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Question: Adrienne in California and her husband started working on their debt last year. She will be losing her job in a couple of months and he's in construction, so work is spotty. He wants to buy a dog but she's more interested in showing him how severe their situation is so they can prepare for it. Dave has a good laugh before telling her how to approach this situation.

Answer: I'm trying to think how to describe this to you, because actually, as dumb as it sounds, as a guy, I kind of get how he did this. You made an immediate connection between the dog and his irresponsibility and the fact that it's like, "Don't you get how bad this is? When you say, 'Buy a dog,' you're scaring the crap out of me because I think I'm married to an idiot." That's what went through your mind. What went through his mind was, "I saw a dog I liked." That was the full extent of his analysis. He really is not an idiot. He has no idea when he gets home tonight how many buttons he pushed by this simple question.

It's not that males are stupid. That's not the thing. We do not always connect things across like you do. Actually, I get what you're saying because I do what I do for a living, so I see it, and you're exactly right. I think the best thing to do here is this is a relational thing--not a financial thing--and you need to explain to him that by buying something that we don't need when you're freaking out about money, you freak out about money even more. If you just say that to him, he'll go, "Oh! Like when I talked about the dog, you freaked out." And you go, "Yeah, you just don't understand how much I freaked out because for just a minute there. I thought I was married to an idiot." You can kind of laugh about it because he's not a dumb guy, and he's not a guy who's not plugged in. He's pretty plugged in because you guys are working on this stuff together. That's what you told me. You're unemployed, he's getting ready to be, and he wants to buy a dog. He didn't put those other two parts of the sentence in front of this. He just said, "Dog."

We're going to cut him a little slack here and go, "You have no idea how dumb what you said was and how scared it made me feel. You're not dumb, but that was a really dumb thing for you to do to ask me about this, because it made me want to punch you in the face. You scare me to death when you do stuff like that, so no, we're not buying a dog when we're both facing unemployment. That would be ridiculous. We've got a lot of other things to worry about rather than housebreaking a puppy, much less a $400 puppy."

I think it's just a good way for male/female relations and communication for you guys to probably grow a little bit in that area over this conversation. Hopefully, I refereed just a little. I'm not really a marriage counselor. I've just been married 30 years, and I mess this stuff up all the time.

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Question: Scott in St. Louis says his 77-year-old mother-in-law just moved in with him and his wife. She wants to pay for her keep, but Scott doesn't know how much to ask for. Dave has alternative idea to charging Scott's mother-in-law rent.

Answer: The way I try to answer questions on this show is what would I do if I were in your shoes? You guys can obviously afford for her to stay there. If I were in your shoes, I might accept her gift and do the home repairs because it's not a lot of money. It's not a big commitment on anyone's part. It's not $100,000--it's $5,000 or $6,000. I might do that.

If I were in her shoes, I agree I wouldn't want to feel like a freeloader. I guess we just have to talk it through.

I would be uncomfortable charging my mother-in-law rent. I would want to just do this, and you can afford to. If she wants to give a little bit of a gift, I would probably just say no rent. Then if I were in her shoes, I would probably change my will to leave a larger portion to your wife due to having fed me all these years. I probably would just keep it real clean, in other words, rather than try to get into what is market rent for the mother-in-law. It feels wrong.

If you guys were broke and starving to death and she was unbelievably rich or whatever, we could talk. But you're doing okay. This is not a real strain on you financially to set another plate at the table. You can get a little bit of stuff fixed up around the house. If it becomes a strain, she can step up. I think if she's going to imbalance the will, meaning leave a little more to your wife, she probably should tell the boys she's doing that and why while she's alive. Kind of have an informal reading of the will while everyone's alive if she chose to do that. If she doesn't choose to do that, I still would be fine with her staying.

There's nothing wrong with her paying some rent. I don't hear anything wrong with that. It's just that I'm answering the question what would I do if I were in your shoes? I would just feel weird. If I'm going to let somebody stay in my house like that, I'm probably not charging them. I don't really want to cash her check every month. That's just going to make me feel weird. And she can do some stuff from time to time. She can buy a bag of groceries or put some gas in the car when you're on a trip together or something. She can do whatever she wants to do like that, but I'm not going to sit here and create a lease with my mother-in-law. But again, you can do any of that. None of that would be a bad thing.

I'm repeating that the way I answer questions is what would Dave Ramsey do if I was in that situation? That's what we would do. If Sharon's dad, who's living, wanted to live with us--her mom passed away a couple of years ago--I wouldn't think of charging him. It wouldn't even occur to me. He'd be more than welcome to stay. We've got plenty of bedrooms, and I just wouldn't even think about it. He would want to pay his part and all of that, and I'd get the same thing, but if he wanted to come over and hang out with us, I'd love to have him.

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