Brought to you by CHM, a budget-friendly, faith-based alternative to health insurance. CHMinistries.org slash budget. I made $94,000 before taxes. Good for you.
What do you do? I'm an engine builder for the military. Very cool. Good for you.
Good, good. So you're in the military or you just work civilian for the military? No, I work in another place and I just only do military engines. Gotcha.
Cool. Okay, good. How can we help? I'm like $32,000 in debt.
And my home is paid for and I got to pay for a Jeep Wrangler. But I bought another car just to drive back and forth to work to pay money. But I got like a lot of zip, I have to pay PayPal. You know how you just don't want to spend your money.
And I got a personal loan. And I just want to know what's the fastest way. Because at my job, I'm already doing like 16% in my 401k. So I have a feeling, do you have a stack of money saved somewhere?
Do you have money saved? I did, but I don't know more. Because after my son passed away, I just went on a spending spree. And when did he pass away on?
2018. So you said you got a bunch of... So did you borrow money for the car that was cheaper, in quotes? Well, I got like a $7,000 car loan.
I left holding $7,000 on it now. Everything is current, but it's just like I'm throwing my money away. I don't know where my money goes. Half the time, I'll be like, I make good money.
Yeah, you do make good money. You make way too much money that's broken out of control. But your heart was broken. If you miss health plan open enrollment, don't panic.
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But your heart was broken. Yeah, I'm out of control, babe. I need help. I got about like $5,000, $6,000 a week.
Oh, wow, yeah. My dad used to say that half a solving problem is realizing there is one. Cynthia, I think you realized it. Yeah.
Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired yet? Yes. Enough to change? Yes.
Okay. Because I think you can. You make enough money to straighten this out as soon as we straighten you out, right? Yeah.
Have you looked at how much it is when you combine it all together, all the buy now, pay laters, and the personal loans, all that? How much is it? Yeah, like I got wrote down in a tablet at home. And so I got like, I came over y'all, came, I saw y'all like on New Year's, the day before New Year's, and I just went to write down everything that I had.
Good. And I'm like, I'm going to get my life together. Good. And I won't go, I went, I came to the store to return some stuff.
Okay. And I was like, put the money back on my debit card. And my friend said, this is the first time I ever seen you go on the store and come out without nothing in your hang-up. I'm on a budget.
I can't do it no more. Okay. So you created, did you create a budget or are you just saying you're on a budget? No, I created a budget.
Good. Yeah. So what did you find? Did you go on every dollar?
That's what I did then. Great. All right. What did you find?
Did you, did you find, tell us what you found. I was like having like, I got $3,600 like incident, but I have like $2,200 left. And I was like, where that money at? Okay.
My friend's like, look on the floor. You got shoes stayed up to the ceiling. You don't need to put on your feet. You wear your clothes one time and give them away.
That's a friend. That's a true friend. So you got $2,000 a margin every single month and it's just going to crap, basically. And did I hear you say it's only $3,600 a debt?
No, $3,200. No, I got $3,200, but like when I pay my stuff off a month, I have like debt left, but I increased my budget. Hey, listen, you're not married, right? No.
Okay. What I want you to do is I want you to keep this every dollar out and I want you to give your friend access to the every dollar out to be your accountability partner. Yeah, she's a good friend. And tell her to bust you.
If you don't do anything except get out of debt, no buying, nothing. Cynthia, you have enough crap to let you for the rest of your life. If you don't do anything except pay rent, work, eat, keep the lights on, you can be out of debt in no time. Well, you don't even have rent to pay.
That's right. That's right. So how much, when you look at your budget, how much can you put towards debt every single month? How much extra?
Well, I got like a $10,000 check coming on tomorrow. Okay, great. And so I said that I was going to take that and start that, well, I got my $1,000. You're on it.
And then I said with that $10,000, I was going to take that because I got like $2,000 at home taxes and I needed to go and pay that $2,000 and then just go on the store paying out my credit cards out the smallest $2,000. That's right. That's right. So the other $8,000 goes to that.
And then if you just continue to take, I think I heard you say you had $2,000 in margin every month. If you take that, you're going to be done with this by the end of the year. Yeah, but I wanted to hear, okay. Or sooner.
Or sooner, if you get intense about it. Because something tells me you do have more margin than $2,000. All those shoes and purses, why don't you put them on eBay? That's what I'm about to say.
Instead of giving them away, you don't. Yeah, this is for you, basically. Yeah, let's put them on eBay. People buy this stuff, man.
I'll pay big money for it. Yeah, because this is not... This is nice stuff. This girl buys good stuff.
I think there's a name brand sitting there laying there on your floor. Oh, yeah. Put that on. Poshmark.
Put that on the nice places. Okay. Poshmark is eBay? Poshmark, yeah.
It's where you get the nice high-end stuff. Oh, used. Yeah. Okay, cool.
All right. There you go. See, I don't know this because I don't do that. Good.
Very good. Hey, Cynthia. I think you already had a pretty good plan before you called us. Okay.
You were working the stuff we teach exactly the way we teach. Everything we asked you, you answered the way we would have told you to do it. I'm very impressed with you. Thank you.
Okay. Now, do it. Okay? Okay.
You know, act like your friend's standing in your back pocket. And so, no screwing around. Time to be a grown-up. No buying stuff.
Don't be walking... Don't even go in a store. Drunks don't need to go in a bar. Yeah.
Yeah. So, just stay out of the store. You don't need to go there. Don't get on some website unless you're selling something.
All you need to do is sell stuff and work. Can I give her my book yet? Can I give her my book? Absolutely.
You're the prime candidate because your emotions were driving you. And this will just help you stay motivated even more going into the new year. So, Christian's back there. He'll pick up and give it to you.
I think you're the first person I've given this book. That's good. Very good. Thank you.
And Cynthia, listen. Here's the deal. When someone loses their son and their heart is broken and they make some spending mistakes, that doesn't make you a bad person. It just means that your heart was hurting.
You're okay. You're okay. But don't live the rest of your life this way for your sake, okay? Okay.
Yeah. You didn't do a bad thing. Your heart was broken, okay? Okay.
Thank you. Yeah. Just go on. Now, let's go win.
Let's get this mess straightened up. And in his memory, instead of having a pile of shoes, let's have a pile of money and get this thing worked out. Yeah. That's a different change on that.
I got to tell you, the number of times that emotions, just like your book, activate, and sometimes it's a broken heart. Yes. Grieving. Yes.
The loss of a loved one. The loss of a relationship. The loss of a job. Yeah.
Yeah. And sometimes it takes people a while, depending on the severity and the weirdness of the situation. It takes longer than others. But, you know, something happened around New Year's.
And she woke up. And thank God, something popped up on Instagram. It was us instead of one of these goobers that are just telling, you know, SoFi, don't you go in dead or something, right? And she did everything.
She already started doing it all. Yeah. Very, very good. Very impressive.
Take those moments and run with them. Amen. I call that a God moment. That's what I call it.
Well done, Cynthia. You call us back anytime, honey. We're here to help you. That's what we're for.
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