The Ramsey Show - Recognizing You Have a Problem Is 90% of Solving the Problem

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

💵 Sign-up for EveryDollar today - The simplest way to budget for your life! Dave Ramsey & Rachel Cruze answer your questions and discuss: "Should we sell our house in case of economic collapse?" "I made bad choices and gambled everything away..." The harsh reality of childcare expenses, Why you have to know where your money is going, How recognizing the problem is 90% of solving it, Learning how to be disciplined. Support Our Sponsors: Zander Insurance BetterHelp Christian Healthcare Ministries Next Steps 👩‍👧‍👦 13 Ways to Afford the High Cost of Childcare 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET or click here! 🏦 Take Your 3-Minute Money Assessment - Get a personalized money plan! 📄 Need help with your taxes? See who we trust. 💌 Will an online will work for you? ✂️ Share hope by leading an FPU class at your church! Listen to more from Ramsey Network 🎙️ The Ramsey Show   🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, number one best-selling author, host of The Rachel Cruze Show and the Smart Money Happy Hour co-host. My daughter, Rachel Cruz, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Thank you for joining us, America. We're so glad you're here. Shane is in Denver. Hi, Shane. What's up? Good afternoon, sir. How are you doing today? Better than we deserve. How can I help?

Of course. Yeah, hey, I'm just calling to my wife and I. We bought our house in 2021. We bought it for $500,000. We put $100,000 down on it. We had about $100,000 in our savings account that we kept in there, too, for our emergency fund. We have now paid it down to about $2,000. We owe about $280,000 on it as of today. Very good. So in three years, we've put down another $115,000 into it.

You're killing it, dude. We have no debt. Our cars are paid off. We have no debt, and we have still about $100 in our savings account today as well. We are worried about the house economy crashing here in the next six months or so, and our mortgage rate is at 2.5 percent let me stop you i'm sorry why are you worried about the housing economy in denver colorado crashing i don't know i i think my i don't know my wife is she's uh she's more of a relative a realist than I am, and so I'm just kind of going with the flow, and we're just trying to be. I'm sorry, what does being a realist mean? You mean a pessimist?

I guess so. I'm not trying to talk down on her. Oh, I wasn't either. I'm just saying there's a realist to someone who observes facts. There are no facts in the marketplace that indicate any housing crash in Denver, Colorado in the next six months. Absolutely zero facts. Well, that's good to know. And then also we're wanting to see if we should sell our house.

No. And collect our revenue. No. Because it's already at $700. No. No. Okay. You guys need to get off the Internet.

That's what I say, too. No. Okay. You guys need to get off the internet. That's what I say, too. Yeah. I'm sitting next to the Ramsey family conspiracy theorist. I'm a conspiracy theorist. I don't know. When AT&T went out last month, I thought, this is it. What's the Denver housing conspiracy? I missed this one.

You're up on all the conspiracies. Denver airport. You are close to the bunker. That could happen if it all goes down, Shane. this one you're up on all the conspiracies denver airport you are close to the bunker that could happen if it all goes down shane that's your greatest asset right now again at the same time to my son we have a seven-year-old son um and i travel a lot for work in the state and we're trying to maybe move to the southern part of colorado to where i don't have to travel as much and I can work. Okay.

That's a logical reason. But please don't do that because the Denver housing market is going to collapse in the next six months. That should not be one of the factors that drives your decision. Okay. Because it's not. It's not going to collapse. Okay. Okay.

Well, and then percentage-wise, didn't i didn't want to go get a new house and then pay a percentage on something with a higher interest rate at when we're at two you're not going to have a higher interest rate for much longer because you're paying it off so fast yeah that's true i mean it might be three or four years you carry it but you're not gonna carry it for 30 years so it doesn't matter but make your decisions out of a glass half full, not out of panic. And really quit reading the Internet. I'm serious. There's some really dumb, dark people out there.

Yeah. And I'm too busy with work. My wife's a nurse practitioner in psych. And the last couple of years, she's been just a stay-at-home mother with our kid the during these years and now my son's getting to be where he can be in full-time school so she's about to go back to work too now so good we're gonna have a double income yeah that'd be great you know but i mean psych nurses you know maybe she oh oh my gosh she's just seen a lot of great crazy stuff no pun intended right and so um you know it can that can that can leave a mark on you and so but i don't want her to live in fear i don't meet people

who anticipate the end of the world who prosper none great i just don't the people who who not mean there's preppers and then there's crazy preppers okay preppers one thing but crazy prepper that's anticipating the end of the world like i've got a friend who has gold bar i have a friend who has gold bars in his basement well and it's not and that's just not right and let's keep talking about this though shane because the housing market is a point in our economy that a lot of people are panicked about. And back during COVID, when everything surged in 2021, we sat here at this desk, and people are like, it's a bubble, it's a bubble.

It's going to bust. And you're like, it's not. Supply and demand, supply and demand. We did the real estate. It's gone up. Yes, we did the real estate hour and all of it. So it is, though, Shane, to your wife's credit, it is a point of fear for a lot of people. Not to her credit. Empathize with her.

I understand how people are afraid, but that doesn't mean that it's accurate or logical. Okay, so then give us the logic behind it. Well, the logic is there's a housing shortage. Still. There's still three buyers for every stinking house on the market, and houses have gone up right now, today. In most major markets, homes that are on the market are houses have gone up right now today in most major markets homes that are on the market are getting multiple offers but they're sitting on that they're sitting on it longer though it's not like eight days no it's no but it's not the average days on the market has gone

up eight days in the past 12 months just my wife sent me something the other day and it says new home sales fall as mortgage rates way down how well people i know when the mortgage rates they go it slowed it down though no one no one clicks on stuff unless it bleeds that's a clickbait lead okay mortgage housing starts fall as mortgage rates go up which they did a lot of builders slowed down there's not as many houses coming out of the ground you know what that does it means there's an even bigger shortage of inventory which which makes your home even that much more. But house prices didn't fall. Builders slowed down building because they didn't want to get caught with specs

if the market slowed down on them, but not if the market crashed. Housing starts did drop, but headlines always go, everyone's dying. That's what the headlines always say because that's what people click on is that stuff. Yeah. So, you know, yeah. So, look, that's what I mean by don't read the Internet. OK.

And with the election year coming up, traditionally in election years, things slow down closer to the election, too. So you may see that happening. Traditionally, interest rates go down because the sitting president doesn't want to get unseated by a stinky economy. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah.

We'll see. But interest rates have come down a little bit in the last month and a half. They've come down a full point. And the market is, you know, some areas, the southern areas of the country, the grass is starting to get green. People are coming out of their winter caves. They're starting to buy houses. And the house market is heating back up. It's a dirty little secret.

Nobody's talking about it. But I've been anecdotally involved in three or four deals lately where I'm watching, and there's multiple offers coming in on these. Yeah. And so I'm getting ready to put our home on the market. And I was just looking. It's a different dollar amount. But I mean, I was just looking at the, you know, what's the average days on the market, the average days on the market. What's

the inventory? Inventory's dried up. I'm sitting pretty. My timing is excellent to put a house on the market. It's far from a crash, quite the opposite. Yeah, you're going to see your homes go up in value in the next 12 months. Just write it down and say the old bald guy said it. This is the Ramsey Show. One of the questions I get all the time is, which life insurance company should I use for my term life policy? A valid question since there are hundreds of companies out there with rates all over the place and riders and add-ons that are simply a waste of money. You need to get this done and make the right decision. That's why the only company I use and have recommended for over 25 years is Zander Insurance. Zander is a broker who shops the top term life companies for you and finds the best rates available from the only plans I recommend. They also save you time whether you want to work online over the phone or via text

their team will cater to your needs and help you make the right decision this is an absolute necessity and zander has made the process easy and convenient call them at 800-356-4282 or visit zander.com for instant online quotes well there's one thing most of us agree on taxes suck this is the time of year which i generally stay grouchy just in general just because i think about how much theft my government is involved in can we talk about this real quick too and adds on to the tax yeah um i don't know why it was kind of an epiphany i had yesterday where i was like it is weird like you could pay off your house you could be completely debt free but if you you still have to the government to a degree still owns it like you got to pay your property taxes

in a sense they kind of own your career if you don't pay your taxes you get put in jail and then car insurance you have to pay off car but you got to pay insurance like there's a level of of this that you're like man yeah it's not like some of these things never stop it's what it feels like yeah for real i don't know i had that epiphany the other day i was like man so you got two choices for claiming tax deductions understanding the difference can save you big bucks. Literally over 7 out of 10 Americans get a tax refund. That means 7 out of 10 of you are doing math poorly. There's a shock.

You know what? Because, listen, I'm old. I know Santa Claus. He's a friend of mine. He never goes to Washington, D.C. That money that's coming to you is not from Santa Claus. He has nothing to do with it. It's not a gift.C. That money that's coming to you is not from Santa Claus. He has nothing to do with it. It's not a gift. It's your money. You sent too much money to the freaking IRS.

They held it all year at no interest, and they send it back to you, called a refund, and you have a celebration like you hit the freaking lottery. All it was was a bad Christmas account. You know, you just saved up money, and then they sent it back to you with a zero% interest with a stinking IRS because you had too much taken out of your check. Stop it. Adjust your deductions to the proper amount of tax withholding to where you don't owe any taxes and they don't give you a refund. That's the proper thing to do. Now, this is what you got to do, guys. Now, if you're doing your taxes right now, you can take a standard deduction. That's the easy option. If you're single, you make $ you can take a standard deduction that's the easy option if you're single you make 65,000 a year the standard deduction knocks off close to 14,000

so you only pay taxes on 51,000 of your income and not even that really that's if you're single so itemize your deductions if you're going to do that it takes more work and you need a bunch of deductions right so if you want to know more about all this tax stuff, there's two things we'll do to help you. One is if you have a very simple return, you can get the Ramsey tax smart software, Ramsey smart tax software. I can't say it. And I'm not smart enough to say it. And so it's not very expensive and it's very easy to implement. And a whole bunch of people have moved from those other guys. Like 100,000 of you will do your taxes on the Ramsey SmartTax software this year. So it's very easy, very simple.

Now, if you have a complicated return, like you have a small business, a side hustle, you bought or sold a house or whatever like that, and you want to get a tax pro, we've got tons and tons of tax pros that are endorsed local providers that we have vetted. I was just talking to one a minute ago from Houston, and there she is waving at us. She was at the break getting her picture made. She does taxes for you in Houston. So good folks taking good care of you.

That's the way to do it. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash tax, and you can find out about either one of those. Noah is in Sacramento. Hi, Noah. Welcome to the ramsey show hey dave and rachel huge fan uh thank you for taking my call sure what's up um i'm just i'm in a i got myself into a predicament i um i moved i was living in huntington beach um around 2021 and then after covet and stuff I lost my job and my family

in Sacramento said I can come live with them. So that's where I've been the last three years. I got a good job. Well, I make about 60K. But over the three years being here, I've made some very bad decisions. Severe severe gambling addict i think that me just having to pay my parents a couple hundred a month like gave me too much uh not enough responsibility and i was just blowing it left and right uh maxing out credit cards long story short um now i'm here um i told my parents everything and i just told them that I have a game plan to move out of here by September and just pay off everything I can until then. I got a job opportunity to go out and spray for pests, pest control in Texas that is guaranteed $30,000 for about four months of work until September. I'm wondering if I should quit my current job and go do that and go pay off all my debt, but I'd come back with no job.

Where in Texas? Waco, I think Waco, yeah. You think? I'm sure where it is. What have you done about your severe gambling addiction? I haven't gambled. What is it? It's three or four months. It's been about all year.

But it was bad. I broke down and told my family. How have you dealt with it? You just decided to stop and that's it? You've got no help at all? No. It cost me my relationship and a bunch of stuff, and I just realized I just had to stop. No, I haven't got like a therapist or anything, but I've been good.

Deleted all the websites. Okay, there's two possibilities in this conversation. One is you don't have a severe gambling addiction. You were just stupid. That's one possibility, and you decide to stop being stupid. Two is you have a severe gambling addiction, and if that's the case, you have not done enough to fix this. You would need to get into Gamblers Anonymous,

and you would need to be seeing a counselor. Okay. Okay. How old are you? Okay. I'm 25. I just turned 25 in December. Okay.

So, I mean, I've, I've, I've never had a severe addiction, but I have done stupid stuff. So I can relate to one side of it as a possibility. I don't know if this is just immaturity and stupidity, and you can ask yourself that question. I'm not calling you that. I'm just saying your actions were, and the way that you just quit cold without any help at all kind of makes me think it was on that side rather than the addiction side, but I'm not a therapist. What do you think? Is it a compulsion? Do you know what I mean, Noah?

Like usually with an addiction, there's a level of compulsion there. It was compulsion, yes. It was being bored. I don't have any friends in Utah. I mean, sorry, in Sacramento. And when I got here, I got a job right away, but it's work from home. I've been working from home for three years, so I never met anybody. And that's my bad. I could join a club.

I could do stuff, but I haven't. And so I've just kind of been working in my room, and after I get off, I'm in my room gambling. It's just been horrible. Yeah. how much debt did you go into for it uh I've been climbing myself out of it all year um I also have a car payment because I just had to have the Lexus you guys know it's stupid um but I have a credit card with 1800 on it, um, 4k on another card and that's it for the credit cards. And then I have a $10,000 car loan. I also owe the IRS $1,300, um, because I decided to go exempt on some paychecks, which was dumb yeah because you were gambling okay um so well you hit your rock bottom though and i think for a lot of people there is that part of their

story where it's just you you lost everything your relationship all i mean it's just you got to a point you can't you couldn't continue to move forward until you had those conversations right that to to actually bring up what's been going on. But I'm with Dave on that, that I would, just for your own sake, and I think that all of this is good for anybody just to do some work around who you are, how you got here, what are these things, these compulsions, where is it coming from? I mean, just doing some digging into your story. Yeah, the problem with going to Waco is you go with you.

Yeah. So all of these things are still there you're not you're not getting away from them totally i the the good thing is they're they're putting me in a hotel i know which is you were in a room before by yourself that was dangerous yeah yeah they're paying for uh rent i have a work truck waiting for me out there i know it sounds like a good deal except that you're going with you i would just and i'm worried about you yeah i would just say if you were to do this from a financial aspect i would put i would put some parameters around it and i would i mean things like like ga is so great i mean the 12-step stuff is so good. You need to plug into Gamblers. Yes, being in a weekly group.

I mean, honestly, it's like these practices that you put yourself in front of continue to work on the shame. It continues to work on the actual act of it. I mean, I just, I think it's, I don't know. So. Without having, without being sure you're healed or in a healing process, just taking off to Waco is a bad idea. So if you're engaged in some kind of healing process and Waco is part of that process, great.

But running away and you following you is a bad plan. This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This is the Ramsey Show. ourselves. We hide our true selves behind costumes and masks all the time. We do this at work. We do this around our friends. We do this around our families. We even do this when we look at ourselves in the mirror. I know because I've been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding behind masks and costumes all the time, if you find yourself hiding from your true self, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can be honest, where you can talk to somebody else and reflect and learn, and you can accept all the parts of yourself over time and start living an authentic

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Open phones at 888-825-5225. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, we have a wonderful thing called the Debt-Free Stage. When people stand on it, they do their debt-free screams. We do the show on the glass five days a week from 1 to 4 every afternoon. You're welcome to stop by and join us here in Nashville. Anthony and Susan are on the debt-free stage. Welcome, guys. Hey.

Hi. Where do you guys live? St. Louis, Missouri. Oh, wow. Nice. Welcome to Nashville. How much debt have you paid off? We paid off $54,773.

Very good. And how long did that take? About eight months. Good for you. Nice. And wow. And your long did that take? About eight months. Good for you. Nice. And wow. And your range of income during that time? Yeah, we went from making $165,365 in 2022 to $266,678 last year. Oh my gosh. Jumped 100K. Yeah. What do y'all do for a living? So I'm a nurse. She's a registered nurse and I'm a precision plater for a defense company. Okay. So what y'all do for a living? So I'm a nurse. She's a registered nurse. And I'm a precision plater for a defense company. Okay.

So what y'all do? Just like work overtime out your ears? Yeah. Or get big promotions or what? 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Y'all went nuts. Oh my gosh. What kind of debt was the $55,000?

It was, the big bulk of it was student loans and also a Discover card. And then we had a lot of smaller stuff like jewelry loan. We had phones that we owed money on. We had a 401k loan. Y'all were like normal. Pretty normal, yeah. And normal sucks. Yeah, it did.

So you woke up and said, this sucks. How long y'all been married? 15 years. So 14 years this has said, this sucks. How long y'all been married? 15 years. So 14 years, this has gone by. And what happened a year ago? What was the blow? What was the blow up? What was the Ramsey connection? Well, a year ago was about a year of us really being stressed out with having a lot of debt. And we would, I remember we were like always sitting in the hot tub that we, of course, got a loan for, finance, and

complaining about the burden of the debt and what do we need to do to get through it. That is a great picture. Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty crazy. I'm sitting in my finance hot tub whining about the debt. Right. Yeah.

That is so great um i i actually um had an injury where i had to have a medical procedure done and i was out of work for three months oh and that put the pinch on stuff it did yeah so and you went oh this crap ain't working yeah we took a 401k loan out to try to cover that span of of time and then the credit card just took took off because it wasn't enough. And so at that point, we knew that something had to change. So at the point, okay, so the pressure built up, gave you a wake up call. Then what'd you do? Well, we had your book sitting on our shelf for three months, the total money, or for a long time, the total money makeover. And we started to read it probably three or four years prior because we wanted to change things, but we didn't think we had a big enough problem

when we dove into it. Well, um, God put it on our hearts at the beginning of last year that, um, we could, we could change. And, um, the book was staring us in the face. So picked it up and, and read it within a couple of days. Started really listening to the podcast and watching you on YouTube. And then we just, we buckled down and we started to create a budget. We used the EveryDollar app. And that was the game changer. Was there one of you guys that was more like hardcore, we got to start, we got to start more urgent about it? Or were you both pretty equal?

I think he started things off, but then we were together wanting to get rid of the debt. Okay, yes, yes, in that process. So what was the hardest part for you guys for eight months? I mean, you're working insane hours, and I mean, you're doing a lot. You went crazy in a great way. Yeah. Yeah. For me it was like, he's working all the time. So I'm taking care of everything at the house and the kids.

And the scariest thing for me honestly was putting my 401k on hold. Cause we've, I've always invested like 10% and he was like, we have to do this. And I was like don't know but we did it and that was the scariest thing and the weird thing is it only eight months it didn't hurt no it didn't hurt we ended up doing the whole year and saving more money and then this year we started with um a new investor and my 401k is like doing better than ever before so okay yeah funny how that works yeah we hooked up with a smart investor pro and and he really sat down with us and explained what we were doing. And like you always say, the reasons we started to understand,

and she just pulled up a statement the other day, and since she started taking some of that advice, the changes have been pretty insane. Wow. Good for y'all. So encouraging. Well done. Well done. Excellent. All right. Now, when people find out you did this and you got completely out of debt, we were just bopping along 14 years of marriage and then boom, we get a year of hell and we get out of debt so that we

don't have to live in this mess anymore. When people ask, how'd you do that? What do you tell them? The secret to getting out of debt is. I think for me, um, the big thing was it, you got to go to work. You have to, you have to work hard. You have to, um, and, and not only that you have to, um, get on the same page and create a budget. Um, for us, for the longest time, she, Susan always handled the finances. I was like looking back in ostrich with my head in the sand. Like she would come to me and say, this is going on. And I didn't want to hear it because I felt like it stressed me out. And I needed to grow as a man and step up.

And we needed to lock arms and come together and create a vision for what we wanted the money to do. And every wife in Americaica just went touchdown i don't know if they said touchdown they probably said amen amen hallelujah uh that's so good so so good and the budget had to impact your marriage then big time yeah yeah like susan you're not carrying the whole way the stinking thing on your back right right it's been really awesome sitting down with him we sit down every week and do the budget do the bank book together do everything together and you know it was just me for like the longest time so that's just it's amazing so Anthony did it when you actually started leaning in and doing it did it stress you out as much as you thought it would

back in the day when you said I don't want to look at that I might get stressed um in the beginning I wouldn't it might have stressed me out because I know for, um, a while it was hard to learn how to be, um, how to, how to compromise. Um, so there were things that I saw that like, that money was going to places that I had no idea. And, um, so I had to learn that like this, this needs to go there. Like this isn't like frivolous or or or anything like that like i because i my eyes were open to where the money was going if that makes sense so you weren't scared of hard work before but when you had a reason for your hard work you went after it kicked it in overdrive yeah big time you kicked it hard well done guys well done i'm so proud of you

you're heroes man thank you you heroes. And you have three kids. Yes. Yes. All right. Let's bring them up and introduce them. Yes. And give me their names and ages, please. So our oldest daughter, this is Courtney.

She's 14. Hey, Courtney. Good. Good. And then our middle daughter is Sophia. She's 12. Mm-hmm. And our youngest daughter, Abigail, is seven.

All right, Miss Abigail. All right. Very cool. And there's so many families that are in the middle of this journey. And I really think you guys just being here is such a beautiful picture that it's possible. Yeah, so possible. Well done. It's amazing. We've got a one year subscription for every dollar for you for the premium and another one as well for you to give away to somebody and get them started on it. Way to go, you guys. You're heroes. Very proud of you.

Those three beautiful girls' lives have been changed by a grown man and a grown woman doing what they're supposed to do. Well done, you guys. Very cool. Anthony and Susan, Courtney, Sophia, and Abby from St. Louis, $55,000 paid off in eight months, making $165,000 and then went to work, $266, work 266 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one we're debt-free that is how that is done man mean, all the questions we get.

I can't get my husband involved. I can't get my wife involved. That guy just outlined right there. He just stepped up. That was the most manly, masculine thing I've heard in a long time for that guy. He owned every bit of it and stepped in there beautifully done. And so many women were hurt that are running the household on their own. And it's a lonely place to be.

And so when you sit down, you end up talking about life. You end up talking, this is where the money's going. What's going on here? And it's so much. The connection point is so huge. It's so, so huge. It's massive. This is The Ramsey Show.

Hey, when you go against what society thinks is, quote, normal, like avoiding debt, for example, it might seem weird at first, and that is totally okay. We want you to be weird if that means doing things intentionally, including how you spend your health care dollars. And one way to be intentional is with Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM isn't health insurance. They're a health cost-sharing ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours take care of healthcare costs without sacrificing their freedom. Find out more and join at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, my co-host today.

Emily is with us in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Hi, Emily. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, how's it going? Good. How can we help? Good. So I'm reaching out today. I feel like I'm a Ramsey kid growing up. Your theme song has been like a jingle in the household through the last 26 years of my life. I'm reaching out today and kind of nervous, not sure kind of what to do at this point. We make just under $100,000 a year, my husband and I, and he is getting ready to hopefully go back to school here in a couple weeks. Just kind of waiting on that official acceptance.

And we will be losing about 60% of our income. And we were running numbers last night, sitting down, trying to evaluate things. And I'm just not sure what we do with such a large reduction in our income based on what we kind of saw with our expenses. Are you guys able to cover the basics on 60% or on 40% of your income? Barely. We do have two kids, so we are bearing the price of child care times two. On the positive side, he's old enough now. He's in his early 30s where he's going to be going to school on telegrants and scholarships, so we don't have to necessarily work on the cash flow in his education.

But I'm just kind of concerned with how we're going to structure our living expenses. How long will he be in school for? Roughly 8 to 13 months. And it's a full roughly 7 days a week, 9 to 5. They said don't plan on working during the program because it is such a vigorous course. Well, that means childcare is no help at all. Exactly. Okay, so childcare stays there, and you're making $40,000,

and you can live on that or not. If the answer is not, you can't do it. Yeah, I don't think. We've looked at a couple different options. My parents are are getting ready to retire but i don't really want them spending their whole retirement watching their grandkids five days a week um eight to ten months is not their whole retirement true true okay um i mean if they want to do it, that's another thing. I mean, they may not want to do it. It may not be an option. But, I mean, what's he going to study?

Electrical linemen. So he wants to do high-power voltage. Okay. And so he's making 60 now. He'll come out making 80 day one. Yeah, I think they said apprentices start roughly 45 to 50 an hour flat rate not including any overtime you know so the in-keep and his apprenticeship is like only a couple of years and then he'll be making serious money yeah yeah is he going to travel

with it no i think he plans to stay local and we bought our house in 2020 for fairly cheap at a super low interest rate so we're not really willing to give that up right now because i mean if he's traveling it's a whole different world even in in that in that world as you know uh okay um well here's the thing uh it feels like the way you're describing this that you first decided for him to do this um and then tried to figure out if you could afford it rather than the other way around like you should have figured out if you could afford it before he decided to do it because his primary job is to not his family. Yep. And if he can't do that, then he can't do this. Yep, and he's talked about picking up a part-time job or working with his current employer to see if he can work odd-end hours

to kind of fill those gaps. But they said not to do that. Yeah, they didn't recommend it until they kind of get into like the core of the program so and he's been working towards this roughly about six years we've paid off roughly seven thousand dollars in debt because currently we've done step one we've been working on step two but as soon as he started to get the beginning of the acceptance it's just we kind of froze that step two for a minute to say okay how much How much did you guys have left, Emily? For our debt?

Yeah. Not including our mortgage, about $35,000. Okay. On what? Student loans, a vehicle, and then we put a new roof on our house after we purchased it. How much do you owe on the vehicle? I want to say roughly $5,000. Okay.

Is there a way for him to delay this like a year and you guys get in a position where you pay off debt, you can get savings or like any level of traction? If you had no debt and had your emergency fund fully funded, you could probably see your way through this a lot more to Rachel's point. Yeah, and that's something he's considered. I just know the program he's currently in. He put it off and talked about it and he's something he's considered i just know the program he's currently and he you know put it off and talked about it and he's applied and so what no that really matters if you

have hungry children wow yeah so and you know it's tough this is grown-up land yeah you got to do what you have to do to feed your family first and then you do this so you'd be in a much better condition if you said i'm going to intentionally spend this next year getting our crap together so that when i do this it doesn't put my family in jeopardy um because you're really calling saying you can't figure out how you're doing this you keep saying we're barely going to make it but what you're really saying is we can't make it. Okay. Aren't you?

Well, looking at the numbers, I think it's slightly doable, but it's, then again, getting out of our comfort zone of our current lifestyle and getting into that new lifestyle. And I'm just concerned. I can handle you. I mean, you can give up your comfort zone. That's whoop. You know, that's nothing. It's not comfort zone I'm concerned about. It's food. Yeah. And, you know, the necessities will be met that's our biggest thing you know i'm just worried about you know any additional expenses or things that come up how much is your house payment um a

thousand and your take-home pays 3,300 yes and you're going to run the rest of this household on $2,300 a month, including $35,000 worth of debt. Bull. Bull crap. Yeah. The numbers aren't crunching. No, they're not crunching at all. Yeah.

They're crunching, but it's not a good sound of crunch. Yeah. Yeah. I would wait emily honestly i i i don't i'm not a dream killer but i love killing nightmares yeah and so um i don't want to kill his dream but if his dream puts his whole family you know you call me back eight months from now, you know, he went, but we're in foreclosure. You know, I don't, I'm not going to sign you up for that and have my stamp of approval. I want him to go do this, but I want him to do it in such a way that he doesn't put all of you guys in jeopardy. And he doesn't want to put you guys in jeopardy.

But you just, you guys have not thought this through until last night. Yep. but you just you guys have not thought this through until last night yep so we've been you know looking at stuff and you know i've pretty much run our budget i mean he's not a spender um it's not the question i'm just looking i'm not saying he's a bad guy i'm saying you guys had together have not thought this through until last night and you have to steven covey says one of the seven habits of highly effective people is they begin with the end in mind and last night you did that for the first time on this and it took your breath away and that's why you called yeah because i just wasn't sure i'd have to do so here's what i'm going to tell you if i were in your shoes here's what i would do my first choice would be for him to wait a year. Rachel's suggestion is excellent.

And if it, if it takes 18 months or if it puts the whole thing in jeopardy, so be it. I'll call that God. And so God put it in jeopardy because God says, don't do things where you can't feed your own family. Those that don't take care of their own household first are worse than an unbeliever. Bible. Okay. So we're, you know, we're going to call it that now the, if, but I am, but I am convinced that if he can get in there this round, he can probably get in another round. So that's choice one choice. Two is you guys look around there and figure out how we're going to increase our income above your base and mom and dad are going to commit to keep the kids and drop your daycare bill because your

daycare bill is probably what two grand a month yeah honey to your daycare in your house and you don't have any money left for food i just did that yeah so that's over and we're looking at child care alternatives and reaching out yeah Yeah. Trying to find lower costs. Is your child care two grand a month? Yeah. Plus 1,000. 3,000. Yeah.

Your take home is 3,300. Your budget's not tight. It's impossible. You cannot go forward unless you adjust something. It's fantasy. Okay? You don't have any. That's just ding ding so adjust the

child care sell a car take six jobs he works on the side even though he's not supposed to for eight months you grind it out like that and for eight months you pay a price for him to get to be this i'm okay with paying a price to win but i'm not okay paying a price knowing i'm gonna lose that's a bad idea what it's one life event away from to your point foreclosure a car no they can't even make it it's not it's not it's one month away yes you can't even get to the food budget here this is the ramsey show live from the headquarters of ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host.

Thank you for joining us, America. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality No. 1 bestselling author, is my co-host today, and we're happy to talk to you, America, about your life and your money. So when I wrote the first book I wrote, Financial Peace, in 1994, raise your hand if you weren't born yet. Okay. They did in the lobby. Yeah. When I wrote that book, I proposed a concept in our seminars that we were doing in those days. And in, it was a different world in 1994. Sure. Yeah. And the 90s are back a little bit. I proposed a concept and I got so much on the first times I got just showered in hate. Oh, I can't wait. It was fabulous. And so the

concept was this. And I don't remember the exact numbers, but they were a whole lot lower than they are today. So I'll make up some numbers that would be similar to what they probably were I said something like if a lady is making thirty thousand dollars a year at her job she has two kids and daycare is a thousand dollars a month and she buys clothing professional clothing to go to that job and she dry clothing, professional clothing, to go to that job, and she dry cleans the professional clothing. Because in the 90s, you were wearing suits. To go to that job.

For a lot of places. Yeah, they weren't wearing sweatpants to work in those days, or your pajamas. And so it was a different world, like I said. And if because she was working, she didn't prepare meals from scratch at home because time and fatigue, the family would go out to eat more and they would spend. Not from scratch, but just meaning like home cooked meal. Well, spend more on pre-prepared things or going out to eat. Yeah.

Because of fatigue. Ordering pizza because I'm tired and I don't feel like cooking. Or the husband is choosing not to cook. Yes. Well, whatever. I'm just saying. And so 1994. I know. This is the 90 the night just hang with me here but uh and i propose that if you add all of these things up making

twenty eight thousand dollars a year paying a thousand dollars a month for child care these other things added in after taxes come out and gasoline to drive to said job and wear and tear on the car to drive to said job when you take all of those things out she's probably losing money working and it might be cheaper net net net net net to stay home with the kids if she wants to i didn't say she should be at home barefoot and pregnant. I did not say that. I said if she chooses to and wants to be at home. Now, people said I said a lot of things I didn't say, but that's exactly what I said. But even on the premise that she can't afford, she's not making enough to justify working.

Yes. Or he's not making. With the expenses. Yes. With the expenses at that time. Yeah. yes or he's with the expenses with the expenses at that time yeah and i caught hell for suggesting that net of daycare net of all these other expenses she might not be making anything as you know because i did some math and dad blame if i didn't get blamed for the other side of that

not that but the other way of what of not that, but the other way of not understanding the cost of daycare and that you can't afford to work because of the cost of daycare, the stinking Wall Street Journal, some woman writes an article trashing me. Recently, not in 94. No, just the other day. Just the other day. I said on the air that women, that daycare is ridiculous and so you just need to shut up and go to work.

I didn't say that at all. I've said quite the opposite since 1990 freaking four and i get i don't if you're gonna hate me hate me for the right thing okay if you're gonna bitch about something dave said pick out something he actually said okay but i think they clipped i think there was a clip of you saying that's a ridiculous amount to pay for child care and they they clipped that, not knowing the whole call. Well, of course. Because it's the freaking media. I know, but that specific... And some idiot on TikTok.

Yes, that specific guy was paying... But he was paying like $28,000 for one kid. Yeah. That is dumb. Well, I don't... Yes. Average right now is 16,000. Yes.

Okay. So depending on where you are, if you're in New York City and Manhattan, that is going to look different. No, that guy was calling in. He was trying to put his kid in Gucci daycare. I don't remember. I don't remember. I'm just telling, no, I don't know.

It was Gucci daycare he was signing up for. I don't know. His upper lip was sunburned because his nose was in the air. We don't know that. Yes, I do. No, we don't. No, we don't know that yes i do no we don't no we don't but i am not i was i'm on quite the other side of what i got blamed for which is what i'm upset for i i did not i mean all i'm talking about that particular instance it's like somebody calling up and going i'm paying 46 000 a year for my child to attend a private elementary school

and i make 60 000,000 a year. What do you think of that? I think you're a moron. That's what I think of that. Okay. You can't do math. Your kids shouldn't be in a school that fancy. Okay.

Cause you're just stuck up. That's all that is. And that's what this guy was. It had nothing to do with the actual cost of daycare. I think, I think the thing is it is such a it's such a hard subject because unlike 94 you fast forward to today where it is it's it's like child care it's i think it's ludicrous 30 to almost 40 percent in some areas since like 2019 it really is going up faster than tuition i i know that yeah for working moms and so and parents no it's not different than 94 so

the exact same thing is true. Some people now with the cost of daycare aren't making money. That's right. I agree. I totally agree. So I'm still saying the same thing. Yes. No, I know. I know.

But now I'm getting hated for saying the other thing that I didn't say. I know. But I think, too, the conversation of a household income, because so many families are dual income. And a lot of families are dual income and make on average right like in that in that 60 70 range per year yep and then in order to pay the mortgage and have the food i mean like there is these days mama might be making more than daddy a hundred not unusual at all yeah that's the other option is that that the that the spouse who's making more

i don't care that's not the point it's a math thing is all the spouse who's making more. The dad is the one that goes home. I don't care. That's not the point. It's a math thing is all I'm looking at. And the problem is, though, again, people are getting to this place now because it's risen so quickly that they're having to look now at exactly what you're saying, at the options of like, oh, my gosh. And I've known some moms that they're like, I got to go home.

I have three kids under the age of five, and we can't afford it. Literally can't afford it. You make $40,000 a year today, and you have three kids under the age of five in daycare. You're not making money. I know. That's that 1994 example in $24. Right, right. $20, $24.

I know. And there's some other ways you can look at it. I mean, there's creative options. You've got to find an alternative child care situation if you're going to work in that situation yes yes and because you're not actually making money yep you're working and going backward and what's hard is for the single mom too who doesn't it's almost impossible yeah who almost doesn't even have that but here's the other thing the 16 000 is the average nationally this includes expensive markets inexpensive markets

yes and it includes expensive daycares and inexpensive daycares and so there's a lot of ways to skin the cat there's a lot of ways to take care of the kids but it is a valid thing to sit and look at it as a family and make and make a call and the values yes but people don't use they get emotional because the issue is their children and their brains melt down and they quit doing math. Because as a mom with little kids who works,

you go through some of these places, you're like, I don't feel comfortable sending my kid here too. Then don't. I know, I know. But it's the idea that it's a hard subject for a lot of people. It is hard.

It is. idea that it's it's a it's a hard subject for a lot of people it is okay so we left everyone with we're not going to keep the rant going how how hard that subject is in life yeah how high child care is and how hard it is yes it is high and it is hard the trick is to not be irrational and justify stupid numbers because you love your children love of your children does not make math go away math still will roost it'll still come home so we want to help you face this high cost and if if you go to RamseySolutions.com, we have a blog there called 13 Ways to Afford the High Cost of Child Care. Almost like everyone at Ramsey knows that child care is high. Just in case some of you on TikTok weren't listening, we're aware that child care cost is high, but that does not mean that you suddenly get a pass on math. The cost of real estate in Manhattan is high, but some of you can't afford to live there because of math.

It's that simple. The cost of real estate in Tokyo is high high and some of you can't afford to live there because of math so we'll help you with this and but i'm not going to help you with denial or the system is broken so i'm going to ignore math no that's not what you we're not going to go down that alley no but there are some there are some different ways creative ways to kind of look at it and one of the options is what we talked about in the last segment was maybe one one uh parent decides to stay home right like maybe it gets to a point that's a valid option yeah so here's the interesting thing i'll add one more thing i said we weren't going to

extend the rant but now we are okay there are parents out there right now uh with this thing you and i have talked about this at length, mom guilt. If you work, you're guilty because you're not home. If you're home, you feel guilty because you're not working. Moms can't win. They got guilt either way. Society and heaps on them, they heap it on themselves. If I'm at work, I feel guilty because I'm not home with the kids.

If I'm at home with the kids, I feel guilty because I'm not using my degree and I'm not out making money. And so you just can't get away from it. Guys don't struggle from this, by and large. Yeah, the mom guilt is a very real thing. So in the midst of that statement, there are ladies who really would prefer to be at home with their children. Oh, sure, yeah.

And have never sat down and done the math that says you should be and so this sets you free because stay at home i want to set you free if that's you yes if you if you're a professional lady rachel's in the workplace my other daughter works if you're a professional lady in the workplace i'm not trying we're not trying to say you should go home or you're not a good mom we're not saying that at all we're saying if that's your choice to be at home but you feel like you should the family needs money for working and yet you're not saying that at all. We're saying if that's your choice to be at home, but you feel like the family needs money for working, and yet you're not netting anything, this math is going to give you permission to go home. Yes, there's a value, a dollar value for stay-at-home moms, the amount of work that they do.

No question. For sure. Ashley in Savannah, Georgia. Hi, Ashley. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, y'all. Hey, what's up? Well, to continue off of what y'all are talking about,

how do my husband and I pay off debt, rebuild our savings, and potentially have another baby while living in this world where expenses keep increasing like daycare and rent? What do y'all make? What's household income? We both make $80,000. Okay. So you make $160,000 we both make 80 000 okay so you make 160 yeah you make 160 000 well our joint well that would be yeah how much debt do you guys have

um so i have so we are renting at 2300 um and then obviously like power and all that stuff. How much do you owe on your cars? Just debt, yeah. We have no car notes, car loans. My car is paid off but she is reaching 200,000 miles and my husband has an old blazer that we just can't rely on. You have any debt? What debt do you guys have? So I have two credit cards. One is $3,700 that I'm making minimum payments on. Unfortunately, one was charged off recently. My other card, which is about $15,000. And I'm pretty sure there's some medical debt floating around. How long have you all been making $160,000 and overspending?

The $160,000 just happened this year. What were you making in the other years? Well, COVID really rocked us. 60-day furlough turned into over a year, and then I took a job for $50,000, and I just got back up to $80,000. What was your husband making? He's been slowly uh progressing as well so um probably about 60 and just got to 80 as well okay so y'all were around that 100 mark for a while so here's what's happened okay you went through a downturn in your incomes and you slowly progressed back to and beyond where you were before and you faster than your income went up your spending went up because you didn't give me anywhere nothing you've given me so far tells us where 160 000 is going i have no idea why you should be this broke. How in the world do you have a $3,000 credit card

charged off making $160,000? It means you're out of control, disorganized, and chaotic in your house. So the credit card, I haven't put anything on a credit card in years. This is like really direct. Yeah, but why don't you just pay it off? You make $160,000.

It's $3,000. Because you didn't have any money because all your money is going to restaurants dollars because you didn't have any money because all your money's going to restaurants and trips you can't afford we're not eating out we're not going on trips i haven't got my hair seriously where's your money going seriously where's all your money going then if you're in control and you have a budget laid out where's your 160 000 going because it's not going to rent you don't have that much rent it it's not going to bet 2300 she told us there's no your rent's low you don't have any debt where's your money going our all of our money goes to bills what bills

we don't have any bills this is hilarious yeah what bills do you have don't yell at her what bills do you have hello for help what i'm sorry what bills do you have all of our bills combined are four thousand dollars a month okay that's 2300 for rent what's the other 1700 1250 for daycare, which keeps going up year over year. Yeah, it does. Okay. And then power, electricity, all the basic minimum, gas, food.

Okay, so did you say $4,000 a month? Did I hear you right? Correct. That's $48,000 a year. And then plus child care. No, no, no, that includes child care. Did it? The $4,000 includes child care? It's $1,250. year. And then plus child care. No, no, no. That includes child care. Did it?

The $4,000 included child care? It's $1,250. $1,250 for child care. So that's $48,000 out of $160. So somewhere I'm still missing $102,000. Taxes. Okay. Somewhere I'm still missing almost $100,000.

That's what I'm talking about. This is recent. And then any money that we have left over is going into the snowball method. How much is left over per month that you guys have? About 500. I'm sorry? 500. And we're just dumping that into savings.

500. Okay. Something's really, really, really really really off in your math because you gave me forty eight thousand dollars worth of debt five hundred is six thousand dollars that's fifty four thousand dollars out of a hundred and sixty i'm still over a hundred thousand dollars is missing not counting taxes you following this are you looking at a yearly number? Yeah, I am. Like monthly. I am. $500 a month is $6,000 a year.

Hold on. Ashley, how much do you guys, how much hits your checking account every month, income-wise, after taxes? What are you guys bringing home now? I get $1,800 every two weeks. And what about Hedda? That's around the same thing as well. Okay. That's not $160,000 a year.

Before taxes. Yeah. How much you got? $6,000. You got money going in your 401k? No. Okay. You have way too much withholding okay you guys need to okay i'll tell you what hold on here's what we're gonna do

i can't break this because i can't break her so um i'm gonna i'm gonna hook you up with one of our financial counselors actually who can sit down and calmly go through this and try to explain it to you because i can't nothing you're saying makes well 60 that yeah these numbers are 50 60 thousand dollars off she's just so far off it's unbelievable and so there's something else going on with your math here I don't know where your money's going you don't know where your money's going all you figured out is is that it's not working um and so you guys have got to sit down because $160,000 a year is not $1,800 every two weeks. It comes two. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today.

Our event season is in full swing. We have three events coming up where you can experience the Ramsey teachings live and in person with thousands of people just like you. Our next one is the Total Money Makeover weekend event. Rachel and me, Dr. John Deloney, Ken Coleman, Jade, George, all of us will be speaking at this two-day ultimate motivator event to get fired up and wired up to live the life you've always wanted. Tell every dollar what to do. Make every dollar behave and learn to win with money. Get out of debt. Become wealthy. Be outrageously generous.

We're going to show you how to do every bit of it. May 10th and 11th here on our campus. We're already half sold out, so if you want to come, you need to get your tickets immediately. Then on May 21st and 22nd, I'm going to be doing a virtual event with George Camel helping me as we unpack not only the basics of investing, but the Dave Ramsey's investing essentials, something I've never done before. I'm going to open my playbook, my personal playbook on real estate. I own several hundred million dollars worth, and I'll show you what I've done and how I've done it. And it's not a TikTok video.

It's not easy. But I can show you how to really do it. I've actually done it. It's not a theory for me. I don't live in my mother's basement. So we're going to walk this through for you. Then Rachel and Dr. John Deloney will be doing the Money in Marriage Getaway October 24th and 26th. Through the 26th, that is is here on our campus as well spend a weekend away with your

spouse in nashville and with dr john deloney and rachel cruz uh real life answers to real marriage questions gets a little dicey in there sometimes i'm just saying but uh you're going to love the event you're going to learn a lot. It's pretty incredible. So any of these three things you can get at ramseysolutions.com slash events, and all three are likely to be sellouts well before, so get your tickets quickly. On the debt-free stage in the Ramsey Solutions headquarters lobby is Tyler and Jesse. Hey, guys, how are you? Good. How are you?

Better than I deserve, man. Tell me, where do you guys live worcester ohio cool what's that near uh akron akron all right cool and how much debt have you guys paid 289 000 how long did that take uh 44 months good for you and your range of income uh we started at 116 and now we make 16 Good. What do you guys do for a living? I'm a firefighter. And I'm a physical therapist. Very cool.

Awesome. Very cool. What was the $289,000? What kind of debt? It was two car loans and then most of it was a student loan. Wow. Nice, y'all. Good for you guys.

How long y'all been married? Four years today. Oh, happy anniversary. So fun. They said it in unison that was perfect yeah great very cool you guys so uh somebody comes out with a bunch of student loans maybe physical therapy could be i don't know possible doing a pt degree yeah and you guys get married and you go okay cleanup time tell me how that happened and what the conversation sounded like how'd you plug into ramsey so i grew up my parents did the dave ramsey program the baby steps and so when i graduated in 2017 with my doctorate degree i asked my dad i'm

like what do i do about this and he said uh you need to read you know total money money makeover and you need to get signed up for fpu it'll be the best money you've ever spent and so i went to fpu a year before meeting tyler and then i met tyler at work we started dating the next year we started talking about marriage and i said okay i want you to go through this course with me and you need to know what comes with me yes that's right yeah so we had the we had the talk the money talk yeah how long had you been dating before you disclosed hundreds of thousands of student loan debt uh two months yeah get this out of the way all right just see if he's a keeper or not right yeah so great oh my gosh you guys okay so for four years you've you've been doing this so pretty much

since you've been married you guys have been on this. Okay. So how hard was that? Because I feel like, especially when you have a new event, like whether it's marriage or a baby, or you graduate from college, like whatever it is, you kind of want to jump into a new season and just enjoy life. So how, how hard was it being newlyweds knowing like we're buckling down and doing this? It was i mean we got married uh during the pandemic oh my gosh yeah and so um my income actually reduced you got married at the height of the pandemic yeah like about the time the quarantine started yeah we were on shutdown whenever we got married yeah this is like this is mark this is the end of march yeah oh my gosh and

it's your anniversary yeah whoa okay so yeah the whole pandemic, you guys were doing this then. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Trying to, my income reduced by half because my outpatient hours were reduced. Um, so it's just amazing because, um, I actually found other opportunities, um, screening in the ED on third shift, um, going in, you know, doing cash-based physical therapy in people's homes that didn't want to go you know out in the community um yeah god really showed up yeah she got after it too wow you were getting it good for y'all amazing wow so you get married right at the quarantine and then you go wide open into this thing uh so what was the hardest part of the whole journey? Uh, I think the hardest part was just not playing the comparison game and walking our own path. You know, we're at age right

now where everybody in our life is making different milestones and you know, we just had to celebrate ours, you know, through the debt snowball, the way it's set up, you can still celebrate while you're paying off your debt. So yeah. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah. Just, um, just got to shut up and do it. I mean, you just, you know, um, I think what got me through is that I was hearing the debt-free screams of all these other people, um, who, you know, lost a spouse or, you know, um, you know, just different things. Hard life stuff. Yeah. And you know, it's like different things hard life stuff yeah yeah and you know it's like okay they can do what's my excuse you know it's our excuse how much did you guys work would you say what was like at the peak how many hours a week was like the oh gosh we were like animals um yeah we we would go whole weeks without seeing each other because we worked

opposite schedules um with my job i think I sometimes was like somewhere around 60, 65 hours in a week. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. As a fireman, I could go upwards of 100 hours a week. But, you know, sometimes we get to sleep, but not always. It's not guaranteed by any stretch. Okay.

So besides work and income, what's the other part of this that you would tell somebody? Yeah. The key. What's the key? What's the thing? The number one thing. To get out of that oh um just just take every opportunity you can to increase your income i know we did um we just went after every certification we're at work anyways we're spending the hours anyways

let's just do that too let's try to get you know our time worth more um and then also too at home um just making meals at home, packing lunches. We made our own laundry detergent. I mean, just, you know, all these little things that really add up. Yeah. And just to add on to that, you know, we're lucky enough that the phase of life we're in, we don't have children yet, anything like that. So we took this time for a lot of professional development. Like our life wasn't on hold really because we've

developed a lot so that's another way guys yeah for sure your incomes have increased permanently yeah because of that so so nice no payments you're heroes well done so the first four years you worked your tail end off for four years you're a hundred percent debt free was it worth it yes oh yeah yes it's amazing to walk into work and know that we have the ball now this you know every every you know dollar goes towards our goals if we're not paying some bank you know it's amazing well that's it yeah just put me in coach that's right i love it well done well done so proud of y'all who was cheering you on i bet your dad yep yep our family our friends um we definitely talked to people who had gone through the steps and were successful with it yeah yeah and it's funny like you know at work

i almost have like a second family we brought some people around you know and they were cheering us on at the end too so. So it was awesome. Yeah, that's great. Very cool. So great, you guys. Well done, guys. Home run. Touchdown.

Way to go, heroes. Hey, we've got an every dollar subscription for you for the premium. You're probably already using it, and then I'll extend it for you. And another one for you to give away for somebody that can't believe you really did this. I'm impressed with these numbers. Very hard work. Very hard work. She's not kidding. Lots and lots of hours. for somebody that can't believe you really did this i'm impressed with these numbers very hard work very hard work she's not kidding lots and lots of hours she said it like six times but she's exactly oh yeah really happened really happened all right it's tyler and jesse from akron ohio

289 000 paid off in 44 months making 116 to 169 counted down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one we a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free. Yeah. Way to go, you guys. And now their debt-free scream is permanently enshrined in the YouTube Hall of Fame to encourage other people who are in the middle of their hard journey. Telling you, it's worth it. This is The Ramsey Show. Open phones this hour. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host.

Thank you for joining us. Today's question comes from Anonymous. I haven't heard from Anonymous in a while. He used to write me all the time. Usually doesn't have nice things to say. But let's see what Anonymous in Arkansas says. It says, how do you learn discipline? I spend so much of my income on going out to eat.

I work overnights at Walmart and make $20 an hour, but my bank account always is a race to zero. I borrow money from my paycheck before I get it and use apps like Dave. Yeah, there is one. It's not mine. To get cash. Oh, to get cash advance. Is it really named Dave?

Yeah, they named it after. They did that on purpose. Oh, no, Dave. Oh, gosh. And it charges $5 for an instant deposit. I feel like I can't get out of this three thousand dollar credit card hole that i'm in i also owe the irs around four thousand dollars if i was disciplined with my money i wouldn't be in the spot on 27 i need to get my stuff together anonymous that is a

very i i think you have your stuff together. My dad used to tell me that when you recognize a problem, 90% of the problem is solved. And so I think you're on a really, really good path here. I did the same thing anonymous. During the Fauci pandemic, I ate every donut in a 50 mile radius and I looked down and there was a thing growing on the front of me

it looked like a belly it was ridiculous there's still a little of it left but I haven't got rid of all of it but I got I said you know Dave you're a mess Dave you're an idiot Dave you're out of control if you would not eat

everything in sight you would not be the size you would if you would not eat everything in sight you would not be the size of an elephant you are not an idiot no you're making idiot choices I was doing it well I'm just saying I did not have an identity crisis never fear but but I mean the point is is that I look down just like you did I said what's what I'm doing is not working I'm getting negative results for negative behavior I've got to change my behavior that's a huge thing and i did and i hadn't had a donut since the fauci pandemic so i'm and i lost 37 pounds and i've walked every day for 1473 days as of this morning at least a mile up to five to seven miles in most days so uh yeah i i get it But what, what I, what did I do there to change

my behavior, my, my negative behaviors that were giving me negative results was I said, what has to be true? What has to change? Well, it's, you know, weight loss is a lot like money. It's a fairly simple concept. Um, you eat less, there it is. And you exercise more. There it is. And you exercise more. There it is. And so with money, what are we going to do? We're going to make more. So you need to probably be working more.

And maybe even at a different place, I don't know. You might make more. You might be able to find a better job. And then the second thing, Anonymous, is I would be giving the EveryDollar app. You can download it for free. If you want the upgrade, it's just a few dollars, and it connects to your bank. But that's the world's best budgeting app. And what the budget does is it's making every one of your dollars behave before you get them. That's the trick to budgeting, you say before it occurs before the money comes into my hand

i'm going to already have spent it on paper on purpose on the app or whatever yeah and that will give you control then the discipline will come from you saying i don't want to live like this anymore so i'm going to live like this anymore. So I'm going to live like that. I'm going to be the guy that wrote this stuff down. I'm going to be the guy that doesn't eat a donut. I'm going to be the guy that doesn't sit on his butt and watch Netflix. He's going to get up and go walk four miles.

I'm going to be the guy that does something different because I want a different result. But you've got something to measure it against. And in my case case it was the scales in your case it's some debt and and your written down budget will give you tremendous motivation if you really mean it and i'll be honest i've been doing this 32 years reading this email from you anonymous i think you really mean it yeah and you see things like i spend so much of my income on going out to eat so like the planning with your money yeah you plan you plan food though i mean like you know what i mean it's and just to say okay i'm gonna meal plan on sunday night and i'm gonna know when we eat for breakfast lunch and dinner every single day and it's not gonna be great food it's gonna be cheap and it's

gonna be quick but i'm gonna do that my buddies want to go out for a drink i can't afford to yep and so it is my buddies want to go out to eat i can't afford and it's like a muscle it takes time it takes time to build it and so there's going to be but anonymous that couple that was just up here that was making 170 000 a year they made their lunch and took it to work hello and they paid off 289 000 in debt and change is hard though and i think like it is hard well and we laugh at you sometimes, or I laugh at you sometimes because you're like, change.

Just change. You do this like clapping thing. And I'm like, but here's the deal. It is difficult because there is a norm that you set in. It's a human experience of like, what I know is normal is comfortable, even though I know it's wrong.

And that change, that's almost the scarier step it's almost the scarier step to say I'm going that's why I say baby step one sometimes the hardest because like I'm engaging in something new and so you know in a sense changing to do something that feels hard is hard yes but change is not necessarily hard if you change change from driving a horrible car to driving a great car, that's not hard. Yeah, that's fair. I guess that's a good change. So that's not a hard change. OK, if you change from living in a dump to moving into a million dollar house, that's not a hard change. Change is easy when it's but and so what you've got to do is when the change has sacrificed. What you've got to do is you have to say, is this change? Is this

hard change taking me to a better place? i gotta then i gotta work my way through it yeah you know is it worth it and it's like the bumper sticker when i'm you know i'm fat from the donuts i see this bumper sticker and it says nothing tastes as good as it is nothing tastes as good as it feels to be thin and so don't put it in your mouth you know it's that kind of thing you cannot run a big mac and so you can't do enough exercise to eat Big Macs. It doesn't work. So that's it. And so these things, you know, you get, okay, I'm going to live like no one else so that

later I can live and give like no one else. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but it yields a harvest of righteousness. And so instead of sitting down and looking at my numbers and going well this can't be done i you know there's no way instead i start looking at my numbers to go what has to change what must be different okay we're not eating out we're going to have a written game plan we're going to look at increasing our income and when you align yourself to all of those because the belief that you're getting to that those are going to take you to a better place you'll instantly be motivated no one exercises well i won't say that most people

don't exercise because it's fun some of you do but you're sick but most people exercise because it's good for you but you do get it though you do get a high you do get a high off people you do get a high off their husbands you get a high off of it when you're done but i'm just saying it's not because it's like whoo-hoo you know and so there's i mean yesterday morning it was raining i did not want to walk it was not fun i did not want to walk what i wanted was the result more than I wanted the action. I can't tell you that was fun. You should lift.

Yeah, I should do something. But at least I did that. You're trying to find something I can do indoors, I know. But anyway, the point being, Anonymous, I really think you're on to something. I really think there's good things are going to come to your life because, you know, discipline, no discipline seems pleasant at the time. His question was, how do you learn discipline? But it yields a harvest of righteousness. The way you focus on it is you focus on the harvest. What you're going to get. But there's also the

day in and day out consistency that it just becomes a part of who you are. James Clear talks about how new habits, you just take on a new identity. I am a person that fills in the blank. I am not a person that borrows money. Yep. I'm a person that does not have credit cards. I'm a person who takes their lunch to work. That is who I am, right? I mean, like it's these new identity markers. I'm a person with four pieces of plastic in my pocket, two debit cards, my driver's license, my handgun carry permit. These are the only plastic I own. I don't have any other plastic. That's the person that I am. And you know, somebody says, well, you need to borrow money to do that. Well, I can't do that because I don't, I'm a person that doesn't borrow money. And so you're a person that has discipline. You're

a person that works extra. You're a person that doesn't eat out when they're broke. You're a person that doesn't go to happy hour when you should be working overtime. You're a person, you know, and that you're right. That James Clear change of identity and atomic habits is a big deal. Anonymous. I think this is a fabulous question and I'm really encouraged for you. This is The Ramsey Show. I think this is a fabulous question, and I'm really encouraged for you. 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. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author and co-host of the super popular Smart Money Happy Hour on the Ramsey Networks is my co-host today. Also my daughter. Phone number 888-825-5225. Victoria starts this hour in Portland, Oregon. Hey, Victoria, what's up? Yeah, hey, Dave and Rachel. Thanks so much for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? Yeah, my fiance and I are getting married in July.

Just this week, we started your Financial Peace University. And within the last month, we've been meeting weekly to go over our personal budgets through the EveryDollar app. Just for personal debt, my fiance has about $4,000 left on his student loans that should be paid off in two months. Cool. My fiancé is a contractor. He owns a construction company. He brings home about, not brings home, but his salary is about $65 annually.

I work full-time. I have a side business that I recently started with my employer, and I bring home the same amount. You guys are doing great. Congratulations. Thank you. My question is, how should we approach business debt? Who has business debt? We both do. So my fiance has business debt. He has about 180. On what? What did he buy? A lot of equipment. So he has an excavator, two trucks, dump trailer, a loan, and a credit card.

And there may be another loan. Okay. And what about you? yeah so for me mine mine might be a little bit unique um my business partner who is my employer she uh has funded 30 000 into it into the business i'm sorry your business partner is your employer that those things are inconsistent well you're like day job and then you guys started a business is that right correct oh yeah correct outside outside of my 40 hours and so that person put that person put thirty thousand dollars into the business that you started together correct how is that debt then they invested into it uh well i guess it's not really then is it because i'm not paying it back right now you you're not supposed to is it supposed to be

repaid by the partnership before profits come out or something? That's how I've always assumed is that it would get paid off. Do we not have an agreement as to how it will be paid off? I guess for that one, no, we don't. You need to get one by the end of the weekend. Okay. We need to know what's going on here. This is the kind of stuff that destroys partnerships and businesses okay she has one set of expectations and you have another and then all of a sudden the thing gets blindsided so you guys need to determine that very very quickly usually it would be something like a percentage of the profits go to the debt until

the debt is cleared okay that would be a normal thing. And until there's profit, there wouldn't be any. It's not debt. Until their investment is recouped is really actually the terminology. Okay. Now, over on his side, he needs to quit buying equipment. Yep. Yep.

Correct. Correct. And he's on board with that, not buying additional equipment. Yeah. He's got way too much. He may need to sell some. Now, he took a salary of $65,000. What was his actual profit?

I don't know. So next week in our budget meeting, we're going to be going over his business. And then I'm actually going to be set up taking QuickBooks classes classes and i'm going to be taking over that for his business to start helping out okay all right so um probably i do know probably we need to find half of that debt and equipment to sell because i don't think his business, I don't think he's got another $100,000 coming out of that business. So I don't think he's making much money considering the amount of debt he has. So I'm scared. $180,000 on a $65,000 net is really scary.

Right. That's what I mean. $80,000, I can see my way to work through that. So I'm selling about half of this stuff give or take and you know try to get try to get a bunch of the debt paid off that way now then let's let me give you one other nuance and then let's address your question okay the nuance is this they're technically in both of these situations are not business debt because he signed personally for that equipment. Right.

The bank doesn't think he has a business. The bank thinks it's him. The law thinks it's him. And you didn't borrow money, so you don't have that. You have an investor that has a recoup plan on the investment before you guys divvy up profits or as you divvy up profits or something. You've got to figure that out. But his equipment is personal debt that he uses for business.

That's the legal technical thing. That does matter because, you know, it's him that will be bankrupt if this goes sideways and not his business. That's what matters. Now, once we said all of that, then we say, we're going to get the QuickBooks going. You're doing very good stuff, Victoria. You're asking all the right questions. You're doing all the right things. Congratulations. And you've got good answers to everything so far. Now, when you're doing the QuickBooks, what we suggest when I'm teaching

our Entree Leadership brand, and he can start listening to the Entree Leadership podcast if he wants to, as if he wants to learn business stuff from us. It's how we teach small businesses to grow their business like we grew this one. When I find that they have debt, I do it differently than I do with your personal credit card debt. Okay? Okay. What we do there is we say, after he makes a basic living wage out of the business, which now he's getting married, you know, he might make that be $40,000. Okay.

Because put with your income, you guys can probably make it at home if he's doing that. Everything after that we're going to call profit. Okay. So pretend like he was just a manager at this business and got paid $40,000 and I was the owner, then whatever was left from a keeping books standpoint, income minus expenses including the $40,000 manager is net profit. You know that, right? Right. Correct.

Okay. So of that net profit figure, whatever it is, and you can adjust the salary to be whatever you want it to be, but of that net profit, I want the vast majority of it each month to go to debt reduction and the rest of it to go to retained earnings, which is business talk for savings account. Okay. Okay. Now, so most companies will do something like 70-30 or 80-20. So like 80% of your net profit after you take a living wage goes towards the debt, 20 goes to build up your retained earnings because you have to have some cash in business to operate. And how much, like how many months of that would be of retained earnings? No, no, no, no, no.

He's going to every month take a percentage every month take a percentage of the net profit whatever that is a bunch of it 80 whatever set the formula ahead of time y'all look at that and figure it out 70 80 whatever is going to go to debt the other is going to go in retained earnings if retained earnings gets too big and you know you got too much money in the bank, reach over and pay off a piece of equipment, right? But I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think that's going to be your issue. You're probably going to be short of cash with the formula I'm giving you. You're probably not going to have as much as you want,

especially now that you can't borrow money anymore to buy more equipment. You're going to want cash to do that after you get the other equipment paid off. But that's a formula that will work for you. I think you guys are on the track to success. Well done. This is The Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Cassie is with us in Denver.

Hi, Cassie. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I'm looking for advice on how to improve my relationship with my husband as we struggle with burnout and the feeling of equity during baby steps two and three. So we've been doing the baby steps for eight months and had our first baby seven months ago and prior to that it was easy to feel like equal contributors to the household and relationship which is important to us but now he's working extra and I'm doing more at home with the baby

even though we're both working really hard it's just hard to get that feeling that we're we're both in the same spot we're both dealing with the burnout right now and we're just kind of looking for any advice you guys might have you're not burnt out you have a new baby yeah it's really hard i'm keeping one of my grandkids tonight it's hard yeah i'm keeping the littlest one it's hard yeah because they take up a lot of energy they can't do anything can they they're completely helpless yeah and i guess you know me taking on more of the household stuff i i'm feeling a different burnt out than he is yeah well you got a brand new thing you've never had this gig before right if you guys weren't working baby step two and three just having a newborn it ain't no picnic yeah and it's a different kind of exhaustion yeah what you're

doing you never sleep right yeah it's that and it's just uh yeah i mean it's yeah it's a lot it's a lot of stress uh how much debt do you guys have left uh 39 000 okay do you guys have a timeline on when you think it'll be paid off so we're actually we know we're getting inheritance probably 50 to 60 000 this summer but we're trying to live like we're not getting that yeah i'm trying to make the sacrifices now so we don't go back into that and then also we don't have a house so the end goal is a down payment for a house more the more you can pay off the more the inheritance can go towards the house i love that yeah exactly that's a good yeah yeah okay so the way not number one we have brand new baby is a different kind of thing i'm not i'm not poking fun i'm i'm empathizing it's a real you've got

it's one of the toughest times for exhaustion and a different kind of fatigue than you'll ever have any other time in your life. Okay. As a matter of fact, every day it gets better. Yeah. After this. It really does. Yeah. There you go.

See, I'm not kidding. Every day gets better. It's precious and it's wonderful but it's exhausting and so it's a different kind of thing than just we're working our tails off to get out of debt it's also a different kind of thing because your body's adjusting after having had a child and so that the physical attributes of that um affect this discussion too in a very real way. And that's wonderful too, but it's also a very real part of the chemistry of what's going on. It's just tiring.

Yeah, it's just tiring. You get tired. Yeah. Cass, so your husband, are you working outside at all, the home, or are you there full time? Oh, yeah. I work full time too. And so, yeah.

Have you guys sat down? Because even my husband and I, we did this when I was working and we had kids where it was like, what are the things around the house that I need help with that I feel like, oh, my gosh, like I can't do all of this? And where are the areas that he could step in? Right. And everything's for a season. Life is going to change when, you know, even if you a second baby it just it changes the dynamic again um but have you guys sat down and had those conversations because i think to the responsibility at times especially if you're a driver as a like a you're a strong driver as a woman it can feel like oh yeah i'll just take care of it all i can do it

and asking for help is really difficult and so have you guys sat down and talked about that? Yeah, we have. And it's honestly gotten better than since I originally wrote in already. It's improved from talking. Okay, good. I think it's hard because he works a physical job and mine's a desk job. And then we just start getting into that whole. Yeah, it doesn't matter.

Who deserves the relaxing? Yeah, no, no. I think that's where you start splitting hairs because there's a different type type of exhaustion to all of it you did a physical thing having a baby well and her job well her but her job is a desk job i know and then you're at work all day and then you got a baby yeah i'm like it's yeah it's it's a it's kind of all like we're all in this together it's not this oh keeping score keeping of well you do this kind of job here and i do this and you know what i mean like it can get into that and i think it this kind of job here and I do this and you know what I mean like it can

get into that and I think it's kind of this like whole mindset of like we're both exhausted so what is the plan of action for us to get through even just day to day the basics and necessities of stuff and feeling some level of that control in the household because I can because it is chaotic I mean it's it's really difficult but when you have that stuff laid out and i think that's what winston and i did we kind of blew up the whole like responsibility roles and responsibility of what we kind of thought and kind of assumed each other and for a short period of time we're going to make it whatever it needs to be yeah yeah it's kind of all hands on deck feel and we could change it back and forth and we could do it for two weeks and change it again yep but um i think you're you know when you said cassie y'all sat down and started talking about but i i want to give you um

permission i i don't think it's burnout i think it's just tired yeah okay burnout is i don't emotionally that there's no light at the end of the tunnel except an oncoming train. You actually see your way through this. You're just freaking tired. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, and sometimes when you have to pick up something out of the floor or take out the trash or something because he went to sleep because he just worked a 12-hour shift or something like that, you know, it's easy to, when you're tired you get grouchy at least i do

i'm grouchy sometimes when i'm not tired so a little bit today so uh but yeah the uh you know see what i'm saying so uh i i just want to give you i want you guys to give your permission give yourself permission to say we are in a very unusual season of life it's a lot of grace we're trying to do two very hard things at the same time get out of debt by working very intensely and deal with a newborn both of these are heavy lifting together it's really heavy and it won't be for long yeah okay and and then that helps me if i'm in if if i'm at the end of the game and i'm exhausted i got to run one more play i got to do one more thing i got to push one more mile to finish that run whatever it is i'm at the end as long as i can see the end i'm not burnt out i'm just tired

yeah and you're there you can see the end and you and and you've done a honestly from what you're describing i think you're there. You can see the end. And you've done a, honestly, from what you're describing, I think you're both doing great. I just think you haven't given yourself enough credit for how much crap you've been going through. I mean, how hard this is. It's hard. The only thing we've never.

And to your point, Cassie, marriage changes so drastically after you have a baby. I'm like, your marriage looks different in a sense. I'm like, the lack of sleep, the connection, like all of that that you're talking about is so normal. So, so normal. So yeah, I would say even for you guys, like find a couple of things. I don't know, for us, it just helped levity. Like if we could just find levity and laughter and like things just to like relieve some of that tension and pressure that can build up, I think is, is really helpful because you guys may not be at a place where you're like,

Oh yeah, weekly date nights. I feel like some people are like, do a weekly date night. I'm like, do you know how crazy, how crazy our life is? Like we don't,

we're not in a season to do that, but like, what's up, what's something fun. And Deloney will probably, Dr. John Deloney will probably kill me for saying this, but I'm like,

even like, even like a stupid TV show that it's like the thing that you guys do you sit down together and you watch it makes you laugh like what's a thing that just can bring some levity to you guys I think is um is is always helpful especially in these seasons and if yeah and if they're just now sleeping through the night at seven months you're it's just it's exhausting yeah yeah you guys are doing a really good job Cassie and it doesn't last forever and um but I know I know exactly how you feel because it's it's a lot but I it also helps to put the right language on it and burnout's not the right language tired is the right language and I and and by the way it's it's you have a right to be tired that's what we're trying to tell you. Um, but it's also worth it. So keep going,

you know, figure it out, sit down, parse out the chores, go honey tonight. I just can't do this. I'm going to bed. I mean, whatever, or, or yeah, you gotta, you gotta take the midnight, you know, I can't do it, you know, whatever. And you can just go back and forth with that. And you just work your way through till the end on this. And you do, you do figure out what you can do, what you can't do and keep handing it back and forth, handing it back and forth until you get across the goal line and you'll get there. You'll get there. Uh, I think you're probably a lot stronger than you feel like you are. Matter of fact, I'm sure you are. This is the Ramsey show. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today on the debt-free stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions headquarters.

John is with us. Hey, John, how are you? Better than I deserve, Dave. Very cool. And where do you live, sir? Seattle, Washington. Very good. And how much debt have you paid?

$59,696. I love it. And how long did this take? Three years, nine months, 27 days. All right. Nice. And your range of income during that time? $20,000 to start, and then after a lot of side hustles and a little bit of overtime, $60,000.

Very cool. What do you do now? I'm a youth pastor, and I'm also a financial coach part-time with your Ramsey Preferred Coaching team. Cool. So dare to be different, Romans 12, too. Yep. All right. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Amen. Yep. Good. I love it. One of my favorite scriptures. Good for you. Well done. Well done.

Well done. What kind of debt was the $60,000? Student loans. Oh, baby. Youth pastor000 student loans oh baby youth pastor with student loans yep making no money you get out of school and looked up three years ago nine months and said I gotta do this or what yeah so kind of like everyone or I was a high schooler didn't really have any plans I jumped straight into student loans went to a private private Christian school and and didn't actually

think about it. I was like, oh, signing. Okay, whatever. I don't really care what I was doing. Two and a half years in, I'm in my dorm and I see this book and it's five college mistakes you can't afford to miss by Rachel Cruz and Anthony O'Neill. I was like, oh, that's a good book. And I looked at it and the first one of the chapters was college choice.

It said public in-state versus private out-of-state and that's what i did and i was like oh no what did i do and i looked and i saw i accumulated 60 000 and i was only halfway through my degree so i just had this holy crap like full of shame full of hopelessness like what am i going to do and uh during my part-time college job i was actually um kind of looking and i scrolled upon a dave ramsey you know bald guy giving someone hope on uh youtube and i just jumped all in just started consuming the podcast the youtube and um i realized wait a minute i can pay for my degree online while working full-time. So I actually stopped. It was December 2019, right before COVID.

So I did online before it was cool. That wasn't a plan, but everyone kind of followed my footsteps. Not really, but COVID happened. You started the fad. Yep. But honestly, the COVID pause actually helped me kind of accelerate my debt payment. But I made $1,600 a month to start start off and it was nothing. Wow. And 150 bucks a month for groceries,

Instacart, DoorDash, house sitting, cat sitting, anything and everything. But long story short, I even worked for a car dealership for part of it. But using Ken Coleman's materials,

I realized I have a passion for helping high schoolers find and follow Jesus. And that became just really evident through the Ken Coleman materials, just community speaking into my life, as well as, oh, wait, I also have this passion for finances since finances is the biggest and common reasons for divorce. So I then kind of did that. So now I'm actually at a church, Bethany Puyallup. We do FPU, which I love because I get to point my high schoolers to it. But a new thing now that I'm debt-free and I can do is every senior that graduates, I'm going to give a copy of the Total Money Makeover and say, hey, I was an idiot with money and I didn't follow God's ways of handling money.

I was a terrible steward for his resources, for his kingdom and for his glory. Please learn from me. And to talk about what scripture actually says about it. To also like help them, set them up for success and to like recognize that your decisions, you know, have, they impact your future. So that's what we're doing. You're amazing. Well done, sir. So great. Well done. How old are you? 25. All right. Very that's what we have. You're amazing. Well done, sir.

So great. Well done. How old are you? 25. All right. Very cool. Good for you. Good for you.

Who was your biggest cheerleader while you're going through this? I had a bunch of cheerleaders, my mom and my sister. I got a list. Dave and Sarah Stahosky, the rental house I'm allowed to stay in. My community group,

the gouges for my landscaping job, accountability, Jeff Brink, Sean MacArthur, Matt Rand, Noah Lilly, and Tony Duck. Almost like he knew I was going to ask you. He's got such a great list. I have listened to so many of these.

We've had this conversation so many times. I just wasn't on the other end. But one person in particular, I have a guitar pick that says, never give up Porkchop. And Porkchop was my family middle name. And July 21st this year, my dad passed away and he was one of my biggest cheerleaders

and I got out of debt in October and he didn't get to see it. And actually, actually he did. You're right. But he sent me or anytime you were on Fox News, Dave, he would like send me articles. He's like, John, you're kicking this dad's butt. Keep going. And he modeled for me sacrifice growing up. And it was hard, man.

There were times I didn't want to wake up early and go landscaping and do all that stuff. But dad sacrificed for me and my sister growing up so i had that picture you know rachel says more is caught than taught and i got that from my dad wow and um that's amazing i miss him and i'm actually want to kind of dedicate this to him because um i really miss him but yeah you got the t-shirt done that's great i like it i like it i like the pic on there that's very cool so good stuff gosh so for you i mean your dad's story integrated throughout this i know was was a difficult part of the journey but for you being you know in your mid-20s kind of figuring all this out and wanting to do something extreme like get out of debt right and all this and all these

student loans what was the hardest thing like what was it the work you mentioned the landscaping? Like, what was the thing that was like, man, that that was the difficult, that was the difficult part. I think it was everything. It was submitting to a process that's worked for millions of people. And I think the key for me, well, it was saying no working a lot, like being okay with like, I can't go skydiving or can't go on this, can't do that. But I realized it was like, you know what? I want to be 25 without any student loans.

And I get to, I want to be a good steward of God's resources for his kingdom and his glory. And I want to model it, you know, and don't let anyone look down at you because you're young, but set an example for the believers.

Yes. Speech and life and love and faith and purity. And I want to do that for my students. But I think submitting to a process that's biblical, that's clear, that has clear set paths. And I think there's something about that that impacts your mental health, your finances, your relationships.

And there's something about God's ways of handling life that not just thinking about it, but actually doing it is really powerful. And you get to reap the fruit that comes from it. So, but it's awesome. It is. It cuts through. It cuts through quick and deep.

Well done. Proud of you, man. Thanks, man. Good work. Good work. I know your mama's proud of you. Your sister's proud of you and your daddy's proud of you. Well done.

Thank you for your mentorship. So excellent, excellent stuff. Excellent stuff. Okay. So when someone says, what's the key to getting out of debt what do you tell them ownership ownership I think ownership vision um for me like I realized I didn't really know what I was doing when I signed those papers but I did and I have to own that um but I'm you know I was the problem but now I get to tell my clients

I was like hey you were the problem but good news you're the solution you know, I was the problem, but now I get to tell my clients, I was like, hey, you were the problem, but good news, you're the solution, you know, you can do it, and the power of the renewing of your mind, it's like, yes, the decision is hard, but you can do it, you can rewire your brain, you can do not be conformed to the powers of this world, and honestly, dare to be different, I think we as followers of Jesus should be different in areas, every area of our life, not just our finances, but our relationships, our marriages our marriages every area of your life so that's why i wrote dare to be different um and do not be conformed to the patterns of this world so amen it's awesome well done sir thank you congratulations very well done all right john from seattle sixty thousand dollars in student loan debt paid off in three years and nine months, making

$20,000 a year up to $60,000 with lots of side hustles. Yeah, don't tell me you can't do this. Those numbers, that's tough. That's some tough numbers right there. Well done, sir. Very well done. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one. I'm debt-free! Yeah! Love it! That's as good as it gets, boys and girls. Love it, love it, love it. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 13, 12,

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. Tommy Lasorda said, There are three kinds of people in this world, people who make it happen, people who watch what happens, and people who wonder what happened. Elizabeth is in Colorado Springs.

Hey, Elizabeth, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hello, thank you so much. I'm excited to talk to you all. You too. How can we help? We are facing in the next several months some changes in our finances. We have not lived on a written budget yet. We've just kind of lived in our means, but I am tired of being panicky every night, wondering where my money is. And just now going into this season of uncertainty, I don't know how to start building that budget. And what's the season of uncertainty again? Sorry, I may have missed that. Yeah. So we just had our third child. And right before she was born, we found out that our daycare provider is moving.

So now we have to enroll our kids in a new daycare, which is essentially doubling our daycare bills starting in July. We are also any day now going to start receiving these bills from the hospital. So we're just kind of trying to figure out what those are going to be while also still paying off our debts and, you know, trying to provide for our family. Okay. Good news, Elizabeth. None of that is uncertain. It's all very certain. Okay. It's happening. It's not like you can't predict it. You can know it. It may be hard, but it's not uncertain you can't predict it you can know it it may be hard but it's not uncertain it may be and the amount may be uncertain with that with the medical bills well i mean you know no it's not i mean you know you've got insurance and you can tally up what the what your co-pay is and figure out what your bills are going to be you shouldn't

on a normal labor and delivery if you've got normal insurance you shouldn't have a huge bill there but it's not it's not one that's going to break your back but what it amounts to is just as you decided to tackle this you had three things come at you that were extra well two one is i want to get out of debt that didn't come at you but the other two things came at you so um you know what you're saying is it's going to be it was really going to be hard to budget anyway. Now it's going to be super hard. Right. Not to budget, to make the budget work with the income we have. And so what you're going to have to do is look and say,

there may be something that has to give. Like you landed on this daycare that's double. You may have to keep looking. That one may not fit your budget that one might not be on yeah we're on the wait lists for other closer cheaper options yeah but the one that the one that you had was some kind of it was a friend or something what was it yeah yeah it was just it was a stay-at-home mom that just wanted pocket money basically so okay you got to keep looking for that yes to replace the one you got and And then it's not double.

How old's your baby? How old's the third? She's three weeks. Oh, wow. Okay, so yeah, you just had the baby. All right. So, yeah, I think what happens is, as you say, all right, we're going to lay out the written game plan. And the written game plan is food is first, shelter is is second lights and water is third and then with what's

left we try to figure out all this other stuff right okay and so because you will emotionally be in a better place if you know you have a place to live the heat is on the water is on and um there's food on the table now the rest of it's a monopoly game. And when will you go back to work, Elizabeth, or are the other two older ones, I guess they're still in daycare? Yeah, they're still in daycare. I go back mid-June, and then with that, I'm going to keep home my oldest when the younger two go to daycare until she starts preschool which we also have to build into the budget and like when she'll start in mid-august then okay wow okay yeah so i think i think yeah what we're saying is the good news is you're gonna see all this coming and

you're gonna happen to it instead of it happening to you but it is still going to be tight and it's going to be stressful but not nearly as stressful as if you added chaos to it. Right. So that is a relief. Yeah. And I would find out for even like the, as much as you can get the facts, I think is helpful as much.

So even the medical stuff, you're like, Oh my gosh, the medical bills are going to hit, figure out how much those are and see, okay, as we, if we do a payment plan,

like, you know, can we, are we able to pay off, you know, X amount next month and really be really, if we do a payment plan, like, you know, are we able to pay off, you know, X amount next month? And really be really, really specific. And even for you,

because there's gonna be so much change with you going back to work in June, another kid starts a different preschool in August. Like even do, if you do the EveryDollar app, which if you hold on the line, Emily will pick up and we'll get you the premium version for a year. But go ahead and build out a couple of months of budgets, looking out, knowing that these months ahead, that the budgets will change.

But at least you can kind of get a plan of like, okay, this is what it looks like here, here, and here. It is amazing when you have facts down and those numbers are actually down on paper. It's not just in your head. It does give you peace. It lowers the stress. Yeah, it gives you a lot of peace. Yeah.

Okay. No, that's exactly what I need. Yeah, because when you, again, gives you a lot of peace yeah okay and no that's exactly what i need yeah because when you again when you know the house payments paid the lights and waters on and there's food on the table then you can go oh okay now the rest of this is inconvenient but now we know that we can pay the medical bills and even the preschool and installments is that considered debt? Should we try to pay that off? No, preschool is not. Preschool is just you're paying it monthly.

That's like paying your electric bill monthly. I mean, you're paying for it as you use it. But medical bills would be debt. If you can clear it, clear it. Do you have any money saved? Yes, yes. Oh, yeah. We're fine financially.

I just don't know what things are going to look like right now yeah yeah okay well the more the more you do what rachel said and dig up that information and lay it out in a very certain way yeah and elizabeth have you guys ever done a really detailed budget like how much we spend for groceries are out to eat kids activities like you're really like line item by line item have you guys guys ever done that? No. And that's always frustrated me and panicked me. Yeah. No. So even go back checklist item. Yeah. And go back, Elizabeth, like even in your bank accounts the last two or three months and just kind of average out, OK, here's all my grocery store runs and just take a sheet of paper and just write them all down and divide it, you know, and just say, OK, on average, on average, this is what we were spending at the grocery

before we were budgeting, right? And plug those numbers in. And then usually when you're not budgeting, you're overspending in categories, not realizing it. And then say, okay, if we really were on a plan, what could I limit that to? What could I shrink that down to, right? And so it's kind of just ends up being this puzzle piece. But you'll go back, you'll run some numbers, look back at your checking account for gas,

how much you guys fill up on gas every month. Like, it sounds so granular and detailed but it is so so helpful and with every dollar it's going to be attached to your bank account so when those transactions come in you just drag and drop them into a category and it does the math for you and it just shows you here's how much is left in the month and just having that control like it is it's amazing it really is it'll take you guys a few months to get it down it won't be perfect um and you and your husband are both looking at these numbers and you're both carrying the weight of the decisions in the household both of you are looking at it you may be the one that writes the checks or he may be the one i

don't care but both of you are looking at it and saying, oh, if you're going to have an oh crap moment, we do it as a couple. If we're going to have a victory moment, we do it as a couple. How much do you guys make a year, Elizabeth? We make $220,000. $220,000, okay. So you're in good shape. And any debt? We've got $50,000 and a car, a home repair, and some land.

Okay, and how much do you have in savings? About $25,000. Okay. Yeah, you guys are in great shape, Elizabeth. I think you're doing better than you think you are. But follow the baby steps. Throw some of that $25,000 once you get those medical bills and kind of know, okay, here's where we're at. Pay the medical bills when they come in.

Yeah. And let's start cleaning up the rest of the debt and build a good, emergency fund. In your case, it's probably 50,000. So if you had 50,000 in the bank and no payments, but a house payment and a written game plan where every dollar had an assignment and you and your husband had agreed to it, your stress level is going to go down 90%. That would be incredible. That's why we call it financial peace. Yeah. You're doing, you're really asking all the right questions yeah this is going to turn out well for you proud of you good stuff you're going to get it good for

you well done well done well done that's how you work a lot of new babies this show it was a baby show i know a lot of baby show a lot of ones but that's great and it is funny how those different how different life events can come up and then you look at everything and you're like oh my gosh i was stressed about that i want that to change i see this and then the domino effect of yeah of really helping your life overall it it happens it's a beautiful thing it's a very john deloney-esque thing there we go love it good job rachel that puts this hour 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. Dr. John Deloney here. Mental and emotional health challenges, broken relationships, it's all just part of life, but they don't have to define you. The Dr. John Deloney Show is here to help. It's a caller-driven podcast where you can get practical advice on dealing with anxiety, loneliness, depression, relationship challenges, your kids, and so much more. Listen to questions from our callers, or if you're walking through a tough situation and need some help, give me a call. You were never meant to do life alone, and that's what this

podcast is all about. Follow along on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or the Ramsey Network app. Remember, you're worth being well.