The Ramsey Show - App - Money Shouldn't Be A Score Card In Your Marriage (Hour 2)

Episode Date: June 27, 2023

Rachel Cruze & John Delony answer your questions and discuss:  "I'm tired of not being the provider for my family and don't know how to change that", from the blog: Money and Marriage: 7 Tips for a Healthy Relationship If you should start saving for your kids college before their born,  from the blog: How to Invest for Your Children's Future "I'm upside down on my car loan with 28% interest - what should I do?",  from the blog: How to Get Out of an Upside-Down Car Loan What you should take into consideration when calculating how much house you can buy, from the blog: How Much House Can I Afford? When you should sell your vehicle to pay off all my debt,  How much Americans spend on fireworks every year for the July 4th, "Should I give my ex-wife more than she's entitled to after our divorce?"  Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Here's an EveryDollar deal just for our listeners: get a 14-day free trial PLUS $15 off your first year of premium. Click the link below and start budgeting today! www.everydollar.com/TRS Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving and storage studio, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I am Ramsey Personality, Rachel Cruz, hosting this hour with Dr. John Deloney. And we're taking your calls across America. It's a free call, you guys. So 888-825-5225. And we will be chatting about career, relationships, your money, anything and everything. So give us a call. First up, we have Chase in Atlanta, Georgia. Hey, Chase. Welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me.

Absolutely. How can we help? I'm curious if y'all have any advice on making a career change while you're trying to pay off debt. Just a little backstory about a little less than a year ago, I changed careers to do something that I really wanted to do, something that I was really passionate about. But it was kind of on a gamble of a part-time job that would hopefully become full-time. And it has not become full-time yet.

And so my wife and I agreed that, you know, coming up on that year, if it wasn't full-time, I was going to have to figure out something full-time because we just need to be pulling in more money. Yeah. So kind of just feeling a little hopeless as that's coming up, cause I've applied to a couple of jobs and come back. Um, my wife's been the provider mainly, you know, I'm working part-time, so she's been the provider for the past year. Um, and just as the husband and as the, you know, just spiritual head and everything I want to be providing. Um, that's a really hard thing for me to not have. And so I'm kind of just unsure where to go. Yeah. I'll hop in and Rachel, you hop in too. Is that cool? So first, how old are you brother? I'm 26. Okay. So I want you, I'm glad you learned this lesson at 26. That's awesome.

Some of the stupidest wisdom of our era, our age that we live in is this notion of follow your passion. I'm just going to go. What the science tells us is we become passionate about what we're good at and what we're good at are things that we have to practice over a long period of time. And what that also tells me is if I get a job as a podcaster or a YouTuber or a radio person, like I have right now that I wasn't particularly passionate about, I was really passionate about helping people. Over time, I've become super passionate about this gig. Does that make sense? And so it's finding out what's my role, what's my purpose. But, dude, if I got fired tomorrow, if Dave just fired me tomorrow and I was working at Burger King this weekend, I would want people to have a little bit better day after interacting with me than before, right?

So my purpose for being alive would still be intact. It would just look very different and I would not be making as much money as I make right now, right? So that's number one. Number two, I'm going to challenge you to not conflate leadership and head of household with, I make the most money. I think that's a dangerous path to go down. There's been seasons of my marriage when my wife makes way more money than me, and it's been awesome because we're in this thing together. And there's been seasons when I make way more money than her, and it's awesome because we're in this thing together. But when you set yourself up as I'm a failure or I

am not doing X, Y, and Z, and so I'm not meeting some, I don't know, I don't want to get started on that road, but you're not meeting some standard that you've invented or probably somebody invented it and handed it to you. That usually comes out in guys making a lot of immature decisions or being angry a lot or being ashamed a lot and there's no sense in bringing that into your marriage so be really really grateful that you have a wife that's kicking butt and keeping y'all afloat i'm really proud of y'all for putting a deadline on this thing putting it putting a marker in the sand and saying okay we're gonna give this all we got for a year and then we're gonna have to pivot and make another decision awesome and you get to be really sad that it didn't work out. That sucks.

You can grieve it and be bummed out about it and then say, cool, what comes next? But it's not coming next because here's what I think. I think you're adding those extra variables, those extra, because I need to be this and I got to be this, the extra pressure, because you're really sad that this thing didn't work out. Is that fair? That is fair. I mean, you hit the nail on the head with the anger and the shame of everything. And for guys, and Chase, I would tell you that, and John, you can speak into this,

for all the work we've done around specifically just like men and women when it comes to money, for men men money is more of a scorecard there is something tied to like a guy's worth of saying oh my gosh this is this is what i'm bringing in this is where we are financially like there's something tied with a guy even different than a than a woman um it's like this identity piece and i think whether it's been taught to you like what John was saying or whatever it is, but like, regardless of who you are, your net worth is not your self-worth. Who Chase is, the kind of husband you are,

the kind of dad you might be or will be in the future, like who you are, Chase, and loving your family and serving them and doing what's best, because what's best right now is exactly what you're doing of saying, hey, we've done this for a year and it's not working. I got to go find another job. And it's not to fulfill some role around that. It's just to be able to say, yeah, Common Sense is telling us like I could be making more money

right now. And yeah, and we're going to decide that as a family. So what's this passion job, brother? Graphic design. So if number one, we we're hiring so if you want to submit your application for graphic designers here go to ramsay solutions exactly right um but two that sounds like one of those jobs that you can do just absolutely knock out of the park you can even work from home in certain situations you can do a great, continue to keep your practice on the side. And I don't see this dream as being dead at all. I see it being as not right now, or I've got to get some more skills under my belt, or I've got to learn the business side of this thing. And so working for an agency or a company is going to be a way I get a grasp on the business side of this stuff.

It just tells me that at 26, you've got a lot to learn. And by the time you're 36, dude, it's lights out. That's a game changer. So this thing isn't over, my brother, not even a little bit. Are you guys working the baby steps, Chase, you and your wife, we're all trying to pay off debt. Where are you guys at financially? Yes, we're on baby step two. We have about 30,000 in student loans right now and that's it. Okay, great. How much have you guys paid off so far? We paid off about $10,000. Nice. Awesome. Well, good. Well, you're on the track. So do this. It's going to sound cheesy what I'm going to tell you, but I want you to do it anyway. Is that cool? Yeah, absolutely. All right. I want you and your wife to hold a tiny

little funeral service for this passion dream that you had. This, I'm going to launch, but here's why it's going to, it might be silly, but I want you to go all in on it, go all in and invite friends. If you've got them, that would be a part, but kind of on the inside joke of this whole thing, but also not really a joke. Here's what it's going to give you. It's going to give you and your wife a marker. This is when we as a family shifted. We closed this door and we began opening other doors. And that's a powerful moment.

Otherwise, it just kind of lingers and you take your new job, but you're still kind of checking your other work email to see if clients come in. And you never fully go from one place to the other. You just kind of get bleh. You're everywhere. So have a funeral for it. Say we are done and we are now making this transition and then take your wife out to breakfast. And I know we tell you in Baby Step 2, don't do that,

but you're making a major life transition. Take your wife out to breakfast. Actually, I don't want to kick you while you're down, but she'll be taking you out to breakfast. And I know that wasn't cool, but it's true. She can take you out to breakfast and I want y'all to sit at the table and then dream together.

Okay, what's our sprint through this last $30,000? We're going to take two jobs, three jobs. We're going to get this thing knocked out. You're going to stand tall. You're going to walk tall. You're not going to dump the anger and shame onto her, and you're ready for this whole new transition. Stay on the line. We're going to get you Ken Coleman's Get Clear assessment.

I'm going to give it to you as our gift, and it will broaden your horizons and what you can do with your graphic design dreams. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. So our question of the day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. With service brands nationwide you can find reliable help from great locally owned businesses like air serve mr appliance and mr handyman visit neighborly.com today for help with just about anything you need for your home all right today's question comes from jonathan in ohio my fiance and I have completed the first four baby steps and I have a question for you about number five and number six. I'm currently investing our extra money into mutual funds and once the balance is above the principal balance of our home, I plan to pay off

the house. Why are you doing that? The current projection is the end of 2027. However, we're about to get married and we plan to have kids in the near future. Should we be working on step five now or waiting until we have our first child to start saving for our kids' college? I feel like we're out of sync because we skipped baby step five. I've been watching your show for about six months.

It's changed my financial mindset. Thank you. All right, Jonathan. Jonathan does a lot of things out of order. That's cool. Hey, I do too, man. I get it. I totally get it, but yeah.

Okay, so yeah, you're skipping Babysit 5. You can't save in a college fund for someone that doesn't exist yet. So yes, you will be skipping that. I would go ahead and be putting this extra money you have in a mutual fund that's dedicated to pay off the home. ahead and put that at the on the principal stop stop giving the bank stop giving them vacation homes to their executives and their shareholders by paying interest like just stop stop pay the bank pay the bank pay the bank put all that away and yeah put that put that into the house and make sure you guys if you're getting married that you have

yeah money i mean your own baby steps four five and six so make sure you have money for a great wedding a honeymoon like be planning for that because there's expenses coming down the road for all of that and here's the hard truth um about this about this question and i'll just speak from my personal experience my wife and i planned our life out and we're both going to go to grad school we got out of grad school then we're going to start a family and we were like time to start a family yep and then year one went by then year two went by then doctor's visits then year three so i tell you that just from personal experience that don't put the cart before the horse on this one when you have kids then you can start an emergency fund i mean you start a savings fund that's great i'd love to see you hammer through and just pay your house off. You're pretty dang close. Pay your house off, man.

And as y'all roll into, after y'all get married, just pay your debts off, pay your house off. But don't start making savings accounts for babies that aren't there yet. Yep. It's not wise.

Nope. All right. We're gonna go to the phones. Again, it's a free call at 888-825-5225. John and I will be chatting about every part of your life. So next up we have Jose in Montecito, California. Hey, Jose, welcome to the show. Hi, guys.

How are you? We're doing great. How can we help? So I kind of got myself into a little bit of a predicament here. I have a truck, so it's an older vehicle, uh, that I've been using, uh, to commute back and forth from work. Well, however, I was getting tired of paying so much in gas. Um, cause you know, in California that gas is pretty expensive over here. Um, so I went and purchased a smaller vehicle, more economic, which was great.

But I didn't really pay attention too much to the interest rate afterwards. The vehicle cost out the door was $19,000. But afterwards, when I looked at the paperwork, I have a 28% interest. Whoa. Migo, what do you... Oh, no, Jose. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, they took you to the cleaners.

How much did you owe on that truck? No, the truck was paid off. That was my truck. I got that truck for like $4,000. So you gave somebody $19,000 at 28% to save 50 bucks a month on gas? What I thought was going to be a little bit better. Yeah. Shoot.

Okay. What could you sell? Jose, what could you sell the car for today? Have you Kelly Blue booked it? Yeah. And I even went back to the same place that I got it from only for them to tell me that their trade-in value will only be $17,000. Dude, that's a depreciating asset right there.

What did you do with the truck? Do you still have it? I still have the truck. The truck is worth like about $6,000. Okay, so Jose, what you're going to do is I would get out of this loan ASAP. Okay, so what you're going to have to do is take a smaller loan, a $2,000 loan for the difference

to get out of the car because you're upside down on it. And I would rather you owe $2,000 with a loan from the bank, not at 28%. Go to a credit union. Then have a car that's continuing to depreciate

the more you drive it. And it's this, I mean, astronomical interest rate. So stupid. So i would get out of that today jose i really would and you'll get a loan for two thousand dollars and i would drive your paid off truck and not have payments and start tackling this this two grand i'd rather you owe two grand than 28 grand and we say this or 19 grand we say this with love but we're kind

of clowning a little bit but basically you're going to end up with about a $2,000 stupid tax. Okay? Yeah. Yeah, unfortunately. And then you're going to be like, next time somebody's like, hey, I got this good idea, you're going to go, no way, man. I remember that. By the way, if the trade-in value was $17,000 at this scam artist that sold you this car.

That's a great point. I bet you could sell it for $20,000 private sale and net a grand on it. Yes, that's a great point, Jose. Yeah, don't go back to them. See if you can private sell it. I would put this on Facebook Marketplace tonight and see what you can put it for $21,000 and see what you get for it. Yep. Is it a brand new car?

Is it brand new? It's a 2022 Chevy Spark. Okay. Yep. I would... Actually, I'd put it at $22 at 22 and someone's going to give you 20 thinking they're getting a deal and they'll just say, how about just 20? And then you go,

ah, okay. And then you're going to make a thousand bucks and you're going to have a thousand dollars for all your indigestion and probably a little bit of preparation age.

And then you're all done and you're never going to do this again. Right? Yeah. No, no. Lesson learned. Okay. But yeah. but it wasn't until no i was gonna say that last piece of advice that john said is so true that i'm like this could make or break that two grand loan or not actually coming out ahead so remember there's all you're always going to get a better deal most of the time through a private sale when you go to a dealership not as good and especially if you're

going back to the people that sold it to you and you're like, please take it back. They're like, we will for 17 because they know in their head. Hey, have you been through Financial Peace, brother? I actually just signed up to it. I started on the 6th. Awesome. Good. Most excellent. All right. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to send you a free copy of Total Money Makeover, and I want you to have that just as your gift from us, and I want you to read that book as you're entering into this class. It's going to be a great primer as you launch into this class. Good for you, man.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Aiden. Thank you for your time. Absolutely, Jose. You got it, man. I like you, Jose. Thanks so much. Me and you would be friends. I'm confident of it. And you know what, John? I think so much of all of this idea of winning with money,

looking at your life, making different decisions, there's a level of humility that you have to be like, oh, that was a stupid decision. Go with the whoopsie do on that one. I feel like we've had some callers call in and we'll get off the call and we're like, we'll say to each other, yeah, they're probably not going to take our advice

because you can just feel it from them. They're like, no, I got my thing. I'm going to do my thing. And they keep running down that same track that we're like warning, warning, warning. Don't do it. Don't do it. So there takes a level of continuing to learn and to believe that like, okay, not everything I thought was correct is correct.

I need to learn something new and maybe the decisions I've made with my money are stupid and not good. So I need to make different decisions, right? Like there's a basic human element there that's really key to change your behavior. So there's two things and I'll keep them private here between me and my counselor, but there's two things that have a struggle with for decades, for years. And yesterday in my counseling session, my counselor is the greatest, my therapist's the greatest. She's incredible. But she said, how long?

And I said, what do you mean? She said, how long are you going to keep working this plan that has never worked? At what point? And she used the word that I hate with all my guts. At what point are you going to submit to another way of looking at this problem? And that was the most honest, true thing I could have been told. The way I'm

doing this isn't working. So we talked to a caller earlier that him and his buddy, they created a company and they built a house and now they're having to float the note out of their private bank accounts, interest only because they have a scheme and those dudes can't breathe. And it's like, okay, you tried it. You got crypto. It's not working. Will you be interested in trying something else? Just a totally different way of doing life.

And that's Jose's, that's why I pointed all that out, because he came with such humility. I screwed up. I screwed up. So you guys, sometimes it's just that admitting. I messed up. It's my fault, as Taylor swift would say it's me i'm the problem it's me we'll be back welcome back to the ramsey show i am rachel cruz with dr John Deloney taking your calls. But John, you know what's crazy is that the job market, the economy, all of that, it's kind of in a bit of a funk right now. And when that happens, a lot of people are looking for jobs and new opportunities in other states.

They're looking to move. But that can be really intimidating. It can be exciting. You know, there's a lot of emotions around that. But you can also take a lot of the uncertainty out of the equation when you partner with someone who's a local expert in your new area. So someone that's going to show you the best neighborhoods, the best schools, everything around the city that you're looking to move to. Have someone who is there who is really good at what they do. And what I mean by that is a really good real estate agent. Again,

not all agents are going to do this, but to find somebody that really has their foot in the market, they know what's going on, and they're able to help guide you. So if you want an agent who will do all of that, then connect with a Ramsey trusted real estate agent. These are local experts who go above and beyond to serve you so you can trust them to guide you throughout every step of your relocation. We can connect you with the Ramsey Trust and agents all over the country who are ready to help you buy, sell, and hit the ground running in your new home. So to find the best agents in your area, go to ramseysolutions.com slash local agents. That's ramseysolutions.com slash local agents. All right. Up next,

we have Bernard in Detroit, Michigan. Hey, Bernard, welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for having me on. How are you today? Absolutely. Glad you're here. How can we help? Well, I just had a quick question regarding the you always listen to the show and you guys say like your mortgage should be 25 of your take-home pay on a 15-year fixed um should that 25 include does that include taxes and insurance yes yes it does hoa fees anything and everything gotcha okay yeah that was the quick the question I had. I have a home now, but thinking about like moving in the future, we just wanted to make sure I was like, setting myself up for success for that move. Gotcha. Yeah, that was a great question. And,

and I always tell people, you know, that it's a conservative percentage that we say, and a lot of people get mad at us because of this formula. But what we found is when you're when your home is not an overwhelming part of your budget you actually have margin to do other things you have margin whether it's paying off debt saving actually living life enjoying life spending giving like there's all this other stuff that you want your money to do versus going all to the mortgage so it really allows you to have some margin in your budget so that 25 percent really allows i mean what we margin in your budget. So that 25% really allows what we believe your home to be a blessing, not a curse. And that you can, there's two levers you can pull there. One is you can have a massive down payment

and get more house, right? And then the other is you can make more money. And that just depends, that sounds like the either or, right? But you can have a great salary and just put down 10% or 20% and then do the 25% there. Or you can put down 50% on a house and that's going to really drastically reduce what your total is going to be, your percentage every month. That makes sense. So what would you guys suggest if because i know like you want to put extra additional money towards the house but if i want to move say in like three or four years should i still be putting additional cash towards the house or yeah i would because what you're doing is just building an equity so when you sell the house you're still you're going to recoup that

money and what we find too is that sometimes when people have money that they're like, okay, yeah, I'm going to, instead of paying down the house, I'm going to save for a newer house in two to three years. We find that life happens and sometimes a vacation comes up and it's like, well, we can kind of pull out of that account or something else occurs. You're like, oh, I can take it out of here. When you lock it into your home and you're paying down your mortgage you're getting equity and it's doing what that extra money should be doing and in my life if i go back five years that is three jobs and two states ago and none of that was on the written none of this is on the radar it's a good point how much life changes and just those dude in four to five years man everything's gonna be

changing you're talking about we're gonna have a new presidential election we're gonna have new surprising findings there's ufos everywhere i mean you never know what's gonna happen man so i would keep your foot on the gas doing the right thing in front of you and when you sell your house we'll get that money back out is that good bernard sound good? Yeah, that's great. Thank you. I appreciate you having me on. Yeah, you bet, brother. Absolutely. Up next, we have George in Austin, Texas. Hey, George. Welcome to the show. Hi, Rachel. Hi, Dr. John. Good afternoon.

What's up, man? Good afternoon. How can we help? So I, by your words, I would be in baby step two, but I kind of don't know what to do next. So I recently paid off my car. Had I found you guys a year and a half ago, this would have been a much easier decision. But I recently paid off my car in about February.

It was way overpriced. It took me five out of the six years it was supposed to take me at $600 a month. I'm not happy about it. But I'm currently looking at $7,000 left in student loans and $3,000 left in a personal loan. I've been paying for student loans throughout the entire pandemic. But I'm realizing that in September, once that interest hits, I'm going to have to probably start paying the interest on that as well. And I'm thinking, is it a smart idea to sell my car that I just paid off? It's a 2017.

Right now I'm looking at the KBB private value. Is that $22,000? So I could sell this car completely debt-free right now and then use the extra money for a little beater for a while which will be fine and I can just breathe easy knowing that I don't have debt but I just don't know if that's just a drastic decision to make just because I've been listening to you guys for a month now I'm just like oh my god how I should just do this now yeah how much money do you make annually

when I bought the car I didn't make enough, but now I make 70. I've made 70 for the past couple of years. And how much do you own student loans? I have exactly $7,000 left. So you'll have 12,000. If you sell this car for 22, you have $10,000 total of debt,

personal loans, student loans. So you'll have 12,000 left to buy a car. I would, George. George, I would do this this weekend. I would do it. do it because it's just a car you know what i'm saying it's just a car like it's not a house like sometimes we we slow people down like should i buy should i sell this house to get out of debt all this we're like well there's moving like there's so much logistics around buying a home and moving all that a is like, we can just switch it up. This car, you've got a negative relationship with this car, don't you?

No, I mean, I love my car. Let me say it like this. My negative relationship with my car now is based solely on the fact that I've been listening to Rachel's show and George's show and I found the money guys and I found you and I found all this stuff in the last month. And I'm like, oh my God, what I've been doing with Rachel's show and George's show and I found the money guys and I found you and I found all this stuff in the last month. And I'm like, oh my God,

what I've been doing with my money for the last, however long is ridiculous. It's like you've been dating somebody and she was kind of awesome. And then an ex-boyfriend came up and was like, you want to know something? And you're like, no, but you found out, right? So, hey, if I'm you, I would sell that car this weekend.

I just want to make sure I'm making the right decision. Yeah think it's great george because it's a car do you know what i mean like at the end of the day you can get a new one you can come back to this type of car later like again switching that stuff is it's pretty easy can i say this dude i cannot tell you george you are in the one percent of the one percent nobody nobody kept paying their student loans with with when there was an interest pause for three years so well done you are a hero and here's the deal come september when everyone's like we don't know what's happening you're gonna go yeah i don't care and i'm debt free you have no worries so keep momentum going, George. I don't want to take too much credit. I will be honest.

I was dumb with that initial check. It's fine, George. And hey, George, I would say this too. If you're doing the baby steps, you'll have that $12,000 left. And I kind of flippantly just say, go get a $12,000 car. Even get a $6,000 car and take another $6,000 for an emergency fund if you don't have savings. You can use all of this to really fast forward this process for you. So you can actually start investing and building wealth and doing the stuff. You know what I might do,

Rachel? I might take $1,000 and just Uber for the next two months and buy a $25,000 car for $10,000 off somebody who hasn't paid their student loans and is not prepared for that repayment to kick up. Get it, George. Get it, George. Sell it, George. Congrats. You're awesome. Thanks for calling. We'll be back.

Well, John, America's birthday. Well, Rachel. It's coming up. The old 4th of July. You guys big 4th of July people at the Zoloni house? We don't live in the middle of nowhere, so you're like, you just shoot for me. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of 4th of July all the time at our house. Just shooting fireworks all the time.

I like it good. We're going camping and we're having a fire like always. Yep, so good. All right, so here's what's crazy is how much Americans will spend on specifically fireworks for this wonderful holiday. So according... Or as my granddad said, just lighten your money on fire. Just lighten that money on fire. So American consumers bought, are you ready for this?

260.7 million pounds of fireworks in 2015. That's so many bombs. In 2015. And it was the most of any year between 2000 and 2019. But the pandemic changed everything. So in the 21st century, consumer fireworks revenue slowly and steadily ticked up from about 407 million in 2000 to 1 billion in 2019 and then in 2021 2.2 billion dollars in fireworks that's just a bunch of people sitting at home so angry at their youtube accounts

and listening to like angry podcasts they're like we're just gonna blow, we're just going to blow crap up. We're just going to blow everything up. We're going to blow it up. Oh my gosh. Here's the math. On $2.2 billion, if you spent $1,000 a day, it would take you 2,740 years

before you ran out of money. Or, if you had $1 billion and were told to spend it in a single year, years before you ran out of money. Or if you had a billion dollars and were told to spend it in a single year, you'd have to spend a minimum of $2.7 million a day

to reach zero by the end of the year. This is so much money. I'm so ignorant though to fire. I don't even know. We have fireworks at a park right by our house, so we just go up in this hill in our neighborhood, sit in someone's front yard, and we watch it. And so, like, we don't do a ton of fireworks

because we're, like, in the city limits. I don't know. Like, it's illegal. Kind of yuppied out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of, it's whatever. So I don't even know. I mean, do they cost a lot?

Like, how much would they? Yeah, so give me, like, the kind that go up and it's purple and it like all rains down. So like a 10 to 20 minute show can be between $2,000 and $7,000 depending on zoning. If you're doing it in New York or downtown LA, I'm sure it's a million more dollars. Okay. This calls them fireworks pyro musicals. What is that? Listen, if somebody...

Is that where they do the music with it? Or is this a whole other thing? I honestly have never heard the phrase fireworks pyromusical. Rachel, that's like when they do... The music to it. The shows at Disney World or big Fourth of July county fairs.

It's synced with the music. So it's like, bum-bum, and then it's like bum bum with the fireworks. Did you say NSYNC on purpose? It's like NSYNC does a routine to a firework show. It's NSYNC. I want it that way. And then firework pyro musicals cost $1,000 to $2,000 a minute. Good.

Wait, say that again. $1,000 to $2,000 a minute good wait say that again one to two thousand dollars a minute holy crap exactly so um anyway it's a lot that's a lot of money it's a lot of money no but how much do you know john how much like if i went to like a firework stand on the side of the road and you bought one of those i mean you could spend a couple hundred bucks without without it no but like what's one one would cost a hundred bucks well they're always like buy one get 14 free so but yeah if you went to buy just one of the one that went yeah yeah it can be up to 20 bucks yeah it can be up to 20 bucks oh 20 dollars yeah um and some of these fountains like roman candles novelties um like this uh you know two two to 500 gram cake, repeaters, Roman

candles, novelties. The fountains listed at. A package like that could be 600 bucks. Well, yes. Yes. $629.99. Okay. So.

You can go spend some money. Yeah. And you can't be the, it's kind of like Christmas, like, like cousin Eddie, like you can't be the chump house that's got lame fireworks. If you're allowed to do that in your community. You got to go all out. You got to have the good stuff. If you buy fireworks on a credit card, you can never listen to the show again. You're banned from listening to the show.

Don't light borrowed money on fire in your front yard. Just light regular money on fire. Just money you have. Money you have. Oh, God bless the USA. All right. Up next, we have Matthew in Tucson, Arizona. Matthew, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks for taking my call. I'm actually going to read my message if I'm a little nervous, if that's okay. You got it, man. Do what you got to do. All right. So I'm 28 and I'm in the midst of a really challenging divorce.

Before we got married, my wife brought about $30,000 into the marriage. Meanwhile, I was carrying about $40,000 of debt. We're now debt free. As I work through this heartbreak, my concern is her long-term financial stability. And I'm contemplating giving her above the 50-50 requirement that the law requires and giving her money back to her. Is that a wise decision or does that set me up for undue financial hardship in the long run? When you say you're worried about her long-term economic viability, what does that mean? Here's what it sounds like. It sounds like she did something and filed on you and you're still worried about her or did you do something and she filed on you? Um, I, I had some moral challenges and she has filed on me. Okay. So are you doing this as a, a way to kind of buy your way back into her good graces or just

prove to you like I'm a good guy? Um, I don't know. I wasn't planning on telling her I was doing this. I was just going to do it in the end. I've had friends that have just, when they head to the table, they put 55% down on the table. I've had friends do that. And it's less about because of this future thing. It was more to, I want to go above and beyond so that this is an easy process and we don't go to war. If you're already in the middle of the war, you have to know that she made some choices, some values-based choices that she's not going to be in a relationship and in a covenant relationship with somebody who did whatever it is you did. And so she chose to leave and I'll applaud her for holding firm and true to her values.

But anytime we do that, it comes with consequences as well. And you can't buy your way out of that. If you want to help end this thing and putting another 5% on the table or whatever would help in this thing, I'm all for ending the war. I just, I hate how these things drag out. It just breaks my heart. But I don't think you can buy your way back into, I hate how these things drag out. It just breaks my heart. But I don't think you can buy your way back into, I was, I'm not such a bad guy. I'm a pretty good guy. I don't, don't try to buy your guilt. Sure. Does that make sense? Does she, how, how is she when it comes to

money, Matthew? Is there any part of you that's caretaking her in the sense of like, gosh, she may not be as fiscally responsible. So I'm a little worried. I want to make sure she's okay. Like, is there any of that? Or is she, does she have a lot of discipline around money?

She's very disciplined around money. So it really is. Yeah. Very disciplined. Okay. It sounds like you feel like sick to your stomach and you probably still really love and care about this woman and this relationship's over. And there's just that, that grief and it's so hard to sit in grief and so our bodies tell

us to do do do something do something do something do something and this is a way that you can you can manufacture action if you will and i would tell you that it probably is not going to do anything other than frustrate you in the long run, unless it does facilitate ending this contentious divorce and just wrapping it up. If it was me personally, I would put extra money on the table to end the transaction. How long has it been going on, Matthew? We've been separated for eight months, and I got served papers last Wednesday. Oh, wow. So you're just getting going, huh?

Matthew, I'm so sorry. It's pretty rough. Yeah. In the service of the papers, did it have an offer in it? From reading it with my lawyer, everything is 50-50, at least what she's asking for right now.

Man, I wouldn't borrow any money, but if I'm you and i'm in that situation i probably would put a little bit over there's not i don't have a rhyme or reason why i don't have like some principle that i live by or something other than um once you once somebody files for divorce this the relationship is over and we are now in a business transaction and anytime i do business deals i always want to be extra generous and that's just i do that transaction. And anytime I do business deals, I always want to be extra generous. And that's just, I do that with the lawn guy. I do that with tipping at a taco stand. I do that just with every transaction that I try to engage in. And so that's probably how I would do that. But again, you hired a lawyer too. Yeah. I hate that for you. Thanks for calling.

You can't buy your guilt. Yep. Well, thank you guys so much for listening. Thanks to all the guys and Emily in the booth to make this show work. Thank you, John, for a great hour. And thank you, America. We'll be back. Hey, it's Dr. John Deloney. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way.

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