I Will Teach You To Be Rich - 135. "It could cost us $50k to have a baby. Can we afford it?"

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

Kait is 36 and Em is 35. They’re married and pursuing IVF as a means to expand their family. But a misalignment on money stands in the way of a truly shared vision for their future. Em shuts down and delegates responsibility. Kait frantically checks accounts and worries about daily spending. This episode is brought to you by: Calm | Go to https://calm.com/ramit for 40% off unlimited access to Calm’s entire library. Mint mobile | To get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to https://mintmobile.com/ramit. Facet | Get affordable, accessible financial planning with a flat fee membership. For a limited time, the $250 enrollment fee will be waived when you sign up at https://facet.com/ramit. DeleteMe | If you want to get your personal information removed from the web, go to https://joindeleteme.com/ramit for 20% off. BetterHelp | Visit https://betterhelp.com/ramit today to get 10% off your first month. Connect with Ramit Get the Podcast Newsletter and exclusive Q&A about the show Get Money Coaching with Ramit  Download the Conscious Spending Plan Get my New York Times best-selling book Get my no-numbers journal Other episodes Instagram Twitter YouTube Submit a question for the newsletter iwt.com/askramit If you and your partner have a money issue and you want my help, I occasionally select a couple to work with, free of charge. Apply for my help here. Produced by Crate Media.

It frustrates me that M doesn't know those parts of our financial situation. She only wants to talk about money when it's good and we're making money. I guess I don't care about it because I feel unprepared and then I kind of shut down. I know that I don't want to be in this dynamic forever. I think that we have a lot of things working against us right now, like we have the HELOC, we have the wedding that we paid for on our credit card, we have the IVF that we're paying for, we have a lot of things that have kind of built up. What I am asking, I think of M, is to like temporarily get in this boat with me to help me help us release the pressure. Like you feel like you're rowing alone. If you could just

have a partner in your boat, maybe you could get there safely together. Yeah, we want the same things. We just approach how to do them in different ways. I think sometimes we don't do them because we can't get to a resolution. I'd like you to meet Kate and M, Kate's 36, M is 35. And here's a little excerpt from the application that they sent me. As I read this to you, try to think about your first impressions.

How much do you think they make? And how much do you think they spend? Listen in, I've read Remeads book and even implemented the strategies. I explain them to my wife, but she often gets frustrated with the limitations of our plan, including how little we can spend now in order to save and how long the timeline is. We've had some major fights and disagreements about this. I feel like we have a great 12 to 18 month plan, but my wife feels like we'll never get there. How can I help her feel more confident and excited in the plan? And what can we do to start to live our rich life now? Well, I think you're going to be surprised in today's conversation, especially when we start talking about the numbers.

Before we get to the episode, I want to tell you about this email I got, this asset management firm emailed me, and they wanted me to be involved in their firm. They basically wanted to put my picture on their website. I was like, no thanks. And then they wrote back again, asking a little bit more intently, can we introduce you to our CEO? I said, you know what? I was like, no thanks. And then they wrote back again, asking a little bit more intently. Can we introduce you to our CEO? I said, you know what? I appreciated, but no. Finally, they wrote back and they just point blank in writing said, I don't think you understand. We're going to pay you $100,000 to be an advisor to our firm. And I declined to get it. They were

shocked. Do you not understand you're getting money to do nothing? I have the actual email. And this Saturday in my newsletter, I'm gonna share that email along with the psychology of being discerning with who you work with, how to protect your reputation and be very careful about who you associate yourself with.

Most of all, you're just gonna see that there are firms out there literally paying hundreds of thousands of dollars just to be able to put someone's picture up on their website. You're not gonna find my picture on their website, but there's some other people who I was surprised to see there. You can only get this Saturday, December 23rd

by sending up at iwt.com slash podcast newsletter. Now, let's get to the episode. I think that the financial discussions that we have in the way that we communicate about money, it causes enough friction in our relationship that it makes a lot of things not fun and not enjoyable. And neither one of us want to want that in our life. We don't want to live our life that like that. And I think that, yeah, it would be really, really challenging to move forward in a happy relationship. Good to know. Okay, Em, how about you? I agree. I think that, like, I don't know,

the couple of podcasts that I did listen to of you, and I watched the Netflix show, which I thought was really eye-opening. I can't recall exactly what statistic you gave most of horses. They don't start with like a, you know, someone cheating or someone leaving someone, they start because couples aren't having the foundational or building block conversations and a lot of those conversations are around finances. And so that kind of just will come me up to wanting to change. When you're speaking to my colleague, you said, communication is our superpower, but communicating about finance has really challenged our identity.

Well, I'm seeing nods from both of you. What does that mean? Being in a same-sex relationship and also it was kind of an early relationship with the same sex for both of us, we had to talk about everything. Even if it was things that we weren't ready to talk about, like things were on the table, because we wanted this to work, and therefore we had to have hard talks with our family, have hard talks with each other, have hard talks with friends, and things like that, and that really, from a core relationship, foundation

type of thing, I think was a huge building block for us. And we were able to fall in love and grow in love very quickly. And that was really beautiful. And when it came to doing a lot of the very serious things fast, right, you know, we went through a pandemic and then we got married right after. We moved in together, we bought a condo, we did just a lot of things very fast. We started a small business all up right after the pandemic. We moved fast, but we didn't really talk through all of those big moments as financial decisions. It was only after those things that we started to talk about where we were at financially as we started to just strengthen our union together and we were on the same page about it. And that was kind of a moment where we were like, oh shoot, this is,

this is not normal for us. I had a financial coach. I have a, we have a financial coach. And I had used her previously. And after we combined our finances got married, we started living in the same space. I invited M2A meeting with our financial coach. And it was on that call I just realized that the way that I communicated about money and the things that we were talking about in that meeting

and was not responding to them. Like what? In the same way, she sort of shut downs on that call. If M doesn't feel confident or comfortable with the question, like if she doesn't know the answer, I think that she has a tendency to shut down or deflect. And instead of just communicating, hey, I don't know the answer to that. Let me go check or get the answer or do some research and we'll come back. I, I, she shuts down. I think instead of me like participating in those to do some information gathering, I just kind of shut down and kind of figured, okay, these are the headlines and I need to go do some work after this and it felt heavy. It felt heavy. Yeah, it felt heavy.

I felt like, all the sooner to take a lot of time, I don't have a lot of time. I don't know how I'm going to find this information. I've a lot of going on at work. I have a lot to do and this just feels like it's going to take hours and hours to get on the same page. Did it feel fun? No. Does money ever feel fun to you?

So when I'm spending it, Oh, that's an honest answer. Like what? What do you love spending on food? Food like eating out delivery. What are we talking about? I love to cook. So it would be very like I'd love to just go to the grocery store and

just break up a big bill and invite a bunch of people over and have a great dinner. It's interesting that they say their superpower is communication, but with money, they have a block. That's extremely common. You see, with things like differences in decor, we intuitively know how to solve it. Let's look at pictures on Pinterest. Oh, that's a disgusting rug from Craten Barrel. I guess we were just raised different.

Oh, look at this rug. Wow, we both like it. Let's buy it. We can find a way to compromise. It's relatively easy. But with money, there are layers upon layers of complexity. First off, most of us don't even know the basics of money ourselves. We don't know the difference between a Roth IRA or an index fund, for example. Then we have

these invisible scripts we picked up from our parents often in the form of scarcity. Finally, we have immense social pressure around money, for example, to buy a house, or to be a provider, or to save more. And to effectively have money conversations. It can feel like you have to be an expert in 10 different things to even sit down and talk about it for the first time. No wonder talking about money feels so hard. Even to a couple who has a superpower of communication. Well, my goal is to show you that you don't need to be some multi-millionaire working on Wall Street to know how to talk about money. You will have to learn a lot about yourself, you will have to learn a lot about your partner.

You might be surprised how you see money differently, but I believe that the two of you can develop a really healthy, positive view of money together regardless of how much you make today. We'll be right back after this. I'm feeling a little stressed right now. I have a lot to get done before the holidays, and for a lot of us, they can feel fun, but also stressful. But I think sometimes it's important to take a few minutes to decompress. It could be meditating, reading a book, having a cup of coffee outside. No matter what it is for you, calm can help you find a few minutes to yourself.

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Now, back to the show. So we were thinking about going on vacation next year to go see my sister. So, she was saying, I think it would be awesome to go see your sister in February. And it was kind of a spontaneous. I hadn't heard nothing previous about doing this. And I think she wanted me to be really excited about going to visit my sister. And I was not excited because in my mind, I'm thinking about how much is that going to cost? Have we budgeted for it? How are we going to make that happen? Like, when are we thinking about

doing that? We already talked about going to Florida in January. It seems like that would be, you know, an expensive thing to do right after we're going to spend X amount of money in January. So initially when I brought it up, like this would be fun. We could surprise her, but I didn't want to surprise Kate because we're working on this budget or this plan. And so I wanted to loop a prank. So I wasn't actually sure how I would do that without Kate knowing. So that's how I fell initially. What'd you say when you brought it up? Well, I said, I actually like didn't ask her directly. I said something like, Hey, if I were to buy you like a diamond ring someday, like, how would I do that? And it was like, what?

What? Hold on. This was about the sister trip. Yeah, because I was trying to figure out how I could temperature check spending money without her knowing or like figuring out how I could spend money that we had on something that she didn't necessarily know exactly what that and the end thing would be. How long do you think I, a straight guy, would last in a relationship like this?

Because I already have enough trouble understanding sometimes straight women. This is like, you're asking a question about a jewel that's a hypothetical that relates to a sister trip. This is blowing my mind. Yeah, I see. Okay, hold on, Kate, did you get what she was asking? Yeah, I did. I understood that she was asking if I wanted to surprise you

with something, like if I wanted to surprise you with something big, since you know everything that happens in our finances, how would I do that? Okay, okay. Damn. All right. It's like you're speaking a language that's like in the ultraviolet range. All right. To be honest, I don't think it's women and women or men and men and women. It's me. It's you. Is that right? Has this been common for your whole life? Kind of. I think it's a family thing, but yeah. You speak indirectly.

Very. Okay, okay. We'll get to that. Just hang on to that. I'm finally out of way. So then her response, as she mentioned, was a little bit confused, et cetera, et cetera. How'd you feel when you got her response to that? I felt a little deflated, to be honest, because I felt like we combined the excitement and the finances all together. Right. I didn't love that.

In retrospect, if you could go back and do it again, what would you do differently if anything? Well, we did talk about this situation together. And I think something that would have been helpful is to approach her directly, but not even about the trip, but just about the actual spending. Like, hey, if we were to ever do something, or I wanted to ever do something for you as a surprise, can we start to set up a plan that allows us to do that for each other?

Great. Okay. Love that. And have you actually come up with an answer to that question? No. Okay. Hypothetically, that would have been great. We talked about talking about it, but we haven't actually talked about it. Got you. I doodle the diamond on my notepad. I do the diamond on my notepad. I got you. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, are you going to go see your sister Kate?

I don't know. I don't think we had a, we didn't kind of close the loop on the, on the, yeah, on the trip. Is that common? That you have conversations about money, but you don't come to a resolution? Yes. Yes. I think in general, these are the two different types

of languages that we speak. M is very spontaneous. And just in general, not even with finances, but just she's spontaneous. And she likes to surprise me and she kind of likes to go on adventures and do things like that. Go out to dinner, go on vacation, live our life

in a way that's enjoyable. I see things through a financial lens first. I would love not to do that. I would love to go to my sister. I'd love to go out to dinner, you know, when she asks me to, I would love to be more spontaneous. So I think that's part of the reason why we're here. I think we're on, we want the same things. We just approach how to do them in different ways. And I think sometimes we don't do them because we can't get to a resolution.

Can I assume that you are the financial leader or the financial person in your relationship? In terms of planning? Yes. Okay. And what are you not the financial person in terms of? In terms of bringing in the money. Ah, okay. Alright. So M, you're a higher earner. Kate, you, how would you describe what you do with the money? Um, I think I strategize. Okay. Okay. Interesting. How did you come to this very interesting dynamic? The higher earner brings it in and then M,

what do you do with the money once you bring it in? It just goes into your account and you're like, I'm good. Pretty much. Pretty much like as long as I have something in my checking account, I'm cool. Is that it? Yeah. Well, I'm cool. Is that it? Yeah, well, I don't care.

I mean, you should share why the situation and how we came up with it. Yeah, so right before we got married, we made a decision to start a small business. So I run the small business. I'm the CEO of the things with the small business. So I run the small business. I'm the CEO of the things of the small business. But our small business is still not yet profitable. So I'm not bringing in an income myself. So we come by in our finances and 100% of that comes from them. And then from there, I think I've taken on the role

as kind of the financial strategist, I guess, in terms of like when the money comes in, what are we going to do with it? So that's a new role for me. I've never been, I've never really thought about that. I've never really been good at saving money or investing money or anything like that. But I thought that, you know, since we were starting to build the life together and we were on the same, we are on the same page about the life that we want to build together and we're starting a family that, you know, it felt like an opportunity to step in and just kind of take

responsibility. I also think that because I'm not bringing in income, it feels like I can add value in that. You had this conversation together. You both agreed this is how you want to work. Yes. All right. Good. Well, that's healthy that you had the conversation about,

hey, starting a business, it's not quite bringing in any money and, you know, sure would be helpful if we need some financial strategy. All that is great. All right. So where is it not working? So, I think, like, initially, that was great. And sort of that's the conversation that we had in my role in that

role as financial strategist. I had questions about where different what different accounts were, you know, like what the logins were to different accounts. And as I started to dig through, there were like, you know, loans that we had. And things like decisions that we had made together when we moved into the house, we have a heal, we took out a heat lock loan for construction and things like that. So we've made some financial decisions. We paid for a wedding on a credit card. So we had some debt and we didn't really have a financial strategy to pay any of that off because you know the money was going into a bank account and not doing much after that. So so. I'm starting to sweat. I have to admit, I just want to say,

I'm starting to sweat. I heard he lock. I had one thing come down my face. Then I heard you put credit card debt for a wedding. I start sweating over here. Yeah. Okay. The credit card debt has gone though.

So thank God. How much did you take out for your wedding? How much did you take out for your wedding? So I think we put about $50,000 on credit cards. What the hell? For a wedding, yeah. Are you serious? Yeah. I mean, you're talking to the one guy in the world

who's like, spend a lot on your wedding if you want to. Just one thing, guys, if you can afford it, if you put on a credit card, you can't afford it, right? Yeah, totally. Sorry. You found some skeletons in the closet, then? Yeah, so I found some skeletons, and as I started to work through them and ask questions,

those are the types of questions that would make am uncomfortable, and that we would, there would be some friction when We got into conversations about those questions. So I for example, I said to am You know what like what is the bake account that the healer is under? I guess it's my citizens Kate. Can you look there? I? Already looked there and that's not where it is. So I need you to think of maybe another account that you

opened or go through your email and see if there's another account. Well, I don't really have a lot of time right now, so I'm going to have to look at it later. Well, I have time to do this right now and it's important. And I feel like you should prioritize this because we need to get on top of this and we need to start paying this money back because there is an interest rate and every month that we don't pay it back, we have to pay more and more money. I get that it's important, but I just have a lot

to do today and this just feels really heavy. Do you know how much the interest rate is on our heloclomb that we're currently not paying back? I don't know, probably like 2%. It's more like It's more like 17 or 18 percent. Oh, how did this happen? You know I would ask that. Yeah, you would. All right, all right, so let me pause. Okay, first of all, great work. That was good.

You two are great actresses, even though that was real. How honest would you say that was relative to the actual conversation? Yeah, I think like the words that we were saying back and forth were right, but we were being very nice and careful. Right. I think in the right enactment. Probably a little less nice when you had this kind of, because I could see how it could become very stressful. I'll just be honest. I also like it frustrates me that M doesn't know like about the interest rates or she doesn't like the The aspects of those like those parts of our like financial situation. I would really love for her to understand. Do you know why she doesn't understand them or seem to care?

stand. Do you know why she doesn't understand them or seem to care? She's just not, she's not, they're not interesting to her. And she only wants to talk about money when it's good and we're making money. Well, why don't you ask her? Maybe you're right. And why don't you care about the interest rate on our E-lock? I guess I don't care about it because I think I just assume that when I opened the E-lock that what was through that day would just stay true throughout its entirety. And so like I just feel like it's a trick or something when things change and I kind of go on autopilot and then when something changes I feel unprepared and then I kind of shut down. Well, and the healer is for some construction stuff.

What'd you do? So when I bought this condo, it needed just some updates in the bathroom in the kitchen. And so we took out a heat lock for $50,000 to redo the kitchen and bathroom and get it in good shape for us to move into. Out of curiosity, who suggested you take the heat lock? I think our mortgage broker, right? Yeah, I think our realtor at our work is for good. Yeah. Tell me, say it out loud.

I want everybody here. Yeah, our realtor and our realtor marketer. When we were looking at the property. And so they suggested it. Take out this fall and do this. They were like, tack it on to your mortgage. And then you just make like one payment on month. So interesting.

And what do you think their incentive was in suggesting that to you? Commission. I got us to buy the property. Oh, it's so weird. Oh, you guys could just take a e-lock. Oh, will I add to my commission? That's beside the point. Of course, it will. I'm legally obliged to tell you that. But anyway, you can have such a cool, beautiful bathroom. Don't take advice from brokers or realtors ever again. They have an interesting dynamic. One partner brings in the money.

The other is the financial strategist. I'll tell you what I like about this is that they've talked about money. They affirmatively made that decision for their roles. Now, let me tell you what I don't like. I don't like that one partner essentially just delegates money to the other and then his hands off. That gives you short-term problems like we're seeing with M&K, but even bigger long-term problems such as diversion views on what to do with your money. And of course the biggest risk of all.

What if one partner dies and the other is left without knowing how anything works? Now I ask them how they grew up with money. Listen to the gender issues that M encountered as a child. Unfortunately this is too common, far too common with young women. We'll be right back after the messages from these sponsors. Okay, here's the scenario. You go to in and out. You get the meal. The whole thing costs $7. Next month you go same meal, same food, same taste, 14 bucks. What the hell? Then the next time three weeks later, it's 20 bucks, then 50 bucks, then

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information removed from your search results on the web, go to joindeleteMe.com slash Let's get back to Cadenem. I mean, this is going to sound bad, but I mean, maybe not bad, but this is just, I grew up in, like, very comfortable, like, upper middle class, I would say. Why is there so much? There really, well no, what I'm about to say could be is I just didn't know there was an end. Like I didn't know that there was a budget. I didn't know that we couldn't get, you know, we had to get something not name brand, right? Like I just didn't know that that wasn't the saying.

I mean, we weren't spoiled by any means, but like my mom would rather spend you know $500 on the J Crew jacket that I'd have for five, six, seven years than to just buy me a jacket at JC Penney's and it'd be done in the year. You know, my dad is, he started a family business and so he was very much in charge of business earning, finances, planning, everything, investing and my mom, she made a decision to be a mom caretaker. And so she raised all of us kids. And my dad, you know, there's three and three, so three boys, three girls. And he was very supportive of all six of us, but the way he showed support for the boys was very different than the way he showed support for the girls. And so my brothers, I think, ended up with just more of that sort of shotgun ride in with my dad of here's how money works and here's how

money can work for you where my sister's and I we didn't get that same type of coaching and development. What did you hear instead? How much money do you need? How much does that cost? Like, oh, I got it or, you know, I'll open an account for you or I'll hover it or don't worry about it, you know, those sorts of things. And zooming out now at the 50,000 foot level, looking back, what lessons did you internalize from what your dad communicated to you about money?

had communicated to you about money. Make enough money so that what's in your account is more than what you're spending. And save, like open a savings account and kind of do the, what is it like the rule of threes? Like invest, 30, save, third being spent, 30 or whatever. Well, that would be amazing. But wait, you, that would be amazing, but you're like, I don't really wanna invest.

It's too heavy for me. Yeah, so I had an account with North Western Mutual, so I just would basically send 30, like basically 30% of my earnings. Okay, and do you like the mental, I'm not saying, well, I was gonna say, I'm not saying one is better or worse, but I do think that everybody should be taught how to make their money grow for them.

I do think that investing is important, and I don't think there's any reason that women should be taught that you should squirrel money away only, and that men should be taught like, hey, make your money grow and turn into millions. What do you think? I would agree with you. I think as my family, as we've all grown,

we've definitely all developed different stances on money and investing. And like what? I think it's not just the boys invest and have passive income and have their money grow for them and the women don't. My one sister, I mean, she's a serious go getter. I mean her and her husband are just absolutely Just brilliant in their careers and brilliant and savings and I think that they do a really great job

Maybe it's even more extreme than I'll ever get but I mean she's cut throw and it's it's admirable And I have you know a brother who's maybe less aggressive on things. He's very much low risk. He's got a really big family. He's got a lot of people to take care of. And so he is really particular about how he spends his money and what he does with his money. Parents, you have to talk to your kids about money,

especially your daughters. And I say that because I talk to too many people whose parents never talk to them. And when it comes to women, I frequently hear that the only things they were told about money, save money, don't spend a lot, and hide a little money just in case something bad happens. That is not effective teaching for any child, and I'm begging every parent out here to begin

having regular, proactive, positive conversations about money. Of course, the only way you can do that is if you yourself have a positive relationship with money. When I saw you recreate your conversation, I noticed a few things. I noticed a bit of frantic energy from Kate. It's like, I need this. I need this. I need it right now. I have this time right now.

Like, where is it? And like, this is really important. And if we don't get it, like something bad's gonna happen and I need you to know, okay, Kate's like nodding her head, yes, Kate, you agree? Yes. Kate, where'd that come from, that energy? I think it's my general energy when I have something

that I want to get done. And I don't have a lot of patience. Oh, okay, okay. So is this true in other parts of business and life? Yes, I'd say so. Both. Okay. All right. Is there an area of life where you are accomplished but also relaxed. Yeah, I mean, I'm a, I'm, I throw pottery. So I'm, I have an artistic side, a creative side. And I think that when I, like I'm creating and doing something like that, it helps me slow down and like focus. And I can, I got it.

Relax. What, what did you call it throw pottery? Yeah, like throwing on a wheel. When you throw like on the pottery wheel, that's called throwing. It's called throwing. Oh, I didn't know that. Okay, wow. Throw a pot. Oh, cool. All right. So you have to be you have to be like pretty methodical, pretty slow, but there's no rushing doing an express pot. All right. Exactly. If you rush, you'll crush the pot. Okay, interesting. I would say, this is recently, but we started doing some workout classes together, some workout classes together and she does seem to turn everything else off but that session and at the end I can see her with just some very natural like

dopamine and endorphins like just leaving you know feeling good and that's been I think another area where I've seen her kind of just focus on the moment. Wow. Kind of cool to hear that about yourself, huh Kate? Yeah. It's nice. I want to talk about IVF because I understand that the two of you have gone through or are currently going through IVF.

Is that right? Yes. Okay. And that adds another layer to your story. So can you just walk me through where you are in the IVF process and how you even got started here? Yeah. So we are a queer couple. So in order to have a baby, we obviously need some medical interventions,

some a little bit of help. And so in order to kind of get started, there's a lot of upfront costs that a couple will, have to kind of put into upfront. So, not many in turn says that all will cover IVF for any of the process, And that was true for us. So in order for us to kind of start our journey, we had to make an initial investment

about $15 to $20,000 that we've spent already. And we don't yet have a baby and I'm not pregnant. So it's still a work in progress. Yeah, so it's a huge financial burden that is on us in addition to the kind of emotional burden that going on a journey like that. And physical. Yeah.

Yeah, okay. How did you discuss the financial part as you were thinking about the IVF journey? Because, you know, when you're first starting to think about IVF, I think it's kind of hard to know is insurance involved? How much does this cost? How long does it take? How did you go about having those conversations? Right. Well, so we did have some savings that we kind of came into the relationship with. And so we decided that we would, that having a family was important to us. And like Emma had mentioned initially, like these are the types of hard conversations that we have to have as a queer couple and their conversations that we had even before we got married.

So we always knew that our family was important to us and that that was going to be a huge priority. So we immediately prioritized a portion of our savings account. It's about $50,000 to IVF and to the journey. And you were both on board with that? Was there any disagreement at all? None. Wow.

That's really nice to hear. All right. So you both agreed, started the journey. Now, IVF, very unpredictable. It can take a variety of different lengths and all kinds of things can happen. Financially speaking, are you on the plan that you thought you would be?

Do you think that IVF has ended up being more expensive than you thought? Talk to me about where you are today on the financial side. Yeah, so I think, if IVF or we've gone through IU-Lize and IVF, so they're all under fertility treatments, but they're a little different. We've done both.

If you go through IUIs, they're a little less expensive and if they work, and you do end up getting pregnant early on, then obviously you don't end up spending as much money. But if they continue to not work, then you have to continue to spend money and continue to buy donor sperm and all of those things. And so we did think that it would happen sooner for us.

And so we definitely have spent more money. Like I said, we have $50,000 in mind. That was a very conservative number and we've spent about 20 of it. We also plan on going through reciprocal IVF. What is that? It's when you use the other partners egg with the donor sperm and you put it in the opposite partner. So I'll be carrying our children and so we would be using M's egg, taking that with the donor sperm and then I'd be

carrying. And that is not covered by insurance and could cost about $20,000. and could cost about $20,000. It's a significant amount and it's not clear how much it's going to cost in the end. Okay, so it's a lot of money. Yeah. First of all, I just appreciate you talking about this. This journey is kind of hidden behind closed doors for so many people. Definitely. Most people never experience it.

And of those who do, certainly for me, I'm getting the opportunity to learn what it's like as a queer couple going through IVF because I don't know if you have, say, a straight couple. You know, a lot of times they just don't even know anything about IVF and the ones who do may have some fertility challenges, but yeah, I just appreciate everyone being able to hear the journey that you're

going on, especially how uncertain it is in so many different ways. I'm wishing you the best on that journey. Thank you for the kind wishes we're excited. I'm thankful that I get to explore IVF with MNK. These are the kind of topics that are rarely talked about openly, especially with numbers. Now what I notice is that they're quite good at planning for certain expenses, but with other parts of money, they're not connecting. Did you grow up believing you would always be upper middle class? Yeah. Okay, you still believe that? Yes. Okay. And so upper middle class to you means what?

Upper middle class means to me that we are comfortable. Like we're comfortable. Our money is invested, it's being saved, and we're able to spend, to live life comfortably for what that means for us, not living out of our means. I don't mean that, but like if we wanna go to dinner on a Wednesday night, we can just go to dinner on a Wednesday night, or if we don't want to,

we don't have to. And you currently go to dinner spontaneously on a Wednesday night. Everybody look at Kate's face. Okay. everybody look at Kate's face. I would say the answer to that is yes, but if we say yes to everyone's day night, we are affecting a future yes to something bigger, right? Is it another sperm file? Is it a Yes, to something bigger, right? Is it another sperm file? Is it a bigger house in a different location?

Is it a second car, something like that, right? What do we sacrifice in the future to have dinners every Wednesday night? OK, and just out of curiosity, how much sure the dinners when you go out? What do you think they do 50 to 50? Oh, you do like to eat well. All right.

What are you ordering for 250? We like wine. Okay. Where do you all live? What's the area? Boston. Okay. So you have very nice restaurants.

You like wine. Okay. Fine. 250. Okay. Fine. So how often would you say you got to a meal like that? Not as often as we used to.

Yeah, we've come back. I think probably twice a month. Twice a month, all right, and what'd you use to do? Couple of times a week. Yeah, five or six times a month. Fine, all right. Kate, can you go out to dinner on a Wednesday? Do you agree with him or do you disagree? Yeah, I agree with exactly what she said. I think we can we can't go

out every Wednesday. But I definitely think that if she suggests dinner on a Wednesday spontaneously, it gets a reaction from me. What is that reaction? Ooh. Okay. Like, should we be doing that? I feel guilty. Oh. Okay. So, M, you're more spontaneous.

Hey, let's go out to dinner. Let's see your sister. Let's do all these things. And then Kate, you're the, how would you describe yourself when it comes to the money? Frantic. Franticck, worried, guilty. Worried. Like a, like a dragon who's protecting the treasure, you know?

Yes, I like that. Just like breathing fire sometimes. Is that accurate? Yeah, it is. All right. So, okay, I get the dynamic. And when you suggest, like, let's go out to dinner or something, and then you get that response from Kate,

oh, I don't know what will a mean, won't be able to do this, what do you do? I think in the past, I definitely would like push her to go out to dinner. Like, it'll be fun, we need this. Like, let's just like, you know, have a night, forget about everything going on and kind of coax her into it. And, you know, she shared with me that that was something that I was doing and that made

me feel kind of icky. And so I've stopped doing that. But now I think I've swung the pendulum in the opposite direction where I don't really ask anymore. Or if I do ask and she says, no, I immediately am like, yeah, yeah, it's fine. Like, I shouldn't have brought that up. Are you guys in therapy? You sound very like conversant in therapy talk.

We are. All right, good, it's cool. I mean, that is a compliment. Like, she told me that I was doing this dynamic. I'm like, all right, cool. All right, that's awesome. I love hearing that. So you have already built bonds on communicating

and having these conversations with each other. But as you said to me, All right, that's awesome. I love hearing that. So you have already built bonds on communicating and having these conversations with each other. But as you said to me, communication is your superpower, but it seems like for some reason, money is the one thing you can't seem to communicate on. Why is that? We don't know. I think that's why I think that's something

that we hope that you can help us with. I do think, though, that my hope is that we can find a balance because I don't think that this is a dynamic that I want to... I know that I don't want to be in this dynamic forever. I think that we have a lot of things working against us right now. We have, I mentioned we have the HELOC, we have the wedding that we paid for on our credit card. We have the IVF that we're paying for. We have a lot of things that have kind of built up

and what I am asking, I think of M, is to like temporarily get in this boat with me to help me help us like Release the pressure Like you feel like you're rowing alone and where you need to go is over there and it's a bit of a distance away And you have waves coming at you you have IVF you have these loans you have all kinds of stuff and you have waves coming at you. You have IVF, you have these loans, you have all kinds of stuff and you can't do it alone. If you could just have a passenger or partner in your boat, maybe

you could get there safely together. Yes. The reason why we're together is because we love to go on adventures with each other and be loved to be spontaneous. But for me in order to do those things, we have to first be responsible and pay attention to the things that are right in front of us. And then we'll be able to be more spontaneous and enjoy life a little more. And what do you hear when you hear her sharing that example? I mean, I think she's, I think she's been asking for those sayings. And I think she deserves someone to row the boat with her. I think that there's a way that everybody can feel good about money?

Everybody. Yeah. Okay, lots of nods around the room. What's the way? Tell me. Maybe putting moments of fun into the plan. I totally agree. That would be amazing.

Are you on chapter three or less in the book? You are right. I just started, I think, chapter four, the conscious many of them. I'm not on chapter four. I knew it, because go about five more pages than you're going to be like, oh, that idea I had was really good. Here it is. We'll be right back after this.

Isn't it interesting that in my conversations with guests on this show, they often come here thinking that they need some fancy math to fix their money problem, but it often turns out that they need to have better communication with each other. Now we have one conversation with each other, but a lot of times to make a sustainable change, we need help. And that's why I often encourage guests to see a therapist. It's not easy to find a great therapist though. Where do you start? Who do you look at? What if you want to switch therapists? Well, I'm bringing this up especially because during the holidays, it can be a tough time for us. And if you

are thinking of starting therapy, give better help a try. It's entirely online. It's convenient, flexible, works around your schedule. Just have to fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. So in the season of giving, give yourself what you need with better help. Visit betterhelp.com slash remeath today to get 10% off your first month. That's better help help.com slash remeath. Back to the show. Okay, now I want to get into their finances, which I promise is going to surprise you. If you want to follow along and use my free template for your own finances,

go to iwt.com slash csp for the conscious spending plan. That's IWT.com slash CSP. How was it filling out the conscious spending plan together? It was good. Yeah, how long did it take? 10 minutes. Thank God. All right, let's see here. Kate, can you read the network stuff,

read the bold word and then the number next to it? Can you read the network stuff, read the bold word, and then the number next to it? Okay, assets, $1,260,000. Investments, $141,000. Seavings, $54,000, and debt, $789,000. For a total net worth of $670,000. Why are we talking about $80 dinners? Okay. Can anyone explain this to me?

I'll start with the dragon. Eight? Yeah, I don't, like, I guess like, I don don't know I don't know if that's good like I don't see I don't know if that's good. I really love my job. So you're 36 and 35 years old your your net worth is $671,000. Is that good or bad? Let's just start there.

Probably good. Probably good. I'm glad you said that. M, good or bad? Bad. It's bad. Okay. How come? Well, it's that compare mentality. You're comparing yourself to your 25-year-old older siblings.

Yes. Okay. All right. I mean, you're right. When I compare myself to Bill Gates, I also feel horrible. Bad. Yeah. I feel so bad. Oh gosh, Warren Buffett. I'm just, I'm a total failure at life. My portfolio, it's like nothing. What if you compared yourself to people your age? your age. Yeah, I think I would, well, I guess before we started this financial journey, I would have also answered bad, but again, it's that those new lenses that I put on, I feel really good about where we're at. So sometimes what I say is that the way you feel about money is highly uncorrelated with the amount in the bank. Well, here we go.

Yeah. That's case in point. So let's take a look at your income. I found it particularly interesting. M, walk me through your gross combined monthly income. What is this number? 28,226. That's monthly for everyone listening.

Not annual income. They make $28,000 per month. What's the total annual income, M? It's right around $338,000. Okay. Did you know that number? Yes. I love it.

Okay. Love it. Thank you for bringing that average up. Again, 50% of people on this show do not even know how much they make on an annual basis. All right. So This is what I love according to these numbers one of you makes 27,000 out of $28,000 per month and the other one makes $560 per month. Can you please explain this to me? So $60 per month. Can you please explain this to me? So, I'm a small business and I only pay myself enough, like I pay myself what goes into my Roth IRA.

So. Okay, I don't mind it, that's smart. That's really smart. Okay, let me explain for everybody listening why Kate does that and why I'm totally on board of it. So Kate goes I'm young. I want to max out my Roth IRA, especially because my income is relatively low right now So I can afford to put in the full amount to your Roth IRA So she just pays herself that much. She's gonna take that invest that post tax money

It's gonna grow forever and then she not going to pay any taxes on the gains, which will turn into a lot of money over time. Okay? Meanwhile, she also can afford to pay herself basically nothing because M is earning this huge salary, so they can run their household on that. Kate, did I get that right? Yes. Okay.

M, House Rich's salary is so high. Everybody wants to know. I'm a VP at a tech company. I'm happy with my salary. My hesitation is just from like an equity perspective. I am paid much more like much less than man of equal title in the same industry. They've been doing a lot of work over the last year with me being a part of the charge to lessen the wage gap, especially at my company, but just industry wide, I mean other VPs of the same level at different tech companies

do make a lot more. So it's, you know, where we're at as a company. We are working hard to make it more equitable for everyone. But yeah, so I mean, I definitely want my earnings potential to go up. How do you feel about your salary? I want it to be more. Kate was shaking her head no. Kate, speak up.

Yeah, she's not happy with her salary. She's not happy. I just want to, how do I do this thing? Let me just see this for a second. Everybody look closely. This is the number we're talking about per month. $27,666. Now, I'm not saying,

and that you shouldn't want more. Of course, you want equity. I get that. I'm just saying on an absolute basis, can we agree that for somebody in their mid-30s, this is a pretty good number? Yes. Okay, all right.

Again, not taking anything away from all the work that you're doing and from what you're saying, you probably should be compensated much more. All right, your net monthly income is $16,960, which tells me you're investing a ton in your 401k, probably maxing it out, right? Yes, yes. All right, that's a lot of money, good.

Well, I have no comments on your income, except that it's great, and it seems like it's probably gonna go up, right? Yes. Kate, are you gonna make more in the business? Yes. All right, when? So next year, I have a plan to pay myself next year.

So we had a really great year this year. I'm able to pay myself a little bit next year. And in addition to that, I have a couple like side hustles that I'm going to be working on. So my goal is to bring home about three to four thousand dollars a month. Here is a couple who is financially doing so many things right. Now to the untrained eye, you might just see a couple with a high income and say, oh, that must be nice. But I see a lot more beneath the surface. They've discussed financial roles in their relationship.

They are carefully maxing in their relationship. They are carefully maxing out their retirement accounts, which is why there's such a huge disparity between gross and net. Is everything perfect? No, they put 50K for their wedding on a credit card. Don't do that. They took that HELOC that was probably unnecessary. And they're here because they're not connecting around money. But from a purely numbers perspective. And even a lot of their process, they are doing great. And I want to take a second to applaud that. I think with money, we are all too quick to point out all the things that are going wrong. All the things we're not achieving.

We even compare ourselves to people that are decades older than us. I want you to cultivate the habit of feeling grateful, accomplished, competent. You can feel good about money even if you have debt. And that's important because feeling bad is not going to produce long-term behavioral change. But feeling good, along with using the systems that I teach in my book and my programs, that will. Savings goal are at 23%. That's a lot. Why are you saving $3,000 a month for a down payment? What is this? Why?

Well, the thought is that we have that money set aside and the thought is that if we, if we, if we want to buy another house in the future that we could contribute the money towards that, although I think we're both in agreement that right now we don't need to buy another house, we're comfortable here, but with the plan to grow our family, we will grow out of space in this house, and also we don't want to pay higher interest rate. I think our interest rate on this mortgage is like 3%. So if you were to buy a new place, your interest rate would naturally be much higher, right?

Especially right now in the market. When we started talking about IVF, and when we do eventually grow a family, the plan is for me to stay at home with our kids. And so I think the longer that that kind of has taken and it has started to weigh on me a little bit that I'm not bringing home, any additional income, so any pressure is on myself.

Okay, well, I certainly don't want to be the one to add that pressure, but I'm glad you've had those conversations, that's awesome. You're a team. I hear it. All right, let's keep going. Your fixed costs are 48%. I mean, what am I going to say? I have no comments. You have a $3,300 mortgage, which is 13% when I factor in your utilities. That's fantastic. What is this? a condo you own? Right. Yep.

That's the one you're in right now? Yes. All right. Looks good. So you're 54,000. If we broke it out, you have money for IVF and some of the money for this new potential house. Yes.

All right. Yes. How long could you go in this house with a baby? I mean, I think we have different perspectives on that day to day. We have one extra bedroom. So we have an additional bedroom right now. So with one extra bedroom, we could go until that baby is more mobile.

So once the baby is born a year and a half. So anywhere from two to three years from now, we need to look at buying another house. If you rented the house that you have right now, how much would you get for it? This one that you rent. We were quoted for $4300. Yeah. $4300 and you currently pay $3300. Okay, although you'd probably break even with maintenance and all that stuff, maybe, but okay.

So would you potentially consider keeping this, renting it out and then getting another one? Whoa, going to have a little real estate empire over here. I don't mind it. For everybody listening to things I hate real estate, I don't mind it. If you can get the numbers to work, very interesting. Okay, maybe you end up doing that. Maybe the next place you get, you buy, maybe you rent, you could certainly do that.

There's lots of options you have. I wouldn't rush into anything, particularly with, you know, 8% interest rates, et cetera, but you have time. I love that you're planning. In fact, I just want to highlight this on this is like a very, very savvy savings goal. First of all, you broken it up by different names. Their name to counts. That's awesome. You have a baby saving and spending at $50 a month. Amazing. And especially amazing because you're doing this before there's a baby. And I just love that. And of course, the longer you save, the less you have to save.

So 50 bucks a month right now is going to turn into a lot of money. That's amazing. You got this amount for debt, debt, pay off and house payment. Let's just call it house payment. Okay. All right. Looks good. Blah blah blah. What kind of card do you drive? I'll book Swagant teak one. I think it's 2021. All right, fine. Your groceries are 600 bucks.

That's pretty low. Right. So it's what? The food spend is all eating out. Is that it? Yeah. Why are you guys laughing? She thinks it's too low. She thinks it's too low. She has to spend money on groceries. And how do I say this nicely? Your household income is $28,000 per month. If you want to spend an extra $200 a month on groceries, you don't have to sacrifice on like a t-shirt. Do you know that? And I'm going to show you the actual math because I want you to make better decisions when it comes to your money. Like I want you to feel comfortable. So right now this number, your fixed cost number is 48%. Like just to give you an example, let's say we add an extra 500 bucks a month, I'm just playing here just for fun.

Watch this number that's currently 48%. Okay, let's see what happens. It jumps up to 51%. It's nothing. Let's add 1,500 bucks a month. 57%. Okay, now we're getting a little high. All right, I don't think you need to do that.

But an extra 100, just look at the number. It literally changes nothing. What do you take away from that, but an extra 100 just look at the number. It literally changes nothing. What do you take away from that, Ed? I think the takeaway for me there is it's not about like being $50 over or $50 under. It's like figuring out what's that sweet spot and staying within the range that keeps our fixed costs at the percentage point that we want it to be at, from what we're, what we need to be saving or spending on. Yeah, yeah.

And take advantage of the fact that you're obviously very good at your job and that you have a great relationship where you can be great at your job and Kate, you can be great at starting your business. I always ask myself, what do I get? Whatever I'm doing, something that's a lot of work, I go, what do I get? Like literally, I put my hand out, I go, what do I get?

What do I get for working hard at my business, et cetera? I get to travel and I get to stay at beautiful hotels, I get to surprise my friends and family. And I get to not have to count the prices when I go to a restaurant. I just don't want to. I set a range. I'm generous with myself and then I never have to check it. So what do you get is if you love food, pick a range that is comfortable, but then you get to be able to get the nice pasta if that's what you want. How does it feel to hear that?

It feels nice, relaxing. Yeah, love that word. Relaxing, peaceful. Yeah. I just, I kind of love the transformation and when we first started talking to where we are now, just you two are much more open about. And I can definitely and very clearly see the love

between you. And I love being able to connect that to your money. Because when I see this money, I don't just see a conscious spending plan. I see beautiful vacations, and I see you eating amazing food with friends and loved ones like, that's what I see. And that gets me excited. Remember this.

This is really important. People, this is where people find comfort in their numbers, in this order. They find comfort in their checking account, then their savings account, and last, their portfolio. Now, can I tell you how I find comfort? Your portfolio first. Yeah, I would literally, if my portfolio were a blanket, I would call it blanky and I would like lie with it and just cuddle up with. Now that's comfort and that also grows and it compounds.

That's comfort. The thing that drives me insane is people finding comfort over this tiny little tiny thing. I go, that's providing you comfort something that's earning basically no interest, some little checking account just because you can see it. And so what I want people to do is to dream bigger, right? Comfort comes from your portfolio. That's like a moat. Nobody can mess with you when you have your moat of wealth. Something goes wrong. Yeah, okay, you pull out freemer checking. It's too big. You got your savings. Something opportunistic thing comes along or you want to buy a huge house or whatever.

Boom, portfolio. So I want everybody to reverse what they love. Portfolio first, okay? That's like the third person in your relationship. There's the two of you in your portfolio. That's love. Second is your savings. You's the two of you in your portfolio. That's love. Second is your savings. You got a nice savings.

It's a healthy amount and you're growing it. Okay. Checking is like, it's like a relevant. Whatever's there, you know, cover it, put a little bit extra so you can float it and let's not talk about checking. It's just uninteresting. That's how you have a healthier relationship with your money.

All right? Yeah, awesome. I want an investment blankie. Yeah. Damn, I need to, I need to create some merch. Yeah, you do. It's a blankie and it just says, your moat. Now you got this drag and a moat. So I know, you know what? I need a merch store. and after every podcast, we're going to have some new little little thing. Damn. That'll be amazing. If you start selling like dragon and stuffed animals, I want a first image. One last thing I want to do, speaking of investments, I would like to plug in your investments. Have you all ever done this where you plug in your investment numbers? Not with the not with the number that we were just working with, actually, $12,000 a month. All right.

Let's let's let's play with it, huh? So because I want you to see what what numbers we're dealing with. Because when you first got on the call, we're talking about like $80 Wednesday lunches or whatever, I'm like, no, I'm not talking about this with them. They were $250. Yeah, all right. All right, so here's the current amount you have, okay? Invested.

And do you know how much you're going to add every year based on just your current income in your mid-30s. 46,000. Yeah. It's going to be like that. Right about that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

So let's be conservative. Let's call it 46,000. I would have said 50, but let's just say 46,000 be conservative. I like it. Years to grow. How long? 30. Yep.

You'll be 65 by then. Again, just good calculation. How long? 30. Yep. You'll be 65 by then. Again, just good calculation. And what percentage should we assume? M, I'm asking you. What percentage should we assume here? Eight. Oh, good.

I'll say seven, because I like to be conservative, but eight is also valid. Let's say seven, though, let's do it my way. All right, how much M are you gonna have if your income does not increase one bit for the rest of your life and you just keep this plan up? How much are you gonna have? About two million.

Damn, someone's run some numbers before. Well, it's actually a little bit more than that. Five million, five point seven million. What do you say? M looks completely uninterested in this number. Let me zoom in on this face. This five million bucks. That's adjusted for inflation. It's awesome. She's like, that's really cool. I can buy that. I can go to Italy and get that pasta. M, that's a lot of money. Yes. Hey, you feel safe? Anybody here feel comfortable? Yes.

All right. It's a lot of money. What I want to do is I really want to congratulate you, because now you're playing big. Okay. And of course, you can play with it. You don't have to wait 30 years. You know, you want to see what happens at 20 just to say, oh, maybe we retire early. All right, 2.5 million. But maybe you start earning a lot more.

I'm sure that business is gonna crush it. And maybe instead of 46,000 a year, you're contributing. You turn that into 65,000 a year income. It's totally possible. So what happens? 3.3 million in 20 years and 7.6 million in 30 years.

And of course, if you just let it sit there, 11 million by the time you are 70. The numbers are huge. Point is you started big, you started early. Now what matters is consistency. Okay, the only way that the two of you can be consistent is if you both feel good about money. I really enjoyed speaking to M&K, and my approach today was to focus more on the positivity

because their numbers are solid and their strategies generally very good. What I wanted to do was to shift them from feeling like money is a burden, like they're a dragon being totally uninterested in money to taking a victory lap and saying, hey, we did that. I took this approach because I saw that they have done this same thing in so many other parts of life. And what I wanted to do was I wanted to connect their feeling of accomplishment and togetherness with their money.

MNKT are a great example of not needing to go deep on the tactics because they're quite smart. They're going to figure it out. But the real opportunity is to change the way they talk about money. They behave with money. And most importantly, the way they feel with money. Let's hear their follow-ups. First, let's hear from M. One of the big things for me was participating more. So I started to add different reminders on my calendar that come up on a monthly basis to check you know our heat lock loans. Our mint account just to make sure that we're that I'm showing up in a way that allows Kate to be able to have those

conversations with me. Or I don't feel as though I'm being bombarded, but that I'm participating in my own rescue a bit more, and not depending on Kate for all of that, because I know that stresses are out. One of my biggest takeaways was the plan and what it means, the plan, you know, it's, it is a budget, but what it really is is that if we have goals in our life, we need to make sure that we're planning and creating pathways for us to achieve those goals. The last takeaway that I'll share with you is one of the things that I loved what you said was to play big means to be consistent

and what that meant to me based on our conversation is when we started to look at, you know, 10, 12 years, well when we started to look further out, you know, into the retirement timeframe, but that in 10 to 12 years is our opportunity to create some really big wealth and chunking it down like that has me really excited for some of the things that we can do as we keep earning, as we keep investing and continue to grow not just our finances but just our goals and grow towards them. So definitely appreciate it. And now Kate's follow up. One of the things that surprised me about our conversation was when you picked up on my frantic energy that I have around money.

It was a useful moment for me because I think that I put so much importance and I want so badly for money not to cause anxiety that I actually make it cause more anxiety. Something that I took away from our conversation is that we actually are in a really good place. We actually don't need to maybe save as much. We can spend a little more and maybe look at investing a little bit more. So we actually have a very good solid financial foundation. Something I noticed was that what I could do is to contribute more financially and I think that that's going to help me feel more confident about the money that we do make and about spending money and also just to check our finances less and not be going through the transactions

on a day-to-day basis, take a kind of zoomed-out approach and only look at our finances. Something that I plan on doing this month is actually M and I are going to go out on one of those 250-dollar dinners that we deserve and we can afford and we should go out on and we are going to have a lot of fun. So thank you so much and we hope to talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to I Will Teach You To Be Rich. I'm Remi Tseiti. Please follow the show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you haven't read, I will teach you to be rich. My book, pick up a copy.

You can get it at any bookstore or any library, and it will show you the specific tactics for how to build the I will teach you to be rich system into your personal finances. Thanks.