The Faster You Attack Your Debt - The Faster You Achieve Financial Freedom
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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, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, and host of the popular Dr. John Deloney Show on Ramsey Networks. All of that, he's my co-host today.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Erica is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Erica, what's up in your world?

Hi, guys. At first, it's an honor to speak with you both. My family and I were big fans, so much so that my now two-year-old, one of her first words was 225, and we knew that she just wanted to listen to the show. She's got the phone number down already. She knows who to call in an emergency. I love it. That's right. So I wrote this down because I'm super nervous, but I hope that's okay. Sure.

I'm originally from Brazil, although as of recently, I'm incredibly proud to say that I'm an American. The Brazilian laws make it super complicated to leave a customizable will. So decades ago, my grandmother decided that she was going to, it's called donate, a portion of her part of the estate that she had to split in half with someone.

her deceased husband. And I don't know exactly how much, I think my portion is like 30%. As of early last year, my aunt has been trying to steal this entire estate from my mother and I, who are the other two beneficiaries. Last night at 8.30 at night, I

I got a text from my mom, long text, basically asking me to pitch in with lawyer fees. Now, this lawyer fee is not crazy like it is here because of the exchange rate, but it would be around like $500. And then she also said that Wednesday, tomorrow, she's going to be signing a contract with

And there's going to be another additional fee that I would have to pitch in with half halfway probably. Now, my husband and I, we have no problem doing this, but we are in baby step number two. We are, we have been working really hard for 15 months. We, we,

are finally a little bit trying to be a little bit more financially responsible where my parents are completely the opposite way. I said no. And in the Brazilian culture, how dare you? So when I said no... No, that's just the mother culture.

Okay. All mother culture. Yeah, you're right. Okay, I got you. All right. You're right. Brazilian mom might put a little more flair on it. Oh, my gosh. It's just such drama. So when I said no, she stopped responding to my texts because then I asked, is there any wiggle room? Like, when is this due? Is it due right now? Basically, in the text message, she was saying, give me $500 now. Give me a blank number. She doesn't know. Tomorrow. Okay.

And so now she's basically not really speaking to me. And because I have two little babies at home, they talk to me all the time. So it's always been really hard for me to say no to them, especially when it comes to finances. Like I've they've put me into a ton of debt when I was before I got married. And now, you know, how much is Erica? How much is this inheritance?

I don't know exactly. They would have to sell the entire house. Give me a rough estimate in American dollars, please. Around maybe $30,000, I would say. No is the correct answer. Yeah. It's not $3 million, and it's probably not $30,000 by the time you get through with all this crap. You're going to burn more calories than that. Just wave bye-bye. Put it in the rearview mirror. Mom, you can have my half.

Do I say something like, I'll pay it later when I'm done with my... No. No. I think you gave him an answer. Yeah. No is a complete sentence. And part of you doesn't believe your mom's narrative, do you? Believe, sorry? Say again? Yeah. It sounds like you don't fully believe your mom. That she's really doing... You don't call for lawyer fees at 8.30 the night before, yeah. Your mom needs money for something else, doesn't she? No.

be yeah but that's why you feel that's why you feel sick to your stomach because if this was 500 bucks for for 30 000 that you knew you're gonna get then that's a no-brainer you wouldn't be calling and all the players involved were credible except the ant but yeah even a baby step two that's a no-brainer that's easy that becomes one of your bills because that's a i mean it's a thing you need to cover to help accelerate this thing that's not the case here but you wouldn't call um

You wouldn't call your friend up and present something this vague and ambiguous. No. Okay. You would say, here's precisely what's going on. Here's the exact amount. And you would do it a week before, not 12 hours before. Well, yeah. Yeah. And so there's something wrong. It smells bad. You know why it smells bad? Because it stinks. Yeah.

That's right. The problem that my husband and I have is that they have like a bunch of assets that they could sell off. We went crazy selling everything that we had in our house. I know, but get out of their heads.

That's going to make you and your husband nuts. If you join crazy in their head, it makes you crazy. Yeah, yeah. Don't get in their head and try to figure out why they are or are not doing things. Be grateful that you and your husband have made the choices you've made, and you're all going to have real freedom for the first person in your lineage. So let me try to paint this another way. When you get out of Baby Step 2 and you finish your emergency fund in Baby Step 3 and you start Baby Step 4, you're how old right now? I'm 30. My husband's 33. So when you're 40, you're going to be a millionaire, right? Yeah.

I mean, Jesus name. Yeah. And what's your household income? My husband makes 90 right now. I'm a stay at home mom. Okay. In Jesus name and in the name of math, somewhere around 10 to 15 years from now, you will be there. Okay. And so whether or not you get this $30,000, your destiny on this earth, your quality of providing for your children is not based on this inheritance. If you never see this inheritance, which is fairly likely at this point,

Your life goes on. Right. So this is more about you just telling your mom no and loving it. Yeah. And smiling. Just smile. Be sweet. Just say, Mom, I love you. And I understand this means a lot to you. And I'm not, I would be happy to get the inheritance. And I'd be happy to put some money towards this, but not in the circumstances you presented. And so I can't do it right now. Sorry. Right. Or you can honestly say, we don't have the money right now.

Well, yeah, that's what I said. And she said, well, I don't have the money right now. And I wanted to be like, okay, then why did you go shopping Saturday? Yeah, there you go. Right. And that's my problem. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, I don't have them. I mean, you can honestly say that until you're at least at a baby step to it. We don't have the money right now. We're negative.

And why is it such an emergency now? Yeah. This is weird. Erica, you smelled a rat and you're used to it. And you know more about this drama and this narrative than we do. We've only got two minutes into it and we can smell it. You're right. It's hard. Setting boundaries with people who don't respect boundaries 100% of the time makes the other person crazy.

They go bananas. 100% of the time you get a negative reaction when you set a boundary with a boundaryless person. Your mom's not used to anybody telling her no if they happen to be in her string of the DNA. And so it's something she needs to get used to. It'll be good for her. It's kind of sweet. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Thank you, Dave. I have a question about tax forgiveness. Okay. I was diagnosed with CPTSD and a traumatic brain injury and got onto Social Security because I was homeless. Someone taught me how to use one of the delivery platforms, and I was able to start working and...

But because those platforms don't take out taxes, I am starting an investigation at work regarding abuse, and they're going to investigate me. And I don't want my tax issues to distract them from the real issue that I'm trying to get taken care of. So I'm needing help with the tax forgiveness program. Okay. So you haven't filed taxes. Correct. In how long? The last time I filed taxes was 2010. Okay.

15 years? Yes. And you've been earning an income for how many years? Five years, besides the disability I was getting before. Yeah. And your recovery to where you're functioning again, I'll use my words, I don't know if that's the right words, Dr. John can help me with that, but where you become sustainable again, your recovery from the traumatic brain injury and the PTSD is five years ago?

Where you became able to support yourself and sustain, is that right? Yes, I have since been triggered. I started in Portland, Oregon. There was the riots, and then I'm a caregiver as well. I've been traumatized at work, especially by my current situation. So there has been, I have still experienced panic attacks and things like that, but I am trying my hardest.

to be a working member of society again because I started working when I was 14. Yeah, but what I'm trying to figure out is, okay, at the point that you were earning an income and you were functioning, prior to that I understand not filing taxes. But from that point forward, which is about five years, why did you not file? Because you knew to. Yeah.

Yes, yes, yes. I was overwhelmed with the process. I had started several times looking into it, and then something would happen, and I would stop working and have to move again. So there was a lot of trauma. What has been your income through that five years? I honestly don't know, but it started out well. I mean, were you making $30,000 or were you making $300,000?

I was making, at one point, I was making about $1,000 a week delivering. And that lasted for a few months. And then it went down from there to about maybe $2,000 to $3,000 a month. Have you gotten a phone call or a letter from the government asking for your taxes? I have not, partly because I've been moving around a lot because I'm still homing housing into care. Okay. All right. The technical, tactical answer to your question is,

which is not the answer to your problem, but it is the answer to your question, is to go to RamseySolutions.com and click on Tax ELP and get a tax CPA. If you come, quote, unquote, out of the cold on your own and you come forward and

They will not criminally prosecute you for not filing taxes. Not paying taxes is not criminal. Not filing taxes is criminally prosecuted. 2,576 people last year got criminal prosecution for not filing. So you need to go file yesterday.

Okay? And the process, listen, listen, the process will sound like this. Sit down with a CPA and they will file three years and they'll help you reconstruct the last three years. You will owe the taxes for those three years. There is not tax forgiveness. There is criminal forgiveness, but there's not tax forgiveness. Okay?

Okay. Okay. Now, there is back in the days when you were a pauper, but you're not a pauper now. You're not on Social Security. You're not, you know, you're making a quote-unquote living. Okay. Well, the problem is Social Security refused to stop paying me. That's not a problem. That's just a distraction. I'm talking about you're not poor.

If you have zero money of any kind coming in and zero assets, you can get some tax forgiveness. You don't qualify. So I would not go up that. Right now I have zero income, and I have about $500 in the bank. I'm sorry. I thought you told me you had a job.

I did, but I was fired because I'm bringing up these abuse accusations. And so instead of investigating the abuse, they're investigating me. And so I'm trying to take care of this issue so it doesn't interfere with the abuse case that they're refusing to start. So it's a big mess. So now you have to go get another job, right? Yes. Okay. All right.

Yeah, because since you're employable, I think your answer to your question is you need to get through your tax returns file and then begin some kind of a repayment plan, even if it's a dollar. But get something going to get this monkey off your back because this is in the background worrying you along with all the other things that are chasing you.

It is. I did do that, and someone did reach out to me, but it was above my budget, so I didn't know if there was any kind of program that could help me. No. Okay. Not that I'm aware of. Coming up with a repayment schedule is not a problem, but you have to file the tax returns. Right. So, yeah, and you probably, if you only have $500 to your name and you don't have a job today, you probably don't file them this week. But the sooner you file them, the sooner you get rid of the criminal threat hanging over you.

Okay. And it's not, listen, none of that's going to affect a job. If you have a valid claim for abuse in the workplace, you not filing your taxes is not a destruction of your character. Okay. The abuse either was criminal or civil in nature, and it either happened or it didn't happen. Your taxes are an irrelevant variable in that discussion.

Okay. Focused on, yeah. Yeah, focus is the word because let's be very, very honest, okay? When you get triggered leading up to those moments when things just get real heavy, there's usually several things spinning around at once. Is that fair? I've been in a spin for over a week, yes, sir. That's right. So here's what I want you to do. The only way around this spin is right through it.

So let's write down those things that are causing us to spin up. Do we owe taxes? It feels like I owe a million dollars. You don't. You don't owe a million bucks. You may not owe anything. Yeah, you may not owe anything because you may not have earned enough. But let's go right through that one. Let's put the next one down. Let's write the next thing down. And some of those things, like Dave said, you got to get a CPA. You got to get somebody to walk with you through that. But the only way to peace here is through the middle of it.

And, man, you've got the help you needed. You want to be back earning a living and being up on your own, having autonomy. That's amazing. I'm proud of you for that. And I hate that you got somewhere and got settled and then they treated you poorly. That's the worst, right? Yes. Yeah. But Dave and I believe in you, okay? Thank you. Yeah. And so what I want you to focus on is not –

And just listening to you, and I'm just a guy. Dr. John's got the Ph.D. Okay, but just listening to you, I want you to focus on the things you can control, not the things that happened in your rearview mirror. The traumatic brain injury, the PTSD, the former employer that was at a minimum a jerk.

At a maximum of things. Okay. Those are not things you can control. And if you spend all your rent and your brain, your calorie, your brain calories on things in the past you can't change, it keeps you from moving forward to things you can change, which is get a job.

Get solid. Get sustainable. Get peace back in where your lights are paid, your food's on your table, you're not got $500 again. Okay? And then you can afford to fight these people if you want to. You may not want to at that point. It may not be worth it. I don't know. Well, what I'm fighting for is the other caregiver was abusing our client. That's right.

That's not, that's not, you don't have the money to be a crusader right now. I want you to crusade for Erica. There you go. I want you, I mean, Jenny, I want you to crusade for Jenny. I don't know who Erica is, but I want you to crusade for Jenny. I want, I want you to be the topic right now. So I'm more concerned about you than you crusading for some moral outrage in the society.

You're not got the strength of the money to do that right now, kiddo. Let's get our housing taken care of and let's get those taxes filed. And that will give you some peace right at the gate. Get you a job. Then if you want to pursue some moral outrage, let's do that. But moral outrage is taking up all your space right now, kiddo. That's what we heard when we're talking to you.

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that's Ramsey trusted to help you. So stop throwing money away and get the health insurance that's right for you at healthtrustfinancial.com. That's healthtrustfinancial.com. Jamie and Kimberly are on the debt-free stage right here in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. How are you? Doing great. Where do you guys live?

We're in Greenville, South Carolina. Actually, Anderson is South Carolina, right outside of Greenville. Very nice. That's a beautiful area. It is. Love it over there. Greenville's done such a good job with their downtown. Yes, they have. We started going over there before that and then have gone, obviously, since. And it's just, it's really beautiful. They've done a good job. Welcome to Nashville. Thank you very much. How much debt have you two paid off? $207,414. I love it. And how long did that take? $25,000.

months. 25. Whoa, that's quick. And your range of income during that two years? I think we started at about 186, went all the way up to now 252. Wow, that's a nice jump in two years. Yeah, we've been blessed. What do you guys do for a living? So I teach nursing. I'm a nurse in critical care and teach at Clemson. Okay. And I work in human resources. Okay, so just some really nice bumps in both careers, huh? Very blessed, yes. Very cool. What kind of debt was the 207?

It was everything, Dave. Everything you teach us not to do. You were normal. We checked every naughty box that we shouldn't do. What were the naughty boxes? Let's talk about them. That's a very South Carolina way to put that. It's in the naughty box. It's in the naughty box. And here was Santa. Exactly. So what were the naughty boxes? Tell us about them. Eleven credit cards, two car loans, a medical debt.

And a 401k loan. And a partridge in a pear tree. Yes. I can tell. Wow, guys. You did do it all. How long y'all been married? So we're a blended family. We're getting close to 10 years next April. Oh, okay. Great. So you brought some of this together. We did. We did. And then added some more. We did. Yeah. So what happened 25 months ago that flipped the switch for y'all?

So Kim's in the middle of her – well, at the time was in the middle of doing her doctorate program, doctorate of nursing practice leadership. And it just got too much, honestly, for her. I wasn't as involved in the finances as I should have been. So I took that on and realized that we were pretty much drowning in debt. And just it overcame us, and we're like, we've got to do something. So we went through our church, New Spring Church in Anderson, and they offered FPU. We signed up, started shortly, right around –

Valentine's Day of 2023. Yeah. Okay. Wow. Good for you. And it was originally supposed to take us like four to five years to get out of debt. And Jamie just led us through it. And he said, you know what? We're going to do this in half that time. And

Dave, he cut me down to $20 a month for fun money. Oh, he didn't cut you down. He did. Nobody cuts you down. You volunteered for this. $20 for eating out, nails, shopping. You volunteered and acted like he did it. I can tell. All the things. Okay, so here's... Y'all are awesome. I'm always perplexed by this. Y'all are both really smart people. How do really smart people end up under this...

Almost a half a million dollars. Quarter million. Of debt. I mean, a quarter million dollars of debt. Yeah. I think not planning. Yeah, we had no plan. We had no concept. You know, it gets easy. We talk about that. You know, easy to hit that automatic pay button on things. And when you don't have the money to charge it and worry about it later. You know, it wasn't like we were really being extravagant or living extravagant lifestyles. It was just one poor decision after another of how to handle money.

things that would come up. Okay. So you averaged $8,000 a month for two years on debt reduction. Did you sell stuff? Yes. What was the big thing you sold? Sold a truck. What was that? How much of that? About 12,000, I think is what we got for the truck. Okay. We actually, we cashed in a whole life policy that we found out she had. Okay. And then- How much was that? 14,000. Okay. And then I cashed in some stock from restricted stock. And how much was that?

That was another 15. Okay. So that's like 60,000, 55,000, those three things. And the rest of it, you just got punched. Yeah. Yeah. We worked hard. I worked a couple jobs. You can. Yeah. You've got a lot of access. A lot of opportunities to do that. And, you know, anything we could, we sold and,

We lived really lean. We had bargain food dates, didn't we, babe? Yeah, we did. Like it. We would go and see how much groceries we could get for $100 at the knock-and-dent grocery store. I like that. It was fun. That's fun. And you just made a game out of it. We did. And then you said, we're going to be free.

Yeah. We, you know, we try to make it fun. It's a tough thing to do. Yeah. It sucks. It does. And then we found creative ways to do things free. We did Family Fun Night, or actually what we call, our daughter calls Forced Family Fun Night. Forced Family Fun Night. You've got a voluntold order of Forced Family Fun. A lot of cards, a lot of card nights, game nights, that sort of thing. How did you all manage...

You'll make good salaries. You're a professor at Clemson. You're an HR director. People just assume when they walk out to the parking lot, you're not going to be driving a certain thing. How did y'all navigate that? It's tough to tell your friends, like, I'm not getting my nails done in South Carolina because that's what a Southern woman does, right? Or I can't go get coffee with you guys. Or I'm not going to. Not I can't, but I'm choosing not to. How do y'all navigate that? That's tough. I think, you know, having – it really showed us who our true friends are.

You know, being vulnerable and sharing our story with where we were at. You know, I took not quite a 50% pay cut, but a dramatic pay cut to leave the bedside and go to teaching. And we just didn't plan for it. So when we realized how significant it was, we really just reached out to our people and said, this is where we're at and we need your support. And here's what we're going to do. And they went on the journey with us. You know, they...

they said, I know you can't, you know, go out to eat. Do you want to come over and have dinner tonight and bring your games? And, you know, so we just did that with our people. And I think that,

you know, it made us closer with them because we were vulnerable and they prayed over us and just really helped us. So we're fortunate to have these amazing people. And of course, Mike and Becky are mentors for FPU and they were right there with us. So, you know, when the bills came up that were unexpected or whatever, we could call them and be like, what do we do? And they, and Mike would always say, well, Dave would tell you to do. Go Mike, go baby. Yeah.

Those kind of things. So I think that really helped a lot. Well, that's a wonderful church y'all are a part of. I think I've spoken there, if I recall, and if it's where I'm thinking it is. Yeah. I think the whole place went through FPU at one point. So that's pretty incredible. So congratulations, y'all. Thank you. How does it feel to be free? Amazing. Just the weight of the debt is off the shoulders. You just feel better. You wake up better. You wake up energized. Yeah.

That's kind of how it feels. Yeah, that's it right there. That's the one. It sure does. Yeah. And of course, as soon as we got debt-free, then the enemy tries to creep in, and we had an air conditioner that went out, which, you know, that's not cheap. And then we had about $4,200 of medical bills that popped up. We had to pay those. And for the first time, he was like...

Not a problem. And it was just so freeing to know that, you know, no matter what life throws at us, we have a plan that we're going to get together and get through this. And we have our people praying for us. And it's the lightest and most free you can feel. Amen. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Get on the budget. Pray. Pray for God's wisdom. And

you know, honestly, get people in your corner. So like we had family and friends, get them in your corner and really follow the plan.

And just stick to it. Don't make up your own plan. That's right. Use your plan. And that's how we did it. I'm the nerd, obviously, in the family. And in addition to every dollar, we also had spreadsheets that I'm like, okay, if I do this, then I know I can cut off this amount of debt. And it's going to take, instead of three years now, it's going to take 25 months. Yeah. But just stick to it. It's amazing how math for us nerds can translate to hope. Agreed. It's

But there were so many times, you know, where I would pop up, you know, being like, well, if we did this, it'd be better. And he'd be like, nope, Dave says we need to do this. So we're going to stick to the snowball regardless of what the interest rate is on this or that. And we just plugged at it. And it was pretty crazy when we'd start writing those big checks to pay the bigger ones. When you get to the end, it's like, oh,

This is crazy. I wake up like at three in the morning sometimes and I check my bank account and see if the check cleared to the last credit card. That's awesome. Awesome. Yes. Well, no more of that. No more of that. Dave, a funny story that Jamie did. He likes candy.

And I kid you not, one day, he's going to kill me for telling this, but it's so funny, I promised a friend I would tell it, that he was so desperate to have some candy, he scrounged through his car to round up change so he could go to the Dollar Tree. I've been there, brother. I've been there. And buy him some Lemonheads. I've been there. I've been there.

All right. It's Jamie and Kimberly. Greenville, South Carolina. $207,000 paid off in 25 months. That's fine. Making $186,000 to $252,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. All in, baby. Three, two, one. We're debt free! Yeah! Woo-hoo-hoo! That's how it's done, ladies and gentlemen. Boom! ♪

Hey guys, what's up? It's Jade Warshaw. And look, if there's anybody who knows about student loan debt, it's me. My husband and I had $280,000 of it, but we were able to dig ourselves out and you can too. If your student loan payment and interest rate are burying you, refinancing could be the solution. Now, if you're a student loan payer,

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Again, that's laurelroad.com slash Ramsey. Caleb is in Tallahassee. Hey, Caleb, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Dave, thank you so much, and thank you both. Thank you both for being a Christ-centered image of how our finances can look, young or old, no matter where you're at. Dave, I did want to say go Vols as well as a recent graduate from the University of Tennessee. Oh, wow. Very cool. What's your degree in? Cool.

I have a degree in agriculture. It took about 10 years. My father passed away when I was 19 years old, my only financial provider. I kind of got fed to the wolves early. I was playing college ball in North Carolina and had to give it all up. So Lord came through later in life to be able to provide the finances to get that done, even though I have a little bit of student loan debt. I hear you. Okay. How can we help today, brother? Absolutely.

Absolutely. So currently now 30 years old, I've had two professional careers in my life. One as a professional hunting guide and one as a real estate agent. Currently still a real estate agent. The past three years, I opened a branch office of my brokerage in the next county.

I have now been offered keys to the kingdom to buy everything that I've built over here in this county. I now have my broker's license. I'm looking to transition to the active broker. We manage about 65 rentals, so we have a pretty good rental portfolio. It brings in about $6,500 a month. After we pay our bills for the office that we rent,

my property manager and just basic utilities. We bring in about a thousand dollars in profit a month, but, um, the lights are on and it really helps with the sales portion, uh, of the real estate company as well. Would you purchase this business? Yeah.

Would you not? And how would you do it? I will give you a quick background on myself as far as financially debt-wise. I have no credit card debt. I still drive a 2006 Duramax that's been paid off since I bought it. I only have about $200,000 in total debt with my home. And then I have, again, about $25,000 in student loan debt from the University of Tennessee.

And what are you making as a real estate agent? How much do you make? So for the past four years in a row, I have gone from $90,000 to $125,000 in that kind of fluctuation. Taxable income? Correct, yes, sir. Okay. All right. And that's after splitting with your broker? That's correct. Okay. And what's your split? $80,000, $20,000. Okay. All right. And how many agents work in this office?

I have five agents that work in my branch office that will be transitioning over if I purchase the company as well. And what do they make the branch? One is relatively new. The other three, I would say gross commission. They probably bring in an extra $30,000 or $40,000. I'm kind of the breadwinner here. Okay. And so this business makes $50,000 a year.

The rental portfolio. Makes 12. Makes 12. And these guys make $30,000. So that's $40,000 to $50,000 a year, right? Because what you make, you could go make somewhere else. That's right. So that doesn't enter into the equation. That's right. Okay. I mean, you're not going to buy the business based on what you produce for the business. That would be dumb. You are correct. Okay. You are correct. All right. So what's the current owner offering to sell it for?

So he's offered several different terms. $75,000 is what he is valuing the business at. So it can be a seller finance route, or it could be whatever route that I find that could be feasible. My goal to him was if I did any sort of financing that I would pray I could have it done in two years, three years at the absolute max. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Can you guys help me? I don't know what you're buying. He's buying an income stream, a business that is creating an income of $40,000. But this comes with people. Yeah, the people make the money, and the rental portfolio that they manage makes money. Okay. A little bit, not much. But, I mean, if you buy this for $75,000 and then two of these realtors quit—

Well, that's true of every business, though. That's true. Okay. I mean, if you buy a factory and all the workers quit. But you still bought the factory. No, but they still don't have the income. That's true. There's a few items that I could probably go away with to increase our rental income with that property management portfolio as well to generate anywhere from $15,000 to $2,000 a month of income from there. Here's what I would do. I would offer him $60,000.

And I'm going to pay you 100% of the profit of the business until we get to $60,000. Okay, 100% of the profit. Not counting you. That's right. You take your money and go home and eat with that during this year. And during that year, you get these salespeople's button gear, and you tighten up this rental property management thing that sounds like it's pretty loose. Your margins suck on that.

I think you can tighten that up a little bit. And you're paying out way too much. I mean, all this trouble you go to, 65 rentals for $1,000, I'd shoot myself. That's 65 tenants you've got to screw with for $1,000. Yeah, of profit. Yuck. Oh, I know. I know. Property manager takes care of what property managers take care of, which means you have to take care of the property manager.

So, no, you're not your margins suck, dude. I'm in the business. OK, so anyway, that's not the other way. I think you can tighten this thing up, raise your sales on your team, hire some more people into the team to continue to sell. Hopefully this real estate market continues its healing process and and you tighten up the operations side on the rentals and you can pay this guy in one year.

I like it. I like it. And just tell you, I am not going to – our terms are you get 100% of the profits until we get to $60,000. It looks like that's going to be around a year. That's our terms. Okay. And if there's no profit because of whatever, whatever thing we want to make up that's a calamity or a catastrophe, then you don't owe anything until you get to $60,000. He gets all the profits.

Understood. Okay. And so, yeah, I teach people in Entrez leadership to do that plan all the time. It's not debt because you don't you're not in, you know, the bank will put you out of business if you don't pay the payments. This you got no payment if there's no profit.

That's right. Okay. And so you knock it out really, really, really fast. I'm not giving them a lot of value here. A normal business, I would give it more value on this cash flow. But I'm with John. You can go down the street and open up tomorrow. Most of those agents would go with you, and you probably –

If you didn't keep the 65 rental properties, you're probably in the end of the world because it's not really doing that much. Well, the time you spent on those, you could get one more sale of a house over the course of a year and get more commission than $6,000. Exactly. This is a time drain for 12 grand. Yeah. So a lot of calories burned. And I know you think the property manager is doing it all, but they never do everything. Okay. There's always someone has to lead the manager and that's you. Well, I almost wonder if you fire the...

Property manager, and you hire your own person and say, I'll pay you $100,000 to run these 65 houses. Well, property manager now works for him. He's being paid out of that $6,500 a month, and that got him down to...

$1,000 a month. That's part of it. So, yeah, you don't have $100,000 in profit to pay a property manager. Dave, in this scenario, who owns all those 65 houses? Individuals. A person went to a real estate company and asked them to manage it for them. Gotcha. And they're the management company. Gotcha. That's what they're doing. They're just collecting the rents. They're probably getting 10% of the rentals. But they got 100% of the hassle.

For a thousand bucks. I would have thought, I mean, as a guy that doesn't have real estate portfolio, I would have thought having 65 homes that you're taking care of was way more than, I mean, 65, yeah, 6,500 real, I just would have thought you were making way more on those houses. Yeah. Wow.

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If you really want to get control, you really want the money to behave. By the way, did I mention it's freaking free? Okay, shut up. It's free. Go watch the webinar and get yourself together. Sign up for free at everydollar.com slash webinar. Free budget trainings all this month. Good stuff. All right, John, off air, let me give you a full lesson on property management. I can't wait. Just kidding. I can't wait. Wouldn't do that to my best friend. This is The Ramsey Show. ♪

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, Ph.D. in counseling, number one best-selling author. He's my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Ryan is in Seattle. Hey, Ryan, what's up? Hey.

Hey, how you doing? Thank you guys for taking my call. I appreciate that. Sure. How can we help?

Well, I'm in a bit of a jam. I don't know how to get out of it. About three years ago, I had some parental issues that came up with my folks, and I got injured at work for about a year and a half. So I was on workers' comp payments. But I got myself into about $97,000 of credit card debt. I have a $32,000 personal loan. I have a $34,000 car loan and $18,000 in student debt.

Everything's up to about $181,000 in debt. And my mortgage is at $767,000. I just don't know how to get out of it. I can't get a loan to consolidate because... It doesn't matter. You can't borrow your way out of debt. Well, I was hoping to consolidate... It's mathematically impossible to borrow your way out of debt. Okay, so what do you make?

My base is about $140,000 a year. With my overtime, I make about $180,000 to $220,000. And you're single? I have a stepson and a girlfriend that lives with me. You don't have a stepson if you're not married. Well, he's living with me and she's living with me. Okay, your girlfriend's kid and your girlfriend live with you. Right. Okay, all right. Just making sure I understand what's going on. All right. And does she work? She does. And what does she make?

She makes about $60,000, $70,000 a year. So she can support herself? Correct. So I'm talking to a single guy who makes $180,000 and owes $180,000. Yes. Okay. What was the nature of your injury at work? I broke my foot, so I was out for about a year and a half with two different surgeries. And before that, my parents. The property that I bought was about $811,000 that I financed. The parents were going to live with me. Oh, you have a property. Do you have a property now?

I do, yeah. Oh, what's it worth? $1.1. And what do you owe on it? $7.67. Sell it and get out of debt. Yeah. I can't. My credit's too low. You don't have to have credit to sell a property. You have to have credit to buy a property. Right, I wouldn't qualify for anything. I don't care. Go rent. Yeah, rent for a while, man.

But the amount of money that I would have to pay off then and then all the money I'd have to move and the cost of the moving expenses, how would I get all that? Honey, 1.1 minus 700 minus 180 gives you some moving money. And you make 200 grand a year, dude. You spend like you're in Congress and you rationalize like you're in Congress. Here's the thing. I hear the desperation in your voice, but also –

You're pushing back on every single thing we put out there. What's the deeper issue here? The other option is this. Live on beans and rice and pay $140,000 a year onto this debt, and you are debt-free in a year and a half. And you have absolutely no freaking life. You've been living like you make twice what you make.

And walking around, strutting around like you act like it's okay. It ain't okay. It's stupid. Part of that is because I was on workers' comp and I didn't have my full income coming in. I know, but you make $180,000 freaking dollars.

I just don't like it again this year. I know, but go live like a normal person and pay this debt off. And sell the car. In a year and a half. Yeah, sell your car. Sell your stupid butt car. And if you're not willing to do all that and you want to get out really fast, sell your stupid house. It's just a stupid house. Get you another one later when you get your act together.

But you don't want any pain. You don't want anything to change. You don't want to sacrifice. I'm paying for all my money that I'm getting. Every single dollar I'm getting, I'm putting straight towards credit cards. I just started listening to your book, and I've already paid off two credit cards. I got one more that I'm paying off. How much is that? How much did you pay off? The last one I just paid off was $2,477. And what was the other one?

I paid half of a PayPal credit card. I'm going to pay the other half this week. How much? $1,000. Okay, so you paid off $3,000 in what period of time? In the last four weeks. Four weeks. Okay, in one month. So if we annualize that, that's $36,000 out of $180,000. That's not exactly stepping, dude.

Yeah, but I also have a personal loan that I'm paying $870 on. I can't sell my car because I'll be upside down on $14,000. When you get to hurting enough, Ryan, you're going to figure this out. But you're not hurting enough yet. Okay? We just told you four things you could do, and none of them suit you. So I can't sell my car. I can't sell my house. I can't do this. I can't do that. Dude, you can. You can do all that.

And when you decide you want to get out of this. And here's how we know, because both Dave and I have done it. Yeah, it's very possible, dude. You make a ton of money. You have this huge million dollar freaking house. You own a million dollar house, man. I mean, really? So people listening across America are going, I got no mercy for this dude.

Dave's being light on him, and I feel like I'm coming down on you. But seriously, dude, I want you to be free, but I want you to be free more than you want to be free right this second because you are not willing to cut loose some stuff to get free. So cut loose the car, cut loose the lifestyle, cut loose the not stepson and his mother, and cut loose some stuff and get your life back.

Because you've given your life away and the way you get it back is you're going to have to give up some stuff. You mentioned this a few times. You broke your foot and you were out for a year from work. And it's as though the world of math and the world of reality and the world of debt and the world of repayment and slavery, none of that should apply for a while because you had an injury. Right.

And the crummy thing is, is the world keeps moving, right? It just keeps going on. And so I hate that for you. And now you're back and it stinks like, hey, man, now that I got this big fancy job and I've been out for a year on benefits, I hated that. I want to spend like I'm catching up. You can't. You got a huge hole you got to get yourself out of, man. If you start applying eight to ten thousand dollars a month to this debt, not three thousand dollars a month.

including making your payments, you're going to see it magically start to go away. If you're not willing to cut your life that deeply, then you need to stop your 401k at work. You need to make sure your withholding is correct. You need to quit investing and quit saving. Take any money that's in savings and throw it at this debt. If you're not willing to do all that, a quick fix is to sell the stupid house. Both of those things will work. And yes, the car needs to be sold. You're a broke guy driving a $40,000 car.

And so, you know, figure out a way to come up with a difference and get the thing sold. Of course, you're upside down. I mean, that's just in the line of other things that you did. I've done dumber things than you've done, honey. But there comes a point you wake up and you go, I've got a sacrifice to be winning. And it's going to hurt.

Getting well is going to hurt. Yes. But not getting well is going to hurt more. That's right. So you got to make a decision. The faster you cut into this, the deeper you cut into this, the faster you're going to get out. That's the formula. And that's what we could see immediately. And because we're not emotionally attached to all these decisions. Good luck with it, brother. I hope you make the turn. This is The Ramsey Show. ♪

so

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Andrew's in San Jose. Andrew, how are you? I'm good. All right. Dave, John, thanks for taking my call. Sure, man. What's up?

So I was wondering what you thought. I'd like to take out $75,000 in student loan to get a bachelor's in construction management. But there's one caveat, which is that because I am a DACA recipient, I am not qualified for a majority of scholarships that are out there or any kind of federal assistance. Please don't do this, Andrew. Please, please, please don't do this. Okay. I'm sorry. Help me. John, what's a DACA? It's a...

Long story, but he is not a naturalized citizen, but he's lived here his whole life. And so he's a recipient. He can go to college, go to US college, but doesn't qualify for a lot of the aid packages that are reserved for citizens only. Gotcha. Okay. Now I'm catching up. And so you want to go into construction management?

Yeah, so there's a trade school here locally that also has an online college. I basically do an electrician degree, and then that turns into a bachelor's in construction management. Okay, so hear me say this. I want you to go learn how to be an electrician, and I want you to learn construction science.

I desperately want that because you're going to be one of the most in-demand people in the next 5 to 10 to 25 to 50 years, okay? That's a wonderful career field. I do not want you to get $75,000 in the hole, okay? What do you do now? Currently, I'm a graphic designer for a sign company. Okay. And so what made you pick construction?

So, I mean, I'm 29, and for the longest time, I didn't know what I wanted to do. And then I went on a tour of this trade school and the courses that they have available, and it just clicked.

It seems like something that it's with my hands, but it requires math and technical skill, which is something that I gravitate towards. And obviously, because I have a son and a wife, it's got to make money, too. Have you gone down and checked out the local community college in your area that probably offers the exact same program for nothing?

There's a JC in my area that gives me the certificate for electrician, but I'd have to go to further out, like a two-hour city to make it into anything that's higher education. Okay, here's the thing. A hundred percent of the time, you do not need a degree to be in construction management.

A hundred percent chance. What you do need is the skills to be there. One way to get the skills is to go study it the way you're talking about studying it. Another way is be doing it on the job and learn. That's how most people in construction learn construction management. They do construction, not graphic arts. So go get a job in the construction field, dude.

Okay. And work your way – get in with an electrician that will put you in an apprentice program. Yeah, get your free certification there. Get in an apprentice program, become an electrician, and then move from there and start working with the GCs in the area and take on some project manager roles on some small basic stuff and let them teach you construction management. Construction management is not rocket science.

Okay? It's logistics and math, what you found when you were doing that. What you ran into was a trade school that had a really good salesman. And a shiny, shiny shop.

And it made it look like this was going to be a thing. But listen, it's project management. And just in talking to you, I think you could do it almost now. You're bright. Okay. You're a smart guy. Except for this part about biting on the $75,000 hook. I think you got a little lip, little thing stuck in your lip right there. It's a hook. And so, but yeah, but no, dude, really go, go get in the construction business. I grew up in the real estate and construction business. I love it. And I think it's something that AI can't touch.

So you're not going to get replaced by a stupid computer. ChatGPT can't spell construction management. Well, it can't. I promise you in 10 years, they're not going to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I know you can wire up this entire project, but we need to see that certification. No one's going to have time.

Well, you can run through an apprentice program and become a certified electrician, but you do not need a construction management degree. I'm sitting in a building that costs $60 million to build. This portion of this building costs $60 million. The guy that built this building working for a commercial construction company did not have a construction management degree.

Okay.

Well, because everything's a freaking project. Running a wedding is a project management thing. So, I mean, whatever it is. Right. So, you know, there's nothing nothing bad about that. But you pick that up at the community college. Don't be hunting certifications as a silver bullet to make your life successful. Go look for skills.

Skills that you can put literally, in this case, and figuratively in your tool belt. I want to double-click on that because I think that might be one of the more profound shifts that's coming our way. And that is we have been told for 100 years to go get certified. Go have somebody else stamp you, whether it's an outside credential, whether it's an outside position.

And colleges have responded to this by coming up with credentials on any number of things that have never been credentialed. Left-handed puppetry. Everything is credentialed, right? So I'm a certified left-handed puppet, whatever. So here's the deal. In the future that we are entering into right now,

People are going to ask, can you do this thing? So don't go get certified in how to sit with hurting people. Go figure out ways to sit with hurting people. Don't get certified in how to fill in the blank. Go learn how to do that thing because that's going to be the new currency because their certification stuff is going to get winnowed out with the internets, with the computers. I'm convinced of that, Dave.

Can you do the thing? Well, I mean, we've already seen the beginning. Number one, the trades have never done that. Right. Number two, the new version of the trade called tech, you know, I got tech, we got 460 tech people working here. Yep. The

The number of them that have four-year degrees in information systems is almost zero. Right. But a number of them have lots of certs and have gone to classes and know how to code, gone to code school. They learned the skills. They have to learn the skills. They learn the skills. And I don't care what their certification is. Right. What I care is can you code? Correct. Can you build the platform for the code to sit on?

Can you create a customer interface? How fast can you do this at a dev one, dev two or dev three level? I, you know, are you, are you really quick or are you just slower than Christmas? I mean, what, what is, this is what I can, I'm the employer. I'm the guy writing the check. And so I'm telling you, you don't have to have a cert. I have a degree in salesmanship. I don't care. Can you sell something? That's what's going to matter. The only thing that means is you got sold.

Doesn't mean you ever sold anything. So, yeah, that's the essence of this, Andrew. Chase skills. And this is coming from John, who has a Ph.D. in higher education. And I used to tell, like, don't get a Ph.D. in leadership. Go lead something. Go ask for increased leadership responsibility so that you can get moved up the ladder in these areas and increase your influence because you know how to do the thing, not because you can wave a certificate around and say, look, somebody else says I can do this thing. Yeah, I had a fun discussion with Jim Collins at Entree Leadership Summit last week.

We were talking maybe on stage in the interview, but certainly off stage. We talked about it, too. I remember he told he told me the story. He was teaching entrepreneurship at Stanford. And, you know, a guy kept saying, yeah, but are you?

That's a great critique. It's a great critique. And that's what caused him to leave and go open his own for-practice, for-profit research firm that led to the book built to last, Good to Great, Great by Choice, How the Mighty Fall, all these masterful works that are based on his masterful research that he did for profit because he decided, if I'm going to teach entrepreneurship, I probably ought to be one. I find it no small coincidence that

Most of the teachers that I had that were of high influence for me, professors, were either theologians that also led small churches at the same time, or they were mental health professors that also had practices or were working in the communities doing the thing because they got to tie the practice into that knowledge, and then you get a much better – the passion jumps into the students, right? Who was it that taught me to go into debt? My finance professor who was broke. Yeah.

He was broke. What's wrong with a broke finance professor? That's like a shop teacher with missing fingers. I mean, come on. You ain't one. Right. You ain't one until you is one. Right? Oh, my gosh. This is how this works. So, yeah. Chase skills. Chase skills. Chase skills. I believe in education. Being dumb is not a plan. I do, too. I believe in going to college. I believe in gathering up knowledge. But the silver bullet is your gathering of knowledge and the application of it in the marketplace, not the piece of paper that said you did it. If all you do is collect degrees, you're a thermometer. Right.

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Hey, what's up? Dr. John Deloney here. The new dates have dropped for the money and marriage getaway over Valentine's Day weekend in 2026. This is your chance to hit pause on everything in your life and reconnect with your spouse over a long weekend in Nashville, Tennessee. Me and my friend Rachel Cruz will be digging into topics like sex, money, communication, and more.

This weekend is happening on February 12th through the 14th, and early bird prices start at $749 per couple, but the prices will be going up soon. Get your tickets today at ramseysolutions.com slash events. Well, we love folks joining us in the lobby at Ramsey Solutions. We love them joining us on the debt-free scream stage, and we really love it when they're one of our own team members.

That's like super fun, except for the part where 900 members of Ramsey stand in the lobby not working to cheer them on. You people all get back to work. What's wrong with you? The per hour cost in his mind right now. Oh my gosh, that's awful, yeah. All right, so Randall and Renee are with us. Randall is a senior product designer here on the Ramsey Real Estate Trusted Team. Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Team. Been here about four years, right? That's correct. That's correct.

So very cool. All right. So we're not going to ask your incomes like we traditionally do because all your peers are standing around. That would be unfair. But Renee, what do you do? I'm a homeschool mom, and I also tutor for our classical conversations to co-op. Oh, very cool. Very cool. All right. Good stuff. So together, you'll make a million dollars a year. Yes. Yeah. Got it done in no time. That's right. No time. Yeah. John, if I said that, that would be called a promise. No, I'm not saying that. All right.

All right. So how much did you guys pay off? So $118,155.80. I love it. How long did this take, guys? Five years and one month. I love it. Very cool. All right. And you've been here four years. That's correct. So you started on this journey and then come to work here. How weird is that? It was a little bit weird, especially when it was at the beginning of 2021. You were putting out the call for creatives to apply on the radio. And she's like, you have to apply right now. And I was like...

Okay, hang on. Let's think about that for a second. But then I warmed up to the idea, applied, made it through the extensive interview process. Did y'all move from somewhere to come here for the job? From Minnesota. Okay, all right. At the tail end of all the COVID stuff out there. Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah.

Yeah, we're out of here. All right, cool. Well, welcome to Nashville. And four years later, you've been sitting in this environment paying off $118,000. What kind of debt was it? So a mixture of mostly student loans, so like $96,000 student loans, a couple of credit cards, personal loan, car loans.

All the normal things. Yeah. How long y'all been married? 22 years. Okay. Wow. So what happened in the year before you came to work here, five years ago, that started you on this whole journey getting out of debt?

So in 2019, at the end of the year, we started receiving letters for collections for student loans. We were $10,000 behind on payments. Whoa. Yeah. And I got the letter and I didn't tell him. I hid the letter because he had a lot of anxiety and depression and just really struggling mentally with the debt situation.

Uh, and then January we got another letter and I realized it's not going to go away. So I have to tell him.

And I did. And then within a couple of weeks, we went to church and a very sweet couple, Matt and Krista Hammond, got up and did a testimonial about paying off $130,000 in debt. Sounds like us, yeah. Yeah, but they did it in three years. And I looked at Randall and I said, we have to take FPU.

And so our class was supposed to start March 2020. Oh, of course. Yes. So many things that didn't start in March of 2020. And we got one in-person class. And then from then on, we did it over Zoom. And it pretty much took one class. And I was obsessed and just like got on board, started listening to the show every single day, three hours, four hours a day. I was listening to all the back episodes. And I was like, we are doing this. We're gazelle intense.

So it took him a little bit longer to. Yeah, it was another like six months for me before I started seeing the pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel. I was in a really dark place before all that. And then somewhere around that six month mark, you hear me on the radio go, we're hiring creatives. And she went, yeah, load up the truck. We're headed to Beverly, baby. Exactly. Yeah.

Wow. Very cool. You didn't have any facial hair when you started this journey, did you? I did. I actually have... I started that in Minnesota. It was to keep my face warm because it was brutal up there. Okay. Fair enough. All right. So what is it like, tell the truth, to work with people at Ramsey while you're trying to do this? I can't imagine a better environment to try to accomplish this than working here. Like...

it's, it's the weirdest thing when you're, you're like, literally everybody talks about their finances. Oh yeah. We've got this. I've got so much, I've got so much debt and it's, you know, we're working on it. It's, we're paying it off. It's fine. And like, everybody's just really open about it and it's super supportive. And like everybody, every time you're like, Oh, I had to, you know, this, this setback and like, well, just get back on the horse and like, you're going to nail it. And you know, it's so, um,

It's so rewarding just from that standpoint that literally everyone's behind you. Every month we have the Walk the Talk thing with Jade getting up on stage. You're just motivated all the time to make sure that you're getting there. Yeah, wow. Well, they are all out here to cheer for you. I was making fun of them, but I'm proud of them for cheering for you because you did it. I'm proud of y'all. Thank you. Who was cheering you on other than work compadres?

Randall's parents, they were probably our biggest cheerleaders, our biggest support. They helped us a lot. So we couldn't have done it without them. They're here with us today. Oh, good. They came all the way down. Are you from Minnesota? No, they're from Destin, Florida. Oh, okay. Came up. Okay. Yes. Well, that'll work too. Yes. All right, cool. Tell us about these two boys over here. Yeah.

Theron is 15 and Elias is almost 12. I can see that y'all definitely held back on haircuts. Wow. A lot of scissors at home. You sound like an old redneck. I call him a hippie all the time. No, he looks great. Hey, I'm jealous, man. I can't grow my hair like that. I don't make hair jokes. It's a rule. So what was the hardest part about telling your boys? No.

Oh, just we had to take them out of Taekwondo. We, you know, they can go to church camps. They couldn't. We couldn't go to amusement parks, which we are from Florida. So we went to amusement parks a lot back in the day. Couldn't go to state fairs and county fairs. And so for that, that was the hardest part, not getting to go out to eat. We went for

Part of our getting out of debt celebration was going out to eat, and that was like a brand new experience. So they're celebrating big time. Oh, yeah. They have a life now. Oh, yeah. They're both wearing shoes now, finally. Mom and dad paid a price to get them here. Way to go, y'all. Way to go. I'm proud of you. Good, good work. Very, very cool. All right. Now, the question we ask everybody, what's the key to getting out of debt? You paid off $118,000. You stuck with it for five long years to do it, and now you're free.

I would say work. It's not going to happen if you have a tiny shovel and you're just going to sit back and expect it to happen. Like you said, you don't fall into debt. So for me, the first couple years, I did everything. I did Shipt. I did Instacart. I did DoorDash. I did Etsy shop. I did online evaluations. I did everything I could.

And then 2021 and 2022, I had a neck injury, had to get two neck surgeries and I couldn't work for two years. And so that's why it ended up taking us longer than we expected. And once I got through all of the recovery on that and I

I could actually work again. I said, I'm done at beginning of 2024. I said, we're, I'm sick of this. We're going to get done. I got a full-time job as an online pickup clerk at Kroger high pickup team. And I, uh, tutored for homeschool co-op and I homeschooled. So it was just like work, work, work constantly. And it was less than a year later. We got it at debt. So I would also add to that, um, to everybody listening, don't wait to start.

Like I was in like a hopeless place. But after we started, like there's, there's so much more hope on the other side of that. So it does start with a pinprick of light and then it gets larger and larger. Yeah. Yeah. And it starts to be just a real light at the end of the tunnel. That's not a train. Yeah. I heard this recently that, that thing you just said, um,

When you're in a hopeless place, places no hope, that remembering hope is an action. It's that first step. So start the class, right? What was the church you were going to in Minnesota? Crossroads in Hastings, Minnesota. Yeah, okay. Cool. Very cool. Well, hats off to those guys for offering the Financial Peace University class. Thank you.

Well done. All right, Randall and Renee. All right, get the guys up here. We want to see them on camera. They get to scream because they, too, are free now. And good stuff. Very good. I like it. I like it. Good. All right, Randall and Renee, Theron and Elias, our own team right here. $118,000 paid off in five years. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. Wee! Yeah! Love it!

Man, that's powerful. Way to go, you guys. Proud of you. Proud to have you on this team. This is the Ramsey Show.

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deal for your situation visit y refi.com slash ramsey that's the letter y refy.com slash ramsey might not be available in all states oh boy buckle up i just read through this question dave this is the part of the show after 30 years where we get canceled today's question comes from jeff in california

Our dog has had some hefty vet bills recently. Oh, boy. It's got my wife and me wondering what is the maximum amount we should spend to save his life. We're baby step seven. We make 127K a year, but could use some help on how to think through if we have to make this tough decision. Oh, Dave. I have a dog that I like more than most of you.

Me too. I have two of them. I have a third dog that I can't stand dumber than a box of hair, but I love the other two. Yeah. I've had 11 or 12 dogs in my life, and they are the favorite things I've ever had. I just love dogs.

My dog, I've got a little Havanese bear dog. It's 12 pounds. A bear dog. Well, legend has it that the Havanese bear dog will protect you from bears. And I think legend is true because I've not seen a single bear since I got it. So there you go. So we go for a walk. We did five miles on the golf course this morning at 5 a.m. And the dog is trained to come sit. It's beautiful. It's a wonderful dog. And I truly prefer this dog to most people. Yes. I really do.

It is, however, a dog. It's not my grandchild. If you ask this question about my grandchild, how much would I spend? All the money I've got. All of it. All the money I've got. And then some. Okay? This is an animal. Okay.

That I love dearly, but it is an animal. And I will tell you, being the old guy here, whose wife grew up on a farm, and therefore you eat Bessie that you bottle-fed six months ago, and then you shoot Bessie and you eat her. So there you go. She's got no attachment to these things. It's a dog.

It doesn't even care that I like the dog. So she keeps a perspective on this thing. But what we've observed with people that love their animals like we do is that it becomes about us instead of the dog. That's it right there. And we spend $8,000 to keep the dog alive while the dog is suffering. Mm-hmm.

And it's not fair to the dog. Amen. And that's what usually happens around this kind of question. And I could fall prey to that, too. I just explained this to you. I mean, I'm about to cry just talking about it. But no, seriously. Yeah. Man, I've put them down. I mean, we've had them send them to heaven. But I mean, we had one when the kids were little. They got spinal bifida. So at eight months old, the dog can't walk.

And the vet says, $2,500, we can do a back surgery, and the dog probably will still not walk, and it will be in pain. And I'm like, so why are we – the $2,500 isn't the point. The point is, do we do a – what are we doing to this dog? And why is this – what's this for? This is for the children to watch – to make our children watch a dog suffer. Well, that's dumb. And so, you know, you just kind of have to get past this thing of we don't get to play God and keep them alive. Right.

They have a lifespan of 10, 12 years maybe, or whatever they live. So we outlive 10 or 12 of them if you live to be 70 years old. And so you kind of got to get that built into the system here and not put the poor animal through suffering because you're a big baby and you can't cry. But I've sat there and cried, sobbed, while the vet puts one of them down. But that requires more courage to

Then prolonging the dog's life and letting it suffer. It's honoring them. If we can actually fix the animal, well, sure. We would spend some money on it. And that would be the percentage of money you spend on that would be, you know, if you have some money. Do I go $14,000 in debt to put new hips into a Labrador retriever? No, you do not. If you don't have the $14,000, you're going into debt to do it.

No, and you're not buying a $14,000 car either with that. I'm not going to tell you to do that either. It's a dog. And so, oh, that's your unkind. Oh, well, you know, just go ahead and whatever hate mail you want to add to the Ramsey file, just put it out there on Reddit or wherever it is you people do what you do, have at it. But...

Most of the time, this is about the person, not the dog. Here's what I think, and this is going to make me sound equally on the other side super soft. I think dogs are one of the greatest gifts to humankind. And I made a commitment to my dog, my very first dog I had of my own. I tell you this, probably the top 10 hardest I've ever sobbed in my life was in that room when I put that dog down. It takes me two seconds. I can get choked up on that. And...

The commitment I made as a new dog owner when I was 20 years old was, I'm always going to do what's right by this dog, not what's right by me. And so what you mentioned, the dog got sick and hey, we can do this. We can keep it going here and we can do that. That's not the dog I had. The dog I had was a maniac and loved being out and loved chasing stuff and

To steal that from that dog so that I don't have to have a really challenging, tough experience and weeks of grieving and all. That you're going to have anyway. I'm going to have it anyway. Right. It's just dishonoring. The dog is not going to outlive you. It's dishonoring. Unless something's wrong. That's exactly right. Yeah, yeah. So I'm a big believer in honor that animal and...

Yeah. And they've gotten so sophisticated with vet medicine now. It's almost they can do like the surgeries they do on people. They can do on these dogs now. So they can prop them up and prolong them and all that. It's just dishonoring to that animal. You get a puppy, just mark the calendar. You got 10 or 12 years. Yeah. Or eight. Yeah. Or depending on the dog. Right. And how screwed up their bloodline is. But yeah.

um how inbred they are but the uh um you know it's just that that's they're an amazing gift man but they're this dog i've got is two years old and it's just now got its brain grown in i mean the dog did not have a brain it was ridiculous and now it's turned into the smartest animal one of the smartest animals i've ever had but i've worked that dadgum animal man it's unbelievable

And I love this dog. I'm telling you. But I'm already I'm 64. I'm going to outlive this dog. And I got to deal with that right now. You know, when I'm sitting here talking about this. So it breaks my heart, Jeff. So number one rule is you don't go in. If you have to go into debt, it means you can't afford it.

Number two rule is, and more important than number one, is, is the dog suffering and this is for you? And I got to tell you, 90% of the questions I've taken on the air about this are that issue. That's where it boils down to. It becomes about the human rather than the dog. And it just requires great courage to bring an end to something. And courage doesn't mean you don't cry. Right. Right.

Courage means you have the courage to cry. Yeah, there's that, too, at length. So any of you – now, this is not the George Camel sell the horse show. No.

If you want to add to that, you have to go to a different hate page to add to that one. Because George has all the horse people in America torn up. It's the Anti-Equine Association. Anti-Equine. George Camel is the president. The charter president of Eger. Anti-Equine. That's right. We need a logo for that one. Just a horse with a line through it.

I love it. George isn't even here to defend himself, but he will when he gets here. Oh, man. Oh, it's fun. Hey, guys, this is fun. And it's this idea of, you know, what happens with money is it gets tangled up in all your values. Yeah. And emotions. Yeah. And your emotions. And get used to that. It's in your relationships. It's in your relationships.

It weaves into that. And stuff like, you know, how long we let a dog die. How long we let a dog live. You know, and what's good for the puppy. So love your dog well. That's the point. Love them so well that you don't ask them to suffer for you. This is the Ramsey Show.

Hey, what are you still doing here? You know the rest of the show is happening on the Ramsey Network app, right? So you got to jump over there to continue watching. You can download it for free. Just go to your app store, type in Ramsey Network. It's completely free. And I'll drop a link in the show notes to make it easy for you. So if you're watching on the app, you're in luck. But if you're watching anywhere else, this show is over for you. So jump onto the app and let the fun continue. All right. Go on now. Don't make it weird.

Okay, I got nowhere to go, so you need to go. Okay, bye-bye now. All right, this is getting weird over there, guys. What do we do?