367. Why money deeply shapes our relationships ft. Jack Howard

Money and love: the two things we stress about most in our twenties, and yet we rarely talk about how deeply connected they are. In this episode, I’m joined by Jack Howard, Head of Money Wellness at Ally, to unpack the psychology of money in our relationships and how it shapes who we date, how we fight, and how we build a life together. In this episode, we explore: Why money and love are so deeply linked Spender vs. saver dynamics and why opposites so often attract Why we emotionally spend? What’s the deal with prenups? Is it worth having an expensive wedding? When to get joint bank accounts? How to talk about money WELL! If you’ve ever argued about money with a partner, avoided talking about it, or worried you’re “bad” with finances, this episode will give you language, tools, and a lot of reassurance that you’re not alone. Take the course HERE https://www.ally.com/moneyroots/ ORDER MY BOOK https://www.psychologyofyour20s.com/copy-of-book Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg https://www.instagram.com/jemmasbeg/?hl=en# Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast https://www.instagram.com/thatpsychologypodcast/?hl=en# For business: [email protected] mailto:[email protected] The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:34Jemma Sbeg?

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• 3:11Jemma Sbeg?

  Hello, everybody. I'm Jemma Sbeg and welcome back to the Psychology of Your 20s, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology.

• 3:30Jemma Sbeg?

  Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast, wherever you are in the world, new listeners, old listeners. It is so great to have you here back for another amazing guest episode. If I had to pick two categories that I think I get the most questions about when it comes to our 20s, it would no doubt be love and money. And although we might view those as separate topics, separate ideas, they are actually deeply linked. How we think about money, it affects how we date, who we date, how our love stories turn out.

• 4:10Jemma Sbeg?

  And how we think about love will impact what money problems, money issues, money value differences we may overlook. So today, let's talk about the intersection of money, relationships and

• 4:27Jemma Sbeg?

  Psychology, everything from prenups to how much you should spend on a wedding, if and when you should get joint bank accounts and why you really need to understand your money story to really show up in your relationship. Of course, I am not a financial expert, but I do have someone joining me today who is and who is not only a financial expert, but an expert in love and money. Let's get into it. Without further ado, Jack Howard, welcome to the podcast. Welcome to the psychology of your twenties.

• 5:02Speaker 02

  Thank you. Thank you for having me.

• 5:05Jemma Sbeg?

  We were just talking about this. We have the most disparate time zones. You're in Detroit, I'm in Sydney, and we've managed to make it work. So thank you.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  The power of technology is working for us in this moment. It's what, six o'clock, six P M. here in Detroit. And I know it's morning for you, so you're just getting your day started. I'm about to wrap it up.

• 5:27Jemma Sbeg?

  I know. It looks pretty good in the future. I will say the seventh of November, which is when we're recording this, which is tomorrow. It's a good day. Before I go any further, because I'm going to just jump into my questions and I need the listeners to know a little bit more about you and who you are and your amazing work.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I'm Jack Howard. I serve as Head of Money Wellness for Ally Bank. And I bet you're thinking like, what is that? What title is that? Never heard of it before. And it's a really amazing role that I've been in for about two years. I've had the pleasure of working for Ally for 15 years in various roles. Everything from our corporate giving, where I focused on financial education for underserved communities and corporate giving and employee volunteerism. I did that for a big chunk of my time. And then I moved to our invest business where I did a stretch role as Chief of Staff

• 6:21Speaker 02

  for the president there and decided to stay and help launch our personal advice business, where you work with a personal, you know, wealth advisor to help you to think through retirement. And it was during that. Piece of my career where I was introduced to money psychology. When you're better aligned to your values, your emotions, and really understand the behaviors that you have behind some of your money decisions, it just helps you to stick to the plan. And I fell in love with it so much because one of the questions we would ask is, what is your first memory of money? And for me, professionally and personally,

• 7:07Speaker 02

  it was such an amazing question because it answered so much from the work that I had done in financial literacy to even personally, the ups and downs that I've had with money of really understanding the why behind your money decisions, the skills that you try to implement. A lot of people just have a hard time implementing the skills, even though you know the right thing to do. So I was in that role for a bit. And again, I fell in love with the money psychology so much that I went to our leadership and said, you know, I think this is really the future of how people will talk about money. I think it's the future of how banks will interact with customers. So less of the skills, yes, you have to know how to save, how to invest.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  I can teach you how to do a budget, all those things. But really understanding that those emotions and the behaviors that will help you to implement the skills, having a better relationship with money, I think is the future of how we will talk about it. And they said, okay, prove it. And I was given the opportunity to start this role. And most recently, we created a free financial wellness program called Money Roots, where we teach, again, having a better relationship with money with four different workshops. And I'm sure we'll get into that more. But that's kind of been my journey and that's my current role.

• 8:30Jemma Sbeg?

  My God, I love how you've just done so many different things. Like, and how it's all just linked back to this, what it sounds like, this like desire to understand people better through how like money is a tool for them, right? And this like real like psychological element of it.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  And you know, I think it stemmed from in my twenties. I was horrible at money. And I graduated from college with about $30,000 in student loan debt and credit card debt.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  And from graduating, really became passionate about just having a better understanding of the skill-based side of money, specifically with credit cards. But as time continued, I was in this hamster wheel of making money, creating credit card debt, and then paying it off. So I did that through my 30s. And it really wasn't until this money psychology piece of my financial journey and professional journey, where I really got to the root of, why do I do this? Why do I do the things that I do with money? And now I can put up guardrails to, you know, help me to be more successful.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  So it's definitely been a journey and one that I'm so excited to share with everybody else.

• 9:52Jemma Sbeg?

  Hmm. I have a question for you about that piece you just mentioned. You graduated college, you had this debt. At the time, what do you think your biggest money mistake was?

• 10:03Speaker 02

  Hmm. I think my biggest, so mine is deeply rooted in my money story. My biggest mistake then is just not realizing, specifically for the credit card debt, why I was creating credit card debt. And for me, it was grounded in a lot of emotional spending, which we're seeing in young people still. We have this fear of missing out and social media, you want to keep up with other people. But for me, it was emotional spending from childhood, beliefs that I had learned from society and my parents. All of those things created this version of me where I would spend and create debt.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  So I think the biggest lesson I've learned that I wish I would have known then is that there is no amount of money that can solve your issues when you need therapy, right? When you need emotional support for things, there's no purse, there's no vacation. When you have some root issues that require additional support, you have to address that. And oftentimes, like with money or food, we will use these things to serve as a distraction. So I would tell myself, you know, let's get rid of the distractions, really address some of our root issues so that we can now show up better with our relationship with money.

• 11:28Jemma Sbeg?

  Speaking of relationships, what we really, what I really want to talk to you about today is the intersection between money and relationships in our twenties. Around marriage, yes, but also just around financial compatibility and how money actually impacts love in many, many ways. Let's start with this question. How important is financial compatibility in a relationship?

• 11:57Speaker 02

  Okay, so I love this question. One of the classes that we teach in Money Roots, it's, it's really, it's called Love and Money, where we go deep into the very thing you just said. We go deep into, for you and your romantic partner, what are the beliefs that you have and your partner has? What are the things that you learned about money from your family and from society? And then how does this show up in your relationship? So, most people don't have compatibility. You will have, you know, for whatever reason, opposites attract. You may have the spender and the saver, a nurturer and somebody who's an avoider.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  We all have these money personalities. So, one, it's important to know kind of what your personality is, but I want everyone to avoid shame around whatever your money personality is. So, I'll be honest and say, for me and my partner, who I've been with since I graduated from college, we, he is more of a, more of a saver, I'm more of a spender. And I think throughout my twenties, I had so much shame around being a spender and I wanted to be frugal like him. But that's not who I am. I'm a spender. I'm a spender. So it wasn't until I got to a place

• 13:24Speaker 02

  of understanding through your money story, through really getting very aligned with your money values, that's where having compatibility can come into play because you can be opposites. But when you understand your partner's money story, you understand your partner's values, it creates empathy for the differences. So it's less about you're frugal and cheap and I'm a spender and you know, you're overspending on everything, the bumping of heads to more of, oh, I understand why she is that way. I understand why he is that way. And now we're able to come together as a couple and create compatibility. Now we can come together without

• 14:08Speaker 02

  shame, with empathy to say, knowing that you're this person, I'm this person, how do we move forward together to create our own value system around money? And that's actually something that we teach in our Money Roots class, The Loving Money. We actually take you through understanding what that personality is, what your values are, and then how do we move forward to create something together?

• 14:32Jemma Sbeg?

  Hmm. When you were talking about your partner, I was like, ah, that's a familiar story. Me and my partner are the same. Yeah, it's always been that way for me. Like, money was, again, it's just such an emotional thing. And so of course, it's going to be like reflected and show up in your relationship. And of course, there's going to be times when, like, what is it? Like, money is the thing that couples argue about the most. What I'm hearing you say is like, you don't necessarily have to change all that much. You just have to understand and find the middle ground of like, what are we responsible for in this relationship? Is that what you're kind of saying?

• 15:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. So no, I think, yeah, definitely finding the middle ground and guardrails. So for me, knowing that I am a spender, I have to deeply Attach my spending to my values. So I'm, I'm a huge proponent of values-based spending. And what that means is, I know my top values are really beautiful things, authenticity, generational wealth, and really my spirituality. So when I anchor, and that's a part of money wellness and money well-being, when you're able to anchor your spending, saving, and giving to your values,

• 15:49Speaker 02

  you get a higher return on what I like to say, or higher return on joy. So for me, I know that if a spending, even if I'm spending and it doesn't attach to those values, pause. Let's pause and give it 48 hours. You know, is that black pair of pants beautiful enough? Does it, does it meet the requirement of my value of really beautiful things? Does it meet my requirement for generational wealth? And that has stopped me in my tracks. I'll be honest, that has stopped me in my tracks with buying things because I'll give myself that pause of, does this meet my values? And once you start spending from a place of, this has to meet my values, it increases your well-being with money. And then on the other side, for my partner,

• 16:33Speaker 02

  who is more frugal, now we're looking at it like money is a tool for enjoyment. So we gotta have a splurge account. We have a splurge account. So it forces him to now say, yes, we're gonna save, but we're also gonna enjoy the money. We've set money aside to where, if I wanna, you know, spend a hundred dollars on cookies because that's my latest obsession, and he wants to spend a hundred dollars on Legos because that's his latest obsession, that's okay, because we both have that wiggle room within our budget to do so. So again, it's creating those structures within your relationship to make that happen. And it's also knowing how to have the conversation. I think that's a big piece that people are, are missing.

• 17:16Jemma Sbeg?

  Hmm, which I feel like we, we can get into in a second. I wanna ask another question on this though, before we do, which is, How do you deal with inequality in earnings? When you're in a long-term relationship or you're in a just a relationship in your twenties and beyond? What happens when one partner makes significantly more money or significantly less money? How do we kind of handle that conversation?

• 17:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think we have to have transparency. I've talked to people where they'll do a split based off of percentages and that's how much you put in. And some people wanted to make it fifty fifty because it makes them feel like they're showing up and it may make you feel powerful. Again, we got to understand the story behind that and what is preference for you as an individual. So having the transparency, one of, I love to say money date nights. So I'm a big fan of less schedule money date nights where we can meet once per week, at minimum once per month, to talk about these things and create these guidelines and go into it having topics of, are we going to have joint accounts or split accounts? Are we going to, how are we going to pay the bills?

• 18:29Speaker 02

  How are we going to be compatible with our values and our beliefs? So I think the first step is to just have these conversations and setting time aside to do so.

• 18:38Jemma Sbeg?

  Hmm, yeah, and also just being incredibly realistic about like, can, if this person has a certain lifestyle, could you keep up? Like, can you keep up with what they want to do and what they want to spend? With, with still doing the fifty fifty thing or with you wanting to pay your fair share? Like, I do feel like I have a couple of friends who are in relationships like this. Specifically, I'm thinking about one friend who she makes a lot more than her partner. And he was always like adamant, like, no, we're going to split everything fifty fifty. And it was like, well, then we can't do the things that I actually want to do in a relationship. So it was like this real, it actually got very like complex with them.

• 19:21Jemma Sbeg?

  It was like ideas of masculinity and like

• 19:24Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 19:24Jemma Sbeg?

  power and equality, but then also like enjoyment and experiences and like what matters more to their relationship? Like that they can continue to play the role that they think they should play in a relationship or they can have fun with each other with the cards they're dealt. So like, it does get uh very, very complex.

• 19:43Speaker 02

  And I just want to call out, everything you just said has nothing to do with money.

• 19:48Jemma Sbeg?

  Exactly.

• 19:49Speaker 02

  It has nothing to do with money. You talked about, no, you talked about gender roles and enjoyment and how do we want to have experiences together? Has nothing to do with money. That's a completely separate conversation. So the problem is, we don't have those conversations. And then it turns into a blow up about money. So it's so important when we think of the money date night and how do we have productive conversations with your partner to say, my values are experiences and I do want to travel the world. And so as a partnership, we should allocate our money in this way to do these things. But again, it's realizing that those conversations need to take place.

• 20:30Speaker 02

  And oftentimes people just avoid it and you're ending up in an argument.

• 20:35Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, yeah. Again, I'm going to pull back that statistic that we said at the start. It's like the biggest source of conflict in relationships is money. So it's like when you're in your twenties and you're in your relationship, it's like this is, everybody focuses on like, oh, let's talk about our attachment styles and let's talk about our, our future. Like, do we want kids? Like, no, you need to have serious conversations about money early on. Like, it's actually deeply important.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  You do, you know, the money, the, what I love about the work we're doing here at Ally and just this whole movement that you're going to see within, I hope, I hope to see more within money psychology and money wellness, is looking at money as a part of your wellbeing. So when you think of your social wellbeing, so your friendships, when you think of your community, where do you live and how do you support it, your career, you think of your fitness and your health, those are all areas of wellbeing. And when money is off, it impacts all of that. When you are not satisfied with your money, we're seeing through our own data that people are up at night. They can't sleep at night. It's impacting their romantic partnerships. So it's so important that even starting in your twenties,

• 21:42Speaker 02

  you know, not to let money be this static thing, but it is a part of your wellbeing and to give it its full attention in your relationship is so important.

• 21:51Jemma Sbeg?

  Okay, we're going to take a short break here, but when we return, we're going to talk about prenups. I'm going to talk about-

• 21:56Speaker 02

  Okay, let's do it.

• 21:57Jemma Sbeg?

  We're going to talk about weddings. Stay with us.

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• 22:33Jemma Sbeg?

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• 26:01Jemma Sbeg?

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• 26:18Jemma Sbeg?

  Something that I am so fascinated by. Is prenups, why people get them, what they really mean. I genuinely, I'm gonna be completely transparent. I have no idea what a prenup is. Can you kind of give us a little bit of an explanation?

• 26:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, so essentially it's a legal document that outlines your finances and your assets. What happens to it should the marriage end? So we're no longer wanna be together. What do we do with the house? What do we do with that bank account? All of those things helps you to think about this before you get to a place of divorce. So I look at it as almost insurance for your love. I really want people to shift their perspective about prenups. And we're finding that in some of our data. That it's becoming less of a taboo topic and more of a way for couples to be transparent.

• 27:14Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, so I'm gonna ask some really naive questions. Do you only need a prenup if you have existing wealth?

• 27:25Speaker 02

  No, and here's why, here's why. So for everybody out there in your twenties, my question is, do you think you will have the same amount of wealth in your forties and fifties that you have in your twenties? I'm hoping for most people, the answer is gonna be no. So the person that you are in your twenties, the amount of assets that you have in your twenties, compared to when you're older, it changes. So I think when you set those guidelines in the beginning, when you get to a place of it didn't work out, as you mentioned earlier, money is one of the highest sources of conflicts in marriages. So if you get to a place to where this didn't work out and we wanna go our separate ways, you're doing it in the beginning.

• 28:08Speaker 02

  And I have experienced this and seen it with friends. The person you are at the beginning of your marriage, when you're in love and not emotional, is a very, very different person than who you are when you are at the place of divorce. It's two different people. So if you're able to do this at a place when you're still kind to each other, where you still have best intentions for each other and you're really, I wanna say rational, do it then to where you don't have to, you know, you're battling with someone later when a lot of emotions are involved.

• 28:44Jemma Sbeg?

  So this is my second naive question because I totally agree with you. I feel like I've, my parents have always said, and they're still together, but like from seeing friends of theirs get divorced, like the person you marry is not the person you divorce. They're two different people.

• 28:59Jemma Sbeg?

  Does asking for a prenup? Put pressure on the relationship, you know, there is definitely like a skeptical part in my mind and tell, and please correct it if it's wrong, that says, isn't that just saying like a part of me doesn't think we're gonna last?

• 29:14Speaker 02

  No, I think we need to shift that, that mindset and really look at it from, um, we're at a place now where people are more transparent about their finances. People have, especially in your twenties and thirties, you're coming into your relationship with more assets. Um, so you may have children, all those things. So really understanding that, um, this is again, insurance should things not work out and it's a way for us to be transparent. And it's also if it helps, I love that it creates a level set of where are we with our finances? Because in order to have a prenup, you have to understand your, um, assets and liabilities. You have to get all these things on paper for both you and your partner. So you're,

• 29:54Speaker 02

  it allows you to do that level set. So I don't think, I want us to shift that and look at it as less about we're doomed and all of that. And be realistic with the stats of what divorce and all those things are and saying that, while we are, um, kind to each other and have sound decision-making and not high emotions, let's just do this now to ensure that, um, it's not a problem later.

• 30:18Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  Okay. And I bet that you won't need it. Let's say that it's just insurance.

• 30:24Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, I like this idea. Insurance for your love. Like you don't buy house insurance thinking that you're gonna set your house on fire. You know what I mean?

• 30:31Speaker 02

  You don't.

• 30:32Jemma Sbeg?

  You buy it in case.

• 30:32Speaker 02

  But you still have it just in case things happen. So, um, and, and I'm, I'm hopeful that all marriages last. But in the event that they don't, just having that as a backup so that you're not fighting over things later creates, and I, you know, I also think it creates a better relationship post the divorce. Uh, because you didn't have to fight for all of those things. So definitely let's shift how we think about it and allow it to be a place to create transparency. A great topic for money date night.

• 31:01Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, very good topic. It's many things. So I have a bunch of friends who are getting married. Um, I'm like, I feel like you get to this point in your twenties where it's like a wedding every weekend. Some of them are getting a lot, some of them are spending a lot of money on the wedding. And I saw an article that said, this is with no judgment. I really, I don't know enough, but this article that said, the more you spend on your wedding, the more likely you are to get divorced.

• 31:29Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 31:30Jemma Sbeg?

  This is an entry point for me to ask you, how much do you think couples should spend on their wedding? And do you see, which I know you might not have an answer for, but do you see maybe a correlation between spending more and that putting strain on the relationship?

• 31:45Speaker 02

  Let me say this, I think that um from my personal, I'll just use my personal experience and what I think people should do and getting, having this get back to your values. As a couple, as a young couple, I think it's so important to get very aligned on what your values are individually and what your values would be as a couple. And that includes what, what do we want this wedding to be? So I'm not going to shame, your values may be having a, a large wedding because you have a big family and it's celebratory. It may be a part of your culture, but for someone else, it may be that they're having a smaller wedding, a more intimate ceremony is who they are.

• 32:26Speaker 02

  Really honing in on what you want as a couple, I think is so important and not getting pulled into what you mentioned. Like, you know, I think a lot of this is like, you know, fear of missing out. You want to keep up with what your friend, all of your friends are having big weddings, so you should have a big wedding. We tend to follow what other people do mindlessly without really understanding who we are and what we want individually. So with that in mind, I'm not going to say a dollar amount, but I do want to say that I think it has to deeply align to what your values are as a couple. And when you spend from that point of view, um, it will be affordable because you will not do things that are not affordable for either of you.

• 33:08Jemma Sbeg?

  Hmm.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  Who, you'll do things that are, that are affordable for either, for both of you, shall I say?

• 33:13Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah. And I like this idea of like, see, when I get married, I'm keen for a big wedding. Um, and then I have a huge family. I have a huge like Italian Irish family like it's there's no avoiding it. And you know, my partner also has a huge family who we love. Um, but yeah, it's just so interesting when you see these lavish weddings and you think that you need personalized gifts for everybody. And the day and you think that you need everybody, like the wedding becomes more about other people than about you. That's what a lot of my friends who have spent a lot of money on their wedding said that they regret it.

• 33:52Jemma Sbeg?

  And again, I like that you're bringing it back to values, right? It's like this is about you two showing your love for each other. Yes, like your family and friends are involved, but like it's not their wedding. Like, I think the more you can spend on the enjoyment for yourself and the things that you like. This is what I'm seeing from my friends who are planning weddings, who are having a good time versus those who are having like a bad time.

• 34:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you're you're doing it for love. We got to get back to that. You're doing it because you're marrying your partner who you love. Um, and you want to have an amazing experience with the people who support that love. And that could be as simple or elaborate as you want it to be. But again, like you mentioned, understanding, um, specifically for you, what do you and your partner want? And not just following the crowd.

• 34:43Jemma Sbeg?

  Hmm.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  Because that becomes expensive.

• 34:45Jemma Sbeg?

  Oh, my God, yeah. I, yes, I've seen it. It becomes so expensive. And I was like, I had a friend and she won't mind me talking about this. Um, where she was like, we spent all this money on like extra desserts for the guests and then

• 35:00Speaker 02

  They didn't eat them.

• 35:01Jemma Sbeg?

  They didn't eat them. Yeah.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  They didn't eat them.

• 35:03Jemma Sbeg?

  They didn't eat them. And she was like, oh, like this was such a big detail that I really I was so stressed about coordinating how these were going to get there and like la la la. And she was like, and I asked her, I was like, how much? To to tell me truthfully, how much did you spend on? Like, I think she was like the cocktails and the dessert. And she was like over three thousand dollars. And I was like, that's, and she's like, I just wish we just like, that's, that could have been like a part of our honeymoon fund, you know what I mean? So, yeah, it's, I like that you brought, you bring back to values.

• 35:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think also as brides, um, or in life, in life, we can get so caught up in perfect moments.

• 35:44Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 35:44Speaker 02

  You have this, you know, you envision what this day will be and it should be perfect. But we all know, life is not perfect. Things, something's gonna go wrong that day, big or small, you know? Um, and just creating space for that day, going into it to know that, why am I here? Why am I here and what are my values for doing this? And it helps you to not, um, really sweat the small stuff of the day. Because those things will come up, you know, you spent more on the, and your guests won't know. That's the other thing. Your guests will have no idea that you didn't buy more desserts, you know?

• 36:20Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  Or you didn't have that extra decoration. They'll never know. Again, they're there to suppo- to support your love, so let that be the focus.

• 36:28Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, I love that. One final money dilemma that we see in relationships is shared bank accounts. What do you think about people who are in early stages of their relationship? Maybe they've just moved in together, getting a shared bank account. Is it safer at the beginning to just continue to spend separately? Or is it wise to kind of, you know, get that extra interest or combine finances for convenience? What have you seen that kind of works for, for couples?

• 36:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I'm gonna give you a little bit of data and then a little bit of just what I'm seeing from, um, the world we live in. So I, I've had the pleasure, I did a, um, a graduate certification in financial health and wellness from Texas Tech, the Financial Planning School. And there I learned through one of our, you know, literature reviews that technically relationships where you share bank accounts.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  Are better because of the transparency. So you just have more transparency within the relationship. You're more aligned. However, I think we also have to take into account that people are getting married later. They have more assets. Um, so it's, it may be difficult to come in and share everything. So again, I think this is a conversation to where do we have, depending on your assets and the level of comfort that you have, I think you want to have, I think the key here is transparency. That's what I think the key is. So is it that we have certain views of, of each other's accounts? When we have a money date night, do we talk about our accounts if they're separate?

• 38:08Speaker 02

  Um, but I do want to take into account that some people just come into relationships with more assets. So separating things may be difficult. So keeping that in mind, the key again is the transparency to where we're not hiding money. Where we get into financial infidelity, things like that. So we want to have that transparency to, to ensure that we know what the assets are. We know we've agreed upon if we're going to share or not. I personally am a fan of, um, I have my own account. My partner has his own account and then we have one account where we share our expenses, our shared expenses. That works for me, but again, have that conversation so that you can go into it knowing what each person feels comfortable with.

• 38:53Speaker 02

  But according to the academic data, when you share it, it helps your relationship.

• 38:57Jemma Sbeg?

  I love how, I love this, this conversation and I'm so grateful for all the advice that you're giving us on like the more juicy controversial parts of money and relationships. I have one final question for you. It's the question we, we ask all of our guests, which is what is one piece of advice you have for people in their twenties? That has nothing to do with what we talked about today though. Nothing to do with money, nothing to do with relationships even.

• 39:23Speaker 02

  Oh my goodness, what would I tell 20 year old Jacqueline? Life is short and enjoy the people that you love. Life is short and enjoy the people that you love because you know, I'm forty four, I'll be forty five in March. And over the years, I'm also a breast cancer survivor. So there's layers to that too of um, you get to a place of for me in my twenties, a lot of my twenties was about checking boxes. So it was graduate from college, check, get married, check, have kids, check.

• 39:58Speaker 02

  You know, have my retirement accounts, check. And then when I was diagnosed with breast cancer at thirty. And with that, it really reset who I was as a person to really understand that I'm here to have experiences with the people that I love. And when you when you live life from that standpoint, a lot of these small things, like we're talking about decorations at a wedding, or did I get enough desserts? When you look at life through that lens, it becomes so much more joyful. And that's one of the reasons why I love my work at Ally, because I'm in a position to help people to use money as a tool to have joy, to have a return on joy, as a tool to have

• 40:43Speaker 02

  experiences, and use it to, you know, love and enjoy the people around them. And when you look at life through that lens, it becomes so much sweeter. So stop checking boxes and enjoy life, enjoy those experiences, because life is short.

• 41:01Jemma Sbeg?

  That's phenomenal advice, and advice I probably need to take myself. So definitely, definitely a good piece there. I want to thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Jack. Honestly, you are so wise and just so lovely to talk to. I feel like our conversation was just like effortless, and I so appreciate your time. So thank you so much again.

• 41:21Speaker 02

  Thank you. And check us out, allymoneyroots.com. The sessions are all free.

• 41:27Jemma Sbeg?

  Yeah, I know. I was just about to say that. I was like, I feel like I need to do money and love. I'm like, gonna make Tom do it with me, gonna make him sit down. It would be, I think it would be like super helpful for us. So I appreciate it. I'll make sure that I leave links in the description below for where you can find Jack and all her work and where you can do money in love. But if you enjoyed this episode as well, make sure that you subscribe. Make sure you give us a five star review and check us out on Instagram at that psychology podcast. If you want to, you know, suggest some episodes, have some feedback, have your own questions of how money and love have intersected for you, prenups, marriage, any of those things. I would love to hear it. Until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself. We will talk very, very soon.

• 42:16Jemma Sbeg?

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• 42:53Jemma Sbeg?

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• 43:38Jemma Sbeg?

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