The Ramsey Show - App - You Don’t Become a Millionaire by Investing Borrowed Money (Hour 1)

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studios, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Thank you for joining us, America. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, number one bestselling author, co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour. My daughter is my co-host today.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. This is the show where we love you so much we will tell you the truth. And sometimes you won't like it but we're here because we care about you and we're going to help i'll say it nice i'll say the truth nicer than maybe he will sometimes maybe sometimes i'm nicer we're matching today i just saw us in the camera i was like look at us a little black action here color color coordinating yeah you know what makes you look thinner than wearing black? What? Being thinner. I discovered that.

That's a personal revelation of mine. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Mary is starting us off in St. Louis. Hi, Mary. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

What's up? So, the last few weeks, to be honest, I've gone down a little bit of a Dave Ramsey rabbit hole on YouTube. So I'm just kind of getting to know your principles. I'm really intrigued by them. But I have a real question about your baby steps, the $1,000 emergency fund philosophy. I think my husband and I might be a little out of whack when it comes to following the steps. Exactly correct. We have a $16,000 car loan. We have a $215,000 mortgage. And we have about $30,000 in non-retirement investments. And we've also started a few small investment accounts for our children. We're trying to increase our retirement to 15.

We're kind of trying to do everything at one time. My question is this. And you did all of that long before you even heard of us. Yeah. Good for you. Yeah, we've been trying to save as much as possible. Good for you. And really try to pay off car loans and things like that.

So we have one car loan left. My question is this. It's taken us several years to save that money that we have one car loan left. My question is this, it's taken us several years to save that money that we have in the non-retirement investment. And we currently have a deck in our backyard that is literally falling apart. So we've been quoted to remove it and replace it with a patio for about $15,000. What's your household income? About $145,000. Okay, cool. So I guess my question is, and I also am worried if we use the money to pay off the car loan and then we do the patio, I just always like having some cushion to know that if there

are big purchases that come up, that we have enough cash to do it. So I guess I just wanted to know what your philosophy was on, based on everything, you know, where we're at. Well, the summary of the background of the Baby Steps was this. When I first started teaching basic financial principles 30 years ago, I would have this exact conversation with people. Where do I start? Where do I start?

Where do I start? Where do I start? Where do I start? And a couple of philosophies emerged as we worked with thousands and thousands of people now, millions of people years later. But the philosophies, number one that emerged was the number one wealth building tool that you have is your income. When you give it to other people in the form of payments, you limit or slow down or even stop your ability to build wealth. So becoming debt-free, first personal, later home, is an essential part of a long-term wealth-building plan because the money you make, $145,000, should turn you into a millionaire.

Okay. If you don't give it all to someone else in the form of car payments, et cetera, et cetera, right? And that's the general philosophy, okay? The general philosophy number two was people kept saying, where do I start? Because 100% of us, including no matter how much money you make, have competing priorities. We have a broken down deck. We have an emotional need for a pad of an emergency fund laying there.

We have high school kids. They're going to be going to college soon. We've got college kids coming at us. We've got life insurance we need. We've got a next car we might need to purchase. We've got another thing. We've got to kids coming at us. We've got life insurance we need. We've got a next car we might need to purchase. We've got another thing. We've got to think about Christmas. God, it's going to be here again in 20 minutes.

You know, and we've got all these things coming at us. And so what we came up with was the baby steps. And the reason they've been so successful is because it gives you a very clear path that is based in good, solid financial planning principles and a get-out-of-debt philosophy, and it's the shortest distance between where you are and wealth. Now, it might not be the shortest distance between where you are and a deck, but it's the shortest distance between where you are and wealth, and that's what the whole thing's built on. And so what we would tell you to do is have $1,000 first.

Any other non-retirement money you have, the $30,000 in your case, would be to become debt-free except your home. So we pay off your car by the time dinner is here tonight. Pay off the car. Okay? Then that leaves you $14,000, and you have have a deck problem and you make $145,000. So we need to get a deck fixed. You have any money in savings at all other than this non-retirement? We have a small savings account.

It's about $5,000 right now. So I would keep some of that other though, but instead of the deck for your emergency fund. Because when you said, I just want to have some cushion, that's what that provides you. And then you guys make great money and I would just cash flow. The deck. Yeah, put in the budget. Hey, we're going to save X amount per month towards the deck. So let's pretend.

Okay. So you make $140,000. You're right, Rachel. You make $145,000. Let's call $20,000 your emergency fund, which would probably be about right. And you never touch that ever for anything it's not for purchases yeah a bass boat another car is not an emergency okay okay this is only if the world comes to an end i mean only if the transmission goes out only if your mother or your relative

or whoever in another state passed away and you got to buy an airline ticket i mean only as an emergency an unexpected event a deck falling off is gradual that's not unexpected yeah okay so to rachel's point we're gonna put 20 000 bucks there now you got no car payment and now you're going to get on a detailed budget and start working these plans and i would save up for that deck very rapidly i think you can save for that deck by christ. Okay. And then you pay cash for it. Oh, by the way, in the winter, the guys aren't working as much in St. Louis, and so you might get a better deal than a deck in the summer. I could be wrong, but I think so.

And so on. Okay, now we got a deck, and now we got baby step four is 15% of your income going into retirement. You already got the kids' college college going you already got that going and now let's start just thinking about how are we going to knock out this little 215 000 mortgage it's not much you sound young how young are you i'm 34 yeah so i mean you guys same age right so yeah um 35 35 but basically just close enough yeah i mean that's when you're my age, it's really close. I know. So anyway, the point is, you're going to, gosh, you should have this house paid off

before you're 40. Yeah, y'all are going to see a lot of traction, Mary. Because you guys, you already have the instinct. You've been doing this. And like you said, everything's a little bit all over. You just need more of a concise plan. But there's no power. And you're going to see it.

In lack of focus. Focusing and working straight down those baby steps gives you a power because it keeps you from doing other stuff. When you try to do six things at once,

nothing gets done. But you can do one thing, you can get the one thing done. And so we got the car. Now we got the deck. Now we got the retirement. We got the kids' college going. Now we're going to start

working on the house. One thing, ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Ha, coming up is Jackson, Michigan. Mike's on the line. Hey, Mike, how are you?

Good, Dave. How about you? Better than we deserve, sir. How can we help? Quick question for you. I am retired. We are retired, and we have no debt. And we're purchasing a new car. We could pay cash for the new car.

If we could get a financing deal, and we can invest that same amount of money in cds over that same period of time what's your recommendation pay cash for the car or don't buy it okay yeah okay here's the thing okay how much how much what's your net worth about 2.5 million yeah you didn't get that by playing games like this. You know, well, I always leverage. You got this by saving money and investing money. Right.

But you didn't borrow on a car and invest the difference. No. What I was talking about is. I know what you're talking about. But, I mean, my point is, is you steadily invested over a long period of time to get $2.5 million. You did not borrow money and invest borrowed money to become a multimillionaire, did you? Correct.

Correct. And now you're going back on all your old ways. Don't do it. Stick with the plan that got you here. You're incredible, man. Congratulations, hero. Thank you. I wish I would have found you a lot earlier.

It would have made the path a little bit easier but i enjoy your show i don't think it's ever easy but you you scored touchdown in the super bowl as far as i'm concerned my man well done thank you worked hard to get there thank you very much that's so cool you know it's funny that uh rachel when you start paying attention to money and obviously that's one of the things that's required to end up with two and a half million dollars i kind of thought he was going to tell me that by the way yeah um kind of felt it you know he's just like but people just you're they're thinking about money not in a negative way not in a greedy way not i'm obsessed with money but instead of just you know it's like people that drive and pay attention when they're driving and the ones that drive and don't pay attention when they're driving.

And that's what they do with their money. They don't pay attention or they do. And the ones that do pay attention, if you just think about it, even though he was getting ready to do a dumb thing. But, I mean, he's a guy that thinks about it. That's why he won. Yeah, it's why he won. And I think this is where people can overthink something and take the math of something and think, okay, well, I can kind of beat the system here

because we hear that all the time, right? Paying off your house or even debt. You know, people use debt and want to keep debt around because like, well, if I invested that amount of money instead of paying it off, I would make more. And you know what I mean? Like they start to overthink it where I'm always like, oh my gosh,

you have to like untangle it. And almost in a sense, remember what brought you here yes and what is the emotion that you have when you're not attached to debt what how do you feel and that behavior part I feel like some people you know jump but I but I appreciated his question because I mean I think there are people naturally that are like I want to do well with money what what's what what's the quickest path that's how you get point a point a to point b exactly exactly you're exactly right and so sometimes what can happen is you try to fix something with the math and you forget the heart that's right you you know use only your brain and not your heart because your heart measures risk and your head does math.

And so if you're, you know, oh, I worked so hard to be debt free. And then all of a sudden you forget and go back into debt on a car. It's so absurd when you think about it. But at least he's on task and he's thinking about it. He's a person that considers these things and is asking questions. Yeah, absolutely. Still curious. Yep. Still curious.

Yep. $2.5 million in. Well done, sir. Well done. I'm proud of you. Steven is in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hi, Steven. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave. How are you? Better than we deserve. What's up? Good. I had a question for you. I'm well-versed in your program. I'm 52, and I've got three boys.

One is a junior in college, or he's going to be a junior. The other one is going to be a freshman in college, and the other one's just going into high school, so he's not far off from college either. My wife and I have made the decision to try to pay their tuitions in full. Good. And we've got good 529 programs, but they're just not going to cover all of it. So we're trying to make up some ground in a fairly short period of time. And I wanted to see what your thoughts are on basically moving the principal that we've paid

into our Roth retirement accounts and moving that over to the 529. It's about 110,000. That would basically kind of get the deal done. And I ran, you know, we ran the 529. It's about 110,000. That would basically kind of get the deal done. And we ran the hypotheticals. I'm still going to have about $2.2 million when it comes to retirement time, which is more than enough for our lifestyle. So I just wanted to get your thoughts on that. How much money is in your retirement now? About $900,000. Okay.

And you don't have any other money? I've got our emergency fund. When you're saying pay in full, Stephen, you mean just like semester by semester, right? Correct. For all three boys for all four years. What's your household income? $150,000. Okay. right correct for all three boys for all four years what's your household income 150 000 okay um go ahead well i just want to make sure steve that yeah you're i mean you guys will pay

each semester when the semester comes you're not $110,000 in there now. Okay. And what's the total budget for the kids to go to school, the tuitions? They're about, let's see, about $45,000 a year for each kid. That includes dorm and and everything yeah that's that's everything so you're you weren't talking about just tuition you're covering everything correct okay and so you got 80 a year right now correct and you got 110 in there so you got a year's worth you don't have enough even if you move the Roth.

Well, no, so we can get out. We'll continue to save for our youngest. So we will basically, you know, fund that difference. Yeah, but you don't have enough even if you move the Roth because you're burning 80 a year for the next two years. That's 160, and after that you're burning another 80 on him. No, only two are in college. Only two. I know.

Two are in college now. $40,000 each. Right? Yeah, that's right. $40,000 each? Yeah, so $80,000 per year. And you've got a freshman and you've got a junior. So for the next two years, that's $160,000.

You only got $210,000. Well, we'll cash flow some of it. So, yeah, the math isn't apples to apples. You're not going to get there. We'll cash flow what we need to. You're not going to get there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm trying to think.

So, your freshman, when your freshman graduates, will you have two in school ever again, or is the one going to leave about the time the other one comes in? The one leaves as soon as the other one comes in. Yeah. Okay. So you're going to be, once you get past those two years, you're at a 40-year burn rate, give or take. Correct. Correct.

And that doesn't count them getting a job, which they need to do, and applying for scholarships, which they need to do. Correct. And that doesn't count them getting a job, which they need to do, and applying for scholarships, which they need to do. Right. I just, it just goes against everything I am to start cashing out retirement for college. I'm certainly not going to borrow to do it, so I'd do that before I'd borrow. And by the way, you can't roll a Roth into a 529. You can just cash it out. Correct. Yeah, so it's not, you said I'll put it before I'd borrow. And by the way, you can't roll a Roth into a 529. You can just cash it out.

Correct. Yeah. So it's not, you said I'll put it in the 529. You can't. But you can just take it out and spend it. And I wouldn't do that until I'd emptied the 529. I'd let it sit there and grow additional growth before you move it tax-free, right? And so you got, I'm going to try to make it two more years and get that last get

the first one out of school and then get down to the 40 burn rate if you got down to the 40 burn rate with this money that'll get no that just makes it one year yeah it's interesting to me it's the you know it's a it rubs me the wrong way because it's kind of against the principle it's against everything i believe yeah i just. It's against everything, I believe. I'm going to do everything I can to not do it. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to use the 529. I'm going to cash flow like a bandit, and I'm going to put kids to work,

and I'm going to go for scholarships and try to not touch this. If you do touch it, make it the last thing you do, and you allow it to sit there and grow until then. And so maybe only in the fourth or fifth year or whatever else. What else can we sell? Do we have any other assets? Do we have anything we can do? Because this $100,000 is worth millions if you'll leave it alone and not take it out of there. What it's going to cost you and miss is just ridiculous because you're getting tax-free growth on it. I hate to touch it. I really hate to touch it.

So it would be the very last thing I'd do. This is The Ramsey Show. The Ramsey Show, question of the day, sponsored by Neighborly, your hub for home services. Most American homes have dozens of appliances, and chances are at any given time there's something wrong with at least one of them. Mr. Appliance, a Neighborly brand, offers expert appliance service on your schedule. Visit Neighborly.com to find home service experts, including a Mr. Appliance in your area. Today's question comes from Jonathan in Florida.

I am 35 and my wife just had our first baby. I have roughly $43,000 in debt. My annual income is around $73,000. I'm wanting to start my baby steps, but I had a quick question about baby step one and two. I have a credit card that is maxed out at the $1,000 limit. If I pay that card off can i count

that as my baby step one and then tackle my debt snowball while simultaneously putting a thousand dollars cash in my savings account no john that is so convoluted no no no because no maxed out credit card for $1,000 is not considered your emergency fund. Your emergency fund is considered cash that you have saved, your own money. So before you pay off your credit card, you save $1,000 cash. Then you start working to pay off your debts. And this might be the first one you pay off. I appreciate Jonathan's, you know, if I have a $1,000 limit,

can I just cash out $1,000, put that, and then throw it in my desk? The underlying bull crap in this question is that he's going to use his credit card as his emergency card. I know, he's going to go cash out $1,000. So the next time he has an emergency, he's going to use a stupid credit card. So that's the underlying bull crap. Yeah, that's just. No, sorry, Jonathan.

Wish it was that easy you know Sharon Rachel's mom when I'm when I do crap like this Jonathan she goes you're scheming and scamming again you're trying to find a shortcut quit scheming and scamming just do the work boy that's Sharon that's Rachel's mom that's that's that's what I get so yeah Jonathan just you're scheming and scamming Jonathan just do the work boy i mean oh my gosh that's it yeah but you cannot scam your way into wealth okay you can't even trick yourself into it and uh so no we're not going to go a thousand dollars in credit card debt for the emergency fund but we appreciate the question so cute here's a more sophisticated problem so this was sent to me via instagram. Appreciate all my Instagram people out there. Because they will send me things a lot.

And they're like, oh my gosh, what do you think about this? Or what do you think about that? And this one came up. You know, people might send me stuff too, but I don't look at it. So I wouldn't know. You like read the messages or something? Is that what you're supposed to do? Dave, I am part of the people.

These are my people. So yes, I get on and talk to people on social media you could too social media you could too that's how it works they're real people out there on the other side i know that enjoy your stuff you should get in and comment so much i'm not gonna get on it should go and talk to them anyway so they're talking to you and they sent you this yes and i read the messages because i read my messages and they're like, hey, I want you and Dave to talk about it. And I was like, oh, well, perfect.

We'll be on the show together. So this was from a New York Times article. And the headline was, I've hidden my trust fund for 15 years. Do I finally tell my spouse? So I'm ready for this. I'm a 44-year-old man and I've been married to my spouse for 10 years. We've been together for 15. Unbeknown to my spouse, I have a trust fund that provides me with a monthly income of $25,000.

When we first met, I said that I worked as a consultant and they've never questioned it. My spouse, a dedicated doctor, works long hours and doesn't like to discuss work when not on the job. Over the years, I have repeatedly assured my spouse that they don't need to work as my income is secure and stable. They are, however, passionate about their career and have chosen to continue working. I actively serve on various boards, but I have never held a full-time job and don't plan to. Our lifestyle is comfortably upper middle class and I am content with that. My dilemma is whether I should reveal the truth about my trust fund to my spouse. My family members have always advised against disclosing our financial situation,

but the weight of the secret is becoming too difficult to bear. What do you do all day? He sits on boards. Oh, that's true. That's what he said. I don't know. Plays Wordle. I how often like this kind of well we well we know that spouses hide things from one another that's a that's a consistent theme

through life like that's a known thing um but this one was just interesting because i'm like okay 25 grand a month i wonder what she thinks that he does to earn that amount of money so anyways um what i would tell the name is withheld they did not disclose the name of the new york times article so yes if anyone out there has this dilemma no no one else has this dilemma or the idea that you have a secret that is too unbearable to bear that is from your spouse. Listen, we always teach and talk about and believe that being on the same page

with your spouse is much better. So coming clean and telling them anything and everything when it comes to money, anything you are withholding is not only going to just lift the weight off your shoulders that you've been carrying around having to navigate because i think about this situation which this is kind of it's true i know it's a little absurd but if you do think about it i'm like the amount of like probably lies and deception that had to have occurred to cover the big lie to cover the big lie that's a lot of work in life and i don't know

who has time for that so i'm just like free yourself you're burning an awful lot of calories for yourself being a liar and and you've been with your spouse for 10 i mean like i mean i think it's fine and then you know what she probably still wants to be a doctor because she's passionate about her work and that's great but yeah being upfront honest disclosing everything regardless of whether it's a $25,000 trust fund or it's a secret credit card that you have whatever it is uh you and your spouse being on the same page is is crucial to to winning winning long term yeah so um yeah you should have disclosed this day one and you should be continually you should not have any secrets from your spouse hello period i mean that's just a thing okay you just cannot build a quality relationship on deception duh okay so your family is screwed up dude because your family is telling

you that your money and you're not needing to work is is you how they know your secret and your own freaking wife does not and your family thinks that's good your family's screwed up and then they left you money so you don't have to work that's screwed up so let me tell you if you're going to participate in the ramsey trust it involves continually working. Because working is good for the soul. Like real work. Yeah, doing work. Showing up and doing stuff.

You know? This is not good. This is not healthy. There's nothing in this that's fun. And it's only $25,000. It's only $300,000 a year. It's not like you're freaking rich. I mean, it's $300,000., it's only $300,000 a year, it's not like you're freaking rich. I mean, it's 300 grand.

Jeez. No, I mean, really. No, I mean, it's not 3 million. It's 300,000. And what has this guy not done with his life that he should have done? That's pretty good. I agree. He should have done something with his life.

Instead, he's the king of Wordle. I mean, oh, my God. No, really. I mean, I serve on boards. That's code for I don't do much. I'm telling you. This is wrong. It's wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

I agree that it is wrong. It's deception, and it's all glassed over as if my family has said we should not share our money information because your family thinks this money is a bigger deal than it is. It's just some more important than your spouse yeah and more important than your integrity and your marriage yeah yeah you've been living a long time in the in the soup of deception and it's it's poisoned you man really the cleanest best thing you can do you'll be like an alcoholic who sits down the

bottle when you quit lying you're to have a cleanliness of soul that's going to be so good for you. And is she going to be pissed? Well, yeah! Of course she's going to be pissed. She's been lied to for 15 years. Jeez. So, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Of course she's going to be mad. Yeah. If she's not, she's a wuss. She should be mad. This is just nutty. Anger is a good thing yeah in that situation i mean really you but you're you're living a lie that's why you had to put it out on the dadgum ethicist columnist page you have to go to you have to go to ethics class to figure this one out. This is why we need ethics classes. Yeah, son.

And Papa, don't do this to your kids. You're better off teaching them how to work and give them no money than give them this crap. This is The Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Ashley's in Nashville. Hi, Ashley.

How are you? I'm good. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up? So I just wanted to get your all's opinion. I have a friend that does your all's program as well as I've been doing it since 2020. I'm still in baby step two.

And we've discussed it a few times, but I'm just not sure of my decision. So in 2019, we adopted our son. And then a year later, our marriage fell apart and we split up. So fast forward to now, we've been to court two times over custody issues. A lot of nonsense, really. His dad's just really hard to get along with. But in those two times, it cost me around $20,000 to $25,000 in court returning fees and everything else.

So I'm trying to just gain some traction on maybe preparing for that in the future because I feel like it's not going away. And still being able to pay off my debt. I really just don't know what to do. I'm sorry, Ashley. That's really, yeah, that's a really hard situation. How much money do you make a year? So I work as much overtime as i can um i tried last year i made around 100 100 000 and then um this year it's probably going to be between 80 and 90 okay what do you do i'm a nurse yeah good for you thank you uh how much how much debt in general do you have? Altogether, it's probably around $90,000.

It's a mixture of vehicles, well, my vehicle alone, and then I have some credit cards and a line of credit at the bank. What do you owe in your car? $25,000. Okay, so you have $90,000 in debt and $25,000 of its car and then how much of its credit cards? Around $9,000. Okay, so the rest of it is what? I have a line of credit, which is around $20,000 that I opened up to pay for court fees. And I'm not sure. I can't think of anything else. That's only $45,000.

That's only $54,000. So I have another vehicle in my name, but I don't pay for it. So that's another $48,000, but that's not mine. What in the world? What is that? It's his truck, but he makes all the payments on that. It doesn't cost me anything, but we went in together to get it. So your name is on the, is it on the deed, on the loan?

On the title of the truck? Yeah, yeah. But the divorce decree gave him the truck, and you're supposed to pay it, or he's supposed to pay it. So that's not his, no. That's, like, my fiancé that I have now. I'm sorry. Oh, so you have a, so you're engaged. That's my fiancé that I have now. I'm sorry. You bought a truck for your fiancé for $50,000. So we went in together.

I didn't necessarily buy it for him. It's something that we just done together. He needed you to co-sign it? No. No, he's, I mean, he's doing good with his money. You know, he. No, he's not. He took out a $50,000 truck loan.

He's not doing good with his money. Well, I mean. Why are you on the loan? Because, I mean, we're getting married. And I just, I don't know. When are you getting married? Hopefully i just i don't know it was when are you getting married uh hopefully within the next year okay in the in the whole story that you told us that has a lot of uh tragedy and sadness this thing then jumps up as super stupid and crazy right like a fifty thousand

dollar truck while you're fighting and don't have the money to pay and you have to take out a line of credit. And the best idea y'all got is to go in debt for 50 grand on a truck while you're trying to keep a dadgum child in a custody battle ongoing with a crazy ex. Yeah. This truck is crazy. Nuts.

Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. yeah this truck is crazy nuts crazy yeah yeah so um all right so you're getting married when did you say probably within a year okay uh why are you waiting um honestly because everything's just been so crazy with my ex for the past two years and i've dealt with um anxiety and depression my son has a lot of issues he was born with none of that's changing in a year i'm sorry none of that is changing in a year. I know. Yeah. We've just not, I don't know, just anxiety and depression on my side, and my main focus being my son. That's just not been at the top of the list, I guess. Okay. You called and asked us for help, and we love you, and we want you to win,

and we're sad that you're having to fight to keep your baby, now then i'm going to tell you some hard stuff are you okay with that yes okay sell the stupid truck get married now or don't but don't wait around on some mythical island to come sailing up some mythical ship to come sailing up to your island when everything's going to be right because the things you've been facing part of your anxiety and part of the things you've been facing with mental health stuff is not just your ex it's this pile of stuff on you and all of these unied knots, knots that need to be tied. Okay? Right.

You don't have closure on anything. All these open-ended things. There's open-ended this, open-ended that, open-ended this. There's no closure anywhere, and that creates angst. It creates anxiety. So, yeah, you've got to get some predictable order, not chaos. The more areas of your life you can get non-chaos in, the faster your anxiety is going to drop. I'm not a mental health professional.

Dr. John Deloney is. I've just heard him say that, so I said it, okay? But that's the truth, okay? and these you know and the debt and the pile of debt you guys have you have and now you guys with this $50,000 truck is part of where your anxiety is coming from because you don't you feel trapped and now you're you're worried about the next time the crazy ex comes at you how are we going to cover that meantime I got a $48,000 truck note. Okay. And I know he takes care of it, Ashley. I don't care. But the truth is, though, if he doesn't, it's on you then.

And so you're carrying this around your neck. You feel it between your shoulder blades. You feel the weight of it. And that's part of the anxiety. You can't keep from doing that, by the way. It's just how your body and your mind and your spirit works. So, yeah, if you were my little sister or my daughter i would tell you get married and sell the truck by the weekend or run this guy off and sell the truck by the

weekend but painter get off the ladder right okay that's what i would tell you to do if i loved you and i do so i want you to do that okay and then we want you to take this wonderful income you have and you have a fabulous career choice because you'll always have a job and you can always make money when you're a nurse it's just a great job and actually I would sell your car honestly I would get any level of traction for $25,000 I'm like you can get a used $10,000 whatever it is but just I would I would out of that. How hard would you work? How crazy would you go to have $20,000 in the bank and no debt? So next time Crazy X comes around, you can punch him in the nose with a lawyer.

Right. That's what I thought I was doing the last time. Exactly. But you didn't. You went over the car lot with your goober fiance and bought a truck. Right. Okay, so you went the other way so i want you to sell everything in sight work like crazy people live on beans and rice rice and beans get married and let's get the credit card debt paid off i mean all of it yeah

start getting some traction with that debt payoff ashley and i think you're going to start to feel more in control because you are that's why you'll feel that way. Because you're going to run the chaos off and drive order in and build a war chest to go to war. And then you can fight for this baby. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Rachel Cruz.

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