Money For Couples with Ramit Sethi - 104. “We’re worth $1.25M, so why is he afraid to get a $15 gym membership?”

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

Stacey is 37 and Jesse is 38. They’ve been together for 18 years, married for 11. They started with nothing, but now they make $238,000 a year. Their numbers are healthy, maybe even too good. So what’s the problem? Stacy’s designed their financial system with no room for Jesse to participate in it. This episode is brought to you by: Calm | Go to https://calm.com/ramit for 40% off unlimited access to Calm’s entire library. LMNT | Right now, LMNT is offering 8 single serving packets FREE with any LMNT order. This is a great way to try all 8 flavors. Get yours at https://drinklmnt.com/RAMIT. Nomorobo | To protect yourself and your family from phone scams, go to https://nomorobo.com/ramit for a 14-day free trial. Rocket Money | Stop throwing your money away. Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to https://rocketmoney.com/ramit. Links mentioned in this episode • Download the Conscious Spending Plan • Get the Podcast Newsletter every Saturday • Get my New York Times best-selling book Connect with Ramit • Get Money Coaching with Ramit  • 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. Produced by Crate Media.

If you or your partner has fallen for a scam, I want to help, especially if you've recently fallen for an email or text scam, or you've gotten bad financial advice from someone who did not keep their promises, or maybe you just have not even told your partner because you are embarrassed. If this is you, I want to talk. Apply for free coaching with me by being on my podcast. Apply today at IWT.com slash apply. That's IWT.com slash apply. Let me share some of the coolest ways that my community has recently used money to live a rich life. One member did a month-long honeymoon in Europe after deciding she didn't want a big wedding. Another member bought a VW SUV that was their dream car that they've wanted for years.

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amazing vacations. That was one of my favorites where I shared how I spend my money on travel, plus Q&A directly from me. If you want to start building your rich life today, join us and get instant access to our back catalog of years of live calls. Check out IWT.com slash money coaching to join now. That's IWT.com slash money coaching to join the program right now. I find finance discussions intimidating, threatening almost at times, awkward. I'm very avoidant to the conversations. Jesse is not a planner.

Jesse, would you agree with that? Yes, I'm very fly by the seat of the pants. How would you describe the way you feel right now? Mad at myself. Because I don't think I realized what I created. What did you create? An environment where, you know, Jesse doesn't see the big vision of what he's capable of doing.

I'm sorry, Jessie, love you so much, but it's so clear that you're so anxious on this conversation, the deeper we get in, because, like, you're using, like, buzzwords to try and, like, talk effectively instead of just being, like, yourself. I want Jesse to be interested in what we're doing with our money. And I feel like I created that.

Like, I've created this dependent. relationship. That's not sustainable. Meet Stacey, who's 37, and Jesse, who's 38. They've been married for 11 years and they live in Canada. What makes them fascinating is not the fact that Stacey makes five times what Jesse makes.

It is the dynamic between them. For example, when they got invited to be on this podcast, they first attended a screening call with my producer. And here's what Stacey wrote. I booked time Thursday for the screening call and added my husband Jesse's email to the invite. He may be able to join too. This is actually a huge red flag. We require both partners to be on the call.

We state that very clearly. So the fact that she took the lead and said he may be able to attend got our antenna up. How would you handle it if you had a relationship dynamic where one person took the lead on everything and wished that the other would get engaged. Well, we're about to find out as you listen to this conversation with Jesse and Stacey, you can watch this entire episode on YouTube, and I always love to do that because it lets you see their body language and facial expressions, which gives you a whole new insight into the dynamic between the two of them. All right, let's get to it.

The day I applied to go to the show, to be on the show, was a day where Jesse and I were arguing around. He was debating to get a gym membership. So he's had some physical ailments in the last couple of years. His physiotherapist recommended a gym, or rather a treadmill. We don't want to buy a treadmill to fit in the house. So there's a gym your house and near Jesse's business. that he can easily go to. It's like 15 bucks a month.

And he hemmed and hawed about like whether we could afford it. And I was like, we're not poor anymore. We can afford that. It made me realize, A, he doesn't understand that. And B, that such an insignificant amount of money per month, he felt like he had to figure a way around not spending it instead of just talking to me about the expense. And so what happened?

We had like a discussion about it. And I was like, we're not poor anymore. Like you can get this. And I think it still took him two weeks to actually buy the gym membership. When you said, we're not poor anymore. What was Jesse's response? Yeah, I think, yeah, I know, but. But what?

But like I can figure out a way to like not spend this money or maybe I'll look into cheaper options. But I'm like, you're not really good. going to find a cheaper gym. It's already a discount gym. A lot of very sensible reasons. Did it work? Yes, but it took him, I think, a couple of weeks to buy it and like pull the trigger. Jesse, what happened in that conversation? What do you remember the first glimmer of the treadmill discussion being? I dragged my feet on a lot of like random expenses because I'm always trying to save money. Why? I just have it in my head that, well, I mean, I don't personally make a whole lot.

So I feel like the household doesn't initially make a whole lot, which is not really the case. About a week later, I did finally pull the trigger, got the membership. And I've been trying to do as much stepping or walking, sorry, as I can to heal my ankles. Cool. I'm glad you got the membership. Thank you. Would you consider that discussion or series of discussions a success? Yes. Oh, 100%. But I still try and tighten my belt. And to Stacey's point, I do it nonsensically at times, as this instance was. I'm just a very uncomfortable spending money. Always been like that? Yes. All right. Gotcha. When you eat out, do you eat every single thing on your plate? Yes. Your parents taught you that? My father, yes.

What did he say? Oh, God. A lot of, like, father-esque things. Like, if you don't eat that, they're starving children in Africa. It was a very common line. Oh, God. You can't leave the dinner table until you're done. Right.

That sort of thing. Okay. Okay, cool. All right. I got it. I don't even like spending money on public transit. If it's within, you know, tens of kilometers, maybe I'll bike it. It doesn't matter weather or anything.

Just to save myself, six bucks. If it's raining, I think a more rational person, I feel would probably just spend the money for public transit, whereas I would prefer not to. Got it. All right. Hearing what you just told me, Jesse, and really listening to yourself and what you just said to me,

do you hear any themes? I noticed that I'm very, I don't want to say miserly, but that's probably a really good word about it. to use. Miserly means what? I want to keep what possession I have

because I don't have Marzley is a poor word because I don't I feel like I don't have a lot. And for the longest time I didn't were somewhat better. I don't have a very steady income for the past year because I just started a new business. So it's been really

messing with my brain on how much funds we have available to spend. So what else do you notice about your answers to me. If you were like a scientist examining the transcript of what you just told me, what would you note? That I'm uncomfortable, spending, nervous, uncertain. Because he's not involved in the finances, he doesn't know where that threshold is. He still thinks that threshold for what we can spend was the same when we were in our early 20s. I want Jesse to be like, I'm getting this gym membership.

It's $15. This is the decision I'm making and just buy it. This is what I mean when I say focus on the $30,000 questions, not the $3 questions, or in this case, the $15 gym membership questions. Jesse's gone for such a long time agonizing over whether to join this gym, all for $15. Imagine the costs of worrying about a $15 purchase

and all the opportunities that you're leaving aside. And with people who worry about tiny questions like this, it's never just one purchase. In fact, with Jesse, there was a worn out bag that he didn't want to replace. There was a desktop computer that he used until it completely failed. He bikes or walks around town to save $6 even when it's raining. My point is not that you should just spend money on everything.

My point is that some people live there in time. entire lives trying to spend as little money as possible. And that has significant costs. There's a pretty cool TikTok trend going around right now that I really love. It's called admin nights. Basically, you get your friends together, you get some snacks, maybe some drinks, and you do all the infrastructure stuff in life that most of us skip over. If you're going to set up an admin night, here's my suggestion for you. Use Zoc Doc to book your health appointments, and you will be done fast. Zocdog is a free app and website that helps you find and book high quality in network doctors

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Yeah, no money. No money. I was a musician dropping out of college going on tour. When did you start to make some amount of money, a comfortable amount of money? 26, 27. So let's go back to when you were in your early 20s, even 25, 26, 27. When you would talk about money, what were those conversations like? Our roles were very much reversed because Stacey was in school until she was 20, 24, 25.

24. And I had a full-time job just in retail. Since I was the, I'm not one for talking finances and I was the one with all the funds, we really didn't have a lot of conversations back then because we stayed in a really, really cheap apartment. So it wasn't that difficult to live the life we wanted without actually thinking about anything. And it seems like you were on the upswing with your income at that point. as well. Okay. Yes. All right. So at what age did the rolls reverse where you, Stacey, started making more money? 27. So you started making more than him. What changed when you started making more than him?

I made the life decisions. Like anything that was a financial life decision. So we had this huge lump sum for a down payment. And then we went to find another home. I made the decisions around how we saved for that, how much we put down. Did you get Jesse involved in those decisions? Shake it as I'm like, I don't remember. Probably not. Probably very little. Yeah. It's more like I do all the homework. Who is the one who tracks the spending, makes sense of the spending, manages the spending? Stacey. Okay. Who's the one who plans investments, decisions about big, okay, that's Stacey. Stacey, you do everything with the money.

Yes, everything. So I'm, like, very much a type A planner organized. You don't say. No, shocking. So you do the homework. What does that mean homework? We had a lump sum of money. How much?

I can't remember. 200 grand. You know, it was up to me to figure out, like, where could we find it for to home? What was going to be the best value so that we could live the life we wanted to live? And it was up to you because what? Jesse is not a planner. Oh. Jesse, would you agree with that?

Yes, I'm very fly by the seat of the pants. And Jesse, what is your role as it relates to money in your relationship? Not a lot. You know, I once remember I hired a consultant when my business was in trouble. And he came in, he took a look at all the numbers and he said, tell me what you were doing when your business was at its peak. And tell me why you stopped. So I walked him through all the initiatives that we used to do,

and I laid out all the very rational reasons that we stopped it, the cost of revenue was too high for this program, et cetera. He gave it some thought, and he said, I recently spoke to another CEO, business is also in trouble, and he had very good reasons for every decision that he made, just like you. You can have all the right reasons and still get the wrong outcome. In Stacey and Jesse's case,

They both have stories that are not serving them and certainly not getting them the outcome they want, or at least Stacey wants. Stacey describes herself as type A, which, by the way, is not really a thing, and they both agree that Jesse is bad with money. But how would they ever know? They've never really given Jesse responsibility

and accountability over money itself. You grew up poor or lower middle class? Lower middle class. And what about you, Stacey? What did you grow up? Both. Lower middle class. You grew up the same?

Yeah. Are both your parents together or are they separated? No, they separated when I was five. Yeah. Who'd you live with primarily? My mother. Okay. And what's your mom like?

She is also very cautious about her money and spending. We both were raised by immigrant mothers. And we were both raised to be like, make the most of what you have, work really hard to have what you have and don't take stuff for granted. Jesse takes that really to heart. And I think I'm at a point in my life. We were both like that. I think we're on the same page.

I don't think we'd be where we are today if we didn't have that mentality when we were younger. What do you remember her saying about money growing up? Well, we didn't like enjoy anything. Like we didn't go on vacations. We went on one. My entire childhood. Yeah. Like my parents sacrificed a lot so that they could help pay for my university.

But I'm proactive where so my mom and I think my dad, who are still together, they think life happens to them. I think I control my own destiny. And I've lived my entire life with that M.O. So, you know, if just... Where'd you get that from? Flight or fight mode is like what I live in constantly. So I'm always thinking plan A, B, or C. Do you have siblings?

Yes. Are they the same as you? Yes, my brother, yeah. I have one brother. I'd say, yeah. So you both have taken control of your lives, you sort of carved out your own path. And would you say that your parents are still more passive?

Yes. Wow, that seems to get a nerve. Yes, bless them, but they are. They drive me crazy. They're passive, like what? They don't want to confront any issue. Restaurant sends a wrong thing. They just take it.

They never send it back, that kind of thing. Yes, they will get taken advantage of. They are retired, but like don't take advantage of like their retirement. Yeah. How are they doing financially? I don't know. Why? What? They don't tell us.

What? Yeah. So I think most of their... Do you know how much money they made when you were growing up or whatever? Yeah, like I say we were like lower middle class as well. My dad worked for the government, had like an average salary and it was just him. My mom stayed home. So you decided to take control your money.

You're on top of it. How many different Excel spreadsheets and budgets do you have? Tell the truth. One Google spreadsheet, but it probably has 20. hidden tabs over the last 10 years. How did I know that? And how diligent have you been in tracking your spending? Let me guess extremely.

Go ahead. Correct. We both have used an app that I love for the last 10 years to track every expense. Anytime we swipe our credit card, it goes in. And I train Jesse to do same thing. Jesse, you do that? Yep. I am not as diligent as her.

but yeah, it will track down to the penny, even on cash. And what does that get both of you? It's very satisfying for me to have the data to tell me what we're spending on. It actually helped us when we were filling in the conscious spending plan. You mean, when you personally were filling it in? No, no, no, we did it together. We did it together. What?

I don't believe that. 100%. To be clear, she filled it out once by herself prior to having the conversation with your coworker. That's not doing it together. What are you talking about? But we did do it together. Again. Again.

Okay. This is before she told me we were appearing on this podcast. All right, fine. So you track everything. You're tracking like the price of Brussels sprouts over time so you can trend that from 2010. But like how much we spend on groceries per month, you know, clothing, transportation. How many categories do you have?

More than we should. How many? Tell me. Tell me. Hang on. She's going to pull it up right now. This is amazing. Oh, my God. Look at that.

She's like, finally, it's been 13 years and finally someone asked me a question about my app. Okay. Tell me how many categories. Do you want subcategories too as well, Stace? Eight high level categories. No, I want all of them. Don't, don't BS me. Oh, wow.

She just took like a deep swallow. Whoops. Probably. Probably. Everybody watch. However long this takes, I'm going to run completely dead air. I will burn literally gigabytes right now, just watching them. Look, he's still counting.

This is unbelievable. 32. 32. Wow, so simple. You ever hear me say that phrase? Fight for simplicity in your finances. You ever heard me? Yeah, she's going, yeah.

She goes, yeah, that's a great phrase. I chose not to adopt that. That's great for other people, not for us. I'm learning. I'm learning. Okay. This is hilarious, but also fucking insane. Tracking four categories like in my conscious spending plan is good.

Tracking 32 categories is absolutely bonkers and it gets you nothing. Correction, it gets you a sense of control but does not actually get you closer to your goals. There's an epidemic of us doing things that make us feel productive but actually accomplish nothing whatsoever. And tracking 32 categories is a perfect example of that. And you can tell because when I asked what they got out of it, there was a very long silence. Their tracking, excuse me, her tracking is more like scratching a scab off, a little tick that makes her feel better in the temporary moment, but it's certainly not giving them the information as to how to save, how to invest, how to spend their money going forward.

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Shopify.com slash Ramit. Go to Shopify. com slash Ramith. That's Shopify. dot com slash remit. So what changed two years ago? We went to couples counseling.

Because of this? It was heavily influenced by money and finances and stuff. Good. I'm glad to hear that you did. Has that been helping? Yes. Oh, yes. I think we still don't have.

the tools in our toolkit to communicate effectively about money. Because I feel like I'm always pulling Jesse along. I want Jesse to be interested in what we're doing with our money. Okay. That's honest. I appreciate that. And Jesse, what do you want in your own words? To be less uncomfortable with money.

Can I ask a couple questions, Jesse? Of course. Do you want to be engaged with money in the relationship deep down? No, I find finance discussions intimidating, threatening almost at times, awkward. I'm very avoidant to the conversations. And are you avoidant in other parts of life? Yeah, I avoid confrontation quite a lot. Have you made that connection before?

Yes, oh, yes. All right. So deep down, you don't want to engage with money. That's what you're saying. Yes. That is like my base. But, you know, through counseling, through talking for gears, I know that that's not productive. And I would like to change. Okay. What's the consequences for both of you if nothing changes? A lot of, probably a lot of resentment, maybe divorce. Yeah, I'd say, I'd say resentment. I've felt that before. The life we've kind of set up in the last year is I handle the finances and work. Like Jesse works too, but like my job was like bringing in the income and Jesse takes care of the household,

social engagements, groceries, the things we need for the home. I think the other thing too is we started to. talk about like planning our rich life like what are our goals because when we were younger it was just like get a home it was such a big goal for so long now it's like what are the goals we're going to have for the rest of our life okay we want to do this by this year how do we work backwards from that and I find that I'm the one who always is figuring out how to work backwards from that I'd like to see a little bit more input. Because it would mean what?

I'm not the only one creating the life we want. And if you're the only one, what does that mean? I just don't, that doesn't feel like a relationship. What is it? It's like we're roommates. Like we're not creating our life together. She's very much just dragging me along for the ride. Are you enjoying the ride?

I would be lying if I said I wasn't enjoying the comfort that she is she has given us because she makes considerably more than me and is you know infinitely better at finances than I am but I don't want that to be the status quo. Are you uncomfortable in any other parts of life? Parts of life that you're good at. Like last night I went out to eat Indian food. and I got it really spicy. So when I eat really spicy food, I start to sweat a lot.

My eyelids are sweating. The back of my head is itching. I'm like wiping away like lots of sweat, right? I was physically uncomfortable, but I also love it. I'm good at it. I know how to eat Indian food. There are parts of life sometimes that we are uncomfortable at, but we're good at it or we enjoy it.

Do you have any parts of life like that? Yes, so as a musician, I am a very crippling stage fright. Okay. And at least I would like to think I am very good at performing. Wow, a great example. I couldn't have named a better one myself. So stage fright, that's very uncomfortable, but somehow you still get up there and you perform and you do well, right?

I like to think so, yes. How about you just say yes? Yes. Love it. Okay. So is it possible that you... you might feel a little uncomfortable with money, and you might also be a very good participant in your relationship. Yes, I hope so. Okay. How about let's try that again. Is it possible?

Yes. Okay. I agree. I agree. It's okay to be uncomfortable when you're first starting to learn about money, talk about money, think about money differently, and you can be a good participant. To be fair, it was a rather important decision that I had to partake in because I had to close my checking account in order to join hers when we combined our checking accounts. We think of our money as like a communal pot. It's not like Jesse pays a certain percentage based on his income versus me. Who made that decision, by the way? We've always done it that way since we were poorer. I do believe it was your decision, though, when we joined accounts.

Back in 2012, I believe. Guy pulls out receipts. Part of what I do, I had an old boss that said the art of what I do is facipulation, which is I facilitate, but I'm really manipulating people around efficient. Wow, that's so interesting. Any connection to what's going on here? Anyone? Okay.

Do you see my point? Yeah. Yeah. You take something and say, here we go. This is what I want to do. And you even use words like, this is what we want to do. Yes. We set a budget.

Yeah. I know. Is it working for you? Well, I'd say the budget has worked pretty well. We do pretty well with our lives. The unintended consequence was Jesse's passive viewer versus a participant. Do you want them to be? No.

What role are you playing in Jesse not speaking up forthrightly about what he wants? Well, because I'm in control and probably because we've been together for 18 years, just our life is an example. Jesse makes what 20% of what I make. So like the life he has is from my labor. You know, California has had a drought for many years. And this year, suddenly there was a ton of rain. And all of a sudden, people realized that California is not capturing the rainwater. The water just flows right out to the ocean.

Everyone said, what? We need to capture this rainwater. Well, the system was designed decades ago to get rainwater out to the ocean as quickly as possible. And guess what? That is exactly what the infrastructure does. efficiently and quickly. Like California, Stacy is getting

exactly what she designed for. Careful tracking over their spending, which she does. Total control over their money. For her. Decisions they ostensibly make together, but she really makes. She's getting everything she designed for

except the one thing she claims she wants. For the two, two of them to do it together. If we both have goals, I want a partner who participates equitably in achieving those goals. Do you know if he has goals? Jesse, do you have goals? I have goals with my business. And that's about it in my life at the moment.

I'm not sure what else to say. What do you think hearing that, Stacey? It's a symptom of like Jesse doesn't really like think ahead and just kind of like life happens day by day we'll figure it out. Why does that concern you? Because then you're never thinking of like

how life can be better. I try and like get Jesse to dream bigger. You try to get him to dream bigger. How do you do that? By providing. I have worked really hard to provide a life so that he doesn't have to worry about money as much so that he can do something more adventurous. So he just started a business last year and I, like, encouraged him to do that

because he was working retail and I'm like, you can't work retail forever. When you say to him, you can't work retail forever. When you say to him, you can't work retail forever, what message are you communicating to him? I'm probably communicating that, like, the path he's chosen is not ideal or, like, it won't lead to success. It, like, won't make you happy forever. It'll wear you down.

It was wearing on his body. Do you think that he knew that deep down, that retail was probably not good for him physically? probably deep down. But he wasn't making a change, was he? No. And so you decided to what? Shabham off a clap.

Well, let's ask Jesse. Jesse, take us back to the time where you were working retail. How much were you making back then? 65K at the very end. Okay. And did you enjoy the job? I enjoyed the job up until COVID happened. And then we basically became a warehouse, even though I was retail management.

They basically treated me like a workhorse and I broke my body. You're still recovering from that now? Yeah, two years later. Still, I'm on the better end of it, but yes. I'm sorry to hear that. So you were kind of put into this labor role and that was tough on you. How long did you do that for? Six years.

in that one position. Sorry, for that one company. I've been retail for two decades. Okay. Oh, you've been retail for two decades? Thereabouts, yeah. Okay. Did you enjoy it for two decades?

Yeah, I thought it was pretty good at selling stuff. Great. And what would you say to her about your day at work? Of course. So, as Stacey's already familiar, but I'll say it again, My manager at the time didn't come in today, called out, and I had to do her job, my job, and probably 10 other jobs. And I'm not getting paid for this. And I've complained to her boss about this for the umpteen time.

And nothing is changing. Stacey, go ahead and respond the way you used to respond. Have you tried? Oh, that's all I need. That's all I need. Thank you very much. What do you notice is happening in that dynamic? One person is venting.

One person is trying to problem solve. Imagine that someone shoves you one time, ten times. Imagine they shove you for 18 years. At a certain point, it becomes hard enough to even remember how to walk on your own. Yeah. You think that might be happening here? Yeah. I think you hit the nail on the head.

You two are talking past each other. Stacey's looking off into the orbit right now. She's realizing... She did this today. She did it today. I'm pushing him off the cliff again. It's highlighted that I have like years of habit to break. Jessie, you see the issue?

You have no fingerprints on your finances at all. You're merely a passive observer in your financial life. And she doesn't like it. And if she gets hit by a bus tomorrow, you're fucked. Actually, he's not. That is a conversation we have had. Life insurance. What do you mean?

He can get a big old life insurance check. That doesn't mean he's going to know how to use it. That's true. Stacey controls everything financially related in their relationship and therefore disempowers Jesse. When Jesse has a problem, she tries to solve it, thus further disempowering him. This is a classic example, only it's usually with the genders reversed. And Stacey really has a massive blind spot around how she's helping Jesse.

Even in the last comment where I pointed out that Jesse would be screwed if she got hit by a bus, her response was actually not. She really believes that handing over a check from her life insurance would help Jesse who's functionally unable to deal with money in his 30s. Her disempowerment has lots of costs that are totally invisible to her. But I think she's, she's starting to realize them. And Jesse plays a part in this. He's sitting back, relaxing, Stacey's running around, tracking 32 categories. Why would he change? Life is good. The dynamic is really what stands out to me. So in order to understand it more, let's take a look at the numbers. Their combined gross monthly income is $19,867. Their gross annual income is $238,000. Assets,

$1.32 million investments, $319,000, savings $50,000. Their debt, a mortgage is $435,000, therefore bringing their network to $1.25 million. How do you feel about $1.2 million in your 30s? I think I've done very well for myself. Okay. And I hope to grow it further in the next 30 years. Good. All right. That's a good answer. I love that answer. It's very confident. Did it feel real to you to say? No. A lot of it is in our house, so not a whole lot of it is liquid. So what does that mean?

When I say the number aloud, my first thought is, wow, we're doing pretty well for our age, where we're living. But then my second thought is not a lot of it is accessible or usable, even in retirement. You like to worry? Less so than Stacey, but yes, still. What do you get out of it? Out of worrying? Yeah. I worry a lot that what you had just mentioned,

and Stacey and I've had that very same conversation many times before, that if she suddenly is out of the picture for whatever reason, I am in a lot of trouble. because if she were hit by a bus, by the way, I love this morbid conversation where we're talking about one person's premature death who just happens to be sitting right in front of us. We're okay, we're both European.

We talk about death a lot. Fantastic. All right, great. So if she were to get, you know, hit by a bus, you still have $1.2 million and you're a young, able-bodied guy. So it's not the number that could, concerns me. It's that everything beneath it, which is you would have no idea how to manage it on a day-to-day basis, no idea how life insurance works, no idea what investments are or how

they interact with your savings. None of it. Would you agree? I would agree. And more to that effect, I also don't even have a lot of working income because I just started a business in a market that is not known for making any money. And how long are you going to go on that business before deciding if it's worth it or not? Ideally until retirement, the goal is to grow it through expansion. Okay, great. How much do you need to make from this business? In order for me to maintain where we are now? I don't know. Just how much do you have a goal for how much you're going to make with this business?

My goal is to double that within the year. 4,000 a month. Okay. That's good. And would you be happy? Would you be satisfied at that number? I would, yes. But again, that is, I would be happy with that number if I still have a loving and healthy wife.

All right. Stacey, do you see what the dynamic that you have co-created has done here? She's nodding. Say it out loud. I think what I heard was. One, I don't, like, if Jesse does not have the means to manage financially, if I'm not around, and then two, what I heard is with regards to his business, just like small goals, a small sense of what could be. Yeah.

Like $4,000 a month. While impressive for a business to start, I mean, Jesse used to make $65,000. thousand in retail. Like, shouldn't a business make more than you can make working retail? Jesse? Yes. I'm not blaming you. You haven't been given the authority.

You haven't been given access. You haven't even been encouraged to take control of some of these aspects of finance. But it's now caused some really serious effects that are not even obvious right now. Let's also remember you're not in dire financial straits. you have tons of money, $238,000 a year. Is that a lot or a little? What do you think? I'm proud of what I have achieved personally in terms of like my own career success.

But I never feel good about money. Yeah. Because I always think they're like, we need more buffer. Right. Oh, if you make an extra 50K, maybe you'll feel good then. I won't. No. I absolutely won't.

Who taught you that? You did. That's so crazy, though. But what if you make 100K? Would you feel better then? No. No, because I'll never feel like it's enough. I'll continue to worry.

If I was richer, I'd be like the folks you have on the podcast who have like five million in their 30s and I would still be crazy. I could literally calculate the exact month that you're going to have that much. And you're right. You will come back on the show and feel exactly that way. it's a guarantee unless we make some changes. Yes. What do you think those changes and broad strokes have to be, Stacey?

I need to share responsibilities and actually share them and hand them off, not continue to partially own them. I think the other thing, why I don't know if Jesse was feeling this way, but why I was quiet just now is like, I always thought, encouraging Jesse to start his own business was such a good, like I thought I did a good thing. And I'm feeling like I didn't do a good thing. How so? Because I probably like coached him in the direction to go instead of like really just letting him make his own decisions. And then now he doesn't dream big enough. How would you describe the way you feel right now?

Like mad at myself. Mad. Why mad? Because I don't think I realize what I created. What did you create? An environment where, you know, Jesse doesn't see the big vision of what he's capable of doing, whether that's finances. And I'm sorry, Jesse, love you so much.

But like, it's so clear that you're so anxious on this conversation, the deeper we get in because, like, you're using, like, buzzwords to try and, like, talk effectively instead of just being, like, yourself. And I feel like I created that. How do you receive that, Jesse? A little confused, a little frustrated. The way I've created, structured my business, it likely will never grow. beyond a certain point.

How much? I don't know exactly what the dollar amount is, but probably not much more than four to six K a month. I know that that causes Stacey a lot of anxiety and pain. Do you want to talk to her about it? I feel conflicted, Stacey, because you push me. I feel rightly so into pursuing this business. And I am happy that you,

did and I am happy with the company that I've created for myself but it also pains me to know that I will be unable to financially contribute as much as you ideally would like as much as I ideally would like in a perfect world so it's it's it's difficult Do you have a question for her? Go ahead. Ask the question that you're afraid to ask. When I lost my job and you said, Jesse, start your business, do something that you love. You have a number of hobbies.

Make money doing one of them. And I pursued it. And I felt I was up front about how it would not be a great moneymaker. But I need to know if you understand that. The thing I'm going to push back on you is I think yourself inducing that limitation before you start. You're saying it's never going to be bigger. You create your own destiny.

And I didn't ask for a specific number. And you don't have to make a certain amount. But what really pains me in this conversation is I'm worried. I created an environment where you're not even, um, it's not about trying. it's that like you're, I don't know if like you really believe that having one location of your rehearsal studios or two locations is enough or you could even dream bigger. I feel like you're

hemming yourself in before you can even explore the possibilities. It's not really about what I expect because we can live off my income. That's why I pushed you to do that. If $4,000 is as much you're going to make in the next year and then that might be the next 10 years. I'm fine with that. Honestly, if I were in Jesse's shoes, I would be really confused right now. First, Stacey told me that, yeah, it's okay. I don't earn a lot of money. Then she told me I should start a business, which I did. Then she wants me to earn more money. But a few seconds later, she says, it's okay if I don't earn more money. Stacey's message is that she wants control, but she also wants Jesse to participate. But when he tries, she says, not like that. This is all very confusing.

One of the most shocking things I've learned from this podcast is that almost all of the couples who come on my show with 10 out of 10 money problems have never read a single book about personal finance. Not just my book, they never read any book about money. You'll note that when people talk about money, it is very easy to dream about what they want. And actually, I like dreaming. It's good. We should dream. We should come up with our rich life vision.

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offering $300 into your brokerage account if you invest and maintain $5,000 within your first 90 days. You can head to facet.com slash remit to learn more about which membership option is best for you. Facet is an SEC registered investment advisor. I'm not a member of Facet and I have an incentive to endorse Facet as I have an ongoing fee-based contract for cash compensation based on this endorsement. All opinions are my own and not a guarantee of a similar outcome. I have this email software that I love so much. for it personally. And just 20 minutes ago, I used one of its AI tools. I'm currently doing a pitch to

some journalists for this story that I want to run. And I said, go through my emails for the last two years, identify every top tier journalist that I've interacted with, and then sort them based on this story that I want to pitch and pull their email addresses for me. It did it in 20 seconds. You can use this software called Superhuman. Today's sponsor, Superhuman is an AI native email and calendar for busy professionals and teams. It learns your voice so we can pre-draft email responses for you. This stuff is important because momentum is what helps you drive forward. The auto draft feature that I mentioned that drafts follow-ups for you automatically also schedules replies so nothing falls through the cracks. You can make sure that somebody responds to you if you need to check in on it.

It's all automatic. And its auto archive feature can help you keep your inbox clear by letting you automatically archive entire categories of emails. So they never even hit your your inbox. My favorite thing of all is how fast this software is. You can do everything from the keyboard. You can use shortcuts like you wouldn't believe. You can get through tons of emails in minutes. My team and I at IWT use superhuman. We love it. And I think you will too. Turn your inbox into momentum. Sign up for superhuman mail today. Go to superhuman.com slash remit three and try it for yourself. That's superhuman.com slash remit three, the number three. It's quite the weight off my chest to hear that out loud.

It feels like it's always something moving over my head where I worry. Because, you know, Stacey is the kind of person that is always concerned about money and not having enough of it. And to your point, you know, it's like, well, we make X amount. You've structured it so that we are stable. But it seems like the narrative is always... we need to make more. We need to make more as a household.

So it's good to hear you'd say out loud that it's okay if I fail, essentially, with income. Was that your intention? Stacey? Is that what you meant to communicate? No. I meant to say, well, I mean, yes, it's okay to fail, but what I meant to say is, don't make decisions based on what I say. I want to hear your own thought.

I think in this conversation I've heard you pair it back. Some of the things I've said or Rameet says, what I'm missing is like your perspective? Like what do you want? Because when I hear you say like, I'm doing this business, I'm making a small amount of money, but I'm taking care of the home.

I fed you that narrative. I don't know if that's what you really want. want. And I don't know if you're being honest that that's what you want. Is that honestly what you want? That is honestly what I want. I enjoy cooking. I enjoy being at home because Sisi works from home. So I get to see her a lot more than I used to when we were both working out in the world. What else? I guess it'd be like the fruits of your labor. Again, I'm sorry for using buzzwords. But it's something that I can see that I'm, there's an A to a B. Now, that's an honest answer.

I like that. That's a perfectly respectable answer. You're right. I don't get that in my business either. There's always projects that are ongoing, blah, blah, blah. It's rare that it's just done and clean and perfect. Stacey, do you think that you're having unrealistic expectations? for Jesse to suddenly become a long-term career planner?

Yes. How long have you been trying to get him to think like you? Forever, probably, since we met, I'm sure. Do you think he picks up on that? Yes. Because there's this narrative that he believes you need to have more money. Is that true? Yeah.

Yeah. Jesse thinks I'm like money obsessed and like as if I'm, we've had this discussion before. He's like, you're obsessed with money to the point of like, it's like greed. But what we've talked about in the past and I guess, I guess Jesse is like still not clear.

Maybe it's like what I'm, why I obsess about money is for safety. I'm obsessed about it from a sense of like security. and I want to just make sure there's enough, not just to survive, but to be able to, like, retire comfortably. And is obsessing going to help you achieve that? It has so far. So you should keep doing it?

No. Why not? It's gotten you here. We've got a million bucks in the bank. Why not just keep doing it? Obsess and make $3 million? Because clearly it's caused the sacrifice I'm, Or like what I'm losing is in our relationship.

Like I've created this dependent relationship that's not sustainable. You are in your own words, obsessed with money because it provides you safety. And you, what? You want to change that obsession or you want to keep going? I'm not asking a loaded question. I'm legitimately curious. I do not want. that continually optimizing won't change anything.

You optimize a lot? Yes. Like? Like I'm always looking at like, how much am I putting away in our investments? And I like want to increase how much we're putting away to retirement so that in I think it's like 10 years, we'll have enough that we'll need for retirement.

and then I don't have to worry about putting so much away. Oh, yeah, then you're going to stop worrying? Yeah. Come on. Why are you doing this to yourself? You listen to every episode of the podcast. You've read my book, right? Yes.

Do you think I use the word obsessed with money management? No. It's boring. It should be. Like, would you cook anything simple, like eggs or something at home? Yeah. Are you obsessed? With eggs.

Throw the egg on the thing, put a little butter. It's done, right? It's a utility. At a certain level of money mastery, you don't even have to be a higher earn, but at a certain level of knowledge and mastery over your psychology, money management itself is really boring, and it should be.

The problem is that there's actually a real, cost to doing that with your money. Yeah. What might you get out of changing your approach to money? I feel like I have everything to gain. Then why haven't you done it already? Because I've worn, you know, like the finances have been like my cross to bear willingly. Cross to bear? Like it's a like it's a negative thing?

Yeah. Or like like it's like it's my responsibility. Tracking a budget. for what? Tweaking a spreadsheet for what? And also having all these negative conversations where you're always lecturing him. Yeah. You really should make more money, blah, blah, blah.

And then you don't even care if he makes more money. It's like, what's the point? Yeah. Is there a way for you to have fun with money? We are going on a trip to Italy in about three. Two months? Two months? What the fuck?

Hold on. That's awesome. Okay, round of applause. All right. I'm getting the sense that I might have been wrong, but let's play it out. That is awesome. How long are you going for? Three weeks.

Just five, three weeks, yes. Damn. All right, cool. Who came up with the idea? This was a big plan. It's been planned for like two years. Wow. Okay, and you both are excited.

Have you ever been to Italy before? No. So cool. All right. What are you two in particular excited about? Generally just travel. Stacey mentioned earlier conversation. When she was growing up,

She went on a vacation. I did not go on my first vacation until I was 22. Where'd you go? Azores. It's where my family is from. Portugal. Portugal. So you're going on this trip.

And has this gotten kind of the juices flowing in terms of like, ooh, where else might we go? Exactly that. Well, okay. So Italy is the big one for this year. Next year is renovating our back here. yard and redoing our fencing at the house. So started thinking about that.

Wow, that's so cool. And then the year after that is Japan. Yeah. Is there some reason that you take one trip per year? We don't even do that. Yeah. Is there a reason for that? I mean, it's not like you're making like $20,000.

You make $240,000 a year. Because when I look at our numbers, I think we're behind. on saving for retirement. So I want to focus more money towards retirement than travel. Yeah, good. The one thing that neither of you are really excited about, you want to focus on that. And the thing that lights you two up,

let's wait another 10 years to do that. You all realize how ridiculous that sounds? Look at the rest of this CSP. We didn't even finish it. Your fixed costs are 39% of your take home. That's one of the lowest numbers I've seen on this show. 39%. That's good.

Do you realize that? Yes. Maybe too good. It's actually, it can be so good that it's bad. I'm not saying that's the case, but I'm just saying, wow, you've got a lot of extra money to play around with every month. Your investment's 21% of take home. That is extremely good.

At 21%, it tells me either you're way too frugal or you have a pretty high income. In your case, I think you have a very good income. That's fantastic. Above 25%, I would start to get a little wear. I would say, why aren't they spending some money on life? I want to double that number. I'm not surprised. All right.

And you can, and if you double it, you will certainly achieve your goals faster and you will be miserable. And you will cost immeasurable, unmeasurable cost to your relationship. Number one, you're both depriving yourselves of enjoying these experiences. Taking one trip every three year, makes no sense. And second, actually not giving ownership. this is an amazing opportunity to give ownership to Jesse. Say, Jesse, I notice you love traveling. I love traveling.

I would love it if you would be the person in charge of travelers, helping us schedule our travel. Can we have a conversation about that? He's nodding. He's going, yeah, he's getting excited. I see that smile. Okay. It's a lot of layers here.

Yeah. I find it very interesting. What do you think? So when we started this conversation, You said, what did you want to get out today? I'm like, I'm hoping you see something we can't see. And you did. You've seen that we've, I've optimized this system.

I'm getting exactly what I put in and reaping it. And I've created that for a really long time. What I'm recognizing is, if I look at this as a scale, maybe I have this 100% optimized. What I'd actually like is maybe 80. and there's certain areas where I would value Jesse's involvement, but it doesn't have to be in the details, and we can balance it out more effectively.

Okay, that's pretty perceptive. I agree. Jesse, what do you think so far? Very much the same thing. I felt Stacey had a narrative she wanted coming in. Which was? I think she wanted to have a conversation on how to better optimize our savings for our retirement and how to enjoy the latter half of our life, not just like 65 plus, but like 40 plus. Really? Is that true, Stacey?

Well, there were two sides to my- What are the sides? Well, I knew like there were definitely hangups we had about money. our dynamic that needed a lens. And then the other thing that, this is the problem that I'm mostly worried about when we talk about finances. I'm worried that we will not have enough for retirement and that we're like enjoying life enough.

Yeah, okay, you're worried about retirement and you're not worried about the fact that one partner is totally disempowered and disengaged the money. It's just another, this happens virtually every episode. You already know the answer to your question about retirement. I'll answer it anyway, but it's not a retirement issue. That's not going to be your challenge in your relationship. Your challenge is staring you right in front of the face.

What is it? That it's one-sided. Yeah. And, Jesse, what else? Codependent. That's a good way to put it. But when you say codependent, you mean what? Stacey has created a system where

I don't have to be involved, but I very much should be, and she very much would like me to be. Yes, yes, that's accurate. So what would happen if you just flip the switch tomorrow and both of you reverse rules? Stacey, you're keeping the house clean. Look at it. She's already laughing. And you better keep that kitchen, you know, spotless according to Jesse's standards. And Jesse, you're managing all finances.

you're planning, retiring, making all decisions. What would happen? I mean, I would like to think, sorry, you want me to speak more confidently. I apologize. I would likely look at the budget as written and try to stick to it as closely as possible. I think I can handle that. I think he would learn and figure it out. Before I get to the follow-ups from Stacey and Jesse, which are fascinating,

I'd like to ask you to do two things which really help. The first, go to Apple Podcasts and leave a written review that really helps us. And second, get on the podcast newsletter where I share new material every single Saturday. Go to Iwt.com slash podcast newsletter and you will find a lot of material that I never share publicly. All right, let's get to the follow-ups. The first from Stacey. I got out of the conversation what I had hoped to, to see something I myself was blind to. I walked away understanding that I had created a system

for an inequitable partnership in our finances, and I've got work to do with Jesse to unpack and rebuild that relationship. I watched the first two episodes of the new show, and I do not want to have the relationship Matt and a mani displayed. I was reinforcing an unbalanced power dynamic that I did not actually want. My biggest takeaway was that I have been swooping in to save the day when it comes to money. It's created an environment of intimidation instead of curiosity. The day after your call, I started to change that. We started to take steps to give Jesse skin in the game when it comes to our finances. We readjusted our CSP yesterday evening. Instead of looking at our total income, we looked at Jesse's income and broke out the household spending under his responsibility and allocated

investment savings proportional to his income. He's going to pay for and own the budget for anything household-related. He will also set up a recurring deposit for his investment account based on 20% of his income. We also re-booked our regular financial check-ins. We rescheduled it to a date we could commit to. Jesse will be taking ownership of the agenda. And on and on, they go on to share more and more details. We looked at what we want to achieve in the next year and whether our savings targets would get us there. This left us with a much healthier, 21% guilt-free spending allocation in our CSP, thank you for the coaching and guidance step by step. I know Jesse and I will create a more equitable financial partnership. Jesse wrote a follow-up and said, my feeling before going into

the conversation was a fear that I was going to be blamed for not being involved with our finances and accused of being disinterested. I was surprised by your observations of our relationship dynamics over the past 18 years and how they fostered these feelings of anxiety, avoidance, and disinterest. I was even more surprised by your insistence that we needed to start spending more money on ourselves in the everything else category of the CSP. The following night we sat down and discussed our budget and I'm now handling our day-to-day spending, including groceries, pets, house supplies, etc. We have a long road ahead of us, but we will not be skipping our monthly meetings any longer.

Fantastic work to Jesse and Stacey. Thank you for the courage in coming on this show. We all appreciate it. And for everyone who's listening and watching, go to IWT.com slash podcast newsletter because I've got new material to share with you this Saturday and every Saturday afterwards. Thanks for listening to I Will Teach You to Be Rich. I'm Rameet Sati. Please follow the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

If you haven't read I Will Teach You to Be Rich, my book, pick up a copy. You can get it at any bookstore or any library. show you the specific tactics for how to build the I Will Teach You to Be Rich system into your personal finances.