The Ramsey Show - App - It's Time to Change Your Family Legacy (Hour 2)

Episode Date: April 3, 2019

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave 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. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Lauren is with us in Chicago.

Hey, Lauren, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for having me. Sure. How can I help? I'm a long-time listener. Thank you. And you've helped me a lot over the past year, so I appreciate you.

I wish I was calling with a different question, but this is the question I have. It's sort of a moral and financial conflict, if you will, and I would appreciate your feedback. My ex-husband, he has a terminal illness. We have two children, and they are 11 and 14. We have a very, we don't unfortunately have a good relationship. We've had a very, we were in court a lot and things like that. But overall, this is just the status right now. So he's created an estate plan and a trust for the kids to cover their expenses.

He claims it will cover everything, whatever they could want, their weddings, college, and that they both be paid out at about, I think, the age of 30, maybe a million dollars each, somewhere around there. Per our divorce decree, we have an obligation to hold a life insurance policy for each other with the children listed as beneficiaries and then the other parent as a trustee. My ex is stating to me that he will not allow for me to have what he considers a financial windfall or benefit from his death in any way. And he wants me to sign away my rights to the $250,000 life insurance policy, and in return he is offering to pay me a monthly stipend until the children are 18. He states if I do not agree that he will bury all of this money that they would otherwise inherit and has what he calls a poison pill or something in his plan, and the kids will not see any of it at any time.

I just want to know morally what you thought about this as far as what a mother should do in this kind of situation. I don't do extortion. Yeah. kind of situation i don't do extortion yeah and um i'm really sorry this gentleman is sick but what you've described to me is sick and evil yes and so i would look at him and say you will abide by the divorce decree and i will be staying on this. If you choose to penalize your own children that does not make a statement about me. That makes a statement

about you and what kind of man you are and what kind of legacy you're going to leave. I think he's bluffing. Yeah. He has manipulated you for years. This guy's a master manipulator. He's a bully and he's an extortionist.

Am I wrong? No, you're not. This is not the first time you've experienced this emotion with this man while married to him and post-divorce as well, right? This is not the first time. Yeah, he constantly pulls this kind of crap. Yes. Yeah, and he doesn't follow through. Well, I usually give in somewhat, and so I usually worry about the long-term effects.

I usually give too much, honestly. I give in too much. And, you know, at this point, I've moved on with my life. We've been divorced 10 years. I'm married. I can support my children. What do you make a year? My husband and I make about $275.

Okay. So you don't need any of this money. And your kids will be fine. Your kids will be fine. They will. Yeah. Now, I would tell him that I'm really sorry you're sick, but what you're proposing to me is in violation of our agreement, and so we will be sticking with the agreement.

You will be sending me, you'll be leaving me on the policy. If you do not, immediately I will have the court intervene. And you not leaving money to your kids is not a statement about me. It's a statement about you. So what legacy do you want to leave? How do you want your children and therefore your grandchildren to remember you? And it's up to you how you want to act. I can't control if you want to be evil and misbehave. That's up to you how you want to act i can't control if you want to be evil and misbehave

that's up to you but that's how you're going to be remembered and then you can decide what you want to do and if you want to leave the kids nothing it'll be okay we'll take care of them right and so you think morally if they did ultimately end up with nothing because obviously this is a very dark you know that would That would be his fault, not yours. It's not my fault. It's his fault. It's not yours. That's his fault, morally.

Right. If he chooses to not leave his children money as a vindictive act against his ex-wife because she would not cave to his manipulation that is evil that's evil right okay and um you know i think it is high time for your mental health sake that you stand up and you just say you know i'm just not gonna play right i'm not i'm not gonna you do what you want to do but i i do not i want you to hear loud and clear that you have done nothing wrong right he may or may not do something wrong but i would i would call him out i would just say how do you want to be remembered yeah well i did during this we met and had a small, short conversation about it,

and he said that he just does not care, that he will not die having me benefit in any way. That's what the divorce court said. What will happen, I don't know. Yeah, okay, that's fine. That's fine. If you want to be remembered as a complete twerp who's evil and misplaced his priorities in vindictiveness,

you place vindictiveness over the care of your children, and you want that to be your legacy, that's fine. You just decided that. But it's not up to me. It's up to you because, no, I'm not caving. Right. Tell him to stick it in his ear. Man, what a horrible person.

I know. Yeah, it's terrible. I can't think how I would be so mad at someone that I would punish my children to keep them from having something. I just can't imagine that I would get there. I mean, this guy, he's got real issues. And it's sad that he's terminal. I'm so sorry. Because he, whoa, what a horrible thing.

But no, you do what you want to do. You ask my opinion. I don't do extortion. And so it's do your worst. You know, I'm going to do what I'm going to do. And then you have to decide what you're going to do. But I'm not going to be told what to do because you threatened me. That's extortion.

And never. Matter of fact, I have a real tendency to not do things that are wise sometimes just to not be threatened into something. It's kind of a hillbilly thing, I think. Kind of a redneck thing. Just because you told me that means I'll never do it. You know, that thing. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. There's nothing smart about smartphones if your wireless plan is blowing your budget each month.

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Visit puretalkusa.com or call 844-862-3677. Enter promo code SAVEDAVE and receive 50% off your first month. That's puretalkusa.com. Ann is with us in San Francisco. Hey, Ann. Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. It's an honor to speak with you. You too.

What's up? I have a question I've never heard you address before. And my husband worked for a nonprofit organization coming up on 30 years ago. And when he left the organization, he was in his 20s and wasn't really thinking about future retirement and also left his 403B there. And I'm just wondering, is there a way we can retreat it is it gone how do we get that back no he owns it 100 it should be sitting there uh hopefully he's got an account number or some connectivity to them hopefully they've given him some kind of a report over the years have they well when he's when he's called about it before they said you know we have no way to locate that

or we don't you know and he kind of gave up on it. But so how do we get a hold of that without a number? Or how do we keep pursuing it? What buttons do we push? Well, a 403B is not their property. It's his property. Okay. Okay.

And just because he left it there doesn't mean they were allowed to lose it or spend it. Okay. And so it's kind of like I left a bag of money in your basement, and now you're telling me you can't find it. It's my money. I would suggest you find it. Okay. That kind of a thing. Okay, so just be a little bit more tenacious about yeah i'm gonna not you know i'm

not gonna be you know how much money do you think was there you know what it wasn't it's not very much we're talking maybe maybe five or seven thousand dollars 30 years ago okay depending on how it's invested it could be worth three or four times that now. I don't know what it was invested in, and he has no memory of it whatsoever? Not very much. He was only like 23. Yeah, and he has no records of any kind. Not that we can get our hands on that. It was sort of before the digital age, you know.

Okay. So what I would do is just call the director at the nonprofit and just say, look, I need some help because this money is there somewhere, and you have a moral and a legal obligation to find it. Okay. And I need you to do that, like, this week. Okay. All right.

I can do that. I just didn't know if it was a if it was a lost cause or not but now that i know that it's not i will i will be on that probably going to be registered under a social security number that's good to know that's probably the account may be associated with that number in some way ricky is in evansville indiana hi ricky how are you i'm good how are you dave better than i deserve. What's up? Well, about six years ago, I had gotten a better job, and of course, it was like hitting the lottery, so I made some bad choices.

And now I have a vehicle that I'm upside down on and really don't know what to do about it. How much do you owe on it? 53. And what will it bring? Probably probably 35 where are you getting that number uh just based on it's an 18 model and it has 12 000 miles on it it sits majority of the time and the only reason i bought it was to get rid of a another high dollar vehicle that you rolled negative equity into this yes exactly how much negative equity did you roll into this ten thousand okay so we know you're ten upside down

all right so what you need to do is go on kelly blue book and kbb.com and pull up what a private sale on the vehicle would bring if you sold it to a private individual, not at wholesale to a dealer. That's going to be less. We want to get as much out of it as we can. I take it you don't have any money. You have any money? As far as I know.

You have any money? No. Okay. That's not saved up. That's what I mean. That would be money. Yeah. And you have any investments that aren't retirement investments?

No. I am just starting to realize I've made some bad choices. Gotcha. What do you make a year? 95. How good's your credit? Terrible at the moment. Are you single?

Married but separated. And who's the loan with? Uh, my bank. Oh, that's good news. Okay, good. All right, so let's figure out what it's worth. Let's pretend that it is $35,000, which would make you $18,000 in the hole. Okay?

Uh-huh. Let's pretend that's accurate. Okay, if you sell the car, the only way to do that is you have to come up with $18,000 because your bank has the title and the buyer would hand you $35,000. You'd be $18,000 short to get the title to give to the buyer. Okay? Right. That's the bad news. The good news is your bank already has a $35,000 loan and an $18,000 unsecured loan to you

because they don't have enough collateral to cover this loan, right? Right. So they already, in a sense, have an $18,000 unsecured because that's how much the car is worth, right? So what I would do is go sit down in person in the bank with the bank branch manager that you deal with and show them where you are and say, I have to get out of this.

I need you to release the title and let me sign a note for this $18,000. And then you pay payments on the $18,000 and clean it up like it was a credit card. Okay, I never thought of that. And that's how you get out of an upside-down car in your situation. Hopefully, you're wrong about the $35,000. You're probably not a lot wrong, though. You might be $38,000.

If it's $38,000, then you're $15,000 in the hole. Maybe that's it. But make it $95,000. You can clean that up real fast, depending on how much sting you get out of this divorce. Or when you guys get back together, maybe that would be a better thing. And you guys are able to work through all of your debts, including that one. But it's a really, really good thing to get rid of.

And it's obviously in over your head. Hey, thanks for the call uh tarsher tarsher is with us in raleigh hi tarsher how are you i'm doing good in yourself better than i deserve what's up yes i was calling because i i want your advice on a um career move possibly. I'm currently working at a job where I have a lot of downtime, so I can do other screens of income, like I'm a real estate agent too. So I can, you know, work on things. And I'm also, like, I sell life insurance too. So I can do that while I have the downtime at this job. But it's like no advancement possibilities and things here.

And I do have a master's. I went back to school too, which got me school loans. And I have a master's. So I'm wondering, should I stay here, work on the other screens of income to increase my income, or find a job that makes more income but may not have as much downtime so I wouldn't be able to work on my other business. Gotcha. So what do you make now at your day job?

I make $38,000. Okay. And if you change careers, what could you make? It's possible I can go up to maybe $60,000 or $70,000. Okay. All right. So you could roughly double your income, give or take, if you had a good day. Okay.

Right. That's not a bad thing. And doing what? What would you be doing then? Well, I would work in like a private sector. Currently, I work like for the state. Mm-hmm. So it's not a lot of money. So you'd be in the same field but go into the private sector and it pays like for the state so it's not a lot so you'd be in the same

field but going to the private sector and it pays a lot better right gotcha okay and what field are you in um i'm in the biological field okay all right cool like laboratory so when how old are you i'm 43 43 43 43 yes yeah okay so when you're 53 what do you want to be doing for a career i have my own businesses and um and that's why i asked you know that's the vision for my husband and i is to own our own businesses doing Doing what? Get those off of real estate. Okay. Living houses. Real estate. As an agent, a real estate agent, you want to own a real estate company?

Well, I want to do investment. Oh, okay. So you've got to make a lot of money then before you get to that point. Okay. All right. So what gets you there the fastest? Taking the better job in the private sector? Selling real estate on the side?

What gets you there the fastest? And that's the answer to your question. This is The Dave Ramsey Solutions, Steve and Christina are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hi, Dave. Dave, how are you? Better than I deserve. And where are you guys from? We guys, how are you? Hi, Dave. Good, Dave, how are you? Better than I deserve. And where are you guys from?

We're from Sunfield, Michigan. Okay, and you're the brother of the debt-free screamer from the last hour. Yeah, the older brother. The older brother. The older, wiser brother. Yes, okay. So two brothers getting to do their debt-free screams today in one day. Yep.

Awesome. How much have you guys paid off? We've paid off $143,843 in 36 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? It started out at 95, and we ended at 114. Way to go. Excellent.

What do you guys do for a living? I work on pop machines for Pepsi. Okay. I'm a food service office coordinator for a charter school management company okay very cool good for you guys what kind of debt was the 144,000 well we were equal opportunity debt lovers so we had a car a truck uh tool bills home equity loan a camper a big student loan and we even financed the siding on our house wow you guys just you were normal we were normal i want it i buy it how much are the payments exactly exactly yeah how long have you been married 11 years next month okay and somewhere

around uh eight years into that marriage something happened happened, and the fuse was lit, and you guys exploded. What happened? This one, it actually started about probably seven years. We lost my dad at the end of 2014. And seeing the turmoil that kind of put on my mom, and kind of seeing it, I could understand why she was having a hard time grieving, and she kept talking about money. I wasn't concerned about money.

I was concerned about the grieving process, and it just didn't seem right to me, but I didn't say anything about it. And then, I don't know, three or four months later, I was listening to the radio. I think I was flipping through the stations, and AM 1240 in Lansing, and you came on, and I started listening, and I was like,

well, that's probably exactly why she was upset. She really didn't know what she was going to do. So, and I didn't want to have any of that happen with my family. Right. Time to change the legacy. Yeah. Yeah. Good, good.

And so then you come home and you're talking to Christina and go, okay, this crazy guy on the radio, don't want to be like mom's situation. What'd y'all do? I was not on board at first. I am definitely the free spirit in this relationship. I like to be like mom's situation. What did y'all do? I was not on board at first. I am definitely the free spirit in this relationship. I like to spend money. Cool. So it took me a little while to get on board.

But Matt and Mandy had went on their own journey and had introduced us to you a little bit too. So I kind of just let him lead us. And I was a good submissive wife for that part of it anyway. Translation, you were gritting your teeth. Yes. Okay. At what point did you relax and kind of go, I'm in? When we paid off the car.

Ah. It was amazing to me to get that win and that momentum, and I totally understood the baby steps and why we were doing it the way we were doing it. You had to see it work. You had to see it work. I had to see it work. Then it was worth it to sacrifice. Absolutely. Otherwise, it's not worth it to sacrifice.

Right. Now, that's good mental health. You wouldn't want to sacrifice just for something because it's fun to sacrifice. It's not. Right. You have to have a reason to do that. And when you saw you win, then I'm in. That makes sense.

Good. So did you sell anything big? We sold a truck. We sold the truck. We sold the camper. Whoa! Yeah, we had a couple major garage sales. Those are the two big things we got rid of, though. What did the camper sell for?

We took a loss and all that. It was about nine grand we sold it for, and we owed, I think, ten on it. Okay. That's a big old camper. Yeah, it was a big fifth wheel. Yeah. And the truck, what did the truck sell for? Six or eight, somewhere around there.

Not big bucks, okay. No. Okay, all right. So still $15,000 of the 144 was the sale of those two things. Yeah. But that also was emotional in both cases, wasn't it? It was very emotional. Because that's kind of like saying, I'm not going to live like that anymore.

And that's what all of our family, they camp, you know, they go jeeping. And to give up that camper was hard, but we knew it was the right decision to sacrifice. So have you figured out a way to join them without owning it? We still use theirs. We just jeep locally instead of going to camping. Okay. So you've got a jeep still? We do. Okay. Very going to camping. Okay. So you've got a Jeep still? We do.

Okay. Very cool. Good. Good. Good for you. So what do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is? Because this was quite a journey for you guys. Three years and $144,000.

That's impressive. I'm proud of you. Yeah. Thank you. My key is probably embrace the process. If you try to rush through it and try to math nerd it out, Proud of you. Yeah, thank you. My key is probably embrace the process. If you try to rush through it and try to math nerd it out, you're going to forget someday how much it takes to overcome the debt,

and you're going to end up going back in. And then having a good teammate, which is my wife here. She's a good teammate. And I would say budgeting and communication. We've always been good communicators, but this has definitely made our marriage a lot better. A whole different level. So of the 36 months while you guys were fighting through this, Christina, how much of that were you on board? Probably 33 months.

I think it took me about three months to get on board. That's not bad at all. Okay. So three months the car gets paid off and it's game on. Yep. Okay. Well done. Well done.

And you can still be a free spirit yeah yeah rachel's a free spirit budgeting gives me the permission to do that that's rachel yeah budgeting is permission to spend yep i'm not sure that's exactly how it works but that's what she says yeah i agree with her oh good stuff well done you guys very very well done. And you had brother and sister-in-law cheering. You were cheering them on. They were cheering you on. Who else outside the two brothers doing this? Was it other family members or friends in the community cheering you on?

Or did everybody else just think y'all were crazy for selling everything? We had a lot of people that were kind of some naysayers and still think that we're crazy. But for the most part, a lot of family cheering us on, friends. We have friends that did the journey at the same time we did too. But definitely those two. We've also, people have come to talk to us and say, how do you do it? And we've kind of started them along. We've got a couple of friends right now.

They're just starting their journey. Okay, good. It's been kind of fun for that. Yeah, very cool. Well, good for you, man. Well done. Proud of you. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's good for you man well done proud of you we got a copy of chris

hogan's book for you everyday millionaires that's the next chapter for you you're on the way you're doing everything it takes to get there proud of you very very well done and uh your daughter's name and age this is grace and she's nine years old hey grace well done should grace participate in all of this she did we were really open and honest with her about the whole journey she uh she understands that she will never go in debt she likes to point out your face on billboards now when we're driving around oh wow there we go all right steve and christina and grace from the lansing, Michigan area. $144,000 paid off in 36 months, making $95,000 to $114,000. Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Woo-hoo! Love it. Well done, you guys. Very, very well played. I absolutely love it.

Man. So, one of the things we have learned in talking to multimillionaires and millionaires in our millionaire study, and one of the things we've known for years, actually, we relearned it, reconfirmed it with that research, was that sometimes there are people out there like me that think you can out-earn your stupidity. You can't. You have to control your spending. You have to control the outgo as well as the income. So in building wealth, in other words, there's both offense and defense.

It's a little bit like if you've ever seen a boxer. They tell you, a boxer, keep your guard up. You put one fist up in front of your face to keep the guy from knocking your block off, right? And then the other, you're punching with one. So you always have a guard up, and so you have an offense and a defense. You have a shield and an attack. And you've got to have a shield and you've got to have an attack. You've got to have an offense and a defense. You have a shield and an attack. And you've got to have a shield and you've got to have an attack. You've got to have an offense and defense.

Keep your guard up. And we learn this from people who build wealth, that they do this all the time. So if you don't keep your guard up, meaning you don't have the right kinds of insurance in place, you don't have a will in place, you don't have the estate plan going, you don't have everything checked off and ready to go. On the defensive side, something can come at you and take away all the money you built. And so you need to have the right kind of coverage checkup every so often. We have a five-minute coverage checkup. A five-minute coverage checkup.

There's ten kinds of coverage you might need based on where you are in your life and we'll even rank your to-do list by importance and email you the list as soon as you put it all in place takes about five minutes to do this text the word check up to 33 789 it's free we'll send it to you text the word checkECKUP to 33-789. alex is with us in wilmington north carolina hey alex welcome to the dave ramsey show hey dave how you doing better than i deserve what's up um i was looking to see if there is a good rule of thumb of uh percentage amount to pay a smart investor pro my wife and have met with three of them, and it just so happens to be that the one we like the best has the highest fee, and I just want to make sure we're not, I guess, being crazy going with him.

Okay. What is the fees you're being offered? Two of the SmartBuster Pros are 1% fee of the assets managed, and the one that we like the best, it starts out at 2%, and then it'll eventually drop to 1.5%. That's pretty steep. It's not a deal breaker, but that adds up to be a lot over time. I'm not anti-fees. I don't mind paying a fee and so forth because there's all kinds of data that says, you know, we should get a return.

But that's a managed account, right? Correct. Yeah. Hmm. How much are you putting in? Right now, I'm going to be rolling over, looking to roll over about $62,000. Yeah, that's high.

That's high. And the reason I'm stammering is I sent you to them. So that means if I can't tell you to do it, that means I've got to look into it right so to be consistent and so yeah i i two percent managed is highly unusual one one and a quarter maybe one and a half but uh 200 basis points is rich that's rich um and and And you like them double the other guys? Yes, I think on a personal level, he just seems a lot more personable. He's a lot easier to get a hold of.

But, again, like I said, that's why we were hesitant just because of the higher fees. Did you question him about it? On the fee? Yeah. Not directly compared to the other one. We asked why, you know, his fee was what they charged, and he went through a list of things, why they felt that it was, you know, that they were worth that, and they're getting about 10% to 12% return. Yeah, well, that should be that he's invested in the market.

I mean, you should be getting those kinds of returns. There's nothing pregnant about that. So, yeah, I mean, it's not the end of the world because here's the thing about fees. Very seldom do they keep you from building wealth. What keeps you from building wealth is not actually investing and or investing in very, very poor-performing products. Everybody gets all torqued out about fees one way or the other, and fees are number three, number five on the list. I hardly consider fees when I'm looking at everything else.

And so if you've got that, I might go back to them and just say, I'm not willing to pay double. I'd like to do business with you. I'm choosing you, but I'm not choosing your fees. So if you want to negotiate that down we'll talk about it uh but i'm i'm just not interested and i i knowing what i know about managed accounts you're not going to get an extra one percent from that guy i wouldn't pay an extra one not not for the relationship not there there's not enough value I had. I wouldn't do that.

And I tell you what, do this too. I'm going to put you on hold. I'm not going to pick on him. I'm not going to bully him or something like that. Don't miss it. I just want our guys to contact him because I have to be honest with that guy. I sent you to him, and now I'm telling you not to do business with him. So I've got to fix that because that's not going to be fair to him.

So, you know, I want to know who he is for that reason so we can help him and um that that's pretty rich that's just pretty rich hold on i'll have kelly pick up and get get the name of the guy open phones at 888-825-5225 zach is on the line in salt lake city hi zach welcome to the dave Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I had a question. I am following the baby steps, and I'm set to get married here in October. My fiance is bringing in roughly $77,000 in student loan debt, and I'm all for taking this on when we get married, and I want to pay it off as quick as possible,

but she doesn't seem to be as adamant about it as I do and wants to spend about $1,500 on a vacation here in the next month to go away with her family. So I just don't know how to get her on board or how to bring up that conversation. We have your book. I can't get her to read that either. Part of it is just time with her job,

but I just really kind of want to have her on the same page, especially that we're getting married here in six months. Well, there's a high correlation between really good in-depth pre-marriage counseling and having a successful marriage people who go have really good in-depth pre-marriage counseling there's they either break up or they have a successful marriage because it gives them the tools to work through things and um and it ferrets out really major issues, which would cause you to break up, obviously. And that's not what we're trying to do here.

So I'm going to suggest in-depth, pastoral, detailed pre-marriage counseling. Now, good pre-marriage counseling will touch on the four major areas that statistically cause marriage breakup. And if you can address those prior to marriage, you have a high probability of winning at your marriage. Does that make sense? Absolutely. And this is how you talk to her. And number one reason people divorce in North America today, and the number one thing they

fight about, bar none, it's an easy number one, money. Money problems, money arguments are the number one things that break people up. Number two, three, and four are somewhat tied, but there's four things. The second one is kids, how many to have, whether to have them, and how to treat them. Are the inmates going to run the asylum? You know, what's going to happen here all that kind of stuff right and so i believe in being lenient and let them just discover their own way when they're three well you know then you're not going to be my wife okay so uh because you're an idiot so that you know that's how that works because i'm an old

dinosaur and i believe that children are not the center of the universe. They are wonderful things, and they're nurturing, and I love them, but they do not rule the world. Ha! There you go. Anyway, see, now you can send me hate mail. But then the second thing is, or the third thing is, are you in agreement about crazy in your family? How much interference is going to happen from outside of your new household. And, you know, from the mother-in-law, the father-in-law on both of you, the crazy brother that's a drug addict, is he going to move in with you? I mean, all this kind of stuff, right?

So boundaries with extended family is number three. If you can get that under control, you can get kids under control, you can get that under control you can get kids under control you get money under control the last one's religion people that are not on the same page on religion don't view life the same way and they seldom stay together and so um one of you loves god deeply and the other one loves the devil deeply you're not gonna make it you know and so uh you know it. Well, you're allowed to have your opinion. Yeah, you are. But you don't have you don't have the same value system. And so that's the deal.

So you need to be in agreement on those four things. And and this is what I would tell her. You know, I love you and I want our marriage to work. I want to be the best possible thing. And in pre marriage counseling, we're going to address money, kids, in-laws, and religion. And you need to get on the same page on those four things. Because I'll tell you, statistically, if you have a six-month or longer engagement, you do detailed in-depth pre-marriage counseling, and you're on the same page on those four things,

you have a 90% probability of staying together. take out any one of them it drops dramatically take out the money one you now have the number one cause of divorce still floating around in your relationship and that would be russian roulette relationship you're asking for it and so i'm going to get on the same page on those things if I'm you. And I think that's an act of love to push through those things. It's not like, well, I have my views and you have your views and we don't have to agree. That's true. But we're going to be married. So this is going to be a problem. And that's it.

And, you know, you can even disagree on politics and get away with it. But most people don't. Most people don't. So, I mean, you can even disagree on politics and get away with it, but most people don't. Most people don't. So, I mean, very seldom. You run into a few of them. There's a few of them on TV, but very few of them. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know you can now listen to The Dave Ramsey Show on Pandora and Spotify?

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