Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollars Car Rental Studios. It's the Dave Ramsey Show where dad is dumb, cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. My co-host today here on the air on The Dave Ramsey Show, Rachel Crooge Ramsey, personality number one, bestselling author, also my daughter. We'll be taking your calls about your life and your money. It's a free call.

And some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it.

Open phones at eight eight two five five two two five. That's eight eight two five five two to five.

Chris starts us off in Columbia, South Carolina. Hi, Chris.

Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, Rachel. How are you? Great, how can we help? Well, I have two kids aged five to seven, and I'm interested in starting a custodial brokerage account for the would that be something you recommend? Well, any time an account is open in a kid's name, it is a custodial account because until you're 18, you cannot legally enter into a contract in the United States. And so a parent or someone does it on behalf of a child and that is a custodial account.

So if you open up a savings account, if you open up a mutual fund, if you open up a 529, if you open up anything in the kid's name, it is a custodial account.

That's the nature of it. OK, now, having said that, why do you want a brokerage account for a kid? Well, we have savings accounts, but every other day they want me to go to the bank colonel money so they can spend it.

I figure the brokers can't get access to it when they can't get access to it anyway unless you let them.

Yeah, I guess I have said before, but they're all because they go to the bank for money that they always want to go and buy something. And they just told me otherwise they just ask about it. And I figure if I put it a brokerage account of that family doesn't grow and interest rates I guess. Yeah.

But I mean, you're for the convenience aspect is what's bothering you because you're having to go to the bank to get the money out where they're they're 11 and nine. That what you said. They're nine and seven. Nine and seven. So even younger.

So, yeah. I mean, at this this is like basic level teaching kids about money. I mean, all they really need to be doing is giving a little, saving a little, spending a little. I mean, it's not going to be anything insane. And so, I mean, not even having you could put some of their savings in the bank. And it's more long term for them, like, hey, in the next month or two, if we want to save up, we get something.

But I would just keep cash at the house at that young of age, depending on how much it is. I mean, if they're getting like big chunks of, like birthday money or Christmas money. Yeah, you can put it in the account, the savings account. But anything else I would have at home, because especially for your you know, your especially your seven year old, but your nine year old as well, like when they have cash at home, the envelopes, I kind of have their own envelope and all banks.

And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So let's do this. Let me let us give you the Juniors Adventure Pack, which is the financial picture year for teaching kids how little kids how to handle money on our road. And we'll also give you a copy of Smart Money, Smart Kids, which is what Rachel and I wrote about parents teaching their kids about money, because that's really what this question comes down to. OK, now what we teach is the kids need to learn four things. And Rachel touched on this.

They need to learn to work, which is where money comes from. They need learn to give to spend wisely and onto the parents direction and and, of course, to save. And so the difference is, instead of opening a brokerage account to keep them from bugging you, I will put them on a system that says, kids, my job is to help you as your dad learn how to handle money.

So when you're old, you're not one of those old broke people, OK, like all our freakin friends. Right.

So, you know, and so then they get when our kids would earn some money in quotes for doing a chore like feeding the dog or something really difficult like that, which you hardly break a sweat doing. Right. But they would earn money for doing a chore. Then we would divide the chore money. We call it commissions. You're not allowed to own. Commissions are not.

You work, you get paid, you don't work, you don't get paid. Then we would divide that up into those three envelopes and the kit I'm going to send you has three envelopes and as a giving envelope, a savings envelope and a spending envelope. And so if they get ready to say, I want to spend some money, do you have it in your spending envelope? Because we put some in there from when you worked and then you can have the discussion of, oh, there's not enough money.

Well, you're going to have to wait and work some more or you can have the discussion of you, but you can buy that cheap one if you want to buy it.

But it'll be broken by Friday.

Or you can wait a little bit and buy a good one that will last you and you can pass it down to your grandkids. And we had lots of value discussions about purchases. Rachel generally just bought it.

Daniel would be it was was very purposeful and goal driven about his purchases. And then he was what, compliant?

I don't know why he would spend money. She didn't spend money.

She's a saver. We had. But you need to make kids coach kids in all four areas.

Not working is not an option. Not being generous is not an option. Not saving is not an option. Not spending money wisely is not an option. So you can't be only saving are sometimes sweet little kids. They want to give all their money away. Well, no, I don't want to teach you that way. That's it. I want to encourage you in your generosity, your outlandish generosity, but you always should have some saved and you should always have some to spend as well.

Yeah, because I mean, as an adult primarily, those are the three things you do with money. I mean, obviously you're saving can be more complicated and investing and all that. But you basically that's what you do with money. You give, save and spend. And so teaching those boundaries is huge. And then I mean and Chris, if they're not doing like just work around the house, simple stuff earning that money. I mean, it's and again, it's very age appropriate.

But, man, the award is amazing. Amelia even tell you this pop day, you'll be so proud.

OK, I'm ready. She said Jaws and she what? She did some chores. What did she do? She she actually swept the kitchen. I didn't even ask her to, but she's like, Mom, can I speak to earn a dollar? I was like, sure, well let's just do it because we have like ten bucks and ones in our, like, little junk drawer. So that's what I like, gave it to her. So she did that carry plates to the sink.

I mean she's she just turned five so it's like it's low ball stuff.

But you don't send the five year old to the salt mines, you know, so you do. So we did we did six and we went on Amazon, she bought a Polly Pocket for six ninety nine, I paid the tax. I was like, you know, I'm going to be a graceful mother. And just your five sounds like I'll pay the taxes. You saw the sex on Amazon. She's like at 6:00, mom at 6:00 and I have six dollars.

And I was like, you're great. Yes, that's great. But then she got very confused at the money was still there, even though the Polly Pocket. Right. But I took her money. And so the whole process of buying online is very complicated for kids.

They don't quite understand it.

So it probably would have been a little bit more beneficial to, like, put on the masks and go to target and buy, but a little too lazy. It's like we're going to Amazon it.

All right. And have to walk to. That's a modern day. That's still you did it. No, because what most parents do is nothing. Well, and the story wasn't about me doing it, but but what I was going to say is the effects of what happened. She she made me like take a video of her to send it to a girl that babysits for us because she was like, tell Maggie that I bought my own Polly Pocket.

I was like, OK, so we did it like the bikini was. Oh, it was just it was amazing. She just could not I mean, talked about it for three days. So anyways, it worked.

So I it gives anyone, anyone who works and earns gains dignity as well as money. It's not working, does not give you dignity. And so it's good that Amelia's sweeping the kitchen. She looks to be good. I bet. I bet she would know. All right. So we've got a copy of Smart Money, Smart Kids and an adventure pack to send from junior to Junior is teaching age Financial Fix Junior to teach the kids how to do that stuff, to work, to give, to save and to spend wisely.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, business owners and anyone who has to talk with customers often listen up, you are the backbone of this freaking economy. And just by staying open to serve your community, you're providing hope to your customers. That's why my friends at podium want to do something special for you. They're offering you the opportunity to text your customer base for free.

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Ramsey personality Rachel Cruise is my co-host this day here on the Dave Ramsey Show, open phones at triple eight, eight to five five, two to five. Her new book is on presale. It comes out January the 5th, but went on sale today. Know yourself, know your money, discover why you handle money the way you do and what to do about it. If you preorder now, you're going to get fifty dollars and bonus items, including the audio book for no yourself and your money, the ebook for No Yourself, Not Your Money.

And the exclusive video lesson from Rachel Cruise.

You can take the new money quiz that's completely free whether you buy the book or not. Jump home and text the word money quiz one word money quiz to thirty three seven eighty nine and learn why you do the things you do with your money.

We talk about how all the time in this book is all about why it's all about the why.

Understanding who you are and why you handle money the way you do so everything from giving, saving, spending to your money fears to how you grew up with money to your money, dreams. I mean, so much motivates us on why we do the things we do with money. And so understanding the why I think is going to help people when you're on this process, especially if you're doing the baby steps and you're you're getting out of debt and you're saving and you're doing all these things when you know the why, it just helps accelerate this process so much faster.

You know, there are times you can kind of white knuckle your way through baby steps one through three specifically. Like you're just like, OK, just just just do it. And there is a level of sacrifice that will always be there. But when you start to kind of understand your why why you handle money the way you do your personality, even your spouse's, you know, situation, everything, there's so much empathy and there's so much more awareness that I think it just helps the entire process.

Oh, it makes it much more successful what it does at your relationships and at your money. Yeah.

So obviously you wrote the book for individuals, and if I know more about myself, I can make better decisions and I can say, okay, I've got to be careful about that or oh, that gives me permission to be that way and not feel guilt or shame. Also, you could recognize this and others like, for instance, your spouse if you're married and say, oh, well, he's a spender on the survivor and there's different ways of looking.

He comes from a home like this. I come from a home like that.

Of the eight money figures that you listed, he's got different money figures or she's got different money figures than your spouse does, that kind of thing.

Have you thought about this? Because, I mean, you've been so deep in this research putting manuscripts complete.

Obviously, it's going to print when you're looking at your three kids, even a small zero, five, three and ten months old.

Right. So are you seeing, like, a difference between Caroline and Amelia on how they're going to process this stuff?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, already for sure the the tendencies of money, I think you can grow to learn certain tendencies, but a lot of them are just your natural personality. You know, do you do you enjoy quality over quantity? Do you like experiences or things like that? Those kinds of things. Your an experience in the instance of things. Oh yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yes, yeah. You always do. I can.

I could have told you when you were five you were the experience.

Yeah. I mean like you know someone that really appreciates buying money and having a tangible thing can not grasp paying X amount to go to the spa and have a massage or something like. You don't mean there. Like what. But then it's OK with that on a cruise and I could have bought a car for that. And it's done. Yeah, exactly. So it's it's the way you the way you view it and what you honestly how your personality is bent.

So yeah with my kids I feel like already that. And when I wrote the whole section about growing up in the for money classrooms that you're in, you know, you really will identify with one of the four. But it's but I always say interested in the manuscript as well. Like your siblings could have grown up in the same home, but had a totally different experience, though, because the way they view things and so what's what's come on them, they felt, you know, maybe they felt a lot of freedom because they didn't pick up on the stress.

And maybe you said, no, no, no, it was high stress. I was very, very aware. Or another sibling could be like, no, I didn't never noticed that, you know, because your your memories and the way you go about things is so different as kids. I bet if you ask Denise and Daniel what things were like growing up, if I told one story, they would have three totally different perspectives. They probably wouldn't.

Some of Dana probably won't remember it. So that's what's interesting, too, is looking at kind of how they're wired and what they're picking up from us. But yeah, but it's it's I don't know. It's been a fascinating thing. And again, the presell, I think is huge, getting free audiobook and ebook. And in the video lesson, if you do it before January 5th. So you do that. So you get all that at Rachel Cruise Dotcom or Dave Ramsey Dotcom.

And if you wanna take the money quiz and start to learn about yourself now it's text the word money quiz one word, two thirty three 789 and then we'll get you started.

Eddys with us in Salt Lake City. Hi Eddie. How can we help. Hi, Dave. Rachel, please talk to you today. You, too. What's up? Well, I am wondering how my baby Centurioni actually is going to look, I am most of my income is actually from a disability income and I've somehow managed to make myself to pass baby step three. Good. And now I'm looking at trying to save for for the future and possibly buy a home.

I do make a small earned income. So I'm able to contribute, I think, to a to a Roth IRA. But I'm just kind of wondering that doesn't quite get me to the 15 percent and I'm wondering how to do that and balance three B at the same time on this kind of income.

So what is your income? I make about forty eight thousand from disability.

What is the nature of your disability? Blind and blind, OK? Right, and who pays then? It's from a workplace insurance policy. I was actually injured on the job. Hmm, my goodness, I'm sorry, are you have you lost 100 percent of your side or just most of it? A good chunk of it, I still have what some people would call functional living I'm able to see. Some objects just no detail at all. Yeah, just generally you can walk around the room, but but the idea of opening up a website and looking at its off the off the off the out of the options.

What are you doing for your extra earn money.

I'm actually still teaching I'm teaching the subject. I was trained and so I was teaching chemistry. Able to do that still? How that's so cool. I mean, how do you have been doing it for 30? So you're just doing it all from memory? I don't know. You're doing it all from memory. Yeah, pretty much OK. All right, you got the lesson plans in Braille or whatever, or have you learned Braille? No, I have some adaptable software.

Oh, yes. All right, so the screen thing goes wrong.

OK, well, good. And then after 35 years, I know what they would do about it. Yeah. Yeah, that's promising.

That's promising. OK, cool. Well, the reason I ask all these questions is you're right. You can, you know, you're doing good. And how long ago was the accident. Seven years ago. OK, how old are you? Forty seven year over year, Eryn Overcomer man, you've been getting it. I'm proud of you. And you're not. You're impressive. Thank you.

So, I mean, because that's a life altering, to say the least. And some people just get paralyzed. And you just kept rolling, man. Good for you. All right.

So how much do you make teaching, Eddie? Kind of varies, it's been as little as about 9000 that's been as much as about 13. It's all depend on, you know, how much I get personal. Sure.

OK. Yeah, I was going to say because between that and your disabilities, you're are you are you married kids, family situation.

No, it's just me.

OK, well I was going to say it's a that's a relatively average income. That's the positive part is how to do the steps. And disability is that, you know, people are doing it with this amount of income and they're just working their way through it. So if you wanted to pause baby step four to do baby steps three B and go ahead and save up that down payment, you could for a short period of time, just kind of accelerate that and actually get that quick when faster than if you were putting some of your money into that Roth IRA.

So you could do that as an option.

Yeah, I agree. I think you're getting there. Let me tell you what I'm hearing. I'm hearing you got a big future ahead of you and you've been through hell. And so it might be harder for you to grasp that future. But I think I think you could do it. I think you could I think you could do tutoring. I think you could you might double your income. If you push around and think about this a little bit, you don't have to.

But you're just a Survivorman. I mean, you've gotten after. I'm so proud of you. So I would be continuing to think about ways you could do the teaching because you know, your stuff, like you said, and anything you can do to get your income up, of course, accelerates all of these issues. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt free stage, Kurt and Julietta are with us from Reno, Nevada.

Welcome, guys. How are you? I am not hearing them. Let's try one more time. Better than we deserve. There we go. Now, I got you. Hey, guys. How are you doing? Well, welcome to Nashville and all the way down here to do a debt free scream. Absolutely. Very cool. How much have you paid off? 80000 dollars. Cool. And how long did this take you? 22 months.

Good. And your range of income during that time?

I'd say between 110 and 130. OK, go back down to 110, OK.

What do you do for a living? Well, I work at the world's most loved airline. Oh, I think we all know who that is.

Well, you can say it.

Southwest Airlines. All right, cool. Yes. We love our big we're big fans of Southwest. A lot of business with them. Good stuff. Cool. All right. And so, Kelly, our associate producer, said that you guys just got married. So we get more of a Kurt did this and now Julietta is here to celebrate with him right after you guys. How long you been married?

Tomorrow will be a month. Oh, wow. Real newlyweds.

Newlyweds got married. The quarantine we did during the pandemic. Absolutely. All right. Well, you can tell your grandkids that one.

We got married during the pandemic. All right, man. Very cool.

So what kind of debt was the 80000 bucks 30000 consisted of loaned to Toyota? Hmm. Twenty one thousand was Tesla solar. Mm hmm. 15000 was a retirement repayment. Mm hmm. Ten thousand was various credit cards. And the last four was a family loan.

Oh, very good. OK, feels good to be out of all that. Oh absolutely. Yeah. But everything man. Yeah.

So what happened 22 months ago that got you moving on this?

Well, 22 months ago I just got out of the army. I served with the same unit, that Ranger Regiment, for about six years. Oh, thank you for your service. Thank you. You know, I first was brought on to you back in 2004. Mm hmm. And, you know, I tried doing my own thing. As most people find out, doing your own thing doesn't work too well. Mm hmm.

OK, so, you know, finally, I was like, you know, I need to I need to get things going to work my goals. And I took the blue dust off the total money makeover and reread that and started the baby steps aggressively.

Wow. And was able to knock out a lot of money in a short time.

That's awesome. Julianna, what did you think of the process? Did you think he was crazy or were you like, oh, yeah, go before we get married.

You can be debt free? I'd say a little bit of both.

Yeah, but not an easy road, but definitely on board.

Yes. So he was getting after it, wasn't he. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. So what was the difference, Kurt?

I mean you're kind of going along, you knew the stuff from 2004 and they do it. But what was the thing just to change your career just made you go. I got to do this now.

Well, yeah, you know, I absolutely hated owing someone money and it just seemed like a dog chase its tail. Mm hmm. You know. Wanted to become debt free, wanted to be able to live like no one else. Mm hmm. And, you know, you owe no money. You can do whatever you want.

Yeah. Amen, brother.

Hey, man, you got a lot of different people not coming out of your back pocket now. Absolutely. It's a whole different thing. Way to go. Very proud of you. What do you tell people?

The key to getting out of debt is no. I would say I see discipline and absolutely the budget. You need to be able to tell your money where to go. Hmm. And we use the every dollar app. Hmm.

And that definitely was key to the whole getting out of debt. Very cool.

Very good. Good for you. Very fun. So who were your biggest cheerleaders?

Let's say my wife, Julie, out of here. Really didn't have too many other cheerleaders, but didn't have any detractors either. Well, that's good. You know, kind of kept it to ourselves. Few people in my workplace knew about it. They were cheering me on. Yeah, but they didn't want to do it because it wasn't for them. Mm hmm. You know, so definitely. Definitely took the discipline. Yeah.

And now that you've done it, you're looking over going, well, maybe I should absolutely look so out of all the dads because you kind of had every range, right? What was the one that you're like?

I'm so glad to be out of that between the family alone in the credit card, OK? You know, because it seemed like I go up to that limit on the credit card and I pay it off or pay a portion and then I would use it again, pay some off or back up to the limit again. Yeah. So that was even and that was one of my first ones that I paid off. How did you break that cycle? Home just come to terms of our goals.

Mm hmm. We didn't we didn't want to go back there. Yeah. Yeah. You just reach a point of disgust and say, I'm done. I'm done. That's when you do that, you're ready to change your life.

Oh, you can do so much more. Yeah. So I was so proud of you, man.

Regulations on the new marriage. Wow, this is great. Life is good. Very, very cool. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you every day. Millionaires', without a doubt, your own path for that. That's the next chapter in your story for sure. Very, very well done. All right.

Kurt and Julietta, Kurt gets out of that and gets married. Life is good. 80000 bucks paid off in 22 months, making 110 to 130 counted down. Let's hear a debt free scream.

Three to one word, debt free. Well done, very well on open phones at eight eight two five five two two five. Our Question of the day comes from Blind's Dotcom. Find out for yourself why Blind's Dotcom is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Always use the promo code, Ramsey.

All right, Rachel, our question is from Laura in California. I'm a saver. My husband's a spender. He's currently 55. I'm 37.

We have two boys, 12 and 10, 65000 in debt, net income, 140 a year. I found out he racked up a total of eight hundred seventy three dollars in a month on our credit card on top of a classic car, 1900 that he took out a loan to purchase and one month had financial discussions with my husband. He doesn't seem worried, tells me he's going to retire in five years. How do we get on the same page with financial goals?

He tells me he shouldn't live like a pauper with a 400 dollar with 400 dollars a month of fund money.

Whoof! Well, totally on opposite page is obviously not many United Gold, and it's really hard it's really hard to win with money when you're married and you're both not on the same page. You're not driving down the same road because this is so much of a team effort.

And so, yeah, I would I would I would really laugh as much as you can talk about your why talk about what all of this is doing to you, see if you can have any of those kind of conversations and that honestly, I mean, at this point, I would say bringing in a third party, if you can, to have someone sit down, listen to you guys, listen to the situation, because usually money issues are not just money issues.

It's usually things going underneath the surface. And I think that there's there's a lot there's a lot there. And the fact that he's like, I don't want to live like a pauper, that sounds to me.

And she's laid out every little detail. So she's definitely the nerd. That's fair. Yeah, definitely the saver. And she's been she's been throwing around Dave Ramsey like it's a cuss word.

And he's like, I'm not living like that. And so she's been up, up, up, up, up, up, up. That's not working, Laura. You can't you can't go after him like a barking Chihuahua. And I think that's what I'm reading here.

That's fair. I might be wrong, but the details of eight hundred and seventy three dollars, the eight hundred seventy three dollars like around nine hundred, lots of details. I mean, I'm surprised the pennies weren't there.

And so I think instead what you need to do is sit down because your husband is a natural spender, you're a natural saver and you need to sit down and say, look, I know you're approaching retirement. I'm thirty seven and I got two little boys. US being out of control is scaring the crap out of me.

I can't breathe, I need your help. And so I need my man to man up here and help me with this money stuff and, you know, cause no no body, once you've had that discussion says I'm going to put my families with my two little boys financial future at risk so I can buy toys. That's a little boy that says that. Not a man. And he's not that guy. But that's just his reaction to you because you've been barking at him like a Chihuahua.

That's what I read. I might be wrong if I'm wrong. You can just say Dave Ramsey with a good gut sometimes. Dave Ramsey wrong. Not as often as it used to be, but sometimes. But he's wrong sometimes. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruze Ramsey personality is my co-host today here on the air, open phones, a triple eight eight two five five two two five.

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So that's a big deal. If you're thinking about buying or you think about selling, get a good agent. Go to Dave Ramsey, dotcom agent. Brett is in Columbia, South Carolina. Hi, Brett.

Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Hey, Rachel. Hey, what's up? Well, first off, I just wanted to congratulate Kurt and Julietta on getting debt free. That's awesome. I can't wait to be there. I joined in July on Baby Step two. Now, we've already paid seven seven thousand three hundred out of the fifty three hundred that we owe. Great job on our debt. Yeah. And we're in the process of getting our house refinanced for a 15 year or two point six percent interest mortgage.

So we're hoping to have our house paid off by 2030. Great. Yeah, but anyway, so my question for you today is me and my wife, we've been working the baby steps. Like I said, we're on baby step two. But we've come to a point now where we've got kind of a fork in the road. It's basically we're looking at our cell phone bill and we're wondering if we should go ahead and pay off our cell phones to lower our bill from about to 60 a month to 195, or if we should take the six hundred and eighty dollars that it's going to take to pay that off to pay off another debt, which is six hundred and eighty two dollars.

So it's we're like right there at it. And I'm just like, you know, I see the financial advantages of lowering our monthly bill, but at the same time I'm like, we can go ahead and knock out that debt and be out of it. Well, you got to pay it off this time or next time, right? We're not going to keep the cell phone that right. Right, right, no, no, and actually it's both for cell phones.

Six hundred and eighty two dollars, that is the debt that we owe, you know, is is actually where my wife bought a new cell phone last year, OK? And she financed it through an outside company, the the 680. That's that. We're kind of like paying.

I'm confused. I'm confused. Both of them are debts. Both of them are cell phones. And both of them are around 680 dollars. Why would you just not pay both of them off? Well, that's what I'm asking. It's the cell phones that we're paying through AT&T. It's part of our service contract and we're paying it through our service contract.

You financed yourself with AT&T. Your wife announced her cell phone with one outside of AT&T. Correct. They're both debts. OK, so you're saying it doesn't matter which one you pay off, because in the end you're going to be paying off one of them anyway at the rate you're right, you're paying down debt.

You're probably going to pay them both off this month, aren't you? Oh, yeah, well, I've been saying anything, the metal band, so you've been doing good. Am I missing something?

No. So, Bret, is that does that answer your question? Is that what you were wondering? Yeah, I guess I just didn't know I figured I guess I should probably. Yeah, this is the this is the evil part of AT&T and Verizon and so forth, OK, when they finance your cell phone into your phone bill, you don't think of it as that, right? Yeah.

And that's that's that's the great mystery of how they pulled us, pulled that wool over our eyes. It's still that you still borrowed money as opposed to when I get a cell phone, they're either giving me one because of the contract we're on or I'm paying for it. Right. Then when I pick it up, one of the two, it's going on. You know, we're paying for it immediately. So we don't finance cell phones over on payments, whether it is with the cell phone company or with an outside party.

And since you have, then we're just going to get rid of that.

Yeah, but they did they've changed that over the past couple of years where it's like kind of like Finegold thing within your bill. It is.

And it can be very, very confusing and so intentionally confusing 100 percent because they totally want you to finance it. Yeah. And they totally don't want you looking at the interest rate and they totally don't want they just want to make it easy for you.

Easy for you. That's what they want you to be aware of these people. And I'm telling you, it's just like anybody is going to make it easy. Yeah, that's a problem. It's a problem.

It's not easy for, you know. All right. Open phones at eight eight two five five two two five mikes in Minneapolis. Hey, Mike, what's up? He has the glory days of the glory chosen to be on your show. Thank you. How can we help? Well, I got a kind of a weird situation that I'm in, I'm a little nervous and scared. I'm twenty six years old. I'm one baby. Step number two, I got into a car accident two years ago, a little fender bender.

And so I didn't have insurance at the time. I didn't I didn't know better. I was not. I'm a new kind of a new listener to you guys, but I didn't know better. And I was driving around with no insurance until a car accident. Long story short, two years later, they're suing me. I've been paying I've been making payments from the two years for two years for for their damages to the vehicle. And so now they're suing me as a trial case and they take them into court and they're trying to get pain and suffering.

They're not asking a dollar amount. So I talked to several attorneys and all of the attorneys that I take the case to. The first thing that they tell me is I say that I need to file bankruptcy. I make about thirty thousand dollars a year. I'm in college right now. That is all getting paid for through scholarships to university.

And I'm not sure how much is owed on how much is the damage on the car. OK, so the damage, I believe I've already paid the damage, but is damage and medical bills and I'm paying for right now, the total amount that I still owe is nine thousand dollars. But it's been going up in the since the two years. It started out like 2000 just for the damages. And then it keeps increasing. And every time that I talk to the insurance company, they tell me that they can't they don't know when it's going to stop.

And right now, since they're suing me, it's it's not a chance that it could go up more is what the attorneys and what the insurance companies like. If they win the case and they could potentially get out, who knows? It could be a quarter million dollar settlement, no money.

They're not going to get a quarter million dollar settlement on you for a nine thousand dollar fender bender. OK, not the medical bills. I was just thinking, what if this is a matter of the medical bills? Yeah, I mean, if did somebody almost die?

No, and that's the thing. I put the police around.

Nobody use ambulance, but there's no quarter million dollar claim here. Honey, you're OK. You're OK. Breathe. So you think I need don't file bankruptcy on nine thousand dollars?

Not at all.

You may need to get an attorney to get to get the negotiations straightened out, but if the only thing your attorney told you is to file bankruptcy, you didn't get the right attorney. Or if the only thing that I told you was you're up to a quarter million dollars, then you didn't get the right attorney. These are ambulance chasers, bull crap people, and you get away from them. OK, you need to get a real attorney, and it's probably going to cost you a couple grand and then you're probably going to be delivering pizzas every night for the next little while because you probably do all these people around 10000 bucks.

And that's the thing, I'm totally fine with paying the insurance company that's suing you. All right, stay far. Of course, you know, there are a complete pain in the butt that. They don't pay their claims, but more that come after you own yours.

So wait it out. No, you can't wait it out. It's not going away. You hadn't noticed that. So, no, you need to get a lawyer, honey, immediately, but you got a lot to get this lock down. You're not bankrupt over 10000 bucks, though. You do need to earn some money and get this paid off. I'm sorry if I missed. This is the Dave Ramsey. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show.

This episode is over, but if you heard about an event, product or service, it didn't have a chance to write it down. Don't worry. We list everything you've heard about during this episode in the podcast show notes or head to Dave Ramsey dot com. Thanks for listening.

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