The Faster You Attack Your Debt - The Faster You Achieve Financial Freedom | May 28, 2025

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsy 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, PhD in counseling. Ramsey personality, number one bestselling 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 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. Um, 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. That's She's got the phone number down already. She knows who to call in an emergency. I love it. That's right.

So, I'm gonna I write I wrote this down for because I'm super nervous, but I hope that's okay. So, I'm originally from Brazil, although as of recently, I'm incredibly proud to say that I'm an American. Um, 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 her um, deceased husband. And I don't know exactly how much. I think my portion is like 30%. As of la 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 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 uh exchange rate, but it would be around like $500. And then she also said said that Wednesday, tomorrow, there's going to be a she's going to be signing a contract 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 are finally a little bit trying to be a little bit more financially responsible where my parents are completely the opposite way. Um, I said no. And in the Brazilian culture, how dare you? So when I sit down, no, that's just the mother culture. Oh, okay. Oh, mother culture. Yeah. Okay, I got you. All right. Brazilian mom might put a little more little more flare on it. Oh my gosh. It's just so 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. 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 we're

How much is Erica? How much is this inheritance? I I don't know exactly. They would have to sell the entire house. Give me a give me a rough estimate in American dollars, please. Around around maybe 30,000 I would say.

No is the correct answer. Yeah. 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. Yeah. 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? Well, believe Sorry. Yeah, you it sounds like you don't fully believe your mom. She's really doing You don't call for lawyer fees at the last minute the night before. Yeah, I I Your mom needs money for something else, doesn't she? Maybe. But that's why you feel that's why you feel sick to your stomach. Cuz if this was 500 bucks for for $30,000 that you knew you're going to get, then that's a no-brainer. You wouldn't be calling and all the players involved were credible except the aunt. 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 someone you wouldn't call your friend up and present something this vague and ambiguous. No. Okay. You 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. Smells bad. You know why it smells bad? Cuz it stinks. 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 don't Hey, get get out of their heads. That's gonna make you and your husband. When 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 y'all are going to have real freedom for the first person in your lineage. So, let me let me let me try to paint this another way. When you get out of baby step two and you finish your emergency fund in baby step three and you start baby step four, 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? In Jesus name. Yeah. And what what's your household income? Uh 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 smiles. Be sweet. to say, "How am I love you and I understand this means a lot to you and I'm not I I would I'm 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, that's 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. Yeah. There you go. Right. And that's my problem. Huh? Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, I don't have the I mean, you can honestly say that until you're at least out of baby step, too. Like, we don't have the money right now. We're negative. And And why is this such an emergency now? Yeah, this is weird. I don't, Erica. You smelled a rat and you're used to it. And you know more about this de this drama and this narrative than we do. We've only got two minutes into it and we can smell it. So, you're right. It's hard that setting boundaries with people who don't respect boundaries 100% of the times makes the other person crazy. They go 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 Ramsay Show.

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Jenny's in Portland, Oregon. Hi, Jenny. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you, Dave. Um, I have a question about tax forgiveness. Okay. Um I uh was diagnosed um with uh CPTTSD and a traumatic brain injury and got onto um social security um uh because I was homeless. someone told taught me how to use one of the delivering platforms and I was able to start working and um and but because those platforms don't take out taxes um I am um starting an an investigation at work regarding abuse and they're going to investigate me and and I don't want my tax issues to um distract them from, you know, the real issue that I'm trying to get taken care of. So, I'm I'm needing help with the tax forgiveness program. Okay.

So, you haven't filed taxes in how long? Um, the last time I filed taxes was was 2010? 15 years. Yes. I was I was um And you've been earning an income. 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, uh, is 5 years ago to where you became a able to support yourself and sustain. Is that right? Um, yes. I have since been triggered. I I started in Portland, Oregon. There was the riots and so, you know, and then I'm a caregiver as well. And, you know, I' I've been traumatized at work, especially in my current situation. So, so there has been I have still um experienced panic attacks and things like that. Um but I am trying my hardest to be a working member of of society again because um 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 at that po 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 Yes. Yes. Yes. I was I was overwhelmed with the process. I had I started um 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 What is what has been your income through that 5 years? Um it's um I I honestly don't know but um you know it started out well and then No, I mean were you making 30,000 or you making 300,000? Um I was making um at one point I was making about a thousand a week delivering. Mhm. And that lasted for um a few months and then it you know went down from there to about maybe 2 to 3,000 a month. Have you gotten a phone call or a letter from the government asking for your taxes? Nope. I have I have not. Partly because I've been moving around a lot because I'm still homeing housing insecure. Okay. All right.

the the technical tactical answer to your question um which is not the answer to your problem but it is the answer to your question is to go to ramseyolutions.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, they will not criminally prosecute you for not filing taxes. Not paying taxes is not criminal. Not filing taxes is criminally prosecuted. 2576 people 2576 people last year got criminal prosecution for not filing. So you need to go file yesterday. Okay? And the process the proc listen listen the process will sound like this. sit down with the 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. Oh, okay. Okay. Now, there is back in the days when you were a popper, but you're not a popper now. You're not on social security. You're not, you know, you're making a quote unquote living. Okay. So, well, the pro the problem is social security refused to stop paying me because that's not that's not a problem. That's the check. I'm talking about 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 right now. I have Yes. Right now, I have zero income and I have about $500 in the bank or so. And I'm I'm sorry. I thought you told me you had a job. I I did, but um I was fired because I'm 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 that doesn't interfere with the abuse case that they're refusing to start. So it's a big mess. Now you have to go get another job, right? Yes. Okay. All right. Yeah. cuz since you're employable, I think your answer to your question is you need to get three years tax returns filed 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 cuz 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 my budget, so I didn't know if there was any kind of program that could help me. No. Okay. Not not that I'm aware of. coming up with a re 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 uh abuse in the workplace, you not p filing your taxes is not a destruction of your character. Okay? The abuse either was criminal or uh civil in nature and it either happened or it didn't happen. You your taxes are an irrelevant variable in that discussion. Okay. So, can we 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'm in 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 own anything because you may not have earned enough, but let's get let's 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 um and uh in just listening to you, and I'm just a guy. Dr. John's got the PhD. 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 the traumatic brain injury, the PTSD, the um the former employer that was um at a minimum a jerk at a maximum other things. Okay, that's those are not things you can control. And if you spend all your rent, your 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 what food's on your table, you not got $500 again. Okay? And um then you can afford to fight these people if you want to. You may not want to at that point. May not be worth it. I don't know. Well, what I Yeah. What I'm fighting for is is the other caregiver was abusing our client. That's That's not But that's not You 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 the topic right now. So, I'm more concerned about you than you crusading for some moral outrage in the society. uh you're not got the strength or the money to do that right now, kiddo. Yeah. Let's get our housing taken care of and let's get those taxes filed and that will give you some peace right now. Get you a job. Yeah. Then if you want to pursue some uh moral outrage, let's do that. But all 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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[Music] Jamie and Kimberly are on the debtfree stage right here in the lobby of Ramsay Solutions. How are you doing? Great. Great. Where do you guys live? We're in Greenville, South Carolina. Actually, Anderson, South Carolina, right outside of Greenville. Very nice. That's a beautiful area. They love it over there. Greenville's done such a good job with their downtown. Yes, they have. Um, we started going over there before that and then have gone obviously since. And it's just, it's really beautiful. They done a good job. Welcome to Nashville. Thank you very much. How much debt have you two paid off? $27,414. I love it. And how long did that take? Uh, 25 months. 25? Wa, that's quick. and your range of income during that two years. I think we started 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? Uh, it was everything, Dave. Everything you teach us not to do. We're normal people. We checked every naughty box that we should check. What were the naughty boxes? Let's talk about them. That's a very 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. Um so what were the naughty boxes? Tell us about them. 11 credit cards, two car loans, a uh medical debt, a heliloc, and a 401k loan and a partridge and a pair. I can tell. Yeah. Wow. Guys, you did do it all. How long y'all been married? So we're a blended family. It's 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 uh and then I 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, doctor of nursing practice leadership and 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 pretty much drowning in debt and uh and just it overcame us and we're like, we got to do something. So, uh, we went through our church, New Spring Church in Anderson, and, uh, they offered FPU. We signed up, started shortly, right around, uh, 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." He, you, 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. For eating out, you volunteered then acted like he did it. I can tell all the things. Okay, so here's here's I always I'm always perplexed by this. Y'all are both really smart people. How do smart people end up under this almost a half a million dollars quarter million of debt? I mean quart million dollars of debt. Yeah. I think not planning. Yeah, we had no plan. We had no concept. You know, it gets easy. You 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 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 a big thing you sold? sold a truck. Um what was that? How much of that? About 12,000 I think is what we got for the truck. Okay. Um we actually we cashed in a whole life policy that we found out she had. Okay. Uh and then how much was that? Uh 14 14,000 and then I cashed in some stock from restricted stock. And how much was that? That was another 15. Okay. So that that's like uh 60,000 55,000 those three things. And the rest of it you just gut punched. Yeah. Yeah. We worked hard. I worked a couple jobs. Um you can Yeah. You got a lot lot of opportunities to do that and um 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 you know see how much groceries we could get for $100 and at the Knock and Dent grocery store and I like that. It was fun. That's fun. And and just made a game out of it. We did. And then said we're going to be free. Yeah. Yep. We uh you know we we tried to make it fun. Uh it's a tough thing to do. Uh but it sucks. It 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. You got volunte. We're doing forced family fun. A lot of cards, a lot of uh card nights, game nights, that sort of thing.

How did y'all manage you'all 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. And how did y'all how did y'all navigate that? It's tough to tell your friends like, "I'm not getting my nails done in South Carolina cuz that's what a southern woman does, right? And I can't or I can't go get coffee with you guys." Yeah. Um or I'm not going I'm not going to, not I can't, but I'm choosing not to. How do you 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 to teaching. Um, 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 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 our mentors for FPU and 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." those kind of things. So, I think that really helped a lot. But, 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. And um I think all of the whole placement went through FPU at one point. So, uh that's pretty incredible. So, congratulations y'all.

How does it feel to be free? The debt that the just the the weight of the debt is off the shoulders. You keep you just feel better. You wake up better. You wake up energized. And that's kind of how That's it right there. That's the one. Yeah. And of course, as soon as, you know, we got debtree, 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, and 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 it's the lightest and most most free you can feel. Amen.

What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Get on the budget. Uh-huh. Pray pray for God's wisdom. Um and you know, honestly, get get people in your corner. So, like we had family and friends. Uh get them in your corner and uh and really follow the plan and just stick to it. I mean, it it's don't make up your own plan. That's right. Use your plan. And that's that's how we did it. We, you know, I'm the nerd obviously in the family and and 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. So, um, but just stick to it. It's amazing how math for us nerds can can translate to hope. Agreed. But there were so many times, you know, where I would prop up, you know, being like, "Well, if we did this, it would be better." And he'd like, "Nope. Dave says we need to do this or we're gonna 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 start writing those big checks to pay the bigger ones. When you get to the end, it's like, "Oh, this is crazy." I'd wake up like at 3:00 in the morning sometimes and I check my bank account, see if the if the check cleared to the last credit card. Awesome. Awesome. Yes.

Well, no more of that. Dave, a funny story that Jamie did. He likes candy. And I kid you not, one day he 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 scr through the 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 lemon heads. I've been there. All right, it's Jamie and Kimberly. Greenville, South Carolina. 207,000 paid off in 25 months, making 186 to 252. Count it down. Let's hear a debtree scream. All in, baby. 3 2 1. We're debtree. [Applause] That's how it's done, ladies and gentlemen. Boom.

[Music] I've been doing this show for over 30 years and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah. And what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, "Oh, it's terrible." are people that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. We actually took a question of a lady and she had three kids pregnant and husband didn't have life insurance and and I'm like, I can't even imagine. Or even if it was opposite, right, if if a mom passed away, there's a dad with kids and trying to figure out how am I going to afford child care? How do I how do I outsource some stuff that maybe she was doing? Like and and it just takes the grief and the sadness of something like a sudden death to a whole new level. Like when you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills next week? Yeah. How in the middle of all that grief? Like it's just it is it's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Xander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance and we keep re-uping it because I'm like I just want it there. Like there's something about that safety of knowing that you have money if something suddenly happens. And it doesn't cost much cuz Xander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You got to say it out loud and you got to say I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza. It really is. So that is one thing to do to say I love you to your family. So, we've used Xander for all of our family's needs for insurance for many years, including, of course, term life insurance. To get a free quote, go to 800356-4282. That's 800 356-4282 or go to xander.com.

[Music] 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 Christc centered image of, you know, how our finances can look, you know, young or old, no matter where you're at. Dave, I did want to say go VS as well as a recent graduate from the University of Tennessee. Oh, wow. Very cool. What's your degree in? Uh, I have a degree in agriculture. It took about 10 years. Um, my father passed away when I was 19 years old, my only financial provider. Uh, 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 Lord uh, 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. 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 um been offered keys to the kingdom to buy everything that I built over here in this county. I now have my broker's license and looking to transition to the active broker. Um, we manage about 65 rentals. So, we have a pretty good rental portfolio. Brings in about $6,500 a month. Um, after we pay our bills, you know, for the office that we rent, my property manager, and just basic utilities, we bring in about $1,000 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? would you not and how would you do it? Um, I will give you a quick background on myself as far as financially debt wise. Uh, I have no credit card debt. I still drive a 2006 Duramax that's been paid off since I bought it. Uh, only have about $200,000 in total debt with my home. Um, and then I have again about $25,000 in uh, student loan debt from the University of Tennessee. And what are you 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 and that kind of fluctuable income, correct? Yes, sir. Okay. All right. And that's after splitting with your broker. That's correct. Okay. And what's your split? Uh 8020. 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? Um, one is relatively new. The other three, I would say, uh, gross commissions, they probably bring in an extra 30 or 40. I'm kind of the bread winner here. Okay. And so this business makes $50,000 a year. Uh, the rental the rental portfolio makes 12. Makes 12. And these guys and these guys make 30,000. So that's 42 40 to $50,000 a year, right? Cuz what you make you could go make somewhere else. That's right. And 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 done. You are correct. You are correct. All right. So, what is he uh what's the um current owner offering to sell it for? So, he's offered several different terms. um 75,000 is what he is valuing the business at. Um 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 is 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 can you guys help me? I don't know what you're buying. He's buying He's buying an income stream that a business that is creating an income of $40,000. But that's comes with people. Yeah. The people make the money and the and the rental portfolio that they manage makes money. Okay. A little bit. Not much. But I mean, if you buy this for for $75,000 and then two of these realators quit. Well, that's true of any business, though. That's true. Okay. I mean, if you if you buy a factory and all the workers quit, but you still bought the factory. But I I get No, but they still don't have the income. workers. I mean, and there's a few Yeah, 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 to $2,000 a month of income from there. Yeah.

Here's what 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 till 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. It sounds like it's pretty loose. Your margins suck on that. I think you can tighten that up a little bit. And uh you're paying out way too much. I mean, all this trouble you go to, 65 rentals for a,000 bucks, I'd shoot myself. That's 65 tenants you got to screw with for $1,000. Yeah. Of profit. Correct. Yeah. Property manager take care. 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. Okay. So, anyway, that that's not the end of the world, I think you can tighten this thing up, raise your sales among your team, hire some more people into the team to continue to sell. Hopefully, this real estate market continues its healing process and um 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 I I I am not going 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 um so yeah, I I I teach people in entre 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, it probably isn't the end of the world cuz 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. So, uh, 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 and that's you. So, well, I almost wonder if you fire the the property manager and you hire your own person and say, "I'll pay you 100 grand to run these 65 houses." 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. Yeah, that's part of So, yeah, you don't have 100 grand in profit to pay a property manager. Dave, in this scenario, who owns all those 65 houses? Individuals. Like you a a person went to a real estate company and asked them to manage it for them. Gotcha. Okay. And they're the management company. Gotcha. Okay. That's what they're doing. They're they're just collecting the rents. They're probably getting 10% of the rentals, but they're they got 100% of the hassle. Yeah. For for for a thousand. I 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.

Okay, folks. If you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck and wondering where your money's going, our team is hosting a free budget training this month. You'll learn step by step how to make and stick to a budget using Every Dollar, the world's best and most robust budgeting app. Plus, you can get your biggest budgeting questions answered in a live Q&A. Spots are limited. Sign up for free at everydoll.com/webinar. These webinars are excellent. 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 everydoll.com/webinar. Free budget trainings all this month. Good stuff. All right, John, off air. Going to give you a full lesson on property management. Just kidding. Wouldn't do that to my best friend. This is the Ramsay Show.

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] 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, PhD in counseling, number one bestselling author. He's my co-host today. Open Phones at 825-5225. Ryan is in Seattle. Hey, Ryan. What's up? Hey, how you doing? Thank you guys for taking my call. I appreciate that. Sure. How can we help? Well, I I'm in a bit of a jam. I don't know how to get out of it. Um about 3 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, um I got myself into about $97,000 of credit card debt. Um I have a $32,000 personal loan. I have a $34,000 car loan and $18,000 in student debt. Uh everything's up to about $181,000 in in debt. And I, you know, my mortgage is at 767,000. I just don't know how to get out of it. Um, I can't get it, I can't get a loan to consolidate because, uh, doesn't matter. You can't borrow your way out of debt. I Well, I was hoping to consolidate. That's mathematically impossible to borrow your way out of debt. Okay. So, what do you make? Um, my base is about 140,000 a year on a uh with my overtime, I make about 180 to 22.

And you're single? I have a I have a a stepson and a uh a girlfriend that lives with me.

You don't have a stepson if you're not married. Well, she 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.

The um And does she work? She does. And what does she make? She makes about 60 70,000 a year. So, she can support herself. Correct. So, I'm talking to a single guy who makes 180 grand and owes 180 grand. Yes.

Okay. What was the nature of your injury at work? Um, I broke my foot, so I was out for about a year and a half um with two different surgeries. And then before that, my parents I saw the property that I bought was about uh 811,000 that I financed. My 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? Uh 1.1. And what do you owe on it? 767. Sell it and get out of debt. Yeah. I can't. My credit my credit's too low. You don't have to have credit to sell a property. But 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. the but the amount of money that I would have to pay off then and then all the money I have to move and the cost of the moving expenses. How would I how would I get all that? Honey, 1.1 - 700US 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.

I I here's the thing. I don't like I hear the desperation in your voice, but also you're you're pushing back on every single thing we put out there. What what's the what's the deeper issue? The other the other option is this. Live on beans and rice and pay $140,000 a year onto this debt and you are debtree 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 I didn't have my full income coming in from I know but you c you make 180,000 freaking dollars. I just go live like 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.

No, I'm I'm I'm paying for like all my all my money that I'm getting. Every single dollar I'm getting, I'm putting straight towards credit cards. I just I just started listening to your book. Mhm. And I've already paid off two credit cards. I got one more that I'm paying off. How How much is that next paycheck? How much you pay off? Uh the last one I just paid off was 247 247. What was the other one? Uh I just I paid half of a pay loan PayPal credit card. I'm I'm going to pay the other half this week. How much? $1,03. 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. It's not exactly stepping, dude. Yeah. Yeah. But, but I also have a personal loan I'm paying $870 on. I can't sell my credit card. I cancel my car cuz 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. Uh, 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, um, but seriously, I I dude, I want you to be free, but I want you to be free more than you want to be free this right second because you're 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're you broke your foot and you were out for a year from work and like 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. 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 $10,000 a month to this debt, not $3,000 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 dad. 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 to sacrifice to be winning. And um 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.

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[Music] Andrews in San Jose. Andrew, how are you? I'm doing all right, Dave. Uh, John, thanks for taking my call. Sure, man. What's up? So, I was wondering what you thought. Um, I'd like to take out $75,000 in student loan to get a bachelor's in construction management, but um, 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 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. And so, you want to go into construction management? Yeah. So, there's a trade school here locally that also has an online college. Okay. I'd basically do an electrician degree. Yep. 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 um 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 like it just it seems like something that it's with my hands but it requires math and and you know technical skill which is something that I gravitate towards. Okay. And obviously because I have a a son and a wife it's got to make money too. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. 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 that gives me the the certificate for uh electrician, but I'd have to go to uh further out like a two-hour city to do it to make it into anything that's higher education. And here here's let me just tell you 100% of the time you do not need a degree to be in construction management. 100% 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'll put you in apprentice program. Yeah. Get your free certification there. Get get in an apprentice program. and become an electrician and then move from there and start working with the GCs in the area and and take on some project manager roles on some small ba 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. Uh except for this part about buy 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 uh but yeah, but no, I dude really 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. Chat gpt can't spell construction management. And I Well, it can't. I promise you in 10 years they're not going to say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I know you can wire up this entire project, but um we need to see that certification." No one's going to have time. Well, you can get 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 cost $60 million to build. This portion of this building goes $60 million. The guy that built this building working for a commercial construction company did not have a construction management degree. Okay, that's what I'm saying. Okay, what he did was he swung a hammer and he dug ditches and he wired stuff and he did whatever and he learned project management. And you can take some project management courses and there's some basic things to learn about that that everybody ought to know for that matter because everything's a freaking project. Running a wedding is a project management thing. So, I mean, whatever it is, right? So, uh, 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.

Can we can we I want to double click on that because I think that might be one of the more more profound shifts that's coming our way. And that is we have been told for a hundred years to go get certified. go have somebody else stamp you. Whether it's an outside credential, whether it's an outside 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?" Yep. 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 the internets with the computers. I'm convinced of that. Dave Well, I mean, we've already seen we've already seen the beginning. Number one, the trades have never done that, right? Number two, uh the new new version of the trade called tech. Mhm. You know, I got tech. We got 460 tech people working here. Yep. I The number of them that have four-year degrees in information systems is almost zero. Right. But the number of them have lots oferts and have gone to classes and know how to code, gone to code school. They learn 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 1, dev two or dev three level? I you know are you are you really quick or are you just slower in Christmas? I mean what what is this is what I I'm the employer. I'm the guy writing the check and so I'm telling you you don't have to have a certain I have a degree in salesmanship. I I don't care. Can you sell? 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 the essence of this. Andrew chase skills. And this is coming from John who has a PhD in higher education. And I used to tell like don't get a PhD 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 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 um maybe on stage in the interview but certainly offstage we talked about it too. I remember he told he told me the story he was teaching entrepreneurship at Stanford and um 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. Yeah. and go open his own forpractice, 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. Hm. I I find it no small um coincidence that the 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 working in the communities doing doing the thing because they got to tie the practice into that knowledge and then you get a much better it the passion jumps into the students. Right. Who was it that taught me to go into debt? My finance professor who was broke. 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, I believe in education. Being dumb is not a plan. Okay. I do too. I believe in going to college. I believe in gathering up knowledge. But your the 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.

[Music] All right, Dave, you have some strong opinions. Possibly. Yeah, I think so. Okay. Because you really prefer credit unions over big banks? Well, credit unions for one thing are uh nonprofit, which means that the members, the customers own the credit union. So any profits that the credit union makes goes back into customer pricing. So you get better interest rate on savings, cheaper checking and so on, that kind of thing. And and but that's what's more important than that though is the fact that the customer is the owner changes the spirit on the credit union. So I find very few credit unions that aren't very customer ccentric. Well, and I think we have found one that is incredible and that's Fairwinds. They are an incredible credit union that is really out with the heart to help the customer. They're the right kind of people with the right kind of values and they've done a really really good job with customer service and um the deals that they're offering. The Ramsay tribe is incredible. Yeah, absolutely. And I love it. The things that we teach they so line up with and you're right, their customer service is unbelievable. Winston and I just signed up and we got an account. Yeah. And I'm not kidding, it took less than 5 minutes. It was so user friendly. Like the step-by-step approach was unbelievable. And then the next day, my phone rings and it says Fairwinds on my phone. So I answered it and talked to someone there and they said, "Yeah, they give calls to every new customer." And so again, they just really care about your experience and I I so so appreciate that. Plus, anything that you can do at a traditional branch, you can do with them at fairwinds.org or on their app and you'll have free access to over 33,000 ATMs. Hey, you guys know how much I hate banks in general and so for me to do this is a big deal. Talk to our friends at Fairwinds and check out the combined checking and savings bundle that they created just for the Ramsay tribe. You guys, it's incredible. Yeah, you guys, it's so easy to join Fairwinds no matter where you live. So, go to fairwinds.org/ramsey. Fairwinds is federally insured by NCUA.

Well, we love folks joining us in the lobby at Ramsey Solutions. We love them joining us on the debtfree scream stage. And we really love it when they're one of our own team members. That's like super fun. Uh, except for the part where 900 members of Ramsay stand in the lobby not working to cheer them on. I know Dave's like people all get back to work. What's wrong with you? The per hour cost. It'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. 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 uh uh Renee, what do you do? Uh I'm a homeschool mom and I also tutor for our classical conversations to uh co-op. Oh, very cool. Very cool. All right. Good. So together you'll make a million dollars a year. 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. So, how much did you guys pay off? So, $118,155.80. I love it. How long did this take, guys? 5 years and 1 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 didn't come to work here. How weird is that? Uh, it was a little bit weird. Uh, especially when uh it was at the beginning of 2021, you were putting out the call for creatives to apply. Yeah. 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." Uh, and but then I warmed up to the idea, applied, made it through the extensive move from somewhere to come here for the for Minnesota. Okay. At the tail end of the all the co stuff there. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. We're out of here. All right. Cool. Well, welcome to Nashville. And uh 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, uh a couple of credit cards, personal loan, uh car loans, like all the normal things. Yeah. How long y'all been married? Uh 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 uh 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 um really struggling mentally with the debt. 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 weeks we went to church and a very sweet couple Matt and Christa Hammond got up and did a two uh testimonial about paying off a hundred and I think 30,000 uh in debt or 180,000. That sounds like us. Yeah. Yeah. And 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. And we got so many things that didn't start in March of 2020. Uh, and we got one inerson 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. Um, it took him a little bit longer to Yeah. It was another like six months for me before I started seeing the pin prick of light at the end of the tunnel. I was in a really dark place before all that. So, yeah. And then somewhere around that six month mark, you hear me on the radio go, "We're hiring creatives." And she went, "Yeah, yeah. Load up the truck. We're headed to Beverly, baby." Yeah. Exactly. Wow. Very cool. You didn't have any facial hair when you started this journey, did you? Uh, I did. I I uh I actually have um I 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 uh tell the truth to work with people at Ramsay while you're trying to do this? Uh 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 got this so much I've got so much debt and it's you know we're working on it. We're paying it off. It's fine. And like everybody's just really open about it and super supportive and like every every time you're like, "Oh, I had to, you know, this this setback and like, well, just you 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 like literally everyone's behind you. We like every month we have the walk the talk thing with Jade getting up on stage and like you're just motivated like all the time to make sure that you're you're getting there. Yeah. Wow. Well, they are all all out here to cheer for you. I was making fun of him, but I'm proud of him 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? Uh my Randall's parents. Uh 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 to Are you from Minnesota? No, they're from Dustin, Florida. Oh, okay. Came up. Okay. Well, that'll work, too. Yes. All right. Cool. Tell us about these two uh boys over here. Uh Theren 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 I call him a hippie all the time. He looks great. Hey, I'm jealous, man. I can't 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 couldn't 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. Um, 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 part of part of our getting out of debt celebration was going out to eat and that was like So they're they're celebrating big time. Oh yeah. They have a life now. Oh yeah. They're both mom and dad. Yeah. 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. Uh, I would say work. You 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. And like you said, you don't fall into debt. So for me, the first couple years, I did everything. I did shipped, I did uh Instacart, I did Door Dash, I did Etsy shop, I did online evaluations, I did everything I could. And then 2021, 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 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. Hi, pickup team. Wow. 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 out of debt. So boy to go, you know, I would also add to that um to everybody listening, don't wait to start. U like I was in like a a hopeless place uh 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 pin prick 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. And I heard this recently that that thing you just said um when you're in a hopeless place, place with no hope, that remembering hope is an action. It's a it's it's that first step. So start the class, right? What was the church you were going to in Minnesota? Uh 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 uh good stuff. Very good. I like it. I like it. Good. All right. Randall and Renee, Theren and Elias, our own team right here. 118,000 paid off in 5 years. Count it down. Let's hear a debtree scream. 3 2 1. We're debtree.

[Music] Yeah. Love it. [Music] 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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Oh boy, buckle up. I just read through this question, Dave. This is the part of the show after 30 years where we get cancelled. 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 this 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 in a box of hair, but I love the other two. Yeah. I've had uh 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. It's Well, legend has it that have 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 5:00 a.m. And the dog is trained to come sit. It's beautiful. It's a wonderful dog. And um I I truly prefer this dog to most people. Yes, I really do. Uh 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 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 bottlefed 6 months ago and um then you shoot Bessie and you eat her. So there you go. She's got no attachment to these things. It's a dog. Um it doesn't even care that I like the dog. But um so you got to kind She keeps a perspective on this thing. So, 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. And it's not fair to the dog. Amen. And that's what usually happens around this kind of question. Yep. And I could fall prey to that, too. I just explained this to you. my I mean I'm about to cry just talking about it, but no, the uh seriously yeah I man I've put them down. I I mean we've had them send them to heaven and uh but I mean we had one that uh when the kids were little they got spinal bifida. So at 8 months old the dog can't walk and the vet says uh 2500 bucks 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 2500 bucks isn't the point. The point is, do we do a what what are we doing to this dog? And why is this what's this for? Right? This is for the children to watch to make our children watch a dog suffer, right? Well, that's dumb, right? 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. They have a lifespan of 10 12 years maybe and or whatever they live and uh so we outlive 10 or 12 of them if you live to be 70 years old. And so, uh, 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 we while the vet puts one of them down. And um, but that requires more courage than prolonging the dog's life and letting it suffer. It's honoring that. 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, I if you have some money, uh, do I go $14,000 in debt to put new hips into a Labrador Retriever? No, you do not. If you if you that 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 debt. I'm not going to tell you to do that either. It's a dog. And so, oh, that's that's you're unkind. Oh, well, you know, just go ahead and whatever hate mail you want to add to the Ramsay file, just put it out there on Reddit or wherever it is you people do what you do, have at it. But, um, you know, most of the time this is about the person, not the dog. Yeah. I I here's what I think, and this is this is going to make me sound equally on the other side. I think dogs are um 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 I tell you this probably the top 10 hardest I've ever sobbed in my life was in that in that room and I put that dog down. I It takes me two seconds. I can get choked up on that. Yep. And what 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 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 love being out and love 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 that you're gonna 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. Exactly. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm a big believer in honor that animal. And um Yeah. And 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. 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, you know, 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 first dog I've got is 2 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 dad gum animal, man. It's unbelievable. And I love this dog. I'm telling you. But I 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, um, it breaks my heart, Jeff. So, number one rule is you don't go into, 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 uh courage doesn't mean you don't cry, right? Courage means you have the courage to cry. Yeah, there's that too at length. So, um, so any of you now, now this is not the George Camel Sell the Horse Show, 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-Equin Association. George Camel is the president, the charter president. Anti-equin. 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 uh it's this idea of um 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 weaves into that. And stuff like, you know, how long we let a dog die. How long would we let a dog live? Uh, 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 Ramsay Show.

[Music] Go every 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 I I got nowhere to go, so you need to go. Okay. Bye-bye now. All right. This is It's getting weird over there, guys. What do we do?