Live from the headquarters of Ramsey solutions. This is the Ramsey show. It's where we help you win in your life. We do that by helping you win in your money, in your work, and in your relationships. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by George Camel, my good pal and the author of a soon to be released book. And it's a good one. We'll talk about that coming up. But the phone number to jump in is triple 8825-5225. Triple 8825-5225. Let's go. You ready, George?

I'm stoked.

All right. You're stoked? Did you put your skateboard?

That's what the young folks say.

Yeah. Okay. That's very interesting. You're stoked. Well, let's go to Stephen in Charlote, North Carolina. Steven, I'm Ken. George is stoked. How can we help you?

Hi, George and Ken. How are you today?

We're having a blast. What's up?

All right, guys. So, George, a special thank you. First off know, reaching out to.

George is calling callers now. What is happening? It feels like we sent me a.

DM yesterday with his question. I said, hey, I want to dig into this. Will you call the show? This is a perfect, perfect call for Ken and I to take. I want to hear Ken's thoughts.

Oh, all right.

So we got him scheduled, and I'm so elated that he was able to call.

You really are a man of the people. You are a man of the people.

Exactly.

What can I say happened right there?

All right, Steven, what's going on?

All right, guys. So as I mentioned to George, I'm a former lottery winner.

A million dollars.

Yeah.

A million dollars on a scratch ticket in the state of Virginia when I was 28. And I'm 36 now, and I have gone through it all down to zero.

Yeah.

So I am a part of that statistic that, I don't know, 80% or 90% of lottery winners lose it. I swore that I wouldn't be, but here I am.

What was your take home guidance? What was the take home after the yeah.

766,000 was what the actual ticket was worth. It wasn't actually worth a million dollars. I know. That's what they advertised.

Right.

And then I paid taxes on that. So take home was 555.

Okay. And over the span of eight years, you drained that 555 in your bank account to zero.

Yes, sir.

For the benefit of the listeners and a dark curiosity, can you tell us where that money went?

Yeah, obviously, I bought the ticket, so I gambled to buy the ticket. Right. So that never stopped. It was more so with casinos, sports gambling, et cetera. Quite embarrassed by it.

Absolutely. Well, this is clearly there's addictive behavior here. Have you dealt with that over the last eight years? Are you still grappling with that?

Yes, I've reached out to gamblers anonymous. I actually have an appointment set up to speak with someone to hopefully get me over the addiction and move forward.

Is this the first step you've taken, as we're talking now, what's that? Is that the first step you've taken to get control of this?

Yes.

And I realized that it was an issue, but still would go at it.

Wow.

So would you say it was largely gambling? Did you buy a house, a car? Did you upgrade your lifestyle?

Definitely upgraded the lifestyle a little bit. I did buy a new car. I paid cash for it when I won, I paid off my debts, except for one. I had two student loans. I did not pay off the federal student loan, I paid off the private student loan. And that's the debt that I carry today. I don't have a car debt.

Okay, well, we're going to help you take the right next step. We're not here to beat you up. We know you've been dealing with this addiction on top of now kind of being at rock bottom. So lay it out for us. Are you working right now? And what's your income?

Yes, sir, I'm in restaurant management. My income is 75,000.

Good.

And how much debt do you have left?

29,000.

All right. And how much money do you have in the bank, if any?

About 6000.

Okay, that's good news. And are you single?

I have a girlfriend. Not married, but have a girlfriend and we do live together.

Okay. And the 29,000, is that one student loan or a bunch of student loans? What kind of debt is that?

It's two different federal student loans that total the $29,000.

Okay. So we can start to chip away at that with some of the savings. You have your $1,000 emergency fund. Now we're going to debt snowball these pretty quickly, making 75, knocking out 29. How quickly could you do that?

Well, I have roughly 2400 a month left over after all paid. So divide that into the roughly 30 grand. So what, 15 months, 16 months?

Yeah.

You'll be done with this in under a year. I mean, 2400 a month, that's 29 grand in a year. So let's focus on knocking this out over the next twelve months. Then we're going to get a fully funded emergency fund so that you never have to go back into debt again. So you have financial foundation, but the bigger piece is getting our spending under control and getting this addiction under control.

Yeah, I don't really spend all that much. I don't live a highfalutin lifestyle. I gamble. And that's where it's have you cut.

Off the ability to gamble? Whether it's your friend group, whether it's the cards, whatever it is that's enabling you to do this, have you cut those pieces off?

Don't really know how to cut that. I have a couple of friends that are well aware of what's going on and we've spoken in detail.

Are they the kind of people that will challenge you, hold you accountable, check in on you? Will you be honest with them? Could you listen to them.

Absolutely. Yeah, they have done that. We haven't spoken recently. We had a conversation about six months ago about all of it. I haven't stopped since then.

Do you have any credit cards open?

No, sir.

Okay.

What are you gambling on right now? Is it football or what is it?

Yeah, I'll do sports gambling.

Is that through an app or website?

No, it's just live.

Okay. Because the one thing you can do is delete all the apps, delete all your logins, all your payment info for all these sites. You can block these sites, too, through your browser?

Yeah.

I think we need to put software steps in place.

I think George is right, steven, I think you have to do that, but you have to have some accountability. Like your like it would be like.

Gamblers Anonymous will help with that.

For sure it will. But I think you need to decide today. I'm not again in any way taking away from therapy or anything else, but I do think you need some accountability. And I would almost treat your gambling like I would a teenager looking at stuff they shouldn't look at on a phone. And I would get the girlfriend involved or a really close friend and set it up to where they set up, where there's notifications or something. There's got to be a way to do this. But at the end of the day, you're going to have to just decide, can I wean myself off this? Can I go through one weekend, one weekend at a time? Can I just go through a weekend and not gamble?

Yeah. And I've always held myself accountable in all areas of life except this one. Except this.

Well, so here's the deal.

It's frustrating.

I know it's frustrating. And again, I think you need help. And I would absolutely go and get with a therapist. I would. I'd make a couple of phone calls today. I think you need to take action on this and also some accountability. And you know what else? I think you ought to put that competitive fire into making some more money. I'm going to challenge you professionally. What are two or three rungs up the professional ladder for? You give yourself a challenge to go make more money by growing professionally. Thanks for the call. Appreciate your honesty. Stephen, we're going to walk with you on this. This is the Ramsey show.

What we teach at Ramsey boils down to taking control of your life. It's all about personal responsibility, and if you own a gun, that's even more important. So I recommend becoming a member of the US. Concealed carry association. You'll have immediate access to liability insurance, education and training to protect your loved ones and defend your rights in the most responsible way. Go to Uscca.com slash Ramsey and join today. That's uscca.com slash Ramsey.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show where we help you win in your life with your money. Your work and your relationships. I'm Ken. He is George over there. Say hi to America, George.

Hi.

And we're here for you. Triple 8825-5225 felt like you're that's not how I expected that to play out.

It felt like you were egging it on.

Ten year old.

Yeah, you were egging that vibe on. So I went with it called improv.

Well, George, I knew you when you were single. That's true. So tomorrow, this would have been a day that would be an exciting day for you, but thankfully, you somehow coerced. Whitney, what day is this? It's called singles day. Are you aware of this? Never heard of. There's a day for everything. And in my hands here, I have got an announcement for 1111 known as singles day, the largest shopping day in the world. And people are always looking for an excuse to spend money. That's your area.

So we just made a holiday, so.

We jumped in on it.

Why not get in on the fun?

It's happening. So Dave said, Get there. So what we're doing is a one day sale only on Saturday, you can get our best selling books like total money makeover Baby Steps millionaire from Paycheck to purpose own Your Past, change Your Future for just $11. Whoa.

Okay.

This is pretty meta because we have the $12 sale, but just for one day only, you get a dollar off dollars.

Yeah.

And it's not just if you're single now. It's aimed at the singles.

But truth be told, I'm not quite.

Sure we can't police that on the website.

We can't. So there you go. And you can also get my get clear accessible, the digital for $11. For $11. That's normally 30. I don't know how my kids are going to eat next month. Highway rob, talk to Dave about this. I'm not happy at all. That's too steep of a discount. But you the people win, as usual. So it's $11 sale all over the website. Ramsaysolutions.com store. Ramsaysolutions.com store. I have no idea what singles day had to do with that unbelievable offer.

Just one more reason to celebrate.

Ken but my job is to read.

Time for the Ramsey dating app. The Ramsey dating app. That's the next one. Ken there it is.

We'll never make from singles day to the city of brotherly love. Chris is joining us now in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Chris, you're on the Ramsey show. How can we help?

Ken, George, thanks for taking my call. How are you today?

We're good. Sorry, I got a little chuckle going on here. What can we do for you?

Sure. So I'm giving you a call here because unfortunately, it appears that I'll be losing my job here in the very near future.

Oh, no. What's going on? I'm sorry, what's happening?

My company is experiencing some financial difficulties. They had a lower interest rate for a very long time. And like most individuals, they work off of debt as a company are you.

In the financial sector?

I am in the pharmaceutical sector, small pharmaceutical company.

Oh, wow.

So their debts they can't keep up with. They've offboarded about 20% of the company. And I think I'm coming due.

Is this like in a week or is this a month? Do you have any idea of the timeline?

It could be anywhere from a week to the next month. That's correct.

Okay.

And you are certain that you have already been selected to be laid off?

I'm 90% confident that it'll occur.

Okay.

What do you make?

Currently? I make 135,000 with a 10% targeted bonus. So about 150,000 a year. But I am married and have a one year old daughter as well. My wife is fortunately a teacher making $70,000 a year and she has tenure. So at minimum we have that going for us.

Is that enough to cover the bills? If it was just her income, I'll.

Have a super majority of those bills. I'll tell you, George, we live with our purse strings very tight. Our basic needs, we run at about 40% of our budget. Our savings and debt reduction, we've been going crazy at 46% and we live with a menial 15% of our nice to have through our budgeting.

Okay, so how much debt do you have?

We have $110,000 left and it is our mortgage and that is okay.

So no consumer debt and the mortgage is reasonable as a part of your take home pay.

It is $1,800 a month and we, as a total, from a net perspective, bring home approximately hold on, $12,000.

Wonderful. Okay. So you are in a solid financial position, which gives me great joy during this time of stress that you're going to be okay financially. And so now it's up to you to find that next job, which Ken is the man for that.

Yeah. So what do you do in pharmaceuticals?

Sure. I'm a transparency specialist. The pharmaceutical industry has a very niche requirement through the government. It's a compliance role, but essentially we look at financial transactions and disclose payments to doctors. It's a very niche area. But I've also worked in finance for six years, so I'm covered across the financial and pharmaceutical industry. I've been putting my resume out for about a month here and I have not received the requests to interview as I would like to rehashing my resume here.

Well, that's fine and I love that. And we've got a free resume guide, which I'll make sure that we get to you at the end of our call. It's a free resource. We've also got some great templates that will help you stand out. But you are exhibit A on this idea of I'm just going to throw a bunch of resumes out there. It is very, very hard to get noticed in today's world because of two factors. Number one, almost every company is using some form of artificial intelligence to filter through resumes. And so you're kind of playing the resume lottery or the slot machine if one word is not right and you know what I'm talking about, the second thing that's going on is a lot of high demand people are looking for the higher paid positions. And so you need the edge, and the edge is the personal connection. So what you need to be doing right now, this is old school, but I mean, this is a piece of paper, a notebook. You can create a spreadsheet if you feel more comfortable doing on a computer. But you've got to start looking at the jobs you've already applied for.

You already sent resumes out. They may have moved on, maybe they haven't. But with those as examples, you want to start asking yourself, you'll make a list of these companies and you say, do I know somebody that works in that building or works in a building connected to that building? Right? The idea is, do I know anybody that works for that organization? Question one. Question two is, do I know somebody that knows somebody over there? And what we're attempting to do here is we've got to get through the hiring filter, the AI and all of that stuff. We've got to get somebody who takes your resume, chris, to the hiring manager, says, here's how I know Chris. I've known Chris since high school. We played blank together or whatever, right. Or I've got a really good friend who knows this guy Chris, and the guy's really qualified and he's applied online, hadn't gotten anything yet. I think you ought to look at him. It is that kind of exercise. And then you got to be talking to everybody that you run into. I mean, you run into a parent at a basketball practice, you're talking to them, getting to know them.

They're going to say, what do you do? You tell them what's going on. I'm looking for something like this. You have got to make getting an opportunity for an interview a full time focus. That has to be the game, and it's pretty simple, but that's what you've got to be doing right now. And in the meantime, I would also be plotting out what happens if I don't get a job interview, George, before I get laid off. So I'm looking at side hustles things that would be the gig economy. Is there any freelance work available for a guy like you with a lot of finance background? Is there any freelance work in your specific niche work? Probably not, but that's what I'm looking at. I'm looking at what I have from a skill standpoint and an experience standpoint that allow me to make some freelance money so that if I get laid off and I haven't landed a gig yet between my wife's income how frugal you guys are. Even if it's 30 or 40% of what you were making, it just takes all the stress away because you guys have been so disciplined. Now, I know I hit you with a lot, but a real quick question, we've only got about a minute, about 45 seconds.

Do you want to stay in the role that you're in? If we were to find that for you today, would you stay in that or do you want to move on? Take this opportunity to move on.

I would honestly love to go back into finance, but honestly, the call and question that I wanted to jump into, I'm going back to my contacts in finance to get a role strategically, I know that's what I'm going to be able to do.

Good.

Tactically, I'm looking at this and I'm just asking. Obviously, we need to slow down on our debt payment here. Moving down to just the core items.

That's correct.

You're in storm mode, which means we're pausing the baby steps. Let's stack up a whole bunch of cash until we get stability, then we can move forward. You'll pay off that house in no time.

That's right. It's the only debt you've got left. You're in great shape and you're very disciplined. This is a Blip for you. It's a bump in the road. You're going to be fine. Thanks for the call, Chris. This is the Ramsey show.

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Today, helping you win with your money, winning your work and winning your relationships. This is the Ramsay show. So excited to be with you today. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell is with me this hour. And we have a fantastic live studio audience in the lobby.

We really do a rowdy bunch. We have to contain them.

Yeah, no, they're not very rowdy. I love being a rowdy bunch. And there's one guy out there that was like arms crossing slowly. I'm rowdy.

They're a little miffed.

I'm rowdy. They're a little miffed now because we called attention to them.

They're on the edge.

They're lovely people. And there's a lady waving at us. Line. Nice to see you, ma'am.

Good to see you.

Good reminder that you can come visit us.

You can come visit us, do the show live. We have free coffee, free baked goods.

The show is free.

Show is free. And we come out and take pictures with you whether you want us to or not. That's always not awkward, so that whole thing is great. So to the phones. We go. Emma joins us in Los Angeles, California. Emma, how can we help?

Hi, George. Hi, Ken. I'm calling because I know you'll help lock some sense into me. I'm in baby step three B, and I am hoping to start saving. I mean, I'm saving for a home, but here in California, I'll have to save $100,000 to just get in a down payment so that my monthly payment will be ridiculously high. And it'll take me, like, two to three years to save for that. But I've started to look into house buying process, and I qualify for a loan of $500,000, but it's just going to be a high monthly payment. And I do have house fever, and I want to start planning for my retirement. So if I jump the gun and pull the plug next year, even though I don't have the 100K yet, I'm just starting to save. I just feel like I'm starting my retirement planning kind of late. And how old are you going? I'm 39.

Oh, my goodness. You're ancient.

Easy, Julie.

I know.

Three years from now, you're going to be 42.

You can't tell women that. What's wrong with you're going to have.

To find a house with no stairs. I'm not sure you're going to be able to walk up those.

You know, they have those little chairs that go slowly up the stairs. We could get her one of those.

I do need one floor because I do have arthritis, and so I cannot imagine myself going up.

I nailed it.

Oh, geez.

That's going to limit the housing options already. Okay, Emma, let's walk through this. So there's this home buying program. Is that what you're saying? That will allow you to put less down and qualify for more loan.

Yeah, like FHA loan.

Gross.

Okay, so let's talk about house fever first.

Yeah, the house fever. I don't know that I can squelch. You're frustrated by high rent prices. You want to be putting your money towards something, building equity, instead of, I'm quoting this, throwing away money on rent. Did I nail it?

Yes, of course.

Okay. So that's very understandable. I have a lot of empathy for many people out there who want to be homeowners. They've been working for a long time, and they're going, this should just be possible for me real quick.

It feels impossible, and I want you to walk through here. But on this fever issue, I think I can address the house fever.

All right, hit me.

Because when I moved here with our family, what, nine years ago, I got into Williamson County, and I started driving around on the roads and I want to make sure you hear this, Emma. And I got what is known as land fever.

Oh, boy. Yeah, that's full on Yellowstone.

Oh, boy. I was looking at large parcels of land where we could with a house or where we would build, and I just got in love with it. And I'm not kidding you, there were two or three nights a week on my way home, I would go check out things and my wife would be like, hey, dinner is almost ready, where are you? And I would like and I'd FaceTime her, I'm like, look at this. And I'm not kidding, I really got into it. So in all seriousness, I know what it's like. And so what you have to do is what I had to do. I was not in a place financially to be able to buy that. But it's like I was wishing and wishing, and I got so sucked into the wishing and the looking, and it's kind of like the old days where you looked at a know and at some point you got to burn the catalog, throw the catalog away. And I'm telling you, George is going to walk you through this. But I think it's really smart that you put some ice on this fever. And I think you got to stop thinking about buying a house.

Stop looking at houses and be really laser focused because we know from all kinds of scientific and psychological data about the power of focus. And give you an example, you remember the last time you bought a car, Emma? Do you remember that?

Yes.

What was the car?

A Toyota. Rav. Four.

And what color was that? Toyota. Rav four.

Silver.

Silver. Do you remember seeing silver Rav Fours all over the road for the first three, four, five days? You remember that?

Yeah.

Now I see them everywhere.

You see them everywhere. Did the car fairy just drop in Toyota Rav Fours all of a sudden on the road? The answer is no. Here's the exercise. What we focus on is what we see everywhere, and the power of focus is unbelievable. And I'm going to give you right back to George on this because the process he's going to walk you through and this idea that, oh, I'm wasting money on rent and I keep looking at houses and I'm not ready to buy a house, but I know I'm not ready to buy a house, but I'm going to find this little program that'll make me ready to buy a house, when in all reality, you're not ready to buy a house. And I wasn't ready for the land back then. I'm still not ready for the land I want. The good news is I don't have land fever anymore because guess what I'm not looking at all the time, George.

Houses, land, land parcels.

I'm not looking at know. And so that's really important.

Yeah, well, Emma, the problem with these programs and what you're talking about for the listeners benefit is the Federal Housing Administration FHA loans, and they're designed for people who don't qualify for conventional mortgages. Do you know why they don't qualify?

I'm assuming because they don't have enough money.

Because private lenders are saying, this is way too much risk even for a lender to take on. They're going, no, thanks. So the government swoops in to be the savior, allowing broke people to get into homes for a little as three and a half percent down, which sounds great, but then think about this. That means you're financing 96.5% of that on top of something they charge you called mortgage insurance premium MIP 1.75% right there, plus an annual premium between zero point 15% and zero point 75% for the life of the loan. So you're paying an extra stupid tax on top of borrowing way more while you already didn't have the money to afford the mortgage payment. And then here's what happens, Emma. There's going to be a call during this show where someone calls in and says, hi, I'm calling from California. We bought too much house before we could really afford it on one of these homebuyer programs. We can't afford it because it's now 70% of our take home pay is going toward this mortgage because we thought this home was going to be a blessing. Turns out it's a burden because now the HVAC is broken and we have no money to fix it.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Yes.

So I don't want that to become you because I care about your future too much. And if that means Emma has to rent for two more years than she wanted to, I'm okay with yep, renting is buying patience. I'm sick of people telling you that renting is a sin and you're wasting money. And one more thing you live in California and you're not held hostage. Know, I'm not saying you have to go leave California. If you love it there and you have a good job there, that's great. We have to remind ourselves we're not stuck with where we are. I moved from Boston to Mobile to Nashville, and depending on where you live, homeownership may not be in the cards for the next five years or ten years. If you live in Manhattan, I don't know that you're going to be a homeowner in this lifetime in Manhattan because it's insane. And so we've got to start looking at other options, resetting expectations. Maybe you're going to get a condo 30 minutes away instead of the single family home in the town that you're in, and that's going to involve some sacrifice that may mean we have a longer commute to work.

And so we have to weigh all of these options, move with patience, and also look at what you can do to speed up the process. Look at getting your income up. Is that a possibility? What do you make?

I make about 100,000.

Nice, wonderful income. And do you have any debt? You're in, baby. Step three B. So we're debt free.

What do you do for a living?

I do like sales and I do product group managing.

I'm telling you, you need to be looking at some. Gigs, the gig economy, which is nothing more than freelancing. George is right. And of course I'm always going to agree with him on hey, how can we make extra money to speed this timeline up? I'd put that anxiousness and that house fever into money fever. Freelance. You're a professional. Make six figures. How can you freelance and make an extra 30, 40, $50,000? That's what you need to be focused on. Because all of a sudden we fast forward everything. And George is right, by the way. George, I love when you get fired up. I guess people don't know that what you just did was your version of a rant because you're so mellow. But I thought it was great.

Appreciate that.

And I think you're right. What people don't realize is that renting isn't wasting money, it's actually biting time. And I think keeping your options open as opposed to getting too much house. So really good rant, George.

Run it back, folks.

Run it back and watch it back. He's seething you just can't tell. This is the Ramsey show.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell joins me. The phone number for you to jump in today is triple 8825-5225. That's okay. I don't know how many people that are listening and watching today pay attention to news headlines or the news period. I really don't know.

That feels like a personal attack on me, Ken. But it's fine.

You took that personally. How much news do you watch?

Not much. Sometimes I'll watch like a late night show monolog just to digest some of what happened in a fun way. But that's about it.

No kidding.

Unless Ken tells me about it.

Are you not on a news website?

Well, I'm busy in the personal finance know, being a nerd.

Well, first of all, I'm not judging you, but boy, oh boy, did you take that and run with but. Okay, so George is a prime example. Now I'm on the other side of it.

You're always following the news.

I'm paying attention to the news because somebody has to.

Thank you, Ken. You went first.

I know.

Well, brave.

Listen, it is what it is. I like to know what's going on. So here's what's going on. If you do pay attention to news now, George, this will all be news to you.

That was a good pun.

You like that?

Golly.

Americans say the economy stinks, but they're spending like it's great. This is a headline from CNN. Wow, holding. Here this article in my hand and here's what is happening, by the way, I've been talking about this. So inflation has been high for some time, even though it is slowing, but still high. That's a negative. Job market really good. We have 3.9% unemployment, millions more jobs available than there are people who are unemployed. That's good. Wages are up since the pandemic. Hourly wages and salaries are up across the board. So the American people went, all right, we got more money, so let's spend it. They didn't save it. There was a little bit of in 2020, a prolonged season of saving, but that's gone. People are spending like drunken sailors. And it's crazy. 72% of all Americans say things in the country today are going badly. And 66 said the economy 66% said the economy will be extremely important when deciding who to vote for next year. Okay? But the problem is, and the word is conundrum used in the article, which, by the way, is a word we.

Don'T use enough underutilized.

It really is, because they're spending money on concerts. They're spending money eating out. They're spending money on clothes.

Vacations.

Vacations. Credit card at an all time high. Credit card debt at an all time high. And by the way, I don't know if you saw this, Mr. Money News, this will be embarrassing for you if you didn't see this, so you should go ahead and act like you saw.

Okay?

The average Apr, the percentage rate on credit cards reached an all time high last week with an average of 20.75.

That's going to leave a mark.

So you're smart. Isn't that the equivalent of going, I'm going to go buy this, but if I use my credit card, I'm actually paying 20% more?

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, that's the people don't think that way.

Well, Ken, they're starry eyed going, well, I'm going to pay the balance off. I'm going to get my 2% cash back, so I'm going to beat the system, Ken. And here we are at record high of $1.8 trillion in credit card debt, and you're going, how are you guys beating the system? And everyone self selects out and go, Ken, I'm smarter than that. But here we are spending like Congress while then saying, the economy stinks and things are so bad, and yet we're out here, I guess, just with our head in the sand, spending like crazy to cope.

I got killed by the snowflakes on social media when I put out an Instagram reel saying, your paycheck is not your problem, your budget is, and I got lam.

Can I guess what they were?

They called me out of, you know, all these things like, I've got my head in the sand.

Here's.

What I'm guessing.

What else did they say?

Let me guess. What the comment sections? I'm going to sum it up. Yeah, but Ken wages haven't kept up with inflation and the guy in the White House and the Fed and the boomers, they ruined the housing market, and therefore we'll never get ahead. And someone needs to do something about this. But it's not up to me. It's up to everyone else.

Yeah.

Did I sum it up?

Absolutely. And then how out of touch I am, except for paying attention to what actually said was that if you can live on less than you make and the real data from Ramsay Solutions having polled, surveyed over 10,000 net worth millionaires, the third largest group being teachers. Teachers aren't making bank. They're just living. Unless they make George.

Well, they got very few people to impress because they're just trying to survive with these kids out here, not trying to pull up in the beamer next to their coworkers.

There you go. So, I mean, we're in this day and age where everybody wants to spend. By the way, can I make just one little comment on my pay? Isn't keeping up with inflation?

Sure, I can't stop you.

Thank you very much. So, a healthy inflation rate. The Fed, historically, is trying to keep inflation at an inflation growth rate of two to 3% max. Okay? So when people say idiotic things like, my pay isn't keeping up with inflation well, most of the time in a normal inflationary season, like where that number kind of holds there in that two to 3% range, most companies are giving people an annual raise of about 3%. Okay? So that's where they get this nonsensical idea that my pay has to always keep up with inflation. But when we saw extraordinary inflation over the last two or three years, do any of these people realize that if companies had to try to keep up with the inflation, that all the companies.

Who got a business well, the housing market jumps 30%. We can't all just automatically get 30% raises because the company revenue didn't automatically jump 30%.

And I want the youngster at Burger King to make good money when he's flipping the Whopper. But when we got to paying three $4 an hour, guess what else goes up? Anybody?

The cost of the whopper.

The whopper combo. So you're griping about how much you're making, and you're griping about how much the food cost. We've got to understand basic economics in this country. And everybody wants what they want because they want it. They don't understand what it takes to get it. And it's not somebody handing it to you. It's you going and getting it. For crying out loud. There's my little that was your Gen.

X rant of the day.

Thanks for calling it a Gen X rant.

I can't call you a boomer. Yes.

No, I would be very upset. We couldn't be friends if you called me a boomer. Anyway, back to the phones we go. John in York, Pennsylvania. John, how can we help?

Hey, guys, I have a question for you. So I have a sports car that I am considering getting rid of or keeping, and I wanted your advice on it.

Tell us about the car.

It's a mustang. It's worth about 60 grand. It's actually going up in value since I bought it.

What year is the Mustang?

It's a 2017.

Okay, so tell us more. Do you have debt on this?

Yeah, about 15,000 more on it right now. I could pay it off right now if I wanted to. I'm just waiting on a high interest rate savings account to time out before I go and pay it off because I'm making more on the money in.

The bank versus no John. That's broke people talk. That's some common core math right there. It just doesn't work.

Oh, I see what you did there.

What's your payment on this thing?

It's about $1,000 a month.

Okay, so let's just do some basic math. You get rid of this payment and you start investing $1,000 a month. Don't you think that's a better decision for your future than hanging onto a car payment to make a tiny spread in a savings account?

Well so that's my question. Should I sell the car and take all my equity in it and just invest that and be away with it, or should I keep it, get away with the payment, and start to invest it slowly?

How much equity do you have?

Well, like I said, it's worth about 60. I've got about 15 left on it.

Okay, so, like, 45k would be your profit. You'd buy yourself a little car. Is this your only car?

No, I drive a company I drive a company truck for work that's fully paid for by work. And I can use it for if.

You want a cool Mustang, go get you something from the 60s, my young friend. Let me tell you right now, that's what I would do.

Ken, we're not looking for having to upgrade, all right? We're trying to help him out.

Oh. I'm saying he cashes out, he saves, and then he gets himself a real Mustang.

That's some healthy profit.

Well, what's your income? Tell him.

What do you make?

I make about 120.

And what other debt do you have?

My wife and I own a house that is worth about our mortgage is about $300,000 left on it.

Okay. So, so far, you're not violating any principles. If your cars add up to more than half of your annual income, I'd go ahead and sell it. I still think because this is weighing on you and you called us, it sounds like selling this thing would be a relief for you. You can always go get a car later on when you are millionaire and you got a paid for house. That'd make me feel better.

Yeah.

And again, a Mustang from the 60s, you pay cash.

Thank you.

Ken it's going to be a better thing, and it's worth something. It's going to grow in value, not a 2017. All right, we got to get out of here. Good hour. Thanks, James Childs and everybody in the booth. Thank you, George. Thank you, America. This is the Ramsay Show. Live from the headquarters. Ramsay Solutions. This is the Ramsay show. It's where we help you win in your life, specifically winning with your money, your work, and your relationships. Triple 825-5225 is the phone number to jump in. It's toll free. America. Triple 825-5225. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell joins me. George is our money expert, and I'm your work expert today. So those two things go together a lot. So if you've got any work questions, if you're wondering about why you've been passed over, want to get promoted? You're feeling stuck, not sure which way to go in your career? You want to add some money to your baby steps, rather due to extra work, I'm here to answer any work related questions as well. So come one, come all. We'd love to talk to you. Nicole starts us off this hour in Dallas, Texas. Nicole, how can we help?

Hey, guys. Thank you guys so much for taking my call today. So this is kind of what's going on. My dad, unfortunately relapsed on meth, and he was supposed to take over my grandfather's business. And with the relapse, my grandfather came to my husband and I and said, would you guys be willing to do this when I pass? He's in his eighty s, and the business is probably worth three to 5 million. And I just want to know what I can do to protect this business and from the crazy family and grow the wealth and be successful.

Okay, so do you want to take over? Sounds like you do.

Yeah. So I'm actually a nurse, and my husband was active duty military. He just retired, and it's a motorcycle business.

Motorcycle? You guys sell? Repair.

So we sell the parts for Harley Davidson motorcycles. Yeah. We don't do any repair work. We just sell the parts.

That's a big business.

Very successful.

Nice.

Yeah, it's a very successful business.

All right. And so when you say protect it from the family, you mean protect it from your dad getting it?

Well, my dad and also my aunt and uncle, unfortunately, all three of them are addicts. One lives under a bridge by his choice. The other one lives with various people couch surfing. I mean, they're all in their fifty s and sixty s, and this is just what they've made of their lives, unfortunately.

All right. So am I right that if your grandfather puts it in the will and all of his documents and it's laid out that you and your husband are going to be inheriting the business, you will be sole owners of the business upon his death, does that not take care of that issue?

Well, yes and no. My issue is my dad tries to claim that the business is his because he took out a sole proprietorship in Dallas County for the name and so he's trying to say it's his.

What does your grandfather what does your grandfather say about that claim?

Not really anything. He says not to worry about it. But I do worry about it. Well why I'm calling you guys.

No, and I appreciate that but I mean I can claim to have dunked a basketball in the 10th grade but I can claim lots of crazy things. I never did dunk, George.

No one thought you did.

That's what I thought. Never could quite get I tried. But anyway so this is an easy fix. This is we go to Granddad and we say, granddad, I know you told me not to worry about it. I want to know that I know that. I know that this is locked up. So when you say don't worry about it, why do you have some type of documentation that supersedes my dad's erroneous sole proprietorship claim? Like I would go ahead and get with Granddad and say so that when you're gone I'm celebrating you and your legacy and taking it to the next level. I don't want to fight with my dad. I don't want to fight with my uncle, my aunt. Let's get this locked up to where my dad has no standing at all. Let's get a lawyer involved and have your grandfather show you the paperwork that would override or whatever you need to see with your eyeballs and talk to a legitimate lawyer and know that this is all settled and that your dad's claim is bogus. That's all that you have to do.

100%. And this is between your grandfather and your father.

Yeah.

You don't need to your grandfather needs to communicate all of this and you need to say I'm not taking over this business until we have all of this in writing, that this is free and clear, that we are the sole owners, that they will have no stake in this. Before you step foot.

That's right.

But this is a lawyer know we can only take it so far. We are not professionals in that.

And great advice, George. This is Granddad does this granddad's got to talk to his grown son who's a meth addict and he's got to.

Fix this mess because my guess, he's not in the will to inherit anything, let alone the business. Would I be correct?

Yes.

Okay.

Does that answer your question, Nicole?

Yes, that does. And I will get with him and see what he says.

It doesn't make it any less wait a wait.

I heard a little something.

Sass?

No, no, not sass. I heard doubt. Are you doubtful that Granddad's going to take the necessary steps to confront this?

It yes. Only because he has given my father probably no BS to you guys probably five businesses. Very nice businesses. My grandfather's always been an entrepreneur and my dad's run him into the ground. And there's just something about my dad. I don't know if he's the golden child or what. And so, yeah, there is a little doubt there. I mean, I'm going to talk to him.

All right. What if we do this? What if we do this? What if we then take out the grandfather confrontation piece and the grandfather who came to you and said, I want you to take this business, then the grandfather just makes he shows you and proves to you or goes and gets necessary paperwork done to where the sole proprietorship that your dad has is irrelevant. And so maybe we remove the confrontation piece because he won't do that part. But do you think he'll do the other?

Yes, he will do that.

Well, then do that. What we were getting at is like this is grandfather needs to take care.

Of it's not fair for him to put that on you to deal with that, to tell dad he has no part in this.

Right.

And by the way, I don't think anybody needs to tell your dad anything, so I'm fine with granddad going and showing you. Okay? Yes. Trust me. It's in the will. I'm sitting with my lawyer here today. You and your hub's husband get the business. You don't have to tell your dad anything. Keep him out of it.

Just be ready when he comes running for his piece of the pie. And you have to get legal involved and it's going to be messy.

Which is what? Well, it shouldn't be messy. If you get all this done with your grandfather, there's no mess.

Well, the mess is just dealing with that squeaky wheel of an addicted dad.

Well, they can go have a pity party under the bridge for all I care. You got to get this thing right. And you get it right by having granddad lay it all out. This is my wish. This is exactly who's getting the business. And then there's no argument. Do you know what I'm saying?

Right.

The key is clear communication upfront in writing and get legal involved. But I'm sorry, you have to deal with this. This is not a fun way to take over a family business. No, but if I'm your grandfather, I want to make sure I leave a legacy. And legacy means the next person ain't going to screw it all up. And there's no track record that shows me your dad's going to be able to handle this and you and your.

Hubs are going to do great. We're excited for you, Nicole. Just take care of this. Don't leave it up to chance. In paper, in writing, no worries, no messes.

Wow.

Interesting stuff, man. All right, don't move because on the other side of this break, we have more of America's questions. This is the Ramsay show.

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Hey, folks, it's Dr. John Deloney. This time of year can be hard and seasonal affective disorder is real. When I moved to Nashville, the time change caught me off guard. It got dark at like 430, and I was ready for bed by 06:45. P.m.. Things weren't as fun. Even the food lost its flavor. Now I know how to prepare my body. When things get dark, I go outside to enjoy nature. I stick to an exercise routine, and I intentionally connect with people. Another thing I did is therapy. Therapy can be a bright spot even when the sun goes down too soon. Something positive and interactive to make us feel grounded and give us the tools to manage the way seasonal change can affect our bodies. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. BetterHelp is flexible because it's totally online, so it can fit into any schedule. Just fill out a short questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. You can switch therapists at any time for no charge. Find your bright spot this season with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com deloney today to get 10% off your first month.

That's BetterHelp. He lp.com deloney.

Welcome back to the Ramsay show. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell joins me this hour. The phone number is triple 8825-5225. Triple 8825-5225. Before we get to the calls, it's time for our neighborly question of the day, brought to you by, of course, neighborly, your hub for home services. If you need work done on your home or yard but you don't know where to start or who to trust, neighborly is the answer. Find all the help you need@neighborly.com. Slash Ramsey. That's Neighborly.com. Slash Ramsey.

Today's question comes from Alan in Georgia. Should I leave my family's business? Although I get a lot of great experience there, I've noticed it struggles to pay the techs and owners what they deserve and cover expenses. There is also lots of debt that hasn't been addressed. I've helped support it with my own income and hiring feels impossible due to these challenges. I could find a job making a similar salary but feel guilty as if I'm running from the problem. On the other hand, I don't feel I have the capability to fix the problem either. Thank you for your time.

There's your answer, Alan. Because you don't have the capability to fix the problem, it is no longer your problem and thus no guilt. You got to move on because this is quickly going to turn into a lot of bitterness, a lot of resentment, and all of a sudden, Thanksgiving and Christmas is ruined. All because you just went, I feel like I have to stay in the midst of this mess, as opposed to you leave, you go do your own thing, you leave behind the mess that you can't fix your mental capacity, emotional capacity towards the family that you're working with that won't fix the problem. All that goes away and you enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas. I think it's that simple. Yeah.

The only way you should be involved in a healthy, in a family business. If it's a healthy family and a healthy business, there it is. Otherwise you have no moral legal obligation to just stick this out for the rest of your life because it's mom and Dad's business. I'm sorry, but if they're not running it properly, you got to go. Hey, thanks for the opportunity. I learned a lot here. I love you guys. I'll always support you, but I can't be a part of this financially or career wise.

I agree.

Yeah, that's a hard conversation. I'm not trying to minimize that there's going to be feelings involved because this is mom and Dad's baby and this has been in the family for generations and you're betraying the family, but guess what? You can't control how they react. And I'd rather choose guilt over resentment, as some famous psychologist once said, or.

Lots of people have said. And then maybe it got attributed to somebody. But we digress.

We digress.

Thanks for the as we get back to the phones, we'll take any of your work related calls. I'll help you out in that area. If you're feeling stuck, you're feeling confused, a little bit bored, you want to move on, you're trying to figure out how to do that in the middle of the baby steps. We could talk about that as a part of the money questions as well. And we're going to get to Tim now in Moines, Iowa. Tim, how can we help?

Hi, I've got a question today about the debt snowball. My wife and I are on baby step two and for the last eight months we've been in stork mode. And so as we've got our debts listed out, we kind of just keep staring down that last debt, which is just the largest number. And we wonder, because we've got a large lump sum, if it would make sense for us to pay down that largest debt with the lump sums that we have smaller debts to work with and are not kind of staring down a giant at the end of the snowball.

Well, what's the giant? What's the biggest debt? What's the smallest debt?

So the smallest one is 3000. The largest one is going to be $14,000. We've got a total of about $52,000 in all student loans. It's broken down into nine different accounts within those student loans and so it's about 2000 to 6000 of the rest. And then there's that $14,000.01 at the end. And currently we have 19,000 in savings.

Okay. 19k in savings, 52 in debt. And that's all student loans?

Yes.

So you're saying, hey, I could throw the 19 at the 14, knock out the biggest one, free up the payment and continue on the snowball from there. Or should I just follow it as it's laid out smallest to largest?

Yes.

How many debts would you knock out with? Let's say you have your 1000 emergency fund. We throw 18 at the other debts. How many student loans would you knock out from the smallest?

It would be about four.

And what would the payments amount to from those four? The minimum payments?

About just over $100 a month.

Between the four?

Yes.

I thought it was going to be more. Okay.

Yeah. We were defaulted into the income driven payment and so total, our minimum payments for all of the student loans only ends up being about $300 a month.

Oh, gosh. Well, the good news is you have way more to throw at that. The bad news is that sucks. And if people follow that plan, they would never get out of debt and it would balloon in growth. So what's your household income? How much are you guys able to throw a month toward debt on top of minimum payments?

We make about $100,000 a year between my wife and I and five jobs, and then we are doing just about $2,000 a month right now.

Awesome. So at that rate, if you took 18 from the 52, that would knock you down to 34. And you said you could do 2000 a month.

Yeah.

Man, you're going to knock this out real quick. 17 months, according to my records. And I think you're going to even beat that because it's going to become addictive. You're going to free up more payments. But no, I would just follow the debt. Snowball is not going to free up a $700 student loan payment that you can then use towards the other debts. So I'm going to follow the debt. Snowball, knock out four of these. What are the total? You said you have nine total, so you're about to knock off half of the student loans. That's motivating. When you get to that last one, it's just going to be chipping away. You'll freed up some payments and in six months you'll have that last one knocked out. But I would just stay the course with this one because it's not going to make a financial difference. And I think mentally seeing more debts get knocked out is better than seeing a big one get knocked out.

Okay.

Less to mentally manage.

Yeah.

Thanks for the call, Tim. All right, let's go to Birmingham, Alabama next. Casey's there. Casey, how can we help?

Hey, my husband and I are in baby step four five, and we have just kind of, over the years, found ourselves with a little extra cash in a high yield savings account and trying to figure out best way to utilize that. And I stumbled upon the idea of doing a mortgage recast and liked the idea of maybe lowering my monthly payment so that maybe I could start taking some more time off of work and being home with the kids a little bit more while they're in the teenage years and wondered if that was a good idea.

Well, the reasoning behind it is a very I like the motive, but mortgage recasting doesn't actually do. Anything. It's not going to change your interest rate. It will lower your monthly payment, but it also causes you to be less motivated to continue paying down the principal. And so it'll just take longer to pay down at that point.

Yeah, right. But it does give me the option to, if I do have certain times when I'm taking more time off, I've done a big chunk of money towards that to where I am paying it down quicker. We're usually paying about 3000 extra a month already on it. And I would keep doing that. It would just allow me to do that without that money sitting in the high yield savings account.

But if your income doesn't change and your expenses don't really change because you're still throwing the 3000 a month, then we haven't really solved any problem. Could you just stay home while continuing on as you have been?

No, definitely not. My income is a little bit higher in the family.

Right. But I think what we're getting at here, Casey, is the problem you're trying to solve is you'd like to spend more time with the kids. So you're not accomplishing anything with a mortgage recast. In your mind, you're going, well, it gives me more time with the kids. And I think we can figure out more time with the kids without doing the recast. So what has to be true, so let's just assume that we were going forward with the recast, which we're not. We don't think you should do that doesn't really accomplish anything for you financially. So really we want to figure out with our time and with the families what we're trying to solve for. So how much time would you want to spend with the kids? Extra time where you're not in the traditional workplace, just being home in the.

Afternoons when they get home from school.

But give me I mean, let's talk real hours here. What are we talking about? How many hours?

Give me an extra 9 hours a week off.

All right, 9 hours a week. So what I would be doing is I'd be thinking, how do we find 9 hours a week? How do you make the same money you're making or pretty darn close. And so we don't affect our income and all of our financial goals, because you guys are killing it, by the way. So how can I do that and find 9 hours with the kids? Is it a job change? Is it a shift change because you're so valuable? I think that's what you're trying to solve for, don't you think, George? How do we find that 9 hours or 7 hours or 6 hours?

That's a very different problem. I just don't think refinancing or doing the recast actually solves anything here. It might mean you have too much house.

It gets you the 9 hours, but it hurts you another way.

Let's get to the root of the problem before just moving around the debt a little bit.

Yeah, I think that's the way to go, and I love your heart for that, and I think it's a good idea, and I think you can do it. Think you got to get creative, and you have to look specifically in that area. Thanks for the call, Casey. This is the Ramsey show. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. George Camel joins me this hour. By the way, it's camel with a k. Want to make sure you get that.

Thank you for that, Ken. It's not the animal, but it is pronounced as such.

That's right. I like that. And very easy to remember. We've got a great studio audience.

Camel and Coleman.

Camel and Coleman.

We sound like the worst law firm ever.

We're like the law firm, like in rainmaker. We're just trying to win the first case.

That's all it takes.

By the way, do you know that movie the rainmaker?

It's been a while. I was probably a toddler, but I.

Mentioned it on the show yesterday with Rachel Cruz. Never heard of it. Your references are she acted like I was a grandpa.

They're a bit dated. We can all admit that.

Does that mean that I'm dated? No.

You're classic. That's how I look at you. Oh, timeless.

Look at how he spins, folks. Nobody george should run for congress. That was just absolutely effortless there. Didn't sprain ankle at all. Well done, my friend, as always. Shall we help Melissa?

I hope so.

All right, Melissa, how can we help? Hello.

Hello, guys. Thank you. I'm so grateful to get your advice today.

All right, well, let's see if it's any good. We don't know yet.

So I am new to the Ramsey show. I've been binge watching for about two months, and what I'm realizing well, first of all, we're on baby step number two. And what I'm realizing as I listen to you guys is that we haven't been putting nearly enough into our 401. And so I'm trying to concentrate on baby number two, but I'm nervous for the advice of stopping my investing because I feel like I'm 46 years old and I feel like I'm already behind. And so it makes me nervous that I'm going to be in trouble at retirement.

Well, your nerves are justified, but there's a reason why we do it.

George absolutely. Well, tell us about your nest egg. What's in there now between the household?

So I have 134,000 in my 401. I also have an IRA from a previous job, and that's got 104,000 in it, but I'm not adding to that one. So it's just sitting there, hopefully growing.

Okay.

And then my husband has about 80,000 in his 401K.

Okay. So that's not nothing. I mean, you could be working, but.

It'S not enough at retirement, I don't think.

Well, it's not right now, but compound growth is going to work its magic over the next 15 to 20 years of your careers. And by the Way, If You're listening to this show, we're Going To up Your investing and there's going To Be catch up contributions and You're Going To start to make leaps and Bounds on the investing side.

But I'm nervous.

But first we got to eat our vegetables. And that's getting out of debt.

Yes.

So how much debt do you have.

Counting the Mortgage 226,000 take Out The Mortgage.

Let's focus on baby step two what's the consumer debt.

So if you have a calculator 226,000 -180,000 okay so you have 46 in.

Consumer debt what does that make up of what's in there?

We have two cars and then two credit cards. One of the credit Cards is very Small. I'll be paying that off by January.

Okay. And what's the household income?

My husband and I together, we make about 210,000 a year.

Heck, yeah.

Taxes and insurance and all that after Tax bring home about 10,000 A month. No, 210 A year is the salary we Bring home about 10,000 A month after taxes and insurance and 401K investments and All Of that stuff.

Okay. And how much are you currently investing? What Percentage?

I Invest 6% at My job and Then my employer matches 4%. And Then my Husband is only investing 4% at his job.

Okay, so here's the encouragement. If you Follow this plan, we're going to get you out of this Muck and Mire and Cycle of investing. Measly percentages like four and 6% and we're going to triple that. Do you see what that does? If Both of you get up to 15% of that amazing income, that's going to be thousands of dollars more a year you're investing that Are going to be working for you with compound growth.

Okay.

So you're not going to fall behind.

15% of each of our incomes. It's not Just 15% of that.

Think about it this way. 15% of your income plus 15% of his income becomes 15% of your household income. So it's the same amount. Okay, $100,000 15% is 15 grand. So If Each Of You Make 50, you Invest 15%, it's still going to add up to that 15 grand.

I'm curious what kind of debt you have on the car. How much Do You have any equity in those cars at all.

Yeah? Quite a bit. I think I have one Car that we owe about 15,000. And Kelly Blue Book is showing about 24,000 for private party sale the other Car. We probably owe exactly what it's worth? About 13,000.

All right, here's a crazy idea. I don't know if George agrees with you.

Don't get rid of my car. Don't get rid of my car.

You don't have to. I mean, you Guys make enough income to where you can pay this off, but you approach us with the idea you're brand new to us, right? You've been binge watching videos and you're nervous about pausing the retirement savings, right? Yes, you're nervous about it?

Yes.

So if you want to speed it up, you sell the cars. You don't have to. You guys make enough money where you can pay those cars off. But if you wanted to speed up the timeline, I don't think it's too aggressive to say I sell the cars or at least sell one of them, the one that I've got a lot of equity in. And you said you got about 15,000 of equity in it. I think you said something like that.

About 10,000 in the one car.

10,000. But, I mean, there's a lot of decent cars out there for $10,000, and you get a nice car, nice $10,000 car, boom, that car payment is gone. That money goes towards paying everything else off. That is the snowball as you understand it? Yes. You understand how we move those payments? I'm saying you could speed this timeline up, thus speeding up the amount of time that you're pausing. Am I wrong, George, in saying that?

No, I don't think so. I would still pause investing on top of that. But here's the thing, because she was so against selling the car, that tells me. All right, well, then you're backed into the corner of having to pause investing if you want to get out of debt. Here's the good news, Melissa. You pause investing, making 210, all being thrown at the debt. Every single piece of margin you have, you're gone in six months. You got rid of this debt, and now we upped our investing. And can I share some numbers? I've been crunching them over here while Ken was babbling on. Oh, you ready for this?

That's why I babble.

Okay, so you have 318,000 in your nest egg. 318. Right. You're 46. You have 318 total. If you invested nothing else, $0 for the rest of your life. And you had an average annual return of 10%, which is the average we've seen with the S and P 500, you guys would have $1.5 million at 62. That's good, right? 1.5 million ain't bad.

I mean, it's wonderful. I just don't know if it's enough.

To well, how about this, Melissa?

20 years after retirement, we're not going.

To do $0 in investing. What's going to happen is, six months from now, we take 15% of 210. Well, now we're cooking with gas. That's 26, 25 a month you're throwing to investments. Now at 62, you have $2.8 million. Is that better?

Okay, that sounds much better.

You just added 1.3 million by following the Ramsay plan, and all I'm asking you to do is, for six months, just trust us and bring investing down to zero. Six months.

Okay.

Do you trust me? I feel like aladdin right now.

I totally trust you.

And that's if, by the way, I.

Wouldn'T trust you after two months.

That's if your income never goes up, and you guys just totally hang up the hat at 62. Yeah.

Okay.

And so the chances are when you get to 62, you're going to have even more money than that. Or we could still be playing this game. You could be calling the show ken's going to be ancient by then.

And by the way, still babbling and.

Still babbling, but still very fashionable. And we'll be having the same conversation of you going I'm worried about pausing investing. We've invested in 4%. We still have the debt. I don't want to melissa, this is the sacrifice.

George just laid out the long game for you. You're playing the long game. Investing for retirement is the long game.

Right?

Okay.

Yes. So you have to approach it that way. And so this is a short term pause.

After I finish baby step, then I go 15% on.

I know it's baby step two. You're still in baby step two. Once you finish the baby step two, you're going to put three to six months emergency fund in the bank and that's your emergency fund. Now we pick back up with the 15%.

Okay.

And that may feel an eons away. We're really talking about twelve months.

Sell one of them cars, maybe both of them.

Ken really hates your cars.

Melissa, I don't hate your cars.

I just know that, listen, I'm also.

Cash flowing my son's college, so money is super tight.

I get it, totally.

But guess what saves you money selling the cars.

What's crazy is later on down the line, you can buy more cars.

You can't real quick. Melissa, what is your combined car payments between both cars?

780.

Give me the tums. James, where's my tums? $700 a month. You said times are tight. Sell the cars.

Ken's always jonesing for those tums.

Well, when I hear $700 car payment, what else am I supposed to have.

Mailox that could do the trick?

Milk of magnesia.

Gosh.

What is the product pepto? I don't know. We'll figure it out during the commercial break and let you know when we come back. This is the Ramsay show.

Guys, let's be honest. Some things should just stay in the 90s where they belong, like boy bands and waking up at 04:00 a.m. To stand in line for black Friday deals. And that's why for this entire week, you get to skip the crowds and find new meaningful gifts for as low as $8 in our week long black Friday sale. From our popular books to questions for humans conversation cards, you're going to find something for everyone in your life. So hurry and shop@ramsaysolutions.com. Store for early access to our black Friday sales, that's Ramsaysolutions.com store.

Welcome back to the Ramsay show. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by George Camel. The phone number for you to jump in is triple 8825-5225. That's triple 825-5225. And George and I were talking during the break. And when you sit in for a legend, an icon, dave Ramsay, as the Ramsay personalities do on a regular basis. And we take your calls on money. And we've all taught the classes. I'm not a money focused personality, obviously, I'm in the work space. But we have George, we've got Rachel, and we've got Jade all in the money space. And there's just so much to be learned, so much to talk about from a money standpoint. And George's new book is coming out in January, release date of January 16. January 16. And the book is I'm holding it in my hand right here. If you're watching Breaking Free from Broke, I don't want our audience and I don't want anybody else to go, oh, well, this is just going to be watered down, total money makeover because it's.

Not it's watered up, baby.

It's not watered up. It's spiked up. There we go. I dare say there's some tabasco in this. There's some George Camel snark in this. How is this book different? And why should people order this book pre order this book now?

Well, if you've been following my story and my path and the stuff I've done know, we did borrowed future podcasts, fine print, and so this is investigative, it's eye opening. I really want to rile up an entire generation to go, yeah, we were sold this primrose path and we fell for it, and I'm sick of it, and I want to build wealth in spite of what the heck is happening in this world. And so the first two thirds of the book, Ken, I show you how the system, this financial industrial complex, is designed to keep you broke, all the lies and myths that we were sold. And then I show you how it's not all your fault, but it's your responsibility to break free from those lies and to take in the truth, bust those myths, deprogram and unplug from The Matrix. And that's how I went from broke to millionaire. And it's got so much research, so much humor, and I think everyone's going to love it.

So it's on presale now. What do they get when they preorder now? And what is the cost? What do they get in the it's.

$20 for the hard copy. And then we are going to also send you $100 worth of bonus items. The ebook we're doing an enhanced audiobook, access to an exclusive online event, and Q and A, you get three months of every dollar premium along with that and access to my smart conference talk called Show Me the Money. So we're packing it all in there.

And a fun little poster on 21 Interesting Facts About Camels you didn't know.

That might be a bonus item we need to include. Ken yeah, we'll workshop that one.

Yeah. I should point out, folks, I am joking. I've said things on the show before that I was convinced were completely sarcastic and people believed it.

Well, sometimes it's in your favor.

There is no Camel poster. Interesting facts about Camels in the preorder.

You can Google that, though, for yourself.

But I'm sure somebody's done that. Somebody got to that one before we did. Ramsaysolutions.com to preorder breaking free from broke. It's a really good book. And Georgia's got a baby girl now and he needs to feed her that college fund.

Ken we're starting to fund that.

529, 29. Here we go. Jacob in Greenville, South Carolina is up next. Jacob, how can we help?

Hey, good afternoon, guys. I just want to start by saying I big fan of The Rainmaker.

Thank you. Somebody who appreciates a good movie and a good book, by the way, by John Grissom. How can we help?

Absolutely. So I'm an attorney. I'm currently self employed, able to work from home, which is a blessing because I'm an attorney. I had to I guess I didn't have to, but I decided to take out student loans in order to pay for that. And right now they're at about $150,000. I'm on an income driven repayment plan currently, which is about 517 a month. I have two kids, two young kids. My wife's able to stay at home with them, which is great. But I guess I'm trying to figure out how to get out from under this because it's just been a burden weighing on me for how long have you had these? Since so I started law school in 2013 I'm sorry, 2010. And I graduated in 2013. So I've been paying them a decade since then. Yeah.

And I'm guessing the balance hasn't moved much because of these income driven repayment plans. And the interest keeps causing the balance to grow as you pay it down. So what was the original balance?

I don't even remember. It was close to probably 100. It was about 30 some a year where I went I went in state, but it was still expensive. Well, what's your income right now? It's 100 on the nose. It's like 83, 33 per month. And then since I'm self employed, I pay quarterly estimated taxes on that. Correct.

Okay.

So it's about 2500. I pay per quarter. That's what my accountant set up for me.

Cool. So there's a few steps I want you to take to not just feel overwhelmed and burdened by this. And number one is to make a written budget. And I'm going to gift you one year of every dollar premium so that you can map out this plan of your 100,000 income, your expenses. And what you're going to do is see if there's margin. After you list out all of your expenses, have it mirror your actual reality of your bills, and then we can make a plan. Because right now I would love for you to be debt free in two years. How would you like that?

That would be unbelievable.

Well, let's look at the math. That's 75 grand a year getting thrown at these loans. So now we know. Okay, I need to throw 75 grand. I only make 100, and I got to pay bills first. So what do we need to do to find that gap? Well, partially, we might need to cut expenses. Partially, we need to increase our income. Is your wife able to do any kind of work to bring in some income? And you work overtime and do some more work as well?

Yes, I am doing some other side work that makes about 1800 biweekly or so, but it's temporary work, so it kind of comes and goes.

Okay. And what does it look like to increase your salary in the law field? How do we get to you making 100 and 5200? 250?

Yeah. I would have to either try to find a different network to go through with what I do okay. Or go to my current, who I'm kind of working for right now, and kind of say, hey, I'd like that increase, but I'm not at that point yet. I want to get at least another year in with them before I kind of go to them about, well, I.

Want Ken to walk you through the steps to take to go from 100,000 salary as an attorney to $200,000, because I think it's much possible. And I don't want you to feel like, well, that might be years and years from now.

Yeah. What kind of law practice are you in? Excuse me? Specialty.

So, believe it or not, I actually represent consumers who have been sued by creditors.

Okay. And are you working for a firm, or are you independent?

Basically, I represent people who are in debt settlement companies, so if they get sued, I'm part of their program.

Okay.

Representation.

So are you, like, a contractor, like, a lawyer who's contracted out to multiple companies?

Correct.

All right, so what's the ladder look like in that type of law? Do you see financial growth? I mean, is that something where you can really grow your income?

Yeah, that's where I'm not really sure that it's something I can really grow. It much more than where I am.

Let's go ahead and round up and say the answer is no. So you have a law degree, and what other types of law specialties or areas can you focus on right now? What could you quickly move into?

It would be tough because I'm barred in a different state than where I live, so I would have to find something that's remote or something that is.

There a position where, let's say it wasn't remote, where you could double your income if you work for a big.

Mean? If I were able to get, like, in house counsel at a company where it doesn't matter where you're barred, then yeah, that would be something jacob. That's what I've been into.

Jacob, I must tell you, please don't take this the wrong way.

I have a plan.

Well, you're just a little too well, lackadaisical bro.

Is that the word?

You got a law degree if you're barred in one state, fix it. Go find a path a ladder where that law degree is bringing in 305 455565. This is not difficult stuff, my friend. This is intentional action, and you need to take control, because that solves a lot of your problem right there. Thank you for the call, George Campbell. Good hour. Thanks to James Childs and the guys in the booth. Thank you, America. This is the Ramsey Show, live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. This is the Ramsey show. It's where we help you win in your life by helping you win with your money, in your work, and in your relationships. I'm Ken Coleman. George Camel joins me. The phone number is triple 8825-5225. That's toll free, America. Triple 8825-5225. Grand Rapids, Michigan, is where we start this hour. Kate is there on the line. Kate, how can we help?

Hi.

Thanks for taking my call. How are you doing?

Well, we're having a blast. What can we help you with?

I feel like I'm a lost cause, and I'm possibly stuck where I'm at and what I'm doing.

Well, let me start by saying number one, you are not a lost cause, and you are not stuck. My guess is you've chosen to stay put because of fear and doubt. How about that?

Well, I've been let down a lot when I'll bet I was debt free at one point. A few times, actually 100%. Like my phone or not my phone. Hello?

Sorry.

My car, my student loan and everything. Credit cards were all paid off. I'm good to go. Had cash to my name, and I tried to get a house, and all I heard was no. And I'm a single parent of two kids, and it's really hard to.

Get.

Out of the subsidized housing I've been in for ten years about. And I'm tired of having to tell them when I get more money, when I don't get more money, and just the fluctuation, the paperwork, and it's already hard raising two kids on my own and no dads to help.

I'm sorry. George and I are going to help.

I only work part time as a parapro in a school for 16 an hour, and I feel like I really want to work full time.

I know you.

And I really want to bust it out and break free of this. Feel like a cell in my heart and in my home. I want to get somewhere. And I feel like no one knows anything in my family about money. And I feel like all I knew was saving and debt, and I never knew about all this other stuff until I watched Dave people.

Well, listen, which is nice, because I.

Need that kick in the pants, too.

Yeah, well, let me tell you what you need. You need some confidence. Because I believe that you have what it takes to repeat the process of getting out of debt. You've done it before, so I know you can do it again. I also know that you're up against it right now because you're just simply not bringing enough income. No, if you were bringing in more.

Income living now, but I'm afraid if I get out of here, how am I going to make it?

Well, so income, okay, income and a budget. All right, so let's talk about the income piece for a second. All right? So what would you need to make financially to be able to get out of subsidized housing and get a decent place to rent for you and the kiddos? What's that number?

I honestly don't know.

Okay, what's keeping you so low right now?

It's like 107 for my rent, but that's feasible. But regular rent around here, it's anywhere between 1000, 201,500.

Kate, all right, you got to listen now, okay? You're making a lot of excuses, and I know you've been through a lot. We can't make any more excuses. So you said you need somebody to kind of give you a little kick in the pants, and I'm going to do that as gently as I can. George is a lot nicer than I am, but I'm going to be nice.

I'm good copies, bad cop.

Okay?

Now, but listen, we've got a number. Now let's take the highest number just because it's going to help us. George and I are going to do this together, okay? Now, George is going to help out on the budgeting and all that kind of stuff a second, but I want to get this income factor figured out, all right? So let's say $1,500 a month is something that that gets us a nice place to live and oh, my gosh, how happy would you be if you could easily afford a twelve to $1,500 apartment? How happy would you be, Kate? Tell me.

I honestly don't want to be in any apartment anymore, though.

Okay, where do you want to be, Kate? Stop.

Hold on.

Take the big leap. Getting a house, Kate.

We got to take a baby step, Kate. Kate.

You've never played basketball and you want to dunk? It doesn't work that way. Stop that right now. Stop that. Okay? An apartment that is not government subsidized housing is the next goal. Yes or no? You better say yes. Yes. You are only working okay, here's the deal, kate, you're only working part time as a parapro in a school making $16 an hour. You are not making enough money. You are a mama bear who has gotten put in a tough situation because of deadbeat dads. These guys, if they were in this studio right now, I'd get after them with a Wiffleball bat because I couldn't hurt them bad enough to really put them in the hospital. But I'd sting them good. They're jerks. They're low lifes, they're lazy, they're punks all of the words that I can say on the air. And I understand that, and it sucks. But you're the mama bear and you got to take care. Of those kiddos, and you are worth way more than $16 an hour. So you got to go work at Walmart or Kroger or somewhere or Target where they're paying a lot more than $16 an hour.

They're paying health care benefits. They will even pay for your college education. Walmart has made this a national program. Kate, I'm giving you one idea.

I just got out of Walmart.

I don't care. Go back.

You don't have no $20. It was 14 and that was still part time, and I had to be there one day a weekend, and I have no sitter to watch.

You got to find somebody. You got to find an old lady who goes to a church that you go to. You've got to stop making excuses, and you've got to start making things happen. So income is what you have got to do. You have got to make more money. If it's two jobs, three jobs, and we find somebody to watch the kiddos, you can find a way. And then, George, what has she got to do with that money?

Well, we're going to put it to use in our budget, Kate, and I'm going to throw some things at you. We're going to gift you some stuff to help you take that right next step, because we only have it here on the air, but how much debt do you have?

I am whittling my last or I'm plastic surgery my last discovery card good. At about $4,900.

Okay, so once the $4,900 credit card bill is gone, you're completely debt free?

Completely.

Good. Yet again, do you have any money.

In the bank with gambling and drinking? I have two addictions as well.

Are you seeking counseling and help for that?

Yes, I am.

Okay, good. So we're going to get you on some good footing on that side. On top of getting you out of debt, do you have any money in the bank?

I keep that very minuscule. So basically no, just enough for my bills so I don't go and use my debit card for purchases I don't need to.

Okay, that's good. Well, what I'm going to do is I'm going to set you up with one of our Ramsey Financial coaches on our team, and I'm going to gift that session to you so that they can take some time, pour into the details, and walk you through this. On top of that, I'm going to gift you one year of every dollar premium. I'm going to gift you Financial Peace University watch all those nine lessons begin to make a budget. Even if you don't have a lot of income, make the budget income, then your expenses. Then we know what the gap is. Then we can see what we need to do to get out of this debt, to build the emergency fund, get on our feet, increase our income, like Ken said, and get out of this cycle. We believe you can do it.

There's nothing that a mama bear wouldn't do for kiddos. And you're going to have to choose those kiddos right now, and you're going to have to work like you've never worked before in your life. Is it going to be really hard? Yes. Is it doable? Yes. Are you the only single mom to ever have to do it? No. You got to choose. Today's the day to choose your babies and their future. This is the Ramsay show.

Hey, guys. Christmas is right around the corner, which means we're about to be bombarded with a million and one ways to spend money in the name of holiday spirit. And listen, I want you to enjoy the season, but unless you want to spend your entire life savings on candy canes, you need a budget. And EveryDollar will help you make a plan for all of your Christmas expenses. And right now, you can get an entire year of premium features for just 49 99. To get the deal, head over to EveryDollar.com black friday. That's EveryDollar.com black friday.

Welcome back to the Ramsay show. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by George Camel. Triple 8825-5225. Triple 825-5225. When you were growing up and you were in elementary school and your name was said in front of the class, did you ever think anybody'd say it the way I just said that?

No. You hit that in a beautiful way with a lot of punch and gusto that was not said by my third grade teacher.

Yeah.

I just want to make sure that you paid attention to that. Thank you.

I appreciate the affirmation.

All right.

Very good.

It made me feel good, if nothing else.

All right, russell's up next in Phoenix, Arizona. Russell, how can we help?

Yes. Thanks for taking my call. How you guys doing?

We're having a blast. What's up?

Yeah. So my question is, my wife and I just recently got on board with starting the baby steps, and so we just got every dollar budget and created the budget. So this is going to be probably the first real month of budgeting and doing that kind of stuff on both of us together. And so by the end of this month, we should be done with baby step one of getting our $1,000. So I'm trying to prepare all of our debts for the debt snowball for baby step two. And the question I have for you guys is we are in quite a bit of debt, almost $200,000 in consumer debt, and I have three car loans that we are upside down in all three. And that is the main question I'm calling about is I'm trying to make the plan for how to get rid of at least two of these cars, but at this point, I don't have the extra to cover what I'm under on them. And because of my credit and being so low, I'm not able to get a personal loan for them. So I would have to save up the extra.

So that's where the kind of meat of the question is. I know I want to get rid of at least two of these cars. I know how much I would need to save in my debt snowball. Should I put the amount I need to save further up in the debt snowball? Like, if I need $5,000 to pay off one of the cars, should I put that five grand in that order? Because the car I would owe $15,000, I would need five in order to sell it. Okay, so that's kind of my question.

You're basically saying, should I just kind of pause my debt snowball make minimum payments while stacking up the cash needed to get out from under this thing?

Well, either that or just pretend those cars are 5000 and do my debt snowball, but instead of my car being at 15,000 in the debt snowball, I put my car at 5000 in the debt snowball.

I think saving up as much cash quickly and getting out of this thing is going to be your best bet to gain some traction. So tell me, how far underwater, what do these loans add up to on these cars?

Yes. Okay. All three. So the smallest one is 15,000.

Okay.

Then the next one is 27,000. And then the biggest one is 49,000.

Okay. Go through those again. 15. What is that car worth?

Okay, so the 15 is worth the highest I could probably sell for on personal sell is about ten grand. That's if I can get like, the max of it.

Okay.

Then the next one is about 23. Maybe about 22, 23,000. Then the biggest one, unfortunately, I bought in the height of car prices during the Pandemic, and that's only worth about 35 to 37,000.

Okay.

All right.

What are the total payments between these three loans?

Yeah. So smallest is 424, then five eightyn, and then 1033.

Oh, boy. Where are the tom?

Over $2,000 in car payments. Wow, man, no wonder you can't breathe. And that's not even all of your debt. We still got no, what's the other debt?

Yeah, so the other debt is student loans between my wife and I, maybe about 25 to 30,000. I have the numbers, but not in front of me, so I don't remember exactly, but it's about 25, 30 for student loans, active credit cards, maybe about five. And then I have a credit card in collections for about nine.

Okay. And that's everything that doesn't feel like it adds up to 200.

Yeah. I wish I had my every dollar budget because I just did it on the every dollar.

It seems like there's a gaping hole here where you got some other debt.

So you only need you thought about oh, solar loan.

Sorry. I have a solar loan for about $40,000.

There we go.

Oh, boy.

Okay.

Oh, boy.

Yeah.

Sorry, man. First of all, is there a spending addiction here as to how you got into you kept buying all these cars you couldn't afford, and did you roll negative equity into the next one and the next one?

So that was part of it? A part of it was rolling negative equity into the new cars. The other part of it is, a couple of years back, my wife and I were in a bad spot in our marriage, and she was kind of desperate to find something to make her happy, and she bought a third car. So there was relationship issues which caused spending plus just dumb rolling negative equity into some other vehicles. So it was a mixture of both. And for the last year, I've been trying to work with my wife to try to get back on track. And so finally this last month, we both agreed it was harder to convince her, but she finally got on board. That's why I'm calling. Now is now I'm not.

Okay, you're on. We're ready?

Yes.

What's the household income?

Household income, let's see, net bringing home is about right under ten grand.

Ten grand a month? Net?

Yes.

Okay, so in your budget, how much margin is left after making all your minimum payments? All $2,000 of car loans plus all the other debt. Is there anything left?

Yeah, so we just did the budget, and for like, this month, we had a couple of extra things to do this month, like getting tires for one of the cars. But besides that, our normal what we have left to throw a debt is between around $800 to $1,000 a month. If we cut back on spend, eating out, that kind of thing, there's about $800 to $1,000 a month.

Okay.

So I want to get to something really quick. George, he said he was worried that he couldn't sell the cars because he couldn't get a personal loan, but it doesn't seem like he's got bad credit. You're making payments on all these things so you could go sell all three cars and then just consolidate the difference into one loan from, like, a local credit?

Well, yeah. Where do you have all these loans through? Is it through one place? Multiple places?

Yeah. The car loans are, you know, you got Kia Finance, and then you got Ally, and then you have another one for the third one.

Okay.

I did already try because I was already thinking about how to do this, and I did try already to get a personal loan.

You need to walk in there and ask for the manager and say, listen, you guys have a bad loan on your hands, and here's what I'm asking you to do. Cover the difference and allow me to take that on as a personal loan, because right now you have a loan out for fifteen K, and the car is only worth ten.

Okay.

And so you need to be real clear with them that this thing's about to get repoed or we could solve this if they're willing to give you the difference so that you can get out from under it. You and your wife need to show up with the manager and talk through the situation and explain exactly what's going on with these numbers and say, listen, we want to get out of this thing, we want to give back this money. We need to get these personal loans done in order to crawl out from under these underwater cars. But outside of that, the only other way is to save up the difference and knock them out one by one. And that to me is going to be your a one going forward. Let's save up four grand, let's get out from the 27, let's save up another five grand, let's get out from the 15. And so as you do that, you're going to free up $2,000 worth of payments that we can use to attack.

The other debt in two and three jobs too.

We need to up the income.

Yeah, you've got to take what's, the $800 you can throw towards debt and you've got to double that. You guys are selling everything, man, and cut up the card like crazy.

No more cards, debt is off the table. We're going to have to find out another way to do it. No more car loans, no more credit cards, no more solar loans, no more live in la vida loca. We had our fun and it about destroyed our marriage. Let's try something different. So hang on the line. I'm going to send you financial peace university and I'm going to send you every dollar premium. Since you're already using every dollar, this will upgrade you. You can track transactions, use paycheck, planning, all kinds of features, but man, we hope you get out of this and I hope it's a beautiful redemption story.

Ah, here, there's the tums.

And James brought in the tums because.

Ken's antacid anytime I see more than a $1000 car payments, a thousand in car payments, this is a fresh jar. I'm gonna have to open this up on the commercial. Oh, here it is. By the way, special bonus points if you can tell me who sang live in la vida loca.

Ricky Martin. Leather pants.

Final answer, ricky Martin and tums for the win. This is the Ramsey show.

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Welcome back to the Ramsay show. I'm Ken Coleman. George Camel joins me. The phone number for you to jump in is triple 825-5225. But before we take more calls in the lobby of Ramsay Solutions, standing on the debt free stage, jackson and Hannah from the Lincoln, Nebraska area welcome, you two.

Hi.

How you doing?

All right. You guys are here, I guess, to do a debt free scream, I presume. Yes. Awesome. All right, let's get the numbers here. How much debt did you pay off?

$26,131.

All right. 26,000. And how long did that take?

Eight months.

Eight months. Okay. What was your range of income during that time?

It was 77,000, and at the end, it was 81,000.

Nice. And what do you guys do for a living?

I'm a bank teller.

Okay.

And I am an engine overhaul technician for airplane engines.

Whoa. We thank you for your service, my friend.

Thank you.

Yeah.

You want that guy to be you want him to be fresh on the job?

Absolutely.

Paying attention. All right. Very good. Okay, so eight months ago, you guys are a young couple. I think that's fair to say.

How long you been married?

Two years.

Okay. So what happened eight months ago where these newlyweds decide, let's get out of debt?

So we got married in 2021, and then a couple of months later, we decided to buy a house in another state in Kansas. And so after we moved there, I was still working in Lincoln, Nebraska, and it was just getting really hard. We were using credit cards. I owed money on my truck. I owed money to family members because we borrowed money from them to pay for the down payment for the house because we were broken. We couldn't afford it.

Sure.

And so several months passed by, and I buy a camper so I can stay up in Nebraska in the camper because it's cheaper. I got a loan for that, and when I went to go pay the taxes for registering it, we didn't have any. I just I kind of broke down because I had to put it on a credit card in order to even pay the taxes for it, and I decided then something needs to change, and luckily, we were able to sell the camper, and that's why it's not included in the debt. And I was just like, I got to get out of this. And I was mainly doing the finances, so I was kind of taking it all by myself.

So did Hannah know about the stress that was happening?

I really didn't have any clue. In my family, my dad always handled all the finances, and my mom kind of really didn't know what was going on. Just knew that everything was fine.

And you were following the same.

So when we got married, that was kind of like, oh, he's going to take care of everything, and it's going to be fine.

So you think, hey, our life is fine.

Yeah.

Until all going very well. Yeah.

Until one day he comes to me and is like, hey, our credit card bill is $5,000 and there's no way we can pay for it. And then it was kind of like, oh, no, we need to do something now to get us ourselves out of this.

Wow.

So what made up that 26K? What kind of debt was that?

So it was a truck loan. It was money from family for the down payment for the house. It was like I owed money on my phone from my cell phone carrier, different credit cards, just kind of the.

Works, all the normal stuff.

Normal of payments.

All right, so I want to go back to that moment. Okay. You find out that you guys are in debt, $5,000 specifically on the credit card, and you don't think you could pay it. What was the conversation? What would you guys do next?

So I contacted my sister in law, shout out to you, Emily, because I was going to do the 0% intro balance transfer to the new card. And she had done that before on one of her cards, so I was going to try that. And she mentioned to me this debt Snowball, and I was like, well, what is that? Paying the highest interest first would make more sense, right? So then she said it was from Dave Ramsey. And I was like, oh, Dave Ramsey's. Just that rich snob who tells people to pay for things with cash.

Because I wish he was here to hear that.

He would love that. He loves that.

I'm kind of glad he wasn't here for this one, because he's heard it all.

No, trust me, he actually loves that. It's weird.

But then that night, I was just sitting there and I was thinking, you know what? Maybe we should try this. Maybe we should try this. So at work I started listening to the podcast on Spotify, and I started doing The Debt Snowball. And then I'd come home and I'd talk to her about it, and we just went game on. From that moment, unar playing hasn't been working.

Let's listen to this rich snob. Apparently he's helped some people. Exactly.

That's incredible.

What was one of the big sacrifices you guys made as a young couple, trying to start out your life, trying to live this lifestyle? What'd you have to cut out?

Well, I love coffee. I love going to all the coffee shops and stuff. And so that was like a big, like, okay, we really need to cut out everything that's not necessary. And coffee is not necessary.

Did you go uncaffeinated or do you just make it at home?

Brewed coffee at home. Yeah.

Okay.

Less exciting.

Did you go cheap coffee?

Oh, yeah, for sure. Store brand? Yeah.

Nothing makes you want to get out of debt like drinking generic brand coffee. I'm ready to get back to the lattes.

We got rid of the subscriptions as well, like Netflix, Amazon, and we actually were spending less on Amazon after we got rid of prime.

There you go. Thank you for proving. I always tell people, listen, I know prime hurts to cut, but you're going to also spend less on top of saving on the subscription.

It works.

Yeah. Wow.

I'm proud of you guys. That's a lot of sacrifice to make as a young couple who loves convenience and caffeine. Yeah. That's impressive.

Now, what was your support system through this? Who rather was your support system?

Yeah. Our support system was pretty much both of our families and pretty much all of our friends. And even though they might not understand everything that we're doing, they're always like, go for it. You guys are doing awesome. Congratulations on being debt free and everything. And so we got really lucky, and both of our family and some of my family members have started this journey as well, and I got them going on this too.

What led to the increase in income? I'm always fascinated by this stat. It's almost a guarantee that when we have a debt free couple or a person up there, that their income always increases. I'm curious what you guys did to see that pump.

I got a second job that I absolutely hated working in retail.

That's even better.

Yeah. Can you tell us the name of the retailer or is it George? I'm just curious.

You are curious.

I'm a man of retail. I used to work a lot of retail.

I didn't hate the company. I just hated I had already was working 40 hours at my full time job, exhausted, and it was always like right after my job at five, five to nine. So it was kind of like my day was really long.

That's right, yeah. Was it worth it all?

Oh, yeah, for sure. The little bit of extra money that I was able to contribute towards our overall income just made me feel really good. And he was putting in a lot of extra overtime hours. Luckily, he was able to oh, good. Have that flexibility with his job at the time.

Well, look, let me tell you something. Eight months, okay, that's incredible.

Wasn't a life sentence.

I mean, you guys knocked us out in eight months. I understand it was 26,000, but still, eight months. You guys got after it, and now you're on the other side of it. So what would you say to maybe some other young couples that are early on in their marriage and they're staring at some debt, the key to getting out of debt from your journey, what would you say?

Be on board with one another? I think we were really lucky that we were both like, okay, let's do this right away. We didn't have to convince the other one and kind of just that unity of having the goal at the end of the finish line and being able to just do the work that it's going to take because it's going to be hard, but it's 100% worth it.

Sacrifice. You need to sacrifice. Sacrifice your time to work more to make extra money. Sacrifice your subscriptions. Sacrifice eating out. It is worth it to go through this and being on the other side of it. It is incredibly worth it to be debt free.

Well, this freedom on the other side, a lot of people think, come on, man.

Jackson and Anne.

Yolo, I got to enjoy my life. I got to eat out. And here you are with such freedom on the other side, with so many options, with so much margin to give, save, spend like no one else. What's your next big goal?

So we're investing 15%. We have our emergency fund. Another thing, our starter went out a couple of weeks ago and we didn't even worry about it because we have an emergency fund and we were able to just fit that in the budget. But the next big thing definitely is cash flowing my flight school. And that's what I'm doing right now. So we're able to do that because we're debt free.

You say flight school.

Flight school.

Awesome.

Yeah. Now that's expensive. I want people to hear this. What is flight school going to set you back?

Like $100,000.

Okay. I wanted people to hear this is a young man who goes, all right, we're going to cash flow this.

Absolutely.

Because a lot of people would reckon themselves into, well, I reckon it's worth it if I take on the loan for that good for you. And you know what it's like to wait on something and you're going to get there. You're still young. How long do you anticipate it's going to take you to save and finish?

Probably five years or more, honestly.

Yeah.

But it's going to be worth it when you're up there in the friendly skies.

Debt free, baby.

Yes.

Hey, we've got the living give box for you and we'll make sure to get that to you with all the books and FPU and all that good stuff.

You can give away total money makeover to someone, and then you're on your way to being a baby step millionaire. Great young couple. Here we go. Let's get to it. Jackson and Hannah, the Lincoln, Nebraska area paid off $26,000 in eight months, making 77, up to $81,000. Let's hear your debt free scream.

Eric, I know you're watching this. Pay off your car loan.

All right, ready?

Three, two, one.

Watch out. Wow.

That was electric.

Yeah, because he shouted out somebody.

Hopefully you didn't have your volume up too high, but that'll put some pep in your step to get out of debt in.

Welcome.

This is the Ramsay show. Welcome back to the ramsay show. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell joins me. And we got to get to a couple of things here, George. And then we've got a fun announcement to make. But first, our scripture of the day one Corinthians 1558. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. And not sure how we got this quote. Not sure who picked this one, but it's from Ozzy Osborne.

All right.

You've got to try and take things to the next level or you'll just get stuck in a rut. I'm not going to lie. That quote was from a day that we thought Deloney was going to be on. Explains that one makes sense. Hey, only Deloney would appreciate that quote. I'm not even sure what any of that means, but thank you, Ozzy.

I just think all aboard.

There it is.

Ken, I want to call out real quick. Oh, yeah, big news, by the way, veterans Day. Yeah, it's coming up. And in honor of Veterans Day, we are giving away Financial Peace University to 10,000 veterans totally free to honor them now through Monday, November 13. So make sure if you got a veteran in your life, most of us do, they want to take FPU for free. Have them go to Ramsaysolutions.com Veterans and fill out a real simple form. We appreciate them so much. We honor them. And I hope you all enjoy the holiday as we remember so much sacrifice all over the country happening daily. We get the calls from many service members thanks to our veterans sacrificing moving all over the country, and we appreciate that.

And please, if you know a veteran, even if they're not in your family, please let them know about this. We really would love to extend this offer to those fine folks.

Absolutely.

Real quick before we go to the call, back to the calls. George, big news in the financial world this week. I know it probably hit your little phone with all your little money alerts that you get.

It's a normal sized phone. Ken. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Yeah, I didn't mean it that way. But now that you caught that in your little teeny tiny phone, you probably got an alert about Mint, which is a big budgeting service owned by Intuit, I believe.

Yeah, Mint is officially closing down and it was the largest free budgeting app out there with 4 million budgeters, and at the end of the year, it's closing.

Wow.

We've been in the personal finance space for decades now, and you don't want some fly by night budget that's here today and sold tomorrow. That was also selling your data, by the way. That's how it was free. And they were pitching all yeah, and they were pitching all these loans and credit card products as to something. Budgets and loans just don't mix.

Glad I didn't sign up for mint.

Yeah.

So I want to invite all of those who are using Mint to go use EveryDollar you can use it for free. Go to EveryDollar.com and. We've got the premium version with all kinds of features, and we've got a killer deal going on right now. So go to EveryDollar.com and you can go to EveryDollar.com George to get our deal that we just dropped. So if that's you and you're looking for that new budgeting financial platform, every dollar is going to be a game changer. So we welcome you guys with open arms.

Very nice. And you have your own URL?

They gave one to me, and so I figured, let's use it. I want to call the best deal possible.

You should call your mom. That's a big deal.

She's very proud.

She should be. And we're not selling their information.

We don't sell your data, and I guarantee you we'll never sell you debt products. So there's one bonus.

Look at you. I'm telling you. All right, let's go to Daniel in Sacramento, California, who's patiently waiting. Daniel, how can we help?

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. So my wife and I, we've been really blessed. We're currently in a situation where we have a lot in savings, and the only debt that we have left is our mortgage, which we owe about 164,000 on, and our savings as of today sits around 168,000. And it's just been kind of sitting there because we're not sure what to do next. And another thing that is kind of making our decision with what to do next a little more difficult is that our income recently changed, and now we're taking in quite a bit less per month.

What happened?

I was hoping to get your advice. My wife decided to stay at home. We had the, I guess, financial security to make that happen. She's staying at home with the kids and working part time now. And so we're both teachers, and so we're taking the teacher health insurance for our family, and it's really expensive. So technically our net is about $100,000, but we take home about 5700 a month.

Okay. And what's the mortgage payment?

It's 1400.

Okay. And you've got enough in savings that you could pay off the mortgage today, but you're a little nervous.

Yes.

And is that all of your savings that include your emergency fund? Or is this outside of the emergency fund that's everything okay if I'm in your shoes, Daniel, and this is controversial advice, but I would get up to where you have an emergency fund of, let's say, three months right now, maybe closer to six, since you just dropped an income. Then once you hit that number, I'm using the rest of that savings to clean out the mortgage, be done with it.

Okay.

Wouldn't 1400 back in your life make it easier to make this transition?

Absolutely. Yeah.

What's your other option? What were you considering doing in the meantime?

Would it make sense to throw until we build up that emergency fund, would it make sense to throw some money at the mortgage or just keep making the single payment every month.

I mean, you can if I'm in your shoes, I'm taking everything beyond six months and throw it at the mortgage. That's going to take your balance down to almost nothing. And so the next few paychecks, you'll just knock out the mortgage with those next few paychecks. So either way, you're going to get there. Personally, I think using that money now to throw at the mortgage is going to be very freeing, and it's going to get you real excited when you go from $164,000 mortgage to $150,000 mortgage I mean, sorry, down to $15,000 mortgage, you're going to freak out how close you are to that finish line. And this transition to where she's a stay at home mom becomes it's a no brainer. You're just like, oh, all right, we can live like that. You're going to get that one $400 back, or at least most of it outside of your property taxes and homeowners insurance.

So, Daniel, what George has laid out for you is forced momentum. You're just going to be at the point where you're like, wow, that's all we have left and we have no house payment. And then to George's point, you go, we just gave ourselves $1,400 raise. Now, the question is, does that make sense to you, A? And then, B, does it still make you nervous cutting a check that large?

Yes, it does make sense to me, and I think I'd be less nervous once we have that emergency fund for three to six months.

You have it, you've got $168,000. Is it sitting in a savings account in a high yield savings.

It is in a savings account, but it is not in a high yield savings. We have it with just a brick and mortar bank. And it's getting about well, it makes.

Me sad for them because, I mean, right now, it's some of the best savings rates we've ever seen.

I'm kidding.

And you could be getting 4%, which, again, the point is not to make money on this, but it'll at least make you feel better.

Daniel, the point that George is making daniel, you already have your emergency fund, so whatever that number is, what's, six.

Months of expenses for you guys once you don't have a mortgage?

Right now, we're actually spending pretty close to what we're taking in California is really expensive.

But minus the mortgage payment, right?

Oh, yeah, minus the mortgage payment.

A little over four grand of expenses.

Yeah, about four grand.

Okay. So let's call it 25 grand as your emergency fund. Out of that 164. The rest, let's throw it the mortgage.

Yes. See, that's what we're getting at.

You don't have to wait, right?

So now you do it all in one fell swoop. You have a six months emergency fund, three to six months. And then you have very little left on that mortgage.

That brings your mortgage to 25 grand balance.

Wow.

And then next few paychecks. You're going to knock that thing out by the next, what, six months or so year?

Yeah.

You with us, Daniel?

Yes.

I love that. And you know what? If you regret it, you can always go back into debt. We like to say that because it's a good reminder that debt will always be there to pretend to be your friend. But I don't think you're going to go back. I think it's going to feel real good to own your house free and clear in California. You know how rare that is, Daniel?

Yeah. So, well, what will that house be worth?

It's close to 500,000 right now.

What's in your nest?

Eggs.

Oh, boy.

In retirement?

Not much. I mean, we're still pretty young, but I think about 60,000.

Awesome. You're on your way, man. Yeah, baby. Step millionaires in your future.

Dan, you feel good now, budy?

Yeah, I'm excited.

I want to pay off Daniel's mortgage.

I think you're a little more excited than he is.

Invite me.

We got to give him a minute to let it all soak in. We just hit him with a lot.

It's a lot.

And George, you practically yelled at him, so we'll talk about that later.

I get excited about being mortgage free. Ken. What can I say? I have no life.

I get it. You are the man. Hey, always fun to be with you. Party.

Good times.

Great, great show today. I want to thank Captain James, old Captain, our Captain, and the guys in the booth, and you, America, for listening. This is your show. This is the Ramsey show.

Dr. John Deloney here. Mental and emotional health challenges, broken relationships, it's all just part of life. But they don't have to define you. The Dr. John Deloney Show is here to help. It's a caller driven podcast where you can get practical advice on dealing with anxiety, loneliness, depression, relationship challenges, your kids, and so much more. Listen to questions from our callers, or if you're walking through a tough situation and need some help, give me a call. You were never meant to do life alone. And that's what this podcast is all about. Follow along on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or the Ramsey Network app. Remember, you're worth being well.