Transcript

We’re $100K in Debt and Living in a Camper | February 4, 2026

From The Ramsey Show · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 2 h 9 min · 23,884 words · 468 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "We’re $100K in Debt and Living in a Camper | February 4, 2026", an episode of The Ramsey Show published February 4, 2026 (2 h 9 min, about 23,884 words). It mentions 8 people, works and ideas, including Mario (Sherry Coleman's brother), George Kim, I Can Only Imagine, Even If, Dave Ramsey.

What this episode is about

A couple struggles with $100,000 in debt while living in a camper, seeking advice on how to manage their financial situation. They discuss the breakdown of their debts, including a significant truck loan and loans for a camper and car, and consider whether to sell the truck to alleviate their financial burden.

Key takeaways

  • Housing isn't just a roof—it's a financial anchor. Campers depreciate faster than sci-fi movie plots.
  • Debt at 22? You're not the 'average' millennial; you're the cautionary tale. Let’s rewrite that script!
  • $1,200 for a truck? That’s not a vehicle; that’s an overpriced subscription to financial stress.
  • Minimalist living can be liberating, but being underwater on vehicles is like sailing with a leak.
  • Trading the camper for a rental could be the ultimate money move — living safe beats living free!

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 15:00: Mario (Sherry Coleman's brother), George Kim, Even If
  2. – 30:00: Even If
  3. – 45:00: Mario (Sherry Coleman's brother), Dave Ramsey
  4. – 1:45:00: Dave Ramsey
  5. – 2:00:00: I Can Only Imagine, Even If, Dave Ramsey, Andy Irwin

Notable quotes from "We’re $100K in Debt and Living in a Camper | February 4, 2026"

  • The really sharply dressed George Kim I always like to see what adjective you're going to use on me today.
    about George Kim · at
  • You're essentially paying $1,700 right now for rent. Yeah.
    about Mario (Sherry Coleman's brother) · at
  • Behind the very first film, I Can Only Imagine Bart Lard is now is producing this as well. I Can Only Imagine 2 is the follow-up to I Can Only Imagine. And I got to say to you…
    about I Can Only Imagine · at
  • Then Brent Mccoral who did Jesus Revolution with my brother. They started talking about the story of Even If the song that so many people love every bit as much as I can only…
    about Even If · at
  • Yeah, he's my stunt double. pretty much. No, man. yeah, Dave and I have been buddies for a long time. I didn't even realize that he made the movie until I saw the So, Dave Ramsey has a cameo. If you listen, you listen for a familiar voice,.
    about Bart Lard · at
  • And I was and so he picked him on a good day. He was on the cruise having a good time.
    about Dave Ramsey · at
  • Comes from Luke 16:10. Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. And whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. Our…
    about Luke 16:10 · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Mario (Sherry Coleman's brother) — Person · Host / main speaker · 3 mentions · first at
    Co-hosts the episode, leads multiple caller segments, frames questions, and promotes Ramsey products and guests.
  • George Kim — Person · Co-host (name likely mis-transcribed; on-air co-host is George Kamel) · 1 mention · first at
    Co-hosts the episode with Ken Coleman, leads many debt/budget calls, explains debt snowball and budgeting principles, and references his book.
  • Dave Ramsey — Person · Referenced host / network figure; appears in ads and referenced as show identity · 5 mentions · first at
    The show is branded as The Ramsey Show; Dave is referenced in sponsorship reads and later appears as the voice in an ad segment.
  • Andy Irwin — Person · Main guest (in-studio interview) · 2 mentions · first at
    Interviewed about the film 'I Can Only Imagine 2' and the decision-making and storytelling behind making a sequel.
    I was terrified. I said no over and over again. And so Bart and I have been really good friends since the first movie. And they kept bringing up this idea of I think there might be more.
  • Bart Lard — Person · Main guest (in-studio interview; name likely mis-transcribed) · 2 mentions · first at
    Introduced as a producer for 'I Can Only Imagine 2' and discusses story origins and Dave Ramsey cameo; likely refers to Bart Millard (MercyMe).

Books & papers

  • Even If — Book · Primary recommendation · 7 mentions · first at
    Book mentioned as the inspiration for the sequel to 'I Can Only Imagine', focusing on the story behind the song.

Concepts & topics

  • Luke 16:10 — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at
    Scripture of the day, emphasizing trust and honesty in financial matters.

Media & podcasts

  • I Can Only Imagine — Media · Primary recommendation · 6 mentions · first at
    Award-winning film mentioned as the first movie by Andy Irwin, leading to a sequel discussion.

Full transcript with timestamps

Brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So, we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio, this is the Ramsey Show. the phone number to jump in today.88255225LE8 888255225LE8 825-55225 alongside the uh really really sharply dressed uh George Kim

I always like to see what adjective you're going to use on me today. You know I got distracted from the adjective was looking at that shet. That's a well-appointed shet. George, as always, I'm Ken Coleman. We're here together for you. So

looking good is half the battle, Ken. It really is. So you're prepared as well. All right, let's go to Travis in Huntsville, Alabama. and Travis, how can we help today?

Hey, um I am in $100,000 of debt and I'm 22. Um I have two kids, but I make about 70,000 a year.

Okay, tell us more. What kind of debt is 100,000? Break it down for us. Uh, well, the first one was my uh I guess my 20-year-old idiot purchase, which was uh at at the time when I first got it was about a $75,000 truck from a a loan rolled over. Now it's about at 60,000. I pay $1,200 a month on it. Um, my second one is a $23,000 camper. Started at 30,000. pay that five about 500 a month on it. And then the last one is a car for my wife, which I currently owe about 16,000 on.

Okay. And what is your goal today? What's the what's the heart of the question?

Well, I guess so we me and my wife have been talking a lot about getting rid of the truck. Um because the reason we have the camper and the truck to begin with is because we were traveling on the road. Um, I did just I worked for a renovation company doing renovating government buildings. Made a lot of money the first year. Contracts died out, you know, just slowed down. Had to find another job back home where we had a little more stability, but we still live in the camper and then the truck is the way to move the camper around. So,

Got it. So, you're living in the camper full-time. You're not renting. You don't have a home. Okay. How?

No, we're not renting. So we and we actually don't pay for rent at the campground uh because we volunteer for state parks.

Cool. So that kind of covers the fee. They they kind of make it a wash there. And I'm guessing you don't move around much anymore. You're not moving this camper much?

No, not very far. Just around like you know like an hour from Hudville. Right now we're an hour so we're kind of far but we can move back in a couple months.

Okay. And your your wife is at home with the kids? Yeah. not working outside the home. Okay. So, 70K is what we're making. We've got 100K in debt. Have you looked into what the truck is currently worth? What the camper is currently worth if you sold it privately?

Uh, yes, sir. So, the private value on the Kelly Blue Book website is 36. Um, so it's it's just I'm really underwater on

So, 24 underwater on the truck. And then what about the camper? Uh, the camper I don't know how much they depreciate. Honestly, I haven't looked into it.

They'd appreciate a whole lot. That's for sure. You think it's worth 10 or 15? 20.

I might be able to get 10 out of it and that would leave me a 13. Yep. So, total doing the math, you are $37,000 underwater on these vehicles. Meaning, you cannot get rid of these until you come up with the difference somehow to clear the title.

Yes, sir. There's two ways you can do that. I have a question. As I'm listening here to George talk with you, have you run the numbers on on on the most affordable rent? Uh because you're already living in a trailer. So you you make 70,000. It's not chump change. What would rent cost you?

Um I there's some places where I think we could get it for a,000. Um but some of those places with kids I just wouldn't feel safe putting them in. And I know my wife would.

Okay. But you went to the worst common denominator. So, so what I'm asking you is I would never recommend you put your family in a place where your kids are unsafe. So, let's ask reassent look like in a place where you don't feel like your kids are under threat.

Um, I would say maybe maybe somewhere between 14 to,600. Okay. Have you run a budget on what that could you you know, what would that do to your budget with your take-home?

Um, yeah. Um it would you know I get 5,000 a month. So that minus the car payment would be you know say we had 1,500 rent two I get three three G grand back uh a month not including expenses but

and the reason I'm walking through this with you Travis George I mean I wanted George to hear that ratio. Uh but the reality is is like you've got to get rid of this trailer.

You're essentially paying $1,700 right now for rent. Yeah. Yeah. The trailer, truck and camper are

sinking. The camper's losing value. So that's why I want you. And George, is that too aggressive? I'd like to for him to to let's find a place to live and get renting and let's get rid of

because if you sell the camper, you lose your housing. And so we've got to solve for that problem. The good news is the truck can go sooner because we don't technically need it right now.

The issue is we need that money either through savings, through future income, or through a loan from your local credit union. Is your credit good enough to get a loan from a credit union right now?

Um, not really. Um, like I said, when we were out of contracts, I was out of work for about six months in Seattle. And so I went, it was just a couple months of trying to get unemployment just to stay above water and knocking doors. Um, but

do you have anything in savings right now or anything you could sell? Um, anything I could sell? I don't really have anything I could sell per se. We have a camper, so every we kind of live minimalistic as much as possible. Um, don't really have anything in the camper. I mean, besides Hobby Lobby.

Okay. Artwork. And nothing in your savings account. Correct. Um, I have a little bit. I'm working on baby step one. I believe it's getting $1,000,

correct? In in the bank account. So, we have maybe 300. And then I have a couple Roth two Roth IRA and 401k which I'm not going to touch.

Good. Okay. Well, you're you're speaking the right language here. We got to get the,000 bucks first. Then we need to solve for this truck cuz that'll free you of 1,200 bucks a month. And so even if you go take out a $24,000 loan, it's better than what you got right now.

Yeah. At 60k. And so that's your next goal once you get the thousand bucks. And that's going to take some time. This is not going to be like, hey, we can just go do all of this tomorrow. But you're going to need to explore all of your options and try to get top dollar for these so that you can get out of this faster. And that might mean you're working two more jobs.

Yeah. That's not going to be fun for the next year or two to clean this up. But that's the only solution I'm seeing here to get you out of this without, you know, dangerous shortcuts.

Yeah. I I'm just going to reemphasize, Travis, the first step here is you've got to find a place to live so we can sell the camper.

Yeah. Do you have any family nearby? Um, not. We have some church family, but we we wouldn't be able to stay with them long term. Um, all my other family is same same deal. Not really not really fit to stay there. Um,

one one factor I didn't mention that I've been thinking about is my old boss, he lives here in Alabama. he lives fairly close and he has offered to anytime I need to move the camper to he would let me use his truck for that. Um the one thing I I would worry about he's very dependable and reliable but you never know what's going to happen. He could move it could be broken down. Um, but I was thinking if we could take care of the camper um we could still be able to kind of live um rent rentree essentially if we have

I think this is just we're still in short-term thinking now. We got to think about the bigger picture and getting out of this life we created. Man, Most people just drift through life with their money. No plan, no budget, stuck on autopilot. But winning with money is intentional. That's why I love Fair Winds Credit Union. They've built tools for people who don't want gimmicks or games. Their smart bundle includes a high yield savings account to help your emergency fund grow. And their spend smart checking account won't nickel and dime you to death with fees like other banks. Plus, it comes with the Ramsay be weird debit card, which says debt is normal. Be weird right on the front of it. It keeps you connected to your budget and every time you use it, it's a reminder you control your money, not the other way around. Fair Winds Credit Union is for people who are serious about taking control of their money. So,

if you're ready to stop drifting and start building wealth on purpose, open your smart bundle today at fair winds.org/ramsey. That's fair winds.org. insured by the NCUA. All right, Marie is up next in New York City. Marie, how can we help today? So, I have a question in regards to parent plus loans and if I should pause on paying them because my children are still in school. They are technically not due yet, but I've been paying the amount that they said I would owe. Um, but I do have credit card debt. So, I'm wondering, do I put a pause on paying the parent plus loans because they're not technically due yet, and take that money I was paying to that and put that towards my credit card debt to get my credit card debt to go down faster?

Is that the only debt you have as credit card? I have um a small car loan uh that I pay $240 a month towards and I probably owe about uh $3,800 left on the car and I have $7,200 in credit card debt, the parent plus loans, and I have a mortgage of 100 that has about $150,000 left on it.

Okay, great. Are you familiar with our baby steps? Yes, I have $1,000 saved. Okay, great. Good. And what was the total amount for the parent plus loans?

Uh 55,000. Okay. And I'm assuming that's broken out across some different loans or is it all one giant loan?

No, it's uh two children, three different loans. Okay. Or four different loans maybe.

Great. So this would st still fall into your debt snowball regardless if they're asking for payments or not. Cuz here's the truth. The interest is still acrewing. And so the more we kick this cane down the road, the more that balance is going to balloon. You're going to wake up to have a $65,000 loan.

And so this would just fall right into your debt snowball. So list out your debt smallest to largest. Is the credit cards is that multiple cards to make up the 72?

There's two cards. Yes. Okay. So like a few grand each? Uh yeah, there's two cards. One has uh 4700 and the rest is on the other one.

Okay. So this becomes pretty simple. We're going to knock out that first credit card, then the car payment, then the second credit card, and then start attacking these parent plus loans,

okay? But still keep making those make the minimum payments that that they offer. Is there a minimum payment that you can pay?

So, it's just not required. They're paying correct. Yeah. Like they originally had said, oh, if you started paying today, you should pay this amount. You should pay 305 a month. So, that's what I've been paying.

Good. I would continue down that path and just keep doing minimums on all of your debts except the smallest one and attack it cuz I'm I'm looking at all of these debts. Are you close to like 70 grand in debt right now?

With without the without the mortgage? Yes. Okay. And what do you guys make a year? What's your household income?

Um, I make uh I have two jobs. I make 110 between both of them. Fantastic. Well, there's some good news. So, we can clean this up pretty fast. I mean, if you can throw, let's say, 3540 grand a year of your net income towards this, you're done in two years.

That would be amazing. That's it. And so, I think part of this, K, it's hard to just like peel back and look at the big picture versus just staring at all the variables and debts in front of you.

Well, let's talk about the big picture because you just hit her with that 35 to 40,000 a year. And it's almost like Marie, we could hear that you were stunned by that. You you you laughed and said that would be nice. So, let's talk about while we got George with us here on the budget. He's the budget guru. Is that believable to you? It felt like it was almost unbelievable.

It's a little unbelievable because I and I feel that I I work really hard. I have two jobs. So, and I I listened to you guys and what you say about and I've been doing the debt snowball. So, I just got rid of one credit card last week. So, that was a little celebration. Yay. But the So, my mortgage I only owe $150, but my mortgage takes like $2,200 a month.

Okay. That's why I wanted to lean in because, you know, George is taking a shot there. But if let's say George, we use your number of 35. That's just about 3,000. a little bit less than 3,000 a month net. So realistically, Maria, Maria, if you are very disciplined to the best of your knowledge right now, what do you think you could put away every month with the two jobs minimums plus the extra? Yeah.

What could you throw at all this debt? I pro I usually I mean and I hear you and and I think you are probably right, but it almost sounds impossible, you know, when you're sitting on this side because I do pay, you know, $1,000 to the credit card and I do work extra or overtime at the first step.

Well, that's why that's why I'm pushing in a little bit. I I wanted to see if it is doable. So, could you What is the most money you could commit? We're we're not holding you to this. This is an exercise while we have you. What do you think is the most I I'm talking like extreme budgeting, saving, cutting expenses everywhere. To George's question, after you pay the minimums and your four walls, what do you think you could put on debt every month? What number?

I probably could put $1,000 a month on top of your minimums is what you're saying.

Yes. Okay, great. Because I'm doing the math here. 27.50 gets you out of debt in 24 months. If you're doing all the minimums plus the extra, that should add up to 27.50. Now, two two years, that was just I'm just throwing something out there. On average, we find that people who follow our plan to a tea, we're talking baby steps, budgeting, using every dollar, making the sacrifices, 18 to 24 months is the average. And based on the numbers you threw at me with your $110,000 income, seven, you know, 66 grand in debt, you are right there.

That's going to be 18 to 24 months of sacrifice. And at first you're going to feel like you're not making progress, but I'm telling you, month after month, in 6 months, you're going to have a few debts knocked out. Think about that. You free up the payments. Now we're throwing at the next debt. And so the snowball starts to roll and by the end you are just you can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Yeah, I love it. How about we just That was a great locker room speech, George. Even though you never played sports.

I don't think I've been in a locker room other than me getting bullied in one. But what do

So what if we give her Breaking Free from Broke? Because I think that's a mindset book in her situation. You like that? That's your book.

Yeah. That'll get you fired up about your debt. Give you the path out in in my voice. So there's a lot of jokes in there cuz you got to have fun along the way, Marie. And what you've created right now is not fun. Taking on the parent plus loans, which is a noble thing to do. You want to help your kids. But here's the here's the kicker. That debt is in your name. The kids don't legally ever have to pay a dime. and the interest rates are higher and so these are not going away even if it's you know the payment is deferred the interest is still acrewing and it is brutal so I want to do a followup on behalf of our larger audience okay because for the minutia sometimes I want to make sure people get the principle so in Marie's situation um you told her to continue making what the minimum payments would be even though that they're not asking for that money right now um why did you give why would we give that advice as

opposed to saying do the snowball on everything else but that. Why that advice George?

Well, if you're not making any payments at all and the interest is acrewing, you've got a double whammy situation. That's right. Because you are not moving the needle at all with the principal. And so, the only thing moving the needle is interest adding to your balance. And we hear those stories cuz people, they weren't taught how interest works,

especially when you're not making a payment. And so, if you go punch the numbers into an interest calculator, you will find that balance will balloon. And who knows how long they'll be in school. what if they're in school for another 6 years,

right? And so, you've got to just start creating the habit of knocking out this debt systematically. And the debt snowball method is the way to do it. So, just ignore the interest rates because the way you're going to hack this thing, the interest isn't going to add up that fast over the next 18 months.

Yeah, I thought it was I thought it was interesting to hear her brain and her reaction was really fun to hear that. Wow, that would be nice. When we pressed in right now, she's thinking $1,000 a month. I got a hunch. Uh, and Marie's still on the line. I think she could get more than $1,000 out of that budget. What do you think based on your experience?

Yeah. I mean, if you take 110 grand minus your your taxes and you're going to pause all investing, so you're just going to, you know, pay your healthcare if that's through your job and all that, but whatever comes home, that's your number now that we've got to figure out. You got 2,200 in your mortgage. Okay. Whatever's left, how little can we live on to throw as much as we can at the debt?

Right. So, four walls plus insurance. Anything else that can go? Everything else is a luxury at this point.

That's right. And kudos. Maria is working two jobs, folks. I mean, so this is superwoman here. In this case, you're looking to sell everything you can possibly sell. What if you can sell five, $7,000, maybe as much as 8 to $10,000 worth of stuff. That again reduces that timeline. So again, we we have a lot of new people joining us all the time and trying to understand the practicality of these steps. Listen, we didn't say it was easy. The steps are simple, but the work and the sacrifice is hard. But boy oh boy, you heard how she reacted when George said, "I think I can get out in 24 months." That's exciting stuff. The quicker you get out, the quicker you move on in your life with the dreams that you want to achieve.

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Hey guys, uh thanks for having me on the show. Um so my wife's brother and sister um not as well off financially as us and we're coming up in in our own financial journey to a point where we may be able to help them. Um but we're having an issue when we talk about it because and uh please I don't want to paint them in a bad light. I love them. They're great people. Um but in a lot of aspects of their lives they are very much um we can't right now because people um you wouldn't understand because we've got three kids you don't that kind of thing.

Um what is something that we could do when we get to the point uh that we can that we could help these these people that we're not crossing a boundary but we're also not enabling bad financial decisions.

Okay. Well, you answer that question. Is there let me flip this on and I'm gonna set you up. Sorry, I didn't mean to just but you Yeah, you No, you called us. You tell us. No, here's what I want to know.

You've already laid out George and I know exactly what you're saying. You're not in any way attacking them. However, here's my question for you. Let's just fast forward into this future that you just mentioned where you're going to have some extra money. Is that what am I is that me understanding correctly what you're saying?

Yes, sir. about $38,000 down and we got about 30 to go. No, no, I know. Don't worry about that. We're going to fast forward to your heart of your question. Okay, let's fast forward to this future where you have some margin to where you could help them financially. In what area would you feel confident telling George and I, I helped them, forget about the number, but I helped them how I could and I feel like this help will actually make a difference. Tell me the answer to that question. What area where you could help would actually make a difference and they wouldn't squander it and they wouldn't just, you know, motor through it? Where where could you help them where it would make a difference?

The biggest thing that we've discussed that I think could possibly work is if we were able to pay for a year of child care for their kids so that mom could go to work and help them financially cuz dad is kind of limited in his position with what he could make.

Okay. If you were to do that, a would she go get a job? Yes or no? I I couldn't tell you. I I think so.

And what if she doesn't? Is the Is it conditional where you go, hey, you got to show proof of

Well, I don't like I don't like your answer, John. You realize what I'm doing here? I'm walking you through. Is this a good ROI? And your answer to that was, I don't know if she'd actually do it.

That's a bad sign. True or false? True. You see, so this is how I would come about this. My heart says I want to help, but I need to put real plans, real specifics together. And I just kind of walked you through this. And the first thing you said that you would do to help, there was no certainty at all that it would actually help. Because if you pay for child care, but she doesn't go get a job and thus get extra money and then we didn't even ask you. Even if she made the extra money, do you think that she would put it towards removing debt?

What's the answer to that? I think so. They've been watching our financial journey. Um so hopefully we've been just hoping that they would see what we're doing and

have they asked questions? Have they even said they want help or is it just more Well, that's for you guys, but we that's not a thing that we're going to do.

Yeah, I think that's true, George, because we've offered them financial peace because we have it. We're actually waiting to start it because we we want them to go through it and they've had it and haven't done it and and we're getting frustrated because it's it's like I I want to I want to help you. Let me help you.

Right. But John, you just said a moment ago until George reframed that, you said you thought that they would use that income of hers to help themselves. And now you're questioning that. So you see, this is the exercise. And I'm glad you called us because we can be objective. We're we're not related to them.

It sounds like to me that this is a bad investment. Okay, here's the underlying fear. You don't help them move forward. They just get comfortable for a while while you get super resentful because you're helping them and you're really putting putting yourself out there paying for child care for a whole year all for them to not make any progress. Well, now the relationship's gone. You you've lost all respect for them.

Mhm. And so until they are at a breaking point, until they have enough pain in their life that they're going, I guess we should put on that financial peace thing. We are running out of options here.

Yeah. I don't know that they're ready for it yet. I agree. That reminds me, George, of the old phrase, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. And this is tough with family. So, George, I don't know where you're at. I'm going to say, John, I would not help until they say that a they want help and because they acknowledge they need help. And I think those are your two boundaries. And I and again, I would run through a similar exercise like I just walked you through. And my friend, you answered your own question. Um, and I know it's a tough situation. I hate that. But you guys got your own financial journey. You got 38,000 to pay off. Let's go walk the baby steps. Continue to do what you've been doing. Let's get out of that situation. Make your life better and let the chips fall where they fall with other people. Let's go to Jonathan next who is in Fairfax, Virginia. Jonathan, how can we help today?

Hi. Um, longtime listener, first- time caller. My dad actually, he's really a big fan of the show. Um, and right now I'm just got a little uh question about how to find housing at my current stage of life. I just graduated college about two years ago. Uh, and I've been working as an RN for about a year and a half. I'm about to get a raise and I'm still looking around trying to find good housing uh, without breaking the bank and just like being able to save continuously after that and it just seems like a really big struggle for me right now.

Give us some real numbers. I know the Northern Virginia area. If you're in Fairfax area, I know that area. That's extremely expensive place to live. Give us the numbers uh for George and I. What you're looking at for a rent.

So, honestly, I'd take I'd take really anything. The I'm really trying to reduce my commute as well, though. And um in the Fairfax Fair, they're Oak specific area, which is where my hospital is. It's around 1,500 at base price as far as I've seen. and I've asked a few realtors, but it comes to about there.

What have you been paying in this two years since you've been out of school? I've I've actually just been staying at home. Uh my dad's very gracious. He's allowed me to stay at home for $200 a month. Um additionally, a few other utilities in there, but

Okay. What's your income now? And you also told us that you're about ready to get a raise. So, give us those two numbers where you are now and then what your new raise will look like. Right now I believe it's 90 a year and further than that in about a month and a half I think it goes up to probably 93 94.

Do you have any Do you have any debt payments? I do not. No. And you're worried about $1,500 a month?

Just a little bit. But well compared to 200. Sure. But that's a false reality. Yeah. George is in the middle of this stuff. George, what do you think about 1,500 a month for

I mean, if you're if you're taking home about six grand a month, 1,500 bucks is right on the mark. We tell people 25% of your after tax income is what you want to stay in for housing, whether it's rent or a mortgage.

Okay. And here's the other thing. That's for you living alone, right? Yeah. Here we go. Tell him, George.

Can I tell you, I don't want to pull out, you know, like I'm a pioneer woman or something, but I had roommates all the way up until I was married because I couldn't afford an apartment on my own. But you can. But if we've already established you can afford it, but to George's point, if if it gives you stomach problems, fine. For a twobedroom and now your rent's a,000 bucks, you'd feel a little better, wouldn't you?

And you're splitting utilities as well. I'd definitely love you if I could find someone. But you're right. You're

I mean, Facebook groups all over for roommate finders and apps and ask around to your friends. I mean, you got young guys you work with probably. And so that's that's you got to put a little effort. You know where I'm at, George on this.

What's that? You've proven that he's fine financially. He's got a great upward path. He's got no debt. You know what? This is quality of life.

Jonathan, I think you got to focus on how much life is going to be better not commuting way out into Fairfax. I know what that traffic is like,

but it's scary to fly the coupe, Ken. He's comfy. But once you start thinking about not driving in the seventh level of hell every day, there's a really nice tradeoff. Life is about trade-offs, George. That's right.

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love your family in a real and practical and lasting way, go to mamabarlegalformms.com and use the promo code Ramsay to save 20%. That's mamabarlegalformms.com. Use code Ramsay. All right, let's go to Kathy who's joining us in Minneapolis. Kathy, how can we help?

Hi, my husband refinanced our car and now we have a 25% APR and wondering what we should do.

O oh boy, what caused this refinance? Uh so we had What was the original APR experience?

Uh the original was 14 and um he was trying to get money to pay some things and decided to take out 3,000 on top of the car loan and that's what happened.

Yikes. Why would he do that inside of the car loan? There's so many ways to get 3,000 even though it's a terrible idea to go into debt for any of it. But why refinance the car loan to get three grand out?

I think because it was the fast Well, so he had originally applied for a personal loan, but his credit wasn't very good and so uh they told him that he could do it through the car loan as like a secured I don't know.

Yeah, it's a secured debt. He didn't involve me in the car. They go, "If this guy can't pay, we get a car out of it, so we're willing to do it." Oh, and by the way, his credit shot, so the APR is 25%. Because he's a risky borrower.

Mhm. So, I want to dig here because you you laid it out for us very clearly. And you said, "What do we do? Is is we involved here or is it just you?" Because it sounds like he made a really desperate move.

Yes, he did. And it is we involved. Um Okay. But yeah, he I wasn't included in that decision. So,

yeah. But he's now going, "Okay, uh, I I screwed up and I need some advice." Mhm.

Okay. All right. Any other debt? Because that that helps us with this with this answer.

Yeah, we have a credit card debt, student loan debt, personal loan. What's the total of all the debts?

Um, it's about Oh gosh. like uh just under let's see like 70,000. Okay. What do you guys make a year as a household?

Uh about 70,000. Wow. Are you guys both working full-time? No, I'm a stay-at-home mom.

Okay. So, he's he's pulling in 70. Yeah. Uh and 13 and one. Oh. For the ages. You just got restarted again.

Yep. All right. So, I have to ask because I think this is this is this kind of level of intensity. Are are there any type of skills, work experience that you have that would allow you to do some work from home? I know the one-year-old is that's a full-time job. Don't want to minimize that in any way. However, you got 24 hours in a day just like everybody else. Is that even possible? And what do you think you could do to make some money?

Um, yes. So, it is possible. I actually just finished school. So, um I'm going to be pursuing something hopefully from home. I also homeschool, so there's that as well. But, um I

Is that going to be possible if you're working full-time out, you know, outside of

Probably not full-time? I'm I'm hoping to find something part-time from home. What's your degree in? And what will the job be that you're hoping for?

Um holistic wellness and like um I'm also certified in personal training. So something with personal training and health and wellness.

So like a your private coaching for nutrition, wellness. Okay. All of that. And you that's a little more flexible. You can kind of do that on your on your own schedule. Well, I will point out you have to go get clients. That's a whole different ballgame when you're doing it for yourself.

So yeah, I'm going to just point that out that that is difficult. Not saying you can't do it, but I would give yourself some realistic goals. And if in a month or two or three months we're not signing up any clients, not getting anybody interested, you need to go work for somebody else.

And that's just a reality right now. Um, you know, if you guys got to bring in more income. Do you have any savings at all?

No. What's left on the car balance after this refinance? Um, so he he just refinanced it, so it's sitting around I think 17 18,000.

Okay. What is the vehicle worth? private party value uh 7,200. Okay, so we're 10 grand underwater. So there's our number. If we want to get out from under this 25% APR, which is going to cause the balance to balloon if we're not attacking it, then we need to get out from under it

by creating this 10 grand, either by saving future income or taking out a loan from a credit union, which I'm guessing is not an option cuz he's tried that and his credit is shot. Is your credit shot as well?

Are you tied to this? No. Okay. No, I'm not. I'm I was on the original loan, but when he refinanced, I was taken off, I guess.

Okay. You would I would see. Now, it's going to be tough because you don't have income. And so, they I don't know if they'll look at the whole picture if you're the one taking out the loan in your name. Uh, you know, they're not going to allow him to be a co-signer, I don't think. But, if you can go to your local credit union and get a loan for the difference, that at least gets you out from under this. Is there another vehicle that you guys can use right now?

Uh, no. This is your one car? Yep. Okay. Well, the other option is you attack it with a vengeance. I mean, having an $18,000 worth of vehicles making 70 is not the problem. The problem is the behavior that got us here adding to the pile, going back into debt, crazy interest rates, a lot of desperation. And it sounds like a lot of this was done without any teamwork. It was just kind of him on his own out of desperation. And you were an unwilling accomplice, or did you know about all this?

Yep. No, I didn't know until after it was done. So, the new loan, George, is 17 17 18 grand left on the loan at 25%. All right. So, what does he do for a living?

Um, he drives garbage trucks. Is he handy? Yeah. I'm telling you right now, he is he's the one now. You've already said what you were going to do. And so, if he were on the phone be going, "Hey, buddy, you did this. You ought to feel a massive burden." I'm sure he does. But outside of driving that garbage truck, if he's handy, he's working in a warehouse. He's doing whatever he can. 25 an hour, whatever he can do,

he can hold people in the neighborhood. I tell you what, the one-year-old needs you.

And I say this not knocking him, but saying this as a father of three, for the next year, the one-year-old doesn't really need him that much. He needs to be working. And the truth is is he doesn't even work for a year. It's like I would be circling $18,000 if I were your husband. And I would be going, "How quickly can I make $18,000 outside of my $70,000 job?" George, that that would be my intensity. You agree, disagree on that? I mean, does that changes their life initially? Gets us out from underneath that massively bad loan that's just putting them in quicksand.

Yeah. When you're when your debt is the same as your income, I see there's a big problem here. Now, if your debt was 140 grand and you got 70, we could solve this within 18 to 24 months. And so what that tells me is we need to get aggressive getting this income up. And that might be him getting two more jobs. That might be you getting a full-time job. And we put the kids in school, daycare, whatever we need to do right now to solve this crisis. And that's what it is. It's a crisis.

That's right. But Kathy, you guys can get out of this. But it's it's both of you. It's two points you want you to walk away with on this call.

Both of you have to work more and make more. And both of you have got to be super aligned on a budget that allows for no extra spending on anything other than just the four walls. You got it?

Got it. You up for it? Yep. Yeah. Okay. Game on. Cuz this is doable. George, what's your calculation if they were to do that? And I know you don't know

if they get the Yeah. I'm saying two and a half to three years. If they stay status quo and try to do it with their current income, I think this would take four to five years.

Yeah. And the balances would just grow with this level of in I mean the credit cards are high interest, the car is high interest, and who knows about the personal loan and student loans, but there's there's debt surrounding us right now. And so, we've got to get on that debt snowball. We've got to get the spending down. We're going to make some deep sacrifices right now.

In your bestselling book, Breaking Free from Broke, you write a lot about traps. Of course, you coach. you sit here and co-host this show all the time. I think this is important. What is happening? What is the emotional trap that causes a guy like this to take such a crazy desperate loan for only $3,000? What is happening? What do you know?

Well, it starts with I can afford the payment on this one thing and well the student loans that's an investment in my future and well the personal loan will knock that out fast. And so it's a lot of good intentions and they're a little bit delusional and stareyed about the fact they can carry this. And then a spouse wants to stay home and they go, "Well, yeah, that's a very noble goal. You got to stay home. We'll figure it out." And then desperation leads to refinancing the car loan. And so it's not one thing. It is death by a thousand cuts that got us there and it's death by a thousand cuts that's going to get us out. And it's much easier to go into debt than it is to get out. That's the hard truth. The dealership will always be happy to refinance at 25% APR. And so you've going to you're going to have to hustle. Both of you need to be a team maybe for the first time in your marriage to clean this up.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. Alongside George Camel, I'm Ken Coleman. Excited to have you with us. The phone number to jump in today 888255225. Georgia, take lead on your money questions. I'll take lead on your winning at work. If you're feeling stuck, a lack of balance in your life, feeling burned out, that's going to affect all your money stuff, too. So, uh, we can combine any of those calls. We'd love to hear from you. Let's start it off with Sabrina, who joins us in Atlanta, Georgia. Sabrina, how can we help?

Hi, thank you for taking my call. So, I'm a single mom. Um, I had a retirement uh and a home and um got scammed out of my retirement from my ex. He said he'd be in I could make more money on investments and stocks that he was able to do that and I pulled out 85k which of course I had to pay a penalty. I'm 54 years old currently and um so now I'm basically starting from scratch. I have um sold my home so I have some money saved and I'm just trying to figure out where I need to go from here. I do have um a special special needs child. Um and I just want to make the right decisions going forward and really, you know, building for my retirement because I am, you know 54.

How much do you have saved off of the sale of the home? So, um I had to pay a lot of debt back

um because my ex was a squatter for a year and a half in the home. Um, so 35,000 in a CD. So I dump that in a CD that matures in March. Um, my high yield, I put 10,000 in a high yield savings account. And then in another savings, it's $1,200. And then I have some debt.

How much debt do you have left? So 6,500 in credit card. Uh, my car 13,000. Uh, it's worth 10,000. I got it during the pandemic, so it's a little upside down. Um,

what's before we go forward, what's the car payment on that? Uh, 4.86 a month. Yes.

Let's stop right there. And and it's and it's 96,000 miles. And I've already in the last year dumped $8,500 in repairs.

Yeah. But I mean, that's it's still that's a car that, you know, I'm just I'm going to jump in right there, George, because of the money she's got in savings. Uh, if we could pay that off, that saves you $486 a month immediately. You would feel that? Yes or no?

Yes. Okay. Keep going on the debts, but I just wanted to jump in like that's a that is lowhanging fruit because you've got cash today to pay that off. George, you don't have any problem with that, do you? I mean, the SE maturing in March, so today you can knock out the credit cards with your high yield savings.

Okay. And then as soon as that matures, I would use 13 grand of it and knock out the car. What else do you have?

Um, I have an attorney's bill for 10K. Okay. Anything else? Um, oh, I have a term life insurance. That's uh I only pay 360 a year. It ends in 2031 and it's for $200,000. So, I didn't even know if I should even like stop that. But,

do you have any kids? You said you're a single mom. I'm a single mom, special needs child, teenager.

Yeah, you're going to need that money if something were to happen to you. I mean, even though it's 200k, that's still money that can be used to help take care of your child. And eventually,

you're probably going to need a special needs trust. Well, that's part of the 10K.

Okay. 5K uh for the attorney is for the court case that I had or have currently. And the other um 5K was to hire um a wills and trust attorney to set a trust and will

because I need to protect my son. And I I just that's a priority for me right now.

It should be. I love that. You've got term life insurance. You've got a will and a trust. You're doing some good things here. And the good news is, you have any other debt outside of that? I heard the three. No. Okay.

So, you've got 30K in debt and you've got $45,000 essentially liquid. Yes. Have you been debtree in your adult life?

Before my ex? Yes. So, why don't we call this a new slate and say this is post ex Sabrina. She's starting a new chapter. She's got a lot of life ahead of her. We're going to go into this thing completely debtree with $15,000 in the bank. You hear me?

Okay. Yes. Now that we have a foundation, now we can begin investing for the future and rebuilding what we've lost. How sure are you that that money is gone. Did he spend it? What did he do with this money? Um, well, I can't get that answer because I tried and as soon as I stood up to get an answer, it became from, oh, I went to stock. Oh, no, I went into a real estate investments. Now he's telling the attorneys that um it that I agreed on putting it in a business and that business went defunct.

Okay. But I'm dumping money to get discovery and it's not happening and I don't want to dump any more money on attorneys when I know I lost

and this guy's a piece of work. Then I would move on and just start investing with your current income which how much are you making a year?

So I had to take up a W2 to stabilize in the last two years of this uh court cases. So I make 50k gross.

Okay. with the W2. And then I have my own business that brings in 6 75K in gross, but I only pull about 20 to 30.

Okay. So, we'll say you make 80 grand a year. Yes. Okay. So, you will be in baby step four if you follow what we told you. Pay off the debt, park the 15K, call that your emergency fund. Maybe you want to add a little bit to it to get to 3 to 6 months of expenses, maybe 6 months since you're a single mom with a special needs kid. But 15% that's 12 grand a year you would be investing. So we're going to do a,000 bucks a month from 54 and likely the truth is you're going to have to work longer than you wanted to, right?

Mhm. To maybe let's say 68 or 70. Is that fair? Okay. And you're starting with zero in retirement correct?

Yes. Okay. you could have over half a million dollars from 54 to 70 investing grand into, you know, mutual funds inside of retirement accounts.

Okay. I'd love to know more about the business. You you said you're grossing 75, you're only taking out 20 to 30. Does that mean that you're stocking away what we would call retained earnings or that's all you have to be able to take out as a net? Um, well, I I'm a little funny on those numbers, just just so you know, because I'm new in the business. This is like my third year in the business.

Okay. Um, so I do uh I I do like owner draws that are not consistent. Okay. So,

is is the business fairly healthy though? What I'm saying is, is it is it mostly profit for you or is it running really tight? It's mostly profit for me because I don't have overhead.

What? Why? What's the business? Tell me in 5 seconds what the business is. Professional or home organizer. I help people declutter and organiz.

Isn't that fascinating? You're the professional organizer and you don't have a grasp on your own numbers. Get yourself a good bookkeeper. I'm not chastising you, but I am saying you have it in you. You want to know those numbers cuz I see a great path. The reason I'm asking these questions is as you grow that business, George, I see tremendous potential for you to grow,

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All right, Brandon is up next in Oklahoma City. Brandon, how can we help you today?

Hey, first of all, excited to be on. Thank you guys for having me. Sure. Okay. Yeah. So, I'm in an industry. I'm in the oil and gas industry and uh the job volatility in in what I do is it's up and down a lot. Uh, I'm on step two, pay off your debt using the debt snowball method, but I already have three to six months of expenses set back in savings, and I'm ready to start paying down on some of the debt outside of the mortgage. I'm just having trouble taking that leap because I've been through this this cyclical thing of working for a couple years and then the oil and gas market dies and you lose your job for a year and then it comes back and you make good money and then you lose your job. And so I'm ready to jump in,

but I just wanted to know what you guys take was on it and and how you think I should move forward in that situation. Well, I have a question first before George coaches you on what to do. This has happened to you before in the oil and gas industry. This idea of where everything's hot, making great money, and then the market changes, I'm guessing, but this has happened to you more than once or just once.

This is my fourth uh run. Okay. So, here's my question for you. What would need to change? What would need to be true? Having weathered this before, if this happens again, what would need to be true?

What would the new reality need to be to where you could weather that storm? You tell us. Uh, so I I the new reality would need to be I mean I think we would need to be paid down to where it was just our mortgage and uh it would be a lot easier to survive in between those and or move on to something else

and not get in and out of the industry itself. Have you gotten into any of this debt while in this industry?

Yes. Okay. Can I just poke a little bit and have some fun? Oh, you can ask me anything you want.

If you're truly scared of volatility, why would you go into debt? Cuz debt is risk and it robs your income. And so if you know this income might not be there,

that in your brain there was the risk factor was broken. And you just answered my question by saying the thing that would make it easier is that we only had a house payment.

So, right, this been in that position before. Well, what happened? Uh, we decided to buy uh the lot that was connected to us and we built an office here at our house and and made some investments. We felt like we wanted to to continue to work remote and do what we were doing at the time. So, based on what I've heard, Brandon, you presented to George and I that you're afraid of using the cash you have stocked up,

right, to pay off your debt when what you should be afraid of is investing in a loft next to you, investing in other things. Like, do you see where the the fear is misplaced?

Yes. You're you're choosing which risk you want to keep. And we're telling you, if savings is peace, you're right. You were half right. Having the savings there gives you peace. The problem you're forgetting is that debt equals risk. And the key to permanent peace is getting rid of the debt. And I think you're a little comfortable cuz you got 3 to 6 months of expenses saved. Why work that much harder? Why sacrifice that much more? We would be okay if something happened for a little bit. And I think getting rid of that savings and putting it on the debt will light a fire under you and it will expose the reality of your situation.

And again, I want to remind you like that, Brandon, your words. If you emptied out the savings today and paid off all debt and you get laid off, you said that you could weather it based on three other times. You have experience. So you were speaking from experience to George and I.

Yes. Correct. Yes. So were you telling us the truth? I am. Yeah. I'm telling you the truth. I've fluctuated in and in and out of the real estate market in real estate sales as a broker here between between those those times where I've been in oil and gas. And I've had success in that also.

So, here's the key factor. You're not scared of hard work. And so, if something were to happen and you didn't have the savings, you would go work your butt off to cover it and then get back on the plan, get back on the horse.

Yeah. D. Yeah, for sure. So, let's get tactical. How much do you have in debt, consumer debt? How much do you have in savings?

Okay, so total debt's around 200k. That's with the house. Skip the house. Put the mortgage aside. That's a baby step six item.

Yeah. So outside of that, I have 30K on a business business equity line of credit that's attached to an investment property we own.

Okay. And then I have 20K in a lot loan. So it's a piece of land that's attached to our primary residence. All right.

And then I have 20K in a home equity line of credit. All right. So, we're looking at 70K out of the 200.

Yeah. And we have about Yeah. And we have about 40K in cash. Great. You're telling me you can knock out the lot loan and the HELOC today?

Yes. Do it. Double dogged dare you. And the other thing is all of this is tied to your property. So, you're putting your house on the block triple right now cuz all of this has collateral, doesn't it? If you don't pay,

that's how the HELOC works. Yeah. And so, for a guy telling me that you're afraid of risk,

you've taken a whole lot of risk on. Yeah. So, knock both of those out. You got 30K left. Use your future income, which How much are you making as a household? Sounds like you guys make good money if you're in the oil field.

Yeah. So, I make about 120 when when it's going. Uh, and my wife, she got laid off last year. She's a medical coder. She got laid off last year uh to AI, but she's back right now temporary, and she makes about 40k when she's working full-time.

Great. So, we're both hustling. We'll making 160. We got 30 left to pay down on the line of credit at that point for that business line of credit, which will get knocked out within months.

Making 160. Yeah. I'm talking less than six months. And I've got one Yeah. And I've got one more question for you guys. Uh I was going to ask, what are your thoughts on as I'm doing what I'm doing right now in oil and gas on trying to bust back into the real estate market again so I have something to transition back into when this when the oil and gas goes down again? What are your thoughts on that?

My quick take is you really can't win at real estate part-time. And so if you're talking about being a real

I know that. So then I don't think that's uh smart unless that's your goal long term.

So if that's what if that's what you want to do long term, you know, let's go. But let's do it after we take care of what George We got the present. We need to win and let's use what income we have right now to get out of debt and and and walk through baby step three and then be in baby step four and then let's look at transitioning to whatever.

That's one year from now. Do you see that? You pay off the two debts today. You got 30k left. That gets knocked out in 6 months. Another 6 months for your fully funded emergency fund to stock back up. Now we've got a real foundation. That's actual financial peace.

I like it. At that point, you guys are driving me toward it. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that. Yeah. Absolutely. Listen, you you've been afraid of the wrong things.

Okay. There's no fear walking out the plan George laid out for you. None. No fear.

Okay. There there's some hardship. There's some sacrifice, right? But on the other side of that is to George's point, if you want to go into real estate full-time, then after I got this debt done and I got a three to six emergency, three to six month, and I'd go six months, by the way, and then I'd go all in on real estate because you got to build up a pipeline. But you got some experience. You've dabbled in it sounds like before. But now when I hear real estate,

yeah, I've been full-time in it before. I'm hearing sales, not you investing. I'm hearing you're a realtor. Is that what I'm hearing?

Yes. So, I'm a real estate broker. We have a property that We have a property that we bought.

Oh, I know. We invested in a commercial piece of property. Well, real estate people famously uh have their risk meter broken and any cash they do have, they want to immediately deploy back into investments cuz like I can make way more money in real estate. But then it leaves us in alert here. So, I think Ken is right. You've misplaced the fear. Your fear right now is what if I have a $30,000 emergency and I don't have the savings. The true fear is you have $70,000 in debt that is tied to your home. That's the thing we should be attacking.

And you'll get there in no time. And you you work hard. You make great money. We just got to retool some things and clean it up. A year from now, you'll be in a very different place. Statistics show that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance or they don't have any at all. I don't understand this, John. Why don't people want to take care of their family? They think they're going to die or something. Well, I used to be one of those guys. I didn't even think about it. And one of my buddies said, "Hey, the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids." And I immediately went and got term life insurance.

That's a gut punch. And oh, you're telling me and for for decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse. They've lost somebody important to them. And they don't know what to do next.

Me, too. I mean, you're going to have a crisis here. A and you know, you got two options while you're sitting and talking to a young widow. She's concerned about how she's going to invest all this money properly and not mess this up, or she's concerned how she's going to eat tomorrow. That's exactly

these are the two options. Take care of your dad gum family, man. Term life insurance can replace income, pay off debts, cover funeral expenses, so your family can actually have the opportunity to just be sad. Yeah.

To just miss you. That's exactly what it's supposed to be. It's saying I love you to your family. Term life insurance. Jeff Xander and the team at Xander Insurance makes it easy and affordable. I've used them personally for 25 years. They're the only people I trust. Go to xander.com or call 8003564282.

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Download it now in the App Store or Google Play. Let's go to Carol in Denver now. Carol, how can we help you today?

My question is, what are your thoughts about using AI in tax planning and preparation? Oh, that's a hard pass for me. George, what what got you here? What made you go, "You know what? I'm gonna let Chad GPT handle this one."

Um uh I was presented with a um document from the accounting firm requesting that I authorized AI to be used and um some of it would be overseas and I'm apprehensive about that. Oh, so you're going through an actual tax planning firm.

Yes. Okay. They're just using they're just sort of speeding up the process by using AI. And we're going to see this everywhere. Almost every organization is going to start using AI to help move things along, you know, reduce the amount of resources they need. And so that doesn't worry me as much. I thought you were just on your own trying to do tax planning with an AI, you know, tool.

Yeah. No. No. And it's it's the accounting as well because the accounting firm does the tax, you know, taxes and therefore would they be using an oversee entity to be able to help do?

Well, you just need to ask, you know, this is here's the thing we preach all the time on on any trusted Ramsey trusted service. We want people to understand what the firm or the the the person is doing for them so they explain it to you to where you go, oh, okay. So if you have questions about that, okay, what how is AI being used in the preparation of my taxes? You know, uh if overseas, what's going on? Just ask those questions and somebody with great service who really cares about you and values you as a customer, certainly has the heart of a teacher, is going to have no problem answering those questions.

But George is right. Um, I'm not sure you're going to be going anywhere in this country or any other country with professional services that have a um a decent amount of clerical administrative work where AI is not going to be used.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for the call. That's a good question, George. Yeah. And if you're not comfortable with it, just go, "No, thank you." And you can reach out to a, you know, a tax pro and you can find one of those at ramiesolutions.com and you can ask them, "Hey, what role does AI play in the way you do tax planning?" Yeah.

And if you don't like the answer, you can move along to someone who does it old school.

Yeah. All right. Real real quick fun question for our next call. Are you scared of AI or are you excited for AI?

Uh, I'm personally not scared. Okay, good. and I'm going to stick to the the positives and, you know, how helpful it can be versus is it going to take over and and destroy everything? Maybe.

All right. But until then, I'm going to just You're a guy You're a guy that that operates with a decent level of anxiety. So, people should take that with a uh serious shaker of salt.

That is true. But I'm also very pragmatic and I like to be efficient. Yes. And I think AI can be a great tool when used properly.

Technology does not scare George Campbell. Stephanie is up next in Detroit. Stephanie, how can we help you?

Yeah, about five months ago, my uncle passed away. I'm so sorry. Me and my husband is home.

Okay. Yeah. Thank you. When he passed away, we wanted to sell the home cuz it was only a two-bedroom home and it's like 30 minutes away from my kids school and on the school district. And since then, we've had issues with property boundary lines. And we've been working with a realtor and now since all this, we've started to love the property. And I'm wondering what is financially the best decision to do? Either sell the home or do renovations to make it a little bigger.

Okay, let's play this out. You love the home and so you started thinking about making improvements. What would be the future of that? Why? In other words, why make those improvements? Why do you love it?

It's on a lake. Okay. So, would this be a secondary home? we would sell where we're living now and move into the into there.

That's exactly what I was getting at. So, now it comes down to okay, uh the boundary issues you brought up. There's been some challenges. Is that a is that something that's easy to navigate and you now have some clear direction on it or is it going to be a headache ongoing?

We're not sure. We're still in the process of it. Well, I can tell you just company now. I wouldn't I wouldn't think about selling my current home and moving into uncle's home, no matter how much I love it and how awesome the lake is, if there were some boundary issues. That scares me to death, George. I would get clarity on that before deciding anything. Here's the key question to ask, though. Would you buy this house today if it weren't inherited?

Let's say you had the cash, you knew what it was worth, you could pay cash for it, and you sp you probably not. Yeah, probably not.

Why? In an area we wouldn't really go to because it's out of our kids school district.

Then how would you move there today? Well, the school's on the way to my husband's um work.

Okay. But it'd be a pretty big commute for him to get to work, for the kids to go to school. It would be inconvenient for your life as it stands today. Yeah.

Yeah. You just answered the question. George asked it as plainly as you as he could and you just said, "No, I wouldn't buy it if my uncle didn't give it to us." So, based on that,

Yeah. and the boundary issues, uh, I would solve the boundary issues so that we could sell it. The other piece of this, do you have financial goals where if you sold this house, it could really solve some other problems?

Do you have any debt? Do you have a mortgage? Uh, I we have debt. We actually live in a trailer and we have about 60,000 in debt.

Is the long-term plan to live in a trailer? No. Okay. What could this house sell for?

We were told about 150 to 200,000. Okay. So, think about it this way. Is that all cash coming to you? Have any debt? In other words, on the house?

Well, we have about 30 grand on the home. What do you mean on the home? On the the mortgage for the trailer.

No, no, I'm talking about uncle's house. It's paid for. Oh, no. It's paid for. Okay, great. Okay.

So, if you could walk away with 200 grand, pay off your 60K in debt, pay off the 30 on the trailer. You still have 110 left potentially for a down payment on a home that will go up in value unlike the trailer.

Correct. Gamer. doing that all day long versus taking a vacation home that you may or may not live in.

You guys have some priorities right now. So, I'm going to take this as a this inheritance as a blessing that puts you guys on a very different path than the one you're on right now.

Okay. Cuz the current path is not a great one. Can we all say that out loud? Yeah.

We're $90,000 in debt. The trailer's going down in value, which means you're probably upside down on it. And we need some stability. And what your uncle did is a huge blessing to give you guys a different trajectory for your financial future and for your family tree.

Yes. And maybe one day you do buy a house on the lake. But right now, if you guys had no debt, you had plenty in savings and retirement, you were on track to be multi-millionaires, I'd say just keep it and for fun for now and maybe in the future you use it. But you guys aren't in that place. And so I would sell it absolutely and get rid of it as soon as you can and use that money to pay down your debt. Get a fully funded emergency fund and use the rest toward a down payment.

Okay. Yeah, you got a good plan. Get a good real Do you have a good real estate pro on your team right now helping you solve all those?

Yes. Yep. Okay. Fantastic. I'm telling you, get that solved. Priority number one is to get whatever boundary issues, get all that clear so that you can list this house and then follow George's plan to you guys are going to be living it up. What a great position to be in. You know, so sad that you lost your uncle, but boy did he bless you and we want to make sure you maximize this blessing. Okay.

All right. Thank you for the call. I'm still reverse engineering it like that. If would you do this today on your own valition versus it falling in your lap? And if the answer is no, you got to go all right. This isn't the move.

Yeah, I love it. As much as you could justify it. Yeah. Do your uh uh do your uh shark tank. I love when you do that.

Oh, and for those reasons, I'm out. I love entrepreneurs. Don't forget guys, I started my company on a card table myself. So, I know what it's like to have people counting on you. Your team, your family, not to mention your customers. And when you're the one signing the paychecks, you can't afford to fly blind. But I'll be honest, early on, one thing that nearly sunk us was wasting time with spreadsheets that didn't add up because business units didn't talk to each other. I finally told my team, "Just fix it." And they did. We got Netswuite. That was years ago, and we've never looked back. See, Netswuite isn't just for tech giants.

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That's netsweet.com/ramsey. All right, today's question of the day is brought to you by Y Refi. Defaulted private student loans do not fix themselves, but they can be fixed. Y Refi helps you by refinancing defaulted private student loans into a low fixed rate payment that fits your budget so you can clean up the mess and move forward with a plan. Visit yrefi.com/ramsey. That's yfy.com/ramsey. It may not be available in all states. Today's question comes from Colin in Georgia. My wife and I recently started the baby steps and are quickly paying off debt. We purchased a home two years ago with a 30-year mortgage. Once we pay off our debts, should we refinance ourselves to a 15-year mortgage? The mortgage is currently 25% of our take-home. We can put extra money towards the mortgage once we get past baby step three. What would you suggest?

This would be a more information needed situation. I agree. Cuz it's it's not that simple. Now, we love for people to get the 15-year mortgage, but if you're already in a 30, it's not a yes, go do this today. You got to look at the interest rates and how much the refinance is going to cost you to find out how quickly you would break even. So, if you would break even on this loan in 6 months, then sure, go for it. But if it's going to take a while to break even because of the current rates and the rate you currently have, it's okay to keep the 30 that you got and just pay extra like it's a 15 or even better like it's a five or 10 and just get out of that thing as soon as you can. But if you want to crunch the numbers, uh, call up our friends at Church Hill Mortgage. They'll be happy to run the numbers for you to tell you honestly, does this make sense for you right now?

Yeah, love that. Good advice there. Thanks for the question. All right, we're going to go to Jesus in Dallas. And uh looks like our notes tell me that he's got a gigantic car payment, George. It might give you a little indigestion. So, I've got the fake Tums over here ready to go. Uh so, let's see how we can help out there. Hey, Suz, tell us what your question is today.

Hello. Good afternoon, guys. uh happy to see be speaking to you guys this afternoon. Um my my only question is well I have other questions that we have time for but my main question is how can I get out of my the car loan that I have it's $34,000 in total. My monthly payment is $830 uh a month and I recently got it evaluated for $14,750. And my bank is Navy Federal Credit Union

and I asked I basically asked them if I could get a loan for the for the remaining balance balance so I can sell it and they denied me. So I was kind of left at a loss. I don't know what to do next. And they're the ones that are holding the loan?

No. Okay. Um, no. Yeah. All right. So, you said you got it evaluated. What do you mean by that? Who told you the car is worth 14?

Uh, Kelly Blue Bucks. I haven't taken it to like any any place where they physically looked at it, but you know, I put all the details. But

you're saying the private party value was 14750. Yeah. If uh that's a good number to basically trust Kelly.

Yeah. I was just making sure it wasn't the trade-in value, which is always going to be much lower.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, you are $20,000 underwater. What other debt do you have? I have no other debt. I've been listening to you guys for close to a year now

and I managed to pay off my credit cards. I just have this car loan now. Good. What do you make?

77,000 a year. And um I'm a diesel mechanic, so I my my monthly changes is either under or higher,

but that's what my salary is. Do you have options for not just regular overtime with your company, but freelancing, if you will, given your unique skills?

I, you know, definitely thought about it, but I have not explored it because um I'm like so invested in to where I work. I just work so much over here. And uh

Well, how much how much is um a lot? Like 55 to 60 hours? 60 hours would be like an extreme, but normally 50 hours.

How much were you putting away towards the credit cards while you were paying them off? What was the the most amount out of your monthly budget that you were putting on that debt

on the credit cards? Yeah. I I kind of wasn't putting I was just doing the snowball and when I at the end of the month um so so the way I do it I save for to pay off the month first and then anything extra I put it towards the cards and I just did that anything extra I had I just throw it at the cards so my

Yes. What was the average amount extra that you had to throw at debt per month at

a,000 2,000 1300 at the end of the month? Yeah. Okay. Could you do more today now that those payments are gone?

Uh, yeah, of course. I could I could not that much more. Maybe like 1,5600 a month.

Great. So, here's your options. Number one, you get a loan for the difference, which you've tried one place. They said no. You can always try a different place. The other option is saving the difference in cash in order to clear the title and sell it. Now, you still need more money to then go buy a different car, right? That's your only vehicle.

Yeah. Well, I I bought my fiance a cash car here recently, maybe like a week ago.

Why'd you buy her a car? Uh because uh I'm in the reserves military and I do a lot of driving and when I'm away, she has no way of getting to work or also an important um part of information is we're we're expecting a baby girl.

Oh, wow. Congrats. Thank you. So, um, for the expected days that I'm supposed to leave, I leave like five days, uh, at a given time.

Okay. So, do you need two cars right now or could you survive as a one car family?

I we can survive. We've been doing uh one car since we've known each other. Okay.

So, here's your other options. And what I'll suggest, you can either save up the 20K real fast aggressively. Like let's say if you can save up 2K a month, we got the 20K in 10 months

to get rid of this or you just pay the car off aggressively and keep it. Now, it's a lot of your world, but you've rolled over negative equity, so it's not a true picture because generally we say don't let your uh you know the total amount of vehicles, things with motors and wheels add up to more than half of your annual income. And with her cash car, you're probably there and or a little bit over.

But that's your other option. If you want to keep it, you pay it off aggressively. at 34 grand if you can put, you know, 1,600 bucks a month. It's going to take a while, but you could do it. But because you only need one car, I like the plan of you throwing two or three grand a month at this thing and being done before the end of the year to get rid of it,

right? Um to get out from under good idea and everything, but um but what uh but given that our baby girl is coming uh here late April, early May, uh I'm doing the stork mode. of

Got it. You're stacking up cash. Okay. How much do you have saved right now? Uh I had about I have about three three and a half thousand right now and I expect to have well what like 7,000 by the time she's born.

When are you guys getting married so that we can put those incomes together? So, uh well, we we would love to get married immediately, but um my my mother, it's a situation with like an immigration case and the lawyers basically said it's not a good idea to get married yet. I I really didn't challenge it from there. I I just kind of said, "Okay."

Because of your mother? Uh because of my I'm in an immigration case with her. I'm trying to get her uh her residency, I believe, or citizenship.

But what does that have to do with you two getting married? Well, I I guess I don't know cuz I never ch I challenged the that statement. I didn't ask why can't we, you know.

Well, I'll give you the math on it. Let's say you save up, baby's home and healthy. That gives you a pile of cash you can throw at the debt. Within 6 months after that, you could have the 20 grand saved to cover the difference for the loan and then sell it and clear the title. and then you go down to one car and then whatever future money now we're saving up to get a second car if you need one or we're just stacking up the emergency fund if you're out of debt at that point.

Okay, there's no shortcuts here. Do not go further into debt. The only reason I tell you to take out a loan from a credit union is if you can go down in debt and then get out of that aggressively.

Yeah, George, I'm wondering why and I did not hear you recommend this. Why not have a third option where he sells the car and gets the max he can get for it? Cuz it's going down in value if they can truly survive off of one car, which is her cash car. Why not sell?

Well, because when you're underwater, you don't have a clean title. And so without a clean title, he's not going to be able to hand that title over to the person buying it.

There you go. And so there's a lean against the the vehicle with the lender. And so to clear that, you got to go to the bank, have the money, the difference,

it's not as clean as it sounds to pay off the loan. Yeah. So it's it's a process. Uh, and that's the problem. It's you can't be underwater on a car you pay cash for. And it's one of the best reasons to never go into debt for a car on top of many others.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. I'm Ken Co. George Camel is alongside we're here for you.88255225.88255225. All right, let's go to Ryan in Salt Lake City. Ryan, how can we help today?

Hey, how's it going today? Good. How are you? I'm looking at I'm doing very well. I was just wanting to ask you what I would have to do at 28 years old this February to retire at 40 years old.

Okay, you got George over here who does his magical computations. Yeah, we can talk about how to do it and then I want Ken to talk about should you do it. M I like

what what caused this goal? Well, uh I'm trying to go against the grain and I do not want to work until I'm past 60 and I believe I have the income in order to do that and uh kind of break the streak and retire at 40.

Okay. Well, there's a lot of variables we don't know, but let's start with what you make today. So last year I made 235,000 and I'm projected this year. Um you know that was with some bonuses last year. Uh my pre-tax is supposed to be around 206 to 210 this year. Um

great. So we'll mark it a little over 200 about 147. Are you single? I'm married with two children.

Okay. And that's the household income is your is your spouse at home? Uh she runs our company that we uh opened a few years ago. She does uh consulting for construction companies, but that's her thing. I got out of the company uh when I went from 1099 to being a W2 employee.

Okay. So, is that additional income or is that part of the 235 that that's not including my income. Okay.

Uh she's part-time and doesn't uh get maybe get 10 hours a week or so, but I'm not factoring that in.

All right. So, what is your goal? Do you have a goal in mind of how much you need to have saved in order to accomplish this to be work optional?

I'd like to I'd like to have at least uh $7,000 coming in a month. 7 to9,000 for retirement every single month.

Okay. So, you're probably looking at, you know, at least one.5 million bucks or something sitting in an account that's invested, you know, heavily in equities and stocks. And so do you have anything saved right now or invested?

I have $5,000 in Schwab and $15,000 in savings and my checking account usually floats around 8,000. I just got myself out of a ton of debt. U so right now is my my time to kind of start the investment process in order to do the retirement. Okay. And uh I got two loans um that I'm still working on.

Okay. So, let's walk through the process that I would personally walk through if this was my goal, which would be to pay off all of my debt. And that means liquidating most of the savings to do that, to speed this up, getting a fully funded emergency fund of 3 to 6 months, which if you're saying you're you're what's your burn rate every month right now. How much do you need to get by?

Uh, right now 5,7483. Okay. So, let's call it 35 grand as a six-month emergency fund for you guys. So, that's your next goal. Then we need to be investing 15% for retirement because we want to take advantage of any tax advantaged accounts we can first. And so if you got a match, let's start there. Roth accounts, that's a great move there for taxfree growth and then traditional accounts. Then beyond that, beyond the 15%, if you wanted to put some money away in a brokerage account like is what that's what you're talking about with the Schwab account.

Yes. In SWTSX. Okay. Then if you wanted to put money there for it to grow and you put, you know, 50 grand a year, let's say, that would get you about 1.1 in 12 years.

So you'd be a little off the mark. So then you, you know, let's ratchet it up to 70. Well, that gets you to 1.6.

The other factor here is your mortgage. Are you guys, you guys own? Yes. My total housing is about 2828 and that's including uh the 2123 mortgage, Wi-Fi, water, trash, and all that.

What's left on the mortgage? Uh we're at 338. Okay. I personally would attack the mortgage first before I was doing additional into the brokerage account. And you'll have time.

What would that be? What's that? What what would the benefit of attacking the mortgage first be rather than u maybe getting rid of a car payment which is less than

Oh, no. You need to attack the consumer debt first. Hear me say that. So, we talked about knocking out the consumer debt, getting an emergency fund, investing 15%, then anything extra. We're putting some toward college, paying off the mortgage, which means we're probably going to be delaying this plan.

Okay? Once the house is paid off, now we can invest beyond the 15%, put money into the brokerage account. Cuz here's the thing. If you got rid of that mortgage payment, it really reduces how much you actually need in that fountain, doesn't it?

I have something to throw at you. Okay? So, if my if my housing is 2,828 a month, but my vehicles is 22.65 a month, I can I can pretty much free up the same amount if I paid off the vehicles a lot quicker than the house cuz it's not that big of a number, which

Yeah. Oh, I'm dude. I'm telling you, follow the baby steps. Consumer debt goes first. Did you miss that part? So, the the cars are going to get paid off ASAP. Then the emergency fund gets stacked up. Then you start investing 15% into retirement accounts. Then some money to college. Then we throw the money at the mortgage. So, I'm not telling you to pay off the mortgage before your cars.

Gotcha. And by the way, a guy who wants to retire early should not be carrying $2,200 in car loans,

right? I agree with that. Okay. Just want to make sure because that is flying in the face of your stated goal of financial freedom. Now I want Ken to quickly hit on should you do this because I have followed the FIRE movement and seen what's happening over there and it frankly worries me.

Yeah. Are you are you a fan of the financially independent retire early? That's the FIRE movement.

Uh I'm not I'm not aware of that. Yeah. Okay. Well, here here's what we found and this is all documented. the guy who started who's credited with starting this movement. The idea was work like an absolute maniac. Don't live life. Don't enjoy anything uh until you're 40 and you stack stack stack stack stack. And the guy who actually is considered the founder of this actually went back to work uh two or three years into it uh for a couple of reasons. Number one, he thought in his mind that he had not actually saved enough given how the cost of college was going up.

That was one of his stated concerns. Also, the guy was bored out of a skull and and you know, there's nothing wrong with retiring. And I love, by the way, whenever I say this, people always come at me in the comments and and come at me because I'm not going to be in there. George will tell me.

I'll fill them in. I'm not saying that there aren't certain people who can retire at any age and never work at their life and be as happy as a clam, fishing, hunting, whatever. But what I am saying is is that we know from research that it has negative effects on us because there is this built-in desire in our spirit in our soul to make a contribution. So I'm not saying you got to work 40 hours a week until the day you fall over. I am saying that it is it is proven that it is better for us mentally, emotionally, and physically to have some type of purpose outside of just play uh as we age,

right? So, but I will tell you, I love that you called us and threw it out there, but I got to tell you, after George ran those numbers out, you've got a ways to go based on this after you follow everything I've told you, you still have to stack. to stack 100 grand away in that account for a decade for this to even make sense.

So, the reason I bring that up is not to discourage you, but but to encourage you to have a more realistic goal

and a healthier one and a healthier one so that we can actually reach it. Cuz I think you you've created a mountain in your mind that's not climbable given your financial realities. But if you do what George said, you're going to be a very happy man and can in fact retire much earlier than most.

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All right, folks. If you have kicked your debt to the curb, you deserve to celebrate. Where do they deserve to celebrate, George? Where would somebody where would you recommend that somebody who who beat beat all their debt? They got it out of their life. How would you think they might, you know, celebrate that?

I think somewhere warm, somewhere tropical, and somewhere with Dave Ramsey and the Ramsay personalities.

How about the Caribbean? I'll go there with Dave, you, me, and all the other Ramsay personalities.

Take me there. Want to go there? All right. It's called the Live Like No One Else Cruise. Folks, it's coming back uh after much popular demand. And I'm not reading from any notes here. This is a fact. Extraneous.

Those folks loved it who went on it before. And uh so my my my this is going to sell out way faster because now everybody knows how great it is. And I got to tell you, um I'm not a cruise guy George.

Traditionally, well, I don't like being on the boat. I like the clothes that you would wear on a boat. The attire is what they

I like the boat attire and I like the Caribbean. Well, this crew this cruise was great and so here we do. Here we go. We're going to roll it back. Um I think they say run it back. Not roll it back. Run it back.

It's your show, Ken. March 14th through 21. March 14 through 21. 2027. That's next year if you're looking at your calendars. Uh in the Bahamas. How about Jamaica? George,

do I want to take you? Was that my Q? It was. Okay. Uh, the Grand Cayman and Kazumel. Uh, cabins are limited. Save up to $300 when you book by February 7. So, hey, those of you who haven't made any plans, are you kidding me? Next March, you got cash. You want to save 300 bucks, you got to do it before February 7. Click the link in the show notes or go to ramiesolutions.com/events to book your cabin. I am looking forward to this. Um, I did not think it was going to be as amazing as it was. The ship was great. Uh the people, our our our our fans are just amazing.

It was electric energy. The buffets were next level. And I will tell you, there was in fact a pickle ball court on top of the ship. So if you're a pickle ball, we had a lot of tournaments going on. And

they wore you out, man. You were up there for like seven hours and people like, "No, no, no. You're not going anywhere, Ken. I want to play you."

Yeah. Oh, there's a shot right there with the headband. Oh my gosh. And the lettuce, as the kids call my hair. uh flowing on top of the ship. It's on the top deck, George.

That's a bold move to show off your legs, Ken. Yeah, with those chicken legs you got down there.

I Well, there's nothing to be ashamed of. They're just little. That's all it is. So, we'd love to see you on the cruise. And uh I wear, by the way, on stage, did you like my attire? I really went with a cruise ship theme last last year.

All of those white pants you own finally came in handy. Well, lots of linen and lot of loafers.

Yeah, a lot of loafers. All right, Carol knows what we're talking about somewhere in sunny Florida. Carol, how can we help you today?

Uh, thanks for taking my call. You bet. What's going on? Um, my husband and I are both going to be turning 65 this year, and we want to retire at the end of the year,

and we're trying to decide if we should pay off our house or not. Um, and if so, where we should pull the money from. We don't have any other debt. Um, and we do have some savings. We have about 1.1 million in an IRA. Uh 90,000 of that is in a 401k and we have about 145,000 in savings.

Awesome. We owe 155,000 on the house and the interest rate is 2.75%. Um the problem is the maturity date on that loan is 201. So we'll be about 90.

Yeah. No, thank you. But um I'm not sure, you know, if I pay it off, I'm not sure exactly where to pull the money from.

So you've got 145K in liquid cash. What is that earmarked for right now? Um tell initially to live off of when we retire. We'd like to delay drawing our social security, which would be about $4400 a month. If we draw now, we'd like to wait at least a couple years and let that grow. Okay.

Um, our monthly expenses are about 5,000. Great. So, you almost have the cash to do it, but you're saying you need a big chunk of this to basically live because you want to retire by the end of the year.

Yes. Um, retirement for me is a great goal. It's going to be a really big switch mindset for me because I'm a saver, not a spender. So, depleting money out of that savings makes me incredibly uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah.

So that's why I feel like I need a little bit of advice from someone who has a broader outlook.

What's your household income? Our household income right now is about 160,000. Awesome.

And we save about 2500 a month and we put uh about 15% into our uh investments with employer match.

Okay. So outside of 15%, you're saying you have 2500 extra you can throw at the mortgage?

Yes. All right, that that'll get you far. That's 30 grand right there. And by that point, the mortgage is down to 125 grand. You'll have the money in cash, but you're going to need some of that to float you for a year or two, it sounds like.

Right. And do you have any other money outside of the 1.1 nest egg? Um, I have about 40, well, say 45,000, no 52,000 in a Roth.

Okay. Um, but I didn't start it until 2022. So I don't think I can withdraw from that without penalty for five years. Is that correct?

Yes. Uh do you have a financial advisor you've used to crunch all these numbers?

Um I I have some my investments in Schwab and I've talked to them, but the rest of it I've just done on my own.

Okay. My only fear is that you're riding it pretty tight if you're wanting to spend five grand of net income a year for the rest of your life off of this million dollar nest egg. And so that's the part where I can see it working, but uh a Smart Vster Pro can run the projections out and show you all of the scenarios and what, you know, medical costs might be and when Social Security would kick in and when you should take it. All of that will factor into when you should retire.

Okay? So, I think you're on the cusp here and I think you can pull this plan off, but I would double check it with a Smart Investor Pro to make sure that the numbers make sense. But if I'm in your shoes, I like using cash first. We want to save the retirement. If you have any taxable uh investment accounts, use that next. Then we move on to traditional accounts and then if you have any Roth accounts, I would wait as long as I could because those are growing taxfree for you right now. So that would be the the bucket strategy and a Smart Ver Pro can walk you through that based on your numbers. And it might mean, hey, we got to work 6 months into 2027 to make this work, but I want to make sure that you're ironclad.

Love it. Thanks for the call, Carol. Let's go to Michelle right here in our backyard of Nashville, Tennessee. Michelle, how can we help?

Hi. How are you guys doing today? Good. What's going on? Good. Well, recently, uh, my husband and I both have had some raises. We're still in the middle of baby step two. And I'll be honest, we've been doing this for a couple years now, and so just trudging along on this baby step two feels like it's just going on forever. But since we've got these raises, I'm wondering if I can quit my side hustle. um and just put this extra income towards Baby Stub 2.

What was uh your side hustle paying you? Um it's about 20,000 a year. What is your what's your raise paying you? What's the net on the raise?

About 6,500 a year. So it's not apples to apples, correct? Well, it's not. But my husband also got a big increase in pay and his was about 40,000.

Oh, okay. All right. So yeah, I mean you certainly can. Um, what's the timeline differences? Let's say you kept the side hustle and his raise and your raise. How fast would you get out versus if you quit the side hustle? Does it delay it by 3 months or a year?

No, it's not a year. When I put it in um the app um every dollar it it says it's like three or four months difference. Although, you know, like I said, I'm just tired of working, you know, the extra job, but um I certainly want to get the debt paid off, too. And to be quite honest, I don't like the extra three or four months either. So,

well, there's your answer. It's really not our answer. I mean, we can give you our take, but there's no right or wrong answer is really my answer, but I would lean towards I was going to turn the question on you and you got ahead of me and you asked your own question and answered it. you're choosing between two things that kind of suck. Continuing the side hustle or continuing to stay in debt even longer and sacrificing in other ways and making the payments and paying the interest. And so if you can find a second wind here and just power through and go, I hate this side hustle so much. I'm willing to work even harder, I think will fuel this debtree journey for you.

I agree. I agree. You hate the side hustle, you hate the debt. But if you work three to four months more, you get rid of both of them at the same time. That's my answer. Bing, bada boom.

And I'm sticking to it. Hey guys, Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsay. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsay principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, Ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to ramseysolutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's ramseyolutions.com.

All right. It's always fun when we have friends of Dave stop by. And Dave's got lots of friends, George, as you know, and they're interesting people. And uh this is a special treat for us. We're really excited to be joined in studio uh by Andy Irwin and Bart Lard. and and and and you're going, "Uh, I think I may know those names." Well, you do. Andy Irwin, the award-winning filmmaker, uh, behind the very first film, I Can Only Imagine Bart Lard is now uh, is is producing this as well. I Can Only Imagine 2 is the follow-up to I Can Only Imagine. And I got to say to you guys, when I saw that this was coming out, I thought this is a good sign that the first movie, we know it was a big deal, but there had to be a lot of heat because I'm not a fan of sequels, George. you know, they're hard to pull off.

They're hard to pull off unless it's Home Alone 2. You're like, "All right, good."

That's one that I thought was was good, but not great. And so, I'm very excited about this sequel. Guys, first of all, welcome to the studio. Welcome to the Ramsay Show. And I think it begs the question, I I'm being serious. I mean, it seems scary

to pull off a sequel because it's not done well. And you guys were telling us early that things look really good here. Why pull off the sequel?

Uh, I was terrified. I said no over and over again. And so Bart and I have been really good friends since the first movie. And and uh they kept bringing up this idea of I think there might be more story to tell. So Cindy Bond, who was the original producer, was like, I think there's more story. And I was like, absolutely not, cuz I don't want to ruin it. It was just so magic.

And there's just there's sequels that are made that worship the original and then they just mess it all up. And then there's Top Gun Maverick. And so the idea of reintroducing you to the world you love and taking it somewhere new. And so Cindy started talking to Bart and then Brent Mccoral who did Jesus Revolution with my brother. They started talking about the story of Even If the song that so many people love every bit as much as I can only imagine. And so when they started walking through that they said you got to hear this. So they pulled me into the conversation. They walked me through the story and it was just the second half of a whole and it's the perfect end to a father-son story.

And I was in tears by the end of it and then Bart was like I think this is kind of like the spiritual sequel to I can only imagine. And I was like, "No, this is the literal sequel. I can get that made tomorrow." And we pitched at the Lionsgate 30 seconds in. They're like, "Guys, we're obviously doing this movie." So for us to step into it was magic. To finish the movie and test it, we were just nervous like what's the audience going to think?

The first I can imagine was our highest testing film we've ever had. It scored a 96 with the audience. This one scored a 97. So it's exciting. It Well, hopefully hopefully not

what you guys have done in the the world of film and faith. It always it hasn't always been world class. And you guys have brought just such a level of quality from the stories to the acting, the craftsmanship. And so I can't wait to see uh you know this one out in theaters February 20th for everyone to see it for themselves, especially for our audience.

Yeah. You know, yeah, your audience is in for a treat. You know, Dave, Dave, and Ramsay is a part of this like uh

the part of the movie was filmed. I just found this out moments ago. Tell us what what's going on, Bart. How did this happen? Because you and Dave are big buddies.

Yeah, he's my stunt double. Uh, pretty much. No, man. Uh, yeah, Dave and I have been buddies for a long time. I didn't even realize that he made the movie until I saw the

So, Dave Ramsey has a cameo. If you listen, you listen for a familiar voice, you will you will recognize it.

So, you're filming on campus here. And then then after I learned that, I was also disappointed to find out that George and I did not make the final cut.

You're You were too expensive. Did they even send you my audition tape? That's because they named your price and it just priced you out. So, we're going to have to work up to your level. Yeah, I'll get there.

We actually we actually we emailed Dave and said everybody's like, "No, Dave never says yes to filming stuff like that here." And so I emailed him and he was on y'all's cruise and I just said, "Hey Dave, be careful when you're friends with a filmmaker cuz we ask for stuff."

And I was like, "How would you feel about us filming the movie at your place?" And he was like, "Yeah, man. It' be fine. Talk to the guys, work it out." And I was like, and so

he picked him on a good day. He was on the cruise having a good time. He was good. He was out in the sun.

He had just finished the buffet. Uh that's why he was excited. Okay, Bart, I I want to pick up where Andy left off and in and describing how this came about as you were walking through more of the story. You know, as a guy who of course you've been nominated, won so many awards as lead singer of Mercy Me. This is such a different space. You telling stories with songs, but as you were walking through this in the story that we heard, at what point do you go, I I think this is a big screen story? Uh, I don't know if I was ever sure about that until I actually uh read the script. Um, I mean, it's been almost 10 years since the last movie. Exactly. I had did an interview yesterday and they're like, "So, you're cashing in with a sequel." I was like, "You don't normally cash in." No. 10 years later.

It's like and and so I really was excited that there was a story there, but man, when Cindy Bond originally wanted to make a movie around Even If, she wanted to just find any story like fan mail, something. And it was when I met with Brent Mccoral who wrote co-wrote Imagine did Jesus Revolution and he goes, "Well, where' the song come from?" And as I told him the story, that's when he had tears in his eyes and he was like, "This is it." And what if we literally got the band back together and put it kind of in this universe and made it a sequel and and so I was like I was a little skeptical cuz you know, you never think your life's that interesting and it's not. He made it very interesting. But uh but yeah, when I read the script, I was like, "Okay, yeah, let's do this." Well, so much of the story is about the the true cost of success, the underbelly of,

you know, you you have this thing hit and there's other piece of your life that you get a flat tire in because you're so focused on your career and and a lot of our fans experience that. So, where does this movie pick up? Is it a direct connection? You know, I think the thing that was beautiful that I was excited about is that, you know, there was a chance to kind of take it further. And I, you know, I love the stories in the building here, just how, you know, Dave has never shied away from that. A lot of this was born out of failure and out of, you know, learning at the lowest point. And so, you know, with Bart's story, I was really really um just excited that he was willing to look at on the other side of success of what happens if happily ever after breaks.

What happens if you get everything you've ever dreamed of? You know, the crowd starts, stops cheering, they go home, and then life goes back to being hard. And where's God in the hardship there? And so, this new character Timonss kind of gets brought into the mix. Played by Milo Ventilia,

that people know from This Is Us and Gilmore Girls and all that type stuff. And uh

is that based on Tim? Yeah. So yeah, so yeah, Tim is Yeah, he's the guy. So he's he's

I play pickle ball with Tim and you he told you the movie is about Tim. He's been he's been hurt. He's been playing. So he showed up recently and the weather been rough, but I got to tell you, I'm a little excited. Keep going. I apologize.

So it's Tim. So Tim's one of Bart's best friends. We co-wrote even if and so the story is how we got to write that song. We got to that point.

I love that dude. I've known him long, long time, but didn't know that you're about to get a lot of him.

I got to text him on the way home and be like, "Dude, you're holding out on us. I'm going to embarrass him next Wednesday night when we play."

I love it. Please do. If you can embarrass Timmons, then you're you're good luck. You're special because he's he's hard to embarrass. That's true.

But he and uh he and Milo just hit it off and Milo really wanted to make the faith authentic. And so Tim is this guy that come gets thrown into Bart's world and is carrying this kind of secret about his own journey uh and but has this idea of gratitude living with gratitude of God thank you that you woke me up today and this kind of tension between grief and gratitude and he begins to kind of you know encourage Bart and this journey and it leads to this amazing song and ultimately is the healing of this father-son story of Bart as a father towards his son and we finished it at Red Rocks. We filmed the end of the movie at Red Rocks. Oh, that's epic.

8,500 people, they showed up and uh it's it's epic. I love it. We're talking about the new movie, I Can Only Imagine, too, in theaters February 20th. Bart, I want to give you a final word to encourage our audience because these people, as you know well, are walking through some tough stuff. You know, our baby steps, while simple to explain, are very difficult to do. And I've just kind of moved as Andy was talking about the theme of this film.

Encourage people who are in those dark days of just scrambling to maybe come up with a thousand bucks or they're in the middle of baby step two where they're paying off debt and it feels like an insurmountable climb. What would you say to them?

Man, life is messy. um you know whether you're standing on stage or in the audience doesn't matter what's happening in your life it's it life happens and um and it's learning to live with grief or stress or worry and gratitude at the same time and realizing that it you know the cliche of God is good all the time it's that and not God is good if X Y and Z happens or comes into place and it's God's bigger that and he's in all of it if he's not then we're hopeless.

I love it. Well, folks, if you love the first movie, and millions of you did, I can only imagine, well, I can only imagine, too, coming out in theaters February 20th. Uh, also a special fan event, a little kind of a sneak peek. Give us real quick 10 seconds on this.

Uh, February 14th, we got a a fan event where they'll they'll have a one night screening all across the country, February 14th. So, you can get some early access stuff. They they uh recorded Even If with uh at Abbey Road in London.

Where do they get details for that? They they get details online. I can only imagine movie.com.

There it is. I can only imaginemov.com. Did I get that right? I think I got it right. I probably got it wrong.

Date night. Valentine's Day. Yeah, you can't miss it. Valentine's Day is great. Hey guys, thanks for being with us, Andy. Appreciate you guys. You work your butt off for your money, but your money's never going to return the favor if all you do is hope for the best. If you're ready to learn how to make your money work for you, check out the Smart Investor program. Smart Veester can help you find advisors who specialize in retirement planning, charitable giving, advanced investing strategies, and more. Whatever your goals, your pro will take the time to explain your options so you never have to invest in anything you don't understand. Head to ramseyolutions.com/smartvevestor to get connected.

Ramseyolutions is a paid non-client promoter of participating pros. Learn more at ramseyolutions.com/smartvevestor. All right, our scripture of the day comes from Luke 16:10. Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. And whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. Our quote today from John Wooden. Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. Trent is joining us now in Idaho. Trent, how can I help?

Hey George, Ken. Um, so I was calling. I had a question. So, kind of got a late start on my retirement and I'm currently in a good position building my retirement up, but uh I don't really have I've got a wife and four kids and uh we're we're plan on adding two more kids, but the the small town we live in doesn't really offer experience or opportunity for our kids to grow. and I got a potential job opportunity in my company in a larger city where there is more opportunity for my kids, but we would sacrifice our 401k growth that we're building right now.

Kind of wanted some advice. What do you mean sacrificing growth there? Because you said it's with your company.

Yes. So, so currently right now, um, my housing it's not, we pay like 300 bucks a month on rent. And so we have been able to put, uh, for the last two years, we've been putting 40% of each paycheck into retirement into my 401k Roth. And so, we've been able to build a lot the last two years. And then but in the small town there's not a lot of opportunities for kids to grow and learn things.

So you're saying you'll have less money to put into retirement due to a higher cost of living.

Correct. What is your what's your pay now and what would it be in the new city? So, um it it would be I'm currently getting paid around 74,000 a year and um it's it was put on the table. So, I don't have like a a set amount that I would be getting paid in the new city. It would be either equal to or maybe a little bit more than what I'm currently making.

So, it' be a lateral move, but you would have more opportunities for your family in general. a better quality of life, let's say.

Yes. I'm taking that over, you know, more in the 401k. I Yeah, I'm just sitting here listening and listening to the line of questioning. I'm going, this is a no-brainer to me. What What would be the doubt that you have about this? uh because because how so like right now I have uh 165,000 in a my Roth 401k and so we've been able that's where we're at right now and we're we're saving saving saving trying to build it up as fast

but why but I I understand again what what is that the doubt you're going to be making more money

well it would Well, yes, because we wouldn't be putting as much into retirement, but we'd also

Yeah, but you also are going to have some type of a 401k or Roth program with that company.

Can you still invest 15% in this new area? Cuz that's the baby steps until you pay off the house, which you guys said you're renting right now.

Well, currently right now, we're just in the Yeah, we just we rent. We don't have no.

So, a goal would be to own a home and then pay that house off one day while investing 15%.

How old are you? Well, hold on. Hold on. I don't I Let's get to that. But, but Trent, I'm not sure that we've we've landed for yourself why you have doubt about taking this better job with with better opportunities for your family. because of the the opportunity that I currently have to build my retirement.

That's not that's not the reason. It's not for a 401k. What makes you so freaked out about this retirement account that you're shoving 40% of your money into it?

Uh I I'd like to retire early. Yeah. But okay, let's say there if you take this new job, will you be making more money? Yes or no? It it will be equal to or maybe a little bit more, but it's it'll probably be just like a even right across.

Then why are you considering it a better opportunity? Uh better opportunity for my kids and my family. So like there currently am

uh give me specifics. Specifics. So, um, like activities as far as like sporting activities, getting them involved in extracurricular.

Okay. So, better quality of life, we can say that. Yes. Yes. Okay. Let me come back to it. Let's call this company XYZ, and I'm not I'm not totally cutting you off, George, but I I feel like we're stuck here, Trent. Does company XYZ have a retirement program so that the day you come in there they start you start contributing through them just like you are now.

Well, it the it is through my company. So they do a they match up to 3%. And then so

Okay. This is through your current company, correct? And it is this the the company I'd be going to is the same company. It's just a different location.

So, he's just saying he's gonna have less money because it's a higher cost of living, so he can't put as much into the 401k. That's the only thing here that you're

Well, I I missed that part because I thought there was opportunity for you to grow financially in this job.

And I would make the case with your employer that, hey, if I'm going to make this move to a higher cost living area, move my family, there needs to I need more compensation for this

to then cover the higher expenses. I think that's a fair thing to negotiate. It's fair, but at the same time, Trent, if this is better quality of life for your family and you're still in good shape, and George, you were going to go to the numbers here to show the key is, can you live off of $80,000 in this new city, can you cover all of your bills?

Uh, yes, we can. My wife and I are we're Do you have any debt? Very smart with No, no debt at all.

How much do you have in savings for an emergency fund? Uh, we have 8,000 in our emergency fund and I have around 42,000 in our savings.

So, you have 50,000 in cash essentially. Yes. Okay. And how old are you? 38. Okay. You're 38. You wanted to retire early. Can we call that 55? Is that fair?

Yeah. Okay. If you never get a raise, you invest that,000 bucks a month. That's the money you're putting in. 15% plus some employer match. you'd have about $1.5 million at 55 from that one account. That's if you never get a raise from 38 to 55, which we can all agree is a ridiculous proposition.

Mhm. So, what's likely to happen is you purchase a home, you pay that home off, you increase your investing, you get raises along the way, and all of a sudden it looks more like $2 million at 55. And that's with you cutting back to 15%. So, the question I would ask is, can I move to this new city while investing 15% of my income and cover all the bills, cover this new rent, which is going to be higher than $300?

Mhm. And I think you're going to find the answer is yes. Is the answer yes, Trent?

Yes. Yeah, we're He's got a good grasp. My wife and I are smart. Yeah. Trent, you're such a detail guy. You're on top of it. I know you've done all this research. So, again, what's the big doubt? Do we still have the doubt? Uh

yes, he's laughing. There's some doubt. You've got four opposing goals here. I want the kids to have a better life, but I also want to put 40% into my 401k. And I also And so you've got to just go, what is the best thing for our family right now?

And I think we It's very clear it's moving to this new city. Yeah. Okay. And you'll be fine on retirement. I'm really not worried about that. You're in great shape. If you keep staying out of debt, you worked your butt off. You're going to keep getting raises. That's right. You're going to get a home. You're going to pay that home off in the next 15 years and then you have a paid for home and two million bucks in the bank in your 50s.

Where's your wife at on this decision? uh she is leaning more towards the uh retirement putting more into the retirement which is why I'm I'm hesitant

and not okay see this is information that I was trying to dig from you earlier but I think we need to get to the root of why she's so worried about that because you guys are on track to become multi-millionaires and so I think there is an unhealthy fear that is not rooted in reality about this

that's right and you're sacrificing remember the quality of life for your children for the foreseeable future by staying where you are. So, you've got to choose which one is going to lead to a better life.

George, what's your vote? I would vote for quality of life. I would move yesterday.

I would, too. Quality of life is just something you can't measure until it happens. All right. Appreciate the call. And hey, everybody, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the prince of peace, Christ Jesus.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "We’re $100K in Debt and Living in a Camper | February 4, 2026"?

Ken Coleman (Guest), George Kim (Host), Travis (Guest), Marie (Guest), John (Guest), Carol (Guest), Michelle (Guest), Andy Irwin (Guest).

What is "We’re $100K in Debt and Living in a Camper | February 4, 2026" about?

A couple struggles with $100,000 in debt while living in a camper, seeking advice on how to manage their financial situation. They discuss the breakdown of their debts, including a significant truck loan and loans for a camper and car, and consider whether to sell the truck to alleviate their financial burden.

What is mentioned in this The Ramsey Show episode?

8 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Mario (Sherry Coleman's brother), George Kim, I Can Only Imagine, Even If, Dave Ramsey, Andy Irwin. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "We’re $100K in Debt and Living in a Camper | February 4, 2026"?

The episode runs 2 h 9 min; the transcript is about 23,884 words in 468 timestamped sections.

More from The Ramsey Show

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated February 5, 2026.