Dear Dave,

My husband has two trucks, one of which is a work truck at his construction site. It’s in really bad shape, and he wants to take $16,000 out of savings to buy another one. We only have $17,000 in the account. What should we do?

CAROLINE

Dear Caroline,

Your husband wants to drain your savings to buy a $16,000 vehicle and roll it up to a construction site? I think this guy has been watching too many macho-man truck commercials.

In the real world, some hard hat will run into it with a piece of heavy equipment or drop a load of bricks off centre and put some big time damage on this truck before he puts 1,000 miles on it. He wants to buy way too much truck. This kind of decision will wreck your finances and spell bad news for the business, too.

You can buy a perfectly good work truck for $6,000 or $7,000, and that’s what he needs to do. This truck is going to get destroyed, and trashing an inexpensive truck is a much better idea than trashing the family finances.

— DAVE

Dave Ramsey is CEO of Ramsey Solutions. He has authored seven bestselling books, including The Total Money Makeover. The Dave Ramsey Show is heard by more than 12 million listeners each week on 575 radio stations and multiple digital platforms. Follow Dave on the web at daveramsey.com and on Twitter at @DaveRamsey