The Ramsey Show - App - You Took Advice From an Idiot… (Hour 1)

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Dr. John Delony discuss: Getting out of two stupid car loans, Deciding whether or not to pay off the house, How much you should be investing, Paying off debt right away or slowly over time. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods of Moving and Storage Studios, it's The 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. We help people build wealth, do work they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author and host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, is my co-host today.

As we answer your questions at 888-825-5225, that's 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. So, John, it's a little bit distracting that as we go on the air, Rachel Cruz is outside taking pictures and drawing a crowd. Oh, she is way more engaging than we are. Yes. Two old boring guys. You have a brilliant, wonderful person out there.

Yes. It's embarrassing, but such it is. Well, come visit the lobby at Ramsey Solutions if you ever like a brilliant wonderful person out there yes it's embarrassing but such it is well come visit the lobby at ramsey solutions if you ever get a minute because you just never know who's going to walk through that's the moral of that story all right let's start this hour off with george in charlotte north carolina hey george how are you hey guys good afternoon thank you so much for taking my call sure man what's up So I put myself in the pickle. I'm definitely very embarrassed about it, but I basically had a 2013 Buick Verano, which was driving for work and personal, and it ended up needing a new motor. It was paid off. So I traded it in and got $2,000 for it. And, you know, I wanted to, I knew I didn't want to take out another car loan,

but I ended up going to a Toyota dealership because we didn't have much cash to buy something, you know, from a friend. And so we found a 2016 Toyota Corolla for 15, five bought the, uh, the loan total loan came out to 17. And so, um, we got it two days later, it's stopped. I was at the dealership for another issue, and the check-in light was on. Went back to the car. Car didn't turn on. Obviously, we were upset. I was upset and scared because of so many issues with my previous vehicle.

They were trying to sell us for a car, which was, you know, kind of overpriced than what they sell it for online. And so we kind of just left the dealership. My friend told me that I can just cancel that loan and get a different car. And I foolishly went on the weekend to get a different car, much more expensive, a 2020 Toyota Camry for 26 K. And now I have two loans. Um, and I'm in communication with the first, uh, Toyota dealership, but they have no legal obligation to let me out. And I'm just trying to see what the best solution is. How old are you? I'm 32.

How do you – where did you get the idea that your friend was not a brainless idiot? I mean, you don't call your friend and ask about a $15,000 loan. Your friend is not a lawyer or a judge. Is he an Alabama fan too? I'm just kidding. That was a dillard dig. Oh, my gosh, George. Yeah, well, he purchases cars and sells them, you know, overseas.

And so I kind of was, you know, he said he does all the time he buys some dealerships all the time and so i mean i'm not even putting the blame on him i made the decision at the end of the day and you know i'm just trying to think how can yeah i'm just saying the process you used to make the bad decision was a bad process thus it led to a bad decision like you took advice from an idiot okay um wow and then you upgraded your mistake you were like man i made a tough decision hold my own beer i can i can do another one man so now you have forty thousand dollars in car debt because your old car that was two thousand dollars broke that's the end of the story.

And what do you guys make? We're about, my wife is part-time, she's in school right now, and so I think she's making around $10,000 and I make $48,500. Okay. So you have to sell both vehicles, sir. That's what I want to do, and I know I'm taking a loss, and I'm just trying to figure out what's the best want to do. And I know I'm taking a loss and I'm just trying to figure out what's the best way to do it. I went, I met with the manager from the first vehicle, the 2016 Toyota, and you can now just, you know, kind of let them know, Hey, you know, there was a few issues with purchasing that vehicle. I mean, after the purchase, such as, like I said, check engine

light car, doesn't stop. I mean, I was at the dealership. They didn't start right in front of the dealership. And then the sales agent, um, you know, stop working there the day after for some reason. So, I mean, I feel like I have a few kind of grievances that I can, um, bring to the table to try to get out of this thing.

And I'm supposed to meet with a general manager to like maybe this week. What the GM is probably going to do is offer to fix the car and they're going to do just enough to get that light off and say, yeah, go about your way. Right. So. Yeah. And then you sell it and then you sell the other one and you get your $2,000 car.

Yeah. So with the, with the 2020. Hey, listen, sell the cars. Sell the cars. Absolutely. I guess that's my question. Since they're both on a loan, like how would I? You're going to take a bath and you're going to sell your loan.

You're going to go from $40,000 of debt to $7,000 of debt. Yeah, you're going to have to run down to the credit union and borrow the difference and borrow the $2,000 to get your little beater car to get driving around. Or maybe you could put them up on Facebook Marketplace and sell them for exactly what you want them. You might get out of them for what you owe on them, but I doubt it. It sounds like you specialized in overpaying as well um the um so here's the thing man i'm sorry you've gone through this um you have accurately identified the problem and he's the guy in your mirror i've done stupid stuff too so i'm not just picking on you but um when i do something, when I have done something like this, and I have to write a check for my stupidity, I call it stupid tax.

And so you're probably, whatever you're upside down on these cars, whatever amount you have to borrow to get rid of these two cars is the amount of your stupid tax because you got very emotional and very frustrated first at the $2,000 car breaking, and then the one you just bought, you were pissed off and scared and felt inept and whatever else. And so then you go buy a $26,000 car because the check engine light goes on. And, you know, you've got to get rid of these cars george for several reasons number one they were dumb purchases number two keeping them is even dumber and number three son every time you pay this payment you're gonna feel dumb yeah and george this this really quickly over a weekend established a pattern where you get frustrated with something and you go make a rash choice.

Then you get frustrated with that rash choice. And my guess is we can look at your life, your relationships, your work performance, and this is a pattern. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to start catching yourself. When you get frustrated, when you get mad, when your heart starts beating, you start clenching your fist, your hands start getting a little bit clammy, whatever happens with you, pause, call somebody, get a friend that you say, hey, when I get out of control, I do stupid stuff like buy two cars in the same weekend. By the way, it's a Camry and a Corolla.

It's not like these are dream cars. You just, yeah, you got scared, man. So have a buddy that you call, reach out to, and let's pause this behavior so we can start catching ourselves before we do something dumb again. When I did one like this, a guy gave me a scripture and I'll give it to you. Proverbs says, he who is impulsive exalts folly. And my friend explained to me that the word folly is a verb that means a fool in action. When you are impulsive, you are a fool in action. When I am impulsive, I am a fool in action when i am impulsive i am a fool in action and that's what got you here my brother and so you're gonna you're gonna write some stupid

i'm sorry you're going through this and we'll help you any way we can this is the ramsey show Cynhyrchu'r ffwrdd o'r ffwrdd a'r ffwrdd o'r ffwrdd. dr john galoni ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today as we take your calls about your life and your money around here we're fired up and wired up to come to work every day because we're on a mission to give people hope, to give people freedom. But we only get to do that because of another kind of freedom, and that's the kind we get to enjoy because of our military, our servicemen and servicewomen. We love you guys. So if you're listening today and you're a veteran, thank you.

Thank you for your service. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your sacrifice. And for Veterans Day, we want to honor you. So this is going to go really, really fast. Get ready. Today only, we're going to put 1,000 veterans through Financial Peace University free. Salute.

Thank you. If you're a veteran, go to ramseysolutions.com slash veterans. You'll fill out one simple form, and our team will reach out to you to verify and get you set up. You've served our country. Now it's our turn and our honor to serve you. And again, we'll run this until midnight tonight or for the first 1 000 veterans right now go to ramsey solutions.com slash veterans get financial

peace university for free if you're one of the first 1 000 to get there and do that and it will end at midnight tonight that's's fun. Very cool. Yeah. And here's what's really fun. It's so needed. Oh, man. The thousand will be gone really fast. Yeah. I've always just been stunned.

The folks that I've worked with in the military communities and my friends, how preyed upon they are. Oh, yeah. By all different sort of financial this's and that's and schools and for-profit universe it just it's a it's unbelievable it's vultures man and you think that they would be one of the most protected and revered groups and they're not they're just they're preyed upon well i mean it's a lot of 18 19 20 year olds first time out of home first time

with a paycheck first time away from home right and they're they're easy pickings for stupid people that want to get them involved in stupid stuff so that's a kind way of saying yeah that was really nice way to say it this is this is a cool thing i'm proud to be associated with this yeah me too it's cool too glad our financial peace guys put that together that's a good move all right bob's with us bob is in la hi bob how are you um great thank you for taking the call sure how can we help well i just retired i sold my business to 51 years last week wow um closed this yeah too long time how much did you sell it for um by uh 811 000 good for you man cool thank you

how can we i want to know well i the only debt i have is my house it's 280 000 um if i pay it off my net income per month will be a thousand, well, my outgo will be a thousand dollars less. So it's all about cash flow at this point. And with the market weird, I don't trust putting that money in there. Yeah, it's not about cash flow. It's about peace of mind. How old are you again? I'm 72.

Okay. And how much other money do you have about $200,000 in savings about $200,000 in retirement and I think that's it 800 net of taxes or you still got paid taxes yeah by taxes on the 800 yet? Yes, I do. Okay. Probably around $775,000. And I live in California, so I got to pay that too. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, I'm paying off the house today. Well, that's what my thought was. Yeah. Here's the thing. It may not be advantageous on the cash flow. It will be advantageous when you lay your head on the thing. It may not be advantageous on the cash flow. It will be advantageous when you lay your head on the pillow. You'll feel like you lost weight. Yeah, that's all right.

That's what I fear most in retirement. Well, I mean, here's the thing. You're going to need to invest the money after taxes and after paying off the thing, and you're going to have to learn about the market and think about the long-term implications, not the short-term implications of the market. I would agree with you that short-term, the market right now sucks. The economy sucks. A lot of anger with good reason out there with politicians politicians moves and so forth and all that

stuff going on but all of that aside um you know unless you're ill uh you make it to 80 eight years from today you're going to be really glad you put that money in stock market because it will have gone up right well i hooked up with one of your certified financial planners a couple years ago good okay so you got you got a smart investor pro to help you, and they can teach you and say, all right, yeah, it's down right now, which kind of actually means you're at Kmart, the blue light's on, there's a sale, you know. And so you old people know what I'm talking about when I said that,

but everybody else is like, what's a Kmart and what's a blue light? Blue light special, man. I saw blue lights in my rearview mirror once. But anyway, now blue light was a thing. They would turn on a blue light at the old Kmart stores when a sale happened. That was the thing. And that's what this is right now, even though it's a storm out there and craziness going on and all that stuff. But I'm still, I haven't slowed down my 401k contributions.

I haven't slowed down my 401k contributions. I haven't slowed down my investing. If I had some money right now that was loose that wasn't in something, and I'm going to leave it alone a couple years, I wouldn't think anything about putting it in there today because I'm very confident in the American economy overall. That does not mean I'm very confident in Washington and not try to screw it up, but it just means overall the American economy is so much more robust than washington is stupid it tends to figure out a way to work its way around that that's that's a tough teeter-totter man that's a tough one yeah it's a lot of weight on that one end i'm just saying yeah that's right

but uh uh like you know i i the republic uh the united states of america the economy the free enterprise system capitalism are just much stronger than political divisiveness and stupid stuff that the fed does right now which what they're doing is dumber than a rock but we'll survive that we've survived much worse things and uh and we'll prosper again uh the other side of that. So it's just easy to get caught up in the drama of the day. Oh, yeah. Particularly today, since tomorrow's the day you vote. Oh, there we go. Yeah.

So the drama's at a high fever pitch. If you already know who you're going to vote for, turn the news off. Turn it off. If you've already decided who I'm voting for in your local election, just turn it off. Enjoy your day. Today, yeah. Today, turn it off. Now day today yeah today turn it off now i will get i i got i got a little ken coleman this is your super bowl yeah yeah yeah for tomorrow

night i'm gonna pop some popcorn that's right and watch enjoy it enjoy it's a movie yes yeah enjoy it and i'll probably do the same thing and uh my favorite thing is to put up two opposing news sites and me and hank watch them and be like okay here's the number just came in and this is what they say this is what they say that's fun yeah to identify that neither one of them are telling the truth you know but today uh if you know you're gonna vote for a turnoff man go for a walk yeah sun may be shining and even if it's not it'll be better than what you go buy somebody's coffee for them do something else with your day that's a little more productive completely agree Bob congratulations I'm so proud for man. 51 years you grew and ran a business.

At 72, you sell it and put an $800,000 in some change check in your pocket. I'm so proud of you. He's been running the business? That's America. For a long time. That's America. Awesome. He started that in his garage.

He started it in his living room on a car table like I started this one. Nobody gave him a check. He didn't't inherit anything and he's a millionaire yeah because of it so plugging along plugging along this this is what i'm talking about those kinds of people there are more of them than there are the nutty ones there are they're everywhere they just don't make as much noise as the nuts the nuts are out there everywhere, but they're loud nuts. I mean, it's just, you know what I'm saying? They've got their keyboards, man. Yeah, I mean, they're good with their keyboards.

And that guy, he's not worried about his keyboard. He's over making money. So there you go. And he managed to rack up a million dollars in a state that he's had to give a whole bunch of that away to. Well, it ain't over yet, but yeah, that's true. They got one last gouge. You know, we were out there last week doing the Sacramento event, and the guys coming through the picture line talking to us.

It's Californians. It's incredible. You guys. Oh, man. Texans, I mean, even when Texas sucks, Texans always are like, Texas is its own country. There's always pride. You know, if you moved there 30 minutes ago, you're proud of Texas? Right.

Not true of California right now. Nobody. I don't know anybody. They're not proud. Nobody. They're making comments about their own state. It's just like, oh, my gosh, you guys. You need to fire some people.

Bring your pride back. Fix it. This is The ramsey show Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Roy and Corey are with us in the lobby of Financial Peace, or in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, I guess I should say. Used to be Financial Peace Plaza back about 20 years ago. I don't know where my brain is. Anyway, welcome, and they're on the debt-free stage.

How are you guys doing? Great. Good. Cool. How much debt have you paid off? $196,500. Whoa. Very good. How long did that take? About two months, or no, 24 months, sorry. Two months. Still impressive. All right. And your range of income during that two years? $80,000 to $150,000. Cool. What do y'all do for a living? I am a coder for one of the health systems in

Sioux Falls. And I do new product development for a manufacturing company. Excellent. Well, who got the huge raise? The big raise was we kind of did a side hustle over COVID, really got focused. And since we really couldn't go out and do much, we decided to stay home and instead of watching TV, actually do something. I like it. What'd you do? What's the status? We were buying and selling old vintage tools on eBay and Facebook Marketplace. Very neat.

Just flipping them? Just flipping them. That's fun. Way to go, guys. So instead of Tiger King, you made a bunch of money. Yes. This is one extreme to the other for sure millions of americans they blew it man they could have been you could have been selling old tools who knew wow so uh what kind of debt was

the 197 our house you paid off your house looking at a couple of weirdos very cool weirdos so uh wow very what's the house worth uh about 475 very good how old are you two 34 34 and how much have you gotten in retirement savings uh about 370 man you are real close to being baby steps millionaires wow way to go guys way to go or maybe you're there and i don't know it maybe something else right yeah we're close yeah well done guys very well done so if i look at four years old if i look at all the data drinking went up tv watching went up i think it was like a billion something hours of the office was watched seriously and some of that was consumed by me like you guys bucked the trend who had that first conversation how'd y'all get

how'd y'all get on this other journey that most of America did not get on? Yeah. So like our story started with like most stories on this stage. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was battling an autoimmune disease that literally took over like every aspect of my life. For about a year, I just, when I got off of work, I just sat on the couch and I was just exhausted and I just didn't want to do anything. Um, one night I remember driving home from work, um, and my third treatment option had failed and I was just so frustrated and hopeless. And I just remember praying, um, on my way home that, you know, if, if God's going to take me, do it now. But, uh, if not show me a way out of this.

I need help. I need guidance. And then that night, Corey spoke with me, and she said, you know, maybe we should do something, you know, that's productive. And so just sitting on the couch. And she knew I liked to buy and sell old tools and kind of collect them a little bit. So we kind of turned that passion into a side hustle. And then we kind of set the BHAG to get our house paid off before we were 40.

So how'd you get connected to this whole Ramsey way of doing things? I took, Corey and I took financial peace in 09 when I came out of trade school. And we got on the program because we needed to, because coming right out of trade school, our hours got cut and we bought a house right before the crash, so most of our income was going that way. And then we kind of fell off from there when we had kids and then jumped back on by listening to the podcast on YouTube. Wow.

So my buddies who specialize in autoimmune disorders will tell me that some of the, at least the symptoms, are highly stress related. Yes. Have you seen an alleviation of your symptoms since you've become debt free? A little bit. I'm still battling yet, looking for a maintenance medication that's going to kind of put me into remission.

So I've been fighting for about four and a half years now or three and a half years now. So. Wow. Wow. Very good. Well, I'm proud of you. i'm proud of you you got to be you got to be free in this part of your life yes it gives you a lot of uh mathematical freedom to fight the disease it gives you the uh emotional headspace to fight it too and cory it gives you

some peace because you got a husband who's hurting and you're picking up um a lot of the slack right and man what a relief to have that off your plate, right? For sure. Wow, way to go, you guys. All right, what do you tell people the key paying off your freaking house when you're 34 years old is? I would say the biggest thing is having a strong why behind it and then alignment with your spouse.

Being on the same page, I definitely couldn't have done it without her by myself. So she was definitely the catalyst to get it done before we were 40. Corey? I would, yeah. I just, I would agree with him. Okay. You just got to be on the same page and the same boat.

Yeah. Yeah, you guys, but you really focused. I mean, you must have also laid down some other stuff. Of course, during some of this time, you couldn't do anything anyway. So it wasn't like you had to stop going out to eat. There weren't any restaurants open. Nope. So, yeah.

Yeah, very good. Way to go, you guys. I'm so proud of you. Who were your biggest cheerleaders? People cheering you on? Our three kids were our biggest cheerleaders. I love it. Yeah, and then a lot of people from my work definitely helped me with the goal planning

and, you know, following up, making sure I was on track and everything. A little accountability there, too. Okay. Very good. Good. Way planning and, you know, following up, making sure I was on track and everything. A little accountability there, too. Okay. Very good. Good. Way to go, you guys. I'm talking to freaking 34-year-old millionaires, man. Or will be any minute.

Oh, my gosh. You're really impressive. Very, very good. There's something about being in the middle of a tornado and saying, okay, we can't control this. We can't control that. Let's work really hard to minimize some of these external stressors let's take as many stress variables off the table as possible and y'all did it with three little kids in the middle of a pandemic in in south dakota which means in 40 feet of snow right

you just did it and you just kept doing it right uh congratulations that's awesome thank you very neat well done well done all right we've got a copy of Total Money Makeover for you to give away to somebody. I'm sure you've been through it. The Baby Steps Millionaire book, which you're about to be entered into that book any minute here. Good stuff. And, of course, a one-year membership to Financial Peace University. That whole bundle is the Live and Give bundle. We're going to give it to you guys just to say thanks for coming all the way down here.

Hope you enjoy Nashville while you're here. All right. Bring the kiddos, and let's hear their names and ages. Come on up, guys. All right. All right, so we got Nolan here. He's now four. Uh-huh.

Now this is Gavin. He is eight. And this is Brynn, and she is 11. All right. Way to go, guys. And you said they were very involved in cheering y'all huh? They they had to sacrifice a lot with not going out for ice cream so often we had a budget of if there's no money in the account no ice cream. Yeah we're paying off the

house but now we can go anywhere we want to. Yep yeah. Hey kids their excuses are gone y'all can have ice cream whenever you want now they gotta blame it on something else now you rot your teeth that's right all right way to go you guys beautiful family we're so proud of you excellent excellent job all right roy and cory bren gavin and nolan sioux falls south dakota 197 000 paid off in two years 24 months making, making $80,000 to $150,000. Got the side hustle going on the side. Knocked the house out by the time they're 34 with their retirement accounts just under a million-dollar net worth right now as Baby Steps Millionaires. We're looking at them right here.

They didn't steal any of it, and they're not famous, but they're millionaires. I love it. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! We're debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Woo!

There is not only a stress relief when you decide to attack something head-on like that, but there is a sense of dignity that you get from controlling the controllables yeah you know you're in a high stress tornado like you said eight feet of snow three little kids middle of a pandemic and you got an autoimmune disorder oh my gosh that's that's a serious tornado yeah it is and so what are we going to do watch tiger king or sell all tools let's make let's start going to sell all tools tools we're gonna do something we can do to start a business and change that change the equation and i love what um cory did here she took something that he loved she didn't work against it wasn't like you gotta let's take something you love and let's see if we can make money out of that and it was a small

side hustle turned into a bigger side hustle now they have no house payment love it wow yeah it's just a matter of concentrating. It's not magical, guys. It's hard. They weren't saying it wasn't hard. It's hard. All we're promising is that it's worth it. This is the Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Hesham is with us in Aggieland, College Station, Texas. Hey, Hesham, what's up? Hi, Dave, how are you? Great, man. How can we help? I'm planning to graduate next year in the spring, May of 2023, and I hopefully have a job lined up to start a few months after. And I'd be making a good amount of money, and I calculated all the taxes and all the daily and monthly expenses that I would have. And I basically would have yearly about $30,000. And I was trying to see if I could, you know, what are the best ways to invest this money very early on,

and, you know, should I wait on it? Should I try to make more money and then invest in something big, or what should I do? Okay. The millionaires that we have studied are slow and steady. They're not sudden. And so they develop a system, like, for instance, your 401k at your new workplace, and you max it out. What kind of money are you going to be making? It's about $80,000 to $90,000 a year. Good for you. Good for you. Okay.

Well, do you have any debt? No debt. Good for you. Okay. Then we would first tell you to build an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses and then start saving 15% of your income. And anything above that, I would save and invest towards a good down payment or the cash purchase of a home later.

No rush to buy a home. You've got plenty of time. But the home later is a good thing. And so, you know, I'm going to limit right now at your young age, you're investing to 15% into good mutual funds. We spread it across four types, growth, growth and income, aggressive growth and international, put it in a Roth 401k with a match, and you've got the best of all worlds or Roth IRA. If you don't have a match, you want to roth and you want to do a diversified portfolio a spreading

out of the investing long term and if you'll if you'll just save 15 of 80 000 you're going to be a millionaire by the time you're 40 if you'll just do that but you're not going to just do that because above that you're going to save and uh you're going to save up and get a house and then you get the house paid off and then you'll be able to invest even more because you'll be making even more and so you're going to you you're gonna do very well congratulations i also want to encourage you to unfollow from instagram facebook and tiktok and whatever new platform of the week pops up unfollow any of the influencer voices that are telling you these get rich scheme hacks on how to buy gold or trade do it it's just slow and steady man

it's just slow and steady yeah yeah um because you could you can you can start you start to feel panicked that you're screwing something up you're not you're gonna miss the boat on a thing and it just you get this fervor around you and then you do something dumb well it yeah it creates FOMO in the investment world and basically what you're talking about is it's it's the junk food of the financial world there you go yeah and if you only put junk food in your brain you're gonna you know your brain's gonna be fat you know it's that simple and morbidly obese yeah that's where you'll be so yeah it's gonna be a problem and so I was speaking to a group of leaders, world-class people. I was actually honored to get to be in the room Friday night.

And I told them, I said, the only way you can control, exactly what you said, the only way you can control your ability to sustain leadership, because leadership's heavy. It's hard. The only way you can control it is control your inputs you've got to control your inputs and so if you're constantly eating intellectual junk food and you don't eat any you know protein vegetables whatever if the intellectual world which means read a good non-fiction book unplug facebook they're not real friends they're not going to

help you change a tire um and uh you know you know, if you follow people that do comments after some of these things, you understand why some species kill their young. I mean, it's just, you know, it's the dumbest of the dumb. It's the bottom of the proverbial barrel of humanity showing up there, and that's not where you want to get advice about anything in your life. It is the glorified version of a cat chasing a laser is what it's down to so you've got to be really careful to control your inputs and um you know uh the social guys came to me the other day our social media team and said you know there's some complaints in the social world that dave you don't follow anybody on your instagram, which is not my Instagram anyway.

They run it. I put something on there about twice a month. Everything else is put on there by them. And they do a good job, and I'm proud of it. It's not that thing. But there's a reason I don't follow more than about 20 people on Instagram. I haven't found anybody worth following. You know, I follow our stuff,

so if I open up the account, I can see what John Deloney's doing. I can see what Rachel Cruz is doing. You know, that kind of stuff. Because Rachel and George, they actually do this crap. You know, but the, you know, but the rest of it's, yeah, you're right. I think that's really good input to guard your

inputs. Dan is with us. Dan is in Des Moines. Hi, Dan. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, guys. Thanks so much for having me. I'm a bit nervous, but pretty excited. No troubles. We never lost a patient. How can we help? Yeah, so I am 29, and my wife just turned 28. I was a former law enforcement officer. Was forced to retire about two years ago due to incidents from the job. Because of that, no physical limitations to speak of, but because of that, they gave me, I receive about $2,500 a month. My wife and I just sold our first house and we moved into our new house in April. So that covers the mortgage essentially.

But we were also blessed with twins about five months ago, which they are beautiful and healthy. And it's been a huge blessing, but obviously, you know, change things. So I sold my dream truck last month. This was last month was when I really first started following you guys. Um, and that already made me feel better. So our only debt currently is student loans. So I have 45,000 in private, 20,000 in federal. My wife has 28,000, um, in our savings account, we have 45,000 in cash. We also have 20,000 in mutual funds that aren't protected by a retirement account.

And then we have about $50,000 in Roth between the two of us. So my question is... What's your household income? So with my new career, I make about $90,000, and my wife is a kindergarten teacher. We just paid for her master's in cash. Does $90,000 include the $90,000, and my wife is a kindergarten teacher. We just paid for her master's. $90,000 include the $30,000 you're getting from the police department? Nope, that's separate.

Okay, so on top of $90,000, you've got another $30,000. So that's $120,000, and then your wife makes how much? She makes about $70,000. Excellent. Okay, so you've got $190,000 income. We are certainly very blessed. Yeah,000. Excellent. Okay. So you got $190,000 income. We are certainly very blessed. Yeah, that's awesome, man. So where my question comes in, if I paid $44,000, right, leaving that $1,000 emergency fund,

pulled $20,000 from the mutual fund. You'd have $28,000 in debt left. Exactly. But my problem is we pay about 2 000 a month in daycare so 500 you make 190 dan you're not a policeman anymore you're good you are still looking for the worst case scenario the guy coming around the corner is not coming yeah you're doing well and if if he is coming, you're going to have no debts. Awesome. And that's what I figured you guys would say,

but getting this first large sum of money for the first time in your life, it's like you want to hold on to it, but like you said, you can't be Dave-ish. And that's why I plan on coming up to Eden Prairie next week to try to see you as a person as well. Fine. Well, I hope you can make it. It is sold out, but you hang on and we'll have them get you a couple of tickets if you want to come.

Here's the thing, okay? It's not Dave Ish that matters because Dave really doesn't matter at the end of the story. What matters here is you have to decide is the system that we use at ramsey really really the shortest fastest way to wealth is it really yep and if you really believe it is then you follow the system if you really believe your system is then you'll go with your system but if i woke up in your shoes you you know what I would do, bro. I'd write a check today and be rid of two of these student loans.

I'd be sitting there with the $28,000 and make $190. I'd tighten that old budget up, feed those little twin babies, and I'd dump the rest of it and let's clear that loan up, man. You can do it. You can do it. So, hey, thank you, man. We appreciate you calling. You hang on. Austin will pick up. We'll give you a couple tickets for Eden Prairie. We'll be there next,

or that's not next week. That's this week. It's a couple days. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's John Deloney, co-host of The Ramsey Show. Did you know over 18 million people listen to The Ramsey Show every week? A lot of those people listen on one of our 600-plus radio stations across the country. To find a station near you, go to RamseySolutions.com slash show.