The Ramsey Show - App - You Can't Blame Your Way To A Better Life (Hour 2)

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I am Jade Warshaw, joined by John Deloney. We're taking your calls all afternoon. Your life, your money, your mental health. Give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225. We're happy you're here. We're happy that you trust us with your situations.

Thank you for doing that. And let's go straight to the phone lines. We got Carlos in Los Angeles, California. What's going on, Carlos? Hi. Can you guys hear me? We can. Oh, perfect. Actually, I on, Carlos? Hi, can you guys hear me? We can. Oh, perfect. Hi. Actually, I can't believe I'm on this show.

I just discovered you guys like last week, last Thursday. Oh, yeah? On YouTube and the podcast. Yeah. So what do you think so far? Welcome to our crazy gang. Yeah. Man, and I literally fall asleep like last week.

Let me give you a back story. So I've been listening to you guys nonstop since last week. You know, I'm 31, Beyonce is 29, and on Saturday we had a talk about finances because I was listening to you guys. Hey, Carlos, talk directly into your phone for me. Uh-huh. Okay, so I apologize.

So we talked about it on the site, about, like, timing the budget. How did she... Hey, Carlos. I can't hear you, brother. Are you on speakerphone? Hold on, Carlos. Carlos, can't hear you, man. Carlos!

Carlos? Carlos, can't hear you, brother. We can't hear you. Hey, we might have to come back to you in a minute because we really couldn't hear you. Next time, we'll get the call back, but get off speakerphone or wherever you were, get in better service, and then we'll be able to help you out. Until we get Carlos back, let's go to Brian in Philadelphia. What's up, Brian? Hey, how are you?

Good. What's up? So I just had a quick question. I don't really have any sort of, um, issue with saving money, but my question is about a student loan debt. Um, I got lucky with it and I got half of my college paid for and I went to a cheap school. Um, so I only have about 12,500. Um, I have more than enough saved up where I could just pay that off and not have that debt. Right. But I have not been making payments on it due to the pause and thinking that maybe it'll be canceled or at least $10,000. So my question is, is it worth just tackling and knocking out or is it a better idea to just

continue making payments? And Brian, does it make you feel warm? Do you love it? Do I love what? That loan? I do not love the loan. Like when nobody's around,

you go in like your room and shut the door, just hug it. Do you love it? Brian, the dream of forgiveness died several months back. Pay it off right now. What are you doing? Pay it off. And I'm going to say something and it might sting.

Okay. Pay off your student loan and do it with knowing inside your heart, man, this is awesome that I have the money to pay this off. Because so many folks call our show and they don't have the money to pay it off, not today and not for a couple for several years on down the line. And when you wait out for forgiveness, people who didn't even take out student loans or have their own, they're fitting the bill. And so when you have the money to pay, pay so that other people who didn't even have student loans aren't going to have to pay through any type of who knows what will come down the pipe, you know, next election year or whatever. Maybe somebody's going to talk about forgiveness again. But always remember, nothing's free. Like first rule economics, there's no such thing as a free lunch, right? Everything costs and it costs the taxpayer. And if you're a person in this country that can pay the bills

that they signed up to pay, pay it. You called the wrong two people because both Jade and I paid off hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I'll tell you right now brian if those if those forgivenesses went through and miss jade had to add that to her taxes i'd be fired up because i already paid 280 000 you know what i'm saying brian yeah the part about the timeline and and i definitely got your answer uh on that and i kind of had a suspicion that you might say that yeah um but I was actually not to pay it off. And then right when I was about to pay it off, the whole thing came up that it might just be forgiven. So I figured if I paid it and then it immediately would have been forgiven,

I would have thought to myself, I should have invested that money elsewhere. But you know, I totally get your point though. I think there's a bigger thing there's and i think we lose this this i think we lose this um globally there is a a psychological and in turn a physiological response to integrity to standing up and keeping your word telling the truth there's a reason why truth telling is woven into the fabric of every faith tradition in human history. You walk differently. And when I was 18 and I signed up for all the stupid loans I signed up for, I had no idea what I was signing up for. I mean, none of us did. We were just doing the next thing that everybody told us. But we both put our names on a piece of paper and said, if you help me get through school, I'll pay you back. You did too. And so I can see that you would have been like,

dude, I got $10,000 more in my pocket. We got bailed out by the government. Jade's right, number one. Anytime, anytime a government agency bails you out, they will come knocking for a piece of flesh at some point. If you've ever sat in a history class, they will come back to your door and say, where's mine? So always count on that. But the big thing is, is you would be like, oh man,

I should have invested it. But I did what was right because I put my name on a piece of paper and I said, I'd pay you back. And there you go. Here's my money. And I'm moving on to the next. And you know what? Thanks for that call, Brian, because we needed to talk about this with the people. Don't you think that everyone would like to open up their bills and go i'm not gonna pay that i mean no one wants to pay their bills no one wants to give away money like it doesn't feel good and it doesn't it's not fun especially when you didn't realize what you're doing yeah absolutely but i'm saying it's not fun to write your check for your carpet or you you know, pay online. I'm sorry. I just aged myself. No one wants to send that online payment for their car, but they signed up to have a car payment. No one wants to send, you know, even though this is a little bit better, you know, your insurance payment, you know, and you're like, gosh, I never even use this thing. And it's not fun to give away your money. But when you sign up for something, you say that you're going to pay for it. And there is that piece of it that's there. And when it comes to these student

loans, yeah, I can really get into this. Here's the thing. And I want to validate this because I felt that, John, I'm sure you have too. With student loans, it's very different because you're looking around, you're going, yeah, I was 18. Somebody should have stepped in. It would have been nice if some adult had gone, hey hey jade you don't need to take out that much student loans because you know you've got a full ride scholarship you don't need to take out student loans to get your hair done and go to parties and buy groceries like that's dumb jade don't do that i would have loved if an adult did that i would have loved if an adult stood and really explained compound interest to me when it's working against you i would would have loved that, but nobody did.

I would have loved so many things to be different about that situation for the people to say, hey, don't put your loan on forbearance because when you do that, it's going to accumulate interest in you faster than you've ever could imagine. No one did that. And I can spend my whole life blaming them

or I can go, oh, let me change my whole life. I can't blame my way to a better life. I've got to change the situation. Pay off your debt. That's all it is, man. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you for listening to The Ramsey Show. I am Jade Warshaw, joined by bestselling author, Dr. John Deloney. And I'm actually really excited, John, because you have a brand new book coming out. It's coming out Tuesday. Just a few days.

Just a few days. That's right. Hey, I'm excited. Tell the folks about it. Building a non-anxious life in a society and a generation. We have everything. We're anxious beyond measure, anxious beyond words. And so I wrote a book called Building a Non-Anxious Life,

and it's exciting to say it's breaking all the internal pre-sale records, and it's got just a couple more days. When it gets to Monday at midnight, all the pre-sale goodies will be gone. I think it's $75, they say, of free stuff that comes with it. Get online, RamseySolutions.com or JohnDeloney.com and pick it up. And then come Tuesday, October 2nd, October 3rd? Yeah.

3rd, October 3rd, it will be in all the stores all across America and everywhere else. But I'm excited, man. Let's get it out. Let's get it out. That's exciting. So can I just ask something? Of course.

What store, when this book comes out, what store are you like, I want to go see my book sitting on the shelf in this store i was an old like man i used to live my wife i used to live in bookstores and so going like seeing a book in the barnes and nobles pretty rad or walking by and seeing it in a target it's pretty cool i mean it's just just see it it's just surreal none of that's real it's just weird john i'm excited for you that is super duper cool make sure to get your copy i know i got mine ramsey solutions.com that's where you want to get it let's go to john in washington and by the way

if you want to take a call if you want us to take your call give us a call 888-825-5225 and we will do just that without further ado we got john in washington dc what's going on john hey guys uh John? Hey, guys. Thank you for taking my call. Absolutely. How can we help? So I had a quick question. So my wife and I recently actually just paid off my student loan. Sweet. And we're completely debt-free now. Woo-woo! Way to go.

Yeah. That's a slow clap right there. Thank you. Good job. Yes. And we've been listening to Randy's show for a long time. So you guys helped turn my mindset around to do this the right way. So we currently own a condo in this area, and we have a baby, and we're going to be putting her into daycare in about a month or two, and it's kind of expensive in the area. But we've also been looking at houses because we really want to own a home, but we are not sure if that is a smart idea. We make a decent amount of money, but we're not sure we can really afford it. And with the interest rates going up and prices just keep rising,

we just feel like we're never going to be able to attain a home. And we're not sure. We're just looking for some advice on what you guys think we should do and how we should plan for the next steps to hopefully own a home in the future. Yeah, absolutely. I think you're asking all the right questions and I think you've got the right set of weights in place. It's like, OK, we got a baby. We got daycare coming up. Yes, we'd love to have a home. All great questions to ask. My first question to you, because if we do do the math and figure out, yeah, you guys are ready, that's great. But I want to make sure that you've got a couple of things in place. Do you guys have an emergency fund, fully funded, three to six months of expenses?

Yes, yes, we have. We have savings. But I mean, I just spent about like $40,000 to pay off my student loans. Okay. So what do you have left? So we have about, I'd say about $50,000 in a savings account, probably another 16 stocks. And we probably have around another, I would say 80 in retirement accounts. Okay. So you've got 110 that's non-retirement, right? Yeah. Okay. So that's great. I would knock that down or siphon it off in your brain to whatever three

to six months of your expenses are. So are you a person who you feel would need three months to feel comfortable of emergency expenses if one of you were to lose your job or six months? I would say six months. Six months. Okay. So if just quickly in your head, basic expenses, I'm not talking about a full. And by the way, for anyone listening, when we talk about an emergency fund, it's not your full budget times six. It's what you really need to just keep your home running all right if everything gets

down to the wire right only what you need to survive that doesn't include the restaurant budget and nails and you know if your wife gets her lashes done that doesn't include all of that it's this is your basic what it take bare bones budget three to six months what would that be for you for six months probably like 20k i think oh only 20k okay are you sure well so like our mortgage right now is about like 2500 um and probably other monthly expenses if we really have to cut back probably could go to like 500 to a thousand a month oh wow y'all are living y'all are living lean um okay put 30 in there for fun thank you i was gonna say just for me can you keep it at 30 put 30 in there for fun let's go with 30 i'll feel better about that um okay so 30 set aside that gives you 80 000 coming up uh to start putting towards a down payment okay

so now what we want to think about here is how to buy a house to where it's a blessing for you and it's not a burden. All right. Which is you're going to have to do your research and I really want you to run the numbers we've got on RamseySolutions.com. We've got a mortgage calculator you can check out or you can just Google how much home can I afford Ramsey Solutions calculator pop up right there. But at the end of the day, here's what I want you to aim for, John. I want you on a 15-year fixed rate mortgage. Write this down.

15-year fixed rate mortgage. I don't want the payment to be any more than 25% of your take-home pay. Now, this is your take-home pay after taxes only, all right? See, that's the problem right now, because I feel like that that payment that I would calculate. So like I've been listening to you guys, I know the 15 year old 15 year old and all that. Right now we have a 30 year old, a 30 year old, a 30 year mortgage and our monthly with principal interest taxes and everything.mi is like 2500 right and even that

feels hard for us and that's i mean i'm gonna i'm gonna be honest with you yeah your payment your payment for what you get is going to be higher because you're cutting it in half you're saying i'm not going to pay for a home for 30 years i'm going to pay for a home in 15 years and if you do it our way it's going to be even less. Do you know, let me tell you something, John, the folks who walk through our steps, they become debt free. They pay off their house in the next seven to 10 years. Because the goal here, the goal of everything we teach, this is not just for you, for anyone listening. The goal here is ultimate peace. And the way you get to ultimate peace is there's no payments. So we want you to pay off your home. If you get a 30 year mortgage at that point, what you're saying is I'd rather have more

space. I'd rather have a bigger home. I'd rather have all of these things rather than having the peace of owning my home. Not to mention when you don't have a home payment, do you know how freaking rich you're going to be because how much you're going to be investing every month. John, talk to him about it. Well, John, what do you do in Washington, D.C.? So I'm an engineer and my wife works for a company. She's a legal professional. Okay.

So this is a conversation that millions and millions and millions of Americans are having right now, which is this. We really wanted this particular job in this particular field in this particular city. It could be because we want to be New York people. We love the energy of D.C. We love the legal profession here. We love the X, the Y. Great. What we're telling you is the math

doesn't work in your favor and the question you and your wife have to ask and it needs to be like in an intentional fun where let's go get breakfast together and get a sitter for the kids or for the kid it's a dreaming conversation but it's a hard conversation which is what do we want more do we want to have access to concerts four minutes away and we want to live by the subway do we like the quote-unquote energy of the city or we want a home because the world needs legal professionals you're an engineer you can get a job all across america and you can cut your living expenses by two-thirds right and you can get a house for, for this in some places for half the, you know, you're 50% there, um, with just your down payment, depending on what city and state you move to. So the harder question is, what are we willing to give up

for this dream of owning a home? What we're telling you is mathematically speaking, I don't care about how you feel about it. because I know you want one. We all do. You cannot afford it given what you make, where you live. You'll have to deal with that reality. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. This is Jade Warshaw. This is John Deloney. We're taking your calls all afternoon john what's coming around the pipe all right we got two big things going on october 5th this is next thursday i'm throwing a book release bash we're gonna have punk rock music and singer songwriters and a it's gonna be just gonna get off the rails they gave me one hour to plan whatever i wanted and it's gonna be a blast um we're gonna have a We're going to have about an hour

program and then I'm going to sign books and take pictures until every single person is ready to go. So that's October 5th. Let's go to RamseySolutions.com for that. And our first ever money and marriage getaway October 19th through 21st

in Nashville. Me and Rachel Cruz. We're going to equip you and your spouse with tools to cast a vision for your family, set goals, October 19th through 21st in Nashville. Me and Rachel Cruz, we're going to equip you and your spouse with tools to cast a vision for your family, set goals, create a life that you both love. We're going to be talking about money. We're going to be talking about sex. We're going to be talking about everything that couples are struggling with right now.

And we're going to have a ton of opportunities for you to get one-on-one or two-on-one direct coaching and conversations. It's not going to be us lecturing. This is going to be more conversational, more think graduate school, not huge lecture hall, right? They're going to be interactive sessions, and me and Rachel Cruz are going to be your guys to discuss communication,

boundaries, sex, money, all of it. Tickets are $799. It's a whole weekend. It's going to include a great fun event. One of the nights, it's just going to get off the rails also. If you're out of debt, you got room in the budget, please come see us, ramsaysolutions.com slash events. And we have couples who have been married a few months and we have couples who've been married 20, 30 years who are circling back and say, okay, we want the back half of our

marriage to be more awesome than our first half. And so we've got people from all over the spectrum. Hope you'll join us, ramsaysolutions.com slash events. Like that. Let's go to Detroit. We got Kylie. What's going on, Kylie? Hi there. Hey, taking my call. You bet bet what's going on okay so my husband and i are in a situation um so right now we are just not making end meet meet we're in the negative every month and i'm trying to figure out if we uh bankrupt or if we i don't know we don't see another way we're just trying to figure that out right now so the bills you have, we're not paying the bills that we have. And I'm assuming there's debt as well, right? Yeah. So we have that. We can, so we're paying our bills. We're not behind on like food, house, electricity, any of that. We're doing the

taking care of ourselves. And you're paying minimums on the debt as well? Yes. Okay. Yep. So can you kind of list out the debt for us? Yes. So we have $80,000 in student debt, which we're not paying out. And I'm in school, so it's all deferred. That doesn't exist. Are you still accruing student loan debt? I think technically it opens up this weekend, right? No, I mean, you said you're still in school. So I'm saying are you still continuing to

take loans I am getting yep girl we gonna talk about that we're gonna we'll talk about that let's take it one thing at a time though so so far we've got the 80,000 in student loans what else yes um and we have 30,000 in personal loan there's 25 personal loan loan and then another 5,000 is credit cards. Okay. And so you're in school. Are you working at all while you're in school? I work part-time from home. We have four kids and we homeschool. Oh, wow. Part-time from home, four kids, you're homeschooling. What are you earning working part-time from home? I bring home around 21,000 a year. Okay. And what is your husband earning? He is making right now, he just got a new job in his new degree field, and he's only making $36,000 a year.

What is he doing? He's doing software support. So he went and got his IT and coding stuff, and he couldn't find a better job. Yet. When I hear what the coders are pulling in in this building, it makes me wish I'd gone to coding school. That's what we also thought, but I mean,

we would take any leads. Okay. Here's when you tell me your income, my brain goes to the average income, the median income in America. And I'm always striving to get people at least to the median, all right, which is around 67,000, just to know like, all right, I'm in the game. So I really want that to be your goal very, very quickly. You got $115,000 in debt. If we want to make this needle move, the secret sauce here is getting the income up and running like cranking.

And the thing that I the thing that I want you to understand is you're you can't solve a problem while simultaneously creating it. And right now you're still adding to the debt. And so any movement that you make forward is going to feel futile. So what I want to do is stop the bleeding. And so you're going to school now. What's the end game of this? So I'm in my master's to be a licensed counselor. Okay. How much time is left and how much more money is being added to this bill? How much time is left? Like three to four years. I'm doing very part-time and I honestly don't even know the

end, like probably at least another 50. Can I say something really hard? Don't do that. Can I say it, John? Dude, I've got a PhD in counseling. I'm going to tell you, don't do it. I was a graduate school professor. Here's why I'm telling you that 50 000 on top of the other 80 for a clinical mental health counseling degree is going to be a nightmare to pay off and dude i was a graduate school professor i need more counselors out there i want people to go to graduate school and get their counseling degrees here's the deal you're broke y'all can't afford this and you got four kids yeah you have to make some radical, hard, hard choices. Like we want the idea of homeschooling all four of our kids.

Maybe they got to go to public school for a couple of years where we clean up the mess that the adults in the house made. My husband really wants to be a coder, but he can make about that much money being an assistant manager at McDonald's right now. He's going to go find a job and a second one too. Y'all are in a situation and I think you want to have, I want to be a licensed therapist. Dude, I want that so bad for you. We want to homeschool our kids. I so badly want that for you. I want him to be a coder

because they keep saying we're going to make $200,000. I want that for him too. But the reality is those things aren't real right now. What is real is y'all can't breathe because you owe so much money. And let me tell you this, and you've probably learned this in your grad school classes already. Your children absorb the tension in your home. And if mom and dad can't pay bills, then mom and dad are struggling with each other.

And those kids are absorbing that every second of every day. See what I'm saying? And so sometimes it's a dream deferred several times in my second doctoral program i had to quit i took off a semester because i had to take care of things at home i had to take care of things with me and my wife and so it may be the time and there's going to be a state school that i promise you can get a great clinical master's degree that's going to be infinitely cheaper than what you're doing and you'll be able to pay cash as you go. I know it's hard, but you and your husband aren't being,

you aren't dealing with reality. And I don't mean that like you're not living on the moon. Y'all just don't make enough money and you want to do this and you want to do this. You want to do this. If you put all four of your kids in public school on Monday and you went to work full time, you instantly are able to breathe.

Instantly. And if he says, three of them are too young for school, but yeah. Okay. But you know, you get, you get are able to breathe. Instantly. And if he says- Three of them are too young for school, but yes. Okay, but you get the sense of what I'm saying, right? And, or you reach out to somebody at a local church and you get some help, or you take your part-time job and you look at your husband and say, you're making 36 grand,

you were trying to get off the ground with this, great. And I know you want to be around with all four kids, great, but we have to have more money right now. Yeah, there is going to be a sacrifice. There's going to be a trade. There's no way, there's not a sacrifice. There's going to be around with all four kids, great, but we have to have more money right now. Yeah, there is going to be a sacrifice. There's going to be a trade. There's no way, there's not a sacrifice. There's going to be a sacrifice. There's going to be a trade.

And that's based on what you say the priority is. I mean, we can say this is a money show and this, you know, John's going to speak to the other side of it, but we're always going to prioritize what gets you feeling peace and feeling freedom first. And I think a lot of times people think, oh, like probably in your mind, you're like, oh, I'll get my degree. I'll be able to earn more money.

And that was the path. But then you pull back and you're like, wait a second, this is just creating more like frustration, more debt, more chaos. And when that happens, you do have to stop and regroup and go, okay, what was the priority again? What was the thing? Because it can't, everything can't be A1. If everything's A1, then you start going crazy. Nothing's A1. If everything's A1, then you start going crazy real quickly. Nothing's A1. Yeah. And so something goes on the chopping block. And that's the really, really hard part of this conversation. Not just for you, Kylie, but for so many folks listening. Thank you for the call. Because I think just by you sharing your story, it provides clarity for a lot of people. Because John, you're so right. You have

to make hard choices. Very rarely in life do you get to just get all of it at once. Well, you mentioned something goes on the chopping block. And if you don't want it to be your degree, you don't want it to be your career dream, it will be your marriage. Yeah. It will be your relationship with your kids. Yeah, it'll be your peace.

Something has to pay the piper. And so let it be the adults in the house. That is such a good word. Yeah, you got to make the sacrifice. And you know what? Sometimes I don't like the word sacrifice, John. I like to call it a trade because it's really what are you trading? What are you getting in return? And when you say it like that, it has, I don't know, a better ring to it. This is The Ramsey Show. You are listening to The Ramsey Show. I am your host,

Jade Warshaw, joined by bestselling author, Dr. John Deloney, host of The Dr. John Deloney Show. Love to say that. And I wanted to let you new folks listening know that if you're listening, number one, we're happy that you're here. But number two, you probably hear us talk about things all the time that you're like, hey, I'm new here. And I feel like you guys are using some inside jargon, some lingo that I don't understand. Help me understand. And if that's you, I want you to go to RamseySolutions.com and I want you to click that little get started button because that's where we're going to meet you where you're at. We're going to explain this whole thing to you. We're going to talk to you about the baby steps. We're going to explain what all that means. And finally, you're going to feel like you've come into the fold, the Ramsey fold, and you're going to go, oh my gosh, I get it now. I loved the show before, but I love it even more now that I understand all

the things that they're talking about. So do that today. Go to ramseysolutions.com, click the get started button, and we'll help you figure out your best next step here with Ramsey Solutions. That's amazing. In the meantime, let's go to Michael. He's in Scottsdale, Arizona. Michael, what's going on, buddy? Hey, I had a quick question for you guys. I was wondering at what point do you sell stocks and mutual funds to pay off baby step number two? I made an oopsie last year, and we're probably about 65% over an individual stock purchase. Negative on that. But at what point do we just cut our loss,

sell it, pay off baby step two, and just move on? Yeah, I'm doing it. What were you doing, man? What? What were you doing? Did you get like an insider tip? Did you like read a magazine? No, absolutely not.

It was an IPO opening, and I was like, oh, this is going to do well, and it did not. Oh, man. You put all your chips in on that bet. Hey, I love the way you said it's just an oopsie.

It was either like $100,000 or it was $4,000. What was the oopsie? It was $10,000. I made an investment and it's down to about $4,000 now. How much is the debt? I've got about $60,000 in debt right now. Shoot. Yeah. Okay. So the way you framed it was as though if you sold the $4,000 in stocks or whatever, what it was in stocks, that that would be enough to clean up the debt. Is there more

money? Because you also said mutual funds. Yeah, I've got mutual funds, just some savings in general, probably with all that combined of maybe $35,000, $40,000. Okay, and that's non-retirement? Non-retirement accounts. So we're close to just paying off the debt. And with our income, we probably can clear it in the next,

you know, six to eight months or so. So I'm just trying to, it's hard to let go of a loss like that. Maybe the market will go up, but that's the whole game, right? It never does. Or when you need it. Well, in this case,

I mean, over time, it's going to go up. And if this was sitting in a retirement account, I'd be like, yeah, it's fine. Let it ride. But in this case, you're trying to pay off your debt. And so I would definitely say, go ahead and liquidate that money.

There's going to be a tax implication on it for sure. But in this case, it's worth it to you to clear this debt. You're still going to have about 15, 16,000 left that you need to pay. And it sounds like you'll be able to cash flow that and get the rest of that out of your life pretty quickly. Yeah, it is. How much you said you and your partner can do it in six to eight months. How much do y'all make? We own our own business. We make upwards of about $220 a year. Wait a second.

Good God almighty. How do you not have this paid off by Christmas? You know what? I know because Michael's playing. Michael, you're over here playing games, aren't you? Michael, you're playing games. You're like, I'm going to do a little of this. I'm going to do a little of that.

It's so hard sometimes to, you know, I don't know, just not hang on to it. Right. And just kind of finally, you know, I just finally kicked in, you know, a few months ago of like, gosh, let's get this out of here. Why is it sitting here? Why do we have this debt? Let's build, you know, this freedom and wealth. And, you know, so I'm just trying to.

I would love to see you cash everything out and pay this stuff off this weekend and have a huge celebration. Like do it right. I'm for real. And then you and your partner look at each other and y'all have, um, October, November, and December and say for Christmas, our Christmas present is let's owe nobody anything. Let's have an entirely free household. We're free. We are free. Hey, what's left to go on the mortgage? Quite a lot. We purchased a home in the peak of 2022, but we did gain a ton of equity in our previous home. And so, you know, we just kind of transferred that over. But we do, we've got $675,000. Okay.

You make $225,000. So you're going to put that on a seven-year plan. You'll be done in five. Yeah. And thank you, John, for getting to that because that's the picture that I want to paint for you going forward because I think you're a smart guy.

I think you're a guy, I mean, you've got a great income. You've kind of been dibbling and dabbling here. And I kind of want to give you the framework for how you can do that in a way that's going to give you peace and make the most sense. I mean, hopefully you're investing 15% of your income into retirement. Are you doing that or more? Yeah, we are.

I've got automation of our, you know, our business just pays into our plans. And I'm trying to automate that. I've already put in a thousand more towards principal of the home just to do it, you know, just to say it's starting to go in that direction. And let's be very intentional about that. I mean, over here, we would say invest 15% for retirement. And if you had kids, put some in the 529. And then, you know, be intentional. It doesn't have to be everything that's extra going to the house. It doesn't have to be super intense, but be super intentional. You know, like you said, make it automated every month. This is the plan. Sit down with your wife. We're putting X amount of dollars

towards the mortgage. And before you know it, that mortgage is going to be gone and you're going to have the extra money to play around with investing more. And if you want to do single stocks, it's like, look, I've always talked to Dave about that. I'm like, Dave, when's the best time to do single stocks? He's like, look, I've always talked to Dave about that. I'm like, Dave, when's the best time to do single stocks? He's like, look, if you want to play around with stuff like that, as long as it's no more than 5% of your total net worth, like whatever, knock yourself out. But I think it's good to know that. That's only when you have enough money to burn in the middle of the living room, right? Yeah, I mean, exactly.

Like you did. Like you did. By that time, he's going to have money to burn. He's going to have his home paid off. It's worth $675 now. So it's going to be skyrocketed by then. So does that sound like more fun, Michael? It certainly does.

Good, good, good. I appreciate the encouragement and the extra push. Will you call us back at Christmas on December 24th? We have a show right before it just to do your debt-free scream. I'm challenging you. I'm giving you a 90-day challenge. I appreciate that. I'll talk to my wife

and we'll work hard to get that done. I would love that. No, no, that's like Yoda stuff. There is no trying. 90 days. Come on, Michael. You make a quarter million dollars. Yeah.

Do it. Look, thank you, Michaelael for the call and hey keep listening because this next thing i'm going to talk about is kind of about you and not just you michael but so many people let me tell you the most dangerous place to be in john is when it comes in a couple of ways in his case he's got a nice income and his debt is there but it's not rocking his world it's not making him duck and run for cover right or somebody who makes maybe 120 000 a year and they've got 20 25 000 of debt it's not like they're not shooketh right they're just like i've got this debt it's a little annoying but i'll make it work king james shooketh they're not shooketh when you got got Sam and Jade type debt to ratio income,

you are under the ground. You're running for your life. You don't have a choice. And so those calls are always the hardest because it's like, I can bat it around the net a little bit longer. For now. For now.

And those are the ones that you look up and five years down the line, 10 years down the line, suddenly it starts eating a hole bigger and bigger because you can't out earn bad spending habits. You can for a little while, but after a while it catches up with you and it's going to bite. It's going to take a big old chunk out of your booty. Can I say that online? You can. And you said probably whatever you want online. But also I always, again, I always feel like I'm Debbie Down downer it just takes one shift in the

market one thing that that scottsdale decides to do domino with a regulatory issue and your business is over yeah and you have a six hundred thousand dollar mortgage that was a great deal because you rolled three hundred thousand dollars in equity into i don't care yeah and now you've got sixty thousand bucks and you can't eat look right it happened we would not have a show if it didn't happen that's not gonna happen to me i'm an engineer i'm a you know it's coming for you i've got i'm a this it's coming for you right so be very very i love how you say cancer is cancer whether it's a lot of cancer or a little cancer you got to deal with it you got to deal with it because that thing will grow and at the end of the day really what it's about is the habits that you're forming.

You know, when you say, ah, I know I can't afford that. I put it on the credit card. I'll be able to pay it off. Right. Those are habits that you're forming every day. And so what we're teaching, it's so that you ingrain better habits so that over time you're building a better financial foundation. It doesn't have to just be this one feel swoop thing.

We want the daily choices that you make. Ah, daily choices. See what I did there? We want that to be what shapes your financial future. So that's how it works, Michael. Thanks for the call. You helped us. You helped a lot of other folks.

Thanks for listening. That does it for this hour. We'll catch you next hour. Hey, it's Dr. John Deloney. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to RamseySolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's RamseySolutions.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.