The Ramsey Show - App - You Have to Deny Yourself in Order to Win (Hour 1)

Episode Date: September 27, 2019

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. It is a free call at 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. Brian starts off this hour.

Orlando calling. Hey, Brian, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. You too, sir. How can I help? Well, my wife and I are leading our first fpu class in about three hours wow and i'm calling to get some last minute advice and encouragement good for you thank you for doing that and this is your very first one obviously yes we took the class last

year great this is our first one that how many are scheduled to attend? 17. Wow, good class. Good for you, man. Well, thank you for doing this. Well, I think a couple things that I learned the hard way, maybe you won't have to if I tell you, is the first thing is if you don't know the answer to the question, that's okay. I do this show every day, and I don't always know the answer to the question. If I don't know, I just say, I don't know, instead of trying to BS my way through it, right? And so just if you don't know, go, I don't know,

but I'll call the folks up at Financial Peace University in Nashville and talk to them and see if I can get you an answer and get back to you. You know? And you don't have to be the answer man all the time. And the second thing is, whatever dumb things you and your wife have ever done with money, be sure you share those. There's a lot of stories there. Yeah, yeah. Share your foibles, because that makes you human as a leader, authentic as a leader, and you're not trying to be too cool for school.

There's three primary negative emotions people have around money. Guilt, shame, and cynicism. Guilt and shame are kissing cousins, and that is removed when you find out everybody else in the room are human, too, and almost everyone has made money mistakes. Some have made ridiculous money mistakes. Some of us have done it with zeros on the end. Some of us have a Ph.D. in DUMB. You know, but just go ahead and let the sooner the room can get real and everybody's not acting like they have their crap together because nobody does, the sooner you'll be having a great discussion and the opportunity to support

people that are scared and help people change that are prideful and everything else. So that's the guilt and the shame. When the cynicism one is, people have been messed over by money people. They've been messed over by an insurance person, a mortgage person, a real estate person, a lawyer, whoever it was. And they're suspicious of anybody that's under the heading of money people. And as of tonight, you're under that heading. So they're suspicious of you, and that's why I told you to make sure

if you don't know the answer to something, just say, I don't know. I mean, I just went through the class once myself. It helped me, and that's why I'm doing it. And so we're doing all this together. It's a journey we're doing together. And just look at people in the eye and care about them. And if you do those three things, you're going to be just fine. You're going to have a blast.

And what you're going to find is you have a front-row seat to watching people change their lives. And it's very exciting and rewarding to do it. Thank you so much for leading the class, man. Well, thanks for doing it. Thanks for everything you do. Sure. And if you've got any more questions, call me back any time. I'll help you, man. Well, thanks for doing it. Thanks for everything you do. Sure. And if you've got any more questions, call me back anytime. I'll help you, man.

I appreciate you doing this. Kate is with us in New York. Hi, Kate. How are you? Hi, I'm well. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

My husband and I are having a disagreement about the next step in our finances. We're debt-free, and we have our emergency funds. Right now we're saving really, really hard for a down payment. We're not homeowners. So we're saving about 50% of our income for that, but we're also maxing out his 401K. So my question is, once we're done saving for the down payment, I have told him we need to increase that saving to 15%.

And my husband feels like, well, we're already at the 401k limit. Why would we bother upping our percentage? Do you have a suggestion? I mean, is he right? Am I right? And if I'm right, can you give me a better reason to tell my husband than Dave says so? Okay. Well, I mean, the question is that you guys together, I think the way you set the table on this discussion is,

are we saying we're following Dave Ramsey's plan, and do we understand why he has that plan? And if we understand why and we like the plan, then let's follow that plan. If we're not, if we're going to make up our own plan then what dave ramsey says doesn't matter sure so i think i think that's the question is i don't think he under or i don't even know if i understand why 15 percent yeah but i guess my point is my opinion doesn't matter about your plan my opinion about my plan if you're following it is the only one that matters so you see what i'm saying so you guys kind of got to decide now what we figured out is is and we've done it for decades with millions of people so our plan is called the baby steps and you're through baby step three you're debt free except your home you've got your emergency

fund in place and you're on what we're always called baby step 3b before you start saving for retirement or as you're saving for retirement you aggressively save for a down payment on a home now when you get the home purchased then you would be in baby steps four five and six simultaneously baby step four is you put 15 of your income towards retirement five is you save towards your kids college and six is any other money we can come up with we get the mortgage paid off as fast as possible the data points tell us that the typical millionaire is paying off their home in 10.2 years a lot of people are paying off their homes in seven years following that plan and then that sets you up to max out everything so you're it sounds like he's a high income earner what's your household income um about 228 000 okay cool so what it would sound like is you save like crazy for your down payment

and once you've gotten the down payment there and you purchase the house if you were following our plan uh how old are you guys i'm 31 and my husband's 32. Do you work outside the home? No, I'm a mom. It's 100% his income. Okay. So he can do $18,500 into the 401k, and if I understood you right, you're already doing that. Right, yes. Okay. And his only thing is I don't want to do any more than that.

That's plenty. Right. Okay. Well, my answer to that is people ask me, how much should I save? And I say, how wealthy do you want to be? Right. Okay. Well, my answer to that is people ask me, how much should I save? And I say, how wealthy do you want to be? Right. Obviously, the more we save, the more we're going to have. $18,000 a year will make you wealthy if you don't do anything else starting in your 30s.

Okay? You'll be wealthy. The question is, could you have been wealthier making your kind of income? And the answer is yes. So I probably were eye in your shoes. I would try to get it up to 15%, which is about a $30,000 or so. And so we're $10,000, $12,000 short. You could do a couple of Roth IRAs, $5,500 each, and that would get you very, very close.

You cannot do them directly because of your income but you can do what's called a backdoor iroth and the backdoor roth works like this you open a an after-tax traditional ira an after-tax traditional ira and you roll it to a roth an instantaneous second later and i do that every year it's called a backdoor roth and that would get you another $11,000 going in, which basically puts you at about 15%. So really, all you're arguing about out of $200,000 is after we buy the house, do we do another $11,000 or not? And I would say, yeah, if you're following our plan, I'm going to try to get you to 15%, then start saving for your

kid's college, and then pay off the house that you just bought. That's our plan. Now you've got to decide if you're going to follow our plan or yours. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options? Do you wish you could find an affordable biblical solution to your healthcare costs? Based on New Testament principles, Christian Healthcare Ministries, or CHM, helps Christian families, churches, and ministries join together as the body of Christ to share their major healthcare costs. Christian Healthcare Ministries is the original health cost-sharing ministry.

A Better Business Bureau-accredited organization, CHM members share to pay each other's medical bills. It's not insurance. It's Christians financially and spiritually supporting each other. It's what Christian Healthcare Ministries has done for over 35 years. And our members have shared over $2.5 billion in medical bills. To learn more, We'll be right back. Thanks for being here, America. We're glad you're here. Dominique is in Raleigh, North Carolina. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Dominique. Hi, Mr. Ramsey. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hi. So I'm 24 years old. I just graduated from the community college about a year ago.

Okay. I need you to speak directly into your phone. I'm having trouble hearing you. I'm sorry. Can you hear me now? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Awesome. So I'm 24 years old. I just graduated a community college about a year ago, and I'd like to start making the necessary steps to moving out. However, I just want to avoid winning if I can. I just don't know if that's a wise decision considering the amount of money that I make. So if it is doable, how much would you suggest that I save a month or per paycheck to move out in a realistic time? And I want to say too that I am fortunate enough to have parents kind enough to let me stay with them rent-free. That's very nice. Okay. What do you make? Monthly, about $1,100.

And that's after graduating? Yes, sir. Okay. What is your degree in? It's actually in cosmetology, but I've actually got a job with the DOT just to help me find my career. Okay. So when will your career kick in? OT just to help me find my career. So when will your career kick in?

I'm actually taking clients now, but I'm using this money to further my education and take other classes. So I'd say about another six months to about a year. Okay. Well, at $1,100 a month, we're talking about a little over $13,000 a year. You're going to make it on that in Raleigh out on your own, okay? You're not making enough to do that. So we've got to get your income up. That's why I was asking.

And so, yeah, we need to double your income pretty quick here, as fast as you can. And when you can double your income and then i would go get uh you know an inexpensive apartment maybe a roommate or whatever and just get started on your own and the main thing there is make sure you have no debt do you have any debt at all um so i do have about uh twelve hundred uh sorry twelve thousand000 in debt, which my parents are kind enough to, that they're taking care of that for me just such that I can establish some more credit. What do you mean they're taking care of that? So they came to some money and they offered to pay my loan off yesterday.

Okay. Now, we don't need you to establish any more credit you don't need any debt you don't make enough money to breathe hardly okay so when you are 100 debt free and then you build an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses so like five thousand dollars is set aside for emergencies then you would start saving towards your home. And by then, you are also in your first apartment, and you just start saving as fast as you can. And you won't put down as much as you can possibly put down. How old are you?

You said you're 24? Yes, sir. Okay, good. Well, you've got a good plan. So hopefully in the next 12 to 18 months, you can see that income spike up as you start using your cosmetology degree. And because, you know, you're at $13,000, we need to get you to $26,000 as quick as we can. That's doubling it.

That's still not a lot of money, but that'll at least get you out there and get you moving and get your career to start to build. So, hey, thanks for the call. We appreciate you listening. Ian is with us at Prince Edward. Hi, Ian. How are you? Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. We appreciate you listening. Ian is with us at Prince Edward. Hi, Ian. How are you? Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up? Well, my wife and I, we've got five boys, five kids, and we just moved into our dream home about three years ago. Ten, twelve acres, so lots of room for the kids to run around. But the last few months, we just started your plan, and we're on baby step two. And we're just thinking, I mean, we've got $35,000 in debt besides the house, and we're just not sure if we need to sell the house just to be debt-free or if we should just plow through the next 10, 15 years and just make it happen.

10 to 15 years? You mean paying off the house and everything? Yeah, like we have 28 years left in the mortgage. So what's your household income? It's about 70K take-home pay. Take-home pay, all right. Yeah. And then what is your house payment?

It is around $1,200 a month. Okay. House payment's not out of line here. That's fine but you got a lot of kids you got a lot of kids and you're not used to living on a limited budget and you're going to have to start that right yeah because you got 35 you got 35 000 to clean up i mean you really need to clean that up it's probably going to take you a year and a half two years but something like that you need no I mean, you really need to clean that up. It's probably going to take you a year and a half, two years, but something like that. No longer than two years you need to have this debt cleaned up. Right.

What is the $35,000 in debt? What kind of debt? Part of it is a loan from our parents, and part of it is line of credit. It's a $25,000 line of credit and $10,000 loan from our parents. Okay. So just a line of credit. What did you buy with a line of credit? and $10,000 loan from our parents. Okay. So just a line of credit? What did you buy with a line of credit?

Oh, it's just been life. It's just been we bought a piano a few years ago, just miscellaneous things. Okay. And that's over, right? Yeah. Not doing that anymore, right? No, no, no. We're just sick and tired.

We just want to be free. Yeah. But we love the place. I don't think you need to sell the house. We're just sick and tired. We just want to be free. Yeah. But we love the place. I don't think you need to sell the house. The house is not killing you. $1,200 out of a $5,800 take-home pay is not out of line. You're okay on the house. But you do have to get your written budget. Get on EveryDollar, your written budget, and get that going as quick as you can.

EveryDollar.com and start using the app on your phone. And you guys need to squeeze every dollar so that you clear this $35,000. Because if you can clear the $35,000, you're going to have pretty good room in this budget, even with five kids. And you can clear it. It's just going to take you a year and a half, two years. A year and a half, two years is $17,500 a year out of $70,000 take-home. That's doable.

You can do that. That's a lay-down. You can do that. That's a lay-down. You can do that. $35,000 out of $70,000 with five kids means one year. I don't think you're going to do that. So somewhere between the one and the two, and that's how I'm landing on 18 months. Richard is with us. Richard's in Salt Lake City.

Hi, Richard. How are you? Hi, Dave. Doing great. Good. How can I help? So I was just wondering about emergency funds. How are you? Hi, Dave. Doing great. Good. How can I help? So I was just wondering about emergency funds.

We have a fully funded emergency fund of at least three to six months. Good. I have about $15,000 in there. At my job, they offer an HSA account, and they match up to $1,500 a year. Great. Should I fully fund the HSA account, and should I count that towards any of our emergency fund? Fully fund it to get that match. That's wonderful.

And the HSA, of course, can only be used for one kind of an emergency, and that's medical bills. We have lots of other kinds of emergencies pop up. And so do both of you work in this house, or is there a single income? No, single income. Okay, and what's your household income? Right around $60,000. And what do you do?

I'm a nurse. You're a nurse, okay. Very, very stable career, meaning that if you were to lose a job, you can get another one in 20 minutes. Nursing is just a fabulous career field. So in terms of accessibility, you can add hours anytime you want to add hours. You can back it off. You can change direction, all kinds of stuff. You just really have landed in a sweet spot there.

So very, very good on that. Given that you've got that type of a career that's not so specialized that it might take you six months to find a job if you lost it or something, take you six minutes, then given that that's the situation, I would back, and you fully fund that HSA, between the three to six months of expenses range, I would back it down to the three months. Okay. And so that's kind of like partially leaning on the HSA as part of your emergency fund, but it's certainly not, we're not really counting it. Because, I mean, you can have lots of emergencies that have nothing to do with medical in your life. I mean, again, you could lose a job. You could have the death of a relative and you had to pay for the funeral or wanted to pay for the funeral. You can have all kinds of different things happen transmission blow out of the car

i mean all kinds of things that can happen that aren't medical and you can't use the hsa for anything but medical so i don't generally count it in the emergency fund but i'm looking at your career stability and the fact you got a big fat hsa with a big fat match on it which is just wonderful both of them then that makes me very comfortable with being on the three-month side of the three to six months range for your emergency fund. Thank you. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Kyle and Stephanie are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hi, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserve. Where do you guys live? We live in northern Indiana, Notre Dame country. Love it. And how much debt have you two paid off? We paid off $91,000 in 18 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that 18 months?

It was pretty all over the place. Was it like $40,000 something? $55,000 to $125,000. Whoa! Okay, so how do you double your income or more in 18 months? One of you gets a job that didn't have one? What? I guess it's a complicated story, Dave, but we actually ended up calling you.

We were in a family business. We called you, asked for some advice, and you gave it to us, and we followed it and ended up walking away from that family business and started our started our own and we actually run a couple businesses now okay and god just blessed us and said hey you did the right thing so here you go financially very very good move career very good move your family good move but very tough decisions for yes we were looking at um when left, we walked away and we were looking at a $100 deficit a month in our income. And the very first month that we had walked away, our income doubled. Wow.

Wow. Well, way to go. Good for you guys. Well done. Well done. Well, it sounded like it was something that needed to happen. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. And honestly, we started the journey like eight years ago, and we just did not make enough money. We kept struggling. We had two girls, and I stayed home, and we were working on the businesses, and we just – we were like – we didn't know what to do, and we got on a budget, and we were listening to you the whole time, and we were trying to pay off debt, but it's like we didn't make enough money.

And then really when we – Some very small family businesses, and I don't know about yours, but some of them there's two people or three people trying to eat out of one trough, and there's just not enough to eat out of. Yeah. Yeah. And when we walked away – It wasn't that somebody was trying to rip you off.

It's just there wasn't that much money there. Right. And in a lot of cases, that's what happens. So, well, congratulations. Wow. Yeah. I mean, you are booming. Yes. Booming and zooming.

Working on it. How's it feel? It's good. It's a lot of work, but it's good. So what kind of debt was the $91,000 that you got rid of? Mostly student loans. Okay. Yeah.

A couple cars. And a couple personal loans that were really small so your journey to get out of that was more of an income journey than it was uh some other radical change and it involved a very emotional career change to cause that to happen then and that's the big that's the big transformative thing with you guys absolutely i mean it's it is a very emotional thing i mean it's money and it's there and it's just a tool but at the end of the day um it was pretty tough when she would be uh crying because we couldn't pay the bills and so forth so yeah well i mean my kids work here and and i can't imagine how difficult it would be on them and me if they left and did something else because something was wrong, you know, whether it was income or something else.

You know, it would be very, very hard, very hard, be a nightmare. But it's something you go through, and you guys have made grown-up decisions, and congratulations. Very proud of you. Did you have people cheering you along through this, or did you just wonder if you were crazy the whole time? No, we have a few uh people that we would talk to quite often that were very encouraging to us so that was that was your biggest cheerleader maybe the layman's yeah and i mean multiple friends like we have other friends who came and did debt-free screams and um who are really our same age but farther along in the journey than us that we

could kind of look at and talk to about how we were feeling or what we were seeing around us that made it really hard to make sacrifices. And our families were extremely helpful. And honestly, as I said, we started the journey before when we weren't making enough money and we sold a car, went down to one vehicle for a while. My parents lent us a car. We ended up selling our house and moving into my parents' house for a little bit. Wow. I mean, they just were so gracious to us.

And so it's like we kept making these sacrifices all along the way, and it felt like God ended up honoring all that yeah and he he's the one who did it you know it was our hearts that needed changed so yeah it's tough tough decisions along the way but you're there 18 months after the big decision boom i mean once you made once you flip the switch it went fast didn't it yeah it's like, we're done. Boom. Here we go. Game on. And you look back and go, wow. That kind of confirms everything that was in my spirit and my brain, man. I've had a few things like that.

You know, you think this is going to be the end of the world, and it ends up being a hot knife through butter in some regards. In other regards, it is tough. But well done, you guys tough but uh but well done you guys very very well done so the key to getting out of debt if i ask you that it's got to be income it's got to be part of it yeah and i mean everybody says it but it's living within your means and it's such a simple thing but um so few of us do it yeah And we're trying, but once we were able to get our income up, and our income doubled, like she said, it wasn't quite that crazy right away, but even though our income went up, we still continued to say,

okay, let's not go buy the new car. Now we get to do it. Let's do it. Let's get the debt cleared up. It's really happening now. Let's not fall off the wagon now. Just because it started rolling. That's good.

And I would say it's sacrifice. I mean, you have to deny yourself all the time. And every single week, we would get money in, and I would say, this is what we need for the week. And then I would go, and as soon as the money was coming in, I would be hitting the payment button on our student loans. And we'd be looking at each other, and we're like, okay, we didn't used to make enough money, and now we're paying all this money each week on our student loans or whatever the debt was, and we had money for our bills,

and we still had money in the bank. It was just like God just blew us away. Yeah, that's very fun very very cool congratulations proud of you guys well done and you brought the kiddos with you what are their names and ages uh abby and hannah uh-huh they're seven and five seven and five years old and have they been practicing their debt-free screams uh well we tried but they're a little shy they said we're not doing it you're doing it you got instruction reverse instruction yeah that works for me i'll

go with that well you've changed their family tree congratulations i'm proud of you got a copy of chris hogan's book for you to retire inspired and of course that is the next chapter in your story to be millionaires and outrageously generous along the way. Congratulations. Kyle and Stephanie, Abigail and Hannah, you're in this too. The Indiana, South Bend, Indiana area, $91,000 paid off in 18 months, making $40,000 to $125,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Are you ready? Three, two, one. hear a debt-free scream. Are we ready? Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Woo! I love it. Very, very well done, you guys. Very well done. Well, that is how it's done.

You have to decide what you're going to do, and you have to take the steps to do it. And sometimes you make really painful decisions. Career change, sometimes you do it with a hallelujah, and you run out the door with your hair on fire. Other times, it's tough. Other times, it's a very emotional decision. And to leave a family business and go out on your own, man, that's really tough. That's really tough. That's really tough.

That's harsh. It's hard. But obviously, when you go from $40,000 to $125,000 on your income and you're able to pay off $91,000 in 18 months, obviously it was the right decision for that family. Obviously. And all parents, we want good things for our kids. And so that's how it has to be. We want good things for our kids. And so that's how it has to be.

We want good things for our kids. Man, I'll tell you what, though. It is a journey. You think getting out of debt is easy? It's not. You've got to do what she said. It's a sacrifice thing. It's we're going to live like no one else,

so later we can live and give like no one else. Changes everything. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Alex is in Dover, Delaware. Hey, alex welcome to the dave ramsey show hey mr ramsey how are you better than i deserve what's up i had a retirement question um i'm 23 years old and i'm currently stuck between baby steps two and three uh 3b sorry um i have a raw thyroid which I've had. How are you, stop a second, I don't understand how you get stuck between Baby Steps 2

and 3B. Yeah, I read your book last April, Total Money Makeover, and I started working the Baby Steps. My one debt that I had was student loans, and I started paying off.

I paid about like $8,000 of it off. Okay, I got that, but where does 3B come into play? That's saving for a house. Yeah, so I had $2,000 left on my debt, and I found out the Army should have missed two payments on my student loans. So that's been kind of pending for a while because they haven't taken care of that. So I haven't paid down my last $2,000 on the student loans. Will they not reimburse you if you do pay it down? No, they said if the balance is zero, then they won't repay it.

How long has that been pending? No, they said if the balance is zero, then they won't repay it. And how long has that been pending? Since April when I found out about it. How long do you think you're going to be before you get the money? Hopefully this year, I'm hoping. Okay. If it's not here by Christmas, just pay it off. Okay.

Screw it. Move on. Move on. Get on with your life. So what's your question about retirement? Okay. I have a Roth IRA that I've had for a couple of years, but I've been maxing out for the past couple of years. And I just recently started this year a 457B. And I didn't know if I could do both of them at the same time if I'm maxing out my Roth IRA. Yes. Okay.

And if that's so, should I be – because the cap on the 457B is like $18,000 or whatever. Should I just do it on that to reach the Roth IRA? Well, no. I put the Roth IRA before the 457 because the Roth grows tax-free. 457 is deferred comp. That's just where you are putting off, deferring, holding off, receiving your money, and it can be invested and can grow. It's deferring your compensation.

And so Roth IRA grows completely tax-free. So you fully fund the Roth IRA first, and we're thinking about baby step four at this point, which is 15% of your income going into retirement. What do you make? I make $60,000. Okay. Well, you don't need to be maxing out that $457,000 then, because you need to be throwing the other money towards your house.

And you're saving up to buy a house, and so I throw all that money in that savings. So 15% of $50,000 is $7,500. That means that you put $2,500 or you put $5,500 into the Roth and $2,000 into the 457, not $18,000. Okay. Yeah, I do have a house fund. And throw everything else at the house fund. Okay. I do have a house fund. And throw everything else at the house fund. Okay. So my house fund, I already have the 20% down.

Yeah, I want 100% down. That's my goal. So just keep putting money in there as fast and as hard as you can. $7,500 is all you need to be putting in retirement right now. Everything else, and have your emergency fund in place, and have enough to pay off this stupid student loan thing if they don't clear it by December. And then everything else goes in the student loan. Everything else goes in the house fund.

Just pile it up, pile it up, pile it up. You've done a great job. You're way ahead of schedule at 23 years old, and you're being very bright, and you're thinking about all this stuff. Your critical thinking skills are excellent. Very, done so get after it dude you're doing great candy's in houston texas hi candy how are you hey dave i'm better than i deserve to be and thank you very much for all that you've done in my life to make me that way. So I took Financial Peace University in January, and I started with Baby Step 1, got an emergency fund in July.

I paid off my debt, and I was all ready to start on Baby step three, and then the problem started. So I live on a disability check, and I rent two rooms out in my home because I can't get a Dave job. So renting these rooms is my Dave job. Gotcha. And so in August, right after I finished Baby Step 2, I had a roommate tell me that he was going to be moving out. And so I'm looking for someone now to fill that spot, but in the meantime I'm short on funds.

And then, of course, then there's a plumbing problem, and it was originally supposed to cost $1,500, but then when they got into it it ended up being $1,680. So that took my entire $1,000 emergency fund plus about $600 out of money I put into sinking funds for Christmas and for car insurance. So the reason I'm calling you is because it's kind of discouraging and I'm thinking maybe there's some magic words that you have to add to something that I'm doing. What's your disability income? How much?

It's $12.25 a month. Gotcha. How much are you renting these rooms for? One is $8 a month. Gotcha. How much are you renting these rooms for? One is $875, and one is $600. Very good. Very good. And how old are you? I'm 57.

What's the nature of your disability? Well, it's really complicated, but I've been diabetic since I was eight, and that turned into kidney problems and then a double transplant. But the thing that really keeps me from being able to work is I have complications with my autonomic nervous system. That means that my blood pressure, my body temperature, all the things your body does automatically, like your heartbeat and stuff like that, doesn't work right. And so there are days when I just can't do anything.

I got you. Okay. And then there are other days when I feel fine. I understand. Okay. All right. Well, I think you've done very, very well, and then you got kicked right in the knee as soon as you were doing good,

and that's discouraging to anybody. I mean, anybody who, everything's going good, and then boom, you know, and something drops a bomb on you, and it's just never going to work. But the thing is, if you were not out of debt, and you were not on a plan, and you were not working intentionally, this thing you've just been through would have been a big mess. Thank goodness you had the money. Way to go.

Way to go. I mean, wow. wow and i want to say thank you no i didn't give you the money i didn't give you any money but you you taught me a lot but i think you you know i'm impressed and so i get how it's just like it's a it's a moment where you say dadgummit and you kind of stick your lip out and And I would do the same thing. I understand how you feel that way. But I just got to tell you, looking at the whole picture, not just the last couple days of bad luck or bad mess you got, the whole picture looks really good because you've done such a good job. So I think you got a whole lot more to be encouraged about than discouraged about.

I think this is just speed bump, and you're going to be fine. And here's the other thing I want you to do. I'm going to send you a copy of Christy Wright's book, Business Boutique, because I want you to start a side business idea that you can do on your good days. Because after talking to you for a few minutes, I think you've probably got a small business inside you. I think there's something you can do on your good days. Because after talking to you for a few minutes, I think you've probably got a small business inside you. I think there's something you can do here. You've obviously got some health challenges that are very, very real.

They're not pretend. But the days that you have good, I'd have something I was doing to create some more income. Days that are bad, you can just set it down. Structure it that way. Hey, very good. Very good. You're going to be fine. Hold on. I'll have Kelly pick up. That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for the Dave Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but if you heard about a product or service and didn't have a chance to write it down, don't worry.

We list everything that is mentioned during this episode in the podcast show notes section. Thanks for listening.