Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - Ramit Sethi: How to Get Rich

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

Today we interviewed the host of the Netflix series How to Get Rich , three-time bestselling author and financial expert, Ramit Sethi! Ramit answered some questions you all sent in about your finances and we honestly learned a lot from him ourselves! Ramit’s latest book, “Money for Couples” helps couples talk about their finances without stress or conflict and teaches them how to build a rich life together. Ramit is so passionate about helping people live their best lives, despite the amount of money in their bank account, and his passion for what he does is contagious. Let us know what you learned in the comments below! Love you guys! Shawn and Andrew To learn more about Ramit Sethi https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/ To get Ramit’s latest book “Money for Couples” https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/books/ Beam Kids is now available online at https://www.shopbeam.com/COUPLETHINGS Take advantage of our exclusive discount of up to 40% off using code COUPLETHINGS Subscribe to our newsletter ▶ https://www.familymade.com/newsletter Follow our podcast Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/shawnandandrewpods/ Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Shop My LTK Page ▶ https://www.shopltk.com/explore/shawnjohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a couple things, interviews. With Sean and Andrew. Today we have a guest I'm very excited about Sean. This is the corner of the internet that I live in. Which I love. We're interviewing Ramit Sati. And he has a Netflix documentary called How to Get Rich.

He also just wrote a book called Money for Couples. And he's been featured in the Wall Street Journal, CNBC. He just speaks about finances, which is a topic that actually we have not really unpacked in a deep way. We've talked about it with a couple different guests like Rachel Cruz. But Rameit comes on and he shares some pretty passionate perspective with us. And I learned a couple things myself. I'm really excited. I think his approach is wise.

It's very transparent. And he's all just kind of about talking through things before you actually get to the situation, which I'm a fan of. I learned so much because this is not my corner. But I got to ask some really great questions. And here his very passionate, just like cut straight through it approach. And he answers a lot of like black and white. questions that I feel like a lot of our listeners will have. That's right.

He is a podcast and a YouTube channel called I Will Teach You to Be Rich, and maybe you'll learn something about that today. So if you want to find out more about Rameet, then we'll link his information down below. Thank you for joining us, and we hope you enjoy this one. Let's get into it. All right, Rameet, Satee. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me.

We're going to start with some rapid-fire questions, just dive right into it. Sean, you want to start us off? Yes. We had so many come in. First one says, Rameet. I know I should be saving money, but I love starting my day with a coffee from our local coffee shop. Is this a habit I should really try to break, or does it not matter in the long run? Spending money on coffee in the grand scheme doesn't matter.

If you want the coffee, get the coffee. Boy, nobody expected a money guy to come on here and say that, huh? I like this answer. I like this answer. You know what? Americans love to feel shame. It's really weird. We love to feel ashamed.

We complain about restriction, but we also love this puritanical nature. Ooh, I'm so bad. Ooh, I'm bad. I need to be good. Stop wasting your time on $3 questions and start asking $30,000 questions. So if you want the coffee, you could probably afford the coffee, but I can almost guarantee this person does not know their savings rate, their investment rate, their asset allocation, their debt payoff date.

Those four things alone would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, more than all the coffee they will ever buy in their life. So you want to buy the coffee or the cheesecake, get it, but you got to know a few key numbers in your financial life. Let me push back. A $3 coffee I know saves me $3 if I don't buy it. Knowing my payoff date for my loan, what does that get me? It's so far off, it's so intangible, and how does that actually possibly affect my finances today? Awesome question. Let's take somebody who has a mortgage, a student loan, or credit card debt. 90% of the people I talk to do not even know how much debt they owe and over 95% don't even know their debt payoff dates. So what happens? They simply feel bad. They go through life

going, oh, this sucks, life sucks. Then they start talking about inflation and all this stuff that has less of an impact on them than actually creating a debt payoff date. If you know your numbers, then you will know February of 2013, I will be debt free. First of all, it's an enormous psychological weight off your shoulders just to know that there's light at the end of the tunnel. Then you can actually start to make really informed decisions. You go, wait a second, if I put an extra $100 a month towards it, that means I could shave it off by three months or for my mortgage, I could shave it off by seven years.

Now you have a reason to say, hmm, do I actually value that coffee maybe three days a week? Or what about instead of taking four vacations a year, I take three or two or one? or wait for a couple of years. You have a reason why. Most of us don't know our debt payoff date. We don't know the key numbers, so we simply sail through life feeling bad about money overall. I think that's so powerful.

And also I'm just imagining the conversation between husband and wife where maybe one stress about finances and the other isn't, but having the awareness, which is kind of what you're advocating for, like, hey, knowing the payoff date is really practice and a reflection of you understanding how much that you are in not just with your student loan but across all different domains of life when that's the how you're paying it what your monthly services all these different things and it gives the person who is stressed out about finances like hey this is stressing me out

or we should adjust xyz because of these things as opposed to these feelings that I can't really describe so I like that a lot yeah great next question next question though and that pertains to debt. Someone asks, we actually had many of these, when paying off debt, is it better to do one big lump sum to get it out of the way or small sums over the course of time? Well, if you could pay it off, pay it off. So, you know, there's this myth that it's good to have a little bit of money in debt on your credit card. That's a complete myth. I don't know who taught you that. Capital one, what the fuck makes no sense. Pay off your credit card debt. What the hell's wrong with you? You shouldn't be having credit card debt in the first place.

Now, second, there is some nuance to debt. All right, let me give you the quick math thing. This is very simple math. All right, listen, a lot of people, they're like, I hate debt. I want to pay off debt. And they orient their entire life around paying off debt. And they're always frantic and frenzy. It's like they're pulling their hair out.

I go, hang on a second. How much debt do you owe? They have no idea. What's your interest rate? They're like, huh? I go, let's get these two numbers down. How much is your balance and how much is your interest rate? Now, if you just hate debt, you just hate it, fine.

You want to pay it off as aggressively as possible? I don't mind. Some people just psychologically hate it. Other people look at the numbers and they carefully do the math. They go, wait a minute, my interest rate on this mortgage or student loan is like 3%. That's pretty low. If I took my extra money and invested it, I could probably make 7% after inflation. and they go, why would I pay off my debt early if I could make, if I could pay the minimum and

make more money investing. Now, this is a little bit advanced. People going, what the hell is this guy talking about? Extra money. What are you talking about? What I want to emphasize to you is, if we're talking about like $1,000 or $2,000, just pay that thing off as soon as you can. If it's credit card debt, you should pay it off immediately because it's 27% interest. But if we're talking about a mortgage or a $75,000 student loan, you really want to slow down and carefully run the numbers because the decision you make could end up costing you $50, $100,000 in money if you don't understand how to pay off debt and how aggressively to pay it off. Okay. So what is the threshold from an interest rate perspective that is considered good debt

and that is considered bad debt? Oh my God. I love these advanced questions. Okay. All right. So let me give you a rough guideline. If I had debt and my debt, like let's say a mortgage was 2.5%, 3%, 4%, I would literally pay the minimum for as long as possible. I would stretch that thing out forever. Why? Because I know that I can invest any extra money and make 7 or so percent. That means that.

And just to talk nuts and bolts here, you're saying put it in an ETF, a Vanguard fund, SPY, whatever that is. like and that will essentially achieve what you're saying yes because that's daunting to some people you're like well what do you do i buy apple stock and that's volatile like yeah well no one knows what you just said because no one understands what the hell you're talking about you but yes you're totally correct thank you for acknowledging that because i don't step by step listen you have to remember 50% of the people i talk to don't even know their household income so you're over here talking about vfinx and s and p 500 people like what the fuck's this guy talking about we'll get there okay

three, four, five percent, I would probably pay the minimum and then stretch it out as long as I could because I know that I will invest a difference. If your interest rate is like six, seven, eight percent, I start to go, hey, maybe I will invest aggressively and still in, sorry, I will pay off debt aggressively and still invest a little bit just to keep the factory running. But if my interest rates above 8% or 9 or 10 or certainly 27% I'm paying that aggressively. So if you have credit card debt, this drives me absolutely insane. I have to tell you. In fact, it's lucky that I'm still sane after doing this for 20 years. Some of the stories I've heard, you're lucky. I'm sane and still here. I hear people, they come on my show all the time and they have like

$35,000 of credit card debt, $58,000 of credit card debt. And I don't judge. I'm looking, I go, okay, how did you get into it? It's always like the same five things. Oh, home renovation, blah, blah, blah. I go, okay, hey, how come you're paying the minimum on this credit card debt? And you know what they say to me? They go, whoa, remit. I got to keep spending on this because I get the airline points. I go, what the fuck are you talking about airline points?

You're spending literally $50,000 a year in interest to get one cent of airline points on Delta? Get a life. I go, give me that credit card. So we have these myths in America of like, oh, I can't lose out on the point. Ooh, stop it. If you have credit card debt, you better pay that off right away. Then we can talk about investing and how to make money as well because it's a lot easier than people think.

Okay, then taking it down a step, let's go back to the marketing ploy of credit cards and airlines and the partnerships who are actually banking millions and millions and millions off of it. What are the faux paws that people fall into when it comes to the airline points, the benefits of cashbacks and is that all marketing and not worth it? Or are there some that are worth falling for? I'll tell you. So first of all, I have nothing against credit cards.

I use credit cards and I use points. In fact, we just took a trip that saved us like over $60,000 on flights. And it was great. Let me give you some basic guidelines. And I'll give you some specific cards that I think are great. I have no affiliation with these cards or accounts. So the first rule of credit cards is if you can't pay it off, don't spend it. Like it shouldn't even have to be said, but considering how much Americans carry on their credit card, it's insane.

These credit cards are not your friend. They are a tool and they are built because they are smarter than you. They're smarter than you. They're not going to outsmart them with your dumb 0% balance transfer games. They're going to get you one way or another. So stop playing this game. It's like people walking into Vegas. Ooh, I'm so smart.

I'm going to beat the casino. Are you insane? They're way smarter than you. The credit card companies are even smarter. So if you can't pay it off immediately, just don't spend it. It's quite simple. Let's create that simple rule. And for couples listening, you should be starting to create a money culture in your household.

So you want to say things like, in our family, we dot, dot, dot, dot. In our family, we take off our shoes when we come in. We eat dinner together. We don't yell. And we don't spend money if we can't pay it off that month on the credit card. Okay. That's like how you create a family healthy culture of money. Second, if you're spending and you can pay it off, then I say use a credit card. Credit cards have a lot of great consumer protection. They automatically double your warranty. If you spill coffee on your new laptop, you'll get the money back basically. There's a lot of perks a lot of people don't know about. If you can spend responsibly, you can get a points card, like a travel card or a cashback card. I'll give you a couple that I think are good. just because I love specificity. So a 2% cashback card, that's great.

It's a fidelity card. There's also a capital one card. You just get 2% flat cashback. Trust me, I have zero interest in pulling out 35 cards and go, I'm at Costco. Should I buy peanuts with this card? Waste of time. Pick one, move on with your life.

If you travel, there's a lot of great travel cards. Chase has a nice card. Or if you spend a lot of money, it can be worth like an annual fee, Chase Sapphire Reserve for savvy travelers. That's one that I use as well. In general, if I didn't know what all this travel game is or whatever, I would just get a 2% cashback card and call it a day.

That means everything you spend, you get 2% cash back. One mistake that people make is they spend too much time optimizing for points. It's like, I love talking to you guys because we get to talk about fitness a little bit. I find so many parallels with fitness and money. And it's like all these people who start working out for the first time and they're like, uh, like what do you think about the macros of this protein powder? And I'm like, what the fuck? Just go to the gym three times.

Let's talk about that. Let's start at the fundamentals. We'll get into the nuances later. If you have a nice card, one or two cards, you spend your money, you pay it off every month. Do that. Enjoy it. Move on with life. Trust me, there are more important things in your rich life than optimizing your credit card points.

John's into this. I'm into it. Okay. A question we get a lot because we speak on marriage. We have a lot of listeners who are like early in their marriage, getting engaged or in relationships. merging finances is a very polarizing topic a lot of people either believe it's black and white don't ever merge keep your freedom or the other side believes merge because you're a family are there pros and cons or is it personal opinion no it's my opinion it's not personal opinion we're going to

we're going to listen to the guy who wrote the book money for couples what you talk that's what to hell okay so let me break it down um when you start off dating of course, you know, you're not going to combine finances. You're just getting to know each other. If you move in together before you get married, some couples choose to have a joint account. One joint account where you each contribute some amount of money, and that would be things like your joint rent, joint eating out, those joint expenses that cohabitating couples tend to have. That's fine too.

Some couples keep it separate at that stage and they transfer money. Also fine. However, when you get married, if and when you get married, There's good research showing that combining finances helps in many ways, helps reduce fights. It helps create a joint vision together. You basically, if you have your finances separate, it's like you have created a structural wedge between you. I'll give you an example. Let's say I'm talking to a married couple.

I go, hey, y'all are married. Have you decided you want to live in the same house? And they look at me like I'm insane. What are you talking about? We're married. of course we're living in the same house how come your finances aren't joint it's actually exactly the same thing if you had two separate houses you would be physically different if you have two sets of finances you are financially different now is this the same thing is this the same

thing as a pre-up no that's different we'll talk about that in fact i've gone through a pre-nup so we can talk about that's a whole thorny issue okay one thing i want to emphasize to everybody because um like you said you know a lot of people like i want my independent and it can feel risky. What if we end up getting divorced? It's a real concern. So it is always, always important, even with joint finances,

that each person has their own independent, individual, no questions asked account. And every month, each person gets some amount of money, and that's totally theirs. You want to use it for golf, nails, massage, training, whatever. It's yours. My wife and I have that, and in fact, I don't even have access to her.

individual account, nor does she have to mine. But there is a key. It's not a secret. We both know that each other has it because there can't be any financial secrets in a marriage. So you have in general, I talk about it's in chapter nine and I show the diagram. You have a joint account as a married couple. Everything goes in there. From there, you have your joint expenses being paid, rent, mortgage, groceries, debt, car. Then the money flows down and you each have some money that is sent to your individual accounts, which you can each use, no questions asked. Differentiate not separating finances from getting a pre-up. Okay. So most couples don't need a pre-up because most couples come to a marriage with roughly the

same amount of money. I'm speaking generally. Now, let's say that you met somebody and one of you had a house, you'd already bought a house, or one of you had a business, or you'd been investing since you were age 15, you might come to the marriage with some premarital assets, some type of asset you had before you got married. What a pre-nup says is, hey, in the unfortunate case that we ever separate, what happens to those premarital assets, the things that existed before the marriage? And so, you know, as we talk, you discuss it, like we want to discuss this at our best to prevent having to have this discussion at our worst. And my wife and I actually went through this.

I remember I had one of the most nervous moments of my life. I went up to my wife and we were talking, we had like a real serious sit down conversation about marriage and kids and taking care of elderly parents and stuff. And I said to her, you know, there's one other thing I want to talk about. You've known me for a long time. You see how I live. you know that we grew up very similarly. Because of my business and because of a lot of hard work and luck,

I've been fortunate to build up this asset. And it's important to me that we discuss a pre-nup. And I was like holding my breath because I had never done this. No one in my family has done this. I didn't really personally know people in my network that had done this. And she said, the best thing I could have expected, she said, wow, I wasn't expecting that, but I'm willing to learn more. so we started talking we both got lawyers in a pre-nut process each side has to have a lawyer if one

can't afford it the other pays for it and our conversations were going pretty well until they started getting really tough and we were just budding heads and we both felt resentful and not heard and at one point she goes we we should see somebody because this isn't going well like we should go talk to somebody so i literally went online and searched therapist near me we just walk down the street literally i'm not kidding to the closest therapist down the street and um and we walk in and we sit down and she is talking to us and she asks us this question i'll never forget she looks at me she goes how do you see money i was like i'm like i feel so good i'm like such an easy question i go money is growth i could see the numbers floating in front of my eyes rule of 72 trinity

i could see all these things float i knew the answer and then she turns to my now wife and said answer the same question and my wife goes safety i said huh was that word mean like i never i don't associate money with safety because i've been earning it since i was 14 i'm safe but that moment was so striking because we realized we see money differently we were talking past each other but and so that really helped us to connect and since then i've become a huge advocate of therapy and and on my money for couples podcast i talked to these couples about these type of conversations quite a bit Yeah. Are you pro-pre-nup for premarital assets but not for forward-facing? I'm thinking of there's all these like, let's see, work family enrichment theory or family systems theory that pretty much says, hey, I benefit from what I'm learning at home, whether I have kids or I'm married in a way that benefits my work. So I want to just kind of double-click on the pre-nup concept. I love the question. I think if you have premarital assets, like, Like, if you have $10,000, I probably wouldn't do a pre-up.

You know, it might cost that much just to do the whole thing anyway. But if you have substantial premarital assets, yeah, I am pro pre-nup. I think it actually allowed us to have deeper conversations than we ordinarily would have. I do think that in America, we have this really weird caricature of what a pre-up is. Like, when you hear the word pre-nup, everybody listening and watching, like, the first thing that comes to mind is some asshole sitting in the back of a limo wearing a freaking three-piece suit with a top hat they take off their hat they roll down the window they go fuck you that's not what a pre-up is that's not how it works a pre-up is actually like hey we plan to be married forever i love you and if for some unfortunate reason we separate let's discuss

what's fair right now for the premarital assets but as for everything that is earned during the marriage in most states that is split between the two of you Interesting. I've always been in concept anti-pre-nup because of whatever false connotations I had to it. But I guess like drawing the line pre- and post-marriage does simplify things. And I'll have to think about that more. I'm curious, how many credit cards does Rameet have? Oh, I have one individual, one joint. Those are my primary ones that I use on a given. So two. Two. And then I have a, I have like a couple of business cards here and there. Yeah, yeah.

Just Rameet. How many bank accounts, including checking and savings, does Rameet have? Whoa. All right. This is a good question. We'd also like your social security number. No, no. I'm actually just curious.

Because I'm actually, I listen to your stuff. And at what? I don't know how people talk about finances and I got this relationship with the bank and how elegant or intricate does this get or should it get. And these are like practical questions. I'm like, I have no idea. I'll tell you. These are awesome.

First of all, thanks for listening to my stuff. That's flattering. The more that I have grown my finances, the more I fight for simplicity. Always. And as you know, you both know, the more advanced you get, sure you can get into these super, super detailed things. And once in a while it matters. At a world class level, yes, you need to be doing something that. the average person's not. However, as my wealth has increased, as my business has grown, I fight

for simplicity. So what does that mean? It means I have essentially one checking account. It means I have a few savings accounts, but not many. Credit cards, like I said, I am always looking at how can I simplify, almost like doing a spring cleaning. What can I simplify? I am not using these crazy alternative investments that people talk. They think wealthy people have. access to these secret investments that always beat the market. I'm like, you're delusional. You literally don't know what you're talking about. In fact, if anything, rich people are stupid when it comes to investing. They actually, yeah, they have access to more, but the stuff they have access to is generally garbage. And when I post about this, I show people like,

hey, rich people actually don't have access to these secret investments. The average person becomes furious, like really mad. I'm like, first of all, why are you getting mad at me? I have access to these investments and I'm telling you they're fucking trash. I know them. Look, I'll show you. Second, what it really is is we all are angry because there's wealth inequality, et cetera. And truthfully, the ultra wealthy have access to tax advantages that everyday people do not. And I hate that.

I actually think my taxes should go up. I think I should pay paying more. But the ultra wealthy, we're talking about Jeff Bezos level, they have access to even more. But in terms of investments, like what? everyday people have access to. I'm talking about somebody who works in an average job. The investments that they have access to are actually phenomenal. Through a Vanguard, Fidelity, or Schwab account, anybody listening to this can get access to index funds, which are low-cost investments. And they let you in one purchase for almost free,

they let you buy access to the 500 best companies in America. It costs you almost nothing. and we can sort of reliably know what they have returned in the past and maybe what to expect in the future in general, that is where real wealth is created. You don't need a secret account. You don't need a freaking accountant. You don't need to pay $20 million. You have access to it right now. I'm curious what your tech stack is for your financial organization.

You mentioned like you got to have visibility or awareness over your debt. I'll show you. I'll see my phone. No financial apps. Interesting. Why would I need it? I don't log into my account every day. If you log into your account, you're playing small.

And like, this funny thing, there's a lot of gender issues when it comes to money. It's quite fascinating. I explore them on my podcast. I think they're dramatically under explored. One of the interesting gender issues that I find in couples, heterosexual couples, is often each partner plays a role. And I'll ask them, what's your role in this relationship as it relates to money? So the man will always say the same thing.

I'm a provider. I'm like, okay. Sometimes they earn less than their, partner and I'm like okay if you're not the quote provider then who are you and the men are just stumped because as men that's like a message we have absorbed in our culture it's just kind of in the air now then I'll ask women what role do you play they go oh I manage the day to day I go okay manage the day to day finances what does that mean to you and then they go oh I log into the accounts and make sure all the bills are paid on time I'm like um you know a computer can do that way

better than you can, right? Or me. And in fact, if you log into your accounts every day, you're playing small. You are wasting your time because that's not an effective use of your time. I don't have financial apps on my phone because I don't need it. I've set up automation. My money gets paid through a paycheck and then it flows where it needs to go. And I review it. We do a monthly money meeting as a couple. We do a six-month review and a 12-month annual rich life review. So in terms of a tech stack, I have a few accounts here and there. I'll in randomly, but not every day or certainly not every week. Okay.

That was helpful. Thank you. Should everybody have a trading account, like on Charles Schwab or do you think that's good for everybody to build that muscle? I think everybody should have an investment account. I would never encourage anyone. We should banish the word trade. Sorry, I'm sorry.

I did mean trading account. That's okay. I didn't mean an investment account. It's great. Because what you just said is what a lot of people think investing. I know you don't, but a lot of people think investing is what they see on TV. Oh, I'm going to look at all these numbers and analyze the PE ratio. And that's really off-putting to a lot of people because it's so complicated.

And, you know, like if somebody were trying to start in your sport, it's very easy to be like, oh, it's so complicated. And a lot of times it's just like, let's start and have some fun. Let's start and get the fundamentals right. And then we can learn about it. I think everybody should have an investment account for most people that often starts with a 401k at work. And this is an actual account where you can have money sent directly from your paycheck. And once it is in your 401k account, it's almost like a bank account. It's not the same, but it's almost like it. The money is sitting there and you choose where it gets invested. But beyond that,

you can invest in other accounts, such as a Roth IRA, which gives you a lot of amazing tax advantages. Forget about the ultra wealthy. You have access to amazing tax advantages. And then finally, you can invest in a normal, what's called taxable account. That's where you can, just like any other 401k or Roth IRA, you can choose investments like an index fund. And you can set this all up to happen automatically. So every month, I don't manually go in and invest. It's been happening since I was like 14, 15 years old. Boom. It just happens automatically. What's the why is this way to approach this if I'm so new to it like because frankly platforms like Robinhood have kind of blurred the line between oh hey I can get access to a ETF or you know these vanguard things

but also I can gamble you know it's it's like a very blurry line so if if I want to approach this diligently yeah what steps do I take do I contact the financial advisor do I do it myself all these platforms are janky it's like I remember setting up my first TD Ameritrade account years ago and it was like what I'm putting my social security in this these don't even know how to build a website dude like what are we doing is this you know I'm saying anyway yes it's overwhelming it is overwhelming okay so let me give you some simple guidelines first of all avoid Robin hood at all costs you think I'm trying to invest in a freaking Las Vegas casino fuck that no way should you be that that that platform incentivizes gambling behavior

And I've posted this online. Their CEO is like, Ramit, I used to like you. No, I don't. I'm like good. I'm glad you don't like me. I don't like your entire platform. None of my readers should use Robin Hood.

Okay. Next, should you get a financial advisor? We could talk about that. There's a lot of surprising things about financial advisors. I don't mind that some people will occasionally hire an advisor. I have myself. However, there's a big expense part of it that most people don't understand. Let me just tell you right now.

A lot of people go, hey, I don't understand this money thing. I'm going to get an advisor because I want a guy. I want a guy. Everybody's got like a ring guy. I want a guy for my money. It's always a guy. It's so true. Right.

And it seems logical like, hey, maybe I don't want to mow my own lawn. So I have like a guy who mows the lawn or whatever. But money is not like a gardener. Money is not like a personal trainer. Okay. I'm happy to pay a personal trainer, 150 bucks an hour. I'm happy to pay a gardener, however much it costs. Let me tell you how most financial advisors charge, and this is going to blow you away.

So if anyone here has an advisor or your parents do, just text them, be like, hey, how much do you pay your advisor? First of all, they have no fucking clue. But when they finally find out, they're going to go, oh, it's something like 1%. And you're going to go, ah, 1% doesn't sound like a lot to have somebody looking over my money and making sure it's okay. Let me break down a little math for everybody. 1% of your money over the course of your lifetime means that you will pay approximately 28% of your investment returns in fees. That's more than all the coffee and all the vacations you will ever take. So it's deceptive that 1% that is intentionally created as a percentage of your assets under management.

Do I pay my personal trainer 1% of my assets? No, that's fucking absurd. But my personal trainer gives me comprehensive planning, macros, text access, blah. So why is it that only financial advisors charge 1% AUM assets under management? When I talk to folks, like I talked to a lot of people 30, 40 years old, they're paying a financial advisor. This one woman, she writes me, she goes, hey, Rameith, am I being ripped off? You know, I have this advisor. I go, how much you paying?

She goes, 1%. I go, okay, what's your salary? We do a couple calculations. And I go, over the course of your life, how much do you think that you will pay in fees. And she said something like, I think it will be like $30,000 in fees over the next 30 years. Pretty reasonable. It's like $100 a month. Fine. I calculate the numbers. I go, it's actually going to be $315,000 in fees. And her response was, oh my God. Imagine you've been so decisive. You've been so careful. Ooh, I'm not going to get lays potato chips. They're too

expensive. I'm going for the generic brand. Meanwhile, you're bleeding out $350,000 in fees. You didn't even know about. This is why, number one, if you want to get an advisor, okay, you should never, ever pay a percentage. It should be a flat fee or an hourly fee. And honestly, for most people listening, why don't you just read a book? Okay? Pick up a book on personal finance. The vast majority of people like, Rameit, I'm so afraid. I don't know what's going on my money. I go, have you ever read a book on personal finance? They go, no. They're literally talking to a bestselling author who wrote a book on personal finance and they're like, I never read a book on money. Well, let's starts there can i can i just share maybe a personal flaw because i'm the guy i love reading all the

books i love watching all the shows like it's just i want to make sure i i grew up you know we did i did the NFL and my rookie year every day after practice we would have a meeting about hey you know 80% NFL players go broke after you know three years and it's like pounded in my head yeah i'm going to go broke and i better steward this well right so So whatever, there's scars there, but I love the topic and I want to make sure I'm doing it well. To me, what I have deduced as my reason for justifying a financial advisor or using one is because money is just more about like the, I think the numbers on the spreadsheet or in the bank account, whatever, it, there's a psychology aspect to it and, you know, it represents safety for some people and other things for others. but for me honestly to have somebody

that if it all goes bad if we lose a ton of money if it was me making the decisions I think I would have it would be like trauma you know it's like I wouldn't be able to sleep but the fact that I have a scapego it's like you know you've mentioned

at the beginning Americans like feeling guilty or bad and it's like to me I could just be like yeah F that guy freaking lost us all the money and it's a separation psychologically for me to be able to just like have that as an option to blame somebody else. That's a personal flaw. I'll just admit.

That's pretty savvy. Honestly, that's very perceptive. Can I ask you a question? How much do you pay fees? 1%. Dude, I know. I'm going to change some stuff after our conversation.

I'm learning. I'm learning. Sorry, Mr. Whatever your name is. It's a nice. I hope you had a nice time and join us BMWs going away. Listen, let me put it this way. You want you want some.

somebody to look over your shoulder, I don't mind. I don't mind. I myself hired an advisor, even though I know about money, everybody can learn, right? Even in the NFL, you have coaches and trainers, et cetera, even the best need help. There's no doubt about that. I hired an advisor because I wanted to see if I had any blind spots in my asset allocation, basically the pie chart of how my money is invested. And I paid the guy a very nice hourly fee. I was happy to pay it. He did a great job. I wouldn't mind doing it again. I wouldn't mind paying a project fee or perhaps even a retainer. I wouldn't mind. But a percentage, in my opinion, is outrageous because you see that in no other part of life. You actually, I have found no evidence that you get better results from paying a

percentage. So if you go, Rameet, I really want to have somebody to talk to when things go tough. I don't mind. There's actually good evidence showing that that can help. But I would pay an hourly or per project fee never a percentage point taken i appreciate that cool are you uh are you team rent a house or buy a house oh let's do this um this is america another uh very hot topic okay americans have one religion only one and that religion is home ownership they believe that buying a house is the best investment and let me just tick off a few phrases. See if any of these sound familiar. If you rent, you're throwing money away. Have we all heard that one? I've heard that. I don't want to pay my landlords rent. Okay, we heard that one. I need

equity. Equity. I need equity. Otherwise you rent and you have nothing, right? These dumb phrases. All right, let me just break. Let me give you a few analogies, everybody, since I know you've heard these since you were a kid, but you never actually thought deeply about them. You're paying your landlord's mortgage, people always say that with a sneer as if you're some dupe or dunce. How come you never say that about your sushi owner's restaurant? Oh, I'm paying my sushi owner's mortgage when I buy this sashini. Good. I want him to stay in business. I'm glad I can do that. Or you're throwing money away on rent. Really, am I throwing money away on that vacation I just took?

I had a nice time. I had a Mai Tai sat by the beach. Did I throw money away? No, I paid for value. And I don't have equity. We use the word equity as if it's some magic potion. Well, I rent by choice. I could go buy a house tomorrow. And I rent by choice. And in fact, I've rented and made more money over the last 20 years renting than I would have by owning. Now, I want to talk about this because this is like total heresy in America.

In America, one of our core bedrock beliefs is that the American dream means owning a house. And if you want to own a house, I'm all for it. I want to say that up front. Probably one day my wife and I will buy a house. Fine. Don't mind it. However, the vast majority of people have never run a simple calculation when it comes to buying their house. They literally lick their finger and put it up in the wind and go, oh, I think we should get a three-bedroom house.

You need to, for the biggest purchase of your life, it's critical that you run some numbers. And what is shocking to people is in many cities, especially now, it can actually be a better financial decision to rent than to own. Now, again, how can that be? People, it doesn't compute for people. Let me explain. I'm going to give an exaggerated example because it helps make the point. These are, but you're going to be able to apply it to your own life.

I lived in, I've lived in expensive cities before, Manhattan, San Francisco, L.A. Okay? In those cities, it often never makes sense to buy. It makes way better sense to rent and then invest the difference. Let me give you an example. I lived in New York and I kept close eye on the market right in my neighborhood. Let's just pretend that my rent was $3,000 a month. It doesn't matter what the number is.

You can just apply it. You could drop a zero off for all I care. There was an apartment right across. I could see it from my window. Same view, same number of bedrooms, same square footage. To own that house in total would have cost $6,600 a month. 2.2 times more to buy than to rent. That's when you factor in taxes, fees, down payment, and investing that down payment if you were renting, et cetera. So you know what I did?

I stayed in the rental. I never had to go to a freaking Home Depot, which is for me the worst place on earth. And I took that $3,600 a month difference and I just invested it. So this is what I mean by you need to calculate the buy versus rent numbers before you go and make the biggest purchase of your life. And then you need to decide what's right in my rich life. Some people go, hey, I have kids. I know we're going to be here for 15 plus years. I don't care what the math says. I'm going to buy. God bless you. At least you ran the numbers. The problem is that nobody runs the numbers. They simply think because their mom and dad told them to buy a house, that they should buy a house, and they blindly go and make the biggest purchase of their life, and they don't

understand what they are doing. I want everyone to understand for the biggest purchase of your life, you better know your numbers. Trust me, it's worth it. So this, the 2.2 times more to buy than own, I could say, well, part of that 2.2 times is principle that I'll get back if I ever sell the home. Okay. Let's talk about that. So let's talk about this is quite shocking to people. So people go, well, Rameith, like, are you fucking stupid? You're building equity. I go, okay. Have you ever run, this is, have you ever run and I'm going to, listen, everybody listen to this word, amortization table. Okay, this is a word most of us don't know. It's like a, it's quite a technical term. Amortization calculator. I want everybody listening to just type in amortization calculator. Go there right now and type in, you know, the house nearby or even your house and type in the interest rate and you will discover something shocking. I'm talking mind blowing. For the first 20, years you are paying more in interest than you are to principle, meaning I might reasonably say I'm renting because I don't like to throw money away on interest. Let me say it again.

Right now, if you go run a calculation, depending on where you are, but because interest rates are, whatever they are right now, you are paying more in the first 20 years towards interest than you are towards principle. So you're building a little bit of equity, but as we say in real estate, I wouldn't spend a dollar to make a dime. Can I ask you a personal question? I thought this was personal.

It is not personal. Does part of your investment portfolio include real estate? No. Interesting. I don't own any properties. I don't have rental property. You think I want to be freaking,

fixing somebody's faucet for $125 a month, no fucking way. But I will say it's really funny because, you know, I post about renting versus buying a lot online. Again, I'm not against buying. I don't mind it. I just want you to run the numbers and realize that most people just blindly think buying always is the best. And it's not.

In fact, it's frequently is not the best financial decision. Whenever I post this stuff, I get like thousands of comments. And the funniest part is they accuse me of being a secret landlord. I go secret landlord. I don't even own a screwdriver. You think I'm doing landlord stuff to make $125 bucks a month gross or even net? No, thank you.

Wait, can I ask you guys? What's your opinion on real estate? You own rent? What's the deal? We own. Okay. You like it? We own.

We do, you know, I don't know. Again, this goes back to, I think part of this is perspective and stylistic differences. I could go where the wind blows. I had one t-shirt in my closet I needed nothing okay and then you know you get married things change you have kids things change and this feeling of honestly the feeling of being settled is part of it I you can speak to this but like with young kids we have a one year old a three-year-old

and five-year-old it's like yeah ah okay this is this is home you know I don't know like there's there's some perspective there what do you think Sean I think it was probably psychological for me I was a huge, like, generational barrier breaker, pretty much, that my parents, like, really instilled and tried to raise me to do. They came from not being able to ever be a homeowner, pretty much. Yeah. To teaching me that that was, like, a huge milestone. To, yeah, feeding into the psychology of, like, America.

Also, both of our dads were homebuilders, so it was always like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So thank you. That's really helpful for me to know. I think honestly what you're saying is I think it's really relatable because all of us, if you grew up in America, you grew up hearing phrases like the American dream, et cetera. We can't deny that. No matter what I talk about in terms of these numbers, feelings when it comes to money often come first. What I will say for everybody listening is I don't mind if somebody goes, hey,

we have kids we want to be settled i don't i love that i simply want people to start with the numbers start by running a calculation start by you know understanding the amortization tables these things that most of us don't talk about and once you have that then you can put that aside and go okay cool we did the numbers how do we feel and sometimes your feelings matter more than the numbers and that's okay but we just got to do both of them if we're going to make a good decision Okay, go ahead. Well, I was just going to say, has your perspective on money changed since before having a family to now? I think getting married has changed it in huge ways, huge.

I mean, that's one of the reasons I wrote my book Money for Couples is that it's one thing as a single guy. I'm like, let's optimize this and like, it's so cool, my charts. And I like that still. Okay, listen, I'm still like I like my numbers, but I think, you know, starting with that pre-nup discussion and looking back and realizing I wish I had connected more on how she felt about money because we came at it from two to, I'd been thinking about money since I was 14 years old. I've been running a business for 20 years and I have a different relationship with money than she had. I also wished that I had listened more and asked a lot more questions. questions. Why? Why do you think that? Or what, what do you want? What's your worst fear that might happen? And really listened. I also think it became more complicated once we got married and moved

in together and started to join our finances. That also was challenging. You know, like it was, it actually would have been really easy for me to be the money guy. This is my job. I'm really good at it. However, I did, I made a really good decision. And I hope everybody listening here's this carefully. You do not want to have one money person in your relationship. Most couples do, and it's a big mistake. Because when that person gets hit by a bus or something happens, they leave their partner who doesn't know anything about money. Oftentimes they don't even know where the money is. They certainly don't understand how to invest or what this weird account is. And I told my wife, I said, from day one, I said, you think, like one day I'm going to get hit

by a bus. My worst nightmare is some shithead from Goldman Sachs comes knocking on the door and says, pay us 1.25% AUM so we can help manage this large amount of money. Fuck that. Okay. I'll be, I'll be roasting in hell before that happens. So I said, no, we're going to do this together. And it was a lot harder. To tell you the truth, it would have been way easier if I just did it myself. But it was the right thing to do. You have to do this as partners. The same way that, you would never hear a couple say, oh, like, he does the parenting or she does the parenting. That's not a thing. You have to do it together. You have to talk about it all the time. And you get good at it. You better find a way to make it fun because you're going to be doing this for the rest of your life.

Same with money. Yeah. Well, and you said at the beginning, it's a tool. And I think it really is like a, it's a format, a canvas to be a team together. It's like, hey, I can learn something new about you, which I think is part of the goal of a relationship is let me fully know and full. I totally love, Sean, and this is one aspect that we can, like, do it together and learn. I love that. I am, so you wrote the book Money for a couple, so those listening, check that out. But what is that monthly meeting look like when you talk about finances? Like, give me a walkthrough of what that looks like. Yeah, totally.

So I have the exact agenda in the book. And first off, people going, like, agenda, what kind of freak is this who has an agenda with his wife? Me, I'm the freak. Yeah, you need an agenda. It's weird, right? We have this real weird Cinderella romanticism in, it's like, oh, let's just like let it flow. No, let's not. Let's create a freaking agenda and let's follow the agenda.

Because if we want to achieve something big, we need a plan. The same way at work, you would have an agenda and you would have people enter their information ahead of time. You would take it seriously. That's what I want for money. money deserves our respect it deserves our attention and it deserves attention from both of us so in the in the agenda you can just use the one that I have in the book a few things are notable first off we always start off with a compliment it could be as simple as babe I really appreciate that you suggested we go for a walk last week that was a great time or thank you

for always making sure we get to the airport on time you always know when to leave. Simple. But what we're doing there is we are recalibrating our relationship with money to make it feel good. And too often when we talk about money, we only talk about it when we're fighting. And so I'm on a mission for everyone to actually feel good. We start with a compliment. Each person, there's a couple of joint things. You might want to take a look at your net worth at the beginning. Just a quick check-in. You know, hey, how's it going? Each person then does a quick little report, quick, like a couple of minutes. Hey, I know I'm in charge of groceries. Our goal is to keep our groceries at $900 a month. We're on track. We're all good.

Or, hey, I wanted to acknowledge, you know, I actually went over on groceries last month. Here's why we had some friends visiting from out of town. In order to make up for that, here's what we're going to do this month. It's okay if money mistakes happen. They always will, but it's just important for the person who owns it to acknowledge it and then tell you the plan. Sometimes you have a few open items like, hey, what's this charge or should we close that account? You can address that here. And then you simply talk about, are we going to meet next month at this time? Yes, let's confirm it.

And then you give each other a big old hug. That's it. It's quick. It's concise. Over time, you will get to the point where it becomes like force of nature. just common it's not going to have a lot of conflict it takes a little work to get there but when you do it it feels really good that's amazing advice this was really fun i i appreciate this and i think that you come at this from such a valuable perspective you've done so much you know your your

netflix show your book again for those listening we'll link that down below but money for couples uh but why does this i'll just close with this question why do you care so so much about this topic to do all of this content around it you know i think about um i think like imagine that you met somebody and then seven days later you're married to that person for the rest of your life that's my parents they met each other and seven days later we're married had us in the u.s and we have become very successful in part of what they taught us and i got the ability and opportunity to grow up with two different cultures, Indian and American. And I see money through these two lenses. So I understand what it's like to be the son of immigrants. I understand

that. I also understand what it's like to grow up in America and hear about things like the American dream. I understand that. And what I want for everybody is to let your money help you live a rich life. And it's not a source of guilt and overwhelm and shame. I actually think like seeing the two of you and seeing your smiles, like seeing the jokes that you pass between the two of you, that's what I love to see. Money as a source of connection. And I want what you all have for everybody else as well. Wow. That's powerful. This is amazing. I love that. There are some things we might need to work on. Like the 1%. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, please. Well, thank you for your time. and I'm excited to get to know you a little better, hopefully in the future.

My pleasure. I'd love to talk in the future. This was a lot of fun. Thank you. Thanks.