The Ramsey Show - No More Excuses: Get Your Debt Cleaned Up!

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

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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. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, host of The Ken Coleman Show, number one best-selling author. He's my co-host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Gabriel is starting this hour in Atlanta, Georgia. Hi, Gabriel. How are you?

I'm great, sir. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. How can we help? Well, I just found out that my wife has $70,000 in debt from her previous marriage. And I don't know what to do, sir. She wants to file bankruptcy. And I'm freaking out.

Okay. How long have you been married? Three months. Whoa! Yeah. So you guys didn't talk about money before you got married? Yes. You're saying she hid this from you?

She did, sir. Okay. What is the nature, what kind of debt is it? Okay, so I have all the information here. She was in an abusive relationship, and her ex-husband took everything for her, and they together had a car repo that equals $50,000. She had a car loan that she got screwed that equals $12,000. Had a what? A car loan. A car loan that's got screwed that equals $12,000. Had a what?

A car loan. A car loan that's $50,000. I got that. What was the second thing? It's a car loan that she needed to get a new car for her. Oh, another car loan. Yeah, another car loan. That's right, sir.

And she got $60,000 in collection and $2,000 in credit cards. All right. I'm sorry. I thought you said it was $60,000 in collection and $2,000 in credit cards. All right. I'm sorry. I thought you said it was $70,000. $70,000. That's right. Okay. $50,000 on a car repo?

Yes, sir. Okay. And what's the other $20,000? $12,000 in a car loan. Okay. Do you have the car? Yeah. She does have the car right now.

Okay. She's driving a car? Yeah, she does have the car right now. Okay. She's driving a car around and you're engaged to her and you didn't know it had a car loan on it. I do know that she had this $12,000 car loan. Oh, okay. So you didn't know part of this. And then the other $8,000 is what?

$6,000 in collections and $2,000 in credit cards. Collections on what thousand and credit card collections on what medical bills okay medical good all right and uh and then what was the other what's the fourth one what medical bills and a dog a dog okay yes that's the $6,000. Okay, is there anything? I've got three things, car loan, car repo, $6,000 in medical bills. You got anything else? $2,000 in credit cards. Oh, okay.

And what of this did you not know? Well, pretty much everything besides the $12 dollars uh car loan that she had it that she's still having right now where's the dog uh the dog died funny sounds like a country song yeah yeah it's uh yeah it's a lot of stuff going on yeah what what do you do for gabriel what do you do for a living and what do you make? I'm a banker and I make $23 an hour. Okay, all right. And what does she do and what does she make?

She's a receptionist and she makes the same as me, $23 an hour. Okay, and you're both working. So I would take home pay at $5,000 a month. Yeah, okay. So you're making about 80 grand between the two of you, and you're getting home with about 60. Okay. Yes, sir.

So I really don't know what to do. How old are you two? I'm 23, and she's 25. Okay. How long was she married before? For eight years. Okay. Okay, there's two things here uh first off let's just go ahead and tell you she's not bankrupt not even close okay so bankruptcy is ridiculous we're not

even going to talk about that there's two things to be addressed here if i'm in your shoes in our shoes. In our world, we call this financial infidelity, where a wife or a husband hides and lies about money to their spouse. Okay, it's a breach of trust. And some people in marriage counseling say that this breach of trust is almost as bad and even some say worse i don't know how but than sexual infidelity it's a breach of trust when you betray or you lie to your spouse about 50 freaking thousand dollars it touches the same nerves that infidelity touches do you follow me because it's a breach of trust. Because then you start to wonder, what else can I not trust? What else is going on?

Right? Yeah, I'm very, I really don't know what to do, sir. I try everything that I can, start in DoorDash and drive an Uber, but it's not enough to pay us $50,000. Let me deal with the tactical in a minute. The first thing, are you guys in a good church? Yes, sir, we are. Okay, call the church and set up marriage counseling today.

Because the two of you have to deal with this breach of trust. This is a major issue in your marriage. When you find out three months after you got married that your wife has lied to you about major stuff that's a problem in your marriage okay that's a big one it's a big old problem i'm more worried about that than i am the 70 grand dude you're a banker and you're a nerd so you're more worried about 70 grand so i'm trying to explain to you 70 grand ain't nothing we can take care of that the lying and the deception has got to end there's got to be repentance on that there's i don't know whether it was shame that kept her from telling you or because she's knew you were

gonna freak out or i don't know what it was and why she didn't tell you but that's a big deal yeah i understand and uh she don't want to get in touch with her ex-husband she was very very abused by i don't need to get in touch with him why would we need to get in touch with him to i don't know deal this car repo you're all the way back over on fixing it again without dealing with the marriage problem dude i'm telling you, 80% of this problem is her lying about this. 20% is cleaning up the mess. I can clean up the mess here in no time. But I've got to get you to understand.

Are you going to call the church and get you some counseling today? Yes, I will, sir. Okay, both of you go. Because you've got to explain to her what this did. Because you can't go here again. This is deal-ending stuff stuff it's an integrity breach and so now here's what we're going to do all right it's pretty simple the medical bills are in default they're in collections correct yes sir are the credit cards in collections as well good thing okay and they're cut up is the car loan that she's driving current

let me just uh ask you something sir she got screwed up by these guys sir um her car it's worth it three thousand dollars is the car loan current yes okay pay it off or work your way out of it, depending on what you're going to do there. All the rest of these, Gabriel, can be negotiated with for probably 10 to 15 cents on the dollar. So you've got $64,000 that can probably be settled for $6,000 or $8,000. But you're going to start calling them and offering them 10 cents on the dollar to settle. And every one of them will take it. You're just going to have to hardline negotiate with them and get it in writing before you give them money.

You can work your way through this stuff. Hold on. We're going to put you through Financial Peace University. 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. NMLSConsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100.

Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. No one wins at something unless they do it on purpose. Winning is an intentional act. No one accidentally wakes up and wins a Super Bowl. What happened? I don't know. I just got off the bus. No, that doesn't happen.

It's a series of intentional acts, acts sacrifices disciplines that cause you to win in the world of money one of the things that causes people to win is they actually tell their money what to do instead of wondering where it went that's called a budget you give every dollar an assignment of your income on paper on on purpose, before the month begins, and you agree on it with your spouse. Everyone knows what's going on, and we are in attack mode here. We're going to make this money that we work so stinking hard for behave. You work too hard to be broke.

So we named the world's best budgeting app every dollar because you give every dollar a name, like I said, and tens of millions, literally tens of millions of people are doing their monthly budget with their spouse, each of them on their phone, each of them on their computer, whatever with every dollar. And you can follow through the whole baby steps routine we'll coach you we'll show you what to do and it the thing is robust it lays out each paycheck for you does everything download the every dollar app for free in the app store or go to google play today dylan is in denver hi dylan welcomesey Show. Hey, how are you guys doing today? Better than we deserve.

What's up? So I guess my first question is I have been in debt, self-inflicted several times, once before I have become debt-free, and I came into a situation where I had to move states and the debt began again and I fell back into everything. I'm climbing back out. This time it's quite a bit deeper than before. I ended up in an auto loan and I owe $55,000 on a car that is worth about 40 private party sale. I also have two credit cards that are maxed out at $10,000 and $12,000. And then I have another small personal loan for $3,000. And I am not quite making enough to make ends meet at my eight to nine or I'm sorry eight to

five job so I've been doing side gig work everything I can just to get extra cash flow to try to help pay everything off um how old are you actually I'm 31 what are you making at your day job um i am at 25 an hour so uh before taxes and everything take credit bad credits about 600 bad okay yeah you're single yes sir Yes, sir. Who's the car loan with? It's actually with Toyota Financial. Of course it is. Yep. My interest rate's at 14.59%.

Tundra? Nope. Actually, it was used at BMW. Oh. Yeah. 14 was used at BMW. Oh. Yeah. 14.5. Boy, you wanted this car bad, didn't you? I did. I let that little demon inside of me say,

your want is more than your need right now. I let it win. I think this is a pretty big demon, personally. I agree. I don't think it's a little one. I do agree with that. This guy's a monster. Wow.

If I may, I was actually, just this last Saturday, I was going to a couple dealerships looking to see what a trade-in would be on them, what they would give me, everything like that. The dealership I ended up with, just talking to, I had not done anything. A gentleman I spoke to immediately, I told him exactly what was going on. The first thing he actually did was recommend that I start listening to your dad's show. So I'm appreciative of that. And it's already helped me out with throughout every dollar.

I actually have my budget set and i have a meeting set next week with a personal one-on-one um wow but he uh he recommended that i look into leasing the highest rebate vehicle at a any dealership that gives me the highest trade-in value to help eat the negative equity because of the rebate. And he said he's an avid listener of you guys. And so it's one of those things I'm trying to absolutely destroy everything I have dug myself into. Like I said, I've done it before and I have dug myself into. Like I said, I've done it before, and I couldn't stand it.

Well, I appreciate his referral, but if he actually listens to this show, he knows I would never tell you to do what he told you to do. I apologize for that. Okay, that's okay. You didn't know. You walked into it. But it's interesting because it's interesting that he sent you here because he knows I'm going to tell you to never lease a car under any circumstances and certainly not a new car, especially as a fix for a mess you're in.

Wow. Okay. It feels like a manipulative tactic to kind of go, hey, I listen to Dave all the time. Now let me tell you what I think you should do. What do you do for a living? I work on vehicles. I'm an auto tech. Interesting.

And so you're making 25, I wrote down, you're making 25 an hour. Did I get that right? That's correct, yes. Yeah, I think you've got to work yourself out of this, Dave. I mean, you've got a skill. You've got a legitimate skill that is, you can work on a lot of different things. And I think part of this equation is glad you got every dollar going, glad you're starting to meet with the right people here and get your life under control because you're out of control.

Uh, but you got to work yourself out of this. And I think that's going to really help you, uh, walk through this. You need to feel the pain of digging out of this so that you never do it again, but you have a very marketable skill. I be working since you're single i'd be working 60 70 hours a week fixing certs have you got certifications have you got in auto tech um over over the years that i have been doing it um i'm actually a hybrid transmission specialist do you not think you're being underpaid i i feel like you are um that's uh that's another lovely conversation uh my career my path in auto has changed but in the path i'm in right now uh yes i am extremely underpaid um why why don't you go move um i am actually in the process of finding other shops. I think you're probably a $40 an hour guy, aren't you? I would like to think so.

I never want to assume something like that. I always like to tell myself. It's not a lack of humility. It's just an observation of what you're worth. Absolutely. I appreciate that. I do like to tell myself I don't make as much, so that way I always plan for my paychecks to be less than what they are.

Okay. I want you to work as much overtime as you can, do as much repairs as you can. Your best side hustle is auto repair. Yep. Shade tree. Okay. Shade tree. You've got tools, right?

Yes. Okay. Yeah. You know, anything you can do to gather up shade tree and any work you can do and any overtime you can pick up gather up shade tree and uh any any work you can do and and any overtime you can pick up and a job change and let's get your income up uh to attack this i'm with ken on that then back to the car uh i would run over at the credit union and see if you can borrow fifteen thousand dollars or or maybe better seventeen thousand dollars because you need a two thousand dollar car

when you get i agree when you get rid of this. If you can borrow the difference and sell it, that's going to be your best bet. Your only other option, because Toyota credit's not going to work with you. Yes. Okay, so what you can do then is just begin, if you can't get that done, then say, okay, I'm going to make an extra $2,000 a month, and in seven or eight months I'm going to make an extra two thousand dollars a month and in seven or eight months i'm going to pay the car down to where i can sell it okay and then i'm going to

work my way through the rest of these debts doing the same thing okay and that that was going to be my next question um you know now i've been listening to you guys every day since. Do not buy another car payment. Absolutely. Absolutely. So the gentleman at the other place who referred you to us, thank you for that. But he was recommending another car payment, and you should be sick of car payments and sick of debt. And this should be your last go-round, dude. I agree with that.

I agree with that. I mean, if you get drunk and you go to rehab three different times you should eventually quit drinking and that's kind of what's going on you keep falling off the wagon going right back in i was forced to i fell into none of those things are true you just stood up and pushed your right hand forward if you're right-handed and signed a paper on purpose like a grown person does yeah nobody forced nobody fell there was no accidents here you just straight up did stupid on purpose this show is sponsored by better help this is the season for halloween it's october we're wearing costumes and we're wearing masks if you haven't started planning your costume yet, get on it. And while you're thinking about it, I want you to be honest.

A lot of us hide 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 better help visit betterhelp.com slash deloney to get 10 off your first month that's better help.com slash deloney thanks Thanks for hanging out America. Number one, bestselling author. Ken Coleman is my cohost today on the Ken Coleman show. He talks to people about how, uh, your raise is effective when you are, you want to move up through your career. You got to get better. That's right. You got to grow. You got to add tools to your belt. And sometimes those are coping mechanisms, but sometimes it's the ability to deal

with people. And sometimes people are a struggle to deal with. Yeah. And how do you say it? One of the best parts of leading is people. One of the worst parts of leading is people. Absolutely. Business is easy till people get involved. Yeah. All these theories and stuff, you could just execute them if you didn't, if you could use robots, but no, we get to do it with humans. And, uh, stay tuned, Dave, the robots may be on their way quicker than we know. Here we go. Here we go. Will Smith. Let's go. All right. Gina's with us. Gina's in San Antonio. Hi, Gina. How are you? Hi, so glad to be here. Thank you. How are you guys doing? Better than we deserve. How can we help? So right now I'm on baby step two,

trying to pay off some debt. I have my full-time job and I have a part-time job doing pizza delivery, as you say. So I'm making pretty decent money with my full-time. I'm making about $64,000 before taxes, but I graduated with my MBA two years ago, and I still haven't felt movement in that career path. Right now, I'm currently an admin for a retail company, and it's not very fulfilling. I've been told to kind of stay in the lane right now for business needs, and so not really practicing my creativity, and I don't know really where to go next. I've tried applying to so many jobs, over 100 probably every couple weeks and not really hearing anything back. What's the field you're trying to get into?

So my bachelor's was in marketing, so I really like that. I enjoy consumer behavior, content creation, but I also really like the strategy. So I guess I kind of bounce back and forth just trying to get, I guess as a hungry person after school, trying to get whatever I can to get into that field. Yeah. So when you talk about 100 jobs you're applying for, give me a sense of the level, the type of position you're actually presenting yourself for. What is it? Yeah.

So I've tried doing anything from a marketing assistant to a social media marketer, any of those entry level. I'm not applying for marketing directors or anything. All right. So tell me what the applying process looks like real quick. Give me a 20 second description of all these applications. What's it look like? Okay. So normally it's going through Indeed because I feel like I get the best response there. Then if it's a denial, they're pretty responsive. I tailor my resume towards every position that I'm applying to by going off the description. And I'm not usually getting any interviews. The ones that I'm applying to by going off the description.

And I'm not usually getting any interviews. The ones that I do get are kind of like the sales positions that you have to go door to door and kind of promote, like, let's say, a mental health company to doctors and stuff like that. But nothing that is really in the strategy or content creation side. Okay. All right. So here's the thing. I don't want to discourage you, but I want to encourage you that what you're doing is essentially playing the lottery.

It's the same deal as going and buying your scratch ticket and hope that you hit the lottery. We live in a day and age where it's become easier than ever to apply and your evidence of it, but it's not more effective and you're going to have to go old school. In the old school play, I wrote a book. I'm going to actually give it to you as a gift here when we're finished. It's called The Proximity Principle. And it basically is this simple formula. The right people plus the right places equals opportunity. That's the formula. In other words, if I keep meeting the right people, i.e. people that are in marketing, people who know people who run marketing agencies or work in marketing. So now we're going one degree, could be two degree,

three degrees of separation from everybody you know. This is how you get opportunities. It is the personal connection where somebody says, let me tell you about Gina. I've known her this long. She's this sharp. She's got an MBA. She's hungry, high character. She'll win in the workplace because she's good with people. It's that personal testimony that makes you stand out to where you get the interview and not only get the interview, but you have a very positive impression, which could be a competitive advantage. So you've got to change your strategy. I know you think you've been putting in the right amount of effort, but I would tell you that all the effort has been wrong because you're playing the lottery.

Gene, let me illustrate that for you. At Ramsey, we've got about 1,100 team members in this building with us. We hire about 25, 30, 40 people a month, something like that. Okay. And, um, so that adds up to be like 500 a year, 400 a year, 300 a year. Some of them are growth positions. Some of them are replacing people that have left. Okay. So we lose about a hundred a year.

We have about a 10% turnover ratio, by the way, people in our industry right now have about a 30% turnover ratio. So our turnover ratio. By the way, people in our industry right now have about a 30% turnover ratio, so our turnover ratio is very low. But anyway, so just a few hundred folks actually get a job here. You got that? Mm-hmm. 15,000 applications come in. That's what you're doing. You're throwing your name in that stack.

There's no chance you get hired here in that. I mean, almost none. Almost none. It would have to be a very unique, weird thing that happened. What does happen from time to time is somebody that works here knows somebody, and they say, listen, I can vouch for their character, and we don't hire people because of that, but we will talk to them because of that. You get out of the stack of 15,000.

And that's what the proximity principle is. That's what Ken's talking about. It's not the only way we hire people. And I've never hired one because someone told me to ever but I have talked to people and considered hiring them because someone told me to lots of people over the years and almost every month that happens and so we do some stuff with indeed we do some stuff with internal recruiting we do some other stuff but by far our most successful stuff is internal referrals Gina I want to do a follow-up question did I hear you say in your current company where you're We do some other stuff, but by far our most successful stuff is internal referrals.

Gina, I want to do a follow-up question. Did I hear you say in your current company where you're a receptionist that they told you to stay in your lane? Did I hear you say that? Yes, you did. Yeah, it was an admin position, so I do reporting and travel and stuff like that. Was that said as a derogatory thing or was it said be patient and maybe there's an opportunity here? That's what I'm trying to discern. Well, when I was brought on, it was told that it would happen. And then they kind of told me to be patient, I guess, in a way just for now. But I mean, business changes all the time. Well, how long ago was that? How long ago was that that

you came on and they told you to be patient? About five months ago. Okay, Gina, listen, I struggle with patience, okay, and I'm middle-aged. It's been five months, Gina. So they told you, come in in this role, and there might be an. This is a completely different department. It's like a support group. They were just saying I could take on creative projects to kind of practice my skills and to make sure that I keep them. I keep networking with marketing teams within the company and I feel like I'm getting friends there, but I feel like I've also been told that if you leave a company, sometimes you end up getting a more raise and better experience. Okay. All right. So hold on. Let me address that. So Gina, let me address that. I'm in that data every day. I'm on Fox Business all the time. Fox talking about this stuff. I'm telling you, I just saw a report. What was happening during the great resignation is no longer happening. The 15, 20% bump for changing jobs, it's no longer a reality in our current

marketplace. So you are getting old data. I got to tell you, I want you to do both and. All I want to encourage you on is to do what I've to tell you, I want you to do both. And all I want to encourage you on is to do what I've already told you to do and what Dave's told you to do. But I also want you to keep working in the company because that is an inside track for you. You're already in the building. Here's one other thing I'd add to that. Why don't you go when taking lunch and coffee, as much as you can afford people in the marketing department, your current company, why don't you say, Hey, is there something that I could do that is just helping you? I will volunteer above and beyond my normal workload that I'm responsible for. Nights, weekends, is there a project? Can I

jump in? I'll roll my sleeves up and I'll help you take some load off of your back, okay, just because I want to help because I love this work. And let me tell you something, that's very attractive. So I'd start to offer that. Keep connecting within your current company. Don't take your foot off that pedal. And also, don't miss the opportunity that sometimes we're five months in, Gina. Five months. Hang in there while you're hustling on the outside. Yeah, you're doing all the right stuff. We're going to send you a copy of this book. And I did not hear this from you, but in case you folks are out there and you might be saying this, sometimes when you have a newly acquired degree, you think that is the magic bullet. Your degree is absolutely worthless the knowledge that you got getting

the degree is what gives you value but the degree is not a silver bullet it's not going to open doors and make this easy you are the secret sauce go get it these, it's not if your identity gets stolen, it's when. And the only ID theft protection plan I have ever recommended is from Zander Insurance. It helps real people with real-life situations. Like the call we got on the show recently where a woman's abusive ex opened a credit card in her name and racked up over $8,000 in debt. Then the bank sued her, even though the charges weren't hers. What a mess. With Xander's help, she was able to get the entire

nightmare cleared up, and now her family is officially debt-free. Listen, Xander's Identity Theft Protection is the best option out there. They have all the cyber tools and monitoring services you need. They cover all types of ID theft, and they even include up to $2 million in stolen funds protection. In the end, though, you need an ally, someone on your side to take over the work and fix the problem. That's what Zander is all about. Go to Zander.com to learn more or call 800-356-4282. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, career, job, personal growth expert, is my co-host, number one best-selling author of several books.

Yeah, he's here to help you guys, including the last young lady. She's a sharp young lady. Yeah. That was very cool. Good call. Good call. Open phones at 888-825-5225. We could use your help, and a bunch of you have been helping us.

Thank you for that. Apparently, in the world of the Internet, things like YouTube or Spotify or Apple podcasting world and broadcast world in that world, if you subscribe or you follow, it messes with their mathematics over there, their algorithm, and they causes them to tell people about us. And you're doing that because lots and lots and lots of new people are here, like a bunch. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thanks for spreading the word, in other words. And share the show. Click the share button. If you hear something funny or sad or inspiring, it and send it to somebody informative click it and send it to somebody cut the link out if you're listening on talk radio thank you tell people where you're

listening so share the show and leave a nice five-star review that helps a bunch too all this affects the mathematics guys and it helps us and by the way you're our only marketing plan so word of mouth if we suck you guys aren't going to tell anybody or you'll tell people we suck and we'll be out of business if we do good and we help you and you tell people then we get more folk to help and that's why we're here so life is good katie's in phoenix hi katie welcome to the ramsey show hi thank you for taking my call sure what's up um so my husband and i are currently on baby step two um and we're about to set up um our well we haven't uh done anything like that before so so we're doing that. My question is, we do have a two-year-old son and another little one on the way. Do we need to set up a trust for them and then put that

on our life insurance and in the will, or is that like a testamentary trust that's in the will enough what i did when our kids were that age and what i recommend is a family trust that is formed at your death okay and then you wouldn't and you give that trust a name in the will the instructions of the will are upon our, if both of you die, okay? In other words, if you die, your husband's going to take care of things. If he dies, you're going to take care of things, okay? So there's that part. But then if you both die, that's what we're worried about.

And we're going to name it, you know, the Katie Trust or whatever we call it, okay? And, you know, your family name, whatever it is, Children's Trust. And you call it whatever you want. It doesn't matter. And then you name the beneficiary, the secondary beneficiary, not the primary, on the life insurance policy to be the trust. The primary beneficiary would be your husband for your life insurance would be you for his life insurance.

The secondary, meaning if both of you died, it would go to this trust. And the trust is only formed upon your death. Okay. Okay. Now, once you've done that, so let's say that between two of you had a million bucks and you left a million bucks in the trust, you got a couple of babies. Well, then you say, okay, who's the guardian of the children? You need to put that in the will. And that can be the same person that manages the trust,

or it can be a separate person. It's ideal for it to be two people. One manages the kids, one manages the money for the good of the kids. That way nobody gets confused. Okay, yeah, I hadn't thought about that. Okay. And then in the trust, I'll tell you some of the stuff we put in ours at the time, our kids are grown, so all that went away.

It only worked, we only used it while they were minors. Okay. So now it's just left to them. Okay. Today. So it's there because they're grown people. And so, but, and it's much more complicated because we've got a bunch of crap. But anyway, but the inside

of a children's trust like that you can name uh we had stuff like i want the million dollars and put into four mutual funds i want you to contact this person our smart investor pro to help you pick the four mutual funds i want the four mutual funds to have 10 year track records one growth one growth and income one aggressive, and one international, or two of each category. And then the income off of that is to be used at X number of dollars to be sent to the person who's taking care of the children to give them monthly support. Okay, so we're going to send them $5,000 a month off of this account or whatever it is for monthly support and then when they turn 16 some of the money can be used to pay half of their car they need to save the other half the uh and work for it then then when they if they have

a major medical event some of the money could be used to cover a major medical event of a child when they go to college some of the money could be used to pay for college, and whatever money's left after they graduate from college, we left it to them. Okay. Whatever it wasn't used up to care for them as they grew, went to college, got a car, had a medical, whatever, okay? And that's how ours was set up. Again, all of that evaporated and is gone because we outlived the need for that. Yes. But that's how we structured every bit of that. You can do that with an attorney.

You can do it with mama bear legal forms, either one. But it gives you a lot of peace to know. And you talk through, okay, it makes you stop and think, who do you want raising your kids? Oh, yeah. It's a big deal. That's why you need a will. And I would add, Katie, once the kids are old enough to understand the concept of all this, I think it's really wise to sit down and explain it to them. What a wild lesson for them to really

get the responsibility that you've taken on their behalf. And I believe that will be transferred on. I think it's a wonderful life lesson. Once they grasp it to explain what you've done for them, I believe they'll pass it on and really appreciate it. And so we obviously sat down with the people that were identified to take care of the children, the guardians, and said, okay, there's going to be this number of millions of dollars over here, and here's the terms on it. It's going to send you money to take care of them so they're not a financial burden for you to take on. As a matter of fact, they're going to be a blessing, but it's not going to be $50,000 a month. It's going to be enough to take care of them and not cost you money as a result of having the kids and if i have a problem they'll be able to cover the medical and if you don't have to worry

about a car so you it's gonna cost you guys nothing yep you're you know you probably actually might pocket a little bit out of this it might might be but it's not you're not gonna make you rich to raise these kids but it's not gonna to cost you anything to raise these kids and so then they know that's going on and then the trustee knows what your intentions are and you've talked that through the trustee so you don't die and then everybody has to figure out this is what you're trying to do you cover all of it while you're alive yeah we did the same and and it's it is there's a great piece. It's sobering, too. It is.

It's heavy. No question. Yeah. Wow. Leslie's with us in Yuma, Arizona. Hi, Leslie. How are you? Hello, Dave.

Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I have a question about owner financing and balloon payment. My elder parents are asking me for advice. They've been trying to sell a house that they own in another state for months, and finally they received an offer for owner financing.

The house was originally listed for $179,000, and the offer is a purchase price of $200,000 with $15,000 down, financing five-year balloon payment of $513 a month. Run away quickly. Okay. This is somebody who went to some weekend Get Rich Quick seminar. They're overpaying for the house. They're not putting enough down to where they lose anything.

And when they hand the keys back to your elderly parents, they will have stripped the house out. Okay. No, run. Run. And you know what the the realtor she said oh this looks like a good idea and i said yeah looks like a good idea to fire your realtor yeah i think i'm getting a different realtor it's not a good idea no no no no no no no no because they'd be better off to rent it

because then they still own it. And they don't have to foreclose to take it back later when this goober runs off to wherever. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm going to pay you $200,000 for $179,000. That's $30,000 more than it's worth, or $21,000 more than it's worth. But I'm going to put down $15,000,

which means we're still not even into the value. Okay, if you're that desperate to buy a house, there's something wrong with you. Hello? Yeah. Run. Run. I have a friend that says, when in doubt, don't. This is The Ramsey Show.

Do you ever feel like you're finally making progress towards your goals only to get quickly distracted by something else in your feed? Well, that's why we created the Ramsey Network app, your single source for content that keeps you motivated. The Ramsey Network app is designed to keep you laser focused on reaching your goals. Loaded with over 7,000 hours of Ramsey shows, this free app is the best place for uninterrupted content and no distractions. Plus, you can search specific questions to get more personalized content in seconds.

So, for the days you need some extra motivation, you'll have proven advice at your fingertips. It's time to get serious about your goals and shut out the distractions for good. Simply search Ramsey Network in the App Store or Google Play. If you're listening on a podcast, just click the link in the show notes to download our free Ramsey Network app today. 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 i'm dave ramsey your host ken coleman ramsey personality number one best-selling author, host of the Ken Coleman Show, is my

co-host today. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Ava's in Colorado Springs. Hi, Ava. How are you? I'm okay, Dave. How are you today? Better than I deserve.

What's up? Well, thanks for taking my call. I'm a little nervous, and it's kind of a lot, so I'm going to try to summarize it because I know time is of the essence on phone calls like these. My husband of over 30 years has left me. It's the third time in five years he's left. And he's told me that if I do not help him get a HELOC on the house for over a hundred thousand dollars, he'll file a divorce for divorce. And, um, I, I'm just really scared and I'm not exactly sure what to do. Um, I don't want to do that.

And I, I won't do that. Um, I won't use our house, you know, in that way. And I'm just, I have a little bit of savings but i don't have enough to maintain the bills and pay a lawyer are you are you living in the house i am he left i was yeah my he left and i'm sorry I'm trying to figure out how to maintain everything he just started a new job and so why does he want a helo

he says it's because he wants to buy some land and a race car a sports car I'm so sorry yeah and i'm just not really sure how to proceed because i can't i don't have enough money right now to hire an attorney and pay the bills because he is no longer getting a paycheck because he just started a new job he used to get you know auto pay and then this all just happened when does this pay

start at the new place now um he hasn't given me any details i've asked specific questions via email and he has not given me specifics okay and you you don't work outside the home i do actually um i make quite a bit less than he does. And anywhere between, I mean, last year, so I'm a realtor. Last year, my business took a loss. This year, I'm probably tracking, you know, to make around $40 right now and, you know, hoping and working towards more. Mm-hmm. Okay.

All right. Do you have family in the area? I do. Okay. Good family in the area? I do. Good family or toxic? I have really, really good family. I just don't want to, you know, I just want to, I don't want to put this on other people. It doesn't feel... Do you have children that are grown? They're grown. Yeah.

Where are they? Here and then one is out of state as well. Are you in a good church? I used to be. I am not currently, but I am in the Word. I read my Bible every night. I read my devotional every day and pray. I wasn't trying to judge you.

I was just trying to figure out who's around you that can love you well. That's all I was trying to figure out. Yeah, yeah. I'm just trying to figure out who's around you that can love you well. That's all I'm trying to figure out. Yeah, I understand. You've got kids, you've got family, and you could plug back into a church, or if not that church, to have people around you to walk with you through this, because you feel very alone. I can hear it. Yeah. It's unsure how to proceed. If I hire an attorney, I won't have enough money to pay the mortgage. If I don't hire an attorney, I feel like I'm going to end up, you know, you need to call today and get an appointment with an attorney because part of his paycheck when he gets it is going to go to you immediately during a legal separation in Colorado. Okay. So this idea that you're somehow,

uh, that he gets to keep all of his money and go play wherever he wants to play when he's been married for 30 years is not true. It doesn't work that way in any state. So I'm not an attorney, but you've got a lot more, uh, things you can do, um,

to get the short term cash issues, which are scaring you. So when he starts getting a check, some of it's going to be yours immediately if you get a good attorney. I want to follow up, Ava. Is this a pattern of a threat associated with the other times that he's done this? He's done this before. Is it always kind of after he threatens you or in conjunction with some type of a threat, a manipulation? I think a manipulation is a good

way to put it. I think he. Yeah, I think he's I think it's this is I think this is emotional extortion. I think he's full of crap. And I'm with Dave. I'm going to I'm going to I'm not in any way. I agree with all Dave's advice. I'm going to say something kind of like, I'm going to act like your brother, like you're my sister. And this guy, this guy, I think, is a punk. I think he's a coward. No real man does this. This is straight up manipulation, emotional extortion. I'd call his bluff because i see a pattern here you said three to five times he's done this i thought is that right dave you've done this you've done this longer than me dave am i off on this i feel like there's something where she could call his bluff while she does what so the bottom line is there's nothing he can do except give you some of his money immediately. Yeah.

I don't think he has anything over you. So, you know, other than if you want to stay married to the guy, which if you do, there's going to be extensive counseling needed. Yeah. Because I would not send you back into this situation again. I agree. And you're certainly not going to cave, and you already told me you weren't going to cave to this ridiculous demand. No, I can't. I would never do that. It is ridiculous. So what is the home worth?

I would say it's worth between $1.3 and $1.4 million. What do you owe on it? Under six. Okay. All right, cool. So, you know, you're going to get a lot of money when it sells and you're going to start a new life with a broken heart because things didn't turn out like you thought they were going to and um there's some grief that goes with that um that's very real um and you're probably going to get a substantial portion of his income coming to you. It's called alimony.

Okay. And guess what? He didn't get a race car. That's exactly right. Which I just hate. I hate that a lot. That was sarcasm. I would remind Tim Ava what Dave's telling you.

Like, okay, I'll play. Then get your alimony payment figured out and get everything figured out on this. Yeah. We're going to sell the house, and you're going to get a portion of that. I'm going to get a big portion of your 401K from the last job, and I'm going to get a big portion of your check going forward called alimony.

And so you're going to wish that you hadn't thought of this idea when you're done. Yeah. And the problem is he's not a keeper. I wish he was. Unless you have dramatic repentance on his part and some real strong counseling, this is not a key. It's not going to work out.

I'm so sorry. It's been heartbreaking here for 30 years. Wow. Well, actually, you said it started five years ago. It's probably 20 years. The last 10 have not been good years. But I'm so sorry. And then you're going to go make millions of dollars in the real estate business,

and you'll have a wonderful life, and he's going to realize how bad he screwed up. Gosh, I'm so sorry. Yeah, go get an attorney today. The attorney will talk to you without putting down $10,000. And when you tell them where he works and they can get in touch and they can start getting some of his money, they'll help you gather up the money to get there. You got a lot of equity to get their retainer. Hey guys, George Campbell here. As a new dad, I see a lot of things in a new light. The cost of diapers, the value of sleep, and how crucial it is to have a will.

Because if something happens to me, I don't want my family stressing about the details. And that's why I recommend making a will with Mama Bear Legal Forms. A will gives you peace of mind knowing things will be taken care of the way you want, instead of a random probate judge deciding who gets your fine china or precious moments collection. Looking at you, Aunt Shirley. If you think you're too busy, you don't have enough time, no excuses here. I completed my will in just 20 minutes with their easy online process. Plus, if something comes up, you can make changes to your will for free for up to six months until you're completely satisfied. And listen, there's a lot of online will companies out there, but what's great about Mama Bear is that there's no membership, no subscription, no upselling. The price is the price. And if you love a good deal like me,

go to mamabearlegalforms.com right now and save 20% with promo code Ramsey. That's mamabearlegalforms.com, promo code Ramsey. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Alice is with us in Houston. Hi, Alice. How are you? Hi, sir. Good.

Thank you. Good. What's up? Okay. So I'm on baby step two, and I have a very expensive car. It was $67,000. It's a 2024. It's electric, so I don't have to waste any money on gas.

That's the one good thing about it. But I still owe $41,000 on it right now. I owe $151,000 on my house, and those are my only two debts. I take home $70,000 from work. $20,000, my boyfriend lives at my house and pays half the bills. And then $10,000, my kid gets Social Security disability from his father. And so he got a back payment of $25,000, and it's been almost a year now. And I've had that put up.

He also has, like, saving since he was little. He has $5,000. This is my kid. So $5, 000 from me saving 25 from his dad's social security and then i have another kid she only has one in like a 2000 so do i use their money to pay off my car or do i just leave their money alone because that's technically borrowing money and just make my money and pay my stuff. I can pay off my car really fast. You said the car's worth 67 and you owe 41? No. I bought it for 67. When I look at KBB,

it's between 45 and 48. And you owe 41 on it? And you make seven. Yes, sir. I take home 70. Yes, sir. I'll get all the way fast. I do not at all like the way that feels, taking your kids' money to clean up your mess. It's ridiculous. It's awful. No, no. Because you bought a car that you can't afford. I'm going to make sure.

You bought a car you can't afford. Okay. I got it. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. No, yeah. Listen, here's the thing, Alice.

Things with motors and wheels go down in value rapidly. And so one of the guidelines we use for wealth building is don't have more tied up in things with motors and wheels all added together. If you've got boats and motorcycles and side by sides, whatever it is, add them all together. They should not be more than half your annual income. And if they are, you have too much going backward to prosper because you're losing your butt on everything with motors and wheels, including what you're driving. And so you've got more than half your annual income tied up in this car.

It's worth $48. You only make $70. Well, actually, it in this car it's worth 48 you only make 70 well actually it's your take-home so you probably make 90 so you're right around half so if you want to keep the car you're probably right on the bubble but you really bought a car you shouldn't have bought that's the bottom line and so uh either sell it and move down or pay it off very quickly. But, no, I would not use your children's money. Just because, you know, if you were calling me up and you said, you know, I'm raising these children and this Social Security money covers the cost of raising the child and, you know, we're doing some other things. I have many times told people to use that money.

It's not their money technically. It comes in their name, but what you get from Social Security, even if it's back pay total, is not what it costs to raise a child. So you spend more on the child than they're getting. So if you use that money in your monthly budget, I usually tell people that's okay, but I'm not going to do that if I'm in your shoes to pay for something I shouldn't have bought in the first place. That's more for survival and for month-to-month bills that I'm talking about. And this is far

from survival. This is a luxury item that you couldn't afford and and now we're trying to clean it up with their check no I would never do that ever Alex is with us in New York hi Alex how are you all right hi mr. MCS pinch-watched a lot of your shows this last year. So when we decided to buy a house, we decided to do the Ramsey way and throw all of our money at it. But as the closing approaches at the end of the month, I'm getting nervous that we will basically have no money left and, quote, have all the eggs in the same basket.

I'm wondering whether we should take a mortgage or should we just use all our cash? How much is the purchase price on the house? It's $990. How much money do you have? I think about $1.1 right now. So you'll have like $100,000 left over and you own a million dollar house. Yeah, but like you said, a good growth fund would increase at 7-10% per year and houses

doesn't seem to appreciate the same rate. So like people have been telling me especially recently to not put all the money in the house. I don't know if that's why. There's a lot of broke people with opinions about other people's money. So what people have been telling you, I couldn't give a crap less about. So you had decided up until people got involved to pay cash, right? Yeah. What was it that was got involved to pay cash, right? Yeah. What was it that was motivating you to pay cash?

Well, I mean, we actually never took how much debt for anything. Why? What was your motivation? Why pay cash? I don't know, to save interest. Okay. So we don't have to save interest. Okay. So we don't have to pay interest. And payments. And payments.

What's your household income? That's $350. Without a house payment and no other payments in the world, you should be able to build cash very, very quickly, shouldn't you? I hope so. Well, no, I mean, build cash very, very quickly, shouldn't you? I hope so. Well, no, I mean really, mathematically. It's not a hope. It's a math formula.

$350 minus no payments equals a lot of money. Right? There's still property tax and like that. Where did the 1.1 come from savings oh so you already know how to do this and yet you're arguing with me no no no i'm telling you you know how to save money you saved up 1.1 on 350 and now you're going to have no payments on our on your housing which you don't have now you're paying something on housing now. And so I'm saying it's really easy to stack cash, and you're going, I don't know.

Well, yes, you do. You saved up 1.1. You already know how to do this. And it's going to be even easier without a house payment. Alex, I'm going to tell you what I think has happened here. I think your values led you the right direction. Your values have driven you to an unbelievable position of having 1.1 cash for a home. And you ran into somebody who has some

influence in your life and they're starting to mess with your head. But your values and your gut were right on the whole time. And now influences are messing with you. Isn't that what's happening? Maybe, I think so. Yeah, I'm here to tell you that's exactly what's happening also it's a very huge purchase that makes me yeah yeah but remember you just told dave the reason you didn't want to have a mortgage is because of the payments if you put a mortgage on it's still a huge purchase it's true and it's the matter of fact there's two huge purchases a mortgage and a house yeah yeah yeah so i listen either don't buy the house and walk away from the deal or pay cash if i were in your shoes sir that's what i would do and you are going to have millions and millions of dollars as a result of that advice if you

listen to me because without a house payment you with a house payment or with rent, you've already saved up with your income 1.1. You're already in a stellar saver. And so you're going to rebuild this so, you have another million dollars in cash laying around so fast, so fast. I mean, just please do it. Please do it. Wow. It's interesting.

I guess when you walk out the first time and you have to step on something that you didn't, that you've never stepped on before, you have to step into something you've never been before. That's right. It's naturally, it's the first time he bought a million dollar property. That's a lot. Yeah. And his friends played into, they weren't trying to manipulate, but they played into that fear by giving him an option. And now you can kind of rationalize the fear. No, they didn't give him an option. They shamed him.

Might have been, yeah. Like, what kind of idiot are you? You're getting a mortgage, man. Nobody does that. Nobody pays cash. What are you listening to, some hillbilly in Tennessee? Come on, man. And that allows him to rationalize the fear.

Then you go, I don't know. Now I'm suddenly unsure. I'm the guy with $1.1 million allows him to rationalize the fear. Then you go, I don't know. Now I'm suddenly unsure. I'm the guy with $1.1 million in cash, and I'm unsure. Yeah. Come on, Alex. You got this, man. You got it. You can do it.

This is The Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts, and you'll get 10 different answers. Economic growth or a recession. Business taxes will go up or down. AI will help us work or it will replace us all. But there's no such thing as a crystal ball. That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future-proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud enterprise resource planning system. Ramsey Solutions uses NetSuite, and you should too. Whether your company's earning millions or

even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. With one unified business management suite, there's only one source of truth for the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. NetSuite's real-time insights and forecasting help you see into the future with actionable data. And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you can spend less time looking backward and more time focusing on what's next. And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Today's question comes from Gary in Louisiana. I'm in my mid-40s and I'm a senior executive at a publicly traded company. My wife is also successful in her field.

We have no debt except for our mortgage, which I can pay off from expected bonuses and maturing vested accounts. I'm starting to burn out and have side interests that could become full-time work for me. Is there a rule of thumb for how much cash cushion you should build before you jump off and start your own business? For instance, should I have a certain number of years of living expenses in savings? I feel a bit silly asking this question because I feel like the answer is go, go, go. But I'm also in my peak earning years and don't want to be foolish about the amazing resources I've been given at my current job. Well, a rule of thumb for me on how much money I like to give people advice to have, if you're going to jump into your side business, I'd want to have 12 months of living expenses in the bank. And that's because I just don't want people to have the pressure to survive when going into working for themselves. It's hard enough to be a solopreneur or to run a

business without the pressure of trying to eat. In this case, in your situation, because of your financial situation, I'd also say I'd want the side hustle to be making 70. A rule of thumb for me would be a minimum of the side hustle earning 75% of your current income. That would be minimum for me, not ideal, minimum. So minimum 75% of income and then 12 months of your living expenses in the bank so that essentially you've got that pipeline of business built up in that you're making a good chunk of your current salary, and we have a very strong account of retained earnings, is what we call that here at Ramsey Solutions, in that business account. That would be, for me, a bare minimum. Other than that, I think it's too risky. And again,

I just don't want the pressure of this side business feeding me. I want to know that it's mature and it's proven. Yeah, when I get desperate shortly after that, I usually get stupid. Yeah, you change your words. People say stupid things about starting their own business, like take the leap, jump into it. So what Ken is describing is you pull the boat up next to the dock and you step into it. And then you actually won't need any of your money you have set aside because you're going to be earning almost as much. And soon after that, we'll be earning more than you used to earn because you got the business growing on a trajectory and it's almost there

already but you can take the step not the leap or the jump by pulling the boat close to the dock but too often what we see is the boat is um it's 100 yards out and you come running down the dock and leap like you can make it or something. And all you gets wet. Okay. You're just jumping in. That's all you're doing. It's dumb. And so that's not what you're describing, Gary. You're describing wisdom and thinking through this and all that.

But in other words, I wouldn't start. I wouldn't say if you had five years saved up and zero income production yeah on the side hustle and you quit a perfectly great day career hoping yeah see that's a leap of faith that's unwise and that's kind it's actually foolish that's what it is so uh you don't do that so there's because you could burn through any amount of money if you have no replacement income so the more replacement income you have the less pad you need let's pretend let's be crazy for a second let's pretend that his side hustle took off all of a sudden before he realized it did and he was making 150 percent of what he makes now. How much savings would he need? None.

That's exactly right. You're getting a raise, right? You wouldn't have to have a year setback. You wouldn't have to have anything setback. But if you're going to go with that 75% guideline that Ken's talking about, then I completely agree with the one year. And six months of that's your emergency fund. Six months is set to the side just to cover cash shortages where you're going to burn

yeah if you have any cash shortages and of course the other thing you've done wisely is you're out of debt and you guys are you know your wife has a good career which also will help you make this step yeah i agree what we're preaching here is moderation, patience, hold. If you're running a business already, guys, like we've got profit centers all through Ramsey. We have different things we do here, publishing, live events, broadcast, all these different things here. They're all different profit centers.

We don't leap here. That's right. You know, I'm already running a business, and let's just go see if we can lose $10 million. Heck no, man. No, I mean, we, what we do is we do little, we trust that we want to prove the concept. I call it proof texting, right? I want to test market. I want to prove the concept before I bet the farm on it. And you're, that's all you're doing with your business. You're proving the concept by actually making money doing it. It's no longer a freaking theory. It's not a dream.

You're a dream killer, Dave. No, I'm a nightmare killer. I'm all about you living your dreams, but I'm not going to help you with your nightmares. And people jumping when they have zero income on the side hustle, that's a nightmare. It's unwise. And it's not that Dave doesn't – yeah, I'm completely entrepreneurial.

I'm the biggest capitalist pig you will ever meet. I love capitalism. I love taking a reasonable risk for an awesome return. I do it every day, and I want that for you guys. Lisa's with us in Toronto. Hi, Lisa, how are you? Oh my gosh. Hi, Dave. Hi, Ken. I'm super excited to be talking to you. I love your show. I listen to it every day. So I have a question, obviously. So I am 53 years old and I just downsized into a home that is leaving me mortgage free. So I'm really excited about that.

I have no debt except for like $2,500 because of my move. And I have a boyfriend and we are talking about him moving into my home. And a couple of options that we're thinking about. One is that he pays for half of the house and then he's on the deed or the title, whatever. But he's super, so we're're both divorced i have my kids every other week he's super gun shy because we've both been burnt and um how long have you been dating five years when do you get not gun shy it's it's been a thing i'll be honest i mean i get it if it's five months but dude painter get off the ladder yeah i agree okay no you do not deed your paid for house to mr gun shy yeah not

a chance okay so this was the other because he was talking about he paid for half i don't care you do not want to own a house with people you're not married to okay that's freaking a nightmare so so what i was thinking get married well there's that there's that solves the whole issue. So, um, so another option would be, and I don't know if I like this one any better, but him moving in, selling his house, of course. And then, you know, we split the bills and then if there's any house improvements, then we each pay for half and take it out of a separate bank account so we can keep track of it. And then if things go terribly wrong, then, okay, here's your half of what you put into the house.

You don't have to worry about how much the house is increased in value. I'm exhausted hearing that. Did you hear what you just said? I did. I did. This is an awful lot of work to say that we're that we still aren't ready to get married yeah so here's what i think you called to ask and i'm sorry but i'm duty bound to love you well i i love you but i think

i i think you guys this is what this is bringing up is you need what the old teenagers used to call in the 80s a define the relationship moment. That's what I was thinking. I think we need to decide what we is. Okay. Y'all are trying to be something halfway, and it's not working for you. It's way too much work. I think you either need to get on or get off. Let's decide.

Are we going to get married? If we are, then we can talk about combining assets and incomes, and that's what married couples should do. People who are shacking up should not do any of that, ever. He should not move in if he's not going to get married. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Well, don't miss your chance, and the window is closing.

The rooms are running out to join us on the Live Like No One Else cruise. We're going to be on a very high-end, very nice Holland America, fairly new, almost new ship. 100% of the ship will be ramsey people it'll be all the ramsey personalities the whole week including sharon and i my friend steven curtis chapman dove award winner multiple grammy award winner multiple be there performing with us uh manit shohan from the food channel will be there uh dina carter famous country music artist remember the song strawberry wine she'll be with. It's going to be a great cruise.

It's the Live Like No One Else cruise because after you've gotten out of debt and you're on baby step four, five, six, or seven, that's when you start doing things like vacations, and you live like no one else so that later you can live like no one else. We want you to come. We want you to be part of it. The stops are incredible. It's a full seven-day cruise, Turks and Caicos, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, Bahamas.

Absolutely incredible. March 22 through 29 of 2025. So it's coming up here in about nine or ten months. And we, goodness, we would love to have you with us. But it's almost sold out. Just got a handful of rooms left, and we would love to have you with us, but it's almost sold out. Just got a handful of rooms left, and we would love to have you. So put down a $600 deposit, and you can hold the room before they're gone. I highly suggest you do that quickly.

Book yours at ramseysolutions.com slash cruise. We'd love to have you. ramseysolutions.com slash cruise. Lindsay is with us. Lindsay's in Salt Lake City. Hi, Lindsay. How are you? Hi, wonderful.

Thank you. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Thank you for taking the time to help me. I am a recently widowed 50-year-old, and I am trying to figure out if i should go back to school to increase my income and have financial stability how long ago how long ago did he pass um february oh my

goodness how long were y'all married uh 30 years oh i'm so sorry honey thank you what happened um he went into um um sorry i'm uh it's okay uh he went into respiratory arrest so it was um very unexpected and um sudden so sudden. So, yeah. I'm so sorry. So you were at home full-time before that? No, actually, I have always worked. We have three kids, and always kind of balanced the kids and work, but I am self-employed, and it's so... What do you do now? You know, I'm a physical rehab therapist. Okay. And how old are the kids? 22, 20, and 16.

Okay. So you've got a teenager at home. I do. Okay. What's your financial situation? Any kind of life insurance, debt? What's that look like? So I have $200, 000 sitting in a five percent interest

account at a credit union um i have 90 000 in a 401 and i have 30 000 sitting in a savings at a credit union um and um no debt um house was paid for and it's not paid for um uh i owe 225 on it right now at 3.37 um and um what do you currently make what do you currently pay yourself out of your business yeah it's i i uh about 50 000 a year is what my business makes. And basically, I take that. It's a very, very small business. Have you run? And so we always relied on his. Sure.

What was his income? $90,000 a year. Okay. Have you run some numbers on your budget to kind of drive this question on, should I go back to school to increase my income? In other words, what do you believe you need to increase your income by? So you go from 50 to what? Do you need that for margin? I mean, give us the real, real on this. So the real, real is I've been doing what I do for 25 years, and we knew that my hands could only take it for so long and we knew that was kind of winding

down. My goal was to take my experience and my passion for what I do and turn it into being a hospice nurse. So still working with people and helping them and I was going to obviously be able to take my time to do that. Um, so this is more of now I need to stop doing what I do, um, because I have no security in what I do. Um, there is no guarantee in my job, uh, physically or financially. And I, um, what kind of timeframe do you think you have on your hands? Your, the, the physical ability to do this. I, I mean, I was planning on kind of time frame do you think you have on your hands, the physical ability to do this? I mean, I was planning on kind of starting a transition this year. Okay. So I've got a thought here, but one other question.

Have you looked into what it would cost? And I don't mean name brand school. I mean, what's the cheapest that you can get qualified to be a hospice nurse? Yes. So it would be a community college, and the program to do that would be, I believe it was $16,000. But I have to take all the prerequisites to get into the program. So it's going to be a couple of years before I even do that. Okay. So two years and $16,000 total? Mm-hmm.

Okay. Well, so here's the deal. That's for the RN program, though. Got it. But, Lindsay, you've got the cash. So the hardest part of this deal is paying for a degree like this, and you've got it. So we check the box on that. And you can keep working during that time. And I almost wonder, I hear your fear muscle kind of flaring up here, and I get it.

I just wonder if you shouldn't look into being a therapist for someone else so that you don't have this added pressure of going out of the cave, killing it and dragging it back. I just wonder if that's not a viable option to where you at least take that stress off. You're fine financially. Even if you were to continue making 50, you're okay, correct? Correct. I just wonder if that transition-wise, you know, takes the mental stress off. How long have you been making $50,000? Years.

Right? Yeah, years. Years. Okay, this is more secure than it feels like right now. That's true. That's a good point. Because your world is crumbled. Yeah.

I know I physically can't continue to do it, though. Yeah, but I'm not asking you to. You can do it for two years, can't you? Hopefully, yes. While you go get your school done. So the net you're going to live on 50k and you're going to work and you're going to go to school

and you're going to get your nursing degree. What's a hospice nurse make? It's probably going to top out at about $60,000 a year. You're going to get a full nursing degree, correct? Correct. Okay. So you can do any kind of nursing. Hospice is one thing that you're interested in but certainly you're not

you're not obligated to only do that and as you know nurses can do and work as much as they want to work yeah you can get all you all the work you want and you can make a hundred if you want to so um it's up to you though i mean so if your hands can make it two years which they were going to have to anyway or you're going to have to just live on your husband's income before right right correct if you were going to just quit and do this but um or if you make it one year and then you use some of the 200 to live on in year two while you spend 16 and finish up the degree. But, yeah, I'm with you. I think it's a smart move. I would go do it.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And then do I leave the money that I do have just sitting where they're at right now? Yes. Okay. To make this transition. As soon as your new income is stabilized, write a check and pay your house off. But that's the new career, and that's two years from now.

Correct. Well, probably closer to four. I'm sorry. I thought we were saying two. Well, the program, the RN program is two years long, but I have to take all the prerequisites to get into that program. Oh, okay. And then by the time I get through the program and graduate, it'll be about four years from right now. Okay. All right. Yeah.

Go back and re-verify that it's going to take you that long to do the prereqs. Maybe you can knock them in a year. I would roll up my sleeves, no pun intended, and get those done in a year if I can. I like your plan overall, though. I'm sorry for what you've been through, and you're thinking very clearly for someone that's in this situation. So, very good job, and we're here to help you. If you need anything, you call us, okay? 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. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, host of The Ken Coleman Show, where he helps folks with their personal growth so their career is maximized.

He's my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Vince is with us in Phoenix. Hi, Vince. How are you? Hey, how's it going, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? I'd just like to start off with giving glory to God. Literally five minutes before I called, I wrote down on a piece of paper and I said, I have a net worth of negative 110,000. And right below that I put, I will become a baby steps millionaire. So, um, I, my question is, um, I know you tell us, uh, you won't tell us to file bankruptcy, but my question I guess would be, is, am I bankrupt? Um, I have about $32,000 in credit card debt.

Um, I have, I owe about $60,000 on my truck. I had a, uh, travel trailer that I was living in, um, that got repossessed. And at the time I owe 36,000 on that. So I kind of put in there that I'll be upside down 10 $10,000 to $15,000, maybe more. I owe about $13,000 in taxes. And let's see, I think that's it. What do you make? Yeah, it's about that. This year, I should make about $50,000 to $60,000.

What do you do? I started a business back in 2021. I built shade structures. First year, I netted about 75. Second year was so 2022, about 85. 2023, 60. And then 2024, I'm at 30 so far. You build what?

I build shade structures like Ramadas, Pergolas. I do carpentry work as well. Okay, why the drop in income um i guess just the market i i i mean it's just slow down um i've i've done i do great work i get good reviews um i i don't advertise much i've always struggled with that. I kind of just worked off of Facebook, essentially. So did your word of mouth leads just slowly trickle down? Yes. Yeah, that has a lot to do. That's consistent with what we saw with people, consumer spending on home improvement projects and stuff like that coming out of the pandemic.

So that's not inconsistent. But as a carpenter, you should have more work than you can actually get as a carpenter. Yeah, and I would say it's just the effort that I put in as far as, like I said, in advertising or any of that. My focus has really gone down, I guess you could say. I've just struggled all the time with finding help. In Phoenix, Arizona, you can make 90 to 100

as a carpenter going to work for somebody. Yeah. Yeah. I was working at a fabrication shop. I understand. I understand. I wanted to work for myself. I want you to work for yourself, too,

but I don't want you to be bankrupt. So we can't have these two things competing with each other you're not getting enough income in and we need to get some income coming in i don't care where it comes from it'd be it suit me fine if you got 42 decks to build in the next two weeks and took off and you made 100k working for yourself that's fine i don't care where you get it but you're gonna have to get it yes your problem is an income problem yes and I'm sorry like I said I have all the tools I'm starting the details there's a super low cost and startup a mobile detailing something I'm passionate about as well so I'm getting ready to start that here in the next couple weeks like I said I'm just gathering the stuff that

I need to buy I looked up and done a lot of research and that kind of stuff and a few people that i know in the market vince you're broke and you're and you're and we're telling you you got to get after it with one of the most sought after trades in america right now you can go look this up it's all over the internet there's a shortage of carpenters and you're in one of the hottest markets in america yeah don't buy a pressure washer go get your carpentry work yeah like do the pressure washing down the line but right now you need money go you know yeah go call every customer you've had and ask them for a referral okay by the weekend and then and expand and quit trying to be such a freaking artist with a

copalism let's go build some stuff i don't care what it is swing a hammer drive a nail yeah that somebody pays you to do and make some money if you were making 100k you wouldn't have called me exactly okay this is an income problem it's not a debt problem so it's not a bankruptcy problem and if you can't afford the truck sell the truck but by the way if you file bankruptcy you lose the truck so and the truck is ridiculous in this situation you owe way too much on this truck so you probably do need to sell the truck you probably need to sell it anyway and just move down and truck you had it to pull the travel trailer that got repoed, right? Yeah, yeah.

And I was using it for my flatbed trailer that I do for business. Yeah, but a lesser truck will pull a flatbed. Yeah. Okay. You own the flatbed too? Yes, I own the flatbed. What's it worth? Probably about $3,000 thousand bucks okay then we can keep

is it a five um is it a gooseneck or a regular trailer no no it's just a bumper pull up an 18 foot okay good that's keepable in almost any pickup a pull that agreed agreed yeah so you don't have it doesn't require a sixty thousand dollar truck to pull that thing so uh it did it maybe did to pull the travel trailer, but that's a different thing. That's all gone now. So, okay, the repo can be settled when and if they call you for pennies on the dollar. But I need you to have about $5,000 or $10,000 ready for when they call you so you can offer them a settlement in full and they'll take it.

If they ever call you even, they might not. And I need you to clean up your stink of taxes. You don't want the IRS in your life, and you need to cut up your credit cards and sell your truck and move down and get your income up and that's your solution and that's how you become a baby steps millionaire okay the credit cards i'm already in default on on quite a few of them okay cut them up so okay all right no no problem there they're're no blessing. Already done. They're no blessing. Plastic surgery is due in your life, my man. And I chop them up, and let's make a, you know, start doing a written budget. But the thing is this, you're by yourself.

You're a solopreneur. You are a great carpenter. You suck at marketing. And so this feels out of control to you where ken and i are sitting on the outside we see your income potential to be much larger than you feel like it is in your emotions because you're by yourself and there's nobody around you saying dude you got this and we're telling you dude you got this so hypothetically you could do all of the work you're doing right now as a side job and work a day job as a carpenter in about 20 minutes yep and you get

your income up over six figures doing that and get this mess cleaned up get the truck moved down and then build you out learn start learning some marketing stuff start learning how to run a business not just be a carpenter. And you can build your side business back up to a full-time gig again. And that's probably what I would do in your shoes because I just think you're – I'm with Ken. I think you're in an ideal situation in terms of your career. I mean, you didn't call me up with a sociology degree. If I was in Phoenix right now, Dave, I would make him drive me to construction sites

all over the city where they're building homes, and I'd say, you got a clean T-shirt? All right, your jeans look sharp? All right, get the tool belt on and walk up and say, where's the foreman? And say, I'm a carpenter. I'm ready to go. You might be surprised.

Within about two hours, you'd probably be working, if not with a gig. That's how low the shortage is right now on carpenters. That's a fact. That's not my opinion. Yep. And by the way, it's summer in Phoenix. Yeah, that's true, too.

Thank you for joining us, America. Buying a house in this market is crazy. Selling a house in this market is crazy. Selling a house in this market is crazy. It's wild out there, y'all. You need to have a pro in your corner if you're going to be moving property right now. And I do recommend you buy a house right now. It's a great time. I do recommend you sell a house right now. It's a great time. If you want a pro in your corner that we recommend, we have Ramsey Trusted endorsed local providers that are real estate agents that we have vetted that are high performance. They have not just got their license

last week and never sold a house before. They do 30 to 300 transactions a year. They're on top of their game. They're the best of the best. They're Ramsey trusted. You can find out who's Ramsey trusted in your area for free at ramseysolutions.com slash agent. James is in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hi, James. How are you? Good, Mr. Ramsey. How are you doing? Better than we deserve. What's up? So I want to say thank you so much for taking my call, and I appreciate what you and Mr. Coleman, Mr. Kim, what everybody does. It really is a blessing, so I appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. My question is, I guess, kind of related to the previous caller that you spoke with, but I'm kind of at a point where we've been working on baby step number two. We've got all of our credit card debt paid off. We're done with it. We were making headway. I lost my job back in April. So I'm having to, luckily, Lord blessed me with another job.

But it took about a month and a half. And so it's kind of set us back. But my question is, long story short, what can I do to help my family advance my career? Because I feel stagnant. And the job that I just got was a lateral move. I wanted to advance my career and move up. But it just seems like most companies right now just want me in a lateral move. I wanted to advance my career and move up, but it just seems like most companies right now just want me in a lateral position. All right, so let's start with where you want to eventually go. So we're going to advance to what? What's the...

Operations manager. Of what? I'm a project manager of a residential construction company. Okay. And operations manager does what in that role? Well, I guess more or less bring in business, you know, hire, you know, hiring, keeping business, keeping customers happy. Sure. I guess, you know, making sure the day-to-day is, you know, rolling smoothly. All right. And then forgive me for my ignorance. Operation manager's at one, two, three steps above where you are now. What does that look like?

Oh, it's one step. One step. Okay. The reason I asked you to describe the role of operations manager where you want to be is because that list, how you described that to me, with each of those duties that you listed out, there is a skill set. There's skill, so I'm going to have to learn the skill. And there's also experience that you're going to need to get, right, to step into that or at least get to the point where they say, okay, James, you are ready, you are qualified. And so understanding what you need to add to your

tool belt is really vital. That's why I went through that list. And so now is the time to begin to say, how can I go about getting that skill where I am? So in other words, I've got to look at the next and figure out what it's going to take to get there, but then don't miss this vital thing. And that is you got to win in the know, we all want to move up to a certain point, and you're going to have to have some patience, and you're going to have to earn your way up to that spot. And so the way you do that is this is a three-step process that will guarantee that you will get promoted

if, in fact, you're in a company that has a track record of promoting. Number one, you've got to know your role. That's absolute clarity on what your leader wants from you right now. You must crush the now by knowing exactly what you're supposed to do now. Number two, you need to have an attitude of, you know what, not down in the dumps. I need to be grateful that after I got laid off, I stepped into another role, and it's taking care of me. It's stabilizing me in the now. Third, I'm going to go above and beyond. Whatever they tell you,

James, is what we want from you. You find three or four or five or 10 ways to go above and beyond what they've asked you to do. And then you're looking at the next going, how do I get that experience? What would that skillset look like? How would I get it as a cert? Is it, you know, asking to do a little extra work, pay it forward a little bit? Hey, can I help out? This is the idea, James, because you become so good, they can't ignore you. That's your theme. How many of those skills that you need for operations manager can you work on while you're being a project manager? How many of them overlap? That was part of the, I don't know how, that's the reason. I mean, I'm not a very intelligent fellow, but I try to find out and find ways,

and that was one of the reasons why I wanted to go. I mean, if you list out, okay, these are the five things an operations manager does. How many of those does a project manager do? Probably some, okay? You're working with customers. So, I mean, you're running a particular job. The operations manager is running all the jobs. So, that's very similar, okay? And in both cases, you're working with customers. You probably have some interface with customers, just like an ops manager does and so you keep thinking about the different ways you know you're how how much of what you're doing is a miniature version of an ops manager that you can use to to sharpen those particular skills and then demonstrate that either for the next person that the next another place is looking for an ops manager or the next person that another place is looking for an ops manager

or the next time they hire an ops manager at the place you're at today. That's what I'm looking for. But I think you need to clearly define what it is exactly that is needed that you don't have to move up into that and then go get it. That's right. And my friend Henry Cloud cloud says figure out what your desired future is well we did that you have a desired future be an ops manager and then ask yourself what must be true that is not true today to make that desired future of mine happen

what must be true and you go okay there's these six things i've got to do these four things i've got to do and in order for this to do in order for this to come true. And then you start putting a timeline and a budget to what it's going to cost to get those five or six things and cause this to happen. I think you're in great shape. You're going to get there. You're going to get there. Nate is with us in El Paso, Texas. Hi, Nate.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Sure, what's up? So I have about $36,000 in debt, and I heard you take a caller the other day, and you were talking about the difference between the snowball and avalanche methods, and you mentioned that you pretty much will always recommend the Snowball because the math supports that one over the Avalanche. But the several different callers that I heard that that was your recommendation, they had interest rates for the majority of their debt that were in the general range of like $6,000.

You missed the point of all those calls. Interest rate doesn't matter. How much debt do you have? $36,000. What do you make? About $75,000. Okay. And what's the $36,000 on?

I have two car loans, one credit card, and some medical bills, and then a small handful that I owe to individual people. How much are the car loans? One of them is for $9,000. The other one is about $7,000. Okay. So that's $16,000 of your $36,000. Then you've got $20,000 more.

How much of that is medical bills? Eight. Okay. So you've got so you got 12 in credit card debt uh i have i have uh six in credit card debt and the remainder is to individual people so i rest my case it's irrelevant it's only six thousand bucks if the interest rate was a hundred percent it wouldn't matter because it doesn't amount to any money okay the actual dollars the six thousand dollars worth multiplied by the interest rate creates is not much so you don't have a an interest rate problem dude you don't have a math problem if you were doing all this math you wouldn't be here so math is not your problem you're you guys cutting your budget to nothing

taking six jobs and attacking this is your problem listing your debts smallest to largest which by the way when you do that we'll get rid of your credit cards first anyway so the first order of business is going to be pay off the credit cards, right? Yeah. You don't have a 20% interest rate on those cars, do you? Both car loans and the credit card are all at 22%. Oh, you need to sell the cars. Man, quit buying.

God, what are you doing? How do you get screwed like that on a car? 22% on a car? Good God. Yeah, sell the car and get you a hoopty. 20 minutes from now. That's just, that's nuts. What are you saying, Dave?

You didn't like that car purchase? Is that what I'm hearing you say? 22% for a, I'd be riding a bicycle. Oh, I know. Or a donkey ken coleman ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones here at 888-825-5225 in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt free stage malik is with us hey malik what's up what's up dave ken so nice to meet both of you it's's been a long time. I've been following you. So good to be here. Well, so good to have you. Where do you live?

Warrington, Virginia, close to D.C. I know where that is. Very cool. Oh, nice. Welcome to Nashville. Good to have you. How much debt have you paid off, Malik? Glad to be back. I paid off $78,000 in debt. All right, cool. How long did that take? It took about 26 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? The start of the 26 months, it was

49,000. And by the end of it, I was making well over 70K. Cool. What do you do? I'm a worship pastor full-time. That's what I do. That's what the startup it it was and i still am a full-time worship pastor i also did some side gigs a lot of piano lessons voice lessons any kind of lessons that i know how to do i was teaching nice that's a good use of your talent well done there we go and uh i'm also now a dog sitter on the side as well but worship is the thing there There you go, man. Well done. Very cool. So what happened two years and some change ago that woke Malik up? Tell us your story. Okay. I was about 25 years old, and the church that I work at, we get paid once a month. And by day 17, I had no more money left because I had financed myself into a corner.

I had a bunch of credit card debt a bunch of car debt student loan debt and I also didn't know how to manage my money so by the time I just got sick and tired of being paycheck to paycheck so I had to figure out how to get out of debt basically how to make more margin in my income so I typed in how to get rich on YouTube and I found your videos. So I started following them, did the zero-based budget,

switched to a cheaper gym, switched over to a church parsonage. Anything I could do to create more margin that way, I did, got better at grocery shopping. And then after that all that money principal payments on the debt snowball i got into the freelance thing so i started making more money on top of that and then it just happened so so quick very cool very cool good for you man yep yep good for you so you were getting after it it was was probably too intense, but we're done.

Hey, we're out of here. We're out of here. Check it off. 26 months of my life and no more debt ever again. Ever again. Ever again. I love it. So really your reason was, I just don't want to be in this stress.

I can't make it. I can't make ends meet. I've got to do something different. What I'm doing is not working. It wasn't working. A healthy level of disgust. Yeah, it took a long time. For about four years, I was terrible with money. Didn't know that I was terrible with money, but the principles, the baby steps, they really saved me in my finances. Now we're having a good time. On a practical level, how would you

tell the audience leading worship feels now that you're debt-free? Well, ironically enough, you were supposed to lead from a place of freedom and liberation, all of those things. And when you are enslaved by your situation, the situation that I put myself into, there is always something in the back of your brain before and after your rehearsals before and after your your meetings with with the congregants before and after your worship sets um that feels like a tad hypocritical i suppose um but now you can walk around a little lighter um so it's it's been, I'd like to think my job performance is a little better, a lot better than it was.

Well, your spirit's better. I guarantee it. Yeah. I'm having a good time. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I don't, I don't know that you were necessarily doing a bad job before, but the, uh, the lightness with which you approach it, the heaviness is gone.

Right. Yeah. And so, um, almost sounds like a worship song. Yeah. Very good. We can write one. I bet we couldn't, but you might. yeah and so um almost sounds like a worship song yeah very good we can write one i bet we couldn't but you might yeah i was gonna say we could dave and i we will listen the reason we're

in talk radio all right so hey man congratulations what was the one dad that was driving you nuts and you're like when that one went you went went, yeah, you're gone. Finally. The interest on the car, it didn't move. The interest was so high that the principal, it took me about a year and a half to realize that there was no dent being made by just the monthly payments alone. So you had a rip-off car payment. Yeah. Those were, I don't remember the interest rate, but it seemed like it didn't

move at all. So like just having no car payment, I don't, I drive a very modest car, 2011 Honda Accord, but the fact that I never have to pay a car payment ever again, it's, it's the best feeling. Yeah. Yeah. That, that's a different fee. They drive different when they're not pulling a payment book. Yeah yeah that's very cool who was encouraging you um i found the program through a church in orlando florida they did it um and i just so happen to be visiting on one of

their small group nights so that was where the exposure started hope church in orlando florida but my me and my best friend, he's right here. We did Baby Step 2 for the longest time together. So I never wanted to give up, but any time it was getting ghetto, so to speak, we really kept each other accountable. So I owe him and a lot of other people back in Virginia a lot of thanks for listening to me yap about it all the time well congrats way to go did you have people making fun of you or just kind of rolling their eyes yeah a lot of

people did not understand it um they didn't understand the fact the magnitude the urgency that I had for it um because but for me it was of, I didn't have enough margin. I didn't have enough of an income to not get out of debt. Um, a lot of my friends make a lot of money so they can, they can kind of do whatever they want, but I needed that margin and it was getting out of all those consumer debts. And I think everyone should live that way. But, um, yeah, a lot of people did not understand why I was doing what I was doing. And at this point i don't care yeah i hear you so there's a person out there that's right where you were 30 months ago

two and a half years ago and um they got a paycheck and it just didn't make it they got too much month left at the end of the money talk to them reword that one more time well if they uh there's a person out there right where you were 30 months ago it's the 17th of the month what is today the 18th of the month and they're out of money they have too much month left at the end of the money the paycheck's gone what happened to you right yeah and you were freaked out and scared and stress and your heart rate changes and you got to do something about it. Talk to that person. We're going to start by selling a lot of stuff in your house. That's going to get you to your next paycheck. Um, and then we're going to just make some life decisions because if they're anything like me, they were living way, way, way above their means. So we're going to stop the auto wash subscription that you had.

We're going to stop the Netflix. We're going to stop all of it. And we're going to just start tackling it one debt at a time. Just being very disciplined because we have no other choice. There's so much at hand when it comes to our finances um a lot of kingdom impact could be made if we had more margin so um many things are on the balance when it comes to our personal finance so um just take it very very serious get someone in your corner um and day 17 day 18 so on so forth until your next paycheck um you just got to have that locked-in mentality that you are going to make a difference.

Yeah, you reach a point, you say never again. Never again. Never again. I'm never going to be like this. I'm never going to feel like this again. I'm putting all of this in the rearview mirror. I am done. I am walking out of this valley.

Absolutely. Well done, sir. Proud of you. Yep. Excellent job, hero. Thank you so much. Very, very cool. Oddly enough, the numbers are very similar to the guy who just called and wanted some

kind of a trick to get out of debt. That's exactly right. And he had a high interest rate car debt and high interest rate credit cards, and he had less debt than this guy had, than Malik had. So way to go, Malik. Good job. All right, Malik from Virginia. 78,000 paid off in 26 months, making 49 to 70.

Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free! Yeah! This is how it's done. Yes, yes, yes! This is The Ramsey Show.

Our scripture of the day, Joshua 1.8, keep this book of the law always on your lips. Meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Brian Tracy said, failure is a prerequisite for great success. If you want to succeed faster, double your rate of failure.

Well, there you go. That's how that's done. Just learning that Bob Newhart passed away. So sad. So many classic things he did as a comedian. The old Bob Newhart show is where Daryl and his other brother Daryl came from. Yes. And you may not remember anything else, but you remember that, right?

That's right. And he did a great comedy bit on counseling from the Bob Newhart, too, where anything someone came in to be counseled on, he would just listen to them for a few minutes, and then he would yell, stop it! Just stop it! That was his whole counseling. It was great.

I kind of feel like him some days. Yeah, I think that's effective. Just stop it! Quit! It's effective sometimes. Don't do that anymore! Yeah, that's it. It was great.

But rest in peace, Bob. He gave us a lot of joy and a lot of laughs over the years. Pretty incredible. Anna is in Toronto. Hi, Anna. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. I'm excited to the Ramsey Show. Hi. I'm excited to talk to you guys.

You too. How can we help? Well, Dave, you've helped me and my husband a lot with our finances. I really appreciate that. I'm calling mostly today for some career advice. So I've been waiting to hear Ken Coleman's voice, and I heard it today. So I thought I would give you guys a call. It's such a soothing voice.

My wife and kids would disagree with, thank you, Dave. Anna, what's going on? Well, I've been a teacher probably about 23 years now. And I hesitate to say I'm burnt out because I still like the work of teaching, but I am not liking my day-to-day job. And I have done quite a bit of changing already within the system. So I don't know if it's just a public school thing, but I just would like to find other jobs that I could do. I know I'm sure there are a lot with the skills that I have but I'm also hoping to find something that has comparable pay. Teachers in Canada actually make decent money.

What do you make? So I make $107. Wow. Okay, let's start right where you led us to, which is skills. I want you to tell us the top skills that you have acquired in your 23 years of teaching. Probably listening. I've always been really good at listening. I like finding out what problems exist, I guess, for kids particularly,

and figuring out how to help them have those light bulb moments that I'm really good at, and I enjoy that. Just creative problem solving, I like that too. And I just, I find a lot of joy being around kids, but I'm not finding a lot of joy in my work. Which is what? Because my guess is this is not what you're doing. It's where you're doing it. My guess is, and I've counseled so many teachers here in the U.S. and in Canada, the environment is just getting worse and worse and worse. And so if the environment were different, you would enjoy the actual engaging of instructing the children.

Yes or no? Yes. Yeah. So let's real quick list out a couple of things that just come right to the top of your mind you enjoy most, the stuff that gives you the most joy when you're actually teaching. I think just seeing the engagement and the enthusiasm and finding creative ways to help the kids express things that they want to share, those things for sure. I just find there's so much interruption and so much behavior and so much craziness that it's like you never get to enjoy that stuff anymore. Let me list out for you very quickly what I wrote down as I listened

to you. I asked you the top skills, and I wrote down listening, asking questions, discernment, critical thinking, creative problem solving. And then I wrote down, I asked you, what do you enjoy most about teaching? It was the engagement. It was the progress. In other words, you love seeing light bulb moments when people get it. That's what gives you the juice, correct? Yeah. All right. So here's the deal. So what we have to do is, is you have to stop thinking about the negative environment. What you have to focus on is that little exercise we just went through. And so now we've created a job description. So where in Canada, in the marketplace, can you use the skill set of communication, of instruction, and then actually engage with people who want to be there to learn?

So let me tell you where I start to ideate. And I'm not in any way limiting you to this, but I want you to understand the process. I immediately start thinking corporate training, HR training. That's what my husband said to me. Well, you and your husband, your husband's a smart guy. So you know why? That's right. Listen, any kind of role where you are instructing, you walk in day one, Anna, with experience and skill. And listen, if you can teach a child, my goodness, you can revolutionize the life of an adult who actually wants to learn, right?

So I would begin to look throughout the marketplace. This is an instructive role, whether it's called training. I don't care about job title. You must look throughout the marketplace this is an instructive role whether it's called I don't care about job title you must look at the job description and it must include what you enjoy which is I want to be able to impart knowledge to people and see the light bulb of learning and progress as the result and it's that simple. And now we got to start looking at the comparative salary though. Okay. So I can, that's okay. We got to look first. We've got to see what's out there and we've got to see, okay, what would the path be? And so there's four qualifying questions I wrote about in Paycheck to Purpose. What do I need to learn? What do I need to do? How much is that going to cost? How long will it take? If you just answer those four questions, Anna, this feeling right now that

you have of frustration and intimidation, it's because of the unknown. Those four questions, what do I need to learn? What do I need to do? So one is the education or certification or some type of skill. I got to acquire it. And then experience is what I need to do. Then how much is that going to cost me? That's money and time. And then how long is all this going to take? And what happens is, Anna, when we answer those four questions, you're so good at this

of process, you're going to see a plan develop. And all of a sudden, it's not intimidating. You're going to say wow i can absolutely stroll into something else let me uh tell you where i've seen some teachers land what we call uh in marketing we call it technical sales where the sale involves teaching the buyer about the product or the service and how to do it. An example of that would be medical device sales. Great point.

So if you're installing a hip, if you're installing a knee, if you're installing a heart valve, if you're installing whatever, these are technical things. You know, you'd have to learn the technical stuff. But I know people that came in with a marketing degree and learned the technical stuff, but I know people that came in with a marketing degree and learned the technical part, and they basically don't do a lot of quote-unquote sales. They basically are instructing surgeons, sometimes in surgery, live. That's an example of a technical sale.

Another one would be something in the manufacturing world where you've got an engineering item. You're selling a highly sophisticated piece of equipment or whatever. But I mean, anything that falls in that heading of technical sales, really good money in all of that. And it always involves instruction. And it sounds like it's a sales job, but it's not really. Not at all. Not at all. You're exactly right, Dave. It is the idea of I'm going to share knowledge with you that is going to help you progress. And that is at the heart of every teacher. They want to see their students learn something so that they can progress. It is they love progress. They love pouring into somebody. You see mental traction. You do. It's why,

by the way, that you for years have said when we advise our audience to go sit with a smart investor pro or any of our trusted services, do they have the heart of a teacher? And why? Tell people why that matters. Well, because the person has to learn to be a good investor. They can't be doing what some just doing what somebody else says. Yeah. Good, good, good question. Good question. You're going to be great. You're going to be great at the next

stage. 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. Thank you. Hey guys, I'm Rachel. And I'm George. And you've probably heard our voices before on The Ramsey Show.

And do we have a surprise for you. Yep, we have our very own show, Smart Money Happy Hour, where we talk about pop culture, current events, and of course, money. George, it's a great show. And what else do we talk about? So much, Rachel. Not enough. And yet too much.

We talk about guilt tipping because tipping is out of control and I won't stand for it anymore, which is why I'm sitting. I'm glad you're taking such a stand. And we also talk about something else I'm passionate about, Disney adults. Why is it a thing? Listen, some adults still find the magic. Sure. We also talk about toxic money traits and girl math.

If you don't know what those are, you have to listen to the podcast. Yeah, there's a lot there, you guys. It's pretty fun. We keep you relevant, is what I'm trying to say. We help you out. So pull up a chair to the happy hour you wish your friends were having. We promise you won't regret it. And if you don't have friends, we'll be your friends. We will.

We're great friends. So make sure to check it out on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or the Ramsey Network app.