Chapter 1: Is it normal to be in debt to your spouse?
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Normal is broke and common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Show Network and the Fair Ones Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show. All right, George, let's go straight to the call lines. We got Mark, who's in Eugene, Oregon. Hey, what's up, Mark? Hey, thanks for taking my call. How are y'all doing? We're doing excellent. How can we help today?
Yeah, so I don't have a lot of experience being married so far, only about three years and dealing with the finances of that. But my question is, is it normal, say, if one person makes more than the other, that, say, a big expense comes up, that the other person should go into debt to pay the other spouse back? Zero parts of that make sense. No parts of that sentence.
Who told you that?
Exactly. That's what I kind of felt. I mean, regardless of how the conversations have got to go, I'm like, I'd feel relief either way. Like, we're square now, but for a couple years there, it's been pretty stressful on my part to pay her back. Okay, give me a real-life example of something that's happened. Yeah, so she's had a much more stable job than me.
I mean, she's about 11 years older than me, so much more stable. Setting her job makes better money.
How old is she and how old are you?
She's currently in her 40s and I'm in my 30s. And when we met, I was in my 20s and she was in her 30s. And so I was in the mindset of like, well... I'm still building my career. I've made big career changes. So a lot of the jobs that I had throughout our relationship and at the beginning of the marriage, I was only making $40,000, $50,000 while she's making $130,000 plus.
So big household expenses come up, solar, HVAC unit, big expenses and everything. you know, she can pay that right out of her savings. Like she had like a hundred grand savings and paid it in cash. But then it was like, okay, now you owe me half. I was like, okay.
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Chapter 2: How do financial disparities affect relationships?
I was like, okay.
So you don't have combined money.
I mean, you guys are your fancy roommates who cuddle on the weekends. Yeah. And I've actually used that same term with her. Like, I feel like I'm a renter at times. Um, Well, you guys are making no shared decisions. You have no shared financial goals, no shared accounts. Nothing about this screams we are married.
Now, have you asked her about that? Because here's what I'm hearing. If you've been going along with this for all these years and haven't really said the words, you know what, I feel like we should be combined, then she's kind of just doing what she thought— is normal, which is I do my thing, you do your thing. We kind of split it 50-50. You're not holding up your end of the bargain.
So it just sounds like a conversation needs to be had about you wanting to be closer to her and have more transparency and have less of a yours versus mine and more of an ours take on the money. Have you ever done that?
Yeah, as of recent, within the past couple months, because now that we're square and I'm actually making just as much money as her because my job I finally landed pays really well, and then I started my own business that also did equally as well, so I'm like, okay. But my fear is like if I lose that job again or business doesn't do as well, I'm not making as much.
Yeah, you making more doesn't solve the real problem here. For example, my wife stays at home. It would be insane for me like, well, hey, babe, since you make nothing, you owe me half. I'd be sleeping on the couch if I'm lucky. And so regardless of the situation, who makes more when it's y'all's money? Now we go, okay, we make $180,000 a year. What are we going to do with this money?
What are our goals? Hey, we need to do this home repair. We want to go on this vacation. We need to pay off our debt. And so far it's been, well, Mark, it's every man for himself. Good luck out there.
And there's also it sounds like there's some gender roles playing out where I don't know if it's both of you or her, where there's this feeling of since you're the man, you have to be making as much as her or more. I don't know if that's coming from both of you or just coming from you or just coming from her. But these are all things that need to be discussed out in the open very, very candidly.
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Chapter 3: What steps can be taken to improve financial transparency in marriage?
Do you want to go to Europe? If we give you full permission, buy a boat like what is it that you want to do?
Well, actually, believe it or not, I already have a boat. And I don't really want to travel. I don't know what I want to do because my whole life was pretty much... Working and just, you know, existing. Wow. Do you have any other sources of income outside of the 401k? Pension, Social Security, IRAs, anything like that? Real estate?
Well, Social Security is in the mix, but I'm not drawing on it yet because I don't need to. Yeah. And, you know, I'm not at my full retirement age. Okay. Yeah. You could wait till 67 or even 70 if you want to really get the max. Yeah. The math says you're fine. You could easily withdraw 10 grand a month from that account and it's never going to deplete in your lifetime.
Let's say you lived even 95. The balance will still be there. And so I'm not worried about that unless you have some crazy – your expenses are going to go up to $20,000, $30,000 a month at some point in life, which it doesn't sound like that's the case. So you just need to factor in healthcare costs. It's kind of a smile.
What they've seen in the financial planning world is once you retire, there tends to be a slight upgrade in spending for a little bit because you're like, woohoo. And then as you get older, it actually goes down for a foreseeable amount of time. And then in the final stage of your life, it ramps back up due to all the health care costs.
So for me, this is way less a money question and way more a self-discovery question. And I think it's really fun for you to be able to do this at this stage in your life. If I were you, I would be so intentional about just... getting to know what do you like, what do you not like. And I would just play a game, honestly.
I would play a game where every month I force myself to budget for something new just to see, do I like it?
Your expenses are eight, can you make it 10 grand, and the extra two is just fun money for Scott. Would you be able to do that right now? Well, I'm actually doing that right now, and the problem is I'm saving... I'm saving my own money again.
Well, that's what I'm saying. You're not actually spending it. That's why I say make yourself, you know, go get in your friend group and say, what are you guys doing? And if they say it's almost like make yourself say yes. If they say, oh, this weekend we're going on a hike, you go, all right, I'll try it. And then you come back and you go, I'm crossing that one off the list.
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Chapter 4: How can couples effectively communicate about money?
Like you've told yourself that a lot. So what I must do is not spend to get myself in the good place. And we tell ourselves that for however long it takes us to get out of the baby steps. And then we have to then do the work about rewiring our brain and say, you know what? I've become a financially responsible adult. I can now spend my money again.
And by the way, being a financially responsible adult, if you're checking the things on the checklist, you're living on a budget, you're living a life that's out of debt, you carry the proper insurances, you value savings in the way of,
you know, having your three to six months, you're paying off your house, you're investing for your future in a 401k, and you prioritize generosity, if you're checking those green boxes, that means there's some money that you can spend and enjoy.
Time to party. You ran the marathon, you went past the finish line, and you're still running. It's okay to take a pause, have a drink, and enjoy this third phase of your life, Scott. Hey guys, George here. Listen, just because it's 2026 now doesn't mean 2025's ideas all go away. Some things are timeless. Like if you want to win with money, it's still the same playbook.
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Chapter 5: What financial challenges does Ryan face with his auto repair shop?
So, so important.
Speaking of team, what a great team we just made. Smoothies, butter, jelly.
I love it. Ryan in Columbus, Ohio is up next. Hey, Ryan.
Hey, how are you? Hey, my question is related to starting a small business. I am 23 years old. I have my own auto repair shop.
Chapter 6: How can Ryan improve efficiency without borrowing money?
I've been running it for approximately a year. I set up the business in January of 2025. The thing I'm running into now is I started out in a very small one bay garage building. I've got a single service bay, very small space. I did that all with cash. That was my goal to start out without borrowing anything. Wow.
Now I'm running into the issue of I've got customers that I'm losing their work because they don't have the space and efficiency to get it through because of, you know, I tear something apart, I've got to get it out before I can get something else in, you know, that kind of thing. And so I'm wondering at what point... The balance is between gaining efficiency and borrowing to do so.
Chapter 7: What are the key financial decisions Ryan must consider for his business expansion?
I'm trying not to borrow, but I feel like I'm really losing efficiency and traction because of it.
What would it take financially to expand in cash?
Well, in the end of 2025, I was able to mostly cash flow the shell of a building that's going to be a three-bay shop building. It is on my own property, so I own the land. There's no additional lease or anything like that. I had a contractor put it up. That cost me about $30,000 in the building package. It's just the shell, just a very basic shell of a building.
What about to build the rest of it out? It is currently sitting there like that.
Chapter 8: What advice do the hosts give Ryan about managing his finances?
If I had another maybe 30 to 40, that would get it insulated, heated, ready to go to be able to make money out of it. What are you taking home from the business every month? Last year, I basically didn't pay myself. I was living off of personal savings for my personal bills. That, of course, only lasted for a certain amount of time.
This year, my goal is to pay myself approximately $3,000 a month, and that's what I have it set up for this year. Last year, I paid myself like $6,000 out of the business. Are you working full-time on top of this? No, no, this is my full-time. I quit my full-time job December of 2024.
That's awesome.
Okay, but you've made $6,000. That was what I paid myself as a salary. I'm telling you, you made $3 an hour doing this last year. Do you understand the math on this? No, so let me be clear. So I was only working full-time for myself. I was doing some other part-time gigs at the beginning of the year as customer work picked up.
The business itself had a gross revenue with customer work of $120,000 last year. And the gross profit, I should say, after cost to get sold and labor cost was about $80,000.
That's how you were able to do the three-bay deal and all that? Correct.
So you're just investing all the profits. To pay a personal salary. Correct. But that can't go on forever. Obviously, this year I'm hoping to actually create a sustainable salary for myself.
How long will it take you, if you pay yourself that $3K a month, how long will it take you to take some of the earnings out of the business and save up? Well, the $40,000, but what I really want to ask, and I'm sure you've turned this around every which way, is there a way that you can get that three-bay shell?
What's the least amount of work that you need to do on it just so you can get in there and get some business going?
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