Money For Couples with Ramit Sethi - 157. “We spent $80,000 more than we made last year” (Part 1)

Episode Date: May 21, 2024

Adrienne and Rob are 59 and 62, and they are overcome with worry over whether or not they’ve amassed enough wealth to live comfortably, and apply Rich Life principles, in their retirement years. Adrienne’s head is in the clouds—dreamy and full of color. Rob lives in his (physical!) spreadsheets.  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. 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. Claritin | Visit https://claritin.com right now for a discount so you can get allergy relief and live Claritin Clear. Babbel | For our listeners only, get 60% off your Babbel subscription at https://Babbel.com/ramit. Mint Mobile | To get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to https://mintmobile.com/ramit. Links mentioned in this episode • “We have $2M, why can’t we retire?” (Part 2) Connect with Ramit • Get the Podcast Newsletter and exclusive Q&A about the show • Get Money Coaching with Ramit  • Download the Conscious Spending Plan • Listen to my book—now on Audible • Get my New York Times best-selling book • Get my no-numbers journal • Other episodes • Instagram • Twitter • YouTube • Submit a question for the newsletter iwt.com/askramit  If you and your partner have a money issue and you want my help, I occasionally select a couple to work with, free of charge. Apply for my help here. Produced by Crate Media.

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

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 a business.

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. We've been following Susie Ormond's advice on investing, and it was a disaster. And once we started to work with the fire movement, we thought, oh, well, we won't be able to retire early. We tell people that our money story is that 18 years ago, we were $60,000 in debt. Now we have a $2 million net worth. Things have shifted, and that's why I reached out.

We spent more money last year than we ever had before by like 50% more. Did you enjoy it? Yes. And then I get scared later. don't have that much more time left. Wait, I'm depressed. We're on our way to that old graveyard called death. So anyway, what do you want to do in our elderly age? God damn. Meet Adrian and Rob.

Adrian's 59. Rob is 62. And they are wondering if they will have enough. Enough to retire, enough to live the kind of lifestyle they want. Now, they went through quite a journey. They used to be in lots of debt. They made a plan, they paid it off, and now they have accumulated money. But they are scared, especially Rob, who admits that he's been scared of money his entire life.

In today's discussion, our sponsor is Facet. And as part of my conversation with Rob and Adrian, I asked Facet advisors to take a very close look at their numbers so that we could get them some specific answers on if they will have enough and what their life will look like going forward. As we start this discussion with Rob and Adrian, something really interesting happens with one of my first questions. It's a little odd. See if you can spot it. Money has been my purview in our relationship. I pay the bills, although now they're automated things to you. But I show her where the money is every couple of months so she knows how to get it on the accounts.

Okay. But it's my thing. Well, I just want to, I kind of want to say, that I started this money journey. I'm the one that was the catalyst for us going on a money journey. Before we were married, I was $35,000 in debt. And I was a massage therapist and money is in math is definitely not my zone of genius. But I decided one day just to pick up some Asusi-Orman book and just read it

and start to like understand what to do because I'm, I was in all this debt. So I had gotten myself out of $35,000 worth of debt. Rob and I decided to get married, and Rob said to me on the phone, I'm in $60,000 worth of debt. Do you want me to declare bank bankruptcy? Because it was the last year you could do it in a good way. And I said, no, let's pay it off.

And so then I moved from California to Washington, D.C., where he was living. and we just paid it off. So I just want to be clear that I started this journey. I'm the one that started it. I told Rob I wasn't going to marry him unless you watch Susie Ormond with me every night, every Saturday night. How long did you watch Susie Orman together?

Nine years, every episode. Cool. Yeah, and I was shocked because I was like, I knew that since money and math is not my zone of genius, I was like, oh, I can understand concepts. And it took me a long time, but if I kept showing up, concepts became clearer to me.

Amazing. Great lesson for all of us. Money is not this mythical thing that only some of us have access to. All of us can become good at money. Okay, Adrian, I'm curious. Why was it important for you to tell me that just now? Because I don't think it's fair to say that I am absolutely my head is not in our money situation

that I know nothing about it. I do know what's going on, basically. So I guess that's what I wanted to explain is that I do have some idea of what's going on. So, Adrienne, what would you say your role is in the relationship? In terms of money, I think my role is to stay the course with Rob and just keep us rowing in the same, or to keep us rowing in the same direction?

Well, I don't know. I think also maybe just to keep everybody calm. Are you second-guessing yourself right now? I feel like there's a lot of self-editing going on. What is that? I guess I'm feeling like maybe I haven't been as involved in our money as I was originally when we first started the journey. and so I feel a little bit bad about that.

We did such a good job at saving, and I felt like I was proud of us, so I wasn't really as concerned about it, but recently Rob brought up to me this idea that maybe we're not doing as good as I think we're doing. So I guess I don't really know. Maybe I'm just assumed, mean that we're okay, and maybe we're actually not okay.

Okay, I'm going to just pull this out right here. I've got 18 years worth of yellow sheets, which is our archaic way of determining our network. What? We used to do this monthly. Why? Because that's how we started. Uh-huh. Rob, when you were filling this application out, where were you sitting?

At the same desk that I'm sitting out right now. Great. what was going through your mind at that moment when you decided to write in and apply to speak to me? I would say that my big issue has been worried, concerned. I mean, being in debt

at 44 years old was not a good feeling. And I have obsessed, I would say, in the last 18 years, to dig us out of debt and put us into a place where we could retire potentially. Okay. And so I have been

concerned since last year, which was the very first time we did not save money. Last year, we spent 80,000 more than we made. In spite of that, our net worth went up by $88,000, which was because of the investments and how well the stock market did last year. It was very surrealistic for me to be in a situation where every single year, you year for the last 15 years, we have been raking it in. And then all of a sudden, my business has dropped off. We had some extra expenses last year. And the combination, if the stock market had broken even or whatever, if our portfolio had broken even, we would have been 80,000 in

the whole. So that's the real catalyst for writing in. Okay. All right. Early clues. Did you catch him? Rob is a warrior. And they're actually. actually both worried about having enough for retirement since they are 59 and 62 years old. Last year, they spent more than they made for the first time, and yet their net worth increased. This is because of their investments. This really worries Rob. Actually, it would worry most people. And I noticed these very interesting dynamics as I asked Adrian what her financial role was, and she got quite defensive. Keep that in mind. Let's take a quick break for our sponsors. There's a pretty cool TikTok trend going around right now that I really love.

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Hold on. How did he know that you paid for everyone's lunch? He looked at the credit card. Oh, like he logged on to the app or something like that? Yeah. So you walk in the door and he's like, hold on a second. He just like logged onto the app. But he had done it before I walked in the door.

Oh, okay. Hold on. Do you have a notification set up where every time someone charges it gets sent to the phone? No. Do you literally manually logged in between the time she paid the bill and came home? I guess so.

I don't keep track of how many times I log in. It's way too many times, I'm sure. I think it was the next morning. What do you say? He said, why did this cost so much? How much was it? $79.

Okay. All right. I'm not laughing at the amount. I'm laughing because I've seen your CSP. Remember the phrase I have? Like, focus less on $3 questions and more on $30,000 questions. Okay. So $79.

What place did you go to, Adrienne? I went to a place called Mount Bakery. It's a bakery. Okay, great. So you paid for a few friends. What did you say? I'll get this one. Something like that.

Yes. All right, cool. Why'd you do that, by the way? I did that because we had been looking at your about what does it need to have a rich life and I thought in my mind it would be fun to be more generous. I thought this would be great I'm going to take them out for lunch and have a great lunch together

so I did. How did it feel when you paid the bill? I felt happy about it. I felt like my heart could be open to people I love. And I felt like I got to experience a really beautiful lunch with some people. And I just really enjoyed it. I love that. I love that. And then, well, I think it was, was it that, no, it was that night, actually. And Rob said, why did this cost so much? And I said, I thought we were changing what we were doing. I thought we were going to start having our rich life. I thought we were going to, and that was part of what I wanted in my rich life. What happened next?

I think he would just had a lot of fear reaction. It's kind of like not fair. Why are you out there just spending money? I think that was really the gist of it. Keep going. I think it was different because I was just ushering in this sort of new, idea around what would it look like to have a rich life. And I hadn't expressed it. I hadn't said, hey, you know, I think what I want to do is start being more generous. I probably could have

expressed that earlier instead of just gone and done what I wanted to do. I said, did you go to Mount Bakery? He spent $79. I asked the question. I don't think I was accusing anybody of anything. I was just trying to find out why something that I thought 20 bucks would cost 79 bucks. What do you remember her saying? She said she took her friends out to lunch. And it's funny, that weekend was, I mean, there are so many instances that I look away. That weekend, Adrian was gone 12 hours a day, three days in a row, out with her friends in a dance conference.

I was kind of alone at home worried about our money. When I think about it now, I was in a scared place, so that's why that conversation occurred in the first place. Got it. Okay. How did the conversation end? I would say that at the end of it, I felt pretty bad about what had happened. Rob usually forgets about things just like that,

And it just took me a couple days to feel okay around what happened. Tell me more. I felt like I didn't have agency in our relationship around money. I felt like that and I mean, and I think part of that is because I haven't really made any money since the pandemic. So I've been a person who isn't contributing in terms of like our finances since the pandemic. happened. I was a massage therapist and I kind of stopped at that point. And so I was feeling

like I don't have a lot of agency in terms of our finances that you know. Like you tried to do something. You spent a little bit of money and then it caused this

disagreement, blow up, fight. And what did that feel like to you? I felt like Rob is really in charge. of the money because he is the one that is looking at the money. He is the one that is making the money. He is the one that's doing all of the things around the money. Is he in charge of the money?

I think in lots of ways he is. What are the ways that he's not? Okay, he's in charge of the money. How does that feel to you to say? It doesn't feel like super easy for you to say. At least that's my perception. I mean, I felt for most of our time together that we built this together, you know, that I started this money journey, that I wanted it for us.

And I was like, I just thought, let's give it a go. Because we started in our 40s and I didn't know what we could accomplish. I just thought, let's just see what we can accomplish. And I was always contributing as well because I was making money. So I think just has shifted a lot, you know, in terms of our power dynamics, I guess. It never feels easy when there's a recalibration of roles. Adrian, would you agree with that? And if so, do you think that it's still difficult for you to re-calibration to

recalibrate the financial part of your relationship with Rob? Yes. I think it's definitely difficult to recalibrate. I mean, there's definitely, I'm curious to see if you feel like we're still heading in the right direction around our money. Because if it's important for me to start making more money or just me to start making money again, I'm certainly willing to do that. I think I've definitely struggled sometimes with worth and what it means. I don't believe that people's worth is money.

I think we all have intrinsic worth, no matter what amount of money you have. Keep going. But I think our society at large does often equate money with worth. and so I think I fall prey to that once in a while as well. Do you mean because you're not earning money? Yeah, partly because I'm not earning money and partly because I've always earned a lot less. Yeah.

Okay, well, I appreciate you sharing that. You know what? I agree with both things you said. We should not be measured by how much we make and yet society loves to prioritize numbers in a spreadsheet. How much is our paycheck? How does it stack up to somebody else?

What's quantifiable? And it's a little, you know, people are a little surprised to hear the money guy saying this, but there's so much more to a rich life than how much you have in the bank. Or how much, certainly how much your paycheck is. I got to say,

I totally understand Adrian's responses about her money role in their relationship. When she first said it, It sounded defensive, but now I think we can all see her perspective. She's the one who actually came to their marriage and demanded that Rob pay off his debt. She helped drive that. And now they did it. They've actually paid off tons of debt and they have accumulated a large net worth,

which is incredibly impressive. And yet, because she doesn't earn as much money on paper, she acknowledges that he's the money guy in their relationship. And it's not fair that in America, we see the amount of dollars as the supreme worth of someone. You can be earning zero dollars and still be an amazing partner, an amazing parent, or all the above. This is why I say that money is a small but important part of a rich life. It's not everything. I went back to Rob now to ask him about that $79 charge at the bakery.

that's okay but if I'm at home alone feeling scared about money then it's not okay then we have a disconnect and so if I'm worried about whether our money has been to last

30 years and thinking about that then I would say yeah like taking a bunch of people out who I don't know because you want to feel generous doesn't feel that good to me because I'm sitting alone

I'm sitting at home alone thinking about this money. How long have you been worried about money? I would say I've been worried about money for about 57 years. As soon as I became old enough, I really thought that our family was going to run out of money for food. My mom was a saver, my dad was a spender, she was scared, and I grew up scared thinking our money, was going to run out, even though that wasn't true.

He told me, in her words, that she was terrified. He said, your father would go out and buy these things that we didn't need, and I was terrified. I remember writing something for school about how I felt like we were not going to have money for food. Let's go back to you being five, six, seven. Young, what do you remember your parents saying about money around the house? there were probably some arguments but there was no actual physical violence or anything like that it was just something i could feel you know my dad was a sort of a domineering figure kind of a scary person moody person in the house so we kind of all were on our toes walking around on eggshells

watch out you don't want to engage dad in a bad moon kind of thing i don't remember i mean i think he like to be a big shot, you know, and so he would take me to nice restaurants when I was young. I ate in some very nice New York City restaurants as a kid, you know, in the 60s, in the 70s. Yeah, we loved it. I mean, because then our dad was paying attention to us. He got to play the role of the big shot. Yeah, it was fun. Let's move forward a little bit to your adolescence, talking 12 to 16. My parents separated when I was 15. they had a series of discussions and then announced they were separating. What I do remember about money around that era was that we were renting a three-bedroom apartment.

I have two brothers. And a lot of my friends lived in the houses and their parents owned the houses, say, a half a mile or a mile away. And so I was never really sure where we stood with money because if you're comparing yourself to your friends whose parents own a home, we're living in an apartment. It's a nice apartment, and I'm not complaining about it at all. But that's what I remember about our finances back then. As you got older, as you became an adult, did you go to college?

I did. Okay. How did you pay for that? Tuition was much cheaper back in the late 70s and early 80s. Wait, wait, wait, just to make, just to enrage everybody listening to this, go ahead and tell everyone how much tuition was back then. Just tell them. Well, my first semester in San Diego State in the fall of 1981,

tuition was $205. Now, in a couple of years before I transferred, I went out of state on the East Coast and my dad paid for it. And it was more expensive because it was out of state tuition, for sure. What was that like? I don't remember the price. $400, I'm going to lose my mind right now. No, I don't remember what it was.

It was $400 a semester. Yeah, I don't know what it was. But my dad at that point was paying alimony and he wanted me to go to college but was probably concerned about the finances. That's why he wanted me to move to California where he was living and paid the 205. Gotcha.

In his later part of his life, what was his relationship with money? That is a hard story. Wow. Just point out, before you begin your answer, everybody just notice Adrian's nod there. Adrian clearly clued in on this story. This has clearly been discussed between the two of you. Yeah.

I'm sure. Okay, go ahead, Rob. Okay. My dad, who's a spender, remarried a woman who was a bigger spender. And that is a cautionary tale. He was making good money when he married her, but at some point later on in his life he stopped making that kind of money and she didn't stop spending what she was spending

and so they had some financial issues in his later years there was some real regret if I get into the psychology of my stepmom this could take a long time she's still around I believe she is you don't have a relationship with her I do not okay did your dad tell you these things as he was older? Like, oh, I'm worried about money.

What do you say to you? I would say that he got sick when he was 59 a half major bypasses and that. He lived to 72. He confided in me that he wished he hadn't sold his business right after he got sick. The business was kind of a cash cow. And so the last 10 years were rough because once he sold the business, he never made the income again. and so they probably fought.

I can't imagine that it was easy. And there was some serious arguments over insurance policies and so on. That's why I don't have a relationship with my stepmom anymore. A lot of similarities, Rob, between your dad and you. How often have you thought that you're going to die at age 72? I've thought about that because I read somewhere that If your parents don't live to be a ripe old age, you don't have a model for living to that,

you know, living that long. Yeah. I don't think I'm going to die at 72 because I think I've had a less stressful life. I've really worked pretty hard on my emotional well-being. What really stands out to me here is the role of myth. and stories in families. Almost every one of us has a story that has been passed down through our family tree.

Maybe it was about an uncle who was an alcoholic or an entrepreneur who made a bunch of money and gambled it all away or someone who immigrated to a different country and paid for all her brothers and sisters to join her. Those stories are passed down in whispers and phrases. You know, people will say things like, just like your aunt,

or she reminds me so much of Uncle Mark, or we all know what happens when you make a bunch of money too fast. These stories are repeated over and over until you start to believe that they are unquestionably true. And then they calcify into invisible scripts, which are beliefs so deep, you don't even realize they're there. If you are trying to get good with money, you will eventually have to interrogate your own family beliefs about money. One good way to do this if you want a shortcut right now is to simply jot down the stories you've heard about family members in your life. what lessons were passed down about other family members and their relationships with money.

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with Rob and Adrian. Your dad had a business. You have a business. Your dad worried about money. You worry about money. Your dad had a new wife who spent a lot. You have your first

wife, Adrian, do you worry about Adrian's spending? I do, but not because she's like my stepmom. My stepmom would spend $1,000 a night in a hotel. Adrian's not like that. What about $80 at a bakery? Generally not. Generally anything like we, I think we have a rule, anything less than $100 we don't have to discuss.

Wait a minute. When did you come up with that rule? We've had that for a while, right? Wait, the baker, 80 is less than 100. So how do you reconcile that? I do reconcile it. I don't falter for spending the $80 without asking. I think I was just feeling bad that I was home alone worried about money at the same time.

Okay, fair enough. Although, you know, Rob, this whole conversation began with me asking you how long you've been worried about money. You said 57 years. So when you say I was at home worried about money, that's kind of, the behavior you've become accustomed to for decades, right? Yeah. If you're breathing oxygen, you're worried about money. And that's why I applied to come on to your podcast.

You've detected that fear from Rob about money? Absolutely, yeah. What does he say that makes you think he's fearful of money? Pretty much every single year that, especially when we owned our house previously, he would sit me down and he would look at me very intently and he would say,

my business is not going well. Things are going terribly. We are going, this is not going to work out. Okay. And then I would say, okay, well, let's move to a lower cost place or let's sell the house

or whatever feels good to you because I want you to feel comfortable. then he would make a ton of money and everything would be okay again. We've done that for years and now I just think of it kind of like as the weather. Like it's going to happen. He's going to tell me about how scared he is and how freaked out he is. And then generally everything's going to be okay again. How many years have you done that for?

Quite a few since he had his business for sure. How many years? One, five, ten. How many? Fifteen. Fifteen years. Fifteen years. in business.

Yeah. Well, the funny thing is when he first started his business, he was like, the business isn't going to work out. And then it just like became really successful. And I was like, fine, whatever. Adrian, do you like this dance that Rob does with you regarding money and his business? I don't love it. It brings fear into my body and I start to feel like, I don't, you know,

I look at the number. and I feel confident in general because I know that Rob is better at math than I am, I start to wonder about my sanity and think, do I not know how much money we have? Right. Am I wrong? I go back to, I feel super grateful for what we have. I go back to, I bring myself back to, I feel really grateful. We have what we have.

I know we're going to eat tonight. I know everything's okay. I know we're okay. So I just start to bring myself back too. There's nothing we can't handle. Adrian, are you religious? I'm a spiritual person. Thank you for helping me understand.

Sure. Rob, what do you think about Adrian's characterization of this dance that you do? I agree that it's cyclical. That sometimes I feel scared about money and sometimes I don't. It's changed over time. 15 years ago, when we were in debt, I worried constantly about paying the debt off, balance transfers,

robbing Peter to pay Paul, all kinds of things like that. Now, the fear is shifted into a more long-term, low-level fear of this money going to last 30 years for us. And Rob, you are 62 years old, Hey Rob, when do you get to stop worrying about money? Oh, boy. I hope right after this conversation, but...

That's it, just one phone call? Yeah, I mean, can you wave the magic wand? I don't know. Well, I'm curious, if it just took one call, and I hope that I can help, that's my goal, why not have this conversation with somebody else 14 years ago? Well, 14 years ago, looking back on it, it seemed like there really was something to worry about.

I mean, if you owe $60,000 to the banks, and your income is not that high like it was 16 years ago, that's scary. I mean, to me, thinking back on it, it feels scary. Are you scared right now? Notice the story Rob tells himself. He's been worrying about money for 57 years. And for the last 15 years,

he sat Adrian down and told her, this is going to be a horrible year. And when I ask him about that, his answer is, yes, I agree that it's cyclical. Cyclical, nice choice of words. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so serious. See, Rob thinks that this conversation will change his feelings about money. And deep down, I suspect that Rob, in fact, Rob and Adrian believe that if I show them some magic number, they will feel better. Well, I am going to show them numbers.

I will answer their question about whether they will have enough, and I'll answer it very precisely, but I can tell you that numbers alone rarely change feelings. Do you think that everyone worries about money? No. People might have more faith than I do that everything's going to work at. Okay, I come from a family where, like, disaster was right around the corner or expected right around the corner kind of thing.

Is your mom, what is her relationship with money now? he is still scared. Look at that, look at her thing. Adrian will tell you that my mom is, my mom has a million dollars in a Vanguard account and still likes to shop at the dollar store. What do you think of that? It seems crazy.

She's 83 years old. It seems like she can afford to fly first class, shop at any fancy store she wants. But her goal is to leave money for her grandkids and her kids. And so I can respect that. Rob, you have a lot more than that in your investment account. Wouldn't you say you were a little concerned about $80 at the bakery?

Yes. I think it got wrapped up into feeling alone. Adrian, when I asked Rob, what is his mom's current relationship with money? you really lit up. Oh, I just know what she's like. I mean, she is interesting because she can be really generous. Like she'll buy us dinner and all those kinds of things.

But, you know, she'll drive way out of the way to go to Costco to get gas. Mm-hmm. You know, because it's the cheapest gas. Why does she do it? She just thinks it's the best way to live. And I remember sitting, she was, telling me that she wanted to take all this money out of the market

because the market had gone up and she wanted to take all this money out and take it off the table like it was like this gambling thing. Yeah. I said, why would you do that? Don't you leave it in there? It's going to go up and down. Why even worry about it? You know, just let it go up and down.

I think Rob brought different qualities to our relationship in terms of like it's like an expansion and a contraction. There's like this moments where Rob is so confident about we're going to be fine and we've got this and we've done such a great job. And I'm so grateful and everything's going great to like this plummet of like everything's going terribly. It's not going to work out. We've got to like quit spending. you know, so it's sort of a roller coaster, say, effect.

You remember the words that he used to describe his dad? Yeah. What were the words? Started emotional something? Well, walking on eggshells with his dad. Uh-huh. What else? The emotional instability, something like that.

Any of this sound familiar? We've got a little bit of that going on. It's different, right? Rob, from what I heard, you're maybe not an angry guy, but walking on eggshells like, oh, oh, Rob is here with his beginning of the year freak out about money. I'm going to walk on eggshells. I'm going to learn how to deal with him

because it's that time of the year. Yeah. Right? And then the ups and the downs, you mentioned Adrian, it affects you. It's quite negative for you. It even makes you question your sanity is how you put it. Right?

Sure. Rob, what do you think about this? I apologize for doing that to you. You know, I'd be happy not to do that anymore. I'm not here to blame you for sure. I don't even think Adrian's blaming you. I just want to see if you see that connection and if you agree with that connection.

I would agree. Yeah. Have you ever made that connection before? Maybe not quite this clearly. There are some obvious parallels here between Rob. and his dad. I wonder what that might mean for the rest of the money dynamic that we're going to talk about. And now, a quick message from our sponsors. Why is it that people who tell me I'm stupid on social media always have the profile picture of a jar of mustard? You think I'm going to take

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it's about getting ahead. Listen now as I ask Adrian about her family. My parents had a very separate relationship with money. my dad was also the one in charge of the money. He also made the majority of the money. And he was also very terrified about money as well. Why? I mean, he grew up in the Great Depression.

My dad was, he was 13 years older than my mom. So he grew up in a generation completely different than hers. He just had a lot of fears around it. I mean, we would go out to dinner, say, for example, And my brother loved to order like the most expensive thing on the menu, not because he wanted it. He just not because of the price, but because he was like, I love shrimp, you know, so he would order the shrimp. And I would look at the menu and I know what was going on in my dad's mind and his heart. And I would try to order like the least expensive thing.

Yeah, that was a lot that was going on with their. how they felt around money. And my mom started to make her own money. All of her money went to fun, went to all the fun things. If we were going to go on vacation, my mom paid for vacation. If we were going to do anything fun,

my mom paid for all of the fun. They kept their money completely separately, and my dad paid for everything else, I think, basically. Pretty unusual for that time. right, that they would be keeping money separate. What do you make of that? They knew they were having a lot of fights, and that was their way of resolving the fights.

Oh, wow. So they were having fights, and they said, as a result, we're going to keep money separate. You do your thing over here, and I'm responsible for this thing over here. My dad's a really interesting guy, because my dad has, like, a big heart, and, like, he would, like,

you know, he always like made sure like the servers got a good tip and he always made sure like that people around him were felt a lot of his like love and light, you know, with that. And but with us, he was constantly like in fear. And it was also very difficult to know what was real because my mom would say like, oh, he's just being insane. And my dad would be like, like, nobody's listening to me. I don't know. So there is a lot of... Can I ask a question?

Thanks. You mentioned it's hard to know what was real. Yeah. You sometimes feel that way when Rob comes to you and says business is going in the toilet and then you find out he made tons of money? Yes. I mean,

I always felt really comfortable when I found Susie Ormond and she had all these rules. You like rules, huh? I do like them. And it felt really comforting to me to be like, oh, there's these rules and you can follow them.

And when you follow them, everything will work out fine, you know? Just explain to me for a second because I want to make sure I understand. I'm guessing you don't just love rules with money. I'm guessing you like structure in many other parts of life. Is that correct?

I do. I like structure because it does make me feel safe, yeah, for sure. Safe? Well, because when there's a structure, you can trust it. Ah. So someone somewhere created this rule, and I know if I follow this rule, then what? You're going to have enough money and you're going to, like, for example, if I'm following, like, say, like, nutrition rules. say as well, then I'll just be like, well, if you're eating good, then you're going to have good health. If you're following these money rules, you're going to, your money is going to be okay. Does Rob feel the same way about rules? Does he like that same level of structure?

Or you're laughing. Well, I'm just laughing because he's, he likes to break the rules a lot. He's an entrepreneur. He has probably a different relationship with rules. Rob, is that to say? Yeah, I looked at a lot of roles as hurdles to get around something. Yeah, yeah, like I feel the same way. So like, it's so interesting, Adrian, talking to you. And as you got older, do you remember them saying anything about money, talking to you differently as you became like 12, 13, 15, 16 years old about money? The biggest thing was there was this sort of implication of that like my brother and I would not do well that we were lazy or kind of this whole thing.

Right. Okay. So, I mean, I don't know. I mean, like, I did a lot of things. Like, I became a massage therapist. I went, I put myself through massage school. I came out as a massage therapist. I started making money.

And then I told my dad I was a massage therapist. He was like, oh, you're making money. Good. That's kind of surprising. I would have expected him just from what you're talking about. telling me to say, that's dumb, why don't you do this instead? No, no. If I was making money, he was going to be okay.

But the whole idea of, like, the run-up to making money was not going to be okay with them. You know, like, the going to school and the becoming something that may or may not work out, that was not going to be okay. I just knew once I got there, if I just said, hey, guess what, I'm making a lot of money. And I'm a massage therapist. He'd be like, oh, great. Did you become good at knowing what to do and say around your dad and knowing what not to do and say around him? I mean, it took me a second to figure out how to be with my dad when I was a kid because we definitely had some clashes for sure.

But I'm really, I am really woo. So, like, my dad's a Leo. What? What the hell? What's that? I mean, I was like, astrologically, my dad's a Leo. So literally, like, what it means is, like, if you, like, are nice and you, like, tell them all the great things about them, they're going to be nice to you. Wait, I'm a Leo, according to that.

Let's talk about money. Okay. I'm a lot more comfortable over there. All right. So we talked about your childhood. Your dad passed away. Your mom's relationship with money. What is it now?

Yeah. Well, it's interesting. My mom, when I started learning about money, I would say to my mom, you know, I think things, let's talk about it. I know all these things now. Like, let's talk about what's going on with your money. And my mom's like, I'm not good at it.

I'm not good at it. So she would just be like, it's not something I can do. Yeah. So what was happening was when my dad passed, she had given all her money to this. Oh, no. You know, one of those guys who takes the 1% and everything. Do you remember the company?

I don't remember his name. I just remember my mom kept saying, well, we're friends. And I was like, you know, you're not friends with this guy. You are not friends with this guy. We managed to wrestle the accounts away from him and put her in a vanguard. Whoa, good job. That's great. We did that with both our moms.

Both of the moms are with us. We're the brokerage now. Good job. I have a question. Adrian, I'm very impressed. Would you consider yourself good with money? I don't consider myself good with math, but I do understand a lot about concepts. Like, I know what Vanguard is. I know what the 4% rule is. I know what a Roth IRA versus a 401K. I know what all of these concepts are. Can I ask you a question again, Adrian? Would you consider yourself good with money?

I think for who I am and my right brain, artist mind, I think I am excellent at money. Wow. All right. Caviots in Hall, fine. There's literally years of details to uncover in what Adrian just told me. How her dad would say one thing and do another. How her mom and dad spent money differently. and how she sees herself as kind of good with money,

but loaded up with all kinds of caveats. What I especially want to draw your attention to is how much your relationship with money can affect your children. Because her parents didn't know how to handle money, Adrian grew up in a ton of uncertainty. That's probably one reason she loves rules, because as she put it, rules make her feel safe. She married someone who, like her dad, swung wildly with his moods around money.

And of course, she learned how to tiptoe around him, just like she did with her dad. Be very thoughtful about how you behave around money, because you will send a message to your children that will echo for generations. I want to understand a little bit more about your history together with money. I understand it after Susie Orman, you got into the fire community. Right. I started reading fire blogs. Okay. And reading personal finance blogs.

For the last 10 years, I've been online reading about finance. Rob showed me an article in the New York Times that Mr. Money Mustache was in. And he said, this might help us with investing because previously we've been following Susie Ormond's advice on investing and it was a disaster. It was not working at all. And once we started to understand or started to work with the fire movement, we thought, oh, well, we won't be able to retire early, but maybe we can retire, actually. Like that would actually happen.

So and because we had a short period of time, a short window or shorter window to do it in, that seemed like it was going to be really helpful. So Rob would show me a lot of different articles from the fire movement and I read anything that he was showing me. There's like a meetups once in a while. So we go to some fire meetups. Do you like it? I do like it.

I think it's really amazing. I think it's always really interesting because my people are not there. I am the only one there who's like a massage therapist. or an artist. Everyone is a tech person or super smarty pants, people, and everything. So how long were you involved with the fire movement? I would say I was 52 and we left Austin when I was 60. So eight years we were doing these meetups probably.

I started reading about fire at 52. Great. All right. So you said at 52, we maybe not be able to fire that is retouched. hire early, but we can certainly increase our savings rate. We can start to invest aggressively. We can cut our costs. And at least hopefully we'll be able to get a line of sight on retirement at all. Okay. Went to the meetups. Great. What happened at the end of eight years? We moved. Okay. Adrian, what was your journey after fire?

Your ideas actually came into our view after fire because I thought it was really interesting. Well, it was interesting, we saw you in Austin. Oh, at the book talk that I gave. At the book talk that you. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. I was so, like, annoyed because you're telling people not to, like, that coffee didn't, you know, they should, you know, they could keep drinking coffee or whatever.

And I was like, little things matter, you know, I felt really passionate about it at that point. Like, I was like, little things matter. I like that. I totally disagree with me. So what was it? That little fire voice in the back? your head, it's actually not $3 anymore, Rame. You need to index for inflation. It's actually $3.85. Okay. And it actually, if you compound that for 95 years, it actually turns into $10,011

like that. Well, absolutely that. And also because my journey, as a massage therapist, I had to give up some small things, you know, in order for me to pay off my debt. I appreciate that. I knew that that had worked for me. Okay. So I guess there was a part. of me that was like, who's this guy? What does he know? But then after a while, after we had sort of, you know,

amassed a larger amount of money and all of those kinds of things, I started to think, well, what's this guilt-free spending? Is that a thing? Can we have that? Was it just having more money or was there something else? I mean, I think getting older. you know, you realize like you don't have as much time left.

So your priorities, like you're coming out of this sort of like survival mode into sort of like a place where you're in more of like a freedom place. You want more freedom. I think all of those things were shifting inside of me. And I also felt confident that no matter what, like we could always cut our spending. So if we needed to So I just felt really confident in us I believed in us I believed that we could do what we needed to do

no matter what was the you know no matter what came towards us because I had seen it before so I just and I like rules and you're like maybe 10% of your spending could be guilt free and I was like that seems cool you know

seems exciting and I don't know. Awesome. Okay, cool. It is interesting though, Adrian, you were in credit card debt before, a lot, and then you decided I'm making a change. You spent several years paying it off. So you were highly engaged with your money before you got married, right?

Yes. This was, what, in your 40s? Mm-hmm. Okay. It's difficult to turn around credit card debt at that age, like aggressive, which you did. Mm-hmm. So you were highly engaged, but now you're less engaged. Did that change when you got married?

Not right away. I let Rob be more engaged with our money because it seemed like his zone of genius. And we always had a money date every month. And we always went through our network and we went through our everything. And we looked at it. And so I knew where everything was. I knew what we were doing. I'm not in the dark about anything.

I know absolutely what we're doing. I know our money's in Vanguard. I know it's infidelity. Do you still have these money dates every month? Now we have them a little bit more sporadically, but we do go back to them. Okay. I appreciate that.

Like, how often are we talking about? It's now, what, quarterly maybe? Quarterly, probably. Yeah. Maybe more. Maybe more. Maybe less. Is it on the calendar?

It's not on the calendar. And what I would say, sometimes it feels like I've got to drag you to the computer to do it. Talk to Adrian, Rob. I mean, I think this is where, like, I've continued to take responsibility for this stuff

and maybe you just decided that that's okay. I mean, since the pandemic, since we've had all this money. We sold our house in Austin a couple of years ago. We made a lot of money on it, took all the cash and invested it. I don't know. It feels like since then something shifted.

It's funny. I think since we've sold the house, moved away, had two million bucks in the bank, we're sort of floating these last couple years. There's this transition to like, okay, well, we've made it. We don't have to push as hard. but I mean there's certain things that we haven't been doing it's a very strange feeling to be on cruise control I guess

and that's kind of what this last couple of years has sort of felt like in a way there's something you want to change about that Rob I mean this conversation is making me think well maybe this is why I'm obsessing about this as opposed to just looking at it and having Adrian also look at it at the same time

so that I don't have to feel like we're not on the same page. Maybe we should put it on the calendar for a quarterly date where we go through the net worth again, like we used to do monthly, just do a quarterly. It's easy. Adrian, you good with that? Absolutely, yeah. I want to do that.

Rob, I like that you are asking for something specific. First, you asked for a quarterly meeting. Adrian was like, yeah, all right. Notice that it has nothing to do with anybody ignoring money or anything like that. It's just that one person has taken on increasing amounts of it. That's you, Rob. And then Adrian, you've also created a story, which may or may not be true, about this is Rob's zone of genius.

I don't know if that's true or not. I know he tells me he obsesses and worries about money almost every day. that's not healthy. So perhaps there's a renegotiation that needs to happen here with one person taking on a little bit more of the loan. Does that sound fair to both of you? Yes.

All right. I am curious about after Susie Orman. So you both had debt. Adrian, you had like what, $35,000 or so of debt? Am I remembering that right? Mm-hmm. Okay. And Rob, how much debt did you have

when you were about to get married? 60K. $60,000. All right. So that's a lot. So Adrian, you paid off your debt. And then Rob, you were like, hey, like, I have 60K of debt. Better tell you before we get married.

And then what did you all decide? He committed to help me paying it off. That was the agreement that we would pool our money, pay it off together. Took a couple of years to pay it off. That's it? Two years? Yeah, we were pretty frugal by the time. And so we didn't go out to eat and we set up a game.

We're like if we paid off $10,000 a debt or if we saved $10,000 after we became solvent, then we would go out to eat once we save $10,000. I love it. I got to say this for the world because a lot of people think Remi's Sate, he's like, oh, everybody goes spend on all this expensive clothes while you have all this debt. I'm like, you can live a rich life today and a richer life tomorrow, even if you're in debt. But I have to tell you, when I see people with $25, $30, $40,000 of credit card debt and they're eating out a ton or they're taking a huge family trip to Disneyland, it's their money, it's their choice. But I just think to myself, I wouldn't do this.

But gosh, two years to pay off $60K in debt. I love that you both said we made it a game. That is amazing. It wasn't like, oh, this sucks, boo-hoo. It's going to suck for us all. You're like, we're going to crush this. and then you even made rules for yourself where you could win. Like every 10,000, we get to go out to dinner.

Hexbook, amazing work. Great job. I had to give you a round of applause. That's so impressive. What did it feel like once you finish paying that debt off? Well, I've got, I can tell you the date that we paid it off was December 8th, 2008. Wow. Yeah, it was two years from when we got married.

Because of the yellow sheets. Show me to show you. What is that? You want me to show you? Yeah, what is that? This is 18 years worth of our finances right here on these yellow sheets. Wait, hold that up. Hold on.

Hold on. What is it? What am I looking at here? Numbers? Now you're looking at our net worth, which is much higher. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, we write it out every month. Hold that, hold the bottom one.

Let's just read those numbers off. The first one in there. Oh, sure. This would be cool. I mean, a couple of pages have been taken away. This is $45,000. of debt, where we had 72,000 in credit card debt and 26 grand in the bank. Wow.

And so this one from June 5th, 2006. So it took about two and a half years to pay it off. Hold on. First of all, these papers are like archival. These could be found in the Smithsonian, okay? I've never seen something this detailed. Amazing. Well done. Yeah, I mean, I got a list of all. I've had way too many bank accounts through the years.

I've had way too many credit cards through the years. I've done the hacking thing. I've done the churning thing. I've done balance transters way back when when they were a better deal than they are today. When you look at these pieces of paper, Rob, what do you feel? I actually really feel proud of us that we were able to document this journey from being 60K and dead all the way to being virtually able to retire. Do you still maintain these yellow pages? I've got them at a bottom of a drawer.

yeah, we'll continue to make them quarterly. Like this is, I mean, I haven't shifted it over to, I have certain things on a spreadsheet. I've got our monthly expenses mapped out on a spreadsheet, but I don't have our network. Rob, what do you get out of it? I mean, it tells a story, really. What is the story? The story is we went from 60K in debt, our net worth is up is $2 million, you know, and it's, you know, it's miraculous.

It feels miraculous. The miraculous story, I mean. I love it. Took two people busting their for quite a few years to make it realistic.

Together. Yes. As a team. Beautiful. Yes. Now here's my question for both of you. What story do you want

those yellow pages to tell now? You've done the miraculous thing. You paid off the debt. You've made a bunch of money. What is the next chapter of those yellow pages going to tell you? I hope that you know, if I do a yellow sheet 20 years from now,

that it's going to show enough money so that we'll have, we don't have kids, we don't have any money to leave this money to. I hope it's going to show enough money that there'll be 10 or 20 years worth of assets there that can still be spent and that we've maintained our lifestyle, you know, through it all. I hope those yellow sheets tell the story of our freedom.

that we have a lot of freedom to be able to do things that we want to do, that we've been able to give money to charities, that we've been able to, you know, spend money on people we love, that we've been able to spend money on ourselves, that it's just that we had a really, well, a rich life, actually. But in all ways, you know, not just money ways, but, you know, we enjoyed. this life. That's the story I wanted to tell. What's beautiful about these yellow pages is that to an outside observer, they're just a stack

of random pieces of paper. But to Rob and Adrian, they tell their life story. They tell a story of adversity and hard work and triumph. And I have to say, I'm very impressed at what they've accomplished together. My job now is to help them make meaning out of what they've accomplished. In other words, to ask them, now what? The limitation of the yellow page is that it's really just numbers in a bank account. It is? Who says? It is in the sense of it doesn't show expenses.

It doesn't show the trip we took to Tahiti last year. It doesn't show. Why not? Because it's just listing our net worth and what we have in the accounts now. Our expense sheet is somewhere else. But you're trying to tell me. Keep going. Keep going.

I mean, I can look at our expense sheet and tell a story about how we're living a rich life, where we're spending our money. When I look at the yellow sheet, I just see what we have, you know, what we say. That's what's on the yellow sheet. Yeah, Rob, do you think Adrian has ever had a vision board in her life? She's laughing. Because we both know the answer, yeah. He probably has one in a room right now. It's like 10 feet tall.

Am I right, Adrian? It's not 10 feet tall. It's about like... Turn the camera around. Turn the camera around. It's got like different textures. She's got like a silk thing from Kyoto. She's got like...

Okay, I know. She just gave you two gigantic clues, which I find very interesting. Number one, she has a vision board. Number two, she said, I want the yellow pages to tell the story of our life. Not just the math. But what was the rest of the thing she said? Yeah. that we had freedom, that we were generous, that we lived a rich life.

But I don't know many people who get a lot of joy from looking at their expense sheet. Oh, Tahiti was so cool. We spent $82 at that dinner one night. Like, no, that's not how you create a memory. You create a memory by looking at your videos, looking at your photos, maybe the little notepad from the hotel. And I just wonder, in these yellow pages, which tell a beautiful, beautiful story that you're both proud of and I love it. I'm proud of it too. Might there be a way in the next chapter of your life to keep focusing on the big numbers,

but also start to incorporate the stuff that you love? Yeah, yeah. I can see that. I mean, I've got great pictures of Tahiti on my phone, and I also know it costs nine grand to go to Tahiti for a month last year. I'm less interested in how much that costs. I think for the purposes of this, Adrian would probably be more interested in

a few beautiful photos than memorabilia on those yellow pages. Adrian, am I reaching here? No, I agree. I felt really sad when we got home from Tahiti because I enjoyed it so much and I trusted that Rob knew the numbers and that we could afford it.

And when we got home, he said, oh my God, what did we do? We spent so much. Oh, my gosh. And then immediately I felt like, oh, I can't enjoy this memory anymore because we blew it.

Fear level was up. I had lost a client when we were on the trip. First quarter of the year is generally slower. So, you know, we went in February. So I think I just came home and started worrying. feel out of control with money? Well, if you go away for four weeks and spend an extra couple thousand bucks, it can feel out of control.

Do you notice the times that you act in a peculiar way with money? There are times that you do not feel in control. Yeah. So every time you are feeling out of control and worried, you bring it to Adrian in very unusual, often disproportionate ways. Adrian, you're nodding your head a lot. Yeah, I mean, I think that oftentimes when, I mean, because Rob works out of the house,

and I am definitely the sounding board if things are not going well. For sure. How often do you log into the apps and credit cards and all that stuff? I would say down probably every other day, every third day sometimes. I would love to ignore the money the way that Adrian or her mom does and not so much ignore it but not worry about it, not think about it. If I could stop thinking about it all the time, I would be really happy and I have made some steps to do that

and it's really incredibly difficult to break a habit like that. What steps have you taken? Well, it was every day looking at all the bank accounts and credit card statements every day and now it's every second or third day. So it's... Okay, that's good.

And even my relationship with my phone has shifted in the last few months where I've turned the notifications off. So I'm not responding quite as quickly as I used to. Rob, how many financial apps do you have on your phone? The financial apps, I seem to have 10 of them. I seem to have like the... App God, drop them onto my phone.

I don't look at... Vanguard, God, thank you! I have 10. I only use... What? What apps? What? I only use a couple of them. Read them to me. Vanguard Capital One, Discover, Chase, Venmo, American Express, City, Blue Vine,

Blue Vine, Alliance, and Fidelity. But I only use a couple of these. I log it on the laptop all the time. A lot of times when I find people stuck in the weeds, if it's somebody who has a very small amount of money, they often are doing what you used to do. You mentioned robbing Peter to pay Paul, transferring over here, not over there. Oh, I hope this check doesn't get cleared today.

That's common for people who don't have a lot of money. That's not your situation. You're at the opposite end. And yet you are still behaving as if you are poor. And what that tells me is the way we feel about money is highly uncorrelated to how much we've got in the bank, which is why you continue those behaviors, which is, is directly related to how you feel about money. Fixing the behaviors won't change your feelings,

but they'll certainly help. We sold our house, and that shifted our finances tremendously. Do you make a lot of money? We did. We lived in a house for 11.5 years. We bought for 3.85, and we sold for 875.

Great. All right. Yeah. Cool. And so we pocketed it and hit the wrong. road. We just moved and invested all of it, right

into our Vanguard investment. I mean, what do we do with the house money? I bought a new car, right, when we got here. I needed a new car. We bought a car. So, like, what did you put in, like, $350, $400,000 into the market? Oh, no. We put,

we double, maybe $800,000. I mean, like, we may have taken, well, we cleared $8.15, probably $700,000. 50 of it went into the market. Did you dollar cost average it or did you lump sum it? No, I lump summed it. Wow. I probably would have, I would have made more if we dollar cost average it, maybe. But I had read that lump summing is a better. It's better. Two thirds of the time. It's better.

Two thirds of the time. I always like to ask because, you know, big amounts of money like that, first time people put in a big amount of money, it could be $25,000, it could be $800,000. They're usually really nervous. We just doubled what was in our portfolio overnight. Great. So we had already had the asset allocation. We stuck with the asset allocation. I just doubled everything that was in there.

Fantastic. Rob, do you feel confident that you can start to enjoy some of the money that you've accumulated or no? I do and I have been trying to loosen up. It's funny. It's almost very, it's like deceiving. I think I'm less fearful. but then when we're talking today, it seems like I'm still really fearful.

But we have spent a lot more money in the last couple of years. We spent more money last year than we ever had before by like 50% more. Did you enjoy it? Yes, and then I get scared later. I'd say, you know, at the end of the year, when I look and see we spend 80,000 more than we made,

I get scared. Or start to question whether this is sustainable for the next 20, 30 years. When you talk about your rich life together, what are some of the things? Adrian first, then Rob. I think we're more in the thinking stages around what that means.

I don't know that we've created a team effort around it as much as we could have. Wanted you to do it right now? Sure. Go ahead. I know for me, I would like to be more generous. That is for sure. I love that idea when you brought that, bring that into your podcasts. It just made me feel really good. For us, my rich life would include when we go on vacation and we spend money that it's not guilt-ridden

at the end of the vacation, that we are happy that we spent this money, that we feel confident that we spent it and it was fun and we had a good time and we got to live this adventure that is life. I love those, Adriene. Can you tell Rob those things in a way that connects with him? And then Rob, I'd love for you to engage, get curious, toss the ball back and forth between both of you as Adrian describes her rich life. Okay. So I think what would be great is if we came up with a plan about how much is our guilt-free spending. And we stuck to that plan. Sorry, I'm sorry, can I just cut in?

When you describe your rich life, what I want to hear and what most people respond to is something inspiring, something expansive. I can tell you that creating rules for some budget number, sucks! It's not inspiring. Get this fun.

thing out of your system. Everybody, everybody go like this. It's out. We're not doing that anymore. We're living the rich life. So you've got to start by being inspired. Paint a picture for us. I know you know how to do it.

Inspiring. Okay. All right. We don't have that much more time left. Wait, I'm depressed. We're on our way to that old graveyard called death. So anyway, what do you want to do? our elderly age. God damn. Well, no, I just mean that time is precious.

Thank you. Time is precious. Okay. Our relationship is precious. And the people we love are precious. The people on this planet are precious, actually. The people who serve us food and coffee are in some ways are precious because I just, I am seeing a vision for us of having this life of feeling relaxed and like we get to use our hearts to spend our money in ways that feel really good and ways that also help the planet and ways that help other people around us and sort of like a ripple effect of like spreading our love to like our love and our generosity out into the world. So and that's my vision. That's part of my vision for us. And also for

us to feel like we're spoiled. Like we get to have the things that we want that are fun and that we get to relax into the fact that we get to have these fun things. Like if, you know, it's a massage or if it's a trip or whatever it is that we relax into these amazing things that we've created for ourselves as well. How is that? It was inspiring. That was amazing.

I've never heard anyone describe their rich life like that. That was beautiful and that is exactly what I wanted to hear from you. Something that fits you like a glove. Thank you. That was awesome. Rob, respond to that. Okay. What did you hear her say?

Yeah. Can you repeat some of it? Can you summarize? No. No, she can't summarize. She said this thing. Art. She created art.

Like, it's never going to be heard again. And you're like, just do it again. I'm going to watch the replay. No, listen. Rob, Rob. Listen. Okay, Rob, I want to tell you something. All jokes aside, I noticed a lot of patterns among people

when they come and talk to me about money. That's part of the joy of my job. And I noticed that people, particularly people who are in the weeds, in the spreadsheet. Oftentimes people who came from the fire community, whenever I asked them about something they did that they really enjoyed, like a trip or a new pair of shoes or whatever, they will almost always tell me about the price.

You did that with Tahiti. Did you notice that? Yeah. Right. And I'm like, I'm not interested in how much you paid. I'm interested in like what the sunset looked like. Okay. Are you able to play ball here? Because I need you to engage with Adrian's vision. Otherwise, we're going to be spending the next 25 years of your life with you talking about why you are worried. And everyone around you walking on eggshells, just as you yourself described doing that as a kid. You want me to talk about using our hearts? I'm stuck. Do you ever ask her questions about money? About how she'll spend it or how we'll make it or what?

about how will, like what? How will balance a checkbook? What do you mean? Any questions about money at all? I can't think, I can't remember. Like I'm drawing a blank. How do you live a rich life if you are stuck in the spreadsheet? How do you change if you've been worried about money for so long

that you don't even know how to feel good about it anymore? And what do you do if your partner is the one? who's just unable to dream about money. Next week on part two of this episode, we're going to get into specific numbers. And I asked our partners from Fassett to run the exact scenarios of how their lives might turn out.

I can promise you this. You are going to be surprised. See you next week for part two of Rob and Adrian. 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.