I need somebody to teach me.

I'm going to teach you. We have a nine-week class called Financial Peace University. Have you ever heard of it? I have, but I haven't been in it. You are now. You're going as my guest. I'm going to pay for it. Oh, okay.

Okay? The only thing you promised me is when there's a 30-year-old version of you, by then you should be sitting on a half million dollars and living in a house that you own. That sounds really good. That's where you're going to be. You look around and you find a 24-year-old Chrissy and you pay for her to go then, okay? For sure. Yeah, pay it forward.

Because you're a rock star. You're going to do great things, kiddo. You hold on and kelly will pick up and we will be the people that walk beside you and help you do this this is exactly what you need to know how to do and we're going to show you step by step very clearly what to do what not to do learn every bit of it just like you were studying for your nursing boards and you do the stuff i teach you and the 30-old version of you is going to be in a completely different place.

And by the way, Bubba doesn't pay for his kids. Make Bubba suffer. That's the rule. A man that won't take care of his kids is not a man. Oh, yeah, you don't like that? Well, it's okay. I can deal with you. This is The Dave Ramsey Show.

This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know you can now listen to The Dave Ramsey Show on Pandora and Spotify? For all the ways to watch and listen, check out our show page at DaveRamsey.com slash show.