Money For Couples with Ramit Sethi - 129. “We spend 154% of what we make, but I refuse to get a salary job” (Part 2)

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

Following up with Trin and Lucas, both 35, we chip away at an unmanageable fixed-costs percentage and broach Lucas’s unwillingness to seek salaried employment while navigating severe trust issues an...d a checkered past with respect to financial risk taking. This episode is brought to you by: Masterclass | For unlimited access to every class and 15% off an annual membership, go to https://masterclass.com/ramit. Inside Tracker | Get 20% off by going to https://insidetracker.com/ramit. DeleteMe | If you want to get your personal information removed from the web, go to https://joindeleteme.com/ramit for 20% off. 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. Links mentioned in this episode Get Money Coaching with Ramit  Connect with Ramit Get the Podcast Newsletter and exclusive Q&A about the show Download the Conscious Spending Plan 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.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 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. And another member made a rule that any time she buys a ticket for an event, she always buys a second so that she can bring a friend. These are just a few examples of how my money coaching members have built systems to use their money. Notice that there's no more anxiety, that they have a smooth running system. They know when their debt's going to be paid off.
Starting point is 00:00:39 They can feel comfortable spending on the things they love. They can actually spend less time on their finances while living an amazing life. In my money coaching program, members also get access to live events every month, including topics like money with aging parents and how to create 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
Starting point is 00:01:17 slash money coaching to join the program right now. Sometimes I don't feel like it's a together thing. It's like she wants me to do certain things with both hands tied behind my back and hopping on one leg. And I know you've been trying and you're doing the best that you can, but the way that we are doing things does not work. It does not work. We've been in the deficit for months. Like, I feel really stupid because I did not know. I feel like I should have known. I wanted to be financially free while I'm 35. I'm 35 now.
Starting point is 00:02:00 I've moved that goal to 40. The goals that I had when I was 25 to take care of my family, I haven't even accomplished that in 10 years. How much more time is it going to take for me to be able to do that? Welcome to part two of my conversation with Trin and Lucas. They're both 35 years old, married. Lucas has a history of risky investments. For example, he lost over 20.
Starting point is 00:02:28 20 properties in the past. And Trin was recently caught off guard when she learned that their family was running low on cash. When I left them in the last episode, I had just learned that they are spending 150% of their take-home pay on fixed costs alone. That number is startling. Fixed cost percentage is supposed to be roughly 50 to 60%, which means that they are broke. And they are running out of money fast. In today's episode, listen for how they individually approach money
Starting point is 00:02:59 and especially listen for how they talk about money together. And as you think about creating a rich life together, you might have heard of the idea of having a monthly money date to help get on the same financial page as your partner. Well, what is a money date? What are you supposed to talk about? How do you make sure it's productive and not just two people spinning their wheels and getting mad at each other?
Starting point is 00:03:21 This Saturday, I'm going to be sharing how to have a money date with you. your partner, including a sample agenda that you can use word for word. You can only get this at IWT.com slash podcast newsletter this Saturday, November 11th, and it is free. Now, let's get to the episode. I looked at some of transactions before, too. Over the last six months, six months, we have been spending like at least over 2,500 on eating out. And I'm like, man, we got to put, we got to put, something got to happen with this thing. How often do you both eat out?
Starting point is 00:04:01 Oh, wow. What's that uncomfortable look? Wow, she's covering her right eye with her hand, and he's now putting his hand on the face. When the hand goes to the face, you know you got him. What did you eat out last? What is it? DoorDash? There you go.
Starting point is 00:04:16 I promote it, but not for you. All right. Everybody else who wants a home delivery, DoorDash, fantastic. They deliver all kinds of stuff. one hour, it's awesome. Not for you. Ouch. All right.
Starting point is 00:04:29 So only meant for me. Got it. What did you get on DoorDash? Tell me. Cheque Filet. Uh-huh. What else? Cheesecake Factory.
Starting point is 00:04:39 Like, normally we usually buy from like Longhorns or some place like that. How much does that cost? Anywhere from 45 to 100 bucks. How often would you say you get delivery or takeout per week? About two to three. two to three times per week. Hold on. I just have to cut in here. Do you notice this little verbal tick that Lucas has?
Starting point is 00:05:02 I asked him how much does takeout cost. He said 45 to 100 bucks. I said how often? He says two to three times per week. That means they could be spending anywhere from $360 to $1,200 per month. One thing that you'll notice is that people who are not savvy with money consistently use ranges. But how are you supposed to calculate anything
Starting point is 00:05:29 based on two to three times per week versus $45 to $100? You can't do math on ranges. And what's really going on here is that deep down people are uncomfortable with their spending, so they make up ranges right in the moment. Two to three times per week, it's probably four.
Starting point is 00:05:47 $45 to $100, add in tax and tip and it's probably more like $120 on average. To live a rich life, you've heard me say you have to be honest with yourself and the people around you. And that means not using ranges. In fact, be conservative. Look at your ranges. Look at your numbers. Then add 15% to account for all the stuff you're forgetting.
Starting point is 00:06:09 That is how you start to get more accurate with your spending. Okay, back to the conversation. You know we didn't even count that on the CSP, right? Yeah, we got into a little discussion about that. I thought we put it in there. Let's focus on the big picture here. You're spending over $1,000 a month eating out easily, yeah, every month. How are you going to change that?
Starting point is 00:06:37 I will be doing it. So I will be, you know, be more strategic, excuse me, with the groceries that I am going to purchase. And then also planning out our meals ahead of time. I actually started this two weeks ago. A lot has come out of it. I realized how much refined foods we were eating, how we need to incorporate more whole foods for ourselves. And that even goes back down to our culture of eating better, right?
Starting point is 00:07:11 Because culturally, neither one of us were raised to eat like that. And so at first I saw it as a daunting task, but now I see it as a privilege to be able, to provide that for my family. So cool. Oh my God. So Trin, that is amazing. What you just said is like, to me, the culmination of how you change.
Starting point is 00:07:34 All this conscious spending plan, it can be seen as daunting. It is. It's hard to start thinking and talking about money differently and behaving differently. But once you start to get a few wins under your belt and you realize, just like you realize, oh my gosh, we need to eat more whole foods and we start to feel better. it becomes a privilege. Right. And that's the same thing with money.
Starting point is 00:07:57 Your car payments, does that include gas when you put your... All right. What kind of cars you have? You just have one car that we're paying a loan on. What kind of car? Mazda CX-Far. Mazda, okay.
Starting point is 00:08:13 What's the other car? 2013, Hyundai Alantra, 2014, Nissan, Versa. You have three cars? Yeah. Why? Why is everybody smiling all of a sudden? Because Trindy said that you're going to ask us about this. The Mazda is a new addition to our family.
Starting point is 00:08:33 As of when? So as of April. Why did you get that? How come it's so quiet in here? I'll share that part. In 2019, before we got married, I went to him and told him that I wanted to purchase an SUV. We wanted to grow our family. I had two dogs already.
Starting point is 00:08:55 had a conversation with him and my dad. They suggested my car was only a year and a half away from being fully paid off that I waited. I decided to wait. The urgency of me purchasing the vehicle was I felt that Lucas would not allow me to purchase that vehicle after we got married. I was correct. And so over the years, we have grown our family. And we have two, those two cars that he named are small compact cars. So in traveling, even locally, it is a challenge for our family to all get into the vehicle with car seats and everything.
Starting point is 00:09:32 So I had been expressing and not in a nagging way, but I had, you know, dropped a gym here or there as like, you know, I wish we could purchase a vehicle. He got approved for a loan back in 2021, presented it to me at Christmas, and I was like, hey, this is not a smart move right now. I appreciate the gesture, but it's not wise for us to purchase a vehicle right now where we are. We got, we ended up getting it because we were like, we were at a point. He was like, I really want to go ahead and purchase the SUV. In his eyes, it's more of a gift for me. With, wait, I appreciate. With what money?
Starting point is 00:10:10 At that time, we were bringing in $12,000 a month. Go ahead. Sorry. And so I still, at the time, I didn't 100% agree, but I went along with it because we did need a larger vehicle. So wait, you dropped multiple gems and then suddenly you were like, oh, no, no, not me. Is that true? Yeah, sure.
Starting point is 00:10:34 Yeah, it was. Lucas, you agree with that? So you asked with multiple gems. So I had always felt bad about saying, hey, I don't think it's the right time to get a car right now. I felt bad about it because it was like I was preventing her. her from having a car and doing what she she wants to do with with the money. But for me, at the time, I'm like, we don't make that much money. You know, it's going to be an extra $300 or $400 out of our pocket, blah, blah. We argued about that. I think we put down either
Starting point is 00:11:07 $5,000 or $10,000 on it. And how much does the car cost? Like 31. How did you decide if you could afford it? Can we afford the monthly payment? Not can we afford this. Yeah. And what have I said on the show before about monthly payments? Pop quiz. I don't remember, but you did say it. I said never make major purchase decisions based on monthly payments. The other thing I went into it too with our conversation was, can we pay this off in a year or two?
Starting point is 00:11:38 Can you? I mean, at the time, I thought we could. Okay. All right. How about a savings account? How many months of savings did you have? at that time, how much do we have? Like, maybe, oh, how many months of savings?
Starting point is 00:11:58 I don't know. Like, we had, like, maybe, what was it, 15,000? 17,000 in the account? That's like one month. Yeah, probably like one month. Yeah. Well, we're talking about risk. You're now seeing what happens when you don't manage risk.
Starting point is 00:12:17 You're not, like, taking away the key lessons to learn. You're not changing your behavior. I'm confused by it. Let's zoom out so I can tell you what I'm seeing here. It is really easy to make a series of transactional decisions and miss the big picture, which is what has happened here. They bought a car based on the monthly payment. That's mistake number one.
Starting point is 00:12:39 At the time, they had a high income, which is great, but only one month in savings. That's mistake number two. And of course, there's all the considerable risk they're taking that we discussed in last week's episode, which when combined with this decision for a car made their finances much more risky. That's mistake number three.
Starting point is 00:13:01 In money, you can seem fine for a long time and then suddenly one day everything blows up. You want to avoid that. It's better to live slightly more modestly or take slightly less risk in order to avoid ever getting into a super risky situation. It's like driving 70 miles an hour instead of 80.
Starting point is 00:13:23 Yeah, it seems slower than some cars in the fast lane. It seems like they're going to get there faster. But by increasing your speed, even 10 miles an hour, your risk goes way, way up. And most of the time it actually doesn't save you any meaningful time at all. We'll be right back. 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,
Starting point is 00:13:49 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 so you can find someone you love. They have over 150,000 doctors across all 50 states in 200 plus specialties, including mental health, dental, primary care, whatever you need. Just filter for doctors based on insurance, location, ratings, even virtual care options. And Zoc Doc appointments happen fast, usually within 24 to
Starting point is 00:14:31 72 hours. You can look through your options, book an appointment, and you are done. If I needed to find a new doctor today, Zoc Doc is what I would use. Stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to Zocdoc.com slash Rameet to find and instantly book a doctor you love. today. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C.com slash Rameet. Zoc-D-C-com slash Rameh. And I want to thank Zok-Doc for sponsoring this message. 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. You think it's a week, two weeks? Nope, it's over 30 days. So a lot of times whatever symptoms you have are going to be gone or maybe worse by the time you get to that appointment. I don't want you to have to wait
Starting point is 00:15:21 weeks to see a doctor. I want you to get seen faster by an in-network doctor using Zocdoc. Zoc-dog is a free app and website that helps you find and book high-quality in-network doctors so you can find someone you love. They have over 150,000 doctors across all 50 states in 200-plus specialties, including mental health, dental, primary care, whatever you need. Just filter for doctors based on insurance, location, ratings, even virtual care options, and Zoc Doc appointments happen fast, usually within 24 to 72 hours. You can look through your options, book an appointment, and you are done. If I needed to find a new doctor today, Zock Doc is what I would use.
Starting point is 00:16:07 Stop putting off those doctors appointments and go to Zocdoc.com slash remit to find and instantly book a doctor you love today. That's Z-O-C-D-C-com. slash Rameet. Zocdoc.com slash remit. And I want to thank Zokdoch for sponsoring this message. Now back to the show. I asked Lucas and Trin
Starting point is 00:16:30 how their finances started crumbling all at once. Listen to it. We had a trip. We ended up taking a nice little vacation for our family. Where'd you go? We went to New Orleans. She was having a bachelorette party.
Starting point is 00:16:46 So we went there to support her. Nice move. Stayed at a very nice hotel. never stayed at like a five-star hotel before. Which hotel? Four seasons. All right. So I'm excited.
Starting point is 00:16:57 You know, I'm like, you know, four seasons, we've never been there. We've been saving all this money. Let's treat ourselves. Let's have this vacation. Boom. Go to the four seasons. Come back. I look at the bill.
Starting point is 00:17:08 I'm like, oh, man, it was like 50% more than what I had budgeted on. Is there anyone that we've heard in the industry, the only person who tells people a magic number to add to your expense budget when you're traveling? And isn't there somebody who says, take the room rate and add 50%? And then everybody goes, 50%. Remit, that's crazy. Why are you talking about that? 38% room rate tax. Da-da-da-da-da. And then nobody listens. And then what's that magic number that you said again? Lucas? What was that? Well, if you want to, if you want to do it that way, then I guess it's 100%. Because we did 30% more. And we spent more than that. You know, so. You had a good time on that trip. That sounds amazing.
Starting point is 00:17:49 It was great. It was great. I was able to bring, you know, we were able to bring my mom on the trip as well. So we went back after the trip. Two months later, we end up moving, you know, again, back, like, long distance. And, you know, my wife is like, hey, we haven't had a vacation in a while. Wait, this is after New Orleans? Two months after, yes.
Starting point is 00:18:11 Okay. And I'm like, what do you mean we haven't had a vacation? She said, well, you know, that was a bachelor's party. I didn't really get to have, like, fun with the fan. We haven't had a family vacation. Just so everybody knows, Trin is like laughing hysterically in the corner over here. Trin, I'm coming back to you. Don't worry.
Starting point is 00:18:27 I want to hear your side of the stage. You're really laughing. All right, I'm coming to you in a second. Carry on, Lucas. It made sense because at the time, we were having like a Nigerian convention in the area. So we said, okay, since we're moving, let's just go stay at the Marriott Hotel. We stayed there for about a week and a half or two weeks. Then my mom was there, too.
Starting point is 00:18:47 So we had a family vacation this time. I don't know what the other vacation was or the other trip was. But again, and we moved. The move, so many things went wrong on the move. Like so many things. So I thought the move was going to cost, let's say, 8,000 or 10,000. It ended up costing like 15, as well as that other extra vacation. We get to this place and there's a whole bunch of stuff wrong with this place.
Starting point is 00:19:14 So we can't even stay in this house. So we have to go stay in another hotel. we stayed there for about three to five days or something. So that's more money out the pocket. Again, I'm trying to handle all the stuff. I think it was like two weeks after that point, I'm looking at the expenses. Before all this stuff happened, on that vacation, I did something that I never, ever do. I turned my brain off in terms of finances because normally on trips, I'm in the numbers like, hey, we budgeted for food, we did this, we did that.
Starting point is 00:19:42 On this trip, I just turned it off. And it stayed off for like another three to four weeks after we got back. So when we got back, I'm like, all right, you know, it's time to look at the numbers. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, what is going on here? I see about, I think, $800 or $1,000 in the account. I start feeling like anxious or nervous. You know, I appreciate the honesty when Lucas says he turned off his brain. I think a lot of us do that with our money.
Starting point is 00:20:09 What's really hard is that we tend to turn our brains off and stop using our brains off. and stop using our systems when the stakes are really high. In their case, traveling with family for a long time because their house wasn't ready. That's stressful. I remember, I used to do these huge launches every January and my body would be a wreck afterwards. The first time I did it, it took me about six months to physically get back to 100%, physically and mentally. I'd be up late.
Starting point is 00:20:36 I'd drink way too much caffeine. I would skip my workouts. And I learned later that in times of high stress, those are exactly the times to lean on your system. And I think that's why it's so important to build your financial system right now. While you're listening to this, you have peace and calm, you can think ahead. Because at one point or another, we're all going to get in a stressful situation. It might be something with your home. It might be something with your family.
Starting point is 00:21:02 Somebody might get laid off. If you don't have a system to lean on, it is easy to become overwhelmed with stress, close your eyes and start spending money on whatever's in front of you. Now, if you want help setting up that type of system, you can join my money coaching program at IWT.com slash money coaching. I do live Q&A every month. I'd love to answer your questions right there on the spot, and there's a community of other people just like you.
Starting point is 00:21:30 IWT.com slash money coaching. What about the credit card debt? How much you're paying on that every month? That varies, because I thought that was minimum payments to cards. We pay, yeah, like every month we're probably paying
Starting point is 00:21:45 like maybe $5,000 on the card. $5,000 a month? No way. Well, okay. So this is another, the complicated thing, whatever. If we start the month out with, let's say, $6,000 in the credit card,
Starting point is 00:22:00 right? I want to end the month with less than that. Probably zero. How much are you paying per month on the credit card debt? It should be a... I don't know how to answer that question.
Starting point is 00:22:10 I can be a... I'll give you an example. Let's say we paid rent with the credit card. If I paid rent with the credit card and I took the cash and paid the credit card off, how do I answer your question? Why are you paying your rent with the credit card? To get some points? Well, one part was for the points. Two was because we didn't have the cash at the time. Do you now? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:22:32 All right. Can I just say something? Your overcomplicated system is actually doing you no favors. You can't get your head around it. And if Lucas, even if you don't know the answers to this, then how can your wife know the answers? And you told me coming on this call, I want to have better communication, right? I want to have a team work together. No teammate can understand a system that only works in your head. That's surprised you to hear? A little bit.
Starting point is 00:23:02 For me, there's no, there's no, like, system behind it. The right answer is manage it better. Correct. Okay. My thing is, how do you manage this? Like, this is what I'm trying to figure out. What is the number you have at the top for fixed costs? You're the 54%.
Starting point is 00:23:19 You're broke. You know, sometimes in my conversations, I have to spend a lot of time getting these facts out on the page so that the couple I'm speaking to realizes the severity of their situation. I don't blame Lucas and Trin for not knowing how bad things are
Starting point is 00:23:37 because our minds are very creative in finding ways to rationalize and obfuscate painful truths. We want to believe that we are conscientious and smart and we care about our money, but we never want to admit that actually we've been ignoring it and possibly even just mismanaging it. And sometimes we have to confront the uncomfortable truths that we are broke.
Starting point is 00:24:06 That's what I am doing here, spending a lot of time to get those facts on the table so that we can all start working with reality. What are you feeling? Focus. Well, one, you know, seeing you cried and hearing your perspective on this is, it's kind of hard because, like, it's not what, you know, I wanted for our family. You know, that's one. But also, I'm feeling overwhelmed. And, a little bit frustrated as well because I deal with these numbers
Starting point is 00:24:47 on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis, looking into the future as well of what needs to get set up for our family, looking at the things that we also need as well. And the conversations that we have is... Let me pause you right there. First of all, you're both in counseling, right?
Starting point is 00:25:11 Mm-hmm. Okay. I can tell. And I mean that in a positive way. It's very beautiful. So, like, very good work. I also noticed that each of you feels this resentment about how the other is treating money. Each of you has this need right now to make sure the other person knows that.
Starting point is 00:25:37 that you're right. But what I didn't hear was the two of you talking about this problem that the two of you are facing together. Sometimes we don't feel like it's a together thing. Sometimes I tell Trent this, it's like she wants me to do certain things
Starting point is 00:25:58 with both hands tied behind my back and hopping on one leg. Like the thing, how she wants me to do things, it's like that. And I'm like, the way that you're telling what you want me to do is fine. But the how, I can't do it that way. We are going to go down, you know, a different path.
Starting point is 00:26:19 And she takes that as me saying, I'm better than you in finances. My way is the best. And this and that. So I'm not going to lie. I do have control aspects of things because, like, you can see the numbers, right? Like, even if we made $5,000 more, we are still. in a position where we are broke. And that scares me to the point where I'm like,
Starting point is 00:26:44 okay, in order for me to accomplish the goals for our family, I need to make $35,000 a month. But that scares me even more because if I made more, guess what, we're probably going to spend more if we continue down this path. So Lucas, do you think that maybe for the first time ever, Trin seeing these numbers actually understands the severity of the situation? Yeah, I think so.
Starting point is 00:27:10 Haven't you been wishing that she would actually get it for a long time? Yeah. Well, do you think she gets it? Hey, Trin. Do you get where we are right now, about a financial position? I definitely do, and I also empathize with you that you've been carrying that for a long time. Thank you. So, like, through this conversation, was there anything that, like I said,
Starting point is 00:27:39 or anything that I talked about that I could have talked about in a different way or we can communicate in a different way so that we can be on the same page. I really appreciate you opening up and sharing like your true feelings, your point of view. And I know that you have tried and maybe my ears just weren't open. Listening is a skill, right? And sometimes I hear you and it goes in one ear and out the other. but I'm listening.
Starting point is 00:28:14 I'm your partner and I'm here to help. And, you know, I may be a little emotional now, but in the morning I'll wake up, strap up my boots, and we'll figure this out. And, like, I do want to share something with you, though. I think it was like last week or the week before, you had said, hey, you know, we don't have a college or a savings plan for charity.
Starting point is 00:28:41 And I think I hit you with like a one line. I'm like, oh, okay, you know, something like that. But that actually made me, that actually made me cry. Because, like, that's all my big board of things to accomplish. And that is not the first step for me. Like, the first step for me is to have savings in an emergency fund. And then, you know, to have us set up with life insurance. Like, so I have, like, a step system or a plan.
Starting point is 00:29:06 But I'm like, you know, like, I can't even, came or put away money for something that we both think is important for our daughter, right? You know, Mama's sick, right? I don't even have enough money to take care of Mama. So, like, the goals that I had when I was 25 to take care of my family, I haven't even accomplished that. And it's been 10 years. How much more time is it going to take for me to be able to do that? and for us to be able to like accomplish the things that we want to accomplish.
Starting point is 00:29:42 It's beautiful hearing the two of you talk like a team. It's really the first time when it comes to money that I'm hearing that today. It seems to me that if the two of you were totally aligned, you could actually make some big changes. Oh, yeah. Are you two aligned as parents? Yeah, I'll say yeah. All right.
Starting point is 00:30:10 That's cool. And what's another part of life where the two of you are aligned? Our faith. Great. You just kind of, you can read each other. You know what they're thinking. You can close your eyes. You know where they are.
Starting point is 00:30:29 You know they have your back. You know if something you're struggling with, they're going to be there. And you know, sometimes they're going to be down and you're going to be there. That's a partner. But not with money. What do you think it would feel like if the two of you were true? partners with money. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:30:56 First time you ever really thought about it, right? Give it a shot. Lead on your faith. Lead on your parenting. Think about what it feels like to know that you have a partner. I mean, I don't want to just talk about crisis, because in crisis, we already got each other's backs.
Starting point is 00:31:22 Like money, faith, parenting, like when that stuff happens, it's outside of crisis. But you said how did it look like? When things are going well, it gets even better. We wouldn't have to bring in the four horsemen. And so one of my horsemen is criticism and his typically is defensiveness. And so we wouldn't have to bring those in because we would know, as you've already stated, that I know you have my best interest.
Starting point is 00:31:52 You have our family's best interest. I don't see you as an enemy. you are truly my partner. I love that. I think for me, it would be pure bliss. And we've already spoken to the financial piece and you know that communication plays a part in that.
Starting point is 00:32:09 And so it would literally be bliss and our ideal vision of our kingdom marriage, as we like to call it. Allow me to add one as well. When you're a partner and when you have a partner, things are simple, right? Even with all the complexity of raising kids, it's pretty simple if you boil it down, right?
Starting point is 00:32:37 Feed them, love them, protect them. A partnership with money. Yeah, there's a complexity, especially in the early days. But you make a few key decisions, roles, who does what? What happens if we're over our spending limit? and then there's trust, but it's simple. Right now, this is too complicated. You can tell it's complicated
Starting point is 00:33:04 when there's all kinds of stuff happening off the page. Like really, it should be happening on this page, one page, the conscious spending plan. And when there's all kinds of weird variability and well, there's this, and that's when you know, man, we've taken a wrong turn way back, way back in the rear view mirror.
Starting point is 00:33:22 So with your permission, I'd like to try to make some tough decisions right now. How do you feel about that? I'm a little scared. I would be scared if I were you too. Tough decisions are tough. And the fact is, you know, as we heard, the house is actually on fire. You're spending more you're down to, I don't know, a couple of months of money. and even that is putting you in even further severe debt.
Starting point is 00:33:58 Yeah. So what we have to agree on is that we can't make small changes. If we find ourselves 15 minutes from now arguing over, can we cut $15 on our cell phone bill? We know that we have taken a wrong turn because $15 is not going to solve your problems. Do we agree on that? I do. All right.
Starting point is 00:34:21 So put on your big, bold move hats because that's what we're about to do right now. All right. Let's go. What I just did there was shift them from being problem oriented to solution oriented. You know, most people with problems love to talk about their problems. It's comfortable there. People can even become addicted to talking about their problems.
Starting point is 00:34:43 But it is a small percentage of people who can go from problem oriented to actively looking for solutions. And it's a funny peculiarity of human nature that will complain about something for 15 years, like sweating too much or not being able to parallel park or not having enough money. But very few of us will actually look for a solution that could change everything. We'll be right back. A lot of people I know, including me, are drinking less alcohol these days. One of a friend stopped completely. He said it feels amazing, but he's got a little trick.
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Starting point is 00:37:47 slash Rameet. That's 15% off at masterclass.com slash Rameet. Masterclass.com slash Rameet. Now, back to Trin and Lucas. So I've gotten them ready to look for solutions. Let's see what happens. Remember, their fixed costs are 154% of take-home pay. And ideally, that number should be at 50 to 60%.
Starting point is 00:38:13 I control groceries and household. and so I say we can go down to a thousand a month. You want to cut that by it from 1800 to a thousand. How are you going to do that? Finding deals. So Publix does buy one, get one, only purchasing those items for that week.
Starting point is 00:38:36 I can do that. I can be a little more conservative with things that we do purchase. So from 1800, I'm going to move it to 1,000. I feel confident. Nice. And that number went from 154 to 144% of fixed costs. All right, good.
Starting point is 00:38:53 What's next? I think for me, we could definitely take a look at the subscriptions. I guess we could cut that in half, probably 300. That sound 140%. What's next? Yeah. And there other fixed expenses is really big. Lucas, do you want to add anything for fixed expenses?
Starting point is 00:39:16 I mean, we could drop constantly. them? No, don't do that. No, not drop it completely, because we meet four times a week. Oh, that's a lot. Not four times a month. Couples is twice a month. Listen, I'd rather have you cut your grooming, your lawn care, and everything else besides counseling. I'm not joking around.
Starting point is 00:39:39 Got it, got it. Okay. Okay. I mean, Rosa could come just once a month. Let's see. Child care. I'll say you could bring that down probably to right around 2000 if we're cutting the lawn, the house cleaning, and then grooming.
Starting point is 00:39:59 Let's go. We're down to 126% by the way. Okay. Tithing and giving, this is $1,242 a month. Well, if it's based on $8,000, right? It should be 800 then. Yeah, it should be 800. Are you required to give 10%?
Starting point is 00:40:25 Not required, but that's what we do. We prefer to give 10%. I'd rather cut something else. Okay. Just being 100%. All right. I appreciate it. It's your money, so you tell me what's next.
Starting point is 00:40:36 I'm the executor right now. You tell me. Okay. What's next? Maybe the phone. All right. I think we get, I mean, that's 30 bucks, though. I think we could get that down to like 180.
Starting point is 00:40:48 180. All right. You know I have a sponsor on this show who does like $15 a month. Let me guess, Mint. Yes. I mean, is it reliable? Dude, how are we debating this right now? How are we?
Starting point is 00:41:01 We literally are doing what I said we are not allowed to do. We're doing it five minutes. I am. All right, all right. Go ahead. I'm putting 50 bucks. As soon as we get off the call. How much is Mint?
Starting point is 00:41:10 How much is Mint? So far, here are the changes we made to drop their fixed costs from 154% to 115. Their groceries went from $1,800 a month to $1,000. Subscriptions went from $600 to $300. Counseling is staying on the books. Church tithing is staying on the books at a pretty substantial 10%. They removed lawn care, grooming, and housekeeping. They chopped down their mobile bill with Mint,
Starting point is 00:41:39 where you can get great cell phone service starting at $15 a month via mintmobile.com slash for meat. So they're making changes. Let's keep going. Does any of the kids need close? No. Damn, Trit. That is partnership right there.
Starting point is 00:41:54 Yes. All right. So we could put that to zero. Zero. All right. 112. What's next? Car transportation.
Starting point is 00:42:01 That might be more like maybe 500. Maybe $5.15. If anything, it's going to be higher because you're going to get a repair at some point or parking tickets or whatever. Oh. I didn't know that that. Yeah, the simple stuff. Okay. Hey, I have a question.
Starting point is 00:42:21 Why do you have a car payment at all? Because we have a car. You think we should get rid of something? We just bought it. Yeah, you shouldn't have bought it. Well, I know, but are we going to lose money? You know what? We will have that hard conversation of selling the car.
Starting point is 00:42:41 Well, let's do it. You want to have a hard conversation? You want to just make a decision. What do you want to do? Yeah. I say it needs to go. I agree with you. I say it needs to go.
Starting point is 00:42:55 I'm okay selling it. The part that I'm not okay on is losing the money, you know, that we put into it. Lucas, you made a bad decision. Now you have to eat it. I don't want to eat it. Yeah. And notice, by the way, I know all jokes aside, just the second time, because you made a comment about the collections thing. When the credit card guys were like, hey, you need to pay this and you were like, no, remember
Starting point is 00:43:18 that phrase cut your nose off to spite your face or whatever, that's this. That's this. Like, yeah, you're going to lose money. Yes, it was a horrible decision. And yes, you should probably do it anyway. Because the worst case is paying 600 bucks a month for however many years when you just don't have the money. Yeah. All right. All right. Make it make it 120. would be what gas? Just gas. All right. In the CSP, I'm going to assume that you sell the car
Starting point is 00:43:55 and then somewhere you'll have to add the debt. Okay. And I don't think we'll have that much debt either because we did pay money up front for it. Great. Let's sell that thing and never look back. All right. What's next?
Starting point is 00:44:12 Feel stuck? Yeah, I feel stuck. The only thing that I can think of that would actually put a huge dent in this is the rent. All right. Let's play that out. We got a spreadsheet.
Starting point is 00:44:29 Let's play with it for a second. 2450. How much could you feasibly pay? Maybe a further out location, smaller place, less bedrooms, whatever. What could you feasibly pay for it? Maybe 18,900. Maybe 1800.
Starting point is 00:44:51 Maybe something I've seen. Okay. Let's say 1900. Lucas, how do you feel about that? Particularly well about it? Yeah, I wouldn't either, but we got to put it in here and see. All the decisions we're going to make from now on are going to be hard. Everything until this point was easy.
Starting point is 00:45:09 Yeah, you could put 19. But for me, it's the, how plausible is that, like, moving. That's more expenses as well. Well, let me tell you what's not plausible is spending 106% of what you make every month on just your fixed expenses. Yeah. All right, 1900, watch what happens. It drops to 99%. Okay.
Starting point is 00:45:33 Rent is currently $2,450, which is 25% of their gross. Now, in the absence of everything else, that number is okay. But because they have high fixed costs, that number doesn't give them a lot of margin to play with it. Even after everything we've done so far, we're still at 99%. Something drastic needs to happen. Can you do something else as well on the income part for my income if you put 11,500 net? You're saying you're going to make an extra $1,150 per month, right? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:46:13 So should we just, is it $1,500 or $1,150? Which one? 1,150. But the math isn't adding up. Why is that $8,000? Because I arbitrarily put it in there. Look, let me show you what I mean. Lucas, if your gross income is 11,692, you can't be making more on the net side.
Starting point is 00:46:34 You have to pay taxes. Okay. You basically have to take like a 30% haircut. Okay. Okay. So for the gross income, it's 15,000. Okay. Okay.
Starting point is 00:46:53 It's 15,000 for partner two specifically. So in cell C11, 15,000. All right. Watch. So 18,000. So now this has to be adjusted to, let's say, 13,000. Yeah, if that happens, everything's great. Yeah. But I'm really glad that Lucas did that because this is the false reality that we have been living in.
Starting point is 00:47:30 I know, exactly. And you can't. Hold on. You cannot build a model off of hope. Hope is not a strategy. So what if I told you that I already have the income coming in for this month? But that's just, but that's the issue. That's just for this month.
Starting point is 00:47:45 Yeah, that's not sustainable. We need to build a plan that is sustainable or you will constantly be playing this yo-yo game for the rest of your life. Forget about financial freedom. You'll be in debt for the rest of your life. I can hear myself getting heated here. One of the things I mentioned last week is that Lucas is a believer, someone who, who believes the next big deal is right around the corner. It's going to solve all their problems.
Starting point is 00:48:08 And he just made a mention of next month's income, which is great, but it's just one month. It's really hard to show believers that a rich life is not about one good month or one good deal. A rich life is about radically reconceptualizing your finances, so you're winning every month. But that often means making hard decisions, right now. Do you understand that, Lucas?
Starting point is 00:48:37 When does it actually become a reality for you? What does consistency look like? Three to six months of the same consistent income or a baseline of that income. The past three months, that baseline, as you input that number, was 8,000. How do you feel about that, Lucas? I think just in the past, we've had tried to have this conversation before. And to be honest, I felt like when I told her the projections or, hey, this is what we're going to make, it got like, you know, like pooped on. You know, and I felt I was getting pooped on. Like, oh, I don't believe in you.
Starting point is 00:49:22 You can't do this. Right. And then when I'll come back and say, hey, look at what happened over the last three months, over the last two months, over the last four months. she would hit me with, well, still not consistent. You know, your income is variable, this and that. And I felt like the goalpost got moved and then we'll get into arguing. And then I just go into my own little world of, okay, let me just go do my thing. Lucas, do you understand why that happened, that dynamic?
Starting point is 00:49:48 Can you zoom up and observe the dynamic of your communication? Do you know why that happened? I'm not 100% sure, but it probably has to do with like specific. and the way that I communicate may be a little complicated when I'm giving numbers or I think those two things and I think one more thing which is going to be tough to hear
Starting point is 00:50:10 which is you actually haven't delivered on what you've committed to your partner has every right to be skeptical of the numbers you are projecting because there's a ton of debt here and I'm not saying it's only your fault I'm not even trying to assign fault or anything I'm just saying that you haven't earned the trust of consistent delivery.
Starting point is 00:50:34 So, of course, your partner's skeptical. I mean, I would have to push back on that because over the last three months, yes, the business did take a hit. But if you looked at before those three months and did a three-month average, a six-month average, you'll see the numbers that I've seen. So from one snapshot is, oh, you haven't delivered, yeah, right now. But before these last three months, you couldn't say that. Okay. I love your pushback. I welcome it.
Starting point is 00:51:03 I love that you're engaged. And I hope you know that. I don't mind, right, that you disagree with me on certain things. In business, any entrepreneur knows, sometimes it goes up, sometimes it goes down. No one, certainly not another entrepreneur like me is going to come down on you because business has been tough for three months. All right. That's life.
Starting point is 00:51:23 But when I came here. And we looked at your numbers originally. You were spending roughly 150% of your income on fixed costs alone. That shows a gross mismanagement of personal finances. And that's not three months. That has nothing to do with the last three months. Sure, things are down. But like, if you were making that much money before, technically, if it were managed,
Starting point is 00:51:50 you would have had way more in savings, way more investments. Debt would have been managed and certainly not a lot of money. all this credit card debt. Right? So there's like, it's not about the last three months. Put that aside. I see that. And what I'm saying,
Starting point is 00:52:06 I'm not saying that there wasn't mismanagement of funds or anything like that. But our savings went to paying bills because of these last three months. Can I ask you something? Did you cut your expenses when the business slowed down? Personal expenses? No, it probably went up. Exactly. Did you cut your expenses when you had to take care of the surprise medical expenses for your family?
Starting point is 00:52:32 I see where you're going with this. That's where the mismanagement comes from. Exactly. It's like a football player who used to be, you know, like super ripped and then they stopped playing football and they're not ripped anymore. Why? Because they used to burn like 5,000 calories a day, 10,000 calories a day. They haven't adjusted to reality. It looks like it's hitting you now.
Starting point is 00:52:54 Yeah, it is. what's going through your mind right now? Just a little bit of frustration because there is a little bit of wishful thinking there. Good way, bad way. I'm not putting morality on it, right? There's a bit of wishful thinking where, oh, the business went down. Instead of looking at the household expenses
Starting point is 00:53:12 and having a conversation with my wife of, hey, our three-month average just went down. What are we going to do about it? It was, oh, things get better. Then the second month happened, then the third month. Now things are, you know, things are going like super up. But we have to like dig out of this hole that we just, you know, created for one. I'm not going to say we that I created for ourselves, you know, because of the lack of
Starting point is 00:53:35 right. Yes. Because of the lack of communication and a lack of adjustment. So I will say that. I do see that aspect now. It's like if the income goes down, the expenses have to go down as well. If the income goes up, the expenses need to, you know, stay the same, right? And I didn't, I didn't look at.
Starting point is 00:53:54 things like that before. You know, I didn't. The amount that you're spending right now is for a couple that earns, you know, $250,000 plus consistently. More like $300,000. $300,000 would allow you to have, yeah, it would be nice. It would allow you to actually have investments and savings and all the things that you talk about generational wealth and all this stuff.
Starting point is 00:54:24 It's like, you can't live this lifestyle on the income you're making. And please listen, the takeaway is not that I want you to go out and try to find a way to make $300,000 tomorrow because that's actually not going to happen. The first lesson is to manage your expenses much more carefully. This conversation reminds me a lot of Kara and Drake, a couple that I recently spoke to, where Drake had similarly inflated optimism around his earning potential. I love optimism, but I want to balance that with the facts.
Starting point is 00:54:59 If somebody tells me that they should be making $350,000 a year and they're currently making 320, I say, yeah, that sounds great. You could probably get there, no problem. If someone tells me they should be making 350K and they're currently making 85, that may not be realistic. I talk a lot about the $3 versus $30,000 questions that so many of us are obsessed with. And that same principle applies to kids too.
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Starting point is 00:56:32 Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company, not available in certain states. Prices subject to underwriting and health questions. I have this email software that I love so much. I pay 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.
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Starting point is 00:57:56 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 Ramith 3 and try it for yourself. That's superhuman.com slash remit 3, the number 3. Trin, do you work full-time? I do.
Starting point is 00:58:17 Okay, what do you do? I'm a training coordinator. Okay. So you make about $44,000 a year, right? Mm-hmm. How much can you make? In this role? In any role.
Starting point is 00:58:34 Hmm. Probably upwards of $60,000. Trin. Why are you in this low-paid job? I am almost done with school. Mm-hmm. Lucas and I agreed that I would take this lower-paying job so that mentally I'm not super strained so that I can focus on my dissertation because I'm almost done. Oh, what you're getting, you're in grad school right now?
Starting point is 00:59:00 I am. Okay, cool. What is this, a Ph.D.? Yes. Oh, okay, that's cool. What are you going to do after the Ph.D? I want to teach. All right.
Starting point is 00:59:09 How much will you make there? Minimum, probably about 75. that's just if I choose to do one job. If I'm an adjunct, more than that. When does that start? Probably I will graduate no later than the spring. So a few months. What?
Starting point is 00:59:36 How did this not come up anywhere? I'm going back to the CSP. It's like someone just pulls out thousands of dollars a month out of their pocket. What the hell? So your gross is going to be, what should we say? how much 6,000 a month? Yeah. All right.
Starting point is 00:59:57 Things get a little bit better. And that's like a, is that a sure thing? Yeah. 6,000 a month from currently 3,600 to 6,000 a month. How did this never come up after hours of our conversations? Because it's in progress. I'm just not there yet. I have to make a comment about this hilarious moment.
Starting point is 01:00:21 Trin Lucas and I have been talking for literally hours and suddenly out of nowhere I discover this massive income increase that's coming. And this happens all the time. People will go, oh, nothing's really wrong. And then three hours in they'll go, oh, wait, we actually have $400,000 in debt. Or in this case, I'm about to double my income.
Starting point is 01:00:39 What's even more interesting is Trin's offhand comment. Did you catch it? She said, it's in progress. I'm not there yet. people find it really hard to accept and bake in future changes into their assumptions. Even the idea of fiddling with a conscious spending plan, which you can literally type in and then erase, just control Z, makes people uncomfortable. Why? Because the psychology here is that people believe once they write something down,
Starting point is 01:01:10 they have to do it. And if they don't achieve that, they consider themselves a failure. This is basically what happens when kids become adults. They lose the ability to play. And in your CSP, one of the things that I encourage you, I'm begging you to do with your partner, is you have to be able to play, to tweak, to come up with scenarios, to ask what if, what if we got rid of this car, what if we downsize to a place that's half the size? What if we increased our income by 70%?
Starting point is 01:01:41 Play with it and see how the numbers flow. All right, that's amazing. Congratulations on your upcoming dissertation. That's a ton of hard work. No joke. It's awesome. That's going to take a lot of financial pressure off of the family finances. That's amazing.
Starting point is 01:01:59 That's the number one thing that I would suggest to you was to get a higher paying job. So, okay, you check the box on that. Fantastic. I got a question for you. Like, you're an entrepreneur as well. Because like when you said, hey, you're not going to go out tomorrow and make that. To me, I don't hear things like that, right? Not to say that I need to manage my household like that, but as an entrepreneur, you know the drive that's in us.
Starting point is 01:02:24 Once you see a problem, you're like, okay, how can I fix this? I want to make more money. And if you have a plan for that, you're going to put it into place. So how do I manage the, I'm not going to call a wishful thinking, how do I manage the opportunity side of the business and the income you can make versus the reality side of, okay, this is what it is. Okay, I'm looking at my business. Of all the activities I'm doing, what are the two or three that are going to get me to $15,000 a month? That's what I'm doing.
Starting point is 01:02:56 And what am I eliminating? Because magical thinking entrepreneurs are the ones that constantly are doing. I can do this and I can do that and I can do this. You're just wasting your time. You pick the two or three high leverage areas. You execute them flawlessly. You monitor them every day and then you get to your number. And if you don't, you let people go or you change your strategy, whatever it is.
Starting point is 01:03:15 And if that doesn't work, Lucas, after a month or two, what do you do then? Regroup. What does that mean? Tell me specifically, what do you do? Again, figure out what needs to get cut. You're already going to be doing that. That's a daily thing. What else?
Starting point is 01:03:31 It's not working after two months. Wait, what's not working? Your business. You're not getting the numbers you need. Well, I'm not getting the numbers I need because of a specific reason, though. I don't know. You can't fix it. Sometimes you can't fix things in business.
Starting point is 01:03:44 What are you going to do? I don't know. that's a weird question that's not a weird question at all what's the plan B if this business doesn't suddenly start making way more than it's making right now oh well
Starting point is 01:03:59 I'd have to figure out how to get more income how another opportunity Mike can you be specific I feel like I'm dragging this out of you if you talk about a job as I was you saying I'm asking
Starting point is 01:04:18 I want every option on the table I mean yeah I guess. I mean, I just don't want to say things just to say it. Like, if there was something else out in the market that could pay me for my family needs, like that 15K gross is what we're looking at or something less. Basically, you put it like this. If there's a job out there that can pay me more than I'm making from the business consistently,
Starting point is 01:04:47 then I would consider taking it. Then, Lucas, don't you think it's your job to find out? Okay. And why would I? Not why would I? I already put my energy into making sure that this business, not only just a stable can work, but can grow.
Starting point is 01:05:06 And that's, I have a plan for that. Like, not even a plan that's out here. It's working. No, I hope it does. But what if it doesn't?
Starting point is 01:05:14 You have essentially no savings. So if things are not, like basically working perfect every single month for you, you are in really big trouble. I'm not trying to, you to say anything, but let me tell you what you wrote on the application to me. Okay? Yes.
Starting point is 01:05:31 You both, by the way, sent separate applications, which was unusual, but I like it. Did you two read each other's applications? I don't think we got a email transcript of it. No. Can I read off some of the comments that each of you made in the application? Yeah, sure. All right. One of them said, it's really taking a toll on our marriage and is the only thing we argue about
Starting point is 01:05:54 consistently. I'm so frustrated that I am ready to give up trying. We've been in counseling for over three years at this point for various reasons, the most recent being finances. Another, if you're asking how long until we split, I think less than two years if we continue down this path. Sometimes I think of divorcing my partner so that I can focus on building wealth and supporting them from a distance. That's pretty serious stuff. Yeah. Your job is to get you. You get your finances to be simpler than mine. Okay? That's what it should be.
Starting point is 01:06:29 And so if there's something you don't understand, then either it exists in my book or probably you should not be doing it. Can I just say that? Like probably you should not be leveraging anything. You don't need leverage. What you need to do is pay off your debt. No more leverage. No more tricks.
Starting point is 01:06:51 Yeah. That's the truth. Your finances should be quite simple. honestly. I like that. I love that actually. All right. How's it feel to see a mile down the road after you're normally used to only seeing 50 feet in front of you? Really good. It's more like a, you know, like the word she used, the privilege. Like I get to talk to my wife about finances because one day I won't or she won't because we're not going to be here anymore. You know, we get to go through the pains because on the other side of pain, it's pleasure because now we'll be able to
Starting point is 01:07:24 kids what we didn't have. It does get me excited. I mean, if I'm being completely honest when we went through a conscious spending plan and we made the adjusted numbers, I was really emotional because I was like, you know, there are things that my heart desires. And at this moment, it doesn't seem like it's achievable if we continue to do the same thing, the same way. What is insanity doing the same thing, the same way, expecting different results? But now, like you said, like you're forcing me to see, this structure is going to help you get to that rich life. Yeah. And you're not going to get there tomorrow.
Starting point is 01:08:09 You're not going to get there in a year. You're not going to get there in five years. And that is okay. Trin and Lucas have been pursuing a very interesting strategy. Trin delegating a lot of control over to Lucas. Lucas pursuing what I would characterize as get rich quick aspirations and things like overfunding a whole life insurance policy, which I strongly disagree with. It is going to take them a lot of joint effort together to dig themselves out of the situation
Starting point is 01:08:42 that they find themselves in, but I believe they can do it if the two of them get truly aligned. Let's check out their follow-ups. First, Trin. So one of the surprises that came out of the meeting was that my partner felt very similar to what I felt. So we both completed the application separately, but ultimately we kind of wrote the same, that if this issue was not resolved and resolved soon, that it could lead to the detriment of our marriage. The other surprise was that, as Rameet said, our finances were more complex than his. A takeaway. My partner shouldn't have to carry that load on his own. And yes, we do have certain roles established. That doesn't mean that he should have to carry the entire financial load by himself. The other thing was that we've been living beyond our means because it is hidden in our
Starting point is 01:09:39 fixed expenses. And so we see it more as like these are necessities when in actuality they're not. we did decide to sell our car. The other thing that we are going to do, or excuse me, that I'm going to do is I'm going to increase my knowledge in finances. I'm going to start by reading Remit's book. And the last thing that we plan to do is that we plan to establish roles that work for our family. Me supporting my partner on that financial side, carrying my load for this family. And I consider it a privilege to be able to do so. And now, Lucas. One of the biggest surprises that I got from the conversation with you was the way that I talked about my business income and my personal income confuses people. And my biggest takeaway, a biggest lesson that I got from the conversation was to keep things simple. So from now, moving forward, I'll be talking to my wife about the gross revenue of the business, the net profit of the business, and what the business paid us, like what our family received. The other big lesson that I got from the conversation was about the financial freedom aspect of things. I wanted to be financially free by 40.
Starting point is 01:10:53 And my definition was where we have rental property or assets taking care of our lifestyle. I don't have to rush for that. It doesn't have to come at 40. The journey is more important. And the specific changes that we are going to make, I am going to personally work on not complicating things. So keeping things simple. we're going to be looking for a buyer for our SUV and we're going to be going through this wonderful book. We're going to be spending the next, you know, a couple of years just getting a solid foundation,
Starting point is 01:11:23 getting stability, and building up a huge savings, a robust savings account so that when we do invest in rental properties, it will be way less risky than we are in this position now. I want to thank Trin and Lucas for being so open with their story. Over the last two episodes, they have shared a lot of personal background, the cultural differences that they brought, the way that they look at money differently. And I have to especially thank Lucas for hearing some of my feedback to him, which cannot have been easy for him to take. I appreciate you, Trin and Lucas. I appreciate you coming on, engaging with me, and I wish you both the best. If you enjoyed this podcast, I'm going to be talking about how to have a money date with your
Starting point is 01:12:09 partner, including the exact words to say this Saturday, get it at IWT.com slash podcast newsletter. Thanks for listening to I Will Teach You to Be Rich. I'm Rameet Seity. 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.

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