369. Inside the Minds of Tightwads and Spendthrifts w/ Scott Rick

Welcome to episode 369 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Dr. Scott Rick, author of Tight Wads and Spendthrifts. Ready? Let's get started. You are listening to the Brainy Business.

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Now here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. In today's conversation, I'm joined by Dr. Scott Rick. Scott is an Associate professor of Marketing at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. He received his PhD in Behavioral Decision Research from Carnegie Mellon in 2007 and he then spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at Important. Rick's research focuses on understanding the emotional causes and consequences of consumer financial decision making, with a particular interest in the behavior of tight wads and spendthrifts, the title of his new book, which we'll be discussing today on the show. The overarching goal of his work is to understand when and why consumers behave differently than they should behave, defined by an economically rational benchmark, a happiness maximizing benchmark, or how people think think they should behave, and to develop marketing and policy interventions to improve consumers decision making and well being. Scott has published in marketing, psychology, management, neuroscience and economics journals including the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Consumer Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, the Annual Review of Psychology and Neuron. His research has been covered by media outlets like the New York Times, the Wall street, the Financial Times, the Washington Post, NPR, and the Harvard Business Review. At Ross, he's won awards for both research and teaching. Really quickly, before we get into the conversation, I want to be sure you know there are links in the show notes for everything including related past episodes, links to articles and books including Tight Wads and Spendthrifts and so much more. It's all within the app you're listening to and@the brainy business.com 369 now let's jump right in. Dr. Scott Rick, welcome to the Brainy Business Podcast.

Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me.

So so excited to have you here. As I mentioned a bit in the pre chat, I'm a huge fan of your work and so when I saw that your book was coming out I was really, really excited and jumped on the opportunity to have you come be on the show for everyone who hasn't yet heard those episodes, which will be linked in the show notes and doesn't yet know who you are. Can you share a little your work and your background?

Sure, yeah. So background's in decision making research and I'm now a marketing professor at the University of Michigan. I do research on spending saving decisions that people make. And more recently I've looked at how couples kind of navigate these together, where they kind of fall short and how they could be doing it better. Yeah. And more recently getting into work on how we kind of pass along our feelings towards to kids. Kind of paralleling my own journey in life. Yeah. So it's been fun.

Awesome. Well, as I mentioned to you, I know there are a lot of people that work in the financial industry that listen to the show since I myself worked at a financial institution for six years running a marketing department there and have done a lot of work and spoken at a bunch of, you know, credit union and banking events. And we also all are human people that spend money. So understanding both ourselves as consumers as well as when we're thinking about the way that we're marketing and putting information out there as this is the brainy business. So can you share a little bit about tightwads and spendthrifts?

Yes. Yeah. These are, these are interesting people running around out there, the tight ones. They experience a lot of psychological distress when they're considering spending money. It can cause them to spend less than they think they should, which can be a frustrating experience for them and the people around them, spouses, kids, friends. So they look good on paper financially, you win. Imagine that. Oh, they would be really anxious about money because things often look good for them. But they're carrying around this response. Spendthrifts have the opposite problem. It's like someone cut the brakes in the car. We don't, we, I mean spendthrift. But we don't experience enough distress when considering purchases and that can lead us to go a little bit overboard. And so that could be also a frustrating experience. And so these are kind of two ends of a continuum. There are people in the middle. We call them unconflicted consumers. They have a good amount of distress when thinking about spending money. Not too little, not too much. It's kind of a nice Goldilocks zone. They tend to be happiest. They're not the most interesting psychologically. To me, the extremes are the most interesting. And it's not, I say extremes, it's not rare. We find that maybe, you know, 25% tightwater 25% spendthrift and then the rest in the middle, depending on your sample. So there's quite a few of them out there. But no, it's. Even though they look vastly different on paper, both extremes have this kind of frustration with how they approach spending.

Yeah, I really appreciate too that in your, you know, in the paper, in the book and other work, I'm sure, you know, talking about how a, you know where we'd say is a. A tight wad is just frugal. Right. But that they're not the same things there. And so you take the time to break down. It's not just this. It's not just this. It's not by gender, it's not age, it's not. Right. So can you break that down a little bit?

Yes, yes. So I wanted to clarify in the book, there's different ways to spin conservatively. Tightwad being just one flavor, but it has cousins. Frugality, as you note, is something else that could keep people from shopping a lot. But frugality seems to be a very different approach. Frugal people enjoy saving. They enjoy kind of reusing baggies and all kinds of household items and they just take some joy in it. They believe it's the right thing to do. And frugal people save a lot and they tend to be happy with it. And so it's. If you're frugal, like my goodness, good for you. That's wonderful. There's. That there's also kind of people who are just cheap and have money and it's not like a tight wad where they kind of want to buy these different things. The cheap person just doesn't have that desire. And I tell the story about this woman who is rich and her son needed medical attention and she just wouldn't pay for it. And this is back many years ago and the child suffered, but she just had no interest in spending the money on them. So it was just a very self centered version of conservative spending. So yeah, there are these different flavors. But the tightwads, I have a real soft spot for them because they want to do all these things but they just can't get themselves there on their own.

My husband is definitely. And the tight what ism side of the spectrum. And I do. It's, it's nice. And as we look at the, you know, balance of, you know, the tightwads and spendthrifts and like you said, so you. I love how open you are with your. Is it spend thriftiness? Is that.

Sure, yeah, it's a strange word, but.

Yes, I, I don't often question like quote things from academic papers, but on yours where it's the something it was talking about the continuum of tight. What ism to spend thriftiness. That was just like such a fun line. You can't not right.

Yeah. Right.

But I think the way that you are open with some of the mistakes that you've made. As a Kate Spade fan, I appreciated that story on gift giving, which is interesting. And I wasn't necessarily planning to go here now, but I think now that I've opened the door, we can talk a little bit about gifts.

Yes. Let's walk in. Yeah, there's a, there's a chapter on how to give better gifts and I think there is a lot of bad gift giving out there. Some of it kind of. We're kind of helped by companies who suggest that our products would be a good gift to a good way to show your love and your understanding of your partner. And it's in the kind of hopeful imagination of the gift giver. You can see how they'd be like, okay, yeah, that would be good. But to the recipient, it can actually be quite devastating to get that gift. Sending the wrong message. But yeah. So I try to address some of the common pieces of advice and why I think it's not so good. Like, oh, you should just ask your partner what they want and then give that to them. You know, it's a very risk averse piece of advice that's out there meant to avoid disasters. And yes, there can be some disasters, but no, I think it's all wrong because, you know, gifts require surprise and that's why we buy wrapping paper. And these gift giving opportunities are these moments where we can tell our partner, hey, I see you, I understand you, I appreciate you. Because we're not doing it verbally enough. We walk around if we're in a good relationship, appreciating and admiring our partner, but we're not verbalizing it because we just don't find the moment or we feel weird about it or we're talking about who's taking the kids to soccer. It's just, there's not a good time to bring up like what I love about you. It just doesn't fit. So these gift giving occasions, and there are many of them, these are really critical moments to tell our partners kind of what we know and how we appreciate them. So you really have to get to know your partner, got to understand them, got to explore their inner psychological world. And that takes time and in the book I propose, well, here's some questions you can ask to kind of learn more about kind of what they're worried about, what they're excited about, but also this notion of sacrifice. I think a good gift requires sacrifice. I need to know that you didn't just, like, pick this up on your way home from work on the early evening of Valentine's Day. I need to know that you had to work at this somehow. You had to sacrifice something. And tightwinds and spendthrifts can display sacrifice in different ways. I'm a spendthrift. If I get my wife, oh, a new iPad. That's nice. But she just saw me buy myself a new iPhone and a new pair of Nike Air Jordans. She knows that spending a lot of money is not a big deal for me, so there's no sacrifice there. So to me, to demonstrate sacrifice, I got to plan something, I got to make something. I got to track down, like, a rare thing. That's sacrifice. Now, she's a tight one, big time. And she knows this. She's fine with it. But if she buys me something expensive. I know, wow, that was not easy for you. That was a real sacrifice. I know that made you uncomfortable, and so I'm flattered when she gets me, you know, assuming it's something I like and is in the ballpark. So, yeah, just keeping in mind kind of what's going to feel like a sacrifice to the recipient. So a lot of things to think about when it comes to gift giving.

Yeah. The thing I struggle with and knowing that my, My dear Aaron, he will be listening to this, so, you know, we'll be spoiler alerting for future gift giving, I guess. But so what do you do knowing, you know, you can't necessarily give all the advice, but in a world where my husband will definitely say, and I know the case, so he is a tightwad. And like, not what doesn't define it as a minimalist, but in that, like, essentialism thing of, like, do we really need it? Always trying to be downsizing and getting rid of things. So he doesn't like clutter, he doesn't like those sorts of things, and he doesn't want to spend money. Like, his ideal gift is nothing is something that he would say. Right. And even, you know, we're like, sorry, kids, if you're listening to this later on. But, like, where the kids will make art things or whatever, it's like we take a picture of it and then it goes away. It doesn't live to be clutter. In our world. Right. Like, any thoughts I get, you know, there is a bit of planning for the experiences. Right. But even that costs money. Joint accounts. He'll know I can't surprise him with anything. I know you talk about joint accounts in the book, so.

Well, yes, I would recommend changing that right away. I mean, I'm a big fan of joint. But not only joints. Yes, get into that. But no, I mean, the beauty of having a partner who's not as much of a tight one as you is, like, they can make decisions about experiences. And you don't need to know all the details. There can be some white lies. Oh, I got this on sale. Amazing. And I think that's fine. I think that's benevolent deception. It can be a nice thing. But no, as you say, I think experiences are the key here. And maybe if it's, you know, more of a outdoor adventure, that's not so expensive, but it's, like, planned out. And we're going to do this picnic here, and I rented that gazebo. And, like, it's not expensive, but it took some legwork. But, no, it's, you know, you can think about, like, oh, the ideal gift is no gift. Like, whoever cares about gift giving the most in the relationship. That's how much the relationship cares about gift giving. It's like, you can't do away with these things. They're there. I'm not sure we would have picked all these things if we could start over from scratch, like mothers and Father's Day and the hallmark of it all. But that's what we have, and it's not going anywhere. And it's not fun when one partner asks the other, oh, are we doing Valentine's this year? Yes, we're doing it. We're doing it every year. If one person cares about it, we both care about it. So it's very tricky. But yes, experiences, planning. Sacrifice via planning.

Okay. I love it. I have some. I have some thoughts. I won't say please. I know Aaron. Aaron will listen, so I can't. I can't spoil whatever surprise will be coming back.

Yes.

Well, we talk. We touched a little bit on the joint accounts. I thought that was a really, really interesting section. And in a, you know, like, I'll just let you jump into it. I won't. I won't tee it up more than that. Let's talk joint accounts.

Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, there's always been this question of what is best for the marriage, what account structure is best? And there was some prior research Important. Interesting. Suggesting that couples would join accounts are happier. And the question is, well, what's causing what? So we ran an experiment with newlyweds who had separate accounts. And they were kind of on the fence about what to do in their marriage. And so we randomly assigned them to merge their money into a joint or keep it separate or do whatever they want. And we followed them for two years. We would check in periodically. Are you still talking? Do you like each other? How's it going? And by the end of year two, the couples assigned to merge into joint were happiest. They kind of maintained their initial kind of newlywed level of happiness. And everyone else kind of had the normal dip. You see, after the wedding day, most people who had the choice, that third condition, most of them kept it separate. And even those who went into joint, they waited a long time, so they didn't get the benefits. So, yeah, that suggests that there's something good about joint. I think it's good for, like, blurring income differences. I'm a big fan of laundering incoming money through a joint account. So it's all our money. I don't like scorekeeping. And you want to keep things communal. I help you because you need it, not because I'm kind of prepaying for favors. And I like saying, oh, can you do the dishes tonight? Because I'm so tired and I need the help. Not, can you do it tonight? Because I did it last night. You don't want to get into that. And so I think pooling the money in a joint account is good for that, keeping that communal vibe. But I would say that that's just the start of it. I do believe that you need separate accounts attached to the joint so that we each get to spend some of our money without close monitoring. I am not a fan of close monitoring. And I should say, by the way, everything I'm suggesting here is, like, it requires a lot of trust. If it's. If. If you're on shaky ground, maybe hold off on these suggestions, like, you know, this is for couples that are generally going well, but maybe we could be even better. That's who I'm talking about to mainly. Yeah. So assuming there's some trust, I think I should have a sense of what you're up to, but I don't need the details. So that's why I call it financial translucency instead of financial transparency. So I get maybe I know a number that you spend per week or month. But if I'm, like, looking at every item, there's going to be things that you spend that kind of drive me crazy and vice versa. Like, oh my God, look at all these lattes you're buying at work. Can't you just bring your coffee in? No, I like the lattes. I need them. It's a break for my co workers. Like it's, it's important for my mental health and it doesn't, it's not going to add up to anything anyway.

It's.

And we might have different hobbies and interests and whenever someone has a hobby, like an outsider looking at the expenses, they're going to be like, how could you spend that money on this? They don't know the market. So it's best just to kind of have a little privacy and maintain a little individuality. Even though it's all our money, you can still have a bit of discretion.

Yeah, I, I liked some of the examples in the book where you know, like you're saying everything's coming in to the one account and then if it's say Molina gets $500 a month, Aaron gets $500 a month, it goes over here. It happens every single month. And that's what we have. And like I, if I want to save my money up for six months to buy you a really nice gift, I can do that. And I'm maybe sacrificing buying things that I would have liked, which we can see. And you know, I had to save it up to be able to buy the thing. It helps to go with what we were saying there about gifts and things. Or if you're just doing whatever you want with it, that's fine. You know, there are ways to make that happen. And like you were saying, it doesn't have the like checks and balances. But if we do come back together at some point, like you, I know you talk about in the book about having the weekly, monthly, quarterly, whatever, check ins. Right. So we're able to say, hey, I've been having a really hard time sticking to my 500. Can we talk about how we might lift or whatever. Right, you can have those.

Yes.

Conversations, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think the information is always available upon request. Hopefully the requests are infrequent. But you can always say if there's, if it seems like things are not going well. I think the first step is like a self audit. Like hey, let's say we're going to take a look at it. I just need to know that you looked and you're going to correct things. But yes, you can always say I would love a second pair of eyes on this. And so that should always be an option. But yes, it's just the proactive kind of line reading statement, kind of line by line that a lot of other very sensible financial advice givers propose this. And I know why they do that, but psychologically, I don't like that approach.

Yeah, yeah. When reading about it in the book, you're talking about the research that you did here of those three groups, like you were just talking about. And then you had just, you know, like two or three paragraphs about some of the research that Stephen Lovett had done on the flipping a coin on the website and whether people were happy with their decision or not. I will let you share a little bit about that research, but it's. I have so many thoughts about the whys behind it that I'm sure I don't know if this was one of those sections that it's like, kills you to only have it be the length that it is, but. Yeah. Do you understand about that?

Sure, yeah. So Levitt had this experiment. People were on the fence about various things. Should I quit the job, should I propose to my partner? And he invited them to go to his website, flip a virtual coin. And then some people were kind of asked to do what the coin says. And he found a few months later, the people who followed the coin were happier. Now it's a few months later. There's always questions about, well, let's check in with them a few years later. Same with our experiment. Of course, we're just looking at the first two years. But that's the key thing about our study is all of our couples, in order to be eligible for our study, were undecided. And we're open to the idea of joint accounts. Those are our people. That's where we think a little nudge, you're toying with it. We think there's a good reason to be nudged into a joint account. And so we thought, we're not doing any harm to these couples. Maybe it wouldn't work, but we didn't think we'd be doing any harm. So sometimes, yes, you need a nudge to get off the fence. I think Levitt only found that people who were considering getting a tattoo six months later, they were unhappy that they got the tattoo. But. So, yes, some things you have to be careful about. But no, I mean, it's not for everyone. If things are unstable or it's uncertain, I'd say keep it separate, protect yourself. But there's this constant tension between actions you take to protect yourself. And Actions you take to kind of connect to a partner, and it's hard to do both. And so this recommendation to go all in on joint is kind of the, the connect part of the continuum. But some people should be on the protect part. Yeah. I think we helped those couples get over some status quo bias, some inertia with our little prompting. And you know, the couples who took two years to decide on joint, maybe that was a difficult conversation for them and we just took away that difficulty. We said, do it. We're not going to pay you otherwise. Just, just do it. So I love the, the. Love it, Cindy.

Yeah, I think for me too, because it was saying the people who, I believe, if I read that correctly, it was the ones who followed the coin advice were the happiest. Right, Exactly. If the coin told you to do something and you didn't do it, or if the coin told you not to do the thing, people were less happy than those who were told to just make the change. Right, right, right.

The, the change makers were the, the happy ones. Yes.

Right. And so when we look at. And just thinking even that, like, errors of omission versus errors of commission and like you're saying with the status quo and you're constantly having this, like, counterfactual thinking of, if only I had done the thing, if you didn't follow the advice of the coin, I would guess that those people were the least happy as time went on.

Right. So, yeah, that's an experimental wrinkle. Like, okay, in life we wouldn't have had that thing like, oh, I was told to do this and I refused. But I do believe that there are some changes that, yes, we just need to be prompted to make them. And if we're leaning that way anyway, we should probably just go ahead and do it.

Well, definitely. What Mike Norton and some of the research at Harvard write about the photo, the photography class. And so if you took the photo and you pick one that you're going to take home and the other one they say is like going away forever and once you make your choice, it's gone and you can't redo it, and in the other case, you can always come back and make a new choice. And people would think they'd be happier in that second option where they can always be coming back, but they actually are less happy in that case. And so the, like be. Get in the, like I said, the nudge, the little of someone giving you the permission to just do the thing. And also where you can kind of say, well, like this, I Got to be happy with it because I'm here now. And the fate, you know, fate, the, the universe said it was time. The coin said this is what I was supposed to do. It's something you can kind of lean on to feel good about the choice you made. So it's nice to have those nudges of influence throughout, even when you're leaving them to chance. Like in the case of a coin flip, right?

Yeah, right. No, a coin flip. There's research that can be clarifying in your decision making. Okay. Now I can actually simulate this in my mind and properly consider it. And it's, it's something. But you know, that Norton research, it, it's kind of related to what I talk about in the book about prenups and backup plans. And it's not always a great thing to have like a backup plan. Like, oh, what if this doesn't work out? I have this other arrangement. I don't think that's good for marriage. I mean, I can imagine some financial advisors kind of pulling their hair out listening to me say these things. But again, I'm looking at things from a psychological well being perspective. And when you have a backup plan, you don't work as hard at the focal plan. So that's one reason I worry about prenups.

Yeah, that's the. Like they say, burn all the food on the way into the battle. Right. Like there is no this is it. Right.

Yeah, right.

Sort of approach.

Exactly.

I was actually going to transition into a conversation about prenups actually from, from this. So can you share a little bit more? I know you kind of opened the door here, but on the problem and a weight psychologically that it's not to say we should do away with them, but there is another option.

Yeah, right. Well, no, I recently read this wonderful New Yorker article on prenups and I loosened up a little. There are some interesting use cases, I will concede that. But yes, psychologically the backup plan is a problem. The other problem is that it's seen as optional, that someone in the couple has to opt in to it and bring it up and really express extreme doubt about how this is going to shake out. I mean, I would say that prenups would be more okay if they were mandatory, if they were required and no one had to bring it up and express that they have these significant doubts. Like, I have no doubt, but I'm just being forced by the state to talk about this, so we might as well. And so, you know, you can do it that way. But the fact that someone has to propose it. I think it cast a shadow that is hard to shake for a lot of couples. And you know, there's ways to frame it. Like, oh, my family is kind of forcing me. I don't want to do this, but you know, maybe that can help take the sting out of it. So I'm not a fan. Even though again, I recognize the financial arguments, but psychologically not a fan.

Well, even the I love you but my family thinks you're untrustworthy.

That's not, they're very risk averse. They do this for all their marriages.

Yeah, it's, it's a, it's, it's difficult. But we can see that if it is just sort of the way things are, that and you have to do one like you said, it makes it to where maybe our terms are a little bit different than most. But we were gonna have a plan no matter what. What do you think? How does this tie in with companies? Right. So in many ways, while we may not be married to the companies we work for, it's similar in a lot of ways as we're entering into those sorts of relationships. Do you have any thoughts on whether it's bringing on employees or as an employee, you know, things to be thinking of that may be tying from some of these principles?

Yeah, it's fascinating to think about kind of backup plans and outside options and negotiating for salary increases in the shadow of an outside option. And, and employees are bouncing around maybe more than they used to, that's my impression. And there's probably some under investment in just raising the salary to an atypical level just to kind of keep them and oh, we can't do that, we can't set the precedent. But then you end up having to search and hire and train. So there's some, I think penny wise, pound foolish salary practices that are out there, some kind of tight what ism in terms of, you know, not investing in your kind of best people. And so, you know, that's a position where I would hope people deciding salary. I wouldn't necessarily want to tightwater in that position. You gotta, you gotta spend money to make money essentially. You know, Netflix has this policy on what's our spending policy like do what's best for Netflix. And so sometimes that means you don't take the guests to Olive Garden, you take them to a really nice restaurant and you wine and dine them and there are costly investments that need to be made. But so yeah, this is an area of work I'd love to do more Work in kind of tightwinds within business settings, kind of making organizational spending decisions. And my hunch is that that's not always a great thing.

Yeah, well, I think that's an important call out to anyone listening who works at an organization where you think you might have some, you know, some good candidates for some research for Scott. Please, you know, reach out and let us know. You can connect to me, I can connect you to Scott. There will be links in the show notes too. I'm also going to link to my episode with Kate Gigax where she was talking about that the psychological contracts that are made at the beginning and how, where people break trust and how it changes our perceptions at work. Really interesting conversation. I think that ties in to what we were just discussing here. The other piece of what I was telling you in our pre chat that I did want to make sure we covered that I think had some good, you know, business crossover has to do with the, the lover money question of if we're going to get married, you know, do you get married for love or money? And I again, you know, ties into taking the job for passion or money or anything else. So you can talk about, of course, the way you talk about it in the book first and then let's we can transition into corporate and career stuff.

Yeah, right. Well, I was shocked when because I wanted to address this question of the wisdom of marrying for love or money. I was shocked to see all the advice out there that says just marry for money. Like people are kind of the same and you might as well just go for the richer one. And yeah, it's wild to me. So Great Gatsby author F. Scott Fitzgerald he says, well, you don't marry for money. You go where the money is and then you marry for love. Not the worst piece of advice, but it's like how do you go where the money is? The people who have the money, they're not throwing open their doors and saying, yeah, come on in, come date our children, let's spread the wealth here. And even if you do snag someone really wealthy, are they eager to share those resources with you? Not so clear. You can have people who look like they're rich, but their partner believes in my money and your money and I have some and you have not so much. So yeah, I think just you do need some money. You need enough and you need love, of course, both the kind of passionate, kind of initial fiery love and the kind of the companionate love. Like I just, I like watching Bravo with you and just like hanging out with you, that kind of stuff, stuff. But I ultimately propose you got to marry for well being, which you need money, you need love, but you also need kind of psychological similarity, similar tastes, goals, interests. I mean not identical. That's a little boring, but similar enough. And I mentioned this example of a woman who was deeply in love with someone, but he wanted to live on a farm and raise a bunch of kids and he was very religious and she wanted to live in the city and maybe have one kid, maybe zero and much more secular. And these are just very different ways of living. And despite all the love, they had to end it. And they both kind of ended up living those desired lives and they were very happy and they still keep in touch. But you need that psychological similarity. So that's another essential ingredient. That's why I say, well, being is kind of what we're marrying for. But yeah, I can imagine all kinds of parallels to kind of where do I work? Is it just about the money? Is it just about the mission of the company? Sometimes those are both there, but maybe the day to day is kind of unacceptable grind. So you can really believe in something and be compensated for it. But if you're around like unpleasant people, it's, it's not going to work. And so yeah, I, I do see a parallel there.

Yeah, I love the term, the companionate love. So that is your book is the first time I've seen that. So now it's going to be a total Bader Meinhof phenomenon. I'm sure I'm going to start seeing it everywhere. But I just think that is such an interesting piece as we look at. I'm also going to be having a conversation about Cass Sunstein's new book. Look again. And now I'm gonna say the name. Yeah, look again. It's there on the floor about how we habituate to things and everything. Really, really interesting stuff. But I think, you know that where the passionate love may die out if you don't have the companionate piece, it can be really problematic. And it's the same like you go in and you're going to be starting a new career, a new job with a new company and there's the anticipation of what it could be and the like the joy of winning the role and like proving yourself in the thing. And then when you kind of settle into it, is it what you need it to be to hold, hold on to for the long term or then you're going to just, it's going to fizzle and burn out and then you need the next kind of high in that case.

Exactly.

And then you go search for the next thing.

Yeah, exactly. The sizzle still needs to be. We hope it doesn't die completely. But yes, it's not like kind of day one. And yes, what. What's left behind after the initial surge of passion is. I mean, that's. That's marriage. That's what it's all about.

Yeah. And, yeah, while we may not want to think about marrying our companies, we are, you know, committing to them in a lot of ways. And, you know, there are a lot of legal pieces tied in with that and contracts that we're signing. And it's important to be thinking about what's. What is this going to feel like six months or six years from now, you know, having that idea on the front end. So it's not too, you know, we're not too over the top. And I think in the same way as someone who's doing the interviewing as well. Right. So if you're in the organization and you see a candidate and you think, oh, my goodness, they're amazing, or if you look at, you know, depending on the role, you may have them doing some sort of a task. You know, I having run a marketing department for a long time, you're having people, yes, they can show you a portfolio of what they've done, but if you also give them some sort of an assignment and see how well they follow the directions, and if they did some intuiting, if they went above and beyond, it's like if they don't go above and beyond in the interview, they're definitely not going to, you know, when things kind of die down as we go. But that, you know, thoughtfulness to the thing that they're giving you at the interview is potentially where they're spending more time and they're more the most interested they could be.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah. Keeping all that in mind.

Yeah. It's hard to project out to all these different settings in which the relationship will find itself in either at work or in kind of romantic relationships. So, yeah, the more information you can get before kind of committing is helpful. For dating, I say, like, my goodness, go to a crowded Costco on a Sunday, go to a baseball game, do different things and kind of get a sense of them in these different settings, because that's life and you need to be able to enjoy their company and in all kinds of different spaces.

One of the things that we used to do in our interviews as well, and this was a suggestion from someone that was on my team that was just brilliant is that once you got to a certain level of interviewing, because you go through a couple of rounds, we would have potential candidates play Jenga with us in the interview, because if you can tell. So someone's going to totally let their guard down and show you kind of who they really are when you're playing a game like that because of the tension of, you know, and if they're aggressively smack talking people or like way over the top, you can, you could tell. If you don't want to play Django with them, probably don't want to work with them either. That was sort of our. That was our fun thing that we would do in interviews.

And yeah, if they tip the table over when they're angry and they lose, that might be a bad sign. Yeah, I'm working on that myself. But, yeah, no, it's. Jenga can be revealing. Sure.

Yep, Yep.

Lots of good games. Yeah.

Love it. Well, as we start to close out the show, is there anything that you wish I would have asked or that you would love to touch on that you don't typically get to talk about or anything?

Oh, gosh, no. I mean, the Kate Spade story that you hinted at just for the listeners. So wife's a tightwad like Kate Spade. Or at least she did at the time. I thought, oh, I'll get her something new from Kate Spade. I, you know, there were lots of modest things that are her style. She's kind of understated. I'm not. And I found this, like, gold glittery clutch, like, way more expensive than everything else. It would definitely be the. If I used handbags, that would be my handbag of choice. I'd want to take it to, like, a Hollywood premiere. Like, it's so fancy. Yeah. So I got it for her. You know, the money was no issue to me. I was, like, excited. Like, this is. Oh, it must be really good. Yeah, I gave it to her in front of her family. They're like Pittsburghers and kind of perfectly nice, but not like fancy people either. And she just opened it up and just silence. You could hear, like the. You could hear the tumbleweeds. And I just laid this egg. And her dad was like, you gonna wear that down at the Kroger's? And, like, they couldn't figure out what she would do with this. And it was just like a profound. Oh, you don't. You don't understand me. It was. It was a really kind of. These bad gifts can really leave a mark. And so I've become, I think, a much better gift giver over the years. But yeah, that was back on the shelf before New Year's. But just my spendthrift flashy self just got away from me and I wasn't thinking enough about her perspective.

Yeah. And it is important for the world to know it's not that no one wants a sparkly gift. Look at you can see. So those who are watching us on the video here, right, we've got my sequined bedazzled Starbucks cup that my husband did give me as a gift because the glitz and glam of the I often say my favorite color is glitter. My seven year old daughter told me yesterday that that wasn't an acceptable choice of my favorite color and I disagree. But wonderful. So for everyone who is now so excited to go get their copy of Tightwads and Spendthrifts and to connect and learn more about you, what's their best way to do so?

Yeah, no, I think it's at bookstores everywhere and you can find it and me@scottrick.com and I'm on all the. All the socials. Likely shopping at Instagram.

Yeah, likely shopping. That's the. I love that. Ooh. Following immediately, we're gonna add that those will all be linked in the notes, of course. And thank you again for joining me on the show. It was a lot of fun to chat with you today.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you again to Dr. Scott Rick for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? For me, I've always loved this research on tightwads and spendthrifts as you heard me talk about in the conversation. Perhaps it's from my background in banking or just from my curious nature. Whatever the case, I'm so glad that Scott has now written this book and joined me on the podcast to talk about it. I know there are so many people out there who struggle with spending and that it can cause a lot of conflict in relationships whether you overspend or have a really hard time spending if you're a tightwad or a spendthrift. So knowing that you aren't alone and understanding the way you're wired and how that might be different than those close to you, where you might want to adjust your own behavior, how to talk to those around you to help them understand your and their natural tendencies and maybe even change some that aren't serving you or them well is pretty cool. I especially love the idea of being able to incorporate this into conversations with kids to help them be better with their money. It's so important and something that is definitely not taught enough these days. As we close out the show, don't forget about those show notes which include links to all those related past episodes, episodes and books including tight wads and spendthrifts, a full time stamp summary of the episode and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and atthebrainybusiness.com 369 and thank you again to Dr. Scott Rick for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me Tuesday for another Brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me and remember to be thoughtful. Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and.

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