I Will Teach You To Be Rich - 96. “We have $4,600 in credit card debt but we spend $600/month on GrubHub”

Episode Date: May 9, 2023

Jennifer and Andrew are in their 30s with 2 kids. They have been married for 11 years, but they speak different languages when it comes to money, deeply stuck in scripts from contrasting family backgrounds. Can they learn to come together in joy for the sake of their family? This episode is brought to you by: Long Angle | If you've made a lot of money and you're looking for a community of peers to turn to for advice, go to longangle.com to learn more. DeleteMe | If you want to get your personal information removed from the web, go to joindeleteme.com/ramit for 20% off. Nomorobo | To protect yourself and your family from phone scams, go to nomorobo.com/ramit for a 14-day free trial. Connect with Ramit • 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 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.

We avoid talking about money so often and a lot of the money conversations that we're having are actually done in my head. I just kind of go into panic mode because I don't know exactly what he means and then I just I see the tension on his face. Like I just need to continue to plow forward. So the excitement is there I can't get excited because if I get excited and something happens and we're not prepared, it's just going to be that much more brushing. I would say that we're not speaking the same language and we just don't see money the same ways we can't manage it together. Jennifer asked him, if for today did you feel like you were in this alone? Before today and knowing this number, did you feel like you were in this alone? If we were today and knowing this number,

did you feel like you were in this alone? Yeah. It was hard because it's... if anything ever happened to me or something happened to me, there would... there was nothing for you guys. And so I would just... soldier on.

Keep moving forward. Because I didn't want something to happen, and then for you guys to have nothing. Today I'd like you to meet Jennifer and Andrew. Jennifer's 33, Andrew is 37, and they have trouble saving money. She's a doula, and he's a police officer. And until recently she was a stay at home mom, now she started working and earning more. Now, as you listen to today's episode, I want you to notice certain phrases that they use.

Frazes like we can't save money, or when it comes to Andrew, things like soldiering on, really creating the identity of the protector of the family, someone who just blindly soldiers on. Listen in closely, I think you're going to find today's conversation fascinating. And of course, you can watch this entire episode on YouTube so you can see their body language and eye contact. Let's get to it. We avoid talking about money so often and a lot of the money conversations

that we're having are actually done in my head. Like me sort of reading the room and reading body language and kind of being like, okay, I said something about this cost and I saw him react this way and so I'm just gonna back off and maybe not make that purchase or not talk about it again. And so you feel exhausted sometimes talking about money or even thinking about money. I do. I feel exhausted and I feel nervous for how he's going to react and I'm trying to avoid discomfort because when we talk about money and then things go uncomfortable and

weird, I have a really hard time kind of getting us back to like a copacetic just sort of good lace and our conversations are many often are very tense. We're just, it's like we're speaking different languages. So because your conversations with money have been tense before, you remember that, and you can even see the signs when you bring it up, he gets a little tense, you get tense, therefore you don't bring it up at all, out loud, but you keep it going in your head. Is that correct? Yeah. Okay.

Do you make forward progress with your joint finances using this strategy? Not at all. Our general conversations are on money are usually me trying to look ahead and look at sort of a big picture of what money is coming in. Andrew likes to look at things, sort of in a smaller scale like paycheck to paycheck. And that's been a big disagreement between us. And Andrew shaking his head too. How long? How long has it been a pattern for? Couple months.

Our entire marriage. Oh, 11 years. Our entire relationship. My credit card, how much we can pay on my credit card when it gets paid off is a big one. So me being like, I need to pay more on my credit card and she'll be like, yeah, we'll pay more, but we can't do that now.

I disagree because sometimes there are times we have the money and it's extra money or I feel like it's extra money, but it's going to food or to maybe a target purchase or something the kids need. And sometimes I feel like for me me what I think is an emergency, we need to just get this down, doesn't become that until we've passed that point. Okay, and Jennifer, when Andrew says, hey, we need to pay more towards this credit card,

what's your reaction? we need to pay more towards this credit card. What's your reaction? My reaction is to kind of go into sort of like a fear mode of just like, well, hold on, wait, what other big bills do we have? Coming up, what does he mean by that? How much more toward his credit card? What's the plan? We are realizing now how big we kind of are about these conversations and.

Why? What do you mean tell me what you just realized? Well, as he's saying that, I'm like, oh yeah, that makes sense to me. I don't know, the way he's saying it to you is making sense to me now. Oh no, I've become the guy. You know what happens in couples. You know, they've been together a long time and someone's been saying the same thing for like 10 years. And then Mr. Jackass, Rameet, say T rolls in, we've been talking for less than 10 minutes, right? And I haven't

said a word. I haven't said one single directive thing. And suddenly Jennifer's like, Oh, I totally see what he's been saying. Now, Andrew's like, what the fuck this guy, Ramiit. I've been saying this for a decade. Did I get that right? This is kind of, I think that the issue is that we don't often have an actual plan together that we come together and say, I want to pay more of my credit card because this is the pay off plan and we need to pay this much per month blah, blah, blah.

You never said that. Did you never have that conversation? Well, 11 years isn't that long. Maybe another 11 years, you guys can pull out a debt payment plan. Why do you think you haven't had a conversation like that before? I think that we have, you know, coming into these conversations, Andrew would bring it up to me and say, you know, I want to do this much on my credit card, blah, blah, blah. And I just kind of go into panic mode because I don't know exactly what he means. And then I just, I see the tension on his face. I see the like his discomfort

with the amount that's on his credit card. And then I kind of put it on myself as like, oh shoot me, I messed up here. I need to fix this. We need to talk about it. And then I kind of put it on myself as like, oh shoot me, then I messed up here. I need to fix this. We need to talk about it. And then we kind of just get into this weird cycle of like, energy. It's almost like cats just like circling each other like, yeah, 11 years is too long to not talk about money in a healthy way. I'm willing to bet the substance of your money conversations

is a lot of walking on eggshells, a lot of feeling each other's emotions, and less, hey, what is our goal for this conversation? And how can we make it constructive? Jennifer and Andrew don't really know what the problem is. When they talk about it, they lapse into very vague language. Like, it's all about the communication.

But when I press them, it's clear they don't really understand what's going on here. And that's actually, okay, most of us don't understand the root problem. That's often why we need somebody from the outside to come in and help us see what's really going on. What's interesting to me is that our minds create these compelling narratives that we then latch on to. We may tell ourselves,

he always spends too much. She doesn't want to talk about finances, but when we dig deeper, those are often not reality. In other words, our mind is very good at creating narratives, but our mind doesn't always tell us the truth. One big clue is that their conversation is often going circles, and they end up in the weeds. For example, they spend two hours doing the conscious bending plan which really should take no longer than 30 minutes. I wanna keep probing with them

to see if they can realize what's really going on because it's much more powerful if they get it instead of me coming and telling them what's going on. I get a lot of questions from people who have used my book. They've automated their finances. They've set their investments up. They go, all right, I did the basics. What's next? And when you've made a lot of money, you'll notice that there's not a lot of advice specifically

for you. The blog posts that are typically focused around people who are just starting off or even people in debt do not really apply to you anymore. And it can also be embarrassing to ask. You can't really post about certain topics when you have money because your friends don't know how much you make. And nobody really wants to hear about how do I take cooler vacations or what do you all do for tax optimization? Because the first response is oh rich people problems.

I don't like that phrase because rich people problems are problems nonetheless. How are you supposed to find someone you trust whether it's an accountant or a travel advisor. The usual advice that you find on Google doesn't really apply at a certain level. So if you've made a big jump in income or net worth, and you wish you had a community of people who just get it, I want to introduce you to today's sponsor Long Angle. The Long Angle community is composed of high net worth individuals with diverse backgrounds in technology, finance, medicine, real estate, law, manufacturing, sports, media, and more. I'm a member of this community.

There are so many interesting members of the community. The majority of them are first-generation wealth. They're young, highly successful individuals, and they join the community to share knowledge and learn from each other, to get confidential, unbiased support, knowledge, sharing, and networking. And you can do it online through their digital platform, as well as face-to-face connections at their long-angle in-person events. Now, members also have access to unique private market opportunities. And as I mentioned, I'm a member of long-angle. I like it because it's vetted. Everyone on there has a certain amount of net worth,

and therefore they are asking relevant questions of the community. You're not going to get people on there giving the same old advice like, Hey, here's how you save money on celery. That's not the purpose of this community. Some of the topics that I've loved are multi-generational family trips, or questions like, we want to travel for six months with our children. What do you all do for school? How do you make travel more seamless for children? I've seen topics I loved about concierge doctors. Topics that no one is really talking about publicly. And on their online community, there are groups for all different topics,

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member to make sure it's a fit. Go to longangle.com to learn more. That's longangleangle.com. One of my money dials is generosity. For example, I love tipping big, I love buying gifts and experiences for my family. And recently, I bought my parents a subscription to DeleteMe. This episode's sponsor. DeleteMe is a subscription service that will remove your personal information that's

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It's a service that I personally use and I love it. They reviewed over 4,600 listings for me and removed dozens of pieces of personal information. I knew it would be important to protect my parents too, but I also knew that they probably wouldn't sign up themselves. So I just got it for them. So if generosity is one of your money dials, great. If you care about your parents at all, if you have ever given them a hug, just sign them up. You know they aren't going to do it for themselves, but you also know that they probably need it.

So if you wanna get your personal information and the personal information of your loved ones removed from search results on the web, go to joindeleteme.com slash remeat for 20% off a plan for you or your entire family. That's joindeleteme.com slash remit, R-A-M-I-T, for 20% off. I would say that we're not speaking the same language, and we just don't see money the same ways. We can't manage it together. I am very analytical when it comes to money.

And she is very... She sees it differently. It's more fluid. It's loose. She can look at money a month out and I'm stuck stuck looking at money. Like, this is this paycheck, this paycheck goes to this paycheck. My money constraint is very tight. I think that's where some of the tension comes in,

because when we're talking about money, it's like we're talking about it in different ways. He's looking at exactly what has come into his account that day from his paycheck, and I'm thinking, and I have a client that's gonna pay me next week, and I know that for next. And I'm thinking, and I have a client that's going to pay me next week. And I know that for next month, I'm projected to make this much.

And I couldn't make more. And that means we could actually take, maybe we don't have to like, OK, this specific bill right now, and like, Drainark, we actually paid a spill in this chunk in this way. And we have this much for groceries. We don't have to worry. We're OK.

Are you seeing Andrew's face right now? I was like, I get you, sorry, I was. Andrew, can you just, I mean, what's going through your mind right now? I see your face. Oh, it's the late fees. It's the higher interest rate. It's we're gonna end up spending more money

because we didn't pay it off when it was due.'s the fact that like our credit's gonna take a hit So which means what if your credit takes a hit? It means we can't In a better credit curve. We can't move like if we need to If we need to make a big purchase we can't do that because our credit shot like our credit is already not good Okay Andrew did you grow up poor? We can't do that because our credit shot like our credit is already not good. Okay Andrew did you grow up poor upper middle class? upper middle class more than them

What's that I always love the partner? I just I mean your mom had money. Oh, okay So you grew up wealthy, but you're saying upper middle class. Is that right? Oh, okay. So you grew up wealthy, but you're saying upper middle class, is that right? My mom made probably $120,000 a year. In what year? The 90s, early 2000s. Okay, and in what city?

The Bayer. Okay, that's, I have to look at the exact terms, but okay, upper middle class to wealthy fine. And Jennifer, is there any other reason you kind of smiled? Do they own yacht or something that we should know about? Well, I mean, they just, they definitely had money. I mean, he never even had to take out a student loan to go to school, like his, but I also understand, too, there's some new ones there.

She didn't always manage her money well, but they had money. They definitely had things. We didn't talk about money. It was a lot of my mom waiting to pay bills until she got paid. Why making 120K? Spending money on other things. It wasn't food. It was like there were a couple of times where the power went out or.

Okay, hold on. Did she grow up poor? No. She also grew up. So, I think it's missing from this puzzle. Okay. She grew up with money. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Now, I got to figure this out. She grew up, she got a nice job, made 120K, which is great. And how come the power went out and she was trading stuff for food? Why? She mismanaged money. So both me and her grew up in environments where we, we did not want. So if she needed something or we needed something without thinking about it, she would just pay for it. Or like her favorite place she would travel a lot.

So she's paying for big trips, not looking at accounts. Or like, ooh, there's a new car, I'm gonna buy that new car right now. Well, was she the only kid or was she like spoiled? She was very spoiled. Ah, okay, got it. So she was spoiled. So money was given to her, et cetera. How long was money given to her?

Like while she was making 120k, was her family still giving her money? Yes. Okay. Starting to make more sense now. So they covered things arbitrarily, randomly got it. Was that the same for you? Yes. Do they still, do you still get money from your family? No. No, that's it. Why did it stop? Because I'd married Jennifer. Ah! And hold on, was that, did it stop because you said, okay, I'd like you to stop or did they say, all right, we're done.

They said, all right, we're done and me and Jennifer worked hard to get to a point where we didn't have to take money anymore. Congratulations, that's awesome. That's really cool. I remind them all the time I'm proud I am of us. I think we've come a really long way. We're talking about how vague and stuff we are now in the problems we've had, but we've come a really, really long way. That's cool. Andrew, what about you? How do you feel about that?

I don't think I've ever taken a moment to celebrate it. But the fact is you have created your own family unit. That takes autonomy, takes intention. I think that's really cool. Thank you. So many of us go through life never stopping and celebrating how far we've come. For most of us money is just one series of transactional decisions after another. Pay that bill, repair the car, pick up SRAN rap at Target, should we buy a house? It's no surprise that if we agonize over the price of SRAN rap at

Target, that we are probably stuck in the weeds and we are not zooming out and looking at the big picture. But the big picture is where you get the big wins. And it's not just life that does this to us. We do it. We actively choose to talk about tiny, little expenses that are overall meaningless because it gives us a sense of comfort. It gives us a sense of control.

And one of my entire goals with everything I do is to help you see that these three-dollar questions are ultimately meaningless. You can spend the rest of your life chasing three-dollar questions and it will get you nowhere. Or you can totally reconceptualize the way you think about money and ask $30,000 questions and start focusing on things that really matter. And there's one other thing when it comes to talking about the big picture versus three dollar expenses. If you focus on three dollar expenses, I can almost always guarantee you feel bad about money. And if you feel bad about money, how are you ever going to step back and appreciate it? So there are lots of

ways to feel good about money. Part of it is understanding your numbers. You've got to know your numbers, your fixed expenses, all that. But you've also got to talk about money regularly, proactively, and positively. If you can do those two things at the same time, you are a very good track to having a healthy relationship with money. What'd you make at your first job? $2000 a month. What? Really? What was it? This is less than that. You made a thousand a month because our? Really? What was it? It was less than that. You made $1000 a month because our rent was $800. And I had $200 to try to pay for groceries and diapers and stuff.

Oh, even less than that. So $1000 a month. We started off our relationship, essentially, in survival mode. Neither of us was really making any money. I was living in a Buddhist monastery as a live-in chef. So I was basically just working to live there. And he was a student and his, you know, blessedly his mother was able to pay for him to just go to college.

So that was great, but his whole job was to be a student. So we were not making any money. So that's how you started off your relationship? Were you married at the time? No. We were engaged. So we had a baby. Okay. Really early in our relationship. A little premature baby at home. And he read away when he got that job and we had to get on food stamps. And I had $200 to try to figure out gas, diapers, food, and we would take that other 800, put it to rent. And we did that for a little while until we finally got a raise, which I think then got to about maybe that 2000 you're thinking of yeah hold on so I have so many questions

So I have to ask You're on food stamps now Did you think of going back to your family and asking for some sort of financial help? They helped every now and then So when we needed it was kind of normal there hold on hold on hold on I want to hear from Andrew So Andrew, I mean now and then. So when we needed help, they were there. Hold on, hold on. I want to hear from Andrew. So Andrew, what do you mean now and then?

They would still like, if things got really bad, I can call him, be like, hey, we need some help. And they would be like, okay, here's a little bit of money to get you through. What does really bad mean and how much would they give you? Really bad is we are short, 600. So they give you. Really bad is we are short 600. So they give us 600 or like yeah we have a bill we can't cover. So here's your bill money. Yeah okay who were you calling with my mom? You were calling your mom and what is her financial situation now? She is in debt. Wow. She is in debt.

Wow. And did that come about from pure mismanagement? mismanagement and she got sick so So she had to deal with all of that. How she now health was She passed recently so Not to I guess she's doing a lot better That's what that's what I look looking at. Still a lot better now. I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah.

Okay. When she passed in terms of your own finances, did it affect your finances at all? Was there an inheritance or anything like that? As it stands right now, she still owes money. So we are trying to figure out how we're going to cover that cost. Jennifer, I want to go back to you now. Rewinding back to those early moments where you just had a baby and sometimes you couldn't cover your costs, you said that was normal for my family. What do you mean by that?

Yeah, well, I was thinking about your question, like, did you go to ask for help from your family? For my family, like, if I were to tell them, like, oh, I'm really struggling, or I can't afford diapers, they probably would have been, like, ah-ha, like, cute, huh, like, that's how we do it. That's what life is, kind of a blue collar family. Like, it was just like, oh, this is how it is.

This is how it is to have a baby. This is how it is to have a baby. This is how it is to have life. You know, I don't have much to give you. Join the club. And just join the club, yeah. Did you grow up hearing this? Is that the sort of message you received growing up that life is tough and that's how it is?

Definitely. Yeah, how did you grow up? Definitely pretty poor. My mom and dad split when I was just a little tiny baby and she remarried to a guy who was great, grew up as my dad and he was a very blue collar guy. Like he ended up starting his own company. But he also owed child support.

So like a huge chunk of this check would get taken out. So my mom was very resentful of that. She was super broke. She's like, count the slices of bread to make sure. You know, like the whole thing. Really? Hold on. Hold on.

Don't skip over that. I don't think people know what you mean by count the slices of bread. Can you explain that? To make sure that you're getting the best deal for the 99 cent bread. She had to count and see how many slices they were to make sure there was enough to get us through the week. And could she afford the 99 cent bread. She had to count and see how many slices there were to make sure there was enough to get us through the week.

And could she afford this 99 cent bread, or did she have to try to maybe, yeah, maybe one night bread and butter would be a side dish. So she'd be like, can I get two cloves of bread so that we can have some for a side dish? So we're talking about pretty poor. Very poor. And it it changed.

It was interesting because kind of as I grew it changed pretty rapidly. It's my dad's started his own company. He became a general contractor. And when I was getting into my pre-teen years, he started doing really well. And so we went from very poor to a bit better, but still didn't have the things my friends had. No new shoes, nothing like that. But we're doing good. There's food on the table. And my parents are looking pretty happy. And then he did really good.

And he bought all the toys, the big trucks, the RV, they built a house. We lived in our RV while they built their own house. It was like their dream coming true. And then the recession hit. And right after I was graduating high school, and he lost everything and had to fall for bankruptcy. No way. And then I had a baby.

And so all of that happens. I was terrified because I already didn't get a lot of help from them. I'd already been pretty independent. I'd been working for myself since I was like 15. But I had moved away to the Bay Area where I met Andrew. And I was also losing everything at that time. I was not managing my money very well or trying to put myself through school while working

because they couldn't support me to do either. So I was working full time, going to school full time. And I was not able to pay my rent and my landlord told me I had to get out until I had nowhere to go, and I knew they couldn't help me, and I didn't want to put a burden on them or tell them how bad it was for me.

So I just let them know everything was okay, and that I was doing fine, and I just kept pushing forward. Like I need to just finish school, and I just finished school, and I did, and then I found that job, living in that Buddhist monastery. So it was kind of like... to just finish school and he just finished school. And I did and then I found that job living in that Buddhist monastery.

So it was kind of like... I have a question. You were about to be homeless and you didn't want to bother your family. Where did you learn that lesson from? From them. Where? Well, very direct.

I mean, my parents, when they were struggling, when they were there worst, like sometimes we had, like sheets instead of doors, like hung up in the doorways. And I just remember my mom saying, like, so proud, like we never ask for help from anyone. We don't have to ask for help. I had very wealthy grandparents. And she'd be like, we would never. We would never do that.

I think they were just, they were proud. It would mean that they were less than. I mean, they weren't trying hard enough. It would mean that, yeah, like they, I don't know, they had a pride about it. They had like, they kind of put their shoulders back. We're just like, we never have to do that. We had other family members that would ask for help. And they kind of, like, like oh they asked for money. It's not good. I felt like I felt proud of myself actually for asking for help because I was, I had that little baby and I felt like I was breaking a cycle. I felt like no, she needs better than this and I knew that it was something that would support us And I knew that there would be a little bit of embarrassment.

And I knew that some people would feel a certain kind of way about it. But I felt a lot of energy. I remember going down to the offices. It was hard to take a newborn down to those offices and sit in those chairs. And I felt proud of myself. I would pack up a little bag. I would get her little snacks. And I was like, I'm doing this for you, you know?

And I felt good about it, actually. I love hearing what you just said. I love it. You said, I felt proud. Yeah. You were not going to take any shit. You had a mission.

It was going to happen. I think we can apply some of that same stuff here. Honestly, it's amazing to hear Jennifer's story with her baby. She had a mission, she had something that had to get done and she did it. She was not going to let anybody get in her way. Personally, I find that very inspiring. And what I'm thinking as I'm hearing this is how can I connect that mission to where she is right now with money? This is what people do when this takes her high. They often rise to the occasion.

And so what I'm thinking as I'm hearing this is how can I get someone like Jennifer to connect her feelings in that moment with her baby, her behaviors that she took, where she didn't allow anyone to get in her way, and her accomplishments all the way to where she is right now with her money. One of the things I try to do is help people connect a part of their lives where they are winners, where they have intensity and results and accomplishment and pride, and I help them translate it over to their finances. winners, where they have intensity and results and accomplishment and pride. And I help them translate it over to their finances. And this is important to me because in the area of finance, a lot of us feel lost and

overwhelmed, even though we may be winners in other parts of life. So to me, it's a gift to be able to show people you've already done it over here. You know how to do it. It's inside of you. Now let's just shift the view and do that same thing for our finances. Most of us have at least one example in our life where we were winners, where we were fearless, where nothing could get in our way. Jennifer had it, but she struggles to do the same with money.

From my perspective, I actually think this is a really positive thing because I know she has the ability to focus and drive something until it gets done. Now it's just a matter of translating that over to money. On a side note, it still absolutely blows my mind that people listen to this podcast and then they they go right back onto Twitter telling everyone, you should pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Success is all about trying hard. Jennifer grew up with her mom counting the slices of bread they got from the store. They put sheets over their doors

because they didn't have doors. And my taxes and your taxes go towards helping people in Jennifer's situation feed her baby. That is why I have zero insistence for people who say I shouldn't be taxed at all taxed or too high and I want higher taxes on the rich, including me. Now back to Jennifer in Andrew's story. At IWT, I'm all about teaching my listeners and students how to live their rich life, whatever that means to you. For me, a rich life is being able to invite my closest friends and family to a stunning

resort in Mexico for my 40th birthday. It's having a personal trainer plan, my workouts, and my macros every week. And it's never having to get a spam call. Think about it, how many times a day are you getting a call from an unknown number, or better yet a text from XF345Z claiming there's a problem with your electric bill? I'm busy, I want my day to be efficient, I don't have time to deal with these spam calls. That's why I want to let you know about this episode's sponsor, Nomo Robo Max. Every single unwanted call is stopped dead in its tracks. Calls from people you know

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If you want to protect yourself and your family from phone scams, go to noMoRobo.com slash Rameet for a 14-day free trial. That's N-O-M-O-R-O-B-O. Recently on the show, you heard me speak to Jennifer and Andrew. They were struggling to pay off their credit card debt, and they had a bunch of subscriptions that they didn't even know about. Look if you love having all these subscriptions, and you can afford it, I'm all for it. But a lot of times when people actually see all the subscriptions they've signed up for months or years ago, they realize they need to make a change because they can redirect

where that money is going much more towards their rich life. If you are wondering where all your money is going, I want you to check out this episode's sponsor, Rocket Money. Rocket Money, formerly known as TrueBill, is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower your bills all in one place. RocketMoney will find the subscriptions you don't want, and then you can press cancel and RocketMoney will cancel it for you. No more long hold times with customer service

or emailing back and forth. That is convenience. I love it. Imagine finding an extra $50, $100, $200 per month by eliminating subscriptions you just forgot about. What could you do with that extra money? You could redirect it to things you actually care about, like an amazing dinner out with friends, or investments, or you could use it to pay off debt even faster. Stop throwing your money away. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and manage your expenses the easy way by going to rocketmoney.com slash remit. That's rocketmoney.com slash R-A-M-I-T. I think something I've been seeking and looking after is I'm looking for that sense of excitement, like that sense of like fun and joy. And I do feel like sometimes I'm a little bit obnoxious

in my joy and excitement and celebrations. And I'm realizing now what I've been looking for is for Andrew to be the one to kind of like have that excitement and that boost too. And that's maybe a little unfair. I'm just having that realization of like, I'm tired of being the one that's constantly pushing forward and finding the mission for us because we tend to not talk about it. Why don't you two talk to each other right now? I'll just listen. Okay. I think that's what I'm realizing is just like I'm looking for and hoping for you to also just kind of take some

just have some excitement and take some authority and just step in and like help me help me with this mission and help me like move us forward. with this mission and help me like move us forward. Andrew. So there's missing pieces to this, right? So, there's four years now, four years ago, she had leukemia. So we've been dealing with that.

So, Jennifer did? Jennifer had leukemia. Oh, okay, I didn't know that. So she's in remission. So my goal is just been like, just keep plowing forward. Like, if we need something, just plow forward. Because what? Plow forward because if she gets sick again and we don't have Insurance or if we don't have enough to cover the cost of medications or If we don't cover the cost of like a hospital bill like I just need to continue to plough forward Okay, so the excitement isn't there. I can't get excited because if I get excited and

Something happens and we're not prepared It's just gonna be that much more crushing. It sounds like you're a soldier right now. You're an infantryman, you're in battle and it's not about excitement, it's not about feeling good, it's just about one foot in front of the other over and over up that hill, that's all you got to do. Would that be fair? Yeah. So there's a time in a place for that. Sometimes we have to go into financial battle. If your partner has leukemia, yeah. I'm not interested in how you feel about your job. You just need to have a job. I respect that. And Jennifer, I'm really thankful to hear that you're

in remission. Now that you're in remission, do you think it maybe feels like it's time to recharacterize this from a battlefield to something else? Yeah. What would it be? Give me an analogy. Slanting a seed. Okay. Talk it through. Like, starting over and just trying to reestablish a bear in wasteland. I like the idea of a garden. And since it takes time to end attention. You know, in intention.

Give me some more. I want to hear time. It takes time. Attention. Attention. What else? Andrew, what is a garden? What are the implications of a garden?

Chasians. You have to take care of it. You can't just let it go wild. So it needs attention. Yes. It needs to be fed. It needs to just let it go wild. So it needs attention. Yes. It needs to be fed. It needs to be looked after. It needs to be fertilized.

Mm-hmm. Does every plant you plant grow 10 feet tall? No. Does some of them die? Yeah. And is that OK? Yep. Yeah, that's life.

That's OK. You took a great crack at it. Well, tweak a couple things. We'll get some different seeds. And we'll try it a different way. What do you think? Don't it's fantastic. Okay. I'm getting excited. You're getting excited. That sounds nice. Okay. So this is cool. We are now rewriting our story together. And each of you has the capability to do this. Sometimes we have stories that we articulate for ourselves. Jennifer, you explicitly said,

I am changing the cycle. That was a story you created and you made it come true. Amazing. Sometimes we create stories that we never articulate. They just happen. I'm in battle. I need to keep moving forward. Andrew, that's a story you told yourself, but you may not have explicitly said it out loud. And now what we're doing is what

you two have done is you've created a new story together. What a beautiful metaphor. We started in the weeds, but now they have created a totally different way to look at their finances. Let's take a look at the numbers. Their assets are $5,000, which includes their truck and van. Their investments are $30,000. Their savings are $2,300, and their debt, including credit cards, SBA loan, and a van, 17,300. Their fixed costs are 60% and their housing is 22%.

Debt payments, this is for your credit card debt, is that correct? Yeah. Why do you say it like that? Because it's my interest rate is garbage. 28? Yeah. And this debt payment is just the minimum.

It's like $10 over the minimum. No, we can't do that. Okay. All right. Let's talk about that in a minute. Grocery is $716. How do you feel about that? Everyone got real quiet. What the hell? I know. I was waiting to see what Andrew was going to say. I know. I was waiting to see what Andrew was going to say. I am the frivolous little things we get at the grocery store. We could probably cut like $50 a week. $200 bucks a month. Are you serious? I would imagine.

Okay. Great. Yeah. Would you think so? I mean, you know, we got our little things. Hey. Okay. All right, I'm getting excited. Well, I'll put that aside. Can you hear the excitement in my voice?

We'll come back to this. Okay, that's amazing. Subscriptions are 144. Come on. What are all those subscriptions? Why don't you get a number? Oh, okay. Haven't you guys listened to some of the ads on my show?

We need to get that. No, it's Netflix. It's Hulu. It's Amazon Netflix is okay because I have a show on Netflix. Yeah, everything else eliminate that shit Netflix Hulu Amazon HBO Hey, what the hell how are you having all these things when you have credit card debt? I'm sorry No, it's a fair point. Yeah. Like 30, 40, 50 bucks a month is actually really meaningful at this stage. 45 bucks a month, fantastic.

All right, that's $245 a month already freed up for credit card debt. That's a lot. Okay, finally, your guilt-free spending is 35%. I'm not so sure I believe that. That's just a money leftover. How much do you actually spend on guilt-free spending every month? It's food, it's target, it's pet stuff, it's... We've never even really shop at target. Yeah, like ordering on Grubhub because we got

Thai food. That would be food. Yeah. Yeah. How much do you order? Like how often? Two times a week at like 50 to 75 dollars. Okay. How much is that? 15. That'd be 200 to almost $600 a month. How do y'all think about that? What's that look on your face Jennifer? I don't love that. That's a big number.

I don't love that. Don't let it. I think it's a... Can I just point something out? $600 a month towards delivery and you're currently paying off $110 a month towards your credit card debt. I know, it's really embarrassing. What I like about this is that it's a little lighthearted and we're joking around. What I don't like is pretty much everything else.

Listen, if you have credit card debt, you need to consider that an absolute emergence or red flag. Because if you truly understood the effects of 28% interest rates, you would never let yourself get into that quicks hit. Once you get into this very, very difficult to get out. With credit card debt, it's an emergency, and emergency means it's time to make radical changes. But too few of us recognize that emergency.

We get used to paying it. Finally, we simply tell ourselves, oh, this is the way it always is. We're always going to be stuck with credit card debt. No. And spending hundreds of dollars on takeout and cable makes no sense to me if you have crippling credit card debt. Now, of course, it's their money. It's not mine. They can do whatever they want with it. But you can even hear it in their voices.

They don't even love what they're spending money on. By the way, if you're in a similar situation as Jennifer and Andrew, you've got too many subscriptions, you don't even know what you're spending on, you're in credit card debt, we've got a sponsor of the show Rocket Money who can help you automatically cancel unwanted subscriptions and get a handle on your spending. You can find a link in the show notes or just go to iwt.com slash sponsors. And before we get back to Jennifer and Andrew, I just want to give a big thank you to everyone who listens and uses our sponsors.

We are very selective about our sponsors. I want to bring you the best brands out there. And so it means a lot that you support this show, which allows us to create amazing episodes on audio and video by supporting these sponsors. So go to iwt.com slash sponsors to see a full list of the brands that we work with and support this show. Thanks again.

How are we going to decide what we need to do when we should eat out? Yeah, I think we've been trying to think of ways anyway to just have more family time together. Hold on a second, sorry to interrupt again. What just happened in that conversational dynamic? Who asked the question and who's now taking on the burden of answering it? I think I'm taking on the, I'm like, yeah, you're just jumping in and solving the problem. Coming in with an answer, yeah.

And don't you want to have a little bit more equal representation? Okay. I guess just, now I'm just more curious about when do you like to eat? Like, do you like, is it for fun for you or is it just to feed us or like, what is ordering Grub hub for you?

I think for me ordering grub hub is a time where we can all just breathe. It's a time where you can relax because you don't have to cook. The kitchen doesn't turn into a mess and so it's a time just to get a small reset for everybody. So I think when it comes to eating out, we really need to look at the times where we're really needing a reset or you're needing a reset and saving it for those times. Okay. Yeah. I was kind of thinking we could make it a family time, but actually Andrew's way sounds like more of like a taking a burden off. So that sounds really good. So I'm like, I'm thinking that sounds better than my idea.

Well, that's the beautiful part about collaborating and being partners in this. You actually get ideas you never knew about, but you have to ask. So I still don't want you to solve this problem. So Jennifer, knowing what he just said, how do you want to toss the ball back to him, something that you struggle with? Yeah, okay. What would that look like for you?

I think that would look like you being the one to determine when we eat out or not, instead of me suggesting that we should go eat out today. But that just gave me the ball back. Do you think that maybe you could be the one to do it and like anticipate it and order it? Do it and like anticipate it and order it. I will try. I will put my best foot forward. Is it hard? I don't know.

It's not something I've done. But I don't know what that looks like. Um, well, I guess this goes into kind of our dynamics because I want to just lay out like, well, you open the app and you know, what you need to do that. Okay. Um, do you want me to step in here? Yeah. Wait, wait, no, I'm taking the ball. No, I'm catching myself.

I almost did it myself. I have any other tools. Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. What do you want to say in plain English, Jennifer? I guess I just want to say like I can show you. Or like.

So you want to solve the problem yourself. And when you show him, is it possible that he might just go like, oh, I don't know, you're so good at this. Why don't you just do this? I'll be busy next Thursday. That's possible. That is. That's so weird. How do I know that? Okay, so what do you really want to happen?

What is the North star here? Not the intermediary step. The North star would be that he just does it. Thank you. So why don't you say that? I would really love it if you just did it. Okay. All right, that was great. What did you notice about the whole dynamic of what happened back and forth? Let's start with you Andrew. It made me have to be accountable. And it was probably one of the clearest conversations

we've had in a long time. Why? we've had in a long time. Why? Oh, that sound real bad when I say it, I'm going to say it because it was, it was concise. So there wasn't a lot of fluff to get lost in. Great insight. Jennifer, what do you notice about the conversational dynamic there?

I'm just so used to taking care of everybody and doing everything for everybody, but it's like a default. I guess it's easier to be like, okay, I'll just handle it. And even if you don't handle it, you will explain how to open up the app. Then you'll walk over and open up the app.

Then you'll install the thing and put the password on there and double check it. All that sound real is to look at your face. You're like, oh shit. It's not. It's so silly. Like, but it's so true. It's silly. Yeah, it's silly, but it's also not silly. It's real.

So I'll tell you what I noticed from that day. I, it's silly, but it's also not silly. It's real. So I'll tell you what I noticed from that day now. I thought it was fascinating, okay? The fact that we spent like 15 minutes talking about ordering food to me is absolutely fascinating. Andrew, you are delegating everything back. You're tossing the ball right back to Jennifer. Jennifer, I noticed you're just instant jumping into solve the problem. You haven tossing the ball right back to Jennifer. Jennifer, I noticed you're just instant

Jumping into solve the problem. You haven't developed the tools at all to be able to say, okay, what do you think we should do? I'm not sure. What do you think? Because if you just jump in to answer questions, you're now disempowering him and you're creating a role That you're always going to be the one to solve it. Andrew, you hearing this? What do you think? I think it makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So not judging, not saying anyone's a bad person, but rather saying, hey, there's some dynamics here that have been deeply held and their deep grooves. And you can see why even with this simple grub hub example, it cascades to things like, should we pay, et cetera?

Yeah. Right? Yeah. Okay. I love this tip of the iceberg example. So you told me that you were going to cut back how much on eating out? I would say half. Half. So you're going to save 300 a month there?

Yeah. Okay, good. That's 300 there. Plus, you're going to save how much on your subscriptions? I remember much of it. That was like, 45. Yeah.

Okay, let's say 50. Let's say 45. 45 and then there was how much for the groceries you're going to save? 100. I think we said 200 since 50 a week. Yeah. 200. there was how much for the groceries you're gonna save? 100? I think we said 250 a week. Yep, 200. That's $2,345.

Where else is the rest coming from? How do you cut 800 a month off your guilt free spending? Andrew's face just his eyes went wide, but the fact is, I'm trying to think. Gosh, if you got that to 1200, I'm just going to tell you, you would have 800, you'd have over a thousand dollars a month extra money. Is that mind blowing to anybody here? That would be fantastic. I'm like literally riding down a little note. Yeah. You'll be amazed. Okay, great.

And by the way, what are you going to do with all this extra money now? So let's just pretend it's 800 bucks a month extra. It's probably more if you really get dialed in, but let's say it's 800. How are you going to split it? So do we do it by percent or do we just kind of put everything into one pot or what, like how are you? Now that we've said all this stuff, how are you thinking about this? I would like to drop our debt first, and get as close to debt free as we could be. So I would put the majority of it, like in my head,

it's like save $200 to $150 for guilt-free, the other $600 to $750 car credit cards SBA loan. And we can just like check those up on top of what we're already paying because it'll drop it faster and then we'll in the long run we'll be saving more money. So just like make a plan to go hard on your debt. Yeah. Okay. And this is where you ask her what she thinks. How would you like us to split up the extra money we would have coming in? I think I'd like to find a number that just feels really comfortable and consistent each month. So I guess it would be whatever that number is. But push her, Andrew. Push her Andrew.

Push her for a number. So we're talking about 800, right? Yes. Okay. My, what I had suggested was $200 for savings, $600 towards debt. To me, a savings is different than money we're gonna put towards a vacation,

as well as if we pay off the debt faster, that money then gets funneled back into our account into guilt-free spending because we no longer have the debt. That makes a lot of sense. So if we're talking about moving money both for savings, a vacation, and debt, splitting those up into three different flower pots. Makes more sense. When you're saying like just go for the debt and that way we'll have that much more to spend on vacations and family. Yes. Okay. I think that does make sense, although I mean, my sister did just have a baby.

So maybe there's like a middle ground. So then we can do a very small visit. So how much, how much would you like to put into savings? Put away for a vacation and then have for debt. If you were to split up $800 into three separate pots. Thank you, love for being patient with me. Yeah, the 600 for debt and maybe a hundred vacation and a hundred for savings. Okay. That to me is doable.

Whoa, do we have an agreement? I think so. Okay, round of applause. I'm taking it before you change your minds. So good. But I love seeing you grapple with this new tool. It's like you just, you know, you're learning how to roll or blade or something. And it's like you used to just skate, but now you're rollerblading and it's a little unstable.

That's okay. I like that you both had a positive attitude. I like that you were actually joking around with each other teasing Andrews. Like, so what would it be? And he had a big smile on his face. That's fun. Andrew, great job. You were not the soldier.

You were totally the gardener. Okay, you want to put more water? Less water? What do you think? You were pushing. You weren't letting her give you the vague stuff, but you did it with a really cool attitude. Jennifer, very interesting that just a few minutes ago,

when you gave Andrew a very direct feedback, I just want you to order the food. And he was like, oh shit, that's one of the clearest conversations we've ever had. And I saw your face, you had a moment of realization, didn't you? Where you were like, oh my God, I have not been being direct with him.

So it's a skill. You're gonna have to learn it. And the two of you have this dynamic, okay? But you can see that it allows you to actually make really good decisions. Regardless of how long that took, I don't care, I'll stay as long as it takes. What I just saw was the two of you having

a healthy conversation about money. It was fun, even when it got tough, and guess what, you just decided what to do with $800 more per month. That is a win. That's a pretty big. The cool thing about what just happened is there were multiple breakthroughs right there.

Did you catch them? The first is that they realized they were spending hundreds of dollars in a way that was not aligned with their rich life. Amazing realization. Number two, they made a decision to change it. And number three, they actually talked and worked together to create a plan. This is how you do it. Right there, breakthrough after breakthrough can be the change of

their entire trajectory of their financial lives. That is amazing. This is where, by the way, your plan might be different than my plan, but it doesn't matter. The plan that you can stick with is the plan that's going to work for you. Okay, so you're totaling that worth. What do you see? 20,000. All right. How do you feel about that? Both of you. You don't like it? Why? I don't like it. I'm in my late 30s.

And that is not a number that should be that low. What should it be? I would like it to be at least have another number in front of the 20,000, like in the 100,000s would be nice, but it's just 20. See then, it goes back in the Yulman County where like we had medical bills that were like 17 grand. Yeah I think 175 would be nice. 175,000 would be a nice emergency buffer. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. How do you feel about the net worth Jennifer? I actually feel, I think the numbers are kind of small, but I feel sort of excited about it because I feel like with the garden thing, like we're just kind of at the beginning and it just gives me something to work with.

And I feel like we have nowhere to go but up and to grow. We've been a one income household for a long time. I'm super proud of us. I'm super proud of the fact that like, we've got some credit card debt, but it's not that extreme. And we don't have any other big stuff hanging over our heads. So all we have to do is get on the same page and do our stuff together and just make a plan of action

and let these numbers grow. So I feel a lot of hope when I look at the numbers. Do you agree, Andrew, that it can only go up from here? Yeah. You don't think it can get worse? I know it can get worse, but I'm trying to be optimistic. I stick to what can go wrong, usually. Yeah, but it's interesting that right now,

you're only talking about what can go right. What is that? I think I'm trying to incorporate the idea of like It doesn't have to always be doom and gloom. Ah Trying to put that garden piece in there and be like all right, you can it can grow Yeah, we can we can expand I like that. All right. Let's continue looking through the numbers here. I thought this income is pretty interesting So you've mentioned that you're now a two-income household Jennifer you were not working before is that because you were sick? I was a stay-at-home mom

Basically, it's from the beginning only because we couldn't afford childcare so but Being just a very active person. I was never super satisfied with that So I always had little side gigs. I got sick and so I was just starting to really work with sick for like a full year. We moved. And then very recently, it was like, okay, now this is a thing. Like now, I'm consistently making money. So something we're both still getting used to. So yeah, it's a combination of just being a state home mom. Now the kids are older. All right. So you run your own business, is that right? Mm-hmm, yeah.

Let's look at the income. Your gross monthly income, can you outline it for me? Well, both of us together, it's about 7,500. Okay, so that's about 91,000 a year. Did you know that YouTube make $91,000 a year? I think it's so, it's so cool. Yeah, did you know that YouTube make $91,000 a year? I think it's so cool. Yeah. Did you know that?

No. I did because I've been, yeah, just like consuming all of your content and I'll like, I get excited by writing down this stuff and putting it in middle calculators and being like, oh, like this is how much we've got. Jennifer, are you curious why Andrew never knew how much you make?

I was going to say I was kind of brought it up to 11 just kind of tried to say like, look how exciting this is or like look how much we're making now. And yeah, and you obviously try that again. Let's try that again. Let's try that again. Because I think you're telling yourself a story right now. In fact, you're saying it out loud. I want you to ask him, hey, does it surprise you to know that we make $91,000 a year as a couple?

Go ahead. Andrew, does that surprise you to know that we make that much money as a couple? Yes. Tell me why. I think it's because there are times where we still struggle with like trying to pay bills. So it doesn't really feel like that much. Keep going, Jennifer, you're on the right track. I love this back and forth. Keep going. Yeah, I get what you're saying. And I don't really know where to go from here, except that, yeah. Let's pause right there. And remember what Jennifer asked a few minutes ago,

what she wanted you to do more of? Can one person create this garden that the two of you want to live in? No, you've both got to do it, right? So step up. Go ahead. She's asking you a lot of great questions. You're just answering them like you're being interrogated. Get in the

game. Yeah, I didn't know we made that much money. It's it's nice to see that we make more than we did in the beginning in that we are starting to work as a team instead of just an individual. And what does it mean to you, Andrew, that the two of you make $91,000? That must be surprising. It must be shocking. It must be eye-opening. Must make you think about how you've been thinking about your money in the past.

Talk about all that. Yeah, it's really shocking to see that we're at this point where we've never, this is the most money we've ever made in our relationship. This is the first time where both of us outside of being a state home mom is a job in itself and it's hard, but you're doing both now. Like you're doing, you're being a mom

and you're also starting a business, which is, I'm happy to see you do, as you enjoy what you do. And I'm glad that, we're in this like, really together. The number doesn't matter, but I think the realization that like,

I'm not in this alone, and trying to build, and trying to change this, the stories that we've told each other, or ourselves. Jennifer, ask him, if for today, did you feel like you were in this alone? Before today, and knowing this number, did you feel like you were in this alone. Before today and knowing this number, did you feel like you were in this alone? Yeah. Yeah. It was hard because it's,

if anything ever happened to me or something happened to me, there would, there was nothing for you guys. Like that's until I was just soldier on. Keep moving forward, because I didn't want something to happen and then for you guys to have nothing. There are any connections between somebody passing along and nothing being left for them? Yeah. Have you made that connection before?

No. Now that you're seeing it, feeling it, what comes to mind for you? I have been very rigid in my routines, in my thinking, and it's been very like a wady. Like trying to take care of because we had another daughter. So having that mentality of like, I need to push forward for everybody because there's something happens to me or something happens to my wife.

Like we have to be okay. But knowing that like it's not just on my shoulders is a really, it's not just on my shoulders is a really It's like a little a little weight It's been lifted there. You ever tell her that before? No much tell right now Knowing that we are in this together I Love it because it it feels like for the first time I can I can breathe and that honestly like if something does happen I know that will be okay.

Beautiful. What's striking to me is that just a few minutes ago, Andrew, you had suggested that you would really like to have about $170,000 to feel like you'd be okay. Less than 10 minutes later, here you are, talking to your wife and saying, I now realize that we're in this together and if something happens, we will be okay. What do you think's going on? What's the difference? I've taken a step back

and I realize it's more than just like what we're bringing in but what we're bringing to each other. You see how you two are starting to get more direct with each other now? No more dancing. At least not dancing 10 feet away from each other. Yeah. Starting to come closer. That was actually my metaphor. By the way, I was thinking maybe you would go with the dance metaphor, but I love yours. Yours is better actually, but my, my, which is, I give myself a B minus was dancing. And the way I saw the beginning of our conversation was the two of you were dancing around each other,

but dancing like each of you was too afraid to approach the other, consumed with what you think the other might do and how they might reject you, and just dancing around each other for hours or in your case years. But now we've really unpacked all that stuff.

You realize you're not a soldier. That time period is over. You're a gardener. The two of you are creating this together and it's actually your job to take the ball now and to co-create, to bring it together to the garden. Beautiful. So all jokes aside, I'm really happy that we've come through this journey together because this is potentially changing the trajectory of your lives together for generations.

Your oldest, how old is she now? She's 12. What would your oldest say if I asked her, how do your parents treat money? I think she would say they're learning. It's a conversation we've had a lot lately. What else would she say? Would she say they have a lot of money? No, I think our two kids are very different. I think the oldest would say money's scary

and it's leading and the youngest would say, money's scary and it's leading. And the youngest would be like, it's abundant and I can save here and there and then once I have enough, I can go buy something. Hmm. What do you think the effects are of your oldest saying that money is scary and fleeting? I mean, we can see it.

She's very, she's always looking to make more money. So she's already in that trap of like, I need to make more, I need to make more, I don't have enough. She worries, yeah. She worries. And Jennifer, what do you think happens

as you fast forward through her life financially speaking? Yeah, probably a very similar dynamic of just not feeling caught up, not really understanding. Being afraid of money and not knowing why she's afraid of money, just kind of like. Yes. Very insightful. When you talk about money at home, do you talk about it? I do talk about it with the kids.

What do you say? In the last couple of years, I was started giving them an allowance with the, I said, hey, I'm learning about money and I'm learning new things that I didn't learn when I was a kid. And so I'm going to give you this allowance and you don't need to do anything to earn it, but we have, you have to let me talk to you about what I'm learning. Wow. Wait, that's not going to give you a run of a plug. That's, that is one of the most sophisticated things I've ever heard a parent say to their kids about money. Where did you come up with that? That is so cool. You know, I homeschooled them for a really long time and the way we homeschooled was just a lot of,

You know, I homeschooled them for a really long time and the way we homeschooled was just a lot of, yeah, just, you know, just connecting with them and And I think that I just got to a place where I was like I just didn't learn this stuff And I just don't know what I don't know and I didn't want to teach the wrong thing So I wanted them to know that If I frame it like I'm learning it, they'll know that it's okay that if I get it wrong, they can change their mind. Wow, beautiful work. That's very impressive. Alright, so she's a little scared about money. What does she do with her allowance? She's saved it all. She saves it and she has big lofty dreams of what she wants to spend it on, So I think she gets discouraged because she'll see something that's like,

like what? So for a while, when the VR headset or a certain video game, but those kinds of things that are very expensive, and she feels just already, he's like, oh, I'll never be able to afford it. Gosh, I wonder if she absorbs any of that. She does. She does.

Is there a story that you wish she learned about buying these big things that take time to save for? What would that story be? I wish that she had learned that it can be really fun to anticipate something and to plan for it and to find the joy in it and the preparation of it. Yes. And yeah, yeah, how did I just do it little pieces at a time in a way that feels good? Did she listen to the podcast?

She does sometimes. She knows she said that you were going to yell at us for having a truck. And I said, no, that truck is paid off. Yeah, yeah, I don't mind the truck at all. I had no issues with that truck. I'll tell you what. She knows she's listened to the podcast. She knows about me.

I want to speak to her right now. So just so she knows. My wife and I got married a few years ago. And we decided that we're gonna go on a honeymoon. And planning for that honeymoon was one of the most fun things we ever did. Planning for it, not even going on it, but planning for it. We started off and we said to each other, where do you wanna go? And we just wrote it down. And neither of us is very good at geography, so we just wrote down random countries.

No idea where some of them even are, just wrote them down. And neither of us is very good at geography. So we just wrote down random countries. No idea where some of them even are just wrote them down. Found a little site, you plug them all in and I was looking every room. I was research, oh my God, this is going to be the view. And this one we get to have a breakfast outside. And we're almost living it before we ever got on a plane. And so we got to live it multiple times. The first time together, discovering it, discussing it, getting excited about it. That was number one. Number two, getting there.

We got to live it again. Oh my God, it's even better than we thought. They have this thing over here. That's number two. And number three was looking at the photos afterwards. We got to live it three times. So many of us skip right to number two, but we don't realize that actually some of the most meaningful things are before and

after. And so my dream for your daughter, what I hope is listening right now is to know that if you want to get that VR headset, you can get the headset. Might take some time. You might have to get creative with how much you earn. You might want to ask your parents if there's a way to earn some extra money. There's lots of ways. But you can dream and create your vision for it and enjoy it almost as much as getting it. And that is a skill that will come to serve you for the rest of your life. Some of the longer term ones could be going on a family trip.

Gosh, this is gonna take us two years. But every single month, we are all gonna put a little bit in here together. And what are we gonna do? We're gonna decide together. Do we wanna go here? Do we wanna go there? Okay, we're gonna go to this place. What do we wanna do the first day we gonna do? We're gonna decide together. Do we wanna go here? Do we wanna go there? Okay, we're gonna go to this place.

What do we wanna do the first day we get there? Same as my wife and I did with our honeymoon. Creating that culture, modeling it. Not just letting them hear some guy on a podcast, but actually modeling it for them wouldn't that be amazing. Yeah. How do you think your daughter's going to take that lesson? I hope that she takes it in and really integrates it and feels it.

Yeah. It's hard at 12 sometimes. You want it, you want it now, I get it. And she's a, she's not a big heart and she wants things for other people too. Can you model what being patient looks like for your daughter? Yeah, I'm like, I'm envisioning that now and what that can look like. I think it would be really letting them feel cozy and happy and good here where we are. How would you do that?

We're in a lot of love into their room. Letting them change it up a little bit, fixing up some of the things that have gone old. Letting them take some ownership of some of those changes because they've gotten older. Here's $100. I want you to decide how you want to make this room amazing. It's your choice. That would be really fun. And where would that $100 come from?

From Ireland. I feel free to send you. Yeah, exactly. The money that is spent mindlessly on Grub hub can be used to create a magical room for the kids, but more importantly, to totally recalibrate your relationship with them and teach them a lifelong lesson about money. Very, very interesting episode today with Jennifer and Andrew. I'd like to read you their follow-ups that they send me. Take a look. Jennifer said, what I found most surprising was how comfortable we had gotten

in our dynamic of Andrew passing the ball to me, and then me responding by simply just doing everything for everyone. That is not the kind of person, wife, or mother I want to be. And I saw clearly how it had disempowered my husband. Without clear and concise communication, we can't be partners and make decisions together. For major takeaways, I really understood the need for being clear and direct as well as slowing down and giving room for Andrew to offer his ideas. My hope for our call was for Andrew and I to be a team.

Last night we were incredibly busy. We knew we needed to update the CSP for you and get ready for the week without being asked at all. Andrew planned out and made dinner for the family. With that off my plate, I was able to take the dog for a walk and then sit down at the table and talk about our CSP together. It was the most relaxed, fun, and mature conversation we might have ever had about our finances. I feel excited for the future and like we have truly begun a new chapter of our lives.

We didn't get deep into it during the call, but today is the exact five-year anniversary of my leukemia diagnosis, and I wanna acknowledge how grateful I am to you for the role you've played in helping me to heal a part of my life that has felt very confusing and difficult. I had a bone marrow transplant

that same year I was diagnosed. While I was living in the hospital in isolation, I was looking ahead to the life I wanted to live, and I knew that finances played a big role in it. I read your book when I got home with the intention to make big changes in my life. One big piece of the puzzle that was missing for me was doing this with Andrew. I didn't feel like I had the knowledge or words to get us on the same page, and suddenly we are. I can't adequately express what that means to me or how that feels. Thank you.

And Andrew says, the thing I found most surprising was how ineffective our communication had become, and that we both believed we were talking effectively to each other. My major takeaways were that we need a visual for our money and how we plan to use it that we can both understand and relate to. The gardening visual is a tool that both of us can see easily and clearly. We also need to stop tiptoeing around what needs to be said and say it. Both me and Jennifer need to share the load and not fall into old patterns that we had from past experiences. We need to celebrate our wins with each other and not just relive and rehash the struggles we had earlier in our relationship. I want to give a big thank you for everyone who listens and watches this podcast. Please go to YouTube and follow us there, follow us on Spotify and Apple as well, and get on the newsletter on my website and all social media because we post different

clips and different material from all of the I will teach you to be rich philosophy. I'll see you next week. Thanks for listening to I will teach you to be rich. I'm Ramit Saiti. 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. for how to build the I will teach you to be rich system into your personal finances.