284. "We’re worth $1.8M, but I feel guilty buying a $78 jacket”

Ramit digs into why a couple worth $1.8 million and earning around $818,000 a year still struggle to feel financially secure, even when it comes to buying a $78 jacket. Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You to Be Rich talks with Laura and Jason, both 38, who have built significant wealth and are considering retiring in their early 40s. Jason believes they can stop working soon, but Laura isn't convinced. Despite their financial success, she worries about what could go wrong and struggles to imagine life without a regular paycheck. For Laura, spending money has always been difficult. She once became physically sick when buying her first car, and even small purchases leave her questioning whether she's being irresponsible. After her parents lost their home in 2008, she's never quite shaken by the fear that everything could fall apart. As Ramit explores their finances and walks them through three possible retirement scenarios, Laura has an emotional breakthrough. But even if the numbers say they can retire, will she ever feel comfortable enough to actually do it? A special thanks to Facet for sponsoring this episode. As of the date of this recording, Facet is waiving their enrollment fee for new annual members, and for Ramit’s audience, Facet is offering $300 into your brokerage account if you invest and maintain $5,000 within your first 90 days. Head to facet.com/ramit to learn more about which membership option is best for you. Offer has been extended to 12/31/2026. #FacetAd Facet is a SEC registered investment advisor. Ramit is not a member of Facet, and has an incentive to endorse Facet as he has an ongoing fee based contract for cash compensation based on this endorsement. All opinions are his own and not a guarantee of a similar outcome. And as always, thank you to our partners at Monarch. Try Monarch for free today, and get 50% off your first year of Monarch’s core tier at https://monarch.com/ramit, promo code RAMIT. When you sign up with my link only, you’ll get your Monarch account customized with my exact CSP categories so you can see exactly how you’re stacking up to your plan each month. That’s https://monarch.com/ramit, promo code RAMIT. In this episode, we uncover: Why having $1.8 million in net worth doesn't make Laura and Jason feel financially secure Why Laura thought they earned around $400,000 when their actual household income was $818,000 Why Laura couldn't bring herself to buy a $78 jacket, despite their financial success How paying off $250,000 in debt still hasn't eliminated their fears about money What their 41% fixed costs and aggressive investment strategy mean for early retirement Why they planned to spend $1,000 a month guilt-free but actually spent nearly $6,000 Why Laura's parents losing their home in 2008 continues to influence her relationship with money How Jason's optimism about retiring at 40 clashes with Laura's fear of giving up a steady paycheck What three retirement scenarios reveal about their options to stop working at 45, 47, or 55 How they can prepare for retirement, build financial confidence, and learn to spend without guilt Chapters: (00:00:00) Introduction (00:03:41) Can they really retire in their early 40s? (00:14:14) Spending disagreements and the $78 jacket (00:20:48) Their $1.8M net worth and financial fears (00:26:34) Discovering they earn $818K a year (00:36:45) Breaking down their investments and spending (00:45:48) How childhood experiences shaped their money fears (00:59:18) Three retirement scenarios and an emotional breakthrough (01:17:24) Preparing for life without a paycheck (01:26:38) Building confidence and learning to enjoy their money This episode brought to you by: Kindred | Apply now at https://livekindred.com/ramit to join for free and earn 5 nights of travel credit Wildgrain | Get $40 off the first box — PLUS free Croissants for life — at https://wildgrain.com/ramit40, promo code RAMIT40. Trust & Will | Protect what matters most in minutes at https://trustandwill.com/ramit and get 20% off ZocDoc | Taking care of your health just got easier – start here with Zocdoc: https://zocdoc.com/RAMIT #sponsored DeleteMe | Get 20% off all consumer plans when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/ramit and use promo code RAMIT at checkout Connect with Ramit: Get my new book, Money For Couples 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 Apply to be coached for free on this podcast at https://iwt.com/apply

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

• 0:00Ramit Sethi?

  Are you feeling stuck with your money? Have you told yourself, I need to figure it out? But you haven't really done it? I understand that not everyone is going to sit down and read multiple books about money. I get that. That is why I created Rich Life, The Road to 100K. This is a step-by-step program that shows you how to build a money system that works. Like figuring out the date that you're going to have $100,000 invested, how to automate your money, and how to cut through the noise. Plus, you will get access to weekly live events and a community of like-minded people, plus a library of my best materials. This is the program that will finally help you get on track with your money,

• 0:43Ramit Sethi?

  and you can join today at iwt.com/100k.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  She cried when we put our first offer in on the house. She also threw up when she bought her first car, so.

• 0:53Speaker 02

  I did.

• 0:54Ramit Sethi?

  What?

• 0:54Speaker 02

  Spending large sums of money freaks me out.

• 0:57Ramit Sethi?

  $1.8 million net worth in your 30s. You both told me you don't really feel safe about it.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  I don't think any number makes me feel safe.

• 1:07Speaker 02

  I saw this jean jacket that I liked, and I tried it on, and I was like, oh, this is perfect. And then I didn't get it.

• 1:13Ramit Sethi?

  How much was the jacket?

• 1:14Speaker 02

  $78.

• 1:16Ramit Sethi?

  The hell?

• 1:16Speaker 02

  I'm just scared.

• 1:18Ramit Sethi?

  Scared of?

• 1:19Speaker 02

  The rug being pulled out from underneath us.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  My take is absolutely we could retire at 40.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  There's no way.

• 1:25Ramit Sethi?

  What a way to go through life. Just finding one way to feel unsafe after another for the next 50 years? I'm not really into it. What do you think?

• 1:34Speaker 02

  Doesn't sound great.

• 1:36Ramit Sethi?

  When can I retire? That is a very common question that most people ask themselves at some point in their lives, and it's important, but it's also a layered question that requires a few different answers to determine. Like, how much is enough? What does your day-to-day life look like when you stop working? And I think, most importantly, what is your rich life today and tomorrow? That is what we are talking about today. I'm about to speak with Laura and Jason, both 38 years old, married, no children, and a high income. Jason thinks they can stop working soon. Laura wants that freedom too, but she doesn't feel confident about what happens when the paychecks stop. For this episode, sponsored by Facet,

• 2:19Ramit Sethi?

  we asked their team to prepare three retirement scenarios using Laura and Jason's financial information. I want them to understand the trade-offs and what each version of their future could actually look like. They want to know if they can retire early, like in the next few years. Before I talk to them, let's open up their Monarch account. I'm curious what their numbers tell us. Dining out, $1,200. Shopping, $3,700. Treat yo self. They got a massage for $72. Wow. Shall we look at what else? Let's look at their accounts. Okay, net worth, $1.8 million. Cash at $132,000. They got a lot of money in checking accounts, savings accounts, $49,000 in a money market savings account. Okay, fine.

• 3:04Ramit Sethi?

  Credit card, $3,900. I'm sure they pay that off every month. Investments at $542,000. Loans at $1.8 million. Question is, can they retire in just a few years? I'm not sure. Here's the clues. They make a very high income. Their fixed costs are low, but they are spending basically five times more than they planned on guilt-free spending. I think the real decision will center on what they envision their retirement to be. Let's talk to Jason and Laura. This episode is sponsored by Facet. I'm not a member of Facet, but I have an incentive to endorse them as I have an ongoing fee-based contract for cash compensation based on this endorsement.

• 3:48Ramit Sethi?

  These opinions are my own and not a guarantee of a similar result. Facet is an SEC-registered investment advisor. Now Laura, in your application, you wrote something that caught my eye. You wrote, "We're often unable to get on the same page about financial plans because of the large gap in our incomes and the way that we view and define financial stability. We're on the precipice of making decisions to set a potential retirement in motion, and I'm freaking out a little. Help." Jason thinks we can retire by 40. That sounds like a dream, but I'm not convinced. Laura, when you say you are freaking out, what does that mean?

• 4:30Speaker 02

  I guess freaking out is never feeling confident in my decisions. My brain will keep going and going at night, being like, can we retire at 40? What would that look like? Like, are we even stable enough to be having these conversations? Like, this year, we've spent so much money on like things that we wanted and needed. Like, constantly feel like if an early retirement is possible, should we be making all of these decisions with our money? Or should we be saving more? I don't know.

• 5:00Ramit Sethi?

  Got it. Okay. Jason, what is your take on this question? You know, Laura says, "I'm not sure if we can retire, and if so, should we be spending our money differently?" What is your take on that question of early retirement?

• 5:13Speaker 01

  My take is absolutely we could retire at 40. I think retiring at 40 would take some lifestyle changes to be on a fixed income. But if that's the way we wanted to move, that's definitely a possibility at our current trajectory. There's also the option to work a few more years and have a more comfortable retirement as well.

• 5:29Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Have you two talked about that? Hey, if we push this lever, pull this, et cetera?

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, so a lot has changed since I initially wrote that.

• 5:38Ramit Sethi?

  Tell me.

• 5:39Speaker 02

  Since then, we've had so many conversations about money and retirement that are like not as abstract as they used to be. After we did the CSP and got that Monarch app and like had pretty much complete transparency with all of our accounts, and like, I don't know, I feel like I have a better picture. We've also paid off, I think, a quarter of a million dollars' worth of debt since I sent that.

• 6:03Ramit Sethi?

  Hold on.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:07Ramit Sethi?

  God, I'm gonna get my ass handed to me in the comments. But it's actually not my fault. You're telling me, Laura, in the last two months, you paid off $250,000 of debt?

• 6:20Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 6:21Ramit Sethi?

  Tell America, how'd you do that?

• 6:25Speaker 02

  Okay, I'll tell you. I've had student debt around my neck for a very long time. It has not been fun. Why have I let it sit there for so long? I don't know, but I have, and that's a mistake. But I realized I have this large chunk of money in my savings account that's just sitting there, and I like looking at it because I'm like,

• 6:45Speaker 02

  yay, I can see all of my hard work in that amount of money. And then I realized with that CSP thing, I was like, okay, so if I pay off that amount of money on my student loans, my net worth is still the same. It doesn't matter whether it's sitting in a savings account or paying off debt, like.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  I think it's a point to clarify that the entire $250,000 was not student loans.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  That's true. Yeah.

• 7:12Ramit Sethi?

  That doesn't matter to me, and actually it doesn't matter to anyone else. They don't make that distinction.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:15Ramit Sethi?

  They just see a lot of zeros and they go, "Fuck you." That's great. Laura, great insight. The idea that I just sort of had money sitting around in a savings account because it made me feel safe, it just made me feel like there's something there, and I realized, what am I actually doing with it? That is a great insight, and I appreciate you doing that. Okay, I have more questions for you. Are the two of you married?

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:42Ramit Sethi?

  How long you been married?

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Six years.

• 7:45Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Laura, I'm curious, even though things have changed in the last couple of months, what were you doing? Where were you and what was going on that you wrote that application? I mean, using words like freaking out. What was going on then?

• 7:58Speaker 02

  I remember the morning, we were sitting on the couch, having coffee, and we're talking about retirement. It's been a topic of conversation for us for the last couple of years. I've been like slightly obsessive about it, I think. And yeah, that was one of the mornings when Jason was like, we can retire now, or like when we're 40, if we wanted to.

• 8:17Ramit Sethi?

  What'd you say?

• 8:18Speaker 02

  There's no way.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  Then we fall into these roles in our relationship where I'm kind of like a perpetual pessimist, and Jason's much more optimistic.

• 8:31Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, that's interesting. How'd you decide to potentially retire early?

• 8:35Speaker 02

  A series of things happened in life that made me realize that I really don't want to work forever. Like, my dad passed away after, like literally on his deathbed. He was like working from his hospice bed. And it's like, that was tragic to me. Right around that time, my company laid off a lot of people, and that was the first time in like my adult life that I had like worked at a company that had mass layoffs. And I was like, I felt very unstable. And then at the same time, our next-door neighbor had retired. She was a schoolteacher forever. She retired. And like months after she retired, the doctor found a brain tumor, and she passed away like within months.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  The story I told myself after that was like, I want to enjoy life now because you don't know how long you have. I don't want to work forever, and I want to enjoy my life right now.

• 9:30Ramit Sethi?

  That's a lot of tragedy and realizations in a short amount of time. I appreciate that. Sorry to hear about your dad.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 9:37Ramit Sethi?

  It's tough. Jason, how about you?

• 9:39Speaker 01

  I'll lean into more of the positive reasons. When we first started dating, I lived in a van. We traveled a lot. We would take month-long trips and would travel, do a lot of climbing, hiking, that kind of stuff. And we've kind of built these habits of being able to live well within our means and knowing that and enjoying that type of lifestyle. We've decided, or multiple times, that a good way of like stopping early is just living a little more simply. And we both enjoy that lifestyle, and we're happy to do that.

• 10:12Ramit Sethi?

  It's quite poignant that Laura has seen mortality up close and in so many different ways. Seeing people pass away makes you rethink the way that you have approached life. One of the reasons that I love doing this podcast is that I don't want you to have to wait until something terrible happens in order for you to design your rich life and certainly to live it. Now, how much of her decision to retire early is based on? A real desire to versus a feeling of running out of time? I don't know, but I do know that it is important to her. It's important to Jason, and therefore I want to help them craft the kind of life that, assuming the numbers justify it, that they can live.

• 10:55Ramit Sethi?

  And so I can understand why Laura is in a big hurry to live that next chapter of her life. I actually feel for her and I love when people are in a hurry to live their rich life. Sometimes I think that we put up with way too much for way too long. Do you know how many people are on my newsletter? And they tell me that they have been trying to start a business or thinking about starting a business for five years, 10 years, 15 years? I'm like, what 15 years you've been thinking about doing this? You haven't done it? As one of my friends Julie said, get impatient with yourself. Why do you allow yourself to keep dreaming of this thing? You wouldn't even let a good friend do that.

• 11:40Ramit Sethi?

  You'd be like, dude, get your together and get it going. Let's go. But we give ourselves a pass. So when I hear somebody saying, look, this is what I want. Here's why I'm in a big hurry. I don't know how to do it, but this is what I want. I love it. That's what I'm here to try to help them do. This message is sponsored by Kindred. Now I love hotels. I've stayed in some beautiful hotels across the world. I also stayed in some pretty bad ones. And sometimes you just don't know what you are going to get, especially if it's a hotel whose brand you don't know. Sometimes you want to go to a place where it just feels like home. You have a kitchen, you have space. So if you are looking for a welcoming place to stay on your next trip, check out Kindred.

• 12:24Ramit Sethi?

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• 13:05Ramit Sethi?

  Apply now at livekindred.com/ramit and use code RAMIT to join for free. Plus you'll earn five nights of travel credit just for signing up. That's livekindred.com/ramit and use code RAMIT. Okay. I hate to be the guy who talks about eating a croissant when he was in Paris, but it happened to me. We're sitting at our hotel for breakfast. They bring out this croissant and I was like, okay, I've become a caricature. And then I bit into it and it was the best croissant I've ever had. Now, if I could bring that croissant back with me, I would. However, there is the next best thing, recreating that moment with Wild Grain. Wild Grain is a bake from frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, seasonal pastries,

• 13:50Ramit Sethi?

  and even French butter made by small independent bakers right to your door. Everything baked straight from frozen in 25 minutes or less, always made with simple ingredients. Wild Grain's boxes are fully customizable. In addition to their classic variety box, they have a gluten-free box, vegan box, and a protein box, all delicious and available with flexible subscriptions that you can skip or cancel anytime. If you're ready for warm bakery quality food at home this season, I recommend giving Wild Grain a try. And for carbs giving, Wild Grain's biggest sale of the year, you can get $40 off your first box plus free croissants for life. That's the best offer you're going to hear about Wild Grain from me all year.

• 14:31Ramit Sethi?

  Visit wildgrain.com/ramit40 to get $40 off your first box and free croissants for life or use promo code RAMIT40 at checkout. Again, that's wildgrain.com/ramit40 or use RAMIT40 at checkout. What's a time in the last few months where you two have not agreed on money?

• 14:52Speaker 02

  Right after we filled in the CSP spreadsheet, I was sitting on one side of the couch cancelling subscriptions because I was like, we don't need all these. And then I noticed Jason on the other side of the couch and I was like, oh, what are you doing? And he was like, I'm looking at best buzz on Facebook Marketplace. And I was like, we're such different people. That's not what I would be doing right now.

• 15:15Ramit Sethi?

  Is that what you said to him?

• 15:16Speaker 02

  I think at that point we had been talking about finances for like two hours straight. And I was like, I'm just going to let this one go.

• 15:23Ramit Sethi?

  Laura, do you feel like you are good when you spend less?

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Kinda.

• 15:29Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. And Jason is nodding his head with a smile.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know.

• 15:33Ramit Sethi?

  And would the contrary be true as well? You are bad when you spend more?

• 15:37Speaker 02

  I see it as a negative to spend on like frivolous kinds of things.

• 15:42Ramit Sethi?

  What's frivolous?

• 15:43Speaker 02

  Well, the only thing I think of right now is vehicles, but like.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  What about that jacket that you saw that you?

• 15:48Speaker 02

  Okay, yeah, this is what I was gonna say, like a bunch of clothes or like.

• 15:51Ramit Sethi?

  Let's talk about the jacket. What is this jacket? What happened? Wow, two big smiles.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  I don't know if she even knows what jacket I'm talking about.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  No, I know what you're talking about.

• 16:00Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, she knows. Go ahead, Laura. What is the jacket and what happened?

• 16:03Speaker 02

  We were at a store and I saw this jean jacket that I liked. I've been talking for a long time about getting a jean jacket to put a bunch of patches on because I think it'd be funny to ride a Vespa around with like a jean jacket with patches. And I tried it on and I was like, oh, this is perfect. And then I didn't get it because like I said, we've had a very expensive year.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  And at the time, I didn't know that she didn't get it because of money. I thought she just didn't like the jacket. Otherwise I probably would have talked her into purchasing it at that time.

• 16:32Ramit Sethi?

  Ah, a lot of kind of like counter signaling or pre avoidance. I don't want to have this conversation, so I'm just not going to bring it up. How much was the jacket? Hold on, before we go on, look at Jason's big smile. He's like, just wait, Ramit. Go ahead, Laura. How much was it?

• 16:48Speaker 02

  $78.

• 16:50Ramit Sethi?

  Wow. Wow. For everybody watching, I'm only smiling because I've seen their CSP. So $78, would that be, where would that fall in your wardrobe? Like most expensive, middle expensive, where would that fall?

• 17:06Speaker 02

  I like middle.

• 17:07Ramit Sethi?

  Middle, okay. And did you ever end up getting it?

• 17:10Speaker 02

  I did not.

• 17:11Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. How does money work in your household?

• 17:13Speaker 01

  We each kind of control our own money. She has her own savings, her own checking. I have my own savings. I have my own checking. And anything you buy for yourself, you just use your own money.

• 17:22Ramit Sethi?

  And what about the joint stuff?

• 17:24Speaker 01

  The joint stuff, uh, we'll, we'll talk about. We don't have large conversations about a lot of this stuff, to be honest. It's usually pretty easy, I think. And so you start getting to about 10,000 or above, then we start getting more in the weeds for sure.

• 17:40Ramit Sethi?

  Give me an example.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  So we recently bought a new van and built it out to be like a camper van. And the total cost for us on that project came out to about 25,000. And I think everything over 10,000, I had to scrape and claw out of Laura.

• 17:59Ramit Sethi?

  Got it. Laura, what was your experience talking about the spending on the van?

• 18:03Speaker 02

  Really succinctly, this is like usually how big purchases like the van go. We'll agree that like, yes, we want to buy a van and build it out. And I'll be like, what do you want to spend? And then I'll throw out a number that's not based on anything other than vibes. And then inevitably Jason will be like, and then I'll maybe up it a little bit. And then that's how we arrive at like a budget, which is probably not smart.

• 18:31Ramit Sethi?

  Do you guys like this?

• 18:33Speaker 02

  No.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  I think honestly, I like some aspects of it. I'm a lot more impulsive than Laura is. So without her, if it was just me, I would have spent easily 70,000. I would not have built it myself.

• 18:47Ramit Sethi?

  You enjoy the kind of back and forth in negotiation because as you put it, you're impulsive. Laura, do you enjoy it?

• 18:53Speaker 02

  I wish like initially at the beginning, when he was like, what's your number? I felt more confident and I knew like what number makes sense for like our budget and like what costs, you know what I mean?

• 19:08Ramit Sethi?

  Laura, in your application, you wrote something else. You wrote, "Large expenses are more of a financial drain on my income, but we split everything in half instead of equitably." What do you mean by that?

• 19:22Speaker 02

  I make good money. He makes more. And that was just like a nod to that. One of the other things that has changed a lot since I initially wrote this is like that quarter of a million dollars that we paid off in debt, 200,000 of that was from Jason. So I think it's important to say things are split in half, even though he makes a lot more than I do. But at the end of the day, when big things like that come up, he'll pay it off. Or like when we bought the current house that we live in, he put a lot more towards a down payment than I did. So like in that moment, for example, I felt like splitting things 50/50, like, why are we doing that?

• 20:06Speaker 02

  And then kind of as time goes on, I'm just like, maybe it evens out in the end.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  No, I paid off the HELOC and then Laura put money down towards your student loans.

• 20:15Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. That's an interesting approach. I can see exactly why it feels a bit challenging day to day. If you are splitting things 50/50, that can feel really expensive for you, Laura, if Jason's earning way more because proportionally you're paying more. But then again, then Jason is, you're coming out, Jason, and paying off huge joint expenses. Okay, I get it. It's interesting. It's challenging. I like it. It's different. I haven't encountered this before, but I like a good challenge. Okay. What was it like to do the CSP together?

• 20:51Speaker 02

  That was the least amount of fun I've had in a long time.

• 20:55Ramit Sethi?

  What?

• 20:55Speaker 02

  I'm sorry.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it wasn't that fun.

• 20:57Ramit Sethi?

  That wow, both brutal. This is like a

• 21:00Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm glad we did it, but it was not like, I feel like our money and our is just like all over the place and tracking it down felt hard, but once we did it, I felt like I had a better grasp on what's going on.

• 21:16Ramit Sethi?

  Uh, sounds awesome to me. Hold on one second.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 21:21Ramit Sethi?

  Good job, Ramit.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  So I guess that's the point.

• 21:23Ramit Sethi?

  IWT.com slash CSP for anyone who wants that. All right, we're gonna look at your CSP right now. Let's do it. Jason, can you read off the words in bold and the numbers next to them for this entire box, please?

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Assets, 3.1 million. Investments, 530,000. Savings, 117,000. Debt, 1.89 million. Total net worth, 1.857 million.

• 21:52Ramit Sethi?

  All right, cool. What do you think about those numbers?

• 21:53Speaker 01

  I think the portfolio is real estate heavy and everything seems very dependent on markets and policy, which makes me feel slightly uneasy.

• 22:04Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, Laura?

• 22:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, same. It makes me feel like a little perplexed. I feel like the net worth number looks good on paper, but I also feel like, yeah, it's a lot of dependence on like, things going right and not falling apart.

• 22:22Ramit Sethi?

  Anybody feel good about the seven figures you have in net worth in your 30s?

• 22:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  I feel good about it, too. Yeah, absolutely.

• 22:32Ramit Sethi?

  Sounds depressing to me.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  I'm just scared.

• 22:37Ramit Sethi?

  Scared of?

• 22:38Speaker 02

  Like the rug being pulled out from underneath us and things going haywire and

• 22:43Ramit Sethi?

  How much do you need to feel safe?

• 22:46Speaker 02

  I've wondered that many times. I don't know.

• 22:51Ramit Sethi?

  Maybe an extra 50,000?

• 22:53Speaker 02

  I think I feel safer if we didn't have as much debt.

• 22:58Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, maybe if we cut your debt by half?

• 23:01Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 23:03Ramit Sethi?

  And where would the money go? Let's just say you sold off something. Where would you put the money?

• 23:08Speaker 02

  It's a great point because we probably put it in the stock market, which is just another risk.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  That's what I was gonna say. I don't think any number makes me feel safe. When it's invested, like I just, I have such little trust in our investments, like one 2008 and we'll lose 50% of our net worth. Another 2020 and we're gonna lose, you know, tons of money based off of our other investments. I've just seen so many things that I don't know. I just never feel safe.

• 23:40Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, it's not 50,000 more or even 500,000 more. It's not moving money from real estate to the stock market. Why don't you just sell everything and put it in your checking account? Would you feel safe then?

• 23:54Speaker 01

  No, inflation will take care of that one. I think what does make me feel safe is I do have one source of income that is cola based. It's 4,300 a month.

• 24:08Ramit Sethi?

  Wait, wait, wait. We're getting to income in a second. We'll get to that.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:11Ramit Sethi?

  1.857 million dollars in net worth in your 30s. You both told me you don't really feel safe about it and I'm trying to find out what would make you feel safe, if anything at all. Can I ask you both a question? What do you get out of not feeling safe?

• 24:28Speaker 02

  I guess it's motivating to keep making more.

• 24:33Ramit Sethi?

  I think that's a really honest answer.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Ooh, capitalism.

• 24:36Ramit Sethi?

  Right, right. We've been living it and breathing it and now it's all we know. And so we gotta work. We gotta grind. Okay, a little ironic for a couple that met living in a van, but okay. And wants to retire in like a few years, but

• 24:53Speaker 02

  I'm not gonna lie. When you were like, what would make you feel safe selling everything and putting it in a checking account? I was like, yeah, kinda.

• 24:59Ramit Sethi?

  You wanna do it? Cause this could be a very short conversation. I'll watch you log in and we could do it right now.

• 25:06Ramit Sethi?

  I don't think it's a good idea.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:08Ramit Sethi?

  But do you truly believe that would make you feel safe?

• 25:11Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 25:13Ramit Sethi?

  Think about this. You had that money sitting in a checking account or savings account or whatever for your student loans, right?

• 25:18Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 25:19Ramit Sethi?

  How often did you log in and look at it?

• 25:20Speaker 02

  Anytime I would log into my finance app, I'd be like, oh, that's, that's nice. I like that. That's

• 25:27Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, okay. So basically exactly that. You logged in, you felt something and then you wanna just do that forever? What's the cost of keeping money sitting in your checking or savings account?

• 25:38Speaker 02

  Inflation.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  4% annually?

• 25:41Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. Yeah, that's about right. Inflation, you're actually losing money every single day because it's not growing. You have to take a little bit of risk. I'm trying to understand how you both think about money. That's what I'm trying to understand because the numbers are quite large and they will become larger and larger to a point where this is what's gonna happen. This is what happens with people who have high incomes and or high net worths. They start off and they go, ah, I don't feel safe. I have only $20,000 in the bank. Okay, you can make the argument, but then it becomes 200,000. And then they still make the same argument. I don't feel safe. We're gonna need more and then this and that. And then the number becomes 2 million. Even they, as they say it out loud, they're like, this sounds crazy. I can't even say this out loud.

• 26:24Ramit Sethi?

  So they shift their feeling of being unsafe to something else. They go, well, what about the kids? Or we're gonna have to buy a new house. Or what about retirement? And then what's the final trump card in America for wealthy people who want to perpetuate their feeling of insecurity? What do they say?

• 26:42Speaker 01

  I don't know, tax policy?

• 26:43Ramit Sethi?

  Nope. What about healthcare? Because in America, nobody can argue against the price of healthcare when you're 89 years old. Now, all of these can be realistic. Maybe you are gonna have children or a house or helping an illing parent or whatever. All these can be true, but what a way to go through life, just finding one way to feel unsafe after another for the next 50 years? I don't know. I'm not really into it. What do you think?

• 27:12Speaker 02

  Doesn't sound great.

• 27:13Ramit Sethi?

  You came to me, I think, because I talk about a rich life and I talk about how to feel good, especially in your situation where you are earning and having a lot of money. So let's, let's try to figure out how. 1.8 million dollars. We haven't quite resolved what would make you feel safe, but we're starting to get some clues. Let's go into the income. Laura, I want you to read off your combined gross monthly income.

• 27:35Speaker 02

  68,235.

• 27:38Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, just so everybody knows, that's monthly, which means that annually, your gross income as a household is 818,820. By show of hands, who knew that number?

• 27:49Speaker 02

  I mean, after we filled out the CSP, I

• 27:51Ramit Sethi?

  But not before. Okay, Jason puts his hand up. Laura does not. So true to statistics, even couples earning almost a million dollars a year, 50% of couples tend to know their number, although I think it's a little higher for higher earning couples. Laura, what'd you think you made as a household?

• 28:07Speaker 02

  Like 400,000, 450. So

• 28:11Ramit Sethi?

  Am I, am I hearing this right? You thought that you made 400 and something thousand. The actual number is 818,000.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  To be fair and to stand up for, a lot of that money gets directly straight into investments and it doesn't go to any bank account.

• 28:29Ramit Sethi?

  I don't care where it goes. It could go straight into a frigging arcade. I don't care. That's $400,000 a year off. Do you feel safer knowing that you make 818,000 a year?

• 28:40Speaker 02

  I mean, the way you're saying that, I feel like I should.

• 28:44Ramit Sethi?

  Yes, but do you?

• 28:46Speaker 02

  I don't because I know that a lot of that is like income from our rentals that just goes to paying a mortgage, which is debt.

• 28:55Ramit Sethi?

  Maybe if it was like 2 million a year?

• 28:59Speaker 02

  No, I think maybe if like the house was paid off or something and it was like actually income that didn't straight up just go to pay off debt that we owe.

• 29:08Ramit Sethi?

  That's possible. And I think when you have a bit of a complex financial situation, it can all just feel a little unwieldy. And part of what I can help you do is cut through all the noise. That's why the CSP is actually designed the way it is. Because even for a couple in your somewhat complex financial situation, you really need to know like a few key numbers. Here's a key number. You make 800,000 a year. Yeah, some of it goes here and some of it goes there, but just on its face, what does that tell you, Laura, that you make 800,000 a year?

• 29:40Speaker 02

  That we're very high earners.

• 29:42Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. Jason, what does it tell you?

• 29:44Speaker 01

  That since a lot of it's W2, it's highly taxed.

• 29:48Ramit Sethi?

  Jesus.

• 29:51Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, God. That's the first thing you notice about $800,000 is it's highly taxed. That's it? Not like we're wealthy.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Comes up, yeah, but then it comes out to like 400 some gross.

• 30:03Ramit Sethi?

  Wow, that's a real tough hit. It actually comes out to $497,000 net, so $500,000. That's gotta be tough. How do you make it work on only $500,000?

• 30:13Speaker 01

  I didn't say it was tough. I'm not gonna fight that. I know it's not tough.

• 30:17Ramit Sethi?

  I love it. I love with high earners because like they all, they play the boo hoo game with their other rich friends and then they come here and I'm like, you're rich. Please.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  I think Laura thinks it's tough a little more than I do.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  I don't think it.

• 30:29Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, Laura, get him back. Go ahead.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Play me.

• 30:33Speaker 02

  I don't think it's tough. The reason I wanted to be here was to make sure that it's like enough for what like for retiring very early. I feel like it's a very like lucky privilege thing to be able to do if we are able to do it. So I just want to know if we make enough to do that specifically.

• 30:52Ramit Sethi?

  Totally hear you. All jokes aside, it is great to hear you both acknowledge that you do make a lot of money. You do. What do the two of you do for a living? Jason?

• 31:00Speaker 01

  A software engineer.

• 31:01Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, Laura?

• 31:03Speaker 02

  Marketing at a tech company.

• 31:04Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, great. Laura, you make $20,000 a month gross. So like 240K, which is an awesome income. And Jason, you make $48,000 a month. So this is big money, right? It's great. It's awesome. I love high earners. Nobody trips and falls into $800,000 of income. You have to be very, very good at what you do. So I totally appreciate that. And Laura, your question is apt. Hey, it's great that we make this much money, but we're trying to do something highly unusual, retiring in our early 40s. Can we actually do it? We'll walk through the numbers. We'll find out if you

• 31:46Ramit Sethi?

  can. But I want to encourage you to also add another element beyond just the math. Because if it was just the math, honestly, I feel confident you could have figured it out on your own. I will help you do it. But it's not just the math. What if you were able to mathematically do it? And you retire in X number of years, and you spend the rest of your life feeling scarce about money?

• 32:07Speaker 02

  That would be very unfortunate.

• 32:09Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, that's misery. Misery. So we have to account for that part. And that's why I want you to start thinking about the way you feel today is a very good predictor of how you're gonna feel tomorrow, unless you rewire the way that you interact with money.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  I think in all of our conversations about possibly retiring early, like I think we've grossly underestimated how difficult it will be to leave stable jobs. I don't really feel like it's realistic to be like, I will leave my job when I'm 42 or whatever.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  Not when I feel this way.

• 32:44Ramit Sethi?

  Good. I hope everybody is listening right now. What you just said, Laura, is strikingly honest, which is, I can be in a household that's earning $818,000 a year. I can have a supportive partner. And even still, my money psychology probably will not allow me, even if the math justifies it, to retire and have a healthy outlook unless I make some changes. The feeling of safety with money is one of the most elusive feelings there is. And we actually don't even know how to understand it. Many of us come up with these facile responses like, oh, I just need $50,000 more dollars. Then we find out after going through their

• 33:25Ramit Sethi?

  CSP, they actually make $80,000 more than they thought. And I go, you feel safe? They go, no, I don't know why. I don't know why. Because the way you feel about money is not connected to the amount in your bank account. That's what we think, though. We come up with these easy answers, but we actually don't know why we feel this way. But it's got to be mystifying for you, watching this episode and seeing a couple making so much money and not able to answer the question, what will make me feel safe? Don't get mad. Don't become infuriated. Get curious. Say, wow, if this is a very reasonable couple making almost a million

• 34:04Ramit Sethi?

  dollars a year, and even they can't figure out how to feel safe, what does that say about me? Maybe it's not about the numbers alone. Maybe we've got to totally change and transform the way that we think about money, the way that we behave with money, and ultimately the way we feel about money. Maybe there's a level to this podcast that I haven't been aware of. I've been looking at the numbers and getting mad because I don't agree with the way that they distribute their investments. Maybe there's something much deeper. That is what I want to challenge you to find in each of these episodes, including this one. Let's take a look at your to do list. How many things are on there that you've been putting off for nine months or more? I'm talking about important stuff like booking doctor's

• 34:48Ramit Sethi?

  appointments and getting your estate plan in order. We can knock them out in about an hour. You can get your estate plan handled today, for example, with help from Trust and Will. Trust and Will offers affordable attorney-designed estate plans online that you can create in minutes. Everything is state-specific. It's tailored to your needs, regardless of what stage of life you're in. And we actually had one of my coworkers create a will using Trust and Will. Here's what she said. Getting started was incredibly easy. In less than an hour, I had a will, power of attorney, last will and testament, and HIPAA authorizations, all of which I downloaded. And if I wanted, I could have them checked by another attorney. Their platform makes it easy to keep these things organized and updated, so your loved

• 35:31Ramit Sethi?

  ones don't have to manage tons of paperwork down the line. Now, you can use an attorney for your estate plan, but that's not an option for everyone. If you know that you have loved ones that you need to protect, Trust and Will is worth considering. Trust and Will, affordable estate plans, priceless peace of mind. Go to trustandwill.com/ramit to get 20% off. That's trustandwill.com/ramit to get 20% off. T-R-U-S-T-A-N-D-W-I-L-L.com/ramit. We're heading into the last few months of the year. And as I talk about a rich life, let's talk about all aspects, not just the money side, but also the health side. Have

• 36:16Ramit Sethi?

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• 36:56Ramit Sethi?

  usually within 24 to 72 hours. So no more waiting months to get the care that you need. Your health matters, and taking care of yourself should not be complicated. Find and book the right doctor with Zocdoc. Head to zocdoc.com/ramit to get started and check that appointment off your to do list. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C.com/ramit.

• 37:23Ramit Sethi?

  I want to go through the rest of your CSP, just so we can get a comprehensive look here. So again, we have gross income of $68,000 a month, net is $41,000 a month. And if we look at your fixed costs, what is that number, Jason?

• 37:39Speaker 01

  41%.

• 37:40Ramit Sethi?

  41%. Some of the lowest numbers I've seen. I have no comments. If you want to spend money on whatever it is in here, go ahead. Do you rent or you have a mortgage?

• 37:50Speaker 02

  Mortgage.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  We have a mortgage.

• 37:51Ramit Sethi?

  You have a mortgage. It's approximately 18%. Fine. And that's $12,500 a month. Great. I love it. That's awesome. Moving along. Investments are at, what's that number, Laura?

• 38:07Speaker 02

  54%.

• 38:09Ramit Sethi?

  54%. And of course, I want to scroll up to your 401Ks, which not surprisingly, you are, it appears, close to maxing them out. So you're putting a lot of money in there. It's $40,000 a year. Plus $8,000 a month in your taxable account, and then $13,000 a month additionally. That's $22,000 a month you're investing, plus your 401ks. What do you think about that?

• 38:34Speaker 02

  I think it's great. We're saving a ton of money. I think it's good.

• 38:38Ramit Sethi?

  It's great. That's exactly how it should be. Listen up, everybody. I know the vast majority of people are not going to earn $800, $18,000 a year, but you don't need to. Here's the point. When you make a lot of money, bread still costs the price of bread. You're making more, like in a super linear way. You're making way more than your fixed costs. Therefore, what should you do? You should be saving more, investing more, and yes, probably spending more. So already, I like what I'm seeing. You're investing super aggressively. When you're making a huge amount of income, this is the way you want to treat your investments. All right, let's keep moving along because I'm excited. Savings at 2%. That's only $1,000 a month. I already know why.

• 39:22Ramit Sethi?

  Because if we scroll up, your savings are at $117,000. So you notably said, hey, we already have like six, seven months of savings here. We don't need to put more in savings, right?

• 39:33Speaker 02

  Yep, that was the conversation.

• 39:34Ramit Sethi?

  Great, perfect. Personally, I would do a little bit more because when I have a super high income, I'm like, let's just check every box. I'll make it 12 months.

• 39:41Speaker 02

  We've discussed this. We're going to get it to 12 months.

• 39:43Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, I know you can. It wouldn't take much. And then let's go down to guilt-free spending. What is this number?

• 39:48Speaker 01

  3%?

• 39:49Ramit Sethi?

  Is that true? You're spending 3% on guilt-free spending?

• 39:52Speaker 01

  I don't know if that's highly accurate.

• 39:54Ramit Sethi?

  What do you guys do for fun?

• 39:55Speaker 02

  We go to plays, comedy shows, go out to dinner.

• 39:59Ramit Sethi?

  Sounds great.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Concerts, camping a lot.

• 40:02Ramit Sethi?

  I think maybe you miscounted. We're going to look at your actual spending in Monarch. But so far, what do you take away from the CSP?

• 40:09Speaker 02

  That we have a lot of money and we save a lot of money and invest a lot of money.

• 40:13Ramit Sethi?

  I agree. What else? Jason?

• 40:15Speaker 01

  We can spend more money on fun stuff.

• 40:17Ramit Sethi?

  If the guilt-free spending number is true, then yeah. I mean, 3% is like way underspending. What else do you notice? I mean, are you in a healthy financial position?

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:27Ramit Sethi?

  Good, I agree. I have no comments. This is incredible CSP, incredible focus, even though you are indeed spending way beneath what you make, way beneath your fixed costs of 41%. Looks like you have a really nice life. You know, just based on your mortgage, it looks like you have a nice place.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  That's the mortgage, including our rentals as well.

• 40:52Ramit Sethi?

  So how many properties?

• 40:54Speaker 01

  It's a single triplex.

• 40:55Speaker 02

  So we have a triplex, then we live in a single family home.

• 40:58Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Can we look at some of your actual expenses like line by line? Because you worked with our partners at Monarch. You imported your information. We have access to your accounts and transactions. Did you happen to log in and look at any of it?

• 41:11Speaker 02

  Oh, we log in a lot.

• 41:13Ramit Sethi?

  Great, no, I love that. And what did you learn as you went through Monarch and looked at the transaction level?

• 41:19Speaker 02

  I think what I learned is that we spend around $4,000 to $5,000 on like a typical month. Again, this year has been very atypical because we've been spending a lot.

• 41:29Ramit Sethi?

  That would be like your guilt-free spending number, right?

• 41:31Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 41:32Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, like eating out, plays, concerts, that kind of thing.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  No, that includes groceries and utilities and yeah.

• 41:39Ramit Sethi?

  All right, well, let's look. So you planned to make $41,000, but you actually made $48,000 that month. How's that?

• 41:47Speaker 01

  One of the rentals is a short-term rental with variable income per month. So that's extra income from the rentals.

• 41:54Ramit Sethi?

  It's great. I'm starting to already gather clues. I think I see what's going on. Let's continue. Look, you made $7,000 extra in a month. That's fantastic. Let's go down to fixed costs. You planned for it to be $17,000, but it was actually only $11,000. So your debt payments, you paid extra towards your debt. That's basically the extra money you made. And miscellaneous, okay, this actually made me laugh because this is when I knew I was dealing with a couple that is pretty diligent about their money. Our CSP gives you 15% for miscellaneous spending. You actually only spent $7 untracked, which is hilarious. That's like the lowest amount. I spend more for a coffee.

• 42:38Ramit Sethi?

  So let's look at what you spent $7 extra for. Your massage place was $1. What is that? Probably some preauthorization charge or something, whatever.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, something like that.

• 42:47Ramit Sethi?

  Fees, $5. I hate financial fees, but in this case, okay, $5.75 for some ATM fee or something like that, whatever. Other fixed costs, you spent a little bit more on transportation than you thought. What happened?

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're road tripping this month.

• 43:01Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, great. Here's the thing. You all can easily afford all this stuff. You have so much flex room that I think it's amazing. Let's look at your guilt-free spending because I think this is quite illustrative here. So you had planned about $1,000. That's what we saw in the CSP. But actually, it was $5,764 that month. So approximately five times more than you had planned. So then the question is, what did you spend on?

• 43:28Speaker 01

  During this road trip, we did go to the nicest restaurant, like one of the most expensive restaurants we've ever been to.

• 43:34Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, so you spent more on eating out. Fine. Let's just actually look now at the overall spending in shopping because I think this also tells us a lot. We can see here that for the last several months, shopping alone, which is part of your guilt-free spending, was $4,000, $2,000, $2,700, $3,000. So I think obviously you miscounted on your CSP. Let's just put it at $6,000, okay? Watch the number here. That 3% is going to tell us everything we need to know. At $6,000 a month, you're at 14%. Typically, I recommend you spend 20% to 35% on guilt-free spending. You are at 14%. What does that tell you, just in general?

• 44:19Speaker 02

  That we have room to spend more. I love my life. Like, we do a lot of cool, fun together. We're like, if I died tomorrow, I would not regret something that I didn't do.

• 44:29Ramit Sethi?

  Why retire in your 40s then?

• 44:31Speaker 02

  Because if we had more time, if we traveled, we would stay somewhere for like a month and get to do all of the things we wanted to do instead of like come home to go to work.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Never have the Sunday scaries.

• 44:42Ramit Sethi?

  I think it's pretty cool that you've built the potential to retire. And we will definitely look at some scenarios so that you can decide on what sounds right to you. But where I am right now is even though it's not $1,000 you're spending on guilt-free, it's $6,000 a month, which is a really healthy amount to spend. At that number, because of your high combined income, you're still under even the lowest recommended amount for guilt-free spending. To me, that's pretty cool. Tells me I have room to play with if I'm you. Let's keep looking. So we have shopping. Treat yourself. That's a good category. 400 bucks a month on treat yourself. Great, wonderful. I have no comments. I think it's great.

• 45:28Ramit Sethi?

  Let's look at your accounts. So here we have a net worth of 1.8 million, as we saw. Cash, you got $132,000 in cash. We sort of talked about that. This is fine. Credit cards, $3,900. I assume you pay that off every month.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:43Ramit Sethi?

  Yep. And investments at $542,000. So we have a taxable account. That's because you maxed out all your other stuff. And then you have 401k, equity stuff, et cetera. This all looks fine. No comments. Back down to loans. So you have $972,000 for one mortgage. And then you have 55k for the student loans and 830 for another loan just called account. What's going on here?

• 46:12Speaker 01

  That one's also a mortgage.

• 46:14Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, real estate. You have two properties for a total of $3 million, right?

• 46:20Speaker 02

  Assets, yeah.

• 46:21Ramit Sethi?

  All right. Who decided to get into real estate out of the two of you?

• 46:24Speaker 02

  Who do you think?

• 46:25Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  She cried when we put our first offer in on a house. But she also threw up when she bought her first car, so.

• 46:31Speaker 02

  I did.

• 46:31Ramit Sethi?

  What, what?

• 46:32Speaker 02

  Spending large sums of money freaks me out.

• 46:36Ramit Sethi?

  Why?

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Also, sorry for putting you on blast. I love you.

• 46:39Speaker 02

  No, it's okay.

• 46:40Ramit Sethi?

  Why'd you throw up buying a car?

• 46:42Speaker 02

  It was like my first car. It was just like the first time I took out a loan for a lot of money. And it was just like scary.

• 46:49Ramit Sethi?

  This is curious because I know that making a huge purchase can feel uncomfortable, but throwing up and crying, all jokes aside, it's actually like a really interesting clue of what's going on here. It tells me that even though your income has certainly grown by multiples since then, still some of the same feelings are there. And that's what I want to get to the root of. Laura, take me back in time. What do you remember your family saying about money when you grew up?

• 47:18Speaker 02

  My family didn't really talk about money when I was growing up. Grew up in suburbia in Southern California, had a pretty idyllic childhood and then didn't really think about money until 2008. Like, my parents lost their house. I think the first conversation about money that I ever had with my parents was my dad being like, we can't pay for your college. And I was like, it's fine, student loans. But it is fine.

• 47:42Ramit Sethi?

  Where were they when they had this conversation with you? And what was the tone of the discussion?

• 47:48Speaker 02

  Oh, my dad was like distraught. Like, he wasn't like crying or anything, but you could just tell that he was just like kind of a shell of himself. He was just like upset about it, obviously. And I know he was upset about it until he died because like when I was talking to him, like when he had cancer, I was like, I really wanted to like milk the last couple of months I had with him. And I was asking him like, Do you have any regrets? Like, I wanted to like, learn stuff from him, you know? And like, one of his main regrets he had was like, he told me, I wish I could have paid for your college. And I was like, that's such a sad thing to be thinking about, you know? Like, it doesn't matter.

• 48:27Ramit Sethi?

  Why, why does it not matter?

• 48:29Speaker 02

  I mean, in the grand scheme of things, like, paying for somebody's college is not a big deal. It was just like, you're not the only father that wasn't able to pay for college for their kids after 2008. That's not a failure on your part.

• 48:44Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. Why do you think it meant so much to him?

• 48:48Speaker 02

  He wanted to give us everything we wanted and to care for us. And that was something he took a lot of pride in.

• 48:56Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. You see any connections to your own relationship with money? And how your dad felt about money later in life?

• 49:02Speaker 02

  I mean, the main connection I've always drawn between like, what my parents went through with money and what I went through with money is like, it made me realize that like, things can go south very fast. And it's not like a failure on your own part.

• 49:18Ramit Sethi?

  Laura, you said that was an interesting thing for him to almost fixate on. Because in the grand scheme, college doesn't really make sense. Couldn't I say the same thing about a car? Or a jean jacket? Or a van that you both bought?

• 49:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's an astute observation.

• 49:39Ramit Sethi?

  Part of why I wanted to talk to you was to be able to help see money in a different way. To be able to put things in a different perspective. Because when you grow up in a certain way, and when you make money and then make a lot of money and then have a partner who makes a lot of money, you actually have to change the way you think. Otherwise, you will be living the same way you kind of grew up. And it's actually a shame. It's playing small. So that's what I'm hoping to be able to do.

• 50:06Speaker 02

  That'd be great. I feel like Jason historically has been very good at that. Like, when we first started dating, we were not making this kind of money. Like, I actually remember a conversation I had with him where I was like, I think like, at most, maybe in my career, I'll be able to like, pull in $80,000 a year. And he was like, no, that's not true. Like, you should dream bigger. He like, always just seems to know that like, things can be bigger and better. And it's, I don't know why I don't have that, but it would be great to get to that.

• 50:36Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. That's good to know. I appreciate that. Laura, is your mom still alive?

• 50:42Speaker 02

  She is, yes.

• 50:43Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. How's she doing with money?

• 50:45Speaker 02

  She's on like, she's on social security. When my dad passed away, he didn't leave like, a ton. So when we think about like, retirement and stuff, like, that's part of it. I want to make sure that she's obviously like, okay, and like.

• 51:04Ramit Sethi?

  You talk to her about money?

• 51:06Speaker 02

  Yes. Not in the same way I'm able to talk to like, Jason about money, though. She doesn't want me in her business a lot. I don't think that feels great to her.

• 51:15Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, great. Jason, what about you? If you rewind back to your childhood, what do you remember your family saying about money?

• 51:22Speaker 01

  Not having it. So I started out with a single mom, two kids, who didn't, she didn't have a lot of money. And then later on in life, she married a military guy and we got as much money as like, a good enlisted military person makes with supporting a family of four. So we got a house in the suburbs for my teens and it was good. And then college like, wasn't something that was really ever an option. So did not go to college and then joined the military.

• 51:54Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, you didn't go to college, you joined the military. Did you join the military because of your stepdad?

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:00Ramit Sethi?

  Got it. Okay, how long were you in the military?

• 52:03Speaker 01

  14 years.

• 52:05Ramit Sethi?

  So what's that like, until like, your early 30s?

• 52:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got out in 2020. And that's when I went to school.

• 52:14Ramit Sethi?

  What kind of degree did you get?

• 52:15Speaker 01

  I got a degree in design with a minor in software engineering.

• 52:20Ramit Sethi?

  Nice. All right. Wait, what was your income trajectory? Just give it to me year by year. This is crazy.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  So I was making probably about 80K when I was in the Navy. From getting out to now, I've pretty much doubled or tripled it every year since. I've done well for myself as an engineer, way better than the Navy let me.

• 52:41Ramit Sethi?

  80, that's year one, 160, 320, 640. There we go. Basically that.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:51Ramit Sethi?

  That's insane.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  But I do know that that was a very not normal path.

• 52:58Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  The takeaway I would like to actually give is never put yourself into a career with, that has a roof, that has a ceiling. Like, you can only make but so much when you're in something like the military. Like, it doesn't matter how hard you try, you will not make more money. I don't believe in limiting yourself like that if you have the ability to not.

• 53:17Ramit Sethi?

  That's actually very powerful wisdom. That idea that if you believe in yourself, if you believe that you can perform at a high level, then why would you put yourself in a career or a role where there is a natural, unbreakable cap? Amazing. That's really valuable.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  I'll say, I'm really proud of him. Like, that lesson for him was so hard to learn. Like, he was agonizing over the decision of like, should I stay in the military? Should I get out of the military?

• 53:44Speaker 01

  And I would have never got out if I didn't have Laura as my breadwinner at that time. So I was able to get out and go to school while she was the breadwinner for plenty of years.

• 53:54Ramit Sethi?

  That's sweet. I love the way that the two of you complement each other and recognize each other. It's really cool. It's really beautiful. Laura, you just really growing your income beyond what you ever thought possible. Jason, growing up, single mom, going to the Navy for 14 years, and within four years, making this kind of money, again, does not happen by accident. Lot of hard decisions made, a lot of luck, a lot of hard work. And what you just shared is a lot of partnership as well. It's like, wow, a lot of things had to go right in order for that to happen.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  Very much so.

• 54:30Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, I'm so happy to hear it. I would like to take my positive feelings about your stories, and I'd like to almost pass it along to you in the way that I would like for you to, to feel really good about money. Really good. You know, I grew up a middle-class family. My parents immigrants. And I always felt I would be like, financially successful. And it happened. And I'm really grateful for it. I would like for the two of you together to be able to say like, damn, look at the journey we went on. Each of us, and then together. And like, gosh, for us to be able to buy a van, or to be able to retire, or to even be able to talk about retiring. What an amazing position that we are in.

• 55:17Ramit Sethi?

  In order to get there, probably your money needs to become a little simpler. Probably you need to change the way that you think about money and talk about money and ultimately feel about money. But you have the right raw ingredients, for sure. What is the vision for your rich life in retirement? I know you told me about being able to travel and stay here and there for a month and kind of do what you want. I appreciate that. What are some of the options that you might be willing to go through in order to retire early?

• 55:47Speaker 02

  We have a lot of different ideas about what we could potentially do from like, let's sell the house we live in and just live in the van and be on like, an extended road trip for like, a year or two. Everything from that to let's like, move to Spain for a couple of years.

• 56:07Speaker 01

  The vast majority of scenarios, almost all of them, include selling our current primary residence and downsizing a bit. I think we've come to a agreement that we don't need this many bedrooms for a retirement home.

• 56:18Ramit Sethi?

  Where would you live?

• 56:19Speaker 01

  San Diego is one option, but it's very expensive. Nevada is another option. Spain is another large option. And then part of what she said before about driving around in the van, that like, that would be like, the pre-retirement of driving around and trying to decide where to settle down.

• 56:34Ramit Sethi?

  Got it. What about the rental property?

• 56:36Speaker 01

  It's a great home and we can live in it in one of the units and still just rent out the other two. And to me personally, I would like to hold it forever as it makes me feel comfortable. That's one of those things that I'm like, with this, I am comfortable. Like, we can lose everything, but if we have this and just a small amount of extinction of that, I'm kind of guaranteed, then we can survive anything. And that's my safety net.

• 56:59Ramit Sethi?

  Great. Just a lot of options.

• 57:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:01Ramit Sethi?

  What does it feel like when you think about the options? Does it feel great? Does it feel overwhelming?

• 57:05Speaker 01

  That one. It's the overwhelming one. Because when you retire, when you pull that trigger, you don't go back. It's not like, I'm like, oh, I'm just gonna go back to my old company and just, I'll come right back in real fast. And like, I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's difficult.

• 57:18Ramit Sethi?

  And Laura, what about for you?

• 57:20Speaker 02

  It feels amazing to even be able to like, talk about something like this. Like, never would have dreamed this for myself in my 20s. But like I was saying before, I don't want to do that unless I'm 1,000% sure that we can.

• 57:36Ramit Sethi?

  If I can just ask this question, what if this were not an irreversible decision? Like, what if you could lower the stakes of this decision? Because right now, it feels existential.

• 57:49Speaker 02

  It does. I was just thinking like, in a lot of different scenarios that we've talked about, when we talk about retirement, I always say, I don't mind getting a part-time job at a bookshop. And then Jason's like, no, that like, defeats the entire purpose. But to me, I'm like, it's like a transition. Like, I can like, work at a job that's not like, doesn't feel super high stakes. And then like, you know, like you transition into living a different.

• 58:17Speaker 02

  Life.

• 58:18Ramit Sethi?

  I like that. That's a great example of lowering the stakes. Lowering the stakes could be, hey, instead of doing this, burn all the boats, we are going to do it more gradually. We are going to take a one-year sabbatical or three-month sabbatical. We are going to travel for two years. We're gonna give ourselves a very generous amount of money and then we are going to regroup and we're gonna answer these five questions. Do we still like it? Do we still not? Da, da, da, da, da. And if we aren't loving it, we're gonna go back and get another job, understanding that we may not make as much as we are currently making, but maybe the possibility is we both go, or one of us goes back to work.

• 59:03Ramit Sethi?

  Speaking of which, another lowering the stakes approach is one person stops working for a while. I don't know if this applies to you or not. We'll play with some scenarios. But existential is scary. I always ask myself for big questions, how do we lower the stakes? It's just a good framework to interrogate these big life decisions. Okay, so you wanna know, can you retire in your early 40s? Like, that is the primary reason that we are talking today, right?

• 59:31Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 59:32Ramit Sethi?

  All right. Well, I told you I'm gonna give you some crisp answers to it. I am. Laura, in your application, you wrote, quote, "It seems like we're living in two different realities. We'd like to know whose version is closer to the truth and come up with a retirement plan based on what is actually possible."

• 59:49Speaker 02

  I said "we" and it was just me.

• 59:52Ramit Sethi?

  Right. We are living.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  I'm first now hearing this.

• 59:55Ramit Sethi?

  All right. I did wanna help you see some different realities, some different scenarios. So, we shared your financial details with our partners at Facet. We gave them your CSP, your cash flow, assets, investments, liabilities, and rental information. And I'm going to show you three different scenarios. I'll give you a lot of details here. Facet found that all three are financially viable.

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  Oh, thank God.

• 1:00:22Ramit Sethi?

  All three. Okay. Laura, I see the look on your face. What is that look?

• 1:00:28Speaker 02

  Happy.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  Before this, she told me, she's like, one of the things she expected was, we're gonna, she's like, we're gonna meet with our mate and he's just gonna go, "You're crazy. There's not a chance that you could ever retire." And I was like, Laura, that's not gonna happen.

• 1:00:44Ramit Sethi?

  Laura, I noticed that you're tearing up here.

• 1:00:49Ramit Sethi?

  Take a second. We're in no rush. Take as long as you need.

• 1:00:53Speaker 02

  Just scoot over here.

• 1:01:00Speaker 02

  And that.

• 1:01:01Ramit Sethi?

  I don't mind you crying. I appreciate it. What are you feeling right now?

• 1:01:05Speaker 02

  It's like joy and just very like, and like relief.

• 1:01:10Ramit Sethi?

  Relief. Yeah. What's amazing is, we haven't even gotten to the scenarios, but it's just.

• 1:01:16Speaker 02

  I'm thinking.

• 1:01:19Ramit Sethi?

  It seems like just hearing that three scenarios are possible really reached you. It affected you.

• 1:01:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. I also feel like a little bit kinda bad because this is stuff that Jason has been telling me, like, he's like, "I engineered this thing for like retirement scenarios. Like, we can do this."

• 1:01:41Ramit Sethi?

  This was quite a moment. I haven't even gotten to the three scenarios that Facet prepared for this couple. All I have said is, Facet found each of the scenarios financially viable. And she cries. It's such a beautiful moment. It's also so revealing. This idea that there's been so much tension bottled up, so much, that finally, somebody comes along, we're sitting in different cities, and somebody you've just met a couple of hours ago, and he says, "All three scenarios work," and you cry. It tells me that just hearing you're going to be okay

• 1:02:26Ramit Sethi?

  is such a powerful message. It also tells me, fortunately or unfortunately, that sometimes hearing it from your own partner doesn't work. And although it's usually a man who agrees with me, here we have Laura, a woman, who agrees with me, even though her partner's been trying to tell her this for years. I don't want to see people bottling up anxiety. I actually don't wanna see them bottling up anything. If you wanna cry, cry. I love it. If you're angry, be angry. We've got to be able to express the way that we feel. And it feels kind of surreal for a guy like me, who was not taught to express my feelings, to be saying that now.

• 1:03:11Ramit Sethi?

  That's part of my journey. That's why I love what I do. Because I grew up, go look at my old videos, I had no emotion. This is how I talked. Why won't you put me on TV? I'm so happy right now. I have no emotion. It took a lot of self-work to be able to communicate how I was feeling. And so, I do love that Laura cried. I love that she expressed herself. Going forward, I would love to see less bottling up of emotions and more expressing them consistently over time. Y'all follow these people on TikTok? Somebody will post a picture of them behind a blade of grass and a white background, and they go, "Find me."

• 1:03:52Ramit Sethi?

  And then this person on TikTok will locate them, GeoMap, Google Map, all this stuff. They go, "This is where you live. This is the angle of the sun. This is who you are." I'm watching this stuff like, what? This is pretty scary. If someone can find you online from just a little bit of information, imagine the damage that a scammer with your actual personal data can do. That is why I pay for and use DeleteMe personally. DeleteMe is a subscription service that continually searches for and removes your data from the internet. I'm talking about things like your full name, email, phone number, address, even your parents' names. Gone. They've been the leading expert in personal information removal for the past 15 years.

• 1:04:36Ramit Sethi?

  They use their own technology, so your data is never outsourced to third parties. And they were named Wirecutter's number one data removal service for a reason. That's why I personally use this service. Because I care about my privacy and I think you will love it too. You'll get 20% off all consumer plans when you go to joindelete.me/ramit and use promo code RAMIT at checkout. That's joindelete.me/ramit, code RAMIT for 20% off. I wanna thank our new partners at Monarch for setting up our couples on their platform to see their exact conscious spending plan categories. Monarch is a private personal finance app that brings all of a household's accounts, checking credit cards, loans, and investments,

• 1:05:21Ramit Sethi?

  into one clean dashboard on your phone or computer. One of the biggest reasons I chose to partner with them is that Monarch is built for couples. You can add your partner or even your financial planner at no extra cost, so everyone can see the same financial picture with shared goals. This turns your monthly money meeting into calmer check-ins where everyone is on the same page. One thing I love about Monarch is it allows you to save up for your rich life goals. If you wanna save for a wedding, or an amazing vacation, an emergency fund, a house, a baby, college, retirement, Monarch makes it really easy. You set your goals up, you tell it how much you wanna save towards that goal every month. Monarch lets you see your progress visually along the way.

• 1:06:03Ramit Sethi?

  Try Monarch for free today and get 50% off your first year of Monarch's core tier with code RAMIT at monarch.com/ramit. And when you sign up with my link only, you'll get your Monarch account customized with my exact CSP categories, so you can see how you are stacking up to your plan each month. That's monarch.com/ramit with code RAMIT. So, I appreciate the trust you've given me. I do wanna walk you through some of the scenarios. And I would like you to know, again, all of these scenarios are financially viable. It's actually up to you to choose which one feels right to you, okay? There is no right decision. It is what is right for you.

• 1:06:46Ramit Sethi?

  So, here are some of the assumptions that they made. You can always change these assumptions on your own, but I'll just give it to you quickly. They assume that income and expenses increase 3% annually. Spending is based on your current CSP, including $3,000 a month for travel. That's great. Student loans, $576 a month, paid off by 2045. Early retirement healthcare is $1,200 per person per month until 65. Before 59 and 1/2, retirement is funded through rental income and taxable investments. Jason's pension begins at 65, social security at 67. Investments grow and gradually become more conservative as you age. Plan runs through age 95.

• 1:07:30Ramit Sethi?

  And therefore, I would like to show you three different scenarios. Scenario one, retire at 45.

• 1:07:37Ramit Sethi?

  Move into the rental property and travel via van. Let's go through it. You move into one of the units. Laura's mom moves into one of the rental units, which would reduce the income. You would cut your spending by $3,500 per month and your net worth at age 95 would be $3 million.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  Which means we would have too much money because I plan to, in the 90s, I would like to have $0.

• 1:08:08Ramit Sethi?

  Zero, yeah. We want to always have a little healthy buffer, but if you're telling me $3 million is too much to end up. Okay, I totally respect that. Yeah. The trade off here is you would retire earliest and you would support mom, but you'd have less spending flexibility. Okay, that's option one. Scenario two, retire at 47, sell your current house, move to Vegas. So in this case, you work two more years, sell your house, buy a $600,000 Vegas home outright, keep your rental, including one unit for Laura's mom. You could increase your spending by $3,000 a month, which is a total of about almost $25,000 a month in spending.

• 1:08:49Ramit Sethi?

  Your net worth at 95 would be $4.69 million. The trade off here is you'd work two more years, but you'd have a lot more spending flexibility.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  Are we able to adjust these like with like large things?

• 1:09:05Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, of course. These are scenarios given based on the assumptions that Facet ran, you know? But you can totally change these and play with them on your own. Let's go to scenario three. So you work until 55 while maintaining your current lifestyle and property setup, including support for Laura's mom. You could increase your spending by $5,000 a month, which translates into about almost $32,000 in monthly spending. Your net worth at 95 would be $9.4 million. And the trade off here is you would have the most financial freedom, but you would have 10 more years of work from scenario one. Okay, so Jason's shaking his head already. Here are some questions to ask, just like rapid fire.

• 1:09:46Ramit Sethi?

  Is retiring at 45 worth cutting $3,500 a month in spending?

• 1:09:54Speaker 02

  How much did you say that the monthly spending would be?

• 1:09:57Ramit Sethi?

  Good question. In scenario one, you would have about $18,000 of monthly spending.

• 1:10:03Speaker 02

  That's spending after that mortgage is paid?

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  Regardless, $18,000 a month is $216,000 a year. I think that's a fine amount to live off of and honestly, higher than anything that I've been projecting for us.

• 1:10:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:20Speaker 01

  I've been putting aside roughly 170 for our projections.

• 1:10:23Ramit Sethi?

  That's great. That's a lot. That's more. You currently spend roughly $6,000 a month on guilt free spending. Would you be willing to reduce that number in certain areas for several more years? That's a question to ask. And does it actually feel like your rich life? What do you think?

• 1:10:43Speaker 02

  I think yes. I think my rich life is like not really about spending more money. It's just about having more time together and more time to do the things that we actually want to do. And a lot of those things honestly don't cost a lot of money. Like going to the mountains and climbing doesn't cost money really.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  Our favorite thing to do is just be together, to be honest. And typically that's free. And like she said, time is more important to us, I think. And I would willingly cut a good amount to just have more time.

• 1:11:25Ramit Sethi?

  You know, I really love your answer and I love it because the two of you are aligned. You have a clear vision of what's important to you. And I think sometimes people think that I am the guy who tells people you need to spend more money. But what I love is you have calculated a trade off. You're like, look, we could accumulate more money, but actually, most of the stuff we enjoy is being together and just having time. That's a very clear vision. It's actually so rare. You're starting to come across what is enough. And I can see the way you two talk about it. You don't just need endless amounts more of money. I think so awesome, so revealing, so rare. So this is great. Your vision is coming through.

• 1:12:10Ramit Sethi?

  I really love it. Laura, what would it mean for you to be able to provide your mom a place to live?

• 1:12:15Speaker 02

  If she needs it, I would like to be able to like give that to her because right now it's kind of like, it's a question mark. I don't know what she'll need. I don't know where she'll want to go.

• 1:12:25Ramit Sethi?

  It's an option. You know, you might talk about it and say like, hey, we'd love to be able to provide housing. Maybe the rental unit isn't the place we want to put her, but we can get another place. There's so many different ways you could do it. But just to put an end to the question and feel confident and feel good.

• 1:12:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:40Ramit Sethi?

  So much of feeling good about money is just taking these open questions and actually being decisive to come up with an answer. Laura, what comes up for you when you hear working until 47 versus 45?

• 1:12:55Speaker 02

  I'd rather stop working at 45, I think.

• 1:12:59Ramit Sethi?

  Good to know. Jason, how about you?

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  Oh, that's a hard no for me, dog.

• 1:13:03Ramit Sethi?

  So 45 for you, you want earlier.

• 1:13:06Speaker 01

  I think 45 is right now at the top end of my limit as well.

• 1:13:11Ramit Sethi?

  Wow, great. Okay, you both are quite aligned. This is interesting. But just to play the other side of the coin, hey, what if you ended up with $9.4 million in your 90s? What would that mean to you?

• 1:13:25Speaker 02

  I don't really want that.

• 1:13:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't want that either, to be honest.

• 1:13:28Ramit Sethi?

  You know, it's interesting. When you have people who haven't really planned their retirement out at all, you talk about what would it mean to have $3 million in your 90s or whatever? They go like, oh my God, that would be a dream. But when you actually are high earners, when you've been planning retirement, maxing out your 401k and some of these numbers become more of a certainty rather than a dream, then you start to look at it in a different way. You know, for a lot of people correctly, they're like, it would be a failure if I was in my 90s and I had like $15 million. That's a failure of living my rich life because it means I did not spend money effectively along the way. It means I wasn't generous. I wasn't adventurous. It means I worked years extra to have more money that I didn't even need.

• 1:14:13Ramit Sethi?

  And what am I going to do by the time I'm 92? What's it for?

• 1:14:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:14:17Ramit Sethi?

  That's what I'm hearing from the two of you.

• 1:14:19Speaker 02

  We are not like gonna have anybody to leave that to.

• 1:14:24Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. So the time is more valuable than money down the road and to some extent, even money now. That's really a powerful realization.

• 1:14:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:36Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. I can tell from talking to you that working 10 extra years from 45 to 55 is like out of the question. We already know that. That actually is a relief to close a door. Which of these feels right to you? Just to put a button on it.

• 1:14:51Speaker 02

  I'd say 45. And like my remaining questions are just like, how do you do that? Like, I don't know how to turn off that part of my brain that's like must go to work every day. And I'm also like, I just don't think, I don't get, like where's the money coming from to support that? But like if we stop working, you know?

• 1:15:15Ramit Sethi?

  We'll talk about that. Those are great questions. The mindset and the day to day logistics. Those are both great questions. It can be challenging to nail all the logistics of retirement, knowing when to take social security, knowing which account to draw from first. Just being able to say, how have other people done this? And how much can we afford to spend on travel every year? For some people, they are going to want to use a flat fee advisor like Facet. Our friends at Facet have helped lots of listeners of the Money for Couples podcast. They are the ones responsible for creating today's three scenarios. And if you are looking for a little help

• 1:15:58Ramit Sethi?

  with your retirement scenario planning or other complex topics, I would recommend you check out Facet. Jason, what about for you? What comes up?

• 1:16:08Speaker 01

  Realistically, I think about 42 is the number that I kind of land on.

• 1:16:13Ramit Sethi?

  So earlier, spending less than projected, but earlier than 45.

• 1:16:18Speaker 01

  I don't think we'd have to spend less than projected. I think we can give roughly about the 45, our projection at 42.

• 1:16:24Ramit Sethi?

  How?

• 1:16:25Speaker 01

  Like, we don't have to pay for healthcare. We have free healthcare for the rest of our lives. So that's like a big one that helps out a lot there.

• 1:16:31Ramit Sethi?

  Well, early retirement healthcare, $1,200 per person per month until 65. That's a huge amount, massive. So you're right, if you have healthcare already covered, then that changes the game in your favor of retiring younger. I'm sure you can calculate all of this and tweak it, no doubt. And in fact, I will put you in touch with Facet so that you can run any of your scenarios by them. Happy to make that introduction for you. They're great. And you can run everything by them for a second set of eyes. So 42 to 45, we're kind of centralizing around there. That's kind of right around the corner.

• 1:17:09Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And it comes with a lot of emotions, for sure.

• 1:17:13Ramit Sethi?

  Like?

• 1:17:13Speaker 01

  As we discussed earlier, I'd like the apprehension of how does one just stop? It's kind of reminiscent of when I got out of the military.

• 1:17:21Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  I know I can still work. I can get another job, but the job I have now is very good. And stepping out of that door and knowing it's not a revolving door is definitely scary.

• 1:17:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:33Ramit Sethi?

  A lot of people, especially men, find retirement very difficult. It's their source of meaning, is their source of purpose, status, and they become extremely uncomfortable at seeing their financial number only go down now. That is incredibly scary. And so often you'll see them start to like become really overly frugal. Even though they have all the money they can, this is classic for retirees. They'll only go to a matinee. It's like, why are we talking about $5, $10?

• 1:18:07Speaker 01

  We do that now, but just because we're old, I think.

• 1:18:10Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Well, we got larger issues to talk about. But okay, I like that you are already thinking about what happens when you start to take the money and use it and not just grow it. How do you think you could make your transition in just a few years easier? Like right now, you both have paychecks. Those paychecks are going to vanish. How do you think you're both going to feel when those large paychecks vanish?

• 1:18:36Speaker 02

  Not great. Like, I literally don't know what to do.

• 1:18:39Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, so. Jason, what do you think?

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  I'd say this is something I've actually already started preparing for. So I have my paychecks from my job go directly to my savings account. And my checking account is only populated by my current pension check. So I kind of have already started like being like, okay, this is what it looks like to get this amount of money per month. And I kind of try to stick to just my checking account if possible.

• 1:19:07Ramit Sethi?

  Great. Laura, what's your take on that?

• 1:19:09Speaker 02

  I guess I do kind of do a similar thing, but like when I get my paycheck, I transfer most of it into savings out of checking and I give myself like a budget for each month. Like I'll keep a thousand dollars in my checking account or whatever, maybe something like that.

• 1:19:24Ramit Sethi?

  I think that's pretty good. I think it's a great start. When the paycheck stops for you, Laura, how are you going to pay for stuff?

• 1:19:31Speaker 02

  I guess with just with, I guess with Jason's pension.

• 1:19:37Speaker 01

  I think we'll just use the credit card for everything and then I would pay off the credit card. I think that's pretty much how everything would transition.

• 1:19:44Ramit Sethi?

  You could mechanically that would work, but can you see Laura's discomfort here? Cause she's like, I actually don't know. This is where the two of you can actually come together and start to simulate what's going to happen. Doing this, especially now, would actually be really beautiful because you have a vision. You know what's coming approximately four or five years from now. You know it. You're going to run your calculations. You're going to talk to Facet. And you're going to be like, okay, this is the approximate date that we are going to do it. What are the things we need to do to feel really good? I, Laura, I don't even understand how it's going to work in terms of income. Like, let's say we're going to retire on January 1st.

• 1:20:28Ramit Sethi?

  January 2nd, how am I paying for groceries? Or like, we're going on a trip, like, how am I putting some money in there? Oh, I've realized that we don't actually have a joint account that we use. Let's do that now and let's start simulating. So money comes there instead of your individual accounts. You can transfer it here and there. Great. Okay, this is working a month or two. We both feel good. We ironed out a couple of things. And if something goes wrong, we still got years. Okay, suddenly Jason's pension is going into the joint. You can transfer some money in from your savings to simulate what will happen from your investments that you're going to draw, let's just say 2.5 or 3% from.

• 1:21:10Ramit Sethi?

  You can do all this stuff and you can simulate and you can be like, hey, let's talk about it. Here's what happened. Here's a diagram of how everything flows. And you already know what's going to happen January 1st XYZ year. Laura, how would that feel?

• 1:21:24Speaker 02

  That would feel good. I haven't even ever thought about like the logistics of like withdrawing money when you don't have a paycheck.

• 1:21:32Ramit Sethi?

  Most retirees have no idea how this works. Why would they? They spent their whole life accumulating and saving. And now they have to deaccumulate. So I think starting off just simulating it with plenty of time to go is an awesome way to start and to feel really good. And then over time, you can get into some of the more complicated things like tax advantages and which account you draw from and things like that. I have no doubt you'll be well advised. Facet and others can advise on that kind of question. I think if you did that, it would actually bring you together right now. Jason, what do you think?

• 1:22:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's one of the things I do the most amount of research on, like getting money out of the 401k, converting it Roth and moving Roth IRAs and like all that stuff. And then just, you know, adding more things onto it and it just starts getting me like overwhelmed and like, ah.

• 1:22:24Ramit Sethi?

  Do you want to do it yourself?

• 1:22:26Speaker 01

  I do want to do it myself. Um, I don't want to give people money to manage my money most of the time.

• 1:22:32Ramit Sethi?

  Fair enough. Yeah. Listen, for most people, I think they can manage their own money and they should. I think that some people in certain situations, high net worth, et cetera, it might make sense to get help. You know my philosophy. If you're going to pay for help, it's fine. I've hired a financial advisor myself before. I just don't believe in paying AUM. So I believe in flat fee, hourly fee, et cetera. But I think it's worth thinking about if it starts to feel like overwhelming or like, God, this is a lot of logistics. And I sure would like a little bit of help. Just reminder, the same as I reminded Laura when we're talking about her jean jacket is the two of you make $820,000 a year. You certainly have the money to get some help for anything that's important to you, especially over the next few years. So if you want to, I would encourage you to.

• 1:23:17Ramit Sethi?

  Laura, what about other ways of feeling good? What do you think would help you feel confident, competent about your finances?

• 1:23:25Speaker 02

  I feel a little bit better after like getting Monarch and doing our CSP. Cause I know like the shape of our finances. I just, I feel like my knowledge is very minimal. It's like, I know how much we have in what investment accounts. Beyond that, I'm not well versed in.

• 1:23:44Ramit Sethi?

  Have you read this?

• 1:23:47Speaker 02

  I have it.

• 1:23:47Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. That's okay. I'm not here to blame you, you know? I think it's just a very clear answer. I think you're right. I think that if you don't understand how money works, especially with the kind of numbers of zeros we're talking about here, it just starts to feel really overwhelming and onerous. But if you understand the basics of money, then you will become so much more competent, which is going to make your confidence go way up.

• 1:24:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I still feel like I might have a lot of reservations about like, am I making the right decision with this withdrawal or I don't know.

• 1:24:23Ramit Sethi?

  I think that's probably true. If I were you, this is how I would be looking at it. Based on what Jason and I discuss and talk to Facet, we are going to retire in approximately five years. This date, we're both going to know that it feels good. We're going to have the money. We're going to do it. How do I want to feel by the time I get there?

• 1:24:46Speaker 02

  Confident and competent and in control.

• 1:24:50Ramit Sethi?

  Nice. How do you want to feel when it comes to like, should we go to Greece? Or should we go to whatever?

• 1:24:59Speaker 02

  All of those same things. Instead of just basing it on vibes.

• 1:25:03Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. Yeah. So you want to feel good. You want to feel confident, competent, in control. You want to feel good about these.

• 1:25:09Speaker 02

  I want to, I want to know when I say yes, why I'm saying yes, and if I say no, why I'm saying no.

• 1:25:15Ramit Sethi?

  Nice. Nice. I love that. And Jason, how about you? How do you want to feel?

• 1:25:22Speaker 01

  Everything she said just sounded pretty perfect. Can I second that? That was, that was good.

• 1:25:26Ramit Sethi?

  You can second that. How do you want the two of you to interact? Cause right now, notice the dynamic that you mentioned, which is Jason kind of comes up with an idea of like spending money. And then Laura goes, I don't know, let me give you a lower number than that. And then let's haggle over it and let's do that for the rest of our life. I don't love that dynamic.

• 1:25:43Speaker 01

  I don't want it to change completely though, because she keeps me in check.

• 1:25:47Ramit Sethi?

  Look, when you say she keeps me in check, I know it's funny, but it actually puts her in a bad position. It puts her in the position of having to be the, the naysayer, the person who says no. And it actually is not serving Laura. She's actually been in that role for a long time. And I think Laura, you would admit, you're not quite sure sometimes why you are like feeling uncomfortable with these things, as you put it, it's vibes. But Jason, I think that by joking about it and subtly putting her in that position, it's actually not serving her or how the two of you want to be. The two of you have a lot of money. You're making a super bold move. You're able to justify it because of the hard work that you've done and good luck. To me, I'm like, why, why not rewrite our story?

• 1:26:32Ramit Sethi?

  And actually be super crystal clear about what's important to us. And when one of us proposes something, as long as it fits within our guidelines and our rules, the other should be like, this is awesome. Let's do it. That feels good. My wife came to me and she goes like, hey, let's go on this long trip. I said, how long? She goes, let's go for like three or four months. I was like, I'm in. Just like that. I'm in. I don't know where, I don't know how, but when my partner gets excited about something, unless it's like unsafe or something I'm diametrically opposed to, I'm in. That's my philosophy. Wouldn't it be nice to be like that? Knowing that you know your numbers.

• 1:27:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think the first step is knowing the numbers. So yeah.

• 1:27:16Ramit Sethi?

  There we go. Knowing the numbers, Jason, you've got to really listen to what Laura is saying. Laura's saying, hey, I don't feel that I know enough about money right now, which is fair. Read the book, do a little book club, go through it, do it together. Amazing. You'll be way more competent. But I think Laura might also be saying like, I don't want to have to be in the role that is like saying no. I would love for Laura to be like, hey, let's go to Greece. Let's do this. Let's do that. I want to get this jacket. I bought it yesterday. How would that feel to you, Jason?

• 1:27:52Speaker 01

  Oh, it's definitely larger things than that that she keeps you in check for.

• 1:27:55Ramit Sethi?

  I would love for Laura to say, hey, that sounds really interesting. Let's sit down and show me the math.

• 1:28:01Speaker 01

  Oh man, this is a good point. This is actually kind of what brings us here. I a thousand percent showed her the math and I showed her the math for months and months and months. And sooner or later I did win out. We bought the, the, the house. It was a fantastic financial move on, on our part and it was great. But she did not, you know, believe that. So then now when I'm like, we can retire, like, and like, here's all the math. I've literally built models on this and then uh, she's like, I don't know. And then you're like, hey, you can retire. And she's like, oh my God, it's true.

• 1:28:38Ramit Sethi?

  It's gotta be frustrating. You've built all these, I don't know how many hours you freaking smoke coming out of your computer. And then I come along, I say like five words. I'm like, yeah, it's all good. She's like, oh my God. And then the tears start coming. I know that's frustrating. Let me ask Laura, Laura, why didn't you believe Jason when he showed you his models?

• 1:28:55Speaker 02

  I know our net worth. I know our fixed costs. I know all the lines on that spreadsheet. But he has a better handle on how our money actually works. And I don't have that knowledge.

• 1:29:11Ramit Sethi?

  Now let me try to make Jason's argument for him. Tell me your reaction. He might say, but I showed you all the math. What's your reaction?

• 1:29:21Speaker 02

  Showing the math and like having a deep understanding of the math are two different things.

• 1:29:28Speaker 01

  Well, what is the difference in what I did and what Ramit did? They didn't even show you the math. They just said it.

• 1:29:35Speaker 02

  I think the difference is a while back, like when we first started talking about, it was always just so abstract. And like, what if we could do this? Like if we like went to Spain and came home, we'd be like, God, wouldn't it be so cool? Like we're retired and we could stay as long as we wanted. And like, we talked about like, what would we do with our time? If we like, weren't working eight hours a day. Um, but we weren't talking about like, how to do it.

• 1:29:57Ramit Sethi?

  Do you all see what's going on here?

• 1:30:00Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:30:00Ramit Sethi?

  Most people for their entire lives, this kind of stuff is all just a dream. It's just a fantasy. What if we could go to Spain? What if we could go to Disneyland for a week and all? It's just a dream. They don't really know how to talk about it in a way that is a plan. And so you've been doing the same thing, even though your income and net worth has been skyrocketing. So you're in many ways still living like most people live, which is just like, oh, wouldn't it be nice? It takes real skill to accept we can do almost anything we want to do. So when we talk about this stuff, we need to both find a way of bringing it up

• 1:30:43Ramit Sethi?

  in a way that like, first of all, am I even serious? Do I really want to do this? The other partner has to learn the skill of how to receive that. And the two of you have to talk about it as if it's an actual possibility. Because right now, I think the way that you have been discussing things for a long time is just like this abstract thing. What would happen if you go through the rest of your life doing it like that?

• 1:31:02Speaker 02

  We'd never really do it.

• 1:31:04Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. You would do cool stuff. You'd go, you know, go camping. That's awesome. You two have told me you enjoy it. That's amazing. I think you should. That's fantastic. But what about all the stuff you could do? When my wife and I were talking about money, um, early on, this was during, when we were talking about a prenup. My vision was like, I want to be so generous that there can be no question that I'm trying to like, quote, get one over. I go there, I've prepared all this stuff. I felt so good. And I was shocked at the response. I was taken aback. I was surprised that I felt like I wasn't really being heard. And my wife felt the same way. She wasn't being heard and we started to get in arguments, disagreements.

• 1:31:49Ramit Sethi?

  And this went on for a long time. And I was like, look at the math. This model is so beautiful. And what I didn't realize at the time and appreciate was when she finally said like, we should go see a therapist because this is not good. And we went out of our apartment and we went to this therapist's office and she asked us this question. What does money mean to you? I was like, it means growth. So obvious. And then to her, money meant safety. And I looked at her like, what? What does that word even have to do with money? Because it hadn't meant safety to me in like 30 years. I've been earning since I was like 14 years old. But it dawned on me as we were talking in that little office, that we just saw money completely differently.

• 1:32:32Ramit Sethi?

  And that really began that evolution of not just the math part, which is important, but also the softer part of talking and painting a vision together and all of that stuff. A lot of that has happened on today's call, even though you may not realize it. Because the two of you are just talking naturally about your own life, which is my favorite thing to do. But think about all the little subtleties that happened today. Joking with the two of you. We're laughing. We're having fun. Asking you about your childhood, validating, saying, look, we don't have to do it all today. Some of it we can deal with later. You can talk to Facet. You can do this stuff. So much of that is the skills that I would encourage you to build over time.

• 1:33:13Ramit Sethi?

  Because you actually don't have something that most Americans have, which is scarcity about money. You can do what you want to do. It's incredibly empowering and a little bit scary because very few other people have that. But I think it's just awesome. I just think it's so cool. So Laura, tell me what you might be able to do in, let's say, the next 10 days to start having a more positive relationship with money.

• 1:33:42Speaker 02

  In the next 10 days, I can learn more about how our money works beyond just how much of it we have.

• 1:33:52Ramit Sethi?

  What do you need from Jason?

• 1:33:53Speaker 02

  I think it would be cool if I sat down with Jason and actually like, looked at what he's created instead of just having him tell me about it. That might make it more concrete for me.

• 1:34:04Ramit Sethi?

  I think that's really cool. I bet you he would love that. I know that I loved it when, when my wife started asking me about, what compound interest calculator do you use? I was like, go to my website. The real interest is like awesome. You know, Jason's put a lot of work into this. I think that's awesome for you to get curious about it. I think you're right on the money. That's amazing. Jason, how about you? What could you do in the next 10 days to have a, let's call it healthier relationship with money? And then what do you need from Laura?

• 1:34:34Speaker 01

  Why do we, uh, let's call it healthier relationship with money? I'm confused by that framing.

• 1:34:39Ramit Sethi?

  Great question. That's an excellent question, actually. Why am I a little bit hesitant? I think Jason, you have a pretty healthy relationship with money, actually. The only thing that I've noticed that is a bit of a flag, not even a red flag, but a flag, is that you have mentioned a couple of times that you're the optimist, which I love. And also sometimes you like for Laura to maybe keep you in check, which I don't love. Right? The area that I mentioned is really about creating a culture where Laura feels confident, competent about money. While Laura takes on the responsibility of also becoming competent and confident with money.

• 1:35:21Ramit Sethi?

  You two do that, you're like, you're gonna not only live an awesome life, but feel great doing it.

• 1:35:27Speaker 01

  I want to sit down and answer any question she has and I want to be a wealth of knowledge for her. But I don't want to be pushy about it as well. So there's a lot of things I want to do, but I'm like, I'm struggling on thinking of um, an actual step.

• 1:35:41Ramit Sethi?

  Here's some of the things I might consider doing if I were in your position. I might make a visual diagram of how our money flows. And I might say like, hey, I'm going to leave this here and let me know if you'd like to talk about it in the next few days. I'd love to walk through it with you. Next up, I might say like, hey, I've been thinking about our conversation with Ramit. And I've realized as we get closer to retirement, I just think it would be cool to write down some of the things that are really important to us. I made a draft. I'd love to know what you think. And right at the top or in the top three is, provide for your mom so she's always taken care of. Right?

• 1:36:19Speaker 01

  Man, Lauren loves a pros and cons.

• 1:36:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have a whole system.

• 1:36:24Ramit Sethi?

  There you go. So it's recognizing some of the things that you already know that are on her mind and just proactively saying, hey, here's what I'm thinking. What do you think about it? Those kinds of things go a long way. One other thing is I might say, let's go back to that store. Cause that jean jacket's been on my mind and I really want you to get it.

• 1:36:44Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm chuckling because there is a repeat thing with this particular store. Whenever you find something, you like it and you're like, oh, awesome. I'm going to think about it for five months. And then five months later, she's like, you know what? I'm gonna buy it. And then go there and our buddy Brian's like, it's sold.

• 1:37:04Ramit Sethi?

  It's gone.

• 1:37:05Speaker 01

  You've been doing this.

• 1:37:06Speaker 02

  It happens to me a lot.

• 1:37:08Ramit Sethi?

  That's hilarious. And Laura, I think probably a healthy relationship with money at your income level is if you see something you like below X thousand dollars, you get it and you feel great doing it.

• 1:37:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a good sweater. Yeah.

• 1:37:26Ramit Sethi?

  It's beautiful. The way that we did that in our household is we created a worry-free number. Anything below this number, we don't worry about. As your income and as your net worth goes up, that number should increase. For some people, it's a hundred, 500, $10,000, whatever the number is, we just simply do not worry about it. We get it. And you adjust it every year based on your finances. I feel like it'd be a really good idea to pick that number. I know that $79 fits in there. I know it. Philosophy for the rest of your life should be, we're going to enjoy it.

• 1:37:56Ramit Sethi?

  We don't get any benefit from playing small. We certainly don't get any benefit from suffering. We're gonna have an awesome life and we better feel good about it. And I think based on today, I have total confidence that you can. Laura, what surprised you about our conversation today?

• 1:38:11Speaker 02

  I guess that I don't actually have to do all of this worrying or like pinching pennies about like little things that I want.

• 1:38:23Ramit Sethi?

  And instead, you can what?

• 1:38:26Speaker 02

  Say yes and like get a thing if I want it. Although like I do think that's gonna take work for me because even saying that felt like a lie to be completely honest.

• 1:38:36Ramit Sethi?

  You know, an exercise we do in our Rich Life program, we have a number of people who are starting off in their financial journey and they want to know how to spend money more easily, more meaningfully. So we have this thing called the $100 challenge. And I give them roughly 48 hours. They have to spend $100. They have to spend on something they love. They cannot spend it on a spouse, a kid, a dog. It's just gotta be something for themselves. And when they buy it, they're sitting there and they're buying something they probably normally would not buy. I tell them to really monitor how they feel. They're going up to the register, they're going online. And all these things are going through their mind. Oh, my God, I could find this cheaper. Oh, my God, I could build this myself. Oh, my God, am I gonna derail my retirement?

• 1:39:20Ramit Sethi?

  And I just encourage them to just feel it. Don't shut it down. Listen. And after they buy it and they receive it, to really appreciate it and connect that to their money and realize that $100 did not change their life trajectory at all. Not one bit. Something I'd like to ask you to do in the next two days. Can you do it?

• 1:39:44Speaker 02

  Spend $100?

• 1:39:45Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:46Speaker 02

  I'll go see if that jacket's still there, but I feel like it's gone.

• 1:39:49Ramit Sethi?

  Great, great, perfect. And if it's gone, you gotta find something else. Something that you love.

• 1:39:57Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:39:57Ramit Sethi?

  Cool. All right, I can't wait to see the photo you send. I'd love to see whatever it is you choose to get. That'll be awesome. It's very lovely to see the two of you talk to each other and about each other. I really enjoy it. My dreams for you are different than other couples who come on here. You know, a lot of times they may be in serious debt. They may be overspending. You're not like that. I knew at the moment that I saw your miscellaneous expenses in Monarch and it was $7, I knew it. I said, this is a much more advanced couple. I'm gonna treat them accordingly. And what a beautiful thing. We did not have to spend two hours mired in the weeds about some random expense, but instead get to talk about the big picture. You wanna retire early? Great, you can do it.

• 1:40:42Ramit Sethi?

  Is it 42 or 43? I don't know. Run the calculations again and talk to Facet, but it's somewhere in there. Great. Most importantly, how do you feel good about it? How do you both get on the same page, understand money, and just start to feel really good, becoming skilled at spending money meaningfully? That to me is so exciting because you already won at the game of earning money. You're doing well at the game of managing money. The new game is the game of spending money meaningfully. I have a lot of confidence with this couple. I like watching the two of them talk. I love the way they interact with each other. There's a lot of love, there's a lot of mutual respect. To me, that is more predictive than almost anything else.

• 1:41:27Ramit Sethi?

  They could be making much less money and I would still feel confident because of their energy, because of the way they talk to each other, because of their understanding of the numbers at this point. But also, they make $818,000. So a high income solves a lot of financial problems. Don't let anybody tell you that's not true. They wanna do something really special, something remarkable. They wanna retire in their 40s. That's something almost nobody does. Because of the work that they have done, because of their high income, I think they have a very good shot at it. What will get in their way? Well, I think that mathematically, they're gonna be able to retire. I have no doubt about that. I think that the one thing could be

• 1:42:12Ramit Sethi?

  that they don't actually change the way they talk about money and the way they feel about money. And so they continue this trend of, you know, he's the optimist and she's the pessimist and they kind of go through life in that pattern. I think that would be a tragedy. But I think today actually shined the light on that dynamic and I think they have a very good chance of changing that. I want for them to feel good about money. I want for them to feel a sense of ease with money. And if they work hard and they practice it, they can definitely do it. I wanna give a huge shout out to this episode's sponsor, Facet. If you're thinking about your own retirement and you want specific scenarios on what your life might look like or you're dealing with a complex portfolio, go to facet.com/ramit.

• 1:42:57Ramit Sethi?

  What you saw today helps make these huge decisions more concrete. Like, when could I retire? How much can I spend? What would my life actually look like? As of the date of this recording, Facet is waiving their enrollment fee for new annual members. And for my audience, Facet is offering $300 into your brokerage account if you invest and maintain $5,000 within your first 90 days. Head to facet.com/ramit to learn more about which membership option is best for you. Offer ends December 31, 2026. I'm not a member of Facet, but I have an incentive to endorse them as I have an ongoing fee-based contract for cash compensation based on this endorsement. The Facet developed scenarios are for education purposes only,

• 1:43:42Ramit Sethi?

  are not advice, and do not guarantee a similar outcome. They are based on industry standard assumptions and inputs provided by Laura and Jason. As of the date of this recording, Laura and Jason are not members of Facet, nor were they compensated for their appearance. These opinions are my own and not a guarantee of a similar result. Facet is an SEC-registered investment advisor.