I Will Teach You To Be Rich - 99. Where Are They Now? Netflix Reunion with Drew

Episode Date: May 18, 2023

In this special limited series, we’re following up with couples from my Netflix show, How To Get Rich. Tune in to hear what’s new, what isn’t, and where their money conversations have gone since our taping. Today, we check in with Drew to see if he’s been more honest with his partner, Mikey. This episode is brought to you by: BetterHelp | Visit https://betterhelp.com/ramit today to get 10% off your first month. LMNT | Right now, LMNT is offering 8 single serving packets FREE with any LMNT order. This is a great way to try all 8 flavors. Get yours at https://DrinkLMNT.com/ramit Rocket Money | Stop throwing your money away. Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to https://rocketmoney.com/ramit Ness Well | IWT listeners can get an extra 5K welcome bonus when they apply for the Ness Card at https://nesswell.com/ramit 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.

I was tired of living away. I was living with the secrets, I guess, and the gill. I went to bed stress. I woke up stressed. During the day I was stressed thinking about money. That has all definitely changed. Tell me before the better. By Thursday I'll have zero credit card net. What does that get to mean for you? The world is the first time I've said it like out loud period to anyone. Like not even like my therapist I've talked about that with that much.

This isn't that scary. We can do this. Like the language is still the same. But I'm doing it. You're doing it. Finally, you know, we're here, we're a queer, and got nothing to fear. Welcome to my special update with Drew from my Netflix show How to Get Rich. You're going to find out what has changed since he appeared on the show. So if you haven't already finished it, please go do that right now. Now all I knew about Drew when I met him was his name and I had seen his financials.

I didn't know anything else. And the producers had me show up in front of a bar, and I was waiting outside. I heard the music playing. I said, okay, cool. I walk inside. There's a bunch of people sitting around having drinks. Cool, I said, this is a party bar.

Great, let's do it. But I didn't know who drew was. I didn't know anything. Then I heard the music get really loud. Then I saw the dancers come out. I realized, okay, cool. This is a drag bar. But then I realized Drew was one of the dancers. So today you get to find out what has changed since Drew and I talked

on the show. Let's watch. Hey Drew. Hello. How you doing? Wonderful, how are you? I cannot complain. I'm very excited to see you. It's been a minute. Oh my god. Almost here. I have so many questions. I follow you on social, but I also want to know like the intricacies, financial, what was your experience like working together? I want to know it all. Well, I'm sitting in my condo right now in Chicago. Well, I'm sitting in my condo right now in Chicago. Stop the same job. Well, because I think when we were working together, I had switch. I was getting ready to switch.

Yep. So I'm still at the same place that that happened. Doing great. Still loving it. Still busy. Still making that money. Honey. Love it. So there's that, you know, we're almost not a year being married. Love it. 15th, yeah, 15th of April will be our one year anniversary. Amazing. It kind of went to the same old same old but also very much not like in the head, you know, especially like you know, it's talking to Mikey about money, or planning things, and saving things, that is all definitely changed for the better.

Yeah, so I'm just, we wanna make more money. So that always helps. So like the biggest thing I've been working on this last year, what you know, I've been working on giving you up is getting rid of that credit card deck. Cause I think that was kind of just the biggest, the biggest one, the easiest one to fix right away especially with you know just the disconfesting interest rates yeah so it's kind of like let's get this shit gone I thought we met next week so I was going to be like oh it's

going to be gone but are you ready for it I'm ready Thursday by Thursday I'll have zero credit card net. Yes, my man, that is amazing. Yeah. Wait, okay. It's really fucking cool. Let's talk about the importance of this because when we met, that credit card debt was a huge secret. It was like between you and Mikey

and it was causing a lot of you guys were getting married. It was like a huge problem. And then you paid it off 200 bucks a week. So 800 bucks a month you put towards that credit card debt. Oh my God. That's insane. Congratulations. Thank you. It's insane.

What does it feel like to see the end coming by Thursday? Really good. Like it's proud. I'm really, really proud of myself for like buckling down. What does that going to mean for you? The world. It's like the credit card debt became part of your mission, part of your identity. Yeah. And when you make it that, it becomes a lot easier to put money towards it. I was like, okay, credit cards, we're not talking anymore. You know, we're on, we're on

a break. And so I would just like make the payment. So it wasn't really paying attention to the balance so much because I knew it wasn't going up. I knew it was only going down. And then one day I saw, because I think the card was left at like 500. And I had a good shift at a good week. And I was like, I'm knocking this out.

I'm like, let's just get her done and put her away. Yeah. That's awesome. What does Mikey say about it? Mikey's really obviously really excited, really proud. Of course with him because he is type A always thinking, is it, okay, great. So next we can work on this.

He wants to go to the net, which is like me. I'm like, okay, great, what's next? And then a lot of people I've learned need to celebrate and take a second and say, like, oh my God, look at what I accomplished. I feel like I'm more part of the team now, which you know, was not how I felt when we first met. Oh, it's no surprise that you have absolutely crushed that debt. That's awesome. One thing you notice about people who make huge changes with their life is that they confront it head on. It's quite amazing. You can make dramatic changes in your life when it comes to money, fitness, relationships within six months, but you'll notice that the people who do this tend to go

all in. And that's exactly what Drew did. Now, of course, we're not all ready to do that. That's fine. There are parts of my life that I'm not going all in on, but I just want you to know that it is indeed possible. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. On this podcast, you've heard me recommend therapy to a lot of couples. Some of the couples are already seeing therapists, which I love. But if you wanted to get therapy, if you wanted to have a space where you and your partner

could talk about money and any other topic, would you know where to go right now? No. A lot of us would search. We'd find a bunch of options, but how do we know who's right? How do we know what to do next? It can be overwhelming. So if you've been thinking about therapy, give Better Help a Try. It's online.

You'll get matched with a licensed therapist after filling out a brief questionnaire. You can also switch therapists for no additional charge. One of the things that I love on this podcast is being able to help couples discover a new way of seeing and talking about money. But this is just one conversation. A lot of us need a lot more conversations in order to lock in change. That's why I think therapy is really important for a lot of us. My wife and I saw a therapist to help us deal with our early money conversations.

And therapy gave us a place and a time to talk about how we felt. Discover your potential with better help. Visit betterhelp.com slash remit today to get 10% off your first month. That's better help. H E L P dot com slash remit or a M I T. IT. One of my favorite things to talk about is this concept of money dials. The areas where you love to spend money. The most common one is food, the next most common one is travel, and the third most common one.

A top money dial is health and wellness. Now I get it. I spend a lot on certain areas of my life. For me, I love hotels that falls under luxury. I love convenience that falls under having my food delivered, etc. And I also love the ability to spend on health and wellness, like a personal trainer or selecting where I stay by how close the gym is. Health and wellness is a top money dial for most of my audience.

That's why I'm excited to partner with Ness who I want to tell you about today. With the Ness card, you can earn 5 x points on health and wellness spending at grocery stores, gyms, salons, pharmacies, restaurants, and two X points on everything else. Then, just like you use travel card points for travel rewards, you can redeem the points from your Nest card for health and wellness experiences. This could be things like a Chipotle burrito, to recovery gear, to an all-inclusive retreat.

Now, in my own personal life, I love spending money on health and wellness. I have a personal trainer. I get a weekly beard trim. I buy protein powder. And when I travel, I make sure to prioritize where I'm staying by how close it is to a good gym. Right now, Ness is offering a 50,000 point bonus

to members who spend $6,000 in the first 90 days plus a $200 statement credit for health and wellness spending. They have a special offer for our I will teach you to be rich listeners and extra 5,000 point bonus when you apply for the Ness card and get approved using the link nesswell.com slash remit. That's n-e-s-s-w-e-l.com slash r-a-m-i-t. Offer and benefit terms apply. I think the biggest thing that I'm stuck on, but I've also done the most work on, I think in taking the most from our work together is the job search, the job and just really like getting out of the industry.

Like yeah, it's great that I make more money in the industry, but I don't want to be a server for the rest of my life. Yeah. That's smart. That's smart to know when you've reached a limit in a certain industry and you're like, look, I could spend the next 10 years trying to eke out an extra 10% or I can just switch industries.

So what's the progress on that? Have you been applying? I've been applying, you should see, I should send it to you, my resume is like nine and a day. That's exactly what you should do. Awesome job sticking with it. So are you actively applying to jobs now?

Accumately applying, I've started, and the other thing I've used and twisted, oh, I'm not, I keep saying it. Adapted. Adapted, adapted, adapted, the other thing I've used and twisted, I'm not. I keep saying it's a problem. Adapted, adapted, adapted, adapted. The other thing I've adapted is the informational interviews. I've worked with the Chicago Board of Elections doing training. And so really figuring out, can I see myself doing this nine to five Monday through Friday?

It's almost like an internship with those in a way that I can like get that information, but I'm also making money doing it. Do you have a deadline for yourself or is it open-ended right now? It's open-ended, but it is very much like the sooner the better. I'm making decent money now. So it's sometimes easier to be like, ah, no, no, I'm good. Summer's great in Chicago for waiting tables. So it's kind of sometimes easier to be like, ah, you know, no, I'm, you know, I'm good.

Summer's great in Chicago for waiting tables. So I'm ready. Like, I can't let myself fall back on that. Well, you're going to make great money this summer. You can wait till the fall and start looking like, no, let's just get this done now. So in the fall, I have that, hopefully that, you know, nine to five. One thing that I'm hearing from you this pattern is you are going from being reactive to proactive.

You were reactive with your money when we first met, then you got super proactive with paying the debt off and you saw the results. And my dream for you is to connect that feeling and that behavior with the job search. All right. So you'll keep you updated when you land the next job. Oh, absolutely. You'll probably be one of the first to take something. You'll probably be like, second after monkey. Okay. Love it. All right. So you'll keep you updated when you land the next job? Oh, absolutely. You'll probably be one of the first things up.

You'll probably be like second after banking. Okay, love it. What are you gonna do? What's you start making more money? What are you gonna do with the additional income? Oh my. Get some more dogs. Is this a joke?

Okay. So before when we first started talking, how much were you making? I was probably making I think 35 a year then 35,000 a year. 35,000 yeah. Okay, what are you making now? And now this year, oh, just like, I think it was 50. I was around about 50 this year, $50,000.

Was that feel? Yeah. That felt really good too. It was 50. I was right about 50 this year, $50,000. Was that feel? That felt was really good too. And then again, it was kind of like, whoa, where's it been going? And I almost like went back to that old headspace of, well, you know, you're wasting money, you're not doing something. I was like, wait, bitch, you have knocked down $5,000 in credit card debt.

That money hasn't gone nowhere. Yeah, it went exactly where it needed to go. Like a fire hydrant, it went or a fire host, boom, straight to where it needed to go. Yeah. Now, I feel like since I have, I'm being able to contribute more financially to our trips, I feel like I can help make the calls and be like, hey, I want to go do this. I want to see that. No, we're going to stay in this hotel because, you know, I want to. Yeah. That's what happened We just spent, you know, a week out in Palm Springs in Joshua Tree. Mm-hmm. And for the first time in the seven years

We've been together. I planned the vacation Like I found our Joshua Tree RV. We stayed with friends in Palm Springs, but then you know, I was like I found like what to, what sites to see. Well, that was a combo. Obviously, he found some cool stuff, too. But for the most part, it was like, I took charge for most of the trip. I think I'm finally accepting, I don't even know, again, seven years later, that Mikey and I are a team.

Yeah. This money at this point is, yes, exactly. It's our money. Ah. That is cool. Didn't you do that on the honeymoon? I remember you sent me a message like, you were gonna surprise Mikey with something on your honeymoon? Yeah, we did jet skiing.

Awesome. So yeah, I just was like, okay, I'm gonna plan something for the day. Yeah. And we didn't, it was super cool. It's amazing, after seven years that you are uncovering this new layer of your relationship. I think that to me is the coolest part of the whole thing.

You uncovered your own new layer. I can do this. I can make more. I can dedicate the money towards this and crush this debt in a year. And then also the coolest part is you're discovering this layer of your own relationship with your husband. That's exactly why I did this layer of your own relationship with your husband. Yeah. That's exactly why I did this show.

That's why I did it. I'm glad you did. How many? Recently on this 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 sponsor Rocket Money. Rocket Money, formerly known as True Bill, 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. Rocket Money will find the subscriptions you don't want and then you can press cancel and rocket money will cancel it for you No more long hold times with customer service or emailing back and forth. That is convenience. I love it

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only available through my link. Let me give it to you again. Drink L-M-N-T dot com slash R-A-M-I-T. That's drink L-M-N-T dot com slash remit. Well, I know you remember. I may have gotten scolded about having a savings account for my dog. Yes, I remember that. I've been waiting to ask you about that. Tell me please. Well, you're going to love this part. Daddy taking some money back. Yes. And we are starting a Roth IRA for me with $2,000 seed of money. Yes. That's a 3G account.

Amazing. I love you, Gigi, but Drew, you need that retirement account. That's awesome. I'm going to live longer than her, so I need it more. That's good. Listen, I'm not going to say anything more because I have a lot of people who watch this who love dogs. And I don't need to get, like, of all the people who can get mad at me. I really

do not need dog owners coming after me. So I love you love dogs. But I'm especially happy that you're getting your investment account going now that you know the game. You start to see these connections like the fact that you paid that credit card debt off so aggressively and you saw results. Now, when you start to do the same thing with your investments and you start to see compounding, but just in the positive direction, you go, oh my God, I understand the game. That's how you win. Just a quick side note on this, I have a friend of mine who told me how she loves spending on her dog, but she struggles to spend on herself.

I was like, what are you talking about? And then later I posted this thing that said, normalize spending as much on yourself as you do on your dog, which went totally viral. So that is dedicated to my friend, Monique. But you see this with tons of people. I've had moms on this show who will start crying about how they cannot spend on themselves because they feel so guilty, but they will spend anything on their children.

I've had dads who are on this show and they describe themselves as providers, but when I ask them, what is your rich life for yourself? They're completely stumped. It's totally fine to be generous. It's even great to have that as a money dial, but not to the exclusion of yourself. Your rich life can be spending generously on other people. That's totally fine, even laudable, but not to the exclusion of spending on yourself. even lottable, but not to the exclusion of spending on yourself. Do you use the conscious spending plan in your money conversations or at all, if not, that's also okay, but I'm just curious.

We keep talking about talking about it. First it was the new job and trying to settle in. Then the same thing again, what the struggle has been with my job. The habit flow like July to December is fantastic, but then the last three months has been, you know, it's very conscious spending time. It doesn't go out the window, but it kind of like gets thrown off. Let me offer a little bit of feedback.

If you don't use it, that's okay with me. Not everybody's successful with money has to use a conscious spending plan, but let me suggest a couple of things where I think it might be helpful for you right now. If you buy too much, it becomes something where you are now letting the tail wag the dog. In other words, every month you're sitting there writing a check for 300, 400, 500, whatever.

And you go, why can't we go on this vacation? Why can't we eat out? So it really pays to get it right. So that's where I think a CSP can come in handy. He's done exactly like my husband. Because that's pretty much everything he's already done. So you'd be giving him his gold sticker right now, like, well, he's already kind of done all that.

The key is, I want you to be on board. I actually, my dream, which you've already started to do. It's awesome is for you to go to Mikey and be like, Hey, you know what? I ran a few calculations. I don't know. Maybe I made a couple of mistakes here there, but here's how I'm seeing it. What do you think about that? And then you take Mikey's budget. You go, Mikey, fuck these numbers.

You don't even calculate the TCO correctly. Get this out of here. Now for that one, we're using my numbers. Just make sure you throw up a camera on that so I can get a copy of that. Oh, absolutely. It's going to take time to become a true partner, but I am 100% confident and drew, and I'm so proud of what he's accomplished.

What surprised you most about the show? I think the emotional towards took on me. Like just, I think it was because it was for a lot of what was we, you and I talked about it even Mike and I talked about is the first time I've said it like out loud period to anyone. Like not even like my therapist I've talked about that with that much.

So, you know, I think that was, because like, as of the first day, I was exhausted. I'm like, all I did was talk, but by the end of it, I was like, I need a drink. Like, I was tired of living away. I was living with like the secrets, I guess, and the gill and just, I went to bed stress. I woke up stressed.

During the day, I was stressed thinking about money, like, you know, can I afford this? But then I think also how one should you kind of started me on that path, how easy it was to fall and be like, okay, this isn't that, you know, this isn't that scary. We can do this. We started internally. You talked a lot about how you felt and it was very emotional very quickly. lot about how you felt. And it was very emotional very quickly. And what I love seeing was you went from that, the internal work to the external work of like, I'm going to find out how much exactly I owe, I'm going to start putting money towards it, that debt started to get paid off. And then now you came full circle back to the internal work, like you're talking

about being a partner, you're talking about feeling like you are contributing and being proud, like full circle, and that is exactly how it's supposed to work. Yeah. Well, I was very proud to watch your journey. Looking back on our time together, what was your most memorable moment? Creating cast Monet. That was too good.

You really caught me off guard with that one. Tell everyone what that is in case they have not seen it. Cast my Assure Drag name. If something you decided to drag because you know that was, it's a part of my life. It's one of my little joys. So I figured, oh yeah, that was it. We were talking joking. I was like, if you were making me do a solace work, I was going to make you do something too. Yeah, you threw it back on me. I was like, wait a second. I'm here to give the instructions. And then you're like, ah, I was like, oh, okay. All right.

So Cass is my wife, Cassandra. Yes. And so you quickly identified what my drag name would be. Usually it's like your first pet in the street lived on, but you didn't have a pet, correct? And then I, my mother's a twice name was Cass. And then because of money, like, cast money, it just sounds like too much like cash money.

But cast Monet, it's a little on the nose. Yeah, cast Monet is a rich life. That's a rich drag queen. I love you. Okay, beautiful. Anything that you wanna share that you didn't get a chance to share on the show, any questions you have for me, I mean, we talk frequently, so it's not like

you've been bottling something up, I don't think, but I wanna make sure you have that chance. Like significantly less scary and easier to navigate and be like, okay, yes, here's how I can make it work, you know, when I was making $30,000, now I'm making 50, like the language is still the same. But I can make it work. You know, when I was making $30,000, now I'm making 50, like, the language is still the same. But I'm doing it. But I'm doing it.

You're doing it. You know, we're here. We're a queer. And got nothing to fear. There you go. Well, I'm, I'm excited. I'm so excited to see your story go live. You really represent millions of people who want to do the right thing. Maybe grew up not really

talking about money, not really engaging with money. And you are an amazing example for people that when they take control of their money, they really can start living a rich life fast. That is pretty much all I hoped for when I first started thinking about doing this Netflix show. I met Drew. He was very stressed out by money. He was keeping credit card debt, thousands of dollars of credit card debt as a secret from his fiance, Mikey.

They were soon to be married. And Mikey knew that Drew avoided money. He represents a lot of people who didn't really grow up being taught about money, who work in different jobs. Not everybody works at Google. Drew is a server and he's acknowledged, he likes it, but he needed to change to make more money. Now he's making 50K and he wants to get out of the industry.

And what is amazing in catching up with Drew is that he's made a plan to pay off his debt. He's continued doing it for a year. He's days away from being completely credit card debt free. And my favorite part of all is that he and Mikey are talking now more as partners. That part is incredible. They're creating their money rules together.

All that's fantastic. That's where money can really change your life. It's not simply about dollars and cents in a spreadsheet, but it's about how you talk to your partner. If I had to give Drew some constructive feedback, it would be take that same energy that you use to pay off your debt and redirect that to finding that new job. And the same way that your life changed when you went from making 30k to 50k and it gave you so much breathing room and confidence, that same thing will happen when you switch industries and you're able to make more and be respected by the people that you work with and your boss. I think that will be fantastic. The other constructive feedback I would give

is to start using the conscious spending plan. I didn't push too hard because it's really up to them. Drew's a great example of everyone going at their own speed. To me, it doesn't matter if debt takes you six months to pay off, two years, et cetera. But the fact that he made steady progress is incredible. If you can do that, then you can truly live a rich life. So congratulations Drew and for everybody who has seen Drew and the other cast on the show,

how to get rich is on Netflix now. And thank you for watching here. Now head on over to Netflix and watch the entire show. And thank you for watching here. Now head on over to Netflix and watch the entire show. Thanks for listening to I Will Teach You To Be Rich. I'm Remi Tseati. 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.