The Ramsey Show - App - Where Should I Move to Find Cheaper Rent? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: December 4, 2020

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studio, this is The Dave Ramsey Show. It's where America hangs out to have a conversation about life, money, work, relationships, mental, emotional health. We talk about the full spectrum. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by my colleague Anthony O'Neill, and we are here for you. It is your show, 888-825-5225.

That is the toll-free number to jump in. Let's go. I just know, A.O., that somebody out there right now, they're thinking, it's nerve-wracking, but Dave's not in there. Maybe I'll call these guys. Maybe they'll be a little nicer. I don't know what they're thinking. it's nerve-wracking, but Dave's not in there. Maybe I'll call these guys. Maybe they'll be a little nicer. I don't know what they're thinking. But they're one phone call away.

One phone call away from Clarity, from Hope, 888-825-5225. If you're new to the program, I am the Ramsey personality focusing on working and living on purpose. If you're a long-time Dave Ramsey show listener and you're thinking big shovel, that's right.

I'm helping you make more money because you're actually doing what you're good at, doing something you love, and producing results that matter. And of course, AO is going to help you with the baby steps and help you with that young person in your life. We're here for you, so let's go, shall we? 888-825-5225 is the number. We've got a few open lines. You're welcome.

Frederick is going to start us off this hour in Dallas, Texas. Frederick, how can we help? Ken, hey, y'all. How you doing, man? We're doing a lot better than we probably should be. Let's be honest. We're doing well. What's going on?

Hey, so I had a quick question. Me and my wife, we were just sitting down talking about our finances, and we have decided that we're going to start the baby steps, and it's the best route. We have four children, all ages from six to about three months. And we were just sitting down looking at our finances, and as far as living arrangements go, it's been our biggest problem. We're outgrowing most of the apartments that we can afford in our budget right now.

And with the baby steps, I know that we're supposed to stick to the recipe. We're supposed to stick to the steps. But I just wanted to know, as far as when it comes to getting out of debt, we have a car loan that's about $19,000. And I was thinking that we could pay that off next year. Get rid of that debt. Take the actual car payment that we've been paying, add that to the budget for our rent,

and kind of move up in kind of like a rental house. So we can be a little bit more comfortable, but not too comfortable for us to go ahead and check out our, the rest of our baby steps for I'm projecting maybe about the next three years to pay off everything that we have. Man, I'm loving your heart, Frederick. I'm loving how like, you know what? Hey, my wife and I, we've sat down. We've said, you know what?

It's time to get serious about our finances. It's time to address the thing that is preventing us from building wealth and creating a legacy for our children that's coming up. And so I want to commend you on that, bro. So let's walk through this process, Ken and I, with yourself. So the end goal is to get to a house that is more comfortable for my family and I. So like right now, it's not a major issue, but eventually it possibly could become an issue. Am I hearing that correctly? Yes. Okay, cool.

So we have a car that you owe $'s uh that you owe nineteen thousand dollars on how much is the car worth it's about 10 and probably two it's worth about 10 okay uh what kind of car is this frederick it's a minivan a dodge grand caravan okay cool all right i got it and what's before the car so What do you have before that? Before the car would be the student loans because, you know, they're broken up into individual loans. What's your total amount on the student loans? I have $22,000 and she has $34,000. And we're talking about $2,200, right?

Yes, sir. Okay, $2,200, $3,400 in student loans. What else do you have? I have a total car that I didn't have insurance for in collections for $20,000 and about another $9,000 in personal loans in collections as well. All right, cool. So that car that's in collections is going to go to the back of your debt snowball. Okay.

So here's the thing. Now, what's your income? Give me your net income a month. What are you seeing monthly right now? Right now, maybe about $50,000 with the overtime that I'm working. My base is like $43,000, but I've been working overtime. Okay. It's like mandatory, so it's about 50 000 so you're grinding i like it i like it so here's my thing frederick i would say go ahead and just don't

worry about the car just right now i will go in ahead and just knock out the first three you have two student loans and a personal loan and with your income right now you should be able to knock that out within the next i say four to five months and then aggressively go ahead and attack the and pay off the car loan. And once you do that, you'll be within a year's time frame. And then you can look into going into an apartment. Now, here's what I'm going to suggest. You may not like this, but I'm going to say ride this apartment as long as you possibly can, as long as it's not

a danger for you and your family. It's not unhealthy for you and your family. But I wouldn't really move until I have at least my debt paid off. So that way you're 100 percent debt free. You can get into a better place and then you can start working on your three to six months. That would be my suggestion here. Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And I think we hear this call a lot, you know, because he's going, all right, I see the baby is brand new. He's just getting ready to start this.

He's new to the process. And he's thinking, I got four kids, a wife, you know, if I make a little bit of progress on the car, can I go this way? And there's, explain the momentum piece that if he knocks out the 2200 student loan then the 3400 loan he's taking those minimum payments he's stacking those he knocks out the nine now all of a sudden you know he's over 14 000 he's paid off and he's got more money he's got extra money it's not that much difference in what he's paying for the car at 19 so he's paid 14 off using your and Dave Ramsey's advice.

Yeah, yeah. And so here's the thing. When he pays off that first one, Ken, he's like, oh, that was easy. And then he's going to take all the money and put it on to the next one, which is $3,400, $3,500. And then he's going to see that go away in like two, three months. He's going to be like, yo, this is what in the world? So, babe, we can actually be debt-free within a matter of a year

if we really keep this momentum up. And then watch this, Ken. He's going to call in your show and say, yo, I paid off too. How can I get more money? How can I make my shovel even bigger? What can I do on the side? What can my wife do on the side? How can we get this knocked out maybe in the next six months? Because once you see the momentum starting to speed up, it does something to your mind and then you start going even faster. And if you can't go faster, you start looking for ways to become really more aggressive and to become fast. Yeah, you can do it, folks.

But again, if you're new to the program and we get people listening to the Dave Ramsey show that are new, coming from all around the world, different places, the podcast, watching the YouTube show. You're in your car and you hear this conversation. You're going, what's this all about? Remember what A.O. just said. It is about momentum. Yeah. It's hard.

It's hard. Now, the process is simple of the baby steps, right? Putting $1,000 in an account for a rainy day, emergency situation, and then we work the smallest debt to the largest debt. It's a simple process, but it's hard. So that momentum that A.O. just described, that's what keeps you going. Momentum over time multiplied by God is unstoppable momentum. All right, folks, don't move. More of your calls.

This is The Dave Ramsey Show. You know, so many people have such a negative attitude about life insurance when it's actually one of the most caring and giving things that you can do. Still, 7 out of 10 families either have no life insurance or they don't have enough. I don't get it. Look around. People die at all ages. I know it's sad, but that's reality. What's worse is when they leave their family unprotected, creating even more hardship. Yet somehow we find reasons not to get it done. It can't be the price. Term insurance is just plain cheap. Now that's why I talk about Zander Insurance so much. Not because they're just an advertiser, but because they offer a crucial service that helps you and me.

Call them at 800-356-4282 or check out their rates at zander.com. Listen, in the end, you need to get past the unpleasant images and just make sure your family's protected. Be responsible and feel good about what you've accomplished. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. 800-356-4282. Welcome back, America, to The Dave Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, joined by my colleague, Ramsey Personality, Anthony O'Neill. AnthonyO'Neill.com, at Anthony O'Neill on Instagram.

KenColeman.com and at Ken Coleman on Instagram for resources from what we are doing. And we'd love for you to check out our shows, The Table. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I like that. The Table. And here's the thing. It's a secret.

I'm going to tell everyone here in the world. January, I'm coming out with the actual official podcast. Oh, so you're going to go beyond YouTube. I'm going beyond YouTube. Very exciting. Congratulations. I'm really excited about that, man, because a lot of my tribe members have been saying,

yeah, I wish this was a podcast so I can just listen to it in the car on the way to work or doing whatever. And so I'm excited about that. Well, so pay attention then to Anthony O'Neill dot com at Anthony O'Neill on Instagram for all the latest updates that is coming to you, not just now on YouTube, but in podcast form. So congratulations. really great content. And I will tell you, as a father of two teenagers and one preteen, my kids, they love A.O. They look up to him. He's got great energy.

He's helping those young millennials all the way down to the Mosaics, that generation behind, and he's got really good content. And I will tell you this, parents, A.O. can say something that you may have been saying for years, and they'll hear it for the first time when he says it. And I'm just telling you that. And so I'm really proud of the work he's doing. And as a father, I give it my full stamp of approval.

Really great energy, and it's a lot of fun. And they need to be watching good stuff on YouTube. They need to be listening to good stuff in their ears, and A.O. brings that to you. Appreciate you. All right. Yeah, absolutely, man. 888-825-5225. That's the phone number. It's toll free. You can jump in. Ayo and I are standing by. We'll answer your money questions, your job and purposeful work. Sometimes people say, oh, Ken, you're a career guy. Yeah, yeah. It's about purposeful work. Your career is like the body of that purposeful work. So we want to help you enjoy what you're doing because you're good at it, you love the work, and it produces results that matter.

And by the way, you do that, that shovel of yours is going to get bigger quicker. 888-825-5225. Here we go, A.O. Chelsea is going to join us in Springfield, Illinois. Chelsea, how can we help? Hi, Ken. Hi, AO. How are you?

Good. I've been trying to get through for a while, so I'm glad I got through today. Yes, ma'am. How can we help? So I just have started the Baby Steps process. I'm currently trying to get my thousand dollars together. I have been able to make my shovel a little bit bigger. I currently am working seven days a week for FedEx. Wow. Yes. I also door dash seven days a week of an evening. My issue is with COVID and everything going on and us being so busy with FedEx,

they are letting me use the vehicle to drive to and from work because by the time I get back, it's too late to park at the terminal. Sure. But where I currently live, it's a 30-minute drive, so I have to drive home after FedEx, pick up my personal vehicle, and then drive 30 minutes back to where I door dash. I'm just wondering if there is anywhere that maybe I could implement saving to move closer to Springfield so that I don't have such a long commute for one, but also so I'm not going against what I'm trying to do and spending the money that I'm making on so much gas.

I love where you're going with this. Have you actually done any research and looked up apartments in that area where you would be closer to? I do know that I'm going to be paying probably like $50 more. I have currently where I'm at, it's $600, and the cheapest that I found is $650. So it is a little more expensive, but it's not nearly as expensive as what I'm putting into gas. Yeah, that was my next question, is what are you spending on gas? Do you actually have a number? You got an average number? Yeah, right now I'm spending anywhere from $40 to $60 a week in gas. All right, let's go on

the high side there. Okay, so we know in a four-week month, that's, you know the math on that, $60 times four weeks. All right, so now you're looking at if you are paying an extra $50 in rent, but you run those numbers on what you would save in gas, so what do you think you would save in gas? What would that go down to? Instead of the... Well, if I moved into town, into Springfield, I mean, it would... It's right in town, so it's right next to my...

It's right next to FedEx, and then it's like the hub of DoorDash. So, I mean, I wouldn't be spending a whole lot of gas. Right, so you're spending $240 a month right now, give or take, right? Yes. Okay. And so if it's a $50 rent increase, 50 times four, right, in a four-week month, every once in a while you have a five-week month, but you got $200 there. So you start playing that out. So you're going to raise it $200, but let's say that your gas now, let's say that you're only paying $60, $80 a month in gas. You see what I'm saying?

So it's going to be about a wash, and it makes life a little bit easier. What do you think, Ayo, on that? I'm trying to do the math in my head, and here's where I'm doing the math at, Chelsea, because I see it's going to be a wash there. But moving is a price yes and so it's going to run you in between depending on what you do about a thousand to about twenty five hundred dollars to move and earlier in the phone call you said that you're you're struggling getting to the thousand dollar emergency fund and so what I'm I'm I'm thinking is this, one, couple of questions. Number one, when can you get the $1,000 in your emergency fund? So I'm not technically struggling to get it in there.

I just started. I just started this whole Dave Ramsey thing last week. So with the extra that I can make doing FedEx alone seven days a week, I'll have it by the end of December. Great. Okay. Within the next 30 days. Perfect. Love it. And then from there, how much debt do you currently have right now?

Right now I'm sitting at about $50,000. $50,000. All right. and so the question that you have to ask yourself is okay do i want the stress right now to drop two grand to move into a new home to put deposits down into for electricity and all that type of stuff do i want that stress right now or do i at least just want to go ahead and get myself financially stable and just endure the 30 minute drive and i say that because ken drives 10 minutes i drive 30 minutes and it doesn't really bother me as much. But at the same time, I would I would love to be 15 minutes away

from Ken. So I think you can't go wrong either way here. I just want to make sure that you keep in mind that if you move, yes, you have the wash as far as in rent, but then you also just spent the extra two grand that could have went towards your emergency fund and that could have went towards your debt. That's a very good point. Are you single? What's your relationship status? I'm single, yeah.

Okay. Now, let me tell you this. Now, I understand I'm 46. I might date myself. I actually don't know. Ayo, you step in here very quickly, but I want to throw out a what if. What if you find another single female who wants to cut their expenses and you find out you do your homework on her and find

out she's not a psychopath and she's relatively clean and you guys split an apartment that's a win for her and a win for you and now that move makes a lot of sense i i would consider and i'd also see where you could save money on the move do Do you have a bunch of burly buddies or brothers or cousins or whatever and try to save money? I would look into that as my point. I would play that out and budget it down to the penny. Here's how much I could move for, and here's how much I could live rent if I had a roommate or two. Are you open to that? Yes.

How old are you chelsea 33 i would look for a roommate chelsea i'd look for every friend that you could and and get a discount moving truck and try to do it yourself i would run the numbers on that is what i'm saying don't do it yet but run the numbers yeah not a bad advice it's not a bad option it's not a bad option at all because then you're not committing to it but we're just going to research it and go okay what could it look like because if she moves in town saves money on gas and she can't cut that moving expense you're right that's a very good point you got to find out what would it really cost you to move yeah she needs to literally sit down ken and just write down everything on paper that's it and look at all of her options what's the best

option uh for me to pursue yeah but listen if i'm single and I'm trying to get out of debt, she's only, I hate to say it, but she's only got $50,000. Yeah. She's making good money. She's a hustler working seven days a week. Listen, Chelsea, you are gazelle. You are gazelle, and you've got to commit all in. So run those numbers. Make the best move.

I think Ayo's right. You know what? Suffering in a 30-minute drive every night, that's not fun, but that's not as bad as it could be for you to make real momentum. Which move is going to allow you to pay off the debt the fastest? That's what I'm doing. That's the decision that I think you need to make. All right. Don't move. More of your calls coming up right here on The Dave Ramsey Show. The Dave Ramsey Show continues from our Ramsey Solutions World Headquarters in Nashville. We'd love to see you here sometime.

888-825-5225 is the number to jump in on the conversation as we talk about your life, your money, your work, succeeding, being satisfied in that success, talking about your behavior, your mental capacities, your emotional mindset, all of that stuff. We're just talking about the journey, the journey to make a difference, the journey to do what we all want to do, which is make an impact that matters to us. I'm Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, joined by my colleague, Ramsey Personality, Anthony O'Neill. We are here for you, 888-825-5225, 888-825-5225.

Let's go to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where Amanda is on the line. Amanda, how can we help? Hi, thank you for taking my call. My husband and I have a decision to make about his career. He currently works in the drug and alcohol field for a small company that is growing, and he was given a job opportunity for a corporate company. And so it's the benefits of the corporate company that I like more. And my husband likes that the current job that he's at, there's room for growth. He's very valued there. He loves what he does. So we're just torn between if he should stay where he's valued and there's room to grow or if he should go to a company where they offer better benefits. Okay. Does he have benefits with this current company?

So he has health benefits since they are a new company right now and next year they are getting retirement benefits. He has the basic life insurance, but through the corporate, he'll be able to get better life insurance, which he currently cannot get because of his past. He needs to wait about 18 more months before we were told that he could actually get life insurance and probably for a higher amount of money. The corporate offers 75% tuition reimbursement, which he wants to pursue a college career as well. And the corporate offers a retirement match as well. I certainly understand all that. Okay. But I want to know what room for growth looks like. Those are your words with this current company, what does room for growth look like? I'm assuming this is financial growth based on him moving up the ladder in his work. Describe what that looks like to the best of your ability or what he's told you. So from what I was told, they love him there.

When they have opening positions for him to move up into management, they will do that for him. And this company has really told him, like, they have moved him, like, he was overwhelmed. So they moved him to a different position so he could have more family time. And so they told him, like, in the next year or two when, you know, they can grow and put him in higher paid positions, they want to do that. Yeah. I think this is a clear-cut decision, Amanda, but I'm not sure you're going to be real happy about it. But I'm going to tell you what I think because you called and asked. I think you've got to two to three years,

the short-term benefits that you're excited about with this big corporation, they're going to pale in comparison to the financial growth, the professional growth that your husband is going to experience, and you're going to be the beneficiary of that. And I think that you need to let him stay on that ladder that he's on, because he can always go big corporation. But because he's so valued, because they're honoring the flexibility, they're actually going to be providing the retirement benefit. And have you talked to Xander Insurance about his life insurance?

We have. Great. Well, you're in good hands. He's. Active recovery, yeah. Yeah, so good. So here's the deal. You follow what Xander tells you on that, and I know it's only 18 months. I know you got to wait for that, right? You're kind of nervous about that, and it's a lower life insurance. But in this situation, I don't think he should move and take this position solely for these benefits that I think make you feel really safe. I think you need to run the exercise of what it's going to be and that you guys are okay right now in the meantime.

Ayo? No, man, that's good. And thank you so much for calling in, Amanda. And I want to just echo what Ken is saying. Sit down and just have a conversation with your husband. And if you are feeling a little uncomfortable, just say, okay, let's go your route. But what's the game plan? How are you going to go back to school? You know, how are we going to do ABC? So that way you feel a little bit

more comfortable with this decision moving forward. But I think just clear communication and trusting your husband throughout this process and this journey is the best route to go at this present time. Yeah, absolutely. All right, let's go to Louisville, Kentucky, where Shane is joining us. Shane, how can we help? Hey, Anthony and Ken, appreciate you taking the call. Sure. So we have been, my wife and I, we've been married for nine years now. And before we got married, we actually went to Financial Peace University. Up until about six months ago, we were on baby steps four, five, and six. And then my wife is a lawyer, and she went to law school, and we were making the minimum payments, hoping for the loan forgiveness program to pay off. And realizing that that probably wasn't going to happen, she decided to take a job outside of that public sector.

So we have now jumped back into baby step number two, having $101,000 in loans to pay off. And I'm trying to figure out the best approach. There's six of them, but they're all through the federal loan program. And we're trying to figure out which ones to attack. I know we list them smallest to largest, but they're all clumped together. Do you approach them ones that have the higher interest rates or whatnot? So Shane, let me get this correct.'m just going to make sure I'm hearing this correctly, man. You guys technically weren't in Baby Steps 4, 5, 6, and 7. You just decided to skip over Baby Step 2 with student loans because you all thought that the government was going to forgive those loans.

So you jumped into Baby Steps 3 to move forward to Baby Steps 4, 5, 6, and 7, correct? Correct. Cool. So how much do you have in Baby Steps 3 to move forward to Baby Steps 4, 5, 6, and 7, correct? Correct. Cool. So how much do you have in Baby Step 3 right now? $35,000. Okay, cool. Do you know what I'm about to say? Yes.

You don't sound so excited about it. No, we do. There's other circumstances with – I'm a teacher, so I'm working at home and kids, and we've done other things. And I'm a hustler. We've made money as her job and her role. She made significantly more money. It's just trying to – I don't know which ones to attack. I'm a math teacher, so I understand the numbers. I just...

Well, this is not a number problem. If it was a number problem, then we wouldn't be having this conversation. Right now, it's a debt problem. So it's not really about paying off the one with the highest interest first because right now, you're not really accumulating any interest. And I do believe that they're going to push the interest off a little bit more here at the end of December. So if I was you, I would just follow the baby steps.

Number two, line up all of your student loans from smallest to largest, and then just attack it that way. Make all your minimum payments and just attack it very aggressively. But right now, you got $30,000. You're saying you're a hustler. So I would go ahead and put $34,000 towards $100,000 in student loans and be out of it by the end of next year. Now,

that doesn't sound so exciting, but this is one of the main reasons why I teach within debt-free degree and inside of the student loan debt. We cannot continue to trust on and wait on the government because this is what happens. We wait, we find out, man, they're not going to do it. And then now we're in this

predicament. So what I'm saying is you got to go back to the baby set number two. And unfortunately, you need to pull out the money from baby set number three, attack that and just aggressively go after it. Y'all got to get back on beans and rice, rice and beans. But you all sound like you're making good money, Shane. You sound like you're determined. I believe you'll be right back to where you were within the next 12 to 18 months. You know, it sucks. I hate it for you.

But that's what we got to do. You got to change your focus, though. I mean, I know what he's thinking. He's like, oh, I've got all that savings. Let's be asleep all night. Well, guess what? Now you just did one fail swoop. Right. 33% essentially.

Right there. Boom. A third of your debt gone. So you've got to look at it that way and get after it. And it always works. Trust the process. There's a reason why we talk about the baby steps day in and day out, year in and year out, because it works. And the evidence is indisputable.

Anthony O'Neill, Ken Coleman, sitting in with you on this hour of The Dave Ramsey Show. Welcome back, America. You are listening to The Dave Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by my colleague Anthony O'Neill as we take you through this hour, answering your questions about life, money, your work, and more. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Blinds.com

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Rules and restrictions apply. Today's question comes from Rusty in Pennsylvania. I'm a newer follower and I'm currently on baby step two. At this point, we have a credit card and a personal loan to pay off. Beyond that, the mortgage and my wife's student loan of $60,000 will be the only debts we have left. My wife is a teacher and is five years into the eligible student loan payments towards the 10 years she must pay in order to have her student loans forgiven through the PSLF program. Because of her income, independence, or monthly payments are only $10 a month. What should we do?

Should we pay off ourselves or take advantage of the PSLF program and move on to baby step three? Well, here's the thing. You actually have three debts, you know, currently right now, Rusty, excluding your mortgage. So we can't say that, you know, the 60K is outside of the credit card and personal loan. So that's the first thing. So you have two options. You can go ahead and pay this off and just start attacking it now.

And then when the PSLF program kicks in, if it kicks in, you can do that. Or you can do something that me and Dave talked about, actually, just the other day on the show, Ken, is going ahead and just start setting money aside like you're paying towards it. And if the loan program doesn't come through, you can dump all of that into the program. And so you're going ahead and attack the debt snowball. But at the same time, you're still making payments towards your student loans, but just into a savings account. And then in the next five years, if the government doesn't do it, if this program does not come through, then what you can do is you can take all that money, dump it onto the student loans, and wipe it out instantly and immediately because you were prepared for it.

So you have two options. If it was me, I would probably lean towards that option. So that way I'm not wasting money if the program does come through. But if you just want to aggressively get out of debt now, then you have no problem doing that too. That's good. I like that. That's a really good fallback plan. All right.

To the phones we go. 888-825-5225. Maria is up next in Washington, D.C. Maria, how can we help? Thank you for taking my call. You bet. What's going on? So I'm pretty new to this channel and I'm sure I'll throw it out there. I graduated from university with an undergraduate degree in 2019 and I've been working as a tutor since I graduated from university with an undergraduate degree in 2019, and I've been working as a tutor since I graduated. I'm going to pharmacy school next year, so fall of 2021. And I was wondering what's the best way to go about paying for it because I'm going to have to take out loans.

The best-case scenario is about $50K, and then the worst-case scenario, like if I don't get any kind of financial aid of any sort will be 110 um just some background on myself so last year since i started working in may full-time after graduation i've made 20k this year i'll make 45k um i have about 13k in student loans left from undergraduate i have 40K in savings retirement and all that kind of stuff. I save most of everything that I make that doesn't go towards bills. And ever since March, whenever they canceled the student loan payments and brought the interest rate down to zero. I've just been throwing everything I have into the market to try to make like a 7% or higher return rather than focusing on kind of keeping the loans down. Can I ask why, Maria?

I just figured that I could get a bigger return because the interest on the student loans was zero at this time, and normally they're $4.5. What specifically have you been, when you say throwing it into the market, are you talking about stocks, mutual funds? Yeah, yeah. I mean, single stocks, mutual funds, growth stock, mutual funds? Oh, sorry. I'm a mix of everything.

Okay. So I do mutual funds, index funds. Okay. Some individual stocks. All right, let me ask you this, because Ayo's going to tell you here, so I do mutual funds, index funds some individual stocks. Alright let me ask you this because Ayo is going to tell you here but I just wanted to get a couple facts real quick so does that include

the $40,000 in savings retirement when you threw that number out that includes what you've been throwing into the market? That $40,000? Yes. Okay. How much of that $40,000 is actually in savings of that $40,000? I have $9,000 is actually in savings of that $40,000? I have $9,000 in the emergency fund. And the rest is tied up in investments?

Okay, got it. All right, all right, all right. Okay, Maria. You're new, and I love the fact that you called in, Maria. This is great. You got me excited over here. I wish I could sit down and talk with you for a good hour. You know, but I can't really shift your mindset in a matter of a minute, minute and a half.

And so what I'm going to do, I'm going to give you some practical things that I would do right now. Then what I want you to do is stay on the line. Kelly, our phone producer, she's going to sit there and give you a free year's trial for the Ramsey Plus because I think you really need that so you can really understand what I'm about to say because to be honest, you're not going to like it. But I like you, Liz. Marie, I'm going to say stop investing. And I get it. I'm 36 years old. I'm like, all right, everyone's saying, okay, the market, no interest there. The market is turning 7%. Great. Go after it. No, but you're still in debt. Why do you want to build on top of a rocky foundation? And especially when you're investing into single stocks, 78% of

the people who invest in the single stocks tend to lose money. That is facts. That's not my opinion. And so what I want you to do is just going ahead and build a solid foundation. Now, what does this mean? I want you to stop investing. I want you to take that $9,000, take $8,000 of that, put that towards your student loans. I want you to become debt free. Now, when it comes to paying for pharmacy school, I'm going to be transparent with you. It's not going to be easy. Anything in the medical and anything into the law type situations, it's not going to be easy. It's going to require

some work, some dedication, and some sacrifices. I want you to write down my YouTube channel and I want you to write down Anthony O'Neill. I want you to go see a video how this couple paid $300,000 for medical school. They did some very creative stuff,

creative stuff. And these are two pharmacy doctors. Okay. And so they really walked through how they pay for pharmacy school, even down to the point to where they moved to a rural area. And because they moved to that area, the school gave them a scholarship to come to school as long as they worked in that rural city for a year and a half. And so there are a lot of creative ways that you can get the pharmacy school paid for. But the question is, are you willing to make the sacrifices to get it done? Yeah. Marie, I have a quick question on this. How much have you been making since you've been out of school? Do you have a 12-month range of salary, what you've been making? I know you've been hustling.

What is that? So last year I made $28K. This year, by the time the year finishes up, I'll have made $45K. Doing what? Tutoring. Really? All of that $45,000 is tutoring money? Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. Very impressive. Okay. Everything Anthony said is absolutely right. Wow. Yeah. Very impressive. OK. Everything Anthony said is absolutely right. OK. But what I want you to do is is after you do your homework and research it, I want you to absolutely figure out a way to come up with the the the grants, these creative things that he's going to have you look at and go for that $50,000 version of pharmacy school. Cause I'm going to tell you something. It's not worth 110 in debt. I'm going to tell you that career is not, but if you can do it for 50 and cashflow your way through it and you can, and I actually want you to go to Dave Ramsey.com as soon as this call is over. And I want you to reach out to what we call our smart investor pros. Okay. These are, these are

investment professionals who understand how Dave Ramsey does things. And you tell them, I just talked to Ken and Anthony on the air. And I need somebody who's going to help me figure out what can I do with this retirement money, $31,000 in stocks and mutual funds. What can we do? I'm not saying you pull it out, but they're experts. I want you to look at what you can do there because, as Anthony said, if you take the $8,000 out of your $9,000 emergency fund right now, now you're down to $5,000 on the undergrad loan. I want you to figure out how to cash flow, work yourself crazy.

If you've got to put off pharmacy school for two years, do it. But I'm telling you, you're going to come out and make really good money as a pharmacist and be debt free. You can do this. You're a hustler. Don't go into debt for pharmacy school. All right. There we go. I'm a little fired up on that. Because she's a hustler. She can do this. You're a hustler. Don't go into debt for pharmacy school. All right, there we go. I'm a little fired up on that because she's a hustler. She'll get this. All right. That music means we got to get out of here. I want to thank our producer, James Childs,

our associate producer, Kelly Daniel. Ayo, thanks for hanging out with me. Most of all, America, thank you for listening to The Dave Ramsey Show. This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Once again, you made The Dave Ramsey Show one of the top four most popular podcasts last year. To get your daily dose of motivation and inspiration from the Ramsey Network, subscribe or follow today wherever you listen to podcasts.