Normal Money Habits Don’t Build Wealth

0:00Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broken common sense is weird so we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studios, this is the Ramsey Show. George Campbell number one best selling author Ramsey Personality is my coach today. Open phones here at AAA 825-5225. Dave is in Philadelphia. Hi Dave, how are you? Doing good Dave and George, how are you doing? Better than we deserve. What's up? So I have my identity stolen and someone to soak out as student more than my name. So I never attended the school, authorized alone, I already tried contact Malone Company, physically going to the college, filing a pollute report and disputing it, but the debt

1:03showing still showing up in my name, I was wondering if you had any recommendations for situations like this. Wow. Well, to start with, you're aware that if someone falsely uses your name, you're not liable for the debt. You know that, right? Yes. And in any circumstances do you pay this debt, period? Okay. Typically, what happens in an identity theft situation is in order for the lender to do away with the false account, they need some proof that it's a false account and they're going to have to have some interaction with them. Most of the time, you're going to file a police report and you can send them a copy of the police report that says this occurred. It's identity theft, it's fraudulent, criminal activity. But you're going to have to figure out who to get in touch with. Who's holding the loan? It's called Ed Financial, is the name of the company? So is that a federal loan? I think, yeah, it's a private. Or a federal loan organization. Okay.

2:03Because there's separate parts. If it's a federal loan, you should be able to go to studentaid.gov and I've seen this happen before and there's something called a false certification ID theft discharge and you can file for that on studentaid.gov and that might help with the process to kind of bridge the gap between a police report and what you're dealing with. Yeah, I would do that and I would get a police report and I would be in touch with the people holding the loan and badger the cred out of them until they get this thing fixed. I'm hoping you've frozen your credit since then with all three bureaus. I did freeze the credit and I already took all the steps that you all recommended. So I was just curious that there's anything else you would suggest in doing it. Because I'd go back as far as it's crazy but they made me pull my high school diploma to prove that I am who I say and even though someone else was able to easily get the loan in my name. Wow. How much was it for? So why are they not taking it off? If you did all that. It was for $4,000, $4,000. It was for about $5,000.

3:04Okay. Are they giving you any reason that they haven't done away with the loans since they know it's fraudulent? No. They haven't given me any reason that they haven't done away with it other than incompetence. And they've been making it into paperwork. Same paperwork I've already sent you, you know, kind of thing. And how long has this been going on? About six months. Okay. Six months since I found out about it. And you do not have, you do not have Sanders identity theft insurance. I'm sure because you would have told me they were already handling it, right? No. No, I don't have any identity theft insurance. Okay. Well, this is the exact reason we endorse Sanders identity theft. It's not the notification. The identity theft product that they have assigns a counselor to the case, a case worker, and they do all the crap. And they pound the lender until the lender removes the debt from your name and removes it from your credit report. And that's the follow through is not that identity theft costs you any money because you don't owe any money.

4:05It's all the hours lost of your life that you can't get back dealing with morons that will work for a student loan company and can't get their head out of it. That's the problem. That's where, that's where an outlet is too, right? You know, it's been hours and hours ago. Oh, yeah. You're going crazy. You buy a product like that retroactively or can you buy it? No, you can't buy retroactively, but I've sold millions and millions of them. And so they'll give me one occasionally retroactively for someone on the air and we'll take care of you. Okay. We'll see you guys are the best. Yeah. We'll see if Zander will pick up and attach, see if they can do it. They usually can do it and attach to your situation and have their identity theft team address this with a counselor with a coach with somebody, a case worker to work that they case through and try to maybe they can put some pressure on that you hadn't been able to as an individual. We'll give that a shot. And there are a couple things for anyone else out there going, I don't want this to happen to me. Freezing your credit with all three bureaus as a great start, having Zander's ID theft protection is a great thing to have. And Dave, you covered it for everyone of our team members.

5:08And I've had to actually use it. Back when I started here, I had this happen to me. That's right. I forgot about that. I had the pleasure of working a victim. That's right. And someone opened two AT&T accounts, Verizon accounts in my name across the country. And I was on the cell phone king for a minute. I was like, how do you rack up $2,000 on a cell phone account? I have no idea. But Zander, they handed it all for me. They just kept me up to date. Hey, here's what's going on. All right, it's gone now. You don't have to worry about it. Pull the credit report. It was gone. So you're going to have to stay on top of this, Dave, to make sure that you pull the credit report, make sure it's gone. Contact the lender, get everything in writing document. Who you talk to when you talk to them, what they said. And that's the kind of hassle that ID theft causes. And this is happening more and more, Dave. These student loan scams especially. I haven't run into a student loan as much. I didn't know that. I knew it happened with everything else. And here's a weird statistic. A large percentage of identity theft is from someone you know. Like, here's the gross ones. Like, a kid turns 21. He's trying to get married and buy a house and finds out that when he was 12, his mother

6:12took out three credit cards in his name. That's gross. And the closer it is to your own direct family. If that's you, by the way, you're a criminal. That's called fraud. Not to mention your scum because you did this to your own kid. But you're a criminal if you're doing this. And so if your mommy did this, your mommy is a criminal. Yeah, that's just because it's fraud. It's bank fraud. It's taking out alone under false pretenses. It's go to jail time if somebody actually wanted to push it. But they usually don't. They usually just write it off and call it a day. Here's the sad thing. If you don't have somebody like Zander in these situations with the credit card come, as you call city, mine can go. This is not my card. I didn't open it up. The first thing they assume is you did take it out and you just don't pay the bill. And so they treat you as a victim like you are a predator. Like you have to prove to them that you were not guilty as charged. Exactly. You are guilty until proven innocent when you're dealing with city bank or chase or fifth

7:13third or these guys because they're just scummy credit card departments are horrible on this stuff. I'm sure they get people who pay it anyways because do they just don't want to deal with it? Are they scared? Yeah, it's typically someone that is elderly will pay it anyway because they don't want to fight. They don't want to get into the argument or someone that's young or immature and they just don't have the strength to push back and fight it through because you pretty much got to get pissed off and go out on like a cat on their face scratching their eyes. It's a large time job to do that. You got to do it. That's why we recommend Zander. So you just turn Zander loose and you know turn the rot while they're loose on them right and they take care of it. So that's what you've got to do is something like that. And I hadn't thought about it George but you brought it up. We haven't talked about it in a long time. If you're not borrowing money because you listen to this show and you're through borrowing money because you're smart then freezing your credit bureau report on all three of them today is like essential.

8:16The first time they passed that law so I'm 25 years ago about three days later I froze mine, my wife's and all my kids and they've never been unfrozen since. You won't need to. That thing's going on the ice age baby. Yep. It's better than putting your credit cards in the freezer. I'll just tell you. So because this one actually works and it doesn't prevent all identity theft because some credit card companies issue a card without checking your credit. And if they don't check your credit then the frozen credit doesn't come up. But if it comes up it'll stop the whole thing. When you're trying to hire you don't have time to dig through stacks of resumes hoping someone halfway decent floats to the top. That's the world's least fun game of where's Waldo. What you do need are qualified candidates who won't waste your time because you can be sure they actually want your job which is why I love the way Zip Recruiter is helping

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10:21I was just looking at the photos from the last one and it got me hyped again. Oh man that was a fun trip. The ramsy live like no one else cruise is a blast. We take over the entire ship only ramsy people on there doing baby step form beyond. If you're in baby steps one two and three you're getting out of debt do not come. But if you're out of debt everything but your house you're moved from intense to intentional that's when we've always told you to go on vacation and live like no one else. So that's why we call it the live like no one else cruise. So it's a whole bunch of like-minded people all working on the same kind of stuff thinking the same way doing the world's largest debt free scream. George is going to be doing nerd events on investing. I'm going to help. We're going to do some wealth planning sessions and Rachel will be speaking Jade will be speaking Deloney will be speaking they're going to y'all are going to smart money happy out. Live live show podcast live. It even live ramsy show we'll see. Yeah well there's a little look at that that could happen.

11:23Oh some Deloney after dark that was a hit last time. Deloney is always after dark. But people stayed up for that one that was fun. It really is a blast. They're the friendliest nicest most generous people even the crew on the boat was like who are these people. We love them. So official you have our permission and encouragement to join us March 14th through the 21st we're going to go Western Caribbean which is Jamaica Grand Cayman Bahamas, Cosamail. It's great I tend to rates on a great ship. It's on high Holland America which is one of the top end high end ships. This is not the cheap stuff. This is the good stuff. They don't do Walmart on the seas. I'll just tell you I don't do that. That stuff makes me gag. So no this is like classic food good service good people you're going to like the whole thing. And while they just put up a picture of the ship it's nice. Beautiful. Yeah there's going to be like 2500 of us on there. There was at the last one of sold out this one will be sold out. It's not yet March 20 or March 14 through 21 coming up and y'all it's after Labor Day

12:26this is going to be here in 20 seconds. We had a blast. We had so much fun. We did pop up. We just be walking along and a stage was empty and a couple of us get up there start answering questions and hanging out with y'all. We ended up having dinner with a bunch of you. We ended up doing all these things on the stage. We had church services that blew up. They were fabulous. You couldn't get in. And that's on top of all the normal cruise entertainment which was fantastic. Yeah so we brought our own thing to it. Yeah all their stuff is there too. If you're bored that's your fault. Yeah it's a blow yeah for sure. We just had a blast. Sharon and I will be there. All the Ramsey personalities will be there. Natalie Grant, absolute incredible Christian artist will be our musical guest and others as well so you just don't want to miss this. It's going to be incredible. If you're baby step four and beyond be there. If you're not you shouldn't be there. You need to be working on your stuff or not hypocrites. So RamseySolutions.com slash events or click the link in the show notes.

13:27Stacey is in Des Moines High Stacey. How are you? Good. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up? So I just kind of wanted to talk to you guys about how do we stop living paycheck to paycheck when it seems like every time we turn around something's wrong and we have to spend money. So to give you a little bit more context on that my husband had to have an urgent tonsilectomy back in January of this year. Before that we had our emergency fund but we had to use part of that to pay for a surgeon or else they wouldn't do the surgery. Fast forward to April we finally got our emergency backup to a thousand dollars and then my son got had to get tubes put in his ears because he gets recurrent to your infections. So again same thing with that we had to take out of the emergency fund because we just couldn't afford it and in our eyes it was for his health. I mean he's not even too yet. That kind of trumps everything taking care of my baby.

14:31So then felt like we were doing good and then our car one of our cars the brakes went bad on it we had to replace the brakes the rotors that was just twelve hundred dollars and it seemed like every time we take a step forward we take two steps back. Do you have health insurance? We do. Okay. So why would a surgeon with health insurance require prepayment? I honestly don't know they did it for my son's tube surgery as well and we went we even contacted another surgeon to make sure like it wasn't just this one clinic and they said the same thing we had to pay fifty percent up front and then we could do a payment on the other one and that's just for the surgeon that wasn't even or like the hospital. No you don't pay for the surgeon the insurance pays for the surgeon. I don't know that's just what they told me. Yeah well maybe you just quit taking everybody's opinion about stuff and find out what the flip is really going on.

15:32Maybe that's the emergency. I have health insurance it pays for surgeons what's wrong with you people. Now if they're if they're talking about out of your deductible that you need to pay your deductible upfront or something that wouldn't be unusual and that could be the thousand and the surgeon should be way more than two thousand dollars for a tons of electomy and the tubes should be way more than a thousand dollars too. So in all cases insurance did kick in. Yeah it did kick in at some point but you've got to take control of these situations or make sure you understand and you're telling people what to do instead of them telling you what to do and that helps in a lot of these cases particularly the medical community because some of them are just straight up financially stupid and they will take you places you don't want to go. So you've got to plug in and understand why these charges are there before they occur. I don't I don't think you've been ripped off it doesn't sound like it it sounds like

16:33you just had a run of things coming at you. So I don't think you have a choice you just keep doing what you're doing and eventually you're going to get the other side of some of these emergencies. The break rotors were not an emergency they were a recurring repair. Things go out and call repairs happen. Do what? Yeah they apparently they were bad for a while and I just kind of kept putting it all that squeaking thing you would know or yeah yeah that's what happens and then that makes it like twice as expensive when you don't go get it done before you get into the rotors. And so. But just know that this is normal when you are broke it's hard to have good luck and when you've got that emergency fund all of a sudden you start having less emergencies because you start taking care of things your head of things your proactive instead of reactive. So this is a normal part of the journey now all these things at once it sounds like the universe is against you but just know those are in the past we're not going to have another tons of like to me we're not going to need more tubes put in the break rotors are fixed.

17:34So now let's get ahead of this thing and move even faster so that we can stay ahead instead of moving to two steps back like you said. Yeah and what if all these three things had happened and you had no money because you were living like you used to live. Yeah you'd really been screwed then so thank God you're on a plan because it limited the damage it did to your life it just damaged your plan and gave you an emotional set back I keep having to start over I keep having to start over but George is right that is normal and the more you work on this and the more debt you get rid of the more room you have in your budget and the faster you're able to go back to baby step three and finish the emergency fund the faster you're going to see these emergencies evaporate. George I'll tell you that our experience with working with thousands and thousands of families including my own is exactly what you said. Thing one is you get more room in the budget and so a $500 item used to be in emergency and now there's that much room in the budget so it's no longer an emergency so what qualifies

18:37as an emergency starts to go down. Thing two is you get ahead of things like preventative maintenance on your heating and air system you come out and have it checked once a year instead of waiting on the whole thing to freaking blow up or you have the car checked as soon as you hear a squeak and you fix it before the before the brake pads are worn out and you get into the rotors and and you keep your oil changed and you do the and you're just thinking fun for and you start to have you have only set aside for this and money set aside for that and you have an emergency and so once we got to the room in the budget and the fully funded emergency fund I don't know if we've ever touched the emergency fund again. You just cash flow the ones that didn't come here. I think we've cash flowed the things that came up after that and so that's the future but for right now Stacy still in it to win it and she can push through. That's right.

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21:09Ramsey or click the link in the description. That's ask chapter dot org slash Ramsey. Alyssa is in Phoenix. Hi Alyssa, how are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I just need a little bit of direction with how we can get back on track. Long story short, there was a point where my husband and I were at that rate and we purchased a home. Then we went back into the cycle of getting back into debt. So the last few years we have been trying to kind of catch up to that on top of some medical expenses that have come up throughout that time and most recently we just had a baby so that kind of added more to the medical expense.

22:12So trying to figure out what should we prioritize when it comes to debt and how do we organize our finances that way? I'm curious when you guys bought this house, were you debt free with an emergency fund? We actually had leftover money. We both told each property that we owned and we did like a 20% down payment. We had like it left over like $15,000 and then it just kind of went away in less than six months. We didn't really manage it properly. Okay. I'm trying to figure out why you guys backslid because I don't want to happen again even if we get out of this pilot debt. So lay out the debts that you guys currently have. So currently we have about 26K in credit card and then two vehicle loans, one that we're almost done with, if at 2500 and another at 20,000 that we just purchased. And then about 60,000 students. I don't think you're going to get out of debt because I think you like debt.

23:15I think you like buying stuff you can afford. You just went out and bought 26,000 dollars with a crap on plastic after you bought a house, but through $15,000 and bought two cars and added some rent on the loans. And then you want to get out of debt. You don't want to get out of debt. You love it. Hey, perspective does change once you do have a child. Oh, now we're going to be a grown up. Okay. Yeah. Two share, that's what I was. I will take that one. I will take that one. Good answer. Okay. So are the student loans there before all this because you said you were debt free. So did you add the student loans into the mix after the house? Yes. So actually that was before that. So I kind of so you weren't debt free. I was not trying to do a gotcha. I'm just trying to get the full picture. You're already doing the gotcha. Dave's there. That's my job. Okay. What's your household income? So I bring in about 6K a month and then my husband at very since he's like his own boss in a way.

24:15So he's a contractor and it can vary anywhere between two grand to six grand per month for him. But it's variable. How does he make most months? Most months so it's at least six months out of the year he would make anywhere between four maybe four thousand and five thousand. Okay. Good. I like that. Okay. So you're making ten thousand dollars a month and you had a baby and you want to clean this mess up. Good for you. Yes. And then set up maybe future for babies because we're not necessarily spring chickens. We are about in our 30s late 30s early 40s. Hmm. Yeah. You're ancient. Yeah. I just heard Dave's feelings. Yeah. All right. It's okay. Dave's a winter chicken I guess at that point. But the key is here. If you want to set your kids up you got to set yourselves up first. You know when you get on that airplane they say put your own mask on first because you can't help anybody if you're out for the down for the count. So you have to clean this dead up before you save a dime for that child and there's plenty of time to build wealth for that child and change that family tree.

25:17No reason to panic. We have a new perspective. I think you're going to be okay. Just your dad's smallest to largest. Get on a budget. Never go out to eat again until you're 100% dead free except your house. Never go on vacation again until you're 100% dead free except your house. All of the whining you're getting ready to do when I said that you just need to look at your little baby and say now I'm a grown up. I have to take care of this baby and so I have to sacrifice living like I'm in Congress and spending money I don't have. You're broke and you need to clean up the freaking mess and you need to concentrate on it like it matters because it does and then you promise yourself and each other that if anyone mentions debt in this house we're going to punch each other. Never again. You can't wander back into debt again. Okay. If you go through all this struggle and this sacrifice to get out and it's going to be hard but if you're making $10,000 a month with a debt you gave me you can be debt free in a year, you're in a half.

26:17But you're not doing nothing else. Beans and rice, rice and beans and whatever you were going to spend on the nursery that the little kid doesn't even know is there you can't spend. They have a place to sleep shut up. You need to get out of debt. Cut up the credit cards to tonight. Have you got them with you? Yeah, we already got rid of this. So we've been working on this a couple of months. Where did they go when you got rid of them? You chop them up? Chop them up in the trash. Okay. Good. Yeah. Because being in the freezer doesn't count. Chop them up is the only way they're gone. All right. And then you get an attack mode. What's your smallest debt? Out of all the debts you're talking about you listed. You got 2,500 on a car or 2,000 on a car. You got 2,600 miscellaneous credit cards. Give me your smallest credit card. About 1,600? Good. I want you to do that next month. Should be gone. Do you guys have 1,000 bucks saved right now? Yes. How much do you have saved? We got about 2,000 saved right now.

27:19Okay. Well, then what's your next smallest debt after the 1,600? I'd probably save a car just looking at my list. The 1,500? The 1,500 card. That's excellent. Okay. So that's gone next month because the 1,000 is coming out. There's a count and 600 is coming out. You're checking a count paying off the credit card tonight. That's your smallest debt. And then we're going to attack the car next month. And it should be gone next month. That's two payments. You can't free it up. And every time you do that, you're going to feel like I can do this. I can do this because you can do this. But it's just a matter of focus. And you just say the future of our family tree, we want to change our family tree. We now have a noble motivation. As you said, perspective has changed. We'll lean into that, kiddo. You can do it. And here's the thing. If you add up what you're paying out and payments not counting your house payment, if you just put that in a mutual fund from your age until retirement, you're going to be a multi-millionaire. That's how aggravating what you've done is.

28:20So you've got to undo it and get your life back. And when you do that, you're going to win with millions of dollars. I mean, it's these two car payments alone. It'll be millions of dollars at their age. But you never borrow, I can't. Ever. Which means we don't own a credit card anymore. We freeze our credit. We have no access. Someone says something about a car, you just go, oh, well, we've got one. When we have the money to buy a better one, we will buy a better one with cash or we will not buy a better one. Once I understood how much the car payment is worth, if I'm 30 to 65, I decided I'd ride a bicycle for I had another car payment. Because that car isn't costing you 40 grand. It's costing you $4 million. Exactly. Over your lifetime of not investing that payment. And most people go, must be nice, Dave, to be able to invest $500. And I go, what's your car payment? You go $5.50. And go, oh, okay. Looks like you just prioritized your car. Must be nice to invest something, invest $500 a month and something that's going down

29:22in value. Well, that's dumb. Welcome to America. So the rule is this. If you want to be normal, it's easy to be normal in America. It's two car payments, a student loan and credit card you can't afford. And you're looking at your baby wonder and how they're going to go to college. That's normal. In order to be wealthy in America, you have to be unusual. You have to be weird. So be weird. Don't be normal. Normal sucks. That's everybody. Not just you, Alyssa. That's all of us. And so, as a matter of fact, on most things in life, you can say that. Figure out what everyone else is doing and look at their results. You're like, I don't think I want to look like that. I'm not eating that. I don't think I want a marriage that looks like that. I'm not going to treat my wife that way. I don't think I want my children to act that way. So my children aren't going to act that way. I mean, it's a weird thing, you know?

30:23But I mean, unusual is a good thing. In a culture that's lost its dad-gun mind. So yeah, be weird. Be weird. Be weird in everything. Successful is weird. Normal is not successful. Normal's just I got by and it's OK. And I've kind of made it through. And that's not successful, though. If you're successful, you're weird. But you did the hard things to become successful. And the hard things are what we just told Alyssa to do. And I think she might do it, George. I have hope. I was kind of picking on her there. It was kind of fun. And she, I good for her. She came back at me. That's what it takes. That's why she called you. Zippy. That's good. If you're serious about building a business, you need an easy way for customers to buy from you.

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32:25That's shopify.com slash Ramsey. Shopify.com slash Ramsey. MUSIC Zach isn't Shadow Nougat. Hi, Zach. How are you? Good. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up? I am a young business owner with a young business. The starting to bring in more money than I expected it would. Yeah. I'm kind of right. And I'm wondering how do I know what to allocate towards my business versus what to keep and invest in like myself? It's a great question. You've got to do a little bit of forecasting and that's not anything complicated. Just look into the future. What kind of business are you in?

33:27I fell years through online. So you still were on golds, over and over. Okay. And what are you making? What's your income per month? Gross and then. There was 7,000 profit and then the month before it's 5,000. And that's the profit that includes the cost of the item. Yep. That's profit after item costs, shipping costs. Okay. So if you made, if you sold $7,000 worth of profit, what was the total sale price of everything? So last month I did $12,000 revenue with a 7K profit. Okay. So you're doubling your money on what you put into the product when you can find it. Correct. Okay. So you buy something for 5,000 and you're selling it for 12. Correct. Okay. So when you sell it for 12, obviously, you don't take 12 home. You got to put five back out there to do it again. Yes. That's your minimum. Okay. You can look at it and say, if I want to go a little bit more, do I want to go seven and increase my, you know,

34:30increase my inventory. As long as I'm making a profit on the inventory every time, we can have a gradual thing to increase the inventory. What I've always done and what I've recommended to small business owners is to use a percentage and say, okay. I made $7,000 of profit. 20% would be $1,400. 30% would be $2,100. So if we said something like, I'm going to take 30% of my profits plus my cost of goods sold. In other words, you take 12,000 minus the five plus 30% of your profit would be another two. You follow me? Yeah. And put that in and I'm taking everything else home. And then you're always raising your inventory. You're going up all the time pretty dramatically, actually, if this continues. What you're probably going to run into though is finding cheap inventory that you can make that kind of margin on. You may not be able to do that as $70,000,

35:33but you can do it as $7,000, right? And so, but anyway, until you hit that curve, till you hit a point at diminishing returns, I'd run just a percentage of it on reinvesting and take everything else home. Okay, okay, because that was my biggest worry was my investing too much of my money back into inventory right now. Only if you're buying inventory that doesn't sell. That's true. How much is sitting out there right now? I have about 30,000 in potential revenue. Okay, in revenue. And so the inventory cost on that's about 15 or 14, right? Yeah, I give it take. Yeah. The margins are pretty... How long, how old is some of that inventory? What's your turn rate on it? I think my oldest piece of inventory is less than a year. That's a long time in that world. Yeah. You got too much tied up in that one.

36:35You wouldn't buy that one again. You don't buy that one again, right? Correct, yeah. And that's what it's kind of one or two, should I? Like, because it's precious metals, should I just take like all that old inventory and just go melted? Whichever way you can get the most money for it the fastest, if you just either discount it and sell it or melt it, which way do I get the most money? And I wouldn't be sitting on stuff for a year in your world. About a 90 day turn rate, you need to be in and out of that stuff. And you need to very carefully be a nerd, analytical, about what types of inventory you're not turning and stay away from that like the plague. Okay. Because you might think I can get a deal on this and I can flip it for a double. But if it sits for a year, now you're funds gone. Yeah. So that's up money. Exactly. It's just sitting there waiting to be melted. And so, yeah, that's the thing. So you're not gonna get burned on it, but the trick is the turn rate or the flip rate of your money. Your inventory turnover rate. That's where your money is.

37:36I mean, so if you can do this every single month, if you could do it on a 30 day rotation and make the margins you made on 12 over seven, or 12 over five, then that's incredible margins. But when you start holding stuff for a year, those margins start to disappear. Their average margins starts to go down. It starts to go way down. Yeah. And so you've got to pick hits and not be suds. So that's what we're looking for and get that stuff rolled over. That's a cool question, Zach. And congratulations. It sounds like you're doing really well. If you never even grow it, you're making pretty good money. That's not bad at all. And it didn't cost you a lot to start up just some of your initial priming of the pump, so to speak. So, hey, I'm gonna give you a copy of the latest best seller I did called Building a Business You Love. And it'll help you with some of the other questions you're gonna have as you grow this. Trevor's in Orlando. Hi Trevor. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'm currently living with my parents.

38:38I just actually paid off my last didn't loan today. Congratulations. Thank you. You're a great man. Finally. And I'm trying to figure out if it's worth me staying here for a little bit to get my emergency fund up and then go running an apartment. Or should I get my emergency fund up and then save for a house? How old are you? I'm 34. How much do you make? I make about 71,000 years. Cool. How long would it take to save up a full emergency fund? With very little expenses. Six months, even while living at how do you make? Yeah, I'm sorry. What do you make? So I bring home 57 hundred a month. Where the flip is all that going? So it's been paying off bill yet up until now. So every two weeks I'm married.

39:39I have three kids. Oh, wow. What? Stop, stop, stop. Okay. You're 34. You make 71,000 dollars a year. And you're married and have two kids or three kids? Three kids. Three kids. And you live with your parents? Yes, sir. Why? So I didn't always live with my parents. I'm guessing that. I'm a city. And I decided that I need to career change. So I quit my job, moved in with my parents. So I got a school full time on now a nurse. And so they were nice enough to let me stay here where I got through school. That's a good story. I like that story and I like where you got to. You ended up being a great nurse and now you need to go out and have a life again, my son. It's time to leave. Let me house. Yes, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Get an apartment now. OK. What's an apartment going to cost you in your area? I can get a townhouse for about just under 1,500 a month.

40:41Perfect. Does your wife work outside the home? No, she just got a home, mom. OK. Well, it was the last time she worked outside the home. Back in 19? What does she do then? She was a receptionist for a morphemologist. OK. I want her to find a side hustle that she can do from home while taking care of her kids to add some money to this equation so you guys can save up a really big down payment, really quickly and get out of that apartment. Oh, and by the way, you're a nurse. You passed your bars? Yes. So I'm a registered nurse. I've been doing this for a year now. Oh, man. You can make so much money. But you're going to be working all the time. Oh, you pick up ER shifts on the weekend on triple time. I'm actually still going to Swath. Go back to my bachelor's. So I'm doing that right now as well. Why? It's a contract with the hospital. Your bachelor's is a contract with the hospital? Yeah. When I signed on it's a requirement to get it with them three years.

41:43Oh, OK. And you can work overtime because nursing is everywhere. There's a shortage. You can make all so much money as a nurse. Our end is like, you can write your ticket, man. It's like a limited money. Wonderful play. And you don't have to work like that the rest of your life. But if you want to get out of that apartment and get out of Mama's house and get all this stuff in your rear-view mirror, it's all the things we did in the past in order to win. The more you work, the faster you do that. And so if I'm in your shoes, I'm busting it. And Mama's got a side hustle. She's doing from home with the kids. And we're stacking cash in the corner. And we're going to get us a house. But go get an apartment this week. Here's something that keeps a lot of parents up at night. Kids are growing up with more access to information than ever before in history. But most of the content is calculated

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43:45Union studio. George Campbell is my co-host today. Lisa is in Arkansas. Hi, Lisa. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I had a question about budgeting. My husband and I have been married for two years. Yet we have a question. I'm not sure if I can get a job. I'm not sure if I can get a job. I'm not sure if I can get a job. But that was a good get out. And I've been married for two years. Yet we have a separate bank account. I was wondering how I could get my husband on the same board of budgeting. Why do you have separate bank accounts? That's the test problem. If we combine our money, he would spend 80% of it. So I'm just trying to ask for advice on that. Okay.

44:46I'm confused about where all this is going. So you're afraid he's going to spend all the money, but you want to combine the accounts. Right. So he has investments. He invests about 80% of his money towards cards, specifically Pokemon, since that is kind of one of his topics that he likes to work on and stuff. Yeah. How old is this man? He's around 35 and I am 27, so it is about 7-8 years apart. And how does he invest 80% of what he makes? What do you all live on? We actually work on a company that is very beneficial to us where they pay for all the housing, even the card that we drive, and they pay for gas weekly. And what is the job? We work on a real estate company and we work in fixed houses and I work in the office.

45:50And so you don't have a housing expense, you don't have one car expense. But you still have to eat and other things and he spends 80% of his money on Pokemon cards and he's 36. Yes sir. Sounds like a 14-year-old. Kind of yeah. How much in Pokemon cards does he have? Oh goodness, his portfolio is $33,000. And how long has he been doing this? Four or two years. So since you've been married and probably before you were married, this was his thing and he went, hey this is my thing, you don't get to tell me what to do. This is my money. It kind of started when we got married. We went to a store like two weeks after our marriage and we just got a 10 because we were just curious. We got after that. This makes me very sad for both of you. Because it sounds very juvenile and you're giggling about it.

46:53So it makes me sad too. But you guys, and have you said to him, well you need to be grown-ups and start investing in grown-up things. And we need to actually combine our money and start being humans and all adults and that kind of stuff. What does he say when you have these discussions? So I'm the person who actually sits down and budgets everything. I have made lists and everything multiple times. No, that wasn't what I asked. I asked when you had a conversation with him, what does he say? Oh, he agrees and... No, he didn't. He agrees verbally but maybe throws in like a hundred or two bucks maybe every other month. Now this changes today. Your entire paycheck goes into our checking account. My entire paycheck goes into our checking account. And the two of us sit down today and we decide where our money is going to go.

47:54Spoiler alert. Pokeman cards earn on the list. How's that conversation sound? I've actually tried that conversation at least three times. I have asked friends to encourage him to help me with this. You need marriage counseling. I agree. He's addicted to this card game. You need to go get on the phone and talk to your church and talk to your pastor and set up a marriage counseling session. If he won't go, go by yourself because you've married poorly. And this guy has... The only chance that you guys stay together is that he starts a process by which he becomes an adult. An adult looks at their wife and says, you are my primary concern. A wife adult looks at her husband and says, you are my primary concern. Not my juvenile habit of buying Pokemon cards. That's way down the freaking list of things to do.

48:56It's not an investment and it's not a portfolio. It's a habit. This is the same people call me in the old days and said, we're collecting beanie babies because that princess die. Beanie babies are going to be worth something someday. We actually got out. My son, who's 35, we found his Pokemon cards from his 12-year-old days the other day. Might be sitting on a goldmine. He had a portfolio when he was 12. What an astute investor he was. And now his four-year-old has a portfolio and plays with them, which is the appropriate thing to do with $50 Pokemon cards. Because he looked them up to make sure there wasn't a $50,000 one in there. And there was. Just for the fun of it and there wasn't because that's how this kind of thing works. It's all bull crap. And so the chances of you being in the collectibles business and actually making good money, whether it's baseball cards, Pokemon cards, gold coins, rare coins, art, all of these things that you think you know something about.

50:03Most people don't and most people simply break even at best. Beanie babies are not an investment for your kids college fund. That's a statement I made 30 years ago and it has been proven to be very true. The only thing that baby, beanie babies are good for these days are for the dog to play with. It came in with Princess Di and its mouth the other day. So there you go. And that was the one that was supposed to be worth $10,000 and the dog is very happy to carry it around the house. We had a call of an 18-year-old who had $600,000 worth of Pokemon cards. And so John Deloney and I took this call and I told him, did you need to- Was it real or was that a troll? I mean, these people exist. It was real. It was real. The quality of the producer says real. But we clipped it and the subculture of Pokemon people came after us saying- No way. You got the worst people and the Pokemon people after you. In the Bitcoin people. And the Bitcoin people. They're all cut from the same cloth, which is this is an investment. You can't tell me otherwise and you don't just- you don't understand it. You haven't studied it enough. Look at the track record of Pokemon over time and it's better than the S&P 500.

51:05Oh my god. It's insufferable. So I realized I got in the- right there in the mud with the pig and I got dirty and the pig liked it. Yeah, that's it. That's the whole thing. It was a losing battle. Yeah. Well, so here's the thing. You call here for help and we're going to give you the help that is time proven and time honored. And the number of millionaires that I met became millionaires due to Pokemon cards is really close to the number zero. Like it's there, zero. And so- and I've met millions and thousands, tens of thousands of millionaires and I've met hundreds of billionaires and not a single Pokemon billionaire have I run into. Not a one except maybe the guy that invented the whole thing. He might be a billionaire. Yeah, the team behind Pokemon's crushing it because they understand the game. They- they understand the game. They know it's game- they're selling to her leases. Husband, that's the game. Target demographic used to be children. Now it's children and adults. Now it's children. I mean, he's still- he's got the Star Wars action figure collectibles too. That might be worth something.

52:06No, George. No. I'm not online and these days everybody does. Data brokers are out there right now buying and selling your personal information. Your phone number, your home address, your email, without your knowledge or consent. And that puts you at risk for spam calls, scam texts, and fraud. Combined with AI, those scams are getting more sophisticated every day. And trying to get it under control yourself is basically impossible unless you have delete me. Delete me goes to hundreds of these creepy data broker sites, find your info and removes it, and you never have to lift a finger.

53:08Plus, they keep monitoring for it and removing it if and when it pops up again. You don't have to remove your own info every time it pops up like some unwinnable game of whack-a-mole. I personally use and love delete me and my scammy texts and spammy calls have gone way down. Trust to leave me to Smackdown Data Brokers and protect your personal info so the game of whack-a-mole can finally stop. Go to joindeleteme.com slash ramsy and you'll get 20% off an annual plan. Let's join J-O-I-N deleteme.com slash ramsy or click the link in the description. Ramsey Show, a question of days brought to you by Why Refi? If your private student loan payments are out of control, you might feel like you're out of options. Why Refi was built for borrowers and difficult situations and helps explore refinancing options? It fit real-life budgets. Visit WhyRefi.com slash ramsy might not be in all states.

54:10Today's question comes from Hudson in Connecticut. I'm getting married soon and we're negotiating a prenup. My fiance has over six figures in student loan debt and the agreement would make me responsible for those loans once we're married, even requiring me to continue paying the remaining balance if we were to divorce. In exchange, we've agreed that the assets I bring into the marriage will remain completely separate. Is this the fair trade-off? Should I be willing to take on her premarital debt in exchange for protecting my premarital assets? Or are we setting up a marriage where we're keeping score instead of truly becoming financial partners? Well, there's some self-awareness here, so that's good. The last line is the most awful line. Yeah, nothing about this sounds romantic. I mean, you're saying I'll pay off your debts. I don't know what your assets are for talking millions and millions in real estate or 50 grand into checking account. So it's hard to know exactly what where this trade-off is. Or what the balance is on the student loan. Yeah, it just says over six figures. But here's how I see it. Once you're married, it's our debt. You pay off the debt.

55:12The assets are our assets. We build wealth from there. That's how I've seen couples win with money. I've never seen it where it's tipped for tab and they go, well, this was mine from before, so I'm keeping my house. I think that is a losing game in the long run, unless there's a huge discrepancy where you're coming in with millions and millions and she's got nothing. Okay, let's use some pretend figures and try to address an actual tactical thing here. Okay, let's pretend that he has two million dollars in mutual funds. And she has a hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt. Okay. If I were in that situation on either side, I would not have approached this as we are negotiating a prenup. That's a bad phrase to use with your fiance. Okay. I want to design something that makes us both feel great about our future. That's not negotiating a prenup. This is not a business transaction.

56:12I've reduced it down to that with the phrasing you're using, the words you're using are really scary. As you said in your last sentence, I'm keeping score. If I woke up in that situation, George, the prenup would simply read that I have two million dollars in mutual funds. And if we get divorced, we split everything beyond two million dollars and I get two million dollars. And the day we're married, I'm going to pay off the student loan period. And then we don't have to worry about. That would be simpler. You're not on the hook for the student loan. If you have substantial assets and she has well over a hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt, you write a check the day after the honeymoon and you pay off her student loan. It's done. So it doesn't need to be part of the prenup. You can state that in the prenup if you want. Upon return from the honeymoon, we'll write a check that day and pay off the student loan. But that's just a practical thing. Because when you took her on, you took on a hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt.

57:15And if she's not worth that, then you're very transactional and you need to walk away from the whole thing. Period. That's the way I feel about it. What are you thinking when you're seeing this? Yeah, we've seen couples who go, hey, this is scary. And then we've seen the ones who go, you know what? I love to and I want to marry here regardless of how much debt it was. And I knew there was going to be a little bit of a mountain of climb. And it would take me back a couple steps to use my savings to knock out the debt. But it was all worth it. Those are the marriages that I see that will win. I go, that's a couple that's going to stick together. So it's not to say that this marriage can't work. But I think starting off on this foot makes me go, how much else are we going to keep separate? Yeah, even requiring me to continue paying the remaining balance if we were to divorce, which there would not be a remaining balance in my scenario because you've got substantial assets and you pay it off. You don't pay off a student loan. You don't keep it like it's a freaking pet. We destroy the thing immediately. Sally May is an ugly old woman with a ward on her nose. Get her out of the house. You do not want her in your house.

58:16You do not want a spare bedroom for this chick. She's not family. And she's evil. She's from the government. And anybody that's from the government is not here to help. So there you go. This is how this works. But I think you guys have deeper problems in your relationship based on the way this is written. Yeah, regardless of the number, the phrasing makes it seem really creepy. You're walking in with arms up with a shield up. If my daughter was on the receiving end of this, I would tell her to run away from you. Because everything with you is going to be a transaction with you. Hudson, it's what it sounds like based on this letter. Now, maybe over reading it, but the way this is written worded with no tone is creepy. Jeremy's in Little Rock. Hi, Jeremy. How are you doing? Fine, Dave. George, how y'all doing this blessed afternoon? Better than we deserve, sir. How about you? I'll do it well by God's grace.

59:17Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Just a five second backstory. I have many flaws. My wife will back me up on that. But one of my biggest flaws is the fear of running out. You pick it. I'm scared of running out. So with that said, my wife and I have a neutral, excuse me, I always and a brokerage account. Last week, we had the privilege of attending you and George's investing essentials. And we have watched and rewatched and rewatched that thing. Wow. We really enjoyed it. Yes, sir. And long story short, our mutual fund, our IRAs, our brokerage account per year has just been sitting in the money market. Wow. Why? Yeah, we've matched inflation, but that's all it's done. So we've looked each other's sidelines. Was it ever invested? No, no, it's just been a mutual fund.

1:00:17I believe the world's been shaved by a drunk barber. And I'm always here to... The chicken little is my nickname. Okay. Yes, but after watching the event, investing essentials, we've got peace. And we're ready to move on into the four categories of the mutual funds. Okay. Okay. So we have met with a smart Vestrapro. I'm not ignorant in all this. So my wife and I, even before the first night was over, jumped on the website that holds our IRAs. And we found four good categories that equal 12.45 percent with mutual funds that date back to 1981. Good. Well done, Steve. We told you you could do it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay. So my question basically comes down to, I think I'm looking for a nickel when it's raining $20 bills.

1:01:18I don't... We don't feel comfortable giving five figures to a smart Vestrapro when we can do this ourselves. But when we... When we called... I'll just go ahead and say it. When we call Vanguard, who holds the IRAs, they have a sub company called a Census, who holds the CEP and the CEMPLs. That's what we have CEP and CEMPLs. And they don't offer... They don't offer the mutual funds that we want to invest that match up with y'all's teachings. Charles Swalb, who owns our brokerage account, will offer those, but they have what we call a transaction fee. Yep. Yep. So, y'all... What's y'all's opinion on paying the transaction fee if everything lines up with what we learned in the investing essentials? I would use a Smart Vestrapro instead and pay the management fee that is there, that's part of it. And that's what I do, by the way.

1:02:19And what George does. And the reason is, is that you've got somebody in your corner. You're DIY-ing it with personal customized advice while you DIY it. Right now, you just walked out into the wild and you found three mutual funds in the woods that work. But there's a lot of trees in those woods. And so, there's 8,000 mutual funds. I know a lot about this and I don't go through all 8,000 to pick mine. It's too late. I don't want to spend my time doing that. I want my guy to look at it and I have found that what little I pay them is worth every penny. You've lost way more on the sidelines. The stock market doubled in the last five years. And since that money was sitting in the money market, trust me. Yeah, he's ready to go though. He's ready to get in. So now, let's get him in. Let's trust it out. But I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't just, you know, Vanguard's great. Charles Swabs. I don't know what Matt and Charles Swabs. I personally would get somebody in my corner that I can sit down and talk to that regularly is looking at this with me to give me good strong advice.

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1:04:26I've recommended health trust financial for more than 20 years because they work for you, not the insurance companies, so they offer unbiased advice. Visit healthtrustfinancial.com to connect with an advisor today. That's healthtrustfinancial.com. Well, we wish we could get to every call and every question here on the show. If you have money questions and you want an answer for your situation, you can head over to our website, use Ask Ramsey because it's hard to get in here sometimes. Ask Ramsey is our free AI tool that is built and trained on proven Ramsey principles. No junk from the internet in this tool. It's all from stuff we've answered here on the show.

1:05:27Stuff we've answered in our books. All the books are dumped into the data set. All the articles, thousands of articles that we've written on the website are all in the data set. That's how you're going to get a very, very Ramsey answer. Clean data, clean results. That's exactly how it works. Ask your question today at RamseySolutions.com. Ask Ramsey is a free service or click the link in the description if you're listening on podcast or YouTube. Mary is with us in Youngstown, Ohio. Hi, Mary, how are you? Hi, guys. I was doing really well. How are you? Better than we deserve. What's up? So I had a quick question. Is it okay to invest more than 15% of your income into retirement? Are you, is your home paid off? I'm 28 years old actually today, but I still live at home and I have no debt. Happy birthday. You don't own a home is what you're saying. Exactly. Yeah.

1:06:28So yeah, you can invest anything you want to. At some point you may want to own a home. So any investing you're doing above the 15%, I might go to something just like an S&P 500, a brokerage account and let it grow for a down payment on a house. So earmark that as down payment fund instead of retirement. Okay. Because someday you're probably going to move out and buy a house. I hope. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's definitely in the plans. I actually just talked to my financial advisor, who's Ramsey approved. And I am acting out my 401k at six percent. And I was acting out my Roth IRA, but with both of those together, it came to 23%. That was one of you. If I need to cut back in one of the expenses, it's not the end of the world. I just want you to say for a down payment to. Yeah. That's all. And I want you to get out and get on your own. Yeah, what do you make? I'm currently on a 45,000 dollars. And you're maxing your 28 year old.

1:07:29You're 28 years old and you live at home. Yes. Yeah. Okay. You're not maxing out your 401k at 45,000 dollars. No. You're putting up to the match. But you're saying between that six percent in the 401k and then maxing out a Roth IRA, it's equivalent to 23% of your income. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. So you took the match and then you went and did a Roth. That's good. I like that. Very smart. Yeah. Good, good work. Well done. And yes, I would move out and start my adult life. You're 28. It's time to do it. Even if you need to get a couple of roommates. Yeah. It's good. It's good. It's a, it's, it's an important part of the adult process. And yeah, you can live and start to save for your down payment and that kind of stuff. Yes, very good. Tyler is in Houston. Hi, Tyler. How are you? Good. How are y'all doing better than we deserve? What's up? Man, I am 21. I work at a dealership selling cars and I make probably around 160.

1:08:36And I just got married about two months ago and I'm running into the idea that I work to, and before we met and we got married, I worked about 80 hours a week. Now I probably worked about 65 and it just seems that I'm running into. I want to spend a little bit more time with her and we be able to do things, but that would mean moving jobs and not making as much money. And I think it's hard because I just pretty much my real big boy job. First one and it's doing very well. So are you working? Working, moving and... What days and hours are you working? It is pretty much, I just started taking Tuesdays off since we got married, but it is Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Pretty much 8 to 8. Okay, see you Sunday and Tuesday off. Yes sir. And you're working 12 our days, five, six days, five days a week, and that's 60 hours. Alright, and how long have you been married?

1:09:36Three months. Okay. Hi, you can do what you want to do and the two of you can decide. There's no right or wrong or moral answer here. You called us and my wife grew up on a farm and they milked cows and planted tobacco. And so hard work is like her middle name. So the chances of her telling me I need to work less ever in my life has been zero. So I'm having a little bit of trouble figuring out how to process this because even now when I turn 60 I start taking Fridays off and she's like, what are you doing here? Go over there to the office and do something. So I kind of have the opposite problem on my end that you have after 45 years of marriage.

1:10:40And so I don't think 60 hours is the end of the world. I will tell you that I know a lot of very, very successful people that have built wonderful marriages, children, lives, businesses, and none of them did it on 40 hour weeks. I can promise you my average through my working lifetime has been more like 60. And many, many weeks that were 80. And so, you know, because I run my own business and that's the world's worst boss. That guy will drive you into the dirt, you know. So I'm the problem is I'm trying to be authentic with you Tyler and say that my answer would be skewed because of who I am. And so, and because of the facts I just gave you. So I think you're fine at 60 hours. If you told me you were working seven days a week, 12 hours a day, which would put you at 80 something hours then yeah, you'd probably need to do something different for your new marriage.

1:11:47That's true. But married couples have had wonderful lives in first years on 60 hour weeks. Sometimes it makes marriage better. Most of human history. Absence can make the heart grow founder. It's, but I mean you're you're at home at eight o'clock. There's 21. It didn't like your bedtime is nine o'clock. And if you guys have intense financial goals, this might be a season eventually you might go I need something a little bit more flexible or less days or whatever it is less hours towards 40, 45 hours. It's up to you all. Nothing's on there's a trade off. But I just doesn't sound like he's burnt out either. No, he just wants to spend time with his new wife and that's a nice thing. That's that's sweet. And she wants that. That's nice. And so I wish more of the couples that call here wanted that. You know, it was like, you know, most of them call here go, I don't get my husband to work more.

1:12:47Yeah. And so it's the other way around. But yeah, I think you're a great guy. And I think she's a great guy. And I think you all will work it out. There's not a wrong answer. If you choose to do something different, you didn't do something wrong. If you choose to stay there and say, when I come home at eight o'clock, we are not going to turn on Netflix. We're going to spend time together watching the same television show together is not spending time together. Okay, turn off the television and put your phone up in no doom scrolling. Neither one of you have a phone in your hand or a computer and neither one of you have Netflix. And that's a Sunday rule, a Tuesday rule and an 8 p.m. on rule. And then you're going to find plenty of time. It sounds like you just don't like dancing with the starstaff. That's it. I think you're just anti streaming shows and dancing with the stars is your best representation of binge watching. That's it. Why can't you come up with something cool? That's all I'm aware of. A binge watch richer or something like that.

1:13:48There we go. More manly. It's binge watch something that matters. Not more gunfire dancing with the stars. Show how it's trying to relate to you. I thought for sure Sharon forces you to sit down and watch dancing with the stars. You know Sharon better than that. I don't know what she's into these days. Sharon would take my man card away if I watch dancing with the stars. I'm just saying I thought you might be on it one day. There's still time guys vote for Dave Ramsey on dancing with the stars. And we might have a real hit on our hands. Here we go. Just keep it right here Dave. You ready? Keep it tight. Keep it tight. Hey it's Rachel Cruz. I don't know about y'all but I can build something up in my head until it feels way harder than it really is.

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1:16:02What's up? Richard's in San Antonio. Hi. How are you? Great. How can we help? Basically, I always paycheck to paycheck and I'm drowning. So I just, I don't know how to get out of it. So I guess that's the question, what do I do? What do I do? I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. I do. We're both practicing attorneys. So I just started taking cases on my own just to bring something in.

1:17:03But we always get to the same point whenever we discuss bills. She wants to pay all the bills whenever we have like a bill meeting. And I want to save something because I know once we bill the bills for that. And I want to spend the time period or billing period. We end up with nothing left. So I just walk around like feeling like a fraud most of the time. And you know, I'm scared to be invited to any type of dinner or event because I'm just looking at the dollar sign calculating. Do I have enough for this? Do I have enough for that? And that's been our life for. We have two attorneys only making $100,000 a year each. So we were both nonprofit attorneys. Why if you have $900,000 in student loan debt, did you take that stupid job?

1:18:04The plan was that if you do that for a certain amount of time, you can get the student loans forgiven if you work in that nonprofit sector. Yeah, not true because it's not happened for very many people. 5% of the people get through that gong. 95% don't. So you've been underpaid by $150,000 to $200,000 a year for years to try to get through a few hundred thousand students loan debt. Yeah. So where are you guys at in that process? He's now opened his own firm, right? Yeah, I basically just started. But you're not you're not right for nonprofit rates anymore, but she still is correct. Correct. What I make when I charge is completely hours or mine. What was the original balance of these student loans? It was around, you know, 300 each, but then I think it ballooned around the 450 plus.

1:19:09How long have you passed the bar? It's been about 11 years. So you they were not forgiven. I initially worked in private, so I only did about six to seven in the nonprofit. About your wife. She's about eight. She was a nonprofit. So she worked in a private as well for a while. A little bit. Yeah. All right. Well, our experience is that very few people get those loans forgiven under that program. It's a, the program is full of holes and problems and loopholes. So we work, we've made a whole lot of disillusioned people after working ten years for standard wages and service to the community and then don't get their loans forgiven.

1:20:11So I don't have a lot of hope in that. And of course you've started the clock over now. So your yours is not relevant. So what would I do if I woke up in your shoes? I would make student loan reduction my primary goal. Therefore my income, highest possible income, even if it's in a less than ideal situation, I want to make the most possible money for a short period of time and really jack your incomes way up and live on nothing, beans and rice, rice and beans and attack these student loans with a vengeance. And though you don't need to be going to a dinner party. If somebody invites you, you say I have a million dollars in student loan debt, I can't go. And that's what we're working on. And so it's job one. You got one job. That's that. And you guys get your incomes up as high as you can and your expenses down as low as you can. Now as far as being able to eat and so forth, you pulled that off for a decade. So you haven't thrown all the money at the student loans and then got to the end of the month

1:21:15that had no food. That's not what you're saying. But no, you don't need to be saving money. You need to be getting these debts cleaned up. But you guys have not been aggressive on this because you've not been aggressive on your incomes. You aren't making a ton of money. I mean, a couple of hundred thousand's good money, but it's not good money if you hold a million. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't feel that way. No, it doesn't. It doesn't move the needle much. It moves it, but not enough to where you don't feel stuck. You felt like a rat in a wheel for a long time. And the maths against you, unless you're paying more than the interest and principle, that thing's just going to move up and up and up. Yeah. So you've got to get ahead of it by just throwing tens of thousands of this thing every month. Yeah. That's what it's going to take. Yeah. Each minimum and as soon as possible and preferably 250 each or 300 each 80 hours a week. And you just work until you're blind. But you can clear this up in three or four years if you do that. But if not, you're going to be sitting here 10 years from now still looking at this thing.

1:22:19You're going to have to do something pretty dramatic with the math. But if you take 900,000 and you start throwing two, 300,000 out of the year, 300 in a year, that's done in three years. But that means you're making between the two of you 400 and living on 100, not counting taxes, which means you're living on nothing. Yeah. And that's where I'm trying to get you to throw 300 a year at it and be done in three years. That's $25,000 a month, not $25,000 a year, which is what you've been doing because you've not even moved the needle. I've got great hope, but it's all, you know, we call it the shovel and whole thing, Richard, the hole that your ends 900, your shovel is your income. You got a huge hole and a small shovel. I'm telling you, get a new shovel. And the hole gets filled up a lot faster than it's 300,000 a year above my living expenses and taxes to throw it 900,000 and then I'm done in approximately three years.

1:23:21But otherwise, if you just say it out loud, it takes your breath away. I have a million dollars. It's, I can't breathe. I can't think. Everything revolves around this. But if you have a clear cut plan, you're making 200 each, 250 each, or 250 and 150 and you start, and we're knocking this thing out in three years, you got great hope. Your energy level is going to come up. The scales are going to fall away from your eyes or your depression is going to slip away. Your effectiveness as an attorney is going to be better and everything else. But right now, it's hard to see anything because you've got this huge, concrete wall in front of your nose. And it just, it blocks your vision for your life. And I'm sad, man, I'm so sorry. I'm not fussing at you. I'm fussing with you. But you gave up the opportunity to make no money when you took on all this loans. You have to go make as much money as possible now. As soon as possible and the more money you make, obviously, the faster you're going to

1:24:23get out. And you know what I'm talking about. It's going to be a lot of hours. It's going to be a lot of sacrifice. And you're going to put up with some stuff you don't want to put up with. You're going to be working on a firm that's, you don't necessarily love everything about it. Whoppy-du-up-d. I don't like anything about my life right now. I need to change something. And you need to change a bunch of stuff right now. Yeah, the conversation needs to change from what we're going to pay the bills first or say first. We need to get our income way up and keep our expenses down to nothing so that we have that margin. And you can do this math on paper and go, okay, how much are we willing to work? We're both going to work 80 hours a week for the next three, four years and knock this thing out because we've been doing this for a decade and the number went up. So what we've been doing isn't working. We got to try a different plan. And the debt snowball, like you mentioned, staring down 900 grand will take your breath away. But if you focus on the smallest debt and just go, that's the enemy right there. That's the villain. You have hope to fight the next one and the next one. That's what it's going to take.

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1:26:59Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Randy is an Albuquerque New Mexico. Hi, Randy. How are you? I'm good. How are you doing? I'm glad you're enjoying your show. Thank you. And I enjoy your app. It is amazing. Well, thank you. Thank you. I'm glad every dollar was a blessing to you. How can we help today? Going through a major remodel at the house and trying to keep my freeality from causing strife with my wife. It's never really spent any money on myself for 61 years and now we're spending a lot of money on just trying to maintain how far how far into the project are you? Three days. What's the cost of it total? Our budget with contract or new appliances, new furniture furnishings, so forth is 550,000.

1:28:00Wow. So we have line item budget and we've agreed to the amounts. Where would your free-quality kick in as long as she stays under the amount agreed to? Are we okay? Yeah, and I've allowed a 10% change order fee with the contractor. I mean, that's typical in today's world. I was a contractor myself at one time. That's true, but we really shouldn't need any change orders except on this discussion you and I are having, she's got a furnish piece of furniture she wants to buy and your free-quality is causing an argument, but why would that be so if the piece of furniture is within the budget that you have both agreed to before you started the project? Well, that's just it. I'm hopeful we can stay within the budget. No, not hopefully. This is how we start a project. We both sit down in a great to the numbers. Yes. Are you worried that it's going to go away out of scope or are you just seeing this money leave your bank now? You're going, oh gosh, I regret agreeing to this.

1:29:01A little bit of everything. You know, it's just a good example of where you think there might be an argument. Going into the flooring, that's going to give me the price per square foot to make sure we stay within budget. And I want to make sure we're not getting the highest in flooring there is. No way, man. No way. No way, man. No way, man. No way, man. No way, man. No way, man. No way, man. No way, man. No way, man. So why not as long as it's within budget? Yes, sir. Is there an actual spreadsheet that says flooring with a line item with the amount we're going to allocate to that? Yes. That's how a project like that, the budget should be developed that way. Yeah. So if you've agreed to it, you should have all that angst behind you. If she's agreed to it, then she's agreed to stay within that. So we were building a house a while back and the flooring came in just to use your example. The decorator and my wife picked flooring when they were, had their wonderful day at

1:30:03the flooring place. And it was $42,000 over the budget. And I'm like, what were y'all smoking? We had a budget. And everyone agreed to the budget ahead of time, including the decorator until they went to the dead-gum flooring store. And they're like, well, you know, we picked out this thing for the basement, for the downstairs, and I'm like, four people will be down there per year. No. Doesn't need to be the Taj Mahal down there. No, we're going to put the cheapest crap in the basement so you can put the nice stuff upstairs where we are every day. You spend your money where you're going to be. And so that's me reigning the decorator in, which men I had to reign my wife in, but that's not even frugality. That's just sticking to the agreement. Yes, sir. And that's the way the whole thing goes down. I'm in the middle of one of these renovations right now with a house and I'm going through the exact same thing. But this is the fifth time we've done it, built a custom house or done a large renovation. And so Sharon and I have got this dialed in now.

1:31:05We don't yell at each other anymore. The first one we almost killed each other. So we had to learn to preset it and agree to it. And I think about this before you agree to it because you're going to sign this in blood. You're sticking to this. And when you and the little decorator have your moment, then you're going to have another moment with me because we're not doing it. You know, and then if you do all that, you can come back and go, Oh, wait, we got savings over here. If you want to upgrade that one door thingy, let's do it. And you can loosen up and be sure you spend all the money somewhere that you've agreed to spend and it makes it feel like you're being very generous. True. Yeah. So I guess there's just a lot of anxiety on my part being this is just the very beginning the first week of it. Yeah. And you've never done this. So I think that if the budget is correct, if it's realistic, I mean, if you put $4 in for lighting and it's going to be $4,000, that's a problem, right?

1:32:05So but if the budget is realistic and you're comfortable that it's a good number where your wife and you can have a nice property when this is completed because by God you've earned it, both of you, then you get comfortable with that. That'll lower your anxiety. Then the second thing you got to get comfortable with is her commitment to this agreement. And here's how I would phrase it if I were you. I've been in this exact seat. That's why except it's not frugality with me. It's sticking the freaking plan with me. I'm not really that frugal. It's more naturally frugal. But I'm just with, once there's a plan, you got to stick to it, I lose my mind. But here's how I learned to do it. Honey, I can stand back and watch you enjoy these purchases if I'm comfortable that you're going to do the purchases within the numbers that we've talked about. Promise me you're going to stay no matter who says what, no matter which of your friends show up or the decorator shows up or anybody that's going to negatively influence your

1:33:08brain, that no matter what happens, you're going to continue to use your brain and you're going to stick with the numbers that we agreed to. If you can promise me that and you do it, I'm going to celebrate cheap Randy. It's going to celebrate these large purchases with you, my wife. Sounds perfect. And it gives you the up. But if you're comfortable, she's going to stick to it and that the number is realistic. Because if she comes back and the number is not realistic, then she's got a case and that's a change order, right? And so, and that's going to happen in a $550,000 project. You're right, 10%, you're going to be off 50 grand. You probably underpriced some things and maybe overpriced some other things. Absolutely. Absolutely. There's going to be something that blows up in the thing. It's not going to come in. But the last house we built, we did it within 3% of budget and it was two months early. Because we managed to the blueprint, we managed to the schedule and we managed to the budget.

1:34:09And everybody on the team knew that Dave is going to be wonderful to work with and the money's going to keep flowing. And I'm going to be smiling and happy as long as we manage to the schedule, the blueprint and the freaking budget. And if you get off of any of those things, you're not going to like me. Because my whole job is to keep all of you people on those three things. You're going to build it two blueprint, two specs, you're going to build it two budget and within the allowances that we set in the budget. And guess what? I didn't even have one episode in that last house. I made 14 months. I didn't have a single episode. We had lots of decisions to make, things to change. We made a concession here, raised something there, lowered something there. But we're within 3% of budget when we get done. It's a Swiss train at this point. It's on time. We're going to do it. And that's how you build a house and that's how you build a project like this. But Brandi, I can completely relate. It's one of the biggest, that's why I tell young people, couples just getting married, don't build a house.

1:35:11You really got to be married a while before you can survive building a house together. Hey George Camel here. So you're thinking about buying or selling your home. It's exciting, but there's a lot to think about. And all those decisions can feel overwhelming. Well, here's the good news. You don't have to tackle the process alone. Ramsey's real estate home base is the place to find all of your free tools and resources for help to get prepared to buy or sell your home with confidence. You'll find calculators, start to finish guides, a podcast, and even an in-depth video course hosted by yours truly. What's not to love? So if you're ready to take the next steps toward your home goals, go to ramseysolutions.com

1:36:14slash real estate. That's ramseysolutions.com slash real estate. If you're sick and tired of working hard but have nothing to show for it, you need to try a new plan. We can show you how to get out of debt, build wealth using the baby steps. And the best way to do that is the every dollar budgeting app, which is going to help you find extra money, build you a personalized plan, and guide you. Hold your hand to do the Ramsey steps. In just 15 minutes you're going to find thousands and hidden margin and you'll feel like you got to raise. Don't live normal when you can live like no one else. Start every dollar for free in the App Store or Google Play. Stephanie is in Salt Lake City, Utah.

1:37:15Hi Stephanie, how are you? Hi Dave, better than I deserve. How are you? Just the same. How can I help? Wonderful. First of all I'm a huge fan of your show and of your books. I'm the player to be here on this show so thanks for having me. We're honored. I do have a two part question for you. I'm just going to hit you with it and then I'd love for you to take it away and tell me what you think. My husband and I like to think we're in a good spot financially. We only have a mortgage and our savings account is growing weekly. We're both 15% into our Roth 401Ks and we were approached recently and told about IUL accounts and it was showing a cool unique opportunity at first. But then the more we thought about it and kind of taken a step back, it kind of just feels like a scam. They're kind of pushy about it. We wanted to know what you recommend and then the second part to that is that we are about to be a one income household as we have our first baby on the way and I'll be staying

1:38:16home to raise our kids. We also just wanted to know how to adjust our retirement goals or how we're saving for retirement when it's just a single income household. Okay. Well, we can start with that last one. The easiest answer is you invest 15% of whatever your household income is until the mortgage is paid off. So if it gets cut in half, you're investing 15% of that. Now the question is can you live off that one income? Yes. Okay. Great. Good. Good for you. Wonderful. So it's an indexed universal life insurance. I'm guessing this is somebody that you know or someone, a friend of a friend that pushed this on you. Yeah. It was our state attorney. He actually helped us set up our state and everything was great. And then he was like, Hey, by the way, I want to tell you about IUOL accounts and kind of turn. You got an insurance agent as an estate attorney, which is scary. Okay. So they're selling you this insurance as a quote. I'm putting this in huge air quotes, a wealth building tool.

1:39:17And it's just a permanent life insurance policy with cash value and its index to the S&P 500 in general. So you don't actually own any stock, but the gains are tied to the stock market. And here's what they tell you. Let me guess what the pitch was. You'll get market gains with no downside risk. You get tax-free income, right? Yeah. These are the things they pitch you. Here's what they're not telling you. The agent gets paid almost your entire first year's premium in commission. Now do you know why they're so pushy about this? Yeah. So they get huge commissions, a third of your money vanishes before you even get to see any of it. Their returns are terrible, like 3% after all these fees. And they cap, they say, Hey, there's no downside. We'll cap it to 0%. So you can't lose money, quote unquote. What they don't really tell you is that they also cap the gains. The stock market did 25% in 2024 and 2025. Guess what? You didn't make 25% on that money because they capped it at 10. So you are way better off investing on your own versus giving this person 500 bucks a

1:40:21month for the rest of your life to get 3% returns. Just put it in a high yield savings account at that point and run away from this person. I wouldn't use them as an attorney anymore. I'm serious. The attorney's not actually selling them policy. They referred you to someone, right? Well, they just recently started working with these. So it's through Transamer because the company. Okay. So you got an insurance agent that has an attorney on staff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you need a different, you need it. It's sad. So yeah, the product is absolutely horrendous. It's a horrible product. It's not technically a scam, but it's basically the payday lender of the middle class. It's not technically a scam, but it's just so bad that it feels like a scam. And that's why they're so stinking pushy because they make so much on it. And if you're a state planning attorney is willing to give you bad advice like this on this, what else are they giving you bad advice on?

1:41:22That's what scares me. They're probably pushing trusts on you that you don't need at that point. And so yeah, you're $5,000 to develop this trust that you don't need. And so I think I'm looking for a new state planning attorney. And I'm going to run away from this insurance agent at high speed. Okay. Do you guys have a firm line? Do you have a firm line? Oh, sorry. No. Well, I do turn my company, but where is I'm about to quit there? I need to. We both need it. Yeah, you need your own policies, not tied to your employers. 10 to 12 times your annual income. And if you stay home, you still need at least a half million dollar policy on you. Yeah. So go to Zander Insurance and get your term life in place. And if you're going to do investing, you do that with a real investment advisor, not an insurance agent. And insurance agents are not investment advisors. They pose as it quite often when they're selling this crap, but that's what this is. It's crap. So what you do is you get that term life insurance. It's going to be a fraction of the cost, like a tenth of the cost of this whole life deal.

1:42:23And then with all the extra margin you now have, because you didn't invest in this terrible insurance product, you can use that to build wealth. And that's part of your 15%. So any extra money, let's start chunking it towards the mortgage or to the kids college funds. And you guys can build wealth out any of these terrible products. So you know from the baby steps, right, that baby step four, you put 15% of your income into retirement. Five is kids college and six is with any other money we reduce the mortgage, right? Correct. Okay. It's not there's no baby step that says within the other money we do other investments. IUL included. Okay. So there's not a place for this anyway. I'm not giving you a replacement investment option instead whatever money you would have put toward this, I would put towards your mortgage and get a good smart vistor pro for your investment advice that actually is an actual financial advisor. They're not an insurance agent. And you know get with Zander, get your term insurance in place and then live on that one

1:43:24income and you're going to be great. So hey, and by the way, congratulations, you have a good nose. You smell the snake and you went snake, snake alert. I think there's a snake here. I'm going to call somebody and see if this is a snake. Oh, it's a snake. We didn't get bit because we recognize snakes. Yeah. You get the call and someone says, hey, I got bit by a snake. I want to trust you. You know, you know, if you, if I'm you, you should feel confident in your own sense of smelling for snakes because you smelled that one out beautifully. Well done. And usually if someone approached you, I would run. That's just a general take. You should be in control of the financial decisions you're making. Per snatchers approach you. Exactly. He approached me in a dark alleyway and told me about this great investment opportunity. You're not doing you get approached. I don't trust anyone approaching me. Respect my personal space and boundaries, please. Hey, I've got an opportunity for you.

1:44:24Translation, my friend just joined a multi level. Yes. And I always though with someone they know, it's not a random thing. It's always a family friend told me about this and I trusted them. Or my state attorneys said I can trust this person. I never heard the estate planning angle. That's interesting. Yeah. I wonder if they get in a kickback off of this. Usually there's a flame in your on at the local stake house involved. Yeah. And that's for the annuities. That's when you get a nice dinner. Well, you can get value wells with that too. Even even even you can get infinite banking with that the whole life. You can get all that. I'm tempted to sign up similar to signing up for a time share presentation. I saw Ocharleys closed up today. Oh, and so I don't know where they're going to hold these filet dinners now. They're going to have to switch over. Get a cheap filet and you know get sold on some not so cheap. Where are we going now? Bad insurance investment products. Wow. Over to show needs. I'm guessing they closed into. Whoa. Whoa. That's the cliff then. Personal for Dave. Down boy. Big show needs fan down boy.

1:45:25Man. That's another good indicator. If you get a piece of mail offering you a free dinner for anything, don't take it. Cook your own stake at home. You'll be better off. Yeah. And sitting through three hours a get a wagoo and you'll save money. Serious money. But just cook your own wagoo at home. It's the way cheaper than getting ripped off with these people. That's so funny. Stephanie, trust your instincts. You have good instincts. Listen guys, I've heard just about every excuse for why folks think they can't get ahead

1:46:27with money. So let's go ahead and settle this right now. You get the final say on what happens with your money. That's why you have to start telling your money where to go so you can stop wondering where it went. So if you're going to start winning with money, you have to get on a budget and the easiest way to get started and stick to it is with the every dollar budget app. It'll help you make a plan for every single dollar coming in and every single dollar going out every single month. And guess what? It's free. So no excuses. You can download every dollar in the app store or Google Play today. Liz is in Orlando. Hi, Liz. How are you? You're good. How about you? Better than I deserve.

1:47:28What's up? Um, so I have a situation where my husband let me know last night that in three weeks, um, instead of living in the RV, um, I will, we're going to be moving into the house. That's right next to the RV. Um, it's double our, uh, what we pay right now. And the only way we're going to be able to afford it is if we move in with his brothers that have proven to be financially irresponsible in the past and we actually have paid the price for it before. And I have no finances. I'm going to stay at home mom to an 11 month old. And I just, I feel stuck. You're living in an RV. Yeah. Why? Um, so when, when I had came back from trucking because I was trucker before this, um,

1:48:38we didn't have an apartment, uh, but we did have enough money to buy an RV and my mother I'm offered to put the RV right next to their house and it would save us money in the background. Which is what I thought, but then I listened to some of your shows and I kind of understand your, uh, your belief on the RV's. But by the time I made the decision, it was for her information, I, it was too late. How long have you been married? Um, I've been married two years and before that, um, we were dating for two years. How old are you? I am 24 years old. Where's your family? Um, my family, um, I don't exactly have, um, my family too close to me right now.

1:49:45Uh, they can't really help me. I ask where they are. Um, uh, they're, they're in, uh, excuse me. Um, pretty close by. So you mean relationally they're not able, they're not willing to help you're estranged from them? Yeah. Cause they're not pleased with who you chose as a husband. Um, no, they don't. No, I don't really tell them anything about my marriage. Um, I never did. Um, but, uh, I guess, I don't. So you lived with his brothers before? No. Um, so, uh, we, we have a path. And I was trucking, uh, one of his brothers, um, that's going to move in with us.

1:50:48Um, he had ran away from home and he ended up moving into our apartment. And though we gave him a list of things that he has to pay and we'll see how to follow. And I ended up having to pay a whole bunch of toll and stuff because he was using my car, which I allowed him to do, which was done on my end. I allowed him to use it and he never paid any of the tolls. How old is your husband? Uh, he was 25. And what does he make a year? Um, he makes 23 hours. Uh, hours. Okay. Is he working 40 hours? Is he working 40 hours? Uh, yes, he works 40 hours. He actually works overtime most of the time. Are you working at all within 11 month old? No. No. Okay. That's fine. Okay. Um, well, I, I don't know how to cause this family that is so messed up to suddenly not

1:51:50be messed up for your sake. I wish I could because I'm kind of scared for you right now. Um, but, um, uh, you know, your husband gets to decide with the next conversation with you whether he wants you around or not. And so, um, and he made decide negatively. I don't know. But, um, I think you've already decided you're not moving into that house. And so the only question is, is when you guys sell the RV and go get an apartment, is he going to go? Um, I truly don't know. Yeah. I don't either. But I think that's the question he needs to be asked tonight. Do you want to go with me because I'm leaving? I'm not going to stay here in the shadow of your mother and your dysfunctional brothers. And I'm certainly not moving into their house. And we're selling this RV and we're going to go build a life, a quality life together. And that's the only chance we have, honey. Otherwise, we're going to end up just like them.

1:52:51Look at them. Do you want to be them in 20 years? I don't want to be them in 20 years. I can love them, but I don't want to be them. And this is when people change their lives. They change their family tree. They look at the history and the history and the rearview mirror and they develop a future out the windshield. And the rearview mirror is smaller for a reason because the future is bright, but only if you're driving away from the mess. And so, um, which is a pretty good metaphor for a truck driver, but right? But the, uh, so yeah, you, you know, I'm hoping that your husband's love for his new child and his wife supersedes his love for his dysfunctional mother and brothers. He's trying to figure out a place to put a roof over your head. He doesn't know how to do it right and he's getting ready to do it wrong. And you know that. And that's why you called. So, you know, you, you guys are at a turning point and something, something dramatic is

1:53:53going to happen. And you guys just, you need to decide what it is. You need to decide what it is. It doesn't need to happen to you. You need to happen to it. And if you need some help, just call a local church. There's wonderful churches all over Orlando, Florida and tell them you're 24 years over than 11 month old and your husband just kicked you out of the RV and you need some help and they'll help you. They'll help you get started and you're going to have to get a job and build a life if he doesn't go with you. But your other choice is move in with the crazies over there and I don't blame you. I think you're probably onto something there. Yeah. Yeah. There's no good, there's no good short term story here. The best possible short term story is he says, oh yes, I want to be with my wife and child and we're going to load up the clothing out of the RV and we're going to go get us an apartment. But I don't feel like that's a high probability answer. Yeah. He says that he's already talking about that.

1:54:55He says that the apartments that currently are 1,500 and they'll be cheaper either way to live this with his brothers. Another option is pick the RV up and move away 20 miles away and get a place to park the RV temporarily until you can get it sold and get you an apartment. But you cannot continue down this path because you know what's going to happen. You can see it and we can see it and we don't even know everybody involved here. It's just sadness. I'll talk sadness. It's a dysfunction and you know you're about to get dragged into it even further. So you need to realize you have agency in this marriage so far you haven't had a vote because you haven't given yourself the ability to actually speak up and do something about it. And so for the sake of that baby, create a safe environment that actually you can thrive in and that might mean some deep sacrifices for now where life looks hard. But I'd rather that than you move along with this move into this house. Yeah, you fast forward the move that you're outlining it doesn't sound good and that's

1:56:00why you're calling because you know that. You know, we're not telling you anything you didn't know. You already knew all that honey. But hey, reach out in the community, get in touch with a pastor or two in the local area and some of them will help you. I promise you they will. We know a lot of good churches in Orlando, a lot of good people down there that will help you. Even a good local women's shelter. You know. We're going to have some great resources. Matter of fact, I'll put you on hold. Christian will pick up and we'll hook up with some of the pastors we know down there. And we'll get some people in your corner. And that's with him, with your husband or without him. If he wants to help too, we'll help you guys. We'll see if we get some people around you that love you well. You spend hours researching before making a major purchase like a home or car, but it's

1:57:14also a good idea to put in the work searching for the right insurance coverage. To protect your biggest assets, I recommend using Ramsey Trusted Pros. Whether you're looking for car, home or any other type of insurance, Ramsey Trusted providers have been coached and vetted to serve you like we would. Find what you need at RamseySolutions.com.

1:58:38Forget it. Either. I'm not confused about what happened there. And I'm not going to forget that. But also we want to talk about how we can help and how we can gather around. The thing that we always wished at the time and we all knew, all of us that were older, especially knew at the time, was that the unity, all the political divisiveness, all the stuff dropped for a short period of time. Everybody was an American. And we knew it wouldn't last. We knew the trash and the filth and nastiness and the crazies on each side would raise up eventually. And they have and now they're back in full control again. But that moment and time when there was this beautiful unity was something else. I was on the air that day. Remember it was crazy. Absolutely crazy. 9-1-1. Brings up a lot.

1:59:40And a lot of you weren't even born at that point. And that's kind of wired, wild to think about. 26 years old, right? Yeah. It's been 25 years since the date. I was in middle school not listening to this show. Unfortunately I should have been. Yeah. Come on, George. What kind of nerd are you if you're not listening to this show in middle school? I mean, that's a certified right there, baby. All right, Laura's in Phoenix. Hi, Laura. What's up? Hi, I hope you're well. And I thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. I'm here. So I am currently $70,000 in debt. I just started a new career and I just found out I'm pregnant with my second child. I just want to know how I can prioritize paying off debt without putting myself in a worse situation. A lot of I and me, are you married? Yes, but it's complicated.

2:00:43He is not a citizen, so he's currently in his country still with our firstborn. I had just taken him out there since I'm starting my new career until he's able to move out here and join me. Well, that be. We're still in the process and the paperwork. It's looking like a projected time. It ranges anywhere from March of next year until as late as August of next year. So how does income work? Is it just your income at this point? I mean, where he does, but how the money, what do you call it, convert? It's just not enough. Well, country is in. He's in Egypt right now. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So you're waiting on a visa and a green card so that he's legal to earn an income in the

2:01:48United States while he awaits citizenship. So for the purposes of this call, we'll just assume it's you, 70 grand in debt and just your income trying to pay this off while pregnant. And a baby on the way, yeah. So what do you make in this new career? So I just graduated in accounting. So I just started a new accounting career making 82,000 years. Awesome. That's double what I was making before. That's great. What kind of debts does 70 grand? Okay. So it is 43,000 in student loans. At about 6,280 per credit card, I took out a title loan, which was so dumb. And that is $3,000. And then I have a buy now, pay later loan for $1,800. And then there's credit cards and collection that are like a little bit over $15,000.

2:02:50$15,000 grand in collections. Okay. So you're not paying anything on that right now. They're in collections. No, not in the community. And you're not paying anything on the student loan right now because it's been in hardship. No, they're in the government. They're in the government. Yeah. And so all we're dealing with is $6,000 in credit cards, $2,000. And then the $8,000, $8,000. And that's on the car or on furniture. And the $3,000 title loan, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, are you renting or what? Yes, I'm renting. And my rent is $13,89 per month. Okay. Okay. Well, I want to make as much progress as I can in the next few weeks before we get too far down into the pregnancy process, okay? And so you've got to get that title loan out. So your first goal is beans and rice, rice and beans do a written budget.

2:03:51And I want your entire check to go towards just food, rent, and title loan. And I think you can clear that. I think you can clear that title. I think you can clear that title one loan in one month. I think so too. I haven't gotten the first check yet because I just started about two and a half weeks ago. But, yeah, I think that can be. Yeah. I mean, you should be taking on five grand a month. Okay. Yeah. And three, three for the title loan and live on the rest and do nothing else. No investing. No, you don't know 401k's, no investing, no nothing. Do you have any money and savings? No, I don't. Okay. So we're going to get rid of the title one. That's the thing. It's paid off? Yes. Yeah, my car is totally paid off. Wonderful. We'll get the title back and never do that again. Okay. Okay. And then clear the 1800 by now, pay now later the next month. And shut down the account and cut up the credit cards. Because right now we are trying to stop the bleeding and stop us from making any more

2:04:53dumb decisions. Okay. Yeah. And so what I want you to do then is to start after you pay up the by now, pay now and you've paid minimums on the credit cards and nothing on the ones in collection, nothing on the student loans and pay your rent and your food. And I want you to stack cash. You need a war chest for when the baby comes. I want you to have 15,000, 20,000 bucks by the time the baby comes. And I don't know if you give advice on this, but I'm still in the process of selecting the medical insurance. And there is a high deductible option and the loaded up to and I just didn't know which one to choose because of the amount that would be taken out of my check. I would investigate how they handle maternity in both cases. Ask HR to explain the maternity benefits in the two policies. And you need the most thorough maternity benefits, even if it's the loaded up to. You may switch in a couple of years back to the high deductible, but probably you're going

2:05:55to be on the loaded up to and get full coverage on this maternity. Okay. So it's not just about lowest premium. It's what's the lowest total out of pocket cost to cover me through the pregnancy. Yeah, we're trying to have a baby without hardly any out of pocket. Okay. Now, who's going to be around you and help you and take care of you when the baby comes? Um, I haven't figured that out yet. No, that's something we're starting working on. Also new to the area. No, you got to start working on that. Give a love to your local shirt. Where's your family? Um, they, I have family that's in on the East Coast. Yeah, well, they know you have a baby on the way. No, I don't want to tell. I haven't told anyone yet. Why? I have a pretty dysfunctional family. Do they know you're married? No. Oh, okay. A lot going on here.

2:06:56Okay. You got to create a village scratch. Yeah, you need to, you need to get in touch with a good church and you need to get a church people around you to love you and walk with you through this and give you support. And then you've got to decide is the baby going to go in daycare after it comes and you're going to go back to work and continue your wealth building while your husband works on his V.C. and green cart probably, probably what you're doing. And, um, you probably don't have a lot of options because we can't really lose this great job. That puts us out of the rams he's showing the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace. And that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace. Christ Jesus.