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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting for the car rental studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show where debt is dumb. Cash is king in the paid off mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. Dr. John Maloney Ramsey personality is my co-host.

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Today here on the air, we are answering your questions about life and about money.

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It's a free call, a triple eight eight two five five two two five. That's triple eight eight two five five two two five tallies with us in Washington, D.C..

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Hey, Tyler, what's up?

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Hi, I'm a Christian, so I'm a baby for five and six. So I'm a single parent. And I wanted to see what your thoughts were, what it's like to survive. And that, I thought, was if I have to pay my house down by then, what are your thoughts on getting a home equity to pay for college?

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If I don't have enough by then, OK, no, on B, we're not going out of debt just to return. No, the purpose is to get out and never go back. OK, now once we got that out of the way.

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So how old are you? I'm sorry you broke up a little bit. I said, how old are you? And I'll be 40 next week. So how old's your baby? He's nine. OK, good. And what do you make a year? 120. Good for you.

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You are doing so good relations now. Well done. Well. OK, well, there's a couple of ways to approach it.

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The only way I would put baby step six paying off your house and doing almost nothing for college in the way is if that made you be able to cash flow college.

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Sometimes people will knock their house out and then they go, I'm on a cash flow college instead of saving for college or paying off the household. But slower. The other end of the spectrum is sometimes people say, I'm just going to pay the minimum on the house until I really pile up enough and I can check the box. There's so much money. I've got a 13 year old four years from now that has 150000 bucks in his account. I'm done now.

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I'm going to move on and pay off the house.

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That's the safest, easiest way because, you know, college is done. You know, I think about it again and then you can move on and pay off the house. But sometimes people do go the other way and they say, I'm gonna pay 50 bucks a month. And the college fund, you got to do something in baby step five. You have to touch the stone.

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OK, but but past that, if you want to pay 50 bucks a month and then just knock the house out. But the only way is if you think the math is going to allow you to cash flow college.

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And that, of course, has everything to do with your income and college choice where you choose to send the nine year old. But either way is OK because baby steps for for those of you listening, baby step four is after you're out of debt, you have your emergency fund in place.

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You're putting 15 percent of your income into retirement, five years, kids college, six years pay off the house early. We do those three simultaneously. The first three are not simultaneous.

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You do one at a time in order on the first three, but the last three or simultaneous and the fifteen percent you really do put you continually are doing that. That's what I mean by simultaneous, but you don't slow that one down. I'm going to put two percent into my retirement and load up college. No. Fifteen percent into retirement. Then we're going to do something for college and something on the house and the average person is paying off their home in seven years doing that, which oddly enough, is about where she is.

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She could have the house paid for, she said, by the time he got to college.

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So I that that one speaks to me. I've just worked with so many college kids that they don't know where they're going to end up or what they're going to do.

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I want to go to the school, to school. And the last second they meet some girl at summer camp. They end up going to this whatever the thing may be. I like the idea of not having a house payment and going the other way. Yeah, I like that. But again, I'm not there yet.

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And then cash flow and call it cash flow in college the way we ended up doing it.

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And it was just the way our life worked out. It really wasn't the quote, game plan at the beginning. We said we're going to start saving for college and we did start saving for college. And those days that weren't 529, you stood in the kid's name. It was a custodial account, had a mutual fund and the kid's name that simple.

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And we had that going along well. By the time they got to school, we were at the other end of this journey from having gone broke to becoming wealthy. Right.

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So we cash flowed college and didn't even touch their college.

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Mm. And then when they graduate, we handed in that mutual fund full of money. Yeah.

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Their star buddies that had that, that and that was a really nice way to kick off each of the Ramsey kids adulthood, you know, and made, you know, made their, their transition out the door that much easier and so forth.

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But we could have used the money. But really they went to University of Tennessee. It wasn't super expensive and we're making plenty of money. So we just wrote a check, covered the dorm, covered the apartment, whatever it was, and covered the tuition and stuff. And they had a little budget they were on and that kind of stuff.

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But if you do have it not in a mutual fund and it's in a 529, what is the exit strategy? If you get in that situation, you need to use it.

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You got to spend money to use it because it's just a shell game. At that point, it has to be used for if it's in a 529, you don't get the tax break.

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If you pull it out and use it for something other than hire it, OK, are other than education, education. Now, you can use it for any family member. You can use it to send mom to get her Ph.D.. Right.

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You know, but but but you know, you don't have to be for the person on the 529. You can transfer it now. But but it's just the same. You need to plan to use it. And even if they get scholarships, you can withdraw the amount of the scholarship out of the 529. So they got thirteen thousand scholarship. I take thirteen thousand dollars out of 529.

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No taxes. Wow. That's a good setup. Yeah.

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So that's a way to get if they you know, I don't want to do 529 because they might get scholarships. Well don't worry about it. You take the value of the scholarship out. If it's an athletic scholarship, you take the value of the scholarship and the university or give you the documentations to do that with. And you're set up for that.

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Autumn is with us in Columbus, Ohio. Hey, Autumn, how are you? Hi, I'm good, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? OK, so my husband and I both have pension plans through our employer, I have to contribute 10 percent and he has to contribute 12 and we cannot address that. So I was wondering, since that is 22 percent towards retirement, if we should and not adjustable, I was wondering if we should do more towards retirement or what?

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Because I don't hear my math is wrong to start with. It's not 22 percent of your household income. It's. 10 percent and 12 percent, right? Right. So when you take the total amount out of your checks as a percentage of your household income, it's going to be depending on who's what, but it's going to be somewhere around 10 percent of your household income. You see what I'm doing, OK? Yeah, you don't add the two figures together, that's not how the math works.

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So but anyway, the your question is still valid. And the question is, since I've got this mandatory freaking pension, does that change my baby? Step four, is that your question?

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Yeah, I just want to know that whatever we know, it's not to know because you're not in control of the pension. Right. You have no say at all over what happens with this pension. I'm not predicting that it crashes, some of them do, but I wouldn't want my whole thing bet on the competency of a pension fund manager and so.

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Right. Well, I don't know that you need to save 15 percent of your household income in addition to this, but you need to save a good chunk, maybe 10 percent in addition to this, because you have absolutely no control over this. It may underperform. It may fail. They may change the terms of it based on who's putting in about the time you're going out. And they get into all kinds of actuarial crossroads there and they change stuff up to protect themselves, not you.

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And so, I mean, I'm sorry you have to do it. It's mandatory, but I put in an additional 10 percent and a 401k is a Roth IRA. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Most home security companies try and trap you with high prices, tricky contracts and lousy customer support, simply safe, on the other hand, has everything you need to protect your home. With none of the drawbacks of traditional home security, professional monitoring keeps watch ready to send professionals if there's an emergency.

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So since 1994, we've been teaching Financial Peace University, over 50000 churches have now held a class and many, many other locations have held a class.

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The class consisted in the old days of a VCR, a VCR, playing a VHS tape, get all those TVs out of me, teaching, running around the stage, flapping my arms.

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And then the coordinator would put chairs in a circle, discuss that lesson, hold people accountable and encourage them. That model never really changed other than we went to DVDs and then later to streaming. Of course, Ramsey Plus now encompasses Financial Peace University and as of March, we have a lot of virtual classes now happening.

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Like almost all of them are virtual classes now happening where the discussion about the lesson from Financial Peace University within Remzi plus is there.

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So over the years we've had 12 on average, about ten or twelve, 12000 coordinators at any given minute. And somewhere around 30000 people have at one time or another since 1994 coordinated a class.

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These coordinators are heroes.

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They're on the front row. They sit on the front row and have a front row seat to watch people's lives be changed and also to participate in that by encouraging people when they're at their at their in many cases at their worst. And it's pretty incredible. So this week, we're honoring coordinators. We wanted to talk to a few of them here or there and just say, hey, thank you and learn about them.

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Steve Adkins's in Pittsburgh.

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And Steve has been a financial peace university coordinator. For how long, Steve?

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I first coordinated around 2009, and we are, I guess, going on about I think I've just added up about 71 classes. Oh, other bone volunteers more than I have.

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I was 11 in 2009.

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Man Well, you couldn't have gotten in Steve's class, so you might might still be the case.

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But anyway, go with your parents. You could have come. It's right. There you go. That's it. So how many people have you ever counted up? How many in that many classes. We probably we we have classes that vary from a handful up to 20 or 30, so probably around 700 and we're on that.

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That's pretty incredible.

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So thousands of people can when you consider those families that that have been through there, thousands of people that have been impacted by you, man. That's incredible. Thank you. Thank you so much.

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Why did you originally start what got you to do this the very first time. Well, it's really two things, our story and the stupid things that I did with money and and then the second part was just realizing that God's people, we serve the creator of the universe. And when you look at the statistics, our finances and the people at church are about the same as everyone else's. And that just doesn't seem right. So I have a heart to help change that.

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That's very cool.

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Very cool. Well, good for you, man. That's incredible. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So. Any particular stories of people that have come through the classes stick out to you that you remember you got?

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Man, I remember the time. There's all kinds of stories. The one thing that I was thinking about this, you know, we had six classes going in March when the shut downs happened. And so we converted all of those majority. One of them finished up the majority over to virtual. And then we did my wife and I led a class virtually and the group that we had, we had people in seven states. And I looked around and we had a financial crisis going on, a health crisis going.

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And then I looked around and we had people from every part of the country and different races and we had the racial crisis that was going on. And when I looked around, we just had to absorb that and just realize we still got a plan here that works. And if we can stick to it with all these things going around that are very important. So we just acknowledge that. But we still have to stick to it. And that class, we gelled probably better than any class I've ever coordinated.

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Wow. And it was just awesome. We have one lady who, you know, had no control and her daughter was in the class with her and she sold her house during the class where people selling cars during the class. It was just that class was just something special just because it was all the things that was going on around us.

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Yeah, they were surviving all the adversity. Mhm. Yeah. They had to push.

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We had to we had a guy with a guy going down in New York City working security and you know, we had other people that were involved and it was just wow, this is real life. Yeah.

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It all happened right there in the discussion in the virtual class. That's pretty cool. Very cool.

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So the virtual classes are the thing this fall. Obviously, they were in the spring as well, as you said, starting in March. And you're obviously leading virtual classes.

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Why should someone lead that's never done it before? A financial piece class. I can say I led my first class and I've never taken FPU, and so I know it's possible. And so just the life change that happens in that class, you get to witness that I don't know any other class or any other ministry where you see life change happen in the first and the second and the third week people start seeing hope and so more we inject hope into those people.

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And so by leading the class, you can inject hope into a few or a lot according to your class size. Mm hmm.

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Hey, Steve, I got a question for you. This is John. Last night I was on the phone with a friend named Lynn Jennings, and she is a researcher who studies secondary traumatic stress.

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And what that is, is the the pain, the actual psychological pain, the physical pain that comes along with people who serve alongside folks in their worst moments. And it's nurses and it's police officers and military folks and it's counselors.

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What tip would you give somebody for someone in your position who seventy-one classes? You have heard so many stories, so many hurting people, so many frustrated marriages. How do you keep yourself whole? How do you keep your marriage plugging along there when you deal so much and other people's hurt? Well, one thing that we my wife and I have known, we have our own issues and we plug into, I think we our daughter has an anxiety disorder called selective mutism.

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And we go to a therapist for that. We have a therapist that we go to as a couple. We have therapists that I work with or a coach, and it's to get help and build people around you. And also, you know, stay close to God is the number one thing. And and just realize that you can only do what you can do and don't you don't have to solve to solve all these problems. You just have to listen and be available.

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Yeah, that's that's a good word right there. Sharon used to tell me, John, when I would come home, she she would say, OK, Jesus, you can get off now.

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It's his job. Well, you don't have to be the Messiah. That job's taken. Yeah. You know, have to fix everything. It's not your job.

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You can't carry it all. You've got to set it down. In other words, you put it.

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Yeah, that was good. What a bold, vulnerable leader. Steve, that's incredible. Good for you, man.

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Well done, Steve. Thank you, man. Absolutely incredible. Well, that's the kind of people that coordinate classes, people that care deeply. And if you're one of those, we need your help. There's 16 million people out of work right now and they're not sure how they're going to make ends meet. And as a community, as a nation, we can give people hope. We can show them what to do exactly in Ramsey Plus and Financial Peace University, a virtual class, if you will, lead a virtual class in the month of September, we will give you Ramsey plus membership for a year for free.

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That's what's known as a deal, and we will show you exactly how to do it and what to do. You don't have to have a master's degree in finance. I don't. And I'm teaching it. So it's OK. We can get through this together. So seriously, if you want to lead a virtual financial piece class or you would even consider it and you just want to talk to our team about it, we need some help. We got a line of people wanting to do this stuff right now.

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They are they're sick and tired of being sick and tired, man. And folks need hope. Text the word unity to 33 789. Text unity to 33 789. All one word unity three three, seven, eight, nine.

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And we'll talk to you about being a coordinator on our as one of our virtual financial peace university classes that are all kicking off in the next week or two here. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. At Takeover's, we believe a great pair of cowboy boots won't just make you look taller, they'll give you the confidence boost that'll make you feel taller, too. At Takeover's, we make traditional cowboy boots for men and women that look great and feel great so you can walk into a big meeting or out on the town with comfort and confidence.

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And because we sell directly to you with no middleman to mark things up, you're going to get great quality at a great value. Find your parent to Covas Dotcom, slash Ramsey and walk taller.

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Erin is in Houston, Texas, Dr. John Deloney is my co-host here on the air today. Erin, you got a hurricane and you're debt free, huh? Did I not push the button? I'll try it again, Aaron. There you are. Hi. Hey, you got a hurricane on your debt free? Yeah, yeah. Good and bad things going on over here. But we're excited.

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I bet. Are you boarded up?

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Well, no, no, I'm we're we're prepared. We don't have to we don't live to we're kind of a little right outside of the area where it's hitting the worst. But we definitely have all of our supplies. And we we're going to be in the house the next few days.

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So you're here. You're hearing all the weather, though, obviously.

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Oh, yeah, for sure. We just heard our first little rumblings of thunder maybe about 10 minutes ago. So it's coming.

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Wow. So how much debt to be paid off?

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I paid off fifty five thousand seven hundred and eighty one dollars. Cool. How long did that take you?

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Eleven months and 11 months. Three weeks, to be exact. Wow.

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And your range of income during that year. One twenty seven to one thirty two, I believe. What do you do for a living? I'm a nurse practitioner full time and then part time clinical professional clinical faculty with one of the local nursing schools.

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So what was the fifty six thousand dollars in that?

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It was thirty two ish, 32000 of student loans. Twenty one on my car of eleven hundred or so of credit card and then just a couple hundred for to pay off my cell phone.

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OK, so you make one hundred and thirty. Basically you pay off 56 in one year.

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Yeah. That means you had nothing to eat. Beans and rice.

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Yeah we, we mostly. Yeah. Once I got Gizelle items everything came to a halt. Christmas like Telemachus for everybody. We didn't go out to eat, we didn't do any shopping. It was really like we got to get it done.

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Wow. You leaned into it so you could load every bit of this.

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You didn't have any extra, you know, 20000 savings or something like that.

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I wish I would have, but no, I didn't. I just buckle down and in cash flow it all.

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What caused you to get this intense? Eleven months ago. So I have kind of always heard about you. My mom is a huge fan and she would sprinkle your name here in there, never really took to it. I had some colleagues that mentioned going through your program. I honestly thought it was for married people because everybody that I always talk to about you was married. But at the beginning of last year, as I do every year, I sit down and write a plan for my life for that year, what I want to do, where I want to go.

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And Disney was on our goal for for twenty nineteen. And I sat down to plan Disney and I just began to think and dream of all the places I want to take my daughter, all the places we want to go, and along with some other things, with service projects and things like that that I wanted to do. And I just felt that I wasn't going to be able to do them because I didn't have enough money. And the big thing that really hit was in March of twenty nineteen.

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My grandmother, who is near and dear to my heart, was hospitalized and towards the end of her hospitalization, we were realizing that her care was going to change. She was an assistant living, but was going to be too closer monitoring. And so I brought to my aunt and my mom the idea of having a nurse come in. And when we found out that the cost of adding a nurse to her package, I guess, was going to be about five hundred and twenty five hundred thirty dollars extra per month, man, I didn't have it.

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Nobody else had it. And when I got off the phone with my aunt, I realized at that moment my carnot was five hundred and twenty eight dollars. And that kind of what for me, like I can pay five hundred dollars for my car, but I couldn't pay it for the care of my grandmother. And in that moment that I just had a certain I could feel the burden of my bills preventing me from doing the things that I desired and helping my family.

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So that's kind of what got me trying to find answers of how to get out of debt.

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When you start from that place, there's no stopping you. Not that is a good place to start. That's for real. And that was a longer up moment. So, OK, so the realization occurred. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. Then what did you do?

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So I found that crazy guy, Dave Ramsey.

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Well, kind of, but not really. So I first logged on to all of my account and I got all my totals and I realized, oh, my God, is something thousand dollars. What do I do? I was like a deer in the headlights. And so I was like, should I sell my car or should I get another job? I was like Googling those things. And just as God would have it in that whole process in about three weeks and I started getting notifications on my phone about Dave Ramsey podcast.

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And to be honest, I had it listen to podcast. I knew who you were, but not really. The first few weeks, I just swipe left and I just ignored and then on the third week I'll never forget, it was a Tuesday. I came home from work, was sitting on my bed again, thinking and contemplating, and a notification of a new Dave Ramsey episode came on my phone. And as soon as I went to swipe left, the Holy Spirit said, listen, and I listened.

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And of course, you were talking about getting out of debt. And I listened that night, the next night, the next after that and haven't stopped listening that I love it.

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I'm honored. So cool.

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Now I'm honored to be able to have found you in your program and all of you guys. It's been a true blessing.

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You are a hero. I mean, you are the I sit down and plan my life out before them every year.

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And that one study, I mean, the words that's amazing. And, you know, and I look over in my car payment is exactly what I need to spend on my grandmother. And that's not OK. And I mean, you really are coming at things from a very high plane. You're a hero.

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So tell people what's the secret to paying off fifty six thousand dollars in one year?

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For me, it was having a lie. I had to have a lie that was bigger than my right now. So I get easily distracted of things that come in front of me like today and right now. But I had to think past the right now look like some of my, you know, the things that I had on my my, my, my yearly plan, my three year plan. And so I say having a lie that's bigger than you're right now.

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And then definitely sticking to the budget, it helps you stay on track. Like you say, it gives every dollar a name. So it takes the guesswork out of it. And for me, one of the the first one of the things that I struggled with was when I was making the budget, but I wasn't sticking to it until I had this kind of other realization, like I have to treat the budget like it's the law and not a suggestion.

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And once I started doing that, it was like, no, this it's one hundred and fifty dollars in groceries. That's it's not like I suggest you spend one hundred and fifty dollars because then in the beginning two hundred and fifty dollars. So unless I really stuck to the budget it became like own my own accountability partner almost.

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These are the Ten Commandments, not the Ten suggestions. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I'm hearing a theme here.

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John Delaney, there is a I would call it an emotional maturity, a I understand I'm responsible for my life theme that runs all through her conversation.

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Have you heard at all? I mean, I feel I control my destiny. No one else does.

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Who taught you that? Your mom, your dad, your grandmother. Where did you get that from? Because, you know, I'm going to do a plan for my life. It's not OK that I can't take care of my granny.

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I'm going to fix this. And the budget.

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I had this realization every time you took responsibility for you.

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There's not a single iota of victim anything in any of your language. Where did you learn that?

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I honestly would have to attribute it to my my my upbringing with my my mom and my grandmother, my aunt. I can't I can't pinpoint one particular thing over time, but I would say it's a combination of this, how I was raised and just certain values that were.

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I can until somebody told you that's up to you. Yeah, I know this.

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If if my kid gets sick, I want Aaron came in here and that's my mission working on my my.

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But you're right. All right.

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We're going to send you a copy of Chris Hogan's book, Everyday Millionaires, because no doubt that is the next chapter in your story. Aaron is in Houston, Texas. 56000 paid off in eleven months, making 127 to 132 counted down.

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Let's hear a debt free scream. One, two, three. Yes, yes.

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My hat's up for Houston, where to go, Aaron, way to go to cool, I teach your kids are responsible and it changes your family tree, man, teach your kids they're responsible for their lives while she's powerful. What if this is the Dave Ramsey Show? Dr. John Boloney Ramsey personality is my co-host today here on The Dave Ramsey Show. Folks, if you don't know the main difference between houses that sit on the market and houses that actually sell are real estate agents who know what the flip they're doing.

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Not everybody has a real estate license, knows anything.

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I can just tell you someone saw one house here. Some of them sell 100 houses a year. Now, who do you want selling your house? Well, they sound amazing to me because they know what the flip they're doing starts with you.

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Knowing the value of a good real estate agent, it's worth it to find an experienced agent who not only cares about getting you 100 percent of what your home is worth, they've actually done it before, like last week, OK?

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Do not settle for a subpar real estate agent on your most expensive asset, your house, buying it or selling it. Go today, Ramsey dot com slash agent. Find the agent that we recommend in your area.

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Open phones at eight eight to five five two to five.

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Again, Dr. John Boloney is my co-host. We're answering questions about your life and your money. Steve is in Indianapolis. Hi, Steve. Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show.

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Hi, Dave and John. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I had a quick question for you guys, it's something I've been debating for the last couple of months, and I thought you guys were playing for the last 10 years or so, some in a pretty good position. I just wanted to give you a couple of pieces of info that I think will help. I'm trying to understand what to do with a large amount in my savings account.

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And I'm thirty one. I have three kids and a wife. Annual income is two hundred fifty thousand and I run about an eight thousand dollar surplus every month and I have two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars sitting in cash, some kind debating whether to chunk it all down on when my house or maybe make some additional investments such as a rental property.

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OK, how much do you own your home? Two hundred and seventy five thousand.

[00:31:58]

Let's put your house off. Hmm. And right now, I have two hundred twenty five in cash, I still have, and that's not counting any emergency funds.

[00:32:09]

So you got 50 left to go and you make and you're making eight thousand dollars a month surplus. And so in six months, the house will be paid for. And then we have the question, what do we do next? But until then, that's the answer. OK, let me just tell you this, OK?

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You make incredible money. So you're obviously a very smart guy. Stupid people don't make a quarter million dollars a year, OK? It just doesn't work that way.

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But what you cannot calculate, even as smart as you are, is how it's going to feel the day you have zero payments.

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Something switches deep down in your soul, a switch flips and you really realize that the Bible wasn't kidding when it said the borrower slave to the lender, when you don't have any payments in the world, it changes you.

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And that's the first goal, that's the first goal here. Then you've got more than 8000 dollars because your house payment is 2000 dollars, isn't it?

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2500 roughly. Yeah, you have a house payment more so now. We got 10000 dollars a month surplus when the house is paid for. Right. Right now, we save up and pay cash for whatever we want to buy.

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I don't care about some rental properties.

[00:33:22]

Do some investing in mutual funds, be outrageously generous and you probably ought to do all three. Yep, yep, that's the goal. Probably got to find your wife a better car. She mentions that weekly.

[00:33:39]

Maybe I'll do that for you, too. Anything else we're talking about then? OK, what's she driving? Wait a minute. Did I read your mail?

[00:33:44]

What's she driving toward the 2010 GMC Acadia? I mean, it looks nice, but yeah. Steve, listen, you're going you are rarely in your life going to find someone as stingy about cars than John Deloney. And I'm even shaking my head at your brother.

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Come on, man. Okay, go buy your wife a car and then let's get your house paid off and then let's build some investments.

[00:34:08]

Okay.

[00:34:10]

You guys are you are doing an incredible job, Steve.

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You're not going to make mistakes of overspending. That is not going to happen to you. It's just it's in your wiring. I mean, people don't call me up that have problems with overspending, that I've turned a thousand dollars in savings and make turn 50000 a year and tell me what their surplus is on their monthly budget spenders. Don't tell me these kind of things.

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So you're not going to make mistakes. Overspending, you're OK. There's a portion of your money you're supposed to enjoy. There's a portion you're supposed to invest and save, which is your nature, and there's a portion you're supposed to be outrageously generous with. So you need to have a portion of your budget that is for enjoyment for your family. And you you get great joy out of just saving. But your wife would enjoy a thing or two and you have earned it.

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Sure. She has earned it. She married you. You're an incredible dude, man. I'm so proud of you. Very well done. It's easy to poke fun, but you've done an incredible, incredible job.

[00:35:17]

Eddie is with us, Eddys in San Antonio. Hi, Eddie.

[00:35:20]

What's your question, Mr. Ramsey? Thank you very much for taking my phone call. I got a 22, 18 and 16. They're 22 in college right now. She's got a pretty good head on her shoulder. I'd let her walk out the door with a 10000 in her pocket and great VA and Texas veteran's benefits that she really doesn't have to worry about much. I hate to say I forgot to sell. Short teaching my son's financial planning and budgeting, I thought of everything else, but I didn't get to it, I don't think I did any better with my daughter.

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He's the 18 year old in his senior year high school. 16 year old was a junior. They're going to walk out of the house of about 10000 themselves, too, and also the same VA benefits and the Hazelwood act over here in Texas. I'm just. What else do I need to teach them to show them what they need to do so they don't have this phone call with you? Yeah, 10, 20 years in life. I'll jump in and then spend a bunch of years in higher ed.

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I want him to chime in on this, but I'll jump in there. Not live in the house with thousand dollars.

[00:36:34]

Start with. They're going to leave the House with a budget. Monthly that they're going to live on and that they have helped develop, so they believe it. And then I'm going to fund that budget out of that 10000. You don't hit the lottery because you graduate from high school and get a 10000 check and pray God, you know, you don't have to get a car. Car keys. You didn't know how to drive. You show them out.

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I even remember my daughter smartarse. I get to see what you spend. But that's too late. It's too late.

[00:37:06]

You don't give her the 10000 dollars. You give her money out of the 10000 dollars monthly to fund the budget that the two of you together worked up.

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And you're doing it together. This is what happened with Ramsha kids. All right. So what should he do?

[00:37:18]

John, I Eddie, I want to challenge your language, OK? You just say you failed them with a period at the end of that sentence, and I'm going to disagree with you. There is no greater gift. There's other gifts. A great gift a dad can give his sons is to take him out to breakfast and say, I left out a critical thing, a critical piece of information, and I gonna look you eight year old son, you're a man now.

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I'm looking in the eyes and tell you, I'm sorry. I'm going to put us through Financial Peace University. We're going to go through it together. We're going to do this plan together. I'm not too much of a macho Texan to say I wish I'd done this differently. When you were younger. I didn't. So here we go. And so failed as appeared at the end of it. I don't like that man. You're going to show your kids vulnerability and you can tell them you love them.

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And then, like Dave said, you're going to not just hand in the keys to the car and say, man, you're eighteen. I hope you make good decisions because we got enough brain science and we have enough newspaper headlines to show us that 18 year olds don't make great decisions because they're 18 and 16 year olds that are 16 year old man. So the greatest gift you can give your kids is this continual. I'm learning. I'm a dad.

[00:38:28]

I'm still on a journey. I'm still figuring it out. And I'm going to stop you every time I see you. And I'm going to let you know what I'm learning. I'm going to be vulnerable with you and I'm going to make you do it.

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I had no desire to teach you. The good news is we're on it now, though. The bad news is we're about to learn it together on it today. We're going to do it. That's right. The bad news is you got to do it anyway.

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And the kids are going to learn by watching you.

[00:38:47]

Yeah, they're going to grow from watching you. Exactly. So good for you, Eddie. Yeah. Hold on. I'm going to have your copy of the book, Smart Money, Smart Kids that Rachel and I did together. There's some good instruction in that along these same exact lines.

[00:39:00]

But yeah, well, just put them through financial peace university, put them in Ramsey plus two. That way they can do what John suggested. He and the son can go through it together. That's a good idea. It puts us out the Dave Ramsey Show in the books.

[00:39:27]

Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. This episode is over. And 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. Shout out or head to Dave Ramsey, dot com. Thanks for listening.

[00:39:44]

Hey, if you've got questions about retirement investing or becoming an everyday millionaire, go bigger and broader with my man Chris Hogan on the Chris Hogan Show. I am excited to be able to talk to you all week in and week out. We're going to focus on your calls and it's going to focus on building wealth investing and how to become an everyday millionaire. Subscribe to the Chris Hogan Show wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:40:07]

Hey, it's James, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but check the episode notes for links to products and services you've heard about during this episode. Thanks for listening.