Ram. 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. George Camel, Ramsey personality, is my co host today. He's also the co host of Smart Money Happy Hour and the host of The George Camel Show. Very popular on YouTube. Both ramsay network. Productions and we'll be taking your calls. The phone number is triple 8825-5225. Brian starts this hour in St. Louis. Hey, Brian. Welcome to the Ramsay show.

Hey, thanks for the call.

Sure. What's up?

My wife and I are trying to build a house, and we're discussing how much we should have saved ahead of time. I would like to have 100,000 saved, and she wants to start now. We're at about 40,000 saved.

Okay. So she isn't as concerned about the down payment as you are.

She's just excited to get going.

More so than concerned about the down payment, which you are. Yeah.

What does the payment process look like for this build? When is all the money due?

Well, we haven't started anything yet, and so I would like to save 100, hopefully get 200 out of our house, and then maybe go 350 total, and then just have 50 left to finish up when we're all done.

What do you make? Which we could what's your household in?

About 100.

Okay. So you're talking about a $350,000 build. Okay. And you got 40. How long does it take you to get to 100? If we went your way, what was your goal?

A little over a year.

So we're not arguing about 60. We're arguing about a year.

Right.

She wants to go now. You want to go in a year?

Correct.

Okay. Which means that if we go her way, you end up with $100,000 mortgage. Not a $50,000 mortgage.

Yes.

Or $110,000 mortgage, to be precise. Right. Am I doing all this correctly, Brian?

Yes.

Okay.

How sure are you this home is going to cost 350?

Not sure. That's just the goal that we'd like to keep it under.

Do you have a blueprint?

No, we haven't started anything.

Do you have a builder?

We have nothing. Just discussions.

Do you own the land?

We have family land set aside.

Okay. Sidebar before sidebar before we keep going. Family land set aside means that there needs to be a plat that is deeded to you, and you have the right to sell it someday if you all don't want to live there anymore. Otherwise, don't do this deal.

Right.

You don't build your house on daddy's land or your house on a lot that Daddy gave you off his land, and he says you can never sell it. Neither one of those are both deal killers. It would be purchased okay. And you would own it. Oh, wait a minute. What does the land the land is part of the 350?

Yes.

Okay. And then you would have full rights emotionally, relationally, legally to sell it later if you want to.

Yes.

Okay. I've taken that call a lot in the last 30 years. Someone that's stuck in a piece of property because everybody's going to be mad if they sell their own house.

Right.

Don't do that. All right, now back to the deal. So the land is how much?

$40,000.

And that's included in the 350, did you say, or not included?

Yes.

Okay. All right. We think but we really have nothing to base this on except square foot. And you think you're going to build X square feet. I would tell you this. I'm in the middle of building a house right now. It took us nine months from the time we decided we wanted to, to get a blueprint, a builder and a budget completed. Completed, I mean, from day one. And I've done it before, so I'm guessing that you can start on the process now, and it's probably going to take you close to a year.

Then you'll have that 100.

Yeah. Or not. It may take you nine months and then you split the difference. Right. But I think you can go ahead and get started, because here's what's going to happen. When you start drawing this house and you actually start talking to builders and you actually start getting bids, you're going to find out your numbers are wrong.

Right.

Or they change. And I doubt they change down.

Right.

You got to watch the scope creep thing here. Yeah.

My fear is this thing is double what you thought it was going to be. And now we got to relook at, is this the right next move or do we just buy a place?

I think you got bigger issues than when to start. Okay. You can start today on looking at builders and looking at Blueprints and getting it dialed in. And once all of that's done, if it's not been a year and you've got everything dialed in and you really can still do the numbers that you come up with, the real numbers, not hopeful numbers, then we can say, all right, I still don't want to start then. And what I would recommend back to your original argument is just split the difference. Instead of a year or starting now, let's say six months, but believe me, it's going to be six months at least.

I don't think we're starting next week on this build. We got some time or not.

Builders aren't working as much right now, so you probably can find one that'll give you some attention because of the rates. That's a good thing.

Just slowed down a little bit.

Very few specs going up if builders that are working are doing customs. And so very few home starts on specs because the market's really slow with the high interest rates. Prices have held firm and have gone up in most cases, depending on the market. But the build rate, new home starts are down. Way down. Way down. And specs have just about disappeared in most markets.

Wow.

Which is not a bad thing. It's okay, except there's no freaking inventory. But for Brian, it's a good thing because he's probably going to get some good attention.

Yeah.

Versus builder and subs are going to.

Be available going a million miles an hour. You don't want someone rushing through that home build.

Well, and you got 73 other clients instead of just you may be his prize client right now. It's possible.

Now, on the financing side, how would you suggest Brian go through with this? Because there's different ways when you're working with a builder to finance it.

Well, if it's 50,000, he probably can go over to the credit union, just get a loan. Simple. If it's going to be 110, 150, then he's probably looking at a formal construction loan and he'll have to get an appraisal on the plan. The general contractor, obviously, license will have to be shown to get the appraisal. And then they'll do that to get and you'll have to get approved for your permanent mortgage. And they give you a letter called a takeout letter, which means that they will be there to take out the construction loan at completion. The permanent mortgage will it'll convert over to a conventional and you can do all of that with Churchill Mortgage, every bit of that if you want to. But if you've got a little small loan, like a 50,000 out of 400 or 50 out of 350, probably just a credit union, not worth they'll just make you a loan. Like a personal loan, almost. Yeah. They're not going to put a lot of regulation on that. Not going to require the takeout letter, not going to require an appraisal, usually. But if you get up there over 100, then you're going to have a construction loan.

I just rewatched The Big Short over the weekend with this whole mortgage crisis, man. It puts things in perspective, how wild things were back in those days.

Well, The Big Short is all about all the fraud that happened.

Yeah.

And it was just people making up appraisals. And we got a whole new list of appraisal regulations in as a result of what happened in that movie. A whole different world. This is the Ramsay show. No matter what time of year it is, focusing on your family's financial plan is always a smart move. I get questions all the time about where to start and what to do first. Getting term life insurance needs to be a top priority. I recommend ten to twelve times your income and lock in rates for 15 or 20 years. This gives you plenty of time to get out of debt and build wealth. I've been recommending Xander Insurance for over 25 years. They understand and live this strategy and will take the time to help you find the most affordable term life rates. Go to Xander.com or call 803 564282 george Camel Ramsay personality is our co host today. Open phones at triple 825-5225. Thanks for being with us, America. We're here to serve you. Our joy comes when we can show you what to do, and then you actually go do it, and it causes you to win. Bing, bing.

That's how that works. That's what this has been about for 30 plus years now, and it continues to be. Jody is with us in Springfield, Illinois. Hi, Jody. Welcome to the Ramsay show.

Hi there.

Hey, what's up?

Well, I'm kind of embarrassed to ask this question, but I am a 50 year old widow who has been widowed for 15 years. I have helped put my children through college, and I have no retirement. So I am ready to start retirement, and I don't even know where to begin and how much to put in.

There's nothing embarrassing about any of that. It sounds good.

You make me feel good.

Sounds like you're a wonderful person. We just need to get on the ball, right?

Yes.

So what do you make.

About I was just sitting here figuring this out. I bring home about 36,000 take home a year.

Okay. So your income is somewhere around in the low 40s, maybe 40. All right. What do you do?

I am a social worker.

Okay. All right. And do you have any debt?

I do not.

Your house is paid for?

Yes.

Well, that's great news.

That means most of your income can go toward investing. So you have zero saved right now.

Right.

What do you have in the bank?

Well, here's what I have. I have my emergency fund of $1,000. I have three months of my emerge in case something happens. But that's about all I have at this point. So I'm on the Dave Ramsey boat. I'm scared it's to a point to where sometimes I cry because I'm like, what am I going to know? Because I don't know, because when my husband passed away, I use life insurance and all that kind of stuff to pay my house off. So we had a roof over our head and all that kind of stuff, because my kids were seven and ten when all of this happened.

Wow, you've had a lot of life happen hard. I totally understand. We're not here to beat you up. We want to give you some good next steps to take. And if you're following the baby steps now, that puts you at baby step four, because you have no debt. Fully funded emergency fund. And really it's step seven because you have a paid for house. And so now the kids that are schools paid for, we got to put our own mask now. Put our own mask on. And that looks like investing for retirement as aggressively as possible. Do you have a retirement plan through your employer?

Here's what I have. And I didn't know what route to go, but there's a 403 B. Okay, I don't know much about that. I've kind of looked do they have a match? No.

Okay. I would not do that. Then I would first do okay. I mean, I may do some there, but we would first do a Roth IRA. Okay?

Just a plain Roth. Not a traditional Roth, a Roth.

So what I want you to do is go to ramseysolutions.com and click on SmartVestor and get a SmartVestor pro in your area to sit down with you and they can help you run some calculations. Okay? Now let me give you an example. You bring home $3,000 a month. You do not have any bills except survival bills. You have no debt, no rent, no nothing. Okay?

Correct.

If you were to save, invest $1,000 a month for 15 years at 65, you're going to have right around a half a million dollars. Right. Around $500,000.

Really?

Yeah. Okay. What this means is not that you're rich and it's really not enough, but it's enough to make sure you're not cold and hungry.

Right.

Because it will produce then let's just reverse engineer this, which is very interesting. Okay. Let's pretend it produced 10% a year on the mutual funds after that and that you retired and had no retirement income. And I suspect you probably have a retirement with your government agency, don't you, that they furnish you a pension.

Yeah, actually, my husband I get a pension off of him, but that thing.

But do you get a pension from your work when you retire?

No.

Okay.

It's just Social Security. I pay into.

Yeah, absolutely. Which is horrible. But that's okay.

All right.

So if you had a half a million at 65 or 67 or whatever and it was invested at 10%, 10% of 500,000 is 50,000 a year right. Without touching the nest egg, without touching the goose, it will lay 50,000 golden eggs a year.

Wow.

And so you'd actually be making more at retirement than you are now.

No kidding.

So you're going to be okay. That's the point. You're not going to be rich. But even if my numbers are off a little bit and they might be one way or another, actually, they probably are off in this case because you probably will not be making $36,000 for the rest of your life. You'll probably be making more. And so you could invest probably more later. Agreed.

Right.

Yeah. I did that based on $1,000 in your current income. So I want you to sit down with a SmartVestor pro. And we don't know how the scenarios will compare to actual life, but you can run some scenarios like I just did just to get the idea that I don't have to cry. Because if you'll start now, Jody, and you'll start investing close to a $1,000 or more than $1,000 a month, you get your budget tight. And you do that, you're going to be okay. Matter of fact, you're going to be better than okay.

That makes me cry. Just being happy.

Yeah. So I want you to sit down, but it also needs to make you get on the budget and do it. It also means you to get on the phone and get on with those SmartVestor pros and go sit down with them and learn and let's get this stuff started. Not next week, not next year, now. Okay? Right now. Because every day you put this off, it gets harder. If you put it off a year, it's going to take 1200.

Yeah.

Don't put it off anymore. You put it off as long as you can. The fuse is burning. So I want you scared enough that I scare you into action, but I don't want you terrified anymore, so you're paralyzed.

I got it. I'm on it. I'm doing it today.

I love you. You're awesome. Call us back and let us know how it's going, okay?

Okay. Thank you guys so much. I appreciate it.

Thank you, sweet lady.

Love that. She just needed a little motivation that she's not doing as bad as she thought she was. And the time to start is today.

What's interesting about what we do for a living, when we talk about getting out of debt or we talk about building wealth, numbers actually give you a result that gives you hope when you run math. Okay, I got $100,000 in debt. I'm never going to get out, what's, 33,000 a year for three years? I mean, it's $2,600 a month and you make $150,000. Shut your winding up. All of a sudden, the numbers give you hope, right? The math gives you hope. In her case, it's $1,000 a month for the next 15 years and not missing a month and getting started immediately and getting good returns and good mutual funds, which probably that 403 B does not have. That's why I directed her away from that. Let's go first to the Roth IRA.

With more control, more options, a lot.

Better options, a lot better mutual fund options out there. Now, I can be off, and if you all want to argue with my numbers, that's fine, argue with my numbers. But here's the point, get with it. If I'm half wrong, she's still going to have 25 $26,000 a month coming in, or 25 $26,000 a year coming in versus nothing, which your little plan you critique, critic people out there, creates nothing. That's what critics create, nothing.

Well, the new one, Dave, is well, a million dollars isn't enough anymore, Dave.

That means a half million dollars is half of not enough. But it's more than you got if you be broke and crying about it. Hello.

We'd love for you to have multiple millions, but I mean, in this case, you could see 500,000 would still change your life.

The only way she's going to get to over a million is she's going to raise her income substantially so she could invest twice as much because 2000 a month for 15 years at 12%, my mutual funds have averaged 12% for the last 30 years, my personal portfolio, and I'm not a genius. The market has averaged 11.8% in the S and P. So, by God, shut up and go do it. So could you end up with a million dollars in 15 years? Yes. Two grand a month. That's it, roughly. I mean, there it is. Ding, ding. This is the Ramsay show. Remember, folks, your forever home can be forever, but your interest rate doesn't have to be. We haven't seen a real estate market like this in a long time. And Churchill Mortgage can help. Churchill is the only mortgage provider we trust to help you do it the Ramsay way and navigate interest rates over time. Go to Churchillmortgage.com to learn more. This is a paid advertisement.

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37027. George Camel. Ramsay personality is my co host today. Open phones at triple 8825-5225. So our team handed me this. This is cool. George in March, Andrew came and did a debt free scream with me, and Dr. John Deloney was on the air and we celebrated him paying off $303,000 in 49 months. Wow. His student loans, car debt, home improvement loan, credit card and a house paid off his home. And then we get an email from him that he had a chance to go back to his alma mater, his high school, to one of our foundations in personal finance classes, Warshaw High School. And he put this quote on Facebook, 2009 WHS grad. This is what they put on there. Andrew returned to his alma mater today to chat with the senior financial planning class about his financial journey and becoming debt free. He completed the Dave Ramsey class and paid off his debt. This class is also completing the high school version of Financial Peace University. Thanks for coming, Andrew. Which is called foundations in personal finance. Very cool.

What a great poster child. These kids are going, oh, this I got to watch another video. And then they're seeing this guy who.

Was from their high school, who graduated from the same Sat, the same desk.

They sat, who has no payments in.

The world at a very young age, 100% debt free. Wow. Ding, ding, ding, ding, house and everything, and go in and tell the high school seniors, it can be done. That's how we do it.

Some social proof.

Yeah. We've got the Foundations in Personal Finance high school curriculum that now 6 million students have been through since we started it. It's been in 48% of the high schools. It's currently in like 40% of the high schools. And more and more states are now making personal finance mandatory.

I love it.

So we've been adopted by, for instance, the Texas State School Board or the adoption process to adopt the curriculum. And we were just adopted in Florida.

Oh, that's right.

A couple months ago.

It's a big one.

So florida's got a big push, brand new push. Texas has had it for a while, and they've got their second push coming to get all the seniors before they graduate through our kids, before they graduate at some point as a senior or junior, whatever, through a personal finance curriculum. And we have the largest, most successful one, and florida just adopted ours as well. Now they've got other brands that they can but so now each of the local school boards are selecting whether they're going to use ramsey or whether they're going to use something else. But really excited about it and happy to be in Florida. Thanks, Florida. We appreciate you. And actually, I got to meet the state senator. We were down there doing an event in Orlando.

I remember that you met him, too.

He was in the green room.

It was incredible.

And that sponsored a bill that got passed in Florida to make personal finance a mandatory it's not elected a mandatory class for graduation at a certain date in Florida high schools. And that precipitates then the high school curriculum or personal finance curriculums getting adopted. And we're one of the high school approved adopted curriculums in Florida. So excited about that. So if you're around one of the florida school boards or you're a teacher or whatever and you want to push for our curriculum being in your school, we would appreciate it. And way to go, Andrew. Thanks for going back to your school. I don't know where Washaw high school is, but it's not on this. But it's pretty cool that a guy does that and goes back and speaks to the class.

Everyone going, they don't teach this stuff in school. We do now.

Yeah, it is in a bunch of the states now, and that's obviously been doing it a very long time, very successfully. We meet all the benchmarks. We've got an ramsay education solutions department here that we've been running for, I don't know, almost 20 years now. And the guys and gals in that department that put this curriculum together that we use in the high schools are from the education world. And so our stuff meets is the easiest for teachers to operate because the lesson plans are done, the testing is done right. It's all built out to where it's as low lift as possible.

Former teachers going, I wish this is how it was created.

I wish everything was created this way because our guys are putting it and it meets all the educational benchmarks and legalities and so forth that we have to meet in order to be in a public school system. And so we do every bit of that and man, we're just thrilled, thrilled so many people are getting able to do this. And this is cool that Andrew did that. That's a lot of fun. Isaac is with us. Isaac is in Huntsville, Alabama. Hi, Isaac. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Thanks for having me. How are y'all?

Better than we deserve. What's up?

So my wife and I are fixing to be going through our first divorce, and she's going to keep the house that we currently have, and thanks to a wonderful support system, I'm going to be able to move back in with my parents while I get back on my feet. And at this point, I'm just wondering kind of what's next? How do I start over from here?

What should be the correct step I take?

How old are you?

I am 32 years old.

How long were you all married?

About five years or so, maybe.

You have children?

A five year old son?

Yes. I'm sorry. What do you make?

About $33 an hour. About $4,000.

Take home a month.

Okay. Well, to answer your question, you're just going to start laying out a game plan to build enough financial life that you move into this next chapter. Right. I mean, first goal would be to get on your feet enough that you had a little bit of money saved, and you go get an apartment. Right, right. Obviously, your parents are providing a safety net, not a hammock.

Correct.

And so you're just passing through. And like you said, that's a wonderful thing, and I'm not upset about that at all. But I would give myself a number of months, like three or six months or something, and say, by then I'm going to have enough saved to have deposits and get an apartment, get my own place, get some furniture, get restarted, in terms of almost as if you were moving out after high school or college. Right?

Right.

Once you've kind of got a standard of living set and a place to live, then you start doing the baby steps, and you make sure you get out of debt, and you build an emergency fund, and you start investing, and you're going to figure out that there's another chapter to this life after 32 years old. Right?

Right.

So this setback is going to be a comma, not a coma, so keep that in your mind. This is temporary. You're going to have a whole nother life on the other side of this thing. This doesn't define you, but it will refine you. And so now is the time to make some choices that will set us up for the next ten years. So do you know, as the dust settles, what the financial picture looks like as far as child support, alimony, the house debt?

So I will be taking the car that she's currently driving, and she's going to take the car that I'm currently driving because it's paid off, and the car that I will be getting is not somewhere around 21,000 on it. The way we've worked everything out between us, everything's very amicable, so it's going to be uncontested. So the way we have it worked out. No child support, no alimony or anything. It's all going to be we both put in everything we can for him.

And she's keeping the house. And you're not getting any money out of this out of the house deal.

Correct.

Okay.

I'm not a lawyer, and I'm certainly not a lawyer in Huntsville, Alabama. I don't think a judge is going to approve a divorce decree that does not include child support.

Okay.

You probably need some legal advice not to create a stink, but I think you're going to be under the law in most states required to do something for the kid. From a legal perspective. I know you were going to from a moral perspective, but I don't know. I don't know what I'm talking about. So you need to check that out because I had fireworks go off in.

My head, but it can't just be handshake agreement.

I don't think it can be you check me out. I could be wrong. Okay, so the house, what's the payment on the house?

550 a month.

What does she make?

Bringing home is about 2000 a month.

She's going to struggle with that. And your name is still on the mortgage. And if you try to have a new life five years from now and she hasn't paid the bills on time, then your credit is going to have been damaged. So I'm not sure this is a great plan, brother. I know it sounds like it's all nice. It's all nice until it's not. And then when she gets in trouble, lose her job, you end up paying a house payment for somebody you ain't married to anymore because you're still on the mortgage. This is the Ramsey show.

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George Campbell Ramsay personality is my. Co host today open phones at Triple 8825-5225. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. Johnny is with us in Irvine, California. Hi, Johnny. Welcome to the Ramsay show.

Hi there. Thank you for taking my call. How are you guys?

Better than we deserve. What's up?

Great. Well, I'm calling to see what you guys would do if you were in my shoes. I'm 22 years old. I fully support myself. I take home about $5,000 per month. I have zero debt. I have $60,000 in savings, a $3,000 emergency fund, and I've been listening for the past year or so. And some of my friends and mentors are into long term real estate investing, so I've been saving toward that for the past couple of years. Ideally, I'd like to start building some long term wealth, and so I just wanted to see what you guys would do if you were in my shoes.

Wow. You are beyond ahead of the game. Well done. Very well done.

Thank you.

Well, I probably have a different view on real estate investing than your mentors. Sure. And I probably own more than they do, given that I own about 600 million worth. Okay. But anyway, I do not believe in borrowing money, Johnny, and you've heard that listening to the show. And I don't for my real estate investing, I pay cash for it. And so the first real estate investing I did and I've always loved real estate, that I did after going broke and starting completely over. And with this new I don't borrow money thing as a part of the guidelines was I didn't do real estate investing at first. I just started piling money in mutual funds. And when I got enough in an index fund is what I used, an S and P 500 index fund. It took me about five years to buy my first income producing property. I paid cash for it, and then I took all of those rents, net of expenses and any other money I could, and I threw it in an index fund until I had enough to buy another property. And then I took all the rents from the two properties and any money I could scrape together from anywhere else, book royalties or whatever else.

And I bought another property for cash. And every time I bought another property for cash, I had more cash flow to buy another property faster than I did the one before. Does that make any sense?

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

That is a very long term play versus what you have been considering until this phone call.

Sure.

Because you're thinking about getting up a down payment and going buying a nice little duplex in California.

Exactly.

Yeah. And I'm telling you to wait and pay cash for it, which your friends aren't going to like, and I don't really care. They're wrong.

That's true.

But you called knowing you were going to get a different take, which tells me you're actually interested in this take.

I am. Yeah. I've just been curious what to do, because I feel like I've been saving decently, and I'd like to continue that. But once you get a certain amount of money, I feel like it burns a little bit of a hole in your pocket. You're ready to jump into it. Yeah.

And you've done really well, Johnny. I mean, let's face it. You're 22 years old. You have $60,000 in the bank and no debt at all, and you're making five K a month. You're killing it. Ding ding. I appreciate that. Very impressive.

And it doesn't sound like you lead a super luxurious lifestyle. You're a saver.

I try to be, for sure. There's a balance.

So the key is to keep living on less than you make.

What would be interesting, if you want to be really nerdy, I don't know how nerdy you are. I'm real nerdy is, and I've done this a couple of times, and it always works. That's why I'm putting you up to it, is if you say, all right, when I'm 42, would I rather own $10 million worth of real estate with $8 million worth of debt, or would I rather own $3 million worth of paid for real estate?

Yeah, I think the clear answer is the 3 million.

Yeah. And then here's the exercise. Run out. The purchase snowball, which is not a debt snowball, but the way I talked about a while ago, rents, buy more, buy more, buy more, buy more. Everything's folded back into the next deal. And the slower start ends up with a faster end. The faster start ends up with a slower end. My way is slower start, but has a big time payoff at the end because it hockey sticks from an exponential mathematical equation perspective. Does any of that make sense?

Yeah, definitely it does, because when you.

Get all this property that's sitting there paid for, you are buying more property faster than you would have if you had a whole bunch of property that's not even close to paid for. And it's not cash flowing nearly as generously. So the math says I can buy more property faster. Now, it's ridiculous what my real estate fund now looks like from my real estate income now, because I'm at the back of the story, right. But I can't get people to think long term, and I might have just got 122 year old to do it, though.

I'm impressed. He sounded interested.

Yeah.

We can just get off TikTok. We'll get there for real.

Jake is in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Jake. How are you?

Hey, guys.

It's an honor to speak with you.

Thanks for having me.

Our pleasure. How can we help, sir?

Yeah, so I'm 35 years old, have no debt, and am about to step into baby step six. And my question is, you talk about baby step seven, living and giving like no one else. I have no problem with the giving aspect of things. The part that is a little tricky for me to wrap my mind around is the living like no one else because I am a pastor. And so to be stepping into baby step seven, hopefully here in the next five or six years, I'm trying to imagine life in my 40s, living like.

No one else while being a pastor.

And living in the community of people who have paid for my financial success, you could say. I don't know how else you would put it, but how should I think.

Through that as I look forward to.

The next five or ten years?

Yeah. Well, don't muzzle the ox as he treads out the grain. You've probably read that scripture, right?

Yeah.

And a worker is worthy of his hire. You've probably read that Scripture, right? So are you a good pastor and you're worth what they pay you?

I sure hope so.

Then if you use that money wisely in Christianity, we would call that good stewardship, wouldn't we? Yeah. I think you're modeling for those people what the results of good stewardship are, that it ends up with wealth. But we're taught by Karl Marx, not by Jesus, that wealth is evil. Wealth is not evil. People are evil, particularly some of them in your church. I'm kidding. But not much. But yeah, anyway, so you're always going to have a hater whether you win or you lose. If you do it at scale.

Yeah.

If you lose, you aren't a good steward, and you're horrible and you worked your whole life and you have nothing to show for it. And we call that being a good steward. That's not a good steward. That means you did a bad job handling your money. So you're supposed to model for your congregation. How to be a good husband, how to be a good dad. Right, right. How to be a great leader. We're supposed to model in Christianity, it's called a witness. And yet my friend Craig Rochelle says, why is it that wealth is the only blessing from God we're supposed to apologize for? And I've got several friends that are pastors that are a decade and a half ahead of you, and they're facing the exact same thing, because they have systematically, carefully invested in their 401 KS and in their Roth IRAs and in their retirement programs. And some of them have bought real estate carefully, and they don't have jet airplanes. They're not on TV. It's none of that junk. They're just good guys as a pastor, and they've been careful with their income. And most of them are millionaires because they did the stuff I teach.

But now there's always some Doober that says, well, pastor should never be a millionaire. Yeah, that's what I want. I want my pastor to be broke and stupid. No, I don't either. Pastor should never listen, I want my pastor. I want his marriage to be something I can look up to. I want his kids to be something I can look up to. I want the way he handles money to be something I can look up to, because obviously the book he is reading has having an effect on his life. And I want to know more about what that book called. The Bible says then, but not if you're so but you're always going to be criticized, Jake.

Whether it's about your message or the car you drive, there's going to be someone out there.

And if you're a Christian, you have to drive a used Accord, because that's what Jesus said. They were all in one Accord.

Oh, that one still gets me.

This is the Ramsey Show, 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. Open phones at jenna starred oh, George Camel. Ramsay personality is my co host today. He's also the co host of Smart Money Happy Hour and the host of The George Camel Show on YouTube, which is exploding, by the way, one of our more popular Ramsey Network launches in the last year. Jenna is with us. Jenna is in Seattle, Washington. Hi, Jenna. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi. Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited to talk to you guys.

You, too. What's up?

So I have a situation that feels complicated to me, but likely not to you guys, which is why I'm calling. I am the sole provider for my family, and I'm self employed as a therapist, a mental health therapist in private practice, and I make good money, over $200,000 a year and over ten years, it's been amazing. But I'm paid pretty irregularly, mostly by insurance companies, and I usually know by Sunday evenings kind of what my deposits are going to look like, but they tend to be slightly different each week. And then I also get kind of random payments, like copayments from patients or just kind of paper checks. It's sort of predictable, but also not predictable.

How long you been doing this?

How long have I been doing this? Over ten years, actually.

So over the course of a year, it's very predictable. Over the course of six months, it's fairly predictable. Over the course of one week, it's not correct. Okay, so give us some. What's your question?

So we're struggling to budget as far as kind of grocery shopping weekly versus monthly, just kind of really trying to understand our money better. We've kind of banked on, like, we just make good money, and so money just sort of disappears, and I'm trying to do better. My husband and I are trying to do better. My one caveat question I want to throw him under the bus is he also refuses to drop the coffee stand and wants to keep it in the budget. And I want to mix it from the budget, so I want you guys to give me some.

You mean buying a cup of coffee at a coffee stand?

Correct.

This is not your problem.

No, it's not my problem.

You need to lose that battle and win the war.

He needs a budget line item.

He gets his coffee, and we get a budget together that we both work on that accomplishes our overall goals. Coffee is not keeping you from doing that.

I agree.

All right. That one's under the bus. You lose, he wins. Next. All right, George, how do we do an irregular income?

So the simplest way to look at this is look at what a low month would be for you guys. We know it's not going to be zero, right?

Correct.

So what would be a low month?

A low month would be 12,000.

Okay. So we start there. We'll input that in the budget, and when more money comes in, we'll just add that income into the budget on the income side. Got me?

Okay.

Yes.

Then on the expense side, we're going to do it a little differently because it's irregular. We're going to make a prioritized spending plan. So let's have our four walls. We got to cover the bills, the rent, the mortgage, all of that stuff. First, food on the table.

You should have set food budget that is fixed that easily fits within $12,000, and it should not have to change based on the irregularity of the income. Okay. Other things will change based on the irregularity, but not food.

Okay.

Because it's first.

Now, are you at risk of running out of money even while in that bad month of $12,000, or are you just trying to go, hey, we should be saving more with all of our expenses?

Well, no, we're not at risk of running out of money. I just don't feel like we're throwing enough at our snowballs.

Perfect.

Yeah. We're not at risk of running out of money. As far as our needs go, I just feel like after that, it sort of just disappears.

Got you.

But it's not disappearing into the coffee stand. There's other places, other money leaks.

Well, what she's saying, I think and I don't put words in your mouth is disappearing into the disorganization and the chaos, and I want to get a handle on this so I can feel like I'm doing a good job.

Correct. It's like, one week I'll pay the comcast bill, and then the next week I'll pay a different bill, and I just don't feel like I'm organized enough. And so I feel like I want to have a better understanding. And I was thinking similar to what you were saying. If I just created an idea budget, and then whatever kind of comes extra, I could even just throw at our snowball.

If you can live on the 12,000 without touching it and you get to everything you need to do, you could run a budget on 12,000, and every extra dollar above that goes to your debt snowball. That's an easy fix.

Okay.

If you need 13,000 to live, but twelve is your low, then you've got to add 1000 to those last few things before you start the debt snowball. That's what George is saying.

Yeah. So including our business expenses, we need about 9000 to live. 9000 to live.

Okay. Your business needs to be running separately.

Yeah, the business is running separately.

No, you don't have it included. Okay. It's not running separately if it's included. Hello. So here's the thing. We run a business budget, and then when we bring money home from our net profits after paying the business expenses, then we work with that. So your business expenses run what?

My business expenses monthly is only $2,300 a month.

Okay. All right. So you actually have a low of 9700.

Yes.

Because you're not bringing home that 2300.

Correct.

Okay. Based on what we're doing, you need to have that separated out and keep it set completely separate. Run a separate set of books, separate checking accounts, separate everything for the business.

We actually give ourselves a weekly paycheck.

We give ourselves yeah, but that doesn't matter. And then you need to cash out the rest of the profits beyond your weekly paycheck and beyond your expenses, out of the business account, over into the personal account. But the same principle will still work because the same math applies. I just split it apart. Okay, so you're still okay, 90,700 will still do it. If 2300 stayed at the office, you can still do it on 9700, and everything else will go to the debt snowball and then some. So in the 9700, some of it's going to the debt snowball, but that's just how much more we put on the debt snowball. And every dollar premium will cause you to be able to do that. We've got a thing in there called paycheck planning that works really well for the irregular income, and you and your husband can sit down together and lay the whole thing out on the app or on the desktop, whichever you choose to do with every dollar. And it'll lay all out, and we'll give you three months free and get you started on the every dollar premium.

Okay, awesome.

Cool.

Thank you, guys.

All right, hang on. We'll have the team pick up and give you three months for every dollar premium because that'll do it perfectly.

Oh, yeah. And it'll help him see where's all this money going. What did we decide we were going to do this month?

Yeah. And then the only choice you're making is $8 or whatever the flipping coffee is. It's ridiculous, but I mean, $8 is not going to get you out of debt, but you are going to start looking at everything, including the coffee.

You'll see how much money you're wasting.

How much more can we throw? How far are we going to cut our lifestyle versus the debt we have, versus the $200,000, not really $175,000 income that we have. This is the Ramsay show.

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George Camel, Ramsay personality, is my co host today. Open phones triple 825-5225. I was just telling George a story, and Austin, you need to hear this too. In 2012, I took a call here on the air from a guy who had a side hustle, and he said, I love my side hustle more than I like my job. When can I quit my job and do the side hustle? I want to double down. My parents say I'm crazy for doubling down. My wife says I'm half crazy for quitting my job. He was a pharmacist, so he spent a lot of money and a lot of time getting to be a pharmacist. And he said, I want to quit pharmacy. I want to go into this whole other side of things in the gun industry. And I'm like, okay, so I'm a gun guy. So I'm talking to him and listening to him. I'm like, yeah, that's pretty cool. So I said, how much do you make? And he said, I made 65,000 on my side hustle. How much you make as a pharmacist this year? This is 2012. He said, 60,000. I said, well, double down.

I'm on your team. I would advise your wife that you should go after this. It's what you love. It's your passion. I would advise your mom and dad that they're very sweet, but they're wrong and that you should go after this. So a couple of weeks ago, I was out west, and I visited the guy's business. He did 70 million last year.

That hurts my brain. Wow.

And he acts like I did it, and I'm like, I didn't do anything. I talked to you for five minutes. You've worked for, what, 1112 years on your business? You built your business. I didn't build your business. I'm so proud of you, though. I'll take credit for lighting a fire, but, dude, you burned the forest down, man. That is way to go. Way to go, man. That's pretty cool. We don't always get to hear the other follow up eleven years later to taking some of you guys calls out here. So some of you ought to tell us if we screwed it up twelve years later or if we got it right. Whatever. Yeah.

Goodness.

Pretty cool for him. Pretty cool. I'm impressed with him. Sharp young guy, too, obviously. Tod is in Fort Wayne. Hey, Todd. Welcome to the Ramsay show.

Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

I've got a quick question for you. Back in 2009, 2010, when there's a big recession that we all heard about, my business went in pretty deep. And since then, I've paid back everybody I can and taken care of all that. But I've got one credit card that went after me and in 2000 through collections, and it took me to small I guess you call it small claims court, because I got a letter for a judgment against me. But at that time, I was still trying to keep my head above water.

How long ago was the judgment?

It was 2015. August of 2015.

Eight years ago. Okay.

Was the first one?

Yes, the first one. Yeah.

The amount was about 2000, $3,000. But of course, with all their fees, that judgment was for 8000 round numbers. And anyway, I just got another certified letter today. I didn't know how to for sure how to contact these guys. I just knew it was out there. But they've added 2000 to it anyway. It says they have 14 days to congest. I'm assuming a court hearing. I didn't know the first time I could do that.

But I don't think they'll get to have a court hearing on this one.

Okay.

Because it's gone too long. Yeah. So let's learn a couple of things here. Number one, you owe these people some money and you're not disputing that. Agreed? Yes. And the original balance was what?

I don't know for sure. It was like 3000 or something, but with their fees original.

No, I'm talking about fees. I'm talking about what you actually owe them.

Oh. The first one was 79. 97. So $8,000.

No, that was with the fees.

Okay.

When you had a credit card before it went to collections, the balance on the credit card was $3,000, wasn't it?

Yeah. Somewhere around there.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Okay, here's the thing. They said they've added another $2,000. So it's now $10,000, right?

Yes.

Okay. There's a whole industry out there that most people don't even know is out there, called debt buyers. And they buy old, bad, probably uncollectible debt. Probably uncollectible because the person has already filed bankruptcy and they don't get anything. But they still will buy the debt, sometimes not knowing that. Or the debt has gone too long and it's past the statute of limitations in that county or that city or that town or that state. And so it's not collectible, which I think is probably the case with yours. Anyway, they probably get zero, technically, legally, but they buy old, bad debt. Now, let me tell you what they pay for it a nickel on the dollar, maybe less.

Yeah.

So this guy calling you or certified lettering you with a $10,000 bill likely has two hundred and fifty dollars to five hundred dollars invested in your account.

Okay.

That's good information if you're going to call him and offer him $3,000. Yeah, I want to do right by this debt. I'm willing to pay $3,000. That's all I'm willing to pay. If you want one dollars more, I'm going to give that to a lawyer, and I'm going to fight you to the death, because I don't think you can collect this at all because it's gone too long.

So this letter is from our county courthouse or court. Does that make a difference?

No, the court didn't buy the debt. Some duber bought the debt. Okay, so the Dubers brought you to the county courthouse. Is a Duber's name on there?

Yeah, the collection agency. And there's a lawyer name on it.

The lawyer is who you call. Call the lawyer.

Okay.

Because here's the deal. They are not in the business. This is not like if I owed you money and you were pissed and got a lawyer and sued me, okay? This is a conveyor belt at a factory, and it's the junkyard. It's not even a factory. It's a conveyor belt at the junkyard. And they're running like 9000 parts a minute down the conveyor belt, and you're one tiny little part.

Okay?

All right, let me give you another example just for fun, okay? A couple of Christmases ago, I decided to take advantage of this knowledge to do a fun, charitable thing for our team. We bought 8000 accounts from a debt buyer totaling $10 million worth of debt. Our purpose in buying it was we were going to call all 8000 people. We have 1000 employees, so each of them got to call eight people and tell them their debt is forgiven in Jesus name for Christmas. So we bought $10 million worth of debt to do that for $259,000.02 and a half cents on the dollar?

Yeah. That's amazing.

Yeah. So I'm telling you, this is how this works. So that's who you're dealing with. You're one of 8000 in a package. Only the package wasn't bought by me, so you got to go deal with the people. But I had 8000 people that were in this one package for $2.0.59 on the dollar. All right? And that's how this industry works, man. What do they want? They want more than they've got in it, because this is a business for them, not a charitable event. So they got $250 or $500 in your deal. You offer them 3000 and you stand firm and argue with them about 30 times, they're going to take it, get it in writing. Do not give them electronic access to your checking account. Those two things are very important.

Okay.

So I think you should pay them what you owe them, which is three grand.

Okay.

You got the three grand?

Yes, I do.

Very cool. Does that tell you what you need to know?

Yes. Perfect. Thank you.

Cool. Thank you.

So they're hoping a few people in this giant pile will pay that eight or ten grand to make this whole operation work.

No, they never get it. 99% of the accounts aren't collectible. That's why they're worth nothing. Because what are the chances of collecting on something from 2010, 13 years ago, 13 years ago, if you can even find the guy? I mean, they're just saying glory hallelujah, that they even found him.

We had trouble making the calls.

We couldn't even old cell phone numbers, bad numbers. We had what? I bet you one out of eight was probably bad or two out of eight. The information we had with the accounts we bought were bad, which tells you.

They had bad information when they bought it.

Well, yeah, because it's old. How many people got the same cell phone number 13 years later or whatever, the same address? And you don't send a change of address to people you owe money to if you're on the run. So it doesn't happen that way. So it's an interesting world, but it's a very high number, low performance world. And if you'll keep that in mind when you're dealing with them, it's not personal. It's just a transaction for them. This is the Ramsay show. You, george camel ramsay personality is my co host today. Open phones at triple 825-5225. Today's question of the day, sponsored by Neighborly, your home for home, your hub for home services. Neighborly can help you find local service pros like the grounds guys, five star painting and more to get your outdoor space ready for the cooler months, download the Neighborly app today and get started.

Today's question comes from Steve in Minnesota. I'm 43 years old. I still have student loan debt, about 4900. It was originally 24 grand back in 2010. This year in May, I went and got 2130 hair graft transplants for about 13 grand. Some I paid up front, and the rest I used a Care credit card for $10,500. I owe about five grand on it. Now I have 32,000 in savings. I've got about ten grand in a make, about $20 an hour. I didn't get enough hair graphs to cover the back top crown area. Should I go back for more hair transplant graphs to cover that area? Dave, this is a personal question that I think only you could answer. This is very personal. It's personal.

You're just. Mean hair jokes, George.

Well, you've bullied me for far too long, Dave. It's my time to get back. Oh, Steve, Steve, steve.

Okay. Steve, Steve, Steve.

Well, the good news is Steve has some money, and he can clean up this debt today. I don't know why he's waited 13 years. He has 32 grand in savings. Let's knock out the ten grand in debt. And you'll still have 22,000 left. That covers an emergency fund, and that should cover some hair graphs.

So 32,000 10,500 on the credit card.

He says he owes five on it now.

Okay, so 10,000 clears up the student loan and the card, right?

Yes.

And that leaves him $22,000, right?

That's what I'm saying.

Okay. And then we need to ascertain what your emergency fund should be three to six months of expenses. And if that is under $22,000, like, say, 15, then you would have seven you could use towards other things, and if that's what you choose to do with your money okay. Right. Yeah. But if your emergency fund should be 25,000, you need to finish your emergency fund before you do other things. Because until you're out of debt and have an emergency fund in place, we do not do elective surgeries.

That's a luxury.

It's a luxury. Well, I need bigger lips. No, the food's going in. You don't need bigger lips. The coffee is not spilling. You don't need bigger lips. Bigger lips are a luxury. Hair in the back is a luxury. Apparently, hair in the front is a luxury.

So he must have got just the front done, and he's got this crown.

Here that's still I mean, if you're the hair transplant people, that was genius.

Hey, you'll have to come back.

It leaves you with a guaranteed client for the back as soon as they get home and get a mirror.

The other question is, they do a good job with the rest of it so far, because maybe let's not go back.

My stomach is in my throat. This is killing me.

But I imagine it's a few more grand to finish it up if he's got the crown left.

I'm going to get in a lot of trouble if I'm not real careful here. But anyway, if this is what you want to do with your money, it should only be done. It's a choice. It's a luxury item. It's like buying a new couch or upgrading a car. It's done after your emergency fund is in place and you are debt free. So you should write a check today, Steve, and pay off your student loan debt and your credit card. Is this real?

This is real.

Some guy spooky.

I thought Austin was trolling us.

Somebody's punking us, and Austin let it through.

It's too specific to be punking at this point.

It's a good way to he said he makes $19. Somebody you give great detail. Like, I just don't have enough hair graphs in.

He told us how many hair graphs? 2130.

I know, but that's how you punk somebody very specific. That's what causes us to bite on it. Well, we bit on it, and so we're pretending like it's real.

I think someone wanted to know your take on hair transplant.

No, they didn't. Obviously they know my take on hair transplant. All they got to do is just pull up.

Not worth the money.

Well.

You'Ve been cutting your own hair for a few decades now. It's easier the amount of money you've saved, though, compared to me.

I just grew up in a different place and a different time where we enjoyed getting old, and we is what we is, so we didn't constantly be poking and prodding at ourselves. But it's a different back then, it.

Was just like a two pay. There weren't many options.

Yeah, that's true.

It's a bad two pay or nothing.

Yeah, like something out of a movie. From the figured that the person with the lowest hair maintenance and the highest hair maintenance in the studio we'd have.

Opinion would have a great opinion on this.

Jade's not here. Boom.

Roasted. Jade.

Hey. Jade spends more time on her hair than you do. That's promise you.

I've got this down to a son.

She's got more stuff going on, from the predator look to the twisted up on top look to the whole thing. She's got more look.

I'll tell you this. I haven't spent 13 grand on my hair. So there's a bonus.

All of us together have not spent 13 grand on our hair. That's a lot.

I would just start wearing hats or just let it ride, man. I mean, you got a great head for it, Dave. Not everyone has that.

See, George, you're trying to dig out now. You're trying to dig.

I'll never dig out.

Get you a shovel, budy.

This is my last show. America.

Get you a shovel, budy.

It's been fun.

You and Austin. Austin brings in the hair joke. Email alleyoup. And you do the stuff with it, right? You just stuff the thing, right? All right, let's move on while I still have my job. All right? Sarah is in Nashville. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Sure. What's up?

Okay, so I work two jobs. I work a full time job, and then I also work a part time job. My question is, should I or is it okay for me to quit my part time job even though I'm in baby step two? The reason I'm wanting to quit it is basically because I'm working all the time. I'm trying to be gazelle intense and all, but I am not having a good time, and I want to pursue other things to eventually go into that.

What are you saying?

Basically, I want to, in the long run, get into music, and I am in Nashville. So it's like, the perfect place to do that.

You want to get into music. Did you?

Yes.

Okay. And what's your part time gig now?

I'm in retail.

Okay, well, that's, like, most of Nashville.

Yeah.

I mean, like, how do you get the next country music star's attention in.

Everywhere?

I've got three people that were on The Voice working for me, and they ain't doing voice, I'm telling you. But anyway yeah, it's everywhere. And I'm not saying you can't do it. You should do it, but how much debt do you have left?

I have about 50,000, and it's student loans.

Okay. And at your current rate, with gazelle intensity, when will that be done?

About two ish years.

How old are you?

28.

Okay. How many hours a week are you working now? About 15 hours extra and plus a 40 hours job? Yes. Okay, so where do you work on Saturday night? At retail. Retail is not open.

Yeah, correct. So I'm not working.

Yeah. Where do you work on Friday night? Not at retail. It's not open.

Well, I work the retail job Monday through Friday after work, and they close.

Okay. All right, so you don't have a Saturday gig. Okay.

Yeah.

So sing on Saturday.

Yeah. So I guess it's a little bit complicated because I'm not into the country music scene. I'm more into Christian.

You're in Nashville, and you want to get into music. You want to be in the Christian music. Is that what you said?

Yes.

Okay, so how are you planning on breaking into it?

That's a good question. I'm not exactly sure. I'm also thinking, like, the social media route.

Okay. Then I would do that on Saturdays.

Okay.

And I get plugged into church where that music's happening as well.

Yeah. Make sure you're in a good church that's musical, and they're doing a lot of good praise and worship. You know, Nashville is also the home of contemporary Christian music, for sure. Most of the artists live here that do that for a living. A lot of them are friends. The older ones are friends.

Your budy Darren Tyler did a songwriting night at his church with a bunch of songwriters. So there's stuff like this happening in the community all the time.

You can do all of that and still keep your retail job. You just got to give up. Partying on Saturday. Oh, wait a minute. You're doing this from a Christian perspective. Maybe partying isn't the problem. You got to shut down the prayer group on Saturday night.

There we go.

And go do something else.

My kind of party.

Yeah, that's yeah. I think you can find the time, Sarah, and I think it's a short term play to get out of debt. Let's get out of debt.

Folks.

Changing your family tree takes more than rice and beans and side hustles. It's also about transferring the big financial risks off your family by having the right kinds of coverage in place. That's why my team created the coverage checkup quiz. It only takes about five minutes to find out what types of insurance you need and don't need to protect your finances. Make this quiz one of your regular checkups, starting right now@ramseysolutions.com. Slash checkup. That's Ramsaysolutions.com. Slash checkup. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co host today. Walt is in Buffalo, New York. Hey, Walt. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate it.

Sure. What's up?

Actually had two questions, but the young lady on the screener told me I could only ask one, so I figured I'd mention it and maybe you guys let me squeak in, too. My wife and I have been on the baby steps since November of 2022. We made it all the way to step three, and almost immediately after that, we had to use a couple of our emergency fund. We have $4,000 in a high yield savings account that's earmarked for kids college. He's ten right now, and we're wondering if we should take the 2000 from that four to fill the emergency fund back up.

I would, because it's not in a college fund. It's just earmarked. You have two accounts. One of them you've got named college, but you got a ten year old. You got plenty of time to build their college savings and doing it in a 529 and so forth. That's exactly what I would do.

Yeah, simple enough. I mean, it's liquid. You're not going to pay any penalties. So if you told me it was in a 529, I'd say, don't touch it, but you'll be fine there, and you'll have time to fill it back.

Or if it had been there for 20 years or something and the kid was seven. I mean, there's a lot of different factors, but you got a lot of time. And it's just a right pocket, left pocket thing. And then if you take it out of the right pocket, put in the left pocket, then you got to go back to the right pocket and fill it up, which is baby step five. Anyway, reminder, Walt, four, five, and six are done simultaneously. Yeah.

So we're investing 15%. While we have that plate spinning, we begin to fund the kids college. Then any money left over, we can throw onto the mortgage to pay that off early.

Yeah. So four, five, and six, which is retirement savings, kids college savings, and paying the house off early, we run simultaneously, but still in that order. 15% going into retirement, funding kids college, which you're going to do immediately. You'll begin with that 2000 left over and get an account open and get it moving. And then if you find more money in your budget, or as you find more money in your budget as you go along, let's pay off the house early. Elijah is with us in Charlote, North Carolina. Hi, Elijah. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave. Thanks for having us.

Sure. What's up?

So me and my wife have a.

Question, and it is we are debt free. We have an emergency fund. We've tried to do everything by the book, and both of us have zero credit. And we are renting currently. Is there any way that we could one day buy a house without any credit? What is your advice?

Well, George did it.

Yeah. It's a fairly simple process. It's called manual underwriting. And what that is, is basically a no score loan. And our friends at Churchill Mortgage have been doing this forever. But if you tell anyone about it, they'll say, no, you can't do that. And even if they say you can, they'll say, it's so much more expensive, it's such a headache, it'll take you forever. They're lying. They've never done it. So let me tell you from someone who's done it that it's simple, but you have to do it by the book, like you mentioned. So you're going to want to have all the documentation, your verification of income, rental payment history, twelve month history of your bank statements, a tax return, things like that. And along with that, you need to have a good down payment. Have you guys started saving that up yet?

Yes, as soon as we finish building up our emergency fund. That's what we were going to start on.

Awesome.

So I would aim to have a minimum of 10%. If you're doing the no score loan, 20% is even better to avoid that. Private mortgage insurance. What kind of budget are you looking for for a house?

Right now, we're in North Carolina. The housing market is anywhere from 100 or two hundred thousand dollars to three hundred thousand dollars.

Great.

So let's set that goal and let's set a down payment savings goal. And as long as you can get that payment to be 25% of your take home pay of your after tax income per month on a 15 year fixed, then you're ready to buy a home.

Sounds great.

Thank you so much again, Elijah. If you go to a traditional mortgage company or you ask your friends, they're all going to tell you that because they don't know how to do it, that that can't be done. George did it. Jade did it. Dr. John Deloney did it. All of our Ramsey personalities have had zero credit scores and gone and got mortgages. Okay, so it definitely can be done. We'll put a link to the Ramsey Solutions blog about this in the show notes. And so if you want to go back and pull that up out of the show notes, you'll be able to do that with the great detail on it. But really, George just gave it all to you. And again, selecting a mortgage company that knows what the flip they're doing, that's important and most of them don't. Churchill Mortgage does know how to do this. Chaz is with us in Orlando. Hi, Chaz. Welcome to the Ramsay show.

Hey, dave. Thanks for having me.

Sure. What's up?

So my question is, I'm 24 years old. Me and my fiancee are getting married next February. I have zero debt right now, and I have a nice little nest egg in the bank that I've been saving up. My question is, my fiance has some debt. Once we get married, do you recommend that I kind of use up most of my nest egg to pay off her debt, or should we keep that nest egg in the bank and just keep pursuing paying off her debt now that we both have both incomes to pay it off?

What are we talking in the bank?

So right now, I have about $34,000 in the bank, and then her debt is a little bit over $17,000.

Okay.

So it wouldn't totally wipe it out, but it's just now through February, it's.

Just, you know no, I don't know. What do you mean? You know?

Yeah, but we just like to have it in the bank.

No. You do?

Yes.

You worked hard to save this money up, and it hurts emotionally to let it go for someone else's mistake.

Yeah.

That's okay to say out loud, but just know when you get married, you're signing up for that whole person's life, and it's our money. So now you have debt as well. It's our debt, and it's our income.

All of the mistakes you have made come with you. All of the mistakes she has made come with her. And the preacher will say, and now you are one mistake. So this is how this works, brother.

Are you that in love with her that you're willing to do this?

Oh, 100%. Not even a second.

When you get home from the honeymoon, write a check and pay off her student loan.

Okay.

Yeah. Period. No question about it.

And she should be paying it down. We've got to save up for the wedding. Are you guys paying for it?

No. Luckily, her parents have blessed us with paying for the wedding. Great. That's been a huge blessing, for sure.

That's wonderful.

And she's paying it down. We've actually been taking your class through our church, and good. So she's already working it down, like, every single day, but it just looks like there might be a little bit left over once we get so, you know, I was calling in to see what your opinion was.

Chaz, here's the thing. If you called us up, you've listened to us, or you've been through Financial Peace University, if you called us up and said, we're a married couple, we have $34,000 in savings, and we have $17,000 in student loan, we instantaneously would tell you to pay that off, wouldn't we?

Yes, you would.

The only nuance here is that it's new, because the marriage will be, at that time, new. So that's the only nuance. And what you're facing here is you're really having to face this idea that we are going to combine our incomes, our dreams, our fears, our mistakes, our assets. We're going to combine everything, and we're going to become a whole new entity called a married couple. This is forcing you to process the emotions of that, which, to George's point, we poke fun. But they're very real. It's a very real so. But you've listened to us enough to know that if you were answering the question as you're driving along in the car while listening on talk radio and someone else called in, you would be going, they're going to tell him to pay the loan off.

Yes. Okay.

So the only difference here is it wasn't an existing marriage couple. We're moving into it. And that's the only nuance to change. It happens to be your money. This time, rather than listening to someone else call in, that changes it, too.

That's tough. But the beautiful thing is you also get to build wealth together, and it is, like, exponentially greater when you have two people who are on the same page.

Oh, yeah. There's what's called in sociological studies and economic studies, that called the marriage advantage. There are several marital advantages. If you haven't ever read the research that's out there, health males who are married live longer. Wow. Yeah. And couples who are married have a wealth and an income. Career. Career and income advantage. Statistically, they make more money and they have more money statistically. So it's called the marriage advantage. Research projects that are out there floating around. Very interesting to look at. So, yeah, you're right. This is going to go zoom, zoom. You're going to be fine. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. Live from the headquarters of Ramsay Solutions, it's The Ramsay Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. George Campbell, Ramsay personality, is my co host today. I'm Dave Ramsay. The phone number is triple 8825-5225. Starting off this hour is Corey in Cleveland, Ohio. Hi, Corey. How are you?

Good, how are you doing?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

So I got a question. I got $35,000 in credit card debt. I'm going through a divorce. She wants me to take another half of hers. And I'm struggling. I'm working five days a week. I drive truck as a local truck driver, and I just don't know where to even start at.

Okay. How much debt do you guys have as a couple? You've got 35. How much does she have?

It'll be 65,000 total.

So she has another 30?

Yes.

Okay. And their car payments?

Yes, I have a car payment. My truck payment is 970 a month.

Good God. All right. And how much is her car payment?

Her car payment? I'm not too sure of that. We're going through a divorce, and we're separated at this time.

Well, dude, you were married to her. Did you have the car?

She had, uh she had given me my car back. I had bought her a Lexus at the time, and she had given it back to me, stuck me with that and my truck payment plus a motorcycle payment. And I was struggling, so I traded both of my vehicles in and end up purchasing a truck. I have now. I saved myself about $500 a month doing that.

Yeah, you didn't go far enough.

All right, I didn't.

All right. Okay. So the problem is we're working out all the debts before there's a deal cut. So every time you get something paid off or figured out, she hands you another one.

Yes.

Now this has got to stop. You've already eaten Alexis and a motorcycle, and now she wants you to eat 15 more of the debt. That the credit card debt? That's in her name?

Yes.

Okay. Do you guys have an attorney?

Yeah, we both have attorneys. I tried Toner. She keep the house and everything we put into it. She keeps her debt, I keep mine. We'll go our separate ways. And she's not into it. She's not willing to work with me at all.

Okay, then I guess the judge is going to have to decide.

Right? And that one's february 7. I'm trying to figure out what I need to do. In the meantime, I have an opportunity right now to buy my own semi and go over the road and make what I'm making now.

You need to get this cleared up before you do that because she's going to end up with half the dad gum semi.

Right. That's what I'm worried about.

Yeah.

How much money do you have in.

The bank at this moment in time? I'm struggling, and that's what I'm I have maybe $30 right now. I'm going through it right now.

Okay. And you're not driving over the road now or you are? You just cut out on me, man.

That's why we're going through the divorce. We drove team over the road together, me and her together. We were raking down 250,000 a year between us both. I was sticking mine in my 401, she was spending hers. And that's another thing she's wanting. She's wanting half of my 401K also. And we weren't even married that long. Three years. And she's entitled to everything I put in from the date of marriage to the date of divorce, which it's not really a lot of money, but I've worked for it.

You guys have kids?

No kids? No.

Okay, so are you driving over the road now?

No, I'm local.

Okay. What do you make?

Right now? I'm 33, 22 an hour. And that is all?

Straight pay. And you've got an apartment?

Yes.

Okay. What's the house worth?

I just had an appraise. It appraised for $174,000.

What do you owe on it?

132.

Okay. All right, so here's what I would do, all right? The problem with a divorce is it turns a marriage into a business transaction. And so this is now a list of debts and a list of assets that must be negotiated through the law in most states, as you have found out. Splits it down the middle. What she wants doesn't matter. What you want doesn't matter. The law is going to demand that you split it down the middle. If you come to something close to that and pre agree to it, the judge will approve it. If you come to something way out of balance, the judge is probably not going to approve it and kick out your agreed to settlement because it's too stupid. Okay. So all of that to say you don't need to be buying anything. If I were in your shoes, I'd sell this truck. Yeah, you said that like I'm not doing it. You need to sell your stupid truck, dude. $970 at $33 an hour is in the cray cray zone.

Right. I want to get rid of it. I want to trade it in. They told me I would have to pay out $4,000 in equity, negative equity, to get off from underneath the truck and do it.

Go borrow 4000 at the credit union.

And do it or sell it private party. If you can make 4000 more and.

Get out of it, sell it private and just sell it and you could be done with it, somebody will give you more than you owe on it. Okay. What is it? What kind of truck is it?

It's a 2023 Chevy Silverado.

That's a beast. That's a good truck. Yeah. You ought to be able to get more than you owe on it. Yeah. The problem is the dealer thinks he's got you coming again, right. He got you last time, he's going to get you again.

Especially if you're desperate. They can smell that off.

So I think you put it on the look it up on Kelly Blue Book and sell it for more than you owe on it and then get you a hoopdy. Because you're driving truck during the day anyway. You don't need a bank big car right now. You got more problems than you need car, right?

Yes, sir.

So this is temporary. One year from the day, everything's going to be changed, but temporarily, you've gotten rid of the car. Now you're down to only $35,000 worth of credit card debt and negotiating with your soon to be ex wife over the 401K in the house.

Yes.

Because the credit card debt is going to be split down the middle. You're going to get your 35, she's going to get her 30. You're probably going to give up half your 401 or you can give her a credit towards the house and sell the house.

Right.

How much is in the so 17 of the equity in the house can go to her. Instead of giving up your 401 and sell the house and give her her half plus 17, which is probably almost the whole thing, but don't let the house stay in the deal. Do not let her have the house because you're on the mortgage and then she doesn't pay it, you're screwed.

Right?

Force the sale of the house. Split the proceeds minus your half of the 401K that you're going to have to give up anyway, and that way your 401K stays intact. You walk out of this with a only $35,000 worth of credit card debt and a hoopdy. Now you can talk about going over the road and making some money and clean up the 35,000 right quick. Okay? But you're being managed by emotion because your heart's broken. 1 minute you're pissed the next minute, and you're broken, terrified the next minute.

Yes, sir.

I understand. Man I've been there. It's no fun. And so I haven't been through the divorce part of it. Been through the rest of it, though, and it is no fun. So laying out a detailed factual game plan with math removes some of the emotion from it. And that's what I just gave you. So go back and listen to this on YouTube or on podcast or however, because I gave you the exact plan of what to do. And what I laid out is negotiable. And if she won't do it, take it before the judge. He'll make her do it. This is the Ramsey show. Here's the thing about investing advice. You can find it just about anywhere, but that doesn't mean it'll always help you with your personal goals. Here's another option. Check in with a SmartVestor pro. These financial advisors can review your plan or help create one that's personalized to you. To find a SmartVestor pro in your area, go to ramsaysolutions.com slash SmartVestor. Go to ramsaysolutions.com. Slash SmartVestor. Ramseysolutions is a paid non client promoter of participating pros. Learn more@ramsaysolutions.com slash SmartVestor. So one of the most popular things we have done in many years is about two months ago, we started doing free webinars with Jade Warshaw, rachel Cruz and George Camel, each of them doing free webinars with the EveryDollar Budgeting app showing you how to build out your budget, why to build out your budget.

And couples are jumping on for free and watching the webinar. And you can interact with the webinar. You can actually ask questions.

Live chat. A-Q-A box.

Live chat while we're going. And a what box?

A-Q-A box. Q a box.

So we get those stuff in. So there's interaction. It's not just George squawking at you or Jade or Rachel squawking at. And so we're doing these free online budgeting trainings. Go to Everydollar.com Slash Budgeting, and between now and the end of the year, each one of those three will be doing three or four of these. And so George, Rachel, Jade, you can jump on, choose which one, or just pick the night or day or whatever the time is convenient for you. It's completely free, very interactive, very helpful on. The EveryDollar budgeting app on how to get a plan together. Because if you don't have a know it's like Zig Ziglar used to say if you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time. And my friend John Maxwell says a budget is people telling their money what to do instead of wondering where it went. Everydollar.com slash budgeting get registered for the free webinars. George, what do they get if they go to yours?

Well, we give away stuff and I like to bribe people with that. So we'll give away some stuff. We have a killer.

Are you just making a joke?

No, we really do.

We've given away I already give away your services.

I know. We give away some books and products and things like that for those that are brave enough. Ask a question in front of 3000 virtual people. Because there is a cap, even though it's digital, they cap the room size. So you got to make sure you sign up. We'll also send you a replay if you miss it. A lot of people say, hey, I can't make that time sign up anyways. You can go back and watch the whole thing.

There you go. And free stuff for the people that do attend and ask a question. And you bribe people for their involvement. You got but people do get really interactive. I've heard the story.

Yeah, we've had great feedback just showing them because we don't have time on the air to show you how it all works. But that webinar is where we do it.

Olivia is in Madison, Wisconsin. Hi, Olivia. Welcome to the Ramsay show.

Hi, Dave.

Hi, George. Thank you for taking my call.

Sure, what's up?

So my question is about student loans. I have around 105,000 in student loans and it's broken up between a private university foundation loan and then federal loans. And my question is the federal loan is broken up into smaller loans.

Yes.

Some of them are subsidized, some are unsubsidized.

Yes.

And so my question is, how do I prioritize that? Do I or do I just pay the private and then the federal I'll.

Tell you how I did it. Ten years ago, I laid them all out from smallest balance to largest balance. That's called the debt snowball method. And I ignored the interest rates. Just black them out if you have to because it gets real confusing and overwhelming. And all you do is you focus on that smallest balance first. My guess is it's one of those little federal loans.

Yes.

What's the smallest balance you got?

I believe the smallest one is about 5000 of one of the federal loans.

Yeah. What do you make?

My husband and I make about 115.

Great. So how quick are you going to pay that five off?

Oh, we can pay the five off in probably a couple of months, max.

Yeah.

Or more.

I was thinking like two paychecks.

Yeah. Okay, quick.

All of these federal loans are under one service.

You need to pay the minimums and then call them and get them on the phone, which is a pain in the butt because they're incompetent. But call them and get them on the phone and demand that the money you transfer right then goes on that loan, because if you mail it to them or you make it one check for all the minimums and that they will screw it up and spread it across all of them because they're incompetent. Okay?

Up until now, we've just been paying.

Across all of them, and nothing happens. Yeah. And you don't see any movement. But I want that little one knocked out, because when that little one's knocked out, your payment changes, okay. And drops down. And then more and more and more, the debt snowball rolls. But if you don't knock out the little one, then the debt snowball doesn't roll. Meaning every time you pay off something that has a payment with the debt snowball, that old payment now gives you extra money to throw on the next one. But if the old payment is zero, then it doesn't give you any extra money to throw on the next one. So you got to call them and each stinking month, make sure they're doing the right one, the right one? The right one. When you're on one of the little small federals yeah.

And you can also see online, it may break them out. You may be able to apply that to the principal, but I'm not sure.

These websites, if you can make sure on the website, you could try it one month and see if it drops the principal on that singular debt rather than spread across all of them. But I got to tell you, it's the worst. It's the federal government. I mean, user experience, it's the incompetence of the IRS. The incompetence of the federal government shows up here like you never believe. These people's parents are cousins. It's just awful. They're just horrible. And so it's a disaster. The whole student loan debacle is a disaster. So the faster you get it in the rear view mirror, the better your life is going to be. Good question. Thanks for joining us. Miguel is in San Antonio. Hi, Miguel. Welcome to the Ramsay show.

Hi, Dave. And George. How are you all doing?

Better than we deserve. What's up?

That's right. So I'm 22 years old. I have a car payment that's sitting at 10,000 less to be paid off. That's the only debt I have. Originally, the car started at 18,000. I had it for two years. And so I've been trying to pay it down much ahead of time just so I can get that completely finished out. And I do have the money to pay it off right now. I could pay it off today, but that is pretty much everything that I have.

So how much today?

It's just under 10,000. It's at 9000.

Okay. And how much money do you have?

I have 12,000 right now.

What do you make?

I make around 40,000 a year.

Good. And what other debt do you have? Other than the stupid car?

I don't have any other debt.

Good.

Pay it off today, man. It leaves you with, what, three grand.

And no car payment.

Yeah. And that doesn't include my emergency fund. I still have an emergency fund of 1000.

Okay.

No, your starter. Emergency fund.

Your starter.

You got three grand. Four grand. Yeah. And now your next goal is to build that four grand up to three to six months of expenses, which in your case is probably about a $10,000 emergency fund.

Okay.

And without a car payment, you'll get there even faster.

Yeah.

So with that yes, I should pay it off. One more thing I'd like to add on to the story now is that I am engaged.

Congratulations.

Do you have a wedding?

When? When's the wedding?

We just signed the contract for two years. Almost exactly two years.

Two long ways away, man.

Why two years?

My fiance is still going through graduate school, and I actually work at a university, so she's going to be able to get graduate school paid for with my benefit there.

Not if you're not married blessing.

We are planning to get married legally first so that she can get that benefit, and then we're going to have a wedding in the church because we are Catholic and we do want to get married in the church.

Okay, so what does the Catholic Church charge you to get married?

Well, we've been dating for six years and we've had a lot of different people come to our lives, been a part of our story. We wanted to have something. So we have a budget of around 20 to 25,000. And with it being just me right.

Now, you're talking about actually getting married when? Legally.

Legally would be pretty much the beginning of 2024 in February.

Okay, then your husband and wife. The other thing is you're just going to have a party.

Exactly.

Okay. And so you're going to save up for a $20,000 party. I don't give a flip. When you have your $20,000 party, you can have that whenever you want. You're now husband and wife and you have a paid for car. TADA. It doesn't change anything, dude. Matter of fact, it actually makes it more sense for you to pay off the thing today with that combined income, because the $10,000 is not going for the party two years from now, for sure. While you have a stinking car payment, you're going to save up new money to pay for the party or not. This is the Ramsey show. Are you a small business owner who feels stuck in the daily grind of running your business? Well, you're not alone. We've helped thousands of business owners just like you get unstuck with learnings from the entree leadership stages of business. Our free assessment will tell you which stage your business is in today and what you can do this week to get out of The Daily Grind. So don't wait. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash BIZQUIZ to take our free stages of business assessment today. George Camel, Ramsey personality, is my co host today.

Thank you for joining us, America. Jacob and Taylor are on the debt free stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. How are you? Great.

How are you?

Better than I deserve. Welcome. Where do you guys live? So.

We're from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Oh, fun. Welcome to Nashville. How much debt did you pay?

So we paid off about 182,000.

Good for you. How long did that take?

Too long, but about eight years.

Okay, good. And what was your range of income during that time?

So we started about 70,070, 75, and then up to about 125.

Cool. What do you all do for a living?

So I'm a mechanic at Alexis Dealer in Tulsa.

After I graduated college, I ended up in the nonprofit field for about seven and a half years. But now I'm a stay at home dog mom. I have a network marketing business, and I'm a part time barista.

Okay, good for you. Cool. All right. What kind of debt was the 182,000?

So it was student loan for her and then our mortgage.

I paid off your house. Look at weird people. I love it. So what is this house worth in Tulsa?

It's worth about 280 now.

Way to go, guys. Nice house. We're seeing it on YouTube here. Nice picture. Yeah. And it's all yours. All ours. How old are you two weirdos?

So I'm 33.

I just turned 32 last week.

You have a paid for house?

Yes.

Do you know anyone that's 33 with a paid for house other than George?

He was a huge inspiration for us.

Very big. That means the world. Well, I'm amazed that this trend keeps happening. I think we're seeing it more and more. People in their twenty s thirty s.

Late 20s, early 30s, coming in here with a paid off house. Yes, definitely.

Yeah.

It's very exciting. Any of your friend group got a paid for house?

I don't think so.

Not that I know of.

Yeah, they'd be talking about it if they did.

Yeah, that's true.

Very true.

They'd be here, too.

Where did this idea even come from? How'd you guys get started on this.

Ramsay way eight years ago.

Yeah. Good question. So right after I graduated college is when we got married, and we actually got Financial Peace University membership as a wedding gift. And so I'd love to give a shout out to Tracy, a family friend, who gifted that to us. And that changed everything for our family. So we took it about three months after we got married. And I remember sitting there the second or third week, and I was like, we have to teach this. People need to know about this. And so we went through the class and we kind of did things a little out of order. We actually bought our home during the class, but turns out we did it right. We put 20% down. It's a 15 year loan, all of that. So all of that was right, but then we ventured on the student loan and we got that done. It was 38,000, and we got that done in 22 months.

Good.

So we knocked that out pretty quickly. And so right after that class was over, we started teaching. So we've coordinated nearly 15 classes now.

Super coordinator. Thank you.

We love it. Absolutely.

Super coordinators. Yes.

You got to follow the stuff at that point. The whole class is looking at you. Have you led one since paying off the house?

We had one this summer, so we got to celebrate with them and then we'll have another one in January. Really kept us accountable, working with each of the classes and sharing our story and all of that.

That's like your personal trainer having a six pack. This is a good sign I'm in the right place when I'm in your class. Way to go.

Yes.

We're excited in a lot of ways, I guess a huge part of our story know, we've had emergencies come up just like anybody else. We've replaced our AC unit. I had a four night hospital. We also jacob is working on his bachelor's, and so we're cash flowing that, and so that's part of the reason why maybe it's taken a little bit longer.

What are you studying, Jacob?

Mechanical engineering.

Oh, very good. Okay. How much longer do you have?

About a year.

Oh, wow. Good for you. That's going to be a great breakthrough for you.

Yeah, but it's been an almost five year process.

All part time.

Yeah, exactly. And as newlyweds, we've done a lot of traveling. We've done a couple of international trips, and we've been all over the United States, but all with cash, all without credit cards. And so that certainly has extended our deadline, I guess. But the goal was always to pay off her home seven years early. And that's exactly what we did.

Hit the goal. Yeah, we did.

It's been really exciting.

Really.

Well, once you're out of baby steps two and three, travel is allowed. It just slows down. It slows down how much you put on baby step six. Or buying a car is allowed or going to school is allowed. It just slows down how much you put on baby step six. But you still did all of that and did the house in seven years?

Yes.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah, we sure did. It's been fun.

Living proof this stuff still works.

Yes, exactly.

Every day.

Yeah. And in a lot of ways, too. Jacob and I are both natural givers. And so outside of our mortgage, our giving category and our budget was actually one of the largest, and so we were kind of practicing baby step seven even kind of before we got, you know, the travel and the giving part of know, we give to things that we're passionate about. We just couldn't wait to do that.

Amen. Good for you.

Yeah.

Good for you. Okay, now how does it feel when you walk through the backyard and you don't have any payments?

Feels nice. It really does. I mean, we don't necessarily worried if that payment was going to be there the first of the month, but it's nice not having to even having to worry about that.

Have you all walked back in the backyard and stood and looked at the house and went, that's ours?

We have actually front, back, walked through the grass barefoot.

Pictures.

Neighbors are going, what are they doing exactly?

They do a lot of celebrating over there. I don't know. That's good. Good for you. What do you tell people in your class the secret to getting out of.

Debt is, oh, man. Number one on my list is Tithing. That's been just the forefront of our mind.

And why do you think that is?

Man, when you live life like this, it's just better than open handed. Yes. It's just better than you can dream or imagine. And so blessings have come from that. And certainly since we have led 15 Financial Peace University classes, we watch the videos 15 times. And so just keeping up with that and having a group to walk through that with has been a really crucial.

Part, the accountability and the open handedness. What about you, Jacob?

I think a lot of it is not living above your, you know, not been in any kind of dire straight situation, but we've also not, like, saying, oh, I need to go into debt to do this, or I need to put this money towards a trip and not pay off what we need to pay off. So I think it's knowing what you need as opposed to just what you want.

Yeah. It's intentionality, right? Yeah. Way to go, guys. I'm so proud of you.

Thank you.

Who was cheering you on?

Everybody.

Everybody. My parents instilled a lot of this into me from the get go, so they've always been kind of that driving force for me, especially not before we got married. And then since we've been married, they've been a constant cheerleading team and then her grandma and then our friends who know that we're on this journey or we're on this journey, they've always been super supportive. And our church, family, our community group, we're surrounded by a huge support team.

Wow, that's awesome. That makes a big difference.

Yeah.

And you guys are in your early 30s. You got no payments. Give me something you're excited to do in the give, save spend category with no payments now.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, making our giving budget a little bit larger now we're updating our home. So, like, updating the outdoor space and replacing windows, things like that.

Adulting.

Adulting. Exactly.

Any big trips now? You're like, this is the big debt free trip.

Yeah.

Actually, next may, we're going to go to italy. So we actually at a fundraising gala. Prior to COVID, we won a trip through a silent auction, and COVID kind of ruined that a little bit. Couldn't go. Well, now we are three years on from it. We're actually going to get to go on it and even in a better financial place than we were then to go. So we're going to kind of use that as our celebratory.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

That's a good trip. Well done, you all. That's fun. Yes. Well, congratulations. We're very proud of you. We've got the live and give bundle for you because you've been doing a lot of both living and giving. So baby steps millionaires book. You'll be there very soon, if you're not already. I didn't ask how much you have in retirement. How much do you have in retirement?

We probably have I think we have probably about 100 grand.

Now. You said the house is worth 300. Close to it, yeah. So you're about 400 of a million almost on your you're on your way to baby steps millionaire, right. Good. Yeah. We got that book for you, and that's your next step and next stop and total money makeover book, maybe to give to one of your class members and a financial peace university membership if you find somebody that can't go will assist you in your generosity plunge that you're taking. That's awesome. So congratulations, you guys.

Thank you.

All right. Jacob and taylor, tulsa, oklahoma. 182,000 paid off house and everything. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream.

Three, two, one.

We're debt free. Yeah. Wow. Excellent. Excellent. This is the ramsay show, our scripture of the day. James. One, two, and three. Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Franklin roosevelt said, when you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on. Amen. Kristen is with us in madison, wisconsin. Hi, kristen. Welcome to the ramsey show.

Hi, dave. Hi, george. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

So my husband and I were newly married. We just finished baby step one. This month, we have $45,000 in consumer debt in baby step two. And as we're laying them out smallest to largest, we also have some other pretty big expenses that aren't necessarily debt, and we're just having a hard time figuring out where they should fall in our snowball.

What are they?

So we have two vehicles. One of them we own outright. One of them we have a loan for $6,200, and the one that we have a loan on is broken down. The rear differential is completely seized up. It's not drivable. It's going to be about a $2,000 fix. We're hoping to eventually fix it and then sell it to get rid of it. Also. We bought a house at the beginning of this year, and two weeks after we closed on our house, the pipes in the bathroom burst, and so that is currently completely gutted. We don't have a shower sink.

We do have a functional or just.

In that bathroom at all. That's the only bathroom we have in our house. So we've been showering at our mother in law's house. We've been going over there to do that.

For how long?

For about six months. Seven months?

Yeah.

She's two blocks away, which is great. She's super close.

It's not great.

Pretty big.

Nothing great about this. This sucks. Oh, my gosh. What a mess.

What do you guys wouldn't cover it? Well, that's the other part. I lost my job recently, so currently my husband is working you all need to write a country song an hour.

We showered, my mother in laws and I lost my job there's a lot.

Wow.

So what's he making?

He's making $18 an hour right now.

Doing what?

He's a machine operator.

What were you making?

I was making sixty K. I was a restaurant manager.

Why'd you lose your job?

I was working in a restaurant. I loved my job. The hours were not great. I was working 60 to 70 hours a week salary, so I took a different position in the same it was another restaurant manager position, and I moved over to that. It was going to be 45 hours a week, and that would salary also, so that would allow me a little more time. But a couple of weeks into that, they decided that I was not a good fit, and they let me go.

When was that?

That was in June.

Why haven't you worked since June?

Well, that's the other thing. My husband, he had his driver's license suspended, and the car broke down, so we were able to why did he.

Have his driver's license suspended? I can't believe this.

It's been suspended for quite a while. He had to wait a couple of years. There was a period of time DUI. For the points. Yeah. And then for the points to fall off. And so he's eligible to get it reinstated now, but it's about $800 to pay all the fees and for everything, and then our insurance would go up.

Okay, so your excuse is you're a full time driver for an $18 an hour guy? I'm calling bull crap. That was a dumb idea. You make more than he makes.

Yeah, so we were able to share we were working in the same town. We were driving.

Yeah, back when.

But now with him being but now.

With you not having a job, you used driving him as an excuse to not get a job. So get another job. Girl.

Couldn't you drop him and then go work and then pick him up or he gets a ride.

That's what you did before?

Yeah, I've been doing applying for jobs. There were a couple. I got to the second interview restaurant manager positions, and they ended up really not going anywhere. But now what I'm looking at is.

What would be wrong with Mike working 60 hours a week now? What was wrong with it then? You were broke?

Yeah, it was mostly the schedule and driving back and forth and not being available to pick him up because I had to stay late to solve a problem at work.

So you lost $60,000 because he didn't buy an Uber? Yeah. You guys need to both be committed to 60 to 80 hours a week making $20 an hour, and you will solve a lot of these problems you have in a heartbeat. Instead, you're living in a house that's not even habitable because you don't even have a toilet or a shower, and you haven't worked since June. You guys have got to go create some money.

Girl, you went from 100K down to 36, and you got 45 in debt. So if we get you back to.

Work, your problem, your income, the fact you guys don't make any money is your problem, and you don't work much.

Yeah.

He needs a new job making 25 an hour and two extra jobs making 20 an hour. And you need the 60, 70, 80 hours a week, 60 to 80,000 to be the restaurant manager job and buy him an Uber if you're stuck at work.

I mean, can you wait tables in the meantime?

Yes.

So that's what our next plan was. I can pay $125 to reinstate my CNA. I have to go take the test, but then I would be able to get my CNA license back.

I'm sorry, what is a CNA license?

Certified nurse assistant.

And what would that pay?

$25 an hour.

Why would you want to do that when you can make 60 as broke as you are? Why don't you go get you some money?

I've been applying for restaurant manager positions. I had two where I went to the second interview process, I've applied for more than those, but those are the ones where I was interviewed.

And you guys need to sit down and figure out the way on the short term, not what your dream is. But the thing you can do that is moral and legal, that allows you all to work the most hours and make the most money for about two years so you can get your shower fixed and get your debt paid off. But you're not going to do it with all these theories and all these limitations, and you're finding all kinds of reasons to not do this stuff. Really, honestly, 50 grand solves your whole life. $50,000. You could have made that since June. If he was working overtime and you were still working. And so you really have an income. Your perception of work and your perception of income on a temporary basis needs to change. That is your issue. Because you guys need to build $18 in a world where most people are making 25 to 30. Okay? And no, you don't go get a CNA to make $25 an hour when you have the income potential of 60 to 80,000 at a restaurant. And in the meantime, until you land that, you go get six jobs and you guys work your tail ends off.

I'm fixing my freaking toilet in my shower. This is crazy. Y'all go make some money, girl. We want you to win. But you guys spend a lot of your mental in talking to you. There's a lot of mental gymnastics on why we can't create an income. There was a lot of them. I mean, you're like a world class gymnast.

Well, I know life has happened to you.

I know it has.

But you got stuck in your head.

And you got this loop going, and I'm trying to force you even if you get mad at me, I'm doing that because I love you. I'm trying to force you to rethink your view on work.

Well, every question there was well, there's a story behind I know, but at some point, we just have to put it down and do it anyways and go to work anyway. Do the job we don't want to do anyways.

Yeah, exactly. $50,000 changes your whole life. You could go make 50 to 100,000 more than you made in the last twelve months. In the next twelve months, between the two of you changing your view on work, that's how fast your life can turn around. And the desperation that you feel every day when you go to your mother in law's to take a shower will go away. That puts this hour of The Ramsay Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.

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