Life Happens—But Your Plan Doesn’t Have to Fall Apart
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do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, and host of the new Ramsey Network's hit, Front Row Seat. He's my co-host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Thanks for being with us. Anna is in Huntsville, Alabama. Hi, Anna. How are you? Hi, I'm good. Thanks for having me. Sure. What's up in your world?

So my question is, I am seeking advice on how to stay afloat after a divorce and my ex-husband is not paying child support. Why? Well, so I was married for 20 years. Why is he not paying child support?

Okay, well, he uses it to control me. It was an abusive marriage, and I've been out for five years, and so for that five years, I mean, it's been a tool that he has hung on to that he can control me with. How far behind is he on his child support payments? It's hard to even tell, and I've gone that whole route with DHR. It's

They, you know, they don't actually go and get him. You know, there's a warrant out or whatever. So I guess I don't want to go down that too far because I want to know what can I do to stay afloat and support myself. I'm tired of being controlled. I mean, obviously, mathematically, I have to build a life that doesn't include child support is the answer to your question, right? Exactly. So what have we got to do? What's your income?

So my income is $50,000. I was a stay-at-home mom, so just started working at the end of the marriage, which was like five years ago. So I do own my home. Well, I have a mortgage on my home. And I have credit card debt because I've lived off of credit cards when he didn't pay. How much credit card debt have you got?

So $30,000, I have a year ago, I closed all of the accounts and negotiated the interest rates down to zero or three or 4%. So I have been paying them off and not spending any more on credit cards. That's credit. That's progress. Good. So progress. But...

The child support has stopped again recently. How much money, let me ask you this, how much money is his child support payment? And if you had gotten that consistently, would that put you in a good place with your budget? Is it a surplus? In other words, you could just tell me how much more money do you need to make? So what's that replacement number? I would say I need to make $2,000 more a month. How many babies do you have?

Well, and I have three, but they aren't babies anymore. They are two are grown, and the youngest one now is a senior in high school. Okay, so you only got child support on one for just a couple of years. Right, right. Okay, so the two grown ones aren't a problem. So we're just raising one kid that's a senior. Yes. On $50,000. And why can't you live on $50,000 in Huntsville, Alabama? Well, because I think, one, because I have...

the debt that I'm trying to pay off. So I'm paying $704 a month to the credit card payment. My house payment is $1,800 a month, and that includes taxes and insurance. And then I have a car that's $253 a month, and I owe $10,000 on it. Okay.

So, you know, I'm wondering, do I sell my house? I have about $120,000 in equity. Pay everything off and just start over from scratch and try to... It's not a bad plan if you can't turn the corner on this. If you could get your income up and turn the corner and keep the house, I would work on doing that. I don't mind working an extra job for a short period of time to clear the car and clear the credit card. And then that gets you in balance without him.

And he isn't going to be around but about 18 more months anyway as far as child support goes. So I'm very motivated to just be on my own and be free. What do you do for work? So I work in marketing. And like I said, didn't have a career, so started off. What are you doing in marketing? I work – I'm a trade show coordinator.

Basically a live event. Right? Yeah. Handling logistics on live events. But just so your hours are irregular. Well, no, they are regular. Monday through Friday, 8 to 5, so definitely could do something on the weekend. And you could probably use that skill on the weekend.

Yes. And make really good money. Yeah, and I think you've been doing this for five years, and I understand the imposter syndrome that a lot of stay-at-home moms have, but you've been back in the world of work for five years, and I think it's time to raise your sights a little bit here. I agree with Dave. In the meantime, we need to be getting a second job.

to try to bring in an additional $1,500, $2,000 a month. That'd be the target that I would be going after because that gives you some breathing room to knock this debt out. But I would also, while you're doing that, be looking at the world of work. And we're going to give you my book, Find the Work You're Wired to Do. It comes with the Get Clear Assessment. Please spend 15 to 20 minutes taking this and then read the book where I coach you how to take that information, what you're good at, what you enjoy doing, and results you care about, turn it into more money.

But we're going to give you that tool at the end of the call. But the point I'm trying to encourage you with is you have far more opportunity to make more than $50,000 than you probably realize. And awareness of what you can do and where you can do it is, I think, homework item number one to see your future and get your confidence up.

Right. You're exactly right. My confidence was completely gone when I got, you know, at the end of the marriage. So it's been five years of just realizing that, you know, that I am capable. How much is the child support a month?

He was supposed to be paying $2,500 a month. So there's $30,000 on the table there, too. Listen, so I want you to be free of the need for that because that's going to add confidence. And I want you to be looking like Ken. I'm going to speak as your older brother. I think you're a whole lot better than you feel like you are. Yes. Thank you. And I think that has added to the desperation and the flopping around with money stuff.

Yeah, you probably mathematically could have tightened up and made it without going into credit card debt. But you were still healing from the toxic situation.

Yes. And while you're in the middle of that, everything's chaotic and out of control, and now you're going to get very dialed in, very in control on your income side of the equation, and we're also going to put you in the every dollar premium and walk you through getting rid of this debt. If you can't turn the corner on the income and get this debt moving away within 12 months, I do want you to look at selling the house, but I think you can do it without selling the house. Do you like the house?

I do. Okay. You know, I'm... Is it where you want to live when you're an empty nester? Yes. Okay, then fight for it.

Okay. Yes. And you're a warrior. To that end, Dave, I want to ask you, do you think it's worth her becoming that department of whoever they are in the Alabama state government? Oh, I'm all up in his. Me too. I'm all up in their stuff. I mean, the guy doesn't pay for his kid. I'm going to light his life up. That's what I thought. But I don't want her emotionally dependent on it. I just want her to go over there and stick a cattle prod on him. Oh, yeah. Metaphorically speaking. Maybe. Yeah. This is The Ramsey Show. ♪

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and start shopping smarter at Aldi, where you'll save with the lowest prices of any national grocery store. Find a store near you today at Aldi.us. That's A-L-D-I dot U-S. Natalie is in New York. Hey, Natalie, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, Mr. Dave. Hi, Ken. I hope you guys are doing well. Good. How about you? I am doing okay. I want to be better than I deserve, but not yet. Okay. Okay.

I have a little bit of a pickle going on. My husband and I got ourselves into some major debt. We purchased a home when we weren't ready. That's one of the top things. And now in this season in life, we can't really pick up extra jobs. I myself am trying to see if I can get something after the kids go to bed, but that timeframe is kind of difficult.

But we're in the red almost every month, even though we're making $200K on paper, less deductions of child support. But we basically have to choose what we have to default on to catch up and make payments to start a snowball debt. Defaulting is not a method of catching up.

I know. I'm kind of a loss, but I don't really know what to do. How much is your house payment? Right now we're doing a catch-up payment for $3,500. What is your normal house payment? $2,800. And you make $200,000 a year? Yeah, my husband does $450 a week on child support, so mine is that. How much a week?

$450 a week. Well, that's only $1,800 a month. That's not killing you. No. Okay. And the house payment's not killing you. So where's the money going? It's all going to debt. We basically have nothing left. How much other debt do you have? A lot. So we did some home repairs in between. I've been in and out of jobs. I can show you that. Do you make $200,000 or don't you?

Now we do. Okay, right now you make $200,000. Okay, so you have home repairs that you did that you couldn't afford. How much are they? So we did loans. So the first one was $30,000. The other one was $14,000. Okay, so we owe $44,000 on home repairs. Okay, how much credit card debt? Credit card, I mean, I don't know.

Hello? About $20,000. About $20,000, okay. Maybe $25,000. $44,000 and $25,000, all right. And how much do you owe on your cars? One is $13,000, the other one is $16,000. Okay, all right. And how much are you putting in your 401k every month? I don't have one. My husband has a pension. He's part of the union. Okay. Are you guys really making $200,000? Yes.

On paper, we are. I don't know where the paper is that you're adding this up. That's what I can't figure out. You've got enough money to pay these bills if you're making $20,000 a month. Yeah, that's the thing. I'm puzzled. I signed up for every dollar, but my thing is up, and I can't afford, unfortunately, the premium on that. Darling, it's $9. $9.

So bull crap. Okay. If you make $200,000 a year, you can't afford not to pay the premium on that. So anyway, the... We also have a $99,000 home equity loan out. Oh, there's a detail. Okay. Any other details I left out? Our cost of living is pretty high. No. Is there any other debt? No.

Any other debt? Student loans. Wait a minute. What happened to your phone? Hey, speak into your phone. Sorry, I was just looking at the spreadsheet that I have. We'll try to keep your mouth near the phone when you're doing that looking thing. All right. So, all right. So, yeah, sell your house. Okay. Yeah. And then you guys quit buying crap you can't afford.

Because the home equity loan, the home improvement loans, and a bunch of the credit card debt are all associated with this house. Yeah. Yeah. And the house will bring enough to pay a bunch of that off. It'll pay off the home equity loan for sure. Your cars are bad, but they're not out of control. But it's everything associated with this house. You guys look at something, and then you just go freaking buy it. Home Depot must love you people. So, yeah, this house is eating you alive. I mean, you've got like a hundred and...

$160,000, $170,000 in non-mortgage house debt. Yeah. Yeah. Cray cray. That's where that falls under. So sell the house. Yeah. Yeah, you've got to clear the house and clear this mess. And then, yes, you guys have to get on a written, detailed budget. You can do it with the Yellow Pad or you can do it with our little app. It doesn't cost that much.

That's not the point, though. I think the point is your husband's not involved and you guys have never said no to yourselves. And you're disorganized and you've got to get up above this thing and start telling your money what to do instead of wondering where it went. You got on the call and you don't even know how much debt you have. You're having to turn and look at stuff off phone to figure out where you are. When you're this screwed, you need to know exactly where you are at all times until it goes away.

And so dial it in, dial it in, dial it in. Yeah, you need to sell the house. Sure do. And I don't think you're going to, though. Yeah, I'm just listening. And Natalie, I'm not beating up on you. I would just say this. You strike me as a person who's exhausted because you've just been fighting the waves of life that you've created. And I don't know if you've ever been in a really choppy boat situation where you're just hanging on and trying not to fall over. That gets exhausting.

And you're at that place, but I'm not sure you're fully exhausted enough. And I think Dave's right. I would reset with the house, but this will happen to you again if you guys don't get to a point of realizing that you've done this to yourself. You've created this problem yourself. So you guys got to fix whatever's going on inside of you that's making you long to make these dumb decisions. Better fix that or else the house is going to be a temporary solve. Yeah.

And I'll throw out there, if it hasn't got – it may not have to do with your situation, Natalie, but we've – there are two major purchases that we've lied to you folks in America about. Mm-hmm.

home ownership, and a college degree. And the lie is that no matter what it costs, you've got to go get one to be successful. No matter if I can afford it or not, I've got to go get one to be successful. And those are both lies. Okay. There's only one way to go to college and do higher education. And that's a smart way. Pay cash for a degree that's actually usable. Okay.

Don't get a degree in left-handed puppetry from some named university and go $250,000 in debt and end up a barista. That's thing number one, because all college degrees are not worth the money. Some are worth a lot more than you pay, not the degree itself, but the knowledge that you get. Home ownership, when you buy a house you can't afford, you get broker and broker. Broke people shouldn't buy houses. Makes you broker and broker. That's why they call them brokers.

No, you should not be buying a house when you're broke. You ought to get your butt out of debt. You ought to have some savings, have a good emergency fund, a good strong down payment, have control of your money like an adult. And only then is a home a blessing. But buying real estate just because, oh, real estate. So everybody's got to buy a house. You got to buy a house. You got to buy a house. You got to know they don't. If you're dumb and broke, don't buy a house. It's going to make your life worse.

It's, you know, and so it's the same apple we're biting on with the education crap. And it's like we've told people no matter what it costs, no matter how dumb it is, no matter how out of control it is, go do it because it'll work itself out because these two things are so valuable, a college degree and homeownership, that you can't make it in America without them. Well, by God, you can make it in America without either one of them, and you sure can't make it in America if you do either one of those wrong.

That's right. I heard her say after laying out all of the details to you financially, she said, then our cost of living is so high. And here's what I think she was meaning. And this is tied to the house. The cost of living like everybody else we live around is too high. New York City. That's right.

But this idea that I got to send my kids to the same school as everybody else and I got to have a car like everybody else, that's a cost of living sometimes that we manufacture because we're trying to keep up with everybody else. Yeah, that's a good point. There's a difference between cost of lifestyle and cost of living. Very different. And that's what I'm hearing is the lifestyle that came with the house. Living is food, shelter, clothing, and transportation. Lifestyle is all the goodies.

around food, shelter, clothing, and transportation. To live like we want to live. Lifestyle's eating out. Lifestyle's a car that everybody looks at at the stoplight for all the right reasons. That's a lifestyle. If you're getting out of debt, you buy a car that everybody looks at at the stoplight for all the wrong reasons. They think you're in the wrong neighborhood. This is The Ramsey Show. You know, one of the first things I discovered working in the financial world is how absolutely devastating it is when the breadwinner of a family dies.

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Thank you, sir. What's up? How do I or should I ever disclose to my wife that we are secretly worth millions of dollars? How long you been married, bro? Five years. Are you from another culture or did you grow up in America? Yes. I've been in the United States for 20 years. Where did you grow up?

I was born in Korea, but I was raised in San Jose. Okay. When did you, how old are you? So you were raised by, obviously, Korean parents that immigrated here. That is correct. Because in Anglo-America, what you just described, as you probably realize, is pretty whacked. Right? I understand. That's why I immediately said there's some kind of a cultural reason for this, because it's very unusual.

So the thing is, we are somewhat of an American couple. I work. My wife is a stay-at-home wife because that's just how we chose to. The thing is, I'm the saver and she's the spender. And for me, I have been working very hard, working my job and my business just to grow to where we are.

And I am not sure whether I should ever disclose our net worth to her because I do not know how she's going to react. Yeah. Well, she's probably going to react poorly because she's married to a guy who's deceived her. Unless she's a doormat. I mean, was she raised in a cultural situation where she's a doormat? No, she's not. Yeah, she's probably going to light you up then. Don't you think?

To be honest, the thing is she and I have very different perspectives when it comes to finances. I'm a saver, like I'm a minimalist. She's very much a free spirit. I know, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the fact that you've been married to her for five years and sleeping with her for five years, but she didn't know you got any money. That's deception. Yeah.

I handle all the finances in the family. Honey, you're not listening. You keep deflecting every time I bring this at you. You have deceived your wife actively. She's not going to be cool with that. You hear that?

So I understand that she's going to be somewhat, she is going to be angry. What I'm more troubled about is how she is going to take the news of these finances and if she's going to spend it. No, we got that. You're scared to death. Hold on. You're scared she's going to go spend all your money, Bubba. I got that. I have a question. Which is the reason you lied to her in the first place. I got that. Did you have any money when you married her? Did you bring family money into the marriage?

No. Okay. So I heard you say you've worked really hard over the last five years in your business. So you're self-employed. Is that right? I have a full-time job and I have a business on the side. Okay. What's making you that? Here's my question. How much is your income increased from day one of the marriage to today? How much has it increased? Sevenfold. Sevenfold. So you're making what now?

$750,000. And so she's noticed that you've gotten more money, correct? No, he doesn't exhibit any signs of it. It all goes into savings. Well, I don't know. What was your answer? My answer to... Does she know that you're making more money? No. Not at all. So she has a stipend.

She has allowance, and I give her all the money for the household budget. All right. I just wanted to get to the bottom of that and make sure that I absolutely understood that. All right, Damon. Here's the thing. I value a quality marriage and relationship going into my old age because we've now been married almost 43 years. I value that more than money. You don't. So I'm having trouble connecting with you on this.

Um, I can't imagine a world where I would deceive my wife actively about any major thing for five years about anything, not even a major thing. I don't deceive her about anything. Um,

Except if she asks if these jeans make her look fat. I might lie then. Well played, sir. Although she's not fat, so there's okay. So that's an easy play, but right? Yeah, that's not lying. It's wisdom. But I'm not lying about $750,000 worth of income and millions of dollars worth of net worth that she doesn't know about. I do quite the contrary because she can't grasp where we live today, but she's the saver. So to your point, Damon, how do you do this?

I'm not sure I know how to answer your question. I will tell you this. I'm just the older guy sitting over here going, okay, you brought some culture into this where the guy's in charge of

And the lady doesn't have any say or any vote, especially if she's a spender. And so all of that combined with your nerd-like paranoia has led you to this deception. And so I'm giving you a little bit of grace here, but I'm telling you, this is not going to end well.

The longer you put this off, the worse this is going to get. And there's two things here that you can't put off anymore. I think you called and asked. So, son, you're always going to get an answer here because we love you and we want you to win. So thing number one that's not going to last and go well is your disrespect of your wife.

So she and you need to talk about her spending and you all get on the same page. You probably need to lighten up about 25 notches and she probably needs to tighten up about five notches. And the two of you get on grown up pages on how we are going to live our life. Or you're not going to be able to go forward because you don't respect her. You think she's a child and you're treating her as such.

And that is the second point is your marriage is not going to end well. It's not going to last because this stuff blows up. And the longer you wait and the bigger these numbers are, the bigger the explosion is going to be.

So deal with the relational breakdown between you and her on you not communicating clearly with her and that I it terrifies me that you spend out of control. It terrifies me that you think you're in Congress. It terrifies me. We've got to get on the same page, honey. We've got to get on the same page.

And you've got to get to the point that you respect her competency as an adult. And then and also sooner rather than later, you've got to stop this deception because those two things are going to end your marriage. Yeah, I would. I agree with everything Dave said, Damon. Here's what I would do if I were you. I would say to my wife, I have a massive fear problem. And because I have a fear problem, I'm a control freak.

And don't make this about her. Don't make this at all about her spending because you've actually given her an allowance. And based on what you've told Dave and I, she's been fairly compliant. So this is a pretty good lady. She may spend her allowance in a frivolous way, but my goodness, bro, she ain't a spender. All $4. Yeah. So we know you've got her locked down tighter than a drum. So I would lead with I'm afraid.

I'm a control freak because I'm afraid. I'm going to go sit with a therapist, and I'm going to dig at the bottom of this, but I've got to confess this. This is on me, not on you, and what I'd like to do is apologize, one. Two, I'm going to go get healthy. Three, in the midst of all of that, we are going to do a budget together, and I'm going to bring you into everything.

And for heaven's sakes, I'd start with giving her a bigger allowance, man. No, I don't need to start. No? No, no. You just need to talk about this. No, I know. I said third step is after they budget. As a part of the budget. That's what I mean. They both need to spend their money. Nobody that's a spouse gets an allowance. Well, that's fair. I didn't. That's right. Let me correct that because I'm not saying in that context, but.

She's got spending money, whatever that is. And in that budget, you need to loosen the reins some as she begins to build back trust because you are going to violate her trust when you tell her this is my point. So you're going to have to meet her in the middle. However you do that. That's fair. I don't mean an actual allowance. But so, Damon, Ken and I are saying you're the problem, not her. That's what we're saying. And you need to go work on you, buddy. This is a weird thing you've done and you need to own that.

Thank you.

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Today's question of the day is brought to you by YRefi. When life happens and those private student loans go into default,

YRefi offers real possibilities, not judgment. Not like me. YRefi will help you explore a low fixed rate loan based on your unique circumstances. 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 Aaron in Delaware. I read recently that 88% of shares in the stock market are owned by three major companies. BlackRock,

State Street and Vanguard. Should this be concerning or affect how we invest? Well, I have to plead ignorance on the first part of that question. I don't know where you read that. I've not seen that. I don't know if it's true. I'll cede my time to the gentleman to my left, but it should not. The gentleman from Tennessee. That's right. It should not be concerning. It's not. Because it doesn't concern me. Because they're not companies. That's right. They're mutual fund companies. They manage mutual funds. They don't own the shares. I do.

And Ken does. And any of you that have a 401k does. Okay. State Street and Vanguard and BlackRock are three of the largest mutual fund families. Each mutual fund has 90 to 200 stocks in it and millions of customers. Okay.

So I own shares of Vanguard because I buy Vanguard mutual funds sometimes. I own shares of State Street because I buy fund families that are State Street run and operated. So these are not BlackRock and Vanguard and State Street do not have the ability to tell any of these companies what to do because they own shares in them because they don't really own the shares. Their customers own the shares.

A mutual fund is where you put money in, I put money in, somebody else puts money in, 40,000 other people put money in in their 401ks. It's mutually funded. Then that money is used to buy good, for instance, growth stocks if it's a growth stock mutual fund. Vanguard manages funds like that. State Street manages funds like that. But they're not the owner of the stocks.

So wherever you read this was some kind of conspiracy theory bull crap. Okay. Three companies own 85% of America, and it's the trilateral commission. Oh, crap. Stay off of that stuff. Get off the Internet if that's all the only garbage you can read. Okay. So I don't know if the 88% number is correct. I doubt it's that high, but it's very high. Black Street, State Street, and Vanguard, if you put Fidelity in there,

You're getting pretty close to most of the... See, most shares on the stock market are not owned by individual investors. They are owned by mutual funds that individual investors invest in. And so when I put... When I buy shares of Vanguard Fund, I am buying into 80 to 200 companies that they bought into. But they're not controlling these companies. I am. I'm the owner as an owner of the mutual fund. So it's not like...

If an individual person owned each of these companies and they all owned the stock, yeah, that would be concerning. The three people controlled 60 or 70 percent of the stock market. That would be very concerning. But it's not true, which is helpful.

The fact that that's not a fact. So even if these mutual fund companies do control north of 50%, which they may very well, if you put in, if you put in fidelity, you probably would get there. I mean, the only one that's ever been troublesome is BlackRock and they got all up in the woke stuff and started pushing some of the companies to do some of the woke stuff, which has now backfired on them. Um, and so, uh,

They were trying to say, we own so many shares of this, you should do so-and-so. A few of the companies caved to that. And then some of the other companies, some of the other mutual funds have come around and gone the other way now. So there's a bit of an offset in that junk. But it really didn't have much to do with money. It had more to do with cultural philosophy than it did actually affecting your share price or the value of your retirement accounts. So answer is, should this be concerning or affect how we invest? Answer is no.

for all of those reasons. Make sense? It makes sense to me. Thank you for bailing me out. It's nice. Nice to have you to my left. No troubles. That's what I'm here for. Been doing it a while. Greg's in Salt Lake. Hey, Greg, what's up?

Hi, thanks for having me on, Dave. I'm a longtime listener for like 25 years. So we're really grateful to have you have me on. I'm 39 years old and I'm going through a significant career change. I'm on baby step six, kind of, you know, four through six. And I want to know how I should think about the baby steps as well as like my savings with my income change.

drastically decreasing as I try self-employment out for the next little bit. Oof. Why are we drastically decreasing as a part of this process? Yeah, yeah, good question. So I've been working for the last 10 years, I've been working in tech in the Bay Area and wanted, ready to kind of switch things up and spend more time with my family. I have four kids.

So I'm going to the self-employment route where I've been going from making over $350,000 a year down to maybe $50,000 the first year, hopefully more, but trying to grow it up from there. So you haven't made this leap yet? I made the leap last week, actually. Walked away from the $350,000 job, gone.

Yep. Okay. What are you doing? The same type of technology work just for yourself or something totally different? What are you doing? A little different. I'm a CPA. And I've kind of been growing this on the side for the last three years. So it's not going to zero. But I'm a CPA. So I've been doing some taxes and bookkeeping for companies. And what were you doing previously?

Two careers. Previously, I was kind of a supply chain planner for a big tech company. Before that, I was an auditor as a CPA for five years. Do you have six to 12 months of your income set aside in the CPA company bank account? Yes. Did you move from the Bay to Salt Lake?

Yes, exactly. Yeah. Okay. Well, now you just, you just, you just answered the biggest question I have for somebody in that situation is, you know, do you have six to 12 months of your income set aside? That, that goes a long way, but that's a big leap. Okay. So you owe money on your house in Salt Lake, right? Yes. Did you sell the house in the Bay? I did not own in the Bay. So I just bought one in Salt Lake. Oh, okay. How much do you owe on it?

I owe $850,000 on my house. And how much do you have in your retirement accounts? So in my 401k, I have $400,000.

And then on top of that, more liquid. I have about $300,000 in stock, you know, between Vanguard and some tech stocks. And then $200,000 that's in cash, which I know is a lot, but I've kind of been preparing for this jump. Yeah, I would get this job up and moving, and then I'd start paying off your house out of that non-retirement accounts. But I wouldn't do it until you get this job up and moving. I think you're okay to get it up and moving. Obviously, you're not planning on making $50,000. You're planning on making $150,000, right? Yeah.

Yeah, hopefully more than that. In Salt Lake, you're going to be just fine doing that versus cost of living in the Bay Area. So you're going to be just fine. Should I put on investing for retirement? No, it's 15% of your income. We're talking about $7,000.

Got it. So keep doing that on my income. I wouldn't put any extra on your house right now. I would just sit on this nest egg. And then as soon as you get comfortable with the income steadiness, I'm taking the majority of that 200, not counting your emergency fund. I'm taking all of that stock and I'm throwing it on this house. But you knew that you've been listening for years.

Yeah. Yeah. I guess the main question was, yeah, how do I keep on investing or do I put that on? That's only $7,000. You keep on doing it. 15% of your household income. $7,500, 15% of $50,000. You know that CPA. Yeah. Yeah, fair enough. It's not that much money. Now, by the time you get up to $150,000, you're stabilized and you're going to start chunking on this house anyway. And the whole thing, all your concerns are going away by then. Yeah. So what do you think the timeline is to go from $50,000 to $150,000?

I'm hoping two to three years. That's not fast enough. That's not fast enough. Get aggressive. Okay. You're a high-capacity dude. Act like it. You're not small potatoes, man. You're not used to playing at this level. Get back on this bike and kick it into gear. Drop it into overdrive and let's go. Let's go, baby. Let's go. Get her done.

You got the ability to kick this in. Don't play Mr. Conservative CPA. Get her. Get after her. You've been running supply chain. You know what these curves look like. You can go get this thing. Go build this business, man. Good for you. Good for you. I'm proud of you. You made a good choice, by the way. You chose life over working all the freaking time. Good for you.

Now,

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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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Ken Coleman, number one best-selling author and host of the brand new hit on the Ramsey Network. It's called Front Row Seat. He's my co-host today. We appreciate you jumping in and joining us today. The phone number is 888-825-5225.

Well, Ken, tis the season. Graduation comes along. Students are walking into the real world, sometimes out of college, sometimes out of high school, with no direction on what to do. I'm so proud of you and our team on what we've done with the Get Clear Assessment. We've been using it as a Get Clear Career Assessment. Find the work you're wired to do. For several years, it's a huge seller at Ramsey.

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Matt is with us in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Hey, Matt, how are you? I'm doing well. Thank you, sir. Good. How can we help? So my wife and I are in our early 40s. We're about to turn 43 and 41, respectively. She just had our fourth child last year, and during the pregnancy, she started having severe mobility issues.

After she gave birth, the mobility issues did not improve, and her MRI results show significant damage to her back and hips. And she's in severe pain most days. She has having to use canes in order to walk. At this point, she's barely able to do the stairs to get up to her master bedroom. What are the docs saying for the fixes?

So there's some significantly invasive surgeries for the back. The doctors do not want to have to do that. So they're going to try injections first to see if that helps at all. But for the hips, she's definitely going to end up having to do surgeries at some point. So at this point, it looks like she's going to have one and a half to two years of recovery time after just the hip surgeries. We're hoping to get those done later this year. Is there a bedroom on the first floor? Yes.

There's not. That's our problem. So you're moving. Currently, we have a three-bedroom house. All three bedrooms are upstairs. We have two offices on the main floor, one of which we've converted into a bedroom for our 17-year-old. We've looked at moving. We've looked at trying to do remodels. We've looked at potentially adding a residential elevator. All of these are either going to increase our debt or... What's your house worth?

So we bought it for $320,000. We currently owe about $245,000 left on it. What's your house worth? We could sell it roughly for $500,000. Okay, buy another house for $500,000 and your debt does not increase. Right. And then my problem is I feel like we're going to just be throwing our equity out the window. Honey, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Nobody spent any money. You moved your equity to the next house.

You sell your house and you buy another house for $500,000. The only thing you're going to be out is your selling expenses. But you're not throwing any equity away. So that's my other concern is we did go and look to get it pre-approved. And even selling our house for $500,000, taking the money we make off of it, paying off the one student loan of $45,000 that we have left, and taking the difference, putting it towards the next house,

We were only approved for $200,000 in order to maintain the current payment that we have of about $2,000 a month. So even selling our house for $500,000, we're going to end up being able to afford less house. Something's wrong. The only thing that's off is the $45,000. You didn't tell me in the first round we were paying off student loans. But hypothetically, if you didn't pay off the student loan,

and you sold your house, what's your current interest rate? We're going to have 4.125%. Okay. There's not much difference in that and what you can get out there now. You can get a 5, 5.5 right now, okay? So the interest is not changing much, and you pick your equity up on a $500,000 house, and you buy another $500,000 house. The only thing you're out is your selling expenses. You have the same mortgage, basically. Okay.

So you're either trying to move up in-house. I think you're moving up in-house. I think you looked at $600,000 and $700,000 houses, didn't you? I am not, no. Well, did she? I don't know who I am. I mean, the numbers that you gave me don't work. The numbers that you gave me aren't logical math. Okay. All right. Do you understand that your current mortgage balance is what?

Okay, so give or take you have $250,000 in equity, not counting expenses. So if you take $250,000 in equity and you buy another $500,000 house, you're going to have another $240,000 loan. And the interest rate is very similar, so the payment would be very similar. You follow me?

Okay.

And switch bedrooms with him. That's what I was looking to do. Yeah, that's pretty simple. Temporarily move us downstairs and then move him upstairs. Very simple. Very simple. Okay. So is there other aggravating situations to this? Is she obese?

Okay. So that's affecting all of this mobility as well, because messed up hips and back when you're obese is like a nightmare. It's painful. It's super painful because you're carrying around like an extra person, right? That's no fun, man. I'm sorry. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And so part of this is a weight loss regime, right? Um,

process as well to help her to get her life back bless her heart i'm so sorry man yeah i think your short-term fix is to dump the 17 year old upstairs i don't care if he likes it or not his mom's ill he needs to take care of the business that's what we do and if it's inconvenient for him well whoopty everything's inconvenient when you're 17 deal with it

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If you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck and you want to know where your money's going, you have to tell your money what to do. It's called a budget. It's the dreaded B word.

You have to manage money like an adult, like it was your job to manage money. Tell your money what to do. We'll show you how. We have a free budgeting training going on right now with the EveryDollar team. You learn step-by-step how to make and stick to a budget using EveryDollar. It's completely free. Did I mention it's free? Your biggest budgeting questions are answered on live Q&A, and we walk you through the whole process. Sign up for free at EveryDollar.com slash webinar. Joe is in Seattle. Hi, Joe. How are you?

Good. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I need to know how to financially support myself after separating from my husband. Oh, I'm sorry. How long have you been married? We've been together 34 years. Good Lord. What happened? Well, that's a long story. Okay. He's been basically living a life as a single person all this time, and I...

I'm just, I mean, I'm 64 and he's 68, but I'm not, things are not going to get any different. Wow. And so I'm just ready to move on. Wow. We do have a net worth of $1.2 million. Okay. Thanks to, you know, doing your financial peace university. My goodness. But, yeah. So if you split that, you have $600,000, right? Well, yeah, I guess. Well, why would you not split it? Well, yeah.

I guess I don't know how we, well, the IRAs are mainly in his name. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. You get a divorce, you get half. Okay. That's the law, hon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess, so I don't know. It just seems more complex than that. No, not really.

I mean, I'll have a pension coming from a job I had in my younger years. Okay. Well, that can be factored into the equation. Are there other assets? So we have $442 in cash. Okay. We own a home that's probably worth $360. Okay. Is it paid for? It's paid, yeah. Who wants that? Anybody? Anybody?

I would probably want it because I have grandkids and it's set up for our grandkids. I guess the reason I'm having trouble figuring out how to do this is because I don't want him homeless. And we live in Washington State and everything is crazier. He's got $600,000. He's not going to be homeless. If he does, it's his fault. Well, I mean, okay, so...

I guess he wouldn't be homeless. Well, he'd have more than $600,000. You said you have $1.2 million in mutual funds or $1.2 million total? No, total. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, so if you took the house, that's $360,000 of that, of your half. So you would only get like $250,000 then, and he'd get the rest of it. If you take the house as your part. You follow me? You take the total and divide it by two, then you start just dividing this up. So a friend of mine says that a divorce turns...

a marriage into a business transaction. This is like you just start going one for you, one for me, one for you, two for me. I guess I'm trying to, I mean, I don't hate him, and I don't want him, I just don't want to be with him anymore. And we've actually been living separately on our property for five years already. Although that's insanity. Right.

I know it is. That's why I'm like, I got to do driving me mentally crazy. Exactly. You got to paint or get off the ladder. This is no fun. So and that's a mutual thing between us. Mutual insanity. He's in a motor home and I'm in the house. So he's already homeless. Yeah, I was getting ready to say, what is your big concern? Is it taking care of yourself?

Financially? Or him. Or him. She's worried about him. It's what it sounds like. Yeah. What's the real thing for you? Is there some guilt here? What's going on? I guess I feel I don't, I want him to be able to. You want him to go away, but you don't want the consequences of the divorce. Bingo. You want him out, but you don't want to feel bad about yourself. Can't have both. You guys are not married. You're legally married, but you're not married.

Right. I agree. We're not. Okay. Then act like it and let this up. Sit down with an attorney, divvy this thing up. Everybody gets approximately $600,000 worth of something. And if you got 1.2, if that's the number, you got some cash to split up, you're going to take the house and that's going to take up a big chunk of yours. And then he's going to get some cash and he's going to have to find a lot to put the motor home on.

Yeah, but I guess my initial call was to you to find out, you know, yeah, I'll have some cash, but I need to figure out how I'm going to... How much is your pension?

It'll be $710. I don't have it yet. Oh, so it's not much. Okay. No, it's not much, and I don't have much Social Security because I was a stay-at-home mom, and I homeschooled our kids. Okay. You've got to go to work. Yeah, you're going to have to do something to create some income because you're not going to have enough of a nest egg if you keep this house to live off of a nest egg. Right.

Yeah, and that's why I initially called. So let's say you get $300,000. You can take about 8% off of that and be safe. And so it's not much. It's $25,000 a year. And then your little bit of Social Security and your little bit of pension and all that together is not enough in Seattle with a $360,000 house. You've got to pay property taxes and insurance, and you've got to eat. So how are you making it now?

Well, I mean, we share everything. I do all of our finances still. I know. Does he have an income? Yeah. He makes about $110 a year. Oh, okay. So he's supporting you right now. Okay. Yeah. So he's 68, but he plans on working until he's 70. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So I...

I mean, and... Yeah, I think you're probably going to develop some kind of a career if you keep this house. Mathematically, is what I'm saying. No, and I have no qualms with that. I'm actually more down to Olympia, not Seattle, so it's not as crazy expensive down there as it is in Seattle. But my main question was to figure out how I'm going to financially support myself. I know I'm going to have half of the

The estate, so to speak. Yeah, but if you keep this house, if you keep this house, then you're going to get about $250,000, give or take. And, you know, if we round it up to $300,000, you're going to have about, you know, $25,000 or $30,000 a year income off of that is all.

So a couple thousand dollars a month plus 700 from the pension plus five or six, 600 from social security. Um, I mean, you're gonna be looking at $4,000 a month. I'm not positive you can make it on that, but if you can run a budget out and make it on that kind of an income, you're going to be fine. Otherwise you're going to have to supplement this asset base or reconsider keeping the house. Well, I mean, if I'm not keeping the house, I'm going to have to pay rent somewhere. So I don't, not the equivalent of $360,000 worth. So no, that's not true. Um,

But, you know, you're just wanting all of it. You're wanting rid of him, but you're not wanting the consequences of it. And that's what you're having to work through. I'm sorry. Wow.

Yeah. I think you're probably going to gin up some income from some kind of a career. I have to literally going to have to, to your point, you laid out what she will bring in. So does she need an additional 1500 a month, 2000 a month, 2500 a month. And unfortunately at this age, she's going to be limited. There's no question about it, but she can get a pretty good hourly wage. Uh,

She might be able to cash flow some skills. I'm doing pretty good. You are, yeah. I'm 64. Shut up. Yeah, but you've been doing this for a long time. She's not been working in the workplace for a long time, so she is limited in her role. But she better get after it pretty quick. Yeah. Or reconcile with the dude in the trailer who's bankrolling her. That's a pretty interesting story. 34 years.

Yeah, what's up with him that he goes and, yeah, I'm not staying out there. That's my point. He's willingly for five years living in the trailer and... Cousin Eddie out there in the backyard. Letting her handle the finances. It's like he's got his own treehouse. It's an RV. He's got me an RV, Clark. Oh, my God. Some mean poker games out there in that trailer. Wow. ♪♪♪

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That's ramsaysolutions.com giveaway.

Giveaway. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personalities, my co-host. You can visit us here at Ramsey Solutions in the lobby. We do this show on the glass from 1 to 4 Central Time, Monday through Friday. It's completely free. So is the homemade chocolate chip cookies and the coffee. And it's all good, by the way.

So there's usually 50 to 200 folks sitting out here and hanging out with us. We appreciate you. Also in the middle of it is the debt-free stage where Trent and Becca are standing. Hey, guys, how are you? Hi, Dave. Good, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. Welcome. Where do y'all live? Orlando, Florida. Ah, cool. Welcome to Nashville. And how much debt have you two paid off?

$535,000. Whoa. She says breathlessly. I like it. And how long did this take? 18 months. 18 months. What? Yeah.

It's a story. Yeah, I'm guessing. And your range of income during the 18 months? $245,000 to $345,000. Okay. Very cool. And the $235,000 worth of debt, what kind of debt was it? $535,000. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're right. I'm still trying to catch up. Okay, yeah. The $535,000 worth of debt, what was it? Cars, personal loan, alimony lump sum, lots and lots of bad decisions, and our mortgage. Okay.

Paid off the house. Yes, sir. How much of this was house? Well, we had two houses when we met. We're a blended family. So we sold his house when we got married, and then we paid off what's now our house. Gotcha. Okay. And the ex as well. The lump sum alimony goes away. This is a good move. Yeah, I like this. This is a clean break. Very good. Yes, sir. Very good. Okay, so what does that house bring?

It's worth about 390. The one that you sold? Oh, it was 205. I just did it assumption loans. I just signed it over to my realtor. Okay. All right. So, oh, but that was part of the 235. Yeah. Okay. So that one stroke got you down to 330. Correct. And then from there, you got to do that in 18 months, making 245, and then you get after it. Yes, sir. Anything else big sold?

No. She was gifted a luxury car from her grandparents that we sold and bought a 20-year-old minivan and dumped that on the house. There you go. That's a good plan. All right. Were they freaking out when you did that? It hurt some feelings, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Wow. Well, it's that wild new husband you got, I'm telling you. Pretty much. Pretty much.

No. You're clearing up the debt, man. How's it feel to be 100% free? Oh, my God. Amazing. Yeah. It's hard to explain financial peace until you experience it. Yeah. Wow. Wow. I mean, when you get rid of an alimony payment, that's even another type of free.

On top of mortgage payment, free debt. I mean, all these other things are free. But, I mean, that's a sweet one to get rid of. Talk about the monkey off your back. Yeah. No pun. Careful, careful. I think that pun was intended.

All right. I'm in. I like it. Good for y'all. So what made you, as part of your new blended family, to go crazy like this and go down to the minivan, sell the house, throw everything, clean up, clean up, clean up? Because that's what you're doing. You're cleaning up a mess from both lives. Well, so I had found you years ago when I was living with my two kids and my parents together.

going through a difficult divorce and it changed everything for me. I got debt free on my own, living with my parents, saved an emergency fund, saved to buy a house, moved out into my very first house with my two kids as a single mom. Shortly after, met this good looking fellow and on one of our first times talking together, he told me about his

negative equity mobile and it was kind of a turn off but we discovered that we were both on the same page we were just in different parts of the journey at that point so he talked the talk he wasn't bragging about it he was whining about it that's a good sign I traded in a truck a car and a boat for a car with a lot of negative equity in it

But it went from $1,900 a month to $600 a month. So it was a huge win. Heading in the right direction anyway. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I've listened to your show so much and I'd heard people in similar situations and I've heard you given a lot of wisdom. Yeah.

into those situations. And I knew that we could do it together a lot faster than either one of us could do it alone, plus the emotional support of it. So I stopped my saving, started piling up some cash when we got engaged. And the day after the wedding, made a big payment on all of his debt, and we just tackled it together from there. Wow. Very cool. Very cool. Sure.

So you're dating and she starts talking to you about this negative equity thing is not cool. I kind of like you, but that ain't cool. What were you thinking?

I was just being bluntly honest with her. This is my situation. This is where I come from and this is where I'm going. Okay. I just have a really small shovel and I'm making headway. I'm getting out. So when you're dating as adults with kids, there's not really the time to waste time like you do when you're younger. And we got right to the point with a lot of our questions and didn't really lie or cover anything up. It was like...

how do you feel about this? How do you feel about that? Okay, we're a mutual connection here. And finances was a big part of that from early on. I bet. I bet. With what you had been through, for sure. And you weren't going back. Yeah. I know.

I don't blame you. That's good. Very good, you guys. I like that story. I'm curious to know how you accounted for an additional $100,000 in income during this time, because this is really relevant to a lot of people who are feeling like, okay, can we do this? You all got out of this thing quick. How did you get the $100,000 increase?

Um, I got a bonus. I got a promotion. Um, and my bonus went up significantly as well. Yeah. My company went through, um, a reorganization and they required that we, uh, get our grant equity paid out in a small portion of it as they were getting, uh, going through that. So right after we got married and we made this first payment on his debt, boom, we got another windfall payout that we weren't expecting or asking for, uh,

So money just kept falling in our laps for no real reason. Wow. There's a reason. It's called blessings. Yeah. God's math. It's funny how it works out. It doesn't make sense. Wow. Good for y'all. Good for y'all. I read a thing this morning. Coincidence is when God's trying to stay invisible. I like that. Or stay anonymous. Good for y'all. Well done. Very well done. I'm proud of you. How does it feel to be completely free?

Amazing. It's incredible. We were talking to the Uber driver on the way here and he like he couldn't believe it. But he he was very curious. Like you don't understand it until you feel it or hear it from someone else. So, yeah, hopefully we sparked some seeds of change there, too. I'll guarantee you did with him and all the people watching today, too. Great story. I'm so proud of you all. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is?

The budget is a big one. And being very intentional and on the same page with it that...

We, I mean, we laugh because we, before the paychecks were even fully in our account while they were still pending, we had already moved money into the, towards the debt, made payments on it. Like, let's not even stop and think about it. We're being very intentional. The money is going here. We already made a plan. We just have to execute it before we get the chance to, oh, well, we could do this other thing with it. Nope. Just go ahead and do the plan. Very cool. Very cool. What do y'all do for a living?

I'm a nurse and a director of patient services at a digital health care company. Business intelligence, a data nerd. Yeah, I love it. Just recruited him to our company too. Love it.

Well, congratulations, you two. We're very, very proud of you. Well done. All right. It's Trent and Becca, Orlando, Florida. 500. I did it again. $535,000 paid off. House and everything in 18 months. Quite a story. 245 to 345 income. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Ready? Three, two, one. We're debt-free!

Yeah! That is how it's done. I love it. Very cool.

You know, I don't get many alimony lump sum payoffs, but that is a freedom. I'm telling you, that's the number of times I've sat down coaching someone and they've got ongoing alimony and ongoing child support and it's stuck in that budget. It's very difficult. This is a lump sum was a great negotiation, a good payout and selling off the other house. The two of them combining everything with a

Laser focus. Yeah. You can see it. You can hear that. That was a lot of pain and suffering in a good way. In other words, like when you're working out in the gym, it is painful and there's some suffering. But on the other side of it, a real victory. And I think you can see it on them and you can hear it in that scream. So congratulations to a very intentional couple. They got a new lease on life. That's exciting to watch.

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It appears that the Trump administration has come to agreement with China on tariffs. And as of this moment, the stock market is shooting through the roof. A huge rebound in the last two days. Now, y'all all remember that

We were all going to die about a month ago that the world was coming to an end, that Trump's tariffs negotiations and all that were going to ruin America and that the stock market, you were going to lose all your retirement. And the stock market was crashing. Don't you remember the news? It was just a month ago. Here's the test for you. While you're surfing around today and in the next 24, 48 hours, see if you find one positive news story about it going up. Because it's about back where it was at the first year now. We're about even from the first year.

See if you find one story about all the losses have been completely recovered from January 1. You won't find one because these people are they really don't report the news. They're just in fear porn business. They just want you addicted to fear porn. And so if the tornado isn't going to kill you, you're going to lose all your retirement or there's going to be a hurricane or an earthquake.

or all of the immigrants are going to kill you, or somebody's going to kill you, something's going to kill you, you're going to die. That's all they do over and over and over and over again. Find me one story where they report with glee on their face, as much as they did with glee on their face when it was going down, that the market has fully recovered as of today. You won't find it. I've been doing this for 30-plus years. After the terrorists hit the towers in New York City,

Stock market was closed the first day because Wall Street is right there, literally, physically there. Wall Street. It's a street called Wall Street, literally. It's right below the towers. So they're cleaning up to be able to get back to work, and they didn't want the markets to reopen in a panic. But stock market dove when it did reopen on the basis of America is under attack. And the world's coming to an end, and we're all going to lose all our retirement, and the terrorist attacks are going to cause us to lose all wealth built.

Not a single report when 54 days later it fully recovered. Not one news outlet reported that America's economy is so vibrant, so strong, that 54 days after the worst attack in history other than possibly Pearl Harbor on our soil, that the stock market dove and fully recovered in 54 days. Not one. So you just need, what this gives you is perspective, right?

of how things really work in the news business. Okay. And, um, I'm a lot of these guys are friends of mine. We do a lot of stuff with Fox. We do stuff on Ken was on CNN. I mean, different people are George was, or somebody was the other day. We're on, we're, we work with all of them from time to time, but I got to tell you, it's the business they're in. If it bleeds, it leads. And, um, you know, I'm telling you all the time, quit,

buying and selling your stock. Just get in your mutual funds to stay in and ride. This is how people build wealth. But instead, we get all freaked out with the fear porn of watching TV, watching TV news or hitting websites, even worse, because they're definitely clickbait headlines.

about, that try to trigger your emotion. But you're not going to find a report. If you do, it's one in a bazillion. Because I always look just for fun of it because I don't generally scan the current events pages. They drive me nuts anyway because I know the people writing a lot of them. And the, but the,

You know, I'll go look, but I'll be surprised if I find a single one anywhere. But I mean, front page headlines were that you're losing everything. Yeah, that's right. And I think while we're on this issue, we have to make sure that we understand there's a difference between the economy and what we're seeing on Wall Street. That's a speculative game.

People are scared pulling their money out one day, then the next day. And that is very different than the health of the American economy. Exactly. What's happening on Wall Street is not the same. Make sure you understand the difference. Well, I mean, and the stock market in general, you can just remember it's this. In a given week, it's a four-year-old having a temper tantrum. Yeah.

Because everything's too good or too bad. That's right. It's always a drama queen in a given week. In a given decade, if you look over a decade, the stock market's a wise old woman. That's right. She's very smart because she does gauge what's going on. But in a given week, it's just a four-year-old having a temper tantrum in the cereal aisle because the Froot Loops aren't right there. That's right. That's all it is. It's just a bunch of drama queens, man. All right. That's right. Lisa's in Tampa. Hey, Lisa, what's up?

Hey guys, so I have a mix of a financial and personal question.

I am recently engaged. My fiance and I have been together a total of three years. We're going to have a blended family, four kids altogether, one from my previous marriage, three from his previous relationship. We're older. We had full separate lives, and now we're attempting to kind of combine them and blend them. And everything's pretty good except the financial differences that we have and how he manages his finances, how I manage mine. We also have a large...

income gap. And so my question ultimately is, is it best for us to go a kind of more non-traditional route and kind of keep separate lives because we kind of need to because it's so complicated? Or do I try to, for lack of a better word, force him to develop better financial habits? How old are you two? We're in our 40s. We both have... You're going to burn a lot of calories either way, aren't you?

You said we're what? You're going to burn a lot of calories either way. I'm hoping not. I'm hoping that, you know, we can all be. You're going to burn a lot of calories either way because either you guys are going to do the strain, the hard choices of getting on the same page, or you're going to underperform. Because all the data that we have shows that couples that work together are those that win with money.

80% of the millionaires that we interviewed were married, and 80% of them claimed one of the reasons they were able to build wealth was they were working together with a spouse, not in spite of a spouse. It's very clear data.

So when you say working together, right, because the nuance that I'm struggling with is he's an entrepreneur, small business owner. You know, he's in that phase of developing his business, so the business hasn't taken off yet. How long has he been developing the business? About 10 years. He's not in the phase of developing the business. He doesn't have a business. He has a hobby. It doesn't take 10 years to develop a small business. It takes 10 months.

I mean, the business is there. It just hasn't taken off to the level that he would like. What does he make? What's his income? About $50. Yeah, okay. And you make $200, right? I make $300, yeah. $300. Okay, what do you do? I'm an accountant. Okay, all right. What's his business? And you already knew what I said earlier there. Unless you do public accounting? Yes. Okay, you know businesses don't take 10 years to take off then.

Yeah. If you know your stuff. Okay. Yeah. It's just not true. So why is he underperforming? Does he not work much? No, he works a lot. And that's the thing. Like, he's a hard worker, dedicated. I think it's just, you know, just partnerships gone wrong. What kind of business is he in?

It's like a production company, like putting on productions and, you know, yeah, things like that. So, I mean, the nuance, the main nuance that I want to share is... So is he good at what he does but not good at running a business? Potentially. Potentially. I think I definitely have some of the decision-making. Yeah, that happens. Accidental entrepreneurs happen a lot. Yeah. And we find that with Entree Leadership a lot. That's not a sin. It's just in recognition. So he needs to either learn how to run a business, not just learn how to do how-to-production? Yeah.

Or he needs a different career because he's got a woman he needs to keep. And underperforming is not. No, you don't need to try to go to a non-traditional. We're going to hold our nose and close our eyes and put our hands over our ears and go la, la, la, la, la, and act like this isn't happening. This is happening. Y'all deal with what's happening. Deal with what's in front of you. You can build a beautiful, wonderful life on the basis of what you've told me, but not by not by being in denial.

Either one of you, for that matter. The awkwardness of you making six times what he makes needs to be talked about with a pre-marriage counselor. You need to talk about his career and does he need to work on the business or does he need to go to work for somebody? I bet you he could make $100 working for somebody else in the production world in freaking Orlando.

Is that where she was? No, Tampa. Okay. Yeah, still. Still could. So let's pick up the book E-Myth by Gerber about working on your business, not just in your business for him. I think he's got great potential, but no, I'm not going to act like this isn't happening. Go call every social media company.

Hey, what are you still doing here? You know the rest of the show is happening on the Ramsey Network app, right? So you got to jump over there to continue watching. You can download it for free. Just go to your app store, type in Ramsey Network. It's completely free. And I'll drop a link in the show notes to make it easy for you. So if you're watching on the app, you're in luck. But if you're watching anywhere else, this show is over for you. So jump onto the app and let the fun continue. All right, go on now. Don't make it weird. Yeah.

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?