No More Excuses, You’ve Gotta Make a Change! (Hour 3) - Transcripts

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods moving in storage studios. It's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. Jade Washall, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Matt starts this hour in Orlando. Hi, Matt.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Hey, Jade. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I just wanted to kind of see what you guys thought could be my steps in my process here. I took a different job in August of last year. Both the job before and the job now have been commission-based, and I was supposed to make around the same amount of commission, but unfortunately, I'm making about half. Why? So I do, like, trades work, so basically I go around quoting jobs and getting them sold, and if I'm being really honest, I think it might be the marketing side. We're not giving the amount of calls in that we should be, so I'm just not making as many sales as I usually do.

What is it you're selling?

What is it you're selling? Electrical work, panel replacements, you know, rewires, that type of stuff for residential

homes.

Well, construction stopped. No, construction stopped. It's just that we do primarily residential service calls.

So I don't know, you know, I don't know, you know.

With homeowners?

Yes. Oh, I see. Okay. For electrical problems on a home, you go to their house. Is that what you were selling before?

Correct.

Yes. And it was just a different company, the company we got before.

You know anybody selling stuff at your old company? Yes.

Are they making... Yes. Are they making...

And you seem to be struggling as well. They've been struggling as well.

So it's not the company, it's the marketplace.

Yeah, probably. It's not marketing then. If your old company is not making what they used to make and you're, you know, you're not making what you used to make of the new company it sounds like and you're in the same field, it sounds like the marketplace has slowed down with the economy slowing and inflation

and people watching every dollar and all that kind of stuff. What company was... I actually 100% agree with you. Okay. like a wide variety of other issues but I'm not gonna you know get into details

on that but yes marketplace has definitely slowed down. Is this job what

you wanted to be doing long term? Yeah actually yes this is I love it this is my career just being in the electrical field in general you know I just I love

doing electrical work for sure. Well in the meantime is it possible for you to

pick up some other work in order to kind of close that gap income wise? The biggest issue with that is you know we work under a license so I wouldn't be

able to do work on the side without a license. Not electrical work but you could

drive over. Yes so actually I do pick up that work. My schedule is a little bit varied you know I can't get I wanted to get like a consistent you know after that was job but my schedule is so inconsistent you know I'm out maybe 12 13 hours a day sometimes. What are you what are you making? On average take home a

month is around four to five thousand a month. And you were making double that before? Close. Okay so here's the thing my friend Henry Cloud wrote a book called Necessary Endings and he says you need to end a relationship, a process, a job, when you lose hope that there's any chance it's gonna get better. Okay okay and so if I'm in your shoes I've got to decide how long am I willing to wait for this to turn before I need to call it a day and switch careers and I don't know how long that is. How long do you want to give it before you know at this rate versus the double rate that you were making before before you're willing to do this? How long are you willing to ride this storm out to stay in this field? Let me help you it's not five years. Yeah. It's it's not it's not three years right you don't want you don't be sitting in the same soup three years from today. Correct. So just keep you know is it one year?

And you know, I got to believe that there's other job opportunities that use a similar skill set that use some of the same, you know, things that you know how to do and enjoy doing, so you might want to start researching that. But the screen says that you're behind on your debts. How much debt do you have?

I am without the mortgage, about $75,000 in debt.

All right. So that's letting us know what Dave was just talking about, your necessary ending. That's got to come sooner than later, because if you were sitting here debt-free and you just called in and said, Hey, my job just, you know, my income just got cut in half, what should I do? You would have, you could, you could extend that time period, but you've got a

lot on the line here with $75,000, $75,000, a lot of dumb stuff, super tax, as you call it. Yeah. What is, yeah, what is credit cards that are maxed out? It's from primarily as transition, just trying to keep everything afloat.

And then how much your car payment, how much your car budget, how much your

car debt about credit card? No, my car debt, uh, I have one car and it's about 5,000 like, no 4,000.

So your car is not your problem. Okay.

So is it what is most of this debt?

Credit cards, credit cards, credit cards and, uh, we did some dumb stuff with some described stuff. Okay. And then, but you're done with that now. Right?

Okay. But you're done with that now. Right? No that's that ends in August. No I'm saying you're done using a firm.

You're never clicking on easy payments again. 100% yes I am not.

Let me affirm you that that was stupid. We're trying to work on the baby steps right now. Let me affirm you that the firm is stupid.

Here's what I want to say to you you're going through something tough but I'm hearing a of excuses. I'm hearing a lot of but and well, and we'll see. The thing is, and I need you to understand that right now you got to make a change. Right now you got to change it. There are a lot of times where there's reasons that things are going wrong and things are not going well, but I want to challenge you to cut off that point, because at a point the reasons start becoming an excuse, and I don't want you to cross over to that excuse zone. So now's your chance to start making those those choices, start making those changes. Like I said, research jobs that earn more, that use your same skillset. They're out there, they're there. Check out Ken's book, Paycheck Purpose. Austin, can you give him that book? That might help him out to find something new for him. But look, this is your moment to change.

but you. Yeah, Warren Buffett says when the tide goes out, you can tell us who is skinny dipping. So this lowered income has revealed that you were living chaotic and out of control and now you get the opportunity to fix that. This is the Ramsey Show. Well, our spring live events are kicking up and jam packed and sold out everywhere, but we're gonna tell you where you can come if you can still get a ticket. Building Wealth, we're gonna be April the 24th in Salt Lake City, Utah with Rachel Cruz, George Camel, Christina Ellis, and me. May 2nd will be in Anaheim, California with Dr. John Deloney, Ken Coleman, Christina Ellis, and me. Jade, was that the first two that we did? And we've also brought back Smart Conference and we kicked it up a notch. This is our first weekend version of Smart Conference. Friday afternoon, we're gonna do the Ramsey Show, this show right here live. We do it live on the glass anyway here, but we're gonna do it live from the Ramsey Event Center, the brand new Ramsey Event Center from the stage.

Hi, Juliana, how are you? That's right.

Hi, I'm doing great, how are you?

Better than I deserve, how can I help? Good, so my husband and I are just wondering if we should approach an HSA account more as savings or more of an investment based on where we are at the baby steps. Where are you at in the baby steps? We're four and six, we don't have any kids currently,

but we'd like some in the future. Is the HSA above and beyond the 15%

that you're investing into retirement? Yes, so we're investing 15% in 401Ks. We want to at least get our max out of pocket in the HSA just to cover medical expenses, but we're not sure if we should keep contributing

after that. Yeah, it's not going to matter that much in a given year. It will matter over a period of years. Yeah, I would keep doing the HSA as long as you're doing it in addition to the 15%. And once you get to a certain point, make sure you get with someone like a company called Health Equity is one we use to flip your HSA money into mutual funds once it gets to be substantial. Because see, the way the HSA is going to work is as you know, the health insurance that's with it is a high deductible, but it's a low max out of pocket. And so what ends up happening with the HSA is the HSA works best, the math works best, if you're very healthy or you have chronic health problems. Like I've got a friend that's got Crohn's disease. And so he's constantly hitting his deductible and his max. So the HSA with having the lower max is much better for him because his max out of pocket is less in an annual basis. And so even though the deductible is higher, but he's always going to hit his deductible because he's always dealing with some kind of medical something. And on the other hand, you've got Sharon and Dave, which hadn't seen the inside of a hospital.

That's what I'm doing. That's what I do. That's what I'm doing. I like having, some people you have your three to six months of emergency funds, but I liked having the deductible in the HSA so that it's just another thing

that I don't have to touch now

I would not do that if you're in baby step two or three.

Yeah, that's correct. If you don't have your emergency fund in place, you don't need to be putting a dime in an HSA. That's correct yup. You need to build your emergency fund and be debt free before you put money in an HSA. This is baby steps four, five, and six. So really, really good stuff there. Very well done. All right. Our question of the day comes from neighborly, your hub for home services. Uh, this company is incredible. They, if you need to make repairs or schedule routine maintenance, find local help for home improvement projects. Neighborly is your source for reliable home service providers in your area.

That's correct.

Yep.

All right. Today's question comes from Lucas in the Ramsey baby steps community. You can find that on Facebook. He says, I just recently got engaged. My fiance is bringing $96,000 of student loan debt into the relationship. I am debt free and I've been saving up to buy a home so far. I have $93,000 saved. I know that once we're married, her debt is also my debt. So I'm wondering, do I take the money I have saved for a house to almost pay off her student loans and then get back to saving for a house? Or do I buy a house and then get intense to pay off the student loans? Oh boy. Okay, Lucas, here's hard.

Of putting a girl in it. Okay. In this case, I should say, putting this girl in it.

I feel his pain, you know, this is, this is who you brought.

You know, this is, this is who you brought. This is a, you know, when you look back on this a thousand years, a hundred 100 years from now, 500 years from now, 20 minutes from now, you won't think anything about it. But at this moment, at the moment you write that check right after you get married, you're gonna be going,

I'm gonna kill you.

That's true. That's the song. Somebody knew my reference. You gotta give a little, take a little, let your poor heart break a little. That's the story of, that's the glory of love. So his heart is breaking because of this. And I feel for you, Lucas, but that is the right thing to do. Just go ahead and don't, don't get the house first, even though you're like, man, I've been saving because if you get the house first, you're going to get married and then you guys are going to be in debt and then you guys are going to be in debt and it's not going to be fun living there."

And I got to tell you. I got to tell you, this is also going to make you triple check in your pre-marriage counseling that this lady's not gonna swear

she's gonna never borrow money again. Money again.

Yesss. Because if she thinks she's gonna go back in debt after you do this, I, we got other problems. Yeah. Other problems. So, I mean she's gotta go we'll never going to. I'm never even going to walk near a car card. Maybe walks near a car lot with a car payment. We're never gonna ask you to go into debt ever. If she can't make that kind of a pledge and make you believe it. You've got other issues.

You've got other issues.

Jade Washall Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us America. This is the Ramsey show in the lobby of Ramsey solutions on the debt free stage. Diya is with us. Hey girl, how are you? I'm good. I is Deja. Deja. Deja. Deja. Deja. Deja.

Cause I would have messed it up for the next 15 minutes. Okay. Okay. Where do you

live? I live in Chicago, South side. Welcome to Nashville. Good to have you. How much debt have you paid off? Paid off. 80K. All right. Good for you.

And how long did this take? It took me two years. It would have took me a little bit less, but I kept starting over and starting

back again. So yeah, two years, two years. And what was your income during that two

year? 50K. Okay. What do you do for a living? I, right now I work for Uber. Um, I actually work for their headquarters and sales. Um, but back then when I was paying off my dad, I was working in retail. I was a store manager for foot

locker. Okay. Good for you. Okay. So tell me about this. Uh, tell me what got you started on with this two years ago. And then while you're at it, go ahead and tell me about the start and over part.

Yeah. Yes. So I, um, actually follow Asia dang. She actually came down here and she was on the podcast as well. And once I graduated college, I was just like, Oh my God, I have so much debt. I had 13 credit cards a day, 13, just because I just did not know, um, anything about money. I was not taught, um, how to manage money. I was just like, Oh, credit card. You gave me this amount. That's free money.

But I never really understood interest in anything like that. So 13.

That part where you have to pay it back. Yeah.

Yeah. I was like, wow, I gotta pay this back. I thought she was trying to give it to me. Um, but yeah, so I would pay off something. I would congratulate myself and then I would go back into it just because I was like, Oh, these jeans or these shoes, I really want them. Um, and I just, it was just back and forth, back and forth. And then watch Asia, she paid off 200 K and two years.

In two years so those of you don't know she became an influencer while doing her debt free journey and then following our stuff and then came down here and did our debt free scream, I didn't know she's like a star. And then she came in and I'm like, I just was in the presence of royalty and I didn't know any.

Yes, so yeah, she's a big yeah free-jerk. Yeah, yeah For that she actually put me on to you and then I just listened to the podcast every day going to work I would like just turn on the podcast and I would just hear all these people saying like oh I paid off my house I paid off this I paid off that and a lot of the people that I was surrounded by just was not doing the same things that you know, you were preaching and And coming from a low income family, strictly minorities, it was nobody was talking about it. It was just like, why would you pay off debt? You're gonna live, like literally people would tell me, you're gonna die in debt. So why are you trying to pay it off? So just hearing that, I was just like, oh, dang. But I finally did it, you know? And I actually paid off my last bit of debt. It was my last student loan. People were telling me like, don't do it. You're gonna, the government is gonna give you the money back. And I'm like, I am not about to wait on this government.

Thank you. Oh, come on. Good, good for you, I'm proud of you. Thank you. So now, I get the on and off again, on and off again, and I really appreciate you telling that story because a lot of times people, that happens and then when they get on the debt free stage, they don't want to tell that part. Yeah. And they really did do that. But, so I appreciate your authenticity on that. Thank you. Did you reach a point though, that you were saying, now I'm just on? Not gonna be tempted by these genes again. Yeah.

I gotta do this. Yeah. I'm done. Yeah, absolutely. So my original debt when I first, first started was 40, 40K. But I actually added another 40K in debt because I was just adding credit cards. I was just doing so much dumb stuff and I just did not have the people, the right people in my corner to like motivate me and keep me on track. And then when I realized like, you just got another 40K in debt and you don't even have a house. You don't even have an apartment. You know what I'm saying? Like you're still living at home with your mom and you're 25 years old. And it was just embarrassing.

There it is.

There it is. And yeah, I just- It's the behavior. It's the behavior change. So you were doing the right things with money but you hadn't changed your full behavior. Everybody knows pay off your debt, do this, but you had to get to the behavior part. Love it. Yeah. Whoo. So what was the, what was your response to all the haters? Cause I know there were folks out there on the hater Abe, Like, why are you paying off your student loans? How did you respond to that? Because that's everywhere right now, by the way.

You hate your change. It was coming from my family. It was coming from my family. Family has a weird way of just like saying something that'll just make you change your entire mind. And they weren't doing it. So I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna be the first in my family to do this. I was the first in my family to go to college. I was the first in my family to pledge a sorority. I was the first in my family to do all of these things. I wanna be the first in that family to be death free. And then I'll come back and I'll get my mom, I'll get my sister's, you know what I'm saying, I'll get my brothers, and then we'll get all on track.

was just like you know what you're that girl I bet your family's proud of you now I bet now they're wondering how did you do it yeah absolutely that's

exciting that's exciting good for you well you did it yeah well done the the power of your family of origin number one the neighborhood you grew up in me too yeah the power of that and the power of the people you currently decide to run around with that you make the people that are influencing you you speak like them you read the same books they do you develop the same values you even you'll even adjust your accent to fit and it's human nature yeah be not deceived deceitful company corrupts good habits scripture says and so when you hang out with deceitful company when you hang out with people who are doing the opposite of what you want to do you it's gonna it's very difficult to do they brought that up three or four times yeah as you were talking about this and so it's just but it highlights it it's very very important you've got to put new inputs into your brain you put new things in your brain to get the junk out and I got a good friend that grew up in really, really rough circumstances and he's become very wealthy, but he said, you know, getting out of the hood was easier than getting the hood out of me. And that's a, that's a, that's a saying, what we're talking about. I mean, you got these tapes at play inside of us from the way we grew up. You know, people like us, you know, and I always heard, little man, can't get ahead. You always heard, well you're going to die with that, you know, and these, these are all these, they don't mean to be negative, but they just like Eeyore is their spiritual animal. They say what they know. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's all they know.

And it's just... But now they're gonna learn something different because of you.

Yeah, you even broke this change. Changing my family tree. Yes. Well done. Very good. Up, down, or sideways. It's good with me on that tree. However you want to get at it. I like it. Very well done. I'm proud of you. Thank you.

off again, but finally on, what is the key to getting out of debt? Yes, changing my family tree. Yes. Well done. Very good. I'm proud of you. Thank you. I would probably say the budget for sure. Making sure that you actually know what you owe. Now that I'm like helping actually have my own business now, it's called Budget Boss Life, and I'm helping young minority students who are in college and going to college, helping them to know exactly what you owe and taking it from there. I feel like if you don't know, if you're too scared to look, then you're not gonna ever know, you know? And it's just

gonna keep building. And it's just gonna keep building. I'm gonna give you a case of total money makeover books for them, okay? Yes, I need that. We'll ship them to you so you don't have to carry them on the plane, but we're also gonna give you the Baby Steps Millionaires book, the Total Money Makeover book for Natural Peace University as your gift for being here, but we're gonna help you with the next 26, I think, and it's in a case, or 24 is in a case, something like that. We'll give you a case of them, and we'll get you shipping information and send it out to you. Thank you. Congratulations. All right, Deja, way to go from Chicago. 80,000 paid off in two years, making 50K. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Thank you. How can we help? So my husband and I, we've been following you for probably five or six years following the baby steps, and it's allowed us to get the steps pretty quickly. So we're now in a position recently where we could finish paying off our mortgage, or we just refinanced about two and a half years ago for two and a half percent. We have

a really low mortgage rate. What made you decide that following us was not a good idea

after you've been following us? Well, nothing. So our families, we both come from families without money. We don't know anyone that has money. We are now in a position where we do

have it. I know. But you followed us all the way through. I know. But you followed us all

the way through till you got here. So until, you know, we have a lot of people talking

to us saying, hey, well. You follow. And did everything against every, what everyone says to do, and did what we said to do until you got here. And you understand? Yeah. And now Now suddenly, now suddenly we don't know what we're doing. I'm picking on you Sherry.

Hey off your house girl. Okay. That's, you know, just the only thing, you know, we keep going back and forth with our mortgage rate is so low. I know.

We get something returned greater, but I know. Okay. And you're going to stand at the rest of your life and you're going to be normal like all

those people that you were doing stupid stuff with before. Okay. I think that's what I needed here. Yeah.

Get out of debt. Yeah. Get out of debt. Finish the baby steps. If you go for it in your neighborhood, but you know. Okay.

Don't get to baby step six and turn left.

See it through. And when your debt free, a hundred percent house and everything, you'll have control of your most powerful wealth building tool. You're going to have a level of financial peace that you've never had in your entire life and maybe that none of your friends have ever had. And maybe that your family has never had. You're hundred percent debt free at that point.

How old are you? We are 35 and 36.

Oh man. And so you're going to be multi-millionaires. If you just take your house payment and the old payments you used to have and start investing

those. on the house? I don't want 50. Oh yeah come on now, come on and get it and then

when you're done you'll be able to invest to your heart's content. And be unreasonably generous too. Yeah. Yeah, don't quit now. You're almost there, don't give up at the end, you know, almost to the end and then all of a

sudden two and a half percent sounds like a good idea to stand at. Yeah, a lot of people do that, they get through the hard part of the race and then

their last 10% is there and they quit. Don't do it.

Kelsey's in Wichita, Kansas. Hi Kelsey, how are you? Hi, I'm great, I'm super excited to talk to you guys. You too, how can we help? So my husband and I are in Baby Step 2, we have our thousand dollar emergency fund. We are in the process of trying to get rid of our stupid toys that we don't need. And so we have a travel trailer that we currently owe about $43,000 on. Good Lord. We have an outright by offer from a dealership for $33,000, so about $10,000 less than we owe. Good. However, and I can take out, you know, a personal loan to cover that difference. But if I do that, the interest on it is going to be 10.75% and it's on a 58 month payoff for $2.50 a month.

Nope. No, you would go ahead and go get rid of it. Consign it as you still own it and you hope they sell it before they sell one of their own off the lot. Right. Now I have to go tell my husband he was right. I'm sorry about that part, but here's the thing, here's the thing, the beautiful part about this. Let's walk through here. Why am I going there so fast, all right? I like $10,000 in debt a lot more than I like $40,000 in debt. Yep. I like getting rid of a camper which goes down about as fast or faster than anything else with wheels. But here's the thing.

go down another $10,000. Right, and we can get rid of it and then downgrade our

truck that we don't need in guy pull it. It's just stopped the bleeding we've stopped the bleeding. It's done. It's over. The story is in the rear-view mirror. Now we've got it now we've just got to sweep up the last 10,000 and that is a fixed amount that is not going anywhere and that we've locked in we've locked in our losses if they're not gonna get worse that story is not gonna drag out it's over now kill the 10,000 bucks and it's really over, right? That's why I want

there so fast. Got it. Just pay the stupid tax and be done.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And actually what I've learned to tell myself is I'm not even paying the stupid tax there. I'm just admitting it because I've already paid it when the thing went down in value.

True that.

For sure. Yeah. For sure. For sure. And so, yeah, I've already made the mistake. All I'm doing is admitting it when I sell it. So that's powerful.

Well done. Well done. Yeah. They're willing to sell off some things to get this done.

That's exciting. Hey. Hey. Our stupid toys, she said. Yep. And man, people got some stupid toys. Yeah. And listen. We're not against toys. Yep.

Yeah.

We're against stupid toys. At the wrong time. What's a stupid toy? Stupid toy is one you have debt on. Listen. One guy told me. He said, my bass boat. And I'm like, dude, your bass boat is $550 a month. And I made him sit down. We're doing a small group at a financial distribution university. I made him sit down and add up how many bass he caught a year and what the average pounds were. And we divided out that those bass were costing him something like $160 a pound by the time he got them home.

And it's like, you know, dude, this is just freaking beluga caviar here.

That's hilarious. And it's like, you know, this is not bass.

That is hilarious. So it's not, don't tell me you're feeding your family, please. Right. Okay. Please don't tell me that. All right. I got a bass boat. I don't have a bass boat, but I got a couple of master crafts and I got C-doo's and all these other crap, but I pay cash for them. And they're going down in value and they're the top of the line, best of everything. And I love them and they're toys. And there's a small percentage of my world. So stupid toys are toys that are a large percentage of your world, uh, or that you have payments on, or both.

and then they don't bother me, please, okay? Right, right, yeah, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So go further into that because we talk, we know what that means when it comes to cars, right? We don't pay cash for a brand new car until we're a millionaire. And then there's people who wanna get boats and sea-dos and campers. So explain to the people what's too much and when they can do all that

and how they can do all that without getting ridiculous. Right, I use a couple of rules. Rule number one I use is the total of everything you own with motors and wheels, campers, wheels, no motor, boats, motors, no wheels, right? All that, but motors are wheels. All those things go down in value. And the total of all those things you own should never be more than half your annual income. Should be a small percentage of your world. The second rule I use is if I set fire to it and it had no insurance, does it change my life financially? Am I financially devastated? Because the item, I just completely blew that amount of money. Because in essence, you're blowing that amount of money. It needs to be like, a friend of mine's a billionaire and he bought like a $400,000 car.

Jade Wash, our good show today, financially.

Right, yeah, same to you. Austin, Ben, James, Zach, and Andrew in the booth, the booth dudes that make this happen. That puts us out on the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily

with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, what's up guys, it's Jade. Look, if you like what you heard in this episode and wanna know more about getting started on the Ramsey Baby Steps, go to ramsysolutions.com and click the Get Started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation.

That's ramsysolutions.com and click Get Started. Hey, it's James, producer of the Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but check the episode notes for links to products and services you heard about during this episode. Thanks for listening.