125. “He’s so afraid of money he can’t log into his own bank account” (Part 1)

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I never thought about the future. Like I was single until my mid to late 30s. You know, before we got together, my money was my money. If I just wanted to go out with my boys, if I wanted to go out to Vegas, if I want to go out drinking a couple of nights a week, as long as I had enough in my pocket that I could go do those things, I was happy. Now that we're together and our expenses are together, I'm so scared of spending anything because I don't want to to lose it.

And what would you say your feeling is toward money if you had to describe it in a word, One word, Afraid.

And it scares me too. And I feel like I can't tell him I'm scared because I'm the one that manages it. It puts a lot of pressure on me to like get my things together. When I feel like, okay, like I'm 30, I could make a little bit of mistake, but I feel like I can't because he's 45 and I need to think about him because he's not thinking about himself. It makes me, you know, have doubts of our relationship sometimes.

Meet Christina and Ron. Christina's 30, Ron is 45, and they've been married for four years. Christina wonders why she's the one managing money in their relationship, especially when Ron is older and he should be thinking about his retirement now. Before I speak to couples on this podcast, I always get prepped. But I have to tell you, I was extremely surprised by a lot of what I discovered in today's conversation. You're going to hear financial decisions that shocked me, and you're going to hear a lot of very, very surprising money psychology. By the way, speaking of money psychology, you ever notice when someone gets complimented on something they're wearing and their automatic response is, thanks, I got it on sale? That's just one of the many ways that we play small with money. And this coming Saturday, October 14th, in my newsletter, I'm going to be writing about five ways that we play small with money. Make sure you're on the list so you can get this newsletter@iwt.com podcastnewsletter okay, let's get to the episode.

There's a couple of vacations planned for this year. Some together and then some separately. My thing is, she's going on, in my opinion, too many little mini vacations. And I just see the dollar signs adding up in my head. She said, hey, me and the girls, we're going to plan a girls trip to New Orleans. My initial reaction is, no, we can't afford it. It's too much. You just got back from England. I just say was, is this something we can afford? Because she's more in tune with our finances than I am. She pays more attention. She does the day to day stuff, whatever bills come in. She's already working all the the different accounts. So I full heartedly just go with what she says.

Okay, all right. And then how did it get resolved?

She's going to New Orleans.

Okay. And Ron, can you afford it?

In my head, no. On paper, yes.

Oh, what's the difference between your head and paper?

I'm cheap. I'm more frugal than she is.

Just which one? Cheap or frugal? Those are two different words.

Frugal.

I'm gonna say, yeah, okay, why is that?

I'm not cheap because I don't mind spending money when we have it. I'm frugal because I just see dollar signs. Dollar signs, dollar signs. And then I kind of just imagine these numbers in my head like we're going to be spending this huge amount when in reality she's already got it budgeted. Because she's good at doing that, where it's only going to be a small amount. So I'm already imagining the worst.

What's the frugal part of that?

Okay, maybe cheap.

Remember that cheap people almost always describe themselves in favorable terms. They'll say things like, I'm not cheap. I'm just selective, or, I don't need to eat in a frou frou restaurant. I'm simple here. Ron uses frugal, which in American culture is a positive value. But of course, there's a difference between cheap and frugal, which you can find on page 131 of my book. I will teach you to be rich. If you are a conscious spender, like I hope you are, your frugality really only affects you. But if you're cheap, your cheapness affects everyone around you. And I suspect that's what's going on here. Christina, I'm curious. From your perspective, that same conversation, what do you remember happening?

I told him about it, and his automatic response was, no, I know every time I approach him, I already have a game plan with him. I tell him, like, this is how it's going to be. This is how I'm going to save money. But before I get there, when he says no, it really frustrates me. And I get really sad that before I can even tell him how I can save money and enjoy my time, it almost seems like he is raining on my parade. And I can't even, like, plan with him or make proper decisions with him of, like, if I give him a plan of, well, I'm going to use this, and I'm going to do this to save us money so I can afford this. I can't even have that with him. And it's automatically the end of the conversation is, okay, well, you know the money. If you say we can do it, then do it.

Okay, out of curiosity, Ron, if I asked you, how much is in your checking account within $25,000? How much?

Well, it's not 25,000.

Okay, like, ballpark it.

Seven to ten.

All right, and within, let's say, a savings account, how much would you say is in there? Your savings account?

Oh, I mean, my personal savings. I don't know, like 2000. We've got a couple of different accounts, though.

All right, and your joint savings account, how much would you say? Christina is looking at this like, this is literally the most entertaining reality show she's ever seen. Christina, am I getting this right? She cannot stop smiling for the last two minutes. All right, sit Tight. Ron, Joint savings account. Ballpark it for me.

10.

All right, fine. Christina, what do you. What do you say?

Off. Completely off.

Like, how much off?

A lot off. The accounts are not even. Right.

Okay, well, the checking account, I think ron said like 7K.

Yeah.

So his personal checking account is at 2200.

Okay.

My personal checking account is around 4, because I just got paid.

All right.

Our joint savings account is about 8500.

Okay.

And then our joint checking account is about 4600.

Well, he's not that far off. Ron, I. I think you're in the universe. He didn't say $200,000.

Yeah, that's right.

All right, you know what, Ron? I'm giving it up for you. You were closer than I thought, so I'll. That's impressive.

Yeah.

All right.

Yeah.

Christina, how come you think he's, like, wildly off?

Because every time he talks, he has two mentality. It's either we're poor or we don't have money.

Is that not the same thing to him?

It's not.

What's the difference between poor and not having enough money?

Poor don't have. I mean, there's nothing. We can't.

We can't.

We can't spend a dollar on anything. Like, scared. And then she's right with the other one. Like, okay, we can do something this month, but we can't spend that much. Like, we can go to the movies, but we can't go out to dinner.

That's what you describe as we don't have money. This seem a little hyperbolic to you? We don't have money? Seems quite alarming to me. Oh, my God. If we truly don't have money, that's a 91 1. But actually, we can go out to the movies, and we have a savings account and we have investments. Like, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. But, like, we don't have money.

Sounds kind of silly when you put it your way. It's because I still want to have some sort of life. I work really hard. I don't want to have to just stay in and do nothing. So I'd like to think, like, hey, we could still go do a little something as long as we're not spending a lot of money. You know, we'll spend $40 as opposed to, like, 200 going out to dinner.

Hey, listen, I'm with you. You should spend something. Probably spend below your means. I agree. But I never say I don't have money. I have money. I'm looking at Your numbers. You have money too, Right? So, Christina, I understand that, you know, you come to him with an idea or something you want to do, he says no, you have already game planned out your strategy of how you're going to convince him. So that is your role in the relationship. Right. Convince him, and then he is the, quote, final decider, but he decides by essentially delegating it to you, Correct?

Yeah.

As I say that dynamic out loud, have you ever two ever considered that is the actual dynamic going on here?

Yeah, we've talked about it a lot. I've tried to address it with him how I don't want to make all the decisions. That's why we started doing the finance conversation every month. But that hasn't really happened in a couple of months because I'm tired of making the decisions. I'm tired of managing everything. And then when I come to him, I still have to, like, teach him about our finances. And then at the end of the conversation, he ends up reverting to me anyway. So what? What was the point of having a conversation with him?

She's 100% accurate. I can't even argue with it.

All right. Is there a problem with it or are you okay with the way it is?

I'm okay with the way that it is. I know she's not. For me, it's just easier because if I see us spending money even though I know we have it, it's going to cause arguments for me because I'm going to be so super cheap. I'm not going to want to spend a dime even though we have it.

I'm curious about the way you just described yourself and your own behavior. You said if it comes to spending money, it's going to be a problem. It as if from heaven on down, it is a problem because I'm going to have to blank, blank, blank. Seems like you kind of disembodied yourself in that description. Can we try that again this time? Describe you, tell me about you, what will happen next time there's a financial.

Conversation, I'm going to get worked up, I'm going to get nervous, and I'm going to get scared for the future.

Okay, I appreciate that. All right. It's different, right, to describe yourself with agency? Yeah.

Yeah. I'm not used to talking about myself, so.

So much dancing around the truth going on right now. There's the use of language, cheap versus frugal. We don't have any money while clearly having money. And then there's the fact that she has to plan to have a conversation about money before ever actually having the conversation. And of course, beneath it all, Ron actually is not that engaged with money at all. There's just a lot of narratives here, and in a relationship, narratives may or may not be true. I should note, by the way, that before we even started recording, Ron invited me to direct most of my questions towards Christina. That alone is revealing in showing his lack of agency and also his way of delegating money right back to Christina. We'll be right back. 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, Zocdoc appointments happen fast, usually within 24 to 72 hours.

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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-o c.com ramit 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 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@gusto.com ramit and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll@gusto.com ramIT Once more, Gusto.com ramIT now back to Christina and Ron. Ron, is there a time when you spend money where you don't think about the cost? Me?

No.

Do you like spending money on anything?

No, because I don't really have any hobbies or anything that I'm interested that I work want to actually spend it on.

Okay. And what would you say your feeling is toward money if you had described in a word or two, one word?

Afraid.

Do you like money?

I like it. I wish I had more of it.

How much?

You mean to earn a year or in savings and stuff?

Let's go with both. Let's start with earning per year.

I'd at least like to make 1:50 a year.

Do you make the higher income out of the two of you right now?

Yeah, right now? Yeah.

So that's basically like you'd like to make about 30k more than you make, right? Yeah, yeah. It's always the same number. People always have, like, a very similar number of how much more they want to make. And how about how much you'd like to have in savings.

Eventually? Probably like to have at least like a hundred.

A hundred K in a savings account. Okay. And what would happen one day when you have that? I feel actually very confident you will have that. What will happen on that day?

Probably nothing. I'm sure I'll still be pretty nervous or. I know. It's just.

That's so crazy. So in other words, you could spend your whole life trying to get to this arbitrary number, and then one day when you reach it, which you actually will, then you realize the entire life that I spent agonizing over $5, $10, $50 actually meant nothing because my feelings are highly uncorrelated with the numbers in my bank account. Is that what you're telling me?

I like to hope that once we get to that number, that it'll change, because that's the number in my head. Never going to get there.

I'll just be your crystal ball. It's never going to happen. I should. I need to be a psychic. All right. I need to do this. Next time I go to India, I'm like, all right, I'M g put up my little shingle on the street. Okay. I'm going to ramit seti psychic from America. This actually would have been more successful back in the day when not as many Americans went there. Nowadays, they don't care. And. And all. The only question I take is, is going to be, will I feel better about money one day when I have more, and I'll just go, no, get the hell out of here. Well, we concluded that. All right, Christina, what do you think about hearing Ron's answers about how he feels about money? Scared. That's pretty open. I don't hear too many people use words like scared or nervous. What do you think about that?

I'm happy he's saying that to you. I was aware of it. We've talked a lot about it. I tried to pry these things out of him. It's like a occupation hazard almost. You know, I'm at the point where I don't know what to do with it.

Okay. Is Christina the big picture thinker in your relationship?

Absolutely.

And then what role are you, Ron?

I like to think I'm still the one that kind of keeps her grounded. I think if it wasn't for me saying no to certain things, that she might overspend. So for me being cheap, I think that kind of. That kind of keeps us grounded.

By being cheap. By saying no, you're actually doing a service to her and to the relationship.

Not doing a service to our relationship by any means. It's.

I'm not joking, because I'm trying. I'm serious. I'm trying to interpret what you're saying because you said I keep her grounded, and then you said, by being cheap, and I'm going to now paraphrase, I prevent her from what she might do, which would be to overspend. In other words, to translate it, I'm actually a really helpful, functional member of this relationship. I'm actually doing her a favor by keeping her grounded. Is that accurate or not?

Yes and no. Me being the way that I am is actually a negative thing for our relationship.

Okay.

Causes a lot of arguments.

Christina, how would you describe how you feel about money?

I'm okay with it.

What is that? That's not a what? I know. He told us nervous, scared, all these emotional things. And you're like, I'm okay. What?

Okay. So I feel confused about it.

Okay, tell me more because.

Okay, I'm going to get emotional because you're asking me emotions. Okay. I used to be very scared about it because just like Ronnie, my family Are immigrant. I'm an immigrant. So we came from absolutely nothing as well. And then having to figure it out on my own, my parents didn't teach me anything. I almost had to learn everything on my own. So it was a very scary process. But I feel proud where we're at now and how far we've come, as far as I could take it essentially on my own. So now I'm just confused and maybe a little lost of, like, what do I do at this point? Because I just feel like I don't know how far I can take this on my own.

And how long have you two been married for?

We've been together for 10, married for four.

Okay. All right. So when you say how far you can take it on your own, are. Are you. Is the subtext there that you have done the finances in your relationship on your own?

Yeah.

Okay. Ron, is that accurate?

Oh, absolutely.

Okay.

Okay.

That's pretty honest. I appreciate that, Christina. So how would you to describe the dynamic between the two of you when it comes to money?

Babe, you can take this one first.

I think over the years, it was such a hard topic to talk about. Like, it was a fight all the time, and it's gotten better. But now, recently, I feel like I just avoid it a little bit more. So we're not fighting as much. Like, I bring it up, but if I could tell, like, oh, he's overwhelmed by it or he doesn't want to have a conversation about it, I just like, okay, it's fine. Like, we'll. We'll talk about it some other time. I'll figure it out. And I just don't ask him any more questions.

You take it on yourself. All right, now we understand the roles he avoids. She feels like she has to manage it, but she's not really confident in money, so she feels alone. Have we heard this pattern before? Yes, many times on this podcast. The thing that stands out to me is Ron's comment that his role is to keep her grounded. What's the implication here? That without him watching over her spending, she might just spiral and spend all their money? Is this real or is this just a story? I want to find out by learning how they grew up with money.

I'm nervous just because of the way that we grew up. We had some really good times, and then we had some really bad times. So I never want to put us in any financial troubles. That's why I kind of am the way that I am.

The troubling times happened, what, in your.

Teen years, grade school, middle School, high school, we had real good and then real bad. My dad was a contractor, so we had some, you know, we'd have a good year, then we'd have a bunch of really bad months, and then, you know, so kind of fluctuated. My dad was the only one that worked in the family, so when he wasn't in a contract, still had bills to pay, so we had to borrow money from. From family sometimes. You know, we almost lost the house, but, you know, grandparents helped out with that. I've got two older brothers, you know, mom and dad. We didn't do a lot when we were kids because we didn't have the money. Like, we didn't go on vacations. We didn't go out to dinners. We still had a lot of fun because it was growing up in the 80s. But seeing the way that my parents fought about money or the lack of. I don't want us to be like that. So those are things, like, I just don't want to have happen, and I would hate to ask for handouts from people.

You grew up in the Midwest?

Yes, sir.

So whenever he said he was poor, he was cheap. He was this. I'm like, you don't. Not to diminish what he experienced, because I get it, but it's like, you don't know poor until you go in the Philippines. Right. We were homeless. At some point, I would have to, like, beg neighbors for food for dinner, Right. So that our family could eat. Like, that's how poor we were.

Do you think that there's a way to be a sensible spender without being cheap?

Yes. If we have a budget set aside for each of us for each month, like, we can only spend this amount. You can spend this amount. I can spend this amount. And if that's the case, then she can go do whatever she wants to with it as long as we're still saving at the same time.

Okay, just a quick question for you. When was the last time you kept a budget for longer than two weeks?

We actually. We actually just started it a month ago, so.

How about before that? Never?

Nope.

What a surprise. Ron, is it possible that maybe a budget is not the solution?

There's a possibility, but I think the budget is the solution. And nothing's ever 100% in this world, Right? So I can't say no.

So I like it. I like the pushback. All right, let's play it out. So you have the budget, and how did you both create this budget.

Off of you, actually.

Okay. You use my conscious spending plan. Okay, well, first of all, that's not a budget. But all right, whatever. You use the csp, you came up with some numbers which are forward looking, not b, backwards looking. You have some guidelines. All right, cool. I'm happy to hear that. What was the process like creating the conscious spending plan together?

Probably kick it over to her.

Oh, why is that? Wait, I want to hear from Ron. Ron, tell me, what was it like creating it? Did you create it together?

No.

What the. All right. Okay. Even though the instructions explicitly say you must create this together. So how did that go down? Christina, you applied to talk to me, right?

Yes. So we actually had this CSP for three months, not one month. And we actually sat down together. Not just me telling him. Don't know if he remembers that. And even though we've created a budget, and this is not the only time we've done a budget, we've done it in the first few years of our relationship. It's now coming up to itself as well where we have a budget. And Ronnie says, baby, we have a budget. We have to stick with the budget. We can't spend that. So even if we have a budget, he still says, no, we can't spend money.

At least if I know that we are not going over that each. And even if she goes over and I still have some in mine, I always tell her, just take some of mine. I'm not spending it if you need to do it.

Okay, so does it make you feel better.

To have the budget? Yeah, it does.

All right. And do you still caution her about overspending now that you've got this budget, which is not a budget?

Yes, because once she goes over the budget, then that's when I chime in. I'm like, well, we're over the budget. Or she'll tell me that we're over the budget. I'm like, okay, then why are we spending more?

So let me give some perspective. When you first start using the conscious spending plan, you know, you try to get everything you can, but the whole point is it's 85% of the way accurate. You're never going to get a hundred percent. It's actually prohibitively difficult to get every single expense. How much did we spend on celery? It's irrelevant. And once in a while you have these annual expenses like auto insurance or holiday trip or an anniversary dinner. Those are bigger expenses. And people tend to forget we're not built to properly account for all those things. So there's a couple of solutions. Number one, the CSP in the fixed cost should actually include 15% miscellaneous expenses on top of everything. Right. Just add a nice little buffer. And then second, you got to remember, you got to give each other a little bit of grace here. Hey, we're going to make a couple mistakes. It's probably not going to sync us. Let's just note it. We'll adapt the CSP and then we'll go forward. It's a learning process. Right? I want to share the two types of people who find doing the conscious spending plan together really difficult. These two types are quite revealing, and they teach you a lot about money psychology. The first type are avoiders. Okay, this one is obvious because avoiders hate talking about money. And the CSP is literally putting actual numbers on a page so they will do anything they can to squirm out from the process. We actually had one couple where a wife admitted that she started a fight on the day they were supposed to fill out their CSP so that she and her husband didn't have to do it together. The second category of people who find it difficult to fill out the CSP together is a little bit more subtle. These are the people who like to get the right answer. These are the people who usually tried to get an A in school, often took very safe career paths. They're often people pleasers. They're people who don't like to get the answer wrong. And they find the CSP 85% approach really hard because they have a need to get every single number exactly correct. This predictably drives their partners crazy. So the get it right person, you know what they do? They snatch the CSP out of their partner's hands and they say, here, I'll just do it. I'm telling you this to show you how money is never simply a series of numbers on a page. It's contextualized within your culture, your upbringing, your risk tolerance, even your basic understanding of money. With all that said, if you want to live a rich life, just fill out the damn csp. It's one of the foundational pieces of your finances. Get the link in the show notes. Just get the link anywhere and fill it out. We'll be right back. I know that some of us think better when we write our thoughts out. But for a lot of us, including me, I'm better when I can think out loud. If that's you, I recommend you check out Whisper Flow to save you tons of time to bring your ideas to the page. Whisper Flow turns your voice into clean final draft writing inside whatever app you're already using. Email Slack Docs, even text messages. And it works on Mac, Windows and iPhone. So instead of spending all of your time responding to messages and especially while sitting at a computer, you can hit a hotkey, speak and the text appears. It's accurate, it's fast, it's all formatted so you can get back to work. Here's what my friend said about it. Whisper is amazing because it learns the way you speak. So you can send this rambling note as a text message and it kills all the filler words and it perfectly formats it for you. They said it's much better than using the Apple voice to text feature. The spelling is way better. If you want to buy your time back and get back to what matters, check out Whisper Flow. Try it for free at whisperflow AI/ramit that's whisperflow AI/ramit w I s p r flow AI ramit or click the link in the description below. 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 now than buying a 30 year mortgage. But if I'm spending thousands of dollars a month, I want to get some of the perks that homeowners get. And that is where BILT comes in. BILT is a loyalty program for renters. You pay your rent through BILT and you can earn points for it. Think about it. You're earning points for your biggest expense every single month and you can redeem those built points towards flights, hotels, Lyft rides, or even future rent payments. BILT has evolved into a complete rewards ecosystem where you get rewarded for the first time as a renter. And it's easy. Almost any payment method is compatible so you can start earning right now. I wish I had had this when I first started living in New York. Plus, BILT recently announced that homeowners will be able to get rewarded the same way on their mortgage in 2026. So stay tuned. Join the loyalty program for renters@joinbuilt.com Ramit that's J O I N B I L T.com Ramit and make sure you use our URL so they know that we sent you. Now back to the episode. Had you taken that approach, do you think that the conversation in the last month would have gone a little differently? No. Christina says no. Tell me why.

Because we've done that.

Okay, what happened?

And he still freaks out. When we first Started dating. I was only working part time. And now that I'm full time, we've created a buffer. We have a savings account. We have a budget. I put a buffer in our checking account to make sure we are at least one month full of the budget. Have a buffer before a paycheck.

And let me guess, it doesn't change the way he feels. Okay, Christina, can I ask you a question? Did you notice who was involved in every step? You just told me.

Me.

Yeah. I set up a buffer. I set up a budget. What's special about one person taking on all the work and then another person or people being dissatisfied with it?

Nobody's happy.

Yeah. Nobody has any skin in the game. Right. If one person cooks dinner, it's, you know, everybody might say, oh, I don't like that. Too much salt, too. But if everyone is in there doing a little bit, I'm going to set the table, you're going to empty the dishwasher, et cetera. It's kind of hard to complain if you're involved. Would you agree?

I agree. I think that's why I'm trying to have him be part of the conversation, and that's why I asked for help, is because part of the reason is he's 45, 46. He needs to be in this. I am planning for our future, our retirement, but I get no input for him. And I'm only 30, and I feel like we have such a big age gap. Your retirement is so much closer than I am. Why am I planning for your retirement by myself?

What do you think about that, Ron?

I hate hearing it, but it's true. Because I never thought about the future. I was single until my mid to late 30s before we got together. So my money was my money, meaning I don't care that, you know, we're. Let me see how I can phrase it. My money was my money. Just wanted to go out with my boys. If I want to go out to Vegas, if I want to go out drinking a couple of nights a week, I never thought about the future. As long as I had enough in my pocket that I could go do those things, I was happy. Now that we're together and our expenses are together, I feel like it's putting so much weight on me to make sure that my family is taken care of, that we always have a future and everything. So I'm so scared of spending anything because I don't want it to lose it.

Which family are you having to take care of? The two of you, or are there others?

No, Us.

That's a little confusing to me, Ron, because if I were you, I was single for a long time. I could go out to wherever and spend money or whatever. But my wife, she works. Of course we live together. The way I look at it is like, oh my God, we can actually live in an even nicer place. We can travel longer. Why? Because the two of us are doing it together. Right? I don't need to buy a loaf of bread just for myself. We get to use our combined income for that.

Yeah. And I know my way of thinking is not right and I know it's caused a lot of arguments and everything like that. It's just like I said when I said I was scared about money, you know, that's just not me using just a word just to say it like I truly am. Because I go through ups and downs in my business. I go through, you know, busy times during a season where I'm doing really well and then in the off season I'm not. So now that we're going into the off season again, like, I know my pay is going to get cut in half or even in thirds. So I think about that throughout the year, like, oh, I'm doing good. So I want to keep saving it because I need that buffer for those offseasons.

Sounds very familiar. Who does it remind you of?

My dad.

Ah.

Dad saved everything and we never had any fun.

He saved everything. He never had any fun. And when times were good, meaning when he was making money, he was saving it. When times were bad.

Well, when times were bad, we didn't spend it and we, we didn't do anything. I mean, it was just, everything was just. We got to pay for the bills and we got to put food on the table.

Yeah, you carried that from your parents to the two of you. Now what are the differences between your parents, financially speaking and the two of you here?

I mean, we were only a single, single income family until times got really rough and then mom took on a part time job where we are a dual income family with no kids.

That's pretty big difference, don't you think? Seems like a tragedy to be living the same way your parents did. Full of worry, you know, over constraint, agonizing over these expenses and you know, I'm sure your parents did the best they could. They had one income, different time. But you two have no children and two incomes. What do you think about that, Ron? I can see you taking some deep breaths right now. What is it, Ron? Is it. It's kind of difficult to talk about this or what's going on?

Yeah, it's a little difficult to talk about and just to. To know the kind of like the burden that she. That she has.

Yeah. If anybody needs to take a break at any time, just say the word. Let's talk about the ages here. She's 30. He's 45. You know, deep down, a lot of people really believe that other people are motivated by logic, reason and numbers. And then when other people don't act logically, we all get completely confused. Huh. Ron is 45. Theoretically, he should be more interested in money, more concerned with money. He should be taking over more of the money responsibilities. After all, logically, he's older, he's closer to retirement, and he has less time to compound. Well, guess what? The truth is, he just doesn't care that much. People are not logical with their finances. They're not logical with their relationships. They're not even logical with their medicine. Even when people have a life or death illness, a surprising number of people don't even take their medicine. You don't believe me? Go Google patient adherence. Look it up. See for yourself. Guys, the point of this podcast is to show you how complex money and psychology really is. The sooner that you realize we are all irrational with our money. You, me, all of us, the sooner you will be able to understand your own behavior and of course, others behavior. Now what I'm going to try to do right now is to get them to both realize how their beliefs are affecting their relationship. What comes to mind when I share these specific moments? Renewing your passport. Scheduling a dentist appointment. Replacing that light bulb that's been out for six months and you're not sure what's the right bulb. We all procrastinate on weird stuff, and taxes are usually right at the top of that list. We wait until the last second that we get overwhelmed, we got to pull this paperwork, and we're panicked because the deadline is approaching. That's why I recommend Gilt. Now that tax season's over, this is actually the best time to get ahead. If you run a business or you filed for a tax extension, or one small move right now could save you thousands later. Gelt is not just another CPA firm. They helped one of my colleagues rethink his entire tax setup. Now he's saving more than he spends on tax prep. With G, you get a proactive year round strategy. Not just a one time filing. Credits, deductions, business structure. It's handled. And their tech platform makes it easy to stay organized. You'll also get access to Gilt's full tax link library with guides on retirement plans, QBI, and more. So if you've got a business or you filed for an extension, this is the window to take control of your tax plan. Head to joingelt.com ramit to book a consultation. And as a member of my community, you get to skip the waitlist. Again, that's joingelt.com ramit join G-E-L-.com ramit taxes don't have to be a task with guilt. They can be a tool to build wealth. All right, no one likes it when I talk about death, but listen closely. You're going to die. Let's just talk about it. Let's acknowledge it. Let's plan for it. Like if I were hit by a bus tomorrow, I want to know that my family is set up and protected because I'm willing to have these awkward conversations and talk about what would happen next. If you have kids or if you have people who depend on your income, that could include getting term life insurance. From Fabric by Gerber Life. Fabric by Gerber Life is term life insurance you can get done today. It's made for busy parents like you. It's all online, on your schedule, right from your couch. You could be covered in under 10 minutes with no health exam required. If you've got kids, especially if you are young and healthy, now may be the best time to lock in low rates. And even if you have life insurance through your employer, that may not be enough to protect your family, especially if you leave your job. Fabric offers flexible, high quality coverage for less than a dollar a day. And it's backed by Gerber Life, trusted by millions of families for over 50 years. Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at meetfabric.com/ramit. That's meetfabric.com ramit m E-E-T fabric.com ramit Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company not available in certain states. Prices subject to underwriting and health questions. Ron, I'm curious about the burden that you are starting to understand. I wonder if you can talk a little bit more about that.

I mean, she tries to talk to me about money, but she's right, you know, I usually don't want to hear about it because I don't want to see the numbers. And that just causes a lot of friction, you know, between us. She's, she's trying. I'm resistant about it.

And what effect do you think that has on her.

Oh, man. Just. Just the stress and. Just the strain that it, it puts on our relationship, you know, that she's the one that she has the burden of. Of doing it all. Like, it's. It's not easy for her.

I don't want to speak for you, Christina, but I wonder if there's any cultural issues at play. I wonder if there's any age related issues at play. Christina, what do you think?

Age wise, it puts a lot of pressure on me to, like, have to get, like, get my things together when I feel like, okay, like I'm 30, I could make a little bit of mistake, but I feel like I can't because he's 45 and I need to think about him because he's not thinking about himself.

What I heard, Ron, was you articulated so well. You said, I'm resisting. She's trying to pull me, and I'm resisting. And I think, Christina, you just offered a really quite vivid demonstration of why this is. If we contextualize it, why this is so important to you. You have a different view on what poor is. You want a partner. I get that, right? Am I. Am I being accurate in that?

Yeah, you are.

Is there anything that you want to tell Ron that you've never told him about money before?

You know, the more we talk about it right now, I do feel alone. It makes me, you know, have doubts of our relationship sometimes because of it. And it scares me, too. And I feel like I can't tell him I'm scared because I'm the one that manages it.

So you have to be strong even though you're scared. Tough to hear.

I mean, I guess deep down I kind of knew that was the case. But hearing it right now, that hurts. It doesn't hurt me. It hurts that it hurts her that she's feeling this way because I never want my partner to feel that way. I never want to hurt them in any way. I think that's why I work so hard. She is looking for a partner. She's looking for someone that she can just bounce ideas off. You know, she doesn't. She's always said she doesn't care if we don't make that much money. Like if we made half as much as we do right now, she doesn't care. Just as long as we are there together doing everything together.

You're playing ball with me. And I really like that. Like, these are tough conversations. Okay? And you have been here every step of the way. Christina, you too. So, Ron. What? I like that. I just heard you say is you understand the pain that you're causing Christina. Okay? That's hard, okay? I can't make you realize there's a problem, but you did that. Okay? I can offer you a couple of solutions and then we can talk about it. This idea that she's better at the day to day. First of all, let's get rid of this dumb concept. It's a thing in our culture, okay? She does the day to day, and I make the big decisions about the car and the house. Well, first of all, in order to make the big decisions, you actually need to be quite financially sad, okay? You need to understand ratios and all kinds of stuff. Second of all, the day to day for a lot of the stuff that used to be valuable, like paying bills on time. Please listen to me, America. That's not valuable, okay? It's not you. If somebody comes to me and says, I manage the money, I say, what does that mean to you? They go, oh, I make sure the bills are paid on time. I go, a robot can do that better than you. You have been automated. What has way, way more value, like a hundred thousand times more value is deciding, is our savings rate 7% or 9%? Is our investment rate 6% or 11%? That is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, Whether you paid your target bill, irrelevant. Okay? All right, so the real solution here is that you've both got to get involved. Christina, you're probably gonna offload some of what you've been doing to Ron. Ron is going to take it on. Ron may not be perfect at it. I don't mind. Ron's going to make a couple mistakes. Big deal, fix it, get on with it next month. That's my approach. Christina, how does that sound to you? Would you be willing to offload some of the things you're doing to Ron?

Would love to.

Can you think of anything that you'd like to.

Insurance.

Okay.

Because he's a finance manager, I feel like he'll know all the insurance stuff better than I will.

I guess I'm just worried, like, what you want her to unload on me. Because you're right. I am worried about making a mistake and putting us into some financial spiral or something.

What mistake are you worried that you'll do? Like, give me an example, bankrupt us. I mean, did Christina mention that you're a finance manager?

Yeah.

Okay, so like, when you're doing deals or whatever, you're talking about interest rates, right? What kind of interest rates are you offering right now? What do you sell anyway?

Motorcycles.

Okay, so what kind of interest rate are people getting these days?

Depending on their credit score. I mean, they're going from mid single digits up to bad credit, high 20s.

What the 20% interest rate on a motorcycle?

Oh, like, depending on their credit score. 28, 29%.

And you're buying. How much do these motorcycles cost?

Ooh, anywhere from 10 to 50.

What the is going on right now? All right. I can't believe. Anyway, why was I even asking that question? Ron, I'd like you to read this off as well. Let's talk gross monthly income combined. What number do you see there?

$17,044.

So how much do you both make per year?

Little bit shy of $100,000.

What the hell are you talking about? Look at this number I just put on screen.

Yeah, but you got to remember, I go into slow periods where six months out of the year, it's really good, and then.

Oh, so this doesn't account for that.

This is.

Go ahead, Go ahead, Christina.

This is a projection of what we're gonna make this year.

Well, okay, hold on. I'm very confused because Ron said just shy of a hundred. Christina, you want to speak up? You have a real big smile on your face right now.

He doesn't know how much he makes. I told you, we made 120 last year, but I never told him how much we were gonna make this year because I was making money moves this year. Couldn't even project how much I was going to make this year, but that was my best guess.

Okay, like, this is an interesting scenario then. Ron, you. You told me a little while ago that I'd like to make more money, and when I do make 30k more, I hopefully I'll feel better. Okay, just stand by. You're going to make almost double what you made last year as a household. You feel better about money?

Hearing you say it.

That.

Hearing you say it, yes.

Really? You feel better?

I feel a little bit better. Tell me now. I feel better knowing that we're gonna. That we're making more than we did last year.

And now one more question for you. Can you tell me about a time in the next month where you will go to Christina and you will tell her that you would like to go spend money on X, Y, or Z. What will it be?

It'll probably be something for the both of us. It'll probably be either be a dinner or recently I've been thinking, like, hey, let's just go get, like, a hotel room overnight that has, like, a water park kind of thing, you know? Something that we could just get away from this or that for. For a night. Go have a little fun together. I've recently been thinking about stuff like that.

I love that. Part of what's going to happen is this recalibration of the roles, right? From one person pulling and the other kind of resisting to maybe both of you trying to. To go the same direction. First of all, hilarious yet again, let me remind you that fully 50% of the people on this podcast do not even know how much money they make. So when I'm on Twitter and some grizzled old financial advisor tells me that I'm irresponsible for not talking about the technicalities of municipal versus corporate bonds, I just stare at this person, knowing that half of the people who affirmatively apply to be on this podcast in front of millions of millions of people talking about their own finances do not even know how much money they make. The bar is so much lower than people in the financial industry realize in terms of knowledge. But of course, you'd only know that if you actually talk to everyday people. Do I have a bone to pick with the financial industry? You're goddamn right I do. Anyway, back to Christina and Ron. Let's look at their Numbers. They have $352,000 of assets, $83,800 in investments, $13,600 in savings, $497,000 in debt, for a total net worth of negative $47,800.

The debt is the first thing that I notice.

Yeah, it's a big debt. What kind of debt?

It's the house and school or the big debts in there.

Okay. How much do you owe on the house?

Around 200.

Okay. What is this? Life insurance? Is this whole life insurance, Christina?

Whole and term.

Oh, my God. What the.

I know.

How much are you. You're putting 430amonth into this whole life insurance policy.

Yeah, for both of us.

That's a lot of money. All right. You have pet insurance? Is this for real?

We do. And it's.

I don't. I don't even. You know what? I don't even know, nor. Whatever. It's fine. All right. Your car payment is a thousand dollars a month. What car is this?

That's two cars and two motorcycles.

Okay. That's a lot of cars for two people. How much are these motorcycles?

The one motorcycle is just about to get paid off. I think there's only like $2,000 worth that we owe on that. And then the other motorcycle is probably only like 5,500 to 6,000 debt payments.

What is 450? What is this debt payment?

That's the credit card. We. We have a credit card debt.

How much?

Right now we have about 30 of that is credit card.

$30,000 in credit card debt. How did this not come up before from.

There was a year that Ronnie was switching jobs, like, had five different jobs in one year. And so we weren't having a consistent income. And I wasn't established in my career yet. So we needed some way to make ends meet. And the credit card was the easiest thing.

Is this the minimum $450 a month?

Yeah. There's no interest on them right now because I balance transferred them, but $30,000 is the whole lot of it.

Let me just say everybody sounds real calm about $30,000 of credit card debt. How come I'm the one freaking out about this?

I'm not scared of debt. $200,000 of a student loan. That's scary to me. More than the $30,000 credit card debt. And we've paid off a lot from that.

How much?

We were probably at 50, and then it came down to 30.

Ron, what do you think about that credit card debt?

I hate it.

Really? You hate it? But, like, you didn't even mention it when we were talking about the debt.

The credit card debt, it's just because it's all lumped into one. But the credit card debt is. It's something. That's something that my parents got into troubles with when they weren't financially, you know, doing well.

All right, let's keep going. But I'll just say that $30,000 of credit card debt is extreme. Red flag alert. Okay. Extreme. Your pet care is 500 bucks. So, I mean, really, your pets are also. Plus the 175. That's 675amonth. Plus probably some extra stuff you didn't counter. That's 7, 800 bucks a month for pets.

Yeah.

Okay. Domestic help. 380. Somebody to clean your place. Is that what we're talking about? Okay, fine. And you have a vacation. Oh, my God. Do you have a timeshare? Is this a joke? What is this?

I'm gonna let him take it.

What is this?

So, yeah, it is.

What the hell? I cannot believe this. If you're not watching this on YouTube, my jaw is literally dropped. Christina and Ron came to me because she was concerned he wasn't taking finances seriously in their relationship. Now I find out they have $30,000 in credit card debt, which they seemingly are not even concerned about. And a timeshare. Oh, and two motorcycles, whole life insurance, and Noah's Ark full of pets. Just wait until you find out how the timeshare actually happened, which I will pick up on next week in part two of my conversation with Christina and Ron. Thanks for listening to I Will Teach youh to Be Rich. I'm Ramit Sethi. Please follow the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you haven't read I will teach you to be Rich my book. Pick up a copy, you can get it at any bookstore or any library, and it will show you the specific tactics for how to build the I will teach you to be rich system into your personal finances.