The Ramsey Show - App - Forget What the Culture Says, You Should Combine Bank Accounts

Episode Date: June 8, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Rachel Cruze discuss: Should my wife and I split the mortgage and have separate checking accounts? Should I use our emergency fund to buy a car? How to help a spouse through a career change. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is done, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of BMW as the status symbol of choice. We help people build wealth, do work that they really love, and create actual amazing relationships. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author, my daughter is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.

Andrew starts us off this hour in Tampa. Hi, Andrew. How are you? Good. How are you? Pleasure speaking with you. You too, sir. How can we help? Hey, so my question is, how do you split ownership on a home financially 50-50 if one person makes pretty much substantially more than the other?

Are you married? Going to be in a year. So that's kind of why I'm asking because we're uh going to be in a year so that's kind of why i'm i'm asking because we're definitely going to be looking if you're married you don't split the ownership both of you own it joint and severally you own 100 understood understood but i meant more financially so um let's just say the mortgage payment oh the mortgage okay all right So how do we budget who pays what of the mortgage after we're married? Is that your question? Correct. Okay.

All right. Yeah. So, Andrew, the way we look at that is that once the income hits the bank account, that you guys, that it's both your money. I mean, like both of you have the same amount of money. It doesn't matter who makes what. You guys are in a marriage. And so you are a team.

You are one. And we are all about combining your finances. And so that means if your wife stays at home and you work and your paycheck hits the bank account, it's as much hers as it is yours and vice versa. So it's not a matter of who brings it in. It's just the fact that you guys are one and working as a team. So, yeah, there's not really a splitting the mortgage. We're going to pay it together. It's kind of the old-time marriage vows from the Book of Common Prayer, okay,

for rich or for poor, in sickness and in health. And here's a phrase they don't ever use anymore, but it's in the old marriage vows. Unto thee all my worldly goods I pledge. It used to be part of the marriage vows unto the all my worldly goods i pledge used to be part of the marriage vows and sickness and health richer for poor unto the all my worldly goods i pledge and so uh and the preacher says and now you are one not and now you are a joint venture let's figure out how to split this up and so we're going to just take all the money and put it in a pile, and now that pile of money is our money, and we want to accomplish our dreams, our goals, address our fears with that pile of money. And how do we go about that?

One thing we're going to do is obviously pay the mortgage payment because we'd like to live in this house. Another thing is we're going to pay the light bill because we'd like to have electricity. We, we, we, we, we. You change your pronouns when you're married you become french we we okay perfect and then do you believe in separate checking and then a standard account where both of you are on it nope at all one account don't need to you don't need to because you're both sharing everything there's no secrets we're married we love each other we have each other's best interest at heart we want to cause the other person to win

i want to serve my wife she wants to serve me we want to accomplish the things we agree together that we want to accomplish and we're going to do a written plan a budget every month that we both have a vote on she gets her needs and desires addressed in that discussion i get my needs and desires addressed in that discussion they're both on that piece of paper and so then the money from the checking account goes towards what we have previously agreed on paper called a budget and so there's no surprises which andrew i and i hear you though that i know that that this is kind of weird advice because now the normal um way of going about money and marriage is that yeah she has her checking account you have yours you guys split

the bills and that's what it is but yeah but but this is now we've been we've been living together now for probably about two years now engaged so it's it's at a point where it's almost like like you would call it roommates in a way yeah you are right now you are legally you are roommates today correctally, you are roommates today. Correct. Legally, after you're married, you're not anymore. It's all one. And it really pushes that discussion, though, Andrew.

I would encourage you guys, if that makes you uncomfortable for any reason of like, oh, gosh, we're going to share our money, start asking those questions. Why is that making me uncomfortable? Am I still wanting a part of my life that i don't want to give up i mean those are good questions not just for your money but for your going into your marriage because this is a this is just a reflection of hey we're going to share a bed we're going to share our genetics running around with little kids in the future like we're going to share our life together and that includes our money but if it makes you if that has if you're hesitant or she's hesitant on that i would push into that asap because as a part of some of your pre-marriage counseling

yeah so here's some data points that help that help you with this as well that that say that this is not just an opinion okay we've done this i've done this for 30 years and we've had 10 million people go through financial peace university So it is more than an opinion in that sense, an anecdotal evidence there. But the actual data says that the number one cause of divorce is money fights and money disagreements. And when we can get you to combine your income and combine your spending decisions, we're forcing you to combine your dreams to combine your fears to combine and if

our dreams include her going and getting her master's that's an hour dream we both want that for her right and that's money that's spent directly on her but it's a part of our dream okay if our dreams include uh you getting a nice car that you've always wanted, then that's one of our dreams. And she's happy about that. Okay? So you're combining your dreams by forcing you to put the money together and forcing you to make decisions together. We're forcing you to combine your value system rather than having a little secret life off to the side or a lot of selfishness off to the other side or something else. So the number one cause of divorce.

And the second thing we found, the other piece of data in the largest study of millionaires that's in the Baby Steps Millionaires book, that was just the number one the other day that I just did, of the millionaires that we studied, it was like 86 percent a tribute uh they're becoming millionaires to the fact that they were that their spouse was on the journey with them not they were dragging a reluctant spouse or not they were over on the side having their own little side hustle and they just worked it out and their spouse just was oblivious no they were on the journey with them there's something about both there's an old thing called the marriage. What is that called?

It's a marriage advantage or something like that. There was a study done about 25 years ago. It's probably dated now. But it showed that people that are married and have healthy marriages, they live longer. They make more money. They're better in their careers. And so it was a marriage advantage. That's not the right phrase.

There's another word for it. I forget what it's called. But anyway, that's what, so all of that ties, but it all only works when you do this combo thing. This combined, unified thing. And you create a level of unity in your relationship and in your marriage through the money lens that nothing else will do. Yes. And this is all really big picture stuff.

But too, Andrew, like when you guys sit down and do a budget, you both get a line item in the budget. So like my husband, there's a Winston line item, there's a Rachel line item. So I can still go to Target and shop or buy something online. I'm not like having to like go to him with every single thing. Like I have money to spend and, but it's all coming out of the same place. It's all coming out of the budget we agreed on. It's coming out of the same checking account.

So it's not stripping away your individual freedom. You still have the ability to like what you like and spend where you want to spend, but you're doing it together as one. Yeah, it makes all the difference in the world, on your marriage and on the probability of your building wealth. This is The Ramsey Show.

I just saw a study that really made me sad. It showed that families owning life insurance in the U.S. was at its lowest point since the 1970s. After what we've been through the past few years, I'm just lost on how people don't make this more of a priority. How are you going to make sure your family needs are met if something happens to you? This is why getting term life is an absolute necessity. Rates have never been cheaper, and the whole process to apply is pretty simple, with many companies not even requiring an exam anymore. This is why I send you to Zander Insurance, and I have for almost 25 years. They'll make sure you get the right protection at the lowest cost possible, and they're there for you and your family every day.

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Hey, we think learning about money should be simple. Our new free five-day guide to insurance called Confidence in Your Coverage. It's free. It's a five-day guide to insurance. Confidence in Your Coverage makes learning about insurance quick, practical, and even funny. Our own George Campbell does it. You can be guaranteed you'll have a chuckle in there. And it's really good.

It's really good. Every day for five days george will walk you through a new insurance topic very quick very short very free unpacking everything you need to know to get the right coverage for you to top it off we're doing a giveaway for the folks that sign up at the end of the series you might still have to do the yard work but you'll at least know about insurance go to ramsey solutions.com slash confidence and sign up for the free five-day guide to insurance. Confidence in your coverage. RamseySolutions.com slash confidence. Kurt is in Memphis. Hey, Kurt, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Hey, Rachel. Thanks for having me.

Sure. What's up? Well, first of all, I want to thank you so much for all you've done. Thanks for the total money makeover. My wife and I have been able to overcome some substantial obstacles in eliminating $91,000 of debt from 2018 to 2020. Yes, sir. We still have our mortgage, but we've experienced a ton of financial freedom after eliminating that debt. After that debt, we started to save up our cash and we have $35,000 in an emergency fund and a high-yield savings account. Good for you. But after that, I got a little reckless and I started putting our extra money into an individual investment account where I've been picking individual stocks like Alibaba, Chegg, Facebook, Netflix, and a bunch of those are down right now. Um, but I do think they'll pay that long term.

Um, we have about 20,000 in that account, you know, another 10,000 just recently into a series I bond. So my take-home pay is about, or our take-home pay is about $6,100 a month guaranteed, and we at least have $1,000 left over each month after putting 15% into our retirement. The problem is both of our vehicles have 165,000 miles on them, and we're considering having a third child. And at some point, a minivan is going to be needed. I'm a little bit worried about used car prices, and I want to wait as long as I can. But the money for that van that we have saved up is in individual stocks right now and the series I've owned, that extra $30,000. I've considered whether we should use our emergency

phone for the car and just let that stuff sit i've got a job that's super stable um about as stable as it can get i just i don't know what i should do about that and whether i should start putting my extra money towards a mortgage or if i should start saving that too in case this is this is exactly why we tell people not to buy individual stocks right it's exactly why i know and at this point i've done it and they're sitting there i get i get that it's water under the bridge but the first part of this we have to address is never do this again. It's not cool. You did not beat the system.

It kicked your butt up around your neck. That's why you're calling me. Okay? You violated a principle here of diversification, and you started screwing around thinking you were too smart doing single stocks, and you got your butt kicked. Now, first, we got to own that own that okay i'm not picking on you i just don't want you to ever go back here again now if you agree with that and you say i'm never going back you don't have to agree with me this is for your purposes you got to decide this you don't have to i'm not i don't need your agreement you can decide you can do whatever you want to do okay i'm just i don't want to help you

from this point forward now that you're in the mess now if you say okay i made a mistake because i took too much risk playing with these single stocks and i got my butt kicked and i'm never doing that again now what do i do well you get rid of them tomorrow because every day you keep them it's like you bought them again meaning you think you still you're still thinking you can hang on and win they're going to be okay over time they're going to be okay over time the stock market is going to be okay over time not your little portfolio your little portfolio may still get its butt kicked as the stock market recovers i don't know because you've got a handful of stocks and you know you're just there's all kinds of studies that go the individual

person playing single stocks can they it's like 90 of the time does not even keep up with what the stock market does you always come in below the market and it's because not because you're dumb it's because you're not diversified enough number one and number two uh that that lack of safety then catches you here uh because one or two little you know you got six stocks two of them go down it could take they can tank the returns on the whole portfolio when you got 200 stocks and five of them go down or six of them go down it doesn't tank the portfolio stock so what would i do if i woke up in your shoes? I would cash out the I-bonds. Dumb investment. I would cash out the stocks.

Dumb investment. Immediately, I'd put it in a pile, and I'd start thinking about buying a car. And stop doing this stuff. That's what I would do. But you knew I wouldn't do it when you called here. You already knew that it was stuff we don't tell you to do. You know, what would I do if I woke up in Bitcoin?

And Bitcoin is now what? It's off 60 something percent now from last september so if you had a hundred thousand dollars in there you've lost sixty thousand dollars in bitcoin and you bitcoin people been ragging me threatened to burn my house down because i said you were idiots and and look how smart you are now okay and it wasn't because i hate bitcoin it's because i hate stuff that is unproven because it kicks your butt and now what what would i do if i own bitcoin if i put a hundred thousand dollars in bitcoin and i was you know what would what should you do you should get out tomorrow because it may get better it it may get worse, but it's still the same stupid investment that it was last fall. It's just now you're in a situation where Warren Buffett said,

when the tide goes out, you can tell who is skinny dipping. When you're stupid is stress tested, it comes up stupid. And I'm not fussing at you, dude. I'm just fussing at all of us because I did the exact same stupid stuff when I was in my 20s. And I put like $5,000 in this gold thing, this gold futures thing. This buddy of mine had a guy. He had a guy. I got you a guy.

As soon as you got a guy, you know that you're about to lose your butt. As soon as somebody says, I got a guy, he had hit gold. He had picked out the gold option uh mark and if you hit it you take five thousand bucks and make 50 grand okay and he had hit it 11 out of the last 11 periods oh wow he was a genius yeah until the 12th one when i put in five thousand dollars and this genius right here so watch let me tell you what happens if you don't make the mark if you hit let me tell you what happens if you don't make the mark. If you hit the mark, the five becomes 50. If you don't make the mark,

it becomes zero. Zero. That's how dumb I am. Okay, so hold on. I have two thoughts real quick. Kurt, so yes, cash out tomorrow, buy the minivan. I would go with the Honda Odyssey. It's a great van from personal experience.

But number two, a funny segment, James, would be all the dumb investments I've done. Like I was, we had a friend who will be unnamed. This was probably when Winston and I kind of first got married. So it's been 12 years or so. So we had a friend and he was like hellbent. Oh, can I say that? Too late. You did.

Sorry. Hellbent. Oh, can I say that word? Too late, you did. Sorry. Hellbent. On the denarii losing value. And he's like, you've got to get into the denarii market. You've got to get into the denarii market. The Iraqi dinar. And it was like, I don't know, he put a couple hundred bucks in. He was like, literally, this is going to be three million in a year

when the Iraqi government collapsed. He had this whole political string through it. It was the Bitcoin of the Iraq War. Yeah, so anyways. The Dinar, the Iraqi Dinar. Yeah, that was a big thing. But it'd be a funny segment for people to call in and say, hey, here was like...

We need to do a stupid tax hour again. There you go. Stupid butt stuff I have done that has cost me money. That's stupid tax. I'll lead off. I'll tell you all the stupid stuff I have done that has cost me money. That's stupid tax. I'll lead off. I'll tell you all the stupid stuff I've done because I've done a bunch of it. That's why I'm so passionate about this because it hurts too much to work. It's hard for the

money and then it evaporates because I'm stupid. I hate it when I'm stupid because it costs money. I don't like it. This is the Ramsey Personalities, my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. And we invite you to join us. Some of you are traveling. If you stop through Nashville, we're in Franklin, just south of Nashville, the Ramsey Solutions

headquarters. We've got a big visitor center, free coffee, free homemade chocolate chip cookies, and we have a debt-free stage where people come to do their debt-free screams. And Brian and Shannon join us on that stage. Hey, guys. How are you? Hi. Hey, how you doing?

Good to have you guys. Where do y'all live? Elkmills, Maryland. Okay. Which is near Baltimore, right? Yes. Okay, cool. Good to have y have you guys. Where do y'all live? Elk Mills, Maryland. Okay, which is near Baltimore, right? Yes. Okay, cool. Good to have y'all. How much debt have you paid off? $524,000. Wow. How long did that take? About five years. Good for you guys. Way to go. Your range of income during that time? $160,000 and then we ended at $195,000 at 195 cool what do y'all do for a living i'm a police officer and i work in construction okay wow good for you guys great incomes well done

five years 520 000 i'm gonna guess is that the mortgage we paid all their hands looking at a couple of weird people oh yeah i love. I love it. How old are you two? I'm 41. I'm 40. All right. And you got a paid-for house. Paid-for house. What's this thing worth?

Well, the one we paid off was we sold one for about $300, and then the other one, we used that proceeds to pay off the other. Right. The one you're living in. The one we're living in. And what's it worth? That's about about 200 right now good for you wow awesome fun fun fun excellent job guys how long y'all been married 15 years

yeah so what happened five years ago that made you decide hey we're gonna pay off our house well about six years ago brian started getting sick um he had what is called a cholestatoma, and it started growing on the inside of his ears, kind of like a tumor growing bigger and bigger and bigger. We didn't know about it, and he went to the doctor because he started getting dizzy and falling off ladders, stuff like that at construction sites. Not good. Not good.

At that time, we weren't living paycheck to paycheck, but we were. So when he started getting sick, he needed surgeries. Well, without that income, things got real bad real quick. So I went to work one night and was working patrol. And I was talking to my good buddy, Justin Beamer. And when I say talking, I was sobbing. Because on one hand, I'm scared out of my mind. And on the other, I'm angry at him for getting sick.

You want to talk about feeling pretty humble and bad about yourself. Be angry at your spouse for getting sick. So I ate a lot of humble pie. And then we learned about your show and what you do. And he lent us the book, The Total Money Makeover, which I read within oh my gosh two days uh and then i went to him and i said we're gonna do this and he's like all right whatever yeah yeah and then what and then we took the next five years, ate a lot of humble pie, made a lot more mistakes.

Tons of them. The house. We had two houses. We have four beautiful children. We said, well, we need a bigger house. They can't possibly share rooms. That would be child abuse. We went and bought a really big house, but the way we did that was we took a 401k loan

which is the smartest thing ever right it was a great idea yeah so they don't tell you when you take out that loan that the irs is going to hunt you down for more money right so we got a forty thousand dollar irs check well not check i wish yeah right uh payments and that knocked us off our feet um so we have the two houses the the one we didn't sell because we bought it during the bubble. And so we kept that as a rental and we rented it to people that Brian grew up with. And we weren't the best of landlords because we were just like, okay, go live there. We're not going to worry about it. You do whatever you need to do.

Uh-oh. Which meant they got 20 cats. Lots of cats. Oh, no. How did you not just have to burn that house? Oh, my gracious. I took about five months gutting the whole thing when we moved into it.

What's crazy about, and I just got to speak on the Lord real quick here. So they move out. Well, we were going to evict them, but I just got to speak on the Lord real quick here. So they move out. Well, we were going to evict them, but they just decided to move out. And we go in, and it's just the worst. Oh, it smells so bad. Oh, my gosh. And Brian used our entire emergency fund, about $30,000, to repair the house.

So you want to talk about feeling scared again, right? Yeah, here we go again. Yeah, we're going to sell the other house and we're it's going to be okay it's going to be okay well the lord was so good to us that not only when we sold the house did we make enough to pay off the mortgage but he gave us a 30 000 back to put in our emergency fund so he's just been so good to us along the way and brian your medical stuff cleared? Yeah, it's ongoing, but it's sustainable now. So it's just I go every couple years to get a cleanup kind of thing, and it's nothing like it was before.

And so that allows you to get back to work then, obviously, all these years. Well, yeah, but I'm not scared anymore now. Yeah. Or mad at him about it. He can go ahead and heal.'s good i use it as a vacation this is my little time off yeah oh man okay so when shannon is like no okay i'm reading this book i'm doing it i'm doing it she made the comment like and brian was like okay okay so how was the journey for you brian if she's like all pumped up and ready to go. I didn't want to do it.

Yeah. I just bought a big truck. We wanted to pull a fancy camper that we bought. So I had this nice truck and she's like, I think we've got to sell it. Well, I had to bring it up like it was his idea. You know, like, oh, don't you think we should do this? And yeah, he let us sell it. Yes. So you guys together though, in five years think we should do this? And yeah, he let us sell it. Yes.

So you guys together, though, in five years, how was marriage different, would you say? We used to call it the Friday night fights. She would come up and be like, oh, you got to spend your money this way, that way. And I'm like, you can tell me how I'm going to spend my money. I'm going to spend it how I want. I don't care if you're a cop or not.

You don't tell me that shit. Yeah. So we just started kind of doing everything the right way. And don't tell me that. Yeah. So we just started, you know, kind of doing everything the right way and that's where it started. Once you started getting them principles in line,

I was able to get in line on that. Sure, sure. And you guys working more as a team than ever before. That's amazing. Yeah, I think it really helped the marriage out a lot. Yes.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. A lot. For me. No, but we now teach Financial Peace University at our church, at Nottingham Missionary Baptist Church. And it's incredible to see where we came from. And, I mean, we still make mistakes. Like, that's, you know, I thought I'd be a millionaire by now, Dave.

Like, where's the money, right? You're on your way. You know, God willing. But it's cool to share those mistakes with others because we've been teaching fpu for what two three years now and no one has made as many mistakes as we have so that's kind of cool where we can just share that you are infinitely qualified yes to lead fpu yeah you make great coordinators coordinators that are perfect or lousy coordinators well we're the lousiest no you're you're the imperfect you're the perfect coordinator so yeah that's great way to go you

guys yeah you're well on your way you got a paid for house it's worth a couple hundred thousand you're making a couple hundred a year you got no bills in the world what's the first big thing you're going to do to celebrate now we're here yeah we're doing this this is a celebration we have been counting down the days uh to do this, stand on your stage, and thank you personally for what you have done for our family. It's just been incredible. Thank you so much because this is not easy. You're going against the culture.

You're telling people what they should be doing, and nobody wants to hear that. They don't want to hear good, sound advice or what we should be doing. But you've been on patrol. You know the culture. Something needs to be gone against oh my gracious yeah we're fighting a battle out there it's wild it's wild yes and so common sense has got to be prevailing and you guys are just perfect i love you you're heroes well thank you well done i'm so proud of you very very cool stuff thank you very cool we got a copy of baby steps millionaires for you that's the next chapter in your story for sure copy of total money makeover you'll give that away to one of your fpu attendees oh for sure and we'll give you an fpu membership you can give that away to somebody

that you've got somebody somewhere that you're talking to on patrol that's crying about something like you were and you'll be able to help them well that's the best part dave is like i see a lot of people in really bad spots and being able able to help them, and showing them a little bit of God. Yeah. All right. Let's bring the kiddos up and get them into the deal. Allison, Brielle, Camille, and Joseph, all from the Baltimore, Maryland area, with Brian and Shannon, $524,000 paid off in five years.

Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! They are fun. Way to go, you guys. They're neat. I mean, that makes you just glad that lady's out there on patrol.

I know. Amazing work's in the construction business. What great moms and dads, husbands and wives. Good stuff. This is the Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Laura is with us in Alaska. Hi, Laura. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hello, Dave and Rachel. Laura is with us in Alaska. Hi, Laura. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hello, Dave and Rachel. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? My question today is how to best support my husband through a career change. He was a framer in college, mostly working for his father's residential contractor business, but he's been in banking for the past seven years, and he's trying to change his careers to go back to being like a project manager or residential contractor, and so far in the last like three,

four months, we've put about $2,000 into classes and exams, and his next exam to try is next week. He doesn't want a huge pay cut right now. He's making between $80,000 and $100,000 a year with bonuses. So he doesn't want, like, to start over with his career now that he's been doing this a while. And it's just kind of led to a lot of, just a lot of angst, I guess. But I guess my question is, like, how to best support him through that, through all of this big change that's happening. Because will his income go down with the new job? So, like, starting a whole new business as a residential contractor first needs a license, and then he needs clients.

And it's hard to get a loan without experience. Like, he's looked into getting a loan for, like, a contract loan for building a house for someone. So he wants to get credit cards and get more credit and be able to build a house. He sold his fancy truck and bought a cheaper truck. And so we have 40,000 saved for a plot of land. But I guess it's just kind of a, it's kind of an unclear direction of how to start a business. And he knows how to do all that.

It's just, it's going to be hard because he, like to quit his job that makes 80,000 to start a business that potentially might not make anything for a year or two. And it's just, I guess it's just kind of an unclear path, and we'll both kind of struggle with that. Well, and part of the problem is it is a clear path. It's just a bad one, and that's part of what's bothering him and you because what you're describing to me is ultra-high risk. You're setting yourself up for bankruptcy so no you don't need to

do what you're doing i would recommend not doing his path um hold on hold on hold on i do want him to go be a residential contractor and i do want him to make this change i do not want him building a house for someone else with bought with money he borrowed uh lots of contractors do cost plus or even a profit margin agreement whichever it is and they're very similar uh and so if i got ready to build a house i could put up the money and hire a contractor, and they use my money to build my house, and he makes a profit. That is a normal arrangement in custom home building. You don't need to go into debt to build a house for somebody else. They should have the money, and if they don't have the money, they can go get a construction loan, and if your husband has a contractor's license in the state of Arkansas, the bank will loan them the money against a set of plans and appraisal,

and you're able to draw on the construction loan as percentages of completion on the house are done. In no case is your husband or you on the debt. The individual building that's going to end up owning the house are done. In no case is your husband or you on the debt. The individual building that's going to end up owning the house goes and gets the construction loan, and then the draw comes out, and when the draw comes out, it's to pay the lumber bill and to pay the contractor a percentage of his profit because we reached the 50% mark or the 25% mark or whatever, and it's laid out in a normal construction draw program. It's typically done, for instance, after the foundation is in,

is one draw. After the framing package is up is another draw. Those are typical, very, I've been around this business my whole life and been in it my whole life. But there's no reason for you to have to go borrow money to buy a plot of land to build something on that is not a good way to do this and in the meantime I would start doing a bunch of renovations and build decks and build other things on the side as a side hustle and get

my volume up and get my customer base up before I quit because in order to build a custom home he's going to have to be full-time yes definitely I've I've sent him jobs like carpenter jobs and and other things but he he really doesn't want to take a pay cut like in between like I want him to do that as a side hustle as a weekend evening yeah no pay cut put some guys put some guys on the job, build on the deck, go by and see them before work and after work, and check them on the weekends. And sub out the work with his contractor's license, do some renovations, same way. But he does not have to be on the job all day long on these small projects.

And there's no pay cut involved because he's still got his banker job until he gets his income up and gets enough and he gets two or three custom houses lined up and okay we're getting ready to break ground this month on one next month on another next month on another and you've got those under contract meaning the the people building the house have signed a contract with you to be their contractor now you've got business that you can quit based on okay but you don't have to go into debt to do this and you don't have to quit cold turkey to go do this okay cool i will i will let him know okay and i can be very supportive of all that because i think he could actually make about double what he's making now with this move i

think he's going to make more and do stuff he loves and he kind of cut his teeth on the business he grew up in the business but guys who go out and just start spec building as we're heading into a recession are the ones that get their butts kicked yeah yeah and you and you feel that angst laura like even when you were asking the question i could hear it in your voice. You weren't sure what to be nervous about, but you just knew it wasn't right. Yeah, it's, yeah. Yeah, I love him. I want him to win. I don't want to kill his dream, but I'm feeling like a nightmare.

And is he, would he receive this? Like, if you kind of walked through this call of just different ideas versus I'm going to quit tomorrow and go into debt to build a house and all that. What is his level of comfortable? Is he comfortable in his plan? I don't fully think he is. It sounds bad, but Dave Ramsey has been a bit of a curse word in our 10-month marriage. I got myself out of debt.

We paid for the wedding with cash. But we both, you know, we're not on a strict budget, but we have shared bank account. It's just kind of, it's just been, I don't know, a little tense with all of this change. And underneath all of it is just kind of that he's just really unhappy with his current career choice, and it's just brought a lot of frustration. I'm completely in agreement with him. I would much rather build houses than be a banker. Amen. It just sounds like a whole lot more fun to me.

So I'm totally supportive of his dream, but here's the thing. You can always do a dream with improper steps and turn it into a nightmare and that's what I don't want for him or for you and Laura too I would I would kind of push into this because you guys have been married 10 months it kind of feels like a little bit of shaky foundation of like we're not we're on the same page but we're not here and it's this and I'm kind of tiptoeing around different stuff I mean you guys kind of just need to have uh over dinner this weekend just say hey i just need to say out loud the things that i'm thinking and feeling and i want you to hear them and it

takes courage to do that but for him to hear that and you guys start these kind of conversations because tiptoeing around the issues is good is starting out a terrible habit for marriage are y'all like 26 uh we're we're 30 and 31 okay yeah because here here's what i'm old so when someone says to me how can i be supportive of my husband and then they lay out all of the things that he's doing that don't feel right that's code for i think this is a really stupid idea how can i really tell him that and still love him and still want him to go be somebody? Not piss him off. I mean, it's code for, you know, you don't really want to be supportive of him doing cocaine. You know?

How can I be supportive of my husband while he does a little cocaine? No, you can't. You can't do that. You're not supportive of that. And it's sweet, but it's just wrong. My wife does not support me in things that she thinks is crazy. But you can be respectful in the conversation, but being honest where you are, Laura, to him, I think is one of the biggest gifts you will give him. But you're under no obligation to support things

that violate your beliefs and your common sense. Don't support those, because you're going down with the ship. You're on the ship. You know, both of you are on it together. This is The Ramsey Show. Dave here. You can find all of our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone. It's the only place to listen to the entire back catalog of episodes.

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