Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
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We get it started off right now with Mary in Dallas, Texas. Mary, how can we help? Hey, thank you for having me. So I... I've been stuck in kind of like a situation where I'm newly married and I don't believe in dates. And I really love what you guys preach. I'm trying to get my husband on board. When we got married, he has like over $35,000, $40,000 in dates. And that's okay.
So I was trying to encourage him to get out of dates. use my salary to use my salary to pay his date but he currently lost his job in last year and he has no motivation in trying to find a new job so i'm always trying to like my money all i do is just pay bills mortgage and by the time i'm done paying there is nothing left so it just feels like i'm never getting ahead Wow. I'm so sorry, Mary.
I mean, I can think of one way to stay motivated, maybe providing for your new wife? Is that not on his radar? Providing for his new wife? You! You said you just got married to this guy, he doesn't have a job, you're struggling to pay bills, and you say he has no motivation to work. Yeah, he lost his job, so his excuse is like, oh, I can't... Did he get fired? What happened?
Is he in a depressive state because of this? Yeah, he got fired, and he's kind of, like, really confident that I'll get a new job, and he only applied, like, one job in a month, and it's been six months now, and really, like, no motivation at all. He gets out of his 401K to pay some of the bills, like, to pay some of his debt.
He took a withdrawal from his 401K to pay bills and cover his debt payments?
Yes.
Yes, because my salary can't pay all his debt. Oh, my goodness. My salary can only cover mortgage and the house bills, not his debt. Well, the challenge is there's really no answer. We can't give you a step one, step two, step three on this. I really can't. This has to be a very, very serious marriage conversation.
Have you confronted him about this to say, hey, I don't think this is sustainable. We can't keep doing this. My salary is not enough to take care of all of this. We're falling behind. I feel like you're not applying for enough jobs. What's his response?
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Chapter 2: What should I do if my spouse has no motivation to work?
This guy is just kind of waving at every day, kind of going, well, I'll just do this and hope it works out. And there's just no urgency and it puts you in a very tough position. And I don't have some magical answer. George, I don't know what your thoughts are here. This is very, very frustrating for you. Yeah. I do think you need to make it more clear how serious this is.
And it sounds like he's disassociating is what we call it when he's just gone. Well, I'm just going to sort of numb out because I don't have the willpower to do anything about it. Is that what's happening here? Because you got married to this guy because you wanted the companionship, because life is better doing it with someone else, right? Yeah, I see some jobs and send them his way.
Everybody's trying to give him leads about jobs, but it's just the motivation for him. What was he doing for work, and what was he making? He was making $130,000. He was an engineer. Engineer making $130,000, and he's been applying for engineering jobs? He applied for one? He's applied for an engineering job. And why did he get fired? They said he threatened his boss. He threatened his boss?
Mm-hmm. Okay, so how long have you been married to this guy? Two years. Yeah, I mean, I think you have to get his attention and go, we got to talk about our marriage. I've already brought up all the money stuff to you, and you're not doing anything about it. And you're not in a good place. You are in a bad place. You're in a bad place if you threaten your boss. Can we agree?
You're in a bad place. Yeah. He still doesn't agree that he thinks it was unfair that he was let go. Well, there's a lack of ownership all over the place with this guy. Is that the case throughout your marriage? Yeah. It's never his fault. It's always someone else's fault. You've got to take care of you right now. I think this is a legit conversation about separation to get his attention.
But at this point, if he's willing to go to marriage counseling, you're going to have to figure out how to afford that because you guys are broke. But I would give that a try and get a therapist in the room with you two. You got to try that. But I wouldn't keep letting this guy just put all the pressure on you and show no desire at all to help out.
So, you know, at this point, how can you make more money? And you be in control of the finances so this guy can't wreck you anymore. Yeah, I wouldn't be concerned about his debt. Right now it's about covering the four walls and protecting yourself. So the first thing you cover is going to be your mortgage. You guys own a home or you rent? Yeah, we own a home.
Okay, so we're going to cover the mortgage. We're going to put food on the table. We're going to keep the utilities on, cover all of those bills, and cover your transportation needs. Outside of that, if you can't pay for it, you can't pay for it. If you can't make the minimum debt payment, so be it. I'd rather have the credit card companies mad than your house being taken away from you. Okay.
So you come first. Don't cover his bills. We're not covering anything for his lifestyle. In fact, if this isn't going well and counseling is not an option for him, you may want to create your own separate account so that he doesn't start to drain it in his depressive state. We've never drained accounts. Okay, so it's separate.
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Chapter 3: How can I approach my husband's debt and job loss?
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It's fast, it's easy, and it could make all the difference. Go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282. Protect yourself, protect your income, protect your family. All right, let's go to Kayla in Miami, Florida. Kayla, how can we help? Hi, how are you? So right now I'm at a cross point. My father just told us that he doesn't have enough money for retirement. He's been retired for several years.
He's been retired for about eight years. And basically he's been living off like an annuity that he thought would have covered his mortgage. He still has a mortgage, about $300,000 left on it. And right now, my family and I are deciding how we're going to approach this. Do we bail him out, essentially pay off his mortgage?
Or, you know, do we have him sell his house, move to a cheaper area, cost of living area? So keep in mind, you know, that $300,000 is what my family and I would use for our retirement once we're at that age. Why? What do you mean? The $300,000 is what you would use for retirement? No, like investing that for our future retirement, you know. Like as an inheritance? No, no, no.
My father owes $300,000 on his mortgage. That's a debt. Exactly. Help out dad and basically give him $20,000 every year to pay off his mortgage because I don't have $300,000 laying around. That was our thought, but at the same time, that's money that we otherwise would be using to invest in Yeah, you guys are going to be in the same spot. Your kids are going to be funding your mortgage.
It'll be a wonderful generational gift. Yes. So this is definitely a bad plan to bail dad out after he did some real poor planning. Now, I'm not saying we need to be cruel. We don't want him on the street. But I also don't want you artificially propping up his life for the next 20 years. Yes. How old is he? He is 71. And on top of that...
his mother, my grandmother lives with him and she had no retirement at all and doesn't qualify for like any, anything because she immigrated to the country like a couple of years ago. So it's kind of like a series of bad decisions. I'm fortunate. My husband and I do extremely well and it wouldn't be my children's burden. That will be for sure. Cause they're
pretty much already taken care of for their life, for their major events in their life. But I just find like I'm having a moral dilemma with, you know, that's money I otherwise would have lost my children. So I don't know what to do. Have him sell the house. What's it worth? The house is worth like $700. So that was my thought, to sell the house.
But then he kind of says, well, then I'm going to go move somewhere really far away. And then I kind of struggle with like, well, then you're leaving your grandkids. Why does he have to move super far away? I feel like South Florida is pretty expensive. Because even if you go like downsize into like a condo or a townhouse, like those HOA fees are still pretty high.
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Chapter 4: What steps can I take to regain control of our finances?
You're either attacking the smallest one or you're attacking the one with the most interest. So I have them listed out in order from smallest to greatest, and I'm definitely throwing most of my extra money at the smallest one, but I am throwing more at... the highest school loan as well. So, um, my, my minimum and, um, payment was $314 just to cover the interest for the highest loan.
And I decided to throw a couple hundred more dollars towards that one just so I could get ahead. And it's, it's just still growing. So I don't know. Um, I just don't know how to go about it anymore. So, um, I know this sounds crazy, but the $79,000 is made up of about 19 small school loans. It's a federal loan. So they're all between 4% to 6%. Okay. So none of that is crushing.
I know it feels like a lot, and there's a big balance there, but it's actually great that they're split up because that means you're going to see progress faster than if you were tacking this as one giant loan. Mm-hmm. So what is the smallest balance? So it's really confusing because... It's not. Just go down to the bottom of the list and tell me the smallest balance.
So when I pull up that on my computer, it doesn't have it listed smallest to greatest. Sort by smallest... Overall, I know this is such a confusing... You should be using every dollar, Bonnie. I'll give you every dollar. It'll sort it for you. I think the spreadsheet is where this went out of whack.
I actually have it, and I stick to it every month, but I'm trying to organize it in my brain to make it sound less confusing. The human brain is the worst place to organize anything. It's a junk drawer up there. All right. Could you two move forward, please? I'm trying to get to the bottom of this. What is the smallest balance?
Let's just speak philosophically at this point since we can't figure it out. If a third grader looked at your spreadsheet, they would find the smallest number to be what? It's about $800. Boom. Oh, there we go. What are you guys bringing in per month? $9,500. Great. Why is this loan not paid off yesterday? So because that's only a snapshot of all of my debt. Like it's only a little portion.
So I'm just going to read off what my spreadsheet says here so it'll be less confusing. So my medical debt is $3,390. My basement, I owe $5,000. My next school loan is $6,000. My husband's truck that we sold and we were negative underwater with that and we owe $7,000. on that. My next school loan is $11,000. And then the big one that I'm specifically talking about right now is $79,000.
But that $79,000 you said is split up. It is. So it's not really $79,000. It's $800, $2,000, $3,000, so on and so forth. Right, right, correct. So that's how we're actually looking at this. Don't look at it as a $79,000 loan. Split everything up, 19 of those in the spreadsheet, looking at the smallest balance. That's where your focus goes.
So out of the $9,500, how much extra do you have each month to throw at the smallest debt if you stop this avalanche deal? Probably $2,000. Boom. Do you see what just happened there? You actually cleared a debt. So I guess that's why I called in because I've been so confused. So total, I have like 25 loans instead of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of sharing finances in a marriage?
Is she on the line, too? Well, he said that she was listening. She's no friend of mine? No.
No.
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Chapter 6: How can I negotiate my salary effectively?
Thrilled to have you with us. 888-825-5225 is the number to jump in. Hey, if you've ever wanted to see the person who's calling in, asking these questions, what would it be like to be in the same room with them? You got your chance. We're taking The Ramsey Show back on tour. We've got four cities coming up. You get to experience the show live, raw, in the room, live. And it's a lot of fun.
We did two last fall. They were great, sold out. These are going to sell out. We're in Charlotte, Denver, Phoenix, and Anaheim coming up this April. We're doing these in really cool venues. There are only 300 seats, and they're very intimate. So we'd love to see you. Grab your tickets at ramsaysolutions.com slash events. That's ramsaysolutions.com slash events.
Brian is up in Syracuse, New York now. Brian, how can we help? Hey guys, good afternoon.
Chapter 7: What strategies can help improve my family's financial situation?
Hey, so I've been interviewing at some companies and I am anticipating hopefully a couple offers to come in in the next couple weeks here. I have background and experience in the roles I'm interviewing for, but the roles are net new to the businesses that potentially be joining.
So my question is, what resources can I use to help determine market value so I can most wisely negotiate my total compensation? Yeah, well, if it were me, I mean, I would be doing research on this. And so you can choose whatever you want to do, whether that's Claude, Chad GPT, Grok, I don't care, you know, Google.
But you want to dive in and get as many resources as you can that create a pretty good narrative that's provable on the range. and see where you stand first. So I would be doing that first, based on where I think I'm at from a skill standpoint and experience, based on, again, the size of the company, the industry itself.
There's a lot you can do, and you get a pretty good idea of the range that you think is realistic. So that's where I would start and see where you land on that. And then when you get an offer, any kind of negotiation needs to be based in reality. Yeah, that's where I was trying to land.
You know, like I can use GPT and that's fine, but I want reliable, good data so I can say, hey, here's my experience. Here's the conversation we've had. And then based off of this rock solid data, here is where I've come to this number. Well, again, when you get that information, ask for the sources. You'd be surprised. You can find that.
And then you'll have a range, and you know what you're looking for. And so when you go in there, be confident.
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Chapter 8: How should I approach my father's retirement decisions?
Don't be rude, but be firm and say, hey, I'm currently interviewing for positions in this range. And usually what you want is your bottom end is really the kind of where you want to be. At this stage, though, you should have already discussed with them in the interview process salary expectations, yes or no? Uh, yeah, I left it a little open.
Um, so I didn't say, you know, I need X. I thought that'd be better positioned once they, they want me, they know that I can really get it done. Then I have a bit more leverage. So I have an idea, but I would say like, even their range is lower than what I came from. So it's still doable. But again, you know, I want to maximize and I'm looking at more than just that dollar.
You know, I want to look at the total package as a whole. Have you let them know that? Yeah. Okay. So they're aware of, hey, we're kind of low for where this guy's at and what he's currently making. How can we make this compensation package as a whole a little bit more exciting? Yeah, exactly right. And these interviews as well just came from, you know, networking, like direct conversations.
So I didn't want to necessarily blow it before we got there. And the conversations have been really exceptional. So again, I want to make sure I have good data, good information. All right. So now we take the data. That you're going to go find and you can prove it and you've got some sources. And again, you're never going to get an exact amount. You're always going to get a range.
But if we do our research and we've got some real sourcing, which is easy to do in today's world, trust me, I can find out in about five minutes on any one of those AI agents. And so we're going to take that research and that just informs us based on where you are right now. You're not going to go take the job for less money. So the starting point is where you are now.
That's the basement, correct? Yeah, I mean, honestly, I was part of a big layoff, so I would even take a little bit less just to kind of get back up there and work back up. Okay, but know what your basement is, is my point.
So when you go into a respondent offer, you've got to say, okay, I know what my basement is, and that's the worst-case scenario, and then how does the research inform where I'm at on my basement? And then you'll be fine. And look, here's the thing. All of this is about posture.
If you act like a jerk or act like an entitled punk, which you're not going to, but if any of us act that way in our response to an offer, then that's where it could go south on you. But you have to control what you can control. And if your posture is one of humility but confidence...
based on knowing what you need and knowing where you belong from the research, if we've got a nice mix of humility and confidence to go, gosh, guys, there's a lot about this I like, but realistically, and I don't know what you can do, that's a great negotiation tactic. I don't know if you can do more, but... But this would be ideal. I mean, that's all you can do.
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