Normal in America Sucks - Don't Be Normal!

[0] the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions.

[1] It's the Ramsey Show, where we help people, build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships.

[2] I'm Dave Ramsey, your host.

[3] Our phone number here is Triple -8 -8 -25 -5 -2 -2 -25.

[4] That's Triple -8 -8 -25 -5 -2 -2 -5.

[5] George Camel, Ramsi, personality, host of the George Camel Show on YouTube and co -house.

[6] host of Smart Money Happy Hour, and author of the brand new book that launches today, Breaking Free from Broke.

[7] He is my co -host today.

[8] And today is book launch today around Ramsey.

[9] I hear we're putting Georgia's new book into the wild officially.

[10] It's been shipped, and a bunch of you should be getting it in your mailboxes today or tomorrow, depending on where you live and how all that works.

[11] Breaking Free from Broke, the ultimate guide to more money and less stress.

[12] The pre -sales on this were excellent.

[13] Thank you guys for participating with us on that.

[14] And for those of you that haven't gotten the book, well, this would be a great week to go ahead and get it.

[15] Breaking Free from Broke.

[16] And, George, this has been quite a project.

[17] You guys have done the research that went into this book and the new things that we did with the audio book.

[18] There's a lot of things that we did here that we've never done before.

[19] I like to do things the hard way, apparently, Dave.

[20] And it's always worth it in the end.

[21] but it can be a grind to get there.

[22] And this one review sums it up, which is so beautiful.

[23] Self -deprecating, honest, data -driven, and pop culture -filled.

[24] I'll take that.

[25] That's exactly what I aim to do.

[26] Can we write a money book that's easy to understand, conversational, funny, relevant, and data -driven?

[27] And I think we accomplished all of that.

[28] It is.

[29] It does have all that.

[30] I mean, a data -driven automatically sounds boring to me. Sure.

[31] When you say that, but when you put it in there with George, George's snark and his pop culture references, suddenly it comes alive.

[32] We bring it to life.

[33] And yet the audio book, I read it myself.

[34] A lot of people are asking and the team did an amazing job with sound design and effects.

[35] And you even hear Dave pop in at random points with some quotes.

[36] And so we just tried to bring it to life.

[37] I love audiobooks and I think if you love audiobooks, you're going to enjoy this.

[38] But the hardcover, if you pre -ordered, came with all of that for free.

[39] So you got the email this morning, which is very exciting.

[40] So it's like Christmas morning for me. I couldn't sleep last night, Dave.

[41] It's exciting.

[42] I was pumped.

[43] amped up for the feedback and to see how many people break free from broke in 2024 well and and and doing a book is a I mean it's a task there's a lot of work involved you've been we've been fooling with this for a year over a year yeah and um you know getting one out into the wild is as you can throw them out there or you can do them properly and we do them properly here at Ramsey and this is your first one so I mean you had a baby this year and you birthed the book I literally submitted the final as we were in the delivery room, Dave.

[44] Oh, my gosh.

[45] It was a real nail biter.

[46] Yeah.

[47] But, I mean, your first book is not unlike your first kid in a lot of ways.

[48] I mean, it's a lot of, it's a little scary.

[49] It's super exciting.

[50] It's all of those things at once.

[51] And congratulations.

[52] I'm very proud of you.

[53] Thank you.

[54] Well, I like to say that I'm a turtle on a fence post.

[55] We have an amazing team here at Ramsey.

[56] You've built an amazing platform with amazing fans, and I just hope this book can carry the torch.

[57] You called it financial peace for the next generation in the forward.

[58] And I feel like that's what we're doing.

[59] here.

[60] We are taking this message and making it even more relevant and showing people it's still possible and that the principles still work.

[61] Now, those of you that have friends that are sick of Dave.

[62] Who could be sick of Dave?

[63] And his boomerisms, well, that's fine.

[64] Now you've got George.

[65] And millennialisms.

[66] Saying the same thing in a lot better, a lot more culturally relevant ways because he actually cares.

[67] Yeah, Dave's like, I haven't seen a movie since 2003.

[68] I'm just like, get off my lawn.

[69] That's it.

[70] So, uh, with Deniable research and data.

[71] Georgia exposes the most common money myths and excuses head -on.

[72] Credit card schemes, investment traps, mortgage myths.

[73] All of this you hear promoted nowadays on Instagram, on TikTok, YouTube, bad stuff out there floating around on some of these platforms and really nasty results if you actually infect yourself with it.

[74] And you're going to get the knowledge and the confidence to break free from a system and some people that believe.

[75] leave lies so that you don't end up broke because there are real villains out there in this story.

[76] Oh, absolutely.

[77] And you've been fighting those villains for years, Dave.

[78] But now, back in the day, it was radio.

[79] You had to have a book.

[80] Now everyone with an Instagram account can just be spewing this crap out there to get clicks and views and get them to buy their insurance product.

[81] And so I just want to help people clear the noise and go, it's so simple to build wealth.

[82] if you just change your inputs, change your paradigm, and start creating the right habits.

[83] Yeah, I mean, common sense can show up in any generation or generations.

[84] And it has, really, over the years.

[85] And so now it's shown up definitely for the millennial, the Gen Z and whoever else wants to read, breaking free from broke, the ultimate guide to more money and less stress.

[86] Yeah, pick it up, guys.

[87] It's very, very well done.

[88] Very proud of it.

[89] Also, every book includes a special offer for you to get three months of the premium version of every dollar, which includes the bank connectivity, the paycheck planning tool, all of that for free, three months free.

[90] And basically, there's QR codes in the book that allow you to do that, right?

[91] You scan the QR code.

[92] It takes you right to the page.

[93] You enter your email, and you've got an account set up.

[94] And I wanted this to be so practical and applicable that you read the book and you put it down and then go, actually follow the plan.

[95] You actually create the budget for 90 days, which is how long it takes on average for folks to get the budget dialed in.

[96] And that's really the crux of this money plan.

[97] You want to live on less than you make.

[98] You got to make a plan for your money.

[99] And that comes down to doing a budget.

[100] So it's one of the chapters in there.

[101] It's not a book about budgeting, but there's a big chapter called budgeting is freedom that will help you get a grasp on what it takes to finally get your money dialed in.

[102] The endorsements we got for it are pretty phenomenal.

[103] Damon John from Shark Tank, our friend Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs, Graham Steffen, one of the biggest YouTubers out there today, our friends, The Minimalists.

[104] And, of course, Rachel Cruz, she has to endorse it, though, because...

[105] She had to.

[106] You sit next to her, and you would have bopped her on the head, right?

[107] She was happy to, but I also forced her.

[108] Dave, some of them didn't even make it to the back cover.

[109] We had John Maxwell.

[110] We had Seth Godin.

[111] We had Willie Robertson from Duck Dynasty.

[112] So many people were kind enough to write a good word about it after checking it out and saying, I endorse this.

[113] I'm going to put my name behind it because I think it's going to help people with their money this year.

[114] Yeah, very cool.

[115] launch day around Ramsey.

[116] We don't always take a segment for books, but we always do on launch day.

[117] Means a lot.

[118] We're going to do that for sure today and have, just to make sure you guys all know about this.

[119] Breaking Free from Broke, the ultimate guide to more money and less stress.

[120] You can get it anywhere great books are sold, including Ramsey Solutions .com or Amazon or your bookstore, Barnes & Noble, books a million.

[121] All of them have got it.

[122] Um, we, you know, most every book, um, outlet purchased them from us and, and should have them on the shelves today for launch day.

[123] So wherever you need to pick it up, you can pick it up that way.

[124] Uh, certainly you can get in touch with us at Ramsey Solutions .com.

[125] We'll take care of you.

[126] All of them, regardless of where you purchase it, have that QR code inside that will give you three months of the premium version of every dollar.

[127] That's worth it alone.

[128] That's, that's, that's a greater gift than the cost of the book.

[129] Exactly.

[130] That's a bargain.

[131] But still read the book.

[132] It's worth the read.

[133] Yeah.

[134] Breaking free from broke, the ultimate guide to more money and less stressed, George Campbell's brand new book out today.

[135] This is The Ramsey Show.

[136] Buying your first home is a big deal and sets the stage for your financial success.

[137] So work with a mortgage advisor you trust not just some random website.

[138] Churchill mortgage is Ramsey trusted because they help you avoid hidden traps and expertly guide you through every step.

[139] Learn more at Churchillmortgage .com.

[140] This is a paid advertisement.

[141] An MLS ID 1591 and MLS Consumer Access .org, Equal Housing Lender.

[142] 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100.

[143] Brentwood, Tennessee, 37027.

[144] George Camel Ramsey Personality is my co -host today.

[145] Dake is with us in Savannah, Georgia.

[146] Hi, Dake.

[147] Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

[148] Hey, Dave, how are you?

[149] Better than I deserve.

[150] What's up?

[151] I wanted to ask your opinion here.

[152] I'm getting ready to build my first home, and I'm not sure if you're familiar with, like, the Barn Dominium style, but that's what it's going to be.

[153] Yeah, sure.

[154] It's on some family land.

[155] My dad's going to eat out like five acres.

[156] We own, like, 400, but I was wanting to know.

[157] What's your opinion on barring against?

[158] to land and what the value of the home would be, I'm going to be doing, I would say, 85 % of the work myself, other than having, you know, buying the actual building and having somebody put it up.

[159] That's about it.

[160] Maybe some tile work.

[161] But if you could, if you got it appraise before, you know, going to get a bank loan, if I only truly needed 50 grand and they were willing to give me say 80 would you would you take the 80 and kind of use it and and and speed up the process or would you only borrow truly what you need to get it started and slowly do it speed up the process what do you mean getting the get in the home getting the home built oh you mean hiring people to do it faster than you would have done it by yourself yes okay all right so that I have what I would like to do is you know are you married I am not actually I actually was in a relationship she was she was she was great but she was I was asking about you I was just wondered about the dynamic of the barn dominium okay so uh this is just for you though that that's that's good the uh um all right so uh okay so there's several thoughts coming to mind.

[162] The first thing is, what's your household income?

[163] What do you make?

[164] I'm an apprentice electrician, so right now probably 35 a year, but that'll, I mean, yeah, that's based off a percentage is what I would top out of the tournament.

[165] So 35 grand.

[166] What do you make next year?

[167] When do you finish your apprenticeship?

[168] I will be done about a year from now.

[169] Okay.

[170] What do you make after that?

[171] I could travel on the road.

[172] I could make anywhere between $90 ,000 to $200 ,000.

[173] Is that what you're going to do, travel on the road?

[174] Yes, yes.

[175] All right.

[176] So $30 ,000, if you're making $90 ,000, $30 ,000 extra debt on a home is not that big a deal, right?

[177] Yes, sir.

[178] Okay.

[179] So if you want to hire out part of it done and you want to have an $80 ,000 loan rather than a $50 ,000 loan, that's not the end of the world.

[180] No problem at all.

[181] with that okay now um i do want you to think how old are you 24 okay i have a barn with a an event barn on our farm that's very nice with a nice really nice one -bedroom studio apartment built into it a barn dominium if you will uh which basically is a very large dog house if i'd say if i get thrown out i can run over there okay i don't live there but it's it's the same concept all right uh but i have a five 10 -year plan for that property.

[182] I'm thinking out in the future.

[183] I didn't just randomly build it.

[184] So I'm a little bit concerned that five years from today, you meet someone, and her goal in life is not to live in a barn.

[185] I understand that.

[186] So what are you going to do with it then?

[187] I would like to turn it into a shop, you know, if I had to.

[188] Okay, so if you bought a home somewhere else and moved in with your future wife 10 years from now, you would just keep this as a barn?

[189] I would use it as an office space.

[190] I don't plan on going anywhere, Dave.

[191] I'm pretty, pretty hell -bent on it being, you know, home -based for me for the rest of the life.

[192] It's on our family property.

[193] I love the area.

[194] I've loved grown up there.

[195] And that's, you know, that's what I want, and that's where I'm going to be.

[196] Okay.

[197] I'm just presupposing that you might marry someone that doesn't agree with that, and they might want to live somewhere other than a barn.

[198] And you might not.

[199] It's okay with me if you stay there.

[200] I'm not mad at you for it.

[201] But I just want you to have a good, I want you to be very thoughtful about how this thing could be utilized in the future if it is not where you live.

[202] And I want you to be thoughtful when you're designing this, when you're building it about that, and even when you're having discussions with your family about the fact they're giving you five acres out of their 400 to do this because you can really get in a pinch.

[203] Yeah, this could end up being just very expensive office space one day.

[204] And so we just don't want you to step into something that's going to be hard to step out of.

[205] And if you could pay cash for it, and if you're going to be making 90, continue to live on less than you make, you could be able to cash flow this whole thing in a few years.

[206] Well, or pay the 80 off in a very, very short period of time and be dead free.

[207] Yeah, like two years or something.

[208] These projects usually are more of a headache than you realize.

[209] Yeah, it takes a lot more.

[210] Tanner's in Minneapolis.

[211] Hi, Tanner.

[212] Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

[213] Hi, Dave.

[214] How are you doing?

[215] Better than I deserve.

[216] What's up?

[217] Yeah, so I have an opportunity on the table where I can advance my career by taking a new position, and it will include a title change that is better than the one I currently have and a raise.

[218] And I'm just wondering how do you think I should go about approaching my current company and current boss about the opportunity I have on the table and not.

[219] destroying my relationship with this company and and the people that I work with.

[220] What is your goal?

[221] Are you quitting?

[222] Yeah, yeah, I'd be leaving and moving to a new company.

[223] Okay, so how do you maintain relationships when you quit?

[224] Is that your question?

[225] Yeah, I don't want to ruin it because then down the line if I reconnect to them.

[226] I don't want them to be like, oh, this guy left me. I hate him now.

[227] What do you mean reconnect?

[228] Like you need a job there again?

[229] No, but if they move to a new company and we're still in the same network, and then I want to reach on to say, hey, I got you.

[230] Okay, you're just saying, I want to do this with class.

[231] Okay.

[232] Number one, you can't control someone else's response.

[233] All you can do is have your side of the equation with class.

[234] Okay.

[235] So, I mean, if they're short -sighted and angry or whatever, then they're just going to be that.

[236] You can't keep them from being that.

[237] But when someone leaves Ramsey, if they come in and go, gosh, our time here was incredible.

[238] You know, we love being here.

[239] We're going to miss all you guys.

[240] I hate leaving.

[241] It's one of the best places I've ever been.

[242] But here's my two -week notice because I got a $50 ,000 raise and a title change, and I got to go that way.

[243] But, man, it's been awesome working with you guys.

[244] I mean, then we don't get mad.

[245] We don't we don't, we don't shun you.

[246] in the future if you do that if you come in and give us a double -fisted middle finger and go i'm out of here in an hour and then you go trash the employer you people suck and then everywhere you go you talk negatively about your time here then guess what then we're not going to be friends hello well no kidding right uh so but but we we're good friends with a lot of people that used to work here and that's both on them and on us right does that make sense awesome is that what you're talking is that that what you're talking about, Tanner?

[247] I mean, am I missing something or?

[248] No, no, you nailed it right on the head, I guess.

[249] Do you have this job offer?

[250] You have the contract?

[251] Yeah, we're actually negotiating salaries right now.

[252] Okay.

[253] I just don't want to, I've seen it happen where it backfires.

[254] You tell your employer I'm out, the other job didn't land yet, and then you're in a real pickle.

[255] And so just be careful as you approach that.

[256] Yeah.

[257] Yeah, no, I already have, we're just in salary negotiations.

[258] I've already signed a letter of intent for it there.

[259] It's just now we're nailing down just the X's and those and everything.

[260] So a lot of ethics questions, Tanner, particularly business ethics questions, can be solved by the simple golden rule that Jesus said, treat other people like you'd want to be treated.

[261] Pretend like you had someone working for you.

[262] How would you want them to leave?

[263] I mean, with a smile.

[264] I mean, I would want them to, yeah, smile and then approach me and say, hey, I have this opportunity, don't want to leave you.

[265] like high and dry so yeah it's you know a lot of gratitude for the time we had together and um gosh if any i can ever help you or serve you in the future and be your friend i want to do that and thank you for all the good that we got to do together and the work we did and lots of gratitude and um you know all that kind of stuff so that if you do all that then that'll help you with always just reverse the moccasins and walk in the other guys for a few minutes and that helps me know what to do for George Camel.

[266] The new book, Breaking Free from Broke, is out.

[267] It's officially in the wild.

[268] George is my co -host today, Ramsey Personality, big -time YouTube star, and now hopefully best -selling author, so check it out.

[269] Love that.

[270] And Dave, you were on an episode on my YouTube channel of Millionaires and Cars Getting Coffee, and it has blown up.

[271] It's the number one video on our channel.

[272] We posted it.

[273] You thought that was just for us?

[274] I was a little worried about that.

[275] It was, so I start with I was worried that I was riding in a Tesla, but...

[276] That was the best part.

[277] We talked about how you've been skydiving.

[278] You've done some risky things, and yet you were most freaked out about just riding around this.

[279] I was afraid I was going to burn up.

[280] I mean, those things catch on fire.

[281] I need to get you a shirt that says, I survived Georgia's Tesla.

[282] I survived a Tesla ride.

[283] But you took us very kindly over to your barn.

[284] That was fun.

[285] And you gave us a little tour, and you made me some coffee.

[286] And we had a great chat about building wealth and how you're spending your money this year.

[287] And so if you want to go check it out, it's on my YouTube channel.

[288] I had to get the coffee maker working, but...

[289] That was the toughest part.

[290] Fancy coffee makers are hard to run, man. Back in my day, you just had the old bun glass coffee, you know, pot.

[291] The bun, the Mr. Coffee.

[292] The Mr. Coffee.

[293] There we go.

[294] Simpler times.

[295] Yeah.

[296] All right.

[297] Keisha is with us in Atlanta.

[298] Hi, Keisha.

[299] Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

[300] Hey, Dave.

[301] How are you?

[302] Better than I deserve.

[303] What's up?

[304] So, my husband and I got married about four months ago.

[305] Congratulations.

[306] Thank you.

[307] We're both very excited.

[308] about it.

[309] So we've begun the process of combining money, but I think we've semi -combined it.

[310] And we have some money things about to happen.

[311] And I just have questions on how to move forward as far as money is concerned.

[312] Like what?

[313] What's your question?

[314] Sure.

[315] So we own two homes.

[316] I own a home.

[317] He owns a home.

[318] And he has a tenant currently, but his home needs some work.

[319] More money than we can afford to put into the home to get what market value calls for it.

[320] So he's made the decision to go ahead and sell the home.

[321] I make probably 80 to 90 a year and he's making about 60, 65 a year.

[322] I also have a business, a seasonal business that brings in some income.

[323] And so my income, my seasonal business, his equity, his income, do we throw all into the same pot or do I keep my business separate how does that work okay the couples that we see that have the best quality marriage and the highest probability of building wealth combine everything there's no yours in mind at all it's all we you become french we we we got it okay so it's we we now own two houses one he used to live in and one I used to live in the one he used to live in the one he used to live in we are thinking we should sell it but it needs some repairs and so we're trying to figure out what to do with that I run a business how do I do that how do I combine the income from that business into our new household you hear my pronouns changing yeah there's no more years in mind it's all we in our yeah so we've we've created a joint account we have a joint account that we just open but we also have our separate accounts that our income gets put into no reason they should all go in the same account that's it forces you it forces you to combine your dreams and when you combine your dreams and you combine your fears you start to have that now George you and Whitney have been married how long five plus years now so you guys went through this because you're both young professionals with your own everything before you got married, right?

[324] We have it so simple that it's stupid.

[325] How did you combine it, though?

[326] I had my checking account, and I made that a joint checking account, added her to it.

[327] She closed hers, and now we have a joint checking and a joint savings.

[328] That's it.

[329] That's it.

[330] And so you can do the same way.

[331] You have a business checking.

[332] That's why to have.

[333] You have a business operating account, but when you take money out of the business called profit or income, and it, quote, comes home, then it goes into the joint account and it's part of our income.

[334] Does that make sense?

[335] Yeah, that makes sense.

[336] And I guess, you know, any expensive, personal expenses like hair nails, whatever, it just comes out of that account.

[337] The two of you together, talk about your budget before the month begins.

[338] We lay out what we are going to spend our money on.

[339] And since he's newly married.

[340] He's very smart, and he's going to include hair and nails in our budget.

[341] Yeah.

[342] I think, and all that makes sense, and I think one of our both biggest fears is that we both have children of our own.

[343] My son, his father has passed away years ago, and so his care has always been top of mind for me, and it's scary to let his financial care just leave my grasp alone you know how old is your son he's now 19 in college and so he's still being financially cared for drug physically but your new husband married into that yeah he knew that you had this on your heart that you're 19 that you wanted to continue to give your 19 year old some support until he launches into manhood right correct correct yeah and so we can do that yeah you know if If Sharon and I had that situation, you know, I know when I'm marrying into that that this lady has this son and part of her life and for her to not support him is not going to be okay for a while.

[344] I mean, we don't want to support him until he's 29, but I mean, but we want to make sure he gets out there and gets a good start, right?

[345] Right, exactly.

[346] And vice versa for his daughter.

[347] Exactly.

[348] So just streamline this.

[349] You got one checking, one savings.

[350] Now we can make as many line items in the budget as we want.

[351] want and there's just full transparency and accountability for those items yeah we have agreed to take care of his daughter and your son because it's something that we are concerned about and if he's not concerned about that about the 19 year old and you're not concerned about his daughter y 'all shouldn't have gotten married yeah definitely no i don't think that's the issue i don't think it is either that's what i mean no yeah i mean because it all comes with a package you don't get to set these things off to the side in a silo they're all wrapped together whether you want them to be together or not.

[352] And so that's why the, you know, the marriage vows in sickness and in health for richer for poorer.

[353] And the old marriage vows in the book of common prayer said, unto the all my worldly goods I pledge.

[354] I like that.

[355] That's old school.

[356] But, but you know what?

[357] The current data confirms that that is the best route relationally and as a probability for wealth building.

[358] It's amazing what happens when you have shared goals, shared dream, shared vision, shared bank accounts.

[359] Shared fears.

[360] Shared fears.

[361] And you put it all out there.

[362] What most people do, Dave, is they brush it under the rug.

[363] They keep separate accounts because it will avoid conflict, which really just means I'm going to have resentment later.

[364] It also means that basically have a secret.

[365] Exactly.

[366] I'm, you know, I have a part of my life that is not.

[367] That I'm not willing to share.

[368] That is not open to my spouse.

[369] Ooh, danger, danger, danger, danger.

[370] That's what most culture tells you, Dave.

[371] You got to have five bank accounts and he's got to have his and hers.

[372] No, have a one budget and she can have a line item for hair care and nails and he can have a line item for fun money there but that transparency is what causes marriages to succeed that that culture that's giving that bad advice is the one who are 52 % of the marriage is ended in divorce and they're the ones that stand slack jawed and look at me with their mouth open and go you've been married 42 years what's the secret to a successful marriage yeah well there it is buddy you know so yeah what the culture you know you know That's like, you know, saying the culture believes nutrition.

[373] Who cares about this?

[374] What this culture believes about nutrition.

[375] This culture is obese.

[376] Who cares about what this culture, you know, this culture says about money.

[377] This culture is broke.

[378] You don't want to be normal.

[379] Nobody wants to be normal.

[380] That's a great question, Keisha.

[381] Thank you for calling in with that and your sweet spirit on the way you're approaching.

[382] You know, I want to give Keisha a gift.

[383] Can we give her Financial Peace University and our every dollar budgeting app to help them get on this plan together?

[384] I think we can.

[385] We did it.

[386] That's our late wedding gift.

[387] I like that.

[388] There we go.

[389] We didn't get invited to the wedding, but you'll get a gift a gift anyways, Keisha.

[390] So hang on the line.

[391] Austin will pick up.

[392] We'll gift you Financial Peace University.

[393] Watch all nine lessons with your spouse and work on that budget together.

[394] Georgia, if she had only known, she would have invited you.

[395] I'm sure.

[396] I've gotten invited before.

[397] It's very kind, but I go, I'm not traveling to Boise.

[398] Sorry.

[399] Maybe next time.

[400] This is the Ramsey Show.

[401] Are you working the baby steps, one of the smartest and most important.

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[411] The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services.

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[416] Neighborly .com slash Ramsey.

[417] Today's question comes from Jenny in Alabama.

[418] I'm new to the baby steps and really want to get on board, but my husband is reluctant to do them.

[419] A couple of years ago, we ran a restaurant and made really good money.

[420] Lifestyle creep set in, and we now have almost $58 ,000 in debt on a car, four -wheeler's, credit card, and home equity loan.

[421] We currently only have one income, which is mine, bringing in around $3 ,600 a month.

[422] I want to become debt -free, but my husband considers our debts to be normal expenses.

[423] How do I go about doing the baby steps without the support of my husband?

[424] Can't?

[425] Mm. got to get the support of the husband you didn't sign up for the solo trip you're married you start acting like it and I think we both need to own the decisions we've made and you need to have a hard conversation with him and I don't know what he's doing you said you have the only income I don't know if he's staying at home or what the heck's going on but we need more income coming in to clean up this mess and probably need to sell everything we can including those four wheelers yeah the um but I think The core issue here is that you can't be the only adult in the relationship.

[426] And so the both of you, you know, if my wife comes to me and says, this matters to me. I need you to put the phone down, turn off the TV, and listen.

[427] Well, I do.

[428] Not because I'm a wist, but because I love my wife.

[429] And if something really matters to her, even if I don't get it, I'm, you know, I'm going to listen to her and think about what it is she saying and give her a hearing on that and so basically it's not the baby steps that matter it's the two of you deciding to plan to have a future and not be in denial about your situation and so it's not about Ramsey or about every dollar or about baby steps it's about you know we need to do something different because where we are sucks And we need to be in a different situation.

[430] I think you two need to have that discussion.

[431] And if he won't come around on that, you've got husband problems.

[432] You haven't got financial problems at that point.

[433] Or wife problems or whatever you people are facing out there, right?

[434] Whoever it is, it's listening to this.

[435] It has in a similar situation.

[436] So, but don't use Ramsey or the baby steps or anything else to beat him over the head.

[437] This is the thing where the two of you, honey, I'm scared.

[438] $3 ,600 worth of income.

[439] all this debt it may feel normal to you i'm terrified and i'm requiring that we do something about this one thing we could do is look at this ramsie stuff but i'm required i'm not okay i'm laying awake at night i'm freaking out i'm scared you should be you got three thousand six hundred dollars a month in income and all these bills going out and he's right this debt is normal but normal in america sucks you don't want to be normal normal is on the edge of bankruptcy and looking good owning a bunch of crap you can't afford with money you don't have to impress people you don't even really like that's normal who the crap wants to be normal he sounds like a kid they got too many toys and he's just happy with his toys and says well this is normal we're just going to have fun well the fun is over you're not having fun anymore yeah i mean it's the math quit working here boys and girls I mean, $3 ,600.

[440] And she admitted lifestyle creep set in.

[441] And that's most people.

[442] They think, well, Dave, if I just made more money, we wouldn't have any problems.

[443] But it's also back when he worked, apparently he's not working, right?

[444] Did I get that right?

[445] Yeah.

[446] So we currently only have one income, which is mine.

[447] So why is he not working?

[448] What happened?

[449] You know what I mean?

[450] There's that.

[451] So, I mean, yeah, we need to create some more income and we need to clean up the dadgum messes that we've made, either sell these things or get them paid off.

[452] and no, yeah, debt is normal, but it's not okay.

[453] I don't want to be normal.

[454] I don't want to be in debt.

[455] I don't want to live like this.

[456] And so this, you know, this is going to change.

[457] And, you know, this is a marital discussion that you've got to have.

[458] But there is not a method.

[459] I've been doing this 30 years.

[460] I have never figured out a way that drag a spouse into it.

[461] That you can get a, you can, you know, go do this by yourself and hope they come along.

[462] We've never seen a debt -free square.

[463] where they went, well, Dave, really, I did this on my own because they didn't want to do it.

[464] Every single time it said, we got on this plan together.

[465] Being on the same page.

[466] They say that all the time.

[467] Being on the same page, we work the budget together.

[468] They said every time, it's not unusual for one to be more gun -ho about it.

[469] More and, you know, have more of the initiative.

[470] But, you know, how can I go about doing the baby steps without the support of my husband?

[471] You really can't.

[472] You really can't.

[473] Because you really can't do hardly anything in your life when you're married without the support of your spouse.

[474] It's like trying to run a marathon with chains on.

[475] Yeah.

[476] How can I go get a four -year degree without you?

[477] You could probably, you know, but it's hard.

[478] It's dadgum near impossible.

[479] It'll destroy the relationship or what's left of it, that's for sure.

[480] To go uphill.

[481] A lot of resentment.

[482] Williams in Jacksonville, Florida.

[483] Hi, William.

[484] Welcome to the Ramsey show.

[485] Hi, thank you for taking my call.

[486] Sure.

[487] What's up?

[488] Okay, so here and probably the next month or two, I will be going into the Navy and hopefully receiving a sum of money that I am not accustomed to.

[489] And I was wondering if I should save all of the money I make in the Navy since I'll be living with little to no expenses or if it would be better invested somewhere else.

[490] So how much money are we talking here?

[491] About $75 ,000.

[492] Wow.

[493] Good for you.

[494] And thank you for your service.

[495] Thank you.

[496] So how much money do you currently have?

[497] Currently I have in saving around $6 ,000.

[498] Okay.

[499] And what does this look like over the next few years?

[500] Is there an end of the contract, or what's next for you after this?

[501] Well, it is a career that the Navy can carry me through until retirement, but I can also leave the Navy and make a lot of money working other places for what I'm going in for.

[502] Okay.

[503] The reason I ask is because if you have a long time horizon, investing this money is wise.

[504] But if you're going to need this money in two, three, four years, it's going to be better off sitting in a high -ield savings account ready to work for you when you need it.

[505] So if you don't have any future goals like that, it could be okay to invest a portion of that.

[506] And I would label the investment or wherever you put the money, the savings account, I would give it a name.

[507] Okay, this is my house fund.

[508] I'm saving it to pay cash for a house.

[509] Or this is my, I want to be a millionaire fund.

[510] Or give it a name.

[511] Every dollar ought to have an assignment you know what i'm saying because if you just kind of lay it there and it has savings on it then that that means you can use it for anything including something stupid okay so i would give it a i would give it a uh an inspirational name that that causes you to stay you know i can't use that that's my money for my house i can't use that that's my money for my whatever and it keeps you from going and buying you know something silly with it um But I think you also, let me tell you, I always think people ought to do three things with money, and at different stages of life would be how you wait the three things.

[512] But you should be generous with some of the money.

[513] You should invest some of the money and you should enjoy some of the money.

[514] So I wouldn't put 100 % in savings or investments.

[515] I would, I would put, after generosity and enjoyment, I might put the bulk of it in investments.

[516] You might weight it very heavily towards that.

[517] but pull some money out for enjoyment you're in the navy you're going to be working really hard and you're going to be doing some wild wonderful things out there and um you know so get some have have some enjoyment the problem is most people that's their only thing they all they do is just burn it's been 100 % on spending yeah so uh and a lot of your buddies are going to be doing some really your new friends are going to be doing some really stupid things with money uh so you don't to emulate them.

[518] But you ought to very intentionally have this much for fun, this much for generosity, the rest of it, the big bulk of it going into saving your investment and give that saving your investment a name.

[519] And that keeps your hands off of it.

[520] It keeps you from being tempted to buy something.

[521] It helps you avoid paralysis analysis too, when you have exactly, you've kind of divvied it out already.

[522] Yeah.

[523] Pre -decided what you're going to do with money.

[524] Yeah, which is really good, which means they're really wise to ask this question the way you did before the money starts coming in because this is your first big paycheck that you're going to ever have way to go william keep it up man this is the ramsie show live from the headquarters of ramsie solutions it's the ramsie show where we help people build wealth do work that they love and create actual amazing relationships our phone numbers triple eight eight two five five two two five it's book day around here.

[525] We are launching George Camel's brand new book, Breaking Free From Broke.

[526] It hits the streets literally today.

[527] And the shelves, I should say, not the streets.

[528] We're not going to throw it in the street.

[529] We're going to throw it on the shelves.

[530] That could be a strategy.

[531] But you never know.

[532] You never know.

[533] Drop it out of an airplane on somebody's head.

[534] There you go.

[535] But there you go.

[536] Breaking Free from Broke.

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[539] You need the combo, so it doesn't get too boring.

[540] There we go.

[541] Chris is with us.

[542] Chris is in Spokane, Washington.

[543] Hey, Chris, welcome to the Ramsey show.

[544] Hi, guys.

[545] How are you?

[546] Better than I deserve.

[547] What's up?

[548] Um, so I made the mistake of getting into a house with my ex -fiance and I just, yeah, I just don't know where to go from there.

[549] Um, she, we were in the house for by about seven months, and then she decided to pull the plug on us, and I'm just kind of confused and don't know where to go and how to handle it.

[550] Wow.

[551] You're a case study and why we tell people not to buy stuff with people they're not married to yet.

[552] Oh, I'm so sorry, Chris.

[553] Yeah.

[554] Oh, man, you've got a heartbreak, and you've got a pain in the butt both, huh?

[555] Yeah.

[556] How long ago was the breakup?

[557] About three months ago.

[558] Who's living in the house?

[559] I moved out recently, and she's staying in the house right now.

[560] Have we discussed when we are going to sell our house?

[561] We have discussed it, and we've actually talked to a realtor about putting it on the market, but she would only walk away with about $2 ,000, which I was okay with, but she wasn't up for just getting rid of, or just getting back to $2 ,000.

[562] Sorry.

[563] Right.

[564] Don't care.

[565] And that's what I told her.

[566] don't care what you want you broke up we are selling this house get it on the market if she won't do that you're going to have to hire an attorney and force her to okay and that was i was kind of going that route to see if i could hire somebody to get her on board to do that no i think you call her and go sit down and say look i really want to do this the easy way there's an easy way and a hard way but we have to get rid of this house this house is we are not together in the future and we are not owning a house together in the future.

[567] We are getting rid of the house.

[568] Now, do you want to put the house on the market and let's do this nice or are we going to have to get ugly?

[569] I'll sit down in person with her, have a very calm conversation.

[570] Don't bring up all the past.

[571] Don't bring up all your heartache and you're broken, everything.

[572] It's a simple conversation about we are selling the house that we own together because we aren't together anymore and we are doing that now are you on board with doing that because if you're not this is going to get nasty and i don't want to be nasty right and it's been pretty nasty already so yeah yeah and so you know i would sit down and say that like this is the last chance okay and then if she doesn't if she says okay i'll put it on the market and then she doesn't send her a letter certified mail, return receipt requested, so you have proof that the letter was delivered and saying you have 10 days to get this house on the market or I'm going to be in touch with an attorney and we are going to escalate this discussion.

[573] It's going to get really expensive.

[574] Right.

[575] Because, dude, this is not going to go well if this drags out five years.

[576] You understand that, right?

[577] Yes.

[578] And that's why I've been, that's why I wanted to call.

[579] all.

[580] Yeah.

[581] Who's paying the mortgage?

[582] We're splitting it.

[583] And you don't live there?

[584] No. This is a problem.

[585] Right.

[586] And that's why I needed to talk to somebody because I have so many people in my life giving me different types of advice and I listen to your guys' show quite a bit and I figured I'd call me some more advice.

[587] How old are you guys?

[588] I'm 30 and she's 27.

[589] Okay.

[590] And you were in the house together for seven years, or seven months.

[591] months how long have you were you dating before all that five years wow so that's why it's kind of confusing and kind of heartbreak and yeah oh yeah it doesn't make any sense at all i agree i'm with you right are you going to walk away with two thousand dollars as well or is it not an even split yeah it'd be about it'd be about two thousand some change each which i'm okay with doing that but she didn't seem to be okay with that yeah well she doesn't have to be okay with it i mean this is a stupid tax that we don't have to pay.

[592] So what is her suggestion?

[593] Well, she did want to list it and then she said no because she would only be walking away the two.

[594] So she wants to keep it and then try to put it on the market for after two years because then we wouldn't have to pay income tax.

[595] As you pay equity into a house.

[596] There's not any income tax if you make $4 ,000.

[597] Right.

[598] The income tax is $400.

[599] bucks.

[600] Yeah, that's what's going through her head.

[601] See, that's dumb.

[602] Show her how math works, and maybe that will help speed this up.

[603] Oh, God.

[604] Because we're not going to ride this out for two years as you continue to pay a mortgage and build equity.

[605] Maybe.

[606] We did not buy a rental property together for us to run together that you live in.

[607] No, you broke the marriage up, and so we're selling the house.

[608] Ready, set, go.

[609] If we lose $2 ,000 a piece, we're selling the house.

[610] Right.

[611] So this is not an investment that we maximize.

[612] Yeah, that was another thing I told her.

[613] It's going to cost us to sell this house, too.

[614] Yeah.

[615] You're both going to have to pay a stupid tax here, and it sucks.

[616] Yeah, this is a, yeah, wow.

[617] I'm sorry, Chris.

[618] Sorry you're facing this.

[619] But, yeah, you need to, you, being passive in this situation instead of proactive is not going to work.

[620] So I would sit down.

[621] I've had a lot of good things happen in conflict scenarios when I can sit down in person with someone.

[622] It changes the tone.

[623] Keep your voice real low and calm and just say, this is not going to work.

[624] We've got to get out of this.

[625] You broke my heart.

[626] I can't stay in this with you.

[627] We're not going to own this house together.

[628] We're going to put the house on the market this week.

[629] And if you don't do that, you're going to force me to become ugly and nasty about this.

[630] And I really don't want to.

[631] I just want to get away from this situation completely and now.

[632] And just real calm like that in person.

[633] Hopefully you can talk some sense of her that way without going to do this.

[634] But really, you're, I really don't bring up all the old stuff.

[635] All we're dealing with is a single issue.

[636] Get the house sold.

[637] That's all you deal with.

[638] Don't overlay all the problems and the fights and the other stuff in the relationship.

[639] But it's just, are the things that you don't like about or none of that, okay?

[640] Even if she escalates, you stay calm.

[641] Just go, look, one thing, one thing.

[642] We're talking about the house.

[643] One thing.

[644] All we got to do is get rid of the house, and then you got rid of me. And until you get rid of the house, you're not going to get rid of me, and it's going to get ugly.

[645] Don't want to do that.

[646] Please don't make me. Hey, when you go against what society thinks is, quote, like avoiding debt, for example.

[647] It might seem weird at first, and that is totally okay.

[648] We want you to be weird if that means doing things intentionally, including how you spend your health care dollars.

[649] And one way to be intentional is with Christian health care ministries.

[650] CHM isn't health insurance.

[651] They're a health cost -sharing ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours take care of health care costs without sacrificing their freedom.

[652] find out more and join at c h ministries .org slash budget that's c h ministries dot org slash budget george camel ramsey personality is my co -host today thank you for joining us america we're so glad you are here please share this show subscribe to the show follow the show like the show leave the show a five -star review when you do all of those things it really helps us with our ratings or rankings and causes other people to find out the show is here.

[653] And we appreciate you.

[654] A whole bunch of you have obviously been doing that.

[655] We had number one on the Apple podcast last month, and that was our first time to hit that ranking.

[656] And we can attribute that largely to you guys sharing the show, following the show, subscribing to the show, and leaving nice five -star reviews.

[657] Thank you.

[658] Thank you.

[659] Thank you.

[660] Tom is in New York.

[661] Hi, Tom.

[662] Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

[663] Hi, Dave.

[664] Thank you so much for having me on today.

[665] Sure.

[666] What's up?

[667] Um, so I'm currently a college student.

[668] I just graduated with my undergraduate degree, um, and I'm now working towards an MBA.

[669] And I'll graduate here, um, in about a year from now soon, this upcoming December.

[670] Um, and I was just wondering, you know, if I should continue to, you know, rent in this area or move back home with my parents, uh, who live in New Jersey.

[671] Uh, now or when you graduate with the MBA?

[672] No, when I graduate, uh, yeah, because the timing with the leases and stuff.

[673] to the apartment that I'm currently in.

[674] I'll have to renew, you know, sometime this spring if I decide to stay.

[675] Where's your job going to be?

[676] It's going to be either in New York City or Jersey City, so very, very close commute from where I currently live in.

[677] How old are you?

[678] Then why would you move?

[679] I'm 22.

[680] Okay.

[681] So, okay, I'm sorry.

[682] Why would you move?

[683] The rent here is very expensive.

[684] We'll say I current, The nice thing is I spend currently $2 ,000 a month in rent.

[685] But I do live with my brother who's graduated.

[686] He's a full -time job.

[687] So that's the nice aspect.

[688] You know, I know 2000 is very expensive.

[689] What will you be making?

[690] I'm not too sure with my.

[691] My estimate is about $90 and $95.

[692] Okay.

[693] It's pretty reasonable.

[694] Yeah.

[695] But I didn't know if it's like a good decision to tie up so much of my income into, you know, rent just for the sake of not commuting four hours a day or three hours a day.

[696] It's part of life.

[697] Okay.

[698] Part of growing up is not living in Mama's basement.

[699] You're a grown man with an MBA making $90 grand.

[700] You don't live in your mother's basement.

[701] Okay.

[702] And that's just part of life.

[703] I mean, and I mean, in New York City, 2000 isn't bad, dude.

[704] I mean, that's not bad at all.

[705] Yeah.

[706] Well, it's like $4 ,000.

[707] I know, with my brother, which is not.

[708] I mean, I had roommates up until I was married.

[709] There's nothing wrong with that.

[710] Yeah, and, you know, but, and you have a reasonable life as far as commute goes and those kinds of things.

[711] Ultimately, you may end up making the decision that $100 ,000 or $90 ,000 is not enough to live in the city.

[712] It may or may not be.

[713] You can decide that later.

[714] But as your first step, following your MBA and following getting your new $90 ,000 job, is not to move back home with your No, I would not do that.

[715] I think that would be a mistake in a lot of ways.

[716] But I think it's just part of life, man. And then you got to start thinking about, okay, at what point am I going to, where am I going to be living, that I end up putting down roots and buying something, but you don't have to decide that in the next 24 months.

[717] I mean, just get the job, enjoy the ride right now.

[718] You've done a great job.

[719] I like that advice.

[720] I moved out at 20, and I needed some problems, Dave.

[721] those look like bills because when I lived at home, I would spend every paycheck I made because I didn't have any bills.

[722] It's always enjoying life.

[723] There you go.

[724] Sarah's in Salt Lake City.

[725] Hey, Sarah, what's up?

[726] Hi, how are you guys?

[727] Better than we deserve.

[728] What's up?

[729] How can we help?

[730] So, question first, and then I have some more background information, but my husband, who's 28 and myself who's 27, we bought a $476 ,000 two -bed, two -bath condo in 2020.

[731] and we're now looking to start a family, so hopefully we'll be growing out of it sooner than we expected.

[732] My question is, how should we tackle the mortgage in our particular situation?

[733] Should we be solely focused on paying off the mortgage, or should we focus on other wealth building?

[734] Do you have any other debt?

[735] Yes, we have no personal debt, but we have two mortgages, the condo, and then another mortgage, for an investment property that we have renters in.

[736] Okay.

[737] And how much is the payment on the investment property?

[738] About $1 ,600.

[739] And how much is the rent on the investment property?

[740] 1650.

[741] You should sell the investment property.

[742] You are losing money.

[743] That's shocking.

[744] Why is it shocking?

[745] A $50 cash flow is not a cash flow on a rental property.

[746] You should know that.

[747] well yeah and I understand that but it's more of a you're losing money why would you have an investment that loses money the has in the future it will hopefully make us money okay the people that do that on real estate are the people that go broke doing real estate so okay um you're you're you have created an uh a destabilizing high risk situation in your life with that investment property.

[748] I own several hundred million dollars with the real estate.

[749] I love real estate.

[750] I have a degree in real estate.

[751] I've been doing real estate since 1978.

[752] I went broke in the real estate business in the 80s.

[753] I've done it all on real estate, Sarah.

[754] I'm a huge fan of real estate.

[755] But you've been sold a lie that the future gains in value are worth the risk that you all are taking and how much this is upsetting your current budget situation because this house is costing you probably five or six thousand dollars a year out of pocket minimum by the time in cash flow meanwhile you're waiting on it to go up in value and and then you're calling about how to cancel the mortgage on the other side the way to cancel the mortgage on the other side to get rid of your negative cash flowing rental property because by the time you have vacancy legal expenses and repairs, you're losing your butt on that rental property.

[756] One emergency away.

[757] It's, you know, $1 ,4 ,500 heating and air unit, you know, and you're just, you're baked.

[758] So that's what I would do.

[759] I'd get rid of that.

[760] As far as the current property that you're in, if you want to get rid of the mortgage on it, that's fine.

[761] Start paying the mortgage down out of your income.

[762] And then when you are ready to sell it to move to a different property because your family situation changes, then I would sell it.

[763] But right today, you don't have to worry about that because you're, you know, it's just in the future we're going to have a family.

[764] And I Googled that, Dave, babies can live in condos, turns out.

[765] So you'll be okay in the two bed.

[766] You mean Google said that?

[767] Google said it, it told me. And if Google said it, then.

[768] You don't need a whole lot of room to just put a crib in there, a little bassinet.

[769] The baby will be okay.

[770] It won't know the difference for the first five years of its life.

[771] Says the father of a four -month -old.

[772] There you go.

[773] I speak from experience now, Dave, as a new dad.

[774] Yes, you do.

[775] They don't take up much room.

[776] They're fairly small, yeah.

[777] My dogs take up more room than they do.

[778] Your dogs take up a lot.

[779] They take up emotional bandwidth, too.

[780] Living in my hen, rent -free, Dave.

[781] And very expensive to boot.

[782] Yeah, Sarah, all real estate is not good.

[783] Only real estate that is paid for and is not causing problems financially is good.

[784] And your property is not a good property.

[785] You're in a bad situation with it.

[786] I can't stress that enough.

[787] I know that's bursting your bubble that you read somewhere that caused you guys to do this horrible deal.

[788] But that's what I'm here for.

[789] I'm not a dream killer.

[790] I'm a nightmare preventer.

[791] Ooh, I like that.

[792] There's a difference.

[793] There's a difference.

[794] I don't believe in killing people's dreams, but if I can kill your nightmare, I will.

[795] And I've owned that piece of property that she owns just like that.

[796] And it is, you're playing Russian roulette with your checkbook.

[797] I bet during this show we'll take a call from someone on the other side.

[798] Who's been there?

[799] It was a day of I have to get rid of this property.

[800] We're underwater on this thing.

[801] We had an emergency.

[802] And so we just don't want that for you.

[803] Everything was fine and we got laid off.

[804] Until it didn't look out on paper.

[805] This is the Ramsey Show.

[806] George Camel Ramsey Personality is my co -host today.

[807] He is the author of the brand new book, Breaking Free from Broke, that is on the shelf today.

[808] You can find it at your local bookstore at Ramsey Solutions .com.

[809] or, of course, at Amazon, anywhere you want to pick it up.

[810] Breaking Free from Broke, today's launch day on the book.

[811] We're celebrating around Ramsey.

[812] Congratulations, George.

[813] Thank you.

[814] It's been a fun morning.

[815] It's mostly Instagram I'm checking on.

[816] Everyone's posting about their book showing up in the mail.

[817] So it's been fun.

[818] That's cool.

[819] Very cool.

[820] Rebecca is with us in St. Louis.

[821] Hi, Rebecca.

[822] How are you?

[823] Hi, good.

[824] Thanks so much for having me. Sure.

[825] What's up?

[826] Well, my husband and I, we are big savers.

[827] And we are trying to figure out if we can afford an RV that we have been camping for a while and we want to upgrade to an RV.

[828] The RV costs about $110 ,000.

[829] Right now our net worth is about $2 .4 million.

[830] We make about $290 ,000 a year combined.

[831] We are currently on Baby Step 7.

[832] We have about $125 ,000 left on our mortgage.

[833] And we do have some rental properties, which is what is lifting us up.

[834] We owe about $450 ,000 on spread across five or six different rental properties that are currently cash flowing.

[835] So we're trying to decide if we should pay off our house or the rentals or if we can go ahead and get the RV.

[836] Okay.

[837] Okay.

[838] And you have $110 ,000 in cash?

[839] We do.

[840] Okay.

[841] How much do you have in cash?

[842] About almost $200, about $175.

[843] Okay.

[844] And that would leave us enough for more than six months of an emergency fund.

[845] What's the balance on your personal mortgage?

[846] $125 ,000.

[847] Okay.

[848] And I'm 40, and my husband is 41.

[849] The way we answer questions on this show is what would I do if I were in your shoes, okay?

[850] You obviously have done very well with money.

[851] Congratulations.

[852] You're obviously smart people.

[853] You make a lot of money.

[854] Dumb people don't make $300 ,000, most of the time anyway.

[855] Okay.

[856] So congratulations.

[857] Well done.

[858] Well done.

[859] So I think the way Sharon and I, I know, the way Sharon and I would lay this out at our house is, we would say, okay, there are three things we want to accomplish.

[860] We want to buy an RV.

[861] We want to pay off our mortgage, and we want to pay off the rentals.

[862] Right.

[863] What does it take to pay off the rentals?

[864] About $450 ,000.

[865] And what are they worth?

[866] They're worth about $1 .2 million.

[867] Okay.

[868] All right.

[869] Okay.

[870] The slow way to do this is to lay those three things out, put them.

[871] in some order of priority and then apply the $175 ,000 minus an emergency fund to that priority list, okay?

[872] Mm -hmm.

[873] And so one priority list could be pay off your home mortgage, then buy an RV and then pay off the rentals.

[874] That could be an order, in which case you write a check today and pay off your mortgage.

[875] And then you save up very, very quickly out of your fabulous income and buy your RV.

[876] Right.

[877] Another order would be buy the RV first and then pay off your mortgage and then pay off the rentals.

[878] That's another order.

[879] Another order could be, if we want to do this faster, we could pick out a couple of the rentals and sell them.

[880] And when they sell by the RV.

[881] Right.

[882] We thought about doing that.

[883] We just are having trouble spending the money.

[884] We work so hard to save it.

[885] It's like a rental block almost, even to pay off the mortgage or to pay off to buy the RV.

[886] Does that make sense?

[887] Yeah.

[888] Yeah, but here's the thing.

[889] When you take out a mortgage, you've already spent the money.

[890] When you pay it off, you're just admitting it.

[891] That's true.

[892] That's true.

[893] So, I mean, you already spent the money.

[894] You bought the house.

[895] Right, right.

[896] And here's the way, okay.

[897] One of the pieces of information that I found in the last 30 years is that wealthy people, which you are, do a good job.

[898] and I'm just going to challenge you to do this to thinking, okay, what process here gives me the best life 10 years from today, not 10 minutes from today?

[899] Wealthy people have long, one of the things that cause you to be able to build wealth is you have long planning horizons.

[900] Broke people say, thank God it's Friday, oh God, it's Monday, I do whatever I want.

[901] I'm living for the weekend.

[902] I'm Huey Lewis in the news, right?

[903] Right, right.

[904] And wealthy people think 10 years from now what's going to be the best.

[905] And so that's how I'm trying to look at this.

[906] I do think you can, quote, unquote, afford an RV.

[907] When you buy it in the order would be just a matter of wisdom.

[908] Right.

[909] Thinking about the future.

[910] I can tell you Sharon and I would not buy the RV as the number one thing.

[911] Okay.

[912] We would pay off our house today.

[913] A mortgage.

[914] Yeah.

[915] And then I would probably rearrange these.

[916] rentals to where they end up, the ones I end up keeping are debt -free, and I try to clear some money towards the RV.

[917] Okay.

[918] I've got boats.

[919] All these toys are just toys that go down in value, and you need, you know, it needs to pass the burn test.

[920] If I put that much money in the middle of the floor and burned it, does it ruin my life?

[921] And it passes the burn test.

[922] You've got a $2 million net worth.

[923] If you burn $110 ,000 in the middle of the floor, which when you buy an RV, that's basically what you're doing okay when you buy a boat well not buy a boat that's what i'm doing i'm burning them because it's just going to go down in value like crazy i've got a boat i got a boat that costs more than that okay but but my net worse higher than yours number one number two i paid cash for it and i don't have a home mortgage number three i don't have rental mortgages and all these other things so but but still can i afford to burn that much money and can i handle that and um i don't think you should burn $110 ,000 in the middle of the floor when you still have a home mortgage.

[924] Okay.

[925] What's the goal with the RV for you guys?

[926] They just love.

[927] Just occasional travel or?

[928] Yeah, we love it.

[929] We've been camping.

[930] We have a camper now that we're just looking to go farther.

[931] It's kind of hard.

[932] It's a little bit harder to tow with the family.

[933] We thought this would be more fun.

[934] And I'll tell you what we've done a couple of times and we did it on a little different subject um we thought we wanted a a condo as a second property in such and such a city i won't name the city okay and so what we did was we rented one there for six months and and we went three times in the six months and we figured out we didn't want a condo in that city we ended up not buying in down there i'm really glad i didn't buy a condo as a toy in that city is a little place ago when it's warmer, right?

[935] That kind of stuff.

[936] Right.

[937] And so what you could do here is write a check.

[938] What we might do if we were in your shoes is write a check and buy the, and pay off the house today.

[939] And then for the next two years, we're going to commit to budget out of our $290 ,000 some RV rental fees.

[940] And I'm going to rent an RV and put it on the road and see if it's as much fun as we thought it was going to be in our mind.

[941] And, you know, am I really going to use it enough to justify this.

[942] It might be that you end up or you might end up doing that.

[943] So I don't own a house on a ski slope in the Rockies, although we rent one periodically.

[944] Right, right.

[945] But we wouldn't use it enough to justify owning it.

[946] And I don't want it as an investment.

[947] I'd rather have my investment somewhere else.

[948] So that's an example.

[949] I would rather rent for the few times that I go skiing once a year, maybe, or twice a year or something, I can operate that property a whole, I can operate an $8 million property for a few, for 10 ,000, you know, a few tens of thousands a week or whatever it ends up being, a lot cheaper than I can screwing around putting $8 million over there on the side of a mountain and using it three times a year.

[950] So, and again, that's one of those things we figured out that we don't want to own that, even though we can, quote, unquote, afford it.

[951] So what will we do?

[952] We'd ride a check today and pay off the mortgage, and we'd rent an RV, a really nice one, and I'd go on a trip in the RV.

[953] And aggressively pay down the rentals or sell one, and then once everything's dead free, if you still want to buy the RV, go for it.

[954] Write a check.

[955] You'll feel better about it then.

[956] Yeah, I'd pay down those rentals by either selling some of them or aggressively pay them down.

[957] I'm with George on that as a third step.

[958] It's a good question.

[959] The answer is, yes, you can afford one, and you should not buy it right now.

[960] This is the Ramsey chef.

[961] George Camel Ramsey Personality is my co -host today.

[962] Thank you for joining us, America.

[963] Three new books, all bestsellers.

[964] I'm predicting that for one of them.

[965] In our bookstore right now, Rachel Cruz's first ever children's book, number one bestseller on the children's list.

[966] I'm glad for what I have.

[967] Wonderful book.

[968] If you need bedtime stories for the little ones, it's great.

[969] Jade Warshall just hit the bestseller list with her quick, read on Ramsey Press.

[970] Money's not a math problem.

[971] A brand new quick read.

[972] It's only 70 pages long, so it's a quick read.

[973] And then George's brand new book comes out today, officially launched a breaking free from broke, unbelievable data and mixed with snark and all kinds of research to back it up.

[974] And he takes on the villains of this world that are stealing your money from you.

[975] It's books out today.

[976] I'm predicting it to be on the bestseller list this time next week.

[977] I'll take that.

[978] is on the line in Ontario, Canada.

[979] Hi, Quinn.

[980] Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

[981] Hi there.

[982] How are you?

[983] Better than I deserve.

[984] How can we help?

[985] Hi.

[986] Okay.

[987] So, I am currently a student.

[988] I'm 23.

[989] I'm finishing my undergrad degree next semester.

[990] So by January of 2025, I will be finished my undergrad and then in the fall of that year, I will be going into a further education.

[991] education degree.

[992] So I haven't started paying any of my student debt yet, but as someone who has pretty much little to know savings and wasn't really taught many financial skills, I'm worried that after I graduate and have to start paying back debt along with general cost of living, that I'm going to end up in a poor financial situation, and I really want to avoid that.

[993] What's your degree in, Quinn?

[994] Currently it's in political science, but my advanced degree is going to be for teachers' college afterwards, so I'll be teaching students.

[995] Okay.

[996] And what does a teacher, what does someone in Teachers College in Canada make?

[997] So during, after you graduate and you're in your field, starting is around 45 ,000 to 50 ,000 a year, and it gradually increases.

[998] You do get pretty good benefits if you're working in a public school just because you fall under the public sector, which is pretty well covered by the government.

[999] Yeah, that's wonderful, but the pay doesn't sound exciting.

[1000] No, but it does increase a solid amount.

[1001] I know it's not a crazy amount, but it's something that I'm passionate about doing.

[1002] And I, I, that's wonderful.

[1003] I've got no issue with that.

[1004] How much student loan debt have you got?

[1005] It's really hard to say for certain.

[1006] I estimate probably $40 ,000 currently.

[1007] Unfortunately, I did not qualify for any aid from the government.

[1008] It's not hard to say for certain.

[1009] You have a certain amount you've borrowed.

[1010] It's an exact amount.

[1011] Yes, so I started school when I was 17, So all of mine is under a line of credit as opposed to a loan.

[1012] So I don't have it under my name currently.

[1013] It's still under my mother's bank account.

[1014] So she technically owes all of this debt?

[1015] Yes, but I will be paying it back.

[1016] Okay.

[1017] When you graduate, how much will you have?

[1018] Probably closer to $70 ,000.

[1019] Okay, $70 ,000 in debt making $40 ,000 or $45 ,000 a year.

[1020] Did I understand that right?

[1021] Yes, about that would be approximately unless things changed, and it doesn't help.

[1022] We're also in a cost of living crisis here.

[1023] Well, it doesn't help that we're continuing to borrow money.

[1024] Yes.

[1025] And so it's going to compound, and making 45, it's going to feel impossible to pay this off.

[1026] You're going to be working three jobs for years just to clean this mess up into as you enter adulthood.

[1027] Yes, and I am fully aware of that.

[1028] And your mom is on the hook.

[1029] Is she not concerned?

[1030] Because she technically owes this money.

[1031] So if you can't pay, which it sounds like you won't be able to, you're going to have a real relational issue with mom.

[1032] Yes, we've discussed it and we are working on it.

[1033] She also knows that it's not a great option.

[1034] Just unfortunately, with her income, I literally did not receive any student support at all.

[1035] We know that, but you still made the choice to go down.

[1036] this road.

[1037] No one forced you to do this.

[1038] So here's where you are.

[1039] Number one, what I would do is between now and the time you graduate, I would limit the borrowing severely by working all the time.

[1040] I want you to work four jobs while you're in college.

[1041] I did.

[1042] I didn't die from it, and I still graduated.

[1043] Yep.

[1044] Okay?

[1045] I want you to increase your income dramatically and your hours working dramatically between now and graduation to limit the amount.

[1046] So let's try to not borrow anymore is what I'm saying you got 40 in the hole right now what if you worked enough to pay cash for it all the way out boy that'd be cool that would cut the problem that would cut the problem in half but that's gonna be very strenuous oh well so is coming out of school and owing 75 or 80 grant okay so we're gonna just choose which one's gonna be strenuous so I'm gonna do that number one then number two go ahead and have a plan to do tutoring and or some kinds of side hustles as soon as you graduate in addition to your job as a teacher, because you're going to have to increase your income over the 40 to be able to pay the 40 with, as you said, lifestyle and just the cost of living.

[1047] So, yeah, I, you, we, there's two things we talk about around here, Quinn, all the time, is shovel and whole.

[1048] The hole that you're in is the debt.

[1049] The shovel is your income.

[1050] And we look at the shovel to whole ratio.

[1051] If you call me up and say, I got $80 ,000 in debt, and I make $300.

[1052] a thousand a year you got a really big shovel and a medium sized hole you on the other hand have a big hole and a small shovel and that's what's panicking george and i for you we were worried about you we love you and we want you to win and so uh you know the way you're going to win is you're going to get that shovel bigger and that's your income while you're in school goes up so that your hole doesn't get any bigger and then number two when you do get out of school you're going to get You're going to anticipate working more than just the main day job.

[1053] And Quinn, I'm going to encourage you to go watch Borrowed Future.

[1054] It's free on YouTube.

[1055] It's our documentary on the student loan crisis.

[1056] And it will also show you some steps that will inspire you to continue and try to go debt -free for the remainder of your schooling.

[1057] Because we just see too many really sad stories of people's adulthood being stunted by student loans.

[1058] And then the parents are calling into the show saying, my kids stop paying on this loan that my name is on.

[1059] do I do?

[1060] Yeah.

[1061] We've just seen it all.

[1062] Yeah, and I just don't want that for you.

[1063] You're worried about this, and I don't want you to stay in the state of worry.

[1064] I want you to shift that fear, energy that you've got towards action to do something about it, and that's what I'm prescribing here, is lots of work, lots of work and lots of hours during the remainder of time you're in school and for a short time after you get out of school to be able to clear this.

[1065] Because if you can clear all this debt by one year after graduation, then you're making $45 ,000.

[1066] It's a lot more tenable than just, I don't know how I'm going to get this paid because this math doesn't work.

[1067] That's not a plan.

[1068] And we've seen the stats, Dave, people who work part -time while in college, 15 to 20 hours a week, have a higher GPA than those who don't.

[1069] Yep.

[1070] Because you need this thing called discipline and a schedule.

[1071] You're not fooling around.

[1072] You're getting your school work done.

[1073] You're going to work.

[1074] Yeah.

[1075] And the problem with these situations people face is, it when you're on your student in her situation if you're in that situation right now you're facing what she's facing which is a pay me now or pay me later you're either going to pay me later with interest and a lot more worry and a bigger problem later or you're going to go and figure out a way now to avoid that debt and it's pay me now and that's coming up with um you know an uncomfortable lifestyle while you're a student oh well that's choosing your hard right there it's It's going to be hard either way.

[1076] The goal here is not college experience.

[1077] The goal here is college degree and knowledge.

[1078] Couldn't give a crap less about your experience, honestly.

[1079] What an expensive way to have an experience.

[1080] Just go to Europe, guys, if you're going to blow $40 ,000 a year.

[1081] If you're going to play beer pong, just go play beer pong.

[1082] It's a lot cheaper.

[1083] You can do it for basically free.

[1084] That's not what she's doing.

[1085] But those of you that are out there not willing to pay a price to win.

[1086] And, yeah, that's, wow, ouch.

[1087] This is The Ramsey Show.

[1088] 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.

[1089] I'm Dave Ramsey, your host.

[1090] The phone number is AAA, 825 -5 -225.

[1091] George Camel, Ramsey Personality, YouTube Sensation is my co -host.

[1092] It is book launch day for us around here at Ramsey.

[1093] George has a brand -new book out called Breaking Free from Brumsey.

[1094] broke, it is available.

[1095] Anywhere great books are sold, including ramsysolutions .com.

[1096] Megan is with us.

[1097] Megan is in Indianapolis.

[1098] Hi, Megan.

[1099] Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

[1100] Hi, Dave.

[1101] How are you?

[1102] Great.

[1103] How can we help?

[1104] I'm calling because I have just put myself in a terrible financial situation, and I'm just really scared and stressed about my finances, and I don't really know where to start or how to go about tackling all of my debt.

[1105] Okay.

[1106] How much do you owe?

[1107] So I have about 15 ,000 in credit cards.

[1108] I have 32 ,000 in student loans.

[1109] I have almost 9 ,000 in personal debt.

[1110] And then I owe 6 ,000 on back taxes, a small medical debt of about 1 ,000, and then a vehicle for 14 ,000.

[1111] Okay.

[1112] What do you make?

[1113] 50.

[1114] Okay.

[1115] How old are you?

[1116] 29.

[1117] Okay.

[1118] And you're single?

[1119] Yes.

[1120] Okay.

[1121] All right.

[1122] Yeah, that's a pretty scary situation.

[1123] I don't blame you.

[1124] What are you current on all of it or right now or what?

[1125] It's all current, but the monthly payment amount on everything is the majority of my income, it feels like and so it just feels like I'm just paying the minimum paying the minimum and then you know nothing's going down and I don't have a ton of extra income to be throwing at it so I just what do you do um so my family owns a wedding venue and so I run that full time okay all right how'd you get 6 ,000 behind on your taxes um so i'm because i'm technically self -employed um i should have been setting more money aside you own the wedding venue yes part owner okay so you're you guys don't take tax you guys don't do payroll and take taxes out we do for the rest of our um employees our part -time employees that we have um but my financial person told me because I'm considered the owner I can't be on payroll bull crap um that's what I need a new financial person yeah I've been on my own payroll for 25 27 years I mean yeah you definitely be on your own payroll for sure and you should be that's a good way to a good way to make sure you don't get behind on your taxes all right okay um what's the car worth So I had my previous car paid off, and two days after Christmas just a couple weeks ago, I totaled my car.

[1126] So it's brand new, like, within this last week.

[1127] So I'm confused.

[1128] Wait a minute.

[1129] You totaled your car, but they gave you a check for that.

[1130] Yeah, so they gave me a $6 ,000 check.

[1131] Yeah, so why would you go in debt to buy a car when you're so broke you can't breathe?

[1132] You had a $6 ,000 car.

[1133] Why don't you take $6 ,000 and go buy another $6 ,000 car?

[1134] Yeah, I considered that and talked to my parents about it and was worried because I have no savings that I get...

[1135] You were driving a $6 ,000 car before.

[1136] Yeah.

[1137] Now suddenly a $6 ,000 car is not okay?

[1138] I was just concerned that it would immediately after I got it have all sorts of issues and I wouldn't have the money to fix it.

[1139] The $6 ,000 car you were driving didn't have all sorts of issues until you totaled it.

[1140] Right.

[1141] So that's a dumb thing to think.

[1142] It's not true, especially as broke as you are, Megan.

[1143] Oh, my gosh.

[1144] You can't keep digging a hole and then gripe about the hole.

[1145] Is this car worth $20 ,000?

[1146] So I put the $6 ,000 towards the $20 car, so the mortgage is 14 then.

[1147] Yeah, so the car is you just bought it for $20.

[1148] Yeah.

[1149] So if you sold the car for $20, you would get a check for $6 ,000 after paying the loan.

[1150] Yeah, let's do that.

[1151] Let's go ahead and sell it.

[1152] That's going to help because you have $77 ,000.

[1153] You just took on more payments when you can't afford the ones you've got.

[1154] Right.

[1155] And then call me thinking you're bankrupt.

[1156] Four weeks after you did that.

[1157] Right?

[1158] You understand how inconsistent that is, right?

[1159] Yeah.

[1160] Think about this, Megan.

[1161] You could clear 20 % of your total debt just by selling this car and driving a cheaper car.

[1162] 14 grand out of the 77.

[1163] Right.

[1164] That'll get you on your way.

[1165] Right.

[1166] Now making 50.

[1167] Let's do another job or two.

[1168] So how many hours a week are you working at the family business for 50 grand?

[1169] It just varies week by week.

[1170] Right now we're kind of in a slow season through March, but then it'll really pick back up starting in the spring through the end of the year.

[1171] All right.

[1172] So you called, I'm scared, and I'm stressed, and I've been there, I know how that feels, it's not fun, okay?

[1173] Yeah.

[1174] Because I feel like I'm stuck.

[1175] And the math tells me that you are stuck.

[1176] Yeah.

[1177] That all you're doing is paying minimum payments and you feel like a rat in a wheel.

[1178] Now, how are we going to break this log jam?

[1179] going to break this clogged drain and get it, you know, get flowing again, right?

[1180] Well, there's two things.

[1181] We increase our income dramatically.

[1182] And so if you keep doing exactly what you've been doing, you're going to keep getting exactly what you've been getting.

[1183] So you're going, if you want out of this, you're going to have to do some radical things.

[1184] And you can get out of it then, okay?

[1185] But you're going to have to work like a lot more than you're working and find a really strong paying side hustle that you go crazy for a short period of time and you need to sell this car and go buy a $6 ,000 a car.

[1186] Okay.

[1187] And then you can clear up the taxes and then you can clear up the stupid credit cards.

[1188] How long has it been since you used a credit card?

[1189] Well, probably three months.

[1190] Is that true?

[1191] Yeah, I've been really trying not to use credit cards.

[1192] Okay.

[1193] I want you to get out scissors tonight and light a candle and have a placectomy party.

[1194] Chop them all up.

[1195] Okay.

[1196] I want to get rid of any temptation to ever use them again.

[1197] Okay.

[1198] Because that would be just like going and buying this car on payments.

[1199] You're going backwards instead of forward.

[1200] Right.

[1201] We can't use them anymore.

[1202] They have to go away.

[1203] And then we're going to put you into Financial Peace University because I've been scared and I know what it's like.

[1204] But let me just tell you, if you just keep coasting, the way you've been coasting, and taking these paths of least resistance like you this ridiculous car story and it's ridiculous Megan if you keep doing that you're going to bankrupt yourself you've got to turn this or in another direction and that's really go crazy increase your income chop up the credit cards and get this car sold and get you a $6 ,000 car and unless your parents are going to pay for things they don't get a vote anymore because their vote was stupid And you really got to get this geared up.

[1205] Hang on.

[1206] We're going to get you signed up for Financial Peace University and help you with this.

[1207] George Camel Ramsey, Personality, is my co -host today.

[1208] Thank you for joining us.

[1209] Open phones at AAA 825 -5 -225.

[1210] A couple of lessons from today's show so far.

[1211] They were both object lessons for things we have taught many times here before, but we'll just reiterate them.

[1212] first never buy something like a house with someone you're not married to like your fiancé earlier caller fiancee broke up with him now doesn't want to sell the house that they own together he's going to end up in a lawsuit to force the sale of the house the disillusionment of a general partnership which is what they have that has no partnership documents because they lived together for five years, got engaged, and then bought a house prior to marriage.

[1213] Dumb.

[1214] Really dumb.

[1215] And she's squatting, saying, I'm not going anywhere.

[1216] If you're shacking up, don't buy a house with your roommate.

[1217] It's dumb.

[1218] You're going to screw up the relationship.

[1219] You're going to end up in legal and financial trouble.

[1220] it's dumb was I unclear George I think you added an extra syllable to that dumb it was that intense stretch it out there with a little southern twang now then the second thing we've learned is and I hear this one all the time and both of these things baffle me that's why I'm hitting them because they're just illogical if you get your car totaled it is not a reason to upgrade in car period.

[1221] You are driving a $6 ,000 car.

[1222] Your car gets totaled.

[1223] You get a check for $6 ,000, and suddenly $6 ,000 cars aren't good enough for you.

[1224] That's dumb.

[1225] Well, they don't make $6 ,000 cars except for the one that you were driving.

[1226] They don't make them that are reliable, except for the one I was driving that was working perfectly fine, thank you very much.

[1227] Okay?

[1228] Don't use the...

[1229] upgraded in car because I got my car totaled.

[1230] No, you upgraded in car because you wanted a better car.

[1231] If you were going to do that, you could have just sold the car before it got totaled and then upgraded in car.

[1232] It would have been the same dumb move.

[1233] A move you can't afford to do.

[1234] That's a dumb move.

[1235] Don't do dumb moves with money.

[1236] It causes you to be broke and hurt your feelings.

[1237] Well, there's a third lesson, too, from another caller, Dave, which is don't get a degree and go into debt $80 ,000 to go make $40 ,000.

[1238] The math ain't math in there.

[1239] And too many people are doing that.

[1240] They're getting degrees.

[1241] They hope to use.

[1242] They're in school for nine years.

[1243] And you can't blame it.

[1244] And listen, let me just tell you, some of you guys act like, and I hear this all the time to it.

[1245] It goes right with this, okay?

[1246] And this one drives micro nuts.

[1247] This is Mike Roe's favorite thing, okay?

[1248] I'm going to blame the fact that I didn't do math on passion.

[1249] or as if if I say the word passion three times like beetle juice right if I say passion enough then math doesn't then it it it beats down the math the math the math bows down to the word passion no it doesn't the math rises up and balks your little passion on the head that's what happens and so you can't say it's my passion and make your math work you have to still be an adult and pay bills well you lose passion pretty quick when you can't breathe because your job doesn't pay the bills, doesn't pay the debt payments.

[1250] So what that, what the, sometimes it's gotten to be like lately when I hear someone say, I want to work in my passion.

[1251] It's code for I'm about to do something really dumb.

[1252] I'm about to go deeply in debt to get a degree that is freaking useless or that doesn't pay enough because it's my passion.

[1253] And that's going to make it okay because it's my passion.

[1254] Don't spend $250 ,000 getting a master's degree in sociology so you can be a caseworker for the state making $38 ,000.

[1255] That's dumb.

[1256] Don't do that.

[1257] Well, it's my passion.

[1258] See, passion doesn't cover that.

[1259] I don't give a crap.

[1260] If you want to do ministry, go bank a bunch of money and do ministry at your church as a volunteer that can scratch your little passion edge.

[1261] Oh, my gosh.

[1262] All of this just points back to one thing that we've lost in today's world, Dave, and that's common sense.

[1263] Just think about the future for just a second about how it's all going to play out and how it could play out.

[1264] And it could help you avoid a lot of these mistakes.

[1265] I mean, think out there 10 years how this move is going to come out.

[1266] Okay.

[1267] So, listen, it is, it is not a grown -up move to go into a situation that you can't, that is not mathematically palatable, spending $250 ,000 to get a job making $38 and you can make more than $38 as a cash.

[1268] at Target, and call it your passion.

[1269] It's not okay.

[1270] It's not okay.

[1271] It's not being a grown -up.

[1272] That's a three -year -old on the cereal aisle having a meltdown because mommy wouldn't buy fruity pebbles because it's my passion.

[1273] That's what that is.

[1274] Don't do that crap.

[1275] It's a fruity pebbles meltdown.

[1276] We don't need fruity pebbles meltdowns with adults.

[1277] It really looks foolish.

[1278] so you really gosh seriously so when your car gets totaled take the check and buy a car the same price or cheaper than the car you were driving before never buy a house with someone you think you're in love with or that you think is in love with you until or after you walk down the aisle and you say i do that's called marriage then you have a methodological for dealing with the house if she kicks you out.

[1279] You don't have a methodology when you have an unsigned, unwritten set of partnership documents on your general partnership, and you have no freaking idea how you're going to get out of this mess other than try to talk common sense into the woman that just booted you out of the house.

[1280] It doesn't work, guys.

[1281] It doesn't work.

[1282] So you've got to think these things through, and you don't get to violate these rules in the name of love or passion or, you know, I'm afraid of a car that breaks down.

[1283] That's the, you know, so I bought a Bentley.

[1284] Anything under 20 grand, they just go up in flames, Dave.

[1285] I've heard that.

[1286] You've got to spend a lot more.

[1287] And you shouldn't talk about cars going up in flames.

[1288] You should never do that, George.

[1289] A guy that drives a Tesla should not make car go up in flames jokes.

[1290] oh you're right i apologize what this comes down to Dave is that critical thinking it turns out it is critical I know I shouldn't have to say that but I think are they teaching that in school anymore we have to do the critical part and the thinking part yeah that's the thing so yeah and you know and oh by the way if you're if you're shacked up with your sweetie don't pay somebody's debts that you're not married to because sweetie may take off with a local bartender, and then you are stuck with no money and no sweetie.

[1291] That's how this deal works.

[1292] It's how most country songs are written.

[1293] I'm telling you.

[1294] I think that probably has a possibility there.

[1295] No money, no sweetie.

[1296] I'm just saying.

[1297] And he's still paying the mortgage while the ex is living in the house.

[1298] This is real life, sadly.

[1299] It's real life.

[1300] And it sucks.

[1301] And it hurts because your heart's broken and your brain is fried at the same time because you feel dumb, ashamed, and heartbroken all the same time.

[1302] It's a horrible place to be in.

[1303] I've done dumber things than this.

[1304] And so I, you know, I don't want you guys to lose.

[1305] I want you to win.

[1306] That's why we're here.

[1307] We want, but so we have to speak this absolute, what looks like everyone should know stuff out so that the people that apparently don't know, it's stopped doing it.

[1308] It's like a trend.

[1309] Well, you could stop talking about it if people stop doing it.

[1310] But for 30 years now, you've been getting the same calls.

[1311] And you're going, don't do it.

[1312] I'm telling you.

[1313] It's a trap, and then people do it anyways.

[1314] Oh, if we don't laugh, we cry.

[1315] You got to think, people.

[1316] You got to think.

[1317] It'll kill you.

[1318] It'll kill you, man. It's just awful.

[1319] Wow, I'm so sorry, guys.

[1320] Oh, my goodness gracious.

[1321] This is the Ramsey Show.

[1322] George Camel Ramsey Personality is my co -host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt -free stage.

[1323] Luke and Kate are with us.

[1324] Hey, guys, how are you?

[1325] Good, how are you?

[1326] Better than we deserve.

[1327] Welcome to Nashville.

[1328] Where do you guys live?

[1329] We're from Asheville, North Carolina.

[1330] Oh, love Asheville.

[1331] What a great town.

[1332] Very cool.

[1333] Well, welcome all the way over.

[1334] And how much debt have you paid off?

[1335] $176 ,000.

[1336] All right.

[1337] How long did that take?

[1338] 24 months.

[1339] Whoa.

[1340] And your range of income during that time?

[1341] We started at 165, and then when my husband, Luke, finished school, we ended at about $275.

[1342] Cool.

[1343] Cool.

[1344] guys do for a living?

[1345] I'm a technical product manager.

[1346] And I'm a physician's assistant with an allergy and immunology practice.

[1347] Oh, that PA school, huh?

[1348] Okay, good for you.

[1349] Great career choices.

[1350] Amazing.

[1351] Very well done.

[1352] Wonderful income.

[1353] What kind of debt was the 176?

[1354] PA school?

[1355] It was all student loans.

[1356] I had about 130 for myself and then she had about 45.

[1357] Wow.

[1358] Okay.

[1359] So you're coming out of school.

[1360] You say, okay, the income's getting ready to Jack.

[1361] We already make 165, but we're getting ready to jack this and but we got a mess what made you decide to do all this stuff 24 months ago and get real serious about it well it was kind of the the shocking revelation that hey i got to find a job to pay all this back i mean i think we i decided to go to pa school and i didn't really know what the numbers were going to look like at the end and so when we got to the end it was like holy cow and you know the amount put a lot of weight on our shoulders it was hard to you know kind of do the things that we wanted to do without feeling guilty yeah so we wanted to get out of that situation okay very cool is anything in particular happened 24 months ago that said game on we're about to have our first daughter oh all right bringing a kid into the world do you want to kind of go in with a fresh slate and give them the best opportunity they can have Yeah, they, that's like a tuning fork.

[1362] It causes everything to get into and you go, oh, oh, wait a minute, adult time.

[1363] Game on.

[1364] Yeah, very cool.

[1365] And how'd you find us?

[1366] I actually used to work with someone who claimed her and her husband's success was because of Dave Ramsey and it was like, who's this Dave Ramsey person?

[1367] So I went home and bought your book, read it in 24 hours, and then went to my husband and said, you have to read this book.

[1368] It makes so much sense and we should think about kind of getting all.

[1369] on the debt -free journey.

[1370] Wow.

[1371] And so you read, both of you read Total Money Makeover?

[1372] So when she comes with you a book with, and you just finished school, look, and she's handing you a book.

[1373] I mean, what do you say?

[1374] I mean, like, yeah, enough books.

[1375] Well, so we didn't get the book when I finished school.

[1376] We were kind of listeners, but, you know, maybe Dave Light for several years.

[1377] Entertainment value.

[1378] Yeah, yeah, we really enjoyed the show, but we decided to take it serious when, when we got out of school completely.

[1379] When the baby's on the way and she reads the book, hands it to you.

[1380] You're like, yes, ma 'am.

[1381] Yes, ma 'am.

[1382] Yeah.

[1383] All right.

[1384] Very cool.

[1385] Good for y 'all.

[1386] How old's the baby now?

[1387] She's a little under two and we're expecting our second in the next month.

[1388] So, too little guys.

[1389] Yes, thank you.

[1390] Fun, fun, fun.

[1391] Good for y 'all.

[1392] What a cool journey.

[1393] Yeah, very good.

[1394] Most people it takes, we found the average is 20 years to pay off their student loans.

[1395] And you guys just buckle down.

[1396] You have this great income and you said, we're going to knock it out in two.

[1397] Was that a specific goal or did you have a longer time?

[1398] horizon you beat it.

[1399] I think we knew our income was extraordinary for the location that we lived in and just kind of our professions and we wanted to take advantage of the opportunities that we were given and get it done as quickly as possible so we can invest for the future.

[1400] Yeah.

[1401] We were actually able to do it a little bit quicker than we expected.

[1402] Kate was laid off from a tech company at one point and she was provided a generous severance package and rather than using that to do other things we just put all that towards her debt and she had a job within a week or two after of the wow severance package turns into a signing bonus for the next job yeah that was very helpful yeah it's all free money then game on yeah it took a lot of discipline though and upgrading the car you went we got to pay off these student loans yep good for y 'all how's it feel so good amazing was it worth it weight lifted off our shoulders was it worth it totally all right what do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is uh perseverance and determination and it's not just about the journey or it's not just about the destination it's about the journey how you get there and your character changes as a part of it and lasts a little bit longer than just paying off the debt so it's really rewarding there's a piece of this where you overcame $176 ,000 in debt in two years and so now it's like what can't we overcome in life not even finances and there's something about the debt -free journey that's inspiring and it usually begets more transformation and uh you guys are a perfect example of that yeah we definitely feel that way we try to tell all of our friends and family uh to listen to the show and also smart money happy hour for my friends who uh aren't as big of fans of just like listening to straight financial content thank you there we go something for everyone george just for no you're not straight financial content we're a gateway drug just note that we're a gateway drug to the ramsie show that's right that's so fun well thank you guys for being here and telling your stories I said there were drugs involved, and I always wondered.

[1403] Sometimes a mocktail.

[1404] Way to go, you guys.

[1405] We're so proud of you.

[1406] Thank you.

[1407] I mean, what an incredible situation.

[1408] How old are you two?

[1409] 33, and my wife turned 30 today.

[1410] Oh, happy birthday.

[1411] All right.

[1412] Thank you.

[1413] That's very cool.

[1414] Dave's going to sing to you on air.

[1415] Not a fan, not a chance.

[1416] They'll do talk radio for a reason.

[1417] But, yeah, this is great.

[1418] I mean, what an incredible, this incredible income, and no payments, you're going to be able to do anything you want to do from this point.

[1419] Man, absolutely awesome.

[1420] Very, very well done.

[1421] What's the next thing you guys are going to do?

[1422] What's the fun thing, the expensive thing?

[1423] Well, it's stork mode until we have the baby.

[1424] And then I think we're just going to continue to invest money appropriately and that we were ready for whatever comes next.

[1425] You'll be ready.

[1426] Yeah, definitely.

[1427] Well done.

[1428] We've got the live and give box for you.

[1429] That includes the Baby Steps Millionaire's book.

[1430] You'll be there in a minute.

[1431] if you're not already there.

[1432] Total Money Makeover book that started the whole thing for you guys and a baby and a financial peace university membership.

[1433] You can use those or you can give them away.

[1434] You can do whatever you want.

[1435] They're our gift to you to say thanks for coming all the way over from Asheville, North Carolina, to do your debt -free scream.

[1436] You two are inspiring.

[1437] Very well done, heroes.

[1438] Excellent job.

[1439] You took control of your life.

[1440] You could have done a lot of stupid butt things with this.

[1441] Instead, you really dialed in, hammered at home, and changed your family tree for these two kiddos.

[1442] Very, very well done.

[1443] Good stuff.

[1444] Good stuff.

[1445] All right, it's Luke and Kate, Asheville, North Carolina, $176 ,000 paid off in 24 months, making 165 to 275.

[1446] Count it down.

[1447] Let's hear a debt -free scream.

[1448] Three, two, one, we're debt -free.

[1449] Yeah.

[1450] Oh, man, oh man, oh man. That's excellent.

[1451] Very good stuff.

[1452] Those are two great career fields, too.

[1453] The opposite of what we were talking about earlier.

[1454] I'm going to be broke and live my passion.

[1455] Both of them have, I mean, PA is a great track in the medical world.

[1456] That's a great track to get on.

[1457] And the physician's assistant process and product managers.

[1458] in the technical space.

[1459] I mean, it's just, you can see.

[1460] Definitely R -O -I.

[1461] Proofs in the pudding here.

[1462] They make $2 .75 and no payments in the world at 30 and 34.

[1463] It's just mind -boggling how much more you can give, how much more you can invest after 24 months of sacrifice.

[1464] You know, I haven't added it up, but if you invested $100 ,000 a year, how fast would you be a millionaire?

[1465] Probably six and a half, roughly.

[1466] Yeah.

[1467] I'm guessing.

[1468] I mean, 10 years would be a million dollars if you had no compounding interest.

[1469] benefit so uh you stuck it in a mattress if you yeah you put it put it in a fruit jar you'd have that but that's how fast these i mean these guys are going to they're going to be millionaires when they're 37 or less something like that if they and that's if they live on 175 000 a year that'll do you know i mean with no payment you see the power of this it's that puts you in an incredible incredible situation so beautifully done guys that was fabulously done very good that's inspiring this is what happens so you know it's funny you can live your life that way and you got to admit that's not normal that's weird they're weird people in such a great way or you can go be normal but who the flip wants to be normal oh my god that's horrible nobody wants to be normal one out of three people making six figures paycheck to paycheck normal we get those sucks make 200 grand we're broke normal's awful This is The Ramsey Show.

[1470] Our scripture of the day, Philippians 4 -6, don't worry about anything.

[1471] Instead, pray about everything.

[1472] Francis Chan says our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.

[1473] Oh, love it.

[1474] Well done.

[1475] Book launch day for George Camel.

[1476] Brand new book is out today.

[1477] Breaking free from broke, be sure and check it out.

[1478] At all places great books are sold.

[1479] it is going to be our next bestseller from Ramsey and we're really, really excited about this book.

[1480] It's really strong content.

[1481] Lots of good research on all the gotchas that are out there in the money space and George does a great job of unmasking the villains.

[1482] Ooh, there we go.

[1483] David is with us.

[1484] David's in Washington, D .C. Hi, David.

[1485] How are you?

[1486] Hi, thanks for having me today.

[1487] How are you guys doing?

[1488] Better than we deserve, sir.

[1489] How can we help?

[1490] Awesome.

[1491] Yeah, so our question is basically, when should we start investing?

[1492] We're doing an emergency fund for one year, and we so far have $22 ,000 saved.

[1493] We want our goal is to get it to $30 ,000 so that, and that's for the mortgage and stuff like that, if we ever lose a job.

[1494] So, yeah, so my question is, at the end, investing part, well, should we start investing while we're saving up, or should we focus on the emergency fund first?

[1495] So when you look at the baby steps are laid out, there's seven steps, and steps one, two, and three are done one at a time, focus intensity.

[1496] And you guys right now are in baby step three saving up the emergency fund.

[1497] Now, you mentioned 12 months.

[1498] We recommend three to six months of expenses.

[1499] Is there a reason you're aiming for 12?

[1500] It's just, But our mortgage is like $2 ,500, so we want to make sure that we're safe for 12 months, and especially we're having a baby, and so we want to make sure that he's taking care of as well if something happens to my job or whatnot, or my wife's job.

[1501] You have any debt other than the house?

[1502] I have a school loan.

[1503] It's $200 ,000 school loan.

[1504] However, I am.

[1505] Wait a minute, your phone cut out.

[1506] You are what?

[1507] I'm in the government.

[1508] So I have four years left.

[1509] So it gets forgiven after four years.

[1510] So waiting for that.

[1511] So I'm paying $1 ,000 per month right now for that.

[1512] Okay.

[1513] What is your degree in?

[1514] It's a PhD in psychology.

[1515] I'm sorry.

[1516] I'm not aware of a federal government program that forgives $200 ,000 in student loan debt in four years.

[1517] No, it's 10 years.

[1518] It's a 10 -year program, but I've been in the government for six years.

[1519] Okay.

[1520] You're talking about the public student loan forgiveness?

[1521] Yes, yes.

[1522] Yeah.

[1523] Okay.

[1524] And you've been paying into it $1 ,000 a month for six years?

[1525] Yeah.

[1526] Well, no. There were times that I paid less just because...

[1527] What do you make?

[1528] What's your household income?

[1529] Well, we make, combine it's 182 ,000.

[1530] Okay.

[1531] Well, David, you're new to all this Ramsey stuff.

[1532] So there's a couple things going on here that the first thing we teach people to do is get $1 ,000.

[1533] The second thing we teach them to do is get out of debt.

[1534] The third thing is have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses.

[1535] And then and only then do you start investing long term?

[1536] I'm really worried about your public student loan forgiveness.

[1537] You speak with such surety about it, but you're apparently not aware that of all the people that have applied in history for the public student loan forgiveness, only one and a half percent have been granted.

[1538] 98 and a half percent of the people that do not get it.

[1539] Yeah, I'm definitely aware of it.

[1540] I do have like a tracker from the system and everything.

[1541] One of the major things I've done is make sure I paid on time and everything, which is one of the areas that have impacted students.

[1542] And so, yeah, I've been doing all the steps that go with it, which is basically just, you know, maintain the government job for 10 years.

[1543] Yeah.

[1544] I wish that that would work, but the data says it doesn't work.

[1545] and so I can't I have I'm the opposite in the spectrum from you on this you're very assured it's going to work and I'm very sure it's not going to so I'm really afraid for you but um you're going to play it out there's not any stopping you I can tell that so if if I were put in charge of uh if you were to if I were woke up in your shoes I would immediately start paying down the student loan debt because I was if I were put in charge of uh if you were to if I were woke up in your shoes I would immediately start paying down the student loan debt because because I don't think the government's going to pay it off for you, David.

[1546] The track record of 98 % failure is not due to them not paying on time.

[1547] It's due to the whole thing's a scam.

[1548] It's the worst government program in the history of man, and that really says something, considering government programs suck in general.

[1549] And the bad thing is they've conned you into working there for nothing for the last six years, too, with this bogus promise.

[1550] So I wish that it was true.

[1551] I wish your debt student loan debt would just poof, go away.

[1552] But your tracking system is not going to matter when you get up there and they don't do it because they simply don't follow through on it.

[1553] They're horrendous.

[1554] It is a other types of student loan forgiveness are very real.

[1555] We see them happen all the time.

[1556] Not the Biden program, obviously.

[1557] That was unconstitutional and got thrown out.

[1558] But I'm talking about there's other types of student loan forgiveness when someone passes away or becomes permanently disabled, those actually work and do happen.

[1559] So I'm not a conspiracy theorist or something.

[1560] But the PSLF specifically.

[1561] The data is just there.

[1562] It's abysmal.

[1563] So what would I do?

[1564] I would be working on that.

[1565] If you're not going to do that, then you need to build that emergency fund.

[1566] Yeah, a year probably because you're going to wish you had it more than a year when this thing falls apart.

[1567] And so, and a $2 ,500 house payment.

[1568] Good Lord.

[1569] And so, yeah, go ahead and build a year in your case.

[1570] and then start investing, and we suggest investing 15 % of your income into retirement.

[1571] I wouldn't put it in retirement.

[1572] In your case, I would put it in good mutual funds because you're going to need it to pay off these student loans.

[1573] You're saying outside of retirement.

[1574] If I'm right, if I'm wrong, then you've got a great big investment and you got it through.

[1575] But I wish I was wrong, but 98 .6 % of the people got turned down.

[1576] it wasn't because they didn't pay the payment on time.

[1577] There are people that were very nerdy and very careful and very dialed in, and they just took their wagging to the wrong star is what it amounts to.

[1578] Open phones at AAA 825 -5 -2 -2 -25.

[1579] I'll tell you, this nation's economy, it would be completely different if we didn't have student loans.

[1580] It is the biggest, it is one of the biggest drags, anchors slowing the economy down is people dragging all this debt around all over the place.

[1581] And it's sitting out there unpaid.

[1582] And it's just dragging and dragging and dragging.

[1583] And we've loaned 18 -year -olds, $200 ,000 on a bogus promise.

[1584] We the taxpayers did it.

[1585] We allow, we allow our congressmen, congresswomen, Senate and Congress to do the stupid, but stuff and they continue to make these loans.

[1586] Oh yeah.

[1587] I walk through in my new book Breaking Free from Broke in the student loans chapter.

[1588] I walk through the history of how student loans actually started and what it's become and how Sally Mae started as a government program.

[1589] It's mind -boggling.

[1590] And it was good intentions.

[1591] We got to compete with Russia and then it became, wait, colleges can increase tuition.

[1592] And they did 400 % increase since the 80s, Dave, on college tuition.

[1593] So the numbers you've been seeing over 30 years, now we hear $200 ,000 in student loans and you don't bat an eyelash.

[1594] It's just like, well, that's a Tuesday to hear those kinds of numbers.

[1595] And it takes forever to get out.

[1596] Those of you that are new to Ramsey that are floating around out there absorbing this podcast or YouTube or radio show or whatever it is, however it is you're getting this, go check out Borrowed Future.

[1597] It's the documentary that we did that was award winning It's one of the top documentaries a couple years ago when it came out, and it's still accurate, and the numbers are just bizarre.

[1598] The student loan debacle is just horrible.

[1599] Just horrible.

[1600] That puts us out of The Ramsey Show and the books.

[1601] We'll be back with you before you know it.

[1602] In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace.

[1603] Christ Jesus.

[1604] Dr. John Deloney here.

[1605] Mental and emotional health challenges, broken relationships, it's all just part of life, but they don't have to define you.

[1606] The Dr. John Deloney's show is here to help.

[1607] 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.

[1608] Listen to questions from our callers, or if you're walking through a tough situation and need some help, give me a call.

[1609] You are never meant to do life alone, and that's what this podcast is all about.

[1610] Follow along on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or the Ramsey Network app.

[1611] Remember, your worth being well.