This is the Ramsey call of the day part of the Ramsey Network. Carice is with us in Rockford, Illinois. Hi, Carice. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.
Hi, Dave. How are you? It's better than I deserve. What's up?
Well, I just had a baby nearby. She was born 12 weeks early. She's currently in the NICU in Madison. And we found out that she has a rare disease.
One in 100,000 children have that disease, the congenital disease disorder of glycosylation. So basically the doctors don't know for sure how long she's gonna be there. They have to treat something by symptom. So I guess my question today is I'm a teacher.
I'm not sure exactly when they go back to work. My husband and I are on baby step three. We had saved emergency fund, but we have about a month left of it before we are kind of out. So I'm not sure what to do when I have to be there daily.
I'm sorry. That's very. What does your. What's your husband make?
He is at 35,000 a year. I'm thinking about 1800amonth. And how much vacation did you have from teaching? I used it all up.
It was about six weeks worth. So now you're. Now you're either back in the classroom or you're without pay. Yes.
And you need to be a little baby show. So you're going to be. And what do you make? Yeah, I'm at 61,000 a year, which is about 3,500amonth.
Yeah. What's he do? My husband is a mechanic. Well, you are square in the middle of hurricane, kiddo.
You knew that. You don't need me to tell you that. So how much is your house payment? It's 1500amonth.
How many other kids have you got? We have 19 year old and that is. We were getting ready to get into 4, 5 and 6. We were going to be doing that next, so.
Okay, so what we teach folks when they're in a financial crisis and you're walking towards one is to take care of necessities first and only. In your case, it's definitely only. So you start making a list of things in their order of importance. And so I'll help you.
Foods first. Keep food now. Utilities are second. Keep the lights on and house payments third.
And when you finish with that, you're. You're already out of money. Yeah. With his income versus 1500 house payment.
So your burn rate's really, really fast. How much you got left in the emergency fund. I have a lot of loans for us. It's about 4,000.
About $4,000. Okay. And so if we keep the lights on and we eat and we pay the house payment. You got a little gas in the car to get to work.
If we quit paying everything else, what would that be? It'd probably be barely anything left after that. If you don't pay anything else, there shouldn't be a lot of other necessities, bills. Have you got non necessity bills and I'm not.
You don't need that. That's good. No, we don't have any Deb. We just have our house payment.
We have transportation, we have life insurance and just paying medical bills as they come in. Medical bills. Okay, don't pay medical bills right now, you pay them later. But you're not paying right now.
Because I want to keep the money for food, lights and shelter and car gas and make it last as long as I can make it last there and then we've got to think about it. I don't know, George. Viewing ideas on we need to get some income coming in. Are you a member of a good church in the area?
Yes, we are. I thought your pastor know what they need. See if they can't raise some money for you guys just to keep you afloat. It has done that a little bit for us on top of it.
I could work in Madison because it's probably. So that's we have really 10 people around us. No, that's good. Okay.
Because I mean $10,000 changes this whole situation dramatically. Yeah, 20,000 changes a lot. You don't need 100. Yeah.
No. To turn the corner here because you got insurance to cover NICU and you've got medical bills to pop up and you can get the medical bills later. When you get back 100 income, you're back in the classroom. Right.
Okay. So fundraising is one thing comes to mind. Other things comes to mind is you guys may have to figure out where can we get income. And it sounds me like he's working extra to me.
Yeah, he does. He gets all the side jobs he can. Yeah, we're able to go up to some Amazon twice a week. Are you both going or is it just one of you?
I'm going seven days a week. He's just going on the weekends when he's off of work. What do you teach? I teach sixth grade science.
Have you got the bandwidth emotionally? I wouldn't. But you have the bandwidth emotionally. Take on a couple kids to tutor.
25 bucks an hour, possibly Mentally, I'm not sure if I need to go back to the classroom right now. I'm just saying. I'm just saying, if you took two kids a week for two hours, that'd be a hundred bucks a week. That's true, but it's.
If you can do it. Truthfully, I can't breathe. And this is. I don't even know you, but, I mean, little babies in NICU just puts my.
Puts my stomach in my throat. It just. Yeah. And you guys are really facing some real challenges, and so I want to be unkind or anything.
This is not just, you need to go get extra job, dude. You know, that's not what I'm saying at all. I get it. I don't know if you do that.
I'm just trying to keep you afloat, because if you can keep the basics going, if you can come out of this and all, you got to pay medical bills and you're behind on a couple of odds and ends because you've got just enough in to supplement his income and keep the house paid and lights and water and food, you know, you're gonna be set up turning this around financially really quick. Yeah, we will, too. We just don't want to get. We don't want to get.
Go backwards. I want you to stay on top of it because it's easy to stick your head in the sand during these times. And we'll be praying for you. If you need anything, you call us.
We'll help you anyway we can here. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Dave.
Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to the Ramsey call of the day. Check out all of our podcasts. Just search Ramsey Network on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you list it.