Money For Couples with Ramit Sethi - 109. Where Are They Now? Netflix Reunion with Donnell and Monique

Episode Date: June 22, 2023

In this special limited series, we’re following up with couples from my Netflix show, How To Get Rich. Tune in to hear what’s new, what isn’t, and where their money conversations have gone since our taping. Today, we check in with Donnell and Monique on their debt, the storage unit, and more. This episode is brought to you by: Trade | Right now, Trade is offering our audience a free bag of coffee with any subscription at https://drinktrade.com/ramit. Facet | Get affordable, accessible financial planning with a flat fee membership. For a limited time, the $250 enrollment fee will be waived when you sign up at https://facet.com/ramit. Fabric by Gerber Life | Protect your family today with Fabric by Gerber Life. Apply today in just 10 minutes at https://meetfabric.com/ramit. 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. Links mentioned in this episode • Get the Podcast Newsletter and exclusive Q&A about the show • Download the Conscious Spending Plan Connect with Ramit • Get Money Coaching with Ramit  • Get my New York Times best-selling book • Get my no-numbers journal • Other episodes • Instagram • Twitter • YouTube • Submit a question for the newsletter iwt.com/askramit  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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It was to the point where, like, me and Monique wanted to throw hands. Like, it was crazy. You know, like, crazy. What do you mean? It ain't all of my account information. Well, they're going to get what I give them because that's not none of their business. Oh, gosh, I was so difficult behind seeing. I ignored everybody.

I didn't like you. I didn't like production. I told them if I didn't have to, no, I think I blocked production at one point. I wasn't ready to give up on you. I don't care if you're trying. to ignore me. I know these are uncomfortable conversations. I know you two specialize in ignoring this. That's how you got into

all this debt. But I wasn't going to let you walk away. Are you pushing me to talk about this microwave? Is that what this is? The fans want to know. Welcome back to a special episode where I get to catch up with the guests

from my Netflix show, How to Get Rich. Spoiler alert, if you haven't already watched all eight episodes, Go do that now because we're going to share everything today, including behind the scenes items that never came out during the show. Today we get to catch up with Monique and Donnell. You might remember them because he was spending $600 a month on video games. They had $200,000 of student loan debt that they were ignoring and they wanted to buy a house. You're going to get to hear what has changed a year later after filming.

So let's get into it right now with. Monique and Donnell. I just want to know, just started from the beginning, what has changed since we last saw each other? Let's go Donnell first and then Monique. We still had some struggles, you know, because we went right in real heavy to pay off some debt and close some accounts.

We were just kind of hurt because we put a lot of money into closing stuff down and getting out of debt. where we didn't have anything to kind of back us up. So I started a side hustle. And luckily with the tools that you gave us and the additional money that came in from that, we paid off all of our credit card debt. Whoa.

So you paid off $20,000 of credit card debt? Yeah. Damn, I'll take the win on that. That's amazing. Basically, all our debt is good except for student loans. So combined, we have about close to $85,000 left and student loan debt combined with the two of us. His side hustle has really been helping us out a lot. Because it's been big chunks of money.

How much are you making on the side hustle done now? Last year, I mean, 200K alone. What the what? What is the side hustle? Yeah. I'm a finder. Like, basically, I knew you was going to ask that. Isn't that a show?

Everybody asks that. What is it? No, no. Only show we've been all is yours. Oh, wait, first off, congratulations. One, you know, much success. You've been helping a lot of people. Thank you very much. But basically, all I do is for PA, Jersey, and Delaware, whatever money is in the treasury. Older people, I find the people, connect them with the money, and I charge a fee. What fee? And I wrote it. What's the fee? 10%. And it's called a finder? Yeah, either a finder, an asset locator, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I took a note from your book and I wrote an e-book to help people do it because it was so successful with it. So, you know, again, everything that came from your show, it took us to really, like, branch out and figure out how to make this work. Wow. Okay, so you made, did you say 200,000 last?

in the last year? Yeah, yeah. And I have, literally from January to now, I have about 260-something thousand coming to me. So I already made what I made last year less in about six months. Who's paying for dinner next time we see each other?

So can you remind me when we were talking, how much student loan debt did both of you have? Um 10,000. No, student loan debt. I wish. That was a joke. All right, because I'm like, I wish.

Wasn't it like 200? Yeah, yeah. I think. Yeah, a little bit less because I think I had maybe 85, 90, something like that on my own. And I had 72.

Okay. So the two of those combined. All right. And now. How much is it? It's about $85,000 combined. So you've paid off $70,000 or so in the last year, plus $20,000 from your credit card?

Yeah, yeah. You could just be holding that money, but we did the right thing and paid it off. Is this for real? Yeah, no. This is amazing. Yeah, yeah. Am I the only one smiling on this?

Wait, this is my smile, by the way. A lot of people like, Remit doesn't smile. I'm like, this is my smile. What? This is crazy. This is amazing. I'm so proud of both of you. Thank you.

I appreciate it. Appreciate it. I'm speechless. This is almost hard to believe, but it's quite amazing. They went from arguing over an old storage unit to paying off tens of thousands of dollars in debt and increasing their income. Amazing. Just guess the average wait time to see a doctor in the United States. I'm not talking about a specialist, just a regular standard family doctor.

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Monique, I'm so curious what has changed since we last saw each other. That much. She's still in the space. Look at that. I see that. That's amazing. Honestly, being in the space, I think for me, I mean, the money stuff was nice. It was just the whole point of the show.

But it was nice. But honestly, being introduced to this space has opened up a lot of doors. to help my business. While being here, I was able to be in their artisan cohort program. I think it was like a six-week program that helped with building your business. We got to do art shows. I've been able to be a part of vending events. And now I get to throw my own vending event. Wow. That's amazing. Do you remember that conversation we had? We were walking around there. And I remember we took the full tour. It was pretty cool. We chatted with a couple people. and then we were standing outside

and I think you mentioned something like I'm not sure I belong here. Do you remember that conversation? Yeah, yeah. I remember. What do you remember about it? The imposter syndrome part. And honestly,

I think I don't remember what month I joined in. I think it was like March. I didn't come in until maybe May. And I didn't even come in doing my own work. Somebody here was offering partners. time work. So I was like, I'm going to use this as an opportunity to make myself comfortable being here. So it's just the way of me getting out of my way and saying, you know, just watch the people. And now, I mean, everybody's awesome. Like, there is, everybody's asking

everybody, how can you do this? And everybody's open to be helpful. I love it. It's my favorite place to come. I still remember that vividly. It's one of my favorite parts of the entire experience during this show. I remember we watch. together and then you were walking a little bit on your own and I was just watching and I remember that imposter syndrome conversation and I remember vividly saying you belong here and so to see you a year later with that background being there watching you on Instagram I'm so happy for you and for you as an artist and an entrepreneur I think it's amazing well I truly appreciate you for it because this was a step that I probably would have kept looking at and thinking about it.

And then a year later, looking at it again and then thinking about it again, I think it forced me to jump and just, you know, not worry about the what-ifs. All right, beautiful. Monique, I want to know about your finances. What's going on? We heard from Donnell. What about for you? Here and there.

Like, it's still good. I have my good months. Like, now I'm starting to ramp up. During the summer, it's busier because of all the events that are happening, like, weddings. and graduations. What's a range that you make per month? Regularly, I make maybe between like 35 to 4 a month. 4,000?

Yeah. Okay. And then on good months is where it's like the 8,000. Whoa. So that's pretty cool. You've had more $8,000 months since we talked. Yes. Amazing.

Together as a household, you start making this money. How did you decide what to do with it? Honestly, we really just looked at the initial conscious spending plan that you gave us that we did, you know, talking about homework. Because you definitely gave us a lot of homework. That's right. We really just really took a stab at it and like went over our credit report and looked at what we can pay down like first initially. Like when we had the conversation in the restaurant. So we started with the small bills and then worked.

our way up. It's a huge relief, you know, off of our shoulders to, um, to be able to walk into a store or go online to Amazon and, you know, purchase what I want without, uh, fear of Monique. Donnell, why, why are you opening up the door on Amazon? You know I got to ask. I'll just say, how much did you spend on video games in the last 30 days? Tell me, tell me. Tell the truth. Oh, um, no, truthfully, I've only been in free games. So no, no in-app purchases. Yeah. Seriously, you used to spend $600 a month. I remember, I saw that scene. It's hard, but you saw it too.

I know you saw that. Wait, so you spend nothing on video games? Yeah, nothing on video games. Let's not. In the past month. Yeah, tell me money. You spent nothing. But no, I'm really good.

Like, he's been, honestly, he's been so caught up in working and doing a bunch of stuff that he doesn't really have time to sit around and do as much. there's less of purchases. It's been really important to try and stay on track. It is hard. It's really, really hard. What's the hardest part of it? Knowing that I can do it now,

you know, but going, like scaling back and making sure that things are in order because now Dilley is in college and we got to pay for that. Wow. Congrats. Okay. All right. How much is that costing per year? What, 19,000?

What? Are you paying in full? Yeah. Yeah, we don't want her to be stuck with the loans like they were. This is frustrating. Monique and Donnell have decided to pay $19,000 a year, a huge amount, which follows the invisible script in America that you should pay for your kids' college. Maybe, maybe not.

But what really interests me is how much dismal. did they have about all the issues around this $80,000 decision? Did they talk about the cost of college? Did they talk about their options, including scholarships, financial aid, work study, internships? This single decision is one of the biggest financial decisions they will ever make. But as with many of us, we spend more time looking for the newest restaurant or watching random TV shows than to really dialing in on these six-figure life decisions. I spent over 20 years fine-tuning my core message from I Will Teach You to Be Rich, of living your rich life, which is why I was so thrilled when Masterclass reached out and asked

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You can apply today in just minutes at meetfabric.com slash remit. M-E-E-T-Fabric.com slash remit. Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company, not available in certain states, prices subject to underwriting and health questions. My theme for you was decisive. I wanted both of you to become more decisive. You remember me getting a little frustrated sometimes hearing the spinning and the discone? What do you remember about your indecision?

Can you think of any examples? It was the whole show. The whole entire thing. But again, we'll go to the storage unit. It was definitely that. That, okay, tell me about the storage unit. What's up with it? Can I clarify for folks?

So I wasn't holding on to use baby clothes. You better tell the world right now because there's a lot of people on TikTok, on Instagram. Tell us your message, Donnell. So it was, it was, I was a reseller. I was trying to make a couple of dollars. And it was all brand new stuff. It looked like it was trashy in there. how I took the camera view or whatever,

but it was all brand new stuff. But anyway, you took that camera, by the way, you took that footage yourself. I just want to emphasize, it wasn't some producer. You took your own footage. And then people like,

are those used diapers in there? What's going on in there? That's why I looked so bad because I did it myself. We have a camera person. But you did the calculations on how much I was spending per year based off for what I was making, which was zero.

You know, I was just holding that stuff. And, you know, the decisiveness and wanting to get rid of it because, you know, we went back and forth. A lot of people don't know, you know, when the cameras weren't there, like, Rameet was rough. And we gave him a hard time, folks, like, a really, really hard time. I was like, you guys were so, you made the decisions right away. I was like, they made us look good. Right. Okay.

So tell everybody, because I think they should know. Let's tell them. Oh, no, we fought back on the bag. I fought back from the day from the day. Fought back, like, what did you say? Tell everyone. I'm not returning it. This is my bag.

I bought something nice for myself. You're not going to make me return it. You did push back a little bit, fair enough. And I actually didn't know if you took the bag back or not. Did. Because I wasn't there. I took it back and I paid a bill with it. Okay.

Nice. How'd that feel? It awful credit card. Awful. No, it felt. Because I knew that at the moment, you know, it was a nice bag and I do like bags, but eventually it would have just been collecting that's because I honestly had just gotten a couple new bags as gifts. So it wasn't. Production. Do we know this? No, this is what for you got. The secrets come out.

But I know that once everything is situated and life is where it needs to be buying a bag, she should just be. oh, I'm going to get this bag. That's right. That's exactly right. You know, there's always a, your tomorrow is going to be bigger than your today. Donnell, share some examples of how you pushed back when it came to my advice.

Oh, man. Shoot. What? Again, are you pushing me to talk about this microwave? Is that, is that what this is? The fans want to know. That was a big conversation with the fans.

It was a big conversation outside of the cameras. It was a big conversation. Tell us about the microwave, Donnell. So, yeah, I purchased a microwave for like $17. Brand new microwave. It's an expensive microwave. And I wasn't just going to give it up. Like, I wasn't, you know, and, you know, it was, we went back and forth.

A lot of, again, folks just don't know. Like, at the restaurant that day, like, we were going to walk out or Robbie. Like, we were going to leave him there. We were not going to finish the show. We were pissed. But, I mean, sometimes the truth stings, you know, and you got to kind of accept it and look at it from someone else's perspective, even though you may be in your own little bubble,

but in order to really, really progress, you've got to be able to take advice from someone that has been able to do it or that can at least show you how to do it. So that was hard. But we gave the microwave to our daughter at her dorm. So it went to use. So her roommate. And we got dropped down the storage unit.

So now we're using, instead of a 10 by 30, we're in a five by 15 and it's only to hold Monique's wood. So when she does projects and things like that. How much does it cost per month? $98. And who pays? Where does the money come from?

Oh, Monique pays. I love this. What a great, that's a great answer. It's a business expense. That which tells me you've got your accounts better structured. Monique is stepping up saying, yes, that is awesome. What a great answer.

applause, that's amazing. Okay, lots of insights and clues here, and most of them are positive. First, that last answer really made me happy when Monique said that she pays for the storage unit out of her business. That simple answer actually tells me that they have done a ton of work into restructuring their finances. I also love that they're open about how difficult of a time they gave me and the production team on the show. They say that they almost quit. personally, I was never going to give up on it. And I don't mind if people push back on some of the things that I suggest because it means they're engaged and it shows that change is hard. The opposite of pushing back is to simply disengage to just give up, to say, I'm not into this

and to vanish. That's the worst of all. It means people are not willing to change. So I have to say, this is why I love being able to do these behind the scenes episodes from the Netflix show because we film a ton. We have to cut a lot, but I want you to know some of the things that happened behind the scenes that you never saw. Now, I will say one thing that I've noticed on this call, which is that Donnell is what I call a believer. That's a person who believes that success is just around the corner. And, you know, they'll often talk about the next big deal or the lottery ticket that they bought. You can tell this because he admits he used to be a reseller. Now he has this finder job.

And believers find it really difficult to follow long-term plans because they're not as exciting as the dream of a huge cash infusion. Okay, those are the lessons overall, very positive. Here's some of the most creative I will teach you to be rich businesses that my students have created. Nate turned his love of chess into a chess coaching and training business and started a legal strategy business for online entrepreneurs and creatives. Scott teaches yoga all over the world, including in the south of France. Now, what I love about all these, they're so different, but they started from the same question. What if I took the thing I love

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What do you mean? I need all of my account information. Well, they're going to get what I give them because that's not none of their business. Oh, gosh. I was so difficult behind seeing. But, yeah, just, I mean, I didn't think that you were actually going to come in and, like, really look over things and, you know. go through it, nitpick, and all of that. And you did. Every account was looked at and highlighted and talked about. So, yeah, that surprised me.

I think it was hard. I think that a lot of, I got a lot of things out of it because I have, like, social anxiety and regular, just generalized anxiety. And I think just, like, the pressure of the show, I ignored everybody. I didn't like you. I didn't like production. I told them if I didn't have it. I think I blocked production at one point.

But I think that putting myself in this position made me stronger because I survived it, you know? I wasn't ready to give up on you. I don't care if you're trying to ignore me. I know these are uncomfortable conversations. I know you two specialize in ignoring this. That's how you got into all this debt. But I wasn't going to let you walk away.

Never. And so one of the comments I saw a lot on social was, people were surprised how invested I got. I said, how could I not be? We sat down, we ate together. I was in your house. We walked next fab together. We got to know each other over a long period of time. How could I not be invested? And when we spent so much time talking about a microwave, and then I kind of got mad at that Philly cheese steak place, and I was like, how are we still talking about this? When we have $200,000 of debt, how can we be focused on this tiny, thing when your rich life is so much bigger?

All of the anxiety and the fight in and everything, you know, we hugged it out. And it was just like, I really, we had the time to sit and appreciate what you did for us. And I think that it was a big moment for me. At that moment, I stopped looking at you as a figure, as a businessman, as someone who's just, you know, doing a job to an actual human being who actually cared about our well-being, how we looked at our finances, you know, and you coming through and allowing us to be a part of this journey that you took. And it was, it was a huge moment for us. Like, even when you,

when you left and we were still there, we were still talking about it. And it was just big because of, you know, everything that we went through from day one, from when you came to the house, to that last day of shooting, which, you know, I'm telling you guys out there in America, who's listening to this man, it was, it was to the point where, like, me and Monique wanted to throw hands. Like, like, it was crazy, you know, like, crazy. But, again, like, the true stings. It really does. And one thing we can appreciate is that you didn't falter. Like, you didn't change what you said, you know, you didn't change what was behind what you said. It was, you were like, listen that you guys really want to do something and actually come out of this whole listen.

And it's hard to tell adults to listen, you know. Like our dream is still a house, but we want to make sure that we're setting ourselves up for success in buying a house. So, you know, renting is probably more expensive right now than buying a house, but we don't have to pay for repairs. We don't. don't have to pay for, you know, taxes and all that other stuff. So we want to make sure that when we go into our house, we can stay in our house. That's phenomenal. That's phenomenal.

You know, our conversation about renting and owning really got America talking. Yes. Do you see that? It's crazy. Some are upset. Some are like I get what he's saying. It's a lot. Yeah.

I love that. I love that we're talking about. We should. It's the biggest purchase we'll ever make. And this idea that we should just kind of blindly spend all of our money on a house because somebody tells us to, to me, it's absolutely crazy. I'm glad that we were able to have that conversation. Funny enough, I actually think that was one of the easier conversations that we had. Because I think when it came to you, you both, you wanted to get a house, you still want to get a house. I totally respect it. I want you to do the same. But it was so far off that we had other things we had to deal with first.

It's like there was a fire with the bags and the storage unit and the debt. We need to tackle that first and make a plan, even all the accounts, or we could even talk about the house. So I appreciate you coming on that journey with me, just methodically step by step by step. Speaking of that, how many accounts do you now have? Three. Are you serious? You went from like 20 to three? What did that feel like?

That's still strange to me. You know what's strange to me? 20 accounts. That's strange. Hashtag bathroom fries. No, it is because, one, it works having a joint account and having just the funds that need to go into that account that's paying off something.

That works. Okay. Monique, how about you? There was a moment, I think we're at that restaurant, and I had asked if you would consider combining accounts, and if I recall, you just point blank said no. I will say that he has behaved, and I might be the problem child with the joint account that's go around.

Tell me. I will not have my debit card with me, and I'll have the joint account and I'll spend something and forget to tell him that I spent it. And then he's like, oh, well, the money was supposed to be in there. And I was like, oh, I forgot.

But I mean, then I fixed it. I transferred it out because our accounts are all with the same credit union. Nice. It's something easier to just move everything around. I'm extremely proud of our growth. That was huge. Like I said, you came in and you did something

nobody was ever able to do. And that was to get her to do a joint account. account. I was like, all right, that's your superpower right there. But definitely our growth to be able to sit down and talk about money and not have any reservations. So that's, that's huge. And it has played a huge part in where we are now. It sounds like you two have become much more of a financial team. We look at it now, like, do I really need to pay $220 for a pair of sneakers? Or can I actually put that up and had that money make money for me, you know, to where as though, I can still get a pair of sneakers,

but now I got 220 making me, you know, X amount of money per month. Nice. Yeah. You know, it's just nice. Okay. Yeah, it's just really, really, you had us to the point we really had to look at how we were spending our money, how we were managing our money, and how we treated our money.

Donnell, were you raised with the belief that making money has to be hard? I wouldn't say I was raised. on the belief that making money has to be hard, but I was raised on the visual where if you made money, it wasn't an easy thing. Okay. So guess what? I'm teaching you a new way, which is that it actually can be easier than you think. In fact, it can be as easy as setting up automation once and then checking on it once a year. And you can make more money doing that than you doing all kinds of crazy things that other people try to do. Yeah.

When we hit our first million, then I'll be happy. No, you're not going to be happy when you hit a million. I'll tell you that right now. If you're not happy now, then you won't be happy later. You don't listen to the men. Thank you, Monique. You've got to be happy with what you have now. Monique, are you happy?

Am I happy? Yeah, I mean, because I know that it'll get better. If it's where you just keep doing the same thing, not doing the same thing, but keep doing the work and you're with your goals. As you said just a minute ago, Monique, if you're not happy now, you're not going to be happy later. And the fact that matter is when you have a million dollars, if you continue this way of thinking, you're going to get there. And you will get there. I can show you exactly the month and year you're going to reach that. And you'll say, well, we could have had $5 million.

Well, what about $10 million? And do you want to go the rest of your life feeling like that? No. He was like, oh, my God, we have $200,000. Hell yeah. Or, oh, my God, we paid off $20,000 in credit card debt. Okay, we'll start there. I mean, honestly, the number of things I can count that you two should be celebrating is like, I can't even fit them on two hands.

The video games, storage unit, the number of accounts, the bag, the business, next fab. I mean, I could go on and on. I'm over here. Like, this is incredible. A lot of what you were able to install and just break down to us throughout the process, we've taken it and we've been able to get this far. And it's probably what millions of people, like the place that they are, so if we could help somebody.

I have a lot of respect for that. It takes a lot of courage to show up, to open up your financials, which in America is one of the most taboo things you can do. and then to ask for help. Because in most of our life, especially as adults, we want to show up as competent, as winning. We know what's going on. And when you have to ask for help,

especially with a camera crew around, that's not easy. But I really appreciate you did this. You did it for yourself, but you also have incidentally helped millions of people who can see themselves in the two of you. After our call, Donnell sent me an email. Here's what it said. Monique said she didn't think you believed us,

so I enclosed the front page of our bank account. I'm going to put that on screen here for our YouTube viewers. It shows their bank account with $176,052 in it. Quite amazing. I'm very proud of all the changes that Monique and Donnell made, and best of all, they did it together. Thanks for listening, and thanks for watching the show on Netflix. And one last thing.

Each week, I share a new insight on money psychology on my private newsletter that I never share publicly. If you would like to get that, it's free. You can sign up at IWT.com slash podcast newsletter. Thanks for listening to I Will Teach You to Be Rich. I'm Ramit 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, and it will show you the specific tactics for how to build the I Will Teach You to Be Rich system into your personal finances.