This is the Ramsey Call of the Day, part of the Ramsey Network. Joining me today is Ramsey Personality, Dr. Chondaloney. On the debt-free stage!
Joe and Kelly are with us. Hey guys, how are you? Good, how are you? Good.
Welcome. Where do you guys live? In New York. Here you go.
Where? Miko. It's up in the Adirondacks. Oh, wow.
Beautiful area. Cool. Welcome to Nashville. Good to have you down here.
All the way down here to the debt-free screen. How much have you paid off? $178,000. Yay!
How long did that take? 19 months. Wow. And your range of income during that time?
We started about 260,000 and got to 300 by the end. Wow. What do y'all do for a living? I'm a nurse and estist.
Of course, okay. I'm a mom and just started doing back to school. Good for you. What are you studying?
Biblical counseling? Oh, good. Good. I like that.
That's fun. All right. Well, kind of debt was $178,000. We were living in the Great American Nightmare.
So we had a little bit of student loan debt left. Two cars that we owed a lot on. We had a pool, a boiler, and lastet credit cards. For those of us in the south, what is a boiler?
So, up north is a fancy furnace. Okay. I thought it was something you put your wontons in for dinner. So, that's a helpful question.
Well, you could. Yeah. It'd be interesting. It'd be interesting.
Not a good idea. Not a good plan. Well, welcome, guys. That's amazing.
Good job. So, that was a pretty intense 19 months. Yes, it was. Yeah.
We changed in Dr. Family. Big time. So, what happened?
Tell me the story. You tell your awesome story first. So, this is embarrassing. I was working a side hustle at a hospital on a weekend.
So, it was a Saturday. I go downstairs to get lunch. I was driving a beautiful Mercedes E63 S at the time. I was the fastest four cars in the world.
Yes, it is. And I went to buy lunch. And when I gave my debit card, it was denied. And I said, oh, that's nobody else.
I'll just use my credit card, right? Well, my credit card was maxed out. And so, I'm standing there. People I work with behind me, offered me to pay for my lunch.
And in that moment, I just wanted to stand up on top of the register counter and say, I'm not poor. Like, I drive a Mercedes. But the reality was, we were, I didn't have money in my account. And I did not want to live that way anymore.
Yeah. I had just paid something big off and drained our entire account. And so, he had texted me and was like, what is going on? I'm like, oh, no, I can fix it.
I can fix it. He's like, we can't fix this. This is a problem. We were living a lie.
We were not living. There's something about being embarrassed and shamed. Yeah. Yeah.
I wrote that in the first financial piece book that we did, standing in the cold trying to get a credit card to work driving a Jaguar to fill out. Couldn't have the money put gas in the car. Driving a Jaguar. Just have to tell them I was.
But there's something about that where you go. This is wrong. I'm done. Yeah.
So, a lot of people get that had that moment and they rage and blame everybody else. What took you to the mirror? I knew it was my fault. I had done a decent job with our retirement.
I knew how money worked. I just, I had always been taught that, you know, that was something that you leveraged to your advantage. And I didn't want to die. I was so embarrassed that dying and someone looked at my finances and be like, how did you screw this up so bad?
We could go on trips together. Before we left, I would have a panic attack if we died. Someone would look at our finances. And then we'd come home.
We lived. We'd just go back to life. And then we'd go on a trip again. I'd freak out.
Then we'd look at our finances. So it was like, if we needed. It was like your mother telling you to wear clean underwear. Just in case.
So, yeah. I feel like we had who we are. We had to hit rock bottom to like, like, for the Holy Spirit. It really wasn't rock bottom in the sense that like, there was no foreclosure or bankruptcy.
But it was just this emotional thing. It just smacked you in the face. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. That's true. It's so hard. It made decent money.
I feel like we just managed to manage really good money. Yeah. We saw it after we started, like, not having so much debt. I was like, wow.
You're doing all right. You're doing all right. Okay. Do you want to be payments with that?
Don't we have money? Yeah. So what did you do with the car? You didn't get to the, what was the hardest part?
For me, I needed to know that Kelly was going to be 100% on board with this. But when she said, we had two beautiful cars. Her car was nice too. And she said, I have to sell out the car.
My car. Yeah. When she said that, I was like, man, she's serious. And so I traded in my beautiful Mercedes for a Honda Civic.
At a boy. That I still drive. When he did that, I was like, oh shoot. I better take the series.
He just gave up. So you can play both cars. Yeah. Both of them.
What were you driving? I'll tell you what, Highlander. Before I was driving, before I was driving, a Ford Expedition, it was so big and beautiful. Expensive.
They're both grieving. He's car. They worked out tightly. He's holding his hands.
Yeah. He's a really good car though. They were very nice. And reasonable to grieve those cars.
Yeah. Yeah. Wow, where you go, guys? So something happens when you start extracting stuff like that out of your life.
It reshapes your heart. Yeah. It's like, do we want to live for cars or character? I want to be no more my character.
Not for this Mercedes. We drive that. We don't even own it. So it was a big change.
I want to drive a Civic in bye. Other people like it. Hey! You guys, don't touch on something that happens a lot when two great people who are well-meaning, you paid off something big to help out everybody and ended up embarrassing you at work.
You work really hard and we're working a side shift to help the family and you're going past each other. Even though you're great people, you love each other, you're just missing each other the night and there's something about getting on this budget together and saying let's do this together that maximizes everything. Absolutely. So you have to be a team.
So what do you tell people to keep getting out of Dennis? I think it's contentment and self-control, like to know that what we have is enough. You went existential on us, man. I feel like I feel like it's the big girl.
I completely agree. I would say it took teamwork and a budget. I mean, you can't underestimate how important having a budget is that you stick to. And teamwork, I mean, these four sit over here gave up just as much as we did.
And at a time in life where they had gotten used to enjoying things, they had to give it up as tough. Yeah, 14 edges that you do a moneyectomy on, that's tough. Yeah, they were way cooler. They were super good about it.
To get dropped off at the dance in the Mercedes, then the Accord, huh? They felt it. They felt it. You know what the hardest thing with that was that work.
I mean, I work in health care. I've seen that change from cars in the parking lot and all five of the changes I saw were all divorces. So people start asking that question, you're like, no, no, I'm going to hire a great. We love each other.
Like, I'm still married. That's not what's going on here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But another level of embarrassment and no's down, get it done.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's a man. And now you never have to think about it again?
Yeah, yeah. It's funny. It's very cool. It's very cool.
And you'll have had the moments where this has been a few months ago. So you've had the moments where you get to keep all of your own money. Yeah, that's what I'm like, wow. It's going to be OK.
Yeah, it was worth it. It was worth it. Yeah, yeah. I had one child who asked me.
I won't point him out. But when is this budget thing going to be over? It's like, they felt it, too. You know?
Yes. It's the one who asked me if we could stop and get something. And I broke because I had been telling them no for months. And she said, you know what, Mom?
If it's on the budget, we can wait. We're almost done. It's like, yeah, you boo girl. Yeah, I like it.
Well, you've changed your family tree then. Yes. So many ways. So very, very well done.
All right, we've got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for you. Because if you're not already, you will be soon now that you've done all of this. Very well done. And a copy told me to make over for you to give away to someone else.
Let's bring the kiddos up and have them participate in the process. The young men and women there. You know, it's not kiddos by any stretch of the imagination. But a good job, you guys.
Very proud of you guys. You're an incredible family. Very well done. And you've changed everything.
You've changed everything. The grandkids are changed. And they're not even here yet. Yeah, this is great.
I love it. All right, Joe and Kelly McGinsey, Isaac, Olivia, and Haley from New York. 178,000 paid off. A Mercedes-Ectomy.
I did it 19 months making 260 to 300. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream. Three, two, one.
We're debt free. Yeah. This is how it's it's done, boys and girls. Yep.
Thanks for tuning in to the Ramsey Call of the Day. To check out all of our podcasts. Just search Ramsey Network on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen.