The Ramsey Show - App - You Have To Get Intentional With Your Dollars! (Hour 2)

Episode Date: September 6, 2021

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's The Ramsey Show, where dad is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Deloney. Ramsey Personality, best-selling author, is my co-host today. Open phones as we take your calls about your life and your money.

Anything going on in your life, Dr. Deloney, his podcast is extremely popular these days. Join him on that. And he talks about everything in the world in the mental health field, but certainly about boundaries and relationships and marriage issues, all those kinds of things. And you're welcome to join us with those today as well. 888-825-5225. Thomas in San Diego starts off this hour. Hey, Thomas, how are you?

I'm doing great. How are you doing? Better than I deserve deserve how can we help you so i actually have well i have lots of questions but today my question is for dr john bring them all on thomas so a couple months ago a friend of mine a good friend he was working for his dad living with his parents and something happened. It wasn't entirely his fault. Um, but his dad kicked him out and fired him. Um, he was not in a good situation. And last Wednesday, one of his best friends died in a car accident. And so he's 19. He doesn't have a job right now.

He's staying with his friends. And I've been trying to encourage him, offered him a place to stay. I am just wondering how long I should wait to talk to him about finding a job and kind of getting his life back on track. How old are you? I'm 18. Okay. What are you doing I'm 18. Okay. What are you doing these days, man? I'm actually a welder.

I make about $50,000 a year. I just got engaged, so I should be getting married next year. And, yeah. Well, you're a good friend, man. You're doing good, and he's lucky to have you. So here's my experience and thoughts on this. And I'd love to hear Dave's too. The unfortunate thing about grief is Kessler says it's like a fingerprint.

Everybody does it differently. And so really the greatest gift you can give someone who's grieving the loss of a friend is your presence. What we often try to do is make ourselves feel more comfortable in that silence, in that darkness. And we try to give a bunch of advice. And you should be doing this. And here's how you should be feeling. And really, man, people just need to show up. As he says, grief demands a witness.

You've got to have people around you um what i've found is that people will invite you in when you show up meaning they will eventually at some point usually sooner rather than later turn to you and say hey what what what i do now and when you get invited into that conversation is when i'd love you to come work for me or i've got a spot for you i know a buddy who's got a restaurant you can get a part-time gig or something. Running at somebody who's hurting, especially their friend just died the other day and saying, well, you need to, you need to, you need to. I haven't found that to be super successful. Even though you know, man, just laying around the house is going to be hard. Grief just looks ugly and messy and different for everybody. Now, if you look up and it's six

months and it's a year and he's couch surfing and he's losing weight or gaining weight, that's when a group of friends will get together and say, hey, we're worried about you. We're really struggling to know how to love you. What do you need from us? But right now, fresh off the back of something, I would show up and be a presence with him. What do you think, Dave? All right.

Yeah, we call that the ministry of presence. And the last thing you do is you quote some pithy saying or some Bible verse. I want you to just go sit and don't say a freaking word. Bring tacos. Yeah, bring donuts. Yeah. Chocolate covered. And they bring donuts. Yeah. Chocolate covered. And they're good for grief.

And they're good for you sitting there quiet, too, because you've got something in your mouth. Yeah, just keep shoving them in, man. Yeah. Keep your mouth shut. And then if he asks a question, I would just turn it back on him. I wouldn't even answer his question. What do you think I ought to do? What do you think you ought to do?

Yeah. You think I ought to get a job? You think you ought to do what do you think you ought to do yeah you think i ought to get a job you think you ought to get a job just turn it back on him because he already knows the answer so this kid's got this young man has more than just grief from the loss of his friend he's also really pissed off at his dad right yeah and hurt about all of that so he's got like stuff upon stuff right now. So, again, just hanging out and bring tacos, bring donuts, and that kind of stuff, I completely agree with John.

Now, here's a necessity thing, too. He also doesn't have the luxury of doing nothing financially for a long period of time. And sometimes the faster you engage in some activities, not to mask over your grief, but to get over yourself and realize this whole thing may not be all about you, the faster you get on with it and go get a job, it gives you something to do and keeps your mind busy a little bit.

And that's not to go through the proper grieving process, but, I mean, what if he'd had a job and his friend died? Well, he can't quit his job and sit and cry. He's going to keep working and still go through the grieving process. So, by the way, he could go get a job, and really it would help him right now because it would give him one less thing to worry about because he's also sitting around worried about where he's going to live and how he's going to eat because his dad booted him out. And self-preservation is starting to enter into this.

Like, when we went broke, John, lost everything, they were like, you know, what'd you do after bankruptcy? I said, well, it worked. You got to, right? I didn't have a choice. I had two little babies. I got to get the dadgum lights on. You know, I didn't have a choice. I didn't babies i got to get the dadgum lights on you know i gotta i got i didn't have a choice i didn't have time to sit around think about what

was going on i just had to i had to make some money yeah right and there's something about those little wins that are so critical well you start you build your confidence you build uh you can begin to work through that um a it's not all about you and and B, you didn't cause it all. I mean, you still can process the psychology of it. Inaction. While you're in movement. Yeah. But there's those moments when your feet feel like they've been encased in concrete.

Yep. And what you need more than anything is i love it no nothing that can be knitted on a pillow yes i just need you to sit with me i can give you three scriptures to never use just sit with me and never use them yeah ever ever ever in that situation you know i can just don't don't these are not there everybody wants to quote that it's going to be okay because they want you to be okay they mean well but it's just looking for silver linings isn't the point they emerge over time yeah after please don't tell me how this is all gonna work out yeah no no no i need you just to sit and hurt with me thomas he is um really fortunate to have

you in his life i'll tell you that right now um he's he's he's blessed to have you just sit and show up and be awkward and so john and into this, give me 15 seconds on this. One of the antidotes for depression is activity. You're right. Purposeful activity. Yeah. So to not fall into depression as a result of all these things happening to this guy, some activity is not bad.

Sometimes it's as simple as getting up and brushing your teeth and going back to bed. Sometimes you work towards it. But, yeah, find the people around you. Sometimes it's going to work. Sometimes it's going to work. Sometimes it's exercise regime. That's exactly right. But activity is better than inactivity. Almost 99, almost 100% of the time.

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To get started today with a free trial, text TRIAL to 33789. Text TRIAL to 33789. Dr. John Deloney, Ramseysey personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Portland, Oregon is on the line. Dave's calling. Hi, Dave. How are you? Oh, great, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? I love it. Hey, man. Good to be on with you. It's funny, we just started listening to your show recently. My wife and I, up until that point, we thought, hey, man, we got it going on. And we started listening to your show and went, I don't know.

I don't know if we have it going on. Let's play our scenario out for Dave Ramsey and see what he would say and what he would do any differently than what we're doing. Okay. Yeah, so looking for some notes, I suppose. Okay. Yeah. Fire away.

What do you got? I don't know. Okay. I'm 49. She's 46. We've got a high school age kids. I'm a real estate broker. I work independently, self-employed.

She's a stay at home. We own our home, not outright. That's what we started like questioning ourselves as we're listening to your position on real estate mortgages and debt in general. How much debt do you have other than your home? None. That's good. We own three cars, two are paid for, and mine is a lease.

Okay. All right. And so what does it take to pay that fleece off? Like 20-some-odd grand worth of lease payments, probably. And what do you, well, give or take, it could probably be a little less than that. But the, well, if you're going to keep the car, it'd be more than the lease payments. But anyway. Yeah, probably more like $250,000 or something, I would guess.

Yeah. So what's your household income? About $500,000. Cool. Why don't you just pay that off? Yeah, you know, I'll tell you where I'm all spread around. That's one of the thoughts. I actually called my account last year and said,

well, if I at least make all of my lease payments, my remaining lease payments, can I get a tax deducted from the year? But he said, you better not do that. So here's what I got going out, right? So I've got my house. We owe about $870 on our house. I have it on a 20-year mortgage. Started off on a 30.

And I know I don't want to have 30 years of the mortgage payment, so I refied it to a 20, a 2.5%. Nice. Yeah, yes, that's about six grand a month, taxes and everything, all in. We own four rental properties. This is kind of also where we started questioning ourselves. We're like, Dave, I just said don't buy a property unless you can pay it in full. So of the four properties, one of them is paid in full, and the other three are about 50% equity.

They're all worth, say, give or take $200,000, and what's owed on the other, them are all less than $100,000. Okay, well, let's start with this premise, okay? You make a boatload of money. You're very successful. Congratulations. Very well done. What could I do to add to the peace in your life financially and add to the probability that you end up more wealthy

than if you hadn't talked to me. And my suggestion to do that would be, let's take this wonderfully large shovel you have of $500,000 a year, and let's line up all of your debts, your rentals, your home, and that stupid fleece car, and let's just begin to eliminate debt. Because if you were making $500,000 and all of these properties were paid for, wow, what a cool place. I should think so.

Yeah. And that's going to take a while. Because you got, it sounds to me like you got a million and a half or a million two in debt, and you make $500,000. And so if you put $300,000 a year year on it it's going to take you four years maybe five years to clean up everything but the beautiful thing is that mathematically you can do that and still live a very tall cotton lifestyle or you can roll off one of those houses that you owe if you got one of the rentals you're not thrilled with and use some of that equity to

accelerate the process but 870 on your home making 500 uh man you knock that out fast there's no panic on it the other stuff i'd be leaning into pretty hard and more than anything i want you to do what you're doing with this phone call and let's start to get very intentional with every one of these dollars it's easy to get sloppy when you have this much money coming in it's easy to get chaotic and justify this and justify that because you go, I'll make a half a million dollars. You know, which you do. That's pretty stinking incredible.

Very few people do. And that's wonderful. So you're obviously a bright guy because stupid people generally don't make that kind of money. So just an observation. But Dave, you taught me this about scale, right? So I see a number like 800,000 on a mortgage, a remaining mortgage, and my heart stops. Yeah.

But you've got to lean that against half a million dollars. Yeah, which means nothing. Right. So take that down. That's 87,000 making 50. Right. And so when I scale it down, I remember when I started making 30, and then I went up to 44. And you know what happened to me? I ended up in more debt that first year than when I started making $30,000, and then I went up to $44,000. And you know what happened to me?

I ended up in more debt that first year than when I started because I stopped saying no. And you're talking about $44,000. Yeah. Nothing compared to this. But I just thought I'd won the lottery, and I quit being attentive to these details. And suddenly, I owed more money than when I made less money. But, Dave, honestly, what I was hearing in your voice was just a little bit of, as you started listening to us, you went,

you know, I think we're not being intentional enough, and so I'm going to ask Dave for some steps so that I can be intentional. I want a path here, because I've kind of been wandering around a little bit, a little loosey-goosey, a little margin in the emotions, because I made enough I could be sloppy and still

look good. The good news is you haven't made a bankruptcy mistake. You haven't gone crazy. You didn't call me up with $87 million. Right, or $8.7 million house. Yeah, I mean, you didn't call me up with any of these things. So I just think you're wonderful, and I think you've got a lot of potential. I would encourage you to be very intentional step by step

and a really good idea is let's just lay out an interesting little simple spreadsheet on how fast we could pay off this stuff if we were intentional and we limited our lifestyle just a little bit, just a little bit. Because $200,000 out of $500,000 divided into $1.2 million is six years. And I always want to direct people back to the

word you said dave i've never heard you approach somebody like that but what you asked what you told him is i want to know how i can add more peace to your life and if i can pull some of this can i if i can pull the other end of that fulcrum back right if i can pull the other end of that teeter-totter back and provide you less leverage and more peace yeah two words that don't go together financial peace right you know like you know government efficiency yeah yeah but there's a moment when you're making half a million dollars and you think i should be sleeping better than this i make half a million dollars i shouldn't feel like i'm doing something wrong you know or i shouldn't be drowning as well right yeah yeah that's exactly it that's exactly it. That's exactly it.

And, you know, we took a call. I think it might have even been the debt free caller that said, you know, we suddenly had peace. We suddenly had a sense of control just because we had a plan, not because we had executed the plan yet. Yeah. But just going from, I don't know what the crap's going on to i know exactly where i'm going this is going to be hard but i can do it and this one's gone and then you get a little and that was a little peak there's you know and but there's peace in when you could see the light at the end of the tunnel mathematically and it's not an oncoming train there's some research that says the day you make the counseling appointment for the first time you start feeling better oh

man you wouldn't believe the number when When we first started doing financial counseling, people would call us up, and in order to get ready for the financial counseling meeting, they would get their crap together. Yes. And they would cancel. We said, and I talked about it. Oh, that's happened a lot. Yeah.

When you take that first crooked step towards a new trajectory. Look confused and stumble forward, but stumble freaking forward. There we go. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Daniel and Sarah are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hi, we're good. How are you? Wonderful. Welcome, welcome. Good to have you.

So where do you guys live? Bowling Green, Kentucky. Oh, an hour and a quarter away. That's right. Just up the road. Yes, sir. That's right. I took delivery on a new Corvette at the museum and did the tour of the plant.

And a week later, the museum caved in. So did you get to come back and see our sinkholes? I saw the sinkhole right before it happened. I was standing over the top of it. And a week later, I was like, I could have been in that hole. Yeah, they put it all back it's supposed to be beautiful i haven't been back up since i did it is it's gorgeous for those of you that don't know the corvette plant is in bowling green kentucky and the corvette museum

is in bowling green kentucky and i don't know what was that five six years ago i guess i think so sinkhole swallowed up half of the museum all these vintage vets are in this hole for those of you not watching on youtube dave has a tear in his eye just talking about it. Yes, oh, definitely. I'm completely sidetracked here. These poor people came to do a debt-free screening. I'm talking about... So how much debt have you guys paid off?

We paid off $101,240. I like it. And how long did this take? 12 months. Wow. And your range of income during that time? About $144,000 to about $180,000. That's a nice jump in 12 months. And what kind of income during that time? About $144 to about $180. That's a nice jump in 12 months.

And what kind of debt was the 101? We had some cell phones, HVAC unit, student loans, a Jeep lease, which I didn't know it was leased at first. And then I had bought a small house the day after our first date. And we had a foundation repair. Okay. So what was the big one? The small house after our first date? Yeah, the biggest was...

That's such a great line. Bought a small house right after our first date. Again, for those of you who aren't watching... There's a story here, I'm just saying. You said Jeep lease. You looked at him as though, I still might kill him. And then you mentioned the small house you bought. Well, you know, I really didn't know that we were going to get married.

And so I was looking for a place for myself to live. So I purchased a really small house. I was going to be able to walk to work. I was going to get a small dog. I was going to eat Thai food every day. I just had this whole plan. You know, I have a Corolla. I'm happy with it.

You married a big guy. You can't fit in it. He carries the Corolla. oh fun y'all so okay so what was the big number out of the 101 um the small house was about 48 000 okay and then you paid it off or did you sell it we sold it okay all right good that helped you move it that much in a year well yeah that 48 came off you know of course immediately but the money that we got from the sale of the house was basically my down payment back and during the middle of our debt snowball we learned that we had a foundation repair and so that was about 30 grand extra oh so we um you know selling in the 101 or an addition no that was an addition because

that wasn't a debt we just cash flowed that so okay wow it was a yeah this is a test yes right in the middle of it you have to see you have to not lose your mind yes yeah way to go guys okay so how long you've been married um about a year and a half okay so not long into the marriage you said we're going to clean this all up yes you put it all in a pile both of you brought your stuff in put it in the middle of the kitchen table and said oh crap and tell me the story what happened well actually um i lost my first wife in 2019 and she did not have any life insurance or anything so i had tons of debt you know to take care of at that point sure and um you know i there was a lot of times where i didn't know if i was going to be able to buy groceries.

It was a tough time. And then not long after that, her aunt, who I used to work with, called me up and was like, Hey, would you, my niece Sarah, I just want to know if you want to go out with her. And I said, Heck yeah. I remember her from high school. I had a crush on her in high school. Me? She wants to go out with me?

Yeah, exactly. That was exactly my first thought. So we went out. We hit it off great. And then after my second or third date, I had a huge interview with her. She was asking me everything. He calls our dates job interviews. Yeah, because I mean, how much debt do you have?

What's your plans? I was running down numbers. I'm a nerd, believe it or not. What kind of plans are you doing? So once we got married, she's a big Dave Ramsey fan. She's been listening to you for years and years. And so she kind of got me on board with wanting to do this. Now, she was debt free before except for the little house yeah before i came in the picture and then i just

screwed it all up okay no no she brought half of this in there 48 of the 101 was her so it's you split it down the middle you just it just came about it differently you might call one a little smarter than the other but you had a tragedy too, yeah, that makes it the whole process. So the good news is in 12 months you did it. So how does your income go up $40,000 in one year? You know, I had a child when I was 20, and so being a young mom, work is not anything I'm scared of. So I picked up a second job, and the company that I worked for was offering some bonus money and some incentives to go help at a hospital in Pennsylvania. So I took as many of those assignments as I could get, even spent the entire Christmas holiday working in Pennsylvania in a hospital.

And that really put us over the finish line. Wow. Also, he sold everything, even stuff that was nailed down. Like I got home from work one day and he said, did you notice that everything's off the walls? I was like, mm-mm, because I just don't care about things like that. And so he had taken everything off the walls and it was sold. Whoa. And when we were combining households, we just sold everything.

We took a bunch of stuff to Goodwill. Wow. He was a little nervous about cutting cable, but we cut cable. We cut satellite radio oh my goodness we cut the gym membership which was interesting because he had me work like use me as a piece of workout equipment one day and i was like what is this about um what else did we do um we shopped all of our insurance to make sure we were getting the best rates on everything um gosh we wow you know just literally everything you teach we just walk it down every little

every little corner to make it work yeah for me um so when you look back on it the two of you and someone comes up to you and they say how do you get out of debt in 12 months what do you tell them the main thing they have to do is to me you both have to be on the same page amen you have to work together if you've got one person that's 100 in and the other one's not it's not going to work out very well and we were both there we both wanted it bad you know and especially and i felt so bad that you know i know we both brought debt in there but i just felt so bad that she had to be part of my debt. But we're married. We put our accounts together, which we've never done in our previous relationships.

So it worked out. God sent her to me at the right time, and it was perfection. Wow. Hey, you know what? He sent her to you too, man. Oh, yes, he did. Right? Yes.

He was the answer to so many prayers. and here's what's cool one of the biggest challenges with when when folks get married and they've had previous relationships one of the hardest parts is how do we get on this how do we find a new path right i've got this path experience it and man y'all launched out of the gate on a hundred thousand dollar gazelle intense mission yes and now you you guys forged a path you're just looking back locked man you just blazed a trail through the forest with you just started to put your head down and he's a good guy to get behind right because he knocked the trees over that head and y'all cleared a path and now you're off to the races right and you know a funny, a funny story, you know, I have a 20-year-old daughter

and he has a 14-year-old daughter and it was December of 2019, the youngest daughter wanted to get her ears pierced and she had plenty of money to do it so we took her to the mall and when we get to the mall,

she starts crying. She wants daddy to pay for it and she's got her own money so I said, no, you know, you've got your own money, you can pay for this. Then she tries to negotiate.

Well, I'll pay you back later. Or can you pay half of it? And I'll pay half of it. And so the crying went on and on and on. And finally he leans over and he whispers, should I just pay for it? So I took this big hand and I was like, no, we're going to get through this.

This is a teachable moment. She's 14. If she ain't crying about this, there'll be something else. This is a teachable moment. But since that time, we've put her through the homeschool curriculum. And so she's got her own.

She's got her emergency fund. She's working for commission to do chores. It's, you know, we're changing everything. Absolutely. I'm so proud of y'all. We got a copy of Legacy Journey and Total Money Makeover for you. $101,000 paid off. Daniel and Sarah, Bowling Green, Kentucky.

They did it in 12 months, $144 to $180. What a great story. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. 3, 2, 1. We're debt-free! We're debt-free! This is how you do it, baby. Touchdown!

How fun. What a great love story. This is the you do it, baby. Touchdown. How fun. So fun. What a great love story. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Jacob is in Knoxville. Hi, Jacob. How are you? I'm doing well.

How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I am on baby step four and have $25,000 in my emergency fund. I'm 29. I make $130,000 a year. And I have a side hustle that I'm going to talk about here in a second, but, um, I currently have 54,000 in my 401k and I put in 12%. Um, my company matches 4% and also puts in an additional four, whether I contribute anything or not. Uh, and so the 401k has like, has awesome mutual funds. I'm very happy with them. Um, and so the situation is in my, to get to my question, uh, I started doing a Dave Ramsey ish last summer. I thought I could, I'm in sales. So I always thought I could kind of out, out earn my dumb decisions. Uh, so I never got super intense until

recently. Um, but what I did do then it back then when I started when I started listening was start a side hustle. So since last July, my side hustle has earned me $156,000. Wow. Not bad. Yeah. And it should well outperform that next year. I got a product I created into like 400 some stores. So it's doing really well.

And so my question is around retirement funds. So I know you always say that do 401k first, then Roth, and then traditional to get to the 15%. But I cannot contribute to a Rothoth making over 139 000 i know you can do a backdoor roth uh but since i like the way my 401k is invested um i was wondering if it's better just to stick with the 401k instead of worrying about doing a backdoor roth or if it still makes sense to well if you can get to 15%, you putting in 15% of your household income, are you married? I have a fiancé. Okay. You're not married.

Not yet. Okay. So you make what at your day job? $130. Okay. You told me that six times. I'm sorry. And then you made $156 on a side gig. Yes. Yeah. So, you know, that puts us at $280,000 that you need to save 15% of.

Okay. You can't do that in just a 401k. You can't get there because you're maxed out at 19 and some change. And so you're going to max out your 401k, you're going to max out your Roth IRA, and you're still not going to be there. And so what you're going to do is you're going to sit down with a SmartVestor Pro in your area, and they're going to talk to you. On their side gig, do you have any employees?

I do not. You can do a SEP over there, and that will get us up. And you can do all of these in Roths. Okay, so you're going to do a backdoor, you're going to do a SEP over there, and that'll get us up. And you can do all of these in Roths. Okay? So you're going to do a backdoor, you're going to do a SEP, and you're going to do a 401K all in Roth, and you're going to take your match over at your company, all they'll give you, all the match they'll give you over there,

you're going to max out every bit of this in order to get to 15% of your household income going into retirement. Now, if your side hustle ever goes away, obviously you're going to reduce what you're putting in because each year you're going to put in 15% of your household income. But the SEP Roth is the way to go over on your side hustle. It's a very easy way to do it with no employees. Now, if you've got employees, it starts to get really complicated and a pain in the butt. So go to RamseySolutions.com and click on the smart vestor pro

click on the smart vestor and get a smart vestor pro in your area to sit down with and let them walk you through doing the backdoor roth and you'll do your own max out on your 401k and then they can also walk you through setting up a set a simplified employee pension plan okay i was gonna say what's what's a set and it's uh you can do up to 13.2%, I think, is how the formula actually ends up working out, but a large percentage of your net profit on your business. You basically create a pension plan for yourself. Exactly. It's a 401K for a single operator.

Okay. All right. Is what it amounts to. If you have employees that have been with you more than two of the last five years, you have to put the same percentage of their income in. So it's not very good for a small business that has employees. Okay. that have been with you more than two of the last five years, you have to put the same percentage of their income in. So it's not very good for a small business that has employees. But for a solopreneur like this, it's very good.

Excellent. It's excellent for doing that. And I actually did one with this business when I started. It was just me. Wow. And then once I had been open five years, then I had employees that had been with me more than two of the last five. I truncated that puppy and went to a different direction on retirement savings, but that's the way it went. Dave is in Virginia

Beach. Hi, Dave. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I am a 51-year-old, single, no kids. I'm feeling stuck in a rut and wondering how to get better traction. The job looks stable for, I'd say, the next three years. Looks real solid with the contract. Income is about $69,000. We've got about $12,000 in checking.

A rut on what? What kind of rut? A career rut? A psychological rut, a relationship rut? It was pretty much a financial rut. Oh, okay. And, let's see, 401K, I've only got about $62,000. Mm-hmm. I owed $10,500 on a car.

Mm-hmm. And $45,000 on the house. Where do you want to be? Where do you want to be with your money? I just really am almost having anxiety about getting out of debt. Why? As quickly as possible. You mean you're having anxiety that's telling you to get out of debt or to not to get out of debt?

To get out of debt. Oh, good. To get out of debt or to not to get out of debt? To get out of debt. Oh, good. To get out of debt. Okay, so the debt is bothering you. That's good anxiety. Okay. Yeah, I guess it is a good thing. It's an alarm telling you your house is on fire, and it is, right?

Yeah, you're right. So you have a $10,000 car debt. What other debt? House 45, what else? House, that's it, but I do have some upcoming remodeling expenses like a new roof and a few other things. I'm thinking that's going to be about $16,000. What do you make? I'm cutting off on it until $69,000 without overtime.

I make more when there's overtime available. What do you do? I do design work, computer-aided design. Okay, cool. Good for you. So you've got Side Hustle available to you if you wanted to as well. All right. And so let me get this straight.

$55,000 plus $16,000 for the rehab would be like $75,000, we'll call it. All right? It changes your whole life. It lets you breathe and it lets you sleep, right? Your house is paid off, your car is paid off, and your house is rehabbed. You don't have a payment in the stinking world and you make $70,000 a year. It changes your life, doesn't it? Yeah.

So we need $75,000. You're a single guy making $51,000 that's making $70,000. If I need $75,000, that need 75 that's 35 a year for two years that's overtime on top of overtime hitting the gas having some fun not much just working knowing i'm working towards a goal oh yeah so yeah that's the end goal is fun but right now for two years you don't have a life you do beans and rice rice, rice and beans, and all you do is work, and you become completely debt-free with your house rehabbed, and you're 53. I'm already feeling better.

And that contract you're worried about going away in four years? That contract you're worried about going away in four years? You're debt-free, right? Yeah, that's a good point. And if you don't have any payments in the world, could you actually start doing some investing and become wealthy? The answer is yes. Yeah, absolutely.

I know that. And when you're not so anxious and knotted up and tied up, could you go hang out with some other people? Get connected to a community? Have some fun? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Probably so.

Not probably. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. No need to do that. That's why we call it financial peace. Two words that don't go together like Fauci math.

Right? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So. All right. $35,000 a year for two years. Yeah. You can do it, and I'll help you.

I'm going to send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover. It's going to show you exactly how to do this step by step. Okay? Oh, awesome, Dave. I appreciate that big time. You hang on. Kelly will pick up, and we'll get you going. Call us back when you're debt-free and tell us about your journey. I appreciate that big time. You hang on. Kelly will pick up and we'll get you going. Call us back when you're debt free and tell us about your journey.

I want to hear your success story. You can do this, man. Yes. I think you just need a little bit of a clear path and you're the man. You're going to get her done, baby. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Good hour, John. Thank you.

Dr. John Deloney. James Childs is our producer. Kelly Daniel is our associate producer and phone screener. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, and we'll be back. Dave here. We just launched a brand-new listener survey. We want to know what you think about the show. You'll be entered to win a $100 Amazon gift card. No purchase necessary. Take the survey at ramseysolutions.com

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