The Ramsey Show - App - My Girlfriend and I Aren't on the Same Page Financially (Hour 3)

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

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Starting point is 00:00:00 🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality and best-selling author, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. You jump in and we'll talk.
Starting point is 00:01:07 David is with us in Shreveport to start off this hour. Hi, David. How are you? I'm fantastic. How are you, sir? Better than I deserve. What's up? I am a 1099 contractor and have been for close to five years. And I've been trying to increase my opportunities in the same company. And I applied for a position that's still a 1099. And then they sent me back a, uh, a disclosure or non-disclosure agreement, as well as a statement in there that, uh, should anything ever go on, I would not be able to speak in any way negative about the company or anyone in the company forever, not just like in a non-disclosure or a non-compete clause or anything like that, but forever.
Starting point is 00:01:48 And so I kind of got some red flags on that one, and I'm trying to figure out if this is something that I should even try and consider to pursue or if this is something that just sounds way too out there or too much to be asking of somebody to not be able to talk freely about something that would happen years down the road. That's a fascinating question. Yeah. Well, I don't know why you would want the freedom to bash somebody. I was just thinking, yeah. I mean, you know, especially you've been there five years and you haven't seen anything that
Starting point is 00:02:22 needs bashing because you're signing up for a longer trip, right? Yes, sir. So you don't have any indication that this is a bunch of crazy people or something. And so, you know. And if a legal matter ever came up, those are excluded out of these things. Not a legal matter, a criminal matter. Yeah. Yeah, a legal matter would not be excluded but a criminal if someone uh is involved in uh you know
Starting point is 00:02:46 i don't know some kind of uh i'm trying to think i don't drug use or stealing money or something or extortion yeah you would that's um you know criminal is separate from civil and nda cannot cover criminal john's right um so i i don't know if i'm just trying to put my feet in your moccasins and walking through it for a minute. Here's the thing. I don't reserve the right. I don't have a tendency to trash people that I've worked with. I guess I have, too. I've trashed a few.
Starting point is 00:03:23 Not employers, but vendors that misbehaved i've done that um you know for instance i think marriott sucks as an example so um you know and uh so i you know what do you what do you there's something like i was planning that i just didn't know what to do with it i didn't yeah yeah it's just it it bothered you i'm just trying yeah i it's not that you're planning it but i'm trying to think of what situation you would be in where you here's the thing in our i'll tell you what's running through my mind and i'm a little bit of the victim of this to say the least um and that is is that uh everybody in our culture today seems to think they're an activist and it's like your job to straighten
Starting point is 00:04:05 everybody else's life out on social media and that's what they're trying to prevent and like you know your your job is to uh publicly reprimand your employer um which if you do that here i'll fire your butt because if you're going to pee in a cereal and it doesn't taste bad, I'm going to fire you. OK, I pay you money to feed your family. And if you're going to run me down, you know, on social media or your wife is, I'm going to fire your little stupid activist butt and you deserve to be fired. And so that's what's running through my mind, honestly. And I'm trying to think of and you should should be fired i mean you're disloyal you're a horrible employee you know and uh when you tear down the very place that's giving you
Starting point is 00:04:51 money that's ridiculous and so you you're not the kind of guy who's going to do that but this these are the kinds of things that are probably running through their mind they run through my mind too uh because i've i've had to do that um and i'll i'll look to future you david and tell you in the past when i have talked negatively about a former employer the only negativity that gets spread around is on me yeah yeah it looks it looks foolish and stupid and small. And so, man, if you really have a really ugly negative experience and 10 years from now someone asks you, you can say, yeah, I used to work there. I don't like to talk about it. People will get the message, right? And you don't have to go into gory details and all that nonsense.
Starting point is 00:05:39 It just makes you look small. Yeah, that's true. That's true. I don't think you're losing anything unless your intention is to be some kind of an activist, which I wouldn't support you in doing that. No, that's not my intention at all. I didn't hear that. I didn't. Your spirit's pretty clear in your voice.
Starting point is 00:05:58 I hear it clearly. So, yeah, I don't see a problem with it. You know, I'm trying to think of times that someone has presented an NDA to me. I signed an NDA when a good friend of mine brought me the idea for the Total Money Makeover. And he wanted, before he disclosed the idea of that book to me, he wanted to meet. And I said, dude, I'm not going to steal it. And, you know, if the idea is good we're gonna do it so that's fine i signed it i didn't think anything about it and obviously it's
Starting point is 00:06:29 turned out i've sold eight nine million copies of that book so it turned out to be a good nda a good idea and i protected him on the idea he made a lot of money we made a lot of money everybody's been a lot got a lot of help so that's when i did sign one um and i've signed him when i've left you signed one when you came to work here. But I was a high-level leader. And there's trade secrets behind closed doors. There's attitudes behind closed doors. All kinds of just private stuff.
Starting point is 00:06:53 Proprietary information. Yeah, and that kind of stuff. But I'm trying to think when I have – oh, I'll tell you when I've been unwilling to sign an NDA. Is if somebody just calls and asks for a meeting here, and I've never heard of them, them and I don't know them and they've got this idea that they want to bring us and I just go you know I don't really want to know about your idea because ideas are a dime a dozen people who can pull them off for zero and so uh there's not many and so I don't I don't really want to get into because we've got people all over this building with ideas and we may have already had the idea that you're bringing in here so I don't want to convolute the waters with that.
Starting point is 00:07:26 So that's a time that I've not done it because I get people pouring ideas across our desks every day around here inside the building. We don't have to do that. And we're not known for stealing ideas in the marketplace. So, you know, that's the other thing. So, yeah, I would sign i yeah i would sign it i would sign it unless you've got something in that company that you think there's something bad going on and they're just trying to trap you in a sense but you've been there five years you wouldn't be ready to continue the relationship if you thought that so that's an interesting question it gives me pause and makes
Starting point is 00:08:02 me want to stop and think. Yeah. Yeah, so. And if you see something that you don't like, that's when you've got to be the grown-up and say, I'm out. Yeah. Or I'm going to stay. Tap out. And you all have a choice, right? I don't know. You know, I had a company I was working for when I was in my 20s, and they said, this is the way it's going to be.
Starting point is 00:08:19 And I said, oh, no, it's not. And they said, yes, it is. And I said, no, it's not. I don't work here anymore. Yeah, have a great afternoon. It's America. It's not Russia. Yeah. You yes, it is. And I said, no, it's not. I don't work here anymore. Yeah, have a great afternoon. It's America. It's not Russia. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:26 You know, and I don't have to be here anymore. And so, Johnny Paycheck moment, you know. This is The important than ever. While some circumstances can't be controlled, there are items within your budget you can take charge of, such as your health care costs. For nearly 40 years, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, has provided a budget-friendly means of sharing for medical bills when our members need it. Learn more by visiting chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Christian Health Care Ministries is a Ramsey trusted provider.
Starting point is 00:09:45 Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Ellen is in New Jersey. Hi, Ellen. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, how are you today? Better than I deserve. What's up? I was just curious. Me and my husband, we're trying to figure out what to do about our money because he's working at a sales shop and he's not paying as much as we were hoping to pay.
Starting point is 00:10:02 Your phone sucks. Can you speak directly into it? We're having trouble understanding you. Sure. Hang on. Let me see. It's really nice to hear. It's too loud.
Starting point is 00:10:12 Hold on. Okay. Is that better? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I'm sorry. Start again so maybe we can understand you now. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:10:22 My husband is an insurance salesman, and we're projected to make a certain amount of money but because of uh issues with his job and things we're not making enough um he has a bad history of like work history so we've been trying to repair it by keeping it jobs for a certain length of time but we're not really making enough money to make ends meet, so I'm not sure what we should do. So he's on straight commission and y'all are starving to death. Well, he has a little bit. He gets like $2,000 a month of, almost $2,000 a month of base pay.
Starting point is 00:11:00 So we can get that at least. Yes. But he's obviously not a good insurance salesman. No, unfortunately. Okay, so he does need another job. I don't care what his work history is. Yeah, when you say he has a bad work history, you're trying to repair it. What does that mean?
Starting point is 00:11:16 It means he's not staying on the job very long. Yeah, he had a history of not staying on the job very long. Why? The last few years we've been working on fixing that. Why? When he was working with his family, his family needed a lot of help. Why? Why? That's right. He'd get fired because his family needed a lot of help. You mean because he didn't go to work because he was helping his family?
Starting point is 00:11:42 Yeah. Okay. When did that stop? That stopped actually after he started dating me i started pushing him to work harder and he did start working a lot harder how long ago a whole lot since then um that's about 2000 and i'd say about 2018 it really started improving okay so he's held a job since 2018 fairly steadily? Yeah, he's held different jobs, but he's not been fired from any of them, and he's been steady working all the time.
Starting point is 00:12:13 So that he has been doing. Here's the deal. He's got to go get another job. He's got to get two or three of them, and he's not going to make a lot of money at the hourly wage, but he needs to start making some money. That's where you're at. And I know you'll have a dream right now of, hey, we're going to make a lot of money at the hourly wage, but he needs to start making some money. That's where you're at. And I know you'll have a dream right now of, hey, we're going to make this,
Starting point is 00:12:29 and this is going to be the job that bails him out of all the other bad jobs. That's not where you're at right now. You all got to eat. You're in an emergency. So he's got to go to Lowe's, and he's got to go drive Uber at night, and he's got to get up, and I don't think they have paper routes anymore.
Starting point is 00:12:42 He's got to find a morning job too, and he's going to be working three jobs, six days a week, seven days a week, and he's just got to get cracking. So, Ellen, you sound like you're taking care of a little boy to me. That's exactly right. Like he doesn't want to work much, like he's lazy and you're covering for him in this call.
Starting point is 00:13:05 That was the case originally, and it's not anymore i'm actually a state home mom so he's been doing most of the actual working i know but he's not he's not working it's not it's not working yeah that makes sense yeah like the reason he sucks as an insurance salesman is because he doesn't do it. He's not making sales. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so what you need to do, are you guys in a good church? Actually, we just joined a better church. Wonderful.
Starting point is 00:13:41 Our church was too far away, but now we're in a good one. Wonderful. Okay, I want him to plug in with some guys they're a little bit older than him and start to develop some relationships with some guys who have a high quality work ethic and who um have big goals for their lives and uh let him start hanging around with those guys because i think no one has ever taught him how to do those things right he's got some family challenges i get that um well i think his family that didn't allow him to work much so he had to stop and help them they don't work much that's what i'm saying so yeah any picture of what that looks like yeah it's like you know yeah but i also know guys like this that it's always a scheme it's the next thing yeah and well you look for when you're desperate you look for stupid ideas there you go you just need to work real hard for a long time
Starting point is 00:14:29 and don't don't don't jump on pipe dreams just go get something where you can hustle and grind and grind out some money and just be steady and be the tortoise and somebody will quit ahead of you and you'll get hey i need you to take this shift we're gonna make you assistant maybe that's how that'll work just just if you just, work, and work while you're at work and smile while you're at work and work while you're at work and smile while you're at work and you show up all the time and you do that, all of a sudden magic stuff starts happening. It just does.
Starting point is 00:14:55 I mean, it's just incredible what ends up happening because here's the thing. Most people don't show up and work at work. Or they show up at work and they're jerks to be around. Yeah. That's the magic. Yeah. Do your job and don't be an and they're jerks to be around. Yeah. That's the magic. Yeah. Do your job and don't be an idiot.
Starting point is 00:15:07 Ta-da. Make a million dollars. That's like the slogan. I'm going to write that book. Do your job and don't be an idiot. How about that? But, I mean, that's all of it. That's kind of it.
Starting point is 00:15:16 It's like, you know, if you just show up and care. Fun to be around. And care all day long and smile while you're there. Dad, come on, man. You're just like in the top percent right there before you did anything else you don't even have to be that good out of the bar for life gets so low just show up to the job that you just it's not just him we're talking about everybody now yes okay. Okay, so just, yeah. Be at work while you're at work.
Starting point is 00:15:49 Work real hard. It's a formula. And don't be an idiot. Get off of Facebook. You're supposed to be working. You're supposed to be working. Don't be watching YouTube cat videos. You're supposed to be working.
Starting point is 00:16:02 To every guy. Work while you're at work. Who has had a past where they've struggled and now you're in it and you've got a incredible woman like this by your side and this is going to be the job and you get in and you're trying to sell you're trying to sell and it's not working be honest be open about it and transition to something else don't think you're saving anybody by drowning your whole family and that's how people end up up, you know, two years later and $60,000 in secret credit card debt and nonsense like that. Scott's in Dallas, Texas. Hey, Scott, how are you?
Starting point is 00:16:32 I'm doing all right. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. How can we help? Okay, I got a question for you. I am 47 years old, and my fiance is 39 years old. We are getting married for the second time. Each of our second marriages next month.
Starting point is 00:16:53 We've been together for about six years. She's a super great woman and I'm very confident that this one's going to work for me. But we're at two ends of the spectrum when it comes to our finances. She is a 10-year professional. She's an audiologist, and she has about $1.9 million debt-free except for my house. So my question is, how do we attack it? Attack her debt? Attack what? Attack our debt.
Starting point is 00:17:41 It's not our debt until you're married. Once you're married, you write a check and you pay off our debt. I don't have that much cash. Why? You have $1.6 million. $1.9 million. You don't have $160,000? What's it in?
Starting point is 00:17:59 I have four paid-off rental properties. Mm-hmm. And I have about $375,000 of equity in my own home. And I've got about a half a million dollars in retirement and I am down to 60 grand in cash. And that's why I feel comfortable because I'm a small business owner, and I got $30,000 in my business, and I'm $30,000 in my emergency. I'd sell a rental property. Sell a rental property, man.
Starting point is 00:18:34 Be debt-free. After you're married. I'm not walking around with $160,000 in student loan debt and rental properties on the books. Comes with a package, brother. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Dayton is with us in Valparaiso, Indiana.
Starting point is 00:19:40 Hi, Dayton. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, my grandma passed away a couple years ago. Wait a minute. I'm having trouble hearing you. You're muffled. Can you speak directly into your phone, please? Yes. Is this better? Yes, sir.
Starting point is 00:19:55 Thank you. My grandmother passed away a couple years ago, and bless her heart and her heart work, she left both her children and children's children and inheritance. So basically an amount of $39,000 in her trust. We are allowed to receive half at age 25 and half at age 30. I turned 25 on Sunday and received my first half, but approached my mother as she is the one handling the money, to potentially move the second half into a non-zero percent interest rate checking account, something other than that that could possibly not have interest kick my butt over the next five years. Is your mother the trustee? Yes.
Starting point is 00:20:40 Okay. She's allowed to move it to even a money market account. Obviously, that's kind of out of the question. And I just wanted some guidance on some good, healthy, maybe FDIC-insured, you know, accounts that could maybe help hedge against that inflation. There's not any. Inflation has run an average of 4.2% for the last 78 years, and the interest rates on money markets and FDIC accounts are 1%, 1.5%. You're not going to hedge inflation with 1.5% versus 4%.
Starting point is 00:21:16 You would have to invest it greater than that to offset inflation. The good news is it's only for five more years? Yes. And it's only for five more years? Yes. And it's only $18,000? Yes. Okay. And so if you make, you know, 2% or 4% on $18,000, it does not change your life in five years, one way or the other here.
Starting point is 00:21:42 So really, I mean, if you want to get real technical about it, what she should do, but won't, is to put it in a good mutual fund, something even like an index fund, and just let it sit there for five years. It'll do a whole lot better. But it's not FDIC insured. And she's probably freaking out and doesn't want to do anything. She's probably super out and doesn't want to do anything. She's probably super, super conservative. It's humorous that $39,000, that small an amount, somebody bothered to set up a trust for it.
Starting point is 00:22:17 Yeah, well, she did. Yeah. It's done, though. But the lesson would be that's not worth screwing with. You can't mess up your entire life with $39,000. Yeah. I mean, you could have $39,000 worth of regret would be the worst-case scenario. But, you know, so, I mean, wow.
Starting point is 00:22:41 But, yeah, I would just ask mom to put it in an S&P 500 index fund and look at the track record on that over the past 50 years, and I think she could be very comfortable with that, or put it in a money market at 1%. You can get that at your local bank or credit union, and that would be FDIC or NCUA insured. You could get insurance on that. But you're not going to make one. You may be wanting some change or something,
Starting point is 00:23:01 which is not – there's nothing life-changing in these numbers. And you're going to go talk to your mom, and she's probably going to say no. Let it go. Forget it. wanting some change or something, which is not – there's nothing life-changing in these numbers. And you're going to go talk to your mom, and she's probably going to say no. Let it go. Forget it. Don't lose your relationship with your mom and be dramatic. Over 500 bucks. Over five years.
Starting point is 00:23:15 Yeah. It's just not enough money to – if it was $3.9 million, we can have some arguments about where this gets invested, okay, because you're starting to lose substantial money at that point. And it's not that i'm a snob or something like that i don't think it's just mathematically it the difference buys a biscuit right and she's wrapped up into this she's got different different hooks in this money because it's her mom and i'll just talk a lot of emotion around this deal i can tell because your grandmother put it there before she passed. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Nick is with us. Nick is in Houston, Texas. Hi, Nick. How are you?
Starting point is 00:23:56 Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. I'm doing great. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? We recently sold a house, and I'm trying to figure out what to do with the equity of the house. We have $60,000 from that house. I've been following you for the past three years. You've really changed our life. We just recently completed step number three. So I have a good six months' worth of income saved up.
Starting point is 00:24:24 And now comes step number four. I am 33. I haven't contributed anything to my retirement. My wife works from home. My company's been putting in money, even if we don't match or anything. Nick, do you guys own a house? We do. We own a house, yes. Okay, so this was a different property than you lived in. Correct. Okay.
Starting point is 00:24:50 That was our first house. This was our second house. Okay, cool, cool. Well, the baby steps tell you at baby step four to put 15% of your income into retirement. Have you heard that before? I have. So my question is I just started putting six percent into a rock 401k um but my
Starting point is 00:25:08 i'm trying to figure out that equity that we got from our first house what to do with that 60,000 you would put it on baby steps five and six because you're putting 15 of your income not six percent into retirement. Okay. You don't lump sum baby step four. Okay. So I shouldn't take that $60,000 from the house and just put the remaining? Nope. What's your household income?
Starting point is 00:25:40 It's $110,000. Okay. All right. So you need $17,000 a year going into something between you and your wife. And she has a 401k available. You don't have a retirement plan available at work? I do. I have a 401k available at work.
Starting point is 00:25:57 It's one of those funds that you pick a year, you're going to retire, and you contribute to that. Target dates, yeah. Okay. Do you still owe money on your mortgage? Yeah. Yeah, we have money on mortgage. We just got it. You have children?
Starting point is 00:26:10 The other part of that, we do. Yeah, we have three children. I have a 13-year-old, a 3-year-old, and a newborn. Wonderful. I would use some of this. I would sit down with your SmartVestor Pro. I would use some of your $60,000 towards setting up their colleges. You might do $10,000 each for fun.
Starting point is 00:26:26 My wife's mother just passed away this past year and left her some money. And that money is in a brokerage firm that's an inherited IRA. It's somewhere around $130,000 to $140,000. How much do you owe in your home? We owe $240,000 as a loan. You almost pay it off. So I guess my question is, because we have kids, shouldn't we take a portion of that and put it into 529s or something?
Starting point is 00:27:05 Yeah. So at least. Portion of the 60,000 from the house sale. Maybe step five is kids college. That's what I said. Just use some of it. Sit down with your SmartVestor Pro. Put 10 each aside, maybe in a 529 for each kid.
Starting point is 00:27:22 That puts 30 in there. As young as they are, they get you a good start and start doing some monthly on that in addition. And the SmartVestor Pro can help you calculate exactly how much you need to be doing to have a fully funded college fund for each kid based on their age. And then throw the rest of it at your mortgage. And when you get within reach of that inherited IRA and pay that mortgage off, I'd cash that IRA out, the inherited one, and pay that mortgage off. Now, I don't cash out normal IRAs or 401ks to do that at your age, but that inherited IRA has a 10-year rule on it anyway. You're required to pull a tenth of it out every year under the new law. And so as you pull it out, throw it at the mortgage.
Starting point is 00:27:56 Throw it at the pay taxes. Throw it at the mortgage. And then back to your baby step four, you need to get seventeen thousand dollars a year fifteen percent of 110 going into some combination of you and your wives and you're still using pronouns as if you two aren't married uh it's our money our house our retirement and our kids and our inheritance and our and we my wife inherited money so we have an inherited ira now it's not like she gets to set that over there on the side and you know that's not what that's not how this works don't over complicate this yeah just make it real clean real simple it's one pool
Starting point is 00:28:36 of money one percentage for the whole house and so if most of the retirement is in her name it doesn't matter you've got rights to it by marriage and by wills and everything else. So you need to always have a will. But, you know, let's get this smoothed out here. And the $60,000 gives you the day, Isaiah 66 9, I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born, says the Lord. John Wooden says, things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out. Travis is with us in Buffalo. Hi, Travis.
Starting point is 00:29:41 Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, Dr. John. How are you guys doing? Great. How can we help? Okay, so, well, me and my girlfriend have been going out for two and a half years, and we're living together, and well, when it comes to money, we're kind of she kind of does her thing, and i kind of do my thing on like i follow you guys on your steps and everything and like my question is like
Starting point is 00:30:17 how do i like not get her like to tell her to come on jump on board but like to understand like what i'm doing what are you doing um i'm pretty much i'm on baby step number two i'm no i wasn't i was i was being a little bit facetious like oh all right what's your what's your future with this woman? Like, I plan on marrying her in the next probably year or so. Does she plan on being married to you back? We have talked about it. I mean, that is definitely one of our future goals. Like, we also talked about kids and all that.
Starting point is 00:31:07 We do plan on having a future together and all that. To keep with my steps and everything else like that, I want her to understand how I deal with that. Does she not like it or she doesn't agree with it? Um, like she kind of does her own way of things. Like, like if she needs something, she'll go get it herself. And like, I've kind of been like on the front of, I don't know exactly if we should start working together or as like a team before marriage, like combining income and all that
Starting point is 00:31:55 or anything like that. How old are you? I'm 25. How old is she? She's 25 as well. Okay. All right. The problem you're having is it's hard to be sort of married.
Starting point is 00:32:11 Yeah. It's like being sort of pregnant. And you're trying to act like you're married in some ways and not act like you're married in other ways, and it's not working because it doesn't work. And so we see this all the time in couples that are shacked up. They have a very, very difficult time because it's legally and relationally unwise for you to combine everything, and yet you're trying to act like you're married, which would indicate that you would combine everything. And so I don't really know how to advise you well on this unless you just decided, okay, we're going to live in two separate places and date, and we're going to start talking about the value systems that we have, about saving money, about spending money, about debt, about our future, and what it would look like if we were to combine our households.
Starting point is 00:33:04 And if we were to get married, how are we going to make them one and on the same page and you can try that while you're living together but it's going to be very difficult as you've already discovered and so um you know i think you can you know that's probably the first step actually is you say look we cannot operate our lives for 40 years 50 years going forward the way they're operating now on two separate pages, on two separate planes. This is not a recipe for success. If we're going to have a future together, we're going to have to start figuring out how we're going to put our life together and what it's going to look like. And the wedding ceremony is not the joining it up. It's the life that you build intertwined with one another.
Starting point is 00:33:49 Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. In other words, you don't have to convince her of anything except that not being on the same page is a deal breaker. Because, dude, it's a deal breaker. It's the number one cause of divorce. Yeah. Like, for me, it was just, I felt like, like, I'm not meaning that as in, like, joint income. It was, like, because I was in, like, for me, it was, I was spending so much because we did the separation for a while and made that try to make it work but then i was like for me i was financially
Starting point is 00:34:26 spending too much on travel and food expenses and stuff like that yeah you're you're missing what we're saying you're you're trying to make this a math problem brother and this is not a math problem yeah this is a unity problem yeah this is the two of you don't see the future the same. Correct. And therefore, the future is not going to be together until you can see the future the same. And so when you have a conversation, it sounds like if we're going to move forward in this relationship and move towards marriage, then we're going to have to start talking about the four things that affect marriages, money, religion, in-laws, and kids. And if you can be in agreement on those four things in your pre-marriage state,
Starting point is 00:35:14 pre-marriage counseling, engagement period, those kinds of things, you can come into agreement. You don't have to have kids, but you've just got to say, I don't want six kids, or I want 10. Well, we got a problem. I think kids ought to be able to make up all their own decisions from the time they're three on. I don't. I think they ought to do what I say. Well, that's going to be a problem. I think my mother ought to be able to come over here and tell us what to do. Well, I think that's a problem. In-laws, kids, problems, money.
Starting point is 00:35:47 I think I ought to be able to spend whatever I want to spend no matter what. As long as I make money, it'll be my money, and you make money, and you take care of the rest of the house. Well, I don't think that's how we're going to do it. Problem. So you need to be in agreement on religion. I don't think there's a God. I'm sure there's a God, and I think people that don't think there's a God's an idiot well then that's a problem and so you know you need to be in agreement on marriage money in-laws and kids and your pre-marriage state otherwise you don't have a candidate for marriage you've had a fun roommate and a maybe a good compadre for the last
Starting point is 00:36:21 two years but you don't have someone to build an entire future with together i think i think you've got to go sit down and say where we want this thing if it worked out perfectly what would we want this to look like and reverse engineer it right now it sounds like brother you are just stumbling and tripping and i think i'll do this and i think we're going to do this but i'd like to do that Even your verbal pattern is very uncertain Travis. Yeah. It's like you have no certainty about where you're headed and so you need to sit down
Starting point is 00:36:52 and go if we're going to move forward in this or you could just languish in this you can choose that but you're asking us how to get on the same page and it's lay out what the page looks like on all of these things and go we need to start talking through these things if we're going to move forward. It's not just can we share the mustard.
Starting point is 00:37:12 That's going to be on my T-shirt. Yeah. Marriage. Can we share the mustard? Can we share the mustard? Because, you know, if you've got two things of mustard, that's what you have with a roommate. You've got two mustards. That's my mustard, your mustard.
Starting point is 00:37:22 Yes. Right there in the door of the refrigerator. And don't touch my mustard. Don't you remember college? Yeah. got two mustard that's my mustard your mustard yes and right there in the door of the refrigerator and don't touch my mustard i got you remember college yeah so that's dave's mustard don't mess with dave's mustard hey so i know you should probably be asking me me this question but you've done this for way longer than me so i came into marriage almost two decades ago with a very clear list of the things i wanted values i thought were were deal breakers for me things that were i was really firm on here's what i think about kids and probably the most recurring theme over the last two decades is i was wrong right i thought i wanted this many kids, and I thought...
Starting point is 00:38:05 As long as you're in agreement all along, I don't care. That we're going to solve this together. And you could get married saying, I want 10 kids, and five years later, the two of you have traveled the world, and you go, I think the two of us are looking at each other going, we want a chihuahua. Or you have kid one, and you're like, I'm out. I'm out. Tap out.
Starting point is 00:38:21 That one right there, that did it. That's it. That one right there, that did it for That second one, that did it for sure. But the key is we're going to make these decisions together. Yeah. Not yours and mine. It's ours. Not, you know, but you can't come in and go, you know, you get married going, I want 10 kids.
Starting point is 00:38:37 And then you go, I changed my mind unilaterally without discussing this with the other person. Yeah, it's not a showdown. That's right. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of Ramsey advice in their life?
Starting point is 00:39:09 Let them know about the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast. It's a quick hit of advice about life and money in under 10 minutes. Check out the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.

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