Your Financial Journey Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

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The Ramsey Show 1h 23m 11 speakers 5 chapters transcribed
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How to handle combining finances before marriage?

Caller 0:52
Hi, Dave and Rachel. Thank you for having me.
Dave Ramsey 0:54
Sure. What's up?
Caller 0:56
I was calling to ask, me and my boyfriend have been together for about two years. He lives there in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and I live in Michigan. And we discussed getting married, and he has plans on relocating to Michigan, but he's not willing to relocate without securing a job first. And he's been applying, but his lease ends in June. And I'm just wondering if you think it's a good idea to wait for him to secure a job to come to Michigan to find a place together, or if I should move out. I live with my dad. Me and my daughter moved in after I got divorced. And so I was just wondering what you both think.
Dave Ramsey 1:47
So I'm a little bit confused. So he's, do I think he ought to come to Michigan without a job? Is that the question?
Caller 1:56
Well, no, he doesn't. Well, I'm asking if you think I should move out of my dad's house, like before he secures a job here, or if I should just wait until he does secure a job here and me and him move in somewhere together.
Dave Ramsey 2:14
Well, I think, you know, you're asking me, so I'm going to tell you, I would get married before I moved in together.
Caller 2:20
Yes, our plan is to get married.
Dave Ramsey 2:21
Well, before you move in together.
Caller 2:24
Yes, like, but once he... Once he comes, yeah. Yeah.
Dave Ramsey 2:32
Are you engaged?
Caller 2:36
No.
Dave Ramsey 2:36
Okay.
Caller 2:37
He hasn't asked me.
Dave Ramsey 2:38
Okay. Well, we're getting these things out of order as far as I'm concerned. I'm an old school guy. So my daughter is sitting next to me. If my daughter called me like this, I'd be going, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're going to get these things in the right order.
Caller 2:51
Okay.
Dave Ramsey 2:53
And so we're going to say, okay, you said you have a daughter?
Caller 3:01
Yes.
Dave Ramsey 3:01
Okay. You would not tell her to move in with a guy that she wasn't married to, would you?
Caller 3:07
No, I would tell her to get married first, but that is our plan. It's just like I live with my dad. We're not engaged.
Dave Ramsey 3:15
Might be your plan. It ain't his. Yeah.
Rachel Cruze 3:21
So I think I think I think what's so to answer your question, just like point blank, and then maybe we can kind of backpedal and talk through more of the why. But no, I would stay. Are you are you paying rent with your dad or are you just living there? No. OK. Yeah. So I would live there with your daughter. He needs to come move rent somewhere, find a job once he's stable or feels, you know, that well enough to be able to say, OK, yes, now we're going to get engaged. You guys have been dating for a long period of two years. You're both adults. You probably know, yeah, we can make this engagement faster. We don't have to be engaged for three years, right? We can have a wedding. It may not be an extravagant wedding, but we'll get married. And then the next step then would be, okay, now we have formed a family unit together. and we're gonna live as that. And I think the problem is so often like we fast forward that process. And what's difficult too is we have found over and over and over and over and over again, and even more recent research has come out
Rachel Cruze 4:23
to show, not even from a financial perspective, but just a quality of life perspective, the happiness among couples is higher with those who actually didn't even live together before married, married, and then lived together than those that lived together even before. And so you just see all of this play out. And I think, too, what's hard is we see the other end of that. We get the calls of people that
Dave Ramsey 4:47
Everything screwed up.
Rachel Cruze 4:48
Everything messed up and you move in together and then he can't find a job and it's been a year and you're starting to pay his bills. It just gets real messy real fast. And so from a relational and financial perspective, the cleaner those lines can be. Honestly, it makes the process smoother. And it may not be like what everyone does or fill in the blank, but it does.

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