The Ramsey Show - App - Should I Take a Job That Violates My Non-Compete? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: January 31, 2022

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. I'm your host, George Campbell, joined today by Dr. John Deloney. Open phones this hour, 888-825-5225. You call us up, we'll talk about whatever is on your mind. Michael kicks off this hour in Houston, Texas. Michael, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Thank you. How are you guys doing today? Great. How can we help? Well, just trying Just trying to navigate a situation with work. I had someone from my personal network approach me with an opportunity where I was offered a consulting gig for a startup company, mid-sized company. And I'm just concerned it might compete with my current work. I'm currently a valuation analyst in finance. So I just wanted to get sort of a game plan on how to approach the situation,

where to go from here, because it seems like a really great opportunity I'd love to leap into and, you know, would love to take advantage. It's sort of where I would like to be in my career at some point, working with small businesses and sort of where I would like to be in my career at some point, working with small businesses and sort of in the venture capital space. So I'd love to get y'all's advice. Do you have a non-compete with your current employer? Yes, yes I do. Do you have a good relationship with your leader with the supervisor um not i mean not you know we don't

go get beers after work but i mean if uh if i approached him about it i mean i think he's you know a decent one not a very let me let me tell you what's what's here's a live a live example here so i've i've got a non-compete too, so I just can't quit and go work for somebody else. And whenever I take speaking gig or go do some event for somebody or something, that funnels through Ramsey Solutions, and I get a piece of that.

And Dave and the team get a piece of that. I was approached by a company to join their board as they create products as an expert on their board and so that comes with equity stake in the company it comes with several things right and the first thing i did was i just went and called my boss and said hey this isn't in our my contract this is't in our agreement. This is something new. The spirit of my contract is they never would have known about me had I not been on this platform. And so it seems right that we work together on this. And at the same time, it's not on my contract, so y'all can tell me.

So I'm telling you that to tell you a cool opportunity came up that never in a million years I thought was going to happen in this particular space and the first thing i did was i went and sat down with my boss and said hey here's what i agreed to here's what we this falls into space between what our agreement was how do we how do we figure this out and so i'm i'm wondering why you don't feel like you can go have that conversation unless you're trying to do something squirrely and try to figure out a way that you can do this off book and not tell anybody. Absolutely. Yeah, no. And that's what I wanted to avoid because, I mean, it's a situation where,

I mean, this certainly is where I'd like to go in my career. I'd like to go towards it. But, you know, I got to do it in a way that, you know, is legit. And, you know, I mean, at some point, you know, if I get any income off of this, it shows up on my, you know, is, is legit. And, you know, I mean, at some point, you know, if I get any income off of this, it shows up on my, you know, on my tax return and, you know, any, they can see that. And, and, you know, at some point we'll start, they would ask it, Hey, what's, what's going on here? So I, I, well, just on like a background check for, you know for for because sometimes we you know are offered to switch positions and on that they do background checks for so what's the nature of the non-compete have you looked into it and actually you know looked at the contract you signed i have and in the nature of the contract is such that um it that there are two clauses in it.

Number one, specifically saying, hey, if you enter into any, I mean, it's a direct, if you enter in a direct competition with, you know, with let's call it the company, the company being valuation services, financial services, investment banking, so on and so forth. If you enter into an agreement or do something that competes directly with that, that violates this contract. And then there's another clause in there for solicitation of clients and prospects where they say, hey, if there's an existing client that you work with, that's a no-go. And if there's a prospect that, you know, you go forward and you present them a formal business presentation, you give them a fee quote or services within a certain period of employment, 12 months, 18 months, 18 months for current current clients and then 12 months for a prospect.

Um, so what I'm hearing is if you do this, you are in direct violation of the non-compete that you signed, right? Yeah. What's your question? And I haven't entered in, to be clear, I haven't entered into this. This is just brought to me. Yeah. This is something that's incredibly interesting and it, and it feels like a right step.

I mean, here's the thing. There could be severe consequences. We are not lawyers, for good reason, but there could be injunctions. There could be monetary penalties. I mean, this could be a nightmare for you, and you think this might be the dream step, and it could be in a different world, but now man if you did this thing you could be in a world of pain the other the other beneath the world of pain part is how old are you man uh 25 okay if you are working in the financial industry right now your friends are already coming to you for consulting work that that means you're good. The rest of your life will be this. People coming to you out of a shadow,

asking you to cut a corner, or coming to you just face to face, they don't realize what you're signed up for. I want you to be firm in who you are, and if you put your name on a contract, you're going to fulfill that contract. If you make an agreement, even if you find out later, ah, it's hard, you're going to fulfill that contract. If you make an agreement, even if you find out later,

you're going to be a person of character and integrity. Decide that at 25 and then live that on. And your life will simply be better. You might have to wait a couple of years before you get this opportunity or you might have to say, I can't do it this time, but next time remember me, whatever. You might have to do that. But brother, if you make this concession now and you do this through the back door and you figure out a way to get away with it,

in 25 minutes it's going to keep coming and it's going to keep coming and the downfall will be big when it happens. I would go straight in, dude, talk to my boss and just say, hey, this is what was offered to me. Or I guess one other thing you could do, if you want to do it as a side hustle, tell your friend, I'll do this, but I can't charge. I'm going to do this pro bono. I'm going to help out. And maybe that won't violate your – it probably still will.

But maybe by not charging and there's no money exchange and you're not technically a customer, you're just helping out. That might be a way for you to get experience to thread the line here but yeah go to your boss and talk to him i think integrity is always the best move and if you want to seek out you know a lawyer on your end and just say hey i just want to make sure i'm reading this clearly where's the gray area but this it seems like there's no way about this that you can avoid it and here's the bigger question if you can't trust your supervisor to have this conversation and they're not going to go, dude, that's a great opportunity.

That's awesome. You can't do it, but if you don't have a supervisor that you trust, you need to start looking for another job because this is going to be a short-term relationship anyway. Good word.

This is The Ramsey Show. with more frequency than you know i get calls and emails from people dealing with the recent loss of a spouse or a parent you can hear the struggle and the heartache that they've been experiencing. And at a time they should be grieving, what breaks my heart the most is the strain and tension that they're going through because of money, especially when it's a situation that could have been avoided. If you have a family, it is your responsibility to have term life insurance. It's one of the things you do to say I love you. And yes, this is an ad for Zander Insurance.

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Here at Ramsey Solutions, we are on a mission to transform so many lives that disruption spreads like wildfire. What the heck does that mean? Well, just imagine a world where it's weird to have a student loan instead of everyone assuming that that's the only way to get an education. Imagine a world where it's normal to pay cash for your car. Imagine a world where credit cards are the cigarette of the financial industry. Now imagine being part of the team that's making all of that a reality through the work you do every single day. At Ramsey Solutions, we have 1,000 people working together to create digital products and services that will transform people's lives.

We're out to disrupt the toxic money culture that exists in America today. If that sounds nice to you, if it's exciting to you, if you want to join us on that crusade, we're currently on the hunt for developers. Or if you're a UX designer or SEO and content marketing specialist, we'd love to talk with you as well. We've got lots of other options for you over at ramsaysolutions.com slash careers. You can check out all of the available jobs by going to ramsaysolutions.com slash careers. John joins us in San Diego, California. John, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, thanks you guys for having me today. Honored to speak with you and your listeners. Thank you. How can we help? Yeah, so just a question for you guys. My fiance and I are getting married in August. Cool. Congrats. And we've been drafting up, for you guys. My fiance and I are getting married in August.

Cool. Congrats. Thank you, guys. Yeah, we've been drafting up kind of a plan to combine our finances once you get married. And obviously, we'll do our day-to-day checking account. But beyond that, you know, I was curious what you guys teach. I was looking for a video that Dave was talking about this and couldn't find one. How many other bank accounts should we have open,

or do you recommend that we have open to just kind of manage our financial goals and go up the baby steps? I'm just curious to get your thoughts. First of all, John, you are a stud. The fact that you're trying to map out a plan for this already, I mean, I feel like this marriage is already off to a good start, John. Well, you know, nerds attract. I think we both are into numbers and math, and we're both very excited to do this.

And you're both on board with the Ramsey plan? Yes. Holy crap. They're going to be unstoppable. All right, John. So I'm going to tell you what I did in my marriage, okay? Okay. The first time.

Say marriage. I was going to say, clarify, John. Clarify. And then after we were married for a while, I'll tell you what happens now. Okay. When we first got married, let's be honest, I was a genius. And by genius, I mean, I was an idiot. And I had an account for savings. I went to one bank, then I went to another bank for our checking account where our paychecks were deposited. I had another bank for

a side hustle account. I ended up with bank accounts everywhere. I thought what I was doing was making things very simple and cut and dry. I would always know where this was and that was. What I made was a huge mess. A giant

idiotic mess. And so now we have one account, one central account, and in it we have sub-accounts there. One might be a savings account, one is our emergency fund, one is a lagging fund because of the way we get paid here at Remedy Solutions. So I will dump money into that one and hold it so I can continue to pay my house off and things like that. But we create sub-accounts. And then if we want to have a sinking fund to save up for a car, we created another one and dumped money into that one.

So it all stays in the same place. We can see it with the same account. It goes on the same EveryDollar app. We don't have to deal with 50 different banks. That's my recommendation. Yeah, that's a good word there. And I'll tell you what I do, John. I keep our emergency fund in a separate online high-yield savings account.

And then we do all of our other banking with a local brick-and-mortar here in town. And we have a checking account, and then we have our savings accounts. Like John said, you can have multiple. We have one for seeking funds. We have one for vacation. We have one for the car upgrade fund. And that doesn't complicate things, but what it does when it's in one account, it helps you separate what's for what. Right.

Because you have one giant savings account. You go, well, how much of this is for the car and how much of this is for emergencies and what's for vacations? Right. And so you can make as many accounts as you want. But like John did, don't overcomplicate it. If you have 15 accounts, it may get a little hairy. So I would say have as few as possible while still accomplishing your goals yeah because you know with all the advent of online banking i mean there's so many ways to check a million different

banking apps and she and i have like several credit union accounts that we've individually had open since we're both in college obviously we'll close those or add each other's themes to them but i like the idea of just streamlining it so that it's all in one place. Does this also go for like, obviously our Roth IRA is going to stay independent, you know, because it's an individual retirement account. Do you guys recommend that when couples get married, that they have the exact same financial advisor for both of those accounts? Or know she and i obviously before we met had different um financial advisors for those so um what do you guys recommend for those kinds of accounts that have been open forever that will stay individual who does better you'll have a

death match and you see which one you pick i'm just kidding yeah hey just let this be as y'all start your marriage let this let the word simple distill every one of your decisions. What's the simplest way we can do this right now? The world is selling us complexity. The world is selling us you need to be doing this. If you're not doing that, you should be doing that. And the world is telling us individualism, which is how dare you communicate with somebody else about their financial goals.

That's hers. Well, she's my wife. I don't care. That's her goals, your goals. Simple, simple, simple. Yeah, I recommend having the same financial planner. It's so great. I don't want to get different advice than my wife's getting,

and we're both working together towards the same financial goal. And I want you in the room at the same time talking to that person so that you both have the same language and understanding versus, well, my financial advisor told me to do this. Well, mine told me to do that. So I would keep it simple like John's saying. Stick to that checking account, a savings account, and if you want to keep it separate because that makes me not touch the cookie jar when it's over here in this online account,

I like that. And sometimes we'll get a higher interest. Right now, I'm at like 1%, which is amazing in the world of a savings account. I'm crushing the game. But again, it's not there to make you money. It's there to protect you. Thank you so much for the question, my man. Ryan joins us in Detroit, Michigan.

Ryan, welcome to the show. Thank you guys for taking my call. I'm 18 years old, about to graduate high school, not going to be going to college, and so I'm going to be going to work right away. And my plan is to invest $100 every week until I retire. And my question was, where's the best place to put that money? Great question and way to go, man. What are you going to be doing for work?

I'm going to be a stonemason. Cool. Atta boy, man. That's incredible. You sound like a stonemason. Thank you. I don't even know what that sounds like, but if I had a voice picture in my head of a stonemason, it would be yours, Ryan. I sound like generic brand Pee Wee Herman.

Exactly. All right, Ryan, so let's talk through this. What do you think you're going to be making as a stonemason? I'm going to start out making about $40,000 a year. Boom, with no debt? Nope. So you don't have any payments in the world,000 a year. Boom, with no debt? Nope. So you don't have any payments in the world, no credit cards, no student loans, nothing? Nope.

Do you have an emergency fund of three to six months? I do. Man, this kid is crushing it. Okay, so you're wondering where to invest this money. I would start with a Roth IRA. That's a great option. You can fully fund that. You said you're basically investing $5,200 a year. Yep. So at that point, you wouldn't get quite to fully funding that Roth IRA, but that's a great start. That's what I would do if I was in your shoes.

And then I would look into what my employer offers. Do you know if they have any kind of retirement plans through work? I'm not sure. Okay. Well, for now, as long as you have earned income, you can open that Roth IRA and you can put $5,200 in there. And we recommend investing 15% of your income. So let's say you're making $40,000. If you're doing the math with me, 10% is $4,000. 5% is going to be $2,000. So we want you to put $6,000 away. So you should have the margin to put a little more than what you're telling me, right? Yep.

Okay. So let's make it a goal. This year, you're making $40,000, your first year working. Let's put $6,000 away and fully fund that Roth IRA. I think that's an awesome, awesome goal for someone your age. Ryan, if you'd pull this off, you will be so far ahead. The fact that you're even thinking about this is incredible. You're going to be so far ahead of your peers if you start at 18 maxing out a Roth or putting six grand in a Roth. And parents listening, listen,

when you tell your kid you have to go to college because you'll never be successful, meet Ryan. He's 18. Ryan has no debt. Ryan makes 40 grand a year in an awesome trade that helps his community. Ryan rocks. Be Meet Ryan. He's 18. Ryan has no debt. Ryan makes 40 grand a year in an awesome trade that helps his community. Ryan rocks. Be like Ryan. He builds stones and he sounds awesome too. But your kid with his philosophy degree who spent 200 grand to get it, who can't find a job.

Yeah. Brag about that to your friends. Call Ryan. He'll hire you. Love it. Ryan, thanks for the question, man. We are cheering for you. Love this, John. 18 year olds crushing the game, asking us where to invest. This is The Ramsey Show. so Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined today by Dr. John Deloney. And we've got a special Death Free Scream coming up. Sarah and Tim, join us. How are you guys doing? Hey, we're doing great.

You've got quite the squad supporting you now, all your team members around. And here's why it's special. Sarah is one of our amazing team members. Me and John both have the pleasure of working with her, and we are so pumped to have you guys. We're glad to be here. It's been a long journey. So let's get into it. How much debt have you guys paid off? We've paid off $146,723. Woo!

Golly! That's amazing! How long did that take? Yep, that took us 19 months Okay Now we don't ask team members incomes Because all of the team is standing around As much as I like being awkward

We're not going to do that to you But man you guys have hustled That's incredible Okay so what kind of debt was this? This was 100% student loans Good old master degree So who's masters? This was 100% student loans. Oh, gosh. Wow. Good old master degree. Yep.

So who's masters? It was me. Oh, he did the slight nod like he didn't want to throw under the bus. This was all of your debt. It was all mine. What was the master's degree in? So it was actually

two degrees. MFA? Yeah, it was MFA. Yeah, it was an MFA in directing for cinema and then there was a BA in film studies. Okay, so you are a, to say world-class is underselling it.

Savant. World-class editor. And you look at things cinematically in a way that is just unique and extraordinary. Could you still have that without $150,000 MFA? Yeah, that's the thing. Sarah, who were you trying to impress? Come on, man. I'm impressed.

That's right. Did you just want to grow in this area? Yeah, I mean, for me, I knew that with my personality and just who I am in general, it was going to be a lot harder for me to do this without degrees. And I knew that school was kind of the path for me versus other people. So that's why I decided to go the school route. Wow. Okay, and Tim, what do you do for a living?

I'm a video production manager. Awesome. So you guys are both in the video world and Sarah's been on the team now for about three years. Does a lot of video editing for all of the personality shows that you guys get to see and she is a rock star. So three years ago you started here on the team, but 19 months ago, something shifted here. What happened? Yeah, so Tim and I, going into our

engagement in 2019, we'd already had all these conversations about the debt that I had, and what was pretty amazing is that Tim had about $20,000 of debt himself and he paid all that off before he even proposed. And so he came into this knowing that we had $146,000 worth of debt that was all mine. So when he proposed, we immediately started having conversations about the debt and how we were going to get it paid off. So we went into the marriage already with a plan. And so, yeah, we got married and then we had our honeymoon. And then as soon as we got back from the honeymoon, we started having those conversations. And then we started budgeting around March, but then that's also when COVID happened.

So we decided to just stockpile. So from March to November, we just stockpiled everything that we had. And then in November of 2020, we made our first like huge payment. And from then it's just been a lot of jobs. And between us, Tim took on several side jobs. I took on several side jobs, and we just hustled. And then we paid it off Thanksgiving Day last year. Amazing. So Tim, what'd you think? Walking into this marriage, you're like, woo, I paid my debt off, and now I have a mountain of $150,000 here. Yeah, I've never shied away from a challenge. So I knew our entire dating life, which was a couple years that this was looming,

and we didn't really know how much it was growing over time. It's like a tumor, man. This is bad. You just sort of had it in the closet, like, let's just not look. Yeah, you never know when you log in and you see, oh, gosh, this has doubled since last time I looked at it. So that was always a low-level anxiety in the back of our heads. And then when we got engaged, we started to really dig into those numbers and say, hey, this is how long it's going to take.

This is how much we're going to have to sacrifice. But I was all for it. It's been a great team-building exercise, a relationship-building exercise, ups and downs, but we've come out the other side of it, stronger for it. From the beginning, I was kind of excited to dig into all of it. Can I ask you both a personal question that I normally don't ask? Walk through your

thought process, because there's people out there that bring more debt to a relationship than somebody else. Or there's somebody else who's participating in a... We're on the same team, we're moving forward together, but debt to a relationship than somebody else. Or there's somebody else who's participating in, we're on the same team, we're moving forward together, but this isn't, none of this is my debt. And I really want a new car. I want to go on this vacation, but we agreed to do that. Like walk through the guilt versus the, hey, we're all in this together. Will you speak to that? Yeah. So this was really hard. The guilt part of it for me, it just never went away, really.

I felt so grateful that Tim wanted to marry me, knowing that I had all that debt. But this was very difficult for us. I think part of it was circumstantial. You know, we're newlyweds, COVID happens, and then we're two completely different people with two completely different approaches to paying off debt and how to do that. Yeah, I don't really know what else to say other than it was really difficult. We had to have a lot of communication and there were days where there were a lot of arguments and there was a lot of disagreement. But we just had to continuously keep talking about it and keep learning about how the other person handles this and processes it. And yeah, we just took it. Some days it was just taking it one day at a time just to figure it out. Wow.

Yeah. And for me it was always in the back of my head, sadly. You never really shake it when you go, oh, well, I could go do this. Well, no, I can't. But, you know, listening to the Ramsey show and constantly hearing callers fighting through that same thing, then I'd be able to tell myself, you know, it's I, or sorry, it's we, not I. We're French now.

Oui, oui. Oui, oui. And, you know, constantly hearing that all the times Dave says it, it really just kept ringing in my mind. And here we are. Got us through to the end. Wow. So what were these side hustles you guys were doing?

Because you both work full time and you went, we're going to make this thing happen way faster. I don't know about you, Tim. I know Sarah, full time for you means you're up here till you're the last person out of the building sometimes. So what were you doing on the side after that? It was pretty crazy. My days for most part was coming in at seven, staying till four or five, then immediately going home and working till about 10 o'clock that night. Sometimes it was an additional six hours of work. So for me, I actually started doing contract jobs and editing wedding videos. And then I got hired by this awesome YouTuber early on in the year, and I was consistently employed by her for two different YouTube channels for all of last year and part of this year as well. Wow. You guys are amazing. We're so proud of you. Okay. So how does it feel

to be debt free? It feels incredible. It opens up so many doors and we were in it for so long that our world kind of just wrapped around it and we got used to telling ourselves no

and now that we're on the other side of it and we can start telling ourselves yes, it just changes everything. Wow. And on the screen there i saw a piece of paper that said mac dreamy tell me about that gross what is that so

i had this weird idea that i could get out of debt without having to change anything i don't know where that came from i should have known better um but part of it was for me just to be able to to get through and be disciplined was keeping our dreams at the forefront. So he and I, when we first made our budget, like right after we got married, we wrote down all of our dreams. And some of them were like huge, huge dreams. And then eventually I put them on a huge post-it note and it sticks right on our front door. So sometimes like when it was really hard, I would see like Tim standing in front of the door looking at it. And sometimes I would be standing at the door, just like staring at it and just trying to remind myself like,

this is a lot bigger than us and this is what we want to achieve together. So yeah, we have a lot of big dreams on there, but it helped keep us going. Well, listen, sometimes shame paralyzes us and sometimes resentment paralyzes us. And I don't want any listener to miss how heroic and brave you both were

to on those hard days to get back up and keep moving or to not let your – and then together, y'all did something amazing. Y'all have completely shifted the rest of y'all's life because you did something really hard for 19 months. I'm so proud of you, man. It's incredible. How old are you two? I'm 33. I'm 32.

And completely debt-free, not a payment in the world. We're so proud of you guys. Well, we've got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires, in case you didn't have a bunch already. That's the next chapter for you guys. We also have a copy of the Total Money Makeover for you to pass on to someone who maybe feels like their mountain is too big to climb. And you can say, no, I did it. Here's how. You can do it too.

Unbelievable. I know I would ask you about cheerleaders, but they're all around you. So let's get to it too. Unbelievable. I know I would ask you about cheerleaders, but they're all around you, so let's get to it. All right, it's Sarah and Tim, Nashville, Tennessee. $147,000 paid off in 19 months. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yes! Yeah! That was visceral. Oh! And the crowd goes wild. Oh, those two are the best.

Oh, my goodness. Rock stars. We're so proud of you guys. Man, this is why we do what we do, John. Transformation, freedom, options, meaning. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day comes from Proverbs 15.22. Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors, they succeed. Ken Blanchard says, none of us is as smart as all of us. Blinds.com's 100% satisfaction guarantee means even

if you mismeasure or pick the wrong color, they'll remake your blinds for free. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every single month, you'll save even more. Use the promo code Ramsey to get the best deal. Today's question comes from Adam in Arkansas. I've been trying to get my wife on board with the baby steps, but have not been successful. We have a decent income of $150,000, but are living paycheck to paycheck. We're basically roommates financially because over 90% of my paycheck pays all of the bills, including the mortgage. Her paycheck only pays her credit cards, which she continues to use. We made an agreement to ditch the credit cards two months ago,

but instead she opened several more credit cards and maxed her current ones using Christmas as her excuse. She has done this every year and said she really wanted to change. When I ask what is important to her and what does she want in her future, she tunes out, and I'm starting to believe this is significantly more than a financial issue and that it may have some mental health components. How can I navigate this with her? Oh, man.

You said at the top of this question, this is one I wish we could talk to Adam in person, but we are basically roommates financially. I would be willing to bet, my truck's not nice, but I'd be willing to bet my whole truck that you're more than just roommates uh financially my guess here is y'all are separate on just about everything um it might be a mental health issue i i mean i can't even comment on that here what i can comment on is just in your language my bills my check my check pays this, her check pays that.

Tells me you guys aren't doing things together. And when you're not doing things for any intrinsic reason, when you're not working with somebody towards a thing, then it's easy to default to your, whatever coping behaviors you have. And for some reason, she blows the cards up. She might have a mental health disorder. I wouldn't start there.

I would start immediately before the day is over. I would call a marriage counselor and let the marriage counselor know my marriage is headed towards a disaster. And Adam, I can't say this clearly enough. Your marriage is in major trouble. Like red flashing neon lights saying danger, danger, danger. And you need to sit down with a professional right now. You got somebody who's not telling you the truth. You got somebody who doesn't appear to control their behavior. My guess is this story is much more complicated than this.

Yeah. This is the tip of the iceberg is the spending problems. But there's a lot of language in here that makes me think there's a lot of work to be done. And I think this necessitates marriage counseling. Sometimes I say, hey, just go through Financial Peace University together. But this feels deeper and there's more behavioral change and things that need to come out. So I would do both. Well, and let's say that somebody's married somebody with some mental health challenges. They're struggling um this is where you when things are good and people are are taking care of themselves in a way that they can sit down and say here's let's make some rational decisions here um that's when you put a freeze on somebody's credit um you both agree to it right or i'll put a freeze on my credit i'll be say this in the first person i'll put a freeze

on my credit so i can't just go apply for credit cards. I'm going to disconnect Amazon Prime. I'm going to give up my ATM card and I'm just going to have cash. I'm going to go to extremes to protect my marriage and the safety of our family financially and to begin to get better control of my behavior. I got to practice new behaviors and I may have to go full extreme here to do that. Yeah, absolutely. I would get in touch with a marriage counselor today and I would, if she doesn't agree to go to Financial Peace University and just say, hey, just watch these videos with me, engage in a conversation with me. Let me know what you're thinking about this stuff. If she's not willing to do that, I mean, there's not much else you can do to force someone to

change their behavior. There's nothing you can do to force someone to change their behavior. They got to want to. So she's got to turn a corner here at some point, man. Sorry to hear that you're going through something like that. All right, Will joins us in Denver, Colorado. Will, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, guys. How are you doing?

Great. How can John and I help? Well, my wife just had a talk with her mother, what will be my mother-in-law. And, uh, during that conversation, we found out that she has like nothing safe for retirement. She's touching 60 and well, we're in the fourth quarter and at the two minute warning and we're down by like 20. So I was wondering, um, I don't know, because I'm in a tough spot. I'm hoping to reach out to her family members to see what kind of resources they have so we can help out mom.

And the only reason I'm concerning myself with this is because I know if things go worst case scenario and mom has nothing, we're going to be the ones to be taking care of her. You see the writing on the wall. So I want to be prepared. Yeah. And so she actually has got a job that pays less. She doesn't have anything to do with her retirement. They've got a little bit of debt. I think they probably have a truck,

which they're supposed to have paid off by May. A few credit cards, which I have got to get them to stop using, but I don't think they're out of control. There's probably like $5,000 or $7,000 in there. Hey, Will. Will. Will, Will. Brother, you're taking a lot on, and I know that you're looking down the road and seeing that you're going to be the person who she's moving in with y'all.

Is she married? She's married, yes. Okay. married she's married yes okay is it your wife's dad or is it a step-parent or it's my wife's mom and i know but she's married yes yeah and it's a stepdad okay okay so here's a thing you and your wife need to have a conversation about if mom has a stroke, if stepdad passes away, if like when mom retires when 70, 80, whatever. You'll need to have that conversation now. Would we?

We did. Okay. So the solution here is, yes, I'm not going to let my mom be homeless. Mom would move in with us if she needed to. Sure. Okay, so you all have established that. Now I think you walk backwards and say to mother-in-law and father-in-law, hey, good folks, here are some resources that have really blessed our family.

Here's what I'm telling you. You can't go tell a 60-year-old how they need to live their life. They're going to laugh at you. Yeah, I get that. You know what I mean? And so you can make resources available for them. You can stay on the line. I'll send you a copy of Total Money Maker

that you can hand to them, right? You can give them resources. You can walk the talk. You can create boundaries if you want. But if your boundary is not going to be, hey, either y'all cut up these credit cards or you're not moving in with us in 15 years when things go south. You hear what I'm saying? You're creating catastrophe 10 years in advance. And I want to give you some peace right now.

All you can control on planet Earth is you. Your thoughts, your actions. That's it. So how can you and your wife deal with the financial reality that's coming in 10 years or 15 years? Y'all can start saving. You can think about different work. You can start saving up to buy your neighbor's house, whatever that's going to look like for y'all. And you can give them some resources and try to be a good cheerleader, but you can't tell a 60 year old, Hey, you know what? It's about time you turned your life around, right? It's just not practical, and you're going to create more division than helping.

Sure, no. I mean, we already... Go ahead. I was just wondering, is your mother-in-law stressed out about their money situation, or are you stressed out? No. Well, they're ignoring it, is the. Um, like my mother-in-law actively admits, like the husband does not manage money. Well, he was never taught how, so I don't really blame him for that. And she was never taught how. And so, you know, I'm over here thinking, well, we do have some time to make some plans. And it seems like, you know, we literally just had this talk yesterday. I said, like, hey, we want to make sure you guys are taken care of.

We have some plans. Are you guys open to these plans? And so let me help you make some moves. What did they say? Well, the mom's very open. We haven't spoken to the dad, not because we're hiding anything from him, but, you know, he's got sons,

and we don't want to feel like we're stepping on their toes. But, you know, there's a family history of just, like, you know, money mismanagement. Yeah, so forget the toes, brother. I'm taking care of my mom, and her mom comes with her husband. So we're going to sit down and have that conversation. If his sons want to throw a temper tantrum about how they can call you. But, man, I'm stepping on all kinds of toes when I'm dealing with that situation right now. But you can only control you, man.

That's a good word. And there's no laws against retiring broke, unfortunately, John. You can do what you want in America. Free country. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Our thanks to James Childs, our producer, Ben Hill on the operating board there, and Kelly Daniel, our associate producer and phone screener. We'll be back with you.

Before you know it, America, this is The Ramsey Show. Hey, guys, this is James, senior producer for The Ramsey Show. Did you know over 18 million people listen to The Ramsey Show every week? And a lot of those people listen on one of our 600-plus radio stations across the country. To find a station near you, head to theramzshow.com.