The Ramsey Show - App - How Do I Get Started Investing? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: December 29, 2023

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, host of The Fine Thrift on the Ramsey Networks, is my co-host today. We talk about your mental wellness, your relationships, your jobs, your careers, and your money. It's your life right here on The Ramsey Show. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Austin is in Springfield, Missouri, to start off this particular hour. Hey, Austin, what's up?

Hello, Dave. Nice to talk to you. You too. How can we help? My question is, I'm 22 years old, and I'm wanting to start investing. And I'm wanting to know which platform I should use. Wise man. All right. So you're out of college? You're working?

I did not go to college. I'm working. I actually own a construction and excavating business of my own. Way to go, man. That's incredible. Okay, so what's your income for the year, household income? My income is around $45,000 a year. Cool. And I do own my house. It's completely paid off.

Wow. What's that worth? My home appraised around $220,000. Way to go, man. Well, you're doing great already right off the bat. You're killing it. Do you have any debt? No, no credit card debt or student loans nothing and you have an emergency fund you have savings three to six months expenses yes yes my emergency fund is around 25 000 would you run for

congress 22 years old you have your crap together more than any of them at the island of misfit toys i wish but um very um i got a lot of my information from you dave obviously and plus my family and my parents they blessed um me with a lot of knowledge and stuff but no handouts but a lot of knowledge and i'm very grateful for that yeah they raised they raised a great kid, man. Well, let's talk about the investing side now. Have you invested at all in anything so far, or is this all new? No, sir. I have not started investing at all in any type of cryptocurrency or anything. All right. Well, here's what I would do. If I were you in your shoes, I would be investing 15% of my income into retirement

accounts. So things like a 401k, if you have access to that, I know you've got your own business, but you don't. So it may be a solo 401k or a SEP IRA for you. But IRAs and those kinds of retirement accounts is where I'd be putting that 15%. And you can put a lot of money in there if you're self-employed. Yeah, you can put $6,000 into just a simple Roth IRA. That's a very easy transaction, and that would be pretty close to your 15% at this stage of the game. So what you do, just click on at ramseysolutions.com. Just click on SmartVestor Pro. Sit down with one of the people that we endorse for investing. We call them SmartVestor Pros. You're the SmartVestor. They're the pro that helps you do it you're a smart investor and you are you are you qualify dude well done but they can set that up and you can have it come out of directly out of your checking account monthly if you want to

break it down monthly be 500 bucks a month if you want to uh do it one time in a lump sum you can do that um i'd recommend just setting up a monthly draft because i like getting smart things on autopilot so i never think about them again so i'm automatically smart i like that i like that if you can automate smartness that's a i don't know smartness not a word i'm not there yet well i'll get there smartness smart whatever it is that's whatever whatever it is it falls that wisdom we're going to just put it on autopilot and where we automatically are smart and i just i've always tried to do that trick myself into doing smart things and you learn to live on whatever's left and then you're really winning exactly well done austin sharon's in san antonio hi sharon welcome to the ramsey show

hey guys dave pleasure to speak with you. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. I'm in a position where I'm able to pay off my ex-husband's house for him. And I was wondering if you thought that would be a good idea. Well, it sounds weird. Who pays off their ex-husband's house? He's a really, really, really good man, and he deserves a break he needs kind of a hand um up and i just wanted to help him i'm i am so is george just send him the money i will take it a lot of good people out there you could give to so that's some strange generosity yeah that's different is that weird i don't know no it's okay it's just it's i mean if

you want to do it i'm not mad at you it's just would you have to admit it's highly unusual yeah like i don't think in 30 years i've ever gotten this call okay yeah i'm not trying to buy his affection i don't want to get back together with him he's just a good man he was so how much do you how much does he owe on his house? $135,000. And you have like extra $135,000 laying around? Yeah. I have $4.5 million in assets plus a trust fund that's $2 million.

Okay. By the way, I'm working with one of your endorsed local providers here in San Antonio. Can I say his name? Sure. Jeff Whaling and the Whaling Wealth Team. Great. That's awesome. How long have you been divorced?

We got divorced in 2016. We were married for 18 years. No children. Where did you get all this money? Where'd all this money come from? My parents, and then they passed away, and my brother was sitting on it, and then he passed away in 2020, and then he did not have a will. So I had a heck of a mess on my hands. So I had, excuse me, everything went to um and uh so that was so you're like what 50 you're 50 something years old i'm 53 years old yes sir and what do you do for a living

um i have a part-time job i do customer service over the phone for a company here in San Antonio. Okay. All right. Well, there's nothing legally wrong with this. There's nothing morally wrong with this. There's nothing mathematically wrong with this. You have the money. You won't even notice out of $4 million, $5 million, losing, giving up $135,000. I think it's just, suffice it to say it's just strange enough that um from a relational standpoint or an emotional standpoint you know you might want

to talk this through with like your pastor um i'm not saying don't do it but you have to admit that it's weird and and you know it's just it is and so if you want to go do it, that's fine. So, you know, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'd wonder his situation financially. Is he good at money management? Is this going to make him feel like he just got a free ticket? If he hasn't been handling his money well, you don't want to be enabling in that situation. But, I mean, it sounds like he's got a normal mortgage like a normal person, and she just wants to rid him of it. But I'm still taking a nice long pause before I cash the check.

I just think of a whole lot of things I'd put in line in front of it if it was me doing it. But, you know, you have a sweetheart, honey. There's no question about that. And it's your money, and you're not doing anything wrong. And even if it's unusual, it's okay to do it this is the ramsey show george camel ramsey personality is my co-host today thank you for joining us america this is the ramsey show tom is with us tom's in salt How are you, Tom? I'm doing great. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

So my wife and I are at the end of the baby steps. We're debt-free, thankfully, in large part to you and your program and just some crazy life experiences that enabled us to get there. We've worked real hard, and that's where we're at now. So we are both now looking into our retirement, but both of us started this whole journey in our 30s. And so our retirement investments were rather kind of pretty delayed. We didn't start investing until, like i said our early 30s and so what we have now is uh we started with a fairly modest income uh now my wife works and and i own my own business and we have a a much larger income than we had before so what's your

household income now right now we're close to $400,000. Wow. Look at you. How old are you again? I'm 39. Oh, wow. Amazing. You're ancient. I can't believe you're getting around.

I know. Yeah. And how much do you have in retirement? After this year, we'll have about $100,000. Good for you. Good. Okay. And how much debt do you have

we are debt free it's taken us eight years house and everything everything's gone everything's gone house and everything yep way to go dude way to go what's the house worth i personally think it's worth probably about 400 or so but the market says that it's about 650 so well i mean the market is it gets to decide you don't get to decide so i'm calling it 650 then good for you man well done well done and you're making bank what a great business you do this is awesome so now all you got to do you're what we call baby step seven so now you are all you got to do stack up cash now dude and with a four hundred thousand dollar shovel you got to do, you're at what we call baby step seven. So now all you got to do is stack up cash now, dude. And with a $400,000 shovel, you ought to be able to stack it up pretty fast.

That's what we're really excited about. And we're looking at potentially retiring in the next 10 years. Yeah, for sure. So what's your question today? Sounds like you're doing great. My question today? Yeah, well, my question really is, as far as the 15% of your income into retirement.

That doesn't apply to you. You're a baby step seven. That's only when you're on baby step four. You can ramp that up once you get the house paid for. That's what I needed to hear. Yeah, baby step seven is save as much as you can. Give as much as you can. Live as much as you can. Our 10-year plan.

Oh, that sounds so great to hear you say that. If we dump in, you know, 100 to 150 a year into this investment firm that we found through your SmartVestor Pros, they're helping us out because I am very investment unsavvy. So they're guiding us through that. Yeah. investment unsavvy so they're they're guiding us through that yeah um if we just dump in 150 a year then we're their forecast says that within 10 years we could um retire as multi-millionaires and live off oh yeah you probably have a couple million in that alone and the house will be worth a couple million then so yeah i mean you're going to be 400 4 million dollar net worth at 50 years

old is what it sounds like to me. It's good to hear you say that. I mean, if you keep making this kind of bank and you drop $150 in there, $150 for 10 years is a million and a half, plus the growth during that time is easily another half a million, probably another million, actually. So 10 times 150 is $1.5 million, dude, okay? 39 to 49.

So that's what we're looking at. Yeah, you don't have to have like a calculator or anything to do that. You can do that one in your head. So then you just add some, you know, the growth that you're going to make on top of that during that time is astronomical. And so, yeah, there's another million easy on there in growth. In growth, yeah. Should have doubled over about seven years or so. Yeah, you're going to be in great shape.

Just work with your smart investor pro. Keep laying out a plan. Shovel the cash over there. And here's the trick is to avoid getting arrogant in the middle of this and blowing it up before you get there that's the trick because what happens is you look over there and you got a million dollar paid for house and you got a couple million dollars million dollars laying in mutual funds in your retirement and then you go i can afford to go do this stupid thing now and people can you can blow the whole

thing up by derailing just dance with the girl that brought you. Stick with the program. Dance with the one that brought you to the ball. Just stick with the program. Don't get over here and go, oh, now I'm going to, and Bitcoin is now my answer. I'm going to put it all in doge. You get a little bit of hubris, and suddenly your brain just fries out. So just don't do that. Just mutual funds and paid for real estate.

Just keep it simple and stack cash and you're going to be in really good shape man you've done a great job and largely because a you're paying attention and b you're making a lot of money it's a big shovel that helps yeah very nice proud of you john's in houston texas hey john how are you good guys how are you better than we deserve what's are you? Better than we deserve. What's up? All right, here's what I got going on. So we have recently sold some farmland that we had down in Florida, made some cash. We currently owe, the only thing we owe on is the house.

We owe $287 on the house. Cash on hand right now, including everything in our checking and everything else is is 282 um that includes the farmland proceeds yes sir okay so i have some employee stock purchase um stock about 45 grand worth perfect um that's an individual stock. I work in Houston, so it's oil and gas, so it's pretty volatile. What are your thoughts on selling that $45,000 worth, getting out of the individual stocks, paying off the $287,000, being completely debt-free, houses current valued at about $650 um 40 grand or so as the as the emergency fund and then we can stack some cash from there you just saved me some wind that's exactly what i was going to say i'd cash it out pay off the house and that leftover becomes your emergency

fund anything beyond that you guys can do what you want with go take a vacation celebrate i mean john you pulled it off here you got the trifecta you paid off the house you got your emergency fund and you saved george wind all in one answer it was well done sir well done yeah definitely do all that brother it's an awesome plan you're right on track what do you make a year 140 yeah and so now you now you get your baby step seven and just like the last caller all we got to do now is save more than 15 percent into retirement load your retirement you can load your 401k up you load roth iras up in good mutual funds and how old are you 39 same age yeah you're going to be a millionaire by the time you're 45, mathematically. Because as the value of the house increases and you save $25,000 or $30,000 a year for the next

six years and the growth on all of those things, you're going to be over a million dollar net worth by the time you're 45. Well done. I'm loving this trend. You are truly a baby steps millionaire. You know, George, there may not be another radio show or podcast in America where you can call in and be succeeding and prospering and find people happy about it. We're happy about it. We'll celebrate with you. We are happy that you are winning. We are capitalist pigs.

We are glad you are winning. Most shows are mad. They're angry. We are not angry at success. These guys are mad. We are not angry at success. We think success is amazing. We don't think you're a crook. We think you're awesome. We think you left the cave, killed something, and drug it home.

You're demonstrating work ethic. You are demonstrating character and perseverance, and you are causing these variables to move. You are not waiting on Washington to fix your life. We love people like you people. When you call in here, you will get celebrated here. And if it starts pissing off the left-wing nuts, that is just a bonus. You're only fueling Dave, guys.

That's just a bonus. It's just a bonus, man. I just love it. I'm so – a guy making $400K and he's 39 years old. That's just awesome. That's a trend I can get behind. Forget awesome. That's a trend I can get behind. Forget Bitcoin. That's a trend I'm popping off.

Let me just tell you. You know what that means? It means he's helping a lot of people. People don't give you money if you're screwing them. You've got to provide value. They give you money when you're helping them. That's how this works. You're providing value.

You're adding value to their life in some way. So when you're doing that, you are enhancing humanity. Well done. Well done. Well done. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. On the debt-free stage, Shane and Kelly are with us. Hey, guys, how are you?

Hi, doing great. How about you? Better than I deserve. Welcome, you guys. It's so good to have you. Where do you live? We are in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, right outside our capital. Very good.

Up in the Harrisburg area. Yep. Very good. Good to have you guys. And all the way to Nashville to do a debt-free scream. How much have you paid off? So we got rid of $229,000, cash flowing $109,000 in 16 months. Whoa! What was your range of income during that time?

We started out at $81,000 and increased to $132,000, and then any stimulus or child tax credit went right to our debt. Right. Cool. Did you sell something big too? You had to. That is part of our story. Okay. All right. Well, tell us your story. What happened? So in 2014, I got out of physical therapy school. I graduated with my doctorate in physical therapy. And so we had over $200,000 in student loans. And at that point, I went on Pinterest and started looking up ideas of how to get out of debt. And I found the baby steps. And in the same week, my little sister mentioned Dave Ramsey. So I read the complete guide money in two days, total money makeover in two days. Oh my gosh.

And we attended FPU. Game on. Yes. We got gazelle intense at that time, but then we decided to start a family and shane became a stay-at-home dad at that point and um when the pandemic hit in 2020 the hospital i worked for was offering a ton of overtime so um i worked from 3 a.m to 7 a.m and then went to my full-time job until four and then shane went to work from 4 30 p.mm. to 1 a.m. Whoa. So we worked around the clock. Wow. But you were making bank. Yes.

So that was not 132. You made a lot more than 132 that year. Yeah. That was our taxes for last year. Oh, it was? With all that work? Yep, all that work. But we lived on nothing, basically.

Nothing. I mean, when we went gazelle intense, we relied on Christmas for people to give us underwear and socks. That's how we wanted to get it done. Okay. But you said you paid off $229,000 in 16 months. Yes. Making $132,000.

That doesn't work. Nope. So the other part of our story is the debt was our SUV. Our student loans at that point then then we're about a hundred in the a hundred thousand range. And then we own two houses right next to each other. And our long term plan was to combine the two houses. Um, but getting enough debt was more important to us. So we decided to sell the smaller of the two houses that got rid of the $89,000 mortgage. And then we put the $29,000 profit to our student loans.

Okay, now my numbers are working. Good, okay. Well, good for you. Was it worth it? It definitely was. I mean, you know, it was just a struggle. I would say, like, when we first got married, because it was just like, you know, we were throwing money away, and just money would go here, vacations, and now it's just, you know, we have that money now.

At the time it was a struggle yeah yeah I mean we're probably only making like I would say eight thousand dollars a year maybe when we first started that we got married like 12 years ago but we found we found you in about 2014 and then went gazelle intense in 2020 yeah okay so where did this come from I mean it sounds like just overnight it was like a 180 yeah well like i said we knew about you and we were gazelle and tens before children and then we kind of went davish and um and then 2020 with the pandemic we didn't have anything else to do and like i said my hospital offered so much overtime so i was able to pick that up yeah there were other other side jobs that we had um just like

babysitting dogs i mean we sold everything that we owned yeah everything i mean the kids really did think that they were going to be next so i'm wondering if uh because of all the opportunity for extra work you mathematically could see that we can do this and that got you back to intensity yeah the hope the hope made you go again yeah yeah so you went from gazelle to d-ish or Ramsey-ish, but then when you saw, hey, we can pick up this work and finish this, and you got the game on again. Yeah.

Game on. All right. I'm starting to understand what happened. Good. Very good. Way to go, you guys. All right. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is?

I would say hard work, dedication. I mean, you really have to put in the time. Like if you want something, you got to go for it. And that was something that we wanted to change our, you know, our family tree and for our kids to have a better life. So, and I'm glad that we did it and we followed the steps. I'd say work as well. Work, work, work, work around the clock. Um, and also having a strong why, um, I appreciate that Anthony O'Neill says, if your why doesn't make you cry, the price of commitment will. So having our strong why, our boys, and then also staying connected to the podcast and the Baby Steps Facebook group, I think we're really beneficial. Staying motivated on the plan. And it sounds like the kids were a big driver for why this life change was happening. You wanted them to live

in a debt-free home, live a debt-free life, and have opportunities you didn't have. Yes. Yes. Wow. So you paid off the student loans, you sold the house next door. Did that include your mortgage you paid off? No. Not yet. So you're debt-free but the mortgage. Yep. We're on baby steps four, five, and six. Perfect. Good for you. Well done. Well done. I'm so proud of you guys. Thank you. Who were your biggest cheerleaders? Our good friends, Christina and Klaus. They attended FPU with us and cheered us along the way and our families. Of course.

And each other. Yep, each other. For sure. Well, I'm telling you, you guys put in the hours. I mean, these 80, 90-hour weeks you're talking about here were real. And that's crazy. You can do that for a short period of time. If you work like no one else later, you get to work like no one else too.

You can work whenever you want if you don't have any stinking payments. Yeah, that's actually part of our story too. Since we paid off the debt, I was able to go part-time as a physical therapist, and now I'm home with the boys during the day, and then Shane works full-time during the day, so we get to spend so much more time together. Ah, very good. You got your life back.

Yes, we definitely did. You stole it back from sally may yeah she stole it you stole it back wow yes what do you tell that person who's got two hundred thousand dollars in student loans and they're going well i'll wait for someone to forgive it yeah just do it get it done work work work work as hard as you can because it's so freeing to be debt free and you can do what you want. Yeah, and we didn't rely on anybody else. It was just us doing it. You know, we weren't going to sit around and wait for somebody just to give us a check and, you know, pay it off. But I'm so glad that we did it and we put in the hours and we're here. Amen.

Amen. Good job. Well done. All right. We got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for you because for sure that is the next chapter in your story. And an extra copy of Total Money Makeover for you to give away to someone and completely cause a ruckus.

Love your t-shirts. Cash is king. Live like no one else. Thank you. And you brought the kiddos with you. Let's bring them in. What are their names and ages? We have Roman.

He's four. And Hudson is two. And the t-shirts say, I am a Y. Oh, that's so great. I am Y. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. Oh, well done, you guys.

That's beautiful. Very fun. Cute kids. Very, very fun. All right. Shane and Kelly, Roman and Hudson from Pennsylvania. Our $229,000 paid off in 16 months, making $81,000 to $132,000. Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream. Here's to baby number three. We're debt-free. Hooray. I think we snuck an announcement into that. Oh, my goodness. Woo-hoo. Look at that.

Wow. Wow. That's how to do it make your baby announcement to millions of listeners while you're at it i think grandma and grandpa sitting on the sidelines this may have been the first time they just heard that i'm not sure but looking at the reactions it's a possible thing did that is that the first time you did it you just told it for the first time all right they're verifying through the glass now awesomeness very cool that's a lot of fun that's inspiring yeah very inspiring so i mean that's a lot of debt i couldn't make those numbers work for a minute uh but you know what happens when people start working like that uh and they start going whatever it takes whatever it takes we'll sell the house we'll sell that house next door whatever it takes we'll sell the house we'll sell that house next door whatever it takes we've got to work 80 hours whatever it takes once you start

saying whatever it takes and you mean it you can make that go away there's nothing you're not willing to do but as long as you start going now wait a minute tell me about the uh is there what there's one little thing and is there a little angle and you know as long as you're trying to figure out some way to scheme and scam it's not gonna work no shortcuts here just hard work yeah it's whatever it takes whatever it takes people change their lives when they finally say i've had it i'm sick and tired of being sick and tired that's when you'll change and not until this is the ramsey show george camel ramsey personality is my co-host today thank you for joining us america open phones at 888-825-5225 adam is with us in toronto hey adam welcome to the ramsey show hey how you doing dave good Good, man. What's up?

Oh, nothing. Well, I shouldn't say nothing quite a bit, but just a little bit of a recap. Back in 2016, my wife and I did, as you say, stupid with zeros on the end of it. Spent a lot, and in 2017, paid off about $65,000 of debt in 11 months. And I never did it. I'm getting down for a debt-free screen. But anyway, fast forward now, in the last, I guess, couple years, COVID has kind of destroyed my industry. I'm a pilot in Canada here.

It really took a bad hit. It's just kind of recovering now. And so with the stress that that kind of brought about, which brought some marriage issues along with it, and life is in a really bad spot right now. I guess we both kind of are. And is not sure if she wants to work on the marriage or what she wants to do. And we're kind of in this stalemate.

But in the resulting aftermath is that she has decided that she's going to spend however she wants to spend and kind of go back to, you know, she's saying we make too much money. There's no way I should have to have any restraint. And so kind of spending about, oh, I'd say about $2,000 a month over what we make. And as a result of kind of depleted our emergency fund almost down to nothing, she signed up for an elective surgery to the tune of about $10,000. And when kind of questioned on the time we got what she just said well I'm either either we fund it somehow through us or I'm just going to look at my own credit card do it myself and uh and so but every time I bring up finances to her to uh

to talk about it she says you're obsessed with money you've got to stop being so obsessed I'm trying to just bring her to the reality that we're spending more than we make, and we're kind of gradually bankrupting the family. We've got four young children, and trying to put money aside for them as well, and retirement now that we're kind of both kind of getting back on our feet. We do make good money, but the reality is we're just spending way too much, and she has no desire to even talk about it. She'll stonewall me every time I try to bring it up, and I'm worried that I'm going to tip her over the edge in the marriage

if I talk too much about finances. Your marriage is already gone. Well, that's the thing. I feel like I'm kind of giving the drunk a drink. No, you didn't hear me. You didn't hear me. Your marriage is already gone. Yeah, well, I mean, she does give indications that she does want to make it work.

No, she doesn't. No, she doesn't. She's not ready to do it right work. No, she doesn't. No, she doesn't. She's not ready to do it right now. No, no, no, no, she doesn't. People that do the things and say the things that she's doing have no desire for this marriage to continue. Yeah. When you say things like, if you don't pay for this $10,000, I'm just going to put it on a credit card. Screw you.

You don't have a vote. This is not someone that has a marriage anymore that wants to work at all. And so what I would do if I were in your shoes is you would say, I'm going to go see a marriage counselor, and it's either going to be with you on how we learn to get back on the same page and we have a future together that's going to include us both being grownups. And if you want to go with that, that's fine. If not, the marriage counselor is going to instruct me on how to bring this marriage to an end yeah we have done some

counseling and she has come a couple times and trying to get her to come back to it is the hard part and she's very reluctant yeah you're begging her to do stuff then she you know and she has no desire she's obstinate she's angry and she's done she's done the marriage is over i mean it's tough to say that because she does say that she still does she's lying what she says is not what she's doing and so that's the problem yeah and again people that want their marriage to work do not behave the way that she is behaving yes i would agree okay so she's lying yes well elective surgery for ten thousand dollars when you're broke and the family's in financial stress that's so selfish and asinine i can't even put words to it yeah i know that's that's kind of my thought too and no no it just is it's a fact

it's not an opinion that that is her screaming in your face that she's done. Yeah. Yeah, I know. I don't really like to think of it that way, obviously, because it's not a nice outcome for anybody in this mess. I'm not sure you did it. I think you're just the one that's going to admit it. Yeah.

Now, I would agree with you going back a couple months that she was done. However, she's had some influential people in her life in the last month or two that have helped bring her around. Her attitude has changed. Well, then that would involve you guys getting with a good marriage counselor immediately. Yes. But that attitude needs to turn into action. Yes, and she has admitted that that is an option. I did confront her about it a couple weeks ago, and I said, this is what I want to do. I had some referrals to focus on the family, and she said, yes, that is an option. I did confront her about it a couple weeks ago, and she has, I said, this is what I want to do. I had some referrals to focus on the family, and she said, yes,

that is an option. And so I'm just kind of trying to not push her because she doesn't want it. No, I am going to push her. It's not an option. It's time to push her. It's time to push you. The house is on fire. It's burning down around you. Get out of the house push somebody yeah i am i'm definitely am i'm bringing stuff up fairly very clearly but you know kind of teetering on the edge of not wanting to push her over one side to get her her emotional side to engage i want to honey what you think is being nice is not nice you think you're you think you can beg and be sweet and cause this to happen and it's i'm not asking you to be mean to her but you're acting you think you can beg and be sweet and cause this to happen and it's i'm not

asking you to be mean to her but you're acting like that you can beg her into wanting to do this she has to stand up square her shoulders and say i'm going to re-engage in this marriage and re-engage us two adults on how to run our household and she has to do that under the heading of a therapist and the two of you learn to work together again. You cannot beg her to behave. Yes, I agree with that totally. I can't change her. She has to decide to do it. It's a matter of, you know, we're trying to get, obviously, lots of prayer

and other friends of influence to get around her. Absolutely. To change her heart. What Dave's saying is this is an emergency. I'm just saying you guys need to be sitting with a counselor, and she needs to be going, and if she's not going, then we need to admit what that says. Yeah.

But there is not a financial technique that's the problem here. The financial problems and the financial spending are all about her obstinance, and you trying to talk talk your way around it to where it's all somehow okay it's not okay it's not okay it doesn't work that way and so if uh whitney uh decided to start just start telling george what she was going to do george would have a thing have a thing where you know here's what we're going to do i don't tell sharon what to do she didn't tell me what to do we sit down we talk about like to adults we devise a plan on how we're gonna do the calendar how we're gonna do the budget how we're gonna live our life we work

together towards common goals this is called a quality relationship in your marriage uh but when people start throwing it around they're just like i'm gonna do whatever i want to do and they get all all head bobbing thing going And you shouldn't have got married. Then it's, you know, you've got a mess on your hands and you've got to go back and try to try to learn how to be married. And that takes both people. And you can't beg someone to behave. You cannot control someone else's behavior. Your behavior is the only thing you can control.

And you put it in a situation to go. If you do this then you're choosing to opt out if you do this you're choosing to opt in but i can't make you choose that's the only thing you can do is present options to her but this idea of i'm gonna let her be go ruin our family and bankrupt us so that by being nice and letting her do stupid butt stuff that's going to ruin our family then that and causes her to go to counseling that's that's a that's a false narrative that doesn't work that's if the auspices for her going to counseling is so that it's because she got bribed

by you you're putting up with a bunch of crap then that no that is not how you start rebuilding this thing so now you guys need, you desperately, both of you need to sit in the counselor's room immediately or you're not going to make it. And the spending stuff is just, I'm not going along with it. And if you don't like it, it's part of what we can talk to the counselor about or it's part of what we can talk to the divorce judge about,

one of the two, it's one of the two. But I'm not going along with this because it's not right and i'm not suggesting you leave today i'm suggesting that the two of you get into the counselor's office four years ago but right now for sure that's the only best option best time to plant an oak tree 10 years ago next best time is today oh yeah that's a great quote she sees him as basically a doormat at this point because she knows well i'm just going to do what i want he's not going to tell me off yeah he's not going to have the conflict you have to stop being scared that you're going to cause the marriage to end by pushing by pushing the marriage to succeed that's that that's that is not going to work it's not going to work you're going to end up nowhere but bankruptcy court and divorce court at the same time.

Oh, man. Sorry you got to say that. What a horrible thing you're going through. I sure hope she comes around. I hope the two of you get in counseling, and I hope it saves your marriage. But, you know, you participating in crazy is not going to make crazy go away. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's John Deloney, co-host of The Ramsey Show. Did you know over 18 million people listen to The Ramsey Show every week? A lot of those people listen on one of our 600 plus radio

stations across the country. To find a station near you, go to RamseySolutions.com slash show.