The Ramsey Show - App - Why Corporate America's Layoffs Are WRONG And How To Do It Right (Hour 1)

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Ken Coleman discuss: How to rebuild your entire life after a divorce, How large corporations are exposing their selfishness with massive layoffs, How to have dignity when you need to lay off team members during difficult times, How to get motivated so you don't have to stay broke, How paying off your house faster is tied to changing your family tree, How working more could be the simple answer to getting out of debt. 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 studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is done, cash is king, and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Number one best-selling author, Ramsey personality,

and host of The Ken Coleman Show. Ken Coleman is my co-host today as we talk about your life and your money. Open phones at 888-825-5225. David starts us off this hour in dallas hi david how are you hi good this is awesome thanks for talking to me absolutely how can we help yeah so i am um i need some advice i'm i'm 29 years old uh when i was when i was younger i made some some poor academic choices so i don't have any you know useful degree or really any good skills for the job market. So a few years ago, things turned around and I got married and I moved to Switzerland where

my wife is from. And I landed a good job there. I was just really fortunate at a good company. And my plan was to stay there and just work my way up. And that was going to be my life. Unfortunately, about three months ago, something happened and my wife and I got divorced. So I moved back to the States. I moved to Dallas to be around friends that are supportive. And that's where I am now. So I am an adult. I'm living at a friend's house. I don't really own any possessions. I don't have any money, no car. I'm starting over, um, over here. And I do not want to live, you know, I don't want to be at retirement age, still living paycheck to paycheck. Um, I I'm willing to do pretty much whatever it takes, if it's going back to school or whatever. Um, I need an actual career, um, and I need to learn

how to properly manage my finances, but I have no idea where to start with any of this. I'm at a crossroads here in my life. So I'm wondering what advice you would have or what you guys would do in my situation. Well, the first thing I would do if I were you is get a job and it doesn't have to be anywhere remotely close to what you might think a dream job is. It may not even be a great job, but it's a good job, meaning it's in a decent environment and you are somewhat valued or respected, right? And you're able to make some money. I think this is crucial because you've just gone through some enormously difficult emotional stuff, relationship stuff. And I love that you've landed in a safe place with some friends,

but you need to get out and start doing something. And I don't think it's the cure-all. I want to be very careful. I don't think that work is the silver bullet, but I do believe, and the data shows us, that when a person is doing something productive, and in this case, it's earning a paycheck, getting you to a place where you can get financially stable, get out of your friend's house and off their couch and living on your own is going to do wonders for the healing process. It's not the healing process, but it's going to do wonders. So I think that's the first thing. And so once I do that, then I'm going to start to say, okay, now that I'm getting some breathing room, I want to get my financial house in order. I'm going to come up with a plan and we've got the plan here through the baby steps. Now I'm looking towards what do I really want to do?

What work is meaningful for me? What results motivate me? Now, I want to call something out, and I know you're down on yourself, but I want to encourage you. You started off the phone call by saying you didn't have any skills that were transferable, but that's completely untrue because you work successfully in Switzerland. True or false? Yeah, that's correct. So let's get rid of that. What were you doing there? I worked for a company running their social media and editing videos. Did you enjoy it? Yeah, yeah, I did. Did you suck? No, I don't think so. Okay, Let's go there first. I mean, really. So you know how to edit and do social media.

I think that's a valuable skill. So never again are you allowed to say, I don't have any valuable skills. Okay. Okay. Because Ken's right. It's just not true. Okay. I've been, since I got here, I've been doing whatever I can to earn money.

My issue is, I grew up with hardworking parents, but far under the poverty line. So my fear is that I don't advance. I want to financially be set when I'm a little older, you know. Well, step one is get off the street and get a car. Yeah. And so step one is go do anything and a lot of it to pile up some money. Yeah.

Right? Anything that's legal and moral, you need to be doing like 60 or 80 hours of that or three things. And so you can get you a little pile of money, get off the street, get a couch, get a bed, you know, get a car, and then we can start talking about self-actualizing and moving into the career of your dreams and becoming, you know, moving from paycheck to purpose, as Ken's book says, and we'll send you a copy of that. And as you're doing that, then you just keep listening to this podcast, and we'll walk you through with the Ramsey materials and Financial Peace University, those kinds of things, how to handle the money once you got some. But right now you just got to get sustainability, right? Right, okay. And but from your background, you know, it's the tapes that are playing in your

head that I want to, you know, that earning a little money will shut those tapes off. I'm going to be below the poverty line, I'm going to be stuck here. No, you're not. I mean, you can do social media, and you can edit videos, and you're freaking in Dallas, Texas. I mean, come on. There's about a bazillion things you can do there that will earn you $50,000 to $100,000 a year starting tomorrow, ready, set, go. Okay? Go.

You know, you are not going to be your childhood. You're just simply not. But you've had the crap kicked out of you, and so those little boy tapes play in your head during your pain time, and that's just normal. We all have those. We all have the doubting Thomas that sits on our shoulder, right? And he's particularly loud. She's particularly loud when other people have rejected you, like your wife. That's a very good point, and I'm going to tell you something that's happening to you, David. When your wife, whatever reason, decides to not be married to you anymore,

there's a personal worth that gets attacked. And that personal worth can translate over to professional worth, and I think, Dave, you're absolutely spot on. That's a natural thing. It doesn't make you weak. It doesn't make you weird. You're human, and you're hurting. Yeah, I went through bankruptcy and, you know, 28 years old, I'm sitting there thinking you're the king of the doofuses.

Right. You know, and it took me a little while to, you know, turn in my crown. I like that. It's true. I kind of was. I kind of deserved the crown, but I just didn't decide that's not going to be my identity for the rest of my life. It's just going to be something I went through. It was a season.

These things can define you or these things that happen to us in our lives, these things, sometimes we cause them, sometimes we don't. But this crap that we all walk through from time to time in our lives, you know,'t let it be like who are you oh i'm a guy that got divorced no you're not you're just a guy yeah and you got divorced i mean you're you're not a you know you're not defined by this process so are this i'm not i'm not defined by bankruptcy it's just one of the things that happened in my life that's right and you're not a guy who is destined to be poor because his parents were no or file bankruptcy or whatever you know all that kind of stuff so yeah you're fine you're fine hang on we're gonna send you a copy of ken's book uh paycheck to purpose we're also going to sign you up for his assessment take that it'll help you assess what your strengths are and maybe

where some directions you can go but dude go plug into some marketing and social media positions some digital marketing positions are They're all over Dallas. People are hiring like crazy. And you should be able to jump into something pretty quick. Plus, like, you know, 80 hours of Uber Eats. You can't do Uber Eats on a car. But whatever. I mean, go find something to do where you're working your tail end off and pile you up $5,000 or $10,000 to get the wolf away from the door.

This is The Ramsey Show! well folks we hope that the information you get here the inspiration you get here is helpful to you that's why we've been doing this show for 30-something years, and it has proven to be helpful to millions of people. And if it has, you could help us. We'd appreciate it. If you're listening on YouTube or one of the podcast platforms, Spotify, Apple, whatever, you can subscribe. That helps the algorithms and helps spread the word about the show. You can share the show, meaning link it to whatever you're listening and send it out.

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It's how it's survived. And so if you want to be of help to us that's what you're doing you could leave a review in places where you can and as long as it's a five-star review we really don't need the other ones but thank you colman the uh the layoffs are out there we had this huge shortage of labor kind of still do. Oh, yeah. Absolutely still do. It's a weird stagflation economy that we're in, really.

A shortage of labor, and yet a recession is blooming, appears to be. Being predicted. The Fed had asked for this. They're trying to cause it, and I think they're pulling it off. So a lot of large publicly traded companies are laying people off last monday night the night before thanksgiving uh united furniture makes lane furniture uh sent an email to all 2700 workers at their mississippi uh plant and uh they went home on monday from work and got an email yeah or a text saying don't come back tomorrow

most woke up in the morning the email went out late at night and woke up the next morning you're done don't even come in no more assurion here in nashville has laid off a couple thousand layoffs a couple thousand people different times uh facebook has announced that the company's going to be laying off 11 000 employees 13 of its workforce of course mus Musk laid off half of Twitter for whatever reason. 3,700 jobs there. Amazon laid off 10,000 workers, marking the largest job cuts in the company's history. Rideshare company Lyft laid off 13% of its staff, 700 workers. Earlier this month, Fintech Stripe announced it would lay off 14% of its workforce, 1,100 employees.

Online real estate broker Redfin laid off 862 workers, about 13% of its workforce. Salesforce, the enterprise software company, cut hundreds of workers last week, and the company stock has dropped about 38% in value. Layoffs, they are out there. They are, but it is important to hear because you just heard Dave walk through a list and the media is playing this up big time because it makes you click. But you need to understand something. What is common among that list and among the other large layoffs over the last 90 days is anticipation. These companies are laying people off in anticipation of a recession.

Most of these companies are publicly held companies. So they are thinking about their stock price. It's a different game than small business in America. So what they will do is they will hire up and staff up. So you hear Amazon laying off tens of thousands of workers. Why? Let's just translate that, okay? These publicly traded companies are buttholes

okay because here's what they're doing all right let me tell you why salesforce in their press release salesforce said they laid these people off to increase profits that's exactly right it's about the stock price simply increasing profits and so i mean what what that tell i mean so you didn't need them when you hired them? They weren't going to make you money when you hired them? Oh, no, no, no. They were going to make us money. But one way to increase profits is to slash the payroll line on the P&L temporarily, and it temporarily makes us look like we're more profitable,

although there's not people to do the work that causes us to be more profitable later. That's correct. So we rehire later. And so it's corporate America being buttholes. All they're doing is they're creating false profit. No pun intended. I like that. False profit.

Profit that didn't come from generating revenues and doing a better job. Profit that came from cutting an expense that you actually needed, an investment that you actually needed, in order to appear to be more profitable. That's right. And they do that on the backs of you in America. And some of you, you're really having the great regret because some of you left a job with a company that actually was a pretty good company to make $15,000 or $20,000 more over at publicly traded jerkwad. That's right.

And they told you you could work from home. And guess who got laid off first at all these companies? All the research we're seeing coming in. The number one, there are two types of people that got laid off. The last one's hired and the ones that are working from home. That's correct. That's exactly right. The data says that.

That's not our opinion. That's what the data says. And the reason, you're out of sight, you're out of mind. And Dave, you're absolutely right. Out of your mind. That's right. You look at Amazon, for instance. So Amazon, it came out earlier this year, an internal memo from one of their executives.

They were worried about being able to actually hire people in multiple cities of the U.S. because they had burned through available workers. They treat people like commodities. And Dave's exactly right. The minute that a recession might be looming, what do they do? It's about the almighty dollar and the stock price. And we're not against capitalism. We love it. And I'm all for profit. But the fact of the matter is dave you're exactly right they begin to just diminish people and they go all right you are just a number on a spreadsheet we don't care about you it was all about uh the stock price it's all about profit so when consumers are buying i announced to our 1100 people last week that our profits are down this year because our costs are up and as a result we are laying off precisely no one because we wouldn't have freaking hired you in the first place if we

didn't need you and i'm not going to put more money in my pocket as the owner and increase my profits by dumping you in the street at the first sign of a black cloud because i'm like a human and i like other humans and treat them like people not like robots that can be thrown in the ditch the first time something comes up that's right and that's how small business operates by and large you don't hear small businesses going oh we're going to lay people off so i can make more profit yeah people that own small businesses don, oh, we're going to lay people off so I can make more profit. Yeah. People that own small businesses don't do that. And as a matter of fact, right now, Dave, small businesses are looking to hire.

They can't find people to hire. It's the exact difference. They're trying to grow their business, and Amazon and the big public companies are trying to just grow their stock price. Yeah. Big difference. So corporate America has always, and this is not against capitalism, but corporate America, I mean big companies with no heart, no soul. And some big companies have a heart and soul.

Some little companies don't have a heart and soul. But when I say corporate America, I mean these companies that treat people, they treat the customer like a unit of revenue. So you know you're a number when you're a customer of Bank of America. Bank of America sucks. If you're a customer of Bank of America, you know they couldn't care less whether you live or die, you are a number. It's all they care about.

As a customer, you're a unit of revenue. And by the way, if you work there, you're a unit of production. And there's no humanity in a company like that, none whatsoever. Now, again, it's not based solely on size, but you guys know what I'm talking about. And so what this is is a warning on behalf of the Ken Coleman movement to get a job, get a career, make a move if you want to make a move for more money if you want to. That's great. I got no issue with that. For a better opportunity, for an area that's where you are functioning in your sweet spot,

in your purpose. But don't be going solely based on money. I'm going to hold my nose and move over to some company that has a value system that I can't stand. They're so woke. I can't sleep. That's right. And I don't want to be around these people.

And you're going to run over there and jump in the middle of that septic tank and hold your nose and hope you don't get screwed. Well, of course you're going to get screwed. That's exactly right. Here's what happens. The paycheck and the promotion wear off when you, the person, know that you're in the wrong pool you just know it's not right it will eat away at you your soul will slowly slip out of your body where you work matters yeah and you so yes go make more money yes get into something that is your purpose but don't have an existential crisis because during covid you suddenly decided someday you're

going to die no No kidding. And so now I have to go do, I have to quickly, I have to go, I have to go, I have to go make more money. I'm burnt out. I'm going to work from home part-time and get paid for full-time. You're going to be the first one in the ditch, baby. And that's what's happening right now. This is The Ramsey Show. All right. After ranting about layoffs by corporate America, we go into commercial break, and Coleman tells me this story that curled both the hairs that I have left.

Tell me about it. Oh, I'm sorry. That was a setup. Okay. That was an underhand pitch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For God's sake, swing. I thought you were going.

Yeah, here we go. So a guy who was the CEO at the time, he's since been relieved of his duties, thankfully, of a company called Better.com. And here's the irony. That's the name of the company. He laid off several thousand people from his kitchen over Zoom. No previous warning, none of their managers talking to them, company-wide Zoom, and he decided to lay off that many people and then gave him instructions hey we'll be in touch your leader will be in touch with you soon to explain the terms of you leaving but he just dropped it on him in his kitchen via zoom and

what was the best part of it dave is about halfway through he got choked up because it was so difficult to do and i just wanted your take on that. I'm trying not to question his sincerity, but to do it that way. Well, you don't have to question his sincerity, but you can question his character. Yeah. I mean, this is not a guy. I mean, it suddenly occurred to him that he just dumped thousands of people in the street halfway through the call. Yeah, exactly.

Dude, you were never a leader in the first place. You shouldn't have been in that seat.'re not qualified that's not even real communication dave that's just uh that's what's called uh oh cowardice that's what you call it right oh yeah okay i'm a freaking coward yeah that's it's like he was ripping the band-aid off for him yeah not for them exactly so here's the thing do sometimes companies reach a point that they are not profitable or are approaching that and have to as a mathematical necessity let people go yeah we were facing that potentially during covid we didn't know what we were going to have i mean we had we had tens of millions of dollars of revenue in certain areas, like, for instance, doing live events.

You remember when you stopped doing that suddenly? Remember when I canceled a cruise in the middle of March of 2020? Yeah, that was handy. So when the revenue just evaporates and there's no money, then you can't pay people. Then you've got to lay them off. But there's a couple things that go with that uh this is not this is not laying people off just to increase your profits

which is about as corporate america as it gets okay so there's a couple things that go with this these problems number one the factory in mississippi laying off 2700 the the duper from better give me a break uh laying people off from zoom from his kitchen table suddenly with no warning those two had shared one thing in common they knew they were in trouble a long time before they laid those people off. That's correct. So you owe your team information that's accurate. Yeah. Well, they might leave.

Dumb butt. You're getting ready to lay them off. Okay. I mean, seriously, of course they might leave because you're announcing that the ship is taking on water. We think we can stay afloat, but we got a leak over here. And you go ahead and tell these guys this like months before, because you know it months before.

You know what's going on. And so, number one, lots and lots and lots of clear, open, authentic communication early and often. This is what you do if you're a real leader in a company, regardless of the size of the company. And then the second thing is you do not lay people off in order to line your own pockets. These are people that have lives.

They have kids and dogs and husbands and wives and college funds. I mean, you don't build your personal fortune on the backs of laying people off that trusted you by coming to work for you that's morally wrong that's right okay that's just that's wrong and so you know it's not it's not a legal issue at all but a you need to give them notice. Lots and lots of open communication, lots of notice. B, do sometimes then you actually have to do this because it's an arithmetic thing? Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

Sometimes you have to. And then you should feel it. Yeah. Not halfway through a Zoom call. That's right. It's dignity. It's the difference between i'm on a zoom and i had no warning and all of a sudden bam i'm not sitting there with my leader able to process

information and ask questions i've just been hit right in the forehead and there's nothing i can do about it all right changing the subject julianne is with us in santa rose california hi julianne how are you well hello dave Ken. Thanks so much for taking my call. Your show is a real blessing. Thank you. How can we help? So I am 63 years old and, pardon me, I've got, I make about $64,000 a year. I've got $18,000 in credit card debt. I'm looking to retire at 68. Ken, I've listened to you talk about that you have a passion for what you do. And well, I don't think I'm in that group,

but I do work in a government position and I will be getting a pension. So that is why I'm there. I'm looking, as I said, I'm looking to retire at 68. And my question is, and I have about $100,000 in combined 401K and a SARSEP, and when I retire, the two pensions I'll get plus my Social Security from a higher-paying job before will equal pretty much what I'm making now. But my question is... You qualify for those pensions now, don't you?

No, I don't. The one pension was with a law firm, and I have to wait until I'm 65 to get that. Okay, what about the other one? The other one, I don't quite have five years in yet, so no, I can't get that either. When is the five years? If I stop at five within the next six months or so, but that will be a lot less than if I wait another five years, which is why I was going to retire at 68. Then that'll make me eligible for social security as well. I, my social security is at 66, 10 months, but I figured 68, I'll put 10 years in at my government job. And then I would use the money as I need. Um, and the a hundred thousand

in the combined 401k and star step, I live in affordable housing, so I have no property or anything. What's your question? My question is, how do I leverage getting the most out of my situation? Be more specific. What do you mean? What are you trying to leverage? I'm trying to have a better standard of living when I retire. Because before I retire, I need to pay off the $18,000 in credit card. I don't know how I'm going to do that. And then I also have a beater van from when my mom days. Of course, I don't have that anymore. And so I was looking to get one more car for like my forever car. And I don't know how I'm going to make all that happen. Sure you do. Get free in five years. Sure you do. Well, that's why you called. Dave's going to help you. But I'm going to give you the formula, though, so that you can get your head right. Number one,

you need to pay off your debt, and you might need to supplement your income right now to make that happen faster, and then you're going to be fine. But you've got to pay off this debt. And I work, I was thinking about that, thank you, and I work full-time, and I don't know how I, I've listened to the side hustle. Over time. All of that, and I'm trying. You work 40 hours. Overtime is your answer.

They are, they will pay overtime. Full-time is 80. No, I work 40 hours a week. I know. That's eight hours, five days a week, and they don't pay overtime. They will not authorize it. I know, so go get a job working doing something else in addition to this. Work more.

Maybe that's my only option. Oh, you have another option. Continue to stay broke. No. It's depressing. It really is. And I don't want to be depressed. Yeah.

So I don't know how I would work in addition because I work eight to five, five days a week. And like I said, I'm 63. I'm not 23. So am I. You're not an invalid. I work all the time. I mean, I'm 63.

You know, 16-hour days if I need to. It's entirely possible. I don't like doing it either, but, I mean, sometimes I have to get crap done. And so you've got $18,000 worth of debt in a junky van. You've got to fix these things. And you're going to need more money. You're going to have to tighten the budget that you've got, and you're going to have to increase your income.

You need financial peace. We've got the process for you. Walk it through. You're discouraged. You need to get determined. This is not an unsolvable situation. We have the steps. Yeah. Hang on. We'll give you a copy of the book, Total Money Makeover, and show you exactly what to do. But you're going to have to increase your income, and you're going

to have to decrease your outgo. So stuff you're spending money on while you're sitting around, other than your 40 hours of work, you're not going to be able to spend money on that anymore because you're not going to be sitting around anymore. There you go. This is The Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, is my co-host today. Hey, we have a blast giving away a ton of cash in the Ramsey Christmas Cash Giveaway this month. The giveaway ends very soon. You need to enter now if you want a chance to win. Now, we've been giving away $500 a week, and right now you can enter every day to increase your chances to win the grand prize, which is five thousand dollars which you'll be giving away in just a few days there's no purchase necessary you got to be 18

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Go to RamseySolutions.com. Victoria is with us in Tampa, Florida. Hi, Victoria. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, Kim. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

What's up? So my husband and I need some advice so we don't make a stupid decision here. So my husband and I have a small townhome. Our monthly payment is so cheap. It is under $1,000, which is crazy for Tampa, Florida right now. Our townhome is super basic. It's a two bedroom, two and a half bath, no garage. And our plan was to pay it off. And we're so close to it. We have about $50,000 in savings. And we owe about $112,000 in our home. If we put that money towards our home, we would owe about $60,000. And we could easily tackle that in less than two years. The thing is, though, we had a baby a few months ago,

and I work hybrid. Our home feels too tight. and I am afraid I will not be able to buy another home if the price goes higher right now. So we could upgrade to a three-bedroom and a garage. selling our home and putting all of our savings and whatever money we make from this home towards this other option we have, we would potentially put down 50%. And our monthly payment would be about $300 more than what we pay right now in our current home. Now, my question is, in what circumstance is okay to not pay off your home? At this point, is it better to just upgrade or just like suck it up and stick around? So Victoria, I've got a question. I've got a question before Dave answers the money piece. What makes the house feel cramped with a newborn? And I want you to be specific and I'm not picking on you. I want you to really tell me what makes it feel cramped. They're not that big.

Yes. So, I hope, well, it is a two-bedroom and two-and-a-half bath. So, right now, in order for me to not quit my job, my mom will fit with us to help with the baby for about a year. So, she's still going to stay with us for a few more months. She takes up room. Yeah, I feel like. Okay, now you got me on that one. I didn't see that one coming.

One room for her. Baby is staying with us, yeah. Baby is staying with us in the bedroom, which it's fine right now. And we don't have a garage. So literally, like, we walk into the house. I am literally starting. Here's the answer. Here's the answer.

Here's what you're facing, Victoria. Okay. story here's the answer here's the answer here's what you're facing victoria okay at the end of your story when you get to retirement you want to have had a paid for house for many years before you get there and as a result of not having a house payment a huge pile of money okay that's that's that's where that's what we're aiming at we're agreed on that okay now the question is how do we have a life that's reasonable and under control and still accomplish having paid off the house early and creating a big pile of money in your 40s, 50s, and 60s, right? How old are you? I'm 31. Okay. So if you go and move up in-house, it's not an evil thing.

You're not doing anything wrong. We tell you not to take out a mortgage more than a fourth of your take-home pay, household take-home pay, on a 15-year fixed. And so if you sell your home and you take the $50,000 and you put enough down and the mortgage that you take out meets those guidelines, you're perfectly fine. Now, why do we tell you those guidelines? Because we want you to pay it off for your sake. Okay. But it's okay to move up in property and at your age with the idea that we're going to turn around and start paying it off as fast as we can because the faster we get

it paid off the wealthier we're going to be right so it's not like you need dave's permission to get a bigger house and can do with me it's got to do with you need your give yourself permission to get a bigger house which is going to slow down your wealth building a little bit because now you got a bigger mortgage to get paid off before you get rich right right but you're trading that for a little better quality of life three bedrooms and a garage and some stuff like that and a place to camp mom for a little while she's probably not going to be there forever though kid grows up things move on right but um but but still it's okay to move out of a two-bedroom no garage townhouse in tampa florida you can probably afford to make that move up with the large equity and the down payment

and all that kind of stuff you're putting together you're probably fine to do that but you know it the thing you don't want to do is get in the mindset of most americans which is i'm just going to buy whatever i want whenever i want i'm gonna spend like i'm in congress and then i'm gonna retire broke and hope the government which is well known for its ability to handle money will take care of me and see just don't don't drop over on that side of the bucket because that's where people drown right that's where you get killed so you know the fact that you're fretting about this is a very is a positive because it makes you realize you're not going to do it over and over and over again because some

people the way they celebrate um getting a raise is they go get a bigger car payment that's what most people are doing you know and that's not you know so what am i gonna go further in debt well that's dumber than crud because it takes you exactly the wrong direction. Now, in her case, she's not doing that. That's not what's going on. So I think you're perfectly fine to make that move, but you do whatever you want. As long as you're couching it in the concept of I want to get my house paid off because the faster I get my house paid off, the wealthier I'm going to be and the more generous I can

be and the more I can change my family tree. Those things are all tied together mathematically. It's arithmetic. Hatton is with us. Hatton is in Oklahoma City. Hi, Hatton. What's up? I'm doing well, Dave.

How are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Okay, so I am 24 years old. I'm currently living in southwestern Oklahoma, and I have gotten myself into some debt. I had put some debt on a credit card, and I had run the amount up pretty highly, and I decided to take out an unsecured loan with a local bank to get a lower interest rate, and I was looking to see how you would be able to advise me to pay this debt off

as as quickly as possible so you have the credit card debt or the personal loan now um i took the loan out at the okay so how much do you owe on the personal uh seventy two hundred and fifty dollars did you chop up the stupid butt credit card? I had a plasticctomy at my future mother-in-law's house a couple of weeks ago. Phenomenal. That's a good place to celebrate that. Makes her smile.

Good. You might be able to take care of my daughter because you're getting the scissors across the card. Good. $7,200. What do you make? This next year I could be making anywhere between $39,000 and $41,000 a year before taxes. What do you do? I work as a minister. Good for you.

Okay. You need an extra job. My dad was a pastor, and my brother and I, he put us in a small Christian school. We needed more money, and he was limited because he was a pastor, and he went and worked on a construction crew for three months. You got to do that. $7,200 is nothing for a 24-year-old who wants to work. All right.

Yeah, go make $2,000 a month for three or four months, and you'll be done. But, I mean, you'll be tired and cold. But you can do that when you're 24. It's okay. You can do it when you're 64. It's okay. You know, I used to work for a guy who said, you know, hard work won't kill you, right?

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