Despite bringing in an annual salary of $156,000, a Chicago family is struggling to afford groceries, something the wife attributes to her husband’s $700-a-month growing tobacco and marijuana addiction.
“My husband is an addict,” Megan said during an episode of “The Ramsey Show” last year. She is a stay-at-home mom pregnant with their third child and sought advice from personal finance experts Dave Ramsey and Jade Varshaw. Megan said her husband typically spends about $6,000 a year on addiction, but the last few months have been worse because of the deaths of his father and grandfather.
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Because of her husband’s “erratic behavior,” Megan told the hosts that she is reluctant to pay off their $20,000 car loan even though they have the money. She fears that the $600 a month payment just saved will disappear into his habit.
Ramsey immediately challenged the frame. “If I were to say that my wife was an addict, that would mean that our marriage was either getting ready to end or she was getting help next week,” he said. “But you use this as if it’s part of the budget. If you’re going to call it an addiction, you’re going to have to act like it.”
He added that if her concern is simply that her husband occasionally uses substances and is costing them $500 to $700 a month, that is a very different scenario than describing him as an addict.
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When asked about his income structure, Megan revealed that she currently brings in no income. Her husband earns all the household income. They take home about $7,800 a month after taxes, but Megan said food insecurity is still a problem.
With a $3,400 mortgage, a $600 car payment, and significant deductions from his paycheck for things like a 401(k), the couple may be strapped for cash because of poor planning, not just his addictions.
“You’re making $8,000 a month house payment and you have a house payment of $3,000. You’re not without food because you spent 750 bucks,” Ramsey said. “You will be without food if he loses his job because he is drunk all the time.”
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The hosts stressed that the biggest issue is that Megan either needs to confront her husband’s addiction seriously or reconsider whether it really is an addiction. “You’re going to have to reclassify this in your mind or you’re going to have to take some more severe action than you’ve been willing to take so far,” Ramsey told her.