Normal Money Habits Don’t Build Wealth

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and 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 co-host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. 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 took out a student loan in my name. So I never attended the school, authorized a loan. I've already tried contacting a loan company. Physically going to the college, filing a police report and disputing it, but the debt is 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. Under 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, you'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. And, 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. Okay. So is that a federal loan? I think, yeah, I think it's a federal loan organization. Okay, because there's separate paths. 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, and badger the crud 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 if there's anything else you would suggest in doing it because, you know, I had to go back as far as, you might think it's crazy, but they made me pull my high school diploma to prove that I am who I say I am 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 or $5,000, it was for about $5,000 total. Okay. Are they giving you any reason that they haven't done away with the loan since they know it's fraudulent? No, they haven't given me any reason that they haven't done away with it other than, you know. Incompetence? It's in the same paperwork, the same paperwork I've already sent you, you know, kind of, kind of thing. And how long has this been going on? About six months. Okay. Six months. Six months since I found out about it. And you do not have, you do not have Zander's 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 Zander's Identity Theft, it's not the notification, the, 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, that's the follow-through is, is, it's not that identity theft costs you any money because you don't owe any money. It's all the hours lost of your life that you can't get back dealing with morons that work for a student loan company and can't get their head out of their butt. That's the problem. That's where, that's where I'm at with it too, right? Yeah. You know, it's been hours and hours ago. Oh yeah. You're just going crazy. Can you buy a product like that retroactively? Or can you buy it? No, you can't buy it 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. Oh, you guys are the best. I appreciate that. Yeah. We'll see if Xander 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 the 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. There are a couple of things for anyone else out there going, I don't want this to happen to me. Freezing your credit with all three bureaus is a great start. Having Xander's ID theft protection is a great thing to have. And Dave, you cover it for every one of our team members and I've had to actually use it. But back when I started here, I had this happen to me. That's right. I forgot about that. I had the pleasure of working with them. You were 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 hook. You were a 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 Xander, 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. Pulled 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 it with student loans 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. 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 took out three credit cards in his name. That's gross. The closer it is to your own direct family, the worse. That's also, if that's you, by the way, you're a criminal. That's called fraud, not to mention you're scum because you did this to your own wife. 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. You're taking out a loan under false pretenses. It's go to jail time if somebody actually wanted to push it. Yeah. 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 Xander in these situations with the credit card companies, you call Citibank and go, this is not my card. I didn't open it up. Yeah. The only thing they assume is you did take it out and you just don't want to 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 Citibank or Chase or Fifth Third or these guys because they're just scummy. Credit card departments are horrible on this stuff. Well, I'm sure they get people who pay it anyways because they just don't want to deal with it or they're scared. Yeah. It's typically someone that is elderly. They don't want to deal with it. slash Ramsey. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash Ramsey. match on zip recruiter. George, we're going cruising, man. I was just looking at the photos from the last one and it got me hyped again. Oh man, that was a fun trip. The Ramsey live like no one else. Cruise is a blast. We take over the entire ship. Only Ramsey people on there doing baby step four and 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. Y'all are going to do smart money happy hour. That's right. Live shows. Podcasts live. Maybe even live Ramsey show. We'll see. Yeah. Oh, look at that. That could happen. Who knows? Some Deloney after dark. That was a hit last time. It was past my bedtime. Deloney's always after dark. 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? Yeah. 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, Cozumel. It's a great itinerary. It's on a great ship. It's on Holland America, which is one of the top end high end ships. This is not the cheap stuff. This is the good stuff. Dave, 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 good 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 not beautiful. There's going to be like twenty five hundred of us on there. There wasn't the last one sold out. This one will be sold out. It's not yet March 20 or March 14th through 21 coming up. And, y'all, it's after Labor Day. This is going to be here in 20 seconds. We had a blast. We had so much fun. We did pop up. We'd just be walking along and a stage was empty. And a couple of us would get up there and 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. But, yeah, all their stuff is there, too. If you're bored, that's your fault. Yeah, it's. Yeah, for sure. We just had a blast. We just had a blast. We just had a blast. Sharon and I will be there. All the Ramsey personalities will be there. Natalie Grant, an 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. We're not hypocrites. So RamseySolutions.com slash events or click the link in the show notes. Stacey is in Des Moines. Hi, Stacey. How are you? Good. How are you guys? What's up? So I just kind of wanted to talk with 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 tonsillectomy 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 back up to $1,000. And then my son had to get tubes put in his ears because he gets recurrent ear infections. So again, same thing with that. We had to take out an emergency fund because we just couldn't afford it. And in our eyes, it was for his health. I mean, he's not even two yet. That kind of trumps everything. Taking care of my baby. So then it 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 $1,200. And it seems like every time we take a step forward, we take two steps back. Okay. Do you have health insurance? We do. Okay. So why would a surgeon with health insurance require prepayment? I honestly don't. They did it for my son's tube surgery as well. And we even contacted another surgeon to make sure it wasn't just this one clinic. And they said the same thing. We had to pay 50% up front. And then we could do a payment on the other one. And that's just for the surgeon. That wasn't even for the hospital. 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. You quit taking everybody's opinion about stuff and find out what the flip's really going on. Maybe that's the emergency. I have health insurance. It pays for surgeons. What's wrong with you people? Now, if they're talking about out of your deductible that you need to pay your deductible up front or something, that wouldn't be unusual. And that could be the thousand. And the surgeon should be way more than $2,000 for a tonsillectomy. And the tube should be way more than $1,000 too. So in all cases. That's what it was. Sorry, it was out of the deductible. Yeah, it did kick in at some point. But you've got to take control of these situations and 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. I agree. And they will take you places you don't want to go. Okay? So you've got to plug in and understand why these charges are so high. Why these charges are there before they occur. I don't think you've been ripped off. It doesn't sound like it. It sounds like you 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 brake rotors were not an emergency. They were a recurring repair. Brakes go out and car repairs happen. Yeah, and I kind of didn't know about it. Do what? Yeah, apparently they were bad. They were bad for a while, and I just kind of kept putting it off. Yeah, that squeaking thing you ignored. 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. Yeah, yep. 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. You're ahead of things. You're 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 tonsillectomy. We're not going to need more tubes put in. The brake rotors are fixed. So now let's get ahead of this thing and move even faster so that we can stay ahead instead of moving 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 success. 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 an emergency, and now there's that much room in the budget. So it's no longer an emergency. So what qualifies as an emergency starts to go down? Thing two is you get ahead of things like preventive 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 brake pads are worn out and you get into the rotors. You keep your oil changed, and you do the. And you have a sinking fund for things that happen. And you start to have money set aside for this and money set aside for that, and you have an emergency fund. 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 do come your way. I think we've cash flowed the things that came up after that. And so that's the future. But for right now, Stacy's still in it to win it, and she can push through. That's right. That's right. Thank you. If you're already enrolled in a Medicare plan, you might think there's nothing else to do. You're good to go. Wrong. The fact is, Medicare premiums, networks, prescription coverage, and benefits can all change, even if your health doesn't. So doing nothing could cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year. With annual enrollment time coming soon, you need to talk to Chapter right away. Chapter is the only Ramsey-trusted Medicare advisor, and they save Ramsey fans an average of $1,100 a year. They explain your options simply and help make the smartest decision for your situation. And whether they find you a better plan or confirm you're already in the right one, Chapter's services don't cost you a thing. Medicare annual enrollment runs October 15th through December 7th. So review your plan. And with Chapter now, and avoid expensive mistakes later. To talk to the unbiased Medicare experts at Chapter, go to AskChapter.org slash Ramsey, or click the link in the description. That's AskChapter.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 debt-free, and we purchased a home. Then we went back into the, I guess, cycle of getting back into debt. So the last few years, we've been in 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. So 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 sold each property that we owned, and we did like a 20% down payment. We had like a leftover 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 it to happen again, even if we get out of this pile of debt. So lay out the debts that you guys currently have. So currently, we have about $26K in credit cards. And then two vehicle loans, one that we're almost done with at $2,500, and another at $20,000 that we just purchased. And then about $60,000 in student loans. I don't think you're going to get out of debt, because I think you like debt. I think you like buying stuff you can't afford. You just went out and bought $26,000 worth of crap on plastic after you bought a house, went through $15,000, and bought two cars. And added $60,000 in student loans? And then tell me you want to get out of debt. You don't want to get out of debt. I 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. Yes. Touché. I will take that one. Good answer. Okay. So were 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. No, actually, that was before the house. So I kind of did. So you weren't debt-free? I didn't do it. Okay. I'm 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 $6,000 a month. And then my husband, it varies since he's like his own boss in a way. So he's a contractor. And it can vary anywhere between $2,000 to $6,000 per month for him. But it's variable. Okay. What does he make most months? Most months, I would say at least six months out of the year, he would make anywhere between $4,000. Maybe $4,000, $5,000. Okay. Good. I like that. Okay. So you're making $10,000 a month. And you had a baby and you want to clean this mess up. Good for you. Yes. And then set up maybe a future for a baby because we're not necessarily spring chickens. We are about in our 30s, late 30s, early 40s. Yeah. You're ancient. 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've got to set yourselves up first. When you get on that airplane, they say put your own mask on first because you can't help anybody if you're down for the count. So you have to clean this debt 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. No reason to panic. We have a new perspective. I think you're going to be okay. List your debts, smallest to largest. Get on a budget. Never go out to eat again until you're 100% debt-free except your house. Never go on vacation again until you're 100% debt-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, 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 the debts you gave me, you can be debt-free in a year, year and a half. But 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. You need to get out of debt. Cut up the credit cards, too, tonight. Have you got them with you? No, we already got rid of those. So we've been working on those a couple months. Where did they go when you got rid of them? You chop them up? Chop them up in the trash. Okay, good. Good. Okay, good. Yeah, because being in the freezer doesn't count. Chopping them up is the only way they're gone. All right, and then you get in attack mode. What's your smallest debt out of all the debts you're talking about you listed? You got $2,500. $2,500 on a car, $2,000 on a car. You got $26,000 in miscellaneous credit cards. Give me your smallest credit card. About $1,600. Good. I want you to do that next month. It should be gone. Do you guys have $1,000 saved right now? Yes. How much do you have saved? We got about $2,000 saved right now. Okay. Well, then what's your next smallest debt after the $1,600? I probably saved a car, just looking at my list. The $2,500? The vehicle that we're almost, the $2,500 car, yeah. That's excellent. Okay. So that's gone next month because the $1,000 is coming out of this account and the $600 is coming out of your checking account, 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 just freed 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. Well, lean into that, kiddo. You can do it. And here's the thing. If you add up what you're paying out in 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 multimillionaire. That's how aggravating what you've done is. So 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 will be millions of dollars at their age. But you never borrow again. Ever. Which means we don't own a credit card anymore. We freeze our credit. We have no access to it. The next time 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 a car payment is worth, when I turn. You know, if I'm. 30 to 65, I decided I'd ride a bicycle if I had another car payment. Because that car isn't costing you 40 grand. It's costing you $4 million over your lifetime of not investing that payment. And most people go, must be nice, Dave, to be able to invest 500 bucks. And I go, what's your car payment? They go, 550. I go, oh, okay. Looks like you just prioritized your car. Must be nice to invest something, invest $500 a month in something that's going down in 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 cards you can't afford. And you're looking at your baby wondering 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 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, but I mean, unusual is a good thing in a culture that's lost its dadgum mind. So yeah, be weird. Be weird. Be weird in everything. Success is weird. Normal is not successful. Normal is just, I got by and it's okay. And I've kind of made it through. And that's not, 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, 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. Yeah, that sounds obvious. Business owners leave money on the table, not because their product isn't good, but because the buying experience is broken or complicated. Shopify fixes that. With Shopify, you can build a professional storefront and get it in front of your customers fast. No coding, no technical headaches. And when your customers are ready to buy, Shopify's purple shop pay button is one of the best converting checkouts in the world, which means fewer, abandoned carts, and more sales. And if you hit a snag, Sidekick, Shopify's built-in AI assistant, is there to answer questions and keep you moving. You've got enough to think about just running your business. The last thing you need is to lose sales because the buying experience lets you down. All you need is the idea. Shopify handles the rest. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash Ramsey. That's Shopify.com. Slash Ramsey. Shopify.com. Slash Ramsey. Zach is in Chattanooga. Hi, Zach. How are you? Good. How are you guys? What's up? Yeah. I'm a business owner with a young business that's starting to bring in more money than I expected it would. And I'm wondering, how do I know what to allocate towards my business versus what to keep and invest in like myself? That'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? I sell used jewelry online. So silver and gold jewelry mainly. Okay. And what are you making? What's your income per month? Last month it was $7,000 profit. And then the month before it was $5,000. And that's profit? That includes the cost of the item? Yep. That's profit after item costs, shipping costs. Okay. So 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 $7,000 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 $12,000? Correct. Okay. So when you sell it for $12,000, obviously you don't take $12,000 home. You've got to put $5,000 back out there to do it again. Yes. That's your minimum. Okay. And then you can look at it and say, if I want to go a little bit more, do I want to go $7,000? And increase 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. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. 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 a cheap inventory that you can make that kind of margin on. You may not be able to do that at $70,000, but you can do it at $7,000, right? Mm-hmm. And so, but anyway, until you hit that curve, until you hit a point of 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, like, am I 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 $15,000 or $14,000, right? Yeah, give or take. Yeah. The margins are pretty. How long, how old is some of that inventory? What's your turn rate on it? I don't know. I think my oldest piece of inventory is. It's less than a year. That's a long time in that world. Yeah. Yeah. You got too much tied up in that one. You wouldn't buy that one again. You don't buy that one again, right? Correct. Yeah. And that's what I was kind of wondering, too. Should I, like, because it's precious metal, should I just take, like, all that old inventory and just go melt it? 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? Okay. But 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 are 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, that's a bad deal. Now all your fun's gone. Yeah. It's wrapped up money. Exactly. It's just sitting there waiting to be melted. And so, yeah, that's the thing. So you're not going to get burned on it. But the trick. The trick is the churn rate or the flip rate of your money, your inventory turnover rate. That's where your money is. I 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 7, you know, or 12 over 5, then that's incredible margins. But when you start holding stuff for a year, those margins start to dissipate. Your average margin starts to go down. It starts to go way down, yeah. And so you've got to. You've got to hit. You've got to, you know, you've got to pick hits and not B-sides. 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, you know, 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 going to give you a copy of the latest bestseller I did called Building a Business You Love. And it'll help you with some of the other questions. Questions you're going to have as you grow this. Trevor's in Orlando. Hi, Trevor. How are you doing? What's up? So I'm currently living with my parents. I just actually paid off my last student loan today. Congratulations. Thank you. You're a free 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 a year. Cool. How long would it take to save up a full emergency fund? With very little expenses. Six months even while living at home? What do you make? I'm sorry? What do you make? So I bring home $5,700 a month. Where the flip is all that going? So it's been paying off debt up until now. So every two weeks I'm married. I have three kids. Oh, wow. Stop, stop, stop. Okay. You're 34. You make $71,000 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 yeah i'm all sitting and i decided that i needed a career change so i quit my job uh moved in with my parents so i go to school full-time i'm now a nurse um and so they were nice enough to let me 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 mommy's house yes go go go go go go go get an apartment now okay what's an apartment going to cost you in your area um i can get a townhouse for about just under 1500 a month perfect great does your wife work outside the home no she's a stay-at-home mom okay when was the last time she worked outside the home um back in 19 what does she do then um she was a receptionist for a um ophthalmologist okay 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 sweet oh and by the way you're a nurse you passed your bars yeah so i'm a registered nurse i've been doing this for a little man you can make so much money but you're going to be working all the time i mean you can pick up shifts on the weekend on triple time yeah i'm i'm actually still going to school i have to go back for my bachelor's so i'm doing that right now as well why uh it's a contract with the hospital your bachelor's is a contract with a hospital yeah when i signed on it's a requirement to get it within three years oh okay 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 a it's a lot of money hey you can write your ticket man it's like unlimited money it's a wonderful place and you don't have to work your 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 just get all this stuff in your rearview 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 gonna 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 to keep them distracted make them mad and keep them scrolling not help them think for themselves world watch exists to be the antidote to the algorithms world watch is a video game that allows you to service built specifically for pre-teens and teens their daily 10-minute videos that explain what's happening in the world through a factual christian worldview no outrage no noise just clear reporting you can watch together and that your kids can actually understand so they can come to the dinner table engaged and curious instead of worked up or zoned out and i love that world watch doesn't talk at kids it gives families something to talk about because when my kids are older i want them to be able to think for themselves and separate news from noise and right now you can try world watch free for 30 days click the link in the description or go to worldwatch.news slash ramsay and use promo code ramsay to get started the ramsay offer includes your first full month free on top of the standard seven-day trial that's worldwatch.news slash ramsay welcome back to the ramsay show and the fair winds crew reddit union 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 separate bank account i was wondering how i could get my husband on the same board of budgeting okay um why do you have separate bank accounts um that's the tough problem um if we combine our money he would spend 80 of it um he's not a type of person to budget i guess so i'm just trying to ask for advice on that okay i'm confused about where all this is going um so you you're you're afraid he's going to spend all the money but you want to combine the accounts right i so for he has investments he invests about 80 percent of his money towards uh 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 uh he's around 35 and i am 27 so there's about seven eight years apart how does he invest 80 percent of his money what do you all live on um we actually work at a company um that is very beneficial to us where they pay for all the housing utilities even the car that we drive and they pay for gas weekly and what what is the job uh we work at a real estate company and we work in fixed houses and i work in the office and so you don't have a housing expense you don't have one car expense um but uh you still have to eat and other things and he spends 80 percent of his money on pokemon cards and he's 36 yes sir um from sounds like a 14 year old kind of yeah how much in pokemon cards does he have um oh goodness um his portfolio is 33 000 and how long has he been doing this uh for 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 like two weeks after our marriage and we just got a 10 because we were just curious we yeah this makes me this makes me very sad for both of you um because it sounds very juvenile um the uh and you're giggling about it um so it makes me sad too um but you guys and um have you have you said to him well you need to be grown-ups and start investing in grown-up things and uh 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 um i have made lists and everything uh 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 just 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 spoiler alert pokemon cards are on the list i agree how's that conversation sound i've actually tried that conversation at least three times and 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 you need to go get it 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 um this guy has you know the only chance that you guys stay together is that he starts a prior he starts a process by which he becomes an adult and 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 okay and um it's not an investment and it's not a portfolio it's a habit and um so i mean this is the same people call me in the old days and said you know we're collecting beanie babies because that princess die beanie baby is going to be worth something someday yeah and so um we actually got out my son who's 35 we found his pokemon cards from his 12 year old dad and he said i'm going to get a new one and i'm going to get a new one and i'm the other day might be sitting on a gold he had a portfolio when he was 12 wow what an astute investor he was and 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 okay it's all bullcrap and so the chances of you being in the whether it's baseball cards pokemon cards gold coins rare coins art all of these things that you think you know something about most 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 i the only thing that good baby beanie babies are good for these days are for the dog to play with it came in with princess die in its mouth the other day so there you go and that was the one that was supposed to be worth ten thousand dollars and the dog's very happy to carry it around the house we had a call of an 18 year old who had six hundred thousand dollars worth of pokemon cards and so john deloney and i took this call and i told him dude was it real or was that a troll i mean there these people is a troll they're claiming it was real kelly the producer's saying it's real but the we clipped it and the subculture of pokemon people came after us saying no way you got the horse people and the pokemon 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 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 oh 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 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 um 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 the team behind pokemon's crushing it because they understand the game they understand they know scarcity selling to her lisa's 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 uh action figure collectibles too that might be worth something no george no if you're shopping 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 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description ramsey show question of the day is brought to you by why refi if you're a private student payments are out of control you might feel like you're out of options why refi was built for borrowers in difficult situations and helps explore refinancing options that fit real life budgets visit why refi.com slash ramsey might not be in all states today's question comes from hudson in connecticut i'm getting married soon and we're negotiating a prenup my fiancee 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 a 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 hopeful line yeah nothing about this sounds romantic um i mean you're you're saying i'll pay off your debts i don't know what your assets are if we're talking millions and millions in real estate or 50 grand in a 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 the 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 tit for tat 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 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 um 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 it's 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 you've reduced it down to that with the phrasing you're using the words you're using are really scary um and you as you said in your last sentence i'm keeping score so if i woke up in that situation and i'm not in that situation george um the prenup would simply read that i i have two million dollars in mutual funds and if we get divorced uh 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're right you're right you're right you're right you're right you're right write a check the day after the honeymoon and you pay cash 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 that upon return from the honeymoon we will write a check that day and pay off the student loan but that's just a practical thing and because when you took her on dude you took on a hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt and if she's not worth that then you're very transactional and you need to walk away from the whole thing uh period that's the way i feel about it what are you thinking when you're seeing this i mean yeah we've seen couples who go hey this is scary and then we've seen the ones who go you know what i loved her and i wanted to marry her regardless of how much debt it was and i knew there was going to be a little bit of a mountain to 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 you don't pay off 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 word on her nose get her out of the house you do not want her in your house you do not want a spare bedroom for this chick she's not family and she's evil from the government and anybody that's from the government is not here to help so there you go that this is this is how this works so yeah i but i think you guys have deeper problems in your relationship based on the way this is written yeah regardless of the numbers the phrasing makes it seem really creepy you're walking in with arms up with a shield up yeah if my daughter was on the receiving end of this i would tell her to run away from you because everything with you not into your arms everything is going to be a transaction with you hudson is what it sounds like based on this letter now i may be over reading it but the way this is 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 y'all doing well by god's grace yes sir yes sir uh 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 um my wife and i have a mutual excuse me iras and a brokerage account okay and last week we had the uh privilege of attending uh you and george's investing essentials and we have watched and re-watched and re-watched that thing wow we really enjoyed it yes sir and um long story short our mutual fund or our iras and our brokerage account for years has just been sitting in money market. Wow. Why? Yeah, we've matched inflation, but that's all it's done. What spooked you to the sidelines? Was it ever invested? No. No, it's just been in mutual funds. I believe the world's been shaved by a drunk barber, and I'm always here to. Chicken Little is my nickname. Okay. All right. Yes, but after watching the Investing Essentials, we've got peace, and we're ready to move on into the four categories of the mutual funds. Good. Okay. Okay. So we have met with a smart investor pro. 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. Four good categories that equal 12.45% with mutual funds that date back to 1981. Good. Okay. Well done. This wasn't hard. We told you you could do it. Yeah. 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. We don't feel comfortable giving five figures to a smart investor pro when we can do this ourselves. But when we called, I'll just go ahead and say it, when we called Vanguard, who holds the IRAs, they have a sub-company called a census who holds the SEP and the SIMPLES. That's what we have, SEP and SIMPLES. And they don't offer the mutual funds that we want to invest that match up with y'all's teachings. Charles Schwab, who owns our brokerage account, will offer those, but they have what we call a transaction fee. Yep. Yep. So, 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 investor pro instead and pay the management fee that is there, that's part of it. And that's what I do, by the way, and what George does. And the reason is, is that you've got somebody in your corner, you're DIYing it. You're DIYing 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. I don't want to spend my time doing that. I want my guy to look at it. And I have. 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. So, if 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 the guy who can do it. But I wouldn't just, you know. Vanguard's great. Charles Schwab, I'm not mad at Charles Schwab. 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. ♪ music playing ♪ ♪ music playing ♪ ♪ music playing ♪ ♪ music playing ♪ They're the only Ramsey-trusted health insurance partner because their advisors take the time to understand your situation and help you explore the coverage options that are available to you. Whether you've changed jobs, welcomed a new baby, or had some other life event, Health Trust Financial shops multiple top-rated insurance carriers for you. Then they help you understand your options so you can make a smart decision instead of guessing. I've recommended Health Trust Financial. I'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. ♪ music playing ♪ Well, we wish we could get to every call and every question here on the show. But if you have money questions and you want an answer for your situation, you can head over to our website. Use AskRamsey because it's hard to get in here sometimes. AskRamsey 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. Stuff 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. And 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. AskRamsey 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'm doing really well. How are you? What's up? So, I had a quick question. Is it okay to invest more than 15% of your income into retirement? 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. Thank you. You don't own a home is what you're saying. Exactly. Yeah. So, 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. My financial advisor, who's Ramsey approved. And I am maxing out my 401k at 6%. And I was maxing out my Roth IRA. But with both of those together, it came to 23%. So, I was wondering if I need to cut back in one of the expenses. It's not the end of the world. I just want you to save for a down payment, too. Yeah. That's all. And I want you to get out and get on your own. Yeah, what do you make? Currently, I make $45,000. Okay. And you're maxing out a 401k? You're 28 years old and you live at home? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. You're not maxing out your 401k at $45,000? No. No, I'm just like maxing out percent of that. You're putting up to the match. Mm-hmm. But you're saying between that 6% 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. Okay. So, you took the match and then you went and did a Roth. That's good. I like that. Very smart. Yeah. 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 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? What's up? Man, I am 21. I work at a dealership selling cars and I make probably around 160 and I just got married about two months ago and I'm running into the idea that I worked before we met and we got married. I worked about 80 hours a week and now I probably work 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, this is pretty much my real big boy job, first one, and it's doing very well. So are you working, 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 eight to eight. Okay. So you have Sunday and Tuesday off? Yes, sir. And you're working 12-hour days? Five, six days, five days a week and that's 60 hours. Okay. All right. And how long have you been married? Three months. Okay. Hi. You can do what you want to do and the two of you can decide. There's nothing, there's no right or wrong or moral answer here. You called us. And my wife grew up up uh on a farm and uh 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 um so i'm having a little bit of trouble figuring out how to process this because um even now i 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 i kind of have the opposite problem on my end that you have um after 45 years of marriage and so um i i 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 uh 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 um 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 i'm the the problem is i'm trying to be uh authentic with you tyler and say that my uh answer would be skewed because of who i am and so um and because of the facts i just gave you so i i'm um 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 that's true but married couples have had um wonderful lives in first years on 60 hour weeks sometimes it makes the marriage better most of human history absence can make the heart grow fonder it's but i mean you're you're you're at home at eight o'clock i mean you know there's seasons 21 it isn'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 to where it's 40 45 hours but for now it's up to y'all nothing's on there's a trade-off but i just doesn't sound like he's burnt out either no he just um wants to spend time with his new wife and that's a nice thing that's that's sweet and um and she wants that that's nice um and so well i wish more of the couples that called here wanted that you know it was like you know most of them call here go how do i get my husband to work more you know so it's the other way around but yeah i think you're a great guy and i think she's a great gal and i think y'all will work it out there's not a wrong answer to that i think you're a great guy and i think she's a great gal 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 and 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 stars, Dave. That's it. I think you're just anti-streaming shows. 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. Like binge watch Reacher or something like that. Oh, there we go. More manly. Binge watch something that matters. More gunfire. Dancing with the stars. George. I was 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 watched 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? 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 i'll convince myself it's going to take forever be super complicated or cost a fortune then i finally sit down to do it and i wonder why i waited so long making a will might be one of those things for you that's why i love mama bear legal forms they've taken something that can feel overwhelming and made it so simple their online wills are designed by attorneys and tailored for your state and while you're on the mama bear website it'll the whole process step by step so you feel confident that you're doing it right and that your loved ones will be taken care of plus making your will with mama bear only takes about 20 minutes so don't make a mountain out of a molehill go to mama bear legal forms.com and use promo code ramsey to save 20 on your will that 20 off is exclusive to ramsey fans only mama bear legal forms.com with promo code ramsey richards in san antonio hey richard what's up hi how are you great man my question is uh basically i always i'm paycheck to paycheck and i'm drowning so i just i'm i don't know how to get out of it um so i guess that's the question what do i do okay so why are you paycheck to paycheck and why are you drowning so um my wife and i have been together about 10 years we have combined student loan debt of about 900k to a million um our income was until recently around 200k a year but i was recently laid off so now it's cut in half what are your degrees man we're both practicing attorneys so i just started taking cases on my own um just to bring something in but we always get to the same point whenever we discuss bills um 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 uh time period or billing period i'm going to have to pay all the bills and i'm going to have to pay all the bills we end up with nothing left so i i just walk around like feeling like a fraud most of the time and uh 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 um and that's been our life for uh you know why are two attorneys only making a hundred thousand dollars a year he so we we were both um non-profit attorneys why if you have nine hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt did you take that stupid job the the plan was that um if you do that for a certain amount of time um you can get um the student loans forgiven if you work in that non-profit sector yeah not true because it's not happened for very many people five percent of the time people get through that gauntlet ninety-five percent don't so you've been underpaid by a hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand dollars a year for years to try to get through a few hundred thousand in student loan debt yeah so where are you guys at in that process he's now opened his own firm right yeah i yeah i basically just started um but you're not you're not working for non-profit rates anymore but she's not working for non-profit rates anymore she still is correct correct what i make what i charge is completely hours or mine what was the original balance of these student loans uh it was it was around you know 300 each but then i think it ballooned to around the 450 plus how long ago did you pass the bar um it's been about 11 years oh my so you they were not forgiven i uh i i initially worked in private so i only did about six six to seven in the non-profit what about your wife she's uh she's about at eight she was a non-profit so she worked in a private as well for a while a little bit yeah okay all right um well our experience is is that very few people get those loans forgiven under that program it's a uh the program is full of holes and problems and loopholes so um We meet a whole lot of disillusioned people after working 10 years for substandard wages in service to the community and then don't get their loans forgiven. So I don't have a lot of hope in that. And, of course, you have started the clock over now, so 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, no, 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've got one job. It'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've 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 and 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. Correct. You aren't making a ton of money. I mean, a couple hundred thousand is good money, but it's not good money if you owe a million. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't feel that way. No, it doesn't. It doesn't do it. 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 math's against you. Unless you're paying more than the interest in principle, that thing's just going to move up and up and up. Yeah. 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, I need you making a couple hundred each minimum and as soon as possible. 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. You're going to have to do something pretty dramatic with the math. But if you take $900,000 and you start throwing $200,000, $300,000 at it a year, $300,000 in a year, it's done in three years. But that means you're making between the two of you $400,000 and living on $100,000. Not counting taxes, which means you're living on nothing. Yeah. And that's where I'm trying to get you to. Throw $300,000 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. So I've got great hope, but it's all, you know, we call it the shovel and hole thing, Richard. The hole that you're in is $900,000. Your shovel is your income. You've 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 then. And it's, I need $300,000 a year above my living expenses and taxes to throw at $900,000. And then I'm done. In approximately three years. And, but otherwise, if you just say it out loud, it takes your breath away. I have a million dollars. And so 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've got great hope. Your energy level is going to come up. The scales are going to fall away from your eyes. 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, it's 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 loan. 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 get out. And you know what I'm talking about. And 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 at a firm that you don't necessarily love everything about it. Whoop-dee-doop-dee. 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, are we going to pay the bills first? Or are we going to pay the bills first? It is. 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've got to try a different plan. And the debt snowball, like you mentioned, staring down $900,000 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. Well, thank you. Thank you. 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 frugality from causing strife with my wife. I never really spent any money on myself for 61 years. And now we're spending a lot of money. I'm just trying to maintain. How far into the project are you? Three days. What's the cost of it total? Our budget with contractor, new appliances, new furniture, furnishings, so forth is $550,000. Wow. So we have line item budget and we've agreed to the amounts. Where would your frugality 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 piece of furniture she wants to buy and your frugality 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 hoping we can stay within the budget. No, not hopefully. But this is. This is how we start a project. We both sit down and agree to the numbers. Yes. Are you worried that it's going to go way out of scope? Or are you just seeing this money leave your bank now? You're going, oh gosh, I regret agreeing to this. A little bit of everything. You know, it's just a. Okay, so give me an example of where you think there might be an argument. Going into the flooring, 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 end flooring there is. No, wait a minute. The middle of the road should be good. I don't care if it's highest end or not as long as it's in the budget. You've agreed to the budget. Is this a detailed budget? You're not allowed to whine 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 all had their wonderful day at the flooring place uh and it was uh forty two thousand dollars over the budget and i'm like what were y'all smoking we had a budget and the buy everyone agreed to the budget ahead of time including the decorator until they went to the dadgum 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 meant 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've got this dialed in now we 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 now think about this before you agree to it because i'm gonna you're gonna sign this in blood you're sticking to this and when you and the little decorator have your moment then you're gonna 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 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 correct if if if the budget is correct if it's realistic i mean if you put four dollars in for lighting and it's going to be four thousand that's a problem right so yes sir 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 sharon is more naturally frugal but i'm just with once there's a plan you got to stick to it i lose my mind so um 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 brain 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 gonna i'm gonna celebrate cheap randy is going to celebrate these large purchases with you my wife sounds perfect and uh gives you the 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 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 uh it's not going to come in but the last house we built uh we we did it within three percent of budget and it was two months early because we we managed to the blueprint we managed to the schedule and we managed to the budget and 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 any of those things you're not gonna 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 to budget and within the allowances that we set in the budget and and and guess what i didn't even have one episode in that last house i made whole 14 months i didn't have a single episode we had lots of decisions to make things to change we made a we you know we made a concession here raised something there lowered something there but we're within three percent of budget when we get done it's a swiss train at this point it's on time we're gonna do it on budget i mean and that that's how you build a house and that's how you do a project like this but randy i can completely relate it's it's one of the biggest that's why i tell young couples just getting married don't build a house you you really got to be married a while before you can survive building a house together you 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 ramsay'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 ramsay solutions.com real estate that's ramsay solutions.com 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 ramsay solution steps in just 15 minutes you're going to find thousands and hidden margin and you'll feel like you got a 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 hi stephanie how are you hi dave better than i deserve how are you just the same how can i help wonderful um first of all i'm a huge fan of your show and of your books um and i it's a pleasure to be here on the show so thanks for having me we're honored um 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 i think like to think we're in a good spot financially we only have a mortgage and our savings account is growing weekly we both put 15 into our roth 401ks and we were approached recently and told about iul accounts and it was feeling like a cool unique opportunity at first but then the more we've thought about it and kind of taking a step back it kind of just feels like a scam um they're kind of pushy about it so we we wanted to know what you recommend um 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 um and i'll be staying home to raise our kids so we also just wanted to know how to adjust our retirement goals um 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 thank you so let's talk about 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 um our estate um attorney he was 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 iul accounts and kind of 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 and it's just a permanent life insurance policy with cash value and it's indexed to the s&p 500 and generally so you don't actually own any stock but the 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 and 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 three percent and they're not going to be able to pay you back the rest of your money after all these fees, and they say, hey, there's no downside. We'll cap it at 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 month 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 Transamerica, the company. So they said, hey, we need an insurance agent that has an attorney on staff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You need a different, you need, it's sad. So yeah, it's the product is absolutely hilarious. It's 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? That's what scares me. They're probably pushing trusts on you that you don't need at that point. Yeah. You're going to $5,000 to develop this trust that you don't need. And so I think I'm looking for a new estate planning attorney and I'm going to run away from this insurance agent at high speed. Okay. Do you guys have term life? Oh, sorry. No. Well, I do to my company, but whereas 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 10th of the cost of this whole life deal. And 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 without 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 with any other money, we do other, investments. IUL included. Okay. So there's not, 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 investor pro for your investment advice that actually is an actual financial advisor. They're not an insurance agent. And you know, get with Xander, get your term insurance in place and then live on that one income and you're going to be great. So, hey, and by the way, congratulations. You have a good nose. You smelled a snake and you can, 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. That's good for you. You shouldn't get the call and someone says, hey, I got bit by a snake. I want to trust you. You know, I, 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. Purse snatchers approach you. Exactly. He approached me in a dark alleyway and told me about this great investment opportunity. You get mugged when 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. Translation. My friend just joined a multilevel. Yes. It's, and I always know it's someone they know. It's not a random thing. It's, it's always a family friend told me about this and I trusted them or my estate attorney said I can trust this person. I never heard the estate planning angle. That's different. That's interesting. Yeah. I'm wondering if they're getting a kickback off of this. Usually there's a filet mignon at the local steakhouse involved. Yeah. And that's for the annuities. That's when you get a nice dinner. You can get the IULs with that too. And 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 timeshare presentation. Kind of sad. I saw, oh, Charlie's 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 Shoney's. I'm guessing they closed down too. Whoa. You just went way off the cliff then. Careful. Personal for Dave. Down boy. Big Shoney's fan. Down boy. Man. 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 steak at home. You'll be better off than sitting through three hours of that. Get a Wagyu and you'll save money. Serious money. But just cook your own Wagyu at home. It's way cheaper than getting ripped off of 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 with 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 EveryDollarBudget 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. Download EveryDollar in the App Store or Google Play today. Liz is in Orlando. Hi, Liz. How are you? I'm good. How about you? What's up? So I have a situation where my husband let me know last night that in three weeks, instead of living in the RV, we're going to be moving into the house that's right next to the RV. It's double our. 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 a stay-at-home mom to an 11-month-old. And I just. I feel stuck. You're living in an RV. Yeah. Why? So when I had came back from trucking, because I was a trucker before this, we didn't have an apartment, but we did have enough money to buy an RV. And my mother-in-law offered to put the RV right next to their house, and it would save us money in the long run, which is what I thought. But then I. And I listened to some of your shows, and I kind of understand your belief on the RVs. But by the time I made the decision, it was. Or I heard the information, it was too late. How long have you been married? I've been married two years, and before that, we were dating for two years. How old are you? I am 24 years old. Where's your family? My family. I don't exactly have my family too close to me right now. They can't really help me. I ask where they are. They're in Kissimmee. Pretty close. by so you mean relationally they're not able to they're not willing to help you're estranged from them yeah because they're not pleased with who you chose as a husband um no they don't know i don't really tell them anything about my marriage um well i never did um but uh i just i don't so you lived with his brothers before no um so uh we we have a past when i was trucking uh one of his brothers um that's gonna move in with us um he had ran away from home and he ends up moving into our apartment um and so we gave him a list of things that he has to pay and rules he has to follow and i ended up having to pay a whole bunch of tolls and stuff because he was using my car which i allowed him to do which was dumb on my end but 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 needs 23 uh hours okay i don't know 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 are you working at all with an 11 month old no no that's fine okay um well i i don't know how to cause this family that is so messed up to suddenly not be 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 may decide negatively i don't know but um i 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 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 look 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 yeah and this is when people change their lives they change their family tree they look at the history and the history is in 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 going to happen and you guys just you need to decide what it 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 old with an 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 gonna 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 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 uh i already talked to him about that and he says that the apartments that currently are a thousand five hundred and it would be cheaper either way to live with with his brothers another option is pick the rv up and move away 20 miles away and get a 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 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 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 now you fast forward the the move that you're outlining it doesn't sound good and that's why 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'll help you even a good local women's shelter can give you some resources matter of fact i'll put you on hold christian will pick up with some of the pastors we know down there and uh we'll get some people on your corner and and that's with him with your husband or without him if he wants to help too we'll help we'll help you guys we'll see if we get some people around you that love you well you you spend hours researching before making a major purchase like a home or car but it's also a good idea to put in the work searching for the right insurance coverage to protect your biggest assets i recommend using ramsey trust.com 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 ramsey solutions.com slash insurance our scripture of the day ecclesiastes 4 9 and 10 two are better than one because they have a good return for their work if either of them falls down one can help the other up but pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them jeff parniss says about 9 11. when americans lend a hand to one another nothing is impossible we're not about what happened on 9 11 we're about what happened on 9 12 like that yeah and we're also about what happened on 9 11 i'm not going to forget 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 and the thing that we all wished at the time and we all knew all of us that were old especially knew um 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 um we knew it wouldn't last we knew the the trash and the filth and nastiness and the crazies on each side would raise up eventually and they and they have and now they're back in full control again but that moment in time when there was this beautiful unity was something else i was on the air that day i remember it was crazy absolutely crazy so um yeah 9-1-1 brings up a lot uh and a lot of you weren't even born at that point and uh wow that's kind of that's kind of wild to think about 26 years old right yeah it's been 25 years since the date so i school yeah not listening to this show unfortunately i should have been yeah come on george what kind of what kind of nerd are you if you're not listening to the show in middle school i mean that 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 i thank you so much for taking my call sure um so i am currently seventy thousand dollars in debt i just started a new career and i just found out i'm pregnant with my second child um i just want to know how i can prioritize uh paying off debt without putting myself in a worse situation a lot of i and me are you married yes but it's it's complicated um he is uh not a citizen so he's currently in his country still um with our firstborn i had just taken him out there um since i'm starting my new career um until he's able to move out here and join me when will that be um we're still in the process in the paperwork it's looking like a projected time it ranges anywhere from march of next year um until as late as august of next year so how does income work is it just your income at this point yes it's just my income at this point he doesn't work in his home country he does but how the um money um what do you call it converts it's just not enough what country is he in help um he's in egypt right now yeah okay yeah um yeah so you're waiting on a visa and a green card so that he's legal to earn an income in the united 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 um so i just graduated um in accounting so i just started a new accounting career making 82 000 a year awesome so that's double what i was making before that's great what kind of debt's the 70 grand oh okay so um it is 43 000 um in student loans um and about 6 280 for credit cards um i took out a title loan which was so dumb um and that is three thousand dollars and then i have a buy now pay later um loan for one thousand eight hundred dollars um and then uh there's credit cards and collections that are like this a little bit over fifteen thousand dollars fifteen grand in collections okay so you're not paying anything on that right now they're in collections no not and you're not paying anything on a student loan right now because it's been in hardship um no they're in yeah they're in deferment yeah and so all we're dealing with is six thousand dollars in credit cards a two thousand dollar um buy now pay 18 buy now pay later and and that's on the car on furniture and the oh sorry the three thousand dollar uh title title loan for the car yeah okay so um and and are you renting or what yes i'm renting and my rent is 13.89 per month okay good okay well i want to make as much progress as i can in the next few weeks uh before um 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 and i want your entire budget to be in cash and i want your entire budget to be in cash and 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 right now i mean i think you can clear that title one loan in one month i think so too um i haven't gotten the first check yet because i just started um about two and a half weeks ago but uh yeah i think that can 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 the rest and do nothing else no investing no you don't no 401ks no investing no nothing do you have any money in savings no i don't okay so we're going to get rid of the title one that's thing one you have a working car that'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 yeah and then clear the 1800 buy 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 dumb decisions okay yeah and so what i want you to do then is to start after you pay up the buy now pay now and you've uh pay minimums on the credit cards and nothing on the ones in collection nothing on the student loans and uh 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 20 000 bucks by the time the baby comes and um 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 low deductible and i 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 low deductible you may switch to the low deductible if you don't have the maternity benefits and you need the most in a couple of years back to the high deductible but probably you're going to be on the low deductible 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 gonna 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 i'm also new to the area no you gotta start working on that where's your where's your family um they i have family that's in on the east coast yeah well do they know you have a baby on the way no i 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 okay so you got to create a village from scratch yeah you need to you need to get in touch with a good church and you need to get uh 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 visa and green card probably it's probably what you're because we can't really lose this great job that puts us our the ramsey show in the books we'll be back with you before you know it in the meantime remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the prince of peace christ jesus