The Ramsey Show - App - Will I Make More Money If I Go Back to School? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: September 10, 2018

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. We're glad you're here. Open phones this hour as we talk about you right in front of you. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Jeremy is with us this hour to start off the hour in Abilene, Texas. Hi, Jeremy. How are you? Doing well, thank you. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve, deserve sir what's up

well uh my wife and i have just made over into baby step three and so we're very excited about that and we received some unexpected news and that we are actually expecting twins wow wonderful I think twins. Wow, wonderful. So my stress level has increased a little bit, obviously. But currently, as I said, we're just now starting to boost our savings. We only have about $4,000 with savings right now. In our monthly budget, we're able to free up about $3,000 for a month. And now we're wondering, should we try to allocate that extra money we freed up to start feeding our HSA in expectation of these medical expenses that will be upcoming, or should we just try to feed that HSA with the pre-tax wages from my wife's work

and free up some of that savings to take home just for discretionary spending? All HSA contributions are pre-tax, whether they run through wages or otherwise. They're all pre-tax. You can deduct them on your tax return when you fill out your tax return if you don't take them as a pre-tax wage earner. Either one's fine. I would not put more in the HSA than you have actually calculated your out-of-pocket for normal labor and delivery will be.

So whose insurance is she under? She is under all. Yours or hers? I'm actually blanking. Yours or hers? I'm actually blanking. Yours or hers? It's hers. Okay. Does her insurance at her company cover normal labor and delivery?

I believe so, yes. Does it cover it 100%? A lot of them do. I believe a lot of it, 85%, I believe. Okay, you need to find out exactly, and let's not believe and guess. Okay? Find out exactly what's covered and multiply that out by real numbers and talking with your OB and go, okay, what's my normal delivery cost?

I've got to cover 15% of that. Put that amount in the HSA, but don't build your emergency fund in the HSA. Right. Here's why. Here's why. Your emergency fund will cover anything. HSA has to be spent only on medical, or you're going to get taxed and penalized big time pulling money out of there that you put in there. And so any expenses you know you're going to have that you run through there, you're only paying for 70 cents of every dollar because the government's,

it's before tax, government's taking their taxes off. So by being pre-taxed, you're saving 30 cents on every dollar. But you're not saving 30 cents on every dollar of something else that comes up that your policies don't cover or that doesn't fall under medical heading. So whatever normal delivery cost out-of-pocket would be, given your exact situation, what do you got to pay? Put that much in the HSA. Put the rest of it in just a big pile of money because I want you to use that money on baby step two

when she comes home and baby's healthy and you didn't need the money. But when you get through the pregnancy and you push play again on your total money makeover, you push the play button again, then you take all the money out of savings down to $1,000 again, and you can't take the money out of that HSA to throw it at your debt. So we're going to start your baby step two and knock out your debt. When she comes home, the baby comes home healthy. Babies come home healthy in this case.

Alicia is in Wilmington, Delaware. Hi, Alicia. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm doing well. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Great. I just have a quick question for you. A couple months ago, I talked to you regarding term life insurance, and I have that in place. I did all the medical stuff, but over the weekend, I received an advertisement from, let's just say, a roadside service company for group term life insurance application. And basically, it's the same amount of coverage for about $50 less a month with no medical exam. And I'm wondering what I should be looking for to see if this is, like, not a scam. Well, there's something wrong with that.

I mean, because if there's typically no medical, you either paid way too much for your term. Did you buy it through Zander? I did, but the problem is, you know, my way of medication that I take, there was a couple of things that kind of raised my rate a little bit. A little bit or a lot? A lot. Let's say it's about $80 a month for only 300,000 coverage.

Okay. So you got super rated because of your weight and your medications. Correct. Because typically a no medical check policy, like, you know, those are, you know, basic gimmick policies, the only time I'd recommend those to somebody that's uninsurable because they're typically so much more expensive than non-rated policies. But, you know, like AAA, if that's what you're talking about, there's nothing wrong with buying a term policy through AAA for the same amount of coverage if it's cheaper.

There's nothing wrong with that at all. But what that says is that your health is bad, really bad. Yeah, it's not great. I'm working on that. Okay, from a term life insurance statistics standpoint, I have no idea. But, I mean, they've raided the crud out of you. Because normally that stuff is double what anybody else would pay. And you're paying more than that is what I'm hearing.

Ooh, scary. Yeah, you may have found a better deal. And you may want to pick up some of that. And I don't know if you pick it up permanently or not. But, you know, I have no experience or no reason to think that a AAA, if that's who that is, for instance, term policy would not pay off but a no a no medical low app low dock type loan is typically a gimmick that is um usually five to ten x what you could buy it for if you were getting premium health rates on term good question thanks for joining us open phones at 888-825-5225 you can join us here. It is a free call. You can follow me on Twitter, at Dave Ramsey, like anybody does that anymore. But I think we've got now more on Instagram.

And I don't even know how to turn my Instagram on, but our folks that work here run that for me. And I'm a lot nicer, apparently, when they run it than if I run it. So it's nice. And Instagram's kind of nice. Twitter's like hateful and trolling, and I fit in there better. And Instagram's like for nice people with pictures of Skittles and rainbows and unicorns. And it's sweet, and people say nice things on there. And so my team does that and puts my name after it.

And no, actually, I've been doing a little bit of writing. I put some stuff on the blog. I had never done that before. and a couple people read it, and so the team has given me a hard time about doing some more writing because some of those things took off on the blog and on Instagram. Nobody on Twitter cared. They were just mad that I was there. But Twitter's like you turn on your Twitter account,

it's like getting punched in the face now, isn't it? I still check it, though. I'm a sucker for punishment. Anyway, we can help you, we will. And, of course, there is the Ramsey Baby Steps community on the Facebook, private Facebook club there that you can join for free. You can check it out. All kinds of questions and answers going on there, too.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show. You know what I've learned after talking to so many people who have been victims of ID theft? They feel violated, and they have a sense of fear and intrusion. It can be overwhelming. It's scary and infuriating at the same time. People question your character. You try to figure out how it happened and you worry it's going to happen again. Then you have to deal with cleaning up the mess.

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Hi, Dave. Nice to finally be able to talk to you. You too. What's up? Thank you. So I just have a really quick question about as to just kind of like what direction i could take in my life right now um so i recently turned 25 and i have a roughly 31 000 in debt total did you say 31 000 yeah yes Okay. $31,000 in debt. And that's student loans? 3-1.

So about $19,000 is student loans and $10,000 is the car that I'm currently paying for. Okay. So I'm working as a bartender and I get by with my bills and everything, but I really want to start working your steps. Mostly the, I'm kind of stuck between two and three. So right now I'm living, I'm living to take the paycheck. I would love to go back to school that way I can sort of find a way to increase my income. However, I'm just stuck between whether or not I should work a bit more, pay off some debt and and then start saving. That way I can make the payments for school, or should I just kind of continue doing what I'm doing and budget school payments?

How much are you making? On average, about $1,500 a month, average after taxes. Do you live at home? Yes. Okay, all right. And you have a $10,000 car debt and you make at home? Yes. Okay. All right. And you have a $10,000 car debt and you make $18,000 a year. Okay.

No, I would not go back to school until I knew exactly what I wanted to do. And if school was required for that, then I would consider going back to school. But just going to school under the heading of I want to make more money going to school always makes that happen does not work because you could get a degree in left-handed puppetry and that would not increase your income right so you got to be very intentional very goal-oriented about any education steps you take um so not everything requires a degree some things a degree doesn't even enhance that much and other things a degree would be absolutely necessary so so i back all the way up and i start asking myself if i'm you questions like i'm 25 what do i want to be doing when i'm 45 career wise yeah it's so hard yeah

well what turns what makes you happy? People? You like people. Yeah, definitely people. I've been in the industry for quite a while now, just the host service and stuff. Okay. What do you like? Other than you get to interact with a lot of people, what do you like about the industry, the food service, hotel service business, and what do you hate about it um what i like the most is the fact that i have something to do with their day you know i kind of make their day better whether it's by giving good service or good conversations that's kind of like what i like the interaction and being able to

make them feel like they had a great night um what i don't like is just typical things like drama, overtime, you know, health, all that stuff. Benefits or lack of benefits, rather. So those are the top two that I would. Okay. So I started asking myself the question, is there an industry that might not be behind a bar that allows you to serve people, have interaction with people, and help their day be better that causes you to, that really excites you. When you were in high school, were you better at math or science?

Or English? Chemistry and bio, I would say like the math and science, yeah. Chemistry and bio were your favorite? No, I was going to like split the two because I feel like chemistry is way different from bio. I'm making it tender. Yeah, well, one's more math and one's more. Yeah, I got it. It sounds like you might be a nurse. A nurse?

Really? That's what my mom said. Well, you would help people and you would do it with biology and chemistry. And their day would be better because you came in the room. That's very true. And I am i am into like health and stuff i'm like yeah i think you're right i should probably maybe you're a nutritionist maybe you're a nutritionist so you see here that all i'm doing here is i'm asking you what are some of the things that you're good at and what are the some of the things you're passionate about. And this is what Ken Coleman does on the Ken Coleman Show.

No words. Yeah, what Ken Coleman does on the Ken Coleman Show. Yeah, I appreciate the question because it's different when I ask myself those questions. I'm just, like, cracking my brain, whereas when you ask, I could, like, answer it. So, you know, thanks. Yeah. Well, so, in other words, what I want to do is just kind of start doing those kinds of things and maybe talk to some people that you trust their wisdom, not just their intellect, that are 35 years old and older.

If you're in a good church, you might talk to one of your older pastors and say, okay, what do you see in me if you know me? And what would you see me doing when I'm 45? And then if you find out that you get to poke around in this and you get more and more and more excited about a certain subject and that leads you to go to school, well, then you'd be willing to work lots of overtime to pay for the school and sell your car.

And your student loans would go on hardship deferral. But your car is half your annual income right now. Short term, you can get by with that. Long term, that doesn't work. And so we've got to get your income up, and we can do that by getting a career of some kind. And some people might be 25 and say, when I'm 55, I still want to be a bartender, but most would not.

And that's not to put down bartenders. All you bartenders send me hate mail now. You jump in the creek. That's not what I'm talking about. The point is, if what you're doing right now is you're doing it out of convenience because you can make a little money while you live at home, that's okay. That's not evil, but that usually does not indicate your career path except the things about it that you enjoy. And you, in talking to you, 25 years old, very articulate, you're definitely a people person. You feel things and you react very quickly, very easily,

and I can see how you do make people's day better in your given profession today. So what is it you want to be doing? You want to be running something that is a service industry and you teach people how to make other people's day better and that kind of stuff? You could do all of that. And so that leads you back to school. But don't just say, I need to make more money, so I'm going back to school. That's a really dumb way to lose money right there.

And about three more years of your life to go get a degree in something you hate because somebody told you you could make money doing it. That's not a good idea. Craig is with us in Jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Craig. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call.

I appreciate it. Sure, man. What's up? So my wife and I just recently found out that we're expecting. Yay! Yes, it's exciting but scary at the same time this is pregnancy hour on the day ramsey show that we're sitting with yeah the last caller caller before last was expecting the twins this is pregnancy hour on the day ramsey show so okay what's up you got a

first baby on the way so we just sat down and uh kind of calculated out our debt after reading the total money makeover. We're sitting with about $130,000 in debt. And right now we're bringing in about $54,000 a year. Kind of just curious where to start. What is the $150,000 in debt? Hey, Craig, what's the $150,000? Craig, your phone's screwed up. What's the $150,000 in debt? So most of it is school loans, about $115,000 of school loans.

Who's the doctor? It's split between my wife and I. We're both veterinary technicians. But one of you is not working. No, we're both working. Veterinary techs make $25,000 a year each? So, well, I think it's about, normal is about $34,000. Um, it's not a ton of money, though, unfortunately.

Hmm. Okay. I'm not, I don't have much knowledge of veterinary techs. I know some vets that make really good money. The techs, I don't know much about. It's sad that you guys spent $100,000 to get $50,000 a year job between you. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

So, well, you're in a big hole, and you have a small shovel. And so we've got to do something to get your income up to be able to see your way through that shovel. But once the baby comes, and not until, you pile up money until the baby comes. But once the baby comes and the baby's okay, mommy's baby comes but once baby comes and baby's okay mommy's okay and everybody's back to work then we're gonna see how many hours we can pick up because we gotta get your income up and start throwing some more serious cash at this debt than you've been able to do so far um yeah definitely gonna have to do that that's your issue Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options?

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and spiritually supporting each other. It's what Christian Healthcare Ministries has done for over 35 years, and our members have shared over $2.5 billion in medical bills. To learn more, visit chministries.org. That's chministries.org. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org. Thank you for joining us, America. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Our own Christy Wright, Ramsey personality, is a business coach and the number one best-selling author of the book Business Boutique, equipping women to make money doing what they love.

She's passionate about helping ladies start and grow their business. She has a free workshop she's going to be doing called the Three Essentials for Business Success. It starts on September the 13th. And you will learn what it takes to grow a successful business that will give you the time, money, flexibility. It's online, it's easy, and it's free. September the 13th. She's going to teach you how to identify the problem that your business solves, and then how to find your target market, how to connect with your audience. Stop wandering around.

You need to start making money doing what you love. Christy Wright's free workshop. Sign up for it at businessboutique.com. It's a free online workshop this coming Thursday, September the 13th. Anne is with us in Orlando. Hi, Anne. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, thank you for taking my call. Sure, what's up? My question is, I just found your program. I'm on Baby Step number two, and I'm wondering whether to cancel credit cards if you're not planning on using them

but trying to buy a house. Okay. When are you trying to buy a house? I'm trying to maintain FICO score. When are you trying to buy a house? In the next five years. Okay. Well, if you close and pay off every single account and they're all closed and

they all have zero balances then eventually usually around the six month mark your fico score will completely disappear when it comes to getting a house you either want an 800 fico score a very high one in other words or or you want a zero FICO score. You don't want in between. You don't want a 600. Okay? So don't, you know, what I have is a zero FICO score because I haven't borrowed money or had any open credit accounts in decades.

And after about six months, you will have a zero FICO score. Your FICO score is not an indication of wealth. Your FICO score just is an indication of how much you play kissy face with a bank. It's all about borrowing money, paying money back, borrowing money, paying money back. That's how you get a FICO score. If you have an 800 FICO score, you probably paid around $100,000 for that in interest. That's how you get one. So I teach people to get away from FICO score, you probably paid around $100,000 for that in interest. That's how you get one. So I teach people to get away from FICO score, but if you're thinking about a house and that's

what you're worried about, you have to make very sure that you monitor your account, you know, jump online with Equifax or whoever, and make sure that all the accounts are showing is closed and they're all showing zero balances. Very important, because if you have one open, if a zero balance it could end up that you end up with a 500 fico score or something and that'll screw you up getting a house so i'd rather you have a zero or very high but if you simply quit using all credit and have zero balances, your FICO score is going to start to deteriorate because it's based on how much you pay out. It's based on whether you pay payments or not, and you're not paying payments that way.

So, you know, this idea that I've got 26 credit cards all open does not, you know, and that supposedly means you're somebody or something. That's a dangerous way to live. So if I were in your shoes, I would close every single thing and be at zero balances as soon as possible. Now, if you're only going to be at zero balances three months before you're going to buy a house, then you probably want to do something to try to maintain that FICO score temporarily until you get the house. Because three months is going to get you. It takes six months to a year for your FICO score to disappear.

And, you know, afterwards, that's been our you know there's no positive thing uh the fico people do not print out or tell you how the fico score can be manipulated and they really shouldn't even as much fun as we make of them but because then people would spend all their time manipulating it but they also don't tell us what what they to make it disappear. But with all the people we interact with, what I'm telling you is what we found to be true as a general statement. They could change it between now and then. I have no way of doing this. But the big thing is you want to have a zero or a high.

You don't want to end up in no man's land in the middle. Jessica is with us in Seattle. Hi, Jessica. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Nice to talk to Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Nice to talk to you. You too. What's up?

Thank you. We took your Financial Peace University class, and we completed it and are now debt-free, including our mortgage. So we are thinking about upgrading our home and buying a new house, which would require us to get another mortgage. We would probably own about, be able to pay it off in seven to ten years, so early. But I just wanted your input on that because, you know, our goal is to not be in debt. But in order to upgrade our house, we're going to have to do that.

So what's your current home worth? It's worth about $650,000. And so your upgrade would be to what? How much? $950,000. And what's your household income? About $180,000 a year. Mm-hmm. Okay.

And so you need $300,000 making $180,000. You can't do that in three years? By saving. $100,000 a year for three years making $180,000? To pay down the mortgage? No. To save up and buy a house. Oh, I see. I don't know. I guess that would be, I guess we could do that. It would be tough. Why would it be tough? You make $180,000 a year. You make $185,000 a year.

You don't have any payments. You live in a $650,000 house. When does tough start in this conversation? Right. I guess what I'm worried about is real estate prices going up. They're crazy in Seattle. Let me tell you what happened. You went and looked at a house. You got house fever. That's what happened.

Bad. Bad. I guess so. You got house fever. Bad. Was it the kitchen or the outdoor grilling area that got you? What got you? It's a new house on a lake. Oh, it's on the lake. There's the lure hanging out of the lip.

I knew you'd been hooked. Oh, boy. The Bible says out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, and you've been speaking hooked for the last few minutes while I was talking to you. You were in deep, I could tell. Oh, hey, listen, you're rich. Wait a minute, wait a minute, stop, stop. You're rich, okay?

You can do whatever you want to do. Nothing in this discussion falls under the crazy or stupid column. If you guys want to go take out a mortgage and pay it off, it shouldn't take you seven years, though. That's kind of ridiculous. Let's at least pay it off in three or four or five. But if you go do that, nobody's going to call you crazy. You did call Dave Ramsey and ask him to go back in debt after you finally got everything paid off.

You know you just did that, right? It's like walking stick. Remember the old circus thing where you stick your head in the mouth of the lion? You remember that old thing? Anyway, so what would I do? I don't borrow money, and I can't conceive of ever going back into debt once I finally got out. Okay. I can't get my head around that.

And you know that. You went to my class. Maybe that's why I'm calling you. Yeah, you went to my class, and you know what I'm going to say. But I'm just messing around with you to make you think, okay? So, again, we're going to be friends, and I'm not going to shame you for doing whatever you do in this conversation. Because even what you presented to me is not crazy. It's really ultra-conservative by cultural standards, and you're going to be fine.

You're not going to go bankrupt. You're not like somebody who's got a $50,000 car note and makes $40,000 a year. You're not that person, okay? You just got lake house fever. And I don't blame you. I got a house on the lake, too. They're really nice. So I want you to get one.

If I were in your shoes, I don't borrow money, so I'd have to save for three years and pay cash, regardless of what real estate prices did. Might be four years, because real estate prices might go up faster than I could save. I don't know. It's possible. But if you get this mortgage, let's have the idea that we don't want a mortgage which is competing with your lake house idea. So how do we cause that to reconcile? We either save up and pay cash for the move up and then make the move or we take a mortgage with the idea we're going to pay it off three, four, five years max. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you're here.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Brenda is on the line in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Hi, Brenda. How are you? Hi, Dave. First of all, you're awesome, and thank you for taking my call. I appreciate it. Well, thank you.

How can I help today? So my question is the following. My husband and I have been married for a little over a year, even though we met when we were nine years old and ten years old, respectively. Wow. And he is a foreign national. He was born and raised in South America, went to dental school, became a dentist, got a postgraduate degree, and became a periodontist. But when we married, he moved to the United States, and he cannot practice here without a license. And in order for him to get a license, he has to go back to school.

For how long? So we're looking at basically medical school. A full run? He was already a practicing dentist and periodontist in another country, and they're requiring a full run through dental school to get certified here. Well, certain states, I live in the state of Florida, and in the state of Florida, they will accept certain amounts of credit, but they will not accept all credits.

And the American Dental Association requires that he be licensed. And so we're looking at a minimum of three years going back. Good gracious. Depending upon the program. That's ridiculous. Yeah, tell me about it. We were just kind of devastated because we thought, well, maybe there's some program out there that would allow him to just transfer not only his credits, but his professional

experience. He's 46 years old, so he's been a dentist for 20-some-odd years. This is nuts. And it just, but you know, God is good, and we decided, okay, you know what, let's not look at this as a hurdle. God is good, but the American Dental Association is brain damaged. Okay, I got that. Okay.

Yeah. So I don't know. I think I'm going to cause a bigger stir than that. Because you're talking a $300,000 or $400,000 ticket item here. It's approximately $300,000. Yeah, depending on where you go, it could be plus or minus that. And that's just ridiculous for a 46-year-old who's been practicing dentistry for 20 years. That's absurd.

Yeah. From a layman's perspective, and I'm a layman. Believe me. So, I mean, I'm about to go to battle with some people like $300,000 worth of battle here before i go and just acquiesce to this um you know is there another country that is reciprocal with his old country and then in turn is reciprocal with us i mean you could go live in another country for two years cheaper than this and practice there and then let the reciprocal move to that one and then move over here just go back door the thing or something i don't know i have no idea but i'm going to challenge this this is that that's

um and and i may legally challenge this you know if he can pass his bars or something like that here then then i don't know i have no basis for this other than just sitting here as a regular person listening to the ridiculous situation you guys find yourselves in. The very last thing on my list is to go back to school. I mean, it's just the very last thing. It would be just enough to pass a test or something. But, I mean, to go spend $300,000. How long has he been in the States?

Well, we've been married for a year and a half, and so he's been here just a little over a year. What does he do? And at one point, there was, you know, he would have to pass his national dental boards. There's two parts, part one and part two, and then he could just apply for the license in whatever state he was a resident in. Yeah. But those laws have changed. Okay, but for $300,000, I may lobby your state legislature. Mm-hmm.

You know, I'm calling my congressman, I'm calling my local state senators, the governor, and governor. I mean, that's ridiculous. That's just the dental industry screwing him over because they want to collect fees is what it sounds to me like. I mean, I don't know where you start the fight and how much you escalate it and how much you really want to spend on this and what your temperament is. But very low on my list, like after I've tried 26 other things is going back to school um i might own a dental practice and run it and hire some people with licenses because he knows how to do that you know i spent 300 grand buying into a practice and just running it practice management and technique and everything else,

or start a dental lab. You know, those folks aren't DDSs. And, you know, still you get in the manufacturing side of the business or something else. I mean, if I'm 58, chances of me going back to school and doing graduate work for five years is zero. Zero. There ain't nothing I want that bad. So I have trouble relating to this. It just makes me $300,000 worth of angry listening to your situation.

I'm sorry you're facing that. But I would not. It would be after I did a whole lot of other stuff that I did that on my list. Chris is in Orlando. Hi, Chris. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. How you doing, Dave? Love your show.

Thank you. How can I help? Dave your show. Thank you. How can I help? Dave, I got a question. I am in a situation where I'm kind of questioning which way should I go. So I owe about $30,000 student loan, credit card, and actually car loan, 10K in car loan, and about $21,000 in student and credit card. Okay'm sorry i'm sorry just a second 3 500 to 4 000 a month on active taxes um and i'm just wondering somebody actually brought up to me today bankruptcy hey chris hey chris it is bad

anyways i'm not sure hey chris can. Hey, Chris, can you hear me? Chris, can you hear me? Okay. I can't get through past your gated phone, okay? So you gave me six different figures here that didn't add up. How much do you owe on your car? $10,000. Okay.

And how much do you owe on credit cards? About $15,000, $6,000 in student loans. Okay. And what do you make a year? A year I make about $32,000. Okay. Your student loans are not bankruptable. Your car is not bankruptable unless you give them the keys.

Okay. So the only way you file bankruptcy is on $15,000 worth of credit cards, which I would not do. I would take six extra jobs and work my way through $15,000 worth of credit cards. I'd sell this $10,000 car, move down into a $1,000 car that I pay cash for with no car payments and six extra jobs. Oh, call the student loan people and tell them you're on hardship deferral. You're not paying them right now while you work on these credit cards. Chop up the credit cards. Never touch one of those stupid things again.

You need plastic surgery. And then you need to be doubling your hours. You're working 40 hours. You need to be working 60 to 80. And whether it's overtime at your current place or you pick up a job at Uber or delivering pizzas, I don't care, but go make some money, some good money as fast as you can and as often as you can. Increase your income. Decrease your outgo.

Put yourself on a written budget of beans and rice, rice and beans. You can turn this around, and I'll help you, okay? Hold on. I'm going to have Kelly pick up and talk to you and give you a copy of or sign you up for a Financial Peace University one-year membership. And then you go to the nine classes at a local group, the nine lessons at a local group, and you get on every dollar plus and do your budget.

It's all free. I'm going to pay for all of it for you because I've been right where you are, scared and young and didn't know what I was going to do. You're not bankrupt. You just got to shed yourself with some stuff and develop a strategy to work your way through this. And while you're doing that, increase your income. You can work through this.

Thanks for the call. Appreciate you joining us. That about puts this particular hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. Our thanks to James Childs and Kelly Daniel in the booth. I am Dave Ramsey, your host, and we'll Production Officer for The Dave Ramsey Show. This hour's up, but you'll find more on our YouTube channel, where we have over 6 million YouTube views each month. You can find debt-free screens, millionaire hour clips, Dave rants, and so much more. Go check it out.