Hope Is the Key to Winning With Your Money
02:05:15 Share

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, joined by best-selling author and host of The Rachel Cruze Show, Rachel Cruze. And this is your show, America, so give us a call at 888-825-8255.

5-2-2-5. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money, and we will tell you the truth even if it hurts your feelings because we love you that much. And we appreciate all of you tuning in today. Becky is in Bristol, Virginia to kick us off. Becky, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. How can we help?

Well, I am currently $85,000 in debt that my husband of 35 years does not know about. And I have just had my oh crap moment when I overdrew my checking account because 20 years ago we had to file bankruptcy. And at that point, my husband and I separated our checking accounts because he is a saver and I am a spender and I got us into that mess.

So now I am door dashing. I'm working my full-time job. I'm selling everything that I have purchased, trying to get out of this debt because I do not want to tell him and I don't want to ask him to help me. And door dashing where I live is not that popular because it's just a rural area. How much do you make?

I make $38,000 a year. Becky, what's the $85,000? What kind of debt is it? It's all credit cards. Wow. And what are you buying? What's on the bills? I was buying anything and everything I wanted. If my kids wanted something, which they're now grown, I would buy them something. If my mom needed help, I'd just give her a credit card. Okay. What made you wake up today and go, I'm done with this?

When I overdrew my checking account paying these minimum payments on these credit cards. And are you paying any other bills right now? How are your finances going with your husband if everything's separate? Our house is paid for, thankfully, because of him. And I pay my own car payment and cell phone bill. What's your car worth and what do you owe on it? I owe $15,000 on it and it's worth about $10,000. And was that one of the things you were planning on selling?

I don't see how I could because I don't have the $5,000 to make up the difference. Is the $15,000 wrapped up in that $85,000 you mentioned? Or is that outside of that? No. No. No. My husband knows about the car payment. So you've got $100,000 in debt? Yeah. Anything else? No. Okay. Okay, so Becky, you do realize you're going to have to tell him. I don't want to, but... You think you're going to go to the grave and he doesn't know this ever happened?

Well, I would do just about anything to stop it because, like I said, I got us in a really bad situation 20 years ago, and he's not this type of person. He's not a spender. He's a saver. He paid our house off early. I just can't imagine having a healthy marriage going forward while you keep this secret. You can't. Yeah. I mean, your marriage will not be where it could be ever with secrets, right? And that's financial or otherwise important.

um because there's a part of you Becky when you hold those kind of secrets and you're trying to be the one to fix it all on your own which I'm not saying you shouldn't I mean like we can get to that discussion in a little bit but

That's going to come out other ways, like within your body. I mean, like you can't, people, humans are souls. We can't carry that around. It will come out sideways one way or the other. And so coming clean for you, Becky, and not even just for him to have the knowledge,

For you. It will eat you alive. For you, you can't carry this secret around. It has to be taken from the darkness inside of you to the light. And it's going to be an excruciating conversation.

But I think for any way for you to move forward, not just financially, but in other areas of your life, Becky, you have to bring him into this and or someone else. If you have a good friend who knows you both well, maybe even going to a third party first and having them sit in with you if it's too difficult because of your history. But whatever that looks like, I mean, I really would encourage you. You have to tell somebody and then eventually you have to tell him.

and have this conversation. And Becky, and I want you to do some good work too. I'm like, you know, we'll get you some John Deloney, Dr. John Deloney material too, because it's,

there's some real stuff going on, Becky. Like I know like when you look at those numbers on your screen and you realize, holy crap, I can't even keep up the minimum payments with what I'm doing. That's your old crap moment. But there's a lot of other stuff, Becky, going on that caused this, right? And it's, and I mean, I don't know if there's a level of a shopping addiction. I don't know if it's really poor boundaries that you've set with people, a sense of not living in reality, right? Like there's all these elements, right?

that I want you as a person to overcome because money's just the symptom. This $85,000 in credit card debt is a symptom of other things going on within you. And until that's fixed and until that's addressed,

I really with a good counselor and a therapist. Are you going to heal from that? Be aware of that and be able to make different decisions day in and day out. And and I wish there was an easy button. I wish there was an easy button, but it's going to be a season for you guys. A season of financially paying this back, whatever that looks like. And however you guys decide within your marriage.

But it's also going to be a season of rebuilding trust because trust will be broken. It's been broken. And hard conversations, I mean, it's going to be painful, but it is the way to healing, Becky. That is the way to heal. It is not to hold this and try to fix it yourself. Okay.

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry you're in this. And I know there's probably so much shame and guilt and regret that you have. But moving forward for you to be able to take that weight off

Healing has to happen and it can't happen on your own. It really can't. We have to have other people around us and I think good professionals as well. And long term, we have to get your husband back to husband mode instead of roommate mode. One of the best parts of marriage and one of the hardest parts is having the accountability of a spouse.

And I think that could have helped a lot of this if there was transparency in the finances and him saying, hey, you need to cut up that card. Remember, we don't use that anymore. We got burnt. We went through bankruptcy 20 years ago. We don't want that to happen again. And so I think you need accountability right now. It may not be your husband because there's already a lack of trust there, but we need accountability from other people. You've been doing this alone and keeping the secret. And how old are you? I'm 50. You're 50.

So you have a lot of years left, Becky. I'm like, you have a whole second part of life. We've seen bigger, scarier numbers. Yes, to be lived. And we want that for you. And I want that for you more than just the money side. I want this fixed for you. But Becky, I'm like...

man, there's, there's so much for you to heal from and your story, what brought you here. Um, and I really want you to be able to do that. If you hold on the line, Christian's going to pick up and we'll give you a bunch of, uh, Dr. John Deloney's, um, books and different materials. Cause I think walking through that and kind of opening the door to that part of the world, um,

And understanding yourself, I think, is big. And Christian, put my book, Know Yourself, Know Your Money in there as well. But we just want to get you some good resources, Becky, and push into this. Don't sweep it under the rug. Don't try to fix it yourself. Do the hard work. It's hard, but that's where the healing is. This is The Ramsey Show.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Hey good folks, the back-to-school madness is upon us. It's hitting us right now. We got travel and work and all these forms to fill out now and sports to travel to and on and on. My family's schedule is so packed and we haven't even begun talking about things like exercise and date nights and counseling and church and home projects. And those are the things that make our life even worth living.

Here's what I've learned. When it comes to taking care of me, I have to put on my oxygen mask first. And that means that I have to do the things that keep me well and whole. And I know that you have to do those same things too. So don't skip the things that matter to you, including regular exercise, hanging out with your friends and regular therapy appointments. And when it comes to therapy, contact my friends at BetterHelp.com.

BetterHelp is 100% online therapy staffed with licensed therapists. It's convenient, it's flexible, and it's suited to fit your schedule. And therapy can help you learn positive coping skills, how to set and practice boundaries, how to become the best version of yourself, and most importantly, how to find peace in all of this chaos. In this upcoming season, make sure you put on your oxygen mask first. Never skip therapy day.

Call my friends at BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash DELONI today for 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash DELONI. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Rachel Cruz this hour. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Ben is up next in South Carolina. Ben, welcome to the show. Hey, thank you for having me. Sure. How can Rachel and I help today?

So my wife and I discovered that last year when my mother-in-law went in the hospital that my mother-in-law had a hundred K or more in debt. And so now she's in a post acute care facility. She's not able to walk. She just got approved for disability and you know, the debt's still there. So we've been back and forth on just like, I think,

bankruptcy is the only way for her to get out of that because no income and on disability I don't see a way of her getting rid of a hundred K it's just is there any other solution does she have assets does she have a home

Uh, no, she had a car, but my wife had to get durable power of attorney, which lets her, uh, move assets and make medical calls. It doesn't financially tie us to her, but, um, whenever she's not able to make calls or manage assets, we can move them. So she had a car and that was the only thing of value that she had. Um, and my wife had that put into my wife's name so that that way we could cancel the bills. Uh,

for insurance and everything. It was paid off, but we had to cancel insurance and taxes and everything so that a car that's not being driven isn't being paid. What kind of debt is the $100,000? Credit cards, microtransactions, little loans. I don't know how much medical debt is now being accrued because this was the debt before she was in the hospital. How old is she? 55. 55.

And do you know how much the disability payments will be? I don't know. She just got approved for it. And so we're still looking at like setting that up. And what's her plan moving forward? How long will she be in this care versus being out on her own? Like what's the time frame?

Um, that's hard to say. Uh, my wife and I, as bad as it sounds are kind of of the negative opinion that this might be permanent. Um, but what's wrong? What's what's going on with her health?

So she wasn't very healthy to start with before she went to the hospital. She was on 27 medications. She was 300-something pounds and under five foot tall. She had heart problems. She went to the hospital because she had an infection in her heart and had to have an aortic valve replacement. And the surgeon said that she'd never seen that much infection in her heart. And so...

Her blood sugar at the time, her regular blood sugar was like 400. So it's a miracle she's even alive right now.

It was a miracle she was alive before that. Yes. But she's, she's, yeah, right now she is healthy to the point of like, we're not worried about infection or anything. All the stuff's under control in the facility. She's as healthy as she's ever been, but she's not able to walk is the issue. It's just a matter of she needs to get physical therapy and they

They canceled that because they saw her plateau on her progress, so they canceled it. It's just a not very good situation. So motivation's lacking. We've gotten her to therapy on a tele thing. And so we think that the solution is... When we discovered how bad she was in debt, my wife's grandparents cut her out of the will because...

I mean, you're not going to leave a house with someone who will always misbehave. Well, I'll answer this as if I was in your shoes. I'm sorry you guys are going through this. Has your wife had a hard conversation with mom to give her the reality of where things are at?

We've kind of had the reality check, and I even spoke to her just a few hours ago of like, no more credit cards, no lotto tickets, nothing after this. Does your wife have power of attorney for the financial part of her life? Does she have all access to bank accounts? No.

She's gotten some access just from passwords and everything that her mother's let her do, but we aren't financially tied to her, which is what we've been avoiding. Because we're big fans of the Ramsey stuff, so we are doing very well in our lifestyles. I've watched your videos, George, on where you should be in life at certain ages. We're 27. We're about...

double of what your goals should be. Awesome. So we're doing well, but I'm not going to

My wife and I agree we're not going to financially cripple ourselves to pay off her 20 years of bad choices. No, no. But I think it may be helpful to have the ability to cut her off from making this worse. And if she's unable, I can see her just at home if she only has access to a phone and laptop and she's stuck there just continuing this spending out of emotion and depression. Yeah.

So here's what I would do if I was in your shoes, man. I would pull her credit report to get a full picture of all the debt she owes, who she owes it to, what the amounts are. Then I would begin the process of contacting all these creditors and explaining her situation very honestly. This woman is broke. She's on disability. She is lucky to be alive. She can't pay these debts.

And many of them are going to go to collections. And that's just the sad truth of it. There may not be a situation where she just goes and pays off $100,000 in debt at this point of her life and at this age. So you would say do that over bankruptcy?

I think this is the start is pulling the credit report, contact creditors, explain and see what they say, what they're willing to do, what they're willing to work with her on, what they're willing to forgive, and then figure out what is her disability income and how do we manage her future expenses so that this problem doesn't get worse. And so helping her get on that budget. And that's where I think the control comes in, where you guys have to kind of help her manage this. You're not hitching your wagon to her financially, but I think she obviously needs some help here. And it may be your wife's doing something.

Because of the daughter-mom relationship, to have those conversations. But that's as much as you can do. As much as you want to help her and get her out of the debt. I mean, she may end up going through bankruptcy. I hope it doesn't happen, but that's a very real possibility at her stage with this amount of debt and her inability to work. Yeah, no assets or anything. I mean, because she's got no savings, no retirement. She has nothing.

But again, bankruptcy, while it may solve her debt problem, we still have to think about how is she going to survive? Moving forward, that's it. Yeah, I mean, it screws up your – I mean, you're just, you know, for a decade. The issue with getting her on board with this is that she's kind of lived life as a hoarder, which is how she's accumulated the debt without having anything of value. She doesn't have a choice anymore.

She's opted out of having options. Yeah, but it is. To the end of the day, though, what's so hard about this is she could choose to go on a laptop, open a credit card, and do it, right? I'm like, because I don't want Ben, I don't want you guys to feel like you then have to be the parents and control every little aspect of her to save her. Her grandparents have done that. Yeah, and there's a point that she's... We will cut her to it.

Yeah, I mean, and it sounds harsh, but there's nothing in your ability to be able to control every little behavior of someone else. You just can't. And for her, I mean, there might be a reality where she faces the music, and truly it's bankruptcy. But we don't want, you know, like as much as we can avoid that for someone, we try every other possibility than just going down that road. But it's hard, Ben, and it is that...

And it's such a delicate balance of family of saying she's 55. And, you know, I know she's not in great health. So I don't know how obviously how long she has. But I mean, it could be another three decades. And you and your wife have to come. It sounds like you guys are very much on the same page, but.

figure out what are our boundaries like where's the point that we draw a boundary that we've tried to help as much as we can but there's only so much that that you can do and the truth is she may go to the grave and still owe this debt and that's when it gets forgiven as long as none of it's in y'all's name it's not going to get passed on to you it'll go against her estate which they're

There is anything, yeah. And so the debt will just get eaten by these creditors. Yep. So that's the truth. It's a sad truth of the matter. And I'm sorry you guys are going through this, but I'm also, I'm proud of you guys. You've changed your family tree just by going, that's not going to be us. And you've had great boundaries. Yes. Already. To protect yourself and yourself. By not enabling and propping her lifestyle up. You guys are doing the right thing. And I'm sorry you had to grow up so fast this way, but...

I'm wishing you guys and her the best with her health and financial situation, Ben. That's a really hard thing to do. But again, we can't change people. As much as you want to help her, she's got to face the music at some point. And that's going to have consequences. Either way, this is The Ramsey Show.

I've been doing this show for over 30 years, and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah, and what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible, are people that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly, and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills...

I'm going to eat next week. Yeah, in the middle of all that grief. Like it's just, it is, it's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And it doesn't cost much because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here.

You got to say it out loud, and you got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza. To get a free quote, call 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282, or go to zander.com. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, joined by Rachel Cruz. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Well, Rachel, I don't know what you're doing this weekend, but, you know, I'll be on the couch, maybe with some buffalo wings, watching the big game. Oh, Super Bowl Sunday. Looking for a Taylor Swift cameo. Me too, George. That's really any, that's the only reason. We are a house divided. My conspiracy theory is that Taylor and Travis are dating so that more non-football fans will watch the game. Okay, people keep saying, we can, I don't want to talk about this conspiracy. I think that is so stupid. She needs, she does not need that.

And the NFL has got to fix themselves. You know, they got to figure it out. Money talks, Rachel, you pay me $40 million. I might date a football player. Is this the first conspiracy that you haven't wanted to talk about? That's true. Rachel's like, I'm shutting this conspiracy down. Here's the thing. A conspiracy is only something that's like, oh, wow, that's so like, that would be crazy.

Like this whole like couples get together. Like this happens a lot in Hollywood, but she doesn't need it. Anyways, we're getting off topic. All right. Well, we're here to talk about money, Rachel. So here's the...

Okay. Trivia game we're going to play. And she's going to vote for Biden, too. So everyone's like, oh, my God, it's like a political thing. We all know that. There it is, Rachel. We all know that. There it is. We all know that already. That's not a conspiracy. I just pushed the button so easily. And I just, Rachel just went, just unwound. Okay, I'm done. I'm done. Go. We're going to play a game around Super Bowl costs. Okay. Play a little over under. So I'm going to name something. You tell me what you think it costs as it relates to the Super Bowl. Okay. Okay.

flights from any city nationwide to Las Vegas, what do you think the flights are costing? One flight, one way? Let's say round trip. Round trip. Round trip flight. I'm going to say you would pay, I'm going to go three grand. Wow, you're over.

Oh, it's less. It says $300 to over $1,000 depending on how close and flight availability. I was thinking like $1,200 one way because I feel like they would have. So $1,000 for flights. Let's move on to hotels. Now, most of them are sold out, but Staybridge Suites is one of the only ones that has available rooms. What do you think it costs for average per night?

How far out is this in the city? Do you have geographical locations? It says it's near the venue. That's all it says. Oh, gosh. I mean, I bet you'd pay, I mean, 700? You are spot on. 696. I'm going to call that a win. Got it. All right. So 1,000 bucks for flight, 700 for the hotel. And now, what about a resort near the venue? Oh, you'll go 1,100. Okay.

$13.77. You're a little under on that one. Okay. And hotels outside of the city that are more available, it's still $200 to $6.50 for one of those. Now let's get to the tickets. This is the priciest part. What do you think the average ticket price is for the Super Bowl? Average. Right now. We're talking secondary markets. If you just went and you wanted to buy one right now. I'm going to say $12,000.

Gosh, she's good. What was it? 10, 5, up to 12 is the range on the secondary market. Am I a Super Bowl expert? Oh, my God.

You should go on like Price is Right. You guess the price of like Clorox and Rachel gets it right. I actually would be really good at that. Okay. Obviously. Look how good I'm doing here. You win the dinette set? Yeah. There you go. Okay. Most affordable ticket. What do you think that is? So that was average. What do you think the most affordable ticket is right now? I bet you could watch the Super Bowl live for, I'm going to go 7,000.

A little under. Give me one more. Eight. Seven, five. $7,500 for the most affordable ticket.

And most of them right now for least expensive are ranging after fees from $7,800 up to $9,300. Okay. Okay. So let's do the math now. Let's add it all up. Let's say the flights are $1,000. The hotel is $700. Let's say you just stayed one night. Yeah. Somehow. You made that happen. That's $1,700 already. Now the actual ticket, you're talking, let's say that's $10,300. Mm-hmm. This hurts my brain. You're, yeah.

I wasn't doing the math. Sorry. Were you wanting me to do the math? Well, 10-3 plus 1,700. That puts it at 12. Okay. So you're 12 grand. You're 12 grand in without anything. Can I say this? Just for somebody that doesn't know this world very well. That's reasonable to you? I would have guessed it probably would have been higher. If you just said, what would a night to stay, that doesn't include food, and go to the Super Bowl...

I kind of thought it would be- You would guess like 15? Yeah. Wow. I feel like it would have been higher. Well, for perspective, Super Bowl 57's average ticket price was $57.95. So I don't know if it's inflation or what, or if this is a big game because of, you know, some celebrities that might be present.

Tay-Tay. Admit it. There was a lot of hype around this one comparatively. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've never seen so much just press and news about football players. Amelia asked what time the Chiefs kick off. When your eight-year-old asks that, you're like, oh, they've been talking at school apparently about it.

This is school talk for an eight-year-old? In third grade, yes. Goodness gracious. I know. Now I'm sure the boys actually enjoy the football part of it. Would you guys ever take the kids and go see the Super Bowl? No. Not worth it. I don't think I care about the Super Bowl that much. For $15,000, I think, well, I did an Instagram reel about this. You can take a trip for two, a cruise, seven-night cruise for two in a junior suite with a balcony to the Bahamas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's do that all day. And it was $6,500. $6,500.

Oh gosh. I'd rather do that. Twice. Even we compared it to used cars. You could buy $10,000. I'm like, would I rather have an upgrade to the car or fully funding a Roth IRA? As boring as I am, you know, that's what I would do. Six grand. And here's the thing. And again, we're not the most sports loving hosts. Speak for yourself. Of the Ramsey show. I love a play action pass when I see one. One of my favorite passes there is.

Come on. The two-point conversion, I live for that. I mean, it's, yeah, the stress, the stress is high. I just think it's, sometimes it's just more fun to be in the comfort of your own home. I agree. Well, can I be honest? I've been to one NFL game and the whole time I was just looking at the giant screen because I could not see what was happening on the field and I went, I could just be doing this at home. I could just be doing this at home.

without grown men yelling all around me. Right, right. And also my Patriots lost to the Titans in a bad way. Oh, yeah. Like Brady just got spanked out there. No good. It was not fun for me. No good. Well, man. There you go. If you're going to the game, good luck. Budget for it. I prefer, I'm fine with FOMO on this one. Yes, for sure. No, I'm good. Watch an usher from my living room. There we go. That's why I do it at halftime.

And the commercials have been mediocre, I feel like, in the past few years. I will say. I'm really hoping for a good year of that. If you're dropping millions on these commercials and then dropping millions to Eric. That would have been a good stat. I thought that was going to be part of this segment. Oh, what a commercial cost. Yes. Dang. Next.

Next year, hoping every dollar will have a commercial next year's Super Bowl. Maybe we can crowdfund it because Dave's not going to pay a bajillion dollars for 30 second spot. But if everyone pitches in, we can get every dollar in front of America. There you go. Get America budgeting. Let's do it. That's what we need. Because I do wonder how much debt people will be in due to the Super Bowl, due to all the costs involved. Yeah. And it's just one of those things that

Again, I was about to compare it to a wedding. I don't know why. It's like that one day event type thing. Your wedding is very different than a Super Bowl. Don't get mad at me in the comments. Spending 15 grand on a game versus what a wedding costs. It makes weddings look cheap. Yeah, right? So I'm like, it's such a, I don't know. We're such a culture of experience.

that it's almost like you lose this gauge of reality sometimes and you're just all in. You're just solely focused on, yeah, that's what we're going to do. We're going to go to the Super Bowl. That's what we're going to do. Now, if you can afford it and it's on the bucket list or your team's playing and you want to go, that's great. We're not mad at that. If you're like baby step seven, living your best life and 15 grand is not going to ruin your financial world, I'm not mad at you. No, but...

Man, it could go far, that amount of money, George. True. And truthfully, one thing I didn't realize when you're live at the game, there's no commentary. I didn't realize how much I needed that to explain what's happening. The pass action, what'd you say? Play action pass, Rachel. Get it right. Don't offend any footballers out there. So I prefer the commentary. I want to be able to get up and go to the bathroom when I want.

You know, and not... I think you can do that at a game. Yeah, but you're crawling over people. Oh, it's like, excuse me. And everyone's like, they're about to kick the field goal. And George is like, I gotta go. And there are a few darker places in the world than a men's bathroom at a sporting event. Rachel, have you been to one of these?

No, I have not. They give them like a trough and it's just a free for all. It's disgusting in there. I have very big opinions on you. Yeah, I can't. I think it's gross. We'll save that for another time. That's gross. But hey, enjoy the game. Hopefully you're watching from home. You did it on a budget. For real though, Chiefs or 49ers? I'm going Chiefs. Why? You know why.

Tay-Tay. Well, Blake Thompson, who runs the Ramsey Network, is the biggest Chiefs fan I know. Basically our boss on the show. I don't want our boss in a bad mood, essentially. Oh, no. Deanna's... Oh, San Francisco 49ers. Warehouse divided. Winston's going 49ers. I'm going Chiefs. Wow. Caroline's going 49ers. I'm going Amelia, Kansas City, Charles, Kansas City. At the end of the day, Rachel and I are Team Taylor. And that's the truth. Who cares about the sports? I'm all for it. I'm here for the queso. This is The Ramsey Show.

So here's a quick math refresher. There are only 24 hours in a day, so your business needs to streamline tasks that are time suckers and focus on activities that make money. So to reduce headaches as they scale, smart businesses use NetSuite by Oracle.

the number one cloud financial system. NetSuite helps you improve efficiency by bringing all your major business processes into one platform. So join the more than 37,000 smart businesses like Ramsey Solutions that have done the math and graduated to NetSuite. And right now, you can download NetSuite's KPI checklist absolutely free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. That's netsuite.com slash Ramsey.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm joined by Rachel Cruz. I'm George Camel. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Well, our team is starting to get geared up for a brand new event happening May 10th and 11th. It's called Total Money Makeover Weekend.

And I know there's millions of you out there. You've been listening for a while, but you haven't really followed the stuff. You maybe been Ramsey-ish. Maybe you followed it to a T and now you got a journey ahead of you of just investing and building wealth and you need a little pep in your step. Well, in just one weekend, you're going to get that. You're going to get a crash course on everything we teach about money. All of the Ramsey personalities will be there, including Dave Ramsey.

brand new content on budgeting, beating debt, investing, and so much more. So regardless of where you're at in your financial journey, this is going to light a fire under your butt to keep making progress. We're going to have live Q&As throughout the weekend. So bring your questions. We'll do a live Smart Money Happy Hour recording with the crowd. And we just met Jonah out.

in the lobby and he said he wants to be there for the recording. People are very excited about the Smart Money Happy Hour. They may come just for that. It may just be the only reason people come. We do have a good time. So make plans to be there. Get it in the budget. Plan the flights, the lodging, all the good stuff and make a trip to Nashville to see us in May. Early bird tickets start at just $99.

That's an amazing deal for a weekend event, and the tickets will go up over time. So get them now. The Ramsey Event Center holds about 2,400 people, so this event will sell out. Get your tickets now at ramsesolutions.com slash events. Gavin is up next in Raleigh, North Carolina. Gavin, welcome to the show. Hello, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's going on? So I'm getting deployed here in the next few months, and I don't really have many expenses, so I should come back with...

A decent chunk of money, and I'm just curious on what I should do with it. Wow. What branch are you? I'm a Marine. Okay. Thanks for your service, Gavin. Thank you, guys. That's amazing. How old are you? So I'm 20 years old. I've been in for, I'm going on my third year now. I left when I was 17. Yeah. Wow. What are your future goals as far as finances go?

I would like to be financially free, you know, as soon as it's possible. But I do, I take my finances pretty serious. So, you know, I just, I'm not sure if I should come back and try to invest into some real estate with my father or put it in different, you know, funds or a CD or, because I come back from deployment and I'll have about a year and a half, two years left before my contract is over. So, yeah. Okay, so how much savings are we talking about? All right, so...

Depending on how long, where we are and whatever, it could be between $25,000 to $35,000. Okay. And you have no debt? I have about $2,000 in credit card debt, you know, just young, you know, whatever. And then I have about $8,500 in a Roth IRA that gets taken out of my paycheck automatically. And it is matched 5% by the military. I have about $6,500 in a brokerage account.

and $5,000 cash savings account. Okay. Well, I'm going to give you advice, and I hope you take it. I would pay the credit card off today, and then I'd cut it up. You'll still have $3,000 in cash, and then you can start using every single dollar coming in to save up and build wealth. And you need to have a—I know you won't have many expenses, but I would have an emergency fund there to protect you, and that may look like $5,000 for you while you're deployed. Okay.

Okay. For three to six months of expenses. Yeah, and just put that in a high-yield savings account, Gavin, so you can get to it if you need it. But I would just, yeah, I would just set that money in there and I wouldn't make any big decisions until you're home. Right. And even, you know, I mean, you know, you're so young, which is great that you're starting this process, but even, you know, just, you know, being patient till you're out, which will be another two years, and then until you go and, you know, whether you choose to

get back in, I don't know what that looks like, or go get a job.

But by that point is when you can actually say, okay, where do I want to settle in? Do I want to, I would buy a house for yourself before I'd go invest in real estate. We want to start doing retirement. You know, you start kind of those processes, but I wouldn't worry too much about that right now. A part of me would just save money. And, and Gavin, you know, we talked to a lot of military out there and we're so appreciative of everyone out there that serves our country. And, and,

The hard thing is, is what we see outside of so many military bases is these payday loans. There's traps everywhere. I mean, there's so much. They prey on the military crowd, unfortunately. They do. So staying away from all of that, too, and just kind of have a hard line in the sand for yourself and not get roped into something. Even your friends and the cars they're driving, there's going to be a lot of temptation in the next few years. And so if you can just keep the blinders on, you're already doing such a great job on the investing side.

And so just making sure you dial that back. And part of that is cutting up the card because truly you don't need a credit card. You're so smart at this young age. You're going to be just fine using your own money to live your financial life. So,

Here's the steps. Pay off the credit card today, cut it up, rebuild that emergency fund, then invest 15% of all future income. And you can do that with that Roth IRA. You can do that with other retirement plans you may have access to. And then beyond that, I would just save up as much as you can in that high yield savings account that Rachel talked about. So when you come back from deployment, you've got, you know, 20, 30, 40 grand in the bank and you've been investing for the future.

And I'm telling you, at 20 years old, you're going to be a multi-multi-millionaire before retirement age. And what do you think? Because I kind of feel like I wouldn't worry about investing too much while you're deployed. When you come back, be looking into that. Because I would want a lot of cash coming back home because that transition, coming home and kind of figuring out where you're going to go in the next year or two, I want as much cash as possible to have all the options that I want and not tied up in retirement yet. And then once that's kind of settled. Yeah.

Yeah, it's kind of that we call this baby step three B Gavin, where you some people choose to save up down payment while investing some some people invest nothing to get the down payment faster. And so that's the tension here. And it's not even a down payment necessarily. But it is like, okay, I have this money during this transition of figuring out what I want to do.

I don't know. That always just makes me feel safe just to have that. Well, and you might need a car once you get back. Yeah, right, right. You might need a deposit for a place to live. And so there is going to be a lot more expenses than you have now. So the more cash you have stacked up, the better. Yeah.

You won't regret that. But I would not get into real estate investing with your dad yet. I would wait and get your own place, get that place paid off, and then work on saving up cash for an investment property down the line. But you're 20. You have so much time. So don't feel like, I'm 24. I still don't own a house. Breathe. You're doing great. You're just so driven that it's hard to almost pump the brakes and just enjoy life. Thank you, guys. Yeah. Thank you so much for your service again. Impressive.

Abby's in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Abby, welcome to the show. Hey guys, thank you so much for taking my call. I appreciate it. Sure. How can we help? Yes, so I'll give my question first and then some context if you need it. So me and my husband recently took on some medical debt, some very unexpected medical debt, and we have some existing credit card debt.

Which for the past year or so, we've been trying to just attack with as much as we possibly could. And so this medical debt has some of it has kind of started to go to collections pretty quickly. And I guess my biggest question is, should I I've heard that medical debt when it goes to collections goes.

doesn't hurt you like your credit score or anything. I could be wrong about that. So I'm wondering if I should let it go to collections, kind of talk it down to a smaller amount while continuing to attack the credit card debt, or if I should take another approach. How much do you guys have in medical debt? It's about $9,000. Okay. And how much in credit card debt?

About $29,000. $29,000 in credit card debt. What were you guys buying? Yeah, so it was a mix of we did a kitchen renovation, and we didn't put that on a credit card. We did it on a HELOC. But that's all kind of mixed together, credit card debt, HELOC debt. Okay. How much is just the credit cards? Just credit cards, $18,000 probably. Okay, and is that just lifestyle? Yeah.

Yeah, it was lifestyle. It was Christmas, vacation. Yeah, okay. What do you guys make? Just the American way. Yeah, totally. What do you guys make? We make, my husband nets about $4,600 a month, and I net $2,300 a month. Okay. You guys can tackle this quickly. I would not let the medical debt just go to collections. The problem is they're not going to settle and negotiate when this debt is so fresh. It would have to be years old. And so I would just get it current and...

and make plans to pay it off and use that debt snowball. Smalls to largest balance. You guys make great money. What we need to do is ratchet down our spending. Yes, cut up the credit cards, Abby. Cut them up. Be done with it. Be done with this. And really focus why we got here in the first place because until you fix yourselves, you're going to see this continue to bubble up. You'll be back right to where you started. We don't want that for you. This has been another hour in the books of The Ramsey Show. My thanks to Rachel Cruz, all the folks in the booth, and you, America. We'll be back before you know it.

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, joined by Rachel Cruz, and this is your show, America, so give us a call at 888-825-5225. We'll show you the right next step you need to take with your life and your money. Christian kicks us off this hour in Omaha, Nebraska. Christian, what's going on?

Hi. How are you doing? We're doing great. How can we help? So over the last couple days, I lost my job. Oh, man. I'm sorry. And I'm just trying to figure out the best way to move forward. What happened? It was just a disagreement between me and my manager, and I think it was just a clash of personalities, really. And so your manager was just like, you're fired? Yeah.

Yeah, pretty much. What were you doing? I was in IT. Okay. What were you making? $58 a year. And were there any conversations about, like, was it straight firing, no severance, nothing? Just done? Yeah. As far as I know, I got my last paycheck this morning. Okay. Are you single? How long were you there for? Just six, so...

I'm married, and my wife brings in some money, but I was only there—we moved here to Nebraska in May. Was it for the job? Yeah, so it was for work for both of us, actually. Okay. So, yeah. You've been there less than a year, and now it's just your wife's income. What does she make? $35,000. All right. Have you started looking for jobs already? Are there other opportunities in your area in IT? Yeah.

It seems so. I've heard back from a few. Good. Okay. Well, hopefully we get you back working in IT very soon. In the meantime, we've got to figure out how to survive until the next thing happens. So what are your monthly expenses right now? Have you guys sat down with a budget to go, okay, here's what it's going to take to run the house for the next month and the next three months?

Um, not specifically. Like we, I pay attention to what's in our bank account. Um, and then we do, but we do have a mortgage, uh,

And then food and gas is really all it is right now. Okay. So this is what we call storm mode. And so when you sit down to do your budget, we're going to gift you every dollar premium, which is going to help. It's going to connect to your bank account, track transactions. There's a paycheck planning tool that you can use to make sure that you've got enough money coming in to cover all the bills that are coming up.

And so what I want you and your wife to do is sit down tonight and lay out every single expense, print out the bank statement, do whatever you got to do and lay out exactly what you need, not what you want, what you need to cover your budget for the month. And Rachel, what are some of the things they need to look out for in that budget? Well, just know as you're pulling those numbers, Christian, this was numbers that you guys were living off of before a budget. And you made over double. So you're probably going to be, yeah, spending more because it wasn't very much on purpose. Yeah.

And so when you guys look, do you guys have kids? No. Okay, just you guys. So yeah, I mean, I would look and say, okay, here's what it costs for us grocery-wise, restaurants, lights, utilities. You know, when you look at subscriptions, like anything that is coming out of your checking account, I want you to write those numbers down. And again, this is before you budgeted. So, I mean, I don't know if you spent...

700 a

a month at a grocery store, just know it's you two and that wasn't on a budget. So try to bring that down to 400, right? I mean, like do what you can to limit as much expenses as possible for you guys during this time because, you know, just maybe a month or so before you transition in. And so just know that if you cut things now, it doesn't mean that they're going to be forever, but for this time period, because I don't want you guys going into debt. I don't want anything like that to be happening because that's going to cause more stress. But I think having these numbers down

and getting a good idea of okay here's here's the paycheck for next month here are expenses and then if there are gaps christian between now and you getting a job i mean that may mean you're picking up an hourly job somewhere and doing what you have to do even though it's not the job and you may feel overqualified for it but the idea is staying afloat with your food shelter utilities and transportation and that would be the that would be the biggest thing so

As you're talking to these other companies, do you think the transition getting a new job will be fairly quick, would you say? I hope so. I'm doing some interviews soon. Okay, that's great. Yeah, yeah. Do you guys have any debt? We have a mortgage, and we just paid off our car just last month. Oh, good. So no other debt except mortgage? Correct. Any savings? No.

We have the $1,000 emergency fund and then about $3,000 on top of that. Okay. Right. Yeah, I mean, and this is a time that if you have to use that emergency fund, that's what it's for. I mean, job loss is one of those that we list out. But if you can avoid it and do what you can not to touch it, that would be ideal. But if you need to dip in and, you know, get some money out of that emergency fund, that's what it's there for, but it won't be there forever.

forever and it's not a big one right it's just to really cover those really major things so if you can in the meantime again cover the basic expenses but hopefully won't be too long christian i mean i feel hopeful for you i think you're in a great sector of looking for a job and the job market and all of that so i just i don't know i just feel like there's a lot of hope there

Thank you. And in the meantime, you may, you know, even outside of a retail job, you can download these apps like DoorDash and Instacart and Uber Eats and go to your local pizza place and deliver pizzas just for a few weeks until you land that next thing, until that next paycheck comes in. That would be very wise. And I know that's hard for a lot of people to do to kind of swallow your pride and do a job you'd rather not be doing and making these sacrifices. But this is what it looks like to take care of your family.

Yeah. I actually did DoorDash in college, so I'm trying to get back on now. There you go. Yeah. And you can make 15, 20 bucks an hour, uh,

you know, and tips and all that. So I think that's a, you're going to be back on your feet with a great field like IT in your area. It sounds like you'll be back in no time, but this is the time to just go, we got to live on the rice and beans going scorched earth for a little while until we're back in the clear and have some stability. Yeah. And whenever there's a situation like this,

with a job loss and especially due to a disagreements, I think it's always fair Christian that yeah, your, your boss could have just been a complete jerk. Like, and that got, you know, unreasonable. There's people like that out there and maybe that was him and that's fine. But I think there's always good introspective work to go back through and say, okay, what, what, what part did I play in this? What did that look like? And to learn in that, because this isn't Christian, but I remember talking to somebody, I think I may have been hosting with you and they had had like four jobs and

In like nine months or like it was a very extreme like, okay, there's kind of a, you know, the similar pattern that we're seeing a common denominator, which was the caller, you know, and I'm like, hmm, that's interesting that four people couldn't get along with you. Four different bosses. So again, that's a tale. That's a Tay-Tay moment. I'm not saying that's you, Christian. It's me, hi, I'm the problem. It's me. Yeah, that's right. I'm not saying that's you, but...

But those moments in life and in any kind of conflict, I think it's always good just to do a little bit of that kind of, okay, let's, let's flesh that back out. What can I learn from this too? Yeah. Well, we know science shows the job loss has very similar effects to like a death. Like you're grieving something that was near and dear to your heart that protected you, that provided for you. And so you have to grieve it too and move on with confidence that that was just a blip. It'll be a memory soon enough, my friend. This is the Ramsey show.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel joined by Rachel Cruz. If you enjoy this show, you might enjoy another show that Rachel and I co-host called Smart Money Happy Hour. Fun episode that launched this week about the cost of love going up with relationships, with dating apps. And it was hilarious. I learned a lot.

So if you want a good laugh and listen to it with your loved one or if you're single, we have many single people. Yeah, there was a lot of content there for you singles out there. Producer Skylar is single, and so she filled us in on the current status of the dating world. And Rachel, I was very glad to just be married and done with that face. And the amount of requests for Ramsey dating apps. People want the Ramsey dating app. And we will never do it.

I don't want to be tied to that. There's too many creeps out there. I can't vouch for these people. Now, if Rachel and I got to approve every single person that came onto the app... What if we were the matchmakers? I've done that once, and they got married. Have you ever matchmated? I don't think I've ever ventured that far. Okay. I'm just saying. I'm one for one. That's the premium version of the dating app. You can get Rachel to be the matchmaker. This is actually not the worst idea. Okay.

All right. On to bigger and better things. The Ramsey Show Question of the Day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. From repairs and maintenance to home improvement projects, winter can bring some challenges for homeowners. So check out their helpful winter checklist. You can get it for free at neighborly.com slash Ramsey.

And today's question comes from Grace in South Carolina. My father and grandfather passed away and I've inherited what my father would have received. My husband and I are always arguing because I don't want to touch the money unless we purchase a house or invest it to secure our family's future. We are not responsible when it comes to money. We have saved an emergency fund of $10,000 and in less than seven months it was gone. My husband has always wanted to start a business and now that we have a cushion, he wants to quit his job.

I asked him to build some of some clientele before quitting his job because I know that he will use the inheritance to pay our bills and living expenses. And I'm not okay with this. How do we move forward? Well, I think Grace has a lot of wisdom here. She's first of all, self-aware to say we are not responsible with money. And then she says, I know he'll use this money to basically just live our life. And she,

that starting this business is not smart. He's got to build some clientele. And I would agree with that, that you shouldn't just up and quit your job and then hope because you've got this fund over here that you can blow. That's right. But the problem is, Grace, is that there's obviously been a pattern here that's occurred.

with how you guys live with money, the fact that you saved $10,000, which is great, but then you spent it all. So the pattern of money is what needs to be addressed. And so that can be, you know, a pattern that you have, that your husband has. But either way, that's the core of the issue here is that,

the way you guys have handled money in the past will repeat itself unless you guys change course. And so that's what has to be addressed, in my opinion. Yeah, but how do we move forward? It's more relational than it is financial. We don't know the amount of the inheritance. We don't know if they have debt, their income, all of that, but...

I would hit pause on touching this inheritance for a long time until we're on the same page. Yep. And the value system, that's what always gets couples. That's where the arguing comes. It's not usually about the money. It's the fact that how we see life and the way we want to do life is different. And that will cause conflict.

If you're not on the same page. So, yeah, I mean, even that's getting with a marriage counselor or a therapist and you guys working out, hey, what do we want our life to look like? That's the bigger question here. And money is just the tool to create that. Well, there's an interesting piece of this. I want your take, Rachel. If...

You get the inheritance, but you're married to Winston. How does that, obviously it's our money, but there's still a piece of it where you have to be a good steward of the inheritance, of that legacy that was passed down to you. And so it can't just be, Winston's like, well, I always wanted to start this business, so I'm going to use that money. It's still money that was given to you to use for your family. Yes. I mean, I see it still as it's come into our family units.

But I think naturally you're going to feel, I think, a level of responsibility a little bit more emotionally. Yeah. I mean, I would say the same is true. You know, Winston's grandfather was very generous and he loved some things to the grandkids. And when that happened, I leaned more on Winston of, hey, what do you think? Because it's his grandfather. Like, right. There's a natural take there. Like you both get a vote. But yeah, absolutely. But I think there's. Yeah, I don't know. I feel that way. Yeah. Yeah.

But you both have equal say in it. I mean, it would be unfair to say, well, I'm going to go do whatever I want with this money because it was on my side of the family. That's not a team aspect, right? That's not the perspective you want. But that's the most interesting part of this question on top of the relational aspect of just getting on the same page about what we're going to do with this. But I would not go blow it on some harebrained business idea. No, no, no, no, no. Whenever you want to transition into a business like that, we always say...

The most ideal way to do that is have some footing that you can actually support yourself there so that it's not this big stressful thing, right? Because starting a new business, that's a blessing. That's such a gift. Even at Ramsey, if we launch something new, we don't just go launch it. We test it. We verify it. We get the team, the resources, and we do it with cash. And so that's very smart. All right. Amy is on the line in San Francisco. Amy, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I was hoping to get your advice. Basically, my question is, is my family doing okay financially or should we be working harder and sacrificing more now to create a stable future? I've been listening to the show for two months and I'm just kind of like all in and

And my husband and I kind of disagree about like the intensity we need to be going at right now. Okay. So how much debt do you guys have? We have $24,000 in my student loan and then our mortgage is $223,000. Okay. And how much do you guys make a year? $130,000. Okay. How old are you two?

I'm 37, he's 40. Okay. And do you both want to pay off debt? Are you in agreement on the goal or is just the process the part you're not agreeing on?

Yeah, we're on agreement on the goal. It's sort of like, I think it really comes back to like our childhood. Like I was poor growing up. I think I kind of operate from sort of like scarcity mentality. It's never going to be enough kind of thing. And he doesn't have that. He's pretty content with where we are. He thinks we're doing fine.

And, you know, I'm thinking of getting a second job to pay off the debt faster. You know, I get really excited about if I make double mortgage payments for six years, I can have my house paid off and this will be great. So he wants to chip away at the debt and you want to take a sledgehammer to it. Yeah. Do you guys have any savings, Amy? I'm getting really excited. Yeah, we have $27,000 in checking and we have retirement accounts. Okay. And...

$5,000 in a money market account. Okay. But if we knocked out the student loan today with the money and checking, you guys would be completely debt-free and you'd be on your way to saving up an emergency fund? Yes. What would he say if you told him that? Hey, I want to use the money and checking. We'll then save up. We'll make $130K. We'll save up that emergency fund back up to $25K, and then we'll begin investing and attacking the mortgage. Okay.

He'd be good with that. I just made $30,000 of payment to my student loan the last two months since I've been listening to the show. Good for you, Amy.

We're attacking it pretty hard. He kind of wants to do Baby Step 2 first, or 3 first, I mean, and save up the fully funded emergency fund and kind of keep that there, and then make the student loan payments, keeping that full emergency fund in checking. So...

I, you know, either way, he would be fine with what I think is best. Okay. Well, that's what I would do. I mean, obviously, because you guys could be debt free by today, which is amazing. And you free up that payment. Yeah. Which is going to help you save up faster. But I, and I do think, Amy, it is so normal, and this is how we are in our marriage, that one of you naturally may kind of be more of a scarcity mentality. One of you is more abundance. My husband's more of the scarcity kind of like, okay, let's save, let's,

be more conservative, I'm more like, "Eh, it's gonna be fine. We'll be okay. We're fine." And I have more of that natural mindset. But I think, you know, you both can learn from each other. I just don't want you functioning out of a place of complete fear. And now where you came from makes a lot of sense. And actually, if you hold on the line, Christian, I'd love to give her my book, "Know Yourself, Know Your Money," 'cause I talk about the childhood classrooms and how much that dictates how you see and handle money today is how you grew up.

But there's a healthy way you can view that. Take those lessons that are good lessons to learn that I don't want to go back there, which is very valid. But how do you shape it in a sense that, okay, I don't have to feel like I'm broke all the time or that I'm running and I'm not getting anywhere. Because you want a level of safety that, you know, that money's a tool to create a life you love. And so that's what I want for you.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, joined by Rachel Cruz. If you want to check out some other shows that we produce, you can check out the George Camel YouTube channel and, of course, The Rachel Cruz Show on YouTube and podcast. And it's all on the Ramsey Network app if you want to check that out as well. All right, let's go to Noel in El Paso, Texas. Noel, did I get that right? You did. Okay, wonderful. How are you doing?

I'm doing all right. Taking it one day at a time, best as I can. How can we help today? What's going on? So essentially, uh, my question is, um, you know, I've, I've been listening to your show, uh, for a few days. I've been busy on it quite a bit now. Um, a couple of your other podcasts and, uh,

You know, I've been contemplating bankruptcy. It's been something that's in my mind over the course of the last couple months. And I'm just trying to see if it's a better option to throw in the towel and do that or to continue attacking my debt aggressively based on what I've learned so far on the show. Sorry to hear that. Well, lay this out for us. How much do you make and how much debt do you have?

Okay, so I make, I'm practicing, I got two sources of income. One is my job, which gives me roughly about $81,000 a year. And then the other one is disability compensation, which is about $56,000. So about $122,000, $130,000 a year. Okay. And then as far as debt is concerned, I have about $80,000 in debt. Three of them are personal loans. Well, two of them are personal loans. One's my vehicle, and the rest is on credit card debt.

Okay. What are the amounts for all those? So the most expensive one is $38,000. That one has about a $616 payment per month, and it's stretched out over 15 years. Which debt is that? That one was a home improvement loan that I took out back in 2022. I was in the middle of a remodel of my house. All right. And so I took that money for a remodel. Okay. Okay.

And the second personal loan? The second personal loan was a debt consolidation loan. It's roughly about $29,000. And then the third one is the vehicle, my truck, which is about $26,000. And then the credit card debt is roughly about $10,000 or $13,000. Okay. How much is the car worth, the truck? The truck is worth about $57,000. It's worth $57,000? Yes. Good. And you owe $26,000.

Correct. I like where this is going. Do you see where this is going? I do see where your recommendation is going to be. Explain to me why you need this truck when you're on the verge of bankruptcy. Because I'm in construction, and I need the truck to be able to get through the construction. I just checked Google. They make $20,000 trucks. They do, but I work in heavy civil engineering construction, so I need something that can tow trucks.

the amount of weight that I need to be able to tow. And you're telling me there's no $25,000 truck that can tow that amount? Probably so. It's probably going to be about 15 years old. I'm okay with that. You're on the verge of bankruptcy. You just told us.

You got here because you were unwilling to have delayed gratification, sacrifices weren't made, and you made some poor financial decisions. And this is the one on the list that you can undo if you're willing to drive a 15-year-old truck for a season so that you can avoid bankruptcy. Okay. What's the truck payment? It's $583 a month. So you would have an extra $600 a month to go toward your debt.

Correct? Yes.

If you start making different decisions with money and it's not going to be easy because I mean a little bit of the easy route is the debt route. You kind of can get what you want when you want it and that's how majority of people live. But you're finding that it's causing stress. You're calling us for a reason because you're not happy with where you are financially. So something does have to change. So your mindset around money, regardless of

Work and construction and weight. I mean, all of that. Like if you're in this desperation part, you know, if you get to this place in your life, you're willing to do anything like anything. And I don't I don't know if you feel that or want to experience that. I've been through a lot of suffering over the last year. It's not necessarily the whole truck thing. It's just. Yeah. What's what's been going on?

What caused me to make all these poor financial decisions, I suffered a traumatic event back in November 2022 when my son passed away. Oh, sorry. And so that caused me to sell my house. And when I sold my house, it was in the middle of a remodel.

And I ended up being upside down about $18,000. So I had to pay $18,000 to sell a house. And then I moved my daughter and I across the country to bring my son to his birthplace to bury him. And it had to start all over again. So that's what caused me to take out the

the consolidation loan for 27 or $29,000. Um, and I had, I had a paid off truck. My truck was paid off. I had a 2,500 Ram that was paid off. And I traded that in to get this vehicle because it was a four by four and it had more pulling power. Um,

I hear you. I had to buy another house, but it wasn't a house. I bought a mobile home. That was another $121,000 there. So, you know, I spent a couple hours on the budget app yesterday, the EveryDollarSpent app, and for some reason it's telling me that I have $2,600 worth of margin every month left over. That's with your minimum debt payments, all of your expenses. That's what it should be.

Yeah, I mean, I put everything in there, all the payments that I'm making, still says I got $2,600. And don't get me wrong, I paid off close to about $3,000, $3,500 worth of credit cards, full credit cards in the last 30 days. And, you know, just trying to do what the Ramsey Method is telling me to do. Yeah. You know, and I'm putting $40 away every week in savings to try to get to that $1,000 savings in my underwear drawer to keep it there for a rainy day. Yeah.

Well, outside of the truck, I added it up. I mean, if you sell the truck, you'll have $80,000 in consumer debt based on what you told us.

Yes. And so you had said 80 at the top, but you got 80 plus the $26,000 truck loan. That puts you at six figures in debt. And I'm trying to help you. What's that? That's including it. That's including it. The $26,000. What was the first loan you said? The home improvement loan? $38,000. Yeah. $38,000? $29,000. Plus $29,000. Plus $10,000. $29,000. Plus $13,000 in credit cards. $26,000. Yeah. And then the coordinator of credit card is telling me I got $13,000 in credit cards, but

And I'm telling you, with a calculator, it's coming up at 80, and that's without your car loan.

So I just want you to have a real picture of what your finances are at, and that's why I'm so desperate to get you to get rid of this truck and downgrade to, number one, free you of $26,000 today before your truck goes underwater. Almost every call, people are underwater on their trucks. So when you said this truck is worth $57,000, $0.26, I was doing backflips because it gave me some hope that you can get out of this faster than you think.

And if you do that and then do the debt snowball, every extra dollar outside of food, utilities, shelter, transportation, insurance goes toward that $80,000 you have remaining. Smallest to largest balance. I think you can get out of this. You make great money. You're a smart guy who works hard. And know that, I mean, from that information that you just gave us about this last year, which is just the most horrific thing that I could ever imagine is losing a child. So I can't even imagine losing a child.

What that grief does, there's a fog that is there. And when you make financial decisions, usually in that time, soon after something like that happens, they're always, they're sometimes not the best. So that's not to guilt or to shame you. That's to kind of free you to say, hey,

Yes. As you look back, like, wow, those may not have been the best decisions. I don't blame you for that because of what you walk through. But I do want to make sure that there's a level of healing that you're getting from this and that the money is that secondary piece. But I do. I pray that for you. Well, I'm so sorry. And yeah, if you stay on the line, Taylor is going to pick up and we'll give you John Deloney's book and Total Money Makeover. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Rachel Cruz this hour.

Got something new in the Ramsey store for you guys. Dave Ramsey just came out with a brand new quick read book called Real Estate the Ramsey Way.

subtitle, How to Make Home Ownership a Blessing, Not a Burden. And this is a quick read book so you can see on the camera. It's very small. It's about, I don't know, 60, 70 pages. Yeah, there we go, 62 pages. And it's a great read that includes Dave's decades of experience with real estate. He got started at 18 years old. He's been in the game. He owns a lot of it.

and he's helped a lot of people buy, sell, and invest the right way with proven strategies. And so he can help you avoid some costly mistakes and pitfalls. And from start to finish, you're going to get a clear plan to help you buy, sell, and invest in ways that will help you build wealth and leave a legacy. And he's going to give you some hope that homeownership is still possible.

for those renters out there. And a home can become your biggest asset. It can be a blessing when done the right way. So get your copy at ramseysolutions.com slash store, gift it to some people in your life who are maybe about to buy or sell or want to invest and enjoy. Enjoy the new book from Dave. Ryan joins us up next in Denver, Colorado. Ryan, how can we help today?

Hey, how's it going? Thanks for taking my call. So my question today is, with interest rates and home prices so high right now, is it a bad idea for me to continue to rent? And am I making a long-term poor decision if I choose to continue to rent right now? Are you ready to buy financially? Let's say regardless of the interest rate, as you look at what the payment would be?

Yes, I am ready to buy financially, but it would cause me to violate one of these rules that I have developed, which has allowed me to save and live comfortably, which is live off of one income between me and my wife. We live off of.

the lesser of the two incomes. But unfortunately, because I live in Denver, Colorado, these house prices are just astronomical. It's ridiculous. So lay out your financial picture and we'll let Rachel be the judge here. What is your income and do you have any debt? My income is around $300,000 a year. Is that household income? That's household income. Okay. And I have zero debt. Amazing. And how much do you have saved for the down payment alone?

So I'd be using a VA loan, which doesn't require down payment, but if we needed a down payment, it wouldn't be a problem to do about 20%. So give or take, I mean, around maybe $20,000 to $50,000. Do you have a disability rating? I do have a disability rating. So would that waive the funding fee with the VA loan?

I haven't looked into it. I didn't have my disability rating whenever I bought my previous home, which has been sold, but I'd have to look into it. Because the VA loan, it can be a good deal if you get the funding fee waived. If not, I would go with a conventional 15-year fixed rate loan. Allowing people to get into a house with 0% equity is a really bad plan. Yeah, and the 15-year loan, it would push our

home payment up just so high and right now our rent is uh is around 2100 a month and then we're saving all of my income every month and putting it towards retirement and investments so i so what is your take-home pay every month between the two incomes um i think it's right around i'll be honest with you i've never really sat down and calculated it just because we live off the one income the other one is just savings but i think it's right around uh like

20 something thousand dollars. Wow. That's amazing.

Yeah, I mean, Ryan, I think one of the goals for you guys, though, would be to buy a home because you can't. You're renting forever. There ends up being, you know, that point where you end up, yeah, throwing your money away. And renting is something that we encourage people to do, especially if they're not financially ready to purchase a home. If they haven't purchased a home, but they have a lot of debt. I mean, there's reasons to rent 100% of the time.

But once you get to a place financially, there's a point that it's wise to then step into

a home and to be able to say, yeah, we're building equity. This is a big part of our financial picture. And if you guys wanted to wait some and have more saved that it makes you feel more comfortable, that's totally fine. I mean, we have people on the show that save for five, seven years and buy a home in cash, you know, and that's great too. I mean, as long as you have a plan that you're working towards and I just wouldn't want to

completely the interest rate, which obviously does affect the payment. I just don't want the housing market to be the thing that completely is the only compass you have when buying a home because I want you guys and your finances to be the reason why you're purchasing a home. So a lot of people try to kind of play the real estate game and they're waiting. And the fear is too that when interest rates drop or if they do, we're hoping they do,

that everyone who's been waiting to buy a house... Pent-up demand. Yeah, I mean, they're all going to jump in and then prices are going to continue to rise. So...

I mean, honestly, the best time to buy a house, in my opinion, right now, if you're ready, is now. But I understand financially if you guys are like, hey, we want more of a down payment, less of a monthly payment, and we're going to spend another 24 months to get there. That's okay. That's your goal that you guys are working towards. But I just don't want the idea of the housing market driving that decision. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Yeah, it does make sense. And you know, to be honest, I'm just scared that if we have to go to using two incomes to afford the house, God forbid something ever happens with my job or something like that, it would almost be unaffordable.

Yeah, I mean, and that's yeah. And that's a that's a fair place to be for sure. And that's why we want you to have an emergency fund as well as you enter homeownership, because if something were to happen, you'll at least have money in the bank to be able to help cash flow that mortgage payment for a few months. And so that that is one thing that will help.

And I think the reality of being out of work, unless it's completely your decision, in my opinion, for six months or for five months or something like that, it's probably not going to happen. You're probably going to find another job and have some source of income coming in. But yeah, so I mean, again, it's a little bit of that risk. But if you guys want to be patient and wait, or maybe Ryan, you guys look and say, we're going to get something way smaller than what we were expecting. Or maybe...

It's a condo. It's you know what I mean that there's something else that you purchase that may not be exactly what you're thinking right now. And again, I don't want to rush you guys into anything. So I don't think that there's a panic. But I do want you guys at some point to get into the game because I think it's just a great picture. I think it's a great part of your financial picture long term. What price point are you guys looking at?

You know, I'm honestly willing, we're willing to buy a home or a condo or apartment that we don't see ourselves living in long term, maybe the next foreseeable future. Yeah. But there's really nothing on the market around here that's not $500,000 or $600,000 that you're...

But you guys are making, you know, let's say you're after tax but before other deductions like investing, you guys are probably making $22,000, right? Yeah.

Yeah, something around that. So we recommend 25% of your take-home pay on that 15-year fixed. I've got the numbers right here. You buy a $600,000 house, 20% down, 15-year fixed with current interest rates. It's $4,600. You guys can afford that. That's under 25% of your take-home pay. So I wouldn't make this decision based on one income because the reality is you guys make $22,000 take-home pay, and that's okay. I know it sounds scary, but you guys make an amazing income compared to the average American.

Yeah, yeah, I guess it does. So while it's doubling your rent and that's scary, it's also still a small portion of your world. And I don't think you're going to be out of work that long. I mean, what do you do for a living? I'm an attorney. Okay. There's always going to be...

attorney work out there. We live in a very litigious society. You know that. You make good money doing it. And so you don't have a super volatile job where you're going to be out on the street for a year or two where the industry shuts down. So I think we need to push away that fear

fear and get into the real estate game when we're able. And I'm going to send you a copy of Dave's new book, Real Estate the Ramsey Way. Hopefully it'll give you some confidence as you begin this journey. Facts are your friends, Ryan. And what George just laid out are the facts. Your fear is understandable, but it's not reality. So it's not happening, right? The job loss and all of that. So focus on the facts.

That's great. You guys are in an awesome position. Well done. You're doing it the right way, my man. All right. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. My thanks to my co-host, Rachel Cruz, everyone in the booth keeping the show afloat, and you, America. Thank you for listening. We'll be back before you know it.

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, joined by Ramsey personality and bestselling author Rachel Cruz, and we are here for you this hour, 888-825-5225. Call us up. We'll talk about your life and your money. We'll encourage you. We'll talk you off a ledge, whatever you need. We're here for it.

Opal kicks us off in D.C. Opal, welcome to the show. Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. How can we help today? So I am recently out of the military, and I currently go to school full-time while working. My goal is to apply for medical school next year, but I want to graduate with no student loan debt. So my question would be, would Airbnb arbitrage be a good idea for an additional income? Oof.

Anytime the word arbitrage is spoken out loud, a puppy stops wagging its tail. You know what I mean? It's very risky. And I assume you know that because you're calling us saying, is this a good idea? I do. Where do you get the idea that this is going to be the ticket?

Well, I work part-time right now while going to school, and I'm a reservist still. And I guess I'm just looking for a way to up my income, but I don't really have the time because of everything that I'm doing. Okay.

Okay. And to make sure we're on the same page about the definition of arbitrage here, you're talking about, hey, I rent from a landlord, and then I'm going to list this place that I'm renting on Airbnb, and then I will make a spread. So if I'm paying $1,200 a month in rent, I'm going to make $1,600 through Airbnb net of fees, and I'll make that $400 spread. Yes, correct. Okay. Number one, it's hard to find any landlord who will agree to this.

And number two, doing it behind their back is what's known as illegal. And so that therein lies the biggest problem is just finding a situation. Sub leasing is even hard at times to find a sub lease, but let alone short term rentals. I mean, that's a.

Yeah, it would be difficult to find. And there's so much risk with that. There's so much risk of the turnover of having somebody there for a night or two or a week at a time. And then you would be the one talk about a part time job unless you pay a management company. If you found a way to do this, then they're going to take majority of the of the spread anyway. So what's hard about this is.

It's one of those ideas that gets spread, especially on social media where it feels... Because it sounds so good. And it sounds easy. You don't even need to own property and you can have passive income. Yeah, and to your point, Opal, you're like, I don't have a lot of time. But listen, if it really worked...

everyone would be doing it. Everyone would be doing it, but they're not. And for good reason, either because they legally can't, they can't find a landlord that will do it. And, or you actually weigh out the reality of real life when you do this. And it's not worth the risk because then if you end up getting on the hook for this rent, you know, you don't have anyone for two months. I mean, I mean, there, there's just so many cases, so many things happening. And then where do you live? So it's one of the hard, are you going to live with these strangers?

No, I live in a camper. I bought a camper and that's where I'm living at a full time currently. So I don't rent or have a mortgage or anything. So was your plan to say, I'm going to get in touch with a landlord. I'll never even live there. I'm just going to say, hey, I see you have this place for rent. Would you be willing to let me rent it out on Airbnb on your behalf while paying you rent? Yes. Okay.

I mean, you could try that. I have high suspicions that almost no one will go for that. And there's also a lot of laws and regulations. Or you would be stuck with the rents. You would be stuck with that. You're still paying rent. You would have to pay that if nobody was going to be living in it. So you would still have that expense. Who takes on the liability? I would. I just figured that I live... I just moved here. So I live in a city now that...

I thought it might be possible, but I'm hesitant, obviously, which is why I'm asking the question. But legally, you can't take liability for the entire house because you don't own the house. And so they've got their own homeowner's insurance. You're paying renter's insurance, which only covers your stuff inside. And so there's so many problems with this legally that I don't think it's a wise move. Even if you could do it, I think there's just still way too much risk and there's better ways to make $400 a month.

Okay. And then, so piggybacking off of that, so my goal is to go and graduate medical school debt-free. I guess, like, what do you recommend my steps that I take towards that are? Where are you at financially now? Do you have any debt? Do you have any money saved? Yeah. So I'll be done with Baby Steps 2 and 3 this month. Oh, great. Congratulations. That's huge. And how much schooling do you have so far?

I have about a year and a half left of my undergrad, and then I'll apply for medical school next year. Okay. And do you have any family helping out with covering college, or is it all on you? No, the military is paying for everything. Oh, wonderful. Even for medical school? How does that work? It only covers through undergrad? No.

Yeah, so the military will pay for four years of your undergrad, but it doesn't account for medical school because medical school is obviously more expensive. Sure. So...

So the military will pay for almost half of medical school. Oh, wow. But the other half is the half that I'm concerned about. Okay, and have you priced out different schools? Let's say the most affordable medical school, if you got into that school, what would it cost? Probably around $200,000. Just for the other two years or other half that is needed? Yes. Your half is $200,000 or...

Total? Yes. My half would be $200,000. And how many years? Medical school is four years. So I would get two years paid for, and then I would be responsible for the... You're saying the most affordable medical school is $400,000? No. I might have to go back and run some numbers, but the ones that I was doing research on was about $80,000 a year. Okay. So maybe closer to $160,000 is what you might owe.

Yeah. So I would start looking at that and see, hey, can I maybe, I'll take a year or two and work and save up every penny I can and get some roommates. And can you work in between? What would you be doing in your field after undergrad? Um,

So for my undergrad, my degree is in pre-medicine. I currently work part-time as a physical therapy tech, and then I'm in the reserves as well. And I door dash on the side, just as a side hustle. Great. So what are you making through all of that? About $52,000 a year. That's awesome. And what kind of doctor do you want to be? Emergency medicine. Okay.

Yeah, that's great. Well, you're in a great position considering half of it's going to be paid for by the military. So I would do...

that I can to save up and, like you said, cash for this, even if it's pausing it for a year if I have to. But always remember that, Opal, when we go into a doctor's office, we're not looking to see where they went to school. And so we get stuck on the pedigree so easily, and especially with higher degrees like this, law school, medical school, go to the cheapest one you can find. That would be my suggestion. Thanks so much for the call. This is The Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Rachel Cruz. The number to call is 888-825-5225. Well, Rachel, this was big news that I think people should know about, because it's probably not making headlines on TV, but this is from a Yahoo article. Mother of all data breaches, 26 billion records were leaked, and this includes users of LinkedIn, X, Venmo, and more.

and this could cause a huge spike in targeted cybercrime. Yeah. So not the most fun news, but good for people to know to stay protected out there. So this article says, if you use a computer, your data likely got leaked in what researchers have called the mother of all data breaches. 20 brands have had over 100 billion leaked records

with the largest being $0.10, $1.5 billion. More familiar to Western consumers, LinkedIn, X, Venmo, Canva, Apollo, Adobe also were hit, and they're saying that the majority of the population have been affected. Oh, my gosh. That's frightening. Yeah, so experts are saying to be on high alert for increased targeted cybercrime, and it should be noted that usernames and passwords were included in the leak, and this is very dangerous because...

Some people use the same password for everything. I don't know who that would be. Right there. She's next to me. Yeah, but think about it. If you knew my password, you could get into all of Rachel's life. Yeah. Rachel told me her password the other day, just willy-nilly for fun. I did, actually. I don't know why, but she just straight up told me. It was on a Smart Money Happy Hour episode. It was great. I know. You're not supposed to do it. Do you have a bunch of different passwords? Are you safe like that? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, for the most part, there's definitely some crossover. I'm not a psychopath. All the guys in the booth, I'm sure they all... James, our producer of this show, is the biggest privacy nerd, so I know he's got some crazy formulas. We'll never guess James. I plead the fifth. It's not James 1, 2, 3. I can guarantee you that. But this is important to note because... 1, 2, 3, period. Throw a... Dang it. We got him, Rachel.

So if they get, let's say, your Netflix account information, well, these hackers are smart enough to go, oh, that's probably the same for banking information and email accounts. So that's... So my question is for these hackers, if you were a hacker, George, and they have...

billions billions here you're like this is like winning the lottery what's the chances i get targeted that's kind of what i'm asking well rachel you're assuming they're sitting there physically typing each one they have computers okay fine whatever that are trying it does that you know millions of these a day probably so what do we do we're checking venmo we're because i mean that's the biggest one for me i don't have linkedin well here's the thing you need to uh be usually they're sending emails letting people know that they were part of what is that

Canva is a design app. Oh, yeah. Don't have that. Yeah. Rachel's like, I'm not touching that. Artisticness is not my go-to. They can compromise multiple services in just moments. And so that's the scary part. But here's the good news. So what do we do? Go into Venmo and you want to just what? You're just checking and just making sure there's no activity going on. Always check. I'm always vigilant. Check your bank account once a day just to make sure that all the transactions there are things that you actually did. Look what just came up on my Venmo.

George Campbell wants to be friends. I requested Rachel on Venmo. It was a big moment. Big moment. Show your screen on the screen. It just says George Campbell wants to be friends. Can never be too careful. Request accepted. Thank you, Rachel. That meant a lot. You're welcome.

So here's what you can do. Obviously, you can turn on two-factor authentication. That's one of the best ways to stay protected. That's where it's like, hey, I need to send Rachel a text to verify. Yes, yes, yes. The other thing you can do is make sure that you're using secure Wi-Fi. You're not logging into public sites on public Wi-Fi. You know, if you're at a Starbucks and you're logging into your bank account through that public Wi-Fi, that puts you at risk there. Yeah.

But the best thing you can do, and this is something that every Ramsey team member has because we believe in it that much, it's ID theft protection. This isn't quite insurance, but we get ours through Zander. Every team member has it covered if you work here. And I've had to deal with this before, Rachel, with identity theft. And Zander, they work with me to restore all of my financial life back in order, fight the fraud that happened. So nice having someone else do it. It takes hours.

hours and hours and hours to figure this out. So ID theft protection. And it's needed in 2024. Oh, absolutely. Like, it should be a must for everyone. And it's not very expensive. Yeah. No, this... It's so nice. Xander takes care of all of my insurance needs, but ID theft is a great one. It's like six or seven bucks a month. And for a family, it's like 12 bucks a month to get your whole family covered. It includes restorative services, recovery services, up to a million dollars in stolen funds. So...

This is not a big pitch for Xander, but there is something you can do about it. And that is get ID theft protection. And they do a great job with that. I got an email today and it was like ID theft alert. And it shows you what email was compromised and what the source was. Were you one of these? 100%. I mean, this is saying the entire population was essentially affected. No, I know. But that email, was it because of this breach? I don't know. That's a good question.

But I imagine I'm going to be getting more of these alerts. So anytime that happens, check those accounts, change the password on those and keep it secure. Spooky stuff, Rachel. Yeah, well, it's the world we live in as I'm like so much is done.

online right i'm like that's where that's when this is a good shout out for another service they're not affiliated with us but it's called privacy.com and they create virtual debit card numbers that you can use you use that a lot yeah because people always say well rachel i need my credit card because i need to stay safe online like no there's easy services to use it creates a virtual debit card number tied or you can just use a debit card

Yes, but people are worried about using the debit card because if something happens, it's their money taken out of their account. So the virtual debit card option is really cool through Privacy.com. All right, on to something better. Nicole is in Newark, New Jersey. Nicole, how are you today? Hi, I'm doing good. How can we help? Hi, yes, I'm calling because I'm working to try and get out of debt. And one of the questions I have is about my car lease that I have.

So I have a lease, and it's 18 months left on it. It's $610 a month. That's a nice car you're driving. It's not that fancy. It's a Hyundai Tucson. Wow. That's a big old lease payment. Usually that's a car payment for most people. Okay, so 18 months left, $610 a month. Do you know the buyout amount? Right now would be about $30,000. Okay.

Okay. And how much money do you have right now? In savings, I have $12,000. You know, that's kind of my emergency fund. Okay. And do you have any other debt? Yes, I do. I have a mortgage. That's $300,000. And I have another loan, which is $29,000. Is it like a personal loan? I got my gutters and windows done. Okay.

Okay, and you're wanting to get out of the lease? Is that what you're asking? What's the best way to get out? Well, I want to save money and reduce the payment, so I figured maybe getting out the lease might be the best option or...

I've been advertising to try and do a lease takeover. Not sure if I'll find anyone, but I want advice on maybe what other options would be. Well, there's only three ways. The first is early lease termination, which is going to come with a whole bunch of fees. The second one is the one you mentioned, a lease transfer, which involves finding someone else to take over your lease, which is like trying to find someone to buy your timeshare.

Very few people want to take this burden off of you and onto them. And the third option is the one that we recommend most often, which is the lease buyout, where you pay the difference between the lease payoff amount and the current value of the car. And so that to me is going to be your best bet. Do you know what the car is worth? $24,000, they said. Okay. So it's a little bit underwater, essentially. Yes. So if you came up with six, you would have the difference to cover it.

If you were able to sell it, essentially, because I'd recommend that. Yeah, you'd have to sell it. But you got $12,000 in savings. Yeah. So you could do that option, but you'd have to sell it. Then you'd have to turn around and buy another car, though. Yeah. I could live a few months without a car as I have a job close to me that I could just take the train. Oh, good. That's what I would hope you could do. That's the New Jersey life right there. Public transportation. That's a blessing. Yeah.

Yes, yes. So would you recommend me doing the buyout completely first or trying to find a buyer and then

working them both together, how would you recommend doing that? Yeah, I mean, if you can do it all kind of simultaneously, that'll be the cleanest option. But you don't have the title, and so you're going to have a hard time selling the car without the title. So you're going to need to tell them, hey, I'm in a lease right now. I'm trying to sell it. I would contact the dealer and let them know what's going on and see what the best option is to have that functionality work.

Okay. But the lease buyout is your best bet. And there's going to be some stupid tax, Nicole. It's going to hurt. But I'm proud of you for wanting to turn this around and being willing to make the sacrifices needed. Yeah, thank you. You got this. This is The Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, joined by Rachel Cruz. And in the Ramsey Solutions Lobby, on the debt-free stage, we've got some new friends, Nicholas and Devaney. Welcome, guys. Hi. Hi. Thank you for having us. Absolutely. Where are you guys from? So we're from Kalira, Alabama, which is about 30 miles south of Birmingham. Wonderful. And all the way here to your debt-free scream. How much did you guys pay off? We paid off $232,200. Wow.

Wow. And how long did that take? Four years. Nice. Wonderful. And what was the range of income during that time? We started at $82,000 and then up to $163,000.

Whoa. That's incredible. What was the big jump? Well, our buddy Ken Coleman would be proud. I took full advantage of the great resignation during COVID. Nice. So we didn't have that big of a shovel or not as big as we would like. And so I just went job searching. And in less than a week, I found a job and it doubled my salary. Oh, my gosh. So are you a one-income family?

Sort of. When we paid off the house, and she can go deeper into it in a minute, but when we paid off the house, she wasn't the happiest at her job. And I said, you know what? We're paying off the house today. You can put in your two weeks. That's incredible. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so the 238 was the house. Well, it was credit cards, car loans, student loans.

and the house. Everything and the house. Congratulations, you guys. That's incredible. Okay, so four years ago, you guys had some credit cards. You had the mortgage. You were living normal. What happened to get you on this Ramsey journey? Well, if you look back at it, that's right when COVID first hit. And, you know, we had friends, family. You know, we just kind of saw people, you know, struggling. And then, you know, you turn on the TV, you see people losing their jobs, losing their livelihoods. And,

We thought we were safe, but we just kind of said, what if? And then we dug deeper into our finances and we were like, wow, we're in a mess. And so we started chipping away at the credit cards. We did side hustles. She started making hair bows for little girls, selling those.

I did DoorDash for a while and we started selling stuff just around the house. And Rachel, you'll relate to this. Any old kids toys that we could find that were in one piece. Yeah. We put on Facebook Marketplace. Good for y'all.

So we just made it happen and did whatever we could to get out. Dang. Wow. So there's sort of a pandemic panic. You guys went, we could be just like those guys three seconds from now. Let's get our affairs in order here. Yeah. And prior to COVID, I was working from home anyway. So I was safe, but I always think the worst thing is going to happen. So I'm like...

what if I lose my job? What if we both lose our jobs? Sure, sure. And so we're like, we need to get out. Isn't it amazing how you can carry that risk of debt for so long and until something really shakes it, like a pandemic or something, do you realize, oh my gosh, it is risk. Like these car loans, like all this debt that we're carrying. Yeah.

It is a level of risk that so many people are used to. But the moment you start saying, wow, this really is a part of our lives that we want out. It's incredible. Absolutely. And she's, you know, I'm the saver. So it wasn't hard for me to get on board and she's the spender. And so, you know, she's the one where it's like every day in Amazon boxes, the Amazon van lives at our house. Stephanie, how was this for you? This four years? Was it...

Was it hard? Was it once you got on board and you guys were working together, you're seeing the progress, it was good. But like, how did it how did it feel overall? Yeah, I mean, it was definitely a little different at first, especially because right around that time, our daughter was born. And I had my first daughter. And of course, I wanted her to have all the cute girl things and all stuff like that. So it was definitely hard at first. And then I stopped. I was like, OK, like she doesn't need this. And then I started, like Nick said, I started making bows and stuff for kids.

girl's hairs and she did not like them at all she wouldn't keep one on her head so I was like okay this there's no point to buy this stuff so um I definitely got there it took a little bit but once I started then I was like oh like this is great oh my gosh did you guys know about Ramsey and the baby steps at this point how'd you find out about this

So, I just, when the pandemic first hit, you know, I pretty much just Googled, you know, getting out of debt and how to, you know, how to clean up this stuff. And then I bought the Total Money Makeover Reddit in one weekend, I think. And then we just kind of just snowballed from there.

Literally. That's amazing. That's incredible. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So what would you say to a young family that's listening and they have the car loans and the credit cards and they're just normal living life, but they're feeling like, oh my gosh, we want to change. What would you say the key of getting out of debt is?

Yeah, I mean, I think for us, I mean, you look at us, we're in our 30s. And we did this, you know, we hear people all the time, younger people, it's harder to live these days, you can't buy a house, you can't do this, but there are also hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. And it's like, well, control what you can control.

And so, I mean, Rachel, you were born the year your parents filed for bankruptcy. George, you went from negative net worth to a millionaire in 10 years. You look at us, we both grew up in less than ideal situations. Her parents got divorced when she was young. My parents got divorced when I was young. My dad passed away when I was eight years old, and he didn't have any life insurance. Mm-hmm.

And so I was raised by a single mother, no help, just trying to figure it out. So if we can do it, anybody can do it. So good. That's inspiring. And it's just the belief you can. Yeah, absolutely. And that's it, is to believe that you can. That's incredible. And in your early 30s, on your way, and baby step seven, what's the house worth? So, well, we bought in January 2018, right before the housing market just went bonkers. Good time to buy. Yeah.

So, I mean, we paid less than $200,000 for our house, about $190,000. And there's homes in our neighborhood selling for over $300,000 now. Wonderful. That's incredible. And so you got that paid off and you've been investing in retirement? Yeah. Yep. Yep. So now we're doing 15%. We're still trying to save up for the kids' college and

and all that. And we're also cash flowing, um, an international adoption right now too. So this is not our complete family. That's great. Yeah. We were hoping the adoption would be finalized when we came here, but, uh, it just kind of, you know, worked out this way, but, uh,

But yeah, so we're doing that, saving up for the kids' college investing. And, you know, we were at a negative net worth, a significant negative net worth four years ago, and now we're on the path to be multimillionaires. That's unbelievable. That's so fun. And when you have the margin to do things like, you guys get to just cash flow this adoption with joy in your face instead of stress because you've also got payments. So I love what...

When you turn money from an obstacle into a tool, it's amazing how your life changes. And I'm so proud of you guys for being a living, breathing picture of that. Yeah, absolutely. And I told her, you know, she stuck with me these past four years, you know, and I know it wasn't the easiest thing. So when we paid off the house, I said, you know, you just pick anywhere on the map and we'll go there for a trip. Oh,

So where are you going to go? We don't even know yet. I'll bring a map out. Rachel's going to throw a dart. Yeah, we've talked about Europe or going on a cruise or whatever. Good for you guys. We'll probably go on a couple trips, one with the kids and one with just us two. Love it. I know, and you have the kids with you. Yeah, bring them up. What are their names and ages? So Brantley is our oldest. He's seven. And then Cambry is four. Four.

Oh, precious. Look how cute. Well, I hope they've been practicing for the dead free screen. And y'all are all color coded. With the lavender outfits. They look fantastic for those of you that can't see them. Get a family photo after this is done. That is wonderful. Here we go, guys. All right. We've got Nicholas and Devaney and Brantley and Cambry.

$232,000 paid off in four years, house and everything, making $82,000 up to $163,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. All right, Cambry, you ready? You ready to lead us off? All right, go ahead. In the mic. We're debt-free! That might win the award for cutest debt-free scream I've ever seen. Gosh, I just teared up. I was like,

What a performance. And we've got a special gift for you guys. Two every dollar premium gift cards for a one year subscription. You can use one. You can renew with that. You can give it away to a friend to get them started on the journey. And George, and just hearing their stories of even the change that they've made from their childhood to now, what these kids are going to experience. It's absolutely incredible. In four years. Beyond the finances. Early 30s.

No mortgage in four years. Well done, you guys. Well done. It's possible for you, America. Are you willing to make those kinds of sacrifices for four years? I can do just about anything for that amount of time, and I know you can too. It is worth it. Look at that couple. Look at that journey. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Ephesians 4, 32. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you.

Speaking of forgiveness, Rachel, forgive me for these two quotes. Taylor Swift said, you play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.

Only to be outdone by Travis Kelsey, who said, if you don't care about the guy next to you, one, you're a terrible teammate. Two, you're never going to win. I think it's you win stupid prizes. Well, I think we need to, someone on the team is getting in trouble now. Rachel knows her T-Swift lyrics. She also didn't invent that phrase. I got this straight from a pretty big fan, so you'll have to battle with her, but we'll fact check it.

You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. I'm pretty sure that's what it is. Rachel's going to Google it after. It's one of my favorite lines. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Do stupid stuff, that's what you're going to win. There we go. Stupid things, you know? And again, she didn't invent that. Kind of like you reap what you sow. She's basically quoting scripture. Yeah.

That's Rachel's mental gymnastics right there. That's what it looks like, y'all. This is what I have to deal with as a professional co-host of The Ramsey Show. This kind of ridiculous justification. It's true. It's what we do. And Travis Kelsey, y'all are funny. That was funny. Well done, y'all. Well done, team. We're having a good time. All right. Ruby is in Chicago. Ruby, welcome to The Ramsey Show. How can we help today?

Oh, thanks for having me on here. It's a pleasure. What I need help with is whether should I pay my house off or my car off or pay both off? I love the idea of getting rid of all your debt, Ruby. Yeah, that's a great question. Okay, Ruby, how much money do you have?

I have $106,350. $106,000. And where is that money? Is that in retirement accounts? Is that invested? Is that just in a checking account? It's just in a savings account. Just a traditional savings account. Okay. And is this the money, I guess, you live off of? No, the money I live off of, I get $6,335 a month. And what's that from?

That's from VA. My husband was a veteran when he passed away. Okay. So that's guaranteed income for the rest of your life? Yes. Wonderful. And how old are you? I'm 73. Okay. And what's left on the mortgage? $76,463. And the car loan?

$22.33. You said $22? Oh, I'm sorry. $22,033. Oh, okay. I was like, well, we can pay off $20 right quick. Okay. So total, you're looking at about $98,000. You have $106,000 in savings. Does that include your emergency fund and that $106,000? No, it doesn't. Oh, you have other money?

Well, I don't have other money, but what I would probably do is save that six months of money I would need if I need it. I would take $25,000 and just put it aside for, you know, whatever. And savings, yeah. For your living expenses, Ruby, how much extra do you have a month? You have $6,000 coming in. Do you have any margin?

I have $2,000 coming in after I pay everything off. $2,000 extra that you can do what you want with. Okay, that's great. This is wonderful. So you live on $4,000. So a six-month emergency fund really is $18,000.

of what you'll need for a good emergency fund. And what I'm seeing the numbers, if you paid off everything, it would leave you 8,000 in the bank. So that means you would have 10,000 you would still have to put to your emergency funds. But I don't think I would do that quite yet. So what I would probably do, Ruby, if I were you, I would go ahead and pay off the car if I were you.

And then I would save over five months to get to $18,000. And then once you have $18,000 saved, use the remaining of your savings to pay off the house. Yeah. Okay. That's what I was thinking, but I wanted some confirmation. Yeah. And you're in a great position, Ruby. That's wonderful. And you're going to free up that mortgage payment, which is going to help you save up even more. Yeah. How much is that a month? $18,000.

It's only $693 a month. What about your car payment? And that's because I don't pay taxes. Okay. What about your car payment right now? My car payment is $497. Ruby, this is exciting. Do you know what is about to happen?

You're freeing up 700 bucks and 500 bucks. You're going to have an extra $1,200 on top of the 2,000. So you have 3,200 bucks that you can use to then invest and save and spend and enjoy your retirement.

Right, right. That's what I needed to know. But I'm planning on, I think, maybe within the next couple years, to buy a house, but a cheaper house, because I don't need what I have now. It's a little too big. So you would downsize with cash? Yes.

Yeah, you could definitely make that move for sure. I wouldn't go further into debt by any means, but I know you're going to downsize. So that means, yeah, you'll have some equity then to put away as well when you decide to do that, which is great. What would your house sell for? About $400,000. Awesome. And you would downsize to something smaller that's, let's say, $300,000 or $350,000? Probably more like $300,000. Great.

I love this plan. This is wonderful. So yes, what you're going to do is I'd pay off that car loan today. That's going to leave you with $84,000. And then once you have enough to have your full emergency fund plus the rest of the mortgage, go ahead and just knock that mortgage out completely. Pay extra on the principal. Sounds great. Congrats, Ruby. What a wonderful situation. I'm proud of you, Ruby. You've done really well.

Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for calling into the show. Good day. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you. Thanks, Ruby. What a wonderful call. I love Ruby. That's so great. And you know, it's a cool reminder, Rachel. Ruby73.com.

And a lot of people at that age just go, well, I've got the mortgage. I've got the car payment. I'm not going to do anything about it. Right. And so it's a great reminder that it's not too late. That's right. Now, her situation was great because she had six figures sitting in savings. Yes. And has a great guaranteed income. But it's not too late.

Even if you're in your 60s, your 70s, we hear debt-free screams that are all over the place. Every age, spectrum, walk of life. And so freedom is possible. Yep, that's exactly right. And to do something...

With that money, that's going to free up so much. And for her, financially speaking, yeah, it's an extra $1,200 a month, which is huge. Amazing. So good. So, so great. And for a lot of people out there, if they paid off their mortgage and the rest of their debt, they'd have even more than that coming in every month. For sure. For sure. So that's my plan and that's my hope for everyone is to go into retirement with zero debt, including no mortgage payment, because it allows you to live off less. Right.

You don't need as much money. And so that Social Security is just icing on the cake. What you have in your investments and what that's making for you every month to pull from is plenty. So it's a good reminder for people out there. But I like Ruby's personality. I want to hang out with Ruby and just gain some wisdom. She's lived a good life. You can tell. You can tell. Wow. Well, this has been a fun show, Rachel. I don't know if you enjoyed it as much as I did.

But it started off dark. We had a lot of heavy calls this show. You know what I mean? And I think it proves, this is why I love doing this and hosting this show, is you get people from every walk of life, every situation. Some situations are just absolutely heartbreaking. Some are heartwarming.

hopeful with the debt-free scream, right? You kind of get the whole gamut of what's going on, but the thread that we see continually through our callers, through the people that DM us on social or comment or listeners, or if we're at a live event, we meet you or here on the debt-free stage or watching the show, like whenever we interact with people doing this plan,

regardless of where they came from, what they make, the amount of debt they have, the number one qualities they believe they can do this. And they believe that they can take control of their money. They believe they can wake up every day, make a different decision from what they've made in the past, do something different to get a different result. And that hope, it really, it sounds cheesy, George, but it really is the thing. I'm like, that is the very first step is that mindset with that belief that we can do this. And for some people, it takes longer.

Some people shorter, but it is possible. Yeah. My favorite stat from the millionaire study we did was 97% of millionaires believe they had control over their financial destiny. Interesting. It's amazing. If you think you have agency and autonomy over your life, you're going to act like it. You're going to behave like it. And so that's what this show is all about. We want to give you hope. And I don't care if it's cheesy.

because life is too short to not have hope. We're going to go eat some cheese, though, aren't we, on Sunday? Heck yeah, Rachel. Some queso. Well, that puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. Thanks to Rachel Cruz, all the folks in the booth, and you, America, will be back before you know it.

Hey folks, Dave here. You want to hear even more life-changing content from Ramsey? Download the Ramsey Network app so you can catch all your favorite shows all in one place like the Ramsey Show, Smart Money Happy Hour, and the Dr. John Deloney Show. You'll get real talk about life, relationships, money, and your career. Plus, the app lets you browse by topic like debt, business, or selling your home. Get the content you want whenever and wherever you want to listen.

Download the Ramsey Network app today.