The 3 Biggest Money RED FLAGS in Relationships… | Matt Monday

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Love Life podcast with me, Matthew Hussey. Today's episode of Love Life is a really special one. I am bringing to you world renowned money expert, my friend Ramit Sethi, who is the author of I Will Teach youh To Be Rich, the New York Times bestselling book. He is the host of the massively popular podcast I Will Teach youh To Be Rich. He also had a top 10 Netflix show, How to Get Rich. And he's just incredible. I love this man. I'm so excited for you to hear from him. We talk about issues like what are the red flags in dating when it comes to money and the way someone is around money or finances. We talk about who should pay and how that evolves in relationships. we talk about how to not leave yourself financially exposed when you're actually in a relationship with someone. We talk about what to do when you earn more than the person, or when you in dating keep intimidating people because of the money you've made or the lifestyle you have or where you are in your career. We talk about these things and so many more. I am so excited about this one. We don't normally go this long in the podcast. The only reason we did is because we had so much to talk about in money and dating and so much to talk about in money and relationships. So whether you are single or coupled right now or in a marriage, you are going to get so much out of this at every stage of life. This conversation should be essential watching or listening. So strap in. Enjoy this episode with Ramit Sethi. It's good to see you, man.

Great to see you. This is gonna be fun.

It's gonna be really fun. I always like when we get to come together like this. I don't think we've ever done it with Audrey here as well, have we?

Nope.

Yeah, that's right. Okay, this is gonna be an added level of fun, Audrey. How you doing?

I'm good. Yeah. I think when, when we found out your book was all about relationships and money, Matt was like, you have to be in this conversation.

I'm excited for Audrey to be front row seat to, you know, some important classic remit rants. Me?

I'm just a teddy bear. I don't know what you're talking about.

If you, if you dare come on the love life podcast and don't give us some sort of mildly offensive remit rant. I will be annoyed if you give them to everyone else and not to us.

By the end of this conversation, one of you is gonna be crying, the other one is gonna have your credit card bills in hand lighting them on fire, and I'm gonna be sitting back eating popcorn and watching and saying, keep going.

And Audrey will stop ordering so many random beauty products from Instagram.

Uh-oh, here we go. How many does she order, Matt?

As many as will be advertised to her in the time that she's looking at Instagram without me looking over her shoulder.

It's true. It's true.

Don't worry, Audrey, you know I believe in spending extravagantly on the things you love.

Well, let me tell you.

-Cost mercilessly on the things you don't.

-Let me tell you what she loves, Remi. An ice roller for your face.

I love an ice roller.

She's got an ice roller for her face. Which, I mean, granted, I quite enjoyed when I used, but that's besides the point. She's also got a portable one now that she can take with her 'cause the other one's too... For travel. Cumbersome.

A travel ice roller.

If there's one thing I hate, it's a cumbersome face ice roller. Remi, take us back to... I want to come back to that idea that you just said of spend extravagantly on the things that you care about and cut ruthlessly on the things that you don't. Before we even get there, what are the big financial red flags that should make you run in the other direction? Are there any?

There definitely are. And the number one financial red flag is a partner who refuses to talk about money. We can work with someone who has credit card debt. We can work with someone who has some investment that they made that they don't understand. We can work with all that. But if your partner is not willing to even talk about it, if they avoid it, if they hide, if they shut the conversations down, that is the ultimate red flag. There are several others.

How soon should you talk about finances, do you think, Ramit, with someone that you're just getting to know?

You know, it's funny, the advice on this is so all over the map. People in the personal finance world often encourage you to talk about it on date one. I'm like, have you guys ever been on a first date? Oh my God, I'm not trying to talk about my asset allocation when the drinks are served. But I do think that early on you can start to get clues. For example, I wouldn't ask a partner if I was on the third date, how much money do you make? What's your gross versus net? But I might be genuinely curious and I might ask things like, where'd you grow up? What'd you guys do for summer? What'd you do in December? And of course, I wanna know the answer. I wanna know how they grew up, but I'm also listening for clues. For example, if they said we went to Aspen to ski every winter, that's an interesting clue. That probably suggests that that was a wealthy family. And that tells me something. If, for example, they said, like in my family, we got in our minivan and took a road trip down to LA where we visited family, that probably tells you something else. Neither is good or bad, it's just clues. And there are more pivotal moments where you will want to ask about money. But to finish up the red flags, if they're cheap, that's a red flag. I don't mind someone who's thoughtful about their money, who even is frugal about certain things, I don't mind that. But if they simply say things like, why would I ever spend money on that? That's disgusting. How could you do that? cheap. I can fix a lot, I can't fix cheap. And finally, if they follow Robert Kiyosaki or Grant Cardone, that is a massive red flag. You should literally just get up and say, Goodbye, walk away. That's really funny, dude.

I didn't expect you to say that. I wanna know, Ramit, why is being.

Cheap a red flag? Outside of the obvious, which obviously is, it's not a nice personality trait, right? But why is it actually a red flag in a relationship?

It suggests something more than simply, I'm not willing to pay for that. That's fine. We all have things that we're not willing to pay. For example, when I was a kid, we were told, Never open the hotel mini bar, or in our case, motel mini bar. To this day, I'm not trying to open that mini bar. I could buy every candy bar in there. I'm not ever opening that thing. This outrageous to me. That doesn't mean I'm cheap. It simply means that's not valuable for me. I'd rather just go downstairs and get a coffee. But cheap tells you a lot about the person. It tells you that they have an unwillingness to even contemplate why someone else might choose to spend money on that. Even though they themselves may not, it also affects other people. Being frugal might just affect you. Being conscious about what you spend. Being cheap is the kind of person who When they're looking at a menu at a group dinner, they go, Ugh, who would ever pay $14 for tuna tartare? That's outrageous. That's ridiculous. Whenever you hear someone saying, that's ridiculous, it's a big clue. Hmm, I wonder what that person's money mindset is. Hmm.

That's so interesting.

Okay, so if they're cheap, any others?

You know, if they have these certain beliefs that to me, suggest that they may not truly understand how money works, but they have very strong opinions. You know, we've talked about how buying is not always the best decision. If somebody goes in and goes, Rent is throwing money away. My antennas start to go up. But the biggest red flags in the relationship are number one, they refuse to talk about money. That is the end all be all red flag of all. You have to be willing to talk about it. If they are cheap and if they kind of believe in get rich quick schemes, which is why I suggested Kiyosaki and Cardone. Those three are the big red flags. Everything else we can pretty much work with and build a healthy relationship together.

I'm wondering, Ramit, what you think of women, the predicament of women feeling like financially they intimidate a lot of men these days because They're rising up the ladders of companies, they own companies, many of them are very financially independent, and they're coming across guys who aren't in the same position as them. And many of them are talking about how when they do bring up their situation in life, even if they're doing it in a fairly reasonable way, not in a way of beating someone over the head with it, They're finding people losing interest or they're finding people who are feeling, you know, intimidated by it is the word that comes up all the time. What do you make of it?

It's a real phenomenon.

Yeah, talk to me about your experience of this and what you're advising both men and women in this capacity, both women who feel like, God, just by being me, and having worked hard and got to where I am, I'm intimidating men. And for men who are either being intimidated or, you know, to put it a different way, are struggling to find their sense of significance and worth in the dating marketplace in a paradigm where they're often not the person who's doing the best financially.

Yeah. This is a real phenomenon. I hear it all the time when I speak to couples on my podcast. And we also have large changes in demographics. We have young women in big cities now earning more than men in their 20s. This has never happened before in America. And so first off, we just don't have a history or the guidelines of how this plays out. It's new, but it's also happening. It's real, so we have to acknowledge it. And you're right, Matt, if you've worked hard, You shouldn't have to apologize for being financially successful. I think that's right up there, right up front. What I find is that the reason I love talking about money and relationships is that it is always hidden in the shadows. There's secret expectations. There are beliefs we grew up with that we've never quite questioned or interrogated. And so for example, we have men When I ask them, what is your role in your financial relationship? They always say the same word. Starts with a P. Provider. Provider. I'm a provider. And sometimes they are in a relationship where in a heterosexual relationship, she earns more than he does. I point this out to him gently and I say, if you are the lower earner, what are you? And the men are stumped. because as men, we are taught to be providers. If we are not providers, who are we? Many men do not know. So there's that challenge with men. However, for women, there is a new and quite interesting predicament, which is many of them are earning more than men. How do you navigate that? A couple of thoughts. First off, talking about money should not be this thing that is fraught with fear and nervousness. And that's how it is so often. It's either I have a budget of debt and I feel guilty and ashamed about it. I don't want to bring it up because I have quote baggage, I hate that word, or I'm very successful, I'm concerned I might actually make more than you and how's that going to make you feel, therefore I'm going to shrink myself and dance around the topic. No, we're not going to do that. We're going to embrace money because money is a core part of a rich life. Money is It allows you to decide what you eat, where you live, if you have a family, how you raise kids, even who you are. So the way we do it is we start a foundation. We go slow. We don't start off by saying how much money do you make because here's how much I make and we need to compare.

No.

We start off slowly. We ask them, how'd you grow up? We use natural pivot points in a relationship such as the first time you traveled together, and you bring it up, you say, Hey, you know, I want to be really transparent about this trip. I'm so excited about it. And I've been thinking about what's the best way for us to navigate the finances of this trip. I have some thoughts, but I'm curious if you thought about how you want us to split the payments or how we want to handle the payments for this trip. We can do all of these things and start to slowly introduce money into the relationship and eventually we can start to talk more about the nuts and bolts of our finances.

No, I just want to say this is so interesting and I have a question, a follow-up question to that because, you know, I've heard it be said once that the only relationships that work are relationships of equals and how you define equals, I suppose, is subjective. But money introduces this, this this sort of like, because money is power in our society, whether we like it or not. If you have a lot of money, you have more power than if you don't have a lot of money because you have more resources to make things happen for yourself. So when we're looking at that, one person has more money than the other, therefore you would, the obvious sort of like conclusion to that would be that person has more power than the other person. How do you navigate what then can turn into what feels like a power imbalance in a relationship?

Okay, this is a great question. So I think, you know, Matt and Audrey, Cass and I hang out with you and, you know, we've known each other a long time. I can't think of a time where any of us talked about power in our relationship, right? It's not something we talk about. We talk about fun, we talk about travel, we talk about what we're going through, but we don't talk about power even though probably in each relationship there's one person who earns more than the other. So while you are totally right, Audrey, that money invisibly can introduce this dynamic of power, let's talk about why that is and let's talk about what to do about it. Especially in America, we love what is quantitative. So in a relationship, money is the thing that is easily measured, it's easily put in a spreadsheet. And so, By virtue of the way that Americans are obsessed with money, with our love-hate relationship with it, if somebody makes money, you are right. They are perceived to have power. And that is why we have this fascinating dynamic in almost every relationship, the lower earner is obsessed with the C word, contribute. They're obsessed with it. I want to make sure I can contribute. I'm not sure I'm contributing enough. And what they really mean, especially from the American perspective, is I am not contributing the same amount of money, therefore I don't feel I am as valuable. And I'm here to say there are so many different ways to contribute than just finances. Of course, finances are important, but there's love, there's support, there's managing a household. Sometimes it's just, you're a teammate and one teammate needs a break. So there are so many ways we can't simply allow money to be the only measure of value in a relationship. And the way to do that, how do you actually implement that, is you first have to shine a light on money. You have to say, look, let's talk about money. Let's demystify its power in our relationship. What is our shared vision of a rich life? Let's talk about it. What if one of us gets sick? What if one of us stays home with the children? And now we can start to create our own meaning around money instead of letting society create it for us.

To what extent, Ramit, do you think that it's the person with more money's job to go out of their way to make someone else feel comfortable about those things, to communicate where they see that other person's value outside of finances? Because as you said, so many of these things creep up quietly, you know, someone can drive to a date in a nice car and they never need mention money, but that, you know, a guy sees a woman pull up in a nice car and all of a sudden he's feeling insecure and it starts to affect his behavior and it start, he starts to feel threatened by it. And it's not every guy, of course, but some people will. And from her side, it's like, I've, at that point, I've done nothing apart from drive my car. to this date. Now, does, you know, I'm curious as to your perspective on how much you should mention or not mention, because there's ways to downplay your life, right? There's ways to not drive up in the fancy car. There's ways to, you know, you, you can do that. And some people would say, you know, no one should ever ask me to do that. That's playing small. And you're asking me to make myself small in order to make someone else feel big. So there's that side of it, and I'm wondering what you think about that. But the other side of it is how far should people go out of their way to try to assuage those concerns and to try to build up someone's confidence? And to what extent is that anyone's responsibility for those people who say, should I even have to do that?

What a great question. First off, I don't believe in playing small. I would never shrink myself. In fact, I have a pet peeve, which is sometimes you see people taking pictures, you know, in a group photo, and sometimes you see women in the front kind of shrinking, and part of it is to prevent the people in the back from being overshadowed. It drives me crazy. I don't want people to shrink intellectually, financially, or physically. Take up space.

You've earned it.

People behind you can figure it out. They're smart. Let them do it. It's not your job. The same thing with money. If you have earned money and for example, you enjoy traveling or you enjoy buying a nice sweater. I like clothes. If somebody says, oh, that's a really nice sweater, I say, Thank you. I don't say, oh, I got it on sale. It was actually cheap. It's actually had a hole in it from Motts. And you know, I just, I put it on the street and somebody fixed it and then I took it back.

No!

I earned it, I love it. I don't have to talk about how much it costs but I simply say thank you. Now I have something that you might find surprising which is I actually do think that it is more the responsibility of the person who is savvier with money to bring it up. And that's hard. It's actually unfair. I hate to say it but that is the reality which is if you have If you are more knowledgeable about money or if you have more money, there can be a natural perceived power imbalance and it is your job to bring it up and to start these discussions. Again, I hate that the emotional labor has to be put on that person, but we also need to remember we have a big picture. We got to create a shared vision of a rich life and it's got to start with somebody. Somebody's got to take the first step in the dance. and unfortunately it's got to be the person who is savvier. So notice I use the word savvier. Sometimes you might be savvier but be the lower earner. Sometimes you might be savvier with money and be the high earner. That's also common. But you got to take the first step and that's exactly what a lot of successful relationships with money do.

So what would you say, I'm curious, I want to play it from both angles. Let's say you're on date four and you're like, oh, you have this common experience of like, I get to date three or four. It starts off well, and then gradually they seem to become kind of intimidated by my situation. And some people have even said to me they're intimidated by my situation or they find me intimidating at that point. what would you suggest, let's say the woman do if she isn't the one in that situation and she's dealing with a guy who feels threatened by it in some way? What would you advise she do at that point? So it's not like you've been able to find a clever way to preempt it or ward off those concerns at the start. You've been yourself, but that's the result. What advice would you give to a woman in that situation?

Okay, first let me ask Audrey, as the woman on this conversation, what would you suggest, Audrey? What would you do?

Hmm. I don't know if this is the right answer. I didn't practice for this test. I don't know if this is the right answer.

You do always do very well on these tests, though.

Me personally, I'm a big communicator. So I would, well, first of all, I think if someone is feeling insecure about something like money, it's our job to make them feel secure and powerful and meaningful in the other areas of the relationship. And so if, for instance, I can sense that they are feeling insecure around me and I don't want them to feel that way, I would compliment other areas and other attributes that they have and other things that they bring to the relationship and to me that I find equally if not more valuable than money. And I think that's a really nice way to be generous in allowing the other person to see that you're not, you know, and ultimately it comes down to your values, right? If you're somebody who values money and wants to be with someone who has a lot of money and that's number one for you, then it might be harder to do that because you may not value those other things. in the other person. But if you are someone who values, you know, loyalty, good conversation, intelligence, someone who's caring, who's loving, who listens, who supports you, who, you know, whatever it might be, there's a million, you know, different attributes. And I think it's so easy to lean into those and almost kind of make the money part not as big. I think sometimes people wear their wealth quite quite kind of on a success quite loudly. And that can be quite difficult for people to then find their worth because they just feel like there's no space for anything else to matter.

It's a great answer.

Did I pass?

It's a great answer.

Yeah. How is it that I've been doing this for 20 years and I work every day and Audrey just effortlessly you just answer in a perfect way. How is that possible?

Yeah, welcome to my world, Rameet. This is humbling. I know. You try putting up with this every day.

Watching a master at work. Wow. I love your answer, Audrey. I love two things about it. I love first that you see the entire game on the board and you say, Hey, I can compliment someone in other ways and make them feel great. Everyone's got something we can compliment. I love that. But what I also love which is less obvious, is that you did not shrink yourself. You didn't say, oh, well, it's actually nothing. You know, I was just lucky. My boss gave me a bonus. No. Confident. We don't apologize for our success. We worked for it. Probably there was some luck involved. We don't have to apologize. I love your answer 100%. A couple of thoughts in addition to what you said. If you find that somebody you're dating is insecure about money or says little phrases like, oh, that must be nice or Wow, I've never been to a place like that, it's very easy in the back of your head to read so much into it. You might be right. You might be reading something into it that's not there. Some thoughts. Like I said, we don't apologize, but we also have to ask ourselves, is this person aligned with my values or are they simply reacting to something that they heard for the first time? I have to tell you, I've reacted a lot of times to something I've heard that probably didn't indicate a deeper belief. It was just something like, oh, oh my gosh, you went there. I've never been to Antarctica before. And so, A response could either be, well, you know, like, I saved a lot of money and I work really hard, or it could be, oh my gosh, it was so fun. Can I show you this picture? This thing bird I saw blew me away. The other thing I always want us to ask is, am I playing a role in bringing up this kind of energy? You know, like, if you walk into a room and, for example, I've seen a lot, I've talked to a lot of guy friends who would complain about, The people I'm dating always want to talk about money. And I'm like, yeah, look where you take them on dates. Look what you're wearing. You're bringing this energy. You don't realize it, but you're leading with that. Now, I think many of us, we're probably not leading as aggressively as the guy I was talking to, but we always want to ask what role am I potentially participating in that might be creating that energy? So we have both of these things. What to deal with the other person, we can do it gracefully. And what to do to ask ourselves, Am I bringing that energy?

For me, I'm curious.

Sometimes they might be a fit or they might not.

I'm curious what you're hearing out there from men. We've just articulated a common complaint from women who are in a certain situation in life, who, you know, which is I intimidate men too often. and men can't seem to, many men can't seem to handle where I'm at. What's a common complaint that you hear from men about women and money in the dating stages?

She doesn't want to talk about money. She doesn't want to talk about it. She's, quote, careless with it. I don't like that word, careless.

That's what Matt said about me on Instagram.

So there are four money types and one of them is a voider, which is somebody who uses a series of conscious and unconscious techniques to avoid money. But one of them is an optimizer. I'm an optimizer. An optimizer can be good, like it's helped me build all these systems, but optimizers can also be bad because you start becoming obsessed with money. You talk about spreadsheets. You're like, have you seen my compound interest rate? It's not really fun for someone else who's not into that to hear that. So sometimes what I'll ask them is like, how are you talking about money? And often they're talking about the mechanics of it, the decimal places. Truthfully, nobody really wants to hear that. What was the first time the two of you talked about money? Can you remember?

God.

I don't know.

Here's a hint. It probably wasn't about numbers. It was probably about something more lifestyle oriented. Think back.

God, I'm trying to think.

I'm trying to think. I think we've always talked about everything and money just came up as part of everything, which is why there's no isolated moment, right? We'd have talked about When we had money, didn't have money, when we made money, lost money at different moments in life, contextualized with different experiences. And I think it's always been pretty organic.

That is interesting. Notice the layers of what you just said right there. It just came off the cuff. We talked about when we had money, when we didn't have money. Sharing, vulnerability, also owning success and failure. This is how dialogues happen versus an interrogation. How much did you make? What was your W-2? Do you invest in a Roth IRA? That's the energy I'm talking about, which nobody wants to be the recipient of. But starting off by saying something like, you know, when I was a kid, the only thing I remember about money is my parents saying, we can't afford that. And that stuck with me. Even though I've gotten a raise at my job, sometimes I'm still worried if I'll have enough. What about you? That allows us to share some vulnerability, to connect and open the door. And the biggest thing that I would say for people is you don't have to talk about everything in one conversation. Just the way I'm sure you talked about it over hundreds of conversations, that's how we got to approach money in dating and relationships.

Do you think that people who have money and I, I, if I'm being perfectly honest, I'm talking more to the female perspective here. Do you think that, let's just call it what it is. Do you think women who have money should be searching for someone who is equivalent in terms of where they're at or financially speaking? Financially speaking. And do you think that because I, you know, it routinely for many people becomes this kind of tension, either because someone else gets intimidated or because they themselves aren't as attracted to someone who isn't in the same situation in life or simply because there's a logistical challenge of I am used to a certain kind of vacation and now I'm dating someone who can't afford a vacation like that. And I'm in the very challenging situation of either asking them to stump up money they don't have, not going on the vacation at all because they're not in a position to do it, or going on the vacation and saying, I'm going to pay for it. In which case, I might be resentful after a while, or at the very least, I am making them feel uncomfortable by constantly paying for them and making them feel like in some way they feel guilty or they feel like they owe me, but they can't pay me back. And it makes them deeply uncomfortable. What do you do? And I suppose in some ways this is a bit of a macro question because I, you know, Scott Galloway talked about, I don't know where the study came from, but he talked about a study he saw where women rated the top three things that were important to them. And the third one was kindness. The second one was sense of humor. And the first was ability to provide. And I can't speak to the exact language of this study. I don't know if it framed it in terms of someone who's financially independent, because I think that does mean a different thing than someone who can provide, which has almost more of a connotation to it. But it did seem from this study that a lot of women, regardless of their situation, still cared about someone who was in a position to financially contribute. And that's not always the case the other way around, right? There's a lot of guys who are used to being, in fact, a lot of guys actually like being in the situation where they're the one who's paying, where they're the one because it makes them feel strong, it makes them feel masculine, it makes them feel like they're in charge. And in some cases, It makes them feel like they're in control, right? I'm the one paying for everything and that gives me a kind of dominance. But that effect doesn't occur in the same way, you know, most of the time the other way around. So the point that Scott Galloway puts forward is the danger that we have a growing number of women who are in financially better and better situations. And we have, and I don't know the stats on this, but the way he describes it is that we actually have a shrinking pool of men who are in that situation. So if I take that macro issue and I go, you know, more women earning more, less men earning more, and still a group of men who are trying to get their validation by earning more, even though they're not, and a group of women who, you know, to, to kind of generalize, are still looking for someone to provide, even though they are now in a better position to provide. It creates a real challenge on a macro level. And I, I'm wondering what you think is the answer to that on both sides, not just the, the women's side, on the men's side, too. What do you see as the answer to that challenge, which is arguably getting worse and worse, maybe even statistically.

Many of us are living old scripts. The old script was single income, man earns money, woman stays home with the kids. This was a script by grandmothers and in some cases mothers. But society has structurally changed. We have two income earners or much more common. There's a variety of things that have changed even in the banking system, et cetera. I think for the better to allow more people to earn more, to allow for more earnings, equity and equality. But we should talk about how it has not quite changed on an individual micro level. First of all, if you want to find a partner that earns as much or more than you, it makes perfect sense to me. If I worked hard and I like to travel and stay at this hotel, probably want to find someone who's willing to work as hard and willing to share in those journeys with me. Now, I can also say that many of us, in fact, the biggest mistake that couples make with money is they don't have a shared vision of a rich life. Sometimes we are so obsessed with what's in our own head and what we think that we don't stop to think, hey, this is a partner I like, potentially someone I want to spend the rest of my life with, What kind of rich life do we want to create together? And that's important. If you decide we want to travel two months a year or we want to have children and raise them in this type of housing, then the question becomes, do you agree with that? We want it. And if so, how can we as teammates contribute to that vision? It might be that one person earns $50,000 more than the other person. It might be that the higher earner earns that for five years and then takes a step back to stay with the family and the other one shifts and starts earning more. But I will tell you that most people dating never talk about this and even married couples rarely talk about this which is what is our vision? We are still approaching dating relationships with money individually and that's where so many of the problems begin. So Start off by saying, what is our rich life? Create that vision. And then second, we can start talking about how to use money to live it. That is the way to do it.

I love that. I have a question that kind of follows on from that because to me, what you've said basically is you are shifting the focus away from the micro and the individual moments where money come up as an issue and creating a kind of something bigger and something kind of that you're both working towards. So you're not looking at that one thing you can't afford. You're looking at how, what is my place in that relationship over the next 20 years?

Yes.

Which is so interesting. So interesting. I'm curious. what your thoughts are, because to me, you can do that quite early on, right? You can do that because even just a willingness to talk about it, a willingness to even have that vision together is actually a very, very compelling thing for everybody. So I think this is really, really helpful. If you are, let's say, willing to have those conversations, but not necessarily in a place where you feel comfortable too because it's too soon. maybe you are six weeks in and you don't want to talk about like, how do I contribute to our vision of our life together? Because then people are going to think that you're very intense and run away. How do you bring up, this is a very like granular, but I think a question a lot of people will want answered, like how do you bring up the fact that you can't afford to do something? Your partner goes, oh my God, I want to go to Disneyland and I want to stay at the Disney hotel and you know, it's going to be amazing. Oh my God, oh my God. can't wait. And meanwhile, you're actually not in a place where that's something that you can afford to do. How do you say that without running the risk of feeling like by you saying that you're gonna kind of drive them away and maybe have them go, oh, well, I can't do the things I want to do with this person, so they're not the right person for me.

We want to always embrace this philosophy of never shrink, never apologize for where you are financially. Own it, take responsibility for it. So the appropriate way to do it would, you're taking a trip to Disneyland, your partner wants to stay at the Disneyland Hotel and get all these VIP things. Step one, you gotta do the work yourself. You gotta actually know your numbers. You have to know how much you can afford. That's 80% of the work. 80% of the work is done before you ever set foot in the room. And then you go to them, you say, look, I am so excited about this trip to Disneyland. I've been thinking about it for the last month. I can't wait. I want to go on Splash Mountain with you. There's something I would love to talk about together. The financial part of this, I've got an amount that I know from my own spending plan that I can afford for this trip. And I'm ready. But I don't think it's going to allow me to be able to stay at the Disneyland Hotel. and I'd love to talk about it with you. Notice what I've done in that conversation. First, I've started off with a compliment. Second, I have brought my own numbers. I am not asking what should I do? Because that reduces your power. I'm saying, I know my numbers. I'd love to talk about it, but I'm curious what are your thoughts? Okay? And three, I'm making it a dialogue. I'm not simply coming in and saying, I can't do that. I can't afford that.

I love that.

I can't afford that. That phrase is forbidden.

I think this is true.

I can't afford that? Instead, I say, Here's what I can do. I'd love to have a discussion with you about it.

Can I just highlight that I can't afford that is a forbidden phrase in dating, early dating and relationships. I really love that. You're right.

It's forbidden forever. I'll tell you why. I can't afford it. While you may not be able to afford it, fair enough. And I respect anyone who knows their numbers. I can't afford it becomes almost addictive. And I see this every single week on my podcast. I will ask couples, what do you remember your parents saying about money growing up? 75% of the time, the only thing they said was, We can't afford that. Fair enough. Maybe they couldn't have afforded it, but they hear it 10 times, 100 times, 10,000 times by the time they go to college. And they truly internalize that the only feeling about money is we can't afford it. So when I talk to them, sometimes they've done really well. They have a million dollars, five million dollars, and they are still struggling over the price of grapes. I go, what? What are you doing? Why are we even talking? Russet potatoes, oh, they went up 13% inflation. They go, I still don't feel I can afford it. Why? They heard that phrase 10,000 times. So you should know what you can afford or not, but using that phrase over and over becomes a hammer and it soon becomes the only tool that you can use. I want to give you more tools to create a rich life together.

That's really good. That's really good. Something you said resonated with me and especially the theme you were getting at, which is even if we're the lower earner, in any situation, taking responsibility and accountability and, and really just owning your situation, because money brings up a lot of shame for a lot of us. And, you know, I've been in situations where you, you know, and I've been in them in different ways across my life. where I've been almost embarrassed that I can't play ball in the situation. I've been embarrassed that I can't do more. And the thing that embarrassment does in those situations is it actually makes us kind of bury our head in the sand. And that actually ends up being double negative because we feel shame, but then we look like someone who won't actually, like, it's almost like the exam, the classic example is like a bill comes, right? And the people around the table who are scared of the bill don't look at the bill or they choose that moment to go to the bathroom, or they're just like, I am so, I feel embarrassed or I feel ashamed. And some people ignore the bill for other reasons because they're cheap. you, you said it earlier, but some people, I really believe some people get a bad rap for the way they are at the end of a meal when actually what's happening is there's a lot of shame and embarrassment and they don't know what to do. And, and I really like the fact that you said you can own the contribution you can make. and you can put it out there. I remember when I was in my 20s being in a situation where a. A guy who had, you know, I was not in a good position financially, and this guy was, you know, had tons of money. And we all went to a club one night, and at the end of the night, the table bill came, and I'd never. It wasn't like when we went, I wasn't like, let's get a table. I was just part of the group. but I guess he or a couple of others or whatever suggested getting a table. And I. I remember increasingly feeling sort of uncomfortable over the course of the night. And when the, like, towards the end of the night, it was, like, late. It was like 2:03 in the morning. People would just started to disperse and disappear, and the bill came for this guy, and I was. I. I remember thinking to myself, everyone's just left and the bill would have been multi-thousands of dollars. Now, the next day, I went and found the guy and I said to him, here's 300 bucks, which for me was a lot. And it was. I still felt it. I felt like, oh, but. I knew it was nowhere near the contribution that would have actually been a true representative portion of the bill. The. The appreciation that this guy showed me was off the charts. He said, okay, you know, everyone walked away, and he said, it really means. I said, I'm sorry, I can't do more. I said, this is as much as I can do, but I I really don't want you to. you know, I want to contribute. And it meant so much to him because his own, I'm not, I wasn't even friends with the guy, but his own friends walked away in that moment and didn't do anything. So I think what you said about owning what you can do and not being ashamed of what you can do, but instead owning it is a very, very powerful thing for anyone in a situation, not just in a couple.

Totally agree. I love that story. I love the integrity you showed and I think it's an example for all of us. Shame is so common with money. Think about it. Shame is more common with money than almost anything else. We have sexuality, a lot of shame there. We have body image, a lot of shame there and we have money. It is deeply shameful and one of the things that I'm on a mission to do is for us to feel less shame and to start to own it and to feel good together. Because it's very hard to create something powerful, a rich life together if one or both of you feels shameful. Here's how it often plays out. You have one person you're dating, maybe you're early in a relationship and one person has credit card debt and they hide it. They don't talk about it. When the bill comes, they get antsy and it just comes up in lots of odd ways. What we want to do is we want to take a look at the root cause. I feel shame. Why? Because when I was in my 20s, I overspent. I wasn't earning a lot. I was going out. I wasn't responsible. We want to acknowledge that, write it down. We want to be honest. To live a rich life, you have to be honest with yourself and with the people around you. And here's how you can approach it with a partner. I'll tell you the exact words. When you start to talk about money, you use all the word-for-word scripts in my book. And at a certain point, you come up and say, you know what? I want to talk about my own finances. When I was in my 20s, I spent a lot of money. I went out. I wasn't really paying attention. And I realized it two years ago. And I took a look and I decided I want to get serious about getting in charge of my money. And I've started paying it off. I've paid off $8,000 in credit card debt. I'm going to be debt free in two years. I'm really proud of it. It's just something I wanted to share with you because I want to be open with you about everything, especially money. That is incredibly attractive. We don't mind if people have made certain decisions in the past. What we mind is that they acknowledge it and they have a plan. And if we can do that with our money, oh, we can create something really good.

Makes us feel safe, right? That's the reason it makes us feel safe around someone.

Yeah, you can trust that person.

I have a question, but you were about to say something.

I just, yeah, I just wanna ask this one thing, 'cause I think you could do a lot of good here. And we have, you know, a lot of men that listen as well, not just women. I mean, we have people of all types who take value from this podcast.

And.

I'd love for men especially to hear from you. because they may be looking at you and going, well, very easy for you to be confident and self-assured Ramit, you're financially in a really strong position. You've made good decisions in this department. I am going on dates and I do feel a ton of shame that I'm not where I would like to be. And I am routinely going out with people who make more than I do. and have saved more and have investments and I don't. And and so they not only feel plenty feeling behind isn't limited to men that can happen to anybody. But what is something that tends to be more male focused is this feeling of and therefore I'm not worthy when it comes to the opposite sex. Yeah, I am a failure. I am unattractive. and, and, and the women that we're coaching a lot of the time are coming up against that. Right. It's not, it's very easy from one side, especially the female side, to just be like, oh, there's all of these guys who can't take where I'm at in life and they can't handle it and so on. But, and for sure, there's just some misogynists out there who don't like the idea that women are coming up in the world, but. But on the other side of that, there's actually just a lot of pain and a lot of insecurity and a lot of men who just really feel unworthy. And I wonder if you could speak to those men and give them some advice about what they can do if they're out there dating. And it's like one more challenge they have is feeling like, they're not where they'd like to be and where they believe that women would like them to be at this point in their life.

Well, I appreciate the question, especially because I think we gender plays a huge role in money and relationships. Socioeconomic backgrounds play a huge role and it's quite taboo to talk about it. So, I'm really glad I know you've been talking about for years. Think with men, we don't often discuss the invisible messages that are sent to men. You need to be a provider. If you can't provide, you are unworthy. And especially now when you're looking at people on social media flying to Bora Bora, why can't you do that? Everyone else on your feed seems to be able to do that. I think mental health plays a big role in being financially healthy. That's one of the reasons that I always encourage couples talk to a therapist or a third party. You need often some help to come together and start having conversations. But also I want to say for the guys out there, I get the same messages you do. When I was in my teens and 20s, I was very skinny. And that was like, it didn't feel good. I remember hearing comments where people would go like, oh, you're really skinny. And as a guy, that's perceived to be the opposite of masculinity. And I actually adopted it. I started to joke about myself as just a skinny Indian guy. And I wish I didn't do that. I wish I didn't joke about that because I said it 10, 50, 100 times. It started to become an identity for me. and it took me until my late 20s to really learn, to get out of my own head and to start getting help, to start asking friends and then trainers and then working on my own fitness. And for the guys who receive these messages about masculinity, about money, about being a provider, here's my one piece of feedback. The messages you've received are real. you're not making them up, they exist in society, but if you are with a partner who you really like and you see a future together, my suggestion is step out of your own head and create something together. That might mean going to your partner and saying, look, in the past, I kind of ambled my way through my 20s. I wasn't really serious about my career. Recently, I have been. Here's where I am today, here's where I'm working to get to. I'd love to know about you. What are you thinking about in terms of career and what are we building together? Right? You can put it in your own words, adapt that message, but the point is it's not just, I don't feel good about myself. If you're having discussions about money, you're clearly further along in your relationship. Start talking about what you are building together. Where do we want to live? Do we want to have children? Do we want to travel? What kind of car do you imagine us driving together? And if they say, I want a $95,000 SUV, you say, Look, I totally appreciate that. That would be amazing. I think where we are currently, realistically we probably wouldn't be able to do that. If we made some changes, we might be able to, but in my vision of a rich life, I'm perfectly happy driving a modest car, which would then allow us to go to Disneyland twice a year. We got to have these conversations and grapple with it, but not approach it from shame, Rather approach it from what are we building together as a team?

I love that. I love that so much. I love this conversation. I have a question. I have a question that's a very divisive question out there.

Wait, the ones already haven't been divisive? Gender, pay, what? Oh, God, I'm getting nervous right now.

Wait till you step on this landmine, Ramit.

Okay.

So.

In your opinion, Ramit, should a man or a woman pay on the first date? Because I have friends who, and I actually fall on this camp, who would never expect anyone to pay for them on the first date. In fact, it's the expectation seems quite rude and entitled. I have other friends. who I don't judge, who are lovely people, who actually say that they think it would be incredibly rude of the guy not to pay for them on the first few dates. Not even just the first date, the first few dates. And I'm just so curious what you think about this because it's really, really a divisive subject. So many people disagree on it.

In the dating world, who should pay on the first date? is one of the top five questions that get asked. It gets asked all the time. People obsess about it. They are riveted by the stories. I can't believe blah, blah, blah. Can I just provide a little reframe for everybody? Why the hell are we so obsessed with who pays on the first date instead of how we use our money together for the next 16,425 days of our life? We are fixated on the first date, as if that tells us everything about someone. And I get it, it's fun. I love the stories myself. I love watching the videos. But we should be way more focused on how we're gonna treat money together for the next 45 years. Do you believe in saving money? Do you think it's okay to have credit card debt? Can we invest and build something together? Do you have a vision of retiring early? Where are we gonna go? What kind of clothes do you wanna buy? who's gonna cook, where are we gonna eat? These are questions that are valuable. These are questions I'm willing to spend time grappling with. I talk about it with my wife all the time. We do a monthly review, we do a six month check in, we do an annual rich life review. All of it, that's worthy. But obsessing over 10 bucks for an appetizer or 30 bucks for some drinks, no, no, we've gotta think bigger. Instead of allowing ourselves to be shrunk into that box of the first date.

Do you feel though, Remi, like part of the reason people get obsessed with it is because they are trying to look at the way someone spends today as some kind of marker or indicator of the way that they will be in the future. And I suppose the corollary to that is How much do you think someone should take someone's behavior around money on a first date to be an indicator of things to come?

I think that people dramatically overvalue someone's knowledge and experience with money based on the first, it's like looking at my shoelace. Oh, Ramit wears white shoelaces. He must be quite vanilla in life. What the hell are you talking about? That has no correlation. Now, if someone sees the bill and goes, Ridiculous. I don't believe in paying for anyone. Okay, that's a red flag, fine. But more commonly, somebody pays or maybe they ask to split it. All right, you can derive what you want from it, but truthfully, let me give you some staggering statistics. Okay, the people who come on my show, 50% of them do not know their household income. Five zero, that's not a typo. That is shocking. which tells you how little people are engaged with their money. Of people who have debt, 90% do not know how much debt they owe. You think you can tell that by if they pick up the check for the chicken wings? 95% of people do not know their debt payoff date, the day, the month, the year that they'll be debt free. So we got to go deeper than simply who picked up the check. Sure. Again, if they say something egregious, fine, maybe don't go out again. But let's go deeper. And these questions about what kind of life do we want to build together? Are you willing to talk about money? What's your experience been? And like, here's what I want for a rich life. What about you? Those are the things that get you further in life.

I also believe that there's a lot of men out there who actually are very generous men, but who don't necessarily believe in on the first date or maybe, you know, a lot of men will kind of offer, they'll offer or they'll even kind of like, you know, insist on paying. But even if they don't, or if they don't on the second or third date, because, you know, when we talk about the whole paying on a first date thing, it actually tends to extend to more than one date, that expectation. I think a lot of really great guys who are incredibly generous actually.

They.

Don'T, they just don't want to feel taken advantage of and they don't know you. And to spend what is nowadays, realistically, probably at least a hundred dollars on a dinner and drinks or, you know, even if it's drinks or whatever, it's, it's a consider, considerable amount of money for people to spend on a stranger, I think is actually not in any way a Telltale sign of who they're going to be in the future. And like you say, I really love the idea of, like, the red flags around money are their relationship with it. Are they generous? Are they a generous person? And that is not just the way that they're spending their money in that very moment. And you can test that across a period of time because you might actually say, Outrageous, this guy allowed us to split the bill or insisted or, you know, said, Let's split the bill or whatever. And you might actually end up with the most generous person in the world who just didn't want to pay for every stranger he goes on a date with.

I think on the other side of that, someone who pays all the time and doesn't bat an eyelid, you might be a person who says, oh, it's really attractive. They pay all the time and they never even ask me to put my hand in my pocket. But there's two different extremes that can represent. One is the extreme people pleaser who has no boundaries and doesn't know how to have a difficult conversation, even though they're building up resentment that they're paying for everything all the time. and the other is the person who pays for everything all the time because they believe in highly traditional gender roles. And that's gonna bite you later on because they believe that them paying for everything gives them some kind of pass for other things. They feel like it puts them in charge and that you're the subversive one, so the subservient one. So it's, you know, that which then can take you into at the extreme end narcissism, too. So, you know, the greatest narcissists can be people who pay all the time, not always, but they can be. And the greatest people Pleasers who turn out to be people who can't even, can't talk about anything and can't have a difficult conversation, can be the people that pay all the time, too. So we have to be really careful with these assumptions we make about people like this.

And I love Ramit as well as a, as a general note, I want to just bring together on all of the subjects that we're talking about because I think it's so, it's so important for people listening. What you're talking about at the core of all of this is how to be a good teammate with somebody. And you really do, you're saying when it comes to money, our relationship with money and our communication around money, those are foundations that you can lay very, very early. And the more you can show somebody and lead the way and be an example for how to be a good teammate in that area of your relationship. the stronger and more beautiful and more honest and more powerful your relationship will be together, which I think is so, so valuable.

Which I think is an important segue, Ramit, 'cause I wanna switch gears for a moment to your book. Your book is called Money for Couples, and I'd love to switch gears to money within couples for a few minutes, assuming you've got time to go longer.

Yeah, yeah, let's do it.

Firstly, I'm super excited about this book. It is, I know that you did, you know, you added and amended your first book in the last couple of years. It may even have been in the last year or so. But the new book is something that's been highly anticipated for a long time because I know your podcast where you coach couples on money. is wildly successful, and this is like the natural progression of all of the work that you were doing there. So I wanna give you a chance to talk about that book and explain what it's about to people. Maybe I can kick us off with a question, which is, you talk in the book about people's money dials. I'd love you to speak about money dials. and I'd love you to talk about what you do when you're resentful of your partner's money dials because they're different than yours and you don't appreciate the way they spend.

Love it. This is so common where one person spends money in a way that makes you resentful. You disagree with it. So a money dial is an area of life that you love to spend money. Not just like, but you love. The most common money dial is eating out. The next most common one is travel. We have health and wellness, convenience, etc.

Now, my wife's... Is there another one that's ice rollers?

Actually, Audrey, I think you and Cassandra have the same money dial. That's my guess, which is self-care. she loves self-care. It's very important to her. She spends a lot on it and she doesn't apologize for it.

That is you.

Guess what? I'm not into it for me. I don't need it. I don't need the massage. It doesn't really interest me. Mine is very nice hotel rooms and clothes and things like that. So how do you have a healthy relationship if your partner chooses to spend money differently than you do. First off, we have to know that it is okay that you don't agree on every single thing with money. That's totally fine. We can make it work. There's a couple of solutions to it. One, we got to talk about it. We actually have to be open about here's what's valuable to me, here's why. I don't have to agree. I don't see the thing for an ice roller on my face. Maybe I should use it, but it doesn't mean that I negate your desire for it. It's just not for me. That's okay. The second thing is we got to actually set up some systems. I find that when most couples fight about money, they fight about feelings, but they use almost no numbers whatsoever. And I have to tell you, I have a lot of compassion for people not understanding investments and not knowing even how much they make. I have a lot of compassion, but I have to be very blunt. It is unacceptable to go through life not knowing a few key numbers of your finances. It's just unacceptable. If we wanna live a rich life, we've got to know our four key numbers, fixed costs, savings, investments, and guilt-free spending. And when we talk about money, which we should do every month on a monthly money meeting, we've gotta talk about our feelings and we have to include numbers. because remember this, in a marriage, you are running a business. It is the business of running a household together. And that means you have an agenda, you both add to it before, and you talk about it formally. So, I'll give you a couple of strategies on how to deal with couples who have different interests, different money dials. One is you set your accounts up so most of the money in a marriage goes into a joint account, but each of you has their own individual account with no questions asked money. So if I want to spend it on a boys trip or she wants to spend it on self-care, that's totally up to her. Nobody can question it. Okay? And the other thing is once in a while you might disagree. For example, like I want a nicer car than my partner does. Let's just say there's a strategy for that. You can agree on a baseline number for the two of you. Let's say your baseline is a Toyota Camry. And if one person wants a Porsche, let's just say I'm making it up, that person could pay the difference from their own personal account. In other words, there are lots of different strategies to make it work, but you got to be willing to talk about it, and you have to be putting the systems in place that I talk about in chapter nine of the book so that it all flows together.

Remit, the money that people have in their own personal accounts, how do their personal accounts get funded? Are you suggesting that a portion of what you make goes into the pot for the two of you and a portion goes into your personal account? Is that how that works? And if so, how do people work out what those ratios should be?

Really good question. So let's suggest an easy match. Let's say each person makes $50,000 just for easy math. And let's say that you know your key numbers. Again, fixed costs. Let me actually give everybody the numbers just so you know. This is very helpful stuff. There are four key numbers to track in your finances. The first are your fixed costs, which should ideally be 50 to 60% of your take home pay. That includes your rent or mortgage, your groceries, your car bill, debt, anything that you pay every single month that you need to to live. Next is your savings. That should be 5 to 10% of your net pay. That's like an emergency fund, saving for a down payment, things like that. Next is investments. That's 5 to 10%, ideally more, because that is where the real wealth is created, please, if you're obsessing over the price of freaking tomatoes and you're not talking about your investment rate, you have missed the boat. You need to be talking about that more than the price of coffee. And then finally, my favorite, guilt-free spending, 20 to 35% of net pay. That's actually a lot of money, meaning you can go out, eat out, take a trip, whatever, but you gotta have your numbers in place. The way you do it with a married couple, each making the same amount, You put money into the joint account. It all goes there. And then you make sure your bills are paid, your savings are hit, your investment rates are hit, and you have some money left over. You probably want to decide. Let's say you have, I'm just going to make it up, a thousand bucks a month left over for easy math. Perhaps you do $500 goes to our guilt free spending and each of us gets $250 for our no questions asked account. That would be a very simple way to set that system up.

Okay, that's really useful. That's really useful.

There's a philosophy I use with accounts, which is our future is together. And I have to share this because Cass and I, we have a very complex financial system with two of us being business owners, variable income, prenup, all kinds of stuff. And what we talked, we talk about money a lot and we talked about it over time and we realized, our future is together. Of course, it's what we get excited about. I don't get excited about taking a solo trip. We get excited about doing things together. So things come together, not just us living in the same place, but also our money being in the same place. And then we discuss how to use it together.

Remi, what's your. A lot of people come out of marriages in you know, bad places financially. Sometimes the person who comes off badly is the person who had a lot and never got a prenup and, you know, finds themselves with a huge amount of resentment for the, the way that it's decimated everything they've built. Other people have a lot of resentment because they were the person who wasn't in control financially in the relationship. They weren't the one who worked or earned the most money, and they find themselves in a situation where they've barely got a life raft, and the person that they were married to for so long did not, like, really reveal their character in that moment and took everything and siphoned off everything. And they find themselves looking back with an enormous amount of regret. over ways that they didn't protect themselves or ways that they just never saw that coming. I, it would be, I think, good to talk about prenups and the, the feelings that people have around them in terms of, you know, I don't want to be unromantic, but I feel like I have to bring this up to protect myself and what I've built. There's other people who are on the receiving end of a prenup who say, God, this, you know, feels really hurtful that I'm being asked to do this and it's really painful. And, and, and then you have the person who says, well, as the less financially savvy person in the relationship, I, even if I do sign a prenup, I'm terrified that at the end of it, I'm gonna be left in a position where I have nothing. And, you know, maybe they saw that happen to their parents, or they, you know, maybe they had a mom or someone that they saw get completely taken advantage of, or that, you know, maybe they didn't have a prenup, but someone saw their mother lose everything, or they saw someone they care about be in a position at an age where they should never have been in financial trouble, suddenly be in financial trouble again. so I wonder if first you could bring a bit of Harmony to this very contentious issue for a lot of people. Yeah. And help them communicate about it. But also, how can someone who's not Savvy protect themselves so that they don't end up in 20 years as someone who has nothing to show for the fact that they threw themselves into a marriage? with full commitment, and then at the end of it, someone decides to show their worst possible character and leave them with nothing.

Okay, let's talk about how to protect yourself financially in a relationship. A prenup is just one tool, but in effect, I find it to be only appropriate for a very, very, very small minority of people. Typically, if you have one or both people coming into a relationship with premarital assets, maybe they own a house, a business, a large investment portfolio, in their case, a prenup may be appropriate. That's usually not the case for most people. I'll tell you what is much more appropriate and will protect everyone listening, and that is number one, you gotta know your numbers. So many people who go through life do not know their numbers. They don't know their household income. They don't know how much investments they have. They don't know what investing is, how it works, and they believe that it's this cryptic language that only some certain financial priests speak. We gotta stop that. This stuff is not that complicated. You can learn how money works just as you learned how to make eggs, learned how to burp a baby, learn how to ride a bike, this stuff is quite straightforward. So I'm here to tell you we've got to demystify it, take away the power of that. We can all learn it. Second, you have to communicate about money regularly. Remember how we used to have that phrase that went around, we got to have the DTR, define the relationship talk? It's funny 'cause people talk about that with money. They go, we have to sit down and have the conversation. I'm like, the conversation? How about we get to have the gift of talking about money for the rest of our lives? Think about why people say that. Because deep down, people find money to be unromantic and icky. Oh, I guess we gotta talk about our APR.

No.

When you see money, you see decimal places and stress. When I see money, I see a beautiful sweater. I see a trip to Thailand. I see one partner being able to stay home with the kids and pick them up from school every day. So we have to reframe it. Money is not icky, it's not a burden. It's a gift that allows us to live our vision of a rich life. And what does that mean? It means the two of you get the chance to talk about money regularly. Every month, use the agenda from my book, the Monthly Money Meeting. You always start off with a compliment. Babe, I love you. Thank you so much for picking out the perfect place for us to go. Last month on that family trip, you always pick amazing things and create memories for all of us. I love you. Your partner does the same. You start to connect money with joy. Every year at the end of the year, you talk about what's our rich life? What worked this year? What didn't? What do we want to change next year? Do we want to go somewhere? Do you want to take our family somewhere. You start to make it normalized that both of you are going to talk about money. So how does that end up protecting you? You know your numbers, you know your accounts, you have your own no questions asked account, which is money that only you have access to. Your partner does not. They know about it, but they don't have access to it. And you know full well this is where we are financially speaking. very important. And that is the best protection of all.

I wanna, I think that's all really, really valuable, Ramit. And I want to add to it that, because it speaks to that point of people who feel really scared around finances as an idea because they go, it's like, you know, for them, it's like, you know, doing maths at school. It's like that wasn't my subject. Yeah. You know, I which I relate to. And the, you know, when people come to money, they're like, I've never learned these things. I don't know what you're talking about. And the instinct with that is to let someone else handle it. And that puts us in real danger. And I want to say, that's a huge mistake. Yeah.

Let me just tackle this real quick, please. Okay. In most relationship, there is a money person, and the way the other partner justifies it is like, oh, you're better at that, or you earn more, or I'm just not good at and the way we talk about it is like in our relationship, one person empties the dishwasher, so of course one person is gonna be the money person. That is a crucial mistake, okay? I don't mind that one person probably does the dishwasher, the other does the laundry. Fine, one person might be naturally more inclined towards it. Money is not like that. Money is not watering the plants. Money is what you eat, where you live, who you are. And so money is much more like parenting. You would never say, oh, one person does the parenting. No, we both do it. In fact, we talk about it every day. Same thing with money. Both of us do money. So I'll give you an example from my own life. When my wife and I got together, this is my business, so obviously I was more well-versed in money, I think about it every day, et cetera, it would have been very easy for me to be the money person. Let me handle it. Truthfully, it actually would have been simpler and easier. But I refused. I insisted that we do it together for a few reasons. Number one, one day I'm gonna get hit by a bus and the last thing I want is some Goldman Sachs shithead calling down and saying, Hey, let me charge you 2% AUM, okay? I'll be frothing in hell when I see that happening. I know now my wife is gonna laugh at them, hang up on them, and I'm gonna say, Thank you. The second is I need a second set of eyes. I want... I can't just make decisions on my own. I got to do this with you. She's better at certain things in finances than I am. And third is just more fun. So, I got to tell you, it was a lot more work for us to build our financial life together. It would have been easier and simpler for me to just keep doing it. Wrong answer. We do it together. We worked. It took us a couple of full years to get on the same full aligned page. But now it's like having an amazing teammate. It's much easier. We talk about it, we smile, we laugh. Sure, we disagree about certain things, but we know that we have a vision together. So you cannot allow in your relationship one person to be the money person. You've both got to participate in that joint vision together.

What you just said is, I can't overstate how important that is for people.

You mean the Goldman Sachs part?

Yeah.

The part where Ramit said that not if he gets hit by a bus, but when he inevitably gets hit by a bus.

I definitely wanna die first. I mean, selfishly, I don't want her to die. I wanna go. See you later! I mean, I know that's bad. Listen, I have a real problem making Premature death jokes. I find them hilarious, but she does not find them as funny. So at least we get to talk about it.

No, I wouldn't imagine they're her favorites.

I hope to die first, too, Ramit, because I actually think you would do better if I died first than if you died first. I think you would throw yourself into work. You would just do your thing. You're a survivor. I just think I would really struggle.

She basically said that you'll get over me quicker than I'll get over you. She basically just said, I love you more. It's really, really important what you just said. And I love the idea that it's not a division like laundry and dishes. I think of it more like, saying you handle the finances is like saying to your partner, you handle my cholesterol. It's like you, you can't have, you can't through your eating make my cholesterol go down. Right? Like that's right. And if I don't take care of my cholesterol at some point, something devastating can happen. It's that idea is really, really important because at the end of a relationship, God forbid, you have to know that you weren't completely illiterate in that area. And not only that, but I think it's a talking of red flags, which is where we started all of this conversation. If you say to someone, hey, I'd love to learn about this and I wanna understand it. And by the way, you know, I need to be able to get access to these things of ours. And they say, don't worry, I've got it. And you say, but I'd like to be involved and I'd like to get access. And they're like, don't worry, I've got it. That's a red flag.

That's a red flag. By the same token, somebody who allows their partner and delegates the entire financial life to them, that's a red flag. And that's how a lot of people end up with their partner dying. They are left with this inscrutable amount of accounts and money and these weird things they don't understand and they are taken advantage of. It's happening every day, especially as more older people die. It's a tragedy and I knew early on, I'll never let that happen in my relationship and nor should you. Whether you are the person who manages the money or not, you've both got to have skin in the game. You both have to look at your numbers every month, just a few numbers, and you both have to talk about it together.

Yeah, and don't let someone, whether it's from insidious intentions or even just egoic intentions of, I've got this, don't let anyone financially handicap you where you don't.

Know how to- Tell them.

Yeah, it's so important. And I think a lot of this is just generational remake, which is why I'm glad these conversations are being had now. And I think what you're doing is really, really important is, you know, our parents generation, there was the traditional role and many of those, perhaps most of them, where it's the guy takes care of it and the woman gets on with it. And it destroyed a lot of women's lives and is still destroying a lot of that generation's lives who are finding themselves you know, coming out of relationships at an age where they never thought they'd be single again and in a financial position they never anticipated they could have been in at the age of 60, 70, 80, 90 years old. I have a couple- you- know, the.

Good news about this is if you get involved with your money, regardless of the age, whether you're 25 and dating or 40, 50, 60 and you've been in a relationship for a long time, you have a lot of time. You have time to build a new way of talking about money. You have time to start redirecting your money potentially to investments to make more or even to trips you want to take around the world. You have time. This is a skill. Money is a skill. It's not something that God blesses on certain people. It's just a skill. It's just like learning a language or learning how to make a steak. And you can learn it and you would be amazed because money is again, not just numbers. It is the clothes you wear, the places you go, the friends you can make and be generous with. That's how I see money. And if you can do it two people instead of just one, wow, even more powerful.

I have two questions to finish up. The first one relates to money and friendships. And I want to know what your thoughts are on this. If you have someone in your life you love to pieces, but they are incredibly tight. Oh, and every time you go to dinner with them, it frustrates the hell out of you that you pick up the check, that they don't do it, that they're always looking to save every penny they can, that they're always, you know, it's for them, their relationship with money is one of trying to save every penny while being quite happy for you to spend yours. If you have. And. But I'm not talking about, like, this person's a bad person. I'm not like it. But they have a relationship with money that drives you insane.

Like, for instance, to give a practical example to this, the bill comes and you haven't had any alcohol, but they have had, you know, multiple glasses and. at that point, they're more than happy for you or anyone else to offer to split it between the group, as in, you know, like five ways or whatever, versus in another situation where maybe you or somebody else in the group would have had alcohol, but they didn't, they will be going, okay, well, let's.

Work out what everyone had.

Who had what? And it's one rule for one, one rule for the other, which I think is an important distinction, right? And it's not from a place of, I can't afford to do that. It really is from a place of trying to save money where they can.

It's kind of a take what you can get mentality when it comes to money. If you have people you love, should you have that conversation with them? Or given that they're not your romantic partner that you're spending your life with, they're not your children who you have a responsibility to teach money lessons, they're just people you love. Do you think that that's a very personal relationship they have with money that you just have to make peace with, or do you think you have those conversations? Because this is a very common thing. Most people have someone or multiple people in their life like this that they feel really resentful towards because they feel like my generosity is taken advantage of with this person. I, I, I, one friend of mine said to me once when he was describing this situation, he said, I have a friend who has always just taken what they can get money wise is really tight. And what really bothers me is I've always been really generous with my money, with this person, and I've known them since high school. I've been friends with them for decades. And the other day, we, a group of us high school friends all got together. Hung out at my house. I put on a barbecue, like, didn't ask anyone for anything. This guy brought a six-pack of beers, drank four of them, and then when he was leaving, went to the fridge and took the two that he hadn't drunk. And he was like, it made me furious because it made me think of all the times in our relationship where that person has been that way. And he said, I love the guy. He's a. I love the guy. He's been a dear friend since high school, but it just drives me insane. What do you think he should have a conversation with that guy or make peace with the way that guy is if he wants to be friends with him? Well.

Look, most Americans simply will not have that conversation. They'll just suffer in quiet desperation, resentment, and then finally ghost them. That's one way to go. I think it depends on how close you are with the partner, but let's, or with the friend. But let's say that you do decide to have the conversation.

In some cases, if I can eliminate that variable, in some cases, you don't ghost the person because they're family or because there's someone that you see all the time, right? So it's not always that, like, this is a kind of high school friend that I could not see. For some people, they're even closer than that. They're even more important.

Okay, then in that case, having the conversation is probably going to keep you from going insane, but it's going to be hard. It's hard to have these conversations which we perceive as confrontational and rude, but if we reframe them, framing is everything, then we can have a chance at a healthy conversation. How do you do it? You first start by getting your own mindset right, which is, Why am I having this conversation? Not because I want to blast them or crush them. It's because I love them. And right now, the way that we are relating to each other is not serving me. And I want to talk about it with them and I care enough to bring it up. So I get straight with that in my own mind. Then I go and I use a lot of I statements. I say, you know what? I love hanging out with you. Every time we get together, it feels like, you know, even though we haven't seen each other for three months, it feels like yesterday. there's something I want to talk about. And it makes me a little uncomfortable to bring it up because I love you so much, but sometimes I feel taken advantage of. You know, I want to feel generous and I love picking up the check and I love getting the price of the boat rental last time we went out. But sometimes I feel like I don't feel the reciprocation and I want to because I want to have that relationship together and let them speak to that. Obviously they're going to be hurt. That's a thing that necessarily makes people feel a little defensive. That's okay. People can react in the way that they're gonna react. I give them space. But I also wanna let them know. Sometimes people simply don't know the effects of their own behavior. Now they can choose how to react to that. They can go home, think about it, maybe apologize to you, or maybe next time, They're not used to apologizing. They simply pick up the check or put in an extra 20 bucks. Or maybe they never talk to you again. That would suck, but that's also a reaction that they have permission to have. I think the key lesson here for me at least is, number one, framing is everything. If I approach this by saying, I'm having this conversation because I love you, or money is.

Important.

Money is worth something talking about. Then I can probably have a good conversation. And the second is I just focus on how I feel less about all the bad things they've done.

I love it. That's a beautiful answer. Tell us, before I ask my last question, tell us everyone out there listening and watching about your new book, which no doubt everyone who's watched this is going to want to get because this subject is fascinating and you are second to none on earth when it comes to talking about it. So tell us about the book.

The book is called Money for Couples. It's got a big purple cover. It's out now. And in this book, I wanted to give you the exact word-for-word scripts to have a really positive money conversations, including your first positive money conversation, what to do if your partner avoids money, how to set your accounts up down to the exact accounts, the very ones that I use, and even how to know if you can afford buying a new car, taking a vacation. I put real numbers, the exact numbers that I use in the book. It demystifies everything and it allows you to understand your own money type, your partner's money type, and the two of you can start to use money as a source of joy and spontaneity and venture. That is what I want for you.

That's amazing, man. Where can people get it? Is there somewhere in particular what you want people to go or just wherever books are sold?

Anywhere books are sold. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the Indies, you can find it anywhere. And I would love for you to get a copy and actually show you how to sit down with your partner and go through it together. They may be resistant. Don't worry. That's in the skip right to the table of contents. Find out how to deal with a resistant partner. and you will get them on board. It is amazing to watch what you can do with money for couples.

So cool, man. And you're on tour right now. Where can people find out about the tour?

The tour go to, I'm gonna be in a bunch of different cities speaking. I love these events because I bring couples up on stage live and work with them right in front of your eyes. It's amazing. I don't even know what's gonna happen. The audience certainly does not. And we just, we see people cry. We see people reveal actual numbers they've never revealed. You can find all the cities at iwt.com/booktour.

Before I ask my actual final question, I just have to know this. What has been your biggest, like, what of all this work you've done now working with couples and money, what's your biggest, like, you know, grievance? What's your biggest frustration? What's the thing that just gets to, winds you up the most? in all of this?

Oh, my God. This is part two of this podcast. I'm about to spend the next three hours telling you about my grievances. Listen, the biggest one of all, it's a metaphor for how people come to me when they ask for help. And they effectively come to me... So first of all, like 80% of them haven't read my book. I don't blame them. I never get mad at them. I find it quite interesting. You would go on a public podcast, share all of your numbers, but not read a book before. Why? And the real answer is the way people treat money is essentially like they're going to get a foot massage. They basically put their hands up behind their head and they say, okay, my turn now. Now do me. And I don't like that. I'm not gonna do anybody, okay? I'm gonna help you do yourself. And that is the reframe we all need to make. Nobody's coming to save me. There's no app that's gonna fix everything. There is no magical financial advisor that's gonna save you. In fact, they're gonna probably charge you 1.25% AUM. No, it's you and your partner who are going to do this together. And once you finally embrace that, we are in charge of our own money. we are in charge of our rich life, then you can start to make changes faster than you ever thought possible.

We're in the book, and this is my final question in the book you talk about, and this really spoke to me because I could hear a lot of people breathing a sigh of relief when I read this. You talk about a debt payoff plan, which everyone go to the book to read and learn about, but You talk about it as being something, paying off debt as being something that can coexist with still enjoying your life. So could you, for the, for people out there who feel like debt for them is a kind of prison that for whom the, the, you know, the get out of jail card is coming years from now and In the meantime, it feels like life is on hold. What can you tell people to bring back a sense of optimism about how much they can enjoy their lives now in the meantime while they're still getting themselves out of a challenging financial situation?

Okay. You can live a rich life even if you have debt. Very important to acknowledge because we cannot wait five years, 20 years, 35 years to pay off debt and finally enjoy life. That is a mistake that too many people have made and they wait until some arbitrary day and when that day comes, maybe they're too old, maybe they're taking care of an ailing parent, maybe something else has happened and their partner has passed away. We can't do that. The philosophy we have is I'm gonna live a rich life today and an even richer life tomorrow. So how do you do it? As always, you need two things. Number one, you need to know your numbers. That means you need to know how much you owe, what's the APR, specifically what is the exact month and year your debt will be paid off. I show you how to calculate that in the book. It's quite easy, but you've got to take the initiative and know your numbers. The second part of living a rich life, you gotta master your money psychology. That means you need to understand that having a little bit of debt or even a lot of debt doesn't mean you're a bad person. It doesn't mean you're morally defective. It simply means you've made certain financial decisions that happened that have put you in this place and now you are building a plan to get out of it and you're okay. You can get out of it. So you master your money mindset, you know your numbers, you do it with your partner so you're both aligned and you get to choose how fast do we want to pay this off? Do we want to cut back on eating out and redirect it? Do we want to earn more, et cetera. You're in control, not simply the credit card company or the mortgage company. And this gives you a whole different perspective on life. Your financial life doesn't simply happen to you. You and your partner get to choose how you want to approach it and you get to do it as a team. That's why I wrote Money for Couples.

Man, this has been an amazing conversation. Audrey and I have the privilege of of, you know, you and Cass being two of our dearest friends. And I know that aside from our friendship, being friends with you over the years has helped educate us on things financially. And, you know, we've learned a lot. I don't come from a background where I had mentoring in these areas or where I was taught the right things. And. And I think I speak for both of us. when I say that neither of us, you know, I wish that growing up or in my 20s, I had had really great advice in these areas. I would have made so many different decisions and life would have been so much easier in my 30s. But, you know, that wasn't the hand I was dealt. And many of us aren't dealt a great hand in that department. But when we align ourselves with people who know things we don't, and instead of being ashamed of that, we just say, we just become sponges. And we just say, oh my God, this person does know these things. Let me learn. Then you're only a certain amount of time away from being a new person in this area and being someone who does know how to make good decisions in these areas and doesn't feel uncomfortable with these subjects. So thank you for being that for both me and Audrey as a couple. We feel lucky to know you and of course Cass, who we love. And I'm so excited for the world to read this book. I'm so excited that you wrote it. I feel like it was really needed. And I know none of this is easy, so thanks for taking the time. And please, everybody, go and grab a copy of this book. I think it's absolutely essential to relationships. I don't think this isn't a luxury thing to read. I think this is an essential thing to read. for relationships. So appreciate you, man. Thanks for spending the time.

Thanks.

Thank you, man. It means so much. I love you guys.

Love you too. Cheers, brother.

Bye.

By the way, I know that so many of you are here watching my videos, whether you've been watching them for years or whether you just started watching them today, because you want to find love. It may not be the only thing I talk about, but it's certainly one of the most important for so many people who follow my work. And if that's the case, then I am sure that you want 2025 to be the year that you find the loving relationship you want, whether you haven't met that person yet or whether you already have someone in mind and you want to make more of it. You want it to actually go somewhere. I have a foundational free training that is my most popular free training of all time. It is called Dating With Results that I want you to watch today if you haven't watched it already. It is one of the best ways to start your year if finding a relationship, finding love is something that you deeply desire in your life this year. You can go and watch it right now at datingwithresults.com Please make time to watch this today because I cannot think of a better way for you to start your year if love is something you really, really want to find. Check it out. As I said, it's completely free. It will take up one hour of your day, but it will pay dividends for the rest of your life in terms of saved time from the wrong situations and helping you create a relationship with the right person.