Money For Couples with Ramit Sethi - 134. “I make $24K a year but my truck costs $1,600+ a month” (Part 2)

Episode Date: December 12, 2023

Part 2 with Becki and Dustin drops us right back into a contentious conversation about Dustin’s 6-wheeled truck, but his and Becki’s misalignment runs a lot deeper than that. Once their numbers are revealed, painful truths come to the light—and life altering changes are put on the table. 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. Masterclass | For unlimited access to every class and 15% off an annual membership, go to https://masterclass.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. Rocket Money | Stop throwing your money away. Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to https://rocketmoney.com/ramit. Netsuite | Get visibility to everything in your business one one place. Sign up and defer payments, with no interest, for six months at https://iwt.com/netsuite. Links mentioned in this episode "She has $7k in cc debt—just 3 months after I paid it off for her" (Part 1) Connect with Ramit Get the Podcast Newsletter and exclusive Q&A about the show Get Money Coaching with Ramit  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.

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.

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 slash money coaching to join

the program right now. I mean, I'm nervous about like the financial stuff. I don't want to do that the rest of my life. Like, always have a credit card. I never know where the money went. Always just kind of climb up a ladder for no reason. It feels like I am in a position where, one, I am having to prove myself, like, that I'm worthy of being a partner that I have to show him that I can be responsible with money in order for him to want to build a life with me.

I feel like the root of the problem is that like I don't have a good, a really good sense of like who I am. Like I feel very lost. I don't know. Like it's my fault. Like I'm not worth marrying. Welcome back to part two of my conversation with Becky and Dustin. Just to remind you at the end of the conversation last week, I found out that Dustin made

$24,000 last year, and yet he bought an F-350. That's a huge truck with six tires. And I hit my hand on the desk because I was cracking up so much and the video cut out. That's the first time this happened in over 100 episodes of this podcast. So we're back. And as a refresher, Becky wrote the application to me. She's frustrated because she moved across the country, moved in with Dustin. She's frustrated that their money is separate, frustrated that he doesn't seem to have money to renovate the house, which is important to her. Frustrated that he has. hasn't proposed. But Dustin is frustrated because Becky is not keeping up her end of the bargain and paying off her credit card debt as she agreed to. Before we dive into the episode,

look back on this year. How well do you think you lived your rich life? I think at this time of year it's natural to start thinking about our New Year's resolutions, but often we miss an important step, which is to look back on the year and think about what we loved, what we wish we had done more of. I call this an annual rich life review, and my wife and I do this at the end of every year. Our rich life reviews have helped us make amazing plans for the upcoming year, like spending months living in New York, traveling, being more generous, and just getting control over our money. This Saturday, December 16th, in my newsletter, I'll be sharing how to do a rich life review, and you can only get it by signing up at IWT.com slash podcast newsletter. Here is Beck.

And Dustin. All right. Now, listen, I did a little research, okay? A lot of truck guys out there, I'd like you to know that I know what a duly is now. Like, that's what you see on Yellowstone. They're hauling around like 10 horses. Is that true? I mean, that is what it's for. Okay, I love that big smile on your face.

Like, yeah, that's what it's for? And then what do you haul in your truck? So like skid steers, excavators, materials. I don't even know what any of that is. What is an excavation? Heavy machines that dig swimming pools and just earth-moving equipment. All right. This is not getting me the answers that I thought I was going to get.

But all right, fine. You got the F-350. Since we talked, which you filled it up with 200 bucks of gas on Monday, how much have you put into it since then? Oh, shoot. That was probably two Mondays ago, and I just filled up, and it was like 180. One-80. Okay.

Okay. All right. It's a lot of money. What do you do while you're filling up the gas for like 25 minutes each time? What do you do while it's there pumping? Cry. All right. So I still don't understand how somebody can afford a $65,000 truck on a $150,000 gross income.

No, that's that's net what I brought. That's my money. What? That's not what the whole business made. That's just my portion of it. That's all the profit. 150 you made? Yeah.

Last year? Yeah. That's different than what I see on this thing. I mean, I own the business, so yeah, I mean, I made it. It's my money at the end of the day. And where is it? This is the problem. In the business account, and I took some of it last year.

How much? I don't know. Am I being punked right now? What the hell is happening? This is the problem. This is why when we sat down to split our finances, he doesn't know what's his and what's the business is, and he kind of just takes a little as he needs it.

More than a little sometimes as I need it or want it. Okay. And then what about when you need to say eat? Used to, I would just use the company card and just eat. So you're taking the company card. You're like going up to Chick-fil-A or whatever, and you're like, all right, eight bucks. Yeah.

Okay. And how does your bookkeeper feel about this? Oh, it's been a fiasco. They don't like that, huh? Oh, that's weird. All right. So you said you netted 150KU. How much did the business make top line or growth?

Top line was $4.99. Wow. How long ago did you start this business? Ten years. Okay. That's impressive. Half a million dollars doing pool installs. And that was in one year?

Yeah. So you're making half a million in the last year. And the year before, what was it? The year before, it was probably $2.50,300 range. I'd have to look, to be honest. Okay, impressive. All right, and you got a nice profit margin. Okay, you got the truck.

Sounds like the truck's necessary. Fine. This is helping me understand what's going on. I got you. No problem. All right. Now, you yourself, you said you yourself netted 150. Where's the 150?

Some of it's probably still in the business. Some of it's probably in my savings. I bought a Jeep, things like that. Okay, your savings has $70,000, and of that $67, is yours. So some of it's in there? Yeah, should be, yeah. All right.

And then spent some of it, I'm sure, bought stupid stuff and went places and lived. Do you mean the Jeep, or is there other stupid stuff? There's probably a lot of other stupid things. Okay, we'll get to that. But can we fix this number? Because this is all, you do not make $2,000 a month. That's ridiculous.

I mean, honestly, so all this year, all I've done, it automatically drafts to $2,000 to cover, like, my fixed expenses. This is the way that you do it. Okay. We're going to up-level you here a little bit. Let's just say, for easy math, that you would make $100K salary. Let's even say you'd make $150K salary, okay, on the open market. That's your market rate.

And you go, hey, I don't want to pay myself full market rate. I want to pay myself 100K this year. But when I get my business a little bit bigger, I'll pay myself full market rate. Okay, that's how entrepreneurs do it. So you go, all right, I need to give myself. Well, we know exactly how much you need to give yourself because guess who else in this relationship makes exactly $100,000? That's right, Becky. So why don't we go ahead and just literally copy and paste her information?

So now you make 8,333. Wow, this actually makes things really easy. Now, I'm not saying this is how you've got to make your final numbers, but this makes my job a lot easier. And I'm all for making my job easier. What do you say? I'm with it. Rameet just copies and paste and then he calls it a day.

He goes, wow, great job, Rameed, see you later. So, like, right now we're going to say I make $8,300 a month. What if I'm not making the money like I normally? Like this year, I'm probably going to be close to like $2,500. That's a problem. Do I maintain the same $8,000 or? You need to pick a number that you can confidently deliver on. Okay.

All right, watch. So you're both your gross is $8,333 for a total of $16,667 per month, bringing us to how much is your annual gross household income? $200. That's a lot of money. Where do you live again? North Carolina. How do you all feel about making a lot of money in North Carolina?

Becky probably thinks we don't. No, that's pretty, that's really good. That's pretty good. Why are you looking like that? I guess your reaction was a little, it kind of caught me off guard because it doesn't feel that good sometimes. Oh, it doesn't? And how much would feel good, Becky?

I don't know. I guess if I was like over the 100 mark, I would feel better. You know, like if I was closer to like 120 or one, like between 120 and 150, I think I would feel a little bit better. I don't know why. I don't know if that's a number I made up in my head. Yeah, you made it up. What do you see on screen right now? A calculator. Okay, watch this. I just love what you just said because this is amazing. watch this $8,333. And you said, you know, I need to be over 100 to feel good.

Can we just look at how much, if we add it all up, you make $99,996 per year? You want me to hand you $5 right now? I'll literally Venmo it to you. Will that make you feel better about money? No. No, it won't. No. I guess in my head, I always think,

thought, when I first started looking into going back to school, and I saw like the range of income, I think a part of me was like, oh my gosh, like, I'm going to make 100 grand a year. Like, that's a lot. I feel like growing up like in the late 80s, early 90s, it was like, you made six figures. And I guess now like having it and I still feel like I am broke most of the time. And like, again, I mean, the logical part of me understands that I'm broke because in my actions, like what I do with my money, not what's coming in. There's still just that piece of me that's like, if I just made like another one or two grand a month, it would just make such a huge difference. Can you put that cup down for one second? Yeah, I'm sorry. That was my emotional

safety cup. That's okay. So you just said with my head, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, Put your hand here. Tell me what you feel about your money right now. $99,996 per year. What do you feel? I think I feel a little embarrassed. Keep it there. I feel ungrateful.

Ungrateful to whom? Myself. Okay, keep going. I feel, yeah, I just feel, Like, I'm very fortunate to not only probably make that kind of money, but make it doing something that I genuinely enjoy. And that the only thought I have about it is, if I had more, I'd be happier. Wow. That's honest.

Thank you. I think you ever realized that before? Not that specifically. I know I struggle a lot with just gratitude in general. It's like something I know is really hard for me or that I know causes a lot of my own self-inflicted issues. But I didn't realize I specifically felt that about what I make. Seems to me a lot of what's going on here is about how both of you feel about money, individually and with each other. Yeah, 100%.

I'll suggest some things that I've observed just in this conversation about money. Becky, I think that Dustin doesn't trust you with money if we're just cutting to the chase. And I think that Becky, he has some legitimate reasons not to trust you because you overspend and you haven't told him

about the spending problems for a long time. Stop me if I'm wrong, please. I want to make sure that I'm not saying anything that's inappropriate or inaccurate. Becky, your thoughts? Fair. That's fair. Justin? Yeah, I feel like that's fair. When we first met, she said, I'll just give you all my money and you take you care of it.

She doesn't believe she's good with money. Exactly. Becky, do you see these feelings of self-worth, of connection of do I need to prove myself? They're deep. Nothing we can tackle on one call, but something that you will work on for many years and it will be worth it. There's so much for Becky to dig into here. Personally, I love the opportunity that she's going to get to discover more about herself and her own behavior. What a gift to get to study the most interesting person in the world yourself. That's the way that I want us to all think about self-development, whether it's coaching, books, podcasts, therapists.

This is an opportunity. It's a gift to learn more about herself. So I'm excited for Becky. It's also important because the way that she talks about money and behaves with money and feels about money is being colored and distorted by the way she sees the world. And that includes her own self-worth. I really want her to tackle these things because as you heard from her comments about feeling good about money, if she made $100K, a quick reminder, she makes $99,996.

It's just not true. And much of this is not simply a money problem. It almost never is. We'll be right back. 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.

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Now, back to the show. All right. And then down here, we got guilt-free spending. So this is where the lies happened. How is it possible, Becky, that you went on all these trips and you're telling me you only spend $500 a month on this. Yeah, I probably just added my monthly guilt-free spending, things that are like on automatic.

I don't think I went back and looked at like... Well, we're definitely not accounting for all your expenses here, which is a real problem. And I suspect, Becky, that's probably where a lot of some of the issues lie. How do we start actually getting accurate numbers here? Yeah, I guess when I was doing it, I was just thinking what comes like regularly. I didn't even think to add up like holiday trips, anniversary, vacation, one-off expenses, mistake fees, all that stuff.

Yeah. Well, let me tell you something, Becky, I think this is important. One of the reasons you feel anxious about money, among others, is that essentially your fixed costs are 71%, Which is a lot. And that means by the time we get down here to your guilt-free spending, you actually, according to the math, only have 500 bucks a month to spend. And so you know what you're doing is you're basically like, I don't care about that.

I'm just going to spend what I want. Right? Yeah. And then how does that make you feel? Yes. So what do you want to do? I guess I have to get my fixed costs. more comfortable and I probably need to be more aware of like my guilt-free spending.

I think that's right. But what if you got like once you pay off your credit cards, you'll have a thousand bucks right there. Yeah. Which was the whole, the hope, right? But I mean, I have to get there, which I mean, shouldn't take very long. Do you know? No. I mean, I have to do the math.

we just do it right now? Sure. How much do you owe and credit cards? Um. I thought it was like seven something. Yeah, seven, just under seven. And how much are you paying towards those? I mean, I guess I'm kind of taking the dust and approach.

I try every paycheck to put four or five hundred a month or a paycheck. Excuse me. Do you try to brush your teeth in the morning? Try? No, I do brush my teeth. Okay. So then why are you trying to pay off your debt at a certain amount? It's actually easier to automate your debt than to brush your teeth.

What does the word try have to do with paying off debt? I mean, it doesn't. Why would you set it up automatically? I think when I went to do it, I was like, well, I'm going to put it at this amount, and then I had it there for a month, and then that made me nervous because then I was like, you know, there was already one time where I was like when the payment was about to come, I didn't have the money. So I was like, I'll just do it when I get paid.

every time, every payday. Why didn't you have the money? You get paid the same amount every month. Because I had already spent it on something else. Ah, guilt-free. Guilt-free. Right, Becky? Yeah.

That's true. You had spent it on something that was guilt-inducing, but part of the guilt-free category, you're not paying yourself first. Paying yourself first is talking about savings and investment, and your debt at 27% is draining everything else from you. So we got to pay that stuff off first.

And whatever's left, that's why it's at the bottom. Guilt-free spending is at the bottom of the CSP, because that comes last. Okay? Let's look at this. Your monthly payment, you're paying for $1,000 a month. You're trying to, which I don't like trying. I'd rather have you automate $800 a month instead of trying to do $1,000.

I don't want trying at all involved. I just wanted to happen. All right, let's look at this. I'll do a little calculation here. $7,000 is your balance. I'm going to say 27% on your interest rate because it's probably around there. There's zero right now. Really?

For how long? For another six months until next July. So like six, seven months. All right. Okay, that's cool. We'll put that in. Let's see what happens. And you're paying a fat wall.

This is going to be really good news. So you're going to pay it off in seven months. If you pay $1,000, it's just simple math. Okay? But I want to show you what happens if it's 27% interest, which, by the way, if you don't pay it all off, they might retroactively go back and charge, which we do not want. Okay, that'll take you eight months. It's not a huge deal, but you would pay $700 in interest. That would suck.

And let's say you end up like sort of doing it, but sort of. not, some months you do, some months you don't. So it ends up being $500 a month. You want to see what happens? It sucks. 18 months to pay this stupid debt off and you pay over $1,500 in interest. What do you notice, Becky? A lot.

Yeah. So what's the conclusion? Just commit to the thousand and be done with it. Correct. You want to set it up automatically right now? Sure. What's stopping you? I want to make sure.

pressuring you into anything. Nothing. I can do that. I can do that. Do I do 500 on each of them? I have two credit cards or do I do a thousand on one until it's paid off. Okay, don't confuse yourself. Hold on. Just listen to me. Listen to me closely. What's the balance on each of them? One is 3,000 and one is 4,000. So does it really matter if you put five, you have zero percent interest, so that's not a factor. You have seven months to pay these off. So both of them are going to be paid off at $500 a month, right? Yeah. Becky got there a lot faster than I did, but we're both here.

We're ready to click it. Go ahead. Set up automatic payments. Read it to us, Becky. Set up automatic payments for your credit card. Wow. Round of applause. Take the win.

What do you say? Becky, how do you feel right now? Fine. Wow. All right. Well, one of us, one of us had a good time. All right. Dustin, how do you feel?

Great. All right, we got another one, Becky? Yes. Go ahead. I don't want to pull this one up for you. Not because of the amount, but because of where it's from. Bankofamerica.com. Wow.

Wow. I couldn't script it better. This is one of my least favorite banks second only to Wells Fargo. I can't wait. for Becky to pay this debt off and close her account so B of A loses yet another I will teach you to be rich customer. I mean, it feels

like a little bit of weight off my shoulders just like that's just what it is and that's where that's going to go and I don't need to think about it. Right. All right. And come June, July, when that's paid off, what are you going to do? What's going to change in your numbers?

Oh, I mean, $1,000. I'm going to go to 50%, 55% maybe. What will that mean for you? I'll have more guilt-free spending. Or more money to save. Probably more money to invest. She means spending.

I mean, you don't need to lie to me. It's your money. It's not going to affect me. I want you to choose. You're going to do what you're going to do. All right, so we're going to take this down to 400. Your fixed costs are now 53%. Now that we're looking at her numbers without the debt payment,

things feel a lot better. We increased her guilt-free spending, increased her investments and her savings goal, but you'll notice that she still doesn't feel good about money. We'll be right back after this. What's the area of life that you want to spend more on this year? A lot of people will say health or relationships. Some people will say travel.

Let's talk about food and health for just a second. For example, in my life, my wife and I both decided we're going to spend more on health. And that means having a personal trainer. It means having someone make meals tailored to our macros so that we don't have to think about it. But you don't have to pay for a private chef to do that. One great option is to make healthy eating convenient by getting meals from Factor. They take the work out of healthy, macro-dense meals so you can start eating better now. Factor is a chef-crafted, dietitian-approved meal delivery service that fits into your goals and schedule.

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

We should come up with our rich life vision. But we don't just need dreams. We need a plan. So you can create that plan yourself and figure out how compounding works and when you'll be able to withdraw this money and on and on. Or if you need help building a specific plan for you, our partners at Facet can help. Facet charges a flat membership fee for financial planning, never a percentage of your portfolio.

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FASID is an SEC registered investment advisor. I'm not a member of FACET and I have an incentive to endorse FACET as I have an ongoing fee-based contract for cash compensation based on this endorsement. All opinions are my own and not a guarantee of a similar outcome. Now, back to Becky and Dustin. I feel like this is the responsible thing to do. And it will make me actually feel better in this moment right now. I feel a little bit like a little kid who's like, that's not that much fun money.

Tell me what you really feel, not what you think you should be saying. Yeah, I mean, when I look at it, I'm just like, that's going to go really. No, that's not true. When I look at it, I'm like, that's a lot of money. That should be plenty of money to spend and have things that I like and do things we want to do. But there's definitely a piece of me that's like, but I feel like that's going to go really fast. And how would it go fast? Lay it out for me.

I mean, it's probably like frivolous things with me. I mean, I don't, you know, it's not like I have any, it's, I don't know, Dustin would say it's coffee, right? Dustin loves us to blame everything on my coffee purchases, but it's probably just mindless. not intentional spending. It's just, I just buy things when I think I need them or I want them, but there's no real, like, joy or intention behind it. The way you're talking about it seems like so insulting to yourself. Like, would you talk about a friend, like, oh, it's so mindless and you don't even think about it and it's not even like conscious? Would you say that to a friend? Probably not. So why is it so easy to say it to yourself? I mean, I've mastered self-criticism over the

last 42 years, I guess. Yeah. And does it get you anywhere? I mean, sometimes, I feel like it's, I've, you know, accomplished a lot of things probably by telling myself I should do them or should be somewhere, but not particularly. I hate that word should. Yeah. I tell my patience not to shit all over themselves all the time.

Oh, so you have, you have really good advice that you tell them, but you just don't do it. Yeah, all the time. What I hear from you is a lot of self-deception. And it makes me sad because for me, if you want to make a change with your money, one of the first things that you have to do is accept what you have been doing and deeply understand why. So when I ask, like, hey, how do you feel? If I were you and I was looking at this, I would say,

I feel like a little child, which you said, that felt really true. I would say, I feel like this is going to be no fun. I'll say, I feel like I can't do this. I feel like I'll be able to do this for two months, and I'm going to go right back to where I was. And I don't know if I believe in myself to be able to do what's on this page.

Yeah, that probably feels more accurate. You gave me all these other things. I probably should do that. It's probably responsible. Why did you give me that? I notice you're crying as we're talking about this. Probably because I'm probably a little bit of a, I don't know, I guess I'm a little bit of like a, like, cater or like people please are like I, I'm pretty good at giving the right answers or saying what I think people want to hear. You're not here to impress me.

Why are you here? You wrote the application. I mean, you have the application here. Well, for me, I thought you were going to be a lot harder on Dustin. I didn't know. I know you did. Yeah, I mean, because I want to change. I, you know, it's like I have good self-awareness in some ways.

Like, I know that, like, that's the problem. I know that I overspend. I know I do all these things. I just, I feel like the root of the problem is that, like, I don't have a good, I don't know. I have a really good sense of, like, who I am, which sounds so lame. at 40 years old, but even like trying to go through the workbook and stuff, like, what sounds perfect or, you know, it's just like, I don't know. And I think that's probably why, like, it's kind of triggering that I'm just so surrounded by Dustin's house and Dustin's life and Dustin's family because it's just, I feel very lost. So I think sometimes the spending is not very intense.

because I don't really know what like really lights me up or brings me joy. Like what am I missing? Why am I not happy if I just had $4 more or $4,000 more? If only XYZ, maybe it's Dustin, maybe it's this house or is it me? Yeah. What have you done as you hear these voices in your head? You see these feelings. They kind of circle once in a while.

do when you feel those things coming close? I mean, I don't know. I guess probably sometimes I wash out or How do you do that? Like, fight. In your application, you told me that

you feel like you have to do everything on Dustin's timetable. And you told me that he had even gone a long time before he said, I love you. How long did he go?

almost four years I want to mean it and I'm scared like I mean I'm nervous about like the financial stuff if that's I don't want to do that the rest of my life do that means

live that like always have a credit card I never know where the money went always just kind of climb up a ladder for no reason okay and when you say that you mean you don't want Becky

to have credit card. Can we be specific? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't want Becky to do that. And that's not like just for my benefit thing. It's for the team. You know what I mean? Because I know she feels certain ways

and there's a lot of stress around every time she signs on every two weeks to look at her debt. Well, maybe she spent more money on it. And now in the morning I'm going to be in trouble because I slept in. You find a correlation between the credit card debt payoff and you two getting in fights?

Not necessarily, but possibly if I look back and had a calendar of like and jotted it all down, it might correlate, you know what I mean? So it's like that's a life I live when we don't have to.

Right, I got you. You're not married. So if we're being honest here, each of you cannot control with the other person's spends. And so Becky, what does that make you think? I don't know.

We have separate decisions to make. Might it be that you are struggling to make decisions together, but actually it turns out that everything in your life is fairly separate when it comes to your finances? Yeah, 100%. I didn't know anything about how much he had. I didn't know his business made half as money this year until five minutes ago. What? What? No, I had no idea that he was going to make half as much money. So that's what I mean. It's like we just, it's very separate. And I have no idea at any moment what's going on. And he talks sometimes like we have all this money and we can do all this stuff. And then the next minute he's like telling me that I want all this stuff and I'm going to put him, you know, I'm going to drain his bank account for things, you know, that we've talked about. It's just very confusing.

Okay, well, why don't, would you like to ask him some questions to clarify? Because if it's confusing, I'm here to help facilitate. I don't want you to be confused. I think you might not like the answers you get, but at least I want you to have some clarity. Are you ready to get some clarity? Yeah, that's, you know, those I kind of became here, I guess. All right, what do you want to know? Well, I guess first and formal, it's like, why are you going to make half a lot?

much as you made last year. Because I didn't sell as many pools because of the COVID times were really great. Do you genuinely feel like you tried hard to sell pools this year? I've tried to sell all the pools that people

have called me to sell. But you didn't do anything to do any marketing. You took all the business that came to you by happenstance. But you didn't do anything

I've never done anything to get to this point. So just because you've never done it, that's okay. If I just told you tomorrow that I'm going to just work 20 hours a week and bring in half as much money, like, I mean, is that okay? No, because my financials are different. Okay, but what about next year? I feel like this, for me, this is a given thing. I could have spent $5,000 and maybe sold three more fools.

That's cool, but did it really get me anywhere? No. I've never advertised. I've never spent money on any of that. So I just do what works. But it didn't work this year. If you made half as much as you made last year, then it didn't work. How do you think that makes me feel especially like when I know we joke about it a lot,

but like your hours that you work are pretty laxed. And so to like find out like there's other ways to sell and try and make more money than just paying for marketing. I mean, you said yourself last night. Like, you know, you could do fencing or like, I don't know. Like that doesn't feel good sitting over here knowing that and knowing that you're home every day at 3.30 in the afternoon sitting on the porch. sitting on the porch. Okay. I'm sorry if that's mean,

but that doesn't feel good. And I understand that that I'm home at 3.30 because I've made half the amount of money because I don't have the work. And I'm trying to figure out a few other things like where to spend money. Like, do I hire another guy

so I can make a bunch of money? Or do I want to enjoy my life? And like, there's, There's a fine balance when more money comes to more problems. So it's like for me, I'm trying to obviously grow and learn. And also nothing about what I made this year has affected anything in our life. Nothing. So I guess going forward, I mean, like, what are you going to feel comfortable committing?

I told you the other day. I told you a couple of weeks ago, I'm probably going to do $4,000 a month. and then I'll write myself a big check I didn't do here. I told you long ago, whatever you want to put in an account, let's do it. If you got five grand to put an account tomorrow, let's go put five grand in an account tomorrow. And if we put 50 cent a week in an account, that'll be our money and we'll put it where we want to put it. I've said that multiple times. Like, I'm willing to do my portion.

I'm not going to bring all of mine to the table to piss it away. I'm not going to wake up in two years and be like, oh, I wonder if we pissed my money away and I wonder where it went and we don't know. Because that's what's happened for two years. We've made $180,000 and we have nothing except you live with me in my world that I help facilitate, take care of things and try to make your life easier for nothing for you to sit here and say, you're going to make half as much money. Can I step in here for a few? Is that back and forth more typical of the type of conversations you have?

Yeah. Yeah. Dustin, what would you say? Is that more typical? It's probably more real. We normally don't get that real. What I would want from it is to understand why me making less has changed drastically our life

or something like, I don't understand. What do you want from the relationship? To be a team. But Justin, the way you described it when you were speaking to her was, I don't want to put my money in any more money that's going to be pissed away.

Yeah. Nobody wants to be a teammate with someone who approaches money like that. Okay. Would you, if you're, partner said, I don't want to put my money any more than this much because it's just going to get pissed away. That's what's been happening for the last two years. I guess I would understand whether they were coming from. They don't want to just throw money away. Do you think that there

might be a way to say it that can, if you truly want to be a team, that might actually make your partner understand you more? There's probably definitely a better way. I agree. And I think that the way you said it actually pushes her away. I know it. I could see her body language. Becky, I just want to check in with you. Did that push you away?

Yeah. I wish I had stepped in earlier. That conversation was frankly a little mean. And I did strongly recommend that both of them see a therapist to help them communicate more effectively. I hear what Dustin is saying, that he wants a partner who is financially responsible. but the way that he approached it, and you could see how quickly that escalated, that is no way to communicate with a loved one. Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsors.

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Zokdoch.com slash remit. And I want to thank Zok doc for sponsoring this message. Let's get back to the show. I'm trying to give you the tools to be able to actually connect emotionally. Trust me when I say that you getting some spreadsheet together is not going to change. anything about your relationship. Do you both see that? It's not the numbers that are stopping you from being connected.

Becky could pay off her credit card debt in exactly seven months, which she will. It would not change a thing about this relationship. Dustin could double his business income, would not change a single thing about this relationship. Why? That's not about the money. I guess that's how I really feel,

but I'm probably not good at conveying it. obviously. Yeah. Because that's how I feel. Like, I feel, I guess it just makes me anxious, like just doing it and then not knowing

and not having the plan and my understanding and everybody being on board. What I didn't hear is like what you actually want. You're anxious, things feel bad, but what I heard you

is fixating on all the bad stuff and not talking about any of the good stuff. All right. So if I were on the receiving end of that, I would feel like, oh my God. Like, is this relationship even meant to be? Does he want to be in a relationship? All he's telling me is all the things I've done wrong.

And I don't hear any love at all. I hear no care, no nothing. All right. I want you to reflect on that for a minute, okay? Yeah. I'm here to help. I'm here because you both showed up. I love that you're both engaged, engaged in this conversation.

And I'm here to help as much as you want me to. I think that there's so much behind what you've said today. If I zoom up, I see a woman who's craving connection deeply. Connection with your family who lives across the country. Connection with your partner who didn't say I love you for years and who won't talk about money and therefore won't talk about a future together. I mean, it's I'm lonely

And the spending It's probably like One thing that Or you know One thing that kind of I don't know Makes me feel good at the moment Okay

How you doing Becky? I'm okay Stuff is hard to talk about The least of it is the numbers and sense on a screen Right Yeah What is it? Money reveals so much about us, right? What do you think it's revealing about you and Dustin and your relationship right now? Just that there's like a big disconnect where we're at and where we're going and how we kind of both want to get there.

Okay. Where you're at today is what? Let me ask both of you. Today where you're at is Becky. Separate. Uh-huh. Dustin Yeah, two individuals, basically. And where you're going, as on your current state, if you keep going the same path where you're going is, where, Becky?

Not together. Yeah, seems that way. Where you want to go is Becky. Together. To the team. Together. How do you want to get there? I mean, I want to, I guess I want to, you know, have like a plan.

I mean, how do we merge together a little bit and not be just two individuals living in the same house? I obviously like want to do a little bit more me stuff so that I can be a little bit. more content as myself, so I can be a better contributor to the relationship. I think we sit down and figure out how we come together, like, what does that look like money-wise? Or, you know, we got to start somewhere, so we just start and have a plan and move together in that plan. Well, you guys have me with you right now. So is there a better time than right now? Let's do it.

I like you to start by spending at least 30 seconds talking to the other person saying something that has nothing to do with money. Who wants to go first? I can go. I do love you. I know that took me a while. I 100% believe in you. I've believed in you since I've met you. I admire a lot of things.

I don't want to get too emotional. I admire so much about you in a way like I look up to you and wish I could be more like you in many ways. I think you're amazing. I think you live way too much inside of your head. To my detriment sometimes, maybe. and I try to navigate the best we can and, you know, kind of play my position in that.

And I truly want to be a team. I've told you, like, we can do it not overnight. But we can, I can get you everything you've ever dreamed of. And most of it that you have it. What's that 30 seconds? That's the best thing you've said. we talked, Dustin. Thank you for being so honest. That was amazing. Becky? I mean, it's, it's, I really nice to hear, you know, I, it's just not funny, but it's, I guess,

kind of sad because everything you just said, like, I feel the same. Like, I admire you so much. And, you know, I try to tell you that all the time about you. Like, you did something that most people can't do and something that I don't feel strong enough to do. So it's like, I admire you and look up to you so much and everything you've done and accomplished. And I just want to be part of, like, taking it to the next level. And I think that we can build something really beautiful. and what I want is you. I want you to open up

and I want you to feel safe like being vulnerable and emotional with me and not have to hide behind kind of the silliness and the jokes and like that's what I want from you. I want a partner and you know that's really all I'm craving

and I, you know, I love you, I adore you. I'm here and I want to be here. Because I think we could have a really special life. I believe all that. And I agree. I mean, we can. You two are at your best when you are being honest. When you are sharing what you love about your partner.

When you're also admitting that there are things you don't know how to do or things you want to change. You can do all of those things, but you can't do any real changes until you are connected to your partner. Jumping into numbers, do you now see how trivial it is? Do you see how pointless it is if you're not connected to your partner? Now, the feeling you have about each other, do you think that we can make a plan together? Yeah. Because there's a reason. There's a love, and it's out here.

We don't need to keep the love secret. If you love your partner, tell them. If you love things about them, tell them. And now that it's out there, now we can make a plan. I want us to find a way weekly to have a real conversation about, I would really like us to sit down weekly and have a conversation about, like, what the next week looks like and what our plans are and what we want and, you know, like some reflection time every week.

That's like serious. That's not joking. That's not goofing around. That's like, hey, this is how my week went. This is what was hard for me. This is what I want to do next week. Like, I don't know. Like, I guess I want to trust myself because then I feel like Dustin will in turn trust me.

You want to trust yourself. I love that. How are you going to do that? By sticking to the plan that we together. Dustin, take the ball. She's bouncing you the ball now. Go ahead. Catch it.

And how do you want to respond to that? However that looks, I mean, we go out to eat a few times a week. So maybe one of the times that's what we are doing. I mean, that's our agenda, kind of. We know we're coming together once a week. for having that conversation. I love that. Wednesday is every Wednesday.

Okay. Done. Wednesday at 7 or whatever. Sunday at 4. Is Wednesday at 7 the real number? You pick it right now. I want it to be real. It's Sunday night before the week starts.

Ask her. How does she feel about that? How do you feel about that? I think our weekends get in the way too much. I think we know we eat out once a week and we know that's going to happen. So like, I like. we'll just let's just make Wednesdays our night out. It's the middle of the week.

We'll just know that's the night we're going to dinner. Let's just make that the day. Love that. Okay, this was so cool. That was so great, you guys. So Dustin threw it back. He said Sunday, which is actually a really common answer for couples. And then I love that Becky was like, hey, I actually don't think that works for us.

But why don't we try Wednesday at 7? That was awesome. Teamwork. And then I love that Dustin was like, yes. And he leaned forward and wrote it down. Right, Dustin? Yeah. Fucking awesome.

Round of applause. That was team work. That was fantastic. Take the win. That was awesome. You guys, it sounds so trivial, but that's how we build a partnership together, one decision at a time. I'm hopeful for Becky and Dustin. But I also recognize how difficult their journey will be.

The fact that in our conversation, they admitted they have never really said anything positive to each other. That's a tough sign. The fact that they keep their money separate and have difficulty communicating about it, that's tough. And the fact that they have expectations of each other, but they are not being forthright about them, that's also difficult. But with all that said,

I did see glimmers of hope where with a little bit of help, they were able to communicate and say something nice to each other. And you could almost see their partner melt. It's always in there. the question is do they have the skills and the desire to be able to connect regularly when it comes to money and their relationship and that is what i hope for them so becky and dustin thank you for coming on here and sharing now i'd like to turn it over to their follow-ups which they sent me shortly after our conversation we'd greatly appreciate all the time you spent

with us and everything he taught us moving forward doing a whole dinner date once a week kind of going over everything financial-wise and, you know, in efforts to build a connection and more trust that way. One of the biggest key things I learned was, you know, how to separate the business from my personal income, so I kind of know what I'm working towards, you know, personally so I can enjoy my personal money and that the business is going to be fine. You know, that's kind of a big weight lifted off my shoulders. One of the things I was really surprised by was that.

We don't really effectively communicate, so we therefore don't really get to a solution. So, you know, trying to put measures in. So we gradually get to our solution and we don't just spin our wheels, you know, constantly not really getting to anything. Really appreciate everything you did for us and take your time with us and will forever be indebted to you for that. It was a really great experience. It was definitely very difficult, way more difficult than I anticipated. I was just really surprised at how much emotion and kind of, you know, just emotional things were tied into this issue that we've been having that felt like it was over the numbers.

And even though I watched the show and listen to the podcast and I just, you just don't think it's the same when it's you until you're in it and you're getting asked hard questions that, you know, I personally have probably been avoiding answering for 20 years. And I just didn't really realize how much my financial behaviors were really were driven by this, like, kind of, I guess almost like a little bit of hole in myself that I've had for a long time that I've felt for a long time, but just didn't realize it was manifesting itself that way. So that was definitely really eye-opening and, and again, difficult, but in a good way. What I learned is that it really wasn't as scary as I was making it when I sat down and redid the CSP and just looked at the numbers and just it felt so much better. I just avoided it for so long and that made it so much worse. And going forward, I'm going to be able to have the one card paid off by the end of this week.

Going to be able to have the other one done by March at the latest. So that's just really exciting. And I think when we looked at that together earlier today, it was just a big relief off of both of us and a really good step in the right direction for us in our relationship. Well, that's as good of a follow-up as I could have possibly hoped for. Becky and Dustin, thank you for coming on this show. I want to encourage you to get help so that you can connect,

communicate effectively, and talk about money and your rich life. I think this conversation was great. and I also think it was just the beginning of your journey together. Thanks again. Thanks for listening to I Will Teach You to Be Rich. I'm Rameet Sati. Please follow the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

If you haven't read I Will Teach You to Be Rich, my book, pick up a copy. You can get it at any bookstore or any library, 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.