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Chapter 1: What financial concerns should I address if my spouse is keeping me in the dark?
Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broken, common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio, this is The Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, number one best-selling author, Ramsey personality, co-host of Smart Money Happy Hour, my daughter is my co-host today.
The phone number here is 888-825-5225. The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Chris is with us in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Hey, Chris, what's up?
Hi there. Thanks for taking my call. My question is, is there some ways I can, on my own, prepare things financially to avoid as many complications should my husband pass away ahead of me? Because he's pretty much kept me in the dark about a number of things, including financial specifics, our whole married life.
Okay, so... I'm sorry, how long have you been married?
46 years.
Oh, my goodness.
And he's kept you in the dark purposefully because you've asked to see things and he won't let you see it? Or he's just, you don't ask and he just takes care of it and that's how it's always been in your marriage? It started out because it was a family business with Harm. And so with his parents, you know, and so I just, I'm not from, I'm from the city and I, you know, let them do their thing.
Right. And so, um, I was never put on anything like signing checks or anything from the beginning. And throughout these years, I just trusted him because I am not a financial. That's not, I have other, I have better things that I do better than this. And so I just trusted him to do that. Well, we've lost a lot of friends lately. Our daughter is going through this right now. And, um,
I'm just like, well, and then he said something to somebody and it's like, it just clicked. And when I asked him about it, crickets, he wouldn't tell me anything. And so it's like, I started looking into things and it's like, oh boy, I, yeah. And he won't tell me, he'll just not say anything or he'll tell me things that really aren't significant. Does that make sense?
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Chapter 2: How can I prepare financially for my spouse's potential passing?
I've been thinking about that. It's just, yeah, I, you know, I have tried and he just won't, you know, and I'm finding out that even like names on accounts, things that I didn't even know. For example, he changed accounts, bank accounts to a new bank. We had good interest rates and a couple of years. And it's like, I found out my name was not, I went to put my name on it.
Well, he has to prove it today. Just getting kind of prepared for this. I went, he still hasn't done it. And that was over a year ago.
I have nothing.
I have nothing.
I don't know what to do. The bottom line is you don't know what's going on, and you don't like what you do know. And so it's time that the two of you get this stuff straightened out because you're going to be in a world of hurt if he gets hit by the milk truck tomorrow. And so you've been married 46 years. You do know how to get this man to do things. You just hadn't got him to do this thing.
Not very well, but yeah.
No, you hadn't got him to do this thing. I've been married 43 years, and my wife managed to make it her idea, my idea, before I knew it was my idea. And so apparently he's getting ready to come up with a brand new idea that he hadn't thought about yet. And it's going to be that he owes his wife of 46 years clarity. He doesn't have to relinquish.
control of this stuff because he's probably doing an okay job, but she needs to know what the flip's going on. And there's a tremendous, the air will change in your house when he does this and it'll, peace versus electricity.
I'm curious, when you say you know nothing, do you know any information about any type of debt you all have? How much is in savings? How much you have in retirement? Do you have any concept of anything? Well, so he used to go away for a couple weeks a number of years back, and he said, if anything happens, go to this person, this person, this person. Okay, that's fine.
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Chapter 3: What steps should I take if my spouse refuses to share financial information?
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Sam is in Los Angeles. Hi, Sam. How are you? Hey, Dave. Long-time listener. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world?
All right. So let's see here. I'm going to try to wrap it up real quick. First time in my life, I feel very scared and nervous with what's going on in my situation. I have a total of about a little bit over $130,000 in debt. Um, car loans, credit card, personal loans. I am a homeowner. Um, right now I pay about $5,000 a month, not including property insurance or taxes.
I'm behind on my property taxes. I'm behind in my 2025 taxes. I'm starting to get served for, um, my, uh, credit card. Um, that, um, I have three kids. I've been married about 20 years, separated, renting right now, not living in my own home, and I'm getting ready to file for divorce. So I just need some guidance, help.
Has your income changed? My income has been increasing. So why are the bills unpaid if you were making them before and now you're not?
Why? Because I didn't follow the rules and guidelines for you. We did some remodeling in the home, which was not a good move. My debt went way sky high. Our kids are in private school. That was an added cost as well. What do you make? Gross, $240,000 a year.
Does your wife work outside the home?
She just started working. She makes about $1,600 a month. Mm-hmm.
Okay. Wow. Okay. Well, the way you eat an elephant is a bite at a time. And so there's a whole lot of moving parts here. And it's real easy with that many mosquitoes flying around your head to point at the wrong one. So we need to sit down and say, okay, what is the first priority here?
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of financial secrecy in a marriage?
I assume the house has equity, right?
Just pay it with the equity when it sells. Yeah. About $350,000 in equity.
Okay. And she's going to get a big chunk of that and go start her new life, and you're going to get a small chunk of that and start your new life with your big income, and she's going to get a big chunk of your income called alimony and child support. And so this is how a divorce turns a marriage into a business transaction. What do we keep and who pays for what? And that's the questions.
And, you know, so the reality is in the mediation and the discussion between the two attorneys, we've got to get the house on the market and we've got to get that car sold. And, you know, out of the – or she's got to pay it off out of the proceeds of the – her portion of the proceeds of the house and keep the car. She could do that.
If you're going to sell the house, she's going to get enough money to pay off the car if she wants to keep that car. I wouldn't recommend it, but if that's what she wants to do, that's fine. And then sell the $13,000 car. You know, which one do you want to keep, honey?
Because we're going to sell one of them and you're going to pay off the other one with your portion of the house proceeds when it sells. So which one do you want? and get the other one sold, right? And your portion of the equity will probably clean up almost all these bills if you sell those cars, if you pay off the cars and or sell the cars. So 13 and 21, so 34.
What's the other $100,000 in debt taxes? How much do you owe the IRS?
I owe $12,000. Okay. For the property taxes and about, I'm calculating $10,000 for my 2025 taxes that I haven't done yet. So an additional $10,000.
Why have you not done your 2025 taxes yet? This is June.
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Chapter 5: What budgeting strategies are recommended for managing debt?
I'll put your calculator out. And we'll be looking at taxes right now.
So anyway, I'm going to put you on a detailed every dollar budget where you have every dollar written down and you need to find out where your income's going because your numbers aren't adding up, regardless of if Rachel thinks they are. And then you need to sell your truck. And if you do those three things, I think you're going to see your way through this. You do not need to sell your house.
You need to sell your truck.
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Chapter 6: How can I navigate financial discussions with my spouse?
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Miriam is in Green Bay. Hey, Miriam, welcome to The Ramsey Show.
Hi, can you hear me?
Yes. How can we help?
Hi, thank you so much for taking my call. I'm wondering about how to look at getting a job for specific financial goals without it becoming my money, his money, with my husband, and also to hopefully not express... to my husband that I don't think he's providing enough.
So you want to get a job and do something with that money that's not part of what the family wants to do?
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Chapter 7: What steps should I take when dealing with inherited property?
To an extent. My husband isn't unsupportive of these ideas, but it's also like... He's not excited about it. What's the idea? What's the idea, Beth? What are you wanting to do? I'm sorry, Mary, I'm apologizing. Everything from I want counseling for myself, which also would be required for me to maintain a job for various reasons.
And I have some health things I want to get looked at that are expensive. There's some random furniture that are not necessary that I would like to get. If I'm going to do that, I need to get a job in my head. There's some things like I would like more money to be put towards... saving for a down payment or for a vehicle replacement eventually. I'd like a little bit more buffer there.
So things like that that I feel like, okay, these would be things I would really like to have, and if we're going to do that, I should go get a job.
Chapter 8: How do I handle emotional ties to family and financial decisions?
But then I feel like I'm doing this and it's... I don't want it to be me versus him. And I don't want it to be my money, his money, but also I want to, he's a spender. And so he sees a bucket of money in the, to be assigned category in our budget. And he's like, Ooh, we could put that. And I'm like, no, I want my paycheck comes in. I want to put it.
I was like, this is exactly how I will delineate it. And it'll never, it's just going straight into the categories. So there's not, you don't feel a lot of safety with your money when it comes to your differences with your husband. Correct. Yeah. And you're wanting some safety. Have you expressed that part to him? To an extent. Probably not enough. We have enough.
But if things change, we don't... What does he make? He makes about $43,000 a year.
And what would you make at this job we're talking about?
Um... I'm looking for jobs that would pay either $20 an hour or at least $30,000 a year.
Could you all have children?
No, unfortunately. That's the whole thing. Yeah, I mean, you guys are living on a tight budget at 43 for sure. So what do you do during the day? What's going on with you? Because you said something about having to keep a job. Are you not able to work? Emotionally, no. Hence, counseling is the highest line item. Okay. What's going on? Can I ask that? Sure. What's keeping you there?
How to be concise. I have had... few jobs where I've been able to where I currently lack the skill set to deal with backbiting and gossip and corporate just shenanigans and that's something that I want to work on in counseling. I have had very few jobs where that's not been an issue and they've either been me working for myself as a household cleaner or
Because you easily get wrapped up into that? Is that what you're saying? Or when it happens, you're paralyzed? I let it bother me. Okay. I let it bother me, and I just completely descend into dysfunction and hate everything about life because of it.
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