Pod Insights Money For Couples with Ramit Sethi 184. “I survived a plane crash. Is stressing about money really worth it?” About this episode Ryan is a 38-year-old Air Force pilot. Chloe is a 33-year-old economist. And though they are on track to have millions in retirement, they struggle to spend. Ryan has been criticizing every little purchase and agonizing over his looming retirement from the military. Chloe’s hoping they can put things in perspective and start enjoying their Rich Life, now.
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Transcript 15,859 words · 3 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Ramit Sethi? Are you feeling stuck with your money? Have you told yourself, "I need to figure it out." But you haven't really done it? I understand that not everyone is going to sit down and read multiple books about money. I get that. That is why I created Rich Life: The Road to 100K. This is a step-by-step program that shows you how to build a money system that works. Like figuring out the date that you're going to have $100,000 invested, how to automate your money, and how to cut through the noise. Plus, you will get access to weekly live events and a community of like-minded people, plus a library of my best materials. This is the program that will finally help you get on track with your money,
0:43 Ramit Sethi? and you can join today at iwt.com/100k.
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2:00 Ramit Sethi? On today's episode.
2:01 Speaker 01 He lives in fear of everything, all the what if.
2:03 Speaker 02 I don't want to be like my parents and unless I start working on it right now, I'm, we're gonna be right there.
2:08 Ramit Sethi? Meet Ryan and Khloe.
2:10 Speaker 01 The narrative in my household was always you need to study hard and get a great job and you'll be rewarded and so far that has come true.
2:18 Ramit Sethi? Ryan is 38 and he's a pilot in the air force. Khloe is 33 and she's an economist and they struggle to spend even though they're on track to have millions of dollars in retirement.
2:29 Speaker 01 I'm gonna save, save, save at the expense of my own happiness. That's the narrative that has followed him.
2:34 Speaker 02 I like the way we live. I just want to make sure we can keep it up.
2:36 Ramit Sethi? Khloe wants Ryan to stop criticizing every purchase she makes.
2:40 Speaker 01 I want to be trusted and I, I want you to assume the best intent.
2:44 Ramit Sethi? And stop stressing about his looming retirement from the military.
2:48 Speaker 02 If I don't get a career that makes the same income level where we're at, then we can't live at the same style.
2:54 Ramit Sethi? Can Ryan master his money psychology so he and Khloe can start enjoying their rich life right now?
3:00 Speaker 02 I don't know how to change my view and I don't want to be 65 years old and we're sitting on 15 million dollars.
3:07 Ramit Sethi? Let's meet Ryan and Khloe.
3:16 Ramit Sethi? All right, I am going to be speaking to Khloe and Ryan. Khloe's 33, Ryan is 38. The key issue is they have a difference in opinion of money. Khloe wants to live, as she calls it, the high life, private school, et cetera, for the kids. She says that Ryan chicken littles his way through life. Okay? This was all set off when he met her parents and considered their spending irresponsible. All right, let's look at the CSP.
3:55 Ramit Sethi? Not again. $2 million in net worth and they're in their 30s and... Okay. All right, this is the kind of conversation I'm gonna be having today. All right. Um, let's see. $1.7 million of that is investments. So we're not even talking about the house. They have $1.7 million in their 30s. All right. Okay, look at the income.
4:21 Ramit Sethi? $31,000 a month, $379,000 a year. Okay. Fixed costs at 49%. Fine. Investments are at 28%. That's 28% of $379,000. Savings at 6%, uh, but they already have $90,000 saved. And guilt-free spending is 17%. All right, well, I don't think we're even spending too much time on the numbers today. So some guesses before I get into the conversation. Um, obviously, this has some connection to the way that they were raised with money. Looking at $2 million of net worth, which 1.7 is liquid investments probably.
5:04 Ramit Sethi? You know, we're talking about tens of millions of dollars here. So this is obviously not simply about money.
5:10 Ramit Sethi? I do look forward to talking to them. I think each story is unique. And for me, the valuable thing about conversations like this is that a lot of my readers and my viewers are going to end up in a position where they have more money than they ever thought they would. And a lot of people, when they get to that point, they're gonna realize, whether it's 2 million, 5 million, 20 million, "Oh my God, I'm starting to sound like the people on Ramit's podcast." That is because just having more money doesn't necessarily make you feel better about it. So one of the reasons that we get the chance to talk to folks who have a lot of money, one, we have access to them. They trust me. Two, it really shows you a crystal ball into your future. So let's see what Chloe and Ryan have to say.
5:54 Speaker 01 We have this looming retirement date that's hanging over us and it's bringing up a lot of fear for Ryan. It's bringing up a lot of feelings of excitement and looking forward to the future for me. But I feel like I'm being reined back a little bit because of that fear. And that's that constant give and take that we have had in our relationship for the past 12 years. I get excited about the future, buying a different house, moving to a new location. I love to look at real estate. I love to look at what I could potentially live in and picture myself there. And I like to dream long term. And then I'm always reminded
6:35 Speaker 01 of, but we don't need that. We could live in a square box and be fine and look at how much we could save and how much we could invest if we did that. So it's always this give and take of, I want, but Ryan is always very realistic with, but do you need it?
6:52 Ramit Sethi? Ryan, how would you characterize your role when it comes to money in your relationship and Chloe's as well?
7:03 Speaker 02 I set the limit, right? Chloe dreams and I'm like, okay, well, here's where we're really gonna be at, right? You want that size of a house? I don't think we need that big. Let's cut back to this size. And then Chloe kind of goes into the defense mode. And so it's almost like I'm the Debbie Downer on the aspect of the money aspect and saying, where are we at? Did we pay attention to the budget? And did you, do you think you really are holding to the standard of what we expect with spending?
7:30 Ramit Sethi? Do you like being Debbie Downer?
7:32 Speaker 02 No. And no matter how hard I try, I think I do it to Chloe quite a bit. Question being like, did, did we really need that?
7:41 Ramit Sethi? How many times a week do you think you say that?
7:43 Speaker 02 Oh, gosh. It's probably once, once a week or, or so. Just recently, you came back from Target or Walmart and I was like, wow, how much did we get there? Like, what all did you need to get? And in reality, like, it's all stuff that we needed, but I see extra bags and I'm like, did we really need all that?
8:01 Ramit Sethi? Okay. Ryan, what's your take on the difference between needing something and getting it just because you want it?
8:10 Speaker 02 That's hard. Like, a need is the, the basic needs, right? And food, water, shelter, and anything past that is a, is an expanse want.
8:20 Ramit Sethi? Chloe, how many times a week do you think that Ryan says, "Do we need that?"
8:25 Speaker 01 I would say it's probably three or four times a week.
8:27 Ramit Sethi? Wow. Everybody noticed it went from one to four. Kind of a magic number. I don't know if you noticed, but when people talk about eating out, whatever number they first tell me they do per week, you always triple it to get the real number. In this case, quadruple it. Hmm. All right. What do you make of that?
8:44 Speaker 01 At least once or twice a week, Ryan is locking in and saying, "Two hundred dollars at Walmart, what'd you get?" And I'm like, "Oh, yep, it was this, this, and this." But I immediately get put on the defensive. And we've had this argument, conversation many times. And he's like, "I'm just making sure that the card wasn't stolen or nothing got charged that we weren't expecting." But for me, I immediately jump onto the defense of, "Well, now I have to defend everything that I have purchased, and I don't like that."
9:09 Ramit Sethi? Just out of curiosity, you two have been together 12 years, right?
9:13 Speaker 01 Right.
9:14 Ramit Sethi? Okay, in that time, how many times has your credit card been stolen?
9:18 Speaker 02 None.
9:18 Speaker 01 Zero.
9:22 Ramit Sethi? Can't be too safe, huh?
9:24 Speaker 02 Never too safe.
9:27 Ramit Sethi? A credit card, obviously, is just a tiny symptom of something much larger that's going on. But it's good to know what just happened. That's, that's quite revealing.
9:39 Ramit Sethi? Chloe, how would you characterize your role when it comes to money in this relationship?
9:46 Speaker 01 I am an equal breadwinner, Ryan, and I bring home about the exact same income. I can spend equally because I earn equally. I don't need to report to anybody. I don't need to be responsible to anyone other than myself, and I, I want to be trusted. And I, I want you to assume the best intent, that I'm not just going to go buy something frivolously. That's not my personality, and he knows that.
10:12 Ramit Sethi? Ryan said that he is kind of a negative Nancy or Debbie Downer. What are you?
10:21 Speaker 01 I'm very content with what we make and where we have the lifestyle that we have right now. I just want it to continue.
10:27 Ramit Sethi? You said, "I prefer to live a high lifestyle with nice homes and value private education for our two children."
10:35 Speaker 01 And we have that now.
10:37 Ramit Sethi? So you're like, "We live a great life."
10:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:40 Ramit Sethi? "And I am content continuing to live that life."
10:44 Speaker 01 Correct.
10:45 Ramit Sethi? All right, I respect it, okay. And so you are content and Ryan is Debbie Downer?
10:54 Speaker 01 Worried.
10:55 Ramit Sethi? Okay.
10:56 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:56 Ramit Sethi? You want to stop this lifestyle, Ryan?
11:00 Speaker 02 No, I like the way we live. I just want to make sure we can keep it up.
11:06 Ramit Sethi? Can you?
11:07 Speaker 02 Right now, yeah, it all looks good.
11:10 Ramit Sethi? Okay.
11:10 Speaker 02 It does. The numbers look good.
11:13 Ramit Sethi? All right. What are we doing here then?
11:16 Speaker 02 I'm afraid that when I go to jump out of the military and if I don't get a career that makes the same income level where we're at, then we can't live at the same style.
11:29 Speaker 01 He lives in fear of everything, all the what ifs. The sky is falling, you know, what if you don't, you know, get promoted again? What if you lose your job? What if I can't find a career? What if my pension doesn't cover what we need it to cover? What if I don't get, you know, X amount out of my pension? What if the military stops the pension? What if the 529 doesn't, isn't there for us? What if the GI Bill isn't there for our kids? What if the military changes that? It's always a matter of...
11:56 Ramit Sethi? Okay, okay, wait. Even I'm getting exhausted just listening to these. It's gotta be a lot.
12:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
12:01 Ramit Sethi? Ryan, is this true?
12:04 Speaker 02 I do like to think of multiple contingencies, yes. I look at like, what are all the plans that are gonna... Fail in this war, right? Like, what else could happen? What if Chloe lost her job? Where, and we couldn't continue that way?
12:17 Ramit Sethi? So like, if you weren't in the military, you would have been, uh, an actuary or a churn analyst for a SaaS company, right? Cause they're just focused on all the things that can go wrong.
12:31 Speaker 02 Probably, probably pretty good to it.
12:32 Ramit Sethi? Damn.
12:33 Speaker 01 I mean, the biggest irony in that is that's my job.
12:36 Ramit Sethi? What do you do?
12:37 Speaker 01 I'm an economist.
12:39 Ramit Sethi? Whoa.
12:40 Speaker 01 I work in the actuarial department.
12:42 Ramit Sethi? What? Wait, so why are we just listening to the actuary on this call? What's the problem? Ryan, is it possible this is not simply about numbers?
12:51 Speaker 02 Oh yeah, it's definitely not numbers. That's why the night we sat down and we were listening to the podcast, Chloe's like, we need to put in, cause it has nothing to do with numbers, Ryan. And I was like, you're absolutely right. It doesn't, it has to do with my own personal feelings.
13:04 Ramit Sethi? Okay, that's pretty insightful.
13:07 Ramit Sethi? Knowing is part of the battle, so great. I'm happy to hear that. We've got Chloe, who's a self-described dreamer, and then Ryan, who's clearly a warrior. As we heard Ryan say, he's looking ahead to his upcoming military retirement, and he's stressing about every possible outcome. That's got to be emotionally exhausting. I also noticed this very common dynamic, where the husband thinks of himself as the logical partner, the one who sets the limit. She dreams, I bring her back down to earth. I hate this dynamic, I truly hate it, which is deeply gendered and always forces the wife to defend her choices. Listen up, guys. If you're creating a culture where you are constantly questioning your wife,
13:52 Ramit Sethi? like literally four times a week, you're not being a good man or a good partner. And in fact, you're going to create a corrosive financial culture in your household. Men worry, but we are taught to express it in different ways. One of the ways that we do it is questioning our partner. Are you sure you need that? Cause I, the logical person, surely knows better. And that is exactly what is happening here. If you have worries, that's fine. Deal with them, but do not take them out on your partner in a way that causes them to shrink and have to defend themselves. But I also want to recognize that Khloe and Ryan have accumulated a lot of money.
14:33 Ramit Sethi? And the reason I think they are such an interesting couple is that at a certain point, you might have more money than you ever thought you'd have. The question is, will you know how to enjoy it? Or how to use it? In fact, will you have enjoyed the process along the way? Khloe and Ryan, especially Ryan, are a crystal ball into what happens when you have a lot of money, but you can't change your feelings of scarcity and worry. I'm going to look at their CSP right up front, and then we're going to spend more time breaking down what's actually happening here. We'll open up their conscious spending plan right after this quick break to support our sponsors. My team at IWT is fully remote, and I love that.
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17:57 Ramit Sethi? Now, back to Ryan and Chloe. Let's look at the numbers. Ryan, will you read off the word in bold and then the full number next to it?
18:07 Speaker 02 Assets: 965,000. Investments: 1 point, we'll call it 1.8 million. Savings: 90,000. Debt is 753,000 with a total net worth of 2,073,000.
18:22 Ramit Sethi? What do y'all think of those numbers in your 30s?
18:26 Speaker 02 They're awesome.
18:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:28 Ramit Sethi? Whoa. We got a wealthy couple who actually feels good about their money. This is amazing. All right. Good job so far. You got a house. Great. You got 1.8 or so million dollars in investments. That is extremely impressive. How'd you do that?
18:47 Speaker 01 I would say a lot of this is credit to Ryan. I, although I have an economics and finance degree, I was not savvy with ETFs or investing.
18:55 Speaker 02 She came home one day and she's like, they've got this thing. It's like an employee stock purchase plan thing. I was like, oh, I don't really know quite what that is. And she's like, well, it sounds like I can buy the stock at a discounted rate or something. And I'm like, wait, what? You can do, you can do what? So I was like, well, let's look into that. And she pulls it up and it said it buys it at a, I think it was a 15% discounted rate from the lowest price point in the six month period. And I looked at it and I was like, holy ****. And I looked at the, and I looked at our spreadsheet and she goes, well, I can't afford to buy that. And I go, I don't care. I can buy it. And I go, we're max, we're buying that entire thing.
19:32 Ramit Sethi? I like the excitement. What, what got you excited about that, Ryan?
19:36 Speaker 02 Well, I knew that it would be an automatic 15% return, which on top would probably be around a 30% return, which is just gonna grow. And it, it had the capability for us to pay for bulk masters that we were doing at the time. It had the capability to build a better house that we were gonna do. And, and if we had the, the assets to be able to put into it to build right now, then why not?
19:57 Ramit Sethi? Yeah, I like that. Is, I assume part of that is responsible for the 1.8 million dollars in investments, right?
20:05 Speaker 02 Yeah, and I got a loan in college that it's a kind of a cool graduation loan that they give to military academies. And I put that straight into investments and let it start growing.
20:16 Ramit Sethi? Ryan, how often do you log into your accounts?
20:21 Speaker 02 Every day.
20:22 Ramit Sethi? You log in, what do you, what do you see when you look at the numbers?
20:25 Speaker 02 We're doing good. We're doing a good job. And sometimes I'm like, hey, Chloe, it looks like the market did really good today. Like, we, we made $15,000.
20:35 Ramit Sethi? Is that possible? Like, you could actually make 15K in one day from the market's movement?
20:39 Speaker 02 Yep.
20:39 Ramit Sethi? And then when you tell Chloe that, that's a lot of money. Obviously, you know, you're like, oh, my God, that's exciting. And when you tell Chloe that, what's her reaction?
20:48 Speaker 02 She's like, oh, yeah, cool. Yeah, the market is doing kind of some interesting things. And she usually brings the, like, the news into what, why she thinks that occurs.
20:57 Ramit Sethi? I like it. So, all right, so you're bringing it up. Chloe's receiving it. She's amplifying it. She's coming back to you. She's saying, oh, this happened too. That seems pretty cool. How do you both feel about that conversation?
21:09 Speaker 01 I think it's a positive conversation because we have grown financially to a point that I think Ryan has a lot of pride.
21:19 Speaker 02 Yeah, absolutely.
21:20 Ramit Sethi? Let's keep going down the income list. This time, Chloe, I'd like you to read off the, uh, combined monthly income.
21:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, gross monthly income, $31,623. Net, $25,000, pretty much.
21:36 Ramit Sethi? All right, so you two make $379,000 a year combined. You're making 31K a month gross or 24K a month net. I mean, great, that's a lot of money. Let's just look at the expenses. Fixed costs are 49%. That's amazing. I mean, they should be relatively low because you have a very high income, but I just want to congratulate you. You've obviously done a great job keeping your costs low. I have no comments on this at all. I do want to highlight a couple of things for people listening. Your, um, car payment is, with gas and all that stuff, is 905. Fine. Your private school and childcare is $4,000 a month.
22:16 Ramit Sethi? Fine. It's a lot of money, but you earn a lot and you obviously prioritize it. Fine. Dogs, 150. Grocery, 700. Great. And subscriptions are 422. Fine. There's nothing here that is surprising for a high-income, dual-income family. Your CSP leaves fingerprints. And what we see here is that you have a nice place. $4,900 a month for your mortgage and HOA.
22:44 Ramit Sethi? You prioritize private school and childcare. Fine, and you can afford it. Fine. And there we go. All right, let's move on to investments. You're 28% of net. That's impressive. So you are currently investing almost $7,000 a month. Great. That tied in with the amount you have explains why you have so much. You have high incomes and you invest every single month and you invest a lot. That's fantastic. No comments. Savings at 6%. Relatively low. Uh, I do note that you have $90,000 in savings. So if I had to guess, I'm guessing you already have that apportioned out. Some of it's an emergency fund, some of it's a blah, blah, blah. They're nodding. Yes, of course. Fine. And then everything else is 17%. I typically recommend 20 to 35%.
23:29 Ramit Sethi? All right, fine. 17%. What is this guilt free spending of $4,318 a month? What do you spend that on?
23:36 Speaker 01 Eating out primarily.
23:37 Ramit Sethi? $4,000 bucks on eating out? What?
23:40 Speaker 02 It's about, we probably spend around a thousand a month on eating out.
23:43 Ramit Sethi? Yeah, what's the rest?
23:44 Speaker 02 Uh, well, to be honest, you'll probably hate to hear this, but at the end of the year, usually what we do is whatever, like the savings has grown over a certain amount and it's not into buckets, it's not in the emergency, it goes and gets invested, which ends up usually being about another 30 to 40,000 a year.
24:01 Ramit Sethi? I can't believe the positions I'm sometimes forced into. Like, people know me as like the personal finance guy and I'm like, why the are you investing 40,000 extra dollars per year? You have to know how much is enough. And then we have to actually stop ourselves from simply blindly continuing to save and invest. Can you guys stop lying to yourselves? Putting $4,000 a month in your guilt free spending, but it's actually only 1,000? And then you just sweep the money and invest it at the end of the year? What is this, a Shakespeare play? Why are we putting on such a drama to pretend that we actually spend our money guilt free? There are lots of great things to acknowledge in their finances. Yes, they've been highly disciplined for years. They both have high incomes. Their savings and investments are in fantastic positions.
24:45 Ramit Sethi? And I have to note, they also can talk about the big picture, which is quite rare with couples. But they are not skilled at spending their money. Yes, spending money is a skill. The problem is that almost everybody teaches you how to save, but nobody teaches you how to spend money meaningfully. And it just happens that I love to teach this. Step one is identifying your vision, so you can determine where you want to spend. In order to do this, I need to better understand who Ryan and Chloe are and what they actually think of money. Let's talk about your visions of money. I'm very curious. So Chloe, you said that you had a lifestyle that you had envisioned. What do you mean by that?
25:27 Speaker 01 My parents lived in very nice houses. My dad was a contractor, so he was able to build nice houses for other wealthy people. And by virtue, we lived in those houses.
25:39 Ramit Sethi? Hence the interest in real estate.
25:42 Speaker 01 Yes, for sure.
25:43 Ramit Sethi? Gotcha.
25:44 Speaker 01 I went to private school because that was something that my mom very much valued. We traveled the world because that was also something she valued. So I lived a very, very high lifestyle from the time that I was a kid. And the narrative in my household was always, if you want to continue living this lifestyle, you need to study hard and get a great job and you'll be rewarded. And so far, that has come true. And I hope to continue that narrative to our kids, that if you want something and you are accustomed to this, and this is something that you put a lot of value in, you're going to have to work for it.
26:22 Ramit Sethi? I appreciate that narrative. That's a common narrative among the wealthy. They go, look, this is, of course, this is nice. Yes, it's very nice. We're fortunate, et cetera, et cetera. If you want to do this, you're going to have to work. Okay. When was the first time you both talked about money, really talked about it?
26:43 Speaker 01 It was pretty early on. I recall pretty much the first time he met my parents. That was a pretty early conversation, maybe within the first couple of months. And then we took a trip a few months after that to my parents' house. And I do recall Ryan pulling me aside and saying, you know, I can never give you this. And I said, I'm okay with that.
27:10 Ramit Sethi? When you said that, were your fingers crossed behind your back? Come on.
27:14 Speaker 01 Maybe. I think I took it upon myself to say, well, I'm not going to leave it all on you. I will contribute to this equally. If this is what I want, I'll make it happen myself.
27:25 Ramit Sethi? That's cool. I respect that. Did you tell him that?
27:29 Speaker 01 I think so.
27:31 Ramit Sethi? Ryan, do you remember that?
27:33 Speaker 02 I do remember. I remember specifically going to her house because her out, like her parents' house was beautiful. And it is, it's an amazing house. You weave all the way up into the canyon.
27:41 Ramit Sethi? Oh, my God, I fucking love this.
27:42 Speaker 02 Through the gates, right?
27:43 Ramit Sethi? There's a gate. There's a gate. Oh, my God, this is so good. Okay, go on.
27:47 Speaker 02 Big, massive door, like one of the biggest doors I've ever seen on a house. And you open it up and you walk right in. It's got beautiful, like, timber beams. And it's perfectly decorated, like, pristinely decorated. We went downstairs and I was, yeah, I was actually kind of like a little sad and nervous. And I told Chloe, I was like, I don't think I can make this happen. I had set to do a military career and I knew that like my income potential in the military for 20 years was not going to get us to that level.
28:14 Ramit Sethi? I have to say, it's quite impressive that you said that. Like, that takes a lot of courage, you know, to speak up, especially as a guy. You're walking into your potential in-law's house. And then to have the wherewithal to pull her aside and just kind of share your fears, quite courageous. Where did that come from?
28:37 Speaker 02 For me, it's always been, I see our American. Marriage as a as a combined thing and that's how I was raised is both equal partners. And so I think to me, a part of being those equal partners is is sharing that life and what you your vision is of it. And I wanted to make sure we were on the same page before we started going even further.
28:57 Ramit Sethi? Honestly, very impressive. The fact that you talked about money, just that simple back and forth to me is just is really revealing and it's in a very positive way. Okay, great. I'm with you so far. What happens next? What's the next big money conversation?
29:12 Speaker 01 When we moved in together, um, we decided to rent our first house together and we also got a credit card together. We decided to put all the expenses for us living combined on the credit card and then every month we would split it up equally and I would send money to him and then he would pay the bill. But just by virtue of that, I kind of reported to him, if you will, when it came to the end of the month. Anytime I bought something for our new house, I think bookshelves was one of them. You know, Ryan was like, do we really need that? And I was like, but it frames the TV so well. We need them.
29:54 Ramit Sethi? We've established that. Do we need, do we really need that is Ryan's phrase of choice. Looking back, did you really need that bookshelf?
30:06 Speaker 01 No, it wasn't a need.
30:08 Ramit Sethi? Okay, could you afford it?
30:11 Speaker 01 Absolutely. They were Walmart hundred dollar bookshelves.
30:14 Ramit Sethi? I'd like to understand a little bit more about the money dynamic in the household. What happens around Christmas when it comes to purchases?
30:19 Speaker 01 Every Christmas, I'm the primary person that does that. Ryan is very hands off when it comes to gifts. He is not a gift person, doesn't find joy in purchasing gifts for other people. And um, I find a lot of joy in that and I'm really excited for Christmas. It's probably my favorite time of year. It was a time of year when I was a kid that brought a ton of joy to me. I love it to be decorated. I just bought a new Christmas tree. This is our third Christmas tree now.
30:45 Speaker 01 I bought it with my own money, so Ryan didn't have to give me a hard time about it.
30:49 Ramit Sethi? What's that about?
30:51 Speaker 01 Early on, when we moved in together, we had what we call no questions asked accounts. And it really was intended to be no questions asked. Uh, the same amount gets deposited into those accounts at the first of every month. And we can do what we will with them. But it doesn't always turn out that way. Every time I order something, a shipment comes to the house. You know, Ryan says, what do you, what did you order? And he does say it half joking, but it's, there's always a little bit of truth in that. He is inquiring what I ordered and whether it was necessary and how I purchased it. And I always say, it's my no questions asked money. You can't, can't say anything about it. And yeah, and, and then the conversation usually does stop.
31:32 Speaker 01 But I use my no questions asked money as a way of getting out of a conversation about needs versus wants.
31:37 Ramit Sethi? Okay.
31:38 Speaker 01 I use it all the time.
31:40 Ramit Sethi? Okay.
31:40 Speaker 01 My, my no questions asked is very low at the end of the month, whereas Ryan, I don't know how much he has in it, but I'm guessing tens of thousands because he's never spent a dime out of it.
31:49 Ramit Sethi? What? Is that for real, Ryan?
31:51 Speaker 02 Not tens of thousands, but I do not spend as much. I think the most recent thing that I bought was a, a leaf blower that I bought out of my no questions asked.
31:59 Ramit Sethi? Okay, first of all, amazing. Could not be more gendered if I tried it. The, the dude on this call goes, I don't really spend much, man. I'm just a simple guy. Just the last thing I got was a leaf blower. How much you have in your, uh, no questions asked account, Ryan?
32:13 Speaker 02 Uh, fifty five hundred.
32:15 Ramit Sethi? Okay. And, uh, how about for you, Chloe?
32:18 Speaker 01 Probably a hundred dollars.
32:20 Ramit Sethi? How much do you each contribute to that account every month?
32:24 Speaker 02 Two fifty a month.
32:29 Ramit Sethi? You have two years of expenses in there.
32:34 Ramit Sethi? All right. All right, all right. I think I'm starting to understand what's going on. But Ryan, let me ask you this. So Chloe orders whatever she wants. She has the right to, it's her money. And you both agreed it's no questions asked. But then the first thing you do is literally ask her, what's that about? Doesn't that kind of violate the rules?
32:56 Speaker 02 Yes, but if an Amazon package shows up, I don't know if it came out of a No Questions Asked money or not.
33:03 Ramit Sethi? Right. So the Amazon box shows up and like, what goes through your head, the first thing when you see that box?
33:10 Speaker 02 Well, the first thing I fight to try to make sure I don't ask her about it and I can't hold back, so I say, "Oh, what did we buy?"
33:19 Speaker 01 No, it's "What did you order?"
33:21 Ramit Sethi? Like, like trying to be real friendly about it, like, "Oh, so like, hey, what do we want to have for dinner?" And like, also, what's, what's that box over there? Like, real casual, right? But it never comes off casual.
33:33 Speaker 01 No, he usually sends our five-year-old to say, "Mom, what did you order?"
33:38 Ramit Sethi? Whoa.
33:38 Speaker 02 No, he does that more now on his own.
33:41 Speaker 01 Where do you think he learned it?
33:43 Speaker 02 He's learned, he's very well learned that.
33:45 Ramit Sethi? Oh, wow. He, your, your five-year-old, learn to be deployed and ask this question, "What's that about?" Hmm, that's so interesting. I wonder what will happen one day when he gets married and when his wife brings home a box. What do you think he's gonna ask her?
34:00 Speaker 02 That's why we need to fix it now, because he'll ask the same thing.
34:04 Ramit Sethi? Right.
34:05 Speaker 02 Yep.
34:06 Ramit Sethi? Right. Okay, good. I mean, all jokes aside, money messages get passed down generation by generation and we have the chance to change them, amplify them, alter them, and, you know, I like a good joke, I love it, but, uh, probably a lot of things that could happen if he continues absorbing that. To all the men listening, do you see how your seemingly innocent question, "Do we need that?", gets passed down generation to generation? Do you see how the identity you've created for yourself as the logical, reasonable guy who helps your dreamer wife stay grounded is actually an even deeper example of the problem here?
34:50 Ramit Sethi? What if you actually established that you and your partner both expect to have a high level of involvement in the finances? What if you had a candid series of conversations where you said, "Look, my expectation is that we're both partners. We design a plan together and we each take ownership of some parts of that plan and we trust each other. Of course, we'll track a few key items. Of course, we'll review it once a year. But we are running a business together, the business of running the household. So I never want to question the areas you own, just as I know you wouldn't question my areas because we trust each other. What do you think? What do you think of that plan? What would your expectations be?"
35:31 Ramit Sethi? Guys, that is how you create a healthy culture of money in your household. Not by nitpicking on Amazon boxes, then letting your son see it and suddenly he starts to question his mom about why she bought this. I'm getting so pissed right now. And I get even more mad when I hear Khloe describe what she spends her no questions asked money on. We're going to hear more about that right after this short break from our sponsors. If you're retiring soon and you have a financial advisor, please listen up. Do you know how much you pay your advisor? Most people that I talk to do not know. I don't have anything against advisors per se. I do have something against paying a percentage and not even knowing how much you are paying.
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38:38 Speaker 01 I don't spend my No Questions Asked money usually on anything for myself. It's usually things for the kids, matching pajamas for them that aren't a necessity,
38:49 Speaker 01 or a Christmas tree, or some sort of decor item.
38:53 Ramit Sethi? Brian, what does it strike you hearing your wife say she doesn't even spend her guilt free spending money on anything for herself?
39:04 Speaker 02 It is sad to hear that a little bit. On the same end, like, I don't think I spend my money on anything for myself either.
39:13 Ramit Sethi? If I heard my wife say, "I don't spend anything on myself", and we made the kind of income that you two make, right? It would be different if we made forty grand household income. We just don't have the money. But if, and if my wife had had two kids and especially one recently, and if she said that, I would feel really sad and disappointed in myself. Disappointed that
39:43 Ramit Sethi? I had not helped create the family money culture where she could
39:51 Ramit Sethi? get her nails done, or get a candy bar, or whatever. Go to a movie, anything that she would want to do for herself.
40:01 Speaker 02 It doesn't come to my mind to spend money in that realm.
40:06 Speaker 02 I don't know.
40:08 Speaker 02 It's like a hard, it's hard to think of spending in that way.
40:13 Ramit Sethi? Is it hard to think of spending money beyond what you need?
40:19 Speaker 02 Absolutely.
40:20 Ramit Sethi? When do you get to do that? How much money do you need to have?
40:24 Speaker 02 There is no number. I don't know how to change my view. And I honestly said, I don't want to be sixty-five years old and we're sitting on fifteen million dollars. At that time, I'm not going to spend because I'm going to be the same exact way. And I won't know how to spend.
40:40 Ramit Sethi? Wow.
40:41 Speaker 02 It struck us and I was like, we need help learning how to do that.
40:45 Ramit Sethi? Okay. I respect that.
40:49 Ramit Sethi? I really do. I talk to a lot of wealthy people who struggle to spend. And I like the conversations a lot. I can understand because I grew up not wealthy. I saved, I earned a lot, grew my business, I became wealthy. So I really understand that spectrum. But also now, having money, I have learned how to spend it meaningfully. So when I talk to wealthy people who want to learn how to spend money, the sad truth is, most of them don't change. So here's the thing, I'll tell you the dynamic right now. They're like, "Yeah, yeah, I want to learn how to spend." I go, "Cool, let's talk about it." And then I go through some examples and we start putting them through some exercises and they're like, "Oh, this feels really horrible. I don't like this because it makes me worry like a thousand times more than I worry.
41:32 Ramit Sethi? I think I'm just gonna go back to my normal life where I accumulate like tons of money and I'll deal with this another day." That's what happens.
41:41 Ramit Sethi? Ryan, do you think you can change?
41:45 Speaker 02 I do, I'd like to really try. And there's, we had, I think, one of the biggest things, there was a pretty big change that occurred in our life due to an accident about two years ago. And that has really kind of changed my view of how I want to really take on shifting stuff.
42:05 Ramit Sethi? What happened?
42:07 Speaker 02 I was in a plane crash.
42:09 Ramit Sethi? Can you tell me a little bit more?
42:11 Speaker 02 I was trying to live a little bit of my rich life. I had a buddy that had a plane and we were doing backcountry flying and
42:20 Speaker 02 the engine quit on us and we ended up having to put it in the trees.
42:25 Speaker 02 And both of us almost, thankfully, we both made it, but it's a pretty big, pretty big experience that happened. And it made me realize that life's pretty short. And I want to do, I want to have that quality time with my family and my kids.
42:45 Ramit Sethi? Chloe, what was that like for you?
42:48 Speaker 01 It was life-changing, obviously. He was in Montana, I was in Colorado. I was home with our, at the time, three-year-old. And we were at a movie together and I remember knowing that something had happened. I had a feeling I was getting phone calls in a movie and I couldn't answer. And then I couldn't wait any longer. We left the movie and I was given the news that Ryan was trapped in the plane. And was they were attempting to cut him out and it was they weren't sure what what was going to be happening. I had to figure out what what to do, whether this, you know, whether I needed to bring our son up to Montana
43:29 Speaker 01 to possibly say goodbye to his dad or, you know, leave him in the care of family. While I went and spent two weeks in the ICU, the latter is what ended up happening. I'm proud to say that I was very instrumental in his recovery. Spent two weeks in the ICU with him, lifelighted him back down to Colorado, spent another multiple weeks through another hospital admittance for complications from the crash again and many weeks of physical therapy and other therapy that we all went through.
44:02 Ramit Sethi? My gosh, I did not know this and I have never spoken to anyone who has been in a plane crash. I'm so glad you're okay, Ryan, and and obviously for your family. Brian, when you think about what you took away from that, you mentioned, I didn't want to let life go by. What did you mean?
44:22 Speaker 02 I didn't want to lose the quality time experiences with my son and my wife. And I wanted to be able to capitalize on that as as much as I possibly could.
44:34 Ramit Sethi? How has that flowed into your day to day life now?
44:39 Speaker 02 I think it's changed my view on work pretty drastically. I still work hard and love the mission I do, but at the end of the day, there's always a time like, stuff can be done tomorrow because I'm going to get home and I'm going to eat dinner with my kid. I'm going to eat dinner with Chloe if. The kiddo or Chloe says they want to do something. I'm like, yeah, how try to take on a view of how can we make it happen?
45:02 Ramit Sethi? Did anything change for you after this crash? And of course, after physical therapy and all that, as it related to money?
45:09 Speaker 01 One of the biggest things for me was we're sitting in the ICU for a couple of weeks. And Ryan basically said, I've survived a plane crash. What the hell? Let's buy a fancy car. I can go race it up and down the street and live my best life. Let's go to Disneyland. Let's take our kids. He was gung ho for a period of probably a month, maybe two months.
45:30 Ramit Sethi? Wow.
45:31 Speaker 01 And then I think slowly over time, that part of Ryan fell back away. And he defaulted back to his old method. After the crash, he somewhat abandoned, if you will, the hobby of of general aviation. And I think has replaced it with pool maintenance and investment maintenance.
45:58 Ramit Sethi? I forgot about that. That's another one of the guy code. You got a leaf blower and you got to have your pool maintenance. Very good. So were you surprised that he went from, you know, the the race car and the Disneyland and all that? Back to his where he was before?
46:16 Speaker 01 I wasn't surprised. I was sad. I saw glimpses of, gosh, this could be the way forward. This could be our new life. We can live a little.
46:26 Speaker 01 You know, this has been a life changing experience and I really tried to hold on to that for as long as I could. And when I saw it slipping away, we got in a lot of arguments. We ended up going to marriage counseling in large part because of how I felt. I got these glimpses of who Ryan could be when it came to finances. And then it was slowly getting stripped away.
46:44 Speaker 02 I had no idea this happened.
46:47 Ramit Sethi? What's fascinating is how stable human nature really is. People often believe that they'll have this life-changing experience and everything will be different, like, "I'll win the lottery and the clouds will part and suddenly I'll be happy." That rarely happens. You win the lottery, two months later, you have similar problems. You go on an amazing vacation, feels great for the moment, but for most people, four weeks later, you're still stressed out about the same things. Ryan got in a plane crash, and for a short time, he changed everything, but then he defaulted to his old method, as Chloe put it. This is why it's so hard to truly change your relationship with money.
47:27 Ramit Sethi? You can do it, but making that change is not simply buying a pair of shoes, or sheets, or even setting aside $100 per month to spend on something you like. To live a rich life, you have to go much deeper than that. When we come back, we'll look for clues in Chloe and Ryan's past to help us understand where they are today. We'll be right back after this short break. My team at IWT is fully remote, and I love that. Because of that, we're constantly sending messages through Slack, through Google Drive, through all kinds of different technologies. And that's why my team is such a big fan of Whisperflow. Whisperflow turns the way you naturally talk into clean, ready-to-send text in any app on any device.
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49:09 Ramit Sethi? Now, back to the show. I want to understand a little bit about your upbringing with money. I'd like to start with you, Chloe. I know that you mentioned you grew up wealthy and private school, et cetera. When you think about money, what age did you learn about investing?
49:25 Speaker 01 Real estate was a pervasive conversation from the get-go. My parents invested in the best neighborhoods, bought the crappiest house, tore it down to the ground, built something beautiful. And it was always sold to a wealthy family prior to even the framing being completed.
49:41 Ramit Sethi? Right. So what age would you say you were when you first heard about the concept of real estate investing?
49:49 Speaker 01 Probably 10 or so, when I was able to understand that my parents were buying homes on spec and remodeling them or rebuilding them and then selling them for profit.
50:01 Ramit Sethi? Quite interesting, don't you think? 10 years old, learning about a highly sophisticated type of investing. This is very typical of wealthy kids. People who have financially savvy parents are often taught this stuff way earlier than others. Okay. So you continued growing up, teenage years, anything happen as it relates to money?
50:21 Speaker 01 I do recall asking my parents for a brand name outfit of some sort, probably some...
50:28 Ramit Sethi? Which brand?
50:29 Speaker 01 Juicy Couture sweatsuit.
50:31 Ramit Sethi? Juicy Couture! Okay, all right.
50:35 Speaker 01 Because that's what was popular. And I remember my brother pulling me aside and saying, "Chloe, Mom and Dad can't really buy that for you." Because although we go to the same school as these very wealthy families and we live in a neighborhood and a house that is just as nice as they do, Mom and Dad work very blue collar jobs and they don't bring in the kind of income that your friends' parents, who are lawyers and doctors, bring in. And so, we are not them.
51:10 Ramit Sethi? What did you make of that? It's quite interesting.
51:13 Speaker 01 It hit me hard and it immediately put into perspective that I felt lesser than these other girls that I went to school with because my parents couldn't afford to get me a juicy kisser, juicy kisser sweatshirt like it was nothing.
51:28 Ramit Sethi? Brian, did you know all this?
51:29 Speaker 02 Didn't? We've talked a lot about it.
51:31 Ramit Sethi? Pretty interesting.
51:32 Speaker 02 One thing she didn't share is college.
51:35 Ramit Sethi? Oh yeah, tell me about that.
51:37 Speaker 01 My brother is three and a half years older than me and throughout him going to college, I never had any implication that my parents couldn't afford to put us through college. But I think that realization came about the summer between my first and second year of college. I was going to a private liberal arts college, very expensive, and the conversation happened around my parents selling the current house we were living in because they were building their dream house, which is the house that Ryan talks about, up the canyon. And the conversation surrounded, you know, you're gonna have to take out more student loans to pay for this because, you know, we're building the house and we're in the thick of that and we can't help you. I made the choice to transfer to a state school
52:20 Speaker 01 because the tuition would have been a sixth of what I was paying in student loans.
52:26 Ramit Sethi? That's a big deal. I mean, I think a lot of people, maybe including myself, would have been like, ah, I'll just like deal with it later. I'm gonna stick around. I have my friends at this college. I'm gonna finish off and then I'll deal with the financial thing later. That's very impressive.
52:42 Speaker 02 I tell her all the time, she does great things.
52:44 Ramit Sethi? Yeah.
52:45 Speaker 02 But I recognize, I think there's something deeply ingrained in me. And then there's also that, the fear, and I think the fear comes from things I've seen with her mom.
52:56 Ramit Sethi? Oh, okay. Let's talk about that. Before we talk about that, I wanted to share what Chloe wrote about their money challenges in her application to the podcast. Quote, "It was really fueled when Ryan met my mom early on when we were dating and saw her spending habits and what he perceived as my parents' irresponsible lack of saving for their future." Let's get into this.
53:23 Speaker 01 My parents have three homes and all of them are equally as beautiful and luxurious as the first one he described.
53:30 Ramit Sethi? There's two of them and they have three homes.
53:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, and.
53:36 Speaker 01 You know, something happened pretty early on in our engagement or slash marriage. Leading up to our wedding, my parents were willing to pay for our wedding. Um, and then we got a call from my dad that they were looking to buy this condo in Mexico. But in order for him to get the loan on this other property that they own, he needed to not be the co-signer on my car loan any longer. This was literally two months leading up to our wedding. Um, that this happened and we were also in the process of buying our first home. So it was stressful for us to take on paying a car, especially a car that had 0.9% interest. We didn't really need to do that, but we were kind of put in a situation where we had to do that. So I think there's a little bit of resentment or worry that comes from Ryan.
54:21 Speaker 01 That these situations where they want to live this lifestyle of having all these beautiful homes and traveling the world.
54:29 Ramit Sethi? Okay.
54:29 Speaker 01 But they can't really fund it easily.
54:32 Ramit Sethi? So Ryan, you think she's going to become her parents?
54:36 Speaker 02 I think that's a viewpoint that gets stuck in the back of me that I'm trying to get rid of.
54:40 Ramit Sethi? This is actually comical because it's like one of those movie scenes where one person says something on the phone, but then the other one hears it wrong, which then sets off this cataclysm, right? Watch this. Um, Chloe, have you ever talked to your parents about exactly why they needed to pay off the car loan? No, right?
54:59 Speaker 01 No.
55:00 Ramit Sethi? Well, I highly encourage you to do that because it's going to totally change the narrative that you two have created. So basically he wanted to reduce the amount of debt that he had outstanding, right? He wanted to get a better loan. So my guess is they're like, we need to reduce the amount of debt. It's going to change our credit profile. So like, let us just pay it off. And you guys were like, oh no, they're probably like in dire straits. We'll pay it off even though it puts us in this position. And now it's become this thing. I am willing to bet that's what happened.
55:32 Speaker 01 I think that's exactly what happened. They have multiple investment properties. They were probably just using one to leverage it.
55:37 Ramit Sethi? Is that going to change the way that you think, Ryan, about this family history?
55:43 Speaker 02 No.
55:44 Ramit Sethi? No, of course not. The facts have changed, but my feelings have not. All right, that's honest. But like, I don't get it.
55:52 Speaker 02 It's the complete opposite of the way I grew up, which is what's scary to me.
55:57 Ramit Sethi? I understand that, but it's what wealthy people with a lot of real estate do. All right, fine. Okay, Chloe, are you on the same page?
56:05 Speaker 01 They're very opinionated that real estate is a very good investment. They tend to speak negatively when it comes to our choice of investing. They think the stock market is-
56:16 Ramit Sethi? What? Index funds?
56:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, they think that the markets are risky. And in 2008, everyone lost their 401ks and people couldn't retire. And it was dire straits.
56:25 Ramit Sethi? So that's actually really funny, but very common. Because real estate and stock market investors tend to be mutually exclusive.
56:34 Speaker 01 Right.
56:35 Ramit Sethi? Right? Like, literally, all the people who get mad at me online when I post about real estate, because they bought a house, blah, blah, blah. They don't understand the stock market at all. And then the stock market people look at real estate, they're like, why the [bleep] would I lock all my money up in this illiquid, high transaction fee, high maintenance costs, having asset? So, all right, fine. All right, Ryan, I want to hear about your childhood. When you grew up, what'd your parents say about money?
57:03 Speaker 02 Live slightly above the means of what you need to have and then save, so that you've got a comfortable living for the rest of your life after you're done working. I can remember back when, gosh, probably eight or nine years old, we went to the local credit union and I was able to open a savings account for myself. My friends all had video game systems and I was like, man, I want a video game system. My mom's like, you don't need that, you don't need that. If you've got money in your thing, then you can go buy it yourself. So I went and bought it from ShopCo, bought a game for it, plugged it in, started playing. And then I was like, man, this, I just wasted my money on this. And I actually put it back in the box. I took it back, like, a day later, took it back, returned it and put my money back into the savings account.
57:48 Ramit Sethi? Did you grow up religious?
57:50 Speaker 02 Yeah.
57:51 Ramit Sethi? Yeah.
57:53 Ramit Sethi? Little bit of self-flagellation going on. Whoa, look at Chloe's face.
57:58 Speaker 01 We're not religious now, but I think that's the narrative that has followed him. You know, I'm gonna save, save, save at the expense of my own happiness.
58:06 Ramit Sethi? And even when I save up wisely for the thing that I want, when I get it,
58:18 Ramit Sethi? I don't really need this. I can survive and I can be a good person without needing these material things.
58:25 Speaker 01 And the guilt that has followed him and I think still follows him with every purchase that he deems unnecessary.
58:31 Ramit Sethi? Ryan, you agree?
58:32 Speaker 02 Yeah, we had a massive garden. We grew all of our, almost all of our vegetables were from the garden and we would all tended to get them. We hunted, so almost all the meat that we had was from there. We would do a grocery tip like once a week and my parents had the coupons and everything ready to go. And we would buy just what we needed.
58:50 Ramit Sethi? First of all, I just want to say, I don't think there's anything wrong with the way you grew up. Like, your parents were teaching you about opening up an account at a credit union. That's awesome. They were teaching you about needs and wants. That's awesome. They were obviously very frugal in terms of like what you ate. And then they, and then they taught you, save your money. If you want a Sega, go get it. But like, these are very valuable lessons.
59:14 Speaker 02 Yep.
59:15 Ramit Sethi? However, what went wrong? Because would you agree that you don't have a healthy relationship with money today?
59:24 Speaker 02 Yeah, I agree. And it's because everything is always a savings. They didn't spend on themselves either. I know, I know my parents didn't spend much on anything that they had because they were trying to save it, right? They wouldn't go above anything that they needed, right? So I saw that my entire life growing up. We would get a few wants here and there, like you sprinkle a couple of wants. Cause that helps make you a little happy, but you don't get a ton. Christmas was an example too. Like Santa gave you one awesome, cool gift and then you got a one or two gifts from the family. And that was kind of the good thing. And it was usually, you know, you get some like underwear, you get some socks.
1:00:01 Speaker 01 Saving funds.
1:00:03 Speaker 02 Yeah, I got savings bonds.
1:00:05 Ramit Sethi? Savings bonds. Why do all our parents love to give us savings bonds? Like the worst, literally the worst possible thing you could give. You, the kids can't use it. It's just this freaking thing. You put it in an envelope and you lose it and it basically pays nothing.
1:00:18 Speaker 01 And do you know how difficult it is to actually cash out a savings bond?
1:00:21 Speaker 02 I had to go to your favorite bank to cash a lot of them.
1:00:24 Ramit Sethi? What Wells Fargo?
1:00:25 Speaker 02 Yes. Cause they, but they have a limit on how much you can cash out each time.
1:00:30 Ramit Sethi? Wait, how much were you cashing in?
1:00:31 Speaker 01 A lot.
1:00:32 Speaker 02 I probably had around $20,000 in savings.
1:00:34 Ramit Sethi? Hold on. Guy's talking like he's living like a subsistence farmer and all of a sudden he's telling me he's got 20K in savings bonds? Where did that come from?
1:00:42 Speaker 02 My parents and my grandma and my uncle had bought me almost every birthday, I think. And every Christmas I got a savings bond. Anywhere between $50 bonds up to $500 bonds.
1:00:53 Ramit Sethi? 500 bucks, that's a lot of money, man.
1:00:55 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:00:55 Ramit Sethi? Who's wealthy in your family? Grandparents?
1:00:58 Speaker 02 I wouldn't say they were wealthy, but they saved and they were able to pass down pretty good wealth to my parents. And my parents did the same thing. They worked. You know, I would argue that we were upper, upper middle class my entire life.
1:01:10 Ramit Sethi? You're upper middle class?
1:01:12 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
1:01:13 Ramit Sethi? You know, the way you talk is not upper middle class. You realize that, right?
1:01:16 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think part of it, my mom grew up on a farm.
1:01:19 Ramit Sethi? Okay.
1:01:20 Speaker 02 In the middle of North Dakota and they, like she tells me stories of how they rode horses to school and they milked the cows for food. And so it was very much, you don't do anything more than you need. And they all worked farm. That was their job.
1:01:33 Ramit Sethi? Would you say that they were poor?
1:01:35 Speaker 02 They didn't have running water until they were seven years old.
1:01:38 Ramit Sethi? Okay, I think that's poor. Think about this. Your mom grew up poor. She became upper middle class, which is amazing. But she retained some of the same mentalities as not having running water. Passed that on to you. You freaking graduated with $20,000 in savings bonds. That's like rich for a kid. That's a lot of freaking money. And now here you are with your own kids, passing down that mentality of not even having running water. But do you realize that in just one generation? How much has changed socioeconomically for you? I mean, you're a pilot in the military.
1:02:19 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:02:20 Ramit Sethi? So your finances have changed. Your living situation has changed, but this has not changed. Your psychology.
1:02:29 Ramit Sethi? Okay. Now we're starting to get somewhere. What if you just keep going on like this? I mean, you've done a great job. Your parents taught you to save. You've saved, invested, et cetera. You know, you're all, you're gonna be good. You're gonna have a lot of money.
1:02:43 Ramit Sethi? What if you just keep going like this?
1:02:46 Speaker 02 Well, then I just die and give a lot of money to my kids, but it's kind of boring.
1:02:51 Ramit Sethi? Yeah.
1:02:53 Speaker 02 I mean, my parents are a prime example. We lived in the same house all the way till I was thirty years old is when they decided to go buy their dream home. I don't know exactly what my parents have, but I would, I would guess they have more than ten million dollars in retirement capability.
1:03:07 Ramit Sethi? Your parents have more than ten million dollars?
1:03:10 Speaker 02 Probably in there. I hate to say it. I, I don't want to be like my parents. And unless I start working on it right now, I'm, we're gonna be right there.
1:03:18 Ramit Sethi? I love that. I love that. All jokes aside, you, you have a lot of things to thank your parents for. They have obviously taught you some really valuable lessons. And I think that's incredible. I think a lot of people would be lucky to have grown up the way you did with those lessons. I think that probably they didn't understand the implications of some of the things they were doing. When you repeat things like needs versus wants, like 10,000 times to your kids growing up, they really believe it. When you surround their financial education with a, a religious shroud, kids absorb that and they internalize things like guilt and shame. And when you don't model having a healthy relationship with money, which of course
1:04:01 Ramit Sethi? must include spending on some things that make you happy, then your kids will never pick up on it. The good news is the two of you are obviously incredibly intelligent. Um, and you both function in many ways really well as a team. And for me, the, the biggest, the biggest thing here, Ryan, is you saying like, look,
1:04:23 Ramit Sethi? My parents taught me a lot of great things, but I don't want to be them when I'm their age. You haven't built the skill of spending money meaningfully, or in your case, really spending money at all. You know, it's quite striking that for a grown man, father of two, husband, can't list off, you know, a few things he's bought like in the last, say, five or so years, 10 years.
1:04:49 Ramit Sethi? I would say that's probably an unhealthy relationship with money, especially considering how much you have. I think that really what we're going to discover is that at the point you are in your life, you already have the things you need. Like, you checked all those boxes. So now it's almost like you're going into this scary world where what you were taught as a kid is this new chapter of your life is all scary and bad, but that's exactly where you need to go. Otherwise, you end up with $10 million, or in your case, more, and no idea what to do with it. We actually have to build the skill so that the next time we talk, I go, "What are you spending, um, you know, 4,000 bucks a month on?"
1:05:31 Ramit Sethi? And you just lay it out for me. You go, "Sit down, Ramit. I'm about to break this [bleep] down for you. We have a coffee addiction. We brought in a barista to our house to teach us how to brew it. Then we do this thing in this trip, and we take our kids, and blah, blah, and we do a date night, and on and on and on." How would that feel to you two?
1:05:48 Speaker 01 It'd be nice. I don't remember the last time we went out on a date night.
1:05:52 Ramit Sethi? What? Why? I mean, what, you don't have enough money? Only $1.8 million invested. How much do you need?
1:05:58 Speaker 02 I think the biggest thing for us is trust in childcare.
1:06:02 Ramit Sethi? So let's talk about that. So you do, I will say, you are paying, uh, 4,000 bucks a month for private school and childcare.
1:06:12 Ramit Sethi? And you both work. So it's a necessity. Let's just talk about it for a second. Dream with me for a second. Let's say that it was important for the two of you to go on a date. Let's just start at once a month.
1:06:26 Ramit Sethi? How could you do it?
1:06:27 Speaker 01 It's hard for us. We obviously are in the military, so we don't live near any of our family. And we move every three to four years. So we have to build a new community every time we relocate. We've lived here for 18 months or so, and we just haven't yet established that community of trust.
1:06:42 Ramit Sethi? Yeah.
1:06:43 Speaker 01 So it's been, it's been difficult.
1:06:45 Ramit Sethi? Okay. I think it's gonna happen. It's just a matter of time. Fine. What else would be in your rich life?
1:06:53 Speaker 01 I would love to take a trip, just Ryan and I. We haven't done that since our honeymoon. I would love to just be able to leave the kids with one of our families and, and go somewhere.
1:07:05 Speaker 02 Funny enough, I even told Chloe the other day, when we applied for the podcast, I said, you know what we should do? I know Ramit has wanted to do stuff live. Like, why don't we fly out to New York?
1:07:15 Ramit Sethi? Whoa.
1:07:15 Speaker 02 This happened super fast. And we were talking on the phone, so we didn't get the chance.
1:07:20 Ramit Sethi? But I liked, I liked your energy behind that. It's quite expansive. Can we talk about how that might be possible?
1:07:28 Speaker 01 It's tough. My mom works now again, so, you know, she wouldn't as easily be able to take care of our kids. And she's one person I trust implicitly with being able to take care of our kids.
1:07:38 Ramit Sethi? Can I say something? Normally I would be like, okay.
1:07:42 Ramit Sethi? I get it. But the thing is, you have $2 million and you're investing $7,000 per month. And you're telling me you can't take a freaking three day trip? Like, I'm not even saying leave the kid behind. Bring them if you want. Whatever. We can talk about all the options. But if you're investing $7,000 per month, then we don't have a lack of money here. We have a lack of creativity. So I'm gonna push it back again, back to you. How could we make that happen?
1:08:13 Speaker 02 We called Goob up, which is who we call grandma, and... Say, "Hey Grandma, come on down. You take PTO, we'll pay you for your PTO that you're having to take since you're not working."
1:08:24 Speaker 01 I'm just thinking bigger here. I know there's au pair services or nanny services that are highly trusted, expensive as hell, but highly trusted.
1:08:34 Ramit Sethi? Love that idea. Amazing. What else?
1:08:38 Speaker 01 We could bring my parents along if they wanted to come along.
1:08:41 Ramit Sethi? Okay, great. So you could bring your parents with you. Fantastic. What's different right now about the way we're talking versus the way you typically talk about money?
1:08:50 Speaker 01 We're thinking big. We're not worried about the cost, putting it into a spreadsheet, you know, making sure that it makes sense. We're just throwing out big ideas.
1:09:01 Ramit Sethi? Ideas first. Visionary ideas first. Costs later. Right? When we're dreaming, we do not talk about costs. We talk about like, what would be magical, amazing? So many of us stop ourselves from our dreams before we even dream them. We let the tail wag the dog. We let the cost drive the vision when the vision is what should come first. I have to cut in here because this is such an important moment. You know how I'm always talking about the fact that money alone won't change your feelings? Look at what's happening here with Chloe and Ryan. They have tons of money, but they haven't gone on a date in a long time. Why? Childcare.
1:09:46 Ramit Sethi? This is a problem money can solve, but not the way they're thinking about it. They're still playing small. A common pattern I see with people who have money. Remember episode 131? Matt and Ruann had millions and they wanted to spend time together. But when I asked why they couldn't hire someone, for example, to handle their laundry, Ruann said, "They can't do my laundry the way I want it done."
1:10:15 Ramit Sethi? If you have millions of dollars and you can't find someone to do your laundry, or a babysitter to take a couple hours away for the two of you, you don't have a money problem, you have a creativity problem. Notice that neither of them is saying that they're petrified of being away from their kids. We're not talking about that. They're simply saying, "We don't have childcare." And once you solve that, that small problem in the overall big picture of your rich life, that unlocks the ability to use money to solve bigger, more complex, more important problems. To put it another way, you cannot let a babysitter get in the way of you living a rich life, especially with millions of dollars. Listen as I push them.
1:10:59 Ramit Sethi? Suddenly Chloe reveals how their attitudes towards childcare have been holding them back. Listen. The minute you solve this childcare question with somebody you really trust, no compromises, deeply trust them, the minute you can start to think not just five minutes out, but 30 minutes out, then a day out, then a month out. So all we've got to do is focus on this specific question. How do we find trusted childcare that we both feel good about? How might you set up a process to make that happen?
1:11:36 Speaker 01 We need to be more willing to throw more money at it, to be honest. I think we tended to be frugal with hiring, you know, young high school, college girls. And I think we just need to be willing to really hire a professional, an expert. And if it costs us 30 bucks an hour, it costs us 30 bucks an hour.
1:11:57 Ramit Sethi? This is what we're debating, 30 bucks an hour? [bleep] looking at 6907 going every month to investments. Guys, do you see how... Thirty bucks an hour has stopped you from taking a trip to New York?
1:12:10 Speaker 02 I still have the fear of when I don't have a job or I try to swap careers. Is our savings enough to continue through it? Which is, it's irrational because we ran the numbers purely on our 401ks.
1:12:22 Ramit Sethi? Yeah.
1:12:24 Speaker 02 And it shows like, even if I stop working, we'll be perfectly fine.
1:12:28 Ramit Sethi? Right now, when you think about money, it's worry. And so it will be very easy for you, Ryan, to go the rest of your life being like, "What about this? What about that?" And you will literally just escalator your way right into your parents.
1:12:44 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:12:45 Ramit Sethi? So we actually have to make changes that feel uncomfortable and actually are different. Chloe identified something really spot on, and that is, "Wow, we've really been trying to cheap out on some stuff." When you tell me, "We've been trying to basically pay as little as we can for like something really important." First of all, childcare for your kids, but also not just for your kids' safety, although that's first, but for the connection between the two of you, I go, "Guys, come on. That's not just being frugal, that's just being cheap." And your relationship needs care. Chloe, I love that you said, "Hey, let's actually like put more money behind it." I love that. To me, this is like one of the biggest things you can do. And once you do that, then the dominoes start to fall to enable you,
1:13:30 Ramit Sethi? first at least just a night out, dinner, then dancing, and then perhaps New York. Beautiful.
1:13:38 Ramit Sethi? Imagine you start going out once every two weeks for a date, and you know, first few times is gonna be difficult. Your son's probably gonna not wanna see you go, but you tell him, "Here's what we're doing." And as he gets more comfortable, especially because he's having fun at home, you tell him why. What would you tell him? Why are mom and dad going out?
1:14:00 Speaker 02 We would tell him we're investing in each other. And that's kind of like tonight, that's what we said to him. Mommy and daddy are going to somebody that's going to help us talk about how we get better with money. And that's an investment in us and to help our family grow better. He was like, okay. We said, it's kind of like kindergarten, right? You go to kindergarten to learn how you do stuff so you're better. He's like, oh, yeah.
1:14:21 Ramit Sethi? I love that. That is great. What if he was, what if he pulled out my book? What if he was like, um, is it a, is it a low cost investment? Or is it a, because I don't like those front, front end lows. It's a real waste of money. Okay. So great job messaging that. I would love for you to carry that on to other examples.
1:14:45 Speaker 01 Carrying that over to trips. You know, buddy, we decided that we've worked really hard and we all deserve a vacation. And we're going to, you know, invest in spending time together as a family in this fun place.
1:14:58 Ramit Sethi? I love that.
1:15:01 Ramit Sethi? Can I just tell you? Your CSP does not even indicate to me for one second that you two are out of control with your spending. Not in the slightest. I think that the two of you simply have not connected deeply on what your rich life is. So Ryan, you're playing defense for the last 40 years. Spending money is bad. Needs, needs, needs. Wants are bad. Wants are not bad. Once you have earned enough to be able to afford these, you should be delighted to be able to get them. You're still investing, you're still saving, and we've worked so hard to be able to get these wants.
1:15:41 Ramit Sethi? Thoughts?
1:15:43 Speaker 01 I would like Ryan to find joy in spending money and find joy in, you know, buying things for the kids like I do and buying things for other people, buying things for me. I would love for that to be a part of it. And I think that what he'll end up finding is that that incorporates quite well into his rich life. He just doesn't really know it.
1:16:06 Ramit Sethi? Sometimes being generous is the cheat code to learning how to find joy in spending money.
1:16:11 Speaker 01 Yeah. I think he'd find joy in it and I think he would understand why I spend the way that I do because I find joy in that.
1:16:19 Ramit Sethi? What do you think, Ryan?
1:16:21 Speaker 02 I think what I would look at is if I could buy things that would give me more time with the kids.
1:16:27 Ramit Sethi? You have fifty five hundred bucks in your guilt free spending account, right? All right, let's use some of it. Let's say two thousand bucks. Can we make a plan right now? Let's do one for the kids and one for Chloe.
1:16:37 Speaker 02 For the kid, I think I'd like to buy a trip on the carousel or whatever it is thing. For Chloe, she does like to have New York clothes. Get her a massage, schedule her a massage.
1:16:55 Ramit Sethi? Love it. Everybody look at Chloe's face, by the way. Just ear to ear grin right now. Look at that smile. All right, keep going, Ryan.
1:17:03 Speaker 02 Get a car detailing for her car, so she doesn't have to worry about it. Try to help find somebody, a house cleaner, to clean the house.
1:17:10 Speaker 01 It gets overwhelming when you've got two kids and I don't have the time I would like to be able to devote to it.
1:17:16 Speaker 02 If we get a house cleaner, it releases the time for you and I to actually go and play with the kids and not have to think about that. So or build Legos or whatever. It's an investment in both of us is being able to have that quality time.
1:17:31 Speaker 01 I would like that. I'd like to be able to spend our weekends going on adventures as a family instead of being strapped down to, oh, gosh, I've got to clean this bathroom this weekend, and I've got to do this laundry, and I've got to do all of the things to get ready for the following week.
1:17:45 Ramit Sethi? Good. Love that. This is a three dollar question for the two of you. You should have somebody in there by Friday. Like, boom, done. Question, question answered. And I want to emphasize to you, the first person you bring in might not be good.
1:17:59 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:18:00 Ramit Sethi? That's okay. That's totally fine. That's life. The second person you bring in might not be good, but you're getting better each time. You're like, ooh, they didn't clean behind this. They need to do this laundry. You're documenting it like a freaking SOP. The third person comes, you got a laminated document. It's like a checklist. Who am I talking to a freaking pilot? Read the checklist.
1:18:17 Speaker 02 Yep.
1:18:18 Ramit Sethi? They go, oh, uh, what about this? You go, it's on page six A. Have you not read the checklist?
1:18:24 Ramit Sethi? Can I show you guys something? Look at your conscious spending plan.
1:18:30 Ramit Sethi? So your guilt-free spending currently says you spend $4,318 a month, which we all know is a lie. It's way less. I think you told me you spend a thousand bucks a month eating out. So you basically have like $3,000 that's ends up just getting invested, right? Do you see that you've been under-investing in your own relationship and rich life?
1:18:50 Ramit Sethi? What if you just actually respected the CSP and said, "Hey, we have $3,000 a month to be spending on our rich life, guilt-free"?
1:19:04 Ramit Sethi? Yep. That's the key here is all the stuff on the CSP, which is like fixed costs, investments, savings. That's where you've been spending so much of your time. But the fact is, you already won. All of those are dialed in. They're great. But you've been neglecting the last part, guilt-free spending, and it shows. It shows because there's a fake number there. You don't even spend it. You're only spending 25% of what the CSP tells you. And that's why, that explains everything. It explains why you're scrubbing the toilets, why you haven't gone on a date, and on and on and on.
1:19:48 Ramit Sethi? So that's, to me, this is so beautiful. It doesn't mean you're bad people, not at all. It just means we know where you need to be spending the majority of your time.
1:19:56 Speaker 01 I think you nailed it. I think we absolutely have not been investing in ourselves. Look what we have to show for it. But at the end of the day, is that going to sustain us? Sure, financially, but emotionally, I don't, I don't know if it would.
1:20:13 Ramit Sethi? I totally appreciate that. You have enough money. You're going to have many times more than that. You know that. And...
1:20:23 Ramit Sethi? But I want you two to have like a super strong relationship with each other, with your kids, with yourselves, and of course with your money. I think it's really cool that you have gotten yourself to the position where you can retire from the military and be really thoughtful about what your next choice is. Is there anything on this CSP that stands out to you that you are worried or concerned about?
1:20:50 Speaker 01 I think Ryan looks at how much our mortgage is and the house we want to move to next. And I think that that number scares him, especially, you know, once he drops down to possibly only having a pension after he retires from the military. I take the perspective of what if we paid cash? What if we liquidated some of our investments and we paid cash for a house? And then our fixed costs every month were lower and it wasn't as stressful if changes to our income shift.
1:21:19 Ramit Sethi? Fair enough. That's a good option. Or don't buy a house until you know Ryan's next career.
1:21:29 Speaker 01 Right.
1:21:30 Speaker 02 And that's, we've talked about that actually a lot for this next move is
1:21:32 Ramit Sethi? Yeah.
1:21:33 Speaker 02 potentially we'll rent in the area that we want to go to.
1:21:37 Ramit Sethi? Perfect.
1:21:37 Speaker 02 Start to learn the market and everything like that and figure out where we want to live and let things stabilize and then we'll buy that house.
1:21:44 Ramit Sethi? Love it. That's if you're not going to be earning money for a while, that's actually fine. You got the pension, you have all this money aggressively saved and invested. Fantastic. Take some time. You earned it, right? Chill for a little while.
1:21:59 Ramit Sethi? But probably don't take on a $1.5 million purchase when you're not sure how much you're going to earn. That would, that would just basically create the, the next chapter of your life is like, I gotta work to pay this thing off. And I don't want that for you. I love that you work. I love that you, you help your family. I love that. But I also want more for you at $1.8 million in your 30s. So risk management, probably don't take on a huge asset until you know you can carefully cover it. The other thing that's way more interesting is what do we want our life to look like? What do we want? This is where it, you have to start with a vision because maybe the next job you get, you actually don't need to make that much money.
1:22:42 Speaker 02 That's actually been the biggest conversation piece we've had because I can roll from a job right now, right into the doing the same thing and making 250, 300 K a year on top of my pension. And I was like, you know, but I don't want to do that. I want, I actually want to work from home. I want to have flexibility with my kids. It doesn't matter if it makes less because I've got the pension to soften the blow on it. And Chloe and I have talked about that a lot. It's like, yeah, I want to do something that I have a lot of love and passion for.
1:23:15 Speaker 02 And it may take a couple, may take that float to get there.
1:23:17 Ramit Sethi? Cool. I love that. I love that you have gotten yourself to a position in life already in your 30s, where you can start to have these type of conversations. I would encourage you to start with the vision. And I know that's hard for you, Ryan. It's very hard for you to come up with a vision because since childhood, you were, it was drummed into you like needs, not wants. Okay. I have a couple of just final things I want to share with you both. There's this phrase I read in a book once. It said, when your partner whispers something, treat it like a scream. Meaning Chloe has said openly, I want you to get me gifts. I love when someone is that direct. It just makes it so easy. You want me to get you gifts? I will get you gifts. Beautiful. So Ryan, that is where you start to spend your time and money.
1:24:00 Ramit Sethi? Right now you have a story you tell yourself, I'm not like a gift giver. That could be changed in like a week. But just the idea of you getting gifts for her, I think would be amazing. Second, becoming decisive, I think that will be strategic for you. So I am decisive. And just asking yourself in every part of my financial life, and maybe even non-financial, where can I become decisive? The example we did with the house cleaner is a classic one. You know, for me, like if I was finding a house cleaner, it would be Monday, by Friday, they're in the place, cleaning it. Boom. Finally, I want you to just use this metaphor in your life now of turning the page. You have a new chapter of your life. You're already one in chapter one. You crushed it.
1:24:44 Ramit Sethi? You saved, invested, and you're still doing it. So like, great. But the new chapter, it's time to write what that chapter is for yourself. That chapter is having fun. That chapter is being generous. And I think importantly, that chapter is starting to understand where you. Like to spend your time and money, right? You've got to learn for you. I want to thank Ryan and Chloe for sharing their story. What an amazing couple. Let's check in and listen to their follow ups. Up first, Ryan.
1:25:12 Speaker 02 Hey, Ramit. Great talking to you the other night about some challenge, a challenge that I've had in the money world for quite some time of myself, which is that frugality and cheapness that I've been trying to work through. But it's always seemed like a very large mountain decline. And having that talk with you and Chloe the other night really gave a lot of support and confidence to continue to turn that page and reshape that money narrative. I'm going to look for that positive look on money and I'm dubbing this saying that I'm looking to buy quality time. And in doing so, I set a goal for that, which is actually going to be buying one quality time of enter activity per month for the next three months. And that'll get us the new year and then hopefully reassess that after that and hopefully buy more quality time.
1:25:55 Speaker 02 In doing so, was super decisive after we talked and already made a couple of things. One, I hired a house cleaner. They start tomorrow, which is going to be great. And that's going to buy some quality time with Chloe and I and the kids. And then two, bought the Ferris wheel ride that the kiddo really wanted to do. And the whole family is going to do to that this weekend on Saturday. And then a piece, not necessarily buying quality time, but trying to help me not be as concerned about it. I moved all the bank accounts, the credit card stuff, apps from the front page of the iPhone back to the back pages of the iPhone. So it kind of turns me away from wanting to check that or it's not right in front of the face. I still do have a long ways to go climbing that mountain and trying to turn the page on that narrative.
1:26:37 Speaker 02 But I know the support from Chloe, as well as you and others in my circle are going to really help be able to climb through that. So thanks.
1:26:44 Ramit Sethi? And now Chloe's follow up.
1:26:46 Speaker 01 Hey, Ramit. So quick update, following our conversation, I think our natural tendencies for me to be more of the big picture dreamer and Ryan to be more of the downer, kind of continued to persist in the discussions that we had over the next couple of days. But I also recognize that it's completely unrealistic for me to expect that Ryan now has all the validation that he needs to have a healthier and more joyful approach to spending the wealth that we've worked really hard to build. I think my biggest takeaway is that I need to be less defensive and recognize that he's coming from a place of fear and guilt when he thinks of spending money and that my role is to be more encouraging and express my support to him more often, even with the smaller baby step changes that he made.
1:27:29 Speaker 01 Ryan has already taken really decisive steps toward finding ways that we can utilize our money to ease my mental load and allow for us to have more quality time as a family. I'm also really proud to say that I didn't end up reimbursing our joint account from my no questions asked money for the very unnecessary but also very wanted purchase of our third family Christmas tree. I'm working on feeling more confident with making those unnecessary purchases for our kids from our joint account instead of needing to hide behind my personal account as much. So, thanks again for all of your help. I know that it's only going to continue to get better and we're going to continue to support each other as it does. So, thank you.
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