The Ramsey Show - App - You Can't Bandaid Over Your Addictions (Hour 2)

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

George Kamel & John Delony answer your questions and discuss:  "How do I get my finances back in order after a gambling addiction?",  What to do when you feel guilty about living far away from family, Why Apple's new high-yield savings account isn't as good as it seems, "Should I use my HSA as an investment account?",  from the blog: How to Make the Most of Your HSA Investment How to prepare for marriage when one person has debt and the other does not,  from the blog: 4 Steps to Make the Best of Marriage and Debt Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Here's an EveryDollar deal just for our listeners: get a 14-day free trial PLUS $15 off your first year of premium. Click the link below and start budgeting today! www.everydollar.com/george Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pod's moving and storage studio, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, joined this hour by Dr. John Bologna, and we are taking your calls about life, money, relationships, mental health, wellness, you name it, at this number, 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Zach joins us up first in Kansas City. Zach, what's going on? Hey, how's it going? Great. How are you? Hey, not too bad. Just giving you guys a call here. I kind of got myself in a kind of a strange

financial position here and wondering if I need to sell my vehicle in order to kind of reset, you know, my life and, uh, you know, kind of get out of a hole that I put myself in. Um, I can kind of, I can go into the specifics, specifics of, uh, exactly what happened. You are the way you're, the way you're starting to call off. Um, sounds like you are dealing with shame. What has happened here? Well, I'm 24 years old. I'm two years out of college. And unfortunately, I kind of got hooked up with the wrong people. And what I mean by that is I started gambling, sports gambling, casino gambling. And not that I've lost a ton of money but it's definitely money that I probably could have used and spent better I lost about eight thousand dollars in about a six month span

that's a ton of money yes it's a lot of money and that's the and I definitely take it on the chin what I did was irresponsible it was immature and 100 something that is self-inflicted and that I did myself. Well, you are correct. And I also want to suggest that we live in an ecosystem now that has made gambling seem like the right thing to do. It really helps out the education system in your particular state. It's a fun way to hang out with your friends. And if you look at the addiction statistics and the amount of money being spent on this, it's as though your colleges and universities, which have absolutely sold their freaking souls to this, are just, you know, it's a great, great way to spend a weekend

with your kids. Y'all should do heroin together. Y'all should all do cocaine. It would just make y'all get a lot more work done and talk a lot faster. It's insane. And so in this, in a similar fashion, brother, yes, you did some dumb things and you're, unfortunately you're one of millions millions of of other men and women who are stuck holding the bag on this deal and at the same time um since you were 18 years old and you showed up at this college everyone around you from your local government officials to the university that you attended has told you what a great and wonderful thing this is and so that's been in the air you're breathing too so i want to it, it's both and, right? Yes. So how much debt do you have?

Well, you know, the good news is, is I don't have much. I have some, I do have it written down and I can kind of go over it with you and let you know exactly where everything is broken down into. Okay. What's the total? Yeah. So I have roughly, I would say everything together right around 50,000 in debt. That's between student loans, auto loan, and just credit card. And that's not much to you? Here's the thing. I have 17,000 in student loans. I have just under a thousand in credit cards and 30,000 auto loan. And other than that, that's the only debt, I have just under a thousand in credit cards and 30,000 auto loan. And other than that, that's the only debt that I have. All these words, it's the only debt I just have. We got to stop using these modifiers. I want you to feel like, holy crap, this is a lot of debt.

I am not safe. This isn't only a thousand dollars on the credit card. This isn't only $1,000 on the credit card. This isn't only $17,000. This is my life at stake. My future hangs in the balance. That's the kind of intensity you need to be feeling towards this debt if we want to get out of this hole. Because if it's only $1,000, then why even pay it off? I mean, it's really not even that. It's almost zero at that point. So I want you to start to change those words that you're using to trigger your own brain to tell yourself, I'm not okay. Something's got to

change. Okay. Are you still gambling now? No, I'm just shy of 60 days clean. Awesome. Are all the apps off your phone? You don't have any access to them or anything? No, I threw away. So when I was physically going to the casino, I had a player's card and whatnot. So all of those have been trashed. I haven't had the urge to go. I never really got involved in online gambling other than just sports betting through DraftKings. That app has been deleted.

But I have no, I guess there's nothing at my fingertips that can allow me to gamble. Have you transferred that, um, initial addiction onto something else? Are you drinking more than normal or staying up later and more than normal? No, um, I, I'm not, I've never really been a drinker. I would say the most I ever drank in one sitting was probably maybe a six pack of beer. I just really am just not really really into getting i'll say this i i spent some time i spent some time in college hung over and it's a feeling that it's just not

not something i enjoy okay well i wasn't focusing less as much on the alcohol as much as right if we tell you to sell your car and you are if you're calling us and you don't have a gambling addiction and someone says hey should i sell my car to get me out of debt and i can still get my job done i'm working from home i'm making this kind of money we might tell you heck yeah dude sell your car if you're an addict if you're really struggling with addiction um and we tell you to sell your car that's good it's just going to duct tape over the problem until tomorrow and And it's going to reemerge somewhere else. And so if you tell me, hey, man, I had a phase in college.

I went bananas. I learned an $8,000 lesson. I got hit in the mouth. I'm done with that. Then that's one path. If you tell me, man, I am struggling. I want to gamble every day. I'm not there yet.

Then we're going to take another path. Right. What's your income? Yeah. So my income as of last, I'm not there yet. Then we're going to take another path. Right. What's your income? The path that I'm trying. Yeah. So my income as of last, I'm 24 years old. I'm a freight logistics broker. As of last year, my gross pay was $88,000. Great. What's the car worth? It's worth roughly about $55,000. Yes. Sell it. So you're going to net $25,000. You're going to get a real reasonable car that is not $25,000, probably a $10,000 car that gives you an extra $15,000 to pay off more debt, and now we're going to be debt-free within a few months, making $88,000. Mm-hmm.

Yes. That's what I was thinking too. But you can't spend more than $10,000 on a car. So $10,000 is where it needs, is the cutoff. And I just made that number up but i want it to be a car that you're gonna have to like kind of duck your eyes when you walk into your office and everyone will be like dude we know how much you make why are you driving that car right here's the reason i need that me you you've got to have that carrot dangling of like man i

want to upgrade this car once i'm out of debt and i have that emergency fund i'm gonna upgrade this car and the next time i own a car that I like, it's not going to own me. But, hey, I want to ask you before we get off the call. You're still, you're in path one that we talked about. You're not considered a gambling, you don't have an addiction. You're done with that mess. Is that fair? Yes, sir.

That's correct. All right, cool. Congratulations, my man. I'm proud of you. That's a big step. The hardest part is done. Now we just got to clean up this meth. This, not meth, not meth at all, John. Congratulations, my man. I'm proud of you. That's a big step. The hardest part is done. Now we just got to clean up this meth. Not meth.

Not meth at all, John. This mess. The addiction talk. Clean up this mess, man. Get rid of that car. Get something reasonable. Get out of debt so much faster by doing all that. And call it a get out of jail free card and never go back into debt again.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I know a lot of you are planning to move sometime soon, and that is awesome. I'm excited for you, but I got to be real. In most places around the country, you're still facing sky high home prices and interest rates, well, they're not exactly returning to record lows. And that doesn't make homeowners ownership impossible, though. If you want to buy or sell, you've just got to make sure you're financially ready and that you've got a trusted and experienced real estate pro to walk you through it. Not a family friend who just got their license last month, not someone who does real estate as a part-time hobby. You need a pro who's a true expert in the local market and knows how to negotiate a strong deal. You can find those high caliber Ramsey trusted agents through our endorsed local provider program. And since we vet these folks around the country, you're going to have the best support, whether you're moving

from Florida to Alaska or buying your first home somewhere in between. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash agent to find a Ramsey trusted real estate agent today. That's ramseysolutions.com slash agent. Carol joins us up next in today. That's ramseysolutions.com slash agent. Carol joins us up next in DC. Carol, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for taking my call. Can you hear me okay? Yes, you sound great. What's going on? So my husband and I are about $96,000 in debt. We're looking to move back to Texas to be closer to family. I have two small

children, one and three years old, and we have no family up here in D.C. But the caveat to that is he has two daughters from a previous marriage who are here. We're wanting to move back to Texas, sell the house. That'll completely pay off our debt. We'll downsize in-house to about $100,000 minimum and then be closer to family where I can start working full-time again and increase our income. I'm trying to reconcile my guilt and a bit of resentment that I'm building, being feeling trapped up here in DC.C. Oh, Carol. How honest can I be with you? Open up.

Are you sure? Yes. All right. Number one, you've got to change your language because your language is dishonest. You do have family in Washington, D.C. because you married a man with two daughters. Very true.

You don't have biological biological family there but you do have family there and you can feel trapped but the only i mean you walked into the trap and said it yourself you married a guy and with with family are you feeling disconnected from your family in texas or are you looking at texas as a golden ticket to solve all of your financial problems? No, my main goal is to, my children don't know their family. Him and I both have a family in Texas, too, and our two youngest daughters, they don't really know them. And I see that as a challenge.

Yes. But I also see them not knowing their half-sisters. I also see your husband not being in the lives of his biological daughter. Exactly. That's where my guilt is coming from. So tell me about this guilt. I don't want to take my husband away from his children. Yeah. I think that's the right move.

How does he feel about this as you guys talk about it? We've talked about it. He does want to move back to Texas, and we were playing with a plan of visitation and what that would look like, him flying up every month to see them. So he's never actually said, hey, I'm doing this for you, but I really don't want to do this. He's on board. You guys are aligned. He does want to move to Texas, yes. But you're just feeling personal guilt, even though he's never put that on you. It's just more like, I feel this for him on behalf of him. Yes. Well, I would think about how I would feel with him missing my two children

and how my kids would feel. That's good. I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you. Oh, man. I can't wrap my head around a scenario where I would move across the country away from my daughter and try to reconcile that. Let me put it this way.

After about a week, I'm unable to breathe right without my daughter around. Exactly. And so I can come up with all sorts of schemes to try to make myself feel better. But I'm telling you right now, after having worked with young people for 20 plus years, the question these young girls are going to ask, and they're going to be right to ask that question when they're old enough, is what was so important about Texas that you left us? Yeah. And that's not a question as a dad I want to ever have to answer. And so I get, man, you miss your family or you want your kids to know your family. I would much rather see you

take your kids to Texas once a month if that was so important to you. My wife, my whole family's from Texas. I'm from Texas. My wife's whole family, she just did a tour of Texas. Seeing my family, her family, that's part of our annual pilgrimage, my family, her family. That's part of our annual pilgrimage. We call it every year. That's part of our life. And I want my kids to know their cousins and I want my kids to know their grandparents. And Texas has very, very distinct Texas cultural things. I want them to know all that stuff, but we live here. And I'm going to tell you, man, I just can't see a scenario where that works out long term for your marriage, for your husband, for those little girls. Exactly. Yeah.

And again, I know that's not what you want to hear. And I know you see you also have begun the golden ticket thing. Like, well, if we did this, we would pay off all this and pay off all this and pay off all this. Washington, D.C. is such an incredibly expensive place to live. It's a chaotic place to live. It's zoning is a zoo. Like everything, I get it. I get it.

I get it. I get it. And yet that's where his two baby girls live. And so if I'm you, I am taking, this is just me. I'm speaking to you as though you are my close friend or you're my sister or you're like whatever I'm taking that off the as a variable off the table the same way George and I tell people to take debt off the table I'm taking that off the table I'm not going to voluntarily ask my new husband to leave his daughters because I want my two little kids to

know about Texas I'm not going to do that I'm going to take that off the table and then we're going to try to figure out, do we need to move 30 miles outside of town to make it more affordable for us? Do we need to downsize for a season? What does our life need to look like? Because this is our life and you have to start changing your language to say, this is our life. This is our family. Not just you did this and you've got these kids and I wish we didn't have them or I didn't have them. You do. Okay. You opted into it. And the more, the quicker you make peace with that, the more division you're going to have in your, the less division you're gonna have in your own soul, much less in your own marriage. Okay. Is that fair? It is. Yeah. I know it sounds like I'm being harsh, man, but, but we did move further outside of the city to be closer to them

with the understanding that we would get to spend more time with them. We are dealing with a difficult ex-wife as well. And let's just call a spade a spade. Your life would be easier without dealing with her, wouldn't it? Oh, 100%. Yes. But it's not the case. And those two little girls.

That's right. I'm worried about it. My stepdaughters. Yeah. How old are these girls? They are nine and seven. Okay. And mine are one and three. So you're talking about a 10 year plan. A 10 year plan for us to transition back to Texas, which feels like a hundred years until you think back. How old are you now? I'm 37. Yeah, think back to when you were 27. That was like five minutes ago, wasn't it?

Yes, it was just a second ago. So you're going to snap your fingers and be 47, and you're going to have two, like an 11- to 12-year-old running around your house, and you're going to have two, a 17 year old and a 20 year old, 17 year old and 19 year old and then y'all start your transition back if you still want to do it then. That would be my recommendation.

Again, y'all do what you want but that'd be my recommendation. Okay. All right. Thank you guys so much. Thank you so much for the call, Carol. George, those are hard, man because there's,

it feels like everything would be better if... And I'm just telling you, when you divide up families, when you split time from partners, when you split time from kids, it always has a price to pay. Always has a price to pay.

It's going to be hard either way. But in our minds, we go, if we just did that thing, it would be so much easier. Correct. But you still have to figure out travel plans, and they got to go back, and it's still going to be difficult. And not to mention, I just always want to fast forward to that 18-year-old girl sitting across a diner table from her dad saying, why did you leave me?

And that's never a question I want my daughter to have to ask me. That's a good word, John. More of your calls coming up, money, life, relationships, mental health, wellness. It all happens right here on The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney this hour. This is The Ramsey Show. Free call at 888-825-5225. You call us. We'll talk about your life, your money, your relationships, your mental health, and wellness. All of it. Well, John, this article has been the talk of the town from big tech Apple worth $2.6 trillion.

And here it is from Forbes. Why Apple's partnership with Goldman is the future of banking. All right, let's don't blow by that. $2.6 trillion. Yeah, I was joking during the break that they're worth more than all of federal student loan debt in the nation, plus all credit card debt in the nation combined. So if they just liquidated themselves, they could help us out. Come on, Apple, do us a solid. Be a bro, Tim Cook.

Come on, TC. Let's just hook us up. Let's just liquidate the company. You guys have done a public good. You could wipe out all credit card debt and all student loan debt today. And they'll be back to a trillion dollars in revenue in no time. I would commit to buying an iPhone for the rest of my life if you guys took that kind of stand, is all I'm saying.

I love it. Well, here's why they're being talked about as the future of banking. They effectively dropped the mic on the nation's banking industry, according to this article, by releasing a new high-yield savings account that is only available, get this, John, to customers with Apple's credit card. Talk about a genius plan. Oh, you want this little high-yield savings account? Open up a credit card first, and then you can have the 4.15% interest on your savings. Well, I think they're probably going to try to do away with the distinction between a debit card and a credit card and just roll it all together.

One massive thing. Even do away with the idea idea so it may be that our kids don't even know what a card is it's on their phone right it's on some sort of digital chip or some sort of something but you just wave it over the thing and if you got money in there it pays for it if you don't we will cover you with the credit and you're good to go well and here's the thing with there so we've got a video to show you kind of some of the advertising around this but the users can set up an account in minutes and check their spend rewards called daily cash, which is funneled into this high yield savings account. And the account is displayed on a dashboard in Apple's digital

wallet where users can track their balance and interest. And this product allows Apple to offer yet another sticky iPhone benefit by strengthening its built-in digital wallet. And executive president of financial services for a consulting firm said, it's really a flywheel of keeping everything in the ecosystem. Yeah, you think Apple wants to own you in every way, shape, and form. This is not the only thing they've done, John.

There's more. But as you say, everything's been moving this way with this idea of people are sick of carrying a wallet and a phone and an iPad and a thing. Let's just put it all in one thing. So put the Apple credit card in the Apple digital wallet. You don't even need to carry the credit card. It's inside the phone.

But you carry the card because it's titanium, John, and all your friends are super impressed with your metal card. It'll be even better if I just wave my digital magic Harry Potter wand. It's so heavy. It's so metal. You want real heavy metal, listen to Iron Maiden. Don't get an Apple credit card.

I'm more of a Pantera guy, but Iron Maiden's fine. Ryan Holiday loves Iron Maiden. Well, here's the thing. This is just one of many steps Apple's taking, and they're no longer a tech company. They're a fintech company, financial technology,

and they also released this new Apple Pay Later, which is their version of Buy Now, Pay Later, and here's where they're genius, John. You can't get charged interest, right? There's no interest, no fees. Well, how does Apple make money? Number one, through interchange fees. They charge to business owners every time you swipe that card or use their Buy Now, Pay Later service. And the other way is by your account overdrafting. Because when you made 19 different transactions with Apple Pay

Later and you forgot and all of a sudden your bank overdrafted, who was the finger pointed at? Your bank for overdrafting. Apple's not the bad guy. It's the bank's fault for these overdraft fees. Or look in the mirror and go, this is my problem. This is not a good money management system to do Apple Pay Later and use the Apple credit card to get the high yield savings. Just skip the ecosystem entirely and own your own future. Well, the ethos of Apple has been, let's take over industries that are moving too slow. And I think there's a case to be made for, we're seeing bank failures. They're so slow to operate and everything's got to run through these state and federal organizations.

They did it to communications. They did it to music. And there was some talk they were going to do it to higher ed. And now they're moving over to the banking industry. Doesn't surprise me, but man, it feels a lot.

It feels a lot like Sears. When Sears had the corner on stores, like where you went and bought goods and services, and as they begin to lose their grip on the monopoly, if you will, of goods and services stores, they shifted to another way to make money. And after a while, they just became a credit card with some stuff out front. And I'm wondering if the days of nobody had ever heard of an iPod,

all of your music on one tiny little thing, and then all of the phone, and then the iPad was magic, the MacBook Pro was magic, Apple Watch is cool. I wonder if they're looking in the mirror going, dude, we can't just reinvent the world every few years. We got to move to another industry. And we're going to slowly start to transition our company to we're a credit card company with some shiny stuff out front. Yeah.

And hear me say, I'm not an Apple hater. I used to work at the Apple store, if you can't tell. I look like every Apple employee you've ever seen in your life. All Apple devices. I mean, I love their product. But you're turning into the product America. When you sign up for these high yield savings accounts with the credit card and use Apple pay later, and it's all slick and it's all frictionless. And all of a sudden you're broke

wondering, okay, I have a titanium card, but I have nothing in my bank account. This is a problem. So don't fall for the traps that Apple is setting out for you. I'm fine. If you use the products, just not their banking products, stick to, you that Apple is setting out for you. I'm fine if you use the products, just not their banking products. Stick to, you know, a normal bank for that. All right, let's go to the phones. Amy joins us in Dallas. Amy, welcome to the show. Hi.

Quick question, and please explain your answer why. That's my main question. Ooh, you're like my professor. That was a flex, Amy. Good one. I like to geek out like you do, George, so please, because I can't get my head around the math. Okay. Is it better to utilize my HSA as an investment account or leave it as is for, you know, medical expenses as I need? That's a great question. Yeah. So what you're talking about, for those that don't know what the conversation we're having, this is a health savings account that

is tied to a high deductible healthcare plan. And I love the HSA, if you've listened to the show for any amount of time, because of its triple tax benefits. So you can put money in tax-free, the money grows tax-free, you can withdraw the money tax-free. And another benefit is you can invest the money once you hit a certain threshold. So for example, it might be $1,000. When you have over $1,000 in that account, any money beyond that can be invested just like your 401k into growth stock mutual funds. So you're saying, hey, should I leave the money in there to grow or should I use it for healthcare expenses? Correct. I'll tell you what Dave Ramsey does and what other wealthy people do when they're able to cash flow those medical expenses. They leave it and they use it as another wealth building tax advantaged account as part of their strategy. And so if you're able to cash flow, the math works out to where you're better off letting compound interest work its magic on the investment side and you just cash flow those medical expenses out of pocket. So the math that you're talking about, I assume, is, well, the HSA is tax deductible, and so I could save on that side, but I'm also kind of gaining on the compound interest side.

Is that what you're talking about? Yes. Okay. Yeah. I mean, we... I'm trying to think, do I think of it more of a, almost like a 529, like, obviously I could cash flow college, but there's a reason why I'm trying to think, do I think of it more of a, almost like a 529? Like, obviously, I could cash flow college, but there's a reason why I'm saving for that now for 20 years before my kids turn 20 or 18. But I don't know. I'm trying to wrap my head around...

I personally max my HSA out, and I spend out of it. Both. Right. I've got two little kids that are accident prone. I'm accident prone. And so it's an investment vehicle that I get to withdraw from. That's the way I look at it. Okay.

So you can do both. So not necessarily like an emergency fund, but like an investment vehicle that I also, yeah, and I guess that's a third option. Do I do both, right? Yeah, I just do both. If an emergency happens, I guess that's a third option. Do I do both, right? Yeah, I just do both. If an emergency happens, I can easily pay for an emergency. Yeah, if I wake up in 20 years and I've saved more than I've spent, that's awesome.

And you also hopefully have the emergency fund. And so you can also use that to dip into to cash flow those expenses and leave that money there. The other cool benefit is that once you're of a certain age, I believe it's 60 or so, you can kind of use that account as like a 401k. You can use it for things beyond healthcare expenses. You just won't get some of those tax advantages. So it's a great tool. You can crunch the numbers, but I wouldn't sweat it. You're in such a great place. Use it if you have to, leave it if you don't need to. This is The Ramsey Show. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney this hour.

The number to call is 888-825-5225. Hey, if you like this show, do us a quick favor. The show is free, and what I'm asking you to do is free. Please consider hitting the subscribe button, hitting the follow button, leaving us a review wherever you're listening, and sharing this with a friend. Dave always jokes that we have about zero marketing budget for the show because you guys are the marketing budget by telling your friends about this. And if you're like me and you see these numbers with people borrowing money to prop up their lifestyle, you see people struggling to get out of debt or falling for payday lenders or

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George joins us up next in Columbus, Ohio. George, welcome to the show. Hey, George. Hey, John. Thanks so much for taking my call. Sure. What's going on? So I'm 29 years old, recently engaged. I love my life. She's awesome. Um, and I have a question about our kind of situation. So we both went through financial peace university together a couple of months ago, obviously doing it together, but keeping our finances separate until we get married. Um, I'm in baby steps four and six. She's in baby step two. So my question is, obviously we've been through Financial Peace University,

but what can I do and we do together, whether it's from the financial side or the relational side, to put ourselves in the best position possible when getting married in July? How much does she owe? So she owes about $220,000. Yeah, y'all should break up, man. I'm totally playing. Don't do20,000. Yeah. Y'all should break up, man.

I'm totally playing. Don't do that, George. Don't do that. Don't do it. What is, uh, what's she do? Is she working or is she still in school?

So sort of in school. So she's in her residency for medical school. So she, uh, all of her debt is the medical school, uh, student loans. So she's,

uh, going into year two, starting here in a couple weeks. Okay. So what will y'all's income be when you get married? When we get married, our income together would be roughly $170,000. Okay. And then it would go way up after she's done with residency? Correct, yeah. Okay.

Are you able to cash flow the rest of this? She has two years left after this or three years left? Or is she going to some sort of specialty? Right. So the debt itself is done. So she's actively working in her residency. So the schooling's done. She's making an income now with the residency. Yeah, it usually just depends on the type of residency. How much longer does she have after this? She's in year two. How far is she going to go? Just two more years. So two years starting in July.

So she'll be done in the summer of 2025. Okay, cool. So you're right on the path. You're doing all the right things. Keep the finances separate. She's running her own race right now until you guys are married. And up until then,

what you can do is stack up as much cash as you can. Obviously, be sure to cash flow all the wedding expenses. And once you're back from the honeymoon, we're going to make that joint account. We're going to lay it all out and go, how much debt do we have left? How much do I have in savings above the emergency fund or even taking that down to a thousand for a little while? And how can we clean this up fast? And making $170, she has $220 in debt. Is that all of her debt? Correct, yeah. It's just the medical school debt.

Okay. So looking at this, I'm like, cool, can we live off $60,000 and throw $110,000 at the debt and be done with this in two years? And boom, all of a sudden, we're debt-free, and now the income has spiked because she's done with residency, and now we're making hundreds of thousands of dollars completely debt-free pretty soon into our marriage and here's the cool part um i know they've they've actually

dialed back a lot of the hours in the residency um what's what's her hour load now what's like an average week for her it's uh it's on a rotational basis so in eight week chunks she goes in different rotations sometimes it's 40 sometimes it's up to 80. So it just kind of depends on the rotation. I knew it used to be the days of the 120 hours you sleep four days, four hours a week, those are over. But here's the deal. What George just said is so right. And if y'all look at your relationship over the next two years, I can't think of a better time for y'all to constrict your discretionary spending because she's going to be working a lot and you're going to be working a lot and her head is going to be learning like she's never learned before, trying to make sure people

aren't dead, all that stuff. You're going to be learning how to be married. She is too. But this is a perfect moment for y'all to really collapse your big budget stuff and just budget for food, take your lunches, make breakfast together in the morning, have dinner at home when she's able to get home and really constrict your day-to-day spending. Can you just imagine for a second, she walks across that stage at graduation, she is done. She is a licensed medical doctor and y'all owe nobody anything. You realize you have won at that point, the cosmic lottery. It's over. That'd be amazing. Yeah, it's something we're definitely looking forward to and day by day, taking it step by step. There you go, man.

Here's an important thing. And Dave has taught me this privately, just us sitting. It's just a blessing that I get to sit by him and, and, and dig into his wisdom. Keep the ratios in mind. How much money do you make by yourself at your job? My current job,

I make a hundred thousand and then I have a side hustle where I make about 5,000 a year. Okay. So you make a hundred grand and you're, you're a hard worker. You're, you got two jobs going. So you make 105, $220,000 sounds like a billion dollars and it feels out of control and somewhat insane. If you just extrapolate out the fact that you're marrying a medical doctor who's going to make salary X, Y, or Z down the road, the ratio of this debt becomes a little bit more manageable. In simpler terms, you've got a big hole, but you're going to have a huge shovel to fill it back up with.

Does that make sense? So keep those ratios in mind. And again, George said it right, man. Y'all get a plan together and just don't deviate from the plan. Stay on the plan, stay on the plan, stay on the plan. And y'all are going to look up in two years. Don't buy new cars. Don't buy fancy apartments.

You're going to look up in two years and owe nobody anything. Your wife's going to smile with that big MD, and you're going to smile, and it's going to be game on. It's going to be awesome. I'm pumped for this, George. You're on the path, man. You excited? Absolutely.

Yeah, it's something going through financial peace. We got fired up, and now it's just, you know, I kind of expected what you guys were going to say to some degree, but hearing it and validating it. Let me say this. You know what I want more than anything? I want an entire swath of medical doctors to not have any student loan debt. You know why?

Because then they can practice medicine exactly as their heart leads them. And they can practice medicine that is evidence-based and not hospital administrator-based. They can look at individual patients and make individualized decisions because if somebody gets mad that they quote unquote stepped out of line, who cares? I don't owe anybody anything. When you have a group of professionals

that are in that powerful of a position that don't owe anybody nothing, then they can lead with their expertise and their heart. And now you've got, as Peter Atiyah says, you got medicine 3.0 at that point. They can stop.

You know what? I'm not gonna prescribe you medication. You need to start exercising. And then when they get enough complaints, they can say, okay, I'm just gonna go to a hospital that fill in the blank, right? So man, good for you. This is the kind of, your wife's the kind of doctor

who is gonna change the healthcare system for my kids. So good for you guys, man. I'm grateful that y'all as a couple exist in the world, man. When's the wedding? You got a date? Wedding is July 6th, 2024. Oh, so you got some time.

Move it up. What are you doing? What are we doing, man? Love of your life. She's going to meet some smoke show at some resident... Dude, I'm telling you. Move it up.

I'll try. I'll talk to her tonight. Yes. Justice to the peace this weekend. In the meantime, making $100,000 for the next year, how much money could you save up so that when you guys get married and you have that joint bank account, you go, Honey, I got $70,000 sitting here ready to start knocking out this debt.

She's going to give you a big old smooch. I'll tell you that much right now. Gross. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. Thank you so much for listening. Appreciate my co-host, Dr. John Deloney, all the folks in the booth keeping the show afloat, and you, America. We'll be back before you know it. Hey, George Camel here. If you love the show and you want a deeper dive on your money journey, we've got a weekly newsletter that gives you helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to RamseySolutions.com today to sign up for the newsletter.

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