190. “Is our relationship going to end on air?”

Justin, 38, and Maggie, 34, join the show to unpack a growing tension in their relationship—her hesitation to combine finances. Maggie spent her twenties traveling the world and is now laser-focused on building her future, while Justin shares her love for travel but envisions a future together. With Maggie making life plans that might not include him, Justin is left feeling hurt and uncertain. Can they bridge the gap and take their relationship to the next level? This episode is brought to you by: Thrive Market | Head to https://thrivemarket.com/RAMIT and get 30% off your first order—plus a FREE $60 gift! ZocDoc | Download the ZocDoc app for FREE at https://zocdoc.com/ramit then find and book a top-rated doctor today. 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. Netsuite | Get visibility to everything in your business in one place. Sign up and defer payments, with no interest, for six months at https://iwt.com/netsuite. Rocket Money | Stop throwing your money away. Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way —by going to https://rocketmoney.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 • Get my new 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.

• 0:01Ramit Sethi?

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• 2:47Speaker 01

  Is this going to be the end of my relationship on air?

• 2:50Ramit Sethi?

  Meet Justin and Maggie.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  We're freelancers. We're really good at making money, not necessarily planning on how to spend it. I'm the responsible one right now.

• 2:59Ramit Sethi?

  And who's he?

• 2:59Speaker 02

  Maybe the irresponsible one.

• 3:01Ramit Sethi?

  Justin is 38, Maggie's 34. They've been dating for a couple of years and Maggie does not want to combine finances with Justin.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  I just want some similar priorities and some similar game plan.

• 3:14Ramit Sethi?

  Maggie spent her twenties traveling the world.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  I was traveling for six years out of a backpack and working from my laptop. My goal was to make good money.

• 3:21Ramit Sethi?

  And now she's focused on the future.

• 3:23Speaker 02

  I want to save a bunch of money and that's the mindset I'm in.

• 3:26Ramit Sethi?

  Justin also loves to travel and he wants a future with Maggie.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  I definitely put experiences and living life before anything else.

• 3:34Ramit Sethi?

  Now that Maggie is making life plans that might not include him, Justin feels hurt.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  I just really didn't feel like there was a we or us. I was like, where do I fit in on this?

• 3:44Speaker 02

  I think it's safe to say that we're at a point where it's like, if it doesn't change, it's not going to last.

• 3:49Ramit Sethi?

  Now let's meet Justin and Maggie.

• 3:59Ramit Sethi?

  I've got Justin and Maggie's CSP in front of me, getting ready for our conversation. Check out what I noticed. All right, let's take a look Maggie and Justin. Maggie spent her twenties backpacking through different countries. She has big financial dreams. She wants stability. Justin grew up wealthy. He's run his own business, but never really paid attention. Money comes, money goes. They started an LLC together for their YouTube channel on motorcycles. Justin wants to combine finances and their lives. Maggie doesn't want to get caught up in the financial mess. On the flip side, he feels like he supported Maggie financially, and she's not willing to reciprocate that. Trust is an issue. She doesn't trust that he'll get his financial life together. Wow, there's a lot going on here.

• 4:43Ramit Sethi?

  I'm looking now at their CSP. Looks like they have not combined their finances. That's fine. Assets, her net worth is 45,000. His net worth is negative 63,000. She has a thousand bucks invested. He has 7,000. She has 16,000 saved. He has 1,000. And wow, she has 15K of debt. He has 92K of debt. All right, let's go to the income. They make a pretty healthy income, 120 for her, 100 to 250K for him. That's a lot of income. $267,000 a year? Let's keep going. I gotta say, there's something fishy about these numbers.

• 5:27Ramit Sethi?

  I wonder if there's some mixing of business in here. I've seen this before where sometimes numbers don't add up, and it's usually one or both people are in a business, and they're counting some of their business expenses and things like that. So maybe that's what's going on here. Let's keep going. 36% going towards guilt-free spending, which is $7,444. I doubt that that number is true. I think it just kind of flowed down to the bottom. My guess is that they could probably put more towards debt and pay that off aggressively. My overall assessment. One, they make a lot of money. That part is good. Two, they have separate finances. That's okay. I'd like to understand more.

• 6:10Ramit Sethi?

  Three, there's a bit of a disparity, not just in their spending, but certainly in their debt levels. And four, the way they treat money and they treat each other. There are little clues showing up here on the CSP, but it's really probably going to come out when I talk to them. So I'm very interested to speak to them and see what's going on here.

• 6:34Speaker 02

  We are gonna be moving next year and the question is, what can we afford? We're freelancers, I don't know anything about your situation. I just kinda wanted to get on the same page.

• 6:43Ramit Sethi?

  First of all, do you talk about money?

• 6:45Speaker 01

  No, money's been a weird thing for me. But I was like, man, if I feel like I had somebody that I could tackle life with, like, this is her. But we just couldn't get there. It just, it didn't happen. But finally it was like, hey, I'm gonna put us on public display and we're gonna talk about all the things that most people never talk about.

• 7:03Ramit Sethi?

  Have you tried to talk about money in this relationship before?

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Kind of.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:08Ramit Sethi?

  Like, how did it go?

• 7:09Speaker 02

  I set up a spreadsheet that I've been working off of last year. And I was like, what are your fixed costs a month? What are our goals? Hey, put your numbers in here. Look at mine.

• 7:20Ramit Sethi?

  Do you realize my question was, how did you talk about money? And your answer was, I created a spreadsheet.

• 7:27Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 7:28Ramit Sethi?

  Anybody find that a little odd?

• 7:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:30Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Well, that's what we're here today for.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:32Ramit Sethi?

  Talking about money, especially first few conversations, probably should not involve a spreadsheet. What was your reaction when you saw that spreadsheet, by the way?

• 7:41Speaker 01

  I was like, great, here we go. I already hate doing money. And I feel like I have an overwhelming situation in general. And then, you know, on top of that, it was just like, we never talked about really anything. Debt, goals.

• 7:54Ramit Sethi?

  When you felt all these things overwhelm and there's complexity in your financial lives, what was your reaction with the spreadsheet? Did you fill it out?

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:03Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  For one month, and then it stopped.

• 8:05Ramit Sethi?

  Now, your finances are separate, correct?

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Kind of. We have a partnership with the YouTube channel.

• 8:10Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, so you have separate finances, but you have a joint venture.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:14Ramit Sethi?

  And you make money through that, but you also make money independently.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 8:18Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, let's, I can see why it feels confusing, but it's quite common. The good news is, there are solutions for this situation. All right, so you both live together. How do you pay the rent or mortgage?

• 8:32Speaker 02

  One of us manages the rent and everybody, because we have three adults in our household. Justin currently is taking care of rent, so we send him rent. But I'm managing the bills. There was a period of time where I was managing the rent and Justin was managing the bills. And we weren't able to get a number.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  I wasn't every month being like, okay, it was $250 for all the things. We have to split it. I just threw it on the credit card and stacked up a bunch of bills.

• 9:00Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, why'd you do that?

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Honestly, it was just sort of a set it and forget it. And I screwed myself, honestly.

• 9:07Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. What's a time in the last six months where the two of you really disagreed about money?

• 9:14Speaker 01

  She doesn't like the way I spend my money on sunglasses.

• 9:17Ramit Sethi?

  That's it? I don't think you guys flew across the country to talk about $100 sunglasses.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  I'm in the dark, I feel like, about his financial situation, but I can do simple math in my head sometimes. And I'm like, this is not adding up that you spent $400 on sunglasses this month. I think there's certain things where I'm just like, I don't spend money like that. And I'm really on top of my expenses.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  One thing that's been contentious and difficult, and it's a really complicated situation overall, is that our roommate is Maggie's best friend. And she had a brain tumor a few years ago and had it removed. But it's the type of thing that eventually will come back.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  It is coming back.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  It is coming back. And so she's going on medication now. But more or less, all the disposable income or whatever Maggie's setting aside is going to taking care of her and her kids.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  She has two kids that live with us.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a tough situation to be in because I kind of feel like that's the priority. And I'm not necessarily in that bubble.

• 10:20Ramit Sethi?

  Maggie's friend and her children are the financial priority for Maggie?

• 10:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:26Ramit Sethi?

  And you feel you're maybe second priority?

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Or not a priority at all in that regard.

• 10:31Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. And what is the financial resources that you're putting behind your friend? Are you her caretaker?

• 10:37Speaker 02

  Not right now. There's things where I'll plan trips with them and I'll take care of everything.

• 10:42Ramit Sethi?

  And does your friend, does she earn money?

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Yes, she does. One of my goals for all of us is that this financially, we're splitting a house between three adults. This is a chance for all of us to like catch up on some finance things. But we weren't necessarily on the same page with that as well, too.

• 11:00Ramit Sethi?

  Why not?

• 11:01Speaker 02

  I mean, I had it as my goal.

• 11:02Ramit Sethi?

  Did you ever talk about that? Hey, it's gonna be three of us splitting expenses, so this is a chance for us to pay off debt and get ahead.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  Honestly, her and Ashley talked way more about finances and getting ahead than Maggie and I did.

• 11:14Ramit Sethi?

  Have you ever talked about that?

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Maggie was trying to convince me why we should have another adult and two children living in our house. And as part of that, it should be because we get to save more money.

• 11:23Ramit Sethi?

  And your reaction was? Sure. How would you characterize the dynamic of money in your household?

• 11:29Speaker 02

  I'm the responsible one right now.

• 11:31Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, and who's he?

• 11:33Speaker 02

  Maybe the irresponsible one by default.

• 11:36Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. What do you think about that?

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Pretty accurate.

• 11:39Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, okay. That makes my job easier.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  There was a time, though, in the beginning of our relationship where it was very flipped. Like, I was paying all the bills and some, you know, and, you know, I helped out considerably when it came to finances.

• 11:56Ramit Sethi?

  Were you making more?

• 11:56Speaker 01

  I was making a lot more.

• 11:58Ramit Sethi?

  You're making more, so you were paying the majority of the bills. And when you say "and more," what's that?

• 12:03Speaker 01

  So for the first year that we were together, Maggie was doing this influencer thing, and I wanted to help her out. So I was like, how about I put you on payroll, and, you know, you can help me with some stuff I need to redo my website, and, you know, maybe you can help me come up with some strategy for a business.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  It kept me afloat. And at the time, he was making money, he was paying another full-time employee and had an office, and I didn't know his situation. And I think right off the bat, I haven't known exactly what his situation was, and that was where it started. And then a lot of that, it felt like was getting held over my head. And I was like, okay, we need to move away from this dynamic. I don't want that to be a part of our relationship. And I went and started finding work and found jobs and started holding my own. And then I was like, okay, cool. Like, I still didn't know what his situation was. I'm like, you should be in a much better place now that I'm not such a strain on it.

• 12:59Ramit Sethi?

  Did you say that?

• 13:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 13:01Speaker 02

  Not necessarily.

• 13:02Ramit Sethi?

  Did you not talk about this kind of stuff at all?

• 13:05Speaker 02

  We kind of talk about it. There's just a lot of like struggle with relationship stuff that we were working through and to have money tied into it like I think that's also added to the maybe the aversion to talk about it.

• 13:17Ramit Sethi?

  Who's aversion?

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Both of us. Finance is always a tricky thing. It's cause it can cause a lot of trouble in a relationship. It's sometimes subjective. I mean, whether I'm spending $200 on a pair of glasses. For me, that makes sense and that doesn't make sense for somebody else.

• 13:32Ramit Sethi?

  It's interesting you say that with the sunglasses example. I agree. It might make sense for you. Your partner might think it doesn't make sense. But it seems to me that you both don't have a way of deciding if that's a good decision or not. How would you decide right now if buying $200 sunglasses is a good decision or not?

• 13:53Speaker 01

  I think that Maggie would feel much more confident in my choice of spending $200 on sunglasses if she knew that I had my finances handled.

• 14:03Ramit Sethi?

  Do you?

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Absolutely not.

• 14:05Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  I shouldn't have been buying $200 sunglasses.

• 14:08Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, that's all right. So Maggie, your concern is probably warranted. But when you express the concern, how's it received?

• 14:17Speaker 02

  It just doesn't come off right. I just know that there's been a bit of a blind eye turn to them. It feels like because it was happening when we split bills last year to the point where I was like, how about I manage that because it seems like it's a lot. Anytime rent was paid, we asked, what do we owe for bills? And he's like, I need to take a look at it was the answer. And then it wouldn't get taken a look at and I mean, there's a lot going on. No, we probably should have hounded him, but it got to the point where we hadn't paid anything in a couple of months. And I was just I did say like, I know this is stacking up and we can't back pay. So let me manage that. And you just handle the rent part because it's a flat rate every month. We divide it three ways. We always know what it is. It's all the same.

• 14:58Ramit Sethi?

  And is that where you are now?

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's where we're at now.

• 15:01Ramit Sethi?

  Any different opinion on what happened?

• 15:04Speaker 01

  They asked a couple of times and then what happened is later on when we started doing spreadsheets and looking at the bills, I was like, I've been paying for the bills the whole time and it's been going on my credit card and it's stacked up a couple thousand dollars worth of bills at this point. And then she was like, oh, well, we asked, you know, and you never gave us an answer. So we're not going to back pay you now and you're going to have to take care of that. And then moving forward, we'll switch over. I'll take care of the utilities and then you can take the rent.

• 15:36Ramit Sethi?

  Is that what happened? You did not get the back pay?

• 15:38Speaker 01

  No, I did not get the back pay.

• 15:39Ramit Sethi?

  Why is that?

• 15:40Speaker 02

  It had just stacked up a lot. Like, it was to a point where it was like, it hit a tipping point where it was like, I don't even know where we stand on this because he had been managing it.

• 15:50Ramit Sethi?

  Justin, it sounds like you were probably not as forthcoming communicating about what's owed every single month. I agree. He's probably owed back pay, right? Even though it might be difficult, you can't write a check all at once. I can understand that. Are you frustrated by the back pay still?

• 16:07Speaker 01

  It's kind of [BLEEP]. It's kind of [BLEEP].

• 16:09Speaker 02

  How much is owed?

• 16:11Speaker 01

  That's a great question. Like, I need to go back and figure that out.

• 16:14Ramit Sethi?

  You mentioned you're responsible in this dynamic and you called him irresponsible. What are we talking about?

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Just being aware. I wouldn't say like, I'm on top of everything, but I definitely have a lot more awareness and that's all it is. I'm setting aside my savings. I should be saving more, but I'm hitting what I set out to save every single month.

• 16:34Ramit Sethi?

  So is that what you want from Justin?

• 16:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:37Ramit Sethi?

  Have you told him that?

• 16:38Speaker 01

  No.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  I don't want him to be not going to Starbucks when he wants to or not buying sunglasses he wants to. I just think he's been doing that without consciously making a plan to pay off the debt that he's got.

• 16:50Ramit Sethi?

  What if he doesn't? Because some people are aware, but they choose to make different decisions than you might.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  It's not that he doesn't get to do those things. I don't want those things stripped away. I just want it to come after the, okay, I put the chunk that I need to towards debt. I have a plan for it because there's things that we've discussed recently when I was like, eventually I want to build a mini farm and have an A-frame house on a piece of property in Southern Utah. He's like, well, where do I fit into that plan? I'm like, this is my plan because I don't know where you sit and I need to be met halfway to even think of a plan with you on this. It's my dream right now because I'm saving for it.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  She was like, I just don't trust you and how can I put my name and our names together on anything?

• 17:31Ramit Sethi?

  You said that?

• 17:32Speaker 02

  Different words, but kind of I don't feel like I can trust that you've got things handled.

• 17:38Ramit Sethi?

  Why didn't you trust him?

• 17:40Speaker 02

  Because he was seemed to be struggling quite a bit and I just didn't know. I should have asked more.

• 17:49Ramit Sethi?

  Is the goal that the two of you stay together for the long term?

• 17:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  I hope so.

• 17:57Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, and is the goal that you get married or no?

• 18:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:03Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, wait, that was interesting. She says no, what do you say?

• 18:06Speaker 01

  There's a part of me that wants to get married and we've had this conversation and this is a step in the right direction of being able to be trusted enough for her to marry me one day.

• 18:15Ramit Sethi?

  I guess what I'm trying to understand is what does your future together look like? Because maybe it involves marriage, maybe not, that's fine. But when I hear about things like building a house in southern Utah and then Justin, you very pointedly say, where do I fit in? And I hear this answer that is, well, this is my plan.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  As part of this farm conversation, honestly, it was pretty tough. I was pretty her because I just felt like she's like, I'm going off and, you know, she had property for her best friend that she was including on this land. And there wasn't any conversation of me even having a room there. And definitely not being a part of helping build it. I just really didn't feel like there was a we or us or I was part of the conversation. And I brought it up. I was like, you know, where do I fit in on this? And she's like, well, you don't. I need to build something so I have some sort of passive income. And then she looked at me and said, what's yours? This is my dream. What's yours? And that was the kind of like, this is why I like this girl so much, you know? Because it really did light a fire under my [BLEEP].

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Following her dream of building a farm in Utah doesn't need to be my dream, you know? And so I can go over here and start doing something else. You know, and I have my own ways of potentially making passive income.

• 19:33Ramit Sethi?

  Was that a satisfying answer to you?

• 19:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. It wasn't like I'm gonna go live on this farm in Homestead for 10 years. It's not the plan. It was like, how do I pick a piece of land that's in a corridor to national parks and I could short term rental it? And we can be traveling wherever we want and stuff like that.

• 19:48Ramit Sethi?

  So it seems like the two of you have talked about it. Seems like you have a plan. What's the problem?

• 19:55Speaker 02

  I think the big one has been like making plans together.

• 19:59Ramit Sethi?

  Hold on, you both just spent five minutes telling me how you have concluded you're gonna make separate plans and you don't need to be together. What am I missing? A lot of double talk here, and that's okay. This is common in relationships. This is what a third party can help us point out. These murky alleyways that we tend to get stuck in in our relationship and how to shine a light and find our way out of them. Did you notice that they both started the episode by using jokes to avoid uncomfortable conversations? Out of respect for my guests, I don't let them get away with that. My guests take a lot of time in preparation to see me. In this case, they flew across the country to be here, so I won't let them use the usual

• 20:42Ramit Sethi?

  evasion techniques to get out of a substantive conversation, even if they are employing them unconsciously. That's why I'm gonna occasionally bring them back on track, even if it feels a little uncomfortable. Now Maggie sees herself as responsible and Justin as irresponsible. Justin is resentful that Maggie won't reimburse him for those utility bills that he covered. They don't talk about money. She's making plans for building a farm in Utah without him, and they say the problem is making plans together. More after a short break from our sponsors.

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• 23:54Ramit Sethi?

  And now, back to our conversation.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  I'm very much a like. I'm not gonna get involved. It's a lot of extreme independence, but I'm like, I'm just gonna handle my stuff. And I think I haven't sat down and even thought about what I want from my partner. I want someone to meet me halfway. There's been some contention in the last year where I've said something about helping my friend out. I was like, if she has to start chemo, like, I can pay her her way. I've saved up enough to cover her expenses for three months. And I got a weird reaction from him. He felt not prioritized and all this, and I just didn't know where it was coming from. But now, understanding he was really struggling financially. So that's where he was expecting a partner to maybe help a little bit more,

• 24:39Speaker 02

  but I didn't know that was the expectation. So we both haven't been able to know what the other person expects of each other or haven't openly talked about, I think, what we want from our partners financially. And that's probably a big reason of why we're here, too.

• 24:55Ramit Sethi?

  Do you have anything that's gonna force you to make a decision coming up? Because you could go like this for years.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  There's multiple things going on. So my friend is gonna start treatment in January, and the first three months is gonna be the most toughest. So I'm wanting to stay and kind of like chill on the travel, all of that, to kind of be closer. And then the lease is going to be up, but we're gonna extend it month to month until the kids are done school. So it's not disrupting that. But then, throughout that process, possibly Justin's gonna move and start setting up the next place.

• 25:28Ramit Sethi?

  Right now, you live together, but you're gonna move somewhere on your own. And what are you gonna do there?

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Sleep, eat, work out.

• 25:35Ramit Sethi?

  What else?

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Make money.

• 25:37Ramit Sethi?

  What's going on right now? I feel like you guys are really good at talking, but you're both avoiding talking about the reason that you're here. So do you guys wanna get real with me? Why are we here?

• 25:49Speaker 01

  I'm not expecting you to pay my debt, but like, there are couples who came together where one person was making $40,000 a year and the other made significantly more. But they both worked on it together, and it wasn't just about making a spreadsheet and helping her husband figure it out on his own. It was like, we're gonna do this together. And very much so, for me, a lot of this has been like, I feel like one foot's out the door always. There's this like, safety measure of like, alright, if this relationship doesn't work, then I'm out. And then the other side of it, too, is like... I just feel like a lot of the weight on all these things, it's like, we just have to stay in our own foot.

• 26:31Ramit Sethi?

  Are you guys together or not?

• 26:34Speaker 02

  I think we're getting more on the same page.

• 26:36Ramit Sethi?

  How can that be? He's about to move out.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  I told him I want to move into a situation that one of us can handle because then as soon as I move into the house, if I need to pay for everything, all our expenses, fixed costs, all of that, so that you can go aggressively tackle debt, we have a plan together and we have more resources. I've been planning and pushing towards like, something that I know I can manage, so that I can help. I mean, I like giving. I like taking care of people that I care about and sometimes I get pretty spread thin, but we'll be able to tackle these things together next year. And that's the ultimate goal.

• 27:11Ramit Sethi?

  What is the goal specifically?

• 27:12Speaker 02

  That we can live in the same place and a place that's well below our means, so he can tackle debt and I can save like I want to save.

• 27:19Ramit Sethi?

  Do you agree that your goal is to live together, live beneath your means, so that you can pay off debt aggressively?

• 27:28Speaker 01

  My goal is to live with her, but as far as the debt and all that stuff, like, that's something that's, that's, this is new for me. This is literally like, opening up your book and getting all my numbers down on a piece of paper and then being like, holy ****, I really need to get myself out of this situation.

• 27:45Ramit Sethi?

  So is that your plan to pay off debt?

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Absolutely, 100%.

• 27:49Ramit Sethi?

  More circular reasoning here, but I'm starting to see glimmers of what's actually going on. Both of them pride themselves on their extreme independence. That's their identity. But that identity becomes hard to reconcile with wanting to be together, especially when being together involves trade-offs. It's almost like these identities are butting heads. I can understand why Maggie is frustrated about how Justin handles money, but I also find that this dynamic happens when one partner begins on a financial journey and the other doesn't. This is really common. The person who's starting their journey gets frustrated with their partner, "Why aren't you engaging? Why aren't you doing this with me?"

• 28:32Ramit Sethi?

  Not realizing that a few years ago, they themselves were ignoring money.

• 28:38Ramit Sethi?

  Now, if you want to know how to recalibrate your relationship so that your partner also gets involved with money, I talk about this very specifically with word-for-word scripts in my new book, Money for Couples. You can get it at IWT.com/moneyforcouples. And now, listen to this. Justin tells you about his financial journey growing up, and it's something I have never heard before. What do you remember your parents or family saying about money when you were young?

• 29:06Speaker 01

  We really didn't talk about money, but I grew up with Ferraris in the garage and...

• 29:10Ramit Sethi?

  Really?

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:11Ramit Sethi?

  Wow.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Like, extreme wealth.

• 29:14Ramit Sethi?

  Mom or dad was the higher...

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Dad.

• 29:15Ramit Sethi?

  Dad was the higher, like, extreme higher...

• 29:17Speaker 01

  Extreme.

• 29:18Ramit Sethi?

  How much do you think he made?

• 29:19Speaker 01

  A million dollars a day.

• 29:20Ramit Sethi?

  A day?

• 29:21Speaker 01

  At one point, yeah.

• 29:22Ramit Sethi?

  Uh, what'd he do?

• 29:24Speaker 01

  He managed a hedge fund, and he had his own firm.

• 29:29Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  And he also got in a lot of trouble. I kind of grew up as having the dad of Wolf of Wall Street, but not a bad guy. I think that he was working in Wall Street at a time when it was the Wild, Wild West. And when they started to put some rules down, they were making examples out of people, and the government was going after his former partner, and they used my dad to take him down. And it didn't quite go to my dad's advantage.

• 29:55Ramit Sethi?

  What happened to him?

• 29:57Speaker 01

  Incarcerated.

• 29:58Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, wow. Tell me.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  So, he got put in a minimum-security prison and decided one day that he didn't want to be there anymore. So, my mom packed us up in a minivan, and we went to Colorado, and my dad suddenly opens the door and gets in the minivan, and then we...

• 30:16Ramit Sethi?

  What?

• 30:17Speaker 01

  Drove out to San Diego and hopped on our sailboat and sailed across the South Pacific for three years as fugitives.

• 30:24Ramit Sethi?

  And then, when you came back, because you're here in the US now, did he get rearrested?

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Oh, he got arrested in New Zealand. We got busted there.

• 30:32Ramit Sethi?

  Just to share how different my childhood was, we also had a minivan, but when it opened up, my dad would have handed me a Spelling Bee book and said, "Why are you not reading this right now?"

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Mine was like, "Here's how we're gonna be fugitives."

• 30:47Speaker 01

  All right.

• 30:47Ramit Sethi?

  How much money do you think your family had when you were growing up?

• 30:50Speaker 01

  Probably tens of millions.

• 30:52Ramit Sethi?

  Does your dad still have a lot of money?

• 30:54Speaker 01

  The money that he had from his Wall Street days kinda got squandered.

• 30:59Ramit Sethi?

  What's his financial status now?

• 31:02Speaker 01

  He's got nothing. Yeah.

• 31:04Ramit Sethi?

  What messages did you take away from going from extreme wealth to not having a lot of money?

• 31:12Speaker 01

  I have a funny relationship with money. I mean, I just, I don't think I value it the same as most people. When I first got started in filmmaking, I was working for this guy. And one day he goes, "You grew up with money, didn't you?" And I was like, "Yeah, how'd you know that?" Because I'm not flaunting anything. And he's like, "I can tell because you're just not hungry like other people are." And I was like, "What do you mean by that?" And he's like, "Well, you know, people who grew up with no money will bend over backwards and, you know, and to me, it just seems like you always have a fallback plan." And I took that to heart and changed my work ethic quite a bit because of that. The cool thing about growing up with money is that you're not afraid to take risks.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  And that's very true. I feel like a lot of the reason that I've gotten as far as I have in my career and doing the things that I do is because, I mean, I'll go all in, you know? And I do believe in those lottery tickets. I do believe that, you know, yes, I've been reading your book. And if you have a steady paycheck and you're just steady at putting away money, and 30 years down the line, you'll have a million dollars, right? Like, I know that's true. But I also do know that sometimes if you take a big enough risk, a calculated risk, that the reward can be huge.

• 32:28Ramit Sethi?

  Maggie, what do you make of this story? What is your take hearing it?

• 32:32Speaker 02

  It's made for some really interesting adult problems with money, for sure. With the money situation, it's like... It just comes and it flows through Justin.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  Like water?

• 32:45Speaker 02

  Like, yeah, exactly. It's just as very, there's like not a lot of thought given to it because it's like, even when it's not an unlimited resource, it's treated as such.

• 32:54Ramit Sethi?

  Do you mean that money comes, money goes? If you're raised with millions and millions of dollars, it starts to become so abstract. You're just like, whatever. If it's not here today, there'll be another way tomorrow.

• 33:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think for me, I would say money's freedom. I think when you work hard and you make money, you can free up your time. If you manage your money well, you can live really well.

• 33:17Ramit Sethi?

  What does it mean to you, Justin?

• 33:18Speaker 01

  I just wish we didn't rely on it. I live a rich life, but I'm not rich for sure. I definitely put experiences and living life before anything else.

• 33:28Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Do you agree or disagree, Maggie?

• 33:30Speaker 02

  I agree.

• 33:31Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. So you're both on the same page on that.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:34Ramit Sethi?

  Experiences above accumulation.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Well, hold on, that's shifted for you now.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  I had a really different perspective shift. Prior to the pandemic, I was traveling for six years out of a backpack and working from my laptop. My goal was to eventually figure out a way to be a six-figure hobo. I don't want to be tied to any destination, but I want to make good money. And then on my 30th birthday, I was on the beach in Thailand with $5 to my name. And I'm like, I have not figured out the six-figure hobo thing. And I'm not saving, I'm not doing anything like that. And that was when a big shift happened.

• 34:06Ramit Sethi?

  What has changed for you?

• 34:07Speaker 02

  I'm prioritizing saving. It means a lot more what I leave for my friends' kids. If anything were to happen to me, like I'm crazy Aunt Maggie, and I think they'll always be in my life. So leaving something for them, being able to have the time to spend with them, being able to save money, not necessarily buy a farm, but I would like to do stuff like that. Like, what's the next financial goal that I could like strive for and make happen? Have a retirement, which I've never thought about before.

• 34:33Ramit Sethi?

  So is it fair to say that both of you prioritized experiences in your twenties? And now Maggie, you are much more conscious of things like retirement, savings rate, et cetera. And Justin, maybe not. And that's causing conflict.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  Definitely. When Maggie and I got together, I was like, sick. Now I have somebody who's down to go to India. We won't make any money, but we also will break even. You know, so life experience, cha-ching, right? And I thought that that's who I had by my side. And suddenly she was like, yo, no, no, no, wait, hold on. I gotta put aside, I gotta.

• 35:09Ramit Sethi?

  She's like, what about the debt?

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, right.

• 35:11Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, fair enough. This happens when couples meet and then one partner changes. And it causes a lot of conflict. And there's either a recalibration or a separation. Sounds like you're both trying to recalibrate. What about things like retirement? What about if one of you gets sick? Or you wanna leave money to the niece and nephew, et cetera? How do you do that?

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Actually, finally having these open conversations about money has shifted our ability to talk about that and figure it out. One thing that has been a healthy part of this conversation, especially around finances, is that one thing we both agreed that we really would like to do in the future is sail around the world on a sailboat.

• 35:54Speaker 02

  And that's like way off.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Something we're working towards together to get there. But it is sort of a retirement plan. And so there is this like future that's a ways out that we've both decided that is what we both wanna do. And as part of this conversation about finances has been like, well, what, how much is a boat cost? How much are we gonna need every month to be able to survive on it? So it's opened up some conversations on like, what do we need to do to get to that point? What do we need to put aside? And do I need to hustle now? Do I need to give up on some of these other things?

• 36:25Ramit Sethi?

  How much do you need specifically? We don't know yet.

• 36:28Speaker 02

  We have to figure that out. What we've been good at is it's like, cool, we wanna do something? We can make money up here like that. And then all of a sudden it's gone. And we're right back where we were before we started. I want it to be where it's like, oh, you wanna do Japan for your birthday? Let's just talk about it six months out. And we already have funds. We already know that that's a part of what we love doing together. I don't wanna stop travel. I don't want him to not be able to go to Japan. I want it to be something we work into our plan.

• 36:53Ramit Sethi?

  Do you think that you're on track to be able to live that kind of life? Where you're talking six months, 12 months, two years out.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  I don't think we're on track right now, but I think that's why we're here is that we're having those conversations.

• 37:05Ramit Sethi?

  I'm glad you're having the conversations, but there's a lot more to making changes than having conversations. It seems like things have changed in the last month. That's awesome. But what's next? We can talk about things forever. We can spin, but we need to actually make some tangible financial changes. We'll open up their conscious spending plan after this short break from 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

• 37:50Ramit Sethi?

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• 38:35Ramit Sethi?

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• 38:54Ramit Sethi?

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• 39:07Ramit Sethi?

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• 39:52Ramit Sethi?

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• 40:17Ramit Sethi?

  Welcome back. Let's keep going. Let's take a look at your CSP. So let's see, Maggie, can you read off the word in bold and then the numbers next to them?

• 40:29Speaker 02

  Split these out because we're separate. So assets, $42,821,000.

• 40:36Ramit Sethi?

  $21,000 for Justin.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  Investments, $1375,000 and $7,000 for Justin. Savings, $16,657 for me and $1,313 for Justin. And debt, $15,389 for me and Justin has $92,950.

• 40:57Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, great. Total net worth for you, Maggie, is $45,000 and for you, Justin, is negative $63,000. Okay. What do you both think about these numbers?

• 41:09Speaker 02

  Like to be in a different place at the end of next year.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  I mean, that sucks.

• 41:13Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, so both of you are not happy with the numbers.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:16Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, let's go on to the income. Justin, go ahead and read off both incomes if you don't mind.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  Okay, gross monthly income for Maggie is $9,250 and for me it is $12,100 on average.

• 41:34Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, so total you two are making $21,350 a month.

• 41:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:40Ramit Sethi?

  All right, $256,000, that's a lot of money. And you live in Vegas? Or would you agree that your income is impressive, especially if you were to look at it together?

• 41:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:51Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, great. That's kind of cool. So you're at $21,350 gross, that's $21,000 a month, and you're at roughly $16,000 a month. All right, so your fixed costs are 73%. What do you think about that?

• 42:08Speaker 02

  I'd like them to be lower. I'd like it to be closer to 50%.

• 42:12Ramit Sethi?

  The recommendation I typically give is 50 to 60%. With a high income and presumably low fixed expenses, that number should be probably towards the lower end of that range. So your rent, 14%. Your rent is quite low. That's good.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Because we have three people working.

• 42:31Speaker 02

  People living.

• 42:32Ramit Sethi?

  Three people. Fantastic, all right. No issue on the rent.

• 42:36Speaker 02

  We put child support under Justin's rent because we didn't know where to put an extra thousand.

• 42:41Ramit Sethi?

  That's fine. So you pay an extra $1,000 a month for child support?

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:45Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Let's see here, we have car payment and transportation. What? $3,000 bucks a month? What kind of car is this? Okay, I'm going to summarize a few things here. As we discussed Maggie and Justin's monthly car and transportation fixed costs, I discovered that they were co-mingling personal and business expenses in their CSP. This is a very common rookie mistake. We had to make some adjustments on the fly so that we could get a clearer picture of their numbers. Specifically, we changed Maggie's total car payment to $1,100 and Justin's to $1,700. All right, we're back at 70%. Let's keep moving. Justin, you're paying $718 a month towards debt. Let's talk about your debt.

• 43:31Ramit Sethi?

  You have a motorcycle loan, $21,000, that's at 8%, and then you have a $19,000 credit card payment. And then, who's got this business loan for $51,000? What is that for?

• 43:44Speaker 01

  That's the EIDL on the relief loan during the COVID.

• 43:47Ramit Sethi?

  Did you get waived? Or you have to pay it off?

• 43:51Speaker 01

  To pay it.

• 43:51Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. And the credit card debt, what's that for?

• 43:54Speaker 01

  Life.

• 43:56Ramit Sethi?

  Like what?

• 43:57Speaker 01

  A big reason that I've stacked up a lot of credit card debt is because my pay is so inconsistent. What happens for me is that I get a certain percentage that's supposed to go to paying back my expenses. So I'll go do something where I travel somewhere, I have to pay all that upfront. I put it on my credit card. And what's happened this year especially is that I don't know when my next paycheck is coming. So rather than take the 50% that was expenses and put that towards my paying off my credit card right away, I've been choosing to pay off my credit card slowly and have just stacked up. And there's probably a couple thousand of that backpaid utilities.

• 44:35Ramit Sethi?

  Alright, so you're at 70% fixed costs. Just looking at the rest of it here, groceries 800, clothes 300 bucks a month. What is this? Because you guys are influencers.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  I actually really don't feel like I buy that much clothes, but she's trying to average it out.

• 44:48Ramit Sethi?

  Maggie, you spend 100 bucks a month on clothes, average?

• 44:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's accurate.

• 44:52Ramit Sethi?

  And then Justin, 200 bucks a month, which means 2,400 bucks a year?

• 44:56Speaker 01

  This year I spent more money than I have in a long time on sunglasses and I bought two pairs.

• 45:01Ramit Sethi?

  I'll make it 100 instead of 200, okay? Alright, cool. So that's 1,200 bucks a year, fine. Phone, one person's paying 390, why?

• 45:10Speaker 01

  I pay for my daughter's phone, I pay for her phone, I pay for my former employee's phone, and I pay for my phone.

• 45:17Ramit Sethi?

  You're a very generous guy, but you have $20,000 in credit card debt. Maybe it's time to be generous towards yourself.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 45:25Ramit Sethi?

  Maggie, what do you say about you paying?

• 45:27Speaker 01

  She already agreed she will.

• 45:29Ramit Sethi?

  Great. So can we take this number and adjust it? Let's say 80, and then you're gonna pay for your daughter.

• 45:35Speaker 01

  Actually, I'm getting your mom to take it over, so.

• 45:38Ramit Sethi?

  Great, so let's just.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  I'll be on the one phone.

• 45:39Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, 80 bucks each? I think it's quite reasonable. Alright, so we've made a few little corrections here. I think that's good, you know, just ironing out the details. You're, whoa, oh, subscriptions are 2250, that's 2,250. That, so of that therapy is 700 bucks. What's the rest of the subscriptions?

• 45:57Speaker 02

  Minus 500 for a personal trainer that I'm ending this month.

• 46:01Ramit Sethi?

  This is going down.

• 46:02Speaker 02

  So it will be 360. And that, all our subscriptions, except for maybe like Spotify and Netflix subscription, at least on my end, is all business stuff because we need the Adobe Creative Suite and all that stuff.

• 46:16Ramit Sethi?

  That needs to not be in here. That needs to be in your business. So how much should I put here for personal?

• 46:21Speaker 01

  It's still gonna be a lot, 900.

• 46:23Ramit Sethi?

  Guys, what do you think I make of this so far?

• 46:26Speaker 01

  We have a lot.

• 46:27Speaker 02

  I seem to clean it up.

• 46:28Ramit Sethi?

  What we just did was pretty cool. We went down the list, we identified some stuff, there were some conceptual things to change, no problem. We were like, why are you paying this much for XYZ? You're like, oh, it's already in motion, great. And guess what? Look at your fixed cost number.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  It's down to 61%.

• 46:47Ramit Sethi?

  61%, that's really good.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  But Maggie's got really good, and mine didn't really change very much.

• 46:53Ramit Sethi?

  I agree. We should talk about that. But I just want to acknowledge that jointly, that's great. Now, the difference is Maggie's is at 47, and Justin, yours at 71. 71's still too high. We need to fix that. But we're on the right track. Let's keep going. Investments are at 3% total. That's 6% for Maggie and 1% for Justin. Justin, you're putting away $90 a month for investments. What is this?

• 47:23Speaker 01

  I was, I haven't been.

• 47:25Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, and I noticed you have some crypto as well. $2,700 in crypto. Okay. You still contribute to that?

• 47:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 47:34Ramit Sethi?

  Maggie, you put 400 bucks a month away into what?

• 47:37Speaker 02

  $100 a week is automatically getting dumped into an account, but I still have to manually, manually putting it in a Roth. I've also just been putting in savings for emergency fund.

• 47:47Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, so anybody doing any pre-tax investing, like a SEP IRA or 401K or anything?

• 47:53Speaker 01

  I have a SEP IRA.

• 47:54Ramit Sethi?

  Take a look.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  $3,000 in there.

• 47:56Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, okay, you have 7,000 bucks in investments. That's good.

• 47:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's part of it.

• 48:01Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Maggie, I noticed that you have $1,375 invested.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  That's the Roth right now.

• 48:07Ramit Sethi?

  That's basically, you started investing like...

• 48:10Speaker 02

  Months ago, yeah. Is automatically putting it in.

• 48:12Ramit Sethi?

  All right, let's take a look at your savings. At 3%, Maggie's putting away 500 bucks a month, Justin not putting anything away. Right? What's that emergency fund? What is it for?

• 48:22Speaker 02

  That's the 16,000 I have in savings. So I wanted to start building up. It's in a Capital One 4% savings account that I just wanted it separate from all my finances. Not like, oh, I'm kind of saving like actually in a separate account. And I started doing that last year, but it hasn't been automated.

• 48:41Ramit Sethi?

  Truthfully, when I look at people's finances, the vast majority, including my own, just consistent, automatic stuff, and it can grow bigger than most people ever think. It's crazy. All right, and then guilt-free spending is at 33%. So that's 40% for Maggie. That's 2,700 bucks a month. And for Justin, it's 28% at 2,500. So what is that, travel? Or is that just whatever's left?

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Whatever's left.

• 49:08Ramit Sethi?

  Feels a little sloppy. It's hard to make sense of what's going on. We did a little bit of work with the fixed costs, but it's very unclear with your businesses. You've co-mingled stuff, and part of this is just a one-sheeter so you can start to see what's going on in our life and what do we want to happen? Okay, so looking at this, what do you think are the major positives?

• 49:35Speaker 02

  We make good money.

• 49:36Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 49:36Speaker 02

  And we can make more. Like, we can pull gigs all the time and we can do even better than that.

• 49:42Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, so that's the positive. I agree. What's the negative?

• 49:45Speaker 02

  I feel like I'm not saving enough. I still want to automate everything, and I'm still just getting those systems in place. I haven't set up a 401K and tied that to like my business accounts where that's automatically going into.

• 49:58Ramit Sethi?

  What about for you, Justin? Positives and negatives?

• 50:00Speaker 01

  It was good to see how much I'm actually making.

• 50:02Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, you didn't know, right?

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Not really. I mean, I get a report every year from my accountant. So, I mean, every year I'm like, whoa, that's crazy. I can't believe I made that much.

• 50:10Ramit Sethi?

  The negatives?

• 50:11Speaker 01

  It sucks to see how much debt. I mean, and a lot of it's laziness, honestly. A lot of like what I've been reflecting on is just sort of not necessarily being in the best place in my life and making smart decisions.

• 50:24Ramit Sethi?

  One thing I noticed when I asked both of you about positives and negatives, I didn't hear anything about your finances together. It's like I'm talking to two separate people.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  I mean, you are, though. And that's the truth of the matter. This is not... Like, when we look at combined, it's like, so what? It doesn't matter. None of this is combined.

• 50:47Ramit Sethi?

  None of it's combined, and there's no intention of combining it, correct? Both of you agree? So it's almost like, what's the point?

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Now at least we're having the conversation. And so some of these things that have been my responsibility can at least be reallocated, I guess.

• 51:01Speaker 02

  I like looking at the combined column because I know together we can do some damage and like achieve the goals that they want. I don't see the debt as anything that isn't like tackleable. Like, I don't think it's something we can figure out together.

• 51:19Ramit Sethi?

  It's not a "we." The two of you are not together. You live together. You don't spend money together. You don't talk about money together. You don't have a vision together. So when you say "we could," "we can," yeah, I mean, I can play professional football theoretically. It's not gonna happen.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  Where the "we" comes into play a little bit more is because of this YouTube channel that we've been working on together. Uh, right now, we have over $120,000 in sponsorship pitches out. We've talked about it, and Maggie's like, "Look, you know, because my issue is that I don't have some sort of consistent pay." So where the conversation has gone as a "we" is, okay, well, how about we take the money that we make from that sponsorship, and we pay you a consistent salary? Right? And that way, next year, you at least have something that's somewhat consistent.

• 52:20Ramit Sethi?

  Let's play that out. So you have the YouTube channel. Let's say it grows modestly. And some of those pitches come in, you get some money. How much are you getting paid?

• 52:30Speaker 01

  I get paid eighty grand.

• 52:31Ramit Sethi?

  And the rest is for expenses?

• 52:33Speaker 01

  And the rest is for expenses.

• 52:34Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. And then what happens if this happens two, three, four years? Like, you keep getting paid eighty K? And then what happens to the two of you with your finances?

• 52:44Speaker 02

  Right now, our finances seem really separate. But like, the financial decisions that we're making for next year as far as like, what's affordable? I think we're coming at it together and we're talking about how much we do pay and how it's managed.

• 52:57Ramit Sethi?

  So I just want to know from you, what do you need? And I hate to put you on the spot because I can see you have been taking charge of your own finances. And for me to ask you, what do you need from him? Feels like now you have to take on one more burden. I hate that. And yet, I am intentionally asking you that question because you two do not talk about money. Even though you think you do in the last month and it's gotten better, you're not talking about the bare minimum here.

• 53:26Speaker 02

  I just want

• 53:28Speaker 02

  some similar priorities and some similar game plan. And him to manage his finances, I don't want to feel like I have to take it on.

• 53:36Ramit Sethi?

  What do you hear when she says that, Justin?

• 53:39Speaker 01

  Making smarter decisions and being intentional. Not just be like, ah, you know what? I'll take a little bit of this and put it towards that. And, oh, if I get my next big paycheck, I'll just, you know, wipe this out.

• 53:52Ramit Sethi?

  Isn't that what's happening with the YouTube channel? This idea of, let's assume we're going to make a hundred and twenty K, then we're going to pay you eighty K. But it's not clear what happens going forward in the channel. Like, it's not clear, why does one person get eighty K? You're not communicating about money for a variety of reasons. And each decision you make is one-off. It's totally episodic. This is not the way money works. Money actually effectively works when you make a consistent set of decisions and they build upon each other. So for example, when I hear your YouTube discussion, I go, that's just one of a million one-off decisions. And you don't even know it. You think you're doing the right thing, but you're just doing the exact same thing over and over. Do you see that?

• 54:38Ramit Sethi?

  If I started a business with a business partner, do you think I would go, hey, I think we're, let's just assume we're going to make a hundred and twenty K, and then you should get eighty K? And then like, we'll talk about it later, even though we have no evidence of ever effectively talking about money? No. The real question, though, is do you want your finances to be combined or not? We'll be right back after this short break.

• 55:03Ramit Sethi?

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• 56:25Ramit Sethi?

  Now, back to the show.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  As far as us combining all this money, like, I don't know what benefit we actually have. There are things that I do feel like it would be nice to know. The conversation we had the other day was like, whoa, here's the thing. If this was flipped around and you were $90,000 in debt and I was making money, I would want to try to help you get out of that debt. And she was like, is that your expectation for me? Should I be helping you pay your debt?

• 56:59Ramit Sethi?

  And is it?

• 57:00Speaker 01

  I don't know. To some degree, yeah, like I kinda do wish I had a partner who was like, "Man, I feel bad for the situation you're in and I wanna help you out, but I also don't wanna put that burden on her."

• 57:10Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, let's do this. Let's actually have an actual conversation. You two talk to each other. I'm gonna listen.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Being in a relationship with somebody that you really wanna spend the rest of your life with, like, a lot of this is, it's give and take, and I feel like a lot of our relationship has been a lot of take on your side, and I've been a lot of give. And I think that for me, there have been some times where I wish it would flip a little bit, you know, like, maybe I wasn't very open and honest about where I was financially and all that, but I know there is part of me that kinda hoped that you would ask. You knew there were times when I was financially stressed out, like you didn't have a picture of what everything was going on, but you knew that I was strapped. And just like

• 58:02Speaker 01

  for Ashley, who I know has a medical condition and all that, but she always knew she had a backup, like you were gonna be there for her. And I would like to figure out together how to really get out of this mess, you know, like I have actually been thinking about it, like, if this hundred and twenty thousand dollars comes through, I wanna try to knock out that debt right away, you know, and it would be nice to like have you open to that and having discussions about that kinda stuff so that we can just move forward.

• 58:33Speaker 02

  I'm not opposed to that at all. And I think I'd be willing to give more help too in other ways if we were able to come up with a plan. And to see that this was a priority because it's kind of gotten to where it's at because it hasn't been a priority, but I see us getting on track for that and I can help a lot more if I know that you are making it a priority. We both make good money. We both could help get out of this situation and start fresh.

• 59:02Ramit Sethi?

  How did that feel to have that conversation?

• 59:05Speaker 02

  Good.

• 59:06Ramit Sethi?

  Pretty hard.

• 59:06Speaker 02

  It's hard.

• 59:07Ramit Sethi?

  Good, hard.

• 59:08Speaker 02

  I also don't wanna be the bad guy. I don't wanna be the one that's like...

• 59:12Speaker 02

  Don't do this, don't do that. I just...

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Stop getting Starbucks.

• 59:15Ramit Sethi?

  I think that's a pretty profound point. I think that in relationships, often, there's one person who knows about money more and the other doesn't. And unfortunately, it often turns out that in a heterosexual relationship, it's the woman who's placed in the position of having to go, "Why are you doing that?" This concept of a nag, I [bleep] hate that word. And I hate that people get placed in the position of doing it. Because when I ask people who are in that dynamic, "Do you like this dynamic?", they both go, "No." But it's deeper, often because the other person is avoiding money. Like you avoid money, right? Just you don't talk about it, you don't effectively manage it.

• 59:59Ramit Sethi?

  That causes you, Maggie, to be worried about it. And then to chase him. And the more you chase him, the more he avoids it, and you're in this terrible dynamic.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  And it breaks down the trust a lot. This is the common theme throughout all of this, has just been like, "I don't trust you."

• 1:00:18Ramit Sethi?

  Is he right?

• 1:00:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:20Ramit Sethi?

  He is?

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. I feel like now that I've seen some numbers, that it wasn't off-base.

• 1:00:26Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, I wouldn't trust him with money.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  You don't want me managing your money?

• 1:00:30Ramit Sethi?

  No. But the thing is, you're not saying that.

• 1:00:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:34Ramit Sethi?

  You're not being honest. Why are you not being honest about this? We're actually having an honest discussion and you're constantly trying to pivot to another topic using humor. He's saying, "You don't trust me." An effective communicator would say, "You're right. I don't trust you. You have $92,000 in debt, including credit cards, a business loan, and a motorcycle loan. Why would I trust you with money? Of course, I want to trust you, but your behavior and financial mismanagement has made me not trust you." How come you're not saying that?

• 1:01:12Speaker 02

  Because I've said things about all of the different debts. It's come up multiple times and I've brought it up and I don't want to be the nag.

• 1:01:22Ramit Sethi?

  I think acknowledging how you feel is the most honest thing you can do. And I think you're actually causing yourself more pain, and both of you, by dancing around the topic. If it were me, in this relationship... First, I don't understand if the two of you want to be married, or if the two of you want to be together. Justin, you say you do. I hear that from you. Maggie, it's very unclear from your end. And now, I can understand why. It's like, hey, I'm on my journey of being financially secure, and I don't know if my partner wants to or can do it. That's fair.

• 1:02:05Ramit Sethi?

  But I don't think you've said that candidly to him. And I don't think you've said to yourself, "Do I want to be with a partner who cannot be on the same journey I'm on?" What is your answer to that?

• 1:02:17Speaker 02

  I think the answer is no.

• 1:02:21Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Have you told him?

• 1:02:23Speaker 02

  I have not.

• 1:02:24Speaker 01

  I mean, I'd safely assume that one.

• 1:02:27Ramit Sethi?

  But let's talk about it. Because one of the reasons that Justin has not managed his money is there's no reason to. I had some overflow expenses that my partner didn't pay me back for. Okay, I'll put it on the credit card. I'll resent it, which I understand that. I would resent it as well. But like, what's the consequences? But it sounds like you're actually trying to create a boundary for yourself. I think, "This is the kind of partner I want. This is what I need. If you can do that, I'd love to be together. But if you can't, what?"

• 1:03:03Speaker 02

  It's not gonna work.

• 1:03:04Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, go ahead and have that conversation.

• 1:03:05Speaker 02

  I think it's safe to say that we're at a point where it's like, if the responsibility in finances doesn't change, I don't think we're gonna be able to build a life together that we want.

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  That's fair, and I totally get it. And I think that, you know, a big part of what we've been talking about is that this gives us a clean slate to move forward. You know what I mean? I think as part of these conversations that we've been having, like, you're telling me, hey, if you don't get your [BLEEP] together... This is done and that's fair. I understand why entirely. And I'd like to work on this together. I've been wanting to talk about this together for a long time. So, cool. I'm good with that. Part of what I've been hoping for in all this is actually like some real commitment. And I would really like for this to actually be the thing where it's like, hey, let's talk about this because this is serious stuff.

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  And then, commit to taking care of each other.

• 1:04:03Speaker 02

  We won't be able to build what we both want from sailing around the world, all of this stuff. If we don't develop good habits and open communication surrounding this stuff, and that's what I'm asking for. Not so that we get to some, you know, aloof whatever, or not so we get married. I'm not promising that. I'm saying, I think we should be doing this together. We should be doing finances together. And I've been really hesitant about that because I don't know if I've had the trust that this is going anywhere.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  Well, and the trust goes two ways. There's a long period of time too for me where I just thought, at some point you're gonna be like cha-ching and cash in your check and peace out.

• 1:04:41Ramit Sethi?

  There is one topic lurking beneath the surface that I feel, Justin, you're dancing around. And I want you to have a space to talk about it. And that is the fact that you helped Maggie financially, and that she did not pay you back. That is, to me, this gigantic elephant in the room. You have a lot of resentment around that, it seems. Can you talk about that with her?

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  The reality is, I would never pay somebody this amount of money to do what you're doing. Not even just like because you were doing too much or too little. It was just like, just wouldn't pay somebody consistently. But for me, the reason that I did it, in large part, really was because I did want for you to have the opportunity to be able to chase this dream, this thing that you were going for. I mean, what would make me feel good is the same courtesy. Like, Justin, I know you're in a financial crisis and I want to help you and I love you. Not just, I'll set up the spreadsheet for you and you figure it out. It's your problem. It would be nice to have some money going towards it or towards paying off my debt.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  And getting clear of the situation so that we can start together on the same page. I'm gonna be crawling out of this mess alone for ever. And for us to get to that start line together is pretty far at this point. Unless we do it together somehow. I get this situation with your best friend. It's complicated and I honestly feel for you and I wanna be as supportive as I can. But I also need for us to be able to get to that start line together. So that we can tackle the future together.

• 1:06:26Speaker 02

  We oughta make enough money to get there.

• 1:06:28Speaker 01

  We gotta make enough money to get there and that's fine.

• 1:06:30Ramit Sethi?

  That was pretty honest. I appreciate that. Do you have a reaction to that, to what he said?

• 1:06:35Speaker 02

  I would have never taken support if I knew it was gonna be held over my head. I've never been given clear direction as how to clear that debt. Ever. If it's like, you want me to pay you back for everything?

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  I don't want you to pay me back.

• 1:06:49Speaker 02

  We can start fresh from there.

• 1:06:50Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. You never would have taken the support had you known it would be held over your head. Okay. Do you feel that he's holding it over your head?

• 1:07:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:01Ramit Sethi?

  I'm not sure I interpret it the same way.

• 1:07:03Speaker 02

  There's something that I owe and I just haven't been able to figure out how to repay it.

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  It's not money. It's just like being in a relationship with somebody and loving them enough that you're willing to put aside money to take care of them. And that's very clear in one relationship in our life. And it's completely not clear in the other one.

• 1:07:24Speaker 02

  If I do that for us, if I commit to paying part of your debt off, are you gonna feel like we're doing this together? Is that gonna quell some of these feelings that you have? Are you gonna feel like I'm more invested?

• 1:07:38Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah. But I feel like it's forced.

• 1:07:41Speaker 02

  It's not forced.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  And this is the part that gets really tricky. It's like... Okay, so since we've been dating, I've been going to therapy a lot. And one thing I've learned is expressing needs. And I'm still learning that, right? So there's needs and there's expectations. And I've been trying to really eradicate a lot of these expectations. But like, one of those things, it's like a weird gray area where this is on me because I did give to her and wanted to do that for her. And should I expect the same treatment?

• 1:08:13Ramit Sethi?

  Fantastic point. I'm so glad you're seeing a therapist because this is deep. Can I share some observations? You two both tell yourself certain stories. One of them is that your life is really complex. It's not that complex. For me, I see two entrepreneurs. You got a couple of things over here and there, and you make a lot of money. All right. The question for me is, what do you both want? That's it. Because the rest of it, we can figure out. If we want to pay the debt off, that can be paid off. The way you talked about getting to zero debt is that's our starting line. Did you notice that phrase you used? Blank page, starting line. You can't be living in this murky gray area

• 1:08:58Ramit Sethi?

  until you pay off $92,000 of debt. It's a horrible way to live, and that's why you've been feeling this way. And from your perspective, it's like, well, like, you kind of got yourself into this. You haven't been paying attention. It's cost you. I need you to step up and take care of this. And then we can talk about what's next. So both of you are feeling hurt. You're feeling separate. And what I'm hearing from you, Justin, is like, hey, I want to connect. I want us to come together. If I would have had the conversation you both had, here's what I would have said. Okay, I would have said, as Justin, I really appreciate you pushing me to take charge of my money. I know I haven't done it for a long time, and it's cost me.

• 1:09:42Ramit Sethi?

  And I'm in this situation because of my decisions.

• 1:09:47Ramit Sethi?

  I'm gonna make a plan to pay this debt off. Okay, I take responsibility for it. But there are a couple of things I need from you. One, I need your encouragement because this is new to me. And you've been doing it longer than I have. I might make mistakes. Two, I need you to pay me back for the extra amount that I paid the rent. We can talk about how to make it palatable and spread it out over several months, but that was thousands of dollars. And in order for me to get debt free, I need that money. And I think it's fair. Three, I would feel much better if, like I helped you, and I wanted to, when you were in financial trouble, if we could talk about that and you could help me.

• 1:10:31Ramit Sethi?

  Now, I don't expect it. I hope that you feel comfortable. And if you say no, it's gonna hurt, but I'll accept it. But this is a conversation I wanna have. Those are the three things I would say. Justin, what do you think about that?

• 1:10:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, wish I could speak that clearly.

• 1:10:47Ramit Sethi?

  It takes time, but really it's the key thing that I did that you did not do was...

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  Pick the emotion out of it?

• 1:10:55Ramit Sethi?

  No, it was quite emotional. It was, first it was appreciating her. I appreciate you pushing me. I haven't been great, taking responsibility. How did that feel when I said that?

• 1:11:06Speaker 02

  It was good. It was acknowledgement that I've been doing something.

• 1:11:10Ramit Sethi?

  Exactly, and she has. She's been on her own journey and now she's encouraging you. Maybe she's not doing it in the exact way you want it. These conversations are hard, that's why you're here. But just acknowledging her goes a long way. If Justin were to have said it that way, how would you respond, Maggie?

• 1:11:27Speaker 02

  I feel like I'm pretty amenable to all those things.

• 1:11:31Ramit Sethi?

  I could see that Maggie and Justin were trying to have a real sincere conversation about money. And sometimes I like to step in and model how I might have that conversation because I find it really helpful to see how other people do it. And in my own personal life, I have had friends offer advice on how to have difficult conversations in my own personal and business life. Now I want to walk through Justin's request again, this time giving Maggie a chance to respond. And remember, these two don't talk about money. So I really want to take it step by step, letting them each build the skills to talk to each other about money. And I have to admit something. As I listen back to this, I found myself cringing at how direct I was,

• 1:12:16Ramit Sethi?

  how blunt I was. Sometimes that's welcome. I think I overdid it here. Truthfully, looking back, I wish I had slowed this down and been a lot gentler with each of them. They are both trying. And so Maggie and Justin, I apologize for being a little clunky with this part of our conversation together. Let's start with the easy one.

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  Maggie, it has been really awesome to watch you really getting your [BLEEP] together. It's inspiring, so much so that I was like, dang, she's getting her [BLEEP] together. And I better too.

• 1:12:46Ramit Sethi?

  So what do you say to that?

• 1:12:47Speaker 02

  I'm glad I was able to do that. And the only reason I've even given pushes is because you said you were open to it. You have said that this is something that you want to tackle and...

• 1:12:57Ramit Sethi?

  Maggie, why don't you just take a compliment?

• 1:12:59Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:13:00Ramit Sethi?

  Next, Justin said, I would like to be paid back.

• 1:13:04Speaker 02

  I'm willing to do that.

• 1:13:06Ramit Sethi?

  Fantastic. You see how we're taking the wins? Each step, one person is going on a limb and saying something like, "I appreciate you," or "here's what I need." If you can deliver what your partner needs, tell them! Don't get lost in your story. No! If he's saying, "I want this," and you can deliver it, do it. Okay, finally, the most contentious part of all: the helping. He's got $92,000 minus the back pay, so $80-something thousand he's going to have to pay off. What are your thoughts?

• 1:13:39Speaker 02

  What do you need me to do?

• 1:13:41Speaker 01

  It'd be nice to figure out if there's some way that you can help me take that down a little bit faster. But I'm not expecting you to give... First of all, I don't expect you to pay me back for that. I would just really like for you to want to help me.

• 1:13:56Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, pause. One suggestion I want to give to both of you is you both lose connection when you talk too much. In a more effective conversation, you might say something like this. I appreciate you asking what I need. I'm gonna tell you the truth. What I need is help to pay this debt off faster, but I don't have an exact number. Would it be okay if I go home, calculate out a plan, and then I come to you? And we can look over my proposal together? If I were you, Maggie, I would've said, "Look, I want to help you. I'm willing to, but right now, I'm worried if I just pay money off, it's just good money after bad,

• 1:14:40Ramit Sethi?

  because you've gotten into debt before and I don't see a plan."

• 1:14:43Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:14:44Ramit Sethi?

  Right? Is that accurate?

• 1:14:45Speaker 02

  Definitely accurate.

• 1:14:46Ramit Sethi?

  So, these are the kind of direct conversations. You're not being rude. You're actually being respectful when you just tell, "Here's what I'm feeling. Here's what I'm willing to do. This is what I need." Justin, you're being really honest when you say, "Look, I want some help." The biggest question for the two of you is, do you truly want to be together? If you do, then there's lots of give and take that can be done. Justin, you would have to take the responsibility of making a plan, of paying your debt off aggressively. If you wanted to do it, some of the things that I would look to see would be you selling one of your vehicles and putting that money directly into your debt.

• 1:15:31Ramit Sethi?

  It would be cutting your subscriptions way down and your guilt-free spending, which is not even accurate at all. You'd be able to put an extra at least $1,000 a month towards your debt. You could shave off months and months and months of your debt repayment. If you were to make that plan and you were to present it, I actually think it would be one of the most connective things you could possibly do.

• 1:15:54Speaker 01

  I think so, too.

• 1:15:54Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. And then Maggie... I think that you would have to be clear with yourself about what is it you're looking for in a relationship? Because as you start to get into your late 30s and 40s, this is a very common pattern. People who are kind of free spirits in their 20s, and then they go, wait a second, like, I want to save. And their partner is like, wait, I feel kind of betrayed. You're not the person that I initially met. But can you still be adventurous and be a planful person? Yeah, I totally think you can. You will have to decide what is it exactly you're looking for? Can Justin deliver that? What's the kind of partner that I want? And if I were you, I would be really honest with him.

• 1:16:39Ramit Sethi?

  Like, this is what I'm looking for. And then he does it, or he doesn't. And the two of you decide if this is the right call or not. In my book, I have this concept of a dreamer. A dreamer is someone where success is always one deal away. And dreamers don't like the consistent kind of saving, investing. It feels boring. They even use phrases like, oh, they have like a boring nine to five. And it's really hard with dreamers if you're trying to build a stable, growing financial life. Justin, you kind of described yourself as a dreamer. The dreamer has to endure real consequences.

• 1:17:24Ramit Sethi?

  I think what's really happening here is in a roundabout way, Maggie, you're trying to create some boundaries for yourself. Justin, I think you're hearing her loud and clear, and you're saying, okay, I'm gonna try. I need a little help. So to me, it's very possible that the two of you do get aligned, but it will take a lot of work. What do you think?

• 1:17:48Speaker 01

  100%. Honestly, we've actually had some really great heartfelt conversations over this last month that we never have had. And it felt good. I mean, it didn't feel good right away, but then when we talked about it and got through it, I believed in us more than ever before.

• 1:18:05Ramit Sethi?

  Money can really bring couples together.

• 1:18:09Ramit Sethi?

  Sometimes it's hard. I think the way you've set your life up, you're running against the wind. Right now, your finances are set up separately. Every decision you make is by default made as an independent, single person. That's number one. In most relationships, at a certain point, they will combine, and there are benefits to it. The first and biggest benefit is that the two of you start to think as a unit. The second thing is you can accomplish a lot together. You can see that your finances are actually quite healthy on a day-to-day basis if you combined them. But when we split them, Maggie, you're at 47% fixed costs, which is actually below the typical range.

• 1:18:52Ramit Sethi?

  And Justin, you're at 71%, which is way above it. So it looks healthy, but underneath, it's not healthy. The other ways that you're running against the wind, you have all these business things that you've set up, which are overly complex. I would simplify it dramatically. The way I would think about it would be, each of our businesses needs to make a certain amount of income for a household. One person commits to making $6,000, the other commits to making $8,000. I'm making the numbers up. Anything above that, you two put into a buffer for when times are slow or one of you is sick or whatever. But you need to be able to run a household on this amount of income, and that is your commitment.

• 1:19:36Ramit Sethi?

  It's a really simple way of looking at the world. And you don't have to run against the wind anymore. You just know every month, this is what I need to deliver. And anything above, first, we'll fill up a nice savings account. And eventually, we will make our life a little better. Truthfully, Justin, if I'm you, I think that the dreamer tendencies for you have not been serving your relationship. That is what I mean when I say the wind is against you. I hope you get a huge deal. But I've seen dreamers who get a huge payday. And what they do is they do the same thing they always do. It's episodic. They take the money, they pay off all the debt, and now they have a little bit left over. And they're like, what's next? Bigger swing next time. And it's like, no, you didn't learn the lesson.

• 1:20:21Ramit Sethi?

  You got lucky. You could keep doing this for the rest of your life. So what do you guys want to do? Imagine this ends right now. You go back home, think about it. What happens if we stop talking right now?

• 1:20:34Speaker 02

  I think some things will change, but I think we need a little bit more clearer plan.

• 1:20:38Speaker 01

  I know they will.

• 1:20:40Speaker 02

  We will sit down and make a plan.

• 1:20:42Ramit Sethi?

  You guys are literally sitting down right now with me across the country. Do you not want to make a plan right now?

• 1:20:47Speaker 02

  I want to make a plan right now.

• 1:20:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:49Ramit Sethi?

  Do you want to talk about making a plan?

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  Let's make a plan. We'd like to figure out how, how much money we need to save to be able to live on a sailboat.

• 1:20:56Ramit Sethi?

  No, that's not going to happen. I'm telling you right now. You don't have the money for it. You have a hundred thousand dollars of debt. You have effectively less than twenty thousand dollars of savings between the two of you. There is no sailboat in the next ten years.

• 1:21:09Ramit Sethi?

  Part of making a plan is accepting reality. What's the next question? What's a real issue here? Why are we still dancing around at three hours into our conversation?

• 1:21:18Speaker 02

  I want to know what your goals are.

• 1:21:19Speaker 01

  I have an opportunity potentially to have a pretty steady income next year.

• 1:21:23Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 1:21:24Speaker 01

  It's not at all in the direction of my career, though. It's a total offshoot and it's a result of all this influencer stuff. Another option is to, we see what happens with this YouTube thing. And let's just say that we're lucky and all that comes through and I make eighty thousand dollars. And I know I can make really good money if I work as a camera operator in Hollywood.

• 1:21:46Ramit Sethi?

  Right now, your gross income says twelve thousand one hundred, right? Per month. So is that the number, even at that?

• 1:21:54Speaker 01

  That's the average.

• 1:21:54Ramit Sethi?

  That's the average number. That's fine. We're just talking averages. At that number, hard for me to tell because I can't tell your guilt free spending, but at twelve thousand, your fixed costs are?

• 1:22:07Speaker 01

  Seventy one percent.

• 1:22:07Ramit Sethi?

  Seventy one percent.

• 1:22:08Speaker 01

  I know I can make more money.

• 1:22:09Ramit Sethi?

  Hey, do it consistently?

• 1:22:10Speaker 01

  I'm good at making money.

• 1:22:12Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, I love that. I could tell. Both of you are good at making money. That's no question about that. Can you add a layer to your identity that says I'm good at managing money?

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  I would love to. This is exhausting. When I started making money, instead of me taking on the responsibility of my own money, I was like, I'm just going to hire an accountant. And I just didn't deal with the problem myself. I wasn't responsible myself. So then when things started drying up a bit, then I was just upside down.

• 1:22:41Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, you didn't have the skills.

• 1:22:42Speaker 01

  And I didn't have the skills.

• 1:22:43Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, and it sounds like in order for this relationship to grow, you need to build both.

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 1:22:49Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Okay, that's a huge realization.

• 1:22:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:53Ramit Sethi?

  All right, so if you were to say, I can.

• 1:22:59Ramit Sethi?

  Consistently make $12,100 a month. I think you could put a lot of money towards your debt, much more than the minimum right now. We've also heard Maggie say she agrees with the back pay, so that's going to contribute as well. Right there, that solves a lot of challenges. How you do it, that's up to you. Seems like you know your way around earning money, so it's not going to be that big of a problem. Everybody agree? All right, what else do you need for a plan?

• 1:23:29Speaker 02

  The reason we're doing this now is because we're young, so I can say I want to aggressively do this. Like, I want to look at my numbers and say that I want to hit more. I want to make $10,000 to $12,000 a month next year.

• 1:23:42Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 1:23:43Speaker 02

  And that means saying no to a lot of things. I'd like to max out my Roth IRA for this year, and by next year have my 401(k) set up. And need to figure out what I could max that out at, but I think I want to at least be putting like $1,500 a month towards investments.

• 1:24:01Ramit Sethi?

  All right, let's look. You have about $2,000 right now invested, right? Ballpark?

• 1:24:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:24:07Ramit Sethi?

  I'm going to say $18,000 a year for invest. How many years do you want this to grow?

• 1:24:10Speaker 02

  15.

• 1:24:11Ramit Sethi?

  15. So conservatively, if we're looking at this, you'll have $489,000. What, how does that strike you?

• 1:24:18Speaker 02

  I mean, I want to double that.

• 1:24:19Ramit Sethi?

  You can double it in a couple of ways. One, you can invest more, right? Which I think you could, if you were to get really serious about investing, then you could, and if the two of you were to really get serious about money with your incomes, you could invest a lot of money. I'm talking like $50,000 plus per year.

• 1:24:41Speaker 02

  I would like to do that.

• 1:24:42Ramit Sethi?

  You've heard the couples on my show, right?

• 1:24:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:24:44Ramit Sethi?

  They're like, "Oh, boo hoo, another wealthy couple, boo hoo." And they have millions of dollars. How'd you do it? "Oh, we just focused on our income and then automatically invested a ton of money every single month, and we just let it grow." I'm just going to say $22,000 here, just for easy math.

• 1:24:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:00Ramit Sethi?

  That takes you to $597,000. Still not enough, but guess what? If you let it sit there for 20 years, you're at $972,000. Time, times what matters. There's lots of things you could do. Again, if it's the two of you and you are like, "We want to do it," you could invest a lot and still travel and still take big swings. What do you think, what are the steps in order to get there? The first step for me is that the two of you decide we want to do this together. It means that, hey... We're committed. Here's what the terms of our relationship are, just like the terms of a business agreement.

• 1:25:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:32Ramit Sethi?

  Be open about it. Write it down. Nothing wrong with that. I don't think it's weird. I think it's cool.

• 1:25:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:37Ramit Sethi?

  Got a business of the two of you together. So that's one. Two is you gotta set your finances up so that the wind is at your back. So it makes it easy. Automatically paying off debt every month should be automatic. Automatically saving and investing should be automatic. Just get out of the habit of this manual stuff. It's it's one of the reasons you're stuck.

• 1:25:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:56Ramit Sethi?

  Three, regular monitoring and communication. Monitoring for both of you. Figure out a way to do it. If the spreadsheet's not what you want, you want to use a different doc, use a different doc. But communication means every month we're sitting and talking about money.

• 1:26:10Speaker 01

  So we have like, has a relationship thing. We do these board meetings.

• 1:26:13Ramit Sethi?

  Love that you have a board meeting. That's awesome. And for me, in a board meeting, in a relationship, money is one key part of it.

• 1:26:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:21Ramit Sethi?

  It's like, what's the state of our relationship? Are we good? Where are we gonna travel to? You said this thing, it made me a little uncomfortable, but also, let's talk about our money.

• 1:26:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:30Ramit Sethi?

  Beautiful.

• 1:26:31Speaker 02

  It's been missing, but I think it's something we can add to it.

• 1:26:35Ramit Sethi?

  I want to thank Maggie and Justin for sharing their story. It takes a lot of courage to talk about relationship and money issues in front of so many people. I noticed some themes in our conversations. Both of them have lots of stories about who they are, but those stories aren't necessarily serving them anymore. For example, they both define themselves by their extreme independence, but deep down, they're both yearning to feel more connected to each other. They both have past histories with money, especially Justin with his dad, and those affect them even today. Most of all, they don't have a shared vision for a rich life. In our conversation, there was lots of talking about random expenses, resentment about paid bills,

• 1:27:20Ramit Sethi?

  and walking on eggshells about what each of them wants. But I have to say that watching them have these conversations, even with my clunky interjections, was a true joy. Let's check in and watch their follow-up videos. Up first, let's hear from Justin.

• 1:27:37Speaker 01

  My biggest surprise from our conversation, I think, was how divided we really were. We haven't been really working towards anything together. And definitely part of what we uncovered is just the truth and got to talk about things, and it has helped. Bring up a lot of stuff about our relationship and you know, the power that we have together as a couple. Together, we make a lot of money and we are much more powerful as a couple. And I think that even if you're not married, still trying to figure out a way to combine some type of finance together makes you much more powerful as a team.

• 1:28:23Speaker 01

  My biggest changes so far are just like I've canceled a lot of subscriptions and I've been really like focused on like, whoa, okay, there are things in my finances that I don't even know where this money is going. I had a lot of things on autopay that were on my credit cards, which have been stacking up. So I took all that stuff off of autopay and I'm not adding more debt, which I think is really important. And I think overall Maggie and I have been able to start to have better conversations about making decisions. Like just today, we started talking about a car and I feel like we're way more on the same page about that. And it's not a separate, this is for me, this is for you situation. It's a, hey, how can we do this together?

• 1:29:09Speaker 01

  And I feel like that's a big win.

• 1:29:11Ramit Sethi?

  And now let's hear from Maggie's follow up.

• 1:29:14Speaker 02

  One of my biggest takeaways is that together, our finances look really good. We can be really successful, but we're not there. There isn't trust there and that's something that takes time and building up and effort. So we have a lot of work ahead of us to get on the same page, to trust each other and to start planning things financially together. So in order for us to do that, we really need to put the work in and start combining finances so that we can be as successful as we want to be and operating as a unit versus on these two separate planes with finances.

• 1:29:53Speaker 02

  Only been a couple of days since our conversation, so we haven't had time to really map out the game plan. But I have high hopes that we're going to come up with a plan where we can handle our combined finances together and make decisions together moving forward.