I Will Teach You To Be Rich - 246. "We’re drowning in debt, but bought another house"

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich talks to Melissa and Tony, a couple who immigrated from Mexico with big dreams and an even bigger work ethic. In less than a decade, they've built a net worth of nearly $900,000. But beneath the surface of their impressive paper wealth, they’re carrying almost $1 million in debt and are completely misaligned on their financial goals. With their second child due any day, Ramit helps them uncover the root of their money woes, from differing money styles to the profound impact of their upbringing. Can they finally get on the same page, create a financial system that works, and build a sustainable rich life? In this episode we uncover: • How Melissa and Tony built a nearly $900K net worth in 8 years • The "rollercoaster" of their financial decision-making • Why their credit card debt is actually due to real estate • Tony’s “paycheck to paycheck” feeling with a $189k household income • Melissa’s childhood money lessons from her dad, Mr. No • How they navigate financial planning with a baby due this month • Why they avoid combining their high incomes • The cultural influences shaping their financial narratives • What happens when Tony is “comfortable” and avoids change • The deeper reasons behind their ongoing money disagreements • Ramit’s advice on how to communicate about money effectively • A surprising agreement that might change their future Chapters: (00:00:00) Introduction (00:02:28) Their chaotic financial situation (00:07:07) Melissa and Tony’s real estate struggles (00:13:07) Melissa's real estate ambitions vs. Tony’s pessimism (00:20:58) The cycles of making and losing money (00:26:59) The ineffective communication about debt (00:33:57) The danger of making emotional money decisions (00:37:35) Diving deep into their income and debt (00:46:01) Their unspoken rules about money and spending (00:51:56) The painful truth behind being "house poor" (01:00:43) Impact of childhood money lessons on their current finances (01:10:29) The parent-child dynamic in their financial relationship   This episode is brought to you by: Superhuman | Turn your inbox into momentum. Sign up at https://superhuman.com/ramit. ZocDoc | Go to https://zocdoc.com/ramit to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today #sponsored  DeleteMe | Get 20% off all consumer plans when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/ramit and use promo code RAMIT at checkout Trust & Will | Protect what matters most in minutes at https://trustandwill.com/ramit and get 10% off plus free shipping Gelt | Book a tax consultation with Gelt at https://joingelt.com/ramit. As a member of my community, you can skip the waitlist Connect with Ramit • Get my new book, Money For Couples • Get Money Coaching with Ramit  • Download the Conscious Spending Plan • Listen to my book—now on Audible • Get my New York Times best-selling book • Get my no-numbers journal • Other episodes • Instagram • Twitter • YouTube If you and your partner have a money issue and you want my help, I occasionally select a couple to work with, free of charge. Apply for my help here: https://iwt.com/apply

Okay, tell me if this sounds familiar. Your partner recently got into investing. It started small, but now they are obsessed. They spend all day sitting behind four screens. They all look black with green characters running up and down and different charts. But they're not telling you what they're doing with your shared money. Maybe you feel like they actually don't know what they're doing. Maybe you are concerned.

Maybe you trust them. But you're not actually sure what's happening. If this is you and your relationship, I want to talk. We are casting for the next season. of money for couples right now and we'll be screening couples in the next few weeks. These are free coaching sessions that last hours that we will do together.

And in the past, when I've worked with couples, many of them have said that it was an incredible moment for them to finally start talking about money together. You can apply at IWT.com slash apply. That's IWT.com slash apply. How much debt are you guys in right now? 924,000.

How does it feel to you to be in debt? It feels like we're never going to get out of it. Tony didn't want to buy another property because he doesn't like real estate investments that much. I was like, no, let's buy this short sale. And then we bought it. It feels like I live paycheck to paycheck. I don't feel like I'm making any money. I can't even figure out what page anybody's on right now.

It's like a kid wanting to buy a toy. I want this toy. No, I want that toy. You're talking about a million plus dollars here. I feel like I'm in the roller coaster again, trying to see what he's going to say next. If we end this call right now, I suspect you will go the rest of your life, getting into debt, making a little bit of money over here, paying it off, going into debt, doing it over and doing it over until one day it's like you're in the ocean and it just engulfs you. Do you know anybody who's done that? Their parents?

They loves their houses. And now you're both repeating the same pattern. Today I'm speaking with Melissa and Tony, a couple who immigrated from Mexico to the U.S. in their early 20s. They didn't have a lot of money, but they were willing to work long. hours to build a successful life together, and it works. Eight years later, they've built a net worth of nearly $900,000. So in less than a decade, they're almost millionaires on paper. But beneath their paper wealth, Melissa and Tony are overwhelmed. They're carrying massive real estate debt, and they are misaligned on their financial goals. And with their second child due any day now,

they really need to get all of their houses in order. That's right. They currently own three properties. I'm going to pull up their conscious spending plan, which is the exact system I use to see how someone earns, spends, saves, and invests. If you want help navigating your own CSP, join my money coaching program at IWT.com slash money coaching. Here's where they stand. Assets, $1.58 million. Investments, $190,000. Savings, $30,000. Debt, $899,000. Net worth, $899,000. Fixed costs, 68%, investments zero, savings 23% and guilt-free spending, 9%. You can see how much is revealed once you look beneath those top line numbers. Like from the outside, it might look like they are building serious wealth.

But under the surface, they have created a system with very little safety net. No investments, very little cash, basically no room for error. So today I want to know, can Melissa and Tony stop chasing the next? next deal and start building a sustainable rich life. Let's find out. Melissa, in your application, you wrote something that caught my eye. You said, our new baby will be born this month. I would like my husband to understand financials, set up a plan with me, and act on it, not just ignore the fact that we have debt and keep spending. Do you remember where you were, what you were doing when you wrote those words to me.

It was a month ago, and it was like a throwback from my first pregnancy. When I had my first child, I stopped working for two months. So Tony was coming to me saying, like, me, where are we going to do? What's the plan? And then I'm like, oh, my God, I cannot think about that. You said that the baby's going to be born this month, right? Yes, I'm 39 weeks right now. Oh, my gosh.

Okay, wait. So do you have a plan for your finances right now? No, I don't think we have a plan. Because everything is up in the air. We either have some investments, but we don't know where to put it. We don't have an emergency fund. We have debt and we don't know what to pay off first. So it's been really hard to set up a plan and really follow through.

Sometimes Tony is like a roller coaster. Like sometimes he's like, that's a great idea. And then next week he's like, that's a terrible idea. So it makes me feel like, can we just set up a plan and just follow it through? How long has this been an issue between the two of you that you don't see money the same way? I think since we got married, we have a very hard start. My parents got divorced. So then I took care of my three brother siblings.

So all of a sudden, like, we had to grow up and just be like in survival mode for everybody. So then it was like from being. just girlfriend, boyfriend, to be like parents of my siblings. And I think that's what the problem start. Okay. Tony, do you agree that you and Melissa have not been on the same page with money since you got together? Yeah, I think that we kind of have not be like a married couple, I guess. Everybody was like on their own with their finances. How long have you been married? Seven years. How come you didn't combine money or talk about money together? Because my siblings were at my house, so I felt like I didn't want him to be like the dad.

But it was hard for me because it was like, I want him to be my husband, but also I don't want him to be the dad of my siblings. So I didn't want to put that responsibility on him. But still, I think that it was affecting us putting to be. together like a plan. Now they're outside the house. It was very hard time. So it was like six years or five. Five, six years of taking care of them. You taking care of them. I want to know a little bit more about that. But first, I need to ask a few more questions about your money if that's okay. I understand that you're in debt. How does it feel to you to be in debt? It feels like we're never going to get out of it. Did you know how much debt you were in, Tony? Yeah, I always kind of look into

you know, the credit cards and I'm always kind of like on top of the numbers. Wait, you're on top of the numbers, but you're in debt? Why? That doesn't mean you're on top of the numbers. Well, I guess I know how much money I have. Oh, that's what I mean. All right. How long have you been in debt? Since 2023. Okay. A couple of years. What about before then? Not debt at all. Oh. We just had much. money to invest or put it as a down payment for a new house. Okay, so you had extra money before two years ago. What happened two years ago that put you into debt?

We thought that it was going to be a good idea to build a house. Okay. Or dream home. And then we bought the lot in Cabo at the same time. You were building a house and you bought a lot in Cabo at the same time. Yeah. And then we were over budget on the house. How many properties do you own?

now, too. And the land in Kabul, but it's under contract, so hopefully you'll close. So you own one house, the one that you live in, you own another house, do you rent that out? Yes. Okay, and then you have the lot which sounds like you're trying to sell right now?

Yes. Okay, all right. I want to jump in here quickly to acknowledge there are a lot of confusing layers here, so let me just cut through the noise. Here's what you need to know. Melissa and Tony have not created a shared system for their money. As Melissa, explained she and Tony became responsible for her three siblings after her parents divorced,

and so they were thrust into this parental role before they were able to make that decision for themselves. Now keep in mind, this all happened shortly after they immigrated to the U.S. So they were suddenly caring for three teenage kids while also navigating a completely different culture with language barriers and a new marriage. And I want you to remember that because if you were thrust into a new country with different culture, norms and expectations, having to suddenly take care of three teenagers, how would you handle it? I remember in my 20s when I was getting ready to move from San Francisco to New York, I was worried. I was like, how do I find somebody to cut my hair? And I'm an able-bodied, educated

guy. And just the idea of finding new people to cut my hair or places to eat, that felt overwhelming. Now imagine moving to a different country and having to figure out everything for the first time. She had her young siblings to take care of. Where do they go? to school. How do you shop for groceries when you don't know the language that well? How do you fill out forms to get health care in America? Damn, it's hard enough for Americans to even understand what a deductible is. Now imagine you're doing that in a second language. On top of that, when they immigrated, like many of us, they never took the time to have a series of conversations around their money. And now they're expecting their second child in just a few weeks, and they're panicking

about paying down hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, which they largely built up, because of their decision to purchase a bunch of real estate. So far, they've mentioned owning two homes, one which they rent out, plus an undeveloped lot in Cabo. This actually sounds like a lot of people's American dream. Let's keep going. Tell me a little bit more exactly.

How did you get into debt? Well, I think we got into debt pretty quickly because when we first started building our dream home, everything went out of our budget. Melissa is an architect, so she likes to design. and do cool things with the house. But it was right after COVID when the lumber was like three times more and things like that.

All right. So you got into debt. You had the mortgage. What else? The $80,000 over budget. 80. Okay. Not only that, we also had two new vehicles.

Why did you do that? Well, first we needed an SUV for a kid. Hold on. Then. Hold on. Hold on. Do we have to do this? You have a little baby.

How old was your kid when you bought the SUV? It was about to be born. Okay, so we have a not yet born baby. And you said, say the magic words for me, please. We need a new SUV. Why? Finish the sentence, please. So we could all fit.

For the kids. This little baby that is, what do I even have in my room that's the size of a baby? I have nothing. This little baby. needs an SUV. Okay. What kind of SUV did you get? It was a three-row Kia.

Oh, no. I spoke to another couple that spent $62,000 on a Kia SUV. How much was yours? It was a lease. How much per month? $500. $500 a month. Okay, and then you had another car?

And then we had a truck because since she works in construction, we needed a truck for supplies and stuff. All right. You still have the truck? We sold both of it. We took the loss and we paid a car car car. Cash. So that's what we share the car now. Just one car. Okay. I like that. I did not expect that. What kind of car did you get?

We have a 2018 expedition. Ford Expedition? Yes. All right. I'm pleasantly surprised you took the loss and sold the car. Most people find that very difficult. All right. So you had a bunch of debt. Let's go back to the debt. How much debt did you rack up in 2023? Like 140,000. How about the mortgages, the loans, all that? Oh, the mortgage was 540. 540 plus 140. Starting to add up here. What else?

I think that's all. Was there a point where you were like, this is too much? Like something is wrong here. Yes, because at that time I lost my job. So then we're like, wow, we are in a real mess. I had still like three more projects to finish through my company. So I finished those. Then I got some cash.

we paid off half of the $80,000. So then we just did like a payment plan with Amex for the remaining 40. Okay. And then I found a job and then I saved like $50,000. And now we are like, should we sell that house? Because it's worth like a million, a million, $1,100. And our mortgage is only $5.40. Okay.

This is going to be the shortest call on the planet. We're in debt. We have a house that's worth a lot of money. should we sell it? Yeah, I guess, yes. I know I'm supposed to understand more. I want to ask you a lot of questions, but like, did we just find the answer here?

Like, why would you not sell a house when you owe all this money in debt? Our vision was to live older with rentals and things like that. One cousin, we have those sons. One cousin. Okay, you have a cousin who bought a bunch of houses and rents them out. Yeah.

Do you notice that they contradict each other? and they contradict themselves. For example, Tony said they went over budget on building their dream home because of Melissa's architectural design. But then Melissa said, well, actually it's because lumber was more expensive during COVID.

Melissa says, maybe we should sell this house. And in the next breath, our vision is to retire with a bunch of rental properties. It's very confusing. It's very contradictory. Watch as I asked them

about how they decided to purchase their last property. You're going to see that they go back and forth. What do you notice in this exchange? Let's talk about the conversation regarding the latest property. So Tony didn't want to buy another property, of course, because he doesn't like real estate investments that much, stress him out. But I felt like if we were to sell that house, I didn't want to be just like without any property at all and to kids. And the rents were very expensive here in Florida.

So then I was like, Tony, we're going to sell the house. I want another house. And he's like, no, we don't even know if he's going to sell. He's a pessimist, like negative. So then I was like, no, let's buy this short sale.

Because it was like $60,000, $70,000 less than the actual value. And I was like, Tony's close to work. It's a lot smaller. But I was like, we don't need more.

And then we bought it. So you said, we have this one house. I want to get another house. He said no. And then you said, now we're going to do it anyway. And then you bought the house. Well, he said it was a good idea. And then the next week, it's a bad idea.

And then the following week was like, no, I think it's a good idea. So that's what I mean when it's like, are we doing it? or not. I don't know. I see. Tony, is that true? You go back and forth with your opinion. At the beginning, I didn't want to do it, but then I guess she convinced me we should get this new house and just rent the other one out. And the original thing was that it was closer to our work. What does that have to do with it? Would drive like 40 minutes to get to work. Wait, how does that, I'm trying to understand. What kind of food do you guys hate? Well, I hate French. I don't like cheese.

Oh, you hate all French food? Yeah. My man. Indians don't like French food either. It's too bland for us. Freaking rosemary. That's not a spice. All right.

So let me put it this way. Hey, Tony. Let's go spend $65,000 on a French meal. You're like, no, that sounds horrible. But Tony, it's close to your work. Would you do it? No. So how come you got this house just because it's close to your work?

Because I wanted to make her happy. Oh, so did it work? She's pretty happy, yeah, but now we're stressed because we don't, we have too much debt. Okay, what's happening right now in this conversation? Does anyone feel like the energy is a little weird? Am I the only one? I feel like I'm in the roller coaster again, trying to see what he's going to say next. Why do you feel that way?

Because we talked about this. Now he's saying he never wanted to buy it. But I feel like sometimes he doesn't say or set up a plan so he doesn't get the blame. He's like, you decided that. So then it's like not taking the responsibility of no, I said no. And then I said yes. And they are wearing this mess together. I see it.

Okay. That's an interesting theory. Tony, you think that's true? I don't know if this. I can't really say if this was a good idea or not to buy this house because we haven't sold it and we haven't made any money on it. How much debt are you guys in right now? Yeah.

105,000. Included? Oh, no. I mean, 924,000. Wait. Including the mortgages. Why did you just give me two different numbers that are almost a million dollars apart? Because I don't, I mean, I don't count the mortgage.

Why? A mortgage is debt. It's literally debt. I know. What's happening right now? Why do you not count a mortgage is debt? Because in her mind, we're going to make profit. Is that true?

Yeah, because I wanted to sell the other house in, next year. I don't think you guys are on the same page with money. I can't even figure out what page anybody's on right now. Like, was it a good idea or not a good idea? It's very unclear. Do you have debt? Might, might be 105K, might be 824K. Don't know. Did one person agree? Not sure. It's all very confusing to me. Do you feel the same way? Yes. I think we contradict each other's. Yes. And I think sometimes you both contradict yourselves as well. Yeah. Why do you think you do that? Like we don't have a real concept of what we're doing.

Yeah. We want to do a shift. That's why I think we're here because there's other types of investments. And we want to get off real estate because it's not liquid at all. So it just makes us go rounds of depth. So we want to stop. Is that true? You want to stop being involved in real estate?

I want to, yeah. Okay. And Tony? Yes. Oh, why don't you say that at the beginning? We knocked this out in 15 minutes. Is it true? Do you really want to be out of real estate?

Because you just told me five minutes ago, we don't want to be without a house. We need a house for the kids and on and on and on. Well, I think at least we want to own a home. That's why we bought this small house. Okay. So, because we don't want to retire here in the United States. But at least I think we need a physical address in case something happens. We can always come back.

but like we don't have to have like four properties or three properties. I would like to have one house and be paid off. That's my goal. That sounds pretty similar. The two of you seem like that goal could work together, right? They say they want the same thing, one house and to pay off debt. But agreeing on that outcome doesn't actually mean they're on the same page. I'm picking up on some big clues.

Like here's what I notice. Earlier, Tony told me he's quote, always on top of the numbers. That sounds responsible, but in my opinion, all he's really doing is monitoring problems, not solving them.

Just knowing your debt balance doesn't mean you're managing your money. That's like someone who knows that their body fat percentage is high. They've got their lab results, they track it every week, but they're still eating at Dairy Queen four times a week.

Yeah, you might be aware, but that doesn't mean you are making changes. And then there's Melissa. She said their goal is to retire with rental income. When I asked her why, she said, my cousin does it. She's following someone else's playbook without really knowing the rules. And I see this constantly, especially in immigrant families. In fact, it happened in mine. My dad was set to study petroleum engineering. He got into a great school days before leaving, a random family friend stopped by for dinner

and asked my dad, what is he planned to major? And my dad told him, and the guy goes, not a good field. There aren't that many jobs. You shouldn't do it. So my dad changed everything. He changed his major. He didn't even go to that school. And he became a mechanical engineer instead. He made a life-changing decision because of one offhand opinion from a guy at dinner. Even he admits, I don't know why I did that. But this is how so many major decisions get made. Real estate, careers, college, even marriage. From random comments we hear from people that we trust, often without interrogating if their opinion is right for us. I'm curious in the comments below,

have you ever made a major life decision because of what somebody else said to you? Leave a comment below. I want to read it. When we come back, I want to dig into why Melissa and Tony are so emotionally attached to real estate. You know what's really funny how people say,

I like to spend money on the things that I use every day. And then you look at the spatula they use, It sucks. You look at the coffee grinder they use. It's horrible. You look at the email tool they use. It's not good. If you actually use something every single day, yeah, I can see that it makes sense to get the best.

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That's Z-O-C-D-C-com slash Rameet. Zok-D-D-com slash Rameh. And I want to thank Zok-D-D-K-Fond for sponsoring this message. Let's take it back a little bit. Why did you initially decide to buy and sell houses? Because we are in a growing area, so we bought a lot for $70,000. And I knew we could sell that. I built a house and sell it for a million.

So I was like, let's do it. How did you know that? Well, I'm a realtor and architect and a G. So that's my work. Okay. Oh, that's good. All right. So you saw an opportunity, and did you tell me the numbers correctly, you can buy it for 70K and sell it for a million?

With a house in the land. All right. So the land was 70. The construction 540 plus the 80,000 over budget, it was. Okay. Let's just say 700 to round up. Yeah. And have you sold it yet?

No, because we need to wait for 2026. Ah, what's the market looking like over there? It's going down, so that's why I think a million. Okay, but you can't sell it until next year. If we want the capital gain tax of the $500,000. So that's why you originally got into buying and selling houses because you said, I see an opportunity, I'm a realtor, I'm a G.C. I'm an architect. I can make this thing happen.

Bought the house, put money into it, several hundred thousand dollars. You're constrained right now because you can't sell it, but hopefully you can sell it for about a million bucks next year. If you sell it for a million, what will your profit be? Probably like $400,000, $350. $350, okay. When did you buy the $70,000 lot? Oh, in 2022.

So four years for maybe like $300, $350,000, $400,000 of profit. Yes. Okay. Melissa, you mentioned earlier that you want Tony to take action around your debt. What do you mean by that? I feel like he feels like I'm the one renovating and building. And so it's my responsibility to cover and set up a plan for it. But when the profits come, then it's our money.

Oh. So I feel like, no, like it's our plan. Like, that's why I feel like he rather doesn't say anything so he doesn't get the blame. But if things go right, then he's like, oh, great, you're so smart. But him like, you are also in this. But I think sometimes he's scared that if he does something wrong, I would be just blaming him or something. What do you think, Tony? I'm more of a, I've always lived like in fear of what's going to happen.

Like if, I'm always more of a negative side. Like, for example, the house, I mean, what happens if it doesn't sell? What happens if we, you know, lose it all? And she's more of a risk taker. So how do you fix it? If we plan together and talk about it and just have a plan. What's the plan? Not do any more risky investments.

What do you say, Melissa? Yes, I think that's why when I lost my job, I was like, okay, I don't want anything of this so little. That's why we start selling the houses and the land. And did they sell? Yeah, the first house sold in five days. How much did you make on that? $280,000.

Okay. That's good. What did you do with the money? I think we did some mistakes because we bought the land in Cabo. She took all the money and put it into another piece of land. From the 280, 120 went to the land. What about the rest?

We owe Tony's mother 30,000, and then we invested in Charles Zufford the first time. And then the nine months I didn't work, then we just some of the money. And also when we returned the vehicles, we had to pay the negative equity, and we bought the car cash. Do you notice the cycle that you're in? Yes. What is it? Make money, then pay off debt, and then figure another way of how to make money. What about you, Melissa?

What do you notice about the cycle that you're in? Yes, big purchases, big expenses. And like $280,000 is a lot of money to make. But where is it? Did it help you get ahead? Kind of a little. You have this land. But like, what do I get?

All this work, all this time, all this risk you took? Like, where is it? Yeah, I think we jump from one project to the other and then the other project and it's like too soon we don't let even the money grow. Yes. Why do you do that?

Because I feel we're running out of time. That's a very common thing. Whenever people say that, they almost always make really bad decisions. They'll say either we're running out of time or I feel like we're behind. And then they immediately start making really, really ultra-risky decisions.

But when you ask them, running out of time for what? What are you basing that on? They really have no idea. Do you enjoy this cycle that you're in? No, that's why I want to change. Tony? No, not at all.

I mean, original plan was to retire by the age of 50. Oh, you're running out of time for an arbitrary deadline that you set. That's like me saying I'm running out of time to fly to space. And then you go, what? When do you need to go to space? I go 45 years old. Why 45? I don't know.

Just 45. I'm running out of time. Arbitrarity. Can we do an example? example conversation, like a role play between the two of you on what your last conversation about paying off your debt went like. Who was the one who started the conversation? I think it was me. Okay. Go ahead. Like just as if you're having the conversation, I'll just observe. Have that conversation again so I can listen, please.

So Mel, I think that when we are able to sell the house that it's worth a million dollars, if it sells, I'm not sure if it's going to sell for that much. We should take the profits and pay off our current home where we live. And the rest is put into a retirement account, put it into our kids' 529 plans, which we haven't done yet, and just keep working and saving money and try to avoid any more debt and also pay the credit cards. Do you really think we should spend $280,000?

paying off the house? Yeah, because we're always going to be in the cycle with us, you know, we're going to have the smart idea of what to do with the money and we're going to end up with not such a good investment and either we lose it all or it's finally going to be very bad for our family. I don't want to be worried about how we're going to make. What happens if you lose your job like what happened the first time and I'm the only one paying all the bills, you know, we can't afford the lifestyle that we live. I think we should sit down and explore all our options. Hold on.

Does that how the conversation really goes? Yeah. Yes. Really? And then what happens? I mean, I think we'd never follow up and be like, what are all our options and what's best. Why don't you follow up?

She thinks it's just words and now we're not going to, or at least I'm not going to follow through. I don't know. Maybe she doesn't. I believe I can do it. Do you trust Melissa that Tony will follow through? Yes. I just feel like if we don't have savings either because we paid off a house,

then I think we need to find something in the middle. I don't believe you right now. You're telling me that you both have this very pleasant conversation and you agree, let's sit down, and then you just don't sit down. Why? I think that it's because then when I'm really like, okay, let's sit. down, we just get distracted or... With what?

The key. Maybe we just try to avoid the conversation and see what happens. Isn't one of the things you told me both today, you said you want to plan? Yes. Both of you said, we want a plan that we can follow through. You've been married for seven years. You never made a plan about money, right? No.

So I don't think it's your kid that's distracting you. You all make a lot of money. You could hire a babysitter for an hour or two. There's a lot of ways to do it. I'm finding it hard to believe that you haven't had time to sit down for a couple of hours and make a plan. What's really behind it? When we sit down, I feel like we go in circles like again and again. Yeah, I feel like that's happening right now.

I want to try to understand like how much debt, who wants the debt? Do you both want to change or do one of you want to keep it this way? And I'm still not sure what's going on here. Do you guys want to get real with me? Yes. Who wants to lay? out what's going on right now. Put it all out on the table for me.

Our plan is to settle down, not make any risky investments, not have all the debt that we are accumulating and just focus on our kids and our retirement. I want that too. Okay. Where do you disagree? So far, sounds good. Sounds like you both agree. Well, we disagree because it's hard for us,

for me to convince her that it's the best idea to sell the house, get the profits, and pay off our mortgage and just live in one house. Okay, can we build more of our savings too? Yeah, with whatever's left. We can start with playing off our home. And another car? I think we're okay with one car because our jobs are very close to each other and I don't see a way of us getting ahead if we pay another vehicle. I feel we need two vehicles. I mean, so far, it's probably one of the best decisions

we have done is to not have any dead as far as the cars and just share a vehicle for the last six months. That's like the best thing we have done. But we can discuss that when we have more money to talk about. Yeah, I just feel like with

an emergency or if one car breaks, then we need. It could be a cheap car. Okay, I can probably do that. How did that conversation compare to the normal conversations you have about money? We ended up agreeing with the decision. Most of your conversations, you don't make a decision by the end, do you? No.

No. So did you make a decision in that conversation you just had? Yes. What was the conclusion? Pay of the house and probably buy another car. A cheap car. A cheap car. Okay.

You both agree on that? Yes. I hope yes. if he doesn't change his mind next week. Why would he change his mind next week? Because sometimes he does. He then says like, actually we're good with one car or things like that. And then I'm like, but we just decided that it was a good idea to have two cars.

So that's what I mean with the roller coaster. That can't feel good. You know, you thought you agreed on something and then a week later, your partner's changing his mind. Can I ask a question? This is a major decision with hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake. How did you just make that decision? I think we try to run the numbers on our minds if everything goes well. Come on.

Nobody ran the numbers just now. Can anyone tell me one number you ran? There was not one number in that conversation. Did you notice? I think you both just decided randomly. I feel this. No, I feel that. Okay, fine.

We'll sell the house. pay off this, but I want a car. Oh, I don't know about the car. I know I really want a car. Okay, fine, we'll get a car. Is that not how you pretty much made the decision just now? Yes. Do you think maybe that's how you've made a lot of decisions in the past? We're going to buy a house. We're going to buy land. We're going to sell a house. We're over budget. Like, just this is what I think, this is what I feel, and then try to convince my partner. What do you think? Is that sound familiar? Yes. Yes. How do you think other people make big decisions like this? I really don't. No.

Okay. Melissa? Well, I think they run the numbers and really analyze everything and all the different possibilities. When was the last time the two of you did that? When we sat down to do the CSP? Okay. What about before that? Before that, we never really did it. Thank you. So here we have a couple who owns multiple properties, is in hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. has never run the numbers.

Melissa, you've heard this podcast before, right? Yes. You heard me say run the numbers like a thousand times? Yes. What did you think when I was saying it? To really sit down, understand where you are right now. Okay. But you didn't do that.

How come? I think we really never sit down. Guys, can I tell you something straight? You've got to stop saying this phrase, sit down. We're all literally sitting down right now. What does it mean we're not sitting down? Tell me what that means. Both putting our 100% attention into it. I feel like that's not even happening right now.

We're talking about, what, $500,000 or something? Like a lot of money. This is a lot of money. You worked really hard for it. And the way that you're talking about what to do with it is just like, oh, I think we should do that. No, I think we should do that. All right, I'll do this. You do that. Okay, cool. There's not a single number being used.

do you see how that is probably what got you into this financial situation that you're in? The way that other couples would make this decision is they would know their numbers. They would have a CSP. They would know their interest rates. They would know what is our strategy. Are we trying to build three houses? How much do we have for a budget? Why are we using real estate as an investment?

and they would be very, very careful to know when we buy this house, this is how much we plan to sell it for. If we sell it for more, this is what we're going to do with the money. If we sell it for less, we're going to do this with the money. Right now, the way you're talking about it is just like,

it's like a kid wanting to buy a toy. I want this toy. No, I want that toy. Okay, like, I'll get this toy, you get that toy. You're talking about a million plus dollars here. We need to be talking about it in a very different way. Most of the time, I don't care if someone makes a different financial decision

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And what will people think of us if we don't have the biggest, safest car as well? When you make decisions based on only what other people are doing, when you are constantly reacting instead of being proactive, it's really hard to learn how to make good decisions for you. And that's a problem because money is. a long game. If you don't learn how to make the right decisions for your vision, for your relationship now, then what happens when there's real money on the line? This is why I tell people to start investing early. Even if you've only got 20 or 50 bucks a month, the amounts don't matter. It's about

getting that process right. It's about building those habits and becoming strong enough to deal with the market going up and down. Because when you do have $2,000 or $3,000 or $4,000 a month to invest, you're going to know exactly what to do. Now, we are going to take a look at the numbers right after this. Some of the best gifts that I've ever gotten are incredibly thoughtful gifts to solve a problem I didn't even know I had. For example, one of my favorite gifts was when my wife organized my eye photos for me. I have tens of thousands of photos.

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more investments that we thought. We also had multiple bank accounts. So then we consolidate that into one bank. So that was good

because then we could see how much more savings we have and how much debt to so it helped us because at least we paid off $28,000 in the last couple of weeks. That's great.

So it was like a good starting point. Yeah, that's great. Did you both do the CSP together? Yes. Okay. All right, let's take a look on screen here. Probably it's a little messy because... Okay, whoa.

What? So I'm going to describe what I see on screen. I see a lot of numbers. So there's a massive breakdown next to the never. worth section. What are all these numbers? That was like when we were going through each account. Just so everybody knows, the file name on this is called IWT Conscious Spending Plan Revision 03. First of all, I don't mind multiple revisions. That's totally fine. Usually the first time people do a CSP, it's all wrong anyway. But at least it's a good start. It's just like drawing it in

pencil. And then they go back and they like fill in the colors and the lines. It's no problem. But now that we have this CSP with a lot of numbers, what are all these numbers I'm looking at? Just the different accounts or properties. So your assets, you broke them down by car. Rental house, primary house, and the land. All right. Let's go through it line by line. So, Melissa, can you read the word in bold and then the number in full next to each item all the way down for this box, please? Go ahead.

Assets, $1,585,000. Investment, 190,344. Savings, $30,485.5.5. 899,776.006,000. $9,053. $906,000 in total net worth. All right. What do you think about that number? It looks good on paper. Is there something else? Sometimes we hear the term of like house poor. Are you house poor? I think after we sell one property, we will be better. Can I ask you to give me a direct answer?

I notice that this is a tendency you have. I ask you a question and then you tell me why it's going to be better later. How was it doing the CSP? Well, we paid off $28,000 of debt so it was good. Are you house poor? Well, we need to pay off a house and then we'll be positive. I'm just asking you to answer the question directly. Are you house poor?

I think we are right now, yes. Okay. Do you find that sometimes you are always trying to look for the positive spin on something? Yes. How do you think that that affects your money? Hold on. I could tell this is hard to think about, right? Okay.

Take a second. We're in no rush. This is a tough question. Take all the time you need. The question was, do you often find yourself trying to put a pot? positive spin on things. And the second I asked that, I could see he started to cry. Why do you think that that was such a difficult question to hear? When we were taking care of my siblings, I couldn't go back to like my parents for help. So I felt like we have to be strong. And I just

realize I always try to tell my story like a positive way. I can understand why you do it. The idea that we can't even think about something negative. There's too much going on. We just have to focus on the positive. But I also notice that in order to be able to fix our money problems, we actually have to be honest. Like, are we in a bad situation because we have $899,000 of debt? We need to be honest about that.

Are we house poor? We need to be honest about that. It doesn't mean you're a bad person if you're honest about the situation that you are in. But I can tell you it's very difficult to move ahead if you are always spinning something to be positive. What do you think? Yes, I think this is helping me try to be more realistic.

Great. That's a good word, realistic. Realistic doesn't mean good or bad. Realistic just means we accept reality. and then we can decide if we want to keep it or change it. I like that word. Okay, so are you house poor? Yes.

All right, so you have $906,000 of net worth in your 30s, but you're house poor. Tony, what do you think about these numbers, the net worth number? I think it's a good number. I think if we focus on a plan that could take us a long way. I feel like the years that we have worked so hard, it's paid off. All right. Is it good or bad? $906,000 net worth? I did it. Okay. What do you say, Tony? For me, it's amazing. Oh, all right. That's good.

Let's keep going to the income. This time, Tony, I'm going to ask you if you can read off your combined gross monthly income. What is that number? $15,830. $15,830, which means combined the two of you make $189,000 a year. Did you know that? A new part. I think Tony's part is still wrong. Should we figure it out? All right.

Who makes $9,630 a month? I mean. That's you. Okay. And who makes $6,200 a month? That's Tony, right? Yes. All right.

Tony, is that number right or wrong? It's correct. What do you do for a living, Tony? I manage a dental office. Okay. All right. Melissa, why do you think that number is wrong? He just showed me his pay stub today and it was more.

Great. Get the paste up, Tony. I love to roll on this. Okay. So gross pay for the last couple weeks was $3,408. Net pay $2,895. I'm sorry to say, Melissa wins this one. Tony, your numbers are wrong.

I don't know if you average it out, it's probably a little less. This was a good pay shake. Oh, you get extra sometimes? Yeah. If I work more hours. It's not that far off. We're like 600 bucks off. Gross.

So you probably worked some extra hours. Yes. And normally you'd get a little bit less. Fine. Melissa, are you okay with that? Putting 6,200? Yeah. All right. I think the number is probably correct. I stand corrected. Tony, you're right. You might have made a little bit of extra money, but in general, for just pure, what we're going to assume, $6,200 a month gross, fine. Do you combine your money or no? No, we haven't. Not currently, no. Let me guess. You haven't sat down to do it together.

Never. Never. why not out of curiosity I guess we just got used to the idea of you know you take some part of the bills and you pay the other half and then whatever let me guess without even looking let me just guess

Tony pays the rent or the mortgage Tony pays car Melissa pays everything for the kids groceries Amazon on. How am I doing so far?

Pretty accurate. Why is it that every man and woman breaks down their expenses the same way? Why? And all of you are wrong. Like, watch this. You're about to have a second kid, right? Yeah. It's happening like in a matter of weeks. Who's going to pay for all the kid's stuff now? Still mom.

Mom's expenses are going to go way up formula or food, all kinds of clothes, all gadgets, everything. child care, but you're not going to adjust for it because you don't sit down and talk about your expenses. Is that fair? It's obviously not fair. No. Do you Venmo money back and forth to each other?

It's a sell payment. So we just really, if I'm running out of money, I just tell her, oh, I need $1,000. You literally Zell request her $1,000. And then what do you do, Melissa? I'll transfer $1,000. All right. How often do you do this on a given week? every first of the month.

So the bills arrive at the same time. Wait a minute. Hold on. Maybe this is just my automation brain thinking because I don't like doing work and I definitely hate logging into my bank. If it's always $1,000 on the first of the month, why not just set that up to do it automatically?

Because some months I could pay it and if I don't need to answer for money, I don't do it because I'd rather not. You guys like this? The asking for money transferred back and forth? No, because like the renters give me the money. And I've been telling Tony, if you ask them to give you the money, then you have the rent. But, I mean, we're trying to merge. Why are you trying to merge now?

Because it has been very unorganized. Yeah. And then when we realized we had even more investments that we thought. and then when we realized we had $4,000 that we didn't even knew we had, then it's like we need to put everything into one basket. Okay. It's kind of funny to me

that couples will have a baby together, but they won't combine their money. Combining money into a checking count, oh, no, no, that's too intimate. I go, huh? Let's just put the shit together. We live together. We got a baby together. We got 20 houses together.

But not combining in, My goal by the end of our call today is to convince you both to show you a reason why it makes so much more sense to put your money together. Would you be open to that? Yes. Yes. Okay. Great. Let's continue down the list here.

By the way, $189,000 of household income, what do you think about that income? Is that good, bad? What? Very good. Yeah. Tony? Great. Yeah.

It's pretty high. It's a lot of money. $189,000 and you're in your early 30s? Yeah, I mean, we started working eight years ago. Really? Working three jobs a day. What the fuck? How did you do it?

How did you make $189,000? And I have these Twitter commenters leaving me these rabid comments. And then they're telling me all these reasons they can't succeed in life and blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, the two of you making almost two hundred. $100,000 in eight years. How did you do it? We're very disciplined. Yes, I would work in the morning and then at night.

I love it. I wish every person watching this and listening to this understands what it's like to really work hard. I really wish. No, I don't actually think everyone should have to work seven days a week. I don't want that kind of life for everybody. But I think there's a time in a place where you just say, damn, we got to work.

Oh, it's Saturday. And we're going to work. Oh, it's Sunday. Okay, maybe we'll go an hour later, but we're going to work. I wish everybody could see what it takes to work really hard. And honestly, it's quite inspirational to see eight years and you're making $189,000 a year. It's really impressive.

Thank you. Can we just acknowledge the dangerous narrative in America right now around immigrants, the idea that they're committing tons of crimes and they're taking our jobs and draining our resources. Not only is it wrong, it's just stupid. The truth is immigrants are the reason that this country continues to grow. Over the past decade, nearly all job growth in the United States has come from immigrants. And right now, we are the only developed country that has managed to keep growing, not because we're special, but because we are a country where immigrants are woven into our country's very origin.

Until this administration, Americans' views of immigrants were the highest on record, and we actually have an amazing infrastructure to welcome immigrants from around the world. Do you know that other countries are not so lucky? Japan, Korea, China, they are facing serious demographic collapse.

Their birth rates are falling. Their populations are aging fast. And without young workers to support them, their economies are in serious trouble. there are actually no easy solutions for those countries. But America has been able to avoid that and thrive because of immigration. So when someone complains about immigrants, they either don't know the facts. For example, they don't know that immigrants commit less crime than native-born Americans,

or maybe just maybe they're deeply uncomfortable with people who don't look like them. I am unapologetically pro-immigration. We need far more immigration because immigrants are one of the main. drivers that make America a thriving country. I want to share that with you because this is not a show merely about someone's freaking conscious spending plan. This is a show about living a rich life, and you cannot ignore the context of how we talk about money and immigration and politics in this country. After this, we'll get back to the numbers. Why is it that people who tell me I'm stupid on social media always have the profile picture of a jar of mustard? You think I'm going to take your

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work for you, not against you, go to join gelt.com slash remit to get started. As part of this community, you'll even get to skip the wait list because this year it's not about catching up, it's about getting ahead. Can we continue on? with the rest of the numbers here. I'm very curious to look at them. A couple making 189K, what does the rest of their CSP look like? We're about to find out. Your fixed costs are 68%. That's kind of high. It's not the worst, but I'd like to see that number below 60%. And I'm a bit alarmed because with such a high income, your fixed cost should not probably be 68%. So we'll dive into that. Your investments are zero. Oh, God. That's not good.

Savings are 23%. It says that you are saving $3,000 a month for vacations, but then next to it it says not saving using credit cards. What does that mean? Why do you both smiling like that? I think we were trying to say we spend that.

You spend $3,000 a month on vacations a year. A year. Oh, and then you put it in savings. Why did you do that? Yes, I think we were just very confused. let's fix it. It's okay. Like I said, nobody gets it right the first time. It's no problem. So you're not spending $3,000 a month on vacations. You're spending $300 a month on vacations. Is that right? Yeah, if you're divided, yeah. Yeah. All right, that's good. That actually changes things a lot.

So then that means you got zero going to savings and 32% going to guilt-free spending, or $4,100 a month. I don't believe that number either No Where's the money? Well, I pay my credit card every month How much? Pretty much my whole paycheck So, 4,000

Oh So you basically take all the extra money And put it towards the credit cards Yes All right, what about you, Melissa What do you do with your extra money? Well, we've been trying to paying off the credit cards If we look at your CSP

It says to me under debt payments, it says that Melissa is paying $1,405 per month towards credit cards. Is that right or wrong? That's one of them. And it's the one from the new construction, the remaining $40,000 from $2,000. Okay. So the $4,100 a month, roughly, you're putting it all towards credit card debt. Yes.

All right. Let's take a look at the debt just so I understand it. So your debt of $899,000. I'm going to read off what it's broken down into. So you have lows at $5,827. You have a mortgage at $520,000. Primary House at $278,000. Amex at $38,000.

Bank of America at $45,000. And then it just says Tony at $12,000. What is that, a personal loan? Chase's credit card. Okay. Credit cards in red. it says 101,776. You have $101,000 in credit card debt?

Yes. What do you think about that number? It's really high. Melissa? Yes. What do you think? Extremely high. Not necessary.

How did you get the debt so high on your credit cards? Everything is construction. So are these good investments? Well, if you look at it from having to pay credit card debt and, interest, no. What do you say, Melissa? That's why we want to just get rid of real estate properties. Well, you have a lot in Cabo. You have a primary house and a rental house. The total of those is about $1.5 million. And if you have $899,000 of debt, could you not just technically just sell one or two or three things you own and then just pay off the tax?

debt and be debt free? That's what I want, yes. That's what Tony wants. Melissa, what do you say? I mean, I think it's a good start to make that shift and don't plan any more projects. All right, this all seems a little too easy, doesn't it? Oh no, we have all this debt. Hey, let's reach into our back pocket and pull out one of our multiple properties and just sell it. Abra-cadabra, problem solved. All right, that was a little convenient. But let's consider how they got here and what that means for you. Melissa and Tony haven't ever agreed on what the next logical financial step is. In fact, Melissa will say that they've made a decision and then that next week, Tony will backtrack and change his mind. If I ended this call right now, I can guarantee nothing would change.

That's because the debt is not actually their problem. Their individual relationships with money are. If you keep finding yourself in a similar pattern with your partner, you're constantly spinning in circles, you're making decisions only to have nothing change, then I want you to check out my money coaching program. It is frustrating to be stuck with money, but you can get unstuck. In money coaching, I'll help you learn the skills to figure out how to make a plan, how to talk about money, how to build a system that makes you move forward. Go to IWT.com slash money coaching to join now. Back to Melissa and Tony, remember, they haven't even combined their money yet. Listen to how disproportionate their fixed costs are. A couple of things I want to

note on your CSP. Tony, your fixed costs are at 97%. So what that means is, Tony, you're paying 97% of your take-home pay is going towards fixed costs. You take home $5,800. You're paying all the mortgage, $2,600. You're paying utility $7.30. You're paying all this stuff. So you have basically no money left over at all. Right. Basically, I just keep a couple hundred dollars in my checking account. What does that feel like? It feels like I have a live paycheck to paycheck. I don't feel like I'm making any money. Okay. Melissa, what do you think about that? I think that's why we should have merged your finances. Mm-hmm. I agree. Daycare is $960 a month. Is that going to go up with the new baby? Yes. Double. It'll double. How are you going to pay?

for that. We haven't thought about that yet. Wait, when are you going to think about the baby's coming? Sometimes I talk to parents and they're like, yeah, we're going to have a baby in like five years. Sometimes I talk to them and we're like, oh, we just found out we're pregnant. Oh, congratulations. This baby's coming. This baby's knocking on the door. Hello, world. Where's my daycare? Right now, we don't have to worry about that until like January. All right. How often do you think far ahead with your money? Like over one year. I never think about a year in advance. I always, you know, as soon as the money comes in, I just worry about paying the bills.

And I don't even have time to make a plan or a strategy. Okay. Melissa? I think it's just when we had like life-changing events or? Having a baby, siblings move out, that kind of thing. The reason I ask is that, like, if you are not planning for what to do about, child care and the baby's really coming soon, that to me is a big clue that you probably don't think about money down the road. If you're not even thinking about child care for a baby,

which is definitely going to affect your finances in a big way, then it's probably unlikely that you're thinking about things like retirement or putting money aside for an emergency fund or vacation, things like that. And from what I'm hearing from you, that's probably true. Okay, so we probably need to change that. Because if we end this call right now, I suspect you will go the rest of your life, just getting into debt, making a little bit of money over here, paying it off, going into debt, and doing it over and over until one day it's like you're in the ocean and it just engulfs you. That's it. Do you know anybody who's done that? They just go their whole life, just trying to pay off one thing and fix another and make some money and then keep doing it forever. My mother?

our parents until they lost their houses at 50 and now you're both repeating the same pattern we want to change okay Tony what do you remember about growing up with money what did your family say about money when you were young my dad was never around so my mother took care me

and she always you know try to her best to provide for me pay for my education, spoil me whenever she could, you know, buy me gifts. There was no really knowledge of this is the money you can use to save. There was always like almost living paycheck to paycheck and running out of money. And then just working again to make more. What did she say about money?

What phrases did she use? I've never really talked about money with her. She's still alive? Yes. How is she doing with money now? Struggling. She lives with one of her friends. They share a house, so they just split the rent.

You ever talk to her about money now? No. Because I know there's, I mean, if she lived her whole life like this, why would she give me advice now? Right. What message do you think you learned from your mom about money? I think I just learned, you know, you got to work. and figure out a way of surviving.

Melissa, what do you remember about your family saying about money when you were young? We didn't talk about money, but when we started like 11 years old, every time my dad will sit us down and make this list why we don't have money and why we couldn't afford these things. It was weird because we never had any extra money. But we went to good schools with scholarships. But even if I asked for shoes, it was like a big explanation or analysis of,

we're going to get them next month because these are my expenses this month and kind of thing. Ah, so he would tell you all the things that he had to spend money on for the family, and that's why you can't get your shoes right now. So was he using his explanations to teach you about money? or was it a way to not spend money that he didn't have? What was it? I mean, at that time, I was young, like 11-12.

So I felt like it was just the bottom line was, you're not get the tennis until next month, or we cannot afford that, or it's your sister's turn, or... Is that a good lesson or a bad lesson? What do you think? He could have teach me different things. Maybe that's why sometimes I didn't even ask him. I start selling things.

Like, I would sell in high school accessories for the hair. Mm-hmm. And then every day I run out of them. So then I bought more and then sell them. And then I could not ask for money. That's pretty resourceful. And then, like, the university was like, he didn't want to pay for it.

But then I got a swimming scholarship, like 80%. So then I was like, 80% like, can I go? I end up going and graduating. Did he pay the 20%? Yes. Okay. That's interesting. What happened then? So then in Mexico, the pay was very low. And that's when I met Tony and he was moving to the United States.

And then I was like, well, I have a green car. I can work there too. And then we moved together. When we move here, it just seems so easy to make. money. Uh-huh. Like, in our countries, you make $500 a month. Mm-hmm. And then here it's like, we could be waitress and make that in three days.

Yeah. Hold on. Here in this country, you're making $9,630 in a month. That's a great lesson. What else did you learn? Well, I felt like maybe this is wrong, but sitting down and running numbers with my dad was sometimes. on my perspective, pointless, because it was more light.

So this is why we cannot do that. Right. Yes. That's a very good insight. So your dad was basically Mr. No. He's saying no all the time. So when you ask him for something, you start to be like, oh, God, he's going to put me through this rigmarole of listening to all these numbers. So I don't want to run the numbers. And who is Mr. No in this relationship? Don't you? Yeah. And so neither are you.

wants to run the numbers. Tony, you're not actually talking about the numbers. Melissa, you're like, ah, I want this. It's going to be good. Tony's like, no, that feels bad. And that's the extent of that conversation. Do you notice the thing that happened with your dad around college? You asked him to pay for college. He said no. Then you got a scholarship and you tried to persuade him to pay that last 20%. I think you do the same thing with Tony. Hey, he. He said, no. Then you got a scholarship. And you tried to persuade him to pay that last 20%. I think you do the same thing with Tony. Hey, here's this project. I think we should do it.

It's going to be great. We're going to make a lot of money. Tony's like, no. You're like, ah, Mr. No, I don't care what he says. Let me just convince him. Finally, he goes, all right. Like, I don't make as much money as you, so fine. And then the two of you are not actually connected with money.

Is that accurate or not? Yes. Yes. It also gets me into this situation where I need to stop making all these projects. Because the way I show him is like, I can work more too. Keep going. You're on to something. But now we need to keep. I don't want to keep working. That hard.

Both of you are used to working a lot of hours. Oh, we're short on money. We're going to go work. That's what you do. five days a week, seven days a week, that's what you do. Who cares if it destroys your body? That's what you do. You now have a second child coming and you're doing all these projects.

And it's actually unclear if these projects are making money or not. When you factor in the credit card debt and all this other stuff, some might make money, some might not, but it's all locked up. But this idea of just let's just grind and let's just hustle more, it works until it doesn't work. Yes. Kind of interesting. What do you both notice about your stories about childhood versus how you treat money today? Well, I feel like she picked up this role of kind of being my parent. Yeah.

How would you describe it? Like, what's an example where she feels like the parent when it comes to the finances? Since she makes more money than me, she kind of has the right to make the big decisions. Yeah, I think that's one way. and even transferring you money every month, you have to ask her, please, can I have some extra money, please? And then she always does it. So that's not that, that's not the issue.

But just having to ask as an adult when both of you are making money, it doesn't feel good. Melissa, do you agree there's a parent-child dynamic here? Yes, probably. But I feel like I wanted to merge your finances a long time. Michael, but then he doesn't do it. Really? Now I like it.

This is dramatic. I didn't expect that. What happened? I think he procrastinates a lot. Okay. Like, he could be, yeah, let's do it. But then it's like a week pass by. Then we just never end up doing it.

Why is that, Tony? I've just comfortable. I don't like changes. Like if I have one bank account, that's where the money is coming out from and I don't want to go through all the process, I guess is right, just procrastination. I mean, if you don't want to change, then I can't help you do it. There's no magic abracadabra thing I can say that's going to make either of you want to change.

It doesn't exist. If you are comfortable and you like it, what am I going to do? If you want to change, I can help. if you're unsatisfied with the way money is working in your household, I can help. But if you can't open up an account that you yourself agreed to do, there's nothing I can do about it. Yeah, that's why I want to make this change and follow through and just make it happen. What's an example of a recent money change that you have made and followed through with? On my end, I haven't done anything.

So why would we expect that you're going to do anything and follow through? Because I want to do what's right for our marriage and our life together. What do you think, Melissa? I feel like sometimes you see things that he just make it sound so difficult to change the auto payments or the bills. son. I think that it's just easier than what he thinks in his mind is so difficult to change. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So how do we get through this? Because truthfully, I don't love lecturing people. What do you think is really going on here? If the two of you zoomed up and you looked at the two of you right there, down there, you're floating above yourselves and you looked at the

two of you talking to each other and this conversation, what would you notice about this conversation? that we can come up with an agreement. And that I always think of ways to try to get out of it. Yep. Just to avoid the conversation and just don't do it. What about you, Melissa? What do you notice? Things that could be fixed if we can just like really do it or follow the plan.

Like even the bank accounts, like I close all my bank accounts and just leave the one we're going to merge. So I feel like I do my part. Then I just need him to do his part to like merge that, change your direct deposit. I already did mine. I already transfer everything to savings. So then you do that setup too. What if he doesn't do his part? Well, then I'm alone with one checking. What's going to happen to him if he doesn't do his part? Why would he change? I mean, it's going to avoid him asking every month. He comes every month. He goes, hey, can you transfer me $1,000 and then what do you do? Transfer him.

Yeah, what's the problem? Yeah, I don't know where else I could do. Ask him. Tony, can you finish to set up or merge accounts and change the direct deposit? Yeah, I actually want to commit to doing what's right and making the change and not thinking twice about things. I don't find it very convincing. You know why? You've been married seven years.

You haven't even gotten around to combining your income. Come on. This idea of like we need to sit down and commit. It's just words. And that's actually not really the problem. There are people who are like, I need to work harder.

You guys work harder. If somebody asked you, how do you work harder? How do you motivate yourself to get up at the morning and go to work? What would your answer be? Discipline. Obviously, you're very disciplined. I totally agree.

Financially, maybe not so disciplined. right so if somebody asked you how do you get motivated to go to work every day you seem so disciplined how do you do it what would your answer be just do it exactly it's like if i were you i'd be like that's kind of a dumb question what do you mean how do you get up and go to work just go to work that's what you would do it's a weird question and so the same thing is true for money if you're here saying like oh i just need to finally buckle down and do my money this is just weird words. There's actually something much deeper going on here.

Perhaps the idea that Tony likes to avoid money, Melissa wants to be in charge because ever since she was a kid, she felt like she had to be in charge of money. Now, especially added on with the consideration that she earns more money than Tony, keeping money separate, Melissa has these big plans. I need to do this deal and that deal, and I always need to have something positive going on

and we can't talk about the debt, but let's just focus on the next gig and the next deal. And Tony, I know you're going to say no, because you always say no. You're the no guy, but I'm going to convince you anyway. So just keep the money coming, and I'll pay you the $1,000 to figure it out. But, like, you know, it's fine.

Like, this house is going to sell, and that land is going to sell, and then we're going to be all fine. How much of that's going on here? Everything is true. Melissa, what do you notice about what I just said? That everything is a good idea, but it's not.

Like it's on the air? It's in the air. Yes. There's no numbers guiding it. It's just like, oh, I think we should do this. I feel we should do that. Yes. What else?

Who's in charge? I think neither of us. That's an interesting comment. What do you think, Tony? Yeah, I think we just leave everything to, we'll see what happens. And nobody's in charge. Wow. I kind of would have guessed Melissa's in charge.

But I actually think your answer was better. Melissa, I agree. No one is really in charge. Melissa, you persuade Tony to do the things you want to do, even when you get $80,000 over budget. Tony, because you're kind of like, oh, whatever you want to do, Melissa, whatever, then when things go wrong, you're like, well, I didn't, I didn't even want to do it in the first place. But the fact is, neither of you are actually creating a vision, and you are certainly not bringing the other person on board. Like it would actually be easier if one of you was just the boss and you're just like, do these things, employee.

I don't want that, but that would actually at least be a little more logical. Right now, it's like, I don't know, maybe we should do this, but then if it goes bad, I'm not involved, etc. The way we learn about money does not disappear just because we move to a new country. What's interesting to me is that Melissa and Tony have managed to do quite well financially. They have a high income and a solid net worth, but in my opinion they have gotten here,

despite how they manage money. They don't talk about money. They don't run the numbers on these huge purchases of buying and flipping and selling with no clear plan. There hasn't really been any strategy. There's been a lot of hard work, but also, candidly, they've also gotten lucky. You know, there's this phrase,

I would rather be lucky than good. Not me. Luck is nice, but I never want to depend on luck for the important things in life, like money. So I think it's great that they've gotten lucky, but luck doesn't last. I need them to understand a simple way of looking at money. And that's going to start with them understanding the risk that they have put themselves in.

If nothing changes for you in the next 90 days, what will happen? We will probably run out of savings and have no money for an emergency fund. And then? keep living paycheck to paycheck and run out of investments and hopefully we don't lose our jobs and if you do we lose the house we just trash eight years of work why would you let yourself get in this position i guess because we thought we were doing the right things making the right decisions yeah i think it was my positive like everything's going to go as planned and not really seeing the risk yeah but now that

that I'm tired because I'm going to have another kid, then it's like, this is not working. Like, we need to sell and start over with a new plan. I think the new plan has to involve both of you. It has to involve serious numbers, not just feelings. And it has to be something that is sustainable. It cannot be one hustle after another. The hustle and the grinding, that works when you're in your, 20s, you're single, you can work extra, no big deal. We need to be smart now and not just count on

working an extra 10, 20, 30 hours. That does not scale. It doesn't work after a certain point. Tony, are you okay with that? Yes. What would each of you need to change in your role with each other? Well, I think my mentality, just staying more positive and just follow through. Maybe not. I'm going to give you a little bit of suggestion. I think one of the reasons that you go back and forth, back and forth, is that you're actually not really making a decision. You're just arbitrarily being like, yeah, we should do that or no, we should do that. So when you just pick something based on how you feel based on where the sun is in the sky today, then the next day you're going to feel differently about it. Maybe you slept poorly or maybe you drank a can of Coke. It doesn't matter. Real decisions for money are made based on numbers. So, if the person comes back and they start doubting you go, well, hey, maybe you're right, but let's take a look at the numbers. We made this decision based on these numbers. Have the numbers changed? Is there something that's changed differently? If not, why would we keep changing our mind? We already made a good decision based on the numbers. That's how you make effective decisions. So I think, Tony, you're going to have to become proactive, meaning not wait for Melissa to come up with an idea. You need to be an equal partner in this. And you need to actually start using numbers. Have you read my book? No. So how could you be a partner if you haven't read my book? Well, I want to now. I want to get involved.

Good. Melissa, how will your role have to change with Tony? I think I need to let him be more productive and do these ideas to me instead of me trying to convince him of my ideas, maybe just listen more of his side of view. Stop these real estate things. Yes. And let him, like, really just take care of everything. Maybe be more involved. No one's taking care of everything.

Both of you are going to be involved. But he should take care of some of the things. I agree. Yeah, I guess more involved. Yes. But in an active way, not in a... Yeah, we'll see if it sells. No, no, no, no, no.

I don't allow indecision in my financial relationship with my wife. Never! Like, let me put it this way. What's this phrase? There's some phrase about wealthy people. Touch once, deal with once or something. I don't know. The idea is basically, if we're going to talk about something,

we're going to talk about it once. And unless it's something really important, it's done. Like, hey, do we need to wash this towel because we have some guests coming over? Talk about it once. deal with it once, it's over. That's it. We're not going to let string this thing out because we got more important things to deal with.

Same thing with money. Oh, we need to open up a separate account. Okay, whose decision is it? Oh, Tony, you're going to be the one in charge of it. Okay, Tony, when's it going to be done? Tony says it's going to be done by next Tuesday. Okay, make sure you update the document. We're not talking about it again. And you make sure that the next time you talk about money, you can check in on those things so you are monitoring. But Melissa, I can see you getting a little nervous. Like, how do I know he's going to do it? Do I trust him?

You never did it in the past, etc. Tony, how do you want to respond to that? Well, I want to show her that I can do it and I will do it. Cool. Maybe some good suggestions might be that each week, you each put an hour on your calendar to work through the money items that you need to work on.

And then during that time, at the last five minutes, you can update a little document for each other or you can even just sit next to each other and tell each other what you accomplished. Right now, you need to see. start with baby steps. Over time, you can expand your level of trust, knowing that Tony has shown you, he will follow through. And Melissa, same thing for you, knowing that you will follow through as well and show Tony that. How does that sound? Right. Yeah. That's like a plan. All right. What's the

rich life vision for the two of you? For the next five years, what does a rich life look like? My idea is to travel at least once a year to a different country with my family. So I would like to not have any projects. And also I want to optimize all these monthly, like savings, investments. So it's automatic and we don't have to uncalibrate like every six months, but just automise everything. Great. So you want to automate everything. You want to... Pay off the small house, these house. Oh, okay.

If possible. All right. What about these babies? Anyone want to include them in the rich life? These babies are just sitting alone for the next five years? You're like, ah, they're more fun when they're five. I'll pick them up then. What about them?

I mean, they're part of us. That's the way I see it. Like, they'll go, I don't know, with us. Okay. That's actually a pretty good answer. Just so everybody knows, there's like a lot of cultural nuance in what Melissa just said, the idea that they are part of us, they come with us. There's a lot of cultures where the adults do what they're going to do

and the kids come with the adults. Like the kids are going to fit into the adult's lifestyle. In America, it's like quite the opposite. The idea is, oh my God, we had a kid. Now we need to spend every waking hour entertaining them and doing what they want to do. We're going to go to all the kids' shops, et cetera, and no, we can't take them to an adult restaurant

because that's not for kids. That's quite interesting. Is that how it is, Melissa, the way you think about your kids? Yeah, I just take them with me everywhere I go. It's easy for me to take care of the kids. Yeah. It was harder to raise teenagers than babies. Yeah.

Okay, cool. I love that. I love the sometimes just a subtle cultural differences that come out when people talk. I just love it. It's so, it's just a phrase you said, but it's so profound in the way that I guessing that you relate to your kids. It's really cool to be able to share a little bit of that. All right. So you're going to bring your kids wherever you go, traveling, working, etc. Is there anything about the debt in this rich life?

We don't want any debt. You want to pay off your debt within five years? Yes, if it's not sooner. Like, I wish next year. Because we never had debt until we decided to build. All right. Should we take a look at the CSP? I'm going to ask you, now that you have both described your rich life to me, I'm going to ask you what changes you want to make on the conscious spending plan. So we want to pay off all credit cards, laws, Alex, Bank of America, and Tonys. Okay, that's $101,000. Where's the money coming from?

From Kabul. Okay, that's $240K. Is that how much you're going to make? Yes. And you're going to have that soon, right? It's on the market now. We're closing this month. Great. All right. So you're going to walk away after all fees, taxes, everything with $240,000?

Yes. Great. All right. So you're going to pay off the credit cards. That's amazing. How much do you have left in debt after that? $800,000. Okay.

$800,000. So what are you going to do with the extra $100,000, however much $1,000 from your lot? Well, I would like to start an emergency. fun. Good. Why? Just so Melissa knows, I want to see how the two of you talk about this money. Well, I want to start an emergency fund because anything could happen if you lose your job and I'm stuck with me being the only, you know, the head of a household. We need to have at least six months to be prepared and see what our next step is going to be. And now that we're going to be four in the family, we need to take care of.

of our two sons. Wait, Tony, one of the things that happens with the two of you when you talk about money is each of you just says something and then you just stop talking. Like, it's not actually a conversation. Have you noticed it? Tony's just like, I want to have this because this, yeah. And it's like very unclear what is supposed to happen next. Are you asking me a question? Are you telling me something? Am I supposed to cry? What the hell is happening right now?

So I need you to continue and then like a conversation. What would you say on a first date? Oh, so what do you think? That's how I need you to talk about money. Look at this. Look at the way that you're both sitting when it comes to money. Look. Hello, everybody.

I am nervous about money. I need you both to sit up straight, lean forward, and get in the game. Let's do this. Go ahead, Tony. Tell her what you want to do and then get her involved. Okay, I want to open an emergency fund, or at least to have at least six months worth of expenses and I want to

not have any credit card debt and the rest of the money invested long term and not touch it and now worry about it if it's going up or down and just be consistent with the monthly investments. What do you think? I agree because we don't know why it's going to happen next year. Wow. Good. Okay. I love it. I don't know why I'm getting so mad as I'm saying I love it, but I love it. That was really good. Do we all just agree on what to do with $140,000?

That sounds pretty good to me. Yes. Damn. I think I'm just like, I think I'm shocked right now. This is working. Okay, the debt's getting wiped the credit card debt. All right. Goodbye. The mortgage are still going to be there for roughly $800,000. In terms of the extra $140K that's going into savings, that's a lot of money, my friends, that's more than six months. Six months would be like $48K. You're still going to have like $115,000 or something on top of that. You could invest. You could keep a little extra money in the savings account. You go, hey, our jobs are volatile or, you know, who knows, we want a little extra. It doesn't have to be six months.

Make it 12 if you want. That's fine. But you could also pay off your mortgage, depending on your interest rates. You could invest it. There's lots of options, but it's good to really think about the entire gamut. What do you think? Yes, I would like to separate some of the savings. Like, if we put 50 or 80 towards the mortgage, would it make a difference?

I don't know. We can research that. I mean, anything would help. No, that's not how we talk about $50,000 decisions. No. way. I like what you said, Melissa, we can research it. Tony, how come when she said we can research it? Your answer was, oh yeah, actually it sounds pretty good. Let's do it. Research, yes. Making random decisions for $80,000? No, we're not going to do that. Try that conversation again,

please. Maybe we should research how we can put like $80,000 or $50,000 towards the mortgage to see if it will help make a difference. We can research that. I don't know how it works. Yes, I think that's a good idea. And I'm sure it will help us, you know, paying out the mortgage faster. So I think that's a great idea. Good job. Who's doing the research?

Together. Together both. Okay, cool. One thing that couples unconsciously do is when they're not used to being decisive, they use we when they don't want to assign anyone to do it. I like we when we're talking. about we are making a decision together. That's great. But we, the grand we who doesn't actually do anything, we're not allowed to use that anymore. It's either you or I will do it. Pick one.

I would like Tony to do it. Because he asked the hard questions and I feel like I don't think about the negative parts. Nice. So, okay, that's cool. So Tony, are you cool with doing the initial research on what would happen if you put $50,000 extra towards one of your mortgages? Yes, I think that's a great idea. I'm going to research and I'm going to go through all the details and that will help us pay down the house and we're going to make it happen. Good. All right. You know, I will say if you didn't have this Cabo sale, how would you plan to pay off $101,000 in credit card debt?

We were willing to sell the other house earlier this year, even if we had to pay taxes. You know, the way you're currently paying it off just month by month, you would actually never pay it off. Did you know that? Yes, I realized that when it seems like nothing changed. Yeah. That's because interest on credit cards is really high. Even if you put an extra $900 a month towards that credit card debt, do you know how long it would take you to pay it off? Guess?

20 years? I was going to say eight or six. seven. It's almost 19 years. Oh, wow. And you would pay over $400,000 in interest. It really speaks to the idea like going and making these decisions without actually knowing your numbers, going $80,000 over budget. All of the work you've been doing for a decade. And actually for the next 20 years would just vanish because you did not sit down and run some basic calculations. when you make huge decisions, just based on what you're feeling and just what you want today, trust me, somebody is making money and a lot of the time it's not you.

You don't want that. You are so lucky that you bought this land and these houses when you did. But some of it seems like it's very good decisions and you're a GC and all that stuff is great. There's also a lot of luck. And you cannot count on luck for the long term. I think we were really lucky and that's why we, you know, when we sat down and thought about the whole process of us for the past seven years, it was like an eye-opener that we were able to do this money. But what happens if it would have gone a different way? Yes.

We probably would have been bankrupt, to be honest. That's exactly the right lesson to take away. is like, holy, we got really lucky. We got lucky despite a series of questionable decisions. We are so lucky. We should exit this as quickly as possible and completely change our strategy. Because if you did this today, you would be broke, dead broke. So I think it's awesome that you have the opportunity to sell this land.

I think that's great. I think the question of, you know, what do you do with this? rental house, that's something you should actually consider and run the numbers. You might choose to keep it. You should probably run your numbers more carefully. How much is it costing us every single month? How much profit are we making? After all fees, even the roof repair 12 years from now, all fees. Compare that to would we make more just putting it in the S&P 500? What would make us more within five years, 20 years, 30 years? Don't let the tail waggon. the dog. Meaning, don't feel like just because you had this vision of having multiple properties

that you have to. You might. A lot of people can do it. But I can tell you that if you choose to go the real estate route, you will need to become way more quantitative, way more. Buying it just based on arbitrary decision or like, I see a value, but I don't know my number, you'll get washed out one way or another. You don't want to be a landlord. You don't. Then why do you even have this rental property? Well, I realize that after renting it. So what are you going to do with this property? I would like to sell it next year. Okay, fine.

How do you feel about that, Tony? Oh, yeah, 100% want to get rid of it. All right. And then what are you going to do, Melissa? Oh, God. What are you going to do after you sell it? Invested on the estate. Oh, I thought you were going to buy another property.

No, I want to stop. You're out. All right. I learned in my business, I always modeled out like bad, medium, good. And then when my business went down, it was so bad. It went way below what I thought bad was. So my lesson was, no matter how bad it gets, it can always get worse. This is like such a horrifying lesson in life. But it's actually a good lesson too, because no matter what you think you can get, it might be 50% lower or 50% lower than that, which would be horrifying. So I say that, not just as a joke, but something to consider. Timing matters, especially when you are selling. Keep it in mind. I would like for the

two of you to read both of my books. One, start with I Will Teach You to Be Rich. I want you to do a book club where the two of you each week you alternate on who is in charge of the chapter. And you you both read it and you take notes and then you discuss that will help you set up your money it will help you make sense of these numbers and because you're going to be paying off your credit card debt etc you're actually going to have some extra money every single month well you're also going to have some extra expenses like child care but you actually have the money to cover it you actually have the money but you need to start using your money much more effectively because you're going to sell the lot you're going to fill up your emergency fund so you're not going to need to save more money for that

That's amazing. You will want to put some money aside for certain things. I want you to read my book and redo your conscious spending plan. Okay? The second thing I want you to read is money for couples. The new book I wrote for couples to talk about money. This is going to help you actually communicate about money much more clearly. You know how we talked about how you spin a lot?

Like there's no decisions that get made? That's out the door. From now on, crystal clear. it tells you the exact words to say and then you all can make it happen. Would you be willing to do that? Yes. I feel like

a relationship will be better because sometimes I feel like this is an important topic and Tony will take some leadership. I love that too. Beautiful. Tony, how about you? I feel like for the first time

we're a team and sorry I really want to hug my boyfriend go ahead Tony we got all the time in the world so yeah I feel like we're a team and that together

we're going to get through this and we're going to move forward and actually being more comfortable talking about our finances and our future

goal and family plants. I love that. I do think there is power in doing this together. Definitely. Tony never cries. Never.

Wow. I really appreciate the two of you connecting over money. You have some things to fix. There's no doubt about that. Some debt, some decisions that were maybe a little bit sloppy. We also have some stuff

that's really good. High income, ability to pay stuff off. Most people would love to be in that situation. The thing is you've got to do it together. I change the way that you talk about money. It's especially important to do it now

as you go into this new chapter with the new baby. Think about what got you here. All the last eight years, hustling, working seven days a week, grinding it out. You actually accomplished some pretty amazing things. Is that the kind of life you want in this new chapter? No, I think we need to focus on our family. And that will require change.

It will require talking about money differently, behaving with money differently, changing the way you feel about money. So that's why getting on the same page, reading some books together, sharing some of the work that you do is going to be a big, big difference. We're going to get to their follow-ups in just a second, but I first want to acknowledge the courage that it takes for any couple to come on this show and speak publicly about these things. And it is incredibly intimidating for native English speakers. Melissa and Tony did it in their second language. So massive compliments to them. Now, I have to admit that this conversation was also

hard for me. There are a lot of cultural differences that I'm not privy to. I don't know what it's like to grow up in Mexico. I don't know what it's like to grow up in the socioeconomic class that they did. I don't know what it's like to be a first generation immigrant who's responsible caring for young siblings. So this is one of those conversations where we had a gap among all of us, but I'm still glad that we talked. It gives me a lot of empathy for what my guests experience. On this podcast, I don't want to pick the easiest conversations. I don't want to pick the ones that are just guaranteed to go viral on social media. I want to pick the most meaningful ones. And sometimes those conversations are really hard. They're messy. But I try to challenge myself. That's why I do live tours where I bring couples on stage

not knowing what they're going to say in front of a thousand people. Or having conversations with couples where I don't fully understand their cultural context. Probably I'm getting 15% of the things that I said today wrong. That's okay. I accept that. I hope my couples do as well. Despite those challenges, Melissa and Tony made real progress today. They finally saw that hustling, the skill that got them here

and got them new footing in a new country, can be a strength, but at a certain point you've got to go beyond hustling. With a new baby arriving any day now, they have the chance to build a calmer, steadier kind of life. Obviously, they have the drive. Now they have the chance to give their family the stability that they have been chasing all along.

Let's check their follow-ups. Hi, Ramid. Thank you for having us on your podcast. It really helped us a lot. Reading the books have also opened our minds and every time it's easier to talk about money. So I just want to say that my biggest surprise during our conversation was that I really had these mixed feelings,

and it was very hard for me to look at the real numbers. And I always wanted to do like a next step, biggest plan, taking risk. So I'm going to stop. That's my takeaway. And Tony's going to take the leadership now, but we're also going to talk about our future goals without making new projects or crazy investments.

Yeah, I think for me was that before it was very stressful and I had fear of talking about money because I didn't have a plan. But now that we have the CSP and we have something, a goal to work towards I feel more comfortable, it's very nice to talk with my wife you know, after reading the book and we have our goals for the future. And my biggest takeaway is, I know you mentioned, I needed to be more proactive.

And the first thing we did is actually opened up our joint checking account. So I don't feel anymore like I'm, you know, not having any money on my accounts. Now we both have and we can use, you know, the same account to set up the recurrent payment. for our investments, for our kids' college fund, you know, retirement account and savings. We're closing our lot in carbon 15 days, so we're going to pay off all deaf. We did the new CSP, how it would look like, and our fixed cost is at 49%. And our free guild is 24%. So we have a remaining of $5,500 that we're going to do.

So we're doing $500 towards our kids' college. We put in $1,000 towards retirement combined, $500 towards stocks, and $500 setting aside for vacation each month. We also were able to cut $1,000 from our fixed cost by cutting $1,000. 130 on phone. I post my gym membership of 175, stop spending the clothes allowance of 200, and groceries are needing out another 500. So I think we're on a good track. We hope next year we're going to sell the big house to pay off the small house. So I think we'll be in the next chapter next year. So this is very exciting. I don't feel stressed about having the baby anymore.

And I think this has been great for our relationship too. Yes, it's really very, it's more like couples therapy also. So, you know, like I said on the podcast, I feel like we're a team. We're working towards, you know, our mutual goal and we are going to make it happen. So thank you again so much. It really changed my mindset moving forward. And we have your book here. We have homework still to do.

Yeah, we still have some homework to do. But we appreciate it. All your help. Thank you. Bye-bye. If you want my help with your specific money questions, you can apply to be on this podcast at IWT.com slash apply. Or you can try.

become a member of my money coaching program instantly at IWT.com slash money coaching. In money coaching, you get access to monthly 90-minute group coaching calls with me. We go deep on a single money topic, one that has been transformative to me, and you have the chance to ask me questions in our live Q&A. Plus, you'll get access to a community of other people like you who will inspire you and push you to live your rich life. Check out money coaching at IWT.com

slash money coaching.