"I Don't Want Him To Think I'm a Gold Digger"

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. I am engaged to a wonderful man. We've been together about seven and a half years. We've been engaged for about four. We're getting ready to get married next year. And I just have a question really about how to approach him with saying, hey, what are we going to do financially? Are we going to join our money? We're going to not join our money. He has his. I have mine. um second marriage for me third marriage for him what what's the um what is the income disparity what's the what's the total wealth picture disparity okay so i make about 50 000 a year i'm getting ready to retire next april i will be 59 and a half at that point okay he's 62 he makes about $350,000 a year. He has $4 million inheritance. He has $2 million in his IRA. I have $1.5 million in mine. I would strongly recommend y'all sit down and do a prenup together to make sure the assets are... And here's why. Y'all have been together for seven years, almost a decade. I trust that y'all, you know what you're getting into and he knows what he's getting into. I'm more worried when you're talking that level of money, I'm more worried about something happening to him and his kids or his cousin or his brother's friend's roommate coming in and tying you up legally. And you don't have a place to live. You know what I'm saying? And so coming up with, here's the path. Do you have kids from a previous marriage that you would take care of well they're on their they're they're 27 and 26 okay um but i do i do support them a little bit okay well i i'm just saying like if if something was to happen to either one of you yeah you're you would both be okay because you both have significant nest eggs right right and so unless he wants to say i just got this four million inheritance i want to gift you half of it as my fiance or you want to sit down with him and say i think that should be our four million dollars to build our life with right it's just having that big conversation that four million is in a trust okay so it is completely off the table okay because that's the inheritance right yes so then he has another two close to 2.5 let me ask you a different question y'all this is neither of y'all this is your first rodeo y'all been down y'all had hard conversations before y'all messed y'all y'all been in the throes of uncoupling legal relationships and y'all been together for seven years what about this particular conversation are you nervous about i did you know your personal info is getting bought and sold to people right now who use ai to target you with bizarrely personal scams and spam like hey george are you interested in selling your house at 253 sprague street well lucky for you there's delete me delete me as the name implies goes to hundreds of creepy data broker sites and deletes your personal info over and over all year long i use and love delete me because i can't stop scammers from using ai but i can make myself much more difficult to target so go to join delete me.com slash ramsey and get 20% off an annual plan or click the link in the description that's join j-o-i-n delete me.com slash ramsey i don't want him to think i'm a gold digger like oh so now we're getting to the money part of our relationship because i pay for my after seven years after seven years yeah i know so here's the thing but he funds i mean he we also have a home together vacation home together okay that he paid for that's 1.2 million okay so when you say we have it together did you put any money into it or he just bought it and you both live correct we correct we yes he bought it he paid for it um we still owe six hundred thousand on it when you say we explain that to me because you're saying sometimes it's you guys together and sometimes it's him so if he bought it i guess he owed owes the bill right unless he put you on the title are you on the title i'm on the deed so you're on the mortgage too yes oh you're on the mortgage too oh that's messy yikes okay um and so yeah you what you want to do is like this is where i think a prenup would be really helpful for y'all because it allows you to sit down and say i want us to do life together meaning i want us to have a single checking account that we're paying our bills out of that we're paying light bills and phone bills and grocery bills i don't want us to be venmoing each other money like hey you owe me for the light bill and i want us to go into this thing with established who's covering what. And since you're on the hook for a half a million dollar mortgage right now on a second home. Yeah. And if something were to happen to him, you don't know that you'll get any piece of his wealth, but you will be on the hook for that mortgage. And so I think you'd be right to say, I want a piece of this just to clear the mortgage on this. Right. I mean, I would probably have to sell the vacation home right now. He has a house. I have a house, and then there's another home, his mother's home, who's passed away in Michigan. So once we sell all our homes, and then we'll move into the vacation home, which will be our retirement home. And then are you going to take the sale of your home and put that in a trust that you've established, and he's going to do the same on his side? I don't know. Okay. Yeah, I think it's fair. I think it's fair to sit down with an attorney and say, we want to do, well, first I'd talk to him. and say what do we want to do here because and and just express some of the places where you feel exposed he can express some of the places where he feels exposed and then you guys can say either we're going to do a trust or we're just going to say we're married and it's a 50 50 deal and i'm willing to say that i'm willing to put that on paper whatever we have when it goes down it's split 50 50 and that's that on that that's fair too right right but i i i like the idea of you leading that conversation with we i want to have this big conversation we're getting older how old are you now oh you don't i'm almost 59 yeah so we're getting up in our late 50s early 60s like it's time for us to have grown-up conversations and i'm really nervous that you're gonna think i'm a gold digger so i just want you to know i'm not he yeah i know and i said to him look if i was a gold digger i would have married you after dating a year a year and a Yeah. Has he ever joked about that? If it's come up before, um, yeah, a little bit. So that's why you're like, how much of this is a joke and how much of this is a real worry of his. Right. So that conversation needs to happen too. Are you worried that I'm a gold digger? Are you, you made this joke and I wasn't sure if it was a joke or not. I really want to talk about that because it's been sticking. It's stuck in my mind and it's actually causing me to like reconsider having another conversation. I really need to have with you. These are, I love Olivia, that this is coming up and I love that it's coming up before you're married for you guys to have these real conversations to see like the full picture of who each other is and where they stand on these things is really important and here's what I, here's what I don't love Olivia, what I don't love that after this long together y'all haven't had this conversation yet. I agree, it just, it just because the disparity has been so great and he funds, I mean he, we go on vacations and I think that bothers you deep, I think you feel like a little like, like you owe him, yeah and I think it's fair to say, hey, if I'm going to be your wife we're doing this thing together if you're gonna be my husband we're doing the same together and also let's go ahead and just clear things up so that we both know where we stand yeah, have that talk. Olivia, create your free EveryDollar budget today, the simplest way to budget for your life