The Ramsey Show - App - Why Even Ivy League Degrees Aren’t Worth Borrowing For (Hour 2)

Episode Date: July 31, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Ken Coleman answer your questions and discuss:   EveryDollar, budget for the life you want today for free: Click Here Should my son take out loans for an Ivy League school?" "How do I get around AI roadblocks when applying for jobs? from the blog: How to Beat Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), "Should we surrender our motorcycles to avoid the payments?" Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Join a Personality-led FPU class. Click here! Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: Click Here Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: Click Here Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? Click Here 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 we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual and amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, host of the Ken Coleman Show, number one best-selling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose,

career and jobs, work expert, is my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Mary's in Chicago. Hi, Mary. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

What's up? I have a son who was accepted to an Ivy League law school. And I know 10 things that you say you should never do is take out student loans to go to school. And we paid for all of his undergrad, everything we'd saved through a 529, 24 plan. And... Good, way to go. Yeah, he's taking out quite a large sum of money, about $170,000 for three years. He did get $90,000 worth of scholarships, but I just am really nervous about that. I mean, that's a lot of money. Um, and coming out of where he's going, he's in a T14 school. So his income in three years when he's finished will be 200 to 250 thousand dollars

maybe you hope well that that's what big law is paying in in new york and chicago and that's where he would end up based on what um he's a top student. 100% of the law students that graduate from that university do not go into big law. Well, the reason he chose the one he's going to is because it's international, and that's what he wants to do. I know, but 100% of the international lawyers that specialize in international that graduate from that law school do not make a $250,000 salary. do but not all of them do so anyway this is already decided how can we help

because we can't fix it i mean he's going to go do it well i just wanted to kind of find out what you thought and also we have why it doesn't matter he's doing it anyway it does because we have a coach house over our garage and i did offer to him that when he got done he could live in the coach house but he would have he would have three years and he would have to pay that back in three years he would have to take all other than his minimal living expenses and pay down that debt. Is that something you think we should offer him or be like, nope, you took it out?

Because we never had student loans. I paid for all my school myself. Mary, if you want to offer it, you can. I don't think the guy that signed up for the trip you're talking about is going to take your offer. Okay. I think you would do that you would live in the coach house but i don't think this guy will do you think it was a mistake to do that what he's done yeah absolutely but i don't think it matters all we can do is is love him. I'll love him, and you can love him, and hope it works out for him. But it's mythology that you make more money

because of where you went to school across the board. Now, obviously, there are exceptions to that, and coming out of Harvard Law does set you up to be a better chance than coming out of University of Tennessee Law does set you up to be a better chance than coming out of University of Tennessee Law School, okay, to go to a big firm in Chicago or a big firm in New York. But also, you've got to understand, when you sign up for a big firm in Chicago, a big firm in New York, you're a number, and their goal in the first three years there is to try to kill you.

Right, right. You work 300 hours a week i mean it's just bizarre it's crazy yeah and all just to get to be in big law i mean it's and then at the end of the story what have you really got when it's all clear oh i'm a partner in this mess yeah okay uh and um so it's it's it's if that is your goal singular goal uh, you might make – if it all works out and he does get that gig, then we might get there. Might, but I want you to hear this, Mary, and I want Dave to comment on this because diving into this, there's a new study out by a group of Harvard-based economists, Opportunity Insights, and they looked at students who were waitlisted by Ivy League schools, Dave,

compared with the estimated future earnings of those who eventually got in with those who didn't. And they attended one of nine flagship public universities instead. So you mentioned University of Tennessee. Here's what they found. It's a statistically insignificant impact on their future earnings as they projected income at age 33, and they said that the Ivy League degree would average a 3% increase over a state school. Now, that's not law. It's not law, but they're talking about – It's just in general an Ivy League degree.

But law would – 100%, I can tell you, that in business, it doesn't make spit difference 78 of the fortune 500s are state of the fortune 500 ceos graduate from state school they didn't go to mit they didn't go to wharton and they didn't go to harvard and they didn't go to yale okay they didn't go to vanderbilt and so the idea that you make more in business is laughable now in law there is a nuance that you probably can get in there. She's talking about big law. She's correct about that. And this is the pitch.

But the problem is that he still has to get in. Just because he had the degree from Harvard doesn't get him in. He's got to graduate. Well, but he's got to graduate in the top of his class. You know how competitive it is? He's got to graduate. He's in. He's in.

He's got the degree. He's got the entrance. Right. And he's written the check. It's a done deal so mary just coach him and tell him hey we love you and we're going to be here for you even if we don't agree with your decisions and we hope it works out for you the way you think it's going to but i but i'm worried for you and i'll be praying for you honey yeah because i will i'm not mad at him and i'm not mad at you folk out there but the problem is when people believe mythology that two percent of the people you know if you

do something that only works two percent of the time that's not a principle that works that's correct and you know so what percentage of harvard law or vanderbilt law or for that matter and you pay you pay what 4x for the degree or 5X for the degree of what you would have paid in a state law school. And then get into big law and what percentage of them, by the time they're 33, are still there. Right. That haven't got ground up like last week's hamburger with the schedule they put them in. And just destroy them. So, I mean, it's legendary how mean they are to the first and second year people on. And I want to point out, this is like playing Division I football or basketball.

Yeah, exactly. You still got to make it to the NBA. And so here's the point. He's going to come out. I know he's in the school, but I'm talking about once he's out. He's got to compete against all those other Ivy Leaguers that are competing for the same big law jobs. So it's not a guarantee. That's what you've got to be careful about.

All it guarantees is that they may look at you because these big law do tend to prefer Ivy League grads, yes, but you've still got to compete. Agreed. You've got to win. And then are you really, at the end of the day, going to earn that much more? On average, no. I don't think so. If his particular narrow path works out for him, yes, he will.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to argue that part of his agreement. But based on that, would I tell my own child to go $200,000 in debt? Oh, crud, no. Not even close. Would I tell you to go into debt to go to an Ivy League, a famous school, just because? No, no, no, no, please don't.

All the data tells us. Harvard economists did a study on themselves and said it's not worth it. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. I think it, I just feel the need to circle back for a second. Number one, if you are going into a field where an education is needed we are huge proponents of a four-year degree we're also huge proponents of the trades there's lots of guys that are welders that are making 120 000 a year while people with a master's degree in social work

are making 38 000 so let's just keep in mind what you're going to earn when you go get a degree. So when you're studying, don't study some left-handed puppetry degree. Get a degree in German polka history. There's only one job if you have a degree in German polka history. You have to get a PhD so you can go teach other people to get a degree in German polka history. It is the only possible use for that degree. And there's crap like that all over the place that in German folk history. It is the only possible use for that degree. And there's crap like that all over the place that people go and do. And in the name of all education is good. No, all education is not good for purposes of earning.

Now, is all education expand the mind? Hypothetically, some of your minds are so empty that it's crazy. You shouldn't put stuff in there. But some of it, you know, so generally speaking, education is a good thing. Generally speaking, a lifetime of learning is something you need to engage in, 100% of you. 100% of us need to engage in a lifetime of learning. If the last time you read a nonfiction book was five years ago, shame on you.

Turn off Netflix. Go read a nonfiction book, for God's sake. Learn something all the time for the rest of your life. Learn something. Read, read, read, read, read. All leaders are readers. Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers. So be doing, you know, learn, learn, learn, learn.

Believe in education. All four of my kids got a four-year degree. But the thing that universally you cannot defend, there is not one shred of data except mythology that going to a high-priced famous school ivy league as an example that you can justify the extra expense okay the versus a high a well-staffed well well-run state school, the University of Ohio, the University of Georgia, the University of Tennessee, the University of whatever state you want to put after that, okay? Or just a state school in the Middle Tennessee State University as one of the best broadcast and

music degrees in the world and it is a state school and it's like eight thousand nine thousand dollars a year tuition okay one of my friends it's the president of a major network sent her kid to mts to middle tennessee state university in murfreesboro freaking tennessee and could have could have afforded to send their kid anywhere but wanted to study broadcast and wanted to study the field that the parent was in and so you know what we're looking for here is value in education because education is important but this idea that you have to go to a famous school because it's going to get you a job or because it's going to get you more money, is statistical mythology. There's nothing to back it up.

Lots of studies saying it's not true. It's virtually insignificant, even in the higher-level grad degrees. And this is not our opinion. These are Harvard economists that have put this stuff out. And that's the irony. Your customer doesn't care, by the way. The only people that care are your mom and dad and your grandparents and maybe crazy Uncle Larry at Thanksgiving, because that's where he went to school.

So we've got to get over this. My nephew went to Cornell. I couldn't give a crap. Nobody cares. Did he learn anything? Yeah. There's two things that we teach here. One, is a degree the only way to get where you want to go, to do that thing you want to do, or is it the best way?

If it's no to both of those simple questions, is it the only way or the best way, then I got news for you. There's a different way. And increasingly in 2023, it's a whole lot less expensive and a whole lot less time consuming. And that's the reality of the world we live in and it's only continuing to shift that direction yeah so we're pro-education absolutely it just doesn't always require a degree we're not pro-mythology yeah and it doesn't require a degree to be successful you are not more likely to be successful by going to one of those famous schools yeah it just isn't there there's no data again wall street journal did a full survey 78 percent that's eight out of ten of the ceos of fortune 500 companies the top 500 companies on the stock

market graduated from state schools you know what though dave you are statistically significant hello i found i realized just a second ago that you are more likely if you go to one of those big name schools you are more likely to be broke i shared a story on the ken coleman show just a couple weeks ago of a guy who went to columbia okay film school oh three hundred and forty thousand dollars because he went undergrad and he got a graduate level degree he's in hollywood making sixty five thousand dollars right now and he was quoted in the wall street journal saying i could have got this job without either the four-year degree or the master's degree oh he's exactly right he could have yeah and so now that's again that's the film industry so it's not apples to apples in every industry you got to have a grad degree for medicine for science a lot of your science jobs and a lot of your and obviously

all medical jobs but uh there's a guy who regrets it and he got this prestigious degree and he still had to start at the bottom well if you want to get a business degree at Vanderbilt University in our town here the southern ivy league if you will sure it's seventy thousand dollars a year University of Tennessee is twelve thousand dollars a year so we're saying six times is that is that degree six times more valuable at Vanderbilt than it is at the University of Tennessee? I'm 100% sure it's not because I graduated from the University of Tennessee and people that graduated from Vanderbilt work for me. Oh, by the way, football team's better at UT. Well, that football, that's it. But yeah, I mean, it's just. I just had to throw that in.

I know. It has nothing to do with what we're talking about. Absolutely nothing nothing don't pick your school on your football either that don't do that don't i'm going please god don't go to school very good point school because they have a good foot which by the way a lot of kids are doing that or the party scene yes it's always rated and everything it's just all this garbage man so whether it has a lazy river there's schools that have a lazy river that you can coast down. You can float down a lazy river at a university. This is how asinine this whole process has become. And this is why we have a student loan debt problem of trillions of dollars, because Congress continues to make loans to people who want to go to the lazy river.

There you go. Open phones at 888-825-5225 see if we can squeeze this one in our question of the day is brought to you by neighborly your hub for home services neighborly's nationwide network locally owned home service pros like molly made mr reuter plumbing and five-star painting takes the stress out of home repairs maintenance and improvements visit neighborly.com to schedule a service today. Great company. Today's question comes from Tony in Massachusetts.

I recently applied for a job that I'm extremely qualified for and thought I had a serious shot at getting the interview. Never got a call, and I'm growing a little discouraged. It's an amazing job, which I'm sure has a lot of competition. The application process went through an artificial intelligent platform that screened my information, and I'm worried it screened me out. The whole process felt impersonal, and I feel like I didn't get a chance to convey my skills and experience. Do you have any tips for applying for jobs under an AI platform? It's been a while since I've been in the job market. This is an applicant tracking system. Even small businesses are using some type of AI software

to help process information. We've got an entire article that I wrote on this called How to Beat Applicant Tracking Systems. This is at ramseysolutions.com. I'll just pull out a couple quick things for Tony. One, you've got to use keywords. So if you read a job description, let's say it's about a three or four paragraph job description, you've got to be paying attention to keywords in the description, Tony, and then you make sure that those are in your resume. Regurgitate their ad back to them. For instance, if it says you need a lot of experience with Excel,

just using a simple example, then make sure one of your skills on your resume is Excel so that that AI system picks up on that. Second, make sure that you edit every resume to be custom for the job. A lot of people are doing a cut and paste and putting out multiple resumes, multiple jobs. That'll get you flagged. And then third, don't apply for too many roles at one company. One role, maybe two max. Don't do six or seven. Sometimes that'll get you kicked out as well. But again, more details in this article. We go into great detail. Most important, find somebody you know inside the company and circumvent this whole thing

using proximity principles. Well, we wrote an entire book called The Proximity Principle that says you need to know somebody in the company or know somebody that knows somebody so that they take your resume, old school style, put it on the hiring manager's goob. He's a good goob.

Well, we don't want him saying, look at this goob. That's okay. He's a good one. He's a good goob. We don't want him saying, look at this goob. That's okay. But you get the point. He's a good one. He's a good goob. A good goob. All right. Use proximity principle. Get the book.

That is the answer to circumvent anything that has technology problems. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones, 888-825-5225. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Greg and Meredith are here. Hi, guys. How are you? Doing well.

How are you doing? Better than we deserve. Welcome. Good to have you. Where do you guys live? Boston. Oh, wow. Welcome to Nashville. Thank you. Where do you guys live? Boston. Oh, wow. Welcome to Nashville.

Thank you. And here to do a debt-free scream, how much have you paid off? $425,000. All right. How long did this take? Five years. Good deal. And your range of income during that time?

$230,000 to $430,000. Excellent. Wow. Nice jump. Yeah. Very good. What do you guys do for a living? I'm an attorney.

And I'm in sales in the HVAC industry. jump. Yeah. Very good. What do you guys do for a living? I'm an attorney. And I'm in sales in the HVAC industry. Awesome. Yeah. I hope you didn't go to Harvard after we just did all that. I did not. We were talking about it, though. Man. After we did all that, that would have been the irony of irony.

I went all the way to Nashville to do my debt-free scream. I'm freaking from Boston. And yeah, that would have been great. I'm glad. I'm glad it worked out, though. Good. Hey, what kind of debt was the 425? All student loans.

All student loans. Every dollar. Every bit of it. So attorney, law school, and yours as well? Private school for me, yeah. Private school. Good. Okay, cool.

Good for you guys. What do you do for a living? An attorney, you said, and you said you're doing what? I'm in sales and HVAC. Sales and HVAC. Excellent. Good, good. Okay, so how long have you been married? Almost six years this year. You said you're doing what? I'm in sales and HVAC. Sales and HVAC. Excellent. Good, good. Okay.

So how long have you been married? Almost six years this year. So right after you get married, something you say, okay, we're going to plow into the student loans. Tell me the story. Well, you were on the Ben Shapiro show, and I had never heard of you before. No idea anything about any of this. Was that five years ago? About that, yeah. Oh, gosh.

Yeah. So I kind of got the idea of, you know, this guy makes sense. Started listening to your podcast. Started subtly playing it at home when Meredith was in the room. And I know that I don't make the decision. I get Meredith to make the decision when I want it to be made. Oh, oh. You should write a marriage book.

If she likes the idea in advance, then, you know then we do what I'm hoping we're going to do. Wow. It did lead to the only, I would say, argument in our entire marriage. Wow. Yes. I wanted to go from baby step one straight into two and take what was already a done baby step three and drop it down to baby step one. So I wanted to put every dollar that we had minus $1,000 exactly into our student loans. But knowing that we were going to do five years, we compromised and we did her plan.

Okay. So you did it anyway. Yes. Okay. Well, you make a great income and you both were in agreement ultimately and got after it. Yep. Okay. Very cool.

Congratulations. Thank you. So when you got $425,000 worth of student loans, that's a Mount Everest. Yes. And you get married and you're looking up and you're going, holy crap, this just got real. Yeah. It takes your stomach and does not.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So was the five years easier or harder than you thought it was going to be once we made the plan i think it was a lot easier than we thought it was going to be it didn't seem as insurmountable as once we actually just got started because we were on the same track the whole time looking down from the top of the mountain down is much easier than looking at the bottom going up yeah but when you get up there you're like dadgum this was a harder climb than i thought it was gonna be right or well that was i thought this was gonna be horrible and we just did it

you know so you know you never know which way it comes out would not do again but yes i'm not signing up for this trip again no this is not it's not my definition of uh vacation no no we did have the advantage too because meredith's income was enough that we were able to live on no problem. So we were able to just take my entire income and throw it at it. So we did Dave-ish for a little while and I know that's the story a lot of times but basically we were able to take what

she was already making, live only on that and then say okay anything that's left, anything that's my income and anything extra we can get out of hers, we're just going to throw it straight at it. My observation is that when things start working, people start sacrificing deeper. Absolutely. Once they get hooked in generally, that doesn't always happen. Yeah, because I'm curious, when in the five-year journey does the income bump significantly

or was it gradual? It was pretty gradual. When I got a promotion from associate to senior associate, that was a very large bump and that helped a lot. And we were able to throw my extra income into the student loans, and that's what really propelled us this last little bit. A good chunk of my income is commission, so I also got better commissions over time. So what kind of sacrifices did you guys make on this journey?

Waiting for children. Oh, my. We're not waiting anymore. There you go. Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you. Very fun. That's not easy to wait on is it it is not it's not an

easy choice to make but sacrifice was definitely it was worth it to now that weight is gone we can have our son and be really excited about him and not have the debt on top of it right yeah and his mom and dad paid a price to change his life yes Yes. Well done, y'all. Well done. Very cool. Good for you. I'm proud of you. Who was cheering you on along the way? Everyone. Everyone, yeah.

Everybody was for you. Parents in particular. A lot of people were kind of skeptical of the concept, but once we told them how close we were, and especially when we did pay everything off, it's amazing how many people supported us. Oh, when you do it, everybody's on. Yeah, you guys. Yeah, I knew you could do that.

Yeah, that's funny. Hindsight's 20-20 for these people. Of course. Good stuff. Well done, you guys. Very, very well done. What do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is? Persistence, grit, and sacrifice.

You can't have it all right exactly when you want it. And that budget, the plan, there's nothing like being able to look at it at the end of the month and say, oh, I've got X you know, X number of thousand dollars potentially to throw at my student loans this month. You know, that's, we always celebrate a little bit, you know, have a drink or something. Yeah. I mean, when you can throw 10 grand at a month at it, it's.

Oh, it's fantastic. It feels really good. Yes. Yeah. Even if it is a 400 and something thousand dollar amount, we're going to get there. Okay. I see how this is going to work. Yeah.

Wow. How old are you two? and now what are you dreaming about now the baby boy's on the way i mean it changed i want people to hear this so how old are you and then how does this change your dreams so i'm 34 okay and i'm 33 wow yeah and now we want a family right i mean that is the dream so i'm actually going to be taking some time off work and being a mom for a couple of years. Excellent. Moving to North Carolina where her parents are and changing the whole living situation, everything. I'm going to work from there, work from the house so that I get to spend as much time with their son as we can. Man, very cool. Very cool.

See, Dave, I love hearing that because I want people that are new to this whole thing to realize they can do pretty much whatever they want. This is not just financial peace it is professional freedom personal freedom to make choices like this right and it doesn't even faze you no and scariest thing for me is i just never lived outside of boston you're gonna love north carolina oh it's fantastic yeah you're gonna like the tax change i promise you yes sir that's another raise yeah wow that's gonna change everything congratulations you two you're amazing i'm so proud of you well very very well done congrats congrats congrats hey we've got the uh live and give box for you it's the baby steps millionaires book because if you aren't one already you will be soon you're right on track and the total money

makeover book as well and the financial peace. If you've not been through the class, go ahead and go through it for the fun of it now or teach it or give it to somebody, whatever you want to do. It's all for you. So thank you guys so much for coming. We're so proud of you, Greg and Meredith,

Boston mass, at least for now, if you live like no one else later, you can live wherever you want and give like no one else. 425,000 paid off in five years making 230 to 430 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one we're dead free that is how it's done ladies and gentlemen. Greg from deep down in his guts. Yes.

That had some power to it. It did. Well, that's $425,000 worth of student loans gone. That'll get you excited right there. That's right. If Sally Mae is that big and she's in your house, you know when she leaves. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. That's good.

Wow. Get the ugly woman out of my house. Unbelievable. Yeah. And so, I mean, there's an example. We're talking about attorneys. We're talking about famous schools and all that. There's an example of someone went in law school debt and then said, I'm not living like this.

Leaned in and then made senior. And as they made senior, and both had great incomes and they worked their way through it. But wow, pretty incredible. Yeah. Now they've got choices. Because I've got to tell you, you come out, and you're facing down the barrel of $425,000, and you just graduate. You pass the bar.

You're married, and you look up. You have an oh, crap moment. Sure. Here I stand at the bottom of this mountain, and I really don't have a choice. Climbing it is mandatory. Yeah, that's right. The only question is how long the climb is going to take are you going to do it for 20 years you're going to do it for five years that's pretty incredible they're amazing what a what a sharp couple very cool this is the ramsey show Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is our co-host today.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Daniel's in Houston. Hi, Daniel. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

So me and my wife just started Financial Peace University. We finished the third lesson, and we are trying to figure out how to downsize. We have four vehicle payments, my truck, her car, and we each have a motorcycle. We're wondering if we should voluntarily surrender the motorcycles to get out from underneath that. No. No? Okay. What do you owe on them? So I owe $25 on mine, and she owes $17 on hers. What do you owe on them? So I owe 25 on mine, and she owes 17 on hers.

What's yours worth? Mine's worth about 17. What's hers worth? 11. Good God. What a mess. Yeah. What do you make?

What's your household income? I actually lost my job in March march and so we're living off of her salary this is july what do you do uh i've been looking for her jobs non-stop i've had seven interviews and nothing's come from any of them what do you do um i worked for a team for the past eight years i was a regional manager making what kind of money about a hundred thousand a year doing what regional manager of the whole obviously operations manager for the region right uh yeah i was i was over 25 locations okay and you made a hundred grand zone huh that's interesting yeah okay um and uh i want to circle back to that. What does she make?

She makes about $88,000 a year. Good. She works for ExxonMobil. Okay. Let me answer this, and then I want to circle back to the motorcycles are not the problem. They're the symptom. So here's the problem with surrendering them. I want to surrender them as a last-ditch effort. Matter of fact, I want them to actually come repo them. I don't even want to surrender them as a last ditch effort matter of fact i want them to actually come repo them i

don't even want to surrender them uh because if that motorcycle is worth 17 when they take it they're going to sell it as a repo for nine oh okay and you're responsible for the difference the deficit so you control the hole that you're in if you sell it who's the loans with uh they're through harley davidson okay uh i would be harley has run into this before i would be talking to harley a lot okay um unless they're angry or mean on the phone and then i just hang up on them but i'd just be calling them you know once a week and just giving them an update that you got laid off and we're about to get a job and, you know, this sucks right now. We're going to work it out, though.

And I'd be talking to a local Harley dealer and going, hey, dude, can you get me out of these? Okay. Okay. Is your credit messed up? Yeah, I'm a 513 and she's a 565. Yeah, your credit's screwed. Okay. Yeah. uh yeah i'm a 513 and she's a 565 yeah you're credit screwed okay yeah um because i would have you borrow the difference because i'd like for instance on yours okay uh 8 000 gets you out of

yours right i'd have you borrow that difference if i could uh if you could find a way to do it because i'd rather have you 8 000 in debt in debt than $25,000. Agreed? Agreed, yeah. And so, yeah. And that's the goal is to get there and or get you reemployed. All right, now let's circle back and work on the thing. The thing that caused all of this, which was the job thing, okay? Yeah, so you lose your job.

Why did you lose your job? Was it just layoffs or was there something else going on? Layoffs. No, it was layoffs, yeah. Did you have any severance at all? I did. We caught up. We were behind on everything.

We caught up with all that severance. And then, yeah, just kind of living on that. So are you applying? Why have you not gotten reemployed, do you think? I don't know. I've been applying for entry-level positions like the clean bathrooms, and I don't get a job. I've had my resume. T-Mobile gave us a service to professionally do my resume, so I had that done. Apparently, it's not magic.

Yeah, I've had seven interviews, and some of them were up to the third round of interviews, and then I got ghosted. But are you interviewing for positions that were similar to the T-Mobile position? I'm interviewing for absolutely anything right now. Okay. Like I said, I've applied to work at Buc-ee's to clean bathrooms or to serve food. Buc-ee's ghosted you? Yep.

Ghosted by Buc-ee's. That's like a book title. Yeah. Yeah. This is tough. I don't know what's going on. I don't know if you're just not interviewing well. That's not something that I can analyze right now.

But you're going to have to start diving into your relationships, man. You know enough people to be able to get those people to vouch for you. You've got to get into these interviews where pretty much you just have to have a pulse because they've heard so much good about you. From your friends. If this guy's real through these relationships, if Daniel proves to be real, then we're hiring him. And that's what you're not doing. You just applying and getting in the interview process. You have no leg up on anybody else.

And quite frankly, you're being outperformed in the interview process. Somehow or another. Somehow. I don't know how. I just don't know the answer. But you have got to change the odds in your favor. And the only way you're going to do that is people recommending you, really advocating for you. Not just a loose recommendation, but someone going, I know Daniel. I'm going to do that is people recommending you, really advocating for you, not just a loose

recommendation, but someone going, I know Daniel, I'm going to open up the door here. You've got too much experience and too much skillset from that previous job and you weren't fired. You were laid off. There's no stain on you. But I'm going to say one other thing. You need to go get yourself a $20, $25 an hour job, maybe two, maybe three. Listen, Buc-ee's is hiring gas station managers, the guys that pump managers for $100,000. I know. Yeah. But the point is, you've got to go get paid right now.

There's no excuse for you not to be making money in a warehouse somewhere. You've got to be making money. By the way, managing a Buc-ee's gas station is like managing a Walmart. That's no small endeavor. Are you telling me you way, managing a Buc-ee's gas station is like managing a Walmart. That's no small endeavor. Okay. So the – Are you telling me you've been in a Buc-ee's? No, I'm just –

You just heard about it. This is a legendary thing. So anyway, the – let's stop. All right. Now, we're going to send you Ken's assessment to help you ascertain your career assessment. Okay? We're going to send it to you as a gift, free. We're going to send you a copy of his book.

It's a quick read, not a quick read. You should read it very fast, called The Proximity Principle, and this is what's going to get you in the door. We're also going to send you his number one bestseller, big book, called Paycheck to Purpose. I want you to read and do the assessment, read both of those books within 72 hours of the time they hit your doorstep.

It will change the way you do this. Then go to KenColeman.com and read everything on there about resumes, about letter writing, about getting the interview, and about what to do in the interview. Ken trains people on getting jobs. You will get a job within three weeks of doing these things. It will happen. He's the best in the world at this. That's why I've got him on here as a Ramsey personality.

So we're going to give you all that free to help you. Now, stop on that sidestep. Next thing, what do you owe on the cars? On my truck, we owe $40,000, and on her car, it is $27,000. And what are they worth? My truck, I had a wreck on mine, so the last time I was trying to trade it in, they appraised it for about $21,000,

and hers was about $17,000. You guys are just hearing a mess of these vehicles. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, five years from today when you get uh a good job and you're making 100 and she's making 88 you're making 188 and you get these motorcycles up right side up and you sell them and then you get these cars right side up and you sell them and then you get into

a couple paid for vehicles uh and you never buy anything else again that has a wheel or a motor unless you pay cash for it. You got that lesson, right? Yes. I mean, God's got a highlighter out, and he's highlighting this lesson for you. I mean, I can see it clearly. I hope you can, because the trick of doing something stupid, and I've done a lot of stupid stuff, Daniel, and y'all are vehicle stupid beyond belief. I've done a lot of stupid stuff, Daniel, and y'all are vehicle stupid beyond belief.

I've done a lot of stupid stuff. My goal when I do something stupid is not do the same stupid thing next time. If I'm going to do something stupid, it needs to be a new stupid thing. You follow me? Yes, sir. Yeah, and that's your goal. No more vehicle stupid. You got yours completely out of the way in this chapter of your life.

You got all your vehicle stupid done. Never do it again. Pay cash and buy conservative vehicles or don't buy them because you got serious Jones for motors, man. It's pretty incredible. I know you because I'm the same way. So hang on. Austin's going to pick up. We're going to get you the career assessment.

We're going to get you the proximity principle. We're going to get you the paycheck to purpose book and go to KenColeman.com. Tons of free stuff there. You can start reading that right now when you get off the phone. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Ken. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles

and tips on following the Ramsey way. Go to ramsaysolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's ramsaysolutions.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.