The Ramsey Show - Deal With the Behavior Problem, Not Just the Math Problem!

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

💵 Sign-up for EveryDollar today - The simplest way to budget for your life! Dave Ramsey & Dr. John Delony answer your questions and discuss: Why you can't let math calculations become your focus when the real problem is your behavior, "How do we stay motivated during our debt payoff journey?" Why you should never take financial advice from broke people, "How do I start saving for retirement?" Getting out of an upside-down car (loan), "I'm being sued by a credit card company" Support Our Sponsors: Zander Insurance BetterHelp Churchill Mortgage Next Steps 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET or click here! 🏦 Take Your 3-Minute Money Assessment - Get a personalized money plan! 💰 Enter the $3,000 Ramsey Cash Giveaway today! Enter daily to increase your chances of winning weekly $500 prizes or the $3,000 grand prize.  📚Get 20% off bestsellers! Whether you’re ready to kick debt to the curb, want to live a less-anxious life, or looking for growth in your job—there’s hope. 🏠 Find a Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Agent 📄 Will an online will work for you? Listen to more from Ramsey Network 🎙️ The Ramsey Show   🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today and a host of the Dr. John Deloney Show on the Ramsey Networks, which is going crazy good. Ratings are nuts. Thank you, guys. We appreciate it. We're here to help you with your life, your money, whatever's going on.

The phone number is 888-825-5225. We're going to start off this hour with James in Springfield, Illinois. Hi, James. How are you? Oh, pretty good. How are you guys doing? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Well, I've got a question about paying off student loan debt. So I've got a mortgage with a 6% interest rate, but I've applied for an income-driven safe plan that, because of my family size and my income has 0% interest. I'm wondering if I should pay off the mortgage first or keep that money going towards the student loan. Student loans. As soon as possible. Fast. And that crap you signed up for is going to keep you in debt for 40 years. So it's not going to do any good at all.

If you can get 0%, that's fine. But then I want you to attack this thing. How much student loan debt have you got? $31,000. What do you make? What's your household income? I make $110,000 a year. How fast are you going to pay off $31,000?

I mean attack it. How fast are you going to do it? Well, so the thing is I have a family of seven, so it makes it a bit difficult to set aside money to attack it. It's an excuse. Right. When are you going to pay it off? It's not a pet.

Right, right. So my thing is it seems like I'm leaving money on the table. James, you still haven't answered the question. How fast can you pay off $31,000 if you put everybody on beans and rice, rice and beans, you stop going out to eat, you stop going on vacations, you sell so much stuff, one of those seven kids thinks they're next. I mean, how fast are you going to pay this $30,000 off? Yeah.

I've got about... James! It's an answer. I could pay it off quick. How fast? How fast? Give me an answer. Three years.

Three years. Do you have any money saved at all? Yeah, $6,000. Okay. All right. Three years is ridiculous. I want you to do it in less than two. I'm serious.

You guys are not. You're saying we've got a large family. They eat a lot. Yeah, they do. And yes, they have to have clothes. And yes, they have to have shoes. And yes, that's a real thing. I know all that.

But dude, you have never sat down and written all this out in great detail and decided to attack it. You were trying to figure out a way to keep it around like it's a family member. It not a family member it's crap you need to get it out of your life it's killing you guys how long have you had this student loan debt about five years now see there's my point and you've done nothing you sound beat up man what do you what you're avoiding it yeah why is your head hung so low well so bills have been tight with uh all the kids and i've just you know my wife had triplets which is why we have many children and uh bills have been tight because of that when when did the trip what's come six months ago okay all right yeah yeah that that's a legitimate thing but here's the deal as you know i mean yes that's a wonderful blessing and also whoa yeah and yeah and so uh but the good news is the older they get the less they cost right

okay until they get to cars and colleges and stuff. But anyway, but yeah, so you know, you've kind of got this to the shock of the system mathematically is just about over. And, um, you guys have got to sit down and do a detailed plan. You've been overwhelmed by this overwhelming number. I mean, you almost doubled your kids in one fell swoop right that's emotional it's hard parenting wise there's a lot of duties a lot of responsibilities a lot of chaos and that's translated down into your money and then you're just going well we got a bunch of kids we can't do it we got a bunch of kids we can't do it yes you can yes you can we have people

with large families stand on the debt-free stage every single month that do the Ramsey stuff, but they're doing a written budget with their spouse. They're both saying, this is very important to get this out of my life. I'm not going to use a 0% interest rate as a justification for not dealing for this. You got to deal with it. You got to knock it out because if you don't, it's going to hover and hang around forever. No one's coming to fix this. You are the solution. Even if I can get that mortgage down quicker and save. Man, I'll tell you what.

Here's the deal, brother. It's 63 times. I'll tell you something. Yeah, you got to get your head out of the math game because what's killing your household you're only in the math game because you gave up it's not yeah it's not four or five percentage points what's killing you it's not about interest rate yeah it's about getting it's about you haven't dealt with your crap yeah and every time i bring it up all you do is sidestep and try to do math like some sixth grader. Dude, go deal with the problem.

Go deal with the problem. It is a lot more complicated than six versus zero percent. It's a lot more complicated. Number one, you've got five years of denial in your behavior patterns. Number two, the house is going up in value. The student loan is going up in balance because the thing you signed up for is going backward all the time. You've got to lean into this and blow it up. You've got to change your view on this and quit trying to figure out a way to act like

it's not there. It's there. It's almost like he's trying to find a second job without you know to help with all these kids and he's figured out maybe i figured out a loophole as a way to get some more like i'm trying to think of the psychology just get this thing out of your house man just get it out of the house get out of the house get out of the house you've got to dump it you got to dump it it's that simple you got it you got to push it and and john this is a the psychology of this i cannot um people will get lackadaisical and quit on their student loans

because of the size i guess well of the loan where they'll turn around take a car and they'll get mad and pay it off or they'll take a credit card and get mad and pay it off. But the student loan just seems to lay around like dadgum. You know, it just says, okay, we're just sitting in the swamp. Well, number one, the federal government dangles this. We'll take it away from you, so just keep putting it down the road. And all your friends tell you, well, you're stupid, and you should do this, and here's a zero interest here, and here's a 6% here. You're broke friends giving you financial advice.

Well, it goes back to um i saw the great dr peter attia ranting the other day it was fantastic he said you should not be able to post on a health and fitness instagram account until you can do 100 push-ups until then i don't care what you have to say i don't care what your opinion is about a thing right because you're stepping over hundred dollar bills to pick up pennies that's what's happening here i'm stepping over peace i'm stepping over i got six kids now i can focus on them to try to pick up an interest rate gain and it's it's just i i want to hug the guy man i can but i can see the chaos as clear as day it's all over him yeah

the whole thing everything in his life is chaotic. Get a sense of order, a sense of discipline, a sense of direction. Follow a proven plan. Game on, game on, game on. Quit trying to calculate your way out of this. Pay the stupid thing off. This is The Ramsey Show. I've been doing this show for over 30 years,

and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah, and what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible, are people that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills in the middle of all that grief, it's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And it doesn't cost much because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much.

You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You've got to say it out loud, and you've got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of a stinking pizza. To get a free quote, call 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282. Or go to Zander.com.

Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Larry Burkett used to be on the air a thousand years ago, did a Christian radio show, Money Matters it was called, about what the Bible says about money. And he's one of the guys I learned from. I certainly learned what the Bible says about money from Larry a lot. He passed away several years ago. We became friends before he passed away, but at first I was just a fanboy, and he used to say debt is never the problem. Financial problems are never the problem. They're always the symptom. So you need to keep that in mind because that's how we're going to view it. Personal finance is 80% behavior.

It's 20% head knowledge. So if you have a student loan debt that you've made no progress on for five years, the student loan debt is not the problem. The new triplets that just came were not here for the last five years they're not the problem the interest rate is not the issue this is not an interest rate issue this is a you problem and john when people get to the bottom of that that's the beautiful thing about the work you do in counseling with a phd in counseling and the work that that the reason you joining this team as a Ramsey personality is a perfect overlap to our approach to money because the interest rate is irrelevant because you haven't dealt with you. That's the thing. When you deal with you, you're not only going to get financial peace, two words that don't go together like airline service, but you're also going to get progress and wealth. Until you deal with you, you're not going to get any of that.

Right. And it's hard to sell somebody on that when they're so convinced from a TikTok ad or a TikTok swipe or whatever, where they got the information. And I think a lot of us sit in our house, man, and we just spin out with life's problems. I can't imagine having triplets just show up after having a couple of other kids. Whatever your problem happens to be, you lost your job, your marriage is falling apart, whatever it is. And it's so much easier we have so much distraction in our world we can just spin our wheels and jam that gas pedal into the bottom of the of the car thinking we're going real fast and we're going nowhere we're

just avoiding but money is such an interesting topic because it lets us um it lures us to our own death because it makes us think we can fix it by fixing the math. And the math is very seldom the problem. The math is the symptom. It's not the problem. The problem is our spending, our income, our lack of control, our lack of working together. Our choices. I'm going to keep these for five years. Our behaviors and our principles by which, but we somehow think we can unplug from all

of this stuff that's called our life and set this money thing over here to the side and just fix it with just math. And the reason you can't is it doesn't unplug it's sitting there right in the middle of your freaking life because your life is impacting it it's impacting your life you can't just set it over here in a test tube and go it's a math thing six percent versus zero it's not a math thing and let's let's i want to speak to the person who's listening to this or to the gajillions of people who are listening to this who are five years from today away from triplets or a job loss or a mom calling and saying i have cancer or a husband saying i haven't been

faithful or whatever the thing is that choice starts now because Because five years ago, if they had been hell-bent on paying these things off, life would still be chaotic. But I want people to listen to that man's voice. It just sounds cooked, right? It's heartbreaking. And you can celebrate the chaos of three kids coming home or not be able to breathe because there's no room for three kids. I remember when our oldest daughter, Denise, had the third one.

Her husband, Bill, said, well, we just went from man-on-man to zone defense. My buddy said, man, it was all cool until we went from man-to-man to zone. They win. Taylor is in Indianapolis. Hey, Taylor, what's up? How are we doing today? Thank you for taking my call.

Sure, man. How can I help? So I'm thinking about doing a job switch. Right now I drive a dump truck, and I'm in the union and everything, but I'm looking to be a pilot. But I have $5,000 in debt, and it's going to send me back another $85,000, but I plan on having the $5,000 that I have now and paying that off this season before I get laid off.

You're asking me if I think you should go $85,000 in debt to be a pilot? Is that what you're asking? Yeah, if you think it's a smart job. No, it's not. Okay. Under no circumstances would I do that. Now, should you go become a pilot? Yeah, probably.

How old are you? I'm 30. Okay. Are you married? I am. Okay. I would talk to the Air National Guard and see if they have any programs for training pilots while you serve your country. Weekends. programs for training pilots while you serve your country weekends and two or three sets of

boot camp a year um that wouldn't put you away from your family necessarily uh or not for long periods of time uh and let's see if they'll pay for it they have lots of wonderful programs i know that um i i also would start talking to the local airport about how I can get my hours there after I get a – I would pay to get a certain number of hours to get my first set of – are you licensed at all? No, right now I drive a dump truck. No, I know. I heard that. But have you gotten any pilot's hours in at all?

No. How do you know you want to do that? I worked at the airport about five years ago. I wanted to do it about then, that time, sorry. But I never pulled the trigger, and I ended up just going to get my CDLs, and I've been at this for about five years now. Okay. All right. I'm with you on living your dream. I just don't want you to do it in such a way it becomes a nightmare.

So let's figure out a way that we can walk into this a little at a time start getting your hours in while you keep driving truck and because you're making some good money on the truck but we're not we just don't be doing that 10 years from now you won't be in the air right yes but i don't want i don't want to try to do it at super high speed because i don't want you going 85 000 in debt because you might not make 6565,000 the first year. It's very possible. If you got your commercial hours in and you can actually fly a jet, and that may cost you more than $85,000 to get to that point where you can actually pick up a regional job doing some of these puddle jumpers, they don't pay anything, man. Yeah.

Entry-level pilot pay sucks. Yeah, from what I heard, it's about $55,000 a year. But then I would be going with Lyft Academy. Let's say I get on with Republic, and they're paying $94 an hour starting off. So I don't know how many hours I would get though. Maybe, maybe. But hey, you're about to walk into the trap, brother, where you borrow a bunch of money, and you've done some napkin envelope

on the top carrier paying a top dollar, and you've done some napkin envelope on the top carrier paying a top dollar and you've made that math work yeah and there's a lot of maybes and maybe not some probably and probably not in between you and that dollar amount man so you're trying to jump from the dock into the boat and the boat's not close enough to the dock that's what i'm saying so i want you to pull the boat closer to the dock. And how's that sound? It sounds like going over there, starting to get some of your hours, paying for your first level of licenses, maybe get a weekend job as an instructor once you've got enough hours under your belt, and they'll pay you to put more hours down, and you can start to build your hours up. Because the biggest cost is not the actual certifications.

It's the hours to get ready. And then if you want to take because if when you take a job at 55 or 60 versus what you're doing now union to dump truck you're taking a pay cut to move into this dream initially and i don't care if you found one off at 94 that's not that that's not an industry the industry is 55 or 60 right now for entry and i want you to go do that because you can make your way up to two or three hundred thousand someday but please don't go eighty five thousand dollars in debt and rush this do it a little bit at a time and or talk to the air national guard let's see if you can figure out what gets some hours working for your country and they'll pay for the whole stinking thing possibly

i don't know let's see what they got out there this is the Ramsey Show. ourselves. We hide our true selves behind costumes and masks all the time. We do this at work. We do this around our friends. We do this around our families. We even do this when we look at ourselves in the mirror. I know because I've been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding behind masks and costumes all the time, if you find yourself hiding from your true self, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can be honest, where you can talk to somebody else and reflect and learn, and you can accept all the parts of yourself over time and start living an authentic life. Masks and costumes should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. And if you're considering therapy, try calling my friends at BetterHelp.

BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere, so it's convenient for you and your schedule. Just fill out a short online survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist. Plus, you can switch therapist at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the mask

with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Diloni to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash Deloney. Thanks for joining us, America. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. So John, the Ramsey cash giveaway is here, $3,000. John sat down and saw $3,000 laying here. He thought I was giving him like a bonus. I was like, man, Dave. You did something good.

Usually, you give me a high five, I will take it. It usually just shows up like in your account. Is this how you're telling me that that's not for me? This is not yours. All right. It's not even mine because it's actually earmarked. I'm going to be giving it to someone. I'm going to be giving it to someone. We're going to be giving it to someone.

So here's the deal. The Ramsey Cash Giveaway is here. You could win one of our $500 weekly prizes or the grand prize of $3,000. Hey, how would you spend $3,000 if you won it? I hope you'd work the baby steps with it, right? Entering the Ramsey Cash Giveaway takes about 15 seconds. There's no purchase necessary. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash giveaway. You do have to be 18 years old to win, and you got to put ramseysolutions.com slash giveaway. So while you're there, though,

check out our bestsellers. They're there at 20% off. Like Dr. John Loney's book, Building a Non-Anxious Life is on sale for the first time ever. His Questions for Human Cards, on sale. Baby Steps Millionaires, my latest number one bestseller, is also on sale. 20% off and shop the sale. RamseySolutions.com. Check out the store while you're there, but be sure you register for the $3,000. That could be a fun game just to kind of work through. What do we think people would spend $3,000 on just to run here?

Like Ken would buy some incredible clothes. He's a sharp-dressed man. James would buy a guitar. George would buy another cherry-flavored vape pen. Whatever millennials do these days. George would buy something to charge his car up with. He would. He'd buy another AA battery charger.

Yeah, that's what it is. what's rachel cruz buy with that that can't even cover her latte it won't it won't even it won't even get her attention that won't even she wouldn't stop to pick that up yeah that's it so there you go i'm thinking ammo of course you are of course you are i don't have a problem can i get another framed photo i don't have. I don't have a problem with guns. Can I get another framed photo of my Raptor? I don't have a gun problem. I have a problem with guns. All right, here we go. Nicole's in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Hi, Nicole. How are you? Hi, I'm great. Thank you so much for having me, guys. I'm a big fan. Well, we're honored. How can we help you? So I guess my question today is just how do I stay motivated to continue on to baby

step two with pain upset while I have a child with a severe medical condition? And then what sort of emergency fund goes in with that? Yeah, I'm just kind of at a loss. So what's up with your baby? What's the deal? So my daughter will be six next week. She has a severe medical condition. She has a heart condition. She's had four open-heart surgeries before she was one years old, and we were basically living in the hospital here in Iowa that entire time. She's a fighter, though, and has been doing great.

However, she will need more surgeries in the future. And she actually is looking at another surgery here this summer sometime. We just don't really know quite yet. And my husband and I have previously gone through Financial Peace University prior to being married, again, after we had our daughter, and we do really good for a little bit, and then we just lose that intensity, and usually it's related to something happening with her, just where we're like, oh crap, we're back in the hospital. You're saying that like you did something wrong. You didn't.

You did everything exactly right. When your daughter is in the hospital having open heart surgery for the fifth or sixth time and she's six years old you should not be intense about money you should be intense about loving her okay okay which is what you did yeah you're a good mom nicole did everything right thank you yeah how many bags of fritos have you had for dinner out of a vending machine in a hospital, right? Right. Yeah, there's been a lot of days where that's happened. So maybe your workout plan is not on track with your daughter getting surgery. Oh, well. You know?

Oh, well. You're surviving. So here's the thing. Number one, you're dealing with a thing that's gone on over seven years. Is that what I heard? She'll be six this year. Okay, six years. Six and a half-ish.

Yeah. And so that's a long period of time. And the entire six years was not in crisis, just at different moments. But when the crisis hit, it throws everything off because everything's full stop to deal with the situation, right? Exactly. Yeah, it drains all of your emotions. It drains all of right exactly yeah it drains all of your emotions it drains all of your attention it drains all of your bank account and it should she's worth it oh yeah for sure you're doing the right stuff okay now the trick is uh number one i want to not only give you permission but also more more importantly to tell you your instincts were

correct, continue the path you've been on, which is when we are dealing with a crisis, we're full stop. We push stop on the total money makeover. We just, we're in financial survival mode because we're going to pour everything we have into this crisis until the crisis subsides. So let's kind of, let's walk through a possible example. All right. If my daughter, granddaughter, either one was going into surgery for open heart this summer, I would not be worrying about making progress right this second on my financial goals. I would be worrying, praying, focusing on that surgery, the prepared, walking up to it and walking out of it. Now, a year from now, she's home healing, doing well. Well, I need to push play again and get back on the, get back on

my game and start, you know, start a year later, start focusing on that. But you've done the right thing, it sounds to me like. John, what do you? Yeah, I was just writing down, Nicole, are you finding, you and your husband, y'all finding you're heading back into that feeling you had five years ago where you just feel powerless? Yes, for sure. I struggle with some anxiety anyways. And

it's just that PTSD moment. We just had our son four months ago too and had some medical stuff with him. Yeah. Cause why not? Right. Yeah. Like it just never stopped. Here's what I want you and your husband to do. I want you to hang on the line. I'm going to send you building an unanxious life as my gift. I want you all to use these six choices as your roadmap, but I want you and your husband to do. I want you to hang on the line. I'm going to send you building an unanxious life as my gift. I want you all to use these six choices as your roadmap, but I want you and your husband to take a morning and ask someone from your church to come by, ask a friend to come by, a coworker to come by and just watch the kids for a couple hours, which you probably haven't done in a long, long time. And I know it sounds crazy, but I want you to do that. And I want you all just to sit with each other for a second.

And I want you all to write down on a piece of paper, all right, we're heading into surgery this summer. What are we going to need? And I want you to challenge the people around you, not for real challenge, but give them an opportunity to love you. Say, I'm going to need this many meals because I'm tired of eating out of a vending machine.

I'm going to need, if you can help with a gas card, I want you guys to practice some of these things that really chip away at your health and at your money, these little nickel and dime things. You got the big million dollar hospital bill, fine. But you just get run over with, we got to go grab some dinner, go grab some dinner. Hey, let's go grab some of this. Hey, we need to grab some of this. I want you and your husband to be honest about writing that stuff down. You see this one coming this time. You didn't see it coming when she was born. You see this one coming and let's write some of this stuff down and let's give our friends who love us an opportunity to show up. Maybe they

won't, but maybe they will. Right. And then give yourself permission. We definitely learned that our first time around with our daughter. So, I mean, we we have family we have friends who do love on us really well um it's it's always hard to ask for help yep yep and that those days are over but you need help you need help and and you need to say out loud we're temporarily pushing the pause button on baby step two and intensity we're going to use all of those calories all of that energy to love each other and to deal with the emotions associated with this life or death situation i want i want to face all that i i want that given i want to give everything i am to that and then when that has passed and it will pass it ebbs and that. And then when that has passed, and it will pass.

It ebbs and flows, right? Oh, yeah. When it has passed, then you push play again, and you go, okay, now we can focus on that thing. Let's get Baby Step 2 jacked up. Let's get going again. And feel zero guilt about the time we took off from the plan, the money plan, to go work on more important things, which is your daughter and each other and your marriage and the whole situation. So good stuff.

You're a great lady. Thank you for calling. This is The Ramsey Show. Buying your first home is a big deal and sets the stage for your financial success. So, work with a mortgage advisor you trust, not just some random website. Churchill Mortgage is Ramsey trusted because they help you avoid hidden traps and expertly guide you through every step. Learn more at churchillmortgage.com.

This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLS ConsumerAccess.org. Equal Housing Lender. 17MLS ConsumerAccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Thanks for hanging out with us, America. We're so glad you're here.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Building a Non-Anxious Life is his latest number one New York Times, our number one bestseller, national bestseller. We're glad you're here. Thanks for hanging out. Hey, it's on sale, the big Ramsey sale. It is.

First time we've ever done that. Ramseysolutions.com. Go pick it up. Plus store. 20% off on all these bestsellers. So be sure and check them out. And a deal on the human Conversations cards, too. Yeah, man.

That's pretty good. So, hey, if you guys want to help us out further, we would appreciate that. Click share and share this show with someone or cut the link out and send it to somebody, however you do it. And click follow and subscribe. Any of that helps the algorithms big time here. We appreciate you guys, whether you're YouTubing or whether you're listening on talk radio or one of the many different other forms that carry the show from satellite radio to, of course, all the podcast platforms with Apple and Google Play and Spotify, everybody out

there. Thank you guys for all the different ways you're getting a hold of this. But tell people about us. We appreciate that. It helps a bunch. Scott is up next in Seattle. Hi, Scott. How are you? Good. How are you guys doing? Better than we deserve. What's up? Good to hear. I'm calling to get some advice on making a first home purchase. My fiance and I are getting married later this year. Yay. And we'd like,

yeah, thank you. And we'd like to get into a house, ideally within the next two years. We have no debts, and we think we could save up about 50% of the down payment for the house. Wow. In that time frame. Good for you.

Thank you. We appreciate it. That being said, we've heard some advice that putting that amount of cash towards a house doesn't make like 100% sense. And sometimes in some situations, it can better be put towards investments if the interest rate for the mortgage is pretty good. That would be advice from broke people who don't know what the flip they're talking about. Well, that makes it pretty clear. I would 100% do this with my family in my

home. If I were, if I were you, I would do exactly what you're talking about doing. And let me back that mouth up. Okay. We did the largest study of millionaires, not broke people with an opinion, millionaires, people that have a $1 million or greater net worth that's ever been done in North America. We studied 10,167 of them. The number of them that said out of 10,000 millionaires, the number one, the number of them that said we became a millionaire because we invested our cash instead of putting it down on the house was precisely zero no one said that rich people simply do not do what you're talking about broke people talk about it pretty clear and say that rich people do it but they simply do not

do it what we found instead scott was that the typical person, how old are you? 30. 30. And you sound like you guys are making $250,000, are you? What are you making between the two of you? Around $150,000 total pre-tax. That's your combined income after you're married? Correct.

Okay, wow. You're aggressive savers then. Very good. Okay. Either way, so here's what we found. By the time you're 42, if you fit the profile, the typical template that we found, the case studies of these average millionaires, the typical millionaire that we went through,

they had two things primarily that caused them to hit their first $1 to $5 million of net worth, and that was that they got a paid-off house, $600,000, $700,000, $800,000 paid-off house. By the time you're there, it'll be more than that. And they've invested simultaneously into their 401ks and Roth IRAs and built those up. And so they're sitting with $ or 600,000 in each. And so they've got a million, 2 million, 5 million, eight net worth, something like that. And that's the first, the two biggest things that we saw that people did financial products,

so to speak, financial pathways that cause people to actually hit that level of wealth, a paid off house and a loaded up retirement. It was that simple. There wasn't a bunch of smoke and mirrors. There wasn't a bunch of, oh, I'm going to borrow on my mortgage because I can make more in the market. I'm going to put the money in the market and that arbitrage, some TikTok guy learned a new word the other day, apparently, you know, it's an old word but the um anyway that that that spread i'm making is going to make me rich and so scott that's you know it's social media bullcrap is what it is so the reality is is that wealthy people simply pay off their house so i i i am so impressed that

you can put 50 down in two years what that also tells me is in two to three more years you're going to completely paid off pay it off man and're going to be 35 years old with a paid off freaking house in Seattle and the stupid thing's going up like a rocket ship. And you're going to be sitting on a million dollar house that's paid for in just a handful of years. Dave, I'm convinced that the age of the influencer is coming to an end because I think people have been doing this nonsense for several years. And like the caller we had at the beginning of this hour,

you still got your student loans after five years. still got this you still got that like and this people who just learn a new fancy word and try to sell it and tell everybody go do this thing it just doesn't work after one two three four five years doesn't work it doesn't work it doesn't work yeah the well the influencer is the um the not wise it's the stepchild of reality tv right okay so reality tv is you became famous for what being famous all right you did nothing you're on tv you just were on tv being absurd and you're the absurdity was somewhat entertaining and you or you were pretty or you were something right and but you're you're basically an uh an empty suit you know you got nothing to say you are nothing but we're all watching you anyway like we're a moth drawn to a flame you know and then they start giving advice and then

the next step is they go we go from that to people who are empty, who have never done anything, are now influencers. Right. And they have absolutely zero earned the right to have that influence. Not at all. Teaching a generation of people. Not at all. Things that are going to ripple through their family tree for a long time. But it's the sick child of reality TV is the influencer.

And so you're exactly right. We're seeing the data. The data scientists are coming out. I mean, we study this stuff because of social media and because of the platforms that we're all involved in. And we've got about four different sources coming at us right now that are very credible. John's been nerding out on this stuff, but we're looking at it as a company right now because Ramsey's in the broadcast business. We're in the content business, the business of influencing you, but we actually are not empty business. We're in the content business, the business of influencing you,

but we actually are not empty suits. We actually have the knowledge, the degrees, the experience, the things to tell you this. And back it up with the research. So Scott's not any of that. He just caught the back end of that. Sorry, Scott, you're doing great.

Scott, you're doing great. 50% down, get that sucker paid off. I mean, you get married and you can save that kind of money in the first two years and you go put a big old chunk on the down payment you're gonna be glad you did and uh don't take financial advice from broke people that's what we're saying and don't take life altering advice from somebody that had a single experience well I'm here's the thing if

you're gonna be a life coach you should have first had a life correct right well and here's the thing though like i i love folks they go through you know somebody cheats on somebody and they go through three years of hard therapy they rebuild their marriage and it's amazing and they reach out and they say hey we want to write a book on marriage we want to become marriage speakers and what i always have to break their heart and say hey hey, you had an experience in your house. You did. That does not make you the person, right? You have all the letters. You know what you're talking about. And you have a personal experience.

And I think the cornerstone to wise counsel is you've walked with millions of people. And so you have the academic stuff. You've got a whole bunch of different stories. And you know what it's like to have to go tell your wife we lost everything all three of those make you a credible person to listen to not just you went to school because we got plenty of that nonsense and not just because um you got a bunch of people that show up at your house it's all of it together man and you got to be careful about who you take counsel from especially when it comes to your health especially when it comes to nutrition especially comes to your. The Bible does not say in the multitude of counsel there's safety.

It says in the multitude of wise. Wise. That's right. Counsel. That's right. Safety. And that's what we're saying. We're actually seeing the data that the power of the influencer is starting to wane.

And someone just is now someone who can garner some likes, garner some clicks. Telling you what to do with your money. You know, and I think Gen Z is the one killing it because Gen Z is sick of it. They're sick of things that are not authentic. They're watching their parents and it didn't work. They're watching their older brothers and sisters. It's not authentic. And Gen Z can smell a rat a mile away.

And that's one of the reasons we love Gen Z around here. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book Building a Non-Anxious Life and host of the Dr. John Deloney Show.

He's my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Tammy is in Atlanta to start this hour off. Hi, Tammy. How are you? I'm blessed. How are you guys today? Better than we deserve. How can we help? Hi, my question is, is how can I

stay from my retirement when I'm basically living paycheck to paycheck? Okay. Why are you living paycheck to paycheck? Well, I am 51 years old. I work blue collar electrician, um, and I am married, but with my debt, um, I have a debt unofficially at 55,000, officially 60,000. Um, and I have three grandbabies and I'm just trying to, How do you have officially or unofficially? I don't know what that means. Unofficially, I have right at $55,000 because I just purchased a new vehicle in November. Officially, it's because I owe my husband about $6,000. What?

How do you owe your husband? Your ex-husband or your husband? My husband. We've been married 17 years, been together 20. Reader's Digest version is the way I was raised and past relationships, I do not depend on anyone financially. How's that working for you? That obviously sucks. Yeah, it's stressful.

It's a terrible way to live it's a horrible plan absolutely i i agree i just can't get myself to my and my husband doesn't complain he doesn't he doesn't try to push me you know he always say don't worry about it but i kind of used him he's pretty tolerant we're terrified of you he must be scared of you hey tammy hey tammy we can give you all the math and all the professional guidance and all that but you're gonna have to have a heart change this thing's just gonna crash like you and you see it happening right in front of your eyes you can't live like this i do and that's the reason why i'm i'm i'm struggling with trying to put all I can into my 401k, but then at the end trying to step out of my comfort zone to be able to let my husband help me more.

You missed the point. Did you go buy a $50,000 car? No, sir. I only paid $49,000 for it. Well played, Tammy. Well played. Tammy, why? Why? well played tammy well played dammy why why why would you buy a 49 000 depreciating asset and call us and ask us why you're living paycheck to paycheck i can tell you why you're living paycheck to paycheck the stupidity is sitting on your driveway it's got four tires and that by the way high five that was a fantastic answer that was

remarkable great answer so here's what i'll tell you okay the data that we know from 30 years of helping folks with their money is that almost no one succeeds relationally in their marriage and succeeds financially towards wealth building that does not combine their lives with their husband. So I'm going to strongly beg you to consider dealing with the emotions of the past betrayals, dealing with the times that people stepped on you that caused you to take this stance and say, I can trust this man I'm married to.

He's my guy. He's my husband. He's safe. And we're going to sit down together and combine our income and combine our debts and combine our assets. And we're going to be what the preacher said. And now you are one because you're going to struggle financially, and it hurts your relationship too. You're going to act like it doesn't, and you're going to try to tell me it didn't, but you're wrong. It does. No, you're correct.

And then that's going to also then line you up, and you're going to have to go, oh, I made a mistake last November. I put our family $50,000 in debt that we couldn't afford, and I'm going to have to sell the car and get rid of the problem that I caused because it's a problem. And then we're going to sit down together and we're going to lay out a budget and we're going to start dreaming about how we're going to 40 40 years from now, be sitting on the front porch, multimillionaires together. That's what I want for you. That's a different thing than you called about, though.

Yes, it is. Because what does he make? Depending on the year, about $120,000, $140,000 a year. Depending on the year, about $40 you make a year uh depending on the year about 40 to 50 okay so you got 200 000 almost household income give or take yes and we have no mortgage that puts you that puts you no mortgage and you got a car you can't afford you he probably has a pile of money he does okay he's very good with his money yeah so our money so then the two of you need to start talking. Do we really want to keep this car?

If we do, we need to write a check and pay it off. Or I need to say I need to sell it because I shouldn't have bought it, one of the two. But you trying to live like a roommate on $40,000 a year and then calling me up while he's making $140,000 and going, I don't know how I can prosper. Well, the way you can prosper is the two of you combine your lives properly, and it will cause you to prosper.

But that's you admitting that you don't have all the answers and all the strength and all the crap by yourself. And by the way, I'm a much better person when I'm combined with Sharon. And by the way, she's a much better person when she's combined with me. I don't know about that. Yeah, everyone knows that. Everyone is. Everyone knows that.

Now, we're better because, you know, you bring different strengths and weaknesses in, and when you combine them, you get this beautiful, beautiful orchestra that's a synergy. And Larry Burkett used to say, if two people just alike get married, one of you is unnecessary. So these opposites attract, and you plug into that. So, Tammy, my wife, Sharon, has not worked outside the home in 40 years. She's not earned any income, with the exception of selling some clothes at the consignment sale clothes place. But other than that, she's not earned any income.

But guess what? She has a fabulous income because we have a fabulous income. And it's our income. It's not Dave's income and Sharon's income. It's our income. And she has a great life, and I have a great life. And part of the reason is I have a great life is because of her. And so I have, you know, I'm not going to allow her allow her i wouldn't allow that's not the right word i

wouldn't want for her and she wouldn't want for me to be living standalone siloed lives inside the same house i wonder what it would be like if she asked her husband would you forgive that five thousand dollar debt i bet he would say i already have right i already have i bet she's she's the one carrying i bet she's carrying the debt i'll pay Right? I already have. I bet she's. She's the one carrying it. I bet she's carrying the debt. I'll pay you back. I'm paying you back. Because she's the one.

I bet she's careless. He's not. He's not. He's standing over there. He's going to be so happy. Yep. Sammy, when you do this, he's going to, he's going to really love Dave Ramsey and John Deloney because he's, we're the guys that finally talked to him.

He gets his wife back. He's got his wife. He got his wife. Yeah. Yeah. Please consider that. And by the way, if you combine everything and it goes horribly, you can separate it again later. But hey, you people.

It's not going to go horribly. It works. Folks listening who are in the top 5% to 10% of earners on planet Earth making $200,000 a year, living paycheck to paycheck, it's probably not the monies. That's the issue. Amen. It's the mirror.

This is The Ramsey Show. Well, it's back, and it's almost sold out. The Live Like No One Else Cruise. Yep. The Ramsey personalities. We've got the entire ship on a Holland America cruise line and it's going to be absolutely incredible. Seven days at sea, March

22nd through the 29th of 2025, about a year from now. And if you're on Baby Step 4 and above, we invite you to join us. Now, if you're on Baby Step 2, you should not be spending money on something like this. You ought to be getting your debt paid off. You can come on another one of these when we do it again later.

We're going to Turks and Caicos. We're going to St. Thomas, San Juan, the Bahamas. The VIP upgrades are already sold out. Most of the suites are sold out. In fact, many of the cabin types are completely sold out. So if you're trying to get your pick of a cabin, you need to go ahead. Like an Ocean View, you need to get your deposit in like now because we're going to completely sell this thing out. a cabin you need to go ahead like an ocean view you need to get your deposit in like now because

we're going to completely sell this thing out and then what'll happen is if somebody drops out you can upgrade your cabin that kind of stuff as you go along but get your you know get your foot in the door because it's about to be gone steven curtis chapman uh with grammy award winner 67 or 69 dove awards whatever our friend is going to be with us, a world-class artist. Manit Chauhan from the Food Channel, a fabulous chef, world-class chef who's going to be doing some cooking lessons with us and hanging out with us. Dina Carter from Strawberry Wine, one of our great Nashville names, is going to be with us as well.

And it's going to be a lot of fun. Of course, we'll all dr john rachel cruise on george camel uh everybody ken ken coleman uh jade wash on me we're all going to be there we're all going to be all of us for seven days doing events all through the cruise we'll be hanging out with you we're going to be doing stuff we got all kinds of different things planned and um if you want to book your cabin go to ramsey solutions.com slash cruise this is not a uh one of these cheap cruises this is not like walmart on the seas okay this is like holland america's class thing this is good stuff walmart on the seas well i mean they they do. Some of those things are seriously nasty, and the humans on them sometimes are nasty.

But this is all Ramsey. It's 100%. There won't be anyone else on the ship except our folk. So you're going to be the live like no one else cruise. Again, it's in March 22 through 29, 2025, next March. But the tickets are almost gone. RamseySolutions.com slash cruise. Kyle is with us.

Kyle is in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Kyle. How are you? Good afternoon, guys. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Yeah, so I'm upside down on a vehicle.

I know I need to sell it. I'm just kind of wondering what steps I should take. Okay. What do you owe on it? So I owe just a little over $26,000. Okay. And what is it worth? So Kelly Blue Book, I'm selling it private. It's worth $12,000. Okay. So you had another one that was upside down. How many old cars did you roll into this one? You must have rolled some negative into this one, right?

No. Actually, just tons of miles put on it. Me and my partner, we had a baby, and then the vehicle turned into more than what we were expecting it to be. Okay. and the vehicle turned into more than what we were expecting it to be. Okay, so how many miles does it have on it? 112. What is it? Kia Sorento.

Okay. Wow. That sucker fell off a cliff, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm disappointed in the decision to buy it well and the miles just destroyed the decision so um yeah yeah selling it is not really going to help you yeah see that's um i called in like two weeks ago and that was the recommendation that i got was to sell it so i went home and i was yeah, we're going to sell this thing. Then I Kelly Blue booked it and I was like, uh. I think you're just going to have to pay it off.

Yeah. Okay. So what do you make? What's your household income? About 70K. And the only debt that I have, I have just shy of 12K in our personal loan. And then. 26,000 on a car. What's that? And then 26 26 000 on a car what's that and then 26 000 on a car

yep yeah and you have a baby that you're responsible for but you're not married uh correct okay i actually have four kids total but at at the same place with the same lady? We have one child together. She had one in a previous relationship, and then I have two children from a previous relationship. That are with their mom primarily? We split one week with me, one week with her.

Okay. So we're like, we kind of need third row for one week but then we don't for the other it's yeah i think we got bigger problems with third row yeah you get a lot of chaos in your life brother yeah the um what do you what do you do for a living? Fabricator, welder. Okay. You might be entering a season. How much of that 70 is going to child support? Zero, knock on wood. What do you mean?

We just shared custody. I take care of them when they're with me. She takes care of them when they're with her. Is that certified by a court, or do y'all just high-five each other? Okay. No, that's all court-ordered. You may have to enter into a season where you make the arrangements with the women in your life that you're going to be having to work two or three jobs because you've got a mess to clean up, man.

Yeah. You've got so much chaos in your life, dude. If you had $36,000, you'd have no debt and an old car and you'd be okay right so you're 36 000 away from a huge relief point so how fast can we come up with 36 000 working overtime one year yeah that's what is that a question you're asking that's what we're telling you that's a statement yeah yeah yeah i think i think because the the good news is you're a welder and man you know you can get work yeah for sure yeah i know you can get work they're desperate for your work i want you to be so tired in october of this year that

you don't know what day it is because you've been working so hard okay yeah and then but then you're gonna but then you're gonna be free for the rest of your life because you know then you never enter into this again we never buy a car on payments so we never end up in this again if we run one if we run the value down it'll at least be on something that's paid for and i want you to marry mama and let's wrap this thing up right and let's start to get some peace in our house you got too much chaos too much coming and going too much over here fingers crossed over here i hope this works out over here you got too much chaos too much coming and going too much over here fingers crossed over here hope this works out over here you got to start like putting some of these variables in concrete brother so you can have some peace in your life yeah let's work on stability let's work on our marriage work on a relationship it'll be good for the kids it's good for everybody man yeah

but i i for a short period of time i'd turn up the heat on the income and you guys i mean sit down with your girlfriend now she's gonna be your be your wife, according to John. And so, um, you get those two things working and then you say, all right, we're going to be on a written budget. We're going to be on beans and rice. We're going to knock this out as fast as we possibly can, because really if you sell the car, you've got almost as much debt left. I mean, it doesn't really, damn it. It doesn't get rid of the debt. you owe 22 on it i mean if it was worth 22 and you owe 26 then i would sell it because then you only got to clean up four but you still got 14 less you need to get 10 grand to buy another car yeah and you're screwed up so yeah you might as well drive the stupid thing and let's just beat

the snot out of this debt the 12 00012,000 and the $26,000, which is $38,000. And, you know, you're going to go get your life back is what we're saying. But this is the result of all the personal chaos that while you were in between everything here, you jumped in and, as you said, said you said it made a bad decision on this car and that's what took you there so that's a good good way to talk it through hey man thanks for the call we can help you further you call us anytime it's what we do open phones at 888-825-5225 you jump in we'll talk about your life and your money. So, yeah, the upside down on a car, if you're $4,000 upside down and you owe $26,000, the way you handle that, folks, is you would borrow that from your local credit union

or you talk to the company that has the car loan and see if they'll let you sell the car for what it's worth, sign a note for the difference, or, again, like we just said, you know, you work like crazy and you come up with the hole that you're in, the amount of trips I've done in. That's your three things you can do to get out. This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author of Building a Non-Anxious Life is my co-host today. Jamie is in Tampa, Florida. Hi, Jamie. How are you? Hey, Dave. How's it going? Better than I deserve. What's up? Good. I am calling because I'm getting sued by Capital One after being out of work from a real heart attack. So just trying to figure out where I go from here and what the

next step is. I've been following the Dave Ramsey plan since January. It's kind of been all in. So just kind of wondering what I do from here because that wasn't the plan. It was in collections and now... Okay, can you speak directly into your phone? You're kind of muffled. Sorry about that. Is this better? That's a little better. Yeah, thanks. Okay, how old are you? You had a heart attack? Yeah, so I was 37. I'm now 39. I had a spontaneous coron? Yeah, so I was 37. I'm now 39. I had a spontaneous coronary artery dissection. They don't know why it happened, how it happened, how to prevent another one.

It just happened. Two years ago? Yep. Okay, so what has been your work history since the heart attack? So when I had the heart attack, I was part-time and in school with 43 days left of becoming a respiratory therapist. Um, so I was out of work for two months and then returned and got COVID and then was out for another 14 days. So during my heart attack, I had no income coming in whatsoever. Um, and then two years ago,

yeah, so it took me about seven months before I could get back financially stable enough to even take my test because I had to take two and they're expensive. Um, and then I started working as an RT March of last year. And, uh, finally got to the point of not robbing Peter to pay Paul and going to Amscot every week, um, to pay the bills as of probably August of last year. You're single? Uh, so in the process of getting divorced from a very toxic person. Wow. You've had a run. I haven't filed yet, but it's just been not good.

So what are you making now? So I would say averaging probably about $6,000 a month with overtime and on-call pay. $6,000 a month. And what do you owe Capital One? So there's two cards, one $9,060 and one $91,048. Okay, $18,000. Yes. Okay, all right.

Wow, I'm sorry for everything you've been through. Thank you. Let's be very clear, though, that Capital One is not suing you because you had a heart attack and weren't able to work for two months. They're suing you because the two years following the heart attack, you've not been able to keep enough work to feed yourself and pay the payments or pay something towards it. You paid them nothing for, what, three, four years now?

So August of 2022 was my last payment. So it got to the point where I just was like, you know what, I need to see my four walls and my three kids' bed and not worry about capital warrants. And your husband was contributing nothing. So he doesn't have a high-paying job. He makes about $16 an hour at the time. I mean, he was helping as much as he could,

but it wasn't enough to sustain what we needed as, you know, a five-person family. Okay. Have they given you a court date yeah so may 22nd is the date of deposition may 22nd is the court date okay all right um do you i assume you don't have any money. So right now I have my $1,000 emergency fund. And I've stopped paying anything extra because I was going hard. I was paying about $2,000 off in debt since January every single month. So my paycheck coming up on Friday will be about $3,400. I've got $2,500 in the bank and then another thousand. Okay. Let me, sometimes if you know what's going to happen, it's not as scary as the unknown. So I'll walk you through what's

going to happen. Okay. Regardless of what we do right now short of filing bankruptcy which you're not bankrupt so you wouldn't do that um you're going to lose the lawsuit on the 22nd of may because the lawsuit is not about anything except did you pay a bill you promised to pay and the answer is no you did not regardless of the reason okay right there is no heart attack clause in these things so it's just you did you pay it the answer is no judgment okay so they're going to win a judgment against you for eighteen thousand dollars plus attorney's fees on the 22nd in just a couple of weeks whoopee so that's already. That was last month that they sent me paperwork saying that there was judgment against me.

The one on the 22nd now is a deposition where they want all of my financial information, last three years of tax return, my income for the last year, all my bank statements, all of that. Yeah, that's an execution on the judgment then. Pretty much. I feel like it's an execution on the judgment then. Okay. Pretty much. I feel like it's an execution on me.

Okay. The good news is that now you have a good income flowing for the first time in this story. And it's just started happening recently. And like you said, you got where you're not paying Peter to pay Paul. So the only option, you've got two options technically that I can think of, okay, off the top of my head right here. One is that you begin to negotiate a payment plan with them. Actually, there's three options, okay? One is you begin to negotiate a payment plan with them actually there's three options okay one is you begin to negotiate a payment plan with them is there anywhere you could get five thousand dollars no i already tried to get a loan from mid florida credit union they denied me my credit's

just so bad at this i'm sure no one i mean yeah you're the name stop five hundred dollars yeah i don't think that i can get you have anything you could sell uh i mean other than my car that i've got twelve hundred dollars left on it but it's got a check engine light and about ready to die and you know looking forward to being able to fix that yeah so what you know so one thing you could do is you could try to settle it for a lump sum that would actually be the cleanest and they probably will take about 5k to settle this and go away but that's not an option because we just talked through that okay so that's one option that one's on the side that would be cool though that'd be very cool the second one is to work out a payment plan with them and they're very difficult on that um the third one is bankruptcy

and bankruptcy stops everything dead in its tracks and um you can you can file a chapter 13 bankruptcy which makes them accept a payment plan they won't have a choice the bankruptcy court tells them what it is and they get pennies on the dollar they don't even get 100 cents on the dollar so if you threaten them with a chapter 13 bankruptcy they're better off they're better off to take a payment plan with you than than for you to force one through a chapter 13 bankruptcy on them and so i i would like to see you cut a payment plan with them it's better for you and it's better for them okay um but there's no point in you going through letting them go through your underwear drawer on the 22nd because all they're doing is a fishing expedition trying to find money and line

up whether they can garnish your wages in florida i don't know how that stands i don't know the law there but um they're trying to find something they can get their hands around your throat. That's all this is. This is not a criminal thing. It's a deposition searching for income and assets. And it's there to hassle you and scare you, which it's already doing, those two things. Yeah, I feel like I can't even go to the grocery store and buy groceries at this point.

Yeah. Well, you go buy anything you need to buy take care of your family don't worry about these characters because they may end up getting nothing if you end up being forced by them into a bk but truthfully the best thing that could have happened is if you had been working on this six months ago or even a year ago working on something to get them cleared out before it got this far by the time it gets this far your options and your any negotiating power you've got is very weak because all you can do is threaten bankruptcy which is you know i threaten to shoot myself in the foot right and so but that that's what you can do there i'll tell you what let's do this i'm gonna i'm gonna put you on hold i'm gonna hook you up with one of our ramsey coaches and maybe they can help you with

the negotiation with these guys hopefully they can keep you out of bankruptcy by getting you on a payment plan that's what i want to do um but before they come and start taking your income and not you're not able to feed your kids they're going to force you into a bankruptcy before they do that so hopefully they won't take it that far but these characters i don't know but you're not dealing with it for two years is how this came up and bit you it wasn't the heart attack two years ago it was you're not dealing with it after that dr john deloney ramsey personality is my co-host today. Today's question of the day comes from Samantha in California. All right.

Samantha asks, I live with my boyfriend and we have two children together. I'm 36 and I've been with him since I was 19 and he was 35. I have a degree but never worked worked never made any money and have no savings i own nothing okay i have a debit card to his account he makes over a million dollars a year and refuses to get married what should i do make him pay me a monthly salary that i pay taxes on go get a job which he would hate i've only recently understood the situation i am in as i guess i was too busy caring for the kids to see what a mess this is any advice would be appreciated I don't do well. No, I can feel it on you.

With men that don't take care of their families. I don't do well with jerks like this. So, all right, let's be kind to children involved I'll just say this if this was my sister um this is one of my close friends I would sit with an attorney and find out what the common law rules are instead of California and I would get as far away from this toxic trash as possible and some of this bajillionaires money will become yours because you've raised his kids and taking care of his home. Yeah.

There's child support at a minimum. Yeah. Um, there's probably, uh, palimony. Um, let's see.

You can't get him to marry you. You've been there. You've been there 17 years. Is that right? Get him to pay you a monthly salary. That's not going to work. No. By the way, get a job, which he would hate at this point.

I don't care what he thinks. He's not a person of character. I don't care. He didn't get a vote. 17 years. He makes a million dollars a year. You've been there 17 years. So here's the likelihood. The likelihood is, John john that she's not going to take our advice

no not at all um because you already you've known for a long time even though you act like you didn't what you should be doing and you've known for a long time this was whole this whole thing was jacked up and you've done nothing about it and so i doubt you're going to do anything about it now and that's really sad because um what that tells me is that at a minimum, you've been emotionally abused, at a minimum, because you're now functioning in domestic violence symptoms because you're not dealing with the obvious thing that's in front of you because you feel trapped.

That's the symptom of a domestic violence, whether it's emotional violence or whether it's physical violence. Or you've gotten really accustomed to this really fancy life, and that's going to go away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At least part of it is I suspect there's a lot of that million dollars a year that's going to come to her. I agree.

In California. I don't know. I'm not an attorney. I think I'm with you. So what would I do? If I could get you to do what I don't think you're going to do, I agree with John, I would see an attorney about your rights. I would sit down with Mr. Moneybags and say, we're either getting married,

and that's after we do some counseling to where I can trust you again because I don't trust you right now, or I'm leaving. Me and the kids are leaving. And when we leave, we're going to file for child support and palimony, and according to my attorney, it's going to cost you X. This one sentence, I've only recently understood the situation I am in,

as I guess I was too busy caring for the kids to see what a mess. Oh, crap. It's not, well, that makes me think she discovered the other girlfriends, and she now realizes, oh, I thought we, Well, that makes me think she discovered the other girlfriends. And she now realizes, oh, I thought we... Now we're reading between the letters. Okay.

He was 35, hooked up with a 19-year-old, had two of her kids. They're now 17, 18. They're leaving the house, and now she's finding, oh, I wasn't the only one. I'm not the only one. And now I got a mess. Because I make a million dollars, and I do whatever I want't the only one. I'm not the only one. And now I got a mess. Because I make a million dollars and I do whatever I want to do. Right. Whenever, whoever I want to do.

So stupid. Yeah. You're. What a coward. Your mind is even darker than mine. The coward. I didn't go there. Coward.

Cowardly man. That's exactly right. You're exactly right. That's what's going on. Cowardly man. Of only reason. Yeah. coward coward that's exactly right you're exactly right that's what's going on cowardly man of only reason yes so the situation is you're um you have built a life in a house of cards once again these are the things that happens when you shake shack up instead of being married had you been married

there would have been a whole different set of situation legal protections legal protections and other things as well so yeah um but now you're you know you're reaching it um obscure laws which they are palimony laws are much more obscure so yeah i would check on the i would check on your legal rights and i didn't think about these dadgum kids are they're they're teenagers at a minimum yeah so yeah okay and men take care of your families take care of your families stop look around dude look around another car another another sale are you freaking kidding me get the end of your life is this is this yeah so stupid how's this gonna go for you you're gonna have an empty hospital bedroom. Dan is in Philadelphia.

Hi, Dan. How are you? I'm doing pretty good. How are you doing? Better than we deserve. How can we help? Well, my company that I work for, I've been with them for a little over four years. They let everyone go about a month and a half ago.

They're getting liquidated, and another company is going to be getting all of their customers and such. It's a solar company. I worked closely with the executives, and they kept only me on, and the company that's coming in was supposed to call everyone. That hasn't happened. I've been applying and haven't been able to find a job yet. Are you being paid still? I am being paid still.

Okay, but what you're saying is the fuse is burning. It's not for long. Exactly. I make $85,000 a year. What do you do? What's your actual job title? Executive assistant. So it's just basically I work for the COO and the CEO,

and I also try to find problems in the operations, ways to make things flow smoother. In the last year, I saved the company about $320,000 just in different processes that could have been fine-tuned. So how long have you been looking? I've been looking for about two and a half weeks now. Okay, good. Yeah, you got to turn that on full-time. That's your whole thing. Yeah. And it's not just filling out job applications, okay? That doesn't work. You've got to start thinking about who you know at a company where you'd like to work. And then start figuring out what postings that job has for jobs that company has

and get your friend to get you an interview. Okay. That's how people really get jobs in the real world. This idea of filling out 5,000 applications by electronic, you know, LinkedIn, Bullcrap, that does not work because you get, nobody reads all those applications. Something has to happen to get those things pulled out of the stack. And that's how you really land a job.

So, um, your, your job is not filling out applications. Your job is to get your foot in the door somewhere. Okay. That's the difference. So Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality writes about all of this stuff. is to get your foot in the door somewhere. Okay. That's the difference. So Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, writes about all of this stuff. His book, the one that you need to read, is called Proximity Principle. I'm going to send you a copy of it right now, today.

Okay? I actually just bought that about a month ago. Have you read it? I have not. Okay. Well, this would be the day. It's upon you, my friend. The other portion of that, I've been going through the baby steps.

I'm in baby step two. I want to, I'm assuming it's smart for me to hold back and not. Don't do anything right now. Pile up cash. You're in the middle of a hurricane. You're in the middle of a hurricane you're in the middle of a hurricane you're in a crisis pile up cash every day every check they give you put it all in an account and don't touch it i want you eating beans and rice are you married yes and we have three kids and one on the way does your wife work outside the home no okay all right so you really pile up cash, pile up cash, pile up cash.

Stop your 401K. Stop everything. Treat this like you had to have $10,000 to survive because you do. Okay. The bigger pile of cash you've got, the better you're going to have confidence when you're interviewing. The more broke you are when you interview for the next thing, the more desperate you sound, and the less employable you are because desperate people, they got a stink on them, man. And so I want you less desperate. I want you getting after it. Yeah. You need to turn this up wide open. Like your

full-time job is you right now. Get it. This is the Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you are here. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Thanks for jumping in. We appreciate you hanging out with us.

Jamal is with us in Boston to start off this particular hour. Hey, Jamal, how are you? Hi, how are you, Vinzy? Better than we deserve. How can we help? So I basically got out of debt a few four or five months ago good and kind of been aimless with all thanks to you by the way you were the kickstart so i just want to give my gratitude to you i really appreciate that from you from posting your videos and stuff so thank you

so from there now i'm kind of at this place where I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing now. I'm at my job still, but at the same time I want to see how else I can make other money or how can I, you know, take the next steps to build left. So, I'm kind of just like confused on where I'm supposed to go next. Okay. So, you just got some basic information about getting out of debt from a few YouTube things, but you've not really heard the whole process. Is that what you're saying?

Yes. Okay. Well, the whole process we've designed is around the basic common sense principles and the ideas that financial planners have taught for years. and we just put them in an order of attack. We call that the baby steps. You probably did hear that. I heard the baby steps, yes. Okay, baby step one is save $1,000. Do you have $1,000? Yes.

Okay, two is debt-free everything but the house. You already told me you did that one, right? Correct. Then your next goal is to make sure you have a fully funded emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. How much do you have in savings? $10,000. Okay. And what do you make? I make around $65,000 to $70,000. Okay. It's not a bad emergency fund. All right. If we wanted to call that our emergency fund, fine. If you want to spoof it up and put another 5k in there, you can, but that's not to be touched

for anything except emergencies. And probably not even then that's your, that's the pad between you and life. If you're going to buy something, you have to save up and pay for it in a separate account okay okay now we're debt free we've got ten thousand dollars dude you're way ahead of most people already way to go now we go to baby step four which is say 15 of your income into retirement plans roth iras roth 401ks with a match if you've got that at work, and I want you putting 15% around. You said you make 60? Is that what you said?

Yeah, around 60 to 70. Okay. That'd be $9,000 a year then. Okay. Okay. Or about, what, 700 bucks a month, 750 bucks a month, right? It should be coming out of your check some way or another going into retirement. I take it you're single and don't have kids.

Did I miss something? No, I'm 28. I live with my mom, and kind of that was the help that kind of, you know, gave me the financial ability to get out of debt. I live in 70K. Good, good. Then I want to start putting $ debt. I lose 70K. Good. Yeah. Good. Then, um, yeah, then I want to, you know, I want to start putting 9,000 away for retirement. I also

want to start saving some money to get out on my own. Okay. Because you're now able to, you make money, you don't have any payments, right? So you need to get out on your own and set yourself up a life and, um, you know, go about, uh, growing your career, growing yourself, who you're going to be, what changes are we going to make. You talked about maybe changing jobs, that kind of stuff, all of that. And you're going to use some of your money to do all of that. But you don't need to jump. Just take your time.

Move careful. When you move out, you don't have to rush out. Unless your house is on fire, you don't have to run out. So unless there's something really bad going on, you don't have to rush out. Unless your house is on fire, you don't have to run out. So unless there's something really bad going on, you don't have to run out. But you do need to make a plan by September. You need to be out of there. And you need to figure out what your next steps are in your career and just systematically lay down.

Because what happens and what you're discovering already in this process is, and, John, this is so important for people to grasp, I think, that where there is no vision, the people perish. And most people live hand to mouth because they don't look past Friday. And to Jamal's credit, he's looked way past Friday now. And he started to think long term, long term with my career, long term with my living situation, long term with my debt, long-term with my living situation, long-term with my debt, long-term with my wealth building and investing. And when you start thinking out there five, 10 years out with your decision-making, you

make much better decisions. Yeah. And it's called maturing. That's what I was going to say. It's maturing. And so sometimes maturing doesn't make math sense. Here's an example. I live with my 28-year-old mom.

I don't have to pay rent ever. You need to get out on your own and get your own place, right? There's some other muscles you're going to develop, and there's some maturing that you need to do, some skills you got to develop. You got to learn how to be a neighbor. You got to learn how to pay bills. You got to learn how to deal with roommates, whatever it is. But I can see when you get done with all this, you think, well, just keep piling this money away. Well, you got to start spending some of this money now, and you got to start creating a life that you actually want to live in, right? Exactly, exactly.

And so, you know, really, I mean, anytime you're investing money into yourself, whether that's moving out on your own, taking a class to move to a different career, all of those things are short-term pain for long-term gain. Right. And that one definition of maturity emotional maturity spiritual maturity is the ability to delay pleasure what did harlow say this morning that was so good um it was something along those lines that people are able to deal with short-term pain for long-term vision it was it's just he had a he had a great way of saying it i remember what it

was james but um but it's that same sentiment that, man, I have to make some choices to not be happy right this second so that I can really, really, truly have deep joy down the road. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but it yields a harvest of righteousness. And so nothing that we do that that's good for the long, very few things that we do that's good for the long-term feels great at the present. And if all you do is work on the present, you're a child and all of your long term starts to deteriorate. Right.

Because you spend all your money on Friday and Saturday night and you go back Monday morning, you're broke again and you start to cycle over again. That's thank God it's Friday. Oh God, it's Monday. That's the opposite of having a vision. And to Jamal's credit, he's moving away from that towards long-term thinking. And the thing is, Jamal, it needs to happen in every single compartment, department area of your life. Yes. And feelings are a terrible GPS system. I did not feel like exercising this morning. I didn't feel like eating a healthy

breakfast this morning. I didn't feel like going around and chasing my kids down so I could hug every one of them. I just wanted to put my headphones in and go to work you do those things because they're right and they have a long-term benefit right well that's discipline that's right that's what that's where it comes from it comes from i'm willing to give up some pain now for gain later no pain no gain all that stuff right and it all falls together but this all works in every area of our lives and um you, you're going to see everything start to blossom the more that you do that. Your relationships, you're just going to be much more eligible on the dating scene by good women. Because good women don't want to hang with a guy who thinks, thank God it's Friday, oh God, it's Monday, and lives with his mom.

That's not eligibility right there. It's the opposite. And so you're moving in a great direction. And, I mean, you can get girls, but you can't get women. And there's a different thing. It's a whole different thing, man. So it's a long-term thinking process. And that's a beautiful thing where you are, son.

I'm so happy to talk to you. I'm proud of you, man. Call us anytime. This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you are with us. The best way to make the most of your money is by creating and sticking to a plan.

Your plan. You decide what you want to put in it, and then you stick to the plan that you created. Isn't that cool? So if it's punishing you, you're punishing you. If it's letting you off the hook, you're letting you off the hook. It's your plan. You give every dollar of your income an assignment before the month begins. And for those of you that are married, you agree on it with your spouse.

Every dollar, the world's best budgeting app, makes it simple to plan your spending, track expenses, save for what matters. All in an easy-to-use app. Fits right into your busy lifestyle. Keep a pulse on your spending and make the progress on your money goals with EveryDollar. You can download EveryDollar for free in the App Store or Google Play today. You can also do it online at EveryDollar.com for your desktop. Check it out.

Eric is with us in Chicago. Hi, Eric. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. I'm a long-time listener. My dad listened to it when I was a child in the car, and I just never stopped.

Wow. So my question, I'm 27, and I'm planning on going to anesthesia school. I'm currently an ICU nurse, and I'm married. And I'm trying to decide whether or not I should use the money that I've saved up or if I should use part of it and take out some loan because of the large expense of this school, similar to medical school. Okay. If you take out the loan, it doesn't change the expense?

Not at all. But I cannot work for three years or 36 straight months for this due to the 50 to 60 hours a week of clinicals and schooling, you know, the classroom time. But the way you pose the question, it sounds like you've got the money to cover that. I currently have $133,000 in cash. As far as I can tell, most schools range between 100 and 130 000 uh for the 36 months so what's your plan for eating right so i am married my wife is a teacher um and then we have a uh a baby on the way here next month um she makes about 50 000 a year

i have we have no debt i was fortunate was able to graduate from nursing school with no debt. When do you start anesthesiology school? So, in June, I'm on a wait list, or it would be next year around this time. Okay. So if you had another year to save, you'd have a lot more. That's correct, because currently we bought less house than we needed to. Our current take-home pay is about $103,000, and the mortgage is about $1,200 to $1,300 a month with insurance.

Okay. I would lay out a plan where we can live on her income and pay cash for this. Okay. Currently, the way I've got it, I use it every month, and I always use it to kind of project what it would be like, assuming her pay stays the same. It would be doable, but it would be kind of tight. Oh, well.

Because if I used everything. You're getting an anesthesiology degree where you're going to make $300,000 or $400,000 a year for the rest of your life. Sure. Oh, darn. You have to pay a price to do that. Oh, darn. The family's going to sacrifice for two years to do that.

Whoopee. But as far as like an emergency fund, that's where mine is, man. Right now you're going to school, man. You're a freaking college student again. Okay. No, I'm not borrowing money to create an emergency fund. Sure. No, I'm not borrowing money to raise your little family's lifestyle while you bust it.

Right. No. No. You'm not borrowing money to raise your little family's lifestyle while you bust it. Right. No. No. You knew that before you called. You've been listening to me since you were a kid. Yes. That's what I figured the case would be. I just didn't know.

I've been in stork mode the last several months. I want you to stay in stork mode. Listen, I've got to tell you, I think your career path is one of the best on the planet. It's one of the top five things people can do to make a pile of money, and it's very rewarding, too, because what you're doing is excellent for the human race. I can tell you, I have the pain tolerance of a three-year-old child. I can't stand it. So I need people that know what you're going to do around if I'm getting,

I don't want to feel nothing. Just put me out and put me out in such a way that when I wake up, my brain still works. So this is all I want from you, man. You're awesome. And I think you're going to make a lot of money. It's better than an MD, I think. I just love what you're doing.

But just do it smart, Eric. Pay cash for it. Okay. Set your family up in such a way that we're paying, we're sacrificing for our future. This is going to be a tough three years because you're going to be completely with your nose in the books and in the practicums and in everything else, and you're going to be completely with your nose in the books and in the practicums and in everything else. And you're going to be absorbed in that. And you're going to have a new baby in the house in the process.

And you're going to be living on a lot less than you're used to living on. It's going to be a very tough three years. And it's going to be completely worth it. I mean, I can't recommend that more. And I'm sitting on the other side of this. Josephine was just born, my daughter. I went back to grad school working for them. I mean, it was a madhouse.

And there were days it didn't feel like it was worth it. And there was no easy path. And man, I'm glad we sacrificed and scratched and clawed, right? Because you never know what's going to be. But I do have friends who have medical debt, medical school debt of some sort. And they're stuck doing managed care, 14 minutes. And they tell me, I would love to get out of this madness, but I can't afford to.

If you come out of anesthesiology school and you owe nobody anything. Man, the negotiation power you have for your next gig. Do whatever you want. You can write your ticket. Whatever you want, man. But if you've got stupid, you know, Navient staring down your but if you got if you got stupid you know naviance staring down your neck you take what you get then you're you got to go oh i gotta take this gig because they're gonna pay off navient you know because that's a lot of the medical recruiters these days they'll write you a little signing bonus or tied to your student loan debt right

and no you don't need any of that all i want is money i just want you to freedom yeah pay me money and give me uh give me control of my life and that's stuff you'd lose in the medical field if you're not careful so please pay cash and i really would opt to start one year from june not june yeah there'd have to be a pretty compelling reason to start right this second yeah and um you know and set it up because that gives you a whole another year of icu earnings to pile uh keep your stork mode going but it's a different it's a different birth it's the birth of your future career not your child but just keep piling that money up piling that money up practice living on her income this year piling up yours and then you

got the money right it's slammed up i'm seeing if there's a cohort that starts in january and split the difference but i love the idea of because obviously i get like you got a new baby and wanting to have some money in the in the bank i get that but um well you're not having to write the whole 133 at once that's it that's it you're gonna be you're not gonna be down to the last nickel until you're at the end that's right and so you know by then the whole thing's gonna have shifted anyway probably so amazing good for you brother might even get a signing bonus signed before you do your last six months and hey for people who call i think this is an important thing he has had a vision of this

for several years and he went into stork mode a long time ago we get people who just have this thought and they want to go do it all right this second he's been thinking about this for a while he's got 130 grand piled up yeah and so this is what this looks like yeah this is the right way to do the right way to do it very very well done he's debt free he's debt free didn't owe anybody anything he i want a doctor that doesn't owe anybody anything that can spend time with me and isn't worried about managing a clock but worried about keeping me safe and keeping me healthy that's what i want in my life I don't want to be a medical widget. I don't even know what that is.

I don't want to be your inventory. I don't want to be something that's managed by you. I do not want to be a medical widget. An old pastor said it was, he said, somewhere back in the 1960s or 70s, we left the healing arts and went to the medical industry. That's exactly right. Yeah. We left the art and went to the number crunchers. But you don't owe anybody anything, and you have all this knowledge and the medical industry. That's exactly right. Yeah. We left the art and went to the number crunchers.

But you don't owe anybody anything, and you have all this knowledge and the certifications. You can sit down and help people, and it's amazing. Yeah. You got to. I mean, it's a golden ticket. I love your path here. It's a really, really good path. Very well done, Eric.

Proud of you, man. Pay cash. You knew Dave Ramsey was going to say that before you called it's about the only thing you can say about me that everyone has to say whether they like me or not i'm 100 freaking consistent and you're bald i probably shouldn't have said that that was i'm just trying to think of another thing that everyone can agree firm grasp on the obvious john deloney two ph obvious, John Deloney. Two PhDs, and that's what they got you right there. This is The Ramsey Show.

Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. We're so glad you are here. Open phones at 888-825- 5225. Thanks for hanging out. And, hey, guess what?

On the debt-free stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Alan is with us. Hey, Alan, how are you, man? Hey, great. How are you guys doing? Better than we deserve. Where do you live? I live in nowhere, Wisconsin, but real close to Madison. Okay.

Very cool. Drove like 600 miles down here to come be on the show, so thanks for having me. Well, we're honored to have you, sir. Thank you. How much debt have you paid off? A little over 30 grand. 30,000 bucks. How long did that take you? About four years, give or take. All right, good. And your range of income during that time? When I started, I was at 45 grand, and I'm currently around 55.

Cool. What kind of debt was the 30K? come during that time uh when i started i was at 45 grand and i'm currently around 55 cool what kind of debt was the 30k so i had 20 grand on high interest credit card and then i had another 10 grand on my car so okay cool so what started this whole journey thing this ramsey thing four years ago well i mean well the journey started way before that just getting into debt i mean me and my ex-girlfriend at the time she talked me into getting a high interest credit card it was was like, if you spent $3,000 in the first three months, you got all these points. So we were like, oh, we'll put all our bills on that and then we'll go on a vacation. And then we didn't even hit the three grand and we didn't even pay it off. So it was all downhill from there.

And then, you know, it just kind of snowballed. Then once, you know, I was bottoming out and just super broke and just running out of ideas i was youtubing just how to get out of debt and you were one of the first ones that popped up so i started watching a couple of your videos that introduced me to the debt snowball and then uh from there i then i got hooked i i was like that's digestible easy enough and then i rabbit hole down all your stuff and then i found out about the debt avalanche i was able to do essentially the snowball and the avalanche i got real lucky where like my highest interest rates around my lowest principal amounts so i was able to just crush it but like it was a super humbling

experience i remember at the end i was paying like five six hundred bucks a month towards the car bills and the principals weren't even going down like it was heartbreaking so like you know i ended up i left my ex-girlfriend she was no good at the time i moved back in with in with my mom, which was horrible at your thirties. But you know, I was like, this is enough debt where it's going to follow me around my entire life if I don't do something about it. So yeah, I got real tough and I did something about it. You know, you were talking beans and rice. I was beans or rice. I couldn't afford beans and rice, you know? So like, yeah. So, you know, but it was great. It was, you know, it took forever, but like once you, once I paid off the first little credit card, then you see the progress, you start feeling

better about yourself and it just gets better and better and a little easier. And like, and by the end, once I'm throwing, you know, a thousand bucks a month at different things, it just becomes a phenomenal feeling. You feel like you're actually achieving your goals. And like, I mean, last year I was able to max out my Roth IRA for the first time ever. So I can start thinking about retirement, which was not even a possibility before. So, you know, I'm just incredibly grateful. And it's all thanks to you guys. So I appreciate it.

What do you do for a living, man? I manage a couple of sushi restaurants. So if you're ever in Madison, I mean, we've won best sushi restaurant in like seven years. I was going to say, when I think sushi, I think middle America. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Exactly. Above all the lakes.

Yeah. But I mean, we fly our fishing every day man we do it right i bet it's amazing it is yeah we do real well i could i had sushi for lunch i can put a hurtin on a holiday oh dude please it'd be my treat yeah well congratulations brother dude thank you man it was all thanks to you guys i didn't do it you did we didn't do anything but if i didn't find you all i you know i don't even want to think where i'd be right now so thank you it means a ton to me. How does it feel to be free?

Oh, it feels great, man. I can sleep so much better at night. I bought a new set of tires a couple months ago, and I did it without crying. I couldn't have done that a couple years ago. It was wonderful. Tires and crying, they always go together. Yeah, right. What was the hardest thing?

I mean, you're manager of a restaurant. People have expectations of what managers look like what they should be driving how they should be flashing money around what was the hardest thing you had to experience going going through this journey oh well it was like it was a complete lifestyle change because i mean in my 20s you know we'd go out drinking and partying all the time and you know like we were all broke but we thought we were rich you know and then now it's i heard a really good saying once where when you're young, you focus on your earn. And when you're old, you're focused on your burn.

And that's completely true. Like, once I hit my 30s, I was like, I didn't make noticeably more money or anything, but I controlled where I was spending my money. I stopped going out. I stopped drinking. I stopped smoking cigarettes. You know, all these, like, massive, you know, inhibitors on my wealth. And then now it just, you know, I'm reaping the rewards of that. So, it's great.

And you feel better you feel better oh dude i lost like 50 pounds yeah i look better even without the hair yeah you lost 50 pounds too yeah oh yeah dude i changed my whole freaking life man it was nuts it was great wow yeah good for you oh thank you well done proud of you very cool all right what advice do you have to somebody who's listening we just went through a bad breakup with a bad girl and they got some bad debt to go with it uh what are you telling the key to getting out of debt is well i mean if i can do anyone can do it you know i'm not a college educated millionaire or anything like anyone can do it but it's going to be humbling you're not going to enjoy it it's going to be tough but you know if you make your mind up and like you decide you want

to do it and commit to it you know then you can succeed it might take longer than you want but anybody can do it you just got to put the effort out there right yeah and you're making 45 50 000 a year i mean you weren't making 300 000 exactly i did go back to school uh sorry last year so i mean yeah so like i'm making i like where i'm at right now and it's great for a single dude in his 30s but i'm not going to be wanting to necessarily be doing it in my 50s or 60s once i get a little older so i'm going to school to be an engineer so good for you wow hopefully it all works out that'll be a whole shift yeah man hold on let me get this straight you paid off debt in four years and in the process lost 50 lost 50 pounds i fixed my teeth too my teeth were messed up he actually lost about i

don't know um 150 because he got rid of her, too. Yes, right. Your hair, too. But you fix your teeth. You're going to be an engineer. You got a significant raise against your salary, right? Yeah. You've changed everything, man. Yeah. Well, I wasn't happy with the guy in the mirror in my late 20s. Okay. I want you to talk on that. No. Well, I mean, that was, I mean, there was a lot of factors with that. I mean, when I was 22, I lost my father. I didn't have the tools to deal with that. So I became a pretty bad alcoholic, you know, but I mean, we were all in the restaurant industry. We just go out drinking every night. That was just normal commonplace. So, you know, that just all snowballed with all

the debt and just thinking that that was an acceptable lifestyle or sustainable and it completely wasn't. What's it like to be well man oh dude like i said you sleep better i'm happier just weight off my shoulders like when i was in debt it felt like you were drowning or suffocating constantly there was always you know like something minor like hey can we go out to dinner for our anniversary on the weekend like it's like i don't know if we can budget the 100 bucks for that you know like it would just be astronomically horrible but now it's like cool i could i just drove to nashville tennessee on a whim to be on the show and like i'm not sweating it at all and it's freaking wonderful so you know yeah it's just it's so night and day and you know it's just wonderful you changed everything man that's

amazing and then it's not rocket science it's just living within your means and then and having a goal like the big thing in my 20s i didn't have a goal or a plan now i do and i follow it and you're reaping those rewards yeah absolutely yeah it's not a rocket way to go hero congratulations proud of you man thanks for having me on excellent excellent work you're a sharp young dude now well done sometimes turned yourself into one very good good job man that's great transformation i love it i love it it. All right. It's Alan from Madison, Wisconsin. Home of the world's best sushi. $30,000 paid off in four years, making 45 to 55, lost 50 pounds in the process, changed his whole life.

That's the key right there. So proud of you, man. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. One, two, three. I a debt-free scream one two three i'm debt-free that's how it's done right there yeah that thing where he said it's not sustainable that lifestyle is not sustainable it flashed through my mind i've got a new friend of a famous guy who's been off of cocaine for two years.

And I was just asking him the other day. I was asking him. I said, man, how'd you decide? I mean, cocaine's tough. It's a devil, yeah. And how do you break cocaine? And he goes, I just look up, man. And he goes, there are no old cocaine addicts.

Good motivator. Yeah, it takes your soul man that's good motivator yeah you know they're you know it's it's this partying every night this drinking and you know and calling it normal it's not sustainable same thing right same situation there are no old people that do that that have high quality lives and And so you just don't run into those. They're not out there. And I love hearing when people decide to get their money right and they decide to get on a plane, they realize, oh, my weight's like that too, and my relationships are like that too. And then he's looking down at 55-year-old self thinking,

I want to be an engineer. I don't want to be running around restaurant to restaurant. That's amazing, man. It's amazing. Very cool. Very cool. Very cool. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 15, 22.

Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many wise advisors, they succeed. Brian Tracy said, failure is a prerequisite for great success. If you want to succeed faster, double your rate of failure. That sounds painful. Tanner, Tanner's in Lexington. Hey, Tanner, how are you? Hey, I'm doing good, Mr. Ramsey.

Good. How can we help? Yeah, so me and my wife, we're kind of at a financial financial crossroads some decisions coming up um so we we bought a house in 2021 low interest rate you know i'm sure there's people out here in this same situation um but we bought it at with an unfinished basement and over time i've just been paying cash and finishing out the basement and it's almost done just got a couple more things to do and we're looking at either selling the house and taking all the cash from the sale because we should make quite a bit of money on it and downsizing to a house that's coming up available next to my in-laws.

And paying cash for it? And paying off our debts and putting down a huge down payment. But not quite paying cash for the other house. Okay. What's wrong with that? Yes. Well, so we have a car loan. It's about $18,000 and about $50,000 in student loan debt. Okay.

And would you rather sell the house and pay off all of our debts and downsides to that house, or do you think we should rent this house and take our cash that we've saved up and buy that other house and use this property as a rental income to almost pay for the mortgage for the other house. So sometimes a good way to help you with the decision making on that is to reverse engineer it. Let's pretend you were living in a house next to your in-laws, and you were debt-free, and it was almost paid off. Because that's one option, right? Yes.

Okay, let's pretend you're there. Okay. Would you go borrow more on the paid-for house, almost paid-for house, and go borrow $ seventy thousand dollars on cars and student loans to buy a rental house no you wouldn't yeah no effectively that's what you're doing only i just did it in reverse okay by making the decision to not pay off the debt and not put down as much on the other house it's as if you borrowed on those two things to buy the current house and make it a rental does that make sense yes it does okay which that tells me not to do it gotcha okay and i mean and another question is like would you recommend us staying in this house and just um staying here and then

just paying off those debts or well that just has to do with how miserable a human being your in-laws are yeah i was gonna say what's the in-law tax i i have a i have a wonderful in-laws they're great you know who says that people with really scary in-laws she's probably gonna listen to this i know we're trying to get you in trouble it sounds it sounds like the way you presented this dude it sounds like you want to move and it sounds like you've put a lot of work into this thing and it's become a project and you're happy and you're proud of it and kind of hate to let that go you don't want to let it go but also man that money would be nice it would really set you up and transform your life in one fell swoop and i would say think of it this way if somebody said hey if you'll work six months and help me refinish out my basement i'm going to pay off every debt you own and pretty much

get you real close to paying off another mortgage closer to family i'd take that side job you would too right good side job it's a great side. So that's effectively what you've done. That's pretty amazing. Yeah. And got to live there too. So yeah, it's turned out to be a really good investment for you and a good use of your sweat equity to build out that basement and add that finished square footage to the appraisal. And so congratulations, sir.

Well played. Sell it, be debt free, and then have a plan to finish paying off the other little house as quick as you can. All right, up next is Travis in Tampa. Hi, Travis. How are you? Hey, it's a pleasure, Dr. J. Glad to be with you.

Thanks. How can we help, sir? Yeah, so my kids are my second child. Last child is getting ready to graduate very soon. And my wife and I have been following baby steps. We'll say baby steps ish. And, but we are in a good position.

We've paid off a good amount of debt. Recently retired from the military transition, made that transition. Now we're in a financial position where we weren't previously when they were going to school or we would have cashflow their college. Now we're in a position to help pay off their student debt. As they're exiting college, we want to do that, but we also want to stick to the baby steps,

trying to figure out where that falls appropriately in the baby steps. So we're currently in baby step two, should be completely debt three in about the next 60 days based off our salary. And how much student loan debt would you be assisting with? I would be assisting total between the two kids approximately $65,000. Okay. And what's your household income? Household income net is about $280,000,

and that's just recent in the past two years since I've exited the service. Wow. Thank you for your service. I've exited the service. Wow. Thank you for your service. I'm glad you're doing so well. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. So you can do this in a year? Yes, sir.

That's our plan. Yeah. And we're last. Yeah, in our current budget, I did indicate a little ish. You know, spousal participation has been open and and communication has been good not fully uh gazelle intense but uh definitely moving in the direction of of being debt-free like i said and then i like the idea of you guys i like y'all putting your oxygen mask on first and being debt-free in 60 days and then deciding we're going to save up and bless and surprise our kids.

Okay. That makes the most sense to me. I wasn't sure. Does it fall after we start contributing our emergency fund? It depends on whether you want to call it. It's technically not your debt. Right. So technically this is a charitable gift. Correct.

Yeah. And we want to honor that change in our generation we didn't have that opportunity which is why we even had debt with student loan debt that's not true have that opportunity that's not true uh it's part of the it's part of the equation but um you know you you do not have any moral obligation here unless you made one to your kid unless you promised your kid you'd help them pay it but if if you did not, okay, then this is a gift. Yes, sir. And it's not a guilt trip, and you're not morally obligated to do this.

So it's a charitable thing you're doing for your children. There's nothing wrong with that. That's okay. But if you're going to do that, then you place it out there after baby step four, you know, four, five, six, while you're working on that, you get your emergency fund in place. You you're out of debt. And then we save up and just write a major check for Christmas one year. Like John, like John was saying, I think that's a plan.

If you if you had said, I promise to help you pay this when you graduate, then now we've it's not a legal contract but it's a moral obligation i would put it in your debt snowball then in that case no they were fully aware we coached on the options of going to school what that looked like to go to school debt-free they did have that option because we get to them two years of my military benefits for education yeah and they chose to go to schools they couldn't afford. Correct. Yeah. Please do not put your family in further financial jeopardy because you feel guilty.

In fact, I would love, as a guy who's worked with college students for most of my career, I would love for you to sit down with your kids. The surprise would be really fun. That would be cool. But I'd love for you to sit down and say, I want to see you follow a budget and follow a plan, follow FPU for one year after you get your job. I want to see where you are, and I'm going to be willing to.

If you meet X criteria, I'm going to write you a check and pay off your student loans. Yeah. And they have some skin in the game, and I like that investment in their future adulthood, but not this guilt thing, man. Colleges take advantage of another generation. You know, like we have some kind of generational reparation.

You got guilt. You feel guilty that your kids have went to school and you couldn't afford it. And now that you make a bunch of money, you feel like you owe them. You don't. You know, they could have gone to somewhere and not have student loan debt. They made choices, too. So they're in this, too. So, yeah, that's the thing. But it's good. It's good it's very nice you're charitable dad you're in great shape

you're making great money so yeah put yourself in a position you can do something along those lines that'd be my plan good question that puts us out of the ramsey show in the books we'll be back with you before you know it in the meantime remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, folks, Dave Ramsey here. You know, budgeting doesn't have to be boring. You just need a budgeting app that's made with you in mind. And that's EveryDollar. The EveryDollar app has helped millions of people work the baby steps

and take the stress out of planning and managing their money. Start budgeting with EveryDollar for free right now. Just go to RamseySolutions.com slash EveryDollar and download the app today. That's RamseySolutions.com slash EveryDollar.