I Feel Broke Making $73,000 a Year

Summary

Podcast Summary: "I Feel Broke Making $73,000 a Year"

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Ramsey Show Highlights
• Host: Ramsey Network (Featuring Dave Ramsey, Dr. John Deloney, among others)
• Episode: I Feel Broke Making $73,000 a Year
• Release Date: January 6, 2025

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Introduction

In the January 6, 2025 episode of The Ramsey Show Highlights, a listener reaches out with a common yet pressing financial dilemma: earning a decent salary yet struggling to make ends meet. The show features insightful discussions between Dave Ramsey and Dr. John Deloney, offering practical advice and emotional support to navigate financial instability amid personal turmoil.

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Caller’s Dilemma: A Solid Income but Financial Strain

The episode begins with a caller explaining his situation:

• Caller: “Earlier this year, my wife left me... I make about $73,000 a year. But I just... find I don't really have pennies to rub together by the end of the month.” [00:06]

Despite earning a substantial income, the caller feels financially stretched, particularly after his separation and the responsibilities of being a single father to an 18-month-old daughter.

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Fundamentals of Budgeting

Dave Ramsey addresses the core issue: lack of effective budgeting.

• Dave Ramsey: “Unless somebody's just like a savings freak, most people... money's gone. The only way to make the money behave is before the month starts, write every dollar down and where it's going to go...” [00:39]

He emphasizes the necessity of proactively managing finances rather than reacting passively at month's end.

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Assessing the Financial Picture

Dr. John Deloney probes deeper into the caller's financial responsibilities:

• Dr. John Deloney: “When you're struggling to make payments at the end of the month... are you still sending money to your ex?” [01:39]

The caller reveals he pays 40% of daycare costs based on income, yet despite having a budget that suggests $300 should be left, this surplus never materializes.

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Identifying Budgeting Pitfalls

The discussion highlights common budgeting pitfalls:

• Dave Ramsey: “What happened was you wrote down a budget and you never looked at it again till the end of the month.” [02:28]

The listener admits to setting up recurring investments with minimal amounts, but without regular oversight, these efforts didn't yield noticeable savings.

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Implementing a Structured Financial Plan

Dave Ramsey and Dr. John Deloney advocate for a written, deliberate budgeting strategy:

• Dave Ramsey: “Write this down and make it go where you wrote it down to be going.” [02:34]
• Dr. John Deloney: “Prove yourself over 30 days that I can stick to this thing...” [04:05]

They stress the importance of daily financial management, especially during emotionally charged times like separation, to prevent financial slip-ups.

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Emotional Resilience and Financial Discipline

The conversation delves into the emotional challenges of managing finances post-separation:

• Dave Ramsey: “You're going through a heartbreak right now... you need to tell it what to do.” [03:13]
• Dr. John Deloney: “Math keeps going. And the kid still needs to eat.” [03:47]

They acknowledge the difficulty of maintaining financial discipline when dealing with personal loss but assert that structured budgeting remains crucial.

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Choosing Your Heart: Prioritizing Financial Health

A pivotal concept introduced is "Choosing Your Heart", the deliberate decision to prioritize financial stability over emotional complacency:

• Dr. John Deloney: “This is your choose your heart, Right?” [06:40]
• Dave Ramsey: “Choose your heart...I've been choosing to be fat. And I decided I wasn't gonna be like.” [08:29]

The hosts encourage listeners to consciously decide between detrimental habits and beneficial financial practices, illustrating this with examples of overcoming personal challenges through determination.

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Practical Takeaways and Actionable Advice

The episode concludes with actionable steps for listeners facing similar financial strains:

1. Create a Detailed Budget: Allocate every dollar purposefully before the month begins.
2. Monitor Spending Regularly: Continuously check budget categories to stay on track.
3. Handle Emotional Triggers: Recognize when emotions influence financial decisions and address them proactively.
4. Choose Financial Discipline: Make conscious decisions to prioritize budgeting and savings over temporary emotional comforts.
5. Seek Support and Structure: Utilize tools like budgeting apps and seek professional advice when necessary.

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Notable Quotes

• Dave Ramsey at [00:39]: “The only way to make the money behave is before the month starts, write every dollar down and where it's going to go...”
• Dr. John Deloney at [04:05]: “I had to get up and do the next thing, the next. The next right thing every day.”
• Dave Ramsey at [08:29]: “Choose your heart...I've been choosing to be fat. And I decided I wasn't gonna be like.”

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Conclusion

This episode of The Ramsey Show Highlights serves as a vital resource for individuals earning a stable income yet grappling with financial instability. Through empathetic dialogue and practical advice, Dave Ramsey and Dr. John Deloney provide listeners with the tools and mindset needed to regain financial control, emphasizing that proactive budgeting and emotional resilience are paramount in overcoming financial challenges.

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For more financial advice and to take control of your budgeting, visit EveryDollar and start your free budgeting journey today.

Transcript

[Dave Ramsey]

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today.

[Caller]

Earlier this year, my wife left me. I've got a daughter who's about 18 months. We are separated. We're not legally divorced. She used to handle all of the money in the house. So I'm just kind of figuring things out for myself now. Make a decent wage. I make about 73,000 a year. But I just. I find I don't really have pennies to rub together by the end of the month. Like, I'm not really saving anything. So I'm just wondering if you can help me find maybe ways to optimize that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good question. Yeah, that would be a normal thing. Left to itself, savings never occurs naturally unless somebody's just like a savings freak. But most people, if you just don't pay attention at the end of the month or really even before the end of the month, the money's gone. And so the only way to make the money behave is before the month starts, write every dollar down and where it's going to go, and then make it go where you wrote it down to be going. You're in charge of it, but you need to tell it what to do because what's happening is in your emotional state because your heart is broken and you're the daddy of a little baby and you're dealing with all this in the middle of all of that. You're not even paying attention to the money. It just leaves, which would be. I mean, that's what most people would do in your situation. But the answer is you got to pay attention.

[Dr. John Deloney]

When you're struggling to make payments at the end of the month. Is this you having sat down and done the math and realized, I don't make enough money to live where I live and do what I do now that I'm a single dad. Or are you still sending money to your ex? I mean, what kind of final situation are you?

[Caller]

So, I mean, I'm currently paying about 40% of daycare based on how much she makes, how much I make. Not like I've put a budget out for myself and, you know, it says I have $300 left over the end of the month, but that never seems to happen. I do have. I have, like, a recurring investment. I was like, I might as well start putting something away if I can. So I was just like, I'll do $10 a week. It's going to be something like, just weren't really noticed. I just have that going into investing in stocks and dividend reinvestment. And all of that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so what happened was you wrote down a budget and you never looked at it again till the end of the month.

[Caller]

Yeah, you're probably right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And then you went, wow, that didn't work.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

So, yeah, I'm going to give you the. I'm going to tell you to do a written game plan. Every dollar on paper, on purpose before the month begins. And then before you spend anything out of a certain category, you'd go back and check that category and make sure you still got money left in it. And make sure if you're spending time eating out because you're lonely or you're spending time doing whatever that costs money because you're lonely, make sure you recognize that and you're writing it down.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because, I mean, you're going through a heartbreak right now. This is a hard time emotionally. And that hard time will show up in the money if you don't get on the other side of it and crack the whip on it. So what you're facing is a very normal reaction in the situation like you're in. But that doesn't make it okay. That doesn't make it. That doesn't make it like. Because it doesn't feel right. And that's why you called.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. And, David, I don't think you can overstate that. When your world blows up, it's easy to feel like the rules don't apply anymore.

[Dave Ramsey]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

But they do.

[Dave Ramsey]

Right?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Math does. Right. Math keeps going. And the kid still needs to eat. I remember a close friend of ours, her husband left her pregnant with number three. And. Oh, God. And I remember asking a couple years later, how'd you make it? And that her answer was so instructive, she just said, I had to.

[Dave Ramsey]

Right.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And that meant I have to get up and do the next thing, the next. The next right thing every day. And so the next right thing for him is to begin to put some sort of structure to this chaos. His world blew up. His wife left him and this little one. And no one has that in their head even. Right. It happened. Let's get a hold of our money. Let's get a hold of our calendar. Let's start there. And if you can prove yourself over 30 days that I can stick to this thing and say no, then you can do it again 60 days, you can do it again 90 days. And then you start asking yourself, is this the job? Is this the apartment? Is this the house? Is. Is this the daycare center?

[Dave Ramsey]

And go from there. But I guess, I don't know you, you, you know a lot more about this than I do. That it feels like grieving a broken heart or grieving a loss of some kind somehow gives us permission to let our body go, to let our mind get on junk food, binge, watch stupid stuff on Netflix instead of actually feeding our mind something that tightens it up and just let our money go.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, I, I, I, and I think the difference is I, I don't think grief is doing nothing. I think grief is active. And if you're actively grieving something, if you're writing letters, if you are choosing your thoughts, if you're doing the next right thing, then that's an action. I think what most people mistake grief for is I'm just going to turn draw the shades and do nothing.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. What I'm saying is when something bad comes at me, it's like you said, gives you permission. So I don't need to exercise.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't need to go to church.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't, I don't, I don't need to watch my money.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because something bad happened to me. So now I have permission to, to sit on my butt.

[Dr. John Deloney]

One of my friends who works in, in the fitness industry said we often treat diets like, you blow your diet and he goes, you get a flat tire and then you just, you're like, whatever. And he said, it's like pulling out a knife and going and slashing the other three tires. He goes, instead of just having one tire off. Right. So your world blows up. This is the time to actually stop.

[Dave Ramsey]

And really down on that, double down on everything else.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes. This is when you need to control.

[Dave Ramsey]

The things you can control.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's it.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that marriage blowing up is not one of them.

[Dr. John Deloney]

No, it's, that's happened. So let's do these other things so that we can deal with the hard, hard truth.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what that means is like hardcore. Like you were completely energetic and hopped up on caffeine. Hardcore budgeting. I'm going to write this down and I'm going to pinch it and I'm going to pinch it some more and I'm going to. And $300. No. How about a thousand bucks? That's right at the end of every month and I'm going to start putting that towards something and then I'm going to work some extra and then I'm, and I'm going to lean into these things and that's the way I'm going to process while I'm going through this, rather than using this As a. A reason. I was going to say an excuse, but even a reason for taking our foot off the gas and just letting the car go in circles.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It's. It's your choose your heart, Right?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

You can choose to double down on your budget. I will force myself to exercise even though I don't feel like getting out of bed and Even though it's 44 below in Canada where he is. Or I'm going to choose the heart of just getting to the end of every month and getting further and further underwater.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, it's just. It's. Human nature is just so interesting when we think it through, because I can't. I mean, doing this for 35 years, I can tell you that the number of times I talk to someone, they go, well, you know, everything was going good and I went through a divorce. And then I went $40,000 in debt and I gained 40 pounds. And it's like, well, now you're gonna go clean that up.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes, yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

So, you know, what you said is, before you do that, go ahead and not do that.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Exactly. Yeah. Yes. Yes, exactly. Or find a. Find an activity. Find a Xanax, if you will. Find a distraction that's not going to be catastrophic. Right. So often I tell folks, you get one. So I hear from husbands who come home, they're like, dude, I just want to veg out. A lot of guys will go sit in the bathroom for an hour and a half and they'll just scroll their phone or they'll disappear and they're.

[Dave Ramsey]

They're.

[Dr. John Deloney]

The pushback is you need to be present in this house. You need to be around. Okay, I need. I need a break. And I always tell them, okay, you get one. You want 30 minutes. She's going to keep the kids away for 30 minutes. You get 30 minutes. After that, you got to put that thing down, be present. And so, yes, when your world blows up, it is hard to get out of bed. It is. Okay, so you get 10 minutes. You get 30 minutes to lay here and be sad. And then you got to get up, you get one, and then you got to go do your thing. Like, whatever that thing is, you got to go do the next right move that you know is good for you.

[Dave Ramsey]

So a buddy of mine came to an event that John and I did with Micro doing it for business guys. And John, one of the things John did was a talk during that event and choose your heart, decide, okay, you're either going to be overweight or you're going to exercise and manage your caloric intake.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Both of those are.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're either going to be broke or you're going to manage your budget and work some extra and sell some stuff and get your butt under control. Right? Choose your heart. One of them. They're both hard. You might as well choose which one on purpose rather than let it happens to you. A friend of mine sitting there, he lost 150 pounds.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So amazing.

[Dave Ramsey]

I was with him. I was with him Monday night.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's like two George Camels.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, well, more two and a half.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's. That's so amazing. Do choose your heart, right?

[Dave Ramsey]

Choose your heart. And I said, what do you do? And he goes, stinking Deloney talk, man. Choose my heart. He goes, I've been choosing to be fat. And I decided I wasn't gonna be like. That's what he told me. Wow. This is the Ramsey Show. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.