11. “My wife wants to quit her job but I’m worried about money”

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In our current kind of jobs, you know, I am kind of the higher earner. Of the two of us. There's been kind of a battle around, well, if you're not the majority provider in this family, why are you kind of dedicating so much time to your job?

There's some times where like he tells me, why am I doing this? If I'm the person that provides the most and you are the person that works the most, you should be maybe doing more for the house instead of me that I make more and I bring more to the table. So I feel like it comes from there. And then when he made the joke, I was like, okay, if you don't want to support me, I can do it myself.

My name is Ramit Sethi and this.

Is the I Will Teach youh to Be Rich podcast. My guests today are and they're both high earners, but between the two of them earns more. And this has placed them into a dynamic where until now he's had the majority of the power when it comes to making household decisions. You'll hear them describe that recently decided to quit her job and become an entrepreneur. And this has disrupted the normal dynamics of their relationship. They came to me because they believed that they had an issue about entrepreneurship, her decision to become one. But as we peel the layers, you're going to discover through listening to these clues that the real problem here is actually not about her becoming an entrepreneur. It's about something much, much deeper. Let's listen.

We're not a particular juncture in that is quitting her job to pursue a startup. And that, of course, brings conversation about money. She currently works at a tech company that has grown likely to do an IPO relatively soon. And when I questioned her about what we're leaving on the table as a family and what that implies for us, her response was, well, I have my own savings and I can do whatever I want. I think that's kind of the destructive cycle that I mentioned. I kind of tend to revert to saying, look, you're not thinking of the big picture. That's kind of a very selfish point of view. What it felt like to me is kind of feeling unappreciated as the provider and family member and just kind of we're all doing whatever we want, and kind of that's the way we operate here in our current of jobs. I am kind of the higher earner of the two of us, just for some context.

Earns $150,000 a year, which is a very good salary, but earns more than triple that. He's earning about $500,000 a year.

The way we've approached kind of expenses and all that is kind of divide by just the percentage of whoever brings in. Right, right. There's been kind of a battle around, well, if you're not the majority provider in this family, why are you kind of dedicating so much time to your job and not to me? I wouldn't call that a sacrifice, but, you know, I've definitely put a lot into providing for our kind of family of two. And when it comes to making a decision of, you know, kind of jumping from where she is to something more entrepreneurial, it wasn't kind of properly discussed or consulted. It feels not necessarily taken on a whim, but without the proper conversation with us as a family unit about, look, this is how we're going to approach this and think about this and kind of manage our finances around this going forward.

I remember about it a little bit different. I was pitching something internally in the company. I had a conversation with someone where he encouraged me a lot to become an entrepreneur. And we had this conversation with where he was like, yeah, you should. And I got super excited, and I was, okay, this is what I want to do. I remember we were, like, discussing about, so you're leaving your job. And it was kind of a joke or something around, like, I'm going to pay for everything. And then, like, I don't remember the kind of joke, but I felt like a joke saying, like, I will have to pay everything for you. And in my mind, it was that I can pay for myself. So it was not like, I'm not thinking about. Of ourselves as a family.

Well, this is a huge clue right here. A lot of times when couples come and speak to me, there's one inciting incident that stands out both in their mind, seared hot in their mind. Why? Because out of the blue, they had a relationship dynamic that they thought made sense. And then one partner said something that threw everything off kilter. At least that's the way it's perceived. What we can see here is that clearly they had different perceptions of money. And it was this amazing convergence of this situation with discussing leaving her job that caused this sentence to come out. And then it escalated from there. I always listen in for these kinds of clues. The inciting incident, because there's almost always something much deeper beneath, was more like.

I was reacting and defending myself, saying, like, if you don't want to support me, like, I can support myself. I felt that we are online, that he wants me to become entrepreneur, and for that I need to quit my job. But then last week, I was planning on having the conversation with my boss, and then Nico told me, like, we haven't had the proper conversation.

Do you think that if you had the proper conversations, you would disagree? If we fast forward to the end.

Of these conversations, I think I would agree. I'm very excited about her journey. I want to support her. I just want us to be aligned on how we think about this.

Okay, and just cut to the chase for me. What are the issues up in the air that you are not aligned about?

I think we're not aligned about how do we not operate as economic individuals, but as a family unit economically? And what role do each of us play? And that touches everything from, yes, what we do in our professional lives, but also how we spend time in the house with the family and all those things.

So what do you mean? Do you mean who cleans the kitchen floors? What are we talking about?

It could get to practical points like that. Yes. What else? I think an upcoming thing for us is we're planning to start A family.

What I feel is that there's, like, this power dynamic where I will never be, like, the powerful person in this relationship. It's always like, I'm cooking for you, but I make more than you and you work more than me. So it's like I feel that I will never be the one that, like, for a moment, I will never be the one that provides more. There's some times where, like, he tells me, why am I doing this? If I'm the person that provides the most and you are the person that works the most, you should be maybe doing more for the house instead of me, that I make more and I bring more to the table. So I feel like it comes from there. And then when he made the joke, I was like, okay, if you don't want to support me, I can do it myself.

And how did he react when you said that?

He told me, like, it doesn't work like that. We are a family. But we didn't have a conversation. It was more like, no, it doesn't work like that.

So you two both keep mentioning having a conversation. I'd like you to have the conversation right now. I'll just listen in.

I think we've started and stopped on this, Paula, about how we have an ongoing conversation about this. It's probably about, like I said, a power dynamic between both of us. And I think we're coming up at a specific point, which is this point around you quitting your job and which fits within that overall bigger picture with this issue specifically, you were taking a decision that wasn't properly discussed within us. It felt there's probably a deeper point about, you know, kind of how we untangle this point of who's providing what and how does that tie into other elements of roles we play in the relationship.

Yeah, I think that I totally agree that we need to make this decision together. I also feel that sometimes we are, like, thinking we are agreeing on something but never having the explicit conversation for two years or more. Probably I will not make any money. We have a very good lifestyle. We have do, like, a lot of things that we like to do without limiting ourselves on that sense. So I think the important thing is how we make sure that we are agreeing on investing in me and this project for two years as a family. And I do feel that we need to deal with the power dynamic because I feel like a lot of the time just because I'm not, like, I'm not able of providing more. Like, I feel that I'm not valued either in the family. When we have a family and we maybe have to make a decision of taking some time if we need, it would obviously be me. Because for the family as a whole, it will make sense. So those are the things that worries me. Choosing my time over you will be never the right decision.

Yeah. I think there's one point that kind of cuts through both to me, which is it seems like you may feel underappreciated because you don't bring an equivalent amount to the table in the monetary sense. And my side of things is feeling underappreciated because I feel that I do bring more. And it's not kind of being kind of, I guess, properly tallied or whatever you want to say.

How do you wish you were more appreciated by.

It's small things, really. It's starting from just verbal recognition of it as opposed to. It feels the other way around. Right. Like, oh, you're so demanding because you're the provider and you demand, as opposed to. Yeah, thanks for this. You know, it's. That's. That's great. Let's say, you know, just go on with our lives. It's not like some tangible point, really. Hold on, hold on.

Let's not minimize how you want to be appreciated. Did you notice you just did that?

Yeah, maybe. I think what I was getting at is it's not like a barter thing, right? Where I'm saying, yeah, I should get these privileges in exchange. It really is the recognition, like, how.

Like, how do you want to be appreciated?

So I was gonna. My first response was gonna be words, but it's. It's not really words. It's. It's a recognition that that factor matters and affects our lives and affects the quality of our lives. And I'm bringing, quote, unquote, value to the table with those efforts. I think it's that it's just that.

Is it verbal praise? Is it making breakfast? Is it touch?

So I think details in, like, small details, acts of love and kindness, which can be expressed through all the elements.

I just heard a lot of words.

But I didn't really hear a clear answer. And I pushed him, and he still didn't have an answer for me. I'm going to tell him that.

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I'm finding a little difficult because if you can't be explicit about what you want, then it's going to be very hard for your partner to give you what you want. So let me give you an example from my own life. I don't need words of affirmation. It just does nothing for me. I don't need it. But I absolutely love acts of service. For example, when my wife has packed my suitcase for me when I was going to go travel somewhere, that meant a ton to me, it meant so much. Or the coffee mug is clean. It's a tiny coffee mug, but it really means a lot to me. So I'm going to give you five different love languages. And I want you to really think, Nicholas, about what yours is. Start with one. So one is words of affirmation. The second is quality time. The third is physical touch. The fourth is acts of service, and the fifth is receiving gifts. Which would you say is the most meaningful to you?

Acts of service.

Great Acts of service. What would be an example of an active service that would be really meaningful to you?

Thinking ahead and acting upon that. So, like, over the last year, we live in a place where it's very affordable to have help. We're fortunate to have that. But over the last year, it hasn't been possible all the time. And it has turned into a dynamic where, yes, we both collaborate and do things, but I'm the CEO of the house. If I don't say, yeah, this has to get done this day and this has this day, it doesn't. Right. And so switching those roles and having her be on top of that and thinking ahead and seeing how she can clear things for me, I think that would be very meaningful. Great.

Okay, perfect. Thank you very much. Did you know that about.

Yeah, yeah. And I think that it makes a lot of sense. I think that my problem, as we mentioned before, or what, it's harder for me is that for a while, maybe a little bit less now, but I. I worked much more hours than. Than he. And also maybe I'm easier to please in some ways so I don't have to eat at some point and I don't have. I can organize my life in some way. And it's harder when it's. I have to organize my schedule that it's already crazy and then it's not that flexible and we need to eat early and we need to do X and Y. So, yeah, I know this is something that he appreciates. I Think it. It hasn't been hard, even when I've tried to do it. Like, really be good at it.

Okay.

Okay. What is your love language? How do you want to be appreciated?

I think more with words. And I feel that maybe on my side. What I felt is that it's never 100% what we think we do together. So I feel that. Feels that he does. I don't know, 80%. And I feel that I do. I don't know. 40. We are biased on our way of thinking what we. What we are able of. Of giving to the family in. In a lot of things. Like, I paid for our Christmas trip, and then he said, I paid for it. And I was like, no, I paid for the tickets. I paid for the hotel. So I feel that, like, of course I'm. I know that I'm, like, in the economic side, I'm giving less and. And maybe. And I know I'm giving less on the. Like, on the shores in the house. Like, I know my. Yeah, maybe my time is more complicated, but even when I do something, like, it's never appreciated.

Never appreciated. I don't know if I believe.

Never.

Not never. But, like, a lot of times it's not appreciated. No. So even if it's appreciated, like, there's, like, a way of making me feel bad. Like, yeah, but, like, I don't know. For example, we do this thing where I buy, like, dinner on Friday. I know, like, whatever. I buy dinner on Friday. And then he always makes me remind that, yeah, but I'm the one buying Saturday and Sunday. And it's like, the most expensive one on things like that. Where I feel like, yeah, this is the whole point of dividing. Like, I feel that the appreciation is never. Like, I don't feel it because I always feel there's, like, the. The other side of the coin reminding me that, yeah, maybe you did something, but it will never be as much as I'm giving or I'm buying or I'm doing in the house.

Do you think that means to do that?

I don't think that he does it in purpose. I think that sometimes he does it, like, to remind me that on his side, he's trying to, like. Like, for me to recognize what he's giving. But I think that he does it in a way that I feel bad I'm never recognized. So I think we get to a point. It's hard for me. Thank you for today's and tomorrow dinner. Because I felt that he already told me that I did it like, that it was he's giving more than me.

What do you wish he said to you when you order that dinner on Friday?

I think that I wish to be like, thank and knowing that like in for our means and what we make. Like we all like we are giving a lot to our family. We are like investing in, in in ourselves and being happy. So like recognizing like, hey, thank you. I really like this dinner. Thank you for buying it.

I did not know that's her, you know, kind of priority language, as I say, was words. You know, it's interesting to see the differences between what's appreciated. Definitely. And I do kind of see the dynamic that she's laying out as as useful. Whereas opposed to using the languages that each prefers to acknowledge the other, we're just saying, yeah, I do more, I do more, I do more. And we're kind of elevating the stakes of the negotiation right now and have.

A combined income of about $650,000 a year. And on top of that, they have about $2 million in their net worth, which is quite impressive. I'm sharing this so that you can understand the stakes of what we're talking about. Like for example, how much do they actually need?

Somewhere between 5 and 10 million plus a primary residence.

Well, you're going to have that in a few years. If you do nothing, you could quit your job and you have that in a few years.

Well, yeah, I've seen your thoughts on compounding and kind of expected returns. I think from that perspective. I also operate from a conservative point of view of what happens if I don't know the next few years are very bad and it just doesn't compound at that rate. But you're right. Now there's a scenario where that does happen.

Says he's seen my thoughts on compounding. Yes, my thoughts include math. Okay, those are my thoughts on compounding. I'm not going to push much deeper on this yet, but just take note of how doesn't seem to quite believe me about how secure his future is. We're going to get into this later.

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There's this myth that if you rent, it means you haven't made it. I don't really believe that I rent and I want you to know that you are not a failure if you choose to rent.

In fact, I want more freedom right.

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I mean conservatively, by the time you're 65 you have over $20 million just from your current portfolio.

That's a lot of money.

I know what it's like to feel that you are comparing your finances to somebody else, especially somebody who's I would say a very high earner. Like with A large portfolio. What does that feel like to you when you compare your financial contributions to his?

It feels that I'm not enough. Like, good enough. I kind of feel that I'm not good enough. Maybe I will never be good enough for this family.

Exactly. Can you understand why I might feel that way?

I do. I do. I got into this very fortunate position where because my, you know, my peer group, my buddies in. In Colombia do very different things. And if you compare me to most of them, yeah, I earn an order of magnitude more than them. So, you know, I'm kind of very cognizant of not bringing up the subject of money, all that stuff. And just because I know it's how it would feel to be on the other side of that, I can see how that, you know, kind of can create that type of feeling.

Definitely. It's structural. It's not that you're intentionally trying to make her feel bad, although there are little things you might be doing that might contribute to that. For example, thanks for Friday, but I'm also getting Saturday and Sunday. That's probably not helping. But imagine she might work really hard to save 15 or $20,000 or $30,000 in a year. The portfolio, you have made that, like, overnight, right? And the amount you contributed with 0.0heartache at all. You just wrote a check is like five times that large. So you can imagine that that starts to feel like I wrote a $20,000 check or I really saved hard and did this. And is it even moving the needle at all?

I want you to pay close attention to this example that giving here with. They may have more than you, but the dynamics are very, very relatable. In many couples, you have one person who's earning more than the other, and they approach things with a certain perspective. Now, the lower earner approaches things from a different perspective. It doesn't mean they're better or worse. It just means that they are earning less. Maybe it's by choice. Maybe it's because they're taking care of children. Whatever the case may be, there's a natural power dynamic when one person is earning more than the other. And here's the key. The higher earner needs to be aware of that dynamic. If you earn more and you're oblivious to it, you go, oh, yeah, hey, here's some money. I'll throw in this and that. You are going to cause resentment. So it is the obligation of the higher earner to be aware of this dynamic. Now with. And it's great. That appreciates how fortunate he's been. And he also appreciates that just because he's earning three times more than he's probably not working three times harder than her. I appreciate that. Mutual respect. But now I want to address something that's come up a few times in this episode. Seems to understand that he earns a lot of money, but he doesn't seem to believe me when I tell him how secure his, his future is. What do you think the implication of that is? Well, the implication is that he's playing defense with his money, not offense. That there's scarcity as his money lens. He's looking through this lens of scarcity and everything he sees with money is what can go wrong. You can't just tell someone, stop feeling that, stop looking at the world that way. You, you have to approach it quite differently. Let me show you what I'm going to do.

When I talk to new business owners, I hear a lot of the same motivations. I want to make extra money. I want more freedom. I want flexibility. But I will tell you something that I've never heard. I want to start a business so I can fill out a bunch of tax forms. That sounds like my hell. The good news is you don't need to be a tax expert to start your own business. Instead, you can use Gusto, this episode's sponsor. Gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. It's all in one. It's remote, friendly and it's incredibly easy to use so you can pay, hire onboard and support your team from anywhere. They offer automatic payroll tax filing, simple direct deposits, health benefits, workers comp 401k matches, you name it, they can help. Plus, it's quick and easy to switch to Gusto. Just transfer your existing data and get up and running fast with no hidden fees and no surprises. Try gusto today at gusto.com/ramit and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com ramit once more gusto.com/ramit real question for you. Do you know how often you're supposed to see your primary care physician? How about the dentist? How about a dermatologist? A lot of us just wait to get a text from the dental hygienist to know it's time to make an appointment. But your health is important and we talk about going from defense to offense with your money. What about with your health? Why not make your life easier and book this year's appointments today with Zocdoc. Zocdoc is a free app and website where you can search and compare high quality in network doctors and click to instantly book an appointment. They have over 100,000 doctors across every specialty from mental health, dental, primary care and more. Just filter for the doctors based on your insurance, your location, even ratings and find a doctor who's a good fit for your needs. Plus Zoc Talk appointments happen fast, usually within 24 to 72 hours instantly. Click through your options, book the appointment and you are good to go. If I needed to find a new doctor today, this is what I would use. Stop putting off these doctor's appointments and go to Zocdoc.com ramit to find and instantly book a top rated doctor today. That's Z O c d o c.com ramit zocdoc.com ramit.

We joke that I want to go back to my hometown and have a really nice house and then I feel that we love traveling and I would love to continue traveling and being able to travel with our family. We want to save and try to give the same opportunities that we had to our kids and hopefully sending them to undergrad or to grad school to.

The US I think one that's equally important is what am I trying to avoid with that money, which I think is very important in my frame of mind. One very kind of important experience from my life was, like I said, very kind of comfortable growing up. No kind of massive luxuries, but everything was around and available within some limits. And Latin America had a very big crisis in the late 90s and my dad lost his job, right? He had been a person that had been a decent earner. We lived very kind of comfortably, but he hadn't set aside money adequately. And he'd gotten to a point in his career where probably in his late 40s and in the midst of a crisis, he was kind of unemployable in a way. And his, our life changed and his life changed from that point because he had to readjust his standards. And so I think internally I said that's never going to happen to me, right? I want to kind of incrementally move up my living standards but never get to a point where I have to adjust downwards or depend on a job or something else. And like I told you before, I have a fantastic job right now. I don't want to depend on it because I know if, if it's probably not going to be around always and if it doesn't, it's going to be very hard to replace for something equivalent So I think a rich life for me means getting to a point where I don't have to worry about, you know, being put in that situation. And I'm kind of set at a certain standard for life.

Let's pretend, just for the sake of this conversation, that the same thing happens to you. You get laid off, jobs disappear. What's your financial situation going to be 10 years from now?

It's weird, Ramit, because as I've gotten closer to that point of comfort.

As.

You get closer to it, I found myself thinking more about money and having more anxiety about money, which is weird. I've told this to Paola. It's not weird.

It's what everybody does, because they believe that when they find the answer in their model, they think that all their anxiety is going to vanish. They're going to open up the doors in their French doors in their bedroom and beautiful pool outside, and they're just going to say, I made it. But what they don't realize is that money, for people who are modeling out 20 years in the future and people who are making very high incomes, the money was never the problem. They were always going to make money. Whether it was going to take them until they were 30 or 40 or 42, they were always going to make the money. The real problem that they rarely address is up here in their head. It's the psychology of knowing what is enough. And what do I actually want to.

Do with this money?

You have accomplished a lot that I don't know. You've really sat back and taken account.

And said, wow, we did it.

And I don't think you realize that you've won the game, the game that you were trying to play, the one of financial aspiration. You won.

It's over.

It's done. You won. And this is where most people continue chasing more and more and more. I don't mind if you want to grow that portfolio. I love it.

Please do.

I think it will be great. I think it will open up even more possibilities. But you could double or triple that today. That's not going to take your anxiety away. The real solution is to turn the page on your joint lives and say, what is our rich life? What do we want to do together? What does it look like? Do you want to become an entrepreneur? Okay, let's talk about that.

Why?

What's it going to give you? What's it going to give us? Okay. How can we find a way to make that work financially? Yeah, we could fund it. Is that what we want to do or what's the deadline. Because what if this goes on for 10 years and you're not making any money? Let's have a discussion about that. But where does this decision to be an entrepreneur fit into our rich lives? Is it going to let you travel more? What about work around the house? How are we going to manage that? You're going to be an entrepreneur, but who's arranging Friday night dinners? These are the conversations to have. But I want to point out the key difference. It takes changing from playing defense to playing offense. You're still playing defense as if you put a couple more million bucks in there, you're going to feel better. But the millions of bucks are already there. They just need a little time to develop through compound interest. Plus, I'm guessing you're saving quite a bit of money every year. Now we get to have a much more interesting conversation about chapter two of your rich lives. What do you want? What's the difference in your lifestyle between 25 and 32 million? Nothing. You can worry your way into $30 million and then you die. That's it. End of the game. Now paint the other picture for me.

The rich life scenario. We work in our jobs for five to 10 more years. We move back to hometown. We build a house from scratch with a fantastic open kitchen where we cook our meals every night. We have two kids, which I spend a lot of time teaching things to. Whether it's sports or working out or philosophy, doing their homework, etc, we travel. We don't worry when we want to travel. Doesn't mean we do it in luxury. But you know, we want to be able to go to Bogota, which is the capital of Colombia where my friends are weeks, weekends. We might have a small apartment to go there in the summers we like to spend as opposed to traveling around many places we like to go and kind of live in a city. There's many cities like we like. So we get an Airbnb for six weeks in Lisbon or in Buenos Aires and we just live life there normally.

This is pretty amazing. Compare this to their answer earlier. Total night and day answer in the vividness of what their rich life is.

I want to hear from you. What does it feel like to hear Vision?

I loved it. We have talked about exactly how he pictured. What we have never talked about is the timing and how we believe it can be sooner than later. I feel very excited about thinking about the future and what we can do together and how we can enjoy life and what we have built.

Beautiful. I appreciate you for appreciating because he's done something tremendous to be able to even open up the conversation about you potentially becoming an entrepreneur. That was something he started years ago, and that's fantastic. I also think that in your relationship, money is a small but important part of it. There's so much more than money. Okay. The money part is great. You won, you solved it. And in fact, it's only getting bigger now. You can't stop it. But there's just so much more. There's having a positive partner. That's something that I treasure with my wife. She's always laughing, smiling, love that there's somebody who you know you can count on. There's all these things that are equally or more important than money. And so I would love for the two of you to really start thinking about that and that starts to shape that entrepreneur conversation. You know, hey, for example, if you become an entrepreneur, here are the things that worry me, here are the things that concern me. You know, what's the stress level going to be? What about finances? Yeah. Have that conversation. But then also talk about what might happen positively. Oh, I love that you would be in control of your time. That means we could travel for weeks at a time. And even if I can't go all the time, you could take our future children. Oh, it means that you would be able to do xyz.

Right.

Talk about both. Put them on the table. And you will come to see that this discussion about whether you should be an entrepreneur is actually really about much more than this micro decision. It's really about the rest of your lives together. Here's what you'll find next week on.

The I Will Teach youh to Be Rich podcast.

I think what you said first, that's the problem. It'll be fine. We don't, we don't want our lives to be just fine though, right? We'd want it to be better than fine. We'd want it to be great. Okay, well, no, we would. We would want it to be better than fine. Yeah.

But like, I mean, I guess it depends, right? Like what your priorities are. Well, I just don't have a lot of trust in certain things, like for a lot of reasons. Reasons. Right. I guess I've just kind of been like an old fashioned guy who just puts money in the bank and then that's it, right?