Life Happens. Are You Going To Be Ready for It?
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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Deloney, Ph.D. in Counseling, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, number one best-selling author. He's my co-host today. Jackson's with us in Vancouver. Hi, Jackson. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi there. Thanks for having me on today. Sure, man. What's up? Well, you know, I'm a big fan of your guys' show, so I thought I'd give you a phone call. I've been making some pretty good money working up here. I work as a heavy-duty mechanic, and last year I made just shy of $200,000 a year. And I'm debt-free, but I don't have any sort of a financial plan. And I feel like I make too much money to not have some sort of a plan, and I don't want to feel like a fool who squanders a fortune.

Good for you. Very wise. How old are you? I'm 25 years old. Some of the guys you work with have never even had the thought that you've had. They spend their whole life working their butts off, and thank God it's Friday. Oh, God, it's Monday and got nothing to show for it. So you're very wise. You got a huge head start at 25. Congratulations. Just asking the question puts you in the top 5%, dude. Yeah, that's kind of why I'm trying to ask the question because I set a pretty high standard for myself. Oh.

No, it's not that high, but it's, I mean, but you're way ahead of the game. You're way ahead of the game. So, you know, what you're finding is this, and the way you pose the question is very wise. Dr. Stephen Covey wrote a book that was vastly popular for about 30 years. It was on the New York Times and on the bestseller list for years and years and years called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

the number one habit of the seven was that highly effective people are proactive. They happen to things instead of it happening to them. And so that's the position of your question. You are now going to happen to your money instead of it leaving and you having no idea where it went. And John Maxwell used to say that a budget is people telling their money what to do instead of wondering where it went.

And so instead of saying ready, fire, aim, we're going to say ready, aim, fire.

And so we're going to write it down before the month begins where every dollar is going to go using the EveryDollar app, the world's best budgeting app. It's free for you to download. And, you know, give EveryDollar an assignment. Contract with yourself. If you have a spouse, contract with your spouse that this is we're in agreement. This is what we're going to do with the money. And then we're going to make the money do that.

I'm often asked by reporters, what's the number one mistake people make with money? And the answer, they think it's going to be credit cards or student loans or something. No, the answer is they're not intentional. And so we're going to flip this for you and say you're going to become a very intentional. And then that's going to lead you to get out of debt, to save, to invest, to have the proper insurance in place. It's going to lead you to make smart decisions because you actually are paying attention.

instead of a sleep at the wheel. So that's where we start. And so, because right now you just throw the money in the account and then when it's empty, you quit spending.

Yeah, I mean, for the most part, I don't really, like, I get my paychecks and I pay my bills with it, and then I don't really look at my account all that much. I just kind of know there's always a good chunk of change in there. And it usually fluctuates between $15,000 and $25,000, just kind of up and down from there. But it's not really going ahead from there because I'm kind of just living, you know. And I need to make some sort of a plan, I thought, because I'm making way too much money. Again.

You have the symptoms of someone who's getting ready to spend. You're saying the words of someone who's getting ready to change their life. You have a healthy disgust. You're like, I make too much money. I work too hard to be this broke. I'm dissatisfied. And so you're ready to change. That's perfect, man. Absolutely. Jackson, if you could close your eyes and imagine 30-year-old Jackson, what would your life look like?

Would you have a house? Would you have your own business where you got two employees working for you? What would that look like?

I guess if I were to close my eyes and dream about it, it'd probably be, yeah, a house and some sort of a business. I work as a mechanic, so some sort of a mobile mechanic truck. That's kind of the dream for me. So most people have these things that float in and out of their heads. You, you're laying under a truck, turning wrenches. You got somebody's podcast on and maybe your drive to work, your drive home. You've got this. Man, one day I want to have a thing.

What's really cool is when somebody in your position, because most people we talk to are, man, they've got a couple years ahead of them to just get to zero, right? You're ahead of the curve. I would love for you to spend some time, and this sounds so cheesy, man, so just go with me.

picturing yourself at 30 within your own house and what that house would look like and then get online and find out how much that house would cost. And then, as Dave says, you start being intentional about

Man, going out with the boys on the weekend is fun and cool, but dude, I have a picture of the house, so I'm not going to blow $11,000 at various bars this year. That 11 grand is going to go into an account because I want to have X dollars, so when I'm 30, I'm walking into my house that I own and nobody else owns it. Yeah, what's it cost to buy and equip this truck?

Yeah, so you want to have a real firm picture. Detail it out. Get a picture of it and put it on the refrigerator. Yeah, you'll get married, and that picture's going to change because you're all going to do one together, but that's where that intentionality, it gives you a map towards a thing you want to get to. Does that make sense? Yeah, John's right. When you dream in HD, in high definition, where you can see the sweat coming out of the pores of the players, you want to dream in great detail.

as to what it's going to look like, what it's going to feel like when you walk in that house. How are you going to stand there?

When you walk in there, your chest is going to be out. Your shoulder is going to be back. That's right. You're going to be slumped over with your head down. And your buddy is going to come over to your house to hang out, not paying some bar owner to go into their facility, right? It's just a different thing. Or you and your wife are going to walk into this house when you're 30. Yeah, and it's a safe place for you and your kids, that kind of thing. Have you found – so something that has come up a few times over the last couple of years is people get this HD picture and they strangle it.

And I'm starting to wonder if having that HD picture is step one and then step two is having the discipline or the patience to hold that pretty loosely too.

You get what I'm saying? Oh, yeah, because it's never going to be exactly what it is. Listen, you don't want the house that you think of as a 25-year-old. Well, because they don't make them like they used to. Thank God. Right, exactly. You don't want the microwave from 1972. Yes. You want the one from today. Right, right, right. You don't want the toaster oven from 1972. You want the steam oven from today. Right. Whatever it is. You don't want... Skylights used to be real popular, and then we found out they were pretty cheesy and they leak. Right.

And so people don't want to – Waterbeds were cool. Dude, I found out someone on our team still has a waterbed. Don't say their name. I'm not going to say their name. Don't shame them in front of millions of people. They should be ashamed, but whoa. But like get this real clear picture and get a path towards it and then hold it pretty loosely. Yeah, and then change it. So in other words, I – I'll give you an example of that. That's very cool. So when I was 17, I saw – the first time I saw that little two-seater Mercedes. Mm-hmm.

that little hot, hot rod, you know, and, um,

I saw one the other day. I'm glad I never got it. You just laughed at it? Yeah. But, you know, what that meant was, though, I wanted a really cool, nice car. Right. Because I'm a car guy. Yeah. And today I drive a really nice, cool two-seater car. One of my cars. A couple of them. And so, you know, but it's not that car. It's not that car. It's not even a Mercedes. But it's the direction, right? Yeah. So it changes. Thank God. They don't make them like they used to. Thank God. This is The Ramsey Show.

You know, one of the first things I discovered working in the financial world is how absolutely devastating it is when the breadwinner of a family dies and there's too little life insurance or none at all. Grieving families are suddenly left behind scrambling to pay bills and trying to make ends meet.

I also discovered that there are a lot of ripoffs in the life insurance world like that whole life crap posing as an investment opportunity. What you need is level term life insurance, usually 10 to 12 times your income, which is the smartest, most affordable way to protect yourself.

Thank you.

So you know they'll be there when you need them. Zander is the real deal, and that's why they've handled all my personal insurance for over 25 years. I trust them, and you can too. Visit Zander.com for instant online quotes or for a more personal touch. Give them a call at 800-356-4282. John's in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, John, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Thank you for having me. I hope you're doing well. I am. How about you? I'm doing a bit better, a bit worse, but it's going in the right direction. Good. How can we help today? I was trying to get some advice. So I don't know if it'd be better to pay off the debt on my truck or pay down the negative equity on my wife's vehicle so that we can get her into a different vehicle. Okay. What do you owe on your truck?

I owe $20,000 on my truck. And what's it worth? $27,000. Okay, cool. And what's your wife's car worth? $32,000. Okay, and what do you owe on it? $57,000. How in the heck? Yeah. You must have rolled negative equity from the last bad deal into it. A couple of the last bad deals. Yeah, okay. We've been stacking them. We stacked them on her car. Okay.

Stupid. It's layers of stupid. Okay. Wow. We've not been very good stewards of what we've been given. What do you guys make? What's your household income? We've made about $140,000 last year. Okay. And what other debts have you got?

So we owe $246,000 on our house, and then we owe $1,800 on my truck's bed cover. And then there's just the two vehicles, that's it. Okay. Well, obviously the $1,800, you pay that off immediately, okay? Yeah, I'm going to pay that off. In next month's budget, okay. And then, let's see, we've got $77,000 in car debt.

Yes. Can you just sell your truck, take $5,000 of that $7,000 and go buy a $5,000 get-around car? So actually I sold my other truck. This is the better end of it. I actually had a much more expensive truck and bought this truck to downgrade. Yeah, but you're not all the way at the bottom yet. It actually cleared up like $16,000. But you still owe $20,000 on it, right? Yeah.

Yes. Here's a rule of thumb. 77 out of 140. If I like the cars and I'm willing to fight to keep them, the rule of thumb that we use mathematically is this. Can I be debt-free everything but the house in two years without selling a car? And the answer to that question is yes, you can.

Okay. So you can pay off $77,000 making 140 in two years. Pretty easy. That's only 35,000, 38,000 a year. Okay. So that, that's pretty doable. Matter of fact, you ought to do it in about 18 months and, and knock it out really, really, really, really, really fast. Um, so then the question you asked was, which one do we pay off first? You pay off your truck first because it's the smaller of the two debts. If you're trying to get rid of her car, you're,

20,000 versus 20,000 then. Yeah, 25,000 versus 20,000. Are you sure your 32 valuation is correct? It is. We went to six different dealerships trying to get out of this car. That's what they offered you? The best one offered us 32. Okay, that's not a retail. That's a wholesale trade-in value. Yes, sir. That means you could private sell that for 37. Yes.

Probably, yes. Well, that's the number. I mean, no. Dealers don't pay retail. They buy it at trade-in because they're going to sell it at retail. So it doesn't matter is the answer to your question which one you do. You've got to do both of them in the next 18 months. And so $57,000, I'm sorry, yeah, $77,000, let's call it $80,000 in a year and a half.

Okay. And so, um, that, that's what I want to do. And then I'm just going to divide that out and I'm going to get with it. And so, uh, that's going to sound like 4,000, $5,000 a month at these things. Well, the thing is we actually just came into some pretty good money. Um, well, Barry's the lead lead with that one, homie, what'd you come into? Oh, I'm sorry. Well, so,

So when I sold my truck, I got all my warranties back from the other dealerships. We got about $6,000 from them. And then my wife started a new job and she got a sign on bonus of $12,000. She got half of it just now. So we have roughly 30 in the bank right now. You got 30 in the bank right now?

Yes. Okay. Pay off your truck today and pay off the 1800. And then let's start attacking her car with everything in the budget.

Okay. Yeah. And you take your, take your savings all the way down to $1,000, which is your baby step one. Baby step two is pay off all debts, smallest to largest, except the house. But you're, you only have one debt left after tomorrow. So we're going to pay off, pay off your stuff. And then you're stuck with her car. And, and here's what I want you to do. Okay. Here's what I do in these situations. And so when I do stuff like this, I, and, and,

every time you write a huge check towards $57,000 on her car, and you need to do this in well under a year, okay? So you need to be putting $5,000 a month on her car because you don't have your car payment anymore after tomorrow.

Every time you send a check for $5,000 on that, I want you to cuss yourself under your breath. I was going to say hit yourself in the face, but Dave's is probably safer. Because what I do is every time, because every time, I used to write on a check in the four column, stupid tax. Yeah. Because I'm paying stupid tax right here because I did a stupid thing. And by the time you finish paying off this car, you'll be so pissed off, you will never do this again.

That's how I do it to myself. It's not destroying my identity and I'm not shaming myself or condemning myself. It's I want to learn this lesson so it never happens again. So the next time a car dealer says,

towards you, you know, he could get hurt. I mean, it's just like, we're not, get away from me because you don't do well on car lots. I can tell. Yes. You've gotten, gotten beat up. Dave, I actually love that. I love that. And you, cause you'll do it with a smile on your face, but it's a, you

You are taking a moment to sound woo-woo. You are taking a mindful moment to absorb the consequence of you not making good choices. And that's important. It keeps you from doing it again. Exactly. We're trying to break the cycle. Let's put some new grooves in the brain patterns. Yeah.

and the neuroscience here. You've got $20,000 of dead money. That should hurt for four months when you write $5,000 checks. It's a stack of three bad car deals stacked on top of each other. So, yeah, enjoy that ride out because it's going to be your last one, in other words. That's what I want you to do.

And yeah, just, and I'm not picking on you. I have done dumber things than you've done. I'm just saying, learn the lesson. If you're going to get the scars, if you're going to get the bruises, at least learn the lesson. Yes. Permanently. And so, you know, we used to, somebody would call and go, you know, I've messed up my credit. I would always say, good. Yep. Keeps you from getting more. Yeah. Now, and you're only 23. You can learn, you've got the whole rest of your life to live without worrying about that.

One less thing, as Forrest Gump used to say. Dave, can we just say this out loud? Rolling negative equity on a depreciating asset, I can't think of a dumber way to set money on fire in your house.

Well, and that's not picking on John. It's all of us that have done that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not just poking on him, but the thought that that's an option. Yeah. It's just madhouse. And what it is, it's just stacking stupid. Yeah. I mean, we got stacks of stupid here, three deep. And yeah, and here's the thing overall. The whole thing of car payments falls in that category. Right, there you go. It's the largest item in America that we buy that goes down in value.

The only thing we buy that's larger is a home. Yeah. I mean, 98% of people anyway, right? And we buy a $40,000, a $50,000 car, and it loses 60% to 70% of its value in the first four years. And so you're setting money on fire when you buy a new car to start with. That's if you pay cash for it. But let's go ahead and finance it so that we're upside down while it's burning to the ground.

And, you know, and let's just make sure we pay some interest. Or worse than that, let's lease it the most expensive way to possibly operate a vehicle. And then the brakes squeak and the dealer says, oh, you should, I can just put you in a new one. Yeah. If you just give me this one, we'll roll it. Well, yeah, man, it's getting a mess. I've always got to have a new car, except for those months when I was driving that car and it was used. But yeah. Yeah.

Golly. The things we say. Yeah, don't buy brand new cars unless you have a net worth of a million dollars or more. And don't buy cars unless you can pay cash for them. And they should not, all the things that you own with motors and wheels should not total more than half your annual income. You have too much tied up in things going the wrong way. You're going to be broke people your whole life.

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Doing well, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my wife and I were wondering if I should stop investing 10% into my 401k and continue to save in order to get close to the 20% down payment on a house. Okay. We call that baby step 3B. 3 is your emergency fund, fully funded. We're not touching that.

Four is putting 15%, baby step four, of your income into retirement. You're currently putting in 10. So sometimes people, before they start baby step four, putting 15% away, don't start it for a short period of time and use that cash like you're talking about to build up the down payment. Or they put in less cash.

in their 401k and use the difference temporarily for one or two years to save up the down payment. So the answer to your question is yes, but as soon as you get that down payment in place, baby step four kicks in and it's 15% of your household income going into retirement at that point.

Okay. She's currently in vet school. So we have the, we're the only, I'm the only line of income right now making 83,000 a year. And we've got 70,000 in savings, 8,800 and 401k. And I've got 35 K set aside for emergency funds.

So we were looking in our area, the houses we were going to buy were around $300,000. And I was basing that off of being able to put down 20%, which would be 60K. And once she starts her job, we should be close to $200,000. Do you think that's reasonable? Yeah, because you'll knock that little bitty debt out real fast and have a paid-for house. Okay. Once she starts, right? Once she graduates.

Next May. So we're looking to buy as soon as she graduates. What's her practice plan? Is she going to join a local practice, or does she know? She's going to work for between five to eight years and then open up her own business and become a business owner. Yeah, but has she got a place to do that?

Yes, yes. She's had job offers anywhere from $100,000 to $120,000 with a $75,000 signing bonus. That's pretty standard for vets, yeah. And she'll be making $200,000 in five years. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, that's a great field. So good for her. Good for you. Well done. Yeah, and so if you're buying a $300,000 house, you're putting down $60,000, that's $240,000, and then you start making $200,000, and that's your only debt? Man, you're going to knock that out pretty quick. Agreed? Agreed.

I hope so. That's the plan. Yeah, and then save up and pay cash and move up in-house later. Once you're making $300,000 or $400,000 in the household and you've got no debt on that house, you can sell that house for $500,000 by then, put some money with it, and buy a million-dollar house. You'll be able to do that. That's going to be your future out there 10 years. Yeah, if you pay that house off real fast, Drew, when she gets done, the biggest thing I see when people graduate with their big graduate degrees, whether it's an MD or a nurse practitioner or a vet,

is their colleagues all drive really fancy cars and they all have huge houses that they go to at Christmas. And you start thinking, am I doing something wrong? We need to get a different house or a bigger house. If y'all can stay in that $300,000 house and pay it off in a year and a half,

and she starts socking away that house payment for the purchase of a practice in eight years or her own metal building that she's going to turn into a shop, man, then y'all win. What I see vets do is they go and they get a big house and then they borrow a million dollars to buy into a practice or to start their own. And then they're just up to their eyes and ears in debt. And so, man, you guys have a chance to do this thing. Or they buy a $95,000 dually because they have a large animal practice. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

So you can get out over your skis on this or you can look up in 10 years, have a paid for nice house, a paid for practice, and you are just in gravy train. Yeah, because you don't care what anybody else thinks. That's right.

Yeah, you're on track, dude. You're really thinking this through. You've done a great job, by the way. Yeah. You're way ahead of the curve already, and then your questions are excellent. And cheers to cash flow and a vet degree, man. That puts you in the rear air, my brother. That's awesome. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Sherry's in Atlanta. Hi, Sherry. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey.

Hi, I had a question. My husband and I are both getting closer to retirement. I'm 62, he's 67. We have two small insurance policies I was thinking about cashing in. Mine is a universal life insurance policy. It's the death benefit is 66,000. And if I cashed it in, it's like 15,000. His is a whole life policy.

um if he cashes it in it's like ten thousand dollars and the death benefit is fourteen thousand they both had very low monthly premiums mine's like 25 a month and his is fourteen dollars a month yeah because you don't have any insurance so um that's why you don't have any premiums the uh uh what's your nest egg um well we got a late start or he did he was a

His plan was the rapture plan. I'm the nerd, and I've saved about $800,000. Oh, he was going to leave you behind. Okay. So you were smart. You got $800,000 saved. Good for you. God, he married well, Sherry. Is your house paid off? We owe about $15,000. $16,000? You got that in checking? $15,000.

Yes, we do. I have about $60,000 in savings. Yeah, pay it today. Okay. And do you need life insurance if he dies? I've got just term life insurance. Your house is worth what? $500,000. Your house is worth what? About $500,000.

About $550,000. Okay, and you've got a million dollars saved almost. Okay, so you've got a million and a half dollar net worth. You're 61 years old. He's 67. If he dies today, can you make it without the $14,000 policy? Yes. Sherry, you've crushed it, man. You follow me? Excellent job. Okay, so that means you are self-insured and you can cancel this policy. You've got the one through work that's a little extra. Is that on you or him?

um the 600 through work is me he's got one um that um is about 250 but his expires when he turns 70 mine expires when i quit work good okay either way if they expire you're fine okay but you don't cancel because well you don't need to cancel them they're free right the ones that work no i

No, the one I paid, a supplemental one. It's like, I don't know, $125 a month. It's just some term insurance, some ART at work. Right. Okay. Yes, you have enough insurance and enough assets to care for you without these two policies. Is that a true statement? Yes, I think so. These two little policies. Oh, the little policies. The little ones you called me about. If they disappear, if you don't get that money, you're just fine. You're not even going to notice. Yeah. Yeah.

That didn't sound convincing. Like 66,000. Your kids have $800,000. And a half a million dollar house. You don't need 66,000 from a rip-off whole life company. No, I cancel both of these immediately because you are easily under control without them. Okay. And pay off the house today anyway.

And then if I paid off the house, do you think the monthly house payment that we're making, should I just go ahead and take that amount every month and start piling it in my 401k? Why not? Wouldn't hurt a thing. Sherry, will you make me a promise? Okay. My mom's a little bit older than you, but I'm going to pretend you're my mom for a second. Will you do me a favor? Sure.

Sure. Will you pay your house off today and cash out both of those policies and take you and that rapture husband of yours out on a vacation or at least a real fancy, fancy dinner?

Well, we're planning to do our last big whoopty before he retires here. We're doing like an Iceland-Norway. Oh, good. I like that. Coming up in May. That's good. That makes me happy for you. While you're there, buy a ridiculous bottle of wine. Yes. Yeah. You're millionaires, kiddo. You did it. You've been white-knuckling this thing for a long time. You've been holding it so tight. And you're sweating over a $14,000 policy. Cancel it! Pay off your house today! Today!

Wow, that's so cool. Good for you guys. You're heroes. Man, I love America. For free tools and resources to help you reach your home goals, go to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate or click the link in the show notes.

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That's churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Glenn is with us in Moore, Oklahoma. He is one of the many teachers across America teaching Ramsey's Foundations in Personal Finance to high schoolers.

So we wanted to have him on and talk about that a minute. Hey, Glenn, thanks for doing that, man. Hey, you're welcome. I enjoy what I do, and it's all because of you. Well, no, I mean, you're the one in the classroom dealing with all this. It's pretty cool. So you're in Moore, Oklahoma. Is it Moore High School then? Yes, it is. It's Moore High School. Where is Moore in Oklahoma?

uh right south of oklahoma city by about 18 20 miles so we're literally a part of oklahoma city i got you okay we were a little bit east of there in ada the other day for a funeral okay oh wow that's pretty close yeah right in that right in the neighborhood there yeah so uh how many students are enrolled in the high school uh 2600 oh it's a big school all right cool how many in your class

I teach two sessions of your class right now, and then I teach three other classes. But right now I have 25 a class, so I've got 50 kids in total with doing the foundations class. Cool. Thank you for doing that, man. We really appreciate it. How long have you been doing that?

I've been teaching financial literacy for 13 years and with yours the last three years. Okay. And I won't teach it any other way besides your way. Wow. Well, thank you. Thank you. So how much do the kids challenge you like, hey, Mr. So-and-so, do you really do this?

They ask me all the time, and I always tell them, I say, well, I was just like Dave. I was once, you know, made my way, then I had to file bankruptcy, and I learned the hard way, and then come back out, and then I can be that person that can give the real truth and the honest answers to the kids, and that's the only way I believe in teaching. Yeah. Well, I'm...

And you're teaching, the thing we always hear, and I bet you've heard it as well, is that the kids like the class because it's something they can actually realize they're going to use. The Pythagorean theorem, maybe not, but definitely knowing how to balance a checkbook for sure. A hundred percent, and that's kind of what I tell them. I said it's the most relevant class they'll ever take in high school because every day they'll deal with money. Glenn, how much do you have to deal with parents' money?

Who challenge you on a credit card deal or a car lease or something like that? I don't have any challenges like that, but I do challenge my students with that.

And, you know, because I ask for insight from the kids and when we talk and stuff like that. And there's not – there's only when we do an inter-teacher conference that parents come in. And then when we sit down, we start talking that they find out exactly what we're talking about because I open up everything to them. I show them everything that we do in the class. And they're like, oh, my gosh, I wish we would have had this when we were in high school. And I said, exactly. Exactly.

What do you would like? So whenever I see politicians or even me and my team, we get in a room and we're talking about what quote unquote these kids these days are dealing with. You're in there every day when it comes to money. What are these high school kids like? Obviously, they don't know about credit scores. I don't know about debt. They don't know about that kind of stuff. But what do you see them really worrying about?

Food and shelter. I mean, that's the biggest things. I mean, I try to talk to them about cars, but, you know, with a school of 2,600 kids, we are, you know,

Pretty large school, and a lot of kids just worry about having a job to help their families out get by. They bring to me their employers. They'll try to bring me a W-4 and tax information to help them fill it out, to try to get them a resume built, anything like that. That's amazing. And Glenn and Dave, we continue to hear that, that there's all of this rhetoric about all this other stuff going on.

And the average American in their high school kids who, by the way, if you're a parent of high schoolers, they're absorbing everything is, hey, how are we going to buy eggs? Right. How are we going to how are we going to buy groceries? And so, man, I'm so grateful that you're there walking alongside them. That's amazing. That's beautiful, man. Thank you so much for doing this. We really appreciate it. And we got a we got a sponsor. First United Bank and Trust apparently bought the curriculum and donated it to the school. Right.

Yes, sir. We are very honored to have that done for us. Yeah, that makes a big difference as well, because we've got lots of local businesses all around the U.S. that step up and buy the foundations for foundations and personal finance for the local school. And that helps a teacher like Glenn be able to teach this to 100 students a year. Three years. So you've got some graduates out there in the wild that have been through our stuff. You hear back from any of them? Yes. And a lot of them come back and, you know, they're

The first thing I always talk about, um, of course is, is income. But I talk about the investing aspect that they have a savings account, open up a mutual fund, you know, like you talk about and then kids take their, take their money out of a savings account because it's drawing nothing and you're just wasting it. And kids will come back and be like, Hey, Mr. Fred, I'm so happy that I had your class that I invested this money. And, uh, and I'm,

Not having to pay for things outside right now because I've got grants and scholarships that you talked about, the easy way to pay for school. Oklahoma Promise, they went through all the things that we try to cover in class and get across to them and they come back. I'm just amazed with the

with the knowledge that some of these kids come back with and the, you know, their blessing basically coming back. I mean, because that's what it is to me is it's a blessing that I'm able to teach this and get this out to the students and then they in turn come back and let me know that they're being successful. Wow.

I'm proud of you, man. You're a hero. I remember high school distinctly that there were only two categories of teachers, those that mailed it in and everybody couldn't stand them, and the teachers that really gave a crap and were all up in the kids' lives and helping us move to the next level, and you're that guy. You're the one that they'll remember the rest of their lives. I can name them still, and it was 45 years ago. I can name you exactly who was there that made a difference, and I strangely have forgotten the other ones.

But yeah, the ones like you, they're embedded into our psyche because that's the

the power of being a teacher for an adolescent. Absolutely fabulous. Thank you, sir. We appreciate you so much. For any of you teachers listening, you can enter the Ramsey Teacher Appreciation Giveaway. It's free to enter. No purchase is necessary. One teacher is going to win a $5,000 vacation because we love teachers. And two more teachers are going to win a $3,000 vacation each.

Go to ramseysolutions.com slash teacher to enter. April is National Financial Literacy Month, and we celebrate that by celebrating teachers and highlighting men and women like Glenn in the classroom. And just to stop and say, hey, we appreciate you. We appreciate the fact that our stuff's being taught, and there's no other way it would get taught.

Changing gears, let's face it, our money and relationships in America are out of whack. Dr. John Deloney to my right, and I will be in six cities coming up starting in about two weeks. We're going to be in Louisville, Kentucky, April the 21st, doing live events. And you're going to pick the subjects in the audience before we get up there. In the 30 minutes before the curtain goes up, we're going to put a list of stuff out that John can talk, I can talk, or we can talk together. You're going to pick them, and then we're going to do them at

ad hoc. We're going to throw it together and do a show that night. So none of these shows will be alike. It's going to be very fun, very interesting. Louisville, Kentucky, April 21. Durham, April 23. Atlanta, April 25. That's Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Two weeks later, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday is Phoenix, May 5. Fort Worth, May 7. Kansas City, May 9. You can get your tickets. They're not sold out, but they're getting close. Go to ramsaysolutions.com slash tour.

Or click the show notes on YouTube or podcast and make sure you line up. John, that's going to be really fun. It's going to be wild in the streets, man. That last planning meeting we had, I left...

I love pretty excited. Yeah. It'll be a fun show. Well, you and I both like making stuff up on the fly. So as opposed to following the rules, but yeah, that's, and that's what we're going to do. It's not, not, I mean, it's not made up, but I'm saying the, we're not coming in and talking at you. We're saying, what do you want to learn about? And whatever you want to learn about tonight, we'll teach you. And it's going to be very interactive and a high, high experience, uh,

process that's different than maybe you've ever been to. So I'm looking forward to it. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. So make sure you get your tickets at RamseySolutions.com. Get signed up while you can.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, you've heard me say it a thousand times, and I'm going to keep saying it. You're worth being well. And listen, therapy can help. I see a therapist, and let's be honest, a lot of you should too. But let's be real. Taking that first step to see a therapist can feel overwhelming. Maybe it's the time. Maybe you have some preconceived notions about therapy. Maybe it's the cost.

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Listen, your well-being is worth it. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Deloney to get started. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, Ph.D. in Counseling,

Host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, very popular show on the Ramsey Network. He's my co-host today as we answer your questions about your life and your money. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Jessica is in Richmond, Virginia. Hi, Jessica. How are you? Hi, Dave. Hi, John. Thank you so much for taking my call. Our pleasure. What's up?

I just found out recently that I am scheduled to go to court in May because Bank of America wants to garnish my paycheck. And I just don't know what to do. I can't afford to have 25% of my paycheck garnished every two weeks. I don't know if there's anything I can do to prevent it, or I don't know where to go from here. Okay. What do you owe Bank of America?

My ex-husband ran a credit card years ago. It's about $10,000, a little less than $10,000. Okay. And how long has it been since you paid them? Oh, years, years. How many years? Like almost, it's like eight or nine years old. Good. That's wonderful. Okay. And so this has your name on the credit card and your ex-husband's name on the credit card.

His name is not on the credit card. The credit card is only in my name. The divorce decree, require he pay any of it? No, everybody just got their own debt and their own name in the divorce. Okay, except that his debt has got your name on it, but other than that, yeah, okay. Exactly, yeah. What do you make? $1,700 every two weeks to take home. Okay, and how many kids have you got? Three. What ages?

Two are older. One is elementary school age. Older, as in over 20 and they're not your problem? Correct. Okay. Well, technically, yes. No, technically they're not your problem. One still lives at home, but he's over 20. Okay. And he needs a job and needs to be buying his own stuff. Yeah, okay. So 1,700. What do you do for a living? Broad description in social work.

Okay. All right. And in one elementary school. You got any family in the area? None to speak of, no, sir. I'm guessing you have no money. Just the $1,000 emergency fund. Okay. How much other debt do you have?

I owe my dad about $6,000 for a car. I have about $2,500 in collections and medical debt and about four separate student loans that total about $26,000. When did you get divorced? The divorce was finalized a few years ago, probably.

I don't even remember, like 2022 or something like that. All right. Now, so they have sued you and asked you to come to court. Has there already been a court date prior to this one? It was years ago. It was years ago. I don't remember when it was, but it was a really long time ago. I wasn't able to go to court that time because I was in the middle of a foreclosure. So did they take a judgment lien at that time?

That's my understanding, but it never showed up on my credit report, so I don't know. Okay. I assume yes, because now I'm being garnished. Well, no, you're not being garnished yet. There's a hearing for you to be garnished. Maybe. There may be a hearing to renew the judgment.

Okay. So the judgment has to be complete and then they execute on the judgment by collecting any assets. And one of the ways they execute is a garnishment. Okay. And so I'm not sure exactly what your court date is because you're not. It sounds like though that they're trying to reaffirm

reinvigorate an ancient judgment lien in order to execute on it and file a garnishment. It sounds like they're going to do that, but they're not garnishing. It's not automatic that this is going to happen.

Okay, so first thing I want to do is I want to really dig in, call the courthouse and ask to talk to the judge's assistant or the judge's paralegal and find out exactly what the status of this account is. And do you have a judgment and ask her how the procedure works? There's her or him. They one of the clerks in the judge's office will walk you through what's going on here.

and you've got to become an expert in 20 minutes on a tiny couple of legal maneuvers, okay? And then ask them, I've got kids at home, I'm broke, I'm a single mom, what can I do about this garnishment to keep it from happening if they're actually going to do that? Because Bank of America said it's going to happen does not mean it's going to happen because you can tell a Bank of America credit card collector is lying if their mouth is moving, okay? They are scum.

They lie, cheat, and steal every day. That's why no one should ever do business with that bank. They're filthy, all right? And so I don't know, based on what they did to scare you, because you're scared. We can hear it in your voice. They accomplished that goal, but I'm not sure that they told you the truth. As a matter of fact, I'm fairly sure they didn't, okay? Now... I mean... I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. I don't mean to knock you. You're fine. I was just going to say, it's just...

My ex-husband was extremely abusive, and now just having this brought up again is just bringing it all back. It's emotional. I don't blame you. I just want it to go away. I want it to go away too, but it's not going to until we deal with it. It's not going to go away by ignoring it. We found that out over the last five years. Jessica, your divorce was finalized two years ago. Can I give you a promise? Okay. Avoiding this again just reinforces that sense of powerlessness that you feel.

And we live in a culture that says just avoid anything uncomfortable, and it's burying people. And so here's my promise to you. If you'll find a friend, find a coworker, take him to coffee and say, I've never told anybody this. I got this judgment, this horrible thing. Will you walk alongside me? A, you're going to give somebody the greatest gift another person can give somebody, which is the question, can you help me?

And do the same thing with your pastor at your church. Yep. And you go tell them what's going on and see if they'll help you. Now, all of that to say, now let's go to the end of it. Here's what we're going to do. They will take, because the probability of them collecting this is close to zero, 98% of the people facing what you're facing file bankruptcy and they get zero.

You don't need to file bankruptcy over this. You do need to scrape together $1,500 or $2,000 right quick, selling some stuff, take an extra job or three. Tell your 20-year-old to go get a job. Tell your 20-year-old to get three jobs. We got to scrape together maybe the church chip in and help you a little bit. We need to scrape together $1,500 or $2,000 and offer that to them as a lump sum settlement. They will say, glory hallelujah, I got some money out of this woman. I didn't think I was ever going to get a dime. And they will take that as a settlement in full. And the whole thing goes away.

That's how you settle this, and it goes away. The only other thing you can do to stop a garnishment is file bankruptcy, and I wouldn't do that. I would fight them tooth and nail. I'd go down there, get in the judge's face. I'm going to learn all about this. I'm going to make this my new hobby, and I'm going to put this abusive crap in the rearview mirror permanently. So the good news is you haven't paid on it in a long time, and they will settle for pennies on the dollar. 15% to 20% will settle this on a four-year-old debt.

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So stop paying more and start shopping smarter at Aldi. Find a store near you today at Aldi.us. That's A-L-D-I dot U-S. All right, I want to shout out our teachers for a minute. You guys give so much to our kids every day. And often those days stretch into your nights and weekends. Seriously, you deserve a break.

And by that, I mean a dream vacation. All you have to do is enter the Ramsey Teacher Appreciation Giveaway sponsored by Ramsey Education. There's no purchase needed to win and you'll get bonus entries if you refer your teacher friends. Just go to ramseysolutions.com slash teacher. That's ramseysolutions.com slash teacher.

Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Y Refi. Before I do that, I'm going to stop. I meant to do something coming back from that. Okay, so some people listening to that last call are like, Bank of America will settle for 15 cents on the dollar on a four-year-old debt. The answer is absolutely, and I'll give you the proof.

A couple of years ago, I think about three years ago, four years ago now, we decided to do something weird at Ramsey as part of our Christmas celebration for our team. And I've worked with and negotiated old bad debt on the behalf of clients at anywhere from $0.05 or $0.10 or $0.20 or $0.30 on the dollar for 30 years.

to get people out of debt that were broke like that poor lady and scared like that poor lady. So I knew that market was there, and we contacted, you can buy old bad debt in bulk, and there are companies that buy old bad credit card debt and then try to collect it. And you buy it at pennies on the dollar and try to collect it at dimes on the dollar, and you make the spread if they're a debt buyer. That's what they do. So we bought $10 million worth

worth of bad credit card repossession and medical debt for $259,000. That's two and a half cents on the dollar. So we paid two pennies, three pennies on the dollar for $10 million worth of debt. There were 8,000 accounts and we did it to forgive it.

It was part of our Christmas deal. So we've got 1,000 team members. We gave each of them eight people to call and say, you know that debt?

it's forgiven in jesus name we bought it and we're forgiving it in jesus name merry christmas and that was our christmas fun that was awesome and we had so much fun with it it was so people were crying they thought we were con artists they didn't believe us it was so fun but we but you know the point is not that we're wonderful people although that was a very fun thing to do but the uh that's not the point the point is we bought that for two and a half cents on the dollar and

And that was, you know, many times a car that was repoed four years ago, three years ago. They don't think they're going to collect it. That's the point. And so when someone gets that far under, very seldom does the bank ever get their money. If they do corner someone like they did her, put them in court, they typically file bankruptcy and they get zero. So that's what normally happens. So banks are aware of those probabilities. They know the value of that $10,000 account is probably zero.

you know, a couple of hundred bucks. So she shows up, in that case, with $1,500 and says they're going to be, they won't act like it to her, they're going to be jerks to her because they're Bank of America. But they're going to be hard to negotiate with, but believe me, they're going to take that. They're going to be really happy. Yeah, that's $0.15 on the dollar, not $0.02.5 on the dollar that I was talking about. And that sounds kind of absurd to people who are used to paying their bills and all that kind of a thing. But in that world, that's a very standard thing

way of looking at things because it's the probability of collection. Every day a credit card goes unpaid, the probability goes down dramatically. That's right. And I always want to, as a guy who, Dave, I pride myself on paying my bills on time. I pride myself. I always want to remember that voice that I just heard. That's going to haunt me for a while, Dave, is the woman who had an abusive marriage. The court did what the court did. She's got three kids. She's got like...

There are things that pop up in people's lives, and that's why you live and give like nobody else. You get these moments like this for people, and I'm glad that there's those situations they can walk in and say, here, can I just settle this thing and be done with it? It's awesome. And she'll be able to do that. One of the things she's got to do is one of the reasons I wanted her to learn all this is to change the confidence she has. She's going to stand up tall. That's right. Because I want her vocal cords to relax before she starts having this conversation because you can't negotiate when you sound like that.

Because they can smell that amount. Well, everybody could hear how scared she was. Yeah. So, including the lawyer on the other side. That's right. All right. Now, the Ramsey Show. Question of the day. Brought to you by YRefi. Do you have defaulted student private loans? There we go. Same thing again. Private student loans. These are not federally insured loans. Private student loans that are in default. Do they keep you up at night? YRefi can help you lower your payments and your interest rate because they buy those accounts cheap.

and then they'll reset your payments lower than you ever dreamed, and you're not in default anymore, and they'll help you work through this. It's pretty cool.

And they do it on a one-off basis. It's not in bulk like you do with the other stuff. So Yrefy.com slash Ramsey. You can start resting. That's the letter Y-W-E or the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. Yrefy. Might not be in all states. I love this question. This question comes from Jessica in Florida. Do you have advice for adult children discussing wills with their parents?

Great question. Please, please, please have the courage to sit down and have those hard conversations.

This is a great way for your kids to get dragged through court when your in-laws decide to sue your guardians because they didn't know and blah, blah, blah. Like, yes, have that hard conversation. That's my opinion on it. Yeah. Anytime your will is going to piss somebody off, do it while you're alive. Yes. That's a better way to say it. Because the other parties are going to have to deal with the pissed off person if you don't have the courage to.

So if you're cutting little Bobby out because little Bobby's doing cocaine, go ahead and tell Bobby you're out of the will because you're doing cocaine and I'm not giving you money to buy cocaine. So you're out of the will. I'm going to say, well, do whatever you want to do, Bobby. Just have your little cocaine fit, but you're not going to be in the will. And you just have the discussion.

While we're doing it, while we're alive. This idea that there's all these family secrets and all this dysfunction, and it's all going to be solved in a walnut-paneled room with the trophy wife and the three kids. That's a movie scene. That's not real life. Real life is people get angry over the China cabinet.

And they'll sue you. They'll sue brothers. We'll sue brothers over the China cabinet or actually brothers. Why? The 1957 John Deere tractor can break up a family. Yes, because you didn't deal with it while you were alive. And so, you know, Sharon's dad, he's 96.

And he's so funny. I got to meet him the other day. Yeah, he's such a, he was like the mascot on the cruise, right? He came with us on the cruise. And his sharpest attack, he told the kids to go through and flip over anything in the house and write their name on it unless somebody else's name was already on it. That's what my grandmother said. She said, put a sticker on it, and once the sticker's on it, no complaining. That's what she said. It's done. First come, first serve. That's right. And I have not looked, but I suspect there's some stickers in there. Yeah.

And I also suspect that if you didn't choose these folks to be the guardians of your children, this is why. Right? Because they don't respect you as adults. They think that they've got all these impositions on your family. They don't get a vote. Right. They don't get a vote.

And let's see. My husband's parents. Okay, so by the way, when you sit down and talk to them, Jessica, you have a lot of things you want to say. You don't get to say any of them. Please don't. Let him speak. Let him talk. And if your husband doesn't want to talk about it, tell him to run down Walmart and pick up a backbone on aisle three and deal with his mama.

That's exactly what's going on here. And by the way, if mom, if grandparents decide that this just makes them so mad that they don't want to do Christmas with you anymore, then it's a two-for-one deal for y'all. Now you have to do fun Christmas without these goofballs. I get them being sad about it. I get them thinking, oh, I wish it was us. I get that. I get that. We need to keep it in the family. I get all that. They don't get it, folks.

And that's hard. I think, Dave, I keep getting this question. That's hard about everything when you're a grandparent. I get this question more and more these days. I want to give them more gummy bears. Yes. I don't get a vote. That's right. Actually, I'll still give you more gummy bears. I know, but it's sneaking around. I think that's part of being a grandparent. I might have done that. Yes. But I'm talking about technically following the rules.

The question underneath this question is how do we have this conversation without them getting mad, disappointed, frustrated? And you can't. You cannot own somebody else's emotions when you have a hard truth to tell them. You can own how you say that hard truth with dignity, with honesty, and with a period at the end of the sentence. Say less than you think you need to say. They get to decide whether to be angry, sad. That's for them. You can't manage that. This upsets me.

You know, I'm really sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry to upset you. You're breaking up this family. I'm sorry that you see it that way. No, I'm not. I'm not breaking up the family. If you want to do that, that'll be up to you, but I'm not doing that. I just made a decision about this.

And, you know, Jefferson talks about keep these conversations really brief. Very short. Don't drag all the other crap of the toxicity in 1962. Now, just let all that go away. This is just a simple thing. I want to tell you what's in our will. And we wanted to make sure you knew while we were here because we think you're probably not going to like it. We want you all to stay grandparents and not have to become parents. There you go.

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Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? You can take control of your money and your relationships, and it starts with just one night. Join me and Dr. John Deloney live in a city near you on the Money and Relationships Tour. We're covering the real-life stuff that matters so you can break the cycles that have left you stuck.

It's coming up fast, so get your tickets for Louisville, Durham, Atlanta, Phoenix, Fort Worth, or Kansas City at ramseysolutions.com slash tour today.

Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host on the debt-free stage right here in the middle of the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. Katie is with us. Hey, Katie, how are you? I'm doing well. Good. Where do you live? Alexandria, Louisiana. Sorry, I'm a little emotional. You're going to be all right. We'll get you through it. We've never lost a patient. Yep. So enjoy the ride. Thank you. How much debt have you paid off, Katie? $1,000.

About 60, a little over 67,000. Good for you. How long did that take? It took me five years and a lot of hurt and heartache and a lot of prayers. Good for you. Yeah. Scratching and clawing, kiddo. Yeah.

And what was your household income range? Your best year and worst year over that five-year period of time? Side hustles and gifts and everything. First year when I started this, it was about $45,000. Last year, I ended right around $67,000. Good for you. What do you do for a living? I'm a pediatric occupational therapy assistant as well as a medical billing specialist. Good for you. Wow. So on behalf of my family, just personal thoughts,

For what you do professionally, thank you. That's a hard gig, and somebody in your seat wearing your title changed my family. So thank you. That's awesome. You've been a huge motivation to keep going. Very good. So what was the $67,000 in debt? What kind of debt?

except for a payday loan. That is the only thing that I didn't do in a house. I didn't go that far. Lots of medical bills. The majority of it was student loans. Looking back, that was the worst mistake of my life. And bought a car, second worst mistake. Bought a car a month before starting this. Fortunately, I did buy a used car, so it was not a huge loan, but it was a loan. Tell us where that emotion comes from. Um...

just the amount of time the amount of time it took yes my goal was two years and um right before starting i um i mean sorry right during the time that i that pushed me to start this um i was dealing with some medical things that um was unexplainable at the day there was no explanation at the time i'd spent 10 months um going back and forth to doctors um saw three or four specialists did not know what was going on um

and in October I had already I've been a side hustler since I was you know since I started working at 16 before I even knew about knew what a side hustle was and um I was dog sitting and I stumbled across the Ramsey show on YouTube and um I was dog sitting so what else do you do I mean I

You know, dogs help us a lot. They promote the show quite often. Yes, yes. And actually, the family that I was dog sitting for, they are a pediatric therapy center about two hours from where I live. I worked for them in college. And they're Ramsey. They do all the entree leadership. They've been to Summit, I think, when you guys were in Florida. Wow. Ann and Christy. Wow.

and they have Believe and Achieve Therapy in Monroe, Louisiana. And so, um, I was dog sitting for Christy, their therapy dogs. And, um, I, I just, I watched the show, I think for 18 hours one day, because I mean, what else do you do? You know? And so, um, I was like, this is what I need. Cause I had medical bills that had started pouring in. Um, I had just bought a car, um, and I was just, I was very down and I was, I didn't know what to do, you know? And so, um,

So binge watching the whole thing gave you tools and gave you hope. It didn't give you shame. Right. And I will say, I tell everybody, I knew what you were going to say. I watched it so much. I knew what you were going to say before you knew what you were going to say. A lot of people play answer the question before day when they're driving. Yes, I do that a lot. And so I got started and I started saving my emergency fund and saving.

And actually, a few weeks later, I was talking to my boss and I was sharing with her. We were close and worked for a very small clinic in Alexandria. Shout out to MB Therapy and all of my team. They may be watching or they're probably working. But I was talking to her and sharing with her that I had started. I had done my $1,000 emergency fund with actually the money that I made doing dog sitting and then a few other odd jobs.

and she said, oh yeah, you need to do this. She said, my husband and I, Todd and Megan Bolton are their names, and she said, my husband and I did it 20 years ago when Dave taught the class, and she said, and that's why we were able to, that's why we do things the way we do, and so,

That was in 2019 when I started. Well, you know what happened in 2020? And so- Heard the rumor. Looking back, I'm so grateful that you taught the class that they took in Monroe, Louisiana 20-something years ago. Oh, yeah. I remember going down there. Yes. Oh, my gosh. We did an event at the Baptist Church. Yes. That was 1,000 years ago. They took it. I'm not sure if it was that specific event, or I know it was through the employer that he worked for, but I'm not sure. I don't know all the details, but-

All I know is that we are about to build a multimillion dollar clinic debt free. And she was able to continue meeting payroll. We never missed a payment. Never missed. I never missed a paycheck during COVID. And we actually...

probably tripled our patient load during 2020-2021 because she was able, never took one of the loans that was offered. And guess what? One of the paychecks was yours. Right. And you're trying to get rid of $67,000. Yes. Wow. Scraping and clawing. So what was the first thing you paid off? First thing I paid off was probably a medical bill. What was the last thing you paid off? Last thing was student loans. I did not...

until later that I was supposed to have broken those up into smaller loans and so I always treated it as my biggest loan. But they're gone. So I did that, took care of that on December. How does it feel not to have any loans?

You have no idea. I mean, you do, but it's just so amazing to me. Have you had that month yet where you didn't have any payments, but your paycheck deposited? That was this month, actually. What was that like? It was amazing. It was supposed to have been February. We were celebrating, that's another story, but we celebrated the adoption of my little boy in February. And the night before his party, I was bringing his cake back home for the party the next day, and he and I had a massive car accident, totaled our car.

And I had so many people say, well, are you going to get a car? Are you going to have a car payment? And I said, nope. I said, God's going to provide. Well, you had insurance, didn't you? I did, but I didn't know. You provided an insurance check. You know, I didn't know what kind of an insurance check. I had an older car. I was driving my, the car that I was driving, I had bought five years before and it was old when I bought it. And so it was a good car, but you know, it wasn't worth all that. So

I talked to my brother about purchasing his car. He's in the military, so we had a lot of, you know, talked about that. He doesn't need the vehicle. And so that was kind of what I was thinking, but it was 2000, I think it's a 2000, 2001, something like that. But my parents reached out to me and said, hey, we're talking about getting a new vehicle. So, you know, we'll sell you this one for this amount. And I said, okay, you know, we'll see what my...

what my insurance check is, um, because I don't know if I'll be able to swing it, but you know, and that they had agreed that they would give me, um, a small amount as well toward the purchase of whatever I bought. And so, um, a couple of weeks later, I got a phone call for my insurance company and it was almost to the penny of everything that I needed to pay the

for the car in full as well as the registration i paid two hundred dollars over to cover the registration that junker they got total yes i went from a 2016 centra to a 2016 rogue so i like it yeah i'm proud of you yeah i'm proud of you i bet they're proud of you yes yeah and you got control of something that needed to be getting control of bad i can tell yes yes what do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is

If I can survive cancer, move through an adoption, cash flow, a bachelor's degree, and part of a grad school degree that I quit because I just decided I was tired of paying for it. If I can do it through all of that, anybody can do it. Amen. So persevere is the answer. Yes. Just don't quit. Yes. 67,000 in five years. Yes. That's a long slog, kiddo. It was. But the good news is now you have control of you.

And now you have control of this subject that owns so many people. And now you own it. It doesn't own you anymore. So, fabulously done, kiddo. Dude, in anything that comes your way in the future, you're going to be able to smile and say...

Just buckle up because I've already been through worse than you. That's awesome. Buckle up. Warrior princess, kiddo. Well done. That's my child screaming. Very well done. I thought it was Dave for a second and then I realized it was your kid. Nope, that's mine. It could be one of the personalities out there. It's George Campbell out there. George, George, behave. Hey, I'm really proud of you. It's awesome. Thank you. All right, Katie.

Count it down. 67,000 paid off in five years, making 45 to 67. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. Debt-free. Yeah. Some of them feel stronger than others. I like it. Love it. Thank you, Lord. This is the Ramsey Show.

Hey guys, good news. Pre-sale is on now for my new book, Build a Business You Love. If you're a business owner, you know running a business is hard. That's why I wrote this book, to share what we learned over the last 30 years so business owners can grow your business faster with fewer mistakes. Pre-order your copy today and you'll get access to over $350 in bonus items only at ramsaysolutions.com slash store. ramsaysolutions.com slash store. Pre-order today.

If you're running a business or you know someone that is, there's one thing we know. When you're on your own business, it's hard. When you go to work for yourself, you discover your boss is a slave driver. They will work you like a rented mule. I mean, it's bad, y'all. It's the hardest I ever worked in my life is working for myself. And you just run, run, run, run, go, go, go, go, go. It's tough, man. Hey, guys, if you're running a business,

You can move through the small business stages. There's five stages of small business, and we've worked through them at Ramsey. We've worked through them with 10,000 small businesses, and so we put together a book to show you how to do that. This is the baby steps for small business.

It's called Build a Business You Love. It comes out April the 15th. If you preorder it now for $29.99, you get over $350 in free bonus items, including instant access to the Entree Leadership Hiring Playbook.

The number one pain point of small business people hiring and firing their people, dealing with people. It's a hard part of running a business. The e-book, the enhanced audio book. Our audio book is going to be like a podcast. You're going to love this audio book. It's way different. Pre-order all of this at RamseySolutions.com slash store or click the link in the description on the YouTube or podcast. Nikki's in St. Louis. Hey, Nikki, what's up in your world?

Hi, Ramsey Scheller. So great to be on here. Thank you so much. Well, thank you. How can we help? So I have $260,000 in federal student loan debt. Good Lord. For what?

Well, I have a bachelor's in chemical engineering and I have a master's in engineering management. Great. How much do you make? So that's the catch. I was working in the field and when 2021 hit, I had my daughter in the absence of her father. He passed away. So I kind of had to step back from the field for a little while and focus on my motherhood.

but I'm ready now to come back, and I'm back in chaos in the economy that I just feel like is not working for engineering. Oh, bull crap. No, for a mother, a single mother, balancing that together. Well, you can't not work. You have to work. But if you go to work, engineering is an exploding field right now, and you've got more degrees than a thermometer. You need to go make some money.

right you desperately need to make up you need to be making 200k 200k okay yesterday what is the deep what is what is what are you waiting on what i don't understand well this is the thing i am trying to figure out i've been interviewing and it's like i'll get close to a yes but it

As soon as this, Oh, we may need you to stay in. We may need you to be on call. And as the engineer, that's kind of like the livelihood before my motherhood kicked in being on call and being available, which I've always been able to, but now that you're a mom, a single mom at that, you have to not be available at those times. You have to take care of the child. You do, but, but you're a going back to grad school. Isn't going to solve that problem. And B you,

You're fishing in a very small pond. Do you get what I'm saying? What do you mean by fishing in a small pond? I'm saying you are continually looking for the same jobs in the same type of engineering place, right? That's going to always come back to. It's like me. If I want to go back to being a dean of students, but I don't want to be on call, I can't have that job because that's the important part of that job.

But if I want to work at a university, I'm going to have to broaden what I'm looking at with my skill set. Do you know what I'm saying? You're an engineer. You can do stuff that Dave and I can't do because you have a license. You can go do amazing things.

but you're gonna have to broaden your picture of what being an engineer is like or but it may not be direct or indirect it could be indirectly related but still of course you've got a you've got you're able to yeah and by the way i i'm telling you because i love you i sat with what i would call we called when i was a graduate school professor perpetual students

who kept going for the next license, the next degree, the next thing. Not as a way, I had to get another degree because my field I felt was closing and I needed a licensure. You are just trying to avoid the grind that is, if you want to make $200,000, a business wants you to work that hard. And that just stinks. It's hard. And I think you can. And listen, if you talk to people in an interview like you've been talking to us, you're never going to get hired.

I wouldn't hire you. You want to know why? Why? Because you told me six times how you had to take care of this baby. And I know you're a single mom. I know you need to take care of your baby. That is first. There's no question about that. As soon as I know you're a single mom and you have a baby, anybody who's got a human brain knows that's your first priority. But don't tell me that six times because what that tells me is you're not going to be reliable.

It tells me you're not coming to work. It tells me you're coming to work for what you can get rather than what you can give. You're not here to add value to the organization. You're here to extract value with as little work and as little availability as possible. You're not getting hired.

you got to change your attitude about how what can i add how can i be enthusiastic what can i how can i add value to this organization and that is the best way you can serve your child and is getting rid of this 260 000 worth of debt that's it it's looking at you have some you have extensive liabilities out on your family for this for this thing so you think just being present with this kid is the greatest gift the greatest gift you can give that kid yes is your presence but

like having a house with peace in it and you you're in for over a quarter million dollars you don't have you have no peace and so you can find a high school kid a college kid in your local community who will be on call with you i'm gonna pay you 25 bucks an hour 30 bucks an hour 50 bucks an hour to come over on those rare nights i get called and you come over to my house within an hour and you like i need you here i actually have four of them got it

On call. So that if one of them is on a date, you can still get another one over there. And you can overly pay them. And so then maybe you get burned a few times. You have to spend some money. And instead of making $200,000, you make $190,000. You're still really winning. And your debt's paid off in two years. You being at home full time and rocking this baby eight, nine hours a day is not an option for you anymore. You gave that up when you signed up for $260,000. Now you've got to solve big boy and big girl problems. Yeah.

And so the sad situation of where you are and the loss of your husband is leaving you with no choices. Yeah. I'm so sorry. Please don't go get another degree. Please don't. Please, please, please. And please lean into the fabulous degrees and brain that you have. You have an incredible brain. I mean, dumb people can't get these degrees that you have. I mean, you get a dadgum master's in chemistry, was it? Yeah.

it yeah oh my gosh i mean you you know you can do any kind of math well here's the other thing you probably had an arrangement with your husband that one day this was going to be how this was right maybe you're gonna stay at home mom maybe you're gonna work part-time and there's something about grieving the end of that dream too because he passed away i know you've grieved grieved his loss and all that but there's this moment now i got a kid and now i've got this it just stinks man it's heartbreaking yeah i'm sorry yeah

Go get it. Go get it. Go get it. Go get it. Yeah, you can do this. It is doable for you. But that's the that's the trick, Nikki. You got you're going to have to lean in and make a career now. And while you find some alternative and different ways to work through the motherhood thing.

So, I mean, it's not unusual at all for someone making two or even $300,000 a year to have a full-time nanny. Absolutely. That's what you got to have. If that's what you have. Or an overnight nanny. If that's what you have to have. Yeah. Or somebody that's on quote, on call, unquote.

But, yeah, you're trying to do six things at once, and you're going to have to choose one. And I'm telling you, you've got the tools in your belt to make serious money. And if I were you, not because money is important, but because getting the freedom from that student loan is important. Once you're free from that, if you want to take a job making $100 instead of $300 and that gives you more flexibility, fine. I've got no issue with that at all. But you've got to clean this mess up for your sake, for your sake.

And for everyone out there listening, getting another degree, getting degrees to the tune of $260,000, there is no time in life that that works out. Zero. There's only one way that works out, and that never happens, and that's if your plan works exactly like you thought it was going to work.

She didn't think when she took out $260,000 worth of degrees to pile up degrees like a thermometer that she was going to end up being a single mom because her husband passed away. That wasn't on her plan. That was not on her bingo card. Well, guess what? Your life that comes at you is not on your bingo card. You don't know what's going to come. That's why you don't go take out these kinds of loans. Well, it's always a good investment. No, it's not a good investment. It's a trap.

And it's a sin that our government does this to its own people. A sin. You ought to stop it, Congress, now.