Money For Couples with Ramit Sethi - 165. “I make 10x my husband’s income. Will we ever feel like equals?”

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

Geena is 44 and James 39. They live in Brooklyn where she works as a corporate attorney and he’s a freelance musician—resulting in a 10x income disparity. They travel a lot, but do they invest enough to retire with the lifestyle they want? And does James bring enough to their relationship? This episode is brought to you by: Fabric by Gerber Life | Protect your family today with Fabric by Gerber Life. Apply today in just 10 minutes at https://meetfabric.com/ramit. Mint Mobile | To get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to https://mintmobile.com/ramit. Masterclass | For unlimited access to every class and 15% off an annual membership, go to https://masterclass.com/ramit. Babbel | For our listeners only, get 60% off your Babbel subscription at https://Babbel.com/ramit. Facet | Get affordable, accessible financial planning with a flat fee membership. For a limited time, the $250 enrollment fee will be waived when you sign up at https://facet.com/ramit. Links mentioned in this episode • Join Earnable Live • “My boyfriend is perfect… except he’s broke” (Part 1) #64 • “I make $200k/month. He makes $2k. Who pays for dates” (Part 2) #65 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 If you and your partner have a money issue and you want my help, I occasionally select a couple to work with, free of charge. Apply for my help here. Produced by Crate Media.

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

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amazing vacations. That was one of my favorites where I shared how I spend my money on travel, plus Q&A directly from me. If you want to start building your rich life today, join us and get instant access to our back catalog of years of live calls. Check out IWT.com slash money coaching to join now. That's IWT.com slash money coaching to join the program right now. I'm kind of the mom. And it's something I create and do. I have this tendency to not want him to take on any additional expenses. If I can see he needs, like, sneakers or he needs something, I help him pay his studio rent.

When I help him with his fixed costs, you know, he's not in his 20s, and I want him to, I want us to be more equals in this way. It's understandable that Gino would want to feel like she was looked after, more so than the other way around. Well, I think I have a bit of a martyr complex. I could end up feeling resentful. It has already turned sometimes into little bits of resentment. And because I'm not able to contribute in the same way or in similar ways,

therefore I just feel like I'm not enough. It feels like, you know, it doesn't feel great. I don't know. Sorry, my head is like full of stuff. It tells me that I don't think enough of myself. I don't think big enough. What would you do if you made 10 times what your partner makes? I'm serious, think about it.

If you made 10 times more than they made, what would you pay for? How would it change the dynamic of your relationship? Today we're going to explore that. Gina is 44, James is 39, they rent in Brooklyn, they've been married for nine years, no children, and they keep their money separate. Now, she makes more, but that's not her primary concern. She just wants James to be more engaged with money. One more thing. Sometimes I get comments about how I only feature people making a lot of money.

I got to tell you, I'm very proud of how diverse our guests are, from their socioeconomic status to their geography, occupations, sexuality, and incomes. As you listen today, you'll notice that Gina and James make a lot. My suggestion for you is to use my D to C principle. Instead of disparagement, try curiosity. What would I do if I made that much? What if we have? had a 10x differential in income. Most of all, remember that when I speak to couples with a lot of money, this is a crystal ball into your future. If wealthy people worry about money, you will too unless you make a change. I was actually away on a work trip and I had a feeling that Gina was going to plan something big for a big birthday I have next year. Just we're having like a blowout

year of travel this year and it's great and I'm excited. But for next year we had talked about maybe raining a few things in. And I noticed on my American Airlines app that some flights had popped up. I know. And I'm not supposed to know that, but these flights have popped up and I can see that Gina's planning something big and crazy and I love her for it. But I want to be involved in conversations surrounding spending a lot of money on a holiday, even if I'm not the one spending the money, obviously. Have you talked about this before? No.

It's just coming up right now. Okay. I didn't know he'd seen the flight. Do you want to keep the location a secret? I've seen where the flights are going to. Yeah. Well, where are they going on? Now I got to know.

Trieste and then I haven't booked internal flights to Sicily. and to an island off the coast of Sicily called Pantillaria. Oh, wow, I haven't even heard of that. That's cool. Okay. And I've said this to James before. Sometimes I feel like I'm kind of the mom. I'm kind of planning things.

I'm kind of taking care of all the things. And it's something I create and do. There are times when I help him pay his studio rent, when I help him with his fixed costs. you know, he's not in his 20s and I want him to, I want us to be more equals in this way. I want to, I feel like there's such a, there's such a discrepancy between, you know, I recently helped him pay off a credit card because it had been for a long time. But I just want to feel like, I want to feel like we're in it together and saving and

investing together. And, but I'm aware some of it is a dynamic that I maybe create by being so. But you are taking care of. of the money in the relationship, right? Yes. Well, the bigger picture sense. Like, James, we do split things proportionally. We do split our fixed costs and we do, I don't take care of everything, not at all.

But if there were a emergency or something like that, I would be the one that would say, it's okay, I've got it. We've, we have this. We can figure this out. I mean, just to put a sense of scale, you make about 10 times what James makes, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. If we're just speaking functionally, for the majority of the expenses,

even though it's proportional, which I appreciate, you're taking care of the savings, the investing, the majority of the expenses. Would that be fair? Does that make you feel like, mom? Is it the fact that you are paying more or is it the fact that you are the one thinking about it, doing the work to plan certain things and what account it comes from?

What is it that makes you feel like, quote, mom? It's the second one. I think that James would like, want intends to be involved and he doesn't want to sit back and not be involved. But it just works out this way combination of factors are incomes and also maybe my personality. From my perspective, Gina likes to take things on. And she likes to take things on in a way that often I feel. a bit left behind, I would say. And I think also I have this tendency to not want him to take on any additional expenses.

Like if he needs, if I can see he needs like sneakers or he needs something, I want to be the one to cover those things because I is so much less impactful for me financially. So I. But does it create stress with you, Gina? No. I think it's just the cumulative thing. that I'm constantly keeping, feel like I'm keeping an eye literally on like, I know he needs running sneakers. I know we need these groceries. I know we need this. Like a mom having to

make sure everything is running correctly. I feel, yeah. And it's not because James puts it on me, but it just feels like it's something I should take on because of our, you know, financial situation. And I do. And, yeah, I don't want to not. be with James. You know, I would want to be with him and have this situation, but I feel like I'm in it by myself. And how many other examples could we come up with in the next 10 seconds? Go ahead.

Groceries is a big one. I love going to the grocery store. Okay, what else? Groceries, what else? Give me 10 seconds. Give me the lightning round. Just anything like shoes, sneakers, clothes, like things on Amazon, just things we need.

I'm always like. What else? Who buys the paper towels? I tend to. What else? Who pays the irregular expenses, the property tax, the thing that happens every quarter, every six months? Who pays that? I do the renter's insurance. Okay, great. What else? Just like the everyday bits and pieces, like things, you know, we run out of laundry detergent. So for some reason, I tend to notice that and get it. And also I like to pay for it. For some reason, what is the reason? I'm not sure. I mean, we were out of certain things. And I think, maybe James had used them more recently than I had. I don't know.

He just didn't notice that they were empty or I'm not sure. But I... That's so interesting. I did. I texted him. I was like, did you notice where out of the whatever? It's fine. You're pretty mad.

I was like, I think you used it last. What was it? It was just like some of the spray stuff or like the toilet stuff or whatever, you know. James, have you ever ordered cleaning supplies? I have. Yeah. When? Anyone think there's any clues going on right now?

No? Am I the only one noticing them? Yes. I want to understand your account structure. Do you have a joint credit card? We have, no. Everything is separate. Why no joint card?

I know you're big on merging accounts and whatnot. We just never have. And I think because there's such a discrepancy and like so much of the all of the 401k and all this stuff was mine coming into it. And James had his credit card debt that he was, you know, had been working on until recently. I have my own. I'd like to zero them out every month. Okay.

And then guilt-free spending, like the travel stuff. Where does that come from? Me. You, okay. All right. Can we just, like, I'm going to do something unusual. Can we just jump right into your CSP? Sure.

Some quick background. Gina recently paid off 10,000. of James's credit card debt. She said that hopefully paying off this debt would unlock his ability to save more. Let's take a look at the numbers. James, why don't you read under the net worth section, why don't you read the word in bold and then the full number next to it? Assets 75,000.

Investments, $470,857,000. Savings, $166,000. 739, that 9,000. Total net worth? Total net worth 703,596. All right. What do you think about that? It's good. Okay. Good. What about you, Gina? I'm 44 years old and I feel like it should be a lot bigger. All right. Let's look at the income, shall we? This time, let's go, Gina. Gina, what is your combined gross monthly income? 51,282. All right.

And will you just break it down for me? Your income per month? 46-282. Uh-huh. And James's? 5,000. Yeah. You're an attorney?

Yes. All right. Awesome. Well, first of all, fantastic. 46 grand a month? I'll give you a round of applause for that. That's amazing. Well done.

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And I want to thank Zok-Dak-Dak for sponsoring this message. Now back to the show. Combined annual income is $615,384. Mm-hmm. Does you both know that? I think we have a sense. Yeah. That's a no.

I mean, I think it's... It was something with six digits in it, like that? No, I think because of the RSU numbers, it gets a bit kind of like confusing in my head. But I know it's around 600. Okay, right. Around 600 is like, yes, that's totally in the neighborhood. And James, did you know what your combined annual income was? Not exactly, no.

I mean, I feel like when we do taxes and we look at the gross and then, we look at how the numbers boil down, it's always just a bit of a whirlwind and it ends up being what it is, which, yeah, yeah. And for me, a lot of the time I have a sense that I'm a bit of a tax asset because, you know, I'm earning less. My work in the music industry has sometimes been based in a fixed position, like at a recording studio or a touring operation that has, you know, taken me away and I've been, been a form of a, a, regular paycheck. And it's also been project-based like it is now, where it's up and down and it is hard to predict. And it's another reminder about how, you know, I'm on average not bringing

in what I feel like is enough and, and therefore, you know, therefore I'm not able to contribute. Uh-huh. And then keep going. Finish the sentence. And because I'm not able to contribute, therefore... And because I'm not able to contribute in the same way, or in similar ways, therefore I just feel like I'm not enough. It feels like, you know, doesn't feel great. The moments when I panic and the moments where I feel as a freelancer next to this person who is, you know, smashing the corporate ladder, in my opinion, and has done ever since we met, there are many situations where I'm upset that I can't contribute more.

He hasn't been saving. He's kind of been, you know, meeting his fixed costs or not, you know, not trying to incur further debt, but just really treading water. And so what's the problem, though? Life goes on. Seems like you have a nice place. You're taking amazing trips. What's the problem here? Everything seems to tick along nicely.

But I think there's potentially a situation where Gina is striving and doing really well with managing our savings and investments. and I'm often putting myself under pressure, I think, to get toward, you know, splitting things. And sometimes I worry that living in this situation and living with the nice things that we do have, because I'm trying to always keep up and trying to, you know, be as much of a match as I can, I worry that I'm not allowing myself to do things like save and to do things that are more. Not allowing yourself to save? or not saving. Just not saving.

Let's look at your fixed costs. Fix costs are 24%. Okay. I'm seriously not going to sit here and critique your fixed costs at 24%. That's amazing. Your rent is 3,500 bucks. Quite modest for somebody making $615,000. You could be spending a lot more on that.

I appreciate that you have a modest price place. par payment. What is this? Like your train tickets? That's our, yeah, MetroPy. I love it. Groceries and supplements combined $1,080. I love this. Do you eat at work though for free, Gina? No, I don't. I work at probably the only huge tech company that does not give free. Pathetic. All right, fine. Hair. Oh, your subscriptions are 1,734. Let me guess, Jim. What is this? Yes. Jim, I go to a Pilates one-on-one. I have a trainer. And then I, we also added in like Soho House and like those credit card annual fees. This is a very New York couple right here. Soho House. I got the Pilates. I'm like, I recognize

this. Okay, got it. But we use them all. I go to Equinox like twice a day, you know, every day. So all that stuff. Yeah. You go twice a day? No, I mean, sometimes I'll go to a class and then go, but yeah, I use it. Hold on. Tell the world. Tell the world what you do twice a day at the gym. Tell them. They need to know. Some people, think if they go twice a month, they're like, I did it. No, tell them what you do twice a day. Tell them. I like Equinox's worst nightmare. I'm like, go way too much. Well, I'll go, maybe I'll go do my trainer session and then I'll go to like a yoga class later on in the day or something like that. Amazing. All right. And then you have a dog for like, whatever. This is great.

24% I have no comments. It's great. You know, I kind of, I want to, I always think about doing something on the side besides, I hate to just rely on my job. You know, what if something happens. I'd like to have like some consulting or something, whatever I could do. I don't know what that would look like, but that's something I also think about. Can I just point out? The reason I'm laughing is I love being able to show my audience what a true top performer looks like. So somebody making $50,000 a month who's like, yeah, I go to the gym twice a day. I'm an attorney. I think I should do something on the side. You know, I think I should just like that. And by the way, I travel for three weeks. at a time. Like what? Everybody listen. People like this exist. Okay. This is real. I appreciate it because the

numbers make no sense to the average person. Yeah. Are you motivated by money? I'm motivated by wanting to be able to enjoy life and the world and experiences. And I'm motivated by not wanting to be backed into decisions because I don't have money to like forced into a decision I don't want to make because of money. Yeah, you remind me of me a lot. I feel the same way. I never want to have to make a bad decision because of money.

I do like nice things. That too. The money per se, like I don't sit there and look at spreadsheets and stuff and feel great, but I do feel great when I can get the exact travel thing that I want. I love that and take friends, family.

I love that. I love to be generous. Yeah. I love to feel like I can, oh, I've got this. Let me treat. I can, yeah. All right, your investments, let's just say for conservative numbers, you're doing $7,500 per month. Fair?

Yeah. Investing. Like, we're ballpark in it here. All right. So you're investing $90,000 a year. The last couple of months, I have not been hitting those numbers, like the last two months, I would say, because, as I mentioned, I do not like to put it and carry anything on my credit card. And at $615,000, why is it a decision between investing in credit card?

Oh, that brings me to the last category. Let's just look at that, shall we? All right. I have a few questions about this. First of all, no savings, although you do have $166,000 in savings. Fine, it's fine. Yeah, we didn't show that in. Let's just talk about this number at the end, which really captivated me.

This is what we call our guilt-free spending number. Typically, it's between 20 to 35%. However, here, what's this number, Gina? Read that to me. 59%, 19,430. Per month. Is this true? We didn't sit down and crunch the numbers,

but the fixed costs and everything else is true. So that would be what is left. There's a lot of expensive airplane tickets and hotels and things like that. I got to hear it. So first of all, no judgment. What are we talking about? God, I love this. That is what a wealthy couple's spending looks like. When was the last time you got to peer inside the conscious spending plan of a couple who makes $50,000 a month spending $19,000 a month on travel? Never. That's why I find this fascinating,

don't you? Here's what I notice. I want to see if you notice it too. Do you notice how as your income goes up, your fixed cost percentage goes down, often, way down because your income often grows faster than your fixed costs. This is because we all pretty much buy the same bread and the same toilet paper. Yeah, you can splurge on some fancy stuff, but in the grand scheme, that doesn't really move the needle, but a very high income is super linear compared to the expenses in your fixed costs. Do you also notice how if you make a high income, you can invest huge amounts of money every month and how you'll often find really high numbers for guilt-free spending due to the savings

in those fixed costs. These numbers are actually typical of a lot of people I know with high incomes, and I'm sharing this to demystify how serious wealth is created. It's often with a high income, and this is good to know, because if your goal is to have a lot of money, it's not magic. It's not a lottery ticket, it's not an insurance settlement, it probably starts with a high income. And finding a high income is a skill you can learn. In fact, this week I'm opening up my earnable live program where I show you how to dramatically increase your income by starting a business, including a special live component so you can get coaching directly from me. You don't even need a business idea to start because we'll show you how to find a profitable one. You'll get access

to our private community, our earnable program, and you'll also get live coaching calls with me at IWT.com slash earnable. Now, I want to know about their $19,000 a month trips. What are we talking about? Like, walk me through a recent trip you took. What level are we talking about here? What hotels? Let's start there. I took a trip to Morocco last November. Tell me. And I stayed at La Mamma Muna for a couple of nights. Whoa, top three. Okay, very good. What else? you do there? We, I, well, I did a, I did a small group tour, which was kind of interesting, but I flew business class, you know, et cetera. Let's see what else. We did a big trip in over the

holidays to Finland. We stayed up in the Arctic Circle at this place called the Arctic Treehouse Lodge, which is very expensive over Santa season. We stayed at the upper house in Hong Kong. Very nice. Which was nice. That was a surprise. for James's birthday a few years ago. So how's the math work out? Because I know how much all these places you're talking about cost. And I'm confused. If you have five trips for year,

well, let's just make the math easy. $20,000 a month, that's $240,000 per year, divided by five trips. Okay, $48,000 per trip. That actually seems quite reasonable, right? I think that seems right. like on average, you know, because sometimes we'll go away for like three weeks and, you know,

the total amount for that is probably close to $40,000. Uh, yeah. Well, just a guideline is like, you know, as you know, for luxury trips, you can assume these days, $2,000 per person per night. So that's $4,000 a night. I mean, if you're going for a month, that's $120,000 right there. wouldn't surprise me. Listen, first off, my CSP looks sort of like this.

What am I going to sit here and tell somebody making $615,000 a year, like, don't stay at this hotel? No. But I do think there are a few things to go over financially speaking. And then I think more importantly, it's how the two of you become a team. Yeah. Right? Mm-hmm. All right.

Well, where do you want to start? You want to talk about the numbers or you want to talk about the teamwork? Teamwork. Okay. We'll be right back after this short break. All right, how many of you have a parent or a loved one that clicks on every link they get in their old email inbox? I have a friend that is constantly having to go over to her parents' house, wipe out whatever random pop-up is appearing on her dad's browser, because he basically just clicks whatever comes in his inbox.

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It's interesting when you can afford to buy lots of different things, what you actually choose to spend your money on. For example, I've tried these different shampoos. At a certain point, I was just like, most of these are all the same. I'm just getting the one from the drugstore. I was talking to a friend about what type of meat we buy. He was shocked that we didn't buy the most expensive meat. And I think the lesson that I have taken, as I have made more money, is just because

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Support our show. Let them know that we sent you after you check out. Again, that's Lisa.com promo code Rameet. Now back to Gina and James. Let's just say for easy, math 40 and 44 with a very high combined income, that's really good to know. You do invest $90,000 a year, which is really good. Let's just run some math. So you're investing about 14% of gross. I know people who make like $150,000 who are investing more proportionally than you are. At $615,000, you're buying the same bread as everybody else, right? So your expenses are low, your income is super linear, it's high. Therefore, you should be able to afford to invest more.

And we can see where the problem is, is that at 44, 40 and 44, you have $470,000 invested. Now, I understand you probably haven't been making this kind of income for a long time, et cetera, et cetera. When did you start making this income? There were a few years 2016 to 2019, and then this from 2022. And then there was like a gap in between when it was about half where it is now. Oh, well, that's kind of a long time. All right. So you probably should have more.

Let me tell you why. Because you like to live the good life. If you want to continue living the good life, you need to be putting a lot of money away. Okay. The bad news is that you haven't been putting away as much as you could. The good news, this is going to kind of be surprising for people who listen is a very high income solves a lot of financial problems. Like a lot.

You can be kind of sloppy if you have a really high income. Okay? So like if I were to tell you, find 50 grand more to invest per year. Wouldn't be that hard, would it? No. What I just said is heresy to many people in the personal finance community. But those same people have often never earned a really high income. The fact is, a high income solves a lot of financial problems. If you haven't been investing since you were 25,

a high income can help you add tons of money to your investments in just two to three years. A high income can buy back your time and on and on. I had a friend, for example, who didn't start seriously investing until he was 50. And he was very worried. I looked at his number for him. I showed him that if he truly prioritized investing, like 30% of income for the next five years, he would be more than fine. That's only possible with a high income. Now, if you're listening to this, you're rolling your eyes, you're saying, duh, Rameet, oh wow, a high income solves a lot of problems. Get curious. Ask what if. Hey, what if I increased my income? What would I be able to do? Let me plug in the numbers to the CSP, which you can get at IWT.com slash CSP. And then

then if you decide you want to increase your income, learn the skill. It's a skill. It's not just luck. Income doesn't just fall out of the sky. It's something you can get if you prioritize it, whether with my earnable program or on your own. Now, of course, just as with any income level, you need to know what your rich life is, you need to be investing, you need to keep an eye on your expenses, especially because people who like to spend a lot of money today want to keep spending a lot of money in retirement. You can spend a lot on travel, but what I want to do is actually bring it back to your investment. So how long you plan to work at this type of company?

And maybe in this line of work for another, you know, 10 years or something like that, probably. All right. Let's take a look at the numbers then. Real back of the napkin stuff. But your current amount, current principle that you have in investment, let's just say, 470,000. Okay. Let's see what happens if you just continue the way you've been going for 10 years.

All right. $2.2 million at 54 years old. What do you say, Gina? I think I would feel like I wanted to continue working. Yeah. I'm sure you're very good at your job and you probably love it. But also, if you're making this much money, I would like for you to have optionality. Let's play around with the numbers.

Let's change these numbers. Let's add 50K, as I talked about. And we're going to make this $140,000 a year. So instead of like 2.5, you end up with 2.9. It's actually not materially that big. Do you know why that is? No, I thought it might be more different. It's because it's only 10 years.

It's not that much time. Yeah. The compounding takes a long time to kick in. I'm going to take you in. Instead of 10 years, let's make it 15 years, 140K a year. Again, this is, I think, fairly conservative because your income is going to go way up, right? And to find 50K a year for you, not that hard. Let's take a look.

Whoa, $5 million now. So this is you working 15 years and putting $140K a year. I mean, $5 million, pretty good. So you're talking about $200,000. safe withdrawal per year. Not enough. Not enough for both of you, right? No.

Like, you can't be 55 in being like, I can't stay at that hotel because of my freaking SWR? No, no f*** way. So we got to do something. I think, you know, we're not factoring in that I think James will continue to earn more. You know, he's kind of been building something.

Tell me. I mean, I would like to be earning about three times what I'm earning by the time I'm Jones age, hopefully. Five years to be making 15K a month instead of 5K a month. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to build. Why five years? Because in my mind, and maybe this is something I know Gina is good at calling me out on,

but I perhaps don't put my rates up enough and how I'm working and the clients I have and how the business is growing, that's maybe how long I think it would take. And you don't put your rates up because, what? I'm scared of losing the business. All right. Scarcity, mentality, et cetera, et cetera. So would you say that that has been present in other parts of your life? Yes.

Okay, so here we see a complete difference in worldview. Gina's like, I'm abundant. I'm going to stay at the best hotels in the world and, like, do all this stuff. and like if I need more money, I'll do a side business, like, no problem. And Gina, you look at James like, why don't you just raise your rates? Like, you're so great. I saw half your application is about how great James is, which James, you should know that. So Gina's looking at you, James, going like, you're so great.

Why don't you just raise your rates? Like, it would solve so many problems. And you're saying, I have these lenses on my eyes, Gina, and the way I see the world, is through scarcity. And the way that that comes out is, if I raise my rates, they'll leave, then where will I be? I'll be back in credit card debt.

Then we're going to have more fights and on and on. Any of this sound familiar? It would be great to be able to be in a position where I can put, you know, 5K a month away in investments. 5K a month would be 33% of gross. That's pretty high. Okay.

It's possible if, you know, because you have a spouse who's a really high earner, your proportional expenses are relatively low. It's possible. Well, let's be conservative. Let's say 20% of gross. It's sort of same proportion I threw out, just as a general benchmark.

And that's $36,000 a year. I like it. All right. You know what? For easy math, I'm going to assume that that starts today. So that will be $176,000 instead of $140. 15 years, 7% let's take a look.

6 million bucks. That's a million extra dollars added on. That's pretty impressive. What do you all think about that? That's great. Yeah, I think that's great. Awesome. Yeah.

15 years, not that long. 15 years, you're going to be 15 years older and 50. It's like you're going to blink your eyes. You're going to be there. Yeah. Fantastic. I also think, you know, that you could easily knock that number up to seven or eight if you wanted to.

Basically, what I would do is any additional unexpected income that came in, I would make a rule something like 75% of that unexpected income goes straight into investments. I do think that you probably need to dial in the travel and cut that back. Would you agree? Yeah. Can you? Yeah. Honestly, if I were you just guessing the way you travel, what it probably means is you're probably going to go to the same places. You're probably going to travel at the exact same level, hotels, et cetera, it probably just means you need to take one less trip per year. Easy. It's an easy kind of rule. Let me break down what just happened. I showed Gina that she needs to be investing

more. And for someone earning 50K a month, she can easily make it happen. Remember that in my experience, above incomes of $150,000 a year, people really stop tracking their spending. They get sloppy. So someone's making hundreds of thousands of dollars and I just casually tell them, hey, find another 50K to invest. For them, it's not that hard because it's like finding 10% of the median person's annual income.

10% can be done. Then I suggested a simple money rule, one less trip per year. Notice that in their case, I wouldn't tell them to downgrade their travel style. Why would I? They make $600 plus $1,000 a year. but a simple money rule.

Just cut off one trip per year and bank that money. Boom, they can hit their number, done. I also got James more involved. Now you can hear that his worldview of money is contributing to him not being an active partner. And people who are in this position often do the exact same thing James did. They come up with really, really long timelines for them to increase their income.

Five years to make $180,000 a year? No. Hell no. The solution is not to just grind it out for five years, especially when your partner doesn't feel you're involved. The solution is to fix your worldview of money and master your own money psychology. That can be done a lot faster than five years. Can we talk about what I think is actually more pressing, which is the dynamic when it comes to money between the two? if you had to describe this dynamic, the title of a movie or a book, perhaps, how would you describe it? Wait, let's talk about it, you know?

That idea. Wait. Wait. Implying she's already off to the races and you feel left behind. Right. Gina, how about you? I'm always thinking like, you know,

less work, more fun. You know, I'm trying to kind of maximize time and resources and where's the teamwork in that? No, that's not. Yeah. I mean, it's always an intent of things, planning things

that I know we both enjoy doing together. What are you realizing right now? You said less work, more fun. And I said, that sounds good. Where's the teamwork in that? And then what did you say? I'm kind of thinking of things that we would both enjoy, but I'm thinking of them and I'm planning them. And what happens as a result of that?

James feels left out. And you feel? Stressed. Yeah. Keep going. Well, I think I have a bit of a martyr complex. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

What else? I mean, I think it's similar. I could end up feeling resentful, a very far extrapolation. Nice. Yes. Yes. Okay. Great self-diagnosis.

That was really good. Just give me that title of the book, though. I got to get it. She's got to have it. I don't know. Or like, I've got this. I've got this. Yeah.

I've got this. Dot, dot, dot. And the subtitle is, but, finished this subtitle for me. I've got this, but. I really want you to step up or I've got this but I want a partner.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you want from him when it comes to money? I want us to be on just more equal footing earnings-wise. That's not going to happen. You make $46,000 a month. Pay close attention to what just happened. I asked, what do you want? and Gina replied with a phrase,

I just want us to be on more equal footing earnings-wise. I don't really think that's what she wants because we all know James is not going to earn $50,000 a month. There's no shame in saying that. Gina knows it. I know it. James knows it. I don't think her first answer is actually what she truly wants.

I'm going to push back on that a little bit. I want us to be on just more equal footing, earning. wise. That's not going to happen. You make $46,000 a month. It'll be an RSU's next year. Oh, that's what we're doing? I don't know.

I don't know. It feels different. I don't know. Some of it. But I wanted to be more, just more, not, I don't expect equal or just like more shared more on a some more on a like approaching level footing kind of what's that that was a lot of words I've never I've never kind of had a sense of like I need someone to take care of me or I've always been like

I'm going to figure I'm going to figure this out I've got this I don't I've always plan to take care of everything myself if I have to and I'm happy I'm so grateful that I can take you know treat us and take care of us. But I hope that I, one day, you know, there'll be, there will be less of a discrepancy between us. What if there's not? That would be okay. Maybe over many years, I would feel pressure to keep at the same level. And I might just become kind of a bit exhausted. But I think I could curtail that by raining in like a trip per year, things like we've talked about. I would rather kind of feel like we were approaching a more, approaching more level. Okay. Sometimes I do feel like it has already turned sometimes into little bits of resentment.

It's understandable that Gina would want to feel like she was looked after, more so. than the other way around. I'm used to feeling the way I feel right now, which is just, I wish it wasn't this way, and I wish that I had more consecutive months of really good business like I've had recently so that I can be doing things

contributing more and more regularly. So you have a very interesting relationship dynamic because, Gina, you earn more and considerably more. What kind of conversation would we be having if the genders were reversed? Let's take a quick pause to support our sponsors. I have this email software that I love so much. I pay for it personally. And just 20 minutes ago, I used one of its AI tools.

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Let's keep going. I know that she is always someone, and this is what I've always been attracted to, is the fact that she is this person you speak of who, you know, goes to the gym twice a day and has these grand ideas that she's able to turn to reality. And it's amazing. And so I think if it was reversed, I think it's hard to imagine that. I don't know, I can even imagine that. You know, one of the things that I learned from speaking to couples is that the lower earner,

regardless of gender, is almost always obsessed. with tributing, a C word. Let me tell you what is not happening in this conversation. They're not being disrespectful to each other. It's clear they love and respect each other. Gina is not saying she expects James to make exactly $50,000 a month. Neither of them are making really unrealistic demands. But they're also not saying specifically what they want.

Gina wants James to be engaged with money. I can understand her paying more for things like luxury hotels, but why is she the one ordering the detergent? Gina sees money as something you can get if you want. When she hears James say that it'll take him five years, she can't understand why he doesn't just raise his rates or buy a program that teaches you how to improve your money psychology and then raise your rates. The truth is there haven't been any consequences for James. And their background plays a huge part in this. Let's learn about their background now.

No, my mom never worked. She had worked before I was born, but she was like a teacher. But she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom or something. She wasn't very good at it. But my dad worked, but my mom was just constantly like just berating him for not earning enough and not. And I was like, why don't you do something? You have like a master's degree. Like, why don't you go back to work?

You don't need to be home taking care of me. You ever say that? Yes. Really? Wow, what a precocious young child. I would just be like, you could work, you know? You don't need to take care. How did your Midwest mom respond to that?

Please tell me. She just, I don't, I don't, she was just always angry. So I would never change. That's kind of interesting. Do you think, look, what money messages do you think you absorb from your mom? just like there was we don't have enough. I was always aware of how much like everything cost. Like if my piano lessons, this or that was so expensive,

you know, we can't, we can't afford. Just I was aware that I was an expense and a burden like all, always, all the time, just always aware of how much everything cost and how draining it was. And after a couple years after university, my mom sent me like a spreadsheet with like what she had rented. and paid me for like school expenses and this and that. And I was just like, oh my God, he did. And I spent like, this was like after I had up leveled my jobs and I was making a lot more

money in like 2015-16. I just started sending the money like every month just like, okay, if this is what you think here, I'm just going to send you so that you can't even hold this over my head anymore. I've heard this once before. Parents who sent, like they literally gave a card at graduation. Yeah, it was like that. Yeah. I grew up with like a very, I was an only child, very scarcity mindset.

For undergrad, I had like need-based scholarships, et cetera. I took out lots of loans to go to law school and everything. And I have never had like kind of any ongoing support from my parents. I don't know. You know, entertainment law, you're not earning a lot at first. I had living in New York City with loans. I was married before and I had a husband who didn't work. He was from another country and didn't.

work for a couple years, visa stuff and whatnot. And I got, that's when I got into like $50,000 of credit card debt because I was covering for both of us. And I think I just, I was just like, I can't, I can't do this anymore. I, I just need to like up level. And I just started working with like scarcity mindset and trying to really train myself to focus on abundance and think of myself in a different way. And I got a series of jobs where I just jumped up my income a lot. And I made a point of just wiping out all of the debt. And that was in like 2017 or 18. And finally, yeah, I just was like, I don't, I can't like my dad passed away. You know, he worked until the end. Like my mom is still alive. And yeah, I just was like, I don't want, I can't.

I don't want to be like that at all. Wow. And what about for you, James? What was money like as a child for you? What did your parents say about it? I was quite lucky. Like, my dad was a dentist. He did pretty well. My mum worked as well full time and we went on trips. We did cool stuff. We were pretty well looked after. My dad left to go take a job abroad when I was 11 and then he never came back. And then it was like mum was running the house and working extra hours and life became a bit more stressful and weird. And that, that, that, pretty quickly turned into maybe being a bit of a mediator between my mom and my sisters sometimes. How do you think that that affected your relationship with money? Do you see any connections with that? As the youngest kid, I always had this feeling of wanting everything just to be okay, like energy-wise, you know, is everyone all right?

is the energy cool is people happy. That's interesting. Kind of empathetic for a young boy, at least in the culture I was raised, like what's a feeling? What's energy? I never heard of that in my life. You know what I mean?

For us, it was like, did you get an A plus? Okay, good. If not, what went wrong? That's interesting to hear you talking about energy and how's everybody feeling as the only boy in the family. What do you think about that?

I think it comes from wanting, you know, like hearing people argue, hearing disagreements, hearing friction, hearing family stuff happened. You want to calm that down? Just wanting that to go away because, you know. So let's try to make the connection. Is there one between that quite visceral feeling and your relationship with money? He is so sensitive and empathetic. like just such an amazing, you know, soothing presence.

And so, so it's so sensitive. But I wonder, and I don't know if this is true, but I'm wondering, like I was always conscious. I was always made to feel like there's not enough. You're such a drain. We're not going to have, we can't afford this. We can't go on this trip. Do you know how much this cost?

And I felt so responsible, like such a drain on my parents. And I don't know if James ever felt that. Gina, would you say that he is more empathetic than you are? Yeah. Great. Okay. That's actually really helpful to hear. Okay, fantastic.

James, you like to keep the peace. You're attuned to energy. Makes sense. If, for example, you were to increase your rates by 35%. How would your clients react? I think they would react. Some of them may be a hesitation and maybe a thought of, you know, I think I'm forever thinking about the bigger issue,

especially the music industry, whether it's a band or a label or someone who just doesn't have the money. I think I have a scarcity mindset is maybe extended to the point where I'm assuming their position is maybe like my position. So why would I want to risk upsetting or potentially pushing away a client? I find it really interesting how people transform their backgrounds into their choices of today. For example, Gina was raised in a family without much money, no family support, and now she's making a ton of money in a high-income career.

but what's interesting is that I've talked to tons of other people who are raised in similar families. They grew up without much, no family support. Oftentimes, they get into crippling amounts of debt. They develop a very unhealthy relationship with money. What's different about Gina? What made her excel in her career? Honestly, that's the puzzle of human nature. We may never know.

James grew up in an unstable family. His dad left. He played the role of the mediator. And his conclusion was to become very empathetic, meaning to him, don't raise your price. Again, how someone ends up at a particular behavior and belief needs a lot more time than a single conversation. But if I had more time with James,

I would definitely want to dig in there. What I don't hear is clear expectation. Gina, I think from your perspective, you knew James's career path and you also knew your career path. And they're radically different simply from the monetary perspective, right? You're always going to make more. Let's accept it. With that said, you can want certain things from your partner, but we got to be specific about it. What is it that you want?

Give me specifics that I could observe with a clipboard. I want James to have some sense of ownership of, you know, he's set up his Roth IRA. He's contributing to investments. He's got his little brokerage account maybe and he's doing something with that. And he's really owning it and it can or contributing to ours together. But I don't like doing all of being the only one doing all of those things. I help him pay his studio rent. When I help him with his fixed costs, you know, I recently helped him pay off a

credit card, I know he needs new running sneakers. I know we need these groceries. I know we need this. Just like the everyday bits and pieces, like things, you know, we run out of laundry detergent. Sometimes I feel like I'm kind of the mom. And it's something I create and do. There are still months when, you know, he's kind of short for, you know, some of his fixed costs or things like that and I'll help bridge the gap. I don't want that to happen. I want him to be like really smooth sailing where he's got buffer and there's never going to be a question of paying like studio rent or anything like that. It's all easy covered, well covered all the time. I love this. What else? I don't need. I was thinking of automatic response like,

I want him to plan trips and take me, but I don't really need that. I like planning and organizing. I think we've learned that I can try to include him more and maybe ultimately he can split some of the cost of the plane tickets or things like that with me. And we can have a conversation and choose some of those things together and maybe one day split some of those costs. All right. James, what about you? What do you want with this money dynamic in your... A sense that I can, you know, I can contribute to things that I can have this. I've set up a solo 401K, but there's nothing in it. And I'd like to be able to start putting things in there. And I've just recently, I've got $1,000 left on a credit card that was a real problem for me for a couple of years.

It's just floating and causing a lot of stress for me and making things hard every month. Now that's gone. I would, yeah, I would like to make a big push toward putting things away more every month on the months that I can because it won't be regular. But on the months that I can. I'm happy for Gina to continue and book the trips that she wants the book and these things that I can see she's actually passionate about. And as someone who's earning much less, I don't, I would never want to take anything away. I would never want to say to Gina, like, you maybe shouldn't have booked that trip with those

crazy flights on Qantas or whatever it was. I want him not to think of himself as the one who's always earning less. And like when he says, you know, months that I can contribute because it will always be up and down, I want to be at a point where it won't, there will, you always will be able to contribute something. When you've been playing small for so long, oftentimes that's all you know. I heard the same thing, Gina, that you heard, which is this sort of like, I hope that most months I can, but there'll be months that I can. Like in my world, there is zero months where I'm not contributing to my household, ever.

I will always, it's like breathing oxygen. You feel the same way, right, Gina? Yeah. James, you don't. It tells me that I don't think enough of myself. I don't think big enough. Correct. Quite a realization.

And I think that is one of the core things here. This idea of playing small that like maybe it was my credit card debt or, like it's this recurring thing that I've had hanging over me. But we've got to find a way for you to turn the page into the new chapter. Now, do you want that? That's my question for you. Yeah, of course. Okay, I didn't hear that.

It's almost like, like you say, it's almost like it's just the narrative stuck. Yeah. It sounds even just hearing it in my head. It sounds like a bit of a broken record or something. Yeah. Yeah. And when you said it, I was like, oh, no, not that again. Like, that's why I had to jump in. Yeah. Now we're starting to get real. Okay, well, now let me read you what you wrote in your application.

You wrote, I've paid off five figures of his credit card debt, as that was always the excuse. But even still, he's not able to save and meaningfully get ahead. I feel like this thing about contributing and trying to get credit for contributing. there's some, on my end, there's some weird energy there. I feel like, you know, I don't know. Sorry, my head is like full of stuff. What if Gina got hit by a bus tomorrow? What would happen?

I would be in trouble. I mean, I wouldn't be able to live in New York City. We've talked about that. What would you do then? I'd have to move away or move to where I've got some friends or move home. What would you do for money? I could still do what I do and live somewhere that's cheaper and has, you know, less expenses and make things work for myself.

You could probably be tough on 60K a year. Sure. Anywhere. Yeah. I think everything you said is right. And I love the honesty. I'd be in trouble. Who's the solution?

Gina. Gina will get the Lysol. We'll pay the credit card debt off. will plan the trips, all of it. And the question I asked was, what if she wasn't here? What if she got hit by a bus? But also, Gina, it would be a tragedy to leave your partner without the skills or capabilities or knowledge

to even, like, survive. Right? Teamwork means we got to equip our partner, both of us, with the know-how to survive in case something happens. James is a very nice guy who's become used to Gina taking care of most financial things. Yes, he feels disempowered. Yes, he has money issues from his childhood.

And yes, Gina also reinforces this dynamic. And that's why I'll get further from helping him realize the stories he tells himself than from yelling things like, Hey, James, you need to man up. I hate that phrase, by the way. Gina and James want to be together in a more equitable, rewarding relationship. Great.

They're not here to be humiliated. They're not here for me to take sides. That's why I'm taking the long, slow route, even talking a lot to Gina at the beginning so that James feels much more comfortable to open up and realize why he's behaving this way. You see the world completely differently, and we can change it in lots of different subtle ways, but it's really that. Scarcity abundance. I want this type of lifestyle

and I'm willing to do anything to get it. Versus like, I don't know what's going to happen. If they leave, then I'm in trouble. It's a lot of internal voices. James? You hear those, right? Yeah.

Gina, you've heard this podcast. You've heard many folks who come on and they are subsidized or they are protected. I don't mind people helping each other. Like, it's great, especially spouses and kids. It's fine. But it's one thing for you to swoop in and save the day, as you have on multiple occasions.

Credit card, studio, but you can't do that. And then at the same time, say, I want a partner who takes ownership over their IRA, et cetera. It's not fair to James. And James, it's not fair to Gina. The problem is both of you are really nice. And you actually obviously love each other. It's so obvious. But what you are doing, saying, and not saying is causing you to have a wedge in between you.

I'll give you a more healthy approach to what you might do there. What you might do instead is to sit down and say, hey, let's talk about our CSP. Let's talk about kind of our vision for what we want to do this year. and let's talk about numbers. We're going to have some really honest conversations. I love you. Nothing said here is about hurting you, vice versa. But we got to unwrap this knot that we've gotten ourselves into and create the life that we both.

Cool. We can all agree on that. Just like start off at the real high level. How do we want to feel? I suspect you probably haven't talked about what life looks like with like $5 million at age 55 or $6 million or. 10 million. And those are probably conversations I would encourage you to have. Like, yeah, we generally know that we'd like to kind of live in New York, maybe, and maybe overseas, you know, have a couple places, spend time, you know, but, but like general, very general,

broad strokes. It might be time to get more specific. Yeah. Your solution might be, let's create a joint account. James, this is, how much can you contribute? And whatever James says, you need to pick a number that is substantive. James needs to find a way to hit that number no matter what. And the rule is like there's no coming back to Gina for support with your business. Like that's a business issue. That's your business. It's up to you.

When you make that clear, Gina, that lights a fire. Because suddenly there's something on the line. James is like, oh, I don't have a safety net. I'm going to solve that. And suddenly all those scary voices in his head, James goes, you. I'm not listening to those voices anymore because I need to be sending like $4,000 a month to our joint account. James is suddenly staying up late. James is suddenly saying I actually can't take that trip to Morocco next year or next month because I need to work on this business

if I'm going to contribute my $4,000. Okay? That sounds great and I think it could work really, really well. One thing that comes into my mind when I think about that saying, you know, this trip or yeah, this, for example, this trip that we've got planned, actually I'm going to sit that one out because I know I have to knuckle down. That's like a quiet time. So I'm going to have to work really hard to get into some work. There's a thing that happens again in my mind where I, where I feel almost it's expected of me that I will go and be a partner in that. way, not dishonor the sort of opportunity that has been presented to me in that trip, for example.

So how would you deal with that? I think I would just say, yeah, I have to work. I can't do it. Because pin it back to the North Star. Because I have to be knuckling down during that time because I know if I don't meet my commitments and I don't contribute to our joint account, all that stuff that I think sounds great, I would feel very bad about myself.

Maybe just because I committed to my numbers and I'm going to follow through. Yeah, because I committed to my numbers and so I want to follow through. That's it. And the more you say it, and then the more you do it, and sometimes you'll have to make some very difficult decisions,

like not going on a dream trip, you know, I wouldn't be surprised, Gina, anyone would be a little bit upset, a little bit taken back, kind of like, hey, why don't you come anyway, don't worry about it. But actually you sticking to your guns and following through on your commitment would engender more respect than anything else. And there is a future where you don't have to turn down trips, where you can actually build that into your schedule.

The two of you can sync up December of each year, do your annual Rich Life Review, plan where you're going to go, you work with all your clients and sequence it out, that could happen very soon. I hear it and I want to step up and I want to meet the goals. I feel excited about it, actually. I like that. Yeah, it's, I feel like the kind of conversations we can have now can be, can feel more positive than maybe what they've become, you know. Money is a small but important part of a rich life. important in the way that we have to talk about it. We have to create a healthy relationship with money, with ourselves, with each other. Yes. But it's also small in that it's not everything. You can contribute to this relationship in multiple ways. You can contribute more money.

You can also contribute your energy, your empathy. You can contribute household tasks. and you two can be a united partnership. Although they have a dynamic that each of them reinforces, most of the work here, in my opinion, needs to be done on the part of James. Yes, Gina needs to set clear expectations and she probably needs to rebound some of the household responsibilities to James.

But it really is James, who needs to find a way to improve his money psychology, commit to a number, and then deliver. This episode reminds me a lot of episode 64 and 65, where Connie made $200,000 per month, and we got to hear fascinating expectations and gender dynamics. I'll link those in the show notes. Let's check out the follow-up from James and Gina. First, James.

From our conversation, I feel like I now have a much clearer picture about where we actually are, and what needs more work. Just hearing it in our conversation, it was like I was hearing the way she was feeling for the first time in many ways. Both sort of thinking about how I have this sort of scarcity mindset built in and the family part of that is really interesting. I've never thought about that before. I have the scarcity mindset from being in bands and working.

and working in music and just focusing on just having enough to pay the rent check. I was really pleasantly surprised how I felt at the end of the conversation, empowered and feeling like I can think bigger. And then changes. We've already set up a joint account. We have a card saved onto Amazon for joint household expenses. So we talked about ways that I can make sure that I can make sure that I'm taking care of this realm, set of things, these household items.

We agreed on one less trip, and we agreed that I would sit out, you know, trips I've needed if I need to be here working. There are some interesting hybrid opportunities, some contract work. There's a music house in L.A. that actually reached out to me on Tuesday, coincidentally, offering me some work. so some good things for maximizing putting rates up. And now Gina's follow-up. One of James' first comments after the call was to say,

I hope no one I know hears that. That made me a bit sad, but then I thought, well, he's still working out some of his kind of thinking small, and I'm really excited for him to get beyond that. I was also surprised at how deeply we are stuck in this dynamics loop. So we've already made changes. We have designated a shared credit card, For household expenses, that's like apartment things, cleaning supplies, the mundane and repeat items that I tend to just get and feel like a certain way about.

We're going to fund this via a joint checking account. And we've confirmed with our accountant that James's Roth IRA and Solo 401K how to approach those and where to set them up so that he can be ready to fund them. I learned that we are really on the same page about our dynamics for better for worse, but we really are on the same page. and for our rich life and our bigger picture vision. And I learned that it's way easier than I thought to be very direct about these things. It feels good to be direct. Thanks for listening to I Will Teach You to Be Rich. I'm Rameet Sati.

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