189. “People definitely called me out”: Nate & Serena return 2 years later

This week we are back with part two of Nate and Serena's follow-ups. Their original appearance on episodes 73 & 74 are some of our favorite episodes of the podcast, and it is very rare that I get a chance to speak to a couple after their episode airs. Join us as we revisit moments from their first episode together, learn what changes they've made, and go over their NEW conscious spending plan two years later. I think you're gonna be surprised. This episode is brought to you by: NordVPN | Get a huge discount on a 2 year plan plus 4 additional bonus months at https://nordvpn.com/ramit. Rocket Money | Stop throwing your money away. Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to https://rocketmoney.com/ramit. Trust & Will | Secure your assets and protect your loved ones. Get 10% off plus free shipping on your estate plan documents by visiting https://trustandwill.com/ramit. Fabric by Gerber Life | Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at https://meetfabric.com/ramit. Masterclass | For unlimited access to every class and 15% off an annual membership, go to https://masterclass.com/ramit. Links mentioned in this episode • Get tickets to Money for Couples LIVE coming to a city near you in January Connect with Ramit • Pre-order my upcoming book: Money for Couples • Get the Podcast Newsletter and watch me analyze an anonymous couple's spending each Saturday • Get Money Coaching with Ramit • Download the Conscious Spending Plan • Listen to my book—now on Audible • Get my New York Times best-selling book • Get my no-numbers journal • Other episodes • Instagram • Twitter • YouTube If you and your partner have a money issue and you want my help, I occasionally select a couple to work with, free of charge. Apply for my help here. Produced by Crate Media.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ramit Sethi?

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• 2:14Ramit Sethi?

  I think that if you don't change anything, you will find yourself continuing to argue and to spin about money, and it will become even more painful.

• 2:25Speaker 01

  I really don't like the sound of that. And it's like, I love Nate, he's my person, we're engaged, and I'm thrilled, you know? So why is it so hard for me to do this?

• 2:37Ramit Sethi?

  I'm curious, why did you come back?

• 2:40Speaker 02

  When I think back at that conversation, I didn't realize how much trauma I carried without really thinking and evaluating if that made sense for my life with Nate.

• 2:52Speaker 03

  Things are gonna start changing. After four years of med school, it will be four years of residency and one year of fellowship. I'm about seven months from relative freedom.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  When I talked about money, it was never empowering. It was always a sense of stress or shame.

• 3:08Speaker 03

  It's kind of interesting from our perspective, seeing similar but different takes on the same problems. It really gave me a lot more peace of mind.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  Achieving financial goals is a really empowering feeling. It's not something I thought I would, like, I never thought I would say that sentence.

• 3:30Ramit Sethi?

  This week, we are back with part two of Nate and Serena's follow-ups. This is one of my favorite original episodes ever. And it is pretty rare that I get a chance to speak to a couple after the episode airs. So I'm excited to learn what changes they've made and how our first conversation affected them. Join me as I revisit moments from their first episode with them, and we go through their new conscious spending plan two years later. I think you're gonna be surprised.

• 4:01Ramit Sethi?

  Welcome back. Oh, my gosh.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  Hi.

• 4:03Ramit Sethi?

  I'm so happy to see you both. It's been a while, and I've always wondered how you're doing. So, yes, I want to get into all the numbers and everything, but first of all, welcome back, and how are you both doing?

• 4:15Speaker 02

  We're great. I, yeah, we're excited to be back, excited that people liked our episode. Um, in general, we are really good. I think the last time we had spoken, we had recently gotten engaged. And now we are getting married in May, so we're like six months out.

• 4:32Ramit Sethi?

  Congratulations.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  Thank you very much. We're really excited. Funding a wedding has been definitely a challenge, but um, lots of really great learnings and something we are really excited to invest in. But yeah, no, we're really good.

• 4:47Ramit Sethi?

  Awesome. Nate, how about you? How are you doing?

• 4:50Speaker 03

  Been doing great. Um, in my last year of residency, so I'm about seven months from relative freedom. We moved a little closer to where I work, so I'm not commuting quite as much on a day-to-day basis. So after four years of med school, it will be four years of residency and one year of fellowship. So I'm going to get some really particular, uh, you know, skills that I can bring into a, a career after that, that I don't necessarily have just from residency alone. So I'm gonna go do a really intensive, uh, surgical fellowship and then I'll be free.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  So just happier, maybe a little healthier, uh, and yeah, ready for the next chapter.

• 5:38Ramit Sethi?

  And Serena, are you at the same company you were when we talked last?

• 5:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So I'm still at my role in media. I'm a full-time writer. And yeah, things are great. We have, we're still like, I'm full-time remote. And, uh, I don't know if Nate had mentioned, but we'll be moving, his fellowship is in Dallas. So we will be moving next year to Texas. And I'll just, yeah, continue to be remote. But yeah, things are wonderful.

• 6:03Ramit Sethi?

  Awesome. Okay, great. Um, I have to know, what was it like being on the show last time?

• 6:13Speaker 02

  I, it was a revelation I wasn't expecting at all. It really shifted a lot of fundamental ways that I thought about, not just my finances, but finances that we share as a couple. You know, when I think back at that conversation, you know, I didn't realize how, maybe like how much trauma I carried from, you know, the way I was raised and the way my parents kind of dealt with money around the household. And I didn't realize how much I was bringing that without really thinking and like evaluating if that made sense for my life and, you know, my life with Nate.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  But I still had these like very firmly held beliefs. It was definitely like an eye-opening experience for sure, uh, being on the show.

• 7:06Ramit Sethi?

  What, what's an example of a firmly held belief that you had that you didn't realize you were bringing?

• 7:11Speaker 02

  I mean, like for sure, like I think we talked a lot about, you know, how we split rent and I was like, well, yeah, like 50/50, like why should, I'm not getting, you know, 75% of the apartment. I'm not getting like, I own, you know, all the bedrooms or whatever. And then Nate is, I mean, yeah, the closet is debatable, but I feel like that's par for the course. You know, I was like, I'm not getting more apartment than Nate is, why should I have to pay more in rent? And, you know, it, I was only making that decision based on like those facts alone, but that's like not how life works. And, you know, if I'm making double of what he is making, you know, it was, it seems so obvious, like I totally get that.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  And I, I feel like people definitely commented about it and called me out.

• 7:58Ramit Sethi?

  Then read the comments, ever read the comments.

• 8:00Speaker 02

  I know, they don't, they don't exist, they don't exist. But no, it was like, it was something I really had to be like, oh, I didn't think of it that way. And I also, a huge revelation that came out of that was how much stress it was actually causing Nate, which honestly was in a lot of ways even more of, um, like a wake-up call for sure.

• 8:22Ramit Sethi?

  Wow, wow.

• 8:25Speaker 02

  Ramit, you're just, you know, you're just out here doing the Lord's work and saving couples all over America.

• 8:30Ramit Sethi?

  Well, that's what, that's what I like to say, but it's nice to hear it from the couple. That's amazing. I honestly love, I loved our conversation, but I love what you just said even more. The realizations you had, the fact that you took the feedback constructively, and honestly, the fact that you're back here to talk more. I'm like, you two are awesome. I love it. We all have things that we're not doing optimally, things we bring from a past history, or just things we don't know. And it's hard to hear that you might be doing something in a way that's not optimal or even hurtful. But to be able to take that

• 9:14Ramit Sethi?

  feedback and make changes is, to my mind, it's incredibly impressive. Nate, how about you? What was it like being on the episode when we first talked?

• 9:25Speaker 03

  So definitely was really enlightening, just in a lot of overarching ways, kind of taking the sort of bird's eye view of the entire relationship from a more financial perspective, but also generally speaking. So a lot of the anxieties that I personally had about my own finances, sort of being in this stasis for essentially a decade, basically, before I'm going to actually be earning a salary that's commensurate with the amount of debt I have and all of these other issues, that it was not, not an unreasonable situation

• 10:09Speaker 03

  to be in, that it was okay, things were going to be okay, that it is just a pretty crazy environment financially for a few years, but then things do improve after that. As with a lot of people that go into medicine, there's a lot of delaying gratification and a lot of anxiety about delaying that gratification and not being necessarily as on top of, you know, having all of your ducks in a row financially in the meantime, but sort of... Understanding that things are kind of heading in the right direction, going to be okay. It really gave me, again, a lot of peace, a lot more peace of mind, just in terms of,

• 10:53Speaker 03

  on a day-to-day basis, saying, you know, I'm not about to be homeless tomorrow. I can afford rent, can afford food, be on top of things, but not to stress as much about it, because it does, or that sort of improvement is on the horizon.

• 11:11Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, I agree. What about the relationship dynamic and the dynamic around money for the two of you? What was that like, hearing how the conversation unfolded? What do you remember feeling at the time?

• 11:26Speaker 03

  I remember basically being really, first of all, very surprised, just at the emotional base that so much of that conversation was built on, because a lot of, particularly Serena's relationship with money and the anxieties and concerns surrounding it were from a emotional place, not from necessarily a pragmatic or an economic place. And so it was really interesting just to sort of understand the extent of that, as

• 12:06Speaker 03

  opposed to it purely being a financial question. So that was really interesting in real time to see that unravel.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I vaguely remember us interrupting the call to, I think I went into the other room and gave you a hug, because I think we were both just feeling really, just like, vulnerable, you know, and it's, it's interesting, because, you know, if you think about finances, so much of it feels unemotional, but the truth is, like, you know, I realized I wasn't being generous at all with the way I used my money and spent my money in this relationship. You know, I used to never It sounds awful. I used to never think to, you know, treat Nate to a coffee, you know,

• 13:02Speaker 02

  like, or, you know, take him out for lunch.

• 13:05Ramit Sethi?

  She bought, she bought me a coffee today.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  I did. That's an improvement. Um, but no, it was like, in my mind, like, the, the idea of me being generous was like, we can go like 50/50, you know, if, and I, I mentioned that, you know, I do like to be, like, if it's a nice date, you know, I want to feel, or like, if it's my birthday, or whatever, it's like, I do like being treated. It, like, it makes me feel like, like a priority and something that Nate is, like, wanting to invest in, but I wasn't even doing the same for him. And I kind of didn't realize that because I was like, I'm

• 13:47Speaker 02

  already so great and I do all these other things to, like, show him that I care. But I, the biggest thing I wasn't doing was, like, one of the top things I was asking for.

• 14:00Ramit Sethi?

  Right.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  Um, and again, like, that's, like, I never saw money as, like, something that could be used to, you know, foment closeness or show your partner that you care. Like, I was just like, it's, it's like transactional, you know? Um, and it was honestly really empowering. And it feels good to do those things. Like, I found that out. And if it makes Nate happy, it makes me happy.

• 14:24Ramit Sethi?

  Honestly, I love watching their reactions right now. I feel very proud of how far they have come. And I'm so impressed with both of them. Do you notice how them watching that original conversation allows them to zoom out and see things they didn't see at the time? For example, Nate was feeling trapped when he was talking about his financial situation. He just felt this mounting student loan debt, no end in sight. Now, he shifted his perspective. He zoomed out. He knows that medical school debt is temporary. And he knows that with his incoming salary, he's going to be able to wipe that slate clean. That is a simple, but very powerful.

• 15:03Ramit Sethi?

  Powerful shift in perspective. It can also apply to you. If you have credit card debt, it can feel overwhelming, daunting. But if you zoom out, if you run your numbers in a debt payoff calculator, suddenly you realize this is temporary. I'm in control. If I pay fifty bucks a month more, I can shave it down by years. Suddenly, you don't have to feel so out of control. Second, it's fascinating to hear Serena talk about her own perceived generosity. Before our first conversation, she perceived herself as generous. But Nate didn't really agree. Remember, she believed splitting rent fifty fifty was generous because that's how she experienced money as a child.

• 15:49Ramit Sethi?

  But now she shifted her perspective around on generosity. And I think she's actually truly generous with Nate, which brings them closer, which deepens their relationship. This is why I do this show. Let's watch as I show them a clip of our first conversation where Serena had a revelation around her lack of generosity. And watch what happens. I love that. Wow. Um, you, you, you mentioned that you, you took a break when you were talking to me and you both got up and gave each other a hug. I remember that moment. I wonder if we can take a look at it.

• 16:24Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  This is so like cheesy, but I just want to run over and like give you a hug right now.

• 16:34Ramit Sethi?

  Are you talking to him or me?

• 16:36Speaker 02

  Oh, both of you guys.

• 16:37Ramit Sethi?

  Go, go give him a hug. You guys can give each other a hug. You're next door to each other. Go ahead.

• 16:40Speaker 03

  Okay, I'm taking a hug break.

• 16:42Ramit Sethi?

  Wait, do this on camera. Hey, I want to see this. If it doesn't happen on camera, it doesn't. What a nice hug. Look at that. I love that.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 16:56Ramit Sethi?

  What do you notice about that beautiful moment?

• 17:00Speaker 02

  I mean, I feel like that was just like we weren't, that was not something we planned. Like it wasn't, it was just totally like we felt it in the moment. And I think that's how I'm showing Nate, like I see you. You know, I understand that like this has really been affecting you in ways I didn't know. And, you know, it's like that physical touch, that moment of closeness and reassurance. Um, oh, my gosh, I love that you just played that for us. I haven't seen that since episode first aired.

• 17:30Speaker 03

  I looked so young and happy that.

• 17:32Speaker 02

  I know, so much collagen.

• 17:36Ramit Sethi?

  You know, the thing that I noticed about it was none of us knew it was gonna happen. It was totally impromptu and there was just this moment that, you know, Serena, you were like, I want to give you a hug. And the thing that I love is when people are really intuitive about something. And I'm not this way. I'm not intuitive about a lot of things. I'm cerebral and I plan stuff and I model it out. But you know, sometimes I meet like a really creative person and they're just like, oh, I put this outfit on today because I just felt like it. And I'm like, what? What? What word is that? It felt? What does that mean? And I have been trying to learn how to be more intuitive. And there are a couple of

• 18:19Ramit Sethi?

  areas of life where I'm super intuitive. Travel, I just kind of know what I feel like and I can create this experience. Money is one where I love seeing people be intuitive. And so to see the two of you get up, give each other a hug while we're talking about this complex topic felt so good for me because it's just, it's so natural. It was like, there's nothing else you can do but give each other a hug. And I really appreciated that moment.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  Aw, thank you for sharing it again with us. I'm so glad that, I'm so glad that we captured that.

• 18:53Ramit Sethi?

  We'll get back to our follow up with Nate and Serena after a quick break to support our sponsors. If you're retiring soon and you have a financial advisor, please listen up. Do you know how much you pay your advisor? Most people that I talk to do not know. I don't have anything against advisors per se. I do have something against paying a percentage and not even knowing how much you are paying. You can actually get quality financial help without hidden or obfuscated fees by switching to a flat fee only advisor from our friends at Facet. Facet charges a flat membership fee for financial planning, never a percentage of your assets. And you get access to a team of CFP professionals, always a CFP, always a fiduciary, who help you create a personalized financial plan that meets you where you are.

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• 20:24Ramit Sethi?

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• 21:05Ramit Sethi?

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• 21:45Ramit Sethi?

  And now, back to the show. Did you both watch the episode after it went up?

• 21:52Speaker 02

  Mm hmm. I did, right when it came out. So it's been, it's been a while, but yeah.

• 21:56Speaker 03

  I think I did, but I think I had to break it up into a few different sessions, just hearing my own voice.

• 22:02Ramit Sethi?

  What was it like watching and hearing yourself on camera?

• 22:07Speaker 02

  It was kind of tough for me. I'm not gonna lie. Like, I lived through that conversation. I knew what I said at the beginning, and then I sort of knew where we ended up by the end of the conversation. But definitely hearing at least like what I was saying at first, like, I sounded like a [BLEEP]. And it was a little hard for me to hear.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  And I realized, like, I think, again, like, you asked us, like, what's an adjective that you would want people to describe you as? And I remember, like, again, mine was definitely, I think I said generous. And I was like, this is not a generous person, the way that I was talking about money. And like, I know it came from a place of like fear and deep anxiety that like I was raised with. Like, it's, I wasn't trying to be selfish. I love Nate more than anything. But you, you wouldn't tell it by, you know, some of the things I feel like I was saying and how firmly held those like beliefs were.

• 23:11Ramit Sethi?

  What did you do after we hung up? Do you remember what you did right after the episode?

• 23:19Speaker 03

  So we sat on the couch where I was and kind of debriefed a little bit. We kind of just, you know, had a conversation about where we want to go, where we want to be in the future in terms of our own, you know, interpersonal relationship and... Like what was kind of what was important and what's not important? And it kind of sparked that conversation, but I think more played out over the next few days. Um, but that was sort of the initial, I think, thing we did afterwards.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  I feel like rent was due really soon after this conversation, so we definitely reevaluated those numbers and that split. So that was definitely um, a, a big, you know, I would say change that took place pretty, pretty soon after. I think we've always been pretty open with talking about money, but I feel like we were both now, you know, a lot more empathetic to where each other was coming from. Um, like, you know, he will understand if I'm being a little cautious and know that it's not because I'm like, not wanting to be generous, so it's because I have this like latent fear. And once he kind of reassured me that things are okay.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  And then also after I was paying more in rent and realized I wasn't bankrupting myself, I felt like I could breathe and rest easy and be like, oh, I can afford a, like, a lot more than I thought I could and not, you know, have those fears that I worried about actually happen. And so I feel like we were both just a lot more understanding of each other. You know, if he said he couldn't treat me, it suddenly wasn't something that I sort of like, that like would result in a fight or something like those things I feel like just didn't really happen as much.

• 25:09Ramit Sethi?

  Nate, how about for you? I remember at the time you were commuting far, you had a high gas cost, uh, salary was low. What changed for you about the way you talked about money?

• 25:20Speaker 03

  The only thing I have to edit with what Serena just said is we have always been open with each, with each other, but we may not have been before the initial conversation, we had really clear eyed about.

• 25:35Speaker 03

  Why the conversations we were having had the sort of emotional tenor or whatever sort of tone that they had. And so just going forward, being able to sort of approach conversations about money and also add on a tag at the end of, and I love you, and we're gonna be okay. You know, being able to sort of understand the anxiety that was inherent in those conversations ahead of time and being able to communicate to that

• 26:10Speaker 03

  anxiety on Serena's end really did help keep things on an even, you know, an even platform when we were having those conversations going forward, pretty much immediately. And to this day, I think we had a conversation about wedding planning recently where I literally ended it with, and I love you, and we're on the same team, and we got this, and it's gonna be okay, and we'll be fine, and we'll get through this, and we're gonna have a good time. You just be being a little bit more conscious about that.

• 26:44Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, my God. Hold on. Amazing. You, you too. That's so good. That is so good.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  I agree with everything. I agree with everything he said, for sure.

• 26:55Ramit Sethi?

  We're on the same page. We're talking about money. It might be hard right now. Maybe the numbers don't make sense. Maybe one of us feels anxious. We're gonna get through this. We are on the same team.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  I think it was very hard for me to seem we're on the same team financially when it's like, this is my money, and then this is your money. This is how much you're making. This is how much I'm making. And I have to say, it's very empowering to be able to talk about money in a way that is like bringing us closer, again, like reinforcing kind of like the strength of us as a unit. And yeah, I, I wonder when we might have gotten there if it weren't for this conversation and stuff.

• 27:37Ramit Sethi?

  I just have to say I love watching these updates. So often when I speak to couples, they are like two boxers in a ring who have each gone to their own corner. They are not a team, they are not partners, they are in their own corners saying, I can't believe you spend that much at the gas station, I can't believe you spend that much at Target. And after a while, it becomes simply a ritual. We argue about money. We fight about it. It's uncomfortable, frankly, it's unhealthy. But when we take a step back and we realize it's not you versus me, it's us as a team, suddenly we can start to make changes together. Let's watch as I remind Nate and Serena how they talked about money during our first

• 28:22Ramit Sethi?

  conversation. I loved how honest you both were when we talked. Serena, especially you, you had some killer lines when we talked.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Oh no, I'm scared.

• 28:35Ramit Sethi?

  I'd love to get your, um, your thoughts on one of these.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:39Ramit Sethi?

  Uh, let's take a look. At this point, we were talking about Nate occasionally running low on money and I think he needed to ask you for help paying for something. Let's take a look. Use the word, use the word grovelling. That's the word we're discussing here. Take a look.

• 28:58Ramit Sethi?

  Nate is really saying like, the word grovelling? That's not a word you want to hear your partner say in any scenario. Doesn't matter if they're earning zero dollars, they should not be grovelling the other partner for anything. So when my partner says grovelling, what should my reaction be?

• 29:19Speaker 01

  My reaction?

• 29:19Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, what should your reaction be when your partner says grovelling?

• 29:22Speaker 01

  No grovelling allowed.

• 29:26Ramit Sethi?

  I thought I was harsh, but Serena is absolutely savage.

• 29:33Speaker 02

  Oh my God, that's terrible. Oh man.

• 29:41Speaker 03

  That's so good.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  Nate's enjoying this a little too much.

• 29:46Ramit Sethi?

  Um, Nate, I have to hear from you. What do you think about that answer?

• 29:50Speaker 03

  Was off the cuff, by the way.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  We've come a long way.

• 29:59Speaker 03

  We've come a long way. The perspective that you go into those conversations with is sort of the perspective that most people come out of the conversations with. And, you know, credit to where it's due to Serena, because changing somebody's mind is hard. Changing your own mind is maybe harder. And to for her to come in with those ideas of what basically we should be talking about, how we should be talking about things that didn't maybe necessarily always match reality.

• 30:40Speaker 03

  And to recognize, you know, some erroneous beliefs or thought patterns and to do work, real work to actually approach them. I mean, it's why I'm marrying her, because that's the kind of person you want to deal with. Somebody who's actually going to do the necessary work in a relationship, because nobody is going to be 100% perfect. Except for, you know, whatever crush you had in third grade. But they don't, they're not real. That's not real. None of it's real life. And so I just, I really appreciate that ability that she has to, you know, even if it takes a couple of conversations, will

• 31:26Speaker 03

  will understand and and try to grow from it.

• 31:29Speaker 02

  My face is so hot right now, Remy. I did not expect those receipts to come out and I'm, I am floored. No.

• 31:38Speaker 03

  What do you see when you see that clip, Serena?

• 31:41Speaker 02

  It's, I mean, like, I'm cringing so hard at myself right now, because it's not person I want to be at all. You know, I wish if I could, like, if I could answer that question again in 2024, I definitely would want to say if that is how you're feeling, then like, that is something that like I need to work on and like, understand why that is the way that you are feeling and like, figure out what I can do so that you don't feel that way. Like, that is not a team player. You know, it's kinda hard to watch. It's like definitely embarrassing. Um, I'm glad that it's out there because hopefully if one person could relate to that

• 32:23Speaker 02

  and it made them sort of, you know, rethink the way that they are, uh, then I'll be really, really happy and excited that that could help someone.

• 32:33Ramit Sethi?

  Wait, wait. Serena, you helped a lot more than one person, just so you know. There are a lot.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  Really?

• 32:38Ramit Sethi?

  Yes, there are a lot of people out there who have the same beliefs you had. Um, they like to believe that they are generous, but they're not. They're focused on their own fears, letting them guide their relationship with money and with their partner, not thinking about the impact that it's having. And maybe their partner isn't particularly skilled at speaking up and articulating these things. Maybe their partner's really busy and doesn't have the mental bandwidth to, to grapple with this. Um, but I will say, um, you know, I love that clip because like, first of all, it's just so funny. But what I also, what I really love about it is that you were so honest. And that was the thing I appreciated about both of you.

• 33:21Ramit Sethi?

  You came on, you were not trying to be some, uh, you know, have some persona for YouTube. You literally were as honest as you could possibly be. And I think that's why people resonated with our conversation. Now, some of it was uncomfortable to hear. I think Serena, you've acknowledged that. And, um, and that's okay. Part of the reason that I have these conversations is that the stuff we talk about behind closed doors sometimes is uncomfortable. But my God, you, you were as honest as possible. And then what is even more amazing is here we are, a couple of years later, the way you both talk about money is transformed.

• 34:01Speaker 03

  It's not just money too. We've started. Doing this exchange where even if we don't believe that, you know, I did something that was particularly hurtful or something wasn't necessarily my fault, or the reaction isn't necessarily what your intention was, you know, it incited sort of a negative reaction. Being able to stop and say, okay, well, regardless of the intention, regardless of where I was coming from, like, I'll explain that mindset, but it still made you feel a certain way. And so it's real how you're feeling,

• 34:41Speaker 03

  regardless of whether or not I believe that's what my actions are trying to foment. It's actually happening. So you have to acknowledge those feelings as they exist. You can't just brush past, you know, often a kind of extreme emotional reaction or intense emotional reaction and ignore it.

• 35:03Ramit Sethi?

  So have you two gone to therapy since we talked?

• 35:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 35:09Ramit Sethi?

  It sounds like it. That's a compliment. I love it. Were you doing that before we talked?

• 35:16Speaker 02

  We individually were, but we have since done a couple, you know, we see a couples therapist currently. I'm not the first person to say that, you know, like, couples therapy can be kind of like scary. It can sort of bring up feelings like, is there something wrong with my relationship? Is this not the person I should be with? But I think for us, like, you know, we... It's like I'm treating the relationship

• 35:45Speaker 02

  with the amount of like effort and resources that reflects how important it is to me, if that makes sense. And yeah, I mean, it's, it helps in every aspect of our relationship. Especially, I think, you know, I'll speak for myself, going into this step, like, you know, we're getting married and we've been together for a very long time. We celebrated nine years, like, a few weeks ago. But, you know, that doesn't mean that, like, we're coasting by any means. Conversations like the one that we had a few years ago. Or kind of proof that getting out in the open and having these conversations is something that really just like make sure that we are like hearing each other.

• 36:26Ramit Sethi?

  Good. You're building the tools. You're treating your relationship with the respect it deserves. Uh, anything important deserves respect, time and possibly money. And I think this is a great example of doing that. Serena, uh, did your friends watch?

• 36:42Speaker 02

  Oh, that's a good question. I have no idea, actually.

• 36:45Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, did you ever hear anybody say like, hey Serena, I saw you on this thing?

• 36:50Speaker 02

  Nope.

• 36:50Ramit Sethi?

  Whoa.

• 36:51Speaker 02

  I think I might have sent it to my sister, but I honestly don't remember.

• 36:56Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, okay. Um, can I ask you another question then? Now that you've changed your relationship with money, what do you think of some of your friends' relationships with money?

• 37:07Speaker 02

  I don't see the same amount of stress, I guess, and unwillingness to spend that treat money as something that enables them to like go have fun or have an experience and kind of, um, just enjoy that for what it is, whether like, whereas like for me, I could go out for like drinks with a friend. But like, I feel like before I would still be like stressing out about like a $20 cocktail, even if I said I was gonna go do this thing or like buy this pair of shoes or like go to this wedding or whatever. It was like, I would sort of torture myself in the process. Which like at that point, it's like, why am I doing it?

• 37:51Speaker 02

  But now I feel like I've kind of set these boundaries in place where, you know, if I'm committing to doing something or if I'm committing to like taking Nate out to dinner to celebrate like a win that he's had, then I'm trying to allow myself to just enjoy that moment. And not let my like anxiety, I guess, uh, sort of get in the way of that or kind of prevent me from even like doing those things in the first place. I guess like that's probably the biggest difference between me and my, I see my friends as far as their spending habits.

• 38:26Ramit Sethi?

  Nice. We had a big discussion about, I believe it was a trip to another country to visit your family, Serena.

• 38:33Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, Japan.

• 38:34Ramit Sethi?

  To Japan. Uh, and there was a whole thing about, I want you to come, but then you need to pay me back. First of all, what happened with the debt?

• 38:41Speaker 03

  I don't think I paid the entirety of it, but it did contribute to a decent extent. I totally forget the details, unfortunately. It didn't really end up impacting the trip as much as it could have or anything like that. It was really, really a nice experience. And, uh, whatever that mix of me paying back and having some of the debt forgiven, it was fun because we communicated about it.

• 39:11Ramit Sethi?

  Right.

• 39:12Speaker 03

  In whatever way, again, barely remember, but.

• 39:14Ramit Sethi?

  Isn't it funny how some of the things that are so existential to us at the time then become forgotten later on?

• 39:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, like I can't believe I felt that strongly about it in the moment, looking back on it now with kind of a fresh perspective.

• 39:28Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. You know, it's funny, in, in our financial lives, there's thousands of decisions we will make. Everything from should we get the cheap bread to the nicer sourdough bread, all the way up to should we buy a house? Should we retire at age 62? Or, and I never wanted to drown in those decisions because like if I want really nice bread, then I'm gonna fight for the really nice bread. And I, I know that about myself. I don't want to get in that place. So I decided there are a few key things that matter to me. Our savings rate, our investments, just a few big things, the things that are gonna be

• 40:10Ramit Sethi?

  worth a lot of money. And then I wanted to create a life where I don't have to, uh, like let the dark side out when it comes to what type of pineapple brand should we buy?

• 40:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:23Ramit Sethi?

  And I find that to be such a relief. I think for me, definitely for my wife, the idea that there's a few things that matter. Let's talk about them. Let's be honest about why. Let's make sure we hit those. And. For the most part, let's build a life where we don't have to worry about the price of, can we get a cheeseburger or not?

• 40:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:41Ramit Sethi?

  Sounds like you've come to that concept as well. There are things that matter and maybe things that we can be a little looser about.

• 40:52Ramit Sethi?

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• 41:37Ramit Sethi?

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• 43:02Ramit Sethi?

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• 43:41Ramit Sethi?

  And now, back to the show. I want to talk about wedding planning. Congratulations on the wedding. That's awesome.

• 43:47Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 43:48Ramit Sethi?

  When did you kind of decide that you were going to get married?

• 43:51Speaker 03

  I think we had gotten engaged before the initial conversation we had, going from the, and we knew we wanted to not have a wedding in the state we're currently in. And that just immediately throws a pretty big wrench into ability to plan and get things together. It is just not easy to do those things from a distance. So it did take a little bit of time.

• 44:24Ramit Sethi?

  What's it been like planning the wedding together?

• 44:28Speaker 03

  It's been really nice. It's, we intentionally tried to pick a venue that had some of the stuff included, so we didn't have to deal with choosing our own, you know, catering, choosing everything. So there's a few things that we still have to narrow down, but we're doing really well in terms of actually checking things off the list. We know we have deposits that are going in and, but overall, the decision-making itself hasn't been too difficult.

• 44:58Ramit Sethi?

  Having fun planning it?

• 44:59Speaker 02

  It's really fun, at least for me. There are a lot of moving parts. I feel like up there with my college degree and, you know, future house, like this is one of those big life expenses. I personally, I think, have tried to not let the stress of planning a wedding get in the way of why we're doing it. I feel like in a lot of ways it has brought us closer and, you know, it feels very natural for us. Like it doesn't feel like, you know, like it's not the right time. Like I am, I say this now, check back with me in like six months, but I'm like not really nervous. Uh, I feel like it's just been exciting to plan what this day will look like for us and our guests.

• 45:40Ramit Sethi?

  And honestly, what a blessing. I mean, really to be, to, to, to see how far you've come, not just financially, but relationally is like really amazing. And just to have a little part in that feels so good. How did you decide on how much you were gonna spend?

• 45:57Speaker 02

  I've been in a couple weddings, did a lot of research online, got some books, really dove in, but like, again, I wasn't about to make this like my whole personality or anything. It sort of started with like, well, what would be like our dream wedding and then like scale it back to like a responsible version of that? And then sort of like, again, like looked at what our finances are going to look like in the year, like leading up to it. What do I think we'll be able to realistically, comfortably afford in, you know, it's like March, April of 2023. So it was a lot of like, again, like projecting and looking at the finances and seeing what we can make work.

• 46:38Ramit Sethi?

  Did you, did you involve uh, family money? Did you take part of your savings and put it towards the wedding? And how did you think about how far to go?

• 46:49Speaker 03

  So I actually came in initially from a kind of different perspective, which is looking around at different venues and seeing what it costs. So there are cheaper venues that you need to hire outside catering, which is larger costs and figuring out that. You know, the cheapest venue on paper might have other hidden costs inherent to it. And so figuring out overall, again, what is the granular amount that a realistic wedding is going to cost, regardless of where it's held? And from there, essentially going to the what can we do? What are our finances look like?

• 47:29Speaker 02

  We learned a lot about just like how expensive the wedding industry is, period. You know, it's like $30,000 is like kind of a shoestring budget, which is insane. Like it's insane. But yeah, I agree with Nate. We sort of looked at the venues and also we're like, okay, what are like the most? I feel like we both sort of, we didn't write this down necessarily, but we came down, like came up with like, what's the most important aspects of the wedding?

• 47:54Ramit Sethi?

  What are they? What are your top three?

• 47:56Speaker 02

  I mean, I would say like the venue slash ambiance slash like physical space was probably the most important. Below that, we're wanting to invest in photography.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  Cause it's sort of like, I feel like I've again, read, and it makes sense. I've read of couples that, you know, skimped on the photographer. And then ended up regretting it. And then maybe like third would be like, right now we're figuring out like our DJ slash like sound. Cause you know, we're getting married outdoors. We want to make sure people can hear us. I don't want to scream my vows into Nate's face. That's like not romantic.

• 48:31Ramit Sethi?

  Like your decisions. You know, I will tell you, we went through all of this. The reason I asked, are you having fun? Nate, I think this is especially true for guys. When you're engaged, I talked to a lot of friends and married people and loved ones. And there were two kinds of reactions. One was, oh God, it's going to be the longest year of your life. And, and then the second one was, wow, you're going to have an awesome time planning the wedding. And I just intuitively loved the idea that I'm going to.

• 49:05Ramit Sethi?

  Have fun. We're gonna have fun. And we decided to make it the most fun year of our life. And so we made that choice. We went through it. We got the opportunity to build something together. And I love the way you're talking. You know, we have these trade offs. We have a certain amount we can spend. We better find the thing that fits. It's kind of like your first big project as a married couple. And um, and also I just want to say I'm glad that we got a great photographer. Because we look at our photos. Every anniversary, at the very least, we look at our videos, we look at our photos, we pull them up, we watch them. We learn new things. It's such a beautiful ritual that we have and I'm so glad that we had our photo video team.

• 49:47Ramit Sethi?

  So I'm so excited that you're gonna have a beautiful space.

• 49:51Speaker 02

  Ironically, for me, like, the dress is like, yeah, it's important and I want to feel great in it, but it's like, a white dress is a white dress is a white dress, so.

• 50:03Ramit Sethi?

  You might get some pushback on that, but I agree.

• 50:05Speaker 02

  I know, I know. But it's like, like, yes, I want it to be nice, but it doesn't have to be like, I mean, some of the wedding dresses are just insane. I would feel nervous.

• 50:14Ramit Sethi?

  Well, you know what I love? I love your point of view. I love anybody who has a point of view. You might have a different point of view than me. But I love a person or certainly a couple that's like, this is our point of view. We want, I don't know, this DJ or this thing because it's important to us. Amazing. That's what a rich life is. It's turning that dial until it feels right for you. So I think that's amazing. Okay.

• 50:40Speaker 02

  To answer your question, though, I did use a pretty significant chunk of savings for some of the upfront costs. Nate's parents are generously giving us like quite a large chunk of the overall costs as well. And my parents, my parents are contributing a little as well.

• 51:00Ramit Sethi?

  Did you talk to them about this? Like, how did the the parent contribute and help come in?

• 51:06Speaker 03

  So I had a grandparent pass. There was some money that had been set aside from them to go towards a wedding already. And so that was something that I was supposed to be gifted by them, but unfortunately,

• 51:26Speaker 03

  it wasn't the case, but that still exists. And then also my parents also wanted to contribute and.

• 51:34Speaker 03

  Knowing financially where I am right now and knowing that at some point I'm going to be the one taking my family on vacation somewhere. I think that was not a difficult thing for them to want to contribute.

• 51:52Ramit Sethi?

  Were your parents like, hey, we'll give you twenty, twenty thousand dollars, but according to my calculations in the S and P 500, that money doubles every seven years. So on a nominal basis. So therefore, we expect when you take us on the cruise, we're not going on a Carnival Cruise, okay? They, they sort of laid it out for you. Did they treat it like an investment? Tell the truth.

• 52:16Speaker 03

  No. However, what's really interesting, so they just not my parents' style. My mother just retired, actually a few months ago, which has been a long time coming, semi-retired, mostly retired. So it's been a big change and it's kind of interesting because it's actually brought out some of my parents' own, what's the word I'm looking for? Maladjusted views of money.

• 52:47Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, tell me.

• 52:48Speaker 03

  To themselves. They've always been frugal my whole life. And so it's similar to Serena's not being able to buy nice things. I, I hope they don't think I'm throwing them under a bus or anything. But this is a huge, single expenditure that completely goes against their relative frugality. And it's definitely been a bit nerve wracking for them to be spending the money, even though they, they do want to be treating us. But it's, it's kind of interesting from our perspective, seeing similar but different sort of takes on the same problems from.

• 53:28Ramit Sethi?

  So in other words, they, they have the money, they want to help, but it's hard for them to pay all of that at once, probably because your mom's retired. The income's not coming in and will we ever get it? What if we don't have enough, et cetera, correct?

• 53:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's the retirement funds are there. They're ready to retire financially and this is something that they were planning for. But yeah, just the anxiety about making a big purchase. That's sort of a one time thing. You know, there's been a lot of concern that we're not going

• 54:02Ramit Sethi?

  It's scary buying anything big, you know? The first time I bought, well, I don't own a lot of assets except for clothes. I think my most expensive asset is a coat. But you know, the first time you buy something expensive, it's like, oh my God, this car or this whatever, this trip could really, it could, you know, you kind of go to the worst, it could ruin me. Probably not going to ruin you, but it's scary.

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• 56:02Ramit Sethi?

  Congratulations on planning the wedding. Congratulations on getting married. I'm so excited for both of you. I love that you have your family involved. I love that you're thinking about it together and planning it out. That's the way it should be. So beautiful. I want to look at your numbers. Are you cool if we take a look?

• 56:18Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 56:19Ramit Sethi?

  Alright, so you did the CSP again. What was it like?

• 56:24Speaker 02

  I made a lot of money in my 401k that I did not realize and that was really cool.

• 56:31Ramit Sethi?

  That's pretty good.

• 56:32Speaker 02

  I'm still at the age where I am like, to me, it's almost like Monopoly money because like I'm not touching it. I'm not using it. I think there's a way for me to access it, but I feel like Uncle Sam will get really pissed at me if I do. So it's just like money that is just like hidden away somewhere that I honestly don't even think about. My company got acquired since our last conversation and there was like a match program that I wasn't taking advantage of, which I did now, and I think my 401k doubled in the time that I last filled this out. So that was really awesome.

• 57:07Ramit Sethi?

  I had no idea, by the way.

• 57:09Speaker 02

  Yeah dude, it's awesome. It's so great.

• 57:13Ramit Sethi?

  Yes.

• 57:15Ramit Sethi?

  Just kidding.

• 57:15Speaker 02

  Not really. Like it's good. It's, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's good. It's solid. But then, yeah, like looking at my savings, for example, like I did take a large chunk of that out. And so I am rocking with like less than I normally would have, but I'm again, trying to not freak out about it. Because, you know, hopefully I'm only getting married once and I'm okay with it being a large expense at this point in my life, knowing that, you know, it'll even out, like, you know, we won't be paying rent for a few months at the end of the residency program and then, you know, we'll be moving to a relatively low cost city compared to, you know, the last two places we have lived.

• 57:56Speaker 02

  And so again, it's something that I'm trying to not, like I'm, I'm not really worried about it right now.

• 58:02Ramit Sethi?

  Love hearing that. Love that. That's, that's a more sophisticated understanding of money, that you've planned for it, you have money in savings. Sometimes savings get used for specific purposes and you know what's happening in the future. You know specifically, these months- We're not gonna pay rent. That means we're gonna save X dollars. This thing is gonna happen. Income is gonna go up from Nate's side and on and on and on. So you're looking at the full picture.

• 58:31Speaker 02

  I'm really glad to hear that because, you know, I've felt this way, but there's like a tiny like piece in the back of my head that's like, am I just being really naive about the situation? And like, Rumi is gonna tell me like, Serena, you need to get your together or something.

• 58:48Ramit Sethi?

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, we haven't looked at the CSP yet. Let's look at the numbers. But just in general, the way you talk about it, see, what I like is that it's multi-dimensional. One-dimensional is, ah, the money is going away. That's so one-dimensional. That's very childlike. But multi-dimensional is, I take account for all of my money, net worth, 401K, cash flow, all of it. And I know that some can go down, time can make up some of it, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that's really sophisticated. All right, let's take a look at the CSP. All right, so Partner 1, assets are zero, investments forty-three thousand, savings five thousand, and debt sixty-eight thousand for a total net worth of negative twenty thousand.

• 59:32Ramit Sethi?

  Partner 2, that's Nate, eighteen thousand in assets, investments are three thousand, savings are one thousand, and debt is four hundred and sixty thousand for a total net worth of negative four hundred and thirty-eight thousand. Okay, fine. So you're in the negatives.

• 59:48Speaker 02

  You're very chill about that.

• 59:50Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, let's, so just so everybody listening, everyone's like, why is this guy just like skipping over it? Let me tell you. So what is that, student loan debt?

• 1:00:00Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm, it's just student loan debt. It's not credit card debt or anything.

• 1:00:03Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, and you're paying that off to the tune of nine hundred dollars a month. Is that extra or minimum?

• 1:00:09Speaker 02

  It's extra.

• 1:00:10Ramit Sethi?

  What's your minimum?

• 1:00:11Speaker 02

  I think my minimum is around six hundred.

• 1:00:13Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, so you're paying nine hundred a month, you're paying extra. Okay, fine. And then, um.

• 1:00:17Speaker 02

  That interest is a real, so I'm trying to.

• 1:00:21Ramit Sethi?

  What's your interest rate, like seven or eight percent?

• 1:00:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like seven. I think it's right in the middle. It's brutal.

• 1:00:26Ramit Sethi?

  Fucking hate that. Okay, Nate, you have four hundred and sixty thousand dollars of debt, which is medical school, correct?

• 1:00:35Ramit Sethi?

  Anything else? You got a $200,000 truck in there or something I didn't know about?

• 1:00:39Speaker 03

  Oh, I wish. No. So that's some left from undergrad, about, I think, 17,000 from undergrad, but then almost exclusively, yeah, four years of medical school in New York City, very high cost of living. And so a lot of, yeah, extra loan from there.

• 1:00:59Ramit Sethi?

  All right. So everyone's wondering, like, why am I not freaking out? Why am I so calm about this? In fact, why are they so calm about this? Can anyone tell me why?

• 1:01:07Speaker 03

  Good question.

• 1:01:08Speaker 02

  We're very calm about it.

• 1:01:10Ramit Sethi?

  Why is that?

• 1:01:12Speaker 03

  So I am going to be a doctor in a lucrative subspecialty, and I'm going to be able to aggressively pay that down and aggressively buy the tune of even as much as 100,000 or more per year, hopefully, in the next 18 months. That's going to start. So, yeah, getting there.

• 1:01:39Ramit Sethi?

  Listen up, all you American freaks out there who don't understand how it works. Yes, you should be careful of debt. Yes, of course. But also, a very high income solves a lot of financial problems. Nate, what kind of income are you going to make ballpark?

• 1:01:56Speaker 03

  I think average salary right now is around 350s, and my subspecialty is going to be higher than that, most likely.

• 1:02:07Ramit Sethi?

  Like, how much?

• 1:02:10Speaker 03

  It depends on how much stake in ownership of surgical centers, things like that. Probably going to end up in the realm of, this is a generous estimation, 500,000 to upwards of a million if I am invested in property and practices that are doing well.

• 1:02:31Ramit Sethi?

  What the hell? All right. So you can see why no one's really concerned. It's like, make sure you don't lose your job, okay? And keep your hands fine. But aside from that, you can have a tremendous amount of debt, as Nate does. But if you have the corresponding tremendous salary, then it's just a matter of extra zeros, okay? We might as well have this be 46,000 in debt. And Nate could pay it off, which he's going to do. And I also think you seem to be pretty reasonable about keeping your expenses low. I don't think the two of you are going to go crazy. Pay it off aggressively. You'll be set for the rest of your life.

• 1:03:06Speaker 02

  It's a very fortunate position for both of us to be in. And I, as you know, his, his future wife. We both are a hundred percent on the same page. Like honestly, like we like don't need a bigger space than what we currently have. We don't need to be like wearing head to toe Gucci every day. We really want to tackle like Nate's debt primarily in those immediate months, years of when he's making more money. That's like a hundred percent our goal. I would say that. And then maybe like a down payment with like our finances combined would be sort of like the first steps.

• 1:03:46Ramit Sethi?

  When one or two people go through a massive salary increase, I always, I always encourage them to talk about it. What are we going to do? Um, let's make our decisions before it comes in. Cause when you suddenly see like $50,000 a month coming in, it becomes, you, you actually get really sloppy. So I like to make the decisions before. And we go like, okay, these are our priorities. And I actually encourage couples to increase your spending in certain areas. You know, if you like the dinner out, go for it. That's not going to affect you anymore. Um, but also I like to have one central focus for the money. Like we want to pay our debt off aggressively. We know the exact month and year it's going to be paid off. We're going to focus on that. Of course we'll take a trip.

• 1:04:26Ramit Sethi?

  Of course, we're going to go out to a bi-weekly dinner or weekly, but this is going to be our focus. Let's do it. And then when that date comes, you're about to pay off the debt, three to six months ahead, you sit down and you have another conversation. Oh my God, what are we going to do with these thousands of extra dollars we're going to have per month? And then you raise your uh, standard of living, you know, get a nice shirt, take a nice trip, keep investing aggressively, et cetera. All right. You guys are great. Let's keep moving. So we need to keep in mind that your income is about to increase. But as of currently, it's jointly $131,000. That's $7,000 a month from Serena and $4,000 a month from Nate.

• 1:05:12Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. 131K. With that said, let's look at your fixed costs. What's this number here, Serena? Fixed cost percentage?

• 1:05:21Speaker 02

  Uh, 59%?

• 1:05:22Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, 59%, not bad. Not bad, 59%? Alright, good. Taking a look here. I mean, you're within my parameters, so I have no comments. Let's just, uh, I will note that we have $900 of debt payments from Serena. Nate, you're not yet paying off your debt because you're still going through it, correct?

• 1:05:42Speaker 03

  I am signed up for the Save Plan, which is currently on hold in the courts. And so all of my debt is in deferments and just racking up interest. But again, it's going to be racking up interest because I can't pay down the interest right now. At some point, that'll restart, hopefully not for 18 months, but we'll see.

• 1:06:04Ramit Sethi?

  Alright. How are you only paying $400 a month in groceries?

• 1:06:07Speaker 02

  I think that number, I think one of us, I don't know how Nate is paying more in groceries than I am. That doesn't seem right.

• 1:06:16Speaker 03

  You gotta bump that up.

• 1:06:17Speaker 02

  Maybe, maybe I meant to do 250.

• 1:06:20Ramit Sethi?

  So we're gonna change it?

• 1:06:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's do that. Thank you.

• 1:06:23Speaker 03

  I think that's more accurate.

• 1:06:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know. I feel like we, we have like a couple of our like standby meals that we can make, that we love, that are like quick, easy, healthy, inexpensive.

• 1:06:35Ramit Sethi?

  What is it? Tell America, because they need to know.

• 1:06:37Speaker 02

  Oh my God. So we have this, can I like blow the lid off of Martha tacos, Nate?

• 1:06:45Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, what's happening right now?

• 1:06:46Speaker 02

  We call them Martha tacos because the queen herself, Martha Stewart. We found this recipe, because I'd actually tried and reviewed Martha Stewart's like meal delivery service. It's called Marley Spoon, free plug. It was great. And one of these recipes, like, we're not gifted chefs. We're both fine. But we can make the most fantastic taco dinner in like 20 minutes flat. And it caught, I wish I could price this out, but it has to be like $15.

• 1:07:25Speaker 03

  Six for chicken.

• 1:07:26Speaker 02

  Like, maybe like $15 total.

• 1:07:29Ramit Sethi?

  Hold on. How is it possible that? The two of you are doing a better plug than I've ever done for any of my sponsors on this show right now.

• 1:07:36Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:07:37Ramit Sethi?

  How is that possible?

• 1:07:38Speaker 02

  We're, we're available.

• 1:07:39Speaker 03

  We're available.

• 1:07:39Speaker 02

  For a small fee.

• 1:07:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:41Ramit Sethi?

  Jesus. Can we, I'm gonna tell my producer, we gotta hire you all, cuz I think you're way better than I.

• 1:07:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, and like, you know, we still, like, I, I love to order in food. We love to go and like, get dinner once a week, I would say is about once, once, twice a week.

• 1:07:57Ramit Sethi?

  What, what, what kind of place do you go to on a weekly basis?

• 1:08:01Speaker 02

  I feel like we'll usually do something like middle range slash divey.

• 1:08:06Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 1:08:06Speaker 02

  Whenever we sort of feel like it's.

• 1:08:08Speaker 03

  Sports bar that we could go and watch a football game or something on Sunday.

• 1:08:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:12Speaker 03

  Have a Dair to Burger.

• 1:08:13Speaker 02

  And then maybe like once a month, we'll do something nice.

• 1:08:15Speaker 03

  And that's.

• 1:08:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:17Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Who pays?

• 1:08:20Speaker 02

  I think we've been alternating lately. What do you think, Nate? Or like, just splitting?

• 1:08:24Speaker 03

  I don't even.

• 1:08:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:26Speaker 03

  Mostly splitting, probably. So because of having, from having those conversations previously, it feels less onerous to split it because I know that in the near term, if I get to the point where, okay, I just have to pay for an oil change or my car repairs or whatever it is, and I can't split this meal or whatever, I am confident, I trust that Serena will actually say, oh yeah, makes sense, and will help out. Or vice versa, if she's feeling particularly anxious and relapsing, anxiety wise, then I, I don't mind covering it

• 1:09:09Speaker 03

  because I know that basically we're coming at it from a point of cumulative equity. You know, we're, we're over time equaling things out.

• 1:09:19Speaker 02

  And it's also like, it's a lot easier for us to have the conversations of like, do you actually mind getting this one? Like, you know, Nate has said that to me. And I'll say, you know what? Like, sure, I got this. And then I put my card down and then we, like, that's kind of like the end of that, you know, so things like that.

• 1:09:37Speaker 03

  Apocalypse doesn't happen, life goes on.

• 1:09:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, literally, like, I don't, like, my credit score doesn't just plummet as a result. So, things like that, that, you know, again, like, I would agonize over it. I might, you know, it might be a point of contention. Now, sort of, it's like, yeah, we're fine. I don't think Nate is trying to, like, I'm not, he's not trying to use me as like a sugar mama, although I love that for me.

• 1:10:01Speaker 03

  You'd be a terrible sugar mama.

• 1:10:02Speaker 02

  I would be so bad, you know?

• 1:10:04Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, let's, let's keep looking at the CSP here. So we're at 60% and let's keep moving along. Investments are at 3%. Now, Serena, I believe you are doing some pre-tax stuff. Is that correct? How much do you know you're doing per month?

• 1:10:22Speaker 02

  Ooh, I do not know.

• 1:10:26Ramit Sethi?

  Do you have a sense of your percentage from your paycheck?

• 1:10:30Speaker 02

  I believe it is 6%.

• 1:10:32Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, and they match it what?

• 1:10:35Speaker 02

  They match up to 4%, I think.

• 1:10:39Ramit Sethi?

  So let's just like ballpark it to make it easy math. Let's just say 700 a month. Whoa. Ballpark. I just put basically 10% of your income in there. So that's 12%. That's, that's pretty good. That's pretty good, you know? Great. Okay. And that's mostly yours. But let's keep moving along. Savings goals are at 12%. So you have an emergency fund at $1,000 a month.

• 1:11:09Speaker 02

  I feel like these numbers maybe shifted quite a bit just because like we're kind of dialed in on paying for our wedding now. So things like vacations and gifts are just less of a priority.

• 1:11:22Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, good. That's how it should be. You have a big expense. You got to cut somewhere. That's great. And then finally, you have guilt-free spending at 17, well, not really, 17%, actually 25%, which is 2,000 bucks a month. Are you spending this much on guilt-free spending?

• 1:11:37Speaker 02

  I don't think so.

• 1:11:39Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, I don't think so either. I suspect most of it's going towards the wedding.

• 1:11:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:44Ramit Sethi?

  How much did you take out of your savings for the wedding?

• 1:11:47Speaker 02

  I think I've took out around $5,000 or $6,000.

• 1:11:54Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, and Nate?

• 1:11:57Speaker 03

  All of it.

• 1:11:59Ramit Sethi?

  How much was that?

• 1:12:00Speaker 03

  1,000 to 2,000, I think, at this point.

• 1:12:03Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, got it. All right, cool. So. Well, here's what I have to say. I'm really glad your salary is about to go way up, Nate. Cause otherwise we'd be having a very different conversation. Okay.

• 1:12:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:12:16Ramit Sethi?

  But.

• 1:12:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, me too.

• 1:12:17Ramit Sethi?

  But.

• 1:12:17Speaker 02

  We know.

• 1:12:18Ramit Sethi?

  This is good.

• 1:12:19Speaker 03

  I'm getting a bump in six months. I get, I get a like 60% bump in six months and then after that.

• 1:12:24Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, that's good.

• 1:12:25Speaker 03

  So.

• 1:12:26Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, so you'll go up to like 10K. Okay, good. Good. That's gonna make a substantial difference. Mass. You wanna see? Let's look.

• 1:12:34Speaker 03

  The difference between.

• 1:12:35Speaker 02

  Let's play with the numbers.

• 1:12:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:12:37Ramit Sethi?

  All right, look. So you're gonna go up to like 10K a month, Nate? Is that right?

• 1:12:42Speaker 03

  Um, no, it's gonna be around 6.5K.

• 1:12:46Speaker 02

  I think pretty close to what I'm making currently.

• 1:12:49Ramit Sethi?

  All right, let's just match him. Let's just, just for easy death. Oh my God. All right. So what I did.

• 1:12:55Speaker 02

  Whoa, that's crazy.

• 1:12:56Ramit Sethi?

  I changed his income. They're basically making the same income. What just happened to your fixed cost number? It went from 60% to what?

• 1:13:05Speaker 02

  Forty-seven.

• 1:13:05Speaker 03

  Forty-seven.

• 1:13:06Ramit Sethi?

  Forty-seven percent.

• 1:13:07Speaker 03

  And this is, this is signed. My name is on paper. This is happening. So this is real right now.

• 1:13:13Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, so look at this, everybody. Forty-seven percent, which means you have margin. You have a lot of margin. Means if you wanna get an extra taco, go ahead. But more importantly, the way I look at it is I would then begin, um, saving more. That's actually the first place I would put. Because, you know, you've got a relatively low amount in savings. You've got 6,000. And, you know, hopefully everything goes great, but you could suddenly be putting multiple thousands of dollars per month in your savings, just in case something goes wrong.

• 1:13:46Speaker 02

  I would love that.

• 1:13:47Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, and you can do that. And then, of course, you can also start paying off debt a little bit more aggressively. As you both know, if you ever run a debt payoff calculator, especially with your balances and interest rates, even an extra 100 bucks a month is amazing, but an extra 500 can shave off years from your debt payment. So you have the ability. To do that soon. That's fantastic. Question. Do you combine? Your money into a joint account or not?

• 1:14:15Speaker 02

  We don't currently, but it's something we're like. Right now, actually talking about. I feel like it was just something we weren't going to do before we get married. Even though I know some couples do it once. They move in with each other, which we've been living together for. A long time.

• 1:14:29Ramit Sethi?

  There was a book, Chapter Nine, which shows you the exact account setup. That's called Money for Couples.

• 1:14:36Speaker 02

  We'll have to give that a read. Because, yeah, it's something that we are currently looking at. We just don't want to get like screwed over. Because I think you may have talked about your distaste for Bank of America, and I've had the same Bank of America. Account since I was, it was my first bank account when I was like fifteen.

• 1:14:54Ramit Sethi?

  This is a good time to start a fresh start.

• 1:14:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so I just want to make sure we are making the smartest decision with where we end up.

• 1:15:03Ramit Sethi?

  It's working fine. And honestly, you two are not married yet. So if you came to me and asked, I would say. No, don't put it together until you get married. But I do think after you get married, there's a couple of reasons I would encourage you to combine your money. One. Simplicity. It's going to make things a lot simple if the two of you as a unit don't have to be Venmoing back and forth and this and that, just. Simple. But two. There's actually good research showing. That couples who combine their finances actually feel more satisfied. And in my own experience with my wife, when we combined our finances. Almost immediately overnight, it was, we are. Teammates. It's not his money and her money, it's our money.

• 1:15:46Ramit Sethi?

  In your case, you know, you probably want to have some conversations about premarital debt. Things like that. Are you all signing a prenup or no?

• 1:15:54Speaker 03

  That's the plan. We haven't really looked into it.

• 1:15:57Speaker 02

  We're both like very open to it, you know?

• 1:16:00Ramit Sethi?

  Good. Can I make a suggestion? I think it makes a lot of sense. Particularly with all this premarital debt and you know, maybe there's some family stuff. Um, you should do it now and not wait because it takes months and you really don't want to be talking about this right up before the wedding. So I would highly recommend you get it, get into it now, have your lawyers, et cetera, et cetera. It will be good. It'll be fairly straightforward. I love the approach you both are taking. Yeah, we have some stuff to talk about. Let's get a prenup. Fantastic.

• 1:16:30Speaker 02

  My parents, to this day, they've been married for over 30 years and I am like 99% sure that they do not have combined finances because

• 1:16:39Ramit Sethi?

  Whoa.

• 1:16:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, um, which

• 1:16:41Ramit Sethi?

  Do you ever ask them?

• 1:16:42Speaker 02

  I've not asked them because, uh, I, as I mentioned in the last episode, I feel like a lot of my own trauma, um, and how I viewed money, especially, you know, in a couple or familial setting was with what I was raised. Um, I would be down to ask, um,

• 1:17:02Ramit Sethi?

  Why don't you just text them right now? Like, what if you did? What if you're just like, hey, mom or hey dad, do you have combined finances? What do you think they would say?

• 1:17:11Speaker 02

  They would say no.

• 1:17:12Ramit Sethi?

  Would say, why are you texting me this?

• 1:17:14Speaker 02

  I'm like 99% sure because like I still see them like splitting grocery bills, like they keep like receipts and they, they still like to, I think, even things up.

• 1:17:26Speaker 02

  Which is not the life I want for me, you know, I

• 1:17:30Ramit Sethi?

  Can I ask you like, what, what does that make you feel when you see your parents doing that at, at this age?

• 1:17:38Speaker 02

  It seems like transactional, honestly. Like it seems like an unnecessary chore to sort of deal with.

• 1:17:47Ramit Sethi?

  What else?

• 1:17:47Speaker 02

  Like, I don't want to be at that age and my parents love each other. They're obsessed with each other. But I also like, sort of don't see the point in it. You know, they've been like married for as long as I've been alive, you know, my sister and I moved out. Almost a decade ago, you know, when we went to college or no, over a decade ago, you know, so they've been empty nesters for so long at this point that I sort of just am like, does this really like, it's like that thing where it's like, if you weave in and out of traffic, it's kind of like you end up getting to the destination at the same ish time as someone that just like stayed in the like lane that they were in. So I sort of am like,

• 1:18:32Speaker 02

  you're nickel and diming each other and for what?

• 1:18:37Ramit Sethi?

  Isn't so much of how we treat money that way. It's, we're simply repeating our own behavior for many years, far beyond what even makes sense. Often that behavior came from our parents in a time that doesn't make any more sense for us anymore. And it's not getting us what we want. Like, I love the way you describe, feels transactional. I agree. And in some parts of life, sure, we need to be transactional. If I'm doing a business deal, I need to have records, et cetera. If I'm buying Graham crackers for my wife, I don't know why I came up with that example. I haven't bought Graham crackers in 25 years. But if I'm buying something-

• 1:19:16Speaker 03

  Smores are good.

• 1:19:17Ramit Sethi?

  Like, yeah. What, what, it doesn't feel like a team. And I want everybody to hear, feelings matter in money. Money isn't just about dollars and cents. It's about how we feel. It brings us together or it splits us apart. So I love your observation about that. Also, Serena, I love that you're creating your own path for yourself. Your parents love each other. They have their own way of doing things. That's okay. That's their life. That's okay. But for you, and for you and Nate, this new family, you can choose how the two of you want to relate to money. Very cool.

• 1:19:54Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:19:55Ramit Sethi?

  All right. The wedding is budgeted. How much are you over budget already?

• 1:20:02Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:20:04Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:20:04Ramit Sethi?

  That's a good answer. Like, how much do you think it will end up being, let's just pretend that budget, the original budget was $100 for the wedding. How much do you think it's gonna- Going to end up costing.

• 1:20:18Speaker 03

  It's gonna be.

• 1:20:20Speaker 02

  I think we're like realistically, we have a spreadsheet that kind of tallies on our current costs. I think we're like forty five.

• 1:20:28Ramit Sethi?

  One forty five?

• 1:20:31Speaker 02

  Forty.

• 1:20:32Speaker 03

  Four or five.

• 1:20:33Speaker 02

  No, we're at forty five thousand dollars.

• 1:20:35Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, okay. What's the budget?

• 1:20:37Speaker 02

  I think we started out at thirty five.

• 1:20:40Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 1:20:41Speaker 03

  But that's basically the venue. That was basically the venue.

• 1:20:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then I think we loftily were hoping to like keep it under forty, but then we sort of have like Yeah. And like, it's not gonna happen.

• 1:20:52Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:52Speaker 02

  It's fine.

• 1:20:53Speaker 03

  Realistically, we'd be wanting forty.

• 1:20:54Speaker 02

  Realistically, and like, I would love for photographers to not be like six thousand dollars, but again, I'm also like, like I said, it is one of the biggest components that we are prioritizing financially. And I'm also of the mind where it's like, as someone that has like been freelance, like I understand like the gig economy, like from having lived it in New York, I'm never gonna be like the kind of person to tell someone what their work is worth.

• 1:21:23Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:23Speaker 02

  You know, um, and again, it's sort of like with the rest of like the numbers in our CSP where I'm sort of not sweating it right now. I I'm not worried about being able to afford it, like, in a couple of months' time.

• 1:21:38Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, great. Can I ask you, when you got on the calls with the photographers, did they do that thing where they were like, what's your love story?

• 1:21:46Speaker 02

  The first one did. The first one did. And we ended up, we ended up not going with her, even though she was really nice. But yeah, they did, they did hit us with that and, um.

• 1:21:57Ramit Sethi?

  That question.

• 1:22:00Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, hold on. Have I told you about?

• 1:22:01Speaker 03

  I'm, I'm very triggered right now. I just want to.

• 1:22:04Speaker 02

  Nate, Nate was like, Nate was like, what is going on?

• 1:22:06Ramit Sethi?

  Yo, me too, Nate. Okay, let me tell you, you know what? Forget this podcast. Let me tell everybody, I have a few things to tell America. Okay, listen. When we sat down to plan our wedding, I told my wife, I said, listen, I'm gonna build a project management model. You're not gonna be able to understand the complexity of it. Just enjoy it. Just enjoy. And she goes, what the hell are you talking about? I was like, sit back and watch. I freaking took my laptop, put my headphones on. Smoke started coming out of the screen. I built this freaking model for us to plan all this stuff. And then we get on calls. I set up all these calls with all these photographers. I was like, I'll take the call. She's on the call, but I'm driving it.

• 1:22:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:44Ramit Sethi?

  Like, the first thing all these photographers say, I guess they attended the same class.

• 1:22:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:49Ramit Sethi?

  What's your love story?

• 1:22:51Speaker 02

  How did he propose?

• 1:22:54Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, I'm like, you got 28 minutes left. Are you sure you want to ask that question? And so they already, the energy was so weird, right? And my answer was like, oh, we met in New York and it was great and she's beautiful and so cool and like, anyway, let's talk about your photography. It was weird. They didn't like it. I was like, these people don't know how to run a meeting. But then one day I was sick. And I said, babe, can you like, take the lead on this? Cause I can't even talk. She goes, yeah. That was the best photographer meeting of all. It was like, they were connected. They were like feeling each other and I realized something. In the financial industry, there's a big complaint that a lot of financial advisors only talk to the men. Sometimes they don't even look at the wives. They only talk to the men. It's very sexist.

• 1:23:39Ramit Sethi?

  Hey, guess what? Wedding photography industry of America. This is a sexist industry that only talks to the women. I wanted to participate. I wanted to drive it, but nobody would talk to me correctly. Nobody wanted to pay attention until my wife, very talented, came along and locked the deal down.

• 1:23:58Speaker 02

  Love it.

• 1:24:00Ramit Sethi?

  What's the conclusion?

• 1:24:01Speaker 03

  Complimentary system there, yeah.

• 1:24:03Ramit Sethi?

  I guess it is. I guess we really do need teammates in this process, cause we, you know, when the guys try to speak up, we get rebuffed. Um, okay. So they asked you that terrible question. What's your love story? God, stop asking that.

• 1:24:18Speaker 03

  Every single time.

• 1:24:18Ramit Sethi?

  Been talking about.

• 1:24:19Speaker 03

  Like a little shivered up my spine.

• 1:24:21Ramit Sethi?

  Dude.

• 1:24:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:24:23Ramit Sethi?

  Yes, this needs to be talked about and investigated more. Oh, okay. Here's what I want to talk about. Let's just look at the CSP again because I want to compare it to the old CSP. I got a few questions for you. Okay, this is the old CSP, right? So first off, let's just point out a couple of things. It used to be negative 51,000 and negative 432,000. Now the net worth is negative 20,000 and negative 438. Wow. Serena, you paid off a lot of debt.

• 1:24:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:24:50Ramit Sethi?

  Good job.

• 1:24:52Speaker 02

  I basically have been, I mean, I think this, the numbers pretty much reflect this. But yeah, like, I think, I don't know if I was paying 900 a month originally, but this was something that, like in the previous CSP. But yeah, my student loan debt has been something I've been trying to chip away, like

• 1:25:12Ramit Sethi?

  Good job.

• 1:25:12Speaker 02

  for a long time, and it's like my primary financial goal.

• 1:25:16Ramit Sethi?

  All right, everybody, just so everybody who's not watching on YouTube can understand, when we talked a couple of years ago, Serena had 81,300 of debt. Today, she has 68,600, which is extremely good. Good job. Keep it up. And let's remember, she makes 6,900 bucks a month. That's very impressive. In addition, her 401K used to be 19,900. Today, it's 43,000. Are you all ready to listen to me when I talk about the power of compound interest? Start investing. All right, let's keep going. Now, there is something that is a little peculiar to me.

• 1:26:00Ramit Sethi?

  Hey Serena, how come you're actually paying less in rent today? How is that possible? Explain that to me.

• 1:26:07Speaker 02

  So we moved since we last talked to you, and our total, like our net rent, went down slightly. So I'm still paying more than Nate is, and it was a very easy yes to do so. That's sort of, yeah, like it went, I think we went from maybe like 26 or 2700 to like 25. And then that decrease, basically, I just sort of, like it reflected in my contribution, not Nate's. So Nate's still paying the same amount.

• 1:26:40Ramit Sethi?

  Well, Nate's paying about a hundred dollars more, it looks like.

• 1:26:43Speaker 03

  We very much are lucky to be in this apartment. It's owned by a friend of mine, so we're basically paying rent. But we've also been doing a lot of maintenance around the apartment, things like that. So we're not paying much in utilities currently, actually. At the same time that we were moving, Serena was feeling a little bit more stressed about money. And so altogether, I said that I felt comfortable essentially paying a hundred more in rent, knowing that I wouldn't be necessarily putting that directly into utilities. It just kind of worked out that way.

• 1:27:24Speaker 02

  I think the first month that I was here, I might have paid a little bit more. And then, like, it's kind of an ongoing conversation, you know? It's like, we're not, we're not married to these numbers. The way that I like strongly felt at the beginning of our last conversation, where it's like, if, you know, December, or December rent's coming up soon. Yeah, so it's like, if, you know, Nate is feeling like 1.1 is a lot, then honestly, I'm more than fine tacking that on to my contribution every month.

• 1:27:58Speaker 03

  On top of that is that she has been paying down pretty aggressively student loans and things like that. And so from my end, I am looking this kind of longitudinally, where I'm not paying down debts right now, and she is. So that extra, you know, a hundred bucks a month, whatever it is, actually does end up saving us a lot in the long term. But it just, you know, it's not in one account. It's in two separate accounts, so it has to, you know, be balanced from somewhere. So that's the... Overall thinking.

• 1:28:31Ramit Sethi?

  Let's look at the rest. What do you want to flag for me as changes from last time to today? I think we covered the net worth. Income is a little bit higher. Last time your fixed costs were at 77% together. Now they're at 60% together. That's quite a drop, right?

• 1:28:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:28:52Ramit Sethi?

  What happened?

• 1:28:53Speaker 02

  Rent went down a little bit. Gas went down a lot a bit.

• 1:28:57Ramit Sethi?

  You used to pay 650 for your car. Now you're paying 450. Okay, what else?

• 1:29:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, car payment.

• 1:29:02Speaker 03

  Probably even a little lower than that, to be honest, too. This is my estimation.

• 1:29:06Speaker 02

  Nate, I don't think you're doing that $200 in debt payments anymore.

• 1:29:11Ramit Sethi?

  That's correct. He's not.

• 1:29:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:29:13Ramit Sethi?

  Anything else? Let's look at utilities. We're at 160. Now they're at 0.

• 1:29:19Speaker 03

  Which is nice if you can get it, but it'll never happen again.

• 1:29:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, will never happen again. But yeah, our landlord essentially is covering utilities for us as a favor.

• 1:29:32Ramit Sethi?

  What's the clothes that you're spending 160 a month on?

• 1:29:36Speaker 02

  I feel like that's like probably an average over like 12 months. Like there'll be some months where like I'll buy like a couple of things and then one month will, one or two months where I don't buy anything, literally, as far as clothes go. So that's probably like an average.

• 1:29:49Ramit Sethi?

  So many good things to notice here. Consider that Nate is still in his residency and that he's been able to pay anything back towards his debt. The fact that they've dropped their fixed costs from 77% to 60%, while Serena's 401k more than doubled is outstanding. I'm a little surprised to hear that Nate increased his contributions towards rent after our first conversation. But it was his decision and Serena is contributing a larger overall percentage towards household costs. So that's up to them to make that decision. Let's watch as I remind them how they used to divide their household costs.

• 1:30:29Ramit Sethi?

  All right, fine. I got a couple of other things I wanted to show you. I want to get your reaction

• 1:30:37Ramit Sethi?

  when you talked about how you split rent. Take a look.

• 1:30:41Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 1:30:44Speaker 01

  Well, it's 1260 combined. I pay a little bit more than half.

• 1:30:49Speaker 03

  No, it's it's 2560 total.

• 1:30:52Speaker 01

  Damn it. I'm terrible at math.

• 1:30:54Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:30:55Speaker 01

  It's 2560, so I pay a little more than half, just because I make more. Nate pays 1200 to my 1360.

• 1:31:05Ramit Sethi?

  How'd you come up with those numbers?

• 1:31:08Ramit Sethi?

  I know this was a juicy conversation. Don't lie to me.

• 1:31:11Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It was a negotiation.

• 1:31:13Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, tell me. I gotta hear this.

• 1:31:15Speaker 03

  So, uh, rent prices, as well as everything, in the last year have skyrocketed where we lived. So, uh, last year, we were paying the same. We were both paying about a thousand dollars each per month. And this year, our rent went up almost 30%.

• 1:31:36Speaker 03

  And so I could not really afford to split the rent at all. And so, on the other hand, Serena really wanted to stay in the area that we're in. She really liked the area. I mean, I love the area, too. Don't get me wrong. But, um, as opposed to moving elsewhere, where there would have been slightly cheaper rent, but, you know, maybe not that substantial. So she wanted to stay in the area, and the rent was too much for me to afford. So basically, it took a long time of me saying, I can't afford this.

• 1:32:17Speaker 03

  Can we balance this a little bit in a direction based on what we make?

• 1:32:24Ramit Sethi?

  Let me make sure I understand. So you're you're each paying a thousand dollars. Your rent went up. That made it very difficult for you, Nate, to afford it. Serena, you wanted to stay in this particular area, so you had a back and forth. And you concluded with Serena, you're paying a little bit more, like $160 more per month for this apartment?

• 1:32:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:46Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. All right.

• 1:32:49Ramit Sethi?

  What do you both think about how you are splitting your rent?

• 1:32:54Speaker 01

  At first, I was not thrilled at the prospect of spending more when we're both splitting the apartment.

• 1:33:04Ramit Sethi?

  What do you notice as you watch that again?

• 1:33:10Speaker 02

  It seems like there it's like you can tell it's a point of tension between us, I think.

• 1:33:17Speaker 02

  Uh huh. And it's something that um I kind of get the the impression that it's something that, you know, Nate was still struggling with. And I was just like really holding firm to like, I feel like I was just really stubborn.

• 1:33:35Ramit Sethi?

  Nate, what do you notice?

• 1:33:37Speaker 03

  So I kind of am remembering some of those conversations that we had. And yeah, it was very much the word, the word negotiation was absolutely there. Uh, it, you know, was front of mind.

• 1:33:53Speaker 03

  And it's a difference.

• 1:33:58Speaker 03

  It's a different mindset than we approach things now.

• 1:34:00Speaker 02

  We really have tried to move away from that.

• 1:34:03Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, Nate, it's different in what way? What would the conversation be like now rather than in the past when it was a negotiation?

• 1:34:13Speaker 03

  I mean,

• 1:34:15Speaker 03

  for lack of a better term, it would start from basically, here's how I'm feeling this month financially. And this is stressing me out and like, help.

• 1:34:29Speaker 03

  More from the the point of kind of mutual support and trying to make each other feel comfortable in our own lives and just, okay, you're stressed out this month, I get it. And realistically, if you pay, you know, fifty dollars less a month in rent this month, you're going to feel less stressed. You may not solve everything, you'll feel a little stressed out. It's not going to affect much, it'll even out next month. Because we're doing it in equal measure on both sides. It's both of us coming at the equation from a point of view where we need these things.

• 1:35:12Speaker 03

  To feel financially solvent, even if that's not necessarily a rational thing, but it's something where we can communicate about our underlying emotions on a subject and bring that into how we talk about a subject.

• 1:35:26Ramit Sethi?

  One of the things I noticed in the prior conversation, Nate, is that you didn't often advocate for yourself. And there were times where you had mentioned you're really busy and you come home from work and you didn't have the mental bandwidth for it. But I also think there are just that it was probably deeper than time, although I know time is real. Do you find that you advocate more for yourself the same or less when it comes to money now?

• 1:35:57Speaker 03

  I think initially I advocated more for myself, though I also think that has to do with growing professionally and personally and things like that. So I think some of that was sort of part and parcel, kind of included into the big picture. But after a while, I felt like I didn't necessarily have to advocate for myself. There weren't a lot of points where I was feeling as if my needs were being unheeded or ignored

• 1:36:33Speaker 03

  or cast aside. And so, once we sort of got into a habit, a rhythm of actually paying attention to each other's needs to kind of think actively about each other, made it so that wasn't a necessary thing.

• 1:36:50Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Serena, what do you think hearing that?

• 1:36:54Speaker 02

  It makes me really happy, honestly, to hear that he feels as though he doesn't need to advocate as much. It really, truly means a lot to me. Because, again, looking back at the previous conversation a few years back, I don't like what I'm seeing from myself. And I agree that, you know, it's taken, like, it took work, again, with a lot of rewiring, how I moved about in the relationship, how I viewed money in this relationship. And

• 1:37:29Speaker 02

  I think like I'm proud of us. I'm proud of our progress. I want Nate to feel as though he doesn't have to like always speak up and that rather like I am paying attention and like making sure that, you know, he's good and that he's not stressed. If I'm picking up on something, you know, I can then coactively sort of be like, okay, let me offer to, you know, cover this, you know, week grocery, this week's of groceries or something. And it's again, something that, you know, I wasn't dialed into before, but something I'm really trying to do going forward.

• 1:38:07Ramit Sethi?

  Cool.

• 1:38:08Speaker 03

  And I actually want to slightly change my answer just briefly. I think maybe I am advocating for myself more, but I think also how that advocating for myself looks has changed where I can just say something with like communicate a need and it's not where I feel like I even am advocating for myself, even if I'm expressing something that I want or need. It's doesn't feel like it because the understanding that it's not coming from an adversarial point of view and that, you know, how we're both approaching these situations is important. And so it hasn't, it doesn't necessarily

• 1:38:49Speaker 03

  feel like advocacy or advocating for myself per se, but that has more to do just with how we're holding the conversations that we hold on a daily basis.

• 1:39:00Ramit Sethi?

  I don't think that it should be adversarial. I think that even if the two of you have different priorities for money, you can most of the time come up with a solution that works for both of you. And sometimes it's okay if you don't agree. Maybe we're in semantics here, but when I think about advocating for myself and my wife advocating for herself in general, I think it's a good thing. I don't find it to be adversarial. I also don't associate it with negotiating, which becomes very tiresome in a relationship. That's not what I'm talking about. Advocating for yourself is often like, what is it that you need? What is it that you want? Maybe you need some time alone because it was a crazy week

• 1:39:40Ramit Sethi?

  at work and you just need to be alone on Saturday. Or maybe it is, I need a hug when you get home. Or like, maybe I need for us to eat out once a week because I do not want to cook. And the reason I ask Nate, and the reason I would actually encourage you to think about advocating as a positive thing. Every individual in a relationship needs things and they change. And that's okay. In particular, I talked to a lot of people, I talked to a lot of men and women who lose themselves in their relationship because they put the other person first. They're always kind of dancing around their partner's needs and they may have a lot of money, but they don't even

• 1:40:22Ramit Sethi?

  know what they like anymore. No hobbies, no nothing. It's like, I don't want that for either of you. And I just want to encourage you to both continue to stay grounded in what you want. It will actually make your relationship better. I've learned that myself. My wife has helped me advocate for myself and I think that that's just a very powerful skill. I'm curious, why did you come back to speak to me? I'm thrilled you are here. I really am. But why did you want to come back?

• 1:40:54Speaker 02

  This is fun. I like, I learned a lot in the first, uh, the first chat that we had. I think now is a good time also for us to be having some more of these conversations. When we chatted last, like a lot of the numbers and goals that we had were kind of still in the hypothetical. Now they feel a lot closer and tangible and you know, we're making this big step. And I think just, you know, want to like also continue just like, kind of like doing the work for our relationship, you know?

• 1:41:34Speaker 02

  I, I think it's clear what a big difference, you know, having these like really frank, candid, vulnerable conversations about money, you know, it changed so much for us and just like our day to day, big picture and day to day, honestly. And like, I didn't realize I had paid off as much of my student loan debt and you know, doubled my 401k. I literally, again, like I, I know I should like really keep an eye on these things, but like, I'm sorry, I don't. I am like, you know, I just, I don't. And so it's also nice to celebrate the wins for both of us, you know? It's a good feeling.

• 1:42:15Ramit Sethi?

  I love that. Nate, how about you?

• 1:42:19Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Just with things sort of on the horizon, there's granular, day-to-day, small number of addition-subtraction problems. But it's just become increasingly important to not lose sight of, you know, keeping your view pointed forward. And as, you know, I come to the end of this sort of impoverished, relatively, and very, a lot of debt, that end of that kind of chapter.

• 1:42:56Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:56Speaker 03

  Things are gonna start changing. And I just place a lot of importance on making sure I'm good, we're good, as those changes happen, because you don't always know exactly what that's going to look like until you're in the situation or until something's happened.

• 1:43:21Speaker 02

  I really want to not make the mistakes that I saw growing up. That is something that is really important to me, you know, and like also coming from someone that like, I still have a lot of questions about finances and those like big, big decisions. And I don't want to be making these sort of like mindlessly and not realizing if there's money left on the table, or, you know, if there's like flexibility that I didn't know of that I could be using to, you know, make our lives like richer, you know, it's

• 1:44:01Speaker 02

  like, I wanna, I didn't know I had as much like money to spend on dinners or treating Nate until I had this conversation. So things like that are also really helpful. And we just love talking to you.

• 1:44:15Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, I love it too. I rarely meet, I mean, first of all, you guys are great. Just, it's fun to talk to you. I love, I love the things you tell me and I love how honest you both are. That's one of the things that just like stands out to me every time I talk to you. Honestly, to see the journey you took from where you came the first time, the fact that you were, I know our team reached out to you like, hey, you know, just want to let you know what's up, the comments. And I remember your comment back was like, yeah, yeah, you know, we don't mind. It's okay. And I thought that was so cool. You were our first video podcast and it was a whole new thing we did and it was so

• 1:44:54Ramit Sethi?

  cool watching you both and then seeing where you came in two years is quite amazing. The thing that I especially love is that you both talk about, quote, "doing the work" and it's clear that you have put in a lot of work. You've mentioned a therapist, you talk about money, you've rediscovered a way of interacting. When I think about my own relationship, I think, you know, when you get married and you're together for years, you realize that there are certain things you look for in a partner that maybe you didn't think about when you were dating. And definitely for me, what the ability for someone to take feedback is important and to develop themselves because lot, life

• 1:45:36Ramit Sethi?

  is going to change. It's going to throw lots of stuff our way. We've got to be able to take it, accept it, make changes. And I feel like the two of you are a perfect example of doing that. So I'm really impressed. I'm so proud of you. Yeah. It's awesome to see. I love having these videos of the, the, the older, the younger you and then we can just see it and look how far you've come. It's such a celebration. Do you have any questions that I can answer for you? I just want to make sure if you do, that I have a chance to answer them for you.

• 1:46:10Speaker 02

  I had a question about savings accounts.

• 1:46:13Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, go ahead.

• 1:46:15Speaker 02

  So I don't know much about savings accounts. Like I mentioned, I'm sort of, I still have the same checking account and savings account from when I was a teenager. I sort of am wondering if there's a way for when I'm able to build back my savings and invest more. Like, should I be looking for like different things in a savings account? Because right now I think I get literally like two cents.

• 1:46:39Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:40Speaker 02

  Which, thank you Bank of America so much. And, you know.

• 1:46:44Ramit Sethi?

  So like, your account, your account structure is a pretty simple one. Um, this isn't complicated at all. You can open them up. It's quite easy. You can do it online and you can even transfer money from one account to another all online.

• 1:46:56Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:46:57Ramit Sethi?

  There are lots of great savings accounts. Um, Ally Bank has a great one. Capital One has a great one. They're all free. They all have high interest compared to what you're getting, like roughly four, four and a half percent approximately. There are several others. You can find them if you just search for my name savings account. And those are great. One of the cool things you can do with Capital One and a couple of other accounts is you can open up multiple savings accounts or multiple sub savings accounts. So you can have one for wedding, down payment, emergency fund, and you can even name them. So in chapter nine of my book, I talk about how to name them and how many you want to have like five or fewer and

• 1:47:41Ramit Sethi?

  that'll be super cool. So that's what I would do. Checking account, I would, I would get out of Bank of America. I personally like Schwab. I think they're great. They have a lot of awesome things you can do. And if you travel, you don't have to worry about ATM withdrawal fees. You could take it out of 7-Eleven or internationally. So lots of stuff you can do there. Again, those all connect with each other, money transfers. What I might consider is for the two of you, when the time is right, to kind of take some time, you don't have to rush it, but kind of plan out, hey, we're gonna get married. We're probably gonna combine accounts. Let's go through the book and let's read it and see what's gonna make sense for us. We probably don't want to co-mingle certain things

• 1:48:26Ramit Sethi?

  because we're gonna sign a prenup, but day to day, the amount that we're each making, probably it makes sense to go into the same joint checking account. And then from there, to go to various different places.

• 1:48:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think like the overarching like concern that I have is like once I have, you know, kind of built up my savings, like I want that money to still be working for me in some small way because right now it's just not.

• 1:48:54Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, it'll make like 4% as of right now. It'll change over time. But sure, it should be earning a little bit more. I think more importantly, you know, you don't make much on interest in savings, but it is good to have the right account. So you don't have to think about it.

• 1:49:10Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 1:49:11Ramit Sethi?

  Nate?

• 1:49:13Speaker 03

  So I recently for interviews had to fly all over the country, stay in hotels and put it all on my card. And now I'm trying to put that over on like a 0% APR for 18 months card. And my credit score is decent and I'm still getting rejected because I have $460,000 of debt.

• 1:49:40Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:40Speaker 03

  I'm kind of a little bit out of at a loss of how to get around that right now because yeah, I mean, I'm just racking up interest at this point as opposed to, you know, balancing or transferring a balance and actually saving money. But obviously, yeah, it's difficult.

• 1:50:00Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, I have a couple of suggestions. This is where I think that stepping in as a team can be really helpful. So I'm looking here first, Nate, I'm looking at your CSP and I'm looking for some amount of liquid savings that would make this okay. How much do you have on that credit card?

• 1:50:17Speaker 03

  Four thousand something.

• 1:50:18Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, okay. So, you know, right off the bat, you only have a thousand dollars in savings. So even if you took all of it out, you don't even have enough to pay for that trip. So then I kind of come down here and I look and I go, okay, wait a second. Your fixed costs, Nate, are 72%. And then Serena, if you see, yours are 53%. So it's, you know, considerable difference. Nate, you are saving like, you're saving 10 bucks a month and you're investing, you know, a little bit, like 100 bucks a month. So it's tough. There's not like, there's a pot of cash sitting around. So here are your options, Nate. You could,

• 1:51:00Ramit Sethi?

  one, put it on whatever credit card you have. If you need, you could, I guess you could open up an easier credit card, one that they might give you, a secured credit card where you could put a thousand dollars down and slowly cap. But it won't be 0% interest. You'll pay. Alternatively, the two of you could have a conversation. And I think this would be one where I might say, Nate, I might advocate for myself and say, "Hey, here's the situation. Like, I have to pay this. I don't have a pot of money right now to draw from. It would be really helpful if you could help me. Here's what, specifically what I would be looking for. And of course, I know, Nate, that you would take money from your own situation and put it

• 1:51:44Ramit Sethi?

  towards it as much as you could. But, hey, if you have some money, it would be very helpful for me because otherwise I'm about to pay 27% interest on this trip." The two of you could talk about it. And maybe Serena says, "Yes, I can help with all of it. I can pay all of it. That would be the furthest end of the spectrum. I'll pay it all. Just send me the bill." Next, she might say, "I could loan you the money. That would be up to you." Maybe she would say, "I can help you with a thousand. That's what I'm able to do." And you would say, "Thank you so much. That means a lot. I love you, and I will handle the rest on my own." But you can see that you start to talk about, "Here's the situation. Here's what I'm asking for." And then Serena has the right to decide how she wants to do it herself.

• 1:52:29Ramit Sethi?

  How do you all feel that that conversation, would it go in a constructive way?

• 1:52:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, like, I think now the biggest thing is like, everything has options. Everything is a conversation. And also, just, again, like, I didn't see the emotion or, like, I guess emotional impact or benefit that money can bring. Again, like, I came at it from as transactional as one can get. I feel like now it's like, we have options. It feels good and it feels like empowering for us to know that we can figure it out, whatever, whatever we end up settling on.

• 1:53:08Ramit Sethi?

  Love it.

• 1:53:08Speaker 02

  And also, great to know that, like... I can help some, like I can help him. Like that's a really, that's like a very, as like a partner, you know, it's like, that's a great feeling to know that, you know, you're there for someone and Nate knows I have his back.

• 1:53:25Ramit Sethi?

  These are the times, these are the times, times like this where

• 1:53:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:53:28Ramit Sethi?

  it's not that Nate is spending on some crazy expense. It's like he had to do it for work and he doesn't have the financial means for, for reasons that are based on where he is in his career. But it's gonna change. And these are the times where a partner can be like, let me help.

• 1:53:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:53:43Ramit Sethi?

  And wow, it goes a long way. People really remember those moments. Anything else I can answer for you?

• 1:53:50Speaker 02

  Is there anything you wish that you knew before you got married or any just like financial advice you would give to like a couple in our, in our shoes? Like, we haven't bought a home. We want to, you know, we, we want to pay off student debt, which is, that's like another big financial goal, but yeah, like is there anything that you don't see people talking about that is actually like a very solid game changing piece of advice?

• 1:54:21Ramit Sethi?

  The, the best thing for you, I would give you personalized feedback for your exact situation, which is I'm so glad that you have worked on the fundamentals of money and your relationship over the last two years. Because as Nate puts it, things are about to change. And the amount that you made in a year is gonna be coming into your accounts in about two months, maybe three. And that really changes everything. And I want, just like you've gone through the process of planning your wedding and enjoying it, that's actually the same thing you get to do and it's even better. Hey,

• 1:55:05Ramit Sethi?

  our finances are about to change in a massive way. What does it mean for us? Of course, we're gonna pay our debt off. Yes, we're gonna put the majority of the extra money towards that. Yes. But what does it mean for us? And dream and really say, you know, I, for me, it's important that we go out to dinner once a week. Once a month, I want to go to that place. And then once a quarter, I want to go to that awesome place. I want to see our family XYZ times a year. And you get to have these dreams and because of the hard work and the partnership the two of you have put in. Get to live it. Don't skip that part. That's actually the best part.

• 1:55:45Speaker 02

  I'm excited.

• 1:55:45Speaker 03

  I appreciate that.

• 1:55:47Speaker 02

  Plan all that. And I'm excited to plan it with him specifically.

• 1:55:53Ramit Sethi?

  Yes, the two of you. I love that. I feel so lucky. You are the first video podcast I did, and you are the first follow-up that I've gotten to do. And I truly did not expect to hear what I heard today. I am so glad that I did. Last question for you. What has been the most surprising part of this experience of talking to me and learning about money on Money for Couples?

• 1:56:24Speaker 02

  When I talked about money, it was never empowering. It was always a sense of stress or shame. And now, you know, I'm not like I'm, I can afford to pay off my student loan, pay rent, get groceries, and be, you know, relatively comfortable.

• 1:56:47Speaker 02

  But even so, it's like even with what I have, I'm able to make it and work and understand how to make it work in a way that is, you know, having a positive impact on my life and Nate's. You know, I feel like I have a much better understanding of how to like use my money in order to actually like enrich our lives. Like Nate and I aren't the sort of people that are just like, oh, like, we just feel like buying something for like no real reason. Like I feel like I've learned how to be a lot more intentional with my spending. And it's a great feeling because like for a long time I was sort of like

• 1:57:32Speaker 02

  just like going through life and not really thinking about spending. I'm not like understanding, you know, these things. And I'm just hoping I'm like going through life and hoping I don't get audited, basically. And now we have these goals and I can see like tangibly like, oh, like, yeah, like I'm like making and achieving financial goals is a really empowering feeling, I think. And it's not something I thought I would, like I never thought I would say that sentence.

• 1:58:03Ramit Sethi?

  Amazing. Congratulations. That's awesome. Nate, how about you?

• 1:58:08Speaker 03

  The realization of conversations about money and conversations about relationships are built on the same structure of how to hold a productive and good conversation. If you can't talk about your boundaries in a relationship or whatever other issue, then there's no way you're going to be able to talk about your boundaries in finance. So all of those skills are completely mutually intertwined. And a lot of us being better about talking about money

• 1:58:51Speaker 03

  has also led over into us talking about other decisions, other plans, things in our relationship that, once you have the tools and the structure to talk about important things, it applies to everything that's important, not just one thing, not just money. It does go beyond that. And it's been pretty critical in terms of, you know, sort of changing how we approach a lot of things in life.

• 1:59:21Speaker 02

  And if I can gaslight Nate up for a second, he has put so much work in achieving his career goals, you know, from the beginning of our relationship, you know, like I've sort of been in my career and growing in my career. Whereas, you know, right out of college, whereas it is a, like, the slowest of slow burns and Nate is so patient. And, you know, it is really, it makes me so proud to see him achieve this, not just because it will affect our future family and myself, but I know this is something he has worked so hard for.

• 2:00:02Speaker 02

  And it's been a pleasure and honor to have a front row seat and to kind of like support us through this stage. Like I, even through all the ups and downs, you know, and there were many where Nate has them on tape. You know, it's like, I can't wait to look back on this chapter of our lives and know, like, we did that work and, you know, got through it together. That's a really good feeling.

• 2:00:30Ramit Sethi?

  Well, I'm super happy to get a chance to catch up with you. It's great to see you. You both look great. The way that you communicate is like truly at a different level. And I'm really proud of both of you. Congratulations. I want to thank Nate and Serena for speaking with me. Our first conversation was one of my favorite episodes, and this one makes me even happier. What I noticed is they took this seriously. Money went from a source of stress and frustration, something that was driving them apart through resentment, to something that could actually bring them together. That is exactly why I wrote my new book, Money for Couples, and that is what I want for you. Money should not be something that divides you.

• 2:01:14Ramit Sethi?

  Money should be something that brings you together. For a lot of couples, when they see money, they see confusion, overwhelm, and a confusing spreadsheet with a bunch of decimal places. I see convenience. I see being able to take a date night once a month. I see being able to take a family trip to Disneyland. And if you use the techniques in my new book, you will know exactly what to say, when to say it, even how to say it, so that you can begin living your rich life together.