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. Number one best selling author of breaking free from Broke and co host of the smart Money Happy Hour, George Camel. Ramsey personality, is my co host today open phones at triple 8825-5225. That's triple 8825-5225 Lindsey starts off this hour in Denver. Hi, Lindsey. How are you?

I'm doing good, Dave. Thanks so much for taking my call. I'm a huge fan. We're on baby steps four and five and six. We're going to be baby steps millionaires, thanks to you.

Awesome. Good for you.

Yes, and I was just calling because I wanted to know how to best manage my grandma's finances. I've been managing their bill since 2022, since my uncle passed away. He used to live in the home, and he's no longer there. But in the last two years, I see my mom, like, spend down their savings and kind of destroying them financially.

Hold on. I'm sorry. I thought you were managing the money.

Yeah.

How does your mom get the money if you're managing it?

She'll grab the debit card, make purchases, and she'll say that my grandma let her buy certain things. They go out to eat a lot.

So the first time that happened, that's on her. The second time that happened, it's on you because you didn't take the debit card away.

Yeah. So this last time, I actually made a fraud, and I told my mom, if she uses her card again, I will actually make a police report because she is making too many charges without my grandma's knowledge. Because when I ask my grandma about these.

Cut the account down. Close the account.

I already closed one bank account. Well, close it.

Close it. And then she can't use the debit card. It's out of business. That's simple.

Okay.

How much money are we talking about?

Everything under my name. Well, she has 18,000 in the savings, and so I was thinking maybe I should bring that down and send the extra to principal. And she also has a vehicle that we could sell to, like, pay down her house, but my mom's also destroyed that, too. So not too long ago, she would, like, had the truck, and there was a hailstorm, so I don't even know if the truck's worth 25,000 anymore, but my mom's just, like, ruining everything.

Lindsey, it's your fault.

It's my fault?

Yeah, cuz you're letting her do this.

I should take away the keys, take away everything.

She should have zero access.

Shut down any. Any door that your mother is going.

Through, physical or locking, proverbial.

Close the debit card, take the keys, the dad gum truck. Move the truck to your garage. Stop her from having access.

Yeah. Yeah, that's what I need to do because.

Yeah, you needed to do that, like, the first time it happened because your mother is not a good person, and.

My grandma doesn't even drive, so I've been wanting to.

Okay. Sell the truck then. Do you have power of attorney?

Not yet. I've been working on that.

Okay. I'm not gonna participate in this anymore unless you give me power of attorney, and I'm gonna shut down all this bull crap, okay? This is an act of love for your grandmother, and it's an act of punishment towards your mother, who's a criminal.

Yeah.

Good lord, girl.

And clearly, the relationship with you and your mom and grandma and her daughter, it's over.

Yeah. Y'all put the fun in dysfunction, man.

Yeah.

So the best thing you can do is protect everything and just get her out of your life.

Yeah. So the truck. It's a $25,000 truck. How old is your granny?

She's 80 years old.

Okay. And does she. She doesn't drive anymore.

She doesn't. And she wanted to keep the truck around because that was, like, the last memory of my uncle, so she didn't want me to spell it right away. My mom destroying it.

Yeah. Sorry. Is it paid for?

It is.

Okay. It's a $25,000 truck sitting in the garage and then got ail damage. Cause your mother's a doofus.

Yeah. She took it out that night, and she's been driving it around town.

Okay. Is the truck back at your grandmother's?

Yes.

Go pick it up and put it in your basement.

Okay.

Okay. And lock it up inside. They have to. Breaking and entering would have to be required to get the truck. All right. And then tell your grandmother that she needs to sell the truck. And tell your grandmother that we're cutting your mother off. Part of the reason is your grandmother's allowing this, too. But she's 80 and she asked you to take care of everything. And you're going to be a little bit tougher, kiddo. You're getting walked all over.

I know. I feel bad because it's my mom, and then she gets mad at me.

I don't give a crap about your mother's feelings. She's a crook.

She is?

Yeah. You don't get to have feelings when.

You'Re a crook, she clearly doesn't care about yours.

She truly doesn't care about anybody except herself. So how old are you?

39.

Okay. All right. So your mom has done power plays her entire life over you and over everyone else. No one has ever told this woman no successfully. And you're getting ready to be the first one. Congratulations. You have to. It's your job.

I do need to.

Or you need to hand your grandmother the keys and all the debit cards, and you need to turn your back and walk away and just let this whole thing explode. One of the two. But either, if you're going to have your name on this saying, I'm helping granny, you got to do it. You can't just sort of do it.

And when I do sell the check, should I apply it to the principal? Because my grandma still. 65,000 on the house.

How much is that? The only money she's got 18,000. And then she's got the truck. And what else has she got?

Oh, that's all she had.

And what does she live on? Social Security.

Yeah.

Okay. It doesn't matter. You can use it. You can set it in the emergency fund. I'd probably just set it in an emergency fund. But you've got to have the 18,000 plus the proceeds of the truck where your stinking mother doesn't get her hands on it. Got it?

Yeah.

A bank account that you open up, and it goes. The money goes in there, period.

Okay.

And no one has access to it, period. It's for the use of your grandmother to pay her house payment and help her supplement her monthly because social insecurity won't do it.

Okay.

You are too sweet, darling. I'm trying to get. You mean.

Yeah, I know. I want to cry.

I'm gonna. I'm gonna throw some grit down in your coffee and just stir it in there. Get you some sand. Okay? You're just a sweet. You're just a sweet little person. And I'm. I'm ready to go get your mom for you. My gosh. What a woman.

You love your grandma, right, Lindsey? You love her, then love her enough to say no to mom and be mean. Cause you're protecting grandma.

You're not being mean. When you tell someone they can't steal money, that is not mean. That is just, like, facts. That's facts and stuff, George. You can't steal my money. Well, that's not mean.

Criminals are difficult to deal with, Dave.

They're very, you know. But no, this is a boundary less moron right here. She just. This woman. No one ever tells her no. She thinks everything is hers, even when it's not. This is way thieves think she's the.

Queen and we're the sorry people.

Exactly. Yeah. That's exactly right.

Unbelievable.

I'm gonna teach her a new word. No. It's a new word for her. She can form it. It's. No. Can you do that, Lindsey? Can you. Can you stand up to her and stop all this or not?

I will tell her.

No, you gotta stop her now. You gotta set the structures in place where she no longer has access to any of this money. She never gets another dime because you're so smart. Got it?

Okay.

And if your mama's mad, so what? Get in line. This is the Ramsey show. Hey, listen up. Everyone is at risk of identity theft. I don't care if you're a hermit, living off the grid, listening to the show on a battery powered radio. All of your data collected by every company you've ever done business with lives online. Your bank, your doctor's office, retailers, the apps on your phone, the gas station where you have loyalty rewards. They all store your info online, making them ripe for a cyber attack or data breach. That's why I've been telling people for almost 25 years they need an id theft protection plan. And the only one I've ever recommended is from Zander Insurance. They monitor your personal and financial info, your home title, and take over the work if you become a victim. It's the most thorough and affordable plan out there. I even have it for my family and our entire team. Visit zander.com or call 803 564282. George Campbell Ramsey, personality, is my co host today. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 8882. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. AJ is with us.

AJ is in Springfield, Illinois. Hi, AJ. How are you?

Hello, gentlemen. Thank you for taking the call.

Sure.

Appreciate it.

Sure. What's up?

I need some help. We are just starting off on the baby steps, and I'm trying to get my wife on board. She's 50 years old. I am 40. We have zero in the savings, and I am just worried that we will have nothing. Retirement. She works at a local university in the treasury department, making, like, less than two grand a month. I'm military, foreign military, so I get my disability. So I get about $4,400 a month. And we are about $48,000 in debt. We are just starting the baby steps. We're on baby step two and we're just starting off. We have three kids that are all special needs and they might not leave the house. And I am just pulling my hair out trying to figure out how we're going to survive into our golden age. Golden years.

Okay. And you're unable to work. You're unable to work due to your disability?

No, I can work. I was a football coach at a college, but my mother in law, her cancer came back and so I was taking her to her chemo five days a week for a few months and that just finished like a week and a half ago. So right now with the kids being out of school, I'm a stay home dad taking care of them while she's working. And all the jobs are kind of filled up right now. So I'm still kind of looking around, but I just signed up for side hustle as being a football referee and I'm still looking around. I'm going to start doing Doordash again. Just try to bring in some extra income. But right now with the.

Is it fair to say that with you, your wife being underemployed and you being unemployed that you all have an income problem?

Well, we make about 87,000. 87,000?

You said she made 2000 and you made 4400. That's not 87,000.

Well, I bring home 55 and her take her.

What happened to 4400? Did I not hear 4400?

Yeah, it's 4400 plus her 2000, that's 63. So, yeah, after 7272 thousand dollars. Yeah, 72,000, but with her taxes and all that, it's like 87,000, but yeah, that's why I'm trying to get some side jobs and stuff and just, I'm.

Do you're clearly stressed about this. This is a tough life and situation you're in. Does she have any sense of urgency or stress around this?

A little bit, but she's more worried about having money in the savings account versus paying off all of our debt.

What, do you have money inside?

We have like $5,000.

You both have recognized that there's a problem. What we're having an alignment problem on is how to solve the problem. Is that right? She wants to save her way through it. You want to get out of debt.

That's correct.

But she recognizes, she recognizes your situation sucks, right?

Yes.

Okay. All right.

That's a good step.

Well, no, she doesn't, she doesn't. She thinks we're doing okay because we finally bought a house. We have, you know, the, quote unquote, you know, lifestyle where we have a car and a house and finally can have some stability for the kids. But I'm like, no, we're in mass amounts of debt. We need to get that stuff paid off.

How much? How much? How much debt do you have?

48,000.

On what?

Two car payments? $2,400 in credit cards. I bought her some jewelry for our ten year anniversary and a couch.

When did you buy jewelry?

About six months ago.

Okay, so you weren't freaked out six months ago.

I was working.

You weren't freaked out six months ago.

I wasn't until I stopped working and then realized where you are completely screwed.

Okay. All right. So, um, well, I think that, number one, we need to back it. You don't come at somebody in this situation with the what. You come at them with the why. Okay? What we are doing is not working. We are deeply in debt and we are broke, and I am freaking out. This is your discussion with your wife. Okay? I'm not okay. I think we're going to retire and have to eat. Alpo, I don't like this plan. This is freaking me out. I. You seem to think we're okay. I get that, but I'm not okay. And you need to hear me that as your husband. I'm freaking out. This is terrorizing me. I see these numbers and I can't sleep. I see these numbers and I have, you know, increased anxiety. My heart rate goes up. This is scaring me to death. Honey, I think we have a real problem and we need to do something about it. And what would it be like if we had no payments? What would it be like if we had a two strong incomes and no payments of any kind? How much could we save and invest then?

What traveling could we do? What cars would we purchase? What would life look like if we didn't have any payments? I'm freaking out. I want us to sit down and determine where we, where we want to be in ten years and how we're going to get there. How would you like to be completely free? I think it would be. It would mean the world to me. And just no kids. Kids are asleep in bed. You're not. Tv's not on. We have a scheduled appointment to sit down and talk about this and don't talk about what to do, talk about why to do it. The why is I want to retire with dignity. The why is I want us to have choices in the things we get to do as a family. The why is I want to change our family tree. We've got three special needs kids here broke people can't take care of special needs kids into adulthood, and we're broke. We've taken on this responsibility. We've got to do something. Help me. Talk to me. Let's talk about this. And then. And then ask her what she thinks we ought to do once you get alignment on that.

But the. And don't talk about freaking Dave Ramsey.

I don't.

You just turn me into a cuss word.

But then I stopped.

Yeah. Because I know, honey, we need to sell your car. This is a real, real way to get your spouse on board, you know? No. Yeah.

I'm not going to do that.

It's got to be her idea.

She immediately, you know, the two of you. And then I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll have Christian pick up our associate producer in here and get you guys signed up for financial Peace University. If your wife will agree to go with you.

Okay.

I'll give it to you free. Okay. And get on the every dollar budgeting app. We'll give you both of them, okay. As our gift. But if you try to do this by yourself, it's gonna make your marriage and your relationship worse. It's gonna drive a wedge. So don't do it by yourself. Talk to her. Hey, let's. Would you try this with me? It was free. I got. Gave it to me. Would you try it with me? Would you look at this? Would you think about this? It would mean the world to me. And she will do it, if nothing else, as an act of love towards you. Once she hears your heart on the why, we need to do this, not what we need to do. You can't talk about the what until you are in agreement about what the future needs to look like. And then together we can discuss, okay, we need to sell this. We need to increase this piece of income. We need to, you know, we need to admit that that was a mistake and never do that again. Whatever it is, you start putting those things together. George.

Yeah. AJ? I think we also need to look at what does a career look like for you? You're 40. You're a spry 40. I want you to really sink your teeth into something you love and make great money doing it. And I'm going to send you ken's new book, find the work you're wired to do. It comes with a get clear career assessment. I want you to also step into that and have some mojo, because I think you've lost some of that as you've stepped into unemployment.

Yeah, agreed. Okay. We'll give you all that. We want to help you, man. We want to help you. But you've got an income problem, and you've got an alignment with your spouse problem. And you know, what I'm saying is, have a dream date. Dream again together about what a wonderful future would look like. And then what are the difficult, sacrificial steps that must be taken to get to that wonderful future? Because no one gets to a wonderful future accidentally or easily. It's both hard and intentional. That's where good things come from. Hard things and intentional things create good things. No one wanders accidentally into the land of success. You got dirt under your fingernails. You're scratching, you're clawing, and you're fighting. And the only way to do it is together when you're married. This is the Ramsey show, so here's a quick math refresher. There are only 24 hours in a day, so your business needs to streamline tasks that are time suckers and focus on activities that make money. So to reduce headaches as they scale, smart businesses use netsuite by oracle, the number one cloud financial system. Netsuite helps you improve efficiency by bringing all your major business processes into one platform.

So join the more than 37,000 smart businesses like Ramsey solutions that have done the math and graduate to Netsuite. And right now, you can download Netsuite's KPI checklist absolutely free@netsuite.com. ramsey. That's netsuite.com ramsey. George Camel, Ramsey personality is my co host. I'm Dave Ramsey. This is the Ramsey show in the lobby of Ramsey solutions on the debt free stage. Tyler and Sarah are with us. Hey, guys. How are you doing?

Great.

Welcome. Where do you live? Omaha, Nebraska. All right. Fun. And all the way to Nashville to do a debt free scream. Yes, sir. How much debt have you guys paid off? 200,000. $200,000? And how long did that take? Four years and nine months. Yeah. Good. All right. Making what kind of income range during that time? 171 to 230. Cool. What do y'all do for a living?

I'm a security consultant, and I'm an attorney. I work in house for a financial services company in Omaha.

Excellent. Excellent. Oh, I wonder who that is. Good. Way to go, guys. Good. And I love the t shirts. Weird people. You're looking at weird people. What's the bottom line? I can't quite make it out debt free since 2024. All right. All right. That's the. The new university shirt. Okay. Got it. Okay, so 200,000 if you're saying weird people. That must mean you paid off your house.

That's the house.

I love it. Way to go, you guys. What's the house worth? About 410. Okay. And it's a paid for house. Yeah. Wow. I'm so happy for y'all.

Thank you.

How does it feel that I have a payment in the world?

It feels amazing.

Yeah. Wow. How old are you? 237.

And I'm 36.

And the house is worth about what? Oh, at 410. Oh, you said that. I'm sorry. And how much in your nest egg? A little over 405. Okay. So you're approaching a millionaire. Yeah. Baby steps. Millionaires in your mid forties. Yep. Why did it get to go?

That's incredible. So were you long term Ramsey followers, or was this a new thing for a whole marriage?

Yes. I had a roommate where I got the FBU CDs from, and so we put them on road trips. We made several road trips back to her family and my family, and so we would listen to those and we kind of did it on our own.

So, yeah, when we started out, we've been married for about eleven years. When we started out, we had babies to baby step two debt to get through. Tyler had a small truck loan, and I graduated from law school with nearly $100,000 student loan debt.

Okay. She cleared all that off.

Yes.

And that's not in this. 200.

That's not in there.

Okay. So then. Then that you attacked the mortgage beginning four years ago?

Yes.

Right. Okay. Yeah. It kind of like, with my truck, I graduated college debt free, but then I rewarded myself with a brand new pickup truck with a new payment. Yeah.

And we both kind of thought that each other's debt was stupid and irresponsible, so we had to deal with that as one of our first marriage financial issues.

So I. Your truck's dumb. Your student loans dumber.

Whose debt is dumber? It's a new game show.

So I. My plan was just to pay off my truck as I was because I got a new job, income was coming in, and we. When we were talking about getting married, we thought, we don't want to have this hanging around. We just want to kind of fly through it. And so that's what we did is we made a lot of extra payments. We lived off my income, and her income went to just paying off her student loans. Okay. And it got it all clear real fast.

It did, yep.

And then four years and nine months ago. So really, the start of this is just the start of paying off the house is just the continuation of the baby steps. It was.

Yep.

We took a little break in the middle there to get the other baby steps going, build up some savings. In fact, one of the things that we had saved up for was to go on the last Ramsey cruise in March of 2020, and we were gonna go, like, it didn't matter that the coronavirus was coming. We were gonna go, Dave, too.

So was I.

And so during that time, we got all that money back. And then since we were already in a good financial position and had good, solid jobs, we were really able to make a lot of progress on the mortgage and just decided, are you gonna.

Go on the one in 25?

Unfortunately not. We have some other financial goals that.

Are in line how you did me. Okay. Yeah. So that's cool. That's fun. It's a huge lump sum we put on there. And I printed off our amortization schedule on the back of a door. And when you could see how much progress you're getting because you just get frustrated with how much money is not going to pay off the principal. It's all going interest. The more we were able to move that line, you just. You could see how many months you were skipping. Skipping. You're just dropping down in the schedule. Yeah, it just drops down.

Yeah.

So we refinanced in 2020 to a really low interest rate, which just move the line even further. And so that allowed us to keep on moving on it. You know, if you think about it, we're sitting here talking to people that paid off their house in four years and nine months. That's just weird. That's very weird. I'm proud of you.

Most of culture says, I'll hang on to it for 30 years, then I'll probably refinance. I'll do a heloc. We'll pull the equity out. We'll do some other dumb stuff. And you guys went, no, we just want to be done with payments.

Right?

Yep.

Okay. So you're 100% debt free. You're at about 800k net worth. You're 47 years old. 37. I'm sorry. 37. 37 years old. I'm sorry. And you're making 230. And you're not going on the cruise. What are you gonna do? That's fun. You gotta do something fun. This Nashville trip was one of it. Go ahead.

And then we're gonna buy a minivan.

Okay, cool. I'm monogamous, kid. Very good. I like it. Good for y'all. Well done.

Thank you.

Well done. Did you have people cheering you on, or is this just a private party? It was mostly private. People around us knew that we were doing it because just the way we lived, we weren't frivolous. We said no to a lot of things, and then we led a couple of FPU classes, and so they were able to help cheer us on, as well. Yeah. When you lead the class, you got to do it. There's no hypocrite. Right. You got your game on.

Built in accountability, partner.

That's right.

That's the worst. You got to be hardcore, then. Yeah. Good stuff. All right, then. If you've been leading a class, do this. Talk to the people out there, because even though there are literally thousands of debt free screams posted on YouTube, thousands with an s. Even though that sometimes people still believe, don't believe it can work, tell them, you know, what advice would you give to somebody out there right now that doesn't think it'll work?

Well, we talked about it really is all attitude. If you want to do it, you can do it. The framework is there. You've laid out a lot of very practical things that people can do. It's just you have got to have a fire in your belly to be able to do it and the stamina to stick through it, because for a lot of people, it's a lot of years of having to say no to things and making sacrifices.

You all are going to be millionaires by the time you're 40.

That's the goal.

I mean, you will be. You're. The math says you are. Yeah. Way to go.

Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.

That's right.

Right. Henry Ford. Yeah. That's it.

Yeah.

All right. And you brought the kiddos to do the debt free scream with you, right?

Yeah.

What are their names and ages?

This is Silas. He's eight, Hadassah is six, and Anna is one. And they have been practicing and they've really been sticking with us these four years, learning about being content and wanting. Our goal is to ultimately just be generous with our money and make a difference. Be good money managers of the money that God's given us.

Amen. Be good stewards.

Well done with the matching shirts for the kiddos, too.

Yeah. We're looking weird people. Weird people. That's right. Well, you changed your family tree. We're very proud of you. You're amazing people. You are weird. In a world where normal is broke, you're weird. So, for those of you new to this, you don't know, weird is a huge compliment. If normal sucks, be weird. Right? So that's a huge thing around here, and we're just. You guys are amazing. Very well done. All right. Tyler and Sarah, Silas, Hadassah and Anna. Hey. 200,000 paid off. House and everything. Almost. Baby steps. Millionaires already. Four years and nine months, making 171 to 230. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream. Three, two, one.

We're debt free.

Yeah, baby.

Wow.

I think we shocked baby Anna out of tears. She was crying, and then she was, too. Just freaked out.

Then she's like, what is all this yelling? What is all that? Why are all these people yelling? Because we're free. And that's the sound you make when you're free. It's never a quiet sound. It's a loud sound. Freedom is a big deal.

Use your outdoor voice.

You get to make choices. Yeah. You use your outdoor voice for freedom. You get to make choices, man.

Mortgage means death pledge in French, and they just broke the death pledge, so they're living now truly in freedom. No lender gets to tell them what to do.

Amen. Preach it, George. This is the Ramsey show.

This show is sponsored by Betterhelp. Hey, it's Deloney, and you gotta be kidding me. 2024 is flying by. So let me ask you, what's something you're proud of so far this year, and what's something you wish you could just stop and collaborate and listen and change direction on? It's important to take a moment to celebrate your wins, and it's also important to make adjustments and make changes when necessary. Therapy can help you take stock of your progress and set achievable goals for the next six months, nine months, and beyond. Therapy is a safe, effective place to learn how to say hard things out loud and to make realistic plans for moving into an unknown future. Personally, I've been blessed to have a great therapist, and you can be blessed with a great therapist, too. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give betterhelp a try. It's entirely online, it's convenient, it's flexible, and it's suited to fit your schedule. You just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time for no extra money. Take a moment and be intentional for the rest of 2024 with Betterhelp.

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Years ago, the team came in and sat down in my office as the CEO and said, we want to build an app. If you want to build an app for what? They said, we need a budgeting app. People need an app for their phone to know how to do budgeting. I'm like, why would you do that? I got a perfectly good yellow pad right here. You can just get your little pencil out, your little calculator, and they're like, dave, you're a freaking dinosaur. I know, but I do own the place, so be respectful. And so, you know.

But, um, I'm sure they didn't use those words.

Actually, they did. Yeah, they did.

Wow. So how did the shark Tank meeting go when they pitched this to you?

Um, you know, we actually negotiated with a company that had built a budgeting app and thought about buying one. And by the time we got into it that we realized the amount of work we would have to do to fix all the stuff they did wrong, that it was easier to just build one. And so we just sat down with our guys and started building one. And still it cost us more money to do it that way.

But it was easier because it reflects the Ramsey plan.

The beginning called every dollar, because, you know, we tell you to have every dollar needs a name before the month begins, and you need to agree on it with your spouse. And so no one wins the Super bowl accidentally. It's a series of intentions. In the financial world, it's called a budget. Every month, you tell your money what to do instead of wondering where it went. Every dollar needs a mission. Every dollar needs an assignment. Every dollar. So we named it every dollar because that's something I've been doing from stage and on the air for years at that point. And so, turns out those little goobers in my office were right.

That was over a decade ago.

Now it was over 50 million downloads ago. It's crazy how this thing has exploded. So this app is. And we've, of course, every minute are iterating it and fixing it and getting it better and better and better. Now it walks you through the baby steps. Now it does paycheck planning. So if you get paid twice a month, you can divide up what paycheck goes to, what bill, all that kind of stuff. And it's. The thing is stinking amazing. So you can get it in the app store because it's an app. There you go, baby. And I'm not talking about appetizers here. So, yeah, download every dollar for free in the app store or Google Play, and you can put it on your phone, your spouse's phone, you put it on your desktop and get started for free. And if you want to hook up to your bank, you get a whole bunch of other different things and there's a small fee to do all that. But man, it's, this thing's incredible. It makes it simple to make your money behave. Too many people don't happen to their money. They go out on a Sunday afternoon drive and have no destination.

Well, every time you leave the house, it's $100.

Yep.

So you gotta have a plan for where the money's going ahead of time. You're pre deciding when you make a budget game plan.

Every dollar in the app store, Google Play or@everydollar.com dot Marcel is with us in Chicago. Hi, Marcel, how are you?

Hello, George and Dave. Thank you. How are you doing?

Sure, what's up?

So with me and my wife, we started the baby steps three months ago and we managed to kind of clear 20 times thousand of credit card debt loans and 28 on a car, which I was having a stupid car loan, $950 a month.

You cleared all of that in two or three months?

Yes, yes, we started pretty intense. And yes, I was sick and tired of being in debt.

Good.

Not seeing the end of the tunnel kind of getting more and more and too much in debt.

Good job.

So we, and this is part of also we having a five month old baby. It's our first one. So I think this kind of woke something in me where I'm like, okay.

I got to be responsible for this.

You're a good dad. You care about the future of your family. Well done.

Thank you. So I have a trucking business where I'm operating as well. In it, I currently have two trucks and two trailers and one truck is almost paid off with like 7000 left. One trailer is fully paid off. And then I have another truck which is 170,000. And I'm kind of upside down on it because the trucking, because of the economy and trucking business and everything went down, it probably would be worth like 110 or 120 at the moment. And the other semi trailer is worth 42,000. And if I would sell, it'll be like 70,000. So going through the baby steps, we also have another car loan, which is 20,000 on a Tesla, but it's going to be paid off in five months. So my question is, since I have also a business and still that debt, I consider it being mine because I put the signature on it. I'm not sure how to plan on paying it since do I finish the baby steps on a personal level and move on to the business or how like, I'm kind of like a bit lost. How to maneuver the business debt.

Good question. Very good question. Well, there's two parts to the answer. One is you've already accurately identified that it's not technically business debt, it's technically personal debt because they don't loan businesses your size money. They loan you money. Okay. And so you have a bunch of debt. But I would separate this and say I would number one, the 7000. I just try to get that knocked out. Okay. Quick. And just like the Tesla. Knock the Tesla and the seven grand out. Done. Then that leaves us with the two big notes on the newer tractor trailer. Right?

Yeah.

Okay. Now what I would do, you obviously run your business as a separate checking account, a separate P L. Yeah. You keep everything over there. You have a good, hopefully a good accounting system on that, right? Yes. Okay, here's what we.

Depreciation. So you have to keep everything in order.

Exactly. Well, and you have to do your tax, you know, you have to do your tax planning because you have to do some quarterly estimates. So what we teach entree leaders in our small business, coaching is a little bit of a different formula on their debt in the business. It's. We won't call it business debt. We'll call it debt in the business. All right. It's a completely separate operation over there. And what we teach them to do is to take a minimum living wage. What's it take to operate your household as your salary out of the business? Not big profits. Okay? Not big. Not big checks, not windfall, no big bonus money for. For you, okay. But just enough to. For your family to eat comes out of the business. Once you've done that, then calculate net profit after you have been paid, okay, for this month. And then we suggest you put 20% to 30% of that net profit into retained earnings for the business somewhere in there. And the other 70 or 80% on the debt debt. Let the business cash flow build retained earnings a little bit while using the lion's share of the profits to knock the debt down while you make a living out of the business.

Okay?

Yes.

You see how I did that formula?

Yes. Yes. I figured it would be something like, like this because I was, like, worried that if I pay all my money.

Towards the debt, you can't. Your business has to have. Your business has to have operating income, correct? Yes.

Yes.

You've got to have more, more than just budgeted because you're in a, especially in a mechanical world like you're in where you've got equipment, because stuff just blows up, you know?

Correct.

And, and then you, you know, you'll lose a contract if you don't get the load delivered and so on. So you've got to perform in business, and you, and to do that, you have to keep a cash position. And so the good news is I started doing that. We started this business that ran, called Ramsey. It's about a $300 million business now on a card table in my living room 30 years ago, somewhere along the line, my wife got tired of us whining about not having any cash in the business because we were broke. You know, we weren't making much money in the early days. And she said, the reason you don't have any cash in the business is you all are hypocrites. You tell people to have an emergency fund, and you don't have any cash saved in the business for emergencies.

Ooh.

Sharon Burns.

Yeah, I got crashed. So I hate it when she says stuff like that, and I really hate it when she's right, which is a.

Lot of the time.

So we called our retained earnings the Sharon fund. For a long time, it was nicknamed the Sharon fund. Today, saving a percentage of, and we've never ain't debt, but we always save a percentage every single month of our, of our profits before we pay out bonuses or anything else to me or anybody else, we put a percentage into the Sharon fund, into retained earnings. Consequently, all these years later, that's a big old fund now. It adds a lot of money, especially.

When you don't need to use it.

Yeah. And we haven't hardly used, I mean, we've used the right position. We've used it to buy some things for the business, and we've used it to, you know, cover a few cash flow things here and there. But by and large, it's just built.

Up a healthy company.

It's a great cash position. What it is. So that's how we did it, brother. And you're a good man. I'm glad you're glad you're thinking like that as a new dad. This is the Ramsey show, live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. It's the Ramsey show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. George Camel, number one best selling author of the book pay, uh, I can't get it out. I tried to say paycheck to purpose. That's Coleman's book. That's, that's, you got so many children through the heart. It's a stake through the heart. So it's something about being broken.

It breaking free from broke.

Thank you there.

I'll try to help you with the paycheck and purpose side, but our friend Ken Coleman is the expert on that.

Yeah, there we go. Anyway, George is also.

You got so many books around.

He's the co host of Smart Money Happy Hour with Rachel Cruz, one of our big hits on the Ramsey networks, on YouTube, and on spot on podcasts. So he's here to help me answer your questions at triple 8825-5225 here to help. And it's a good thing because apparently. Okay. Anyway, Nate is in Richmond. Hi, Nate. How are you?

I'm doing good, man. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

So, yeah, I'm in a bit of a position. I feel kind of stuck right now, so. I'm 26 years old, Dave. I graduated from a pretty expensive school in 2020, right in the height of COVID so. And I was actually supposed to get an internship from that. From that school that was actually taken away from me because they changed management and cut the program. So it hasn't been the most stable financial Runway for me for a while. At the current time that I'm in right now, for the last couple years, I've been really struggling with finding a job with my degree. I was a double major. I worked hard when I was in college. I got a marketing degree and a management degree. However, I didn't get a whole lot of real practical experience. Unfortunately, that's what I was hoping the internship would provide for me and most of my. I have, like, almost $100,000 in student loan debt, and I've been trying to pay him back. I just finished baby step one, so I'm trying to do what I can. However, trying to be frugal, as frugal as possible is not really. You know, it's going to be quite some time before I'm able to actually be able to be debt free.

And I didn't know what the best solution would be. My expenses, I, you know, I try to lower as many of them as I can, but at the time, I wish I could save more and pay these off quicker, but I'm just in a position where a lot of my coworkers, which I don't really need the degree that I have to be in the job that I'm in. So a lot of my coworkers are saving 500, 600, or just have that much money to play with. And then next month, my loans actually increase.

My co worker has hair, and I don't but it really doesn't affect me, okay? My co worker does. Who gives a crap?

I compared myself to Dave. I'd be really scared.

Who? Yeah, you know, you. Who gives a crap about your co workers? Nobody. What do you make?

Yeah, I make about just under 40,000 a year.

What are you doing?

So I'm a leasing consultant for a property management company right now.

Okay.

Because I know real estate is like. That's definitely one of the things I want to get into, but my credit was crap, and I had to fix.

That, so why not find out? Entry level marketing job making 40 or 45.

Our entry level marketing job making 50 or 60?

Well, I made, the most that I ever made was probably a little bit over 45, and that was when I was selling cars, but I did not like that position. Really?

But why aren't you pursuing marketing jobs?

I have, but a lot of them want experience with, like, digital marketing and stuff like that.

And that's why you go entry level? When I started here at Ramsey, I was entry level.

You were an internal.

I was an intern.

Yeah.

And then I got a temp job, and that turned into a full time job. And, you know, I feel like you haven't applied yourself enough to actually find that entry level marketing job, and I don't know why that is. Over four years, it feels like you've just chased whatever would provide money ASAP, and it's been something you don't really enjoy doing.

Yeah. I mean, that's the truth here.

Nothing. You've described what follows the career path that you're. That you studied for.

Yeah.

You didn't study to be a car salesman, and you studied lease apartments.

That's true.

Okay.

That's true.

So the marketing is. Marketing is a faster path to income, and it's what you studied for, assuming you get into it, enjoy it, and want to pursue that. It's a wonderful degree field. I mean, you know, it should open up. It's a broad enough category. It ought to open up a whole lot of things for you. But I think what you've discovered, just listening to the language that you're using, is that this. This thing called success is harder than you thought it was going to be.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's. It's. It's out here in the real world, you get bruised and beat and. Yeah.

Especially when you follow a curriculum for a very long time. Then you get into the real world and you're like, okay, what's next? I mean, it's been tough.

Well, you were. You were lied to when they told you that getting the degree was going to make it easy. Yeah, it doesn't make it easy. It just puts a tool in your belt. You just have a big old hammer. But, buddy, you got to get calluses. Swinging the hammer at the nail, and that's the hard part. I mean, it's. It is, um, you know, and so what. What I'm going to encourage you to do, as the old guy in the room is to persevere and really lean into this and go, okay, I'm going to lay out a five year game plan where I'm making $150,000 a year as a world class marketer five years from now. And that means I'm going to have to enter into a field that's going to take me there. I'm probably going to have to learn some digital skills. If you're going to do marketing in today's world, you have to be able to spell digital. I mean, when I. When I was doing this, when I started this company, the Internet had not been invented. But I'm a good digital marketer now, and I'm 63 years old. I'm a Tyrannosaurus rex.

I have short arms, you know? I mean, come on. And so it's, um. You know, you've got to. You've got to be able to adapt and lean into what the trends are. And today, that means even, you know, you know what this old guy's learning? I'm learning about things like, called AI, you know? And you do, too, man. You're no different, because I'll get my butt kicked out here in the marketplace if I don't learn the language and the vernacular and the nuance of the new ways of looking at things. I didn't know what a conversion rate was. I didn't know, you know, that the. Anyway, I'm not. There's no reason to sit here and teach a digital. I was enjoying, but, yeah, thank you, George. Well, as a guy, but, you know, it's true. I said, these meetings, I'm the dumbest guy in the room.

Well, even when I do.

But at least I'm at least, as the CEO, I'm at least going to learn enough of it to lead this place, because if we don't lead Ramsey into a digital world, we're screwed.

Yeah.

You know, we can't operate on analog. So you, you know, you're the same way, Nate. Your career is digital, man. If you're going to sell stuff, guess where people buy it. Freaking Internet, man. And you got to deal with them monsters. Call Google and Facebook and all of, you know, and all of their greed and misbehavior, and you got to deal with them and you got to handle it, and you got to work your way, you know, learn about roas, and you got to learn about whole new ways of doing things and pull in other people that, and so, yeah, get out there, man. Don't just kick back and rent apartments and whine about not getting out of debt. And I feel like I'm stuck, you know, roll up your dad gum sleeves and get after it.

Here, I'm going to send you a copy of my book, breaking free from broken eight. I walked through exactly what you just laid out. You fell for the trap. You fell for the what now? And that book's gonna help you do just that. But the key here is margin. You gotta spend less and make more. You've done a lot to spend less. It's time to make more. That's the next step.

Yeah. You're not making any money, and it's killing you. And you're hanging out with people that aren't making any money and feel like they're winning. That's hilarious. This is the Ramsey show. There aren't many places you can save hundreds of dollars a month and still give you great service, especially with health insurance. That's why Health trust financial is the only health insurance company Ramsey recommends. Health Trust financial objectively compares the top health insurance providers to meet your needs and budget. And remember, the service is free and there's no commitment. Go to healthtrustfinancial.com. dot healthtrustfinancial.com. george Camel, Ramsey personality is my co host today. Thanks for hanging out with us, America. We're so glad you're here. Open phones at triple 8825-5225 if you haven't heard. The Ramsey bunch, that's us. We are going on the live like no one else cruise. March the 22nd through the 23rd of next year, 2025, 29th.

It's not a one day cruise.

What did I say?

22Nd to 23rd is what I heard.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I was like, that'd be a real slick.

Yeah, we're just going to go in one little circle and come back.

Sunset cruise.

Yeah, it's a 22nd through the 29th is what I was trying. Trying to say. You're right. Thank you, George. Turks and Caicos, you can't get there in one night. And St. Thomas, you can't get there in one night. Puerto Rico and the Bahamas, other places, well, you can get to the Bahamas in one night. But anyway, the, they do that one occasionally and I wouldn't recommend that one. But anyway, this one is Holland America. It's one of the high end ships and it's a fairly new ship. And it's 100% Ramsey people going to be on there, nobody else. It's all Ramsey personalities. We're bringing some of our friends from the entertainment world. Dana Carter, who had a big hit called strawberry wine a while back. Big, big star here in Nashville. And Stephen Curtis Chapman, good friend and multi dove award and Grammy award winner, is going to be with us, entertaining. We will all be doing sessions and events on the ship itself. And these are incredible stops. Maneet Shohan. I was with Maneet last night, as a matter of fact, at a dinner, and she's from Iron Chef and all the food channel.

You know her from that. She's an incredible restaurateur. Probably doing, might be doing a little cooking lesson on there. I don't know.

Be at that event.

So gonna be some really cool, funny. Yeah. Nashville Sunrise, there's everything and all the Ramsey personalities all week, including me. All week. Sharon and I will be on the ship the entire week. So we're gonna be hanging out with you guys. Don't come unless your baby step four and beyond. If you're still saving your emergency fund, you don't go on a cruise if you're in debt. I'm working on baby step two. You don't go on a cruise, including ours. So don't. This is the live like no one else. See, if you live like no one else, later, you can live like no one else and give like no one else. So this is for people that want to have that milestone. It's our chance to celebrate with you, celebrate you for being a hero and getting this far. And, you know, we tried to do this back in 2020, and there was a little problem back that year, if you don't remember, that kept people from cruising and so didn't get to do it. Everybody got their money back and now we get to restart and it's almost sold out. There are still some seats left, some tickets left, but are some suites and rooms and all that.

But you better really get over to ramsaysolutions.com cruise. It's going to be really fun. We're jacked about doing it. We've never done one of these so well. Actually, I did a tiny little one like 30 years ago. Oh, wow. As an event, it was called the money game cruise. And 34 people went, wow. Yeah.

And look at you now look at that.

So sold.

It's gonna be sold out.

It took, it took 25 years to talk me into trying it again, and then I got covided. So now we're doing it again. And, yeah, by God, we're doing it. So there you go. And it's gonna be fun. Gonna be a blast. So Ramsey solutions.com slash cruise. Get tech. Get your rooms while you still can. Jennifer's in Nashville. Jennifer, how are you?

Good, thanks. Thanks for having me on. Hi, guys. So I am looking for advice on how to approach planning a budget like retirement. My husband and I are on very different pages about where we are financially, and I need to be able to communicate to him that we are closer than he thinks.

Okay. What, is your nest egg size.

Broken up?

No, just total.

So we have.

Oh, gosh, you're all your investments that you're going to live off of at retirement. That's the discussion, right?

We have it. Sure. We have a sep worth about one and a half million. We have another, like, employer supported retirement fund of maybe 100,000. We have a million in cash. We have zero debt.

Why do you have a million in cash?

I don't know.

I don't either.

We don't know what to do with it.

Well, you know, invest it. You invest.

We do have another account with 100,000 that we're investing on our own.

All right. So if you take two and a half million dollars, he's afraid you can't live off of that. How old are you people?

We're in our early fifties.

Okay. And so the discussion is, do we have enough to live on and he's the saver or you're the saver?

Well, we're obviously both savers.

I mean, well, you're both a donut. Yeah, but, I mean, who's the natural? Who gets a high from saving?

Probably me.

Okay.

But he thinks that he just. He just doesn't think that we are. I mean, you know, I feel like we have enough money to go with, but.

What's your household income?

450.

Okay, well, two and a half won't create 450.

I understand that for sure.

Do you need.

What do you actually want to live? What expenses will you have per year, do you think, in retirement?

Just, you know, routine monthly expenses, a couple of vacations a year.

Could you live off of, say, ten grand a month? Do you need 15 grand a month?

Easily.

Okay, well, now you're more in line with the numbers you gave your house.

Paid off.

Oh, yeah. It has been paid off for what's it worth? One and a half.

Good for you. Well done. Y'all have done so good.

Over $4 million net worth.

Okay, so here's some simple age 30.

With $150,000 in student loans and no money.

Good for you.

But we work really hard.

Yeah, you've been making good money, too. That helps. And. And you've been wise with it. And so you pot, you know, you're ended up here with a $5 million plus net worth. All right, let's just do some back of napkins. Simple, primitive math, nothing complicated. Okay. I have made tens of millions of dollars tied up in mutual funds, okay? Indecent growth stock mutual funds. The S P 500, which is the baseline of what the stock market it does, has averaged, for the past 80 years, 11.2%. Okay? My personal mutual funds. And it's not. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. Do have done a little over twelve. I beat the market a little bit. Not much. By picking mutual funds that have a long track record of outperforming the s and P. Okay? So we can use. You can use some numbers somewhere around there if you want to use them. So if you took the million that's sitting in cash stupidly, and you put it in that, and your other money was in that. So let's say we take two and a half and it's making ten. 1112 somewhere in there.

Okay.

Okay. Yep.

Round numbers, two and a half, ten, 250,000, $20,000 a month.

That's more than a live off.

Okay. For sure. Well, I mean. And. But now, and you're not touching the principle, doing that. You're just living off of it. But also that what it will purchase is going down because inflation's eating away at the value out it. Okay, so that's not a great long term plan, but I'm just giving you round numbers. Okay. So in other words, if you pulled 200,000 off and it was making 250 and you're leaving 50 in there every year, you're probably covering inflation.

I would hope so.

Yeah. I'm just doing back. I'm just doing back a napkin math. All right. If you want to get a little bit more technical, you say, okay, I've got mine invested at 12%. If I pull off 8% of my investments and I'm making twelve, that means I'm raising my principal balance by four every year. Right?

Right.

That would be what inflation is. Average 4.2% for the past 78 years.

Okay.

Okay. So if you. If you just pull off. If you make twelve and pull off eight. This is not exact, but it just gives a. Gives you a comfort level that we can make it on $250,000 a year. This thing. This money. This money's making 200, 5300 thousand a year. We're going to pull off 150 or 180, or 180 is 15,000. You know, and that doesn't count everything else.

And that's anywhere from, like, a six to 8%.

And that. That math is perpetual motion. It does not ever destroy, because we've never dipped into the principle. The goose just keeps laying the eggs. Yeah. The goose keeps laying the eggs. And that. Yeah, you just walk that out. Now, what you need to do, though, is you need to sit down with a small Vester pro, go online at Ramsey Solutions, and find a smart vestor pro in your area that has the heart of a teacher, and walk you through these basic things and get that million dollars invested and make sure that one and a half that's in the retirements and good mutual funds doing that kind of returns. And if it is, y'all are just fine. You're gonna be fine. And you've done a great job. You're master savers. You know, you've become from 150,000 in debt at 30 years old to now in your fifties, 25 years later, you're worth $5 million, and you should be. Way to go. Congratulations. George Camel, Ramsey personality, is my co host today. Thank you for joining us. It is a free call at triple 8825-5225 in the lobby of Ramsey solutions on the debt free stage.

Mike and Nicole are with us. Hey, guys. How are you?

We're doing great, Dave. Thanks for having us.

We're honored to have you. Where do you live?

Columbus, Ohio. Go bucks.

I love it. Love it. Welcome to Nashville. How much debt have you paid off?

107,000.

Cool. How long did that take?

About four years.

Good for you. And your range of income during that time?

I went from 53 to 58 in the first three years, and then combined 115 towards the end.

Okay, cool. What do y'all do for a living?

I am a installation manager for a h vac controls company.

Mm hmm.

I'm a part time music teacher.

Love it. Very good. Good for you all. What kind of debt was the 100.

And 793 of it was student loan, a little bit of a discover card and a small medical bill.

Ah. Okay. How long y'all been married?

15 years.

15 years.

Okay, so after eleven years of marriage, what was the I've had it moment? What changed? Everything.

It was about a little bit after Christmas 2019. We were like, let's look at our finances. And we pulled up all of our student loan statements and started looking at it, and the numbers just weren't making any sense to us. We started to tally it up and realize we were $33,000 more than when we started. Interest had accrued out of hand, and.

You were just making minimum payments, and so the interest had ballooned.

Yeah. We were on an income based repayment plan, and I think some of our loans had variable rates, and we didn't really know what was going on.

You were pedaling backwards 100%, throwing money away.

So you're, like, paying $100, but the interest is 500, and so it's just compounding every day.

And then we looked at it all, and we were just in total shock.

Totally. Yeah, I was just ill. I was like, how could this happen? Like, how did really, like, how did we let it happen? And I spent that week after Christmas just prayerfully considering, like, what to do about this, because I knew we had to do something. Like, the financial trajectory wasn't looking good for us. So my friend Amanda actually had the total money makeover on her shelf. And I remember she had read it, and she had really loved it. And I was like, I don't know. Amanda read this book, so I, knowing I was broke, went to the library, got the book off the shelf, and read it in a day, and came to Mike, and I was like, oh, man, we really. We gotta consider doing this. And honestly, the burden's kind of on us to consider the consequences or the implications if we don't do this. So January 2020, we got to it. We decided, let's do it. Let's see what we can do. And that month, we put an extra thousand dollars towards our student loans. And then we went to Ikea and celebrated because the cappuccinos were free. And that was really the first time we were like, oh, my God, we're doing it.

We put a $1,000 towards this. This is working.

This is insane. Okay, let's keep going. And, you know, we told our friends what we were doing, and, man, like, we were broke, but we're real relationally wealthy. We had a bunch of people in our corner and rooting for us and cheering for us, and we knew we wanted to document this event, I guess is what you would call it, like, that this was going to be something really monumental in our lives. So we actually started an Instagram account, mostly for an artifact to document our journey, but it ended up being this really great support system and accountability system. Like, if you tell the whole Internet you're doing this, you know you're gonna keep at it. And we actually. What was so fun and the Instagram journey was that we found this one couple who was also paying off a ton of student loans, and they started this hashtag called villainize your debt. And so they named all of their student loans after Disney villains, which was, like, such a creative. Yeah. And, you know, they would, like, track it.

Jafar, you are going down. I love it.

Yeah. So we did the same thing. Our favorite show. Yeah, exactly. Our favorite show is the office. So we named all our student loans after office characters that you just love.

So great.

Yeah, it was a lot of fun, I imagine.

Toby.

Oh, man.

Yeah.

Yeah. So right after y'all, right, after Covid hit, I mean, they. They paused the interest rates, and we're like, like, this is awesome. We can start making, like, real principal payments. And we just really went to town and hammered at it. We went through a budget and just looked at every. Every bit of money that was going out. Like, how can we shave and cut the fat and really, like, make everything we can towards these debts and take care of it? And we really went at it hard. I mean, we cut down streaming services and lowered our phone bills and ate off of, like, $60 a week for a little bit until I got a little too hungry, but, yeah.

Well, I love that you guys. Number one, you made it fun, and it made it more of an exciting journey versus this. Oh, my gosh. And number two, you had built in accountability, because everyone on Instagram now is like, hey, are they actually doing this? They paying off some debt this month.

Totally. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that was our defense, and I really went to work on offense, just generating an extra income. My friend Mary managed a local Airbnb, and they needed a house cleaner. And she called me up, and she's like, hey, do you want this gig? You know, you just work on the weekends for a few hours. It paid really well, and I'm like, 100%. So I actually just took that job, and I put in my earbuds and scrubbed some toilets and clean, do laundry and scrub the kitchens and make money and listen to the Ramsay show and all the debt free screams to keep motivated. And we did gig apps, like, I view it, and field agent to bring in money. We flipped furniture, kid items, household items. I had a friend send me this meme that was so great, where it's like. Like, well, you were debating if the glass was half full or half empty. I sold it, and I just felt like that was such a good description of what was happening in our house.

Should we just talk about it, or should we just do something?

Totally, totally. Our kids were in on it. I would pull over to the side of a curb, I'd be like, I bet I could flip those chairs, you know, for $40 or whatever.

Our oldest would be like, are you selling that for your student loans?

We're like, yeah, you know it, buddy. Oh, yeah. So we actually. We did a ton of market research, and actually, this December 1 month before we were done, we did some market research for bud light. And so we had, like, 48 bottles of bud light in our house. And I'm like, what are we gonna do with all of this?

I love that you were like, kids, it's for science.

Totally. Yeah, totally.

It's for the cause.

I was like, well, we need teacher gifts. So we actually put little bows on these bud light bottles and gifted them to our kids teachers.

Like, there's a story behind this, guys.

Yeah. With a little note, like, explaining what we were up to and, you know, and how much we were grateful for them and such.

But creative, resourceful. What's not to love here? You guys are inspiring. And the kids saw the whole thing.

Totally.

Some teachers get an apple, yours gets a buddy.

That's right.

Yep.

And then, yeah, over the last year, I got a new job. She encouraged me to find something else, which ended up really working out great. And we just kept living simply and didn't really change anything. Just had more income coming in and hammered hard at those student loans. And we were really able to see this numbers gone down fast when the.

Terror hit your belly that day and you went, this is not good. And your hands are shaking a little bit. You're making 53,000. And now fast forward four years later, you're making 115. With all this hustle and these moves and a permanent change of the way of thinking about. And you've completely cleared off $107,000 worth of debt. Y'all are amazing. You're heroes.

Thanks, David.

Thank you.

Yeah. So really, if I was to ask what your why is, it's gotta be your beautiful kids is our reason for doing this, but it really was because I don't want this feeling in my stomach anymore.

Totally, totally. Yeah.

I mean, I think a big. A definite big why for us is we really want to be generous givers. It's tough to do when you're indebted like that. So getting done with this is just so exciting because we're able to, like, we can give freely to other people who also need help. That was like, one of the big goals when we started this thing. We were really looking forward to that day. And so here we are. Really excited about that.

What's the first fun thing you do now that you're out of dinner next month?

We are going to Banff National park in Canada.

Nice. That's a good one.

That one's on the books, and we're ready for it.

Yeah. And I've earned every penny of it. Well done. That's a great one. I like it. See, this is what happens, people, when you work on it. Bring the kiddos up. Let's hear their names and ages right quick.

This is Hank. He'll be eleven in August, Nora's eight. And Tommy will be five next month.

Love it. Love it. Great looking family. 107,000 paid off in four years, making 53 to 115. A bunch of heroes. Look at them right there. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream.

Three, two, one.

We're debt free. You want to know how you get out of debt? You put the earbuds in, you listen to the Ramsey show and you clean toilets. That's how you get out of debt. This is the Ramsey show. Here at Ramsey, we talk a lot about building wealth. And a big part of protecting your wealth is insurance. Having the right insurance is key to taking care of the things and people that are most important to you. When you work with our Ramsey trusted insurance pros and partners, you'll have the peace of mind knowing you're not paying for gimmicks. You're only paying for what you need. Get connected with a Ramsey trusted insurance pro@ramseysolutions.com. coverage. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, George. George Coleman.

Now that's a name.

George Camel. Whatever your name is, is my co host today, Ramsey personality. So I'm on a trip. We took a little cruise from London to Iceland. And while I'm on the cruise ship, I get this email. And it's like George saying, would you watch this video clip? Because I have created more hate than is possible since pony gate. That's right, after. After horse gate or pony gate. Cause George told some woman to sell her horse one time. And like, all the horse people came after him.

You don't mess with the equestrian community.

Yeah, they really, the equestrian community, they get really pissed. So George said, sell the horse like it was nothing. And then now he's, now he's pissed off. I don't know, like the entire Internet or something. I don't. George.

I think I committed elder abuse somehow over the air, George. I don't know.

I just can't. I can't leave you in charge of nothing. Nothing.

So here's what happened.

I can't believe it.

Let's recap. I took Jade warshaw and I took a call.

86 fault.

Now Jade's fault. An 86 year old woman called in and she was in a bad situation. She was making about 1200 bucks from Social Security, but her expenses are 1500. And she's been using her credit card to cover the gap. So now she's in thirty k of credit card debt. She has a paid for home and a, you know, car, an old Buick or something that was worth probably nothing, a few grand. She's asking us for help. What does she do? So we were trying to lay out some suggestions for her of, you know, maybe downsizing in home to pay off the credit card debt, maybe. She said she was working up until she was 80. And I said, could you do something part time to cover the gap?

George told an 86 year old woman to get a job.

When you say it that way. See, George, it hits differently.

No wonder you got hate.

Exactly. So I wanted Dave's take on the clip. We're gonna. The team edited this down to about, you know, two minutes of our advice. I want to get David.

Let's, let's. Let's watch your edited version here.

Are you at the point where you can move in with your daughter?

I could, but I'm not too sure about that, you know, personalities. I mean, it's.

Well, the problem is, let's say if I stack my fingers and got you out of credit card debt, you're gonna be back in $30,000 of credit card debt because you're using the credit cards to, to float your life and expenses.

Your options are you either reach out to your daughter and you say, hey, you told me that this lifeline is here. And the truth is I need $200 every month in order to be able to live and not spend any more on this credit card. That dollar 200 will help me make my minimum payments and not go over because the other option is we might have to look at this house, which doesn't really make sense because of the cost of living today. There's not really an option.

Could you downgrade in house? You know, if you sold it for 250, could you go buy a place for 200?

I could, but I'm 86 years old.

I mean, I know, but we also didn't set ourselves up for a bright future in retirement. So this is part of it is we got to deal with the ramifications.

I was a single mother since I was 19 years old with no, no child support, and I worked until I was almost 80.

Is there something you could do to make a little bit of extra money right now? I think we might need to find a little part time job to clean up this debt and increase our income. If you're able bodied, it's not fun. This might be your only option other than selling the house and downgrading to an apartment that you pay cash for, which allows you to clean up the credit card debt, lowering your monthly expenses.

Well, I, leukemia, I've had it for 21 years. I really don't have a hot energy level. And I have a dog.

And then he told her to sell the dog and sell the horse and sell the house and offer that up.

We need to re home the dog because it was costing her $200 a month for the dog expenses.

And so. Okay, skip Papa Dave's take. It would be, it's a lot of fun to make fun of y'all, but, but truthfully, here's the situation. Okay. Okay. I mean, the poor lady, what a mess. Now, did I get the numbers right that she's paying just 1200 months coming in, but if she needs 1500, including paying her credit card payments, I believe.

That included her minimum payment on the credit.

I think it did. Okay. I think when I watched the whole clip back, I think I saw that. So. So basically what she's doing is she's borrowing money on a credit card to pay the credit card card mathematically. Because if she just didn't pay the credit card, she could barely eat by. Correct. Like, if she just ignored the credit.

Card, sounds like at least she'd have less of a gap to cover.

Okay. Yeah. So you told her to get a job.

She said she was working up until 80.

I know. 86.

She said she was able bodied with a car and can drive.

You activated the entire troll network of Reddit.

I think Dave might be working at 86 doing something hilarious.

I will be, but I don't have have to be. But, um. Yeah, so here's the thing, okay. The problem is, is that she's stuck and y'all are fishing around trying to figure out, and I would have been to trying to figure out how to help her. I mean, because there's no good answer in her story. There's no, like magic bullet. We don't see magic wands here people. We have to deal with the math. We have to deal with your reality, and facts are your friends, not feelings. And so, I don't know, an extra job. That was kind of funny.

Well, that was before she told me about her health problems.

To be fair, don't care. She's 86. But. So, yeah, sell the house is one option. That's a good option. And pay off the credit card debt. Two is don't pay the credit cards anymore. You're 86. Just don't pay them. What are they gonna do, sue you? What are they gonna do, take a lien on the house? They gonna sell a house for credit card debt? No. So you just default on the stupid things is probably what I would do. And. Or sell the house and move down in house and pay them off. One or two, but, yeah, you know, I can't live with my daughter. I have a dog I can't afford. I have this I can't afford. I have that I can't afford, but I won't do anything about any of those. She was really not giving you all, you know, you're trying to help her, and she really wasn't giving you. She's not willing to do anything. All right. No, I can't live with my daughter. We have personality issues. No, I can't. You know, and I don't want to sell my dog. I love my dog, and I don't want her to sell her dog, but also don't want you to not be able to eat.

So prioritizing your budget when you're in that kind of a situation and say, first thing we do is eat foods. First, lights and water. Second, house painting or house property taxes, anything associated with shelters. Third, transportation, if there is any. Fourth, clothing. You shouldn't need many clothes in a situation. And then you pay other bills if you're out of money. After you eat and pay your lights and water, you just don't pay the other bill, pay the creditors until you figure out something to do to pay them. And that could be selling the house. It could be that the kids chip in and start working with a credit card company. Could be you just let the cards go into default, and now I'll be the cold one and let everybody pile on me too, because that's what happens around here. But if you're 86 and you're a leukemia recovering patient, statistically, you know, four years would be a long time to live, and by then, they're not going to get around to doing anything if you just quit paying them. But cut up the credit cards and stop using them because continuing to use them with a plan to not pay them and die in debt is going to would be stealing.

So you can't, you can't do that with integrity, but you could just stop paying them. They shouldn't have loaned an 86 year old broke person money. So that's what they get. You could just default on it and, you know, she dies with it. When she dies with it, the house will be sold and the credit cards will get paid before any money is distributed to her kid, who she has personality issues with after being a single mom.

Now, another option, which we forgot to mention on air, is having a housemate, someone who lives there, maybe a young college student who gives her $500 for rent.

I would be great.

That could solve some of these problems, at least for her expense.

All that later, though, that was that.

Yeah, we did. We couldn't get to everything.

That's a better, that's better than the extra job I did.

I agree. I agree. In the moment, you know, I just.

Sit by, done 30,000 hours of talk radio helping people. I mean, 30 years of doing this, more than 30,000 hours. I'm sorry, tens of hundreds of thousands of hours. For 30 years, I've done this show five days a week, 3 hours a day. So the number of times I gave out advice that some of you didn't like is like every day. Some of you don't like the advice. So what, what you're going to find with the Ramsey bunch, George Jade included, is that we're here trying while you're sitting at home bitching. So we're trying to help. And you just over there in the Internet and got an opinion. So good luck with your opinion because we're going to keep trying over here. Do we get it right every time? Exactly. No, but we can laugh about it and go on and chill your butt out and go do something with your life, people.

I heard you in my head saying, you know, my grandma used to say it was a great place to go when you're broke to work.

But I wasn't talking about grandma.

I heard grandma broke work. I put three and three together. That's where it came from.

This is so bad. 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, amazing relationships. The phone number here is triple 8825-5225 George Camel, Ramsey personality, author of the number one bestseller breaking Free from Broke and co host of the smart Money Happy Hour, big hit on Ramsey Networks. He's my co host today. Open phones at triple 8825-5225 thank you for joining us. Dylan is with us in New York City. Hi, Dylan. Welcome to the Ramsey show. Hey, Dave.

Hey, George. Thanks for having me.

Sure, man. What's up?

So my question is, is the american dream still possible, in your opinion? Because I just. I've seen a lot of things and headlines recently that have made me really scared as someone who's 18 years old, seeing things about how, like, $100,000 a year just doesn't cut it anymore to get by, and I'm just kind of scared for my future. So I wanted your input.

Okay. I think if you go back and had some fun and went back and read headlines at any time in the last 150 years, you could find headlines that would tell you the same thing. 19 50, 19 40, 19 70, 19 90. I think you could find. You can always find headlines that say that the world is coming to an end and that the dreams are dead. My friend Zig Ziglar used to say. He said, every morning I read the bible and I read the newspaper, so I can tell what both sides are doing.

So whatever you look for, you will find. And so this is part of it is there's a mindset issue. I can tell already here. But let's lay out your. Your financial situation as to why at 18, you're already feeling this cynical.

Right? So I had gone to out of State college for my freshman year. I just finished that up, and I accumulated $16,000 in student loans. They're all federal, but I'm obviously, I wasn't happy about that. And I started listening to Dave and kind of realized that was a poor decision. So I came back home, and I'm going to be going to a community college and then transferring to an in state university to, like, cut down that cost and not go into more student debt.

Good for you. What are you studying? What are you studying?

Finance.

Good for you. Okay. And so what makes you believe that if you get a degree in finance that you can't prosper in America today, other than headlines?

Well, I don't know if one of my issues, too, is where I live. I live on Long island, and, like, a good house around me would be a. Like, $600,000. And, you know, I'd want to follow your rule of paying 20% so I don't have to pay for the private mortgage insurance and stuff. So.

Yeah. And again, at no time in history has an 18 year old bought a good house in Long island. That's fair, you know, I mean, unless they hit the lottery or something. I mean, so it takes a little while to get out there, get your career moving, get your income moving, and, you know, maybe when you're 30, you buy something on Long island, because Long Island's wonderful, but it's one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world. I mean, Manhattan, Long Island, Silicon Valley, Orange County. I mean, there's, you know, you can go into some of the major cities, Tokyo, London, and, you know, normal people making normal incomes can afford to buy a home in those markets. Never have been able to. By the way, that's not new. When I was your age, you know, an 18 year old making a normal income couldn't even think about living in Manhattan or Long island.

It's called an ultra high cost of living area, which means you need an ultra high income in order to.

But that does not translate to the american dream is dead. The dream of an 18 year old owning a $600,000 home on Long island is dead. But that dream was never alive.

All right, that's a fair point.

Okay, so what is your definition here? What are you actually looking to achieve?

I think my goal really is to just, you know, kind of everything you guys say, be able to. I mean, now I just have a little bit of debt, but get out of that debt, stay out of any future debt. Buy a home, you know, just finish my good career.

So everything you just laid out for us is very much possible. Can you get out of $16,000 of debt? Yes. Can you stay out? Yes. Can you build an emergency fund making a normal salary and working in something related to finance? Yes. Now, the house is going to take longer to save up for, depending on where you're going, but it always has taken a long time to save up for.

Right, okay, so maybe I'm being a little too. Little, too ambitious.

I don't know. I don't know why 18 year olds glued to the headlines anyways.

I'm not saying you're a. I'm not saying you're too ambitious. I'm just saying don't base a. An overarching statement of the american dream is dead or you can't. Meaning you can't prosper, you can't win based on you can't afford to do something today, that. Those are two different things. That's all we're saying. And so, yeah, you can. You can get there, but the way you win this stuff is one step at a time, one step at a time, one step at a time. It's not very few people leap into success. Most people do it by degrees and by, you know, course correction and a little bit of time and this and move and keep scratching, keep clawing, and, you know, you work your butt off for 20 years and you look up and you're an overnight success, you know, that kind of thing. And that's. That's what you're facing is there's an incremental process in this journey that. And, you know, we're. I was talking to somebody about this, this morning. It was Deloney, actually. We're talking about, and with one of our producers as well, that since the advent, it was at 2003, the smartphone came out.

If I remember right, Apple did the smartphone, 2003. So it's 20 years that we've all been living with. Increasingly, with a magic wand in our hands. We can access the entire breadth of the world's knowledge, give or take idiots on the Internet. You can access and purchase, push a button. Things show up on your front porch. You can book a tea time, you can book a restaurant, you can book a uber, you can all with this magic wand in your hand, you can send a text to a friend anywhere in the world and they'll get it instantly. You can send an email to a friend anywhere in the world and they'll get it semi instantly. Never in the history of mankind have we been able to do things so efficiently and so quickly. And what it's done to all of us, including me at 63, not just Dylan at 18, is that that has spoiled us. And we have no patience. I have absolutely no patience. My reasonable. You know, there was a day I could actually stand in line for something. Something. I refuse to stand in line for anything. And I think it's because of this stupid smartphone.

I think it's atrophied. Our delayed gratification.

Exactly. I am unwilling to wait for anything. And Dylan, I think you got a little bit of that infection too, and so does George, and so does everybody listening to this. We're less willing to wait for anything than probably in the history of mankind because we don't have to. We've got a magic wand in our freaking hand. It's magic. It just touch it and stuff happens, man.

And Dylan, I'm gonna send you a copy of my book, breaking free from broke. I wrote it for that exact reason, to show people it's still possible. And most people, they overestimate what they can do in a year. They underestimate what they can do in a decade ago. That's the quote from 23 to 33, I was broke to millionaire. I thought it was impossible, and I followed a proven plan.

That's the quote. Dylan, you're gonna be fine. You're gonna be very prosperous. You're the right kind of guy. You're thinking, and you're asking the right questions. Turn off the news. It's never caused someone to be successful yet. This is the Ramsey show. Hey, folks, there's a lot of half baked investing advice out there, but here's what you can do to get more confident about this stuff. Check out the SmartVestor program. Smartvestor connects you with local financial advisors who have the heart of a teacher. They'll help you level up your knowledge and build a retirement plan based on your goals, not theirs. Go to ramsaysolutions.com smartvestor to get connected and get more confident about your plan. That's ramseysolutions.com smartvestor.

Ramsey Solutions is a paid non client promoter of participating pros.

Learn more@ramsaysolutions.com smartvestor George Camel, Ramsey personality, is my co host today. Thanks for joining us. Open phones at AAA 825-5225 George, I had an additional thought because it comes up in my argument with Rachel over housing right now that that is really, that people are really struggling. Gen Z struggling to get a home because it's a real tough time to buy a house. And Gen Z has to buy their first home, has a really difficult market to do it in. It's one of the toughest markets maybe in 40 or 50 years. Okay, legitimately, it's tough, but they. But then it goes to where Dylan was, and that translates with drama into people's minds and say, oh, well, that's it. This whole thing called America is over because I can't buy a house right now when I want to. So by definition, that means this thing's over because, you know, wages have not gone up as fast as house prices, and so we're just screwed. And that. That just is the end of times. Jesus is coming back. That's it. We're going to be left behind. Do it. I mean, that's all Kirk Cameron. That's it.

And so they. What happens is that I can't do it right now. Turns it, inject a little drama into that fact, and that translates to this whole thing is over.

It'll never happen.

Yeah, the american dream is dead. Homeownership is dead. It's unrealistic. And you boomers who bought your house for a box, box, basket of strawberries. Don't understand. So the actual. And that's all over, you know, stupid tic tac and everywhere, right? That the whining and the victimization of the Gen Z, right?

We don't laugh. We cry. So you gotta make me.

Truth is, it is very tough. And the truth is, for Dylan right now, he's looking at some very tough things. But the truth is, is that you can never, in your decision making paradigm or your philosophy or theology of life, take a snapshot, a still framed snapshot of a moment in time, and declare that to be true about life. That's not true about life. That's true about a moment in time. Because life is not a snapshot. Life is a film story. So the next frame in the film strip, something has moved and changed, and then the next frame, something has moved and changed again. Thus we get a movie, right? Frame by frame by frame by frame by frame. So if you took a snapshot when I came out of college, so slightly older than Dylan, with a finance degree as a baby boomer, I'm the last of the baby boomers. I was born in 1964, and that's the last date of baby boomers. Everyone after that is another generation. That's the last date of boomers. Okay, so I'm the youngest of the boomers. I came out of college in 1982. Interest rates for houses were 17%.

So, you know, hey, 6%, hold my beer. Okay, they were 17%. And so if. If I took that as a snapshot at 22 years old and said, I can't afford a house, because guess what? Nobody could, if I took that as a snapshot at that moment in time and extrapolated that because of drama, as a new way of looking at America, America, how wrong would I have been? It's inaccurate.

If you believe that, then your actions will follow and you'll never make any.

Because it's over, why would. You're screwed. But you know what you can be sure of at 17% next year, it's going to be higher or lower, but it's unlikely to be 17%. By the way, by 1984, I was selling homes. I was 24 years old with a real estate license. I. I was selling homes in a 14% fixed rate market, and people were buying them. Wow. Wrap your brain around that. I can't even get my brain around that today. And I did it. I was there, but I can't get my brain around. But if you took a snapshot of that, that's the year by the way, that adjustable rate mortgages were invented. Wow. When we were at 14, fixed, we came up with, the very first time I was 24 years old, I heard of an adjustable rate, an arm mortgage, and we could sell them 12%, 2% less than fixed rate.

And people ran toward, and they were.

Running towards anything to get the stinking sky high rates down. And then before we knew it, we were back down at ten. And then I said, we'll never go below ten. And of course, we sure did. We went to nine and then we'll never go below nine. We'll never see. And then we're at six. And we stayed at six forever. And then 2008 happened and they jammed the rate down to try to recover the economy down into the threes. And it stayed down in the threes. So all of that to say, there's a little history lesson, boys and girls, of interest rates. But interest rates affect house affordability, home affordability, because a lot of people borrow to buy a home. Not everybody does, but a lot of people do. And so you cannot take a snapshot in time and say, this is your whole life. This is your life today. What about 1988, when I filed bankruptcy and I had a brand new baby, a toddler and a marriage hanging on by a thread? What if I take a snapshot of that and say, this is my entire life. Life? And you extrapolate that as if it.

Is the future, as if it's your idea.

You graph your current crisis into the future and you say, this is all there is. That's not glass half full. That's inaccurate critical thinking skills. They're improper critical thinking skills because it's not how things work. It's not a snapshot, boys and girls. It's a film strip. And so, yes, it's very tough right now for a Gen Z to buy a house. Completely understand that. Is this a permanent problem? Absolutely not. A hundred percent sure it's not. How is it going to be solved? Well, heck, I don't know. I didn't know how they were going to solve 17%. I didn't know. I had no idea George would be driving an electric car. What do I know?

Didn't know those existed.

When I was 18, I thought that was a, you know, a battery with wheels that catches fire, but you still drive it. And so, you know, I mean, it's, there's, you know. See what I'm saying? It's just that this is. And I think that's worth talking about, y'all. I think it's a big deal. Because Hope deferred makes the heart sick. That's proverbs. Hope deferred hopelessness. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. And when the heart is sick, you were saying exactly right about, it affects your decisions, so it affects your behaviors, so you don't engage in things that are going to cause you to win because your heart is sick and hopeless.

Well, that's, it's cynicism. At the end of the day, that's what this generation is facing. And that just means it's negativity wrapped in fear. So I'm going to be negative and I'm scared it's never going to be any different. And therefore I'm going to tweet about it and make fun of it because it's the only way I know how to cope with it. It. And I think we also meet people who are 18, who are rock stars, who go, yeah, it's hard. But you know what? I'm going to get the second job for now, and I'm going to get out of debt. I'm going to stay out of debt. It just points back to the Ramsey plan. If you really believe that there's no hope, then stay out of debt and get out of debt is your best bet to get to where you want to be.

It works in downtimes and it works in uptimes. It's the only plan that works in both. And so that's the thing. And it's distressing because I want to, and I'm going to be, as best I can, empathetic, not sympathetic, but empathetic to people's. If you're 26 and you're distressed because you can't buy a house right now, I get it. That's what empathy is. That means. I get it. I see you. Okay, you're seen. I am not going to let you engage in my presence with improper critical thinking skills, inaccurate critical thinking skills. And that is is to extrapolate with drama your current stuckness into the future. You are not stuck forever. You're stuck today. Some of you can't do it, but, well, you know, I was. I was on a stinking tv show doing an interview and the guys like, well, the average house, the median household income in America is 80,000. And the median house, median house price is 426,000 or whatever it is, 400 something thousand. And. And that means that a median house price, a median income can't buy a median house. And I'm like, yeah, but we real people don't live in medians most of them anyway.

Just a stat?

Yeah, because, I mean, well, median includes. Median is the middle. It's not an average. It's the middle number. And so that includes Silicon Valley. Valley in that number includes. And most people aren't dealing with Silicon Valley. It includes Orange county, and most people aren't dealing with Orange county. And certainly with a median household income, you're not dealing with Silicon Valley or just like we were telling Dylan. So it's just an inaccurate way to a not to analyze the situation because it's not proper. And then it steals people's hope. And when you start stealing people's hope, I will make fun of you because you piss me off. This is the Ramsey show.

Hey, it's doctor John Deloney. Look, when you're stressed about money, it makes everything feel out of control. You run around like a maniac trying to make sure everything's covered, everybody's okay. I've been there. It's the worst. But you can flip the script with an every dollar budget. It helps you track spending and expenses in real time, so you always know what's happening with your money. Talk about a weight lifted off your shoulders. Start feeling in control of your money again. Download the everydollar app today for free.

Thanks for joining us, America. George Camel, Ramsey personality, is my co host on the debt free stage in the lobby of Ramsey solutions. Tom and Cheryl are with us. Hey, guys. How are you?

We are so good. Thank you.

Welcome. Where do you guys live? Where do you live?

Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Wonderful town. Welcome to Nashville. Good to have you. And here to do a debt free scream. How much debt have you paid off?

We have paid off $237,317.12.

Wow. How long did this take?

That took 156 months. 13 years.

Okay, 13 years. And your range of income during that time?

When we started, it was $90,000. And when we ended, it was 100,000.

Excellent. What do you all do for a living? I'm a systems administrator. Mm hmm.

And I'm the director of short term missions for a nonprofit organization.

Very cool. Good for you. Good for you. 13 years. 237,000. So I'm gonna guess and say that was your house. No, no. What in the world? What kind of debt was this?

Stupid debt. We had a very high student loan. We had several credit cards, car loans, and a second mortgage.

Wow. Wow. Well, what got you started 13 years ago? What was the I've had it moment? And why in the world did this take 13 years? That's the other thing I want to know. Well, we Christmas had snuck up on us and came out of nowhere, had no clue was going to happen. And right around the time that that happened, we had a credit card payment that got messed up, and so we missed a payment, and that put us over our limit. And they were freaking out and wanted all this money, and we had no idea what to do. We were completely broke, and we were just a breath away from having to file bankruptcy. And our church started off a Dave Ramsey class, so we thought, you know what? Let's do that. What else do we have to lose? So, financial peace university. Yep. Correct. All right. 13 years ago. Wow. So, like, 2002. No, that's 20 years ago. 2010. 20. 2011.

2011.

Yeah. Okay. Wow. All right. I can't do math. That's bad. And. All right. Wow. So you went into the class broke. What happened? It took us a while to get traction. That thousand dollars took us quite a while.

We did our budget and we went, okay, we have an income problem. We know we have a spending problem. So what are we going to do? So we plugged all of the holes where everything was leaking out, and then we said, we need more income because I work nonprofit. You don't go into nonprofit ministry unless you are called. And so we both got side gigs. I started cleaning houses. He did a computer business on the side. We even opened Etsy stores. And so we sold everything. We. It was just, we knew we had to do both. We had to increase the income. We had to completely stop the spending, and that's. That's what we did. And it was just month by month. Where's every penny coming from? It's going to go completely to debt. And so we feel like, oh, my goodness, this took us forever, but we just. We just kept after it every day. Every day.

Mm hmm. Was there a time that you felt like you hit the wall, like you ran out of gas?

No, thankfully, because we did it together. We said we were in this together. Do or die. We are going to get rid of this debt. And there was never a time where we hit the wall together, thankfully. There were times that I hit the wall and Tom was steady. There were times where Tom hit the wall and I. I was steady. There were times where we're like, we can't do this. It's never going to happen. And Tom would say, look at how far we've come. Look at everything that we've paid off. We can do this. And then I would think of this moment, and I would say, we have to keep doing this because I am going to go. And I'm going to scream.

That's a strategy for a 13 year payoff. So what was the second mortgage for?

Well, because we. We thought, this will eliminate our debt, and so let's get the second mortgage to pay off the credit cards. I know, right? Oh, and then we ratcheted up the credit cards again. The second mortgage was gone. Like, I don't even know where the second mortgage went.

So you didn't change any habits. You just thought, well, let's use some debt to pay off other debt, and hopefully that solves it. It didn't. It was you guys that had to solve it with that.

So we couldn't even tell our kids no, and so we used to tell them. Dave Ramsey said no.

The strategy used Dave as a cuss word somewhere.

Eventually, child in therapy man used to run into our house and say no. Exactly. Eventually, we got the power to say it ourself, but early on, we didn't have that ability. So you are totally our scapegoat. And it worked perfect. That's okay. I've been scapegoat for better, worse things. Well done, you guys. I'm so proud of you. How does it feel after all this time?

It feels so free, like nobody owns me anymore. Our money is our money. Like that first cleaning job I did after we were debt free, it hit different. I went, that is our money for our big emergency fund. It just feels free. I'm never, ever going back.

Building for the future instead of paying for the past.

Amen. Amen.

That's the best place to be.

And we set our girls on this beautiful trajectory. They did. Dave Ramsey with us. They are all debt free. College paid for by paying cash. It can be done. A wedding paid for in cash by saving and hustling. And we did our garage as a venue for a rehearsal supper because. Free venue, right? And so I'm so proud of them. And so, for us, just changing our family tree is everything to me.

Yeah, you did. You did. You sacrificed and scratched and clawed and all of this. So when you first went at it, it was just because of the desperation of being broke. Yep. What kept you going, though? Later, once you knew you had control, what kept you moving? We started coordinating classes, and so we were. Our church is a church of house churches, so we were doing them in our home. And so they're smaller classes, but that helped us just stay focused and keeping our eyes going the right direction and reminding you of what you're there for. Well, and when you're teaching a class, you can't be a hypocrite. So you got to do it all. I mean, it's just different than being a student. Yeah. You can get away with a lot of stuff when you're a student. You think? But, yeah. Way to go, guys. Very, very good. Very good. So proud of you. So what are you gonna do now? What's the fun thing you're gonna do to celebrate this?

Yes.

After this.

After this. We do have tickets for the Grand Ole Opry tonight because it's our 30th wedding anniversary today, and so. Thank you. So we thought, what better way to celebrate 30 years of marriage than to come here, do our scream, and then we'll go to. To the Grand Ole Opry for country.

Well, you guys enjoy. It's a great show. And the folks, we do a lot of stuff with the Opry here and absolutely incredible team down there. You all have a great night.

Thank you.

Yeah, it'll be great. That's very cool. Very fun. Typically not Oprah. Hey, guys. So proud of you. Absolutely, absolutely amazing.

We've got a gift for them, too, to every dollar subscription. Good for a year. So you can use those. You could pay it forward, give it to someone else, maybe gift it to someone in that in an upcoming class or a coworker you run into to give them a little bit of hope.

Very cool.

Thank you.

So somebody that's listening and they're saying, this is going to be hard, talk to them. It is hard. It's very hard. It was. We had to change everything. Was it worth it? Completely worth it.

So worth it. Do it. Don't delay. One more day. Get up off your couch. Get it done. You will be so blessed that you did it.

Teach your kids while you're doing it. Well, congratulations, you two heroes. You took control of your life. Well done. Very well done. Tom and Cheryl. Colorado Springs, Colorado. $237,000 worth of debt done in 156 months, making 90 to 110. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream. Three, two, one.

We're debt free.

Yeah. That was 13 years coming. Wow.

And bottled up for 13. Finally let the genie out of the lamp.

That's it, man. Get it done. Wow.

Just get it done.

This is the Ramsey show. Our scripture of the day. Proverbs. Nine nine. Instruct the wise, and they will be wiser. Still teach the righteous, and they will add to their learning. Jim Rohn said, formal education will make you a living. Self education will make you a fortune. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with doing both. Hey, Ramsey. Trusted pros. Shop the market for insurance quotes. If you're going to look at your homeowners, your car insurance, you ought to shop it among a bunch of different companies. And a insurance broker, not just an agent, does that. They work for you. They shop among all the different companies out there and get you the best deal. And it's not, they're not trapped by one particular brand in their insurance world. If you can only sell one brand, we call you a captive agent. Who wants to be a captive? Yeah. So that means that you can always beat state farms rates is what we're saying. That's exactly what that means. So Ramsey trusted pros will help you do that. We interview them, we vet them, we coach them to make sure they're market experts and that you get the right coverages and you get them at the right price.

So find out who the Ramsey trusted pro is in your area. Ramsey solutions.com coverage today's question comes from Tara in Nebraska.

Tara says, we have a $1.2 million net worth, but we don't have three to six months of savings in cash. The majority of our money is in investments, but we do have cash in our sinking funds for vacations, insurance, etcetera. We also have stock in a utility company that my husband was gifted from his grandparents, and it's valued at what a three to six month emergency fund would be for us. Could we consider our sinking funds and or the stock as part of our baby step three? Or does it need to be cash?

It should, it should be, should be liquid. Yeah, it should be liquid. Should be in a high yield savings account, not utility stock. I would never tell. Somebody called up and said, I have $15,000 to put my emergency fund. I want to put it into utility stock. I would always say no. Now, why? Why? Because let me tell you, the weirdest thing happens in life. At the exact time you have an emergency is the exact time the utility company had one and their stock price dives. And now you don't want to cash it out because it's down. You want to wait on it to come back up, but you got to fix your transmission so you use a credit card, even though you're a millionaire there, because you do all this mental gymnastics crap instead of just getting money and paying for something. And that's what people do. That's why you don't do it. But, and, you know, you don't put it in a CD, a certificate of depression because there's a penalty for early withdrawal and those things. Right. So we use a high yield savings account. So what would I do if I were in your shoes?

I would sell these stocks and, and turn that into a liquid savings account. And as far as sinking funds, don't conflate the two. Because what happens is you have an emergency and you go, well, I just steal Christmas from my vacation. Or you have a vacation and you go, well, this is, the vacation is an emergency. So separate them, keep them all in separate savings accounts, and you have a $1.2 million net worth. I don't know what's going on here that you guys don't have this in cash, but get it done today.

Should have a little bit of cash. Come. Come on, man. I mean, really. So either, either develop a game plan out of your income to have an emergency fund in place with the next few months or cash out this utility stock. But no, you can't call your utility stock an emergency fund. It's just not smart. It's not smart.

Never an investor. Emergency fund.

So. And here's the thing to remember about emergencies. Emergency funds. And it really doesn't apply as much to her as it does just in general. Your emergency funds sucks as an investment. A high yield savings account is not exactly high yield. What are they paying right now?

Now? Right now it's about 5%.

Yeah. So that's not high yield. High yields, 15 what you want market. That's high yield. So 5% a joke. In a 9.8.

It's high yield.

Compared to your inflation market.

Your normal bank savings account is zero point. You know, something percent.

So compared, it beats it, but it's still not high. It's a, that's like a marketing term, high yield. How about just, we're gonna pay you a little more than nothing and call it something cool, but so they suck as an investment. So your emergency fund is not an investment. When I'm speaking to a large crowd, always make them say back to me, 5000 people in the arena, not an investment. And then I make them say, your emergency fund is insurance. Everybody say, insurance. Insurance, right. And so why do we do that? Because insurance costs you money to protect the things that make you money. The fact that you're only making you 5%, only making 5% on your money. You don't look at this as an investment. You look at it as insurance. You could be making a lot more like in a utility stock or in mutual funds. But that's not the purpose of this fund. The purpose of this fund and the purpose of your Christmas fund is not a high yield purpose of Christmas funds. Pay for Christmas, purpose of your car funds pay for your car. That's what you saving for. So that, that's the thing you got to get.

You need offense and defense. Investing is offense. Your insurance, your emergency fund, that is defense.

And they cost you money. Defense costs you money to protect the things that make you money. So that, that's how you keep that straight. Dwight is with us in Louisville, Kentucky. Hi, Dwight. What's up? What's up?

Thanks for having me on. So I'm looking for some career advice. I'm a retired, medically retired veteran, and I'm currently serving in law enforcement. I've been doing that for about ten years now, and my passion is teaching law enforcement. So I've been looking at potentially going that route and teaching for the state. So it's the same retirement program for the state, but doing that, I would take about a $20,000 pay cut.

What do you make now?

About 66,000.

Okay.

So just running the numbers, I mean, so my current, current, with my wife and I and my military retirement, we're about 150,000 take home.

Yeah. You're not going to go bankrupt doing this. And it's not a horrible thing to make less money. I just don't like the premise that in order to do something I'm passionate about, I have to make less money. And everybody seems to think that's true. It's not true. I'm very passionate about this, and I make a lot of money.

Right.

And so I want you to make more money when you're passionate, not less. So let's rethink how we might touch this teaching passion in a way that doesn't make you a state employee making less than you make now. So how can we do that? Is this individual gun classes, private security classes? I mean, I know several guys that do tactical training on a private level. I've been involved in a lot of it. You know, we do hand, we do a tactical handgun teaching class here at, with our security team at Ramsey just as a team building thing. Thing, because we're all, we all like shooting. A lot of us do anyway. And so we're, you know, and that pays a lot more than what you're talking about, somebody coming in and leading that kind of thing. So I don't know, maybe, maybe you take the state job and you supplement it with a side hustle teaching security.

Right. So I do have a side hustle where I do privately. I have a business where I teach private classes and stuff. And what I've, what I've noticed is just the reliability of dealing with just people in general and getting people into those classes and not having my own range to do that. So that's, that's, that's my biggest struggle is not having a primary range to go to and have that marketing.

Yeah, but that's just a problem to solve. That's not a philosophy of life.

Right.

So, yes, I would go take the state job, but I would also take it under the auspices that when the smoke clears, no pun intended on this whole thing, but the, when the smoke clears on this whole thing, then you, you know, you're making more money because you've got the side hustle, private thing going to go with the state. And all of it is about teaching and fun. Our director of security is a world class teacher, and he would tell you that the most fun thing he gets to do at his job is when we do those classes, us at our range. And we had one last weekend, as a matter of fact, we had 30 people out there learning how to shoot. And he would tell you that's the most fun he has. And he's world class at it. He's good at it. So, I mean, that kind of thing is available. And I know he went and learned from other people how to do it, so he paid somebody else to learn. And so there's all kinds of ways you can extrapolate this, but in general, general, I'm not ever going to tell, I'm not going to fall for this thing that, oh, in order to do what I love, I have to make less.

I'd keep doing some homework and see if there's other opportunities that are similar that could pay what you're making now or more.

Exactly, make that jump well and or add to the thing and get the side hustle problem solved. So you're making double what you're making now. That's a sweet deal in total between the two things that puts us out of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. If you're a leader, your personal growth matters for your organization because whatever you lead can only grow as much as you do. I know from experience, I've been CEO of Ramsey Solutions for over 30 years, and now I'm sharing that leadership and business coaching experience with you on the entre Leadership podcast. Guest, I'm taking your calls and helping you figure out how to overcome challenges within your organization. One episode could change your business. Check it out on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or on the Ramsey Network app.