I Will Teach You To Be Rich - 10. “Money is overwhelming so we find instant gratification elsewhere”

Episode Date: September 21, 2021

Jacques and Jennifer are stuck in a money rut. They are trapped by their $40,000 debt. Jennifer feels overwhelmed with money talk, and Jaques doesn't want to say no to his wife. When he comes home from work, they’re both tired, so they order takeout, overspend...and repeat the cycle. This isn't a math problem. It runs way deeper into their money identity and sense of self.  Jacques grew up in a poor household and was always told no, so he'll do anything not to feel that way again. As a stay-at-home mom, Jennifer feels the money is "his," so she finds control and comfort in food. Suddenly, all of these restaurant trips and takeout receipts are starting to make more sense. The relationship between food and finance is a tricky one to navigate.  Then I ask about their Rich Life. Listen to how vague they are about their future financial goals. When you've got a large debt that seems insurmountable, it’s hard to look ahead. But I think there’s a way to get them to take ownership of their money. Connect with Ramit Website Instagram Twitter Facebook YouTube Linkedin If you and your partner have a money issue and you want my help, I occasionally select a couple to work with, free of charge. Apply for my help here. Produced by Crate Media.

I hate it. I hate it because I know we're paying so much interest right now here and there and it's all money that we could actually be paying off of that. I'm putting aside and stating to actually buy things, not credit and you know, or say so we can go to a trip or say for a future cottage or this or that. Okay. Instead, we're just, I feel like we're throwing money out the window. When she asked me for stuff, I want to say yes. My life, I love her, I want to please her.

When she asked me where I want to be in the year, hopefully I'll be here, but it might not, right? I'm stuck at home, I just stay at home, mom, but I still can't go outside and socialize and we just moved in this new city that I know absolutely no one. So I've been alone for months now. And when Jop's get home, I know he's tired from work

and he needs his own time, so I leave him alone. My name is Ramit Sethi. Welcome to the I Will Teach You to Be Rich Podcast. My guests on this episode are Jennifer and Jacques, who contacted me because they're in debt and they just feel stuck. Now the more I talk to them, the more I realized how common their situation really is. He goes to work. She stays home with the kids. At the end of realized how common their situation really is. He goes to work. She stays home with the kids. At the end of the day, they're both tired.

They order takeout. They overeat. They don't track their spending. But something really interesting happened when we shifted from their problems going towards a solution. And as I always say, people who have financial problems love to talk about their financial problems. They are problem-oriented and many of them can spend their entire lives talking about what's not working. But as

I switched them to focusing on what their rich life is, we had a pretty fascinating breakthrough. So listen in today's conversation with Jennifer and Jacques. I feel like she's spending too much and I'd like to pay the debt and the reason she spends a lot she's asking me when she asks me where to buy something is because she's asking me are we having enough money, right? And I just want to say yes, because, you know, I don't know, I'm going to please her. So it's, like, things like buying, buying a ordering out, because we can't go to restaurants right now, but ordering order now for me is that there once in a while is fine, but if we do it more than once a week, then it's

starting to be too much, but I've never really mentioned it, so yeah, a lot of work. I feel like I'm in the dark. He's the one who takes care of the finances mostly because when it comes to that, I'm more visual, so I have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have

to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have You see numbers, I just, it feels like I hold total other realm as much as I want to know what's going on. So the moment we start about talking about the budget, I know we need to get a budget, get in order, but I feel overwhelmed because I don't know what we're, like I don't know, I feel like I'm in the dark.

So I kind of played blind and, okay, well, he'll take care of it, so I'll be asking, okay, do we have money to buy this? Or do we have money to buy that? And it's mostly usually, you know, stuff that we need for the kids. It's not like I'm asking for a purse or something. I'm always kind of asking permission. This is a common pattern. It's one partner throwing up their hands, saying, I'm not good at money.

Can you just do it? And then over time, that very same person starts to feel in the dark. They feel out of control. Sometimes they feel resentful. So they push and they demonstrate their discomfort in lots of different ways. They'll start fights about interest or cable bills. But the real problem is not the cable. It's deeper. It's a feeling of being out of control.

Now it's really easy to sit back and yell at them, well, you need to learn about money. really easy to sit back and yell at them, well, you need to learn about money. Duh! Well, that's easy to say. They're often very good reasons why people don't just pick up a book. And I say that as someone who wrote a book on personal finance. Listen to how Jennifer's psychology and her behavior is affecting her. So I need to get them stuff. And of course, is affecting her. So I need to get them stuff. And of course, I'll get anxious. So I can't flee the Jacques. I know he's, I think he doesn't want to cause me grief

and more worry and stress. But he kind of doesn't talk to me about the number. Kind of like, well, I know he means well, but I do feel like a child, because I feel like, oh, well, you know, he's taking care of me, right? But at the same time, I'm kind of sick and tired of having to ask all the time. I know I'm the stay at home mom,

so money wise at the moment, I'm not bringing anything I haven't for a few years. So I feel like it's his money because he's the one bringing the income homes. I don't want to ask for money. So I kind of don't ask. And with all the rest jobs we've been adding while then I just feel like, okay, well, you know, I'm burnt out being at home all the time.

Can't go out because we're in a red zone here. So I kind of, you know, I feel like, but the moment he talked about it, like he's like, okay, let's talk about the money, I get overwhelmed. And when I get overwhelmed, we kind of just shut that conversation out because he doesn't want me to be overwhelmed.

So I know he means well, Shif, I know a dog that I need to figure it out somewhere. It's pretty much the only thing that's a stress point in our relationship. That's really it. Like we are usually pretty good at communicating with one another except money. That's the one thing.

I know what he means. I would love to pay to debt. I just personally don't know how to get there. Well, let's make sure my instincts are correct. What are the actual numbers? 80,000 households income. Would that be accurate? Would that be accurate? All part great. And let's talk about any debt, how much? Well, like I said, we're selling a house right now. Once everything's done, we're going to be around $40,000 in debt left. Okay.

Credit cards and other things. Tell me about this debt. How did you incur this 40K of debt? Part of it was when we repainted the G and part of it was just overspending. I went from a higher paying job to a lower paying jobs. We had to cover that. So yeah, it was just basically overspending. I know it's overspending, but why?

Restaurants going out with like, on trips with the kids, not like fancy trips, but going to the city family. It's minimum $500 per trip, right, with the gas and food on the way there. Once you're there, you go out with the family and all. There's activities with the kids, things we needed in the house, things like that, for us, for the kids, or the vehicles, or in general, that's what it is. Sometimes it's emergency stuff. I find one big chunk was actually the Jeep, of course, with the pandemic, we had decided to get the Jeep repair, because it needed quite a bit of repair.

And with the pandemic, the price kind of doubled by the time we got our quote to getting it done with the pricing of pieces went up double and all that. But it is the, you know, ending here and there, restaurants and like Jox said, you know, we go visit the family in your brand's way because we live far from them.

It's little things that kind of seem to creep up. This is a very common response that you'll hear from people whose finances are out of control. They will constantly describe little things that seem to come up. Why? Because in the small view that they have on their financial life, the 50 feet that they can see ahead as they're driving,

there's always something. But if they zoom out, if they can get a bigger perspective, maybe see a mile down the road or a month forward, maybe six months forward, they start to get a better grasp on them. And they realize, oh, that surprise car repair that seemed to come out of nowhere. That seems to come around

every three years. Maybe we can put 20 bucks a month aside so that next time it comes out, we're ready for it. Again, people who are out of control with their money will constantly feel like they're taking one step forward and two steps back. That feeling is real. We can't dismiss it. What we can do is help them zoom up, look at the bigger picture and switch to planning a little bit more proactively. Where do we want to go? I'm not even sure myself to be honest. I usually see a couple of months ahead of me and that's it. Yeah. If you ask me where I want to be in a year, hopefully I'll be here, but it might not

break. Yeah. Living month to month is very difficult. That's all you can see. It's like driving in a snow storm. It's very scary and difficult and half of it is just I hope there's nothing 50 feet ahead of me. Yeah. Yeah and that's why we want to understand the reason why we want to care, but it's like

like to have some protection in case there's something in front of us like that. Don't foresee that. Yeah, and I also want to go beyond protection. I want to start. Well, yeah, because, you know, we do have plans. Like, shock, we were talking about that where we'd like to have a cottage in your brand, like, when we visit family, we could stay there instead of staying with family, because when we visit, we actually stay with family and it's getting annoying.

And when we go there, like, well, let's get a cottage, and then we could rent it out when we're not there, because we'd only visit, you know, a few weeks a year, and the rest of the time, but it's to get the money, to get to that, to make future income. And then we're like, oh, we'd like to travel, but we can never seem to put it in a concrete plan. Like it's so vague. Yeah.

Because usually when we, it's, I don't know, because it's weird, because when we decide, it's like, okay, this is what we want, we go there, it actually happens like, snap, like, really fast. When we actually decide that this is the way we want to go, it usually happens extremely fast. Well, that's the opposite of a plan, though. You're telling me, when we decide to do something,

we do it overnight. Okay, great. That's good. You're very spontaneous, but a plan is the opposite. It takes years and years of slow, working work, automatic transfers. It takes a longer vision than let's go buy a house or let's go on a trip.

Yeah, that makes sense. You can hear me slowly starting to shift them away from a problem orientation to a solution orientation. I'm taking it very, very slowly. I don't think they're fully bought in yet. You can kind of hear it by the, okay. But let's see where it ends up. Again, this often takes months and months of work, but I've got a limited time, so I'm going to try to do my best here. Can you tell me when this debt will be paid off? At this rate, it would be 20, 30 years.

The rate we're going right now. Okay. And how does that make you feel? I hate it. I hate it because I know we're paying so much interest right now here and there and it's all money that we could actually be paying off of that. And putting aside and stating to actually buy things, not credit and you know, or say so we can go to a trip or say for a future cottage or this or that. Okay. And it's not just, I feel like I'm withdrawing money out the window.

Yeah, you are. Let me go to you, Jacques. What, when do you think you will pay this debt off? The way I calculated it would be 15 years. 15 years. Okay. I am wondering with 80K of income and your rent price looks pretty good. 1500, that's good.

It's not too much. A lot of people, they spend too much on their housing. You have affordable housing, that's good. 1,500, that's good. It's not too much. A lot of people, they spend too much on their housing. You have affordable housing, that's good. Your car may be a little high, but eventually that will get paid off. Where's the rest of the money going? Food. Food like groceries or food like eating out? Both. Groceries and eating out. Like, it's funny. Well, we're actually talking about that a little while back. We have issues buying ourselves a piece of clothes that might be $50, $20, $40.

But we have no issues going out to the restaurant one night and pay $50 for takeout. Why is that? Well, as you can see, I'm big, so food is my addiction. And you know, it's just my comfort, the way to comfort myself, and I've been working on that. But it is a way of like, oh, well, it's okay to spend enough food on, but not on other things, right? I appreciate the honesty on that. Buck's bald. Yeah, that's a tough situation, but you have a very high level of self-awareness.

I've been doing a lot of work to get through that. of self-awareness. I've been doing a lot of work to get through that. There is a relationship between food and money. When I first wrote my book, it was published in 2009, in the introduction in the first chapter, I wrote about the similarities between food and money, how we often don't track what we eat, how we often don't track what we spend, how we often listen to fad diets, and how we often do the same thing with fad investments. When I wrote the 10-year update to my book, the 2019 edition, an editor that was working on the book strongly encouraged me to remove that material. And she said that it was offensive to write about the connection between food and money. In the intervening 10 years between writing the first edition and the second edition,

I had gone through a fitness journey of my own. I used to be very skinny. I would call myself a skinny Indian guy. And I really wish looking back that I had not said that. That I had not condemned myself to a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the intervening time, I learned how to change my body. And I learned that a lot of the things I believed about myself were not true.

And I needed a lot of help. I had help of friends and trainers, nutritionists. And eventually I started to feel in control, that if I wanted to put on muscle, I could. If I wanted to cut fat, I could. And so, I told the editor, no. In fact, I insist on keeping this material in the book because more than ever, I see a connection between food and money. And I've seen it with many of my own, I will teach you to be rich readers. Many of them take control of their money and they realize, oh my gosh, if I could do this, the thing that I was never good at, what else

can I do? It is very common that I will teach you, be rich readers, later go on to change their fitness, their food, their nutrition because many of the skills are transferable. So I wanted to add that here because it's really important what Jennifer is doing, she's being so honest about being out of control with food. And I was candidly very surprised at how honest she was, how self-aware she was. You can see that there's a relationship between food and money. And so I wanna approach this with compassion, not judgment.

And I just wanna share that oftentimes when you're out of control in one part of life, it can feel like dominoes. On the other hand, when you start to make steady progress, even a tiny bit of progress in one area, it can really cascade into other areas of life as well. I get a lot of questions from people who have used my book. They've automated their finances. They've set their investments up.

They go, all right, I did the basics. What's next? And when you've made a lot of money, you'll notice that there's not a lot of advice specifically for you. The blog posts that are typically focused around people who are just starting off or even people in debt do not really apply to you anymore. And it can also be embarrassing to ask. You can't really post about certain topics when you have money because your friends don't know how much you make. And nobody really wants to hear about, how do I take cooler vacations or what do you all do for tax optimization?

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

interesting members of the community and the majority of them are first generation wealth. They're young, highly successful individuals, and they join the community to share knowledge and learn from each other, to get confidential, unbiased support, knowledge, sharing and networking, and you can do it online through their digital platform as well as face-to-face connections

at their long-angle in-person events. Now, members also have access to unique private market opportunities. And as I mentioned, I'm a member of long-angle. I like it because it's vetted. Everyone on there has a certain amount of net worth, and therefore they are asking relevant questions of the community. You're not going to get people on there giving the same old advice, like, hey, here's how you save money on salary. That's not the purpose of this community. You're not gonna get people on there giving the same old advice like, hey, here's how you save money on salary. That's not the purpose of this community. Some of the topics that I've loved

are multi-generational family trips or questions like, we wanna travel for six months with our children. What do you all do for school? How do you make travel more seamless for children? I've seen topics I loved about concierge doctors. Topics that no one is really talking about publicly. And on their online community, there are groups for all different topics like education for

kids, events, even philanthropy, and how to become more thoughtful about giving. There are literally thousands of conversations going on right now at long angle, and I love it because it's a super high quality group, and people are even starting to meet in person. Now, in order to join, members must show proof of at least $2.2 million in investable assets, liquid or illiquid, and a community organizer will hold a brief zoom call with every potential member to make sure it's a fit. Go to longangle.com to learn more. That's longangleangle.com. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. On this podcast, you've heard me recommend therapy to a lot of couples.

Some of the couples are already seeing therapists, which I love. But if you wanted to get therapy, if you wanted to have a space where you and your partner could talk about money and any other topic, would you know where to go right now? No. A lot of us would search. We'd find a bunch of options, but how do we know who's right? How do we know what to do next? It can be overwhelming.

So if you've been thinking about therapy, give better help a try. It's online, you'll get matched with a licensed therapist after filling out a brief questionnaire. You can also switch therapists for no additional charge. One of the things that I love on this podcast is being able to help couples discover a new way of seeing and talking about money.

But this is just one conversation. A lot of us need a lot more conversations in order to lock in change. That's why I think therapy is really important for a lot of us. My wife and I saw a therapist to help us deal with our early money conversations. And therapy gave us a place and a time

to talk about how we felt. Discover your potential with better help. Visit betterhelp.com slash remit today to get 10% off your first month. That's better help help.com slash remit R-A-M-I-T. For me right now, it's just taking that stress off, you know, with the whole COVID stuff going to pandemic. I'm stuck at home, I just see at home mom, but I still can't go outside and socialize and we just moved in this new city that I have no, absolutely no one. Plus, I've been alone for months now.

And when Jacques gets home, I know he's tired from work and he needs his own time, so I leave him alone. So when I come to making supper, I feel so burnt down and I don't want to be around no one that it's an easy access. It's the only way I can seem to have a certain sense of control and release for a moment, I guess. Yes, that's it. You both understand your behavior pretty well. Understanding it doesn't change

it. But I love the way that you are in touch with why you are doing things you do Jennifer, you're nailing it's control. It's relief. I see all the numbers and I see like example I smite my credit card. I have one credit card and it smacks out at the moment. And I see the interest that I pay on it. And I'm like, big word. I'm just like, I'm paying all this money for interest where I could be paying if we had it in one big loan with less interest and paid more of it so we can pay it faster or put it aside to build some savings

so we can buy that cottage that we want down the road. When I see the numbers, I get mad at myself that we're in that situation. So I just want to put the blinders off because I'm sick and tired of being mad and like, well, you are sick and tired of being mad and you've done everything except confront the problem. Pretty much. I hear deep down that both of you believe you've already lost. You've already lost the game of money. And so why not just give up and order this food? It's yeah. We already got 40K of debt and extra 40 boxes and going to change anything and

at least we'll feel good for a couple of hours. That's it. For me, that's how I feel. Yeah. This is classic. In personal finance, you see this in two particular areas. This is the idea that if I'm not perfect, I might as well throw it all away. Forget it. None of it really matters. The first area is the area that Jennifer is talking about, which is people in debt. People in large amounts of debt, at a certain point they go, what does it matter? 40 bucks, it's not gonna change anything. Might as well be happy. That's exactly what we heard Jennifer saying. Can you think of the second category?

The second category of people who say, I have lost the game. So forget it. Well, the answer is parents. I will frequently get DMs on Instagram or Twitter my email. They say, how much should I save for my daughter? I said, how old are you? And what is your financial situation?

They go, um, 44. I don't really have anything saved up, but just had my daughter really need to start saving for her. I go, your daughter has time. You do not. And what they are really saying is, I believe I've lost the game of personal finance. But at least I can win it for my daughter. Jennifer and Jacques are smart. It's not that they don't know they should pay

off their debt. There is something much deeper here. And finally, we are ready to start talking about it. Listen, what is it, Jacques? But I think it's part of me wants to say yes. So when she asked me for stuff, I want to say yes. Right? My life, I love her, I want to tease her. So part of it is that, right? Because I want to say yes. And that's why, you know, sometimes you'll ask me a couple of times, you know, can I get this?

Can I get that? You know, stuff for her? I mean, no, we don't have them. I mean, no, we don't have the money. Like, fine, get it, right? In your mind is creating a plan? Does that mean saying no? Well, we've got to say no at something, right?

Well, you haven't yet. True. So let me see if I can get this right. Tell me if I'm off. I like to be a good husband. I don't like confrontation. I want to say yes. I want to please my wife.

Deep down, I know there's a couple things we probably shouldn't do. We probably shouldn't go here and maybe buy this, but sometimes she asked me and I don't like the confrontation. I know she's going to be upset, so I say yes. I know it's probably going to cause problems down the road, but I'm just trying to get by day to day here. Yeah. Pretty much on the dot. Yeah. From a young age, it was always told, no, like when I grew up, my mom was a single mother. We didn't have much money, so anytime I asked for something, it was no, because we just didn't have the money. So keep going. Trace it to yourself now. How do you think a child reacts when they hear no no no no no no.

My needs are not important. Like I want this not important because I always got told no. Yeah and then what do you think is a possibility for how someone reacts to that as they get older? I was just trying to please people, I guess. That's why. What's the connection between being told no by everybody in the family and then saying yes, what's that connection?

How did it feel when they told you no? No, it's not, but eventually you get used to it, right? But do you get used to it? Does it ever feel good when somebody tells you no? Well, no, but you, like, I don't put myself in a situation where somebody will tell me no. Exactly. Eventually, you say that is painful, so painful that I'm just not even gonna ask because I don't wanna hear no.

And then growing up, getting in relationships, this relationship, do you think it's possible that somebody who's been told, no, their whole life says, I felt so bad, I never want to feel like that or have anyone who I love feel like that. So I'm never gonna put them through what I went through Yeah

That's the first time I thought about that There's a lot I've never connected the dots right? This is a really big realization. Oftentimes we behave in ways that seem totally rational to ourselves. And if I asked you, you know, why'd you say yes to this? Well, you know, it was a long night. Why'd you say yes to that? Well, she asked me four times.

And there's a reason. Our minds are really good at creating reasons. I'm actually not concerned about the math here. This isn't a math problem. I'm going to say it again because it's really important for me to say that. This is not a math problem. Is the tape charge can... and do it? Yeah, but if that were the case, you would have done it already. Like motivational phrases only,

not snack, they only get you so far. So what's the real problem here? Not wanting to put myself in a situation where I have to say no. Right. Right. That's a deep, deep issues. If you pull on that string you're gonna end up back at being three years old or four years old for me it's more of an instant

gratification I want it now versus weight and do you see any similarities between the food instant gratification and the money? Definitely. Pretty much everything. Yeah. It's like that. So that's another deep seeded issue and you've been getting help. I'm really happy to hear that.

And that's the thing. For me, food is my gratification. Oh, you did well here. You're huge. Oh, you feel like shitty here's some food. So I've been trying to do some work on that to try and heal those foods to get over that. So I don't use food because all that food, well, you need money to pay for that food. Yeah. I'm really glad to hear that you are pursuing this because it's challenging. It's not easy and it takes a lot of deep inner work ideally with some help as well.

We've made a couple of breakthroughs. I want to shift them now to what they are doing with their money. One of the observations I have about this couple is that there's no real purpose to their money. It's a lot of instant gratification, whatever's in front of them. I bet you, if I ask them, do you remember the last four meals you ordered as takeout? They wouldn't even remember. It's nothing memorable, nothing special. It's just whatever's in front of them. And I think there's a totally different way to think about money. A way

where you can say, you know what, let's think about what meal would be amazing for us, or what trip, or what baby car seat, whatever. And let's save up. Let's get that. Let's dream big and then go after it aggressively. So I want to talk about what they want with their money. I'm curious if they've even thought about it. One thing we have talked about Jacques and I was buying cottages or building more cottages in different areas and then renting it, branding them out.

Since we'd have like, okay, we want to go there for a vacation. Let's go two hours away from here, five hours from here, but at the same time, those houses would be working for us for us when we're not there. So that we can, I'd like to build on that, build a business or something that builds an income that we don't have to you know go to a job 40 hours a week.

And then what? And then it would allow us to be able to travel. We mentioned we wanted to travel and we've been looking into the schoolies and RVs and whatnot and that's something that I'd like us to do especially with the kids being young. Nice. Okay. Love it.

Beautiful. I love the vision. Jack, what about you? My vision of being wealthy is you have an RV and you go to these far out places where you know there's nobody around either campfire and the kids are there you can see nature and look at the stars up there's no pollution or lights or anything like that you know that's my vision. First of all there are two places you're never gonna find me.

Number one is in a home depot. Okay, and number two is in an RV. Those two places are a special kind of hell for me, all right? But remember, it's not my rich life, it's yours. Okay, your rich life is yours. It's not your parents, not your friends. It's certainly not mine. So while I

don't understand the appeal of an RV, that has done to you do with it. In fact, I love hearing people's rich lives the more different they are from mine. I love it because it tells me they've really thought about something that they want. And the more you dial in your rich life, your money dials, everything. The more incomprehensible it's going to be to everybody else. So I'm getting excited and I can hear it in their voice that they're getting excited as well. How old can kids be while you take them there and they still enjoy it? I don't know. I would still enjoy it. you take them there and they still enjoy it.

I don't know. I would still enjoy it, so I'm thinking. I'm thinking. I'm thinking. Well, what do you think? What's an ideal age to take your kids to something like that? Well, I'm thinking before they're 10 to 11. Can you do it? Yeah, because that's when they start having friends that are like,

no, I'd rather stay at home. Yeah. My friends in a moment. That's right. So really, now we're starting to get a little bit more specific, which is in the next X years, we want to take our children on some kind of outdoors RV adventure.

How many years? Four. I would see for me with more like two. Okay, so soon, well look, we're getting somewhere. Whether it's two or four, it's not 20. Okay, so guess what? Now we have a real reason to start changing our finances. You know what? You had no reason before. Of course, you're going to order out. Because what else are we going to do?

Pay off debt. That sounds boring. It sucks. Yeah. But listen to what I heard. I just have to repeat this back to you because it was so vivid. I heard no light pollution. I heard outdoors. Look at the stars. RV. Traveling with the kids. These are words that are very emotional. That is beautiful. And I would love that for both of you to actually expand on it. Outside of this call, I would love for you to have a conversation where you say, what would it look like if this were magical? How does this feel Jacques just to start thinking about this trip? How does it feel to you? No, it feels pretty good. It's it's a direction, right? I'm realizing now that's that's what it was like. I had no goals or anything like that nothing to shoot for it. It makes sense that what else is there to do? Get some food or oh we want to do

that this weekend. Let's go do it. You need to buy that. Let's buy that. Now, I'd rather go do the trip than or eat out tomorrow. Let's say that it's 5% right now you would be paying $400 a month. And like I told you, it would take you 11 years to pay that off. Okay. Now, let me ask you a question. What if you increased that to 600 a month? How long do you think it would take you to pay it off? Okay. Yes?

For then, yeah. 6.5 years, just from $200 a month extra. Do you think you could find $200 a month extra? I'm sure we can figure something out. 100%. When you go through your numbers, you're going to realize you're sitting on way more than you think. Okay. And if you have to get creative to do it, you're gonna realize you're sitting on way more than you think. Mm-hmm. Okay. And if you have to get creative to do it,

you're gonna get creative. It's either gonna be 10 years or three years. What are we gonna do? Yeah. And truthfully, I hope you both see the costs of what does it cost you to be treading water for so long? It, you start to actually normalize it. Like, oh, it's normal to be sinking.

It sucks. Well, that's all I've seen all my life. Is my parents being there? I really love what Jennifer just said. Just off-handedly, she opens up the floodgates. That's what we knew. That's what I've seen all my life with my parents. Think about the implications of just that one sentence. That's what she modeled forever. And therefore, you normalize

in fact, when you think of money, you think of problems, pain. And if you do that for enough time, Pain. And if you do that for enough time, you can't even imagine that money can be joyful. That it can be a source of opportunity instead of one of problems. Now this presents some real identity challenges as you start to shift from paying off your debt. I often find that people who are in a severe amount of debt or have been there for a long time, they can't even envision what it feels like to be debt-free much less to actually have money in their savings account. And as they go towards this debt-free status, they start to ask themselves lots of uncomfortable questions. Oh my God, what's it going to be like?

What if I told myself that being debt-free would make me happy and I finally pay off all my debt and I'm not happy? And ultimately, am I worth it? These are really tough identity questions that many of you will face. But I am confident. You can absolutely work through these. Just want to flag it for you that as you change your identity with money, you will have to confront your own personal identity.

So I want to point out that based on your numbers, you both could do that. And if you were to contribute instead 800 a month, you'd pay that off in 4.75 years. That'd be cool. Jennifer, what was that look on your face? 800 a month. You pay that off in 4.75 years. That'd be cool. Yeah. Jennifer, what was that look on your face? Uh, I wanted to see another swear work. Well, I encourage you.

There was something that really puzzled me in this conversation. When I asked them, what do you want to do with your money? They had this whole thing about what a buy cottage is and eventually use that money to be able to get an RV and sit under the stars. It was beautifully described. But then when I asked them, when do you want to do it? They got very fuzzy. Did you catch that? I don't know. First, we need to get the first down payment. We can't seem to save any money. And then I asked him, how do you want your kids to be? Probably before their teenagers, because they'll still like us. Suddenly, you realize that

this isn't a plan. It's just a wish. I don't want you to just wish for things to do with your money. I want you to make a plan. And so for this couple, my dream would be that we just start by saying, what is it you actually want? I want to take my kids, I want to get an RV, and I want to sit under the stars with them and create some memories. Love it. Beautiful. Okay. How can we do that? to take my kids, I want to get an RV, and I want to sit under the stars with them and create some memories.

Love it. Beautiful. Okay. How can we do that? Quickly. Well, maybe we can start aggressively paying off our debt. Maybe we can put a hundred bucks a month aside for this trip. Maybe we don't have to buy four cottages and then buy an RV.

Could we just rent an RV? And what if we don't have to buy four cottages and then buy an RV. Could we just rent an RV? And what if we don't have to take a month off? What if we just go for two weeks? Suddenly you shaved off 15 or 20 years towards your rich life. Well, you can do it in 18 months. This is my wish for you. My wish is that you look creatively at what your rich life is, that you get super detailed about it. I want to know what are you going to be eating underneath the stars?

Tell me about that. And then you go from a wish to a plan. You say, how can we do that? How can we do it bigger? How can we do it faster? And suddenly you start to go from problem orientation to solution orientation. You are between four to six years away from paying off this debt.

My guess is if you made this a true priority, like number one, you could pay it off in less than four years, three or three in average. That would be hard. You'd have to change everything. You'd have to do a lot of inner work. That may be even too hard, but four to six years, you could comfortably pay it off. Well, if we got rid of the car and you used the Jeep to go to work, you'd still burn more gas than the car, but it'll be one of four hundred dollars

who could actually check there. There it is. You can hear Jennifer getting engaged, putting some skin in the game, becoming creative about how they can work towards their rich life. This is a beautiful moment. Here's what you'll find next week on the I Will Teach to Be Rich podcast. I felt like a joke saying,

I will have to pay everything for you. I mean, my mind was that I can pay for myself. Like, if you don't want to support me, I can support myself. When I questioned her about what we're living on the table as a family and what that implies for us, her response was, well, I have my own savings and I can kind of do whatever I want.