The Numbers Don't Lie

**SPEAKER_1** (0:04)
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**George Kamel** (0:15)
Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the FAIRWINDS Credit Union studio, this is The Ramsey Show. Taking your call is at 888-825-5225.
Eric is in San Jose to kick us off. What's going on, Eric? How can we help you?

**Dr. John Delony** (0:38)
Hi, yeah, thanks for taking my call. I just had a question about how to build this idea of kind of a shared ownership of budget building and overspending. Just to give a little bit of context, my wife comes from a family that's got kind of poor financial education and behaviors, and she acknowledges this and recognizes this. But we kind of go through a cyclical process over the years of marriage, where we'll do really well one month and then the next month, it just kind of goes off the rails.
Generally, we're doing okay, but I kind of want to find a way to help encourage her in the moments when she's doing well, but also try to keep us on track for the long term, so we don't have to keep having the same conversations over and over again.

**Dr. John Delony** (1:27)
Why does she choose to go to get off track? I hear a guy who's trying to be really respectful of his wife and I honor that, that's good, but it sounds like y'all have these heartfelt conversations. Y'all join Allegiance, you get on the same plan, and then a month later, she just is like, I don't care.

**Dr. John Delony** (1:44)
Yeah, I mean, I don't want to say it's the I don't care part. It's more of just not knowing and keeping being mindful of where we're at.

**Dr. John Delony** (1:53)
But that's a fancier way. Not being mindful is a fancy way of saying, I don't care.

**Dr. John Delony** (2:01)
Yeah, that's fair. Right.

**Dr. John Delony** (2:04)
And so that's the conversation you have to have. Because we're past the point of we're not on the same page. We're past the point of you clearly have talked to her about what freedom means and what safety means and your dream for your family. And she's actually agreed with you. And she's also agreed on like she knows her story. She knows why these things are wired into her. She's come from that like unwise money habits, right? The only thing left is I got to go do the thing. I can Google what workout to do all day long.
I got to go to the gym, right? And so my question for you is, do you have any idea? Because I don't think it's a matter of you not encouraging her enough or whatever.
It's just frankly, it's a maturity. It's integrity. It's her keeping her word. When she says, oh, I don't know, or I didn't, like what does she communicate to you is the root problem here?

**Dr. John Delony** (3:00)
I think the problem is that she feels like there's a need, right, that's not being fulfilled. And whether that's, you know, we needed this grocery item or we needed this household thing to take care of the family.
And so she fulfills that need without really considering the budget. And I've oftentimes said, you know, that's an important need and we can talk about that, but it has to fit within our budget constraints. And if it's not fitting in the month currently, you know, maybe that's something we have to wait for. And that's kind of just always been a hard, so is it a hard thing for her to hear.

**George Kamel** (3:37)
Can you label this in the budget if it actually is a need for the family? It sounds like she's not buying frivolous things. Hey, we needed paper towels and we didn't factor that into the budget.

**Dr. John Delony** (3:48)
Right.

**George Kamel** (3:48)
What's some examples of things where you guys, she goes off rails, doesn't talk to you about it, and now you're frustrated?

**Dr. John Delony** (3:54)
Yeah, because I don't think you'd be calling us if it was just, oh, we didn't have any milk or we didn't have any paper towels.

**Dr. John Delony** (4:00)
No, true, true.
I mean, examples are, you know, like we'll go to the, we have, we do have a lot of budget light on them for like home needs, right? Whether it's toilet paper, toilet paper towels, you know, a new broom, whatever. So it'll be, it'll be things like that, that she'll feel like, like we need and we've already used that budgeted money for something else. And that kind of makes, doesn't have that conversation and goes out and spends that additional money without having those conversations about, hey, we're over budget, but this is a need we need.