225. “We’re losing $5k/mo. Where is it all going?”

Lashan (50) and David (49) have been married for nearly two decades, raising three children and building stable government careers. But when health complications and a sudden return-to-office mandate pressured Lashan into early retirement, their income dropped. Suddenly, $5,000 a month seems to vanish into thin air. Lashan, meticulous and controlling with money, carries the full weight of their financial future, while David remains passive and supportive from the sidelines. But the stakes are high: a mortgage, looming college costs, and the urgency to create meaningful memories while Lashan still can. Can Ramit help them uncover where the money is going, build a roadmap for the future, and finally get David to step up as a true financial partner? In this episode we uncover: • Why Lashan was pressured into early retirement • How $5,000 a month in “guilt-free spending” keeps disappearing • How David’s childhood scarcity shaped his urge to spend money now • Evictions and shut-off notices from Lashan’s childhood have driven her obsession with control and bill paying • Why David earned the “ignorant reassurer” label • How compartmentalizing her terminal diagnosis keeps Lashan focused on bills instead of her deepest fears • Ramit’s challenge to flip their money roles • The invisible financial work Lashan handles that David barely sees • Why paying bills feels like love and safety for Lashan • How Lashan ended up caring for everyone else but not herself Chapters: (00:00:00) “I’ve cried more about leaving my job than my diagnosis” (00:19:25) Ramit breaks down their numbers (00:38:02) “Eviction notices… the electricity might be off” (00:46:32) “I’m going to die… and I can’t do this all alone” (01:10:44) Redefining what family memories look like (01:20:28) Paying off debt isn’t enough—planning for life after (01:28:23) “I feel like I see the possibility for joy and fun” (01:36:01) Where are they now? Lashan and David’s follow-ups This episode is brought to you by: LMNT | Right now, LMNT is offering 8 single serving packets FREE with any LMNT order. Get yours at https://drinklmnt.com/RAMIT. Gelt | Book a tax consultation with Gelt at https://joingelt.com/ramit. As a member of my community, you can skip the waitlist. Netsuite | Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at https://netsuite.com/ramit. Fabric by Gerber Life | Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at https://meetfabric.com/ramit. DeleteMe | If you want to get your personal information removed from the web, go to https://joindeleteme.com/ramit for 20% off. Links mentioned in this episode • Get tickets for my next live events—September 14 in Atlanta and September 26 in Los Angeles—at iwt.com/events 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 If you and your partner have a money issue and you want my help, I occasionally select a couple to work with, free of charge. Apply for my help here.

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

• 0:00Ramit Sethi?

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

• 0:43Ramit Sethi?

  and you can join today at iwt.com/100k. When I was thinking about quitting my last job to do "I Will Teach You To Be Rich" full-time, I created a rule for myself. I couldn't go full-time with IWT until it earned at least as much as my monthly salary for three months in a row. And this really helped me take my business seriously. Now, for new business owners, I recommend something similar. And as you are getting set up, I also recommend keeping things simple by using Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the US, including brands like Mattel and Jimm Shark.

• 1:28Ramit Sethi?

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• 2:02Ramit Sethi?

  Start your free trial at Shopify.com/ramit. Start your free trial at Shopify.com/ramit.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  I don't think that we're spending that much. I don't think that's right.

• 2:14Ramit Sethi?

  $5,000 a month on guilt-free spending, where is it?

• 2:16Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  She pretty much takes care of that. She handles it. Often times she may pay bills that I don't know about.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  If I have extra, I'm like $1,000 on the credit card and $1,500 on the HELOC. I don't think that's happening.

• 2:28Ramit Sethi?

  Where's the rest of the money going? $5,000 a month, what are you spending money on? Listen to what LaShawn wrote in her application. "I manage the finances, which is already stressful. I just opted to retire early from my federal job due to health concerns, and now I'm even more anxious. I worry that I made the wrong decision and that my family will be on the street because of it." Today, I'm talking with LaShawn and David. She's 50, he's 49, and their entire financial life just changed overnight. LaShawn made the decision to retire very quickly, and you're going to hear why in our conversation. But as the one managing their money, she is panicked. Did I make a huge mistake? Are we going to lose everything?

• 3:13Ramit Sethi?

  And now they're asking the same question many couples do when their income changes. Are we going to be okay? Let's look at their numbers. I'm going to pull up their conscious spending plan right now, which tells me how much they make, how much they spend, and what their four key numbers are. If you want to run your own numbers the same way I do, download your free conscious spending plan at iwt.com/csp. Here we go. Assets: $586,952. Investments: $824,198. Savings: $30,377. Debt: $227,457. Total net worth: $1.2 million.

• 3:57Ramit Sethi?

  Fixed costs: 50%. Investments: zero, that's a bit concerning. Savings: 6%. And guilt-free spending, a whopping 44%. Okay. Honestly, these numbers look pretty great for a couple in their late 40s, early 50s. But I suspect these numbers are going to change quite a bit with one income coming down because of early retirement. So I have a lot of questions. Let's get started with LaShawn and David. LaShawn, you have been the financial leader in your family for decades. And you are now facing a terminal diagnosis and your income is about to disappear. That is a lot.

• 4:42Ramit Sethi?

  What are the words going through your mind as you think about your current situation?

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Fear is probably the big one. And I guess feeling unsure my income decreases after September 30th. That's really where a lot of my anxiety comes from is that it's such a big drop. That how do we maintain our life, pay our bills and all that stuff? And also, how do we make sure that however many years that I have, that we are in a good position? And then even when I'm gone, that he's in a good position, that everybody is going to be taken care of. And that I can feel good, that they're going to be good.

• 5:28Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. David, how did you feel when LaShawn made the decision to retire early?

• 5:35Speaker 02

  I supported her because of the political situation we were in and the changes they were making at her job. She probably would have had to go into the office, which she's been working from home. We live about two to three hours away. So for her to have to commute two to three hours each way, five days a week. And then we still didn't know exactly what was going to happen. Everything was uncertain. So I feel like she made the best decision that she could with the information we had.

• 6:04Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Let me understand a little bit more about the context of this decision that you made to retire early. Can you tell me what led to this?

• 6:12Speaker 01

  I am a federal employee. I don't know if you're familiar, but when the new administration came in, they had something called the Deferred Resignation or Retirement Program. It came out, I was like, all right, this seems like a scam, you know, completely not anticipating leaving or anything like that. And that was one, DRP one. And then on like April 7th, they came out with DRP 2.0 and they gave our option of an early retirement. If you have a certain amount of years in service and you're a certain age, you are eligible for it. Again, totally ignored it. And that was Monday and like about Wednesday, one of my coworkers said that they had,

• 6:55Speaker 01

  who was also on something called reasonable accommodation. That's why we were working from home full time. She said she'd gotten an alternative accommodation that wanted her to come back into the office. And I was like, okay. And so that was very surprising because we had been told that reasonable accommodations wouldn't be touched. And then my supervisor was like, this is what I'm hearing. It's kind of coming down the pipe that they're going to start offering alternative accommodations and that you might not be able to really argue against it because they weren't denying it. But the alternative wasn't really based on our actual medical situation because they couldn't see our medical situation because of HIPAA.

• 7:39Ramit Sethi?

  I see. Is this the same situation as the emails that Elon Musk sent out?

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:45Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, okay. I imagine there was a lot of that going around. Well,

• 7:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:50Ramit Sethi?

  Hey, you're the federal employee, so you probably can't say it, but I can. Mother this doge bull completely fake. You don't have to say anything. Don't put yourself in any trouble. I don't know what your views are, but as the son of somebody who worked for the state of California, my dad, there's a lot of very hardworking people who work for the local, state and federal government. And to go in there and basically accuse everyone of being wasteful and fraudulent, which of course they never found any evidence of that, just really, really personally angers me. Anyway, thank you for clarifying the situation. I also understand that there was a medical diagnosis. Feel free to share as much as you're comfortable with, but could you tell me a little bit about how the medical part of this has played in?

• 8:35Speaker 01

  In May of 2022, my cancer returned. I received a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer, which is not curable. We all have a shelf life. Mine is probably going to be a life shorter than most people's. And so the doctor is just giving me medication to take on a daily basis. And he's like, one day the medication will stop working, we'll try something else. And then one day, nothing will work.

• 9:02Ramit Sethi?

  Wow.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  And so that's the environment that I am considering like, oh, I may have to come into work while I'm dealing with this.

• 9:12Ramit Sethi?

  You seem very calm talking about it. I would assume you've thought about this a lot, probably every day since you've received it. Is that the case?

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Um, no. I am a superhero of a compartmentalizer. I put it in a box. And honestly, I probably cried more about the decision to leave my position than I have about getting my diagnosis. I think I'm a lot more pragmatic. I don't want to leave my family, but you never ask why, because in the whole world, everybody's dealing with something.

• 9:49Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. That is surprising to me, but I totally understand it, especially when you use the word pragmatic. That resonates with me a lot. How long is the range of how long you have? I'm asking because it would affect some of the financial decisions you're making.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Um, well, I've seen like an average of seven years. So definitely I know that there's people who I'm sure are much longer and I'm at year three since my diagnosis. So, you know, I'm hoping to be a person that is exceeding the average.

• 10:22Ramit Sethi?

  Me too. Okay. Thank you, LaShawn, for giving me the background. That is so helpful. David, when you heard about these retirement options going around and LaShawn decided to make the early retirement decision, what was your involvement in that decision?

• 10:42Speaker 02

  Well, she asked me what I thought and because we didn't have a lot of information about the course of action that her job was going to take as far as the reasonable accommodations. It was like, you know, this was an opportunity with the deferred retirement to still get paid through September versus her turning that down and then possibly having to just leave or be fired because she couldn't accommodate the reasonable accommodations that they were going to give her.

• 11:09Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  So I think that was the best decision that we could make with what we knew.

• 11:13Ramit Sethi?

  How long did you discuss this before you made a decision? What was that time period?

• 11:18Speaker 02

  Uh, it was a couple of days, I think.

• 11:20Ramit Sethi?

  What?

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  A couple of days. Cause we didn't really have a lot of time to make the decision. It had to be, it was like over a weekend, I think.

• 11:27Ramit Sethi?

  You made an early retirement decision in a couple of days?

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was it. Figuring out how to move forward in this really, you know, for me, it was a very difficult situation. I mean, I was so anxious. I was like having panic attacks and I, you know, reached out to start therapy because I literally was just like crying and, and, and, you know, couldn't even think.

• 11:53Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. I'm sorry you have had to go through that. On top of the medical diagnosis, there is no logical reason to force tens of thousands of people into early retirement and without the appropriate amount of time to do your diligence. I'm on top of my numbers and even I could not have made a good decision within seven days. So to expect tons of federal employees to make a decision where you closed the door forever, I think is very, very unfair. So, okay, you made the decision with the best information you could. Let's accept that decision. It's been made and the retirement date, I believe, is in around three or four months. Is that correct?

• 12:32Speaker 01

  September 30th. Yes.

• 12:35Ramit Sethi?

  Well, Sean said something a minute ago that was incredibly revealing. Did you catch it? She said she's a master of compartmentalization and that she's cried more over leaving her job than she has over a terminal cancer diagnosis. I think that's a really important clue. I can relate to part of this. Years ago, my business took a pretty big downturn and we tried to fix it. It wasn't working. We tried more things. It still didn't work. I found myself waking up at night choking, like I couldn't breathe. I went to the doctor. The doctor took a look, said physiologically, you're fine. Are you under any stress? And I just laughed. Am I under any, of course I'm under stress. I'm under enormous stress. But until that moment,

• 13:21Ramit Sethi?

  I had compartmentalized stress from my body. I can handle stress. I'm Ramit Sethi. What I didn't realize is just like anyone, we all have a level and my level might be a little higher than others, but just like anyone, I have a level. That moment really shook me because I thought I knew myself by age 30, 35, et cetera. But that's not always true. I actually had a massive blind spot. And when you are compartmentalizing, any compartment can hold a certain amount of stress, but when it finally overflows. It can be really scary. I suspect that's what's happening with LaShawn. She's facing the end of her life. But instead of asking, "How do I want to spend the time I have left?"

• 14:04Ramit Sethi?

  She is laser-focused on this question, "Will we have enough?" Kind of makes sense if you think about it. That question gives her control. It's something she can tweak and optimize. But the alternative? "I'm sick and time is running out?" It's too big. It's too scary. What makes this even worse is she didn't get the time to think through this life-changing decision to retire. I recently posted a video about the colossal failure of Doge, a predatory, government-wide scam run by Elon and Trump, which failed miserably and affected you. So if you want to see what really happened, just search for "Rameeth Doge." Doge, of course, promised to find tons of waste. Instead, found essentially nothing.

• 14:47Ramit Sethi?

  And now people like LaShawn are left to deal with the fallout. My goal is to help LaShawn zoom out beyond the spreadsheets and focus on what actually matters. But to do that, we need clarity. We need to understand exactly what's going on. And right after this, we're gonna get into the numbers. Let's talk a little bit about the household finances. In a word or two, how would you each describe your role with the family finances? LaShawn? The lead. The lead. Okay, great. And David?

• 15:18Speaker 02

  I would agree. She handles it.

• 15:20Ramit Sethi?

  What about you?

• 15:22Speaker 02

  I contribute. We talk about certain things. But as far as the monthly payments, she pretty much takes care of that.

• 15:29Ramit Sethi?

  All right.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  I have a word for him.

• 15:31Ramit Sethi?

  Say that again?

• 15:33Speaker 01

  I do have a word to describe him.

• 15:35Ramit Sethi?

  Please.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  I watched one of your "Man on the Streets," "The Ignorant Reassurer," and I sent him that one. He was like, "Oh, so you're saying I'm ignorant?" I'm like, "No, no, no. You're very intelligent, but you are the ignorant reassurer."

• 15:49Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, "The Ignorant Reassurer," which is not meant to be insulting. I know that... In American culture, the word ignorant is seen as an insult, but I don't mean it like that. A lot of people, and it almost always is men, when they are ignorant about money, they will often do this thing where they reassure their girlfriend or wife, "Oh, it's gonna be fine, babe. It's fine. Stop worrying. It's gonna be fine." Meanwhile, they don't even manage the money. Their wife is the one managing money. "How can you reassure her? You don't even know what the numbers are." That's the ignorant reassure. David, are you the ignorant reassure?

• 16:22Speaker 02

  To some extent, I guess you could say that, but I would say that she, I mean, we really haven't had any financial issues thus far. I think we've been in a good position. It's just that this uncertainty, which has now been thrust upon us, is what's really driven us to this point.

• 16:39Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. All right. LaShawn, are you managing the household finances on your own?

• 16:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  I'm not opposed to being more involved in it. I feel like she's been doing an adequate job with it, but I'm definitely here for support to offer any additional help I can.

• 16:55Ramit Sethi?

  LaShawn, have you ever asked David to be more involved?

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:00Ramit Sethi?

  Uh, when was the first time that you asked David to be more involved with the finances?

• 17:07Speaker 01

  Probably 15 years ago, at least that. It might have been before then. I don't know. And I'm like, oh.

• 17:13Ramit Sethi?

  Exactly what I thought. David's over here like, "I'm not opposed to being more involved." I'm like, "She's been asking you for almost 20 freaking years." David, care to comment?

• 17:24Speaker 02

  I have stepped in. I have taken over control of the finances. I think I missed a payment. She went crazy and she took it back away from me.

• 17:33Ramit Sethi?

  What does "went crazy" mean? What does that mean?

• 17:35Speaker 02

  She was like, "Oh, you were late. You were late on the payment. Um, you know, I've gotta take it back. You know, I've gotta take control again."

• 17:41Ramit Sethi?

  Was this a payment on a credit card?

• 17:43Speaker 01

  No, it was a utility bill and we got the red notice.

• 17:46Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, God.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  It's just like, what?

• 17:50Ramit Sethi?

  Exactly. If my wife missed a payment on a utility bill where it got to like the red, I would be like, What is happening here? But second of all, more importantly, I wouldn't have my wife paying the utility bill. I would have the computer doing it because it's way more efficient than either of us are. Let's take a look at the numbers that we're working with here. LaShawn, can you read the word in bold and then the number in full next to it for this entire box, please?

• 18:18Speaker 01

  Assets, 586,952.

• 18:23Ramit Sethi?

  Next.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Investments, 824,198.

• 18:27Ramit Sethi?

  Savings?

• 18:28Speaker 01

  30,377.

• 18:31Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, and debt?

• 18:32Speaker 01

  227,457.

• 18:35Ramit Sethi?

  Total net worth?

• 18:36Speaker 01

  1.214 million.

• 18:39Ramit Sethi?

  Cool. What do you think of those numbers, both of you?

• 18:42Speaker 02

  Sounds good.

• 18:43Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, LaShawn?

• 18:45Speaker 01

  I was very excited to see that our, you know, was in the positive, which I would assume it would be, but that it was that high. I was pretty stoked.

• 18:56Ramit Sethi?

  Did you have any idea?

• 18:58Speaker 01

  I did not.

• 18:59Ramit Sethi?

  Hmm. What did you think if you would have had to guess before you did this?

• 19:02Speaker 01

  I would have said maybe more of maybe 700,000, just because I know how much the house is worth.

• 19:09Ramit Sethi?

  Hmm, that's very interesting. So your house is what, around 500, 600K basically?

• 19:17Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:18Ramit Sethi?

  So you would have said like 600K is the house plus like some change here and there equals 700?

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I probably would have said maybe 900. So I might have been a little bit close, but just like that it's over a million, like we gave each other a high five.

• 19:32Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, I love hearing this. Fantastic. Okay, great. And David, how about you? You said it sounds good? Anything else?

• 19:38Speaker 02

  Again, because I wouldn't have expected that it was over a million dollars, you know, just based on the house. I didn't realize that it would be that high, so we were both very excited.

• 19:48Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, good. Let's continue on to the income. This time I'd like to hear from you, David. David, can you tell me what this number says here? This combined gross monthly income, please?

• 19:59Speaker 02

  18,082.

• 20:02Ramit Sethi?

  Great. So combined, on an annual basis, the two of you make a total of 217,000. David, did you know that number?

• 20:12Speaker 02

  I knew it was above 200. I didn't know exactly.

• 20:16Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 20:17Speaker 02

  But I know it was around that much.

• 20:18Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, LaShawn?

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, it sounds kind of right. I think it should be a little bit higher, but that's in the range.

• 20:25Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, I'll take that as two yeses. Also fantastic. Okay. Why don't we take a look at the rest of the numbers? Let's go through it quickly. I'm going to read off some key numbers here. Your fixed costs, 50%, five zero. That is on the lower end of what I typically recommend, 50 to 60%. So I don't see this number too often, and I mean that in a really positive way. This is really good. Let's take a look at investments are at zero, but I know that there's something else going on here because you have $824,000. So you've obviously been putting in pre-tax money for a long period of time and letting that compound. And maybe there's something else going on. We'll find out about that. Savings are at 6%.

• 21:07Ramit Sethi?

  I also want to note that you have six months of an emergency fund, $30,000 in savings. So you have a pretty decent emergency fund. And then finally, whoa, guilt free spending. What's this number? 44% or $5,000 a month? Okay. Tell me about that. What are you spending money on?

• 21:27Speaker 01

  I don't think that's right, but it might be right.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  Don't know where the money is going.

• 21:34Ramit Sethi?

  But like to the nearest thousand, what are you spending on? Eating out.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  A lot of eating out.

• 21:42Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, eating out. All right. What else?

• 21:45Speaker 01

  He might be spending it on shoes.

• 21:48Ramit Sethi?

  What else we got?

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Vacations.

• 21:50Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, vacations. Why is everybody getting so quiet all of a sudden?

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Cause I don't, that number, like even when I filled it out, that number was like, where, what?

• 22:01Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Why don't we put it all out on the table and then we can figure out what we want to do about it? So so far we got eating out, shoes, vacations. What else?

• 22:11Speaker 01

  The kids.

• 22:12Ramit Sethi?

  How many kids?

• 22:13Speaker 01

  We have three.

• 22:15Ramit Sethi?

  And the ages again?

• 22:16Speaker 01

  23, 18, and 13.

• 22:20Ramit Sethi?

  How often do you eat out? Ballpark it. Per week? A week?

• 22:28Speaker 01

  I would say five times a week. Like your lunch, if I go out for lunch and then our Friday. And I will say that our kitchen got destroyed from a water leak. And so we are eating out far more often because it is painful to both cook and clean in our disaster zone of a kitchen right now.

• 22:53Ramit Sethi?

  Do you want to do the exercise where I show you how much you actually eat out? Or do you want me to just tell you the real number?

• 23:00Speaker 01

  I watch your show. I watch the podcast. So I know.

• 23:04Ramit Sethi?

  You know what the number actually is. You told me five. So what's the real number?

• 23:08Speaker 01

  Um, probably fifteen.

• 23:11Ramit Sethi?

  Fifteen. Bingo. LaShawn knows it. It's Ramit's rule of three X, which is whatever they tell me for eating out, triple it and we will get there. It is cosmically true. It is always true. We can go through the math if you want, or we can just accept it and skip it. What do you say?

• 23:27Speaker 01

  I tried to be very honest about the five. So maybe it's in the middle. It might not be fifteen, but maybe it's ten.

• 23:36Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. You want to put ten? I'll put ten. That's fine with me. Ten times a week? Fine. That's forty times a month. I believe you, but where's the rest of the money going? Five thousand dollars a month on guilt free spending? Where is it?

• 23:48Speaker 01

  Um, I don't know.

• 23:50Ramit Sethi?

  Where'd you go on holiday or holidays?

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Well, um, last year we went on a cruise.

• 23:57Ramit Sethi?

  Mm hmm. And how much did it cost? Uh, total?

• 24:00Speaker 01

  That cost about fifty five hundred.

• 24:03Ramit Sethi?

  Did you count the taxi to the airport, parking, eating? Did you count all that?

• 24:08Speaker 01

  Yes, that includes everything.

• 24:11Ramit Sethi?

  Damn. I like that answer. That is a confident answer. I believe you. Okay, fifty five hundred total for the entire trip, taxes, tips, transportation, incidentals, all of it included. I believe you. Fifty five hundred. And was that the only holiday you took last year?

• 24:26Speaker 01

  No.

• 24:27Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, what else?

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Last year in July, we took another cruise.

• 24:32Ramit Sethi?

  How much did that cost?

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Maybe eight thousand.

• 24:35Ramit Sethi?

  So eight thousand for that cruise. Okay, fine. And then any gifts over the course of the year for a family of five?

• 24:41Speaker 01

  Two thousand is the gifts over the whole year for the whole family.

• 24:44Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Just so you know, we're at fifteen thousand five hundred so far.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  That was unusual. That was an unusual year.

• 24:51Ramit Sethi?

  It's never unusual.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  We took the first cruise and it was so terrible that I felt like I needed to. Do a better one.

• 24:58Ramit Sethi?

  What? What happened?

• 24:59Speaker 01

  Um, it was just It's terrible. The worst. It was the worst. Yeah. Yes.

• 25:03Ramit Sethi?

  Did you go on a different cruise line?

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 25:06Ramit Sethi?

  That was better. Okay. And what about other recreation?

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Movies.

• 25:10Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, how often?

• 25:12Speaker 01

  During the summer, maybe once or twice a week. I try to go when they're about $6.

• 25:18Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, that's very reasonable. So you spend money on movies? What else? Is there any other like major expense that you're spending on for the family from a discretionary perspective?

• 25:28Speaker 01

  He goes to the gym, so he pays for gym membership.

• 25:32Ramit Sethi?

  No, I'm trying to understand where does the $5,000 a month or $60,000 a year go?

• 25:38Speaker 01

  I think I'm just paying extra on different bills. I don't think it's just completely like

• 25:46Speaker 01

  discretionary over there. If I have extra money, I'm paying more on our debt.

• 25:54Ramit Sethi?

  Hold on. The woman who knows the exact amount of her cruise down to the taxis, tips and drinks doesn't know where $5,000 a month is going? I don't buy it. LaShawn is meticulous. She's been leading the family finances for decades. She pays the bills, tracks every payment, tries to get ahead. So when I see a line item in their CSP that says $5,000 a month, 44% of their income on guilt free spending, I kind of expect a clear answer. Instead, I just got shrugs. And this is another clue, because while I want to get beyond the numbers with LaShawn, it's hard to do that if $60,000 a year is just evaporating. She did mention that she occasionally puts extra money towards debt.

• 26:39Ramit Sethi?

  I'm curious what those debt payments are for. We are going to break down their debt and find out right after this. What is your debts? You have a mortgage, right?

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Yes, we have a HELOC that we use to pay for two vehicles. And we have one credit card that has a balance.

• 26:58Ramit Sethi?

  Uh, hmm? Hold on. If you could see inside my head, there's like a wheel that's starting to spin right now. It's getting a lot faster. How much is the balance of the credit card debt?

• 27:10Speaker 01

  I paid $2,000 in the last month, so it's down to $6,700.

• 27:15Ramit Sethi?

  $6,700, okay. And the HELOC?

• 27:18Speaker 01

  The HELOC is $24,900.

• 27:21Ramit Sethi?

  Let's call it $25,000. Looking at your car payments. You have $278 a month, but that's because you're putting it towards the HELOC. Is that why?

• 27:31Speaker 01

  No, the 278 is just like the gas and everything. And I think we have the HELOC in there. It's like $866 a month. I think we put that in there.

• 27:43Ramit Sethi?

  I'll show you. You have debt payments of 950 a month.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's it. That's the HELOC and the one credit card with the balance.

• 27:51Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, okay. So you have about, let's just call it 32,000 in debt. What's the credit card debt for?

• 27:59Speaker 01

  Earlier this year, we got our kitchen countertops and our floor upgraded before the leak. So I put that on a 0% credit card. Like I will pay it off. And again, I wasn't anticipating retiring and I was like, oh, I have 18 months at 0%. I'm going to pay it off before the 0% goes away.

• 28:23Ramit Sethi?

  When does the 0% end?

• 28:24Speaker 01

  July of 2026.

• 28:28Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, so you got another year or so.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:30Ramit Sethi?

  I am puzzled by some things which we need to figure out. The spending, this is a lot of money we're talking about and it will become increasingly important to be dialed in. Okay, but we can figure it out. LaShawn, when you think about what to change in your finances as a result of early retirement, what are the first things that come to mind for you?

• 28:54Speaker 01

  First things are getting the debt paid down so that we have more breathing room, especially the HELOC, which is a big chunk. So that is really like my focus. Also, my retirement that we have in the government, which is called the TSP. Like, once you retire, you can't put any more money in. So do I just leave it there? Of course, obviously, if I'm not contributing anything, I'm more sensitive to losses that may happen with the market as we've seen already so far this year. And do we have any money for me to keep contributing? Does it make sense? So it's just a lot of stuff of like, how do we make sure that however many years that I have,

• 29:39Speaker 01

  that we are in a good position? And then even when I'm gone, that he's in a good position?

• 29:45Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. Okay, I hear you loud and clear. You want to make sure that your family is taken care of. I respect that. We'll make sure that happens. In addition, Part of living a rich life is making sure, especially if there is a ticking clock that you are aware of, that we really spend some time talking about you. And I think sometimes when people who are experts in doing things for other people, they, their own skills of deciding what is important to them deteriorate. Is this income that you are currently making, which is eighteen thousand a month or two hundred and seventeen thousand a year, is this reflective of how much you're going to make as a household after September?

• 30:31Speaker 01

  No.

• 30:32Ramit Sethi?

  What is that number going to be after September?

• 30:34Speaker 01

  Well, that number is going to be, um, for me, and I don't know what it is after taxes, but it'll be closer to sixty seven hundred a month before taxes.

• 30:50Ramit Sethi?

  Sixty seven hundred gross. Right now, you're making ninety five hundred a month, right?

• 30:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:54Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, let's, let's look it up. Okay, so instead of making eighteen thousand a month, you're going to make fifteen thousand a month. Off the surface, doesn't sound like that big of a deal. What do you think?

• 31:03Speaker 01

  I'm feeling like it's not going to be that bad, but you know, I had to apply for social security disability. And because of my terminal diagnosis, they approved that very quickly. So then that was added into the mix.

• 31:18Ramit Sethi?

  I see.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  So it was like, oh, okay, I have a little bit more because the actual retirement payment is like twenty one ninety two. So.

• 31:28Ramit Sethi?

  Wow, that would be a big drop.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Right. So that's the pension. And so I was like, oh, my God. And then the social security came in and they're like, okay, well, in December, we'll start paying you

• 31:41Speaker 01

  thirty one hundred and eighty dollars. And I was like, okay.

• 31:45Ramit Sethi?

  Right.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  It's definitely less, but I do feel a little bit better.

• 31:49Ramit Sethi?

  Let me make sure I understand. So you have pension, which will be part of your income. You have social security and disability.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  I have social security disability and then I have a payment that goes for my daughter because I'm on disability. So that's the other number in the mix.

• 32:08Ramit Sethi?

  That's included in the income as well?

• 32:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:10Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Anything else?

• 32:12Speaker 01

  No.

• 32:13Ramit Sethi?

  And then we have David's income as well.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Right. His will stay the same or maybe go up.

• 32:18Ramit Sethi?

  Got it. At eighty-five hundred a month, right, David? Okay. David, what do you do for a living?

• 32:23Speaker 02

  I'm a contracting officer.

• 32:25Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, great. And when LaShawn just mentioned it might go up, is that because of pay raises, promotion, that kind of thing?

• 32:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, annual pay raises. Hopefully, there's a promotion and there's someone.

• 32:35Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. You work for the federal government as well?

• 32:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:38Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Okay, got it. Good. This is good to know. So, David, do you have a pension as well? And do you know your numbers with the pension?

• 32:48Speaker 02

  I believe it was four hundred, four hundred something.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  That's the retirement.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  So the pension is based on like how many years you work?

• 32:59Ramit Sethi?

  David, do you have a sense of when you would retire?

• 33:02Speaker 02

  I was thinking maybe ten years from now. I think that retirement age, they were trying to increase it. So I plan on just working until I'm probably not able to, or, you know, I feel like it's just time for me to leave.

• 33:16Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. This is really helpful to understand. Really helpful. LaShawn, just off the bat, without further investigation, your decrease in pay is not as dramatic as I had assumed. That's a good thing.

• 33:31Ramit Sethi?

  Combined with the fact that David is going to keep his salary and potentially, we never count on it, but potentially have some upward growth, that's great. In order to be able to give more specific feedback, I'd like to understand a little bit about how you both grew up with money. LaShawn, I'd love to go back to your childhood. I'm talking when you were young. What do you remember your family saying about money? What words did they use?

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Honestly, I don't remember them really saying anything. My mom had me when she was seventeen, so she was pretty young. She would just work. And try to pay the bills. And as I was a teenager, we were a lot more financially insecure. We would have eviction notices, or the electricity might be off for a little bit. And we would move and find someone else that would be willing to take a chance. And we might stay there for a little bit. So we had a lot of moving around and just being unsure of somebody who's gonna knock on the door and put like the eviction notice. The biggest thing that I remember was like when I was in 12th grade, I had like American Lit teacher.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  And he was like, get a credit card, buy a little bit each month that you can pay off. And then pay it off. And that's how you build good credit. And I just remember that was like, okay, when I go away to college and I get my first credit card, I'm gonna buy a little bit that I can afford, and I'm gonna pay it off, and I'm gonna build up my credit.

• 35:03Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. It's quite a remarkable journey you've gone on to go from constant eviction notices to having $824,000 in your investment account. What do you make of that?

• 35:15Speaker 01

  That was part of the reason why I was high fiving him, because I was like, oh, my gosh. Look at how far, you know, where I am compared to where I was before. And I think that's why I have my hand on the finances. I think it gives me a sense of security and safety, because I know like, when I pay my credit card and it goes down to zero, like, I am so happy. And I know it's supposed to be automated, but I'm like, oh, let me pay my city card. Because when you pay city, like, it immediately adjusts your balance. And the feeling that I get when it goes down to zero, I'm just like, ah.

• 35:53Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  I had the money to pay my bill.

• 35:55Ramit Sethi?

  I call it being irrationally happy. I love hearing people's stories about it. I love it. You paying your credit card bill. I don't get the same joy because I didn't grow up the same way you did. But when I buy an appetizer at a restaurant, I feel irrationally happy. Because I couldn't do that when I was a kid. Too expensive. So like, 10 bucks, 15 bucks for an appetizer, big deal. But it actually is a big deal to me. And now I can understand why paying that credit card off. Click is a big deal to you.

• 36:27Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, I appreciate that. David, I'd like to learn a little bit about when you were growing up. What do you remember your family saying about money?

• 36:35Speaker 02

  I had a relatively modest upbringing. We weren't poor to the point we were living on the street or anything, but we never really took a lot of vacations. I got a Christmas and maybe some on my birthday, but that's what I grew up with. That's what I knew. I didn't always get the shoes that I wanted when I was young. But I had clothes, I had a roof, I had food. My dad, he told me a story about how he was able to go into a store and buy a TV with no money because he had good credit. And so he always emphasized the importance of maintaining good credit, paying your bills off on time. So that's the lesson that stuck with me.

• 37:10Ramit Sethi?

  How do you think your upbringing with money shows up in your relationship with money today?

• 37:15Speaker 02

  Because I was not able to buy the things that I wanted when I was younger and I didn't have money. Now that I have money that I can spend.

• 37:24Ramit Sethi?

  Like an example would be the shoes that LaShawn mentioned?

• 37:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. You know, I like Nikes and Jordan, which they re-release. And I'm like, oh, I didn't have this one when I was young, when I wanted it, but now I can get it.

• 37:36Ramit Sethi?

  How many shoes do you have?

• 37:38Speaker 02

  I have had the same shoe size since I was 13.

• 37:43Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, interesting answer.

• 37:44Speaker 02

  I keep them in good condition, so I probably have, I will say maybe 150 or more.

• 37:51Ramit Sethi?

  What?

• 37:52Speaker 01

  More.

• 37:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I mean, there are shoes that I have that are 10, 15 years old. So it's not like they're just all new shoes. They're shoes that I just, I buy, maintain them. I keep them in good condition.

• 38:02Ramit Sethi?

  LaShawn, how much is the number? Not 150, how many?

• 38:04Speaker 01

  I would say maybe 200, maybe 250.

• 38:09Speaker 02

  No, not, not even close to 250.

• 38:11Ramit Sethi?

  What are you gonna do with them, like, one day?

• 38:13Speaker 02

  I wear all of them.

• 38:14Ramit Sethi?

  You wear 150 pairs of shoes?

• 38:16Speaker 02

  I mean, I, I don't wear them like, you know, one after the other, but you know, I'll wear them all at some point.

• 38:22Ramit Sethi?

  All right. Anyway, so, okay.

• 38:26Ramit Sethi?

  Hold on, I'm so distracted. I did not expect that answer. I knew I was gonna have a juicy answer when I was like, "How many shoes do you have?" And then your first answer was, "My shoe size hasn't changed in 20 years." I said, "What the [bleep]?" "I don't know what's happening right now, but something good is about to happen." And indeed, it did. Okay, suddenly, a lot of this makes sense. To understand how they handle their money today, you have to look at where they came from. LaShawn grew up with eviction notices, the power getting shut off, never knowing how long they would stay in one place. So naturally, she took control of the money. That control gave her safety. She doesn't have to depend on anyone else because she can handle things herself.

• 39:08Ramit Sethi?

  David grew up with stability, but not much extra, just the basics. Now that he can afford more, he buys what he couldn't have as a kid. And that shows up in his closet and in the way that he delegates the money to LaShawn. Now, I will add one fascinating thing that I've learned on this podcast. People can grow up, for example, in extreme scarcity. But some of them will go on to develop a very tight sense of control over money. Others will simply sit back and say, "Hey, whatever. It was bad back then. I'm still here. It's totally fine. Who cares? I've been poor before. I can be poor again." The thing is, you cannot predict how people will react. They can grow up in the same household, same amount of financial abundance or scarcity,

• 39:51Ramit Sethi?

  and they can react in ways that make sense, but you cannot predict what they will be. So, knowing their background kind of explains how they got here. She's been managing everything. He's been watching from the sidelines. What's interesting to me is that LaShawn asked David to help maybe 15, 20 years ago, once. And when it didn't stick, she just never asked again. Even in her application to speak to me, she didn't say she wanted David more involved. She was just worried he wouldn't know what to do when she's gone. The real issue, though, is that she doesn't want to carry this alone anymore. She just hasn't expressed it that directly out loud. So I don't think this is just about money anymore. It is about the two of them finally acting like a team. Let me see if I can help them get there.

• 40:34Ramit Sethi?

  I want to talk about your roles with money in the relationship. LaShawn, you mentioned that you have been the one managing money. Pretty much since day one. Can you talk to me about what that looks like day to day, year to year?

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Um, I think it looks like me constantly um thinking about where we are, how to pay down debt if we, you know, like if we buy something, I'm very like, how can I get this paid off as quickly as possible? If we make a big purchase, I'm like, okay, we have to pay this off. You know, the house um we refied in COVID because I was like, oh, my gosh, the rates are great. We're gonna refi, we're gonna change it from a thirty to a fifteen. And I'm like, looking at how much interest it is. And if it's, if it changes a tenth of a percent, what does that mean? I've read your book and you're like automated.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  I did automate it, but like if I have money, I will pay it before the money comes out automatically. Like, I don't want to wait. I made sure our student loans were paid off. We got solar panels that was supposed to be like a ten or fifteen, twenty year. It was paid off in two and a half years. I'm always thinking like, how can we do this better? How can we pay this off faster?

• 42:03Ramit Sethi?

  Do you like that?

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Um, I like it, but I feel like it calms me down. Like, if I'm thinking about it, if I have a plan, if I'm doing things to execute it, I feel like I'm actively managing it.

• 42:20Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, so it's like that the Road Runner, you know, you're, you're running, you're, you're moving, there's movement, you're, you're clicking something, you're paying, you're making a plan, two point seven five percent, all that stuff.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:33Ramit Sethi?

  I think that you seem very accomplished with money. You know your numbers. You made a life-changing decision under duress, under a very tight timeframe. You've received news about your own health, which is, at best, difficult to hear. The seriousness of the situation doesn't escape me. The good news is that you make a lot of money. And even with early retirement, it's not going to dramatically change your income picture. That part is great. But we have a serious health diagnosis. That can't be overstated. We all know that. I don't need to belabor the point. But one thing that I see is a vast imbalance

• 43:15Ramit Sethi?

  in engagement with the finances. And, you know, if you were 25, I would say, "Let's do this and let's do that and have this nice conversation." But we're talking about a number of years, a short number of years, where this becomes extremely salient. And LaShawn, you said one of the things you want is to make sure that your family is protected. LaShawn, if you were not here tomorrow, it would be very chaotic with the family finances, just from the way that I'm hearing the discussion. David, I believe you could pay the bills. I don't doubt that. You're a smart guy. You could figure that part out. Fine. But there's a level of engagement and understanding that it would be like me trying to accumulate

• 43:59Ramit Sethi?

  100 pairs of cool shoes. I don't even know what Nike Jordans. Like, where do I start? I have no idea. I haven't had the 25 years of experience that you have had. That's the same thing that's going to happen with money, very soon. Am I reading this wrong or right? I see this as a pretty serious situation, not because you're running out of money. That's not the case. But because you haven't really engaged with money as a team in like 20 years. And now, we see the end game. And we need to change the dynamic quickly. But that's my read. Am I reading this right or wrong?

• 44:39Speaker 02

  No, I would, I would agree with you definitely. Um, you know, we're going to have to become more engaged with it. I need to be more engaged with it. We're gonna have to sit down and go through it. I think up to this point, it's kind of just been like, you know, just kind of going in, paying the bills. Okay, I see this is what it is. Uh, I think she does a lot of additional optimizing. And that's maybe the part that I don't see. But yeah, definitely we will be sitting down and going through it just so that she doesn't feel like she's just all by herself and that she feels that I can be capable of taking over if need be.

• 45:11Ramit Sethi?

  Well, Sean, how's my read of the situation?

• 45:14Speaker 01

  I think that it's pretty accurate. Yes, we have some bills that are paid through the account, but there's some bills that I pay that are on the website, like our mortgage. It doesn't come out of our checking account. I don't even know if he knows what our mortgage company name is. So like, he would be like, oh, wait a minute, where do I pay the mortgage? Cause the bill is electronic and he wouldn't even see it to know like how to get to it. So, yeah.

• 45:38Ramit Sethi?

  How come you haven't asked about this in today's conversation, LaShawn?

• 45:42Speaker 01

  About?

• 45:43Ramit Sethi?

  How do I get David to get involved?

• 45:47Speaker 01

  I don't know. I think part of it is like, it's just like a thing that doesn't change. Like I would like it to change, but I don't even know if I think about it as like a thing that can change because it's been so long of being the same way. It doesn't feel like a thing that, that is even an option.

• 46:04Ramit Sethi?

  I think when something goes on repeatedly for years and years, almost decades, you just start to think like, that's the way it is. It can't change. And LaShawn, if I can make a suggestion, I don't think you came to me because I could calculate how much, you know, and less $2,000 a month is going to affect your bottom line. Anybody can do that. I think you came to me because, deep down, you want help in getting David engaged with the money. You know there's a clock ticking and you know that you leaving David and the kids behind without David being engaged is a major problem.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  I would send him your clips, trying to bring him into the financial picture.

• 46:49Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  And not just being like a person on the sidelines, you know, I don't know how long it'll be, our youngest is only 13. So, you know, he's got to make sure, like, all of the stuff, like, I make sure that the kid's FASFA is done. I make sure that their financial aid, if the boxes are checked and that they're doing all their college applications. So like, I'm always like very much managing all of these little pieces of the family that are, it may seem kind of invisible, you know, because they end up in college, you know, and, and he's like, okay, we're driving down to the college and we're doing their room. And it was like all this work beforehand.

• 47:30Ramit Sethi?

  Well, LaShawn, what do you say, what do you say we make the invisible visible today?

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 47:36Ramit Sethi?

  You did the work. You sent David a bunch of clips. You did the work of applying, of getting both of you here, and I'm so glad you are. We're all here. LaShawn, I think sometimes we just have to be able to ask for help. I find it difficult myself. I actually suspect David wants to help as well. David? Of course. Exactly. So, sometimes we just have to actually be clear. Here are the stakes. I'm gonna die. It is going to happen. And I want our family to be taken care of, and that cannot happen from me doing it all. We've got to do it as a team. That's where we are. LaShawn, I'm sorry to be so direct.

• 48:19Ramit Sethi?

  The word pragmatic is the word that you used. And I agree, sometimes we just have to talk about these things. It is going to happen. We have to talk about it and confront it. Here's what I would like to do. I like to do a little experiment with the two of you. So I asked you earlier in our conversation, what is each of your role? LaShawn, you described it as a leader. David, I don't think we got a quite a direct answer, but let's say teammate with LaShawn being the leader. I'd like to actually flip that dynamic for just a second. I would like us to live in this new fantasy world for five minutes where David is the leader with all the family finances and LaShawn is the teammate.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  I don't think I'm incapable, but there's been times where we tried before and for whatever reason, it didn't work and she wasn't satisfied with it. Again, I say, you know, she's just more aggressive as far as pursuing savings, pursuing lower interest rates. I think if I know where everything is, I don't think I would have a problem with it.

• 49:23Speaker 02

  You know, oftentimes she may pay bills that I don't know about. She may ask for my involvement, but then she would just do it on her own time unbeknownst to me.

• 49:32Ramit Sethi?

  Do you think she over complicates money sometimes?

• 49:34Speaker 02

  I wouldn't say she over complicates it. I think it's good to look for savings, to look for lower interest rates. I think she does all the things that someone would do. So I wouldn't say she over complicates it.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  It would be so nice to have him do all of that thinking every day instead of me doing that thinking every day.

• 49:54Ramit Sethi?

  Well, we can make that happen. Watch.

• 49:56Speaker 02

  You can make that happen?

• 49:57Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, exactly. I was just gonna ask, David beat me to it. I was gonna say, David, would you be willing to do it? He beat me to it. He said, yes, let's make it happen.

• 50:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, just to prove her wrong. Yeah.

• 50:05Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, I don't mind vengeance as a strategy for a successful relationship. I love it myself. He goes, just to get her. I'm gonna show her I could take it off your plate. Works for me. Whatever it takes, I'll take it. LaShawn, all jokes aside, you're hearing this, right? David is saying, I'm willing to step up and take some of that load off. Are you hearing it?

• 50:26Speaker 01

  I am.

• 50:27Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. And I asked him a question. Does David think that LaShawn over complicates money? He didn't say yes. I'm not sure what the answer is myself, but I do think people who like to be in control find it very, very difficult to give up control.

• 50:44Ramit Sethi?

  Speaking as someone who likes control. Okay.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  I was definitely thinking like, I would love for him to do that. Maybe.

• 50:54Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. But can I ask a question? Like, what if he accomplished the, the rich life vision? That the two of you come up with, but he did it a little different. What if he had the bill automated? Or what if he paid it off one day later or earlier than you would? Would that be okay?

• 51:13Speaker 01

  I would definitely have to manage my own emotions around, like my own feelings about it. Just being honest. Because I'm so used to managing everything, I just want to know that everything is done, that everybody is where they need to be. I don't want anything to fall through the cracks. And so I feel like I'm taking care of everything. Everything is going to be done.

• 51:38Ramit Sethi?

  How, how much project management work do you do at work?

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Um, uh, when I was working, that was pretty much my job.

• 51:45Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Yeah, I know. I know it was. I can tell. I love a good project manager. I also think that if you take that worldview, where am I? I don't have my glasses here. Let's assume I just put on my glasses and I'm currently a project manager. Okay, that's the way that I look at the world. What's the status? Check in, what's the update? That's a project manager worldview. That actually works very well to make sure that the trains are running on time, et cetera, et cetera. But let's take those lenses off and let's come into this relationship. Not as a project manager, which you have done for 20 years. What would be a different description? Who are you now that you've taken those project manager lenses off?

• 52:25Speaker 01

  Um.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  A wife.

• 52:29Ramit Sethi?

  Nice.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  And a mom.

• 52:30Ramit Sethi?

  Yes. What else?

• 52:32Speaker 01

  Um. A good friend.

• 52:35Ramit Sethi?

  Love it. Keep going.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  A person who loves to travel with my family.

• 52:41Ramit Sethi?

  Yes. I'm so glad you got there. I wanted to hear not only a wife, a mom, but also somebody who has worked really hard. And somebody who has earned the right to be able to enjoy some things in life. Right now, the worldview, the project manager lenses that you have put on are actually preventing you from doing that.

• 53:10Ramit Sethi?

  They are mutually exclusive roles. I noticed you're tearing up right now. Tell me, tell me why.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  Um, I think because um, the things I'm doing, I feel like, oh, I'm taking good care of my family. But then maybe I'm not taking care of like me. That's not that person who has the role in my family.

• 53:33Ramit Sethi?

  That's so evident, it's so evident. I've had to pull it out of you today as to what do you enjoy doing for yourself? And the thing is, you actually have a partner here who wants you to enjoy yourself. From the first minute of this conversation, I asked David, how, what did you think about LaShawn retiring early? He said, I supported her decision. Do you know how rare it is for me to talk to a couple where the two of them are so obviously supporters of each other? You have that here. I feel like, LaShawn, you could say, I want to go kayaking, I want to take a trip here or there, and David would be like, cool. We have gone kayaking. Yeah. But LaShawn, it requires you to do a couple of things. Number one, it requires you to take off those lenses and actually hand them in part to David.

• 54:19Ramit Sethi?

  It requires you, when you hand it over, to tell him what you want. And I wish that that were not the case, because handing over those responsibilities and telling your expectations, that in and of itself is emotional labor itself. I wish David would just be like, okay, I'm gonna follow you around for one week, analyze what you're doing, and then I'm gonna come to you with a proposal of what I can take off your plate. I would love for that to be the case, but it never happens. Okay, so sometimes when you entrench yourself in a position of the project manager, of the family CEO, in order to change that, unfortunately, you have to be the one to do it. But LaShawn, you can do it, like, I have no doubt. Probably David is not gonna be perfect at it for the first few times, nobody would.

• 55:00Ramit Sethi?

  And the thing is, what I hear is a willingness from David to step up to it, and I hear, LaShawn, you're on the fence about maybe handing over some responsibility. I think you can't, I think you can't. And then the second thing is to say, what is my vision for this family, with this family, for my remaining time? Surely, your vision has got to be bigger and more powerful than paying bills. What do you think?

• 55:26Speaker 01

  I don't think I thought of it like that because I think my sense of creating a safe environment is very much wrapped up in making sure bills are paid because I didn't have that when I was younger. So that was like a way of me also caring for my family even when I would get tired of doing it. So it's very, am I still taking care of my family? If I'm not doing it.

• 55:54Ramit Sethi?

  If I had to ask you, in your rich life today and for the next five years, what would you want to do to have an incredibly meaningful five years? What would you tell me?

• 56:04Speaker 01

  Spend as much time together as a family. So like traveling, taking care of my health, you know, exercising, doing like water aerobics, having time to think of new things to cook and try new recipes because I feel like I was always running, meeting friends for lunch.

• 56:24Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  Those would be things that I would like to do.

• 56:27Ramit Sethi?

  How are you feeling as you say this out loud?

• 56:29Speaker 01

  That would be an amazing way to spend my days.

• 56:34Ramit Sethi?

  David, how are you feeling as you hear this?

• 56:35Speaker 02

  I want her to enjoy life. I like taking trips. I like going out on dates. So all that sounds good to me.

• 56:42Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. I'm feeling incredibly excited because what you told me was very specific, very personal to you and meaningful because it involves both you, LaShawn, and your family and also very achievable. If anything, I would push you to even dream bigger. In fact, you deserve it. David, you're hearing this. What role do you think you can play in supporting LaShawn living a very rich life?

• 57:14Speaker 02

  I'm taking some of that strain off of her just so she can spend more time focusing on herself.

• 57:19Ramit Sethi?

  Yes. Tell me how you would do that. I love it.

• 57:22Speaker 02

  I would definitely become more active. I take a few things on it, gradually pick up the load, encourage her to go out with her friends. We like to take vacations. I'm always asking for a date night. I'm totally open to her, doing whatever makes her happy.

• 57:37Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Can I just? Comment on that. I'm asking for a date night. When you, what does that look like when you ask for a date night?

• 57:45Speaker 02

  It's pretty much just setting aside a time. We like to try new restaurants. And so we look for places to go. I pick out places I think will be nice. We just have to find a date. Sometimes I work five days a week, so it's just finding that time and maybe making a priority to set it aside.

• 58:03Ramit Sethi?

  Cool. Everything you said is great. I love the idea of taking things progressively off of her plate when it comes to money. David, I think actually there's so many benefits of this. Number one, I think that as LaShawn admits, she likes that sense of control. And in a way, David, since I don't think you have that same sense of control with money. I think you would read, I will teach you to be rich. You ask her what needs to be done and then automate 90% of that stuff, right? Let the computer do it. It's still getting done.

• 58:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 58:36Ramit Sethi?

  But it's getting done in a way that is efficient, that you don't have the emotional need to click things every week, every month. You're just like, I want this automated. I want it to be done and it will be done. But you are the one who made that happen, right? And you would be the one who's communicating to LaShawn because the minute you take even the smallest thing off of her plate, we all know what, LaShawn, what your reaction is going to be, right? A little bit of panic. Did you do it this way? Did you do it right? What happened? What's the update? What about this? What about that? We all know that. Let's just expect it. We can even make a joke about it. It's like you know me. Yeah. And therefore, David, if you know that and you expect it, then it doesn't have to be this existential dark thing.

• 59:19Ramit Sethi?

  It's just, listen, LaShawn, I know it's gonna make you feel a little nervous. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna put a whiteboard on the fridge and I'm gonna let you know the status every Monday or email or Google Doc or whatever you want, over communicating to her just like you would at work. And that's gonna relieve those kind of project management needs for updates. And over time, you build that trust where LaShawn's going, oh my God. Not only is David incredibly capable, which I think you are, but also, LaShawn, you're actually now focused over here. What is my rich life? What is our rich life? That's a very powerful place to be. What do you think? David?

• 59:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that sounds good.

• 1:00:01Ramit Sethi?

  LaShawn?

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  I love that, especially like with the date nights. He's definitely asked about it and it always feels like we let it fall by the wayside. We don't really prioritize it ourselves.

• 1:00:13Ramit Sethi?

  What?

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  As a couple.

• 1:00:15Ramit Sethi?

  How how often you do you actually go on date nights?

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  Valentine's Day and our anniversary typically.

• 1:00:23Ramit Sethi?

  What the hey, David, the way you talked about it's like, oh, yeah, you know, it's all a matter of finding time. I'll do it every other. It sounded like it was every other week. Now it's twice a year.

• 1:00:32Speaker 02

  I suggested to her once a quarter. I said, I think we go out once a quarter, Valentine's Day, second quarter, anniversary, third quarter, and then sometime in the fourth quarter.

• 1:00:41Ramit Sethi?

  And and you guys didn't even hit that?

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:00:43Ramit Sethi?

  Why? It's not time.

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  When the kids were a little bit younger, it's like, oh, now you have to leave them alone or, you know, we have to figure out food for them while we go out. But now they're a little bit older, so maybe it'll be easier to prioritize like time as a couple.

• 1:01:01Ramit Sethi?

  I'm kind of shocked right now. Do you know why?

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:01:06Ramit Sethi?

  If we just assume five more years, LaShawn, I hope it's a lot more. I really do. But let's just assume.

• 1:01:13Ramit Sethi?

  That's 20 date nights left. And that's if you hit every single one, which you haven't been for years.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:01:20Ramit Sethi?

  You two love each other. This is not every couple. You two clearly love each other. To not be able to find a quarterly date night. We've all had somebody in our lives that has passed away. Or somebody that became sick and could not do the things they used to be able to do. The last thing I want is to run out of time. Especially if I have the money to be able to do it. Do you think that you have the money to be able to do some of these things?

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:01:50Ramit Sethi?

  Unquestionably, yes. If anything, you're kind of spending $5,000 a month. You don't even know where it's going. So if you decided you wanted to hire a babysitter or have somebody freaking plan the dinners for you.

• 1:02:04Ramit Sethi?

  Easy. The time is finite. The time together, all of you.

• 1:02:11Ramit Sethi?

  It's finite for all of us. The load has not been shared. I suspect that's going to be resolved with some work and some time. That's not a problem. But the real question, the real question, LaShawn, is what is your rich life for you and for the family?

• 1:02:30Speaker 01

  I think we communicate about regular stuff, but not necessarily important stuff in a substantive way all the time. I can be very like conflict avoidant. And even if it's not like necessarily conflict, I have very negative feelings if it's not something that's either neutral or good. So I just think that a lot of stuff that we let lie under the surface and don't really have those conversations that are, I think, important.

• 1:03:04Ramit Sethi?

  There's a famous essay about keeping your identity small. And the idea is that once you define yourself a certain way, you start to build your entire worldview around it, even if that identity no longer serves you. So the lesson is keep your identity small. Be careful what you define yourself as, because once you define yourself that way, it's really hard to change. LaShawn built her identity as the financial leader. She was the frugal one, the planner, the bill payer. And that actually got her to a pretty good place. She went from eviction notices as a kid to building a million dollar net worth. But that identity is so entrenched that she can't imagine letting it go,

• 1:03:45Ramit Sethi?

  even when it is literally costing her the rarest thing in the world, which is time. I have to say, I'm really impressed with David. At the beginning of the conversation, he let LaShawn lead. He leaned back metaphorically and physically, but as soon as the ball was tossed to him, he caught it. And he's not tossing it back. It's actually so rare to see this dynamic on this podcast that I want to take a second to acknowledge it. My hope is that this next chapter moves beyond paying bills and into something much more deep and meaningful, building a life they both love together. But that means letting go of old roles, and that's hard. If you can relate to this, if you are struggling with your own money mindset, I built a free mini course for you.

• 1:04:30Ramit Sethi?

  You can download it at IWT.com/mindsetpod. It's free. I would highly recommend it. IWT.com/mindsetpod. Now, listen as I gently challenged LaShawn to rethink what her role could be. Can I ask a couple of questions that might generate a little bit of discomfort?

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:04:52Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, I'm gonna ask him. You can feel free to just say, hey, that one's not for me. Feel free. Okay? LaShawn, you have mentioned, in the course of our conversation, you have mentioned panic attacks, therapy. Do you think that your emotional needs with money are being met right now?

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  I don't think I've ever thought about money as emotion, although recently I have come to realize my control issue around it because it creates a feeling of safety for me.

• 1:05:22Ramit Sethi?

  Can you go like this with your hands? Take those glasses off right now. Take those project manager glasses off. Put them aside.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:05:29Ramit Sethi?

  Who are you now?

• 1:05:30Speaker 01

  I think I am someone who has a lot of things to figure out and a lot of work to improve my connection and communication with David, that it could be a lot better and that I probably let a lot of the other things take up the space instead of having like really important consequential conversations.

• 1:05:56Ramit Sethi?

  Great. Totally agree. Is this hard to talk about?

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  It's a little bit challenging.

• 1:06:03Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. It would very much be like if somebody said, hey, put the business stuff aside. Who are you? It's like, hmm, that feels really weird.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:12Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, it's like that. You're asking me to ask, without my arm, who am I? I don't know. It's hard. Let's keep going, though, because I think we are talking about something important. Can we focus on something really positive? You took those lenses off. Who are you? Tell me the positive part.

• 1:06:28Speaker 01

  Um, I am generous and I am loving.

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  I am, I think I'm a nurturer. And I hope I'm a good wife.

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  And a good mother.

• 1:06:51Ramit Sethi?

  If I had the opportunity to talk to your kids, what would they tell me?

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  I think they know that I love them. Sometimes they would say that I'm mean. And maybe a little pushy. But I think they know that I want the best for them.

• 1:07:06Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. Are you there for them?

• 1:07:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:09Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. This is why I wanted to talk to you. It's not about what's on your spreadsheet. You have enough money.

• 1:07:16Ramit Sethi?

  It's not about that. The reason I want to talk to you and the reason I'm so appreciative that I've gotten the chance to talk to both of you is that you've accomplished something amazing. You have a long marriage. Seems like a very happy marriage. You have kids. You raise these kids and you have a clock. And I've talked before about how sometimes people play small, in particular women. When we talk about what role do they have, they say, I do the day to day, I pay the bills. Really drives me crazy. It's playing small. There's no reason to pay the bills. We can automate that. I don't want anyone to play small, but especially women where I see it. Recurring pattern.

• 1:07:57Ramit Sethi?

  Well, Sean, I see the opportunity for you to play big. Big does not have to mean fancy luxury. It's not that. It can be the lunches with your friends. It can be the date nights which are guaranteed every week or every two weeks. But it's actually shifting from the perspective of I'm the project manager, making sure every box is checked to actually saying, I'm worthy just being who I am. We, David and I have built this thing together. Of course, we need to change some of the dynamics. Yes, okay, that'll happen. I have no doubt about that. But what do we want for these next years? What do we want? You already love spending time together. That's clear.

• 1:08:42Ramit Sethi?

  Maybe you want to travel more. Maybe not. That's also okay. But when you take those lenses off and you go, what do we actually want to do? And we actually can do most of the things. That's a different role. LaShawn, tell me what you're thinking right now.

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  It's very funny. I was thinking that I should let the children order drinks at dinner when we go out because I'm like, they know that mom is gonna be on my tombstone. Like, she was deep, she was thrifty. So like, they know, like, I order water and they're like, "Water, water, water, water." And I know sometimes they're like, "I just want a Sprite." And I'm always like, "Gotta be an extra fifteen dollars on top of the meal."

• 1:09:28Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:29Speaker 01

  For everybody to get a drink. But yeah, that's like a small thing and it's like a little bit of joy for the family. So like, I shouldn't probably be so binging with the finances.

• 1:09:43Ramit Sethi?

  Can I share how I might make that change in your family?

• 1:09:47Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:09:47Ramit Sethi?

  So if you want to get them the drinks, fantastic. But I actually think I would make a big deal out of it. It is a big deal. You never let them get the drinks in, what, twenty years, right?

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  Occasionally.

• 1:09:58Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, all right. Once every ten years, here you go. This is a big moment, LaShawn. Here's how I might do it. I might sit them down. Nice family meeting, you know, we're all having dinner or something. I might say, "Listen, they know about the medical diagnosis, right?"

• 1:10:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:10:13Ramit Sethi?

  You sit them down, you say, "You know what? I've decided that with my time here, we are going to have a lot of fun together. That's my number one." And in order to do that, Dad and I have talked. Dad is gonna be helping actually take some of the bill paying off of my shoulders. The whole family gasps. "Huh? What?" Everybody applauds. Look at this. LaShawn's covering her face like, "I can't even believe this is happening." Yes, yes. And you make it a whole thing. You make it a joke. "I can't believe it myself. I am actually letting Dad manage the mortgage payment, the this, the that." He's gonna do it. "Dad, are you gonna take it over?" Dad goes, "Yes, of course I'm gonna take it over. I got this." Everybody claps. Then you say, "And there's another thing. When was the last time

• 1:10:58Ramit Sethi?

  any of you ordered a Coke when we went out to eat?" And everybody goes, "Oh, God, Mom, you're so stingy, always looking at the checkbook." You go, "From now on, whenever we eat out, everybody can get their own drink." The kids are gonna go like, "What the hell happened to Mom? What's going on?" And LaShawn, what are you gonna say at the end of that announcement? Tell them why you have made that decision to switch, to let them get a drink each, every time. Why?

• 1:11:25Speaker 01

  Because we can afford it and it's a small thing that you enjoy. So we want to be able to enjoy the small and big things.

• 1:11:39Ramit Sethi?

  Yes, and we love you. Amazing. How do you think they'd react to that?

• 1:11:45Speaker 01

  They would be happy. What do you think? I think they'd be happy. And surprised. Oh, yeah.

• 1:11:51Ramit Sethi?

  I think it will be one of the core memories that they have. It's not about Coke. It's about mom acknowledging. I'm gonna make a change and it's about acknowledging ultimately time. LaShawn, that's one of 20 things that I would love for you to start thinking about. But I make it a big deal, even for a small Coke, because it is a big deal. Every change you make is a big deal. As small as a Coke, as big as an international family trip, you gotta tell your family what you are doing and why. You gotta tell David, David, I need you to be as conversant with these financial decisions as I am because I'm not gonna be here.

• 1:12:35Ramit Sethi?

  So in my time left, yes, I could manage it all as my project manager lenses, but I'm not doing that anymore. I need you to do it. That's what this is about. It's about transitioning the family to be as successful as you have done as the family leader.

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  I love that and I love just knowing that he'll be able to handle whatever he needs to handle. And he doesn't need to have me here because I might not be here.

• 1:13:03Ramit Sethi?

  Yes, that is the ultimate prize of a leader is to equip their team. In this case, your family to be as strong as when you were here. David, you hear that?

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:16Ramit Sethi?

  So that when she asks you to do some bill pay, which seems kind of annoying and you need to figure it out. Maybe you miss one thing and then you fix it. Okay. There's grace between you. That's okay. But there's a purpose and when your kids have to start taking on more responsibility with the finances. And that's annoying because mom has always been there to do it. But dad now knows as a team, mom and dad are doing this because we need you to be strong. Cause mom's not going to be the leader one day. That's what this is about. Do you both think that you could do that together as a team?

• 1:13:49Speaker 01

  Definitely. Yes.

• 1:13:50Ramit Sethi?

  Yes. What a great answer. Just no hesitation. I think your kids are lucky to have you, both of you.

• 1:13:56Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:13:57Ramit Sethi?

  LaShawn, if you could write out the script for the next few years, what would your next few years look like?

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  Happy being able to enjoy our time and not worry about our finances. And to have experiences that will be in the memory banks of my kids and of David. So that they can have those when I'm not here. Like, oh, we spent all of this time. We had these meaningful conversations and we had these joyful experiences.

• 1:14:30Ramit Sethi?

  I love that. Can we change your CSP to reflect that?

• 1:14:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:38Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, let's do it. LaShawn, give me your powerful vision you just gave me and tell me what to change on here to make that a reality.

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  I definitely want to get our debt gone. I think we could do that in maybe 12 months.

• 1:14:54Ramit Sethi?

  Yep. Sixty seven hundred on your credit card, twenty five thousand on the HELOC. I agree. So right now you're currently paying nine fifty a month towards debt.

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:04Ramit Sethi?

  So what do you want to pay?

• 1:15:05Speaker 01

  Twenty five hundred.

• 1:15:06Ramit Sethi?

  Twenty five hundred. All right. Takes your fixed costs up to sixty four percent, but we know that's because of intentionally overpaying on debt. That's fine. What else?

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  More for vacations and experiences.

• 1:15:19Ramit Sethi?

  How much? Right now you have two hundred fifty a month.

• 1:15:21Speaker 01

  Five hundred.

• 1:15:23Ramit Sethi?

  Five hundred a month. Okay.

• 1:15:24Speaker 01

  And then.

• 1:15:25Ramit Sethi?

  Still have three thousand dollars a month in guilt free spending.

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  Maybe figure out more for. Investments on my side, maybe David will increase his contributions.

• 1:15:38Ramit Sethi?

  Uh, question.

• 1:15:41Ramit Sethi?

  Well, LaShawn, when you pass away, what happens to the money that is going to be coming starting September?

• 1:15:46Speaker 01

  Um, well, that money goes away, but there is life insurance.

• 1:15:51Ramit Sethi?

  Ah, how much?

• 1:15:52Speaker 01

  Six hundred and eighty thousand.

• 1:15:55Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. And you know that will be passed down even with your medical diagnosis?

• 1:16:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:16:04Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, six hundred eighty thousand, okay. Have you mapped out what will happen to your finances when that happens?

• 1:16:11Speaker 01

  No. My hope is that if we haven't already paid off the house, which I think we have ten years left, that he'll have enough to pay that off, which will like significantly increase his disposable income and it'll give him a lot more room to make sure that he's good.

• 1:16:32Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, I think at this point, I don't want hope involved. I need math. That's my philosophy for life, everybody. Forget about hope, let's crack the math book. Especially when we're talking about early retirement, medical diagnosis, all these things. My suggestion, because the sensitivity on this is very high, meaning we don't have a lot of time, I would suggest you speak to a financial advisor, a flat fee advisor, not AUM, and you can use our partners at Facet, or you can use anybody you find. Have them run an assessment and analysis with different scenarios. What will happen if I pass in three years, five years, ten years?

• 1:17:18Ramit Sethi?

  What does that look like for the family finances? Because we want to be very specific. The last thing I want is for David, for you to be grieving, and then you actually don't have enough money to pay three years of the mortgage. No.

• 1:17:34Ramit Sethi?

  We're not gonna let that happen. LaShawn, this would actually be a perfect opportunity for you and David to partner up, not for you to run it. If anything, actually to have David run it and you can help it along if he gets stuck. Find a flat fee advisor, speak to them, run the scenarios. And by involving David, David, you're gonna feel way more confident with your knowledge of the family finances. LaShawn, you're gonna feel comfortable because you have a report he can use if and when he needs it. How's that sound?

• 1:18:05Speaker 01

  Sounds good, like a good plan.

• 1:18:07Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, great. Aside from the investment part, you still got 3,000 bucks a month. Remember what you told me you want to do in the next few years of life? You want to create these memories, et cetera?

• 1:18:16Speaker 01

  Hmm?

• 1:18:17Ramit Sethi?

  So what is it?

• 1:18:18Speaker 01

  Um, we probably could increase our gift budget.

• 1:18:23Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Gifts are currently 150 bucks a month.

• 1:18:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, we could increase it maybe to 250.

• 1:18:28Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. I would like to see a little bit going more towards savings, just as an FYI. $30,000, you know, that's nice, but I need a little bit more. If I'm LaShawn, I want to leave a big fat buffer of cash just in case something happens. Okay? I'll put a little bit more in the emergency fund. You have 250 going right now. I might drop that up to 750. I mean, look at this, you still have 2,000 bucks a month.

• 1:18:53Speaker 01

  We could add some more to vacations.

• 1:18:55Ramit Sethi?

  Definitely could.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  I'd definitely use that when we're traveling. That is my, I don't, I almost don't care how much it costs. I will spend whatever and I'm happy to do so. That is like the one area I think that I am not thirsty at all. I mean, I get the best deal, but I will spend to go in where we want to go.

• 1:19:18Ramit Sethi?

  Cool. Can we change your income so that it reflects the numbers correctly? Your income is going to be 15. Remind me, your income is gonna drop, LaShawn?

• 1:19:29Speaker 01

  Yes, it's gonna be like 6,800 a month before taxes.

• 1:19:35Ramit Sethi?

  6,800 a month? And that's gonna drop the net to what do you think?

• 1:19:38Speaker 01

  Um. Maybe 5,000?

• 1:19:42Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  Maybe?

• 1:19:43Ramit Sethi?

  5,000? Whoa.

• 1:19:44Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 1:19:45Ramit Sethi?

  All right. So that's fine. So fixed costs are at 71%. Do you see what I'm doing here? I'm actually simulating what's about to happen with the real change in income. So right now, your fixed costs are high, but that's not going to be the case forever. Because you're aggressively paying off debt and soon that $2,500 a month is going to go down to zero. In which case, did you see what happened to that number?

• 1:20:10Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:20:11Ramit Sethi?

  It went from 71% to 46%.

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:20:18Ramit Sethi?

  How does that make you feel, LaShawn?

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  Good, because I know that 50 to 60 is the number that we should be shooting for.

• 1:20:26Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. And once in a while, you intentionally drive that number up. Right now, you're doing it with debt. Sometimes parents do it when they have childcare during young years. That happens. It's okay as long as you have a plan in place. Knock this debt out in what, a year? Something like that? And now you have $2,500 of cash flow to roll back into your system. No need to worry about one year's worth of intentional aggressive debt payoff. Cool. Just to continue down the line here. The only big change I will note on this is that for the next year, your guilt-free spending just went down a lot. You have $957 a month. That's like $250 a week.

• 1:21:08Speaker 01

  That seems like a lot.

• 1:21:10Ramit Sethi?

  Well, you all have been spending 5,000 a month. Now it's going to be 1,000. What I suspect is that you probably bought a few major purchases that you're not properly amortizing or spreading out over the course of 12 or 24 months. It could be car renovation. It could be whatever. And those are kind of just eating up money invisibly. That's typically what happens. I also suspect you probably just eat out a lot more than you think. If it's like 15 times a week, you know, whether it be coffee, lunch, dinner, brunch, et cetera, that's just money being swiped. The good news is we can figure it out. The even better news is that when I said, hey, it's 1,000 bucks a month, you didn't blink. You're like, okay, we can make it work. Am I reading that correctly?

• 1:21:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:52Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. David, can you make a thousand bucks a month work?

• 1:21:55Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I can drop.

• 1:21:56Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. What do you think? Any issues? Because going from 5,000 to 1,000, a big, big drop.

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, for me, it's not because I think that we're spending that much a month. Like I said, if I have extra, I'm like, oh, a thousand dollars on the credit card at 1,500 on the HELOC. So I don't think we're being like crazy, like, oh, we spent 4,000 on stuff or experiences a month. I don't think that's happening.

• 1:22:24Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, sometimes, very rarely, I encourage people to break the rules.

• 1:22:31Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:22:32Ramit Sethi?

  I like rules, but sometimes I like to break them. Sometimes,

• 1:22:37Ramit Sethi?

  when there is something more important than following the rules, break it. Little kid gets an A plus. We don't normally go out to ice cream. We're gonna go out to ice cream. Somebody is sick. Normally, we like to contribute, save and invest 20%.

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:22:58Ramit Sethi?

  Maybe we're gonna do 14%. I'm gonna take the 6% and create memories we will always remember.

• 1:23:07Ramit Sethi?

  What do you think when I say that to you?

• 1:23:09Speaker 01

  Part of it sounds like, oh, this is really cool. And then the other part is like, but does it mess up things? Is it not safe or not sensible to do that?

• 1:23:21Ramit Sethi?

  What do you think, David?

• 1:23:21Speaker 02

  I think there's definitely something that we could do, a reward for some of our grades, splurging on something. I don't think that's gonna break the bank or upset the budget, you know, to terribly.

• 1:23:32Ramit Sethi?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:23:33Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 1:23:35Ramit Sethi?

  LaShawn, you look like you're struggling with this concept.

• 1:23:38Speaker 01

  No, but he's very like, yes, we can do that. And I'm just like, can we do that?

• 1:23:41Speaker 02

  We're just like, you know, what's here and there, not all the time. But, you know, it's just every now and then.

• 1:23:47Ramit Sethi?

  I don't do this that often, but once in a while, I just tell a couple what I would do. I don't like to do it because sometimes people take what I say and they take it as a directive. But it's not. Your life is yours. I would never tell you exactly what to do with your money. But I feel the need to share what I might do.

• 1:24:08Ramit Sethi?

  Just because I think that this culture of frugality and bill paying is so deep in your family and we know that there is a timetable here, it would be hard for me to let you go off this call without me just sharing what I might do. Is that okay? Okay. If it were me, I'm looking at your CSP here, I would talk to the family and have them create the five-year bucket list. What do we want to do that's going to be magical? We can't do it all, but let's put it out there. No idea is too crazy, no idea is too small or too big. Oh, you want to go to a movie every weekend? Done.

• 1:24:46Ramit Sethi?

  I love the idea of shifting from the leader, LaShawn, the project manager, to the inspiration, where you are still a core part of the family, of course, but the rest of the family is now rising up. They're not under your shadow, but they are actually being taught how to come up with these ideas, how to execute them. Maybe, LaShawn, you're not planning the next vacation, but your kids are, because you can watch that with pride and you can actually watch them as they miscalculated how much a freaking boat ride is going to cost because they forgot you have to tip the captain and you laugh and everybody laughs and they groan. And that's a core memory.

• 1:25:29Ramit Sethi?

  And nowhere in that example did you see me agonizing over, am I paying 2,500 a month to my debt or 2,375? The debt is going to get paid off. Whether it takes 12 months or 14 months is irrelevant. It's going to happen, but the memories will not happen unless you both cause them to happen. What do you think, LaShawn?

• 1:25:53Speaker 01

  Love it. I'm laughing because I have a 13-year-old and she's the baby, so she's always telling me things that we should be doing, literally all the time. She's told me several times we should go see Beyonce again, because that sounds like so much fun to her. So she has lots of ideas that she's happy to share all the time. And it's fun to listen to her ideas and I'm always like, okay, but the budget.

• 1:26:22Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. Maybe you can't do them all. Maybe there's a couple of things where you just go, you know what? Let's do it. I like that. David, what do you think your role is here in supporting her? Not just financially, but emotionally?

• 1:26:39Speaker 02

  I'm the enabler. I'm going to enable her to live those dreams, live the rest of life. I'm going to enable her to take off those glasses and hand them over.

• 1:26:48Ramit Sethi?

  Whoa.

• 1:26:49Speaker 02

  And I'm going to enable her to feel more confident in me. And to be able to not worry so much about all the things that she's been dealing with.

• 1:27:00Ramit Sethi?

  No, that is beautiful. How are you going to enable her to do all those things?

• 1:27:05Speaker 02

  By supporting her, by taking over the finances, taking control away from her.

• 1:27:10Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 1:27:12Speaker 02

  And involving the rest of the family so that we can all support mom and making sure that she takes care of herself instead of spending so much time taking care of us.

• 1:27:21Ramit Sethi?

  I love that. What a beautiful, beautiful vision. This can't be done alone. That's what I love about hearing both of you. It can't be done alone. It's the two of you. And the two of you obviously raised great kids. The two of you will take your kids into the next phase, the two of you. And David, it's so important what you just said, you taking off some of that load, even wrestling it away from her. Give me that code. Give me that freaking login. I know you don't want to do it. Give me that. I love the metaphor. I love the jokes because we all know in this relationship, mom, oh, she's always thrifty and she's always like checking the bills. And so we might as well make fun of it. It's funny, not in a mean way, but just like, okay, mom, you're going to give me that one now.

• 1:28:05Ramit Sethi?

  David, when you start to do that and then you both realize, oh, my God, this actually works. And then when you talk to your kids, you go, this is what's happening. They're going to go, there's no way mom isn't logging in every day. And David goes, I've actually been doing it for the last two months.

• 1:28:21Ramit Sethi?

  See that reaction? Exactly. In a family, the dynamics become calcified. It's really hard to change. But if the two of you do it with love, with laughing, the kids go, is this really happening? It actually becomes fun. So I have the greatest wish for the two of you to have a magical, rich life together. Well done. How do you feel now versus when we started our conversation, David?

• 1:28:53Speaker 02

  I feel challenged. I feel like there's something for me to overcome. I feel like there's something for me to prove.

• 1:29:01Ramit Sethi?

  Wow.

• 1:29:02Speaker 02

  I'm willing to take on that challenge and be the leader.

• 1:29:06Ramit Sethi?

  Amazing. I love that word. I feel challenged. I really love the way you put that. LaShawn, same question for you. How do you feel now versus when we first started talking?

• 1:29:16Speaker 01

  Feel like I see the possibility for joy.

• 1:29:20Ramit Sethi?

  Yes.

• 1:29:21Speaker 01

  And fun and really making, I think, more of our time together than we have been, like the way that we've been using our time.

• 1:29:32Ramit Sethi?

  Yes, yes, yes, yes. This is why I wanted to speak to you, of doing more, of playing big, of going on offense rather than worrying only about playing defense. Take those glasses off. Throw them away. You can decide what your dynamic is. I have very high confidence in both of you. I'm very grateful that I got a chance to meet you both.

• 1:29:54Speaker 01

  Thank you. I'm so grateful for having this time to talk to you. And I'm ready to do some homework and take off my glasses.

• 1:30:03Ramit Sethi?

  This conversation sat with me for a while after we wrapped. LaShawn and David are a warm, beautiful, loving couple. And they've built a life together with kids, a home, million dollar net worth. And now they are facing something that is almost too big and too scary to say out loud. Mortality changes everything. And yet, some habits are so deeply ingrained that even the knowledge of death. Doesn't shake them. LaShawn's role has always been the leader, the planner, the protector. But that identity, which has been so carefully built, is costing her time. And changing that role is not easy.

• 1:30:46Ramit Sethi?

  I keep thinking about something LaShawn said in our conversation. She said, "I should probably let the kids order drinks at dinner." And she laughed when she said it. But I couldn't stop thinking about that moment. Because if we can't splurge on a few drinks when we are doing financially okay, then when can we? Do we need to be sick to finally say, "We should use some of this money"? Isn't there a way to build a healthier relationship with money now? That's why I love being able to share this podcast with you and why I write my books for you. I want you to stop waiting for tomorrow and to really look at your life today. Craft that beautiful vision and actually start living it.

• 1:31:28Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, and by the way, the missing $5,000, it bugged me so much that I offered to have my team comb through all of their statements. But less than 24 hours later, LaShawn emailed me and she said, "I realized I just listed the minimum debt payment instead of the full amount we've been paying. So yeah, that extra 5K, not actually there. LOL, mystery solved." Honestly, it makes perfect sense that LaShawn has quietly been putting thousands of extra dollars towards debt. The good news is that their debt will be gone even faster. But more importantly, I hope this conversation gave her the momentum to rewrite her story. Because as we discovered today, sometimes the issue is not math.

• 1:32:10Ramit Sethi?

  It is the stories that we cling to from decades ago about control, about roles, about what it means to be a good partner and a good parent. LaShawn and David have done a lot of work. They've built the life that they wanted. My hope is that they can focus on living it. So I want to give a huge thank you to LaShawn and David for speaking with me. And now, check out their follow-ups.

• 1:32:32Speaker 03

  Hi, Rameen. I think the biggest surprise for me was that our financial picture was not going to be as dire as I was worried it would be going into retirement. Also, that me being in the driver's seat of our family finances was also a measure of comfort for me. I think my takeaway is that I need to allow David to step up, as he indicated he was willing to, and loosen the reins of control a little bit. And things that we've done since then is we scheduled a money meeting, which we had, and we both talked about our finances.

• 1:33:16Speaker 03

  I gave David the passwords to all of our bills. We looked at everything and saw what we owed, how I'd been paying them, and we had a conversation about how to allocate our money toward debt for this month, which we did. I think that if we keep moving in the same direction, we will take the burden off of me and also make sure that he's involved and knows what's going on for the future. Thank you.

• 1:33:45Speaker 02

  Hi, this is David with just a quick follow-up since we had our call with Ramit. My biggest surprise from that call was our net worth. I didn't realize that our net worth would be that high, so I was very surprised to find that out, pleasantly surprised, I would say. Biggest takeaway was that I think the support that LaShawn needed from me was more than just for financial. I think it was also more of an emotional support. So definitely willing to be there for her, definitely invested in supporting her and making sure that she feels like we're both in this thing together. So, that being said, going forward, we already had a sit-down just to go through the finances, so we can discuss where we are,

• 1:34:28Speaker 02

  what actions we're planning to take, and just to make sure that both of us are equally aware and invested in our future going forward. So, once again, thanks to Ramit and his team. Appreciate talking to you guys.

• 1:34:41Ramit Sethi?

  This conversation reminds me of one of the most memorable episodes of this podcast. I still cannot stop thinking about it. It's episode 60 called "My Health Is In Question, But I Don't Want To Stop Making Money." In this episode, I spoke to a couple. She was told, because of a medical condition, she had roughly five or 10 years left to live. And in that time, she wanted to make memories with her kid, with her husband, but she did not want to stop working. And when I asked her why, she said, "I like the money." But she already had tons of money. The episode reveals how difficult it is for us to give up our story,

• 1:35:24Ramit Sethi?

  our role, our identity, even when we are facing death. This is what I want you to understand. You think that one day, if you suddenly make $5 million, you're going to change who you are? It'll never happen. You think if you're facing death, you're going to finally change? It probably won't happen unless you decide to start changing today. That unforgettable episode is episode 60. "My Health Is In Question, But I Don't Want To Stop Making Money."