The Ramsey Show - App - You've Got A Willy Wonka Ticket To Your Future! (Hour 3)

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

Jade Warshaw & John Delony answer your questions and discuss:  "Should I buy land to live in a camper during college?", 5 Signs That You'll Never Be Rich, from the blog: How to Build Wealth at Any Age Why you should keep business savings and personal expenses separate,  from the blog: Best Small-Business Bookkeeping and Accounting "Should I sell my car and buy a cheaper one with cash?", from the blog: How to Sell a Car Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Join a Personality-led FPU class. Click here! Enter The Ramsey Cash Giveaway for a chance at $3,000! https://bit.ly/TRSgvwy Shop our bestsellers during the $10 Sale! https://bit.ly/TRS10Sale Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, it's The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. I'm your host, Jade Warshaw, joined to my right by Dr. John Deloney. Give us a call.

The number is 888-825-5225. Hey, I just realized something, John. We're not, we're no longer building actual amazing relationships. We were. It depends on who's reading it. We're doing all those things. You've got calls about money,

mental health, marriage, your work, whatever you got going on. We got you. I like that. I like this. Hanging out to have a conversation about your life and money. That's great. Works perfect. All right, Sarah, you're first up to have a conversation about your life and your money.

What's going on in Orlando, Florida, Sarah? Hi, how are you guys? Doing good. How are you? I'm good. So I am a college student. I am halfway through school and my journey to get a bachelor's degree. And I have a paid floor camper that I am bringing down from Illinois to live in.

I am moving out of a very horrible renter's situation. Okay. And my question is whether or not to buy a property and put like what i would pay for rent into a piece of land that like doesn't it's undeveloped and live on the camper in the camper on that land or to continue renting a like camping spot at a campground let's see let's work through this here let's find out i mean i'm i'm biased towards a certain thought but i don't want to go there yet until i unpack it john right so let's go through it do you have any money that's the first question like are you in debt let's let's walk it through

all my all my school is paid for by a full ride scholarship. Sweet. Yes. So I have no worries about college, all books, all college tuition. Everything is paid for in that situation. Basically, I only have living expenses. Your camper is paid for? Yes. Camper is totally paid for. I have no debt. I don't even own a credit card. Love it. I'm a Dave Ramsey baby.

Sarah! Hold on. You can't be all the way a Dave Ramsey baby because he has a can't be all the way Dave Ramsey, baby, because he has a thing in his soul about living in campers. Yes, he does. Oh. Because they drop like a rock. When you said you had a horrible living experience,

was it in the camper? No, no, no, no. It was in a renter's situation. So currently my renting situation kind of um the fact of the matter is i don't have a kitchen and i barely have a bathroom in my current renting situation okay and as soon as this lease ends you're out of there bye felicia okay but have you have you just because you had one bad renting situation doesn doesn't mean another one is going to be equally bad. Right.

Because you've basically chosen murder and murder as your other two options. I'm going to get a camper and move to raw land in the woods, or I'm going to move into a campground and cross my fingers. When did you get the camper? About six months ago. So you've had it i've lived i've lived in a camper before i've lived in two other camping type situations and personally i love it like i'm a handy person i work on my own car like my dad's a mechanic um my adopted dad was an electrician so i'm very handy i've learned a lot of things about how to be self-sufficient what's the price difference like what what are we looking at?

You versus you living, renting a plot of land for the camper versus you doing a traditional renting situation in an area you can afford. What are we looking at price-wise? So the camper would be $800 a month. All utilities included, Wi-Fi, sewer, water, everything. Okay. Well, we already have the average apartment price that is not a dump like what i'm moving out of here is thirteen hundred dollars yeah okay and how much money do you have saved about twenty thousand and if i were to buy land

it'd be 12 months from now and i'm hoping to have like a down payment saved of like thirty thousand i would not buy land and here's why. We're talking about renting land. No, no. She wants to buy land or go to a campground. I would not buy land because you don't know how long you're going to be in this area. And you think you know like, no, no, no. When I get out of college, I'm going to... I would

not put down roots like that. I would recommend even if you said, hey, I'm a first year college grad, I would tell you to rent because you don't want to be tied down to something. I would, hey, man, $800 for all new utilities, that's not a bad gig. That ain't bad. It's not bad. And especially if you love that lifestyle.

But hear us when we say, please don't buy it. Just rent it. Yeah, don't buy land. What are you thinking about buying? Just because I've got to know because you sound incredible. In my thought, like I've done all the numbers. I'm a numbers person. My degree will be in business.

So I wanted to buy an acre, put electric and water on the property for a camper, and then possibly build like two or three other spots to rent to people in the area because camping is huge in Florida. That's the retiree lifestyle. The market is very big for it here. You're so amazing. You're amazing. You've got to help pay for them.

I'd want to pay the mortgage off in less than two years. How much does it cost to put a well on property? About $20,000. Are you confident in that? Because my neighbor just put one in for $45,000 and they missed and they had to do it again. Well, the water table here is really high. The well here would only be like 10 or 15 feet.

How much does it cost to run power? To put a pole in and run power? Well, I'd have my dad help me so like $45,000. I know, but someone's got to come in from the city and run a yeah i just love the fact that you're a gangster dude you're so awesome the way that you're thinking is is wonderful i think that again for now renting is the way because you're still halfway through school you've got a lot on your plate so let's not let's just do one thing at a time and i

love that you're paying for school i love that you're in such a cash positive position with your money no debt you've got the savings you know look for a great place to rent and i know that you could even look for folks like private land and contact those folks and see if you can you know rent their land for a while the renting situation is a private like um that's all i've looked into it okay great great. And then, like, I feel like you're already a student of this, but keep being a student of how this works. And that way, when you're ready, if you decide in two years or whatever, that you still want to move forward with this purchase of land and, you know, create all this stuff, then you're even more confident in that

endeavor. So here's kind of the principles or the values in order. Get out of school without owing anybody anything. And don't take the risk proposition right now versus the reward. The risk that you get in there and you get a mess, you get somebody that you rented out a property and they burn the place down or they end up being a lunatic or whatever. That risk is not worth you getting out of college. You have a Willy Wonka ticket. You've got everything paid for. Get out of college with 25 or 30 or 40 grand in the bank with no debt and game. Like you are already launched out of the system. And like Jade said, keep doing your research on this because I think this is in your future. I'm confident. The reason I'm being super nice to you is I'm fairly certain I'm going to work for you someday. Like you are so far ahead of where I could ever be when it comes to entrepreneurial spirit

and already figuring stuff out. That's amazing. Your parents did a great job. So, so good. But yeah, principle number one, get out of this thing debt-free. Just get out of school. No risk. Don't go bananas.

And then principle two is start investing in your future when you walk across that stage. Sarah's killing the game, man. And she knows the lingo. She was talking the talk, walking the walk. Proud of you, Sarah. I can't wait to see, man, you're going to like really be an influential business person, land owner one day. I love it. She's a boss. This is the Ramsey show hey what's going on guys this is Jade you're listening to the Ramsey show I'm joined by my host co-host Dr. John Deloney mental health extraordinaire that's probably a bit of a stretch what no it's not no you know what you're talking about and so that's why if you're listening and you have a problem it could be money related it could be relationship related it could be a little bit of both be sure to give us a call the number is triple eight eight two five five two two five we want to listen and we want to help you sort it through whatever it

may be um and speaking of sorting through problems john this right here you guys you know we always get articles that come through our email or you know sometimes the show producers are like guys you got to look at this this article right here is something definitely worth talking about just the title alone like made my ears perk up it says five signs that you will never become rich one day it ain't happening basically if you fall into some of the categories that are listed here. And it sounds funny to say, but it's actually pretty serious. So let's just kind of work through these five, John, because I feel like this is, I mean, it's accurate. How do you know that you will never be rich? Number one, you have a victim,

let's go through it first. You have a victim mentality. Two, saying money is not important to me. Three, you love to spend more money than you make. Four, you have a scarcity mindset. And five, you're obsessed with being the best in your business. You're not obsessed with being the best in your business. So let's break it on down here because I know the two that stood out to me that I've struggled with. What's that?

The struggle is you have a victim mentality. Okay. I hate to say a lot of these. You just say that money is not important to me because I grew up with that. Like, oh, I don't want to be a millionaire. You know, if you have a million dollars, I mean, that's just going to change who you are

and we don't need that. And rich people are like this and rich people are like that and it's kind of like you negative your way out of you you make something that's great sounds so terrible who would ever want that there's a uh an old methodist minister in texas it says the most offensive word in the english language is they and when you grow up with those people with that kind of money are them yes it creates this little false cocoon around we don't like that yeah right yeah and that's a great recipe for sitting right where you are forever well and it goes both ways because you can paint those people to be like these horrible people like you know just mean rich

people or they're evil yeah greedy old rich people or which i also saw this growing up is they're just the people on the hill like they're they're sparkly and shiny and perfect and they had all this opportunity and there must be like this special gleam about them and that's how they got it. And we're not those people. We're not the people who invest. We didn't get lucky. Yeah, we don't wear a suit and tie to work.

We don't carry a briefcase. And so we don't invest and we don't build wealth. And if we do, we don't talk about it because I never heard about it. So that for sure. And then the victim mentality of it goes hand in hand because it's like, if only they would have done that, then I could have had this. Or if only they hadn't have done that, I could have had this.

And at some point, you just got to leave that by the wayside and go, hey, that just was what it was. And now it's not about what happened. It's about what happens next. And now it's not about what happened. It's about what happens next. And I get to decide what happens next. Well, and I remember looking at, I mean, you had more. I remember looking at six figures of student loan debt. And my first thought was what they did. Heck yeah. I signed my name to that paper. Did I fully know what I was getting into? No. I signed it, man. And I can

sit there and stare at it and yell and scream at what they did. I can get about solving the problem. Absolutely. I can get about solving the problem. And that's the hard part, right? Because the fact is, we do know that student loans and all that kind of stuff, we do know that situations can be predatory. We do know that you can be done wrong, right? And it's not negating the fact that something happened was or was not wrong, right? Absolutely. But it's just, it takes some fortitude, man, to come in and be like, despite that, I may have played a role in this, especially when it comes to debt. And I've just developed this thought in my mind now where it's like, whatever it is that

I'm complaining about, yapping about, whining about, there there's probably something jade that you can do to make it better instead of claiming it's all them or all that or you know i'm married so you know i can always be like it's sam warshaw no jade you look at you too everybody's participating yes can't be the victim mentality but changing that is so, so hard. It's so, so hard. You love to spend more money than you make. We wouldn't have a show if it wasn't for that. We all struggle with that. Oh, man.

Yeah, that one kind of stands on itself. The one that stuck out to me was you have a scarcity mindset and that's one of those like Instagrammy buzzword things that I kind of roll my eyes at. Yeah. Until I met Dave, quite honestly, behind closed doors.

And I've heard how people firsthand talk about who are buddies with Joe Rogan. That he's so insanely generous behind closed doors that the whole pitch is there's so much more than enough for all of us. Yeah. And that's a true way that dude lives his life. With Dave, there's always so much more opportunity than there is ever going to be people to do the work. Of course. It's a spirit with which they live. And so if it's like, oh, well, like man that's expensive i he he was buying something and i uh and the guy came in here and i

said hey put one on for me because i want to buy one of those well he just put on dave's tab and so i put some money by dave's thing for it uh-huh and i had that money on my desk that same money i put he he put it on my desk and he's like, dude, there's more than enough. But it's how you tip, it's how you live. And so this scarcity mindset, if I don't get mine, then someone's going to get mine. That is a way to live a tiny shriveled up life. And it's a miserable way of existing. I've always heard the phrase, I heard this phrase when I was in college,

and I say it to this day as a reminder, what God has for you is for you. And it kind of, whenever I feel that feeling of, if I don't get to this in time, it's gone, or if I don't do this, there's only a little bit left. I love the way this says it. It says, believing that success is a pie with limited slices. And I always have to remind myself, no, Jade. And for anybody listening, God has a special plan for you. It's not contingent upon whether other people do what they were supposed to do or if other people are successful or not. It's just you and your plan and you competing with yourself and you getting better than your former self. It's not every, you know what I mean? Like, don't get me wrong, we're all connected.

But this idea that somebody can take something from me that was supposed to be mine, I don't believe that. I think that the only person that can hinder you is you and no one's gonna steal, well, my business would have grown if it wasn't for that guy over there. No, there was probably something you were supposed to do. Well, if it wasn't for, you over there no there was probably something you were supposed to do well if it wasn't for you know student loans i could have been rich by now no it's probably like i don't believe that somebody can steal like your purpose

and your what's meant for you from you i don't know is that controversial no no i i i just love the idea that there's enough there's enough there's enough there's enough what's for you is for you but you got to be the one to go out and get it the last one is um i struggle with this one because i see the other side i see the the mental health issue side of this thing i'm gonna be speaking at entree summit there'll be 2,500 3,000 business leaders i see them struggle with this but at the same time it's the truth i don't know a way around it you're not obsessed with being the best in your business okay you like and i think the best in your business we have transposed to winning like i have to win and if your obsession was is with winning at all cost you're going to find yourself banging on trash cans to cheat pitches right like my

beloved astros did they stopped trying to be excellent at everything and they started trying to win everything and you cut corners. But if you get obsessed with excellence and honoring the person who gave you their money or their time and ask you to help solve a problem in their business and you become obsessed with excellence, dude. And if you're not obsessed with excellence, don't do business. Don't do business. Absolutely. Absolutely.

No, I mean, I got to say, I agree with this list. Looking at it, I've been all of the people on here at least once, if not many, many times in my life. Yeah, me too. And if you can get a hold of just a couple of these, you're on your way.

You are well on your way. I mean, that's my my story i'm sticking to it what do you think john don't be a victim make your money if your money's not important to you it's gonna be important to somebody else don't spend more than you make there's always more than enough and be obsessive about excellence love that this is the ramsey show Hey, what's going on, guys? You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw, your host, joined by Dr. John Deloney, mental health expert, and just overall good dude. Let's go with that. I'll take that. That's the nicest thing someone said about me today. I will say, yes, John Deloney, an upstanding human being, ladies and gentlemen. You know who else is? Eddie Cullen out there in the lobby. today. I will say, yes, John Deloney, an upstanding human being, ladies and gentlemen.

Well, you know who else is? Eddie Cullen out there in the lobby. One of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. That is a fact. Eddie Cullen is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. And let me just throw this out here. He's hosting a Financial Peace University class. And if you haven't joined a class, you should go ahead and join his class. All the personalities are hosting classes. I am smack dab knee deep in the middle of one. John Deloney, you too? Yes. Killing the game. When I tell you guys people are changing their lives, I mean that. So if you haven't signed up already and you're interested in just doing things a little bit differently with your finances and making some traction, sign up for a Financial Peace University class. Or if you just need a little bit of advice with your life and your

money, you can give us a call here. The number is 888-825-5225. And with that, we're going to talk to Jesse in Nashville, Tennessee. What's going on, Jesse? How's it going, everybody? Doing good. How are you? I'm doing well. I love to hear it. My question is, I'm 24 years old. My wife and I are officially in baby step number four. And I'm curious if we should start the next baby step or keep investing in my business to grow it. Well, if you're in baby step four, you need to do baby step four, which is putting 15 percent of your income aside for retirement. Right. So we do need to do that. And then technically you're doing four or five, six simultaneously. So do you have kids college to think about um not yet so we we're almost a year married so we're not even okay so we can

kind of cross that out for now here's my scary question for you my scary question is are you running this business out of your personal family finance accounts? Because investing into your business should be business money that you have made that you're choosing to reinvest into your business. Correct, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's about 200K in a business account, and then there's a fully funded emergency fund of about 20,000.

For your business? For the business or for personal? For personal. Okay, that doesn't... BroTown and Motown, you got to separate these things apart, okay? It's going to get messy, messy real quick. So you would have a set of reserves in your business, retained earnings that you can keep kind of as savings for what you might need in your business.

Now, I will say, if you're just getting a business off the ground, sometimes you might infuse your business with some personal cash of course but in this case I mean you said you've got 200k I feel like there's John what John is saying is right your personal investing has nothing to do with your business investing unless I want to learn more about that. Are you taking a draw? Are you paying yourself a salary? No, I'm not paying a salary. So,

um, I, it's kind of just like a owner's personal pay and expense. So I kind of, Oh bro. So you're just basically running a business and you're using the business accounts to like run your life. Basically.

No, we don't want to do that. We got to separate that instantly. Are about to. Yeah. You just, it, it, it's easy.. Dude. We got to separate that instantly. You are about to, yeah. You just, it's easy. Yeah, simple. You can start today.

You just need to head down to the bank, set up a business account, doing business as whatever. Well, sorry, for context sake, no, no, no. I have an LLC set up. Okay. It's all business, legally structured. Uh-huh. I know, but you're living out of that structure.

And when it comes to tax, you're going to find yourself in a mega mess. Okay, yeah. We're setting aside a decent amount every month into taxes. Okay, that's good. Basically what you want to make sure, and you probably need to work with a bookkeeper or

CPA, somebody to help you out, so that you understand what's technically a business expense understand what's technically a business expense, what's not, because you don't want to use your business account to buy your son a new pair of shoes, right? Because that's not really a business expense. However, if you went to dinner and you were talking business with somebody that you're, you know, consulting with, that could be a business expense. And so you just want to make sure you understand that. And basically just understand personal savings is personal savings and business savings is business savings.

And as much it sounds like you have built the business enough to where you're taking profit from the business and reinvesting it into the business as opposed to having to give yourself like personal cash infusions. Right. Exactly. Yeah. But you're also have a single credit card or a single debit card and you are paying for groceries with that, paying for your car with that, right? So I'm moving money out of the business account into a, like a personal expense account. Yeah, dude, it's so much cleaner if you just pay yourself a thousand bucks a month or whatever

you need. Pay yourself a salary. You can, it helps with that helps with taxes too, but it keeps everything so, so clean. And whatever you decide. Pay yourself a salary. That helps with taxes too, but it keeps everything so, so clean. Whatever you decide to pay yourself, you're going to take 15% of that and invest it because you're in Baby Step 4. If it's $2,000 a month and it's $24,000 a year, that's what you choose to pay yourself, that's how you're going to buy groceries

and that's how you're going to buy a car. That's how you're going to buy stuff. Then you're going to take 15% of that. Then the rest of the money that's in your business, you can reinvest that in your business. You're responsible for growing your business however you think it's going to work. Jesse, how are you investing right now? Because are you doing like a individual 401k? Do you have a SEP or are you investing through your wife's job? How are you doing it? Honestly, I have, you know, put all of my effort and energy towards the business. And so I haven't really done any, I mean, there's probably a thousand dollars in a Schwab account

right now that, you know, Roth IRA or something. Yeah. I, otherwise I've just put all my energy in the last year into getting into getting to this point where I could, you know, have these kinds of conversations. Good work, man. Is there other work going on? Does your wife have... Yeah, my wife's an ICU nurse. Okay, so she's got retirement funds set up?

Yes. Okay, sweet. So the 15% is going there first. Can you just live off her salary right now while you're building this business? That is a good possibility. I don't think that's out of scope so y'all may want to sit down and look at that

because it might be that you're you're able to live off your wife's salary which is going to be excellent because she's doing great hard work and you're able to invest in this business sounds like things just are a little bit messy has the business kind of taken off on you it has over the last like bit messy. Has the business kind of taken off on you? It has over the last, like, four months.

Dude, congratulations. What's the business? We provide digital marketing and software for a variety of different businesses. Outstanding. Well done, man. Well done. Thank you. I'll clean it up.

I would sit down with, like, you're at a place now. We've got a couple hundred thousand dollars in the bank. You're at a place now where you need to sit down with an accountant, if you haven't already, and begin to- Yeah, we have an accountant on the chain right now. We've got a couple hundred thousand dollars in the bank. You're at a place now where you need to sit down with an accountant if you haven't already and begin. Yeah, we have an accountant on the chain right now. Yeah, you all need to sit down and map it out to make sure everything is super clean. And then you and your wife sit down with the budget, man. Yeah, that's good. Cool. Yeah. If you get to the point, you know, I would definitely start with Roth IRAs and match, max those out when you're doing your baby step four and then whatever 401k, you know, your wife has through her job. And then if you get to the point where you're maxing out all that as well then you know look to

your business and see what's what's possible there with your an accountant totally yeah did we answer your question i think there's like another question i have out of what you guys have uh helped me with um bring it and i think it's just really the balance between you know like i could you know hire some coaches to help with scaling and getting more revenue or like you know putting a down payment on a house you know it's just what's like what's the right balance for this stage you're at which is kind of you know in a cool place because we just paid off the last bit of the student loan so i mean it's just what at what stage do you say, okay, I'm going to take out, you know, a down payment for a home and, you know, go towards the next

baby steps. What Sam and I did is we were focused on building our personal life a little bit more so than we were building our business. So whenever there was a question of, should we focus more on paying off debt or, you know, building the business, it was more like, no, we want to be able to breathe in life. So let's do, let's focus on the debt first. And then when the debt is gone, we'll be able to pay ourselves less and then focus more into the business. And so that's kind of how we did it. I like John's idea of paying yourself a set salary, but I do understand that sometimes when your goals change and you have the ability to pull more out and pay yourself more,

you do. And then when you're like, no, now I want it. So I do understand that that can change depending on, you know, the size of your business and where you're at. But here's,

what's been valuable for me and my wife and our, in our, we've been married, God almighty, almost 21 years is every time we hit a season like this, like you guys, you and your wife have been running for your lives. Y'all have been busting it. What you haven't never done probably is sit down and dream about what comes next.

So go out and have an incredible breakfast in the morning and the sun shining here in Nashville and talk about a future together. And that's going to help. Like, what's more important? Do we need a house right now or the next five years? We're going to grow this business. Y'all work on that vision together.

And some of those answers, like Jade said, her and Sam had worked that out. Here's our vision. And those answers kind of work themselves out when you and your wife are on the same team. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, what's going on, guys? It's your host jade warshaw joined by john deloney this is the ramsay show our scripture and quote of the day the way of a fool is right in his own eyes but

a wise man is he who listens to counsel proverbs 12 15, 15. Love that one. And of course, from the man Prince, he says, I like constructive criticism from smart people. That's what I'm saying. I'm not taking it from anything less. That's fantastic. So some of y'all, I'm talking to somebody right now. Some of y'all's criticisms that I see on the interwebs, I'm not taking it. I'm not even listening to it. Not smart people.

It's not from smart people. That's how it goes. That is how it goes. All right, give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225. Dawn from Los Angeles, California. What's going on? Thank you so much for having me.

Thanks for calling. What can we help you with? So I'm in baby step number one, but I racked up a considerable amount of debt throughout the pandemic, including the purchase of a new vehicle. And in listening to you guys, I'm wondering if I should just sell my car and try to buy another one for cash. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about this car situation. What are you, what's the vehicle? What'd you buy? It's a 2020 Ford Escape, which I use for work every day.

It's a great, reliable vehicle. I'm sure it is. But it is definitely nicer than what I need. And as I've been just listening to the Ramsey show and realizing what a financial impact it's making on my already existing debt, I've just been wondering if it would be a better idea to sell it and buy another one cash. Yeah. So let's break down the numbers. What'd you spend on it? It was about $40,000. I've been paying, I've paid probably about $10,000 off so far in the last three years. So you owe about $30,000? Yeah. And if you were to sell it today, what's it worth? I don't even know. Okay. So that's the first thing we want to look at because if you owe $30,000 on at because if you owe 30 on it, and if you were to sell it, you know, it's, they'd only give you 20 or something like that for it. We need to understand that. So that's the first thing I would look at. Now let's take a look at

your income. So you spent 40K on a vehicle. What's your take-home pay every month or your yearly income, however you want it. Three to 5,000 a month thousand a month okay yeah a little too much car i would say on that um any other debt do you have i've got about twenty thousand dollars of credit card debt and about thirty thousand in loans yeah okay yeah we got to get out of this car twenty thousand a credit card debt thirty in loans. Explain to me the spread on your income. You said between $3,000 to $5,000. That's a big spread. Help me understand that. So I'm a massage therapist and I'm in school right now to become a physical therapist. So I don't work regular hours. I'm not on a regular salary. I'm basically just available

for when my clients need me. Okay. And during the pandemic, I wasn't able to work at all legally. So that was a major impact and part of the reason that I started taking out loans. Okay. So you were just taking out loans and credit cards to just fund your life and not working? Yes. Okay. So do you recognize the, we're never going to do that again ever? Oh yeah. Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. I'm curious of horrible decisions and I'm so glad that I decided to, to try and reach out to find some sort of a financial advisor who pointed me to the Dave Ramsey website. Awesome. And I've been learning about how to manage personal finances. Welcome to our crazy gang, man.

We got you. So you're schooling right now. Is it full-time? Tell me about your school. I want to get an idea of your time, what your time looks like. I'm in school full-time. I'm working as close to full time as I can. And just basically running into way too much month at the end of my money. And just, you know, my credit cards, they are ranging from about 25 to 30% interest each month. The payments that I'm making are not even really making a dent. I'm just drowning. Yeah. So the key here is you got to get your income up. How much school do you have left?

How much time until school's done? Six years. Wait. You just started? Six years? I've been a small business owner for 10 years and I just, just jumped back into school last semester to get my bachelor's in kinesiology so that I can apply to a physical therapy program. Excellent. Can you, are you, are you cashflow in this?

You're taking out student loans. I've taken out student loans as well. That's part of the loan. Yeah. We got to. I hate to tell you, you got to stop. We got to stop. We got to stop and back up because you started going full steam ahead on a good intentioned

plan, but with a bad strategy. Does that make sense? Good intention that you want to get your income. You want to get your education, change careers. Does that make sense? Good intention that you want to get your income. You want to, you know, get your education, change careers. Love that. But let's do it the right way because you are, I mean, like you said, you're barely making, you're making 3000 bucks a month, barely making payments on this stuff. We've got to find a way that we can go in an order that makes sense. Right now there is a trade that you, or a skillset that you have that you know how to do and you can make money on it. I would love to see you get control of this financial situation and then work towards

a way that you can finance school uh pay for school so that you're not taking out student loan debt because right now otherwise you're gonna you're gonna wake up in six years you're gonna owe 150 000 in addition to all this money. Yeah. We're not going forward. Like we would not love you if we said this is a great idea. And both Jade and I have been to a lot of college. We both believe in school and I love school. That's right. But you are, man, you're trying to put out a fire with a blowtorch.

Yes, that's what it feels like. Yeah, you got to stop. Step one to getting out of debt is stop getting in more debt. Yeah, got to draw a line in the sand. That's no longer an option. Never again, yeah. Do you see what we're saying? We're coming down on you hard, and I don't want you to think that we're squashing your dreams. We're just saying

in a minute, okay? Yeah, no, I understand, and that's why I was so, I couldn't believe that you guys took my call, because I've been listening to your show, and I just thought, man, I wish I wish I could just ask them yeah I wish I could just ask somebody look Dawn okay yes so what we're doing is we're we're going to cool it on school for a second so that we can come up with a plan and tonight I want you in your journal to go okay here's what I want to accomplish I want to you want to get out of debt. We know that. You're wondering about the car. So

that's what I want you to write. Just scribble it out. Debt, okay. Cars first. We're going to get out of this car. We need to find out, if you're writing it down now, find out what the car is worth because we want to make sure that we can sell it. Do we need to get a little loan to cover the difference and get out of that car and then get just a little beater car cash. Great. That eliminates 30K of debt. And you know what I mean by a beater, $2,000, $3,000, $5,000 car. All right. The next thing we're thinking about is income. We're not making enough income and income we have is not steady. So we need to be thinking about, okay, you've got a skillset. Let's get some full time numbers going because once you get those full time numbers going, we can start smashing this debt and we can start making a plan to save for school.-time numbers going we can start smashing this debt and

we can start making a plan to save for school and the faster that we can save for school the faster you can go to school and in the meantime I want you to start making a plan for school and we're just writing this down what comes first what comes second what comes third and the school thing right now John you can tell me if you think I'm wrong. I think right now school is third because you have a way that you can earn money. It's something you're good at. At some point, you enjoyed it. What school are you going to? West Los Angeles College.

Okay. Is this for your undergrad degree? Yeah. I originally got my associates in psychology, so I'm starting back to get an associate to transfer in kinesiology to get the bachelor's to get accepted to the physical therapy program. Okay, so here's what I want you to do. I had both of my knees done two summers ago, and my physical therapist was incredible. That's awesome. Guess where she went to school?

Where? I have no idea because I didn't care. Yeah. Okay? When you are paying for college with cash, you go for the free option, you go for the cheap option, you go for the best option for your buck. And so, like Jade said, I think she's right. I think it's number three, and I think you spend some time shopping, shopping, shopping, shopping, shopping and find a great education option that's gonna fit your budget.

Don, thank you for the call. Look, you're on the right track. You just need to pull back a little bit and start doing it the right way. And that's just thing one, thing two, thing three in order of importance, making sure that you're doing this thing without a cent of debt.

All right, that does it for this hour. Be sure to join us next time. You can tell me you won't do it, but please don't tell me you can't. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade. Look, if you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey baby steps, go to ramseysolutions.com and click the Get Started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation. That's RamseySolutions.com and click get started.