Pod Insights Money For Couples with Ramit Sethi 191. “My wife doesn't respect me because she earns 5x more” About this episode Dillon (30) and Carrie (29) are navigating a tricky dynamic in their relationship: income disparity. Carrie works in tech, earning a high salary, but her anxiety about money has her constantly second-guessing their financial situation. Dillon, a PhD student living on a $40K annual stipend, is growing increasingly frustrated with Carrie's dismissive comments and her inability to see their combined income as a strength. Can Carrie improve her money psychology so they can live a happier, rich life together?
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Transcript 16,050 words · 4 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 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 Speaker 00 and you can join today at iwt.com/100k.
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2:00 Speaker 00 On today's episode, meet Dylan and Carrie.
2:02 Speaker 01 I like how I feel about money. I personally wish that you could kind of feel more relaxed about money.
2:08 Speaker 02 I tend to blow things out of proportion, or kind of like leap to a bigger problem.
2:16 Speaker 00 Dylan is 30, Carrie is 29, and they are struggling with their disparity in income.
2:22 Speaker 01 I feel like if I made more money, Carrie's stress and pressure would go away.
2:25 Speaker 00 Carrie works in tech. She earns a very high income, but she's constantly worried about money.
2:31 Speaker 02 I wouldn't know what being relaxed or confident about money even looks like. The worrying just really comes naturally to me, if I'm comfort in like looking down the road a little bit and seeing potential problems.
2:46 Speaker 00 Dylan is a PhD student. He earns a $40,000 annual stipend, and he is frustrated by Carrie's belittling comments.
2:56 Speaker 02 I have said that I'm the breadwinner and he's my housewife.
2:59 Speaker 00 And her inability to see their combined income in a positive light.
3:04 Speaker 01 I think we'd just be happier if like we did feel like we made over 200K.
3:08 Speaker 00 Carrie's view of finances is so negative that it's causing her to drag her feet on taking a bucket list vacation that they've been planning for years.
3:17 Speaker 01 When we talk about doing something that is relatively affordable, given how much money we have, like going to Japan, it's like yes, and then no, and then yes, and then no, because she's constantly worrying about, you know, the future.
3:31 Speaker 00 Can Carrie improve her money psychology so they can live a happier, richer life together?
3:36 Speaker 02 I've always felt that way about money. I have to actively work to not feel that way.
3:42 Speaker 00 Let's meet Dylan and Carrie.
3:51 Speaker 00 I want to say thank you to Amazon Music for selecting Money for Couples as a New Year, New You featured show. And here's a reminder that you can listen to Money for Couples episodes every week on Amazon Music, or ask Alexa, Alexa, play Money for Couples with Ramit Sethi on Amazon Music.
4:12 Speaker 00 Okay, I have Dylan and Carrie's conscious spending plan in front of me. I'm getting ready for a conversation. Let's take a look at what I noticed. This is a young couple, 29 and 30 years old. $415,000 in assets, probably a house. Investments, $341,000 at that age? Very impressive. Savings, $23,000, a little low relative to the others, but okay. Debt's 353 for a total net worth of 426. Very impressive already. Let's take a look at the income. Gross monthly income, whoa. Okay, so one partner earns a lot more than the other one, like more than five times more. We have one person earning 3,000 bucks a month. The other earns $16,000 a month.
4:54 Speaker 00 Maybe one of them is in school? Could be, that would be my guess, although at 29, maybe grad school. Total household income, $236,000. Great income. I'm thinking about why their savings is kind of low. It doesn't really particularly bother me, but I would probably have that number higher. Fine. Fixed costs are at 33%. Okay, that's one of the lowest numbers I've ever seen here. They have mortgage. I mean, what do I care? All this is very affordable. If you're at 33%, you can do whatever you want. You've got room to spare. By having a really low fixed cost, in part because they have a really high income, that allows them to have a lot of money to be able to put in different places.
5:39 Speaker 00 So I'm curious to see where they put it. Investments, well, there you go. 28% of net. That's good. That's great. When you have a really high income and/or low fixed costs, you want your investment rate to go way up. That's because the price of bread doesn't change whether you make $50,000 or $500,000. Therefore, there's somewhat of a natural cap on your fixed costs. Netflix costs the same for everybody. Therefore, the higher your income goes, it becomes almost super linear, meaning your fixed costs become proportionally lower and therefore you have extra money. So it's your choice, but you should almost certainly be putting more money in your investments because you can afford to do that.
6:23 Speaker 00 You should probably also be spending more on guilt-free spending, but you should definitely be investing more aggressively, which they are. Savings. Are, whoa, also at 28%. Okay, so basically, they're just putting away a ton of money. Great, they could do this for a few years and then they'll be set. They could ease off what they call coast and then let that money just compound and grow. And they could actually start to spend more, which brings me to a concern I have. Are they actually spending on guilt free money? Let's take a look. Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay, so by spending so aggressively in savings and investments, meaning putting that money away. I wanted to see if they have a healthy amount of spend and it's pretty low. It's pretty low.
7:08 Speaker 00 I was kind of wondering like, why are we here? What am I going to talk to them about? And my guess is that they have an inability to spend. 11% is low for having a $236,000 income. You know, I talk about 20 to 35%. They could easily afford any of that. They've chosen to over-index on saving and investing, which I totally respect. But 11% is unusually low. They have travel, gifts and donations, eating out and bars. I almost wonder if I even believe this. If anything, I suspect they're actually spending less on these things. That's just a gut feel because people who have their numbers in this way, super heavily aggressively invested in saving,
7:52 Speaker 00 they tend to not be able to bring themselves to spend. And that means even if they tried to ease off of their saving and investing five or 10 years from now, they probably wouldn't be able to spend. So that's my guess, what we're going to talk about, but never know until I meet him.
8:10 Speaker 01 Carrie has a lot of fear around money. We've been talking about a trip to Japan and we're in the car together. And I mentioned the trip to Carrie and she was like, I don't know. I don't think we have enough money to do it. My wife makes a lot more than me and kind of puts like a burden on me at home. She feels like I'm not contributing as much. It makes me feel bad about myself. And we have a lot of money, but when we talk about doing something that, you know, is relatively affordable, given how much money we have, like going to Japan. It's like yes and then no, and then yes and then no, because she's constantly worrying
8:52 Speaker 01 about, you know, the future. I can say here's what the numbers seem like they'll look like at when we're 60, but it doesn't like really help with that. And in the end, I was like, let me just apply it to her meat.
9:05 Speaker 00 So who was the one who brought up the idea of taking a trip there?
9:09 Speaker 02 We've had this goal for probably like four years now with the goal of having kids in mind, kind of like a last really big hurrah of we're gonna do something like really indulgent and extravagant trip that we don't think we could do otherwise with a kid, kind of like knock that off the bucket list before we, you know, really settle in.
9:33 Speaker 00 Okay, sounds good. So what about the money part of it?
9:36 Speaker 02 We save for a travel fund every month, but we celebrated our one-year wedding anniversary this summer. So we spent a decent portion of that, but mostly we had a really large expense this year of renovating our kitchen and had to take from our travel fund to be able to kind of finish paying that. So left us in a position that we don't have as much as we would have otherwise in the travel fund. So.
10:00 Speaker 00 Can you afford the trip to Japan or no?
10:02 Speaker 02 Right now, we don't have the money to do it. May is when we're shooting to go. I think we can by May.
10:11 Speaker 00 Okay. Okay. You're waiting a few months to go to Japan. What's the big deal?
10:16 Speaker 02 I think more balancing that cost with how we would use the money otherwise.
10:23 Speaker 00 How much is this trip, by the way?
10:25 Speaker 02 We've talked about budgeting like $10,000 to $15,000 for this trip.
10:29 Speaker 00 15K you're gonna save up for a few months for it? Sounds good to me. What's the argument?
10:34 Speaker 02 House expenses.
10:36 Speaker 00 Should we spend 15K on something to renovate the house with, or should we take this trip to Japan? Is that the conversation?
10:43 Speaker 02 Mm hmm.
10:44 Speaker 00 All right. So how do you go about making a decision like that?
10:46 Speaker 02 I'm more of the.
10:49 Speaker 02 The warrior, right? How do we justify the trip to Japan when we need to make sure that our house is like clean and safe and livable and healthy for us to be in? And those are expensive things to ensure.
11:03 Speaker 00 Okay, and then Dylan, what about you?
11:05 Speaker 01 From my perspective, it's like we both have a conversation where we both say we have enough money to go to Japan. And then I'll bring it up a couple of months later, like, oh, like, what month should we go to Japan? But she'll say like, well, what about all the blood paint we have in our windows? Like, before we have a kid, we're gonna need to get our windows renovated. It never occurred to me we need new windows to have a kid. But like, I want the house to be so that Carrie feels like this is a safe, good place to raise a kid. It feels like we could spend a minimal amount of money to make the house ready to have a kid. It doesn't feel like this huge thing that will keep us from like having fun now.
11:44 Speaker 00 I'm kind of struck by the way we're talking about money right now. I'm a little surprised. Like, the way that you're talking about money, it's like the two of you make 50K a year combined. We're talking about a trip to Japan for 15K. So does it strike you as a little odd, the way we're all talking about money right now?
11:59 Speaker 01 To me, it's it's constant worrying. She's like, I could lose my job. So it's like, we need essentially this gigantic emergency fund. And a big part of that is like, I'm in the PhD, Carrie's the primary earner. And so she feels it's kind of on her. To me, it feels like way more stress and anxiety about the future, about relatively small things. I think we'd just be happier if like, we did feel like we made over 200K.
12:30 Speaker 00 How would you characterize the way that each of you feels about money?
12:34 Speaker 02 I'd say uncertain. It doesn't feel guaranteed.
12:37 Speaker 00 Okay, uncertain, what else?
12:39 Speaker 02 I feel very privileged about our financial situation. I know that I should feel confident.
12:44 Speaker 00 Don't tell me what you should feel, tell me what you do feel.
12:47 Speaker 02 Worried.
12:48 Speaker 00 Okay.
12:49 Speaker 02 Stressed, pressured.
12:51 Speaker 00 Okay. That's pretty interesting. So you feel uncertain, privileged, and worried? Okay. Same question for you, Dylan.
13:02 Speaker 01 Feel generally relaxed towards money. I don't like thinking about money, but I feel confident that I know how to think about money.
13:12 Speaker 00 Oh, that's quite interesting. Who manages the day-to-day money in the household? Is it one or both of you?
13:20 Speaker 02 I'm definitely the like, check the Monarch app, see what's what, like, every day. I manage it more, kind of setting up like our bill payment, credit card payments, making sure that there's enough money where it needs to be to handle those expenses.
13:40 Speaker 00 It's not surprising, right? You see so far what's going on. So Dylan's like, I feel super relaxed. I'm not really involved in the day-to-day. Carrie goes, I'm worried. I'm logging into my account every single day. What do you notice so far?
13:58 Speaker 02 Yeah, I feel like it's on me to make sure the system is still staying afloat from an operational standpoint, but then also from a cash flow standpoint.
14:07 Speaker 01 I personally wish that you could kind of feel more relaxed about money. I do appreciate the work that you do day-to-day to make sure everything is paid.
14:17 Speaker 02 I like that we've got a balance of you're more relaxed and that helps with my less relaxed. But I do wish that I too was more relaxed and I think also more grateful instead of worried and confident instead of worried. But the worrying just really comes naturally to me. The relaxing does not come naturally to me. So it feels like a comfortable place to be. That's more of my safe space. I wouldn't know what being relaxed or confident about money even looks like.
14:56 Speaker 00 Can you imagine for me for a second, Carrie?
14:58 Speaker 02 Well, probably it would feel happier, like.
15:02 Speaker 02 One of the things that I think I put on our conscious spending plan was wanting to do like workout classes. And so while we were doing it, I started Googling Pilates classes in our town to see how much is that? And it was like $48 for a 45 minute class. I'm like, well, that's kind of ridiculous. But at the same time, I know that could be possible and could be comfortable from a financial standpoint, if I chose that. And so I feel like being confident and relaxed about money, to me,
15:42 Speaker 02 looks like going to a $50 Pilates class and feeling happy about it.
15:49 Speaker 00 What would need to change for you in order for you to feel happy and relaxed to go to a $50 Pilates class?
15:57 Speaker 02 Honestly, when I think about it, my head goes right back to like lead paint. Like, I think about where that money would be spent otherwise.
16:06 Speaker 00 Meaning if I spent $50 on myself, I'm not spending $50 that could be spent for lead paint, which is really for our unborn baby, which makes me what?
16:20 Speaker 02 A bad future mom.
16:22 Speaker 00 Yeah. Wow. This is the ultimate in mom guilt. Someone who's not even a mom feels guilty for a future version of money. Guilty pre-mom, everybody. Give her a round of applause. So what do you think about that? It's funny, right? But it's just something a bit dark about that.
16:39 Speaker 02 Probably the reverse is also true, that not choosing to invest in myself and my own happiness would also make me a bad future mom. To be a good mom in the future, I should focus on incorporating that into my life more now and have those habits built so that I can be a better parent in the future.
17:02 Speaker 00 Sounds great, but spending 200, 300, 400 bucks a month on Pilates, I mean, you could be investing that. You could be renovating that.
17:15 Speaker 02 Mm hmm.
17:16 Speaker 00 How do you justify that?
17:19 Speaker 02 You tell me, man, I don't know. I can't like rationalize that because I know it's better to invest at the age of 29 than it is at the age of 35. And the more I do now, the better it is later.
17:35 Speaker 00 You're absolutely right. It is better to invest at 29 than 35. The difference can be, you know, somewhat large over 30 years. But when you get into the top 5%, top 2%, it can start to become unhealthy. Keep investing, just keep maxing it out. More is better. What is an example where doing a little more is good, but you do way more and it turns bad?
18:05 Speaker 01 Exercise, it's great for you. Exercise even every day, probably good for you. But what about eight hours a day of exercise?
18:12 Speaker 02 That's excessive. It's really going to deplete you.
18:14 Speaker 00 Okay. Any connection to money?
18:17 Speaker 02 Okay, yes. It is depleting, it is draining.
18:21 Speaker 00 And it's not just depleting on you, right? Let's look at Dylan. Dylan, this need to save almost everything, what effect does it have on you?
18:29 Speaker 01 It's tricky for me because I basically took this really low earning job of a PhD for locking in for six years to do this thing. So it's like, you know, without Carrie, I'd be kind of living on ramen. But at the same time, we know what makes us happy together is to do things like going to Japan. Like, that's really what strengthens our relationship and makes us feel really close to each other now. And I feel like Carrie puts so much pressure on herself to say, it's all on me. What if we didn't achieve these big goals, having a kid because I did this selfish thing? And it's kind of like that for so many things. It's exhausting.
19:11 Speaker 01 It drags me down and it also, it makes me feel guilty for doing the PhD. I know it's not true, but I feel like if I made more money, you know, Carrie's stress and pressure would go away.
19:23 Speaker 00 Just want to cut in here because it's great that Dylan thinks he can solve this problem by earning more money. He sees his wife stressing out about carrying the bulk of the financial burden for their lifestyle, and he believes that if he simply earns more, her stress and anxiety will go away. But I can tell you right now, that probably wouldn't make Carrie feel much better, even if Dylan earned the bulk of their combined income. Why? Because Carrie is a classic worrier. She said so herself. And for the worrier, money conversations are always negative. They worry about running out of money. They lie awake at night, playing out worst-case scenarios, compulsively logging into their
20:05 Speaker 00 accounts every day. And eventually, they'll even worry about why they are worrying so much. They believe often that just this one thing will stop making me worry. But if you say, "Really?" They realize, "Oh, no, I'm still gonna keep worrying." Now imagine being married to worry. You're seeing this playing out in real life with Dylan and Carrie. Every time money comes up, even when the topic is fun, like planning a dream vacation to Japan, the conversation naturally starts to center around fear. In this case, it's fear around being a bad future mom because there's lead paint on the windows, and no amount of Dylan reassuring her will assuage her fears. Candidly, it
20:48 Speaker 00 can become exhausting. I've noticed this pattern, and I developed specific advice for warriors and even for partners of warriors in my new book, Money for Couples. So if you want to learn more, go to iwt.com/moneyforcouples. We'll get back to their money psychology after a quick break to support our sponsors.
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24:07 Speaker 00 Now, back to the show. Let's talk about this PhD program. So, how did you decide to join this PhD program?
24:15 Speaker 01 I had worked for four years and two jobs, and I just wanted more from my career. I felt like even though I'm a hiring consultant, I'm basically using stuff I learned in seventh grade. And I just wanted to kind of do something more.
24:28 Speaker 00 What was that conversation like between the two of you?
24:30 Speaker 01 With PhD, Carrie was like, what about kids? What about buying a house? And I was like, even when I'm making this little stipend, like our joint income will be high enough, plenty high enough to start a family and do those things. And I remember that being kind of the thing that convinced her, okay, like this will work financially. You know, I want him to achieve his dreams, so like, go for it.
24:52 Speaker 00 Okay. And Carrie, did you feel you understood the ramifications of a PhD program?
24:57 Speaker 02 I definitely did not. And this whole conversation, like figuring out reworking our finances in this shift was bad. It was really bad. Because at every point in our relationship up until that point, we had always split everything 50/50. Like, when we started dating, we had really similar income. Everything just 50/50. But it was only up until the PhD that at that point, we started to think about or talk about what would be a more like equitable split of our finances.
25:36 Speaker 02 And that was not something I'd ever had to think about. I've never split something not fifty fifty with anybody.
25:46 Speaker 00 Wouldn't that feel like to have this proportionality conversation?
25:51 Speaker 02 It didn't feel fair to me. We got in a very big fight over it. We kind of blew up and each just went separately on walks to go cool off and think about it. And I called my friends to ask what they do in their relationships when they've got a big discrepancy in income.
26:19 Speaker 00 What did your friends tell you?
26:21 Speaker 02 That they don't split things fifty fifty.
26:23 Speaker 00 Whoa, that's surprising, right?
26:25 Speaker 02 It just was different for me. It wasn't something that I had encountered before. And I definitely was raised to be more stingy about money.
26:37 Speaker 00 Who raised you that way?
26:37 Speaker 02 My dad, I would say. He makes a lot of money, but is very cheap.
26:42 Speaker 00 Growing up, did you like that or was it a source of embarrassment for you?
26:47 Speaker 02 More so a source of stress, honestly. Kind of a yucky example, but child support. My parents divorced when I was two. And my dad's income really kept going up from there. And there is consistent times throughout my life that my parents were going back and forth, battling over my mom wanting more child support and my dad fighting that.
27:17 Speaker 00 Are you realizing something right now as we're talking about this?
27:20 Speaker 02 Mm hmm.
27:21 Speaker 00 What?
27:22 Speaker 02 It's similar, right? In that he was in a position to contribute more to benefit, like to make my life easier, right? As a kid, but I'm sure he thought about that more of how it impacted him and wanting more for himself, maybe.
27:43 Speaker 02 With his income going up, it only would make sense for him to pay a higher child support. With my income being higher, it makes sense for me to pay more.
27:54 Speaker 00 Wow, seems like a pretty big breakthrough just now. Is your dad still alive?
28:00 Speaker 02 Mm hmm.
28:00 Speaker 00 Okay, are you still in touch with him?
28:03 Speaker 02 Mm hmm.
28:03 Speaker 00 Okay, what's his financial situation now?
28:06 Speaker 02 Pretty baller.
28:07 Speaker 00 I don't know how much they were disagreeing about 2,000, 5,000, who knows, some amount. What percentage of his net worth do you think that is now?
28:19 Speaker 02 It's gotta be pretty insignificant. He's Midwest baller. In the same year that we got married, which my dad and stepmom paid for, they also like built a new garage at their lake house and bought a brand new pontoon boat.
28:36 Speaker 00 First of all, you didn't need to tell me they lived in the Midwest. Once you told me they have a lake house, okay, like, done. This is as it gets.
28:45 Speaker 01 That's the definition of Midwest ballers, the lake house.
28:48 Speaker 00 So it's quite interesting, the idea that we can often play so small and fight over these things that seem existential to us. And yet, if we zoom out, that argument over child support actually had close to no material effect on that person's finances, but probably would have helped you and your mom in a tremendous way back then, right? So I think the connection here is quite clear, that we can spend all this time together arguing about X, Y, or Z. A trip to Japan is a great example. But if we fast forward 10, 20, 30 years,
29:29 Speaker 00 will that $15,000 trip in your situation with your joint household income make a material difference at age 60?
29:40 Speaker 02 It won't.
29:41 Speaker 00 Dylan, you agree?
29:43 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. It feels like I've been trying to say that.
29:46 Speaker 00 Yeah, but, okay, that's cool. This is a source of agreement I haven't yet heard about this trip to Japan.
29:53 Speaker 02 That's the thing. I know that it won't, but that doesn't keep me from worrying about it.
30:00 Speaker 00 Oh, wow. I know the math, but I can't change the way I feel. Is that what you're saying?
30:07 Speaker 02 Yeah.
30:07 Speaker 00 Okay, now we're on solid ground. The way I feel is real.
30:13 Speaker 00 But it may not correlate to reality. Okay. And that's okay. Our feelings are real. I would never tell you to stop feeling a certain way, but maybe they don't quite sync up with your actual financial situation. Okay. Okay, we're getting somewhere now. Carrie, you're highly paid in the tech industry. Dylan, you are a PhD student, not earning a particularly lot of money right now. How much of this tension, the way that both of you interact with your household income, a result of your career choices?
30:42 Speaker 02 A significant portion is also just my pure anxiety. But I know that I also put the blame on our career choices.
30:52 Speaker 01 Carrie never really internalized that it could be fair to kind of split money unevenly. And she'll bring up that, you know, I'm not contributing towards these goals that we have as a couple. I'm not contributing towards our next house. I'm not contributing towards being able to have a kid. And it does feel like there's kind of like a hidden layer of like blame on my career that at least I have kind of created in my head as existing.
31:18 Speaker 00 Carrie, any truth to what Dylan is suggesting?
31:22 Speaker 02 Yeah.
31:23 Speaker 00 Tell me.
31:24 Speaker 02 You asked about like, what did that conversation look like for Dylan deciding to do the PhD? And I feel like that conversation wasn't really like a joint discussion on how are we gonna rearrange things? How are we gonna make this work? What's this gonna look like to make us both feel good about this decision? It was a proclamation of like, this is what I'm gonna do and this is what my income is going to be. And I can't split things 50/50 anymore. So you gotta meet me where I'm at.
31:55 Speaker 00 And at the time, it sounds like you begrudgingly agreed, but over time, you have... Realize that didn't feel good to me and I don't feel good right now. Am I capturing that correctly?
32:09 Speaker 02 Yeah, I told Dylan that I wanted to feel like more appreciated for carrying that load. I am cool with splitting things eighty twenty and I do think that that puts, you know, proportionate burden on each of us. But yeah, I don't feel like I kind of had any input. I know I could have been more supportive at the time, but I don't feel like there is like gratitude for kind of carrying the team, I guess.
32:37 Speaker 01 To me, it didn't feel like I just proclaimed it. I did push it. I mean, I didn't lay off it because I was like, if you don't contribute more, I can't live the life that we want to live together. But it's also interesting to hear you talk about the gratitude portion because I think that's fair. I was kind of matter of fact about it. I was kind of like, this is what's best for both of us. It's fair as day to me. I do hear that that kind of gratitude piece was missing of this is what's best for both of us, but your career is what makes that possible.
33:10 Speaker 00 What do you say, Carrie, hearing that? What does it sound like to you?
33:13 Speaker 02 Thank you for like acknowledging that because I do feel like at the time it was, the conversation really lacked kind of like an emotional lens. You could live on a PhD stipend and eat ramen and live in a smaller place and not go out for cocktails. But that's not the life I want to live. That's not what I signed up for. Hard pivot. I'm not doing that. I make a lot. I'm not going to live like I live. I make forty K. So I'm not going to adjust my lifestyle to that of a PhD student. I came around after talking to my friends and knowing that that's kind of a normal thing to do and thinking about how our fights about money and splitting our finances was impacting our relationship.
33:55 Speaker 02 Like I did think about my dad and my mom at that time and like actively chose. I didn't want to be like that and I didn't want to feel like cruel or controlling with money.
34:12 Speaker 02 Came back to that conversation being on board.
34:15 Speaker 00 I really like hearing this conversation between the two of you. Of course, let's know our numbers, but let's actually talk about what we each need from this conversation. Whoa, that takes money to a whole new level. So I love both of you being candid about, like you're saying Dylan, yeah, I probably was a little overly logical. I don't think that I was doing a proclamation, but I probably could have spoken up a little bit more and appreciated you. Love that. Carrie, love that you're saying I simply wanted to be acknowledged. To me, that's, that's a beautiful conversation between the two of you.
34:51 Speaker 01 Looking back at that conversation, I almost just cornered her and it wasn't because I was doing it on purpose. I was like, this is better for both of us and I totally missed what, what she really needed. I really appreciate your goals that you have for us, us as a couple, us as a family, and the work that you put in and the money that you make to make that happen. And I really love your focus on that and I love that about you.
35:20 Speaker 02 Thanks.
35:21 Speaker 00 The thing that was striking about that was that big smile on your face the whole time, Carrie. See, you cannot say enough nice things about your partner and that was a perfect example. Great job. Great job to both of you and not just for what you just did, but honestly for the, the conversations that you had in the past, even though they may have been a bit clunky, they still opened up the ability to have these conversations. So I had to commend you both. Okay, so you, you split the expenses proportionally, 80/20, all right? And that was at the beginning of your PhD program. How long have you been a PhD student, Dylan?
36:04 Speaker 01 I'm starting my third year.
36:06 Speaker 00 All right. Have you talked about what you expect to earn when you graduate?
36:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, it comes up somewhat often.
36:13 Speaker 00 How much ballpark?
36:15 Speaker 01 It could be a wide range. I would say it's probably minimum 150, maximum 500.
36:21 Speaker 00 Okay, fine. So it's a lot of money and then combined with Carrie's income. That's a huge amount of money. All right. Do you both agree that your household income, if you were carried to continue at the pace you're at,
36:36 Speaker 00 that the two of you would have quite a large household income?
36:39 Speaker 02 Definitely agree with that. I think the key part is that at the pace you're at, that when I think like my worrying tendency is, can I keep up this pace? Because it is stressful and it is feels high pressure.
36:56 Speaker 00 Because y'all are talking about having a baby next year or at some point in the near term future. And you've got this Japan thing you've discussed. You have some like lead paint or whatever. Sounds to me like we should just look at your numbers. Up next, we'll open up their conscious spending plan when we get back from this quick break.
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40:08 Ramit Sethi? Let's get back to the conversation. All right, here we go. Carrie, read off the word in bold and then the full number next to it, please.
40:17 Speaker 02 Assets: 415,000. Investments: 341,000. Savings: 23,000. Debt: 353,000.
40:31 Ramit Sethi? Total net worth?
40:32 Speaker 02 426,000.
40:34 Ramit Sethi? What do you all think about those numbers?
40:36 Speaker 01 It feels really good to me.
40:37 Ramit Sethi? Carrie?
40:38 Speaker 02 That feels like Monopoly money. Because it's like, it's intangible and it's like, far away. Our assets are what we think the value of our...
40:49 Speaker 02 Houses and our investments are whatever the market says right now.
40:53 Speaker 00 Wow. No wonder you can't feel good about money. The money you have, which is considerable, is not real, at least for today. It's meant for tomorrow. Who even knows if it's real? Because it's just what the market says. 426K, life sucks. Let's just talk about the income. Dylan, just read me off your combined annual income.
41:12 Speaker 01 Our combined annual income is $237,000.
41:17 Speaker 00 $237,000 or roughly, let's just say 20K a month. Gross. What do y'all think about that?
41:24 Speaker 02 I don't ever think about what that is on a monthly basis. At the end of the day, in my bank account is like, I don't know, $6,500 a month. So to me, I make $6,500 a month.
41:39 Speaker 00 Gotcha. And when you say, when you say in my bank account, which bank account specifically?
41:45 Speaker 02 Our joint checking account.
41:47 Speaker 00 It always comes back to checking. The way people feel about their money, for many people, is almost entirely determined by what is in their checking account. Literally what's in my checking account tells me how to feel, tells me if I fall asleep crying at night, tells me if I think we can go on vacation. That's it. Can you see the problem with that?
42:08 Speaker 02 It's not the whole picture.
42:09 Speaker 00 Exactly. It's one layer. It's like having a Thanksgiving dinner and you're only saying if it's good or not based on the mashed potatoes. That doesn't tell you anything. You've got to look at the whole picture. And the whole picture is more complex than a number that's in your checking and kind of comes and goes. For me, I look at this, I look at the net worth section. All of that is real. Okay, all of it. In fact, I even see what your $341,000 in investments turns into by the time you retire. So to me, that's, that's real. You just need a little time. Then I look at your income. That's real. But you know what's the most real of all is the next number. Let's take a look. What is this fixed cost number here?
42:54 Speaker 01 Our combined annual fixed costs come to 33%.
43:00 Speaker 00 First off, amazing job managing your costs. Thirty-three percent, one of the lowest fixed cost numbers that I've seen. You're spending eight hundred bucks a month on groceries. Okay, fine. Clothes are at two hundred bucks a month, fine. Home maintenance is at three hundred bucks a month. Dog, seventy-five. How much time and energy do you spend worrying about your fixed costs?
43:21 Speaker 01 I think that answer depends on which of us you ask. For me, not very much.
43:27 Speaker 02 I think the fixed costs too much. I maybe like, you know, check on the grocery spend a little bit. But even that, you know, in our conscious spending plan, I'm like, let's go a little wild. Let's bump that up a hundred dollars, get some fancy groceries. But no, there's not anything that I think that we could make any less expensive. So I'm content with that.
43:49 Speaker 01 I don't know if that answer reflects my experience about how much you worry about our fixed costs. You're always worrying about, oh, what if the car breaks down? I mean, I feel like you mentioned that every other time we drive.
44:04 Speaker 02 I think we should be prepared for the day when our 2006 Kia Sorento with one hundred and thirty-seven thousand miles on it craps out.
44:13 Speaker 00 What just happened right there? Did you guys catch that?
44:16 Speaker 01 I accused Carrie of worrying too much and then she was like, no, I should worry about this.
44:21 Speaker 00 Pretty much, with one additional step. So Carrie was very casual about the fixed costs. Oh, I don't really worry about it. In fact, I think I want to spend more on groceries. And then Dylan goes, hold on a second. That's not my experience. You worry about the car every other time we go in it. And then Carrie, what was your response?
44:40 Speaker 02 My worrying is justified.
44:42 Speaker 00 Yeah, so which is it? Do you worry about your fixed costs or not?
44:48 Speaker 02 I'm very comfortable with where they are right now, but there's areas of risk.
44:53 Speaker 00 Which one?
44:54 Speaker 02 The car, just the car.
44:56 Speaker 00 Where's the risk?
44:56 Speaker 02 Having liquid funds to get a new car.
45:01 Speaker 00 Okay, how much does it say you have in savings?
45:03 Speaker 02 Twenty-three thousand.
45:04 Speaker 00 Relative to your investments, that's not a lot. And your fixed cost being five thousand dollars a month. You have roughly four months of an emergency fund. So I agree. If you're concerned about your car breaking down, you may not have enough. However, as I keep scrolling down, I start to see more information. Let's take a look. Investments, 28% of net. That's a very high number. I love that. That's a great number for a young, high-income couple. Look at the smile on Carrie's face. She's like, "I did it."
45:39 Speaker 02 Yes, I love that validation. I live for that.
45:42 Speaker 00 All right, I am impressed. I mean, this is great. This is kind of my approach when I was young. I could live in a very affordable place. I didn't need to go to super fancy places. And I was like, "Let me just take all this money and invest it. Grow that compound interest." And it was great. I had many years where I really invested aggressively. All right, so you're both living that. The two of you investing $51,000 a year. Then, I keep going down. I see your savings are at 11%. You save about $1,200 a month for vacations. $250 a month for emergency fund. And then miscellaneous savings, a very precise $306 per month.
46:26 Speaker 00 Home improvement is $2,500 a month. What's that?
46:31 Speaker 02 That's an average of all of the money that we've spent on our house in the time that we've owned it.
46:38 Speaker 00 Okay.
46:39 Speaker 02 For renovations. So, which just kind of stopped.
46:44 Speaker 00 What are you gonna do with the extra money?
46:45 Speaker 01 That is the question. And honestly, the whole discrepancy between our current spending plan and our conscious spending plan is, hey, we have $2,500 extra dollars a month. Let's just use that and all those things that bring us joy.
46:59 Speaker 00 Okay, I like that. I support it. Travel is $500 a month. Gifts, eating out, bars at $1,000 a month, and then shopping $400 a month. Fine, 27%. What do I care? It's 20 to 35%. You're right down the middle. Everything looks good.
47:16 Speaker 00 For the last 30 minutes, we've been dancing around this question of whether they can afford a trip to Japan. Are you seeing these numbers? With a little bit of planning, they can absolutely go to Japan. The numbers are not holding them back, but even if I tell them that right now, it won't make a difference. You know, I met a lot of people as I built my business that want external validation. They want me to say, "Good job, bravo, you did it." But that wouldn't work for Carrie, even though she says she lives for validation. Carrie is so trapped in worry and fear that my validation won't make any difference at all. Maybe temporarily, like eating a candy bar, but it won't change anything substantive.
47:59 Speaker 00 The challenge here and the real solution is to get Carrie to shift her perspective from being problem-oriented to being solution-oriented. All of us can identify problems. In fact, some people fixate on that. They actually thrive on identifying all the things that can go wrong. But a simple shift to focusing on acknowledging problems, but also talking about what can go right, what are our solutions, that can make a huge difference. And she's got to be actively involved in the solution if she's going to be able to shift that mindset. That's why I'm not just giving them the answer. If I did, it would be right back to square one as soon as this call ended.
48:42 Speaker 00 Listen now as I challenge them to think about adjusting some of their key numbers to make this possible. Like you can snap your fingers and afford this. There's literally multiple ways you could do it. Go ahead. Each of you name one and just go back and forth.
48:57 Speaker 01 We could take the home improvement spending of $2,500 a month and save that for six months.
49:05 Speaker 00 Okay, that's one way. I agree. What's next?
49:08 Speaker 02 Sell some stocks.
49:09 Speaker 00 Okay, great.
49:11 Speaker 01 Take some money that we invest each month, contribute that to our vacation.
49:16 Speaker 00 Yep, what's next?
49:18 Speaker 02 We could eat out less.
49:20 Speaker 00 Yes, that's $13,000 a year, okay?
49:23 Speaker 02 Shopping.
49:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, you can't fully stop shopping.
49:26 Speaker 00 Nobody said you have to fully stop. You could cut it down by 20% here, you could cut 20% off there. So the point is, what was your conclusion from us going through the CSP and finding like 10 different ways you could pay for a trip to Japan?
49:38 Speaker 02 There's areas that we can cut down to be able to afford the trip more easily, but... Those just seem harder than changing investment allocations or selling stocks.
49:51 Speaker 00 Well, you could do that, too. I mean, you could change your investment allocation or your investment contribution by like 2% and you're good.
49:58 Speaker 02 That's where it's hard to prioritize, though, right? How do I choose Japan over like fully doing my 401k?
50:04 Speaker 00 You tell me, how do I choose it?
50:06 Speaker 02 By looking at the numbers and knowing that lowering it is still gonna be okay.
50:13 Speaker 00 Yeah, you can do that.
50:14 Speaker 02 Good.
50:15 Speaker 00 You have done that, I'm sure.
50:16 Speaker 02 No, I've only looked at ways to make to increase.
50:19 Speaker 00 And as a result, what is your general philosophy with money?
50:25 Speaker 02 Keep those fixed costs low and invest as much as I can. My mom was never really kind of financially literate. And that definitely came back to bite her in different times that now I know she's not in a good place for retirement. And as a kid, there were a few times that she borrowed money from me to be able to pay some bills. I definitely think that's where the savings comes from. That's a really stressful position to be in as a child. And I definitely think I learned from that, like, you gotta save because you don't know what could come.
51:05 Speaker 00 So, so the conclusion from seeing your mom is that looks really stressful. I don't ever want to be in that position, so I'm going to save a lot of money.
51:14 Speaker 02 Okay. Yeah.
51:15 Speaker 00 And how much money do you need to save to feel safe?
51:18 Speaker 02 That's where it's just as much as you can. I think something like 5 billion in retirement. But I've also definitely done like those retirement calculators and been like, mm, now I can only feel comfortable if it's seven.
51:33 Speaker 00 You know those dog races where they put the hot dog in front of the dog and they chase it? The funny thing is, it's like you're chasing something that you yourself put the hot dog in front of you. You're just holding it out in front of yourself and then running after it. And if you get too close, what do you do?
51:52 Speaker 02 Push it further away.
51:53 Speaker 00 Exactly. Oh, five million, five million dollars. Oh, that's, that's not enough. Seven million. Oh, I feel so good because I have not achieved it yet. And therefore, I take comfort in not catching the hot dog. It's an underdog identity. And an underdog identity can be really constructive. It can be positive. It makes you work harder, you achieve more, you put the time in. I love that. But being an underdog always is also not that fun. You know, underdogs don't get to take a nice trip. Underdogs always say to themselves, oh, we can't afford Japan. Maybe if X and Y and Z, then we do it. The
52:37 Speaker 00 two are actually just identical. Japan is just a microcosm of $7 million 30 years from now. They're exactly the same. I just want to jump in here because this might be frustrating to listen to. I know it's frustrating for me. On paper, they have a healthy income, their fixed costs are low, they're investing aggressively. Why are we here? Why are we talking about this? And I'll tell you why. Because many of us believe that if we just had a little bit more money, we would be fine. We'd have no financial problems. And many of the couples that I speak to on this podcast are in that situation where they have earned more, low fixed costs, et cetera, but they still worry. That's one of the primary
53:17 Speaker 00 points of the podcast, is that changing your financial situation alone will not necessarily change the way you feel about it. Now let's talk about what I'm going to do about it. Yes, they are creating unnecessary problems. The question is why? And if you're wondering why I'm not freaking out yelling at them for doing this, there's a reason. It won't work. A lot of the commenters online want me to sit here and go, "This is stupid. You should change immediately. It's so obvious." Well, it's not obvious for the couple who's here. Worrying is really the only way that Carrie knows how to relate to money. And when we see the full picture, we can understand that it started when she was a kid. She watched her own mom worry about money when her parents divorced.
54:00 Speaker 00 It's deeply rooted in her and changing that mindset and certainly behavior takes time. The thing is, she obviously gets something out of worrying, or else she wouldn't do it. Maybe it's a sense of control. Maybe it's something else. The other thing we have to acknowledge here is that her partner is suffering. And I don't think she realizes the true impact that this is having on her marriage. If I can get her to identify what drives her need to worry, and also help her acknowledge the massive strain that it's putting on Dylan and their marriage, we can start to make changes. We'll dive back in after this short break.
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56:05 Speaker 00 Welcome back. Let's keep going. So here's the thing, I don't like to worry about money. Why would I worry about money? Carrie, what do you think?
56:14 Speaker 02 I feel like it's just so easy to come up with situations where there's not going to be enough. I think I tend to blow things out of proportion, or kind of like leap to a bigger problem.
56:27 Speaker 00 You find it comfort in worrying about what could go wrong?
56:30 Speaker 02 That's how I'm wired. I find comfort in like looking down the road a little bit and seeing potential problems. It's not pleasant. It's not fun. It feels like preparedness, right?
56:41 Speaker 00 What are the costs of thinking about all the things that can go wrong constantly?
56:45 Speaker 02 A lot of gray hairs. I think it definitely bums Dylan out, too. I can see that it like disappoints him or frustrates him because it really derails conversation. So like whatever word it is that we're trying to get done together and decide on together just gets sidetracked.
57:06 Speaker 00 By?
57:07 Speaker 02 My anxiety.
57:09 Speaker 00 Is this anxiety present in other parts of life for you?
57:11 Speaker 02 Mm hmm, mm hmm.
57:13 Speaker 00 Have you addressed it with a counselor, therapist, et cetera?
57:17 Speaker 02 We are working on it.
57:19 Speaker 00 That's awesome. That's the best answer I could hope for. All right. I guess I'm confused because your CSP looks pretty good. I mean, there's some things you can change here and there, but you're investing $50,000 a year. You know, you're all going to be wealthy. You know that, right? Dylan's nodding his head yes. Carrie?
57:36 Speaker 02 Probably.
57:39 Speaker 00 Do we have to do this right now?
57:40 Speaker 02 I mean, yeah, I get compounding interest, you know? I look at the little graph. I know you give it forty years and
57:48 Speaker 01 Yes, it's too well. That's why she doesn't go to Pilates. If I go to Pilates, you know, it's a hundred dollars a month. I can invest that now. Now's the good time to invest it so that I can, I don't know, have seven times that when I retire.
58:02 Speaker 00 Do you see the logical conclusion of the frugality bros? Don't go to Pilates. Don't get a cheeseburger from McDonald's. Don't, don't, don't. And then you end up sitting in your room like this and going, I love compound interest. Like, what's the point of that?
58:21 Speaker 02 There's room for improvement.
58:23 Speaker 00 Honestly, the thing that actually makes me the most sad
58:29 Speaker 00 is that you are playing so small, like so small. Fifteen thousand dollar vacation to Japan, that's it? For you, you can knock this out and you could be there in, in literally seven days from now, you could be there.
58:41 Speaker 02 No, it doesn't feel that way.
58:43 Speaker 00 Well, your feelings may not actually line up with reality. What do you think about that?
58:48 Speaker 02 I think that's probably accurate. I know that there's money there. My head just keeps going to insulation replacement.
58:57 Speaker 00 Maybe you want insulation, maybe you need insulation. But I don't think that's stopping you from Japan. It's been four years. Do you want to go to Japan?
59:07 Speaker 02 Yeah.
59:08 Speaker 00 And what kind of person goes to Japan when they own a house and they bring in eighty percent of the household income?
59:17 Speaker 02 It just sounds, it's pretty bougie. I think I'm just gonna need to like look away.
59:20 Speaker 00 That's not a healthy relationship with money. Healthy relationship says, I'm gonna understand the numbers. I'm going to talk to my partner. We're going to talk about what are, what's our rich life vision? What are our money dials? What's important, what's not? And we're gonna both do this openly. How do you think my wife and I talk about our troubles?
59:38 Speaker 02 Sure, easily. You have a substantially higher net worth.
59:41 Speaker 00 Hmm, uh, fine, but again, I'm talking to somebody, both of you, who have a considerable net worth. So. Proportionally, maybe it's a little different, but let's assume that it's ballpark the same.
59:57 Speaker 01 You chose, you know, we like travel. We want to prioritize travel. We will put more into travel. We'll put less into other things, but we know it will all work out. You know, we'll be able to retire, achieve our life goals, and we get to have fun now and have this really valuable experience that brings us closer together.
1:00:18 Speaker 00 When do we talk about the trip we're gonna take?
1:00:20 Speaker 02 Probably a few months in advance.
1:00:23 Speaker 00 We map it out the whole year, where do we want to go, when? Uh, we're not sure about where we want to go for this time, but let's put a block and we'll start like going back and forth with ideas. We're talking about it. We're sending pictures. Oh, we should go to this place. Ooh, I added that to the Japan bookmarks. What are we doing when we're doing that?
1:00:43 Speaker 02 You're working together to build that vision of what it is that you want to do and kind of like building that excitement.
1:00:49 Speaker 00 Yes, and because we've already handled the parts about what's our investment rate? What's our savings rate? Is the money automatically being put in this account or that? That's all handled. So we don't need to talk about the money anymore. Basically at all. It's all about the vision, and this is the most fun part. In fact, we get to have our vacation three times. One is in the months leading up to it where we're sending each other these things and oh, should we do that? What about, oh, I didn't get the reservation there? That's number one. Number two, in it, when we're there, we're walking around, we're having a blast. So cool. And then number three, when we post pictures about it again. One, two, three times we get to live this.
1:01:32 Speaker 00 And what do you think that that does for our relationship?
1:01:35 Speaker 02 I'm sure that brings you closer.
1:01:37 Speaker 00 Yeah. So what do you make of that as it relates to your ability to take a trip to Japan?
1:01:43 Speaker 02 My mentality around it doesn't bring us closer. It makes it more stressful and challenging instead of being something that we're kind of jointly excited for.
1:01:55 Speaker 00 Yeah, that's right. It's actually become this huge wedge between the two of you for the last four years. You're in a privileged situation with so much money. What a tragedy to live a smaller life than you have to. We're not talking about buying a Rolls Royce. We're talking about a trip you've been talking about for four years. And if you don't want to spend 15, spend 10. Fine. The price is not the point. The point is, what is your rich life vision? And how can you start to live it today and then live an even richer vision tomorrow?
1:02:23 Speaker 01 We decided let's do Japan. Like, that's a big part of our rich life. And we know that we can make it happen financially. That's what I feel like we both want. For me, I'm not going to be like, oh, this is the hotel I want to stay at. What do you think about this, Carrie? Like, if we can't even commit to actually doing the trip, you know? I'm not the kind of person that likes to plan something that might not happen.
1:02:47 Speaker 00 I guess, I don't think Japan is the real issue here. If you want to go to Japan, you can go to Japan. You can go to Japan tomorrow. Okay? It's not a financial decision whatsoever. It's do the two of you want to do it? And do you prioritize it? Right now, you don't. Or at least one of you does. Okay, now I'm really frustrated because we've been talking in circles about this trip to Japan. They can afford the trip. There's no question about that. You know it, I know it, and most importantly, they know it. What do you notice when you listen to them talking about planning this trip? I notice that it is entirely centered around logistics. Can we afford it? Can we not? Where's the money coming from to pay for it? What about investments? Should it come from spending less on shopping?
1:03:30 Speaker 00 It's clear that there is no joy in these conversations. There's no shared vision for planning this dream trip. And this logistics-driven conversation is just a symptom of a much deeper issue that Dylan actually included in his application. I want to bring them back to the original reason they are here. Listen as I remind him why he wanted to talk to me. You may be shocked to hear what he wrote. Well, I guess what I'm hearing today is a little bit at odds with what I received in the application. In the application, Dylan, you wrote...
1:04:06 Speaker 00 My wife does not respect me. She makes four to five times more than me and leaves. I should do all the dishes, calls herself the breadwinner and me the housewife. Is that accurate?
1:04:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's accurate.
1:04:19 Speaker 00 What do you make of that, Carrie? It's pretty striking.
1:04:22 Speaker 02 We've had like tense conversations around money or housework. Yeah, I have said that I'm the breadwinner and he's my housewife.
1:04:37 Speaker 00 And what does that mean, housewife? What's the implication?
1:04:39 Speaker 02 Dylan does most of the cooking and cleaning.
1:04:41 Speaker 00 When you call him a housewife, what are you really saying?
1:04:44 Speaker 02 It's a put down. I guess I feel attacked in some way. It's like defensive.
1:04:50 Speaker 01 Whenever she's feeling like we don't have enough money, which as you gathered is often, I'm the blame like for that. If I were to just, you know, take my lucrative skillset and make money for us right now, then we could live comfortably, achieve all of our goals.
1:05:08 Speaker 00 Carrie, is that pretty accurate?
1:05:10 Speaker 02 Yeah. I mean, it doesn't sound good. It's unkind. It's not supportive. It's also just untrue. We can reach the goals that we have with just where we are today.
1:05:23 Speaker 00 I think it is unkind. I mean, I'm troubled to hear it. I'm alarmed. Calling someone a housewife, especially a woman calling a man a housewife, which in and of itself is perplexing because maybe one day you might become a housewife. The implication being there's something wrong with it is weird to me. I think it's offensive to a lot of people, certainly to the person you're calling that. And then you're right, it's untrue. It's untrue that you just need him to earn more money and then you can all do the things you want to do. You make more than enough money to do anything you two want to do right now. You may not feel that way, but I'm looking at the same numbers as you.
1:06:08 Speaker 00 You have so much extra money. But you don't see it because you you view the world through a set of lenses of scarcity. In fact, the lenses are so thick, it's almost like you have a ghost in front of you. I talk about the ghost in my book. Some people have a ghost around needing to pay off debt. I have to do anything to pay my debt off. And they make often very irrational, painful decisions. In your case, it's pure scarcity. It's almost like a black hole. There's no end to it because you don't know how much is enough. You just want more and you're actually punishing your partner because he's getting a PhD in computer science. He's literally just needs some time and he's going to be earning a lot of money anyway. And even if he didn't, your household income is really high.
1:06:52 Speaker 02 I got a layoff. Not put pressure on Dylan. Where he is and what he's doing is exactly what he should be doing right now. And then it's not to our detriment. No matter what, we're good right now. We're good, Dylan. I support you. I support your PhD. I want you to enjoy it and make the most of the experience and get as much of it from it as you can and not feel that pressure for me.
1:07:23 Speaker 01 That pressure is hard because I'll be waking up at 3 a.m. thinking about, you know, my research, what am I doing? You know, what am I getting from this? Why am I doing this? And in the meantime, also, it's like a detriment to our household income. And it's a time when I like, what I need is like support. A PhD is very hard and it requires kind of total comfort with your position to be able to achieve that insight and creativity. It requires like periods of long time of consecutive work where like, you know, you might miss a meal or skip, you know, a chore or something.
1:08:07 Speaker 01 And I always want to not be a burden. And so like, I try to make sure everything is taken care of and try to do as much as I can to support you and not be a burden because I already feel like burden through doing this. So like, if I could just accept, kind of, we're in a good position financially together, and I can put that like to side and then get more out of the PhD.
1:08:36 Speaker 00 Dylan, what do you need right now?
1:08:38 Speaker 01 I need you to understand that I'm pushing myself in a really hard way. And simultaneously, I feel like a burden. I feel like I'm like firing on all cylinders. This pressure, which partially is from you, partially is from myself, just like keeping me from reaching my potential, which is like super important to me, like more important than making more money. It feels like I have to validate it to you that this thing will make money, that it's an investment, but it's not really how I feel about it. I wanna, you know, apply my brain to these hard unsolved problems and make a difference.
1:09:19 Speaker 01 And then I know I'm not gonna be like a starting artist doing it, but that's kind of secondary. If Ramit's talking about all the different important things to people, what can you spend on, you know, what should, what, what do you really want to prioritize? Like, for me, it's like doing a job that really like befills me over like, you know, some business job where I would make more money and be doing seventh grade math.
1:09:44 Speaker 02 I think that's also where part of my money psychology like is to the detriment of that.
1:09:49 Speaker 00 Right now, you are on an escalator that only takes you to one place, earning more money. You'll do it, you'll win at that. You'll be validated in the way that you will see a higher income and you and Dylan will become increasingly disjointed because that's not what he's trying to do. And as a couple, that creates a massive wedge. Just to put it a different way, what if we were having this conversation and the genders were flipped?
1:10:16 Speaker 02 Sounds pretty [__] up. If it were reversed, no, I would not feel good about that.
1:10:22 Speaker 00 You would be in a very bad place. And what do you think your friends would say if you texted them and told them that? They, those conversations would not be good. Okay. So I think it's really important for us to acknowledge gender in here. I think it's important for us to acknowledge the way that the two of you are relating to money. It's not healthy. And that's why I'm glad you're in couples therapy.
1:10:45 Speaker 01 All this stuff is really ingrained and I know she doesn't want to feel anxious about money or everything else all the time, but she doesn't know how to get out, kind of. And I can't really, you know, be the one to change her perspective. And she's right. If she loses her job and her car breaks down and like the stock market crashes, her company goes bankrupt, we would probably be completely screwed. But you can't live like in fear of that's happening.
1:11:14 Speaker 00 Dylan, it's interesting. You say you can't live that way, but actually Carrie's been living that way for a long time. Right, Carrie? And actually you found a way to regard it as being planful, as being thoughtful, as being forward looking. How many years have you felt this way about money that things can go wrong? And I need to always be prepared?
1:11:34 Speaker 02 I've always felt that way about money. I have to actively work to not feel that way.
1:11:40 Speaker 00 And who would you be if you were not worried about money?
1:11:45 Speaker 02 I'd be unprepared. I'd be reactive instead of proactive.
1:11:49 Speaker 00 I am not worried about money. So describe who I am.
1:11:54 Speaker 02 You're proactive and prepared and you've made a plan. And you know that things are going where they need to go for you to be able to kind of follow that plan and.
1:12:05 Speaker 00 How can I do that if I'm not worried about money?
1:12:07 Speaker 02 Much lower levels of anxiety. Level of comfort.
1:12:12 Speaker 00 I think you find comfort in worrying. I think it gives you purpose. I think it gives you meaning. I think it connects where you grew up with the tumultuous upbringing and the parental models that you had. I also think that you probably get a positive sensation out of self deprivation.
1:12:30 Speaker 02 I think that's probably true.
1:12:32 Speaker 00 I like to save. I like to invest. I have very aggressive goals and numbers and stuff like that.
1:12:40 Speaker 00 But I have also developed a love of leisure, of travel, of like today, we just went for a walk and grabbed a coffee together in the middle of the day, 20 minutes. We loved it. That to us gives us an irrational sense of joy, just to be able to do that. I don't think you've developed a joy. I don't think you've allowed yourself to. The thing is, you have a partner and he's over here telling you, this isn't working for me. He says, my wife does not respect me. That's what he wrote. And you're all pretty young, no kids yet. Imagine you do have kids. Imagine you get older. Imagine this dynamic calcifies.
1:13:23 Speaker 00 You're gonna have millions of dollars and actually not have the foundation of a healthy relationship at all. What's the point? I'd rather make half the money and have a healthier relationship with my partner. Are you both agreeing with me?
1:13:37 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:13:37 Speaker 01 I agree.
1:13:38 Speaker 00 Okay. So then how are you gonna do it?
1:13:41 Speaker 01 I don't feel like this will fix everything, but you know, showing you gratitude, appreciation. And if you are in that situation where you could never feel good about kind of what you have or what you achieved, like I'm super proud of you. Like I can be there to make you, help you feel good about that stuff. And in terms of, you know, life planning, kids planning, like I feel like we've been trying and trying to kind of make our relationship dynamic healthier to where I feel. Comfortable having kids.
1:14:11 Speaker 00 Dylan, have you told her exactly what you would need in order to feel ready to have kids?
1:14:16 Speaker 01 I want to feel like we are a couple that can have fun together, but also take care of business and never, we're not drowning in our chores. We have a really functional, good life without kids. So that way, when we add kids, we're not starting from dysfunction.
1:14:30 Speaker 02 I totally agree, like on all the fronts, right? And I don't think I have reflected enough on how my mentality around work and money influences all the time outside of that, right? Of like having more energy and mental bandwidth for quality time and like doing things that bring us more joy. And like pursuing that instead of pursuing the next promotion.
1:14:59 Speaker 00 Yeah, I agree. I think that's smart. Like, where are the KPIs for your relationship? Where are the OKRs? I bet you have them at work. I bet you have multiple meetings lined up. Where are the equivalent meetings for your relationship? Where's the bi-weekly or monthly money meeting that you have? Where's the two-day coffee meetings that you're gonna have on Tuesday and Thursday with each other before work just because you can? That stuff matters. It doesn't even cost much money. But it's like, oh, my God, I'm prioritizing work. How am I gonna prioritize us?
1:15:34 Speaker 01 We try to have a weekly meeting.
1:15:35 Speaker 00 What do you talk about in this meeting?
1:15:37 Speaker 01 Touching base about your feelings, just checking in. And it's also logistical checking base, like what do we need to get done this week? What are your goals? What are my goals? How can we make sure we achieve them?
1:15:48 Speaker 00 Oh, I love this. Clearly, you've gone to therapy. That's a great, great agenda. I love that. Okay, cool. So you have the meeting. It happens sometimes. Fine. What else? Fun stuff?
1:15:58 Speaker 02 We try to do Treat Day in the morning.
1:16:01 Speaker 00 What's that?
1:16:02 Speaker 02 Within a 20-minute walk of our house, we have a coffee shop and a bagel shop. And once a week, usually like back half of the week, you know, you gotta make it through to Friday. Go and get, go and get a treat.
1:16:16 Speaker 00 Okay, I love that. What else?
1:16:18 Speaker 01 Sometimes we hike or we walk to the farmer's market together.
1:16:21 Speaker 00 I love everything you're saying, right? There's no like checkbox. You don't have to impress me like how much you're doing together. I think it's great. I love the energy that I'm hearing from the two of you. Okay, so do you all have a vision for your money?
1:16:33 Speaker 01 We both feel like we want everything.
1:16:36 Speaker 00 I don't need to hear the rest. That's a no. Carrie, do you have a vision for your money besides save more and invest more?
1:16:43 Speaker 02 No.
1:16:44 Speaker 00 Okay, great. That's all I need to hear is a yes or no question. So you all understand that there are several issues at play here. Obviously, Carrie, your anxiety is, in my opinion, the number one thing that you have to focus on. He can't solve that for you. That is a you issue. And it's actually the number one. If you can't learn how to properly manage that with the help of a therapist, then this issue will simply persist in 500 different permutations. That's it. And from the boundary I've heard, maybe y'all won't have kids because of that. What a waste, what a tragedy to let this ghost get in the way of what could otherwise be a really, really successful relationship. So that's number one. If I were you, I would be prioritizing that heavily.
1:17:29 Speaker 00 Like, that would be my number one priority. Number one, even ahead of work. Next, we have the fact that you two don't really have a vision of how you want your money to spend. And as a result, Carrie's anxiety has basically become the de facto vision, which is let's just invest and save a [BLEEP] load of money. That's why you're arguing over taking a random trip for four years. If you had a vision, you wouldn't even have to talk about it. It would be decided already. It would automatically be saved for, and you would know the exact month and year you're gonna take the trip. Boom. So you wanna do a vision right now? What's your rich life vision?
1:18:05 Speaker 01 I wanna do a nice meal together, like a $250 meal, say, every month.
1:18:12 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:18:12 Speaker 02 Definitely the housekeepers are not going away. Now that's started, there's no going back.
1:18:16 Speaker 00 Great. How often do they come?
1:18:18 Speaker 02 Every other week.
1:18:19 Speaker 00 Great. All right. So you wanna have housekeepers every other week? Fantastic. Dylan?
1:18:24 Speaker 01 I wanna take a big trip once a year. Not even, doesn't have to be that expensive, but a trip that's just us.
1:18:29 Speaker 02 I wanna go to Pilates classes once a week.
1:18:32 Speaker 01 I wanna be able to put my head down and work like four times a week, not having to cook and clean. Like every single day.
1:18:43 Speaker 02 I want to pay to get our dog groomed.
1:18:45 Speaker 00 Does anybody think any of these are possible?
1:18:49 Speaker 02 Oh.
1:18:51 Speaker 02 No.
1:18:52 Speaker 00 I feel like you could do all these right now.
1:18:56 Speaker 00 So let's do it. All right. Tell me how you want to make this happen. I'm putting your CSP up on screen. Tell me, how do you want to do it?
1:19:01 Speaker 01 To me, the obvious thing is lowering our investments.
1:19:05 Speaker 00 Carrie, are you cool with lowering your investments?
1:19:07 Speaker 02 Investments make it feel like I've got some like target to hit. I know the maximum that I can save for a 401k in a year. And so I do that. And then that feels like an achievement.
1:19:18 Speaker 00 In a way, it's very helpful to know that what does it take to succeed? Tell me, and then I'm going to succeed. But when you get into the top 5%, top 2%, it can start to become unhealthy. Keep investing. Just keep maxing it out. More is better. What kind of problems do you think that that causes in the relationship?
1:19:41 Speaker 02 Puts artificial constraints on us, right? Like, it's just my own standards, right? That are like putting us in that kind of box.
1:19:52 Speaker 00 Yes, arbitrarily, you chose to invest 28% of net. And now you feel stuck, but it's totally your own creation. The thing is, when you're really designing your rich life, and especially when you're designing with two people, there is an element of knowing the numbers and executing correctly. But there's also this beautiful element of creativity. What do we want our rich life to be? Do we want to invest 27%? Or would it be better for us to invest 20% and take that extra 7% and allocate it over here? It's an art as well as a science. So I'm going to show you how to do both right now. Okay, this is exactly how I think about my own investments. So I go over to a compound interest calculator. I'm gonna plug your numbers in.
1:20:36 Speaker 00 You currently have $341,000 invested. You're investing $51,000 a year. Years to grow? How many years should we say before retirement?
1:20:45 Speaker 01 30, 35.
1:20:47 Speaker 00 All right, let's say 30 and then I'll show you what happens at 35. It's quite remarkable. So how much you think you're gonna have right now? Carrie, you know the number.
1:20:53 Speaker 02 I think it is 5 million.
1:20:54 Speaker 00 What's that number say right there?
1:20:55 Speaker 02 Hey, we've hit my golden standard of 7.7 million.
1:21:01 Speaker 00 What does this tell you right here, just looking at these numbers?
1:21:04 Speaker 02 There's room to decrease. It's maybe, it's a bit excessive.
1:21:07 Speaker 00 Yes, and also, all this agony and worry over a number that you don't even know. You're off by almost $3 million. And, and sitting over here talking about, oh, let me deprive myself of Pilates and, and let's not take this trip to Japan. Like, it makes no sense.
1:21:27 Speaker 02 I just keep on underestimating and undercutting and like rationalizing down instead of seeing what the real picture is of our finances.
1:21:39 Speaker 00 That's correct. And it's honestly depressing. It's depressing for your partner because there's no clarity on what it takes to, to win. It's just one thing after another and the goalposts keep moving. And it's just depressing for you because you constantly are playing small, always. Like, you're on track to have 7 million bucks and you're operating as if you make $50,000 a year. It's not serving you. He would never act this way at work. You couldn't do your job if he weren't confident and knew where you stand in the power structure. But your feelings about money are totally at odds with the actual numbers.
1:22:23 Speaker 00 You're in a privileged situation with so much money. What a tragedy to live a smaller life than you have to. Dylan and Carrie are young, 29 and 30 years old, living what should be the most fun, carefree years of their lives. But for some reason, they have chosen to suffer. With their income, they can easily accomplish their dreams. In fact, we just saw them realize they're going to have more than they ever thought. But instead, they are living a life of deprivation and stress, and they are not connected over money. This is a perfect example of what can happen if you don't do the second part of living a rich life. The first, know your numbers. You've got to understand the language of finance.
1:23:07 Speaker 00 But the second, you've got to master your money psychology, or you might very well end up with more money than you ever thought, but you still don't enjoy it. Do you think that they will suddenly wave a magic wand at retirement with their $7.7 million and stop depriving themselves? No, they won't. Let's see if I can help them understand that. Watch this. $11.2 million. What the hell are you going to do with $11.2 million?
1:23:37 Speaker 01 We'll be able to live so much more lavishly than we do right now.
1:23:40 Speaker 00 You guys will not know how to spend $11 million. You will not have the psychological or technical ability to spend it because you don't have any practice. Carrie shaking her head like, uh-oh.
1:23:52 Speaker 02 That's too much. That's more than we need.
1:23:56 Speaker 00 Oh.
1:23:57 Speaker 02 I don't even want that.
1:23:59 Speaker 00 Okay, I like it. All right, let's play it then. So we got options, right? Let's also not forget that I didn't even assume any income growth. Let's just play that out for a second. Hey Dylan, how much should we say that we're going to add from your future job into investments per year?
1:24:16 Speaker 01 Maybe I make 200K and I want to invest like 10% or 15% of that.
1:24:23 Speaker 00 Let's make it 20K, 20K a year. All right, easy math. Instead of 11.2 million, 14.1 million. Carrie, you look like you're in pain. Is there some...
1:24:32 Speaker 02 I don't want that.
1:24:34 Speaker 00 So what do you want to do about it?
1:24:38 Speaker 02 I guess I need to invest less.
1:24:40 Speaker 01 I guess you need to go to Pilates.
1:24:42 Speaker 00 I actually don't believe you and I don't really think you deep down believe that you don't want that much because for you more always equals winning. What's really going on here when you react that way?
1:24:54 Speaker 02 That seems like greedy and selfish. That could be used much better elsewhere.
1:25:00 Speaker 00 Where?
1:25:01 Speaker 02 Very many places. There are a lot of people that would benefit from having that money more than us.
1:25:06 Speaker 00 So like perhaps the barista who you tip $10 to because you make so much money? Or perhaps the Pilates teacher who you go to and give a Christmas bonus to, a very generous one? Perhaps your husband who you say, you take your time, work on your PhD. I want you to feel completely supported. I know that right now you are heads down on this and I know that at some point, maybe we're gonna have kids and maybe I'll need to be heads down and I'll need you to pick up some of the slack. But right now I know that you're in the thick of it and I'd love to help. Isn't that a point of a partnership? And especially when you have money and make it so easy.
1:25:49 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:25:49 Speaker 00 Here's how I would now make decisions about spending. First off, you all realize that you're gonna have a lot of money, in many ways too much money, right? So let's, let's figure it out. Right now, if we look at 30 years of investments, we are down to $7.7 million. Fantastic. That's great, but probably more than you need. And we're not even factoring in Dylan's additional income, which will boost this thing a lot. So I, I just start to play with the numbers. I go, hey, instead of $51,000, what if we did $41,000? Oh my gosh, we'll have $6.7 million. That still seems like what?
1:26:29 Speaker 02 More than enough.
1:26:30 Speaker 01 More than we need.
1:26:31 Speaker 00 More than enough. Let's take it down to 31. Oh my gosh, $31,000 a year. We're gonna have $5.7 million. Again, not including Dylan's contributions. Do you see how ridiculous it is that we are spending hours and hours talking about $15,000 trip to Japan? It makes no sense. Carrie?
1:26:56 Speaker 02 Okay.
1:26:57 Speaker 00 All right. That's what I wanted to hear. I just freed up $20,000 a year. What do you want to do?
1:27:06 Speaker 00 First of all, you're already spending 1,100 bucks a month on eating out.
1:27:10 Speaker 01 So we want to up that. 1,600? The one, $250 meal plus a couple of extra meals out.
1:27:17 Speaker 00 This is where you actually start to make trade offs. Your savings goals, you said a vacation?
1:27:25 Speaker 00 That needs to go up.
1:27:26 Speaker 02 Probably needs to be like 1,500.
1:27:29 Speaker 01 We're talking about going to Japan in May, then it kind of needs to go up even more.
1:27:33 Speaker 00 Good. I like how you're thinking. Great. 1,800 bucks a month for vacations. To me, that tells me that you really prioritize traveling. By contrast, you do not prioritize an emergency fund, which is, you know, you told me you have your reasons. Okay, fine.
1:27:47 Speaker 02 Dog grooming. That's like $150 every eight weeks.
1:27:54 Speaker 00 We got the eating out already. We got the trip. Pilates? How much is Pilates per week would be like 400 a month, right?
1:28:02 Speaker 02 That's if I'm doing double time, twice a week.
1:28:05 Speaker 00 Do you want?
1:28:05 Speaker 02 But I guess it's better.
1:28:06 Speaker 01 Just do it.
1:28:06 Speaker 02 You know, really, I do. I do.
1:28:09 Speaker 00 It's called abundance. Okay, great. You're up to 37%. Amazing. Wow. That's crippling. And then that's it. That's every, what a.
1:28:17 Speaker 01 Like, this is the easiest ESPN ever.
1:28:20 Speaker 00 Do you see why the numbers themselves are a mere triviality? Like, it's a joke. That's why I said I could knock this out in three minutes. You have so much money, you're still investing $31,000 a year. You're saving $28,000 a year. You're going to be spending $55,000 a year. What are you taking away from this example right here?
1:28:45 Speaker 02 It's not the numbers or the money that's holding us back. It's me applying that pressure that we need to save more or else. And turns out we don't.
1:28:55 Speaker 00 I agree.
1:28:56 Speaker 01 I think the most helpful thing was seeing that we will have enough, you know? And seeing that we will have more than enough and that therefore we kind of have more than enough now. And just like having that mindset of we have, we can, and not the mindset of what if everything goes wrong?
1:29:17 Speaker 00 Pretty cool to see how, once you actually get aligned on what am I afraid of? What are you afraid of? What do we want specifically? How much travel? How much is it going to cost? Is it international? How much are we going to Pilates? Very specific things.
1:29:36 Speaker 00 And then, and only then, do you get to the numbers. The numbers are the last part. It's the values. It's how you talk about money. It's the back and forth. And the back and forth is about having fun. It's not about winning. You're not here to obliterate your partner. You're here to connect. It's to build them up, not to break them down. You can do every single thing you want. It's so easy. And I think seeing this, my hope is that you both realize, oh, my gosh, we could be doing way more. And why are we spending our time playing so small? Why, Carrie, is my anxiety causing me to say these kinds of things to my partner? I have to fix that. Thank you to Dylan and Carrie for sharing their story.
1:30:19 Speaker 00 It's not easy to put your personal information out there for the world to see. And it takes a lot of courage to come and ask for help. I know this conversation was frustrating at times. It was frustrating for them, it was certainly frustrating for me. And hearing one partner put another partner down simply because they earn less is not acceptable. And I hope that Carrie takes that message to heart as she and Dylan continue to work on their relationship with money and with each other. Breaking out of a scarcity mindset is really hard. You heard it in this conversation. You've heard it in others. The stories that we tell ourselves often come from childhood, and they can feel like they define us.
1:31:01 Speaker 00 In Carrie's case, financial insecurity as a kid still shows up for her as an adult. And I'm glad I was able to help her make that connection. Now, will she continue making progress? Will she use some new tools to manage her anxiety? That's entirely up to her. The fact that Dylan and Carrie see a therapist regularly should help on that process, and I'm rooting for them. Now, let's check out their follow-up videos. Up first, Dylan's follow-up.
1:31:30 Speaker 01 My biggest takeaway was that I should focus on both mine and Carrie's feelings and our needs as a couple. I have always felt gratitude for Carrie working really hard.
1:31:45 Speaker 01 Prioritizing our finances because she cares about our goals as a couple. And as we start to form a family. But I guess I've always just let that go unsaid. Hearing that is really important to her. And so that is something that I, you know, plan to add to my life is just that spoken, shared gratitude for Carrie. The numbers are kind of secondary to that. So we basically are going to reduce how much we spend on home improvement by about a thousand dollars a month. And we'll also reduce how much Carrie invests by about sixteen hundred dollars a month. And we'll use that money for fun stuff. We kind of ended up every single fun thing we could think of.
1:32:29 Speaker 01 And it still came out to less than that twenty six hundred dollar figure. I've kind of always been a person who likes having money in investments. And I think the biggest surprise is that having more in liquid will help us spend money. And that's, you know, kind of our challenge is just how can we spend money? It's just in a savings account that we've designated to be spent on this category. That helps us spend money.
1:32:56 Speaker 00 And now Carrie's following.
1:32:58 Speaker 02 It feels very cheesy to say, but I honestly feel like the conversation was life changing for me. The main thing in the way of myself and my rich life is just me. I have this artificial feeling of scarcity and that we don't have enough and that we need to save more, but that that's really not reflective of our financial situation. And the best thing I can do is get out of my own way by choosing to spend money on the things that make my life easier or happier. And for us, that's looked like putting less money into our investments.
1:33:38 Speaker 02 And that just gets added into our additional income that we can spend on things that we like. So we've added over five hundred dollars to our monthly budget for fitness. So I can go to all the fancy Pilates classes that I want. And over four hundred dollars on just massages, manicures and pedicures. And all of these different kinds of self-care have made.
1:34:07 Speaker 02 Honestly, a noticeable difference in my anxiety levels, so much so that even my therapist noticed. And it's really had a positive impact on Dylan and my relationship and how we feel about how we're balancing the workload at the house and how we're supporting each other. So I honestly do feel like it has been life-changing and really, really impactful for our relationship.
1:34:36 Speaker 00 Lots of things I love in these follow-ups. First, really specific numbers and changes. I love that. That's what I always hope for. But even deeper than that, a lot of realizations about the way that they interacted with money, especially Carrie. I really appreciate couples who come on the show and take to heart what we discuss and then send me follow-ups. My team just got another update from them a few days ago. Here's what Dylan wrote. "We just booked tickets to Japan. Yes, they were on Scott's Cheap Flights, but we would have booked them even if not." Okay, I will take that as progress, even if the flights were booked for a discount. Carrie and Dylan, I'm wishing you the best.
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