The Ramsey Show - App - What Should I Do With $85,000 in Savings? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: September 7, 2021

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Live Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the 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, America. Christy Wright, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, is my co-host today.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. One week from Christy's book launch, we are here. The new book, Take Back Your Time, The Guilt-Free Guide to Life Balance, will be shipped to your homes for those of you that have bought it, and it will be there by one week from today. And so that means for those of you that have not yet bought the book, and that's not many of you because it sounds like looking at the numbers, most of you have already bought one, but there's a few of them left, and we can get some more.

So go ahead and get your purchase in because if you buy before the actual launch date, you spend the same $20, but you get a lot more for it. You get everything. E-book, audio book, a ticket to our Take Back Your Time live event on Thursday night next week, and that's the 16th. And it's going to be one of those things where afterwards you're going to wish you did because then you would have had all those bonus items. So don't wait until launch week.

Go ahead and get it now. It'll ship very soon. You'll get it next week and have the e-book, audio book as well. Yeah. And you're going to get, again, a ticket to the live event. Christy will be doing. I'll be a guest on the live event. And we want you guys to come and check it out.

Take back your time. The Guilt-Free Guide to Life Balance is the new book one week from today. Again, for $20, you can get close to $100 worth of items, and it's a pretty cool purchase price, pretty cool deal. And this is the book where you're learning the step-by-step plan to be intentional with your time, where you can actually work on really what matters, and it does do away with the guilt. Getting rid of the guilt is a big deal around this, because burnout is really not from hard work. Yeah. Yeah, and it's interesting, because you've talked about this from the entrepreneur space,

but I've seen it even with anything in business or in life. We say, oh, I really want to do this, but I've seen it even with anything in business or in life. We say, oh, I really want to do this, but I never have the time to, or oh, this is really important to me, but I can never fit it on my schedule. If there's a gap between what's deeply important to you and what you actually spend your time on in business or in life, you're going to be stressed and frustrated and anxious. And Dave, you've heard me talk about this for over a decade. What I want to do is help people bridge that gap where you are doing the right things at the right time. And it turns out it's not about productivity. When you do the

right things at the right time, you actually feel that sense of balance you've been looking for. But it's not because you did everything perfectly for an equal amount of time. It came from simply doing the right things. And so I lay out a five-step plan in the book. Decide what matters. Stop doing what doesn't matter. Create a calendar that reflects what matters. Protect what matters and be present for what matters. And when you do that in any new season, you will be doing the right things at the right time and you'll be creating your version of balance, which is the only version of balance that should matter to you anyway. So it's very customizable. I want to help you figure this out, what life balance means

to you and help you achieve it. And it turns out that's what leads to that feeling we've been wanting all along. And it can be a positive thing or a negative thing that's driving it, but the extremes teach us the principle. I was thinking about you in this book this weekend. We have some friends our age in their 60s. Their grown daughter, your age, Rachel's age, is in ICU. She's very ill. And, you know, what they're working on

nothing that's right except they're taking care of her kids her family her husband they're there at the hospital when they can be in there um they're not they're not doing anything and the crisis situation like that has you know are they out of balance no that's what's right they're doing what's right that's exactly right they're perfectly in balance there's nothing else going on in their life yeah they're not on vacation yeah they're not nurturing their pet right they're not doing all these you know they're not they're probably not attending church they're probably not going to the gym right you know They're doing one thing right now. And the extremes illustrate the point that when you work on what's right, you're not out of

balance. No, and it's so interesting too, because this book and all of my teaching around this topic, which is a topic that is so full of shame. It's so full of guilt of, you should be doing this more. It should be doing this more. And we don't know what balance is. We just know we don't have it. And so we're nagged by this, this shadow that haunts us. But what's interesting is when you do the right things at the right time, when, when, when you think about what that is and you do it, you shake the guilt for all the things you're not doing for all the things that are not right right now. So I'm not going to feel bad for not working out, not working, not having a clean house because I'm taking care of my child

in the hospital. When you bring back to front and center and full focus of what is right right now, it gives you permission to focus on it, but it also helps you shake the guilt of all the things that are not right right now. And that's powerful in our very distracted, overcommitted culture. That's a huge, that's freeing. That's a message of freedom for people that feel overcommitted. And I think you and I discovered last hour that when people attempt balance with the wrong approach, they basically join the circus. I love how you said that because all the analysis. Yeah, they're plate spinning, they're juggling, and they're tightrope walking.

And these are all the metaphors we use for balancing. I plate spin, I juggle,aming swords while walking a tightrope. So this book is about getting out of the circus. You've joined the circus. You need to quit the circus. It's like juggle faster. No, just get out of the tent. You don't want your life to be a circus.

These analogies are terrible. It's a sign that we're asking the wrong question. So I love that analogy. It's so true. Not my monkey. Not my circus. This is the answer to I love that analogy. It's so true. Not my monkey, not my circus. This is the answer to getting back in balance. That's right.

I don't have to deal with that over there. That is not my monkey, not my circus. You people go deal with your stuff. I'll be over here dealing with mine. It's a full-time job. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, that's another thing that gets you out of balance is when you start managing other people's lives. We need to get Henry Cloud in here and talk about boundaries. Boundaries.

Well, step four in the path, it's five steps. Step four is protect what matters. And I quote him. Obviously, he is the expert on boundaries. But saying no, and you and I have talked about this a lot, and setting boundaries, what's interesting is it helps you protect those things on your calendar that matter to you. It helps you protect them from outside people that might want to chip away and tell you what you should be doing. Also helps you protect it from yourself. And getting distracted about, oh, I want to do this and squirrel and this person.

No, no, no. Sometimes just having those boundaries help you protect the outsiders and even you from yourself to protect that balance that you work so hard to create. And I'll help you with this. Saying no is a muscle that can be built. Yes. And my no muscle is really strong. You don't flinch. I don't even flinch.

But you know what? It comes from not having one. It comes from having my life overrun by other people's agendas. And somebody's going to be mad at me because I won't go to this event and speak on this weekend, which, by the way, happens to be the weekend that my high school daughter is going on her prom. I just chose her over you. Deal with it. But they get mad and write hate mail letters, and Dave's gotten too big for his britches.

And I remember when Dave Ramsey used to be nice. No, you don't, because it never happened. Okay, so shut up, whiner. But, oh, my gosh., because it never happened. Okay, so shut up, whiner. Oh, my gosh. That's a fun. I love that hate mail. It's like, Dave has changed so much. No, he really hasn't.

You can even be nice when you say it, and it does get easier. The more you practice, the easier it becomes. But you've got to practice to get good at it. Yeah, and I should practice on the nice part. You should. I'll help you. The not nice part. The no, I'm really good at it.

It's just like, no. And, you know, it keeps a lot of margin in your life. You've got wiggle room to do all kinds of stuff when you just go, I can't do that.

I'm sorry. No. Sorry. Sorry, not sorry. This is The Ramsey Show. People all over the country are discovering a faith-based and budget-friendly way of meeting health care costs through Christian Health Care Ministries. Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, is a non-profit organization that helps members carry one another's burdens with health care expenses, and they have successfully shared

each other's medical bills for nearly 40 years. See if CHM is right for you by visiting chministries.org. CHM is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. Christy Wright, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today here on The Ramsey Show. Open phones as we talk about your life and your money. Dalton is in Atlanta, Georgia. Hi, Dalton. How are you? Good, Dave. How are you doing?

Better than I deserve, man. What's up in your world? Well, I was just calling. I have a couple questions. I've been listening to a few of your podcasts, and I just figured, why not call in? Cool. I am 22 years old, and I've been working for the, well, since I was 19.

I went to school for welding, and I've been traveling the tri-state area where I lived for the past almost three years. Well, since I was 19, so two, three years. And I've saved up almost $ years. Well, sometimes 19, so two, three years. And I've saved up almost $90,000. Wow. Wow. Good for you.

Yeah. What kind of money are you making a year as a welder? Close to, if I work, I work outages, and sometimes it's iffy. Like you work a few months here, a few months there. But on average, I've averaged from $80,000 to $100,000 a year. Good for you. Well done. The trades pay well. You're working a lot of hours, and it's hard work.

But you're making good money, right? Yes, yeah. Yeah. I mean, when you're on, you're working. That's tough work. And so you're working power stuff, huh? Yeah, nuclear mostly. I've worked in live nuclear plants and building nuclear plants.

Okay. Wow. Yeah, you're really building a resume there. That's pretty impressive. Good. And you got $85,000. Are you living at home or are you living in a camper? I mean, what are you doing?

I recently just bought a camper about a month ago and before that i was living with a high school friend that went to welding school with in his camper and then before that i had rented an apartment which was one of my worst mistakes but you live and you learn yeah because you're never there exactly yeah exactly and paid a lot more i could have paid for a camper for what i paid rent in that apartment yeah so you so you're never there. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And you paid a lot more. I could have paid for a camper for what I paid rent in that apartment. Yeah, so you're going to SUV, I mean, you're going to Winnebago it around or whatever, whatever the brand is, while you run this circuit for a while at this stage of your life. How long do you think you're going to live that life?

Well, that's what I was asking. I was recently gave some advice because i was talking to um a person i knew that has owned the business and they told me well if you don't want to travel all the time why don't you buy like a service truck and open your own business and so i was just going to ask you uh what you thought about that idea or how much money do you think you would have to have saved up to start your own business as a welding business. Enough to buy the supplies and the truck?

Okay. You can outfit this truck for $50,000, right? Yes, it would last, yeah. Yeah, because you don't want a fancy truck. It's going to be hauling a bunch of junk around. Yeah. I mean, it is. It's welding equipment. It's your trade, but it's going to be hauling a bunch of junk around yeah yeah i mean it is it's welding

equipment it's your it's your trade but it's not this is not a you don't need an you don't need a something from a chevy commercial i mean this is this is a work truck right exactly and so uh i love that idea so what i would tell you if you're my 22 year old son is that running a business is different than running an arc welder. Okay. So you have the skills to be a welder. You do not have the skills yet to run a business. Okay. And much like you had to learn how to weld, you're going to learn how to run a business.

And so you've got to start thinking about what it takes to operate a business, not just perform the task. Okay. So, I mean, buying a truck and getting the welding gear, yeah. And can you do the job once you've got the job? Yeah. But you have to price it, you have to collect it, you have to pay your taxes, you have to get new customers, you have to take care of the existing customers,

and now you're running a business. Yes. And so, you know, and it is at least as difficult to run a business with a service truck like that as it is to weld. The other thing, Dalton, is, and don't let that discourage you, because the day-to-day will still be the welding work. Your day-to-day will still be doing the work you know how to do and you love how to do, but there will be a learning curve where you figure out how are you going to price this? How are you going to manage the money? How are you going to interact with customers, with clients, and even points of contact? Like

the really tactical stuff that you probably don't deal with day to day and you haven't even thought about in terms of your business. Some of this is as simple as talking to someone who's running a business, as doing a Google search, as just putting some of your notes and ideas on paper. Start to just let this idea simmer in your mind and capture your thoughts in a notebook or something really basic. This does not have to be sophisticated and it doesn't have to overwhelm you. Once you get through this learning curve of learning some of the basic business setup and the basic business operations, you will spend the vast majority

of your time, 80 to 90% of your time doing the welding work, especially out of the gate, because that's, you know, in the initial stages that you just own your job. That's what you're doing. But you do need to just think about some of these things and learn some of these things. And if you start doing that, you could make even more money doing this. I want you to find a 35-year-old guy that's running a truck and doing welding and making a good living. And I want you to go take a day or two, or next time you've got some downtime, I want you to go spend three days with him. Take your camper.

Okay. Take your camper. Go hang out in that city. He could be two cities over, five cities over. I don't care. Maybe he's over at Dallas. You're mobile. You run over there from Atlanta.

Spend two or three days with him, and I want you to go to school not on welding, on running a business. Okay, on business. How do you run a business? What did you not know? What do I need to know? How do you do your pricing? Where do your customers come from? And I want you to take, like, some yellow pads or an iPad or something.

I want you to fill up files and files and files and files of the answers of an actual practitioner in that world. And so, you know, when you first learned to weld, someone showed you by welding. You watched them weld, right? Yes, exactly right. Your very first class. And then you tried it, and then they helped you by letting you watch the then you watched it again and then you tried it again until finally that thing would quit sticking and it would

actually create an arc right exactly and um so well maybe you're doing a settling i don't know but um but anyway point the metaphor the metaphor still stands so uh yeah you go study you go study someone else and then you do it and then you study someone else and then you do it, and then you study someone else, and then you do it, and then you study someone else. And your first step is to get the business up and running. And then your next step is to grow the business to where it's not – to where you own more than just your job. Your first goal in business is at least own your own job. And if you don't work – if you don't go to work, you don't get paid, that's owning your own job, right? But if you've got five people working for you welding and six trucks out there, now you own a business that if you don't work one day, they all still work.

And that's growing it to the next level. But I don't want to go too fast here. You're 22. You've got plenty of time. Yes, I would buy a service truck, and yes, I would go into business if you have that desire. But go study business from a couple people i'm going to give you a copy of our number one best-selling book uh entree leadership which is how it's our playbook on how we started this business and how we ran it and run it and it'll

give you some good guidelines on how to get there dalton i want to give you a couple questions too to ask these people that you're going to study and shadow and learn from one ask them what did you learn the hard way another uh another way to ask it is um what did you wish you knew when you got started and another thing to ask them are what are the biggest trip ups i should look out for like customers or problems or things that man that that just you know might might be a potential landmine that you don't even know. How can you learn about that before you get into it? Ask some of those questions to get some of those learnings without you having to learn the hard way yourself. And they'll tell you.

They'll show you, and you can avoid that going out of the gate. I love that. What a great young guy. That's cool. We've talked to a couple of 22-year-olds in the last couple of hours. They're doing pretty impressive stuff. Yeah. So there's hope, America.

There's hope. The next generation coming on. There's some good ones in the bunch. There's a bunch of good ones in the bunch. And no bunch has all good ones. No bunch has all bad ones. But this bunch has got some really good ones. That's pretty cool.

And the trades, well, with this epic student loan debacle that we have in higher education, the trades are coming back on with a gale force winds. Everybody's moving into the trades. I mean, when you can, with a high school education at 22, for the last four years, while his

friends were in college making nothing, he's made $100,000 a year. He's doing okay. He's made $100,000 a year. He's doing okay. He's 400 grand ahead before they got started. Very interesting. Very interesting. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. christy wright ramsey personality is my co-host today in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt-free stage zane and megan are with us hey guys how are you good we're doing good welcome

where do you guys live uh springfield, Illinois. Oh, fun. Welcome to Nashville. And all the way here to do a debt-free scream. How much did you pay off? We paid off $79,000. All right. Awesome. How long did this take?

Two years and three months. All right. And your range of income during that time? We started at $64,000 and ended up just over $92,000. Awesome. What do you all do for a living? I'm a hairstylist and an educator at the color company we go through. And I just got a new

job last week. I'm going to be an energy sales specialist. Alright. Very cool. Good for you guys. What kind of debt was the $79,000? A little bit of everything. Credit card debt, car loans, personal loans, student loans, our house. Our house.

You paid off your house? Yeah. Oh. Goodness, I'm looking at weird people. Wow. A little bit. Wow. You say it so casually. Oh, in the house.

No big deal. In the house. Way to go, y'all. Wow. How long you guys been married? About four and a half years now. Yeah. Okay.

So about two years into the marriage, this journey starts. What made you decide to get on this journey i was driving home my water truck and i was flipping through the radio and heard about you oh my gosh just like that the random scan of the radio one of my best promotional tricks so random yeah i will have to say though um when we first got married for the first about year and a half of our relationship, we kept everything separate. And he would try to get me to pay off my debt, and he was already doing it. And I just thought it was really dumb. I didn't think we could go through life without buying a car without a loan, buying a house without a loan, really doing anything without putting ourselves in debt first. So it took him a really long time of keep trying to be like,

oh, we should do this. We should do this. And I was like, no, I'm not about that. I'd rather spend my money. I don't want to be told what to do. And then it came to a point where I was out shopping one day and I went to go buy supplies for work and my debit card got denied. And so Then I had to use my credit card, which also worried me because I knew at the time it was almost maxed out as well. I was like, maybe Zane knows what he's talking about. I came home and I was like,

reluctantly too, it's a really hard thing for me to ever admit. Big dose of crow right here. I loved it. It's really hard to ever admit that I'm a big dose of crow right here yeah i loved it really hard to ever admit that i'm uh maybe not doing things right so i was like i started listening to the podcast on my own before i would even honestly admit that i was even thinking about it because i'm super stubborn and i was not about it wasn't about him to be right and so finally i was like a sneaky podcast listener maybe maybe we should start looking into it and i just thought it was like i just said yes to marry him all over again

oh wow so you did the little snoopy dance and everything huh wow i was pretty happy about that i'm thinking yeah oh my gosh well i mean you get a double bonus one you get to be right the best part very often and two she's gonna do that money thing well this is awesome this is a good day yeah i have very much the free spirit in this relationship and you are fun yeah so it was really hard and it was something i was like okay but to do this i need at least like a little bit of leeway so I had at least in my budget a little bit of spending money for myself because I was like even if it's just like a top here or like a pair of shoes there but I've got to do something to keep my sanity otherwise it's just not gonna ideally work out

for me he he could never spend a dime in his life and be okay I love this story and I love your honesty Megan I have a theory Dave you tell me if I'm wrong here. I have a theory that we often see. Obviously, in marriages, there's a nerd and a free spirit. But we often see that one spouse is reluctant to get on board. And my theory is the reluctant spouse is always the free spirit. You never see the nerd going, I don't know. I don't know about this budget. I don't know about this saving money thing.

No, it's always the spender. It's me. It's you. It's all the free spirits going, no, don't box me in. Don't tell me what to do. Don't give me rules. I love that you came around, though. Well done.

Yeah, like I said, it took him a long time. It took him a while, but he stayed persistent. And it was never like pushy about it. It was just like, well, I'm already doing it. And then he had also paid off a vehicle by himself doing it. And I was kind of like, oh, like. And I got money. That's really cool.

And so, yeah, I was really nervous, too, about putting our bank accounts together just because I did spend so much more money. That's really cool. And so, yeah, I was really nervous too about putting our bank accounts together just because I did spend so much more money and I still had the mindset. That was the scary part. Scary for you or her. Yeah, because I'm like, I spend so much more money. But then when you do come to the realization of we're in a marriage, we're not roommates, it does make a lot difference. And honestly, when we did put our bank bank accounts together it made me not want to spend as much money too it made me be a lot more conscious about my purchases let's talk about that megan because there are people listening right now there are couples listening that they haven't put their money together yet what would you say to them i just think it's crazy i don't know i just found that once we put our bank accounts together that we

got a lot closer with each other too and it just it opens up a lot more honesty and i never felt like i've never felt like i've had to hide my purchases but even more so i never felt guilty about buying something because it's all laid out right there in front of you and i just don't understand why you wouldn't yeah you're it so did you guys feel like you were more of a team when you put those together yes a hundred percent it's really cool and there for a while we had what we thought worked for us. You know, I paid this bill. You paid that bill. I'll buy groceries at the store.

You buy groceries at that store. And then it did just get to a point of, yeah, why aren't we? We're married. Why do we feel the need to keep our stuff separate when a marriage means, you know, unity? Yeah. That's good. Usually the continued separation, once you have that question

pop into your head is shame or control and zane's not a control freak no and so uh he that helped you know and once you decided that it was you shaming you not zane absolutely then you cannot be ashamed and just go it's my money i can do what i want to do with it and i actually rachel says it's a spending plan yes whenever i still I still, I had all the credit cards. And I just remember like right before we were getting ready to go to the bank to combine our accounts, I was like, I kind of feel like I should pay these off. I don't know if I want them to know how much credit card debt I've racked up. And we were sitting down to dinner and I'm just sitting there and I was like, you know,

I have to, I got to get this off my chest. I just have to tell you this. But I have, I believe at the time it was like $6,400 in credit card debt. And I was like, I've got to tell you this. I was going to try. I don't know where I thought I was going to pay this off by myself. And Zane says, is that all? He was like, I thought you were going to tell me so much more than that.

I told you. He was. He was like, because I was like, I just, I've got to tell you this much more than that. I told you. He was. He was like, because I was like, I just, I've got to tell you this. Like, I'm so nervous. I was like, this is going to be bad. It's going to be 40 grand. And he was like, oh, well, that's no big deal. We've got it.

That's awesome. I love you two. I love this. You guys are great. So how old are you two? I'm 28. I'm almost 27. All right.

And you have a paid for house that's worth how much give or take 75 80 wow you're so weird you're awesome yeah you guys are a power couple you're so fun this is so great you've done such a great job and everything in your relationships and in your self-awareness in the whole process that you use what happened here to you personally and to you as a couple is even more important than what happened with the money. So you guys are this very, very cool story. I love it. It's very, very fun. $79,000 paid off.

House and everything. You don't have a payment in the world making almost $100,000 and not even 30 years old. How does that feel? Amazing. Yeah, it's really awesome too just to know that we're really going to set ourselves up in the future and someday when we have kids it'll be really nice to not really have any worries about are we going to be able to afford to do this and that with them it'll be very nice to be able to set up their future as well and

teach them about money that's awesome well done you guys we got a copy of the legacy journey for you because that is the next chapter in your story. Move on to set that legacy up, like you're talking about, and be Baby Steps Millionaires. You'll be there before you know it. Absolutely incredible. And a copy of the Total Money Makeover for you to give away to somebody who's out there doing it wrong, because the stuff we teach is too dumb.

I love it. That's just awesome. So fun. So fun. Well done. Zane and Megan, Springfield, Illinois. Oh, man. $79,000 paid off house and everything in two years and three months, making $64,000 to $92,000.

Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. hear a debt-free scream! 3, 2, 1, we're debt-free! Yeah! I love it! That is fun. They are great.

Oh man, what a future. And really good insights. Yeah, I love that. Great storytelling. Well done. This is The Ramsey Show. Thanks for joining us, America. Christy Wright, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in, we'll talk about your life, your money.

Dawn is with us in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, I hit the wrong button, of course. Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Hi, Dawn. How are you? Well, hello, you two. I'm better than I deserve, and I hope you're the same. We are. Awesome.

Love it. How can we help? Wonderful. Well, my husband and I, we're also weirdos. We're debt-free. Awesome. We are putting in an offer on a house. We are paying in an offer on a house. We are paying in cash. And it seems like everyone is trying to sell us on these conventional renovation loans.

Now, we're new to being weird, but I'm not keen on the word loan. Can you tell me a little bit about these and what's the deal there? Well, it's just simply buying a house that's messed up and you're borrowing the money for the house and the rehab. Gotcha. That's all it is. I mean, it's just a conventional rehab loan. That's all it is. And so you're able to borrow more than the purchase price, which on a typical mortgage, it's called a purchase money mortgage.

On a typical mortgage, you can only buy up to the purchase price. But in this case, they'll loan you the renovations as well up to a certain point above the actual price. But you have the cash to do all of this? Yes. Okay. You have the cash for the renovation as well, not just the purchase price? Yes, we do.

Uh-huh. Well, there's not any question that's what you should do then. I don't care what everyone says. Everyone is stupid broke and divorced i mean my god you know why do we want all these losers i mean people are just messed up and they all have an opinion you know so no i'm not taking broke people's advice on getting you everyone gets a loan no they don't did you know 25 of americans own a paid for house so it's really not as weird as we make it out to be.

Now, when somebody does it at under 30 years old, like our last Debt-Free Scream, that's pretty cool. But it's not that weird. And by the way, only about 60 or 55% of Americans own a home. The other 45% rent or own a modular home or something like that, a mobile home, something like that. But a traditional home is 55% to 60%, and 25% is paid for. So almost half the people that own a home paid for it in America. But nobody talks about that. Yeah.

So, yeah, Dawn, I don't know who you're listening to, but you probably need to not listen to them on that subject typically the people already knew the answer typically the people trying to tell you you have to get this that or the other are the people that have some skin in the game or some agenda or some commission or something it may not be that in this case but you've got the cash you just go with your gut you knew exactly what you needed to do and in your own point you're you're on target with that dawn has a special loan it's called i paid for it no loan yeah that's a it's a new program it's out there and it's sweeping the nation rachel's with us in tulsa oklahoma hi rachel how are you i'm doing okay thank you dave for taking my call sure what's up yeah so i am a 28 year old um just graduated with my bachelor's degree in leadership you're you're 20 what year old say that again 28 28 years old okay yes and

i graduated with my bachelor's in leadership study made about 30 000 and 120 000 in debt i've tried to make a budget, but it's not working. So I'm seeking your advice. What do you mean it's not working? Like my income is, some weeks I get overtime and sometimes I don't. So my income is just, it's not set. So setting the budget is really difficult. Okay, well there's a way to budget for irregular income,

but it sounds like to me it's more of a problem than just that. Are you not able to make your bills on your income? Barely. Yeah. What do you do? I work for retail. I work at AutoZone. Okay. And you got a degree for $120, at AutoZone. Okay.

And you got a degree for $120,000 in leadership studies. Well, that and car loan and medical debt. Okay. No credit card. How much of the $120,000 is student loans? A hundred of it. Okay. All right.

So what is the game plan to put that education to work to make more than $30,000 at AutoZone? I am trying to put my resume out and get into the field. There's been no, my resume hasn't got any hits on it for interviews. Okay. What are you applying for? Any job that comes up. Okay.

Rachel, I hear in your voice, and maybe I'm wrong here, but I hear in your voice that it sounds like you are taking a more passive approach to this job search than I want you to. You have to get your income up significantly if you're going to get your income up significantly if you're going to get out of $120,000 in debt. So that could be working three retail jobs, or you could just land a really good job and then maybe some extra side gigs

that gets your income up. But it's going to take knocking the door down. It's going to take, I'm going to email you my resume. I'm going to apply online. I may hand deliver a resume on beautiful resume paper as well and bring you some coffee while I'm at it. Like you are going to find the people that you want to work with using the skills that you have, the connections you want to make, the companies that you want to work for. I don't know what it looks like, but you have got to get scrappy and determined to get your foot in the door. A job is not going to appear on your lap. So someone lied to you. They told you that if you went and got a degree in leadership studies, that someone would hire you to be a leader.

I know I have to start at the bottom. Yeah, and that was a lie. And then the second thing, so what you're going to need to do is narrow your focus in on what you want to be doing when you're 38. What does a decade from now, Rachel, look like? And then what are the steps for me to get there? The degree in

leadership studies is not a bad degree. It just doesn't come with a guarantee of prosperity or a guarantee that it's going to automatically open up the resume door in a digital world. So let me give you a couple things. One is I'm going to give you Ken Coleman's book, The Proximity Principle. And Ken does a show here at Ramsey Network on finding a job and finding a career and getting plugged into your career. Also, I want you to go to KenColeman.com, and I want you to download all of his resume templates and all of his free tools.

He's got a ton of stuff there that's going to help you get your foot in the door somewhere doing one specific type of thing. If you just say, I'll work anywhere that pays more money, no one will hire you. I don't want to hire you if that's your goal. If I'm an employer, I'll hire 300 people here this year and i won't hire you to do anything that makes more money than autozone i don't have a job description that's that i have a job description that says i need this certain thing done can you do this certain thing and are you passionate about this certain thing oh by the way 300 people will

get hired 24 000 applications will come in digitally. So guess what? You got no chance just filling out applications. Zero chance. You could be the daughter of the President of the United States, and you got zero chance getting 500, 300 out of 24,000. You have to do something else that sets yourself apart in this world. You can't just monster.com your way into this. It doesn't work. And so you got to get somebody inside the building that is at the place that you want to work doing the thing that you want to do that gets your foot

in the door. I had a young lady apply here for a marketing position two weeks ago, and within 48 hours, I had four of my friends email me and say hey so-and-so's daughter has applied there please get her name out of the stack now i didn't hire her because of that but it got her an interview and it got her past the stack and i don't even know if we hired her yeah and i truthfully i i don't tell my guys they have to hire somebody's a daughter of my friend or whatever but i do want them to at least give her a look as a courtesy. And if they're friends of Christy's, they're going to get a look out of courtesy. If they're friends of Kelly's, they're going to get a look out of courtesy.

And that doesn't mean we're going to hire them, but it gets you out of the 24,000 to 300 stack. You know, that's how I got here. I applied for a position 12 years ago in our event team and got an auto response. That position had been filled. Started reaching out to anybody that I knew that it worked here or anybody that you knew that knew somebody that's right and started having a conversation after conversation that led to a job posting that led to what i'm doing you've got to get more determined you got to get more determined rachel if you're going to get a job you've got it's not gonna that's what i mean by

somebody lied to you you've made you think this was going to be easy um it's not it's going to be really hard it's just going to be worth it hang's not. It's going to be really hard. It's just going to be worth it. Hang on. Kelly will pick up. We'll send you a copy of Ken Coleman's book, and we'll help you with this. Get on his website. Start listening to the Ken Coleman podcast.

I think magically you will get a job if you'll do exactly the stuff he tells you to do. This is The Ramsey Show. Dave here. We just launched a brand new listener survey. We want to know what you think about the show. You'll be entered to win a $100 Amazon gift card. No purchase necessary. Take the survey at RamseySolutions.com slash survey or text survey to 33789.