The Ramsey Show - App - My Company is Closing My Division...What Do I Do?

Episode Date: May 6, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Dr. John Delony discuss: What to do with the Baby Steps when expecting a baby, Navigating a job change decision, Focusing on what's important during a divorce. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, best-selling author and host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, is my co-host today. As we take your questions about your mental wellness, your boundaries, your relationships, your money, your career, your job, your life, right here on the Ramsey Show. The phone number is 888-825-5225. The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Spencer is with us in Indiana to start off this hour. Hey, Spencer, what's up?

Hey, Dave. I have quite a mess I've made for myself, but me and my wife are working on trying to get out. Cool. We're on baby step two. And, um, I have a whole bunch of student loans. Um, I haven't consolidated them yet. Um, partly because of the, the way that the prepayment is right now, everything's kind of on forbearance. I've been making the minimum payment despite the forbearance. I've been making the minimum payment despite the forbearance. But my question is this,

I have a car loan that's about $30,000 and I have a bunch of student loans. Well, I have some student loans that are less than $30,000, but my payment for my car is about $500, and my payment for each of the student loans are like altogether are about $1,000. And normally, if I'm following your plan right, I would pay the smallest loans off first, but I'm just wondering if I'll have more money to pay back with if I pay my car off first. Nope. Works exactly the same math. Math doesn't change okay the um you're because you let's just pretend you're paying two thousand dollars or three

thousand dollars a month on debt okay and then you're banking a car payment or you're not making a car payment either one you're still going to plow through the total of the debt in exactly the same amount of time it does not speed it up to get rid of the big payment at all the only thing that would speed it up is if you got rid of a bigger interest rate which is not what we teach but that would actually speed it up um but paying but getting rid of the bigger payment that you're making anyway doesn't change a thing. So what do you guys make a year? $320,000. Well, that's good. What do you do for a living?

I'm a nurse anesthetist. Ah, and there's the student loans. So what kind of mess did you make? How much is the student loan debt? Right now it's at $275,000. Atta boy. Jeez. That's a lot.

What else? What else? Well, I have, we have, one of our cars is almost paid off. We have about $5,000 left on it, and then our other car is about $30,000. Okay. That's it? Student loans and cars? Yeah.

Well, I mean, we have a house. We have a mortgage, and we actually have two houses. One is getting rented out, but we only have our mortgage, but that's the rest of our debt. What's that rental house worth? It's worth maybe $200,000. What do you owe on it? About that. worth uh it's worth maybe 200 what do y'all want about that we just it was really like i said it's kind of messy so yeah i got i would go ahead i would go and get that sold that's not a blessing that's a curse well the reason i didn't sell it was because i haven't had it for that long

i'm worried i'd pay a whole bunch of taxes on it you're not paying taxes you're not going to make any money okay if you don't make money on it you don't pay taxes okay and was it a residence yeah we we were in it for just a few months but how long have you been out of it how long have you been out of it about two months oh you can sell it with no taxes at all, no matter what your profit is, up to a half million dollars married filing jointly. Yeah, you need to get rid of that thing ASAP, brother, because it's a vampire. It is not going to do anything except suck your blood. So you need to be done with that puppy.

And then from there, you know, basically what we're dealing with are the big numbers here are we going to pay 150 a year on this and be done in two years and have no life yeah and that's what i would prescribe that's what i would prescribe quit acting like you make a lot of money and instead act like you're a broke person, because, by the way, you're a broke person who actually makes a lot of money, which is wonderful. Great news is you have a horrible hole that you're in, and you have a big old shovel to dig out. So that's wonderful.

But, I mean, if you live on $100,000 a year and you put the rest of it towards this debt, you could be done in two years. That's what we're hoping. Yeah. Well, it's not hope. I mean, last year I was making $130,000, I think. Yeah. $140,000.

Yeah. So for the time we can get better. Spencer, I'm going to ask you two questions right in a row and just answer yes or no. Did you take out $275,000 student loans? Yes. Okay, cool, period. That conversation's over.

I can hear you walking around with your head staring at the ground, and a gazelle can't run away staring at one foot in front of it because it's going to trip and fall on its own face. Hold your head up high. You did it. It's over. You own it, and now we're going to be about what comes next and now you're nursing this this is which makes a buttload of money a ton of money you you have people be alive yeah so now go clean up the mess and in two years you'll be done and you'll look back five years from now with a big old pile of money and you go god man I almost busted it there. Thank God I decided to lean into this.

Yeah, so lean into it with a smile and go, game on, baby. Be aggressive. Go get it. Game on, man. Game on. Get it. Get it. I hope it just to hope it works.

No. It's not going to get it. There's no hope. Smack it down. It's math. It's not a wish. By God, it's math. I mean, you make $320,000.

Let's put $150,000 a year on $275,000. And in two years, it's math i mean you make two you make 320 000 let's put 150 a year on 275 and in two years it's magically gone you know i mean it's this is how it works but i and i don't really care what your nurse anesthetist friends are doing because they're mathematically stupid so don't listen to them okay i really don't care if they're buying houses or bmws or whatever sell the stupid house you just moved out of get rid of it it. It's a problem. It's not a blessing. You can keep the cars just because you make so stinking much money if you want to keep that $30,000 car. It's okay if you're going to get out of debt in two years or less. If you're not going to get out of debt in two years or less, then you sell the $30,000 car.

But you really need to get this done. And you can do it. It's very doable. It's, man, sometimes I talk to people that have $275,000 in debt, and they make $100,000. Or they make $65,000. And that's a bigger problem, man. I mean, that's a little bitty shovel in a big old hole. You know, you can't do that.

So, you know, the good news is you have the blessing of this income, so you have to dial it in and be game on, committed, you and your wife, and go, we don't make $320,000 a year. We're not going to act like we make $320,000 a year because we have a mess that is bigger than this, and we have to live on nothing, beans and rice, rice and beans. You don't need to see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there. You don't need to go on vacation of a restaurant unless you're working there. You don't need to go on vacation. You need to get out of debt. And you can do it. You can do it.

You can do it. I can see it. And I can't wait to hear your debt-free scream. It's going to be amazing. This is The Ramsey Show. you've got a lot on your plate a job your home your marriage and your marriage, and your growing family. While you're enjoying the present, you can't help but think about your future and your finances. As you explore your options, consider Christian Healthcare Ministries, or CHM, for your health care. Their generous maternity program and budget-friendly monthly programs have been a blessing to members welcoming children into

their families. Visit chministries.org slash budget to see if it's right for you. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today as we answer your questions about your life and your money. Matt is with us in Atlanta. Hi, Matt. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, David and Dr. John. So basically, my wife and I are about to finish Baby Step 3, and also she's pregnant. And I know that when people are in Baby Step 2,

you say to pause, pile up money, but I'm not sure about when, once you're in like four, should, is that still the advice? No, you have an emergency fund. Yeah. So, basically, I have a $20,000 check I'm waiting on. Seven of that will be used to finish up fully funding the emergency fund, and then I'm trying to figure out what to do with the rest.

Good for you. Cool. Is this your first baby? Yes. Awesome. Congrats, man. Congrats. Do you know what you're having?

No. No, we don't. Oh, that's cool. If it's a boy, John or Dave are great places to start for names. Well, her dad's name is John. Her dad's name is John, so I feel like that's where you should probably leave it. David John, yeah. And I have an Uncle David, so there's a chance there.

There you go. You never know. Tell me there's a chance so uh yeah you just your emergency fund if it is beefy enough that you have a comfort level and your wife has a comfort level if you're at the six months if you need to be at the six month side to feel comfortable go ahead and take some of the money and get to the six month side if the seven thousand is only getting into the three month side i don't care what you do with it as far as that. But fill that emergency fund to where, okay, I'm a brand-new dad, brand-new mom.

First time I've done this, it's kind of exciting and scary all at the same time. And so I really want to have enough in my, you know, a big enough umbrella, you know, in case it rains. I need a good emergency fund. And so whatever makes you happy there, whatever makes you feel comfortable there is fine but the um then beyond that we're just going to work the rest of the baby steps you need to be setting up your budget to begin to put 15 of your household income into retirement and um and if you want to use some of this uh cash then after the baby comes you can set over in a savings account and use it to open a 529 after the baby comes and you get the Social Security number.

Right. And then more specifically, what I'm wondering is if I should use $12,000 of that to fully fund a Roth for tax year last year, you know, before that deadline, just because I don't have a match, so Roth is sort of, you know, my best bet as far as, you know. It won't hurt. It won't hurt anything. If you want to do that, that's fine. Or you could set, instead of setting seven in the, or you could do maybe three things.

You could use some of it to start the 529 and some of it to fund a Roth. Hey, Matt, are you expecting any loss of income here? Yes, a little bit. Okay. You may want to cover that, too. Yeah, so one of the things I'd recommend, if you haven't already, and we've talked about it on the show a million times, I'd sit down with your cash position and see what it would look like

to go sit down with the people who are going to deliver your baby with the hospital and come up with a prearranged price. A lot of ambiguity. The reason you would stack up cash is because you don't know what's coming. And the more you can put a pen to paper and say, this is the amount of money we're going to lose every month while my wife takes time off or I take time off. This is the amount of money the birth is going to cost.

It gives you a lot more peace as you're heading into this new season of your life. Yeah, if you got it all detailed out. But it's beautiful that you have this check coming and you're hitting the stride all at this time. So here's the thing. If it takes you three months to implement all this after the baby comes, that's all fine. And that gives you some, you're going to have a lot more knowledge about all the variables by then than you have today. Yeah, there's nothing like a sticker shock of diapers cost. I think they're laced with gold.

Are they? They are so expensive, right? They're a million dollars. So I had an idea. I was way off. So it took me a couple of months to settle into this is the new rhythm. This is how much it's going to cost to have this little human in our house now. Yeah, it's that and the formula stuff. It's real paul's with us paul's in san antonio texas hey paul

welcome to the ramsey show hi dave how are you better than we deserve what's up oh well uh to start i found you guys by accident scrolling about a month ago and now i've turned into a daily listener that's our best promotion welcome to the gang man yeah well thank you um so uh with everything since 2019 i personally uh i've done everything backwards uh i went from being in a very good position and making plenty of money my income has been cut by more than half after my company folded. I moved my family to Texas so I could move here around because I do construction. Unfortunately, my wife cannot work right now, so we're a single-income family, and I'm getting ready to start a small business on the side

with things that I already own so I can minimize the costs and have to get my licenses and my insurance and everything. I make dirt for money right now at the company I'm at, and I'm wondering if maybe I should just do the other job 100%, just jump head in, or if I should just try to do it on weekends for the time. What's dirt? What do you make? I make 19 an hour. That's not dirt. And how many are you getting are you getting 40 hours uh some weeks 40 some weeks i'll get like 73 okay all right so you're getting yeah you're not that's not dirt i mean you're not maybe making what you used to make but that's not

a yeah there's no shame in that situation and that's a whole lot more than zero, which is what you'll make if you don't get jobs lined up in your new gig. Yeah. So, yeah, you work the side gig as a weekend thing until you get some real money coming in and a bunch of jobs lined up, and when you can get more jobs lined up than you have time to do on the weekend, then we can talk about backing down your hours or quitting the day job but um you don't you don't jump from um hero to zero and anytime anybody has backed themselves into either this answer or that answer i always want to step back one more step you could need to get another job for a while

and there may be another construction company there in texas it's going to pay you 24 an hour or 28 an hour guarantee of time it may be that there's an intermediate step and i know you don't want to take a new job because you're starting this new one you hope this new one's going to take off but you may have to do that for a season right yeah if it takes you six months to a year to get your weekend thing moving then if you made 24 somewhere else instead of 19 at this place which you're not thrilled with this place six times you mentioned that in the early days of this conversation so uh why isn't your wife working you said um we're actually working with an immigration lawyer she overstayed her visa many years before i met her and part of the part of that is uh she's not allowed to work or it will automatically fail

her for overstaying or something crazy like that okay so how long does this take to get the immigration thing cleaned up um well i paid my deposit to my lawyer in march and i have to come up with the remainder it's another forty eight hundred dollars to file the paperwork and then wait for the courts march is yesterday a march a year ago last year yeah so how long does this take uh well they won't move forward with it until i have my full payment and oh so they're waiting for a year on you to finish paying them yeah well this is a priority that you haven't made a priority um yeah it's it's definitely a major one um i've defaulted on a few things, trying to put some money away for it, and yeah. How much is your truck payment?

My truck payment is $499. Yeah, sell your truck. No. You're going to lose your wife. Yeah, sell your truck, brother. And I do have my motorcycle up for sale. I own it free and clear. Good.

Trying to sell it. What will it sell for? I'm trying to get $9,500 for it500 for good that'll pay the lawyer do it yeah motorcycle for spouse that's a good trade every day of the week brother yes most spouses i can imagine her walking outside and seeing that thing in the driveway for the last year. And this hasn't been paid. Sell it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you've got a bunch of other stuff around your neck right now you need to get off from around your neck called debt

in order to get her immigration straightened out so she can make money. And guess what? You can make more money, and you don't need to be starting a business with no income while you've got all these other things you're having to go into default on to try to put stuff together so you need to clean up a bunch of debt and you need the extra income of the extra side hustle plus your new job plus your new job that john was talking about where you make money so and yeah you're probably selling the truck selling the motorcycle getting yourself out of debt moving in the right direction hold on i'm going to send you a copy of the total, selling the motorcycle, getting yourself out of debt, moving in the right direction.

Hold on. I'm going to send you a copy of the Total Money Makeover. We'll show you how to do this, brother. This is the Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. On the debt-free stage, Stephen and Kaylee are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Wonderful. Thank you for having us today. Good.

Honored to have you. Where do you guys live? Grand Rapids, Michigan. Oh, we love Grand Rapids. Welcome to Nashville. Thank you. Good to have you. And how much debt have you paid off? $231,000 and some change. Way to go. And how long did this take you? 25 months. Wow. You're kicking it. And your range of income during that time? We started around $190,000 and finished around $260,000. Goodness.

What do you guys do for a living? I'm a physician assistant. And I'm in dental sales. Oh, both. Wow. Okay. That's ringing the bell on the income. Well done. So I'm going physician assistant. Oh. And I'm in dental sales. Oh, both. Wow. Okay. That's ringing the bell on the income. Well done. So I'm going to guess and say 231 might be a bunch of student loans for the PA. Both of us. Both of you. Yep.

All right. All right. Very cool. Yep. Student loans. And we both had car loans and credit cards. Yeah. I lived my mid-20s like uh she was looking

at him well he looked at her for student loans and she got him back with the credit cards so it's good same team right you gotta trade you gotta trade the look back and forth there it's pretty good yeah that's good okay how long y'all been married just six five months oh my gosh yeah so you started you started this separately and then combined it and knocked it out so yeah we're a little different where we i mean i'll let kaylee tell the story and how we got so we started this just while we were dating um we i remember i was sitting at a wedding and like looking around and i was like one day we'll probably want to get married how are we ever going to afford this um and I was I remembered hearing your name a little bit

growing up and I googled Dave Ramsey and saw the total money makeover you're sitting at a wedding and you googled no I was just going my goodness eat the cake okay but the wedding woke you up then when you got home you googled yeah okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. And so I saw Total Money Makeover, and Stephen picked it up for me at Barnes & Noble. And I read it the following weekend, and probably within the next month, kind of slowly decided to pay off my car, tell him about it a little bit. And then we both kind of really got on board. But we did, it was interesting because we were just dating. We weren't even engaged at the time, and we both were doing our own debt snowballs.

So it was kind of unique in that way. Yeah, so I bought her that book and watched her just get after it. And I had my own, I guess you can say I was Dave-ish, paying off, like trying to aggressively pay off my credit cards but then i saw how aggressive she was being with her car and i was like i want to marry this woman i got it i i got it either i'm either have to be all in or all out and i decided to be yeah you just can't be left in the dust here you got to keep up i mean come on i love how you said, I started aggressively getting after it, and then I looked over.

She was actually aggressively getting after it. She was much more aggressive than I was. I love it. You had two cars at the time, and I feel like when you paid the one off. Yeah, I had a work vehicle and a regular vehicle, and I was like, Dave would not love that. And so I sold my work vehicle and used my personal vehicle as both work and personal and started the debt snowball from there.

Yeah. Way to go, you guys. This is amazing. I mean, once you decided to do it, both of you were just, you knocked it down big time. Yeah. And so in the middle of this debt is also, did y'all cash flow a wedding too? Yep. We cash flowed about two-thirds of our wedding.

Yep. And it wasn't just our jobs. We had a lot of side gigs. Yeah. She picked up shifts in urgent care. She made a ton of money. That's the lucrative thing, yeah. Yep.

Picking up other people's garbage and refurbishing it and selling it on Facebook Marketplace. Oh, wow. Um, and I have a little side lawn mowing business in the summer. Um, so yeah, that we, we definitely,

uh, worked a lot more than we played. Yeah, for sure. Okay. But you're free. Yeah. And we were able to pay both of us pair dead off the week by the week before our wedding.

Correct. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, so that was your finish line goal. We want to, we want week before our wedding. Correct. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, so that was your finish line goal. We want to, we want to marry each other debt free. Well, it wasn't initially though. And you talk about this on the show a lot.

Like we thought it would maybe be. We thought that she'd inherit a little bit of my debt and it'd be about five months after the wedding, six months prior to the wedding. And even though we were doing it separately, we felt like we were doing it together. You know, constant communication, holding each other accountable and encouraging and encouraging and um we looked at it competitive yeah yeah she won um she always will my brother so five months before the wedding we're like wow we can if we if we put our heads down this summer we can we can do this before the wedding and the weekend before we got married we uh we paid it all off i love it wow for you that's amazing thank you well done you guys very well done so what do you tell people

the key to getting out of debt is constant communication and just being there for each other because we are unique we weren't married yet we attacked our snowballs separately but it didn't feel like that because we were constantly going over our budget and holding each other accountable to our budget i mean she took me who in my mid-20s would take my tax return and go to nashville and blow it all when i had a ton of debt so the irony is you're in Nashville today with that free screen. Holding each other accountable and continuously having that

open communication and being on the same page. What's the best boyfriend-girlfriend disagreement you had over the budgets? I would say when she... I know what you're going to say. The vehicles? Oh, no vehicles oh no no go ahead um

this is the newlywed game yeah answer very carefully steven for me when she was being very aggressive at paying off her vehicle and i was like why did i get her that book um i was when she that's when she kind of came to me and was like you know you should definitely think about this too you have two vehicles and I I remember kind of fighting around that for a while just because that's just the way I lived throughout my 20s um what was oh in my mind it was kind of our like Stephen was saying we would sit down and budget every week probably. And I would underestimate, I guess, the budget. And he would always say, you probably need just a little bit more money for that.

And so that would just be like a weekly thing where we would kind of have different mindsets on things. So now that we're married and that we make our budget together, that was an adjustment as well. We just have different minds on things. You guys talk about savers and spenders and just probably having little disagreements about, you're probably going to pay a little bit more for groceries than that this week.

And I'm like, no, I can probably get by. Two dollars is enough. There were weeks where like $25 had to get us through for groceries yeah that's not yeah don't think that's going to work but now y'all make a bunch of money and you have to keep all of it

it's fun we went to New York around Christmas we're here this weekend didn't feel bad about spending $9 on a beer on Broadway like I used to. It's more than that. It wasn't finance. You paid for it today instead of four months from now. So congratulations.

And because we had just gotten done paying off a debt, we really didn't go on a real honeymoon. So we're going to Italy in a month. Very cool. Ding, ding. I love it. Good for you guys. Well, I'm proud of you. Thank you. You did very well. Who were you guys. Well, I'm proud of you. Thank you.

You did very well. Who were your biggest cheerleaders outside the two of you? Outside the two of us, my parents were really big supporters. Both of them cheered us on along the way. Yeah, my parents have always been there on the way to support me with whatever I choose to do. We have my college roommate, a good friend. Him and his wife live in Lansing, Michigan, Nick and Rachel. They're in the journey with us.

Recently debt-free, too. Yeah, they're recently debt-free, too. So having people our age getting after it with us along the same and hanging out with them and talking about the frustrations of it all, it really helped. Yeah. Way to go, guys. Way to go. We're proud of you well done well done we got a copy of baby steps millionaires for you because that's the next chapter baby that's the next chapter in this story making 260 you ought to be there in 20 minutes i

mean it shouldn't shouldn't take long at all you got no payments life is good how ordinary people build extraordinary wealth how you can too 231231,000 paid off in 25 months. Did it separately and together, sort of, by communicating. $190,000 to $260,000 income. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free!

Yes! Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Well done. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Zach is with us in Oklahoma City. Hey, Zach, how are you? I am doing all right, I guess. Okay, cool.

How can we help? Well, this is where the I guess part comes in. It looks like about a 90% chance that I'm going to end up divorced here soon, and I'm hoping Dr. John can help with some advice on how to just kind of stay focused because this is screwing with me a little bit, and I'm not performing well at work and stuff. So are you asking about... Okay, so back me out here. You said about 90%, and then I got sidetracked here.

So I'm assuming you're not into this? This isn't your idea? Nope. Okay, so what happened? The short version is that she struggles with borderline personality disorder and does not believe that she needs help. And she has just started making a bunch of ridiculous impulse decisions and then blaming me for the fact that nothing is working out and that we can't

afford the marriage counseling and stuff that we need. And she just finally get out. Okay. So, um, can't afford the marriage counseling and stuff that we need, and she just finally dipped out. Okay. So you say there's a 10% chance that this isn't going to happen. Is that a realistic percentage, or is that you just hanging on to hope? The latter. Okay. Is there attorneys involved yet?

Has she filed on you? She's not filed anything. If I'm being truthful, I bet that if this goes through, I'll probably end up having to pay for it when I finally get sick of waiting to just decide to move on myself. All right, so in this situation, here's the person you can deal with, you. And I can hear the bitterness dripping from your language, which I don't blame you. I'd be bitter too. I'd be frustrated and sad and upset and all that. But that is clouding all of your judgment, all of your decisions,

all the words that come out of your mouth, all the thoughts in your head, your inability to get up and go for a walk or a run in the morning, your work performance, everything. Okay? So you tell me you can't afford to go talk to somebody i'm telling you you can't afford not to figure it out okay call call some friends call a pastor call i'm not talking about her i'm talking about you okay this isn't about her right now this is about you because you can't control what she's doing and she stepped out on you okay do you hear what i'm saying yeah i know what you mean and i apologize if i started through this it happens when i get frustrated with situations like this

what i'm trying to say is like she is she was the reckless spender in our relationship i kept trying to wiggle between trying to budget for all of the help that we needed while trying to keep her happy with the impulse purchases she wanted to make. And I'm going to go see somebody because it sounds kind of bad, but now that she's walked out, I can afford to do so because I ended up having to spend on her reckless decisions. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I just told you, stop talking about her. And you immediately came back and started blaming her for other stuff. I'm sorry. No, don't be sorry. Just listen to how much this has poisoned your heart.

And the only thing on planet Earth you can control is your thoughts and your actions. And that's it. And that is a powerless, helpless feeling in these moments when someone you love has said, I don't love you anymore. I'm out of here. It's heartbreaking. It's devastating. And yet yet the only thing you can control is your thoughts and

your actions. So I'd make a phone call today and say, I'm not okay. Every minute of my life is venom and poison towards my wife. She's leaving me and I'm not okay anymore. And I'm using anger and rage and all these other tools to try to prop myself up through this heartbreak. And I need to look somebody in the eye and say, I'm not okay. That's what I mean. Okay. And so the language that you used, like when we started talking about the um you can afford counseling you circled back and said well now that she's out of the way you see what i'm doing instead of just going yeah i've

actually got the money now there's two different sets of language saying the exact same thing and um but that's just due to the that's just your pain you can we can hear the pain in your word choices and even in your voice tone. And that's what's throwing you. Because I'm going to guess, John, that if I were in this situation, I know what I would be doing. If I were losing focus, it would be because all I'm doing is replaying all of these tapes in my head over and over. And I should have said, and what if I had done this? And I could have done that.

And then if she had done that, and I'd have said that. And all these ruminations all these things you're never really going to do these conversations you plan out they're never going to happen and you ruminate on them and play on them and play on them and play on them and play on them and play on them and all of a sudden the car's driving down the shoulder instead of the middle of the road that's exactly right and you hear the warning track and you go wait a minute wait a minute i'm not even driving and so zach real quick now that dave mentioned it i forgot one of the main reasons why i wanted to call and ask about this i drive a truck for a living i'm alone for three to four weeks at a time okay that's part of why i think this anger has caused me problems the way i realized that yeah yeah that makes sense and and i know enough about bipolar that a gap missing another person can be devastating to that.

So I bet if she was to call, she might be saying, hey, I've been missing my husband for months at a time for years over year over year. And why do I tell you that? Most of the time in these situations unless there's just an out of control abuse situation everybody's playing a role and so this vitriol, this anger this rage, all you're doing is poisoning yourself hoping it rubs off on her and it's not. It's killing you.

So breathe it out man. Stop having these imaginary conversations with her and go talk to somebody. And if you can't afford a counselor because people are listening and going I can't'd be nice find a couple of friends it goes back to that it demands a witness your heartbreak and your grief and your sadness you got to have other people you can say hey i'm not okay with and i don't need your advice i need you just to say man i'm so sorry i'll get the next round yeah as far as the money thing goes until you get through this process you're probably not going to make any traction on your finances

because, you know, it's expensive, it's distracting, and so you're in the middle of a hurricane, and when you're in the middle of a hurricane, you don't work the total money makeover baby steps. You push pause, and you pile up cash to get through the hurricane. And when the hurricane goes by and it's over, then we assess the damage and we start rebuilding from there. We push play again. We start working the baby steps.

And that's how you're going to do that as far as your finances go. Trevor is in Salt Lake City. Hi, Trevor. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, Dr. John. Thank you for taking my call. I'll try and give you a quick download here.

My wife and I are in baby step seven. And I just found out yesterday that the company I've been working for for eight years is going to be closing down the division that I work in in the next 12 to 18 months. Cool. What do you do for a living? A little bit of time. I work in manufacturing. What do you do for a living? I work in manufacturing. What do you do? For dental products. I'm a manager. You're a manufacturing manager. Okay. What do you make? Yes. Dental products. How much money do you make? Oh, sorry. $85,000 a year. Okay, cool. This opportunity for you to get a better job. Yeah. So the company is

shutting down the division that I work in. They are trying to reabsorb some of the people into other divisions of the company. I like the company. It's got a great culture and I want to stay there. My question is, should I just continue kind of doing what I've been doing with my finances or should I go into sort of a storm mode and just kind of save up some cash until I know things are stable again? What would your advice be? I think I would go get my new job. Yeah.

And I'd never skip a beat. Okay. Or at least be having conversations all over the place i mean don't get a job making 110 yeah and leave tomorrow as soon as you get that job okay why are you gonna why you don't you don't need to stay on the titanic as it goes down there's no this doesn't do anything for you it's not your boat so you wouldn't look at moving to other departments within the company. Unless it paid more. Okay. It wouldn't take a pay cut to stay with them.

They're not healthy. They're not doing well. Or if you were AIM-A player, they would have said, hey, we're closing the division, but you, we're having a meeting with you because we're making sure we keep you. Exactly. That would have happened. It didn't happen.

Yeah, human nature is that this thing always ends up with a pay cut. And I have often seen it when you decide otherwise, ending up a pay increase. But you need to decide otherwise and start planning now. Don't wait on this to sneak up on you. They've already told you it's coming. This is 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.