The Ramsey Show - App - What's The Price Of Your Soul? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

Dr. John Delony & George Kamel discuss: How to take control of your life and your finances, What to do when gifts from family members come with strings attached, Why sacrificing your lifestyle will accelerate your debt payoff journey, from the blog: Are The Sacrifices Worth Being Debt Free? These People Think So "Which of my debts should I pay off first?" from the blog: What Debt Do You Pay Off First? What to do when you keep getting stuck in the Baby Steps, from the blog: How To Finally Take Control Of Your Finances Why you should never pull from your 401(k) before retirement, from the blog: 4 Life Events You Shouldn't Cash Out Your 401(k) to Fund Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, it's The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. I'm your host, John Deloney, and I'm joined here by my good friend, George Camel, and we are taking your calls on just about everything, life, money, your marriage, your work, whatever's going on in your life. Our promises will tell you the truth, and we will sit next to you and figure out what the next right thing to do is. Give us a shout, 888-825-5225. Let's go out to Mike in beautiful San Diego, California. What's up, Mike?

How we doing? Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. You got it, man. What's up? I'm at a point in my life where I just don't know what to do anymore. I'm just really stressed out and depressed.

I'm just I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel anymore um tell me about it man so I have a construction business and it does okay I mean it does enough to pay the bills um but I'm just I don't even feel motivated to grow it and I'm just lost at what I want to do. Where does the loss come from, man? Because what you're describing is, you're describing work, you're describing this, you got a wife, you got kids?

I have a girlfriend um and we have one kid together i just i went through a divorce a few years ago okay and that was it that messed me up mentally and financially yeah um was that where it started this idea that no matter what you do this is just to kind of be the way this is? Did you pick that up when you were a kid? Where'd that come from, man? Somebody gave you that story that crappy things happen. This is the way this is. And maybe you can go to a couple of ball games and a couple of concerts, and your kid will be a good soccer star in elementary school, and that's kind of the joy you get.

Who told you that, man? Well, I'm not sure. I'm just, I don't know. I'm really lost. That's why I'm trying to find what my purpose is, basically. So what do you want to do, man? Like, if you could snap your fingers right now, what would you want to do? Well, I mean, I love what I do business-wise, like work.

I love the construction business. What do you love about it? What do you love about it? I love building, creating, just everything about it. Do you like working with customers? Do you like planning and sitting with architects? Or do you like getting a crew of guys together and going to solve a problem? Or do you like picking up the shovel and just getting after yourself? What do you like about it? more like the managing side of getting things together and um just uh labor side i'm not i'm doing all the labor right now but i feel

i'm more good at putting everything together and getting everything going. Okay. What about your kid? Tell me about your kid. He's two years old. Yeah. What's his name? Cyrus. Is he fun? Is he a mess? He's all over the place? Oh, yeah. He's really active. Active is what exhausted

fathers say so they can remind themselves i still love you i still love you i still love you he's very active well done man so mike outside of your career and obviously you've got you know your personal life at home if you could snap your fingers a year from now what do you think would transform your life to where you wake up and you're excited and what's keeping you up at night right now that we can help with? Is it money? Do you have money problems? Are you not happy with your relationship?

Well, I think that's my biggest stress right now, the money side, because I'm in debt with friends and family. How much debt are you in total? I have no credit card debt. Close to $20,000. $20,000, and that's credit card debt and personal loans? No, no credit card or personal. Mostly to friends and family. Why are you borrowing money from friends and family, dude?

I got, well, my business slowed down for a while, and I was just trying to make, and just trying to make, and, you know. What's your income? On a good month, like $5,000. Okay, and is your girlfriend working? Are you guys splitting bills? How is this working? No, my girlfriend,

she's a stay-at-home mom at the moment. Okay, so you're the sole provider right now. Yeah. You got a mortgage? No, no mortgage. I'm renting. How much is your rent? $1,800. That's a lot of rent for your income. Yeah. Yeah. Could you guys downsize? Could you move? I don't know in San Diego, huh? Yeah, well, I tried looking at something cheaper, but everything's just... The other option is we got to get this income up if we're going to choose to live in San Diego.

And so that becomes the next piece of the puzzle. You're running this business? Yeah, yeah. But you're also, are you the sole employee or do you have people working for you? No, I'm just a sole employee. Okay. So to scale, how do we get this thing to where you're making a hundred grand? i i've been applying um with construction companies as project manager just um and i get emails saying that my application and resume is getting a lot of attention but i have not got one interview and i i've applied to over 30 places, I think, yeah. So, dude, let that tell you a story, that you want to be a project manager at a construction company,

you know how to do that, and 30 different companies have said, we don't think you're quite there yet. Awesome. Go to the next rung right below that and go in there as a head of projects or a head of something or a head of the construction, whatever part of construction you're really good at. Pouring concrete, doing landscape, whatever you're good at, and get your foot in the door. You're absorbing every rejection as a statement about Mike's worth.

Not just somebody saying, no, I don't think that's the right job for you, or I got somebody else in line for this, or everybody in California is trying to find work, and so we've got you. At some point, you've got some skills. I'm thinking of you right now. Me and George can't do what you do. If we can't just run our mouths on the radio, we're

in a mess. You can build a thing. You can fix a thing. Does that make sense? Yeah. I want to see a couple of things. I want you to call betterhelp.com today and betterhelp.com slash Deloney. And it's going to give you a discount. I want you to go talk to a counselor. Okay. I think you're struggling with depression. I think you need to call somebody. The second thing is we're going to send you Ken Coleman's Get Clear Assessment and Proximity Principle. Teach you to get close to some of these guys, and I want you to read it, and I'm going to send you FPU, Financial Peace University, but you and your girlfriend have to go through

these classes. Stop playing house. Get married. Start settling into this thing, and dude, the light will come on if you will look for it, my brother. We got you. This is The Ramsey Show 888-825-5225. Hey, listen, please.

It's a huge help. It's a help to us. Let's be honest. It's a help to us. But more importantly, when you subscribe, when you hit the subscribe button, when you share, when you like the videos, when you put in your five-star reviews, it changes the algorithms and it actually puts the life changing advice and wisdom in other people's feeds and more people's feeds. And so it's a way to spread life change. It didn't cost you a penny, but it's a way to help other people, your neighbors that you might not even know, you'll never meet by simply just subscribing, hitting the like button and the five-star

review. So thank you so much for those of y'all who have done that. Please continue to hit the subscribe button and share with a friend. All right, today's question of the day. Let's get to it. It comes from Rick in New Mexico. He says, we're in our early 30s, make $120,000 a year, and we're financially stable. We want to buy a house, but with high prices and interest, our mortgage would be roughly $2,200 a month. We could afford the payments, but that's less we are able to save. My parents own several rentals, are financially stable, and want to buy us a house, so we would just pay them rent of $1,400 a month instead of us buying a house. They said once we pay it off with no interest, they will put my name on the house. But the problem is my father can be controlling,

and historically, after doing something nice, he has been known to throw it back in my face down the road if he doesn't get his way or if we do something he doesn't agree with. Should we take my parents' help or do it on our own? Rick, you know this. The question you and your wife need to ask yourself is what's the price of your marriage and what's the price of your soul and what's the price of that Thanksgiving and what's the price of your soul and what's the price of that thanksgiving dinner when your dad looks across the table and says why didn't you do this and you say well dad i was and he goes i bought your house what's that all worth what's that worth because the numbers you've laid out for me it's not worth that it is not worth that you make too much money you're doing too well um for you to subject yourself to somebody else bullying you around

just because there's some money attached to it. Yeah, I'm not doing the strings attached deal. And he's already painting the picture of what his life is going to be like if he does this deal. And so I think you just need to say, hey, thanks so much for the offer. We're going to go our own way and buy our own house, but we appreciate you guys. And you guys make plenty of money, make $120,000 a year. $2,200 sounds like a very reasonable mortgage payment. And if you feel like it's too high or for some reason we're not getting all the details here, you can do something called waiting and you keep saving until you have more down

payment to lower that mortgage payment. So do it when you are ready, but don't be bullied into it. Don't be pressured into it. And because that is the worst thing you can do financially. And let me say this, Rick and everybody listening. It's often that I hear situations like this where mom and dad want to help, but there's a, there's these subtle strings or really significant strings and all that attached to it. I'm going to give you this, but you got to do this. And if you ever do that, I'm man, I just, I don't want that life. Right. Um, and then we turn around and feel pressured on the advice side. Why aren't y'all buying a house? Y'all got to buy a house. Y'all just renting, just wasting money, just throwing money away, throwing it away, throwing it away. And so if you're not going to take the deal

because you don't trust the character of the people involved in the deal, right? A gift won't be a gift. A gift is just another way to put hooks and string into you. Don't also fall prey to their advice and wisdom about how dumb you are with your money you and your wife sit down and say what kind of life do we want to create for ourselves and can we create that life and what do we got to do to make that thing happen it might mean like george said it's gonna take two years before we buy a house cool we don't want it to we can afford a $22 a month payment we don't want that we don't ever want a payment more than $17.50 whatever cool if that's what y'all decide rock and roll we going to rent a little bit longer then and

save up a little bit more. We're going to take a few more shifts or whatever that looks like. But don't take wisdom from people that are not trustworthy. And the other danger of this is you guys pay $1,400 a month for 10 years and all of a sudden he decides, you know what? I'm actually going to use this as a rental property because we need the money in retirement. And all of a sudden you've been putting money into this thing that you don't actually own. And so that's super risky. I would not take this deal. Or a little junior decides he's going to play soccer instead of baseball. And my boys are playing baseball. I'm taking, whatever. You don't know. Baseball family. You don't trust this guy. Yeah. No deal. No deal.

No deal. Keep renting, man. Your marriage and soul are worth it. Let's go to Jason in Columbia. What's up, Jason? Hey, how you guys doing? Pleasure to talk to you guys. Partying, dude. You too. What's up?

So I had two questions. Well, I guess it was a two-part question. So my wife and I have a vehicle right now that is a 2020, and we owe about $11,000 on it. And we wanted to get rid of it to eliminate a payment. I just started the FPU about a week ago, so I'm trying to get everything in order. But the problem that I'm running into is if we sell our vehicle to free up a payment, that means that for what I would like to do, which is get a truck or an SUV, because with that I would be able to do some side jobs with woodworking,

but I would get a vehicle that has super high mileage, and it almost doesn't make sense to do it, so I'm not sure what I should do in that situation some side jobs with woodworking, but I would get a vehicle that has super high mileage and it almost doesn't make sense to do it. So I'm not sure what I should do in that situation. What kind of woodworking? Just building projects, building furniture for just individuals, nothing to sell to companies or anything like that. So it'd just be side work. How often would you do this work? As often as I could. I would spend nights and weekends on it if I could.

It's kind of a hobby of mine, something that I really wanted to do. So it doesn't really feel like work. So I could just focus on it as much free time as I had. Well, here's what I'm asking. I see driving around my neighborhood all the time, pickup trucks with like Home Depot stamped on them or something, or U-Haul stamped on them and it says $19 one day rental.

And is that ideal? No, dude. It's the worst. It's the worst. But it's also not a truck payment. It's also not a trap where you're going to buy a truck with super high miles. It's going to fall apart on you. Or right now, trucks are – dude, I'm trying to buy a truck myself.

They're so expensive. The used ones with 200,000 miles are expensive. Right. How much debt do you have? I'm going to buy a truck myself. They're so expensive. The used ones with 200,000 miles are expensive. Right. How much debt do you have? I'm going to float it, dude. Right. So I'm about $50,000 in debt on credit cards and loans, no student loans.

Okay. What could you sell the car for? Probably around $20,000, $21,000. And you owe $11,000. I owe $11,000 on it. Okay. So you'd have $10,000. And you owe 11. I owe 11 on it. Okay. So you'd have 10K left over to get something. Right.

And so that becomes our goal and we get creative and you could, I mean, if it's truly for hobbies, you can get the dumpiest, oldest pickup truck out there if you just need to haul some wood. Right? Right. But I also have my wife and a two-year-old and I have, which is kind of my last concern, but I would like, you know, I have a hundred pound dog that is a PTSD dog for my wife and a two-year-old and I have, which is kind of my last concern, but I would like, you know, I have a hundred pound dog that is a PTSD dog for my wife and I would like to be able to take her with us on some trips.

So that's kind of one reason why I wanted to get a minivan, an old minivan. Sure. If it made sense, if, if it wasn't like 170, 180,000 miles, that's, that's where I run into the problem was if I, if I do get rid of a car with such low miles, it's still under warranty with no problems and sell it to get a clunker. I don't know if that's a smart decision or not. Here's what not the smart decision is. You got no business going on vacation for the next two years, brother. Yeah, I'm not going on vacation. That's what I'm saying. The idea is we are locking this sucker down for two years because

we're in a hole. Gotcha. Right? You're trying to keep your lifestyle consistent and these things that you want to do and you want to have fun. Dude, I get that. You want to do these things and at the same time pay off $50,000 debt and have a side hustle and you're doing everything all at the same time. And I don't think you fully absorbed the amount of sacrifice that the next two years of your life is going to be to get 50 grand paid off. What's your household income? About a hundred thousand. Okay. So we could get

rid of this debt in about a year with some side hustles? Well, I'm not, like I said, I'm new to this, but from what I figured out, I thought it was going to take about 24 months, but I don't know. Maybe that was without side hustles 24 months. But I don't know. Maybe that was with outside hustles as well. So if I could do something, yeah. We're covering our four walls, food, utilities, housing, transportation. Every other dollar, we're going to try to allocate towards that debt outside of our bills we have to pay. But we're not eating out. We're not going on vacation like John said.

And so the question is, how do I come up with four grand I can throw at this debt every single month? And I want to Uber. Great. I mean, I want to do woodworking. Awesome. This isn't the season for that. The investment in that is going to cost me 10 grand in a truck plus some tools. I'm going to start Ubering.

I'm going to start mowing yards down the street. I'm going to keep that dream alive down the road. But for the next two years, the house to, I got, the house is on fire and I got to put the fire out. So I'm going to do other work that I don't want to do, but I'm going to scratch and clog and get the sucker done.

Man, you knock it out in one year, dude, that's game changer, man. Now we can get a truck and have some hobbies. You can get a real,

yeah, a real truck, man. It's not going to fall apart and you can take your family on trips. It'd be incredible. 888-825-5225.

This is the Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. 888-825-5225. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined by George Campbell. We're taking your calls on money, life, whatever's going on in your world. We're here to walk alongside you. Let's go to Jasmine in the NYC. What's up, Jasmine?

How we doing? Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my call. Of course. What's up? So I have a bit of a situation here. I just finished actually the Total Money Makeover book, and I'm in Baby Step 2, but I have a total of $15,000 in credit card debt.

So it's not much, but when you think of my age and kind of how much I make, I really shouldn't be in the situation. How old are you? I'm 20. How did you rack up 15 grand in credit card debt? I got credit cards and I did not know how to spend correctly. Do you have a bunch of cool stuff? Yeah. uh yeah like well i think i i was in a situation where my parents got divorced and all that stuff

and i ended up being very very independent and i think that way to cope with a lot of my problems was to shop ah okay so dude listen you're the first one to ever do that jasmine yeah it's wild jasmine listen i i talked to a lot of people, a lot, on my show, on this show, and coaching all over the country. Very few people who are twice, three times your age have the level of insight you just displayed. The idea that, hey, when I am stressed, when I'm trying to figure out why my parents broke up, why my dad chose them over me. When you can say, okay, this happens in my body, and then I just start shopping, if you can link those two together, which you've done,

you are so far ahead of the game. Because now you know, okay, my body feels like this. When it does that, I'm going to create some alternative plans so that I don't hurt future Jasmine. Does that make sense? Yeah. I want to give you some encouragement. You are way ahead of the game.

Now he's got to figure out how to clean this mess up and get on the road, right? So continue on, Jasmine. What's the question? So I currently just transferred schools to a much cheaper school because I was paying way too much and I have student loans. I'm going into the school now, going into my junior year with no student loans. Way to go. I'm going to continue on into my junior year with no student loans. Um, and I'm going to continue on, um, with my next year with no student loans as well, God willing. Um, but I still have to pay off my student loans that are for my old school. That's 12,000. Um, I've been listening to a lot of your guys' podcasts and all that. And you guys

always say like, don't wait for the government, pay off your student loans. And my student loans are unable to be touched at the moment until June, quote-unquote waiting for the government to make a decision. I don't want to gain more interest on everything. So I kind of just don't know really what to do in terms of the order of things, if I should be tackling my credit card debt or my student loans. I really just kind of don't know what to do. So are the student loans broken up or is it one giant $12,000 loan? One giant $12,000. Well, it's broken up on sub-sub, but yeah, in total it's $12,000. But you make individual payments on separate loans? The provider that I have gives me an option to either do all or one by one.

Okay. So it sounds like they are separate loans. And so what I would do is just list every single individual balance out, smallest to largest, and ignore the interest rate. And you said you can't pay on them? It's telling me that I don't have to until June. Of course. You don't have to because they want to jack the ability to.

Yes, you can. And put your credit cards in there as well. Okay, so just basically put my loans inside of my whole snowball. Yes, wherever the credit cards fall in there. So if you have, it sounds like you've got multiple credit cards?

Yes. Okay. Yeah, just list them all out. They'll be co-mingled in there in the debt snowball. But if you list them out from smallest to largest and tackle each individual balance, you will feel the progress versus staring at a mountain of $12,000 and a mountain of $15,000. Because the smallest balance is probably a few hundred bucks, maybe $1,000. Yeah. And now we go, okay, I could pay off $1,000.

And then you go, all right, the next biggest one is 2000, but I freed up that payment. So I can roll that payment plus the margin I was throwing at it into the next one. And that is how the debt snowball has gotten so many people to debt freedom. And don't be afraid to be as cheesy or as creative as you want to be. I was, man, it was my late thirties, maybe it was mid thirties. I don't remember. I was too old to be doing what I was man it's my late 30s maybe it's mid 30s I don't remember it was I was too old to be doing what I was doing my wife and I were paying everything off and we just created one of those like construction paper chains that you tear off every time you hit a milestone you pay off a

credit card you pay off you know you move that number from 20,000 to 19,000 to 18,000 and we hung it in our bedroom just so I'd have to see it every day. So get creative and just begin to knock these credit cards out and the student loans out one after the other, after the other, after the other, after the other. What's your income, Jasmine? Okay. I make $50,000. Awesome.

$50,000? Doing what? Way to go. I'm a manager at a restaurant. Okay. Yes, I'm very blessed. You can... You can knock this out in a year, right? I hope so, yes.

No, no, Jasmine. You could have your 21st birthday and owe nobody anything. Okay. Imagine that. Just imagine that for a second. Yes, I definitely do. And then on the day after your 20, the night of your 21st birthday, your boss says, hey, you got to come into work. Now, I guess my 21st birthday, I took off six months ago. And he's like, I don't care what you did. You're coming into work and you can smile and be like, no, I'm not. Because you will be free right yes thank you awesome have you watched the the fpu videos

um no i haven't i've been deciding if i want to do that or not we decided we got you we're going to send you uh financial peace university um because we're to welcome you to our gang we're going to send it to you here's the deal you got to watch them all and if you're really cool you can bring a couple of friends with you and start spreading this message with them too. But we'll send you, and we're going to go ahead and send you every dollar app as well as a part of this package. And you can begin to learn to manage your money as you get better and better at budgeting and going through all of the lessons. So hang on the line here and Jenna will hook you up with FPU. Awesome.

All right, let's go to Stephanie in Mesa. What's up, Stephanie? How we doing? Hey, I'm doing good. Thank you for asking. I've been listening to you guys for years and years. I've gone to college and taken the courses where they show your videos and I do your budget. I have my thousand dollar emergency fund. I even went to your conference and volunteered thinking that would help me get out of this rut of thinking it's not possible for me. But I keep having doubts. I don't take it a step after the $1,000 emergency fund to do anything else. My husband's on board.

He said, yeah, you start saving his receipts and all that stuff so we could do a budget. And then it's me. I keep stopping and giving myself excuses like I don't know what I want to do in college. After I'm done with college, I have two more classes left before I graduate with my bachelor's. Who told you that what you want and what you need doesn't matter? I don't know. You do. I don't know you do you've been keeping it was your job to make sure the adults in your life didn't get like that mom didn't get mad or dad didn't get raged out wasn't it

that is true it's always been your job to make sure everybody else is doing their thing and you have no gap no space for you to do what you know is right, what you know will give you peace, what you know will, you don't even know how to feel that. And when you go to a seminar, you go to the classes, you get all jazzed up and you go home, I'm going to do this. And your body says, this is uncomfortable. And you head off again. The info, you don't need any more information. What you got to do is start believing that Stephanie's needs and wants and values matter.

And here's what I want you to do, okay? I want you to take your husband out for breakfast one Saturday morning, okay? And tell him, we're going to talk, we're going to plan. And I want you to tell him, this knucklehead on the radio told me to write down the things that i need that would make my body feel safe that would make me feel loved in this relationship and i apologize i should have told you some of

these a long time ago i didn't but we're starting over from today here's what i need here's what I need. Here's what I feel when. Are you still in with me? You still love me? And I almost guarantee your husband's going to look at you and go, Oh, thank God I'm a hundred percent in. And then you can get on the path to freedom. Only when you believe you're worth crossing the finish line, are you going to even take that first step? You're worth it, Stephanie. You're worth it. We'll be right back. 888-825-5225. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, George. Hey, John.

Oh. This sounded like ansey Show. Hey, George. Hey, John. Oh. It sounded like an old Nickelodeon show. I forgot what it was called. You're way too old to have watched Nickelodeon. I watched Nickelodeon when it was OG. Wow. I grew up on that stuff. So our friend Jill over at SEO sent this note over the other day.

Over the last two years, Monday was the highest search for depression over any other day in the U.S. Wow. And I wonder if, well, I'll just keep going here. Help with depression and anxiety is currently at an all-time high in the u.s insomnia spikes in january it's currently at an all-time high oregon has the highest search interest of all u.s states marriage counseling near me reached an all-time high in january 2023 bullet journal and diary spikes in january in the u.s sleep tracking is a top trend related to Bullet Journal

at an all-time high in 2023. Here's the deal. George, the words I hear across the country when I'm traveling is I feel it. We've created a world that our bodies cannot exist in. Our bodies were not designed to be constantly chained to all these different corporations who we owe money to. Our bodies weren't designed to be married to people that we didn't really like or didn't know how to communicate with, didn't know how to talk to. Our bodies weren't designed to sit there and just be inundated with how we don't look right.

We don't make enough money. We don't drive the right thing. We're not enough. We're not enough. Our bodies weren't designed to have other people raise our kids all the time and then tell us what's wrong with our kids. And here's why your kid's doing this. And we just create a world for ourselves. Our bodies can't live in. And so I'm, I'm, it makes my heart happy to see that come January, people said enough. I'm going to go see a marriage counselor. I'm going to go get the help for, with my anxiety and my depression that I need. I just want everyone out there. Yeah. Things look tough

and things look like tougher, right? If you look down, like the country owes a bunch of money and we've got a recession and all this stuff. I get it. I get it. What you can't do in the comfort of your own couch is solve that. You can't do anything about it. And there's, for most of us, when we say I can't do anything about it, it makes us tighten our grip. And the key to anxiety, the key to some of these challenges is to loosen your grip. And for most of us, we can't just do that on our own. You can't just will yourself to do that. And so calling somebody, not just Googling the answer, but calling somebody to get some help with it. You can listen to the Dr. John Deloney show, my show. And we also have an article called how to deal with anxiety linked in the show

notes for today's show that you can check out just as a primer. Here's a good place to start. But I want to encourage everybody. If you're waking up every Monday morning and you're thinking, I can't do this again. I can't do this again. Call somebody. Don't Google it. Call somebody. Call a friend and say, I'm not all right. Call a counselor. Call BetterHelp. Call somebody. Say, I'm not okay. And you could talk to somebody. Tell your wife for the first time. I'm really scared. Tell your husband for the first time. The way we live scared me, but just know you're not alone. And I'm proud of you for everybody for getting the help that they need and don't give up on yourself.

Yeah. It feels like we are, the silver lining here is we're normalizing people seeking help. That's right. And they're going, I don't have to just repress this. Like my parents' generation did. I can deal with this. I want to grow. I want to get healthy for the sake of my family, my finances, all the things that matter to me, my health. And so there's some good news in this, even though these searches that are all time high, it means people want help. I also want to say this, and this is going to sound weird because I wrote this article, How to Deal with Anxiety. I wrote a book about anxiety. I just turned in a

draft for another book on mental health stuff. I think for many of us, we don't need any more information. We need to call somebody, a real person. We need connection. We need a person to sit across from us or to come over to the house or we go to their house or we go grab something to eat and we just say, hey, I'm not all right. Here's what I'm struggling with. And good. Like I got two PhDs in this. I know the answers. The answers don't help as much as sitting down with somebody and saying, I'm not all right. Um, and there's a lot of science about that. There's a lot of neurology about that and psychology about that, the way our bodies work. But, um, most of us don't need to Google yet another article. Most of us need to sit down and say, my name is John. I'm not okay.

Right. So, um, have the courage to go do that. And I'm proud of you all who have done that. Those of you who are reaching out, um, good for you.

Keep doing it. Um, and if you do want some information before you call somebody, check out this article, how to deal with anxiety. All right, let's run to, let's see here.

Let's go to Adam in Cincinnati. What's up, Adam? Uh, yeah, let's see here let's go to adam in cincinnati what's up adam uh yeah my question is i uh was recently fired from a job kind of went into panic mode decided that i'm going to pull from my 401k and pay off my credit card debt and then use the monthly payments that I'm making to those credit card debts to roll over into a car loan and then use the remainder of the 401k to pay down the car to try to get out from underneath that. What made you feel like that was your only option? We have a fairly large house mortgage. I make the majority of the money for the income for the house. We had enough to maybe make it a month and a half,

and I didn't know when I was going to go back to work. Are you working now? I have a job that should start Monday, so everything should return to normal as far as the inflow of money. Good. What will be your income at that point, household? Our household income is right about $135,000 to $140,000. All right. How much debt do you now have total? So I've got a, I'd say we probably got eight in credit cards and probably 20 in a car.

And what about the 401k loan? Or did you just withdraw money? That 401k was, I was very little into it. I only had, I completely emptied that one. How much was in there? There was 20, I think 26 in there. And I ended up with like 14 is what it was after taxes and penalties. So what'd you do with that money? Have you already blown through that? No, it's that I haven't actually got it yet, but my plan is once I get it,

now that I'm going back to it. Adam, Adam, Adam. Is this reversible? Can you stop and call and cancel it? I don't think so. I would do everything I can. Say I screwed up, I got fired. I freaked out. I need to cancel this.

I do not want this. Please do not send this money. Do whatever you can. Okay? This is a fear response. A bear showed up at your cave. An actual real bear scares you to death, and you ran as fast as you could. Like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon, you just bammed your head into a rock in the cave.

Okay. This wasn't my, this wasn't my only retirement. No, I know. I know. I know. I'm not saying it's your only thing. We're not all that. I'm just saying you don't need it. My brother, you took a 50% hit on this money and you don't need the money. You didn't need it, my brother. You took a 50% hit on this money. You don't need the money. You didn't need it. You have a great income. You started another job on Monday. Things got really scary. You panicked.

It happens to all of us. Now you know in the future, hey, I need an emergency fund. But with your salary, you can pay off this debt in short order, man. Is it 28 total now in debt between the credit cards and the car loan, or is there other debt? Well, I have a home mortgage too. Okay. So we're going to ignore the mortgage for now. We're going to focus on this consumer debt. Let's pay off this credit card first. And how quickly could you pay that off, making $140,000?

How quickly could you pay off $8,000 going scorched earth, throwing everything you can at it? Probably six months. Six months? I don't know if it was a budget, too. Okay, we're going to hook you up with every dollar to get a plan for this money. You're making $140,000. Are you taking home $8,000, $9,000, $10,000 a month? Yeah, between me and my wife, yeah, probably. Okay, so if we started looking at our expenses,

going outside of just covering our bills, putting food on the table, we're not eating out, we're not going on vacation, we're not investing. You could pay these credit cards off within two months. You got to get serious though, dude. And you're like, ah, well, you got to get real, real serious, man. We can't want this more than you do. Hang on the line. We're going to send you every dollar premium. Start making a plan for your money. You've got the income. You don't have to do stupid anymore. You're working hard for it. Now let's do something good with it, which is pay off this debt, get an emergency fund in place, and start building wealth the right way. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Dr. John Deloney. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey,

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