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Live from

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the headquarters

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of Ramsey Solutions it's the Ramsey

0:31

show where we help people build

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wealth do work that they

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love and create actual

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amazing relationships I'm Dave

0:40

Ramsey your host number

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one best-selling author host

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of the Rachel Cruz show

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and the smart money happy hour co-host

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my daughter Rachel Cruz is my co-host

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today open phones at triple-e 825

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5225 thank you for joining us America

0:58

we're so glad you're here Shane is

1:01

in Denver hi Shane what's up good

1:03

afternoon sir how you doing today better than

1:06

we deserve how can we help course yeah

1:08

hey I was I'm just calling to my

1:11

wife and I we bought our house in

1:14

2021 for about we bought it for 500,000 we put

1:16

a hundred down on it we had

1:19

about a

1:21

hundred in our in our savings

1:24

account that we kept in there too for our emergency

1:26

fund we have

1:28

now paid it down to about two we

1:30

owe about 280 on it today

1:33

very good so in three years

1:35

we've we put down another 115,000 into it

1:38

you're killing

1:40

it we're we have

1:42

no debt our cars are paid off we

1:44

have no debt and we have still about

1:46

a hundred in our savings account today as

1:49

well we are worried

1:52

about the house economy crashing

1:55

here in the next six

1:58

to six

2:00

months or so and our mortgage

2:03

rate is at 2.5%. Well

2:07

let me stop you. I'm sorry. Why

2:09

are you worried about the housing economy

2:11

in Denver, Colorado, cracking? I don't

2:15

know. I think my I don't know.

2:17

My wife is she's she's

2:20

more of a realist than I am and

2:22

so I'm just kind of

2:25

going with the flow and we're just trying

2:27

to. I'm sorry. What does being a

2:29

realist mean? You mean a pessimist? I

2:32

guess so. I'm not trying to talk down

2:34

on her because. Oh I wasn't either. I'm just saying there's

2:37

a realist to someone who observes facts.

2:41

There are no facts in the marketplace

2:43

that indicated a housing crash in Denver,

2:45

Colorado in the next six months. Absolutely

2:47

zero facts. Well that's good

2:49

to know. So and then

2:51

also we're trying to we're wanting to see

2:54

if we should sell our house. No. And

2:56

then and collect a revenue collect. No. It's

2:58

already at 700. No.

3:01

No. Okay. You guys need to get

3:03

off the internet. That's

3:06

what I say too. Yeah. I'm

3:09

sitting next to the Ramsey

3:11

family conspiracy theorist. I

3:13

don't know. When AT&T went out

3:16

last month. Rachel, Rachel what's the Denver

3:18

housing conspiracy? I missed this one. You're

3:21

up on all the Denver Airport. You are

3:23

close to the bunker. That could

3:25

happen if it all goes down.

3:27

Shane. That's your greatest asset right

3:29

now. Again at the same time

3:31

too. My son, we have a

3:33

seven-year-old son and

3:35

I travel a lot for work in the state

3:37

and we're trying to maybe move to the southern

3:39

part of Colorado to where I don't

3:43

have to travel as much and I can

3:45

work. Okay. If you want to do

3:47

that but please don't do that because the

3:50

Denver housing market is going to collapse in the

3:52

six months, next six months. That

3:54

should not be, that should not be one of the

3:56

factors that drives your decision. Okay.

3:59

Because it's not. It's not

4:01

gonna collapse. Sure. Okay. Well,

4:03

and then percentage-wise, I didn't want to go get a

4:06

new house and then pay a percentage on something with

4:08

a higher interest rate. You're

4:11

not gonna have a higher interest rate for much longer because

4:13

you're paying it off so fast. Yeah,

4:15

that's true. I mean, it might be three or four years you

4:17

carry it, but you're not gonna carry it for 30 years, so

4:19

it doesn't matter. But make

4:21

your decisions out of a glass half

4:24

full, not out of panic,

4:28

and really quit reading the internet.

4:30

I'm serious. Okay. There's

4:33

some really dumb, dark people out there. Yeah.

4:37

And I'm too busy with work. My wife's

4:39

a nurse practitioner in psych, and the last

4:41

couple years, she's been just a stay-at-home mother

4:43

with our kids during these years, and

4:45

now my son's getting to be

4:47

where he can be in full-time school. So she's about to

4:49

go back to work, too, now. So we're gonna have a

4:52

double income. Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah. But

4:54

I mean, psych nurses, you know, maybe she...

4:57

Oh, my gosh. She's just seen a lot

4:59

of crazy stuff, no pun intended,

5:01

right? And so, you

5:04

know, that can leave

5:06

a mark on you. And so... But

5:09

I don't want her to live

5:11

in fear. I don't meet people

5:14

who anticipate the end of the world

5:17

who prosper. None.

5:21

Agreed. I just

5:23

don't. The people who... I mean, there's

5:25

preppers, and then there's crazy preppers. Okay?

5:29

Prepper's one thing, but crazy prepper, that's anticipating the

5:31

end of the world. Like, I've got a friend

5:33

who has go-bars in his basement. Well...

5:37

And it's not... That's just not right. And let's

5:39

keep talking about this, though, Shane, because the

5:41

housing market is a point in our economy

5:43

that a lot of people are panicked about.

5:45

And back, you know, during COVID, when everything

5:47

surged in 2021, we sat here at this

5:50

desk, and people were like, it's a bubble,

5:52

it's a bubble. It's gonna bust. It's gonna

5:54

bust. We did the real estate.

5:56

It's all up. Yes, we did the real estate, you know,

5:58

hour and all of it. So it is... is though,

6:00

Shane, to your wife's credit, it is a

6:02

point of fear for a lot of people

6:04

because of any ... Not to her

6:06

credit, empathize with her. I understand how people are afraid, but

6:09

that doesn't mean that it's accurate or logical. No, I'm not

6:11

saying that. Okay, so then give us the logic behind it

6:13

because ... Well, the logic is there's a housing shortage.

6:16

Still. There's still three buyers for every

6:18

stinking house on the market, and houses

6:21

have gone up right now, today, in

6:23

most major markets. Homes that are on

6:25

the market are getting multiple offers. But

6:28

they're sitting on it longer, though. It's

6:30

not ... Yeah, like eight days longer. No, but it's not.

6:32

It's not the ... The average days on the market has

6:35

gone up eight days in the past 12 months. My

6:37

wife sent me something the other day, and it says,

6:40

new home sales fall as mortgage rates weigh down ...

6:42

Well, people ... I know, when the mortgage rates go

6:44

up, it slowed it down, though. No

6:47

one clicks on stuff unless it bleeds, so that's

6:49

a clickbait lead. Okay. Mortgage

6:52

... Housing starts fall as mortgage rates go

6:54

up, which they did. A lot of builders

6:56

slowed down. There's not as many houses coming

6:58

out of the ground. You know what that

7:00

does? It means there's an even bigger shortage

7:03

of inventory, which makes

7:05

your home even that much more. But

7:07

house prices didn't fall. Builders

7:09

slowed down building because they didn't want to get

7:12

caught with specs if the market slowed down on

7:14

them. But not if the market crashed. Housing

7:17

starts dead drop, but

7:20

headlines always go, everyone's

7:22

dying. That's what the

7:24

headlines always say, because that's what people click on,

7:26

is that stuff. Yeah. So, you know

7:28

... Yeah. So, look,

7:30

that's what I mean by don't read the internet, okay?

7:33

And with the election year coming up, traditionally in

7:35

election years, things slow down closer to the election,

7:37

too. So you may see that happening. Traditionally,

7:39

interest rates go down because

7:42

the sitting president doesn't want to get unseated

7:44

by a stinky economy. We'll

7:48

see. Yeah. We'll

7:50

see. But interest rates have come down

7:52

a little bit in the last month and a half. They've

7:54

come down a full point. And

7:56

the market is ... Some areas,

7:58

the southern areas of the country ... grass is

8:00

starting to get green, people are coming out of their

8:02

winter caves, they're starting to buy houses and

8:05

the house market is heating back up. It's

8:07

a dirty little secret, nobody's talking about it,

8:09

but I've been anecdotally

8:11

involved in three or four deals lately

8:13

where I'm watching and there's multiple offers

8:15

coming in on these. And so I'm

8:18

getting ready to put our home on the market and I was

8:20

just looking, it's a different dollar amount, but I mean I was

8:22

just looking at the, you know, what's the average days on the

8:25

market, average days on the market, what's the

8:27

inventory? Inventory's dried up. I'm

8:29

sitting and praying, my timing is excellent. To

8:31

put a house on the market. It's

8:34

far from a crash, quite the opposite.

8:37

Yeah, you're gonna see your homes go up in value in the next

8:39

12 months, just write it down and say the old bald guy

8:41

said it. This is the Ramsey Show. If

8:46

current times have shown us anything,

8:48

it's that the least expected events

8:50

can and will happen and we

8:52

have to deal with it. That's

8:54

why everyone who has a family

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excuse to not get this done

9:45

people. Well,

9:48

there's one thing most of us agree

9:50

on. Taxes suck. This

9:53

is the time of year which I generally stay

9:55

grouchy. Just in general. Just

9:57

because I think about how much theft

10:00

my government is involved in Can

10:05

we talk about this real quick to add on

10:07

to the tax yeah I

10:10

don't know why I was kind of an epiphany

10:12

I had yesterday where I was like it is

10:14

weird that like you could pay off your house

10:16

You could be completely debt-free But

10:18

if you you still have to the government to a degree

10:20

still owns it like you got to pay your property taxes

10:23

And it seems like kind of own your career if you don't pay

10:25

your taxes you get put in jail And

10:27

then car insurance you have pay off-car, but you got to pay

10:29

insurance like there's a level of this

10:31

that you're like man Yeah, it's

10:33

not like some of these things never stop.

10:36

It's what it feels like Yeah, I don't know how that

10:38

epiphany the other day. I was like man, so you

10:40

got two choices for claiming tax deductions Understanding

10:43

the difference can save you big bucks Literally

10:46

over seven out of ten Americans get a

10:48

tax refund. I mean seven out

10:50

of ten of you are doing math poorly There's

10:53

a shock You know

10:55

what cuz what I listen. I'm old. I know

10:58

Santa Claus. He's a friend of mine He'd never

11:00

goes to Washington DC that money that's

11:02

coming to you is not from Santa Claus He

11:05

has nothing to do with it. It's not

11:07

a gift. It's your money You sent too

11:09

much money to the freaking IRS They

11:12

held it all year at no interest and they

11:14

send it back to you called a refund and

11:16

you have a celebration Like you hit the freaking

11:18

lottery all it was was

11:20

a bad Christmas account You know

11:22

you just saved up money And then they sent

11:24

it back to you with a zero percent interest

11:26

with the stinking IRS because you had too much

11:28

taken out Of your check stop it adjust your

11:30

deductions to the proper amount of tax withholding To

11:33

where you don't owe any taxes, and they don't

11:35

give you a refund. That's the proper thing to

11:37

do now This is what you got to

11:39

do guys now if you're doing

11:41

your taxes right now. You can take a standard

11:43

deduction That's the easy option if

11:45

you're single you make 65,000 a year the

11:48

standard deduction knocks off close to 14,000 So

11:50

you only pay taxes on 51,000 of your

11:52

income and not even that really that's

11:54

if you're single So itemize

11:57

your deductions if you're gonna do that it takes more

12:00

work and you need a bunch of deductions, right? So

12:02

if you want to know more about all

12:05

this tax stuff, there's two things

12:07

we'll do to help you. One is if you have

12:09

a very simple return you can

12:11

get the Ramsey Tax Smart software,

12:15

Ramsey Smart Tax software, I can't say it,

12:18

and I'm not smart enough to say it. And so it's

12:20

not very expensive and it's very easy to implement and

12:22

a whole bunch of people have moved from those other

12:24

guys, like 100,000 of you will do

12:26

your taxes on the Ramsey Smart Tax software this year. So

12:29

it's very easy, very simple. Now if you have

12:31

a complicated return, like if a small business is

12:33

out of us or you bought or sold a

12:35

house or whatever like that and you want to

12:38

get a tax pro, we've got tons and tons

12:40

of tax pros that are endorsed local providers that

12:42

we have vetted. I was just talking to one

12:44

a minute ago from Houston and there she is

12:46

waving at us. She was at the break getting

12:48

her picture made. She does taxes for you in

12:50

Houston. So good folks taking

12:52

good care of you. That's the

12:54

way to do it. Go to

12:56

ramsysolutions.com/tax and you can find out

12:59

about either one of

13:01

those. Noah is in Sacramento. Hi

13:03

Noah, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

13:05

Hey Dave and

13:07

Rachel, huge fan. Thank you for taking my

13:09

call. Sure, what's up? I'm

13:12

just, I'm in a, I got

13:14

myself into a predicament. I

13:18

moved, I was living in

13:20

Huntington Beach around 2021 and

13:23

then after COVID and stuff,

13:25

I lost my job and my family in Sacramento

13:27

said I can come live with them. So

13:29

that's where I've been the last three years. I got a

13:32

good job. Well, I make about

13:34

60K. And,

13:37

but over the three years

13:39

being here, I've made some very

13:41

bad decisions, severe

13:44

gambling addicts. I think that

13:47

me just having to pay my parents a couple hundred

13:49

a month, I gave me too much, not

13:52

enough responsibility. And I was just blowing it

13:54

left and right. Maxing out credit cards. Long

13:58

story short, now I'm here. I

14:01

told my parents everything and I just

14:03

told them that I have a game plan to move out of

14:05

here by September and Just pay

14:07

off everything I can until then I

14:11

got a job opportunity To

14:13

go out and spray for

14:15

pests and pest control in Texas That

14:19

is guaranteed 30,000

14:21

for about four months of work until

14:23

September. I'm wondering if I should

14:26

quit my current job and go do that and Go

14:30

pay off all my debt But I'd

14:32

come back with no job We're

14:36

in Texas Waco

14:39

I think we go.

14:42

Yeah, you think I'm sure where it

14:44

is. Okay? Have

14:46

you done about what have you done about

14:48

your severe gambling addiction? Haven't

14:51

gambled. What is it? It's three or

14:53

four months been about all year But

14:57

it was bad. I broke down and called my family

14:59

and how have you dealt with it? You

15:02

just decided that's it you've got no help at

15:04

all No, I

15:08

I It cost me a relationship and

15:10

a bunch of stuff and it just right just realized

15:12

I just had to stop no I haven't got like

15:14

a therapist or anything, but yeah, I've been good Deleted

15:17

all my all the websites. Okay, there's two

15:19

possibilities in this conversation One is you don't

15:22

have a severe gambling addiction. You were just

15:24

stupid That's one

15:26

possibility and you decide to stop being stupid Two

15:29

is you have a severe gambling addiction and if that's

15:31

the case you have not done enough to fix this

15:33

you would need to Get into gamblers anonymous and you

15:35

would need to be seeing a canter Okay,

15:38

okay. How old are you? Okay?

15:41

I'm 25. I just turned 25 in December.

15:43

Okay, so I mean I've

15:45

I've never had a severe addiction But I

15:47

have done stupid stuff So

15:50

I can relate to one side of it as

15:52

a possibility I don't know

15:54

if this is just immaturity and stupidity and

15:56

you can ask yourself that question. I'm not

15:58

calling you that I'm just

16:00

saying your actions were and the

16:03

way that you just quit cold without any help at

16:05

all kind of makes me think it was on that

16:07

side rather than the addiction side, but I'm not a

16:09

therapist. What do you think? Is it

16:11

a compulsion? Do you know what I mean? No, like

16:14

usually with an addiction, there's a level of compulsion

16:16

there. It was compulsion,

16:18

yes. It was being bored. I

16:24

don't have any friends in Utah. I mean,

16:26

sorry, in Sacramento. When

16:28

I got here, I got a

16:30

job right away, but it was just work from home. I've

16:33

been working from home for three years, so I never met

16:35

anybody. That's my bad. I

16:37

could join a club. I could do stuff, but I haven't. I've

16:40

just kind of been working in my room, and after

16:42

I get off, I'm in my room gambling. It's

16:45

just been horrible. How much

16:47

debt did you go into for it? I've

16:50

been climbing myself out of it all year. I

16:54

also have a car payment because I just

16:56

had to have the Lexus. You guys know

16:58

it. It's stupid. But

17:01

I have a credit

17:03

card with $1,800 on it, $4K on

17:06

another card, and that's it for the credit

17:11

cards, and then I have a $10,000 car loan. I

17:15

also owe the IRS $1,300

17:18

because I decided to go exempt on some paychecks,

17:20

which was really dumb. Because

17:23

you were gambling. Okay. So...

17:28

Well, you hit your rock bottom, though, and I

17:30

think for a lot of people, there is that

17:32

part of their story where it's just you

17:34

lost everything, your relationship. You

17:37

got to a point you couldn't continue

17:39

to move forward until you

17:41

had those conversations, right, to actually bring

17:43

up what's been going on. But

17:46

I'm with Dave on that. Just

17:48

for your own sake, and I think that all of this is

17:51

good for anybody just to do some work around

17:54

who you are, how you got here, what are

17:56

these things, these compulsions, where is it coming

17:58

from? digging the problem

18:00

in your story. Yeah the problem with going to

18:02

Waco is you go with you. Yeah.

18:06

So all of these things

18:08

are still there. You're

18:10

not getting away from them. Totally.

18:14

The good thing is they're putting me in

18:17

a hotel. I know which

18:19

is you were in a room

18:21

before by yourself that was dangerous.

18:23

Yeah. They're paying for

18:25

rent. I have a work truck waiting for

18:27

me out there. It sounds

18:29

like a good deal except that you're going

18:31

with you. I'm worried about you. Yeah I would

18:34

just say if you were to do this from

18:36

a financial aspect I would

18:38

put some parameters around it and I would.

18:40

I mean things like GA is so great.

18:42

I mean the 12-step stuff is so good.

18:44

You need to plug in the gamblers or not. Yeah it's being

18:46

in a weekly group. I mean honestly it's like

18:49

these practices that you put yourself in front of

18:51

continue to work on the shame. It continues to

18:54

work on the actual act of it. I mean

18:56

I just I think it's I don't know. So

19:00

I without having without

19:02

making sure you're healed

19:04

or in a healing process just

19:07

taking off to Waco is a bad idea. So

19:10

if you if you're engaged in some

19:12

kind of healing process and Waco is

19:14

part of that process great but

19:16

running away and you following you is

19:19

a bad plan. This is the

19:21

Ramsey Show. This

19:25

episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Listen

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19:32

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20:34

It's common sense for

20:36

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20:38

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20:42

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20:57

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to stop by and join us here in Nashville.

21:06

Anthony and Susan are on the debt

21:08

free stage. Welcome guys. Hey.

21:11

Hi. Where do you guys live?

21:13

St. Louis, Missouri. Oh wow, nice. Welcome

21:15

to Nashville. How much debt have you paid off? We paid off $54,773.

21:20

Very good. How long did that take?

21:22

About eight months. Good for you. Wow.

21:25

And your range of income during that time? Yeah. We

21:27

went from making $165,365 in 2022 to $266,678 last year. Oh

21:36

my gosh. You dropped 100K. Yeah.

21:39

What do you all do for a living? So, I'm a nurse.

21:42

She's a registered nurse and I'm a

21:44

precision plater for a defense company. Okay.

21:47

So, what y'all do? Just like work overtime out

21:49

your ears? Yeah. Or get big

21:51

promotions or what? 12 hours a day, 7 days a

21:53

week. Oh my gosh. What

21:56

kind of debt was the $55,000? bulk

22:00

of it was student loans and

22:03

also a discover card and then we had

22:05

a lot of smaller stuff like jewelry

22:09

loan we had phones

22:11

that we owed money on we had a 401k

22:14

loan. Y'all were like normal. Pretty normal.

22:16

Yeah and normal sucks. Yeah so you

22:18

woke up and said this sucks. How

22:20

long y'all been married? 15 years. So

22:22

14 years this

22:25

has gone by. Yeah. And what

22:27

happened a year ago? What was the blow? What was the

22:30

Ramsey connection? Well a year ago was about

22:32

a year of us really being stressed out

22:34

with having a lot of debt and

22:37

we would I remember we were like always

22:39

sitting in the hot tub that we of course

22:42

got a loan for finance and complaining

22:45

about like the burden of

22:47

the debt and what do we need

22:49

to do to get through it. That

22:51

is a great picture. Yeah

22:54

it was pretty crazy. I'm

22:56

sitting in my finance hot

22:58

tub whining about the debt.

23:00

Right. That is so great.

23:02

I actually had an

23:04

injury where I had to have a medical

23:06

procedure done and I was out of work for

23:08

three months. Oh

23:11

and that put the pinch on stuff. It

23:13

did yeah so. And you went oh this

23:15

crap ain't working. Yeah we took a 401k

23:17

loan out to try to cover that span

23:19

of of time and then the credit card

23:21

just took off because it wasn't

23:23

enough and

23:25

so at that point we knew that something

23:27

had to change. So at the point okay

23:30

so the pressure built up. Yeah. Gave you a

23:32

wake-up call then what'd you do? Well

23:34

we had your books sitting on our shelf

23:37

for three months the total money or for

23:39

a long time the total money makeover and

23:41

we started to read it probably three or four

23:43

years prior because we we wanted

23:45

to change things but we didn't think we had a

23:47

big enough problem when we dove into it. Well

23:51

God put it on our hearts at the beginning

23:53

of last year that we could

23:55

we could change and the

23:57

book was staring us in the face so

23:59

picked it up. up and read it

24:01

within a couple days. Started

24:04

really listening to the podcast

24:06

and watching you

24:08

on YouTube and then we

24:11

just buckled down and we started to

24:13

create a budget. We used the Every

24:15

Dollar app and that was the

24:17

game changer. Was there one of

24:19

you guys that was more hardcore? We gotta

24:22

start more urgent about it or were you

24:25

both pretty equal? I

24:28

think he started things off but then we were

24:30

together wanting to get rid of the debt. Yes,

24:33

in that process. What

24:35

was the hardest part for you guys?

24:38

For eight months. You're working insane hours

24:40

and you're doing a lot. You went

24:42

crazy in a great way. For

24:45

me, it was like he's working all the time

24:47

so I'm taking care of everything at the house

24:49

and the kids. The

24:52

scariest thing for me honestly was

24:54

putting my 401k on hold. I've

24:56

always invested like 10% and he

24:59

was like, we have to do this. I was like, I

25:01

don't know but we did it. That was

25:04

the scariest thing. The weird thing is it's only

25:06

eight months. It didn't hurt. No, it didn't

25:08

hurt. We ended up doing the whole

25:10

year and saving more money. This year,

25:12

we started with a new investor and

25:14

my 401k is doing better than ever before.

25:19

Funny how that worked. We

25:21

hooked up with the Smart Investor Pro and

25:23

he really sat down with us and explained

25:26

what we were doing. Like

25:28

you always say, the reasons we started to understand

25:30

and she just pulled up a statement the other

25:33

day and since she

25:35

started taking some of that advice, the changes

25:37

have been pretty insane. Wow,

25:40

good for y'all. Well

25:42

done. Well done. Excellent. When

25:45

people find out you did this, since you got completely out

25:48

of debt, we were just bopping along 14 years of marriage

25:50

and then boom, a year

25:52

of hell and we get out of debt so

25:54

that we don't have to live in this mess

25:56

anymore. When people ask how'd you

25:58

do that, what do you tell them that's secret to getting

26:00

out of debt is. I

26:03

think for me the big

26:05

thing was you gotta

26:07

go to work you have to work hard you have to and

26:13

not only that you have to get

26:15

on the same page and create a budget.

26:18

For us for the longest time Susan

26:20

always handled the finances. I was

26:22

like looking back in ostrich with my

26:24

head in the sand like she would come to me

26:26

and say this is going on and I I

26:29

didn't want to hear it because I felt like it

26:31

stressed me out and I needed to grow

26:34

as a man and step up and and

26:36

we needed to lock arms and come together

26:38

and and create a vision

26:40

for for what we wanted the money

26:42

to do. Every

26:44

wife in America just went touchdown!

26:46

I don't know if they said

26:49

touchdown they probably said amen amen

26:51

hallelujah. That's so good so so

26:53

good. This had to impact your ultramaric then. Susan

26:57

you're not carrying the whole way this thing on your back. Right.

27:00

It's been really awesome sitting down with him.

27:02

We sit down every week and do the

27:04

budget do the bank book together do everything

27:06

together and you know it was

27:08

just me for like the longest time so that's just

27:11

it's amazing. So Anthony did it when you actually started leaning

27:13

in and doing it did it stress you out as much as

27:15

you thought it would back in the day when you said I

27:17

don't want to look at that I might get stressed. In

27:20

the beginning I wouldn't it might have stressed

27:22

me out because I know for a while

27:25

it was hard to learn how to be how

27:28

to how to compromise so there

27:30

were things that I saw that like that

27:33

money was going to places that I

27:35

had no idea and so

27:37

I had to learn that like this this

27:39

needs to go there like this isn't like

27:41

frivolous or or or anything like that like

27:44

I because I my eyes were open to

27:46

where the money was going. That

27:48

makes sense. That's very good. So you weren't

27:50

scared of hard work before but when you

27:52

had a reason for your hard

27:54

work you went after it. Kicked it in overdrive. Yeah

27:56

big time you kicked it hard. Well

27:58

done guys well done. I'm so proud

28:00

of you your heroes man. Thank you.

28:03

You're here. Oh, and you have three

28:05

kids. Yes Yeah, all right. Let's bring

28:07

them up and introduce them and give

28:09

me their names and ages, please So

28:11

our oldest daughter, this is Courtney. She's

28:13

14. Hey Courtney good good and our

28:15

middle daughter is Sophia She's 12. Mm-hmm.

28:17

And our youngest daughter Abigail is seven.

28:20

All right, Miss Abigail All right, very

28:22

cool And there's so many

28:24

families that are in the middle of this journey

28:26

And I really think you guys just being here

28:28

is such a beautiful picture that it's possible. Yeah,

28:31

so possible. Well done Amazing. We've got a

28:33

one-year subscription for every dollar for you for

28:35

the premium and Another one as well for

28:37

you to give away to somebody and get

28:40

them started on it way to go you

28:42

guys your heroes I'm very proud of you

28:44

Those three beautiful girls lives have been changed

28:46

by a grown man and a

28:48

grown woman doing what they're supposed to do

28:50

Well done you guys very cool Anthony

28:53

and Susan Courtney Sophia and Abby

28:55

from st. Louis $55,000

28:59

paid off in eight months making 165 and

29:02

then went to work 266

29:05

count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream That

29:18

is how that is done Man,

29:21

I mean all

29:23

the questions we get I can't

29:26

get my husband involved I can't get

29:28

my wife involved that that guy

29:30

just outlined right there. He just stepped up that

29:32

was that was the most manly Masculine

29:36

thing I've heard in a long time for

29:38

that guy. He owned every bit of it

29:40

Yeah, and stepped in there beautifully done and

29:42

so many women were her that that are

29:44

running the household on their own And it's

29:46

a lonely place to be and so when you sit down you end

29:49

up talking about life You end up talking this is where the money's

29:51

going. What's going here on here? And it's

29:53

so much the connection point is so huge.

29:55

It's so such a massive. This

29:57

is the Ramsey show Hey

30:02

guys, it's Rachel Cruz here to tell

30:04

you about a faith-based alternative to health

30:06

insurance that can make healthcare more affordable.

30:09

Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM

30:11

allows members to share each other's

30:13

healthcare costs and it's as

30:15

easy as one, two, three. Step

30:18

one, choose the healthcare provider you want.

30:21

Step two, submit your eligible bills. And

30:24

step three, get reimbursed. CHM members

30:26

take care of your eligible medical

30:28

bills. With no network and the

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freedom to choose your healthcare provider, CHM

30:32

is the best option for Christians who want

30:34

to take care of their families and help

30:37

other believers. Find out

30:39

more at chministries.org-budget. That's

30:42

chministries.org-budget. Rachel

30:47

Cruz, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling

30:49

author, my co-host today. Emily

30:51

is with us in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Hi

30:54

Emily, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, how's

30:56

it going? Good, how can we help? Good,

30:59

so I'm reaching out today. I feel like I'm

31:01

a Ramsey kid growing up. Your theme song has

31:03

been like a jingle in the household through the

31:05

last 26 years of my life. I'm

31:08

reaching out today and kind of nervous, not sure kind

31:10

of what to do at this point. We

31:13

make just under $100,000 a year,

31:15

my husband and I, and he is getting

31:17

ready to hopefully go back to school here

31:19

in a couple weeks. Just kind

31:21

of waiting on that official acceptance and we

31:24

will be able to get about 60% of our income.

31:27

And we were running numbers last night

31:29

sitting down trying to evaluate things and

31:32

I'm just not sure what

31:36

we do with such a large reduction

31:38

in our income based on what we kind

31:40

of sell with our expenses. Are

31:43

you guys able to cover the basics on

31:45

60% or on 40% of your income? Barely.

31:50

We do have two kids so

31:52

we are bearing the price of childcare

31:54

times two. On

31:56

the positive side, he's old enough now, he's

31:59

in his early... 30s where he's going to

32:01

be going to school on telegrams and scholarships so

32:03

we don't have to necessarily work on the cash

32:05

flow in his education. But

32:08

I'm just kind of concerned with how we're

32:10

going to structure like our living expenses.

32:13

How long will he be in school for? Roughly

32:16

eight to 13 months. And it's a full

32:18

roughly seven days a week, nine to five.

32:20

They said don't plan on working during

32:23

the program because it is such a vigorous

32:25

course. Well that means there's childcare

32:27

is no help at all. Exactly.

32:29

Okay so childcare stays there and

32:33

you're making 40k and

32:35

you can live on that or not. If

32:38

the answer is not you can't do it. Yeah I

32:41

mean. Yeah I don't think you know and we've looked

32:43

at a couple different options you know my parents

32:45

are getting ready to retire but I don't really

32:47

want them spending their whole retirement watching their grandkids

32:49

five days a week. Well

32:51

the eight to ten months is not their whole retirement.

32:55

True. True. True. Okay.

32:58

Yeah. I mean

33:00

if they want to do it that's

33:02

another thing. I mean they may not want to do it. It may

33:04

not be an option but I mean

33:09

what's he going to study? A

33:11

electrical line then. So he wants to do

33:13

high tower voltage. Okay.

33:16

And so he's making 60 now. He'll

33:18

come out making 80 day one. Yeah

33:21

I think they said apprentices start roughly 45

33:24

to 50 an hour flat rate. Not including

33:26

any overtime you know so the in keep.

33:28

And his apprenticeship is like only a couple of

33:31

years and then he'll be making serious money you

33:33

know. Yeah. Is

33:35

he going to travel with it? No

33:37

I think he plans to stay local. We bought

33:39

our house in 2020 for fairly cheap

33:41

at a super low interest rate so we're not really willing

33:43

to give that up right now. Okay.

33:46

Because I mean if he's traveling it's a whole

33:48

different world even. In that

33:50

world as you know. Yeah.

33:53

Okay. Well here's the thing.

33:56

It feels like the way you're describing

33:58

this. that you first

34:01

decided for him to do this um...

34:06

and then tried to figure out if you could afford it

34:08

rather than the other way around like

34:11

you should have figured out if you could afford it before he

34:13

decided to do it because his

34:15

primary job is to not become a

34:17

high-wire guy his primary job is to

34:20

feed his family and

34:23

if he can't do that then he

34:25

can't do this yep

34:28

and he's talked about picking up a part-time

34:30

job or working with his current employer

34:33

to see if he can work odd end

34:35

hours to kind of fill those

34:37

gaps but they shouldn't know how to do that

34:40

yeah they didn't recommend it until they kind

34:42

of get into like the core of the

34:44

program so he's been working towards

34:46

this roughly about six years he's paid off roughly

34:49

seven thousand dollars in debt because currently

34:52

we've done step one we've been working on

34:54

step two but as soon as he started

34:56

to get the beginning of the acceptance it's

34:58

just we kind of froze step two for

35:00

a minute to say okay how much did you

35:02

guys have left Emily? for

35:05

our debt? yeah not

35:07

including our mortgage about thirty five thousand

35:10

on what? student loans,

35:12

a vehicle and then we put a

35:14

new roof on our house after we purchased it

35:16

how much do you owe on the vehicle? um...

35:19

I want to say roughly five thousand is

35:23

there a way for him to delay this like a

35:26

year and you guys get in a position where you

35:28

pay off debt you can

35:30

get savings or like any level of

35:32

traction if you had no debt and

35:34

had your emergency fund fully funded you could probably see

35:36

your way through this a lot more to Rachel's point

35:40

yeah and that's something he's considered I just

35:42

know the program he's currently in you

35:44

know put it off and talked about it and

35:47

applied and so what? no that really

35:49

matters if you have hungry children when?

35:52

yeah so

35:54

and you know what I mean? he put it

35:56

off, uh-oh that's tough this is grown up land

35:59

yeah You got to do what you have to do

36:01

to feed your family first and then you

36:04

do this. So you'd be in a much

36:06

better condition if you said I'm going to

36:08

intentionally spend this next year

36:10

getting our crap together so that when I do

36:12

this it doesn't put my family in jeopardy. Because

36:15

you're really calling saying you can't figure out how

36:17

you're doing this. You keep saying we're barely going

36:19

to make it but what you're really saying is

36:22

we can't make it. No

36:24

problem. Aren't you? Well

36:27

looking at the numbers I think it's slightly doable

36:29

but then again getting out of our comfort zone

36:31

of our current lifestyle and getting

36:34

into that new lifestyle and I'm just concerned.

36:36

Well I can handle you. I mean you

36:38

can give up your comfort zone. That's whoop.

36:40

That's nothing. It's not comfort zone I'm concerned

36:42

about. It's food. Yeah

36:45

and you know the necessities will be matte. That's

36:47

our biggest thing. I'm just worried about

36:50

any additional expenses or things that come up.

36:52

How much is your house payment? About

36:55

a thousand. And

36:58

your take home page 3300. Yes.

37:03

And you're going to run the rest of this

37:06

household on 2300 bucks a month including $35,000 worth

37:08

of debt. Bull. That's,

37:11

that's, yeah that's or, yeah

37:14

the numbers aren't crunching. No they're not

37:16

crunching at all. Yeah. They're

37:20

crunching but it's not a good sound of crunch. Yeah.

37:24

Yeah. I, yeah.

37:27

I, I. I would wait Emily. Honestly

37:30

I. I, I don't, I'm not a dream

37:32

killer but I love killing nightmares. Yeah.

37:35

And so I don't

37:37

want to kill his dream but if his dream to

37:39

us, his whole family, you know you called me back

37:41

eight months from now, yeah he went but we're in

37:43

foreclosure. You

37:46

know I don't, I'm not going to sign you

37:48

up for that and have my stamp of approval.

37:51

I want him to go do this but

37:54

I want him to do it in such a way that he doesn't

37:56

put all of you guys in jeopardy and he doesn't want to put

37:58

you guys in jeopardy. You

38:00

guys have not thought this through until last

38:02

night. Yep. So

38:06

we've been looking at stuff and I've

38:09

pretty much run our budget. I mean he's not a

38:11

spender. It's not the question.

38:13

I'm not saying he's a bad guy.

38:15

I'm saying you guys together have not thought

38:18

this through until last night. And you have

38:20

to, Stephen Covey says one of the seven

38:22

habits of highly effective people is they begin

38:24

with the end in mind. And last night

38:26

you did that for the first time on

38:28

this and it took your breath away and

38:30

that's why you called. Yeah,

38:33

because I just wasn't sure I'd have to do it. So

38:35

here's what I'm going to tell you. If

38:37

I were in your shoes here's what I would do. My

38:40

first choice would be for

38:42

him to wait a year. Rachel's

38:44

suggestion is excellent. And

38:46

if it takes 18 months or if it

38:48

puts the whole thing in jeopardy so be it. I'll

38:51

call that God. And

38:53

so God put it in jeopardy because God says

38:55

don't do things where you

38:57

can't feed your own family. Those

39:01

that don't take care of their own household

39:03

first are worse than an unbeliever. Bible. Okay.

39:06

So we're you know we're going to call it that. Now

39:09

the if but I am

39:11

but I am convinced that if he can get

39:13

in there this round he can probably get in

39:15

another round. So that's choice

39:17

one. Choice two is you

39:19

guys look around there and figure out how

39:22

we're going to increase our income above your

39:24

base and mom and dad

39:26

are going to commit to keep the kids and drop

39:28

your daycare bill because your daycare bill is probably what

39:30

two grand a month. Yeah. Honey

39:34

your daycare in your house and you don't have any money

39:36

left for food. I just did that. Yeah

39:38

so that's a word. Am

39:40

I looking at child care alternatives and you're reaching out?

39:43

Yeah. Trying to find low cost.

39:45

Is your child care two grand a month? Yeah.

39:48

Plus a thousand. Three thousand. Yeah.

39:51

Your take home is thirty three hundred. Your budget's

39:54

not tight. It's impossible. You

39:57

cannot go forward unless you adjust something.

40:00

It's fantasy. Okay?

40:02

You don't have any, yeah. That's just

40:05

ding ding. So adjust the

40:07

childcare, sell a car, take

40:10

six jobs. He

40:13

works on the side even though he's not supposed to.

40:15

For eight months you grind it out like that? And

40:17

for eight months you pay a price for him to get

40:19

to be this? I'm okay with paying a price to win,

40:21

but I'm not okay paying a price knowing I'm going to

40:23

lose. That's a bad idea. It's

40:26

one life event away from to your point.

40:28

Foreclosure, a car, more repair. I'll repair all

40:30

of it. It's one month away. You

40:32

can't even get to the food budget

40:34

here. This is the Ramsey Show.

40:40

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey,

40:42

Pennsylvania, this is the Ramsey Show.

40:45

We help people build wealth,

40:48

do work that they

40:50

love, and create actual

40:52

amazing relationships. I'm

40:55

Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining

40:57

us, America. Open phones at 888-855-2225. Rachel

41:04

Cruz, Ramsey Personality No. 1 Best Selling

41:06

Author is my co-host today. And

41:09

we're happy to talk to you, America, about your

41:11

life and your money. So

41:14

when I wrote the first book I ever

41:16

wrote, Financial Peace, in 1994, raise your

41:18

hand if

41:22

you weren't born yet. Okay.

41:25

They did it in the lobby. Yeah.

41:29

When I wrote that book, I

41:31

proposed a concept in

41:34

our seminars that we were doing in those days

41:36

and in, it was a different

41:38

world in 1994. Sure. Yeah.

41:41

The 90s are back a little bit. I

41:43

proposed a concept and I got so

41:47

much, though the first

41:49

times I got just showered in hate. Oh,

41:52

I can't wait. It was

41:54

fabulous. And so

41:56

the concept was this. And

41:58

I don't remember the exact. numbers, but they

42:00

were a whole lot lower than they are today. So

42:03

I'll make up some numbers that would be similar

42:05

to what they probably were. I

42:08

said something like if a lady is making $30,000

42:10

a year at her job, she has two kids

42:15

and daycare is a thousand dollars

42:18

a month and

42:20

she buys clothing, professional

42:22

clothing to go to that job and

42:25

she dry cleans the professional clothes. Because in the nineties

42:27

you were wearing suits. To go to that job. For

42:29

a lot of places. Well, they weren't wearing sweatpants to

42:31

work in those days or your

42:33

pajamas. Um, and so,

42:35

uh, as a different world, like I

42:37

said, and if she were, and if

42:39

because she was working, she didn't prepare

42:41

meals from scratch at home because time

42:44

and fatigue, the family

42:46

would go out to eat more and they would spend

42:48

more on pre-prepared things

42:53

or going out to eat because of

42:55

fatigue. Ordering pizza because I'm tired and I don't

42:57

feel like cooking. Or the husband is choosing not

42:59

to cook. Yeah. Well, whatever. I'm just saying. And

43:02

so, uh, 1994, just hang with me here. But,

43:07

uh, and I propose that if you add

43:09

all of these things up, making $28,000

43:11

a year, paying

43:13

a thousand dollars a month for childcare, these

43:16

other things added in after

43:18

taxes, amount and

43:20

gasoline to drive to said

43:23

job and wear and tear on

43:25

the car to drive to said job. When

43:27

you take all of those things out, she's

43:29

probably losing money working. And

43:32

it might be cheaper net, net, net,

43:35

net, net, to stay home with the

43:37

kids. If she wants to, I

43:39

didn't say she should be at

43:41

home barefoot and pregnant. I did not say that.

43:44

I said, if she chooses to and wants to

43:46

be at home. Now, people said,

43:48

I said a lot of things I didn't say, but

43:50

that's exactly what I said, but even on the premise

43:52

that she can't afford,

43:54

she's not making enough. To

43:57

justify working. Yes. Or he.

44:00

with the expenses at that time. And

44:03

I caught hell for suggesting

44:06

that net of daycare, net

44:08

of all these other expenses, she might not

44:11

be making anything because

44:13

I did some math. And

44:16

that blame, if I didn't get blamed for

44:19

the other side of that, not that,

44:21

but the other way of not

44:24

understanding the cost of daycare and that

44:26

you can't afford to work because of the

44:28

cost of daycare, the stinking Wall Street Journal,

44:30

some woman writes an article trashing me. Briefly,

44:32

not in 90s. Just the other day, just

44:34

the other day, said I said on the

44:36

air that women, that daycare is

44:39

ridiculous and so you just need to shut up

44:41

and go to work. I didn't say that at

44:44

all. I've said quite the opposite since 1990, freaking

44:46

four. And

44:48

I get, I don't, if you're going to hate me,

44:50

hate me for the right thing, okay? If

44:53

you're going to bitch about something Dave said,

44:55

pick out something he actually said, okay?

44:58

Okay, but I think they clipped, I think there was

45:01

a clip of you saying that's a ridiculous amount to

45:03

pay for childcare. And they clipped that, not knowing the

45:05

whole call. Well, of course, because it's

45:07

the freaking media. I know, but that

45:09

specific- And some idiot on TikTok. Yes,

45:12

that specific guy was paying. But

45:15

he was paying like $28,000 for one kid. Yeah.

45:19

That is dumb. Well, I don't, yes. Average

45:22

right now, yes, average right now is $16,000. Yeah.

45:25

Okay. So depending on where you are, if

45:27

you're in New York City and Manhattan, that is going to look a different.

45:30

No, that guy was calling in. He was trying to put

45:32

his kid in- I don't remember. I

45:34

don't remember. I'm just telling, no, I don't know. It was Gucci

45:36

daycare. I don't know. He was signing up

45:38

for it. I don't know. His upper lip was sunburned

45:40

because his nose was in the air. We don't know

45:42

that. Yes, I do. No, we don't. No,

45:45

we don't. But I am not, I'm on quite the

45:47

other side of what I got blamed for, which is

45:49

what I'm upset for. I

45:51

did not, I mean, all I'm talking

45:53

about that particular instance, it's like somebody calling up and

45:55

going, I'm paying $46,000 a year for my child to

45:57

attend. a

46:00

private elementary school and I make

46:02

$60,000 a year. What do you think of

46:04

that? I

46:06

think you're a moron. That's what I think

46:08

of that. Okay, you can't do math. Your

46:11

kids shouldn't be in a school that fancy.

46:13

Okay, because you're just stuck up. That's all

46:15

that is and that's what this guy was.

46:17

It had nothing to do with the actual

46:19

cost of daycare. I think the thing is

46:21

it is such a hard subject

46:24

because unlike 94, you

46:26

fast forward to today where it

46:28

is. It's like childcare. It's ludicrous.

46:31

It's almost 40% in some areas

46:33

since like 2019. It's

46:35

going up faster than tuition. I

46:38

know that. For working moms

46:40

and parents. No, it's not different than 94.

46:42

So the exact same thing is true. Some

46:44

people now with the cost of daycare aren't

46:46

making money. That's right. I

46:48

totally agree. I'm still saying the same thing.

46:50

Yes, no, I know. Now I'm getting hated

46:53

for saying the other thing that I didn't

46:55

say. I know, but I

46:57

think too the conversation of a household income because

46:59

so many families are dual income and

47:01

a lot of families are dual income and

47:04

make on average in that 60-70 range per

47:08

year and then in order

47:11

to pay the mortgage and have

47:13

the food. I mean like there is a- These days,

47:15

mama might be making more than daddy. It's not

47:17

unusual at all. Oh yeah, that's the

47:20

other option is that the spouse

47:22

who's making more. I don't care. That's not

47:24

the point. It's a math thing is all

47:26

I'm looking at. And the

47:28

problem is though again people are getting

47:30

to this place now because it's risen

47:32

so quickly that they're

47:35

having to look now at exactly what you're saying at

47:37

the options of like oh my gosh and I've known

47:39

some moms that they're like I gotta go home like

47:41

I have three kids under the age of

47:43

five and we can't afford it. Literally

47:45

can't afford it. You make $40,000 a year today and you have three

47:49

kids under the age of five and daycare you're not

47:51

making money. I know. That's that 1994 example. In

47:55

24 dollars. I know. You

48:00

know other ways you can look at it. I

48:02

mean there's you got to find an alternative

48:05

child care situation if you're gonna work in

48:07

That situation. Yes. Yes, and because you're not

48:09

actually making money Yep, you're

48:11

working and going backwards and what's hard is

48:13

for the single mom to who doesn't know it's

48:15

almost impossible Yeah, who almost doesn't even have that

48:18

here's the other thing the 16,000 the average Nationally

48:22

this includes expensive markets.

48:25

Yeah inexpensive markets Yeah, and

48:27

it includes expensive daycares and

48:29

inexpensive daycares And so

48:31

there's a lot of ways to skin the cat There's

48:33

a lot of ways to take care of the kids

48:36

But it is a valid thing to sit and look

48:38

at it as a family and make and

48:40

make a call and the values Yeah, but people don't

48:43

use they get emotional because it's the issue is their

48:45

children and you want to bring it melt down Yeah,

48:47

and they quit doing math as a mom with little

48:49

kids who weren't you go you go through some of

48:51

these places You're like, I don't want to I don't

48:54

feel good comfortable sending my kid here to bring down

48:57

There's all I know I know but it's

48:59

the idea that it's it's a it's a

49:01

hard subject for a lot of people Okay,

49:09

so we left everyone with we're not gonna keep

49:11

the rent going how Yeah,

49:15

how high childcare is and how hard it is.

49:17

Yes, it is high and it is hard The

49:20

trick is to not be irrational and justify

49:25

stupid numbers Because

49:27

you love your children Love

49:31

of your children does not make math

49:33

go away Math

49:36

still will roost It'll

49:38

still come home. So we want to

49:40

help you face this high cost

49:42

And if you go to Ramsey solutions

49:44

comm we have a blog there called

49:46

13 ways To

49:49

afford the high cost

49:51

of childcare Almost

49:54

like everyone at Ramsey knows that

49:56

childcare Just

50:00

in case some of you on TikTok

50:02

weren't listening, we're aware

50:04

that child care cost is high, but

50:06

that does not mean that you suddenly

50:09

get a pass on math. The

50:11

cost of real estate in Manhattan is

50:13

high, but some of you can't

50:16

afford to live there because

50:18

of math. It's

50:20

that simple. The cost of real estate

50:22

in Tokyo is high, and some of

50:25

you can't afford to live there because

50:27

of math. So we'll help

50:30

you with this, but I'm not going to help

50:32

you with denial or the

50:34

system is broken, so I'm going to

50:36

ignore math. No, that's not what you...

50:38

We're not going to go down that alley. No, but

50:40

there are some different ways, creative ways to kind of

50:42

look at it, and one of the options is what

50:44

we talked about in the last segment was maybe one

50:48

parent decides to stay home, right? Like maybe it gets to a point

50:50

that it's not safe. That's a valid option. Yeah. So here's

50:52

the interesting thing. I'll add one more thing. I said we

50:54

weren't going to extend the around, but now we are. Okay.

50:57

There are parents out there

50:59

right now with this

51:02

thing. You and I have talked about this at length, mom

51:04

guilt. If you work, you're

51:07

guilty because you're not home. If you're home,

51:09

you feel guilty because you're not working. Moms

51:11

can't win. They got guilt

51:13

either way. Society and heaps it on them, they heap

51:15

it on themselves. If I'm at work, I feel guilty

51:18

because I'm not home with the kids. If I'm at

51:20

home with the kids, I feel guilty because I'm not

51:22

using my degree and I'm not out making money. And

51:25

so you just can't get away from it. Guys

51:27

don't struggle from this, by and large. Yeah. The

51:29

mom guilt is the very real thing. So in

51:32

the midst of that statement, there

51:34

are ladies who really would prefer

51:36

to be

51:38

at home with their children. Sure. Yeah. And have

51:41

never sat down and done the math that says

51:43

you should be. And

51:45

so this sets you free. Stay at home. I

51:47

want to set you free if that's you. Yes.

51:49

If you're a professional lady, Rachel's in the workplace.

51:51

My other daughter works. If you're a professional lady

51:54

in the workplace, I'm not trying, we're not trying

51:56

to say you should go home or you're not

51:58

a good mom. We're not saying. that

52:00

at all. We're saying if that's your choice

52:02

to be at home but you feel like

52:04

you should, the family needs money for working

52:07

and yet you're not netting anything, this

52:10

math is going to give you permission to go home. Yes,

52:12

there's a dollar value

52:14

for stay-at-home moms, the amount of work that they do. Ashley

52:18

in Savannah, Georgia. Hi Ashley, welcome to

52:20

the Ramsey Show. Hey y'all.

52:22

Hey, what's up? Well,

52:26

to continue off of what y'all are

52:28

talking about, how did my husband and

52:30

I pay off debt, rebuild our savings

52:32

and potentially have another baby while living

52:35

in this world where expenses keep increasing

52:37

like daycare and rent. What

52:40

do y'all make? What's household income? We

52:42

both make $80,000. Do

52:45

you make $160,000? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

52:47

You make $160,000. Well, our joint. How

52:51

much debt do you guys have? So, we are renting at $2,300 and then

52:53

obviously like

53:02

power and all that stuff. How much do

53:04

you own your cars? Just debt, yeah. We

53:06

have no car notes, car loans. My car

53:08

is paid off but she is reaching 200,000

53:10

miles and my husband

53:12

has an old blazer that we just can't rely

53:14

on. You have any debt? What

53:17

debt do you guys have? So,

53:20

I have two credit cards. One is $3,700

53:22

that I'm making minimum

53:25

payments on. Unfortunately, one

53:27

was charged off recently. My other

53:29

card which is about $15,000

53:33

and I'm pretty sure there's some medical debt

53:35

floating around. How long have you all been making $160,000 in

53:37

overspending? The $160,000 just happened

53:43

this year. What were you making in the

53:45

other years? Well,

53:48

COVID really rocked us. A 60-day

53:50

furlough turned into over a year

53:52

and then I took a job

53:54

for $50,000 and I

53:56

just got back up to $80,000. What

54:00

was your husband making? He's

54:03

been slowly progressing as well

54:05

so probably about 60 and just got

54:08

to 80 as well. Okay so y'all

54:10

were around that 100 mark for a while. So

54:12

here's what's happened okay you

54:15

went through a downturn in your incomes and

54:18

you slowly progressed back to and

54:21

beyond where you were before and

54:24

you've faster

54:26

than your income went up your

54:28

spending went up because

54:31

you didn't give me anywhere nothing

54:33

you've given me so far tells us where $160,000 is going I

54:38

have no idea why you should be this

54:40

broke. How in

54:42

the world you have a $3,000 credit card

54:44

charged off making 160 means you're out of control disorganized

54:48

and chaotic in your

54:51

house. So the credit card

54:53

I haven't put anything on a credit card

54:55

in here this is like really direct. But why

54:57

do you pay it off you make a hundred and sixty grand

54:59

it's $3,000 because you didn't have

55:03

any money because all your money is going to restaurants and

55:06

trips you can't afford. We're not

55:08

eating out we're not going on trips I'm not

55:10

getting my meals done I haven't got my hair

55:12

seriously. Where's your money going seriously

55:15

where's all your money going then if you're

55:17

in control and you have a budget laid out

55:20

where's your hundred and sixty thousand going because it's

55:22

not going to rent you don't have that much

55:24

right it's not going to that's 2300 she told

55:26

us there's no your rent slow you don't have

55:28

any debt where's your money

55:31

going. All of our

55:33

money goes to bills. What

55:35

bills? You don't have

55:38

any bills. This

55:42

is hilarious. Yeah what bills do you

55:44

have? Don't

55:46

yell at her. What bills do you have? Hello?

55:53

I'm sorry what bills do you have? All

55:56

of our bills combined are $4,000 a month. Okay that's 2300 for rent.

56:02

What's the other $1,700?

56:04

$1,250 for daycare, which keeps going up

56:07

year over year. Yeah, it does. Okay. And

56:11

then power, electricity, all the

56:13

basic minimum, gas, food. Okay, so did you say

56:15

$4,000 a month? Did I hear you right? Correct.

56:19

That's $48,000 a year. And

56:22

then plus childcare. No, no, no, that includes childcare. Did

56:25

it? The $4,000 included childcare? $1,250 for childcare. So

56:27

that's $48,000 out of 160. So somewhere I'm still missing

56:29

$102,000. Taxes.

56:34

Taxes. Okay. Somewhere

56:37

I'm still missing almost

56:39

$100,000. That's what I'm talking about. This

56:42

is recent. And then any money that we

56:44

have left over is going into the snowball

56:46

method. How much is

56:48

left over per month that you guys have? How

56:52

about 500? I'm sorry? And

56:55

we're just dumping that into savings. Okay.

57:01

Something's really, really, really, really off in

57:04

your math. Because

57:06

you gave me $48,000 worth of debt. $500

57:09

is $6,000. That's $54,000 out of 160. I'm still over $100,000. It's

57:11

missing, not counting taxes. You

57:19

following this? Are you looking at a yearly number?

57:22

I am. I

57:24

am. $500 a month is $6,000 a year. Hold

57:30

on. Ashley, how much hits your

57:32

checking accounts every month, income-wise,

57:35

after taxes? What are you

57:37

guys bringing home now? I

57:39

get $1,800 every two weeks. And

57:42

what about that? That's around

57:44

the same thing as well. Okay.

57:48

That's not $160,000 a year. Before

57:55

taxes? Yeah.

57:58

No. How much you got? You got money going? in

58:00

your 401k? No. Okay. You

58:03

have way too much

58:05

withholding. Okay. You guys need to,

58:07

okay, I'll tell you what, hold on. Here's what we're gonna do. I

58:10

can't break this because I can't break her. So,

58:12

um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna hook

58:15

you up with one of our financial counselors actually who can

58:17

sit down and calmly go through this and try to explain

58:19

it to you because I can't, nothing you're

58:21

saying makes sense. Well, 60,000. These numbers are 50,000,

58:23

60,000 numbers

58:27

off. She's just so far off,

58:29

it's unbelievable. And so there's something else going

58:31

on with your math here. I don't know

58:33

where your money's going. You don't know where

58:35

your money's going. All you figured

58:37

out is, is that it's not working. Um,

58:39

and so you guys have got to sit down. That's

58:44

$160,000 a year is not 1800 bucks

58:47

every two weeks comes to. Rachel

58:55

Cruz, Ramsey personality is my

58:57

co-host today. Our event

58:59

season is in full swing. We have three

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59:03

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59:51

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1:00:53

From the debt free stage in

1:00:55

the Ramsey Solutions headquarters, Lobby

1:00:57

is Tyler and Jesse. Hey guys, how are

1:00:59

you? Good, how are you? Better than I

1:01:02

deserve, man. Tell me, where do you guys

1:01:04

live? Worcester, Ohio. Cool.

1:01:06

What's that near? Akron.

1:01:09

Akron. All right, cool. And

1:01:11

how much debt have you guys paid? How

1:01:13

long did that take? 44

1:01:16

months. Good for you and

1:01:18

your range of income? We started at 116 and now we

1:01:20

make 169. Good.

1:01:23

What do you guys do for a living? I'm a firefighter. I'm

1:01:26

a physical therapist. Very cool. Awesome.

1:01:29

Very cool. What was the

1:01:32

289? What kind of debt? It was two car loans and then

1:01:34

most of it was a student loan. Wow.

1:01:37

Nice, y'all. Good for you guys. Done.

1:01:39

How long have y'all been married? Four years

1:01:42

today. Oh, happy anniversary. Happy anniversary. Thank you.

1:01:45

They said it in unison. That was perfect.

1:01:47

That was so great. Very cool, you guys.

1:01:50

So somebody comes out with a bunch

1:01:52

of student loans. Maybe physical

1:01:54

therapy could be, I don't know, a hospital

1:01:57

doing a PT degree. You

1:02:00

guys get married and you go okay clean

1:02:02

up time Tell me how that happened in

1:02:04

what the conversation sounded like had you plug

1:02:06

into Ramsey so I grew up on My

1:02:09

parents said the Dave Ramsey program the baby

1:02:11

steps and so when I graduated in two

1:02:13

thousand and seventeen with my doctorate degree I

1:02:15

asked my them like wouldn't tests and he

1:02:17

said you need to read in other woman

1:02:19

the money make over in you need to

1:02:21

get signed up for a few long you'll

1:02:24

be the best might ever spent and so

1:02:26

I went to ask you a year before

1:02:28

meeting Tyler and then I met. How at

1:02:30

work! We started dating the next year. With.

1:02:32

Their talked about marriage and as okay.

1:02:35

Eight years ago says is courses makes sense

1:02:37

as I only need to know what comes

1:02:39

with me. As

1:02:42

I yeah so we have that we

1:02:44

have a talk am only talk about

1:02:46

how long did you been dating before

1:02:49

you disclose hundreds of thousands or stirred

1:02:51

London two months. Ago

1:02:54

as aloe as far as to see if

1:02:56

you are not s l great Oh my

1:02:58

gosh yeah I'd say it's a for four

1:03:00

years. Eve. You been doing that

1:03:02

the present. since you've been married. guys have been on.

1:03:04

That's okay. So how far was that? Because I feel

1:03:07

like. Especially when you add a new event

1:03:09

like whether it's marriage or a baby or you graduate

1:03:11

from cause or whatever it is you want to jump

1:03:13

into a new season and and just. Enjoy

1:03:15

life. So how how hard was

1:03:17

it? Being newly weds. Knowing.

1:03:19

Like were buckling down and do enough that it

1:03:22

was rough. A mean we got married

1:03:24

or during the pandemic. Oh my

1:03:26

gosh, Yes. And so. On my income

1:03:28

actually reduce you Got married at the height

1:03:30

of the pandemic? Yeah, I'm going to come

1:03:32

to mind. The quarantine started. yeah we're on.

1:03:34

sat down whenever we got. Zero says like

1:03:37

this is Mark this is the in a

1:03:39

March or oh my gosh and it's your

1:03:41

anniversary Yeah woo hoo! The case. Against the

1:03:43

whole pandemic you guys were doing this the

1:03:45

as. Well as trying to

1:03:48

the I income reduced by

1:03:50

half because my outpatient hours

1:03:52

were reduced on so. It.

1:03:54

Is amazing because I'm I actually

1:03:56

found other opportunities onscreen in the

1:03:58

Edi on third, so. going

1:04:01

and you know doing cash-based physical therapy

1:04:03

in people's homes that didn't want to

1:04:05

go you know out in the community.

1:04:07

Yeah, God really showed up. She

1:04:09

got after it too. Wow, you were

1:04:11

getting it. Good to me y'all. Amazing.

1:04:14

Wow. So you get married right at

1:04:16

the quarantine and then you go wide

1:04:19

open into this thing. So

1:04:21

what was the hardest part of the whole

1:04:24

journey? I think the

1:04:26

hardest part was just not playing the comparison

1:04:28

game and walking our own path.

1:04:30

You know we're at an age right now

1:04:32

where everybody in our life is making different

1:04:34

milestones and you know we

1:04:37

just had to celebrate ours. You know through

1:04:39

the debt snowball the way it's

1:04:41

set up you can still celebrate while you're paying

1:04:43

off your debt. So yeah, what

1:04:46

do you think? Yeah, yeah just

1:04:49

got to show up and do it. I

1:04:51

mean you just yeah, you know I think

1:04:53

what got me through was that I was

1:04:55

hearing the debt free screams of all these

1:04:57

other people who you know lost a spouse

1:05:00

or you know you know just

1:05:02

different things. Our life stuff too. Yeah,

1:05:04

and you know it's like okay they can do

1:05:06

it. How

1:05:09

much did you guys work would you say? What was like

1:05:11

at the peak? How many hours a week was like the...

1:05:14

Oh gosh we were like animals. Yeah,

1:05:16

we would go whole weeks

1:05:18

without seeing each other because we worked on schedules.

1:05:22

With my job I think I sometimes was

1:05:24

like somewhere around 60-65 hours a week. Oh

1:05:26

my gosh, yeah. Yeah, as a fireman I

1:05:28

could go upwards of a hundred hours a

1:05:30

week but you know sometimes we get

1:05:32

to sleep but not always guaranteed

1:05:34

by any stretch. Okay, so besides work and

1:05:36

income what's the other part of this that you

1:05:38

would have somebody... What are you hoping? Yeah, the key. What's

1:05:41

the key? What's the thing? The number one thing? To

1:05:43

get out of debt. Oh, just

1:05:47

take every opportunity you can to increase your income.

1:05:49

I know we did. We just went

1:05:51

after every certification. We're at work anyways. We're spending

1:05:53

hours anyways. Let's just do that too. It was

1:05:55

trying to get you know our

1:05:57

time worth more and then also... at

1:06:00

home just making meals at home,

1:06:02

packing lunches. We made

1:06:05

our own laundry detergent. I mean you

1:06:07

know all these little things that really add

1:06:09

up. Yeah and just to add on to

1:06:12

that you know we're

1:06:14

lucky enough that the phase of life we're in we

1:06:16

don't have children yet anything like that

1:06:18

so we took this time for a lot

1:06:20

of professional development like our life wasn't on

1:06:22

hold really because we've developed

1:06:24

a lot so. That's awesome

1:06:27

you guys yeah for sure. Your

1:06:29

incomes of increased permanently because of

1:06:31

that. So nice. No

1:06:33

payments. Your heroes well

1:06:36

done. So the first four years you worked

1:06:38

your tail end off for four years you're

1:06:40

a hundred percent debt free

1:06:42

was it worth it? Yes. Oh yeah.

1:06:44

Yes it's amazing to walk

1:06:46

into work and know that we

1:06:49

have the ball now. You know every dollar

1:06:52

goes towards our goals. We're not paying some

1:06:54

bank you know. That's

1:06:57

it. Yeah just put

1:06:59

me in coach. I

1:07:02

love it. Well done. Well

1:07:04

done. So proud of y'all. Who was cheering your

1:07:06

on? I bet your dad. Yep. Yep.

1:07:08

Our family, our friends. We

1:07:10

definitely talked to people who had gone through the

1:07:12

steps and were successful with it. Yeah. Yeah. And

1:07:14

it's funny like you know at work I

1:07:17

almost have like a second family. We

1:07:19

brought some people around you know and they

1:07:21

were cheering us on at the end too.

1:07:24

So it was awesome. Yeah that's right. Very

1:07:26

cool. So great you guys. Well done guys.

1:07:28

Home run. Touchdown. Way to go heroes. Hey

1:07:30

we've got a every dollar subscription for you

1:07:32

for the premium you're probably already using it

1:07:34

and that'll extend it for you and another

1:07:37

one for you to give away for somebody

1:07:39

that can't believe you really did this. I'm

1:07:42

impressed with these numbers. Very hard

1:07:44

work. Very hard work. She's not

1:07:46

kidding. Lots and lots of hours. She said it like

1:07:48

six times but she's exactly right. Oh yeah. Really

1:07:50

happened. Really happened. All right

1:07:52

it's Tyler and Jesse from Akron, Ohio. 289,000

1:07:55

paid off in 44 months

1:07:57

making 116 to 169. count

1:08:00

it down. Let's hear a debt free scream! 3,

1:08:02

2, 1, We're Debt Free! Yay!

1:08:04

Way to go you guys!

1:08:14

And now their debt free

1:08:16

scream is permanently enshrined

1:08:18

in the YouTube Hall of Fame to

1:08:22

encourage other people who are in

1:08:24

the middle of their hard journey. Telling

1:08:26

you it's worth it. This is

1:08:29

the Ramsey Show. Listen,

1:08:33

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1:08:35

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1:09:00

filing can be. That's ramseysolutions.com/Smart Tax. Open

1:09:05

phones this hour. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host.

1:09:07

Thank you for joining us. Today's

1:09:10

question comes from Anonymous. I

1:09:12

haven't heard from Anonymous in a while. He used to write

1:09:14

me all the time. Usually

1:09:18

doesn't have nice things to say. But let's

1:09:20

see what Anonymous in Arkansas says. It says,

1:09:22

how do you learn discipline? I spend

1:09:24

so much of my income on going

1:09:27

out to eat. I work over

1:09:29

nights at Walmart and make $20 an hour. But

1:09:31

my bank account always is a race to

1:09:34

zero. I borrow money from my paycheck before

1:09:36

I get it and use apps like Dave.

1:09:39

Yeah there is one. It's not

1:09:41

mine. To get cash advance. Is it

1:09:43

really named Dave? Yeah they named it after they

1:09:45

did that on purpose. Oh no Dave. It's

1:09:48

a cash advance app. It's $5

1:09:50

for an instant deposit. I feel like I

1:09:52

can't get out of this $3,000

1:09:54

credit card hold that I'm in. I also

1:09:56

owe the IRS around $4,000. If

1:10:00

I was disciplined with my money, I wouldn't be in

1:10:02

the spot in 27, I need to get my stuff

1:10:04

together. Wow. Anonymous,

1:10:07

that is a very,

1:10:10

I think

1:10:12

you have your stuff together. My

1:10:15

dad used to tell me that when you

1:10:17

recognize a problem, 90% of

1:10:19

the problem is solved. And

1:10:22

so I think you're on a really, really

1:10:25

good path here. I

1:10:27

did the same thing anonymous. During

1:10:31

the Fauci pandemic, I ate every donut in

1:10:33

a 50-mile radius. And

1:10:35

I looked down and there was a thing growing on the front

1:10:37

of me. It looked like a belly. It

1:10:40

was ridiculous. There's still a

1:10:42

little of it left, but I haven't got rid of all of it. But

1:10:45

I said, you know, Dave, you're a mess.

1:10:47

Dave, you're an idiot. Dave, you're

1:10:49

out of control. If

1:10:51

you would not eat everything in

1:10:54

sight, you would not be the size of an

1:10:56

elephant. You are not an idiot. You are making

1:10:58

idiot choices. I was doing idiot stuff. But it's

1:11:00

not who you are. Well, I'm just saying. I

1:11:02

did not have an identity crisis, never fear. But

1:11:05

the point is that I looked down just like you

1:11:07

did. I said, what I'm doing is not working. I'm

1:11:11

getting negative results for negative behavior.

1:11:14

I've got to change my behavior. That's a huge thing.

1:11:16

And I did. I hadn't had a donut since

1:11:19

the Fauci pandemic. So I lost 37 pounds.

1:11:23

And I've walked every day for 1,473

1:11:25

days as of this morning, at least a mile up to

1:11:27

five to seven miles in most days. So

1:11:29

yeah, I get it. I understand.

1:11:32

But what did I do there to

1:11:34

change my negative behaviors that

1:11:36

were giving me negative results was I

1:11:39

said, what has to be true? What has

1:11:41

to change? Well, you know, weight

1:11:43

loss is a lot like money. It's a

1:11:45

fairly simple concept. You

1:11:48

eat less. There

1:11:51

it is. And

1:11:54

you exercise more. There it is. And

1:11:57

so with money, what are we going to do? We're going to

1:11:59

make more. So you need to

1:12:01

probably be working more. And

1:12:03

maybe even at a different place, I don't know. You might

1:12:06

make more. You might be able to find a better

1:12:08

job. And then the second

1:12:10

thing, Anonymous, is I would be giving

1:12:12

the every dollar app. You can download

1:12:14

it for free. If you

1:12:17

want the upgrade, it's just a few dollars and it connects

1:12:19

to your bank. But that's the

1:12:21

world's best budgeting app. And

1:12:23

what the budget does is it's making every

1:12:25

one of your dollars behave before

1:12:27

you get them. That's

1:12:31

the trick to budgeting, is you

1:12:33

say before it occurs, before

1:12:36

the money comes into my hand, I'm going

1:12:39

to already have spent it on

1:12:42

paper, on purpose, on the app or

1:12:44

whatever. And that will give

1:12:47

you control. Then the

1:12:49

discipline will come from you saying,

1:12:52

I don't want to live like this anymore, so I'm

1:12:54

going to live like that. I'm going to

1:12:56

be the guy that wrote this stuff down. I'm

1:12:58

going to be the guy that doesn't eat a donut. I'm

1:13:01

going to be the guy that doesn't sit on

1:13:03

his butt and watch Netflix. He's going to get

1:13:05

up and go walk four miles. I'm going to

1:13:07

be the guy that does something different because I

1:13:09

want a different result. But you've got something to

1:13:11

measure it against. In

1:13:13

my case, it was the scales. In your case, it's

1:13:15

some debt. And your

1:13:18

written down budget will give you

1:13:20

tremendous motivation if you really

1:13:22

mean it. And I'll be honest, I've been doing this

1:13:24

32 years, reading this email from

1:13:26

you anonymous. I think you really mean

1:13:28

it. Yeah. And you see things

1:13:31

like I spend so much of my income on going out to eat.

1:13:33

So like the planning with your money, you plan food.

1:13:36

So I mean like, you know what I mean? And just to

1:13:38

say, okay, I'm going to meal plan on Sunday

1:13:40

night and I'm going to know when we eat for breakfast, lunch, and

1:13:42

dinner every single day. And it's not going to be great food. It's

1:13:44

going to be cheap and it's going to be quick. But

1:13:46

I'm going to do that. My buddies want to go out for

1:13:49

a drink. I can't afford to. Yep. And

1:13:51

so it is. I can't afford to eat. I can't

1:13:53

afford to eat. And it's like a muscle. It takes

1:13:55

time. It takes time to build it. And so there's

1:13:57

going to be... But Anonymous, that couple that was just up here, that was making...

1:14:00

and $170,000 a year, they made their lunch and took it to work. Hello?

1:14:08

And they paid off $289,000 in debt. And

1:14:11

change is hard though. And I think like- Oh, it is

1:14:13

hard. Well, and we laugh at you sometimes, or I laugh

1:14:15

at you sometimes, because you're like, change.

1:14:19

Just change. Well- You do

1:14:21

this like clapping thing and I'm like, but

1:14:24

here's the deal. It is difficult because there

1:14:26

is a norm that you set in. It's

1:14:28

a human experience of like what I know

1:14:30

is normal, is comfortable. Even

1:14:32

though I know it's wrong and

1:14:34

that change, that's almost

1:14:36

the scarier step. It's almost the scarier step

1:14:39

to say, it's what I say baby step

1:14:41

one, sometimes the hardest, because I'm engaging in

1:14:43

something new. And so, in a sense- Changing

1:14:46

to do something that feels hard is

1:14:49

hard. Yes. But change is

1:14:51

not necessarily hard. If you change from

1:14:55

driving a horrible car to driving a great car,

1:14:57

that's not hard. Yeah, that's fair. I

1:14:59

guess so. That's a good change. So that's

1:15:01

not a hard change. Okay? If you

1:15:03

change from living in a dump to moving into a million dollar house, that's not a

1:15:05

hard change. Change is easy. When

1:15:08

it's- When it feels benefit, it's when the change

1:15:10

has sacrificed. What you've got to do is you

1:15:12

have to say, is this hard change taking me to

1:15:14

a better place? Then I got to work

1:15:16

my way through it. Is it worth it? It's

1:15:18

like the bumper sticker when I'm fat

1:15:20

from the donuts. I see this bumper sticker and it

1:15:23

says, nothing tastes as good as it feels to be

1:15:25

thin. And

1:15:29

so don't put it in your mouth. It's that kind of thing. You

1:15:31

cannot run a Big Mac. And so you can't

1:15:33

do enough exercise to eat Big Macs. It doesn't work. So

1:15:36

that's it. And so these things,

1:15:38

you get, okay, I'm going

1:15:40

to live like no one else so

1:15:43

that later I can live and give like

1:15:45

no one else. No discipline seems pleasant at

1:15:47

the time, but it yields a harvest of

1:15:49

righteousness. And so instead of sitting down

1:15:51

and looking at my numbers and going, well, this

1:15:55

can't be done. You

1:15:57

know, there's no way. what

1:16:00

has to change? What must be different? Okay, we're

1:16:02

not eating out. We're gonna have a written game

1:16:04

plan. We're gonna look at increasing our income. And

1:16:07

when you align yourself to all of

1:16:09

those, because the belief that

1:16:11

you're getting to, that those are gonna

1:16:13

take you to a better place, you'll

1:16:15

instantly be motivated. No

1:16:18

one exercises, well, I won't say that.

1:16:21

Most people don't

1:16:23

exercise because it's

1:16:25

fun. Some

1:16:28

of you do, but you're sick. But most

1:16:30

people exercise because it's good for

1:16:32

you. You do get a

1:16:34

high off of it when you're done. But

1:16:40

I'm just saying, it's not because it's like,

1:16:42

whoo, whoo, you know. And so there's a,

1:16:44

I mean, yesterday morning it was raining. I

1:16:47

did not want to walk. It

1:16:49

was not fun. I did not want

1:16:51

to walk. What I wanted was the result more

1:16:54

than I wanted the action. I

1:16:56

can't tell you that was fun. You should lift. Yeah,

1:16:58

I should do something. But yeah, but at

1:17:01

least I did that. So you're

1:17:03

trying to find something I can do indoors. I know.

1:17:05

But anyway, the point

1:17:08

being anonymous, I really think

1:17:11

you're onto something. I really think there's good things

1:17:13

are going to come to your life because,

1:17:16

you know, discipline, no

1:17:19

discipline seems pleasant at the time. His

1:17:21

question was how do you learn discipline?

1:17:24

But it yields a harvest of righteousness. The

1:17:27

way you focus on it is you focus

1:17:29

on the harvest. What

1:17:31

you're going to get, but there's also the day in and day

1:17:33

out consistency that it just becomes

1:17:35

a part of who you are. James clear

1:17:37

talks about how new habits you just take

1:17:39

on a new identity. I am a person

1:17:41

that fills in the blank. I am not a person

1:17:43

that borrows money. Yep. I'm a person that

1:17:46

does not have credit. I'm a person who takes their lunch

1:17:48

to work. That is who I am. Right. I'm like

1:17:50

it's these new identity markers. I'm a

1:17:52

person with four pieces of plastic in

1:17:54

my pocket, two debit cards, my driver's

1:17:56

license, my handgun carry permit. These

1:17:58

are the only plastic I own. I don't

1:18:00

have any other plastic. That's

1:18:02

the person that I am. And

1:18:04

somebody says, well, you need to borrow money

1:18:07

to do that. I can't do that because

1:18:09

I'm a person that doesn't borrow money. And

1:18:12

so you're a person that has discipline. You're

1:18:14

a person that works extra. You're

1:18:16

a person that doesn't eat out when they're broke. You're

1:18:19

a person that doesn't go to happy hour when you should be

1:18:21

working overtime. You're a person

1:18:23

that, you know, and you're right, that James Clear

1:18:25

change of identity on Atomic Habits is a big

1:18:27

deal. Anonymous. I think this

1:18:29

is a fabulous question and I'm

1:18:31

really encouraged for you. This

1:18:34

is the Ramsey Show. Live

1:18:39

from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is the Ramsey

1:18:41

Show. And we help people. Build

1:18:44

wealth. Do work that

1:18:47

they love and create actual

1:18:50

amazing relationships. Rachel

1:18:52

Cruz, Ramsey personality, number

1:18:54

one best selling author and co-host of

1:18:56

the super popular Smart Money Happy Hour

1:18:59

on the Ramsey Networks is my co-host

1:19:01

today. Also my daughter. Phone

1:19:03

number 888-825-5225. Victoria

1:19:08

starts this hour in Portland, Oregon. Hey Victoria,

1:19:10

what's up? Yeah, hey Dave and Rachel. Thanks so much for taking

1:19:13

my call. Sure. How can

1:19:15

we help? Yeah,

1:19:17

my fiance and I are getting married in

1:19:19

July. Just this

1:19:21

week we started your financial peace

1:19:24

university. And within the

1:19:26

last month, we've been meeting weekly to go

1:19:28

over our personal budgets through the Every Dollar

1:19:30

app. Just

1:19:33

for personal debt, my fiance has about 4,000 left

1:19:36

on his student loans that should be paid

1:19:38

off in two months. Cool. My

1:19:41

fiance is a contractor. He owns a construction

1:19:43

company. He brings home

1:19:45

about, not brings home a salary, about 65

1:19:47

annually. I

1:19:50

work full time. I have a side business

1:19:52

that I recently started with my employer and

1:19:54

I bring home the same amount. You

1:19:57

guys are doing great. Congratulations. Thank

1:19:59

you. My question

1:20:01

is how should we approach

1:20:03

business debt? Who

1:20:07

has business debt? We

1:20:09

both do. So my fiance has business debt

1:20:12

he has about 180 and then in my...

1:20:14

What did he

1:20:17

buy? A lot of

1:20:19

equipment. So he has an excavator, two

1:20:21

trucks, dump trailer, a loan and

1:20:23

a credit card. And there may be

1:20:25

another loan. And what

1:20:27

about here? Yeah.

1:20:30

So for me mine might be a

1:20:32

little bit unique. My business partner is

1:20:34

my employer. She

1:20:36

has funded 30,000 into it, into the business. I'm

1:20:41

sorry. Your business partner is

1:20:45

your employer. Those things are inconsistent. Well, you're

1:20:47

like day job and then you guys started

1:20:49

a business. Is that right? Correct. Oh, okay.

1:20:51

Yeah, correct. Outside of my 40 hours. And

1:20:53

so that person put $30,000 into the business that you started together?

1:20:59

Correct. How is that debt then? They

1:21:01

invested into it. Well,

1:21:05

I guess it's not really then is it? Because

1:21:07

I'm not paying it back right now. You're

1:21:10

not supposed to... Is it supposed to

1:21:12

be repaid by the partnership before profits

1:21:14

come out or something? That's

1:21:18

how I've always assumed is that it would... He would get

1:21:20

paid off. Do we not have an agreement as to

1:21:22

how it will be paid off? I

1:21:25

guess for that one, no, we don't. You

1:21:27

need to get one by the end of the

1:21:29

weekend. Okay. We

1:21:31

need to know what's going on here. This is

1:21:34

the kind of stuff that destroys partnerships and businesses.

1:21:37

She has one set of expectations and you have

1:21:39

another. And then all of a

1:21:41

sudden the thing gets blindsided. So you guys need to

1:21:43

determine that very, very quickly. Usually

1:21:46

it would be something like a

1:21:48

percentage of the profits go to the debt until the

1:21:50

debt is cleared. Okay.

1:21:52

That would be a normal thing. And until

1:21:55

there's profit... Did they take that out? There

1:21:57

wouldn't be any. It's not dead until their

1:21:59

investment... Yeah, their investment is recouped is

1:22:01

really actually the terminology. Okay,

1:22:04

now over on his side he needs

1:22:06

to quit buying equipment. Yep,

1:22:10

yep, as of correct, correct and he's on

1:22:12

board with that, not buying additional equipment. Yeah,

1:22:14

he's got way too much. He may need to

1:22:16

sell some. The,

1:22:18

now he took a salary of $65,000. What

1:22:21

was his actual profit? I

1:22:25

don't know. So next week in

1:22:28

our budget meeting we're going to be going

1:22:30

over his business and then I'm actually going

1:22:32

to be set up taking

1:22:34

quick book classes and I'm going to be

1:22:36

taking over that for his

1:22:38

business to start helping out.

1:22:40

Okay, alright.

1:22:44

So probably we need to find

1:22:46

half of that debt and equipment

1:22:49

to sell because

1:22:51

I don't think his business, I don't think he's

1:22:53

got another $100,000. Another $100,000 coming out of that

1:22:55

business so I don't think he's making

1:22:57

much money considering the amount of

1:23:00

debt he has. So

1:23:02

I'm scared. Okay. $180,000 on a

1:23:04

$65,000 net is really scary. Right.

1:23:10

That's what I mean. $80,000 I can see my

1:23:12

way to work through that. So I'm

1:23:14

selling about half of this stuff give or take

1:23:17

and try to get a bunch of the debt paid off that way. Now

1:23:21

then let me give you one other nuance and

1:23:23

then let's address your question. Okay.

1:23:25

The nuance is this, they're technically

1:23:27

in both of these situations are

1:23:29

not business debt because

1:23:32

he signed personally for that equipment.

1:23:34

Right. The

1:23:37

bank doesn't think he has a business. The

1:23:40

bank thinks it's him. The law

1:23:43

thinks it's him. And

1:23:45

you didn't borrow money so you don't have debt. You have

1:23:47

an investor that has a recoup package. You have an investor,

1:23:49

a recoup plan on the investment before

1:23:52

you guys divvy up profits or as you divvy up

1:23:54

profits or something. You've got to figure that out. But

1:23:56

His equipment is personal debt that

1:23:58

he uses for money. business. That's

1:24:00

the legal technical thing that that

1:24:03

does matter because you know he

1:24:05

he is him that I'll be

1:24:07

bankrupted this go sideways, not the

1:24:09

his business. You

1:24:11

know painters were matter such snaps once

1:24:13

reset. all about. Then we say reason

1:24:15

gets Quickbooks going. You're doing very good

1:24:17

stuff Victoria, you're asking all the right

1:24:19

questions, are doing all the right things.

1:24:21

Congratulations You've got good answers to everything

1:24:23

so far on. Now when you're doing

1:24:25

the quickbooks, What we suggest when I'm

1:24:27

teaching our Entre Leadership brand and he

1:24:29

could start listening to the Entree Leadership

1:24:31

Podcast if he wants to as if

1:24:33

he wants learn business stuff from us.

1:24:35

It's It's how we teach small businesses

1:24:37

to grow their business like we grew

1:24:39

this once. When I find. That they

1:24:42

have Dad. I do it differently

1:24:44

than I do with your personal

1:24:46

credit card debt. Okay,

1:24:49

What we do their as we say

1:24:51

after he makes a basic living wage

1:24:53

out of the business. Which.

1:24:56

Now he's getting married. You know he might

1:24:58

make that be forty thousand. And

1:25:00

okay, Because but with your

1:25:02

income use as can probably make it

1:25:04

at home if he's doing laps. everything.

1:25:07

after that we're going to call profit.

1:25:10

Suffer. Ten like he was just a

1:25:13

manager at this business in got paid

1:25:15

forty thousand and I was the owner

1:25:17

than whatever was left from a keeping

1:25:19

books Standpoints: Income minus expenses including them

1:25:22

forty thousand on our manager is net

1:25:24

profit. you know that right? Right?

1:25:27

So of that net profit figure whatever

1:25:29

it is, and you can adjust the

1:25:31

salary to be whatever you want to

1:25:33

be. But but of that net profits,

1:25:35

I want the vast majority of it.

1:25:38

Each. Month to go to debt

1:25:40

reduction and the rest of it

1:25:42

to go to retained earnings. Which.

1:25:45

Is business talk for savings account.

1:25:49

Okay now so most companies will do

1:25:51

something like seventy thirty or eighty twenty.

1:25:54

So like eighty percent of your net

1:25:56

profit after you take a living wage

1:25:58

goes towards the deaths. When he goes

1:26:00

to build up your retained earnings because you

1:26:02

have to have some cash and business operates.

1:26:06

And how much I'm it's like how many

1:26:08

months of that would be is averaging. Around.

1:26:10

Anonymous month he's got every month.

1:26:13

Take a percentage since. Every

1:26:15

month take a percentage. Of.

1:26:17

The net profit. Whatever. That is

1:26:19

a bunch of it's eighty percent put up set

1:26:22

the formula have done. Ya. Look at

1:26:24

that and figure it out. Seventy percent, eighty percent

1:26:26

whatever is going to go to death, the others

1:26:28

gonna go in retained earnings. If. Retained

1:26:30

earnings gets too big. And

1:26:32

scary or yet too much money in the bank

1:26:35

ritual from pay off a piece of equipment rights.

1:26:37

but I don't think that's gonna happen or not

1:26:39

exist can be your issues. You probably going to

1:26:41

be sure to cash was the formula I'm giving

1:26:43

you. You're probably not. I haven't as much as

1:26:46

you want, especially now that you can't borrow money

1:26:48

anymore to buy more equipment. Your much cash to

1:26:50

do that after you get the other equipment paid

1:26:52

off. but that's a formula. Little work for you.

1:26:54

I think you guys are on the track to

1:26:57

success. Well done. This is the Ramsey show. Here.

1:27:02

To way too easy to put off

1:27:04

making a whale. And believe me, I've

1:27:07

heard every excuse and the book. but

1:27:09

not having the time is one excuse

1:27:11

we can kick to the curb or

1:27:13

right now because these days most folks

1:27:16

can make a legally binding will on

1:27:18

their laptop between loads of laundry. If

1:27:20

you're wondering if you can make your

1:27:23

will online or if you need a

1:27:25

lawyer, we have a quiz to help

1:27:27

you figure that out in less than

1:27:29

five minutes. Just go to Ramsey solutions.com

1:27:32

Slice Wills. Quiz Ramsey

1:27:34

solutions.com Slice Wills

1:27:36

Quiz. right?

1:27:40

Your Cruise Ramsey personality As my

1:27:42

co hosted a Cassie As Weather's

1:27:44

in Denver I guess seats welcome

1:27:46

to the Ramsey So. I

1:27:49

don't sitting my call surf what's up.

1:27:52

i'm so i'm looking for advice

1:27:54

on how to improve my relationship

1:27:57

with my husband as we struggle

1:27:59

with bernau and feeling, the

1:28:01

feeling of equity during baby steps two and

1:28:03

three. So

1:28:06

we've been doing the baby steps for eight months

1:28:08

and had our first baby seven months ago. And

1:28:11

prior to that, it was easy to feel

1:28:13

like equal contributors to the household and relationship,

1:28:15

which is important to us. But

1:28:18

now he's working extra, and I'm doing more

1:28:20

at home with the baby, even though we're

1:28:22

both working really hard, it's just hard to

1:28:24

get that feeling that we're, we're

1:28:27

both in the same spot. We're both dealing with the

1:28:29

burnout right now, and we're just kind of looking for

1:28:31

any advice you guys might have. You're

1:28:33

not burnout. You have a new baby. Yeah.

1:28:40

I'm keeping one of my grandkids tonight.

1:28:42

It's hard. I'm

1:28:46

keeping the littlest one. It's hard.

1:28:48

Yeah. Cause they, they take up

1:28:50

a lot of energy. They can't

1:28:52

do anything, can they? They're completely helpless.

1:28:56

Yeah. And I guess, you know, me taking on

1:28:58

more of the household stuff, I I'm feeling it's

1:29:00

different burnt out than he is. Well,

1:29:03

you got a brand new thing. You've

1:29:05

never had this gig before. Right. If

1:29:07

you guys weren't working baby step two and three,

1:29:10

just having a newborn, it

1:29:13

ain't no picnic. Yeah. And

1:29:15

it's a different kind of exhaustion, which

1:29:17

you're doing. You never sleep. Right.

1:29:20

Yeah. And it's just a, yeah, I mean, it's,

1:29:22

yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot of stress.

1:29:24

How much debt do you guys have left? 39,000.

1:29:28

Okay. Do you guys

1:29:30

have a timeline on when you think it'll be paid off? So

1:29:33

we're actually, we know we're getting inheritance

1:29:35

probably 50 to 60,000 this summer,

1:29:38

but we're trying to live like we're not getting

1:29:40

that. I'm trying

1:29:42

to make the sacrifices now so we don't go back

1:29:44

into that. And then also we don't have

1:29:46

a house. So the end goal is a down payment.

1:29:49

More, the more you can pay off, the more

1:29:51

the inheritance can go towards the house. I love

1:29:53

that. Yeah, exactly. That's a good deal. Yeah. Okay.

1:29:56

So the way, number

1:29:58

one, We have. Brand.

1:30:00

New baby is a different kind of thing.

1:30:03

I'm not. I'm not of how

1:30:05

can find, I'm I'm empathizing. It's

1:30:07

a real you've got. What's more,

1:30:09

the toughest times for exhaustion. And.

1:30:11

A different kind of fatigue than you'll ever have any other

1:30:13

time in your life. As

1:30:16

a matter fact, every day it gets better. Yeah.

1:30:19

After the cheryl it up it a

1:30:22

night last night day very much see

1:30:24

I'm not getting a everyday gets better

1:30:26

it's precious. And it's

1:30:28

wonderful, but it's exhausting. And.

1:30:31

So it's a different kind of thing than

1:30:33

just we're working our tails off to get

1:30:35

out of deaths. It's also different kind of

1:30:37

banks because your bodies adjusting after having had

1:30:39

a child. And.

1:30:42

So that the physical attributes to that

1:30:44

arm or effect this discussion to in

1:30:46

a very real way and that's wonderful

1:30:48

to but it's also a very real

1:30:50

part of the chemistry of has gone

1:30:52

on. It's is tiring. yeah know it's

1:30:54

hard to get tired. Yeah cats and

1:30:57

so you're has been Are you working

1:30:59

outside at all? The hum are you?

1:31:01

is you their full time I where

1:31:03

I work fulltime classes and and Celiac

1:31:05

or cel as I sat down because

1:31:07

even my husband I we did this.

1:31:09

ah when I was working we had

1:31:11

kids. Were. It was like what?

1:31:13

what are the things around the house That's

1:31:15

I need help with that I feel like

1:31:17

oh my gosh like I can't do all

1:31:19

of this. And. Were are

1:31:21

the areas that he could step and right.

1:31:23

And it's and everything for a season. Life

1:31:26

is gonna change when when? Now even if

1:31:28

you have a second baby it does. It

1:31:30

changes dynamic again. Ah but have you find

1:31:32

that doesn't have those conversations? Because I think.

1:31:34

See. The responsibility at times, especially if

1:31:37

you're a driver as I'm like a.

1:31:39

You're a strong driver. As a woman, A. Can

1:31:41

feel like I'll just take care of it. All

1:31:44

I can do it and asking for now is

1:31:46

really difficult. And so have you. I

1:31:48

sat down and talked about that. Yeah

1:31:51

we have and it's also gotten better than

1:31:53

since originally wrote in already it improved from

1:31:55

talking okay as I think it's it's hard

1:31:57

to as he works of physical, dog and

1:31:59

mind. the desk job and then we just start

1:32:01

going into that whole thing. Yeah, it doesn't

1:32:03

matter. I think there's a relaxing. Yeah, no, no.

1:32:06

I think that's where you start splitting hairs because there's

1:32:08

a different type of exhaustion for all of it. You did

1:32:11

a physical thing having a baby. Well,

1:32:13

and her job. I heard her job is a desk

1:32:15

job right now. I know, and then you work all day and then you got

1:32:17

a baby. Yeah, it's

1:32:20

kind of all like we're all in this

1:32:22

together. It's not this oh keeping, score keeping

1:32:24

of will you do this kind of job

1:32:26

here and I do this. I

1:32:29

mean, like it can get into that and I think

1:32:31

it's kind of this like whole mindset of like we're

1:32:33

both exhausted so what is the plan

1:32:35

of action for us to get through

1:32:38

even just day to day the basics

1:32:40

and necessities of stuff and

1:32:42

feeling some level of that control in the

1:32:44

household because it is chaotic. I

1:32:47

mean, it's really difficult. But

1:32:49

when you have that stuff laid out and I think that's what Winston

1:32:51

and I did, we kind of blew up the whole like responsibility,

1:32:54

roles and responsibility of what we kind of thought

1:32:56

and kind of assumed each other. And for a

1:32:58

short period of time we're going to make it whatever it needs

1:33:00

to be. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of all hands on deck. Yeah,

1:33:02

and we could change it back and forth and we could do it

1:33:04

for two weeks and change it again. Yeah.

1:33:07

But I think you're, you know, when you said, Cassie, you all

1:33:09

sat down and started talking about it. But I want to give

1:33:12

you permission.

1:33:16

I don't think it's burnout. I

1:33:18

think it's just tired. Yeah.

1:33:22

Okay. Burnout is I don't emotionally, there's no

1:33:24

light at the end of the tunnel except

1:33:26

an oncoming train. You

1:33:28

actually see your way through this. You're

1:33:31

just freaking tired. Yeah,

1:33:34

that's fair. Yeah. And sometimes

1:33:36

when you have to pick up something out of the floor

1:33:39

or take out the trash or something

1:33:41

because he went to sleep because he just worked a

1:33:43

12 hour shift or something like that,

1:33:45

you know, it's easy to, it's when you're

1:33:47

tired, you get grouchy. At least I do.

1:33:51

I'm grouchy sometimes when I'm not tired. A

1:33:54

little bit today. So

1:33:56

yeah, the, you know, see what I'm

1:33:59

saying. I just want

1:34:01

to give you, I want you guys to give

1:34:03

yourself permission to say we are in a very

1:34:05

unusual season of life. Yes, it's a lot of

1:34:07

great. We're trying to do two very

1:34:09

hard things at the same time.

1:34:12

Get out of debt by working very

1:34:14

intensely and deal with a newborn. Both

1:34:17

of these are heavy lifting. Together,

1:34:19

it's really heavy and

1:34:22

it won't be for long. Yeah,

1:34:25

okay. And

1:34:27

then that helps me if

1:34:29

I'm at the end of the game and I'm exhausted, I've got

1:34:31

to run one more play, I've got to do one more thing,

1:34:33

I've got to push one more mile to finish that run. Whatever

1:34:36

it is, I'm at the end. As long as I can

1:34:38

see the end, I'm not burnt

1:34:40

out. I'm just tired. Yeah.

1:34:44

And you're there. You can see the end.

1:34:48

And you've done a, honestly,

1:34:50

from what you're describing, I think you're both

1:34:53

doing great. Mm-hmm. I just

1:34:55

think you haven't given yourself enough credit for how

1:34:57

much crap you've been going through. I mean, how

1:34:59

hard this is. It's hard.

1:35:02

The only thing we've- And to your point, Kathy, marriage changes

1:35:04

so drastically after you have a baby. I'm

1:35:07

like, your marriage looks different in

1:35:09

a sense. I'm like, the lack of sleep, the

1:35:11

connection, like all of that that you're talking about

1:35:13

is so normal, so, so normal. So, yeah, I

1:35:15

would say even for you guys, like find a

1:35:18

couple of things. I don't know. For

1:35:20

us, it just helps levity. Like if we

1:35:22

could just find levity and laughter and things

1:35:25

just to relieve some of that

1:35:27

tension and pressure that

1:35:29

can build up, I think is really helpful. Because you guys

1:35:31

may not be at a place where you're like, oh, yeah,

1:35:33

weekly date nights. I feel like some people are like, do

1:35:36

a weekly date night. And I'm like, do you know how

1:35:38

crazy our life is? We're not interested to

1:35:40

do that. But what's something fun?

1:35:42

And Dr. John Bologna will probably kill me for saying

1:35:44

this. But even

1:35:47

like a stupid TV show that it's like the

1:35:49

thing that you guys do, you sit down together

1:35:51

and you watch it, it makes you laugh. Like

1:35:53

what's the thing that just can bring some levity

1:35:56

to you guys, I think is always helpful, especially

1:35:58

in these seasons. Yeah, and

1:36:00

they're just now sleeping through the night at seven months. It's

1:36:03

just exhausting. Yeah. Yeah. But

1:36:05

you guys are doing a really good job, Cassie, and it doesn't last forever. But

1:36:09

I know exactly how you feel because it's

1:36:11

a lot. But it also

1:36:13

helps to put the right language on

1:36:15

it, and burnout's not the right language.

1:36:18

Tired is the right language. And

1:36:22

by the way, you have

1:36:24

a right to be tired. That's

1:36:26

what we're trying to tell you. But

1:36:28

it's also worth it. So keep going. Figure

1:36:32

it out. Sit down. Parse out

1:36:34

the chores. Go, honey, tonight, I just can't do

1:36:36

this. I'm going to bed. I mean,

1:36:38

whatever. Or, yeah, you've

1:36:40

got to take the midnight. I

1:36:42

can't do it. Whatever. And you

1:36:44

just go back and forth with that, and you just

1:36:47

work your way through till the end on this. And

1:36:49

you do figure out what you can do and what you can't do.

1:36:52

And keep handing it back and forth, handing it back and forth

1:36:54

until you get across the goal line. And

1:36:56

you'll get there. I

1:36:59

think you're probably a lot stronger than you feel like you

1:37:01

are. Matter of fact, I'm sure

1:37:03

you are. This is The Ramsey Show. If

1:37:08

you've taken Financial Peace University, you know

1:37:11

how life-changing it is. And there's no

1:37:13

better way to share that hope than

1:37:15

by leading an FPU class at your

1:37:17

church. Because right now, someone you know

1:37:20

in your church is struggling. Bad. They're

1:37:22

drowning in debt. They're scared to death and don't know what

1:37:24

to do. And you can

1:37:27

be the one to step up and

1:37:29

give them hope. Just like your FPU

1:37:31

coordinator did for you. Start

1:37:33

making a difference as a

1:37:35

coordinator by going to fpu.com/lead.

1:37:40

Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality is my

1:37:42

co-host today on the debt-free

1:37:44

stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions

1:37:47

Headquarters. John is with us. Hey John,

1:37:49

how are you? Better than I deserve,

1:37:51

Dave. Very cool. And

1:37:53

where do you live, sir? Seattle, Washington. And how

1:37:55

much debt have you paid? I

1:38:00

love it. How

1:38:02

long did this take? 3 years, 9 months, 27 days. And

1:38:06

your range of income during that time? 20,000

1:38:09

to start and then after a lot of side

1:38:11

hustles and a little bit of overtime, 60,000. Very

1:38:14

cool. What do you do

1:38:16

now? I'm a youth pastor and I'm also

1:38:18

a financial coach part time with your Ramsey

1:38:20

Preferred Coaching team. Cool. So dare

1:38:22

to be different. Romans 12 too. Yep.

1:38:25

You can be more conformed to this world

1:38:27

but be transformed by the renewing of your

1:38:29

mind. Amen. Good. I

1:38:32

love it. One of my favorite scriptures. Good for

1:38:34

you. Well done, well done, well done. What kind of debt

1:38:36

was the 60,000? Student loans.

1:38:38

Oh baby. Youth pastor with

1:38:41

student loans. Making

1:38:43

no money. You get out

1:38:45

of school and looked up 3 years ago, 9 months

1:38:47

and said I got to do this or what? Yeah.

1:38:50

So kind of like everyone or I was

1:38:53

a high schooler, didn't really have any plans.

1:38:55

I jumped straight into student loans, went to

1:38:57

a private Christian school and

1:38:59

didn't actually think about it. I was like, oh

1:39:01

signing, okay whatever. I don't really care what I

1:39:03

was doing. Two and a half

1:39:05

years in, I'm in my dorm and

1:39:07

I see this book and it's 5 college mistakes

1:39:09

you can't afford to miss by Rachel Curtis. Oh

1:39:12

yes. Wow. I was like, oh

1:39:14

that's a good book and I looked at it and one of

1:39:16

the chapters was college choice and said public

1:39:18

in state versus private out of state and

1:39:20

that's what I did and I was like,

1:39:23

oh no, what did I do? And

1:39:25

I looked and I saw I accumulated

1:39:27

60,000 and I was only halfway through

1:39:29

my degree. So I just

1:39:31

had this holy crap like full of shame,

1:39:33

full of hopelessness like what am I going

1:39:35

to do? And during

1:39:37

my part time college job, I was

1:39:39

actually kind of looking

1:39:42

and I scrolled upon a Dave

1:39:44

Ramsey, you know, bald guy giving

1:39:46

someone hope on YouTube and

1:39:48

I just jumped all in, started

1:39:51

consuming the podcast, the YouTube and

1:39:54

I realized wait a minute, I can

1:39:56

pay for my degree online while working

1:39:58

full time. So I actually. It

1:40:00

was December 2019 right before COVID.

1:40:03

So I did online before it was cool. That wasn't

1:40:05

a plan, but everyone kind of followed my vote sets.

1:40:07

Not really, but... But

1:40:10

honestly, the COVID pause actually helped me kind of

1:40:12

accelerate my debt payment, but I

1:40:14

made $1,600 a month to

1:40:17

start off and it was nothing. And

1:40:20

$150 a month for groceries, Instacart,

1:40:24

DoorDash, house sitting, cat sitting,

1:40:26

anything and everything. But

1:40:28

long story short, I even worked for a car

1:40:30

dealership for part of it. But

1:40:33

using Ken Coleman's materials, I realized I

1:40:35

have a passion for helping high schoolers

1:40:38

find and follow Jesus. And

1:40:40

that became just really evident through the

1:40:43

Ken Coleman materials, just community speaking into

1:40:45

my life, as well as, oh wait,

1:40:48

I also have this passion for finances

1:40:50

since finances is the biggest

1:40:53

and common reasons for

1:40:55

divorce. So I then kind of

1:40:57

did that. So now I'm actually at a

1:40:59

church Bethany Pialup. We do FPU,

1:41:02

which I love because I get to

1:41:04

point my high schoolers to it. But

1:41:07

a new thing now that I'm debt free and I

1:41:09

can do is every senior that graduates, I'm going to

1:41:11

give a copy of the total money makeover and

1:41:14

say, hey, I was an

1:41:16

idiot with money and I didn't follow God's

1:41:18

ways of handling money. I was a terrible

1:41:20

steward for his resources, for his kingdom and

1:41:23

for his glory. Please learn from me and

1:41:25

to talk about what Scripture actually says about

1:41:27

it. To also help

1:41:29

them set them up for success and to

1:41:32

recognize that your decisions impact your

1:41:36

future. So that's my job. Man,

1:41:38

you're amazing. Well done, sir. So great. Well

1:41:41

done. How old are you? All

1:41:45

right. Very cool. Good for you.

1:41:48

I had a bunch of cheerleaders. My mom

1:41:50

and my sister, I got a list. Dave

1:41:52

and Sarah Stachowski, the rental house I'm allowed

1:41:54

to stay in. My community group, the gouges

1:41:56

for my landscaping job, accountability, Jeff Brink, Sean

1:41:58

MacArthur, Matt Rand, Noah Lilly. and Tony

1:42:00

Duck. Almost like he knew I was going

1:42:02

to ask. Good, good, good. This is a great list. I

1:42:04

have listened to so many of these. We've had this conversation

1:42:07

so many times. I

1:42:09

just wasn't on the other end. But

1:42:12

one person in particular, I have a guitar

1:42:14

pick that says, never give up pork chop.

1:42:17

And pork chop was my family middle

1:42:19

name. And July 21st

1:42:22

this year, my dad passed

1:42:24

away. Oh my. He

1:42:26

was one of my biggest cheerleaders, and

1:42:29

I got out of debt in October. And

1:42:31

he didn't get to see it. Actually

1:42:33

he did. You're

1:42:36

right. But

1:42:38

he sent me, or any time you were on Fox

1:42:40

News Day, he would like send me articles. He's like,

1:42:42

John, you're kicking this dead butt. Keep going. And

1:42:47

he modeled for me, sacrifice, growing up. And it was hard,

1:42:49

man. There

1:42:51

were times I didn't want to wake up early, go landscaping,

1:42:54

and do all that stuff. But dad sacrificed for me, and

1:42:56

my sister growing up. So

1:42:59

I had that picture. Rachel says, Moore's Cough and Totten.

1:43:03

I got that from my dad. Wow. And

1:43:06

I miss him, and

1:43:08

I actually want to kind of dedicate this to him because

1:43:11

I really miss him. Yeah, you got the

1:43:13

T-shirt done. That's great. I like it. I

1:43:16

like the pick on there. That's very cool.

1:43:18

Good stuff. Good stuff, man. So

1:43:20

for you, your dad's story

1:43:22

integrated throughout this, and that was a

1:43:25

difficult part of the journey. But

1:43:27

for you, being in your mid-20s, kind of figuring all this

1:43:30

out and wanting to