- Hey guys, welcome to another episode
of The Rachel Cruze Show.
All right, this episode, I'm going to answer a question
from someone in my Facebook community,
and it's a question that I get a lot.
So this one was from Jenn.
She said, "I'd really love to dig into money saving,
budgeting, and paying off debt,
but my husband is not on board.
He says we're doing fine, but we aren't.
He brought a lot of debt over
from his previous relationship.
We can't even get approved for a mortgage.
Do you have any tips to get him on board?"
Oh, I'm so sorry.
This is, this is a hard one.
It's so stressful.
It's hard in marriage when you're not aligned
on big subjects in life and money is one of those subjects.
You want to financially be a team.
So I would say a couple of things, Jenn.
There's an emotional aspect that I want you guys
to kind of tap into, and it's the idea
that you have to be one in your marriage.
You have to say, "Hey, we're still gonna
have our own passions, our own tendencies,
our own, you know, maybe goals of I wanna do this thing
or he wants to do this thing," and that's fine.
You don't lose your identity when you get married,
but you do become one.
And you do say, "Hey, we are on the same team
and we need to be doing things very, very similarly,
on the same road, so that we can win in the long term.
It's really hard to win financially when you're running on
two separate tracks, and you're trying to get out of debt,
and he doesn't care to, and he goes into more debt,
and you're trying to dig out of this hole.
Like it's not gonna work in the long term.
And so to say, "Hey, we have to be a team."
I would also say he needs to know your why.
Why, why do you want to do this?
Why do you want to pay off debt?
Why do you want to live on a budget?
Why do you want to save? Why?
Is it because you're stressed out?
Is it because you're scared?
Is it because you feel like you work so hard,
and you just have no traction,
and there's something just tactically off,
and you're like frustrated about it?
Is it because you want your kids
to live a better life than you did?
Like, what is it?
Figure off that why, and that's when you want to bring
that conversation to him and say,
"Hey, here's why I want to do this."
And that usually leads to deeper conversations
other than just money.
And if there's hopefully some respect in the relationship,
you guys are gonna hear each other.
And it may not just be the thing that just takes off
and like, oh yeah, we're gonna automatically win.
But he needs to know your urgency of your why.
Number three, I would say
that you're gonna have different money tendencies,
and that's okay.
You may always be more of the nerd in the relationship
where you're always going to be more passionate than he is.
He might be more of a free spirit.
Now that's not to say an excuse.
Well, then you just do everything
and he's just gonna listen and not worry.
No, no, no. He needs to engage as well.
Just because you're a free spirit,
you don't get a pass on this money stuff.
You still have to engage the conversation.
But for you two to come together and say, okay.
You're probably gonna be more passionate
about it than he is, and that just gives
you a level of empathy.
But again, I want him on board.
But as you go down the 7 Money Tendencies
in my new book and just pinpoint and say,
"Okay, this is him. This is me.
This is him. This is me."
It almost gives you this level of empathy
to say this is where he's coming from.
And I would want to know that, like kind of his story.
So that's gonna be number four, digging in
to that past relationship,
to his past family experiences with
of how he grew up.
Dig into his past, when it comes to money,
to figure out why has he shaped and viewed money
the way he does today?
Because what you're really talking about is a value system,
a principle that you guys are not agreeing on.
So figuring out how he got there is gonna help.
And then, last but not least, it's pretty tactical,
but I find that it usually works more for men
to get them on board is to show him.
Hey, why don't you then, Jenn, do the budget
and show him, "Hey, this is what I'm thinking.
What do you think?"
Show him your debt snowball.
Go ahead and do the debt snowball.
Get all the debts on the table,
because it's not his debt or your debt.
It's now your debt together, y'all's debt.
Make a debt snowball.
List out all of the debts, smallest to largest,
regardless of the interest rate, and show him, okay,
if we really put X amount toward that smallest debt,
we can have it paid off in two months.
And then the next smallest debt,
okay, we can have that paid off.
And then show him a timeline and say,
hey, if we sacrifice and we put this extra money here,
we could have no payments.
No payments in 18 months, 24 months,
whatever it is for you all.
But to do that and show him tactically,
because I think sometimes the idea of handling money well,
whether it is budgeting or saving or getting out debt,
it's all kind of theory up in your head,
and it's kind of emotional, and it's all here.
When you can bring it on paper to actually see it visually,
that helps as well.
And if all of those don't work, Jenn,
then honestly I would go see someone.
Pull in a third party,
whether that's a good friend who has a great marriage
when it comes to money,
whether that's a marriage counselor or a therapist,
I don't care, but bring someone in
because I find, so often, that life's problems
masquerade themselves as money problems.
And at the end of the day, it may not
just be a money problem.
There may be a marriage breakdown there
and for you guys to resolve that and figure that out,
because not only are you going to win with money faster
doing that, but you're gonna have
a healthier marriage overall.
You're gonna force to communicate about things.
You're gonna be forced to probably look to see,
"Hey where have I gone wrong in this as well?"
All of it, it just kind of exposes us.
But when you can have those deeper level conversations,
you just have a richer marriage overall.
And then the money stuff comes after
and it ends up usually being okay
and you guys working on the same team.
So I hope that helps Jenn, but I know,
gosh, a lot of people struggle with this, you guys.
And we talk about it a lot on the show,
but money fights and money problems,
one of the leading causes of divorce.
So if this, if the financial part of your marriage
is always a stress point, focus in on that
and say, "Hey, let's work on this,"
because it's not fun to live life
when you're just stressed out and freaked out, right?
You want to be able to enjoy it
and enjoy it with the person you're married to as well.
So thanks for asking, Jenn.
And again, hope that helps.
And you guys, you can ask any question you want
on usually social media.
So whether it's YouTube or Facebook or Instagram,
we are out looking for those questions
and hopefully we'll answer them here on the show.
All right, remember to take control of your money
and create a life you love.
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