The Ramsey Show - App - Our Rock Collection Is Too Big For Our Apartment (Hour 2)

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where we help people win in their life, specifically their money, their work, and their relationships. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by my colleague and dear pal, George Campbell with the KKK-A-M-E-L. That's right.

888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. And we're excited to be with you. We always enjoy being together. We have a lot of fun sitting in here together. We actually sit next to each other in the office as well. Double blessing. That's what I call it.

And we enjoy helping people. George is here to help you with your money. I'm here to help you with your work issues. Those work and money issues go hand in hand. And so we want to help you win in those areas today. 888-825-5225. Let's go to Tim, who joins us now in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Tim, how can we help? Hello? Hello, Tim. You're live on the Ramsey Show. Alright, how are you guys? We're having a blast. How can we help?

I work in the automotive industry and my job's got affected by that. Is that due to the strike? Child support. Yeah, due to the strike. We're a supplier okay yep have you been laid off drowning not laid off but i was able to work overtime and that was keeping me somewhat afloat due to excessive uh child support okay and so the overtime pay has gone away? Yeah. Okay.

So what are you making now? Now it's, I haven't done the math yet. I just was told yesterday at the end of the day, and then today is the first day that my hours were cut. Okay, what do they cut down to? Eight hours a day, so a 40-hour week. I was working 50, 55 hours 55 hours before okay so we're still at 40 hours and that will cut your pay just by that hourly rate right okay and you have no idea what that could be it's been a while since i've looked at my monthly take-home, but I'm guessing that with this cut,

I'm going to be taking home about $450 a week after all of the stuff is taken out of it, garnished. Oh, for child support? Yeah. Okay. Because I have to pay like 70% of my income in child support right now. Wow. Okay. And what's your question today?

What can I do to help out? I don't know how long this is going to last. I've talked to my boss about it, and he's not sure either. He's just like, I'm just doing what I'm told. I'd have you work more if I could, but he can only do so much. Yeah, well, let me also say that we don't know how long the strike is going to last. Is it going to continue to expand right now? It's just kind of a partial rolling out version of the strike.

So nobody has any control over that. So you've got to take the initiative. And so you've got to find – you've already been working 55, 60 hours a week, if I heard you correctly. So guess what I'd be doing if I were you? I'd be working 55 to 60 hours a week. You've got 40 with your current employer. You've got some skill set. You've got some experience. You've got connections out there. And you've got to go make some money. And you've got to stay where you are to stay afloat. And then

you need to revisit things with your lawyer. It seems absurd to me. You're not making crazy money. I don't have enough money to pay him. He said, I'm not going to represent you anymore until you get me a lump sum and pay X amount per month. Do you need to contact the courts and the judge and say, hey, we need to relook at this based on my new income? Yeah. Call the judge directly. You don't need a lawyer to show the judge your income.

How do I do that? Well, the judge— You've got to recalculate it based on this new income. Yeah. One of the biggest misnomers in the world is that you've got to have a lawyer in this situation because you're dealing with the judge. You're not arguing a divorce case. You're not—you're just literally—the child support's already been established. The judge is the one that makes that decision. I'm just telling you what I would do. George,

step in here if I start to say something that's careless, but I would be on the phone with the clerk, office of the judge and go, look, here's my situation. I can't even afford a lawyer, but I can show everything. I got my utilities. I got all the bills. This is my situation. I just got my hours cut, you know, but it seems absurd that 70% of your income is going to child support. My ex-wife physically attacked me and then told the court that I had attacked her. And she basically has a kid, three of them, three daughters, just about full-time. That's why. Okay.

The only thing somewhat saving me is the fact that there is some sort of limit on wage garnishment. Otherwise, you know. Now, if you go make this side income, is that going to be garnished as well? If I make side income, it might be okay if I don't exceed what I was making before the strike started. But anything I make above that, that's then going to determine the new level of income. And if I voluntarily ever, ever voluntarily decrease my income, then the child support remains at the higher level. Man, I'm sorry to hear you're going through all this. Yeah, that's a little bit more complex. So yeah, when you start talking about accusations of abuse and stuff like that, that's a different ballgame. So strike what

I said from that. But I also would tell you that you have to make more income. Even if they take more of it, you still got to create margin for yourself. And then George, I think he's really got to figure out. So here's the deal. If I'm you, because I want to turn it over to George on the budget stuff, you got to cut, cut, cut, cut, cut everywhere you can. But I would tell you, you're a number one. As soon as you hang up is how do you get 15 more hours, at least keeping your income at the same level that you were at. George? Yeah. What kind of debt do you have right now, Tim? IRS, about $4,000. Attorney fees, about $26,000.

$26,000 in attorney fees? Right. Was this all from the divorce to now? Right. Apart from that, I would have no debt. But they were okay doing all of this without any payment? Yeah, and then last December was the last time we had a conversation. He was like, no, I need a bump sum, $3,000, and then something like $300 to $500 per month in order to continue representing you.

Sounds like you need a new lawyer, but you still owe this guy money. I still owe that guy money, and then I have nothing for a retainer for another guy. And you've got the IRS debt. Anything else? IRS lawyer, back child support, there's still about $4,500 left in the house. Man, we have got to clean this mess up and get you to a good foundation. You are underwater right now, and I wish we had time to dig into it all. But what we need to do is revisit all this with the courts and go, listen, here's my income, here's all of my debts.

I can't pay this child support going forward. We need to figure out a new plan. I've said that in court before, but they still said, well, it doesn't matter. You still owe this amount. Yeah, I actually think, George, in this situation, his focus is needing to be, let's go get more income, and you've got to get your budget under control. We've got to give him – I'd love another financial coach session for him. Let's go get more income. And you've got to get your budget under control. We've got to give him. I'd love another financial coach session for him.

Let's do it. To get everything under control, figure out where everything's going, where it's coming in. Hang on the line. We're going to get you a free session with one of our great financial coaches. And they can dig into some resources locally for you as well. Do what they tell you to do. They will build a map for you out of this. So sorry you're going through this. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by

my colleague, George Camel. We are here for you this hour, 888-825-5225 taking your questions about your money and your work situation many times those are very intertwined and we're happy that you're here 888-825-5225 the Ramsey Show question of the day is here and it's sponsored by our friends at Neighborly your hub for home services

take your home's efficiency and style to the next level with convenient solutions from Shelf Genie Window Genie which by the way was George's nickname in high school, and Glass Doctor. Download the Neighborly app now to find and schedule home service professionals near you. Thank you for that, Ken. Yes. Today's question comes from Leighton in Arizona. When do you decide to get a new-to-you car?

We're having no problems with any of them, but mine is almost at 150,000 miles. Do you wait until your car starts breaking down? Do you wait until it dips to a certain percentage of the original price or some other criteria? I feel like that question is like custom made for you. I love this question. You probably have a hack for this and I'm actually interested to know. I don't have a certain formula. I'm not a car guy. I put that in quotes because when people say they're car guys, all that means is they make really dumb decisions when it comes to their car buying, and they justify it because they're a car guy. I don't know.

I think car guys are going to take offense to that, George. I think car guy means— Now, there's broke car guys, and then there's Dave Ramsey, who's a car guy. So let me caveat it that not all car guys are created equal. Okay, I think there's wannabe car guys, which is your classification, which is you. And there's car guys who like, they like to get underneath the hood of a car. Oh, sure. They get the grease under the fingernails.

They understand things like, does it have a hemi? You see what I'm saying? Yes. That's a car guy but financially cars are depreciating assets some would call them liabilities and so this is not an investment so i'm a big fan of buying a new to you car so buying a used car unless you're a net worth millionaire that's when you can get a new car if you should so choose and at that point drive it to the wheels fall off if you want to get the maximum roi

so she's saying hey it's at 150 000 miles do i wait until it's breaking down uh you don't have to wait until it starts breaking down but i would set up a car sinking fund i like that what that means is in your budget you set aside a certain amount every single month let's call it 200 that's 2400 bucks a year and in two years that's almost five grand. In four years, it's almost 10 grand. And so over the years, as you drive this car, which most cars will go way longer than we allow them to, Ken, most people think, I got to get it. It's been four years. It's like an iPhone now. Got to get a new car, Ken. I've had this one for four years. It's starting to smell a little bit. Get it detailed. I promise you a professional detail for a hundred bucks

will make you go, oh, I got a brand got a brand new car stop letting your kids throw the french fries in the floor there you go i mean there's things we can do here so and 150 000 miles depending on the car is not a lot of miles right but i think you could see the handwriting on the wall so i'm jumping into where you're at here going all right if it's got 150 000 miles but it's in really good shape uh and i know i can get probably two more years out of it, three more years without a lot of issues. Then I'm starting the sinking fund to your point. And maybe I sell it once I get the replacement fund where I need it to be so that I get the maximum money for it. Yes. So there's that to take. Most of the depreciation has already happened

when you had 150,000 miles. And so if you're going to sell a car, you want to do it before it hits that hundred mark. That's where people start to get And so if you're going to sell a car, you want to do it before it hits that 100 mark. That's where people start to get spooked that it's going to have all kinds of issues. But if this is a Honda or a Toyota, I think it could go 300,000 miles. I just checked the mileage on my car. I'm sitting at 181,000,

and I'm going to ride that thing till... Yeah, but it's a Tesla. Yeah. Miles don't matter on those things. That's the thing. They can go up 500 matter on those things. That's the thing. They can go up, you know, 500,000 or more. It's the battery. So all that to say, I don't see miles as an indication necessarily, depending on the car.

I like it. But I would, you know, you can get an inspection on it. And if you start to see things start breaking down, I'd get that sinking fund up and going so that you are ready when that car does break down. Number one, you have the repairs fund going with your emergency fund, but also have a sinking fund ready for you to buy a new-to-you car. That's a great question, though. Yeah, thank you for the question.

Isaac is up next in Columbus, Ohio. Isaac, how can we help? Hi. So I have a question. So a little back story here. So my wife and I just got married two weeks ago today. Whoa! Very exciting.

Oh, yeah. Thank you. So we have a little bit of debt between ourselves. She had to get a car about a year ago. With her trade-in and everything, that was about $8,000. And then I think her car car right now before interest is uh 18 000 my car is a little older um my car pay payment will be eight about 8 500 um to pay off um not including the interest so we've got about two more years on that um expected um and then a couple thousand in credit card debts aside from that we're we don't have any other debts, no student loans. We don't have a mortgage yet. We're wanting to buy a house, and that's our largest goal. We want to be established in our first home before we start having children.

We currently live in a one-bedroom apartment, and we're kind of busting out of the walls. We're not minimalists by any means. Okay, hold on a second. Hold on a second. Yes. I want to set some expectations for you, my young friend. It's just you and the wife. There's no way you're busting out. It is.

Unless it's a cardboard box, you're not busting out of it. You know what I mean? Sure. Do you have like seven cats or anything weird? No, we actually don't have any pets because our apartment has a crazy $400 pet deposit. Okay, good. But you're not busting out.

You just have too much crap. You have to get rid of your crap, dude. Go to Goodwill. We are collectors, for sure. Well, then, okay, but here's the point. The reason I jumped in here, I want to get you back on pace, but this is the kind of stuff that pushes you to make bad financial decisions on a house. It's just you and your wife.

Get rid of all of her stuff to animals or something, whatever's going on. What are you collecting? I don't understand how you guys are busting out of a one bedroom apartment. Well, it's actually kind of funny. So we,

we, we're like a geology and stuff like that. And we like artifacts like, uh, just like crystals and like arrowheads and just natural stuff like that. So we've got shelves of it, but we're trying to downsize. We give stuff away to people who like the similar stuff. We give it away as gifts so we can kind of like maintain a healthy amount without hoarding.

Yeah, I was going to say, what's a healthy amount of arrowheads? I mean, how many arrowheads can one person have? We got to slow your roll with the rock collection because we got a pile of dead to clean up. Now's not the time to be buying rocks. Sure. Yeah, no, we're not really doing that. We're mainly just going out on, going on trails and in rivers and stuff and stuff will be fine. Okay, I'll tell you what you need to do.

That's good. Well, but I'm going to tell you to stop collecting rocks and arrowheads and start working. Extra jobs. Yeah, and that's the thing. So for my job, I'm a home health aide, and I live in the position. So three days a week, I'm not home, and my base hours is 72 hours a week. Oh, okay. I don't know how you have time to find arrowheads with that schedule.

You're not in the apartment long enough to hate it. It's downtime. Okay. What do you make? We're barely there. My wife is in the transitional period of her new job, so she just got hired. She starts the 23rd of this month. Awesome. Yeah, so she's going to be making take-home estimated about $700, $800 a week.

I do about $900 to $1,000 depending on overtime. Okay, so what would be your monthly take-home pay between the two of you starting in a few weeks? Between the two of us, it would be expected to be around $600 to $6,300. Awesome. That's great news. So then the question becomes, how quickly can we pay off these cars and the credit cards making $6,300 if we're doing nothing but focused on paying off debt? 15 months maybe just absolutely saving everything we could, paying things as we go along just being absolutely crazy with saving because we didn't want to put anything on the

credit card. In fact because of how crazy we did it, I wish we had had more savings by the time it was done. Do you have any right now? Yes we have about $2,300 in cash,

$1,300 in cash, and about $1,100 in our savings account. Okay, you have your baby step one, starter emergency fund. The rest of this money needs to go towards paying off this debt. Do the debt snowball, smallest to largest.

Get on a budget. We're not doing anything except paying off this debt. No rock collecting, No arrowhead collecting. Nothing, man. Bust it. You got this. Good stuff. Thank you, George.

More coming up right after this. This is The Ramsey Show. All right, America. We're here to help you win in your money, your work, and your relationships. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell is with me today. 888-825-5225 is the number for you to jump in.

Let's go to Seattle, Washington. Sandra is on the line. Sandra, how can we help? Hi, I'm seeking wisdom. So I have two questions. The first one is, when should I sell my house? And the second is, when should my husband find a job he enjoys within the field he's in or call it good and go back to school? So I'm going to throw some numbers at you. We bring home together $125,000 a year.

Seventy-four of that is myself. The rest is my husband. We have $30,000, a little over $30,200 in debt. Fifteen hundred of that is consumer debt. Eighty-seven hundred of that is consumer debt. $8,700 of that is student loan. And $20 of that is a loan that my mom gave me to put down towards the house that i live in i think that i can get about 400 for it i owe 200 um so my initial thought was sell the house list it uh january sell it put that money into a bond or some type of savings. And then while we, so let me back up a little bit. We are aiming to pay off all the debt, including my mom, by early March, latest April. And so my thought was this would be the first time we ever have money in our hands.

It would give us a chance to restart, to let him really find a career that he enjoys, go to renting, and we don't have anything really holding us down. But I don't know if that's wise just because we're not drowning right now. What's your reason for selling the house? Because it's not your consumer debt. No, so the house the neighborhood is going to crap there was there was a drive-by shooting right down the street it's like our street is fine it's everything around us is just there's a lot how far outside of seattle would

you need to go to find a safe neighborhood so i'm not in Seattle. I'm in, I'm about three hours away in, in, uh, Tri-Cities, but, um, I guess to, to be safer, I would actually in a safer neighborhood, I would be closer to my job. Um, and I mean, the houses that we're looking at in that area are about 500. Um we were thinking... So let's jump in here for a second. So if I were in your situation and the neighborhood around me was going to crap, I would be getting out of Dodge. And the fact that you've got some equity in this home right now is great. So you don't have to sell it to clean up the debt. I like the fact that with your husband's, I mean, he's still got some great income potential.

So do you. And the fact that you're already on track to pay off this consumer debt in just about six months or less, that's great. Are you saying you'd pay that off if you sold the house or regardless? No, no, no. Regardless, the house is so old and it's breaking down. Like I'm driving beaters. My HVAC is going out. Sell it.

Okay. So then that would lead to the next question. So is it stupid for us to let that money sit for two years while he tries to figure out what he wants to do for a career? Like is that unwise? I don't think it's going to be two years. I'm not sure where you're pulling that number. But no, it's not unwise on the surface of it.

Well, number one, you're going to take the equity, whatever the profits you get from the sale of this house, and you're going to pay off the debt, which is $30K. You need an emergency fund, which is probably another $20K, $25K. So all of a sudden, you've got $100K that's sitting in a high-yield savings account, parked for your future home purchase. I'm going to call it a down payment fund for a future home. Maybe you guys rent for a year, keep saving up, get yourself in a good financial spot. He gets the new job.

Great. Now we're ready to purchase a new home. And the question I've got is, are you guys wanting to stay in Washington State? Or as he's looking for this career, are you guys open to going anywhere? We're starting to open our minds to going anywhere. We just, like, it's taboo in our family. Well, I don't, I get that, but you're going to end up resenting. It's a cultural difference. Yes. Yeah, but. I will resent them. Yeah. So we make that decision now that we're going to go where we feel led to go. Yeah, yeah. All right. So, but let's

keep it to the finance piece. I'd sell the house. George just told you what we would do next. You, you, you immediately finished baby step two instantaneously upon the account getting hit with your, your money left over after you sold the home. And now you've got the emergency fund instantaneously. Now we put the rest of the money in a high deal savings account and your husband and your husband is getting after it. And I'll give him some great resources. I'll give him my Get Clear Work Assessment today, my gift to you. And he's going to know maybe for the first time in his life what he's really good at doing, what he loves to do, and the results that motivate him. That's where the ideas come from as he begins to pick his professional path.

And so then he figures out, all right, I know what I want to do, why I want to do it, where I can do it. Now, how do I get qualified for it? That's the next part in the decision process. Hopefully, he doesn't have to go back to school. But if he does, you guys cash flow it. Maybe he can get by with some certifications or qualifications. I announced on my show today, Walmart just went public, one of the next big companies, one of the latest rather, to say that they're moving a lot of corporate jobs into a situation where you don't need a degree. So as this economy evolves, a degree, I'm just going to put this out there really quick. If it's not the only way or the best way for your husband to get qualified to do what he wants to do, don't assume that college or degree is necessary.

Can we start there? Yeah. No, that sounds – I guess my concern is – so he's a mechanical engineer, and he's, like, talking about going to teaching. So that's the other reason for – I mean, that's a big drop, you know, from the 125 that we're at right now. Well, what's he – you're making 74, we're at right now. Well, you're making $74,000. He's making $50,000. He's making $50,000.

Well, he's not making a lot of money for a mechanical engineer. In fact, I would say he's at the bottom. So if he wants to be a teacher, well, I just want to operate with facts. Yes, yes. The median salary for a teacher in the United States right now is around $63,000, give or take. It may be 61 last time I checked, but it's somewhere in that range. So that's not a drop for him.

Yeah. And so let me also say this. If he wants to think about teaching, he needs to hang out with some people that are teaching in the spaces that he thinks he wants to teach. Is it higher ed? Is it K through 12? He needs to spend some time with people that are doing that and figure that he thinks he wants to teach. Is it higher ed? Is it K through 12? He needs to spend some time with people that are doing that and figure out if, in fact, that's what he wants to do.

Okay. All right? That's very important. But I think you guys know what we want you to do financially. This is pretty straightforward. But for him, going forward, it's what does he want to do? Let's get around people that are doing that and let's figure out after i've talked to them and i've heard the good the bad and the ugly do i still want to do that

because i the america needs more teachers but i will tell you that america needs to fix the classroom situation so that we don't have the teachers that are leaving at the level that they're leaving right now it's a four alarm dumpster fire. And so before you go into teaching, he needs to know what he's dealing with. It's not the teacher's fault, by the way, but it is an increasingly tough environment. So I want him to be sure that that's what he wants to do. Yeah, no, me too. I mean, he worked as a para when he was doing his undergrad, but I don't know if that's enough experience for him. Yeah, no, I think what you're saying is perfect. I think that would be very wise for him.

Yeah, you asked for wisdom. That's about the wisest thing he can do. Before he picks a new path, sit, shadow. Sit with people that are doing it. Shadow them. Get a good look, or else it's just this romanticized idea. And he has no idea. You know, I want to sit with a teacher at the end of the day who's had one of the worst days of their life and go, why was it awful? And then I want to know, am I willing to do that? And if the answer is yes, ding, ding, ding, we got a winner. So I really appreciate the question, but that's financially told you what to do. I would love for them to move quickly on this because, by the way, George, this will take the financial stress out of the decision. Oh, 100 percent. He's not going backwards if he goes into teaching. Not right now. Yeah, we'll get that income back up in no time and you're going to continue to make more money.

So I'd make the necessary repairs you need to make on this house to sell it, to get what you need for it. And I'd get rid of this debt, get yourself in a good financial spot, and we can work on his career from there. Yeah. Good stuff. Hang on the line. We'll get you the get clear assessment for your husband. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell joins me. The phone number is 888-825-5225. All right, George. Who needs to call us today? We've got a lot of new people all the time, and this idea of a call-in show is intimidating for some people. So what kind of calls do you think you want to take?

This is the day to call. I think you and I are the least intimidating bunch of guys you could run into in an alleyway. By the way, the studio audience is also validating this. I mean, who's going to be scared to talk to us? Look at us. We're not big men, number one. I take offense to that. You do? I never said it wasn't true. I just said I take offense to it. I'm fine

being just an average-sized guy. I'm okay with it. We have giant personalities. That's true. Well, there's a lot of people out there, Ken, because I get these DMs on Instagram all the time, and people say, hey, I need help, and I go, call the show. I can't help you over a DM. It's not a good format. Yeah, they'll call me up and go, Ken, listen, I'm in a situation here where my boss is doing this.

I feel like I'm being overlooked. I've got a promotion over here, blah, blah, and they give me all these details. I can't answer that in a DM. We have to have the back and forth. It's too much thumbs. And so here's the deal. Don't give Ken arthritis. Today's We have to have the back and forth. Too much thumbs. And so here's the deal. Today's the day.

It's a free call. Are you aware of this? A toll-free number, George? If times get tough, we could start charging. We could. 888-825-5225 is the number. You got a work question. You feel like you're stuck.

You feel confused. I don't know what I want to do with my life. I want to pivot. I want to do with my life. I want to pivot. I want to make more money. Is starting a job, is starting a company the way to get out of debt? Anything related to that, George will take any of the budgeting questions. Can we do something fun? Next person that calls in with a career question gets your Get Clear assessment for free. How about that?

In fact, we'll go above and beyond that. We'll also give them the increase your income bundle. The whole thing? So you get my book, From Paycheck to Purpose. You get the assessment. You get clear work assessment. I'm calling the show right now to get this. You get the get hired course.

I have a whole course. There's a lady out there now. She's trying to call in. You can't call in from the lobby. That's cheating. The lobby doesn't count. I'll just give it to you because I'm nice, all right? Because you're so nice out there.

All right. So that's fun. What a fun crowd. I thought you were going to you because I'm nice, all right? Because you're so nice out there. All right, so that's fun. I thought you were going to say a fun topic. No. Like we should say we're going to take calls on this. No, that feels risky. All right. Too dicey. But let's get to the calls, Ken.

Speaking of which, people are waiting. Now the phones are lighting up. That's all we had to say is that we were going to be nice. Scott is on the line in Indianapolis. Scott, how can we help? George, Ken, thanks for taking the call. I'm intimidated by you guys, but I don't have a work question, so I guess I slunk the test. I'll figure out something to give you.

No, I'll tell you what. I'm going to think of something while George answers your finance question. I'm going to come up with something to give away. All right, guys. So I really have kind of two issues going on side by side. I have a wife. I'm trying to come up with something to help her join me on managing her budget. Right now, she's kind of refusing to get involved. And along those same lines, we have a large purchase we're considering. It's expensive and time critical and really be a good time to get on the same page, and we're not really. Who wants to make this purchase? We both do.

Okay. What is the purchase? Can you tell us? I mean, I'm 50, she's 40, and we want another kid. We want to purchase a kid. Whoa. We need a little help doing it. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

And the time has taken. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you joking when you say purchase a kid? No, I'm using IVF. Oh, okay. I mean, I had to ask. It threw me off. I was, whew.

Okay. So where are you guys at financially today? As it stands, do you have any debt? And what's your income? The only debt we have, we're Davis, so we do things a little different. No mortgage, no payments. We've been married for two years. I brought in the debt of about $18,000. That's down from $100,000, and that was medical bills from my previous wife. Okay, so you still have the medical bills? Yes. Anything else? No. Okay. And what's the household income?

Combined, we make about the same. We're doing about $9,000 a month. Awesome. Okay. That's a great shovel. So we can clean up this medical debt quickly. Do you have an emergency fund? Yes. Okay. So you're right on the Dave-ish part, and you're trying to get her on board. What is the current hesitation on her part? Well, just a little background. She was raised poor family. Her previous marriage was he was an overspender, and she had to manage the books. I managed the books in my marriage, so I thought it would be kind of a great combination coming together.

I made the mistake of saying, well, since you've never had money, I'll let you keep your income in a separate account. Oh, boy. Yeah. So you guys currently don't have combined bank accounts? Right. And it's because of two previous marriages, there was financial trauma that happened in various ways, it sounds like. Right.

So there's a very kind of scarcity mentality from her upbringing plus the financial abuse that she experienced in her previous marriage so she's coming to the table with a lot of financial baggage that we have to get to the root of and do you feel like you're triggering a lot of this when you're talking hey i'm going to manage this here's what we're going to do we're going to get on the budget and she's starting to get a little skittish about the whole thing yeah it, it's probably at that point where I'm, you know, aggressively trying to get her involved. And, you know, it's probably, it's pushing her away, I think. Well, what is her longing? Is she wanting a child? Is that,

what's the real why behind, why should she get on this budget? What's in it for her? Yeah, that's, yeah, then that's what I've been trying to actually use is, you know, we've got this, we don't really have the money for it, but if, you know, we work together on this, you know, and I've thrown out a couple offers as far as, you know, if she gets paid for her summer work or I get, you know, end of year bonus, you know, we can go ahead and use that money for it. The chance of success is only 25%. So obviously I'm a little reluctant with those odds to even go into this venture. I'm willing to, you know.

All right, let's talk about the relationship part. So obviously you're not on the same page and I'm guessing that you've said to her multiple times, I want us to combine income uh combined bank accounts and all this and work together has she just said full stop no way I'm not interested yes so it's non-negotiable to this point she said no no thanks yes all right how bad does she want a child at 40? Badly. And you've told her, we don't have the money to afford it. What does she say to that?

I think she's willing to go into debt for that, and that's where I've kind of said, we need to see a couple things first before we do that. Okay, and how'd that go over? I think she's just driven to, you know, she wants to try for another child. Okay. Let me read between the lines. So she said, no, you said we need to combine our incomes, finances, all this. She said, nope. Then she said, I want a baby. And you said, okay, but we don't have the money so we need to do this this and this and

her reply was i don't care i want the baby am i i'm not trying to make you uncomfortable but this is important is that what i'm hearing she's like thanks but no thanks we're doing it yes my friend this is like you guys are misaligned on core financial values well this is going to wreck your relationship. I want you to fast forward for 30 seconds. You go ahead and give in because she's dug in. And so we either come to a compromise of what we both want. She wants the baby.

You want to pay cash for it. We compromise on that, or we don't move forward on this. That's my position, and it ought to be your position. Because if you give in, and this isn't about right or wrong, and it doesn't work, which there's a 75% chance it doesn't work. I'm hoping for the best. My wife and I went through it. It did not work for us. So I'm speaking from a place of intimate knowledge of the situation. We paid cash. You will resent her tremendously. And I also got news for you. She'll probably want to try again. Now, you think about that future, because I think this is a difficult conversation, and probably with a marriage counselor or a pastor. That, because I think this is a difficult conversation, and probably with a marriage counselor or a pastor.

That's what I think this is. Yeah, I've listened to the show enough where I think that's probably what I was thinking the advice was going to be. Well, this is just such an emotionally charged conversation, because we're not just talking about a frivolous purchase of a pool. Okay, This is our family we're talking about. So Scott, hang on the line. I'm going to do my best effort to get you guys on the same page by gifting you one year of Financial Peace University. Have her watch all the lessons. Just have her say, hey, all I'm asking is that you sit down and watch these lessons with me. And I'm also going to give you every dollar premium to make budgeting even easier. And what you're going to do, it's not I'm handling it or you're handling it. We're going to look at this together and craft a plan to help us create this future, both financially and for our family. So hang on the line. We'll

give you those resources. Good stuff, George. Good hour. Thank you, America, for listening. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, George Campbell here. If you love the show and you want a deeper dive on your money journey, we've got a weekly newsletter that gives you helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to RamseySolutions.com today to sign up for the newsletter. Again, that's RamseySolutions.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.