The Ramsey Show - App - You Can Work AND Go to School at the Same Time (Hour 2)

Episode Date: September 27, 2019

Home Selling, Home Buying, Debt   Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR 

live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, 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'm Dave Ramsey, your host. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. It's a free call. Phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. David starts off this hour in Ruston, Louisiana. Hi, David. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Great well um my question was whether to sell my house to pay off debt or to file chapter 13 bankruptcy um and the debt is mostly from a business that I recently closed

I'm sorry how long you have the business only two years how much debt have you got? It's $80,000 on the business, and it's business credit cards. It's personally guaranteed. And then I've got about another $63,000 of personal debt. On what? Not including my house. Credit cards, personal loan, cars. How much do you owe on your cars? Not much.

I truck about $5,000. My wife's car about $3,000. How old are you? 51. How long have you been married? 29 years. What kind of business was this? This was a retail nutrition store.

Okay. What are you doing now? I just got a new job this week as an insurance marketing rep, and that's what I did in the past. I got laid off three years ago and was just frustrated and fed up and started this business and took out a bunch of debt. So you got $140,000 in debt, and how much equity in your home? I'm hoping if I sell it, I could get clear about $40,000 to $45,000. So it doesn't really solve the problem.

Well, I was hoping I could settle all the business debt I haven't paid on in months. I'm hoping I could settle it. Let's just stop. You don't have business debt. I understand. You could settle it. Let's just stop. You don't have business debt. I understand. You have personal debt. In your mind, it was done for the business, but legally you took out personal credit cards and you used them for the business.

Right. That's the law. And so legally there's no distinction in their mind between business and personal. You've got a bunch of credit card debt that haven't been paid on in how long? Some as long as six or eight months and some just two or three months what's your household income now well my wife also just started a new job she was laid off in december started a new job uh six weeks ago but now we're back up to about 105 we were were at basically, you know, almost nothing per month. Okay, good.

All right, let's walk through the priorities, because I've been where you are, plus a few zeros, and it's scary as crud. The first thing is you guys need to sit down tonight and turn off the television and go, this is a Monopoly game, and we just lost this round. It does not mean our marriage needs to end. If you don't have stress on your marriage in this situation, you're not human. Right.

Do not let this stuff take your marriage. Okay? The second thing that happens is when a guy in particular closes a business it your self-esteem takes a hit you feel like a failure i did uh i had but i i i didn't just close it i crashed it it was a mushroom cloud where i was you know so i i was explosions everywhere but and i was a lot younger i mean you're more like my age now i'm 58 you're 51 but you know so you're more mature to be able to look at it with a better lens but just the same you you tried something it didn't work cut yourself some slack okay emotionally it's okay you just tried something man it's all right

you're gonna be okay your family's not ruined for life it's not over um i then once i've done those two things the marriage is protected you cut yourself some grace and you go well crap now we gotta clean out the basement it It's a mess. Right. Okay. All right, so how are we going to do that? Well, we can sell the house. It doesn't really solve the problem, though. Not completely.

No, not even close. I mean, it's $40,000 out of $140,000. So what I would do is, do you like the house? We do. I mean, the mortgage is of uh putting a strain on it oh it is how big is this mortgage well 1550 okay with a 80 with an eight thousand dollar income a month that's in minus yeah you're you're okay it's not out of the there uh so what i would do is this let's sit down the two of you need to be working this together. It's very important that both of you communicate on this and that we say, here's how we're going to clean it up, okay?

So first thing is food. You got the money to do that. Second thing is lights and water. You got the money to do that. Third thing is pay the house payment. You got the money to do that. Fourth thing is pay the car payment and keep gas in the car. You got the money to do that.

So food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and utilities. Civics class calls those necessities if you're old enough to have gone to a civics class. Okay, that's a necessity. That's not a want. We took care of your living, and you've still got money left over. Now, how much money do we got? We've got a pretty good pile of money because you make good money, and I suspect your income is going to go up between the two of you over the coming year or two.

As you emotionally start healing and this stuff gets further in the rearview mirror, because you make good money, and I suspect your income is going to go up between the two of you over the coming year or two. As you emotionally start healing and this stuff gets further in the rearview mirror, you'll get more and more focused, and your incomes are going to come back up even further than they are now. So I would then attack the – I would let the bad debt that's bad, just let it sit there and let it get worse, let it get worse. And then I would try to pay off a bunch of the current debt. Like, you know, make a list of stuff you're current on and do a debt snowball with that. And that sounds like the $60,000 portion, the non-business portion, the way you were discussing it earlier, is the stuff you're current with, right?

I'm current, but I'm having a very hard time staying current on it. Yeah, because you've been jumping around trying to do a whole bunch of stuff, and you didn't have these jobs that just kicked in. Right. But with $105,000, you could be current on $60,000 worth of debt and still pay the other stuff I was talking about. Now, the $80,000 is going to sit there. Okay, and just let it sit there.

That's okay, because that was the plan anyway. And a bunch of that was credit card, and a bunch of it was what? The 80? It's business credit card. There's one small loan that was about $1,500, the rest of it's business credit card. Okay, so it'll just sit there. They're just going to go bad. They're going to go bad.

You file bankruptcy, they're going to go bad anyway, right? So we're not going to file bankruptcy. You're not bankrupt. You can work your way through it. And what I would do is spend you know say how fast can we pay off 60 000 bucks and be debt free except that business mess and then once you've done that that make that's probably gonna take you a year and a half two years something like that and you pay off the 60 and you're debt free except that business debt then you guys start going to those 80s and start settling those one at

a time pennies on the dollar like you were thinking about. If at any point in this it looks like selling the house is your financial salvation, you can always sell the house. But I don't think you're going to need to. I think you've got about three and a half years of beans and rice and being on a tight budget, and you're going to be debt free by settling a bunch of the 80 and80,000 and by paying the $60,000 and working a plan. Hold on to your marriage, man. You can do this. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Let me tell you a story about two families that are very much alike in a lot of ways. Both families have two working parents and a couple of young kids.

Each has debt and a struggle to make ends meet. But they're starting to make headway with their budgets and smarter decisions with money. They have dreams and plans, and the only real difference is that one family has the right amount of term life insurance, and the other doesn't. Big difference. If one of the parents die, and that does happen, their well-being would be destroyed. Paying for the mortgage, utilities, food, and other bills would be impossible, let alone saving for education or retirement.

That's why every day I talk relentlessly about getting term life insurance. Just go to ZanderInsurance.com or call 800-356-4282 and see how inexpensive it really is. Be the family that takes those deliberate steps to be different and responsible. It really does make you the hero of your story, and it puts you on course for better things ahead. Thank you for joining us. Majid is with us in Los Angeles. Hi, Majid.

How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay. So I'll just give you just some background information about me. So I graduated high school a few years ago, and I decided to go to community college.

And while I was in community college, I went to work. I did about like 30 hours a week, and I'd also go to community college, and it wasn't an issue. And now I transferred to a university. I'm in my first semester right now. And classes are just a little bit harder. So my question was, do you think I should quit my job and focus more on school for these last two years, or do you think I should just try my hardest and just do both? What are you studying?

Accounting. Okay. I've got a finance degree, and I worked 40 to 60 hours a week while I went through school in four years at the university level. So it's doable. You are doing a lot of studying and not a lot of partying, for sure. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah.

How are you paying for school? I get grants and also with the money from work. Okay, so you're not going into debt. No, no loans. Okay. So if you quit work, how would you pay for school? I have some money saved up from working for the past few years. I think it was probably like $12,000.

Probably last me a year, year and a half. No, I think I keep working. Okay. If it costs you a half a point on your grade point average. Yeah, that's what I worry about with my GPA. Yeah. I graduated with a 297. I missed it by, I missed Magnet by, I missed Magna by three one-hundredths of a point.

I'm still pissed 30 years later, but, but, but you know what? I have never had a single caller ask my GPA before they asked my advice. And I actually have never gone on a job interview where they asked my GPA in my entire life, ever. Now, if you're wanting to go to work for one of the top accounting firms in the entire life, ever. If you're wanting to go to work for one of the top accounting firms in the entire world, they might ask your GPA, and you might actually be in competition, or GPA might actually matter on your very first job. But after that, it won't.

And it has a whole lot more to do with did you learn how to do accounting than what your GPA is, and will you work hard while you're at work, and that kind of stuff. And so what are you're at work and that kind of stuff. And so what are you doing for work right now? I work at a bank. Okay, good. Yeah.

Okay. I might poke around in the accounting field and see if you can get on with one of them making about the same kind of money. One of them might actually pay for your degree. Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. It wouldn't hurt anything to ask around and see if you can make a job change and make about the same money and get free tuition or something that'd be very cool on top of it but um um you know you're not working 100 hours a week you're working 30 hours a week 20 hours a week you can do this that's very doable most people

work when they're in school it's not not that unusual, really, by the way. When I do an event, we're doing an event, Chris Hogan asked the audience, there's 3,000 people there, how many of you worked when you were in college? I mean, it's like 90% of the audience raised their hand. Now, maybe the people that didn't work when they were in college don't listen to my show, I don't know, but it appears that most people work when they're in college. That's what it looks

like and so um i think if i'm you i'm going to continue that route good question thank you for joining us larisha is with us in houston hi larisha how are you hi i'm doing well thank you for asking um i had the pleasure of talking to you and my husband and I were in Baby Step 2 getting out of debt. And now we are in what you call Baby Step 3B, saving for the down payment on our home, which we finished. Right. And so we're looking right now at about 15% or about, I'm sorry, 12% down. Our household income before bonuses and stipends is about $125. After bonuses and stipends, it's about $132. And so I'm trying to make sure that as we're thinking about like how much house to buy, that we are understanding the, I think you recommend a fourth of your take-home pay?

Exactly. Okay, perfect. And so I wanted to make sure that, like, right now we're – I've played with a million mortgage calculators, and right now we're kind of looking at about $2,100 a month in terms of, like, a reasonable, comfortable amount. On a 15-year fix. In my mind, I feel like that's such a big number. Yes, sir, a 15-year fix. Yeah, it is a big number.

It's a lot bigger number than you're paying now. But if that's a fourth of your take-home pay or less, and you are debt-free with your emergency fund in place, you have the math spread to prosper if you continue to budget and stay on track. But, again, that's not what you should do. That's the most you should do. So you can do less if you want to um or you could put it on a shorter term if you want to and you know i'm gonna buy less house at 2100 and pay it

off in 10 years there's nothing wrong i put it on five years i don't care i mean you can do a lot of stuff but the most i would ever tell you to do and i i don't even do that because I don't borrow money at all, for anything ever is a 15-year fixed rate where the payment is no more than a fourth of your take-home pay. Luke is with us in Dallas. Hi, Luke. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? So my wife and I have been listening to you for many years. Actually, my dad got me listening to you when I was a young kid. And stupidly, I did not take your advice, and I have student loans. And we are considering taking a cash-out refinance on our house to knock out the high-interest student loans and then start paying the debt off on the house because it's at a much lower interest rate.

And how much student loan debt do you have? Right at $48,000. Okay. And what's your household income? It fluctuates between take-home $40,000 to $60,000. So I own my own business. So last year we did 65. This year we're looking at probably doing, I'm probably going to bring home closer to 42. Okay.

I don't know what you've been listening to on this show, but in 26 years I've never told someone to do a refinance cash takeout to pay off their debt ever, except to avoid a bankruptcy or a foreclosure and you're facing neither and so uh no i've never told anybody to do that okay and the reason is very simple you make enough money to pay this debt off in a couple years um you're going to work like a maniac and you're going to have to have no life but then you're going to be debt free except your house and then you can work on paying off your house from there, and of course, start working on your retirement and the other baby steps that we walk people through.

But you can't borrow your way out of debt. And if you pay this off within two years, the interest rate on this becomes mathematically irrelevant because you're going to pay it off so fast. It's not like you're keeping it for 30 years. It's a two-year thing, and really, it's not $48,000 for two years. It's more like $20,000 for two years because halfway through, you're going to be halfway through. And so, yeah, you guys need to get on a budget, really, really tight budget,

very careful, very dialed in, cut your lifestyle to nothing, do everything you can with your business to increase your income because you need to clean up the student loan debt. I agree with you on that part. But, no, I don't tell people to borrow to get out of debt. You can't borrow your way out of debt. It doesn't work. You can't dig your way out of a hole.

Digging out of a hole is an oxymoronic statement that we all make. We say, I'm digging out of a hole. You're not digging out of a hole. If you dig out the bottom of a hole, it gets deeper. You can't dig out of a hole. You're not digging out of a hole. If you dig out the bottom of a hole, it gets deeper. You can't dig out of a hole. You have to fill in the hole. That's how you get out of a hole. Climb out of a hole, maybe.

But you don't dig out of a hole unless you're digging to China. You know, it doesn't work. So, no, you can't borrow your way out of debt. And that's the same exact situation. So you've got to stop that. You have to break that cycle, put a line in the sand and say, we're not borrowing money ever, ever, ever,

ever. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Elaine is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Elaine. Hi, thank you for taking my call. Sure, what's up? We have a rental property, and our last tenant trashed it. So with the legal fees and everything that we had to get them evicted, and the unpaid rent, it put us down about $10,000.

To get it ready for another tenant to move in is going to cost about $9,000 to $10,000 on top of that that we've lost. Now, what we'd like to do down the road that we've talked about for years is VRBO. It would take, instead of the $9,000 to $10,000 to fix it up for a new tenant, it would take about $12,000 to $15,000. And either way, anything that we do, we're going to have to dip into our emergency fund because all of the illegal fees and everything were taken, the money that we had in the rental account were used up with those items. So I wanted your advice. Do you think we should go with the lower amount and have someone move in and use the money from the rent to save up to get it ready for VRBO, or now should we take our time getting it ready

and take the extra money out of our emergency fund and do that now? Okay, so to get it ready for the market at $10,000, you have the $10,000 without touching your emergency fund? No. No. That would still be out of the emergency fund. How much is in your emergency fund? About $30,000.

And what's your household income? About $85,000 gross. Okay. So the difference in $10,000 out of your emergency fund or $12,000 out of your emergency fund doesn't really matter, does it? It's a $2,000 question. I mean, you're going to do one or the other, right? Right. So it's just a matter of which way you want to run this property.

So have you figured out how you screwed up as a landlord? Yes. You know what it was? We were desperate. We wanted to get somebody in and had a bad feeling but thought I was helping someone out, and I should have gone with the bad feeling. But, yeah. Right after I get desperate, I usually get stupid.

And I was stupid big time. Yeah, right after I get stupid, I usually get broke. And, yeah, every time. I mean, it's just this pattern in my life. I've had to stop doing it. So when I start feeling myself desperate, I just tap the brakes and take a chill pill and go, wait a minute, God's in charge. I'm not doing this. Because, yeah, you knew this was bad, folk.

And then you didn't follow up and you didn't lean on them. I mean, you let them stay in there. You never inspected the property. You never followed up. You didn't push. You let them stay in there like two, three months too long. Well, I was in the property regularly, yes. Then how'd they trash it?

Dogs. Well, I mean, if you're in the property and it's going down, why aren't you a victim? And I started that process, and they had to be, like, I think it was a full month behind in rent before my attorney said that I would have any. Oh, so you need a new lease. And you need a new lease that says if they're not taking care of the property, they can be evicted regardless of the rent. Okay. Yeah.

So this is what I mean. This is landlord experience you're having here. So every time I do something like this and I lose money because somebody takes my freaking head off, which is what happened here, I want to know where that shot came from, and I want to duck it next time. I want to learn what happened. So, like, you know, you change your lease, you change your process on how you handle people. And by the way, VRBO is no magic pill. There's crazy people rent VRBO houses houses all the time so it's not like

it's got an exclusive to non-crazy tenants or something they'll trash you know you'll get some you know bachelorette weekend in there and they'll rip the paint off the walls man i mean it's you have to watch what you're doing whatever whoever you're letting in your property and so um you need to have very strict VRBO rules. Are you in a resort setting? Why VRBO? Why would anybody bother? It's in the country.

It's for people who want to get away. You think there's a market? I did check on VRBO, and there are other properties in the area. I'm going to say within a 20-mile radius, that are doing it. Contact one of those owners and see if they ever rent them. There are reviews on, and I've read the reviews, but, yeah, I can do that as well. Are the reviews two years old and they rent it once every two years?

I mean, you know, because here's the thing. If you don't rent VRBO at least 50% of of the time you're not even breaking even on a traditional rental right because it's double but you know so you gotta you gotta keep it full 50 to break even on a traditional rental and it's a lot more hassle a lot more trouble on your part i mean you can do it i don't care but make sure that there's enough market to keep it full 50%, and then you've got to ride herd on this all the time. And I don't care which one you do, 10,000, 12,000, doesn't matter to me. You've got to put your emergency fund back as soon as you get this thing fixed back up. But whichever one you do, go back and say, yeah, these people were scum.

Yes, they let their dogs do stuff to houses people shouldn't because they were trashy people and so on. They've got a lot of blame on their side of this, but their side of the equation I can't control. My side of the equation I can control so it never happens again. I'll put in my lease conditions have to be met, and I'm going to do at least once a quarter walkthrough and no pets. That's why I have no pets. I have pets in my house house but not any of my properties you don't like dogs no i love dogs i hate dogs as a landlord i really hate cats as a

landlord you can't get cat smell out another no way i mean you have to burn the freaking house down to get cat smell out of it so um you know no no kitties, period. No monkeys, no pet roaches, nothing, you know. So whatever, you know. And so, you know, and if we walk through and we find an animal, you leave or the animal leaves because your lease said that, you know, you become a little bit, you know, you start to realize, you know, owning property and being a landlord is not a charitable donation. And so it doesn't work to do charity that way. You have to do your ministry work otherwise. Now, if you want to have a house that's ministry and you just let people live there, that's wonderful. That's a whole different scenario though but when you're landlording you have to have a set of guidelines and go

last time i did this it hurt i'm not doing this again last time i let somebody stay in there three months not paying no no thinking they were going to be okay they're not going to be okay you know you're 10 seconds late we're all over you period and you know we're going to inspect the property and we're not mean we're the best landlord you period. And, you know, we're going to inspect the property. We're not mean. We're the best landlord you'll ever have. All you do is just not tear my freaking house down and pay your rent. Why is that hard for some people?

Well, it is because some people's parents didn't raise them well. And so you just got to put your blocks in place regardless of which of these directions you go because you can control a lot of these variables and not allow this to happen to you again. Or you need to sell a piece of real estate. And if you're not going to be an active, hands-on, up-in-the-grill landlord, that's what you're going to face. Thanks for the call. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

I'm 58. I started doing rental property when I was 20. So I got stories to tell. Believe me. I could write a nice little book just on stupid butt stuff I let tenants get away with that cost me $10,000. Like chapters. And you just get over it, you know? Well, Dave, you're just a hard butt.

No, I'm just not going to have you tear up something that God told me to manage well because you can't behave. That's all it is. And if you can't pay the rent, then we'll help you find another place to live. But you can't stay here. This is not how this works. And so I am not under any illusion. That's the beauty of having debt-free rental property, too, is you don't get desperate.

You don't go, oh, I have to have a tenant. I got one property right now that's been sitting empty three months, and we'd like to rent it, but not to the wrong people. Better empty than those people that she had. Agreed, everybody? You wouldn't want dogs not paying rent and $10,000 plus $10,000 worth of damage, and she'll never see any of it from these people because, of course, they're broke as a rock.

So she just lost that money. Got to control those variables when you're renting. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. We'll be right back. Clinton in Baltimore, Maryland. How are you? Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

All right, sir. Hey, Dave. Got an issue here. Just definitely need your advice. I'm actually a new listener and I actually just got your book. So my situation is I owe the IRS eight grand. I owe the IRS eight grand. Now, my bank was offering to, I guess, pay the $8,000. Definitely I'll have to pay them back, but they offered no interest for 18 months. And I feel as though I'm disciplined enough to pay it back in 18 months. Just trying to figure out what you think I should do on that one. Well, I would have a game plan to be completely debt-free that includes this, and you're already in debt.

You're in debt to the IRS. Would it be better to be in debt to your bank? Yes. It'd be better to be in debt to your bank. I don't like the 18-month part. I want you to do it sooner than that. But how much debt do you have including this or not including this? Let's see. Not including debt, i have a car payment

how much do you owe on your car i owe 20 000 on my car i was thinking about selling it because it's worth about 27.5 it's just like super low miles on it i had it for maybe a year what do you make you have something have something, $83,000. Okay, that's good news. Okay, and how much other debt do you have? And I have one credit card. I have one credit card, all about, you see, $980 on that one. Let's see. Yeah, and that's it. I uh paid off um i had another credit

card with like paypal student loan uh no sir okay so you got about twenty nine thousand dollars in debt today and you make eighty two eighty three thousand so how quick can you pay off are you single uh yes sir okay if you just said i'm going to go on a beans and rice, rice and beans budget, you should be able to pay off $29,000 in one year. Okay. Well, 83 minus 29 leaves a lot, doesn't it? It does. It does.

That doesn't leave much room for partying, and it doesn't leave much room for vacations. But right now, we're getting out of debt. Right. party in and it doesn't leave much room for vacations but right now we're getting out of debt right so yeah i would move the irs loan to the bank and i would put myself on a hardcore plan to be 100 debt free in a year i don't think you need to sell your car if you like it yeah but i do think you need to sell it if you're not going to work hard to pay it off in a year i can definitely um work hard on that one. Okay, well, you're right on track then, man. That's exactly what you need to do. Hold on.

I'm going to have Kelly send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover, and it'll show you exactly what to do step by step and how to do all this stuff. But, yeah, you're right on. You're paying attention. You're making good money. You just got to pay attention and clean up your mess, and then you'll be in a position to really build some wealth. I mean, think about it.

What would it be like if you didn't have any payments? Wow. Rosemary's in Lexington, Kentucky. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Rosemary. Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

So I, unfortunately, am looking at a divorce coming down the pike here. I know. We've tried to do your courses before, so I'm familiar with it. But anyway, so it's I have not worked in 14 years. I have had a job for the last seven months, not making $12 an hour. So my question is, so many people are saying, I do have a little bit of a nest egg. My dad passed away, so I do have about $362,000 that I put away in some mutual funds. How old are you?

I'm 50. Any kids home? Yes, two, 14 and 12. Okay, all right. And I assume the child support payments will be substantial? I hope, yes. He's in the home right now. He has no plans to leave the home because of finances.

So I guess what I don't know is do i because of finances he doesn't want to leave the home what's that mean he we can't afford for him to leave we cannot afford for him to have two there's no way he can afford another place and our home what does he make to pay the pay the bills. About $76,000. What is owed on your home? $232,521. Okay. So your question is what? Do we sell the house?

Yes. Do I keep the house? No, the house is not a blessing. The only way you can afford to keep the house is to pay it off. And that would use up almost all your money. No, right. I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that either.

I don't think so. And this is a horrible thing y'all are going through. I'm so sorry. And it's hard on the kids. And moving is the thing you're not, you don't want to tell the kids they've got to move too. But they do. Right. They do.

Because you guys cannot afford the house. Correct. It needs to be sold. You can't handle it. We have no car payment and only about $8,000 in debt. Okay. What's the debt on? Credit cards.

Okay. Like random. Yeah. Both of you on those. Random credit cards. Both of us on those yes so as soon as the as a part of the divorce why don't you pay off the credit cards i will and that was my plan and cut them up and make sure the accounts are completely closed so he doesn't run them back up okay not his problem okay mine for sure okay well then then you cut them up so

you don't run them back out and then what you've got to do is go rent something as cheaply as you can and develop what you want to be your career in the second act the curtain went down on the first act when the curtain comes up everybody's standing on the stage smiling business we're standing on stage smiling and we continue with the play. Okay. You got an encore career here. I mean, there's something you're going to do.

It wasn't what you wanted. It wasn't what you signed up for. It wasn't how you thought this was going to turn out. But it could end up being something really fun and lucrative. Might be you need to take a few classes and get some more tools in your belt. I don't know. Maybe some of your money you would use for education. But what do you want to be when you grow up? Well, I just opened up a new business.

Oh, you did? Okay, good. I've been working for six months as a transaction coordinator for a real estate company. So I do contract to close work. That's your $12 an hour? No, that was with them, and now I'm charging per transaction about $250, $200 per transaction right now. And you're going to get more than one real estate person you do that for? Correct.

Excellent. Good for you. My goal is like five agents. I'm hoping to get 10 or more closings a month. That's my goal right now. Wow. Okay. That would be $2,500.

You can live on that. Really? Just going to have to watch what you're doing. Okay. And you could grow this business and actually have people working for you that are doing it. I mean, this could go really big. That's a wonderful idea. Okay, good.

You got your second act, right? Okay. You can do it. Thank you. You can do it. But don't try to hold on to the past and, you know, it's like I'm going to hold on to this anchor while I try to swim to the boat. Correct. And that's what this house is.

It's going to take you down. Yes. Maintenance and bills and electricity. Well, $230,000 mortgage. It's going to take you down. So we're going to let you rent a little while and not touch the $300,000. Let it sit there. And when you get your income up $40,000, $50,000,

then reach over and find you about a $200,000 house and pay cash for it. Great. And no debt. Great. No debt ever again. No credit cards ever again. No car payments ever again. And no debt.

You can do it. Okay. You can do it. Okay. You can do it. I'm proud of you. You're going to make this turn. It's a horrible transition, but you're going to make it. And if you need more help, you call me back as you go, and I'll walk with you. I understand how scary it is out there.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. That is the number you call. It is a free call. That puts this particular hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. Our thanks to James Childs, our producer. Kelly Daniels, our associate producer and phone screener. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. And we'll be back. This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show.

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