You’re One Hard Decision Away From Financial Peace

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From the Ramsey Network, this is the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships.

I'm George Camill, joined by Dr.

John Deloney, and we're taking your calls at 888-825-5225.

That's the only only way to get some advice on this show and reminder is free.

So that's what you paid for.

April is in Miami to kick us off.

What's going on April?

Hey, how are you guys today?

Great.

How are you?

I'm all right.

I'm okay.

So I've tried the baby steps.

I started the baby sets, so not tried as if I quit.

Started the baby steps, cleared up about $13,000 worth of debt in the last six months.

Way to go.

Thank you.

So starting at $150,000, and I'm about $137 now.

I have a college-age student.

I have to save up $5,000 for him to go to the dorms this fall.

But the huge setback is my husband passed May 21st.

Oh, man.

I'm so sorry.

So sorry.

April, what was his name?

Paul.

Paul?

Was he a good guy?

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Was it real sudden?

No, he was sick for about a year.

I'm so sorry.

Well, that definitely puts a wrench in your baby steps plan.

That's wrenching in your life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So don't are you feeling guilty that you're not making progress or what?

How can we love you right now?

I don't know.

I just feel like I'm drowning.

Like every time I try to make a couple steps forward, it just goes right back.

I was prepared to pay off my car last December, but then my son got in the car accident.

So, you know, the blessing was I had the cash to buy him a car, and it kind of just pushed me back a little bit.

I had most of the money to put him in the dorms.

And then that same cash car, the engine blew up, so now I have to buy another one.

I spent all April on basically the beans and rice thing that Dave always talks about.

Fasted the entire month.

And

as soon as I was out of my fast, everything started going haywire.

And then my husband

passes on May 21st and his finances and bad.

And I feel like I can't make progress.

All right, let me tell you this real quick, okay?

Yeah.

I want you just to exhale for a second, okay?

And

all of this, it feels like chaos, it feels like everything's coming down on you.

I want you to exhale through this and we'll walk you through it, but you can't solve all of this in 30 days, okay?

You got way bigger fish to fry.

You just lost your ride or die, okay?

And I would tell you in any, anybody in any situation not to do anything for six to nine months.

Because you've got, like, most people don't know, and I'm going to say this crassly, but I'm saying it for people listening.

Most people don't know that after somebody you love passes away, it becomes a full-time job dealing with bank accounts and insurance and medical bills and who's calling what.

And is there a will?

Is there a $10,000 policy through some old job?

Like, wading through all that mess is a nightmare, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

You've mentioned on this call three different times when you have to bail out

this 17, 18, 19, 20-year-old son of yours.

I want to free you from that.

You can't keep doing that right now.

Do you want to?

Yeah, of course.

But you don't have the money or the bandwidth or the whatever.

What's he doing this summer to help with that $5,000 to get him into school in the fall?

He works.

Okay.

He works.

If you haven't already, I'd get on the phone with the university and let them know that dad just passed

and see if there's something they can do to help y'all out.

Okay.

And if your son takes a semester off, that's not the end of the world.

In fact, it's just fine.

The number of semesters I took off is comical and I'm doing okay.

Yeah.

My mom started in a community college and went all the way through that and she still ended up with her PhD and she still ended up teaching at Oxford.

So if he needs to take a semester off, if he needs to, everything in your life is different now and trying to keep it the way it was before this big loss and this big transition is it's going to drive your body to the madhouse because it knows things are different but you're still acting like they're not you get what i'm saying

yeah and i think i'm pretty sure i'm doing that because

my son's father somebody took his life 16 years ago and i know what that grief feels like and the process feels like and it really sucks and i think this time around i'm trying to power through it.

And it's not really working.

So let me tell you this.

Can I tell you what the greatest gift you can give to your son right now is?

Yeah.

To show him that you're really sad.

Because he's sad too.

But if he sees the other adult in his life trying to just power through and pretend like, all right, we're just moving forward.

He's going to feel crazy because he's heartbroken also.

Right.

Right.

So the greatest gift you can give him is to hold his hands and weep in front of him and say, your mama's heart's broken right now.

And

we have a whole bunch of business to do.

I do as the wife of this guy who just passed.

And you and I, we have a math problem to solve here.

And I love you too much to go borrow a bunch of money.

And I love you too much to put you in a car that neither of us can afford.

And I love you too much.

You know, all that stuff.

No amount of powering through is going to take away his grief right now.

Let me put it that way.

Everybody's hurting, right?

So can we give you permission to pause the baby steps?

Yeah.

As you pick up the pieces?

Yes.

And you can restart from a place of strength when you're ready.

Don't borrow any more money if you can at all avoid it.

But just keep up.

Yeah, make minimum payments.

Try to make sure that you guys have enough to cover those next upcoming expenses.

Get a little buffer.

Because did you lose an income in the process, too?

No, he was at low for like a year, so it was just me for quite a few.

Was there any life insurance?

There's nothing.

I have a policy.

He never got one.

Okay.

I'm so sorry.

So some of these reactions, here's some of the realities.

And George can walk you through them, but we're going to start from square one.

I want you to imagine, close your eyes real quick.

Imagine your life is on a table and it just got wiped clear.

And that's both terrifying and you're free to deal with the next important thing first.

And so we're going to go back to the OG four walls, house, utilities, food, and transportation.

We're going to do that before we get any more cars, before we worry about dorms, before we worry about any of that stuff.

We're going to take care of those things.

And how old is your son?

20 years.

Okay.

21, you said?

Yes.

Awesome.

He's old enough for you to both be at the table when you do this.

It'll be a gift to him.

Bring him into the process.

You don't need to to shield him from it.

Yeah, he's a grown man.

April, I want to gift you a financial coaching session with our team.

You're not going to pay for it, but we want to make sure that we can walk through your situation and not just leave you high and dry here without a plan to get some financial footing, build the foundation, and continue to plow through that debt.

You were doing a great job.

So I have full confidence that you're going to get out of debt.

But right now, we need to pause, deal with the grief, deal with all the pieces that have been left in your lap.

And I'm so sorry going through it, but I can tell tell that you're a warrior.

That's who you are.

You've been carrying a lot for a long time.

Just let it down, breathe, and take the right next step.

Hang on the line, we'll get you connected to one of our coaches.

Statistics show that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance, or they don't have any at all.

I don't understand this, John.

Why don't people want to take care of their family?

They think they're going to die or something.

Well, I used to be one of those guys, I didn't even think about it.

And one of my buddies said, Hey, the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids.

And I immediately went and got term life insurance.

That's a gut punch.

And oh, you're telling me, and for decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse.

They've lost somebody important to them.

Me too.

They don't know what to do next.

Me too.

I mean, you're going to have a crisis here, and you got two options while you're sitting and talking to a young widow.

She's concerned about how she's going to invest all this money properly and not mess this up, or she's concerned how she's going to eat tomorrow.

That's exactly.

These are the two options.

And turn your head.

Take care of your dadgum family, man.

Term life insurance can replace income, pay off debts, cover funeral expenses, so your family can actually have the opportunity to just be sad.

Yeah.

To just miss you.

That's exactly what it's supposed to be.

It's saying I love you to your family.

Term life insurance.

Jeff Zander and the team at Zander Insurance makes it easy and affordable.

I've used them personally for 25 years.

They're the only people I trust.

Go to Xander.com or call 800-356-4282.

Samantha's up next in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show, Samantha.

How can we help?

Hey, yeah, thanks for having me on.

I have kind of a messy situation.

That's the kind we take on the show.

Yeah.

So I have

my mother is basically asking me for money.

and I kind of know y'all's stance on that,

but she's asking

for a loan, basically, from me.

Wow.

Why you out of all people?

I can't dive into more of the details, but yeah.

Why is she coming to you and not the bank?

Yeah, so she is going through a divorce with my dad,

and they

sh she's not really going through with

alimony.

She doesn't want to push for that.

But instead, they decided to basically

my dad is going to keep the house that they lived in together and then they sold the house, their rental home.

And so she is taking that money,

but

she's going to have to pay the ten thirty, not ten thirty one tax on that.

And she's basically trying to avoid that.

How would that avoid

by getting the loan money from you?

So she's

her plan basically is to buy a couple other rental properties

to avoid the tax.

And she can't afford those properties, hence the loan from you.

Right.

Hence the loan from me and she can't afford to take out a loan herself.

Can I just make a wild guess here?

That she's had ideas about things and you've been the person fixing them for most of your life.

Wow, you're spot on.

No way.

Can I just say this?

George will walk you through the money.

Please don't do this.

And here's why.

She made a choice.

I don't want to ask for alimony.

She made a choice.

I don't want to sit down like adults and actually divide this estate.

And she made a choice like, we need to, you need to either buy out the equity of this house that we shared together because we're getting divorced.

Right.

And she came up with a scheme.

The only problem is she can't afford that scheme.

And she's like, ah, like always, daughter will bail me out.

Yeah.

And what she has done is she has put, you know, like, you know, our stance on like taking out a HELOC.

And

besides taking out like a HELOC, it's bad math, but you're putting your house on the block, right?

You're mortgaging your home for a thing, which for all of human history would be clinical insanity.

But now we call it a good deal, right?

What she has done is she has mortgaged her relationship with you.

That's what it feels like.

It's exactly, it's what's happened, and that's an unfair position that any parent could put any child in.

Now, if she was destitute and your dad was a serial cheater and had just left her,

totally different situation.

I got a ton of compassion for that.

And I would probably be telling you, hey, probably need to move mom in, right?

That's not here at all.

No.

She's trying to come up with some schemes like she always has, trying to come up with a deal, yet not have a hard conversation because that makes her uncomfortable.

And then she calls you to fix it.

Whether that's you showing up on a night's notice to do dinner that you don't want to do or to come to Christmas that you don't have the money to come to, or this time it's just give me cash.

And at some point, you're going to have to say no.

And it can be now, it's going to be 10 years from now, but this will never stop.

It will just increase in intensity until you decide, I got to be done with this.

I love you too much, mom, to continue to put our relationship on the block like this.

I know.

and so i i had kind of communicated that i i didn't really want to bring money into our relationship because i i mean i've listened to your show and the ramsey show for a while so i kind of had that wisdom in my mind and i knew that i didn't and i just instinctively knew that it didn't feel right um to bring that into our relationship so i tried to communicate that to her and she

She's a little bit of a loose cannon sometimes with her words.

So I try to give her grace, but she like

back of me.

What did she say?

She lost it on you.

I got to hear.

What'd she say?

It's tough because like it's hard to do phone calls necessarily, but I know that's the easiest way to hash this kind of stuff out.

But

this time you were just texting.

So I sent her

not explaining it just so I could get all my words out for her.

And then she responded, well, money is not going to be in our relationship at all if the IRS takes it all and I'm and you're taking back out

exactly.

Yeah, you know, you know,

that's exactly what somebody says when you sit down at like a car dealership and you're like, hey, this is all I have.

And they're like, oh, so because you hate your family, you don't want to get into this upgraded vehicle for

it's the same exact thing.

She's trying to sales pick up warranty stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And she's been doing this your entire life.

How old are you, Samantha?

I'm 27, and we're actually expecting our first baby in August.

Oh, congrats!

That's exciting.

Can we ask this question?

Can you even afford to do this?

So that was the other piece that I wanted to share and

give you more detail.

So

I

have been given a trust through an uncle that passed away like, I don't know, I want to say five years ago now.

Her brother.

So

it's actually, well, I guess it's a great uncle.

It's my dad's

uncle.

So

I was given a lump sum of money and it's just been kind of in my account, my

investor's account.

And

I decided to give my to give my mother $100,000 of it.

Oh, boy.

Just as a gift

because she get this, this, she was originally in the will,

but then she

upset my great uncle, and he ended up taking her out.

And you decided, you know what?

How much due?

How much money is here?

Yeah, how much of money is here?

Like, what, like, what can I give?

No, how much is in that account right now?

I didn't feel like I deserved what I got.

I have, I put,

we put,

I want to say like 200 into into our house no how much is in this trust what's in it right now

right now I I've already given her her 100 no what's left what's left is yeah what's left is 100,000 so that's what did she do with the hundred thousand dollars that you gave her

so she used that in combination with the the profits of the rental that she sold with my dad to buy a home

outright okay no more money she has that but she needs to do another one in order to satisfy her.

She doesn't need to do anything.

She wants to continue scheming and use Bank of Samantha to fund this operation, and it stops today.

She's got quite the elaborate spreadsheet of Christianity.

And if she's done so well that she owes so much taxes, welcome to America and Capitalism.

She should celebrate and have a party.

And by the way, the words, anytime you think the words, I don't deserve,

dot, dot, dot, anything that comes after that, that is, we could unpack it for an hour.

That is shame-based language that you developed in your home because for your entire life, your mom said, You better be really damn grateful that you got me as your mom.

Now, you go fix this, do this, show up for this, and take whatever you want, whatever you feel, and shove it down because you are in service to me.

Yeah.

And you married somebody else, y'all met a human together that's about to enter this crazy world, and it's over.

It's over.

And you, I want you to choose guilt over resentment.

Feel bad.

That's wired into you.

I've been saying that out loud.

Guilt over resentment every time, but I just like feeling it.

Here's the two options.

Either you're going to have to face the music and realize that this relationship hasn't really been there the whole time, or you become creditor and she becomes debtor and the relationship gets even worse than it is now.

Those are the only, they're both really hard options.

They're really hard.

But one frees you and stops her misbehavior and has her start to face conflict for herself instead of look to you to bail her out for another time.

I will say this, and this is going to sound awful, but I'm just going to say what it is.

I can't imagine a world where I would come up with a bunch of financial schemes and then call my daughter.

She's nine at the time, so 20 years.

I can't imagine a world where I would call her and say, I came up with a scheme.

You need to do this or the government's taking us all out.

I can't imagine putting her on the block for my insanity.

This has got to be the time you say, no more.

No more.

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Libby is in Seattle, Washington, up next.

Libby, welcome to the show.

Hi, thanks for taking my call.

Sure.

How can we help?

My question is: I am in baby step six, but I do not own my home in Seattle.

I rent.

I do have a rental property in Texas, and I'm getting a divorce.

I have enough money to pay off the rental in Texas that's currently using my VA entitlement.

Should I go ahead and do that before I buy a primary residence?

Hmm.

What's going on with this divorce?

Do you know the financials yet?

Oh, yeah.

It's generally amicable.

We're generally splitting things 50-50.

Okay.

So what will you get out of this divorce as far as assets, numbers-wise?

So we decided to liquidate our money market accounts, not retirement accounts.

So, I'll have about $180,000 available to me.

I could use it for a down payment on my own home, or I could use it to pay off this rental.

Got it.

What's left on the rental?

I don't have income.

About $160,000.

Okay, and do you have any other debt?

No, just the rental.

Okay, and what is your payment on the rental every month?

I'm going backwards.

So, I pay $27,000, but the rental income is only $2,200.

Cool, cool, cool.

Why not just sell the rental?

It's sentimental reasons.

I bought it with some inheritance money from my father who passed away, who wanted it to be used for rental.

I could do that, but I'm not quite ready to let go of it in that way yet.

A stranger's living there and is robbing you of $500 every single month for the pleasure.

Correct?

I haven't looked at it that way.

Yeah.

Okay.

So imagine yourself sitting

at a Denny's at 6:30 in the morning with your dad having coffee.

If he knew you were getting divorced, knew you were heartbroken, knew you were about to be homeless in Seattle, would he say, No, no, no, no, honey, I wanted it just for this.

Or would he say, baby girl, I want you to have a home.

Go get a house.

You're talking to two dads of two daughters.

I can guarantee you what both of us would would say.

If your tenant has more stability than you, the landlord, you got it backwards.

So I would much prefer you find some stability in a very chaotic time.

And if you want to get back into the rental game sometime, you can.

But right now, I feel like we need to build some foundation and build our own financial future.

Okay.

Even if this rental was cash flowing, I still might go, hey, do you really want the rental?

It feels like you kind of fell into it.

And I understand that it's sentimental.

I'm not trying to take away from that or diminish it.

But right now, you need a place to live.

And how cool would it be to be able to pay cash for a place?

What could you sell this rental for?

I could probably sell it for $315, but in Seattle, that will not go far.

And if I did pay off the rental, I would have $2,200 a month in income coming in that I could then add and make a house payment on.

Yeah, but if you had $315,000 plus the $160,000 you're about to have, you can buy a house for $450, for $450,000.

Right, but

it would only be $315,000.

$160,000.

So let's say you walk away from the rental with $130,000 plus the $180,000 you're getting.

Is that fair?

Right.

Yep.

Okay.

So that gives you, you're back at $310,000 in cash.

And could you use that as a down payment on a place nearby?

Yeah, for sure.

And I promise you this.

Here's what your dad was telling you.

I want my baby girl to be okay.

And as you know, all of us dads think we know what's best for our kid.

And we give them all of these things that we want to be just the way we want them to be in their life.

And then we pass away, we move on, life happens.

And so you have to ask underneath that gift, what was your dad trying to tell you?

I want my baby girl to be okay.

Not, I want you to be a landlord with

6,000 miles between you and this property.

I want you to lose money every month.

I want you to, because of my generosity to you, I want you to lose $6,000 a year, not to mention any repairs.

And I want you to have to pay a company to go in there and do basic things because you live so far away.

And I want you to consider every month you don't have a place to live.

That's not what your dad meant.

No.

I'm not really ready to buy, though.

Okay, then don't.

Then have $300,000 in a high-yield savings account.

And then you make the $500 a month instead of letting your renter beat you $500 a month.

You would make over $1,000 passively from that savings account, literally passively.

Not like it's passive income, bro.

Just if you parked it in a high-yield savings right now with the current rates, you'd be looking at about $12,000 a year instead of losing $6,000 a year.

at minimum, which is the current status.

So I'm totally fine.

You went through a divorce.

Let's just breathe, go rent somewhere, sign a six or 12-month lease, and then begin the home shopping process later on down the road when you've got, and keep stacking cash on top of that because you'll be completely debt-free.

And what's your current income?

I make about $140 a year.

Amazing.

So this extra two grand that you maybe could have gotten if you paid it off, I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze.

You're the secret sauce here.

You are very talented, very skilled.

You make great money.

And making $140 with no debt and no tenant, you're going to be able to stack up some cash, won't you?

Yep, yeah, that's definitely true.

So think about that.

You're going to gain 12 grand in the savings account in the next 12 months if you just park the money, if you sell it.

Plus, how much could you stack every month from your income?

Oh, definitely a couple thousand.

Say three grand?

Four grand?

Probably three.

Okay.

That's another 36 grand a year on top of that, on top of your 12.

So basically, you're going to have 360 grand to put put for a down payment, which is incredible 12 months from now while you rent and get your, you know, get some foundation underneath you.

I like that plan.

That feels a lot more freeing to me than being a landlord at this stage of my life.

Are you still in service?

Are you getting out?

No, I am a veteran.

It's using my VA entitlement actually right now, the rental.

I want to be able to use it again.

And then my spouse is still active, or my ex-spouse is still active.

I'm used to being a long distance landlord.

I've done it for years.

I know, but that means you're also used to not sleeping a full night all the way through, too.

I would, I'm just telling you.

I have a nine-year-old little girl, and I know you're not a little girl.

You're a grown woman, you're a veteran, you're a gangster.

I know that.

You're very smart.

But I don't care how old I get, how old she gets.

I'm going to want my daughter to be okay.

And beneath okay means in my world is in the 21st century, I'm gonna solve for peace.

I'm not gonna solve for maximum ROI on every page.

Look around at our culture, man.

Everybody's burned to the ground.

I want my daughter to, when she walks in, whatever home she lives in, to walk in with a smile on her face and her shoulders drop.

Not, okay, I got to check my email to see what the tenants did.

Did the check clear?

Do I have this?

Okay, I'm minus $500.

I don't want that life for her.

Do I want my daughter to have a bunch of real estate?

That's what she wants.

That'd be awesome.

And I guarantee you, your old man would be sitting there smiling at the woman you've become, right?

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Is that true?

Yeah, yeah, he definitely would be.

Of course he would.

He'd be like, you make what?

And you'd be like, that's right, Dad.

It'd be awesome.

And then he'd be like, you're losing 500 bucks a month.

And you'd be like, sorry, man.

Right?

That's exactly what he would say.

So you can hang on to it, man.

If you were my daughter, you were my sister, you were my mom, I would tell you, put that house on the block today, call a realtor in Texas and sell that thing, have it sold by the end of the summer, and have $300,000 in a high-yield savings account, just making free money for yourself for a minute while you figure out life after marriage.

You're going to feel invincible.

Dude, you're going to sleep for the first time in ages.

With no meds.

That was really helpful, actually.

Thank you.

Does that make sense?

Did a good deed today, John.

We were helpful.

If nothing else, we got to help Libby, and it was an honor.

I'm proud of you, dude.

And thank you for your service.

You're amazing.

You're awesome.

That's it.

Those sentimental gifts are hard to navigate, whether it's a home, whether it's a guitar, but whatever it is.

And I always want to get underneath that.

What was the sentiment behind that gift?

Yeah, because it's not the asset itself.

It's the person and their character and the memories we created with them.

But it's not the box

that is somehow strings attached to that.

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Christina is up next in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Christina.

Hi, thanks for taking my call.

Sure.

What's going on?

So

dealing with some of those emergencies, it's actually a medical thing that came up for my daughter.

And so I'm trying to figure things out with my husband if we should use all of our emergency fund, if we should take out a home equity loan, or if there's a better way.

We're just not figuring out right now.

And I'm sorry, I'm emotional.

Okay, what happened to your baby girl?

Well, she's 13,

and we just found out a couple of months ago that she has scoliosis, and she needs surgery.

Okay.

So we were walking through things trying to avoid surgery, see if there was something we could do.

But it's progressive, and that's just the nature of the disease.

And she's skeletally immature, so she's got a lot of growth left.

And that's when

they have the rapid growth is when the scoliosis gets worse.

Her curve is already at, like, I think we just met with a surgeon on Monday, and I think they measured it at 80 degrees, if I'm not mistaken.

She has an S curve.

The top one is the one that's really concerning.

She's at 80 degrees.

The top curve is either 80 or 90.

I think think it's 80.

And the bottom curve is around 40.

It's her, yeah.

So her eyes.

When we were trying to do things to avoid surgery, the exercises and things, we went to an alternative medicine.

So they were doing physical therapy, chiropractic, different things.

Her bottom rib cage started sticking out more.

And so we're just really concerned.

We don't feel like it's something where we can wait and stack up cash.

Yeah, how soon does the surgery need to happen, according to the surgeon?

Two surgeons both said this fall.

So

September, October, that's what they're saying.

So after your health insurance covers what it's going to cover, are you talking about being out of pocket here?

So the

insurance is co as far as I can tell,

because we've been paying for testing and things we have to do, MRIs and stuff,

the insurance will cover the hospital.

This is something with the surgeon

and this particular surgeon that we've found, because we don't want to cut through her back and everything,

we'd rather spare her back muscles.

So we found this surgery called anterior scoliosis correction.

The surgeon, because you know the medical industry is a mess, says, well, we're going to, this is how we operate.

You know, if you pay this deposit,

this is all you will pay out of pocket.

We will bill your insurance.

And then, if our insurance doesn't cover what the surgeons are requesting, it's fine.

Like, we don't pay anymore to the surgeon.

So, you just pay this deposit no matter what.

Yes.

Okay, so that's the number now.

If we're focusing on just the facts here, what is that number?

$50,000.

That's quite the deposit.

And how much do you have in your emergency fund?

$20,000.

Christine, I'm going to be honest honest with you.

I'm not an expert here, but this is not passing my smell test.

Okay.

Well, please tell me what is it.

Well,

have you sat down with another potential surgeon?

Because here's the thing.

This is going to, let's say you write a $50,000 check.

And what I don't like about this is we don't have any idea what this surgery is going to actually cost,

up or down.

And so if this ends up being a thirty thousand dollar procedure

then you you're out if it ends up being a million dollar procedure technically you might win right

i understand what you're saying and the their financial documents it does say you know if our insurance was to pay the full bill then we would get money back from that deposit but why are we doing this on the back end let's contact insurance and find out what surgery they will cover and where ahead of time

okay Okay.

Well, and

I can ask about,

maybe I'm being too particular, but

I want to ask the best for my daughter.

I want the best for my daughter, so I don't want to do a spinal fusion surgery.

And I'm pretty confident they would do that.

But that's where they cut through the back at like a foot and a half, and they put in a metal rod.

And that's not the...

But I'm saying for the particular surgery you want, are there other surgeons in the general area who can do that, but through your insurance on the front end?

You're right.

I haven't looked at that.

So that's what would be my next fight: talking with insurance, figuring out what they will cover.

Will they cover this exact surgery?

Okay.

Where is in network that they will cover?

Then we know the exact number, and it's likely going to be way less than 50,000 out-of-pocket because you have an out-of-pocket maximum, and likely, I don't know your exact insurance, but they likely will cover 100% beyond that.

And the other part of this is, is the moment you walk out of any surgery, whether it's posterior or anterior, any surgery, especially in a child, you immediately go to rehab.

And your insurance company, if the doctor says we have to do this follow-up care as an extension of this procedure, then they should cover that too.

And I'm worried about any kind of deal that I signed with a doctor, I put a period at the end of it.

I've had this happen.

I looked at a, I had to go to ER a couple years ago.

It was on Christmas Eve for crying out loud.

I did something totally dumb, ended up in the ER, and I said, I will pay you right this second, but I can never get another bill from you.

I said, I want you to record this.

And they're like, Done.

You will never get a bill from us.

I got another big old bill from the doctor.

And they were like, hospital is like, no, no, you paid the hospital.

That wasn't about us.

We don't even.

And so my fear is some way, somewhere along the line, you're putting a period at the end of a sentence.

You're basically signing a contract, but you don't know if you're going to get billed from the doctors, the parking lot attendants, the physicians, assistant like i just want to go in totally clear eyed and here's where this is important you said this best and i i want to applaud you you want to get the best for your daughter and i don't know about you but when i get to thinking about what's best for my daughter's care i get a little bit worked up and a little bit like fight or flight like i got to do it right now i got to solve all and so what i need is i need somebody that i trust who will be an advocate for me that when i'm like i don't want this kind of surgery that would say this is the kind of surgery that's that's right right now.

Or I want to get this done right now.

You can wait till November and dot, dot, dot, dot, dot.

And so knowing that about yourself, is there a social worker or a medical advocate or somebody in your church who's a physician who could advocate with you and explain this to you?

So you're not just going down YouTube rabbit holes, making yourself kind of bonkers.

You get what I'm saying?

And I'm just saying that that's what I do.

And I end up, I don't, I'm just terrified.

You're going to sign your name to a piece of paper that says, you owe me 50,000 bucks.

Then you're going to get a massive bill from the hospital.

Then you're going to get another bill from the rehab center.

And this thing's going to crush all because

medical debt is what destroys more families than anything else.

Yeah.

And so it's just stepping back from the emergency of all of this and saying, hold on, before I sign a piece of paper, I want to make sure I'm clear-eyed on this.

Yeah.

Well, and I know that's why, you know, one thing that you guys always say is, you know, don't jump into things right away.

And so I've been trying to like

get through the anxiety.

You're being just like all of us would be.

I don't want, I don't, you know what I mean?

And you better do it now if you're not.

I would be living in a cloud, unable to think clearly.

And so we're just trying to help you think of options that don't involve you out of desperation taking a HELOC out on your home and just writing any check that they ask for.

And so I would, number one, use your emergency fund.

This is an emergency.

That's what it's for.

And so don't feel bad using it, but don't take out a line of credit.

I'd rather you get a bill from the hospital and we figure out a payment plan on the back end, likely with no interest, versus taking out a HELOC with variable interest.

So do not go into debt for this.

Do all of the homework and research you can.

And we're wishing you and that little girl the very best with her healing and recovery.

This is the Ramsey Show.

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From the Ramsey Network, this is the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships.

I'm Ramsey personality George Camill here with best-selling author Dr.

John Deloney.

We're taking your calls at 888-825-5225.

You give us a call, we'll help you take the right next step for your money and your life.

Mallory is in Salt Lake City up next.

What's going on, Mallory?

Hey, I'm just calling in.

So I'm having an issue with my husband not wanting to combine finances with me and also not disclosing his finances with me.

And I'm wondering if it's one year, exactly one year.

And this has been happening since you guys have been dating or what?

Or is this a new development?

Since we've been dating.

You know nothing about this guy when it comes to money.

Correct.

Like, you don't know what he makes?

Nope.

Wow.

I've asked.

He gives me, he tells me it varies.

And I say, okay, well, what what does that mean?

What did you make last month?

He said, I don't know.

Probably the same as you.

All right, there's no way this happens in a black hole.

What are other areas in your marriage where you don't really know what's going on?

What do you mean?

Like.

This kind of person doesn't operate in a vacuum, meaning they're not the perfect upstanding ride or die husband, partner, spouse that's all in on building a future with you.

And just this one thing:

you can't know anything about my finances, how much I owe, how much I make, where I spend my money.

You shut your mouth on that stuff.

But everything else we're aligned on.

Where are other places y'all are not aligned?

Or, let me ask it a different way.

Where are other areas where your gut just knows something's not right?

I have caught him texting another girl before.

Yep.

But other than that, what do you mean, other than that?

That's like the whole thing when you get married right is you are the person

right

so here's the truth i i i know a lot of people who just are not comfortable for a variety of reasons with sharing a single checking account right i know that and i know what i think about it i know what me and my wife do i know what george and whitney do but i get that hey i i was married to somebody and they took everything or my father was financially abusive and i feel unsafe i get that

okay

but if he's not also showing, here's my bank account.

Here's all my checking account.

It's not, it's not about secrecy.

It's about safety.

You have a much bigger issue on your hands.

You have a person who's deceiving you.

And in this situation, it's very rare for somebody to act like that who doesn't have somebody on the side or is not struggling with some sort of substance abuse or gambling challenges.

Okay.

It's not 100%.

You may go through his checking account and realize, oh, he's kind of a great guy.

He's just perfect.

He just is weird about this.

I would be willing to bet that's not the case.

Okay.

Do you have the passcodes to his social media too?

No.

Do you have the passcodes to his phone?

Can you just pick up his phone and read his text whenever you want?

No.

Okay, then you do not have a marriage.

Okay.

Do you get that?

And you know that too, right?

I know it's a harsh way for me to say that, but you know that intuitively, like in your chest, right?

It It seems like, you know, I mean, he is,

I live with him, we have a child together.

You know,

I mean, that happens all the time without two people wanting to build a life together.

I want to build a life, is what I'm getting at.

And behavior is a language, and he's being very clear with you.

I do not want to build a life with you.

He claims he does, though.

But behavior is a language.

Right, but he wants to buy a home together.

Of course he does.

You're going to pay for it.

He can do whatever he wants.

He can see other people.

He can spend money.

However, he can do whatever he wants.

How he wants to buy a house with you.

How do the finances work right now?

Just out of a dark curiosity?

Because I don't think I'm going to like that.

Yeah,

we're in a rental home, and we split the rent 50-50.

We split utilities 50-50.

And we split our child's daycare 50-50.

So we kind of operate as roommates' financially.

So there's no joint account.

You just send him the money money and he pays all the bills?

No, like we Benmo the landlord, and then his credit card is linked to the daycare.

Mine's linked to the daycare.

Like everything is done separately.

We just pay our own half.

Okay.

You hear this as you're saying it, right?

What'd you say?

Like, I want you just to, like,

absorb what you just described is how I lived with every roommate I've ever had.

Yeah.

The four dudes I lived with in college, this is how we did it.

Minus a kid.

I guess I'm looking for the love in all of this.

Other than him getting you pregnant.

I had a conversation with him a million times where I'm like, hey, we're operating as roommates.

Like, why can't I actually had a financial advisor booked for us today?

The financial, and we already did the consultation last week went well.

My husband agreed to move on to like the second step, which was meeting with him today.

And then all of a sudden this morning, he backed out.

I know, but you're not hearing what I'm saying, okay?

Okay.

Behavior is a language.

I don't care what words are coming out of his mouth.

I can tell George all day long, I'm your best friend, man.

I'm your best friend.

And then I'm punching him in the mouth and I'm keying his car.

That was two hours ago.

That was two hours ago, literally.

That's right.

Like my actions would show him what I really think about him.

And so it doesn't matter what words are coming out of his mouth.

He's been saying words to you for years.

That's how he got you in bed.

That's how he got you to move in with him.

That's how he got you to the courthouse, right?

But his actions, and you want this to work so bad, and I'm heartbroken with you on this.

I get it.

Did you guys have the child before you were married?

He got me pregnant like two months before we officially got married.

Okay, so you were engaged at the time.

Yes.

Okay.

I was just wondering what caused him to propose and even move forward with this commitment if he really wasn't wanting any

that's a good question that I think about a lot.

I do think potentially he's hiding debt, and maybe he thought I could be a financial asset to him.

Correct.

Correct.

You'll take care of his kills.

You'll pay half his rent.

Collections in the trash can as well with his name on it the other day.

I'm getting butterflies in my heart just hearing this love story.

He thought I'd be a good financial asset.

Hey, do me a favor.

Pull your credit report, okay?

Make sure he's not taking debt out in your name.

Correct.

And I would freeze it if I were you.

And here's why.

Freeze my credit report?

Yes.

Because you're married now.

And he has access to your social security number.

He can take out debt on anything and you won't know.

Because it wouldn't occur to you to do that to somebody else.

But you're dealing with a person who's untrustworthy.

Right.

You know what I mean?

He filed our taxes jointly with his CPA and I've been contacting them like daily and they still don't have an update.

And it's like what, halfway through the year?

What do you mean update?

You're asking for your tax return, a copy of it.

They won't give it to you?

They won't.

No.

Are you confident that he filed your taxes?

Whenever I talk to their receptionist, he reassures me that they have.

Okay, just so you know, George and I got our taxes done at the same place this year, and we walked out with our return.

And I walked out with my spouse, who was there the whole time.

Yeah.

And our returns are pretty complicated, but we walked out with them.

All right, I'm so sorry you're dealing with this.

I can't make the decision for you on what to do next, but I can tell you this is bad.

It's not a healthy marriage, is what we're telling you.

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Melissa's up next in Richmond, Virginia.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Melissa, what's going on with you today?

Thanks for taking my call.

I'm I'm hoping to get some guidance I guess because I'm currently in 2.3 million dollars in debt and I don't even know where to start to try picking up the pieces and moving forward

who who gave you two million dollars

so

I wish no um it's actually a combination of uh business debt from a business that we had to close medical debt um we actually had two medical emergencies happen within days of each other.

The biggest one being my youngest had an accident and was life-slided to another hospital with multiple surgeries, hospital stay.

She actually just had another surgery last week.

And then we found out that because of everything else that was going before that, I missed filling out some paperwork and we lost our health insurance.

My husband's a combat disabled veteran, so we we had Champ VA, and they've denied all the bills, even though we've gotten all of that taken care of, and we're back on there, but they aren't paying for anything that happened when it was.

You had a gap in coverage, and then life crap hit the fan.

And now you're on the hook for how much total in medical debt?

Her medical debt is, I haven't gotten any of the stuff on this surgery, but thankfully insurance covers a majority of it.

Probably about $400,000 for just her

stuff.

How much is the business out of the 2.3?

Probably about

2 million.

No, not even.

1.8 plus about another 100, so about 1.9 million.

What kind of business was this?

I had a family entertainment center,

but like we had actually signed a 10-year lease about two years ago, and then within weeks of that, we actually had a house fire.

So I was trying to run the original business,

get the new location ready because we were going to expand.

There were so many delays and financial stuff that just kept going.

So the businesses were literally.

What happened in the Entertainment Center?

At the same time that all of the medical stuff happened, my landlord decided not to renew my lease and we had to close

pretty much abruptly.

And so what did you use the $2 million on?

Well, a lot of it is the

location that we had signed our lease on wants their money.

But you said they kicked you out?

Are you talking about your personal residence kicked you out?

No, so we actually had an existing location and then we actually signed a lease on a new location, and it was going to be larger.

We were expanding,

and

that landlord, when I told them, Hey, we're not moving forward with this, they've sent the paperwork through their attorney, they want their money for

10 years of a lease agreement.

Yes, how much was that

$1.8 million?

And you didn't fight it?

Plus, attorney fees.

Do you have your own own attorney

i do um my attorney's telling me to file bankruptcy and move on but i i mean besides that portion of it the rest of it's you know like my mortgage my car payment my house you know like all of that stuff and i don't feel right just saying i signed on the dotted line so

i'm not going to pay this and just move on like it doesn't sit right with me but i also don't know how in the world to

fix things either

Well, I would sell everything we can.

I don't know how much there is to sell.

And I assume you guys have $0 to your name right now.

Is that correct?

$0 to our name.

And at this point, we have nothing really to sell.

We had the house fire.

We lost 90% of our belongings.

I'm still doing it.

Do you not have homeowners' insurance that covered the contents?

I'm still doing the content claim with insurance.

The process that they're having me do is it's almost the equivalent of three full-time jobs with how detailed of a list they want.

They want me to list literally every item I'm claiming, when I bought it, where I bought it, how much it was worth.

And what's your husband doing right now?

Currently, the second, he's dealing with my daughter.

Are you guys working full-time?

No, my husband's disabled.

He has physical diagnosis issues as well as brain injury.

So he's 100% total and permanent veteran.

So is he on disability and getting paid?

Yes.

And that's

thankfully that's the income we have.

That's about $4,000 a month.

Our mortgage is almost $2,000 a month.

And are you bringing in any income right now?

I do everything I can to bring in some money.

Like I do like side hustles and stuff, but nothing, you know concrete i'm going to get paid every week or every other week kind of thing i've tried working out of the home but my husband can't care for our daughter's medical needs solely because with his brain injury he forgets steps and things like that and so medication is it's missed and there's problems so

I've tried working like, hey, I can work from this time or this time, but I really wasn't getting these phone calls back.

Divided up, and I don't know if this, if your schedule with the, if your 10-year lease was a graduated one or if it was just like the same year over year,

what was one year's worth, like year one, what was that agreement worth?

Or was it just split evenly over 10 years?

It split evenly over the 10 years.

And you guys were paying $15,000 a month for this lease?

Yes.

As well as, I mean, the landlord had paid some money towards, you know, some

remodel that needed to be done,

but we were the ones paying, like doing the floor and everything like that.

And so we also dumped in a lot of personal money, business money to

they broke the lease.

I'm just confused why you don't just try to continue this business to at least bring in some income if you already have the lease agreement paid for 10 years.

Oh, no, we haven't paid it.

He wants the money.

No, but you know, why don't you move your business to this and keep your business running that was doing so good you thought about expanding it?

Honestly, my mental health, I don't think I can handle one more thing at this point.

I'm barely hanging on.

But you said you took out $2 million in loans.

So where did that money go if it didn't go to the landlord?

No, I didn't.

take the loan out for that.

That's what we were guaranteed to pay.

1.7 million of this two million dollars is in a

is in a decade-long lease so you're just on the hook to the landlord it's not like you owe a loan

correct it's not like a small business loan so

have you sat down and said look we have nothing yeah we're not going to get

one year or six months worth and i will i will be on the hook for that and y'all need to rent this out to somebody else because because here's the deal they can take whatever that i don't know what that number is divided by two they can take $200,000 from you guys

or they can get nothing because you're going to file bankruptcy and they're going to lose everything.

I think that's kind of where my attorney is at this point because every time he has brought up negotiations, they flat out are like, no.

Well, here's the deal.

I wouldn't worry about the business debt right now because it's kind of monopoly money.

And the medical debt, I'm wondering if you can work with the VA to have a portion or all of this forgiven.

The VA, we've done the paperwork for them and they still, they keep declining those charges.

We weren't covered at the time.

I've made payment arrangements with the doctor's offices, the hospital, the flight, the life flight company.

They won't negotiate or settle each month.

Pardon?

They won't negotiate or settle at this point?

No, well, the life flight company said that instead of paying like a hundred and something thousand dollars, if I paid in one lump sum, they'll give me a discount and it's only $62,000.

Yay.

Right?

This is going to be a lot of fighting, and I understand it's taking a toll on your mental health.

Your family's been through a lot, but you're going to have to claw your way out of this one piece by one piece, one day at a time, and just take the right next step.

And hopefully, your attorney can help you fight some of these battles.

So sorry, Melissa.

Yeah, I can't help you.

This one's too big.

Sorry.

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Jennifer's up next in Birmingham, Alabama.

What's going on, Jennifer?

Hey, thanks so much for taking my call.

I really appreciate it.

Sure.

I guess the best way to start is just to jump right into it.

I got a bit of interesting news from my husband this weekend, and he let me know that his parents need to do some big repairs on their house, and he doesn't think they're in the financial position to take care of it.

And he wants us to come in and pay for these repairs.

So a couple of things,

happy to help, but my biggest question was why can't they do it themselves?

You know,

they also have a grown,

okay.

They also have a grown son living with them as well, so two income home, if you will, and

that's their household, their responsibility.

So just questions I have.

As it turns out, you know, he clearly knows more about this than i do and their grown son has had some issues with drugs and divorces all sorts of things but kind of a mess so they have spent a massive amount of money and it sounds like they have sent themselves into oblivion trying to pull him back from the abyss and so now they're in this position that they're in um

So to be fair, they haven't asked for money, but they have in the past.

So

I'm just struggling with what to do.

I I want to be able to help them, but I'm having a hard time sweeping in and helping three grown adults who've got their car stuck in the mud, you know,

with their own decision.

And it's not the first time.

As a Christian, as a believer, right, not the first time.

Like, I feel like.

How much did you give last time?

And what was it for?

Well, let me tell you, we had a tough conversation, and I said, I don't believe we should be buying their son a vehicle because of his drug use, and he wrecked three in the past year.

And so as your wife, if you think we ought to, I will, you know, it's your call to make.

But so he took my advice and he said no.

And it was tough because the whole family got on the phone and derailed me for saying, how dare you?

We need this.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

He told them I would like to, but my wife said no.

Yeah.

Oh, boy.

Yo, this is not about your in-laws.

You've lost respect for your husband.

The fact that he even brought this back up.

Yeah.

Deal with that issue.

Well,

because that's the issue on the table here.

There's a proxy war going on.

Yeah, this whole thing.

And you just said, well, it's his choice to, why is it his choice to make if it's y'all's money?

Right.

Well, that's, you know,

we don't have, we have a joint savings account, checking account.

We deal with everything as a unit, as a whole.

But in this particular time, he said, hey, I have some extra money.

I want to use my money.

And I'm like, this is the first time you've said my money in our whole marriage.

It's ours.

You know, we're

going to have to do it.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

And he's so generous.

He's so kind.

He's not withholding anything.

But in his mind,

you know, baby brother, the guy who's got his life together and a wife, and they're doing financially okay.

And he, you know, he wants to sweep in and help them.

And I just, I feel like it's a bit manipulative from his parents.

It's manipulative, manipulative all the way down the line

from brother to parents, parents to son, and then him to you.

Using you as the scapegoat to go, well, I'd love to.

I'm a real generous guy.

You know what I mean?

How dare any husband get on the phone with his family and be like, hey, I would help you out.

My wife, the drag here.

No husband does that.

That's not true.

Husbands do that all over the place.

No self-respecting grown man does that.

They look at their own brother.

And even if, like, there's been choice decisions I've made, and my wife has said, I don't agree with this.

And my wife is generally wiser than me because I'm impulsive.

And if how dare me get on the phone to my family and be like, hey, guys, I'd help out, but you know her.

No, I say, hey, I'm not going to write you this check.

And I mean, my family didn't ask for money, but you get what I'm saying.

That's the issue here.

And then he came back to you.

Did brother wreck this car, by the way?

Oh, no, no, y'all said, I'm sorry, y'all said no.

Y'all said no.

What what did he end up doing to get a car say no we did say no and then he got a car

from what whatever means i don't remember it's been about five years ago but uh surprise surprise he wrecked that car as well oh yeah um so here's that here's what i'm trying to prove to you though

if you don't help them out

they're gonna find another way won't they

yes they ought my opinion let me i don't want to be cold-hearted but you ought to you're grown yeah and it's up to them listen if they want to go take out a helock to do all these repairs that's their decision.

But you don't have to be enabling this.

Sorry about your living condition.

Sorry they suck.

We're doing just fine.

And then the truth is, we work really hard and have jobs that I don't particularly like, but I have,

these are my goals.

Do you have like savings for future home repairs, knowing that eventually home is going to need repair?

Exactly.

Exactly.

So let's like teach them how to make a budget if you want to give them some tools, But I wouldn't just throw money at it because then you just become Bank of Jennifer and they come back six months from now when they have another problem.

Well, you gave it to it last time.

What's different about this time?

And I want to reframe it.

I don't ever want to put myself in a position where, and it's hard in this current cultural climate we have.

I do this, so they should fill in the blank.

Right.

I don't ever want to prop myself up with, I'm working a job that I hate, so I get this and you don't get, I don't want to live like that because the reality is my wife and my daughter can get hit by a car on the way home from the grocery store today and my whole life is different, right?

But what I do want to say is this.

I know that giving them money is not helping, period.

It's not.

And so

you can do what you want.

You and your husband can do what you want.

I live by two rules and I've learned these the hard way.

I don't step in to help

unless I'm like picking up groceries for somebody or tipping well or something like that.

I don't rush in to save somebody that I'm in a relationship with unless they ask me for it.

And I don't give advice to people that don't ask anymore.

And I've ruined friendships doing both of those things.

And so right now your husband has created a world where he gets to be the savior for a problem he hasn't even been asked to solve yet.

That's true.

And so they're not asking him for this stuff.

He wants to swoop in and help and be like, look, look, look, I'm still the good kid.

I'm still the good good kid.

I'm still a good kid.

He's feeling guilty.

Yeah.

Right.

They're in misery, apparently, and he's doing okay.

But every single choice is everything they, every place they are is a choice they have made.

And on top of that, they have not asked for your opinion.

They haven't asked for y'all's help.

And he doesn't realize it, but he has a marriage issue.

Right.

Because your respect for him is draining out of that hourglass sand, like a little grain of sand by a little grain of sand, right?

And I I think he.

No, I think so.

After three days, we're like, okay, we need some counseling because this has brought up some big issues.

It has.

And I don't think he realized that he's trying to help and save.

And I'm like, this isn't a problem we created.

No, that's not it.

That's not it.

The whole thing, listen to me.

The whole thing's a proxy war.

You passed the buck when you said, this is like in your chest, this is going to be a violation of our marriage, but you go ahead and make it if you want to.

And then you held that against him.

And he blamed you for it.

Both of y'all have created a dance here that neither of y'all can win.

And so you got to turn the lights on, turn the music off of your marriage, and y'all get in the room and have to learn how to trust and respect each other.

Because he thinks you're going to put it all on him.

He doesn't want to make you mad, but he doesn't have the courage to stand up for himself and against his family.

So you see what I'm saying?

It just creates this churn.

And then y'all are talking about brother's addiction.

You're talking about mom and dad's house.

Y'all have a marriage challenge y'all need to deal with.

Does that resonate?

Yeah, it sounds like we need to hear the counseling now.

As somebody who, like a random podcaster, that's what I would recommend that y'all go talk to somebody because I think y'all have some deeper challenges that y'all need to work through.

And it's a much better use of money than putting out a fire that they're just going to spark probably three weeks from now.

Today's question of the day is brought to you by YReFi.

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Today's question comes from Taylor in West Virginia.

Taylor writes, My boyfriend and I have been living in his mom's house.

This is awesome.

So we can save for a home of our own.

We have similar incomes, no debt, and a child together.

My boyfriend pays the mortgage and utility bills, and he regularly gives his mom cash.

Our child expenses are my responsibility.

Good God, can we just stop?

Oh, okay.

This is like a made-up question to make John angry today.

Our child expenses are my responsibility, and I buy all of the groceries.

Recently my boyfriend suggested that I help his mom financially as well and contribute to funding the renovations on her house.

I feel like I'll lose all of my savings.

No, that's not a feeling.

That's a math problem.

You will.

And we'll stay in this house forever if I do this.

You will not actually.

You'll be asked to leave at some point.

What should I do?

Oh boy.

Is she really asking?

I mean,

I don't know the quality of this relationship.

So you're asking.

You 100%.

I think I know the quality of this relationship.

You do.

Listen, you are in a weird pseudo-marriage with two people, his mom and the boyfriend.

And it feels like the mom is living in his house, but he doesn't own it.

But he's paying all the bills and building her equity and funding all the renovations while she gets the best ride ever of having no bills to pay, not working at all.

And so I think we need to.

And he's not co-parenting.

You're paying for everything when it comes to food and taking care of this child.

I think we wouldn't need...

I would lay all the cards on the table with everyone.

Go, guys, this is messed up.

This is not how it should be.

We need to figure this out.

If mom can't afford to live here, she needs to find somewhere she can afford to live and not have us fund her life while we somehow get a benefit.

So here's the deal.

I rarely say this.

But Taylor, if you were my daughter or you were my sister or you were a close friend of mine, I would recommend that you go get an apartment and you take the child and y'all move into the apartment because y'all have a lot of work to do on your relationship with this guy that clearly has not

left his mommy's house.

And

you've got a long way to go relationally before you've already made a kid together, so y'all will be forever linked.

But before you start getting any more tied in financially,

legally, all that that mess.

I would get my own place.

I would get an apartment and I would start the repair process of this relationship because this is an absolute mess of a dumpster fire of a mess.

Do not give his mom a dollar.

Do not fund any renovations on a house you don't own.

You need to protect your money at this point.

Protect this baby.

And if he then goes, I can't believe you don't want to give my mom money, this relationship.

So, okay, then you go.

He just gave you the cue.

Yeah.

And so this is a real messy situation.

You've done everything backwards.

This is like on my do not recommend list.

You've checked off every single box.

Other than the no debt.

I love that part.

That's good news.

Otherwise, I don't see much more good news in this.

This is all bad news.

But I recommend you get your own place.

And if you want to continue in a romantic relationship with the father of your child, then you need to be very adamant about.

what you want in a marriage partner.

And

that includes putting you and the child over priority of home renovations for an existing parent or all this.

This is this whole thing's madness.

But

that would be what I recommended that you do.

So sorry, you're dealing with that.

Not fun.

All right.

George, am I out to lunch?

I feel like more and more and more and more and more,

one of two things is happening.

There's either

it's this weird barbelling thing that's happening.

30%, 25 to 30% of the calls that come into my show

are

about relationships that have ended.

Like

parents have cut off kids because they vote the wrong way or they didn't, right?

They're still mad about COVID or whatever.

Or the kids have cut off parents because they're so awful.

They have different opinions or whatever.

There's that side of the barbell.

Just an increasing, with increasing regularity, there are these kids that cannot and will not, and I'm calling them kids, even though they're maybe 35 years old.

They are just living as though they're in high school.

They have full-time jobs.

They're doing well.

Like, they're not doing great, but they're doing fine financially.

But their parents are still guide, guarding, and directing their lives, like

marionette, like puppeteers.

Like, you will pay for this.

You will live here.

You will stay here.

Oh, you had a baby, then the baby moves into my house.

And there's this inability to break free over here.

So we have this like caustic, dude, sit at a table with people who have different beliefs in you.

My God almighty.

So you can't, we're not, we're never going to see you again, family members.

And then over here, it's,

yeah, honey, you're going to pay all the groceries and all the kid bills because I'm going to just stay in my mommy's house and take care of her.

And it's this strange insanity on both ends.

And I feel like it's more and more and more and more.

And I just don't think it ends well for all of us.

It's madness.

Yeah, we are seeing an uptick.

I've done six of these Ramsey shows in a row, and I've never seen so many more relationally broken calls than touch money.

And as you know, and the reason we love having you here, is money is rarely the actual issue.

Right.

It's all of these proxy wars and these unspoken commitments and people not pulling their weight.

And then other people going, well, I guess I'll enable their misbehavior.

And that's really hard to untangle.

I would much rather math problem of we want to pay off the debt.

Tell us about the debt's noble.

That's rarely the call we get anymore.

Right.

It's messy situations like this where they're going, I'm trying to build my own future.

My wife is mad at me because I'm trying to fund my parents' misbehavior.

And it's what happens is it ends up creating a generational cycle.

It does.

Because these are either side.

That baby in that house is going to have to pick up the pieces because the dad was busy funding his mom's life, so never built a life for himself, never had retirement.

Now that baby grows up and has to repeat this process.

Right.

And I am 100% all in.

If my dad were to pass away today and he had no health insurance and had no, I mean, had no life insurance, et cetera, I would 100% be there to take care of my mom.

But it would have to be, she would be a part of our, me and my wife's household.

Not,

I would not look at my wife and say, sorry, honey.

I'm going to continue to fund my mom's lifestyle to the detriment of our children to the detriment of our future to prop up the life that she just happens to want the world has shifted if in a situation like this so I don't know what happened to Taylor's boyfriend's mom's marriage or husband what who knows how we got where we got I'm all about taking care of your parents But you have to do it in a way that you can actually afford.

And

it might be uncomfortable for millions of us.

Yep.

There's a third bedroom and mom lives in there.

And it's not comfortable for her.

It's not comfortable for us, but that's the world we have right now.

But this whole, you take care of the kid expenses, that's your job.

I'll just pay all of my mom's mortgage and utility bills.

It's madness.

And I love how you call that out.

It becomes generational.

And so on the Ramsey show, we talk all the time about change your family tree.

That is about money, but it's so much more than money.

It's the way we talk to each other.

It's the way we treat people.

It's the way we serve and love each other.

And you can't serve and love somebody if you are burning your house down in the process.

It's just, it's madness on every,

on every end of that barbell, right?

Well, we went from, well, I want to honor my mother and father to, well, I guess toxic codependency just runs in our family.

That's who we are.

That's right.

I don't know how we got there, but I know that you can break the cycle and it's really hard.

It's really hard to be the first one to go, mom, we're moving out and we're going to have to sell your house and find you somewhere that you can rent.

But I don't want to sell it.

This was me and your father's house.

I know.

And we have a really ugly, heartbreaking math problem to solve here.

Or the other side of it is: hey, honey, daughter, son, I'm calling you after three years.

I'm sorry.

Will you, can I come visit you for a cup of coffee?

Or, hey, mom, dad, we cut you off three years ago because of a fight over politics.

I'm sorry.

I don't want to talk about politics, but I miss my mom, right?

There's ways to heal these things generationally, but good grief, man.

This polarization in these households is madness.

Yeah, you got to take care of your own household first.

Unfortunately, adults can make their own decisions, and those decisions have consequences.

And unfortunately, the hard part to realize, it's not your problem to solve.

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From the Ramsey Network, this is the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships.

I'm George Camille here with Dr.

John Deloney, host of the Dr.

John Deloney Show, and we're taking your calls at 888-825-5225.

Kevin is with us in Fort Worth, Texas.

Salt of the earth, folks, over there.

What's going on, Kevin?

Good afternoon.

Thanks for taking my call.

What's up, man?

so I met this wonderful lady about six years ago and obviously marriage has come up and that's the next step of progression and my main question is I probably struggle with it more than she ever thinks about it but how do I be a dutiful Christian husband and a leader of the family when she makes substantially more than I do

you can't you have to make more money than her yeah I know I'm totally kidding man

No, I get that.

What is the gap out of curiosity?

So I've always done well for myself, or at least thought I did until I met her.

I make about 200, 220.

Loser.

Oh, you're just like phoning it in, dude.

I know.

I need to work on tripling that at least.

But no, she's somewhere in the $3.50 to $4 million a year.

What?

What does she do?

They own an insurance company and a myriad of other.

I always tell her her business empire.

It's a lot of things, but it's all related around insurance.

Any chance she's taking applications?

Well, I've actually helped out a lot with the different businesses and whatnot because I'm in financial services myself.

Oh, nice.

Well, here's the good news.

She's not marrying you for the money.

She's doing it because she loves you.

So that will never be an issue.

Whether you make a dollar or a million dollars, it's chump change to her world.

But here's the other thing.

I've never read a piece of scripture that has told me the husband must make more than the wife or else you're not a dutiful husband.

So I don't know where that came from.

I'm sure it's just years of, you know, church repression.

No,

this is your insecurity, bro.

And you're going to have to

decide that this woman loves me and I'm worth being loved for my measly quarter of a million dollar salary that I make.

This, this whole, dude, I can go in a whole rant about this.

We could could talk for an hour about this, but this idea of Christian leadership is not about

me sitting at the top of some throne.

That's not leadership.

What that's referring to is, and if you read the whole scripture section, think of it this way.

It is you choosing to get underneath the squat rack

and get underneath the whole thing.

Leadership is about service.

It's not about dollars and it's not about muscles.

It's about service.

And so you'll be the chief service officer of this family.

And that might mean I'm going to lay down my life.

In this current world, it doesn't.

Sometimes in this current world, protecting and providing means I'm going to protect my wife's spirit and her time.

I'm going to provide a listening ear.

And I'm going to provide a safe space for her to crash because she's running 17 companies at once.

It's this whole just beefcake Magoo illusion that

Instagram and YouTube has shoved down our throat.

It's not leadership.

And if you ask,

I'm trying to think of the wealthiest guy.

If you ask Sharon Ramsey, Dave's wife, she'll tell you they make dot, dot, dot.

And I have been in the room when Sharon makes a decision on something.

And that doesn't make Dave not a leader.

That makes him a person who serves his wife.

And he quote unquote, makes the money, but they have created a household that they work at together.

George and his wife are in the same boat.

Me and my wife are in the same boat.

Yeah.

And, you know, she's been really great about completely open about everything.

I know about everything with the finances.

In fact, I recently, in the last two or three years, have taken over like managing some of the money.

I've got my Series 7 in 66.

So

it's just growing up and, you know, prior relationships have always been the provider.

And then I run into her and it's like, oh, you've got this cute job.

Oh,

here's what I've got going on.

And by the way, you're still going to provide.

It's just going to look different than the internet says it is.

You're going to provide a safe place to land.

You're going to provide stability.

You might provide laundry service.

You might provide all sorts of different things.

But you are the chief service officer.

That's what leadership is.

It's not, I get my way because I have bigger muscles and I make more money.

That's just a nonsensical bastardization of a really amazing

scripture.

Also realize that we take a lot of calls in this show where the husband makes more than the wife and they're terrible husbands and they're terrible dads.

So, there's no correlation between that.

Now, can you provide?

Yeah, absolutely.

That's an important factor to any future mate is: can you be a good partner in this journey of life and provide for our family?

Money is a part of that, but you guys are, this is not even a part of that equation.

I mean, you guys are doing so well that it's not even a concern.

And so, I want to get to the real root behind that.

Aside from the money, what are your fears about marrying her?

I don't have any fears.

It's exactly what y'all talked about.

It's the psychological thing of

I was married prior for many years and we have a grown daughter together.

And I've just been used to like, that's what the husband does, you provide, and that's what I did.

And

running into this situation, like I said, everything's been completely open and honest, and she's wonderful.

In fact, she lets me take care of everything.

I would rather her not mess with anything around the house.

If the sink breaks, I'll either fix it or we'll get some over here.

She's going to be able to get it.

Can I interrupt you here?

Can I interrupt you here?

Yeah, go ahead.

I'm letting loose a secret from our secret men's meeting that we all attend on Monday night.

I didn't get the invite to that, by the way.

Exactly.

You have used Prius into French Bulldogs, so you're not invited yet.

But here's the thing:

I don't know personally

a dad who, if they're being honest, thinks they're crushing it.

And I honestly, if I'm really honest, I don't know a husband that when pushed would say, I really think I'm doing a good job.

And there's this meta message that we've all inhaled.

It's the air we breathe for the last 50 years that

our very essence is somehow poisonous.

It's toxic.

Our being.

And if you're coming off a divorce, coming off raising a daughter, you've got this in spades, right?

Yeah, it's just been me for the last eight, seven, eight years.

Okay, so beneath all of this thing, most men, if you ask them, they define themselves, they answer the question, what are you worth with a number?

Because that's all they have left.

And now you found a woman who says, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't care about your money.

I pick you.

And you don't believe it.

That's probably true.

And so, no, it is true, bro, because we're all in the same boat, even George.

And so here's the thing.

At some point, you're going to have to exhale and accept this, that this woman chose you.

And you're going to have to decouple your identity from a number

and say, the only answer to the question, what are you worth is who do you love and who loves you?

Period.

Does your daughter love you?

You've done the best you could with her?

Yeah, she calls me all the time.

It gets annoying sometimes and she's a good person.

As it always does,

good.

That's awesome.

Do you have a couple of ride-or-die guy friends that you call and reach out to?

Yes, recently you joined a church group who've been going

for a long time.

So

that's been helpful.

Amazing.

I don't really disclose all that, but I know you don't.

I know you don't.

You're going to have to find a couple of men that you can be honest with in your life because men die from keeping secrets.

It melts them from the inside out.

And then at some point, you're going to have to get the courage up, forget the dollar amount.

You're going to have to go get a ring and ask this woman to marry you if that's what you want to do.

I would have done that like six months ago.

Probably four years ago for me.

But hey, here we are, six years into it.

Go get your spreadsheet ready.

Let's figure out what ring we're going to get.

Let's go ring shop in my brother.

You're worth more than your bank account, my brother.

You're a good man, and it's an honor to know you.

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Claire's in Baton Rouge up next.

What's going on, Claire?

Hi, thank you for taking my call.

So my question is surrounding

role, like how to have good conversations with money.

So my husband and I are in a pretty good financial place.

We don't have debt.

We don't have mortgage.

We have a large family

and we have a business that's doing pretty well and meeting our family's needs.

We both grew up with unhealthy dynamics surrounding money.

In my home, it was, we didn't talk about money and it felt like needing anything was wrong.

And my husband's family situation was was very up and down.

It followed the ups and downs of business.

So it was either an all or nothing mindset.

Now that we're married, my husband is so good at being generous.

But when it comes to our own homes, sometimes it seems like we struggle with a scarcity mindset and we struggle to view money as a tool.

And so I was just wondering if y'all had counsel for how we can navigate that better.

Do you struggle with being a people pleaser?

I mean, sure.

Sure.

I love how you called about your husband's challenge with the scarcity mindset, and it was we struggle with it.

Yeah.

Do you struggle or does he struggle with this?

I think truthfully we both do,

but it definitely falls.

I would say that he probably leads that a little bit in our home.

So

give me an example of what that looks like.

And here's why I'm asking.

I struggle with this too.

Money was tight in my home growing up.

There was some scary seasons and i have an extra deep freezer full of meat at all times right and i am always balancing between being overly giving away too much and holding it really tightly what is give me an example in your house of what does a scarcity mindset look like played out

so um

A scarcity mindset might look like if I have an opportunity, we have, we have eight daughters.

So if I have an opportunity to take two of my girls for just some alone time with them on like a weekend trip it comes down to like dollars in dollars out and there's just anxiety for him surrounding like overspending but if we hear that somebody in our community for example is struggling I mean there is no limit to his generosity and I love that so much about him but I want my girls also to be raised with a to view money as a tool and to live open-handed and not like clenched fists.

Sure.

I get that.

Finding that balance is does he find it selfish to spend it all on his own family when it could be going to other people who need it more?

Is that it?

Very much so.

She's like Mother Teresa out here.

Okay.

Well, I mean, it sounds like he probably got a message across the course of his life that

people like us don't do that kind of thing.

Or those are the folks that waste their money on vacations.

Or you're not worth the vacation, right?

And so it's some of that's just taking ownership of, no, this is us, and we're actually working really hard and doing well.

And

having some joy in our life isn't a sin, and it's not some zero and all that.

But that's that's a tough thing to do.

George, what do you think?

Well, how much money do you guys make?

I'm trying to see how much reality there is to this, and how much is just insanity.

So we live very lean.

So we have

a trust fund and we have a business.

So we bring into our home

$6,000 a month, and like we make that work for our family.

And then it's family of 10.

Yes, what is your grocery bill?

I think people want to know.

Um,

yeah, I'm a pretty shrewd uh grocery shopper, and we eat really a lot of vegetables and meats.

So, are you buying like manager special here?

Like, what are we talking when you say I'm frugal?

Are the neighbors missing all their pets?

How are y'all coming up with all this meat?

No, so we I do shop at like when meat goes on sale, or if they're like in our town, there's a lot of like buy one, get one penny meat sale.

So we buy and we freeze.

Okay.

And then we cook that.

And our children are pretty young, so they're not eating a ton of food yet.

Buckle up, man.

We've adopted a lot of them.

Yeah.

Well, good for you.

That's amazing.

And so you bring home 6,000, but what is your total net worth?

Probably close to like 8 million.

Okay.

And I just threw my pen.

Just so you can, if you'd heard that.

So here's the reality.

I've got to buried the lead on that one.

How are y'all worth $8 million?

Just generosity as far as like we got a big inheritance and

we just want to, anyway, we got a big inheritance from a business sale.

Okay.

There's a few books that I think would help you.

I can send you one of them.

One is Know Yourself, Know Your Money from our friend Rachel Cruz.

In it, she walks through the different money classrooms.

And I think that's going to be very eye-opening to help you guys understand each other better and understand how to move forward from that, to put away, you know, the emotions from the facts.

The other book that I would recommend is one called Die with Zero, and it's not one that I agree with entirely, but it unlocks something for me because I am a very scarcity frugal guy.

And it really walks through

the argument that you should use your wealth and your inheritance while your kids are still alive instead of sending them what will be likely $100 million by the time you guys pass away,

and your kids are then in their 60s by then.

And so I think that will help unlock something for you and your husband if you go through those books to go, you know what?

We have $8 million.

If we just put away $4 million for our family, let the other $4 million grow, we're going to be okay.

We could spend, you can get with a financial advisor, they can crunch the numbers.

to help you understand that if you spent, let's say, $250,000 per year, you would still never even touch the principal on the investment account account balance.

Yeah.

My investment account isn't that full amount.

When you asked total, I was thinking like house, business, and trust.

Sure.

But I mean, as far as money you have access to, could you increase your household income, quote unquote, to $10,000 per month?

And it wouldn't affect your wealth.

Gotcha.

Do you see what I mean, though?

That's an extra four grand a month.

And if you allocate it, here's what I would do.

Sit down and make a budget with every dollar with your husband and force yourself to add some line items that make you a little bit uncomfortable, that scare you a little bit.

To go, you know what, we're going to spend a thousand bucks on clothing this month for the girls.

And we're going to put in a $2,000 monthly vacation fund so that we have $24,000 to spend to have some amazing experiences while these girls are still young.

Because Disney ain't cheap.

And I think you should take all eight of them.

You hear me say this, like if you had a family of 10 and y'all, your take-home was $6,000, I would tell you that your husband's scarcity mindset is probably well-founded.

He's very nervous.

Knowing y'all have a net worth of $8 million,

then what I would suggest is it's bordering on pathological, right?

There's a disconnection from reality because the reality is y'all would really have to lose your minds to burn through this.

Right.

And so the day-to-day actions are either going to be something like George just said, I want you to hear this word practice.

We're going to often, George, you listen to the show.

We're often telling people, you got to practice saving money because you've never done that.

Y'all have the exact opposite.

Or some people have to practice generosity.

You got to put a line item in your budget that makes you uncomfortable and give that away, whether it's tips, local church, anything.

You guys have to practice the experience of feeling joy.

The experience of spending money and watching your daughters laugh and smile.

That's a thing.

It's a muscle y'all have to practice.

He might need some hobbies where he practices spending money money on things that feel frivolous to him, that actually give him joy and fill his cup.

And remember, there's only three things you can do with money.

You can give it, you can save it, you can spend it.

You guys are great at the first two, aren't you?

Yes.

But we have a flat tire on the spending category, and it's affecting your mental health.

It's affecting your family.

It's affecting the experiences and the growth of these wonderful girls that you guys are raising.

And so there's a lot of people who spend way more than they make, and they're out of control, and we have to yell at them and try to convince them to do better.

You guys are on the very opposite side of the spectrum.

We're begging you to waste some money.

And here's how I know this isn't principle based, okay?

He didn't give $8 million away.

No.

Which means he's giving away his discomfort, which in a gross way means he's using other people on a week by week, month by month basis to make himself feel better.

That's not a principle.

That's using other people as a Xanax.

You get what I'm saying?

So we're going to look at this.

We're going to practice spending money on ourselves and we're going to practice joy.

Hang online.

I'll get you Rachel's book, Know Yourself, Know Your Money, and look up DiwaZero as well.

This is the Ramsey Show.

Hey folks, our 4th of July sale is happening right now from July 3rd through the 6th.

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And I assume John is hard at work preparing.

We already are.

We do an entirely new event every year.

So I'm excited for it, man.

Because you take all the feedback, and a lot of people come back.

And so now it's like

half the room sells out before that one's always over.

It's become like an annual retreat in a good way.

Not like our marriage is in crisis, but just like, man, this is so refreshing

to connect, leave the kids.

That's the first marriage event in the country, I think.

And it's a lot of fun.

And Nashville's a great city just to come hang out in.

100%.

So join us.

Go to ramseysolutions.com slash getaway.

Sarah is in Albany, Georgia, coming up next.

What's going on, Sarah?

Same.

Good talk to you guys.

I'm kind of nervous now.

Don't freak out, but Dr.

John Deloitte is next to me.

Okay.

So my question is, so my husband and I have been married going on eight years this September.

We've got three kids.

We just had our third

just right at a month ago.

So,

you know, we're getting.

How are you speaking coherently?

I don't really know.

So

my youngest two are actually only 15 months apart.

So our last one, she was a little bit of a surprise to us.

Surprise.

Yes.

Yeah, kind of surprise.

And we actually also survived, we survived the Hurricane Helene that just came through in September.

So we found out about her right afterwards.

So, yeah,

I don't know how I'm talking

coherently right now.

We'll help you through it.

What's your question today?

So basically,

after

my husband just recently changed jobs, it was a little bit of a pay cut, but it's a higher failing to grow from where he was at previously.

But with that pay cut, it's kind of set us back a little bit financially.

We do have a little bit of debt,

and

this setback has kind of got us to where we're well, we've always been paycheck to paycheck, but now it's got us to where we're just

kind of just stroking by and we're not able to really

work at our debt the way we need to.

So

kind of trying to get an idea of,

you know,

how to

cut down the debt because that is a majority of where our finances need to be going right now.

How much debt do you have?

Taking a lot out of us.

About 42,000.

Yeah, that's more than a little bit.

Okay.

What kind of debt is that?

Most of it is in

a car payment and then the rest of it is kind of spread across

what is it, the credit cards.

And then

yeah, credit cards.

Have you cut up the credit cards and stopped using them completely yet?

If it were up to me, we would.

But my husband is, yeah,

we're kind of back and forth on it.

He's just kind of like, well, this is what's helped us survive so far.

And neither of us have very good financial upbringing, I guess you would say.

And so we're trying to do the best we can, but it's kind of like, you know,

he's just trying to survive at this point.

So he likes the security blankie of 29% APR and under the guise that we are somehow helping our family.

What was the long-term move here?

I have multiple times in my professional life taken a pay cut

for a job that would offer increased opportunities, but it's always ROI'd itself pretty quickly.

What was your plan on taking a pay cut or what was his plan on doing that?

So

really what the job he was working at before, it was

he was getting up at two o'clock in the morning to go make donuts and he was very just kind of,

you know, that's it was exhausting and we weren't, he wasn't able to make any more.

Like they weren't going to be able to offer him very much more money.

And so this job is starting, you know, they started him out

just a little bit less of what he's making.

What's he making?

Oh, my word.

Yes, me too quick.

I think it's monthly.

He gets take home is probably about $3,500.

And what are these growth opportunities they promised him?

So as the business grows, his department is going to grow.

So he would move up in the company as he grows.

What kind of work is he doing now?

So he's over the logistics department for the portable shed building company here from where we're from.

But they've actually opened up other branches in other states now.

So it's growing very quickly.

It's just his

paycheck is not growing like he needs it to.

Yeah, this feels two things.

It feels kind of MLM-y to me

and like multi-level marketing-y.

Like, all right, bro, listen, we got all these opportunities.

Get on the ground floor.

Yeah, get in early and we're going to open up all these shops and whatever, and you're going to to grow job to job to job.

When a company does that, what they get is the benefit of his employment and his loyalty.

And then they get to try him out for six or seven years.

And so they don't have as much skin in the game.

And in exchange, he takes a pay cut, comes in, works his butt off and does really good.

And they can kind of use and abuse him without any sort of increase here.

And so without a plan for, okay, I'm going to come in here for two years, I'm going to run this thing, and then the next step will be X, Y, or Z.

It's all like, yeah, when this thing gets really cooking, then we're all going to,

right.

And this thing's never going to, quote unquote, get really cooking because, well, we had to open another location.

We had a leadership challenge, and bro, dude, we're in this together.

And that just, I don't know, dude, it just makes me feel like it's a good thing.

I want to get some clarity on what it looks like to get that bump, get that promotion.

Is it a certain revenue metric?

Is it a six-month performance review where they're going to look at everything versus just like a wish and a hope?

So that's one piece of it.

Okay.

This car loan, what's left on it?

$27,000.

And what is it worth?

I actually really don't know.

Okay, add that to your homework assignment to jump on Kelly Blue Book, find the private party value, not a trade-in value.

You're going to get hosed on that.

And I would see if you can sell that because that car is more than half of your annual income.

That's a major problem.

And contrary to popular belief, we had two kids in a Corolla.

We had two kids in a used used Prius.

George has two car seats in his used Tesla.

You can make it on other cars.

Okay.

Yeah.

I know it doesn't like.

Well, I really, you can, and y'all can't afford this car.

Yeah.

And is it his car?

Is it a truck?

It's kind of a security blanket for him.

It's a

GNT Acadia.

But like what he was saying, it's kind of a security blanket.

He grew up

just broke down on the side of the road a majority of the time.

Totally get it.

To him, it's like I would rather I would be, I want to make a car payment and know that my family's in a safe car.

But it's still

totally get that.

Both George and I want our families in safe cars.

And that's a false dichotomy.

He's drawn a false picture.

It's not an either-or.

There's a whole bunch in between.

And by the way,

your nice car they're making a payment on, we took a call earlier where there was somebody whose engine exploded.

So you're

it's, you're not.

There's no guarantee yet.

You're not hedging anything here.

And so if you sell that and you save up enough in cash or take the difference, if you can profit from the car and buy something in cash, you don't have to buy $2,000,

you know, $19.97, but you can do a pre-purchase inspection, make sure it's a reliable vehicle, research the make model in year that works for your family.

And it's just for now.

This might be a year, but that's going to get you guys out of over half the debt you're in.

And the rest is all credit cards?

Right.

Yes.

Yeah.

So his game plan is just to continually go into credit card debt thinking well eventually maybe hopefully i'll make enough that we can climb out of this

yeah basic basically yeah he's at least until he can get a raise and get kind of get back to where i promise you that's not how it works guaranteed there's going to be some side hustles involved uh from you or him maybe he gets home and you guys high five and he takes over with the kids and you go to work but the only way out of this is increasing the income and getting rid of this car hang on the line we're We're going to send you Financial Peace University.

You'll have to watch all nine lessons together.

If you promise you'll do that, we'll get you hooked up.

Hang on.

Our scripture of the day, Lamentations 3:25.

The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.

David Lee Roth said, Money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it.

That's the most David Lee Roth quote.

There you go.

Man, we are really reaching for some of those words of wisdom.

Right next to Jeff Bezos in the happiness yacht.

Jeez.

Allie's up next in San Francisco.

What's going on, Allie?

Hi.

My quick question here is, how do I set myself up specifically financially as we head towards a possible divorce?

Oh, gosh.

I'm so sorry.

How possible?

We had some affairs and infidelity things happen, I don't know, six, seven years ago.

And now we are going to marriage counseling to discuss like wrapping that up.

Like, how can we move forward from this?

And so I felt like he's kind of been half in, half out.

So I kind of just asked, like, hey, are we going to be, I felt like God showed me this vision for like what our new marriage should be and how it should be centered in Christ.

And so I kind of shared that.

And I was like, cool.

I would like to know if you're all in on us doing this and having a new marriage or if you're all out.

And he kind of said, maybe.

And then towards the, he said, like, oh, I need a couple of days to think about this.

And then he, towards the end, he said, no.

But then he wants to go back in a week to see the marriage therapist again to talk about his, maybe he changed his mind.

So that's why I see possible.

So he kind of ended the session with no, but now we're going to see her tomorrow.

a week later to see if he has changed his mind or not.

I'm not really sure.

So I just, I'm like, I don't know what to do if he says yes.

Yeah, let's start this new marriage with new skills or

no, I don't want to continue.

So

how long have you been married with him?

11 years.

So you know what he's going to say tomorrow.

What do you think he's going to say?

I mean, you know.

I think he's going to say yes.

Do what?

I think he's going to say yes.

I think he's going to say, yes, I want to do this a new way.

I want to have this new marriage.

Okay.

Because we both are recognizing like we both kind of sucked at being married and we want to do this new thing.

So I feel like he's going to say yes, but I want to be prepared.

Even if he does say yes, our finances need to change because I'm really in the dark with a lot of it.

Okay.

Do you guys have kids?

Yeah, we have four, four of our young kids.

So like between five and 11.

Okay.

So I'm like a stay-at-home mom.

And that's a scary place that you're finding yourself, right?

Or it's an exposed place, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I feel like that's been a big barrier.

That was like one of the big conversations I wanted to have as we went into marriage therapy, but I really felt like God was telling me to ask him like, hey, are you all in first before we continue even diving into the financial conversations?

So I think the

meta question here, no pun intendance insurance in San Francisco, but the meta question here is, is can we have a marriage that doesn't have any more secrets?

And that's sharing passcodes, that's sharing checking accounts, that's sharing financial information, that's being completely honest about past affairs.

That's putting everything on the table.

And neither of you are going to be able to fully put both feet in the boat until you both feel like everything's out there.

You don't have to go into details.

Like, I don't want to hear all the gruesome details of your past affair, but I got to know what's out there.

Right.

Yeah.

And so I think getting your finances in order is first about even knowing where you are, having any semblance of what's going on.

And

if you're a stay-at-home mom of four young kids, then there's not a whole lot of getting in order the finances, right?

Because it's not like you have, you can, you're working a full-time job, but you can start putting money in a checking account to prepare for yourself, right?

You're really exposed.

Yeah, I think that was my biggest like worry.

Yeah.

And maybe that comes up in, and if he says yes, I mean, I think it's fair to put on the table, the thought of you saying no made me realize how scared I, how alone I feel in this marriage.

Yeah.

And how scared I am for my own safety.

And any husband worth their their salt doesn't want the woman they're with to be scared about their own existence, right?

Yeah.

And I think I haven't like ever shared that because I feel like I just, it's hard for me to share my own feelings.

Right.

And like be dependent on somebody.

Yes.

And

that's part of the dance that y'all have co-created.

Because he knows you're not fully in the boat either because he doesn't really feel like he knows you because he doesn't.

Yeah.

He just knows when he's around you, you feel less safe and he doesn't know what he's doing.

So maybe I'm going to go make more money and maybe I'm going to go do this so that we can.

And it just creates that dance.

And that's, I'm so proud of y'all for going to the therapist and just turning the lights on and stopping the music and say, we got to quit this.

We got to quit this particular dance.

Are you willing to learn a new one?

But that means you got to tell the full truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Yeah.

What's your financial picture look like?

Do you guys own a home?

No, we're renting.

Okay.

Yeah, I feel like we have a lot.

I don't know what that's compared to, but it feels like we have a lot.

What's the number?

I don't even know.

I'll throw it out and we can add it.

I have three credit cards that have gone to collections because he decided he wasn't going to pay for my bills anymore.

Oh, wow.

And so

I think I have one that's like 10K, 5K, and 4K.

So I think that's a pretty good ballpark for the three credit cards I have.

Those are the debts that are under my my name specifically.

And then I know that he has a couple credit cards.

He had one for like, I think 20K that I think he recently paid off with his bonus.

So I think that one is mostly done.

If there's anything left, maybe a couple thousand on that one.

And I know he has two other credit cards.

Okay,

I want to challenge you real quick, okay?

I know George is digging to the money.

Y'all have already separated.

Yeah, I feel like that happened when he decided, oh, yeah, I'm not paying for this stuff anymore.

Right.

When he started using the words yours and mine, and you've, as you're talking to us, this is mine, that's his, and I'm not paying your bills, but you're not paying mine.

Y'all are already separated.

Y'all just live in the same house.

Yes, I agree.

That's why I've decided to ask that question.

I was like, I don't even want to continue marriage therapy if

we want to formalize the separation or do we want to formalize a reconnection?

Awesome.

So, yes, I agree.

Yeah.

So you've got 19K in credit card debt.

He has an unknown amount in credit card debt.

Any other debt?

I think that's it.

We have a car that's paid off, and then he has two motorcycles.

I believe those two are also paid off, actually.

Okay.

So the one thing you can do is to check your credit report.

You can go pull it at annualcreditreport.com from all three bureaus.

It's free.

And that'll give you a real clear picture of what debts are in your name.

tied to you.

And then your job is going to be to clean up your mess and to make sure that you don't go into any new debt and that you don't have any debt that's attached to him that has your name on it.

Okay.

So that's one way to start to protect yourself.

I assume you guys have separate bank accounts already.

No, we actually have

the same accounts.

Just one joint account.

So when he says that's your credit cards, what did you buy?

I actually use them during kind of like the three or four

years of all of the affairs and stuff like that because he was also spending a lot of the the money so I just had to use their credit cards to literally just buy groceries like just basic necessity things that have kind of like stacked up okay

were y'all both cheating on each other you've referred to the affairs was it both of y'all or was it just him just him yeah it was just him yeah

okay well no you know there's going to be state laws that come into play and divorce decrees and judges deciding who's going to get what and custody it's going to be messy and it's probably going to take a while but on the other side there's likely going to be alimony and child support.

I hope he pays.

We've taken a lot of calls this week where they just go, yeah, he just decided not to.

And that's it.

And so I don't know that situation on your side.

But I would definitely start to get your ducks in a row to make sure that you at least have as little damage to clean up as possible.

Do you have family support?

Yeah,

I have a really good family support.

They're not super close by, but I think immediately I would be able to have access to their support and things like that.

If on the off chance he comes in tomorrow and says, hey, I'm out.

Yeah.

The faster you can metabolize

what the life I had is over,

the faster you can get to what I would call survival.

It's the people who are like, no, no, no, maybe the boat's not sinking, even though it's half underwater.

The faster you can say, this boat is going under.

I need to get to a life raft, the better.

And so the faster you can say, okay, I didn't want to move in with my parents, but I got to because I got four young kids.

I didn't want to go to work and put four kids in daycare, but I have to.

Like, the faster you can get from that reality to your new reality, it's not going to be any, like, feel any better, but man, you can start making some headway.

Um, but hopefully, he says, I'm sorry, and I'm going to repent for how I've treated you and these, and these kids, and I'm ready to go all in on a new marriage.

We'll be thinking about you guys.