The Ramsey Show - App - You Have to Stay Connected During This Crisis (Hour 2)

Episode Date: April 2, 2020

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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. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.

Joining me this hour, and we are holding lines open for him, Dr. John Deloney. Ramsey personality is with me. And he is doing his message of hope from our message of hope series tonight. His will be on the mental and relational health during times of crisis and john we were talking just before we came on the air that um in the in the crisis mental health crisis situation one of the worst things that someone can be is alone number one the dragons get bigger and the crazy spins faster you said absolutely the the more you're alone the more you start to see other people as threats and that's natural it's by a lot biology the day that we've got to be connected we've got to go out of our way to

connect so if someone is um safe at home and they're by themselves and they're listening to us and they're getting the inputs from the television and the fear is getting bigger and bigger, and what we're saying is that what you're saying is it goes exponentially faster because you're alone. How do they guard against that? Number one, use that awesome device. It's a little thing on the side of the television. It's called the off button, man. Just turn it off.

Turn it off. And the second thing is I know last week it felt Pinterest-y and cute to, hey, we're going to hold a virtual happy hour. We're going to call mom every day. And this week it's not that fun anymore. And so what I'm telling folks is now you have to, now you have to call people. You have to look them in the eye. You got to go outside and wave to your neighbors and you have to go outside and go for walks and see other people. Otherwise you're just going to start seeing dragons everywhere. And the

more dragons you see, the more you don't go outside and the more you don't go outside, this sucker just goes and you need voices and you turn the TV back on and you turn the internets back on. And all of a sudden you're a spun out mess in the corner. And this, this mental health crisis becomes a much bigger, much more threatening environment, much more threatening to you, your heart, your sleep than the COVID-19 situation. I remember Dr. Rabbi Lappin, situation i remember dr rabbi lappen uh when we've done events with him uh he talks about the economics of relationships but he uses of course the bible he says i call it he calls it the bible i call it old testament obviously he and i have a lot of fun discussing that we're great friends and i have a lot of mutual respect and he um but he says that god designed us for

relationship it is not good that man should be alone absolutely says in genesis and we use that always in a marriage vows right um but but what he meant was it's not good for people to be alone it's not only not good it's it's foundational to who we are how we are wired how we everything distills down into connection so when someone and it's not coronavirus issue but when someone literally becomes a hermit when they're completely shut off from other human contact that is mental illness that's the definition definition of it. You are living in fight or flight in that moment. And it's complete flight is what it is. So it's withdrawal from everything.

And obviously people aren't doing that for those reasons now. They're quarantined or they're safe at home or they're whatever. But you need to guard against your inputs. What are you reading? What are you watching? What are you need to guard against your inputs. What are you reading? What are you watching? What are you listening to? And anything you can do to get human connection and build and keep relationships. And, of course, being nasty to people because you're afraid is the opposite of that.

But sometimes the fear manifests itself that way with some folks are acting, and I just keep telling people, be calm and be kind and be generous figure out what you can do for someone my wife's getting a little bit stir crazy so she started cooking meals and taking them to people uh that are that are that are stay at home they're high risk situations friends of ours that are you know a little bit older than we are and she took a meal yesterday and uh she got there they were in the car riding around somewhere because they couldn't stand it just moving around they were just had to go and so she left the meal and but that's you know do something for someone and that gets you out of your head it gets you out of that loop-de-loop and it it supports

somebody else in your community i we have to get to a place, Dave, and I just want to say it publicly. Not connecting is not an option. It just simply isn't. You cannot go through the next two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, whatever the duration of this is, without making daily connections with people that you love, that you care about, that you kind of like. I don't care.

That you don't even know. Just go wave to people. That's become a fun game for me and my kids is to obnoxiously wave to people on their front porch. More people are outside than I've seen in years. And I say the words. It's so good to see a happy, smiling person. And they all smile and we all wave back.

And then my daughter and my son wave and we're moving forward. My son turns 10 on Saturday and my wife, and um and we're moving forward my son turns 10 on saturday and my wife has she's a genius she pulled together this zoom birthday party where they're gonna do i don't uh all kinds of games and things it may be a disaster but we're going for it and we're gonna see each other we're gonna wave and um i don't like technology for a connection but it's what we got right now so let's we got to use it every day. Every possible thing you can do. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Join Dr. John Deloney on his message of hope tonight. The message of hope series began last Thursday night with Rachel Cruz, Ken Coleman, and me. And that's still posted, of course, on our Instagram, YouTubes, and pages, and Facebook pages, and all that stuff. And then Rachel Cruz did a message on Monday night, Chris Hogan on Tuesday night, Christy Wright last night, Dr. John Deloney tonight, Ken Coleman tomorrow night, Anthony O'Neill this coming Monday night. We're trying to put some positive things that, not Pollyanna, I know some of you are scared,

and sometimes when I say positive things, it's interesting how people, I don't want to hear positive things. I don't want to hear i want to be afraid you're unrealistic we should all be very afraid can i tell you that too did you know you can get addicted to that you can get addicted to to the the anxiety chemicals and the fear chemicals and so make a decision make a decision to get addicted to the joy and optimism chemicals what what else are you going to do the amos diversky says that being a pessimist is stupid because if it comes true you've experienced it twice once when you worried about it once when it happened that's dumb right try to win the game try to win the ball game and if you lose you you went out swinging right i love it that's absolutely it comes true twice once when you worried about it and once there.

Oh, my goodness. I love it. Once when it really happened. This is the truth. So our events, our Financial Peace events, Baton Rouge for Financial Peace University all day, Dallas, Texas, April 25th, Dallas, Texas, April 30th, Anaheim, California, May 4th, Indianapolis, May 6th, and Chicago, May 12th, have all been postponed.

We are arranging dates on all of them and will let you guys know. We will certainly honor our obligation to you to come to your city and present this material as soon as we're able to. The locations we're holding these are just simply not available, and in most cases, people are shutting down things out through those dates. So October 1st will be the Dallas event. We already know that one. First Baptist Dallas already gave us a new date, and we're up and got that for sale.

And we will be there October 1st with bells on to do that. Looking forward to it. I want to see you in bells. Me in bells, baby. Hogan in bells is better. Hogan in bells will be outstanding. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. If you do this one simple thing that we all do, you are literally at risk of being hacked

and someone stealing what you've worked so hard for. Do you ever use public Wi-Fi? I'm talking about getting online at a coffee shop, a store, the airport, or even at home. Hackers can use a simple $100 device to mimic Wi-Fi and with just a little bit of skills, they can take over your financial life. This means you may think you're on your bank's site or app or securely making that purchase online but hackers could see and steal that information that's why i trust cyber ghost vpn cyber ghost thinks about cyber crime so you don't have to you can try it for free for seven days protect up to seven Internet devices and keep all of your Internet connections secure.

That's CyberGhost VPN. Download it today from your App Store and be us in Pennsylvania. Michelle, your question for Dr. D and myself. Yes, hi. Thank you for taking my phone call. My husband and I are both health care professionals. We're high performers in our jobs and our salaries dictate that. My husband makes $100,000 a year and I make 50. I'm part-time as a physical therapist. And the COVID-19 has really

impacted the Philadelphia area immensely. His job is 100% stable. Because I deal with elderly in nursing homes and assisted living facilities that have essentially shut down because of COVID-19, I'm uncertain from week to week whether or not I will be furloughed or not. the past five years. And in the past five years, we've done things like there's new windows, there's new siding. We don't have any credit card debt whatsoever. I will be looking at the age of 65 and having a $2,200 pension from a previous job. How old are you now? I'm 59. I'll be 60. And we have, I haven't looked at the market because I'm scared to death, but in February we had $1.5 million saved in a 403B account. And what I'm experiencing right now, and I feel like I'm going to get emotional, I am so burned out. I have a lot of compassion fatigue and I'm just really burned out. And I told my husband, and I think that I really just want to take a couple months off and regroup. And he has said to me, you shouldn't do that,

Michelle, because if they're going to furlough you, then you will get unemployment compensation and you will also be able then to be able to breathe a little bit better and also be able to take advantage of unemployment compensation. You have a million and a half dollars. You don't need to worry about unemployment. Okay. You're fine. You've spent the last five years planning for this moment.

You have no debt, no house payment. Your husband's got a great job. You're millionaires. You both help people. Y'all are doing incredible work right now. But I love what I do, and I don't know how to get past the compassion fatigue. I don't want to leave the people I serve. But I don't know how to do this.

So a hard thing for those of us. I feel like if I leave, I'm going to quit the people that I love serving. And so those of us who serve other people for a living, we often find our identity, we put our identity in the ability to make somebody else's day feel better. And so what I'm going to ask you to do, my friend Michelle, who I'm talking to on the phone, is to care about yourself as much as you do your patients. And so we're in a situation now where your patients,

the administrators have said, you coming in might do more harm than good. And that's hard to hear as somebody who loves, loves, loves the people that you get to help and that you get to be with. So I want you to take that energy and focus it on Michelle. And that means I think you're making some smart decisions about not looking at your numbers and getting off the media and all that. But your identity is going to be found in making sure michelle is okay right now let me ask you something i may ask both of you something because i'm not sure i grasp this but it occurs to me obviously you're you are probably going to get

furloughed uh from doing pt in nursing homes i think that's a fairly easy prediction okay that's probably coming i'm surprised it hasn't come already honestly because a lot of places aren't allowing anyone in a nursing home. I don't know who's taking care of them. With your PT training, is there something you can do in the middle of the actual COVID crisis to assist the overload that some of your other medical professionals are doing? I don't know if PT training sets you up to do that or not, does it? If I worked for a hospital system, the answer would be yes.

You could probably work for a hospital system by the end of the day if you wanted to, couldn't you? They're desperate, aren't they? They're desperate for people taking temperatures and that sort of thing. It would be as a volunteer. So I could do that. It just bothers me because I think that people don't understand all the secondary implications of quarantining older adults with dementia. And all the second, like my husband said, they're busy as all get out because everyone's falling or hip fractures, wrist fractures.

There's no question. But I think living in a world where you're looking out to say hey don't you see this is a big deal i'm telling you right now we all we know it's a big deal and the work you do with the least of these in our communities the forgotten people our communities is um you're a human angel right and that's that identity has been polished right now and that hurts and then you start thinking well well, what am I worth? What is my value? What about these people that I love?

And what I'm asking you to do is to sit down for a second and control the things you can control. And then, like Dave mentioned, find other places where you can serve. You're a server at heart. That's who you are. That's your wiring. It's awesome that you get paid for it, but you would do that for free because that's who you are that's your wiring it's awesome that you get paid for it but you're you would do that for free because that's who you are and so it's looking at whether it's coming up with some cheesy youtube show and you can do pt uh on the internets for i don't know i'm just making stuff up here but you're gonna have to unhinge who you are from this community here and to find places

to serve in your local area and the person I want you to start with is Michelle. Yeah. I want you to start with Michelle. The good news is on my side of this discussion, you can afford it easily, easily. We don't need to maximize your unemployment. But, I mean, if you hang around another week, you're probably going to be furloughed. So you can probably hang on a week, kiddo. But at the end of the day, do you need to take a couple months off somewhere in this process to reset, whiteboard your life and go, what do I want to be when I grow up?

Yeah, why not? You're a millionaire. Your house is paid for. Your husband makes $100,000 a year. Why not? You're a millionaire. Your house is paid for. Your husband makes $100,000 a year. Why not? I would. My good friend Lynn, she's a researcher in secondary traumatic stress. And it is real.

It's heavy. And it affects how you sleep, how you eat, how you interact with other people. And it's important that you come up with a plan to make sure. What do you call that? Secondary traumatic stress. What's that mean? That means there's a trauma when someone gets hit by a car. Right.

And there's a secondary traumatic stress when you are the EMS worker who is going all day, every day, cleaning up other people's challenges. That's right. Or when you're working with dementia patients. So the health care provider gets secondary. And it's profound, and it's cumulative, and it weighs on you over time and that's where having a um relationships in your life that you trust and a wellness plan that you stick by religiously include some sabbatical to take care of yourself some um you know some time off every week and michelle you know this right she's on oh she's on so michelle knows this every every it just gets hard and especially the

hotter the fire gets um i was told at my last job john you have to stop running into the building when it's on fire we need you over here and when you're wired like this like michelle is that's a special heart and she just wants to bust in and it's hard for health care providers and people who are crisis responders to stop i don't think i've heard the phrase compassion fatigue before that's an interesting phrase your body registers the trauma in smaller amounts but as though you're experiencing it too and so trauma can be acute right away or it can be cumulative and i always look at so when ken coleman says you're not burned out you're it's not burnout it's build. He's exactly right. Right.

And you can get in a car wreck and it's a cinder block, or you can show up to car wrecks and it's a pebble over 15 years, over 10 years. But that weight is the same. Trauma is trauma is trauma. And you've got to, and again, coming back to you've got to connect with other people. That's your emergency fund for those moments, Dave. So that's what those of you who have health care professionals in your life right now can do is love them well man love them let them have a let them have a sabbatical let them have a uh a sunday off uh whatever right and um or call them and tell them you love them or put a meal on their porch you need a sabbath yeah you need a sabbath put a meal on the porch

leave some flowers whatever but just remind them that, you know, because they need to get dialed back away from that stuff enough to reset every 24 hours. Because then they're heading back in. That's right. And we need them. We need them to go back. They're heroes, for sure. Yeah, no question about it.

It's wild out there. Beautiful, Michelle. I love your heart, Michelle. I love it. And you guys have done such a great job with money, by the way. Everyday millionaires. You're okay financially. Plan for this moment.

Breathe. Tell your husband to breathe. You need the unemployment. I'm going to box his ears. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Business leaders hiring right now may be the furthest thing from your mind, but the fact of the matter is we will recover. One of the smartest things you can do for your business is to be prepared. I want you to know my friends at LinkedIn are ready to help you find the right people

for your business when you're ready to hire them. LinkedIn Jobs matches your role with qualified candidates so that you can find the right person quickly. LinkedIn Jobs looks at things like collaboration, creativity, adaptability, and puts your job post in front of qualified candidates every day. So your job is seen by people looking for jobs like yours. That's why we use LinkedIn Jobs when we hire here at Ramsey. When the time comes to hire for your business, you can get $50 off your first job post at linkedin.com slash Ramsey. That's linkedin.com slash Ramsey.

Terms and conditions apply. Dr. John Deloney joins me on the show today. He will be on our Message of Hope series tonight. You can follow him at Dr. John Deloney. Is that what it's at? Is that the... D-E-L-O-N-Y. Is it John or Dr. John?

At John Deloney. At John Deloney on anything. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. All of the internets. All those internet stuffies. All the social media stuff that you, previous to being here, had absolutely nothing to do with. This is new for me. You're a complete social media neophyte, which is easy to mess with you then.

And so, yeah, his stuff will be there tonight. It'll also be on all of our other sites today, Ramsey.com and our YouTube channels and everything. So be sure and check out his Message of Hope in the Message of Hope series tonight. It is also, the Message of Hope series, also part of our Ramsey Network podcast. It's part of the Ramsey Network on Sirius XM. Several radio stations of our network are actually picking up and playing these messages as well. And, you know, we're putting them out all over the place because and just to reiterate one more time, we are not saying without facts that everything's going to be okay, and we're not, because it is going to

be okay. That is a fact. We don't know how much rough between now and okay there is for your economics or your health. We don't know how much rough there is for your career between now and okay there is for your economics or your health. We don't know how much rough there is for your career between now and then, but I have lived through a whole bunch of things that were supposed to bring the end of the world to bear, and about the only thing that makes me concerned that end times are here is that Waffle House is closed.

But other than that, I think that's in Revelations, but other than that, I think we're going to make it. Jesus may not be coming back. That one bothers me a little. That's in Revelations. If we can get a Waffle House to start delivering, then I will know things are going to be okay. Yeah, well, no, they're closed. I mean, it gives me chills.

Somebody figure that out in America. Quickly. Waffle House, start delivering. Please, quickly. So somebody figure that out in America. Quickly. Waffle House. Start delivering. Please. Quickly. So the other thing that's happened is we pivoted a whole bunch of stuff here at Ramsey to help you guys while you are quarantined and or safe at home or whatever phrase you're using or whatever decision making you're doing to do that. A lot of you are at home for whatever reason. And if you go to DaveRamsey.com and click on DaveRamsey.com slash hope,

you will find a list of things to help you. And 90% of them, 95% of them are free, and most of them are almost free. The rest of them are almost free. So as an example, the Financial Peace University, for the first time in 30 years, we have a 14-day free trial. So while you're at home, you can go through Financial Peace University instead of binge-watching things on Netflix. Or probably and binge-watch. You probably have plenty of time, so you probably do both. But either way, there's nine lessons there,

and then there's the Legacy Journey follow-up lesson and the Smart Money, Smart Kids lesson for teaching you how to teach your kids how to handle money. This is a premium package, and it's completely free for 14 days. It includes the EveryDollarPlus budgeting app, the world's best budgeting app, all built into this, the Communities, the Baby Step Tracker app, which is brand new and you can only get when you're in Financial Peace University. It's all there free for 14 days. Another thing we've done is our Smart Dollar team is a, if you don't know what Smart Dollar is,

it's an HR benefit that companies put their employees through our financial curriculum, teaching you how to be on a budget, get out of debt, how to live in a crisis, all of these kinds of things. And what we're doing, posted it at DaveRamsey.com. You need to go there and look. What we're doing is the Smart Dollar team said, if you're a company, if you're an executive with a company that has laid people off, get in touch with us. We will allow anyone you have laid off to go through SmartDollar free until the end of the year. And if you want to put the people you haven't laid off that are still working there through SmartDollar,

we will give you a free trial on that as well. But if you've been laid off, get back in touch with your old company. Tell them to get in touch with Ramsey, and we'll put them on the list, and that will give you a code to get the smart dollar curriculum completely free through the end of the year. We're going to help you not only survive this, but get ready before next time there's a hiccup of some kind. Because about the only thing we're sure of about life is we're not sure of about life. It's going to come.

It's going to rain. And can I tell you this? I hope this isn't, I don't want to blow smoke at you. My friend Eric Peters lost his house in the tornado. And he called and said, oh, I heard you're working over at Dave Ramsey's shop. He said, tell him I use Zander Insurance, and it has been such a gift. They have walked me through. They have taken care of my family.

They've taken care of him. He lost everything. And then a couple of weeks later, I'm just a few months new here at Ramsey Solutions. And something big hits this community. It's this country. And I can't tell you how extraordinary it is for me, Dave, to hear that you guys got behind closed doors and said, how are we going to serve people right now? Like, this is the moment.

These are character moments. And so it's one of those things that it's, yeah, you wonder on the other side of the radio, is this for real? Who's this dude when the chips fall down? And y'all got in a room and said, how can we serve everybody, Dave? And so I want to tell you, thank you. I want to tell the listeners, this is for real. This is for real. Yeah, I mean, we appreciate that.

But, I mean, it's fairly easy to do if you just stop and think about it because we do have on the wall one of our core values, and we believe it around here. If you help enough people, you don't have to worry about money. And it'll work out. I mean, we're not doing it manipulatively, but we will make money because we did this. It's just how life works. If you just love people with your business processes and your services

and you're smart about it, you're wise about it, you're thoughtful about it, you make money. You get credit. It's a gift to be in here. Yeah. Well, it's a gift to have in here, brother. No question about it. So, guys, go to DaveRamsey.com slash hope and look at this stuff.

For instance, the high school curriculum is usually $120 to go through. A bunch of your high schoolers are at home. No Tiger King for high school kids. Get the curriculum. No Tiger King for high school kids, America. That's more than R-rated. So, yeah, I'm just saying. Yeah, those Tigers.

But, yeah, all right. High school curriculum. Get it. It's only $20 right now. I forgot to finish what I was saying. It's a train wreck. All right. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com,

the number one online retailer of custom window coverings. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Use the promo code ramsey brandon is in delaware if in fact the government does send americans stimulus checks well it is uh do you think it would be a wise decision to invest that money in the stock market now or hold the money in a separate account and don't use it since the government will want the money back at some point through taxes um i don't think they're going to want that exact amount of money back through taxes. They're just adding $2 trillion to the $19 trillion in debt.

That's all. So there's just more to it. Yeah, which does translate someday, somehow, some way into something. I mean, government does not produce money. We produce money. So eventually they're going to extract that from our butt is what you're saying. I get that. But they're not going to, like, send you a bill for the $1,200.

That's not going to happen. They're not that obvious about their process. So they're not going to make it that clear. So, no, and I don't know if I would invest in the stock market. What I would do with your $1,200, if you get the money money is what I would do with any money that you get in your house. I would use it for wherever you are on the baby steps if you're working the baby steps. If you're unemployed right now and you've lost your job, you're not working the baby steps. Everything's on hold and you're trying to survive and do the four walls, food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and utilities.

You're trying to do things in the right order. Take care of necessities before you take care of a bunch of debt. You're not working the baby steps when you're unemployed and freaked out and you have no job. If you've got

a good steady job, you're working the baby steps. Throw it on whatever baby step you're on. And, you know, if you're in baby step seven, you're out of debt. You've got a big pile of money.

Your house is paid off. Then, you know, all that's left to do is, yeah, you're going to be fine, Brandon. It's aggravating, Brandon. You can tell between the lines. I know.

He does not like the extra $2 trillion of debt. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. with more frequency than you know. Thank you for joining us, America. Dr. John Deloney joins me on the air today on The Dave Ramsey Show. Sarah is in New York. Hi, Sarah. How can we help? Hi, Dave.

I just wanted to say thank you so much for your program because my husband and I are debt-free, and we have our emergency fund right now, which is very helpful. Way to go. But my question is that I'm a wedding photographer, and I am laid off until July. And my boss, I sort of understandably didn't have a plan for this, but my question is, is it insulting for me to come back to him in July and say, what's our plan if something like this happens again? Because I don't want to be laid off again. No, it's not insulting.

I think I might approach it slightly different. Can I dial the knob over a couple of clicks? Because I'm trying to think if somebody came to me and said that. And I'm the only one that works on my team here. And, you know, number one, I think it says Corona or 2008 or 9-11 attacks are unusual levels of crisis. They're not in a position to absorb a normal business rhythm that's a reasonable thing to say hey uh you know that you know not only do we have seasonality in the wedding world but we also have when times are good and times are bad and uh not notwithstanding something as extreme as corona shutdowns for the next time that there's just a minor problem what is our plan

because i don't think you can really hold him responsible for having a plan for something that's this unprecedented i don't i mean i've been in business for 35 years i have never seen the entire nation shut down for two days much less month, much less a month for anything. I think I was just worried that there is, there's no emergency fund. Like there's nothing for the business. And so I think it's reasonable, but that, you know, it, you know, I, you know, one thing you can say is my husband, I realized that our emergency fund is really important. And if I'm going to re-engage with you guys, I want to hear from you that our emergency fund is really important. And if I'm going to reengage with you guys,

I want to hear from you that the emergency fund at the business, retained earnings, is really important to you now, and that that's one of the lessons you got out of this last debacle that we all went through. I'm not holding you responsible for not having a plan for something as bizarre as we just went through, but at least for having an emergency fund. And you say, as a business, we're going to move away from debt

and into savings so that we are more durable, more sustainable. I think that's reasonable. You just got to be careful. You just flip the – always flip the conversation the other way before you do it and pretend like you're on the other side. And so what you wouldn't want and what i won't tolerate here is someone being belligerent about it or passive aggressive you know i even in a sweet little southern sweet tea way shaking their finger uh at me uh you know in a in a way i'm just

not going to do that you can kiss my butt and work somewhere else right i'm over here doing the best i can do so i'm not going to be corrected by you but is it okay to ask and say hey that hurt how do we not hurt like that again what's your plan that's okay but it's your you know the nuances in your words and in your spirit just to not be in a you're not in attack mode you're in inquisitive mode does that make sense? Yes, that makes a lot of sense, and I wanted to make sure that I ask it in the right way because I do respect him, so I want to portray that. Start out with that. Start out with that.

I really respect you. I love working here. I love everything about this. It took us seven months. It took us to pay off $247,000, and we are on baby step 3B, and we have the 20-plus percent down payment. We have closing costs and a separate fund, and we're about to buy a house. And this little thing called coronavirus happened. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of it.

What is that? What's that? I've never heard of it. Financially speaking, my wife and I are very stable. I work in a medical device company and she works for a recruiter placing people who just lost their job. So she's very busy at the moment. Well played. Right.

So, um, question though is the only curveball that just came at us was today, my company that employs just shy of 40,000 people globally, has decided to take a small reduction in pay across the entire company for a 90-day period to avoid layoffs completely. Good. I like that. And I like it, too. The company really cares about not only its patients but also its employees, so I have no problem grinding my nose for this place. But with that, do we still move forward with the loan?

Because we have a 15-year fix, 2.8%, and all the money in the bank to be able to do it, but with a reduction in pay. It's a 20% reduction for 90 days. We still have plenty of surplus because we're debt-free and we're weirdos. But we don't know what to do we're not used to being able to have money and uh buying a house is a big deal so are you under contract for a house no we're not okay well there's no rush i mean if you if you tap the brakes a month it doesn't kill you uh but there's no reason to not go ahead if you want to go ahead it may be you have trouble

finding somebody to show you a house for the next two weeks or so. I mean, that's possible. I don't know how active some of the people showing houses are. But by the end of April, I think you're going to know a whole lot more. And if things seem to have stabilized and be turning up, and most of the predictions are that right now, then I would certainly go ahead because it's not a permanent downturn. Now, are they telling you they're going to make that up to you later? They're saying they're doing this so they don't have to cut bonuses at the end of the year,

and I get a 15% bonus, but we don't budget around bonus. We budget around our base salary, so we're not banking for that anyway. So your income will return, but the income that you lose will just be gone. Correct, sir. Yeah, but you'll be back and everything will be fine. So, I mean, the closer you get to your income returning, the easier this decision is, and the more stable everything is, the easier the decision is. But, you know

if you can if you want to buy a house right now i don't see any reason why you shouldn't uh i because i think everything you're describing is temporary and it's not a stability issue your income is going to be there in both cases and um you're on i i i don't think it's a big problem uh it may take a little while to get a house found and closed in this environment that's possible I don't think it's a big problem. It may take a little while to get a house found and closed in this environment. That's possible. But, boy, I tell you what, if you're walking around out there looking for a house, I would say you're a fairly prized possession of said realtor right now. My wife and I are looking for a house, and we had a Ramsey ELP show us a house via Skype the other night.

We found her through the Ramsey program, and it was extraordinary. But showing it through Skype looked great. That's not bad. Getting scrappy, figuring it out? Yeah, figuring out a way to convert all that stuff. Good stuff, man. Hey, thank you for calling, and congratulations on $200,000. What a stud.

Great family. Absolutely amazing. Very well done. up man hey thank you for calling and congratulations on 200 something thousand dollars man great family absolutely amazing very well done and uh yeah you know both of you are in industries that uh as the economy snaps back are going to be heavily in need recruiters and medical device oh my gosh that's about as uh about as right in the zone as you could possibly be so i feel real good about it if i were you. But, you know, if you wait 30 days, it's not the end of the world. It doesn't change your life significantly one way or the other. And then you would know a whole lot more.

Good question, man. Thank you for joining us. That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. Hey, guys. It's George Camel, host of the Dave Ramsey Show video channel. You can now listen to the show on your smart speaker. Just tell your Alexa or Google device to play the Dave Ramsey Show or find out all the ways you can benefit at DaveRamsey.com.