The Only Hack To Paying Off Debt Is Doing The Hard Work

The Ramsey Show. We answer your questions. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Jade is in Memphis. Hi, Jade. How are you? Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Okay. So I am, we were in baby step two, but now we're in baby step one. And I got a notification that one of our credit cards is in threat of being charged off within 30 days. And so I don't really know what we should do, if I should take out a loan. and ask friends for that money because they're trying to settle, or if I should just let it go to collection. How much is it? It's $10,000, but they want to settle for $4,800. Okay. Do you have any money anywhere? No. So I lost my job in October, and I found out I was pregnant, and then I lost the baby in December. I'm sorry. And so we have less than the $1,000 in savings, and we're paycheck to paycheck right now. Okay. I'm sorry you went through that. What are you and your husband earning combined every month? Well, so before, I mean, my job, I got $60,000, so we took a $60,000 pay cut, and he makes $50,000. Are you getting a job, or have you found a position? So I have got a new job. I'm a mental health therapist. but it's part-time right now while I build clients. So I'm bringing home like anywhere from $500 to $1,000 every two weeks. Okay. Okay. That's not too, too bad. $500 to $1,000 every two weeks. Okay. So here's what I'm thinking. Right now you really are, you've been through a lot very quickly, and I applaud you for jumping back on your feet really quick. Is this $10,000, is this the only debt you have? Is there more? No. So we have two more credit cards, so 30 and then this 10, so 40. The other two were in payment plans for. So when I lost my job, I went into – I closed them, and I went into payment plans with lower interest rates. But this one, they wouldn't work with us, and so we didn't have the money to pay it. Okay. Tell me a little bit more about – I'm just trying to figure out what you can scrounge up, if there's anything you can sell, how quickly you can get this, or if you can even negotiate a smaller amount than the $4,800. Likely not, but I would try it. See, I didn't know if I should call and I should try that. I would. Why not? Not unless you're in the money line. I should try it. Not unless you got the money. Is there anything you can sell off? Tell me about your cars. So one car we own outright, and then one car we still have 10 left on, 10,000 left on. Okay. And that's our main vehicle that we use. How many kids do you have, honey? We have one. Okay. And we pay for daycare, so she's four. How quickly is your income going to ramp up, do you think? I'm hoping within the month. So by February, we should get back to my income. Oh, wow. I get paid 53 an hour, and I have 10 clients right now. So if I can get up to 20 clients, then I should reach that by February. but this will be charged off by the end of January. How much is your question? Let's stop a second, okay? Charged off does not mean anything. Okay. Okay. You already have a debt that has gone to collections. Your debt is already bad. Agreed? Okay. Yes. Okay. When they charge it off, it simply means they are not going to count it on their books anymore because they don't think they're going to collect it. but it doesn't make your credit worse. Your credit already is trashed. Yeah, it's bad. I just didn't want them to sue us in garden. They'll get around to that eventually, but charging it off, that is not a sign you're getting ready to get sued. How long ago did you pay the last payment on this account? Probably September. Okay. I doubt you're in any danger. Okay? Okay. I don't care if they charge it off. Guess what? If they charge it off the next day you talk to them, they'll take the $4,800 because they still want their money. The only difference is just they're coming up with these boogeymen in the closet. Oh, we're going to charge it off. No, please. What does that mean? No, please. What does that mean? It doesn't mean anything, really. Okay, so let's not worry about it. I don't want to be kicked while we're down. I know. You could get sued, but even then, you could settle the lawsuit for the same $4,800. Okay? It's not like every day this gets later and later and later, the chances statistically of them collecting it is smaller and smaller, so they are more and more flexible. They'll settle for less and less. Not less and less flexible. Okay. So it's not like it's a one-time, good-time deal. This is a one-time okay deal, and you probably could get the exact same deal or better two months from now when you guys are back on your feet. Okay. I think I'm just going to say, you know, guys, we just lost a baby. I've got a brand-new job. We simply don't have the money. It's a very kind offer for $4,800, but I don't have $4,800. If I did, you probably wouldn't be late. Well, I didn't know if I should stop paying the other two cards that we're current on to try to make a deal with them. No, I would just keep doing what you're doing. And let's get back up on our feet and then let's get the debt snowball working and start paying those minimum payments you're paying. You can save up some money and call these people and say, hey, I got $4,000. I got $3,000. You want to take that? If they want to take it, fine. If not, hang up on them. Call them back in two months. They'll do it then. And, you know, and just keep working your plan, working your debt snowball. But I don't think we're going to let them establish the urgency. Okay. Matter of fact, I know we're not going to let them establish the urgency. I literally, when you're telling this story, Jade, it's funny because I literally wrote a similar, about a similar instance in my book, and you're saying the same thing. What you just said about, oh, I'm thinking of taking these other credit cards and not paying those and paying it to other people. you feel that because of the stress and they're calling you and they're blowing up your phone and you're trying to focus on other things and they're just inundating you with calls and offers. And Dave is right. Like, just do what you know to do. Keep those minimum payments going. Get on your feet and don't let them be in control. Because if you let them be in control, all they want to do is take. They don't care about the fact that you need to buy groceries. They don't care about the fact that you lost a baby. They don't care about that. And so don't give them any more power. And don't give them any ammunition. There's no sense in having a discussion. Yeah, that's why I stopped making assignments, because I just wouldn't work with us. And guess what? Now they're very flexible. Okay. And guess what? They'll become more flexible. Three months from now, they'll be flexible again. Be like little gymnasts calling you up. I love it. I'm going to give you a copy of my book, okay, Jade? Yeah. Jade to Jade. Jade to Jade hookup. Friend to friend. I never meet anybody with my same name. That's a very new thing for me. And with a question that you've been through. I know. Exactly. It was meant to be on this publishing day. There we go. The book comes out today. It's On the Street. What No One Tells You About Money. The real key to getting unstuck from someone who's been there. Let's talk to credit card people at the credit card time charged off. Thank you. And that's why Casper mattresses are engineered to help you sleep deeper and wake up refreshed. And this isn't just one Georgia's opinion. Thousands of five-star reviews prove it. Plus, Casper mattresses ship free and come with a hundred-night trial. So you've got nothing to lose. Sleep is a must, and you deserve the best. So go to Casper.com slash Ramsey and use promo code Ramsey for 25% off mattresses and 10% off everything else. That gives you up to $1,200 off the Snowmax mattress, which is the exact one I sleep on every night. That's Casper.com slash Ramsey, code Ramsey. Exclusions apply. Well, guys, we know there's a lot of chaos out there making you feel like you cannot get ahead with money. A lot of messages, a lot of voices saying it can't be done. But you have more control than you think and than you're being told. This year, it's time to take back your money. Starting our free Every Dollar Live stream this Thursday night. Jade and I will be hosting this, and hundreds of thousands of you, probably millions, will be joining us. Thank you for that. It's free. We're going to give you the clarity in the middle of the chaos. And we can show you actually how to take back your money, get ahead with money. And we're going to be giving away $20,000 cash that night. Hello. No purchase necessary. Obviously, it's freaking free. Did I mention that it's free? And all you have to do is enter the giveaway to sign up, right? All you have to do to enter the giveaway is to sign up. So register right now, and that puts you in there for the giveaway. It also stands up to get all the links and everything so you can watch the free Every Dollar Livestream. And Jade and I will be doing it in front of a 2,500-person audience right here in our Ramsey Events Center this coming Thursday night. I'm looking forward to it. You too. Yeah. Ramseysolutions.com slash Livestream. And I watched Jade do her portion of it the other day in practice rounds. And you guys, listen, I should charge you a lot for this, but it's free. I'm just saying. It's really, you're going to get some solid information, some things to help you cut through all the garbage that's out there. There's a lot of squawking out there. Have you noticed? The only way you get rid of the squawking is to have a plan. Because then you quit listening to all the squawking. and everybody's got a dadgum opinion about why you can't win. Have you ever noticed that? And they're all people that aren't winning, by the way. Hello. People that are winning, they don't write in the comments section. Good point. You ever seen successful people that stop and write stuff negative in someone else's comments section? They don't. And your comments section, if you don't know, is not necessarily your YouTube page. It's just your life. When you're sitting there saying something positive and they're going, Oh, yeah, but don't you know about, and it's the little man can't get ahead, and, oh, it's all rigged, and the corporations, the corporations, and the taxes, and the government, and the inflation, and Biden, and Trump, and, oh, oh, oh, oh, shut up. Seriously. See, that's the chaos, and the voices, the squawking I'm talking about. We're going to help you with that. This Thursday night, for free. RamseySolutions.com slash livestream. Be sure and jump in. And it's the free every dollar live stream. Catherine is in Dallas. Hey, Catherine, what's up? Hey, how are you? Good. How can we help? So I was recently laid off, affected at the end of the month. And now me and my husband are trying to figure out what we should do with what we have in savings to kind of make that work the best for us. okay what were you making i was making about 42 000 a year okay doing what uh as a legal assistant okay and they laid you off after christmas no before christmas oh that month the week before the week before i'm sorry so you were working for grinch and grinch I mean, wow. You might as well have, yeah. I can't imagine. If I was going to lay somebody off the week before Christmas, I would do it the week before Thanksgiving. Just so I didn't do it the week before Christmas. Just give it some air. It did really better. It came after they flew me out for a Christmas party. Oh. The week before. What did you do at the Christmas party, Catherine? There was one for you drink. And there's my hotel. Oh, boy. I'm sorry. Oh, man. I'm sorry. Okay. This sucks. Okay. Anyway, aside from their lack of quality timing, let's see. So how's the job hunt going? So I started it that night after a bottle of wine. Good for you. And a lot of time. A bottle of wine. It's a good thing to start filling out your resume after a bottle of wine. Yeah. So I've got a couple of interviews lined up, and the goal, obviously, is to not have any laughs. There you go. There you go. So you got a little severed. No, no severed. Oh. They told me that the notice was our severed. Oh, I see. So you're just trying, you don't want to have any lack of. Good, good. No lapse. Yeah. Good. That's a good plan. Yeah. All right. So how are you getting some nibbles? I've got a couple of interviews lined up, and I hope that, again, I hope there's no lapse, and that I hope that something, anything, I will do anything. Okay. Can you not cover the lapse for one month on your husband's income? Yeah, what's he make? On my husband's income, he's military, so I think he puts down, like if you're selling out a form, I think he puts down like $70,000 a year is what he makes. When we did, because that night we did a breakdown of our expenses, if we changed absolutely nothing, we would be in the negative every month. How much? It was like a few hundred bucks. Okay, and how much do you have in savings? We have about $16,000 between the two of us. I was actually going to be a surrogate and had a miscarriage about partway through that process. So we have a decent amount of money in a separate account, because I purposely did not want to spend it, that we have not touched. Aside from the $16,000? No, that is the bulk. Okay, so here's the deal. Here's the deal. Don't do anything. Just go get a job. And if you don't get one and you have a gap for $200 or $300, take the $200 or $300 out of $16,000, and then the next month you're back up to even, right? Okay. Okay. That's what the emergency fund is there for. Yeah. Now, you've got debt and other stuff, though, right? Yes, we do have debt. For right now, we're not doing a total money makeover. We're just going to sit here in the middle of the hurricane until the wind quits blowing, and that's when you get the new job, and then we will assess the damage, and that might be that you have to pay a couple hundred bucks out of the $16,000 to float you for that one month until you get your paycheck going again. But I'm pretty dadgum sure, listening to you, you're going to have a paycheck in a month. I sure am, too. I mean, really, I think you are, don't you? I'm watching okay so if you don't it costs you 200 bucks of your savings right yeah it would cost me a couple hundred and if you don't the next month it costs you 200 more that's 400 whole dollars out of 16,000 whoopty doopty and if you start creeping up on 2 or 3 months you could easily pick up a little sign yeah she's not going to do that she's going to have a job because you've got too much going on here You're going to get a job. So my point is, you just don't do anything. And if you have to cover a little bit, you know, less than $1,000 out of the 16, it's no big deal, right, mathematically. Right. It just goes all with the fear of looking for a job and the pissed off of being mistreated. And all that stuff mixes in. And then the math quits being clear. Right. Yeah. Okay, because my husband and I disagree. He wants to pay things off. No, no. But you can't right now. You've got to get right side up first. As soon as you get back to work, the two of you need to combine your income, combine your debt, combine your savings, and start the total money makeover and start getting, you know, save $1,000 and take the rest of that $16 and throw it at the debt, smallest to largest, once you're moving again. And, you know, I want to change your mindset on this a little bit, Catherine, and I know it's easy for me to state on this side of things, but you got to look at this as an opportunity. Instead of looking at it like, oh man, I got fired. I got fired the week before Christmas and all these negative things. Maybe it's an opportunity for you to make more money than you've ever made and have a better job than what you had before in a more fulfilling workspace, right? It's not a high bar to get better people to work with. Yeah. This could turn out to be the best thing that's happened to you, but you got to switch your brain into that mode and it's going to change the way this feels for you. Yeah. And note to self, don't fly out to next year's Christmas party. Wow. No bottle of wine before the interview. They started budgeting and did that resume right after that first bottle of wine. We're going to get everything straightened out now, by the way. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. As we head into the new year, I want you to take an inventory of all the stuff you're carrying. All those things you think you have to do. all the past hurts and pains, along with your past guilts and shame. 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That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Ramsey. Jesse is in Memphis. Hi, Jesse. How are you? I'm doing better than I deserve. How about you, Dave? Just the same, sir. What's up? Good, good. Okay, so little preface. I work for a great company, and I did fairly well last year, and so they were taking my wife and I on a cruise in February, along with a lot of the people who have also gotten the metrics. And I was just wondering, I'm in baby step two, And so I know I shouldn't be on any vacations or going out spending, but am I allowed to have an allotted side job to use on this vacation? And yes, I get paid for it. Is it just you just need pocket money? You're allowed to do whatever you want to do, Jesse. But, you know, what would we do if you're in baby step two? This cruise is not costing you anything? No, I get paid the whole time I'm gone. I get a room and board and the company vehicle down to the port. Okay. So just pocket money for meals or whatever. No, I mean, it should be included on the cruise, right? Yeah, but it's just a little bit of money. It's just for, like, excursions or to have a little fun. This is the only vacation that I'm, quote-unquote, planning. If you planned it out and you've looked at it, what do you think is the amount of money you think you would need for it that you would spend? Oh, yes. We did it last year, and I did, like, bare bones, so I didn't spend anything. And I know that we could do it again like that. Oh, great. Don't talk to me about I don't ever get to go on vacation. I did a cruise last year. That's the plan. No whining. Wait. Agreed, agreed. Wait, let me get you back to your senses. How much debt do you have? Okay. So I got about five in consumer, a few cards. That started this year all in November. So I've already cut that down from 7K. And then I got my car, and that's about 14. That's it. I would go, Jesse, but what I would do is I want you to reframe this in your head. Okay? The reason that we teach people to stay out of restaurants and stay out of vacations while they're in baby step two is total focus. that I have one job, and that's to defeat the debt. Because if I live like no one else, later I can live and give like no one else. I'm paying a price to win. Okay? Okay. And that's how you frame this decision in your head. Not Dave, I want to go on vacation. We're not going to get to you on vacation for a long time. We went on a cruise last year, but come on. man. Wait, let me frame it to you. I'm sorry. No, I mean, really, you need to frame it up with, I'm going to do this. I don't need Dave's permission to do it for sure. You're like a grown man and you hit your metrics. Okay. But I'm going to do this, but I'm also going to make sure that the altitude and the attitude and the angle of my heart is permanently changed. away from the rationalizations and the justifications that allowed me to get into this mess in the first place. That's why we do this. Because we're trying to shock your spirit into saying you're not entitled to vacations or eating out. Those are entertainment luxury items while you're broke people. And I want people's spirit to be shocked. That's what happened to my spirit. I didn't have the option of doing it voluntarily. It was snatched from me because I was so stupid I went bankrupt. So I got you beat hands down on stupid, right? And listen, I thought whining was a little known form of prayer. So I had whining down too, you know? But what I figured out is that you have to change the altitude, the attitude, the angle of your heart permanently regarding these things. So you never again talk yourself into something that down deep you know you shouldn't be doing. I think this is fine mathematically. Okay, yeah, and on Jade's front of you, I just wanted to add this real quick. I am picking up a side job this year too. It doesn't matter. That should all go towards the debt. It's still – it's not – what we're talking about is you set the boundary, and once – if you have said to yourself, I'm getting out of debt, that's the priority. If you let these little things start sneaking past the goalposts, more and more sneak past, It's like when you say, I'm not eating any sweets, and then somebody makes the pan of brownies. Well, already you've gone past it. Now you've got personal. But then what do you do? You slice off a little piece, and you go, I'm just going to have that little piece. Then you go back in, and you slice off another little corner and another little corner. Before you know it, you've ate the pan of brownies. Are you following me around? I saw you. That's what we all do. We've all done it, and that's a great way to think of it. You got a pound of brownies because they gave you the free trip. You get to decide how much you slice off. Don't slice any of it off. The pan is just sitting there. And, you know, what we're doing is you have to set new neuropathways in your brain. Yeah, that's the real part. That says, I'm done with this crap. So I would go, but I'm going to, you know, your side hustle is to set the new neuropathways and go, I'm going, but I'm going to be unbelievably disciplined about this slice. Yes, very disciplined. Because I know the danger is not the actual slice. The danger is I'm still going back to the brownie pan. Yes. Throw the pan away after this slice. That's the thing. That's what it is. I mean, that's what we're trying to do. You have to permanently change the way you talk to yourself about this. The words that you use out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, the Bible says. And so the words that we use and the way we talk to ourselves and even the tone that we use to ourselves about talking ourselves into or out of something reflects whether or not, you know, is your heart right on this? And that's the thing. So, guys, that's the lesson, the takeaway from Jesse's call, because it's a good call, and Jesse's obviously a good guy, and he's obviously a high-producing dude. And when you go out there, though, take a step further what Dave just said. When you go out there, Jesse, what you can't do is, well, I can't spend any money. I can't do that. No, no poor mouthy. You have to say, you have to form the words of what you want, which is, I'm choosing. Everything's a choice. I've chosen to be grateful that I do this, that the company gave me this, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to do it this year. Yes. Because this year we're not going on vacation. Yeah, but paying off my debt is my priority. Exactly. And that's how you talk to yourself. You reset this whole set of tapes that's running in your brain, man. Vocab rehab. That's why we do some of the things we do, y'all. It's like the pendulum has swung too far to the consumer side, where it says everything's okay. hey, just push the submit button, load the cart, right? Right. And I can impulse anything I want, and I work so hard, and I deserve, and all these things we tell ourselves. And all we're doing is swinging the pendulum back to the other side and go, you don't deserve nothing. Shut up. You're broke people. Man, it's like you're quoting the book. Good job. Your book. Yeah. The new one. The new one. That's out today. What no one tells you about money, the real key to getting unstuck from someone who's been there. It's the emotional part of this. That's right. And that's what we're dealing with, the neuropathways, the behavior shifts, all of those things and, you know, the feedback loops you put for yourself. Yes. You know, one of the other things that goes with this, too, and, Jay, I know you talked about this in there as well, indirectly, not exactly the way I'm going to say it, in other words, but one of the things I did, Jesse, when I was at your thing, it's completely different from your question, but it fits in the same bucket of stuff. I don't do things mechanically, tactically with how I pay things. that aren't automatically always getting me the discount. Okay. Okay, so before there was online bill pay, because there was no online, okay, I prepaid my utility bills. To get the discount. To get the discounts. Prepaid to get the discounts. And I said it on an auto calendar, right? I have automatic draft to this day on my checking account. It goes straight into a mutual fund every single month. automatically out of my checking account. So I don't accidentally forget it. That's right. I have automatic discipline all the way through this. There was a guy out 100 years ago when one of my first bestsellers called Automatic Millionaire. His name is David Bach. It was a bestselling book. He said, just put everything on automatic so that you're automatically doing smart stuff. Automate smart. Yes. And you don't have to think about it. You don't have to be built in discipline with the systems. Not like I'm going to grip my teeth and do this every time. That's right. That's right. And that's the same kind of thing. We're resetting how we view this and what's the attitude, the altitude, and the angle of my heart on this stuff. Very good. You know, every year I hear the same excuses for why people don't get the life insurance they need to protect their families. So this year, let's clear the air and look at the facts. Having 10 to 12 times your income on a 15 or 20-year plan is, in many cases, just plain cheap. That amount of coverage lets your family keep the lights on and keep food on the table while they're grieving. Second, life insurance through your work is not enough, especially since these plans go away if you change jobs. You need to have your own policy so you're not without protection when your family really needs it. Third stay parents need life insurance especially those with young kids People don realize how quickly the costs add up without someone at home taking care of things So no more excuses folks Get the protection your family needs Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. They've been my choice for all my insurance for over 25 years and are the only people I trust. Chris is with us in Denver. Hey, Chris, how are you? I'm well. Thanks for taking my call, Dave. Sure, man. What's up? So I used to make good money as an engineer, and I was on Baby Step 4 before I knew what the Baby Steps were. Good. Then three years ago, I made what I realize now two major mistakes in a row. I bought the biggest house I could buy with 3% down and PMI, thinking that house hacking would be easy. I'm not doing Airbnb. And then a few months after that, I quit my job because I was miserable there, thinking I had enough savings. I can give you some financial details, but I'm wondering if you think I should sell my house. Tell us more. Yeah, tell us more. Yeah, so I quit my job, and then I realized that I would not be making my mortgage if I were to do house hacking. So I pivoted and then started doing Airbnb. Okay, and where are you living? I would rather to renovate. During this time, I was in the house. During renovations, I was living in the house. Sorry. Yeah, I was living in the house. And then while I Airbnb my house, I was living with my friends. I have a couple of kids, and I was helping them. Oh, gosh. Babysitting in exchange. Chris, how old are you? I am 37. Okay. All right. I mean, sometimes if you wake up from a nightmare and you're standing knee-deep in the swamp, the best thing to do is to return to the last time there was solid ground and retrace your steps. And so that would, in this case, sound like get a job as an engineer and sell the house. Yeah. And then you would have your life back. Yeah, what prevents you from doing that? I was interviewing for some engineering jobs in 2025. It was difficult to come back after taking some years off, and I also know that I'm not suited for a 9-to-5 now. Why are you not suited for a 9-to-5? What's wrong with you? That's a great question. Are you trying to say that you're an entrepreneur? Yeah, I believe so. You're suited for it. You don't want to do it. Okay. I don't blame you for that. I don't blame you for that. I'm entrepreneurial, too, and I wouldn't want to be trapped somewhere. I don't have an issue with that. So what we're saying is not suited for is not the right phrase. What we're saying is it's not preferable for you. But right now, you're not really in a phase where you can do exactly what you prefer. Exactly. Preference is no longer a point. You're neck deep in quicksand. So I'm wondering if I can use some numbers if you think I am in quicksand. So in 2024, I broke even with my mortgage with Airbnb. And then in 2025, I was negative $10,000 or $15,000 with my Airbnb. Is the Airbnb the only money? Where does this sound like it's fun to you? None of this sounds fun to me. If this was a business unit at Ramsey, we would close the thing and call it failed. Yeah. I'm wondering if an alternative is, yeah, maybe. Why are you reluctant to sell the house? You just don't want to admit that this screwed up. Yeah, I think I might be falling into sunk cost policy. Okay. Yeah, definitely, 100%. Tell us about the property. Can you sell the house for as much as you owe on it? Yes, I believe so. I put about $100,000 into it, renovating it. Oh, you used that. I mean, what will the house sell for? So I'm looking at Zillow and Redford right now. I bought it for $650,000. Zillow is saying $615,000. Redford is saying $580,000. Oh, so you're not going to get the money out of it. But you put $100 down or you put $100 in it after you bought it for $650? $100 into it after buying it. So you have $750,000 invested in a house that's worth $600,000. You know better than I do. Well, I mean, is that what you're telling me? I don't know if I got an appraisal if it would be worth more. I'm guessing it would be. Okay. But, I mean, you're telling me you paid $650,000 for it, plus you put $100,000 into it, meaning you have $750,000 in this house, correct? Correct. And you don't think it's worth anywhere near that, is what you're telling me? I don't know. Get a real estate agent. Go on our site. You need to go to RamseySolutions.com and just in the box type in real estate agent. It'll take you where you need to go. Yes. And you need to have somebody come out there. I have done that. Okay, and what did they say? What would they list it for based on what they saw? Well, I started doing that step, and then I was like, I'm going to talk to Dave directly. Facts. And now I'm telling you, go do it. See it through so you can see what the actual numbers are. You need to have numbers. Facts are your friends. You're in trauma. And you need to sell this thing if you can. And you need to retrace your steps and get back on solid ground. And then from there, think about how you can come up with some career choices after you're making a living again. How much money do you have in the bank in retirement or not retirement, non-retirement investments? Probably like about $10,000. Okay. You've got to get a job, man. Well, since you find the work you're wired to do, because I think you don't know what you want to do, And I think you're just kind of coasting. And this idea that you might be an entrepreneur, I'm glad that that's so. But we need to get some beef around that and figure out what that's going to be. In the meantime, yeah, we'll send you the book. But you also just need to get a job. Yeah. So the first thing you're suited to do is buy food, lights, and water. The second thing you're suited well to do is pay your stinking bills. The third thing you're well-suited to do after you've done those two things is find something that is a style of work that you enjoy, meaning entrepreneurial and more freewheeling than in a nine-to-five. But you don't really have a lot of choices right now, man, because you've done screwed this up. Hello. Yeah. You've made a mess. And so you've got to get the shovel out. The barn is full of poop. Today is J-O-B. Yeah. There's some shoveling that needs to be done here. So, yeah, you got a mess. Wow. So, you do not get to, as an adult, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, do something that you saw on TikTok that feels fun or good or well-suited. whatever the phraseology we want to use is, when the mathematics around it don't math. 100%. That's called, you know, you can't. That's not a reality. The math does not form to your desires. No. The math does not form to your suited. The math forms to the math. The math. So when Sam and I were getting out of debt, we knew we wanted to start a business, but that takes time, right? You got to build it up. And so in the meantime, you have to work and you have to do the things that close the gap so that the math, math, so you can continue to accomplish your goals financially while you accomplish your goals career wise. You have to do it all at the same time. You can't just go, well, I want to be an actress or, well, I want to own a business and I'm not going to do anything until I have that success. That's not real. God designed me to be on the stage. Good. And in the meantime. That means you're also destined to wait tables. That's what that means. Every time. I mean, we're in Nashville. How do you get the next country music star's attention? Waiter. That's exactly how you get it, right? Yes. And so, I mean, you know, there's calluses that are involved in these things, okay? Yes. You know, God designed me. I'm suited for. I'm good. Me too. We all are wonderfully made. That's why we have finding the work you're wired to do that we're going to send to Chris. That's all great, but you don't get to use this specialness, that card, to try to violate mathematics. It'll destroy your life. It's too harsh. It's mean out there, boys and girls. It's mean out there. After the holidays, a lot of people start feeling budget pressure. And it's a wake-up call to get intentional. So listen, don't fall for buy now, pay later cell phone plans that drag you back into debt. Boost Mobile keeps it simple with no contracts and no nonsense. Keep the phone you already own and pay just $25 a month forever for unlimited data, talk, and text. That's real long-term value and real peace of mind. So budget like you mean it and go to BoostMobile.com slash Ramsey today to make the switch. That's BoostMobile.com slash Ramsey. Restrictions apply. See BoostMobile.com slash Ramsey for details. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Jade Walshaw. Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author and author of a brand-new book that lands in stores today. What No One Tells You About Your Money. She's my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Luanne is in Indianapolis. Hi, Luanne. How are you? I am doing better than excellent, Mr. Dave. How are you? Just the same. What's up? Well, I got kind of an interesting one for you. My husband and I run a construction company together. He started the business in 2018 before we met, which was 2021, engaged in 2022, and married in 2023. I help him with some aspects of the business, but I'm not totally 100% full-time with it just yet. I still have a full-time job on the side. We're not on the side. It's the main job for me, unfortunately. But right now, my current access in our bank's finances for the business is as a signer because the bank, I guess, needs me to be listed as an owner of the state, which wasn't a problem until recently. My husband wears many hats and doesn't need to take care of the minutiae of running a business, like fixing business associate debit cards for our team members. So I went into the bank to help an associate with their debit card fix their PIN, and I wasn't allowed to because I wasn't an owner. So I asked them what we needed to do. I needed to file through the state, all that fun stuff. We asked our CPA, got some advice on what to do, and he told us the things that we needed to do. One of those things was we needed to assign business ownership percentage. Here's where my question comes in. As a married couple following the biblical principles, I said 50-50 because we are one flesh. We do this thing together, and that's just where my mind and my heart was at. My husband has his business, what I call business glasses and hearing aids in, And so his mindset was thinking business, and he came back with 51-49. And that didn't sit right with me. We talked about it. Something came up, and we had to table it. And so my mind was kind of racing. I was emotional, and so I went to whatever your podcast. Let me ask you this. Yeah. Regardless of the percentages on the piece of paper, how will the two of you treat this business? we treat it as we both own it. You're going to treat it as 50-50 regardless of what's on the paper. I bet, aren't you? Yeah, I mean, it's kind of what we do now. I kind of think you do now. I kind of think that's the way you're both. You were in agreement until he went, well, that's a little weird. Okay, so I'll give you an example. We have several LLCs that I own 0%, and Sharon owns all of it. Oh. In case some idiot decides that Dave Ramsey's got a target on his butt and he finds an idiot lawyer to help him. Makes sense. So, and you know how much I'm worried about that? About Sharon having 100% of it? Not at all. Because I told her if she leaves, I'm going with her. Yes. That's what the truth is. You're stuck together, period. That's it. So, I mean, I think the spirit of your marriage is really what matters in this discussion is what I'm saying. Right. So I couldn't care less what's on the paper. I think your 50-50 is the spirit. And when he said 51-49, it violated your spirit. It's like, what? More than you were actually worried about him, quote, being in charge. Because we all know he's not in charge. He's not doing the details. You are. You already covered that. Yeah. And he knows that. Right? But it's as if he wanted to own, you know, have that one little trump card somewhere in case he thought he could flex at some point. Ha ha. That's funny. But, you know, I mean, this is kind of the way this went down. Am I missing something? No, it was more so like he's he's been married before. So he understands things happen. And so his mindset was sort of protective mode. It won't matter if 51, 49, if things go down, he's going to have to take care of you anyway. And it's going to look suspiciously the same. And I had a feeling this was going to be the answer because I started thinking about it. It's like it's just it's it's splitting hairs because all I need to do is have some ownership to change debit cards. Yeah, you already had practical spiritual ownership. And for that matter, legal, because he would have had to deal with the asset if he owed 100% of it in the event of a divorce. It's got to be on the plate. It's up there to get cut in half, just like everything else is. Just like his 401K has got his name on it if he works in corporate America. But guess what? You're going to take a big bite out of it in the event of a divorce, the wife is. Hello? Right. Even though your name's not on it. So that's the same exact thing. So you don't get clear of the worst case scenario with this part of the discussion. You get clear of this part of the discussion with a prenup, if you want to go that way, or a post-nup in this case, which is really hairy. So, no, I think as long as the two of you are in spirit, we own everything together, we're doing life together, we're going forward together, I don't care what the paper says. Right. And, I mean, does it really matter what the paper says? And the other thought was in case something happens to him, continuing to let the business run smoothly, as a 1% owner, I could still do that. Yeah. Or 49%. Right now, on that LLC, I'm talking about if my wife passes away in a car wreck, I don't have any ownership in that. Now, I have a will, and she has a will and an estate plan that's instantly mine, and I've got control over it. But I don't have the bank. I've got to take documentation to the bank to start cashing. I'm on the checking account. But, I mean, if I wanted to close that thing down, I've got to bring documentation and death certificates and stuff now because I'm not even on the ownership of it at all. Right. So I've still got all that crap to deal with. It's just your worst-case scenarios are always worst-case scenarios. So the big deal is, are we okay in our marriage relationship, and are we aligned on how we view marital assets that it's ours, as you said? And you clearly articulated that, Luann, and beautifully, by the way. Good job. So, I mean, do you have, Sam, and you have a business? We do, and there's things, especially now that I'm not part of it, that I'm not part of it. But I also know that if something happened to him, all of that, I would be able to have then have access to whatever it is, and it would be willed to me. I know, like he said, 50-50 in spirit. I think what really bothered you is what Dave said, that he said it in a technical way, and it had you questioning if you guys view yourselves the same way. And I would just ask about that. At that point, it's really not about the business. It's really not about the money or anything like that. it's just hey when you said that that just that hurt my feelings because i thought that we were 50 50 and it kind of made it feel like you were going for some power there oh good call you know yeah it was kind of a flex yeah a little flex i had this before i had you sometimes you just gotta flick it vicious Thank you. If you missed open enrollment, don't panic. Most health plans lock you out for the year if you didn't sign up by December. But Christian Healthcare Ministries lets you join anytime. CHM offers a simple, flexible, and budget-friendly alternative to health insurance. And you can join anytime. That's right. No open enrollment deadlines. CHM is perfect if you're self-employed, starting a business, or in between jobs because it gives you options without those out-of-control COBRA costs. And CHM is an insurance. It's a community of believers coming together to share medical bills and pray for one another. That's real peace of mind. You're not just sharing costs. You are sharing community. And families have trusted CHM since 1981 with billions of dollars in medical bills shared. You can see any doctor or hospital you want with no network restrictions, and members say that they often save hundreds of dollars a month compared to traditional insurance. So make a change that fits your budget and your values. Check out chministries.org to learn more. That's chministries.org. slash budget. Well, big news, guys. We mentioned it earlier. Jade Warshaw's new book, What No One Tells You About Money, is officially here. You get your copy at $24.99 at RamseySolutions.com slash store. Jade, what's this book about? This book is helping you diagnose the emotions that have been keeping you stuck running in the background that you didn't know were there. Things like anger and guilt and shame and frustration. I'm going to help you diagnose it, call it out, and then I'm going to show you the way through it so you can finally use those emotions to help you instead of hold you back. Get your copy right now. RamseySolutions.com slash store or anywhere great books are sold. Becca is with us in Denver. Hi, Becca. How are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up? I had a strategy question, so I am in baby step number Q. I am 35, single, paying off a good amount of debt. And I had a question about my student loans. I'm about $46,500 in student loan debt. But they're technically in forbearance. And I guess my question is, I've seen some horror stories of people opening up their student loan accounts and, oh, my gosh, they've doubled or whatever because of interest. But my question is, is it worth it to budget a specific amount to my student loans, even though I technically don't have a minimum on them right now? and use whatever that amount could be towards my credit card is my big focus right now. Okay. I get your concern, but you're not going to make any extra progress by doing that. You're going to slow down your progress is all. Yeah, yeah. The math is exactly the same. Actually, it's a little better if you pay it on the credit card because credit card is a higher interest rate. So if your interest, let's say you were going to give $100 to the student loan and the interest rate on it is 5%, and instead you put the $100 on the credit card and the interest on that is 24%, well, obviously the $100, you know, you saved more interest by reducing the 24% account. Agreed? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. So it's mathematically incorrect to do what you're talking about, But I'm not as worried about that as I am that I just want you to pound that credit card with viciousness. Yeah. And then open up the smaller student loan and pound it with viciousness when you get to it in the debt snowball. Yeah. Yeah. I, yeah, I'm about in total in debt. I'm about 92,400 in debt. I have about 3,000 in medical from an ER visit. my credit card is at like $16,500 my car is at $26,600 what do you make? I work in ministry I make about $76,000 a year you have an awfully expensive car yeah my car payment is like $543,000 what's your car worth? I'm not good with car stuff if I'm being honest with you So it's a 2021 Infiniti QX50. That would be my homework for you tonight is to go on Kelly Blue Book and see what it's worth. And if you're not upside down or hardly upside down. If you could get a hoopie for a while and start pounding and not have a $500 car payment for a while. I don't want you to drive junk the rest of your life, but I'd love for you to drive junk so you can get rid of the rest of this junk. Because with that $543 back in your pocket, you'd be finished with that medical debt very quickly. Boom, boom, boom. Mm-hmm. And I have taken on, because I am serious about my credit card debt, I actually have two other, with my full-time job, I actually have two other part-time jobs now. Good. Wow. Like at the grocery store, just, you know, doing some shopping. And then I have friends who opened up a business, so I'm helping them on the weekend. Good. So every month, what are you bringing in? Do you know? Both part-time jobs, I actually just kind of started. I'm hoping between the both of them per month I can make maybe like $500 at one per month and then $600 at the other. I'm just doing them on the weekend. Yeah, that's good. Okay. So you're not afraid of hard work, and you're focusing on this. These are all really, really good signs that you're going to win. Okay? And so what I'm trying to do is how quick can I plow through, what mathematical shovel can I use to shovel $92,000? That's what I'm looking at. And so if I do $30,000 a year, it's three years. That's $2,500 a month. Okay. Yeah. If I sold the car, it's two years. Right. And that's how my brain starts thinking because I want to be free. Because if you didn't have a single payment in the world, including these student loans hanging over your head that you're not making payments on right now, but you're worried about building up. But if you didn't have any of this in your background, your freedom in the spirit to do ministry would be completely different. Would you agree with me on that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I actually like the thinking behind that, and I want to double-click on it. When you're looking at a high number of debt, like in your case, $92,000, some folks have $150,000. Sam and I had $460,000. What you have to do is focus on that monthly number because it's overwhelming to say, I have $92,000 of debt I need to pay off. But if you reverse engineer it and you've already done the math to say, if I pay $2,500 a month, I'm out in two years, then the only thing you need to focus on is $2,500 a month. I've got to make $2,500 a month. You've got $1,100 on the side job. Yeah, the extra is what I'm saying. I'm just going to say, and we've got $1,100 on the side job. So that means we only need out of our budget tax, which means we might be able to do $3,500. Right. But that smaller number, that's a lot easier for your brain to break down and go after than $92,000. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So it's easier to digest for you than you can actually go for it. Then what we're going to do is we're going to get on a tight budget, increase income, which you've already done the increase income part. We're going to get on beans and rice, rice and beans. We're going to list these debts regardless of interest rates, smallest to largest, pay minimum payments, which is what generated your call on everything, nothing on the student loans right now, and cut up the credit cards, and we're going to attack that smallest debt, which is probably one of those stupid little medical bills. We're going to pay off a whole bunch of those in month one, and then in month two we're going to start hammering this credit card like it's evil, and you're going to start seeing Samuel L. Jackson on the TV and start yelling at him, start yelling at him, what's in your wallet? My wallet's got cash in it. Hello? With my medical bills, I'm actually, I'm not as worried with the medical bills because my employer actually, I have an HSA and they contribute to it very generously. So I kind of, not that I don't count it, of course I do, but I'm like, oh, that's another account that I, when the money comes in, then I just spend from that. When does the money come in? I contribute to it monthly and then they contribute a nice portion quarterly. Okay. All right. So. Oh, free money. We're still going to take that free money, but we're not going to wait on it five years. Okay? Right. So I still want you to clear those debts, smallest to largest. So really, you get to screw around with this HOA stuff, HSA stuff, about three or four months. And after that, you need to just pay it off. Let's get it done. Get it done. I am worried about all this. I want it out of your life because I want you free, my friend. Yes. Okay? We're going to set you up with every dollar, which will help you, the budgeting app, and it also helps you walk through. It's not just budgeting anymore. It's got all this stuff in it now. And it's going to walk you through all the steps we're talking about. It's going to coach you along the way. It's very personalized now. The algorithm on it is incredible, and we're going to give it to you, okay? So you hang on, Becca, and Chris will pick up and get you signed up for every dollar, and it's going to walk you through this whole process. So you're going to win because you're paying attention. Yes. You're not afraid of hard work and you're learning new things you've never learned before. You've been victimized by these things. And instead, you're going to turn around, put your thumb on and put your foot on the neck of it and say, no more, no more. We're done. And, you know, you've got to stand on the neck of the snake and say, well, you're done. You don't have it. You don't have a shot anymore, buddy. Absolutely. Absolutely. I like what you said about that. I keep thinking about that when you're thinking about a grand total of debt. it helps so much to jump into every dollar and do the financial roadmap so you can see the snapshot with what I'm earning now, how long will it take? And it might show you something like three or four years and you get to say, that's too long. So I add the $1,100. I'm going to add more money to it. And then when you get to a point where... Or it's too long. I'm going to sell the car. Yes. Or it's too long. I'm going to have a garage sale. And reverse engineer it back. And then you can focus on what are the three things I do to get that money. I sell the car. I do the garage sale. Instead of focusing on, you know, $200,000 a day and I'm stuck. I'm stuck, yeah. The way you eat an elephant is a bite at a time. That's exactly right. This is Dave Ramsey. We all want to know that the money we give to charity is doing something that matters. That it's making a real change. Giving someone lasting hope. And here's one way to make sure of that. Give to Preborn They the real deal Proven transparent and changing lives every day I trust Preborn and you can too They on the front lines of the battle for life partnering with clinics to offer free ultrasounds to mothers in crisis. Because when a mom sees her baby on that screen, something changes. It's not just a decision anymore, it's a person. And 80% of the time, when a mom sees that ultrasound, she chooses life. Your $28 gift provides one of those ultrasounds. Just $28 to be the reason someone chooses life. And at every clinic, the gospel is shared, giving moms the chance to choose life and find real hope in Christ. $28. One ultrasound. One heartbeat. One mom who realizes she's not alone. That's the kind of life-changing impact your giving makes through Preborn. Go now to preborn.com slash Ramsey or call 855-601-2229. That's preborn.com slash Ramsey. ABCnews.com reporting the stock market recorded stellar year-end returns for 2025 when the markets closed before New Year's. Performance marked three straight years of double-digit gains. The S&P finished up the year up 16%. Jade, we often talk about around here how the only thing you hear on the news about the markets is bad news. That's right. They never report good news. So let me give you the good news, okay? The stock market was up, the S&P, in 2023, 26%. The stock market was up in 2024, 25%. The stock market was up in 2025, 16%. That's a total of 67% in three years. That means three years ago, if you had $100,000 in your 401k in a basic growth stock mutual fund, if you've added nothing to it, you now have almost doubled it at 170. That's right. That's not on the news. No, and that's a lot of money. that you missed because you were watching the news, worrying about government shutdowns and tariffs and artificial intelligence bubbles, whatever that is, and whatever else it is that you believe that you're going to watch bad news for every day. So, meanwhile, I'm just the tortoise. I just keep investing every week, every day, every month. I just put a little more in, a little more in. And all these years, 65 years old, I've been doing that over and over and over, not worrying about what the news said. We've outlived the Internet. We've outlived Sirius XM Radio. We've outlived Bill Donahue and Sally Jesse Raphael. That's a blast from the past. Wow. I'm trying to think of weird stuff from the past. Yeah. And here we are. And, you know, you just keep investing and you just keep living. And, guys, you're not going to hear this on the news. Okay? The only thing you hear on the news is when the whole world's coming to an end, right? And what happened to the stock market when the president did so-and-so? Or when he didn't do so-and-so? Or when Iraq did so-and-so? Or Iran did so-and-so? Or name it. And it's in the news. And then, oh, the market, the market, the market. up 16% last year. 16%. That means if it had done half, if you have a mutual fund that sucks so bad that your mutual fund did half as good as the stock market, you still did three times what your high-yield savings would have done. It's a big deal. Smoke on that for a second, okay? Hello? This is a big deal, y'all. This is why you start investing, you keep investing, and you don't stop investing. And if you need to turn off the news, it's not a bad idea. And this is also why you get started on the things we teach so you don't miss out on stuff like this. Because the time is passing. You get your butt out of debt so you get to take advantage of this. The time is passing. Because, I mean, if you got a million dollars in there during this time. It's looking nice. That means you made $700,000 in three years on your million. Sleeping. If you got $10 million, you just made $7 million on your $10 million in three years. Now, is that a guarantee? No. Is it going to happen in the next three years? No. But it explains why you're in such a good mood. That and coffee. Yes. I love it. That's fun. Tyler. Tyler's with us in Toledo. Hey, Tyler, what's up? hey thanks for taking my call sure how can we help so my fiance and i kind of have a interesting situation i guess we've been working a side hustle for uh about two years now um at our farm and she's been the manager and i kind of just i don't know i get to do the fun stuff sit on the tractor and drive around and pretend i can help him well um So the previous owner passed away, and now the son owns it, and he's, you know, 18 hours away in Oklahoma. So he's trying to sell it to us. So it would be buying out the business and the house, and we've been looking at houses. I'm sorry, the business is what, a farm? It's a horse farm, so it would be a boarding facility. Are you going to get the land? Yep, we'd get the land, we'd get the house. What is the land and the house worth? About three-quarters of a million to $800,000. Okay. And what does this business profit? The profit right now is about $8,000 a month. Okay. All right. Okay. And what does he want to sell it for? Hasn't given us a hard number yet. We're still in the financial stages, the planning beginning stages of it right now. But he's talking like $650,000 to $750,000. So he's going to sell you a $750,000 piece of real estate for $650,000 and give you a free business. Pretty much. He just wants us. Why? That doesn't feel right. Why? Well, he wants us to have it and wants us to run it under his dad's legacy and all that good stuff, and he's still got younger siblings in the area. Let me poke a second and make sure, because when I hear something's too good to be true, you know what the saying is, right? If something sounds too good to be true, it's because it's too good to be true? Yeah. So is this land and house really worth this, or are you just wishing it was? No, that's what Zillow says, and that's what the last estimate was, I think, five years ago. Then that means there's something on the business side that's – well, I'm not saying this, but it feels like something on one of these sides isn't performing the way it seems. I mean, this guy really likes y'all. He really likes you. Like $400,000 likes you. is that what i'm that's what i'm saying okay yeah no i i hear what you're saying okay so i really want to dig into this if i'm you guys because i i if if this is if these numbers are all accurate this is a sweet sweet freaking deal okay now how does he want to be paid that's what we're trying to figure out right now because we've been you know planning our lives we're supposed to get Married in September of this year. Good. And then we were planning on, you know, buying a house. Yeah, get married before you close this deal. If you're going to close this deal, get married before you close the deal. Now, the $8,000 a month profit, is that after you're paid and your wife is paid by the old man that died? That is after everybody's paid all that good stuff. And what do you get paid? Well, right now I'm currently working for free board for my horse. What were you getting paid when the old man was alive? About $12 an hour just for barn work. Okay, so in a month you would make what? We'll call it $500 a month. Nothing. Okay. And what is your wife being paid? Your fiancé to be white being paid? she's making about three grand a month over there okay so let's pretend for a second geez that you gave uh almost all of the profits from the business after you all live on 30 if you live on 40 000 a year which is what you're making okay and you live on the property and you give the $100,000 a year, roughly, to the son. And we're going to give you almost like 95% of the profit goes to you until we get to $650,000. Would he do that deal? I guess that would be something I'd have to bring up with him, but I would think so. That would take you about six years to work it out. You'd be able to make $40,000 for six years, and then the whole thing would be free and clear. Yeah, and I wouldn't quit my full-time job either. Oh, you have a full-time job. Oh, yeah. I'm a bricklayer. Oh, I missed that part of the conversation because you didn't bring it up. Okay. Even better. Yeah, I didn't bring that. This has been a side hustle for us. I got you. Riding the tractor for the fiance's a side hustle. I got it. You know what? And I also think this deal, if he likes the sound of it, that's going to give you a good indicator if those profit numbers are right. But if he's like, I would never do that deal, then I definitely want to dig deeper. a percentage of profit after you make enough to live on. A healthy, like all the profit almost, until he gets his money and then he's done. And then if there's no profit, he don't get his money. I love entrepreneurs. Don't forget, guys, I started my company on a card table myself. So I know what it's like to have people counting on you, your team, your family, not to mention your customers. And when you're the one signing the paycheck, you can't afford to fly blind. But I'll be honest, early on, one thing that nearly sunk us was wasting time with spreadsheets that didn't add up because business units didn't talk to each other. I finally told my team, just fix it. And they did. We got NetSuite. That was years ago. And we've never looked back. See, NetSuite isn't just for tech giants. It's built for growing businesses like yours. Over 43,000 businesses already run on NetSuite, including a lot that started just like you. And now with built-in AI, NetSuite is helping them even more. It's one system connected to every part of your business for real-time insights, not guesswork. NetSuite AI flags inventory issues, cash flow risks, even supplier delays before they become problems. so you can trust the data, stop wasting time, and make the right decisions faster. Take a free product tour today at netsuite.com slash ramsey. That's netsuite.com slash ramsey. Today's question of the day is brought to you by Why Refi? when it feels like your private student loans have buried your future. Y-Refi can dig you out. They can help you, that is, with low fixed rate refinancing and a clear path forward. Go to YRefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. Not in all states. Okay, today's question comes from Lucas in Arkansas. He says, how long is too long to save for a down payment on a house? We're expecting a baby soon and we'll go down to a one income once he arrives to purchase a modest but well built home in our area. We would have to save over one hundred twenty thousand as a down payment in order to qualify with one income. We're debt free, but it will take us years to get there. So there's there's a couple of things that I'm thinking about here. When we teach the baby steps, baby step three B is when you're saving for a down payment. And then after that comes baby step four, where you're investing your 15%. And I think, Dave, what happens is people go, okay, I want to do 3B, but I don't want to sacrifice baby step four in the time in the market, like we talked about in the last segment. How do I kind of juggle that together? Because the truth is, obviously, if you have focus and you take all the money, you're going to put more money towards the down payment. But with a long horizon like this, do you want to really go five, six years or whatever the time frame is and not invest? So I would probably split the difference probably once I got past the two. I would say two to three years. Is that what you would say? Two to three years is when I'd say, okay, no more putting every dollar to the down payment. Now I'm going to split it, and I'm going to try to do some towards retirement, not miss out there. And I know that that's a sacrifice. We rarely say to do multiple things at one time, but in this case, it's all good. It's all good for you. I would do 100% towards the down payment for two to three years, and then you have to adjust after that if you haven't gotten there. But the other thing, Lucas, is this. Your income during that time is probably going to go up. Your personal income, her income is going to disappear. Oh, wait a minute. Maybe we don't need to do that exactly that way if we want to buy a house. That's true. You can think through that. Maybe she needs to find some work-at-home type work, something that's flexible where she's home with the kid and does some work at home while a baby is sleeping and so forth. And so, yeah, we need an alternative where mom creates an income. And that'll change the picture, too. And then, of course, also, you know, what you're saying is, here's the thing. You can't just yell at the sky and say, my wife's going to stay at home and we're going to buy a house in our 20s. In our 20s. Happen. Yes. It doesn't, you know, shazam. It doesn't work, right? And so you are making a choice. And it's a good choice, if you ask me, to say, mom wants to be home with the baby. That's a fine choice. I would never shame you for that choice. But it is a factor in an equation. You just cut your freaking income in half. That's right. And so you are deciding not to be able to afford a house as quickly because you're sacrificing one for the other. Or you could say the opposite of that, like a lot of ladies that work here at Ramsey full time. I'm looking at several of them while I'm saying this. Right. Jade, my daughter, Rachel and Kelly across the glass and so on. We have kids. We are raising a family and we are professional ladies. and we work around that. And it's not only for money, but it's also what you've chosen to do with your life. It's also for money. And so I've noticed that we pay y'all and so that kind of stuff. It plays a big part. It's for money. Hello. So I think that's the thing. You can just decide that that's what you're going to do. But by deciding that, you're also deciding some other things. That's right. There's some unintended consequences, or they should be actually intended consequences is my point. By definition, I'm going to choose to live in that neighborhood because we have one income instead of this other neighborhood because we have one income. Or this other type of house or whatever, this nicer property, right? And by definition, we're going to have to buy something that's a little different to get our foot in the door to get started on this home ownership thing because we're choosing to do this on one income. And I don't think it's a bad thing, but you don't get to just say, I do whatever I want and yell at the sky. You can't yell at the sky. It doesn't work. You know, you still have to. There's mathematics involved in all this. And it's, you know, this idea that when money is one place, it by definition can't be another place. It's a fixed thing. It doesn't float around. It's not omnipotent. So, hey, guys, speaking of homes, buying or selling is a big deal. The market is picking up. I predict a robust spring. Right now we're sitting at about 5%, just a little bit over 5% on a 15-year fixed rate. The median house prices have been holding pretty steady, right around that low $400,000 mark for quite a while now. And with these interest rates ticking down, we're about to see these markets take off. And so if you're thinking about buying a home, this is a really good time to start getting your act together. Get out of debt. Have your emergency fund in place. And if you want to learn more about the housing market trends and get some free tools to help you with your buy and sell, and you're doing all that with confidence, go to RamseySolutions.com slash market, and we'll get you going. Julia is in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Hi, Julia. How are you? Hi, doing good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? All right. So my husband and I are starting Baby Set 2 this month with $75,397 in debt. So when would it be most advantageous to refinance our balloon mortgage? Immediately. That's a panic. When is the balloon due? So the balloon is up in 2029. Jeez. So our current interest rate is 5.5%. Yeah. And if we refinance now, that'll give us about 6.6%. No, it won't. I just said just a moment ago, 15-year fixed right now is 5%. 5.5%. Really? Yeah. We've been watching. Wow. We've been watching because we just budgeted everything and we were Googling interest rates and it said 6.6%. It's going to be between 5.5 and 5.08. Yeah, right now. It's hovering in the low fives for a 15-year fixed this week as you and I are talking. Now, I don't know when people are going to be listening to this particular version of the podcast, but, yeah, at the moment you and I are talking, that's what we're looking at. So call Churchill Mortgage and talk to them about refinancing. If you roll 100% of your refinance, have you got a lot of equity? Yeah, we have 100 to 120. Just roll your refinance costs in and nothing out of pocket. Okay. And get rid of this balloon because this thing's hovering over your head, and you're just inviting an earthquake in your life. Okay. You know, you ever heard the saying, if anything can go wrong, it will, Murphy's Law? Yes. As you approach this balloon, if you leave the balloon in place, you increase the likelihood of job loss, medical problems, all these things that happen at exactly the wrong time. Screw up your income and keep you from being able to refinance and you lose the house. Okay. That's what I don't want. Okay. Right now, everything's sitting pretty and sassy. Let's not do a bunch of little half percent math and try to screw something up here. Let's get rid of this danger that you've signed up for in your life. This is nightmarishly suicidal. You've got to get this off your home before something happens and you're not able to. Right now, while you can, it's called get it while the getting's good. Right? Man, that stuff's a balloon scare me to death. Can you all tell? Hell yeah. I hear the fear in my voice. It turns into anger. Yeah. Oh, man, I can't stand it. Because these people get stuck. And, you know, when we end up with them, and financial counseling with one of our coaches is they're having to sit down because they are stuck, and they lost a job, or, you know, their sister got cancer, or whatever, and they've got all these income problems and credit problems. This stuff's popped up, or some kind of identity theft thing blew up their credit score. And now they can't refinance. It's taking them six months to get it fixed, and they can't get refinanced in the meantime. All this other crap happens just exactly at the time you're doing that. It's just a disaster. Oh, yucco, yucco, yucco. Please act like your hair is on fire and get rid of that thing. Quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick. You're scaring me. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. In the Fairwinds Credit Union studio, Jade Washaw, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, and author of a brand new book that hits the streets today called What No One Tells You About Money, The Real Key to Getting Unstuck from Someone Who's Been There. You do need a copy of this book. It's available today anywhere great books are sold. John is in Los Angeles. Hey, John, how are you? I'm doing good. How are you today? Better than I deserve. What's up? So, my situation, I'm trying to figure out the practicality of purchasing a home in or around the Los Angeles area. It's very, very expensive. Do you think? I think I do relatively well income-wise. What do you do? What do you make? So this year I made $200,000. Pretty good. Right around there. But even with that relatively high income, it still feels a bit out of reach. In 2024, I paid off all of mine and my wife's student loans were 100% debt-free. Way to go. Yeah, but that down payment still seems like a little far-fetched. And even if that is achieved, the monthly mortgage payments, like, honestly, I mean, not regardless of the interest rate, but it's going to be a lot. Because, you know, the fixer-uppers out here run you about $850 or like $800 to $850. And that's no power. Yeah, exactly. It's definitely a fixer-upper. What do you do? I'm just trying to navigate. What do you do for a living? I am in sales for a large Fortune 10 company. Okay. Is it tied to Los Angeles? no it's not ok so why Los Angeles that's sorry let me rephrase that so my career is in Los Angeles I am a I'm directly correlated with my territory out here oh ok that's what I was asking so it is tied to Los Angeles ok well I don't think the numbers that you're giving are wrong I think you've realistically assessed this and it's kind of like, well, crap, I thought $200,000 a year was a lot of money. You know, it's like, golly, this is weird. And that's the way it feels. It feels that way to me every time I hear it, and it's still the reality of the math is what you're giving me. And I think everything you said, I think, was the truth. I don't think there was anything as exaggerated or fatalistic or anything there. So, you know, the thing is, how old are you guys? I'm 24. Okay. All right. That's good news. Okay. And the $200,000 includes your wife's income? No, she stays at home with a child. Okay. All right. So it does include her income. Okay. Good. All right. So that's your household income. You're doing really well, man, for $200,000. You're killing it. Thanks. Yeah, so you got two or three options or ways of looking at this, and that is, one, you could say, okay, I'm in Los Angeles for a while. This is my adventure. probably not going to spend my life here. And so if I rent for three or four years and see how the career thing goes, that's not the other world. And then you end up moving to a market that you can actually afford and hopefully you can make the same kind of money. Okay, that's one thing that could happen. Okay, another thing that could happen is you say, okay, I'm going to scratch and claw and I'm going to buy this little dinky house for $800,000 or $900,000 that's a picture upper to at least get my foot in the door. and then at least I own something, right? And at least then as prices go on up, I get to ride the wave instead of being crushed by the wave, right? Right. So you sacrifice home ownership being like a dream come true. Instead, it's like barely getting in. And even still, you'll still have to embrace a bit of a timeline on this. Yeah. And just knowing that going in so you can set realistic expectations on both sides. What you'll get for the money and how long it'll take you to get the money to get it. That's an okay strategy as well. It might be two or three years. That's not the end of the world. Yeah. It's not the end of the world, okay? Yeah. The other strategy is to start thinking about, okay, where do I want to live? Where I can buy a piece of real estate because I can't buy a piece of real estate in Los Angeles. because you literally live in one of the easily top five most expensive cities in the world. Yeah. I mean, can you, just realistically speaking, I mean, you're making $200,000 between you and your wife. Can you guys live on half that? Can you live on $100,000? Yeah, so we can, but the $200,000 I do want to specify is before taxes. And I'm talking around numbers with you. If you start chunking somewhere around $100,000 away, though, you'd have $300,000 away in three years. That's what she's saying. Yeah. Yeah. We can live on half that. Because that's what you're looking at. I mean, I'm just, and again, I'm round numbering this. I'm just plugging it in, so I'm looking at it with you. But if you commit to a three- or four-year journey on this and do what Dave said, I definitely think that's worth it. Because, again, you're getting your foot in the door, and you're climbing the ladder at that point, the real estate ladder. And I don't think the L.A. real estate is bad. I think is excellent. It's just really expensive. I mean, is that simple? For sure. And also, like, my career is here, and I can see, like, a lot of positive career growth, like, in this area. It's just kind of like that mental battle with, like, well, is it practical to stay? Yeah, but it's practical to stay for a while. It might not be your 10-year dream career, though. Yeah. You know, it might be. It's okay if it is. And if you've got a lot of growth, that's the other thing. If your career continues to hockey stick, I mean, dadgum, dude, you're 24, you're killing it, it's 200 grand. That's amazing. You're stud. So what if you went to 300 and then 400? Well, these numbers all start to change real fast. Very quickly. That's right. So I don't know what your comp schedule is or what this thing looks like on your career, but you're an impressive young dude. I know that. I've got to believe he's making more in three to four years from now. I think he is. And I think also that you've done a very dispassionate, logical, there's no shaking your fist at the sky. Just looking at it for what it is. I'm mad. This is not fair. There's no that tone in what you're doing, which is the first clue that you're actually going to make it, probably. Yeah, he was not very emotional. He wasn't emotional. No, but there's no, like, this isn't fair. It's like, you know, we get that a lot. I understand it's not fair, but I can't, you know, your feelings don't care about your feelings. That's the thing. So I think you're a sharp young dude. I think you're going to get there. And I would just sit right. I'd sit tight, start saving some money and just monitor your career and monitor the market and save like a crazy man and get your foot in the door. And what you said just then is so, so true because, yeah, he wasn't he wasn't emotional. He wasn't whining. But a lot of people, they do, they look at the numbers and it feels overwhelming to them. So they don't even start, Dave. But if you just start putting aside. Or worse, they ignore the math and go buy something that crushes them. Oh, even worse. Crushes them. Even worse. Because it's just not fair. So homeownership is not reachable with reasonable. Ramsey is not reasonable. Oh, crap. It ain't got anything to do with Ramsey. Just start. You know? It's got to do with you. I've already got my house. It's not going to do with me. It's got something to do with you. So what are you going to do? Are you going to crush yourself because you had a little temper fit on the candy aisle and buy something you can't afford? That drives me nuts. Please don't do that. He's the opposite end of the spectrum. This young stud, he's got it going on now. Like this guy. He's going to win. We'll be right back. That's why I wrote my brand new book, What No One Tells You About Money. It turns out money is emotional and no one been talking about feelings like fear shame or guilt keeping you stuck Until now I going to tell you about the real fight and show you how to win Get your copy today at RamseySolutions slash store That RamseySolutions slash store Mike's in San Diego. Hey, Mike, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Mike? I didn't push the button? Is that what you're saying? All right. I didn't push the button. Thank you. Goodness, you'd think I know how to do this by now after 40 years. Hey, Mike, how are you? Hey, I'm doing great. How are you? Well, I'm kind of challenged right now, but other than that, what's up? Well, I had a question, honestly, kind of similar to the guy before, but I'm 25 years old. I live in San Diego, also work a job in software sales, and about 18 months ago, I started a side hustle that's kind of taken off a bit. And I'm really kind of looking for some guidance, I guess, from an entrepreneurial perspective on like when I should maybe consider doing that full time versus trying to rack up as much income as I can. Good for you. So what's it doing? How much are you making on the side hustle? So I started it in summer 2024. Didn't really do much the first six months, maybe like $5,000 in profit. Last year we did $68,000 in profit. Good for you. And then this year I think we'll do about $100,000, maybe $120,000. What do you make at your day job? About $175,000. Way to go. Thank you. I'm in software sales, so some years it's $150,000, some years it's $200,000. Yeah. It can just vary. Yeah. So you're $25,000, and between the two you're making $300,000. You're killing it, man. Thank you. Okay. So how much time does the side hustle take? That's the thing. Like, it takes me probably, I want to say 20 to 30 hours a week. My average day kind of looks like working on the business maybe from about 5 to 8 p.m. I'm fortunate enough to where I work remotely to where I can just kind of log off and start working on that. Yeah. Are you married? I'm engaged. Okay. All right. Wow. Yeah. It's kind of ideal right now. I mean, you're just stacking cash. Yeah, pretty much. I've been able to sock a good amount of money away. Yeah. If you worked double the hours, would you make double the money? Is it that cut and dry? Not exactly. So the business is very online focused. It's very dependent on Facebook, actually. So essentially I'm trying to – What do you think the shelf life of the new business is? How long do you think it's going to last? before some platform takes you out or a shift in technology or something? Yeah, that's a good question. Honestly, I'm pretty optimistic about Facebook and the way they're kind of investing. I would say that, I mean, conservatively 10 or 15 years, but, you know, who knows, right? I'm 100% sure that Google and Facebook are going to do one thing, take care of Google and Facebook. Right. And they don't give a crap about you, I can promise you. Okay? So you need to be defensive about your platform usage and don't think that they're on your team. Okay? Because about the time you get something figured out, they turn it and screw you. I mean, we've been playing with these guys for 15 years since they started. I mean, I've been doing it from the time back when SEO was a thing, you know, and it doesn't even exist anymore. So, you know, whatever, by the time you get it figured out, they figure out a way to monetize everything you've been doing, and then they flip it on you. So I'm not cynical. I'm just telling you, you need to be realistic about your platform life blood, and it ain't 15 years. I'm not going to, there's no way. Not without you iterating substantially. Now, it doesn't mean you're going out of business, but you're not going to do it the way you're doing it, but probably 36 months, and then they're going to change something. So, okay, cool. That's still awesome, man. get off my entrepreneurial cynicism. Is there a reason to quit? No, I just feel that if I had more time and energy to put into the business, I could scale it non-linearly, if that makes sense. Yeah, it does. I believe you. I think you're right. We have a lot of systems in place that kind of run the business itself, but it is a volume game. Yeah, sure. So I think with more time and attention, I could get it to a point to where it's making more. Yeah, then you'll hit the point of diminishing returns curve on the time as well. But I do think you could make, I think you could easily make, I don't even know what you're doing, okay, but it just sounds like the trend line on this, you could make what you're making now if you went full time. Which I'm just curious on where your passion lies. Did you start the side hustle out of money or I just really like this field. I want to see if I can do something in it and possibly make some money. Which one are you more passionate about? It's just honestly like a passion thing. Like it's actually adjacent to my career. So I'm actually doing the things that a lot of my clients are doing in my career side. And honestly, I just kind of listen to them talk about what they were doing right and what they were doing wrong. And it kind of inspired me to do my own version of it. So if you jump to what you've fulfilled. There's no ethical breach in that at all. No, no. It's completely independent from what they're doing. It's just a variation of it. I got you. Just best practices, yeah. Okay. Pretty much, yeah. So, I mean, it kind of sounds like to you, like, I mean, it would be my dream to really be able to do it full time. That's awesome. I definitely understand. When are you getting married? Next year, like maybe 13, 14 months. Okay. What's she make? um she is actually i talked her into helping me with the business about six months ago which is why we saw um such strong growth and so is she doing that full-time yeah oh interesting yeah so she was working as a like a web designer uh-huh um and i told her she wasn't she was doing it like uh contract freelance work wasn't enjoying it too much and i said hey i'm really time locked here with my job, but I really believe in this. I think you have the skills. What could you hire someone to do what you're thinking about doing? What would it cost you? In addition to her? I'm not sure. I think that I've had experiences hiring people on Fiverr where they'll kind of take what you're doing and try to compete against you with it. I'm not sure we have the capital to go out and hire somebody like W2. Yeah, you do. You got $100,000. Well, I was going to say, you paid yourself that did you pay her anything or that's part of the hundred grand yeah so right now we're basically splitting it so she's getting 50 and then i pay myself 50 and kind of run the expenses out of that all right um so i love where you are i love what you're doing i love that you're thinking about it logically um i think you guys are a power couple so you're not there's not a screw up there's no uh no no uh check the box in the stupid column here none of that's going to happen, okay? It's only a question of what you want to do and what is best, all right? So one idea that popped into my head, if I were sitting exactly where you are, and I'm very entrepreneurial, and I'd rather work for myself than anybody because I'm too contrary to work for somebody. So one idea that popped in my head is let's just burn the midnight oil until we get married. I love that idea. And just crank this thing and see how high a stack of cash. Let's fill a bedroom full of cash over there, okay? Just make some money, okay? And during that time, you can start to see what some of the trend lines are in the platforms you're using. And if your prediction or my cynicism, which one is more accurate? And, you know, if you do that and you turn it on, you come back from the honeymoon and you just made $200,000 on this thing, and you want to punt the day job and go on, then go on. and if the whole thing crashes in two or three years, you've got a bedroom full of money, and you made some money, and you could go do it again. Always go back and forth. You go do something else. The beautiful thing about this is you can land like a cat on carpet when you're done because you've got the skills. Yeah, honestly, I love that idea. I've really been going back and forth between, like, I've got a good job. I want to keep it. People tell me, like, it's a dream job, but also, like, I have to tie the job together. I mean, you know how to do that job. It'll be waiting there if you ever want to go back to it. And you're at a great time of life where you can do exactly what Dave said. You're not married yet. You guys are in that time of adventure where it's like, you want to go? I want to go. Let's go do it. Let's scramble. We'll eat peanut butter and jelly. We'll do whatever we need to do. Let's make hay while the sun shines, baby. You know? And, you know, after the marriage, quit. If you make a bunch of money, you know, I mean, you've got to be making about what you're making or more. But if you are, then quit. the downside of both of you doing this is if it goes sideways, your whole freaking deal goes sideways. Your lack of diversification on your income base is a little scary, but it's okay. I think you've got the margin to handle all of it, and I think you're on top of it. Listen up, guys, because I've got a big question for you. Where will you be with your money at the end of 2026? Will you be better off, worse, or exactly the same? Believe it or not, you get to choose. Look, I know there's a lot going on that can make you feel powerless over your money, but I want you to hear me. You're more in control than you think. You can turn your finances around. So let me help you out. Start your year off with me and Dave Ramsey at our free Every Dollar live stream event on January 8th. We're cutting through all the lies and all the chaos out there that's keeping you stuck. So you have the clarity you need to finally get ahead. And you could even win $2,000 just for signing up. Listen, another year is gonna pass anyway. So decide that this is the year you're going to take back control of your life and your money. Go sign up for the free live stream at everydollar.com slash live stream. Logan is with us in Louisville. Hi, Logan. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm great. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I am 26 years old, and I bought my first house last May, whenever I was 25 years old. And I'm kind of realizing that I probably made a very big mistake because I bought it on a 30-year mortgage with 5% down at 6.5% interest. And I'm wondering what I should do. Okay. Is the home affordable? It is. It was $220,000, and the mortgage is $1623 a month. And what's your household income? So I make $65,000 a year last year, and I work at a major auto factory in Louisville. Sure. And I will be eventually making $100,000 a year in about a year and a half or two years or so, according to our union contract. And so I'm basically wondering. Are you married? I've never heard. No, sir. I do live with my girlfriend, however, because she had to drop out of college, and her parents aren't really supporting her financially, and she didn't really have another option other than she had to either move in with me or be homeless, so I went ahead and moved her in. And so she has about $10,000 in student loan debt, and then I additionally have about $12,000 on an auto loan. Okay. Well, there's no we. She has her life. You have your life. You're not married. And so you have $12,000 car payment and you have a house payment that is tight right now. Okay. So I don't think I would do anything. I think I'd sit right there. What I would do is as your income goes up and you need to clear this car debt off, when those two things happen and these interest rates continue to go down, I would just refinance. And when you refinance, put it on a 15. Okay. But you're going to get down sub-fives probably this spring. Okay. So refinance to the 15. When you can afford it. I don't know when your income is going to go up. You can't afford it right now. Correct. Yeah, so when do you think you're going to be making the move from 60 towards 100? So we go up on a yearly basis. I'll be getting about a 10% raise in May. Okay. It's probably going to be the following May before you start talking about refinancing. You're probably in coast mode. Okay. And then I actually have a lot in my retirement account, and then I've got some in an index fund that's not in a retirement account. Pay off your card today. What's in the index fund? Almost $14,000. Pay off your card today. I'm wondering if I should go ahead and pay off the track completely. Yes, today. Okay. Got it. I was thinking you were going to say that. Yeah, and then let's build our emergency fund. And as far as the house, we're going to sit with the 30 and we're going to sit with the 6.5 until the rates drop and your income comes up and you can afford to refinance. And it's not going to kill you. We're talking about 18, 24 months here. And, you know, you'll be okay. Like you said, it isn't what I would have signed you up for, but you're there now and there's no panic in these numbers. There's nothing here that's just destroying you or something. It's just a good lesson learned for next time you want to make a large purchase and wait until you're in a better position. And don't be combining finances with girlfriends only with wives. Yes. Yes, I'm not even going to get into that. There were some things there. Yes, there were some things there. Some things there. Britton is in San Antonio. Hi, Britton. How are you? Howdy, sir. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. How can I help? so i um i'm in a little bit of like a family pickle i i have a brokerage account that was gifted to me for college graduation that has about 13 000 in it um but based off the previous gentleman you just told him to liquidate stuff and pay off the car today i have a seven thousand dollar car loan um for my wife's car i have a 25 000 car loan for my truck and i have about 40k student loans putting us at about what's that 70, 75k cumulative debt. Yep. And my gross income is about 100k a year. My wife and I have been married four years. We got a two-year-old and we got a baby in March. Y'all are normal. And you figured out normal's not fun. No, I'm tired of thinking, oh yeah, I make 100 grand a year and I'm broke. And I'm broke. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. So, yeah. So you got your first piece of advice, which is to liquidate that non-retirement savings that gets you the $13,000. So her car is paid off and you're able to put a little onto the truck. What does she drive? I'm just curious. She drives the 2019 Jetta. That's, I don't know, probably got 70,000 miles on it. It's in really, really good shape. What about your truck? How good a shape is that in? it's in really good shape. It's a 24 Silverado. I bought with 2,500 miles on it with a little gift from her grandpa to really knock down my payment. So I only pay 500 bucks a month for it. Only 500 bucks? Yeah. That's a lot. Yeah. I thought it was great for basically a brand new truck, but I mean, hindsight's 20-20. But I drive a lot for work, so I depreciate it. I've put on like 30,000 miles. That means you're destroying the value of a brand new truck. You are. Listen, you're going to have to put the pedal to the metal on this debt. You have a great income, so that's good. But what's going to get you is these $40,000 of student loans. It's easy to let that sit around and collect dust. But this is the time, you know, to kick it up into high gear. I want you and your wife to get into every dollar. Have you jumped in there yet? I have not jumped into every dollar, but we used, like, rocket money, and we sat down and did our financial planning for the year. Well, there's a problem right there. I'm playing with you, but I'm going to give you a budgeting app that's actually going to help you and it's not going to sell you debt products along the way. So Christian will pick up and make sure that you get EveryDollar. And I mean it. I'm not just trying to be funny towards a competitor. I'm saying that if you go into EveryDollar, their goal is to get you out of debt. Yes, ma'am. The other budget you're using, that's not their goal. Their goal is just to keep you around as a customer or later they can sell you debt. we want to get you out and therefore in the app it's going to ask you things about your life and you're going to be able to plug that in and then it's going to walk with you you called into us to talk to us for a hot two two or three minutes it's going to give you the advice we would give you step by step along the way so that you stay focused and actually get this done very good bobby is in pittsburgh hey bobby what's up hey how y'all doing great man how can we help I have a weird question I haven't heard before on your show I have a minor son who received a $15,000 settlement from an accident he was in and I'm court ordered to put it into a federally insured bank until he reaches majority which is in 12 years and I'm struggling to pick because returns are trash Yep. Which means the court is stupid, and the court generally is stupid. That's what happens when lawyers do financial planning. Lawyers that become judges that are stupid. Did I mention this as stupid? But you're still court-ordered. You're court-ordered. It's aggravating this crud. Yeah, you can't do what you should do with it, which is put it in a decent gross stock mutual fund. That's terrible. You can't do it. So you're going to be in a high-yield savings account at your local credit union or bank that's got federal insurance, and you're barely going to keep up with inflation. Exactly. I mean, another thing I'm seeing is like less than 1%. Oh, no, no, no. You can get three right now. Yeah. You can get some high-yield savings up around two and a half or three. It's still a crime. It's still a crime. It's still a crime. But the whole thing was this kid got hurt and somebody's trying to take care of him here, and then the judge is an idiot. So, yeah. Well, I mean, the good thing is he currently has – we have some sizable money for him and our daughter currently, but it would be really nice to add this to it. Yeah, it would. Yeah, it would. Is there a way – I'm just asking. Is there a way that you could get a lawyer in order to change that? Yeah, but I'm not sure. I mean, if you went from $2 to $10 or $2 to $12, okay, you make 10 percent, you make $1,500, I won't pay the lawyer. So it's not worth it. It's just the stupid law. I mean, it's not even the law. It's just a judge that doesn't know what the crap they're doing. They thought you were going to take it to Vegas and put it on red. Let it run. Yeah, run it, run it. That's what they thought. But, you know, nah, that's sad. Yeah, you're just going to have some money parked there, and kids are going to have 15 grand. Well, they're not going to grow much. Hey, George Camel here. So you're thinking about buying or selling your home. It's exciting, but there's a lot to think about, and all those decisions can feel overwhelming. Well, here's the good news. You don't have to tackle the process alone. Ramsey's Real Estate Homebase is the place to find all of your free tools and resources for help to get prepared to buy or sell your home with confidence. You'll find calculators, start-to-finish guides, a podcast, and even an in-depth video course hosted by yours truly. What's not to love? So if you're ready to take the next steps toward your home goals, go to RamseySolutions.com slash real estate. That's ramsysolutions.com slash real estate. Proverbs 14, 15 says, The simple believe anything, but the prudent give thought to their steps. Albert Einstein said we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we use to create them. There we go. Anthony is in Orlando. Hi, Anthony. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? All right. So I came to ask you about a financial decision I'm going to make. So me and my fiance are having a baby together, and the baby comes here in two months. And she currently has a car payment that is $26,000. And it's roughly $800 or more a month. and um we're deciding whether to try to refinance it and me i looked it up and everything and looked into it a little bit more and it's that she said she owes around only 17 for the car and then the rest is mainly like dealership fees and coverages and stuff and um i was wondering if it would be necessarily a good idea to refinance it and then just attack it and pay it off. Yeah. What do you make, sir? I make roughly $30,000 a year. What does she make, sir? I'd say maybe like $18,000, $20,000 a year. Okay. All right. And you guys are 24? 23, yes, sir. 23? Close. Okay. All right. Ken, I love you enough to tell you the whole thing. Will you allow me to do that? Yeah. Okay. If I were your age or you were my son, who's older than 23 now, and you were to ask me this question, here's what I would tell you to do, okay, in detail. And there's a lot of reasons for this, and I'll give you the reasons too, okay. But the first thing I would do is get married by Friday, okay, because you don't need to be doing financial transactions and babies with people you're not married to. It does not lead to prosperity and does not lead to a wonderful life. And the data on this, there's piles of research that show that this is a really, really good suggestion. Okay? So I'm meddling in your business. Okay? I want you to get things in the right order from this point forward. So get married by Friday and then sell the car. You can't afford the car. You guys don't have any money. You don't make much money, and you have a brand-new baby coming, and you're so broke you can't see with an $800 payment. It's killing you, isn't it, man? Yeah. You've got to sell this car. So call or have her call and get the payoff number on the car, what it takes to pay it off today, and then find out what the Kelley Blue Book value of the car is, And I hope you can sell it for enough to get out of it. I hope she's not upside down in it. And for that matter, since you're her new husband by Friday, I hope you're not upside down in it. Because you're going to be joining this party. But you guys got to, this thing is a weight around your neck during what should be, with a baby on the way in a new marriage, the happiest time of your life. This car is a nightmare. And refinancing, it doesn't get rid of it. It's got to go away. and then get you the cheapest something that you can drive that'll run and start your life off like broke people, like I did and Sharon did and Jake did and Sam did and most of the people listening did. That's where that song, We Ain't Got Money, Honey, But We Got Love, that's where that comes from. Okay? And so you start with that, and then you start working on your careers, and both of you get your incomes up because both of your jobs sucks. And let's get our incomes moving. And then we start talking about buying a little better car, a little better car. But we're doing this as a couple with a new baby. That's a wonderful gift. And let's move forward. And those are the things that will cause you prosperity. There's a whole piece of literature out there, folks, a whole piece of research out there that's done multiple times in multiple different veins that talks about what's called the marriage advantage. And, for instance, males live seven to nine years longer that are married than unmarried males. Just an advantage. Females live, on average, five years longer that are married. So that's the physical, one of the physical aspects of it. People survive cancer at a 20% higher rate that are married. Isn't that weird? Okay? There's all kinds of data out there on this stuff. The net worth of someone in their mid-30s at 35 years old, and this is not me talking to you, Anthony. This is me talking to everybody out there. The net worth of someone in their mid-30s right now is 10 to 11 times higher for a married male than an unmarried male at 35 years old. That's at 35 years old. That's interesting. It's crazy, y'all. That's very interesting. And it's got to do with a lot of different factors, but one of them is that we're joined and we're committed. And we're not got one foot in the boat, one foot on the dock. And it changes the dynamic of how you do your career, of how you do relationships, of how you do money, and it changes the whole thing. And so you're always going to get that at Ramsey, by the way. We're always going to be proponents. We're going to tell you every time, because we love you, to get married. Yeah, that makes sense. There's a lot of research out about the quality of your relationships and how they affect your longevity, how they affect your mental health. It only makes sense that it would affect your money in a similar way. Absolutely. It affects it dramatically. It affects your income. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, man. The amount of money that a lady makes more that is married in her 30s than an unmarried lady. Really wild. That's very interesting. And the interesting dynamic of that is that sometimes the unmarried lady is saying, I want to be independent. Isn't it? Yeah, sure. And yet ends up, on average, making considerably less on average. Interesting. I don't know exactly what that is. And the guys make more, too, by the way. But it's a dynamic in our culture and the way people's neurosystems work and the way our relationships work, and then it plays out in the math. That's what it comes down to. So that would be my advice to you, sir, since you allowed me to love you and be direct. I'd be married by Friday. I'd get this car on the market and get it sold, and both of you look for better jobs. And let's get you up there where you're making a little bit more than $40,000 or $50,000 a year between the two of you, the low average household income, and a baby on the way. So let's get this thing moving, buddy. You can do this. You're not a dumb guy. You can do it. And you're not afraid of hard work either. So you can do this. And you called a show like this. So I know you can do it. They're just getting started. They can do it. Yeah, absolutely they can do this. And so there's great hope. And guess what? If you've done anything out there that you wish you hadn't done, bought a house, bought a car, whatever it is you wish you hadn't done, a lot of it can be undone. Yeah. Or a lot of it can be survived. Just don't keep repeating it. So I've about decided at my age, since I'm old now, that people say, well, you're wise. And I'm saying, yeah, you know where wisdom comes from? Bad judgment. Yeah. And doing stupid butt stuff. And the only thing I have done right is I seldom do the same stupid thing. I find new ones to do, but I seldom do the same stupid thing. And if you get a whole bunch of stupid things in your past that you never do again, then people start calling you wise. Yeah. And so that's really what it comes down to. A whole bunch of things I avoid doing now that all of a sudden it makes you look like you're smart. It's the success thing. You're standing on a pile of failures. Exactly. It's exactly what it is. Good point. Good, good point. That puts us out on the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Thank you.