“I Think You Need a Hobby”

If your private student loans are in default, you're not out of options. Go to whyrefi.com slash Ramsey. Today's question comes from Mark in England. We are retired, mortgage-free, and financially stable with no debt except our credit cards. We buy what we need on a credit card that gives us points, which we use to pay for clothes, food, etc. We then take that credit card debt and put it onto a long-term interest-free credit card At the same time as the start of the 0% deal, we put an equal amount into a savings account that pays a 7% interest. At the end of the 0% term, we pay it off from the savings and then keep the interest earned to pay for travel or a large cash purchase. We've been doing this for 10 years with no interest incurred. Cash back to us has been $6,000 plus $8,000 earned in interest from the savings. Why shouldn't we keep doing this? Because it's exhausting, number one. Yes, this is how you lost the Revolutionary War right here. Zinger, take that, Redcoats. The mental calories needed has got to be worth something. Your time is worth something. And here's what's ridiculous. We do not know the dollar amounts. But what it took to get here. You took, I mean, what could we talk about? $50,000. And you run it through all of those ringers. When you get done, you got enough money to buy a biscuit. I mean, there's no money involved here. This is a, it's like a math riddle for a sixth grader. And you fell for every bit of it. I think you need a hobby. Really? This is like exhausting. So the problem with all this is, is you have set up a house of mirrors, a house of traps. And you have figured out how to, no, you know, I'm trying to remember what, what's the thing where the kid where the, uh, people, um, the, the ninja thing where they go through all the, um, like American ninja warrior. Yeah. Like your American ninja or the English ninja warrior for credit cards. So you've got this full obstacle course laid out and you know how to do it. But if you miss one handhold, you're in the water. If you, if you jump just wrong, you're going to turn your ankle and be on your head. And so that's exactly what this is like a, it's like an obstacle course. It's like you did a treasure hunt with an obstacle course in your backyard and you're 12 years old. Um, no, uh, and it's not worth the money. If you actually add up the actual dollars that you're benefiting from all these gyrations, it's so small, it's, it's almost makes you want to giggle. Like really, if you just gone and done like work or something while you spend all this money, I mean, all these calories on, on this chasing your tail all over the place and trying to somehow beat the credit card company, you'd actually have some money. Um, so no, no, no. Uh, and also Mark, let me tell you this. And we have not done a study in the UK, but we have done the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America. We stayed 10,167 of them at 89% of them, nine out of 10 are first generation rich, meaning they started with nothing and they became millionaires. The number of those self-made millionaires starting from nothing that became a millionaire working a system that remotely looks like yours is precisely zero out of 10,167. Not one said they played the airline mile game, the high yield savings versus repay old credit card and 30 days out and back and forth gyration game. And that's how I made my million dollars, Dave. Not one, not Uno, not one, none, zero proof text that your system causes wealth building. Zero. There's zero humans. We have found that your system made rich zero, none. Was I unclear? I think that's as clear as mud right there, Dave. Well, the key is the fallacy is that he wouldn't be financially stable without this. You've become financially stable in spite of the credit card game. You decided that we're not going to have a mortgage anymore. Well, why would you do that when you can make a spread on that? I mean, you can, you know, reverse engineer this logic and just stay in debt the rest of your life if you think you can outsmart it. But clearly you value a debt-free life. And I think this credit card game is costing you more than you think. And here's a good test for one year. Use your own money and see if you don't save more than you have doing this credit card churning arbitrage gyration. Here it is. The number's actually on here. I got tired before the end of the email, but it's on here. Cash back to us has been $6,000 plus interest earned from this plus 8,000 from the interest earned. So 14,000 bucks over 10 years. Oh my God. Yeah. That's over a 10 year period. You made $1,400 a year doing this. It's worse than I thought. $1,400. I mean, dude, how hard is it to make $1,400 in England? You really have done, taken a lot of risk and played with a lot of bear traps, hoping not to get your arm ripped off by a bear trap in order to make 1,400 a year. And, and here's the other thing, George, a guy that writes us an email that says this, the chances of him not doing it anymore are zero. He's going to keep doing it. Yeah. He just wanted to, I guess, brag about how amazing well, or he wanted to be the subject of the latest Ramsey meme. I don't know, but, um, uh, that's a bad choice, dude. But the, uh, uh, yeah, part of the entertainment value of the show is, uh, you watch other people do something so stupid that you're entertained by it. And, um, that, that's sometimes why people watch the show or listen to the show. Sometimes they do it to learn from what we're teaching here. And then other times it's just human beings are entertaining and entertainment value. I think you just fell in the second bucket. YREFI refinances defaulted private student loans for struggling borrowers. Learn more at Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey.