The Ramsey Show - App - What Do We Do When We’re Expecting Twins? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: March 4, 2019

The show about you

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 am Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones this hour as we talk about your life and your money. I've had some questions from some of you that are newbies as to why the studio is called the Dollar Car Rental Studio. It's because Dollar Car Rental approached us and said,

we would like to do something special for Dave Ramsey listeners. We're going to make it easy to rent a car using a debit card. And so if you are 21 years old and you have a driver's license and a debit card, you can rent a car. You don't have to put your firstborn in the safe. You're not treated like a second-class citizen. And Dollar Car car rental wanted to make sure we knew that you knew so that we could tell you that they are nationally endorsed by me

why because they take debit cards and don't treat those of us that have debit cards like second class citizens and uh as a matter of, if you go to the dollar website and you sign up for Dollar Express, you can walk straight to your car with a debit card. So now you're getting treated not only like a regular person, but now a VIP. Yeah, it doesn't cost anything. So before you travel, even if you're not traveling this week,

go ahead and sign up at Dollar Express. It doesn't cost a thing. It puts all your info in there. Then when you get ready to rent a car, boom, you walk straight to the car when you get off the plane. Dollar Express. I love these guys. That was a free ad right there. They didn't pay for that.

I just looked up and saw Dollar Car Rental Studio, and I remembered seeing some stuff on social, people wondering why it was called that. Well, obviously, we have a sponsor for the studio, and that enables me to tell you that they take debit cards. And, oh, by the way, from the time we started talking to them about this, it took nine months for them to redo and retool their whole system because the car rental business is so screwed up. These guys really, really, really, really wanted to take care of you. They really wanted to say, hey, if you're walking this Dave Ramsey plan, if you're walking this financial peace plan, we're going to help you.

We're going to take debit cards, and we love it. So we're honored to have dollar car rental on the outside of our studio. We think that's a big deal, and we're excited about it. We don't take on advertisers around here just for money. They always plug into and somehow serve our listeners. That's how businesses win. Vincent is with us in Washington, D.C. Hi, Vincent.

Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve, sir. How can I help you today? Just real quick, Dave. I'm 20 years old. I deserve, sir. How can I help you today? Just real quick, Dave. I'm 20 years old. I'm about to be a first-time dad to twin boys.

Woo-hoo-hoo! Double trouble. How old did you say you are? Oh, yeah. I'm 28, sir. 28. Awesome, man. Proud for you.

Congratulations. How can I help? So I've been following you now for about over a year. And thanks to you, last year alone, I paid off about $40,000 worth of debt. Only thing left on my debt is my wife's car loan, which is separate than mine, and my mortgage. When I found out what you were expecting, I immediately stopped paying extra on these loans. And I started stacking money up fast. Good.

You knew what to do. And I liked to hold off on paying this debt off early to save for money, save for medical-related expenses, because I'm worried I'm not doing enough. No, you just stop. You're exactly right. You stop everything, push pause, and you pile up cash as high as you can pile it. Now, have you got good health insurance to take care of her and the babies? I do, sir, from my employer.

Okay, good, good. And what's your deductible? I believe it's $500 deductible. $500? Wow. Okay. So you've got full coverage. Very expensive benefit.

I do, sir. Very expensive. And what's your co-pay past that, 80-20? I believe it's 20, sir. Okay. All right. Cool. Well, twins have a higher probability of coming early,

and so there's a higher probability of some minor things, nothing to be afraid about, but it's just a more exciting pregnancy and delivery, and there's more things that can happen, and so twice as much, as a matter of fact. But, you know, some bed rest and some things like that can happen late in the pregnancy, obviously because she's carrying twice as much baby and that kind of thing. So, you know, I'm just going to pile up cash as high as I can pile it, and I'm going to just watch this wonderful nine-month process unfold.

Perfect. So far, I've cleared up about $20,000. It won't hurt at all. It won't hurt at all. Because let's predict that absolutely nothing occurs outside of an ordinary labor and delivery, okay? Then you're going to be $500 out of pocket plus 20% of $10,000, so about another two grand. I'm going to throw that number around, okay?

So you're going to need about $2,500 of the $20,000 to pay your medical bills when it comes. You built up $22,500 by then. You're going to take the other $20,000 and throw it right straight at your debt. How much debt have you got left? Only left about $ twenty thousand dollars on my wife's car and on our home loan we only have about two hundred eighty thousand your home loan is baby step six we're not dealing with that today at all okay and so when mommy and bet and boys come home

and everybody's healthy and um you know we just go touchdown this is over over, okay? It's settled back in. Then we're going to take the $20,000 and throw them and pay off her car. Cool. And so what did you lose? If you pile up $20,000 instead of paying down the car during this nine months, you lost the interest on $20,000 for nine months. Yes, and she went ahead and got this car without even talking to me, and this is before we were

married yeah well that's okay about 16 holy crap okay well it's gonna cost you a couple grand then to uh to sit on the money i'm still gonna sit on the money because i'm more concerned with babies and mommies than i am debt-free cars because we're get around to the debt-free car it's just going to be a little while before you get there like nine months worth at this stage of the game eight months or whenever you went public with this six months five months wherever we got left okay but just wonderful time man i'll just tell you this a big old pile of cash lowers the stress level. A lowered stress level helps the pregnancy.

Just basic grandpa stuff right there, man. That's not a medical opinion. So, hey, man, thanks for the call. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Raymond is in Los Angeles. Hi, Raymond, how are you? Not bad, Dave, how are you? Better than I deserve.

What's up? Well, I'm $123,000 in debt. I have $50,000 in student loans, $39,000 in child support arrears, and about 11 more accounts, totaling $28,600. I also don't, I've not been able to set up my emergency fund quite yet, and I'm just trying to figure out how to get past this. Gotcha. What's your income? I'm a truck driver.

Right now I'm doing about $60,000 before deductions. How'd you get $39,000 behind on your child support? I got divorced about three years ago, and after that I just started freaking out, I guess. I was going to school for a couple years. That's where my serendipity came from. And I tried to do some other stuff. I guess a little too ambitious, trying to be...

All right, I got you. Hold on for a second. When we come back from this break, I'll walk you through it. We'll try to figure out where to go from here. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. 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. Raymond is with us in Los Angeles. He's a truck driver. He's got $39,000 in back child support. He's got student loans. He's got other debts totaling up over $100,000.

He makes $70,000 a year. What do we do now? And that was how far we got in the discussion. Does that sound like a fair summary so far, Raymond? Yes, I make about $60,000 right now. And also, I'm expecting a possible promotion next month. Which would take you to what kind of an income? About $90,000, actually.

Oh, wonderful. Okay, that would be helpful. I'm going to be going from a team driver to a trainer. Right. Now you have back child support. Are you current on your child support, not counting the back child support? As of January, I've been able to start being current. Okay.

So the first step to getting out of debt is to stop borrowing more. In the case of child support, stop going further in the hole. Plus, it's very important that you take care of your children. Agreed? Yes. Okay. So that's first. You eat, you keep lights on, and you have food, transportation, shelter,

basics, necessities of life is all, and you pay your child support. Yes. And by the way, just mentioning that, I'm also, I actually am homeless and I have no car. I live out of my truck. I drive 28 days a month. I see my kids three days a month. Okay. So you are, but you're not homeless in the traditional sense.

You're just saying I'm choosing to live in my truck right now to not have the overhead and you're driving over the road, right? Yes. And I'm in no rush to fix that. Yeah, okay. Well, that's where you would be even if you had an apartment, right? Yes. Okay, so you're just not wasting the money on the apartment since you're staying in the truck all the time.

And that's good right now because you've got a mess on your hands. And if you get a promotion, what happens? Is it the same thing? Yes. Okay, all right, good. Okay, so the good news is we don't have a lot of shelter expense, Is it the same thing? Yes. Okay. All right. Good. Okay. So the good news is we don't have a lot of shelter expense, a lot of lights and water and that kind of thing. But taking care of your children, for any of us, whether you're in the home or whether you're not, is way at the top of the list of priorities. So we're going to stay current from this point forward on child support for the rest of your life until these children are grown.

Agreed? Yes. Okay. Then from there, we're going to list your debts, smallest to largest. And you said you had $39,000 in child support, and you have what else that makes up the over $100,000? $50,000 in student loans and $28,600. I broke it down as basically I have two of them that are like uh tickets five of them are

consumer two are medical and three are kind of uh loans from family and friends have to pay back and two of them already paid off okay i'm sorry that's the 28 000 26 yes okay break the 28 6 down for me okay i have two tickets I need to pay. They're not at any kind of risk of suspending my license or anything like that. How much are they? One is about $580. The other is about $93. Okay, clear those up today.

You have the money in the checking account to do that today. No, I get paid every week, though. I'll take care of those uh on friday okay good okay then what else have you got i got five consumer debts like um verizon uh sprint stuff like that what do they mean two medical bills I didn't write those. Okay. They come out to. Okay, here's what I want you to do. Let's try again. Let's just start from the scratch.

I want you, when you get off the phone, to list your debts, all of them broken down, not by category, by individual debt. Smallest. I actually have. I actually have done that. I use this thing called undeaded.it, and I actually have it all written down on there. Okay. So we're going to list them smallest to largest in great detail.

Anything that's under $1,000, you're going to clean up very, very quickly. You've got four or five of those. Those are just little mosquitoes. We're just going to swat them like we did those tickets a minute ago. Okay, so you're going to get all that cleaned up. Then I want you to put the back child support at the top of your list i want you to get that monkey off your back as fast as you can just just start piling big big checks on that talk to the uh children's services or whoever you're paying the child support to if you're in california however that's going and work out a plan and i want you to start paying

thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars a month towards that back child support like all your money's going towards that and pay minimum payments on everything else and then when you get that done then take the list of what's left smallest to largest and work it off in that order. But the back child support is a moral obligation as well as a legal obligation. And as a dad, you want that off your back. You want that behind you. And then that will move you forward on everything else. So knock out the little ones. Get those mosquitoes out of the way.

The things that are $1,000 or less, write quickly. Take a month or two and do that. And then I want you to pay thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars as much as you can you ought to be able to pay as soon as the promotion comes through you ought to be able to pay like four grand a month in like 10 months the back child support will be done and uh or more if you can and and you just get you just get this thing you're you know you're just not spending any money. All you're doing is paying on debt and living in the truck. And you're making $90,000 and you can plow through $100,000 and a couple years doing that. And you'll be debt-free in two years easy.

Easy with what you're doing. Probably faster than that. And that will be a huge relief. And then you get your fresh start. You know, you get the mistakes of your life in your rearview mirror, and you get to start again. But it's going to take you 18 to 24 months of no life, living in the truck, all the money is going at the debts.

And you can do this. Hey, man, thanks for the call. We appreciate you joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jordan is here from Tampa. Hi, Jordan. How are you? I'm doing well, Dave.

Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up in your world? I had a question for you. I've got about $9,000 left due on a car loan, and my only other debt remaining is my mortgage. My question is, I've got about $4,000 on my mortgage left to remove my PMI. Should I, according to your plan, I've been trying to just pay off my car. That's correct.

Switch gears and pay off that $4,000 real quick? No, your principal reduction on your mortgage, even if it's only $4,000 to get rid of PMI, is a baby step six item. And so we stay with what we're doing. We need to pay off the car. We need to build your emergency fund. Then you need to start putting 15% of your income away for retirement. And then you start chunking on the mortgage as fast as you can and knock that $4,000 down. My guess is you're going to do all that very quickly anyway.

Yes. So it's really more of a do all that very quickly anyway. Yes. So it's really more of a detail of which one you get to first. As long as you play through, a year from now, you've got no PMI, no car payment, you've got your emergency fund, regardless of which one you do first. But the baby steps answer, the thing we teach is let's go and get the car cleaned up. That frees up, by the way, a big payment that you don't have anymore. And then you get your emergency fund in place. Start putting 15% of your income away towards retirement.

Baby step four. And then start chunking money on the house, which we'll do away with the PMI. That's a baby step six item. But it's good that you know that's there. And it's good that you're aiming at it. You're on the right track. You're doing exactly what you're supposed to do. Very well done.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Now, you've heard me say that people who win with money always do it intentionally. Intentionally is by the month called a budget. And that means every dollar has an assignment. Every dollar has a name associated with it before the month begins. So if you haven't done March's budget, you are late, but better late than never. Our budgeting app is EveryDollar. It's easy to use.

It's free. It makes it easy for you to set up your first budget in just a few minutes. Go on, download the app, create your March budget, get caught up, get going, start being intentional, taking this down. Make it happen. Being good with money is not an accident. You have to make the money that you have behave. Download your free EveryDollar app from the iTunes or Google Play Store,

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You would know where every dollar of it went if you were using every dollar. That's why we called it Every Dollar. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. The last thing I want you to feel is buyer's remorse, especially when you offered thousands more on a new home to win a bidding war. If I've taught you anything, it's that blindly throwing money at a problem is a stupid plan and something you'll regret for years. The key to avoiding this rookie mistake is to call Churchill Mortgage and get certified. This easy program puts you miles ahead

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761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee, 37027. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Daniel and Melissa are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? How's it going? Good, how are you? Welcome, welcome. Good to have you. Where do you guys live? St. Louis, Missouri.

St. Louis. Welcome to Nashville. Thank you. And all the way down here to do a debt-free scream. Yes. Good for you. How much have you paid off? We have paid off $137,200.

All right. And how long did this take? Exactly three years. Cool. And your range of income during that time? We started off making about $66,000 a year, and our highest was $180,000. Whoa! But we're down back to 120 now.

What do you all do for a living? I'm a business analyst at a large health care insurance corporation. During that time, I was at the end when it went up, I was selling cars, but I left that as soon as we were finished and I went into project management for an HVAC company. Okay, cool. So now we're back to 120. Yes. Okay. All right, cool. So you did what you wanted to do once. So now we're back to 120. Yes. Okay.

All right, cool. So you did what you wanted to do once you were debt-free, huh? Yeah. Yes. All right, good, good. Good for you. How old are you two? I'm 27.

25. Okay, so I'm guessing you got married about three years ago. Yes. Exactly. Okay, and what's this debt breakdown, this $137,000? It is two car loans, two bachelor's degrees, and two master's degrees. Whoa. We like to do things in pairs.

There we go. Absolutely. Okay. So what are your master's in? Management. Yeah, business management. Management. So you MBAs?

MSN. Yes, MSM. Okay. All right. Perfect. And I'm guessing that's where you met then. Yes, college. Okay. All right. Perfect. And I'm guessing that's where you met then. Yes, college. Ah, okay.

All right. So you got married. You got a big pile of debt. You got cars and student loans coming out your ears. Yep. How much of the $137,000 was total student loans? About $100,000. Yeah, $100,000.

Almost exactly on it. Okay. All right. And $30,000-something in car debt yeah yeah all right and so what happened when you got married you said okay this something's got to change here yeah well right before we got married i had heard of you before and i'm like well i'm pretty good with my money but i was nowhere near dave ramsey good with money so i kind of looked you up and I did the home study by myself. And so that's when I kind of went to him and I'm like, so after the wedding, I think we should take a lot of our wedding money and throw it at our debt.

So that's kind of what I what I said. The little starting chunk, a couple grand to go toward it. OK. Yeah. Just to get the process started. Yeah. All right. Yeah. But both of you have business minds and analytical minds, obviously, with your master's level training and that stuff.

You wouldn't have got out of school if you didn't. Yes. So then you sat down at this and started looking at it. What was it that made you think, I need to do this now and I need to turn up the heat? Probably, I just, I knew we wanted to do so much in life and we are big travelers and we wanted to go on lots of vacations and his family lives in florida so i knew we were going to want to do a lot of traveling um so i really wanted to get out of debt so we could do those lots of fun things and i wanted to get out of debt so we could do those lots of fun things, and I wanted to get out of debt before we bought a house and had kids. That was my big goals.

Okay. So, Daniel, what did you say to all of this? Yes, ma'am? Yeah, pretty much I just kind of followed along. In the beginning, I wasn't as involved into the process, but when we were getting really close to the end, I started getting a little bit more excited about it because we could start doing fun things again. So it was helpful, especially when it was getting tough in the last year, year and a half of it,

to kind of see an end goal and see that we'd get back to being able to do fun things again. So how much of it did you pay in the last year of the three years? About half of it. Okay. Maybe a little less. All right. So you were making increasing progress, but your a little less. Alright, so you were making increasing progress, but your income was

increasing. Yes, significantly. Okay. Alright, very cool. Congratulations. How does it feel? It feels good. It feels really good. It's so weird to like see our budget every month and we have all that extra money to just do with whatever we need to.

Well, not only do you make good money, but you're used to living on nothing. Yeah. Yeah. There's a big gap right now. Yes. It's like, oh, wow. Exactly. We still didn't really change our spending habits.

Go to Florida for lunch. Yeah. We still haven't really changed much of our spending at all. So, I mean, we're kind of trying to get into a house now. So, we're still staying that portion of the process until we have enough to put down at home and all that. Yeah, very good. And get the emergency fund.

So other than the two of you, newly married couple, who were your cheerleaders? All of our family, probably. Yes, our family. We're definitely big cheerleaders. My mom is our biggest cheerleader, I think. She came with you? Yep, she did. And we got her on the plan too and she was able to

get out of debt with us wow yeah that was fun yeah that's cool yeah very cool became a family affair yeah so what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is you did it you've got the ability to look at this uh objectively what was it that Well, I think the biggest thing is getting on a budget. And I know that's so cliche, but I think the budget is the biggest thing because you're telling where your money, where to go. And I know a lot of people we talked about to get on a budget, they're like, well, I can't afford to get on a budget. That just is not the kind of mindset.

So, yeah, the budget was a big thing for us and then i think also what helped us a lot was just talking about our dreams together and what we wanted to do um after we got out of the debt and i think that really helped keep our fire going yeah you gotta have a good why yeah also i mean with the excuses thing i mean a lot of people can pretty easily fault to that. And if you can get past the, you know, always having something to blame your situation on and always looking to someone else to help, it kind of puts you in a little bit of a better situation of getting out of your debt.

Well, I get to meet rock star millennials every day doing this that are like you guys, that are incredible achievers high achievers but i also know that you have some friends who aren't rock stars they've got their lips stuck out and they're like 27 years old and i'm a victim of the student loan debacle and i can't do anything and you paid off 137 000 in three years while they were whining yeah yeah that's exactly true yeah and that's true of every generation. There's always a group of whiners, and there's always a group of achievers. Of course.

So, well done, you guys. So you can do this. You can do anything. Yeah, you'd hope so, right? That's what we feel like. You know how to lock arms. You know how to be unified in your approach to things. Yeah.

And you'll be able to face challenges and opportunities both as a married couple. The spiritual aspects of this are incredible. Yeah. And, I mean, what God is going to do with you guys is absolutely amazing. We're proud of you. Thank you. I know your mom is. She came all the way down here with you.

Yep. Where did mom travel from? Same place. Same place, St. Louis. St. Louis, okay. All right, cool. Well, so good to have you guys. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you.

Awesome. Every Day Millionaires. You're going to be one before you know it. We hope so. I can see the numbers. I mean, you're making $120 doing what you love. Your income's going to go up.

You're only, what, 27? Yeah, 25. 25! Oh, my gosh! I know. We're doing it. Yeah, $120 is our base. I mean, that's what...

It ain't going anywhere but there. So I'm looking at you easily before you're 35. You're millionaires. Easily. We hope so. Yeah. Planning on it.

As long as I don't buy a bunch of cars or stuff like that. I won't let them. Yeah, she already said that. That's right. Well, I'll tell you, you've now lived like no one else, and now you'll be able to live and give like no one else. You'll be able to have that outrageous generosity experience. Well, congratulations. Very well done. Daniel and Melissa from from st louis listen to this 25 years old paid off 137 000

in three years making 66 to 180 to 120 count it down let's We're debt-free! This is how it's done! Wow! Absolutely amazing. Very well done. I just can't say enough. It seems like every debt-free scream these days is somebody in their 20s i mean i don't mind you old people coming and doing your debt-free screams too y'all can come too

it is harder to teach an old dog new tricks though i mean what a way to start your marriage to sit down and go game on baby game on, wow. I love it. I didn't start my marriage that way. I started my marriage going deeply in debt and filing bankruptcy. Then we had to crawl out of that mess. Oh, man, if I'd only been that smart. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Our scripture of the day, Philippians 4, 5, Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.

Benjamin Franklin said, glass, China, and reputation are easily cracked and never well mended. Eli is with us in Buffalo, New York. Hi, Eli. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Mr. Ramsey. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I'm a sophomore in high school, and right now I'm thinking of going to college to become an attorney. And I was wondering if you think seven years of college and student loans are worth it. I don't think student loans are worth it, but I think law school is worth it. And so I would begin investigating ways to go through law school without paying for it with student loans, finding other ways to fund it and so forth. the question is is it worth it so what would it cost you versus what you would earn

okay now a law degree um generally speaking depending on what type of law you go into doesn't matter where you graduate from i have probably six or seven lawyers that we pay money to annually. I can't tell you where any of them went to school. All I can tell you about them is they are competent in their particular area of practice, whether it's litigation or trademark special specialties one we have that we use we have general counsel on staff i can't even tell you where he graduated from off the top of my head i think i know but i think you've grown to ut law but i'm not positive he may be mad at me now that i said that but we've got one lawyer on staff uh and you know so the point being as long

as you learn the law and the ability to practice law in a particular area of law, which is what you're going to do, you're going to end up the law. In most states, you don't specialize by you specialize practically, meaning you choose a type of law that you want to practice. Are you going to do criminal law? Are you going to do civil contests in court? You're going to litigation, in other words, Or are you going to do real estate law? Or are you going to do, which is another guy. Right now I'm thinking real estate. Do what now?

Right now I'm thinking real estate. Okay. Then what I would do is go talk to some real estate people that are doing it and ask them what they make, what do they make, and then look at what it costs. So my point of my big discussion and my blathering is this. I would not pay a bazillion dollars to go to law school when you can go for a lot less than that. Find a law school that's less expensive. And go get you an in-state degree from an in-state school as cheaply as you possibly can.

And get a good high GPA. Work your butt off so that you get accepted into law school, and then go to maybe a state law school or less. But you don't have to go to Harvard or Yale to be successful in law. You simply don't. As a matter of fact, a lot of people don't go to Harvard and Yale. They're very successful. Now, the last thing I'll tell you is this any area of study any area of study the number one correlation as to whether you're successful whether it's medicine law science teaching running a business, whatever your academic area of study is,

where you went to school has almost zero correlation to your success. Your personal habits and character and charisma to deal with people and your perseverance, your never-say-die attitude, your street smarts, your common sense, all of those things have more to do with you being successful than having a degree or where you went to school. Now, getting the knowledge that you get while getting a degree is very valuable. So because degrees are so expensive now, Eli, and colleges are so expensive, and there's this huge backlash against all the student loan debt, and we've got all these socialists like Bernie and so forth telling people

that they shouldn't have to pay their student loan debt and all that, feel the burn and all that crap, you know. But all that stuff's going on out there, and so people are starting to say college is not worth it college is worth it so you ask me is law school worth it yes law school is worth it but it is not a golden willy wonka ticket it does not make you successful to get a degree and where you go to get the degree does not make you successful you eli are your secret sauce the fact that you're a senior sophomore in high school calling a show like this

says you've got the stuff you got the gumption you got the grit you got the ability to hustle and grind and in any any career field if you don't that, you sit around with your hands stuck out going, nobody will hire me. That's because you're a freaking bum with a degree. That's why nobody will hire you. You're lazy. That's why nobody will hire you. You walk in with your pants around your knees to do an interview.

That's why nobody will hire you. Get a belt. Comb your hair. Take a shower. Shake the man's hand, the woman's hand. Look them in the eye. Throw your shoulders back. Be somebody.

That's how you get hired. It's not like, well, I went to school, so I deserve something. You ain't entitled to nothing, baby. And that's not to you, Eli, because you're the guy we don't have to worry about being entitled. I mean, who listens to the Dave Ramsey show in the sophomore in high school wasn't me i can tell you that so um you got a lot more on the ball than i do so you're gonna be fine but guys the thing is this don't throw baby out with the bathwater on education being ignorant as a statement of socialism is a dumb idea. I'm not going to go to school. College isn't worth it. Knowledge is worth it. If it's knowledge that's applicable in the marketplace,

like a law degree, it's worth it. I mean, but there's broke lawyers all over the place. So you actually have to learn how to run a legal business. You have to learn how to get clients and keep clients with people skills involved. You know, real estate business, you're going to be dealing with real estate people which are drama queens i love them i am one and i've been a real estate person all my life but they're all high emotional you know people and that's that's who you're going to be dealing with in the real estate business you're dealing with zoning boards and bureaucrats at the dadgum city and all this stuff.

That's who you're going to be dealing with if you're a real estate attorney. So if you can't deal with all that, you're going to be what's known as a broke real estate attorney, even though you've got a law degree. It's not a golden Willy Wonka ticket. It gets your foot in the door, and then you still have to go do the work, folks. So don't teach your kids that education is a bad idea. Education is a wonderful idea, but don't teach your kids that any education is worth the money, because it's not.

You get a degree in German polka history, it's worthless. You get a degree in gender studies and then wonder why you can't get a job. Well, that's dumber than a rock. Of course you're going to have a problem with that. You know? So think about what you're doing. Don't spend $280,000 getting a master's degree in social work. That's a dumb idea.

You know, there's just not enough income in that field to offset that expense. Even if you didn't go in debt to do it, it doesn't make sense. So you just have to think through what are you spending for what are you getting? The few pennies that I paid to get an undergraduate degree in finance or specialization in real estate from the University of Tennessee was worth a bazillion times more than I paid for. It was worth every dime times 100. Because I learned statistics, I learned finance finance i learned basic marketing skills i learned accounting and i use all of those things every day running this business today some 40 years later

i even learned computer programming which has absolutely nothing to do with anything that is programmed today i can promise you that y'all remember those old punch cards yeah i had old punch cards we sit in there with some these ridiculous languages that that my guys laugh about when i tell them that i learned those languages but you know what the critical thinking skills that you use there are the same critical thinking skills you do to program the web today now i don't use them because i don't do no i don't know how to do how to write code but i suspect i could probably learn it in about three weeks if i didn't have anything else to do because I've written code before.

Getting a degree, I got a little taste of it. And so now when I'm dealing with people who do that for me on my team, now I'm ready to do that. So, Eli, education is worth it as long as you go do something with your life and don't wait on someone else to bring you the water. You're going to be just fine, sir. You're going to be just fine, sir. You're going to be just fine. Pay cash for it, though.

Pay cash for it. It's not worth student loan debt. That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. We will be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there is ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. 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.

Catch the full show or watch the highlights and check out Dave's upcoming guests. Head to the App Store and download it today.