The Ramsey Show - App - You Have to Throw a Brick Through the Window of Debt (Hour 3)

Episode Date: December 9, 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'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Starting off this hour is going to be Mia in California. Hi, Mia. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. I'm so happy my call was accepted today.

Sure. Thank you. Thank you. How can I help? So I took Financial Peace University last year. And as of this past May, I've been working really hard on Baby Step 2. I am a registered nurse. And I have a daughter that we share custody. I'm a single mom.

Prior to taking your program, I was contributing 8% into my retirement account so that I could get a 4% match. However, of course, your program had said to not contribute because you've got to maximize your income to pay off your debt, which I have been. However, I'm 53 and I reached out to a financial advisor and also my tax accountant because I'm worried about with the increased income that I'm not getting the pre-tax savings. So I'm worried that now at the end of the year, I'm going to have to pay taxes now. So all that money that I was putting towards my my debt my credit card debt now i'm

gonna have to pay taxes so the tax advisor said that i make pretty good money that i should be able to do both now your tax advisor is an idiot thank you okay yeah i mean, listen, the program that you went through has taught 6 million people to get out of debt. Yes. So you just have to decide which program are you going to use, your tax accountants or the one that you were taught. You were even taught all the reasons that we say this. Now, how much debt do you have left? I have $23,000.

Okay. And what is your household income? I was at $120,000, but I'm now at $150,000. Amazing. And so when will your little $23,000 debt be paid with your big $150,000 income? Well, that's just this year because since May I've been working overtime. When will your $23,000 be paid off? Well, my strategic plan is hopefully in a year if I just keep this. Why?

Why would it take a year to pay off $23,000 when you make $150,000? Oh, should it take less? Yeah, six months. Well, that money of going $150,000 is me working night shift, working extra. Yeah, so work extra and pay it off. That's what we taught you. Yes, but... We're only talking about six months here.

Okay, but it's not a guaranteed paycheck because it has to be... Because I'm a nurse, and so we have to have the patience and the need. So it doesn't... There's a little bit of fluctuation with time, kind of, if our census will allow it. So what were you putting in your 401k? I was putting 8%. 8%. So $8,000. Taxes on $8,000, you would be saving $2,000.

Oh. So all of this discussion is about $2,000. While you make $150 Oh and by the way it's not even really $2,000 because you need to roll up your sleeves and get this done in six months so it's $1,000 because you're going to do it in half a year. So, look, there is no way to scheme and scam your way through this. The way you do it is you throw a brick through the window.

You have to get violent about it. And you haven't yet. You're still trying to intellectually trick this math. And the math works this way. You will be out of debt when you pay $23,000 off. And the faster you concentrate on that, the faster you're going to be able to move on with wealth building. And people who try to do three things at once don't get any of them done. These are the things we taught you when you went through financial peace. I kind of think you flunked. You may need to go back. This is all about behavior. It's all about

getting gazelle intense. It's all about focus. The angrier you are, the more you focus, the deeper you sacrifice, the faster you get out, the more you intellectually rationalize and have these mathematically irrelevant discussions with tax advisors. About $2,000 freaking dollars while you make $150 and sit here broke at 53 years old. So you've got to decide what you're going to do. But this is about focus. And the faster you get out of debt, the faster you're going to have money to aggressively invest. And what little ground you lose while you have stopped all of your retirement savings while you get out of debt will be made up in no time at all.

And you really need a new tax advisor or at least one that doesn't give financial advice, that he doesn't know what the crap he's talking about. That simple. Hope that helps. Ben is in Nevada. Hi, Ben. How are you? Hi. How's it going? Better than I Ben. How are you? Hi.

How's it going? Better than I deserve. How can I help? I am 26 years old. I'm baby step four. And I am wondering if it's time to move out of my parents' house. Yes. Okay.

Easy answer. Yeah. That's simple. You've done very well. You're 100% 100 debt free you have an emergency fund in place what do you make a year 45 awesome good for you what's your career i am a banking professional good for you okay cool so you got a pretty stable situation you're probably on the rise up through the ranks, a sharp young guy. And so your income is probably going up fairly quickly over the next year or two. And if you have your emergency fund in place, I would get an inexpensive place to rent,

maybe a roommate or something. I will tell you that my kids are grown. My youngest is 28. And the ones that did come back home for a short period of time after college while they were just getting their feet on the ground, getting their paychecks coming in, then get their self-reorganized, get back out the door, we noticed that when they left our payroll and left our house, an emotional maturity came through that didn't happen before, because you have a sense of dignity when you wash your own underwear

instead of your mother. It's just really good for you. And it's the next step for you, sir. I'd be out of there right after Christmas. Right after Christmas. Happy New Year, Mom and Dad. You got the place to yourself.

It'd be awesome. You're going to have a great life and so are they. Yes, sir. I'd be on my way. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. How often can you get the best of both worlds? Not very often, right? Well, with the Rate Secured program at Churchill Mortgage. It's possible. You can secure a low rate now to nail down your budget. And if rates drop while you're shopping for a home,

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761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Thanks for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. If you're tired of seeing marriages destroyed because of money problems, right now the average American has tens of thousands of dollars in debt. And get this, 32% have no saving at all. Well, no wonder money fights are the number one cause of divorce in America today. You don't have to stand by and watch it happen.

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to go through the Financial Coachmaster Training Program free. That's a pretty good deal. It's actually a very big ticket item. Alright, Mike is with us in Hawaii. Hey Mike, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey Dave, thanks for taking my call and Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you. How can I help? Right on. Hey, so my wife and I

paid off about $150,000 over the last two years so far, mostly credit card debt and whatnot. Good. Down to the last bit, and I made a stupid mistake. I took out a TSP loan for about $40,000, and I just recently, because that was last year, and then I just recently switched my job to make more money, which is good. It's a great job. But now I'm required to pay that TSP loan back in full. I have a choice to either pay it or pick the hit this year or even next year because I'm in that window. And I'm just wondering if I should just say, hey, take out another loan to pay it back, or if I should take the hit on the taxes.

Well, the hit on the taxes are going to amount to 10% plus your tax rate. What's your household income? About $190. Okay. So you're going to get hit with a 45% hit, your 35% tax rate, plus a 10% penalty. So it's like, you know, do I borrow money and pay off this loan, move the loan over to a bank loan, or do I get hit with almost 50% interest effectively?

No, we could definitely go borrow the money and move the loan, definitely. How quick can you pay it off? At this point, it's probably going to take about two years. Why? You paid off $150,000 already. We still have another $20,000 to go on our snowball for this to be the last bit. Oh, so there's $60,000 left. $60,000 total, yeah. Yeah, and your household income is what?

$190,000. You said that. I'm sorry. Okay. And so why does it take two years to pay off $ 000 if you make 190 yeah i just i mean the way we budgeted it with our house and everything and you know yeah but 190 minus 50 is 40 is 140 you ought to be able to live on 140 well that's so that's before taxes right so i know when that comes down to like i know you ought to be able to live on 140 after and take taxes out and still live you should do this in a year roger that yeah okay so let's do that i mean you need to tighten this thing up you got you still got money going out the door somewhere and buy the truckload and um but yes you

do need to move the loan and um uh that way you're not going to get hit with a 45 penalty and then let's get it paid let's get the whole thing cleared in one year 50 000 is a doable amount to reduce when you make 190 very very doable all right, Ellis is with us in Minnesota. Hi, Ellis. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

What's up? Hey, my wife steps four, five, and six, and our first kid is due this week. Yay! I'm pretty excited about that. We're planning 529, so I'm planning to put about $500 a month in a 529 for the first 10 years. Do you think that's a good idea, or what's your kind of goal, end goal, kind of planning 18 years down the road? That's probably too much. Okay.

It's $6,000 a year. If you did that for 18 years, that's going to be a lot of money. Sure. I mean, it just, you know, I'd want to make, you know, what you need to do is try to project out what the actual, not just wet finger in the air, but let's say take a state school. If, for instance, you live in Minnesota, if you look at the University of Minnesota as an example, what's it cost to be a Golden Gopher, right? What's it cost to be going in-state tuition? And then let's add some inflation to that, an inflation figure to that for the next 18 years. And you've got a pretty good estimate on what that's going to cost.

And then let's back into that, what you'd need to save monthly to get there. And I think you'll find it to be less than $500. Actually, a SmartVestor Pro can help you set every bit of that up if you sit down with them, and you can set it up on just a monthly plan and do it that way if you want. What most people end up doing, Ellis, is they end up circling back and just putting some chunks in that 529 so they can just check the box and say it's over. Like I might put more than $500 a month but for fewer years and just say, okay, I'm going to put $10,000 a year in. That's $833.

I'm going to do that for about three years while he's young, and that will probably take care of it. It will probably grow to enough to be there by then, give or take, something like that. But you just work it out that way and kind of get that box checked. As you guys are starting as early as you're starting and you've done such a good job, my guess is you don't need to necessarily have 100% of the educational need in the 529

because the 529 can only be used for education. And so were they to get in a different situation where they weren't using the 529 money for whatever, I wouldn't want as much trapped in there. So I want enough to cover about what it estimates to go to an in-state school now and then pass that if you want to pick up dorm and other stuff on cash flow because you're going to be in a position with your personal wealth to do whatever you want to do by the time they get there. That's what happened to Sharon and I, by the way. Hey, thanks for the call. We appreciate you joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money.

Jack is with us. Jackson, Texas. Hi, Jack. How are you? I'm great. Thanks for all you do, Dave. Thank you, sir. How can I help?

I'm 69 years old, 70-70. My wife is 65. We're both taking Social Security and have no other income. Our only debt is a $125,000 mortgage on a home that's worth about $225,000. We have about $700,000 invested, half of it in a 403B diversified funds, and the other half mostly convertible bond funds. I've got several questions. Is there any advantage to paying off my mortgage at 3.5%? Yes, I'd definitely pay it off tomorrow.

Okay. The other thing is I'm really worried about the market and the future. I'm unable to make up any losses in the market. I'm wondering would it be worth it to hire a financial planner? Yeah, I mean, it's always good to have some advice around. If you want to talk to, like, one of our SmartVestor pros or something, they can give you some advice on where to park some of these things. There's no historic data that indicates anything for you to be panicked about.

Even if, okay, let's say we paid off the house and we got $500,000 and some change left. So $500,000, $600,000 laying around, right? Invested in, let's say it was all in the market, all invested in mutual funds as an example. Okay? And let's say that the stock market took a 20% hit. That would be a very big drop in the market, an unusually large drop. Okay. That'd be 120,000 bucks.

Really doesn't affect your life unless you cash out. And so the rule of thumb is those that ride a roller coaster don't get hurt unless they jump off. And so what I intend to do, and I'm a few years behind you, I'm about a decade behind you, but my intention is just to stay invested as long as I'm alive. And let it ride, and it'll ride up and it'll ride down. It always does. But more than anything, overall, it has ridden up. And I'm very comfortable with that personally, and that's what I intend to do.

Hey, thank you for the call. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. In a season of giving, what better gift can you give someone in the coming year than a new job? Business leaders, if you're looking to add to your team in 2020, get started now with LinkedIn Jobs. At Ramsey Solutions, we post on LinkedIn Jobs because we know the right person will have an impact on our company for years to come. And LinkedIn Jobs matches the right person with the right job. It's no wonder a hire is made every eight seconds on LinkedIn. And over 600 million members visit LinkedIn to make connections, learn and grow as professionals, and discover new job opportunities. Visit LinkedIn.com slash Ramsey. That's LinkedIn.com slash Ramsey.

Terms and conditions apply. Thank you for joining us, America. Kevin and Paige are in Pittsburgh on the line to do their debt-free stream. Hey, guys, how are you? Doing all right, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. How much have you guys paid off? $124,000 in under three years. Good for you. Good for you. Very good. And your range of income during that under three years? We started at a combined salary of $74,000 and we ended including

our side hustles at about $120,000. Excellent. What do you guys do for a living? I'm a teacher and I'm a project manager for a nonprofit agency. Cool. What kind of debt was the $124,000? It was all student loans. All right. Kick old Sally Mae out. Absolutely.

Give her her eviction notice. Out of my house, old woman. I like it. Congratulations. What was the best side hustle you had, the one that made you the most money? I think I win that one. I'm a Victorian Christmas caroler, so I get paid to sing and dress in costume and sing Christmas carols and have a good time. Wow, that's cool.

What does that gig pay? $100 an hour. Wow. Wow. Yep. So what is it, like corporate hiring or something? They come around or what? Yeah, we do corporate parties. We do private family parties, a little bit of everything.

That's fun. I'm still doing it, even though we're out of debt. Yeah, well, why not? Yeah, I mean, tis the season, right? Yeah. Exactly. So, like, how many in the caroling group? Three or four of us.

Okay, so three or four. You've goting group? Three or four of us. Okay. So three or four. You've got a good harmony that way. We do, yeah. And you can come in and you just work, like, what, a two-hour minimum or something? One hour minimum. One to three hours. Okay.

And you get $100 a piece. Yeah, knock out a couple of those on a Saturday and bring home $1,000 over the course of a month. Sweet. Doing something I love. Yeah. I love it. That's cool. How fun.

That's a great idea. Did you put that together or you just jumped into somebody's group? No, a friend of mine, her group. Okay. Very fun.

I like that. That's a good one. So how long have you guys been married? Three and a half years. So right after marriage, you look up and say, we have 124,000 of Sally Mae,

we have a roommate we don't want, we're getting this woman out of our house. Tell me the story. I've always been the more financially-minded person between the two of us, even though Kevin's certainly come around over the course of the past two and a half years. Shortly after we got married, I heard your podcast, read the book, said, Hey, Kevin, you should read the book, read the book, read the book.

And then we got on board and we went as hard as we could and didn't stop until it was done. So the podcast and the Total Money Makeover were your guidance. That's right. Yeah. Okay. Listening to the podcast several a day, crying to other people's debt-free screams, waiting to do ours. Yeah. Yeah.

They're motivating, aren't they? They are cool now you are one don't you love that look at me now yeah that's great way to go you guys very cool so what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is kevin um the key i mean i i was heavily motivated by motivated by that daily interest that was accruing when we started off, you know, just knowing that $25 a day was just gone. And so I was dead set on trying to get that number down as fast as possible. So we celebrated every time we got to $20 a day, $15 a day, a cup of coffee a day. That's what really kind of kept me going because, you know, I wanted that money back. I wanted that to go into us and our future and not just lost to interest. So that's what motivated me.

Yeah, it's a tax you pay, isn't it? You want to quit paying that tax as soon as you can. Yeah, for sure. Well, congratulations, you guys. Very, very well done done what was the hardest part of the last almost three years um i think it was we were we were working all the time um we were you know newlyweds we were working six days a week 70s a week sometimes um non-stop and there were times especially at the beginning where it didn't feel like we were making a lot of traction. I remember sitting down, you know, just not seeing the numbers moving as

nearly as quickly as we wanted to and getting really frustrated. And our friends would be going on vacation and doing X, Y, Z. And we would have to kind of remind one another, this is the decision we're making. And it's difficult right now, but it's going to benefit us so much, you know, in a few years' time. And now is that time. We were in full austerity mode. We were basically living on one income, and the entire other income was going right into our debt. So we knew that it was a real sacrifice that we were making for, you know, the sake of our future. Was it worth it?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Now, you know, we tell people and they're, like, astounded. They're like, how did you do that? Yeah. Yeah. We know that we've, we came around to understanding that we were really doing something special.

Yeah. So, yeah, we're very grateful. That's a really good word. You were doing something special. It's very unusual.'re very grateful. That's a really good word. You were doing something special. It's very unusual, and it's amazing what you pulled off. Very well done, you two. Very well done. Very proud of y'all.

Great job. Thank you. Who were your biggest cheerleaders outside the two of you? We have some family, some aunts on either one of our sides who are pretty big cheerleaders. Also some of our friends who have debt as large as ours was, who they cheered us on, hoping that they can accomplish the same. Yeah. So, yeah, people come to us for advice now. Not that we necessarily feel qualified.

You are qualified. You've actually done something. Everyone else talks about it. Everybody talks. Everybody's got an opinion about it that I've never done anything. You've actually done it. You're like dadgum impressive. This is amazing, y'all.

Well done. Very well done. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Every Day Millionaires. You'll be one before you know it. That is the next chapter in your story. I want you guys to stay on the path. Stay intentional.

Let us know when you hit EDM status, okay? Absolutely. Well done. Kevin and Paige, Pittsburgh. $124,000 paid off in just under three years, making $74,000 to $120,000. They gave Sally Mae her eviction papers. They kicked her out count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one we're dead free yeah i love it absolutely awesome Absolutely awesome. Absolutely awesome.

So, in the student loan crisis discussion, when I hear people often say, well, you know, the cost of college and the government being predatory lenders and all of these people made me sign up and it's not fair that I'm stuck in my student loan. And besides that, you can't really get out of student loans. Once you're in them, you're just stuck. The hopelessness of that victim mentality really ends up making me angry, not at the person for being hopeless,

but for people that are hopeless to spread it around as if that is the only option. Because I just talked to Kevin and Paige. They're millennials. They weren't stuck. They worked four jobs. She was a professional Christmas caroler. Who ever heard of such? I love it.

It's not a bad gig, man. She was doing well. And they paid off $124,000, and they did it in under three years. You know why? You know the difference in them and someone writing that blog that's hopeless or someone writing that article or participating in one of these victim-based wine fests? Capitalism is broken. The United States is unfair to its people. All this.

You know what the difference is? That guy's stuck. And why Kevin and Paige weren't stuck? Hope. When you believe you can do something, that is, you're halfway there. But you first have to actually believe it can occur. The power of belief. Power of hope, when you can see it in a logical

and emotional and spiritual fashion, changes everything. Proverbs says, Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when desire comes, it is the tree of life. The only difference in a victor and a victim is the power of hope.

And that's what the debt-free screams do. They give you hope. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Support a small business this holiday season that does business right. I'm talking about Grip6 belts. It's the only belt you can get online with no holes, no flap, and no bulk. And the buckles come in really cool designs and are interchangeable. I personally own a number of these belts.

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without even knowing you're wearing one i'm really proud of these guys and i'm thrilled to recommend them to you go to grip6.com and search for the dave ramsey page to get 35 or more off grip6 products our scripture of the day acts 20 and 35 in all things i have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Gandhi said, the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. Very true. Tyler is with us. Tyler is in Alabama. Tyler, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hey, how are you doing, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I am finishing up my senior year right now. I'm having trouble hearing you. Your phone's breaking up. Can you speak directly into your phone? Okay, I'll have to put you on hold. We'll come back to you and try to get you straightened out on your phone. Tabitha is in Pennsylvania. Hi, Tabitha. How are you? Good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I wanted to ask because I helped my parents go through financial peace starting in March.

I wanted to ask every week, walked them through it. We did budgeting for months. And then I kind of, I got them to baby step number four. So they got debt free, got their savings, got to step number four. And then I let them go to do what they needed to do. And they did nothing. They only have about $30,000 in their 401K, and my dad is 64, and he's the only one who works.

So I don't know what I can do next to help them to get them to realize they need to talk to a smart investor pro, and they need to do the steps so that they can retire someday. Yeah. That's sad, isn't it? It really is. Why are they not self-motivated any more than that after everything's been done for them almost? I mean, you were coaching.

You were like a personal coach all the way through. You had a personal trainer to get all the way through. For weeks. Yeah. Months. Months. Months. Months. And as soon as you quit being the only emotional energy in the room,

there was none? Right. When I would talk to them, they would say, oh, yeah, we'll get to it. And you're right, we should have another budget meeting. And they agreed with the message. They thought it was valuable. They just won't do it is there anything i can do to motivate them to be

motivated i think you've done about all you can do um one of the most painful things about adulthood is that people that we love are bent on doing stupid stuff and there's nothing we can do about it it's it's you know you have friends and you have family and you go you shouldn't do that it's gonna leave a mark don't do that and they go do it anyway because you can't stop them stupid's not illegal you know and um this is sadder than that this is is like they have no drive at all, no ambition at all. I mean, what are they counting on? I mean, there's no intellectual grasp of how poor they're going to be in just a couple of years? They said the Lord will take care of them. Well, that's not scriptural.

Right. The scripture says that you reap what you sow, and if you sow nothing, the implication is you're going to have mud, not a crop. Scripture is real clear about that. It says the diligent prosper. It doesn't say people standing around and putting a toxic version of Christianity on their laziness, and God's going to just show up and take care of them. That's just not the case. We live in a cause-and-effect world, and that's a scriptural concept.

So, yeah, the Lord has taken care of them. He gave them a wonderful daughter who's trying to show them how to handle their money God's ways. That's kind of insulting. Wow. I'm sorry. I honestly, the only thing I could think of is that someone speak into their life that they would listen to, because they've not listened to me and they've not listened to you. And if you know of someone that's, you know, maybe their pastor will sit down and do a Bible study with them and say, you know, that you shouldn't say the Lord will take care of me

when you're being lazy and you're being disorganized. The farmer doesn't go out to the field and not plant seed and then stand there and look at the field and say, the Lord will take care of me. That's asinine. And so no one does that, and no one did that anywhere in Scripture. It's just there's no example of that. Now, there are times that God shows up in

spite of this stuff, and things turn out okay, but it's not a plan. It's not how we're supposed to live our lives as spiritual people. So maybe their pastor can sit down and do a talk with them. I think that might be helpful to them. I'd give that a shot, if you can have him inject into that, because that's a real, because then what are they going to say when they're broke and they're scared? God's not real? Of course God's real. But he just didn't set up a universe where people sit on their butt and he hands them

money. There's nowhere in there that that shows up. All right. Tyler is with us. Let's try again in Alabama. Hey, Tyler, how are you? Hey, Dave, how are you doing? Much better.

Thanks. I can hear you now. So what's your question, sir? So I am starting medical school in the fall, and I'm interested in finding out what exactly we can do with any extra money we have during that time. To give you an idea of exactly what finances look like, I'm married. We have no debt. We paid off our condo about in August. We paid off our condo. Wow. We're both, she's 20, I'm 21. We bring home about $4,500 a month now. I work full-time at night and go to school during

the day and she works full-time. That's going to drop to about $2,500 a month now. I work full-time at night and go to school during the day, and she works full-time. That's going to drop to about $2,500 in medical school once I go to medical school because I can't work at night. And then aside from that, we've been saving for medical school. And basically, from talking with our parents, my parents are divorced, and the plan is basically my mom and my dad both will match us on the tuition. It's about 33 a year going to UAB in-state. So we'll split that three ways. And then, so we've basically been, we've been saving for that and we've got 28,000 in an account that pays about 3% annuities to check an account.

And so we've about got that saved. My question is, you know, going forward, anything extra that we have, any sort of extra income during medical school, what do you recommend we do with it? Should we save it? Should we invest it? You got this on the run. What exactly should we do with it? You got this on the run. So how long is med school?

Four years. So four years is med school? Four years. So four years of $33,000. So $150,000 you can get an MD at the University of Alabama. Yes. Wow. And then after four years you do a residency, right? Yes, sir. And residency pays

about $55 a year. And whatever and then any other cost yeah so and basically you've got four years you need eleven thousand dollars per year assuming your parents come through right yes sir also um we do have my parents set me up a college fund um but i didn't end up needing it because i got a full ride undergrad scholarship so there's about 30 sitting in that too this is how you go to med school debt free right here you just heard it i love it man you're incredible so here's the deal the best investment

that tyler can make in the next four years is tyler And so any extra money you have, just pile it up to ensure that you complete med school debt-free. In case your mom ran into financial trouble or your dad ran into financial trouble or something happened and the plan doesn't work exactly like the plan is laid out, you've got an extra X number of dollars laying around. I don't even care if it's an extra $100,000. Just pile up cash for four years. The loss that you have by not investing that is going to be so small compared to the fabulous income that you're going to have debt-free med school.

Man, you're a rock star. I love it. So just pile up cash to ensure your graduation and your graduation debt-free. When you get out, you've got plenty of time to start investing, and you're going to have a wonderful income at that point. Wow, I love this story. Well done. Debt-free med school.

Touchdown, baby. Wow. That puts us out of the Dave Ramsey Show and the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know you can now listen to The Dave Ramsey Show on Pandora and Spotify?

For all the ways to watch and listen, check out our showcase at DaveRamsey.com slash show.