278. "We spend 108% of what we make. Are we screwed?"

Ramit unpacks how to stop overspending, take control of your money as a couple, and prepare financially for starting a family. Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You to Be Rich talks with Grace and Chris, who are 30 and 29 and have been married for six months. They have around $119,500 invested and unusually low housing costs, yet their finances feel chaotic and unstable. They spend more than they make, struggle to understand where the money goes, and have never had a substantive conversation about money as a couple. The deeper problem is the dynamic they’ve fallen into. Grace handles most of the money while Chris takes a back seat, and both avoid the uncomfortable conversations they know they need to have. With children now part of their near-term plans, Ramit pushes them to confront where their habits came from and what has to change before the stakes get even higher. In this episode, we uncover: Why Grace feels like she’s managing their money alone How Chris’s avoidance keeps the same cycle going Why “we’ll figure it out later” keeps costing them How a $100 weekend budget disappeared at a baseball game Why 108% fixed costs are only part of the problem How Amazon, eating out, and social spending keep slipping through the cracks How inheritance, a mortgage-free home, and family support shaped their relationship with money How their childhoods taught them to avoid talking about money Why starting a family makes their financial situation more urgent How they can finally start making financial decisions as a team Chapters: (00:00:00) Introduction (00:02:36) “I’m crying for help on a sinking ship” (00:16:53) The baseball game that exposes their money dynamic (00:24:22) Ramit opens up their numbers (00:40:37) Where their $119K investments came from (00:47:40) What their childhoods taught them about money (00:56:46) They’ve never defined their Rich Life (01:04:04) What happens if nothing changes? (01:18:32) Can they make the next 15 months work? (01:31:43) Follow-ups This episode is brought to you by: Wispr Flow | Try Wispr Flow for free at wisprflow.ai/ramit Gelt | Gelt is taking on new clients now. Find out if you qualify at https://joingelt.com/ramit NetSuite | If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get the free business guide “Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI Is Changing Everyday Work” at https://netsuite.com/ramit DeleteMe | Get 20% off all consumer plans when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/ramit and use promo code RAMIT at checkout Got a money question you’ve always wanted to ask me? Join me live on September 17th for “Why Your Budget Keeps Failing.” I’ll show you how to build a Conscious Spending Plan and answer your questions live. Join me: https://iwt.com/budget Ever wondered what recruiters actually think when they see your application? On September 16th, Google recruiter Nicky Slavich will reveal what makes recruiters keep reading and when to apply even if you’re underqualified. RSVP free: https://iwt.com/expertsession 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I feel like I'm crying for help on a sinking ship and no one is coming to help me.

• 0:04Ramit Sethi?

  Whoa, what's that number, Grace?

• 0:06Speaker 00

  Way do I.

• 0:07Ramit Sethi?

  108%, what does that tell you?

• 0:09Speaker 00

  That we spend more a month than we make.

• 0:11Ramit Sethi?

  You have no mortgage.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 0:13Ramit Sethi?

  So where's the money going?

• 0:14Speaker 02

  We're going out, Amazon packages are coming to the door and we're going out to eat and then that just kind of stacks up.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  We had a conversation, I need this amount and this amount for the taxes and the monthly bills from your paycheck, but then I'm watching him get beer after beer, buying other people drinks.

• 0:28Ramit Sethi?

  You two are skating on very thin ice. If I looked at these numbers, I go, give me a machete, I will cut this so aggressively.

• 0:36Speaker 00

  I would try and sit down and have conversations about it and he wouldn't engage in it.

• 0:40Speaker 02

  I don't know exactly how to talk about it or what's really going on.

• 0:45Ramit Sethi?

  You all are on the path to losing what you've got and potentially having to sell the house in the future, but that still has not made you have honest conversations about money. And you're married and talking about starting a family.

• 0:59Speaker 00

  Can I take a sec?

• 1:04Ramit Sethi?

  How many times have you watched couples argue about money on this show? Might even be the reason that you watch, and I don't mind, because I think arguing about money is natural. It is the way that most of us relate to money and I would rather have you disagree, even argue about money than not talk about it at all. Today, I'm speaking to Grace and Chris. They are 30 and 29 years old. They've been married for six months. They want to start a family and they can't even bring themselves to have healthy conversations about money. They don't argue, they don't disagree, they simply do not talk about money at all. I'm going to pull up their conscious spending plan. Assets, $390,000. Investments,

• 1:46Ramit Sethi?

  119K. At age 29, 30, that's very good. Savings, 7,350, that's lower than I want to see. Debt is 22K, total net worth, $494,000. Okay, so far, so good, but look at the next number. Fixed costs, 108%. What's going on here? Let's meet Grace and Chris. Let me take a look at the application because Grace, you wrote something that caught my attention. You wrote, "We are unable to make big life decisions like starting a family because he refuses to engage or participate in any of the money management while I know

• 2:29Ramit Sethi?

  that we are struggling and need to make changes." Do you remember writing that?

• 2:33Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm, yeah.

• 2:34Ramit Sethi?

  What was going on at the moment that you wrote that?

• 2:36Speaker 00

  Uh, that was a tough day for me. I think there, you know, we had had a really great conversation about where we wanting our, where we wanted our life to go next and that we are 100% on the same page about starting a family, but whenever I try and have conversations with Chris about it, it's usually, I know what the situation is, I just need to make more money. And I feel like I'm crying for help on a sinking ship and that, and no one is coming to help me. And it feels very chaotic, which causes a lot of stress. And then when you have a partner who isn't really ready or unable to have those conversations, it makes it really hard to kind of offload and partner on things.

• 3:11Ramit Sethi?

  You said, "It feels chaotic." What feels chaotic?

• 3:15Speaker 00

  Our day-to-day living expenses, our monthly expense, like just the financial aspect of our life feels chaotic and very unstable.

• 3:23Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Chris, what's your take on what Grace just said?

• 3:27Speaker 02

  We don't really set checklists. We don't really have plans. And I, and I do take responsibility for that too, because like I don't know exactly what to do or how to talk about it or what's really going on. Then we're going out and doing this and Amazon packages are coming to the door and we're going out to eat and friends, family, and then that just kind of stacks up and then we look back at it and we're kind of sinking. So.

• 4:00Ramit Sethi?

  Do you want to have the conversations about money?

• 4:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm very open to it.

• 4:06Ramit Sethi?

  Open to it? Or do you want to have them?

• 4:09Speaker 02

  I want to.

• 4:10Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 4:10Speaker 02

  I want to. She makes more money than I do in our situations. So I feel like, I feel like I don't have a whole lot of like control in it necessarily. It's like I, you know, paycheck to paycheck. She asks me for money and I give it to her and that's kind of it in my role. I just feel like I'm just kind of like the side, like the side person. You know, she, she asks for what she needs for our, you know, taxes and our monthly stuff and I just kind of give it to her and that's just kind of how it goes.

• 4:47Ramit Sethi?

  That's the role, as you put it?

• 4:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:49Ramit Sethi?

  Who created that role?

• 4:51Speaker 02

  She did.

• 4:51Speaker 00

  Well, I did, but it was because I would try and sit down and have conversations about it and he wouldn't engage in it. So I'm like, okay, well, if someone needs to figure out how to manage it, I'm going to manage it.

• 5:02Ramit Sethi?

  Is it working?

• 5:03Speaker 00

  Um, it's working in the sense like I'm good at numbers and I know what needs to go where. It's not working in the sense that I know what needs to go where, but I also am not a good person to say no to things. And we also prioritize social and like experiences beyond what we can.

• 5:24Ramit Sethi?

  Uh, what does that mean?

• 5:27Speaker 00

  Like we, for example, are, we had family in town and they wanted to go to a baseball game. And so we're like, yeah, let's go. Knowing farewell, we had a hundred dollars to spend for the whole weekend and that was not going to cut it.

• 5:38Ramit Sethi?

  Oh.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  And we still went.

• 5:39Ramit Sethi?

  How'd you pay for it?

• 5:40Speaker 00

  I pulled out of the money that we used to pay our taxes at the end of the year.

• 5:44Ramit Sethi?

  Oh.

• 5:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:45Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, so are you good at it?

• 5:48Speaker 00

  No.

• 5:48Ramit Sethi?

  Chris, is she good at it?

• 5:50Speaker 02

  She is very good at writing the plan. I see her do it all the time. She has her sheets out. She, this goes here, this goes here, this goes here. And life happens.

• 6:02Speaker 00

  Execution is poor.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:04Ramit Sethi?

  Planning is good, execution.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  Planning's great.

• 6:06Ramit Sethi?

  And then are you skilled at money, Chris?

• 6:09Speaker 02

  No, I, no.

• 6:11Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. When was the last time you talked about money in a substantive way?

• 6:15Speaker 00

  I wouldn't say really ever. From my perspective, whenever I try and bring up like, hey, I want to sit down and go over this plan, like I'm stressed about this. I want, I want to talk this through. This is where we're at, how it's kind of like, I know it's bad. I just need to get a new job with more money. It's fine. And that'll fix it. And I'm like, no.

• 6:32Ramit Sethi?

  What's behind that, Chris?

• 6:33Speaker 02

  I think it's on me. I think I just kind of curl into a little shell and don't talk about it.

• 6:41Ramit Sethi?

  Because?

• 6:42Speaker 02

  Because I'm just avoiding it.

• 6:44Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  I honestly, yeah.

• 6:46Ramit Sethi?

  Have you ever acknowledged that before today?

• 6:49Speaker 02

  Probably not. No. I guess I just don't feel like stable enough. I just, maybe it comes more of like an embarrassment.

• 6:58Ramit Sethi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  That she.

• 7:00Ramit Sethi?

  Talk to her.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, that you're, make more money than me and I'm lower than you on that pole. And yeah, it's kind of embarrassing as being the male in the relationship and so.

• 7:14Speaker 00

  And that's something, sorry.

• 7:16Ramit Sethi?

  That's powerful. I appreciate that. Can I ask a couple of questions about that?

• 7:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:21Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Did you ever make more than Grace?

• 7:25Speaker 02

  No.

• 7:26Ramit Sethi?

  And in your, you mentioned it's kind of embarrassing as a man.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:32Ramit Sethi?

  What's that?

• 7:34Speaker 02

  You're, you're supposed to be the, the man of the house, the taking care of everything.

• 7:39Ramit Sethi?

  What does that mean? Taking care of what?

• 7:41Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, bills and the house and I, the main thing is just the bills.

• 7:47Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. So that's what a man does. And then what does a woman do in this vision?

• 7:53Speaker 02

  Well, she can, my goal would be for her to do whatever she would like to do.

• 7:58Ramit Sethi?

  Oh.

• 7:59Speaker 02

  Stay home, have a job, do whatever, just whatever she would like to do.

• 8:04Ramit Sethi?

  You ever play a sport? Soccer, football, tennis?

• 8:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I played baseball, basketball, football, growing up.

• 8:11Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, that's a lot of sports. Now I'm like, I don't know anything about baseball.

• 8:14Speaker 00

  Baseball was his main one.

• 8:15Ramit Sethi?

  Which one?

• 8:16Speaker 00

  Baseball.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  Baseball.

• 8:17Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, hold on.

• 8:18Speaker 00

  Or football.

• 8:19Ramit Sethi?

  I need to put, I know even less about football. Let me just put myself in the mindset. Okay. You all are on a baseball team.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 8:25Ramit Sethi?

  And you play first base. She's on your team and I go, hey, what position does she play? And your answer is, I just want her to do whatever she wants. Have you ever heard that said on a team?

• 8:39Speaker 02

  No, because normally people have like certain skill sets for different positions.

• 8:44Ramit Sethi?

  Agreed. So she's playing shortstop or she's outfield or whatever, right? Grace, what do you think about this team metaphor?

• 8:52Speaker 00

  I like the team metaphor and that's what I want. And, and that was what I was going to kind of chime in. I'm not so much of like, I make more, you make, it just doesn't really matter to me. I look at it as we're a team. So more or less, put them together, it's one whole thing.

• 9:05Ramit Sethi?

  Is this working?

• 9:07Speaker 02

  Probably not.

• 9:09Ramit Sethi?

  This is a dynamic as old as time. We've seen it many times on this very podcast. We have a husband, not particularly engaged with money. Whatever. She's handling it. She's better at math than I am. Then we go over to the wife. Wife is the one furiously keeping spreadsheets and doing random ways of tracking things. Does she know what it all means? Not really, but she manages the day to day. And when I ask them, is it working? They both go, no. But nothing changes. They have their roles and they are seemingly intractable. How long have the two of you been together?

• 9:46Speaker 00

  Seven years.

• 9:47Ramit Sethi?

  Seven years, married six months ago, right?

• 9:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:50Ramit Sethi?

  Congrats.

• 9:51Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 9:51Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. I understand in your application, there's been a discussion about starting a family.

• 9:56Speaker 00

  We're kind of on the same page about starting the family. It really is just my, in the back of my mind are like, okay, we're on the same page of what we want to do, what we have in mind, what our family will look like.

• 10:06Ramit Sethi?

  How many kids?

• 10:07Speaker 00

  Two.

• 10:08Ramit Sethi?

  Two kids?

• 10:08Speaker 02

  Two.

• 10:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:09Ramit Sethi?

  Cool. And is there a timeline?

• 10:13Speaker 00

  Soon, yeah, within the next year.

• 10:15Ramit Sethi?

  Cool.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  Soon.

• 10:16Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Everybody's on the same page. Great.

• 10:18Speaker 00

  So right, we're on the same page with these conversations. We have wonderful conversations. You know, the idea is great, but then in the back of my mind, I'm like, okay, now where is any of the money going to come from to pay for that child's food and daycare? Daycare. Oh my God. Things like that. So that's where the disconnect gets kind of started.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  I think that like, we're very much on the same page. We want the same things with like, starting a family. The biggest thing with us is we just don't bring in like enough money for what we want.

• 10:52Ramit Sethi?

  That's it? That's the problem?

• 10:53Speaker 02

  Well, it's some of it, I would say.

• 10:57Ramit Sethi?

  What's the rest of it?

• 10:58Speaker 02

  Just like lack of motivation. And on my side of things, she's a doer. I get very comfortable in my situations and I don't like change. I think that's like the big thing that she gets frustrated with me about.

• 11:16Ramit Sethi?

  That you're not motivated?

• 11:18Speaker 02

  That I just get complacent and I just get kind of stagnant in my day to day routine.

• 11:25Ramit Sethi?

  How do you get connected about that? How do you reconcile that?

• 11:31Speaker 02

  If I could change one thing about myself, that would be it. I hate not being comfortable, but nothing's comfortable. Like going out, doing job interviews is uncomfortable. This is uncomfortable. Talking to random people is uncomfortable, but those are just things that, that move you along and even make you a better person.

• 11:54Ramit Sethi?

  You talked to Grace about this? Have you told her this?

• 11:56Speaker 02

  No.

• 11:57Speaker 00

  No?

• 11:57Ramit Sethi?

  Grace wants to say, I've been telling you this for years. Go ahead, Grace. Have your moment.

• 12:03Speaker 00

  No, I, I have known that that is in there and I've known that that is the thing, right? I've known that that is his thing is that he is so capable, but he just hates being uncomfortable.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  I just think that I need to stop thinking about myself and I need to think more about our future. You would think that that would be enough to light the fire and to figure something out.

• 12:29Ramit Sethi?

  But?

• 12:30Speaker 02

  I'm just kind of stagnant sometimes.

• 12:33Ramit Sethi?

  Is this a thing where it's like, hmm, this isn't working. Let's have kids. That'll fix it. No?

• 12:42Ramit Sethi?

  My team at IWT is fully remote and I love that. Because of that, we're constantly sending messages through Slack, through Google Drive, through all kinds of different technologies. And that's why my team is such a big fan of Whisperflow. Whisperflow turns the way you naturally talk into clean, ready to send text in any app on any device. I'm talking about Slack, Gmail, Notion, iMessage, even ChatGPT and Claude on Mac, Windows and Android. With Whisperflow, you just hit a hotkey, speak, and the text appears way faster than typing it. Plus, it's smart, it's adaptive, so you don't send a block of huge incoherent text. And unlike other dictation apps, it corrects mistakes, it gets names right the

• 13:27Ramit Sethi?

  first time, and it can format bullet points and lists on the fly. I find that particularly useful. So if you send tons of emails and messages every day, if you want to be able to capture your own ideas just by talking, Whisperflow is a no brainer. Get one month of Whisperflow Pro for free at wisprflow.ai/ramit. That's wisprflow.ai/ramit, W I S P R flow dot A I slash ramit, or click the link in the description. It's kind of funny when I talk to small business owners who are super frustrated by the vendors that they work with. Cause I'm like, y'all know you're the boss, right?

• 14:08Ramit Sethi?

  You can fire them. You can make changes today. So if you don't like the platform that you are working with, move off of it. I've done it many times. If a CPA that you are working on goes dark on you after April, find somebody who's better. And that is where our partners at Gelt come in. Gelt is a modern CPA firm that helps your business take control of your tax strategy year round. By working with Gelt, you get access to one dedicated tax strategist with real human expertise powered by cutting edge technology that handles the rest. And right now they have two Q3 exclusive offers. Extension Rescue, where Gelt takes over your tax extension with fast onboarding and no stress, keeping you

• 14:50Ramit Sethi?

  deadline safe. The Retirement Catch Up, where Gelt models your prior year retirement contribution opportunities to maximize what's on the table before October 15th. This offer is included for all new clients this quarter. A great CPA is a year round partner who stays in touch with you. And Gelt is taking on new clients now. Now is the time for business owners to get ahead, not in January. So find out if you qualify at joingelt.com/ramit. That's join G E L T dot com slash ramit.

• 15:23Speaker 00

  I believe in him so deeply and I know he's so capable of like moving on to the next thing, but he just gets in his own way of his own initiative. And I think that's what holds him back is more of himself. Cause it's not that he's not capable. It's not that he cannot move on to the next job or the next thing.

• 15:39Ramit Sethi?

  Do you find yourself encouraging him, giving him advice, you know, if you just did this, or if you say this at work, that kind of thing?

• 15:46Speaker 00

  We're navigating that, I think. And that's something that we actively work on outside of here in our own therapy.

• 15:53Ramit Sethi?

  Good.

• 15:54Speaker 00

  Because yes, because I am a helper. I want to be a helper. And so I, I will admit full stop, you watch me do it. I love to fill in his gaps because I know what I think he's trying to get at, but not. And I need, I know I need to control that better in myself. But I hate, I don't like to see people struggle or have people be uncomfortable. And so when someone I love is struggling and uncomfortable, then I want to step in.

• 16:17Ramit Sethi?

  What if I told you that I love that?

• 16:21Speaker 00

  It's good to struggle and be uncomfortable. And that's where growth happens. And I know that, but it's easy for me to do that in my career because I do that all the time.

• 16:29Ramit Sethi?

  Which is?

• 16:30Speaker 00

  I'm a therapist, so.

• 16:31Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, amazing. And, and then you are in therapy as well, couples therapy?

• 16:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:35Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 16:36Speaker 00

  And individual, yeah.

• 16:37Ramit Sethi?

  Amazing.

• 16:37Speaker 00

  All the things.

• 16:38Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. And Chris, what's your career?

• 16:40Speaker 02

  I'm a warehouse manager for an industrial sales company.

• 16:44Ramit Sethi?

  Great. Okay. Is there a recent conversation where you can recall where you clashed or disagreed about money?

• 16:51Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 16:52Ramit Sethi?

  Go ahead.

• 16:53Speaker 00

  It was just recently, we were at that baseball game and everybody knows you want to, you want a beer at a baseball game? You're running about $25 a beer. And we had a conversation prior to going into the weekend of like, hey, I need this amount and this amount for the taxes and the monthly bills from your paycheck. You've got a hundred left to spend for the weekend, like just know that. And we had that conversation and then we get to the baseball game and I'm watching and I want him to have fun. I want him to have fun. But then I'm watching him get beer after beer, buying other people drinks. And I'm like, okay, a hundred dollars is long gone. So what, now we're supposed to go to dinner and do other things with this family all weekend? Where is that coming from?

• 17:30Ramit Sethi?

  Where was the actual conversation? Where did that happen?

• 17:34Speaker 00

  Miller Park.

• 17:35Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, there.

• 17:36Speaker 00

  Oh, yes.

• 17:36Ramit Sethi?

  At the game?

• 17:37Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 17:37Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. So can we go through that? Can we actually recreate it?

• 17:40Speaker 00

  I was like, hey.

• 17:42Ramit Sethi?

  Talk to him.

• 17:43Speaker 00

  Hey, that like, that's your fourth beer. Like, where's the money coming from for that? Like, you know, we had a hundred dollars and how are we going to pay for dinner tomorrow with your family?

• 17:53Speaker 02

  I don't know. My family's in town and we're just having fun. So we'll figure it out later.

• 17:58Speaker 00

  And then I got up and walked away because I was like, I'm not gonna, this isn't gonna go the way I want. We're not going to have a productive conversation. I'm just going to go sit by my in-laws. So I moved seats.

• 18:06Ramit Sethi?

  What happened later as you went to dinner and paid for more things?

• 18:11Speaker 00

  That's where I pulled from our annual funds.

• 18:15Ramit Sethi?

  You didn't talk to each other at dinner about, are we paying and how are we going to pay?

• 18:19Speaker 00

  Nope. I had just moved some money and was like, well, I'll figure it out later.

• 18:24Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. So that's interesting. So Chris, you said we'll figure it out, right?

• 18:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:29Ramit Sethi?

  And then who's we is going to figure it out?

• 18:34Ramit Sethi?

  You're gesturing at her.

• 18:35Speaker 02

  Grace.

• 18:36Ramit Sethi?

  Grace is gonna figure it out. So really, it's you're gonna figure it out later.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:40Ramit Sethi?

  Grace, where did you pull money from?

• 18:42Speaker 00

  We, so we own our home. So the money that we pay, we don't pay a mortgage, but we have like the taxes at the end of the year. And so I have, we have like a short money market account. And so what I do is I collect that money each month and then I put it in there to grow. So this is a terrible way to think about it. And I know that this is a pattern, but I pull from that money because I'm like, well, I can just hope that the short money market grows enough to make up for the 150 I had to borrow from it.

• 19:07Ramit Sethi?

  Oh.

• 19:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:08Ramit Sethi?

  Does it work?

• 19:08Speaker 00

  I don't know. Haven't checked. Haven't checked. Hope it works.

• 19:12Ramit Sethi?

  I actually love the answer. I love that you didn't even say no. You go, I don't know.

• 19:15Speaker 00

  I have no idea. We just pray it. It's working. I don't know.

• 19:19Ramit Sethi?

  Why not just tell Chris, all right, hey, listen, I understand you bought the beers. I wouldn't have done it. You did it. You've got to figure out where the money's gonna come from.

• 19:29Speaker 00

  I don't know that it would get done. I get anxious that it won't be fixed and then it'll be a problem I have to fix later.

• 19:35Ramit Sethi?

  What if he has to fix it?

• 19:37Speaker 00

  That would be lovely if I would not have like a full anxiety freak out about it. I'm a very like, like I said, anxious kind of type A. I don't know that I trust him to fix it because I don't know that he understands. He's not sat down with me to look at any of the numbers or anything of what I'm doing. So I guess my thought is like, how could he fix a problem that he doesn't even know exists because he doesn't know the foundation of the problem?

• 19:59Ramit Sethi?

  Maybe if you just keep figuring it out yourself, then one day he'll magically get it. No?

• 20:05Speaker 00

  No, no.

• 20:06Ramit Sethi?

  Chris?

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, no.

• 20:08Speaker 00

  No, and this is the pattern, right? I know the pattern, but I cannot seem to change it.

• 20:12Ramit Sethi?

  Can you tell me how money flows in your relationship? Where does the money go? You both work. What happens to the money then? Grace?

• 20:21Speaker 00

  Um, yeah. So each, so I get paid once a month. Um, he gets paid weekly. Like my paycheck immediately goes towards our monthly expenses and that's pretty much it. So mine, I don't really have any of after, like mine is put in and immediately distributed. Um, and then his each week is distributed differently depending. And then also out of his paycheck is our gas and grocery money.

• 20:42Ramit Sethi?

  You mentioned as incomes variable, right? What if he didn't make enough to cover groceries? What would you do?

• 20:48Speaker 00

  I try to prioritize making sure those annual and monthly bills are paid and then I, I lower the amount of money we have for groceries. So you're just eating ramen out of the pantry.

• 20:58Ramit Sethi?

  Has that happened?

• 20:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  It starts to taste boring after a little bit.

• 21:02Ramit Sethi?

  Which kind of ramen do you get?

• 21:03Speaker 02

  The chicken one.

• 21:04Ramit Sethi?

  Top ramen, the orange one?

• 21:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:06Ramit Sethi?

  I love that.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  It's good.

• 21:08Ramit Sethi?

  It's good. It's good.

• 21:08Speaker 00

  And I've mastered it in a microwave, so.

• 21:11Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, okay. Wow.

• 21:13Speaker 00

  But no, it's, it's not ideal. Um.

• 21:16Ramit Sethi?

  Is your money joint or is it separate?

• 21:19Speaker 00

  So it comes in separate, obviously, but then he just transfers over to me and I disperse it between our accounts.

• 21:24Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 21:25Speaker 00

  So.

• 21:25Ramit Sethi?

  Do you have any joint accounts?

• 21:27Speaker 00

  Yes. It's been on a hiatus for a little bit, so we have not been able to put anything in it for a while, but that's usually like, hey, I'm, you know, let's put this much in and he'll send it. We have both have access to it. So we can like send the money into it.

• 21:40Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. I noticed that when I'm asking about the account flows, Grace, you're talking. Chris has been silent for quite a while. Chris, what's going on with you?

• 21:48Speaker 02

  I think just because she's just more knowledgeable and that I just, I don't really know what I'm doing. So for the most part.

• 21:56Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. What, what do you notice about these roles that each of you are playing?

• 21:59Speaker 02

  It sounds very individual to me, not, there's like no teamwork. It's like, oh, hey, I'm gonna do this. Oh, okay.

• 22:07Speaker 00

  They're very passive.

• 22:08Ramit Sethi?

  Yep.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  There's not much actual interaction.

• 22:12Ramit Sethi?

  Why?

• 22:13Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 22:13Speaker 00

  Avoidance.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:15Speaker 00

  Avoiding argument, avoiding disagreement.

• 22:19Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. What realizations are you having right now?

• 22:21Speaker 00

  I thought I had a handle on it more than I even did. And now talking through this, I realize I'm much more passive than I thought I was. I try to be the planner. I try to be the executor and engage others.

• 22:33Ramit Sethi?

  Uh huh.

• 22:33Speaker 00

  But the follow through isn't great. It's kind of just in the clouds.

• 22:37Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 22:37Speaker 00

  Hoping that it works out.

• 22:39Ramit Sethi?

  Mm hmm. Chris?

• 22:40Speaker 02

  Well, I, I have no idea what I'm doing.

• 22:43Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. All right. So there's work to be done.

• 22:45Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 22:45Ramit Sethi?

  Let's put it that way. Okay, I'm gonna put the conscious spending plan up on screen. Before we look at the numbers, what was it like to do the CSP together?

• 22:56Speaker 02

  I kind of took a backseat a little bit and she kind of.

• 23:01Ramit Sethi?

  She filled out the numbers?

• 23:02Speaker 02

  As usual, you know?

• 23:03Ramit Sethi?

  She, did you pull out the computer, Grace, and start putting the numbers in?

• 23:07Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 23:07Ramit Sethi?

  Uh huh. And did you ask him for input?

• 23:11Speaker 00

  No.

• 23:12Ramit Sethi?

  Let me tell you what I think you interpreted the assignment to be, even though it's spelled out. Grace, you interpreted the assignment to be, we gotta fill out these numbers. I know the numbers, so I'm gonna fill it out. Hey, Chris, come sit down and watch, but I'm gonna fill it out. And Chris, you interpreted as, oh, there's some money thing that has to be done. And so like, yeah, like, yeah, she's got it. She'll figure it out. And yeah, I'm here. Okay.

• 23:35Speaker 00

  We misunderstood the assignment.

• 23:36Ramit Sethi?

  What is the actual assignment?

• 23:38Speaker 00

  To sit down and do this together and really look at these numbers, ask each other questions about things you don't understand or something that might not make sense.

• 23:45Ramit Sethi?

  To connect.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 23:48Ramit Sethi?

  Communicate. I don't care if one of the numbers is 50% wrong. We could fix the math. But you did not talk about it at all.

• 23:56Speaker 00

  No.

• 23:57Ramit Sethi?

  And I think this is true of different parts of your financial life. So this is something that we have to work towards. Okay. And the CSP is just easy black and white math, but it provides a very powerful instruction on how couples complete it. Okay, let's take a look at the numbers. Grace, can you read off the words in bold and then the numbers next to it for this entire box, please?

• 24:22Speaker 00

  Assets, 390,000. Investments, 119,500. Savings, 7,350. Debt, 22,483. Total net worth, 494,367.

• 24:38Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. What do you think about the numbers?

• 24:40Speaker 00

  Fine. I think, so the assets, a lot of that is our home.

• 24:44Ramit Sethi?

  Do you feel anything looking at these numbers?

• 24:46Speaker 00

  I'm disappointed that my debt is that high.

• 24:48Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Chris, what do you think about these numbers?

• 24:51Speaker 02

  I like the, the investment number. Savings is just low because we don't bring in enough monthly to save. But the debt, the debt's kind of a, a big one there.

• 25:06Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Let's go down to the income. Uh, this time, Chris, can you read off your combined gross monthly income?

• 25:14Speaker 02

  Uh, 9,377.

• 25:16Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, cool. So that means the two of you combined make about $112,000 per year. What does a couple who makes $112,000 do with their money? Living in the area that you live.

• 25:27Speaker 00

  The median income, we are on the low side, even with that 112 for the area that we live in.

• 25:34Ramit Sethi?

  Can I ask you to guess what the median income in your neighborhood is?

• 25:42Speaker 00

  I feel like it's around 175 to 180.

• 25:45Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 25:45Speaker 00

  Like per household, right? Are you talking per individual?

• 25:47Ramit Sethi?

  Per household.

• 25:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. 175, 180.

• 25:50Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 25:50Speaker 02

  I think about like 150.

• 25:52Ramit Sethi?

  150. You know the real number?

• 25:54Speaker 00

  I'm gonna be really embarrassed, probably.

• 25:56Ramit Sethi?

  113,000.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  You're lying.

• 25:58Ramit Sethi?

  Nope.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 25:59Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 26:00Ramit Sethi?

  What does that tell you, Chris?

• 26:01Speaker 00

  I'm stunned.

• 26:02Speaker 02

  Sounds like we're not good with our money choices.

• 26:06Ramit Sethi?

  How? Connect the dots for me. How did you come to that?

• 26:09Speaker 02

  The, what did you call it? The average?

• 26:11Ramit Sethi?

  Median.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  The median is kind of right on par with what ours is.

• 26:16Ramit Sethi?

  Mm hmm. And so?

• 26:18Speaker 02

  But yet we're struggling.

• 26:20Ramit Sethi?

  Yes.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  This much.

• 26:21Ramit Sethi?

  Yes. No kids?

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:25Ramit Sethi?

  And we're gonna go into some of your other numbers as well. Grace, what is occurring to you?

• 26:30Speaker 00

  I'm just shocked.

• 26:31Ramit Sethi?

  Why?

• 26:32Speaker 00

  Because it feels impossible to live where we live and make ends meet with our income, but clearly everyone else can seem to do it. So there must be patterns and behaviors and choices that we're making that are not helping that.

• 26:46Ramit Sethi?

  Let's keep going down the list. Fixed, whoa, what's that number, Grace?

• 26:50Speaker 00

  Way do I.

• 26:51Ramit Sethi?

  What is it?

• 26:52Speaker 00

  108.

• 26:53Ramit Sethi?

  108%. What does that tell you?

• 26:55Speaker 00

  Uh huh. That we spend more a month than we make.

• 26:58Ramit Sethi?

  On just fixed costs?

• 26:59Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. Yeah. It's not great.

• 27:00Ramit Sethi?

  You spend more than you make every single month. It is simply a matter of time until you are broke. Beyond broke until you lose it all. When you walked in here, what did you think the severity of the situation was? Chris, did you know?

• 27:16Speaker 02

  I knew it was bad.

• 27:17Ramit Sethi?

  Did you know what that meant?

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Enough. I knew enough what it meant.

• 27:21Ramit Sethi?

  Oh.

• 27:22Speaker 02

  I think.

• 27:22Ramit Sethi?

  So then, did you then accordingly say to Grace, we have to change everything. We have to light a fire. We have to come red alert. We have to stop everything we're doing?

• 27:31Speaker 02

  No. I guess I didn't fully understand that then.

• 27:34Ramit Sethi?

  Feel like that's kind of a pattern here. And Grace, did you understand what 108% meant?

• 27:40Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 27:42Speaker 00

  I understood it in the way of I know what it meant, but did not know how to take action. I don't, I don't know how to fix that.

• 27:48Ramit Sethi?

  But you didn't say to Chris, red alert, we're not doing this anymore. We're not going to spend this. Here's what's going to happen. This is what's going to happen. I am becoming coach of this team now.

• 27:57Speaker 00

  I think I try, but maybe not hard enough or not as intense because I avoid conflict or disagreement.

• 28:03Ramit Sethi?

  You two are skating on very thin ice. You're close to losing a lot. You have one month's worth of savings here. But that still has not made you have honest conversations about money. You are still tiptoeing around each other and you're married and talking about starting a family.

• 28:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:25Ramit Sethi?

  You might notice that I am pushing them. I'm doing this for a very specific reason. They are oblivious to the severity of the situation and they are used to dealing in comfort. People will fill out applications. They will go through months of screening. They will fly here to meet me. And then suddenly, when presented with the reality of the situation, they will often revert back to the way they were. They will start to minimize, oh, it's actually not that bad. We're actually fine. We just need a budget. I don't let that happen because if you went out of your way, you applied, it takes a lot of courage. I'm not going to let you go home just so that you feel comfortable. My invisible script is not comfort is awesome all the time.

• 29:07Ramit Sethi?

  My invisible script is sometimes uncomfortable conversations are amazing. That is why I am pushing them to see what's really going on here. And I'm warning you right now, I'm going to keep pushing. In fact, I'm going to push harder and it's going to happen for this entire episode. How do you own a home at this young of an age?

• 29:29Speaker 00

  I'm very fortunate. My grandma and I buy property together and so she and I own our home together. So we bought it in cash.

• 29:36Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, you bought the house that you live in now in cash?

• 29:38Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 29:38Ramit Sethi?

  All right. So your property taxes are $1,067 a month. Wow, that's low. Which means your housing costs are 11.3% of your gross income. That's amazing. Super low.

• 29:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:51Ramit Sethi?

  Which then raises the question.

• 29:53Speaker 00

  Why is this happening?

• 29:54Ramit Sethi?

  Let's take a look at the rest.

• 29:57Ramit Sethi?

  Utilities are 412. Insurance is 922. That's pretty high.

• 30:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. So what had, what had happened was he had a subsidy that was given to him and we being naive and understanding how marriage works, didn't realize that as soon as we got married, we would have to back pay any of the subsidy and then the, the premium was skyrocketed. So, but now we're locked into a premium that we didn't realize would skyrocket.

• 30:20Ramit Sethi?

  For how long?

• 30:20Speaker 00

  If that makes sense, till the end of the year.

• 30:22Ramit Sethi?

  And then what's going to happen?

• 30:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm just kind of hoping to find a new, land a new job that has insurance.

• 30:29Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Car payments, 502.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 30:31Ramit Sethi?

  That's includes gas?

• 30:33Speaker 00

  Uh, no.

• 30:34Ramit Sethi?

  Ah, where's the gas?

• 30:36Speaker 00

  The gas is in our grocery and gas amount and it's 600 and then we do not have an exact amount of what we pay for gas versus groceries. I just put 600 in that account. That's just, I guess, something I've never calculated, how much I spend in gas and how often I fill.

• 30:50Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. I think it's probably higher than that. I always estimate higher because I want to be conservative in my planning. I never want to get to the end of a month or a year and owe money. Never. If anything, I want to have extra money. So I always am conservative in my estimates. So if this says 600, what do you think it realistically is?

• 31:12Speaker 00

  800?

• 31:13Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, maybe 800 plus gas right now where we live is insane.

• 31:18Ramit Sethi?

  I think it's 900 at least.

• 31:19Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 31:19Ramit Sethi?

  I think it's probably higher, but I'm going to go there. You spend it on a credit card?

• 31:22Speaker 00

  Uh, no, debit card. We don't use, we don't, the debt we have is from credit card debt. So we have ceased all credit card use. So we are not.

• 31:30Ramit Sethi?

  People in credit card debt use debit cards. Okay. All right. We were going to get there. Debt payments at $1,218 a month. How much credit card debt do you have?

• 31:38Speaker 00

  It's all credit card debt.

• 31:40Ramit Sethi?

  All of the debt is credit card debt?

• 31:42Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 31:43Ramit Sethi?

  What'd you spend it on?

• 31:44Speaker 00

  Our house, getting married.

• 31:47Speaker 00

  Fixes to the house. Like when we moved in, we had a pipe burst, then we had an HVAC issue. Then we had a bathroom flood. So we spent that on the, having to remodel the bathroom. That debt's kind of old debt. I mean, it's been there a while. So what I've done is I moved it to cards that have like a 0% for X amount of months and I'm trying, that, that debt number payoff plan is to try and get that debt paid off within that increment. So I'm not being charged the interest.

• 32:11Ramit Sethi?

  Is it going to happen?

• 32:13Speaker 00

  Um, if we can stick with that 112, yes.

• 32:15Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. That's a good answer. How much is left on the car?

• 32:20Speaker 00

  His car is paid off. The 502 is my car. Um, it's a newer car. We got it within the last six months.

• 32:26Ramit Sethi?

  What'd you get?

• 32:28Speaker 00

  Ford Bronco Sport.

• 32:29Ramit Sethi?

  Ford Bronco Sport, like an SUV?

• 32:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, like a little.

• 32:34Ramit Sethi?

  How much did that cost?

• 32:34Speaker 00

  Love that car. 30, 30,000, 32,000?

• 32:39Ramit Sethi?

  What's the real number? The way you say it made me question that.

• 32:43Speaker 00

  I'm not really sure. I, I know, I know that that's my monthly payment and I'm on like a, a 72 month or something really.

• 32:51Ramit Sethi?

  Why'd you do that?

• 32:53Speaker 00

  Lack of knowledge. Uh, sounded good to me at the time.

• 32:56Ramit Sethi?

  Uh, I note that the car payment is not included in your debt.

• 33:02Speaker 00

  Oh, that would just be a misstep on not realizing that I would do that.

• 33:05Ramit Sethi?

  Let's fix it right now. So if it's 22 plus roughly $30,000?

• 33:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, roughly 30.

• 33:11Ramit Sethi?

  Let's make it 52.

• 33:12Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 33:12Ramit Sethi?

  Pets, what is this number?

• 33:16Speaker 00

  It's a lot of different things. Um, I can parse it all out for you, but it's a lot.

• 33:20Ramit Sethi?

  $735 a month on pets.

• 33:22Speaker 00

  Yes. We have the cutest little dachshunds in the world, but, um, one of them has.

• 33:27Ramit Sethi?

  How many?

• 33:28Speaker 00

  Two.

• 33:28Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 33:29Speaker 00

  Chronic pancreatitis. And so he has a very special diet and probiotic and medicine that he has to take in order to be okay.

• 33:36Ramit Sethi?

  All right. Subscriptions are at 167, which include, I like that you listed these off. Spotify, streaming, fitness, iCloud, Coopers? What's Coopers?

• 33:46Speaker 00

  Cooper's Hawk?

• 33:47Ramit Sethi?

  Huh?

• 33:48Speaker 00

  It's a winery. It's $20 a month.

• 33:50Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 33:51Speaker 00

  But it's, yeah.

• 33:52Ramit Sethi?

  All right. You are in for a, quite a bit of changes under my guidance. Hey buddy, what's that?

• 33:58Speaker 00

  That's our, like if your dog gets lost, it's their little tracker.

• 34:01Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Ring camera, Amazon Prime. Fine. Um, Grace Wellness, which includes a GLP-1 and hair extensions.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:08Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. And that's 662 per month.

• 34:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:11Ramit Sethi?

  Cleaning service and therapies, 280 a month. And then miscellaneous, which CSP automatically adds 15% is 903. I actually think that is completely accurate and potentially even under because of all the things you mentioned that you are not currently counting. All right. So you all are at $7,868 per month. And just to reflect, you have less than one month's worth of savings. As a couple with no kids, very low housing costs who make $112,000 gross per year. Chris, what are you hearing right now?

• 34:44Speaker 02

  That we both might have a little bit of a lack of knowledge.

• 34:47Ramit Sethi?

  Yes. Cause you've said multiple times today, well, she's really smart at this stuff. She knows these numbers. Does it sound like that?

• 34:55Speaker 02

  No.

• 34:56Speaker 00

  This is blind leading the blind here.

• 34:58Ramit Sethi?

  I think that's a really apt way.

• 34:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:00Ramit Sethi?

  Not to be insulting.

• 35:01Speaker 00

  No, I, I feel that way.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:03Ramit Sethi?

  Avoiders do this. They use a series of conscious and unconscious techniques to avoid engaging with money. And one of them is they say, well, my partner's just good at this. They're smart. I'm not so good with numbers. You are using that phrase to perpetuate this dynamic.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:21Ramit Sethi?

  Now, at the same time, Grace, the fact that you've been unable to say, I don't know what I'm doing, to actually even acknowledge that, like what I'm doing, I'm moving money around, 0% transfers, 72 months for a car loan, but even acknowledging that activity is not the same as results. But you've got to be able to acknowledge it and then ask for help.

• 35:44Speaker 00

  I've tried and it's usually met with, I know, I just need to get a different job and then the conversation goes nowhere. So that's why I'm here. I'm like, I don't know, I don't know what else to do anymore. I don't know how to ask for help. I don't.

• 35:55Ramit Sethi?

  I'm glad you're here. I'm going to try to help unravel some of this.

• 36:01Ramit Sethi?

  But I just want to point out the language you're even using. I've tried to have the conversation. For something as important as we are going broke, I don't try any.

• 36:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:10Ramit Sethi?

  I make it happen. Chris, you hearing this?

• 36:14Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:14Ramit Sethi?

  What's going through your head right now?

• 36:16Speaker 02

  That I need to stop shoving it all on her.

• 36:20Ramit Sethi?

  And start?

• 36:21Speaker 02

  And I need to start taking responsibility.

• 36:23Ramit Sethi?

  How would you do it?

• 36:24Speaker 02

  By instead of just sitting behind her, maybe saying, oh, I, let me at least try and handle this myself, or let me do it with you instead of just sitting there and watching.

• 36:36Ramit Sethi?

  What about actually doing it?

• 36:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. Give it a try. See how it goes.

• 36:41Ramit Sethi?

  You all mentioned you want to have kids, right?

• 36:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:43Ramit Sethi?

  When your kid, um, tries to, you know, read, are they going to be good at reading? No, they're going to be horrible. They can't read a single letter. They don't know anything. So are you going to say, ah, mommy's better at reading, so let her do it?

• 37:01Speaker 02

  No.

• 37:01Ramit Sethi?

  No, that'd be absurd.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:03Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, we do it all the time as adults with money. We are bad at money when we start doing it. Of course we are, like anything else. Playing basketball, cooking, any of it. Now, cooking, you might be able to get away with it because you're just like, ah, we don't care, ramen, whatever. Okay, fine. But money is unlike that. Money isn't like we're going to have to eat ramen noodles. Money is we can't afford to have children or we might become homeless even though we own our house.

• 37:36Ramit Sethi?

  That's why I think it's different. What's your assessment?

• 37:39Speaker 02

  Need to make, make some changes.

• 37:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, this is pretty dire.

• 37:43Ramit Sethi?

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• 38:25Ramit Sethi?

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• 39:09Ramit Sethi?

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• 39:55Ramit Sethi?

  And I personally use and pay for DeleteMe, and I love it. And I know you will 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. Investments are at zero?

• 40:19Speaker 00

  Well, zero added to the ones that are there. Sorry.

• 40:23Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, you do contribute $136 a month to a 401k.

• 40:28Speaker 00

  Yes, and then we have maxed out his Roth IRAs for this year. So we put in $7,500 for that.

• 40:37Ramit Sethi?

  Where'd the money come from?

• 40:38Speaker 00

  The passing of my grandmother, I inherited some things. And so that's what a lot of our investments are, is money.

• 40:44Ramit Sethi?

  I was wondering, okay, so how much did you inherit?

• 40:47Speaker 00

  I think it was like 80.

• 40:49Ramit Sethi?

  And you put some of it into investments?

• 40:52Speaker 00

  And then started a retirement because he doesn't have any through his career.

• 40:55Ramit Sethi?

  I see. And the house?

• 40:58Speaker 00

  We own joint tenancy, so it's...

• 41:00Ramit Sethi?

  So it falls to you?

• 41:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, falls to me.

• 41:02Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, so you had 80, where did the rest of this investments of 119 come from?

• 41:07Speaker 00

  That's including my retirement that I already have and then his retirement that we put in.

• 41:11Ramit Sethi?

  So a lot of the investments, while it's real money, it's your money, it came from an inheritance.

• 41:17Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 41:18Ramit Sethi?

  What does that tell you?

• 41:20Ramit Sethi?

  You're not properly investing.

• 41:22Speaker 00

  No.

• 41:22Ramit Sethi?

  Not for your income at $112,000. And we can see that because you're contributing zero per month post-tax. Going on to savings at zero as well, and then finally guilt-free spending at negative 13%, which we know is not true. Because y'all are spending guilt-free spending, including ballgames. What else do you spend money on?

• 41:43Speaker 02

  Dinners.

• 41:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, his family's very social, so we go to a lot of events. Like, we just spend a lot of time with his family and they like to do things, so we usually are...

• 41:52Ramit Sethi?

  Ballgame, eat out, what else?

• 41:53Speaker 00

  Wine walks.

• 41:55Ramit Sethi?

  What's that? What's a wine walk?

• 41:57Speaker 02

  It's like little...

• 41:58Speaker 00

  They're really fun. They don't have them here?

• 42:00Ramit Sethi?

  No.

• 42:00Speaker 00

  Oh my God, they're so cool. You literally get a lanyard with like a wine glass around your neck and you get to go between shops and they give you a little taste of wine. It's the coolest thing.

• 42:10Ramit Sethi?

  And does it cost to get in or do you pay?

• 42:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's like 50 bucks.

• 42:13Ramit Sethi?

  All right, y'all are 29 and 30. I wouldn't blame you for going out and having fun.

• 42:17Speaker 00

  We enjoy them.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  I have fun.

• 42:20Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, what else do you spend money on?

• 42:24Speaker 00

  I will be transparent. I spend a lot of money on clothes lately. My body has changed a lot. I've lost a lot of weight recently, so I've had to buy a lot of clothes lately.

• 42:31Ramit Sethi?

  What are some of the shops that you shop at or places online?

• 42:34Speaker 00

  I love Amazon.

• 42:36Ramit Sethi?

  And how many clothes are we talking about?

• 42:38Speaker 00

  Probably more than I could ever imagine because I don't really keep track of it.

• 42:42Ramit Sethi?

  Chris, you mentioned Amazon boxes earlier.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:45Ramit Sethi?

  How many of those boxes are coming in the house?

• 42:47Speaker 02

  Like multiple weekly. When we left to come here, I opened the door and there was like three things on the front step.

• 42:57Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. What I want to know is eating out.

• 43:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:01Ramit Sethi?

  I just want a quick number off the top of your head, no calculation needed. Eating out, including coffee, lunch, dinner, breakfast, any of it, how many times a week do you think that the two of you eat out?

• 43:12Speaker 00

  Twice.

• 43:13Ramit Sethi?

  Twice. Okay, Chris, quick number.

• 43:15Speaker 02

  Like three.

• 43:15Ramit Sethi?

  Three times. Okay, great. Welcome to another episode of Ramit Sethi's Law of Eating Out, where people tell me that they think they only ate out three times a week and the answer turns out to be at least three times higher than whatever they told me. You've heard me do this on the podcast before and I love this. I ran Grace and Chris through my little audit. What'd y'all eat for Sunday breakfast? What about for dinner? What about for coffee? And the number we landed on was not two, like Grace guessed. It was not three, like Chris suggested. It wasn't five, 10, or 12. It was 15. What the hell is wrong with you, America? I don't mind if you eat out a lot. Fine, if you can afford it and you love it, God bless. But could we stop lying to ourselves?

• 44:00Ramit Sethi?

  Could we stop saying, oh, I only eat out three times a week? And then by Tuesday, you've already eaten out six times a week? Come on, let's get realistic. I want you to try this exercise yourself. Leave me a comment today on how many times you thought you ate out every week, including coffee, lunch, dinner, breakfast, a snack, brunch, any of it. And then tell me what the total tally is for the week. I bet you're going to be surprised. 15 times per week.

• 44:31Ramit Sethi?

  What do you make of that?

• 44:32Speaker 00

  Too much.

• 44:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's ridiculous. Because we're drowning and we should be making food at home and going to the grocery store and...

• 44:41Ramit Sethi?

  Anybody surprised by the fact that you thought it was twice a week and it's actually 15?

• 44:45Speaker 00

  Not surprised, no. I had a feeling that I was not a good estimate.

• 44:49Ramit Sethi?

  What, what do you make of this?

• 44:51Speaker 02

  It's probably more than that too, because I, I get lunch.

• 44:54Ramit Sethi?

  Y'all have concocted a reality that is not real. We are trying to get to the root of what's going on here. You eat out 20 times. If we factor in the days you eat out and probably the stuff we didn't even count. You said two, it's 20. So you all are spending thousands per month on stuff that we would technically call guilt-free. But it's not, it's just discretionary. I think we can make some big changes.

• 45:27Speaker 00

  Please.

• 45:28Ramit Sethi?

  Would you be open to it?

• 45:30Speaker 00

  Very.

• 45:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:30Ramit Sethi?

  Both?

• 45:31Speaker 00

  Yes, please.

• 45:32Ramit Sethi?

  I like that.

• 45:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:34Ramit Sethi?

  I like that energy. Okay, I need to understand how you got here. Chris, what do you remember your family saying about money when you were younger?

• 45:44Speaker 02

  There wasn't like a whole lot of talk about it. We were, I was pretty fortunate growing up. My, my dad had a good job. My mom had a good job. We lived in a, in a pretty decent sized home.

• 45:55Ramit Sethi?

  How big?

• 45:57Speaker 02

  3,000 ish.

• 45:59Ramit Sethi?

  Keep going.

• 46:00Speaker 02

  Square feet. It was my sister, me and my brother.

• 46:06Speaker 02

  You know, I, I was able to, you know, play sports, play on the travel teams where, you know, you had to spend a little bit more money to be, you know, to play. And I always got the glove and the baseball bat and the nice basketball shoes. And it was very steady for us. And I really had no, no problems growing up.

• 46:30Ramit Sethi?

  What money messages do you think you grew up with that you are now bringing to this relationship?

• 46:36Speaker 02

  I didn't have to worry about it. So I, I guess...

• 46:43Speaker 02

  Growing up now, I am kinda chill about it and

• 46:48Ramit Sethi?

  Chill? What does that mean?

• 46:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just didn't have to worry about that growing up. And I feel like that's a bad trait that I've taken as a kid and it's

• 46:58Ramit Sethi?

  But it's interesting because the way you describe it is, you said it in the first two sentences, you said, "I grew up very fortunate."

• 47:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 47:05Ramit Sethi?

  "My parents never talked about money to us." And here you are today, 25 years later, not talking about money. In fact, highly avoidant with money. You're still not paying attention, just as you didn't pay attention to money when you were a kid.

• 47:21Ramit Sethi?

  What's the problem?

• 47:22Speaker 02

  Well, when we say like that, it sounds like there is no problem.

• 47:25Ramit Sethi?

  There's no problem for you.

• 47:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:28Ramit Sethi?

  Who has the problem?

• 47:30Speaker 02

  My wife.

• 47:31Ramit Sethi?

  Yes, and if your wife has a problem, then who else has a problem?

• 47:36Speaker 02

  Us together.

• 47:36Ramit Sethi?

  Yes.

• 47:37Speaker 02

  Then I have the problem.

• 47:38Ramit Sethi?

  Yes.

• 47:39Speaker 02

  As well.

• 47:40Ramit Sethi?

  Yes. If I were you, I might reinterpret the way I was raised. Which is, look, my parents were awesome. They did the best they could. They gave us a great childhood. However, they never talked about money. And that has actually really cost me a lot. I never had to pay attention. I never even knew it was a thing. And now as an adult, I'm struggling to actually care about money, to talk about money. My wife is telling me she feels like she's on a sinking ship. And I think back, I wish my parents had talked about it. And I wish I had taken a little bit more interest in it. Do you see how reinterpreting your narrative, whether it's your childhood or adult life, can dramatically change the way that you look at today?

• 48:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:25Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. I thought it was really interesting when Chris said, "I was really fortunate growing up. My parents never talked about money." As if the two go hand in hand, as if talking about money is a bad thing because the only way to talk about money is if you are worried about it. Look at my face. Do I look like I'm worried about money? No, I get the opportunity to talk about it. Money means, ooh, I can buy a new phone. Money means I can take a trip or buy some Doritos. Money is not simply a source of stress and overwhelm and guilt, but that is the invisible script going on here. Now, not surprisingly, Chris did not talk about money, fortunately. And guess what? He doesn't talk about money today.

• 49:09Ramit Sethi?

  Because just like his childhood, somebody else manages it. Both of them have been subsidized in one way or another. There's inheritance, there's a home, there's somebody taking care of the money. And when you are subsidized, it becomes very difficult for you to live in reality and to understand what it would be like to have to do things on your very own. That's why this conversation is proving so challenging right now. Grace, what do you remember your family saying about money when you were young?

• 49:43Speaker 00

  There wasn't much talk of it when I was young. We didn't have a lot of it. My, I grew up with a single mom. There were times in my life where we were feeding or, you know, paying our babysitter with food out of our fridge. Like, it was pretty dire in different ways. I was a student that was provided free lunch at school because I, you know, we didn't have the money. My mom worked her tail off, three jobs, single mom. So money was not prevalent.

• 50:08Ramit Sethi?

  What did she say?

• 50:09Speaker 00

  She really didn't talk about it much. I think she really tried to be a protector of keeping adult problems an adult problem and not talking about it with a little kid.

• 50:19Ramit Sethi?

  You grew up in the Midwest?

• 50:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:23Ramit Sethi?

  How many siblings?

• 50:24Speaker 00

  I have, well, so growing up at that time, so my mom got remarried. And then that kind of shifted also my financial experience too. But when I was little, I just have one full sibling.

• 50:33Ramit Sethi?

  One sibling, and then you mentioned your mom got remarried. What age were you when she got remarried?

• 50:39Speaker 00

  I was 10. And my wonderful stepfather, he has a great job and he moved us, you know, to a nice home, a nice area and

• 50:48Ramit Sethi?

  Take me through that moment. So you were financially struggling until the age of 10. And then suddenly, your stepdad has a stable job, et cetera. What was that experience like for you?

• 51:04Speaker 00

  Like total 180. It was like, oh, I can, I can play sports. I can be, I can afford to be a cheerleader and take these gymnastics classes. And I, I can buy clothes and I don't have to take hand-me-downs from people and

• 51:15Ramit Sethi?

  What did it feel like?

• 51:18Speaker 00

  Exciting, like, secure.

• 51:22Ramit Sethi?

  What does that mean?

• 51:23Speaker 00

  Just that I wasn't stressed or worried about that my needs would be met.

• 51:28Ramit Sethi?

  Were you before?

• 51:29Speaker 00

  I knew she was gone a lot. You could, you know, you can kind of read between the lines, you're intuitive. And I think I knew that, you know, you're like, why is my mom have so many jobs? And why is she gone all the time? And why does someone have to watch me? So, you know, you kind of make your own narrative of maybe what's going on.

• 51:44Ramit Sethi?

  What was the narrative?

• 51:46Speaker 00

  Just that life was hard. My mom needed to work a lot to make ends meet.

• 51:50Ramit Sethi?

  So, age 10, your mom remarries, you feel more secure, you're able to participate in school activities. What happens in your teenage years with money?

• 52:00Speaker 00

  You know, my parents are divorced and so I, I never lived with my dad. So I'm not sure, like, I know their financial aspect is a little different. But in the household I grew up, I never, I never really wanted for anything. I never felt deprived of something that I needed.

• 52:13Ramit Sethi?

  Is your mom and stepdad still together or are they separated? They are? Okay. How are they doing with money?

• 52:19Speaker 00

  I don't know. We don't talk about it.

• 52:22Ramit Sethi?

  At all?

• 52:23Speaker 00

  Not really. No.

• 52:24Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, got it. Did you go to college?

• 52:26Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 52:27Ramit Sethi?

  How'd you pay for that?

• 52:29Speaker 00

  I was very fortunate. My grandfather and my grandmother had inheritance for, or like a college fund for each of the cousins.

• 52:36Ramit Sethi?

  Oh.

• 52:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, we were

• 52:37Ramit Sethi?

  What did they do to have all this inheritance? Quite impressive.

• 52:41Speaker 00

  My grandfather was a fantastic architect.

• 52:43Ramit Sethi?

  Wow.

• 52:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:44Ramit Sethi?

  And he and your grandmother, seems like they saved and invested a whole bunch to be able to pass that.

• 52:49Speaker 00

  They created trusts, yes.

• 52:50Ramit Sethi?

  Wow.

• 52:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:52Ramit Sethi?

  So they paid for your college. Do you know how much approximately that cost?

• 52:56Speaker 00

  Well, my undergrad and my grad school in total was probably about $230,000.

• 53:02Ramit Sethi?

  Whoa.

• 53:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:04Ramit Sethi?

  That's quite a gift.

• 53:06Speaker 00

  I don't even have words to explain the gift. Yeah.

• 53:09Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 53:09Speaker 00

  Like remark, I am beyond lucky to have had that privilege. Yeah.

• 53:14Ramit Sethi?

  Do you take anything away from the example that your grandparents set by being able to give this money multiple generations later?

• 53:24Speaker 00

  I would love to do that. I have no idea how they managed it. They seem to have had it really well figured out. My grandfather and my grandmother were very smart with their finances. And I wish prior to their passings, I had taken more time to understand that.

• 53:39Ramit Sethi?

  Are you having those conversations in this relationship?

• 53:42Speaker 00

  No, I would like to be, but I don't know how to start them.

• 53:47Ramit Sethi?

  Grace, what messages do you bring from childhood to this relationship?

• 53:50Speaker 00

  I think it was, it'll all work itself out.

• 53:55Speaker 00

  So it'll all be fine, you know, it

• 53:57Ramit Sethi?

  It is fine when mom and dad are the ones doing it.

• 54:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:01Ramit Sethi?

  And you mentioned your mom was the protector when it comes to money?

• 54:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think she just, she put her head down and worked her tail off and was like, "I don't want my kids to see me struggle and I'm gonna make happen what I need to make happen for them."

• 54:13Ramit Sethi?

  Who's the protector in this relationship when it comes to money?

• 54:16Speaker 00

  Me? Maybe? I don't know.

• 54:19Ramit Sethi?

  Yes.

• 54:20Speaker 00

  I think I'm shielding him from having to know the struggle of it.

• 54:23Ramit Sethi?

  Yes.

• 54:25Speaker 00

  God, you're good at that.

• 54:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, that makes sense.

• 54:30Ramit Sethi?

  And when your mom protected you from money, what was she doing in the moment?

• 54:35Speaker 00

  I think the intention was good.

• 54:37Ramit Sethi?

  Which was?

• 54:38Speaker 00

  To not feel the stress or the pain of, you know, struggling.

• 54:45Ramit Sethi?

  Because she doesn't like to see people she loves struggle.

• 54:48Speaker 00

  Or be uncomfortable, which is what I don't like. And I don't want him to struggle or be uncomfortable.

• 54:54Ramit Sethi?

  Maybe y'all can do this with your kids. Huh? Not see them struggle, not see them be uncomfortable. And then when they grow up, they can do it to their partners. And then for five generations, we can just carry this on.

• 55:04Speaker 00

  No, no, no.

• 55:05Ramit Sethi?

  Huh? No?

• 55:06Speaker 00

  No. No.

• 55:09Ramit Sethi?

  Wow, Chris, what was that? That was like a real gangster attitude right there. "No thanks, motherf-" Where did that come out of?

• 55:19Speaker 02

  We just got, we gotta break the cycle.

• 55:21Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah?

• 55:21Speaker 02

  Gotta break the cycle.

• 55:22Ramit Sethi?

  What cycle though?

• 55:23Speaker 02

  The talking about money, talking about uncomfortable things, being okay with being uncomfortable. I hate being uncomfortable.

• 55:30Ramit Sethi?

  So you're willing to do it?

• 55:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:32Ramit Sethi?

  Well, you are being uncomfortable by being here right now. I could tell.

• 55:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:36Ramit Sethi?

  And I appreciate that. This is not easy for anybody. So you are ready to change this cycle? Like, that really, that power you had when you said no, that spoke to me for the first time. It's amazing, Chris, that you are willing to kind of let this dynamic persist, the one where you don't talk about money, et cetera. But when it comes to a future child that's not even born yet, you are fierce about it not continuing.

• 56:07Speaker 00

  That is a conversation that we've had.

• 56:09Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah?

• 56:09Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 56:10Ramit Sethi?

  You have had it with him?

• 56:11Speaker 00

  Yes, because that's my thing is, this is the only other thing we dispute about is like, why are you ready to make the changes when a child is here? But why can we not make them ahead of time to set ourselves up for that?

• 56:22Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, and have you said, "This is what I need" before we have kids?

• 56:27Speaker 00

  I don't know what I need. I don't know. And I think that's part of it too, is why we're here. I need to figure out what I need for that to, for that to feel okay and ready.

• 56:37Ramit Sethi?

  You want to do it right now?

• 56:38Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 56:39Ramit Sethi?

  You have time like the present?

• 56:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:41Ramit Sethi?

  I don't like homework anyway. Might as well just do it now. What do you think?

• 56:45Speaker 00

  That's why I was school counselor.

• 56:46Ramit Sethi?

  By the way, correction for America, I don't like homework. For me, as a 43-year-old man who dominated homework, for the kids, you get the homework and you better do it. We're gonna find out what you both want and need. Have you ever talked about what your rich life is?

• 57:04Ramit Sethi?

  No, okay.

• 57:05Speaker 00

  No.

• 57:05Ramit Sethi?

  Well.

• 57:06Speaker 00

  I mean.

• 57:06Ramit Sethi?

  People who have talked about their rich life, they answer like that.

• 57:09Speaker 00

  Vaguely.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  What's a rich life?

• 57:11Ramit Sethi?

  You, you tell me.

• 57:13Speaker 02

  Cause my, my rich life, I, I don't wanna be, I don't need to be a millionaire. I don't need to be a trillionaire.

• 57:19Ramit Sethi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:19Speaker 02

  I just need to be able to be stable enough to have a family.

• 57:23Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 57:24Speaker 02

  Do, you know, do things when we get asked to or if we want to on the weekends with family and friends.

• 57:31Ramit Sethi?

  Be specific.

• 57:32Speaker 02

  I wanna make enough money to just be comfortable where we are. I wanna have a family.

• 57:38Ramit Sethi?

  You wanna eat out 15 times a week? That's fine if that's what you want. Tell me.

• 57:42Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 57:42Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, great.

• 57:43Speaker 02

  That'd be great.

• 57:44Ramit Sethi?

  Great.

• 57:44Speaker 02

  I would love to have for my kids, if they say, hey dad, I wanna play this sport. Great.

• 57:49Ramit Sethi?

  You wanna give them the same childhood you had?

• 57:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:52Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 57:52Speaker 02

  That would be awesome.

• 57:53Ramit Sethi?

  That's it. That's the rich life.

• 57:55Speaker 02

  That would be awesome.

• 57:57Ramit Sethi?

  It feels very surface level. It's literally just a recitation of how you grew up. Like if you don't like travel, I'm not forcing you to travel. That's your life, not mine.

• 58:06Speaker 02

  Not a big traveler.

• 58:07Ramit Sethi?

  Food, leisure, convenience. For me to be able to treat my family because they live close by and they like going to a ballgame and I, gosh, once a year, I sure would like to get box seats. That would be a rich life. But what I'm hearing is I wanna be able to live a comfortable life.

• 58:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:26Ramit Sethi?

  That's boring.

• 58:27Speaker 02

  But that's, I'm a simple man.

• 58:29Ramit Sethi?

  What I'm trying to get at is, is there something deeper here? And I think if you just wanted to learn how to save a little bit of money, there's plenty of places you could've gone. Why did you come here?

• 58:40Speaker 02

  We, we came here, um, cause my, my wife, she's, she's knew who you were and knew what you were about. And her therapist, uh, wanted us to check you out.

• 58:55Ramit Sethi?

  You came here because your wife wanted to come here?

• 58:58Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 59:00Ramit Sethi?

  I think that might be the crux of what's going on here.

• 59:02Speaker 02

  Hmm, maybe a little.

• 59:04Ramit Sethi?

  The avoidance seeps into every part of your life. You're even avoiding talking about your own rich life. I, I didn't care if you came to me and said, I wanna buy a hundred fifty thousand dollars worth of shoes. I would be like, God bless, let's figure out how to do it. But if you can't even do that, your rich life, not even hers, yours.

• 59:25Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 59:26Ramit Sethi?

  It's gonna be very difficult for you two to make progress together. I want you to think about that. Grace, I wanna ask you about your rich life. Actually, before I get to that, what did you notice as I was speaking to Chris about his rich life?

• 59:38Speaker 00

  I think he wants more than he's saying.

• 59:40Ramit Sethi?

  Oh.

• 59:41Speaker 00

  I think he has more rich life ideas that he's just not saying.

• 59:44Ramit Sethi?

  Like?

• 59:45Speaker 00

  Like, we want to add on to our house and we talk about that and growing, you know, and how he wants, like just in more detail. I think he could say in more detail what he wants. I, I know he says he's simple, but I think in his head, there's more detail than he's saying.

• 59:58Speaker 02

  Hmm. Yeah, sometimes I'm, I, I don't articulate the best.

• 1:00:05Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. I mean, it is nerve wracking here. We got a bunch of lights and all that stuff. Fair enough.

• 1:00:09Speaker 00

  No, he's just a man of few words. He has such great ideas and things that he wants and I just don't think maybe you described it in the way that you want.

• 1:00:16Ramit Sethi?

  Grace, are you okay being with a man of few words?

• 1:00:20Speaker 00

  Um, sometimes.

• 1:00:21Ramit Sethi?

  Because I'm struggling to find out what your rich life is and I know how to do this. What I want is change and sometimes Grace, the way to do that is to set an expectation and hold the partner accountable. But because you don't like to see people uncomfortable, you are currently unable to do that. And so you fill the void. All these are just stories you tell yourself. What if you just changed that? What if you flipped it? Oh, as of yesterday, I was not good at letting people that I love be uncomfortable, but starting today, I am extremely [BLEEP] good. In fact, I love it because I know that every second of their discomfort makes them stronger. Hmm. I wonder if we could just change our narrative. Grace, what's your rich life?

• 1:01:06Speaker 00

  Um, I love coffee shops and going and trying unique coffee shops and I would love to go and try as many coffee shops as I want and not worry about how expensive the latte is. We wanna fence in our yard so our dogs can run around and we wanna put, you know, a, a play gym or whatever we wanna put back there and, um, have an all seasons room. And we wanna add on to our primary bedroom and, you know, so I would love to add on, cause we do plan to stay in that house. I love, you know, we love our house. Um.

• 1:01:35Ramit Sethi?

  What about for the two of you?

• 1:01:36Speaker 00

  I would love for us to be able to still have date nights after having children.

• 1:01:40Ramit Sethi?

  Nice.

• 1:01:41Speaker 00

  I would love to like really be intentional, intentional about time for like connection with each other. I would love to be able to afford childcare if needed or figure out how to navigate that, like with our families. Cause we do have families that really want to be involved, which is wonderful. But also if they're not available, I don't, you know, I wanna figure that out about how you financially work all those things out. Um, I would, I'd love to travel. I, I don't, we don't travel a lot. Um, but if we had the means to travel, I think we would more.

• 1:02:10Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. What about for yourself?

• 1:02:12Speaker 00

  There are some things that are also on our conscious spending plan that I do, like better self-care and that are important to me. So like, um, some of the medications I take or what I do with my hair, like that is really important for my, like overall wellbeing and mental health. And so those I'd like to keep intact.

• 1:02:27Ramit Sethi?

  Great. Chris, what do you hear when she describes her rich life?

• 1:02:32Speaker 02

  I, I feel like hers was more like, kinda like home oriented.

• 1:02:35Ramit Sethi?

  Hmm.

• 1:02:36Speaker 02

  Like we, we do wanna put on a three seasons room. We do wanna fence the yard.

• 1:02:41Ramit Sethi?

  Yep. Like it actually told me a bit of who she is.

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:45Ramit Sethi?

  You know what I heard in that was like, oh, she loves coffee. Okay. That's interesting. She's a coffee lover. And she'd like to be able to do date night with the two of you and then there's something about childcare and expanding that, like, oh, okay. I kind of get who she is. That's what I wanna know when I ask people about their rich life. If you asked me, I would talk about hotels and travel and convenience. And you'd be like, this guy is a little weird, but like I can tell the kind of guy he is. The more that the two of you are specific about it, the more that we can rework some of your numbers.

• 1:03:15Speaker 00

  I would also add to love or love to add, um, if we could afford to have a lawn service.

• 1:03:21Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:22Speaker 00

  To where they could take care of our landscaping and our.

• 1:03:24Speaker 02

  That'd be nice.

• 1:03:24Speaker 00

  That, see, I knew you would like that one. I knew that would get him.

• 1:03:27Ramit Sethi?

  Chris just goes, yeah, get those lawn guys out here immediately.

• 1:03:30Speaker 00

  Talking about, he knows it's in his head. He just doesn't think to say it, but we have this.

• 1:03:35Ramit Sethi?

  Kids and lawn care, is that your thing?

• 1:03:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, I, I mow the lawn once a week. I got my little push mower.

• 1:03:44Ramit Sethi?

  What age are you gonna make your own kids mow the lawn?

• 1:03:48Speaker 02

  Maybe like 17, 18.

• 1:03:49Ramit Sethi?

  That's too [BLEEP] late. What are you talking about? 17 years old to mow a lawn?

• 1:03:53Speaker 02

  Maybe 16.

• 1:03:54Ramit Sethi?

  I thought you were gonna say six. I was like, my man, 17 for a push mower? Bro, I was out there at like age, what, 10, 11, mowing that [BLEEP]. This is honestly pretty hard, especially because they have never faced actual consequences for their financial behavior. Sure, they spend more than they make, but they still have Spotify. They still buy all this cool dog food. So how am I gonna get through to them? One thing that I can try to do is show them what is reasonably likely to happen if they make no changes. I don't know if it's gonna really land or not. I'm gonna try my best. If nothing changes in your finances, if nothing changes in the way that you communicate, what's gonna happen?

• 1:04:37Speaker 02

  She's gonna keep looking away. I'm gonna keep looking away. We're not gonna be on the same page.

• 1:04:43Ramit Sethi?

  And then?

• 1:04:44Speaker 02

  And then we're gonna be broke.

• 1:04:48Ramit Sethi?

  And then?

• 1:04:49Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 1:04:50Ramit Sethi?

  No, keep going. It's important that you actually understand what's at stake here.

• 1:04:55Speaker 02

  And then, I don't know, probably have to sell the house.

• 1:04:57Ramit Sethi?

  Yes. And then?

• 1:04:59Speaker 02

  Sell everything. Get rid of everything until there's nothing left and then you have nothing.

• 1:05:05Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. How would that affect your relationship?

• 1:05:09Speaker 02

  Terribly. I, I, I never, I mean, I'm not going anywhere with her, but I'm sure it would be not ideal.

• 1:05:17Ramit Sethi?

  Is it possible that the environment you grew up in was not particularly healthy for money? Even though you all had a pretty nice upbringing for your entire childhood and after the age of 10? Is it possible you may have had things, but you did not learn knowledge?

• 1:05:35Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 1:05:36Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 1:05:36Speaker 00

  I mean, I always say like, these are the things I wish they taught you in school.

• 1:05:39Ramit Sethi?

  You all are adults now.

• 1:05:41Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:05:41Ramit Sethi?

  It's on YouTube. The freaking books are at the public library.

• 1:05:46Speaker 00

  It's on my dining room table.

• 1:05:47Ramit Sethi?

  Did you read it?

• 1:05:48Speaker 00

  Not yet. I wanted to read it together. So I haven't started myself, cause I figured if I started myself, I would do it all myself. And then we're, it's money for couples, not money for one. So.

• 1:06:00Ramit Sethi?

  Did you tell them that?

• 1:06:01Speaker 00

  I mean, I told them, yes, I'd like to read it, but it didn't really go past that.

• 1:06:06Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. You all walk around eggshells for the rest of your life, right into being, right into losing the house.

• 1:06:11Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:06:12Ramit Sethi?

  And, um, the future family that you mentioned about having a child or multiple children, what will they learn about money if nothing changes?

• 1:06:20Speaker 00

  Not good things, not good habits, not good patterns. Um.

• 1:06:25Ramit Sethi?

  What will they learn?

• 1:06:27Speaker 00

  How to avoid talking about money? How to just hope it all works out?

• 1:06:31Ramit Sethi?

  Chris?

• 1:06:32Speaker 02

  We're good people. I think our kids are gonna grow up and see that we're good people. But like if we keep going on this path, our kids for sure won't learn anything.

• 1:06:46Ramit Sethi?

  They'll learn, watching the two of you, if nothing changes.

• 1:06:51Ramit Sethi?

  Moms are the ones who should be freaking out about money. Moms are the ones who try to convince dad to participate, but dad doesn't want to because dad wants to buy the things he wants. And then mom is the one who figures it out. Not sure if mom's even good at money, though. But we got what we wanted. We were very fortunate. They observed dads are the ones who are carefree, chill, easygoing. How's that strike you?

• 1:07:16Speaker 00

  Accurate.

• 1:07:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, very.

• 1:07:19Ramit Sethi?

  You all want to let your daughter grow up thinking that mom is the one who has to take on all the burden and dad gets to do whatever he wants?

• 1:07:26Speaker 00

  Absolutely not.

• 1:07:27Ramit Sethi?

  And his son?

• 1:07:28Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:07:29Ramit Sethi?

  No. So let's change it. We're gonna look at your numbers. Chris, I want you to take a leadership role in this. You all are on the path to losing what you've got and potentially having to sell the house in the future. I need you to make changes and I'm gonna give you a little suggestion. Typically, people who are spending more than the 60% I recommend for fixed costs, they chip away by go, let's cut Hulu, let's cut this, let's cut that. That's not gonna work in your situation. You can't. So I want you to actually start with a blank page and I want you to tell me, what do you envision the kind of lifestyle that you want right now is? It can't be the lifestyle you have.

• 1:08:07Speaker 02

  Well, I feel like the pets is pretty, can't, can't mess with that one. Phone's pretty stable. Maybe take out the Cooper's hawk, wine subscription.

• 1:08:17Ramit Sethi?

  That's $20.

• 1:08:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:20Ramit Sethi?

  You want to see what the effect of that is?

• 1:08:21Speaker 02

  It's nothing.

• 1:08:22Ramit Sethi?

  I'll just show you. So instead of 60, we're gonna make this 40 and watch this number up here, this 113%. It drops to?

• 1:08:31Speaker 02

  Nothing.

• 1:08:31Ramit Sethi?

  Nothing. Think bigger and move faster.

• 1:08:35Speaker 02

  The 662 hair and GLP-1, that's a kind of a cosmetic thing, but I know it, it makes her happy, but maybe if we take that off the board, something might happen.

• 1:08:45Ramit Sethi?

  Ask her, is she willing to make that change?

• 1:08:48Speaker 02

  She's not.

• 1:08:48Ramit Sethi?

  Then ask her.

• 1:08:49Speaker 02

  Are you willing to make that change?

• 1:08:51Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:08:51Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:08:51Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 1:08:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, that's like my mental wellbeing. Like when you have a condition where hair loss is a thing. Taking care of that is something important.

• 1:09:01Ramit Sethi?

  I was not aware of that. Thank you for clarifying. Let's keep it.

• 1:09:05Speaker 00

  Can I take a sec?

• 1:09:06Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, of course. Want to join her?

• 1:09:09Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:09:12Ramit Sethi?

  I don't mind that my guests sometimes cry. I don't mind that they get, I don't even mind that sometimes we have to take a break and they leave the room. Because these are very, very overwhelming feelings to encounter. Chris and Grace are actually discussing money in a way that they have never done before. And yeah, I am pushing because I need them to see the seriousness of this situation. I totally respect and appreciate that she's taking a second and I want to keep going with them because discomfort is not necessarily a sign to stop. It might just be a sign that things are starting to sink in. Welcome back.

• 1:09:55Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:09:57Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, I'm glad we got a chance to take a break. How are you both doing?

• 1:10:00Speaker 00

  Good.

• 1:10:00Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, okay. All right. Thank you for letting me know. I appreciate that. Was not aware.

• 1:10:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, because it is a cost. I mean, it is an expense and a cost and so like.

• 1:10:09Ramit Sethi?

  I appreciate that. Thank you. Okay, let's take a look at the numbers. Tell me what you would like to do next.

• 1:10:15Speaker 02

  Maybe take the cleaning, therapy out.

• 1:10:20Speaker 02

  It's 280.

• 1:10:21Ramit Sethi?

  Ask her.

• 1:10:22Speaker 02

  Are you cool to take that out?

• 1:10:23Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:10:24Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. What else?

• 1:10:26Speaker 02

  The subscriptions are kind of irrelevant.

• 1:10:29Ramit Sethi?

  It's tough, right?

• 1:10:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:30Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 1:10:31Speaker 02

  What would you do? What would you like to do?

• 1:10:33Speaker 00

  I personally would just be like, okay, then we don't have gas or like, we will just take out all the food money because everything else I don't.

• 1:10:40Ramit Sethi?

  You're gonna take out food before?

• 1:10:43Speaker 00

  That's, that's.

• 1:10:43Ramit Sethi?

  I just want to point out what you're saying. Because I want you to hear it out loud. What you just said is we will take out food before we take out a cleaning service, before we take out fitness, Spotify, pets. We'll take out food.

• 1:10:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'd lower it.

• 1:10:59Ramit Sethi?

  You can lower it by a hundred dollars, not gonna change a thing. What are you realizing? I just gave you the opportunity to cut from 113% to 60% and you got?

• 1:11:08Speaker 00

  Nowhere.

• 1:11:09Ramit Sethi?

  Nowhere. What are you realizing?

• 1:11:11Speaker 00

  I'm having a hard time being willing to compromise on things.

• 1:11:14Ramit Sethi?

  Yes. Flip it. From now on, Chris, for the next two minutes, you are completely in charge. I give you carte blanche, do whatever you want and she will support you just for the next two minutes. Go ahead.

• 1:11:27Speaker 02

  Probably the first easy ones would probably be like Spotify, streaming.

• 1:11:32Ramit Sethi?

  Just tell me the number.

• 1:11:33Speaker 02

  Oh, maybe like cut it in half.

• 1:11:35Ramit Sethi?

  All right. What else?

• 1:11:38Speaker 02

  Maybe like cleaning and therapy, just scratch that.

• 1:11:41Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 1:11:42Speaker 02

  Maybe somehow cut groceries and gas in half.

• 1:11:46Ramit Sethi?

  No, that's not real. I'll cut, I'll cut it for a hundred bucks, though.

• 1:11:48Speaker 02

  Sure. Maybe pets.

• 1:11:50Ramit Sethi?

  Uh huh. Cheaper food?

• 1:11:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:53Ramit Sethi?

  What else?

• 1:11:53Speaker 02

  That's about it.

• 1:11:54Ramit Sethi?

  All right, so we drop it 100?

• 1:11:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:57Ramit Sethi?

  Remember, you are currently, you have a magic wand, you can do anything you want.

• 1:12:02Ramit Sethi?

  You have 30 more seconds.

• 1:12:03Speaker 02

  That's probably all I could do.

• 1:12:05Ramit Sethi?

  All right.

• 1:12:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, can't do anything else.

• 1:12:07Ramit Sethi?

  That's it.

• 1:12:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, can't.

• 1:12:09Ramit Sethi?

  Because why?

• 1:12:10Speaker 02

  Just can't.

• 1:12:10Ramit Sethi?

  Didn't you tell me at the beginning, like, I want to be the man of the relationship and the man is the one who provides, et cetera?

• 1:12:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:17Ramit Sethi?

  In that prototypical way of thinking about life, doesn't the man, especially when somebody like me is like, you have carte blanche, you could do anything you want, magic wand. Aren't they just like, motherf*** these numbers? And they just chop it out? Isn't that what the man does?

• 1:12:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I can't do that.

• 1:12:34Ramit Sethi?

  Why?

• 1:12:35Speaker 02

  Because I can't.

• 1:12:36Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. The number is, you went from 113 to 104%. You all are broke. That's simply unsustainable.

• 1:12:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:42Ramit Sethi?

  I think what's happening here is you all want me to do some magic trick for you when you all are not even willing to make the changes yourself. Is that what's happening?

• 1:12:51Speaker 00

  I could see how it could look like that.

• 1:12:52Speaker 02

  Scroll down. Take out, you gotta take out the GLP-1 and the hair.

• 1:12:58Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, zero that out.

• 1:13:00Speaker 02

  Maybe only like a streaming thing for like, to watch TV or something.

• 1:13:05Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, great.

• 1:13:07Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah, I don't really know what else to do.

• 1:13:08Speaker 00

  We pay for dog walking services. It's like.

• 1:13:11Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:13:12Speaker 00

  360 a month.

• 1:13:13Ramit Sethi?

  What the f***? 350 bucks a month for a dog walker out of 635?

• 1:13:18Speaker 00

  Only three days a week. It's crazy. Dog walking is expensive.

• 1:13:21Ramit Sethi?

  So?

• 1:13:22Speaker 00

  So, I mean, in theory, yes, that could.

• 1:13:24Speaker 02

  That could go.

• 1:13:25Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, goodbye, dog walker. All right, you're at 89%. It's better.

• 1:13:29Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 1:13:30Ramit Sethi?

  But not enough.

• 1:13:31Speaker 02

  What does the number need to be to not?

• 1:13:33Ramit Sethi?

  60.

• 1:13:34Speaker 02

  60. Okay.

• 1:13:37Ramit Sethi?

  I find this very peculiar phenomenon, especially in self-development, where people are obsessed with finding the perfect book, the perfect coach, the perfect program. And they almost never take a look in the mirror and ask themselves, am I coachable? And that is what I am seeing here. Are they ready to change? I don't know, but it's pretty difficult for me to get them to see it. Now, that doesn't mean they are uncoachable forever. We all have parts of our own life right now, today, that we are not coachable in, including me. But there has to be a day where if we want to make a big change, we are coachable. So how do you become coachable?

• 1:14:23Ramit Sethi?

  It's hard. It takes practice and most of us have systematically shut that skillset down as we become adults because it's uncomfortable. It makes us feel bad. I don't want to do it. I'll avoid it or if the situation comes, I will just lie. Here's a different way to look at it. One, deep acknowledgement that I have a problem and I need to change. No minimization, no equivocation. Second, we need to make a change. Not the world, not somebody else, not us, me. I need to make a change. And then third, even the simplest, specific tactic. From now on, I am going to ask my partner to lead our money conversations because I

• 1:15:08Ramit Sethi?

  have been trying to do it my way and it's not working. That's just the basic scratching the surface of how you become more coachable, which is a huge skill to develop. You have to remember, you're at 89% with effectively no mortgage. This is not acceptable. If you had a mortgage, it's one thing. Even still, it would be unacceptable. You have no mortgage.

• 1:15:30Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 1:15:31Ramit Sethi?

  So where's the money going? Look, miscellaneous is $809. No f*** way.

• 1:15:38Ramit Sethi?

  But no one here said anything because both of you fundamentally don't believe you have control over your money. If I looked at these numbers, I go, give me a f***ing machete. I will cut this f*** so aggressively. There's no way on this planet that we allow $809 in miscellaneous to happen. I'm gonna fix it. I'll go, okay, wow, cool. You're telling me like that? What are you gonna do? We're gonna be in control of our numbers. We're gonna download it every week. We're gonna have a conversation. Oh, wow. We're gonna give ourselves only $100 a month so that this number becomes in control. And suddenly, we're down to 79%. Oh, that's better, but it's still not enough. Insurance, that needs to be fixed. Chris, I need you to find out about this different job. I need you to find out what's gonna happen.

• 1:16:21Ramit Sethi?

  We can afford this for a while, but we cannot afford this for more than six months. What are you gonna do? What's the plan? Give me a report on it. Chris, I need you to take control because I don't want to be looking over your shoulder. This isn't the way the two of you talk, right?

• 1:16:35Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:16:35Ramit Sethi?

  What do you say instead?

• 1:16:38Speaker 02

  Nothing.

• 1:16:38Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. In a future, like the one I was just describing, where I'm aggressive, how would that ballgame conversation have gone differently?

• 1:16:49Speaker 02

  We probably wouldn't have even gone, to be honest with you.

• 1:16:51Ramit Sethi?

  Bingo. My family calls me, hey, we're going to the ballgame. It's a special occasion. What would I have said?

• 1:16:56Speaker 02

  No, thanks.

• 1:16:57Ramit Sethi?

  I wish I could. I love you guys. Right now, finish this sentence for me.

• 1:17:02Speaker 02

  Right now, I can't afford it.

• 1:17:03Ramit Sethi?

  Right now, we are prioritizing paying off our debt. Right now, we need to focus on saving money for the two of us. Hard to argue with that. Oh, come on, come on. Love you. It's okay.

• 1:17:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:16Ramit Sethi?

  That would have got you, right?

• 1:17:17Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:17:18Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:19Ramit Sethi?

  But until you can prioritize this relationship, specifically the finances and the connection, you will simply continue sinking underwater. And isn't that what you described? This financial arrangement right now, you said it's a sinking ship.

• 1:17:35Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:37Ramit Sethi?

  Finally, where would expenses for a kid go?

• 1:17:42Speaker 00

  Great question.

• 1:17:43Ramit Sethi?

  No, there's no money. We're not even diapers, couldn't even afford that, much less childcare and all the massive costs that come along with one kid.

• 1:17:53Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:54Ramit Sethi?

  What's happening right now? What are you both realizing?

• 1:17:56Speaker 00

  It's terrifying.

• 1:17:58Ramit Sethi?

  Good.

• 1:17:59Speaker 02

  Yes, terrifying.

• 1:18:00Ramit Sethi?

  Good.

• 1:18:01Speaker 00

  Sad.

• 1:18:02Ramit Sethi?

  Yes. Notice my reaction. Am I trying to assuage it? Am I trying to make you feel better right now? Because I don't like discomfort?

• 1:18:09Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:18:10Ramit Sethi?

  No, what am I doing?

• 1:18:11Speaker 00

  Letting me sit in it.

• 1:18:12Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. You earned it.

• 1:18:14Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:18:14Ramit Sethi?

  And the only way you change is you realize how close you are to the edge of disaster. I have questions. The debt payments, when are they over?

• 1:18:22Speaker 00

  Um, some are 12 month and some are 15 months. So some should be over by December

• 1:18:29Ramit Sethi?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:18:29Speaker 00

  and some should be over by March, April of 27.

• 1:18:33Ramit Sethi?

  Can we look? I'm just gonna zero this out to see what happens.

• 1:18:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:18:36Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Fast forwarding, you're down to 61% when that debt is paid off. Wow, that's pretty amazing. That's a stark difference. But I want to paint the picture for you. At 15 months, if you were to execute this plan flawlessly, which I think is unrealistic, would we all agree?

• 1:18:53Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:18:54Ramit Sethi?

  It would mean that the GLP ones would stop today. Hair extensions would stop today. Eating out, there would be no eating out for 15 months. Pet food, cut in half. Does this sound realistic?

• 1:19:07Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:19:07Ramit Sethi?

  Both saying no?

• 1:19:08Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:19:09Ramit Sethi?

  What's the solution here?

• 1:19:11Speaker 02

  At least do something.

• 1:19:12Speaker 00

  We've been pretty, the debt payments are something that have been consistently being paid off. So they are on track to be paid.

• 1:19:20Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 1:19:21Speaker 00

  In regards to like my medicine, that I am almost where I will be stopping anyway. So that will be about $450 a month that will be cut out soon.

• 1:19:33Ramit Sethi?

  Mm hmm. What about earning?

• 1:19:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I get an annual increase every year.

• 1:19:38Ramit Sethi?

  How much?

• 1:19:39Speaker 00

  Um, it varies between three to 5%.

• 1:19:41Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, fine. Chris?

• 1:19:44Speaker 02

  Bottom line, I would probably just have to switch my

• 1:19:47Speaker 00

  I

• 1:19:47Speaker 02

  job is mine.

• 1:19:48Speaker 00

  I didn't even put this in here and you're probably gonna freak out. Um, I have a second job, but it doesn't bring in a lot of money. It brings in about eight to 10 grand a year.

• 1:19:58Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, wait, that's pretty good. What? 10 grand is not a lot? That's a lot of money.

• 1:20:03Speaker 00

  Well, I use it to pay off all the miscellaneous things and the inquiries and the stuff you don't count. So it kind of just sits in an account and then I pull from it to like, you know, so I don't really disperse it anywhere because I try and hold on to it until I

• 1:20:18Ramit Sethi?

  Grace, Grace, listen. You're not managing money effectively.

• 1:20:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:22Ramit Sethi?

  And you are not demanding enough of your partner. What are you hearing me say?

• 1:20:27Speaker 00

  That I'm not managing my money effectively and I'm not demanding enough of my partner.

• 1:20:30Ramit Sethi?

  How would you do each of those in turn? Be specific.

• 1:20:33Speaker 00

  Well, I would start to be more direct in my conversations and in my approach and my tone and my tenacity about it.

• 1:20:40Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, for example?

• 1:20:42Speaker 00

  Like, hey, we don't, even if we have this hundred dollars left over, we are, we are not going to, we're not going to the game.

• 1:20:49Ramit Sethi?

  Correct.

• 1:20:49Speaker 00

  We're not gonna attend that. We are putting, like, we can go and hang out at the house when they're done or whenever they get back. But we can't go to that event. Or, yeah, I know the wine walk is for your dad's birthday, but we, we can't afford it right now.

• 1:21:00Ramit Sethi?

  Great. I love that. Chris, how would you receive that?

• 1:21:05Speaker 02

  Probably not well, to be honest with you, but seeing this, like, there just needs to be a change or else we're just not gonna survive, so.

• 1:21:14Ramit Sethi?

  Yes, I appreciate your honesty, actually. That's pretty cool of you to just be like, yeah, I wouldn't take it well. Nobody does the first few times. And let me give you a little suggestion as to how to get to the point where you do receive it well. If the two of you continue individually, then if you try to make a change, you are each gonna invisibly tug, like a tug of war. And it will be impossible to change. You will go right back to the way you were. So like, oh, like, I'll just do this for three more months. It'll be fine. Oh, the dogs are so cute. We can't do that. What if they don't like the food, etc.? The beers, oh, come on, it's just my dad's birthday. It's once a year. And you will resent each other. It's a horrible place to be.

• 1:21:57Ramit Sethi?

  What the two of you need to do is to find a vision together where you are both like, this is what we're doing. The outside world is not relevant to us. We are the most important ones here. Because if we don't do this, we're gonna be stuck in this forever. And then we're gonna pass it on to our kids for the one, two, third generation and maybe more. You have to find your why. That's why I talk about a rich life. You can get there in 15 months, maybe sooner. Thoughts?

• 1:22:22Speaker 00

  That sounds good to me.

• 1:22:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, that sounds great. We just gotta stick to it.

• 1:22:25Ramit Sethi?

  How are you gonna do that?

• 1:22:29Ramit Sethi?

  Lot of silence here. What's happening? Remember, I'm here to support you. I'm not here to tell you to do something you don't want to do. Grace, what's going through your head right now?

• 1:22:38Speaker 00

  I'm having a hard time with the idea of cutting and thinking about the fixed costs and the thing, like, I, I think that I tried to eliminate things as much as I could thus far without making my life miserable.

• 1:22:53Speaker 00

  Like, those things are all, to me, things that, that keep me okay in life. I think I'm overwhelmed.

• 1:23:01Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, yeah. That's pretty self-aware to be able to call that. Chris, how about you?

• 1:23:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it's very eye-opening.

• 1:23:11Ramit Sethi?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:23:11Speaker 02

  I would say, just not really realizing kind of what the situation was at hand.

• 1:23:17Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:18Speaker 02

  Um, so, yeah, I think it's just very eye-opening.

• 1:23:21Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:21Speaker 02

  And like actually kind of diagnosing what's actually going on.

• 1:23:26Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. What would you say you see as the diagnosis? What is going on here?

• 1:23:31Speaker 02

  We have a lot of high costs at the price that we, you know, can't really afford.

• 1:23:39Ramit Sethi?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:23:40Speaker 02

  Kind of bottom line.

• 1:23:41Speaker 00

  I think it's apparent that we just avoid it and we just kind of dance around the bush all the time, but never really get close to it. You know, it's like a, yeah, we just are like, well, you know, it'll be fine. As long as, you know, touch it and it won't hurt you, you know? And you just kind of hope that it'll all work itself out. Because seemingly it has, quote unquote, right? Like, haven't lost our house yet, so, you know? And I have like my second job and that brings in, you know, and then that's, that kind of sits on the side. So I'm like, okay, that subsidizes whatever I can account for. So I'll just, you know, and so I, you mentally convince yourself that you've got it handled and you don't have it handled.

• 1:24:19Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:19Speaker 00

  So I think I just realized that I thought I was more involved and taking care of it than I really am. Um, and this is what I'd hope to get out of it, too, that it shined light on like my patterns and my behaviors that I think I have under control, but clearly not. And, um, bringing awareness to that.

• 1:24:37Ramit Sethi?

  I actually love realizing that I have been doing something wrong. When you're not getting the outcomes you want. And you're like, God, what's wrong? Is it me? Am I, is there something genetic? Da, da, da, da, da. And then somebody comes along and says like, let's break down exactly what you're doing. Oh, you thought you're eating out twice a week, you're eating out 20 times a week.

• 1:25:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:02Ramit Sethi?

  You thought you were spending this much, but you actually did not include XYZ, ABC. And you go, oh, it actually all makes sense. Not that it's good, but at least it makes sense. Because once something makes sense, then you can start to make changes.

• 1:25:16Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:25:17Ramit Sethi?

  You might be wondering why I did not get to how much they're gonna have in retirement or even contributing to their investments. That's intentional. Because we couldn't even get fixed costs below 100%. For me to talk about investments 30 years from now would be absolutely pointless. In fact, it would be an escape valve for them to focus on something else instead of the problem of their house burning right now. That's why I didn't talk about that stuff. Sometimes you gotta focus on what is in front of you and nail that before you can go to the next step and the next and the next. Based on what we've talked about today, what do you think you are going to do?

• 1:25:57Speaker 00

  Um, I think prioritizing getting that debt paid down. Um, I think figuring out where we can flex costs. So like, for example, like in, maybe we flex how much the dog care is. I look into other, um, options for his food, if that's possible. Eventually, taking at least the GLP one part of my wellness bracket off. Increasing income would be nice. So like in summer, I'm off on summer. So maybe I can take on more hours at the barn. I actually do make a better hourly rate there than I do at my current job. It's just the, the hours aren't there. So at least in the summer, the hours are available. Um, so maybe I could do that to bring in some more income.

• 1:26:39Speaker 00

  Really actually trying to sit down and look at, I want to like actually understand how much we spend on gas and what that really is a month and actually do the numbers. I also would like to look more into how much we really are eating out and like what we actually are doing. Cause I think like we just do it and it goes into the cloud and you think it never happened.

• 1:26:58Ramit Sethi?

  Chris, what about you?

• 1:27:00Speaker 02

  I just think trying to cut down where we can. Um, I think a big one will be me with the insurance. That'll kind of cut, cut down costs for us. And, and I know we can't cut it all back. That's not like totally realistic. But when me and her go home, we're definitely going to start looking at things together. And, you know, trying to figure out where we can and can't. And trying to come up with a plan for that. So.

• 1:27:29Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 1:27:29Speaker 00

  Set a more regular time that we talk.

• 1:27:31Ramit Sethi?

  What time would that be?

• 1:27:33Speaker 00

  Like a Thursday evening or something.

• 1:27:36Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. And what are you going to do in this meeting?

• 1:27:38Speaker 00

  First, we should read your book.

• 1:27:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:41Speaker 00

  Start with reading the book and follow the steps.

• 1:27:43Ramit Sethi?

  Maybe that's part of the meeting.

• 1:27:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:27:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think we could read a chapter and then kind of reflect on it. So like, what did you learn? What did you learn? What are any ideas from this or any ideas from there?

• 1:27:53Ramit Sethi?

  I like it.

• 1:27:54Speaker 02

  Collaborate.

• 1:27:55Ramit Sethi?

  So you're going to come to the meeting, both having read chapter one?

• 1:27:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:59Speaker 00

  Like a book club.

• 1:28:00Ramit Sethi?

  It's a book club, but the two, you're going to be having these meetings probably for the rest of your life.

• 1:28:05Speaker 00

  I hope so.

• 1:28:06Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:28:06Ramit Sethi?

  Great.

• 1:28:07Speaker 00

  I would like to talk about this frequently.

• 1:28:08Ramit Sethi?

  I like your reactions. So let's find a way to enjoy it. We might have a little freaking snack at the beginning. We have an agenda in Money for Couples that you can use. We always start with a compliment. It always feels good when we start our money meetings. We start with a compliment. It's cheap, costs nothing. It's amazing. You choose which book you want to start with. It's up to you, but you should read both of them.

• 1:28:32Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:28:32Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. You may want to create a set of core values and one of them is we make informed decisions quickly. That's one. So if something needs to be cut out, you cut it out immediately. Next, another skill you'll need to work on is creating a united front together against the rest of the world. You can't be united together unless each of you knows what you want. If each of you knows what you want, then you can be united as a team. That takes work and then being united despite what the world says to you, that's a skill. So when family calls, both sides, when friends call, you two should practice and rehearse what you're going to say. And if you need help, ask your partner.

• 1:29:16Ramit Sethi?

  And the other thing is not avoiding the hard discussions. There are a lot of tough discussions ahead of you. I don't look at them as a bad thing. The most important things are hard.

• 1:29:29Speaker 02

  I know that we're willing to do that. Um, and we need to do that, but I, I know that we're willing to collaborate more instead of me just taking a backseat.

• 1:29:39Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:40Speaker 02

  And me thinking that she's just handling it all.

• 1:29:43Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:45Speaker 02

  So, yeah, I, I think that we, we, we know what we need to do from here on out.

• 1:29:50Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 1:29:50Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 1:29:51Ramit Sethi?

  I like that. Um, earning more is the natural next step. You both are young, you have time, but I would not wait. Increasing your income will dramatically affect affordability for the two of you. Like the summer opportunity you mentioned, to me, that is an absolute no brainer. It's a yes. There's no discussion about it.

• 1:30:15Speaker 00

  Thought about being a Starbucks barista.

• 1:30:17Ramit Sethi?

  Why not?

• 1:30:17Speaker 00

  Love coffee.

• 1:30:18Ramit Sethi?

  Why not?

• 1:30:18Speaker 00

  Got great benefits.

• 1:30:19Ramit Sethi?

  There you go.

• 1:30:21Speaker 00

  Thought about it. Might as well go do it.

• 1:30:23Ramit Sethi?

  It's time to start taking the decisions. Again, we make informed decisions quickly because we have a bigger vision than the two of us are going to be comfortable. We talked about what happens if you make no changes. That's not an option.

• 1:30:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, not an option.

• 1:30:35Ramit Sethi?

  You have to make changes, big changes, and they have to happen fast. Are you on board?

• 1:30:41Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:30:41Speaker 00

  On board.

• 1:30:42Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. I think it's going to be really hard for Chris and Grace to make the changes that we discussed today. But let's remember that before today, they had never had a single substantive conversation about money. Let's also remember that Chris does not like to be uncomfortable and being on this show was the definition of uncomfortable for him. So they've already taken a big step. Will they do it? Probably not until their backs are against the wall. Most people do not make self-development changes unless they have to. I don't want them to have one or two kids and suddenly realize next month, we can't afford diapers.

• 1:31:21Ramit Sethi?

  I don't want that, but there's only so much I can say or even do until they realize it for themselves. So I want to thank Chris and Grace for coming on the show. It was not easy. This is a major opportunity for you to change your entire dynamic. I really hope you do it. And now let's take a look at the follow-ups.

• 1:31:43Speaker 00

  This is our reflection from our time with Ramit. Our biggest surprise from the session, mine was probably related to, um, our different childhoods experiences with money and how our parents talked about money or lack of conversation around money. Um, and how that has translated into our adulthood. Um, and how we show up for ourselves and in our relationships in relation to money.

• 1:32:06Speaker 02

  Um, and my biggest surprise, um, was how close our income is to our, to our neighbors and the, the people lawfully here in our town.

• 1:32:17Speaker 00

  Um, and our biggest takeaway, my biggest takeaway probably ties into my biggest surprise. So realizing those patterns and how, you know, I want to take those patterns. And I know my husband wants to take those patterns and change those, um, for our future children and kind of alter those in a more positive way. So having more positive conversations around money, um, and open conversations and being more proactive. Um, and changing the patterns that we noticed about our childhood and how we got here.

• 1:32:46Speaker 02

  Um, and my biggest takeaway, um, is knowing that we need to have more in-depth conversations around our rich life and how we will get there someday.

• 1:32:56Speaker 00

  Um, and our changes that we'd like to make, I think we both agree that we are wanting to, one, you know, read the book, but two, have more weekly set meetings on Thursdays at six, um, about, you know, about our finances and, um, moving forward in a positive direction. Thank you.

• 1:33:15Ramit Sethi?

  If you want to know the exact month and year that you will have $100,000 in your investment portfolio, sign up for my new program, Road to 100K. I'll help you hit that number fast. Go to iwt.com/100k to sign up.