Debt is NOT a Tool, It's an Anchor!

[Music] you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story where debt is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice i'm dave ramsey your host dr john deloney is my co-host today ramsey personality best-selling author of the book redefining anxiety and we're inviting your calls here toll-free and nationwide at triple eight eight two five five two two five as we talk about your life and talk about your money triple eight eight two five five two two five so um john posted on instagram i dared to do this that uh that people should be nice to each other and you did that on the day of the inauguration people should be nice to each other and apparently it's not okay to say you should be nice to each other so just for everyone listening i it's the most hate mail he's ever gotten so i've really been messing with him this is awesome so just all the conservatives said you're a liberal and all the liberals said well where have you been to protect our rights all along that's right so you you just screwed up you screwed everybody i used asking them to be nice the u word oh i know don't usually you word and so i don't watch the news just as a general principle because i care about my mental and social and physical and spiritual health so i stay away from that and i communicate with questions you're naive as chris evidently does so i'm walking through the office and i see the end of the inauguration i stick my head in and say oh yeah that was today like a terrible citizen i get that and then i see karl rove come out and say i'm just going to say it that was a good speech and i thought well america's over right and then i thought yeah karl rove says it's a good speech biden has a good speech the second coming of jesus is about on us either it's freezing over or yeah hey we're all coming together it's gonna we're gonna come together and dave you know me i always think everyone's gonna come together at the end whoo boy so i have i'm leaving the office after my show yesterday and i posted hey it's time for everybody to come together we're gonna be unified we're going to say i'm sorry we're going to ask one more question like i don't know what you mean by that can you help me don't you you were asking people will be nice and that's just that's illegal just be kind i'm surprised that facebook hasn't completely thrown you off because that's kind of asking people to be nice is hate speech john i have an unread message from zuckerberg he emailed me last night i'll open it when i get the courage could we just stop we just stop people would rather have a terrible day than say hey man tell me what you mean by that people would rather have a bad marriage the hilarious thing is is that you're so politically naive that you have no idea that you just walked down the alley asking to get hit by both sides oh i told somebody cause it's like a gauntlet you walk people are emailing i said you're so funny i just walked through my girlfriend's front yard and stepped in dog poo and tracked it all over her parents house without even realizing that's what i did i had no idea [Laughter] hey get this dave the first person who wrote me said something along the lines of oh i see what's going on in china and conspiracy and i wrote back and i no you didn't you answered it hey i thought it was good you've got to stop dave i wrote i wrote ha ha ha awesome i thought they were messing with me here's the thing they were super nice they're really mentally ill they were not messing with me the unabomber just sent you a message on instagram man listen listen hey the good news is is that mental illness is everywhere and so you got a big job dude i tell you what you got almost as big a job as i do getting people out of debt and jenny craig does the three of us are gonna be employed are eternally employable forever and if i'll just shut my mouth the chicks will just deposit themselves be nice be nice let's be let's be willing to listen to other people's ideas oh god you're a liberal i do i didn't know i didn't i had to go on instagram to find out john was a liberal i had no idea oh man oh man i did can you imagine dave i think i just think we need to stir in a little anthony o'neal see if we can make it even more messed up no when anthony when anthony texts you and goes he just wrote bro that's it that's what i knew i'm probably in trouble i don't know what i did oh jeez louise well if you all don't know john has been a ramsey personality for a little under a year now and so he's gotten um a few baptisms by fire and learning that the trolls and the uh singular words misused in the wrong timing on social media will get you hate mail by the bushel well here's the thing dave i will bail mine man i will oh yeah we don't answer i answer all letters that come today ramsey they go to patty's desk we answer every one of them except hate mail yeah and um send them to me i'm gonna respond to them no no no i use them for kindling there you go i have to have something to light my fires in the winter and there's a lot of kindling at my house so man yeah it's it's i'm not gonna stop talking about this one thing okay if somebody has hurt you in the past if somebody um disagrees with you all going to ward accomplishes i'll find if you if finding somebody new to hate dave will not solve any of your problems and if you want to have a conversation great it doesn't mean kindness doesn't mean you're going to agree kindness doesn't mean we're not going to fight hard kind means i'm going to be respectful i'm going to listen to you so i'm going to keep encouraging people in your homes with your kids in your workplace in your community wherever just listen first just listen and if you don't understand ask this next question i don't understand what you mean by that keep keep coming on that fill me in and man you all we often will find we are way way closer together on so many things man so many things you see you're making the assumption there that you're dealing with someone who's not mad i know i know i just have such a high view of people you're so kind and sweet hey those christie wright texted me last night she says if you're stupid and off track me listening to you ain't going to keep you from being stupid you're right check it back check back with him in one more year oh man man after you've had a few more emails from the unabomber and then we'll see we're going to blow up the building please don't i don't i want to tell my kids bye yeah well uh usually people that are gonna blow up the building don't tell you they're going to so that's the good news okay who knows man are you listening do not use the word unity don't don't say we want to be unified don't say kindness don't say nice just say don't say sorry don't say say you're sorry don't ever never be sorry never be sorry i can't hey you know what those people are gonna cut and paste this and they're gonna say see and it's gonna be me and dave going don't say sorry don't say sorry you know what it ain't the first time it's happened okay louise there's so much video of me on youtube that has been cut and pasted is it awesome it's just um yeah i've said a lot of stuff i never said hey james did that to me the other day and it's fantastic man yeah the guys in our booth they can put together stuff on us and they do it frequently just to mess with us well the problem with james is what i said i actually said so i can't really have it context context is overrated yeah oh well there we go oh be kind america be kind be unified slow we got some crap we got to figure out geez oh this is the dave ramsey show [Music] what makes our show unique is that we genuinely care about our listeners we're intentional about choosing the best advertisers to recommend blinds.com is no exception they offer high quality window treatments at unbelievable prices and they make it simple to shop blinds shades and interior shutters with easy online ordering free shipping and a guaranteed perfect fit go to blinds.com and take advantage of this week's special savings [Music] dr john dolone ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five ryan is in columbus ohio hi ryan welcome to the dave ramsey show hi david john thanks for taking my call sure what's up um so my wife and i just paid off our house last october so we're in baby step seven and we're trying to figure out yeah we're trying to figure out what to do with the extra money we're having from not having a mortgage payment way to go such problems yeah so my wife's the dentist and she's currently buying into the practice that she works at we're actually able to do this without taking out a loan by her paying her a partner each month for equity in the practice and then their plan was to do this for four years and then at the end of the fourth year she would purchase the rest of the practice from him so we're currently in the last year of that plan and we're planning on getting a business loan to pay off the rest of the practice you know after this year so my question is with that um with that business loan coming up in the next year and we have all this extra money from not having a house payment anymore should we save up that money and take out a smaller loan yep or should we need more no longer to save for retirement or no loan yeah can you how much is the loan how much is the buyout at the end of the end of the year it's about four hundred and eighty thousand dollars that you're going to need more than if she's already paid in yes whoo so it's a serious practice or you're seriously overpaying um um okay anyway i i want you to go relook those numbers and just make sure that you're not overpaying for this uh dentists yeah have a reputation for overpaying yeah we have a uh we have a accountant that works in uh buying out dental practices he looked at the numbers and he said for our area for the size of the practice this was a good price he actually said we're getting a deal so okay all right it must be mammoth okay um okay so what's your household income um combined right now with her paying her partner is about two hundred thousand dollars okay but then after after she owns the entire practice she says we'll probably be uh 350 thousand dollars conservatively okay so uh yeah what i would like you to do is to save as much as you can possibly save almost like you're on baby step two again uh real intensity because i really don't want you to have this loan but it sounds like you're going to but let's make it as small as you can possibly make it and then let's pay it off as fast as you possibly can um okay we've done a lot of work over the years with a lot of dentists in entre leadership and also just in financial coaching and um the uh the amount of debt around being a dentist is it's it's mind-blowing in general and in that in the community that your wife works walks in every day uh a million dollars or a half million dollars in debt for the rest of your life is not unusual it's standard and you can get sucked into that paradigm and i'm gonna challenge you not to i'm gonna challenge you to get this paid off like it was a credit card like you were ashamed of this debt you follow me yeah don't normalize it and keep it like it's a dadgum pet so limit the size of it this year by saving everything you get your hands on and then get into um attack mode and finish and take out as a small loan as you can then take that loan out and it sounds to me like you can take that loan out in uh 12 to 18 months from the time you it's gonna be a very short period of time if you guys won't go back and act like now i'm a rich dentist or something i i did some research back in grad school on the mental health of doctors and physicians and nurses and one of the worst subgroups was dentists and i have to wonder high rate of show hi we'll have to wonder if it's this crushing debt that you just carry around and carry around that's normed in that community more so than some of these other communities yeah the um borrowed future podcast that we did we interviewed a dentist that had over a million dollars in debt and student loans yeah yeah and the guy was just crying yeah he was just crying because you can't you can't clean your teeth you can't clean your way out of that right yeah well you can but it's just i mean but it takes one you've got to have a you gotta have a certain level of and you gotta you gotta have some specialization in the thing or you gotta have some volume or something to get the income up but it sounds like she's gonna be making uh out of the uh i'm i don't know but i mean you sound like she's gonna be making chunk of money quarter million dollars a year her part so um yeah let's use that let's use everything we can to to limit this and then when you don't have any payments in the world and you're making 350. now you're in the agreement to do all kinds of things right and it does change the way you operate a business it changes the way you view going to work it changes when you own a practice or you own a business when you get the debt off of you it it the borrower's slave the lender it changes the way you stand the way you walk the way you carry yourself dustin is in naples florida hi dustin welcome to the dave ramsey show hi dave how are you great man how can we help my wife and i are on baby step number two with baby number two on the way um and we have uh we currently have a hour commute and we're wondering if we should sell our house to move closer to work we don't work at the same company uh yes but you may be renting yes that's what we plan to do we plan to rent until we get out of baby step two three and save up our down payment yeah so how much closer can you move to work well we can move maybe two minutes away yeah and so you're going to get two hours of your life times two parents four out four hours of parenting returned to you rather than in the car every day absolutely i'm doing this i'd do it today yes yeah i have an 11 minute commute um and if there's no traffic less but that would be illegal but um but uh yeah so i i you know i don't want to spend my life doing that a lot of people do and it's normalized and some people redeem the time with audio books and other things and there's all kinds of ways you can do it if you have a commute commute's normal in a lot of large metro areas but um it is a decision that you're making and you ought to make it intentionally and if you can change it and get more sections of your life back i highly recommend you do not to mention you cut your your debt load back that i mean you're going to find yourself with less stress and four hours of your life back man that's a that's a big turnaround for your whole home yeah the the level of uh simply the amount of sleep you're getting will change man sleep the ability to just have conversations with your spouse ability to be present with your kids oh that's kind of well they're in the car an hour a day they got the opportunity for conversation they're trapped but but yeah but he's just yeah that's uh if you're in an area naples is an area where you don't have to do a one-hour commute in order to just have a job and be able to have a place to live then and yeah i'm i always encourage that now for those of you listening out there that is not to say you move up in-house into a more expensive house well the homes in the neighborhood in my experience uh well then you maybe can't make that move right or save your money you need to move a lateral move down and or become a renter right for a period of time to get your finances under control don't use this as an excuse to go to an increase in debt an increase in house price purchase and um you know john the um with personal finance being 80 behavior 20 head knowledge the behavior aspects having you around to talk about this stuff is um has been uh it's been helpful very helpful but the uh uh the power of the human mind to rationalize and to to do something stupid and figure out a way and twist it in our brain to where they it sounds smart yeah we we will find what we are looking for and if i find a a way the math works in my favor i will champion that if i find the way i can make this my wife's fault not mine i will champion it if i can find a way to hear what dave ramsey just told he told me to sell the house and move and buy double the price in town he heard him yeah right we'll find a way to to lie to ourselves to make that happen we have a hard time telling ourselves the truth here i don't know if a guy drove two miles to work two miles and bought a thirty thousand dollar pickup because his old pickup that was paid for in the driveway that didn't get good gas mileage get a bike didn't get good gas mileage get a bike right you could have to throw that new truck to the moon and back to get enough gas mileage to pay for it that's somebody who lied to himself so he could get a new truck that's exactly right that's what i'm talking about this is the dave ramsey show [Music] [Applause] folks it's an honor to tell you about the army national guard not only are they big supporters of our high school curriculum but they also give you the opportunity to impact your local communities whether your goals are to get an education serve your country or have a better life the army national guard can help get you there plus they offer unbelievable financial benefits secure your future today visit nationalguard.com to find out more [Music] [Music] in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt-free stage caleb is with us hey caleb how are you man i'm excellent how are you better than i deserve welcome where do you live fort worth texas oh good for you john always uh connects up with the texans there we go so uh how much data have you paid off brother one hundred and ten thousand dollars uh what is one hundred and ten thousand six hundred ninety five dollars in two cents to be excellent how long have you how long did this take 46 months wow and your range of income 60 000 to 72 000. cool what do you do for a living high school band director all right good for you yeah kind of debt was the 111 a little bit everything uh undergrad graduate interest on those student loans uh credit cards uh car french horn and then a loan from the bank of mom and dad ooh everybody's in line yeah everybody you had a long line too the french horn debtors are fierce right dude [Laughter] so what happened 46 months ago to lit you up man i was in grad school already deep in more debt and one of my friends put on her facebook that she read this book called total money makeover and it sparked my interest i reached out to her and then i got the book actually in january of 2016 and it was really stressful because i didn't have an income so i wanted to do all these things but i had to wait until i had a full income so for about six to seven months i was living off of my student loans like agonizing waiting for a real job to finish school and get an income to get going on it so soon as you hit the ground after school you took off yeah over 2000 bucks a month i did everything in the book to to pay it off quickly man amazing congratulations thank you that was a big mountain to climb yeah a lot of vacations that i didn't go on or things that i didn't buy uh a old truck that i kept way too long yeah almost four years yeah and and so you're what in your late 20s how old are you oh yeah we'll go with that no i'm 30 31. okay 31. well close enough yeah and so uh yeah like you're everybody that your friends are out doing all kinds of stuff and you're working to get out of debt yeah a lot of my friends would go on vacations or even if i could go on like a wedding trip um i wouldn't do the extra things that they were all out doing i was just happy to be at the wedding and you know pay for the rental tux but it's like hey we're going rafting it's like i got to say no at some point guys i got to pay off my date eventually so yeah way to go so band directors are similar to football coaches right especially in texas you're yeah you're inspiring young people you're getting them to to think to understand they're bigger than they have bigger dreams they can accomplish more than they thought they had they go past limitations how has this journey impacted how you impact high school kids this is a metaphor uh a lot of my students will like kind of laughingly roll their eyes but this this has become a metaphor and one of my students when i was teaching in houston suggested that i start a youtube channel so i would just make little youtube videos about how to budget how to think about money um the future millionaire band director uh it's got 800 subscribers dave watching all right and thank you man that's true i like the title too yes i like the title a lot and so that kind of now i'm doing like a little mini series about like getting students ready for college and what kind of questions to ask how to go to college for free there are still music scholarships out there things like that we're gonna double your subscription today let's hope so so uh tell everybody again what's the youtube channel what's it called the future millionaire band director all right everybody go sign up and watch it it's got everything it's got high school band it's got college advice and financial advice i mean what more could you want nothing that's awesome man way to go very cool so now that i mean the the impressive part about your numbers not only the height and the amount which is huge that you knocked out but the fact you stick with something 46 freaking months most people in america can't stick with something 46 seconds they can't be married 46 months how did you do this man well my twin sister always says that i'm like super obsessive when i do something i just jump like all in and uh this is one of those things that i became obsessive about um when i was living in houston my family's from dfw so i would drive to see them listening to the podcast obsessing over my every dollar budget like where can i where can i like shrink the budget where can i fix it and uh what habit do i need to change can i carpool to work do i need to move out into a bigger rent house so i can pick up another roommate to lower the rent it was like every part of the budget got a good look at least once once or twice a week to figure out how to you know scrape some off yeah you went truly gazelle intense that obsessive idea this thing i'm going i'm gonna do this and really i'm gonna put the blinders on and you really don't hear the negative voices much when you get that fired up yeah i was fortunate enough that my family was like you're crazy but go for it in your hours yeah yeah you are crazy and uh my uh my students were also super supportive like any time i would bring my lunch and be like i look at you mr shoe like you're taking care of your your finances and all it was it was really cool yeah way to go man so someone coming out of grad school with a pile of debt right now like you did 46 months ago is listening what do you tell them the secret to getting out of that is i remember reading one of the chapters of your book and it was for me i had to first understand that debt wasn't a tool i used to tell my students like way back in the day that you you had to take out student loans if you wanted to use that as an investment in your future and because i thought debt was a tool to get you somewhere and i i think that if anybody's going to pay off their debt they're going to understand that first and foremost debt is not a tool and if they don't understand that concept they will never get out of the gate even and i've got a lot of friends who say that they're going to pay off their car or their credit card but i'm going to keep my student loans for forever i i have friends who have told me that they're just going to be in debt for the rest of their life so they have to understand first and foremost the debt is not a tool it's an anchor yeah yeah that's a big one that's a big one and so and then you said you know you were obsessive and that's what enabled you to persevere and stick with something almost four years that's so impressive so impressive very cool i'm so proud of you man well done very very well done who were your biggest cheerleaders oh for sure my my dad was always super supportive my family was really really supportive even if they were making fun of me um my coworkers who i went to work with every day you know we would go out to lunch once a week and sometimes i would not have budget anymore to go out to lunch and so i would just bring my lunch to wherever we went out to eat and they were always super supportive my students gave me lots of positive vibes my boyfriend was super supportive of the whole thing and so now anytime i offer to buy dinner he's always super he's shocked he's like oh we're going to loosen the budget a little bit for that well well done sir very very proud i'm proud of you man great job thank you we got a copy of chris hogan's book for you everyday millionaires and that definitely is the next chapter in your story so we're excited for you well done well done caleb from fort worth texas a hundred and eleven thousand dollars paid off in 46 months making 60 to 72 000 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one i'm debt-free [Music] [Applause] well done well done well done great job man that's a that's a lot of money over a long period of time 46 months and i got to tell you man he's right you do have to become obsessive that was really good a really good analysis on his part 46 months dave people can't it's we're at the end of january 99 of americans quit their uh new year's resolutions already right yep and i just made that stat up by the way because it supported what i was trying to say here but you just keep going 88 percent of the statistics are made up that's right but you just keep going and going and going what a way to persevere you know i i remember the first time i ever um actually went in a gym and got a personal trainer many many years ago i would have loved to have been there for that yeah you wouldn't have either it was just it was ugly it was really ugly and uh but he's you know we couldn't get on the treadmill and stuff because there's too many people right we couldn't cut it the machines were busy everything's busy busy busy and uh it's like it's right now it's like second third week of january and he goes don't worry about it valentine's day they'll all be gone it'll be gone it's the valentine's day curse 45 days the gym is empty again people can't stick away the 45 days 46 months wow you know caleb stuck with this and i liked what he said about it's all of it it was the personal decision to listen to things and then to practice and then to have accountability and have friends and have students who are watching him to make sure it was all of that all together yeah right it's everything it's not just one thing or this thing or one big great new rodney speech and then you're like i'm char it's all of it over and over and over again the the it is a marathon it is not a sprint and uh the good news about someone who's done it like he like caleb did is he he will never go back no man it's over he's you to stick with it 46 months you have to be changed inside love it not just have a a cursory drive by with the ideas and he gave a picture to how who knows how many young people that's what sacrifice looks like that's what bringing your lunch looks like that's what that old truck looks like amen and they got a new picture of what debt free living can look like this is the dave ramsey show [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] thanks for joining us america this is the dave ramsey show open phones at eight two five five two two five dr john deloney ramsey personality is my co-host today fred is with us fred is in idaho falls idaho hey fred what's up hey what's your recommendation for long-term care insurance you usually recommend it at 60 statistics or you know history you probably wouldn't use it for 20 plus years should you invest that premium money into a good growth account and ensure yourself insured well let me pull up my cheat sheet here on your statistics because they're wrong um but i don't have memorized so i'm going to flip through my cheat sheet here seventy percent of the people over 65 will require some type of long-term care before their death seven out of ten americans will spend some time in a nursing home uh at some point um so i uh the numbers that i have seen and i don't have them on this cheat sheet but um let's see here maybe see if i can find anything here uh the average age of a claimant is 79 to your point um so uh 71 of claimants are women um 51 are due to cognitive issues that was a new one i hadn't seen before okay so uh the numbers that i've seen and they're not on this sheet and so i'm doing this from memory fred are that uh it's less than one half of one percent of the people prior to 60 use nursing homes and so never buy a long-term care insurance and policy until you're 60. but when i looked at the stats the reason i came up with that number was or the reason i came up with that as my guideline for folks because i do believe in long-term care insurance unless you have 5 million or more in net worth because you can self-insure then but i i uh that the percentage increased likelihood of use of a nursing home after age 60 the percentage increase the graph was such a steep curve like every minute you're over 60 your your your chances of going increase dramatically and so if you have a substantial net worth over 60 like 25 million plus you'd self-insure but otherwise i'm going to tell you to get a policy uh but you're you would be right the older you get the higher the likelihood is you're going to use it and that my cheat sheet says the average age of someone using it is 79. the other thing that can happen in your 60s even if you're not using it until your 70s is you have a higher probability of losing your health just due to getting old and thereby not qualifying to get a policy that's what i was wondering is it cheaper to buy in if you buy into the younger age that's why people want people to do it 40. you know yeah it's much cheaper to buy at 40 or 50. but your likelihood of using it is so low it doesn't the premiums don't offset so it doesn't work out so insurance companies are pretty good at math they they do a good job about figuring out that premium is if if you have an insurance premium that's cheap there's a reason it's a very low probability of the event happening whatever the event is right and so it doesn't cost much well there's because it ain't going to happen right i mean that's what you're looking at so uh statistically i remember clearly the conversation my parents and i had when they told us i think it was for christmas that's what we got for christmas they gave you a long-term care policy themselves and that was giving you a gift and it was we all it was just this whoo right because because me and my brother and sister had talked about it hey what's gonna happen if and we had talked to my dad and my mom about it and they circled up and said it's it's it's gonna lean on us a little bit budget wise but it's the right thing to do and it was a gift yeah yeah it is and 70 of the uh ladies outlive their husbands and uh so if you're listening out there married couple ladies the typical scenario this that's tragic is papa goes in the nursing home there's 200 000 in savings he burns through it cracks and scrambles the nest egg and dies yep and then mama's left to live 10 more years with no money right because it all went to the nursing home yeah and so that's why you get long-term care and trial insurance policies it's for you ladies actually statistically speaking anyway and yet the highest number of claimants is female but that also would be after their husband pre-deceases them 75 of those with pre-deceased their wives that makes sense because when i used to visit my grandparents in the nursing home there's always that guy so he's must be in the other percent right the one guy that just thinks he's casanova he's a rare bird yeah he's waving that cane around like he's attending a girl girls college and got in yeah he's got it made he's gonna say brother you are not that handsome no he's just rare which is also an advantage if you don't have the other one john's with us in louisville kentucky hey john how are you hey bro sure okay i'll just get to the point here real quick um my son needs braces if we pay the braces up front we will save 500 okay out of 4 600 so we'll pay it'll be able to pay for 4100 now we have thirty seven hundred dollars in savings we have forty five hundred dollars in the bank so we could pay for that cash now she wants to pay for it to save the five hundred dollars i don't wanna i wanna pay the thousand dollars and then we can make i think it's 188 payments for 20 months because my furnace is 17 years old and my car it has almost 300 000 miles on it and i drive 27 miles one way every day and i i just need some room okay well um i've been doing the show 28 years i've never told anybody borrow money yet and this is borrowing money so um this is borrowing money yes i got to tell her she's right if you want me to blow the whistle and throw the flag i can but um yeah but you're right too i mean you've got some valid concerns there so how do we what are some ways we can look at how we get to these other issues the furnace and the car uh because we're taking you dangerously low on cash and so if we're going to do this uh for this child now and not wait six months which probably wouldn't be the end of the world if you did i'm not i'm not an expert on dentistry but i suspect they would probably still be able to straighten their teeth if you wait six months and um which might be a plan and during that six months pile up some more cash to where it gives all of you some more comfort uh that's probably what the ramses would have done but if you don't do that then what we do have to do is we have to put the house on the whole home on beans and rice rice and beans as if you had a bunch of credit card debt or something and you're being gazelle intense because you've got some known things coming at you so your analysis of that is correct i mean that furnace is going to go out and that car's going to go there's not any question in your mind or my mind i just don't know when it's not a matter of if it's just when is it six months or is it 18 months but it's not it's not eight years you know i never even thought about waiting i mean it sounds silly i never thought about waiting six months he's 11 and a half he's got all this permanent teeth i've never thought about waiting six months i'm sure the doctor is going to tell you that i'm a quack because when it comes to dentistry i am i have no qualifications whatsoever except i'm a dad that bought a couple of sets of braces over the years i did i did do the same exact analysis and they um they make it almost sound like you're not borrowing money it's more like you're renting these braces but they'll give you a discount for paying the rental up front like they're gonna re-rent them after you give them back but anyway i don't know but it's uh to me i looked at it with our two that had braces as debt and i just prepaid it like your wife is suggesting but i think that means that we have to look at there's three valid things that need to occur here furnace car braces and we've got to treat all of them like they're very important because they are and john i i need you didn't ask for this but i just got to speak it out there i know the tension i feel when i want to buy something when i have to buy something and then my wife says hey hank needs shoes and the temptation is to let him know i'm buying you these shoes at a cost of right and so the temptation is going to take that boy you better appreciate that i'm driving this truck because and what i'm going to ask you to do is don't put that in the heart and soul of your 11 year old that he's a burden to his family that dad can't drive to work or we can't have heat and john doesn't say that and you said i know he didn't i know he didn't make sure he doesn't yeah if everybody out there man take care of your kids because that's the right thing to do and don't don't make them feel more of a burden they already do yeah amen good stuff be kind and unified and you know dave stop with your propaganda just kind of this is the dave ramsey show [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] welcome to the dave ramsey show you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story [Music] [Applause] live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the dave ramsey show where debt is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice i am dave ramsey your host thank you for joining us dr john dolone ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five that's triple eight eight two five five two two five chad starts off this hour in provo utah hi chad welcome to the dave ramsey show hi johnny dave how are you better than i deserve what's up um so my question is we're we're fairly new to the baby steps we've known about them for a long time but we're currently on baby step number two um we own a duplex that we used to live in and um if we were to sell that we would be able to go straight from baby step two to baby step four five and six um but i do have a few reservations about that and so i'm just wondering what would you what would you do in my situation we don't recommend folks sell their homes uh to get out of debt unless they're going to sell them anyway uh we do we we own another home that we live in currently so we used to live in this duplex it's a rental it's a rental now we moved out about five years ago and held on to it the plan was to just keep it and use it as an investment property right okay and so how much debt do you have uh let's be currently about seventy five thousand dollars what's your household income household income is around ninety thousand dollars okay well what about 95 with the with the income from the properties let's just take a set of scales and put the rental house on one side of the scales and the number of years that it's going to take you to pay off 75 000 making 90 which is two years okay no more than that so do you want to fast forward your get out of debt plan by two years badly enough to sell the duplex there's not really a wrong answer here because you can get out of that fast enough if you want to keep it you can keep it but you might want to be out of debt more than you want the duplex and that would be not a wrong answer too right and that's that's kind of what we're looking at um one of the things that we have going on my wife uh works as a cosmetologist hairdresser and so she's taken a hit this year here in utah she's been able to work but anytime she is filling under the weather or a client is filling under the weather they basically have to cancel so income goes down there also we have a daughter that last year was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and so we're fully funding on our hsa so that takes you know some of our uh money there um and so so do you want to do you want to sell the house i i kind of do some of the reservations i have are um you know it'd be nice to be out move on be in you know those later steps but possibly you know having that physical asset that is kind of a hedge against inflation and we don't know what all the printing of money is going to do whether or not there's going to be some major inflation that goes with that um okay all the things that you know about your life and all the things that you perceive about the future which of these two avenues gives you the best life than the most wealth 10 years from today i and and that i don't know i i i go back and forth i can tell you don't come through that's how you're going to answer that that's how you're going to have to answer the question you know every decision has some pluses and minuses there are a few decisions that don't have some minuses and you can make a list of the pros and the cons on keeping the duplex a list of the pros and cons of selling the duplex and getting out of debt um i think i hear that the reasons that you bought that you wanted to own real estate in the first place are the only reasons you're trying to keep it even though your whole situation has changed and you stuck with your old i think you stuck with your old reasoning and that and you're trying to use that in your current reasoning and so i think i think you're selling the duplex but i'm okay dave ramsey's okay with you doing either one if you want to roll up your sleeves buckle down and in the midst of the diabetes in the midst of the irregular income ho in order to hold on to it and fight through the debt and get rid of it in the next two years and be on beans and rice for two years there's nothing wrong with doing that it's not against our plan you know so you go do what you want to do i i and and again i i'm somebody who would want to sleep at night and knowing my my daughter's clear my irregular income we can weather that because i don't know anybody anything in the world right but i think it comes down to a risk tolerance right and exactly what it is beans and rice i find this a lot that um especially people who are tend to be more anxious tend to be more control oriented man you can project into the unknown mysterious future any norm number of wild scenarios man and they can paralyze you in the present and you just got to sit down and make some decisions once you make it go for it yeah i think you're selling it because i think you're going to get more peace that way and i think you're probably going to end up with more money that way at the end of the day and are we going to have hell to pay with all these trillions of dollars yep right someday we are right i mean i i'm i have a lot of people in my world i have you know when they get to the end of their career they write the world's coming to an end book of course and i'm not going to write that book i promised myself long ago so the world is going to come to an end but i will not be predicting it and that includes all of this ridiculous debt that congress has continued to pile up my entire life and it's unbelievable and yes eventually there's going to be some kind of a reckoning but give yourself peace now i remember reading the book bankruptcy 1984. uh no 1994 1994. that was a book that came out it's scary to death yeah i thought the whole well i mean it was a it was a you know a scientific detailed economic with proven great economic minds that the uh that the hockey stick of debt was going to crash the economy in the year 1994. probably can't even find a copy of that book now no you can there's one on my shelf i kept it because i wanted to remember not to write that book i think i think it was uh nasim tilleb it says everybody's throwing darts backwards and somebody hits and they turn into the hero of the super predictor of the world right yeah eventually enough people throw a dart backwards you're gonna told you so yeah and you can never do it again yeah right yeah it's it's not a repeatable act right so um anyway all that to say um if i woke up in your shoes what would i do i love rental property probably more than you do and i would sell it because i would want the freedom faster and it just because you sell this rental property doesn't mean you can't save up and pay cash for another rental property later and it's a lot more peace right later in your journey and it's not like you're gonna lose the ability to ever own hard assets or ever own dirt and bricks and mortar and um you know if i were in your shoes i'd be done with it but it you know as a matter of course on the show and giving advice i don't you know if it was a car i'd sell in heartbeat but it's a stupid but it's a rental property and there's some reasons to continue to fight for it if you want to this is the dave ramsey show [Music] we were drawn to christian healthcare ministries because we both had young families and we wanted to have more children and we had also just started a real estate company and needed to find health care coverage that would meet our needs we were attracted to chm because of its low monthly costs and the ability to negotiate medical costs down established in 1981 and accredited by the better business bureau chm is here to meet the needs of your growing family or small business check us out at chministries.org we absolutely believe in it [Music] [Music] [Applause] dr john deloney ramsey personality is my co-host today here on the air this is the dave ramsey show our question today comes from blinds.com they have a 100 satisfaction guarantee means even if you mismeasure you pick the wrong color they'll remake your window blinds for free you get free samples free shipping and with the new promos they run every month you'll save even more use the promo code ramsay to get the best possible deal today's question comes from lisa in kentucky she writes my husband and i are debt free the house that we live in was purchased as a gift to us from his parents the house is completely paid for however there's always a however dave the house is not in our name i do not feel secure without the house being in our name we have a great relationship and i trust my in-laws but i have an issue with this what should i do so my first thought here dave is if somebody buys a house for you and gives it to you but it's not in your name it's not your house is that a poor way to look at that no it's not like they bought a house and letting you live in it no there's not it's not a gift until it's in your name there you go so is it out of line here to have that conversation yeah i and i think the way you always have a conversation like that is it's very very important to put a lot of icing on the cake before you start talking about this and the icing the a lot of sweetness yup and that's gratitude absolutely how grateful you are and i would never want to seem ungrateful and we're not ungrateful and we are so thankful and so forth um it does make us uncomfortable that it's not in our name and we want to know when we're going to get it into our name or we're getting a will done and we need to make sure all these assets flow in a certain place that's fine but but bottom line is is that this is weird yeah yeah i would not give my kids a house and leave it in my name okay yeah it's just because then it's not their house it's their house yeah i mean let me give you an example okay um her father-in-law is uh working second shift and he falls asleep at the wheel and he uh goes across the center line hits somebody and a kid is killed on the other car they're taking that house too taking that house that's right because it's his asset when they sue him for 500 million dollars the judgment lien will be on the house that is not hers right and that's called an accident right that i described absolutely the father-in-law did anything wrong i didn't call him a drunk he wasn't drunk driving i didn't call him anything i didn't say anything negative about him right but it's just you know he could you know he could have a business go bad and get an rs lien and guess what the irs lane is on all of his assets right and this house is his asset not hers right so and the other piece of advice i would just give you is um uh uh you don't talk let your husband talk it's his parents you can sit there with a smile on your face and the only thing you're allowed to say is how grateful you are right i want you to know how grateful you are right and you're not allowed to make the uh mic body language or grimaces or words that are part of this conversation that has at its essence conflict in it because you're going to get labeled as the cause of it ah you're gonna be labeled as the dissension but in the family yeah right yeah the evil uh it would have been okay if it's my son but his wife got involved there you go so they say something along the lines of well we will we're not comfortable doing that now but we will in my head i immediately switched to this isn't our house we we are living rent-free in my parents house we now are saving up for our own place yep and then i'm off to the races there exactly i'm going to use i'm not going to sleep over it thank you thank you for the free rent and i'm going to use that to save up and buy my own house i'm not going to throw a fit about it i'm not going to whine about it we're going to go buy ourselves a house yeah well you said it was a gift we're moving on we're moving on we're just going to look if you're not going to put it in my name it's not a gift you got to have that clear logic in your head so the other thing about this lisa is is that you want you need to hear loud and clear from john we're saying you're right absolutely yes you're right you're not crazy this has got some weirdness on it there's something weird here and i don't know what it is it may be a simple thing that they've they haven't had good tax planning that nobody showed them how to do it without getting it without getting a gift tax bill because you know if they'll see a good tax planner they can teach them how to do uh to transfer an asset that size as a gift without having any gift tax under the unified estate gift tax credit and it's one piece of paper with their filing of their taxes this year and unless they have an estate over 20 million dollars it won't affect their state taxes a time so um there's lots of ways to do this they may just not know how to do it and there's you know but but if that's the only reason but i'm gonna guess and say that's not the reason i know something about this field ziki dave yep but yep yep yep and it is the daughter-in-law asking right isn't it interesting that the son didn't ask the question he's the guy i want to talk to in this yeah he's the one he's because he's the one going through the talking right if this is handled properly he needs deal with his mama not his wife dealing with his mama yes because i can just tell you this is how this is going to go down do you feel like paying off your debt is going to take forever well it's a new year and uh paying off your debt won't take forever we can show you how we do it all the time it's what we do here ramsay plus is where you get out of debt faster you'll become debt free you'll be spending money without worry you're going to be building wealth you're going to be outrageously generous we're going to show you how to do all of it there are three apps that work together to help you pay off your debt as fast as possible of course that includes financial peace university of course that includes the baby steps tracker of course that includes every dollar premium of course it includes a whole bunch of other stuff we're going to show you step by step day by day what to do for the first 90 days and you get a free trial at ramsey plus by texting trial to 33 789 trial 233 789 jackson is in oklahoma city hey jackson what's up hi there how's it going better than i deserve how can i help so i'm going to be moving to florida in two days i currently live in oklahoma um i'm going to be doing work for my girlfriend's parents being a roofing company down in florida um and i'm estimating to make between five and nine thousand a month you know it's a sales job so it's kind of it's kind of a rough average um i have about five thousand currently in savings and then so estimate i'll come back roughly with 20 000 after the three months that would give me 25 000 to put down i was thinking about putting down on a duplex um and then renting out the other side to get some income paid for that mortgage um do you think i should hold on and still work a little bit more and save some more money or whenever i come back based on that number purchase a duplex yeah i would just wait i appreciate the idea that you're trying to create some assets and trying to create um you know a baseline here to start to grow your wealth um but number one i want you out of dad do you have any debt um i have a car loan yeah you need to pay that offer about 3 000 left on that so i mean i can go ahead and pay it off and you think i should do that now well as soon as you make the move one of the two as soon as you get your first check in let's get that cleared up and then you need an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses and then if you buy a duplex and 18 months later are married to this girl you're going to sell the duplex and buy a house that she wants to live in because she's not going to live there and so instead i would just short circuit that and let's wait and pile up the cash for after the marriage to buy a house okay and then i also have um about eight thousand dollars in a mutual fund and then four thousand and just uh like a robin hood account that i've been investing in today okay and then whenever i go to purchase a house do you think i should liquidate that and then use that as a down payment or go and keep those in there yeah you have your emergency fund of three to six months of expenses in a simple savings account just for rainy days and then everything else is going down on this house because what the goal is to pay the house off as fast as possible after you buy it okay well the main reason i was thinking about duplex is i wanted to hold on to it and then use as a rental property down the road but you think i should go and skip that and just purchase a home yep yep yep i want you to get some rental property later but i don't want debt on the rental property and um and i don't want you learning to be a landlord while you're learning a new job and while you're dating the boss's daughter yeah i don't want you counting any future dollars that you're earning from the father of your girlfriend that just man you're set yourself up for triple heartbreak brother there's so many things can go wrong here and when they go wrong they're all going to go wrong it just slipped off the roof officer i don't know what happened so yeah brothers yeah let's count those checks after they're in your hand man yeah yeah good it sounds fun sound like you got an adventure ahead of you yeah oh that's the most passive aggressive thing i heard you say today dave that's an adventure yeah i would tell you crazy what you are it's gonna work out it's gonna be awesome it'll be good it's gonna be awesome this is the dave ramsey show [Music] [Applause] [Music] folks it's an honor to tell you about the army national guard not only are they big supporters of our high school curriculum but they also give you the opportunity to impact your local communities whether your goals are to get an education serve your country or have a better life the army national guard can help get you there plus they offer unbelievable financial benefits secure your future today visit nationalguard.com to find out more [Music] dr john deloney ramsey personality is my co-host today this is the dave ramsey show thank you for joining us open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five rob is with us rob's in atlanta georgia hey rob how are you hey dave dr d how are you guys doing great man how can we help i am on baby step seven praise god for that um me and my wife uh we've i've always been the nerd she's always been the free spirit i've found we are on baby step 7 by the way thank you jack um but i've always found that um i'm only we've led financial peace university probably close to a dozen times but i just recently found some like credit card that she had had that i didn't know about nothing's on them necessarily um i've always kind of had to drag her to the meetings and stuff like that and i know oftentimes the answer for this is go to counseling we've been to counseling we've been married 26 years been counseling many times and her ultimate response to all of it is you are who you are i am who i am and i don't see the point going any further much so i'm kind of had a am i just since we're on baby step seven that she has a a job as well that uh she does that we don't incorporate into the regular budget she does kind of her own self-care like hair and nails and stuff like that um just never been completely on the same page but will have great success ultimately so just need some guidance looking for some guidance from you guys yeah brother this isn't a baby step question this is a um you all are on two different pages man and this i can't imagine this isn't showing up in other places in your relationship besides just financially where else does this show up uh well i mean we're not we are on the same page you know in so many ways spiritually parenting sexually things like that so so it's just money she says you be you and i'll be me i'll keep my paycheck you pay for the rest of the house i'll take care of me i'm gonna hide stuff and be deceptive even though i know you're out like leading classes on how people can live whole connected lives everything else is is just above board and all good yeah i mean we have a very healthy marriage so here's what i'm telling you outside of you you don't it's not as healthy as you think it is and i i mean if i'm the first guy to tell you that i i'm ashamed of the the counselors y'all have worked with um ashamed of your connect your community that surrounds you guys but there's some deeper rooted issues here because this is something that means a lot to you that you've put on the block that you've gone up and presented yourself in a certain way to your community members to your church to your friends to your family and she's gone behind your back and been deceptive that tells me there's deeper cracks in this thing or just straight up boat up her back and said screw you i'm gonna do whatever i want to do i mean that's the message you got it's message i heard right yeah i i'm a grown up i have the right to do whatever i want to do and our you know the fact that that is contrary to everything you believe doesn't matter i'm gonna do whatever i want and um it's not about whether you have a credit card or not it's about the disconnection yes this is about about marriage i mean if um you're not on the same page and uh it's there's a level of um the disrespect here that that and uh you know if you were doing this to her it'd be the same thing i mean if and so i i you know i don't know john i mean he he he said you know more counseling but i don't think more counseling he's going to do good so i i don't know what do you do to me you sit down and yeah yeah she's not being fully known and he's not being fully known they're not being fully honest with one another and the temptation here is he's trying to measure the success of his marriage by the the size of his bank account and that's not how that works man you can have a remarkable marriage without seven figures in the bank and you can have a train wreck of a marriage or marriage number six or seven or eight with seven figures in the bank and at some point you have to sit down and say i'm gonna have to put all the cards on the table i'm heartbroken over this and i need to know what else is there because i i've nev this will be the first time i've ever heard of everything firing on all cylinders in a relationship and somebody's saying but i'm just i'm gonna lie to you and deceive you and not do this thing over here but everywhere else it's okay that's just how that works man so there's something there that people aren't incongruent in one area and congruent in other areas not that not that sharply right yeah um and so there's something else here you're right if she says i'm not going to counseling what you may want to do is go on your own yeah and say i need to work on myself because that's all you can control in this moment you can't fix her you can't solve her you can't help her um she's going to have to want to be plugged in here too and a good counselor can coach you on how to interact right differently than you ever have before maybe yeah it creates a different result and without talking to her there may be things that you know that rob you're bringing to the table that make you not a safe place for her to come home to that make her have to hide stuff because you're somebody that flies off the handle you are filling the blank fill in the blanket so i don't want to dump all this on her but what i'm telling you is man it would be the first of my of my experience that you guys are just humming along except for this one place where she lies to you and is just completely dismissed abstinent yeah yeah yeah that's just that's strange yeah hey thanks for the call that's hard work i could be more help but so the the recommendation you were right rob is more counseling that you get a different one and someone that's a little more bold uh and that calls you out on your stuff and also trains you up on how to interact with her to draw her back into the conversation again because couples who look at each other and say yeah you do you i'll do me this is not a couple this is a roommate right yeah it's a business partner and y'all done well as a business community way to go man you made some money yeah sage is with us sage is in tallahassee florida hi sage how are you hi how are you better than i deserve what's up okay my husband's job is ending um probably in about four months and we have um about 58 000 in cash and about 180 000 in our 401k and about 20 000 in stock we are completely out of debt except for our home um we have paid a hundred thousand dollars of it off this uh last year so i'm down to the 167 000. my question is he's 63 so since he's losing his job we're wondering if it would be smart to take our 401k and pay our house off if you had more money i would but it's going to drain you down to almost nothing because by the time you're going to have to pay the taxes on that 401k and by the time you do that i mean he's over 59 and a half so he doesn't have any penalty but you have taxes on it so if you told me it's 600 000 in there i'd say yeah i'll do it pay the taxes on that much and pay off the house today but you're going to end up with no nest egg and a paid-for house well i have a uh rental house that's completely paid for that my elderly parents uh live in and so i do have rent from that once they are you know no longer with us that house right now is worth about probably 350 000. okay so it gives you that gives you a little less tag that's helpful but still uh how old are they uh during their late 80s okay well i i and not in the best of health yeah i don't i don't want to set up a scenario by paying off the house with your only cash money that you've got not counting this piece of real estate that puts you in a position that your parents have to die for you to be okay money-wise that ultimately is going to happen we all know that but i don't want you to be i don't want to be financially wishing for their death you know so that we can get some money because we're broke uh except for this house that they're living in so i don't want to do that no i'm not paying off the house today you don't have enough cash to do that and and be in a safe place and your husband's career is not over he needs to go to work he's gonna have to go back to work yeah and it's not done this is not time to you're not in a position to retire and i've got two parents that found new careers in their early 60s making more money than they did before doing something similar or totally different depending on which one of my parents is possible but you're gonna have to suck up your ego and your pride and you have to go do it there you go this is the dave ramsey [Music] show [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] dr john dolone ramsey personality is my co-host today you can join us at triple eight eight two five five two two five when it comes to making big money or life changes like buying a home getting married having a baby the last thing on your mind is making sure you have the right insurance but maybe it shouldn't be the last thing hey i get it big changes are overwhelming what if not have but if not having the time or the energy is what's keeping you from getting the right insurance coverage you can use one of our endorsed local providers for insurance they are independent agents that means they don't work for the insurance company they work for you and they shop all the different companies and get the best coverage at the best price and they'll charge you anything for that that's right an independent agent gets you a deal it's the only way i buy insurance so i don't buy from a captive agent who has one company that they sell for and of course they're going to tell you that state farm is the best when it's not so there you go i just said that out loud didn't i all you have to do is text insurance to 33 789 that's 33789 and get connected with an elp that's insurance to 33789 all right let's go to rob in portland maine hey rob welcome to the dave ramsey show hi dave hi john how are you better than we deserve what's up hey i'm at a a big crossroad in my life i am going to be 47 years old next month i am also going to be at the 25th year of my career as a police officer and eligible for retirement with a 50 pension wow my question to you is um i'm looking at making a dramatic train change in moving from maine to uh middle tennessee to um the metro nashville area with my family my wife a 16 year old and a 12 year old and i'm not sure if i'm making the right decision or not by making that move i my pension will be approximately 50 000 that i'll have my wife salary is 60 000 and we're fortunate enough that she's able to work from home so she's going to be able to keep her job and i am looking at starting all over in law enforcement down that down there so my pay hourly will almost be cut in half by starting all over from what i make now so i'm just looking for some guidance um if that's the right thing to do or if i stay where i'm at i get two percent towards my pension for every year i stay um why do you want to move that's what i'm looking at um well we found middle tennessee because our oldest boy was stationed at fort campbell and we visited him quite a bit he ended up marrying a young lady from there from hendersonville and spent a lot of time there and uh liked it like the school districts that we saw and felt that might be a good good change for us does it get you excited to think about moving it does get me excited to think about moving what i get less excited about is starting all over in a career that i've spent 25 years in there's nothing financially wrong with what you're proposing obviously you're going to have plenty of income and you won't have any issue living portland maine i've been there many times i love it it's a wonderful town obviously i'm a fan of tennessee i live in middle tennessee and have my whole life and so um you know it's not like you're downgrading your uh lifestyle or standard of living or quality of life um or tremendously upgrading it because portland's a quality town it's not a it's not a drip it's not a dump it's a good place and obviously we're a little warmer weather here um politics are a lot different than they are in maine but uh uh that's another reason to head south yeah as long as you leave the politics up there you're welcome i agree i agree hey so uh rob i i did this recently um after my family we packed up and moved across across the country and there is something i i repeat often is the the best part about moving is you have a new adventure you gotta you gotta find new parts of yourself you get to learn new things and i i relish that part i like that challenge the worst part about moving is that you go with you my marriage problem stayed the same my insecurity stayed the same my waistline didn't suddenly fall off like all that stuff stayed the same and so when i got to tennessee i had to work on those things that i was having to work on in texas to and so whatever challenges you and your wife have or blessings that you have all that comes with you right and um now the common denominator in the story is you guys that's right so if you're up for an adventure you're up for an adventure man um and if you're not you're not but i i always say go for it um but that's just me there's a tremendous amount of refugees moving into tennessee yes they are i saw a great bumper sticker today it was from a doctor who just relocated from california to texas and had a sticker state of texas and it said do not california our state and it was just as blunt as it could be so yeah leave it there amen well hey all that aside uh you've got the money uh it sounds like oh the other thing is um other than the fact that your job is going to be different forever uh everything else could be undone right you could move here and three years from now move back you would not be able to move back into your role at your old job but so what and so if you hate it end the adventure that's exactly right it doesn't have to be permanent and theoretically your pension stays put your wife's job so you can work from home so you guys have a lot of options you have a soft cushion to fall on if this thing goes sideways yeah and um and there's no requirement that you take that type of law enforcement job and start over at a big cops rate i've actually my old man uh had several compadres that would be in this very same situation they would work all the way up till their late 40s when their first kid was about to go to college they'd pull their pension and retire and then they'd go make 35 grand as a college campus police officer and all their kids go free oh that's not so they get their pension plus a small salary and free tuition all their kids go to college for free that's not a bad game that's a smooth move right not a bad game at all it's at the right college you'll be the chief of police on that that's it well then you work it through so you've got all kinds of options right it's just thinking it's getting your head around the adventure and i love the adventure part yeah yeah i'm up for that part yeah hey good question thank you for calling in blessy is with us in detroit michigan hey blessy what's up hey dave how are you great how can i help so i am 22 years old um right now and i just graduated last year in may um and coming out of college i landed a full-time uh job i got great and i yeah um so i saved up a pretty penny in my bank account uh right now um at about 31k um and i'm kind of wondering um in this sort of stage in life a lot of people been telling me that i should start investing that money because it's just sitting in the bank however i don't know what's the safest how much money do you have saved i have about thirty one thousand okay good well we suggest you and you're 100 debt free right yes i am good for you we suggest that you have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses and i would set that aside and your situation i go and sit six months aside okay because you've done really well and you've done a great job saving money and that's in a separate savings account never to be touched except for emergencies that's your rainy day fund only if something really bad happens do you touch it okay it's not i want to buy a couch fund or go on vacation fund then the other money you can save past that you can begin to invest and we suggest at that point what we call baby step four where you start putting 15 percent of your income into retirement and and then in and around that as well you can start saving for your first house um and so i would not save any more than 15 percent to retirement of your income uh and anything above that you would if you want to save more you would save it towards the house but i'm saying i would not invest it in a retirement account a roth ira a 401k that's a roth with a match in good mutual funds all of that and so hang on i'm going to send you a copy of the book the total money makeover to show you exactly how to do that it's the step-by-step plan that we recommend and uh it's a number one bestseller for many many years in a row hang on we'll help you with that this is the dave ramsey show [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome to the dave ramsey show you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story [Music] live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the dave ramsey show where debt is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice i'm dave ramsey your host you jump in we'll talk about your life and your money dr john deloney is here ramsey personality to answer your questions about your life and i'll help you with your money and we'll both interfere with each other it's what we do the phone number is triple eight eight two five five two two five that's triple eight eight two five five two two five mike's in sarasota florida hey mike how are you hey gentlemen how are you better than i deserve sir how can we help hey first off dave i just wanted to say thank you very much just over the last seven years or so you've given me so much motivation just to kind of you know handle our personal finances and change our family that it took about four years of convincing but i was able to to convince my high school that i work at the uh start of a personal finance class and we just finished up our first semester and i've never had more fun as a teacher teaching the subject and i and we're helping a lot of kids along the way so i just wanted to say thank you before i get into the question well thank you sir thank you for doing that that's amazing good for you yeah we appreciate you we appreciate you man proud of you yeah thank you so the the question i have is actually in regards to my mom uh in february and my dad passed away when i was 18 and so i've kind of you know been looking over her finances since i've kind of got a little bit of an understanding of things since then she got about a hundred and eighty thousand dollars um sitting in an annuity that is kind of a concerning product because just to give you an idea since 2015 it's only got about a two percent rate of return um and i've been working with the smart investor pro to kind of figure out a better plan but she's got about 60 000 left on the mortgage and we're kind of just trying to figure out if it's a wise decision to pay off the mortgage she's taking out a monthly withdrawal of about a thousand dollars from that 180 and obviously if that continues on we're kind of worried that it's going to kind of diminish at some point in time she's fully disabled and not working um and so she relies on this income that that she gets from the annuity that she had for my dad's life insurance and then of course her social security on top of that and so was kind of trying to think and see if it's a smart decision to take that chunk of 60 000 out of the annuity well we've got to get the annuity working harder if it were making 10 percent that would be 18 000 a year which would be 1500 a month and it wouldn't be self-destructing anymore pulling a thousand a month off okay so yeah you got to get this money you got to get this money moved into something that's not two percent you're getting killed right you're the thing is it's it's disintegrating you're destroying it the goose is laying the good golden eggs and so if that's part of the equation then how much is the house payment uh it's about 1200 so i mean most of you when you pay off the house you wouldn't need a thousand dollars a month correct yeah let's do both okay let's get the income up on let's get the annuity invested better because now it's only 120 000 okay and let's get it invested better and then let's not touch it because you don't have a house payment anymore does any of that change by any stretch if she she's paid a pretty exorbitant fee when she first invested in this annuity for a living rider so if it does go down to zero she still gets roughly about a thousand dollars until she dies does that change the perception of it at all no it's because it sucks it's got a horrible right of return yeah it's been terrible yeah and that that's the problem so you've got to get it i mean smart investor pro may roll you into a variable annuity which is mutual funds inside of an annuity that'll pay a lot better than she's getting paid but this particular product that she's in is horrible and so she's got to get it out you got to get it invested better but but the bottom line is even if it's not it's a one-two punch even if it's not invested better if she doesn't need the thousand anymore because she doesn't have a 1200 house payment anymore then we can leave alone whatever it is that you do with it right sure so let's pay off the house for sure but then the second part of it is let's get this money invested a little bit better and that'll help you hey thanks for the call open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five hannah is in montgomery alabama hi hannah welcome to the dave ramsey show hey mr ramsay thank you so much for taking my call sure what's up um i'm a social worker in the living area at a non-profit and i make about 30 000 a year um i'll be debt free in february and plan on having my emergency fund by the beginning of august fully funded and then after that i plan on moving out of my parents home good for you and so my my struggle is um at that august point is when i start investing 15 and i don't know how to save above that that's kind of my question with budget balancing rent and other extensions that come with that that i haven't had to pay yet with this 30 000 income and i can't really get a second job just because i'm on call most of the time um so my hours would be you know uncertain so um just trying to get your thoughts on that well you could do a second job you couldn't do the typical second job i mean your second job could be something that you do from home uh on your own time a small business idea that you could set the computer aside and go if you got a call uh so we can we can you do need to do something to increase your income on the short term and on the long term we've got to work on your career yeah what type of social worker are you i'm in in foster care so if i do go back to get my master's my job actually will pay for it um and so it's a one-year program so i think it would be worth it but i just um i'm not i'm not i think i don't think i'm ready yeah i'm just i'm planning on starting that maybe january 2020. i'm in i'm in i think that's a great plan but and then develop a career path that that uh triples your income yeah you just listening to how you have planned out your exit from your parents the way you're executing it the way you have a mind that is worth more than thirty thousand dollars here we go you have a work ethic worth more than thirty thousand dollars and so i think man if you want to trade a season a one year of of less than you are worth because you are getting a significant return which is a graduate degree in a social work that's gold that is that's a great gift then um that's not a bad trick at 30 years old i don't want you sitting there making 30. absolutely not and i don't even want you making 45 or 55. no not with a graduate degree in social work yeah and um and a lot of people do yep and with that degree field that's right they uh they take the state job and it doesn't pay anything that's right and they will take every shred of your soul in that work because that's hard gut wrenching emotional work challenging yeah so the answer your question is yes let's do some things to get your income up your plan to leave in august is great your plan for the masters in january is even better i love every bit of it and is it okay to take a year if you don't if you don't invest your 15 and instead you pile up a little extra cash right now because things are close that's okay uh you'll get around to starting your 15 into your investments pretty soon you're still young you've got plenty of time the great news is you're thinking about this which puts you way ahead of most people because most people don't even think this is the dave ramsey show [Music] you know health care has gotten to be ridiculous it puts people um you know on the brink and so it would have put us on the brink had we not had chm chm saved our life same time financial lives christian healthcare ministries or chm is not health insurance but it is a budget-friendly option and the original health cost sharing ministry for christians learn more today and check us out at chministries.org that's chministries.org thank you for joining us america ramsey personality dr john deloney is my co-host today as we talk about your life and your money open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five rebecca's in orlando florida hi rebecca welcome to the dave ramsey show hi dave thanks so much for taking my call i'm very principal sure how can we help um i have the florida prepaid program for both of my children um and my son doesn't think he's going to go to college it's not the 529 i have a large irs debt i'm trying to eradicate and um i was thinking of taking the money from the florida prepaid plan to put it towards the irs debt and then when my daughter's ready for college i could just cash flow her how much is in the prepaid plan 23 000 and how much is the irs debt 55. what is the irs debt from it's from three years um i'm embarrassed to say my daughter was sick and i was in the middle of a divorce and um i i was just trying to keep food on the table and i hadn't filed for a few okay so it's just back taxes just back taxes you unfiled at all and you must i ha i have since filed i mean you must be 10.99 or self-employed uh self-employed yes yeah okay so what do you make uh well this year with the pandemic i'll probably make about 55. maybe 60. that's why i got the irs on a payment plan uh no i actually applied for a um an offer in compromise but i haven't heard from them yet it's okay um you have to you have to be able to show pauper status absolutely no income and no assets to get an oic through that's one of the great mythologies how much did you pay for this oic application i put it down six thousand dollars oh man yeah um okay don't give me more money um yeah that that's a there's just very i've been doing this 30 years i've seen two of those go through two and uh and in both cases we were working with a tax attorney and you prove that they have no assets at all and no income and really no potential of income and so they really believe that you're virtually financially dead and you're not you make 55 000 a year so they're going to put you on a 900 year payment plan all right um i don't cash out kids uh college funds for debts but the kgb around your neck the irs after you is not going away so yeah i'm doing this um all right but be forewarned that what goes with it the tears that you had a minute ago uh with the shame of not having filed because of all the stress and the horrible things you were going through um you're probably going to have more of that feeling because you just use your kids college fund to clean up the mess are part of the mess and so that's why i almost never tell someone to use a college fund uh even though it might make mathematical sense is because you feel like a dog using your kids money that you set aside for them and i i just want to warn you ahead of time you're going to have that feeling but it is still the logical thing to do it's the right thing to do here it is the best thing for your kids for their mom to get straightened up and get this get this debt out of her life because the irs has tremendously expensive penalties interest and they have almost unlimited power to screw up your life you want to get them out of your life believe me it's i i it's the only kind of debt that terrifies me for for our clients it terrifies me because i've seen what the kgb does to people and when they decide they want to get rough and so i just don't want you on that thing and i want you to get with uh one of our tax elps and get an installment plan working as soon as you hear that the oic went sideways and certainly don't see do you list it on the oic that this college money exists right no because there's technically no cash value and i didn't even think about it until after i submitted it oh there's technically cash value when you cash it out you're getting cash yeah i guess i didn't yeah i i you know yeah if they saw that on the application they would have grabbed it they would have said no you're not you're going to give us that money so if i'm wrong i'll be happy for you and the oic comes through and they say you know we'll settle this 55 000 debt for 23 000 cash it out and do it but then you've got to really get in gear and you got to start working with your son and your daughter on how they're going to get their education paid for they're going to get really good at taking the act test they're going to get really good at working their butts off while they're in school you know pick an affordable school not an expensive famous school uh in-state maybe a two-year program to get some of the basics out of the way really cheap all of those kinds of things yeah that's exactly right and i'm gonna recommend you be real vulnerable sit down at the kitchen table and walk your kids um through what's happened what we're gonna do about it without blaming dad we're not gonna blame anybody you're gonna take ownership for this this is a level of vulnerability that they're gonna feel this tension on you and what kids do dave is they absorb that tension and blame themselves especially young kids and especially teenagers so this is a great moment for an adult to model hey guys here's what i did to put food on the table wasn't right here's what i'm doing to clean it up here's what we're all going to do together we're all going to start budgeting we're all going to lean into this stuff and is it going to be uncomfortable oh my gosh there's going to be some value to your kids seeing the tears and seeing the plan and watching you live out of this thing and there is a way to make meaning on the back end of this thing but those tears will have value it is not a conversation that um you portray the end of the world no it's a conversation that goes uh i screwed up and here's what i'm doing and yeah and there's a redemption there's we're gonna make meaning of this and things are gonna change around here and we're all gonna do this at the table together yeah the good news is things are gonna change the bad news is things are gonna change that's right and so the vulnerability is going to be hard the tiers are going to be real and the the walking out of this is going to be tough you still got to come with 25 000 other dollars right yeah to pay this thing off pandemic or otherwise you got to get your income up and you got to get this thing knocked out fast yep as fast as you possibly can hang on i'm going to send you a copy of uh anthony o'neil's book debt-free degree and that'll help the kiddos start to think that way and you start to think that way because you're going to be cash flowing this a b they are too gonna be playing along that's right um uh see we got twenty five thousand dollars more to clean up with the irs if i'm wrong and i wish i was but i'm not hang on zach will pick up and take care of you open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five you jump in we'll talk about your life and your money uh christina says since student loans are interest free right now should i stop paying the minimum on all nine of my loans and focus all my money at my lowest loan in an effort to snowball well uh christine student loans are student loans and whether they're interest-free or not we're going to treat them the same we're going to list that's smallest to largest we're going to pay minimum payments on everything but the smallest debt regardless of what it is and we're going to attack it with a vengeance and when it's gone we're going to get the next one down when it's gone we're going to get the next one down that is the fastest way to get out of debt and we can add to that i would not wait on washington to fix your problems there's a lot of promises in the air that biden is going to forgive all your student loans he might he has control of both congresses it's it's uh logistically legally possible for him to get that through but it'll be a while and while you wait around on one foot and then on the other for the blessings to flow from dc you will learn the lesson that blessings don't come from dc they come from grit and hard work and ownership yeah if you think 1400 changed your life you didn't have a life man and you never will if you think that that's gonna do it please don't sit around wait on these guys to make your life good this is the dave ramsey show [Music] [Music] [Music] what makes our show unique is that we genuinely care about our listeners we're intentional about choosing the best advertisers to recommend blinds.com is no exception they offer high quality window treatments at unbelievable prices and they make it simple to shop blinds shades and interior shutters with easy online ordering free shipping and a guaranteed perfect fit go to blinds.com and take advantage of this week's special savings [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt-free stage michael and tasha are with us hey guys how are you hey dave good how are you welcome welcome where do you guys live from indianapolis indiana well welcome in nash welcome to nashville thanks for joining us in person thank you very cool congratulations how much debt have you guys paid off it's about a hundred and eight thousand five hundred dollars in about 36 months way to go and your range of income during that time for context of the story right before we were 105 000 to zero for a couple months and when we started we ended up back at 125. cool what do y'all do for a living i'm a truck driver i'm in health care okay cool so uh what kind of debt was this all of it everything you were normal we didn't finance a dog or a cat but we financed everything else so cars student loans credit cards yes irs no no no irs yeah everything else though okay yes good wow wow fun how long you guys been married going on 13 years this year okay so three years ago the story began and it sounds like it's a wild ride what happened well we first heard about you in 2013 and we got very intentional for about six months uh we ended up moving with our job and then just went right back to what we were doing the old way the normal way until 2017. in 2017 we decided to make career transition and that's where the zero dollar income comes for a couple months uh and then that was kind of the point we hit that said we've got to come back to something and we actually were living in our rv at the time and i was digging through some paperwork to find some things and found your book total money makeover and we kind of had a talk that night when she came home and decided we've we've got to submit his time and uh so we cut the credit cards up and hit the plan wow well way to go you guys thanks congratulations there's nothing like sitting in an rv thumbing through paperwork with no jobs going this prize and we should probably something else absolutely yeah and we couldn't take that much with us in the rv so it was crazy that out of the things that book was with us the whole time so we knew what we should be doing we just didn't do it wow yeah and it comes out kind of jumps out at you and yells at you yeah oh my gosh so you sat down that night so things have got to change put it put together the budget get the jobs get going and game on yep absolutely we decided uh we were actually in ford at the time we decided we'd put in for some jobs in florida and back home in indianapolis and go with what came first which was indianapolis that's how you end up back there absolutely that's home originally yes yes right cool so we both ended up with jobs back there and that's where we went good wow and you're killing it i mean you're doing good 125 that's a great income thank you yeah what was this what was the state of your marriage take me back to that rv things are great y'all on the same page yeah i think so i think the whole time pretty much we were on the same page the normal i mean we had the normal you know couple disagreements things like that um so fast forward three years y'all crushed this plan you've got new jobs you've got new dignity underneath you how's your marriage now it's better yeah even better it's just calm yeah all the time [Laughter] you know when you think about at that point you think about the fights the disagreements which i think everybody has but at that point it was everything led back to money uh you know even the conversation about where we can eat dinner tonight and how we're gonna pay for it and today it's okay where are we going to eat dinner tonight and there's no second guess we just go eat dinner yeah let's do it yeah so no money question just a dinner it's what kind of food do we want yeah i like it well done you guys so what is the key to getting out at 109 036 months what's the big thing you realize that you got to do you have to say no uh we didn't go out we didn't take vacations we didn't do brunch we did nothing everyone around us for probably the first year kept inviting us and then realized there was no point so everyone left us alone and we took turns talking each other off of the ledge so that was good yeah that's real strong that's a big deal well done how's it feel now great yeah feels absolutely great three years of sacrifice was it worth it yeah it was well worth it how did you drag your little one along oh he's he's been he helped lead a lot really like yeah he was cutting the links off of our we had a chain hanging up so he was the link cutter um he would overhear our conversations and he would chime in and say i don't know if that's what dave would tell you to do so he's got this wired into him now he does for sure so you've changed your family tree for real yes we um we have one other son also but he's 20 and he's at work so he could not make the trip so he was with this whole time as well wow good for you guys that's fun congratulations so outside the two of you who and your son who are your biggest cheerleaders um our family uh friends i work with an awesome group of women as soon as we worked or came back to indiana um i mean they locked in and they were cheering us on big times that's cool that was awesome yeah very cool way to go you guys i'm so proud of y'all it's so cool yes amen man well done so what's your son's name and age let's bring him into the debt free scream this is chase he'll be 11 this weekend all right happy birthday chase well done good stuff well we've got a copy of chris hogan's book for you everyday millionaires that for sure is the next chapter in your story you guys have done so well so proud of you congratulations good stuff michael and tasha and chase indianapolis indiana 109 000 paid off in 36 months making 105-0 to now 125. count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three three two one [Music] [Applause] [Music] this is how it's done well done you guys very very very well done folks let's get real for just a second some of you are getting close to your baby step four and you're freaking out because you know you need to save 15 of your income for retirement but you do not know how to start investing it's scary it's okay to have a ton of questions it's okay to be scared about something you've never done before starting to invest is tricky the trick is to work with an investing professional like a smartvestor pro that has the heart of a teacher and they can answer all those questions in plain english they don't sound like charlie brown's teacher you ever talk to somebody that just has to has to hear themselves talk no these guys are going to help you understand because when it comes to investing you need to know what you're investing in and when you sit down and work with a smartvestor pro who knows what the flip they're doing they're going to help make investing easy to understand the heart of a teacher don't sit around and freak out do something about it text invest two three three seven eight nine that's invest to 33 789 and you can start building wealth today of course you can always click smart vester pro at daveramsey.com as well you enter your stuff it drops down a list of the guys and gals in your area you pick the one that you want to sit down and talk to and i always like to mention this dave i just had that conversation right before the new year with the smartvestor pro they put some things together for me as a teacher in a way that even sitting next to you for a year that i was able to grasp it a little bit better and they walked me through some things this is my money in my house with my family and my legacy that's where i turned and it was it was an it was the most clarifying conversation around it i've ever had yeah it was good and you know there's just power in that yeah because if you don't know how to do something standing next to somebody that knows how to do it to show you yep is the best way to learn it not having someone do it for you that's exactly right when you have someone do it for you you didn't learn anything you get you still keep all the worry and i actually said it like and he said nope i need you to look at this and so you can understand what it's gonna what the implications of what you're saying are ah i had to walk through it man and that's what a teacher does i love it nope not doing it for you i'm gonna show you how you are gonna do it ah this is the dave ramsey show [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] our scripture of the day first john 5 14 and this is the confidence that we have for him that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us dale carnegie said develop success from failures discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success tim is with us in tacoma washington hi tim welcome to the dave ramsey show hi dave how's it going better than i deserve how can we help okay so a pretty simple question but looking for some guidance uh my wife and i have recently gotten to a good place where we have only the mortgage and a famous cash loan for four thousand dollars we have about thirty four hundred dollars surplus in our budget per month after everything is paid we're looking towards early retirement or retiring as early as possible so i'm curious to see if it would be best to take that 3 400 and invest or to pay off the loan which then we can use the house as a rental unit and for our area it would rent for about 2500 a month okay i'm sorry you said there was a two loans a home loan and a small other loan yes it's a four thousand dollars same as cash um we got a new mattress recently oh crap okay and um and you don't have any money in savings i do yes i have 40 000 cash in savings i have 30 000 in my cryptocurrency stuff which i know tomorrow could do worth bagel but for now it's about 30. okay and what is the mortgage balance it is a hundred and ninety five hundred hundred ninety thousand five hundred we we what's your household and we uh we have so our growth per month our net per month is about seventy three hundred our expenses work out to be about 34 or so okay all right well i i've been uh leading people out of debt and into wealth for 30 years and um and the process that we use is um uh conservative in in nature meaning that i don't take a lot of risks i'm not big on risk um and i i like to i i don't i mean i take more risks than some people but i some people don't take any but i don't put things at risk and so being debt free is a matter not only of being secure but it's also a matter it puts me in a place where i'm secure but not only that it gives me all that money that i was paying to the bank to build wealth with and to be generous with and so that's the basis for everything that we teach and have taught literally millions and millions of people okay and i tell you all that to say uh then in in in light of that the way we answer questions here on this show and you're uh new to us is to uh say what would i do knowing what i know if i woke up in your shoes what's the shortest distance between where you are and stable and a stable wealthy position okay now if that was me i would write a check today and pay off the stupid mattress and i would never again borrow money on something like that under any circumstances i'd cash out the bitcoin buy close of business today before it's worth bagel and um and i you know that's just that's uber high risk uh at best crazy at worst um but it's uber high risk bitcoin people don't think it is but it is anytime you're playing a currency of any kind you're at the whim of the other traders of that currency it's the only thing that drives the price if you're trading yen you're trading pesos you're trading dollars you're trading euros you're trading whatever it is a currency is based on what other currency traders are willing to lean in against it and that's all it's worth it doesn't have any intrinsic value uh and uh so same thing with gold even uh it's it's a supply and demand curve is what drives the price model so it's just too high risk for me i'm not taking that much risk it's rolling the dice so i'm out of there okay uh and i'm gonna set aside some of the 40 000 for my emergency fund at three to six months of expenses and uh then from there i'm gonna go to what we call baby step four because you're out of debt and you have your emergency fund that's one two and three and i'm gonna start putting 15 of your income aside towards retirement baby step five is to start addressing your kids college and baby step six is all the money above your emergency fund the 15 is going to come out of your budget uh everything above your emergency fund that you have i'm going to start throwing towards this house to get the house paid off as soon as possible of the 10 000 millionaires that we studied in the mo in the largest study of millionaires ever done in north america for chris hogan's book everyday millionaires we found two major components of their wealth a paid for home and a stacked retirement plan if you have a net worth of five million dollars to one million dollars to five million dollars most of the time roughly one-third is in your paid for home and roughly two-thirds is in your 401 k those are actual researched data points of real millionaires this is not theory and so if you want to go out at a different angle you're not going at it the way that it actually happens that millionaires did it right and that's it's important to say you know best practices we're going to find the ways that the most people do the successful thing and we're going to emulate that and it's easy to a be smart and to have a what you think is a good plan and you flip over a napkin and do the math this at this percent and this this percent we can keep this and you can make that work out in your head but when you ask the people who actually do it yeah they say man i don't owe anybody anything and i have uh money that i've invested steadily over they weren't trying to get rich quick over time they weren't they weren't going oh bitcoin's going to double in 90 days and so i'm gonna i'm gonna get rich quick and as a mental health guy what i can tell you is when i if i'm relying on everyone else to make wise good decisions over the next however long dave everybody's gone mad so i'm not doing that i'm not doing that man well there's that all right deborah's with us in new york hi deborah welcome to the dave ramsey show hi dave how are you better than i deserve what's up okay um i have an issue with a security system home security system in my home and i wanted to get your advice on how can i get out of the contract i was told that i qualified to get out of the contract but every time i speak to someone i'm getting a run around that the business that you're do the space that you're dealing with is a fairly dirty space there are some good players in the home security business and there's a whole bunch of stinkers sound like you got a stinker now did you finance the actual equipment as well into the deal yeah so that's going to be your problem getting out of the contract because you actually signed a finance contract on the actual equipment and the monitoring is just part of the picture yeah but they have a um a six-month guarantee money back and it hasn't been six months yet but they said if you're totally not satisfied you know you will give your money back in then call them every day and if that doesn't work start calling them three times a day and record the calls make sure you've got information on your side yeah in other words just bug the the holy crap out of them okay that's really all you got because you're just trying to get people that don't want to honor their money-back guarantee to honor it and you're going to be talking to somebody on the phone who probably wants to talk to your boss someone talk to your boss i want to talk to your boss i need to talk to your supervisor i need to talk to your supervisor you can't make the decision today i need to get this wrapped up i've talked to you people 63 thousand times and i'm gonna call four times tomorrow so i need to talk to your supervisor i know you can't make the decision darling please put your supervisor on and keep a spreadsheet send emails too so all those are time stamps and let everybody know this is the 34th time this is the 39th time this is 107th time i've called last time i talked to bob the time before that i talked to george and then willie are any of them still there will equip man they all quit because they have to take her calls from people like her all day long in that in that scenario so that's the only thing i know to do uh you can hire an attorney if you want might cost you more than the whole package and uh but uh just make a hobby out of them just mess with them and um you know it it's uh the squeaky wheel does get oiled i mean you just bother the crud out of them eventually they will they will relent and all you're asking them to do is uphold the contract that they agree to right yeah just keep your word that's all we're asking just keep your word hard to get people to do that though in today's world that's for sure all right that puts us out of the dave ramsey showing the books thank you john thank you man dr john deloney james childs and zach bennett in the booth filling in for kelly today i am dave ramsey your host we'll be back with you before you know it in the meantime remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the prince of peace christ jesus [Music] [Music] you

Channel: The Ramsey Show - Full Episodes

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Id: mU2CGL_-uK4

Length: 122min 40sec (7360 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2021