The Ramsey Show - You Don’t Get Out of Debt by Accident—Choose Your Hard

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

❓⁠Have a money question? Ask Ramsey is here to help!⁠ Ken Coleman and Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss: “I feel let down by my husband’s spending habits?” ”We’re in $600,000 of student loan debt and have a baby on the way. How do we work the baby steps?” “I keep going deeper into debt because of my spending habits” “Our home mortgage is 40% of our income, should we refinance?” “How do I talk to my in-laws about the $48,000 my wife owes them?” “We offered $24,000 for our daughter’s wedding, they want to spend half of it on the wedding and keep the other half” “How are we supposed to pay $2459 for health insurance premiums?” “Should I pay off the mortgage incrementally or should I invest the money until I can pay off the house in full?” “What’s the difference between sinking funds and recurring expenses?” “My wife thinks I’m jumping the gun by getting life insurance for a baby we are planning for” “We’re $176,000 in debt, should we sell our cars?” “How do I pay off debt and plan for the future as a single mom?” “My mortgage has a balloon payment, how do I pay this off?” Next Steps: ✔️⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Help us make the show better. Please take this short survey.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 weekdays from 2–5 p.m. ET or⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠send us an email⁠⁠⁠⁠. 🛡️ ⁠Protect yourself with trusted insurance coverage that fits your budget.⁠ 🏢 ⁠Join the Crusade! Apply Now!⁠ 📲 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💻 Need help with your taxes? See who we trust. 💵 Think you're good with money? Take our free quiz! Connect With Our Sponsors: Get 10% off your first month of ⁠⁠⁠⁠BetterHelp⁠⁠⁠⁠ Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠Boost Mobile⁠⁠⁠⁠ to switch today! Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Casper Sleep⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code RAMSEY to learn more If you want your car to keep going and going, trust ⁠⁠⁠⁠Christian Brothers Automotive⁠⁠⁠⁠. Find a local shop and get an exclusive Ramsey discount of 10% off Learn more about⁠⁠⁠⁠ Christian Healthcare Ministries⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get started today with⁠⁠⁠⁠ Churchill Mortgage⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get 20% off when you join ⁠⁠⁠⁠DeleteMe⁠⁠⁠⁠ Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠ FAIRWINDS Credit Union⁠⁠⁠⁠ for an exclusive account bundle! Debt collectors hassling you? Take back control of your life at ⁠⁠⁠⁠Guardian Litigation Group⁠⁠⁠⁠ Find top health insurance plans at ⁠⁠⁠⁠Health Trust Financial⁠⁠⁠⁠ Use code RAMSEY to save 20% at ⁠⁠⁠⁠Mama Bear Legal Forms⁠⁠⁠⁠ Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠ NetSuite⁠⁠⁠⁠ today to learn more Get started with ⁠⁠⁠⁠YRefy⁠⁠⁠⁠ or call 844-2-RAMSEY Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠ Zander Insurance⁠⁠⁠⁠ for your free instant quote today! Explore more from Ramsey Network: 💸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Ramsey Show Highlights⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🧠 ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dr. John Delony Show⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🍸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠Smart Money Happy Hour⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💡 ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Rachel Cruze Show⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💰 ⁠⁠⁠⁠George Kamel⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🪑 ⁠⁠⁠⁠Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📈 ⁠⁠⁠⁠EntreLeadership⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broken. Common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show. Alongside the fabulous Jade Warshaw, I'm Ken Coleman. The phone number to jump in today is AAA 825-5-2-2-25.

AAA-825-2-25. Let's go. Grace is going to start us off in Asheville, North Carolina. Grace, how can we help today? Hi, Ken. Thanks so much for speaking with me today. Sure. My question is regarding my marriage and how to handle finances.

I'm a saver in my marriage, whereas my husband's more of the free spirit. And although we make a really great income, I'm still having a really difficult time staying encouraged, when his heart hasn't caught up to the sixth grade math, as you all have talked about. So my question is more about how to not be a controller or an enabler and continue being an encouraging life when I just feel really let down. I'm like there's a lot of arguments. Oh, bless your heart. I love this.

Okay, a couple of questions. Are you in the baby steps? and if so, where, and then how long have you been trying to get this going? Great question. So we are in the baby steps. We do have an emergency fund of a little over $1,000, which I'd be happy for it just to be $1,000, but I'll just say that for now. We do have a personal loan that's just left over on a truck that we bought,

and we have a mortgage since we only. our house. Okay. How much is the loan on the truck? The loan on the truck that we have left is just $1975, $69.19,000. $1,000. $1,975. I got it down in the penny. Who'd you borrow it from a family member? No, we didn't. We actually got a loan from the bank and then it's a long story, but that's just essentially what we have left on it. What is your income? So I make a base of $60, with an on-target earning of 90. Mm-hmm. And my husband is, he is commission only.

So that's part of the challenge. And he has been commission only since we got married. Okay. And what's he make? He made over 150. Our first year of marriage is about 160 pre-tax. Mm-hmm. And he's on track, hopefully, to at least make 150 at this new position.

he has. He's been switching up quite a bit. How long have you been a, how long ago did you bring this whole Ramsey plan to him? Oh, immediately. No, no. How long ago? Well, we started talking about it when we were dating, especially when we got engaged. We started talking about the debt that he had. How many years? I'm just trying to, I'm doing all this. Sure. We've known each other for three years. We've pretty much jumped into our relationship.

we've been married for a little over a year and a half. Okay. And the reason I'm asking all this stuff is because for J.D. and I have way in and try to help you on your core question, which is, I love the way you position it, by the way. How do I help his heart catch up to sixth grade math? And so what I'm trying to understand is, is he opposed to this plan, or is it just really, really hard for him to live by the plan?

What's his response? I would definitely say the latter. Like, he'll say I'm a Christian. I'm not a rand. because he thinks I'm so hardcore about it. But he also is aware of the fact that it's relative, right? So I come off very extreme to him and he comes off very extreme to me. Got it.

Yeah. I'll be honest. The fact that he's likening a money plan to a religion lets me know that it's coming across to him through you, as quite extreme. Give me an example, like give me a real-time example of a conversation that you've had where he was on one end and had one opinion and what it was. And you were on the other hand and had another opinion and what it was.

Great question. So yesterday we were going over where we are for January. And for example, like our grocery budget is $1,000 a month. For just the two of you? No kids. Okay. We had no children. I think it's very reasonable.

I said, what are your thoughts on all of this? And we got to the grocery category. He basically said, I see that we're like almost, we're at the upper 900s, like 990-something. I think that's to be expected. And I caught it later. I said, well, why would you say that this is to be expected? If we have a budget of $1,000 and we're on the mark to essentially double it, why would we have agreed to this?

Are you saying it more so needs to be two-spect? thousand and he'll get really upset because I come off like I'm trying to preach to him or coach him or like tell him that he's not really getting it that this isn't okay so I feel like I'm also very passive and it comes off disrespectful but I'm also like getting really really frustrated go back for me I may have missed something so the budget's a thousand you're up to it at like 990 something help me understand the doubling part I think I missed that yeah so I basically said because we're at the middle of the month. So you need to slow down.

Yeah, you're saying we need to slow down. We're up at it. I just want to make sure I understood that properly. Right. And he was more so... Why did you say this is to be expected? Like when he looked at it, he said, well, that's to be expected for groceries. Understood.

And I was like, well, why are you saying that? Okay, understood. Because you're saying we set a boundary, we should stick to the boundary. And he's saying, well, this is just an indicator that this is what we spend. So if we go to 2000, that that should be accurate. Okay. So I, here's what I want to, just a fun experiment, okay? I want you to pick one word answers to these two questions, Grace, okay?

And don't overthink it. Okay. I'll try not to. Okay, great. I just want you to go top of mind, okay? If you were to pick one word to describe what you value about money, say what, what that, What is that one word? Safety.

What is it? Safety. Safety. Okay. Great. I thought that was going to come out. What do you think he would say? What's the word?

Freedom. I knew it. I knew it. I did too. So the reason I've gone to this is because I actually think this is a 100% marriage conversation. This is not a money conversation. You guys, and you are different in that you said that you're the saver and he's the spender and Dave has talked about the natural. But I actually think for you guys, you got to go below

why each of you is one of you's the spender or one of you's a saver. And I think when you're attempting to adopt a value system like Ramsey solutions, the baby steps are based on a value system, right? And it's really hard for some people to get into that system. It's easier for others. Okay? Because Dave's got a very rigid plan, right? No wiggle room. A lot of black and white. And people that aren't naturally black and white who aren't rigid and disciplined at times can have a harder time adopting it. So we can't really solve this for you, but other than I believe that I would start over. I really believe that I would sit down with a therapist and not make this heavy with him. Just go, you know what? I've been too intense. I think you've

led the system. So I think you've got to lead the healing and the rebrand. boot. And I think it needs to be, let's start over and let's give it the therapist. Not because our marriage is dying, because I think we need to reset on a very important issue. And I've got some safety issues with money. And you're so amazing. Can we restart? And I think if we start with a therapist on language around this and then restart, I think you guys can heal on this. If debt collectors won't stop calling and you feel like you're drowning, you don't need another company selling debt relief dreams. You need. need real world help, and that's why I recommend Guardian litigation group. Guardian's not a call center.

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All right, let's go to John in Newark, New Jersey. John, how can we help today? Hi, Jay and Ken, thank you so much for taking my call, big fans. Oh, thank you. How can we help you? Yeah, so essentially, my wife and I are a single-income family. We have two babies, a four-year-old, two-year-old, and one do next month. And we recently started following the baby steps.

And my question is regarding the size of our debt. and when exactly should we start tackling this? So we have about 600,000 in student loans plus a mortgage and two car leases, which after we're going to pay for him, see what are going to get rid of? How much is the student owns? 500,000 me, 100,000 for my wife. Oh, wow. Okay. And then tell me about the cars.

So the cars are two leases, just an F-150 and an expedition. What are the prices every month? We pay about $800 for her car about $600 for mine. My, my, my. Okay, this is an expensive situation. I know. We may be the full listening today. What's your degree in for $500K?

I'm a plastic surgeon. What's your income? Did we ask that? Uh-uh. It's about, it varies a little bit, but it's about $750. Excellent, excellent, excellent. Okay, that's the good news, yeah. Okay, so this kind of puts it in perspective.

It's all relative, right, depending on the numbers. So when does the baby do? Baby do is in three to four weeks from now. Okay, and what money do you have saved? We have about 122,000 in a high-old saving. Okay, so you've got, would you say that that covers six months of expenses or four months? How many months of expenses does that cover? About to cover about over six months.

Over six months. Okay, great. So I would say, you know, typically we say when there's a baby coming, you're kind of in stork mode, save up as much as you can. You've got plenty saved. Yeah, but hold on. Let's just get real here. What's your take home? As a plastic surgeon, what's your average take home in a month? So in a month, I'm averaging about 34.

Right, you got plenty of money. You've got gobs of money. You can fix this so fast. It's not even funny. Jay's going to walk you through it, but I don't think he needs to stack up. No, I said he doesn't. I'm just also saying for the benefit of a listener who is used to us saying, if there's a baby coming, stop and save. I'm explaining why he doesn't need to do that because he's got plenty saved. So you don't need to do that. We normally would give that advice, but you've got plenty. And so I would go ahead and push play.

Even if, by the way, even if there were some form of complications and your insurance kicked in and you hit your full deductible, even if you hit your out-of-pocket max for the year, you'd be fine. So that's why I think that you can go ahead and hit play on this. And if I were you, when do these leases, when are they up? So next year. Oh, can you get, can you find out what it is to get out of them early? Yeah, that's, that's our plan.

Our plan is to find out and give way of them as fast as we can. Yeah, do that, do that. There's no need in keeping this around any, any faster. I would take a little bit of the money of the $122,000 you have saved and buy some cash cars. And it's not going to be the be all end all. I'm not saying you have to spend $4,000, but I am saying it's probably going to be less than the cars you drive now, just to get you something in cash, but don't drop that emergency fund below six months in order to do this. And then I would start getting cracking with the rest of that money once the baby is born,

with the rest of that six-month fund, I would come in and I would clear out one of these student loans. And you're going to drop that pretty low. I guess my wife and I worry is that given the size of our student loans, if we follow the baby steps, we will kind of burn through all our savings. and be a little ways away from being able to pay them and being a single income family. Okay, so let me address that because I'm going to tell you straight up. I'll tell you the 100% truth. If you do it the way that I'm going to suggest, it's going to feel uncomfortable because

I want you to be debt free really, really fast because I value the same thing you do, which is to get to security quickly, right? To your point, you're a one-income family. you've got lots of kids. Right now, your house is on fire. You've got almost $700,000 of debt. So you've got to clear it out. So I'm on your side in the way that I want to do it as quickly as possible. So if you take $122,000 and you pay off the $100,000 student loan, you clear out the mortgages, you spend $10 or $11,000 each on some knock around cars until this thing is cleared out. And then for, I don't know, a year you guys live on. 200,000 instead of 700,000 and you pay off the $500,000 student loan. I think that that's possible because most people in the United States wish they had a $200,000 income. So if you, if you live on 250 and use the other 500 to pay off the loans, you're done in a year. So pretty much live with a minimum or minimal emergency savings until those are done.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Are you familiar with our baby steps? Yes, 100%. Yeah, so that means you have a thousand... Same baby step number two. Yeah, but if you were to follow the baby steps the way we teach, you are emptying that savings account. Because here's the thing. Let me hit you with this. Let's play it out. Let's say I tell you, hey, hey, drop your savings down to $1,000, just to have a little cash there, pay off the $100,000 student, loan, like I said, pay $10 or $11,000 each on some cars, and over the course of the year, spend $500,000 of your income to pay off this debt. If you have an emergency, what's the worst emergency you can think of, the roof blown off your house? Right. I mean, something happening

to me that I wouldn't be able to work. So let's, well, that's a life insurance question. So we'll talk about that in a second. But let's pretend a big gust of wind comes tomorrow. you've taken your savings down to 1,000, and the roof blows off your house, right? Something crazy. You make $34,000 a month. I'm pretty sure you could stop paying debt for that month and cash flow whatever the emergency is, right? That's a very good point. You see what I'm saying?

Now, if you're concerned about you're being a one-income family, that's a life insurance question. And disability. And disability. Do you have life insurance? I have both, yeah. Okay. then you're covered. So the point is, if something happens to you and you can no longer be a plastic surgeon,

have you put in place policies that would take care of you and your family? I have, yeah. All right then. So what are we stressing out about? Now, we know this is extreme. But let's play the numbers out so you can catch a little vision here. Because Jay just played out how you can knock off, you know, a lot of debt. So if you fix these car leases and can get out of these and then you knock out your wife's student loan,

loan, now you've got a $500,000 chunk. How much money, if you're on a tight budget, could you put towards debt that student loan every month, based on the 34? Yeah, I think projecting with the three babies, we could probably put away at least maybe 15 or a little more per month. Great. So let's keep it at 15 for around numbers, right? So you just do the math.

$15,000 a month over the course of how many months knocks out the $500,000. I think it's really important that you have that in your head so that you go, okay, I've got to do this. It's not for 10 years. It's for whatever that's going to end up being. I'm not that good at math. 15 times 10 months. Obviously, he's 150,000.

So we're looking at three plus years at the 15,000. But that's just at that. But that's to say, you gave us an average month. So, you know, how does a plastic surgeon go make more money? That would be the answer I'd be wanting to know. I don't know. I don't know. That's not my world. But I bet there's a way. How do you, what do you have to do to make a million dollars? Yeah, because taxes is eating up a lot of this.

I know there's a lot of vain people. Yeah. My point is, and I was using very round numbers, two round probably, but my point is the quicker you get this done, the quicker you can go back to living your plastic surgeon's lifestyle with the cars you want and the income you want and the savings that you want. But if you're trying to solve for security, security is best gotten quickly. Not little by little drip by drip over time. You want to get to that place of security fast. And ripping off the band-aids the way to get that. If you missed open enrollment, don't panic.

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I'm doing better than I deserve it. There it is. I knew you wanted to say it, so there you go. All right. It's true. Good. Anyway, my question today is I'm on Baby Step 2, and I keep getting into debt because of my poor spending, habits, and that's what I want to fix. And so, it's like we can get into where I'm at. No.

Not yet. Because I think you just presented what you really need to fix. Now, I'll turn it over to Jade to walk you through how to get out of this very specifically. But let's dive into this. What do you think? Here you are calling a big show, and you're bearing this to the world, because I think you're probably sick and tired of this. Yes or no?

Yes. I am very sick of it. All right. Then what do you think is causing you to spend irresponsibly? What do you think is below the surface? Well, I'm pretty young. I'm 24, and I never really learned how to manage my money well. I had people who tried to teach me, but I didn't listen.

And I started making really good money pretty early on. Who tried to teach you? My dad. Okay. He tried very hard to teach. Okay. And what kind of money are you making? I'm making about $60,000 a year base, but last year I made just under $80,000 with overtime and everything.

And then be really honest. Tell us, tell Jaden I what you spend your money on. If we were to go through into an audit and what would we find that we would consider irresponsible? A lot of things. Mainly, the biggest one is probably going to be food, right? Even though on meal prep, sometimes I want to go get some food. Sure. But the bigger ones, the bigger ones are nice things.

Like what? Like what? Like what? So I'm trying to think of some. I'm sure they're sitting in your driveway. How hard is it for you to remember the big things you've bought in the last 12 months? Yeah. What? What are we talking about?

In the last 12 months. So, of course, I have a motorcycle. I have an SUV. right, I got those and that takes up the bulk of my debt. Okay. Are you taking trips?

No, I'm not taking trips. It's mainly buying higher quality things because I don't like buying cheap things multiple times. Okay, so are you buying higher quality things on debt or are you using cash? In some cases, it's using debts. Okay.

Who are you trying to impress? Yeah. Um, probably myself, but that could be a lie. I don't really have anybody around. I'm single. I'm not in the dating market. Here's a deal. We'll save time because you don't have to answer that now because that's putting you on the spot. But I think that's a legitimate question you need to wrestle with. I also think the question you have to wrestle with is what does success mean? Because if success to you means I can buy this, I can buy that, I can buy that. And it just is, a list of things that you can buy, you'll just keep buying and buying and buying. But if success equals something a little more weighty, I think it could cause you to pull back on some of those purchases.

So I think those are good questions to sit down and really think through, is what does this mean to me? What am I trying to solve for here? Does that make sense? Does success mean? have an $80,000 vehicle or does success mean I have options? Does success mean I can buy three motorcycles or does success mean I have time freedom, right? How would you define a broke person?

Do that for me. Somebody who's broke is probably if they lose their job, they lose their livelihood. Right. So not just the job itself, but I'm talking their car. They can't go to work. They can't make money, right? They might lose their house. You know, somebody who's kind of a slave to the debt.

So that's the path you're on is to be a guy who has a lot of stuff but is broke. Yeah, because there's plenty of people who make $40,000 a year don't have debt. Don't overspend. don't go into debt over things that they can't afford. And that person at this point is more successful financially than you are. Right? So I think it's really good to think about what Ken just said, to think about what I just said. Because it's not a numbers problem, right?

We can go through your numbers. We can show you that you've got margin. We can show you, I mean, and we can do that in this call. We can talk about paying off your debt. But this is kind of, this is a values question on, who do you want to be with your money? What's important to you? What's actually going to give you meaning with your money?

Because my guess is you're a hard worker. You're going to keep earning more and more and more. But stuff really does, when it just starts piling up and piling up, it starts to kind of lose its meaning. And I think that you're starting to sense that already, yeah? Yes. It's almost the instant gratification of buying things justifies my hard work.

Yeah. Well, and it can. I'm not saying that it can. I do think that when, Ken, when we work, you earn your paycheck and you do, like, you picture a lifestyle that goes along with the money that you earn. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think it becomes a problem when we're willing to go into debt because now it becomes a facade. Once you go into debt, it means you couldn't afford it. So it becomes, that's a fake level of success. What if you just, because if you had told me before Jade, I like high quality things. I would have said, yes, me too, Colin. If you had said, Jade, I'd just like spending money on nice dinners and nice clothes. And if I go on a date, I want to do it up. I would have said, me too, Colin. You lost me when you said you were going into debt to do it. You see what I'm saying? Yes.

So that's the pullback right there. Have you ever, are you a country music fan by any chance? A little bit. I dabble. Yeah. I don't know if you've ever heard of the song Way down yonder on the Chattahoochee. Oh, way down yonder on the Chattahoochee, never knew how much that muddy water meant to me. There's a line in there that came up in my head.

Have you ever heard of the song, Colin? I haven't. Great. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Alan Jackson? Here's the point. Okay.

There's a lyric that came up in my mind from that great song that reminds me of you. Okay. And I don't say this in an ugly way. So forget the whole country music thing. But there's a line that says, never had a plan just living for the minute. Never had a plan just living for the minute. I think that kind of defines you. I don't think there's some deep heaviness.

necessarily with you and money. I just think you're young and you want things in life. You want some finer things. You like the finer things. And I'll bet you that there's also a connection between your dad, what a good man he is, who tried to tell you about this. And I'll bet you, tell me if I'm right or wrong, that your dad's pretty darn frugal. True or false? nowadays he is after he made his mistakes and trying to get me to not make those mistakes yeah so did he have a time in his life where he was buying lots of toys he couldn't afford oh yes okay so hey so listen here's another thing that runs in you so all of this is awareness all i'm doing is kind of helping you get aware to to where you go okay now i've got to change my

list and i think this is a fun exercise for you if i were coaching in your house this is what i do I go get out a legal pad, draw a line down the middle, and I want you to write half two on the left and want two on the right. Now, you have a very different half to list at 25 than I do at 51. I got three kids, you know. I want one's in college. I got two doodles. And so when my money comes in every month, I have a long half two list. Yes, that's right. But I get great satisfaction, the same satisfaction that you just mentioned to Jade, I get from providing and taking care of my responsibilities. But my have-to list is where my priority is.

And even now, and I make good money, all right, all right, but I still have a half-to and a want-to. And my want-toes, Jade knows some of that list. There's some expensive toys out there that I want. But guess what? They come in second to the half-toes. And I think for you to say, now, where do I want to be when I'm Ken's age? Unfortunately, I'm that old to where I can use that example.

And that's 30 years from you, right? Where do you want to be? So now make your have-to list with your money every month based on where you want to end up in life. You're spending all your time in the want-to column, which is natural, so not beating up on you. But flip that mindset and watch the discipline come with it. Everyone is at risk of identity theft. I don't care if you're a hermit living off the grid listening to the show on a battery powered radio. All of your data collected by every company you've ever done business with lives online.

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great budgeting feature. So the new every dollar is unbelievable. Start it for free. right now in the App Store or Google Play. All right, let's go to Russell, who joins us in Colorado Springs. Russell, how can we help today? Hello, thank you. My wife and I just wanted to get some advice on whether we need to sell our home or take one of our refinancing quotes we've recently received. Okay, run us through the numbers.

All right. We make about $9,000 monthly, but our current mortgage is $3,250. And then our utilities are usually 300. And then we also have a minivan that has 8,500 left that we've been putting 600 to every month. Okay. And so tell me about the refi offers. Tell me about your current interest rate and what the refis are. Yep.

So current interest rate is 6.25. and the best that I could get was actually a Churchill mortgage who gave me 5.25 right now, and it would save us $320 a month. Okay, which doesn't solve your problem per se. You're about $1,000 off from where you want to be. You want to be about $2,250. Is there a light at the end of that tunnel? because so far the savings is not enough for me to be like,

woo-hoo, go do it. I'd be looking at some other things in your life that could shift to bring in a little bit more cash. Is there something there on the career front? We are active duty military, so we could move on base, which with utilities and rent would only cost $2,300. Okay, great. But then we'd have to sell the home,

and that's what we're worried about. Well, let's walk through that for a minute. When will you be transferring anytime soon? Do you have a kind of a scheduled move as a lot of military folks do? Yeah, in the next two years, there's a chance we can move. Well, there you go, Jade. That is good. How big of a chance that you'll move?

We could stay here. We're in Space Corps, so we could stay, but we could also choose to move. It's not as big of the deal. Okay. you would choose to move? Or would you choose to stay? I think it depends on which house we are in. Ah, okay. So let's then go back. Before we tackle this house, go back and tell me about the other debt. You said there is a minivan. Did I hear that right? Yes. Tell me what else. Yep. And that's it. How much is it again? It is currently $8,500. Okay, $8,500. And there's no other debt besides that?

No. And how much is that monthly payment? You probably already said it, but... It's only 240, but we've been paying 600. You've been paying 600. We wanted to pay it off, but I was worried about the government shutdown. So... That isn't going to happen now.

Got it. So if you moved on base, you'd save the $1,000 and get everything right side up. But if you lived in the base housing, you would not want to stay there long term. Potentially, yes. Yeah, but I think that's... The bigger worry for us is... that we owe $4.62 on our house. Okay.

They're told us it probably used $4.50. Yeah. Okay. I think moving on bait, this is very black and white to me. So I'm sitting there looking at, if I were in your shoes, you guys got way too much house. And your income is capped, right? There's no income fix on this because of your military role. And there is also a, let's call it, 50-50 chance that you're going to move.

if you did that, we always give advice to folks in the military. Don't become a long range landlord. For sure. So because of all of this. I'm just trying to. I wanted to be right side up on that house a little bit because you said it, you owe 462 and it's worth $450. But he can't. There's no way to, unless you can find a way to solve that, I don't think that's solvable,

but I'd rather take that hit and get into the, cut their expenses and get in the base housing. I just think this house was a bad idea. and I think I would go on base, reset, and get your financial house in order. You can always buy another house, but because you're in the military anyway. That's an option. I'm not saying it's... You can have a different piece of advice. I just don't know how you fix being upside down.

Well, let's lay out time. So let's lay out both options. So Ken, option number one is go ahead and sell the house, take the loss, move into base housing, save yourself $1,000 a month, and then you'll have freed up money. to pay off the 8,500. Another option is can your wife work? Can your wife make a thousand bucks a month? She saves at home and homeschools. We don't want her to. Yes. The answer to that is yes. She can make $1,000 a month. The kids aren't in school 24 hours a day. Right. Right. That's, option two. Option two is, option two is wife makes it a point to say,

I'm going to try to make between 900 to $1,000 to $1,000 a month. Suddenly, there's no more squeeze on the income. You're right at the 25% point, which is where you want to be. And then your only debt's $8,500 on the van. That's your only debt. And then suddenly you pay that off. You've got $600 a month back in your pocket. The mortgage is in the rightful spot.

And you can ride that house out until it's time to move. And then when the option to move comes, if you want to move, you can. If you don't want to move, you can stay there. And hopefully by then, after those two years, your back right side up on this house and the market has done you well. So that's option two. Neither of these are wrong nor right. They're just what you think is best. Would you agree with that, Ken? Or do you think, do you think might? I think if they're comfortable as a couple with her committing to make that kind of money, but that's not a lifestyle choice they've chosen. So now I look

at that and I go, by the way, I 100% agree that is a viable option. But I still think they have too much house. If she has to do that for you all to sneak underneath where you need to be, it's too much house. Well, yeah, it is. But at the same time. I'm getting thumbs up from the audience. That's all I'm saying. Thumbs up from the audience out there. It's too much house. No, only from that kid. No, from this lady right here. Oh. Oh, there's a guy right there that's frowning at me. Yeah, I think not because if it would be one thing. I don't know why you're frowning. I haven't given them a viable option here. It'd be one thing if they both worked, if they both worked and it was still. But it's, they're really squeaking by it's right there.

That's my point. They're squeaking by because of the house. Yes. No, no, no. I'm saying squeaking by on the percentage. And I'm saying moving, especially while upside down is a big deal. So I, I would tend to air it awards option two. That's just what I would do. I'll go with, I'll go with two to make you and the guy in the lobby happy. But here's the deal. Stick to your gun. Here's why I'm saying this. They're also in the military. Yeah, they're going to move anyway. If they were in this place long term, I would have sided with the option one. I just think because they're not there long term, probably. then I think you've got to look at that. But again, if they decide to stay there. Yeah, but think how much they're going to lose on their upside down.

They don't have that cash. That's going to create more debt for them. Again, I'm sticking to getting out of debt. And you've got to choose your pain. Choose your heart. So there you go. Listen, I don't need to be right. No, I gave him another option.

I know. I want to know what he's going to choose. Well, a lot of it has to do with the wife. Yeah. I think in today's digital world where you can hop on the internet, you can sell anything. You can do. I mean, she's a teacher.

Maybe she tutors some kids in the area. There's a lot you can do to make $1,000 pretty quickly. I so am in agreement with yours as an option that she could make more than a thousand. But you're right. They might decide it's not a value for them. Yeah, but you're right. There's no question they can right side from an income if she's working. You're saying it's all values.

Again, you know me. I come down to it's always a Ramsey principal first, but then we got to look at the practicality of the relationship. So there are, when in there are cases where there's multiple options to achieve the principle. So how will they pay off the upside down? Selling stuff, she's working, doing other things. But they're out of that house. But they're out of the house. That's true. That's true.

So that's why I like both options. Yeah, they're both good. Call us back and tell us what you do. Yeah. Either way, though, it's right. You've got to choose your heart because you're in a situation you shouldn't be in. So that's the moral of the story there. Hey, thanks for the call. I appreciate you all serving our country.

You're a great American. I love entrepreneurs. Don't forget, guys, I started my company on a card table myself, so I know what it's like to have people counting on you, your team, your family, not to mention your customers. And when you're the one signing the paychecks, you can't afford to fly blind. But I'll be honest, early on, one thing that nearly sunk us was wasting time with spreadsheets that didn't add up because business units didn't talk to each other. I finally told my team, just fix it. And they did. We got Netswe. That was years ago, and we've never looked back.

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Stop wasting time and make the right decisions faster. Take a free product tour today at netseweet.com slash Ramsey. That's netsuite.com slash Ramsey. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. I'm Ken Coleman Jade Warshaw is alongside, and we go to Michael. Who's joining us in Las Vegas. Michael, how can we help today? All right. So I was discussing with my wife some kind of some payments we're making and different things and kind of getting things planned out for the near future. And one of the clouds that's kind of hanging over us is the money that we owe her parents. And I, a lot of it kind of came into the relationship from before I even met her. And so I was just kind of wondering how I should go about a conversation with my in-laws to try to kind of kind of,

figure this out and I guess what's right for me to ask for and I guess just how to go about it all. So did she owe them money on her own before you got married? Yes. So roughly a decade ago, she started college and they pretty much just gave her a blank check and told her, I mean, I'm still kind of cloudy on the conversations that did happen. And I've never been involved in any of them since. Okay. And so they basically wrote her a blank check and then took out some student loans in her name as well. And we're paying off the student loans.

We should have that paid off by the end of the year. We're, you know, being really diligent with that. How much were they? The student loan is about $22,000. Okay. And how much was the blank check for? That's where, based on the ledger I've seen, it's about $46,000 to I think it's about $46,000. Okay.

What did that money go towards? Just life? Yeah, it was living expenses, college. There were things on there. Like one of the most noticeable for me was Amazon fake plants for $29.95. Okay. And so just a lot of... Just a lot of little knick-knack stuff.

I want to rewind to the start of your question here, because the way I heard it, you were asking us, how do I go about you? how do you go about talking to her parents about money they loaned her? Am I? Did I, I want to make sure I hear it right. Is that what I heard? Yes, that's correct.

So you and your wife have talked about this, and you two or you nominated yourself as the spokesperson. Well, I want to know what's behind this. I'm going somewhere with this. Okay. We have just been making plans on getting those student loans paid off, and then after that, we're kind of making plans on what to do with that money and kind of made my wife uneasy because she wanted to really kind of tackle what she owes her parents. But then she also isn't, I mean, up to date on everything.

And she, so we, and we've talked about it, and she's agreed to have a conversation with her parents. And I think I'm kind of spearheading this. Okay. So the both of you are planning to sit down with the parents. And this wasn't clear to me either. So this is why the follow up. what is the goal of you all sitting down with the parents? I'm wondering the same thing.

Okay, good. I want to know, I guess, what they really expect. The money? Yeah, the money, if that's something that's like we're really supposed to pay them back for these $30 for plants even, you know, things like that. Wait a second. Is it not clear to you two right now that they expect her or you two because you're both together now? Is it not clear as to whether or not they expect you to pay it back? They have only told her, oh, just pay it back whenever you can kind of afford it.

Okay, wait, I'm going to go in on this. So if I go to the bank and I borrow, I don't know, $46,000 and I spend it on, I don't know, fake plants and some other doodads and just it adds up a little over time. If I go into the bank and say, you know what, I don't. I don't think I should pay you back because I spent this money on fake plants and whatnot. They're going to go, we don't care. You borrowed the money and we'd like it back, right? So it's the same thing here. It doesn't matter what she spent it on.

Clearly you don't agree with the things that she spent it on. Clearly you view it as somewhat wasteful, money that shouldn't have been borrowed. That lives over here in a separate conversation. I think it's really, really a wrong move. This is why you called, so I'll just get this out of the way. I think it's a bad idea for you and your wife to sit down and put that in their lap. Yeah, don't do it. I think if I borrowed money from somebody, I got to pay it back.

And I don't go down and go, now, hey, how much of this do you really want back? That is so passive, aggressive, it's not good for the relationship. And I will also tell you, the guy who's been married 28 years and I love my in-laws, ain't no chance I'm getting involved in that conversation. That's between your wife and her parents. I love, but Michael's conversation, the person he's really got beef with is his wife. I agree. That's the conversation that you've got to let her know or maybe don't let her know, but you

reconcile like, man, I'm struggling that I got brought in on this debt. It is for fake plans. It's just, babe, I'm willing to pay it all back as your husband, but I've booked a tea time while you're talking to your parents. Let me know how it goes. I'm not getting involved in that. I'm really not. Other than to say, we owe this to your parents.

You want to go try to read new terms? I just don't think that's a good move. Do you? No, I would not touch that with a 10-foot-ball. That's going to make Thanksgiving real tasty. I just, I think you too, now this will be my advice if you and your wife were in the room with us right now. I'd go, hey, don't do that. Yeah.

Just own it and pay it back. I think you're going to sleep better, don't you? I think so, too. I think the heart, like again, I just said, this happened before. Michael was involved and he's like, share if he could turn back time, he never would have even done this. And yet here it is, like John would say, not by his hand, but in his lap. So there's, he's just struggling with dealing with this. And I feel for you. Yeah, I do too. It's tough. It's tough to take on debt from, you know, a spouse who's bringing it into the relationship when you don't

agree with what the debt was used for. So Michael, we, we, I'm only following up here because we've hit you with a lot, and we're both on the same page here. Where do you think your wife is with this response that you called the show and we gave you that? Where do you think she sits with all those? I think she probably agrees with it. Okay, great. But I think I see the pain that this kind of causes her, too.

Well, let me reframe that. The only pain your wife should feel around this is the pain of paying the money back because you've got a sacrifice. Yeah, right. I don't think there needs to be, I think you should come away with this going. When I make this right, I am in good standing as a daughter. I have fulfilled my commitment to my parents. There shouldn't be any pain.

In fact, there ought to be an emotional joy to go, I did what was right. The only pain is the sacrifice we teach every day on this show anyway, which is continue to walk the baby steps out. I don't see any pain. Am I missing something? No, I think just that guilt that she has for, I mean, lack of financial education and stability. Well, we've all done dumb. You've heard, well, you've heard Dave say it a million times we've all done dumb and stupid with money, no shame. And the best way to get rid of that guilt, Jade, give you the final word on that.

You write a lot about money and emotions. I do. And matter of fact, I'm going to have Christian pick up and send you a copy of what no one tells you about money. Because what I think will really help you guys, one of the ways to deal with guilt and shame. is to set boundaries. And I think you both need to do that. You know, it's very easy for us to set boundaries for other people, but you both need to say, you know what, we know the information, we know what happened, it's done, we don't need to keep rehashing it, we don't need to keep bringing it up, we're paying it and that's that on that. And set a boundary that says we don't

talk, we don't talk about this in that way anymore, of this thing you did, this thing you did, she doesn't get to do it, you don't get to do it, it's over, we pay it, we move on, we're not going to keep bashing ourselves over the head with it. Hey guys, George here. Listen, just because it's 2026 now doesn't mean 2025's ideas all go away. Some things are timeless. Like if you want to win with money, it's still the same playbook. Budget like your money depends on it. Avoid debt like $10 lattes and build wealth on purpose. But here's the truth. Almost nobody tells you. Most banks make money when you lose yours. They want you swiping, overdrafting, and racking up fees because that's how they stay rich while you stay broke. And that's why I tell people to go with Fairwin's Credit Union in. instead. They actually want you to win with money and become debt-free. And their smart bundle gives you a no-feet checking account, a high-yield savings account, and my favorite, the new Ramsey-branded debit card that says debt is normal, be weird, right on the front. It's not just a piece of plastic with your money attached. It is a declaration. It says you're not buying the lie anymore. You're

taking control of your money for real. So this year, forget the gimmicks from the big banks, forget so-called rewards that keep you broke, and instead partner with a credit union that actually backs you working the baby steps. Go to fairwins.org slash Ramsey to get started. That's fairwins.org slash Ramsey, insured by the NCUA. All right. Next up is Karen in Detroit. Karen, how can we home? Hi. My daughter is getting married pretty soon. And about five years ago, her sister got married. And my husband and I offered them $20,000 to cover wedding expenses. And that worked out well. And we've done the same with this daughter, but she and her fiance are very frugal, and they would like to just spend six or $8,000 or $8,000 on their wedding and have asked us if they could use the rest

for other costs, you know, future house down payment or something like that. And it's great that they're frugal, we appreciate that, but we have some real concerns. about not enough food, not enough feeding, too solid. They're cutting corners so much that we feel it will be a regret. It'll be what? In the future. That they will regret it in the future. Okay.

I got to jump right in here and let's lean in on this. So you and your husband feel this way. Have you brought up those concerns to them specifically? We have. And what was their response? We believe it is a waste of money to spend so much on one day. And our values are more that we just want to save money. And we're okay if it's a real minimalist day.

But they do still want to have a full dinner and 150 people. Okay, so let's lean in on that one. Did you start walking through with them? How are you going to feed 150 people? We did it. And what they say? And it's okay if we have minimalist food. Like what?

Like pizza rolls? Like what are we saying? Well, yeah. Do they have a real plan is what I'm done? So I don't keep asking 100 questions. I'm getting at do they have an actual plan? And then the second question is, if they do, you just don't like it. Is that true or false?

They do with an actual plan. Okay. You're embarrassed by it. Well, we are. We're inviting a lot of people. We're not even sure they'll have chairs. Can I just say, and Jade will not, probably will not like this. I just am thinking of past calls.

Go ahead, Ken. I am ultra-conservative on wedding costs. And I say, this is a fabulous young couple. And I say it's either a gift or it isn't. And if the money is a gift, when I give someone a gift, all right, let me just use Sam as an example. I know Sam loves shoes, for instance. If I buy Sam a pair of custom Jordans or something or other, and I give them to him, and Sam's going to be like, oh, my gosh, thank you. And I go, hey, now listen, I don't actually want you to wear these outside the house.

that's that's wild it's too much but my point is i guess it's insane but it's a true example yeah if i give sam a gift of shoes i don't get to tell sam how and where he wears his shoes i'm giving him a gift and i actually think uh you should honor this request and you need to get over it and i would start bragging on him i love the fact that their response to you was our values are this i love that they actually have a plan and you know what as much as you jose you just you about it. If they want to offer pizza bagels, step into it and tell all your friends. We want you to come honor our daughter and whatever, whatever, whatever, and son-in-law. And you know what? This is the most frugal couple. It's not your normal wedding, but we're so stinking proud of them

and they're going to take what they save on the wedding and they're going to put it to starting their life off and paying off debt and change the narrative because I'm going to tell you, I'm preaching right now. But if they feel what I think they've already felt from you, you and you don't change that tune, there's going to be resentment around what could be the most special day of their life, but it's their special. So that's it. I'm out. That's all I got to say. I concur, my friend. Wow. I 100% agree. Because everybody has a picture of what a wedding should be. You gave them. You guys came up with that amount based on what you think a, quote, good wedding would cost is my guess. And so the hardest part is,

I think for the parent and for the child is when you're not matching, matching up. And I think everybody's probably experienced it who's been married. The parent wants one thing. The bride or groom wants something else. And ultimately, it's the brighter groom's wedding. I got a hot take. Remember this, Karen, 50% of the wedding attendees don't even care about the wedding. It's dudes.

any dude that's going to that wedding is going because his wife wants him to be there and we don't care if there's... They probably like the pizza rolls. You could hand out peanuts. Yeah. Guys don't care. Only people that really care about all that are women at the wedding. Guys have to have good food.

What's that? Guys have to have good food, don't they? No. I mean, they'd be okay with pizza rolls and beer. Are you kidding me? This guy in the audience is shaking his head yes. No, I'm serious. Like the average guy, the average.

The average, I'm trying to, and I'm not trying to be funny. I'm actually being, the average guy that you will invite to this wedding is only coming because of the social pressure to come. They would much rather send their wife and stay home and watch football. And so they're there because they have to be there. They don't want to dress up. I think most people fall into that camp. Let's be honest. Okay.

See, I wasn't going to speak on behalf of women because I don't know. I assume women love the pageantry and all the things. If it's a best, you know, if it's our maid of honor or like a best friend or a sister. or okay, yeah, a family member. But if it's just Linda from church or from work, it's like, I got to go. 100%. I got to get a gift. 100%.

You know why? The meal makes me stay at this place I don't want to be at longer. The cake is the best part. If you have a good cake, you're fine. I don't even care. I go buy cake. If I want to buy cake, I can buy cake. People stay for the cake.

I have made enough money in my life to buy cake whenever I want to. So if I want cake, I'm not staying at a wedding for cake. I'll just go to Kroger and go, hey, Stacey, I just want cake. cake tonight. I'm just saying when you go to the wedding, the thing that you look forward to to is not the ceremony. It's not the, it's, you're looking forward to the cake at the end. The only thing that guys look forward to at a wedding is when they get in the car and go back to. So the point here, Karen, I love this couple. They don't need to spend the money on this. And it's okay that they're doing something different. And it's okay that you don't understand it. It's okay that it's not

the way you would spend the money. I think that that's just them expressing themselves within their values. and I like Ken's idea to just get with it and be like this is, yeah, this is going to be fun, it's going to be different. And I will throw out something else because I've been so, I know, I've been so, whatever, you can call me plain spoken on this. If you guys want to do something for your closest to friends, then you all go rent yourself a country club room that you can afford and you do a special fancy something or other for those people.

If you really want something that's super impressive, makes you feel good. But the bride and groom probably wouldn't like that because that's not how they, But remember, but Karen didn't call about them. She called about her. Right. We've established that. If the tables were turned and I'm just going to put me in Karen's spot, if I was getting

money from my in-laws or my parents and they said, here's a 20,000, we said, we're going to spend it like this. And then they came to me and said, well, then you need to come to our party over here. That's our country club folk. I'd be like, I don't want to do that. I'm just trying to, Karen, I'm just trying to be nice and spare your feelings. I get it. Trust me, I got it. I really do. I understand your position. But I was just trying with a little bit of levity to go, it's not as big a deal as you think.

Yeah, it's really not. You know what I mean? No one's going to look down at you. I'm not worried about people looking down at us. You just don't want it to be. Well, you said you were embarrassed. That's why I chose that language. As my friend would say, she calls it budge when something's like not up to standard, I guess like low budget, like budge. You don't want it to. Yeah. It's a new word.

And it doesn't need to be glorious. Just enough food and enough and enough basics. Yeah. You're just trying to keep like basic etiquette. Like etiquette level is, yeah, I got it. I got it. So you might read the room a little bit and ask questions instead of making statements. Maybe you say, oh, if you do that, will there be seating for everybody?

Or are you expecting, like, are these standing? Just ask questions. and then maybe offer suggestions in the form of a question. I wonder if they had a way where you could have like, you know, and just be very light. It's just like you're like the breeze. And you mention it and you move on. You don't harp on it.

I just think get a nacho bar. Everybody loves that. Buffet style. Get after it. When you've saved up and paid cash for a reliable used car, you want that thing to last. And the best way to keep it running for the long haul is to take care of it with people you trust. That's why I'm proud to welcome Christian Brothers Automotive is the official auto repair partner of the Ramsey Show.

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And we humans, we need to track our progress. That's why Dave's Baby Steps have been so monumentally effective is because of the nature of the stages and staying with it. So if you take our quick quiz, you can check your progress and get a personalized plan to keep you on track or get you back on track. And it only takes just a few minutes. So head to Ramsey Solutions.com or click on the link in the show notes to complete the get started assessment. That's what it's called. The get started.

If you're new to the show, this is also a great thing to do as well. Now, you're chuckling over there. We humans. We humans. That was funny? It was. Okay, God. I like that.

I like the free laugh. That's great. Let's go to Jennifer in Asheville, North Carolina. Jennifer, how can we help? Hi. Well, thanks for letting me come on the show and ask this. So we just got our January insurance bill. And apparently this year, or last year we made too much and we have lost our subsidy.

So we are now going to be paying triple what we did the previous year. And it's going to come out to be. about $29,000 a year. So we're not in any debt. We own our home. Everything's paid for. But that's still a lot of money to just check. We're all blessed.

We're a very healthy family. So we go for our checkups and all that. And so we just, we talked about maybe like just putting $29,000 in an account for an emergency, but then there's always like, well, the what is, you know, something, substantial happen and worrying about that. So we just kind of wanted to know, like, if there were other options out there because Well, did you shop it? Or did it just lapse over and then this is what you were stuck with?

Well, it laps over, but then we shopped within, because we kind of wanted to stay with Blue Cross Blue Shield because I know our doctors accept that and I'm afraid of going and getting out of network and whatnot. But even within, like, that was still the cheap. this option for us for our family of five. Yeah. Well, I will say when you are independently getting insurance, it's expensive. It is. That's just part of it. And that plus insurance right now in general is expensive. It's gone up substantially. So your options are to try to see what else is out there. But if you've decided that Blue Cross Blue Shield is what I want because it's in our network

and it has the doctors we want, then there's part of that that you may have to own. Now, let me find out, can this fit in your budget? Like, what does this mean for your budget? That's the biggest question. Yeah, I mean, like I said, we own all our homes and our cars and everything. And we net about 234 between the two of us a year. Yeah, so you can afford it. Yes.

It's just a pain in the butt. We don't use it. You know, and I'm glad we don't use it. I'm not saying I hope we spend all that. money and make it worth our while. But it just, I just, it bothers me so bad that I feel like we're just flushing that money pretty much down the drain. Yeah, well, you're not. It's both, right? Let's just say both sides of it. It, our insurance system is broken, right? Healthcare system is broken. So it's way too expensive. There is that, and I agree with you on that. But then there's

a part of it that insurance, it's insurance. So it's there when you need it. And the, the hope is that really that you don't really ever need it for its full value. That's the whole point. And that's just kind of an acceptance thing at that point is I kind of just have to accept that until I'm at the point of wealth where I can self-insure, I need this. And here's what I had to do. And I know that it's a big mind thing. But you have to train your mind to say it's a blessing that I can afford to have the insurance that I want and need versus I can't believe I have to pay this. I had to do that. it's like taxes. It's like, I can't believe I have to pay these taxes, but then you go, well, I'm so grateful I have the income, right? It's that whole push and pull. I'm not saying that it's easy, but it's a good mental flip. Ken, what you got? Health Trust Financial. I want to mention them. They are partners of the Ramsey Show, health insurance broker. So what I love about them is they're going to go out and search and try to find the best deal. So I will make sure you get connected to them. Christian will connect you, make sure that you get there.

but health trust financial is the organization. We believe in them, and I think they are worth calling so that you can shop around, and let's see if you can get a better deal. Don't just assume that you're stuck. But do you know that it is going to be expensive. Other companies, it wouldn't just be. Yes, that's right. Yeah, yeah.

So you've got to be open to companies that aren't. Let's see a listener, they're going to take really good care of you. Great, great organization, yeah. So, and then look at your options, but I know that that's like, and again, I heard you, and that's why talking to them, you're going to get to walk through all of the, will we lose our doctors? Do we have to change? I know how important that is.

So they'll take good care of you. Okay. That's good to know. Well, thank you for reinsuring me. We shouldn't just like go out because, like I said, we've talked about just opening an account and putting the money in that, but then that scares me. With five kids, that's a big risk. No, well, it's three kids.

Oh, family of five. Yeah. But still. Yeah. Jennifer just had an episode five. what? Yeah. Unless you know something I don't.

Yeah. Oh, no, no. No, I don't know anything. No, we don't know anything. I just, and I'm not saying this to be scary. I'm just saying I would not do what you were saying about opening account and just putting money because, listen, if somebody runs into you on the street and everybody's in the car, there's medical bills.

Do you see what I'm saying? And $10,000 or $20,000 in an account is not going to help you. It's not going to cover that. Okay. So just what did the signs used to say? Keep calm and pay your premium. Keep calm and pay your premium because you need it. Yeah.

Thanks for the call. I just need somebody to talk me down off of that. You're going to be okay. But again, I mean, your first call is hang up and call our friends at Health Trust. So they will be a good resource for you. And remember, when you have situations like this, options, options, options. Find every option possible and it just kind of helps you in this emotion. process because it's tough stuff. And I'm so sorry about this. I mean, you guys represent

so many Americans. And I'm just going to throw this out there. We the people need to start throwing these bombs out at the election dates because this is something that Congress can fix. They can fix it. And they've got to fix it. It's unbelievable. It's real, real, real. I mean, health care is not a luxury. You know what I mean? It should be just a basic kind of right that we all have access to. And those companies got plenty of money. So it needs to be fixed. We need reform. All right. Let's go to Matt in Washington, D.C. Matt, how can we help? Hi. I think you're taking a call. Sure. So my wife and I are working on baby steps four, five, and six. We're currently contributing 15% of our income to our Roth retirements, our 529s, and we're putting any extra income on our mortgage.

the more I listen, the more I learn about mutual funds and it being a big topic on the show. So I was thinking of changing how we're paying off our mortgage and only making the minimum payment and open an investment account to deposit all of our extra income in to take advantage of the mutual fund growing at a higher rate of return. And when that mutual fund would hit our mortgage payoff value to take that, to cash that out and do one lump sum payoff. I was just curious of your thoughts on utilizing an investment account like that. as a tool to pay off a mortgage for that for baby's that six. Listen, there are worse things you could do, that's for sure. And I want you to hear that. I'm going to give you the answer that I think is the best answer,

but I want you to hear that what you're talking about is not a bad idea by any stretch of the imagination, especially if your horizon for doing this is beyond five years. It's not a bad idea. My only caveat for this is sometimes when money is sitting, other things come up, Ken, that might give us a reason to pull it out. So, for instance, instance, the idea of if you have the money in your hand every month to double the payment or whatever that amount is, going ahead and putting it on your mortgage so that it's done, the action is finished is a good thing versus having a stack of money in a brokerage where I don't know maybe a trip to Turks and Caicos comes up. And it just sounds so, so good. And you're like, well, we do have the 12,000 sitting there.

It's tempting is all I'm saying. Now, you do sound like the type of guy who would never be tempted to do to anything, but I'm just saying. Yeah, we just want you to work the baby steps. The baby steps work and they avoid all of that temptation. So don't try to rework the plan. The plan works for so many people. But you're doing great. Appreciate the call.

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be a sinking fund because if we don't use the money that month, it rolls over the next month for future use. Okay. This includes things such as utilities, insurance, food, and spending. I've tried to explain to him that some things can be a sinking fund, such as HVAC replacement, vacations, or savings for a vehicle, but normally monthly bills are not. Can you explain the difference for him? Yes. So that question was a little in the weeds if you're just listening, but let's kind of break it down. So when you have your budget, obviously the income's at the top and then down at the bottom in every dollar, you put all your expenses in there. That's everything from groceries to grandma's birthday. Everything you could spend money on goes on in the budget. Now, there are certain things that are not just monthly expenses. There are things that have the ability to happen every once in a while, but be a larger part of your income.

Something like car maintenance can or something like if you know, yeah, your HVAC needs to replace. you can put those things on the budget and you can do something on the budget that's called a sinking fund. It simply means that every single month you're putting aside a little in order to have a pool of money there. So it's just like a little mini savings fund. So if I know my HVAC is going to cost me $3,000, every month I can put aside $200 on my budget and it's going to accumulate that money in a little pool for me so that it's there when I need it after a certain number of months has passed. So it sounds like what her spouse wants to do is, make a sinking fund for every single item on the budget, which is a horrible idea, because sinking funds are for things that we cannot cash flow in a single month. That's the best way to explain it. I can, in a single month, I can pay the cable bill, or people don't have cable anymore. I can pay the YouTube TV bill, right? I enjoy cable. Okay, that's good. Sports channels. Direct TV, you keep that. All right. In a single month, Ken can pay his direct TV bill. I can pay my YouTube TV bill. We don't need to set aside a little each month to pay that. That's

very confusing. It creates a lot of issues. So Sarah, you are correct and husband who will remain unnamed. Yes. Let's utilize the sinking funds for large ticket items or large ticket repairs or trips or whatever that we cannot fund in a single month or even really in two single months, right? That's what sinking funds are for. Yeah, love that. All right, let's go to Al, who joins us in Washington, D.C. Al, how can we help? Hello, thanks for taking my call. So the reason I'm calling is I'm married. I'm 31 years old. My wife is 30. We're finally thinking about having our first baby this year, hopefully pretty bad that it happens. So with that, I'm always being kind of financially savvy. I've always maxed out my TSP, maxed out Roth, IRA. My wife is maxing the same thing.

So we're in pretty good shape. I'm of the mindset of since we're planning to have a kid of maybe insuring myself with either term or whole life insurance. I'm more inclined towards whole life insurance. So when I bring it up to my wife, she believes that I may be jumping the gun a little bit. And that's her mindset. The way she explained to me was we're going to be incurring to another expense, the way I'm going to be. incurring into another expense. The way I see it is more as an asset and, you know, protection for, you know, her and the baby

in case something were to happen, unfortunately to me. So that's kind of where I'm at. I'm able to cover all expenses of the house. She's currently a nurse. So everything that she earns, she uses it and then she invests into whatever she wants. So I'm able to cover all expenses. I just want to know more of what you guys, I guess, the mindset that you guys, you know, have on this. I'm trying to see if I could get insurance on myself, more so for protection and hopefully to leave something behind for my kids and grandkids one day.

Well, I think that, Al, your sentiment is right on the fact that you're thinking ahead about your family and you're considering life insurance is exactly right. I think it is a sobering conversation to bring up that I want to have insurance in case, God forbid, something happens to me. And your wife's carrying a baby or is going to be carrying a baby. Anyway, she's in a sensitive state. And that can be tough to kind of reconcile in your brain. So I would just form it to her like this. I would say, listen, there's going to be people in my life that are dependent on my income.

And if something, God forbid, happened to my income, how would you guys live? How would you, it would just give me a lot of peace if I knew that if something happened to me, you would have plenty of money. You would have, you know, and you can talk about what that amount is. I would say 10 times your income that you would have this million dollars or whatever it is setting there in case something happens. That just gives me peace of mind. It's a way that I can love you guys really well and it's not very expensive.

Right. If you can have that conversation with her, I think that she'll understand where you're coming from. But let's talk about the type of insurance, because I think I heard you say that you want whole life. And that's correct. My mindset is more so. So I have a couple of other properties. I have been investing to the market and all that stuff. My mindset is for protection. And then also, how can we also make it a solid foundation for everything else when you know, you know, well, Al, I'm going to let's let me let's be very, very clear. Whole life is actually not insurance. Okay? It's not, it's not, no, no, no. I want Jade to explain it, but you really

understand because you call it as a what we teach. You need term life insurance at 10 times your income. That is what's going to protect your family. That's what's going to take care of your wife and kiddo if something happens to you. So I don't know if somebody's selling you on this, but it's not insurance. It's a horrible financial product. That's our position. You want term life, Xander insurance. You want to call them up and have them walk you through how unbelievably affordable, by the way, term life is. But I'll let Jade take the thing on the why here. But we have never, ever, ever, nor will we ever recommend Whole Life. In fact, if you want to get Dave Ramsey really hacked off, you call and you ask you about Whole Life, you know? It's a bad, bad product.

I'm not going to get mad at you, Al, but I heard you say, because I think you have the right underlying thought, I heard you say you want protection. And so let's talk about the best way to get that. So with a whole life policy, let's pretend you're paying, I don't know, let's make round numbers. Let's pretend you're paying $100 a month for a whole life. Well, part of that money is going to go to your premium and then part of that money is going to go in another fund that's a cash value.

Okay. And part of that money is being invested at a very low rate of return. And the other part is going towards your death benefit that if you die, this is the money that your family gets. Well, why split that payment when you can pay, get term life insurance, and just pay for the policy? And then whatever money is left, you can invest on your own because you're into investing at a higher rate of return. So all we're saying is why give somebody money that they're going to invest poorly for you when you could invest it at a higher rate of return? for yourself. That's part one. But part two of this, Al, is if you die, they don't get the cash value. All that cash value that is accumulating at a very, very slow rate of return. If you pass away

and that money's sitting there, it's not going to go to your family. The insurance company is going to keep it. And the only way that you could get access to that is if you cashed out the policy, if you got to it early. And at that point, you're going to have to pay a bunch of fees. So it's not, it's not a fair product for you. It's almost like having to choose one or the other. And so for that reason, I'd say, hey, just spend half the amount on term life and invest the rest on your own. Does that make sense? It makes sense.

I understand your positions on term life insurance. I was, I guess, with the mindset of seeing it as double two perspective on things, so one being protection and then also. No, protection is not. mine gives you protection too, so there's no upper hand on the protections. So you got to have another argument because there's no upper hand on whole life for protections. So unless you have a better argument, I'm just telling you the facts. Yeah, I mean, Jade's right.

And the real argument is the stock market's average 12, 11, 12 percent over the lifetime of the stock market versus four and a half percent at most on whole life. You may as well park it into HYSA at that point. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. I'm Ken Coleman, Jade, Warshaw is alongside. We're excited that you're with us. AAA 825-5-225 is the phone number to jump in. Let's stay in our neighborhood here, Nashville, Tennessee. Zach is joining us now.

Zach, how can we help? Hey, Ken, hey, Jade. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's going on? So my wife and I, I'll try to be brief. We're 32 years old. We have $177,000.

in debt. We make about 174,000 combined, about 35, 40,000. That's overtime for me. But we have a tax return and a company bonus coming up. That's around a $14,000 lump sum. We're trying to see if we should take that money and pay down to get rid of our auto loans that we have and get into something cheaper or if we should just use our car loans as a line item and take that money and start doing our debt snowball.

and also where neither of us are investing at the moment. Likely, yes, but I want to hear more. So break down the $177,000. Tell us what's the cars and tell us what's everything else. Sure. So we've got the vehicles between myself and my wife's $44,000. Mine's $21,000. Hers is $22, roughly $81,000 in student loans.

We both are almost finished with her. She finished her bachelor's degree last year, and I'm finishing mine this spring, and then $52,000 in consumer debt, like credit card, line of credit, personal loans, et cetera. Okay. Okay. And the personal loans, when you break them down, what's the smallest one? We have some as small as $3,500, and then we have others.

I'd say the highest is around $10,000. Okay, so between $35,000. Okay, good to know. What are the payments on these cars? So the payment on my truck is $379, and then her Honda Pallet is $457. Okay. And what did they originate at? I'm trying to see if they were ever too expensive for you.

What they originate at? So, I mean, mine was $23,500. Oh. I think I could sell mine. They're both used vehicles. I could sell mine for probably what it's worth. She's got about $4,000 in negative equity in hers. Okay.

If you wanted to sell them to go faster, you 100% could. How much is the, how much is the bonus and the refund? The tax return is about $12,000. And then $2,000 is a company bonus. And I just updated my W-4 to change my tax withholding because obviously that tax refund is a little, little too much. You could do that. I'm not going to say you have to. they were never like crazy outside of your range.

Maybe you do one and keep the other. That's totally up to you. 14,000, though, could knock out lots of these smaller loans. And I think that would give you probably free up a similar amount of money and give you a bigger boost. Because there's something about when you've got like 20, a list of 20 debts and it goes from like 20 to, I don't know, 12. That feels great. So how many of these personal loans do you think you could knock out with the 14,000? Yeah.

I know several of the credit cards. So the credit cards and some of the smaller personal loans. I think we can take probably five of those off the table, get us some quick wins, and have a little bit of margin there to start tackling the next one. I just want to make sure you guys would maybe start away versus – because these aren't like crazy high payments that we're paying. And I commute to Nashville for work. I actually live in Cookville, but I commute for work.

So having a reliable vehicle is helpful. If you guys said, hey, get a beater with a heater, you know, then we would do that. We just was curious kind of what you guys thought. Yeah, a lot of times is if you can pay off the car in two years or less and it be as part of your snowball, you could keep it as long as it was never too big of a chunk of your income to begin with as far as it being an item that's going down in value at $174,000 of income to have to $20,000, $23,000. $1,000 cars, it's not a bad thing. It's just that you went into debt for them. I would do it.

Ken would. I probably, I would too, if I were in your shoes, but I'm not saying you have to. Yeah, we're not telling you have to, but I would tell you that I am of a mindset that I want to knock this stuff out. And I want to do it as fast as I can, and I'm willing to suffer short term so that I can win long term. I'm just curious, which way were you leaning prior to calling? It's been a 50-50 split. We've talked about getting debt-free for a while. We're long-time listeners.

What do you mean by 50-50? What do you mean? I think me and my wife have had discussion saying, hey, let's just sell them both and use some of this $14,000 to, you know, move both these vehicles and get in something cheaper. Let's buckle down. Let's do it. And then the other half of me says, you know,

I commute quite a bit, you know, an hour each way to National Airport based on my job. And so it's like, you know, if I'm doing it. trying to make that commute in a vehicle. I get that. You can hear what I would do. Keep one. Keep one. I'm with Jade. I was exactly what I was thinking. Keep the most. The first has the negative equity. Okay. So would you pay the $4,000 and maybe keep my truck for reliability purposes? No, I'd flip it. Because you don't want to be spending money that you don't need to right now.

The inequity, if you keep, end up paying off the car, the negative equity is not going to matter. This isn't going to be a fun conversation. Probably not a popular proposal. But again, I'm going to tell you exactly. which Stacey were here. She'd say, is exactly what Kim would say. I would say, all right, we're going to, we're not going to sell the one with a negative equity. We're going to sell yours, and you're going to take her car because you're the one driving a long way every day, and she's going to drive something that's not quite as awesome. Yeah, and you're both taking one for the team, just in a different way. That's exactly what I would propose. Now, I don't know how your wife's going to feel about it, but I'm calling balls and strikes right now.

Ken, you and I are on the same page. Hands in the center. And by the way, and, And to validate, I'm talking about it. This one has done it. She and Sam, when they got their story going, they went down to one car. So I believe in what I'm going to call shocking the body. I learned this term from a friend of mine in college. It was like, when you start a new workout plan, you've got to shock the body, right? And you just go in on a completely new routine.

And what he was talking about is you get the muscles, all of them just like, what is happening? And you start to get real returns. And I believe in that. I believe in it. In most cases, I almost always am a little bit more aggressive because I believe in shocking your system to go, holy cow, we have burned the ships. We are in on this deal.

Fight or fight. Yeah. So I agree with Jade. I think she's right. I don't want you to hear me saying you have to do that. I'm just giving you an alternative. It all depends on how on board your wife is with this. I agree.

I agree with that. Because you have to be, you have to do this. in a way that you're both going to be fully committed. And it doesn't sound like it, but every once in a while, it's like, if you go too extreme too quickly, the other spouse is too shocked and wants to bail out. It's a great point. You know, I agree with Kim. Okay.

Oh, she is. Okay. Then I think she'll like this plan because it's the best of both worlds. You're still safe on the road. You still have one that's a hoopty. You still clear out $457 of payments. You still, you know, you're not eating up the whole 14,000 on getting two new cars. You're only, you know, eating up maybe four or five of it.

And you're still knocking out, I don't know, four of these smaller debts. So it's really good momentum boost. Massive momentum. I love that, coach, Jade. I feel like you just got out the clipboard. You were drawing up a play in the timeout. I love that. You know, I've got to tell you something, momentum.

I don't care what area of your life you need momentum when you start to experience. when you haven't had it? Ooh, man, it is nice. Yes, it is. It can really set you free. Hey, love the call. You guys are going to do it. We're rooting for you.

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situation, for your small business, especially if you've had some big life changes. So go to Ramsey Solutions.com slash tax pro. That's Ramsey Solution. com slash tax pro to find CPAs and enrolled agents that have been vetted by the Ramsey team. Jesse is up next in North Carolina. Jesse, how can we help? Hi, thanks for taking my call. I am a single mother to a 10-month-old baby, and I have $25,000 in debt and a low income. So I wanted to know how I can get ahead and plan for the future, specifically my goal is

to be debt-free and eventually save for a home for my daughter and I. Great. Tell us what your low income is. I make $2667, so $2,667 after taxes per month. What do you do? I work from home for an insurance company. Doing what? I do customer service with providers.

Okay. And do you need to work from home just because of the little one? I would prefer to, yeah. Do you have family or friends that? if you had to. I'm not making you commit to this, but I just want to know. Is it possible that other people could watch your child? It is possible, but not consistently. Is the 25,000 of debt, is that a one-time thing that's done and over, or is the debt accumulating because you're using a credit card to fill a gap? I don't use credit cards, but it is accumulating because of interest.

It does consist of student loans, some credit card, and then medical bills and personal debt. Okay. So even with you paying the minimum, obviously it's been accumulating over time is what you're saying. Yes. Okay. Do you have any control over your budget or do you feel like your paycheck to paycheck and not knowing where your money's coming and going? I've been using the every dollar app every month.

And so that's been helping me to see where everything is. going, but I kind of just feel stuck right now. Are you at 40 hours a week or is it below? I'm at 40 hours a week guaranteed and I've also been working an extra 10 hours per week with the exception of holidays to work some overtime. Does that bump you up from the number that you gave us? Or is that, did that include your overtime? So with overtime, I can make an extra 100 to

$200 per paycheck, so that doesn't include overtime. Okay. So we could say, say, $2 to $400 if you're getting overtime, in addition. Yes. Ken can speak to the career side of this, because I wonder if there's just, and I believe there is, if there's another type of job you can do from home with your skill set that can just pay a little bit more. What's your hourly rate, or are you on salary? I am hourly. I make $21 per hour. Yeah, and the reason I went that line of direction of questions right out of the gate is the answer to your question is, and Jada will walk you through, where can we cut, make sure you really got your budget in line. But you're going to need to make some more money. You just are going to. It's going to make you that you're getting out of debt. Now, here's the great news. And Jade will

give you more insight on this, but the $25,000 doesn't freak me out for you. However, we do need to get more income. And especially if you're going to want to save up. money for a down payment on a home. So I'd like to see you getting in that $35 an hour. So can we take and hear the questions you're going to ask. And I'm going to give you some resources at the end of the call because I want to get Jade involved here real quick. And let's see what we can squeeze out of our current income. But you need to adopt a mindset that you can make more money. And you should make more money. And so now it's a question of how do you take the current experience you have in customer service? And can you jump up to the ladder a little bit? For instance, one thing I think

you ought to be thinking about is, you know, contacting a company like Belay, who's been a partner of the show for a while and involved with other events. I know their owners. And they're one of the best agencies in the country for virtual executive assistants. And so the very nature of the job is working from home and virtual. But when you're working for an executive, you're going to make more than $21 an hour. So if you have that kind of administrative skill set and some experience there, that's the type of thing that you've got to open up your mind to. And that would change your life dramatically if I sat you down with Jade and said, hey, great news, Jade. She just went from 21 an hour to 35 an hour. Changes everything. I mean, $500 would change your world right now because

there's part of this. I agree with Ken. Got to get the income up. I'm guessing your budget is pretty slim as it is. Am I wrong? Most definitely. You've cut it down as far as you can go. So there's really there's two plays here. You can do what Ken said, which is really, really actively seek to find other jobs that pay more. And in the meantime, do your best, do as much overtime as you can.

Because if you can keep your minimum payment at just the right amount, right? If you can kind of figure out what that amount is where it's not aggressively paying the debt down, but it's also not allowing it to creep up anymore. You're kind of just keeping it at bay and staying above water. That's good, right? We don't want the interest to accumulate. But I think if you can do that while looking for a higher paying job, that's your only choice at this point because, you know, income is the magical elixir to, you know, to fix this problem. Now, if you find yourself in a position, let's just, can you love doing this and it's so true. If you find yourself in a position where you have either found a job

or the job you're making, you're able to make a little bit more and you're at that point where the 25,000 isn't really accumulating, maybe it's slowly, slowly going down. There is part of this where you've got a baby and you're in a season of life and sometimes there's seasonalities that limit you. And there's just a part of that that you accept and go, well, right now this is where I'm at. Maybe when this baby goes, you know, four years from now, your life looks totally different. They're going to kindergarten and life is totally, totally different. So both of those are things to kind of look at and accept and understand what are your values during the season. Obviously, it's to stay home to what extent and what does it look like for you financially?

Is this a season of treading water and not going any deeper in debt? Or is this a season of trying to pay off debt? And you get to decide that. You're looking at a four or five year horizon before this kid goes to school. so that's a lot of time. So you get to decide, is this first year that I'm just focusing on the baby? And then when he turns one,

that's where I'm going to try to kick it into high gear. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah. You've got that to play out. How connected of a person are you? And what I mean by connected? I'm not talking about celebrities or any that nonsense. And I'm Mrs. Network.

I'm saying, are you pretty connected to friends and family group in your area where you live? or are you kind of just a real small circle? I am connected to two local churches. Right? Yeah. So, you know what I, Jesse, I don't know how aggressive you're being right now, but I think now's the time.

I would never bet against you because you're a single mom. I think the single toughest person on the planet is a single mom. I've always had mad respect for you. And I think you've got to really believe in yourself and go, no, wait a second, I've got a good job. I mean, you got a good job. Yes. Okay? And you found that somehow.

So what must you do to find a better version of what you're doing now? And I'm going to put a number out there that might seem like a stretch to you, but I want J.D react to it instantly, just so you, because we've not scripted this, right? If she could make an additional $2,000 a month, how quickly does she get out of debt, and then get through Baby Step 3 and 3B? Well, with the extra money, that's one year. An extra $2,000 a month? That's $24,000 in the year.

Jesse, are you picking up what she's laying debt? down? Yeah, I can see that. That would be amazing. So now here's the fun exercise. And I love what Jade said to you. I don't want you to get off this call and be stressed because you're doing something so important right now, which is raising a human being. Okay. And you're managing to kind of get through. Okay. But if you could figure out how I can make an additional two grand a month, it is life-changing. Yes or no? Yes. Yeah. Now listen, this is where the connections and the network of people come and you hey, I've been listening to the Ramsey Show. I called them. I got a plan, but I need help with the plan, right? I know how to budget. I'm going to get better at budgeting, but I need better

professional opportunities. And the right people want to help somebody like you. But this becomes your number one job outside of your regular job is to find better, better work. Now, here's what I want to do to help you, okay? I'm going to give you some information. I'm going to give you my find the work your wired to do book that has the get clear assessment in it. Take it. Let it AI spit out some great opportunities for you. Hang on the line. Good things are coming for you, Jesse. Thank you for calling.

Hey, good folks. Dr. John Deloney here. Don't you think life is too short to hate Mondays? Listen, you're worth loving the work you do and where you do it. So guess what? Ramsey Solutions is hiring. If you're ready to join an amazing team that's all about changing lives and spreading hope, we want to see your application.

Right now, we're hiring for technology, sales, marketing, writing, copy editing, and creative roles. Check out all our job postings at Ramsey Solutions.com slash careers. That's Ramsey Solutions.com slash careers. On the debt-free stage in the lobby here at Ramsey Solutions are Colin and Megan. Welcome. Hello. I guess you guys are here to do a debt-free screen.

That's why they have you on that stage. Am I right? Yes, sir. Nothing gets by me. I am on top of the details today. I see that. Yes, sir. Where are you guys from?

Destin, Florida. Oh, that's a nice place to be from. Any chance I can hop a ride back? Absolutely. Okay, that'd be great. I'll just tell Stacey and the kids. I'll be back in a couple days. It's going to be great.

Going to see some friends. I'm kidding. Don't worry about that. Nothing to be alarmed about. All right, give us the numbers. How much debt did you pay off? $21514.72. Wow, we don't want to miss that.

Okay. And how long did that take? 23 very long months. 23 long months. Wow, that's fast. What did that consist of? What's the debt? All student loans.

All student loans? Just you? Just me. Wow. And that's it. You didn't have any other debt but student loans. No, sir. What was that for?

Pharmacy school. A private pharmacy school. Wow. So please tell me that means you got some income coming in. Yes, ma'am. What was the income during this? Starting it around 164,000 and then ending at 254,000. Whoa.

Help the math. Help me with the math. What in the world? That was a lot of overtime. Like in the month of June, I maybe had six or seven days off in totality. Like, we both went after it. What were you living off? I want to know your monthly budget that just went towards you guys that did not go towards the day.

It was very little of ourselves. I would drive home for lunch every day. You'd eat ramen noodles almost every day of the week for more. Oh, my word. Now, is it the healthier ramen noodles or is it the stuff I ate in college? That stuff. The orange packet, merchant. I'll tell you what.

I'll tell you what. There would be several days. I would warm up ramen noodles and drive 30 minutes to her work and give her ramen noodles for lunch. You're a cold ramen fries. You were a good man. Oh, my heart. I'm going to tell you. If Mrs. Coleman would let me eat those, I would eat those.

Listen, they're delicious. They are. They're terrible, but they're delicious. I could pet. I'm telling you. Wow. So you took one for the team. For 23 months, you ate chicken ramen.

Well, did you at least vary the flavor a little bit? Did you get the beef? A little bit? Yeah. A swam all the time. Okay, good, good, good. By the way, what do those, because I think this is good information for a lot of people. What do those go for now?

Because back in my day in college, I'm dating myself. You could get 10 of those for a buck. Yeah. What's the cost of these? I remember now, yeah. I don't know. We shop at Aldi, like, completely. So that's kind of a hard of age.

You don't even know how much they call. No. Wow. So tell me, now I'm entrenched now. Tell me a day. Tell me what you eat in a day. Ramen. That was the, it would be ramen.

Every night and a week would mix it up, do peanut butter sandwiches. But that was it. No jelly. No, he's weird. He doesn't eat jelly on his peanut butter and jelly. I wasn't going to say that, but since you said it, I do think it's weird. It saves money too, though. What's breakfast?

Just like a bowl of oatmeal, just oats. Who's breakfast? I don't know her. What? Wow. This is extreme. This is gazelle. Yeah.

This is gazelle intensity. Okay. So we're having fun with this, but you guys really, really busted it here. Okay, take us into that. what were some of the emotions that you dealt with during this extreme gazelle intensity flavored by ramen? I would say like frustration, given so much money over that like she basically worked for free because,

you know, her whole paycheck was just going towards the loans. Yeah. So it's just that frustration of like, hey, all this money is really long to somebody else having, you know, push through that frustration. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And for me, it was really fear. Like I was always afraid that I wasn't going to,

accomplish or we weren't going to accomplish what we set out to do. Like, I don't, we didn't have to do it in 23 months. We wanted to. My goal was always to pay it off before he retired from the military. And so like that fear and that pressure I actually put on both of us of what if we don't actually do that? You know, if we did it in five years, that's great. I mean, any amount of time less than 10 or the rest of our lives is better.

So what, take us back 23 months ago. What was the catalytic, well, oh, I'm seeing giggles. I like where this might be going. What happened 23 months ago that decided. that you guys came together and said, we're going to do this. So towards the end of her pharmacy school, she was stressed about paying off student loans. And I'm the free spirit.

So I'm like, we can pay $1,000 for rest of our lives and get this out of her way eventually. And then one day, being the free spirit, I impulsively put us in the negatives by buying a pair of headphones. And I was like, there's got to be a better way. And then while I was just wrapped my pharmacy school, I read Total Money Makeover at Barnes & Noble. Oh, wow.

And I was like, hey, we can do this. And then it kind of started a job. Did you say you read it at Barnes & Noble? You didn't buy it. Correct. You just went there to read it. Listen, I thought the same thing. The dude just admitted didn't buy Dave's book.

Just went in there and treated it like it was a library. Life hacks. Life hacks right there. Raise your hand if you've done that before. I've done it. I've done it. I've done it. I've got to admit it.

I love your honesty, my man. Confessions good for the soul. Sorry, yeah. Okay. So you're reading the book. All right. And you're getting this in your system here. You're going, okay.

and you're the free spirit and you come home one night and tell her, hey, babe, I've been reading this book. Is that how this went down? Pretty much, yeah, yeah. I mean, I was petrified because going negative is not great. So that fear got you all in? Oh, 100%. I mean, I've always been like a penny pincher and I've always, you know,

oh God, where's my next meal coming from kind of person? So like when he came to me with this, yes, absolutely. Say less. Wow. Wow. Okay. Say, I have a question. I saw they flashed the photo up and there was a whole wall and on the wall said hour why.

What was under that? What's there? Oh, I like that. Oh, look at it. So right before we started doing the journey of like paying this off, I bought these thermometers on Amazon and so we broke down how many loans we had and you'll see one of them is 6250. And so every time we would pay off a loan, we would color it in. And so each loan or like benchmark, because some of them are some pretty hefty loans, we would have a benchmark. So like, I'm going to be honest, 75% of it was food motivated. So, okay, we paid off this much. Now let's go get some food. Yes. Yes. I've been saying that. That's what I've been saying. Milestones. I'm sorry. I'm very excited. I feel like I should get out of the way. There's a lot of connection. So give us an example. What would you go get?

Chipotle, 100%. Oh, so you reward yourself with a non-roman meal. Yeah. It's not enough to throw you off track. It's just enough to keep you going. I like it. What about dessert? Did you ever get any dessert? Can't please. No, it's just the bench mark. I apologize. I apologize. Instead of spending 12 cents, they get to spend a dollar in 12 cents. After all that ramen, I would need some sugar. It's all I'm saying. Okay. So what would you all say to people that are listening and watching is the key to work in the baby steps and getting out of debt? What's the key? I would say communication. We've been married almost 15 years now. So it's kind of like building a budget for the first time and actually trying to work through that. It can be difficult and kind of showing yourself grace too in the beginning like hey we're learning a new you know way of life um so trying to show yourself that grace i would say like the whole process has just been very therapeutic as a couple actually

like learning i mean i've known him since i was 19 but like really learning like how he spends how he saves it's just just do it i mean it really is hard and yes it matters how much you make but it really doesn't it's determination it's perseverance like say you want to do it write it down and do it boom I would say it flies by too. Like before you know it, you're out of it. So, you know, we started this like $215,000. Like, this don't take forever. And as soon as we got on the other side, I was like, that actually flew by, like nothing.

And it feels so free now. Have you, I think people really want to know this. Have you had ramen since you paid it all off? Yes. I knew it. I knew it. I'm like, this guy just likes ramen. Oh, that is so fantastic.

Okay. So how old are you two? I'll be 37 this year. And I'll be 35 in July. So now, how has this changed your perspective about your future, now being debt-free? Oh, it feels amazing. Yeah. I'm being free, being like, do what you want, go where you want, and not have like, just

the freedom of like, hey, I can move a different career if I want to. I can, you know, wherever it may be. We have that freedom in life to just, you know, move forward. And it's like a level of stability that I never had growing up, something that I've craved my entire life. And, like, we got that. We have stability. Peace.

Are you still in the military, sir? Yes, sir. What branch? Oh, Army. Well, thank you for serving our country. You're a great American. I think. Absolutely.

Well, there it is. Another young couple. Isn't it fun just to see like a complete future? You guys are going to be millionaires. You're going to have all that stability and you earned it. All right, you guys ready? Yes, sir. Okay, here we go.

We got Colin and Megan from Destin, Florida. They paid off $215,000 and some, some, some, some in 23 months, making $164,000 to $254,000. Colin, Megan, you inspire us all. Count us down. Let's hear your death free scream. Three, two, one. We're dead! But not ramen free.

Big distinction. Never that. So fun, isn't it? Excellent. Major intensity. Well done. Well done. They put a beautiful picture on what gazelle intensity looks like.

Folks, it's worth it. You heard it from them. Hey guys, what's up? It's Jade. And I'm pumped for the new year. And I hope you are too. But the problem is, most people start the New Year. with a lot of promises and no real plan.

You know how it is. I'm going to save money or I'm going to get my financial act together. But without a plan, you just wing it and hope it works out. Listen, don't play yourself. I want you to win. And our every dollar app is the game changer you need. In 15 minutes, every dollar helps you build a plan based on where you're at with money right now. And every day, the app coaches you with ways to find extra money so you can beat debt and build

wealth faster. It's like having me in your pocket, helping you stay on track all year long. So don't just wish your money works out. You can be the one to actually make it happen this year. Download the every dollar budget app and get started right now for free. Our scripture the day, Romans 13, verse 7. Give to everyone what you owe them if you owe taxes, pay taxes. If revenue, then revenue. If respect, then respect. If honor, then honor. And our quote day as we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King is from Dr. Martin Luther King. The time is always right to do what is right. That's good. Simple but profound. Yes. The man had a way with words. I love it. All right, let's go to Mike in California. Mike, how can we help? I've been on the Dave Ramsey

program for a while, me and the wife. We got all of our bills paid off. We're able to buy a couple of cars, cash. We're at the point of wanting to pay our house off. But I was married prior and I got put in a modification because I was going to let the house go. So there's a $50,000 balloon payment at the end of the loan. And we're about 10 and a half years left. And that's just on the loan. And then I have a $50,000 balloon payment. Can you refinance out of that? Well, the problem is I got a 2% interest. Nobody's going to touch that.

I'm saying. So you can't refinance that loan. You can't call up Churchill and say, hey, I need to refinance this thing. Yeah, but it's going to make the payment go up. And right now I only have 10 years, 10 and a half years left besides the balloon. I don't know if I should just start hitting the balloon payment. You know, every month we start, because I can start paying on it.

It's interest free, the balloon payment, there's no interest on it. Should I start trying to hit that thing? Or, I mean, I thought about reflying the loan, which I would love to because my ex-wife's name is on the loan. An even better reason. Yeah. I know. She's not on the deed, though. That's my new wife is all.

We've already, she signed the house over to me and all that. But the loan, you know, is the issue. If I can understand this, and I, you got me when you hit, when you mentioned balloon, my mind zoomed out. So there might be more details that you want to fill me in on later. But from what I hear is an old house that I had with an ex-wife that I'm living in now with my new wife that has a balloon payment that's going to be due of $50,000. And even though it has a.

has a fine interest rate of 2.5 or 2. I don't remember what you said. 2% now. For me, this is not good. In my mind, I go, if I'm your new wife, I don't want to live in your ex-wife's house, and I certainly don't want to live in it with a balloon payment at the end that we're going to be due for in the next however long. That's where my brain sets. Why would you not? And it's got your ex-wife's name on it. So why? Why would you not? And it's got your ex-wife's name on it. would you not either sell this house? I would sell it now that I see that your ex-wife is even on it because it's not fair for her to be attached to that either.

Do you want to know why? Why? Yes. Because my new wife loves the house. Oh, boy. But your ex-wife is on it. I know. And that's not fair to her.

I know it ain't. I agree with you 100%. So you've got it. At that point, it doesn't matter. At that point, it doesn't matter if you love the house. There's plenty of houses out there she can love. But your financial life is going to be tied to your ex-wife for life. If you keep this home for life, that's not fair to her.

If she tries to- No, no. Once the house is paid, if we pay it off in 10 years, she'll be gone. Ten years is a long time, my guy. That's a long time to be tied in. But if we leave now and try to buy another house, our payment's only $1,400 a month. I know that. I understand that.

So if I do this, our payment's going to go over double, if not higher. It will. And then I'm going to have, yeah, I'm going to have to get a second job in order to pay for it. No, that's not true. So here's what's true. I'm going to lay out what's true, and then we'll talk about it. We can talk about it. The truth is you're divorced from her.

That's true. That's a truth. That's a truth. And you're remarried. That's true. Other thing that's true is your finances should not be connected to your ex-executive. wife for any longer than necessary. Fair enough. What's also true is there's a $50,000 balloon payment here. Okay, these are all truths what we'll call in the con category. The only pro is your wife

likes the house and there's a 2% mortgage. That's really the only pro. So there's part of this that you have to accept because of the divorce. And I'm not saying it's wrong or right. I'm just saying because of the divorce, your housing situation is going to change. And I think you just have to accept that. You can't keep it as it was because a major thing has been upended. And so there's change there. And to say, hey, well, we can pay it off in 10 years. And to have that link to her for 10 years is unfair.

It's to everybody. Do you see what I'm saying? Because if anything happens, if anything happens that changes in your life, that causes you to not be able to afford this house, that causes that balloon to be an issue. It's going to affect her majorly. Well, it's also going to affect you, Mike. Like, you're talking about getting another job, all these things. And the only thing, by the way, I'm just letting Jade roll here.

This is fantastic. But I agree with her, by the way. I agree with her. So I'm going to take what Jade said, and I want to put this back to you and go, after hearing everything Jade said, which, by the way, I heard you categorically go, I agree, I agree. if I'm hearing you and I'm hearing Jade and I am the only reason you're considering this is because your current wife likes this house yeah and it's in our budget as far as being able to afford well but she already knocked that one down live the way we want to live like well but no you can live in other places no no no no she knocked that down you can live in other places the idea that this is the only place where you can live within affordability is a myth

And it's not affordability. You have a $50,000 balloon. Yeah, it's not affordable. Yeah. And it requires you to get another job just to afford it. So you've created it. It's like after all that, you're still stuck in this thing. And I guess what I'm trying to help you see as a friend, Mike, is I think this is because

you would rather be miserable than be uncomfortable. No, no, you didn't let me finish. You'd rather be miserable instead of be uncomfortable and telling your wife, we're getting out of this. we're changing our life. You don't want to have to tell her that. Tell me if I'm wrong. No, honestly, no, you're wrong.

Okay. Because we, here's what our plan, what we wanted. We wanted to sell this house and meet us, retire up by Cambria. Up in Northern Cal, you know where Cambria is? Sure. I don't know if you. Up north.

So we, yeah, up north. So we, because we love it up there. She loves it. But, you know, her daughter's here with the Grand Bay. her son lives here. Those things are, in fact. My two kids are out of state. I got four grandchildren with them.

So did your wife change your mind completely on the move up north? No, the reason why we decided maybe not is because of family and stuff, you know, like being close. How far? How far? I totally get that. Never going to dismiss that. But how far away are we talking about? It's probably five and a half, six hour drive.

And that still has no bearing on whether or not, because it's like, okay. Well, I'm trying to get it in the mix to go. That's why you should sell this house because they already had another plan. I mean, but even if you've decided that's no longer the plan, if it is or it isn't. I know, I'm trying to make this hard decision easier. I'm with Jade on this. You know what? She's the one that got me in on the Dave Ramsey thing because I was the opposite.

Okay. When it came to bills, I wanted to, if we didn't have it, let's go get it. I want to enjoy life. But when I met this woman here, she turned me around in my mind. Tell her you called us today and we said no to the balloon payment. I just think you're on a tight rope without a net. You're just walking this thing and you're hoping you get to the other side. It's a 10-year journey with a $50,000 barricade in the middle.

an extra job for you. And an ex-wife yapping about having this debt around her neck. I don't hear from wherever. Yet.

Yeah. No, I mean, I haven't for years. We've been married for 10 years. We've been made for 10 years now. You can do what you want to do, Mike. We have spoken. And you said your wife introduced you to us and now you called us.

You do what you want to do, brother. But enjoy that second job, man. Enjoy that and that stress. Well, I hate to do that. to him, but that's the facts. That's how we see it. Hey, folks, remember this. There's ultimately only one way to financial peace and has to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.