Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
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Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. The phone number is 888-825-5225. The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Ann is with us in Nashville. Hi, Ann. How are you? Hi. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I am calling today because essentially my husband and I have been married 10 years, and
In that 10 years, we've never had shared bank accounts. Essentially, when I was graduating college, my grandmother on her deathbed told me, don't ever let a man control your money. You make it, you control it. And I kind of took that to heart because she never left a bad marriage because she didn't have money to do so. So we're 10 years in, and now I'm...
I feel completely hoodwinked because my husband has been using the money that he has, like using cash. I don't know where the cash is going, but he's been apparently funding his entire life on an Amex card that I just found out has an $18,000 balance at a 30% interest rate.
And when I confronted him about it, I told him he needed to cancel the card that we were going to be eating rice and beans because this was absolutely unacceptable. But he told me he was going to take care of it. He was going to make a budget. He didn't want me talking to him like that, didn't want me talking to him like he was a child.
Yeah, I mean, you suddenly decided you wanted to interfere in his money after 10 years of telling him you wanted nothing to do with him. No wonder he pissed. Well, I mean, I'm over here. Well, I know, but you lost all the right to vote on his money when you said, I'm not going to vote on your money.
You decided out of the gate, I'm going to row in my boat, you row in yours, and now you're mad at the direction he's rowing. Yeah, but my money is paying for our entire life. Well, that's not a new thing. No, no. But so this is the other thing. So he is disabled and he gets like this pension. And for years I thought this pension was a pittance.
Like I literally was like, okay, he's, he pays like the utilities and whatever. Well, I found out too, this pension is not a pittance. Like apparently, you know, because I'm like, paying for all of our insurance premiums, like putting money in a 403B, putting money into our kids' college savings plans, you know, eye insurance, dental insurance for everyone.
He brings home more money than I do now. Okay, okay, but hold on. Why are you blaming him? This is the arrangement y'all co-created at your direction based on bad advice from your grandma. You're blaming him that he makes a bunch of money and you didn't know about it. Okay. You get what I'm saying? Well, did you ever ask him? I did.
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Chapter 2: How does a lack of financial transparency affect relationships?
And him going, nope. Or you saying, hey, I set us out on a bad course. I thought the greatest way to keep myself safe was to keep myself disconnected from my spouse. And I was wrong. And I want a chance to rebuild this thing from the ground up. Will you be in this with me? And that means we're going to combine everything, including our fears, our shame, our embarrassments, and our money.
And we've got to be united in this thing. Do you see how one of those is an accusation and one of those is a demand and one of those is an invitation? Yeah. Right? But now I'm left with, like, you know, I've...
created you know this budget i have sinking funds i have i know listen you got to change your language i i i he he he you have to change it to we so okay you know what i'm saying i do but now we have this like an eighteen thousand dollar credit card that's the cost of doing business poorly yeah yes so what do i do how would i tell him send the bill to your grandmother She caused it.
We have to decide that we are going to do money differently. We're going to be connected and we are both going to get this debt paid off and we're going to decide how we spend money. And I'm going to stop lecturing you and being mad at you. And also I'm going to tell you. He didn't do anything wrong, by the way. He's just doing what y'all arranged together. He did nothing wrong in this thing.
He did exactly what you told him to do. He went over there and lived his life. And then you're bitching about how he lived it. You don't get it both ways. Yeah. You got to come back together. Yeah. So the two of you sit down, start fresh, and go, okay, I want to do over. The two of us are going to become one, like the preacher says, and now you are one.
And we're going to put all of our money in the middle of the table, and I'm not going to gripe at you about the $18,000. We're going to cut up the Amex card, and together we're going to decide what we are going to spend on fun.
what we are going to spend on life, what we are going to put in the kids' 529, how we are going to pay the insurance bills, and we together are putting all of our money, and he gets a vote, and you get a vote on how this budget looks. And if he says, no, I'm not going to fix my direct deposit, then you all have a much bigger issue in your marriage than just doing money separately.
You get what I'm saying? I guess I do, because I guess it feels kind of like... dishonest that he's let me believe for 10 years that he's got this pittance of an income? I don't think so. You are working really hard to make him a bad guy in this, and I want you to reframe that, because it's your fault. I really, I mean, that'll be good for your marriage.
I got to tell you, I don't want to change my deposit because my wife thinks I've been lying to her for 10 years. And I don't think my vote's going to count in this budget meeting. I'll bet you he doesn't want to change the deposit then. Yeah. But I wouldn't either. I wouldn't either.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of combining finances in a marriage?
Okay, that's what I thought. I thought I should ask. The old joke is if you loan your brother-in-law $100 and he never speaks to you again, was it worth it? So the borrower is slave to the lender. And when you owe someone money, even someone as sweet as your dad, and your dad's a really nice guy. I mean, because jerks don't offer to give their daughter, like, bank money, right?
So, loan their daughter bank money. But when you eat Thanksgiving dinner with your master, even if he's a nice master, it still tastes different. Yeah, you're right. And you're looking over your shoulder, wondering if he's judging the vacation you're taking while you owe him money. Are you married, Joy? No. I'm not. Okay. Yeah.
I promise if you start dating somebody or you go get married and you still are in this arrangement, that's going to be real weird between the two of them. Here's what I would do. I would tell my dad, I would take him out for a breakfast somewhere, not super expensive, but kind of nice. And I would tell him, thank you so much, but I want you to always just be my dad. Oh, you get what I'm saying?
I want to preserve that. I want to preserve that relationship. I don't ever want it to be weird. Let me do banking with banks. I want you to always just be my dad. And if he decides to gift you $100,000 instead of loaning it to you, you can take it. Take it all day long. Take it all day long. That's so funny. I didn't say you bring it up. I said if he decides.
I mean, you might want to bring it up. Just kidding. No. Yeah. Be careful. This ends up poorly. So when I went broke and lost everything – Sharon's dad loaned us money. And Sharon's dad, he's 97 now. He's the nicest man I've never known. He's the sweetest, kindest, gentlest guy. He never said an unkind word. And I got that paid back really, really fast. It drove me bonkers. Yeah.
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Chapter 4: How can one effectively address financial disagreements in a relationship?
I couldn't stand it. And Sharon's like, well, it's no big deal. It's just my dad. The shadow of her dad was over your house. Yeah. In the midst of having gone broke, lost everything, bankrupted and shamed, now I owe him money. Her daddy has to come bail you out. And I have to eat Thanksgiving dinner there. And he never said a stinking word. None of that's on him. It's all on me.
But it proved to me that point. The borrower is slave to the lender. You've worked too hard to get control of your money just to let strangers control your data. Think about it. Just about every time you sign up for a newsletter, grab a coupon code, or start a free trial, your personal info, like your name, email address, phone number, and more, gets scooped up and sold by data brokers.
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That's joindeleteme.com slash Ramsey. Doug is in Philadelphia. Hi, Doug. How are you? Good. How are you, sir? Thank you so much for having me on the show. Sure. How can we help? So I am in baby step two of my financial journey, and I got a part-time job. I work a full-time job, but I got a part-time job at a big box home improvement store.
And when I started there, you know, credit cards were always a thing. I have never signed anybody up for one. I refuse to do it. I have no issue. I will never do it. And it was really never a big deal when they would ask, you know, I tell them nobody wants to already has one. But they've really been recently pushing like every day I go in. Hey, you haven't signed anybody up for a credit card.
Hey, you haven't signed anybody up for a credit card. And now they're starting to offer HELOCs. And they're telling me they want me to start pushing these HELOCs. And my conundrum is, I only got about nine to 10 months left there before I've completed my goals. And I'm actually out of baby step three. Do I just continue to play that game and say, oh, yeah, it's fine?
Or do I sit down with my manager and say, hey, here are my values. Here are my convictions. And I will not push these products onto people. And I myself am here trying to get out of debt. Well, if you do that, you're going to get fired. Yeah. So an easier method would be just quit. Be easier. Be easier on everybody. Or you can just ride it out for nine months.
But it's the business that they're in, and they have now said, okay, you work for us. Your job is to help someone find the bolt, the screw, the lock, and Yes, yes. Yeah. I have a maintenance background, so I really enjoy helping customers figure out their problems and helping them with their DIY projects. I enjoy doing that aspect of it. At first, I never had a problem.
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Chapter 5: What should I consider before accepting an inheritance of real estate?
But if it was a regular lawsuit, I can tell you, you can't get it.
Chapter 6: How do I manage expectations regarding family inheritances?
It's not accessible.
Chapter 7: What are the implications of running for a political position?
It's accessible in a divorce.
Chapter 8: How can I cope with the financial impact of a career change?
A divorce attorney or divorce lawyer probate can make you split up a 401k in the process of a divorce. So they may be able to do it on child support. I don't know. But I think overall, you don't need it and you sure don't need him around. So I'm with your I'm with your fiance and John. I love entrepreneurs. Don't forget, guys, I started my company on a card table myself.
So I know what it's like to have people counting on you, your team, your family, not to mention your customers. And when you're the one signing the paychecks, you can't afford to fly blind. But I'll be honest, early on, one thing that nearly sunk us was wasting time with spreadsheets that didn't add up because business units didn't talk to each other. I finally told my team, just fix it.
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Evelyn is in Atlanta. Hi, Evelyn. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, so I'm 24 years old, and I've been working since I've been 15. I haven't built any real savings, and I put all of my expenses on a credit card.
I have like $2,000 to $3,000 that I spend a month on my credit card, and after I pay that off, I pay it off in full every month, but after I pay it off, I only have like $100 to $200 left.
I basically live paycheck to paycheck and I've been living like that ever since I started working and I do I use the college savings that my parents had for me as a down payment for a duplex and I rent it out but whenever big repairs come up I have to borrow money from them to pay it off and I just want to stop doing that I want to break the cycle and start saving money stop using my credit card and just breaking the bad habits of spending money like it's
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