Are You Dealing With a Debt Problem or an Income Problem?

Speaker 1 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people

Speaker 1 build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr.

Speaker 1 John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, PhD in Counseling, number one best-selling author and host of the Dr. John Deloney Show on the Ramsey Networks.
He's my co-host today.

Speaker 1 Open phones here at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.

Speaker 1 Jake starts us in Indianapolis. Hi, Jake.
How are you?

Speaker 1 I'm great. How are you? Better than I deserve.
What's up?

Speaker 2 That's good. So I lost my job back in November.
I haven't really been able to recoup on finances between job to job, up to $13,000 in credit card debt, living

Speaker 2 paycheck to paycheck. It's difficult to get out of that.

Speaker 2 How can I get out of this?

Speaker 1 What were you making at your old job in November?

Speaker 2 $80,000 a year.

Speaker 3 Doing what?

Speaker 2 I was a truck driver.

Speaker 1 Why'd you lose your job?

Speaker 2 I got pulled over and got a bogus ticket, got it reduced, but now jobs

Speaker 2 see you still see the ticket and

Speaker 2 it just won't take me, take me back.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Would that be true if you were driving in city or is that just over the road?

Speaker 2 Over the road.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So, because a CDL is a pretty valuable thing to have, as you know.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 And I don't think a single ticket, unless you unless someone was hurt on the occasion

Speaker 1 that the ticket was issued, a single ticket for speeding or something else is going to keep you from landing anything.

Speaker 4 Yeah, was it a DUI?

Speaker 2 No. The ticket wrote the guy cop rope me for going over 80 miles an hour in my truck.
I got it reduced down to an improper driving.

Speaker 2 But companies look at the improper driving as as a reckless driving.

Speaker 2 So they still look at it as a risk.

Speaker 1 And they may have another truck driving.

Speaker 4 Right. Like they may not be able to insure you if you work for them.
They may even want to hire you. They just can't.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 What do you make now?

Speaker 2 I'm barely making a thousand a week now.

Speaker 1 What are you doing?

Speaker 2 Truck driving. So I was able to get another company, but I'm not getting paid well at all.

Speaker 1 Okay, how long before this thing bounces on your record or quits counting against you? If it's a year old, does it matter? Two years old? When does that matter?

Speaker 2 Three years, it bounces off.

Speaker 1 Okay, all right, because that you know, what you've got, what you're describing to me, Jake, is not a debt problem, it's an income problem,

Speaker 2 right?

Speaker 1 And so, you went from 80 to

Speaker 1 80 a year to 1,000 a week, you said?

Speaker 2 Yes, under 1,000 a week.

Speaker 2 Around about 700, sometimes 600, maybe 80.

Speaker 1 So you're down to about 50.

Speaker 1 And so how much is your car payment?

Speaker 2 So I have no car debt.

Speaker 1 Good.

Speaker 2 Cars paid off.

Speaker 1 Good.

Speaker 2 Rent is $1,400 a week.

Speaker 1 A month.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry, yes, a month.

Speaker 2 I pay life insurance on me, my mother, grandmother, and father.

Speaker 2 So that's around about $350 to $400 total a month.

Speaker 2 Phone bill.

Speaker 1 Are you living with your parents?

Speaker 2 I'm not.

Speaker 1 Okay, why are you paying their life insurance?

Speaker 2 They're older. They don't really have life insurance on themselves.
So I just went ahead and took that up on my end.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you don't really have the money to do that.

Speaker 1 Okay. There's no one counting on their income to live, so I don't know that they need life insurance unless it's just a burial policy.
And a burial policy shouldn't be $350 a month for three people.

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 2 I have over

Speaker 2 $10K for

Speaker 2 my mom, $30 for

Speaker 2 my grandmother,

Speaker 2 half a million for my dad. And I think I got $50 for me.

Speaker 1 Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 I think you need to go to Xander Insurance and call them and do a review of your insurance policies because I think you're getting screwed on your insurance policies and you're buying policies you don't need.

Speaker 1 That's one thing we can do.

Speaker 1 But the second thing is get the big deal here, I think, is probably get on a written plan. Let's get you on the Every Dollar Budgeting app.

Speaker 1 I'll give it to you free for a year, a premium version, so you can get in there and learn how to work these baby steps we talk about because you have to make every single dollar that you make behave.

Speaker 1 You don't have room for any slack. Okay.

Speaker 1 And I want you to keep working on this job thing. One of the things you need to do is say, all right,

Speaker 1 it's not that I can't, it's not that no one will hire me because that's not a true statement. What a true statement is, is it's difficult to find someone to hire you.

Speaker 1 That's a true statement.

Speaker 1 You follow me? Okay.

Speaker 1 I mean, if you want to drive, if you want to go do something else, it's not difficult at all. I got lots of speeding tickets.
I got no issue with this. Okay.

Speaker 1 So, but, but, but I don't drive for a living where someone's trying to insure me or something like that. Thank God.
So, because it couldn't happen, I'm telling you. But anyway,

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 1 all that to say, you know, maybe a different line of work. Maybe this is your cue to move off into the other career you wanted to go to.
Or maybe

Speaker 1 you just, it's difficult to find something and you haven't found the one yet. But I think your new part-time job is talking in person to anyone

Speaker 1 at a trucking company, not sending in an application with monster.com, going over there with your buddy who's a driver.

Speaker 1 He walks you into the boss's office and you sit down, talk to him, you tell him what happened and say, can you get me on?

Speaker 1 That's the only way.

Speaker 1 That's how you trump card this thing. You follow me?

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Because if they just look down and see this on an application, they throw the app in the trash. That's what you've been experiencing.

Speaker 1 But I think you trump it with knowing someone inside the company that walks you in there.

Speaker 1 And then if it's not an insurance issue, like John brought up, and that may very well be true, then maybe that gets you there.

Speaker 1 So we're going to give you every dollar, and I'm going to give you Ken Coleman's book, Proximity Principle, which is how to land a job the way I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 And that's the proper way to get after it.

Speaker 4 And I want to say this.

Speaker 4 I was instantly turned off, Jake, by the way

Speaker 4 he said, I got a bogus ticket. If I'm trying to hire you, you're trying to come ask me to overlook something and give you a shot, I want to see you take 100% full ownership.

Speaker 4 So you don't walk in and say, well, I got a bogus ticket.

Speaker 4 If you walk in and say, I was speeding, I was speeding. I pled it down.
Here's what it says on here. I was going over the speed limit.

Speaker 4 I would like to come work for you. There's something about that level of, if there's a problem, I'm going to own it.

Speaker 1 That I'll take a risk. That's more attractive.

Speaker 4 there you go than a victim position that's it if someone comes in and they're and their first thing is i i need you to help me because this guy screwed me well i'm probably gonna be the next guy in line that you're gonna think screwed you whether whether it's true or not i just want to see someone walk in with their head held high taking ownership i messed up will you please help me it's the old thing of the jails are full of innocent people always that's always yeah so leave with your head held high brother yeah that that kind of a thing and just go hey i messed this up it didn't go down the way maybe it should have but it's on me if i hadn't if i hadn't given if i hadn't opened the door, then they couldn't have done this.

Speaker 1 And so I plat it down. Here's what we got.
It says a weird thing on there, but it's not reckless driving. And I'm a great driver.

Speaker 4 I'll outwork everybody you have. Give me a shot.
Yep.

Speaker 1 I'll be here when nobody else will. This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Well, guys, a few weeks ago, our team reached out to both Vice President Harris's camp and President Donald Trump's camp about the opportunity to sit down and do a long-form interview talking about ideas.

Speaker 1 With me, that always means particularly the economy, because I know that you guys are thinking about that. I'm convinced.

Speaker 1 It might just be because I'm a hammer and everything looks like a nail, but I'm convinced that's the number one issue is the economy. But I could be wrong, but that's, you know, that's the way it is.

Speaker 1 So anyway, Harris's camp has our invitation under review. in quotes and the Trump campaign accepted.

Speaker 1 We went up last week and I got to sit down with President Trump and ask him some things about what he's going to do. I don't really care about all the, I don't like the other side.
I get that part.

Speaker 1 I don't really care about all the what are you used to do. I don't want all the bragging.

Speaker 1 What are you going to do like in the first 90 days? What are you going to do about this or that? And it was a great conversation. Pretty low-key.
Not exactly flamboyant.

Speaker 1 I don't think we got anything there that's going to make the news or anything like that.

Speaker 1 Although the news people are kind of looking at this with a head sideways like a German Shepherd. They're going, oh, Dave, Trump, hmm.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, we talked about issues that matter to you, like $7 eggs, $5 gas, and 7% interest rates, that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 That comes up in discussions with anyone's group of friends, right?

Speaker 1 So, anyway, it's available today, the interview popped today on the Ramsey Network app, which is a free app that carries all of our shows in total, video, audio, everything, including the last segment of this show, Every Day, the Ramsey Network app.

Speaker 1 Tomorrow morning, Wednesday, October the 2nd, for those of you that aren't listening live, the episode will be released to everyone on our YouTube channel and on our podcast channel.

Speaker 1 In no case are we charging anything. It's completely free to see all of it, and we'd love for you to see it.
And

Speaker 1 thanks for checking it out. We appreciate that.

Speaker 1 Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today.
Kate is in Grand Rapids. Hi, Kate.
How are you?

Speaker 2 Hi, I'm good. Thank you.
How are you?

Speaker 1 Better than I deserve. What's up?

Speaker 2 Good. I've got a question.
I am on baby step two, my husband and I, and working hard, gazelle-like, to get out of credit card debt.

Speaker 2 On the side, I also have a lease car that is, I think, definitely slowing me down, and I don't ever want to leave the car again.

Speaker 2 And that will be up in nine payments, nine months from now.

Speaker 2 What would be the best route to get rid of that quicker while trying to get out of debt?

Speaker 2 I'm not sure how to prioritize because I don't need the car. Well, I need a car.
I don't need that car.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 1 I don't think the numbers are going to be. Yeah, it's a good question, and I appreciate your willingness to sacrifice to win.
That's a good sign for you.

Speaker 1 But I doubt with only nine payments left, is it going to make much difference?

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 well what if my mileage is kind of knocking at the door of maxing out yeah and I'll be paying from the mileage yeah so let's go ahead and start talking about how we're going to buy a car

Speaker 1 so when you turn that car in what you turn that car in what are you going to do

Speaker 1 buy a car how a cheaper car

Speaker 2 well so we have money oh um

Speaker 1 how much money do we have I'm just not sure if we should have the money put towards the debt or saved to buy a car.

Speaker 2 Well, my husband is working on the storm team down south right now, making good storm pay. So he'll be bringing in about,

Speaker 2 I mean, after taxes, maybe $15,000

Speaker 1 for working that. When?

Speaker 1 In a couple of weeks. Oh, in a month.
Okay. In a couple of weeks.
Good. Okay.
Yeah. Well, I'm glad he's down there helping.
That's great.

Speaker 1 Okay. So

Speaker 1 do you have any other money saved?

Speaker 2 We just have our $1,000 emergency fund.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you really don't have any money. You just have this potential money that's coming from him doing the storm team.
Okay. Well, it's, yeah.
I got you. Okay.

Speaker 1 What I would do,

Speaker 1 you can, here's what you can do. Call the car company, the lease, who's the lease with?

Speaker 1 Chevrolet. Okay, call Chevy.
And say, all right, General Motors, it's probably General Motors

Speaker 1 leasing company,

Speaker 1 GMAC.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 just ask what the early buyout on the car is. If you wrote them a check today,

Speaker 1 do what?

Speaker 2 I have a quote for that.

Speaker 1 Oh, what is it?

Speaker 2 $27,000.

Speaker 1 $27,000. $27,000.
What's the car worth?

Speaker 2 The early blue book is about between $29,000 and $32,000 if privately sold.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you could sell it for enough to pay it off now?

Speaker 1 Yes. And do it.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 Sell it.

Speaker 1 That's unusual.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 how do I get the money, the 27,000?

Speaker 1 You don't. If I buy the car from you and I write you a check for $29,000, you send it to General Motors and they send you the title.
And then you give it to me. That's how you do it when you.

Speaker 1 Okay. When there's a debt on the car, you don't need money.
The buyer is going to give you the money.

Speaker 1 In most states,

Speaker 1 in most states, if the seller has debt on the car, the way the transaction goes is the buyer gives them the money, the seller gives them the car, the keys, and a bill of sale, and then they send the money to the bank and pay off the bank, or in your case, to General Motors and pay off the lease.

Speaker 1 They send you the title, you sign it over. It takes about five weeks, three weeks, four weeks, whatever, for that to happen.

Speaker 1 And you can go ahead and get in touch with General Motors and find out exactly how long it's going to take them to get you the title once you send them a check so you can tell a buyer.

Speaker 1 But that's a normal transaction in most states.

Speaker 1 And so that's the way that would go down. And in the meantime, go buy a $3,000 car and use the rest of the $15,000 towards your baby steps.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 Got it.

Speaker 2 Sounds good.

Speaker 1 Good enough. And that gets rid of the $900 a month, which helps that too.
So what you've told me is very unusual.

Speaker 1 Folks, most of the time, let's say she had a, we'll make up a number, $1,000 car payment, nine payments left, $9,000. Usually she's more than $9,000 upside down.

Speaker 1 And so you're better off to go ahead and pay the $9,000 out, drive the car out, and turn it in at the end of the lease, even if you're a little over on the mileage, mathematically.

Speaker 1 So if you're upside down more than the total of your remaining payments, then you don't sell the car. And that's what I thought I was going to hear.
What I heard is actually a little bit unusual.

Speaker 1 That makes sense.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 The only thing I think would be hard here is you have to find some way to convince me as a seller. If I'm going to give you $29,000 bucks or as a buyer.

Speaker 4 Well, you're leaving with a car, yeah, but I don't want a car without a title on it, right? So, you have to show me something that says

Speaker 1 it's a normal transaction. I mean, you can get it, you can get it notarized, you can go

Speaker 1 do it, do it all very properly, and all that kind of stuff. But that's a fairly normal, I mean, I bought a car like that not long ago, so so yeah, not a big, not a big deal.

Speaker 1 Open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five. Mike is in Indianapolis.
Hey, Mike, how are you?

Speaker 1 Doing good, Dave. Thanks for taking my call.
Sure, what's up?

Speaker 2 I'm trying to find out with your guys' approach if I can retire from my job because I'm a government contractor and it looks like the contract is ending.

Speaker 1 Okay. How old are you?

Speaker 2 I'm 56. Okay.

Speaker 1 What are you going to do for the rest of your life?

Speaker 2 We have a hobby farm that we like to work on, and we want to do some traveling

Speaker 1 for 40 years.

Speaker 1 Amongst other things. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 I would recommend an encore career that allows you to work on the farm and it's not a greeter at Walmart, okay, that allows you to work on the farm and do some traveling.

Speaker 1 It might be you start a small business. But I'm going to play with my farm and travel for 40 years is a long life.
You're not going to like it.

Speaker 1 You're going to learn to hate.

Speaker 1 You're going to learn to hate these things. So, because

Speaker 1 it's good for people to lean into things and do things. So, I'm going to recommend you do something, not just financially, but otherwise.
You notice I haven't even asked if you have any money yet.

Speaker 1 I'm talking about you as a person right now, that you work on something. It's good for people to work.

Speaker 1 How much money do you have in your nest egg?

Speaker 2 About $6.75 in retirement funds.

Speaker 1 Okay, and what do you make now?

Speaker 4 Approximately 85K from my job and another 80K in military retirement and VA.

Speaker 1 You'll keep getting that, okay. Correct.
Will you get anything from your job at all when you retire?

Speaker 2 No, just the 401k that I've been.

Speaker 1 Can you live on 80K plus maybe if you took 50 off the 675?

Speaker 1 Yes?

Speaker 2 Oh, I can, me and Wack can live way under 80K.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, then you can retire mathematically.

Speaker 1 But I got to tell you, 56, I'm 64. I still work.
I don't recommend it. This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Dr. John Deloney Ramsey Personality is my co-host today, PhD in counseling.
If you didn't know, we do this show three hours a day, Monday through Friday, from 1 to 4 Central Time. It's on the glass.

Speaker 1 What that means is you can sit in our lobby and watch the show.

Speaker 1 I can't promise that that's entertaining, but it is a possibility for you and it doesn't cost anything. So if you don't like it, we can just refund half your money or something.
But

Speaker 1 the other thing that we do have that is definitely a plus is Mama's homemade cookies are in there in free. So when you walk in this place, you smell Mama's kitchen, not corporate America.

Speaker 1 and free coffee and cookies. And so people come and watch the show.
There's always 50 to 200 folks sitting out here.

Speaker 1 And in the middle of that lobby, because it's a tradition around here, we built the little debt-free stage. And if someone's standing on that stage, it can only mean one thing.

Speaker 1 Nathan and Sharon are with us on the debt-free stage. Hey guys, how are you? Hi.
We're great. Welcome.
Where do you guys live? We're from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Very nice.
Welcome to Nashville.

Speaker 1 And how much debt have you paid off?

Speaker 3 $52,100.

Speaker 1 Very good. And how long did that take?

Speaker 3 It took 69 months total.

Speaker 1 69. Yes.
Okay. And your range of income during that time?

Speaker 3 So we started at the beginning when we got married, September 2018, we were at $89,000. And then we closed, most recently this year, with $78,000.

Speaker 1 Okay. All right, cool.
And what kind of debt was the $52,000?

Speaker 3 So it was primarily student loan debt. About $40,000 of it, I think, was the student loan debt.
And then about 5,000 car loans, 5,000 credit cards. All right.

Speaker 1 So tell me the story. What happened, and why did it take 69 months?

Speaker 3 So the adjustment in the income was a huge thing there. But we kind of, I feel like we found our footing and our momentum with the credit cards.

Speaker 3 It was an easy win for us to knock out. Although, I know for Sharon, it didn't feel like that at the time.

Speaker 3 I remember the way that she would tell me, she would look at her credit card statement and it would tell the little number on there, like how long, if you just pay the minimums, how long it would take.

Speaker 3 And that was just like a soul-crushing number to see.

Speaker 5 17 years.

Speaker 5 I think the 69 months is, so we started out just kind of regular jobs. And during COVID, we felt like the Lord was calling us to quit our jobs and start working for our church.

Speaker 5 And so that was the decrease in income. We also found out we were having our first child.
And we've had two kids. And

Speaker 5 now we both are in full-time ministry.

Speaker 1 Ah, okay. All right.
That makes more sense now. Yeah.
So how did you find us 69 months ago?

Speaker 3 So it was actually something that

Speaker 3 the lead pastor of our church was interested in offering a financial peace group. And he was like, Nathan, I feel like you'd be a good person to lead this.

Speaker 3 And I started learning more because I'd heard a little bit about Ramsey principles and stuff before then.

Speaker 3 But I learned and was able to dig into them a whole lot more and was like, well, wow, we should try this out. We should live this out.
We should do something a little bit different.

Speaker 3 And it proved to work and it proved to really, really change. I feel like we've really changed

Speaker 3 our family's legacy going forward,

Speaker 3 as you say, changing our family tree. Like our kids could have a different life now because

Speaker 3 we're not still stuck under our student loans. We can get ready for them when they're ready to go to school.

Speaker 1 That sort of thing. Have a whole bunch of people go through the class when you're teaching it?

Speaker 3 Yeah, so we're going to be starting our fifth Financial Peace University class in just a week or so.

Speaker 1 Well, thank you.

Speaker 3 So that's become a real passion of ours is being able to show people that it is possible. You can do this even with

Speaker 3 we've had like several excuses that we could have made throughout the journey.

Speaker 3 i mean from 2018 to now so many things have have changed we've had inflation we've had the pandemic we've had the the change the change in our job um

Speaker 3 but but we didn't allow those things to to stop us from from moving forward what's the

Speaker 4 let me back up and say it this way a lot of times people say i felt called to this thing and they think that following that call is a big exhale that life's suddenly going to get pretty easy not realizing that no no no now you just got called into the jungle, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah. And so what was the hardest part about this journey? Because y'all are both smiling here.
You're both free. You've got two kids.
It's all partridge in a pear tree.

Speaker 1 This was hard. Yes.

Speaker 4 Like scary pandemic, loss of income. We're going to work from a church and growing up in the house of a guy who worked for a church.
Yeah. You get to see how the sausage is made and

Speaker 1 like all that.

Speaker 4 Tell me about how hard this was.

Speaker 5 Can I answer this one?

Speaker 1 Sure, sure.

Speaker 4 Your fingers are so tightly clenched together, you're like, oh, let's tell the truth.

Speaker 5 This is my question. No, this was super hard for me because

Speaker 5 I think I bought into, especially as a student, and you graduate, so we both have graduate degrees.

Speaker 5 So you feel like I'm supposed to live a certain kind of life now because I have these degrees and these, I'm kind of expecting a certain kind of job, a certain kind of income.

Speaker 5 And so when we were like, yeah, those degrees may hang on the wall, but we're going to have to live a different way to get out from under this to change, like Nathan was saying, our legacy.

Speaker 5 So for me, the biggest things it looked like was not really eating out like I was used to and not doing the things I was used to doing and having to say no a lot, which hurt

Speaker 5 to friends and, hey, let's go do this. Hey, let's go do that.
I can't do that. And here's why.
And so I felt a little bit

Speaker 5 different. I didn't like feeling different at first, but kind of got used to the being weird thing.

Speaker 5 And it's fine now. And I do feel like we still had had fun along the way.

Speaker 1 Sounds like a whole new identity. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What matters to me now is different than what mattered to me. Exactly.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you just said something important.

Speaker 4 I've tried it. They just don't accept photocopies of your degrees at the electric company.
Like they want actual money.

Speaker 1 That's frustrating.

Speaker 1 I've tried to use it in public. That's right.

Speaker 4 I showed them, hey, I've got this degree. Can I have these groceries?

Speaker 1 And they're like, yes, I have to work.

Speaker 3 Another piece of our story, I'll say,

Speaker 3 so the early years, we weren't as gazelle-intense with it, I'll say. Since 2022, that really changed because, so I came up with the bright idea,

Speaker 3 but she gave me the side eye at the time was to sell not my car, but her car.

Speaker 3 We had actually gotten them paid off. And then I was like, well, what if we sold one of our cars?

Speaker 3 Because this was kind of at the peak where used car sales were, the values were much higher than they were.

Speaker 3 And I was like, we could take advantage of this and really knock out a really strong part of our debt, but it wasn't a popular decision at the time.

Speaker 5 I was like, of course, he wants to sell my car, right? Of course, it's my car. And so we were a one-car family with two small children for a period of time.
And that was super inconvenient.

Speaker 5 Like, like, super inconvenient.

Speaker 1 Yeah, for real.

Speaker 1 I would not disagree a bit.

Speaker 4 Have y'all bought you a car now?

Speaker 5 We have a second car now.

Speaker 1 Yay.

Speaker 3 Minivan.

Speaker 3 Never would have chosen that life, but it feels like a blessing right now.

Speaker 5 Minivan life chose me. I like it.

Speaker 1 Minivan Life chooses you. I like it.
I like it. Chose two kids.
Minivan works. I mean, it works for me.
Well, congratulations, you guys.

Speaker 1 Okay, when you're teaching this next financial peace class and they hear you paid off $52,000 in debt

Speaker 1 as church employees, yes.

Speaker 1 Let's just put that in there.

Speaker 1 They kind of go, how'd you do that? What do you tell them the important thing is they got to learn when they go through this class?

Speaker 5 Making a budget and sticking to it.

Speaker 5 I know it sounds super simple,

Speaker 5 but that was not simple for me prior to marrying Nathan and kind of getting into this financial peace thing. It was not simple.
It was like, oh, crap, what's due?

Speaker 5 Oh, can I push this around and pay this later?

Speaker 1 How can I hide the pee under a shell? Yeah.

Speaker 3 I feel like also getting that easy win,

Speaker 3 being able to pay off the credit cards helped us see, like, wow, there's still a mountain ahead of us, but we're making progress. We can do it.
The baby steps work in that way.

Speaker 3 Being able to see those little victories, like, wow, we can see bigger ones now because of this.

Speaker 1 Do the debt snowball the right way, smallest to largest, literally, yes, because you feel it, it changes everything. And so, well, way to go, you guys.
We're very proud of you. Congratulations.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Very well done.
Very well done. Nathan and Sharon, Virginia Beach, Virginia.
$52,000 paid off in 69 months, making 89 down to 78. Job changes, inflation, and two kids in the interim.

Speaker 1 Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.
All right. Three, two, one.

Speaker 1 We're debt-free!

Speaker 1 Yay!

Speaker 1 Yeah, baby!

Speaker 1 Well, I think they took away your excuses if you're listening. So if this is you listening for the first time, maybe that's something you need to do.
Yeah, I'm talking to you.

Speaker 1 Maybe it's time for you to get out of debt and straighten your life up. That's what this show is here for.
Help you become wealthy and generous. This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Dr. John Deloney Ramsey personality is my co-host today.
Open phones at 888-825-5225. Weston is in Philadelphia.
Hi, Weston. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Speaker 2 Hey, Dave. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 Sure.

Speaker 2 So I'm 24. I recently got engaged to my college girlfriend.

Speaker 1 Congratulations.

Speaker 4 Thank you. It's about time, Weston.

Speaker 2 Yeah, seriously, it's been six years.

Speaker 2 We've been living together in an apartment and just finished our first month's budget on every dollar.

Speaker 2 So we've been taking a closer look at our finances. We have a combined $40,000 in student loan debt, and we're planning a wedding for April of 26.

Speaker 2 On top of that, we were introduced to your content by our realtor because we thought, hey, let's buy a house as well.

Speaker 2 But the problem is, I make

Speaker 2 $76,000 a year. I have $10,000 in stock options that I can exercise in January.
I've got $6,000 in bonuses coming in January as well. And my fiancé makes about $50,000.

Speaker 2 On top of that, we love to travel, and we're planning to do a destination wedding. My fiancé has some expensive taste and wants a unique, beautiful wedding.

Speaker 2 And her initial estimate was around $40,000, not including flights or anything else. Her family was planning to contribute $15,000 as a gift.

Speaker 2 And my fiancé wanted to take a loan out for the rest, but I've insisted we pay cash. So I set a $25,000 budget, which includes that $15,000 gift, and she's pretty upset about that.

Speaker 2 She doesn't think it's possible for a pretty wedding to have that dollar attached to it.

Speaker 2 So my question is, what should I prioritize and in what order? Should we try and do our student loan debts first before the wedding?

Speaker 2 She's a little concerned that if we wait to the last minute to save for the wedding, that we won't have enough in time.

Speaker 4 Hey, Weston, run! Just kidding. Totally kidding.

Speaker 1 Totally kidding. Don't run.

Speaker 4 But you got a lot. Yeah,

Speaker 1 there's a lot going on here. Okay.
Yep.

Speaker 1 You need to, the first money you need to spend is on in-depth pre-marriage counseling.

Speaker 1 And I'm not making a joke and I'm not making fun of you or her, but a lot of things that you said in that

Speaker 1 run-on sentence you just gave us for the last few minutes were

Speaker 1 scary to me as a dad.

Speaker 1 Gotcha.

Speaker 1 If my son called me up and had that exact same conversation, I would be really worried because there's one of two things that's happening here. She's either a young lady who's really excited

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 a little bit immature.

Speaker 1 and wants things that she can't afford,

Speaker 1 and you guys are doing a whole bunch of things out of order, and a crazy set of things you put on the table that you need to do, and you're broke people.

Speaker 1 And that could just simply be she's very young and immature. It could be that you've signed up for a long life with a princess.

Speaker 1 And I don't know which it is talking to you right now, but I love you enough to tell both of you, I'll tell her too, that I don't know which it is, but I strongly encourage the two of you to sit down for pre-marriage counseling.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 And then you call to ask, so it's our duty to tell you what I would do if I were in your shoes. Okay.
And you're not going to do it, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Okay.

Speaker 1 I'll go ahead and pre-warn you.

Speaker 1 You should never, under any circumstance, buy a home with someone that you're not married to.

Speaker 1 All kinds of relational,

Speaker 1 economic, and legal problems occur.

Speaker 1 Because I've been doing this for 35 years. So I have talked to the young man whose fiancé was in a car wreck and now he owns a home with her mother.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 We don't want that.

Speaker 1 I've talked to the people that have all these wild and willy things happen. And so

Speaker 1 it's really sad. So you never buy a house with someone.
You should never combine your money or your debts with someone you're not married married to.

Speaker 1 Now, if you sit down with a premarriage counseling and they go through and you work through the fact that your wife is demanding or your potential wife is demanding totally unrealistic things given your financial situation.

Speaker 1 So is this, is she willing to come to terms and grow up during this counseling session? Or do we need to put an end to this? One of the two.

Speaker 1 But we need some counseling to be able to determine that. If she comes to terms with the fact that she does not have the money to do the things that she wants to do,

Speaker 1 then

Speaker 1 what I would suggest is you get married immediately and you plan an off-site celebration later.

Speaker 1 Now, once you're married, you can combine incomes, debts, bank accounts, hard work, together working towards dreams that we agree on.

Speaker 1 How does that register?

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 it feels like

Speaker 2 we kind of rushed into combining everything because, you know, when you marry somebody or pledge to marry somebody, it kind of feels like, yep, that's it.

Speaker 1 Yep. You did it out of order.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because

Speaker 4 here's the 100% truth.

Speaker 1 If,

Speaker 4 like Dave called out, if she is immature, I will have a wedding that looks like this, or you and I are not getting married because I'm worth this wedding, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 4 I promise you, that happens with your first house. That happens with what clothes and car and schools your kids are waiting for.

Speaker 1 Which is the nursery,

Speaker 1 which private school they go to.

Speaker 4 It's a philosophy on life.

Speaker 1 It's never going to end. Reality doesn't end.
It's a blackmail process.

Speaker 4 It just is.

Speaker 4 And so Dave's right sitting down with the counselor and saying, we need to come up with a way to talk and discuss things when you have a picture of the way things you want them to be and there's reality, right?

Speaker 4 And y'all have to be able to navigate that. And my guess is, y'all have been dating for six years.
This isn't the first time y'all have had to swim upstream against each other, right?

Speaker 1 Certainly not.

Speaker 4 Okay. So I think it's clarifying those things out of order.

Speaker 1 I am not saying don't marry her. No, not at all.

Speaker 1 I am saying if you can't get on the same page that two adults together are working towards a goal instead of one of them stamping their feet like a three-year-old on the cereal aisle, then if you can't get to that point, then don't marry her.

Speaker 4 Okay. And I'm going to go back to something Dave said.
Y'all are recent graduates. This is an exciting time.

Speaker 4 You make a good salary, Dave is too.

Speaker 1 I'm cutting her some slack.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying she's that girl.

Speaker 4 But Dave mentioned y'all are broke, and I want you to hear that. You got your first big job out of school.
It feels good to be making money. You're making 70K.
That's a good salary. She's making 50K.

Speaker 4 Great.

Speaker 4 Y'all are broke. You owe

Speaker 4 $40,000, $50,000.

Speaker 4 And so the idea that we're going to be be talking about borrowing money for a party, that we're going to be talking about already buying a house, like that's several years down the road.

Speaker 4 The first thing is, let's get our house in order. Let's get a foundation, right?

Speaker 1 But I'm perfectly cool with a quick wedding in the preacher's office once you guys are on the same page and we have a destination wedding celebration.

Speaker 1 And if you spend 40K on it and you save up the money together to do that,

Speaker 1 I'm perfectly fine with that. that.

Speaker 1 Okay? I mean, I'm not saying that's off the table because you got 15 from her parents and you guys put another 25 with it.

Speaker 1 We want to do a big blowout wedding that is the quote celebration or whatever you call these things now because people live together, get married and then do the quote rehearsal or not the

Speaker 1 what would normally have been the wedding.

Speaker 1 They do it later and do a big thing because they can't afford it. And that's, I don't care.
If you want to have a party overseas and pay for it, that's fine.

Speaker 1 And In lieu of what would have been a destination wedding, I got no issue with that either.

Speaker 1 But pay for it. But pay for it.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 1 it's the way you presented this, what scared me as a dad is it sounded like your teenage daughter was having a bit of a meltdown because daddy wouldn't do what she wanted to do.

Speaker 1 That's kind of how it sounded, the language you were using. And that you may have been overstating because you're nervous on the radio.
I'll give you some slack. I'll give her some slack.

Speaker 1 But you don't want to marry that.

Speaker 1 That's a long life.

Speaker 1 But if you guys can come together and say, hey, we're two grown-ups and grown-ups do math and grown-ups do math together to have a great life together, then that sets up a whole different thing, doesn't it?

Speaker 4 That's, yeah, that's, that's,

Speaker 4 it's cool to want stuff, but you got to tether that want to reality.

Speaker 1 How much money do we have? You're not in Congress. That's right.

Speaker 1 This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships.

Speaker 1 Thanks for joining us, America. Dr.
John Deloney, Ramsey personality, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, number one best-selling author, and a PhD in counseling.
He's my co-host today.

Speaker 1 Open phones at 888-825-5225. Aaron is in Los Angeles.
Hi, Aaron. How are you?

Speaker 2 Hi, Dave. I'm hanging in there.

Speaker 1 Cool. How can I help?

Speaker 2 I am being sued by a credit card company. I got into some debt and

Speaker 2 a change of position that lowered my

Speaker 2 income.

Speaker 2 So, you know, I had things kind of go upside down on me. And

Speaker 2 yeah, I'm being sued. I'm trying to figure out what my options are and what the

Speaker 2 best way to move forward.

Speaker 1 Gotcha. Okay.

Speaker 1 How much is the debt on the credit card?

Speaker 2 It's $10,000.

Speaker 1 Okay. And who's it with?

Speaker 2 Citibank.

Speaker 1 And how long has it been since you paid them?

Speaker 2 About 2022.

Speaker 1 The year 2022?

Speaker 1 Yes. So two years?

Speaker 1 Yes. Okay.
Have you actually been served by the court with a court date?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 I was served with

Speaker 2 paperwork. They said that if I need to

Speaker 2 put myself on calendar to have my case heard, or they were just going to take action against me.

Speaker 1 It did not have a court date on it.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 1 Okay. You've not been served.
All right.

Speaker 1 You've been bluffed. Okay.
Um and are you do you think you're still dealing with Citibank or with a different company that they've sold the debt to? I suspect they've sold the debt.

Speaker 2 Uh no, it is a different company.

Speaker 1 Yeah, okay. I thought so.
Now, what do you make?

Speaker 2 Um currently um about eighty thousand a year.

Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 And how much other debt do you have, sir?

Speaker 2 Um well me and my wife combined combined probably have about $50,000 in debt.

Speaker 1 Okay. And

Speaker 1 what does she make?

Speaker 2 About $30,000.

Speaker 1 Okay. So you have $110,000 income in Los Angeles.
You have $50,000 in debt, and $10,000 of it has not been paid in two years.

Speaker 1 Okay. What were you making before you lost that job?

Speaker 2 Well, I just lost a position. It's the same job.
So I was making

Speaker 2 about and thirty to a hundred and forty

Speaker 1 what happened um

Speaker 2 uh my mom uh i went i had a

Speaker 2 kind of uh some mental issues and at the end of 2022 what kind of

Speaker 1 mental issues

Speaker 2 um well i started having a kind of

Speaker 2 well i i figured out that i'm bipolar so you figured out you're bipolar yeah did you or your psychiatrist

Speaker 2 well my psychiatrist okay they helped me they helped me with that.

Speaker 1 Okay. So

Speaker 2 I got stable on medication, and then my mom got sick. So she got sick with dementia,

Speaker 2 and I took a different position at my job to start taking care of her. That was last year.

Speaker 1 So you took the pressure off your hours so you had some room, some margin to help her.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 And so when that happened,

Speaker 2 I started missing more and more work.

Speaker 1 Yeah. My mom passed away.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 Started. When did she pilot?

Speaker 2 February 6th this year.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 So, yeah.

Speaker 1 You're a good man to take care of your mom. Yeah.
How are you doing with your meds? Are you stable now?

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 I'm stable now.

Speaker 2 I talk to a counselor. I talk to my psychiatrist all the time.

Speaker 4 Dude, let me just tell you, man, like getting

Speaker 4 medded up and getting leveled out right as your mom passes away and you hanging in there. I'm proud of you, dude.

Speaker 4 You should hold your head up high.

Speaker 1 You did some heavy lifting as hard, man.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1 I tried.

Speaker 4 Well, no, not only did you try, you did it. And I'm proud of you.
And you weren't perfect, of course, none of us are, but you did it, man. And let me say this.
You're doing it.

Speaker 4 So here's what you got in front of you. You got another challenge.
The letter you have in front of you is a threat. It's not a legal action yet.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 we're going to be people of integrity. You borrowed the money and we're going to pay it back.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So yeah,

Speaker 1 here's the thing. Out of the scope of everything you've told me, the $10,000 old debt that you have is a two on a scale of one to 10.

Speaker 1 The other things you've been dealing with are a nine on a scale of one to ten.

Speaker 1 So you've already stepped over some big hurdles. And once you get the details on this, it's not going to be hard for you.
Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But what we need to do now is to get the other side of the diagnosis and the other side of

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 responsibility for taking care of your mom. You're still hurting.
You're still grieving. There still is a diagnosis.
There still is stabilizing with your meds and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 However, we need to plunge headlong into the future. And that means the two of you need to sit down and do a detailed budget and get caught up on your bills and pay off $50,000 in debt.
Okay.

Speaker 1 And we'll help you do that. We'll be part of the next chapter of your victories.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay.
Thank you. So I'm going to put you and your wife through Financial Peace University.
I'm going to pay for it and show you how to handle money and how to get on a budget and how to do this.

Speaker 1 Now, let's go back to your original part of your call. Here's the tactical part of what you've got to do.

Speaker 1 That debt buyer bought this from Citibank for usually around five to seven cents on the dollar.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 That means they paid less than $1,000 for this $10,000 bill. They are now threatening you, but they have not yet sued you.

Speaker 1 They may never sue you. They may just bark at you until you acquiesce.
But you want to clean it up, and you need to clean it up.

Speaker 1 It's good information to know that they have less than $1,000 in this, so I don't feel badly at all if I'm broke and I have no money offering them $3,000 or $4,000 to settle this in full.

Speaker 1 So begin a negotiation with them and scrape together a few dollars and give them an offer, lump sum, no payments, settlement in full. Can you remember that phrase?

Speaker 2 Yeah, settlement in full.

Speaker 1 And never give them any money until two things occur. One is you have the agreement in writing.
If it's not in writing, it didn't happen.

Speaker 1 Okay. An email is fine, but you can tell a credit card card collector is lying if their mouth is moving.

Speaker 1 They will lie to you and tell you, oh, yeah, just send in the money, and then you'll get a bill the next week for the rest of it. Okay.

Speaker 1 In writing. Settlement in full for whatever amount you agree to.
And then do not give them electronic access to your personal checking account. They'll clean your butt out.

Speaker 1 Okay. Okay.

Speaker 1 So instead, you just get a prepaid debit card for the exact amount, and you let them hit that prepaid debit card one time for that exact amount once you have it in writing.

Speaker 1 You're not going to get sued. You're going to settle this as a part of getting the rest of your life back together now.

Speaker 1 It's part of the continuation that are the victories that Aaron is having in his personal life. I'm proud of you.
You hang on. Christian will pick up.

Speaker 1 We'll get you the tools to help you do the learning how to handle money part. And that is exactly, go back and replay this on the podcast, how you handle a bad old debt if you're broke.

Speaker 1 This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Thank you for joining us, America. Dr.
John Deloney, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by YReFi.

Speaker 1 Student loan debt is a swamp of thousands of people.

Speaker 1 And they find it hard to escape. So don't be another statistic in the student loan swamp.
For distressed private student loans,

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Speaker 1 And they'll help you put together a budget you can actually do and get out of debt. So learn more at yReFi.com slash Ramsey.
That's the letter Y R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey might not be in all states.

Speaker 4 All right, today's question comes from Marissa in Alabama.

Speaker 4 Marissa asks: How do you tell the difference between having the talent of compassion or discernment and the compulsion to help as a trauma response?

Speaker 4 Is it possible that a quote-unquote talent may have developed as a survival mechanism and another talent not developed well due to trauma? Um,

Speaker 4 I, I, I mean, my gut reaction here is: it doesn't matter. It's an academic exercise.
Um,

Speaker 4 if you are helping other people to the point that you can't eat or stay whole, or you

Speaker 4 are in an abusive relationship in order to keep other people from getting mad at you, then that's not healthy.

Speaker 4 I often say that the skills people learn when they're kids to survive can become some of the greatest skills professionally for them.

Speaker 4 But if

Speaker 4 all I have to say is it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 I don't think it matters.

Speaker 4 Am I missing the question, Dave?

Speaker 1 No, it feels like there's kind of two possible feelings for me. I mean, one is

Speaker 1 I don't trust a guy that doesn't walk with a limp. Correct.
So if

Speaker 1 you got it all together and you're perfect, you're full of crap. You scare me.

Speaker 4 If you survived.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But I went through bankruptcy.
I lost everything because I was stupid, which informs my ability to do this. Right.
But I'm not doing it as

Speaker 1 a healing mechanism to get over my past trauma. I'm utilizing that experience to give insight to the future.
That's a healthy way to do it.

Speaker 4 Yes, I guess

Speaker 1 if you're doing it as a coping mechanism.

Speaker 4 Or you can be a parasite. You can be a vampire using other people so that you feel better.

Speaker 1 That's a coping mechanism.

Speaker 1 You're not healed.

Speaker 4 Correct. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 So if the trauma...

Speaker 1 The damage from the trauma, the wound,

Speaker 1 is what's driving this, I think that's a problem, isn't it?

Speaker 4 Yeah, and that's one of my rules is I don't talk about things.

Speaker 4 You shouldn't be in the business of trying to sell things or help other people with open wounds, right?

Speaker 4 And how do you know the wound's still open? Can you talk about what happened and your heart rate doesn't take off as though it's happening in real time? That's how you know.

Speaker 4 Can you talk about your mom passing away from an ugly three-year bout of cancer and you're not overwhelmed with emotion?

Speaker 4 You might still be sad, you might still feel heavy, but you can have the conversation. That's how you know.

Speaker 1 If you're overwhelmed with emotion, you're not in a position to help somebody

Speaker 1 else else has chaos.

Speaker 4 That's right.

Speaker 4 Dr. Young used to teach us, don't bring your chaos to other people's hurting situations.

Speaker 1 But here's the thing.

Speaker 4 If you're good at a thing

Speaker 1 because

Speaker 1 you've got a scar that's healed.

Speaker 4 God bless you. Use it.
Get out there, man.

Speaker 1 A scar that's healed is the trick. There you go.
I think. Yes.
And I might be wrong, but I... No, you're 100% right.

Speaker 1 And that doesn't mean,

Speaker 1 I mean, I still think it's okay for people to criticize me and say, how can you possibly give financial advice? You're the guy that went bankrupt. You know, and I get it.
You know, I get that.

Speaker 1 But I do have insight because of that that someone who's never been bankrupt doesn't have.

Speaker 4 Right. So

Speaker 4 here's another way to look at this. So let's say you're a child raised in the home of two alcoholics, people who struggle with alcohol.

Speaker 1 Adult child of an alcoholic.

Speaker 4 And you learned how to get. really small and to make sure the people around you

Speaker 1 were okay.

Speaker 4 And you just learned that. Is it okay to then go into a job where you are a head of hospitality somewhere where your job is to disappear and to help other people have a great experience?

Speaker 4 No, it's not a bad thing.

Speaker 4 If you're doing it out of a compulsion because you have to, like you were talking about earlier, then it's not healthy because you're never going to become a whole because you're always going to be looking for healing out there.

Speaker 4 But yes, if you have some talents that you learned while trying to stay safe and survive, that's amazing.

Speaker 4 That's like our friends who go over and they are navy seals and they come back and they they walk with business leaders who are going through you know challenging times and how to communicate under stress and that's fantastic you learn new talents under duress and now you're using those to help the rest of us that's amazing um so so is if she says the phrase the compulsion to help as a trauma response that would that be functioning out of the wound and not out of a healed wound absolutely yes okay yes so if you yeah if if you feel like it's a compulsion to help out of a trauma response, then it's wrong.

Speaker 1 But if you got discernment and compassion because of trauma, that's a healed wound and that's a scar.

Speaker 4 Here's the difference. I have to versus I get to.

Speaker 1 Ah, compulsion.

Speaker 4 If I have to,

Speaker 4 like when someone calls and says, hey, can you come serve at this local church thing? You're like, I've got to do this.

Speaker 4 That's not a good, that's not a good thing. That's childhood nonsense.
If you are, you say, you know what, I get to go help over there. That's pretty cool.

Speaker 4 Then that's a gift. Then I would say you're well, go get it it done.

Speaker 1 That's interesting. I like that.
Great question. Very interesting question.
It's good. You know what?

Speaker 1 The other thing about a question like that I always think of is

Speaker 1 the old Bible teacher used to tell me,

Speaker 1 you know, probably if you ask that question, you don't have a problem.

Speaker 4 Right. Or you've recognized a problem and now you have a path to healing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but I mean, you're wrecking, you're seeing things at a proper angle.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but and I'll tell you, my initial

Speaker 4 that question was: I just think the modern mental health ecosystem, universe, whatever, wants us to second guess and deep dive and yada yada on every single thing.

Speaker 4 And I think there is so much research coming out saying, go do the next right thing.

Speaker 1 It's a lot of navel gazing.

Speaker 4 Go do the next right thing. And if you can help people based on what happened to your kid, man,

Speaker 4 that's the gospel, right? That's restoration. That's all things made new.
Go use what happened for good if you're healed. Yes.

Speaker 1 Or if you're, you know, doing it out of a healed place. That's right.
You know, so forth. Good.
Phone number here is 888-825-5225. David is in Grand Rapids.
Hi, David. How are you?

Speaker 2 Hi, I'm doing great. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 Sure. What's up? Well,

Speaker 2 my wife and I, we've always refused to go into debt for anything other than a mortgage.

Speaker 1 Good.

Speaker 2 This last week, we just paid off our house. We did a 15-year mortgage, paid it off in four years, four months.

Speaker 1 You're amazing. Long story?

Speaker 1 Thank you. How old are you? I'm very short.

Speaker 1 I'm 33. What's the house worth?

Speaker 2 It's about $3.90,000 right now.

Speaker 1 Way to go. How much in your nest egg, in your 401ks and stuff?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so our Roth IRAs

Speaker 2 between the two of us, we've got about $366,000.

Speaker 1 Dude, you're going to be a millionaire when you're 35. Way to go.

Speaker 2 That's the goal. Then we have mutual funds also.
That's about $118,000.

Speaker 1 $118,000. Wow, good.
Good for you.

Speaker 2 Our total annual income between the two of us is approximately $120,000.

Speaker 2 The question I have, long story short, my in-laws own some hunting property. My father-in-law passed away this past May.
My mother-in-law is ready to sell the property.

Speaker 2 She wants to keep it in the family if possible. We would love to buy it.

Speaker 2 She's willing to sell it to us

Speaker 2 for $122,000. And she's willing to do a 0% land contract.
No.

Speaker 1 And the terms are...

Speaker 1 Absolutely not.

Speaker 1 You have the money. Write her a check.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 Cash out your mutual fund.

Speaker 2 Cash out mutual funds is what you just funded?

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 You don't want to be in debt to your mother-in-law. It changes the way Thanksgiving dinner tastes.

Speaker 1 I'm not kidding. Borrower is slave to the lender.
The air in the room changes when you sit down with your master.

Speaker 1 Right. Don't do it.
You know how free you felt when you paid off that mortgage?

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Don't screw that up.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Especially

Speaker 1 on a hierarchy. I'd rather owe a bank than my mother-in-law.
My mother-in-law is awesome, but man. Yeah, this is bad, bad, bad, bad juju right here.
And you got the money.

Speaker 2 Would it be dumb of me to buy the property? Or what should I do?

Speaker 1 No, you got the money.

Speaker 4 I would.

Speaker 1 I'd buy it. For 100 grand, you got 180 in your mutual fund.

Speaker 4 How big is the property?

Speaker 2 It's about 55 acres.

Speaker 1 I mean, if the value is right, I don't think it's a problem.

Speaker 1 But pay cash for it or don't do it.

Speaker 1 If you can't pay cash for it, don't do it. And never do a land contract.
You'll get screwed over six ways from Sunday on that. Oh, I could do a whole segment on land contracts.

Speaker 1 This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today.

Speaker 1 We have a debt-free screen.

Speaker 1 Yeah, who's it with, by the way?

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 1 Amy. Amy, there she is.

Speaker 4 Good. Okay, Amy, we can't hear you.

Speaker 1 Amy, how are you? Now we can hear you. Oh,

Speaker 1 we're going to eventually do a radio show here. Who knew?

Speaker 1 All right. So where are you from, Amy?

Speaker 6 I'm from St. Louis, Missouri.

Speaker 1 Cool. Cool.
And how much debt have you paid off?

Speaker 6 I paid $209,575.

Speaker 1 I love it. And how long did that take? Two years.
Good for you. Yeah.
And your range of income during that time?

Speaker 6 $180,000 to $220,000.

Speaker 1 Very good. Way to go.

Speaker 1 Easy.

Speaker 1 Wow. What do you do for a living?

Speaker 6 I am a medical sales rep.

Speaker 1 Ah, yes. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
You're killing it, too. Good for you.
Thank you. Well done.
What kind of debt was this?

Speaker 6 It was my mortgage.

Speaker 1 Whoa!

Speaker 1 Paid for house.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 What is this house worth?

Speaker 6 It's about $675,000.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And how much much in your 401ks in Nesteg?

Speaker 6 $1.2 million.

Speaker 1 So you're worth a couple million dollars.

Speaker 6 Kind of awesome.

Speaker 1 You're pretty incredible.

Speaker 1 How old are you?

Speaker 6 I am 52.

Speaker 1 Wow. Yes.
Wow. Look at you.
A multi-millionaire with a paid-for house in St. Louis, killing it with the income.
Proud of you. Thank you.
What an incredible accomplishment. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Tell us about this journey. What in the world and how did you get tied up with the Ramsey bunch?

Speaker 6 Well, I had a friend who really hooked me up about eight years ago with you guys. And I just love the podcast because it's always so positive.

Speaker 6 Like, no matter what the situation is, everybody can always get themselves out of it. So I think for the most part, I was pretty debt-free.

Speaker 6 You know, I probably didn't have the same opinion about the mortgage and those type of things.

Speaker 6 But Like I really like during COVID as a sales rep it obviously wasn't that good because because it's really hard to see your customers when you can't go out. So I started getting nervous.

Speaker 6 I have three kids, and I was like, you know, my mortgage is my biggest payment. Like, what happens if I lose my job? So I wanted to kind of go down that road.
So that's kind of what started it.

Speaker 6 And really, when I started, I was like, I think I can do this in like four years.

Speaker 6 But my kids are triplets and they're 17, they're seniors, and kind of the idea of sending them off to college, like we have money saved for them but it's still kind of it kind of gives me heart palpitations not to lie about it

Speaker 6 so I was like you know if I can get my mortgage paid off that frees up so much money like I won't be eating beans and rice while they're at college you know trying to figure out how I can get it because I don't want them to have student loans like if they can come out debt-free I think that would be absolutely amazing and such a great gift to them so that's why I was like okay I need to kind of rethink things So what I really did is like, I started putting more money down every month.

Speaker 6 And like I did the Every Dollar app, which really

Speaker 6 kind of slows you down on things. Like

Speaker 6 food, like my kids always laugh. They're like, why don't you buy brand name? And I'm like, no, the Aldi's brand name is fine for you guys.
Like we'll be okay.

Speaker 1 You're not teenagers. You're not going to taste it anyway.
You're going to eat it all, right? Like, yes.

Speaker 6 So, like, being able to do that, just adding more money to it, and then like changing just my perspective.

Speaker 6 Like, I've always been a good saver, and I wanted like that big cushion, like, just in case something was going to happen.

Speaker 6 And as I got closer, I'm like, you know, I don't really need to have as much in my emergency budget if my mortgage is paid off, right? Like, I just don't need it as much.

Speaker 6 So, I did that. I cashed in a mutual fund because I think it's more important to have it paid off.
Like, it just takes all the stress out of the monthly budget. So

Speaker 4 can I ask you like a for real question?

Speaker 1 Well, I guess we're all sure.

Speaker 4 Dave's going to ask you a bunch of fake questions. Don't ask you a free one.
Not really.

Speaker 4 Because I get that a lot,

Speaker 4 especially from people who are high performers and who

Speaker 4 fancy themselves as, I'm pretty smart. I think this stuff through.
I'm not just willy-nilly, right? You didn't just watch a few TikTok things and

Speaker 4 you think you know everything. Right.

Speaker 4 Has your anxiousness, the,

Speaker 4 have you felt that come down with the realization that no one can take your home away?

Speaker 4 Because I get that conversation, you know, I get like, well, the APR here and I got a good mortgage, I got a good interest rate here.

Speaker 4 But I'm watching your body language as you tell the story in reverse and it is, no, I'm about to send my kids off and now I have the ability to just be sad.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Instead of sad and stressed. Correct.
Or when everyone starts to say, well, it looks like the economy is going to to slow down in Q4 and you know about sales and you go,

Speaker 4 that stings for you guys. You know what I mean? Because no one can take your house.
Am I right?

Speaker 6 It's absolutely right. Like the moment I paid it off, I was like, oh my gosh, it's actually truly an asset now.
And I don't have to worry about it.

Speaker 6 Like if something truly happened to me, I can go to Walmart and make my monthly payments. You know, like not payments, but monthly bills.
Like I can do this no matter what.

Speaker 6 Like I don't have to worry about it crushing me. And I think, like, I'm kind of always the worst case case scenario person, but it took off.
It just takes off so much.

Speaker 6 And now I know, like, the money that I was using for my mortgage, I can, you know, help my kids and, you know, pay for all the other stuff. So it really just takes so much stress off.

Speaker 1 Wow. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You really physically do feel the release. Yeah.
Absolutely. And people don't get that.
And that's why I talk about take your shoes off, walk through the backyard.

Speaker 1 The grass feels different under your feet. Trying to give you some kind of an emotional emotional touch point that says, This is really happening.

Speaker 1 There's a level of peace here called financial peace, two words that don't go together, like airline service. And all this stuff, there's a real thing there.
Yeah. And it's congratulations.

Speaker 4 Thank you. Can I give you one more thing that you've done? Absolutely.

Speaker 4 You could tell your kids all day long about money and saving money. They've got to live next to their mom, reviewing things and doing budgets and saying no.
That's in their nervous system now.

Speaker 1 They watched

Speaker 1 a warrior princess. You know, I mean, they've watched it.
They can't undo that. If you've got daughters, their confidence level personally is up.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 4 you've just changed everything. It's amazing.

Speaker 1 That's a big deal. It's a very big deal.
Proud of you. Congratulations.

Speaker 1 What would you tell somebody that's thinking about whether they ought to pay off their mortgage or not?

Speaker 6 I would say, like, when you really look at it, because I know, like, people play a lot of games with the mortgage, it just feels so good when it's out of the way.

Speaker 6 Like, it's totally worth it, and like, nobody can take it away from you. Like, you accomplished something really, really big by paying that off.

Speaker 1 So, when you look back on it,

Speaker 1 are you divorced or widowed? I'm divorced. Okay, so when you look back on it from that moment to now,

Speaker 1 you're now worth almost $2 million.

Speaker 1 You make $220,000 a year.

Speaker 1 And I mean,

Speaker 1 I think there's somebody back there a few years ago,

Speaker 1 you 15 years ago, you 20 years ago, I don't know when it was, that's wondering if they can do it or not. Yeah.
And I appreciate you coming on here, showing them that they can.

Speaker 1 Talk to them for a second.

Speaker 6 I think you can do anything that you set your mind to. And like the real thing is, is like being able to say no to certain things, I don't, I don't regret any of those things that I said no to.

Speaker 6 Like, this is so much more

Speaker 6 like fulfillment and those type of things. And like you can set your mind to do anything.

Speaker 6 Like you, like by doing the budgets and those type of things, you have so much more extra money than what we actually think we do.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Wow.

Speaker 1 And I don't know about you, but in sales, it gives me motivation just to tick those things off. Yes.
I want to go make a sale so I can knock another thing off the list. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Just to keep going.

Speaker 4 How long have you had your mortgage paid off?

Speaker 6 I paid it off at the end of June.

Speaker 1 Way to go.

Speaker 4 Yeah. So cool.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Amy, you're a hero from St.
Louis. 210,000 paid off in two years, making 180 to 2220.
Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.
I'm debt-free.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, we just launched a new virtual event, Money and Marriage Date Night. This two-hour event, hosted by Rachel Cruz, Dr.

Speaker 1 John Deloney, sitting to my right, will feature a lot of the incredible parts of our Money and Marriage Getaway.

Speaker 1 And they're going to be getting into real topics like goal setting, budgeting, and working through every season of life as a team. This is October 29th, just around the corner.

Speaker 1 Includes a QA with Rachel and John, who answer your questions live.

Speaker 1 John, I guarantee guarantee you folks, one thing, Rachel and John, when they get together off screen, on mic, off mic, regardless, are hilarious.

Speaker 1 They're just problem children, both of them. And they're funny as crud.
And they're dealing with some really subjects, money and marriage, that lend itself to some humor.

Speaker 1 So you guys, I can promise you the 29th of October will be fun, won't it?

Speaker 4 Yes. And I think specifically we'll be talking about Thanksgiving and Christmas and the election are coming up and how do you stay sane with your family during those times.

Speaker 4 And so it'll be, it'll be a good time for everyone.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's a pre-election. It's a pre-marriage.

Speaker 4 Thanksgiving, pre-Christmas.

Speaker 1 There we go. Yeah.
It'll be good. How do you, you know, because the great news is we get to go to Thanksgiving and see the family.
The bad news is we get to go to Thanksgiving and see the family.

Speaker 1 So, yeah.

Speaker 4 And nothing says, you know what, we should have family time and talk politics.

Speaker 1 That'll be good.

Speaker 1 After the election, ah, after, after you, you know, you, oh, man. This, this, this quarter brought to you by Preparation H for all of the hemorrhoids we're all going to have.

Speaker 1 Ramseysolutions.com slash events. Money and marriage date night, a virtual event, October the 29th.
John Deloney, Rachel Cruz, get your tickets, ramseysolutions.com slash events.

Speaker 1 Jocelyn is in Chicago. Hi, Jocelyn.
How are you?

Speaker 2 Hi, Mr. Ramsey.
I'm honored to be here with you guys. How are you?

Speaker 1 Better than we deserve. What's up?

Speaker 2 So I just started watching your show and I wanted to ask as someone who one day hopes to be a parent, is it the responsibility of a parent who doesn't let their kids work in high school and who values them to focus on their studies?

Speaker 2 Is it their responsibility to pay for like most of college or the entirety?

Speaker 2 Or is it the responsibility of the child who's now an adult even though they have never worked when they got out of high school?

Speaker 1 Well, I think the way you formed the sentences, you've already decided.

Speaker 1 Yes,

Speaker 2 I have.

Speaker 2 I assumed it's kind of the parents' responsibility.

Speaker 1 I think it's fine if mom and dad want to pay for college. I don't think it is a moral or ethical requirement.

Speaker 1 If someone chooses not to pay for their kids' college, they are not a horrible parent. They're not an abuser.

Speaker 1 But I paid for my kids' college. John will pay for his.

Speaker 1 You're going to pay for yours. And that's fine.
I did have a lot of requirements on mine to be eligible for the Ramsey scholarship.

Speaker 1 You know, we're not going to graduate in beer pong.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we're going to be living on a budget. We're going to be walking with God.
We're going to be part of the Ramsey family. I don't pay for people who I'm estranged from.

Speaker 1 I don't know, whatever the flip that means. We're hillbillies.
We just get mad. We don't get estranged.
But anyway.

Speaker 4 And Jocelyn, I'm looking here at the National Center for Educational Statistics.

Speaker 4 Can I tell you that high school students who worked a moderate amount of hours, 10 to 15 hours in high school, actually have slightly better than

Speaker 4 average GPAs?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 There's something important about learning grit.

Speaker 1 Pushing your child?

Speaker 1 Do what?

Speaker 2 Would you suggest pushing your child then to kind of work and allowing them to work?

Speaker 1 Absolutely. Not allowing them.
I would require them.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you need to have some sort of of work because they've got to learn where money comes from and they've got to learn how to manage time because you're going to send them off um i i received your kid at the university level for 20 years a kid that had never had to manage time never had to manage the money never had to manage workload and i'll tell you what you you turn a student loose into the wild into the university system without knowing how to balance their life um that's a recipe for all sorts of challenges john and i have a friend whose job is to teach the executive functioning skills to, like we're talking about, to college students because they can't get through.

Speaker 1 They're brilliant. They can graduate on top of their class and don't have the executive function skills to manage their money, time, and relationships.

Speaker 4 So let me just put it this way. My high school son, he works.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 He works. All of my kids worked.

Speaker 4 Now, not a ton. He doesn't work 50 hours a week or anything like that.
And right now, his job is to be a full-time athlete and a student.

Speaker 4 And then he'll be in theater, but he will work and he does work.

Speaker 1 None of mine were sent to the salt mines.

Speaker 1 Daniel Ramsey, who's the president of Ramsey Solutions today in his 30s while I'm the CEO, when he was 14, painted the stairwell because he wasn't a good enough painter to paint out where we could see it.

Speaker 1 So we put him in the stairwell.

Speaker 4 And my son shovels horse cha-cha at a local horse ranch and he spreads it over the property with a manure spread.

Speaker 4 He's learned more how to do stuff, but people ask, your kid's shoveling horse chat shot?

Speaker 1 Yep.

Speaker 4 And he just knows how to work. And it's hot until

Speaker 1 I promise you he'll want to get an education. So otherwise he won't have to do that the rest of his life.
Whatever he sits down to do, we're going to hire people to do the shoveling

Speaker 1 and the air conditioning.

Speaker 4 He does not mind that at all. That's it.

Speaker 1 I'm going to find a way to not have to do that.

Speaker 1 Jesus is with us in California. Hi, Jesus.
How are you?

Speaker 2 Hey, good. Thank you, Dave and John.
Long time listener, first time caller. So thank you for taking my call.

Speaker 1 Sure. What's up?

Speaker 2 Hey, so my wife and I, we're extremely blessed and humbled with our stewardship that we've been given. Just in July, we paid off our home and we're debt-free on baby step seven.

Speaker 2 And we're, like I said, extremely blessed and very humbled with what God has given us in this place that we're currently in.

Speaker 2 We have a hard time making purchases. Like what we want right now, we need actually is a brand new vehicle.
We have two two kids and uh we want what's your net worth

Speaker 2 vehicle we have a net worth of 1.7 yeah what's your household income

Speaker 1 136 what are you thinking about paying for the vehicle

Speaker 2 cash

Speaker 1 cash but how much fifty thousand yeah fifty thousand fifty thousand dollars what car is it

Speaker 2 uh it's a kid's healy ride it's uh you know top of the model you know it's top trim so that's a millionaire car car.

Speaker 1 It's extremely fancy. That's fine.

Speaker 1 You got 50 grand. You're worth a million, too.
You make $130,000. You pay cash for it.
I'd buy that car.

Speaker 4 I'd buy a Highlander, but yeah, go buy that car.

Speaker 1 No, we're getting into car arguments. But the Highlander.
You can afford it, Jesus.

Speaker 1 You can afford it. The thing that Sharon and I do is we allocate a percentage of our income.

Speaker 1 We're baby step seven for many, many years, to enjoyment, which is lifestyle, including vehicle purchases, to generosity, and a percentage also to

Speaker 1 further investing so that we can increase our generosity and our enjoyment both. Okay.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 you make sure you're putting something on the generosity side and make sure you're putting something in the investing side and then pay cash for a nice car. You've earned the right.
Way to go.

Speaker 1 Congratulations. Hey, for all of you listening to the show on YouTube or on a podcast, the show's about to end.

Speaker 1 If you want to hear the rest of the show, you can always get that on the Ramsey Network app and finish the show in a distraction-free experience.

Speaker 1 And you can get all kinds of other goodies on there. For instance, we posted the interview I did with President Trump today on the Ramsey app

Speaker 1 a day before we put it out on the podcast and on YouTube, which is tomorrow. So you can get that tomorrow on YouTube, October the 2nd.

Speaker 1 For those of you just catching this, it'll be on YouTube and podcasts. But on October the 1st, it was on the Ramsey Network app.

Speaker 1 So you want to to download the Ramsey Network app and get all things Ramsey, audio and video, and it's completely free. We don't charge you a thing, not a dollar, not nothing.

Speaker 1 So be sure and get signed up for that. And

Speaker 1 for those of you hearing this live or early on the 1st, it's a good way to get an advance. We'll put other things on there in advance too.

Speaker 1 I just did another long-form interview with a different character, not a political character, but another one that you'll want to hear. And I'll probably probably do the same thing with it.

Speaker 1 I'll probably drop it on a day early on the Ramsey Network app. And so you kind of get like premiere or previews or whatever, that kind of stuff on there.
And it's searchable.

Speaker 1 And you can even leave email questions on there. And we answer them sometimes here on the air.
So be sure and check that out.

Speaker 1 For those of you in Talk Radio, you'll continue to get the show the way you always have.

Speaker 1 And if you want to see the Trump interview, you'll need to jump over to the podcast or to YouTube or to the Ramsey Network app.

Speaker 1 This is the Ramsey Show.