The Ramsey Show - What’s Holding You Back From Changing Your Life?

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

💵 Sign-up for EveryDollar today - The simplest way to budget for your life! Jade Warshaw & Ken Coleman answer your questions and discuss: "Can I afford to move out on my own?" "Is my dream job attainable?" "How do I get out of a car lease?" "How can I increase my income?" "How do I even get started on the plan?" Support Our Sponsors: Zander Insurance BetterHelp Churchill Mortgage Next Steps 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET or click here! 🏦 Take Your 3-Minute Money Assessment - Get a personalized money plan! 🍎 Enter the Teacher Appreciation Giveaway 🎟️ It's game on! Get your ticket for Total Money Makeover Weekend.  📖 I'm Glad For Where I Am 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, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where we help you win in your life, win with your money, win in your work, and win in your relationships. Excited to have you here with us. 888-825-5225 is the phone number, I'm Ken Coleman Jade Warshaw joins me we're excited to be here with you hey listen, we're going to lift you we're going to coach you

we're not going to yell at you so safe place here, we know that you've got a lot of questions we want to meet you where you are and here's how you do it triple eight eight two five five two two five triple eight eight two five five two two five you're ready to go let's get into it so we didn't plan this today but we're both rocking sweatshirts can i think you stole the hoodie game from me a little bit not gonna lie oh really just a little bit so you i was unaware that hoodies existed

until i met you is that what you're implying? Let's go to the phone line, Ken. I thought so. She's sassy already, and I like it. Edwin is going to join us in Knoxville, Tennessee. Edwin, how can we help you? Hi. So this is a bit of a dumb question, I think, but I'm 23 in college. And my question is, should I try and jump the gun and move out before I finish? Um, right now I'm currently living with my parents and, uh, I've got money saved up planning on buying a car, getting more jobs over the summer to, you know, if it pans out well, to move out. But, you know, kind of wondering, hey, is it a good idea to move out while I'm still, like, I still have a little over a year left of school left to finish. So I'm just kind of wondering. So when you set a question up like that, that means you believe you might be jumping the gun. In other words, you are a little

concerned. So why don't you share with us what your concerns are, and then we'll walk through that with you. Just to be clear, are you talking about jumping the gun and moving out, or jumping the gun and quitting school? Moving out of his parents' house. Oh, okay. Just checking. Yeah. Yeah. Just moving out of my parents' house. So what are you worried about happening? What would bad, what are you concerned that might happen if you were to do this my main concern is i won't regulate my spending habits well simply put like i'll go from because right now i have little to no expenses right i don't really even pay the amount it would take for rent do you have a history do you have a history in your life, your very young life of burning money? Not really. I mean, I do spend not huge amounts, but I do give

more freely than I think I should. Well, to be fair, you haven't had to regulate your money. I mean, you haven't been forced to because you've been at mom and dad's and I'm not saying this in a negative way. I mean, you're 23. So you haven't had to be as intentional as someone who lives on their own and must pay rent and must buy food. Like you haven't had to do that. So there is that side of it. Fair, but I'm driving in on something, Edwin. Do you really, are you a person who you're real? I mean, you sound like a guy who's pretty smart with your money and you think caution first. Is that true or false? True. All right. So my point is this, it's a legitimate concern, but is there any evidence that this concern could happen? Do you think if you move out that all of a sudden you're just going to get willy nilly with your money and not be able to pay

your rent? Are you going to become a person who all of a sudden doesn't think, do I have enough to pay my rent first? Because that's how you are who all of a sudden doesn't think, do I have enough to pay my rent first? Because that's how you are right now. True or false? It is how I am right now. Keep going. It's strange. No, it's not strange.

You're a really smart guy. What are your other concerns? Jade and I want to hear it. Let's walk through this. Thank you. My other concerns that pile onto this is, like, living a family, you know, I haven't, I've always had a second hand on the wheel, so to speak, when it comes to having financial help with my life. Like, for example, the car I'm planning on buying, it's for my parents.

Like, they're selling it to me, no interest, you know, great deal. And that's how I'm going to get my first car. But I'm more so worried when I move out, I won't always make the best decisions. Listen, what you're describing, A, I want to validate. Like, it's a normal feeling. It's literally you growing up and spreading your wings and becoming an adult. And there is something to that. Like, yeah, you used to have mom and dad's help. They used to help you out, you know, with the payment or the insurance. And like you say,

if you're hungry, go down to the refrigerator and get some food out of it. And you're at that age where you are starting to cut the cord, so to speak. And I would, to Ken's point, it's okay that you're feeling that way. And some people are a little bit wired in a more cautious sense, but part of this is just facts of life in that you are entering into a more independent phase of life.

And if it were me, I would engage you to lean into it and start to make some of those cuts, maybe while you're still in your parents' house. So maybe it is something like, hey, they still pay my cell phone bill. Okay. Like take it back and say, you know what guys, I'm starting to be more independent. I'm going to pay my cell phone bill or start pulling back those areas. And then you're going to start to see, okay, I can do this. I'm getting my confidence under my belt. And before you know it, you're going to go, oh, this is like, I can do this. This is time for me to do this. I'm getting my confidence under my belt. And before you know it, you're going to go, oh,

this is, like, I can do this. This is time for me to do this. Are you on campus? I'm about 20 minutes away from campus. Right. And you're living with mom and dad, and so you're going to school locally, right? Yeah. Okay. Listen, I don't think there's a right or wrong, okay? Because to me, you don't sound like a person who's going to make frivolous financial decisions. I just don't think that's who you are. I think that if you want to move out, great. Be smart about it. When you don't know what the right move is,

it sounds like your mom and dad have guided you well financially, and they themselves are responsible financially. Is that correct? For the most part, yeah. For the most part, but here's the deal. You can call them and get an opinion, but i just don't see you doing anything crazy now if it was me and i'm going to give you the and jade may have a different version for what she would do if it were me and i was going to school locally 20 minutes away and i was almost a year out before i finished and i was with my mom

and dad i'd go ahead and stay and and and what i would do is focus on school and any work that I had outside of school that was making money. I'd be stacking cash and I'd be planning for my exit once I exit school. But that's what I would do. I would just stack the cash. And then once I left, once I got out of college, I'd be gone. That's what I actually did. I mean, once I left school and I didn't graduate, but once I got into the real world, I never came back and lived at the house. I mean, once I left school and I didn't graduate, but once I got into the real world, I never came back and lived at the house. I would stop in. I was in between jobs, so I would stay there for a week or something like that. So that's what I would do. I would stay home and plan for my future. But if you want to step out now, I'd go for it. Do you have the money? I'd go for it. You have the money to step out? I do.

I knew he did. Well, I'm sorry. My screen says you don't have a car or a license. I'm just trying to figure out what you do have in place because those are pretty important to step out on your own. They are. They're very important. Why don't you have a license?

That gets into family stuff just a bit. very important. Why don't you have a license? Back in the family stuff just a bit, the biggest reason is not comfortable learning to drive with my parents and they've been a bit strict of who I'm allowed to learn with. I've been gracious.

Alright. Listen, for that reason alone, I'm going to make a sweeping judgment. For that reason alone, I want you to gain more independence because being 23, I want you to have a license. I want you to save up and pay a car. And probably for you, getting out of the house is going to be a good thing. Good grief. I'm sorry.

You need to have a license, Ken Coleman. I didn't disagree with you. I'm saying good grief. I didn't know that was his situation. We were talking about something else. All of a sudden, wow, we have a lot of issues in that house. Wow. Are you working the baby steps? One of the smartest and most impactful changes you can make is to ditch your cash value life insurance plan, if you have one, and replace it with a term life policy.

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You can apply online or over the phone, and they even have low-cost plans that don't require an exam. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. Even if you don't have a cash value policy, if you're one of the 70% of people who have no life insurance or not enough, it's even more important to get this done. 800-356-4282 or Zander.com. Hey, welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw joins me, and we are thrilled to be together here for you and your questions, 888-825-5225. We're here to talk about your money.

We're here to talk about your work and that income. And we'll talk about the relational aspect of all of that. And so jump in, 888-825-5225. Okay, a couple of quick announcements. We're always putting out content here. First, I want to talk about my colleague, Rachel Cruz. She's got this fabulous series planned, I guess, because here's number two. It's called I'm Glad for Where I Am. And for our viewing audience, you can see this. We've got it on the screen here and I'm

holding it. This is really, really well done. And this is all about appreciation and gratitude and contentment, the series. This is I'm Glad for Where I Am. And so really, really great stuff. Great messaging. It's heartwarming. Helps your kids be grateful about family and home, to really understand their groundedness. And this is really, really good. If you preorder it now, you're going to get access to the live online event, Storytime with Rachel, and Q&A.

So that's really fun. And then I've got a new book out, short. This is about a 45-minute read called Find the Work You're Wired to Do. But what is it? For those of you who've seen my books before, it's very different. This comes with the Get Clear Career Assessment. And so the assessment and this book answer four questions. Here it is. Who am I? What do I want to do? Where can I do it? How do I get there?

That simple. The assessment itself is one of the greatest self-awareness tools in the professional space. And then this book is written to come alongside of you once you get that assessment, which tells you what you're good at, what you love to do, and what motivates you. And this comes alongside and I coach you through, all right, now how do we pick the right destination, the right path to win professionally, which watch this money audience allows you to win financially. So that's coming out in about a week or so. Let me hold that book. Okay. What I love about this, hear that? The hardcover. That's it.

Short though. 45 minute read. You throw it, 45 minutes, throw it in your backpack, it fits. Thank you. Come on, love that, Ken. By the way, if you order it before it comes out in about two weeks, here's what's cool. You don't get a bunch of a million things. You get three versions of the book, hardcover and an assessment, e-book and an assessment,

and the audio book and the assessment. So essentially three books and three assessments for the price of one. So you can get that all at ramsaysolutions.com slash store. Rachel's book, ramsaysolutions.com slash store. All right. Thanks for being patient with the announcements. Let's go to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Catherine is there.

Catherine, how can Jade and I help? Well, first off, it's an honor to be allowed to ask you guys some questions. Well, it's our honor to be asked. So fun. So what's going on? Okay, so a little bit of backstory. I am 24 years old, just turned 24 last month. I am currently four and a half months pregnant.

Oh, congratulations. Going to be a single parent. And I have the Baby Step 1 completed, but I'm $13,000 plus in debt. Can you tell us what kind of debt it is? Well, there's a few different ones. I am in debt to family, my dad, my younger sister, and my grandparents. Credit card debt of $980 some. Okay. of $980 some, and a personal loan of $3,000.

Okay, and the rest, the other $10,000 or so, or $9,000 is to the family? Yeah, I've got $7,050 left to my grandparents, a little over $400 to my younger sister, and about $140 to my dad. What kind of, what's causing you to borrow money from your family? Well, I had some financial trouble a couple summers back, I got scammed a few times, which caused me to go into the hole with the bank a couple times. The first one was actually right before my 22nd birthday, which my grandparents helped me get out of debt with the bank for, which is why I'm still paying them back um and then that same summer similar deal similar scam type and I was unable to pay my rent or my electrical bill

so my dad and my younger sister were um willing to help me get those paid for that month. Okay. You're working? Yes, ma'am. I work as a groundskeeper and student supervisor for my hometown university. Okay. What are you earning or taking home? $14.28 per hour, and if I go by gross, it's approximately 29.6 a year. Okay.

You live it on your own or with family? I live in a one-bedroom apartment by myself. What's that cost to you? My rent per month is $600. Okay. And how much of this are you seeing in each paycheck? What do your paychecks look like? Depends on whether or not I'm able to get OT. An average paycheck is about $905,000, $907,000. Okay. And if I'm able to get overtime,

I'm only allowed to get about five hours per week. So it's like upwards would be somewhere around $1,060. So the most you would be bringing, excuse me, is $2,000 a month? Yeah, just about. And that's after taxes. That's how much I see. Right, that's what we want. Yeah, that's good. It's good to know.

Okay. So the question is, you're having a baby. Tell us in your mind what the question is. How can we help you today? Well, I know you guys say stop the baby steps well get first get your emergency fund down and stop the baby steps there while you're in the progress of pregnancy that's right but i really need to get at the very least a personal loan gone before the baby gets here. Because that is the only one that has any type of interest on it. And it's 18.6%.

Right. Okay. So let's talk about that. Yeah, you're feeling the crunch of this, right? You're feeling the walls start to kind of cave in because you're seeing, all right, now I'm realizing the gravity of this decision wasn't good to take out these loans and now you've got this baby on the way as well um what i want to caution you towards is not falling into the same trap right of i gotta do something so i'm just gonna do this and so in this case we've got to kind of pause and take a look

and look survey the whole situation and go okay if you don't save money and your baby comes you're listen you've got to go on maternity leave there's a lot of things that are going to be coming up financially that you need money for and it does suck like when you have debt that is accumulating interest that sucks but that's also part of what happens when you pull out debt and so you kind of just have to accept that's where you're at right now and your a one priority is saving up money so that you can take care of this baby and so that you can have peace around the fact that this is coming and you're financially prepared what do you think that number is give her a quick suggestion

to save up money how much would you want her to save well let's i'm she's gonna have to run out these numbers because okay she's used to making two thousand bucks a month let's think about the fact that you're gonna go on maternity leave at least at least six to eight weeks okay so how much money is that that's three months uh worth of salary so you think it's six two months worth it's for sure two months worth of salary. I'd want three just in case. And then have we talked to the groundskeeper job? They know what's going on.

So you've got some things that you need to do to plot this out. And then there's the cost of having the baby. If you've got insurance, you're going to probably have to hit that deductible. So there's money coming. I want you to call your insurance, find out how much it's going to cost for you to have this baby. I want you to calculate how much you need out how much it's going to cost for you to have this baby. I want you to calculate how much you need for at least two months of maternity leave if you don't have paid maternity leave.

And these are the things that you need to have in place. And when you have that, you're going to sleep better at night when this baby gets here. And here's the deal. That means you're going to have to go work more jobs. You're not just relying on the five hours of overtime from the current gig.

You need to be working all the time right now as much as you can physically that's healthy for you and the baby. Got to get more income. This is the Rams. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This is the season for Halloween. It's October. We're wearing costumes and we're wearing masks.

So if you haven't started planning your costume yet, get on it. And while you're thinking about it, I want you to be honest. A lot of us hide ourselves. We hide our true selves behind costumes and masks all the time. We do this at work. We do this around our friends. We do this around our families. We even do this when we look at ourselves in the mirror.

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Take off the costumes and take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Diloni to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com slash Diloni. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show where we help people win with their money, win at work, and win in their relationships. I'm Ken Coleman.

Jade Warshaw joins me. We're thrilled to be with you today. And, boy, I tell you, I never thought I would sort of kind of arrive. But, you know, you kind of co-host The Ramsey Show, and we're popping up on all the podcast charts, and I call my mom, and she's so proud of me. And, you know, Dave talks about where we're at on the charts. But, you know, the show is growing in so many places, and we just want to say, however you're listening, thank you.

And however you're watching or wherever you're watching, thank you. Would you help us grow? You can do that. If you're on YouTube and you like it, give us a thumbs up right there below the video window, subscribe to our channel and share. And if you're listening via your favorite podcast app, give us a five-star review and to follow. And that is so, so kind. We appreciate that. We want to get to as many people as possible. And it's got something to do with algorithm. I know what it means. I just can't spell it. So thank you very much. All right, let's go to Friedrich. I hope I'm saying that right. I think I'm hooked on phonics. We'll find

out. He's in Edmonton, Canada, home of the Oilers. Friedrich, how can we help? Hey, Ken, how are you? Good. Did I say your name right? Yes. Oh, that's very exciting. Well, how can we help? All right, perfect. So is it okay if I give you just 30 seconds of context? I'll allow it. I'll allow it. All right.

Yes, of course. I'm currently a filmmaker, and I'm currently still in school. I want to do filmmaking as a full-time job. I have put together a perhaps idealistically crafted plan, as well as an advertising campaign. I understand it will be very difficult to secure full-time status in the time frame I've set, but the whole idea, or maybe it's just the way it conceptualizes itself, feels a bit delusional, I guess. My question is, how can I know if reaching full-time is even possible at my current position in life, and how can I know if it is or isn't all just delusion, I guess. Okay. So you mean, is it possible for you to be full-time

in the film or television or video production industry? Am I understanding that right? Yeah, pretty much. I mean, I'm turning 16 in a few days. So the answer is, the answer is Friedrich, of course it's possible for you to be full-time in film, television, or video production. Now, to what level? I can't answer that. And you can't either. There is this thing called the dream, right?

And this is the ultimate. And I'm going to attempt that. And the process and the journey along the way is really enlightening and still very rewarding. But the reason you feel this way, and the answer to the question, is this a delusion? No, it's not delusion if you actually have some talent. If you're talented in this area, and that could be, by the way, we're talking about a wide range. So do you see yourself directing, producing? Are you more on the editing side? Are you the cinematography side? And you're only 16, so there's no wrong answer here.

But do you think that if I interviewed everybody that knows you, and I'm not talking about your best pals, I'm talking teachers and adults who, to be honest, would they say, you know, Friedrich's got an eye for this, he's always been talented at this, this, and this. Do you have base-level talent at the age of 16 in this area? Yeah, well, basically what I want to do is more working for myself as in doing wedding videos and real estate videos. It's not traditional film, I guess, but to answer the question, I would probably say yes. Yeah, and you're only 16.

How many more years of school you got in high school or whatever? What do you call it in Canada? Yeah, two years. Two years. So, my friend, there's zero pressure. school you got in high school or whatever what do you call it in Canada yeah two years two years so my friend there's zero pressure and I feel your heart um and I I can hear your head in your question and I was that way I was the kid that was like dreaming dreaming dreaming and then is this crazy is this nuts is this you know delusional and if a person asks if it's delusional they're usually not delusional what's the opposite my question to you would be what would make it not attainable

like what are the things that make it not attainable just not getting not getting enough clients maybe okay and keep walking that out i love this question jade keep walking that out frederick what would what would have to be true for you not to get clients one day that want their wedding filmed? I don't know. Maybe running out of opportunities and people to ask, I guess. That could happen because we know people don't get married very often. That's right. If you're swimming in a shallow pond, you might need to cast the net a little bit further. But I mean, I think that's a good exercise to go through and say, okay, what would keep this from happening? A, I suck at it. B, I don't know enough people and I don't know how to market to reach more people. So start writing out those lists and then start figuring out what it looks like for you to solve those problems. But, but Friedrich, the fact that you've got the talent, the fact that you're a

little bit worried about not being successful tells me you've got really two out of the three and three pieces. And I think the third piece is just flat out, get some experience. See what's great at 16, you can just start volunteering your services until somebody hears about you and they go, Hey, I heard you shot my, my cousin's, uh, anniversary thing. And it was so well done. And they put it on Facebook. What would you do for me? You go, well, that one was a freebie. This one's going to cost you.

You know, just start doing it. You've got two full years to show your work. In fact, I'm going to recommend you get a book. It's called Steal Like an Artist, and you get the second book called Show Your Work. Both of these are written by a guy by the name of Austin Kleon. They're short little books. It takes you about 15 minutes. And I think it'd be really good for you as a 16

year old to begin to go, what are wedding videos or whatever videos that I see that I like and begin to study your competition. Who's doing it well? What do you like about what they're doing? How would you do it differently? And you begin to develop your own eye. And I don't know if that's an actual phrase, but my colleague here is really a phenomenal musician. Run with it, Ken. Run with it. And you at some point developed your own voice. You became a very, very popular singer and she made a lot of money. And she developed her own Jade style. In other words, she interprets songs her way, but there's no unique song or artist out there. They're all stealing from everybody, and that's a good thing. So those two books, Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work, that's my recommendation. Thanks for the question.

I love that. All right, Rachel is joining us now in South Bend, Indiana. Rachel, how can we help? Hi, thank you for taking my call. You bet. I did some math this morning and realized that my husband and I are not worth millionaires. Hey. Come on, somebody. I'm just trying to figure out. We need some celebration music, James. I know. You can't just cruise past that like you didn't say what you just said.

That's our fault. That's really great. We're going to get a little something like maybe it's a hockey sound and the crowd going nuts. We need some little sound effect when somebody tells us that. But anyway, we digress. Go ahead, Rachel. What can we answer? Yeah.

So we currently have some real estate and then our primary residence that we owe a little bit on each. That's not included in the net worth. That's not included? I mean, that's so the debt is not. So I already took that out. Okay. So we have an extra $5,000 a month that we have been putting towards just paying those off completely. And I'd like to have it all paid off in the next three years. I know that it's usually recommended to pay off your home first, but we have less on the real estate. And I feel like if we pay off the real estate first, we'd have that extra payment to throw down on the

primary residence or to have backup for all of the water heaters and furnaces and well pumps that go along the way. Well, why don't you run me through the numbers? Let's start with the primary. Tell me what you owe on it and tell me what it's worth. It's worth $400 and we owe $177. And in the real estate, the properties are worth $600 and we owe $98. If I paid $5,000 a month, we could have... Can you break them out for me? Can you break them out individually? That way I can get a better picture. So the real estate, it's just one commercial loan. Oh, but I thought it was several properties.

It is. Oh, but under one loan. Multiple residences on a commercial loan. Okay. So the loan is, you said $600? That's what it's worth now, but we only owe $98. Okay, got it. So it's worth $600, you only owe $98. Got it.

Okay, so, yeah, what are you wanting to do here? You're putting $5,000 extra a month on it. I'll tell you what. Here's the deal. That music means we've got to go to a break and we're not finished, Rachel. So if you're willing to hold on, we'll come back and allow Jade to walk you through this. Okay. So good stuff there. Hang on the line and we'll get back to you. All right. Hey, don't forget that you can jump in on the conversation. 888-825-5225. She's Jade Warshaw.

I'm Ken Coleman, and this is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Buying your first home is a big deal and sets the stage for your financial success. So work with a mortgage advisor you trust, not just some random website. Churchill Mortgage is Ramsey trusted because they help you avoid hidden traps

and expertly guide you through every step. Learn more at churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLS consumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is with me, and we're here for you. And so we went into the break, and Rachel was with us in South Bend. And Rachel's question is about multiple properties that they have debt on and the primary residence, and they are net worth millionaires as well. So we kind of got into the break. I'm going to give it back to Jade to walk her through that. So here we go. So Rachel, it sounds like the biggest thing, you've got the primary residence,

you owe $177,000 on it, but it's worth $400,000. And then you've got a large loan that embodies several properties that you owe $98,000 on and it's worth $600,000. And you're just trying to figure out, hey, which one should I sell first? Like which one should I pay off first, right? Correct. hey which one should I sell for like which one should I pay off first right correct okay so you told me I think you told me that right now you're putting five thousand dollars extra on the loan that carries the properties and if you keep doing that you'll pay it off in three years um if we keep doing the five thousand a month we'll have them both paid off in three years um but I'd like to pay the real estate off first because I think it'll free up the payment. So we'd have that extra $1,800 a month to use towards any maintenance expenses that I expect,

even though I know it's usually recommended to pay off the primaries first. Honestly, the fact that they'll both be done in three years, I think it's fairly negligible. Three years is such a short period of time to have these both paid off. I mean, if you wanted to say, yeah, we're going to roll it all into the big loan first and do it like that, that's fine. Or if you wanted to do the primary residence one, fine. It's such a small difference between the two of them. And my guess is, which one is going to free up the most cash if you paid off first? Actually, we'll both free up the exact

same amount, but we would just be able to pay off the smaller one first. Yeah. I think for you guys, I think it's very negligible. And so for me, whichever one you choose to do, they're both going to be completely gone in three years. They both yield the same amount of return once it's, you know, once you've paid it off, there's not really a, whatever one makes you feel better at that point. I mean, in many ways I might say, hey, do the primary first because it's where I live and it eliminates that risk. You could do that. But because you owe so little on the properties, you might do those first. I mean, it's not like you're going to sell them. You're going to keep it. So what are you leaning towards? I'm leaning towards doing the real estate first so we can

free up that $18 a month payment and then feel like I have some wiggle room instead of trying to be push, push, push for the $5,000 since the other one would take longer to free up the extra payment. How much longer? And then not feel frustrated. The primary would take two years to pay off and then one year for the real estate versus one year for the real estate and then two years for the primary. I mean, if you really want to know what I, like if I were Jade, I woke up in your shoes, even though the real real estate the the rentals are less I'd probably do the primary first it's it's two years versus one year and it's going to feel really great to go to bed at night in your own bed that everything's paid for

thank you if you don't do that like no skin off your back but I'm just saying if you asked me that's what I would do all right there. There you go. Thanks for the question, Rachel. Appreciate that very much. Today's question of the day comes from Megan in South Carolina. She asks, what advice would you give a young and hungry adult who wants to be successful fast, but seems to hear the word no from the higher ups in a company? Well, this is funny because when I see someone who wants to be successful fast, number one, I certainly understand that. I feel that. And sometimes that's part of the answer is that maybe you want it a little faster than is actually possible. Unrealistic expectations lead to unmet expectations every time. And that's really, really frustrating. So when I'm not getting my expectations met, one of the first things I've learned to do, Jay, to say, how realistic were these expectations? In other words, am I being emotionally mature, emotionally healthy with my frustration? Now,

there are a couple of questions I would ask too, Megan. I would ask, why am I getting these no's a lot? And that could be the expectation issue. If it's not, if it's something else, what's the pattern? Is there anything you can learn and do as a result of all these no's? And if the answer is yes, then we do something. We learn and do. They're telling no because you don't have this skill set. So I got to go develop that skill set. Or they're saying no because you don't have this skill set, so I got to go develop that skill set. Or they're saying no because you don't have the experience. So you go, okay, I'm going to pay my dues and be patient. They might be saying no because there's a better fit. And that sucks to hear that sometimes. But I played enough sports to know that there are a lot of times I can play my absolute best.

And, boy, I'm learning this in pickleball right now, Jade. Play my best pickleball game and still lose. Because the dude across the net, or in the case of about a 64-year-old lady who just completely outplayed me not too long ago. She's a former tennis player. And listen, she was better than me. And so you got to live with that. So what say you? That's what I think I would do if I kept hearing no's and I wanted to be successful.

Anything you want to add to that? I don't think so. I mean, you definitely don't want to ignore when you hear multiple, multiple no's. You want to see what it's... It could be time to leave or there might be something that you have to face with the man or woman in the mirror. There's something there. And also, Ken, can I add, I feel like didn't I beat you at pickleball one time? No, no. You may have been on a team that beat me but you did not beat me and sam your hubs is in the lobby there might have been i'm pretty sure that you on when we played with

a good friend of ours the four of us uh i don't think i lost actually well am i remembering that wrong sam to be fair we had doubles had doubles. It was four of us, and we kept shifting the team. Yeah, and as the person shifted to my team, they became victorious. Yeah, when we played together, we dominated. Let's be honest about that. This is true. And you know what? While we're having fun with this, this is a legitimate athlete here, okay? I am a complete poser, all right? I was high school level only. I I'm sitting next to if you don't know this about my colleague and I'm gonna brag about you d1 volleyball player so we're talking next level reflexes and uh intensity oh boy so I told her she'd never played with me before and I don't

know that she'd ever played before period I hadn't that's what I thought yeah so we're out there playing and I said to her I said look, look, you get what you can get. Here's kind of a dividing line, but just communicate. And so every time that the ball came anywhere near her, she said, I go, I go. I go. Every time before she hit the ball, it was I go. You got to communicate. I enjoyed it.

It was very, very heartwarming and fun. Very intense, though. I go. For me, it was great to see your calves for the first time. Or lack thereof. Yeah, unfortunately, pray for Jade. She had to see my legs. They're just skin and bone. But I digress. But, you know, there is something to, back to the question of the day. I do want to talk about this for a second because I actually wanted to get you to weigh in. So let's frame this question. Let's reframe it to we have a lot of people right now that are listening and watching

that have heard Dave or one of us say, you know, there's two ways to get out of debt, and that's cutting expenses and adding income. And we could also say that's how you win financially is at the end of the day yes it moves you through the baby steps faster but increasing your income has a professional context 100 and when you look at that it is hard sometimes not to get impatient not to get discouraged when maybe you get overlooked for a promotion or you're out there looking for that second job or you want that better career path to go from maybe making $60,000 to $80,000 to $90,000 to $100,000. And I wanted you to speak to this because you understand it as an athlete when you want to compete,

you want to win, you want to earn a starting position. I wanted to speak to the mindset of our audience about winning professionally so that they can win financially. What say you? Well, I mean, the thing that stands out most, not only in the question, but in life is she wants to do it fast. Like I got to do it fast. And I do think there's a component to whether we're talking about sports and getting to the point where you're a winner. There's a journey that is part of this. And sure, you could, when it relates to finance, you could go pick up a quick side hustle and pick up some extra dollars.

But for the people who are trying to have career growth and go along that path with you, Ken, there's something to be said that there's a bit of a journey here. There's a timeline that's taking place and it's not overnight. And we shouldn't get discouraged by that, right? You don't become a master at anything overnight.

There's a timeline there. And so in this case, no might not have anything to do with the fact that she's not skilled. It just may be not now. You're just getting started. You've got more time. So as in paying off debt and winning professionally, building a healthy marriage, raising healthy kids, this is a long haul. You're training for the marathon right now. You know a little something about that.

That's right. There you go. Good stuff. Good hour. Jade Warshaw, thank you. Thanks to James Childs and the crew behind the glass for keeping us on the air. Thank you, America. This is The Ramsey Show.

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is the Ramsey Show. It's where we help you win in your life, win with your money, win in your work, and win in your relationships. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. 888-825-5225. Jade Warshaw is with me, and I'm Ken Coleman. And we have a lot of fun coaching people. We have a lot of fun while we're doing it. So that's our theme. Feel safe. Feel confident that your problem is not wacky, that you're just like everybody else, and

we all need some help at some point, and that's what we want to do for you today. All right, let's get it started in Fort Wayne, Indiana Indiana I once ate at a White Castle in Fort Wayne Indiana random fact of today I feel sorry for you nobody needed to know that but now you do Aubrey's on the line there Aubrey how can we help hi um I'm glad that you've been to Fort Wayne and at White Castle I'll bet you and it was right downtown do you know the one that I'm talking about? I don't even know. Is it there anymore? I don't know if it was like.

Probably not, Aubrey. I'm a lot older than you, I imagine. But we digress. What's going on? Okay. Well, first, I'm excited to talk to you guys. I like both of you guys a lot. Oh, thank you.

So I have had a debate on my heart for a long time. I've been back and forth on my job. Oh, thank you. and I've never quit on a bad day. There's been a lot of highs and lows, but now being over three years in, I'm just kind of looking at things and realizing like I'm not as far ahead as I thought I would be or as like I was told I would be. And I'm just like, there's parts about my job that I do like, but for the most part,

like I've worked six to seven days a week for three years straight and I've just been so burnt out. I lost management at the end of the year. And, um, you know, like I want to have a job that I like wake up and I'm excited about every day. And lately it's just like, I feel like I can't even get myself to go and do what needs to be done. And I do have debt that I want to be able to tackle. I just feel like things have been so inconsistent and up and down that I haven't even been able to make any real progress. So I'm just like, you know, if I leave, if I quit, like part of it, part of that kills me just because I've invested so much of my time, my energy,

my money into this business. But then I also like, don't know where to go if I leave. Like, I don't even know, like I've kind of looked at the job market and it just kind of seems a little underwhelming and overwhelming at the same time. Yeah, I think it's actually – So I'm just kind of looking for some clarity. Yeah, so if this job was more consistent and you just had a better overall experience, would you be calling questioning a career path in sales? I mean, I think the money would make me want to say that's why I've been so back and forth. However, I know in my heart, like this doesn't really fulfill me.

Like this isn't really what I'm passionate about. All right. So here's a fun little question. Try to get right to the heart of the matter fast. And it only works if you just say what's on the top of your mind. Do you understand? Okay. All right. So no wrong answer. You can change it after the call. All right. What would you try tomorrow professionally if I just gave you the gig and it made you, let's just throw, let's have fun. Let's say 20% more than you're making now. And you knew you would absolutely crush it, but you didn't have to commit to it as I'm making this 30-year choice. I'm just going to go do something else to try it, and I know I'm going to crush it.

There's no risk at all. What would you do, Aubrey? Oh my gosh, that's such a hard question. No, it's not, because you already selected an answer. That's why I did a long setup. I've done this before. I want you to just say what's at the top of your mind, and then we'll break it down. So ready? Go. I mean, I think it would be involved with something that would be like kind of a creative process, like something like house flipping or getting into some type of like entrepreneurship or something like that.

Great. But that's an inconsistent. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I don't have the money for that. I know you don't now. But remember, remember I said we were removing all risk for a moment. And what I'm attempting to do, Aubrey, is a part of the lesson. I need you to turn your brain off and I need you to turn your heart on.

And we go, what is it that I really want to do? Because you're still a young lady and you've got a lot of options. And you've got a lot of time. True or false? True. All right. So part of what you called today was everything's underwhelming that I'm looking at in the job sheets or whatever online. And then the process overall is overwhelming because I'm trying to pick this big direction. And that's what I help people with. I'm going to give you a couple of tools today. I'm going to

give you my Get Clear Assessment, this new book, Find the Work You're W help people with. I'm going to give you a couple tools today. I'm going to give you my get clear assessment, this new book, find the work you're wired to do. I'm going to give that to you. Okay. Because it's actually going to really help you. But all right. What you've got to understand is the answer you gave me is pretty darn close to what you ultimately want to do. Will it change a little bit as you begin to explore it? Will it look a little bit different than you described to Jade and I just now? Possibly, probably. But that creative, entrepreneurial, I heard several things in there. I do this all the time. So I actually want to stop for a second. I want to ask Jade, what did you hear in her answer? Objectively, what did you hear? What I heard is, I think, and this is just me i could be

wrong she mentioned that she's got debt that she wants to pay off sure needs more money i think that when people have debt it it clouds their thinking because everything has to be about how can i make more money and how can i do this and it it can be very hard and i that's why i loved your um exercise with her because it it causes you to go past all the things that I need to do. And like, yes, I know, but this is important. And I think for her really trying to spend time and go, what would I do?

What could I do? What would I love doing? And understand that the situation now with the debt and everything, there will be a time when that's gone. And when that's gone, you can really see clearly, oh, like this is what I love to do. Like for, for Sam and I, when our debt was gone, that's when I really realized what I love and want to do. And I think the same thing for her. All right. So Aubrey, that was brilliant. What she just said.

So, so we we'll figure out what we need to do when we figure out where we want to go. All right. So, so what are you selling right now? Give it to me in 10 seconds or less. What are you selling? Um, life and supplemental health insurance. Okay, great. I, if I were you and I wanted to get into real estate, maybe flip some stuff and I just kind of wanted to be an entrepreneur, I'd start thinking about real estate because that's straight commission and you're used to that. But I think there's some limiting things about this product or service and the company that you're dealing with. And we don't have time to unpack that, but am I right? There's a lot of limiting circumstances that if it were just you, it'd be a different ballgame.

Yeah, there's definitely some factors. I knew that. Okay. So I'm not in any way trying to say go do real estate sales but that would be something I would be considering and I would be considering right now who cares how underwhelming it is Jade I'd be going and getting a good sales job and I don't care if it ain't exciting because it's only temporary yeah it gets me out of debt it allows me to walk through the baby steps and it sets me up to go all right now I'm going to get my real estate license or I'm going to go work for another entrepreneur and learn how to do that. I guess, Aubrey, I'm going to give you the tools

to get clear assessment and the book, find the work you're wired to do. That's my gift to you. And that's really going to help you. But you need right now to get out of this situation and get a better sales job where you're making more money consistently. And that's going to free your mind up to chase the thing that you ultimately, you know, and you started to tell us.

And Jade, you nailed it. Get out of your head and into your heart. That is beautiful. Love that. And debt, getting out of debt will help you with that for sure. Good stuff. All right, quick break. We're right back. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. If you do not know this, it is Financial Literacy Month, and we at Ramsey Solutions are celebrating the work that our amazing foundations and personal finance teachers are doing. By the way, I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw joins me this hour. Phone number is 888-825-5225. Now, I want to tell you, if you haven't heard about this, Foundations in Personal Finance is a program that we put in.

Schools choose to use this all across the nation. And it's an important, important subject because, frankly, it's just not taught enough. And there are many states in this country that require some type of financial teaching for kids to graduate high school. And that's why we created Foundations in Personal Finance. It's a curriculum that over 7 million students have gone through. And I've been blessed to be in multiple iterations or versions of it, and it's really rewarding because we hear from teachers and students on this. And so we thought it would be fun, Jade, if we had one of our Foundation's teachers on

the show. Hey! And so we've got Jason who's calling in from New Lenox, Illinois. Jason, how are you today? Ken and Jade, how we doing? Happy Friday, and we're doing well over here. Thanks for having me on to talk about some of the amazing things we're doing over here at Lincoln Way West and Lincoln Way District 210. I love it. Coming with the energy, that's

what I'm talking about. I was going to say, I would want Jason as my teacher. Right. So tell us what you teach at Lincoln Way Central. Sure. Primarily, I'm a personal finance teacher, so that's been my main focus. I've been doing the foundations class, and we've been teaching kids to be weird, financially weird, since 2008. So I think this is my 16th year teaching foundations. Is that right?

What grade is it? Yeah, we've been blessed. What grades do you teach? I've got seniors sitting next to sophomores. The people that take our foundations class, it's open to everybody. So I could have a 14 year old sitting next to an 18 year old

and it's a beautiful thing though. And that's all you teach are finance classes in addition to foundations? Yeah, I teach one of our business classes here, one of our tech classes. But I got to tell you, I'm glad you brought up the mandatory state thing. Unfortunately, Illinois is one of those states that has not yet mandated it. But I got to give a kid say, we got to give our flowers to to my school lincoln way west and our district

210 about a decade ago we mandated it for our students even though our state hasn't wow we did um way ahead of the curve and uh and illinois actually has a bill on the table um but it's just sitting there and they're not doing anything with it yeah go ahead why do you think that is like we we see how important this is do you have any you want to weigh in on that at all? The whole politics side, I'm not too sure why it's just sitting there waiting to be voted on. It's been sitting there for quite some time. So I think, you know, using the power of the Ramsey show and everything like that is we need to you know, we need to get it out there. So, OK, so, you know, we're going to do? This is exciting. James, I've never done this, and I'm doing it.

If you are listening to the show right now and watching the show and you live in Illinois, you need to call the Illinois Statehouse. Ooh, let it rip. And I don't know what the number is, but you can find it on the Google. And call your representative, call your your state senator and tell them that you want this to pass and why there you go that's good i like that how about hb 1375 make it happen hey hold this is great all right here we go it's hb hb 17375 oh geez 1375 hb that's house bill for those of you don't know what that stands for it's's very exciting. 1375. I feel like I'm back in my old world of politics.

HB 1375 should pass. And it should pass because our children are the greatest resource we have. They are, in fact, our future. Vote yes for HB 1375. This is very exciting. If I could start a petition, I would. There it is. All right.

Now, here's what I've got to know. Switching gears. Yes, I'm very excited. You went into your mode, Ken. You can't be stopped. I've got to tell you. I've got them all wound up. I'm sorry, Jade.

As long as I don't say my fellow Americans, then we're going to be okay. Okay, so here's a question. With this day and age we live in, I'm curious, what are today's students asking, or what are they commenting about when you're teaching our principles through foundations? I'm really curious. is going against everything that they see in society and pop culture and even in their household from their parents. So when we tell them things like, no, I know your mom wants to get you a credit card to build your credit score. She has the best intentions, but she thinks that's the only way because that's what most people do. And I always tell them, look, is it easy to do things differently? No, if it was easy, it would just be the way. And that's why most people do things the wrong way and not the way that we teach them. And so when we tell them about, you don't need a credit score to survive, well, how do I get a car? We teach that in the foundations class, how to save up

and pay cash for a car. How am I going to get a house one day? And that's what their parents are worried about. And I want my kids to have a house one day too, but most adults don't know about manual underwriting. And we teach our high school kids that. And so when we're teaching them things that they don't see day to day in their households or out in the real world, it does come across as weird. But, you know, we've done all the studies and everything is backed up. You can live without, you know, the credit score and you can be a student without a student loan. And so that's one of the biggest benefits of the classes. We're showing them, hey, everybody out there is broke. Normal's broke. We want you to be weird. Do things differently. And that's what this class is. It arms them with information before they go out and make those mistakes.

Like I did when I was in college and getting my first credit card and car payments. I never taught this stuff. So, Jason, do you see the students taking, are they taking this home to their families? Like, are you hearing any stories about, man, I told my mom this, and I'm teaching my parents how to handle the money now. Oh, awkward, awkward family dinner conversations. I've been moved out. I had a student, you know, his name was Mike Manning a couple years ago.

He went home, and I tell them, you better, when your parents ask you, what'd you learn in school today, don't say nothing, uh-uh, not in my class. And I say, you know, the dad asked him, you know, what'd you learn today? And it was like the middle of the debt chapter. And he said, we learned about credit cards. Dad, do you have a credit card? And the dad goes, I got a few. And then my student, you know, came right back at him and said, you know, you spend, you

know, 12 to 18% more when you use a credit card as opposed to cash. And the dad, you know, comes back with the typical, well, I, I paid off in full and I get my airline miles. And then on cue, my student, who I taught very well, said, consumer reports says 70% of airline miles never get redeemed. And the dad's like, at this point, he's like, go to your room and eat dinner in your room. That's good.

Yeah, they're bringing this stuff home for sure. I love it. That's awesome. You're listening to Jason, stuff home for sure. I love that. That's awesome. You're listening to Jason, who is a teacher in New Lenox, Illinois, at Lincoln Way Central High School. He teaches foundations and personal finance. It is our financial curriculum with over 7 million students having gone through this course.

To that end, Jason, I'll give you the last story. We've got about a minute and a half. I'm curious. I know that legacy for teachers is when a kid leaves and comes back and shares, here's how I'm doing. Appreciate your role in my life. Do you got any stories of students who listened to what you said? They've moved on into the real world and, and, uh, they're winning financially. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, I've got a kid that actually he just graduated last year and, um, he's, he's a freshman down at the university of Alabama and he was keeping me up to date with his, his college, which that's out of state tuition, um, $55,342 a year. Um, this student, Anthony,

um, he, just like we teach him in the Life After High School, the college chapter, he became a scholarship beast. He won a full tuition called the Small Town Rural Scholarship. He got his Pell, and he applied for, he became a scholarship filler-outer,

the part-time kind of job. First semester tuition, final, $260. Very good. That is unbelievable. Well, thank you, Jason. And, hey, shout-out to all of the teachers involved. And if you are a teacher, don't forget you can enter the Ramsey Teacher Appreciation Giveaway

sponsored by Ramsey Education. One teacher is going to win, you ready for this, a $5,000 vacation, and two more teachers will each win $3,000 in a vacation. So go to ramsaysolutions.com slash teacher. That's ramsaysolutions.com slash teacher to enter. Go now. All right, welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman.

Jade Warshaw is with me. Jade, you know what time of year it is, don't you? Tax time! Have you filed already? Of course I have. Ken, look at... Who are you talking to, Ken? I apologize.

No slight intended. Some people are last minute. But I get it. And boy, you know I hate taxes. But here we are. It's April 15th. Whoa. That's Monday, Ken.

Oh, boy. And if you have it, you need to do it. Oh, boy. Really quickly. But let's talk about taxes in general because a lot of chatter out there in the Ramsey Baby Steps community. This is a robust community on Facebook. It's huge. It's hundreds of thousands of folks in there.

A lot of people and a lot of chatter. And so you've got some, what you consider to be some, these pretty spicy comments, are they? Are they pretty interesting? I mean, what's going on? I mean, we always love to hear from you guys, see what you're saying, because that informs a lot of what we talk about and what we do. And so when it comes to taxes, you guys were, you know, taking it to the interwebs, and so there's this thread. There's a thread on the Ramsey Baby Steps community Facebook, and it's basically tax refunds. Like, would you rather get money back or would you rather pay a bill? So tax refunds versus tax bills. That's easy, isn't it?

I would never want to pay. You would think it would be simple, but Tracy, one of the community folks on there, she said, let's play a game. I want to know who got closest to zero. Oh, I like that. Like, let's hit it in the middle. Sure. And so the responses were crazy.

Like one lady said, not me. I'm about to pay $8,000, but I knew it was coming. And so she had it saved up. So that's good. And she's like, I've changed my withholding for next year. And then Catherine responded. She said, well, my federal refund was 30 and my state was 80 that's pretty darn close to this i don't know how you beat katherine uh yeah i'm gonna keep it just like that for next year katherine uh and then tracy came back she said well we've mastered this dilemma

for the for three to five years we're paying two twenty five hundred to three thousand dollars but now this year we were able to only owe $40 for federal, and our state refund was $128. So again, it's not exactly zero, but that is pretty darn close. I like that. Uh-oh. Looks like Gerald's coming off the top ropes here. Listen, Gerald came through like a champion. He said, I finally had a return that was $0.

I don't know. How did he do that? The goal has been met. I don't know how he did it. I don't either. I got questions. Are you trying to say that Gerald might not be coming correct? No, no, no.

I don't want to offend Gerald. I still know how he did that. I want to know. Good for Gerald. Yeah, I want to know how he did it because he can help us all out. And so then we had another post. A related question was, okay, if Gerald got zero, how can the rest of us get close to zero? So Edgar said, I did my taxes and it says that I owe nineteen hundred.

So the key here is what we want people to understand, because if you may not be like Gerald and get it to zero, but the key here is we want it to get as close as possible. Like tax refunds, we've taught you guys over the past several weeks, tax refunds are not a good thing. IRS data shows that the average tax refund last year was $2,812. Like that's about $236 a month if you're doing the math. And think what that could really do for you if you added that back in your budget. Like that's what we're trying to get you to. If you had this money back in your budget, it would really be working for you. So the closest you can get to zero, the better. It may not be right on it, but the closest you can get is what you're looking for. And to answer Edgar's question, like, how do we get it close to zero? It's simply you going in and changing your withholding on the W-4 form.

That's what we're looking for. And by the way, the W-4 form has changed recently. It used to be the way, Ken, where you would go in and claim your dependents and you could like put as many as you want on there. It's not like that anymore. So the form has changed. And if you're wondering, well, how do I know, Jade, what to switch it to? How am I supposed to know? Like I said, you can look at your tax refund from last year and you can say, how much was it divided by the number of paychecks you got, whether it was 12 24 if you get paid two times a year a month and then you can take that and that's the amount that you need to adjust on your withholding and by the way if you

haven't filed your taxes yet and nothing's really changed from last year to this year i would get with my tax person now and be like hey while we do the taxes by the way let's change that w4 form so that's how it goes and um if you waited too late by the way if you haven't filed if you've been waiting and you don't think you're going to be able to file on time um and you know that you are going to have a tax bill just make sure that you file for an extension i cannot tell you enough file for an extension when you do this it helps you avoid what's called a failure to file penalty guys okay and this penalty is going to apply if you owe the irs money now if you think you're getting a refund it that's a different story but it's a five percent per month penalty that's a lot up to 25 i'm breaking out i generally when i talk about

taxes i get hives. Well, you're going to need the cortisone for this because an extension will give you six extra months to file your extension. You'll have from now to October 15th if you file the extension. But just know that an extension doesn't change when your tax bill is actually due. Okay. So you're filing the extension through your tax software. And if you need a tax software, of course, we have the Ramsey Smart Tax. So again, if you have a tax bill and you don't pay it by tax day, the IRS can charge you

penalties and interest. It's a lot. And so we want you to pay as much as you can as fast as you can. That's what we're talking about here. So if you need to file your taxes or file an extension, just make sure you're using a service that you can trust. Like I said before, Ramsey Smart Tax is what I want you to check out.

It has low upfront pricing. You can file your federal return online for under $35. $35, that's what I'm talking about. And it includes all of your major forms and deductions. Remember, there are no hidden fees along the way. It can save you up to 70% when you switch from another software. So that's good. So go ahead and head to ramseysolutions.com slash smart tax to file or file an extension today. Tell you, the only thing I can think about, James, is it's, we should be raising an army of

Ramsey Show listeners to finally push through the flat tax. We just need a flat tax. It's just the absolute best. It would make all of this a lot easier. It would put a lot of money back into people's pockets. It's a separate show. I'm feeling politically feisty today. Ken, this is the second time you've needed to do your... Well, the first one, I wouldn't call either one. The first one was not political as much as it was, this is for our students. It requires you to support HB 1375 in Illinois. This, the flat tax, is absolutely political.

But I honestly think that real people, left, right, center, okay, could all unite on that. Look to to the cookie just let's get the flat tax mo money in your pocket and you can spend it however you want to you libs can go do what you want you righties you hardcore right wingers you're getting into it no i'm just saying everybody wants more money in their pocket what you do do with it, you guys can fight about. But come on, the flat tax. Let's make it happen, America. All right. John is up in Atlanta, Georgia.

I appreciate your vote, November, America. Appreciate your vote. John, how can we help? Hey, Ken and Jay, thank you so much for taking my call. It's a true honor to talk to you both. You too. What's up? Thanks. Hey, a little background, and I'll get right to my question. My wife and I just started Financial Peace University. We're on baby step

two. We have 4,000 left on the car. We do have twins in college. Before hearing about Ramsey, we took out a 30-year mortgage. And I know now that Dave recommends a 15-year mortgage. My question is, do we pay extra now on our mortgage as if it were a 15-year while we're on step two, or should we wait and get through step three and four before doing that? I would pay it as it is. You've still got the $4,000 car that we've got to pay off, so you've got the extra money in your budget there. So let's go ahead and utilize that to get out of debt quickly. In many ways right now, inadvertently, this is kind of helping you get through those phases a little faster since it's obviously a little bit extra money in your pocket. So I would, I would keep it the way it is. I'd pay

off the car. I do baby step three, make sure I'm into baby step four. And then definitely when I'm in four, five and six I definitely want to be paying that like it's a 15-year mortgage and if you have money extra you can add that to it as well perfect okay thank you so much I really appreciate it bet that was a straightforward one how about that that rarely happens it rarely does you could do about 30 of those calls no drama really fun stuff all right uh j Jade Warshaw is here. I'm Ken Coleman. We're here for you. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Don't go anywhere. We're not. Just a quick break. This is The Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is with me. Hey, I want to tell you about EveryDollar. It's our budgeting app, and it's fantastic. And it helps you manage money the way we teach you. EveryDollar works, whether you're on iOS, Android, or online. And you can start EveryDollar right now for free. And you can just get an idea of where is my money, where has it gone. It allows you to get organized, personalize your budget, stop overspending, and saving more. So if you're new to EveryDollar, we'll show you a long-term

financial roadmap. This is really cool. So it's more than just, okay, where is my money from a budget standpoint? It allows you to track your net worth, debt-free date, retirement date, the baby step progress, and so much more. It allows us to coach you, not just inform you, on your money. And this is great. You can download the free app for iOS and Android, or go to everydollar.com to get started. That's everydollar.com. All right, Jonathan is up next in Los Angeles. Jonathan, how can we help? Hey, how's it going? Thank you for taking my call. Sure, what's it going? Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's going on?

Yeah, so I have a $700 car payment right now. Sheesh. And I currently can't afford it. Yeah, no joke. You know, I make $50,000 a year right now, and I'm just trying to figure out how I can get out of it. I've tried selling it, but I am going to be upside down about nine or 10,000 on it. So at this point, I'm not sure if I could take a hit on my credit and get it repoed or I don't, I'm not sure what to do. That's why I'm calling today. What do you, what do you pay for it? Like, what do you owe on it so right now currently it's uh about 32 000 and i believe the car is

worth like people will only offer me like 19 000 uh 20 000 why is that did you roll negative equity equity into it i didn't know i think because of the car and the market value of it. What is it? It went down completely. What is it? What kind of car is it? It's a Subaru. What kind of Subaru? It's a Subaru WRX. And how long have you had it?

About almost two years in June. Oh, my lordy. So, oh, my goodness. What other debt do you have so i i have a fifteen hundred dollar uh credit card debt um maybe more i just have to double check but that's not for my uh for one of my credit cards it's fifteen hundred dollars um and i also i have a a small toddler right now, so it's kind of hard to balance everything out. So I'm trying to figure out how to get out of this car and, you know, just to be scratch free. So the only debt besides the $1,500 credit card is the car. Is that right? I just want to be sure.

That's my biggest debt yet. No, no, no. I want to know, do you have any other debt? debt not what's your biggest debt it's just the car and the credit card right yeah so I have a few other credit cards uh I want to say together um I have five credit cards in total so listen tell me all the debt I can't help you if I don't get a full picture so roll it all out to me two thousand dollars in total for a credit card okay so. So another one, another couple equal 500. That's correct. Okay. Got it. Okay. So here's the thing. Like you're $10,000 upside down on this car. What the, you know, you've got a couple of options here, but I don't know that they're going to be worth it to you in this case. A lot of times when somebody is upside down in a vehicle,

we would say to them, Hey, if you can't cover it in cash which by the way i didn't ask you do you have any savings i'm guessing no i don't okay at the moment so a lot of times what we might offer is say listen if your credit's fine you know go over there to the credit union or whatever see if you can get a loan for twelve thousand dollars so you can close the ten thousand dollar gap on this car get out of it and then take the other two thousand maybe put five hundred with it and buy yourself a cash beater. That's what we would say. In your case, is it worth it to you to do that? I'm not really sure.

Yes, a $32,000 car is more expensive than what a guy making $50,000 a year should be driving. But because you don't have a lot of other debt, you might look at this and go, if I can pay this thing off in two years, I can keep it. Yeah, that's what I'm wondering, Jay. Jonathan, what would you say on all five of those credit cards your total monthly payment is to service all five cards? Like monthly payments?

Yeah. I think like the biggest one, I mean, starting with the lowest one, it's probably like $40. Yeah, ankle monthly payments. Um, I think like the biggest one, I mean, starting with the lowest one to probably like $40. Yeah. And then the minimum payments would be like 40 to 50. Uh, I think the highest one might be 80 to a hundred right now. I am behind on, uh, one of them right now. Um, okay. So are you saying, all right, so the highest one is let's just call it, uh, let's split the difference, call it 90. And you said that's one of them.

And then the other four are somewhere in the $40 range, minimums? Yeah, $40, $50 range a month minimum do. Okay, but here's what I'm trying to do for you. I'm with Jade on this because I start, I'm going to call that rough math of $300 a month. Does that sound about right, Jonathan? Yeah. All right, listen, you're an able-bodied young man, yes or no? Yeah. Come on, man. Get after it. Come on. How quickly could you pay off those credit cards to where you just now freed up $300 a month? That makes that car payment a

little bit easier on you overall. And then, like Jade's saying, you pay it off. Also, the big elephant in the room here is you're living in Los Angeles and you're making $50,000? I live in the outside city of Los Angeles. Sort of like out of the city. What do you do for work? I'm a delivery driver for FedEx. And you mentioned you have a toddler. Are you a single dad? What's the situation with the toddler? Do you have a wife? I have a fiance.

We just recently got engaged. Okay. And when are you getting married? And she works as well. When are you getting married? We don't know yet. We're trying to get out of our debt. Yeah, but you'll get out.

I'm not suggesting that you get married to get out of debt, but you want to get married. So get married. 100%. And then you can work together on this and you go further faster when you work together. So consider that, like, don't get me wrong. And I want everybody to hear me clearly.

I'm not saying get married so you can pay off your debt. I'm saying you have a kid, you're engaged, you're betrothed, you want to be married. So just go on ahead and get married. And combining finances is actually going to be a really key factor for you guys going forward. And you might be thinking, I don't want to combine yet because she's got debt too but trust me you go further together faster and it will allow you to work together on the same page

you're in the same house you got a kid you may as well like jumping with both feet so that's where that is um I want to challenge you to get your income up higher. $50,000. $50,000, even though you're on the outskirts, you're still in an expensive area. And with the debt that you have, for no other reason alone, with the debt that you have, having more income is really going to be helpful for you. And Ken, talk to my guy about long-term.

Yeah, so short-term, real quick, you've got to do anything and everything that you can. Okay? So however many extra hours you have in a week, what experience and skill do I have that I can just go earn money? Short term, this is going to allow us to move through the baby steps faster. Now, long term, you know, we're starting to go, how do we build wealth? And I want you, I'm going to give you a gift. I'm going to give you the Get Clear Career Assessment

and the new book, Find the Work You're Wired to Do. And I want you thinking, how do I go from getting debt free to maybe moving up within FedEx or moving out of that delivery truck? And now I'm making six figures in the next 18 months. What can I do? Can I get there in 24 months? Is it going to take me 36 months to make that kind of money to where now, not only am I debt-free, but I am making really good money and investing and taking care of my family? That's what I want to know. So real quick, you got any idea what that would be? What's that long-term play that if I could snap my fingers and give it to you, you go I'm in that's what I want yeah well 100% what is it um you know it's I mean I want to I want to you know try to get out of bed as soon as possible no no no I'm saying what do you want to what's 10 years

15 20 years down the road as a professional look like you're a professional what are you doing yeah yeah I mean I want to I want to, I want to just, you know, try to own my own trucking and, uh, you know, and go from there. And because right now we're private contractors. So that's my goal is to try to, you know, instead of working in the truck, owning the truck, you know, that's great. That's why I'm not. All right. So here's the deal. Here's your homework assignment. When you're working all those extra hours, I want you to be thinking, who do I know that's a successful trucking business owner? Or do I know somebody that knows that? And I'm going to begin to sit with them and have coffee. Can I meet with you once

a month? Show up, ask a lot of good questions, learn what it takes to get there. And that's going to give you that extra motivation to do the hard work that Jade was walking you through. So hang on the line. We'll get you the Get Clear Assessment in the book, Find the Work You're Wired to Do. And you got this, young man, but I would get busy fast. This is The Ramsey Show. Good hour. Jade Warshaw, James Childs, our fearless leader,

thank you, and you, America, we'll be back. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where we help you win in life, specifically in your money, in your work, and in your relationships. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw joins me. And we are what they call Ramsey personalities around here. We're your hosts today, and think of us as your coaches. So let's get right to it. Nick is

going to join us in Cleveland, Ohio. Nick, how can we help? Hey there. Thank you so much for taking my call. You bet. What's going on? So I just have a question on, I'm trying to increase my income. I've been binge watching your guys' show for the past who knows how long, and I keep hearing Dave talk about increasing income, and I feel like I'm kind of stuck in my job, which I really like. Yeah. Okay. So what's the job? Okay. So I'm 26 right now. Okay. Graduated in May of 2020, which that was 22 at the time. Went from accountant one to accountant two to senior one, and now I'm senior accountant two.

What are you making? Making 90K right now. Not bad. Okay. And what does the path forward look like as an accountant? And there's two parts in this question. And then what is the path forward look like in your current company to move up financially? Okay. Yeah. So when I first started, I was making about 54. And so now we're in present day now um senior two at 90 okay and i just don't think there's any way to go up from here because the next row will be like a supervisor but they're all filled with younger people i mean a little older than me but not like right so in your current company all right

so that's the second part of the question you don't see a lot of opportunity in other words a couple more rungs up the ladder where you currently are. But my question is in the industry as an accountant, just because I don't know what the steps are. So what would it look like in another company or in the industry as an accountant? What are the steps up above 90,000? That's a good question. I mean,'m on linkedin all the time and i see younger people hopping jobs and finding huge increases in their take-home pay yeah but but what i'm asking specifically is and i'm sorry if i'm not being clear your accountant two right now is what you called it senior accountant Is that in my head remembering that correctly? Yep. Okay. My point is I don't know the industry. So what's up,

what just the language and the positions in the industry, what's above that? Is it, I become a CBA, I become a, um, uh, CFO. Oh yeah. I should let you know. Sorry. Um, private accountant it's, it's for a commercial insurance company. So I'm not doing taxes or compliance or EPA, nothing like that. But do you want to stay in the industry? You want to be working with numbers in that accountant industry and finance? Absolutely, yes. You do. Okay. My point is, you don't know the answer to the question that I've asked twice, two different ways. We start there. We've got to say, what is the ultimate for me? Where do I want to be 5, 10, 15 years from now? What is that? Is that the CFO of an organization?

Is it CFO of a small business? Is it CFO of a public company? If I were a basketball player, the NBA is the dream. What is it for you? Are we there, Nick? Yeah, he's thinking about it. I don't want you to, I don't want you to, I don't want you to think that much. I'm not trying to get you to put a stake in the ground. I'm trying to answer your question. How do you increase your income? Well, you can't go if you don't know where you're going. I know. So my point is, what does that look like? It's a CFO. I'm going to answer it. As high as you can get as an accountant is a CFO. And then one day, and I remember, I believe Gary Kelly was the CFO of Southwest Airlines. And I had the pleasure of interviewing

him when he was a CEO. so he moved all the way up. So let's just, for our discussion, say CFO is all the way to the top. Do you agree with that, Nick? Oh, yeah. I'd love to run a company one day. Okay, great. Now we got something. We got a target.

Now, that's long-term, but the reason I'm focusing on that is, like Jade said, you got to kind of know, where do I want, what's the mountain I want to climb? Now I got to figure out how do I get up Everest? Okay. So there's short-term and long-term. Anytime somebody asks me the question, how do I increase my income? I go to what are our short-term needs? And then we think long-term. Do you have any short-term needs like getting out of debt? Is that why you called saying, how do I increase my income? Or are you just going, I want some growth professionally? What's at the root of this? Growth professionally. I don't have any debt besides I just bought a house back in October of 23. So brand new mortgage. Perfect. Okay. So we're thinking long-term,

paying off our home and making more money as a professional. So here's the thing. You are limited where you are. So we're already deciding today. I'm now beginning to look elsewhere. I got to find an organization where there is a ladder for me to climb. You understand what I'm saying? Yes, absolutely. Now, we've established that one day I'd like to be a CFO and maybe a CEO, but right now, let's just start looking on LinkedIn and let's start talking to people that are in your industry. Maybe some guys in your office or gals in your office that are very successful and way up the food chain from you and say, how'd you get there? They're going to appreciate the fact that you're asking questions. Everybody's favorite topic is themselves. So I would start there. Okay. And so then you need to identify, okay, I've got a target. So for me, years ago, I knew I wanted to get into broadcasting and then I had to go, what type of broadcasting

do I want to get into and who's doing it well there? And I want to write books and be a best seller. Who's doing that? And I began to plot conversations and I began to watch and listen to people that were way farther ahead of me on the journey so that I had an idea of maybe what it takes. And I started to get some targets as to what I was looking for. So you want to know how you increase your income, increase your capacity, increase your opportunities. So it's two things. I've got to, what I mean by capacity, I got to find a place with a ladder where I can grow. That's what I mean by capacity. And so now I can actually grow and get promoted, which means when

I get promoted, I get a bigger what? Paycheck. Paycheck. Yes. Okay. So we keep it simple. All right. That's capacity. All right. That's really important. All right. But you also have to have that vision of, okay, what skills do I need to add so that I become more marketable as well? So it's not just where I am with the chance to grow. It's what do I need to do? What experience do I need? What do I need to learn and do to actually become more valuable? The more valuable I am in the right place with capacity, the more opportunity comes my way. It's that simple, but it's aggressive. I'm thinking about it all the time. What am I doing? What am I learning? What am I learning? What am I doing? Who am I connecting with? So that opportunities come my way and I'm increasing my income steadily.

Not just by flipping and flopping jobs, but by moving up the professional ladder. That's how you increase your income. You've got to get better and you've got to get connected. That's it, Jade. I promise you, if you keep getting better as a person and you keep connecting with successful people, the money's going to take care of itself. It's that simple. It's great advice, Ken. Thank you. Great call, Nick. Thank you, my man. This is The Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. Thrilled to have you with us. So glad that you've joined us. I'm Ken Coleman and Jade Warshaw joins me. And we got to tell you about something that we're really excited about. It's always fun when we can have a live event here on our campus. We have a beautiful Ramsey Event Center up on the hill as we sit here today in the studios, kind of looks over us. We are in the shadows, you could say, and beautiful, beautiful event center. And we've got a new event coming up called the Total Money Makeover Weekend. This is May 10 and 11. And this is all about healthy money habits, every angle you can imagine. And the baby steps on steroids, how to get out of debt,

how to create a budget with every dollar, how to communicate better around money, easing anxiety, making more money. I'll be talking about how to actually become wealthy, how to get rich. It's going to be fun. And all the investment advice we give so that you can retire the way you want to. There will be a live taping of the hit podcast, Smart Money Happy Hour, with George Camel and Rachel Cruz. All of us will be doing live interactive Q&As throughout the weekend. The whole gang,

Dave, Ramsey, Rachel Cruz, Jade Warshaw, Dr. John Deloney, George Campbell, and myself. If you want to get your tickets, get on it now. Platinum Plus already sold out. We still have some VIP left. You can get them at ramseysolutions.com slash events, ramseysolutions.com slash events. And it's always fun when we meet people in the lobby because they're always like, yeah, I was here in Nashville. And Nashville's become quite the destination. And so come by and see us, come to the event, and it gives you an excuse to come to Nashville. How about that?

So there you go. Good deal. Be careful, though. Of what? If you come to Nashville, you've got to be careful, Jade, of all of the bridal parties. The bridesmaids? Brides, of all of the bridal parties. Bridesmaids, capital of the world or whatever.

They're drinking a little too much. They're wheeling around in those wagons that you pedal to keep them going. Ken, for some people, this is the reason they want to come to Nashville. Okay. All right. So on this point, I ask you, quick diversion. Our audience will enjoy this. You can comment in the comment section if you have a vote on this.

What say you people? What are we going to talk about? If I'm going to any place and I want to frequent the city and I want to have a night out and I want to drink a little. You want to go out on the town. Why do I want to pedal? Why do I want to physically exert myself while I'm drinking? Because it helps your beverages to metabolize quicker. Okay. I'm going to go with final answer. James, that's her final answer. I'd like one more vote. My point is I don't want to sweat and work while I'm drinking. You don't want to sweat and work, period, Ken. Oh, I do. You want to sweat? I sweat on the

pickleball court. I'm quite the sweater. I work out five times a week in the gym. I sweat. When I'm imbibing, having a cocktail in a city. I don't want to have to work. That is funny. James, do you have an opinion on this? I do not. I'm just thinking about you sweating. We all are. We lost.

I apologize, America. I really do. Ken, you don't strike me as a sweater, though. You strike me as someone... Who glistens? No. You want to be in an air-conditioned area at all times with a glass of ice water somebody else you hire someone to do the yard work not at all

love playing sports outside big big big big outside playing sports guy okay and i and as much as i talked about it i'm not a heavy sweater a normal normal amount of perspiration. That's good. That's good. I have a friend who can't sweat. Like their glands. Is that a disease? Maybe. She never sweats. Does it affect her negatively? No.

I'm always jealous. I would love that problem. How can I get that syndrome? That would be great. Born this way, I guess. Wow. I digress. I do too. We have fun every once in a while on the Ramsey Show. You know why? I guess. Wow. I digress. I do, too.

We have fun every once in a while on the Ramsey Show. You know why? Because you have fun in your life, too. And you just don't want to hear boring coaching all the time. I know this. We also don't want to hear about you sweating, Ken. This I agree with, and I shall never bring it up again. Point taken and agreed.

Lee is joining us now in Philadelphia. Lee, how can we help? Hey, I had a question about, so I have a large check come in from an insurance settlement and I'm not sure what to do with it. What's causing you to get this check? Did you get in an accident? My father passed away last summer. Oh man, I'm so sorry to hear that. That's tough. Okay. Yikes.

Okay. So how much is the check? $100,000. Okay. How old are you? 17. Wow. Wow. Okay.

This is a lot of money. And what I would advise, usually when people get a lot of money, you're dealing with two things right now that are big changes. and what I would advise, usually when people get a lot of money, you're dealing with two things right now that are big changes. A, of course, you've lost your dad, which is a big, big deal, and then you've got this money here. Typically, we tell people, like, sit on it for at least a year, and in this case, you have, and I want to make sure that during that time, have you gotten some folks around you that can kind of help with you? Where is it? Is it sitting in a high-yield savings account?

So tell me a little bit more about where the money is. So recently, we had to go to court and get everything settled, and it was split up between my mother and my other two siblings. So we have just recently received the checks for it, and haven't, my mother has not cashed the check yet. Okay. But is it in her name or is it for you to cash? It's in her name because I cannot receive the check until I'm 18. Got it.

Okay. Good to know. Cause that was going to be my next question. Cause I'm like, yeah, you're 17. Okay. So the question is, your question for me is what do I do with the money? Is that the question? Yes. Okay, so the question is, your question for me is, what do I do with the money? Is that the question? Yes, I can move it around with my mother if my mother cosigns on it,

or I could wait until I'm 18, I turn 18 in October, and then it's mine. I can do whatever I want with it. What are your plans for your future? Do you know? So I currently have a part-time job, and then the rest of my week is filled with running a small business with my mother. It was my father's business. We did irrigation, agriculture irrigation. And so I want to continue to grow this business and make it my career just like he did. Nice. So your plan's not to go.

Are you doing any extended education? I will probably get a business administration and accounting degree through my local community college. Okay. And what will that cost you? Around $12,000, but a lot of it will be covered through financial aid because any taxes from the previous years have been joint filed. And the government, when you file them for financial aid, if they're joint filed and you have a deceased parent, they don't use those taxes, so it shows up that you have no income, and you get buku bucks for financial aid, basically. Interesting. Now, financial aid in the form of a grant or a tax return, or is this a loan?

Grant. Okay, it's a grant. Okay, so what you're saying is it's showing that you make no money. Yeah. Yes. Is that true, though? No. But that's because the show for this.

I'm learning right now. So you're teaching me something. So keep going. My my sister goes to college. And so this for the spring semester, she filled it out. It is for 2021. The 2021 tax forms or taxes. However, any work, any of all the taxes were joint filed between my mother and father. So now that my father is deceased, they won't.

So I want to get to Jade real quick because we're running out of time. If I'm you, I am going to wait till I'm 18. I think that's going to give you even more time to gather information about the best ways to handle your money. And so before you get off the phone today, I'm going to make sure they pick up and give you Financial Peace University. I want to make sure you're hooked up with every dollar because I want to make sure you're going into this world with $100,000 knowing exactly how to handle it and that you don't fall into any of those basic pitfalls that so many Americans fall into regarding debt. You've got the money if you need it to further your education, but it

sounds like it's going to be covered through grants. The next thing to think about after this is just those basic tenets to living. If you have debt, you're paying it off. If you don't have three to six months set in place, the next thing is I'm going to take some of this money, I'm going to pack it away in a high yield savings account, and I'm going to call it six months of expenses that checks off baby step three. And then now you're freed up to start investing from the money that you're earning from your job. It also frees you up to start saving for real estate for your primary residence. So if I were you, I would take this, whatever's left of that $100,000 after I've done what I just said. And I would earmark that for a down payment for when it's time, but you don't have to rush into that. It's just something for the future. Yeah. Great stuff. And we're sorry for

your loss, young man. Tough stuff. But love your head on this and wishing you and your mom the best and great success in this business. I love that you want to carry on his legacy, extend your mom's legacy as well. So we believe you're going to win big with this $100,000. So hang on the line. We'll get you all the goodies and gifts that Jade gave you. Thank you again. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is with me. So glad you're with us, America. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. One of our favorite things to do on the show is hear the stories of people who have made it through the baby steps. They are debt-free.

And now we're looking across the lobby at Zach and Bailey, who join us. How are you two? We're doing awesome. Fantastic. Awesome. I love it. Where are you guys from? Dallas, Texas. Dallas, Texas. All right. Well. Awesome. I love it. Where are you guys from? Dallas, Texas.

Dallas, Texas. All right. Well, let's get the story. How much did you pay off? Want to go for that? We paid off our entire house. What? That was $250,000.

Yes, we just paid off. $250,000 house. You don't owe a nickel. Wow. Wow. How long did that take? It took us four years, but you asked about our story and it starts a long time ago. We're kind of hitting a triple milestone that we hit last month that we're here to celebrate. 10 years ago when we were engaged, Zach's parents said, okay, you can get married,

but before you do, you have four things you need to do. And the first was finish college. They said at least one of us needed to have a full-time job. They said premarital counseling. Got it. And they said, take the Draymond Ramsey course. Hey, okay. Which was crazy to us because we were at university and of course we thought we knew everything about finances. We just, we had business degrees.

But as soon as, as soon as we took the first lesson, it instantly changed our lives, motivated us like crazy. And my parents requiring that of us was probably the best thing that ever happened. So do you mind me asking, that's 10 years ago, how old were you guys? So we were 22 when we got married and we came out with student loans. How much student loans? 50,000. That was all me. Her dad cash flowed her college, which was great. But I came out with student loans. How much student loans? $50,000. Yeah. That was all me. Her dad cash flowed her college, which was great. But I came out with $50,000

and we knocked that out about the first year and a half of marriage. Wow. So really you paid off $300,000. Yeah. That's right. Wow. That's crazy.

Unbelievable. The other thing we wanted to mention, the other milestone this year is for ourselves is 10 years of marriage, which is great for us. Congratulations. The last one is with paying off that house, that also made us millionaires. What? Okay.

Really? Network millionaires as a result of just explain that. How'd you get there? What's the math? Paying down that mortgage, 401ks. I work for an employee-owned company, so we've got an ESOP. Okay, good. Other assets.

We didn't ask you what you were earning during this time. We never got there. What was your range of income? Start at the very beginning? Yeah, when we graduated, we were coming out of college, and together we made $110,000. Nice. And now we're making $330,000. Get into it.

Around $330,000. That's what I'm talking about. Come on. Way to go. What do you guys do? I'm talking about. Come on. Way to go. What do you guys do? I'm in advertising. Okay. And I work in construction.

Okay, great. Yeah. Fantastic. So here's, go ahead, Jen. No, I was going to say, so, you know, you propose or you're saying, I want to marry Bailey. And then the parents are like, yeah, you got to go to college, get a job, counseling, FPU. I want to know, was there any pushback? Or were you just like, got it, got to go to college, get a job, counseling, FPU. I want to know, was there any pushback?

Or were you just like, got it, got to go do it? Was there any pushback with this financial piece, all of these requirements that really were for your benefit? It was a lot because we got engaged our junior year. And so during our senior year, we were planning a wedding. And then it's like, and this, and this, okay, and I still need to graduate. So it felt like a lot but I think we're the type where when there's things to do places we're chasing after we run faster and so it was really motivational and once we got in like Zach said we started

enjoying it and we still have the journals or we were taking notes watching the classes from our house in college. I love that. Embracing wise counsel. Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, let's be honest, Zach was like every other guy, okay, including me and Sam. He's like, I'll do what it takes to close the deal. I know, that's right. I had some work to do. I was the only one that had debt coming out. Yeah, I get that. Now, here's something I could have picked up on and I may have, I'm making it up in my head. You went through the list. So when you proposed, when you talked to her father, he laid it out then? Is that when it happened or was it shortly after?

Don't get me wrong. Her dad had some requirements as well, but it was my parents that had required those four things. So when they gave you the list, it was finish college, full-time job, got to do premarital counseling, and FPU. The way you said it early on and when you told us this it felt like the other three were like you guys were like oh yeah that makes a lot of sense but the FPU thing I don't know did I pick up on something there yeah yeah I mean don't get me wrong there was we were going to do it because I wanted to marry her I know that that was going to happen I knew that but but internally as we discussed uh like i said we we thought we knew

it all we thought we both took finance in school and just thought it couldn't be that hard and right and when we took it it was obviously totally different than what we learned um but it was it made sense dave was captivating and we just i mean we just took off like that so there was a gap wasn't there we got 10 years of marriage. But then four years ago, you guys start to take on the house. What was the catalyst for that? Yeah. So once we graduated and we paid off our debt, we wanted to live first.

And so I'm a pretty big dreamer. And so I was like, let's go overseas. We have no kids, no pets. Let's go. And so we went and lived overseas for a little bit. We actually ended up in the Middle East. I said, I want to go. And then the opportunity came in the Middle East. Wasn't expecting that. But so then when we got back from the Middle East, we started saving for the home. And even when we were there, we were saving for the home because we were in the Dave Ramsey world. So we knew this was coming. We were preparing. And so by the time

we bought the house, we had a really significant down payment. And then we were charging for, you know, how fast can we get all the way done? And we set goals and we beat all the goals we set. Because I think once you're charging, it's fun. You start to see the momentum and you start to really push. Yeah, that's crazy. So, okay, for those listening, Financial Peace University, this is the class you went through. And I mean, it's a crash course. I mean, it's given you everything. Was there anything that, you know, you push back on like, wait a minute, can we really buy cars and cash? Or what about this no credit score thing? Or even buying a house without a credit score? Was there anything that stood out to you that was like, well, we'll see about that? I think the principles about how much of an apartment we could afford at the time were really helpful tips to know, because I think coming out of college,

our first real job, you just go for what looks good, you know, versus having some kind of idea of, no, this is what we can afford. So I just really liked having the boundaries and knowing what to do. Did you have one? Well, just the envelope system. I mean, we, uh, we did the envelope system, um, for the first five years of all of that. So even, even once we were out of debt, we kept doing it. It was only, it was only about five years ago that we call it evolved. Um, and, and didn't use those anymore, but absolutely monthly budgeting is critical to our overall success. How's it feel to have a paid for home? Oh, it's incredible. It's absolutely amazing. And net worth millionaires. Yeah. And you're young, your future's... What are you guys dreaming

about now? You said you were a big dreamer, Bailey. I got to know, what are you dreaming about now? Yeah. Now we're at the point where once a year I've convinced Zach to get a cabin in the woods and we take our girls and we go and dream so we did that this year and long term we're thinking about retirement already we want to be on water somewhere so that's where we're going long term shorter term we want to have those girls college paid off so we've still got some steps to take um but it's a really exciting milestone i love it well we've got something fun to give them jade what are we going to give them we're going to give you two passes to every dollar is that right james two passes for every dollar two free uh every dollar premium memberships you can keep one give it to a friend or give them both to friends so that's just kind of our gift and

you guys know what to do with uh both of those so uh thank you for that all right let's get the girls in here tell us the girls names and ages okay we've got noelle who's our older one she just turned three and then the little one is ava um and she's one year old i just i want to point out the very cute high top nikes i love it matching dresses matching dresses and the swooshes i love it so fun there and uh so they're ready to go are they are they going to do the scream as well we've practiced i want to see those arms go up all Okay, here we go. So we've got Zach and Bailey, Noel and Ava from Dallas,

Texas. And they paid off the house, folks. $250,000 in four years, range of income $110,000 to now $330,000. What a beautiful family. Let's hear it. You guys take it away. Let's do your debt-free scream. Three, two, one.

We're debt-free! All right, we got some hands in the air. I like it. So sweet. That's good. It's fun. That's great. Talk about legacy right now when you see a young family like that with little ones.

Debt-free network millionaire. Completely changing their family tree. These kids don't know, they don't know about debt. It's not a word that's in their vocabulary, which people like us, we don't know what that, we don't know what that feels like. I can't wait to see what becomes of this next generation and how much wealth they build for their family. They did it and you can do it too. We're here to help. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm your host, Jade Warshaw. I am joined by your other host, Ken Coleman. That's all right. Wait, now I'm not even turned on. What is going on? It's

all right, Ken. I got you, Ken. You know what happened? You know, I appreciate that because I got in here and I wasn't plugged in to the board. And then I didn't have my mic on. But thank you for picking me up. But you know what it's time for? What? It's time for our scripture of the day and quote of the day. Let's get it.

That'll calm me down. It's like I've never done this before. I've only done this, what, a few thousand times? Here we go. Proverbs 14.23 is the scripture. All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. Stephen King, that's an odd choice for our quote of the day. That guy scares me.

He's a scary individual. He said, what separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work. All right. Well, there you go. I'm with that. That's not scary at all. I'm with it. I like that.

All right. Let's go to Gabby, who is a brand new listener, I'm told. And she's joining us in Houston, Texas. Gabby, how can we help? Hi. So I've been listening to you guys on TikTok and some episodes live. I am 32 years old, and I feel like during my 20s, I was very irresponsible with my finances. And now I feel like I'm more mature, and I looking into my numbers and I feel like I'm trapped.

I'm like lost financially. So you started to do some investigative work and found that it's not looking so good. So what'd you find? Tell us what you found. What kind of debt is there? What's your income? So we have, I'm not currently working. It's just me and my husband and we have three kids.

Okay. We became parents when we were in our teens and we got married. We kind of like started from the other end. Okay. What's that mean? We had kids first and then we got married. Kind of like, I know there's not like an order that you have to do things in life. And I guess I'm an example of that. So now that we're like somewhat stable and we have,

you know, the kids were looking into more like into the future retirement and all of this, we're like, Oh my God, what do we do when we were 20? So I was looking at my numbers since I was on hold and we have about between $25,000 to $30,000 between personal loans and

credit cards. Besides that, we have about $50,000 in student loans. We do not own a home. We do not have a mortgage. We do not pay rent. Where do you live? We live in Houston, but we live with my in-laws. So they own the house. They finished paying it years ago. So all we do is we just pay for like all the bills in the house, all the utilities and all of that.

So you live with the in-laws. It's not just that you're living in one of your in-laws properties. They live there with you? Yeah, we live together. Okay. Question. Are you doing that because of like cultural reasons and this is just the way we want to live as a family? Or are you doing this because of financial reasons?

Financial reasons mostly so they uh we were renting an apartment before and we decided well we had a talk and we're like well you know it's maybe time for us to look into buying which we did but our credits were really bad back then so um so we moved in thinking, okay, we're going to save money. We're going to pay off our debt and we're going to eventually buy a home. But it's been about five years now. And you've, yeah, let me tell you, the reason that you haven't done it is because it's extremely comfortable. You're living in a situation where you're not having to pay the biggest line item on everybody else's budget, which is mortgage or rent. And so, unfortunately, I think people enter into those situations thinking, hey, this is going to give

us the margin we need. But instead, depending on your personality type, it causes you to go in the opposite direction and go, hey, now I can just lean back. And I mean, I'm not, I'm gonna push you on this one, Gabby, because you went into this situation, but you're not working. Why aren't you working? Well, I'm not currently working right now. We had a baby last year and my type of work, I couldn't have to take care of a baby. I don't have anybody that can care for the baby besides me. Why not? I'm confused about that. What does that mean? Is that you're not willing to have child care? Or tell me more. What does that mean? Yeah. So we live, like I said, we live with my in-laws.

They both work. Right. And that's fine. Husband is also out of the house. And my mom lives very far away from me. I do not have anybody to take care of the baby besides me. What is your husband? I cannot afford to pay.

You can't afford to pay for it. Okay. Tell me what your husband is bringing home paycheck-wise. Paycheck to paycheck around $3,500. Oh, a month. Yeah, no. So $7,000? Yeah, around $7,000. So you're making $7,000 a month, you're not paying a mortgage, and you're telling me you can't afford $1,000 a month for child care for the baby? No, no, I got called BS on that one. Well, because I want to push on that if I can. Are you talking about traditional daycare when you tell us that? So you've run the numbers on what a traditional daycare would cost? No, I have never looked into that. 1500 right but what i'm getting at is is gabby where are you coming up with this number that you can't afford it um and that you don't have anybody when in all

honesty if you found a an older grandmother who is retired who's just looking for something to do you're talking about a fraction of daycare that's true but the stacy and i did that that yes ken is right that's all if you don't like the traditional method of daycare like if if you're more um if what's causing you pause is the fact that i don't want to leave my baby with this type of facility or here listen i get it but what you said was it was the cost um and if that's the case, I'm looking at the numbers. I'm like, how can it be the cost unless there's something you're not telling me? Because what I'm seeing here, Gabby, is grown folks living with the in-laws. They don't have to pay the mortgage.

They only have to pay the utilities, things that make things run. And your husband's making $7,000 a month. By any standard like that's a fine income. I agree. So what's the answer, Gabby? You said that's the reason you're not working. That's one of the reasons I'm not. Yeah, that's one of the reasons I'm not working. I am looking into going back to work and do something. I'm talking to my manager at the same time. See if I can do something else that's not going to be me on the phones all the time because I was working for a call center at a hospital okay so we're trying I'm still trying to see if I can go back to work and do something that's maybe not for related so I can still keep

my baby here I do have this maybe it's just me I don't know it's just I cannot trust really anybody to watch my kids if it's not me or my husband. Hey, I get that. First, let me validate that because I totally get that. But there's two there's two pieces of the puzzle here. A, you called a financial show about money. So if money is the problem, sometimes we have to make sacrifices that we don't want to do in order to get the financial piece right i don't know how to manage the money i think that's my thing i feel like you don't think you need more you just need you need to figure out how to manage i think you need a budget i do too that's what i think i think that you're

looking at these dollars and you're not sure where they're going um and i think that a budget would go a really long way for you and your husband so we'll make sure that you get set up with every dollar um and and look into that but yeah seven thousand dollars that you should be be able to at least pay for child care now how quickly you're paying off the debt with child care in place yeah it's going to go a little bit slower because that's an expense. But right now, I mean, that's the answer to your question. You need to get on a budget. You need to find that margin. Every dollar will help you do it because the way every dollar lays out, you put the income up top and you list out all of your expenses and it'll tell you what money you have left or if you do have money left. And in this case, I think that you're

going to find, oh, I see what we've been spending our money on, whether it's going out to eat, whether it's been certain things within your lifestyle. I think you're going to find out where the $7,000 has been going. Because what are you spending on bills and utility, if you had to make a round ball guess? So building utility, I want to say it's around maybe $800 a month. Exactly. Exactly. I think your new full-time job, Gabby, is to get this budget under wraps. Getting a budget.

Yep. That'd be worth it. We were trying to get on a budget. I just maybe I'm an experienced. I mean, I'm looking into it. Listen, we're going to give you every dollar. It's very intuitive. It's going to help you work through this.

My plan for you is by the time this baby's two years old, you have a job, you've found someone you can trust to take care of these babies, and you guys are getting out of the in-laws' house and you're paying off your debt. She is Jade Warshaw. I'm Ken Coleman.

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