Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Doctor John DeLOney, Ramsey Personality number one bestselling author is my co host today and a host of the Doctor John Deloney show on the Ramsey networks, which is going crazy good. Ratings are nuts. Thank you, guys. We appreciate it. We're here to help you with your life, your money, whatever's going on. The phone number is 888 825 225. We're going to start off this hour with James in Springfield, Illinois. Hi, James. How are you? Oh, pretty good.

How are you guys doing?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Well, I've got a question about paying off student loan debt. So I've got a mortgage with a 6% interest rate, but I've applied for an income driven save plan that because of my family size and my income has 0% interest, I'm wondering if I should pay off the mortgage first or keep that money going towards the student loan.

Student loans as soon as possible, fast. And that, that crap you signed up for is going to keep you in debt for 40 years. So it's not going to do any good at all. If you can get 0%, that's fine. But then I want you to attack this thing. How much student loan debt have you got?

31,000.

What do you make? What's your household income?

I make one hundred and ten k a year.

How fast you're gonna pay off 31,000? I mean, attack it. How fast you're gonna do it.

Well, so the thing is, I have a family of seven, so it makes it a bit difficult to set aside money to attack it.

And it's an excuse.

Right.

When are you gonna take. When are you gonna pay it off?

It's not right. Right? Yep. If so, my thing is it seems like I'm leaving money on the table.

James, you still hadn't answered the question. How fast can you pay off $31,000 if you put everybody on beans and rice? Rice and beans. You stop going out to eat. You stop going on vacations. You sell so much stuff, one of those seven kids thinks they're next. I mean, how fast are you going to pay this $30,000 off?

Yeah, I've got about.

James, it's an, I could pay it off quick. How fast?

Right.

How fast? Give me an answer.

Three years.

Three years. You have any money saved at all?

Yes, 6000.

Okay. All right. Three years is ridiculous. I want you to do it in less than two I'm tears. You guys are not. You're. You're saying we've got a large family. They eat a lot. Yeah, they do. And, yes, they have to have clothes, and, yes, they have to have shoes, and, yes, that's a real thing. I know all that. But, dude, you have never sat down and written all this out in great detail and decided to attack it. You're trying to figure out a way to keep it around like it's a family member. It's not a family member. It's crap. You need to get it out of your life. It's killing you guys. How long have you had this student loan debt?

About five years.

Now, see, there's my point. And you've done nothing.

You sound beat up, man. What do you. What?

You're avoiding it. Yeah.

Why is your head hung so low?

Well, so bills have been tight with all the kids, and I've just. You know, my wife had triplets, which is why we have many children. And bills have been tight because of that.

When. When did the triplets come?

Six months ago.

Okay. All right. Yeah, yeah, that. That's a legitimate thing. But here's the deal, as you know. I mean, yes, that's a wonderful blessing. And also. Whoa. And, yeah, and so. But the good news is, the older they get, the less they cost.

Right.

Okay. Until they get to cars and colleges and stuff. But anyway. Yeah, so, you know, you've kind of got this. The shock to the system, mathematically, is just about over. And you guys have got to sit down and do a detailed plan. You've been overwhelmed by this overwhelming number. I mean, you almost doubled your kids in one fell swoop. Right. That's emotional. It's hard parenting wise. There's a lot of duties, a lot of responsibilities, a lot of chaos. And that's translated down into your money. And then you're just going, well, we got a bunch of kids. We can't do it. We got a bunch of kids. We can't do it. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. We have people with large family stand on the debt free stage every single month that do the Ramsey stuff. But they're doing a written budget with their spouse. They're both a saying, this is very important to get this out of my life. I'm not going to use a 0% interest rate as a justification for not dealing for this. You got to deal with it. You got to knock it out, because if you don't, it's going to hover and hang around forever.

No one's coming to fix this. You are the solution.

Even. Even if I can. If I can get that mortgage down.

Quicker and say, man, I'll tell you what.

Here's the deal, brother. It's.

63 times. I'll tell you something. Yeah.

You got to get your head out of the math game because what's killing your household.

Only in the math game because you gave up.

It's not.

Yeah.

It's not four or five percentage points. What's killing you.

It's not about interest rate. Yeah.

It's about getting.

It's about. You haven't dealt with your crap.

Yeah.

And every time I bring it up, you all, you do sidestep and try to do math like some 6th grader dude. Go deal with the problem. Go deal with the problem. It's. It is a lot more complicated than six versus 0%. It's a lot more complicated. Number one, you've got five years of denial in your behavior patterns. Number two, the house is going up in value. The student loan is going up in balance, because the thing you signed up for is going backward all the time. You've got to lean into this and blow it up. You've got to change your view on this and quit trying to figure out a way to act like it's not there. It's there.

It's almost like he's trying to find a second job without, you know, to help with all these kids, and he's figured out, maybe I figured out a loophole as a way to get some more. Like, I'm trying to think of the psychology. Just get this thing out of your house, man. Just get out of the house. Get out of the house.

Get out of the house. You've got to dump it. You got to dump it. It's that simple. You got it. You got to push it. And, John, this is the psychology of this. I cannot. People will get lackadaisical and quit on their student loans because of the size, I guess, of the loan where they're turning around. Take a car, and they'll get mad and pay it off, or they'll take a credit card and get mad and pay it off. But the student loan just seems to lay around like dadgum, you know? It just is, okay? We're just sitting in the swamp.

Number one, the federal government dangles. This will take it away from you. So just keep putting it down the road. And all your friends tell you, well, you're stupid, and you should do this. And here's a zero interest here, and there's a 6% here.

Your broke friends giving you financial advice.

Well, it goes back to, I saw the great doctor Peter Attia ranting the other day. It was fantastic. He said, you should not be able to post on a health and fitness Instagram account until you can do 100 pushups. Until then, I don't care what you have to say. I don't care what your opinion is about a thing, because you're stepping over hundred dollar bills to pick up pennies. That's what's happening here. I'm stepping over. Peace. I'm stepping over. I got six kids now. I can focus on them to try to pick up an interest rate gain. And it's just, I want to hug.

The guy, man, but I can see the chaos as clear as day. It's all over him. Yeah, the whole thing. Everything in his life's chaotic. Get a sense of order, a sense of discipline, a sense of direction. Follow a proven plan. Game on, game on. Game on. Quit trying to calculate your way out of this. Pay the stupid thing off. This is the Ramsey show. I saw some recent financial statistics, and there was some pretty troubling news. When families were asked how long it would be before they faced financial hardship if a spouse died, nearly one third said they'd be in trouble immediately. Another 44% said they'd be financially drained within six months. People, it does not have to be this way. Term life insurance plans are just plain cheap, and companies have made it even easier by not requiring exams in many cases. There really is no excuse to leave your family in this situation by not having life insurance. This is why I talk about Zander insurance every day. They're committed to protecting families with the only products that I recommend. And their team keeps the entire process simple and affordable. Go to zander.com for quick online pricing or call 803 564282.

This has to be a priority. If your family is in this situation, you need to get this done. Doctor John Deloney, Ramsey, personality, is my co host today. Open phones at 888-25-5225 Larry Burkett used to be on the air a thousand years ago. Did a christian radio show, Money Matters. It was called about what the Bible says about money, and he's one of the guys I learned from. I certainly learned what the Bible says about money from Larry a lot. He passed away several years ago. We became friends before he passed away, but at first, I was just a fanboy. And he used to say, debt is never the problem. Financial problems are never the problem. They're always the symptom. So you need to keep that in mind because that's how we're going to view it. Personal finance is 80% behavior. It's 20% head knowledge. So if you have a student loan debt that you've made no progress on for five years, the student loan debt is not the problem. The new triplets that just came were not here for the last five years. They're not the problem. The interest rate is not the issue.

This is not an interest rate issue. This is a you problem. And, John, when people get to the bottom of that, that's the beautiful thing about the work you do in counseling. With a PhD in counseling and the work that the reason you joining this team is. Ramsey personality is a perfect overlap to our approach to money. Because what I'm, the interest rate is irrelevant. Because you haven't dealt with, with you. That's the thing. When you deal with you, you're, you're not only going to get financial peace, two words that don't go together, like airline service, but you're also going to get progress and wealth. Until you deal with you, you're not going to get any of that right.

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

But money is such an interesting topic because it lets us, it lures us to our own death, because it makes us think we can fix it by fixing the math. And the math is very seldom the problem. The math is the symptom. It's not the problem. The problem is our spending, our income, our lack of control, our lack of working together, our choices, our choice. I'm going to keep these behaviors and our principles by which, but we somehow think we can unplug from all of this stuff that's called our life and set this money thing over here to the side and just fix it with just math. And the reason you can't is it doesn't unplug. It's sitting there, right in the middle of your freaking life because your life is impacting it. It's impacting your life. You can't just set it over here in a test tube and go, it's a math thing. 6% versus zero. It's not a math thing.

And let's.

Let's.

I want to speak to the person who's listening to this or to the gajillions of people who are listening to this, who are five years from today away from triplets, or a job loss or a mom calling and saying I have cancer or a husband saying I haven't been faithful or whatever. The thing is, that choice starts now. Cause five years ago, if they had been hell bent on paying these things off, its life would still be chaotic. But I want people to listen to that man's voice. It just sounds cooked. Right? It's heartbreaking. You can celebrate the chaos of three kids coming home or not be able to breathe, because you can't. There's no room for three kids.

I remember when our oldest daughter Denise had the third one. Her husband bill said, well, we just went from man on man to zone defense.

My buddy said, man, it was all cool till we went from man to man to zone. They win.

Taylor is in Indianapolis. Hey, Taylor, what's up?

How are we doing today? Thank you for taking my call.

Sure, man. How can I help?

So I'm thinking about doing a job switch right now. I drive a dump truck and I'm in the union and everything, but I'm looking to be a pilot, but I have 5000 in debt and it's gonna send me back another 85,000. But I plan on having the 5000 that I have now and paying that off this season before I get laid off. Yeah.

You're asking me if you can go? If I think you should go. $85,000 in debt to be a pilot? Is that what you're asking?

Yeah. If you think it's a smart job.

No, it's not.

Okay.

Under no circumstances would I do that. Now, should you go become a pilot? Yeah, probably. How old are you?

I'm 30.

Okay. Are you married?

I am.

Okay. I would talk to the air National Guard and see if they have any programs for training pilots while you serve your country weekends and two or three sets of boot camp a year. That wouldn't put you away from your family necessarily, or not for long periods of time. And let's see if they'll pay for it. They have lots of wonderful programs. I know that. I also would start talking to the local airport about how I can get my hours there after I get up. I would pay to get a certain number of hours and get my first set of. Are you licensed at all?

No, right now I drive a dump truck.

No, I know. I heard that. But have you gotten any pilots hours in at all?

No.

How do you know you want to do that?

I worked at the airport about five years ago. I wanted to do it about then, that time. Sorry. But I never pulled the trigger and I ended up just going to get my cdls, and I've been at this for about five years now.

Okay. All right. I'm with you on living your dream. I just don't want you to do it in such a way. It becomes a nightmare. So let's figure out a way that we can walk into this a little at a time. Start getting your hours and while you keep driving truck, and because you're making some good money on the truck. But we're not. We just don't be doing that. Ten years from now, you won't be in the air, right? Yes, but I don't want. I don't want to try to do it at super high speed because I don't want you going $85,000 in debt because you might not make $65,000 the first year. It's very possible if you got your commercial hours in and you can actually fly a jet, and that may cost you more than 85,000 to get to that point where you can actually pick up a regional job doing some of these puddle jumpers. They don't pay anything, man. Yeah, entry level pilot pay sucks.

Yeah, from what I heard, it's about 55,000 a year. But then, yep, I would be going with lift academy. Say I get on with Republic and they're paying $94 an hour starting off.

So maybe hours I get maybe, maybe.

But, hey, you're about to walk into the trap, brother, where you borrow a bunch of money and you've done some napkin envelope on the top carrier paying a top dollar, and you've made that math work. And there's a lot of maybes and maybe nots and probably and probably nots in between you and that dollar amount, man.

So you're trying to jump from the dock into the boat, and the boat's not close enough to the dock. That's what I'm saying. So I want you to pull the boat closer to the dock. And how's that sound? It sounds like going over there, starting to get some of your hours, paying for your first level of licenses. Maybe get a weekend job as an instructor once you got enough hours under your belt. And, and they'll pay you to put more hours down and you can start to build your hours up. Because the biggest cost is not the actual certifications, it's the hours to get ready. And then if you want to take, because if, when you take a job at 55 or 60 versus what you're doing now, union to dump truck, you're taking a pay cut to move into this dream initially. And I don't care if you found one off at 94. That's not the, that's not an industry. The industry's 55 or 60 right now for entry. And I want you to go do that because you can make your way up to two or 300,000 someday, but please don't go $85,000 in debt and rush this.

Do it a little bit at a time and or talk to the air National Guard. Let's see if you can figure out way get some hours working for your country and they'll pay for the whole stinking thing. Possibly. I don't know. Let's see what they got out there. This is the Ramsay show.

This episode is sponsored by Betterhelp. Hey, if youre like me, at this time of the year, all of the school plays and meetings and invites from everywhere have completely drained your social battery. Or maybe youre like some of my friends who are bursting with energy so much that everyone may be telling you to just chill out a little. If youre having trouble navigating mismatched energy levels, boundaries, or finding people to do life with, it might be time to talk to a therapist. Therapy can be a place to open up with someone who's been trained to listen and walk alongside you and help you find paths through the chaos of mismatched energy levels and more. If you're thinking of starting therapy, try betterhelp. Betterhelp is completely online and flexible enough to fit your schedule. Just fill out a short questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time for no extra cost. Find your social sweet spot with betterhelp. Visit betterhelp.com deloney today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp. H Dash e dash p.com DELONEY.

Thanks for joining us, America. Doctor John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co host. So John, the Ramsey Cash giveaway is here. $3,000. John sat down and saw $3,000 laying here. He thought I was giving him, like, a bonus. I was like, man, you did something good.

Usually you give me a high five that I will take it.

It usually just shows up, like, in your account.

Is this how you're telling me that that's not for me.

This is not yours, all right? It's not even mine because it's actually earmarked. I'm going to be giving it to someone. We're going to be giving it to someone. So here's the deal. The Ramsey cash giveaways here, you could win one of our $500 weekly prizes or the grand prize of $3,000. Hey, how would you spend three k if you want it, I hope you'd work the baby steps with it, right? Entering the Ramsey cash giveaway takes about 15 seconds. There's no purchase necessary. Go to ramsaysolutions.com giveaway. You do have to be 18 years old to win, and you gotta put ramsaysolutions.com giveaway. So while you're there, though, check out our best sellers. They're there at 20% off. Like doctor John Loney's book, building a non anxious life, is on sale for the first time ever. His questions for human cards on sale. Baby steps, millionaires. My latest number one bestseller, is also on sale. 20% off. And shop the sale ramsaysolutions.com. Check out the store while you're there, but be sure you register for the $3,000.

That could be a fun game just to kind of work through. What do we think people would spend $3,000 on just to run here? It would like, Ken would buy some incredible clothes. He's a sharp dressed man. James would buy a guitar. George would buy another cherry flavored vape pen. Whatever, millennials.

Jordan. George would buy something to charge his car up.

He would buy another double a battery charger.

Yeah, that's it. That's what it is. So what's Rachel cruz buy with that?

That can't even cover her latte.

It won't. It won't even. It won't even get her attention.

That won't even. She wouldn't stop to pick that up.

Yeah, that's it. So there you go. I'm thinking ammo. Of course you are. Of course you are. I don't have a problem with guns.

Can I get another framed photo?

I don't have a gun problem. I have a problem with guns. All right, here we go. Nicole's in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Hi, Nicole. How are you?

Hi.

I'm great. Thank you so much for having me, guys. I'm a big fan.

Well, we're honored. How can we help you?

So I guess my question today is just how do I stay motivated to continuing on to baby step two with paying off debt while I have a child with a severe medical condition? And then what sort of emergency goes in with that? Yeah, I'm just kind of at a loss.

So what's up with your baby? What's the deal?

So my daughter will be six next week. She has a severe medical condition. She has a heart condition. She's had four open heart surgeries before she was one years old. And we were basically living in the hospital here in Iowa that entire time. She's a fighter, though, has been doing great. However, she will need more surgeries in the future, and she actually is looking at another surgery here this summer sometime. We just don't really know quite yet. And my husband and I have previously gone through financial peace university prior to being married again after we had our daughter. And we do really good for a little bit, and then we just lose that intensity. And usually it's related to something happening with her, just where we're like, oh, crap, we're back in the hospital.

You're saying that like you did something wrong. You didn't. You did everything exactly right. When your daughter is in the hospital having open heart surgery for the fifth or 6th time, and she's six years old, you should not be intense about money. You should be intense about loving her.

Okay.

Okay. Which is what you did. Yeah.

You're a good mom, Nicole.

You did everything right.

Thank you.

Yeah.

How many bags of fritos have you had for dinner out of a vending machine in a hospital?

Right, right.

That's. Yeah, there's been a lot of days where that.

So maybe your workout plan is not on track with your daughter getting surgery. Oh, well, you know.

Oh, well, you're surviving.

So here's the thing. Number one, you're dealing with a thing that's gone on over seven years. Is that what I heard?

She'll be six this year. So six years.

And so that's a long period of time. And the entire six years was not in crisis, just at different moments. But when the crisis hit, it throws everything off because everything's full stop to deal with. To deal with the situation. Right, exactly. Yeah. It drains all of your emotions. It drains all of your attention, it drains all of your bank account, and it should. She's worth it.

Oh, yeah.

For sure.

You're doing the right stuff. Okay, now, the trick is, number one, I want to not only give you permission, but also more importantly, to tell you your instincts were correct, continue the path you've been on, which is when we are dealing with a crisis, we're full stop. We push stop on the total money makeover. We just. We're in financial survival mode because we're going to pour everything we have into this crisis until the crisis subsides. So let's kind of. Let's walk through a possible example. All right? If my daughter, granddaughter, either one, was going into surgery for open heart this summer, I would not be worrying about making progress right this second on my financial goals. I would be worrying, praying, focusing on that surgery, the prepared, walking up to it and walking out of it. Now, a year from now, she's home, healing, doing well. Well, I need to push play again and get back on the. Get back on my game and start, you know, start a year later, start focusing on that. But. But you. You've done the right thing. It sounds to me like. John, what are you.

Yeah, I was just writing down. Nicole, are you finding you and your husband, y'all finding you're heading back into that feeling you had five years ago where you just feel powerless?

Yes, for sure. I struggle with some anxiety anyways, and it's just that PTSD moment. We just had our son four months ago, too, and had medical stuff with him.

Cause why not, right?

Yeah. It just never stops.

Here's what I want you and your husband to do. I want you to hang on the line. I'm going to send you building an unnxus life as my gift. I want you all to use these six choices as your roadmap. But I want you and your husband to take a morning and ask someone from your church to come by, ask a friend to come by, a coworker to come by and just watch the kids for a couple hours, which you probably haven't done in a long, long time. And I know it sounds crazy, but I want you to do that. And I want you all just to sit with each other for a second, and I want you all to write down on a piece of paper. All right, we're heading into surgery this summer. What are we going to need? And I want you to challenge the people around you. Not for real challenge, but give them an opportunity to love you say, I'm going to need this many meals because I'm tired of eating out of a vending machine. I'm going to need, if you can help with a gas card. I want you guys to practice some of these things that really chip away at your health and at your, you know, your money, like these little nickel and dime things.

You got the big million dollar hospital bill. Fine. But you just get run over with. We got to go grab some dinner. Go grab some dinner. Hey, let's go grab some of this. Hey, we need to grab some of this. I want you and your husband to be honest about writing that stuff down. You see this one coming this time? You didn't see it coming when she was born. You see this one coming? And let's write some of this stuff down. And let's give our friends who love us an opportunity to show up. Maybe they won't, but maybe they will. Right?

And then give yourself our first time.

Around with our daughter. So, I mean, we have family. We have friends who do love on us really well. It's always hard to ask for help.

Yep. Yep.

And that those days are over.

But you need help.

You need help.

And. And you need to say out loud, we're temporarily pushing the pause button on baby step two and intensity. We're going to use all of those calories, all of that energy to love each other and to deal with the emotions associated with this life or death situation. I want to face all that. I want that given. I want to give everything I am to that. And then when that has passed, and it will pass, it ebbs and flows, right? Oh, yes. When it has passed, then you push play again and you go, okay, now we can focus on the debt thing. Let's get baby step two jacked up. Let's get going again. And not and feel zero guilt about the time we took off from the plan, the money plan to go work on more important things, which is your daughter and each other in your marriage and the whole situation. So good stuff. You're a great lady. Thank you for calling.

Nicole.

This is the Ramsay show.

Guys.

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Thanks for hanging out with us, America. We're so glad you're here. Open phones at triple 888-25-5225 Doctor John Deloney Ramsey, personality, is my co host today. Building a non anxious life is his latest number one New York Times. Our number one bestseller, national bestseller. We're glad you're here. Thanks for hanging out.

Hey, it's on sale with a big Ramsay sale.

It is. First time we've ever done that.

Ramsay solutions.com. Go, go pick it up.

Plus, store 20% off on all these best sellers, so be sure and check them out. And a deal on the human conversations cards. Yeah, man, that's pretty good. So, hey, if you guys want to help us out further, we would appreciate that. Click share and share this show with someone or cut the link out and send it to somebody. However you do it and click follow and subscribe. Any of that helps the algorithms big time here. We appreciate you guys, whether you're YouTubing or whether you're listening on talk radio or one of the many different other forms that carry the show, from satellite radio to of course, all the podcast platforms with Apple and Google Play and Spotify, everybody out there. Thank you guys for all the different ways you're, you're getting a hold of this. But tell people about us. We appreciate that. It helps a bunch. Scott is up next in Seattle. Hi, Scott. How are you? Good.

How are you guys doing?

Better than we deserve. What's up?

Good to hear. I'm calling to get some advice on making a first home purchase. My fiance and I are getting married later this year.

Yay.

And we'd like. Yeah, thank you. And we'd like to get into a house, ideally within the next two years. We have no debt and we think we could save up about 50% of the down payment for the house.

Wow.

In that timeframe.

Good for you.

Thank you. We appreciate it. That being said, we've heard some advice that putting that amount of cash towards a house doesn't make like 100% sense. And sometimes in some situations, it can better be put towards investments. If the interest rate for the mortgage is pretty good, that would be advisors.

From broke people who don't know what the flip they're talking about.

Well, that makes it pretty clear.

I would 100% do this with my family in my home.

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

30.

30? And you sound like you guys are making 2250. Are you, what are you making between the two of you?

Around around 150 total pre tax.

The. That's your combined income after you're married. Correct. Okay. Wow. Your aggressive savers in. Very good. Okay. Either way. So here's what we found. By the time you're 42, if you fit the plot profile, the typical template that we found, the case studies of these average millionaires, the typical millionaire that we went through, they had two things, primarily that caused them to hit their first one to $5 million of net worth. And that was that they got a paid off house. Six, seven, $800,000 paid off house. By the time you're there, it'll be more than that. And they've invested simultaneously into their 401 ks and Roth Iras and built those up. And so they're sitting with five or 600,000 in each. And so they've got a million, 2 million, 5,000,008 net worth, something like that. And that's the first, the two biggest things that we saw that people did. Financial products, so to speak, financial pathways that caused people to actually hit that level of wealth. A paid off house and a loaded up retirement. It was that simple. There wasn't a bunch of smoke and mirrors. There wasn't a bunch of, oh, I'm going to borrow on my mortgage because I can make more in the market.

I'm going to put the money in the market in that arbitrage. Some tick tock guy learned a new word the other day, apparently. You know, it's an old word, but the. Anyway, that spread I'm making is gonna make me rich. And so, Scott, that's, you know, it's social media. Bull crap is what it is. So the reality is that wealthy people simply pay off their house. So I am so impressed that you can put 50% down in two years. What that also tells me is in two to three more years, you're gonna completely paid off.

Pay it off, man.

And you're gonna be 35 years old with a paid off freaking house in Seattle and the stupid things going up like a rocket ship, and you're gonna be sitting on a million dollar house that's paid for in just a handful of years.

Dave, I'm convinced that the age of the influencer is coming to an end, because I think people have been doing this nonsense for several years. And, like, the caller we had, beginning of this, of this, of this hour, still got your student loans after five years. You still got this. You still got that, like, and this. People who just learn a new fancy word and try to sell it and tell everybody to go do this thing, it just doesn't work. After 12345 years. Doesn't work. It doesn't work. It doesn't work.

Yeah. The. Well, the influencer is the not wise. It's the stepchild of reality tv. Right? Okay, so reality tv is you became famous for what? Being famous. You did nothing.

You were on tv.

You just were on tv being absurd. And the absurdity was somewhat entertaining. And. Or you were pretty or you were something, right? But you're basically an empty suit. You know, you got nothing to say. You are nothing. But we're all watching you anyway. Like we're a moth drawn to a flame, you know?

And then they start giving advice, and.

Then the next step is they go. We go from that to people who are empty suits, who have never done anything are now influencers. Right? And they have absolutely zero earned the right to have that influence.

Not at all teaching a generation of people, not at all things that are going to ripple through their family tree for a long time.

But it's the sick child of reality tv is the influencer. And so you're exactly right. We're seeing the data. The data scientists are coming out. I mean, we study this stuff because of social media and because of the platforms that we're all involved in. And we've got about four different sources coming at us right now that are very credible. John's been nerding out on this stuff, but we're looking at it as a company right now because Ramsay's in the broadcast business, we're in the content business, the business of influencing you. But we actually are not empty suits. We actually have the knowledge, the degrees, the experience, the things to tell you this, it's not. And the back it up with the research. So Scott's not any of that. He just caught the back end of that. But Scott.

Sorry, Scott, you're doing great.

Scott, you're doing great.

Sit down. Get that sucker paid off.

Yeah.

I mean, you get married and you can save that kind of money in the first two years and you go put a big old chunk on the down payment, you're going to be glad you did. And don't take financial advice from broke people. That's what we're saying.

And don't take life altering advice from somebody that had a single experience.

Well, here's the thing. If you're going to be a life coach, you should have first had a life, correct?

Right. Well, and here's the thing though, like, I love folks. They go through, you know, somebody cheats on somebody and they go through three years of hard therapy, they rebuild their marriage and it's amazing. And they reach out and they say, hey, we want to write a book on marriage and we want to become marriage speakers. And what, I always have to break their heart and say, hey, you had an experience in your house. You did. That does not make you the person, right? You have all the letters, you know what you're talking about, and you have a personal experience. And I think the cornerstone to wise counsel is you've walked with millions of people. And so you have the academic stuff, you've got a whole bunch of different stories. And you know what it's like to have to go tell your wife, we lost everything. All three of those make you a credible person to listen to. Not just you went to school because we got plenty of that nonsense. And not just because um, you got a bunch of people that show up at your house. It's all of it together, man. And you gotta be careful about who you take counsel from, especially when it comes to your health, especially when it comes to nutrition, especially when it comes to your money.

Yeah. The Bible does not say in the multitude of counselors safety. It says in the multitude of why? Why? That's right. Counsel.

That's right, safety.

And that's what we're saying. We're actually seeing the data that the power of the influencer is starting to wane. And it, you know, it, someone just is now someone who can garner some likes, garner some clicks is telling you.

What to do with your money.

And I think Gen Z's the one killing it because Gen Z sick of it. They're sick of things that are not authentic.

They're watching their parents and it didn't work.

They're watching their older brothers. It's not authentic. And Gen Z can smell a rat a mile away. And that's one of the reasons we love Gen Z around here. This is the Ramsey show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey solutions, it's the Ramsey show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Doctor John Deloney, Ramsey personality number one, best selling author of the book building a non anxious life, and host of the doctor John Deloney show. He's my co host today. Open phones at 888-25-5225 you jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. Tammy is in Atlanta to start this hour off. Hi, Tammy. How are you?

I'm blessed. How are you guys today?

Better than we deserve. How can we help?

Hi. My question is, how can I stay for my retirement when I'm basically living paycheck to paycheck?

Okay, why are you living paycheck to paycheck?

Well, I am 51 years old, I work blue collar electrician, and I am married. But with my debt, I have a debt, unofficially at 55,000, officially, 60,000, and I have three grandbabies. And I'm just trying to.

How do you have. Officially or unofficially? I don't know. What's that mean?

Unofficially, I have right at 55,000 because I just purchased a new vehicle in November. Officially, it's because I owe my husband about $6,000.

What?

How do you owe your husband, your ex husband or your husband?

That's my husband. We've been married 17 years, been together 20. Reader's Digest version is, the way I was raised. In past relationships, I do not depend on anyone financially.

How's that working for you?

That obviously sucks.

Yeah, it's stressful. It's a terrible way to live.

It's a horrible plan.

Absolutely. I agree. I just can't get myself to. And my husband doesn't complain. He doesn't try to push me. You know, he always say, don't worry about it, but I kind of used him.

He's pretty tall. Or terrified of you. He must be scared of you.

Hey, Tammy, we can give you all the math and all the professional guidance and all that, but you're gonna have to have a heart change or this thing's just gonna crash like you, and you see it happening right in front of your eyes.

You can't live like I do.

And that's the reason why I'm. I'm struggling with I. Trying to put all I can into my 401k, but then at the end, trying to step out of my comfort zone.

You missed the point.

Did you go buy a $50,000 car?

No, sir, I only pay 49 for it.

Well played, Tammy. Well played, Tammy. Why? Why would you buy a $49,000 depreciating asset and call us and ask us why?

Living paycheck to paycheck to paycheck. I can tell you why you're living paycheck to paycheck. The stupidity is sitting on your driveway. It's got four tires.

And that, by the way, high five. That was a fantastic answer.

Remark. Great answer. So here's what I'll tell you, okay? The data that we know from 30 years of helping folks with their money is that almost no one succeeds relationally in their marriage and succeeds financially towards wealth building. That does not combine their lives with their husband. So I'm going to strongly beg you to consider dealing with the emotions of the past betrayals, dealing with the times that people stepped on you, that caused you to take this stance and say, I can trust this man that I'm married to. He's my guy. He's my husband. He's safe. And we're going to sit down together and combine our income and combine our debts and combine our assets, and we're going to be what the preacher said. And now you are one, because you're going to struggle financially, and it hurts your relationship, too. You're going to act like it doesn't, and you're going to try to tell me it didn't, but you're wrong. It does.

No, you're correct. You're correct.

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

Yes, it is.

Because what does he make.

Depending on the year? About 120. What do you make a year, depending on the year? About 40 to 50.

So you got 200,000 almost household income, give or take? Yes.

And we have no mortgage.

That puts you.

That puts you.

No mortgage. And you got a car you can't afford you. He probably has a pile of money.

He does.

Okay.

He's very good with his money.

Yeah. So our money. So then the two of you need to start talking. Do we really want to keep this car? If we do, we need to write a check and pay it off. Or I need to say I need to sell it because I shouldn't have bought it. One of the two. But you trying to live like a roommate on $40,000 a year and then calling me up while he's making 140 and going, I don't know how I can get, how I can prosper. Well, the way you can prosper is the two of you combine your lives properly, and it will cause you to prosper. But that's you admitting that you don't have all the answers and all the strength and all the crap by yourself. And by the way, I'm a much better person when I'm combined with Sharon. And by the way, she's a much better person when she's combined with me. I don't know about that. Yeah, everyone knows.

Everyone is.

Everyone knows that now we're better because, you know, you bring different strengths and weaknesses in, and when you combine them, you get this beautiful, beautiful orchestra. That's a synergy. And Larry Burkett used to say, if two people just, like, get married, one of you is unnecessary so that these. These opposites attract, and you plug into that. And so Tammy, my wife Sharon, has not worked outside the Home in 40 years. She's not earned any income, with the exception of selling some clothes at the consignment sale clothes place. But other than that, she's not earned any income. But guess what? She has a fabulous income because we have a fabulous income, and it's our income. It's not Dave's income and Sharon's income. It's our Income, and she has a great life, and I have a great life, and part of the reasons I have a great life is cause of her, and so I have, you know, I'm not gonna allow her. I wouldn't allow. That's not the right word. I wouldn't want for her, and she wouldn't want for me to be living standalone, siloed lives inside the same house.

I wonder what it would be like if she asked her husband, would you forgive that $5,000 debt? I bet he would say, I already have.

Right?

I already have.

I bet she's the one carrying.

I bet she's carrying it. I'll pay you back. I'm paying you back because she's the one that she's careless.

He's not. He's not. He's standing over there. He's gonna be so happy. Yep. Sammy, when you do this, he's gonna. He's gonna really love Dave Ramsey and John Deloney, because he's. We're the guys who finally talk his wife back. He's got his wife. Got his wife. Yeah. Yeah. Please consider that. And by the way, if you combine everything and it goes horribly, you can separate it again later. But, hey, you people not gonna go horribly. It works.

Folks listening, who are in the top five to 10% of earners on planet Earth, making 200 grand a year living paycheck to paycheck, probably not the monies that's the issue.

Amen.

It's the mirror.

This is the Ramsey show. Well, it's back and it's almost sold out. The live like no one else cruise. Yep. The Ramsey personalities. We've got the entire ship on a Holland America cruise line, and it's going to be absolutely incredible. Seven days at sea, March 22 through the 29th of 2025, about a year from now. And if you're on baby step four and above, we invite you to join us. Now, if you're on baby step two, you should not be spending money on something like this. You ought to be getting your debt paid off. You, you can come on another one of these when we do it again later. We're going to Turks and Caicos. We're going to St. Thomas, San Juan, the Bahamas. The vip upgrades are already sold out. Most of the suites are sold out. In fact, many of the cabin types are completely sold out. So if you're trying to get your pick of a cabin, you need to go ahead, like an ocean view. You need to get your deposit in, like now, because we're going to completely sell this thing out. And then what will happen is if somebody drops out, you can upgrade your cabin, that kind of stuff as you go along.

But get your, you know, get your foot in the door, because it's about to be gone. Stephen Curtis Chapman with Grammy award winner, 67 or 69 dove awards, whatever. Our friend is going to be with us. World class artist Manit Shohan from the food channel and fabulous chef, world class chefs going to be doing some cooking lessons with us and hanging out with us. Dana Carter from Strawberry Wine, one of our great Nashville names, is going to be with us as well. And it's going to be a lot of fun. Of course, will all. Doctor John, Rachel Cruz, George Camel, everybody. Ken. Ken Coleman, Jade Washaw, me. We're all going to be there. We're all going to be, all of us, for seven days doing events all through the cruise. We'll be hanging out with you. We're going to be doing stuff. We got all kinds of different things planned. And if you want to book your cabin, go to ramsaysolutions.com cruise. This is not a one of these cheap cruises. This is not like Walmart on the seas, okay? This is like Holland America's class thing. This is good stuff. I mean, they do.

There's some of those things are seriously nasty. And the humans on them sometimes are nasty. But this is all Ramsey. It's a hundred percent. There won't be anyone else on the ship except our folklore. So you're gonna be. That's the live like no one else cruise again. It's in March 22 through 29th, 2025 next March. But the tickets are almost gone. Ramsay solutions.com cruise. Kyle is with us. Kyle is in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Kyle. How are you?

Good afternoon, guys. How are you?

Better than I deserve. How can I help?

Yeah, so I'm upside down on a vehicle. I know I need to sell it. I'm just kind of wondering what steps I should take.

Okay, what do you owe on it?

So I owe just a little over 26.

Okay, and what is it worth?

So Kelley blue book, selling it private, it's worth twelve.

Okay, so you had another one. That was.

How many old cars did you roll into this one?

You must have rolled some negative into this one, right?

No, actually, just tons of miles put on it. We, me and my partner, we had a baby, and then the vehicle turned into more than what we were expecting it to be.

Okay, so how many miles does it have on it?

112.

What is it?

Kia Sorento.

Okay. Wow.

Ah, that sucker fell off a cliff, man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm disappointed in the decision to buy it.

Well, and the miles just destroyed the decision, so. Yeah, yeah. Selling it is not really gonna help you.

Yeah, see, that's. I called in, like, two weeks ago, and that was the recommendation that got, was to sell it. So I went home and I was like, yeah, we're gonna sell this thing. Then I, Kelly Blue booked it, and.

I was like, I think you're just gonna have to pay it off. Yeah. Okay, so what do you make? What's your household income about?

Seventy K. And the only debt that I have, I have just shy of twelve k in our personal loan. And then 26,000 on a car. What's that?

And then 26,000 on a car.

Yeah. Yeah.

And you have a baby that you're responsible for, but you're not married.

Correct.

Okay.

I actually have four kids total, but.

At the same place with the same lady.

We have one child together. She had one in a previous relationship, and then I have two children from.

A previous relationship that are with their mom, primarily.

We split one week with me, one week with them, with her.

Okay. Um.

So we're like, we kind of need third row for one week, but then we don't for the other. It's.

Yeah, we got bigger problems for the third row.

Yeah. You get a lot of chaos in your life, brother.

Yeah. The, um. Hmm. What do you.

What do you do for a living?

Fabricator. Welder.

Okay. You might be entering a season. How much of that seventies going to child support?

Zero. Knock on wood.

What do you mean?

We just shared custody. I take care of them when they're with me. She takes care of them when they're with her.

Is that. Is that certified by a court or. Y'all just high five each other?

Okay.

No, it's. That's all court ordered.

You may have to enter into a season where you make the arrangements with the women in your life that you're going to be having to work two or three jobs because you got a mess to clean up, man.

Yeah.

You got so much cast in your life, dude, and you need 30.

If you had $36,000, you'd have no debt and an old car, and you'd be okay.

Right.

So you're $36,000 away from a huge relief point. So how fast can we come up with $36,000 working overtime? One year?

Yeah. That's. What. Is that a question you're asking?

No telling.

That's a statement.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think. I think because the good news is you're a welder and, man, you know, you can get work.

Yeah. For sure.

Yeah, I know you can get work. They're desperate for your work.

I want you to be so tired in October of this year that you don't know what day it is because you've been working so hard.

Okay. Yeah. And then. But then you're gonna. But then you're gonna be free for the rest of your life because, you know, then you never enter into this again. We never buy a car on payments, so we never end up in this again. If we run one, if we run the value down, at least be on something that's paid for.

And I want you to marry mama. And let's wrap this thing up right. And let's start to get some peace in our house. You got too much chaos. Too much coming and going too much over here. Fingers crossed over here. Hope this works out over here. You got to start, like, putting some of these variables in concrete, brother, so you can have some peace in your life.

Yeah, let's work on stability.

Let's work on our marriage, work on a relationship, and be good for the kids. It's good for everybody, man.

Yeah, but I. For a short period of time, I'd turn up the heat on the income. And you guys, I mean, sit down with your girlfriend. Now, she's gonna be your wife, according to John. And so you get those two things working, and then you say, all right, we're gonna be on a written budget. We're gonna be on beans and rice. We're gonna knock this out as fast as we possibly can, because, really, if you sell the car, you've got almost as much debt left. I mean, it doesn't really. Damn, it doesn't get rid of the debt. If you owe 22 on it. I mean, if it was worth 22 and you owed 26, then I would sell it, because then you only got to clean up four, but you still got 14 less.

You need to get ten grand to buy another car.

Yeah, and you're screwed up, so, yeah, you might as well drive the stupid thing. And let's just beat the snot out of this debt. The 12,000 and the 26,000, which is 36. $38,000. And, you know, you're gonna. You're gonna go get your life back is what we're saying. But this is the result of the different. All the personal chaos that while you were in between everything here, you jumped in, and as you said, you said it made a bad decision on this car, and that's what took you there. So that's a good, good way to talk it through. Hey, man, thanks for the call. If we can help you further, you call us anytime. It's what we do. Open phones at 888-25-5225 you jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. So, yeah, the upside down on a car, if you're $4,000 upside down and you owe 26, the way you handle that, folks, is you would borrow that from your local credit union, or you talk to the company that has the car loan, see if they'll let you sell the car for what it's worth, sign a note for the difference.

Or again, like we just said, you know, you work like crazy, and you come up with the hole that you're in, the amount that you're upside down, that's your three things you can do to get out. This is the Ramsey show. Doctor John Deloney Ramsey, personality number one bestselling author of building a non anxious life, is my co host. Today, Jamie is in Tampa, Florida. Hi, Jamie, how are you?

Hey, Dave. How's it going?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Good. I am calling because I'm getting sued by Capital one after being out of work from a rare heart attack. So just trying to figure out where I go from here and what the next step is. I've been following the Steve Ramsey plan since January and kind of went all in, so just kind of wondering what I do from here because that wasn't the plan. It was in collections and now.

Okay. Can you speak directly into your phone? You're kind of muffled.

Sorry about that. Is this better?

That's a little better, yeah. Thanks. Okay. How old are you?

You had a heart attack?

Yeah. So I was 37. I'm now 39. I had a spontaneous coronary artery dissection. They don't know why it happened, how it happened, how to prevent another one. They just. Yeah, it just happened my two years ago. Yep.

So what has been your work history since the heart attack?

So when I was. When I had the heart attack, I was part time and in school with 43 days left of becoming a respiratory therapist. So I was out of work for two months and then returned and got COVID and then was out for another 14 days. So during my heart attack, I had no income coming in whatsoever. And then two years ago. Yeah. So it took me about seven months before I could get back financially stable enough to even take my test because I have to take two and they're expensive. And then I started working as an RT march of last year and finally got to the point of not robbing Peter to pay Paul and going to Amscot every week to pay the bills as of probably August of last year.

You single?

So in the process of getting divorced from a very toxic person.

Wow. You've had a run.

I'm filed yet, but it's just been a. So not good.

So what are you making now?

So it. I would say averaging probably about six k a month with overtime and on call pay.

$6,000 a month. And what do you owe? Capital one?

So there's two cards. One 9061 9148.

Okay. $18,000.

Yep.

Okay. All right. Um. Wow. I'm sorry for everything you've been through. Uh, thank you. Let's be very clear, though, that capital one is not suing you because you had a heart attack and weren't able to work for two months. They're suing you because the two years following the heart attack, you've not been able to keep enough work to feed yourself and pay the payments or pay something towards it.

Yes.

You paid them nothing in. You paid them nothing for what, three, four years now?

So August of 2022 was my last payment. So it got to the point where I just was like, you know what I need to do. My four walls and my three kids fed and not worry about capital one.

Yeah. And your husband was contributing nothing.

So he doesn't have a high paying job. He makes about $16 an hour at the time. I mean, he was helping as much as he could, but it wasn't enough to sustain what we needed, as, you know, a five person family.

Have they given you a court date?

Yeah. So May 22 if it did position.

May 22 is the court date.

Mm hmm.

Okay. All right. Um. I assume you don't have any money.

So right now I have my thousand dollar emergency fund. I've got. And I stopped paying anything extra because I was going hard. I was paying about $2,000 off in debt since January every single month. So my paycheck coming up on Friday will be about 3400. I've got 2500 in the bank and then another thousand.

Okay.

But that doesn't include.

Let me sometimes, if you know what's going to happen, it's not as scary as the unknown. So I'll walk you through what's going to happen. Okay. Regardless of what we do right now, short of filing bankruptcy, which you're not bankrupt, so you wouldn't do that, you're going to lose the lawsuit on the 22 may because the lawsuit is not about anything except did you pay a bill you promised to pay? And the answer is no, you did not. Regardless of the reason. Okay.

Right.

There is no heart attack clause in these things. So it's just. Did you pay it? The answer is no judgment. Okay. So they're going to win a judgment against you for $18,000 plus attorney's fees on the 22nd in just a couple of weeks, whoopi.

So that's already happened. That was last month that they sent me paperwork saying that there was judgment against me. The one on the 22nd now is a deposition where they want all of my financial information, last three years of tax returns, my income for the last year, all my bank statements, all of that.

Yeah. That's an execution on the judgment then. Okay.

Pretty much feel like it's an execution on me.

Okay. The good news is that now you have a good income flowing for the first time in this story, and it's just started happening recently. And you, like you said, you got where you're not paying Peter to pay Paul. So the only option. You've got two options, technically, that I can think of. Okay. Off the top of my head right here. One is that you begin to negotiate a payment plan with them. Actually, there's three options. Okay. One is you begin to negotiate a payment plan with them. Is there anywhere you could get $5,000?

No, I already tried to get a loan from mid Florida credit union. They denied me. My credit's just so bad at this point. I'm sure other than Amsterdam, $500, nothing. Yeah, I don't think that I can get.

Do you have anything you could sell?

I mean, other than my car, that I've got $1,200 left on it, but it's got a check engine light and about ready to die, and, you know, looking forward to being able to fix that.

Yeah. So what? You know, so one thing you could do is you could try to settle it for a lump sum that would actually be the cleanest. And they probably will take about five k to settle this and go away. But that's not an option because we just talked through that. Okay. So that's one option. That one's on the side. That would be cool, though. That'd be very cool. The second one is to work out a payment plan with them, and they're very difficult on that. The third one is bankruptcy. And bankruptcy stops everything dead in its tracks. And you can file a chapter 13 bankruptcy, which makes them accept a payment plan. They won't have a choice. The bankruptcy court tells them what it is, and they get pennies on the dollar. They don't even get 100 cents on the dollar. So if you threaten them with a chapter 13 bankruptcy, they're better off. They're better off to take a payment plan with you than for you to force one through a chapter 13 bankruptcy on them. And so I. I would like to see you cut a payment plan with them. It's better for you and it's better for them.

Okay.

But there's no point in you going through, letting them go through your underwear drawer on the 22nd, because all they're doing is a fishing expedition trying to find money and line up whether they can garnish you your wages in Florida. I don't know how that stands. I don't know the law there. But they're. They're trying to find something they can get their hands around your throat. That's. That's all. This is a fit. This is not a. It's not a criminal thing. It's a deposition searching for income and assets, and it's there to hassle you as scare you, which it's already doing, those two things.

Yeah. I feel like I can't even go to the grocery store to buy groceries at this point. I'm sister.

Yeah. Well, you go buy anything you need to buy to take care of your family. Don't worry about these characters because they may end up getting nothing if you end up being forced by them into a BK. But truthfully, the best thing that could have happened is if you had been working on this six months ago or even a year ago, working on something to get them cleared out before it got this far. By the time it gets this far, your options and your. Any negotiating power you've got is very weak because all you can do is threaten bankruptcy, which is, you know, I threatened to shoot myself in the foot. Right. And so. But that. That's what you can do there. I'll tell you what. Let's do this. I'm gonna, I'm gonna put you on hold. I'm gonna hook you up with one of our Ramsey coaches, and maybe they can help you with the negotiation with these guys. Hopefully, they can keep you out of bankruptcy by getting you on a payment plan. That's what I want to do. But before they come and start taking your income and not, you're not able to feed your kids, they're gonna force you into a bankruptcy before they do that.

So hopefully they won't take it that far. But these characters, I don't know. But you're not dealing with it for two years is how this came up and bit you. It wasn't the heart attack two years ago. It was. You're not dealing with it after that.

Hey, good folks. Doctor John Deloney here. Listen, the Ramsey cash giveaway is back, and you could win the $3,000 grand prize. Go to ramsaysolutions.com giveaway and enter every day. Plus save 20% on bestsellers like my latest book, building a non anxious life, my questions for humans, conversation cards, and my friend Dave Ramsey's baby steps millionaires. Listen, don't miss these deals. Get 20% off@ramsaysolutions.com.

Store. Doctor John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co host today. Today's question of the day comes from Samantha in California.

Alright. Samantha asks, I live with my boyfriend and we have two children together. I'm 36 and I've been with him since I was 19 and he was 35. I have a degree but never worked, never made any money and have no savings. I own nothing.

Okay.

I have a debit card to his account. He makes over a million dollars a year and refuses to get married. What should I do? Make him pay me a monthly salary that I pay taxes on. Go get a job, which he would hate. I have only recently understood the situation I am in, as I guess I was too busy caring for the kids to see what a mess this is. Any advice would be appreciated.

I don't do well.

No, I can feel it on you.

With men that don't take care of their families. I don't do well with jerks like this, so. All right, let's be kind. There's two children involved.

I'll just say this. If this was my sister, this is one of my close friends, I would sit with an attorney and find out what the common law rules are in the state of California, and I would get as far away from this toxic trash as possible. And some of this bajillionaires money will become yours because you've raised his kids and taken care of his home.

Yeah, there's child support at a minimum. Yeah, there's probably palimony. See, you can't get him to marry.

You.

Been there. You've been there 17 years.

Get him to pay you a monthly salary. That's not gonna work.

No.

By the way, get a job, which he would hate at this point. I don't care what he thinks. Yeah, he's not a person of character. I don't care. He didn't get a vote.

17 years. He makes a million dollars a year. You've been there 17 years. So here's the likelihood. The likelihood is, John, that she's not going to take our advice.

No, not at all.

Because you already. You've known for a long time, even though you act like you didn't, what you should be doing, and you've known for a long time this was whole. This whole thing was jacked up, and you've done nothing about it. And so I doubt you're going to do anything about it now. And that's really sad, because what that tells me is, is that at a minimum, you've been emotionally abused. At a minimum, because you're now functioning in domestic violence symptoms, because you're not dealing with the obvious thing that's in front of you, because you feel trapped. That's the symptom of a domestic violence, whether it's emotional violence or whether it's physical violence.

We've gotten really accustomed to this really fancy life and that's gonna go away.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Last part of it is, I suspect there's a lot of that million dollars a year is gonna come to her.

I agree.

In California. I don't know, I'm not an attorney. I think I'm with you. So what would I do if I could get you to do what I don't think you're going to do? I agree with John. I would see an attorney about your rights. I would sit down with Mister moneybags and say, we're either getting married and that's after we do some counseling to where I can trust you again, because I don't trust you right now, or I'm leaving. Me and the kids are leaving and when we leave, we're going to file for child support and palimony and that's gonna, according to my attorney, it's gonna.

Cost you x this one sentence. I've only recently understood the situation I am in as I guess I was too busy caring for the kids to see what a mess.

Oh, crap.

It's not. Well, that makes me think she discovered the other girlfriends and she now realizes, oh, I thought we, I thought we're.

Reading between the letters. Okay.

He was 35, hooked up with a 19 year old, had two of her kids. They're now 1718. Um, they're leaving the house and now she's finding. Oh, I wasn't the only one. I'm not the only one. And now I got a mess cuz.

I got, cuz I make a million dollars and I do whatever I want to do, right, whenever, whoever I want to do. So stupid. Yeah, you're, you're what? A coward? Mind is even darker than mine.

The coward and God.

Exactly right. You're exactly right. That's what's going on. Cowardly man of only recent. Yes. So the situation is you're, you have built a life in a house of cards once again. These are the things that happens when you shake shack up instead of being married. Had you been married, there would have been a whole different set of situation.

Legal protections.

Legal protections and other things as well. So, yeah, but now you're, you know, you're reaching it. Obscure laws, which they are, palimony laws are much more obscure. So yeah, I would check on, I would check on your legal rights and I didn't think about these dadgum kids are, they're, they're teenagers at a minimum yeah. Yeah. Okay.

And men. Take care of your families. Take care of your families. Stop. Look around, dude. Look around. Another car, another. Another sale. Are you freaking kidding me?

Get the end of your life. Is this. Is this. Yeah.

So stupid.

How's this gonna go for you?

You're gonna have an empty hospital bedroom.

Wow. Dan is in Philadelphia. Hi, Dan. How are you doing?

Pretty good. How you doing?

Better than we deserve. How can we help?

Well, my company that I work for, I've been with them for a little over four years. They have, they let everyone go about a month and a half ago. They're getting liquidated. Another company is going to be getting all of their customers and such. It's a solar company. I worked closely with the executives and they kept only me on, and they were. The company that's coming in was supposed to call everyone. That hasn't happened. I am been applying and haven't been able to find a job yet.

But are you being paid still?

I am being paid still.

Okay. But it's. But what you're saying is the fuse is burning. It's not for long.

Exactly. I make 85,000 a year.

What do you do? What's your actual job title?

Executive assistant. So it's just basically I work for the COO and the CEO, and I also try to find problems in the operations way to make things flow smoother. In the last year, I saved the company about $320,000, uh, just in different processes that could have been fine tuned.

What. So how long have you been looking?

I've been looking for about two and a half weeks now.

Okay, good. Yeah. You got to turn that on full time. That's your whole thing.

Yeah.

And it's not just, it's not just filling out job applications. Okay. That doesn't work. You've got to start thinking about who you know at a company where you'd like to work and, and then start figuring out what postings that job had for jobs that company has and get your friend to get you an interview.

Okay?

That's how, that's how people really get jobs in the real world. This idea of filling out 5000 applications by electronic, you know, LinkedIn, bull crap, that does not work because you get. Nobody reads all those applications. Something has to happen to get those things pulled out of the stack, and that's how you really land a job. So your, your job is not filling out applications. Your job is to get your foot in the door somewhere.

Okay?

That's the difference. So Ken Coleman Ramsey, personality, writes about all of this stuff his book, the one that you need to read, is called proximity principle. I'm going to send you a copy of it right now, today. Okay.

I actually just bought that about a month ago.

Have you read it?

I have not.

Okay. Well, this would be the day. It's upon you, my friend.

The other portion of that I've been going for. The baby steps. I'm in baby step two. I want to. I'm assuming it's smart for me to hold back and not.

Don't do anything right now. Pile up cash. You're in the middle of a hurricane. You're in the middle of a hurricane, you're in a crisis. Pile up cash every day. Every check they give you, put it all in an account and don't touch it. I want you eating beans and rice. Are you married?

Yes. And we have three kids and one on the way.

Does your wife work outside the home?

No.

Okay. All right. So you really pile up cash. Pile up cash. Pile up cash. Stop your 401k, stop everything. Treat this like you had to have $10,000 to survive. Because you do. The bigger pile of cash you've got, the better you're going to have confidence when you're interviewing. The more broke you are when you interview for the next thing, the more desperate you sound, and the more, the less employable you are. Because desperate people, they got a stink on them, man. And so I want you less desperate, I want you getting after it. Yeah. You need to turn this up wide open, like your full time job is you right now. Get it? This is the Ramsey show, live from the headquarters of Ramsey solutions. It's the Ramsey show show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you are here. Open phones here at triple 8825-5225 thanks for jumping in. We appreciate you hanging out with us. Jamal is with us in Boston to start off this particular hour. Hey, Jamal. How are you?

Hi. How are you?

Better than we deserve. How can we help?

So I basically got out of debt a few four or five months ago.

Good.

And kind of been aimless with. All thanks to you, by the way. You were the kickstart. So I just want to give my gratitude to you. I really appreciate that from you, from posting your videos and stuff. So thank you. So from there, now I'm kind of at this place where I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing now. I'm at my job still. But at the same time, I want to see how else I can make other money, or how can I take the next steps to build wealth. So I'm kind of just confused on where I'm supposed to go next.

Okay, so you just got some basic information about getting out of debt from and that. Yeah, that was a few YouTube things. But you've not really heard the whole process, is that what you're saying?

Yes.

Okay. Well, the whole process we've designed is around the basic common sense principles and the ideas that financial planners have taught for years, and we just put them in an order of attack. We call that the baby steps. You probably did hear that.

I heard the baby steps, yes.

Okay. Baby step one is save $1,000. Do you have $1,000?

Yes.

Okay. Two is debt free. Everything but the house. You already told me you did that one, right?

Correct.

Then your next goal is to make sure you have a fully funded emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. How much do you have in savings?

10,000.

Okay. And what do you make?

I make around sixty five k to.

Seventy k. It's not a bad emergency fund. All right. If we wanted to call that our emergency fund, fine. If you want to spoof it up and put another five k in there, you can. But that's not to be touched for anything except emergencies, and probably not even then. That's your. That's the pad between you and life. If you're gonna buy something, you have to save up and pay for it in a separate account. Okay.

Okay.

Now we're debt free. We've got $10,000. Dude, you're way ahead of most people already. Way to go. Now we go to baby step four, which is, say, 15% of your income into retirement plans. Roth Iras, Roth 401 ks with a match, if you've got that at work. And I want you putting 15% around. You said you make 60, is that what you said?

Yeah, around 60 to 70.

Okay. They'd be $9,000 a year then.

Okay.

Okay. Or about, what, $700 a month? $750 a month. Right. It should be coming out of your check some way or another going into retirement. I take it you're single and not. And don't have kids. Did I miss something?

No. I'm 28. I live with my mom. And kind of. That's. That's. Was. Was the help. That kind of, you know, gave me the financial ability to get out of debt. 70k.

Good.

Yeah.

Good, then, yeah, then I want to, you know, I want to start putting 9000 away for retirement. Also want to start saving some money to get out on my own.

Okay.

Because you're now able to. You make money, you don't have any payments, right? So you need to get out on your own and set yourself up a life and, you know, go about growing your career, growing yourself, who you're gonna be, what. What changes are we gonna make? You talked about maybe changing jobs, that kind of stuff, all of that, and you're gonna use some of your money to do all of that. But you don't need to jump. Just take your time. Move, move careful when you move out. You don't have to rush out unless your house is on fire, you don't have to run out. So unless there's something really bad going on, you don't have to run out. But you do need to make a plan by September. You need to be out of there, and you need to figure out what your next steps are in your career and just systematically lay down, because what happens and what you're discovering already in this process is. And, John, this is so important for people to grasp. I think that. That where there is no vision, that people perish and most people live hand to mouth because they don't look past Friday.

And to Jamal's credit, he's looked way past Friday now, and he started to think long term, long term with my career, long term with my living situation, long term with my debt, long term with my wealth building and investing. And when you start thinking out there, 510 years out, with your decision making, you make much better decisions.

Yeah.

And it's called maturing.

That's gonna say it's maturing. And so sometimes maturing doesn't make math sense. Here's an example. I live with my 28 year old mom. I don't have to pay rent ever. You need to get out on your own and get your own place. There's some other muscles you're going to develop, and there's some maturing that you need to do, some skills you got to develop. You gotta learn how to be a neighbor, you gotta learn how to pay bills. You gotta learn how to deal with roommates, whatever it is. But I can see when you get done with all this, you think, well, just keep piling this money away. Well, you gotta start spending some of this money now, and you gotta start creating a life that you actually wanna live in.

Right, exactly. Exactly. And so, you know, really, I mean, anytime you're investing money into yourself, whether that's moving out on your own, taking a class to move to a different career, all of those things are short term pain for long term gain. Right. And that one definition of maturity, emotional maturity, spiritual maturity, is the ability to delay pleasure.

What did Harlow say this morning that was so good? It was something along those lines that people are able to deal with short term pain for long term vision. It was just, he had a great way of saying it. I remember what it was, James. But it's that same sentiment that, man, I have to make some choices to not be happy right this second so that I can really, really, truly have deep joy down the road.

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but it yields a harvest of righteousness. And so nothing that we do that's good for the long, very few things that we do that's good for the long term feels great at the present. And if all you do is work on the present, your child and all of your long term starts to deteriorate.

Right?

Because you spend all your money on Friday and Saturday night and you go back Monday morning, you're broke again and you start to cycle over again. That's. Thank God it's Friday. Oh, God, it's Monday. That's the opposite of having a vision. And to Jamal's credit, he's moving away from that towards long term thinking. And the thing is, Jamal, it needs to happen in every single compartment, department, area of your life. Yes.

And feelings are a terrible gps system. I did not feel like exercising this morning. I didn't feel like eating a healthy breakfast this morning. I didn't feel like going around and chasing my kids down so I could hug every one of them. I just wanted to put my headphones in and go to work. You do those things because they're right and they have a long term benefit. Right.

Well, that's discipline.

That's right.

That's what, that's where it comes from. It comes from, I'm willing to give up some pain now for gain later. No pain, no gain, all that stuff, right? And it all falls together. But this all works in every area of our lives. And, you know, you're going to see everything start to blossom the more that you do that your relationships, you're just going to be much more eligible on the dating scene by good women because good women don't want to hang with a guy who thinks, thank God, it's Friday, oh, God, it's Monday and lives with his mom. That's not, that's not eligibility right there. The opposite. And you're. So you're moving in a great direction. And I mean, you can get girls but you can't get women. And that there's a different thing. It's a whole different thing, man. So that it's a long term thinking process and that's beautiful thing where you are, son. I'm so happy to talk to you, man. Call us anytime. This is the Ramsey show. Alright, lets cut to the chase. Its easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates. But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, youll have confidence to make smart decisions.

Ramsey trusted agents arent just experts who guide you through buying or selling. Theyre someone you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey trusted agent near you@ramseysolutions.com. Agent ramsaysolutions.com agent doctor John Deloney Ramsey personality is my co host today. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you are with us. The best way to make the most of your money is by creating and sticking to a plan. Your plan. You decide what you want to put in it and then you stick to the plan that you created. Isn't that cool? So if it's punishing you, you're punishing you. If it's letting you off the hook, you're letting you off the hook. It's your plan. You give every dollar of your income an assignment before the month begins. And for those of you that are married, you agree on it with your spouse. Every dollar. The world's best budgeting app makes it simple to plan your spending. Track expenses, save for what matters, all in. An easy to use app fits right into your busy lifestyle. Keep a pulse on your spending and make the progress on your money goals with everydollar.

You can download everydollar for free in the App Store or Google Play today. You can also do it online@everydollar.com. For your desktop, check it out. Eric is with us in Chicago. Hi, Eric. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Long time listener. My dad listened to it when I was a child in the car and I just never stopped.

Wow.

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

Okay. If you take out the loan, it doesn't change the expense?

None at all. But I cannot work for three years or 36 straight months for this, due to the 50 to 60 hours a week of clinicals and schooling, the classroom time.

But the way you posed the question, it sounds like you've got the money to cover that.

I currently have $133,000 in cash. As far as I can tell, most schools range between 101 hundred, 30,000 for the 36 months.

So what's your plan for eating?

Right. So I am married. My wife is a teacher. And then we have a baby on the way here next month. She makes about 50,000 a year. I have. We have no debt. I was fortunate, was able to graduate from nursing school with. With no debt.

When do you start anesthesiology school.

Again? I'm on a waitlist. Or it would be next year around this time.

Okay, so if you had another year to save, you'd have a lot more.

That's correct. Because I currently. We bought less house than we needed to. Our current take home pays about 103,000 and the mortgage is about twelve to 1300.

Insurance.

Okay. I would lay out a plan where we can live on her income and pay cash for this.

Currently, the way I've got it, I wrote. I used it all. I use it every month. And I was using kind of project what it would be like assuming her. Her pay stays the same. You know, it would. It would be doable, but it would be kind of tight.

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

But. But as far as, like, an emergency fund.

Right now, you're going to school, man. You're a freaking college student again. Okay, no, I'm not borrowing money to create an emergency fund.

Sure.

No, I'm not borrowing money to raise your little family's lifestyle while you bust it.

Right.

No, no. You. You knew that for. You called. You've been listening to me since you were a kid.

Yes. For. Yes. That's what I figured the case would be. I just didn't know. Just with. You know, I've been in stork mode the last several months and I want.

You to stay in stork mode. Listen, I gotta tell you, I think your career path is one of the best on the planet. It's one of the top five things people can do to make a pile of money. And it's very rewarding, too, because what you're doing is excellent for the human race. And because I, you know, I can tell you I have the pain tolerance of a three year old child. I can't stand it. So I need people that know what you're going to do around. If I'm getting. I don't want to feel nothing. Just put me out and make. Put me out in such a way that when I wake up, my brain still works. So this is all I want from you, man. You're awesome. And I think you're gonna make a lot of money. It's. It's better than an MD, I think. I just love what you're doing, but just do it smart, Eric. Pay cash for it, okay? Set your family up in such a way that we're paying, we're sacrificing for our future. This is gonna be a tough three years because you're gonna be completely with your nose in the books and in the.

The practicums and everything else, and you're going to be. You're going to be absorbed in that, and you're going to have a new baby in the house in the process, and you're going to be living on a lot less than you're used to living on. It's going to be a very tough three years, and it's going to be completely worth it.

I mean, I can't. I can't recommend that more. And I'm sitting on the other side of this. Josephine was just born, my daughter. I went back to grad school working for. I mean, it was. It was a madhouse, and there were days that didn't feel like it was worth it, and there was no easy path. And, man, I'm glad we sacrificed and scratched and clawed, right? You never know what's going to be. But I do have friends who have medical debt, medical school debt of some sort, and they're stuck doing managed care 14 minutes. And they tell me, I would love to get out of this mad, this madness, but I can't afford to. If you come out of anesthesiology school and you owe nobody anything, man, you're so you.

Your. The negotiation power you have for your next. Whatever you want, you can write your.

Ticket whatever you want.

But if you got. If you got stupid, you know, Navient staring down your neck, you take what you get, then you got to go, oh, I got to take this gig because they're going to pay off navient you know, because that's a lot of medical recruiters these days. They'll write you a little signing bonus or tied to your student loan debt. Right. And no, you don't need any of that. All I want is money. I just want you to.

Freedom.

Yeah. Pay me money and give me. Give me control of my life. And that's stuff you lose in the medical field if you're not careful. So please pay cash. And I really would opt to start one year from June, not June. Yeah.

There'd have to be a pretty compelling reason to start right this second.

Yeah. And, you know, and set it up because that gives you a whole nother year of ICU earnings to pile. Keep your stork mode going. But it's a different, it's a different birth. It's the birth of your future career, not your child. But just keep piling that money up. Piling that money up. Practice living on her income this year, piling up yours. And then you got the money. Slam dunk.

Or seeing if there's a cohort that starts in January and split the difference. But I love the idea of, because obviously I get, like, you got a new baby and wanting to have some money in the, in the bank. I get that.

But you're not having to write the whole 133 at once.

That's it.

That's it. You're going to be. You're not going to be down to the last nickel until you're at the end.

That's right.

And so, you know, by then the whole thing's going to have shifted anyway, probably so.

Amazing. Good for you, brother.

Might even get a signing bonus sign before you do your last six months.

And, hey, for people who call, I think this is important thing. He has had a vision of this for several years and he went into stork mode a long time ago. We get people who just have this thought and they want to go do it. All right, this second. He's been thinking about this for a while. He's got 130 grams piled up.

Yeah.

And so, yes, this is what this looks like.

Yeah. This is the right way to do it.

Right way to do it.

Very, very well done. He's debt free.

He's debt free to own about anything.

He.

I want a doctor that doesn't owe anybody anything, that can spend time with me and isn't worried about managing a clock, but worried about keeping me safe and keeping me healthy. That's what I want in my life.

I don't want to be a medical widget.

I don't even know.

Be your inventory. I don't want to be something that's managed by you.

I do not want to be a medical widget.

You know, an old pastor said it was. He said somewhere back in the 1960s or seventies, we left the healing arts and went to the medical industry.

That's exactly right.

Yeah, we left the art and went to the number crunchers.

But, you know, anybody, anything, and you have all this knowledge and the certifications, you can sit down and help people, and it's amazing.

Yeah, you gotta. I mean, this. It's a golden ticket. I love your. Love your path here. It's a really, really good path. Very well done, Eric. Proud of you, man. Pay cash. You knew Dave Ramsey was going to say that before you called. It's about the only thing you can say about me that everyone has to say. Whether they like me or not. I'm 100% freaking consistent.

And you're bald. I probably shouldn't have said that.

That was.

I'm just trying to think of another.

You got.

Everyone could agree.

Firm grasp on the obvious. John Deloney, phds. And that's what they got you right there. This is the Ramsey show. It's way too easy to put off making a will. And believe me, I've heard every excuse in the book. But not having the time is one excuse we can kick to the curb right now. Because these days, most folks can make a legally binding will on their laptop between loads of laundry. If you're wondering if you can make your will online or if you need a lawyer, we have a quiz to help you figure that out in less than five minutes. Just go to ramsaysolutions.com willsquiz. Ramsaysolutions.com willsquiz. Doctor John Deloney Ramsey personality, is my co host today. Thank you for joining us, America. We're so glad you are here. Open phones at triple 8825-5225 thanks for hanging out. And hey, guess what? On the debt free stage in the lobby of Ramsey solutions, Allen is with us. Hey, Allen. How are you, man? Hey, great.

How are you guys doing?

Better than we deserve. Where do you live?

I live in nowhere, Wisconsin, but real close to Madison.

Okay. Very cool.

Drove, like 600 miles down here to come be on the show, so thanks for having me.

Well, we're honored to have you, sir. Thank you. How much debt have you paid off?

A little over 30 grand.

$30,000. How long did that take you?

About four years, give or take.

All right, good. And your range of income during that time?

When I started, I was at 45 grand, and I'm currently around 55.

Cool. What kind of debt was the 30k?

So I had 20 grand on high interest credit card, and then I had another ten grand on my car.

Okay, cool. So what started this whole journey thing, this Ramsey thing four years ago?

Well, I mean, well, the journey started way before that, just getting into debt. I mean, me and my ex girlfriend at the time, she talked me into getting a high interest credit card. It was like, if you spent $3,000 in the first three months, you got all these points. So we were like, oh, well, put all our bills on that, and we'll go on a vacation. And then we didn't even. We didn't even hit the three grand, and we didn't even pay it off. So it was all downhill from there. And then it just kind of snowballed. Then once I was bottoming out and just super broke and just running out of ideas, I was youtubing just how to get out of debt, and you were one of the first ones that popped up. So I started watching a couple of your videos that introduced me to the debt snowball. And then from there, then I got hooked. I was like, that's digestible. Easy enough. And then I rabbit hole down all your stuff. And then I found out about the debt avalanche. I was able to do, essentially the snowball and the avalanche. I got real lucky where my highest interest rates, around my lowest principal amounts, so I was able to just crush it.

But, like, it was a super humbling experience. I remember at the end, I was paying, like, five, $600 a month towards the credit card bills, and the principles weren't even going down. Like, it was heartbreaking. So, like, you know, I ended up. I left my ex girlfriend. She was no good at the time. I moved back in with my mom, which was horrible at your thirties, but, you know, I was like, this is enough debt where it's going to follow me around my entire life if I don't do something about it. So I got real tough, and I did something about it. You know, you were talking beans and rice. I was beans or rice? I couldn't afford beans and rice, you know, so. So, you know, but it was great. You know, it took forever. But, like, once you. Once I paid off the first little credit card, then you see the progress. You start feeling better about yourself, and it just gets better and better and a little easier, and, like. And by the end, once I'm throwing, you know, $1,000 a month at different things, it just becomes a phenomenal feeling. You feel like you're actually achieving your goals and, like, I mean, last year, I was able to max out my Roth IRa for the first time ever, so I can start thinking about retirement, which was not even a possibility before.

So, you know, I'm just incredibly grateful, and it's all thanks to you guys. So I appreciate.

What do you do for a living, man?

I manage a couple sushi restaurants, so if you're ever in Madison. I mean, we've won best sushi restaurant as in, like, seven years.

I was gonna say, when I think sushi, I think middle America.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, exactly. Above all the lakes. Yeah. But, I mean, we fly our fishing every day, man. We.

It's amazing.

It is.

Yeah, we do real.

I can.

I had sushi for lunch. I can put a hurting on, dude.

Please be my treat.

Yeah, well, congratulations, brother. Dude.

Thank you, man. It was all thanks to you guys.

I didn't do it.

You did anything, but, well, if I.

Didn'T find you all, I, you know, I don't even want to think where I'd be right now, so thank you. It means a ton to me.

How's it feel to be free?

Oh, it feels great, man. I can sleep so much better at night. Like, I bought a new set of tires a couple months ago, and, like, I did it without crying, you know, I couldn't have done that a couple years ago. It was wonderful.

Tires and crying, they always go together.

Yeah, right.

What was the hardest thing? I mean, you're manager of a restaurant, people have expectations of what managers look like, what they should be driving, how they should be flashing money around. What was the hardest thing you had to experience going through this journey?

Oh, well, it was a complete lifestyle change because, I mean, in my twenties, you know, we'd go out drinking and partying all the time and, you know, like, we were all broke, but we thought we were rich, you know? And then now it's. I heard a really good saying once where when you're young, you focus on your urn, and when you're old, you're focused on your burn. And that's completely true. Like, once I hit my thirties, I was like, I didn't make noticeably more money or anything, but I controlled where I was spending my money. I stopped going out, I stopped drinking, stop smoking cigarettes, you know, all these, like, massive, you know, inhibitors on my wealth. And then now it just, you know, I'm reaping the rewards of that. So it's great.

And you feel better?

I lost, like, 50 pounds yeah, I look better even without the hair.

Yeah.

You lost 50 pounds, too?

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Dude, I changed my whole freaking life, man. It was nuts.

Wow, good for you.

Oh, thank you.

Well done. Proud of you. Very cool. All right. What advice do you have to somebody who's listening? We just went through a bad breakup with a bad girl, and they got some bad debt to go with it. What do you tell them the key to getting out of debt is?

Well, I mean, if I can do, anyone can do it. You know, I'm not a college educated millionaire or anything. Like, anyone can do it, but it's going to be humbling. You're not going to enjoy it. It's going to be tough. But, you know, if you make your mind up and, like, you decide you want to do it and commit to it, you know, then you can succeed. It might take longer than you want, but anybody can do it. You just gotta put the effort out there.

Yeah. And you're making 45, $50,000 a year. I mean, you weren't making 300,000 exactly.

I did go back to school. Oh, sorry. Last year. So, yeah, so, like, I'm making. I like where I'm at right now, and it's great for a single dude in his thirties, but I'm not gonna be wanting to necessarily be doing it in my fifties or sixties once I get a little older. So I'm going to school to be an engineer. So, good for you.

Wow.

Hopefully it all works out.

That'll be a whole shift.

Hold on, let me get this straight. You paid off debt in four years and in the process lost 50. Lost 50 pounds.

And here's my teeth, too. My teeth were messed up.

He actually lost about, I don't know, 150. Because he got rid of her, too.

Right?

Your hair, too. But you fix your teeth, you're going to be an engineer, you got a significant raise against your salary, right?

Yeah.

You've changed everything, man.

Yeah, well, I wasn't happy with the guy in the mirror. My late twenties.

Okay, I want you to talk on that.

No, well, I mean, that was. I mean, there was a lot of factors with that. I mean, when I was 22, I lost my father. I didn't have the tools to deal with that, so I became a pretty bad alcoholic, you know. I mean, we were all in the restaurant industry. We just go out drinking every night. That was just normal, commonplace. So, you know, that just all snowballed with all the debt and just thinking that that was an acceptable lifestyle or sustainable, and it completely wasn't what's it.

Like to be well, man?

Oh, dude, like I said. Do you sleep better? I'm happier. Just weight off my shoulders. Like, when I was in debt, it felt like you were drowning or suffocating constantly. There was always, you know, like, something minor, like, hey, can we go out to dinner for our anniversary on the weekend? Like, I was like, I don't know if we can budget the $100 for that. You know? Like, it would just be astronomically horrible. But now it's like, cool. I could. I just drove to Nashville, Tennessee, on a whim to be on the show, and, like, I'm not sweating it at all, and it's fricking wonderful. So, you know. Yeah. It's just so night and day, and, you know, it's just wonderful.

Changed everything, man. That's amazing.

And it's not rocket science. It's just living within your means and then. And having a goal, like, the big thing. In my twenties, I didn't have a goal or a plan. Now I do, and I follow it. And you're reaping those rewards.

Absolutely, yeah.

It's not rocket science.

Way to go, hero.

Congratulations.

Thanks for having me on.

Excellent. Excellent work. You're a sharp young dude now. Well done. Sometimes turned yourself into one. Very good. Good job, man. That's great transformation. I love it, I love it, I love it. All right. It's Allen from Madison, Wisconsin, home of.

The world's best sushi.

$30,000 paid off in four years, making 45 to 55. Lost 50 pounds in the process. Changed his whole life. That's the key right there. So proud of you, man. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream.

One, two, three. I'm debt free.

That's how it's done right there. That thing where he said, it's not sustainable. That lifestyle is not sustainable. It flashed through my mind. I got a new friend of a famous guy who's been. Been off of cocaine for two years. And I was just asking him the other day, I was asking him, I said, man, well, how'd you decided? I mean, cocaine's tough. It's a tough one to bring.

It's a devil. Yeah, it's.

And how do you break cocaine? And he goes, I just look up, man. He goes, there are no old cocaine addicts. Good motivator.

It takes your soul, man.

Good motivator. You know, there. You know, it's this partying every night, this drinking, and, you know, and calling it normal. It's not sustainable. Same thing, right? Same situation. There are no old people that do that that have high quality lives, and so you don't. You just don't run into those. They're not out there.

And I love, love hearing when people decide to get their money right and they decide to get on a plan, they realize, this works for me. My weights like that, too. My relationships are like that, too. And then he's looking down at 55 year old self, thinking, I want to be an engineer. I don't be running around restaurant to restaurant. That's amazing, man. It's amazing.

Very cool. Very cool. This is the Ramsey show. Our scripture today. Proverbs 1522, plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many wise advisors, they succeed. Brian Tracy said, failure is a prerequisite for great success. If you want to succeed faster, double your rate of failure. That sounds painful. Tanner. Tanner's in Lexington. Hey, Tanner. How are you?

Hey, I'm doing good, mister Ramsey.

Good. How can we help?

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

And paying cash for it and.

And paying off our debts and putting down a huge down payment, but not.

Quite paying cash for the other house. Okay. What's wrong with that?

Yes. Well, so, we have a car loan. It's about $18,000 and about 50,000 in student loan debt.

Okay.

And would you rather sell the house and pay off all of our debts and downsize to that house? Or do you think we should rent this house and take our cash that we've saved up and buy that other house and use this property as a rental income to almost pay for the mortgage for the other house?

So, sometimes a good way to help you with decision making on that is to reverse engineer it. Let's pretend you were living in a house next year, in laws, and you were debt free, and it was almost paid off because that's one option, right?

Yes.

Okay, let's pretend. Let's pretend you're there. Would you go borrow more on the paid for house. Almost paid for house. And go borrow $70,000 on cars and student loans to buy a rental house. No, you wouldn't. Yeah, no, effectively, that's what you're doing. Only I just did it in reverse.

Okay.

By making the decision to not pay off the debt and not put down as much on the other house, it's as if you borrowed on those two things to buy the current house and make it a rental. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does.

Okay. Which that tells me not to do it.

Gotcha.

Okay.

And I mean, and another question is, like, would you recommend us staying in this house and just staying here and then just paying off those debts, or.

Well, that just has to do with how miserable a human being your in laws are.

Yeah, I was gonna say, what's the in law tax?

I have a. I have a wonderful in laws. They're great.

You know who says that? People with really scary in laws.

She's probably gonna listen to this.

I know. We're trying to get you in trouble. It sounds. It sounds like the way you presented this dude, it sounds like you want to move, and it sounds like you've put a lot of work into this thing, and it's become a project, and you're happy and you're proud of it and kind of hate to let that go. You don't let it go. But also, man, that money would be nice. It would really set you up and transform your life in one fell swoop. And I would say, think of it this way, if somebody said, hey, if you'll work six months and help me refinish out my basement, I'm going to pay off every debt you own and pretty much get you real close to paying off another mortgage, closer to family. I take that side job. You would, too, right?

Good side job.

It's a great side job. So that's effectively what you've done. It's pretty amazing.

Yeah. And. And got to live there, too. So, yeah, it's, uh, it's turned out to be a really good investment for you and. And a good use of your sweat equity to build out that garage, that basement, and add that square, that finished square footage to the appraisal. And so, congratulations, sir. Well played. Sell it, be debt free, and then have a plan to finish paying off the other little house as quick as you can. All right. Up next is Travis in Tampa. Hi, Travis. How are you?

Dave, a pleasure, doctor J. Glad to be with you.

Thanks. How can we help, sir?

Yeah, so my kids are, my second child, last child is getting ready to graduate very soon. And my wife and I have been following baby steps. We'll say baby steps ish, but we are in a good position. We've paid off a good amount of debt. Recently retired from the military, transitioned, made that transition. Now we're in a financial position where we weren't previously when they were going to school, or we would have cash flowed their college. Now we're in a position to help pay off their student debt as they're exiting college. We want to do that, but we also want to stick to the baby steps, trying to figure out where that falls appropriately in the baby steps. So we're currently in baby step two. Should be completely debt three in about the next 60 days, based off our salary.

And how much student loan debt would you be assisting with?

I would be assisting. Total, between the two kids, approximately 65,000.

Okay. And what does. What's your household income?

Household income net is about 280,000. And that's just recent, in the past two years, since I've exited the service.

Wow. Thank you for your service. I'm glad you're doing so well. So you can do this in a year?

Yes, sir. That's. That's our plan.

Yeah.

And, you know, if. Yeah, we. In our current budget asset, I did indicate a little ish. You know, spousal participation has been open and communication has been good. Not fully gazelle intense, but definitely moving in the direction of being debt free.

Like I said, I like the idea of you guys. I like y'all putting your oxygen mask on first and being debt free in 60 days and then deciding we're going to save up and bless and surprise our kids.

Okay.

That makes the most sense.

I wasn't sure. Does it fall after we start contributing?

Our merchant fully depends on whether you want to call it. It's technically not your debt, right? Technically, this is a charitable. Charitable gift, correct?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We want to honor that change in our generation. We didn't have that opportunity, which is why we even had debt with student loan debt.

That's not true.

Have that opportunity.

That's not true. As part of. That's part of the equation. But, you know, you do not have any moral obligation here unless you made one to your kid. Unless you promised your kid you'd help them pay it. But if you.

If you.

Okay, then this is a gift.

Yes, sir.

And it's not a. And it's not a guilt trip. And. And it's not. And you're not morally obligated to do this, so it's a charitable thing you're doing for your children. There's nothing wrong with that. That's okay. But if you're going to do that, then you place it out there after baby step four. You know, four, five, six. While you're working on that, you get your emergency fund in place. You. You're out of debt. And then we save up and just write them each a check for Christmas one year, like John said. Like John was saying, I think that's a plan. If you. If you had said, I promised to help you pay this when you graduate, then now we've. It's not a legal contract, but it's a moral obligation. I would put it in your debt. Snowball, then, in that case, no, they were fully aware.

We coached on the options of going to school, what that looked like, to go to school debt free. They did have that option because we gifted them two years of my military benefits for education.

Yeah. And they chose to go to schools they couldn't afford, correct. Yeah. Yeah.

Please do not. Please do not put your family in further financial jeopardy because you feel guilty. In fact, I would love, as a guy who's worked with college students for most of my career, I would love for you to sit down with your kids. I know the surprise would be really fun. That'd be cool. But I'd love for you to sit down and say, I want to see you follow a budget and follow a plan. Follow FPU for one year after you get your job. I want to see where you are, and I'm going to be willing to. If you meet x criteria, I'm going to write you a check and pay off your student loans.

Yeah.

And it puts. They have some skin in the game, and I like that investment in their future adulthood, but not this guilt thing, man. Colleges take advantage of another generation, you.

Know, like, we have some kind of generational reparation.

You got guilt. You feel guilty that your kids have went to school and you couldn't afford it, and now that you make a bunch of money, you feel like you owe them. You don't.

You don't. They could have gone to somewhere and not have student loan debt. They made choices, too. So they're in this, too. So, yeah, that's the thing. But it's good. It's very nice. You're charitable, dad. You're in great shape. You're making great money. So, yeah, put yourself in a position. You can do something along those lines. That'd be my plan. Good question. That puts us hour of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the prince of peace. Christ Jesus.

Hey, folks, Dave Ramsey here. You know, budgeting doesn't have to be boring. You just need a budgeting app that's made with you in mind, and that's everything. Everydollar the everydollar app has helped millions of people work the baby steps and take the stress out of planning and managing their money. Start budgeting with everydollar for free. Right now. Just go to ramsaysolutions.com everydollar and download the app today. That's ramseysolutions.com everydollar.