257. "We really want a house - but have $0 in savings"

Molly and Jason are 45 and 46, living together with a 2-year-old daughter. They earn $142,000 a year combined. They have $0 in savings, $46,000 in debt, and a net worth of just $4,842. They dream of buying a house, investing in real estate, and retiring early. But when Ramit opens their Conscious Spending Plan, the picture is stark. Fixed costs at 77%. No savings rate. $25,000 in credit card debt in Molly's name that Jason can't fully account for. And a financial system built entirely on Venmo transfers, separate accounts, and crossed fingers. What Ramit finds underneath the numbers is a relationship where one person is managing everything alone, and the other has quietly checked out. Molly researches, opens accounts, tracks the bills, and covers the overdrafts. Jason works, pays rent, and sends Venmo transfers when asked. Neither of them planned financially before having a baby. Neither of them has seen what a real financial partnership looks like. But something shifts. When Ramit shows them that working together they could reach $1.75 million by retirement, something clicks. They stop explaining why things are the way they are and start talking about what they are going to do. In this episode we uncover: Why two people earning $142,000 a year can have $0 in savings and $46,000 in debt The Venmo money transfer system that has kept them financially disconnected for years What it looks like when one partner manages everything alone while the other disengages How $4,000 in annual subscriptions disappears when nobody is looking at the full picture Why dreaming about real estate investing is the wrong move when your own finances are on fire The moment Jason admits he feels resentful and apathetic about money The plan to sell the truck, wipe the credit card debt, and combine finances for the first time What Ramit means when he says the biggest savings anyone can make is on housing costs The follow-up update from Molly and Jason Chapters: (00:00:00) "We wanna be rich. We have $0 in savings" (00:03:01) Meet Molly and Jason (00:10:00) How often do you talk about money? (00:14:00) Jason completely disengaged (00:19:00) No decisions are ever made (00:30:00) Dreamers who won't save $250 a month (00:34:11) Opening the Conscious Spending Plan (00:40:15) Fixed costs at 77% (00:46:50) Separate accounts, Venmo transfers, no shared vision (00:59:20) "Resentful. And apathetic." (01:03:00) Money psychology and upbringings (01:17:46) "You're gonna sell a truck and pay off debt" (01:41:13) Follow-ups This episode is brought to you by: Gelt | Book a tax consultation with Gelt at https://joingelt.com/ramit. As a member of my community, you can skip the waitlist ZocDoc | Go to https://zocdoc.com/ramit to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today #sponsored Leesa | Go to https://leesa.com for 20% off select mattresses PLUS get an extra $50 off with promo code RAMIT, exclusive for my listeners 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 MasterClass | For unlimited access to every class and an additional 15% off any annual membership, go to https://masterclass.com/ramit 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 or your partner get stressed spending $150 on dinner, or are covering up spending, I'd like to help. Apply to be coached for free on this podcast at iwt.com/apply

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

• 0:01Ramit Sethi?

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• 0:44Ramit Sethi?

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• 1:13Ramit Sethi?

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• 1:22Ramit Sethi?

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• 2:06Ramit Sethi?

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• 2:46Speaker 01

  I think we both want to like really make some money. Like I will teach you to be rich, like we want to be rich. We want to buy our first house.

• 2:52Speaker 02

  I'd like to retire early. I know that sounds crazy once we look at our numbers.

• 2:56Ramit Sethi?

  Zero dollars in savings. And you have a daughter.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  We just spend money and then figure it out afterwards.

• 3:02Ramit Sethi?

  Do you ever actually go and look into your spending and find out what happened?

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Not very often.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  We should make enough money to not be in our position that we're in. And that's why it's just a confusing web. I don't even know how to like unravel it.

• 3:16Ramit Sethi?

  You spend over $4,000 a year on subscriptions alone.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Right.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  I just knew it was bad, but I did not know it was that much.

• 3:25Ramit Sethi?

  You feel very disconnected on money.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  We've been together for three years and it seems like we just never get ahead. We're always kind of living paycheck to paycheck.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  I feel resentful in the fact that I feel like I'm working really hard all the time so that we have money.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  I sometimes look around, I'm like, this is what I wanted. I got what I wanted and I'm still unhappy.

• 3:47Ramit Sethi?

  How many times have you talked to someone who has big dreams? They want to retire at 45, they want to buy a 20 acre property, they want to travel all the time. But when you look at what they are actually doing to make that dream a reality, they haven't taken any concrete steps. We know people like this. They talk about all the things they want to do, but often they don't have any idea where last month's paycheck went. It's like people who talk about all these advanced weightlifting techniques, but they're not even consistent about getting to the gym three times a week. Today's guests, Molly and Jason, are 45 and 46 with a two-year-old daughter. And they have big dreams. They want to buy a house, they want to invest in multifamily properties, and they want to retire early. But when you hear what they are actually doing with their money,

• 4:32Ramit Sethi?

  you're going to realize it doesn't add up. I'm looking at their conscious spending plan. This shows me a very simple overview of all their numbers. And if you want help with your own conscious spending plan, you can join my money coaching program at iwt.com/moneycoaching. Here are their numbers. Household income, $142,000 a year. Savings, zero. Debt, $46,000. Net worth, $4,000. Let me put it in another way. They make nearly $143,000 a year and they have $0 in savings. They live together. They have a child together, but they keep completely separate finances. In fact, she asks for money. He decides and sends it to her.

• 5:18Ramit Sethi?

  She manages everything alone while overdrafting to cover bills. And neither of them can explain where his paycheck actually goes each month. They're stuck in the same cycle, month after month, wondering why nothing ever changes. Now, I have a quick favor to ask. Molly and Jason, were brave enough to come on Money for Couples and share their story with us. As you listen and you watch, I'm going to ask that you keep your comments respectful and constructive. That is the type of community I want for my show. Let's get started now with Molly and Jason. Molly, you wrote to us in your application, quote, "We live paycheck to paycheck, have virtually no savings, and I'm trying very hard to get us out of this hole."

• 6:03Ramit Sethi?

  What do you mean by that?

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Spent a lot of time researching like what we can do to, what we need to do. Because after having a child in our 40s and, and looking around, reading the room, I was like, we're not doing well. The price of daycare went up in the fall. And two out of the three months that we, it's, since it's gone up, it overdraws my account.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  Why? Money's still very tight, but we always pay it every month. We've always been able to pay it.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  But then like it's a little scary every month. It comes out on the first, so it's like, there's just never enough. And so the excess goes, comes from my credit card.

• 6:42Ramit Sethi?

  I got you. A couple of questions about just account structure. Do you two have combined finances or not?

• 6:48Speaker 02

  No, they're not combined. I send her money multiple times a month.

• 6:53Ramit Sethi?

  What does that look on Molly's face? Molly?

• 6:55Speaker 01

  It is combined. Like we... Spend everything together. We're a unit that spends money, but the fact that like most of the bills come out of my account, but the money goes into his account and then he sends me money.

• 7:10Ramit Sethi?

  Hold on, what in the hell? Try that again with me.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  Most of the utilities and other expenses like medical are all in Molly's name. They go through her account. I just send her money for most of it and I paid the rent myself.

• 7:27Ramit Sethi?

  Questions. How do you send the money?

• 7:30Speaker 02

  Venmo.

• 7:31Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, and you two are married, correct?

• 7:34Speaker 01

  No.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  No, we're not married.

• 7:35Ramit Sethi?

  Not married. You live together?

• 7:37Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 7:38Ramit Sethi?

  And kids? How many kids?

• 7:40Speaker 01

  One. She's two.

• 7:42Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. When did money become a source of tension for the two of you?

• 7:47Speaker 01

  When I stopped working and had a baby.

• 7:50Ramit Sethi?

  And was that when your daughter was born or was it while you were pregnant?

• 7:54Speaker 01

  I basically worked up until she was born.

• 7:57Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Because of financial reasons or were you just enjoying work or were there other reasons?

• 8:03Speaker 01

  I enjoyed work. It was physically active, which I like, but also I was trying to build up an egg, a little nest egg. Cause I didn't, we didn't really have a plan.

• 8:15Ramit Sethi?

  I see. Did you two talk about the financial part of having a baby?

• 8:20Speaker 01

  No.

• 8:21Ramit Sethi?

  No.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  I don't think we really did.

• 8:23Ramit Sethi?

  Molly, Molly, why'd you laugh when I asked that question?

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Cause do you think that would be like an important conversation you have with, you have nine months to have it? But we definitely did not.

• 8:31Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. How did you come up with the system that you have developed where you have separate accounts? He transfers money to her. How'd that come about?

• 8:43Speaker 01

  I'm the responsible one in the couple that does the, you know, let's open the energy account, let's open the water bill, let's do all like, and I'm home. So it makes sense for me to do that to the admin, if you will.

• 8:56Ramit Sethi?

  Got it. What's the thing about her daycare that comes out of your account? Explain that one to me.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  Again, this is all the things that I have set up. So I found the daycare, for instance. I am the one who's communicated with them. I signed us up. Um, I'm the one who goes out and, you know, I got our health insurance, signed up for that. I get all of her stuff.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  I pretty much take care of those things in our household. That's all me.

• 9:28Ramit Sethi?

  How would you describe each of your roles with money?

• 9:33Speaker 01

  My role with the household money is trying to make it all work. It's like almost flying by the seat of my pants.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  I guess my role isn't that large at this point. I go to work, I work full time, and basically send as much money as I can above rent.

• 9:50Ramit Sethi?

  Are you the primary earner?

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 9:53Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. That's your role then, right? I mean, if we're gonna simplify it.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:57Ramit Sethi?

  So you're the primary earner, but it sounds like you do not track much of the money or organize or manage most of the money. Would that be fair to say?

• 10:07Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 10:07Ramit Sethi?

  All right. So you make the bulk of the household income and then do you send all of it to Molly? Or some of it?

• 10:16Speaker 02

  Definitely don't send all of it. I send what I think is as much as I can afford to send.

• 10:21Ramit Sethi?

  Does it come up when Molly, you need Jason to transfer money over and he says, "I don't know if I have that much"?

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Couple times a month, at least. Yeah.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  And then we'll negotiate and maybe change the amount.

• 10:34Ramit Sethi?

  How do you decide that?

• 10:36Speaker 02

  Usually based on how much is in my bank account.

• 10:39Ramit Sethi?

  You're checking, right?

• 10:40Speaker 02

  What I'm... Yes.

• 10:41Ramit Sethi?

  Hold on, explain. So you get paid, what, like every two weeks or four weeks?

• 10:45Speaker 02

  I get paid every week.

• 10:47Ramit Sethi?

  Every, every week? All right. So what do you do? Like on Friday, do you log into your checking account? And then how does it work?

• 10:53Speaker 02

  Sure. Yeah, I log into my checking account. I look at how much money I have. Yes, that's true, when I get paid. And at that point, it's always time to send money. There's always a need for money.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Often, he doesn't just send me money. I have to ask, "Hey, I need more money." We have all these bills coming out, beginning of the month, and it's just kind of like literally counting days to being like, "When can he get money that he can then send me money?" And it will take this much time because it's Venmo. And then I have this many days before it's absolutely late and we get a fee. I guess that's what I mean. It's like very much living in this moment of scrambling.

• 11:28Ramit Sethi?

  You like it?

• 11:29Speaker 01

  No, and I don't like... I've tried to do budgeting software, but it's too confusing. I just give up because I have no idea how much is coming, money's coming in. I just end up being really like, yeah, confused.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  It's too hard to figure out by myself.

• 11:47Ramit Sethi?

  And when you ask Jason for help, or do you ask him for help?

• 11:51Speaker 01

  I have, yeah. I've asked him for help, but often when we talk about money, or like even just getting into details, it never, it's just not fruitful. It doesn't ever flow well. I admittedly sometimes come in hot. Sometimes I'm already upset, right? I'm not preemptively being like, hey, we're both in a chill mood. Let's talk.

• 12:13Ramit Sethi?

  You don't do that?

• 12:14Speaker 01

  No. We talked about trying to set that up, but it never happened.

• 12:18Ramit Sethi?

  How often do you talk about money?

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Once a week, but it's not like a productive way of talking about money. We just

• 12:28Speaker 01

  spend money and then figure it out afterwards.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 12:32Ramit Sethi?

  How much visibility do each of you have into each other's spending and finances?

• 12:37Speaker 01

  I have limited into his, but more than he probably does into mine because I have accessed his account and like when I was trying to figure out different budgeting software, I've gone into his account, but he's never looked at mine.

• 12:52Ramit Sethi?

  Right. Do you care too, Jason?

• 12:54Speaker 02

  Honestly, I haven't cared that much. No, haven't.

• 12:56Ramit Sethi?

  Do you ask Molly questions about money?

• 13:00Speaker 02

  As far as our day-to-day expenses and monthly, or just day-to-day life, no.

• 13:06Ramit Sethi?

  Do you ask Molly questions at all?

• 13:08Speaker 02

  Sometimes. Not a lot of questions.

• 13:12Ramit Sethi?

  Molly?

• 13:14Speaker 01

  In a way that makes me emotional.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a lot of me, I feel like, trying to, I guess, be curious about this.

• 13:27Ramit Sethi?

  I suspect it's not just this.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, like I mean, like I'm in charge of all the things. And he's like, trust me with that, but it's, it's like a lot to constantly figure out.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  Like finding the pediatrician, or like even when she was born, like figuring out what she's gonna sleep in, or where she sleeps, or what she eats, or what we do, like that's all on me, for sure. He works also a lot, and he has since day one. So I was, he was home for one week. When we had our daughter. And then I was in the middle of nowhere with a newborn. And then we moved into a new state and like, some things would have been better with community, but now he's gone even longer. He's gone like 60 hours a week. And I've just learned to like, deal with it, but it's, it just feels like a lot of the responsibility of like our family is on me.

• 14:25Ramit Sethi?

  You all familiar with this phrase, emotional labor? Have you heard of this?

• 14:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  A little bit.

• 14:33Ramit Sethi?

  When we think of work in America, a lot of times we think of like, who's going out to mow the lawn or go to work or things like that. But there's like a lot of emotional load that is often invisible. What do you notice about the emotional labor in this household? Jason?

• 14:50Speaker 02

  I think it definitely falls mostly on Molly.

• 14:53Ramit Sethi?

  Did the two of you agree on that?

• 14:55Speaker 01

  No.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  No, I don't think we agreed on that.

• 14:57Ramit Sethi?

  It just usually falls to mom. That's part of the reason that you're crying, Molly. Is that it doesn't feel fair and it's not fair.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  I know it's a lot and I feel bad. I feel, I know I can do better.

• 15:11Ramit Sethi?

  Why haven't you?

• 15:12Speaker 02

  I have offered to. And I still would like to, and I haven't done enough with that. I'd like to take over more of the bills, take care of that as well. But I haven't done anything about that.

• 15:22Ramit Sethi?

  Why?

• 15:23Speaker 02

  Because I've been, it's not been a focus. I haven't focused on it and I should.

• 15:29Ramit Sethi?

  Jason says he hasn't focused on taking over the bills. But notice what just happened. Molly described their entire financial system. Daycare, overdrawing her account, Venmo transfers, negotiating amounts multiple times a month. She is tracking when bills are due. She's tracking when his paycheck hits, even how long Venmo takes to transfer. And Jason's response? I haven't focused on it. That's not very satisfying. In fact, that's not acceptable. Here's what I'm seeing that they can't see yet. Jason, completely disengaged. And not just from the money, but from Molly and the family responsibilities. I think in some ways even from himself.

• 16:10Ramit Sethi?

  Meanwhile, Molly has fallen into the trap that is so familiar to many of my guests, especially women on this show, of carrying the mental load, of assuming the role of someone who has to ask permission of their partner and of being okay with a partner who doesn't actually act like a partner. And I actually hate that. I hate when people play small with their money. But especially women, because I want all of us to be able to live a rich life. That is why I spend so much time talking about the taboo topics of money and gender and social class on this show. I want you to know, just because your parents didn't teach you about money, you can still get very educated and live an amazing, rich life.

• 16:54Ramit Sethi?

  You can redefine how traditional responsibilities and roles go in a family. Just because one person earns more doesn't mean they have more power. You can decide what your rich life is. And that is what brings me back to this couple. Not only do we see this very common, and in my opinion dysfunctional, dynamic, but she's not actually good at managing money either. This is a very common toxic cycle. One person, the avoider, opts out, so the other person compensates by controlling everything. But actually, most of the time, neither one of them is very competent at money. You cannot live a rich life in this dynamic. You can't even manage a paycheck. So if you recognize yourself in this dynamic,

• 17:38Ramit Sethi?

  whether you are the avoider or the one who is trying to carry everything on your shoulders, please understand this. An unequal partnership with money always reflects something much deeper. This is not just about money. This is about something way, way deeper. In fact, the money is simply a symptom of much deeper beliefs. And today, we are going to find out what those beliefs are. Can we go back to the, a recent time where you remember, the last time that you were talking about money?

• 18:10Speaker 01

  It was...

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Basically in the kitchen and

• 18:15Ramit Sethi?

  Do it as if I'm there just watching. Go ahead.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Okay, so after we pay rent, then what's left?

• 18:23Speaker 02

  I just paid the rent. I barely have enough money to get to next paycheck. I'm not sure where it all went, but I felt like I was lucky to have rent this month, which is strange because we had an extra check this month.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, this was supposed to be a bigger month. Not only do we have an extra check, but we had an extra, we got our deposit back from our last rental. So this should have been a huge month, I thought in my mind, which is crazy that I was like, oh, we could put a lot, you know, a certain amount of money towards some of our credit card debt. Like this would be the month.

• 19:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I kind of did too. I don't know what happened. I'm not sure.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  You just have no idea?

• 19:06Speaker 02

  Not really. I mean, the money just kind of went. I don't know what happened to it.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  I mean, you can look at your account.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  Right. Yeah.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  And see.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  I will look at it. I'll check it out. I'll see. I'm pretty sure it's no different than any other month, which doesn't help, but I don't know what happened to it.

• 19:27Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, so what happened in that conversation? If you both zoom up and you almost look at the two of you as players, how would you assess what just happened in that conversation? Molly?

• 19:40Speaker 01

  What happened and what happens a lot is I just, I get really mad. I kind of give up halfway through the conversation because I already know that I'm not going to get any clarity. And he just gets mad because I feel like he thinks I'm pestering him about something that is trivial. Somewhere in him, he knows it's not trivial, but the fact like I'm questioning him and don't, and that he knows I don't trust him, he gets then defensive and mad. I go into like a fugue state almost, where I'm just like, this is pointless. Yeah, like he can't do what I need him to do.

• 20:24Ramit Sethi?

  All right, Jason, what about you? If you zoom up, how would you assess that conversation? What happened?

• 20:29Speaker 02

  I think like many of these conversations just put me in a defensive state of mind. And I just kind of shut down. I'm like, well, it is what it is. The money is there, not there. I don't know what else to say about it. It got spent on something. And I think part of it is being caught off guard with something I wasn't prepared for. I'm not always. I'll admit, I'm not always in the mood to talk about money. So I think. Cause it never seems to go anywhere. That is a very typical cycle of how the conversation goes. Typical example.

• 21:00Ramit Sethi?

  She'll bring it up, you'll be defensive and then it will dwindle off. In other words, no decisions are made. You just spin and then it comes up two, three, six weeks later again.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  Right. That happens quite often.

• 21:13Ramit Sethi?

  Does that feel good? Seems frustrating.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Very frustrating.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like it's a big part of why, for whatever reason. Our finances, like we should make enough money to not be in our position that we're in. And that's why it's just a confusing. Web. I don't even know how to like unravel it.

• 21:35Ramit Sethi?

  Jason, do you ever actually go and look into your spending and find out what happened?

• 21:41Speaker 02

  Not very often. Downloaded Rocket Money and added that to my account.

• 21:46Ramit Sethi?

  And where, where, where'd the money go?

• 21:48Speaker 02

  There's still a lot of spending that's unaccounted for. So I need to dig deeper. A lot of average daily spending.

• 21:54Ramit Sethi?

  What? Hold on. That doesn't work on me. If you downloaded Rocket Money, which is a great tool. Then it shows you line by line where the money went. So where'd the money go?

• 22:04Speaker 02

  Daily spending, whether it was groceries, eating out.

• 22:09Speaker 02

  Definitely subscriptions.

• 22:10Ramit Sethi?

  Can we just look at Rocket Money? Do you have it?

• 22:12Speaker 02

  I have it on my phone. I could suppose I could.

• 22:15Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 22:16Speaker 02

  Pull it up.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  He has, which he didn't mention, he says a lot of it goes to subscriptions, but he has like double subscriptions.

• 22:21Ramit Sethi?

  All right. What do you got, Jason?

• 22:22Speaker 02

  I do.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 22:24Speaker 02

  I do have some doubles. So for subscriptions. I have, let's see, one, two, three, four, about 12, no, 14 subscriptions.

• 22:35Ramit Sethi?

  How much is the total?

• 22:36Speaker 02

  Forty-three, sixty-eight per year for 18 subscriptions.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Four thousand?

• 22:43Speaker 02

  Four thousand, three hundred and sixty-eight per year for 18 subscriptions.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Knew it was bad, but I did not know it was that much. Not even close.

• 22:55Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. And Jason, did you know?

• 22:57Speaker 02

  No, no, I did not.

• 22:59Ramit Sethi?

  So far, we know that you spend over $4,000 a year on subscriptions alone.

• 23:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:04Ramit Sethi?

  What does that tell you?

• 23:06Speaker 02

  Seems like I could cut that amount by a good, I would hope.

• 23:10Ramit Sethi?

  How would you describe your familiarity with your own spending, Jason?

• 23:15Speaker 02

  Not great. I think I could be a lot more familiar with it.

• 23:18Ramit Sethi?

  All right. And Molly, how would you describe your familiarity with your own spending?

• 23:22Speaker 01

  I mean, I guess I, I know pretty much what I'm spending, yes.

• 23:28Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  So good. Roundabout concise answer for you.

• 23:32Ramit Sethi?

  You wrote something that caught my eye. Quote, "I don't fully trust him about how and where he's spending money because he hasn't been super forthcoming in the past about investing in the stock market." Can you tell me more about that?

• 23:49Speaker 01

  I knew he was using Robinhood and doing, you know, day trading or options and things that I'm not super familiar with, to be honest. I didn't know how much money he was funneling into that because that's just not how our accounts work.

• 24:06Ramit Sethi?

  How much money are we talking about?

• 24:07Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 24:08Speaker 02

  It was a hundred times, two hundred a week.

• 24:13Ramit Sethi?

  Two hundred a week, so eight hundred a month.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  Yes, that's right. I just wanted to make sure, yeah.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  And I didn't know that.

• 24:19Ramit Sethi?

  Jason, what was going on with these investments?

• 24:23Speaker 02

  So what Molly is referring to with the automated withdrawals, that was just a long-term investment account. I wasn't actually doing any of my own, like, option trading or anything like that. It's just-

• 24:37Ramit Sethi?

  What was the options trading about?

• 24:39Speaker 02

  So the options trading was on a different platform and I had a friend that was actually very successful last year. So I started getting some tips from him and I put a little money here and there. I started with probably $500 and-

• 24:56Speaker 02

  I think I only ended up adding another thousand on top of that. Either way, not as successful as him. Still had a lot to learn. So kind of up and down.

• 25:05Ramit Sethi?

  What, did you loop Molly into what you were doing?

• 25:08Speaker 02

  As far as the options, I didn't explain it a whole lot. As far as the money I put in there, I probably wasn't that specific.

• 25:16Ramit Sethi?

  Why?

• 25:17Speaker 02

  Not much. Um, I guess I probably thought I was going to do better than I did. And so I expected to have better news.

• 25:27Ramit Sethi?

  Can I ask you guys a question? Like, just in just speaking to you just for a little bit so far, you feel very disconnected on money. Extremely disconnected.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  From each other or from money?

• 25:39Ramit Sethi?

  Uh, both.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  We were having a conversation about this a little bit the other day and we were talking about how we went from being two single people in our 40s three years ago to basically married with children. And both of us have traveled a lot when we were younger and just kind of lived a single life. And I feel like I'm still spending money that way. And I haven't, you know, haven't been able to switch gears in the way that I should. Basically, living as if we're single, and I think that's part of the problem.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like in some ways, like the way I think about like our finances together is like, it just feels like a disaster. And I just like, every time I like put a lot of energy into figuring it out or unraveling it, it just seems like it goes nowhere. And I just like, don't, then I just kind of get, I just like tune it out or something. I don't know.

• 26:35Ramit Sethi?

  That's actually very common. That's very common. All of us, me included, we like to pay attention to stuff where we feel competent, where we feel good. And so for some people, that's parenting, or cooking, or fitness, or money, or even cleaning the house. But conversely, we don't like to spend time on stuff where we feel incompetent, where we feel out of control.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:06Ramit Sethi?

  Honestly, if there's something in your life that you avoid because you're just like, "I don't like this," and it's like, "I don't like using pledge on this wood table," who cares, right? It's not gonna hurt anybody to a large extent. But relationships and money and safety for the family, those are things that are actually important. So avoiding them, it's gonna get you one way or another, whether it's today or tomorrow.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 27:33Ramit Sethi?

  Molly, you also wrote in your application, quote, "We have similar goals, but for some reason, when we talk about our present money issues, there's hurt and frustration." What are the similar goals that you both?

• 27:47Speaker 01

  We don't wanna be poor.

• 27:49Ramit Sethi?

  Are you poor?

• 27:51Speaker 01

  No, no. But we are probably pretty low middle-class.

• 27:57Speaker 02

  I feel paycheck to paycheck is borderline.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  We're probably pretty poor, I guess. We don't wanna just be like, a little bit over living paycheck to paycheck. I think we both wanna like, really make some money. Like, "I will teach you to be rich." Like, wanna be rich.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  Absolutely. We like to be well off. I would like to be well off. I'd like to be successful. Like, actually retire early. I know that sounds crazy, once we look at our numbers. At least to me, it seems like a, you know, long hill to climb. But, yeah, I would like to figure out ways to make good money and, you know, just be a lot better off than we are now.

• 28:38Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Molly, you agree or see things differently?

• 28:41Speaker 01

  I agree. Yeah. We want to travel. We want to spend time with our daughter. And we want to, we have a similar goal in like, how we wanna get there with real estate and stuff like that. Like, we have a shared vision on what that looks like, I guess, but not on how to get there.

• 29:05Ramit Sethi?

  Wait.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  We have a shared vision of like, what would be great. And I think on how we get there, there's similarities, but like it's like, but the literal brass tacks of, of the daily work it takes to get to even next year is where we, like maybe next year, we have a similar goal. We want to buy our first house. But to how to get that is where things I think are different.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  Uh, what we would want to do first, we'd be looking at multifamily units that need to be remodeled. Some sort of state of disrepair that's not too far gone, where it would make sense to make improvements and eventually resell or rent.

• 29:47Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. And like, have you, where are you on this process? Have you run numbers? Have you purchased a property? Where are you on that?

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Um, basically we're at the like, this, I mean, the kind of research stage. I, I have looked into different ways of like how we would get a loan, like FHA 203K. I'm kind of like, that's been my fun project to research.

• 30:14Ramit Sethi?

  Is that a goal or is that just something that one day you'd like to have? Sounds like a dream.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  I guess it hasn't moved from, from dream to goal yet, to be honest.

• 30:23Speaker 02

  I kind of like the way you put that, Molly. That's a good way to put it. We've talked about starting with some sort of real estate investment, maybe next year. But as far as actually putting any kind of plan together, very little.

• 30:39Ramit Sethi?

  And what does that feel like?

• 30:42Speaker 02

  It feels like we're not going anywhere. I mean, we're just still stuck in the same place.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. I keep having this thought where it's like free beer tomorrow. It's just like always tomorrow. It's always next year. I, the, the goalpost is always moving, I guess, if there ever was one.

• 31:03Ramit Sethi?

  This reminds me of an email I sent out to my readers years ago. It's one of the favorite responses I've ever gotten. I asked the question to my email list, "What is something you claim you want to do, but you actually don't do it?" And one woman wrote back saying, "I claim I want to run three times a week, but I don't." So I replied to her. I talked to a lot of people on my email newsletter. And I said, "Why don't you just go for a run once a week?" And she wrote back, basically incredulous. She's like, "Why would I go for a run once a week? That doesn't do anything." And I thought, what a perfect example of human behavior. She would rather dream about running three times a week than actually go for a run once a week. How many of us do the exact same thing in different parts of life?

• 31:46Ramit Sethi?

  We would rather dream about living this multimillionaire life rather than actually read, "I Will Teach You to Be Rich," and "Money for Couples," and "Take Control of Our Money." That's Jason and Molly. They would rather dream about real estate investing rather than save $250 a month. They'd rather talk about retiring early than figure out where Jason's last paycheck actually went last month. I like dreams. I encourage people to dream bigger. I want them to tell me what they really want. But I always go one step further. I want a plan to reach those dreams. Without a plan, you're just fantasizing. That's not my job. This isn't the Ramit Sethi Fantasy Show. My job is to help you engineer a rich life,

• 32:31Ramit Sethi?

  and that's what I'm doing with my own life. I'm here to engineer a rich life while I'm alive. If you want to go to Japan, tell me when. Tell me where you're going to stay. Tell me what you're going to do, how much it's going to cost, and how you are going to set that money aside. Fantasy is something that feels good to think about. But a plan makes it a reality. Children fantasize. Adults plan. If you want to learn the skill of turning your dream into a reality, you don't have to do it alone. You can join my money coaching program. I will show you exactly how. This is one of the most valuable skills you will ever develop. Join at iwt.com/moneycoaching. And now, let's look at their numbers. All right, let's take a look at the numbers here. I'm gonna throw them up on screen.

• 33:15Ramit Sethi?

  Let's go with Molly first. Molly, can you read the word in bold and the number in full next to it for this entire box, please?

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Sure. Assets, 28,000. Investments, 23,482. Savings, zero. Debt, 46,640. Total net worth, 4,842.

• 33:38Ramit Sethi?

  What do you think about those numbers?

• 33:39Speaker 02

  I was mainly focused on that debt number. I don't like that number.

• 33:44Ramit Sethi?

  You don't like it, okay.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  Way higher than I realized, and it seems like a lot.

• 33:48Ramit Sethi?

  What'd you think it was?

• 33:50Speaker 02

  I thought it was closer to roughly, and this is mostly guessing, because I haven't really looked at a lot of numbers, about 18.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  I knew that, you were gonna say that.

• 34:00Ramit Sethi?

  18. So it's more than double what you thought?

• 34:03Speaker 02

  Quite a bit higher, yeah.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  I think we should mention here too, like, part of my problem is that, like, I had better credit and like, so both of our vehicles ended up being in our name, in my name. Like, in my credit cards that we have, I use, that I've used for our family for big purchases or big things, is all in my name. So like, a lot of the big debt, it's all in my name. So that's why I'm aware of that.

• 34:31Ramit Sethi?

  You're aware of that?

• 34:32Speaker 01

  That's why I'm aware of the numbers more than he is.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  The amount of debt.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  The amount of debt we have.

• 34:38Ramit Sethi?

  It sounds like Jason has bad credit, so Molly took on all the debt, and now the debt is in her name.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:46Ramit Sethi?

  And, by the way, all the emotional labor and having to manage it is all in Molly's name, and Jason's like, "Cool, I get a vehicle and I don't really have to worry about it."

• 34:55Speaker 02

  I agree. I don't think it's fair.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it doesn't feel fair, and it's probably why I'm angry.

• 35:03Ramit Sethi?

  Tell me more about that.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Well, I just feel like I've had to process, I feel like, a lot of my resentment and anger alone, because I don't want to be that person, and I don't want to be that for our daughter, but I am. Yeah, I'm just kind of mad. I'm just feel like it'd be great if like one of these big things was not on me, but I also don't know if I can. It's never, he's never stepped up to like change it. I would have to be the one to get him to change, you know, like, okay, now you're gonna do this. Like, it's still me guiding him through it, I guess. Maybe, maybe not.

• 35:43Ramit Sethi?

  Maybe not. Maybe there's other ways.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 35:46Ramit Sethi?

  But I think we can all sense your resentment. Jason, I can sense your detachment from this. It's kind of like, I'm not connected to the money. I send over money once in a while, can't send over what she wants, so I negotiate, but like, she deals with it and like, I should probably be better, but like, I'll do better. I'll try to do better. That's, that's essentially the conversation so far. Would you both agree or disagree?

• 36:14Speaker 02

  No, I agree.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree.

• 36:16Speaker 02

  Guess what it's been?

• 36:17Ramit Sethi?

  Jason, can you read off the combined gross monthly income, please?

• 36:22Speaker 02

  Gross monthly income combined is 11,900.

• 36:28Ramit Sethi?

  What do you both do for a living, Jason?

• 36:30Speaker 02

  I am a project manager slash site superintendent for a residential construction company.

• 36:37Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, and Molly?

• 36:39Speaker 01

  I work remotely doing HR and benefits, and then I work for my friend's deli on the weekends, just, and then I stay home with our daughter.

• 36:49Ramit Sethi?

  Got it. The HR role, is that part-time?

• 36:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's remote, part-time.

• 36:54Ramit Sethi?

  Cool. All right. Combined on an annual basis, the two of you as a household make 142,800. What do y'all think about that household income?

• 37:04Speaker 02

  I think it, considering where we live, it's.

• 37:08Speaker 02

  Average.

• 37:09Ramit Sethi?

  What, what, what part of the country do you live in?

• 37:12Speaker 01

  We live in like Tahoe area.

• 37:14Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. Oh, all right.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  But not expensive.

• 37:17Speaker 02

  But not up on the mountain.

• 37:20Ramit Sethi?

  Can I go out on a limb and just guess that you all make a lot more than the median salary in your area? Would that be fair to say?

• 37:27Speaker 01

  I bet we do.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  Maybe we do.

• 37:29Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. All right.

• 37:31Speaker 02

  No, for sure.

• 37:32Ramit Sethi?

  So you make 142,000. What do you think about that number, Molly?

• 37:35Speaker 01

  It, it's like a total that I had never thought I would make personally. Like, I didn't think that would be attached to me.

• 37:43Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. What's further confusing is that the two of you don't combine your money. So we have Jason making 9,500 a month gross, or roughly 120K a year approximately. And then we have Molly making 2,400, which is considerably different. So the thing is, every month, you can see the dynamic that has been set. Molly has to go to Jason, please transfer this money. And then what is Jason's role?

• 38:10Speaker 02

  Look at my account and send what I think I can send.

• 38:16Ramit Sethi?

  Like, how do you know what you can send?

• 38:18Speaker 02

  Well, based on what I think I'm going to spend the rest of the week, which is hard to say.

• 38:22Ramit Sethi?

  I can't even get a straight answer myself. How do you think Molly feels?

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Oh, I know. I don't like it either. I wish, I need to change. We need to change our setup.

• 38:32Ramit Sethi?

  You do need to change your setup, but what is happening here is Jason, do you believe that you have control over your own behavior?

• 38:41Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 38:42Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, so then why do you say we need to change our setup versus I had changed my own setup last week?

• 38:49Speaker 02

  That's a good point. I feel like I could initiate way more than I do.

• 38:55Ramit Sethi?

  But you don't. Why?

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Because I feel too tired at the end of the day. I don't take enough time. Um, I'm sure I have a lot of excuses I could say, but

• 39:04Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 39:05Speaker 02

  Bottom line is.

• 39:06Ramit Sethi?

  I think you just don't do it because you don't have to.

• 39:08Speaker 02

  Maybe that's it.

• 39:09Ramit Sethi?

  Molly's just gonna come beseeching, oh, please, please, please. And then, so the role of the beggar, that is the role that has been established. Please, please, please transfer over money for our household. And then Jason is the decider. He crosses his arms and he says, hmm, I can do this much, but not this much. That's the way it's gonna be. That's the roles you've established for yourselves. The rest of the CSP, I'm gonna move through it quickly here. Your fixed costs are at 77%. Typically, that number should be a 50 to 60%. At 77, you can immediately understand why you feel stressed out. Bottom line. Which leaves less for the rest of your money. Let's see where it's going. Investments, 3%. That explains why you have relatively low investments for your age. At a total of $23,000.

• 39:52Ramit Sethi?

  Savings at 1% or $125. Well, we know that's not true. I bet you set that up in the last two weeks. True or false?

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Well, that's a fun one is that that actually it's a automatic transfer. And I always end up spending it.

• 40:07Ramit Sethi?

  The reason that you don't have any savings is that you don't save money. And you have a young daughter.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:16Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, and finally, let's look at guilt free spending. 25% or $2,200 a month. Is this number accurate?

• 40:23Speaker 01

  I actually had to adjust it because I went back over everything the last three months and like we've had some big months for because we moved and for a lot of reasons, but it does change. But it was on average of the last three months, probably at least that, yeah.

• 40:41Ramit Sethi?

  You all find that when you talk about money, you don't give each other a straight answer.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  I don't think we know as much as we should. I think that's part of the problem.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  I think we both operate in a similar way, which is not in like hard, like not in like specific details.

• 40:57Ramit Sethi?

  It's A lot of feeling.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  A lot of feeling, a lot of

• 41:02Ramit Sethi?

  Guessing.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  Guessing.

• 41:03Ramit Sethi?

  I think I'm gonna spend this much next month. I'm not sure where the money went and on and on and on. You all know why you are able to do that, right? Like a couple that's making a third of what you make, they don't have the luxury in operating the way you are.

• 41:20Ramit Sethi?

  They track it.

• 41:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:21Ramit Sethi?

  They have to know. They can't be like, oh, I'm, I didn't realize I'm spending $4,000 a year on subscriptions. That's just not an option.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah.

• 41:30Ramit Sethi?

  So your income in part has allowed for you to become sloppy with your financial setup. But that's not all because you all could make double or triple, and it would still be the same dynamic here. The two of you. Do not talk about money regularly. You certainly don't do it proactively. It's not positive. I want to understand a little bit more about how you were raised, but I'm going to guess that you did not have great financial role models for thinking ahead, planning long term. Okay, Molly's smile indicates that I was right about that. Jason?

• 42:01Speaker 02

  Definitely not.

• 42:02Ramit Sethi?

  There's no worry about failure. I don't think that, basically, to put it bluntly, I don't think you felt the pain of actual failure, like running out of money and not being able to feed your family.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:15Ramit Sethi?

  I don't think that's happened.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  No, no, you're right.

• 42:18Ramit Sethi?

  I would like to just pause for a second. What are you noticing already in this conversation?

• 42:23Speaker 02

  We're not aligned in our finances in the way that we should and that we need to spend a lot more time working on them together.

• 42:30Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, Molly?

• 42:31Speaker 01

  I don't know. I, in some ways, feel like more hopeless right now than I did at the beginning.

• 42:37Ramit Sethi?

  Tell me more.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  I just, I guess I feel like, yeah, like we're just so not aligned.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  And neither of us, we're both bad at the same things.

• 42:51Ramit Sethi?

  Which is?

• 42:52Speaker 01

  Which is being, I think, responsible in, when it comes to our finances. Being responsible when it comes to having boundaries and making sacrifices. And like, just, we could have gotten ourselves out of this situation much sooner, but neither of us did. And almost combined, we're like even worse.

• 43:14Ramit Sethi?

  When Molly said she felt hopeless looking at their numbers, notice what I did not do. I did not try to make her feel better. The truth is that they've dug themselves into a really serious financial situation. And I don't think that either of them have truly suffered as a result of that. Let's take a look at the facts. Jason thought their debt was 18,000. It's 34,000. He was off by basically half. All of that debt sits in Molly's name because he has poor credit. He's spending $4,000 a year on subscriptions he didn't know about, and he was secretly day trading, hoping to surprise her with gains that never came. This is not acceptable. They don't need someone to tell them it's going to be okay.

• 43:57Ramit Sethi?

  They actually need the gift of consequences. Remember, in life, suffering is not always something to be avoided. Any Asian or Indian person here is like, "Yeah, what are you talking about? Life is suffering. That's why I suffered studying so hard in high school." I was telling my nephews the other day, I took them on a college tour at Stanford, and they are in the midst of SAT prep, and we were talking about it, "How's it going?" And, you know, I asked them, and they have it tougher than I did, because they have the allure of these addictive phones. I did not have that back then. But one thing I shared with them was, I worked really hard on my SATs. I took it multiple times, I took a class, I really studied.

• 44:40Ramit Sethi?

  And when I think back to all the work that I put in, it was hard, but I don't remember all those hours. What I do remember is getting a good score, getting into Stanford, meeting friends who have become lifelong friends, getting these amazing career opportunities, and all of the things that came with working hard. Did I suffer studying for the SAT? Yeah, it was hard. Did I suffer getting really good grades? Yeah, it was really hard. But sometimes, suffering is not something to be avoided. It's actually something to be embraced. Do you know why Molly and Jason have not embraced suffering? Do you know why they haven't even faced consequences?

• 45:25Ramit Sethi?

  Because their income of $142,800 a year has actually enabled this dysfunction. They make enough that they've never really felt true financial pain, so they've never really been forced to change. As I always say, if you still have a roof over your head, and internet, and your phone, most people think it's fine. That's why they operate in vague feelings like I think I spent this much. I'm not sure where it went because they can afford to stay sloppy. A couple making a third of what they make does not have that luxury. They have to track every dollar, but Molly and Jason do not. In fact, they're living like two single people who happen to have a baby together. Separate accounts, Venmo transfers, no shared vision.

• 46:08Ramit Sethi?

  Deep down, I think they know this isn't sustainable and that is why they dream rather than plan. Now we need to find out if they are willing to do something about it. I will say that the good news is any couple can change their dynamic. Any couple can. I've seen it happen in a lot of places. Molly, I actually don't mind that you feel even more hopeless now. I don't mind it and that's why I'm asking you to tell me a little bit more. I want to hear you understanding the depths of the challenge here. Like there's no easy math fix where I go abracadabra and everything goes to the way it should be. Do you, do you get that?

• 46:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think reality has been setting in.

• 46:54Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  There is no magic wand.

• 46:56Ramit Sethi?

  Good, that's great. That's actually the less key lesson of life. There is no magic wand. It actually takes a lot of work and sustained consistency. Would you say that the two of you are good or bad at sustained consistency? Realism, holding each other accountable, good or bad?

• 47:16Speaker 01

  Bad.

• 47:17Ramit Sethi?

  Bad. I could work with that.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 47:20Ramit Sethi?

  I can work with a couple that is honest about their shortcomings and open to making radical change. Actually, one of my favorite things to do.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  Okay, good.

• 47:29Ramit Sethi?

  I looked at your housing costs, your mortgage 2,000 bucks, utilities 425, which is a percentage of 20.2% of gross. That's not bad.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  We, and we actually recently, we moved in September to a lower rent. It's rent, it's not mortgage. We actually moved to lower our rent, so that was.

• 47:52Ramit Sethi?

  Great, really?

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:53Ramit Sethi?

  Yes. You specifically said, "We gotta get a lower rent, so let's move to a smaller or less desirable place."

• 47:59Speaker 02

  And we were talking about that for several months before.

• 48:02Ramit Sethi?

  I'm pleasantly surprised. How did you decide to do that? Most couples don't.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  I think it's probably because it's the biggest glaring number that faces us for our expenses.

• 48:13Ramit Sethi?

  Truthfully, the biggest savings that anybody can have is reducing their housing costs. It's also the hardest one because moving, whether you're renting or certainly owning, is a big challenge. It's uprooting everything. Sometimes there's kids involved with school districts and on and on. So almost nobody does it. So I'm pleasantly surprised because it tells me you can do hard things. It's actually giving me more confidence about your ability to change as a couple. Great. All right, you have debt. I want to understand this debt. You have forty-six thousand, six hundred and forty dollars of debt. What kind of debt is that?

• 48:51Speaker 01

  Let's see, twenty-one of that is two vehicles.

• 48:56Ramit Sethi?

  What's the interest rate?

• 48:57Speaker 01

  The interest rate on the truck, and I don't, oh, I think it's like four percent. I actually don't know that one.

• 49:05Ramit Sethi?

  Fine. And what's the other?

• 49:07Speaker 01

  The van is like seven.

• 49:09Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, all right, what else?

• 49:12Speaker 01

  The rest of it is credit card debt.

• 49:13Ramit Sethi?

  Twenty-five thousand dollars of credit card debt. Why?

• 49:17Speaker 01

  Great question.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  First one was moving across the country.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:22Speaker 02

  Then we bought some furniture.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  I mean, we did have to re, like when we moved, we did have to buy some stuff because we got rid of so much and we didn't want to like move it across the country. So getting reestablished, I guess, costs money, but then a lot of it was like unexpected bills. Like we had to get a new transmission in our vehicle. We had to get tires. We've had dog teeth pulled. And then a lot of like, you know, I have Spent money on my credit card to cover like daycare costs.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Just-

• 49:59Ramit Sethi?

  What? Why?

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Cause it was, cause it's like, it would withdraw from my account and then it just goes to my credit card if there wasn't enough in there.

• 50:08Ramit Sethi?

  What the, what, why not get Jason to transfer the $9,500 per month in gross income that he makes?

• 50:16Speaker 01

  Great question. It just doesn't, I've, I've told him before, we've had this conversation, Jason and I, where I'm like, "Just transfer the money to me regardless, when you get it. I'll pay the rent. I'll do it all." And he's like, "We should do that. We should." And then, that's it.

• 50:34Speaker 02

  That is a great question. I want to be able to transfer more. And I, I need to spend more time figuring where all the money is going. I know I can do better day-to-day spending. But the money is not always there. There's a lot of food spending.

• 50:50Ramit Sethi?

  How much?

• 50:51Speaker 02

  I might spend as much as 20, 25 per day.

• 50:56Ramit Sethi?

  Alright, so it's a lot of money. It's all, that's where some of it's going, not all of it. Cause you make $6,950 a month, net. Alright, your debt payments are $1,375 a month. And, did you tell me that's a minimum?

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Probably should be, I think.

• 51:16Ramit Sethi?

  Why can't I get a straight answer?

• 51:18Speaker 01

  Well, because I don't know what he spends. What he spends-

• 51:21Ramit Sethi?

  Then Molly, why are you answering for him?

• 51:23Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 51:24Ramit Sethi?

  You've done this several times.

• 51:25Speaker 02

  Debt payments?

• 51:26Ramit Sethi?

  Hold on. When I ask about the debt, you answer for him. When I ask about the vehicles, you answer for him. Why is it that you feel that you're taking on so much emotional load, but when I ask questions, you are the first one to answer it?

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Cause I feel like he doesn't know.

• 51:42Ramit Sethi?

  Well, why don't you let him try? Let him fail. What's the worst that would happen?

• 51:46Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 51:47Ramit Sethi?

  And in how many other places of your relationship have you stepped up to save the day because you're afraid he doesn't know the answer?

• 51:54Speaker 01

  A lot.

• 51:55Ramit Sethi?

  Do you see that you are perpetuating the very dynamic that has caused you to be stuck as we are talking? You guys know it's okay to say, "I don't know"?

• 52:06Speaker 01

  Maybe not.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  I guess not. I guess not.

• 52:09Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, that's an honest answer.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:12Ramit Sethi?

  I actually find that the smartest people I know are very comfortable saying, I don't know. Think about the dynamic that's happening right now. You guys came to me because I've written books on money and I know this stuff. It's okay that you don't know this. It's totally okay. That's why you're here. Do you see what I meant when I said that money is just a symptom of how you feel about yourselves and your relationship? When Molly keeps answering questions for Jason, she's actually not helping him. She's protecting him from having to admit he doesn't know. And Jason is letting her do it because as long as she's the one managing everything, he can wash his hands clean of responsibility. She manages the money. She answers questions for him. It's not the dollar amount here. That's not the issue. It is their dynamic.

• 52:57Ramit Sethi?

  Molly gets to feel competent and in control. In fact, she has this virtue of I'm protecting Jason. Jason gets to stay disengaged. He gets to avoid discomfort. I don't know. I haven't thought about it. I don't know. Do you know this dynamic? Have you ever seen this dynamic? Are you in this dynamic? This is really common. Where do you think they learned it? We're going to find out in just a second, right after this. Going back to your childhood, what do you remember your family saying about money when you were young?

• 53:27Speaker 02

  Very little talk about money. I had kind of a unique upbringing. I grew up in essentially what you might call a cult.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  A community where a bunch of family lived together, shared, pooled all their money.

• 53:40Ramit Sethi?

  Wow.

• 53:41Speaker 02

  It was a whole farm. So had our own livestock, massive gardens, fed our own livestock from the farm as well. Some of the fathers worked in a town nearby and basically pooled all their money together, though, just about all of it. And never really a lot of talk about money. I was always outdoors on the farm. Never really had to think about it that much until I was about 15.

• 54:10Speaker 02

  And then moved away. I got my first job, uh, working for a contractor and started to realize what money was all about. That was the same year that my dad actually passed away.

• 54:21Ramit Sethi?

  At fifteen?

• 54:22Speaker 02

  At fifteen, yes. So I've never really got to see him in the real world, never got any advice from him as far as how to, how to use my money, what to do with it. As far as I remember, I think he only ever saved money. I don't think he ever invested it. He just had a savings account, saved whatever he could. Didn't grow up with a lot, but I never felt like that.

• 54:44Ramit Sethi?

  Was this a, you called it a sort of cult. Was it a religious cult?

• 54:49Speaker 02

  It was. You can look it up on Wikipedia.

• 54:52Ramit Sethi?

  What's it called?

• 54:53Speaker 02

  It's called the move. It's all over the world.

• 54:56Ramit Sethi?

  It's still in existence?

• 54:58Speaker 02

  I guess it is in small pockets. I don't think it's as big as it once was, but it definitely is around.

• 55:02Ramit Sethi?

  Was it normal for people who grew up in this cult to leave and to not go back?

• 55:09Speaker 02

  I think during my generation, because it was multi-generational, it definitely became quite a norm.

• 55:15Ramit Sethi?

  Hmm.

• 55:16Speaker 02

  Many people my age left and never came back.

• 55:18Ramit Sethi?

  Did your mom stay in it?

• 55:20Speaker 02

  My mom stayed into, in it, uh, in spirit, but once my dad passed away, she moved, she wanted to be close to her relatives. So we moved back to the Midwest from Canada.

• 55:29Ramit Sethi?

  Got it.

• 55:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. She still very much keeps in contact with many people from there.

• 55:34Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, okay. All right.

• 55:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:36Ramit Sethi?

  Understanding that money was not talked about when you were a kid, I get that. How much focus was there on like thinking ahead, long-term planning?

• 55:48Speaker 02

  I have a very clear memory of this because I was very surprised when we moved down to the Midwest. That was my last year of high school and I was, went from a tiny little private school within our own community to a public school with 460 fellow graduates. And I lived with my aunt and uncle because my mother and my two sisters only had enough room in their apartment for them. My aunt and uncle lived right down the road. And the very first thing I started doing was you need to go to college, you need to get all these, you're very bright, you can get all these, you know, advanced education classes while you're in high school, blah, blah, blah. Start applying. This is what you need to do. You're going to do it.

• 56:30Speaker 02

  And I got scholarships. I got a full ride to college that year, just from that last year of high school, which I don't know how that happened, but.

• 56:36Ramit Sethi?

  Wow. What do you take away from that? It's pretty interesting. Pretty impressive, too.

• 56:41Speaker 02

  I felt pretty good to get a scholarship, full ride to college. I honestly, like I said, I felt pretty good. I wasn't probably as excited as some people would be because I just didn't have that in my upbringing.

• 56:54Ramit Sethi?

  Do you get excited in general? Like excited, physically excited?

• 56:58Speaker 02

  Not often.

• 56:59Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. Do you smile in pictures?

• 57:01Speaker 02

  I don't smile often.

• 57:03Ramit Sethi?

  Molly, I noticed that you're nodding and you're noticing this, right?

• 57:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:08Ramit Sethi?

  What are you taking away so far?

• 57:10Speaker 01

  He gets excited, but not like, yeah, like there's, we would be hard pressed to know that he is.

• 57:15Ramit Sethi?

  Jason, why do you think I bring this up?

• 57:17Speaker 02

  I think a lot of this financial issues that Molly and I have had brings up talks that never end well. And I think that by me not showing emotion, I often show that I don't care.

• 57:33Ramit Sethi?

  Yes.

• 57:34Speaker 02

  And I think that has an emotional weight and effect on her.

• 57:39Ramit Sethi?

  I'm jumping in quickly because sometimes when couples are this disconnected, they need a visual tool to help them identify what they're actually feeling. So I wanted to try something. I pulled up this beautiful visual called the Wheel of Emotions. I learned about this in therapy. It's a color coded chart that breaks down feelings into specific categories that go beyond happy, sad, or angry. There are hundreds of emotions on this wheel. You can find it, just search for Wheel of Emotions. And I asked each of them to pick two or three words that describe how they feel about money in their relationship. Let's listen as they go through the exercise. It's very illuminating. Can we just do a quick

• 58:19Ramit Sethi?

  exercise right now? How do you both feel about money in your relationship? And be really honest. How do you feel about money? You could pick two or three, feel free. Jason?

• 58:30Speaker 02

  Embarrassed.

• 58:33Speaker 02

  Resentful. And apathetic.

• 58:36Ramit Sethi?

  Thank you. Molly?

• 58:38Speaker 01

  That's interesting. That's really interesting. I have two of the same of yours. Embarrassed.

• 58:47Speaker 01

  Resentful and then overwhelmed.

• 58:50Ramit Sethi?

  Wow.

• 58:52Speaker 02

  I almost picked that one too.

• 58:54Ramit Sethi?

  Now, I would love for the two of you to discuss what you just learned.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  I think the resentful one is interesting.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:01Speaker 02

  Between us.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  Why do you feel resentful?

• 59:03Speaker 02

  I think resentful in the fact that I feel like I'm working really hard all the time.

• 59:10Speaker 02

  So that we have money. And I feel like I also want to improve. In a lot of ways, in our financial stability and our financial life together. So I feel like I'm being attacked sometimes and I resent that.

• 59:27Ramit Sethi?

  Hold on, now toss the ball back to Molly, Jason.

• 59:31Speaker 02

  What about you? Where does the resentful come from?

• 59:34Speaker 01

  I guess I feel resentful that there was never like a decision made that this is the roles that we would play. It was just assumed that because you make more money, this is where you would be. And that I would be the stay at home mom. And we're two years, two plus years in. That I would still just have to take the brunt of if there's no school or if there's she's sick or like that this. Then it would be just assumed this is where I would be.

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:00:06Ramit Sethi?

  Can I ask you guys, did you think you would end up in this dynamic with your money when you were younger?

• 1:00:13Speaker 02

  I don't think so.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  Oh, and what's weird is that like. I am. And I, I guess it's not weird because it happens all the time, but I am like living my mother's role. It's just so bizarre.

• 1:00:28Ramit Sethi?

  You don't say. Tell me. Let's go back. What do you remember about your family? What'd they say about money when you were younger?

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  I had no, I did not even really. Think about it until my parents got divorced. I knew we were not as well off as some of my friends because we lived in the neighborhood next to the rich people. But when we moved out with, I moved in with just my mom and I, that's when I knew we were struggling financially. And she had to take, because that's why she had to work nights on top of her day job.

• 1:01:01Ramit Sethi?

  What did she say?

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  She told me she didn't want to take any money from my dad for alimony, and that's why she has to get a second job.

• 1:01:09Ramit Sethi?

  Why did she not want to take alimony?

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  Because she wanted to get divorced.

• 1:01:13Ramit Sethi?

  What do you make of that?

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  Now, I think that was the first time that she could have control over something she didn't have control of at all in their relationship. So her deciding not to take money from him was almost like taking her power back or something.

• 1:01:29Ramit Sethi?

  And when your parents were together, when you were younger, was your dad the primary earner? And if so, what did your mom do? Did she work or not?

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  He was a primary earner and she was at home with us, but I don't, she went back to work when I was pretty young.

• 1:01:46Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 1:01:47Speaker 01

  Then she remarried and I had to move out of the state. Yeah, she, she ended up marrying someone that is, you know, had a lot of money in a way of like land and he never spent very much. She's very frugal.

• 1:02:07Ramit Sethi?

  What lessons do you take away from her relationship with money?

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  She has a very weird relationship with money.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  I don't like it. She told me that with my father, she had no control. And so she never, he said, don't worry about it. While he was like racking up debt and kind of ruining his own financial picture and ours as a family when she.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  remarried. She kind of took this role on as like not wanting to, she doesn't want to spend too much money. She hides, like she like squirrels away money that she can then like give to us. She doesn't want to tell him, although I don't think he would care. But that's how she feels about it.

• 1:02:52Ramit Sethi?

  Why does she do that?

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  I, she doesn't want to appear to be like a gold digger, I guess, if you will. Or that she's after his money. He doesn't want to appear to be greedy.

• 1:03:03Ramit Sethi?

  Hmm. What image do you think you might be trying to uphold as it relates to money?

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  I think for me, I try to uphold an image of like, we're doing fine. We're doing okay.

• 1:03:14Ramit Sethi?

  And then you mentioned to me that you said, it's ironic that I'm living my mother's life. What did you mean by that?

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  I have somehow gotten myself like in this dynamic where I don't know where money's coming from and I don't know what's happening and I just have to be okay with it or be silently resentful of it.

• 1:03:42Ramit Sethi?

  Do you?

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  I probably am like, yeah, I'm, I'm maybe not as silent as, as she was, but um, I am resentful of not having control of more of our finances.

• 1:03:55Ramit Sethi?

  Do you have a relationship with your dad?

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, no, he's passed away three years ago, four years ago.

• 1:04:01Ramit Sethi?

  I see. Okay. Oh, sorry to hear that.

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  He was in love with Disney World and we would go almost every other year. And it was never with money that he had saved up. It was always on the credit card and he would just go all out.

• 1:04:18Ramit Sethi?

  Oh.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  All out. He would just spend, he, he loved spending money that he didn't necessarily have, although I didn't know that at the time.

• 1:04:26Ramit Sethi?

  Hmm. And then did he rack up credit card debt?

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  Yes, a ton. And that means house had, he kept borrowing against his home, our, my childhood home. And then that got foreclosed. And then he had to file for bankruptcy on top of that. Luckily had a pension from, he worked for the government. So that was what kind of saved him in the end, but he went bankrupt and um, never really planned for the future. Lived with my brother for the last like eight, 10 years of his life. Had dementia. Yeah, so when he died, I we I got like a a small check from his life insurance. And that was actually part of our moving costs. But that went into us moving.

• 1:05:08Ramit Sethi?

  When you look back at money, young childhood, until you graduated from college, what are the lessons that you take away from your experiences?

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  I had a very like

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  negative view of money. Like I said, my the neighborhood I grew up in was a little bit more like lower class to like the really expensive houses were very close to where we lived. And that's where all my friends lived. So I knew I was not there. And I think I internalized that into to be like, I don't care. I don't care about money like. I don't want it. I know in my twenties that then translated to like living very much by the moment and living experiences and spending everything I had to go out of the country and then coming back broke and thinking that I was like winning because I was like

• 1:06:04Speaker 01

  all these people are in the rat race and I'm like living these experiences, you know, I'm living life.

• 1:06:09Ramit Sethi?

  That's very perceptive. Okay, and did that change at some point?

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  It kind of changed in my mid thirties. Um, it's like kind of when I started to focus more on my career and kind of saw the writing on the wall. I wanted a family. I wanted to be more responsible. And that's when that kind of shifted and I was like, phew. Maybe I should have invested a little more into, you know, not just living for the moment.

• 1:06:37Ramit Sethi?

  You ever go to therapy?

• 1:06:38Speaker 01

  I have, yeah.

• 1:06:40Ramit Sethi?

  Oh. Like, do you still go?

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  I haven't gone recently, no.

• 1:06:44Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  And it was definitely when I was still single and we I didn't have any kids.

• 1:06:51Ramit Sethi?

  What's occurring to you right now?

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  Actually, I'm thinking about. I I really wanted to have children and I didn't see that happening because I was in my late thirties. And she I remember my therapist being like, you know, be careful what you wish for. She's like, this isn't just getting a partner and a kid isn't mean you're like gonna suddenly be happy. It's a lot of work and a lot of that sometimes makes people really unhappy. I sometimes look around, I'm like, this is what I wanted. I got what I wanted and I'm, and I'm still unhappy.

• 1:07:25Ramit Sethi?

  That's quite profound. I'm appreciating you letting that moment sit here for just a second as we, both of us, and I think Jason as well, all three of us just grapple with the enormity of what you just said. The idea that we can really set this big intention, we can even make it happen. And as the old saying goes, wherever you go, there you are.

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:52Ramit Sethi?

  And it's not about having a daughter, I'm sure she's beautiful. It's not about being in a relationship, but it's about like, am I getting what I wanted and what I needed? And perhaps even more deeply, do I even know what I want? Do I even know what makes me happy?

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  I don't think I know what would make me happy. I don't know when there's like the moment when you're like, and I, and I know this to be true, but like, where I'll feel like I can take a breath and just kind of like, okay.

• 1:08:28Ramit Sethi?

  It's interesting. I noticed you're crying at that.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:31Ramit Sethi?

  Why?

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  Because I feel like I've just been holding on really tightly for a while. And like, I'm like waiting for the other shoe to drop.

• 1:08:42Ramit Sethi?

  Molly says she got everything she thought she wanted and she is still unhappy. I appreciate the honesty. Actually, I think that might be the subtitle for the American dream. I got everything I thought I wanted and I'm still unhappy. So I asked Molly, after hearing that, if she could tell Jason directly what she needs to him. Listen to her response.

• 1:09:07Speaker 01

  To me, it feels like you think I kind of spend money all willy nilly. And if I were to get all of the money, say, I was the one that was receiving all of the money that we spend throughout the month, that I would just spend it all, but I don't think you understand, like how hard I try to stay within certain lines. And like, I think you actually spend a lot of money without consequence. I think you spend a lot more money than you think you do, without any thought to like us as a whole. I need to have control of our finances.

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  I need to be in charge of it.

• 1:09:45Ramit Sethi?

  It's quite interesting, Molly, that you said,

• 1:09:49Ramit Sethi?

  "I feel like I've been holding on really tightly," but you also said, "I want more control over the money." How do you reconcile that?

• 1:09:57Speaker 01

  I think I want to have more control because I don't trust him to have some of that. You know, coming up right now, it's like, and this happens a lot, I'm thinking, I think about my mom and the way she was with money. And then my dad just gets a pass.

• 1:10:14Ramit Sethi?

  Oh.

• 1:10:15Speaker 01

  When I think about that dynamic, a lot of, my mom would get a lot of the brunt of like, my bad feelings about that time. And my dad would just get a pass because he wasn't someone I actually looked at as being responsible.

• 1:10:28Ramit Sethi?

  Make the connection to this relationship, Molly. Go ahead.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  God.

• 1:10:32Ramit Sethi?

  Make it. Say it out loud.

• 1:10:35Speaker 01

  I'm trying to, it's all coming to me right now. It's all, um, yeah, I guess I don't, I don't expect my partner now to make responsible decisions. I can't trust him to be responsible with our money. Because I, I've never seen that before. I guess it's never been modeled and I don't see it in him now.

• 1:10:54Ramit Sethi?

  Jason, what would you say to Molly if you knew that she would listen when it came to money?

• 1:10:59Speaker 02

  Molly, I think if I were to take over more of the bills, which you talked about, which I've never done, I would like you to know that I would

• 1:11:10Speaker 02

  be willing to take that off your plate. Reduce the amount of finances that you have to take, control. And also share actual accounts where you have access to all the, all the income. I think that would be something that you could trust me with.

• 1:11:26Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. What do you both think of that, what you just heard from each other?

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  I think it's a little conflicting views on how to do the money management in our home, like daily.

• 1:11:39Speaker 02

  I just know in the beginning, you said you have everything in your name, which is a lot of responsibility. So I feel like I could share that responsibility more.

• 1:11:49Ramit Sethi?

  What I'm hearing on a positive side is that you're both willing to change the way you've set it up. That part is good. I think you perhaps are not thinking about the ramifications of some of these things. Like if one person is in charge of the money and then they get hit by a bus, the other person has no idea what's going on.

• 1:12:04Speaker 01

  True.

• 1:12:06Ramit Sethi?

  And you have a daughter, so that's not a good position to be in. You also have zero dollars in savings. So just to be very blunt, Molly, if you got hit by a bus tomorrow, what do you think would happen with Jason and your daughter?

• 1:12:20Speaker 01

  There'd be a lot of scrambling for him to figure out, yeah, a lot of passwords or who to talk to about literally all of our debt. And so, yeah, we're each playing, like, I feel like, a really individual role.

• 1:12:36Ramit Sethi?

  Yes.

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  That's how, yeah, I'm realizing. And it's not like this group decision-making or group dynamic when it comes to our finances. We're both just doing our own thing.

• 1:12:47Ramit Sethi?

  Why are you not married? Out of curiosity, no judgment, just curious.

• 1:12:50Speaker 01

  For me, it was financial, to be honest.

• 1:12:53Ramit Sethi?

  Really?

• 1:12:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:54Ramit Sethi?

  Tell me more.

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  He had really bad credit. And my credit was really good. And when we had talked about like combining, I was like, and I kind of told him at some point, maybe this was before we had the baby, but I was like, I don't see having like a contract together being the best decision for me. Like, you're not a good, financially speaking, it would not make sense for me to do that.

• 1:13:19Ramit Sethi?

  Can I ask a personal question? Feel free to not answer this. How were you uncomfortable getting married for financial reasons, but you were willing to have a kid together?

• 1:13:29Speaker 01

  I think I didn't think it was gonna happen. I didn't think we were gonna get pregnant.

• 1:13:34Speaker 02

  I would be happy to get married. I just never thought of it as a huge priority. I didn't think of anything in regard to financial. By the way, my credit has improved quite significantly since we met.

• 1:13:45Ramit Sethi?

  That's good.

• 1:13:46Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:13:47Speaker 02

  On my own, because we don't have anything combined. But I don't have any other reason than just didn't feel like it was one way or the other about it. I didn't feel like we needed to.

• 1:13:59Ramit Sethi?

  All right. So if this were to happen, if you were to be able to start to achieve some of these goals, working hand in hand, it would feel great.

• 1:14:08Ramit Sethi?

  What's stopping you from doing that now?

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  I just, I need his help. I just don't want to do it all on my own.

• 1:14:16Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Jason, what's stopping you from accomplishing what you want?

• 1:14:20Speaker 02

  Not taking the time to make a plan and actually sit down and do it. I've done some of the things, but I could do a lot more.

• 1:14:28Ramit Sethi?

  What if you don't, Jason?

• 1:14:29Speaker 02

  What if I don't? Then I feel like we're just gonna keep going with the same cycle.

• 1:14:33Ramit Sethi?

  And then what will happen?

• 1:14:36Speaker 02

  Then all of a sudden, we're 50 and then all retirement is looming around the corner. Our daughter is gonna graduate and we're gonna be stuck in the same situation, but much.

• 1:14:46Ramit Sethi?

  And then what?

• 1:14:47Speaker 02

  And then we're looking forward to an uncomfortable later life. Could be any number of things. Not good.

• 1:14:55Ramit Sethi?

  Like?

• 1:14:56Speaker 02

  Moving in with relatives or not having money for their daughter to go to college or having no retirement fund. Not doing any of the other things that we'd really like to do, like travel and actually have a rich life, you know, an enjoyable lifestyle.

• 1:15:14Ramit Sethi?

  What about for you, Molly? What if nothing really changes?

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  To be honest, I just, I don't see how we can, how we would be able to like stay together. It's super harsh to say that and I don't want that, but I, I wouldn't be able to live like this forever.

• 1:15:28Ramit Sethi?

  How long could you go?

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  Until it felt like there was like no hope left. That sounds terrible. No, until, I guess, I don't know. Until it really felt like there was, this is, that the, the partnership is not partnering.

• 1:15:44Ramit Sethi?

  Well, it's not today.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  No, it's not today.

• 1:15:46Ramit Sethi?

  And you've tried many, many times to get him involved. So the partnership is not partnering. So what else?

• 1:15:54Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't know when would be the point of no return.

• 1:15:58Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. I don't expect an answer to that very difficult question, but I do think that it is valuable.

• 1:16:08Ramit Sethi?

  To ask, what if nothing changes? And I think that that is worth discussing, probably more with the therapist. It's not working because I can see your CSP. But more importantly, it's not working between the two of you. You're totally disconnected about money. Let's talk about where you are today and where you want to go. When you think about your money situation, as we've discussed it today, what part feels like the hardest part to face?

• 1:16:34Speaker 01

  The retirement and savings.

• 1:16:39Ramit Sethi?

  Okay.

• 1:16:39Speaker 01

  Like literally, as far as like numbers go, we're trying to pay off our debt. That's our biggest first thing, which we do have a plan for. Just to sell our truck. It's almost paid off. And I think we could get about 15,000 for it and then put that all towards our credit card debt.

• 1:16:59Ramit Sethi?

  You're going to sell a truck and put it towards your high interest debt? This is the greatest day of my [BLEEP] life. I never hear this, never. I can't believe it. Well done. All right. Now, if the two of you can start to move forward in things like paying off your debt, what would that feel like to do it together?

• 1:17:26Speaker 01

  Incredible.

• 1:17:27Speaker 02

  I would feel, yeah, I would think that would be amazing.

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  Such a like, like I could just feel like the weight off my, I mean, it would just be really great. Great step.

• 1:17:37Speaker 02

  Well, we have talked about some of that in a way where we up our daughter's daycare to full time, to where she could, to where Molly could possibly at least get a closer to full time remote job, perhaps.

• 1:17:50Ramit Sethi?

  Great. I think that's an option. What about your work on the family finances, Jason?

• 1:17:55Speaker 02

  I think I would like to take over more of the bills. I think I could easily help with that. Put them in my name, so I'm the one that has to keep track of them.

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  I mean, that would be huge.

• 1:18:05Ramit Sethi?

  Molly, what would it take for Jason to regain your trust?

• 1:18:08Speaker 01

  We, I think it starts with weekly meetings and showing up for that. Like picking, picking a day that works for him where he's not too tired. Because it's true, he does come home midweek and he's worked a long day and. Maybe not the best day to do that. So like, setting a schedule, sticking to it for the next six weeks would be huge.

• 1:18:29Ramit Sethi?

  And what happens in these meetings?

• 1:18:31Speaker 02

  We can see how we are on paying off our debt. We can discuss any number of changes we made, such as dropping subscriptions, what bills we have for that month, just basic things like that, too, even helps, I think. Just to know what we have months a month. So we're not always wondering, like I am, what I have in my account and what I have to spend.

• 1:18:52Ramit Sethi?

  Can I, can I add something to it? We don't operate on a weekly basis. That's not how we think about money. That's too short term. You'll never actually achieve anything consequential if you're thinking on a weekly basis. Second, you don't think about how much you can afford to send to your partner. The money goes there first. And then what's left over after hitting all of these other goals is what you can afford to spend on things like eating out. Total recalibration of the way you think about money. Right now lunches and all this other stuff is coming first. It's actually the opposite. How's that strike you?

• 1:19:32Speaker 02

  No, I, I agree. I, I think that's the way it needs to be.

• 1:19:36Ramit Sethi?

  All right.

• 1:19:37Speaker 02

  I would love to set up a joint account.

• 1:19:39Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah?

• 1:19:40Speaker 02

  I think that would be the easiest way. I mean,

• 1:19:43Ramit Sethi?

  I agree. But yes, how come it's so easy all of a sudden? How come you haven't already done this? Tell me the answer to this question, because that is the real thing going on here.

• 1:19:52Speaker 02

  I haven't because I haven't felt the urgency, or I guess I haven't realized that that's probably the best way to avoid the constant issues that we have with money when we talk.

• 1:20:02Ramit Sethi?

  Why is it that a guy like me has to come in and tell you this for you to believe it?

• 1:20:06Speaker 02

  I've been used to running my own finances my whole life. I suppose that's part of it. And I make money and I put it in my account and then I disperse it. And I think it's just been a habit.

• 1:20:19Speaker 02

  And I guess adjusting to family life financially has not, I guess it hasn't been as smooth the transition as I thought it would be. I've been apathetic, that's why I picked that word, because I know I have been. And lazy in a lot of ways. I work hard at work, but I don't take it home as much as I should.

• 1:20:39Ramit Sethi?

  I appreciate that. That is candid. That, to me, is the truth. And Molly, what role do you think you play in this dynamic?

• 1:20:46Speaker 01

  Oh, um.

• 1:20:48Ramit Sethi?

  Hold on, are you, are you still, before you answer my question, were you struck by his response?

• 1:20:53Speaker 01

  I, when he said lazy, I was actually surprised he said that because I've kind of thought that, I don't know if I've ever said that. I've definitely never told him that.

• 1:21:02Ramit Sethi?

  Why?

• 1:21:03Speaker 01

  I think it's scary for me to think that I'm with someone that's lazy.

• 1:21:07Ramit Sethi?

  Wow.

• 1:21:08Speaker 01

  Well, I know.

• 1:21:11Ramit Sethi?

  Y'all are really peeling it back today. This is honest. Molly, talk more about that. It is scary for me to think that I'm with somebody who's lazy.

• 1:21:20Speaker 01

  I think I'm trying to like, hold together an image of where I want us to be or where I think we should be. And I am not facing the reality of like where we are and who we are showing up as in this relationship.

• 1:21:38Ramit Sethi?

  Where was there, where was it that I heard this word image before? Who else had an image?

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  Oh, my mom. Yeah, totally. Totally. It's like, just ignore what's happening if it appears to be fine to other people. Yeah.

• 1:21:54Ramit Sethi?

  I find this to be quite startling, quite honest, quite surprising that the two of you have never actually been this honest with each other before. It's almost like we can be delicate and polite ourselves right into total disconnection.

• 1:22:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:10Ramit Sethi?

  I don't want to operate a relationship on the surface level. I don't. Not with my wife or my partner. So I find all of these things to be happening here, but I see you both making progress, step by step, talking about it, using different words than you used at the beginning of our conversation. That part I like.

• 1:22:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:22:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:22:30Ramit Sethi?

  All right. I'm going to put these numbers up, up on screen. Your debt payments, $1,375 are.

• 1:22:36Ramit Sethi?

  Considerable. You also have $785 of car payments. It's doable with your income, but it adds up. You have $1,100 of groceries. Again, it's doable, but it adds up. What's the vision here? What are you going to try to accomplish?

• 1:22:51Speaker 02

  Can we reduce our fixed costs? So we can get an emergency fund and some savings? I would love to do that for a start.

• 1:22:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:59Ramit Sethi?

  Love it.

• 1:23:00Speaker 02

  And pay off our credit card debt.

• 1:23:01Ramit Sethi?

  Fantastic. Molly, what do you say?

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the first step I want, I see like I really want to sell the truck and get the credit card debt down.

• 1:23:10Ramit Sethi?

  Love it.

• 1:23:10Speaker 01

  If we sold the truck, then it would be $365 less a month for the car payment.

• 1:23:18Speaker 02

  And less for the insurance.

• 1:23:20Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:23:21Ramit Sethi?

  You're down now to 72%. Good progress.

• 1:23:24Speaker 02

  Well, definitely subscriptions. I have a couple of doubles that I just found when I looked at it. Plus, we don't need nearly that many.

• 1:23:32Ramit Sethi?

  Just tell me the number. Right now, it's $545 a month.

• 1:23:35Speaker 02

  Okay. I think we're getting... Go ahead.

• 1:23:38Ramit Sethi?

  No, Jason, stop answering for him, Molly.

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 1:23:42Speaker 02

  I could drop it down to 180.

• 1:23:44Ramit Sethi?

  You can drop it to 180? Okay, and then what about Molly?

• 1:23:48Speaker 01

  35.

• 1:23:50Ramit Sethi?

  35 bucks?

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, most of the stuff is in his name.

• 1:23:53Ramit Sethi?

  215. All right, we're down to 68%. Not bad, not bad.

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  I do have to make an addendum. Our health insurance is going up, so the insurance line, it's going to be probably 365.

• 1:24:04Ramit Sethi?

  You're back to 73%. Looks like we got to take something else off. Groceries?

• 1:24:09Speaker 01

  We could go down to 900 for sure.

• 1:24:11Ramit Sethi?

  All right. 900, we're down to 70%.

• 1:24:14Speaker 01

  Still so much.

• 1:24:16Ramit Sethi?

  What are you all thinking so far?

• 1:24:17Speaker 01

  The debt payments is a lot.

• 1:24:19Ramit Sethi?

  Yep. So let me give you some numbers on your debt payments. I'm just talking about your credit card debt at $25,000, okay? If you pay that off at $1,000 a month, it's going to take you 37 months, which is three years, and you're going to pay $12,000 in interest. If, on the other hand, you pay off $2,000 a month... You're gonna pay it off in 15 months with $4,700 in interest. Okay, so you can see that the numbers become quite different. Now, if you put $15,000 of that truck sale towards the credit card debt, then $2,000 pays it off in five months with $730 of interest.

• 1:25:04Ramit Sethi?

  What do you notice?

• 1:25:06Speaker 02

  Lot of less, lot less interest.

• 1:25:08Ramit Sethi?

  And a lot faster.

• 1:25:09Speaker 01

  A lot faster, yeah.

• 1:25:11Ramit Sethi?

  Can I ask you something? You got anything else in that garage of yours that you can sell?

• 1:25:16Speaker 01

  A couple things.

• 1:25:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, we have a full garage.

• 1:25:19Ramit Sethi?

  You know what? 70% of the American households I talk to have like a bunch of stuff in their garage that actually could sell for something meaningful.

• 1:25:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:27Ramit Sethi?

  Is that you?

• 1:25:28Speaker 02

  We do have some things that we've been meaning to sell, yes.

• 1:25:31Ramit Sethi?

  This is the easiest thing you can do ever. Get rid of it. Okay, great. The more money you do now, the more you can pay that debt off quickly. All right, we gotta go to the other stuff on this CSP because it's driving me insane. Investments are at 3%. Savings are at essentially zero. Meanwhile, your guilt-free spending is 25%. I suspect it's actually higher than that. What does this tell you?

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  This is clearly us living in the moment. Again, like just how we have always lived.

• 1:26:03Ramit Sethi?

  Yep. So what do you want to do?

• 1:26:05Speaker 01

  I want to make some sacrifices and really tighten our budget. And I'm ready to like spend, you know, the next year or so, however long we need to, I guess, to really like get ourselves into a better spot.

• 1:26:20Ramit Sethi?

  Let's get specific.

• 1:26:20Speaker 02

  I do too. I'll skip coffee every day and no lunch.

• 1:26:25Ramit Sethi?

  How are you gonna eat?

• 1:26:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd have to like probably spend a little more on like lunch stuff for him. If I, if we were to do that, yeah. There would be some change. I, we'd probably have to, I think a thousand dollars would be safer for groceries, like more realistic. Just being honest there, yeah.

• 1:26:42Ramit Sethi?

  I appreciate the honesty, we need it. And then, you know, we said that you eat out 12 times a week. Let's just average that because it was like, let's say 20 bucks for lunch. And then coffee is what, like eight bucks?

• 1:26:54Speaker 02

  The ones I get are five, not more than five.

• 1:26:56Ramit Sethi?

  Five? All right, so we got like 20. So let's, just for easy math, can we just say an average of 10?

• 1:27:02Speaker 02

  I think it's fair.

• 1:27:03Ramit Sethi?

  All right. And so that's 120 a week.

• 1:27:09Ramit Sethi?

  So 480 a month. I don't know. Are you going to zero? That feels a bit aggressive. I don't think you're going to go to zero.

• 1:27:15Speaker 02

  I could definitely go to zero. I could definitely go to zero on lunches. I know I can. I've done that plenty before I got new habit recently. I'm 100% sure I can do that. Coffee, I feel like I'll go out for coffee more. Occas- you know, occasionally, not all the time.

• 1:27:30Ramit Sethi?

  So $240 off your conscious spending plan. Let's take a look. Oh, that's not going to cut it. Can I show you a different way to do this? Yeah. What y'all need to do is literally pay yourselves first, which means put the amount that you want to save every month there. Start with that. Don't start with like, oh, I gotta have coffee. No. If you have coffee money left over, great. Otherwise, you don't get coffee.

• 1:27:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:57Ramit Sethi?

  So how much goes into investments? The number recommended is 5 to 10%. You're in your 40s and you have very little investments. You need more than 10%. I'm going to offer the number. 15% it is. That's what happens when you don't pick a number. Ramit Sethi. Okay. Okay. 1100, right on the money. Boom. There you go. How much you want to do for savings? 5 to 10% is recommended. Y'all need more than that.

• 1:28:19Speaker 02

  10%?

• 1:28:21Ramit Sethi?

  Nope. Go higher than that. 12%?

• 1:28:23Speaker 02

  Oh, we need more than that. Okay. 15%.

• 1:28:25Ramit Sethi?

  Good. Great. All right. Y'all have $135 a month to spend on everything. Now, I don't think that's realistic. Do you? No.

• 1:28:34Speaker 02

  No, maybe not.

• 1:28:36Ramit Sethi?

  Actually, until now, I don't even still fully understand where your money is going on a monthly basis. Do you?

• 1:28:44Speaker 02

  Not fully. No.

• 1:28:46Ramit Sethi?

  So then why not simply start over? Create a joint account where the bulk of the money, the gross income that comes in every month is $11,900. The net is 8650. Why not literally take $8,000 and send it to the joint account? Each of you can have 300 bucks to do whatever you want with. Go enjoy whatever you want, but your future is together. $8,000 every month net comes into that joint account, and that's the money you use to decide where it goes. When that money is in one joint account, suddenly it's going to be very clear where that money is getting spent.

• 1:29:32Speaker 02

  I 100% agree.

• 1:29:34Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:29:34Speaker 02

  I think that's the best.

• 1:29:36Ramit Sethi?

  All right.

• 1:29:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:29:37Ramit Sethi?

  That's it? That's all we, that's all we need to do? Just put it in a joint account and we're golden?

• 1:29:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's a great start.

• 1:29:44Ramit Sethi?

  What's gonna happen then?

• 1:29:46Speaker 02

  I, well, yeah, thinking about it that way, though, investment and savings first, that makes huge sense to me. And then what we have, whatever we have, we have.

• 1:29:56Ramit Sethi?

  I want to add one more bit of good news for you. Once you pay off that debt and you pay it off aggressively, if you take that $2,000 that you were putting towards debt and you invest all of it, you literally just flip a switch and you send it to your investment account every single month, you will have not 1 million, but 1.75 million in 25 years. That actually starts to be really cool.

• 1:30:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:30:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:30:26Ramit Sethi?

  That's amazing. Remember, that 1.75 million does not include any raises that you might get.

• 1:30:34Ramit Sethi?

  It does not include your ability to pay off the debt faster by selling bikes, et cetera, et cetera. It doesn't include any upside. It also doesn't include any downside, like a layoff, which is why I want you to have a savings. But you start to see, it starts to become more comfortable, more achievable, if you can operate as a team.

• 1:30:53Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:30:54Ramit Sethi?

  What do you think?

• 1:30:54Speaker 02

  I, I see that. Yes.

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  I like that. Yeah.

• 1:30:57Speaker 02

  I'm looking forward to it.

• 1:30:58Ramit Sethi?

  All right.

• 1:30:58Speaker 01

  I like, I like the reality that you're speaking here.

• 1:31:02Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. So.

• 1:31:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:04Ramit Sethi?

  Let me tell you where there are some holes in your plan, because there are some holes.

• 1:31:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:08Ramit Sethi?

  And you two are gonna need to figure them out together.

• 1:31:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:31:11Ramit Sethi?

  First of all, right now, you still only have $135 a month on discretionary spending. That's simply unsustainable. That is 2%. And from a couple that currently is probably spending more like 30%, that's just impossible for you to achieve. I think you two might be able to realistically achieve 10% if you were totally dialed in as a team, completely dialed in. That 10% is like, we eat out once a month and we basically never go out for coffee or random stuff, everything. And maybe, just maybe, we take a very modest vacation once a year. But like, 2% is not possible. So you're gonna have to make some adjustments in your CSP.

• 1:31:54Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:31:55Ramit Sethi?

  You may have to dial down your. Investment contributions, but like that's money you're not going to have later. Yeah. So that's a tough one. You may have to dial down your savings. I really would not like to see that, but that might have to happen. Or more likely, you probably have a bunch of money you're just spending without even thinking about it. I bet you there's at least 200, 300 bucks a month of random that is just like absorbed into the ether. Find it, fix it, put it towards your discretionary spending.

• 1:32:25Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:32:27Ramit Sethi?

  Next up, just a couple of things. As far as it currently stands, you cannot buy a house. No time soon. As far as real estate investing, I don't know where you would get the money and taking out a loan. It's all great if it works, but if it doesn't, then you're really. So would I do that? I know as a GC, you have a lot of experience to be able to do that and save money. I would be extremely cautious about doing that anytime in the near term future. I wouldn't even think about it until I had a clear trajectory for my retirement to have enough until I had at least, at least 12 months of an emergency fund. I'm talking big. That's a lot of money. Yeah.

• 1:33:09Ramit Sethi?

  And, and everything was dialed in with the two of you as it relates to money. So basically, I wouldn't think about it for the next five years plus. Your daughter, you can't afford to pay for her college. Not now. And the money you are putting aside for her, whatever that number is, I would rather have you put that money towards your debt. She has time. You two have far less. She has the opportunity to take out loans or go to a community college or get scholarships. The two of you have none of those things later in life. It is possible if you all were to triple your household income, you could do those things. Yes. And you were to get totally dialed in on all the investing and saving and all that. Yes, you could do it. But you're in your 40s.

• 1:33:53Ramit Sethi?

  And until now, like, you don't even share accounts. So I think it's important to start being realistic with what is likely and what is not. Early retirement, probably not likely. Could you? Sure, if everything went right. But I don't make a life plan based on every single dream going perfectly right. Are you hearing the urgency of what I am sharing with you? Yes. Molly, how are you feeling right now?

• 1:34:18Speaker 01

  Bummed. It's pretty bleak.

• 1:34:23Ramit Sethi?

  That's an interesting word you chose, bleak. Bleak because?

• 1:34:28Speaker 01

  Because, I guess, I, you know, a lot of our plans to get ourselves in a better situation kind of feel like they're not going to be possible.

• 1:34:42Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, like, like the, you mean the real estate investing one?

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  I kind of, I thought that would be a good leverage for us because of our, like, combined talents. I just worry now, like, that's, and even if it's like a dream we can do in like five years from now, that would be cool. I just see, I see it as a way to help get us farther along than we can with just, you know, like you said, if I just, if I made $50,000 more a year, that's not, that's not going to change things.

• 1:35:14Ramit Sethi?

  Can I make an observation?

• 1:35:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:16Ramit Sethi?

  So, first of all, I don't mind that you're upset. I would be upset in your situation as well. Because this is probably the first time you're hearing somebody just give you some blunt feedback.

• 1:35:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:28Ramit Sethi?

  First of all, I'm not the ultimate authority with money. Nobody is. You two will decide what is right for you. And if after a few years, you go, hey, we actually want to do this real estate investment, and we have the skills, and we've carefully run the numbers. That's totally up to you, but more importantly, I actually don't consider this bleak. Bleak is if you don't do anything differently for five years, then your situation is bleak. And I mean it. It gets really bad, really fast. You all still have time. Bleak means you can't ever eat out. You can still eat out a little bit. You have to be way more thoughtful about it.

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:13Ramit Sethi?

  My family, growing up, once every six weeks or so with a coupon. I wouldn't call it bleak. It was a big deal for us to go out to pizza. So that's not bleak. You two are gonna end up with at least 1.75 million dollars if you are totally dialed in, possibly more. And one other thing, if you actually do increase your income by 50,000 dollars, Molly, after getting all of this stuff dialed in, that makes a massive difference to the overall financial picture, like gargantuan.

• 1:36:47Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:36:47Ramit Sethi?

  That could actually allow things like real estate investing, et cetera. So don't discount that, but right now, if you were to do it today, it would be largely meaningless.

• 1:36:58Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:36:59Ramit Sethi?

  Fix this. Fix what is happening. It's almost like there's a fire in your house and you two are focused on building a deck. The deck, put the fire out. We'll deal with that later. That is my approach.

• 1:37:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:37:12Ramit Sethi?

  All right?

• 1:37:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:37:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:37:13Speaker 02

  Love that approach.

• 1:37:14Ramit Sethi?

  Jason, what about you? How are you feeling hearing this?

• 1:37:16Speaker 02

  I love the idea of combining or getting a combined account and savings and investment first. I love that whole plan. I think it's hugely helpful just to my thought process.

• 1:37:28Speaker 01

  It's kind of like a puzzle that we're, we both like puzzles and we have to figure it out together.

• 1:37:34Ramit Sethi?

  Totally. We have, we have this much. We know that we have to prioritize paying off the high interest debt because it's drowning us. So we already have this much taken away every single month for the next roughly six months. What else can we do now? And then what can we change on month seven? It's like a puzzle. It's a three dimensional puzzle. I love the way you described that.

• 1:37:55Speaker 01

  Can I say one thing?

• 1:37:56Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:57Speaker 01

  I just thought about was like if we like our powers combined. If we're both motivated and working on this together, like that's where I can just. It's like I just know that we could get some momentum that would make us both feel really excited and want to like. To see the fruit of that labor, I know we would. Like our powers combined, that's what I keep thinking is like we could make some real change and like real awesome things happen.

• 1:38:25Ramit Sethi?

  I agree. I agree. Do you agree, Jason?

• 1:38:27Speaker 02

  I agree. I definitely agree.

• 1:38:29Ramit Sethi?

  Amazing. The two of you working together.

• 1:38:32Speaker 02

  I would love it.

• 1:38:34Ramit Sethi?

  I asked Molly how long she could keep living like this. She couldn't answer. She is finally seeing what we have been seeing this entire conversation. Jason's disengagement goes beyond money. It's about everything. And her response, which is to take on the debt in her name, to try more and more, to stack on responsibilities on her shoulders and manage everything alone. Simply perpetuates this. But I also noticed that Jason called himself lazy. And that was quite interesting. On one hand, I appreciate the candor.

• 1:39:11Ramit Sethi?

  On another hand, people who are not behaving as good partners often employ this strategy of admitting something as a way to cleanse themselves of responsibility. If I can be really blunt, I'm not interested in you admitting you're lazy. I'm interested in what you do about it. Molly admits she doesn't trust Jason to be responsible with money because she's never seen it modeled, not in her dad, not in her partners. That's a brutal realization. Neither of them knows how to be responsible with money. They didn't have role models who could teach them. Okay, fine. I hear that. If you have never seen what it looks like to be a responsible, loving partner, then it's unlikely you just trip and fall your way into it.

• 1:39:54Ramit Sethi?

  But you've got to be able to learn. There is an infinite amount of cheap and free information online. There's resources everywhere. They had a chance to talk to me. Now it's up to them. I will say, they moved to a cheaper rent without me telling them to. They already have a plan to sell the truck and pay off debt. And when I showed them it's possible to have 1.75 million dollars if they work together. Maybe they saw the possibilities. Do you think they can do it? I actually have their follow ups for you right now.

• 1:40:26Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 1:40:26Speaker 02

  Hi.

• 1:40:28Speaker 01

  Hope you're all well. I think we had a couple day emotional hangover after the.

• 1:40:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, there was a little bit. It was good.

• 1:40:36Speaker 01

  It was great. It was a lot.

• 1:40:38Speaker 02

  My biggest surprise from the conversation, I think, was how in depth we got about our personal relationship.

• 1:40:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:46Speaker 02

  Versus just talking about money.

• 1:40:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:50Speaker 02

  And I think that was really important and really eye opening and very helpful in a lot of ways. Also brought up a lot of things that I wasn't aware of, just not even money related.

• 1:41:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:05Speaker 02

  I think it was good.

• 1:41:07Speaker 01

  That was probably my biggest surprise too, is like, I didn't expect us to be so vulnerable and honest about kind of bigger picture stuff that like money is a little bit of a reflection of things than our relationship. So, yeah, I would agree. Biggest takeaways for me were, I guess, just like how urgent it is to start saving. I mean, I knew, I know that, I knew that cerebrally, but I think just the talking about the conversation about our retirement and like, it just made things very real. And having numbers of like, what, if we want to get to this certain target for retirement, like how much we need to save each month.

• 1:41:52Speaker 01

  I think that was a real big takeaway for me and like, just made it very real.

• 1:41:59Speaker 02

  I guess also the reality of the fact that we need to really stick to.

• 1:42:06Speaker 02

  That for a while, not necessarily buy a house.

• 1:42:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:10Speaker 02

  You know, and just really tighten our expenses, stick to what we learned in the, you know, during the interview.

• 1:42:18Speaker 01

  Like, I make sense now. I've been thinking about it. It's like, we just have to get this right for a while and like automate the way our finances work and the way our savings and our bills and all that stuff. Like, get that just so dialed that it will make sense. It will start, I feel like we'll be able to come up for air and be like, oh, this is, this is what this feels like, when you're not just in like, survival mode.

• 1:42:44Speaker 02

  Right. I think we definitely want to open a joint bank account.

• 1:42:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:48Speaker 02

  And all, all our money through there first, so we can easily, you know,

• 1:42:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:54Speaker 02

  see everything.

• 1:42:55Speaker 01

  Together.

• 1:42:56Speaker 02

  Don't elaborate too much on that.

• 1:42:57Speaker 01

  That and today is Sunday, so we're doing our first meeting after this video. We're going to do our first financial meeting. We're going to do it on Sundays when our daughter is napping and talk about this stuff. And then moving forward into the week, you know, take what we've talked about into the week, which I think will be su- super helpful. I wanted to give a little update since we recorded. We've had some steps forward, we've had some setbacks, but overall, I feel we have a lot of forward momentum in our financial life together. The biggest change isn't even really about the numbers, but

• 1:43:37Speaker 01

  how we talk about money. And we can, we can have a talk about our finances without feeling judged or getting defensive, or honestly, just avoiding it altogether. And that has been a huge shift for us and has changed our relationship completely. I did lose my job. At the beginning of the year, which was a setback, but weirdly, it actually shook us out of a cycle that wasn't working anyways. And I did find a new job recently where I'm making more money. So that has felt like a big win. We have been holding regular money meetings, not perfectly, but consistently enough to matter.

• 1:44:21Speaker 01

  We're selling the truck soon, which is going to pay off a huge chunk of debt and credit card debt specifically. And then with the goal of being completely out of credit card debt by June, which is massive for us. I've also took all of my old retirement accounts from past employers and rolled it over into the new account. So it's not just sitting idly anymore. We've created new benchmarks for savings for retirement, which was a huge thing. So that has felt really incredibly relieving. But more than anything, most importantly, we have a plan now.

• 1:45:02Speaker 01

  And that alone has felt so huge and honestly life changing. We're both just so incredibly grateful to Ramit, to this experience and to the team. We, I started the money coaching program, which has been incredible so far. And we're still feeling the support. And that's just been super helpful for us in our journey. So yeah, we're just so thankful and yeah, thanks. Bye.

• 1:45:33Speaker 02

  Hi, Ramit. I wanted to share an update since our recording. Things have definitely improved for us.

• 1:45:41Speaker 02

  We're having financial meetings much more consistently now. They're far more comfortable, collaborative and a lot less tense. I genuinely feel like we're on the same team when we talk about money. I've taken on personally more responsibility with our household finances to help lessen. A burden on my partner and that shift I think has made a meaningful difference. I've been asking more questions so I can be more informed and involved in our finances. And I think that's helped me feel more engaged and accountable. And it's helped us operate more like true partners rather than just avoiding tough conversations.

• 1:46:22Speaker 02

  I've increased my retirement contribution by a few percentage points and plan to continue raising it over the next couple of months until I reach at least 15%. Also, I've been using Rocket Money a lot more intentionally, which has really been helpful in tracking spending and staying proactive. I think overall, we're collaborating in a much healthier way and there's more openness, more teamwork, and it feels sustainable. And I think we're really building momentum. So, thank you again for this opportunity and thank you so much for spending your time with us. Appreciate it.

• 1:47:05Ramit Sethi?

  Listen up. If you want my help with your specific money questions, there are only two ways to get it. First, you can apply to be on this podcast at iwt.com/apply. Or second, you can join my money coaching program instantly at iwt.com/moneycoaching. In that program, you get access to live virtual events, monthly group coaching calls, live Q and As, and an amazing, huge community of other people like you. Check it out at iwt.com/moneycoaching.