You Can’t Fix Your Money Problems Without Facing Them
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Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work,

that they love and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. My co-host today, Rachel Cruz, number one best-selling author and host of The Rachel Cruz Show, co-host of Smart Money Happy Hour, all on Ramsey Networks, and my daughter. She's going to be answering the questions today, and I'm going to watch. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Nathan is in Birmingham. Hi, Nathan. What's up?

Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. I got a question. It's kind of a rough situation. I need to know the best way to buy...

used car going through a pretty nasty divorce. My car finally just bit the dust. My buddy said it can't. The transmission's out. The frame's rusted. The type that just drives them until they're dead. The problem is I don't know what my soon-to-be ex did with the finances. She split up everything, left me with almost nothing. My lawyer's been trying to work on finding that out, but she's not working.

working with a lawyer so i just need to know the best way to do this if we combined everything we have the money to do that but she basically has helped me to either get a car loan or which i don't like doing because we found i got out of debt uh but i just need to know the best way to uh approach this um without having to go out how long have you been separated nathan uh about uh five or six months and where has your paycheck been going son

Oh, I have my own new bank account. Oh, how much is in that? Right now, about $2,000 because I'm paying for lawyer fees are really taking a good chunk of my money right now. Okay. And you're saying that you guys had a combined savings. We probably had a combined about $50,000 cash available. Okay. And I don't know what he's done with that. So the first thing you do is you call your lawyer.

And you say, I need half of our savings account transferred to me by the end of the day. This is asinine. I want my money now. Is there a judge involved, Nathan? Not yet. But the lawyer picks up the phone and calls her lawyer and says, you have 24 hours to transfer $25,000 or we're going to get before a judge.

Now, the problem is she's not working with a lawyer right now. Good. We're going to go before a judge if you don't listen, lady. Okay. Okay. So you've been being real sweet and stand back and trying to let the lawyers do it, and the lawyers aren't doing their job. They're not working. Yeah, I'm thinking. You gave him money, and she still sits on your money for six freaking months. Light a fire under some people, buddy.

So, yeah, that's... I need a car. I want my $25,000 now. We'll negotiate the rest of it later, but I want my money now. Okay. You hear what I'm doing? Yes, sir. I'm creating urgency with my voice. You've been pushed around, and you're about to push back. Your only other option is take your car, which is a piece of crap, and sell it for whatever, $500 or $700 to the local salvage yard, right? Right.

Yeah, pretty much. And then put $2,000 with that and go get you a $3,000 car to drive until you light a fire under these people on the other side of this discussion. Okay. But this tells you that you've been tolerating this too long. Yes, you're right. Yeah, so a friend of mine that does divorce recovery work says that

What people have the most trouble with in your situation and you're struggling with it, and most—it's human. It's not you're a bad guy. But most people forget this. You get all tangled up with the emotions and the grief and the anger and everything else regarding the actual marriage coming to an end. But what in reality is happening is when a divorce occurs, it turns a marriage into a business transaction. Right.

Yeah. And if you were in a business partnership and the partnership was closing down, you would not allow your business partner to sit on $50,000 when 25 of it's yours. Yeah. For five freaking months. Yeah. I think the other problem is she's currently pregnant. It's not mine. So that kind of throws another. No, it doesn't throw it. It doesn't affect anything. Okay. That's her problem.

Okay. That's not your problem. Her problem is she's got $50,000, 25 of which is yours, and she's getting ready to get a judge to give her a little slapping if she doesn't get their money turned over.

That's what's going on. That's her problem. She's got other issues like getting pregnant with other people while she's married to you. That's going to be another issue. And that pisses you off and hurts your feelings. And, you know, I absolutely if she had a lawyer, he'd be like going crazy right now trying to defend this situation. Oh, my gosh.

And so, yeah, you've got to bring this thing to a head. Yeah, and for your peace of mind, Nathan, for this just to drag on in general, whether you need a car or not, for this to be sitting in such limbo for so long, I think, yeah, it needs to be done. Here's the thing. If you don't get this done, you're going to reach over there to get the money. It's going to be gone. It may already be gone.

Yeah, that's what kind of concerns me. Yeah, I'm kind of worried about that right now. But, you know, she's on the hook for it because you have some kind of proof or can get proof that that money existed when you left the house. Oh, yes, sir, yeah. And so she definitely spent marital assets illegally. No question.

Now, whether she'll ever be able to pay it back, probably not. Doesn't sound like this is the smartest chick on the planet. So anyway, yeah, you do. You got to you needed to have moved on this four months ago, but now you get to move on it. And if you do find out bad news, there's no money and it's going to take a while and your attorney won't jack them up. Then you get to go buy a three thousand dollar car with cash.

Because the one you're driving wasn't $3,000. So it's not like you're moving down. It wasn't like you got rid of an $80,000 vehicle or something. So, you know, that's where you are. So stay calm. But here's the thing. Treat this now as much as you can. And it's hard to do because we're all emotional beings. I'm emotional just talking to you about it. And it's not even me. But, I mean, treat it like it's just a transaction. Everything having to do with the...

The closing up of this marriage, the wrapping up of this marriage called a divorce. It's a transaction. It needs to happen efficiently, smoothly and quickly. Yeah. And your lawyer will know. I've always been shocked and I feel like I still learn this, how different state to state handles divorce.

the law when it comes to divorce from communal assets, marital assets, like all of it. It is like, it is, it can get very complicated very quickly. And so making sure it's as clean cut as possible and quick and fast. That's the thing. It's like wrap it up because, and especially since she doesn't have any representation, like,

I don't know. I don't know if that makes it worse for her probably, but also I don't know if it's going to string along all of this event. Well, what makes it worse for the rest of you out there is she probably thinks she's going to get away with this because she's not going to get anybody in her corner as a lawyer going. Advising her, telling her. Just telling her, this is dumb. You can't do that. Yes, yes. Yeah. And she's probably like, well, yeah, I think this is my money and I'm having a baby, so I get to keep it. No, that's not how it works, darling. So...

You know, she's got nobody there talking sense into her. And she may be getting her best her best advice from her friend on Instagram, which is, you know, probably not a good idea. We don't know. Probably not a good idea. I'm just saying.

Like, for sure, not a good idea. This is The Ramsey Show. ♪♪♪

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Hi, I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I love that line. Okay, I'll try to make this brief. I am 35, married with a kid and a second on the way. I have $1.8 million in debt total. Good Lord.

Yeah. Does that include your home? I live in Montreal, which is the third most expensive city in Canada. And I work as a nurse, which is the cheapest paid in the whole of Canada. And what is the $1.8 million on? I hope it's just your real estate, right? Well, I have a triplex, which I owe about $680,000 on. I have my family home, which I owe $590,000 on. Okay, so what's the triplex worth?

What's the what? What's the triplex worth? The triplex is worth about $850. Okay. I'm trying to get $950 on it, but I don't know if I should lower the price. Oh, so you've got it up for sale. And what is your home worth? My home is worth about $750. Okay. All right. I got you. And is that, let's see, seven and then six. That's not all of it. No, it's not all of it. Like $600,000?

I have two Hondas, which I owe close to $70,000 on each. I have $350,000 of personal debt and then $35,000 of credit card and student loans. What is your $350,000 of personal debt? It was loaned to me mostly by my cousin, both as a down payment for the house as well as to renovate the house and the triplex.

And what's your household income? Around $110,000, $120,000 before tax. I'm going to go back one more time. I apologize, but I didn't write the condos down. You owe $70,000 each on two condos? On two Hondas. Hondas! Oh, I put condo too. So they're not worth $70,000. No, they're fairly new, but they're electric. Okay.

Okay. We got them because we would be saving $500 in gas per car. Yeah, it makes a difference when you're $2 million in debt. That's a big deal. Yeah. Not! Okay. All right. Oh, God. All right, so how can we help, hon? Well, I had my aha moment when I saw $22,000 going out in one month after doing a budget. Okay.

And I don't know what exactly to do. I tried to get my wife on board. She says she'll get rid of everything besides for the house and the cars. I cut out everything from potato chips to haircuts, literally anything I could to curb the debt, curb the expenses. And I,

I wish I could do more jobs a day, but my doctor says that because I'm bipolar, I need to have a healthy work-life balance. And my wife is going on maternity leave in 12 weeks. How much of her salary is the $120,000? She makes about $66,000. So half of it is that paid for, paid maternity leave? She gets 70% paid. Okay. For how long? For a year. Okay.

And how much are these car payments a month? Just under $750 each. Okay. Well, I think we need to have a different discussion at your kitchen table. It's not like, what will she go along with? She's one of the adults here, too. And the two of you need to sit down and look at this and go, in 10 years, where do we want to be? And I'm collapsing under the weight of this. I can't do it anymore. This is killing me.

It's aggravating your bipolar because your stress level is through the roof. Yes. Yeah. And so it's not a matter of I have to keep a princess happy. The princess gets to grow up and be a woman.

Like a grown-up. And she gets to look at this with you and say, we have children to raise, a life to build, and the one that we have is falling down around our ears, and we have to do something. The house is on fire, darling. We can't discuss what you want it to burn. You get to decide with me if we're going to let the house burn down or are we going to do something to put it out. You don't get to sit here and go, I don't like fire.

That's not an option anymore. You're like a grown woman with kids. And so you've got to reframe this. Because you've been running around trying to shovel things in her direction to keep her happy, like she's your child or something. And that's not working relationally. And it's not working in your decision-making either, because y'all make sucky decisions. Yeah, I do. No, not you. Both of you. She's involved. That's my point.

So the two of you sit down together, and then if you back up, and if I, you're not dumb people. If I hired you to sit down and look at someone's situation exactly like yours, and it wasn't all your stress, you would look at it and go, oh, electric condos are gone. Bye-bye.

We're getting cheap cars, like $5,000 cars. And I don't really care what they burn. Kerosene, diesel, electricity, doesn't matter to me. We're driving. We're not worried about the environment at all. We're not worried about the environment right now. The environment I'm worried about is not being broke. Yeah. And so there's your environment. And you don't get to be an investor in triplexes.

That thing's got to be priced in such a way that your real estate agent can sell it and get it gone. And then you use that to clear up a bunch of this $350,000 in debt. And with no car payments and no triplex, and the $350,000 is reduced by $200,000 or so, $150,000 or so down to $200,000. Then the two of you lean in. And by the way, she doesn't get a year off for a baby.

I don't really care what the Canadian government says. She gets to go to work. She lives with she's broke people, broke people work. So you get time off a reasonable amount of time with a baby in most countries or situations. That's six or eight weeks. And then people go back to work. And so, you know, you don't you don't get to work at 70 percent and not work.

And while we're broke, sorry, it's how this works. And no, we're not spending $350,000 to redo the dadgum nursery either. Kid sleeps on a used baby bed we get at a garage sale. People survive this stuff, but only when they make grown-up decisions. And dude, just listening to the tone and cadence of your voice, my heart is breaking for you. You sound like you are walking around under a 400-pound weight. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. You sound so scared to death. Well, then add two babies in the mix for you guys. I'm like, that's a lot. It's a lot. But the answer to getting rid of this anxiety is getting rid of all the crap and the debt associated with it. I hope you can turn this and not sell your house. I hope you can. And I want you to try to do that. Sell everything but the house first. But then a year later, if you're still peddling and you still can't do it, you may have to sell the house. Mm-hmm.

But you guys have got to quit buying crap you can't afford. And I really don't care how expensive freaking Montreal is. You may not get to live there anymore. There are cities that are too expensive for some people to live in. You can't live in Tokyo. You can't live in New York City, Manhattan. You can't live in London and make minimum wage. You can't afford to live there. They're too expensive. And so I don't know if Montreal goes on that list or not. I'm not an expert on Montreal. I'm not an expert on any of them, but...

Gosh, son, I just I'm afraid for you because I'm the biggest thing I'm afraid is I'm afraid that you're afraid of her and you're not going to deal with this. And you two have got to sit down and have some grown up discussions about both of you being grown ups and come into the table and clean this mess up. Yeah. Those babies depend on y'all. Yes. And the whole idea, the picture of the house is on fire and you're not going to get the fire out with water guns. Right. Just trying here and there. We're just kind of like.

Like this is a this is a fire hose. Like everything is going to look completely different and should by tomorrow with your mindset when you guys sit down tonight and just say we have to get we have to get everything out. Every our life is going to look completely different in the next three to six months. Mathematically, I can get you out if you did everything I told you to do. But I don't know if you'll do it or not. That's the that's the variable. I can't get figured out here. When you decide to go do it, you can clean this up.

All right, Dave, you have some strong opinions. Possibly, yeah. I think so. Okay, because you really prefer credit unions over big banks. Well, credit unions, for one thing, are non-profit, which means that the members, the customers, own banks.

the credit union. So any profits that the credit union makes goes back into customer pricing. So you get better interest rate on savings, cheaper checking, and so on, that kind of thing. But what's more important than that, though, is the fact that the customer is the owner changes the spirit on the credit union. So I find very few credit unions that aren't very customer-centric. Well, and I think we have found one that is incredible, and that's Fairwinds.

They are an incredible credit union that is really out with the heart to help the customer. They're the right kind of people with the right kind of values. And they've done a really, really good job with customer service. And the deals that they're offering, the Ramsey Tribe is incredible. Yeah, absolutely. And I love it. The things that we teach, they so line up with. And you're right, their customer service is unbelievable. Winston and I just signed up and we got an account. And I'm not kidding. It took less than five minutes.

It was so user friendly, like the step by step approach was unbelievable. And then the next day, my phone rings and it says Fairwinds on my phone. So I answered it and talked to someone there and they said, yeah, they give calls to every new customer. And so again, they just really care about your experience. And I

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Our question of the day is brought to you by YRefi. Some lenders don't touch defaulted private student loans, but YRefi was built for this exact problem. They'll explore refinancing options with a low fixed rate, custom built for your situation deal.

And you can get your student loans cleaned up on defaulted private student loans. Go to YRefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Andrew in Nevada. What do you think about companies displaying tariff costs, call outs in their prices when they've had to increase them due to tariffs?

I'll be honest, I don't think I've seen this. I'm starting to see it a couple of places. Where? Like retailers? Yeah. Or like cars? Cars, different things. There's different people who are starting to show it. Here's the thing, though. The truth is that almost no tariffs have actually gone into effect yet. It's all discussion and threats and so forth at this moment. Now, if some of these do go into place, it does add to that company's cost. Right.

So if an item that they are selling you costs them 20% more and they're going to raise their prices and they want to explain why, well, that seems actually good that they tell you why they went up. You know, instead of something being $1,000, it's going to be $1,200 and it's all due to tariffs. We just tell. You know, I'll give you an example that's similar to that. You remember when gas prices went way up. The guy that cuts our yard...

And does our work here and has worked for me for 20 years. He does all the work on all of our commercial buildings and everything else, does all the landscaping. He put a fuel surcharge on the bills.

He took his normal bill, his normal contract with us, and he goes, my gas costs have gone doubled. Yeah. And so I put a fuel surcharge on there. I wasn't pissed at him about that. He legitimately, his dadgum gas was costing double. Right, right. So it's not like they're doing something wrong. Now, if they're collecting gas,

extra money on a tariff that has not yet occurred, I might have trouble with that one. If they're like lying? Yeah. I might struggle with that one ethically, hello, or collecting on a tariff they think might occur, and that's more of a political statement than it is an actual accounting function. Okay? And so it's like, it's kind of like, you know, anyway, I don't

But I'm not seeing a lot of this yet. I've seen a little of it. And the biggest reason is, is there's not a lot of actual tariffs have hit the shores of the United States yet. And so. And when they do, I mean, the truth is small businesses, we're going to feel it. I mean, any business, but especially, I mean, even with some of our stuff, you know what I mean? Like you just talk to like.

I mean, there is a level... No, almost all of our stuff is not done overseas. So... Some of the things I think are good. We've got a handful of things that are. But I mean, like your wallets are done in India. Yeah. But the truth is, it does affect small business. And so you may see that. Like that's... Yeah. If the cost of that wallet that we're doing in India doubles...

because of tariffs. We'll probably put that on the website. We'll probably put it out there for you. But so far, it has not, by the way. Okay. It's a lot of saber rattling, as they say in negotiating so far. And boy, we have a chief saber rattler right now. No question about that. All right. Jason is in Kansas City. Hey, Jason, what's up?

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? Hey, real quick, I just feel stupid for asking it, but I'm thinking about quitting my job I've been doing for about 20 years and just doing something totally different. Am I dumb for wanting to do something that's better paying, better

Why would that be dumb? My life, sleeping, everything like that. Am I dumb for one? I'm just worried about losing my retirement. Why would that be dumb? I don't know. I'm just worried about making a big change, doing something for about 20 years and doing something totally different. I'm just nervous to take that step. Okay. Well, I mean, you need good information, and the more information I have, the calmer I am about taking a big step. Does that make sense? Uh-huh. So you said something about your retirement. Say that again.

I'm worried about my retirement. I'll be leaving away a big pension. Well, I wouldn't be leaving it, but it won't be as big if I finish out doing my... How old are you? I'm about 40. Will they lump sum it, or will they make you wait until you're 65 to start taking it? Wait until I'm 65. You sure? Yes. Okay. So you're just going to get it. It's just not going to be as much because you're not going to be there for the next 20 years. Thank God you hate the job.

Yeah, exactly. Oh, yeah, let's go make some money, dude. What do you want to do, Jason? I've got something else lined up, just doing my own thing, working with machinery and stuff like that, heavy equipment, clearing out brush and stuff like that. Do you have history doing this stuff? Do you have something you are going to step into? Yeah, I've been doing it as a side gig. Okay. What are you making as a side gig? Well, it's hard to say. Maybe about, I don't know.

$1,000 a month, roughly. Okay, and what do you make at your main job now? About $100,000 a year. Okay, so you've got a big jump there. That's $88,000 you've got to find in brush to cut. Yeah. That's a lot. Yeah, but if I was doing that full-time, yeah, I can definitely, there's a lot of ways to do that around here. Yeah, you're working 40 hours right now in a government gig, right? Yeah. Okay, I want you to crank up your side hustle and get it to $50,000.

And work all the time where you're just exhausted because you need more proof text than $12,000 a year against 100K. That's what's making you nervous is that leap in your mind. You can see it happening, but you can't really put I can't see the numbers right now that that's going to happen. Yeah. OK, so you need to work like all day Saturday, all Sunday afternoon after church. You work every afternoon after you get home and you need to get this to 30, 40, 50,000 bucks.

And then that's going to be a whole lot more comfortable. That may take you six months to jack it up, but I want you to jack it up and treat it like you've gone full time. Yeah. You home by four? Usually. Yeah. Yeah. So this summer, dude, while you got light, let's go crazy. I mean, you can get four or five hours in. Yeah.

Right? Yeah, I can do that. Absolutely. I work, you know, eight, ten hours a day. You married? That's no problem. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I mean, because she's going to be less nervous when she sees that the – what we say is don't take a leap and try to jump in the boat, a leap of faith. Pull the boat over closer to the dock and step in.

And that's what I'm saying. I like it. Yeah. How are you guys financially, Jason? Do you guys have consumer debt savings? Yeah, we just got about $10,000 of debt be paid off here in the next month or two. Okay. Yeah. If you can go make $70,000 or $80,000 heading towards $150,000 running equipment, I would go do that. But I just want you to prove it to yourself and your...

and to your wife a little better than $12,000 a year before you go do it. That's all I'm saying. And then you're going to be less nervous about it, and you're not going to be questioning, am I stupid to do this? You're going to be going, I'd be stupid to not do it. So, you know, one of the things, Rachel, that's interesting is people say people hate change. People don't hate change. People love change as long as the change is positive. As long as it's good. I mean, when I sold my pickup and I bought a Raptor R –

I love change. It was amazing. It was a huge upgrade. I mean, I love change. You love change when it goes better, right? I don't know.

Charles, if you change jobs. I cried. I don't like that change. That makes me sad. But if you change, you cry when you sold your car. And so, you know. No, Charles. Oh. But if you get an upgrade, if you get an upgrade, people like change. So if you leave a toxic boss at an underpaid job and get a great boss or self-employed and make three times more money, people love change.

Who wouldn't do that? We all love change. When it's for the better, it's change that's uncertain. Uncertainty is what we don't like. Yeah. We don't like uncertainty. Or the passage of time. I don't know. Good Lord. A personal counseling session for you on your child's school. Everybody loves change. I'm like, oh, do we? No, we do. Do we all?

We love change if it's good change. I know. Well, especially in that scenario. And when your child goes off to school and the last one is gone, that is bittersweet. But you don't want them staying at home until they're 40. So it's good that they go. I heard that message loud and clear. I gotcha. I gotcha.

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Hey, I am trying to get on the same page with spending with my girlfriend. We just recently, in the past couple months, we did move in together, and I've been happy to cover all the necessity bills, rent, groceries, etc. But as of more recently, I have not been able to get on the same page. She has a card of mine that she uses for grocery shopping.

groceries expenses but i've noticed a lot of charges that i can't keep up with um and i brought it to her attention and every time i do we get into a fight so i need i'm just calling how what am i doing wrong how can i get on the same page does she work

Yes, so she works, and she makes a decent amount as well. She has some other debts that she's paying. She has some student loans. She has a car payment. I don't have any debt aside from the debt that would be spent on that car that she uses that I brought up to her attention. Okay.

And what does she say when you bring it up? You say, we keep getting in a fight about it. What's the dialogue? What's being said? So, for example, at the end of this past month, there was $1,900 between Target and shopping. And she's not shopping necessarily personal, buying shoes and bags. It's expenses that are for home and decoration. But it's...

Yes, correct. Not for a wrong cause or anything, but it's charges that I can see the bottom of the barrel coming very quickly if this continues. How old are you? I'm 23. How old is she? She's 23 as well. And what do you make?

So I make – I work an hourly construction job, and I make somewhere between $60 and $70 a year. I also do have a side business that is starting – that I'm starting to finally see some income from there, too. It's not consistent because it's still in the early phases. You seem like such a level-headed, wise, smart young guy until we start talking about her. And then suddenly, like, all of your common sense left.

Yeah, I mean, because you're sitting here explaining to me something that's absolutely asinine. And and you I mean, you're the kind of guy that normally would have just said, wait a minute, just give me the card back. This doesn't work. Why haven't you done that? So it's not that I haven't. It's that I don't mind tonight. Yeah.

This is going nowhere good. Todd, the problem is you guys are acting like you're a married couple. You know what I mean? Like you're acting like, oh, yeah, we are one in our lives and we're doing this life together. No, you're not. Like financially, this is not a combined venture. You gave your roommate a credit card and your roommate has a spending problem. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. And that's what Rachel's saying. Now, if you're her husband...

Now we got a different discussion. Now we're in marriage counseling and we get on the same page. And, honey, we can't spend money like we're in Congress. And we start having these discussions. OK, but she's not your wife, but you just gave your room. I mean, just change it. Pretend like you weren't sleeping with her and it was just your roommate. And you just gave your buddy who's living down the hall in another bedroom your card. And then he went hog wild at freaking Target.

You know, you'd be going, no. Or Bass Pro. Yeah, Bass Pro. Or whatever. I don't know. Okay, wherever. I don't care. But I mean, you'd be going, man, I must be, that was a bad move. I want my card back.

Right? Because that's the situation you're in. Almost $2,000 a month, Todd. That's a lot. It's not like you're like, oh gosh, she spent $50. Yeah, it was $1,700 last month and I said something then. And we got an argument and then it was $19 this month. Okay, well let me help you with this. It's going the wrong way.

I guess my problem is I see so many characteristics of her that are marriage material, and so I try to overlook this problem and try and compromise and make it work. But every time I say something, we get an argument. No, you have to take the card back, and then we have to start the relationship over. And the relationship starts with the two of us have to get on the same page about how we are going to handle money before we talk about marriage.

And a real good way to do that is not be living together. Because when you're living together, you're trying to work. You're trying to play like you're married, but you're not. It's like one foot in the boat, one knot. And all you do is get wet in this lake. I mean, the boat leaves and there you go. So, you know, and so it's just it's a problem. So and I don't think you're guys. I don't think you two you're not describing a situation where you're ready to get married. Yeah. So, yeah.

Well, I'm just I'm coming to. Yeah. And know this, Todd, you know, I'm sure she does have marriage material and all of that. And not that certain subjects can't be agreed upon and seeing shared values and actually working towards reconciliation of us actually seeing life the same way. But there's like big issues that create that that have been studied and shown that cause divorce and money is always in that top three.

So I don't know. I heard this example once. I thought it was funny. They were like, you know, if they're like, OK, the top three ways that you could die from here to walking to your car are bears. And bears are the one of the three ways that people die from walking from inside to their car. We'd all probably die.

about bears and be thinking about bears and probably have bear spray and be armed against bears and be aware. So if it's a major red flag in a relationship towards marriage, like it should be a big deal. Like this is a big red flag, Todd. Like you keep saying, you know what I mean? Like the attitude is like, well, it's just this. It may not be a big deal. What we're saying is for a romantic relationship, for it to go further and you guys get married and

And it's not that I don't have hope that you guys could create shared values and actually start as grownups talking about reality that we can't spend more than we make. And in reality, here's what this looks like for our life. You could do that. I hope you can. But if you can't reconcile this again, it is a big red flag, big red flag for marriage. So it's really important. So the conversation, if I'm you, it sounds at a minimum, it sounds like this. Tonight we sit down, we say, hey, I made a mistake. I'm sorry.

The mistake I made was I started treating the situation like we were married financially and we're not. And so we need to keep our money completely separate if we're going to stay in the same house. And we've got to start, if we want the relationship to go forward, we've got to start talking about how we can be on the same page about money. In the meantime, give me my card back.

Because we're not, we're going to separate our money again because this is complicating our relationship. It's not helping it. I thought I was doing a nice thing by providing and I made a mistake. I goofed.

And so I've I've got it. We've got to separate the stuff so that we can come back to sanity and start a fresh discussion like two grownups about how we can move this relationship forward. And it can't be that we're sharing money and a bed when we're not married. Those two, it just doesn't work. The data is in.

It's not a moral judgment, although I can pitch that to you, too, if you want it. But what it is is the data is in.

This does not go where you guys want it to go. No. There's research project after research project after research project. And we now know for sure that marriage is a huge advantage over singles living together. We see the health is improved of both partners. The sex life is improved of both partners. The wealth is 15 times higher for both partners.

for a married 35-year-old couple than a single female. 15 times higher net worth. That's actual data, okay, from research projects. Married men live six to nine years longer than unmarried men.

Apparently women keep us from doing stupid stuff. I don't know. But are you going to eat that? Yes. No, you're not. You're married. I don't want you to die. I don't know what it is, but something married men live longer. Married men make 26% higher incomes at 37 years old than unmarried men. Interesting. And that includes unmarried men shacking up, acting like they're married. You make 26% more if you actually put a ring on it. Hello. Hello.

So, I mean, this is real, you guys. And you guys have been told a lie out there that, oh, I'm going to try on the shoes before I buy them and make sure they fit. That's a lie. The data doesn't pay off on this. It doesn't work. I'm sorry. And if that offends some of you, we'll get in line of people that Dave Ramsey has pissed off in the last 30 years. It's a long line.

Hey guys, what's up? It's Jade Warshaw. And look, if there's anybody who knows about student loan debt, it's me. My husband and I had $280,000 of it, but we were able to dig ourselves out and you can too. If your student loan payment and interest rate are burying you, refinancing could be the solution. Now, if you're a student loan payer,

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We'll be right back.

Again, that's laurelroad.com slash Ramsey. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Rachel Cruz, number one best-selling author, host of The Rachel Cruz Show, and Ramsey personality, my daughter, is my co-host today. Jake is in Phoenix, Arizona. Hi, Jake. How are you?

Hi, Dave. I'm well, thank you. Sure. What's up? Mate, look, I'm a legal immigrant. I'm a green card holder in the United States. My wife is a United States resident. We're looking to purchase our first home. And after speaking to a mortgage broker, because I have no credit history or credit score to speak of, he's essentially told us that I cannot go on the loan and it's going to have to be my wife.

by herself to go on the loan, which brings our borrowing power much less than we hoped it would be, which brings the quality of the home that we were hoping to put our family into into a much lower quality home. What is your wife's credit score? I believe she has about a 750 at the moment. Okay. Wow. Okay. Here...

There's three, there's a couple of variables here I don't know the answer to. One variable, though, is that I don't have the answer I want if I'm you, so I'm going to keep pushing, which is what you're doing by calling here. Good for you. Okay? Yes, sir. So, number one, in general, if a couple is going to go buy a house, there's two ends of the spectrum you want to be on. You don't want to be in the middle. Okay?

You want to have a high credit score like your wife does or no credit score like you do. If you have no credit score, you can do what's called manual underwriting, which is like George Camel and his wife Whitney bought a house with no credit score, same interest rate, both of their incomes counted toward buying the house.

to get the mortgage, okay, their first home that they ever bought. As an example, Jade Warshaw also has done that, okay? So Ramsey Personalities have actually done it. Human beings do it all the time, but you have to have a mortgage broker that knows what they're doing because manual underwriting is where they actually manually check and verify your income with your employment. They manually check and verify your deposit for your down payment. They manually check to see that the bills were paid to the landlord that has your name on the lease, okay?

And when they do all that, they establish that you can pay bills. Okay? Understood. And that's how the mortgages used to be done in the 70s and 80s until the FICO score took over.

Now FICO scores, mortgage brokers sometimes are just like a monkey. They look at the number and go, ooh, ooh, number big, or ooh, ooh, number not big. And that's the only way they can make a loan. They're just dumber than a rock. But you really look at the actual human being and figure out what's going on. Now, I don't know how to do that where one of you has no credit score and the other one has a big one.

I don't know the combination of that. That's the one piece or one of the two variables I'm not sure about in your situation. And I have no idea how this green card thing plays into it. That's the second thing I don't know. Okay. But I do know this. I do know that Churchill Mortgage that we have endorsed on this show for 30 years, they're friends of mine. If you will call Churchill Mortgage and talk to them,

they will work the, you know, T tell them, I've got to have some help. I talked to Dave on the air. He said to call and they'll explain to you in detail what you're facing. It might be that because one of you have a credit score and the other one doesn't that the manual underwriting for you can't be combined with her high credit score. You see what I'm saying? I don't know if you can do that or not. I've never tried to do that. I've always done it where both people were married and neither of them had a score and,

or both people were married and they both had a good, uh, a good score. Okay. Now, so, um, and again, I have no idea. You, what are you Australian or UK? What is it? What's the accent? Uh, I'm from New Zealand. New Zealand. Okay. All right. And so, um, missed it all the way around, but yeah, so, um, you're close with Australia. Yeah. I'm aiming in the general direction of the globe, but yeah, anyway, the, uh, yeah. So I don't know how that stuff works. Uh,

My pastor is Australian and he has a house and he's married to an American. I think he got his citizenship. He does have a citizenship today. But yeah, but he comes. Yeah. So anyway, that's a good point. But Jake, too, you know, when you guys go and and dice this out, you know, one of you being on the mortgage.

It's not going to work. They can't count both incomes is the problem. With that. And you got to have both. You need both incomes to count to be able to get the home that you're looking at. And that's a valid, it's a valid request because you legitimately both have the income. And with a green card, you're allowed to have an income. I do know that. Okay. So, you know, you're not, it's not like you're... Are you guys, is your wife out of debt? No. We're out of debt. We're on baby step three. So we've just managed to get... You got a house now? It may take...

Oh, yeah. Do you have a mortgage now? We do have a mortgage. It's my wife's home. We're in Phoenix. We just put that home on the market. Sure. Because that'll keep it. I was going to say, there is a season. Rachel was saying, let hers go to zero. But it's not going to as long as she's got an open account. Yep. Yeah. And so she's going to have an open account as long as she owns that house. And you don't need to sell that house just to do this. So I don't know the answer to those two questions. But if I were in your shoes, I would go to – I'm not going to take one mortgage broker's

I'm going to keep asking somebody until I get the answer I want. Sure. Until I learn enough about it to figure out how to somehow game this system because it's an unreasonable – I'm with you. Not counting your income is unreasonable. Yeah, yeah. And so I'm not going to accept an unreasonable answer because it's not logical.

The point is your income is there and it can be used to pay the freaking bill. So the mortgage company is not counting that and for some reason or another is just bureaucratic bull crap. Yeah. So I'm going to find some way to work around it. I will tell you another. Try Churchill. And if you can't get this figured out with them, you probably can. I think they'll solve it.

But the other thing you can do is go to someone like Fairwinds Credit Union, one of our other advertisers, and they portfolio the loans, meaning they keep the loan in-house. And if they're going to keep the loan in-house, that means they make up the rules. They can just look at it and decide, we're going to count it.

because this guy's reliable. We're going to do manual underwriting on him, and we're going to look at her credit score, and we're going to count it. And they can just decide to do that because what they're trying to do is to meet what's called conforming lending guidelines so they can resell the loan. Brokers don't keep the loans. They resell the loan. And in order for the loan to be marketable when they resell it, it has to meet these guidelines. And your guy can't figure out how to meet the guidelines. Right.

in your situation. Churchill may be able to figure it out, but if neither one of them can, go to a place that portfolios, meaning they keep the loan, they're not selling the loan. So whatever guidelines they're comfortable with, they can just do it because the loan's going to be on the books at the credit union. Yeah, that's a great point. And that one will work as well. That's another way to get at this. Wow. Interesting. Interesting. I've never run into that. Yeah. Well, it's always a...

It's such a frustrating thing because it creates these hurdles, which is true. When you don't live with debt and you don't have a credit score, there are going to be some of these hurdles that you run into. You can mostly always get past them. He might just have not been in the country long enough to establish a credit score. Well, with the green cost, yeah. But...

But you guys keep on the track, though, because I think the mindset that you guys are in sounds like a good, stable place. So don't go off the reservation and do something crazy just to get this house. Yeah. I need this house, so I'm going to take a 14% interest rate. Nope. Nope. We'll pass. We're going to work on it a different way. Another way to skin this cat. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Hey, what's up? Dr. John Deloney here. The new dates have dropped for the Money in Marriage Getaway over Valentine's Day weekend in 2026. This is your chance to hit pause on everything in your life and reconnect with your spouse over a long weekend in Nashville, Tennessee. Me and my friend Rachel Cruz will be digging into topics like sex, money, communication, and more.

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Buying or selling your homes a big deal, and between clickbait headlines and confusing data, it's tough to know what's actually going on in the housing market. Well, we're here to make the latest trends easy to understand. Median home prices went up slightly last month. About $430,000 is the median home price in America today. There's more homes on the market right now, nearly a million for sale.

The highest since 2019. But in many areas, that's still not enough to meet demand. There's still more buyers than sellers. Average fixed rate loans now 5.9% on a 15-year, and it's still under 6%. So there you go. So if you're financially ready, it's a good time to buy. Really, good time to sell. To learn more about the housing market trends,

And to buy or sell with confidence, go to RamseySolutions.com slash market or click the link in the show notes. Billy's in Kansas City. Hey, Billy, how are you? Hi, doing good. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can I help? Yeah, I'm 30 years old and I work as a retail manager making about $45,000 a year. I have about $35,000 in debt. And my question is, I

I watched your show for a long time and I know about the snowball. I kind of know the steps to get out of it, but I have really bad OCD and I can't, I don't use my kitchen at home. So I spend a lot of money on pre-made meals and going out to eat. And I was trying to see if there's any way you could give me a budget of how to get out of that while maybe keeping a small budget so I could keep buying food

Okay, I'm a little bit, I'm not, Dr. John Deloney's not here, so I don't know how, I don't understand how OCD keeps you from cooking your meal. Matter of fact, it ought to make you good at it, like following a recipe exactly.

Right. It's a contamination problem. And I have started going to therapy for it. Oh, you're worried about germs. Yeah, it's a germ thing. So I'm going to therapy for it, but I want to start, and I know I'll get there eventually, but I want to start my...

I want to start getting out of debt now. So my question is, is there any way I can make a budget where I can keep buying meals out or ordering like factor meals, stuff like that, and start getting out of debt? Well, you know, Billy, looking at your numbers, regardless of...

the OCD and the meal prep, you know, whole thing. I would tell you, regardless of it, of all of that, your income, it's got to go up, right? If you have $45,000 coming in and that's before taxes and you have $35,000 in debt, there's going to be... We need to increase your income 20 grand on a side hustle. What is the 35,000 in debt? What does that consist of?

Well, I have $20,000 in a car. Okay. And then I have about $12,000 in like unsecured past debt that are all going to collections. Okay. And it's from a long time ago. I don't really have anything that's current besides my car. Okay. How much is your car worth today, do you think?

The car is probably worth $15,000. Okay. I owe $20,000 is the payoff amount. But it's a really high interest, so it's like $36,000. Yeah. Do you have any money saved, Billy? $500,000. $500,000. Okay. So if I were you, because how much is your car payment a month? $500,000. Yeah. So I would be looking to unload this car ASAP, meaning...

try it. You're going to have to get, you're going to have to get some money to shore it up.

and, you know, some cash available to buy a crappy car. But that's what I would be working towards because I think when that $500 is freed up, it's going to give you a little bit more wiggle room and what you're needing. And then in addition, as you continue to work more, be able to pay off this $12,000 in the unsecured debt that's going to collections, which if it's going to collections, you could probably settle as well. So I think that there's a way out for you

It's just that upping the income is going to be the problem. For me, it's not the pre-made meals. I mean, I think you're a single guy. Increasing your income and getting rid of the car are like a 9 out of a scale of 10. You eating out or buying prepackaged meals is a 2 on a scale of 10. Okay. On addressing this problem. I do ride sharing as well. I'm sorry? A little bit on the side I can do ride sharing to make extra money. Okay. All right.

I don't care. Yeah, that's good. Whatever we can do to create some extra income, some kind of side hustle is necessary here. And to begin to look long term about what we can do with your overall career track to get you moving up in income long term.

But the good news is, I'll tell you the most positive thing in the whole conversation is you recognize very clearly the problem, and you're aggressively searching for some answers to fix the problem. You're not in denial. You're not arguing. You're just trying to figure this out. And that's the kind of people that we talk to that six months later have made dramatic, wonderful changes. Mm-hmm.

and set themselves free. So I really, really feel good about where you're going because of where you're standing today, the way your eyes are focused today. Okay? And I don't know beans about this, but it's just interesting to me talking to you about the other stuff. I want you to talk to your therapist about the possibility that you can create a cleaner environment by cooking yourself than probably those meals were cooked in. Okay.

Okay. And kind of using that as part of your therapy process, because in listening and sitting beside Dr. John for these last several years, one of the things that some of the therapists will recommend, and he does, is to actually embrace and walk straight into the fearful thing and, you know, to start to work through it.

And exposure therapy, exposure therapy. So that that's kind of what I'm thinking here. But I think there's a way if I'm concerned about germs and that's a fair concern, by the way, I might be more worried about germs at the restaurant that prepared the meal than I would be in my own kitchen where I can control the environment.

Okay. That might be an interesting way to do some mental gymnastics with your therapist's help to begin to move that direction. But again, if you start preparing meals at home and don't go out to eat,

And you keep the car and you don't increase your income, you're going to have major problems, dude. Your problem is the prepackaging. The eating out thing is not your problem. Yeah. Okay? You can put that in the budget if you do the other two things and you can work through it. So I'm just interested in the discussion from an exposure therapy standpoint that way. But I know nothing about it other than I know the phrase.

That's about it and the concept. But you talk to the professionals about that. In the meantime, sell your car and get an extra job. Yeah, yeah. All of that exposure theory, all that's for just your own...

health, Billy, right? I mean, that's not really the key of getting out of debt here. We say cut out restaurants and all that because usually we're talking to a couple or people with kids and you go and drop $3,000 a month on restaurants. Right, right. And so by you getting prepackaged meals or something like that's not gonna that's not gonna that's not gonna bust your budget. But this car and upping your income is big. And Billy, if you go on Ramsey solutions.com and just type in side hustles. We've done so many articles recently. And

written articles about this subject because even doing some of the every dollar webinars that we have done, the amount of money people make is wild. One lady, she's making close to $1,000. You ready for this? Every two weeks by doing laundry for people and folding it. It's her side hustle. So she's making almost two grand a month by doing that. And you're just like, man, that's $24,000 a year. That's...

Impressive. Impressive. And that's her side hustle. But I'm saying like rich people. I mean, I don't know. But I was watching her because she had a video and I was like, it's like pristine. It's beautiful. Oh, my gosh. She's like a professional laundry folder. She does it at night. It's like her side hustle. But she does it for people. So people don't do their own laundry. Oh, so she picks up a bag, takes back everything, folded non-hangers. But almost a thousand dollars every two weeks. That's what she's making. So. So, yeah, it's crazy.

So all that to say, Billy, there's some really creative side hustles. Go to RamseySolutions.com. It sounds like a joke, but it's not. If you're OCD, you'd be really good at that. You would fold that perfectly. That would be awesome. And it's a kind of funny thing, but it's also true. I think that's a good idea. That would be amazing. Yeah, that's good. I like that. You're okay, Rachel. You're going to live. This is The Ramsey Show.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. More and more people are becoming aware of the need for mental and emotional health resources. But so many of those same people still say they avoid getting therapy due to the fear of judgment. I know because I've personally been there. And I've sat with tons of hurting people over the years, and a lot of them are scared to get help. Listen, when people won't get help, it doesn't just affect them. It impacts their families, their workplaces, and their entire communities. So

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Buying and selling a home is a big deal, and you want an expert in your corner fighting for you to get the right deal at the right price. That's why we only recommend Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Agents. They're hand-picked pros who know their stuff, listen to your needs, and have your business

back from the first call all the way to closing day. To find a Ramsey-trusted agent near you, visit ramseysolutions.com slash agent. ramseysolutions.com slash agent. If you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck and you're wondering where your money's going, your first step's getting on a plan.

See, you don't win on accident. You win with a plan. That's called a budget in our world. The team is hosting a free budget trainings this month, several of them. You'll learn step-by-step how to make and stick to a budget using the EveryDollar app, the world's best budgeting app. Plus, you can get your biggest budgeting questions answered in a live Q&A. It's completely free. Sign up for free at EveryDollar.com slash webinar. Brady's in Boise. Hi, Brady. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave Virgil. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Hey, my wife and I, we've done pretty well. We've been married about a year and a half. Saved up a down payment for a house. We've got about $110,000. Wow. Yeah. We're really wanting to follow your guys' plan with a 15-year mortgage.

But the average house price here, just based off our incomes, we're going to be a little bit over that 25% mark on a 15 year. And I heard George mention it on an episode the other day where he said it's kind of a guideline and just kind of give you context. We spend about $6,000 to $7,000 a month. Our total salaries is $210,000, but our total take home was $275,000 last year.

And just kind of what we're looking at. I'm trying to determine if that 25% mark is flexible. And yeah, we save about $5,000 to $6,000 a month. And that's with rent of about $25,000. What will it be at? What percentage?

The interest rate or what is the percentage? No, what percentage of your take-home pay, not counting 401K and not counting health insurance coming out of your check? Is it 27? Your after-tax income, what percentage of that is your payment going to be? The house we're looking at is like 37% right now. Bull crap. That's dumber than a rock.

No, that's not a guideline. That's running your car through a wall. Yeah. It's not even close. I think I was actually on the show with George when we were talking about this because I think we were talking to somebody and I remember he was moving, actually looking in Williamson County. This is the same call, Brady. I don't know if it was. And he was right at like 26.2% or something. I'm not going to gripe about that. 37%, dude. You're going to be house poor. You're going to be strapped. You're not going to be able to breathe. Yeah.

So, okay, Boise is not double the national average. You're looking in a neighborhood you can't afford. Dude, the median house price in America today is $431,000. Boise would be pretty close to right up the middle of that. So the median house price in that area is a half million dollars, and you're looking at a million-dollar property. We're looking at $550,000.

Total monthly payment is $4,000 a month with $110,000 down. I'm doing something wrong. Wait a minute. There's something wrong with this formula. Okay, so $275,000. And so that's $20,000 a month take-home pay, right? Our take-homes, I just based off salary. That's what my wife and I decided was $210,000 salary. You don't get to decide. It's your income. Okay.

What if you were on straight commission and you made $400,000, but I want to base it off my salary? Well, then you'd be living in a teepee. So, no, we look at our income, dude. Is your income not stable? No, income's pretty stable. Okay, so you have a $275,000 income. No, he said $210,000. No, he said $210,000 plus bonuses, $275,000. Oh, okay. That's his income. So that's a $20,000 a month take-home pay, which is a $5,000 a month payment.

Right? Am I doing this wrong? Yeah. No, I think I was doing my math wrong then, Dave. I was looking at our 210 and netting out our giving. No, your giving is not one of the things. And retirement as well. Add that back in. Yeah. So it's really just after taxes. It's your after tax income, monthly, divided.

by four, giving you a 25% on a 15-year fixed and 15-year fixed this week are 5.9%. And I will say, the phrasing take-home pay can be confusing because you're thinking what hits your account and already insurance, 401k, all of that's taken out before it hits your account. So quote-unquote take-home pay just means after-tax. Yeah, that's the misnomer here. But point being is that if it's... So I think that's going to, when you rework the numbers with those two different things...

Should come closer, too. I think you're going to be real close. Yeah, it sounds like we were just being way too conservative. Accidentally, because you were taking out 401K and other stuff, and then on purpose on the 210 versus the 275. Yeah, so you have more wiggle room. Yeah, so the purpose of the whole discussion, though, is this.

Don't get yourself, all of you out there in America, in a position where you're what we call house poor, that by the time you pay your house payment and you buy food, you're broke.

Which means everything that comes up in your life is probably going to turn into new debt unless you're very strong because you're not saving for car replacement. You're not saving for the next couch. You're not saving for Christmas. You're not saving for vacation. And all these things turn into new debt because you've got no margin in your monthly budget because you spent it all on your stinking house. When you put yourself in a corner and make yourself house poor is what we're trying to prevent for you because it's not a sustainable thing.

thing. You can't sustain that for 10 years. So you call me up and you, you know, of your take home pay after taxes, you got 40 or 37% going to your house payment. You're not going to be able to survive doing that. That's going to come back and bite you in the butt because you set yourself up to be house poor because that's a, that's a lot of money. And there's, you took away all the margin to do other stuff that you are going to do.

And then it's going to end up being new debt or it's going to end up being a strain or it's going to end up, you know, we don't keep up with maintenance because we're out of money all the time. And that's all we're trying to prevent with this. And all for the sake of a house. We don't have any pride in the actual 25% number. It's just a math thing. You need some what economists call disposable income after you pay your house payment.

So that you can do other stuff in life. Yes. And that's all we're trying to get to here. Yeah. And so, yeah, Brady, I think you're okay when you get down into this and you unpack this because I was doing it quick in my head, but I think...

I think you're pretty close and you're probably going to be fine. But let's just talk through it. And the overarching principle is not 25 versus 26 percent. Right. To George's point of it being a quote unquote guideline. But the overarching principle is don't get yourself in a position where you can't breathe because you've got house fever.

And instead of taking a cold shower, you went and bought something and you paint yourself in the corner. The proverbial, you get wet paint on your feet because you're stuck in the corner and everything's wet. You created a life that is not sustainable without creating a mess. Yeah. And we always go back to this principled idea. The whole reason for all of this, right? The whole reason of being wise with your money, of taking control, of budgeting, having smart percentages with where you're allocating things. It's to create peace, right?

That money is one place in our lives that can create so much chaos, and we're trying to avoid that.

How can we let this part of our lives, our money, have peace in our lives and it not be the stress point? And so always remember that when you're looking at buying big things, you know, whether it's a new car or a house, is this going to create peace for us or is this going to create more stress and anxiety? And that's what we're trying to avoid. So that's, again, the heart behind it. But always remember that we're looking for peace. We want peace in life. We don't want to be stressed and full of anxiety. So how do we do that with our money? That's good. That's good. Dr. John talks about that and

You know, the redefining anxiety, you know, solve for peace. Yes. And that's what we're doing. And if it means solving for peace. Yeah. And if Brady's numbers were more like what we were talking about at the beginning, which we were wrong, then drive 20 more minutes to go get a house to keep peace. Like, you know what I mean? Like whatever that means that you have to do, it is it is worth it. It is worth it for your soul as a human in this life to have that peace. It is worth it.

Listen, guys, I've heard just about every excuse for why folks think they can't get ahead with money. So let's go ahead and settle this right now. You get the final say on what happens with your money. That's why you have to start telling your money where to go so you can stop wondering where it went. So if you're going to start winning with money, you have to get on a budget. The easiest way to get started and stick to it is with the EveryDollar Budget app.

It'll help you make a plan for every single dollar coming in and every single dollar going out every single month. And guess what? It's free, so no excuses. Download EveryDollar in the App Store or Google Play today. Are you staying on track with the baby steps? If you want to take a quick quiz to check your progress and receive a personalized plan,

Head to the show notes, click the link titled, Are You On Track With The Baby Steps? Complete the free quiz and we'll help you get a personalized plan and get you going. Jessica is in Lancaster. Hi, Lancaster. Hi. Hey, Jessica, what's up?

I was just wondering, how do you blend finances, or how do you do finances with a blended family, especially when you don't have children together? Short backstory, he has two kids from previous marriage and 50-50 custody. I have one and have sole custody and trying to figure out finances. Okay, and so those are all three minors. Yes. Otherwise, custody doesn't come up, obviously. Okay. And how old are the babies?

12, 10, and 7. Okay. And is there child support payments on either end, paying out or coming in? Yes. So he pays about $400 in child support, and I receive, and I have sole custody, I receive about $100 monthly, each of us monthly. Okay. Okay. I'm not struggling financially. I don't think there's any difference. I think you have three kids to raise.

And you just run your household. And both of you love three children because you love each other, and so you're going to love each other's children. Right. And for me, it was like financial security for mine since their mom works too, so they have financial support on both ends. And I think I got stuck because I was like in the only one. Yeah.

financially, in a sense, responsible for mine. No, not now, because you married a man who took on the responsibility of you and this child, not legally maybe. There probably wasn't an adoption. But if I'm that husband and I marry you, that child, I'm bound to take care of them, just like I'm bound to take care of my two.

That's what he took on. I think from a social standpoint, a relational standpoint, that's the proper thing. And you don't have Cinderella. We don't have one kid that gets more child support than the other two, and so they get more or less money or something. Like, oh, you don't get as much child support, so you have to wear the worn-out tennis shoes. No, we're not doing that. Right. We all get the same stuff. We all go to the same trips. We all go to the same restaurants. We all...

Go to the same schools, you know, the ones that we can afford, you know, in all cases, right, as a family unit. And I think that's the most healthy way to treat this. And I wonder, too, Jessica, I mean, I don't have a blended family, so I don't know, but I would even think that his kids that have 50-50 custody, you know, you guys will be paying half really for them expenses-wise, right, when they're with you half the month. Right. You have them, but then the other half you don't have them, so you're not paying. Right.

When they're not there, right, for eating and all that kind of stuff, too. It's going to work out. But, I mean, you just have a grocery budget for this family that has two part-time kids and one full-time kid. Right. You know? Yeah. And that's how I would look at it mathematically. Is there anything specific, Jessica, that you all keep running into, or is it just more conceptually? Like, just a conceptual question. Yeah.

I guess a little of both because, like, right now we have – I have a checking account and he has a checking account, and then we have a joint shared account that we pay all the bills out of. And he wanted everything to go into that account, and I was like, well, I kind of – again, part of this was just already having the checking account in existence –

wanted to maintain it, because that's where I pay my car out of and such things. And I think for maybe ease, he wanted everything into one. Well, he now took on your car. He took on you, your car, your kid. You took on his two kids. You took on whatever good and bad he took on, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health. In the old Book of Common Prayer marriage vows said, Unto thee all my worldly goods I pledge.

In other words, we're all in. And that was the viewpoint on that. It doesn't sound like either one of you have existing extreme wealth and the other one doesn't. It sounds like both of you just have, you got some scars from how you got here and it makes you a little bit tender on wanting to maintain some individuality, so to speak. Right. That makes sense. Yeah. And I...

Yeah. But I think... Do y'all do a budget together, Jessica, with both incomes? I'm just curious. Yeah.

We had like a rough estimate, but we're still trying to like. Okay. You know what an interesting exercise for you guys would be? It's kind of a nerdy one. So like have a glass of wine and enjoy it because it's number heavy. But sit down and just say, okay, what if we took this philosophy, not just tactically we're sharing one account, like what he's saying, but even emotionally. And like, let's put all the expenses, right? You said, well, I pay for my car over here. Put it in the middle, put it, everything goes in the middle of the pot and

And let's do a budget with both incomes in there, both sets of kids, like all of it, right? Both of us have a vote. Both of us have full transparency. And let's create that budget, see what that looks like monthly. And then, Jessica, I mean, honestly, and then dream a little and just say, hey,

In five years, in 2030, how old will the kids be? What do we want our life to look like? And what are some fun goals? And how could we get there together? And again, mathematically, looking at the numbers of it, start just like running some rough estimates and numbers, because I think it's more exciting. And you may find it exciting. Hopefully you do. Yeah.

When you actually see some stuff being put together and you're like, oh, we can get ahead so much faster when we really do tactically work together, but then emotionally. There's something about it that's so uniting. And again, I understand the second marriages, there's some hesitation with this for a lot of people. What that requires is a sensitivity to that.

And that sensitivity is answered by extreme amounts of communication and extreme amounts of both of you have a vote on purchases. Both of you have a vote on the monthly budget and both of you speak up. Yes. And as long as your voice counts and you have full transparency, yes.

then that's a way to touch, to deal with that sensitive issue. A weird thing is in our life, we don't have that. Sharon and I don't. But having gone broke, I'll tell you what a sensitive issue is at our house. The emergency fund. If I even walk near the drawer, if I even walk near the drawer where the emergency fund is, she comes out of her with claws.

She can't because it's a sensitive thing because we were broke and she was terrified. Or if you want to go buy something big and she's like, how much is it? Like, you know, just double checking. Exactly. Yeah. And so, you know, but and so what we do is we offset that sensitive thing by having an emergency fund for the emergency fund at our house. Most people don't need to do that. But because we got that scar here.

We have to figure that out. And so you work around it. And for you guys, you just say, hey, because we both come into this and we had bad experiences before, we have to be super diligent about our communication and our transparency and both of us having a voice. Yes. And you both coming from similar situations, maybe the cause of it is different, but that is built in empathy, right? You're both coming from situations. So that's the positive. Well, we talked to some people and, you know,

They marry someone who was divorced and they don't trust them now. You know, it's like this whole thing. So you can't transfer. Hopefully there's some of that empathy. But I really would just sit down together and you guys just that's good. Just put it all in one pile because there's just something about it that I think can be very energizing where a lot of people feel a lot of fear around that and like a lot of caution, which is understandable. But once you just pretend you're like, I'm not we're not really doing it right now. Let's just pretend and have fun and like take out a sheet paper and just start doing

figuring this out. Like there's something about it that is really uniting and you can see how fast you guys can move together. And that's the other big thing couples miss out on. That's one of the biggest arguments is we feel like, well, we just have separate accounts completely. And you lose the synergy. Yeah. There's just something that's like, you're just going to go at a certain pace your whole life financially with that mindset. And so there's something really powerful about it, but I think it's a fair question. And we get

Yeah, I mean, the blended family thing is real. And even, you know, if there's people coming in with, I know we've got a question. I know it's probably been a few weeks, but, you know, she came into the marriage with a lot of land from her family. And she's like, if something happens to this second marriage, do they get the land? I don't know. There can be some complex, even estate planning stuff when this occurs. But it doesn't sound like you're there, Jessica. But just those are real problems. So if you guys have them, we see that and hear that. Amen. Amen. Amen.

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Okay, I got nowhere to go, so you need to go. Okay, bye-bye now. All right, this is getting weird over there, guys. What do we do?