BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 24: Getting Financially “Naked” with Your Significant Other — With Erin Lowry

Episode Date: June 11, 2018

Erin’s parents taught her about money from a very early age. She paid for half of everything she wanted, which helped her figure out financial prioritization. When it came time for college, she decided against her dream college to avoid significant... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money Show, show, show number 24. That's when you have to have a very frank conversation with yourself and with your partner and decide if you want to continue in this relationship. Because truthfully, money can easily break up a relationship in a marriage. It's one of the number one factors in divorce. So you want to be putting yourself in a scenario where you have open, honest communication, you have made every effort to have this healthy conversation. Maybe you brought in a CFP.

Maybe you brought in a financial therapist. You wanted to identify underlying emotional baggage trigger. Like, there's so much to think about when you're talking about unpacking money behaviors. It's time for a new American dream, one that doesn't involve working in a cubicle for 40 years, barely scraping by. Whether you're looking to get your financial house in order, invest the money you already have, or discover new paths for wealth creation. You're in the right place. This show is for anyone who has money or wants more. This is the Bigger Pockets Money Podcast.

How's it going, everybody? I'm Scott Trench. I'm here with my co-host, Miss Mindy Jensen. How are you doing today, Mindy? Scott, I am doing fantastic, as always. It is a beautiful day. We've had a lot of rain here in Denver in the last couple of days, last couple of weeks, really, lots of hail. And today is a beautiful sunny day.

I got to record a podcast today. I love today's guest. Aaron Lowry, who I have known for five years and just discovered about 25 minutes ago, that her last name is not pronounced Lowry. It's pronounced Lowry. Aaron Lowry is here today with us to talk about money and relationship. And I think this is really important to talk about because money is what the number one thing couples fight about? It's the number one cause of divorce. I actually shouldn't say that. I don't know

if it's the number one cause of divorce. I do know it's the number one cause of fights in relationships. And, you know, making sure you're on the same page with your spouse or significant other financially is so important to your happiness in your life. And when you're sitting there fighting with your significant other, your whole life just kind of sucks. It kind of just drains on you. So I think this is a really, really, really great show today. Awesome. Yeah. And money seems to be the number two source of divorce second to infidelity. However, I often wonder if infidelity is influenced by money problems, fights that maybe occur over finances may result in one partner or an anger that leads to infidelity. There's a lot of reasons for infidelity on that kind of stuff. But money is the number two

for short cause of divorce and may influence number one for sure. Yeah. Oh, I can totally see that. Oh, I'm not going to stay home because all he does is yell about money. So I'm going to go out and, oh, I met somebody and they never yell at me about money. Or it's just a constant source of stress in general. Speaking of rain, by the way, I got caught in the rain on my bike the other day. I wanted to mention that when you were talking about the weather here.

It was not fun. I had to hang out under a bridge for like an hour. That was terrible. I did not prepare adequately for that rainstorm. That was very much surprised me. Did you get hit by hail? No hail, fortunately. That's good.

Some of the hails this week has been like this big. Yes. It's huge. I would also not be fun to get caught on the bike with. No, that hurts a lot. It's like paintball, but worse. But likely only lasts like 10 minutes for the hail that you can sit out. Yes.

But anyways, this episode of the Bigger Pockets Money Show is probably one that's best targeted towards folks that are dating or considering kind of moving to the next level in a relationship and need to then broach the subject of money. We also talk a little bit about how to broach the subject of money with a significant other that is maybe not on board with the concept of financial independence. But we really get into the meet on that, hey, what's the other person's philosophy of money? How do you broach that subject respectfully? And as Aaron puts it, which I think is a very clever way to do it, getting financially naked with your significant other. Yeah. And it's so true because you are bearing your soul. bearing your skin, your debts, your financial situation to your significant other. I think it's

really, I can't stress it enough. I think it's so important to talk about it. I did not talk about it with my husband before we got married. But we also had another thing Aaron talks about is context clues in how your significant other relates to money. Spends money, talks about gifts and does Christmas and things like that. And we're on the same page almost 100%, which is really great. But I definitely wish we would have talked about it more just to say that we had talked about it, just to actually solidly be on the same page. Yep. All right. Should we break in Aaron Lowry for today's show? Yes, we should. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing.

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We are going to bring in Aaron now. So without further ado, here is Aaron Lowry from Brooke Millennial. Aaron, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to join us today to talk about your story. And in addition, we will also talk about relationships and talk. with your partner about money in general. Let's get to the most important part first.

Erin, where would you say your journey with money began? Well, since this is a very rehearsed story at this point, it all started on a hot summer day in North Carolina in 1996 when a Krispy Kreme Donut changed my life forever. And that's actually true. Really? It's the true beginning to my story, but I won't do my narrator voice for the rest of the time.

The condensed version of what happened is when I was a little kid, my parents were not big on handing us money. And when I say us, I'm referring to my little sister as well. She's three years younger. And that family policy started from, I guess, before I was born, they must have planned to do this or they either got on the same page quickly because I never remember a time where my parents are like, here you go. Here's the money to go buy whatever you want. So there are two rules that would happen. One, if I wanted something, my parents would say, will you pay for 50% of it? And then that would help curb impulse control because I have many memories of me carrying a toy around a store deciding whether or not it was worth 50% or if my parents didn't see value in it at all,

they'd be like, no, you have to pay for that in full. Here's the problem. When you're 5, six, seven, you don't have a lot of earning opportunities. So I got industrious. And I knew my mom was having a yard sale one summer. So I asked my dad if he would buy Krispy Cream Donuts so I could sell them at my mom's yard sale. And he agreed. So he went and bought the donuts, brought them back. I set up my little Fisher Price table.

My sister, who at the time was four, sort of helped me out a little bit. And at the end of it, I had about $20 in quarters stacked up on this table and I was really pumped to go to Toys R Us. And because that was a store at the time, which is super sad that that now has to be part of my story. It doesn't exist anymore. And my dad comes over and looks at this pile of quarters and I proudly tell him that I'm going to go by two Nerf Gun Super Sokers because those were all the rage in the late 90s. during the summer. And he goes, okay, but I paid for the donuts and that cost me $8. And Kalyn worked for you for a little bit. So how about you pay her $2? So actually, your net profit is $10. And then he took the money from me. So that was really my first

introduction to how money works. That in candy tax, where at Halloween, my parents would take Primo candy out of our loot as a candy tax for taking us out trick-or-treating, which I definitely will be doing myself in the future when I have kids. It's a great strategy. It's a great strategy. And I would like to say that when I was a kid, I got a lot of crappy candy and my kids now get just amazing candy. It's all Hershey bars and Reese's peanut butter cups. And I think people my age remember getting the bit of honeies and those little peanut butter kisses and all the crappy candy. And they go out of their way to get the good

candy now and they give it out. So yeah, candy tax happens at our house too. Well, I wise up pretty quick on candy tax, though, because my dad's favorites were Snickers and Skittles, and I used to hide them in my costume because I knew that's what he would go for. So after like the first year of candy tax, I was like, all right, I know what's coming. Let's hide this. So those were very early money memories for me. And then that 50% rule actually went all the way through me going to college. So my senior year of high school, my parents told me, hey, you actually are responsible for 50% of your college education, which I should say it's quite generous and wonderful that they could even afford to cover the other 50%. I, however, was in a position where I went to, I was in a very privileged

environment. I grew up overseas. All of my friends' parents were paying for college without a second thought to it. So to me, being raised in that environment, I was a very spoiled 18-year-old at the time. There was a lot of door slamming, a lot of yelling about the fact that my parents were only paying for 50%. You know, now in retrospect, I understand how much a lot of of a gift that was. So I ended up picking my college based on where I got scholarship money so that I could graduate debt-free. And I usually say at this point, I gave up going to my dream school so I could live my dream life because my parents had used all of these real-life examples so that by the time I was 18, I could actually make a financial decision based on understanding that if I set myself up

to come out of college debt-free, it was going to give me way more choices in life than if I all of a sudden had to be paying back $80,000 to $100,000 of debt. And I wanted to be a journalism and theater double major. So, you know, those careers come with big paychecks, obviously. So I want to cover something again that you, I just want to reiterate something. You just said, you said, I gave up going to my dream school so I could live my dream life. How long were you in college? Four years.

Four years. Okay. So there's like a thousand things I want to reiterate. You gave up going to your dream school so you could leave your dream school so you could leave your dream life, you brought in credits from high school, so you started as a sophomore, these are things that anybody can do. These are things that it doesn't matter if you were privileged and lived in this really ritzy neighborhood and, you know, or if you were poor, you can still take higher college level courses. I actually started college before I graduated high school,

but I did not use it to my advantage at all. I completely blew that and totally wasted it. You did not. Great for you. But that's, you know, bringing in college credits that count double for high school and college is a great way to save money on college expenses because they're super expensive and college just keeps going up. It's been a while since I was in college and I can't believe how expensive it is. You can also use it as seed money in some cases if your parents were going to be generous enough to pay for your college education. My freshman year roommate actually ended up doing this. She graduated a semester early because her parents told her they would give her the difference if she graduated early, whatever they would have paid for a second semester, not the lifestyle.

expenses, just the cost of tuition, they would give it to her so she could use out of seed money to go start her life. So just a thought if your parents are open to negotiation, you could have pulled a move like that. Just something to think about. So yes, she actually graduated in December of our senior year instead of waiting until June and went in. Also, the other advantage of that is you are beating all the hordes of people that are graduating in terms of getting yourself into the workforce. So your resume is getting on desks before everybody else is. Just another perk. Bam. Okay. Well, 27 tips and three minutes into the show. So thanks, Aaron. See you later. Wow. I love it. Go ahead. I was just going to say, I feel like I should provide context for dream life and what that meant.

Because for me, I knew at 18, I wanted to move to New York City after I graduated college. So one thing I wanted was to be debt-free because I knew New York was very expensive. And at the time, I thought I wanted to pursue acting. And I thought if I am forced to take a certain type of job in order to pay those bills, I'm not going to be able to try my handed act. And then the other side of it, I don't know where this idea came from, but at 18, I got it in my head that I needed $10,000 saved up as a nest egg in order to move to New York City when I graduated. Because I didn't want to have to ask my parents for anything. I wanted to do it on my own. So I also became very focused on this idea of saving up $10,000 by the time I graduated. And I did it, but I was also an RA because nerd. That's why I paid for it.

Let's go on to like you graduate college. You're debt free. and you get this job, what was that job? And what was your experience kind of building wealth post college? I was a page for The Late Show with David Letterman when I graduated college. That was my first job. So as a page, for anybody who has watched 30 Rock, yes, that had like some Kenneth-esque sensibilities to it.

But our main job is actually to pump up the audience, which was very interesting. So we handled every element of the audience coming to the show, whether that was ticketing, getting them through the ticketing process. I got to, there are two coveted positions called podium page and speeching page and floor page. There are like three different levels. And then I also got to do this big speech

that's kind of a comedic speech you would do to get people excited to go in and pump them up to go in and see the show. And then during the show itself, I got to sit there or rather stand in the back and monitor and make sure that people were behaving. But really, I just got to sit there and in real time see Dave do his thing and all the guests come in and the musical acts.

And it was really kind of a gap year if we're being honest with ourselves in terms of career prospects. But that was my first gig. It did not pay very well. So I was also a babysitter and a barista at Starbucks at the same time. So I was working three jobs my first year in New York, earning about $23,000. So that was super fun. How did you make that work from a living? Was that more than your living expenses?

Or did you start dipping into that $10,000? No, I actually haven't touched. So that ended up being my nest egg to build my current wealth. I touched it a little bit for the security deposit on the apartment that I still live in seven years later. I will have lived in the same apartment, the whole seven years I've lived in New York in just a few days, actually. And so how did I do it? Well, I wasn't very healthy. So it was a combination of scrounging for food. I spent very little money on groceries. So instead, I learned very quickly at Starbucks. that when you cleaned out the case of food at the end of the night, anything that was past expiration date hadn't technically gone bad,

but you could no longer sell it. They would just throw it out. I asked if I could take it home. I lived off those bistro boxes and pininis for many, many months. The fact that my cart is not exploded from sodium intake is super surprising. Oh, man. So there was that babysitting. I also tended to get fed dinner.

So that was another way that I was able to feed myself. and in terms of entertainment, there are so many free things to do in New York. So it was a lot of free entertainment, especially during the summertime. And pretty much my only big expenses, again, I didn't have student loan debt. I didn't have any form of debt. So the only major cost that I had was rent. So as long as I could make enough money for rent in my monthly metro card and had like a little extra money to spend here and there to go out or to do things, that was pretty much all I needed. So shockingly, $23,000 was sustainable. And it was just me.

Like, I didn't have kids. I didn't even have my dog at that point. I only had to take care of myself. And it was a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of work. But I just kind of made it happen. And you've got entertainment at work. You're at the David Letterman show. It's true.

And then I will also say this doesn't sound great, but I am a woman. So at bars, I tended to be able to drink without having to pay for things. So that also worked out in terms of entertainment and going out. All right. So first of all, this is not the first time we've heard a story about someone who is living in New York City and able to do it on an extraordinarily low income, right?

Mrs. Frugalwoods, Liz, was able to do this as well. We heard from her. What episode was that, Mindy? I think that was episode five. I'm going to have to look that up. Yeah. So first of all, you know, we hear all the time about how hard it is to live. off of a small income in New York City.

But yet time and again, we're hearing stories from people who have built towards financial dependence and built their financial position by being able to do this with smart choices and taking advantage of the opportunities that were unique to their situation. So congrats to you for that. Now, moving past this kind of like first year, what happened? How did you kind of expand your financial position going forward from there? So the next thing I did was go to a job where I had health insurance because that's the other big part of that first year is I'm an able boss.

individual who has no chronic issues. I'm not even on any sort of regular medication. So the lack of health insurance wasn't a big concern in year one, but in general, I'm a very risk-averse human being. So I didn't want to continue in a situation where I had that vulnerability. And honestly, after living, I wouldn't even consider it paycheck to paycheck necessarily because I did have that nest egg if something went wrong. But I constantly needed an influx of cash, obviously. And so I wanted some sort of stability after living that way for a year. And that's how I also knew that the acting schick was not going to be for me, at least at that point in my life. So I reached out to my network that I had gone from college and a few people that I knew that were living in New York City and asked if any of their companies were

hiring. And that's how I ended up in my second job, which was working in public relations. Also turned out not to be a great fit long term, but we can get to that in a second. But it went, I had a starting salary of $37,500, which at that point in my life, I felt like I was flushed with cash because all of a sudden I had a very steady paycheck. I didn't have to work three jobs. I did continue to babysit during that time as my side hustle. And then a company actually had great perks. So I did not have to pay a penny towards my health insurance. My health insurance was great. They also had an HSA. You had paid vacation up to 21 days off as an entry-level employee, which is great. And the only issue was when you were bought a man on the totem pole in public relations,

you had to have at least one member of your team there at any given time. So guess it was always last to have vacation approved. But in theory, I had 21 days of paid vacation. And it's also when I first had access to a 401k. And I had access to a Roth 401k specifically. So that's also when I started contributing to a retirement plan, which before then I had not started investing really at all. kind of knew what an IRA was at that point of my life and I would have been 23 right now at that point. I am now 29. So I didn't have any investments. I just had a bunch of money. I wasn't even in a savings account. It was in a checking account. That's also my fun, embarrassing money and nerds story. So I just had that money kind of sitting there. And I've always been a saver by nature. And I think a lot of that has to do with delayed

gratification, just hardwired that way. Even as a kid, I wanted to be like wait until the night to open my birthday presents. I wanted to get to open the last present on Christmas. Yeah, Mindy, that face. That's what like a lot of people react when they hear this. So this is definitely a nature thing in terms of my love of saving has very much to do with how I'm wired in terms of liking to lay gratification. I'm sure you've heard of the marshmallow test where they put the marshmallow in front of the kid, leave the room, say, if you don't eat it, you get another marshmallow. So I passed that test with flying colors when I was three and my mom did that on me. When she did it on my little sister, my little sister figured out the loophole that she would

put it in her mouth and taste it, but take it out and put it down. So she wasn't technically eating it, but she was also enjoying it in the moment. And it gives you some insight about our different personalities as well. So I think birth order has a very important role in how you are as a person because we have two daughters and the older one totally did not touch the marshmallow when we did the marshmallow test. We actually did it with chocolate covered pretzels. And the little one, my husband said, I will give you one now or I will give you two in 10 minutes if you don't eat it. And she's like, I have to eat it. So she ate it.

And then 10 minutes later, she's like, where's my other pretzel? He's like, no. I said, you can't have a second one. She's like, no, you said I could have a second one. Well, it's because the older sibling will take whatever there is if they don't pounce on it immediately. So there's the, yeah. That's a good.

Scarcity mentality. Younger sibling cannot defend these types of things from the older, bigger one. That's a good point. Are you the firstborn, Scott? I am the firstborn. Oh, so then you know. We will absolutely take that from your poor baby brother. And I can defend my marshmallow.

mellow for 10 minutes. No problem. I also have a theory that other firstborns tend to be friends with firstborns. Like I noticed in my group of friends, almost all of my good friends are the older sibling. If they're not, they're a middle child. I don't think I have any close friends who are the youngest sibling, weirdly enough. So fun thing to run through in your own mind with your friend group. That is really interesting. I have not looked at that in regards to birth order as like friends. Interesting. Huh. I guess so getting back to the story here.

I mean, you have this job at a PR firm, 37, 5. You're saving up. You're maxing out to 401K. You feel like you're having all the money in the world now, even though you're living in New York. What happens next? How do the next few years play out? Well, you realize quickly that money is very relative.

And I felt rich for about three months and then realize like, oh, more taxes. So kind of leveled out. Not significantly more in taxes, but definitely. a little bit more was coming out of my paycheck. And I also started to recognize career-wise, this wasn't going to have longevity. It just wasn't clicking, not something I enjoyed. I needed to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I was definitely feeling a little adrift. I think that's a very common early 20s and all sorts of parts of your life phenomenon that you're just not quite sure what you want to do next or in general. It was around this time that I started writing

broke millennial, which is really what shifted everything in my life. So I started to start the blog in January of 2013. So I was still 23. I would have turned 24 later that year. I had been working at the PR firm for I think about six months. And it really the inception of it came from the fact that I was talking to a friend of mine who had also been a page at Letterman. She was then working as an assistant to two executives at Biacom. And, you know, that was in the entertainment field. And she wanted to be in an entertainment. But it was a very soul-sucking job and she wasn't enjoying it. And we were talking one night and I said, You know, I got to admit, I'm a little confused because you really want to be an actress, specifically improv. So this seems like the time of your life to do it because you don't have kids, you don't have

debt, you're not married, what is holding you back. You could waitress, nanny, do what you need to do to at least make ends meet. But other than that, nothing else is really kind of weighing you down for lack of a better expression. And she goes, honestly, I just get really stressed about money. I don't look at it and hope I have enough at the end of the month. And this was a light bulb moment for me. And I understand how naive that sounds, but what you grow up around is normal to you. And I grew up in an environment where money was not a source of tension, not in my immediate family, nor for the people that I was raised around. And in my own family, my parents never fought about money. They modeled a lot of frugality. So there was not a lot of lavish spending. The only thing they really spent money on was travel, which is something that I modeled to this day. And I guess, It sounds so silly, but I didn't think about it.

I mean, I was only earning $23,000 that first year, and I just made it work because I knew how to control my money. And that, her saying that to me was this late ball moment. I'm like, oh, maybe some of those weird stories I have for my childhood I could use to help people. And it also tied in that I wasn't feeling very creatively fulfilled at work. So the blog was just a way for me to have a creativity outlet. And then I kind of started to take off from there.

So about, I would say, then a year into me doing the PR game, I had been writing Broke millennial for about six months was when I got my first freelance writing job. So I started writing for an outlet now defunct called Daily Finance. I believe it's now merged under AOL finance. And I started writing for them and realized I could make money on the side. And then it just kind of started to snowball a little bit from there. And the next move was going to work for the startup magnifymoney.com. So I was employee number one for their startup.

And I helped build out the blog vertical specifically. So I got to pick my own title. I was content director since I was the only person there. So I was like 25, 26 years old with this very inflated title. And I also just learned so much from the co-founders because it was just me and the two of them in the office every day. So they had between them 30 years of experience in the banking industry. One had worked in investment banking for a while. The other was head of credit cards for Barclays in the UK.

So I just got this wealth of information about how the banking industry works. from the inside as well as the investing industry. So I was getting all of this exposure to all of these terms I had never heard of and policies that I had never been exposed to before, experienced myself. And that was really my awakening in terms of learning more about how money works. And in terms of how I got to magnify money, I talked myself into that job, which we can get into as well if you'd like. Well, so to kind of summarize this, it sounds like you, yeah, first job of 23,000.

then you moved on as 37-5, and then you started working on your side hustle and a passion project. And from those types of work, income opportunities emerged, a chance of a startup, all this kind of other stuff, which you kind of steadily worked on and grew towards over the course of several years. And during this whole time, I imagine, I'm assuming that your stockpile of cash and your kind of comfort to be able to support yourself and take risks maybe was increasing because of your frugality. Is that a reasonable summary of those? It was. And I saved all of my side hustle money. So I didn't need it to live on. So 100% of that money went into savings. For a while, I used it to build my travel fund specifically. But then it started going, well, different points in my life was used for different things. But for a while, it was travel and then just general savings. And then it was travel and investing. And well, now I'm self-employed. So I don't really have side hustle money anymore because it's all side hustle essentially.

And then about six months before I knew I was planning to go self-employed, every single penny of that went towards building a nest egg so that, you know, if I didn't earn income for a while, I was going to be set. How long did you work at Magnify Money? It's about two and a half years before I went off on my own. That seems incidentally like perfect experience to help you build out your own blog and your own, you know, money management site, right? Is that no coincidence there, right? It was. I mean, broke Millennial as a blog. was already very well established before I went to work at Magnify Money. That was a lot of how I got hired and why I got hired. It was sort of my resume for what I was doing for them. And then there was a lot of

crossover while I worked there. But that was increasingly becoming concern is the wrong word, but I knew that I didn't want to be a face at all of Magnify Money. I wanted to have broke millennial and be my own thing. And I mean, my bosses there were so supportive. When I put in my notice, it was after I'd gotten my book deal, they kind of saw the writing on the wall a little bit, if you will. And when I put in my nose, they're like, yeah, we kind of thought this was coming. We stayed in touch. We still talk. They're great.

There was no ill will at all about moving on. And at that point, the team had also expanded. So it wasn't like things were going to go awry if I left in the same way as if I had left a year earlier. And it would have kind of left them in the large a little bit. It's fantastic. Yeah, that's interesting. You said you talked your way into the Magnify Money Job. So this is actually a story.

I had not heard yet. So I would really like to. When you say you talked your way into it, I'm assuming that means you convince them to hire you. I pitched them the job. They didn't have a job in existence yet. So what happened was I was still in PR. I was working at that agency. I had started shopping around for different gigs.

But at the time, the only ones I was really shopping for were other PR gigs because that's just what I knew how to do. And I got an offer from another one that was. was going to be a promotion in about a $10,000 bump. But they said, you have to shudder broke millennial if you come over here because one of the clients would have been one of the big four banks. So they felt that that was a conflict of interest. And I said, does that mean no blog, no freelance rating, no nothing? And they said, no, I'm like, no, no, thank you. I will pass. So I turned down that job. So I was still in, thank God, because my life would be very different had I not. And my thought process at the time was, okay, you're offering me a $10,000.

but you're making me shut down what I think has major profitability. So you are costing me in the long run. The opportunity cost here of shutting down the freelancing is huge. And so what ended up happening is I was then sort of desperate to get out. I knew I really wanted to leave my job. And Nick and Brian, the co-founders at Magnify Money, had emailed me about coming in beta testing, first writing for a site that Brian had started called Mile Cards and then coming in in beta testing the website. It hadn't even launched yet. So I went in and I did a beta test on it and they had found me through brok millennial.com. And I noticed there was a tab on the website for a blog. So I clicked on it in the beta testing and nothing popped up. And I said, oh, what are you doing with this? And they said,

oh, we're not really sure. It's just kind of a placeholder for now. Do you have any ideas? I said, yeah, I can run this. And I said, I just like that. And they're like, really? And I said, yeah, I can build this out for you. And they're like, all right, well, write us a proposal. We can talk about it. So I went home and drafted up a job proposal and what I thought it would look like and what I wanted to earn and all of that and send it over to them. And within two weeks, I was working at Magnify Money. Wow.

I did not realize that you started their whole entire blog. Yeah, built out the contributor network, the whole thing. Nice. I thought millennials were lazy and didn't do anything. Isn't that how that works? You know, that's what I've been told. I haven't met one of those, but apparently it exists. No, I haven't met one of those.

Brooklynians are the hustlers. Yeah, apparently just that 30-year-old who got evicted from his parents' house, but, you know, just takes one round apple, guys. Yeah, you know, I am a parent, and I have an 11-year-old as my oldest, so she, I'm not going to evict her yet, but I'm going to go a lot sooner than 30 years before I take her to court to evict her. That's ridiculous. Yeah, not to point fingers, but my general feels about a lot of the stereotypes of millennials is that we didn't develop these neuroses ourselves. Someone had to hold our hands along the way here. So if your child is 30 years old and living at home, something else collapsed

along the road here, guys. Yes. So I bet. It's unfair. That guy, if you're 30 years old, if unemployed 30 years old, unable, you know, the disadvantage, the ability to compete in the workplace, you're just at such a huge disadvantage. It's going to be so much hard to have a relationship, get a job, support yourself. And it's, you know, that's just a crippling disadvantage by these parents not kicking him out earlier. Yeah. You know, maybe eight years earlier at least. So you're not doing your kids any favors to hold their hands and pick all their fights for them. And oh, that got off on a tangent. Yeah. Well, moving slightly in the direction of children, but maybe earlier in the process than that. One of the topics I know we wanted to talk to you today about was relationships and

money. And I know you have a lot of tips about that and I think it's something that can be very difficult to bring up in the dating process and all that kind of stuff. So could you maybe like introduce us to your thoughts on relationships and money and some of the important concepts to keep in mind when it comes to that? Yes. I would say, well, I call it getting financially naked. And this is it for talking specifically about romantic relationships. Obviously, you don't want to be good. and call it financially naked way we're talking to your friends and your parents. But we can go down that road as well because there's different levels of relationships and money. It's not just about romantic relationships.

But if we're looking at that because that's the more fun one because you have all of the fun and delightful metaphors, which the chapter about it in my book is, I wasn't comfortable with my dad reading that chapter of the book. We'll just put it out there. Just throwing that out there. After it went to press, I was like, oh, God, that's so awkward. Sent him his own copy with that black. Adacted. Yeah. And I look at it as two big phases. And I mean, there's a lot of nuance to this conversation,

but in very simple terms, there are two big phases of getting financially naked. There's the 101 level, which is really when you're just starting to date someone. And you're having to navigate, often subtle conversations about money. And it could be who's paying for the dates. If you get a little bit further along in the relationship, what type of lifestyle are you leading? What kind of dates do you go on? looking at birthdays, Christmas, other holidays, how much money do we spend on each other? Those are all context clues about how your partner relates to money that you can be picking up along the way. And it's also just those small conversations you do have to start having early on in a relationship. But I consider it at the 201 level, or as I like to say, full frontal

financial nudity needs to be achieved when you realize that this is someone you could marry. And for people who don't want to get married, then this is somebody who you are likely to cohabitate with and be in a relationship with for a very long time. And at that point, it all has to get bared. So you're talking your debt, exactly how much there is, where it is, credit scores, credit reports. I would also say unpacking your emotional baggage when it comes to money, that's a very helpful thing for your partner to know about you and for you to know about yourself, as well as your income, your overall net worth, and your financial goals that you have coming up. And those are all conversations that need to be had. Not all in one.

go. I think that's a common misconception about getting financially naked as people feel they have to lay all of this out in the first conversation. No, no, this could be an evolving process. You don't have to do it all at once. But there is also how you do it is the next question I always get asked is how do you get financially naked. How do you start that conversation? Well, first I would say you need to reflect on what you want to talk to your partner about. What are you comfortable saying on this rare first go around at this conversation. What are you comfortable sharing and what do you need to know or want to know from your partner? Then you need to tell your partner that this conversation is coming. Because from personal experience, I can tell you, starting it by saying, hey, how much student

loan debt do you have? It's not going to yield the greatest results. Said, give them some time to get into a mental headspace that this is what we're going to talk about. And pick a time and a date to have the conversation, preferably at home, preferably no roommates around, definitely no parents around. You don't want to be doing this out at a restaurant because It can get tense, but also you really want to be talking about this when the people next to you could easily be eavesdropping. So just have it in a very intimate environment. And then once you start, the actual way to start the conversation, you can go a few different routes. One is to acknowledge that it's awkward and uncomfortable and say something like, hey, I think this is a very important part of the next step in our relationship, but I feel a little awkward about it.

How do you feel? They can share, and then you can jump off onto whatever question you have first. Or my personal favorite, to backdoor into the conversation. is to go with a positive and say, what's a financial goal that you have in the next five years? Your partner tells you. And then you say, and what's standing in your way of achieving that goal?

Really subtle, easy way to get into the debt conversation because that's how your partner can either acknowledge, I have student loan debt, I have credit card debt, whatever it is. And whether or not you share numbers on the very first go-around is your choice, but eventually you do need to have all of that information, especially if you think this is somebody you're going to get married. I'm not saying that debt is a deal breaker. My fiancé has a not insignificant amount of student loan debt.

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At MedCan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health, from the big milestones to the quiet winds. That's why our annual health assessment offers a physician-led, full-body checkup that provides a clear picture of your health today and may uncover early signs of conditions like heart disease and cancer. The healthier you means more moments to cherish. Take control of your well-being and book an assessment today. Medcan live well for life. Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. Okay, so when do you bring it up? You told us how, but when? I mean, are you talking about money on your first date? Are you talking about money on the fifth date? It's been a while. I've been

married forever. And we never talked about money. And I think I picked up on those context clues you were talking about. He used a coupon on our first date. I was like, oh, wow, that's cool. You know, and we went to, you know, we did cheap things because we were young, but also because we were both kind of cheap. So when do you bring up money? When did you bring up money with Peach? The very, very first time we got financially naked, we had probably been together for about a year and a half or two years. So we met in college. We dated my senior year, his junior year, and then I graduated and we went into a long distance relationship that we were in for over four years. So once the long distance relationship was going well, and I saw longevity here, I didn't think right at that moment, this is someone I'm going to marry,

but I thought this has potential. So I need to have this conversation because it's important for us to be on the same page about finances. We don't have to be the same person. You know, he's still more of a spender, I'm still more of a saver, but we have to have open and honest communication about it. And that's when I say I didn't do it tactfully. I just randomly brought it up one day and said, hey, how much student loan debt do you have? Because I knew he had some. At some point, that had come out, probably honestly when we were still in college, because a lot of people would talk about it. That wasn't really so much of a taboo conversation whether or not people had student loans, because honestly, the assumption generally was everyone had them. So people didn't

necessarily share the number, but just acknowledged the fact that they had them. So when I wanted to know the actual amount, yeah, I just asked out of the blue, which do as I say, not as I did, sort of situation. So was he able to just come out with it? So interesting enough, he didn't know the answer to that question. So he told me a number, but he was guessing. And there are a variety of reasons. Partly, it was that his parents had some of the student loan debt and that, he was going to take that back from him so we didn't know exactly how much they had. And he hadn't checked in a while. So he knew what a balance had been at one point in time, but not since interest had been accruing. And so yeah, I mean, he told me a number. And then we came back to the conversation,

maybe five months down the road. And the number had significantly inflated. I was like, hold on now. That was not what I was told last time. Like, yeah, I honestly didn't really know. So that was also a whole other conversation. No, I think that's a really good point. And I think that's probably much more common than people think because I've met many of my friends and colleagues that I meet with through various clubs and sports that I'm associated with, know that I'm good with money and all this kind of stuff. And sometimes they'll ask me for advice on these things. And literally, this comes up quite a bit where people actually do not know how much money they have, where it is, where it's spread out. They'll know how much they make, but they don't know how much their debts are,

where they've piled up. And this is kind of actually a fairly common thing, particularly it was student loans where they can be scattered in various different collections places. And I think it's a fascinating discussion when you think, hey, you're listening to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. You probably know these things if you're gotten through this many episodes and are listening to our conversation with Aaron here. But many people really don't know this stuff. And it's honestly, they don't.

And so you have to bring that up and give them time, I think, maybe to actually get these answers prior to these conversations. Yeah. And if you're listening right now and you, don't know how much debt you have, do yourself a favor and go and look at it because not knowing doesn't make it go away. Not knowing, doesn't make it get smaller. It just makes you not know. You have to know how much there is so you can start formulating a plan to get rid of it if that's your goal, which I'm assuming it is because you're listening to this show. Yeah, that's actually my number one

money mantra is that you have two choices in life and it comes to money. Either you control money or money controls you. It's really that simple. And so I, I, always say because people ask what's the first step for you to control your money. So you have to face the numbers. You cannot make any informed decisions in your financial life if you do not have all of the information. And a huge part of that information is how much debt do I have? Where is it? What are the interest rates? Yeah. I think part like I think that's a great quote either you control your money or your money controls you. And a correlate to that is eventually if your money controls you, you're going to be embarrassed, right? I bet you that I would imagine that Peach is a little embarrassed

when he was unable to tell you the numbers behind this, right, and had to go look him up and change that later. And that's a tough, that's a tough situation from a mental perspective. Which ties into one of my other key themes of getting financially naked, you have to have an excellent poker face. And I say this because, think about it in the context of if you got physically naked in front of another human being and that person laughed at you, what are the odds that you're going to get naked in front of them again?

Probably slim to none. So it's the same with your money. If your partner is sharing something with you, this is a previous choice that your partner made. It might have been a mistake. It might not have been. It could have been circumstantial. But please do not have a reaction on your face or scoff or make a snarky comment or anything. Have a complete poker face about it because you want your partner to be able to continue to have open honest money conversations with you and vice versa.

So you have to remain neutral in this context of getting everything out into the open because otherwise they might start high. things from you. And that's also, of course, going to be problematic in the future. Really good advice. That's excellent advice. Okay. So what I'm hearing here is you have to have these kind of open conversations, you have a poker face, get the information. And then what do you do once you have that information? What if your partner has a financial position that reflects past behavior or choices that are not in line with your values? How do you approach that situation? So that's a couple. There's a few different strategies here. So if your partner made prior mistakes, but clearly has exhibited behaviors that those have been rectified, then that's what matters.

What matters is the now. So if your partner had medical debt that went to collections or had credit card debt, but there's a payment plan and they have not gotten into credit card debt since and, you know, everything is as it should be. That's really what you need to focus on is the current behaviors. Now, if there are, continue to be red flags for years and your partner isn't making an effort to change, that's when you have to have a very frank conversation with yourself and with your partner and decide if you want to continue in this relationship. Because truthfully, money can easily

break up a relationship in a marriage. It's one of the number one factors in divorce. So you want to be putting yourself in a scenario where you have open, honest communication, you have made every effort to have this healthy conversation. Maybe you brought in a CFP. Maybe you brought in a financial therapist. You wanted to identify underlying emotional baggage triggers. Like there's so much to think about when you're talking about unpacking money behaviors. But if you have made every, in good faith effort to correct your own issues and your partner just isn't coming on board, you do have to make a tough decision. But like I said, debt should not necessarily be a deal breaker. It could be symptomatic of something your partner has already handled, where your partner just might

be on the path to get it done. I graduated debt free. It was hugely important to me, but I'm marrying somebody who has student loan debt, so it's still going to be a contender in my life. it was not a reason to throw away our relationship because he brings so much value to the relationship and is so much more than just his debt number and frankly it's something we can easily take care of as a team now i haven't put a penny towards it now i won't until after we get married that's a conversation that different strokes for different folks i know some people once they get engaged start helping a fiancee pay it down to me until we are legally bound to one another i'm not going to do that because i think we'll get married but you just never know.

And people think that I am way too cynical. And he thinks I'm way too cynical at times. But things happen. You just don't know until you're actually in the situation. So yeah, I would say don't throw away a relationship just because of past behaviors, especially if current behaviors are good. The other thing, too, is the next step is to create a game plan. You have shared your numbers.

You have it all out there. If you are not married or don't intend to be married, don't intend to do joint financing, those can be individual goals, but you can be each other's accountability. buddies. You could still have monthly money meetings, check in on how the other one is doing. That's pretty much how Peach and I have functioned up until this point. Because we're getting married of four months, we have started to sort of change our language to hour. Even in terms of student loan debt, I usually say hours instead of his or yours. And that's just a way for us to think about it as a team, because that's how we plan to attack finances after we're married. And we have a game plan in place for

how we're going to handle our student loan debt, how we're going to handle our investments, our short, medium and long-term goals. And it's also an evolving conversation. The goals that we had three years ago are not the same as the goals we have today because now we know we want to live in New York City for at least the next 10 years. Now we know how many kids we're interested in probably having. Now we know when we want to start a family. And, you know, those factors have very much changed how we're approaching our finances. No, I think that this is all really good advice and really good perspective. And I think that, you know, when it comes to money, like financial freedom or building wealth is something that you can do in a few years of hard work, making the hard choices, right? The relationship is for

life, right? The goal of these relationships, when you're looking to get married to someone, is a lifetime commitment, which is far more important than financial considerations, unless the financial philosophy is so different that that's going to threaten the relationship. Like, if one person has a philosophy of building wealth and moving toward financial freedom at any rate, and the other person's philosophy is to spend more than they make, right? That's where you start, I think, having these divergences. And it sounds like that's what you're saying is get on the same page, understand the goals. If the behavior is moving in a positive direction, you can work with that.

And the relationship can be strong. But if that's not happening, that's when you need to have a conversation about, is this a relationship deal breaker? Yeah, it's so true. I actually just shared on social media the other day with permission from Peach, because anytime I share information about him, I ask for his permission, since he didn't ask to be a quote-unquote public figure. You know, this is a great example in terms of work ethic that that is what I've always admired

about him. He has his student loan debt is from undergrad. He cash flowed his master's. So he figured out how to get a job that would pay enough to the cash flow a master's degree. He lived at home during that time so that he could pay it all off. And that small decision, which was three, four years ago is one of the ways I knew like, oh, okay, this is someone I definitely can marry. like student loan debt be damned.

Like he figured it out how to cash flow his master's. And then now he's a teacher. So he has opportunities. They call it procession, but it's essentially overtime work. So that could be coaching, grading regents tests, prepping kids for different tests, ways to make overtime. He has picked up so much of that this year that he has met all of his short-term financial goals and shaved an extra $2,000 off the principal balance of one of his student loans in three months.

So, yeah, that to me is an example of. of, yes, past financial behaviors are not always indicative of future. And it does come down to other things like work ethic. He was not in a position to be able to go to the same. We went to the same college. He wasn't in a position to be able to go there and come out debt-free. His family comes from different socioeconomic situation as my family. So why is that going to be a reason that we don't get married? And I've had at a very interesting conversation with a woman one time who said, is it okay to date someone with student loan debt? I was like, girl, friend. If you don't, you're drastically limiting your dating pool options, first of all. But second of all, I think you have to consider why is the student loan debt there. How much is there? What is the earning potential? How are the loans being handled? There are so many factors at play. But to write off anyone who has student loan debt is quite short-sighted and narrow-minded in my opinion. Yeah, that's not something I would even consider. I mean, like, if I met somebody, if I'm married, so I'm not going to meet anybody.

But if I met somebody who had like significant crippling credit card debt, that would be something that would give me pause. But student loan debt, you get for a different reason. I mean, if you have $200,000 in student loan debt and you're working as a barista at Starbucks, no offense, why do you have $200,000 in student loan debt? Did you not finish your job, your schooling? Like there's some issues at play, but just to blankly write off, that's kind of ugly. So let's look at a slightly different way to,

to look at this relationship and money thing. Let's go past the point of no return. Let's look at somebody who has maybe recently discovered this concept of financial independence, but they're already partnered up. They want to pursue financial independence. How do they broach this subject with their partner who may not have discovered it yet, may not be anywhere close to the same page? How do you start that conversation?

I would say you can just first express your interest in what has gotten you jazzed about it, but don't assume that's going to translate to your partner. So share what you're liking and why you're liking it, just like you would with anything. Peach loves the Buffalo Bills. I could give many expletives, don't care about football. But I will watch a game with him because he cares about it. So I think to a degree, you can just indulge your partner in that sense. However, in terms of getting someone on board, that's a whole different conversation.

And I would say your starting point is you know your partner. you know how your partner ticks, how your partner learns. Find someone or something within that niche community that you think will appeal to your partner. So if you're reading one blog or digesting one podcast that might be really far on the extreme frugality spectrum and you know that's never going to speak to my partner, find somebody who's a little bit more moderate, maybe has more of a similar vibe that your partner does and introduce your partner that way. They're like, hey, it would really mean a lot to me if you listen to this particular episode of this podcast or read this particular blog post and see if that's just a way you can get him or her to buy in on the concept.

And I would also say, if you get really dogmatic about something, you cannot assume that your partner is just going to jump on board with you right away. So don't try to shove them in. Bring up subtle reasons about why it's important, why it matters to you. And it's a slow boil. You can bring people over to your team eventually. And honestly, maybe they never will. Maybe they're never just going to whatever version of fire you are or whatever version of trying to achieve financial independence. Maybe they want to be on the slow track, quote unquote, and just work their job until retirement. But I'm willing to bet that you can bring up a few case studies that will change their mind.

You just have to find the right ones. And I think that's key. And also that you two, this is another example of your interrelationship, people. change over the course of decades in a marriage or in a long-term relationship. And if you're changing in one direction and your partner's changing in another and you're not meeting in the middle and you're not finding common ground, that's going to be problematic in the future. So you do need to find a way that you can be growing together. You don't have to be the same person by any means, but you need to find a way to be growing together and have a unified goal that you're trying to achieve, especially

when it comes to your money. So maybe you need to compromise a little bit and your partner needs to a little bit to find somewhere in the middle that you can be pushing towards that same dream. And now it's time for the famous four questions. These are the same four questions that we ask every guest. There's actually five because Scott doesn't know how to count. But I like to get these answers. I really like this first one. What is your favorite finance book? And I like this question because there's so many that I've never heard of before. And I like to think that I'm really well informed. I guess I know. Scott, do you have a copy of Aaron's favorite finance book? I do have a copy of the book. I don't have it with me, but I have read it. And I particularly like chapter 13,

I believe. Is that the financially frontal nudity or whatever? No, that's, one of the chapters has a story from me in it. So I was putting myself, discreetly. So no, this is a fantastic, well-written book that is an incredible intro to personal finance and a masterpiece by Aaron. So you want to talk a little bit about that real quick? Yeah, I'm going to talk about it a little bit, because what I like about this book so much, and Aaron can't really be like, oh, this is such a well-written book. But I can say that because I didn't write it. It's a really well-written book. It's interesting. It is not preachy at all. None of it comes over holier than an hour. Oh, you're such a bad person because you don't know enough about money and I know everything. It's really entertaining to read. You're an excellent writer, Aaron. And so I'm sorry, what is the name of your favorite finance book, Aaron?

Thank you for all the kind praise. It's broke millennials, stop scraping by and get your financial life together. But I will also give you my two other answers that I would say, since I shouldn't share my own book as my favorite personal finance book. Two that I really like, and I've gifted to people a la Tim Ferriss style, is the first one is the thin green line by Paul Sullivan, which is a book about how the wealthy stay wealthy, which is very interesting. And it's a lot of, he's a reporter for the New York Times. So it's a very, you know, he kind of gets behind the door and in the room of a couple of big deal groups and people. And it's a very interesting look into wealth. And one of my other favorite ones is for our new is when she makes more because it's very specifically written towards breadwinning women, which I am.

And I think it's just a very helpful guide in terms of how to navigate that and talking about relationships. some money. It's another one of my favorite topics, especially when you're looking at traditional heteronormative or heterosexual relationships. When a woman out-earns a man, there's a lot of conversation about what that means. And unfortunately, a lot of statistics right now that exist that say that if the woman out-earns the man, it's a higher indicator for divorce now. I think a big part of that can easily be handled by having open, honest communication about it early. I think it also depends about your dynamic going into the marriage. So going into my marriage, I already am the breadwinner. So it's not like there's going to be a flip necessarily if I ever started out earning him.

But I can understand where at certain points in a relationship. It can be really tough if one partner all of a sudden starts to eclipse the other if you're used to one certain type of dynamic. So it's just an interesting look at that. Those are great two books that we don't hear very frequently. And I am particularly interested in the thin green line because I've never heard of that. And that sounds like a fascinating studies. I'm going to have to personally check that one out. Yeah, I was thinking of you. It's a great one. Yeah. After I reread Broke Millennial, of course. Of course. Yeah, he actually mentions a group called the Tiger 21 Club in there. And that has been one of my new financial life goals is you

have to have a minimum net worth of $10 million in order to be eligible to join the Tiger 21 Club. And so now I really want to hit that metric. And most of the people in it did not inherit their wealth, which I think is another interesting factoid about that group. And without too many spoilers, one of the things that they do is a portfolio defense. So you have to lay bare all of your information to your fellow members. And they kind of pick it slash you apart based primarily on are you doing what you say you do? And you know, you say that you give to charity, but your portfolio doesn't reflect that and things like that.

So it's kind of an interesting thought in terms of how the wealthy stay wealthy and how they defend their wealth. Very fascinating. And this is like a whole topic of discussion that I like to philosophize about sometimes is America has this big problem with this fictional character that we've created where there's the spoiled inheritor of tens of millions of dollars and wealth. Yet this person doesn't exist in mass. 80% of millionaires are self-made, right? And this stat has held true for generations since a millionaire next door. And I would assume is backed up in this green line book, right from what you're talking about as most people are self-made yet everyone seems to hate this fictitious super minority person that's inherited a incredible amount of wealth and i don't know i think it's a

fascinating i think it's a fascinating scapegoat in this country for all the things yeah i i can get this one all day uh we'll have to have another podcast where we talk go into depth about this philosophy but what was your uh biggest money a mistake well i just said i love talking about wealth so along the lines of wealth and biggest money mistake. I unfortunately don't have like a super fun one for everybody. And I think it's probably no surprise given the stories I've been sharing about how I handled my money as a kid and how my parents taught me about money. I would say one of my bigger mistakes was not investing sooner because I had the flexibility to do so. And my parents, especially my dad, tried his damnedest to get me to invest at an early age to the point where I was, I believe

I was a junior in high school. So my sister would have been in eighth grade. And she decided to invest some of her money in China Mobile because we were living in China at the time. And she thought that that stock would probably take off. And spoiler, it did. And so my sister as an eighth grader was doing a better job with investing. And I was like, I'll deal about this in the future. And I felt way more comfortable with my money in savings and, well, really in a checking account. So I really do wish I had started getting on the investing train sooner. This is when you say, oh, I don't really have a big story. This is actually a really big one is not investing sooner. And you can't really go back and change the past. And you can't really,

you can't. There's no really about it. You can't go back and change the past. So I want to share with people who are listening, start investing. Like you don't have to pick stocks and choose bonds and, you know, do all of this stuff. Go to an index fund like James Collins said, or J.L. Collins said in episode 20. We will have links to all of these episodes that we've mentioned in the show notes for this show, which is biggerpockets.com slash money show 24. But throw some money at an index fund. There are several index funds to choose from. I don't even know how many. Somebody sent me an email the other day and he's like, oh, I've got 20 different index funds. I'm like, I didn't realize there were so many indexes. But pick one. I have mine in three. Pick one general one. Pick one. You

know, there's a tech fund index fund. And, you know, pick something and start investing and then do some research on what you want to invest in later on. But starting sooner, the sooner you start, the more time you have to grow your wealth. So not that you did a bad thing. Oh, it's true. I will also plug right now that Broke Millennial takes on investing a beginner's guide to leveling up your money is my next book that will be on Shells, April 2019, just throwing that out there. Because investing is the next part of this conversation. And that's why I wanted my second book to be about it. And specifically about as a true rookie, a true beginner, How do we get started and looking at millennial issues like, hey, I have student loans.

Should I be investing? Can I be investing? And really kind of looking at it from a millennial perspective. I will also say for I think the other issue is looking at things like retirement savings. So many people open it up, look at all of the options and get so overwhelmed. It's kind of a paradox of choice. They just don't make a decision and click out and don't go back to looking at investing in into a retirement plan until way later. So fair minimum, all in one fund target date.

fund, whatever you want to call it. There's varied opinions in our industry about whether or not you should use one. But if you can't figure out what to do, at least start and at least be putting your money in the market and not just having it sit in cash, so that's a good way to get started. You can always go back and later and reallocate it and re-diversify your portfolio. Perfect. Great advice. Great advice. Excellent. What is your best piece of advice for people who are just starting out? So I guess we kind of just covered that. I would say definitely take advantage of an employer match 401k if you have the option. But my piece of advice is so simple. I said earlier, you control money or money controls you. So the only way that you can control it is

to start by facing your numbers. And the best way to do that is run your cash flow. How much money is coming in, how much money is going out? So you have a true understanding month to month of how much money you have to spend and where it's going. But I would also say try on a few different styles of budgeting. There are so many options out there. So if you try on one that doesn't work for you, that's okay, pivot and do something else. So keep tweaking that until you find one that works for you and your lifestyle and your value systems. And honestly, it's going to evolve over time.

The way I budget now is very different than how I budgeted at 21, 22, 23. So be flexible and open about how you're going to be living your financial life. Awesome. What is your favorite joke to tell at parties? Okay. So if you have children in the car, it doesn't use a dirty word. But I will say context of my life right now, Peach and I are both Catholic. So we have been, we had to go through pre-Kana in order to get married in the Catholic Church.

For anyone who doesn't know, that is essentially premarital counseling in order to get married in the church, some of which is valuable. They talk about money. They talk about issues that might arise in your relationship. But they really focus on this thing called natural family planning, which means you don't use contraception and you just understand the woman's fertility cycles. So my current favorite joke is, do you know what you call a woman? who practices natural family planning, a mom.

I have heard that one before many times because I grew up in a very Catholic area. And lots of my friends had lots and lots of siblings. Are you saying it doesn't work? Yeah. I'm saying my mom is seventh of nine and my dad is six of six. That is all I am saying about it. The natural family plan. That was deliberate, but I don't know.

It's a good advice. It makes more Catholics. There you go. Well, that's their point. I am also a Catholic, but I have not gotten through this advice trading. So one day. Precane is an interesting experience. I do appreciate that they try to pinpoint issues, and you have to take a compatibility test. And finances is actually a big part of that, which I think is very helpful.

But, yeah, there are definitely parts of it. We're like, okay, that's cute. Sit down. Like, I'm not listening to this. That's cute. Okay. Erin, where can people find out more about you? You can find me online.

Brokemellennial.com is my website. I am on Twitter at BrokeMillennial. Instagram at Broke Millennial blog. Facebook, too, but I'll be honest, my Facebook is not as active as my Twitter and my Instagram. I also have a YouTube show called The Three Minute Guide, which is on the Financial Diet YouTube channel. It's every Thursdays.

It's a financial topic in three minutes or less. it's always three minutes just so you know it's never less and then also my book my book is available on amazon barns and noble powles of here in portland a lot of indie bookstores pretty much wherever your books are sold you should be able to find it and if it's not there you should request that they get it in or your library a lot of libraries have it and if yours doesn't you should definitely ask them to order it i'm going to go check my library and see if they've got it and ask them you should i really get excited when people share pictures of it being in their library i'm like yeah obviously I'd like the royalty, but yay, that you have it.

Awesome. Well, Aaron, thank you so much for taking time out of your day. To talk to us about money and relationships, I think it's really important to talk about money. And, you know, it can be a difficult discussion to start. But, you know, if you're already in love with this person, there's a lot of incentive to keep the love going. Absolutely. And thank you guys so much for having me. This was fun. Yeah, thank you, Erin. This is great. Okay. We'll talk to you later. All right. That was Aaron Lowry for.

from Broke Millennial, author, blogger, extraordinaire, and expert on finance and all things millennial and money related, including relationships and getting financially naked. That was a very fun podcast. I like that one. That is fun. Did you see Aaron smile like the entire time? When she walks into a room, she just lights it up. She's one of the nicest people I've ever met. And she's just a genuinely caring soul. Yeah. And she nailed it when it came to talking about financial terms. and somebody above her in the apartment above was doing some nailing of their own construction project. Yes, I'm sorry for the wampy sound in the last 15 minutes or so of the show because she had made arrangements with the landlord to stop working on the apartment above her for an hour.

And then they started right up on the dot. They started back up again. Yep. So I think we still got, we can still hear very clearly the information she was providing. So hopefully that's not too much of a distraction. but we're sorry about that and we try to avoid those kinds of sound issues. Yes. So, yes, I'm sorry about that too.

But yeah, her information is so helpful and so spot on. And, you know, I think it's really important. It comes from someone in a relationship right now who does have a different perspective on money than her significant other. So, you know, here's how we did it. And this is how it worked for us. And that's really helpful. Yeah.

I thought it was great. And I thought it was a great perspective and great way to phrase it. Obviously she knows what she's talking about. Yes, she's very, very knowledgeable. Okay, Scott, shall we say goodbye to our listeners today? Sounds good. Goodbye, listeners. Goodbye. Okay. From episode 24 of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, this is Mindy Jensen over and out.