The Ramsey Show - App - You've GOT to Stop Borrowing Money! (Hour 2)

Episode Date: September 21, 2020

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king. The paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. Thank you for joining us, America. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Stephen is starting off this hour in Orlando. Hi, Stephen.

How are you? I'm doing good, Mr. Ramsey. How are you, sir? Better than I deserve. What's up? I got to tell you, it's an honor, and I'm almost starstruck to be talking to you. So bear with me. No troubles, man. you it's an honor and i'm almost starstruck to be talking to you uh so bear with me no troubles man

it turns out that um uh covid stress tested my stupidity and to my surprise i was uh skinny dipping um i've got a call right now that um please don't scare me uh it's at 26 percent uh that's before i even cared to uh know you i don't know if your radio or you as a person um and um of course i went through with the deal with uh with uh with my family's i guess support or hey you know you don't got any credit so you kind of have to go through with it so you know being reluctant than anything you know i still sign for the car and whatever that's what that was three years ago. Fast forward to today, of course, COVID brought my employer's payroll down.

We're capped at 40. I based my life around the overtime. And basically I am staying afloat. The car keeps having issues. So right now, basically I'm paying for a car that's not running um and i don't make enough to switch uh you know to to pay for the repairs or just pay for the car basically um and forgive me if it sounds like i'm being a victim or anything like that no you're not you're not you just it's just a mess man i'm sorry you're there i understand listen i've done i've done lots

of stupid stuff so i know how it feels it's no it's no fun to be there i'm sorry you're there i understand listen i've done lots of stupid stuff so i know how it feels it's no it's no fun to be there i'm sorry you're there okay so what's it take to fix the car what's wrong with it um i'll be honest with you i'm mechanically inclined um we even took my family you know help me out uh taking the car to the dealer because again i just wasted just about every uh uh choice to you know fix on the car i I spend about $700 from Baby Step 1, and I'll be really honest with you, I'm kind of hoarding those $300 left because I'm scared to lose that. Sure, sure. Because I don't know when life would happen again.

What I'm asking is, what does it take to get the car repaired? Well, I took it to the dealer, and they told me to fix what i already replaced which is you know the throttle body on the car and i mean i replaced it with the same brand you know the the the car cars parking with um again i fixed you know one thing if it's not bad it's the other i guess my my question is Do you know what it takes to get the car running? No. Okay. No, because I took it to the dealer. That's the first goal now is to get a mechanic or two, get a couple of opinions, and let's figure out what it takes to get the car running. That gives us a goal. So it's not running at all. It's completely just sitting. Yeah. how are you getting to work uh co-workers or family or how long has this been going on uh on and off for about uh a month and a half okay so big deal we need to get

this thing in front of a couple of different mechanics asap and say what's it take to get this car running all right if it's running once we know that all right let's just make up a number okay i'm just going to pick one out of the air as an example. We need a goal, in other words. Let's say it takes $1,200 to get it fixed. Well, you need to find $1,200 by working extra, selling stuff, doing all kinds of crazy things, anything you can do, right? In order to take a weekend gig that you don't want to do but go do it anyway of some kind and get some money scratched together. Let's get the stupid car fixed because it can't sell it the way it is then once we fix it we say all right

what's the car worth what do you think it's worth fixed once it once it's running i just check it on the kbb um and and you know best operating conditions and whatnot um about a thousand dollars oh it's not worth anything yeah. And what do you owe on it? About $3,100. Oh, great news. Okay. Super. We're not fixing this car. You can probably sell it for

$1,000 without fixing it. Most anything will bring $1,000 salvage, if nothing else. Okay. And then you've got to have the $2,100.age, if nothing else. Okay. Okay. And then you've got to have the $2,100. Now we've got a different target, so we've got to pay this off. Who is this 26% ripoff screwed you loan with?

American Credit Acceptance. Aren't they wonderful people? Just helpful they are. So you need to call American Credit Ripped Me Off Acceptance and have them accept the idea that you need to get out of this car and we're going to sell it. And you're going to sign an unsecured note with them for the $2,100 at the same interest rate. And we're going to sell it for $1,000. And then you're going to owe them $2,100. Now, when that happens, you no longer have a car payment.

You have a $2,100 payment, but you also no longer have a car. So then our next goal is to scrape up $1,000 and go buy a garage sale car. Right. Cash. I'd be happy with that Bondo-colored car you keep going with your car. That's the one, baby. That's the one. You want that cash car that is ugly.

Zero sex appeal. It needs a name. You have to name it Ob a name you have to name it old beth you have to name it old bessie old henry i don't care what we name it big red give it a name because it is the car that is going to straighten your life out it's going to be the one you tell your grandkids about back in the day back in all 20 i drove old bess. You'll be telling that story when you're 70 years old, and that's because you're a millionaire then. Yes, sir. All right, so we're going to get rid of this stupid car, stupid car payment, stupid acceptance.

I just love the name. I'm accepting of you. For 26%, I'll accept you. Oh, God. And then we're going to get a garage sale car and then the next goal is get the debt paid off and then the next goal is go get a three thousand dollar car which by the way is ten times better than a one thousand dollar car right and then the next goal save up and pay cash for a ten thousand dollar car all the while your career is getting better

you're on a budget you're doing all the stuff you're supposed to be doing you can turn this around but if you let this continue to just sit there it's like a splinter under the skin it's just going to fester you're going to get gangrene you have all kinds of trouble okay so proactive get after fixing this mess get on the phone with these people wear them out just wear them out about letting you sign a note for the difference wear them out we got to get rid out. We've got to get rid of this car. I've got to get rid of this car. I've got to get rid of this car.

Worst-case scenario, you just work your butt off, go get you $1,000. Quit paying them. Let it sit there. If they want it back, they can have it. I mean, what's the big deal? And then what are they going to do, repo this thing? Good Lord. It costs them more to repo it than it's worth.

They're not going to come get it. So tell them, good luck. I'm not paying you right now. I'm going to save up $1,000 and go get me a little garage sale car with a name. I'm going to get my butt back to work, get to work in six jobs, and get some money, and get these stupid people out of my life. The good news is it's $3,100, not $31,000. Because lots of people do what you did with 31,000 and that's harder to fix

3100 dude that's delivering pizzas six nights a week for i don't know month and a half two months you can do it i mean but you gotta have a car to do that because hoofing the pizzas a little takes a while so you gotta you have to work this out but dude have dude, have some fun with this. Bust it out. Hold on. I'm going to have Kelly pick up. We're going to put you in Ramsey Plus for a year as my guest, put you through Financial Peace University, get you on the Every Dollar Budget. I'm going to walk with you, my man. I'm proud of you.

You're going to turn this around. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Let me tell you a story about two families that are very much alike in a lot of ways. Both families have two working parents and a couple of young kids. Each has debt and a struggle to make ends meet. But they're starting to make headway with their budgets and smarter decisions with money. They have dreams and plans, and the only real difference is that one family has the right amount of term life insurance and the other doesn't.

Big difference. If one of the parents die, and that does happen, their well-being would be destroyed. Paying for the mortgage, utilities, food, and that does happen, their well-being would be destroyed. Paying for the mortgage, utilities, food, and other bills would be impossible, let alone saving for education or retirement. That's why every day I talk relentlessly about getting term life insurance. Just go to ZanderInsurance.com or call 800-356-4282 and see how inexpensive it really is. Be the family that takes those deliberate steps to be

different and responsible. It really does make you the hero of your story and it puts you on course for better things ahead. Thank you for joining us, America. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Several million of you follow us on Instagram. Thank you for that. About a million of you are still hanging out on Twitter. Not sure why. I'm on our account anyway, but thank you. Thank you for that. About a million of you still hanging out on Twitter. Not sure why. I'm on our account anyway, but thank you.

Appreciate you following us. I'm just not sure why anybody's on Twitter other than trolls. And, of course, all of you people are on Facebook, and I have a wonderful social media team that watches over all that and makes sure that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing in those spaces. So make sure we're helping you here. Because I'm probably not nice enough for Instagram, and I'm not gossipy enough for Facebook.

I really fit in with the old Twitter people. They just tell it like it was until they all went to trolls. So this is my analysis of the social media platforms right now, which is absolutely no help to you people at all. However, Nice Jill from Instagram does send us a wonderful question. Dave, would you recommend auto-drafting the majority of my monthly bills and expenses from my checking account? Jill, I do. I want as many things on autopilot as I can put on autopilot. There is no danger at all.

I have all of my utilities. I have most of my investments. I have most of my insurances. I have whatever else on autodraft. I've certainly got other things that the debit card is on file. So if we were to, for instance, purchase something from Amazon Prime, it comes out of the debit card automatically, right? That's an auto draft as well, in a sense. And so if you post your debit card with Netflix, then that's an auto draft of sorts. Some of them

are actual ACH drafts, and some of them you're putting up a card, like your debit card. We don't recommend credit cards. We recommend everyone chop up your a card, like your debit card. We don't recommend credit cards. We recommend everyone chop up your credit cards and get a debit card. You folks know that. A lot of you don't do it, but you know it. So, yes, the only time I do not use electronic access is where I'm in a dispute or a pinch. Now, a dispute would be you've got an account out for collections,

and you're behind, and the collector is calling and saying, oh, we want to take an auto draft on your account. You never let a collector have eye access to your checking account under any circumstances because you can tell a credit card collector is lying if their mouth is moving. They're scum. So you never let them have access because they'll take more out than they promised and then try to get it back. When you're trying to pay your rent, you don't have the money.

And we have that happen all the time with folks for coaching. So that's an adversarial situation where there's a dispute. No, you cannot have electronic access to my checking account in that situation. Absolutely not. We will send you a check. We will do a prepaid debit card of some kind off to the side that only has that exact amount in it, so you can't screw me or something like that. But we're not going to allow you to take the money that I need to feed my children with because you lied.

And that's what happens in a disputed account too often. Now, the other one is in a pinch. Like for instance, I've had folks who had a $700 car payment that they were having trouble making the car payment, and it was set up on auto draft. So I'll have them take that off so they can control whether they pay it late or not. Because they may need to pay a $700 car payment late in order to first feed their children. And that's a pinch. Hopefully that's temporary,

because if you've got a freaking $700 car payment, you can't feed your kids, something's backwards here, you need to sell this car. Okay? So this is ridiculous. And crazy. Now, but that's a pinch. uh, you know, a credit union coming automatically out of your check for your car payment, that kind of stuff.

That's all fine, but I really don't want big stuff like a car payment or a house payment auto drafting. If you're anywhere near in a pinch, if you're struggling financially. So if you're in a pinch or your adversary will know otherwise you need to run great all run as many expenses as you can through there if you're worried about it being a variable expense like your utility bill your water bill your light bill or something like that it's not going to be you're going to budget a certain amount it might be more might be less most of the utilities offer budget billing, which they allow you to

smooth it out and have the same amount taken out every check. And then if it comes out a little over, they give you a credit once a year. If it comes out a little under, they charge you a little more once a year and they readjust. But if you need to smooth it out to make your budget run better, that's fine. But most of the time, you know about what it's going to be this month and you budget that amount in your EveryDollar budgeting app and then you're ready to go so the good the thing is though auto draft does not mean you don't have to keep up with your freaking checking account you still have to post this stuff you still have to know what's going on with your checking account and uh so auto draft doesn't mean i'm not paying attention it means i don't have to remember to do it on a certain day.

And I get all the discounts for early pay and all that kind of stuff. So I love the convenience of auto-draft as long as you are responsible and you're on top of it. And I believe in auto-draft. I think you need to use it unless it's a disputed situation or unless there's a pinch. That's the way to go about this. Really, really good question, jill thanks for reaching out our question of the day comes from blinds.com they have a 100 satisfaction guarantee that means even if you mismeasure you pick the wrong color they'll remake your window blinds for free you get free samples free shipping and with the new promos they run every month you'll

save even more use the promo code ram RAMSY. It's magical. It'll get you the best deal. Questions from Emma in Texas. I'm on baby step one. Should be funded next week, my first $1,000. Way to go, Emma. I'm looking at paying off my car and credit card debt, $3,400 by January. Good.

A little over a month ago before I found y'all, I took out a student loan of $7,500, which is paying for my fall and spring semesters. I still have a year and a half of school left, which will cost me around $10,000. My question is, should I save up $7,500 towards next year before attacking my student loan so I don't have to take out another one or begin paying towards my loan? Well, it doesn't make much sense to pay off the current student loan and then turn around and take out another one. That's just not logical. So your first goal, after you get your other stuff paid off other than your student loan, first goal is $3,400. That gets a car and a credit card paid off. Boom. Next goal is save up the money to finish school.

Then once you've done that, then we'll pay off the student loan. But there's no point in paying off a student loan, then turn around no point in paying off a student loan than turn around next fall and taking out another one. You've got to stop borrowing money. That's a big deal, you guys. You need to hear that one. Let me say it again. You've got to stop borrowing money.

One step, one of the biggest steps of all to getting out of debt and staying out of debt is you have to stop borrowing money. So if you want to buy a car for the rest of your life,

you cannot buy a car unless you save up and pay for it. Otherwise, you have a stupid car payment, and you're raising my hand saying, I want to be middle class the rest of my life. I never want to be wealthy. When you take out a car payment, that's what you said.

You just joined the club. I want to be middle class and normal and work my butt off and make other people rich and die broke. That's what car payments say. That's what student loan payments say. Every time I have a problem, I run to debt. I was doing pretty good, but then I borrowed money for this. Now you have to stop borrowing money forever for anything.

Period. Otherwise, you will have debt. Now, why is that hard? How do you avoid debt? You don't borrow money. Whoa, this is why I get big money. This is why they pay me money right here. They pay me money to do this show.

If you borrow money, you have debt. And then you have payments. And then all your hard work goes to some stupid bank with better furniture and a nicer house than you have. You ever been in the bank? Don't you wish you had their furniture? They got nice furniture at the bank. You know why? You freaking bought it.

And you don't even get to sit in it. Except when they're pissed at you. This is ridiculous. Why are you doing this stop borrowing money wow it'll get you out of debt there's an idea this is the dave ramsey show Hey, guys. At the Dave Ramsey Show, we really value your input. It helps us to know what's important to you so we can deliver relevant content to help you crush your money goals. We just launched a brand new survey, and we'd love your feedback. It only takes a few minutes, and you'll be entered to win a $100 Amazon gift card. No purchase necessary. Take the survey at DaveRamsey.com slash survey or text survey to 33789. On the debt-free stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions,

Maya is with us from Washington, D.C. Hey, Maya, how are you? Hi, Dave. I'm good. So good to have you. And you're here to do a debt-free scream. Yes. How much did you pay off? $69,514.28.

I love it. And how long did this take? 28 months. 28 long months. Yes, sir. And your range of income during that two and a half years? I started out at about $52,000 and currently about $68,000. Good for you. What do you do for a living? Okay, so I work for a federal agency that is kind of famous right now for giving out small business loans. Okay, all right. I'm sorry, who is this? The SBA? Okay, good for you. What do you

do at the SBA? I work in disaster recovery. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, that's a valid thing. You get to see some sad stories, but some inspiring things. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. How long you been doing that? For the past three years. Good for you. Okay. So a fairly new job and a fairly new life all in the last three years. What happened that turned all this around? What got you going? I was, you know, I live in D.C. It's very expensive. Yes. And, you know, to be honest with you, you know, one day I looked at my Navient statement, my student loan statement. And I realized, you know, after talking to, you know, some friends and family that I'd had this debt from, it was around 20 years. 20 years ago. Like a pet. It was a grown child yeah a grown child sally may grew up in my house yeah yeah and so you know i was just like you know i have to do something about this you know and i have friends you know who work in dc who are just

like you know they're content with having the debt forever student loan debt forever you know and you know i was just like well i make enough money i can pay this off loan debt forever, you know. And, you know, I was just like, well, I make enough money. I can pay this off. And so after that, you know, I was just looking for resources. You know, I was looking for a way out, you know, looking to pay it off. And, you know, I was just, you know, searching online. And I found, I saw something on YouTube about debt-free screams. I saw that and so you know

i started doing some searching and then i found you know some local classes at a church near me oh financial peace university yes sir okay yeah so i i enrolled in that in october of 2017 and um you know i just you know started with the church um i wasn't a member but you know, I just, you know, started with the church. I wasn't a member, but, you know, I joined and it was awesome. But then a month later, so November 2017, the hurricanes, Hurricanes Irma and Maria hit. And so, you know, I was working, you know, actually not in disaster recovery at the time. And, you know, when the hurricanes hit, you know, S in disaster recovery at the time and you know when the hurricanes hit you know SBA called me and um you know they they basically said you know um can you do this you know uh can you work you know the hurricane areas and I literally just dropped everything and said

you know I'll go ahead and do it go make make some money. Go make some money to pay this off. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, so I was in the Virgin Islands for three months. Wow. In Puerto Rico for 11 months. Wow. How's Puerto Rico doing? I've checked in with friends.

I think they're still going through some PTSD, to be honest with you. It's been slow, hasn't it? Very slow. Yeah? Very slow. Yeah. Very slow. And then, you know, definitely with everything going on this year, it's kind of compounded everything from before. Oh, yeah. It's put some things to a screeching halt.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, it was. So the $70,000 was all student loan debt? No, no. So about $47,000 of it was student loans. The rest was car loan tax debt uh credit cards

oh you were just kind of normal and broke yeah that's normal it was broke normal broke yeah all the money comes in all the money goes out nobody knows where it went exactly this is normal yeah and you said i'm not gonna be normal anymore i'm gonna be weird now you're weird look at you way to go i'm proud of you. Very cool. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? $70,000 paid off in 28 months is remarkable. Well done.

Yeah. I think the support group actually helped a lot. I was a little sad that I had to leave my support group after a month. Financial peace group. The financial peace group. Financial peace group. They did check in with me. The pastor of the church checked in with me. And so it was nice having that check in, even though it was via email.

So having some type of support, especially if you're not surrounded by people who really see it as, you know. Yeah, everybody else is going, what are you doing? You're weird. You got to have some people that are weird trying to do it with you, right?

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, having a support group group especially if you're single yeah yeah it makes all the difference in the world it sure does well that's why even while we're doing financial peace university virtually we got all of virtual groups are meeting now yeah and so everybody's checking in with everybody and some of these groups are all over the nation you know it's like 20 people in a group and they're in 20 different cities. Yeah. So the virtual thing's really working better than I thought it would, actually. But the whole thing is about encouragement and accountability and support and having some people around you that are cheering you on, right?

Yeah, definitely. I'm proud of you. Thank you. Well done. Other than your group, did you have any supporters, any cheerleaders outside them? You know, I met people along the way, especially while I was in Puerto Rico, other people who were also paying off, you know, debt, huge sums of debt. And so we were able to encourage each other and keep each other accountable.

So that was nice to have as well. And, you know, we all had, you know, pretty awesome stories. Very cool. Yeah. Very cool. Very proud of you. All right, now that you did it, what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Stick with it. I literally towards the end, I would say I got debt pay off fatigue. I was tired, you know, and definitely while I was in Puerto Rico, I mean, there's no greater FOMO than, you know, seeing everybody else doing

different excursions. And you're like, okay, I have to kind of hold back. I can't, you know, go on this excursion or that excursion or do, you know, different things with the group, you know. And so that was a little tough. But, you know, just stick with it, you know. And I was part of a Facebook group, actually. And, you know, I, towards the end, I, you know. And I was part of a Facebook group, actually. And, you know, towards the end, you know, I told them, you know, towards the end of paying off the student loan debt, I told them, you know, I'm just tired of paying this off. You know, I'm done. And I literally had two payments left, like two paychecks left. And they said, you know, just get it done, you know. And for some reason that just kind of kicked, like you're at the end of this.

Yeah, you need to kick your butt. You need a kick in the butt. Yeah, I needed it. Yeah, that's good. Finish it. Shut up. No whining. No whining.

Finish it. Yeah, I like it. That's good. We've got to have people doing that. We all need that. Yeah. So you are so amazing. Well done.

So proud of you. How does it feel to have no payments? Oh, my God. It feels amazing. You've never been debt free in your whole adult feel to have no payments? Oh, my God. It feels amazing. You've never been debt-free in your whole adult life, have you? No, I haven't. I haven't. Wow.

Yeah. How fun. You're going to be a millionaire, you know what? I am. Have you thought about that? That's pretty cool. That's crazy. Yeah.

That's pretty cool. Maya the millionaire. I love it. Maya the millionaire. I love it. I love it. That's fun. We're going to give you a copy of Chris's book, Everyday Millionaires, because that is definitely the next chapter in your story.

You have learned to control one of life's toughest things, which is money, which really means you learn to control the person in your mirror. And that's the hardest job we all have. That person is a pain. Yeah. And if we can get that person to behave, we can do almost anything. So, well done. Very, very well done. All right, Maya from Washington, D.C.

$70,000 paid off in 28 months, making $52,000 to $60,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream! 3, 2, 1... I'm debt-free! You two one i'm debt free yeah this is how it's done

so sometimes people that are paying off all their debts make 200 000 a year sometimes $200,000 a year. Sometimes they make $52,000 a year. Have you ever noticed that the thing that they have in common is not that they have big incomes or little incomes, but the thing they have in common was they decided to take control of their life. And what folks don't realize sometimes when you first intersect this whole idea of a debt-free scream or this whole idea of getting your money under control, handling money with common sense, is that you're really learning to control yourself. In a culture where there is no self-control,

where we have entitlement coming out of our ears, you're learning to control yourself. Welcome to Grown-Up Land. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. You know, one thing we really didn't expect with COVID, the real estate market is booming. I mean, a lot of people are changing states because their state's stupid, but the real estate market is booming. There's a tremendous migration going on in the United States right now from stupid towards smart, from restricted communist leadership to freedom-driven leadership. You're seeing people migrate from state to state based on this like crazy. You would not believe the numbers we're seeing on this. Nobody's talking about it, but we're seeing it in the

real estate world in particular, and houses are selling. Some areas, values are going to go down because people are fleeing these areas, and some areas are going to go up. But there's a tremendous supply-demand thing happening, and a lot of things happening. Here's the deal. In some of your areas, a monkey can sell a piece of real estate, And a monkey could get a real estate license. It's really not hard to get a real estate license. It's not. In most areas, it's not that big a deal. I mean, if you can get out of high school, you probably can get a real estate license. I mean, it's not like getting your CPA. It's not like, you know, passing securities exam. It's not, it's not the end of the world. It's a test, but it's not the big deal. Most people can get it through it. So the trick is who is going to list your largest asset and sell it for you.

Now, if you work for me and I assigned you the job, I said, we have a $300,000 thing here that we want to do, and we want to hire a marketing person to run this $300,000 thing. If you hired someone who had done it twice, I would question your sanity. If you work for me and you came and go, Daveave i hired a marketing consultant who's done it two times that would be crazy you wouldn't do that you'd say no this person has done this for 20 years they've done this thousands of times they can do this in their sleep that's what because it's two is three hundred thousand dollars five hundred thousand dollars $300,000. $500,000. So you don't hire a real estate agent who sold two houses. That's dumb.

I don't care if it's your cousin. That makes it double dumb. He's your cousin, and he's inexperienced. No. I don't care if they go to church with you. No. I don't care how sweet they are. No.

I don't care how big a guilt trip they put on you no it's your largest freaking asset use some common sense hire only experienced help meaning that they have actually sold and helped people purchase hundreds and hundreds of houses over their career and probably hundreds in a year. Not, I've sold four houses this year. No! No! That's known as a failure. You don't hire failures to market your largest asset, even if they're sweet failures, even if they're akin to your failure. No! You get a real estate agent who has a clue, and the house will bring more. It'll sell faster. You'll have a much smoother experience. And it'll bring more. And it'll sell faster.

And you'll have a much smoother experience. Did I mention you'll get more money in your pocket if you hire smart people that are experienced? This is how this works. So never pays off to settle for a subpar agent. You had your house on the market. It's not selling. Change agents. You picked poorly. What's that line from Raiders of the Lost Ark? You chose poorly. No, don't do that. Don't be that guy. Okay. Now get, you know, get somebody who has a clue. Go to DaveRamsey.com. Click on ELP for endorsed local provider. This is who we endorse for real estate agents. We do not

endorse inexperienced agents. Sorry, guys, you're gonna have to get your experience somewhere else before we endorse you. We love you as a person, but we're not ready to tell people to use your services until you have done it a lot. High octane, high protein, get her done, baby. This is who you want on your team working to sell your house. You know, one of our ELPs listed one of my guys' houses in here that they sold in two days, another one in four days. And these are right here people working on our team that use the ELPs.

And so it happens, and they got they got top dollar because they good analysis of the market you know how to price it you don't overprice it you don't underprice it you get her done and don't screw around with this stuff real estate is too important to mess around with a newbie nope don't do it thaddeus is with us thaddeus is in fayetteville north carolina hi thaddeus how are you uh pretty good howus is in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Hi, Thaddeus. How are you? Pretty good. How about yourself? Better than I deserve. What's up?

So it's kind of silly because the last caller had a similar situation. I'm having car issues. I'm right at the beginning of the program. I've listened for a long time, but I just started to really, really want to get into it. Cool. And the issue I have is that my fiance and I, we share a car. It's very high mileage. It has mechanical issues.

It's not highway safe. I've already put probably the value of the car in trying to get the car fixed, and, you know, I'm still having these issues. So we're working on Baby Step 1 now, identifying our debts and, um, getting the thousand dollar emergency funds. And what I heard in the last caller was in between step one and two, we should be looking for, you know, another vehicle to supplement this one. Yeah.

So my concern now. And get rid of that and get rid of that one because it's killing you, right? So you're driving a thousand dollar car. You might as well drive a reliable thousand dollar car. Exactly. Exactly. So you're driving a $1,000 car. You might as well drive a reliable $1,000 car. Exactly, exactly. So where my concern is now is I drive a lot for work, at least 10 to 15 hours a week. And I'm concerned that if I get into another $1,000 vehicle that I'm going to have all these same problems again

where it just kind of turns into a money pit. We just constantly feel like we're spinning our wheels and not getting ahead. Yeah. Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing. Okay. You don't have a choice. You don't have any money.

Yes, sir. And you're not going to do it forever. What do you make? So I recently, my income is variable and it's going up. So it's kind of difficult for me to say what I make. What do you think you're going to make next month? Next month, $5,000 to $6,000. Wow, that's pretty good.

It is pretty good. And, you know, like four months ago you were making hardly that, right? Oh, four months ago I was making like $15,000. Yeah, okay. So that's a lot of money. You've got a lot of spare change right now. You ought to build a $5,000 car out of that one month. And if it doesn't work, buy another one the next month.

Yeah, yes, sir. It's difficult for me to budget because I'm paid in arrears 30 to 45 days. And my paychecks vary. I'll get a paycheck for a few thousand dollars, and I'll get one that's like barely a thousand, depending on how the payments are processed. So I'm having, you know. But if you're going to make $5,000 in a month,

regardless of when the payments come or when the checks come, you're going to have $5,000 in a 30-day period of time. Agreed? Correct. So when you get the money, buy a car. Okay. Okay. And pay cash for it, you know. Pay cash for it. Buy you a $1, buy a car. Okay. Okay. And pay cash for it, you know?

Pay cash for it. Buy you a $1,500, $2,000 car, and then start saving to where, you know, after Christmas, maybe January, maybe you buy a $5,000 car that you saved up for the difference. And weave that into, because you need to get up out of the junk. I agree with you on that. These junky cars will kill you, okay? I don't want you driving a $1,500 car for five years. I don't even want you driving it for one year. But if you

have to, for a little while, you can. And if you'll buy wisely on a $1,500 to $2,000 car, you can get a year out of it. Agreed. Agreed. I mean, just an old Honda that looks like crap, but is really mechanically in good condition. An old Toyota Camry, right? An old Taurus.

They got a lot of life in those cars they're ugly as crud some of them but that doesn't matter we're not trying to buy something to attract a girl you already have a fiancee yeah yeah yeah i don't have anyone to impress i just want to uh want it and by the way by the way you and your fiancee don't need to own anything together until you're married yes sir that sir. That's going to cause problems. But when are you getting married? We just got engaged, and with the whole corona thing, it's like kind of up in the air. I'm of the mind that I just want to go to the courthouse and get it done, and then we can do the family thing later.

Yeah. But I don't know how she really feels about it. She's trepidatious about that, you know. Yeah. Well, call the preacher and go over and sit down with them and, you know, get married this weekend. And then later on we can do all the celebration stuff. Because I'm guessing if you guys were to combine your resources and combine your dreams, they'd probably be more efficient for you not only relationally but financially as well.

And so that would always be my recommendation in these situations. Because I can tell you're playing house anyway. You might as well be married. So that's the thing. Painter, get off the ladder, dude. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Dave here. We just launched a brand new survey, and we'd love your feedback.

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