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Chapter 1: What should I do if my fiancée's mom opened a credit card in her name?
Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving and storage studio, this is the Ramsey Show. We help you win in your life, specifically your money, your work, and your relationships. All three of those areas are connected. We want you winning in all of them. The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.
Ramsey Personalities co-piloting the ship today. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by the incomparable. The lovely, the gracious, graceful Rachel Cruz.
Keep it going. Just keep it going, kid. Thank you.
About three more. Next hour, I'll do about three more adjectives. We'll just see if I can come up with new adjectives. Always good to be with you, friend. You as well. It is summertime. The three kiddos, lots of activities.
How's it going?
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Chapter 2: Why do couples really fight about money?
Oh, man. Good summer so far. We got dance camp, one riding her bike to friends' houses. I mean, they're scattered. Isn't that fun? Literally today, yep. Yep.
Well, it's good to have you in studio. It's always fun. Rachel's going to help you on your money questions, and I'm here to help on your work-related questions. So, you know, hey, I'm in a toxic situation. Can I get out if I'm in the baby steps? How do I make more money?
We want to help you make more income so that you get through those baby steps faster, and that's why I'm here as well with Rachel. So let's get this going. Trent joins us in Chicago, Illinois. Trent, how can we help?
Hey, Mr. Coleman, Mrs. Cruz. How are you doing today?
Good.
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Chapter 3: How can I determine if my degree is worth the time and money?
I'm glad you called her Mrs. Cruz, because I thought this was going to be Mr. Coleman and Rachel, and I was going to feel like Mr. Rogers.
The age gap is real.
I was going to feel so old. Good to talk to you, Trent. How can we help?
So I just got engaged last month for the love of my life.
Congratulations.
We are planning our wedding. I'm actually going out to see a venue today. But while getting ready to take this big step in my life, I decided to run a credit check on my fiancée. who doesn't have, or at least to her knowledge, didn't have any credit card, didn't have any debt. And I've been following the Ramsey plan for the past five, six years. So, um, I have no debt.
I've been able to cashflow college and everything like that. I'm on my senior year, so I'm almost done. But, um, in, in pulling her credit report, I found something a little bit disturbing. Um, there was a credit card and her name that showed up as, uh, having a balance of $19,000. Whoa. And so, um, Obviously she was, she was completely shocked by this and I was shocked by that.
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Chapter 4: Should I pay off my house or student loans first?
So, um, when we went back and I confronted her family, come to find out her mom had opened that card back in 2019 and had, um, I guess the entire family on it from what she's been telling me. I haven't been able to, um, to, uh, to corroborate that story with the rest of the family, but there she's saying that, that it's kind of like a family vacation card.
And then she told me that she pays it off every month. And by tracking the, uh, the stuff on credit karma, looking at the, um, the credit score and everything in the carryover balance, I know it's not true. So now I'm in a situation, I brought it up to her.
She, she got super defensive, told me that, um, I can't live without a credit score and the whole nine yards of, I can't get a mortgage and all that. And I told her that, listen, I've saved up. I, um, I'm going to go through, manual underwriting. I don't need a credit score. I don't need a, I don't need debt to live my life and I'm going to be debt free for my entire life.
And she's telling me that I need to find or go to counseling financially so that I can figure out how to take care of her daughter. Since obviously, I don't understand finances. So here's some counseling. Oh, my gosh.
We're your counselors. Is that it?
I need a swig of Pepto-Bismol. My stomach has turned about four times already.
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Chapter 5: What financial advice can help me navigate family conflicts?
My goodness.
Okay, so Trent, there's two elements of this. The second element, I'll just hit first because I think it's an easy one. You're not going to convince her otherwise. So by you guys just...
going back and forth with your opinions, you're not gonna convince her, she's not gonna convince you, and so you have to be able to go forward in this relationship with her daughter, and obviously your fiance needs to be comfortable and secure enough in you guys to say, yeah, whatever my mom says, because she's gonna be saying this for the next,
50 years possibly you know what i mean so like you're gonna hear this all the time and and just making sure that you and your fiance are on the same page because that's all that matters right the extended family whatever they choose to do or what they believe that doesn't matter as much anymore because it is your family it's now you guys that once you get married like it's you guys so making sure your fiance and you are on the same page and so not trying to sit there and convince your mother-in-law so that was kind of one part the end of your call is what you were
speaking of, were those arguments. And that's so frustrating. And I'm really sorry about that. Okay. And then the first one, which is obviously the one that majorly affects you and your fiance is, I mean, it's illegal. She stole her identity is what she did. And I guess forged a signature. She signed for her and everything. I mean, had to have to open the credit card.
I would assume so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So what I would do is contact... She needs to remove the balance.
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Chapter 6: How can I effectively communicate about finances with my partner?
She needs to open up. If she's living the credit card life, that $19,000 immediately needs to be put back in her court. And so that's what I would say is that the next move is that... And I don't care how you do it, when you do it, or not I care when, but like... Whatever avenue you choose, this $19,000 balance needs to be off of my fiance's name because she didn't do it.
Does the mom see anything wrong with it, Trent? Because here's what's messed up too, is there's a lot of, there's a trend going around, Ken, with people opening up cards in their kids' names and doing this. And they pay bills so that their child gets a good credit score when they turn 18. I mean, there are parents doing this now. And the parents,
The whole idea is, yeah, but if they get stuck with a balance, then it's the kid's responsibility then to pay it at 18, which is just absurd. So this is exactly what's happened, but she did it in secret. So does the mother take any ownership in it at all to say, yeah, there's facts that there are $19,000 that you've not paid that is your bills, not your fiancé's?
No, ma'am. Unfortunately, she does not. She thinks that she's helping her out by building her credit score and getting her started and giving her a... At least from the conversation that I've had with her, giving her an ability to, just in case you fall into hard times when you first get married, you know... What has your fiancé said or done to this point with her own mother?
She's a little bit more of a non-confrontational type. So, and... And the mom has always kind of run her finances, and she still stays at home with her parents. Hey, dude.
Well, your fiancé needs to close the account.
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Chapter 7: What are the best strategies for managing debt?
It's under her name. So she needs to go and just close the account completely.
That's right.
And if this mother keeps this up, Trent, I'm like, I hate to say it, this is like where legality comes in. I mean, this is like, this is legal stuff. Well, this is financial fraud. Yeah, but you guys, you don't have the money, Trent, necessarily to go and fight your mother-in-law in court. No.
No, but here's the deal, Trent, that I'm going to tell you this. Rachel's right, but this is a serious conversation with your fiance. She has to close the account. She must confront this on some level. Or if I were you, my friend, I'm not saying break up with her, but I would hold off on the wedding until this stuff gets solved between your future wife.
She's got to say, all right, mom, boundaries here. She's got to put up some boundaries. Yes. In fact, can we get her a copy of the book Boundaries by our dear friend, Dr. Henry Cloud? Hang on the line. I want you and your wife to read this together. This is a fantastic book that will really help you.
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Chapter 8: How can I prepare for financial discussions with my future spouse?
And while we're at it, get them necessary endings while I'm giving away free books. But this, you need some help here and you too need to be on the same page. It's dangerous, dangerous territory going forward. Wow. Thank you for the call. We're praying for you. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by my colleague, Rachel Cruz.
This hour, the phone number for you to jump in is toll-free. It is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. We'll take your questions related to your money, of course, and then we've got some job and work questions, income-related questions. We're here to help and taking on a topic that I don't think is new to anybody. If you're talking about money and you're thinking about money,
It's money fights, Rachel. Money fights. And I've been married 25 years. How long are you and Winston? How many years?
I'll be 14 coming up.
So combined, we've got a lot of money fights that you and I represent. In all those years, everybody has the money fights. And a fascinating article you've got, headline, why do couples really fight about money? What is going on here? What do we know?
Yeah, so this is interesting. So this came out from psychologytoday.com and it says, yeah, talk to anyone about their relationships with their partners and you'll discover that every couple has disagreements. So in an attempt to identify the contents of financial issues, I said this name, I said that I think the name wrong. Oh, Pete's. Pete's, is that what you would say?
Yeah, they did a study, two studies.
Conducted, yep, two studies. Study one, they gathered descriptions of fights about money from posts on Reddit. God bless you. From this large pool of data, they were able to identify two overreaching themes when it came to money arguments, Ken. One was concerns about fairness. Mm-hmm. Number two was perceived responsibilities.
And many of them identified these issues falling under these two overreaching themes. They list some of more of the issues down below. And then they did a second study where they gathered data, a financial conflict from couples in a committed relationship. And two overarching themes happened in study two. Concerns about fairness and responsibility reemerged.
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