Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
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 and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. And I'm Rachel Cruz hosting this hour with Dr. John Deloney.
And we are answering your questions about life, money, career relationships, anything and everything. So give us a call at 888-825-5225. All right, first up in Vancouver, we have Sarah on the line. Hi, Sarah. Hi. Hi, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. How can we help today?
So I've been married for 46 years, and my husband does not contribute financially to the household finances. And he's also not healthy. And I recently found out that he's been having an affair probably for about 30 years. Oh, my gosh. Because he's had a cell phone for a long time, and he worked shift work, which made it really convenient to sneak around. Good grief. So I'm wondering...
Is it worth divorcing at this point in time, or do I just wait until he dies because he's not taking care of himself health-wise? Holy smokes. Gosh, Sarah. Okay, so when you say he was having an affair for 30 years, was it with the same woman, or it's been off multiple? So he's been running two lives. Well, I believe there's been others, but I believe there's been one very long-term. Wow.
So he's doing shift work, but he's not contributing, so does his money go to him, and then you take care of the house? Yes. I mean, you've been... He did pay for the mortgage on the house, and I paid for everything else. But then once the mortgage was paid for, which has been more than 20 years ago, he's quit paying for anything. Let me reframe this a little bit.
You've been divorced for 30 years. Yes, definitely. Y'all just have been living in the same house. Yep. Yeah. And I guess... with all due respect, I can't, I can't give you that answer because I can't carry the weight for you of what you have to do next. You know what I'm saying? Like it's gonna, it's such a huge call. You have to make that call. Yeah.
But Rachel and I can sit with you and tell you that you're not crazy, but you've, you've been feeling this for three decades though, right? I thought there was something going on a long time ago, and when I confronted him, he just said, no, we're friends. And then, of course, again, because of the shift work and cell phones, you know, they're able to sneak around.
When did you find all this out, Sarah? When I came home from work. More than a year ago, I came home from work, and I found him and his girlfriend in our backyard.
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Chapter 2: What should I do if my husband has been cheating for years?
Wow. All right, so here's the part that nobody will tell you about finding out you're being cheated on. And by the way, you've been cheated on financially. You've been cheated on romantically. Your whole marriage has been based in deception. One of the things that nobody ever talks about is that scary, terrifying realization that you don't trust you either.
Because part of you knew something wasn't right, right? And so what I can tell you, I know, I know, but there's that intuition. There's that something is off with this person that I pledged my life to. And over time, it's like, man, I think I'm crazy. And he confirms it, right? Yeah, you're crazy. You don't know. And what's your money? That's your grocery.
Like, and it just, you slowly go along with it. And all of a sudden you find yourself three decades removed from that voice inside your chest. Right. And so what I would tell you is, The way I can help right here is for the first time to actually sit down and be honest with you about what you know.
And that's scary to do because you either have to choose, well, this is my life and I'm just going to sit here on the pile of rubble that was the marriage I thought I had, or I'm going to be about excavating this thing and building something new. And in your case, by yourself. But there's a reality to that. Do you know what I'm saying? And do you want this marriage to be healed, Sarah?
Like if he came to you and said, I want to do the work and I want to repair this, would you want that or are you pretty much out? I'm out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which... And he's been out. I don't want to blame you. Yeah. So from the financial part of this era, yeah, I would be keeping everything separate.
And even if you wanted repair, I would still say keep it separate until there's a level of trust and healing within the marriage because the money's the symptom, right? You guys... It never will be because he's not healthy enough to do anything. Yeah. So is he not working anymore? No, he's retired. Okay. So why now? This all came to light a year ago, confirming what you've known for years.
Why now? Good question. I guess because I feel stuck. What does that mean? Do I leave? Do I stay? Do I walk away from half of everything I've invested in? When I say invested in, I mean doing a lot of the work and then walking away from whatever pension he has and not being able to receive any of those benefits after all these decades. Are you going to?
Or are you sure that he's not leaving them to his mistress of 30 years? Well, I saw his will recently and it hasn't... It has not been changed. Okay. But I do think there's a bank account that she might be accessing, but I have no proof of that either. Okay. Maybe for the first time, begin to trust yourself. Okay. And it's worth asking questions.
And the other question you have to ask yourself is, are you going to be able to sleep at night if you leave him and he dies next month? Are you going to carry that with you? No. That's not a reason to stay. You're like, nope, nope. Like, that's not a reason to stay. Because I've dealt with some of this stuff. Yeah.
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Chapter 3: How can I rebuild trust after being cheated on?
We keep exhausting our emergency fund and we just keep getting shelled. So I just call and I need some wiser wisdom than I have. Yeah. How much do you guys make a year? Together, about 185. Okay. Is that before tax? That is before tax. Or before the taxes that weren't paid until later. No, okay, I got you, I got you. I would say on a monthly basis, we bring in about $12,000 post-tax.
Okay, okay, perfect. And out of the $95,000 of debt, you said student loans and cars, break those down for me. How much is the student loans and how much are the cars? 50 is in cars. 51 is in cars. And the rest is in student loans. Okay. The cars, two different cars? Two different cars. What are the ones on those? So one is 36 and the other one is 15. Okay. So I have a third car.
We have a third car. I have a truck that's completely paid for cash. Okay. But I also commute for work. And so getting 10 miles a gallon was killing. I was spending six hundred, seven hundred dollars a month in gas. How far is your work? I actually got an elect. Yeah. To go to work. So I got an electric car. I took out a loan on that. So that's the fifteen thousand on an electric car.
But I charge for free at work. So my gas money. Yeah. But how much is your car payment? 350 bucks a month. Okay. You're just tripping. Yeah. So, okay.
So yeah, some decisions I feel like need to be made where you guys are living, considering how much it just costs you solar, the well, I mean, all of it are all of those pretty sustainable going forward that you foresee, or are they still like, eh, we're probably gonna have to fix that again. I think we're good for now, for the next few years.
But, I mean, those costs or those different things just pop up randomly. Sure, which they would for any homeowner, even if you're not in the country. I'm just trying to figure out, Sean, you know, there's a little bit of this, like, we just want to be able to do everything we want. We want to live where we want to live.
And so that means we have to drive so far to work, which means we have to get an electric... Like, there's a reality... And sometimes you have to pick and choose to make it make sense, if you will. And I'm not saying you'll have to like move by any means, but I'm saying having these thoughts that, you know, you guys are kind of used to doing a little bit what you want.
I mean, to a degree, I mean, there's a little bit of like, yeah, we're going to just kind of keep moving. So everything you do going forward has to be at a 180 degree difference. Like what you would normally do, I would stop and be like, okay, is this really the wisest decision right now? Yeah. Or you have to live on a principle of, let me put it this way.
None of this will change unless one of the chief principles of your home is we do not borrow money. Because I had a long commute in an old banged up truck that I made for five years. And that putting gas in it was expensive. But my wife and I had a anchor into concrete commitment. We don't borrow money on depreciating assets, especially. I would on a mortgage, but not on a car.
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Chapter 4: What are the financial implications of staying in a troubled marriage?
A hundred percent. Okay. Yep. So for you guys, we're going to, if you stay on the line before, don't hang up. So when we get done with the call, Christian's going to pick up and we're going to give you every dollar for a year.
And I want you guys to sit down and do a budget, do the every dollar budget, because what it's going to expose is how much spending is happening without you even realizing it. There's $12,000 where it's going. And so what you're going to see, and I want you guys to cut everything, but food, shelter, utilities, transportation, insurance, like the things that you have to have everything else.
Target runs out to eat. I mean, literally subscriptions. I'm not kidding. Just say if we did nothing but what we have to have to survive, how much would be left? And then you guys got to look at that number and say, OK, there's that number per month. And I don't know what it is, 6000, whatever it is. And if we did this for X amount of months, how quickly could we pay this debt off?
Now, what if we sold the $36,000 car for 32,000? Maybe we had to take out a loan because it's underwater for a little bit. Okay, well, let's do that math. That 6,000, play it out. Play it out and say, well, we don't want to do that. That seems too extreme. Okay, maybe it's 4,000. Whatever it is, you guys have to run out scenarios of your reality.
But what I would push you to do is to do this in a short amount of time because you guys make great money. And I know you're in California and all the taxes and everything, but there's something to be said about doing a really strict plan and you and your wife saying, we're doing this for a period of time.
And it may be a year, it may be two years, and it may be you work an extra, she finds some extra income. But getting out of this debt for you guys, I think is going to be a massive win. But you have to do it so intentionally and so sacrificially. And y'all haven't felt that in a while. So it's going to be uncomfortable. But that to me is the path forward for you guys. So hang on the line.
Christian's going to pick up and we're rooting for y'all. I mean, you can do it. You guys are smart people. You got this. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This time of year can be tough. So make sure you check in on your friends, check in on your loved ones, and reconnect with people you haven't talked to in a while. I recently called one of my childhood friends. We had a great conversation.
It was awesome. The conversation was hard, but we also laughed a little bit too. It can take a little courage to just send that message or go grab coffee or even get in the car and drive across the country to reach out with a friend. And... reaching out for a therapist can also feel hard, but often it's worth it. And if you're thinking about therapy, I recommend calling my friends at BetterHelp.
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Chapter 5: What financial advice is given for managing a $29,000 car loan?
Okay, perfect. Is that private sale or is that trade-in? That's private sale. Okay, so CJ. Trade-in was about the same thing, but I think I could get a little bit more for it. Yeah, okay, so again, I want you to just run the numbers that if you're underwater $2,000, I want you to look around and just do some research on a $5,000 car, okay?
Just pretend and maybe you find another older Honda Accord and you're like, okay, great, I can get a crappier car.
Chapter 6: How can one stay current on payments while in school?
And that means you have $7,000 you owe versus 20, which is going to fast forward this whole debt payoff so much faster so that you don't have to work overtime much longer, right? So, again, it's a give and take situation. That car is right on the cusp of being able to keep it and paying it off. It's just going to be a longer get out of debt process.
What I want you to do, so priority number one is I want you to stay current on all of your payments, okay? Stay current on everything. The second priority since you're in school is I want you to make sure you're cash flowing that last semester. So save up enough to make sure that that is covered, okay? Once that's done... I plan on cash flowing with the rest of the school. Yes, that's great.
So it's making sure that that is true because I don't want you to go into any more debt. And then I want you to start working off paying off that $7,000 in credit card debt. So if you have multiple cards, start with the smallest. Even if it's an $800...
bill on one of the cards, whatever it is, cut everything up and start working your way through the debt snowball, which is paying the smallest debt off first. It's going to be some of the credit cards and then your student loans won't hit till after you graduate. And then that car is going to be your second big one. So that's going to decide, hey, do I want to keep it?
Is it worth working all this extra? And you'll get to decide that. But CJ, we're so proud of you. You're changing completely your family tree and we are here for you. I've been doing this show for over 30 years and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable.
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Chapter 7: What are the key points about the importance of life insurance?
Yeah. And what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible. People that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. We actually took a question of a lady and she had three kids pregnant and husband didn't have life insurance. And I'm like, I can't even imagine. Or even if it was opposite. Right.
If a mom passed away. there's a dad with kids and trying to figure out how am I gonna afford childcare? How do I outsource some stuff that maybe she was doing? And it just takes the grief and the sadness of something like a sudden death to a whole new level. Like when you have to think through how am I gonna pay
Chapter 8: What should I consider when planning for a wedding trip to Spain?
my bills in the middle of all that grief. Like it's just, it is, it's terrible. And so life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance and we keep re-upping it because I'm like, I just want it there.
Like there's something about that safety of knowing that you have money if something suddenly happens. And it doesn't cost much because Xander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here.
You got to say it out loud and you got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza. There really is. So that is one thing to do to say I love you to your family. So we've used Zander for all of our family's needs for insurance for many years, including, of course, term life insurance.
To get a free quote, go to 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282. Or go to Zander.com. Up next, we have Lee in Omaha, Nebraska. Hi, Lee. Welcome to the show. Hello. Thanks for taking my call. Absolutely. How can we help? I'm 65, retired, and I have about $1.8 million in a traditional Roth IRA and about $400,000 in a Roth IRA. As I look ahead to the required minimum disbursements, it's kind of a lot.
Yeah. Not making you feel great. Yeah. So the last couple of years, I've moved $100,000 each year from the traditional to the Roth. Good. Would I be better off to keep doing that that way? Or should I just take the pain, say maybe move a million and be done with the pain or Just pedal along at $100,000. What other money do you have? Do you have the cash to do that? To pay the taxes.
To pay the taxes on it would have to come out of the account behind it, yeah. I don't have. Okay, so you'd be paying, yeah, so you don't have the cash for it. I've got probably $100,000 in the bank, you know, but yeah. Right. Yeah, if you don't have the cash to be paying the taxes, I would not take money out of the account just to pay the taxes.
If you can do it, but you, yeah, do you have any income coming in besides your investments? Yeah, just Social Security. Yeah. How much is that a month? Social Security is about $2,300 a month. And are you living off of money in the Roth or the traditional? I am. Between Social Security and it's about $7,000 a month total I'm living on a month. Okay, okay.
Yeah, I mean, kind of our rule of thumb is if you don't have the cash to pay the taxes. And if this is all you have, if there was a lot of money that you were going to have, the great thing about a Roth is not only are you not paying taxes on the growth, but when you pass it to your children, they're not going to pay taxes either.
So it just becomes even a bigger pass down, which is such an advantage. That's why we are such a fan of the Roth. But again, having to pay the taxes on it each time, That's what's going to be key. And I'd hate to use your retirement investing to pay the taxes on something that's already invested. But how much are you having to take out every single year? How much is that? They're required.
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