The Ramsey Show - App - Why Cars Are the Stupidest Things We Buy (Hour 1)

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm Ramsey personality, George Campbell, joined by my good friend, Dr. John Deloney, who's having a spectacular week by the way. Congrats on your book launch John. Very exciting. Building a non-anxious life is now in the hands of dare I say dozens millions. Very different answers. Dozens and dozens. Well if you're watching on YouTube you'll notice I'm sporting a Deloney shirt that we just got in. This is not merch you can buy.

A bunch of people, yeah, they printed up, my manager printed up a whole bunch of them. John's mom decided to just make some merch to make him feel better. That's right. But it's fun. So in honor of Dr. John Deloney's book launch, I'm wearing a Deloney shirt. I expect you to wear a camel shirt during my book launch. A camel tattooed on my chest, for sure. A little aggressive, but I like the spirit behind it.

We're going to make it happen, man. No, thanks. I'm excited to have it out in the world, man. Well, hey, we are taking your calls today about money, relationships, anxiety, how it's all interconnected. So give us a call. 888-825-5225 is the number to call. And Adrian kicks us off in Miami, Florida.

Welcome to Miami. What's up? How's it going? Hey, guys. How are you guys doing today? Pretty well. How are you doing? How can we help?

Better than I deserve. So my wife and I are in baby step number two right now. We have about $6,600 left in credit card debts, but we should be paying that off in the next couple of months here. we have about $6,600 left in credit card debts, but, we should be paying that off in the next couple of months here. Um, and, um, another portion of our debt is a car lease,

um, that we got into three years ago. And, um, that car lease will be up in June of next year. Um, and I, we just want to know,

um, should we try to get out at least, um, as soon as possible or to know, um, should we try to get out at least, um, as soon as possible or, uh, wait the eight months and, um, turn in the car and then save up in these next eight months to buy a car cash. That's a common conundrum when you figure out, dude, we got fleeced on this thing. How do we get out? There's a few ways out of this thing. The most common one is to find out the early buyout amount. Do you know what that number is? Yeah. So I would have to come up with

about $4,000 because the value of the car right now doesn't match what it's worth. It's depreciated further than what you owe on it. Yes. Welcome to why cars are the stupidest things we buy. Okay, so you're four grand underwater on this. How much money do you guys have in the bank? Well, right now, to cover our bases, I mean, we have our $1,000 emergency fund,

and then everything else is kind of throwing towards our debt. And what could you sell this car for? Right now, the Kelly Blue Book is showing $32,000. Okay. That's not bad. So if you own this thing, you could go sell it for $32,000 based on what you owe on it. Would that give you enough to buy a car? Something cheap and used? Yeah. So if we sell it for 32, we would still need to pay the lease company an additional $4,000, which is, I guess, the remainder of those payments that we owe them for using the car. Okay. So how quickly could you save up $4,000?

We could probably save up $4,000 in about four months, four or five months. Okay. But that would leave us with nothing left to purchase a car cash. So we would kind of be, you know... That would just get you to net zero. Yes. So I'm going to ask you, Adrian, I'm going to ask George a question on your behalf. Is that cool? Yeah, that's fine.

So George, he owes $32,000 on this deal. And there is a walkaway point coming up, but he owes $32,000 on this thing. If he owned the car and was trying to get out of the debt, we would tell him, hey, go over to a credit union, take out the $4,000 loan, and you just drop your total debt. From $32,000 to $4,000, essentially. And so go to a credit union, take out a $7,000 loan, buy a $3,000 car, get out of this thing and be done. Does that apply for a lease? Whatever would get you out of this pickle of, oh, if you owe the four grand, you can get a

personal loan for that much from the credit union. It would get you out of this a lot faster than four months. Because Adrian, I'm wondering if you don't go get a $7,000 loan at a credit union, get rid of this car, buy a $3,000 car car you and i both know it's going to be a dramatic shift in how you roll down the street right you're gonna have to tint those windows people can't see you um but um you are instantly going from owing thirty four thousand dollars to seven thousand bucks you cut your debt significantly by doing that. What's your lease payment? Right now it's $520. Ouch. For how much longer? Eight months. And the thing is, it's my wife's car and we just had a baby. So she doesn't feel too comfortable getting into a $3,000 car. Don't care at all. Don't care at all.

Don't care at all. You're talking to the wrong two guys about that. Because we both have kids. And it just doesn't matter. Comfort at this point, is she rather y'all walk into a house every day that's electric because y'all can't breathe? Right?

What do you drive? Yeah, what do you drive? Yeah, I drive a 2013 Kia that's paid off and it has 200,000 miles on it. Okay, you're already rolling with that $3,000 car. Cool. Could she drive that and you drive the beater? I mean, that's a pretty beater, George. Well, for three grand, you're not getting much. you'll be lucky to get a 2013 kia with 200 000 miles on it for three grand in this economy so i'd start your research and see your options but i don't know that i'd stick this out until june of 2024 keep making these payments that sounds miserable i want to get out fast and three thousand dollars may be that may be me being

obnoxious but honestly man this like well she doesn't feel comfortable that's what got y'all in this mess yeah and i put the kid my kids in a in a 1993 f-150 that didn't work too great and everybody did fine i put my kids in the back of a corolla that was, golly, I just wanted it to die and it would never die because Corollas never die. But they did fine. Was it comfortable? No. Did I have to get all weird angles

to get the car seat out? Yes. Did I have anybody, any money on that car? Absolutely not. So Adrian, you got to make a choice of what sacrifices

you guys are willing to make. And I'm not saying put your children in danger, but you also have to not have the spectrum of either we're going to kill our children driving a beater car or we're going to stay in debt forever. There's more options than that. And so I think you need to talk to your wife and you both have to agree on here's the game plan. Here's what we decided on. It's for a temporary time. We're going to be out of this soon. We're going to upgrade the car and probably within a year, right?

Yeah. Yeah. It's not going to take long. Yeah. You know, we make a pretty decent income. What's the income? So about 140. You make 140. I think you can scrape together four grand in less than four months. I'm thinking one month. I know do a no spend month. We covered only the basic bills, minimum payments. The rest goes towards getting out of this deep, deep car hole we've got ourselves in. No eating out, no buying any clothes, nothing, nothing, nothing. No Miami lifestyle that you've been leading.

We'll get back to it soon enough, my friend. Thanks for the call. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by my friend Dr. John Deloney, and we are here for you, America, taking your calls at 888-825-5225. If you've got that burning question, a conundrum, a crossroads, you need some validation, confirmation, we are here for you.

888-825-5225. Sierra joins us up next in Cincinnati. Sierra, welcome to the show. Hey, George and John, how are you guys? Doing well. How are you? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. So I have a little bit of an interesting situation, and I'm sure there are other people out in the world that are in a similar boat but I am looking for advice on my situation um so two years ago my father passed away and um I bought his house um or I did a cash out refinance and put it in my name in order for it to be, to prevent it from being foreclosed on. I don't live in the house currently.

I haven't for years. But my sister at the time when my father passed away lived with him. He was supporting her and her kids until the kids got into school age. And then they made an agreement to where once, once they go to school, she would start working and helping the bill, like help to pay the bills. Well, neither of us expected him to pass away. So now we're in a situation where she had no job and, you know, the house was being foreclosed on. forward to now I now own the house 100% in my name and she is working now however her her income is so low to the point where she couldn't she cannot afford the mortgage payment by herself so currently I am paying

the majority of the mortgage um she is paying me what she can to get by because she's also taking care of kids. But I'm married. I just got married, and I bought trying my best to figure out a plan for the future to figure out how this can continue but not be such a big financial burden on us because we are trying our best to get our debts paid. We're following the budget. We're on baby step two, pretty much. And you guys are renting right now? We are renting right now. In a different city.

Yeah. But you have a mortgage on this home that you own in a different city. Your sister is still there with the kids, and you're losing money every month just trying to cover the mortgage for her. Yeah, it feels like we're losing money because every extra dollar that could go to our debt is going to this mortgage. Well, you're not in a place to be charitable in this way and let your sister live there for free. Yeah, she's not. I got a renter's agreement written up by a lawyer. She signed it.

She's paying me X amount of dollars. So what would market rent be for this place? If she moved out and you get a renter, what do they pay for rent? I would suspect, and I'm not too familiar with housing market, but I would suspect I could at least get $1,500 a month for it. And what's the mortgage? The mortgage, I did a cash out refinance, so I owe $119 on it, but it appraised for $155,000, but since then

I've put about $20,000 in renovations. So what's the monthly mortgage payment? $969,000. Okay. That's it. And what's she able to pay every month? She pays me $400 a month. Let me ask a hard, seemingly, seemingly insensitive question. Okay.

How long has she been in this financial predicament? Um, she, it's been a couple of, well, back when my dad and her made an agreement that she, she was working and then, but she was having a hard time finding childcare. She's single mom of two. Um, so he told her that he would help support her, um, while, until his kids were in school age. Um, so then she had quit her job of five years, um, and really was kind of depending on him until he passed away. Right. And so you're doing a noble thing.

You're trying to keep going the agreement that he made with her. Yeah. But what we have here is your dad trying to help you trying to help. And we have somebody on the other end of this help, not realizing the full sense of their predicament. Yeah. And she's had a couple of years. Is that easy?

No. I've sat with moms who lost everything. It's devastating. Yeah. It's her responsibility to either come up with the ability to pay for a hundred and $20,000 house, which in this market and this planet is unheard of right now. I won't say this planet in the United States.

It is to figure out a way to cover that or to figure out something else. But yeah, I, and I know that sounds heartless and I don't want to, I don't want to beat up on single moms or anything like that, but here's what you're doing. You're slowly inching inch by inch by inch to exhaling really deeply every time that phone rings and it's her on it. And you go, or every time every time she says hey the air conditioner's not working you go what that is is slowly inching towards resenting your sister resenting the fact

that your dad made this deal and she doesn't deserve that your dad's memory doesn't deserve that and it's going to come down to not your help but because you wouldn't draw boundaries and say, hey, you have to be the chief breadwinner for you and your kids. And that's your boundary to draw. Absolutely. And I agree with you. Me and her, we've had our differences and we've had really hard, tough conversations because I have set boundaries and I've kind of, you know, I used to pay her Wi-Fi and I used to pay this and that. Now it's just like, I'm only going to help you with the necessities, you know, and until only until you can get to a point where you can cover all of this. But I'm fearful with her job that she's never going to be able to afford that mortgage. But that's a choice that she is making, not you.

She has chosen that job. And if you don't give her a deadline, she'll never get there. Yeah. Ever. I think that's the next step is we have an exit strategy. Because guess what? If you didn't own this house, what would she be doing? She wouldn't be able to afford rent anywhere. Or she would have gotten another job and figured it

out. Exactly. And we need to help her kindly to step into that where we go, all right, how do we get you a different job where you could support paying rent, market rent in your area? And if you can't afford it, we might need to move. We have to start dealing with these adult decisions. But I think what we can't do is continue to coddle her and enable her and to support her at our own financial destitute. I mean, you guys have your own goals. You're struggling. You're broke. Yeah, say it this way.

You're broke. You're not in a position to help. And that sounds cruel and mean. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost kind of scary because, you know, mine and my husband's, like, our household income is, I mean, to the outside world is pretty good, but it almost feels like we have no money in our account because I've either spent it all on remodeling the house

or it's going to Waterville or anything. I think we stop sinking money into this house. I would sell this house. And that might be the way to get, hey, in 12 months we're selling this house. In 12 months, it's sold. And I'll sell it to you if you have a job that you can afford it. Yeah. A part of me wants to do that, but another part of me just thinks that, like, you know, this house, we came up from nothing.

You know, my parents were really poor. I know, but listen to me. Listen to me. Listen to me. Listen to me. You're going to, you both still have nothing. I need you to hear me say that. Y'all have these assets that neither of y'all can afford the way you're, you've managed

it right now. And I didn't come from a lot. My dad was a policeman and then he became a minister and I saw what the public thought of public servants. And so I promised I would never do that. I was going to go make a bunch of money. You know what I did? Because I didn't change the way I lived.

I didn't change my money principles. I ended up in way more debt than my dad could have ever been in. I ended up broker than he did. It's not about we came from nothing and pulled ourselves up. Y'all got to make some hard decisions about your financial situation. I think you have to draw some boundaries with her and can strongly

consider selling this house. And I know it's got memories, but right now those memories are dragging both of y'all underwater. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in, we'll talk about your life, your money, your relationships, your mental health, all of it right here in front of you on The Ramsey Show. Today's question of the day is sponsored by Neighborly, your hub for home services. Now you can find expert local help, schedule appointments, and get special offers exclusively in the Neighborly app. So go download the Neighborly app now to start getting home repairs, maintenance, or improvements done.

All right, today's question comes from Jason in South Carolina, and it actually came in last week before there was a kick the can on the road moment in the government. But it said, with the impending government shutdown, how do I, as a government employee, combat the stress and anxiety of possibly not getting paid, but still being required to show up for work? Is that how that works? Yeah, well, there's back pay. So once they're back, they get the money.

But while you're there, it's not happening. Which means they're missing some paychecks. I've got my own thoughts on that. I'm the sole provider. My third daughter will be here in November. We have no savings and are in some debt. All right, so I'm going to answer this, George, globally, because it's super frustrating for me.

Let's say we had... I want to put something into context for everybody, okay? So when COVID happened and we were told, you cannot go into the office, Dave and the operating board called that emergency meeting, if you remember that. And Dave said, we have this much money in the account. This is how much cash this company has on hand. And we are a cash only company. This is how much we got. This is how much cash it takes to operate. And so you can see it's going to get real tight, real fast. Here is how things will go. Number one, if it gets super tight, I will not take a check. Me, the CEO and owner of this place. Number two, the operating board will not take a check. Number three, we will go into

the next round of vice presidents will not take a check. Number four, we may have to look into, like, so he laid out the map, but in so doing, he announced to the whole company, A, transparently, here's what we got. I want everybody on the same page here, but I go first. I'm the leader. I go first. When times are good, I win big. When times are bad, I go first. Number two, the next round of leadership goes second.

The next round of leadership goes third. And to leaders, if y'all don't want to be a part of that, bye Felicia. There's the door right but here's how we're going to do this so juxtapose that with a group of senators who are sitting i just have this picture george of them in a kiddie pool that they got at walmart for five dollars and it's full of like bubbles and they're throwing like balloons with no water in them, just like balloons at each other.

It's a great mental picture. Thank you for that. If it shuts down, they still get paid. Who doesn't get paid are these employees who have kids trying to make it. So they're using these government workers

who keep this thing going for all of us as fodder for their little temper tantrum-y games that they're trying to play for an election coming up in a year. And it's so disgusting how they use people like Jason as fodder for their little future re-election campaign. They're just pawns in this awful game of chess. And so Jason, if I worked for a guy, if I had gone to that meeting and Dave had said, listen here, I'm getting mine.

If we shut down, if this shutdown actually happens, I'm getting paid. My execs are getting paid. The rest of y'all, we're going to cut the lowest, the first in, first out. Whoever the last hundred employees are, y'all are fired. After that, I'm going to start taking 20% from everybody's paychecks, right? Which happens across the country. I literally would go to my wife and say, we're out of here. I don't trust that person as a leader, as a person of integrity, as a stable operating leader for the place that pays my family's rent, right? And Jason, A, I want to challenge you to begin to broaden your horizon and look bigger than this particular job because you work for people who will use you for their own political gain and it cost them literally

nothing because they will still get paid the senators doing this crap playing tag with each other and then here's what's gonna happen george gonna play tag they're gonna play tag they're gonna play tag and then something's gonna set off and i hate it but jason i would explore something bigger and then that so that's that's the big 30 000 foot view the reality is the anxiety and stress is the alarm system going off we may not have enough money next month because our bosses are acting like children and they won't actually sit down and solve problems. They just want soundbites for their Twitter account. Okay. I'm going to always go towards the alarm directly into it. What does this mean? George, tell me if I'm crazy. This might mean I got to go to work until I find some other job that will pay me when I go every day,

instead of one that's going to give me back pay if they ever reopened. And then you're going to have to deliver pizzas at night to pay the rent. And you're going to have to get up in the morning and drive Uber on your way to your job that you're not getting paid for. And then you're going to have to deliver pizzas. You're going to have to figure out a way to get money. And I wish there was another option to that. You can go borrow money and then you're going to trap yourself in a continued cycle of debt

and false security and whatever. You're just going to have to figure out a way to work on Saturdays and Sundays, and it's going to suck. But that's the reality you face, right? Yeah. And what this is, he's in baby step two. He's got a baby on the way in November, a third daughter, and there's this impending shutdown. So we call this storm or stork mode, and it's the only time to pause baby step two. Stop paying off debt and just stack cash.

Just keep your minimum payments. Everything else, stack as much cash as possible until you're out of the storm, until mom and baby are home, until we know what the heck is happening with this government. And so that might be 45 days. That sounds like about right. If you wait just a month and a half, get a side job, keep working, stack all those into savings. Then once the dust settles, we can move forward with the debt payoff. That's what I would do.

That would help me with my anxiety and stress is some of the reality pieces of it. So let's say out loud what our fearless leaders are asking their government employees to do. Because they've only duct taped this thing together for 45 days. Jason, I hate to tell you this, but I think today, after work, you should stop by a local pizza delivery place or get online and get signed up for what some food delivery service. Uber Eats, DoorDash, Instacart, Amazon Flex.

Go through that as quickly as possible or possibly call Walmart and go visit a Walmart in your suit and tie and go in there and say, hey, can I sling boxes from 4 p.m. until 11 p.m.? And for the next 45 days, I want you to stack cash. And I want you to look at your wife who's expecting a third baby and say, hey, we can't go out to eat because the people running our country are so uninterested in solving some of these problems, they're more interested in throwing crayons at each other. But my job as a responsible adult

is to make sure we have food and shelter. So let's go ahead and do that. And George, it infuriates me because we watch the news, we watch these watch these sound bites we see these big things like oh my gosh this and this and this side said that and that side that said that and jason who's got a third baby on the way is the guy who's at home and his wife who's on the other end of this other end of this ping pong match between children who can't figure it out it just it's so infuriating with me man it just it's disgusting at every single level on both sides of the aisle everybody involved in this thing

just solve these problems and let's figure something out like adults and move on 100 well you walk through uh this in your book building a non-anxious life six daily choices this is george keeping me this is me i'm i wish jason we had your info we'd send you a book reach out to us we'll send you a copy of john's new book but there's there are a lot of things you can do other than vent on twitter or x or whatever it is and john will show you how to recognize and break free from a life spinning out of control from chronic stress burnout anxiety and there's a thousand reasons to feel all those things right now but there's six choices you can make every day to combat that. And John unpacks that in his new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life.

You can grab a copy today. It's out in stores, online, in the world, and we love to see it. Can't wait to see what kind of life change happens from this book, John. Go get your copy, ramsaysolutions.com. We'll be right back with more of The Ramsey Show. This is The Ramsey Show. If you're a new listener and you want to dive deeper into some of the lingo we use on the show, the baby steps, all that jazz, you can go to RamseySolutions.com and click on the Get Started button,

and we've got a great little tool to help you figure out the next best step for your financial journey based on where you're at today. That's ramsaysolutions.com, and click on Get Started. Mary joins us up next in Knoxville. Mary, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi. It's so crazy to be talking to you. How are you? It's crazy to be talking to Mary in Knoxville. I was just thinking the same thing. How are you? That's crazy. You made it. I'm good. I know. What's your question today? My question, I have a $5,000 bonus for work coming up in January. I think that I should put it towards my retirement, but my husband thinks that we're

already putting too much into retirement and that we should save it towards our house fund. Ooh, a juicy conundrum. I think option three, George just had a baby and they are strapped for cash. We'll do a GoFundMe. Yes. Okay. So this is exciting. So you've got a bonus coming in January. And do you feel like you're overfunding retirement? I don't feel like we can overfund retirement because we're young, and so we can calm down when we're older, and so I feel like we can just go hard when we're young, you know? Okay, so you guys have no debt. You have an emergency fund, and you're investing 15% already? We're investing 22%.

Whoa, but you still have a mortgage. No, no, no. I'm sorry, For a down payment. Oh, so you don't, you're renting. Yeah. Okay. You're renting, but you're also investing 22%, but you're also trying to save for a down payment. That sounds like a lot of things at once to feel any progress. Well, it, I mean, we have a decent amount of progress. I mean, we have like 150,000 saved for a down payment. Wow. So what's stopping you from putting that money down and buying a house?

Well, we got married two months ago. So... There it is. It's just like... This is all new. Figuring things out. How old are you two? Yeah.

I'm 24 and 25. Wow. That's incredible. Okay. So here's the deal. You guys are in baby step 3B slash 4. That's kind of down payment investing. And if you're following the baby steps, you would be investing 15% and you could be saving for the down payment. Now, some people like to hunker down and invest nothing to save up even more for the down payment faster. You guys already have a giant stash. I would continue investing 15%. Let's dial that back down, which would give you 7% of your income back to throw the down payment, correct? So what if we kept doing that? When is your lease up with this rental situation?

July. Okay. So what if we started house hunting early this spring, summer, and we added the 5,000 to... You said the bonus is coming in January, and we added the 5,000 to it. You said the bonus is coming in January. So you'll have 5,000 there. Add that to the savings. And then we put a giant down payment down on this house because the goal would be let's pay off the house before we crank up investing. Because to your point, you guys have another 35 working years to continue investing. You're going to be multi-multi-millionaires. So the real question is, why is your husband fearful of not having enough? Because if you've, has he crunched the calculators on this? I'm guessing he has.

What do you mean? An investment calculator. Like, take what you have in retirement now, take what you're investing every month, calculate, hey, by 60 years old, we're probably going to have north of six, seven million dollars. Well, I think I'm the one, for one thing, who's worried about not having enough. But also, after we have kids, I plan on stop working and be a stay-at-home mom. And so, just trying to set ourselves up best, I think, for that situation. Okay. Well, that would mean we need to get his

income up and our expenses down to where we can make that work. Because the retirement, that won't really be a factor. You're not going to be able to dip into that when you're 38 years old. So I would be focused right now on putting as much of a down payment down to get your mortgage as low as possible, which would allow you to stay home. Because that's a monthly expense until it's paid off. Yeah, that makes total sense. So I guess I'm on your team of let's put this toward the down payment and let's get this house sooner rather than later. Okay.

I mean, you guys are ready. Thank you so much. Awesome down payment. So proud of you guys. Congrats on getting married. Very exciting times. You know what? I know you're off the line now, Mary, but I'm going to send you one year of Financial Peace University and a year of the premium version of EveryDollar to get you guys

started. I think that will align you and get you on the same page, which will be fun. Can they at least go to dinner? I think dinner would be helpful to talk about this. Everything's better over good food. So take that $5,000 and go to a really nice, like, bonus-y dinner and talk about the future like that. I'm excited for you. Congrats. All right, let's get to Danelle in Sacramento. Danelle, welcome to the show.

Hi, how are you guys? Doing great. How are you? I'm doing very well. Thank you. So my question today, we are on baby step two, working toward paying off our debt. And we were able to free up about $5,000 to put towards some debt. But of course, as it goes, now we have a water heater out that we're going to have to pay

for. So I haven't, yeah, I haven't used that money towards the debt yet. It happened within the same day or so that we were able to get it. And our house, we do have a home warranty. I'm not quite sure what that's going to pay for yet. And then we also had a quote for about $5,000, which is about the money we had. So I don't know if this is a silly question or not, but should I put that money towards the debt and wait to see how much the water use is going to cost? We do have the $1,000 saved in our emergency fund and hope that the home warranty covers it or wait to pay off that debt until we find out how much it's going to cost. Well, this timeframe, are we talking a week or until we find out how much it's going to cost. Well, this timeframe is, are we talking a week or two to find out? The plumber that came out said it could take

six to 10 days, the home warranty. People tend to be slow. So even now we have no hot water, they don't care about that. Oh my gosh, that's awful. Yeah. So we're just waiting around. We are reaching out to the- I would be calling them so often that they are like, okay, here's your answer. Yeah. And I take cold showers, so I'd be fine. John loves it. His family hates him, but he loves it. Yeah. Of course this happens when the weather starts cooling down. I would have been fine with it summer, but- Sure. Well, I would, I would

hang tight. I mean, if we're talking six business days, what I don't want you to do is you throw the five grand of debt and now we know this storm is upon us and then we have to go into debt to cover this hot water heater. That would be a bad plan. So if we're talking waiting a week to see how this shakes down to see if the warranty is going to cover it, which I hope it does, I would fight them tooth and nail because you know, their job is to make sure they don't pay for it. And so I would be looking at that fine print, fighting them and getting this thing covered because that is time well spent if it means $5,000 for an hour of your time. Yeah. I guess I'm just, I'm curious because if we didn't happen to have this chunk of money that we are blessed to have right at this moment,

we would have only had that $1,000 to throw at this. And I don't know what we would have done otherwise. No, that's true. And a lot of people have that hang up with baby step one with a thousand bucks. They go, hey, what if there's an emergency over a thousand? Well, there's a thing you do where you pause the baby steps. We're going to stack up cash as fast as possible. We're going to sell stuff. We're going to get the side job. Whatever we have to do to come up with that amount of money and those future paychecks are going to be enough to cover it. And that's what happens often. You also have to understand that the plumber is only used to dealing with people with credit cards. And so he's going to look at you and say, this is a terrible decision to fix this, to

repair this. It doesn't have much time left. Let's just replace it. And you have to change your mindset too. We don't have any other money, so I want to fix it. Well, I can try to fix it, but it's going to be great because that's all I have right now is $1,000. And so often it's like, well, I got to replace it because the plumber said, well, I'm going

to find me a plumber that will come fix this thing. Well, they duct tape it together as long as my house is safe until I can, like Georgia said, I'm going to scratch and claw and sell and do whatever I have to do, deliver pizzas. And I'm going to hate every second of it, but I'm doing it for hot water. Right. And then at the end of the month, I'm going to figure this thing out at the end of two months or whatever it's going to take. So be sure to shop around, negotiate, tell them, hey, do you have a cash

discount? Hey, I'll leave you a great review in the neighborhood Facebook group if you can bring the price down. And if you work that kind of magic and you're not too desperate, which I know it's hard to not to be in times like this, then we'll get through this. Ask a buddy if they know how to install one, right? We could put a message up here and somebody in this building knows how to do

it. Right. A hundred percent. Figure it out. Yeah. We're wishing you the best and I'll thank you so much for the call and, best of luck with that debt payoff and the water heater that puts this hour of the Ramsey show in the books.

I'm George camel. He's Dr. John Deloney. We'll be back before, you know it. Hey, George Campbell here. If you love the show and you want a deeper dive on your money journey,

we've got a weekly newsletter that gives you helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to ramseysolutions.com today to sign up for the newsletter. Again, that's ramseysolutions.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.