If You Want To Be Successful, Follow This Proven Plan

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Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, resident PhD of counseling, is here to help you.

If you have crazy people in your family and you have a question, he's here to help.

He's my co-host today.

Number one best-selling author, multiple times over, and host of the Dr. John Deloney Show

on the Ramsey Network.

The phone number is 888-825-5225.

Brendan is in Detroit.

Hi, Brendan.

How are you?

What's up?

Last year, about October, my current apartment kind of got us in a chokehold and said that

we had to sign a lease for next year within about six hours, or else we won't get the

apartment and we can't live there.

Now, their lease is about $250 cheaper, and we can't get any cheaper rate at all, because

we already signed.

I don't know if that's something that you could get a lawyer involved, or if it's something

that I should just try to get out of, like get a sub-leaser, or what I should do, because

Why do you want to get out of the lease?

month, and that would be a lot different.

thing that's pissing you off is they now rent the same apartment cheaper.

It sounds like you just...

They didn't do anything wrong.

six hours, or that I won't be able to live there at all.

Maybe back then it was not.

You could put a deadline on a negotiation and say, I'm going to offer you this for six

hours, and after that, I can't promise you you can stay here.

Okay.

I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, it's just...

You know, if you felt like that that was undue pressure or unreasonable, just don't

sign it at the time.

That would have been a possibility.

You know, if you feel like you're being mistreated, go somewhere else, in other words.

they charge you for $1,300.

Now, what I would do is this, rather than going in with the attitude that they did something

wrong, I would just go into the manager's office in person and say, hey man, I'm a broke

college student.

This is a lot of money to me.

Would you guys show us some mercy and reduce our existing lease to what you're currently

selling for?

Man, that would be a huge help, because the difference is a big deal, and gosh, when we

signed it last year, we had no idea, of course, we could get it for this or we would've waited,

but man, can you help us out here?

But don't go in there acting like they did something wrong, because Brendan, honestly,

I don't think they did anything wrong.

go in there and we talked to somebody.

They told us in person, they said, yeah, we can actually get it down to that rate, and

then they gave us a call back.

The general manager gave us a call back about a half hour later, and was like, whoa, whoa,

whoa, actually, we can't do that.

You guys already signed this other one for this rate, and it was just like a regular

employee we talked to at the beginning, so I don't know if his word has any weight to

it.

No.

He just misspoke.

Okay.

And there's three of you splitting this $250 overcharge.

It's $1,015 per person.

Okay.

Oh, so it was a $750 reduction you were asking for.

There's three people, right?

Yeah, about $1,000.

$1,000 a month that you were asking them to cut it.

Okay.

Yeah, I can imagine you didn't do that.

trying to screw you, that they just simply thought, hey, we have a really hot property

here, and we're going to get people signed up, and if you want to do it, we're going

to put it on the market.

If you don't want to sign, you got six hours to do that.

And then they discover that they can't rent these apartments, and they have to drop the

prices on them in order to get them rented, instead of thinking maybe this was the plan

all along.

That's a possibility, actually.

say, yeah, we're signing up, we're signing up, we're signing up, and then you start to

see the attrition rates throughout the summer.

Like what he's talking about happens all the time in college housing.

Like plans change, students don't come back, and suddenly you're faced with a bunch of

empty beds that you weren't expecting, and you got to figure it out rate-wise, because

you can't have an empty bed.

I've just experienced this buying a car, and then you look on an ad three months later,

and the car's cheaper.

I can't go back to the dealer and get mad at them.

It just is what it is what it is.

I think what you had to say, Dave, is the only thing you can control here is your attitude,

man.

And if you want to walk around looking how everybody's ripping you off, and instead of

going, oh, man, those guys who waited are going to get a great deal maybe next time

the car's going to sell out.

So it's just kind of the way life works sometimes.

But no, Brendan, an attorney can't help you, because nothing was done wrong here.

I hate that you guys are paying more than market, but nothing was done wrong.

Open phones at 888-825-5225.

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Again, if you want to participate today, Dr. John Deloney is my co-host.

The phone number is 888-825-5225.

Hey, good folks, it's Deloney.

And with back-to-school madness on deck, my family's schedule is already so packed.

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If you are on Baby Step 4 or further, which means you're investing, you're out of debt,

you have your emergency fund in place, you've lived like no one else.

If you want to go on the Live Like No One Else cruise, we'd love to have you.

Let's do it.

We're going to cruise, baby.

We're going March 22nd of next year, and we're going to Turks and Caicos, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas,

all the Ramsey personalities, plus Stephen Curtis Chapman, Dina Carter of Strawberry Wine,

famous country music singer.

A bunch of us are going to be hanging out with you the entire week.

The entire ship is devoted to Ramsey, and it's the Live Like No One Else cruise.

Now, this is not the cheapo cruise.

This is Holland, America.

It's nice.

I don't go on the cheapo cruises, and so you won't find me there otherwise.

So I'm coming.

John's going to be there.

My wife and all the Ramsey personalities will be with us.

Of course, a bunch of Ramsey, and we'll be doing special things on the ship all week long

and going to very cool places.

It's a way for you to celebrate the milestone of actually starting to win with your wealth-building process.

So you can put down only a $600 deposit and hold your room.

We are approaching a sellout, and so if you're going to go in March of 25, you need to get on the list right now.

So go to ramseysolutions.com slash cruise for the Live Like No One Else cruise.

Darren is with us in Dallas.

Hi, Darren.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, John.

Thank you guys so much for taking my call.

What's up?

I've just submitted the last payment for my last debt.

So as of last week, I'm debt-free.

I make about $65,000 a year.

It's just me.

It's a single.

But right now I'm kind of going through a bit of a career change.

I'm 25 years old, and so the background information is I work at an airport,

and I've been going through talking to pilots and things like that and speaking with a person that I'm recruiting.

They have a career path program where I can become a pilot with the airlines here,

and pilots make pretty substantial income, and I'd like that for myself as well as being able to fly a plane.

My question for you is how do I balance saving up for emergency fund and for a future down payment on a house

and retirement as well as funding flight school and all other expenses that come along with it?

How do I prioritize that?

What's the best way to go about that?

Any information at all would be helpful.

What do you make?

You said that.

I'm sorry.

And while you're doing all of this, they're not paying for any of it?

So part of the program is I have to have a degree, and my job is paying for the degree,

so I won't have to pay for the degree portion of it, but I will have to pay for the flight school.

And that, talking with the flight school, all certifications, all totals should be probably around $50,000.

Okay.

And you're going to get $50,000.

Let's just pretend that that's all we did.

Where are you going to get the $50,000, just out of the $65,000 income?

I don't want to take out any loans and get back into debt.

I'm just saying if you save $25,000 a year, it takes two years to save up the money, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And that's pretty strenuous on $65,000.

I mean, that's living on nothing.

So how much debt have you paid off?

And for sure, don't go in debt to go be a pilot because the pilots you're talking to that are making a lot of money are pilots that have been pilots a long time.

The brand new pilots out of flight school make about what you make.

Yeah.

And I have those figures of what I've talked to and what they...

And that's what they put in there is the brand new kids.

New kids on the block, baby, and that's what you'll be.

So it's going to be a while.

You're not going to be making $200,000 coming out of the chute.

You know that, right?

Of course.

Okay.

So you're going to spend $50,000 to make about what you make now?

So that's what you're up against, and that's what you're going to have to think through here.

That's why, for sure, you don't borrow money on this because it would be super stupid to borrow money and do this in your situation.

So, yeah, you've got to get your emergency fund in place, and then you start working your way through your education ideas.

Like, it's just everything's so backwards sometimes.

Yeah.

It's hard for me to wrap my head around an emerging problem across so many fields, and everybody's going to how we solved problems 25 years ago to try to solve these new problems.

And it's just such – it's frustrating.

It's frustrating.

I just wish there were problems in the world that we could solve, seeing them coming instead of waiting until we're hit and then change them.

Don't be pushy.

Hi, Damien.

How are you?

Doing good.

So, my question is, I got about $30,000 in debt, and my 401k has $46,000 in there.

And I think I –

No, no, no.

Don't touch it.

No, don't do it.

Just don't.

Yeah.

Because it's going to cost too much.

It's going to cost me more in taxes.

I won't even be able to pay it all off, I thought.

Exactly.

You got a 10 percent penalty, plus you got your tax rate.

So, it's like borrowing money at 30 or 40 percent interest to pay off your debt.

That doesn't make sense at all.

That was an easy one.

That was easy.

Yep.

And so, what you've got to do is get your income up, your outgo down, and that's not easy.

And it's working a lot of hours, and that's not easy.

And sacrificing, and that's not easy.

And then you'll clear the debt, and that is – then you'll look back and go,

that was easier than I thought it was going to be.

Matt's in Grand Rapids.

Hey, Matt.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

I'm going to retire in about four years.

My wife and I have no debt other than our home.

We have about $2.2 million in 401k.

We owe $300,000 on our home.

Does it make sense?

We would like the peace of mind of being totally out of debt.

You would?

Do you not have any money that's not in the 401k?

What do you have in non-retirement investments?

Okay.

That's weird for $2 million.

But that's cool.

I'll take it.

Good job, by the way.

Excellent job.

$2.2 million in your 401k.

You rocked it, man.

You killed it.

So you're approaching a $3 million net worth at 60-something years old.

Way to go.

Proud of you.

Yes, I would pay off my house today.

Pay the taxes on the 401k.

There's no penalty because you're over $59,500.

So it's a different answer than the guy before.

For that reason.

That's the difference.

And he's got plenty of money to do that as well.

This is the Ramsey Show.

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Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today.

In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage,

Jim and Taylor are with us.

Hey, guys.

How are you?

Good, how are you?

Thank you for having us.

Where do you guys live?

Cool.

Welcome to Nashville.

Good to have you.

And here to do a debt-free scream, how much did you pay off?

How long did that take?

And your range of income during that time?

got it up to about $197,000.

What kind of debt was the $134,000?

All student loans.

All student loans.

If not, I would not have met my beautiful wife.

There you go.

Cool.

Way to go, guys.

So what changed 14 months ago?

What makes you do the Ramsey stuff wide open?

Because you guys went for it, man.

I started listening to the radio, came across your show,

and all of the values and ideas I had about money, you guys had as well.

But I just didn't have the plan to put all those values and ideas into place.

And so I started learning more about the baby steps and why I should be saving money,

why I should be out of debt, and started making some changes in my life.

I started to pay off my car intentionally saving for specific reasons.

And then Taylor came along, and we started dating.

And we started talking more about finances.

Through the pandemic, we took FPU online.

We started to do our own journeys and paid off our own cars.

And then not too long after that, well, first off,

I knew she was the one for me from the very beginning.

I mean, we were in love pretty quickly.

But then she kind of said, this hand really should have something on it.

It's getting a little bare.

There should be something sparkly.

And so I told her, I said, I'm not going to go into debt to pay for the ring.

And so she knew I was a little crazy and serious about this from the very beginning.

And so we got engaged, and we started talking more seriously about finances,

and got married, and then decided this is what we need to do right from the beginning.

And so we used all of the money we had from our wedding and put that in.

That got us jump started.

And then we started to work for those 14 months,

putting $5,000, $6,000 a month at the debt until it was done.

Thank you.

Way to go.

You've got to feel great.

Awesome.

What are your degrees in?

And I'm a middle school social studies teacher.

So what was the best, the most productive money-wise side hustle?

So I would do call like every two weeks.

That brought us in an extra like $1,000 probably.

And then I did a whole bunch of side hustles in the summertime being off as a teacher.

And, you know, I did Uber at the Jersey Shore.

I taught summer school.

And I made the banners that you see flying over the beach on the back of planes.

That was a job from high school and from college.

And all of those side hustles couldn't come close to her overtime pay.

But, you know, I did what I could.

Good job.

Yeah, OT when you're nursing is great.

Yeah.

That's a big step, giant step.

And I'm not going to have a car payment.

So for everybody out there saying, like, I love him and I love this plan.

The idea of being out of debt is cool, but my ring is going to look like this.

And my husband is going to drive this.

You're 14 months.

You've been married for how long?

About two years?

So you've been married a little over a year and a half.

And what would you tell that person on the other side of this?

That ring size matters.

And that, you know, especially first right out of the gate.

And that cars, all that stuff.

Focus on yourself.

You don't know what everyone else's finances look like.

If you don't look, if you look outward, it's easy to be wrapped up in the, oh, I'm not going on vacation there.

I'm not doing that.

But like, what does their account look like?

What does their credit look like?

You know, you don't want to look out.

Look in.

Very good.

All right.

You did it.

You pay off $134,000 worth of debt, all student loans, in 14 months in your first 18 months of marriage.