The Ramsey Show - App - You Screwed Yourself… I’m Scared for You (Hour 1)

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Ken Coleman answer your questions and discuss:  "We pulled from retirement early to buy a house..." "How much can I spend on housing?" from the blog: How Much House Can I Afford? "Should I view my student loans as a lump sum of debt?" "My husband's union might go on strike soon" "What's the best way to combine finances?" Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Here's an EveryDollar deal just for our listeners: get a 14-day free trial PLUS $15 off your first year of premium. Click the link below and start budgeting today! www.everydollar.com/TRS Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods of Moving and Storage Studios, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, and and number one best-selling author, host of The Ken Coleman Show, where he talks about jobs and careers every day, is my co-host today. So we'll be talking about that and your life and your money.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. We're going to start this hour with Selena in Orlando. Hi, Selena. How are you? Hi, I'm doing well. I'm really excited to be talking to you. Great. How can we help? So I recently, I'm married. I'm 28. I live in Orlando and our household income is $155,000. And we just had a baby and we were living in a really small condo and kind of needed more space really quickly. So I withdrew all of my 403B, about $26,000 to cover the down payment and the closing costs. I think when we sell our current home, I'll get about 26 to $30,000 back. But now I'm a new

listener and realize I'm kind of going, didn't follow any of the baby steps. And I'm just wondering what advice like you would give us in terms of having a bit of a higher mortgage payment now and then also needing to kind of rebuild retirement or starting a bit from scratch ouch well it's not got anything to do with the baby steps you've screwed yourself um you've really made yourself a mess um because if you do not uh redeposit the 26 000 within 60 days of the time you took it out you're going to be charged your tax rate plus a 10 penalty on this and so you're going to lose 40 of that money in taxes and penalties okay translation 13 thousand dollars twelve thousand dollars is going to government okay so when you sell your house you need to set aside enough to cover the mess you made

when your tax bill comes next year um and then the rest of that money will be used for uh wherever you are i guess guess, in your situation. But, yeah, you borrowed money for a down payment at 40% interest is what you did. Okay. Yeah, I was hoping, like, with the taxing like this, like, we'll have a baby on there, and this is the first year we'll be filing, like, married together. You can't offset this level of mess. Okay.

Babies don't cover this. Okay. Not even close. So this is, yeah, you really stepped in it um so oh my gosh uh how long ago did you pull the money out um let's see we're in july so maybe about a month ago but um the house that we're having built won't be done until end of september and so I'm trying to time the selling of this house with the closing of the next house. Why did you pull the money out if you haven't closed on your other house? I needed the money for the down payment.

So you put the down payment first for them to start building. It's not a down payment. It's a deposit. Okay. Okay. Yeah, so I had to put 5% of the cost of the house. I had to give that to them in order for them to start building it. Yeah, and then if your house doesn't sell, now you've got two house payments and you're double screwed.

Well, the other houses in the town have been going for like $30K more than what I originally paid for it, and so I'm hoping to get like a bigger when this house does sell. Yeah. If interest rates tick up a point by September, by the time you get your house on the market and the market freezes like a deer in the headlights, you've really messed yourself up. I'm scared for you, honey.

I'm scared. You guys have done, you guys got completely impulsive and you impulse to house and it may have made yourself a mess, potentially. I hope you get out of it with your skin intact, but I'm not positive you're going to. So anyway, what can we do from here? I assume you gave them $26,000, right?

I gave them $16,000. Okay, so you have $10,000. Yeah, and then I had savings already, I have about 17,000 in savings plus 10 no to 17 in total I had seven already oh you had seven in seven okay all right and you don't have any other money no I mean no you have investments of any kind that are not mutual funds or that are not retirement accounts? Maybe three months ago I opened up a 529 for my daughter.

How much is in it? Probably about $3,000. Okay. Because every dollar we can put back in that 403B before the 60-day mark is not going to be taxed or penalized. And so I'm going to scrape nickels out of the corner of the couch and try to get as close to $26,000 back in there. Because every dollar you put in there is going to save you 40 cents. You follow me?

$10,000. If you can put $10,000 in there, it saves you $4,000. And the $4,000 is just burned up. It just went to mist. It didn't accomplish anything except allow you to buy something you weren't ready to buy and didn't need to be buying. But you're there now.

So, yeah, you need to scratch together as much as you can and put it back. Go to RamseySolutions.com and click on SmartVestor and find a SmartVestor Pro that helps with investing in your area that we recommend, and they'll help you try to get this undone and get as much money back in that account before that 60-day mark as you can to keep from getting hammered with a 10% penalty plus your 30% tax rate, 40 cents on the dollar. Okay? Now, then the rest of this is we're going to have to put you on a game

plan where you guys stop buying things you can't afford and uh and buying them out of order because you just and you justify it with a lot of emotion because you had a baby babies don't take up that much room they're not that big and so this is just complete normal stuff. I'm not mad at you, honey. I'm scared for you, and I really want you to not have a mess because by this time next year, if you've got two house payments and a $13,000 tax bill all because you bought a house and can't get your house sold, you've got a mess on your hands.

You've set your family up for a real problem here unless this just unfolds perfectly for you. So let's get with the SmartVestor Pro and get this turned around. I say, Dave, I'm following you. Would you suggest, you didn't say it, so that's why I'm asking, pulling the $3,000 out of the $529 and adding to it? Yes, I pull every dollar I can find that's not in a retirement account. All right, so in this case, she's got $17,000 in savings.

She puts the $3,000 on top of that. She's at $20,000. Does she keep $1,000 in at Baby Step 1? Yeah, I keep $1,000 in savings. She puts the $3,000 on top of that. She's at $20,000. Does she keep $1,000 in at Baby Step 1? Yeah, keep $1,000. So now we're at $19,000. How does she come up with $7,000 in 30 days? Or she gets penalized only on $7,000, not on $26,000. I like this.

So if I'm hearing you, and I hope you're hearing this, Selena, I mean, we've got access to $19,000 right now. And you need to get your budget on a beans and rice thing and start replenishing your savings account very, very quickly. But I like getting taxed on seven versus 26. Taxed and penalized at 40 cents on the dollar. Yeah, this is, you do not use your retirement account, people. You do not use it for anything except retirement.

And the system's designed to punish you yeah beyond belief if you do and it ain't cool it ain't cool it's not okay you know it's not funny it's not fun it's it then there's no rationalization you know babies don't take up that much room slow down sell your house when your house sells take that money buy a house if you want to build house sells, take that money. Buy a house. If you want to build a house, then take that money, move into an apartment, and use the money from the sale of your house for your deposit on the new construction. But you got sucked into new house fever bad. Instead of taking a cold shower, you got yourself in a mess. I'm sorry, hon.

This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based alternative to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a health cost-sharing

ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours take care of over $11 billion in medical bills since 1981. And CHM has also helped them stay true to their values and avoid miles of red tape. And CHM support goes far beyond meeting financial needs. They'll also help meet spiritual needs. Members become part of a family who will pray with them and for them when they experience a medical event. So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of healthcare costs.

CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. This is the Ramsey Show. Thank you for being with us, America. Tanner is with us in Washington, D.C. Hi, Tanner, how are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my question is curious about the flexibility of spending more than 30% of your take-home pay on rent.

I find that pretty difficult to do, especially in an urban area like D.C. in downtown. I make around $90,000 a year post-grad, 23-year-old. I got $20,000 in cash and $7,000 in an investment account, and my only debt is around $7,500 in student loans, and I spend about $2,000 a month in rent, which is my biggest expense by far, but I still find myself able to save and spend less on other things. I'm just curious your take on that approach. Okay. Well, we tell folks to put 25% of their take-home pay aside for housing. And, no, math works in every city and in every state.

You don't get a pass on math because you're in Washington, D.C., even though Congress thinks you do. Yeah, I was getting ready to say it. A lot of people think they do. Yeah, a lot of people in D.C. think you do, but you don't. And the purpose behind it is not that 25 is magic tanner uh the purpose behind it is don't be house poor if you find yourself able to save and uh able to invest because you keep all other parts of your lifestyle so low then then you're okay but if you're you but what happens to most people is when they've got a high cost of housing in their budget

it squeezes their budget and there's not room to save up to buy the next car so the next car becomes debt and there's not room to save up for christmas and christmas becomes debt and there's not room to save up for a couch and the couch becomes debt and because it's all going out in house payment and so in effect what you did is you uh you you didn't you know by by squeezing yourself you did that now you're telling me you've made room in your budget and you're doing okay then you know if whatever you want to do brother but here's the thing whatever you spend on rent is gone i mean you're setting fire to hundred dollar bills in the middle of the floor and so

the more hundred dollar bills you burn in the middle of the floor, the fewer less money you got, man. I mean, it's a pretty simple equation. Yeah. Definitely reduces the ability to buy down the road for sure. Yeah, yeah, I mean, because you're giving it to them in rent. And so I don't know how you fix that exactly necessarily in your situation. Maybe your commute is longer.

Maybe there's a roommate involved. Or maybe you just say, it's going to cost me this, and it's my choice, and I'm an adult. Well, yeah, you're allowed to do all that. But our reason to giving you the 25% guideline, it's not a rule. It's a guideline. It's so that you don't become house poor because if you're for instance going to get a mortgage folks in america um the stupid mortgage company will approve you for almost double that and they'll approve you close to 50 of your take-home pay 36 of your uh ratio

you know and so and that's not based on take-home pay the 36 that you can get a house payment up close to half of your dadgum take-home pay, and there's just no way that budget works, people. And, well, I'm in California. Well, California, they got to do math, too, even though your governor doesn't think so. You got to do math, you know. It's not an option. Math is math, and it's not a moral construct.

It's a math thing. Well, to win, Tanner, in professional world, financial world, you've got to sacrifice. Everybody who wins has to sacrifice something. And what we've done here with this 25%, you are now having to choose. Do you want to sacrifice money, as Dave said, by burning those extra $100 between the 5% that we're talking about? Or do you want to sacrifice a little bit of your time? Now, you live in downtown D.C. That's premium.

And I get it. You may work on the Hill. Who knows what you do? But you're there for a reason. But if you move out into the suburbs of Northern Virginia, I know it well. Yes, it's a headache. But we'd rather you sacrifice the right thing.

And that's why we put this. I want people to understand what we're teaching here. It's not to be hard and fast on a rule. It's to help you learn what you need to sacrifice and in my situation if i were in your situation tanner i would be sacrificing my time not my money you know 23 years old yeah yeah you know i will tell you this ken i did it worse than he's doing it sure Yeah, he's in good shape. My wife and I get out of college, and here's how stupid we were. We go and rent a – we have two dogs. We're just out of college.

We got two little jobs. We go and rent a three-bedroom townhouse. Sure. Luxury. Right. Thing. Sure. That's like five times what we needed because we thought it was cool

do you remember what were in the extra rooms uh nothing sure it's because by the time we finished paying the freaking rent we had no money yeah so what we ended up doing was moving into a little one bedroom uh apartment in a questionable uh i don't know what those ladies down the hall were doing in a questionable situation and um you were hoping you weren't on a vice episode man i'm telling you and uh we lived there for a year but it was one third the rent that we were paying before one third and so that'd be like you had an eighteen hundred dollar rent and we moved down to a six hundred dollar rent right you know kind of thing today in today's dollars it was a lot less than that in the back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth but yeah but oh my gosh wow well i did the exact same crap no i get it but i wanted something nice and i had a job yeah and i'd gotten out of college and i'm i

deserved it but a lot of 23 year olds that are in a very similar situation to tanner and i just think about this. If he gets a roommate and now he's saving, let's just call it $1,000 a month, okay, splitting the rent. He's paying off that student loan debt of $7,000 really, really fast, and now he's just stacking money. Yeah, he's stacking cash. Stacking cash, man. So much smarter than renting. Ah, paying all that money in rent.

Tyler's in Louisville. Hi, Tyler. What's up? renting. Paying all that money in rent. Tyler's in Louisville. Hi, Tyler. What's up? Yes, I had a quick question. First of all, you guys are awesome. Thank you. So I'm on Baby Step 2 and been doing ish for a while. At the beginning of the year, I got smart and said, you're stupid.

Get out of debt. But the student loan's coming back up because I've been basically taking that payment putting it towards everything else mine is consolidated or i believe it is at least because um do i look at the individual loan amounts or do i just look at the consolidated amount where i put it if it's consolidated it's now one amount okay it used to be little loans if it is one loan i mean if it's if it's a bunch of little are you paying will you be paying a bunch of little payments or one payment no i pay one payment and when i look at it i see all the individual ones i took out yeah but you know that doesn't matter but it's the purpose of the debt snowball is you want to what you want to

have happen in the debt snowball is you want to um clear a debt and that payment on that debt to go away. When you clear one of these little debts, it doesn't change your payment. All right. That's what I was thinking. I wasn't sure. Yeah. So I would just put the total in your debt snowball. Awesome. That works. Amen. Thank you, sir. Get after it. That's really smart because, you know, the data is now coming out now that we're actually finding that you're going to have to pay your student loans, which we've kind of been telling you for three freaking years. But now that we found out that we were right again, yes, I just said I told you so. Live with it. But now that we found out you have to pay your student loans, there gonna be a lot of questions about student loans and we're one of the things we're finding uh jade and i were talking about this earlier

is that people uh basically took the money that they would have been paying on student loans and spent it yes they did on vacations alcohol drugs this is this is the actual surveys are coming back i went on a party nice yeah with the money that the taxpayers told me i didn't have to pay right now because you were in a covid crisis anybody remember what covid was yeah it was there it was just a minute ago but it was a crisis if y'all didn't remember and it was such a crisis that nobody could pay their student loans but they were able to use the money that they would have been paying on their student loans and go buy drugs and alcohol and vacations so apparently it wasn't too big a freaking crisis what do i know just going with the data here yes what happens when you trust a politician with an empty promise that's not constitutional

someone from the medical community that's trying to do math. Well, there's that, too. Which is proof that we've proven that, you know, once America got Fauci'd, we figured out what happened. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number best-selling author of the book from paycheck to purpose is my co-host today open phones at 888-825-5225 thank you for joining us america in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt free stage jared and christina are with us hey guys how are you doing well thank you. Where do you guys live? Woodstock, Georgia, about 40 miles north of Atlanta.

Yeah, I know it well. Well, welcome to Nashville. Not a bad drive up here. Not bad. Good to have you. So how much debt have you two paid off? $136,000. All right. And how long did this take you? Seven years to the day that we bought the house. Ah, okay. And what was your range of income during that seven years? We started about 60 and ended about 145.

Cool. What do y'all do for a living? I'm a mechanic for the post office. And I'm a constable manager at Kennesaw State University. Awesome. Yeah. All right. So you got a little bit of a commute down there.

Actually, it's only nine miles for me. Oh, okay. All right. Not bad. All right. I missed up. All right. there actually it's only nine nine miles for me oh okay all right not bad all right i missed i messed up all right so uh 136 seven years sound like you paid off your house yes all right look at it weird people way to go you guys what's this house worth 345 now i'm sorry 345 345 awesome very cool so how much do you guys have in your retirement savings already I think we're at about a hundred thousand you know last year was a little bit of a hit from everybody's yeah okay so you're you're gonna be about a half million dollar net worth already so you're on your way to be millionaires in no time way to go that's fun I just said that

out loud you hear that wow that's pretty stinking cool guys so what starts you on this journey seven years ago so i actually started um when we first got married 15 years ago we just celebrated our 15th year anniversary congratulations and so our first year you know i'm actually not originally from here so we um knew each other in person from before and And then when I moved here, it was really the first time we did anything together. And we got married in July of 2008. And it was a great year to get married. So we pretty quickly figured out that our finances will need some improvement pretty quickly uh we had a little

bit of debt i i grew up living pretty frugally um and so we had some arguments and by the end of that year we knew we we sold the car that he had some um debt on and then when i got a job we actually paid all of our debt our biggest issue issue was the underwater mortgage for the townhome that was purchased in 2007. So, you know, we were kind of bopping along for a couple of years. Then we had kids and I ended up staying at home. It was pretty tight. And we were still kind of trying to figure out what are we going to do about the house eventually. This has still not come up to the value that it was. And at some point we got an email from our church we go to Woodstock City Church introducing Financial PC University and in there I was like ah you know

I'm pretty frugal I keep my budget you know after the fact I got on the track of what we spent but it said it will show you how you can buy and sell a house. So I'm like, you know, why don't we take this class? So when we went and took the class, I was like, you know, where have y'all been before? So we did quite a few things, followed quite a few things. One of them was we immediately refied that house house to 15 so that we could start paying um down the the what we owed on it and um from the seven percent interest rate yes i had been paying on it yes so i bought it essentially our payment stayed the same but you know more was going yeah so you

went down to what a three uh it was a four run run for it at the time in um 20 it was 2013 um and so yes 2013 i contacted one of the lps we loved her lindsey has um a shout to her she came out because we knew we couldn't sell the house right away so she showed us what to do you know it's just uh um you know she didn't charge anything for that so we started over the next couple of years we started doing some upgrades to the house like we painted we redid the not redid the deck but we cleaned up the deck and some other stuff and so when the time came in 2016 we were still kind of figuring out where whether we're staying in the area or whatnot and then our HOA was kind of going down the hill we decided it was time to put it up for sale. Again, Lindsay helped us through that process. She was a great selling and buying agent.

There were several offers on the house that we were looking at to buy. And we had had enough equity, gotten enough equity out of the house. And we had had some savings from a sale of an apartment that I had back home. I'm not originally from the U.S. And it was about $20,000.

So we were able to put 20% down, like you teach. See, I only got out of the bad townhome, bad HOA, that had been upside down, but you were able to put 20% down on the new deal. On the new deal. Way to go. And then seven years later, you paid it off. And now it's worth $345,000.

Yes. You've got to feel like a genius. We bought two cars cash during this time while we were paying this house off yeah wow another shout out i wanted to do to rachel i remember her talking about how you know if you want to because i wanted to get um a change in the career and so i went and took um classes at a smaller college you know not a four-year college because that we could cash flow at the time and And then now that I work at KSU, I went ahead and finished my bachelor's degree debt with, you know. They pay for it. They pay for it, right, and I'm working on my master's. So,

quite a few accomplishments along the way. So, how does it feel? I want people who are maybe new to this program going, they paid their house off. That was was the debt what does it feel like to not have a house payment now and then as you look toward the future it's sinking in it's still not really hit us um but there were several people i worked with that were like oh you need to not worry about that you need to buy this and buy this and go have fun and you can worry about that later you've got time before retirement and now I've had several guys come up to me shake my hand like we're proud of you good job that's cool um they kind of see it can be done now yeah so yeah and Christina you really I mean you upped your game on your whole career that's a nice move it's a very nice move so what was the increase in your pay because we

looked at the total you guys went from 60 to 145. How much did you increase? So that was incremental. I started this full-time job in 2018. I was looking at numbers, and we actually averaged about 108. My latest promotion was in January to the manager position that was senior accountant. So how big of a bump was that? 14. But the previous year, I went to senior accountant, which that was about 15. Don't miss this part. She goes and gets the education that she can afford in her budget and then goes to work for a college and they give her free to finish her bachelor's. So there's a path here called common free consent.

Way to go. I'm so proud of you heroes. Thank you. Excellent job. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is stick together talk it through be in agreement um you won't always see eye to eye on everything but work through it yeah make sure you make sure to get to that point every morning you know i am the nerd he's the free spirit in the sense that

you know i worry about my spreadsheets. But every Sunday we get together, we sit and we just talk, you know, we dream. And so, you know, one of his hugest contributions is he's actually worked overtime for the last 10 years. Oh, wow. Six days a week pretty much every week. So there was a lot of, you know know it wasn't easy no how old are you too um 41 today yeah and you got happy birthday thank you and uh and you got a paid for 350,000 dollar house and i'm 44 and yeah and you know you're on your way to being millionaires in no

time congratulations we're so proud of you heroes well done heroes all right bring the kiddos up give us their names and ages. And while they're coming up, we've got a Baby Steps Millionaires book for you, a Total Money Makeover book for you, and a Financial Peace University membership for you. You can use them or give them away. That's the Live and Give box. We'll have that for you. Thanks for coming up to do your debt-free scream.

So what are their names and ages? This is Greg. He's 11. Mm-hmm. This is Kira, and she's 10 and a half. All right. They have no idea yet what their parents have done to change their family tree. Pretty incredible, guys.

You guys are awesome. All right. Jared and Christina, Greg and Kira from Woodstock, Georgia. $136,000 paid off in seven years. House and everything! Making $60,000 to $145,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. One,

two, three. We are debt-free! Yeah! Applause Applause This is how it's done. I love it. She goes back to school at the community college. Ups her game. Goes and finishes

her bachelor's. Ups her game, goes and finishes her bachelor's, ups her game. Well done, guys. And he works overtime like crazy. That's right. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Shiloh's with us in Billings, Montana. Hi, Shiloh. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you for having me. Sure. What's up? Okay. So my question is, my husband works for a company that is unionized, and they are potentially going to be striking fairly soon and um my question is do we hunker down and wait and ride it out or do we work on paying off our debt still what what's the best solution to do uh it depends on the probability of the strike and let's talk that through for a second okay sure um how long has he worked for that company seven years have they ever been on strike while he worked there no sir when was the last time they were on strike uh 1997 i think no you do not hunker down.

Okay. Now, if it gets up closer and it heats up and it heats up and it heats up, and you feel like the probability, the actual facts, not the emotions, the facts of what's going on indicate that you've got a 70% or an 80 percent chance they are going to go out then stop everything and pile up cash but right now what you've got is a bunch of saber rattling you know what i mean by that yes sir i do now the sounds of war but there's not going to be war okay yeah i he he is more confident that there won't be a strike than i am. So what, what I'm trying to help you do, and I have to do this myself and,

you know, Ken works with people on careers and do the same thing is we have to separate, uh, Deloney jog. Dr. John Deloney talks about this. Anytime we're facing,

uh, uh, an anxiety situation, a trauma situation, we have to separate facts from fears facts are our friends what you are doing is worrying that's what you just told me and i do that too i do that too but when the facts are that there's been two meetings and there was a meltdown and the guy stormed out and the last time that happened there was a strike well that's a fact we're probably going

into a strike but in the meantime what it is it's like i don't like this they could just put us out and we got no idea i don't know what's going on i feel out of control well that's just worrying okay both are normal but we just have to make good decisions based on all of that yeah and one of the things you want to look at... Okay, go ahead. Go ahead. Well, we have enough in our savings account to pay off all of our consumer debt. Do it. So just go ahead and do it, and then we'll be okay. Okay, that makes sense. You won't have any of those payments if you go on strike.

That'd be great. That's right. And then, Shiloh, you and your husband need to be aware, because every union is different, but one of the major potential strikes that's coming down the pike is UPS right now. And in that particular, this is one of the largest unions, the largest union in the country. You need to find out. That's where he works for is UPS. Okay.

So I actually know a little bit about this story. Okay. Then wait a minute. I may change my answer. So tell me what's going on. Well, no, no. Actually, Dave is still right. What we want to do is, that has been reported that the union is saying, and this is posturing as well,

but your husband's got to know how much am I going to get paid during this strike and for how long, because these unions have money set aside for strikes, Dave, but it is not a per it's not forever and ever and ever. And so what you have to look at is you have to get the numbers. We could survive. I'll continue to get paid for three months if the strike goes beyond. So these are the kind of facts that Dave is talking about. He's right. We pay attention to this and we go, okay, I know that for three months.

The share that UPS would lose to FedEx in three months, it'll never recover from. That's right. And it'll never happen. But the point is, is the unions have enough money in a pool. Your husband needs to find out how long would I get paid for. And see, this is the point that Dave is making. So we could survive. We pay off the debt, and we replenish that emergency fund even in a one-month strike.

Because I don't think it goes longer than 30 days. I don't think it ever happens. These are the facts that you're talking about, Dave. So you've got to know. Okay, I didn't know. I didn't have this other information. That are the facts that you're talking about, Dave. So you've got to know. Okay, I didn't know. I didn't have this other information. That's all right. That's very good.

But now I'm even more sure. That's right. Pay off your debt. Work your system. I'm not saying there's never going to be a strike. I would just say there's a very little problem. It's not going to last a long time, to your point. Let me just tell you, UPS cannot afford it.

No. Can't afford it. FedEx will eat their lunch. Yeah, they'll be gone. This is posture. it no can't afford it fedex will eat their lunch yeah they'll be gone yeah i mean they would lose they're you it the business aspect of that is just mind-boggling so yeah no no you're good you're good very good and one other point to point out this is like this is like dems and republicans uh posturing over the debt ceiling let me just tell you it don't matter who they are i've been

old enough i've been around long enough to know they're gonna keep extending the debt ceiling. Let me just tell you, it don't matter who they are. I've been old enough. I've been around long enough to know they're going to keep extending the debt. So I don't hear that headline, oh, it's going to shut the world down. No, it's not. The Republicans are going to shut the world down. They're going to keep extending the debt. This is posturing negotiation. You know this well. So in this case, nothing to worry about here at all. You're going to be paid at least a month as well. Even the union folks are saying we have about three months worth of dues set aside that would pay our members while we're striking so those are the nuances but actual facts that help you make this decision massive deal wow i'm gonna read on this i'm really ignorant okay fun hey that's why you pay me and i truly don't like being ignorant so i don't mind you being smarter than me

oh no i'm not i just have to pay attention to work related issues like this you know morgan's with us morgan's in louisiana hi morgan how are you i'm great hi dave hey thank you for taking my call sure how can we help um so yes sir so i'm kind of in a situation my husband and i um we have been married almost three years in February. And we have our finances separate. I have three children and he has one daughter who's in college. And so we're just trying to figure out how to go about combining the finances with the salary I make and his salary and what we owe and expenses and that nature, what steps do you advise us?

Where do we begin? How long ago were you divorced? Oh, gosh, mine was in 15. Okay. And was money problems a contributing factor? No, sir. Well, how long ago was he divorced? He was, I believe 18 2018 more money problems a contributing factor uh yes sir yeah okay so at some point in your new

marriages you have to be married to the person you are married to now, not the one you used to be married to, meaning he can't hold her misbehavior with money against you and use that as a reason to not combine finances. That's why I ask those questions. This is typically what causes people to not combine their finances who have been married once. They got trashed the last time. And it's hard to go back.

You know, it's hard to go, oh, yes, I'm going to treat, you know. But he really has, as a part of his healing from that other divorce, is his commitment to you and the two of you combining your finances. So tactically what you do is we change our proverbs. Proverbs. We change our pronouns, okay?verbs and proverbs we change our pronouns okay it's our money not your money my money it's our income it's our debt it's our house it's our grocery bill there's not a yours and mine if you don't do this you lower your probability of building wealth tremendously all of the data

that we have says that people that work together have a much higher probability of becoming wealthy than those who run two separate households like a couple of freaking roommates absolutely dave and and that's how we both feel that we're just like, you know, roommates. So you just put it in one pile. You have one pile of income at the top of the page. Yours plus his equals our. And then we have our expenses down the page. Our food, our lights, our water, our house, our, our, our, our vacation. We're visiting your mother, and we are paying for that. And whatever it is, right?

You got it? It's all the way down the page. And if you guys are paying for his daughter's college, that's our expense because you married her when you married him. Yes. Right? Am I off track here? You are on track.

I'm going to say I, too, am at fault in struggling with the finance in the first marriage. Yeah. So we both have been. You've got to forgive the person you're married to now because they didn't do anything wrong. It's hard, though, because it's human nature to not put your hand out once a dog bit you, you know?

Ouch. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Ken. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Go to ramsaysolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's ramsaysolutions.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.