222. “My husband is my 4th child. Will he ever help?”
13 Dec 2025 · 99 min
Podcast episode (Ramit Sethi with Fernie and George) about a couple’s strained financial and emotional dynamic after 25 years of marriage. Fernie (44) manages day-to-day money alone while George (48) has largely avoided finances; they share three children, one 18‑year‑old son with severe complications from prematurity (cerebral palsy, epilepsy) that require ongoing care. The CSP review reveals severe financial stress: gross annual income ≈ $130,000, total debt reported ~$313k (line items later summed to ~$353k), total net worth ≈ $31,047, and only $311 in liquid savings. Fixed costs run extremely high (95% before interventions). Ramit confronts role/avoidance patterns (parent–child dynamic around money), leads a rapid triage of expenses (cuts to groceries, subscriptions, pausing kid investments/vacation funds), and pushes for concrete actions (increase side income, sell clutter, create emergency fund and aggressive debt-payoff plan). Episode ends with early follow-ups: they refinanced, reduced phone/car payments, stopped some savings buckets, began emergency-fund contributions, sold items, and report improved conversations and George’s increased involvement.
Chapters
It's a joke in the family too, that I have four kids instead of three. Pretty apparent.
I don't know why I'm not engaged with my dad.
I don't want people to see him like, as my child. I don't want that disrespect.
In my mind it is. It is working, but in my heart, I know it's not.
Do you understand that I will stay on this call for five years before I speak and make it easier for you? You're leading this, not me.
I try sometimes, but yeah, it always backfire.
It kind of pisses me off because our relationship is so great, but because he acts more like my kid instead of my partner and that kind of pissed me off that finances or that money would break our marriage.
Today is one of the most difficult conversations that I've had on this podcast and I want to apologize in advance for losing my temper a couple of times. I always want to make this a welcoming conversation, even if I disagree with some of the things that my guests say. So I'm going to ask you to be respectful in the comments. Remember that it takes a lot of courage to come on this show. Today I'm speaking with Fernie and George. They're 44 and 48 years old, married for 25 years, and every month they spend more than they make. Furnie applied because as the sole person who manages their day to day finances, she feels like she is failing their three children, one of whom has special needs. She's desperate to get George to help her manage the money, but nothing seems to work. He just won't do it. I'm looking at their conscious spending plan right now which breaks down their net worth income and where they spend their money. You can download and create your own conscious spending plan or csp@iwt.com CSP 331,000 investments, 12,000 savings, $311.
That's a huge red flag.
Debt. $313,000. Total net worth is 31,000 and their gross monthly income is $10,000. By the way, their fixed costs are at 95%, which is completely unsustainable. Let's get into today's conversation.
Fernie, I understand that you and George are raising three children and one has special needs and money has been a big concern for you. If nothing changes from the situation you are in today, what will happen?
I will end up in a hospital.
Why is that?
Because I constantly worry. I don't sleep, I overwork myself, and I've even been told by my medical doctor to put attention to it. There's. There's no way, physically, mentally, anything possible to keep going the same way I'm going. And it just terrifies me of where my son will end up if we don't wake up.
Why is that?
Because he's never going to be able to provide for himself. He's never going to be able to live on his own. He's just not capable. He's always going to be under our care. And it just dawned on me when he turned 18 that he's not going to be one to move away. And if we don't do something about it, if we don't look out for his future, he's going to end up God knows where. And that. That brings me a lot of guilt.
George, what does it feel like hearing this?
So I feel the same way she's feeling right now. I feel like I need to her and give her a hug and say, I'm with you. I understand. That's how I feel right now. Yeah.
And do you share the concerns she has about your son?
Yes, to a certain point, because I'm more optimistic. I'm very. You know, everything's gonna be great. Things are not gonna go wrong. He's gonna have a great life. We're gonna do great things. I'm positive. I'm always like, you know, I don't see her concerns because I feel like we are gonna do the right thing for him.
Has this caused conflict between the two of you? George being what you describe as optimistic and Fernie taking on so much burden and stress that it causes you physical maladies? Fernie says yes.
Yes.
And how long has this been going on for? I'm gonna guess the entire relationship.
No.
Yeah.
Yes.
Well, that's interesting. Fernie said yes, and George said no because he's optimistic. Go ahead, George.
Yes. I don't feel like doing like this, like, our entire relationship. We've been married for 25 years. I mean, we've. The beginning. We didn't have a lot of. We were young. We didn't have responsibilities that we have right now. And definitely things change. So I feel like it has changed throughout, but not since the beginning.
Fernie, you mentioned that your son has special needs. Would you be comfortable sharing whatever feels okay with you?
Yeah. So he was born premature. He was born at 23 weeks. So he spent about six months in the NICU. And with that came a severe brain bleed that caused him to have cerebral palsy. He has cerebral palsy. He has epilepsy. So he. He even though he's 18. He's like a little kid. He's not able to walk unassisted. He's in a wheelchair. He has a lot of medical appointments and stuff. But, I mean, considering they had told us he was going to be in a vegetative state for the rest of his life, he's not. He's bilingual, so he speaks English and Spanish, so he's. He's doing good considering what they had told us. But he's still, you know, he. He's very limited.
I see. Okay. Thank you for letting me know that. I. I did not know that. Can you share how your son has affected your finances together?
Oh, boy. He's the reason why I went back to school. So we were carefree. We. Like he said, we got married very young once he was born, and I saw everything that it took for him to be in the hospital and all the bills, and I started seeing the, the financial strain that it was going to cause and, and that weren't. We weren't going to be able to make it on. On just minimum wage to, to meet his needs. So that's when I started to kind of wake up. And I didn't even have high school, so I had to go back, get my ged and I got the bachelor's master's and started to find a way to provide a better future for him.
Wow.
Well done. I mean, that's an incredibly tough situation, and it's. To have gone and gotten your high school degree and then on and on in advanced degrees is very impressive. You said in your application that, quote, if something happened to you, George wouldn't know what to do. Can you give me an example of that?
He has no idea, like, where all my information, of all the bills that I pay, of all our finances. I know he says, like, you should have more confidence in me, but he has absolutely no idea where. If we have life insurances, if we have stocks, if we have investments, if we have where the four 1Ks, the logins, anything. He, he. He doesn't know.
Okay. George, what would you say your level of awareness around the family finances is?
She's right. She's right. I am not informed.
Why is that?
I feel like we. I'll be able to find the information and get access to it if it's needed, but I don't feel like I need to get to that info at that moment. You know what I mean?
Are you not involved in the. Managing the family money?
No.
Okay. Do. Do you care?
Yeah, I do.
Why do you say it like that you say like, yeah, like, of course I care, but you're not involved at all. How come?
I don't know. I mean, I, I, I, I go to work, I try to make the best of bringing money in, and I know what it needs to get paid. I need, I, we get together and we do. So I guess my, my way of trying to care is like, go and work. Go make the money. Go bring it in. And that's how I see it.
Have the two of you had this conversation and agreed on each of your roles with money?
It just kind of landed this way.
How would you describe it, Fernie? The roles that each of you has with money?
I don't know how to say it without being hurtful. And that's where I have trouble, because I don't, I don't want to be hurtful. I don't want to say the wrong things. And I have trouble trying to find the right words to say it. Not that he doesn't care, but it's, he's, I guess, too optimistic to. Like I said before, it'll work out. We will find a way. But that's because it's always me on background, figuring out the way, finding the way, looking at moving things around to make it work. And it just makes me very upset because it doesn't feel like he's taking it seriously.
When was the last time this happened?
A week ago.
A week ago.
Okay. Do you remember where you were exactly?
In the living room.
Okay. What was happening? Can we recreate the situation? Whoever began that conversation, go ahead and do the same thing right now. I'll just listen in.
So I was looking at the budget, and we're going to have to make $500 this week to be able to make the payments and be able to get ahead. We are probably not going to make it till payday, so we're going to have to kind of put money in before then. I want to sit down with you so we can take a look and try to figure out how we can plan it in the next couple of months to make it easier for me.
And I was like, well, then I need to, I need to start going, I need to go to work. Let me just go log in and start making money. And to stop me, no, you need to sit down. We need to talk about this. And I'm like, but I need to go. I can't stop and chitchat. I need, like, I need to, I feel like I need to go.
And then what happened?
I got frustrated, angry. I closed My laptop, and I just went upstairs to start crunching numbers.
Okay, thank you. That was very helpful. So, Fernie, you're. You're going after him? Almost beseeching him. Here's my. Here's the numbers, here's the spreadsheet, here's the budget. And George, you're going, like, closing down. Okay, I see that. And at this moment, what does each of you want at that very moment? Fernie.
Partner Support.
Thank you. And George, what do you want at that very moment?
I want to make the call. I want to get what she. What? The number. She said I want to make it happen.
That's what I. What does Fernie want in this very moment? She just told us.
She wants me to. To work together.
Yep. And what do you think she wants?
She wants me to make it happen.
Look at her face. What is she doing right now?
She's saying no.
What does she really want?
I don't know.
Ask her.
But do you really want.
I want you to, like, actually sit down, listen, support me, not run. Because the first thing you want to do is run. And that's not going to solve anything. Because what if I am wrong? What if I did things wrong and I'm not seeing it? Because I am so blinded by being so deep in it. So I would like for you to slow down, sit down, look things over with me, and figure out a way to move forward without me having to figure out everything for us. And just say, here's what you need to do. Because that's not my job, George.
Okay. I'm willing to do that. I want to do that. Definitely. I want to slow down.
Then Fernie said that she wanted connection. She wanted you to slow down and to talk with her. To listen. Looking now at you in that conversation, what did you really want at that very moment?
To really listen.
No, you didn't. You didn't want to listen. You didn't listen. What did you actually want? I don't know. You wanted it to be over.
Kinda. Yeah.
You wanted it to be over. You wanted the conversation to end. You wanted to run out the door so you could start earning money. And that's exactly what happened. She closed her laptop. And then you got that feeling of relief. Correct me if I'm wrong. What do you think?
Yes. Yes.
How come you didn't say that? I'm curious.
Maybe I don't see it. I don't see it.
Tell me more.
Yeah, like, to me, I was like, I believe that she got the numbers right. I'm very confident on what she's saying to me. So to me, it's like, this is what needs to be done. Go do it. You know, it's like I, I guess I am leaving out that weight onto her. That's what it is.
Right away you could see what's happening here. George is not involved in the family finances. He doesn't track the accounts, he doesn't know the logins, he doesn't even know how much money they have. But the deeper issue is that he doesn't think this is a problem. To him, bringing in income is enough. Basically, it's I go to work, that's my role. But the moment that Fernie asks him to sit down and look at the numbers, did you catch what he does? He runs. He says, I need to go to work. This is essentially a way of escaping. And we could talk about all the layers beneath this, the layers of identity and gender and culture. But the bottom line is he avoids money. And what's worse, he thinks that saying I need to go to work is actually helpful. But Fernie isn't asking him to go to work. She's asking him to make a plan together. Fernie is not particularly skilled at managing their finances. She uses a massive spreadsheet with multiple tabs, hundreds of columns. She actually showed it to me. Most of the numbers were in red. And even looking at it, I felt overwhelmed. Listen. Now as I press her on this spreadsheet that she obsesses over every single day.
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Fernie, you mentioned this spreadsheet that you showed to George.
Yes.
If I can guess, Fernie, you work on this a lot? Every month. How often? How many hours you put into this per month?
I work on it in every day.
How long?
Two, three hours.
At least three hours a day on that spreadsheet?
Yeah.
Yes. Because I have to keep moving numbers from the months that are coming because something happens. So then I have to adjust everything.
Fernie, can I ask you a difficult question? Why do you do it?
I think it's a comfort at this point. It's kind of like a comfort seeing and trying to see when it's going to be over, but it never is.
When you open up your computer every day and you look at the, you look at the numbers, what do you feel?
Red.
Does that feeling change before you see the numbers? Like right in the morning when you're opening that laptop?
Like a pending doom. It just feels like a pending doom. And I want that doom to be over. And I try to move numbers around to make me feel better, to make me feel like there's gonna be an end. And if I do this, there, we're gonna get to the end of it.
When do you feel good about your money?
The only time I feel good is when I'm able to provide for what my kids need and I get them something that they need other than that money at this point, right now is just worse and anxiety.
I hate hearing that. I'm so glad we get a chance to talk, because even if you're in debt or even if there are all these circumstances, I still want people to feel in control of their money.
Right.
You can have a bad situation and still be in control because at least you have a plan. I don't see a plan right now. What I see is treading water, and if I stop moving my arms around and kicking my legs, we are going to sink. Fernie is nodding. George is nodding. George, what do you think from everything you just heard Fernie describe?
I feel the same way. I actually, I feel like every time we see our plan and it's not changing, is is it could go really bad. And that's why we need to, we need to be not on red numbers. We need to be off red numbers.
Okay. Would you say that you are truly engaged or are you a spectator?
A little bit about both.
Okay, tell me about both. Tell me about the engaged part.
Engaged, because I, I, I want to work towards our goal. And I, I'm looking for what is it that we need for this week? You know, and the part of me being the expectator is that I let her do all the work.
Why is it hard for you to get engaged with the finances in general?
I feel like a, like I can't do it. We had to go to more capable.
It was that bad.
Fernie, how come you're answering for George?
I do it unconsciously.
He doesn't deal with the money. So you deal with the money. He doesn't want to talk about the spreadsheet. You close the laptop and go away, which is what he wants. He's trying to answer my question. I think he's doing a pretty good job. You jump in and answer for him.
Yep. Sorry about that. I'm sorry I interrupted you. I tend to do that a lot. I'm sorry.
Do you both know why this dynamic happens?
There's a lot of tension around finances. I get very tense, I get very anxious. I get very triggered.
What have you done to break out of this pattern? I'm curious.
I work more.
You're like, if I work harder, if I plug in more numbers, maybe I can find a way to get us out of this. If I spend three hours, not two, like, I'll figure out how to stay ahead of the impending doom. George, is it the same for you? Like, I'm going to work. I'm going to work. I'm going to make more money, bring that money home.
Yes. That's the way I'm making more money. And then we're doing extra work outside of regular jobs. So, yeah, that's. That's kind of like our mindset.
Right.
Right now, one of the things I asked you to do before we spoke was to create a conscious spending plan together and to put your numbers in there. Were you able to do that?
Yeah. Wow.
Deep breath from Fernie, Bernie. Why. Why you take that deep breath? That came from the diaphragm. What is that?
Because it's, It's. It. I mean, I put him to sleep. He was asleep. He was falling asleep, and he had no idea. It. It's the same dynamic where I was asking him things and he was just answering, but not because he wanted to be engaged, not wanted to answer. He. It's something he had to do.
George, is that true?
Yeah, it is true.
Help me understand that. Like, you're coming on this show, right? You know, that you're going to talk to me. What's going through your mind when you talk about the csp?
Because I believe so much in what? That she doing better than. I'm not going to be able to handle how she handles it, how good she does, what she does. I'm not at that level. You know what I mean? So I, of course I get. I give it all to her and I give her, like, you know, the responsibility. But I guess it's because I feel like I'm not good enough to do it.
George, in the book that I just wrote, money for Couples, there's a money.
Type called the avoider.
They avoid money at all costs. They avoid talking about it. They avoid dealing with it. They avoid it. And one of the techniques that they use is they tell their partner, babe, you're better at this than I am.
I trust you.
Me, I'll just mess it up. But you, you're so much better. That's why you're good. You've got it handled. Does that sound familiar? To what you do with Fernie?
Yeah. To the. To the T. Yeah.
Avoiders also do things like avoid. When their partner tries to show them something, they'll look at it.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, that's fine. Looks fine. They won't actually engage with it. That's why when I asked you when was the last time you disagreed with a number, you said, never.
I know.
Until their partner closes the laptop and goes upstairs, and the avoider gets to say, perfect, I just bought myself another couple of days of avoiding money. Does this sound familiar?
Yes.
Is this working for you, George?
Obviously not. And then I don't want this to continue.
Hold on. It's not obvious to me. Because right now it seems like, financially speaking, it's okay for you. You go to work, you do your work, you come home, and then that's it. Everything's handled. Finances are fine as far as you're concerned. It will be fine. We'll pull through. We always have. So it's not obvious that it's not working. To me, it actually seems like it's working pretty well for you, financially speaking.
Yeah.
So which is it? Is it working or is it not working?
In my mind, it is. It is working. But in my heart, I know it's not.
Fernie, what's your reaction hearing that?
Story of my life. I guess I. It's very comfortable for him, and. And it's easy. And I've made it easy for him. And it was a lot easier when it was just three of us, but we multiplied into five. And it's. It's. It's becoming a bigger burden, and it's taking a toll on my health, and that's what I'm concerned about. And I tell them, like, you have to take care of what's taking care of you, and you seem to be neglecting that.
Mm.
How many times do you think you've said that?
We've been to counseling because I've had nervous breakdowns. It's been so bad.
I'm sorry to hear that. I'm glad that you're in counseling. Are you still in it?
No, because I was getting nowhere with that and couples counseling. We. We. He was. It was pointless.
How long did you go for?
Two months.
Two months. That's it?
He started. He started great. He started doing the work, and then he got comfortable and stopped. Stopped trying to go and figure things out and get involved. It went back to, well, you do a great job, so keep chugging along.
When he dropped that ball, when George said, you're doing great, whether it's with the finances or the work that you were doing in therapy, in what ways did you pick that ball back up?
I have no choice. Well, I do have a choice, but makes me more upset that it. That finances or that money would break our marriage. It. It. It kind of me off because our relationship is so great, but because he acts more like my kid instead of my partner, it's tearing our marriage and that kind of me off. And I. I think, no, I'm not gonna let stupid money ruin us. And I try to pick the ball up because I don't want it to ruin us.
Hold on. I love that energy you just brought. That was the first time I heard you get truly engaged.
It me off.
Good. I like hearing that somebody off might be willing to make a change. And then I was with you.
It me off.
That money is going to be the thing to drive us apart. Okay, I'm with you. And then at the very last minute, you.
You veered left. So then I pick up the ball.
And take it all on back on myself because.
Yeah.
Can we just do that again? It me off and then this time turn right instead of left.
What would right be?
I want for this to come off to. To the point where he sees that it could break our marriage and that something like that shouldn't break our marriage. It's stupid. We've been through so much.
Yeah.
And for finances to be our doom, it's ridiculous.
Can I ask you. Now I'm getting curious. Why does. Why does money really you off? When you think of money, you think of, like, what comes to mind? Is it. Is it that spreadsheet that comes to your mind when you think of money?
When I think of money, it. It to my mind, it comes in two. It could be. It could either bring safety, peace, tension, hardships.
I want to take a look at the csp. So from my understanding, Fernie, you brought up the fact that you needed to do the csp. Correct.
Correct.
And then you brought it to George, and George, you were not particularly interested. Is that a fair assessment?
Yeah.
Yes.
Okay. Who did the work to put the CSP together?
I did.
Okay. Any collaboration?
I asked them.
Oh, you.
You asked him what, like, the questions if I needed a number. Like, hey, can you look it up? Kind of stuff like that.
Are we ready to play, like, play ball here or are we, like, operating like there's a two year old in the room? Because I don't see a 2 year old in this room.
No, I want him to feel engaged. I want to make it. I guess it's not very exciting, but I want him to. To. To kind of want the same things I want. Like, and I know he kind of does, but I. I don't. I don't want to feel like I'm talking to a wall.
I see that now.
George, I think you're giving me the answers you think I want to hear.
No, no, no. I think.
I think you're doing the same thing you do with Fernie. Fernie's nodding her head, trying. You're avoiding. And inside, deep down, you're like, I want this conversation to be over as quickly as possible. I want Ramit to shut his laptop so this can end and I can buy five more days of not talking about money. And so you are giving me every answer you think that I want to hear. George, I don't need you to answer what I want to hear. I'm here to help you. But I can't help you and you, Fernie, unless you are both honest with me. George, do you see that happening here?
Yeah.
I'm not going to fix you. You are going to fix your situation, not me.
Yeah.
At this point, I'm starting to get frustrated. I've tried being patient. I've tried listening. I've tried asking questions in different ways, but George keeps doing the same thing. He's telling me what he thinks I want to hear. He's saying, I care. I'm trying. She's just better at it than me.
Honestly.
I don't mind someone not knowing the details of personal finance. I don't even mind people who come on this show having never read my book. That's most people in America. I don't mind it, but the lack of interest is really starting to irritate me. Your wife is overwhelmed. She's telling you this is a 10 out of 10 problem and you're just here repeating tired old phrases. If you are Watching this and you've been in this situation, it can feel maddening. I put together a free mini course to give you the tools to change this dynamic. It's called Money Made Easy, and you can Download it@iwt.com MoneyPod the challenge with George now is getting him to actually engage. So I'm going to shift tactics. Let's see what happens when I shift the burden onto him.
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@Trustandwill.Com ramIT My wife and I were recently in Tokyo and we had a great opportunity to learn a counterintuitive lesson. We were looking for some cool dishware, you know, like cool bowls and plates. And it was actually really hard to find the exact stuff that we wanted. We had a list of stores, some said they were open. We would get on the train, we would go there, they were actually not open. Once in a while, we would find some amazing dishware. But then it turns out they didn't ship back to the US and so this was a lot harder than we initially thought. And the lesson was, sometimes there is actually value in middlemen. Yes, I can't believe I'm actually saying this. I hate middlemen. But sometimes there is value. For example, let's imagine that we went to a Japanese homeware store in New York. Okay, the plates are probably going to cost two or three times more than what we found in Tokyo. But that store, that middleman, already has imported the products into the US we know that they're curated. We know they're not going to break as they get shipped across the world. We know that somebody selected a few beautiful pieces, which saved us tons of time. Again, I'm not a fan of middlemen in general. In my twenties, I was adamantly against them, all of them. But I've learned that in some parts of life, middlemen actually add quite a bit of value. I want to get what I want without the big headache. And sometimes I'm willing to have somebody else curate it and figure out some of the logistics. And if that costs me a little bit more, great. That's one of the reasons that I use upwork. In recent months, my team and I have hired a content editor to help with emails, a graphic designer for a new product, and even a developer who helped us quickly fix our website. Posting a job on upwork was easy. It's free to join. You can register, browse freelancer profiles, get help drafting a job post, or even book a consultation. And from there, you connect with freelancers, browse their work, and you can hire them easily to get started on projects right away. Upwork makes the whole process easier and more affordable. With industry low fees, you can find top talent across a ton of different industries, including it, web dev, design, marketing, admin support, all of it. So visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That's Upwork.com to post your job for free and connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's upwork.com upwork.com.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to pop this CSP up on screen and I'm actually going to turn it over to the two of you. I would like to hear the two of you diagnosing your conscious spending plan, almost as if you are floating above it and looking at it as if it was someone else's. I'm going to leave it to you to diagnose your own csp, because this is different than lying back with your hands above your head saying, fix me. This is actually the two of you working together. I'm going to ask George to take the lead on this, not Fernie. Here we go. Go ahead.
Okay, so assets, that is the amount that we have current in value. So we have $331,000. Investments, we have 12,736. Savings, we have $311. And debt, we're 313,000 in debt. So. So total net worth is only $31,047. I mean, $47.
$31,047 for total net worth. Okay, before we continue. Well done, George. What is your analysis of those numbers?
What.
What do you think I need to say more? Got to go deeper than that.
Definitely. We need to remove that debt so those assets can be positive money.
Do you understand that I will stay on this call for five years before I speak and make it easier for you. You're leading this, not me. Keep it moving.
Okay. Okay. So we need to increase on saving. Investments. We need to work on investments. We definitely need to have that debt off our back so we can have the assets to be positive. And our monthly gross income right now is not helping. We need to make more money. Monthly income. Yeah. That's what we need to do to be able to fix this.
What do you understand about these numbers?
Not a lot to tell you.
It's pretty evident. I mean, you were essentially reading off what was on the screen.
Mm.
What I'm looking for is what does it mean? What does it mean? The fact that you have three kids and you have $311 in savings. What does that mean?
It's not enough.
Okay. It's not enough. What does it mean? What if one of you gets sick? Hold on. Let's pause. Fernie. Fernie is. I noticed you suddenly started crying. Fernie, you want to take a break?
Sorry. It's because this is hard. This is what I've been trying to make them see, that it's. It's not okay.
Okay.
I'm gonna. I'm gonna help that. But I'm curious. What is going on with you that caused you to suddenly start crying?
We only have $300 in savings that doesn't even cover food for a day. I mean, it's. It's insane. It's hard. It's just hard. And it's been hard for a while, and it's been very heavy on my shoulders.
Yeah, I can see that. I can see it's overwhelming.
It is.
Will you trust me to try to help get you at least both towards a closer, similar page?
Oh, yes.
Okay.
George, what do you notice about Fernie's reaction there?
I should scare.
Why?
Because we're in the trouble. We don't have enough money. We have no positive money to work with.
And your.
Lack of engagement with the conscious spending plan, how do you think that affects her? Your wife is crying, she's sick, and it doesn't seem like you've made any changes. Can you explain that? Why?
I don't.
I don't.
I don't know what you mean. That haven't. I mean.
I mean, you didn't do the csp. You don't even know what these numbers mean. Yeah, this is like the bare minimum. This is like there's 20 numbers on this page. They're very easy. You didn't do even that. Why? I'm not trying to blame you. I'm trying to understand.
I don't know why. No, I don't know why I'm not engaged with money.
I mean, what's the worst that's going to happen?
I don't want to leave it out after her.
But you've been doing that for the last 24 years.
Because I trust her.
She doesn't want to do it herself. She can't do it herself. Okay, Fernie, I'm going to speak to you directly. What are you noticing going on here?
I mean, he's doing what he always usually does. Like, if ignorance is bliss, if it's. If I don't speak about it, if I don't engage in it, it'll eventually go away and everything will be how it usually is. And I take some blame in it because I should have pressured Maura. Maybe I should have been more outspoken and not let it get to this point. But it was easier for me to just do it than to wait for him to realize it.
And now you took that pressure off 20 years ago. You took it all on yourself. And now. What is the effect of that?
Yeah, now I'm sending myself to the grave. I'm like, burning the candle at both ends and dowsing it with a lighter fluid.
Do you want a change?
I do.
Do you want to change?
I do.
I know you want him to change, but I'm not asking about that. I'm asking, do you want to change?
I do.
Okay.
I do. I. It's not healthy for me to not change.
What changes are you willing to make?
Any changes that I need to make to make it better.
Anything.
Anything.
Really?
Yes.
These are the greatest words I ever hear on this podcast. Somebody who comes and says, I'm willing to change, I'm willing to do anything if it's going to help get what I want. Is that what you're telling me?
Yes.
Okay, I'll play ball with that. I love that. If you are telling me you are willing to make any changes in order to have your partner potentially be more engaged with you, I'm down with that. George, I'm worried, actually, about asking you this question because I think you're just going to tell me you're willing to change everything, but you don't even know why you would make a change.
Yes, I know. I want my wife to be happy.
If you wanted your wife to be happy, you would have picked up the slack 20 years ago. She's been talking about this for decades, so I don't think that's really that powerful of a reason for you.
Okay.
She's unhappy. Look at her. She's literally telling you. You can see it on her face. She's saying, I'm unhappy with the way things are. Do you see that?
Yes.
She's been that way for a while, right?
Yes, she's been like that.
You haven't done anything about it, right?
I try sometimes, but. Yeah, it always backfire.
I don't think so. I. I don't believe that story. I try sometimes, but it backfires. So I have to go back and just keep to myself. I don't believe that.
Okay.
Do you?
I believe it. Yes.
Fernie, in his mind, he. He wants to believe that he's trying and that he's trying to make me happy, but he's not. He hears me. He doesn't listen.
What I'm hearing is that Fernie says she's willing to make any changes. I'll take you at face value and George will see. Let's see what unfolds as we start to talk more about these numbers. So we know that you have $31,000 of net worth, which includes only $311 in savings. Your income, your combined gross monthly income is $10,866 or $130,000 a year. Which of you knew that you make $130,000 a year? Fernie knew it, George.
I knew that we were over 100, but not 130.
Okay, that's a no. That's 50%. I'll take it. I noticed that your take home pay is like half of your gross income. Why is your net so low?
We're making sure that we leave enough for taxes because we are doing the side hustles and we don't want to end up paying a lot of taxes on that.
Let's continue on your fixed costs. 95%. What do you think about that?
A lot.
It's too high. You're broke.
Yes.
This section alone indicates that you are spending more than you make.
Right there.
That's the end of the ball game right there. Let's just continue on to see the rest. Investments are at 5%. It appears you're doing $280 a month in post tax. Are you doing any pre tax stuff like 401k?
Yes, yes we are.
Who's 401k?
Both of us.
How much are you putting in?
We're putting 5% each. Very little.
Okay.
And. And mine is actually. Mine is actually different because the way the my company is doing it is I'm paying towards my student loans and they're matching that in 401k. That's a great benefit that they have. So I'm really paying my student loans but they're matching that in 401k.
That's cool. What's it called? I never heard of that.
They just started this last year and it's a student debt match.
Oh, that's great.
All right.
I like that. So let's just say, just so we get a number here.
All right.
So you are investing decent amount. You know, like we're talking about like 16%, etc. Depending certainly over 10. Savings are at 10%. You're putting some money aside for vacations, putting some for gifts and $100 a month for a long term emergency fund. You just started that, right?
Yep.
One of the things that I love to be able to do is to help people get out of that pattern where no matter how much you try to get ahead, something knocks you backwards. And there is a way. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. It often takes radically. Reconceptualizing your relationship with money means you need to look at it in a whole new way, which I hope that we get a chance to do. Let's go down now to everything else or guilt free spending. It says negative 11%. I don't believe that number. That's just what the CSP calculates. You all eat out?
Rarely, but we do.
Like when was the last time you ate out?
A couple of Days ago we took the kids to Burger King.
Okay, what about before that?
We took them to McDonald's.
How long before that?
A week before that.
Okay, so rarely is once a week.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's the kids. You take them once a week to eat out or more.
Yes. No, it's. It's. We try to at least once a week because we're always working.
So what about for the two of you? What else are you spending money on in terms of, like, fun stuff?
I tend to buy a lot of stuff for the kids. Seriously, Puke can't walk without toys. Yeah, because even the furniture that we've gotten, we go to the Facebook marketplace and whoever's giving out, like free furniture and stuff, we go get it. Because I rather buy my kids toys.
And when you say you'd rather buy your kids toys, can you finish the sentence for me? I'd rather buy my kids toys than.
Buy myself a nice chair or buy myself nice furniture.
Yeah. But I will say that George seems to be sitting on a very nice.
Chair that was given to us.
It's nice.
Yeah.
What about that TV that we bought.
On a Black Friday? It was 150 bucks. I'm pretty proud of the 150 bucks. Well, I shouldn't be proud, but I got a good deal.
Fernie, did you grow up religious?
My parents were religious. My mother was religious.
I can tell you've made a couple of comments about. I'm going to paraphrase, but I'm bad. I'm dumb. I know I shouldn't have done that. I will tell you, it hurts hearing people talk about themselves like that. I don't love it. I don't think you would ever talk about me like that. I would certainly never talk about you like that. And to know that sometimes we say these really painful things about ourselves. There's usually something there. And oftentimes it is certain types of religious backgrounds. Not all, but some. Certain types of parents. Not all, but some. And it can cause very long lasting effects. Some of those effects I'm seeing when I look at the Amazon purchases and the home. And even the way you talk about yourself, even the way you wrote your application, I think you. I believe you called yourself dumb in the application. I don't think you're dumb. Just so you know.
Me neither.
I was in a very abusive relationship for a long, long time. That diminished me and made me believe things that are not true.
I'm sorry. Now that I understand that and looking at your csp, I want to get some clarity on the date debt. So your CSP indicates you have $313,000 of debt. Can you explain what comprises that debt, Fernie?
It includes the home. And then we have consolidation loans, credit cards and home repairs that we had to do.
Can you break it down for me? How much is the house?
The house we still owe 230.
Okay, consolidation.
So the consolidations, we have 9,774. And we have the 20,000. And then the home repairs was 4,255 and 8,891. Credit card. Credit cards, we have 7,685. And then we also have the freezer, which we still owe 3,000 on it. 3,397. Then I don't know what to call this. They sold us. A salesperson came to the house and they sold us a bunch of, like, air purifiers and all this stuff. We didn't ask the price. We got a bill and we still owed 13,000 on that.
What the.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, Sorry. Let's get the rest of the debt out. What else?
We still owe 20,000 on our car.
Okay.
Because we were negative on it. And then I have student loans. I still owe 34,000 of student loans.
What else?
I have a medical bill still pending And I owe 1800 on that one.
Anything else?
The rest is just everyday expenses stuff.
What do you think about these numbers?
It's terrible. There's some of them that hurt more than others.
Why?
Because I thought I knew better, yet I still made the mistake.
The numbers you told me add up to 353,000, not 313,000. You undercounted by $40,000 of debt?
Yep.
Fernie, you look defeated.
I feel defeated. I've been feeling defeated for a good amount of time because I thought I could do better and I haven't. And it's painful. It's not working, and I know that, but I don't know. I don't know how to fix it. Like I said, I feel defeated and I feel horrible because I obviously see and know that it's not working, what we're doing.
Sorry, what we are doing. I didn't catch that.
Who.
Who's doing.
It's what I'm doing. It's not working.
You find it difficult to say I.
Because I want to include him in everything.
Why?
He's my spouse. He's my partner. He should be.
I live in a world of what is, not what should be. And when I see $353,000 of debt just to be Very blunt. We need to get real. Like you talked about. We finally woke up. We need to get real. You said that on your application, but I don't hear anybody getting real with me right now. Fernie, you're trying to include George because you want to walk on eggshells and not make him uncomfortable.
Yeah.
I don't think we move forward unless we can actually call out what is happening here. Would you like to try again?
What I'm doing is not working. I need to change. I need to make sure that we're on the same page, that we work together and that we take this as seriously as it has to be taken. I was trying to not see the big elephant in the room and trying to ignore it. See, standing there on the corner, like, if I ignore it long enough in my mind, it's not. It's not there. I don't. I don't. If I don't look at it, it's not going to appear. And I'm not helping us in any way by just trying to ignore it and thinking it's gonna. It's gonna work one of these times. Because it hasn't.
That's real. I appreciate that.
I wanna jump in quickly because it's really easy to sit back and judge. You hear numbers like theirs. A couple that's spending more than they earn, they have barely any savings. They're buried in debt. You sit back and go, how could they let it get like this? You need to remember that most people have a very loose relationship with money. In fact, most people use the amount in their checking account to determine how good they feel about their entire financial situation. That's like me judging my health by the number of cucumbers in my fridge. And when you are overwhelmed financially and emotionally, you're not acting logically. It's not like you're sitting there carefully reading financial books and analyzing your debt to income ratio. You're often reacting out of fear. That's what we're seeing here. It's chaos. It's exhausting. It's waking up at 2am wondering how you're going to pay the next bill. It's creating a confusing spreadsheet that gives you the illusion of control even as you keep sinking. Please remember this is a family with three kids, including a boy with special needs. Their days are filled with doctor's appointments and caregiving responsibilities. How would you react in this situation? I don't know how I would react, but I bet my financial system would take a major hit. So I have a lot of compassion. For what they are going through every single day. If you know someone who's in a particularly difficult season of their financial life, send them this episode. Maybe it can make them feel less alone. But here, right now, we still need to change things. What is heartbreaking is noticing how Fernie has had to minimize her own needs just to keep things going. And that's what we're going to get into right after this. 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, 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 ghelt, 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 ghelt's full tax 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 join gelt.com ramit join g l t.com ramit taxes don't have to be a task with Gelt. They can be a tool to build wealth.
Fernie, would you describe yourself as passive in life?
Yes.
You're passive, Right? Somebody gives you the wrong meal at a restaurant, you go, it's fine, it's fine. I don't want to cause trouble.
Yes, I try to. I try to please people.
Yes.
And I even do that with friends and family. If they're in need and I'm still in financial trouble, I will still give them whatever I need to to for them to be okay.
Do you see how much that has cost you?
Yes. And I'm in Therapy for that.
Great.
Because I'm trying to fix that. Because it was very hard for me to say no.
Good.
Has money come up in those conversations?
It. It has started to come up. Yes.
Good, good, good. It's all connected. The inability to say no. It shows up everywhere in all the clues I'm seeing. For example, people who have credit card debt 100% of the time, they have an inability to say no to their kids. And guess what? You both have credit card debt. And when I look around the house, there's like over a hundred toys right there. How does that people pleasing show up for the two of you?
Been hard for me. It's very difficult for me to say no to anyone. It has been. It's getting better.
I'm not talking about anyone. I'm talking about George.
Oh.
To tell no to him.
I don't really ask too much for her to be pleasing me.
But if he does say he wants something, I try to figure out how to get it.
Would you be willing to change that relationship?
Yes.
Would you be willing to say no to your kids?
Yes.
Okay.
I appreciate that. Very firm answer. I know that can't even be easy to say. I get that. And I, I acknowledge it. Because even just like me, it's.
It's part of your identity.
I want to help people. I want to be there for. I want to take care of them. And to even conceptualize the idea of maybe saying no, of maybe not being helpful, can almost be physically painful. But I appreciate you saying no. I will say no. I can try to do that. That is powerful. George, what do you remember about money as a kid? What do you remember your family saying about money when you were young?
We didn't have a perception of money. We weren't well off, but we didn't have any needs that needed to be met. I actually, one of the things that I'm ashamed of, I, I, My first job was when I was 25 years old.
How'd that happen?
Well, my parents were. They provide for me most of my life. Yeah.
How do you think that that affects you today?
It does affect me. And up to this day, like, if. Yeah, it's not a good thing. We're in the issue. We're in this issue that we're in right now, not learning how to save. I don't, I didn't see that with my parents. We did not have. They had the money. They spend it. They never teach me how to save. And if I needed something, I would just call. Then it will be on my Account.
Is that similar to how it is today?
Kind of, yes.
You don't save and if you need something, you ask Fernie and she provides very much like your parents?
Well, I mean, I work, but yeah.
Yeah, pretty much. I agree you work, but also are you checking in the accounts yourself and deciding if you can afford or are you just asking her?
No, I asked her.
Fernie, what are you noticing about this?
The same pattern as he grew up.
What role do you play in this dynamic? You are the.
I'm the parent.
Yeah, we have the parent child dynamic. And you even said that earlier. You said, you know, it's effectively he's a child when it comes to the finances. The parent child dynamic is really toxic for so many reasons. It's toxic to intimacy. Nobody wants to be intimate with a partner who is like seen as a child. And also it's, it actually reinforces or concretizes these roles of parent child. And the more and more time goes on, the more and more the the part adult partner who's seen as a child becomes more dependent. Please, can you log into this account for me? I don't even know where the password is. Please help me. I don't know. And the other one becomes increasingly resentful and takes on the role of the parent.
Yeah, yeah, it's true. And I mean it's pretty noticeable because it's a joke in the family too that I have four kids instead of three.
Whoa, that's.
It's pretty apparent.
George, what do you think of that? I would be candidly devastated if that joke was being made about me.
Well, I don't think of anything like it doesn't hurt me if I don't feel that way.
Why? What are they saying when they make that joke?
I don't know. I mean, because of the way they feel or the way they see how things are run in our family.
When people joke that they are cheap, it's never a joke. Like for example, couples will come on here, they'll be like, oh yeah, our friends actually call us cheap cheapos.
Hahaha.
I go, you should take that deadly seriously. Because for somebody to be called cheap, no one casually says, oh, you're cheap. That is a very extreme thing to say for somebody to joke in your family that you have four kids that. Freddie, you know this. I could see you nodding right now. That is not a joke, George, I'm sharing this with you. It's not a joke. It's actually incredible.
Red flag.
It's almost like there's a fire going on in your house. Your house is on fire and everybody's going, la, la, la, ha, ha, ha. Funny, funny joke. This is not funny. It's a huge signal that something is off in the dynamic. Am I, am I reading this incorrectly?
No. It pains me. It does bother me because if it's the that obvious for other people to see it, it sucks. I don't want people to see him like, as my child. I don't want that disrespect.
That is right. That is disrespectful. I agree.
I don't see that disrespect because I don't feel that way. I don't feel like I'm the child.
Do you think maybe you don't feel that way because you don't understand what they're actually saying? It's easier to avoid what they're saying.
Because they only see a part of whatever they want to perceive, but that's not what it is.
But George, I'm seeing it right now. We've been talking for hours. I am seeing that you are treated and you ask to be treated like a child when it comes to the finances. You're not engaging as a partner. You're not engaging adult to adult. You're not even engaging with a CSP knowing that you're going to see me. You're not taking this seriously. So your family is seeing exactly what I'm seeing, which is a parent child dynamic.
Okay.
What would you say to them if they were here? The very people who joke about the four kids.
Why would they think that? What was, what was the reason that make him think that that's what's happening?
That's a great question. Fernie, can you try to answer what they might say?
He handles everything.
Keep going. George is asking a really good question. He's trying to understand what's going on here. I think this is a great question. Give him some specific specifics.
It seems that she's always working. She's always trying to figure out ways to get you all out of the messes that you get each other into. And she's always working on how to move numbers, how to move things around, how to make more money to get you all out of stuff while you sit and watch tv.
George, do you think of that?
It's painful. Ah, no, I don't think that's what it is. But if that's what they see, I don't see it that way.
If everybody else sees something and you don't see it that way, is it possible that maybe they're right.
It might be. Yeah.
Would you be open to that?
Yes.
And if they were right, what would you do about it specifically?
Yeah, like, working on showing more engagement, more ownership, but showing up to her family that I'm taking decisions that I'm, you know, doing. Also what they seem to be seeing off of her.
Do you care about changing their perception?
No, because I don't. I know who I am and really don't. Yeah. Because I. Even if, you know, like. Yeah, I guess it doesn't bother me.
You know, there's a lot of people who see my videos and stuff online, and once in a while, they'll. They'll make comments about my freaking eyebrows or something like that. I don't care what some random anonymous commenter on Instagram thinks. So I understand. You know, there's some people in your life, you're just like, I don't care what they think.
Mm.
Whose opinion do you care about?
My wife.
Okay. So let's put the family aside. Okay. So what is your wife's opinion on this parent child thing?
She knows that it's not. I mean, that's why I bother her when they say those things.
Okay. Can you ask her if that's true?
Is that true? Why? Am I wrong?
You are wrong. Because you. You do ask me a lot of stuff. When? You should know. I don't want you to come and ask me, like, hey, what account should I use? How much do I have to spend? I don't. I don't think you should be asking me those questions. I think you should know those questions. And if you were truly my partner, my husband, you would know these things because we would sit together and go through it and know what we have, what we don't have, what we can do, what we can't do. You don't know that. You asked me. You just did it today.
I didn't have access to the account. I had access before, but.
George, don't explain it. Listen to what she's saying.
You excuse yourself. You. You tend to do that a lot. You excuse yourself about a lot of stuff. We need to change that. We need to, like you said, take ownership. We need to actually talk about things, be on the same page, and be partners. Not you having to ask me. It doesn't feel right. Like, you shouldn't have to ask me if it's our money. It's not my money. It's not my account. It's our account, so you should be included and you should know these things.
Yeah, I wish that, too.
What did you just hear her say, George?
That I should be able to have the information. I should be able to be engaged with our finances, to be able to take decisions and not to ask her for a simple decision that I can take on.
Like, if that's not what she said. She doesn't want you to ask her those questions. An adult should already know how to do it. My wife doesn't ask me how to log into our checking account. She's an adult. We talked about it once. She knows how. She doesn't want you to ask her those questions like a child. Are you hearing what she's saying?
Yes.
What does she say?
That she wants me to take ownership and for me to be able to take decisions. Yeah.
I think it's kind of surprising that you began by saying, like, oh, I care what my wife thinks, not what her family thinks. But my wife knows that that's not true. I'm not a child. And she was like, no, actually, I agree. You're not taking ownership. You're not being an adult. You're not being my partner. Did you hear her say that?
Yes.
How does that make you feel?
Well, not great.
Okay.
I want her to feel different towards me. Yeah. Yeah. I'm willing to do anything that I need to be. Okay.
So you have both told me that the current financial life you have is not sustainable right now. With $300 in savings. What would a more sustainable life look like for you, Fernie? I'd love to have specifics.
Please forget about credit card or any type of debt that is negative interest not working in our favor. I need to eliminate the debt, land for and have an emergency savings that if anything happens to the house, the car, I don't have to go into debt. I don't have to grab those funds.
George, we're talking about amount. Like an amount of money or.
No. The question is, what would make you have a life that is more sustainable?
Debt free.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All debt.
All debt free and save money.
Okay.
Yeah. Think that's. That's the key.
Debt free and save money. How much? How much you want to save?
As much as we can.
Okay. Wow, this is interesting. I'm hearing debt as a big problem for the first time in our conversation right now. Have you realized that?
Yeah.
Oh, I just realized that. I know it's there. I don't want to face it because I don't know how to. How to tackle it. I'm more afraid of messing up because it seems like everything falls on me because I've let it I've done it and I've let it happen that way that if something happens, it's always like, well, you told me it was okay to do so. You told us that it was okay. So I always have that. Oh, please, please, please don't up this time. I always have that in my head. And. And I'm. I'm terrified to make the mistakes that will get us back into that terrible hole again.
When you go through life worried you're going to, as you put it it up, you are playing life on defense. Your entire worldview is, I'm going to mess this up. And it's very hard to get ahead if that is your worldview. Now, I know you are talking to your therapist about this. George, I hope you're hearing this because your disengagement with money also affects Fernie.
Makes her feel alone.
That's why she asked for connection, not for the right math. She's desperately crying out for connection because she feels alone. And when she's alone, she feels worried that she's going to mess it up. Now, I hope that the two of you can do it together. But Fernie, you're probably going to have to do it on your own to begin. How would you feel about that?
I'm willing to put in the work.
Okay.
And George, what about you? Do you have a vision of what.
Your life would be like?
You mentioned no debt and you want to be saving. I love that vision. What would you be doing in this life, this vision that you have? What would your relationship with money be? What are you willing to do in order to build wealth?
Work as much as we can. Well, as much as I can.
That's it. Work. Okay, I'm hearing you loud and clear.
Yeah.
Fernie, are you hearing this?
Yes.
What are you hearing?
He doesn't want to do the spreadsheets. He doesn't really want to figure it out. He just wants to work and get there.
Now, this is interesting. I've spent hours talking to Fernie and George, and I've really been trying to get George to engage with their money beyond just working and providing a paycheck. But we're right back here. The truth is, he's not going to open the spreadsheet. He's not going to run the numbers. The only thing he's willing to do is work. Okay, fine. I can't change anyone if they don't want to change. What I'm going to do now is move on with the direction of the conversation. I'm taking a concept I learned Years ago, when I was a soldier soccer referee, and I'm adapting it, that concept was called advantage in soccer. Let's say player one fouls player two. But before I can blow the whistle, player two gets the ball and they're already running down the field. I basically say play on with the advantage hand signal, meaning it would disrupt the game if I were to stop for the foul. I use that technique sometimes in life, and definitely on this podcast, we could stop and analyze something wrong that happened two minutes ago, but we've already moved on, so I'm making a judgment call. This is not going to happen right now. I'm not going to change George's relationship with money, and if I keep pushing him, he's probably going to shut down. So play on. I know a lot of you don't like this. You want me to yell at my guests when they say infuriating things. I see the comments. A lot of people genuinely believe that if you yell at someone, they will finally see the truth.
I see it in the comments where.
Some people even admit sometimes I need to be yelled at. Candidly, that's not how human nature works. You might feel better watching me yell at someone, but that doesn't actually change anyone's beliefs. It actually makes them retreat. So, no, I'm not going to scream at anyone, even though I will admit.
Sometimes I lose my temper.
George has made it clear he's willing to do one thing, Work, nothing more. Can Fernie accept that?
How does that fit into your vision, Fernie? Does your vision include you doing the money yourself or you having a partner to do it with?
No, definitely a partner. Okay, Definitely. I want him to be my partner.
The two of you have completely different visions. Do you see that?
Yeah, I didn't want to see it, but yes, I do.
I think that's what Fernie's been asking about. I think she's not satisfied by just talking about what are we going to do tomorrow and next week or even this month. I don't think she's satisfied by you just saying, I'm going to work and, you know, bring in a check. I think she wants that longer term plan. What do you think?
That would give me so much peace.
George, I get it now.
Tell me in your own words.
I see what you come from. I feel what you mean. Now.
What does she want?
She wants me to be present, not just there.
Did this come up when you guys did counseling?
It did, but I didn't see that. What I just saw, I saw. I saw it click in his head. And at counseling, it never clicked.
He.
He understood it as, I need to go work. Let me. Let me run out. Let me go work. Let me go work. And I'm like, he doesn't get it, George.
What's different this time versus what happened at counseling?
Being able to talk about it more, you know, like, her expressing herself the way she expressed today. I. I kind of, like, see it now.
And what if nothing changes? What happens?
I hope. I hope not. I'm very optimistic. I hope everything's going to change, and it's gonna.
George, optimism is your way of not confronting reality. And you've been leaning on that crutch for a long time. And, you know, in part. Part of it is not your fault, because your parents basically never really taught you about reality.
Yeah.
They never forced you to face consequences. They just gave you money whenever you wanted. They took care of you till you were 25. And then immediately your financial burden was handed over to Fernie, your wife. You've never actually faced the consequences of not taking ownership of your own finances. And in part, I wish you had. I wish you had because you would know what the consequences actually are. You need a plan.
Yes.
You've been saying optimism for 25 years, and Fernie's been doing the work, and it's not working for her. And she's not the only one who noticed it. Her family, other people. I've noticed it today. So the question I have is, what happens if nothing changes?
That's not going to happen.
Okay, I hope it doesn't. But what happens if nothing changes?
We be in financial trouble all over again. Well, you.
You. You have $353,000 of debt right now. You're in financial trouble. Deep financial trouble. So what else? Let's talk about your son. How old is he now?
18.
What's going to happen if nothing changes?
You're not going to be able to give him what he needs.
Two of you are in your 40s, correct?
I'm 48.
Maybe you work for 20 more years. That comes quick. You know how fast time goes.
Yes.
And what happens then? One of you gets injured? Somebody has to take care of a sick family member. What happens then?
Big trouble.
Like, be specific.
We can end up being homeless. We can end up being. Without the need to, you know, even. Not for us, at least, you know, like, if we don't even see ourselves, but for our kids, which is the most important thing in our lives.
Fernie, I don't want him to have a horrible life because of our irresponsibility Nothing is guaranteed for him. Help is not guaranteed for him. We are it. We are his guarantee. So it's not a question of if nothing changes. It has to change. It will change. I will change.
I'm going to go to your CSP and I'm going to show you some things that immediately stand out to me. Here are the things that immediately are red flags for me. $311 in savings is just completely unacceptable and the highest risk I've almost ever seen. Three kids, one special needs child. No way. This needs to be at least six, ideally 12 months of expenses, which would be 30 to $60,000. Now you're a long way from that. But right now, in my opinion, it is red alert time. Time to change everything. Now, how aggressive would you like me to get? Because I can tell you what I would do or I can kind of make it gentle and, you know, what.
Do you want aggressive?
Yeah.
We don't have time.
That is correct. I'm glad you said that. All right, here's what I would do. First off, I would look at your expenses. Utilities, all this stuff. What can be cut from this?
Anything that. Not really.
Okay, we're going to go line by line. Insurance? I don't think so. Car payment?
That's the only car we have. So no.
All right.
Groceries that we can cut to 400.
You can cut from 1,000 to 400.
Oh, yeah, because we have all that. We could just be using what we have in the freezer and it would be very slight extras like milk, eggs.
What are you spending the extra 600amonth on?
We were buying more sodas, snacks for the kids. We can cut all that.
Interesting how when I asked you what I would find in your kitchen, suddenly everyone was like, oh, I only eat healthy food. We cook every night at home. Oh, he said that?
I didn't.
Yeah, well, I don't do the orders online, George.
It's not cute like with the smile. I'm not fooled. It's like I'm not laughing. Do you see that? This doesn't work on me. You guys are in hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and you have an 18 year old special needs son. This is not funny.
No, it's not.
Fernie, you're going to need to decide if you if your partner takes this seriously or not. And what are you going to do about it? Because I would not. That would be infuriating for me, George. I don't know if you understand how pissed I would be if I saw my partner joking about snacks when we have $300,000 of debt. Yeah, you can cut your groceries down that. That's good. We'll take it down to 400.
Yep.
Okay. That's a big change in your fixed cost. Takes you down to 83%. That's a huge change. I love that. Clothes at 100 bucks a month. You do have three kids. We should probably leave that. You think you cut that, Fernie?
Yeah, I think. I think we can cut it. I can. I can do 40.
All right, fine.
40 it is. Phone at 245. What do you say?
I've been trying to cut that, but we still owe our phones.
All right, fine. So let's just keep it as is and then subscriptions at 200 bucks. No. What do you want to cut that to?
I would just probably keep Disney plus, which is 18amonth.
Great. Everything else gone?
Yeah, I can. I can cut everything else.
Great.
I don't get to watch TV anyway.
Perfect.
Okay.
We're down to 79%. Still way too high, but we'll get to that. Investments? 280. This is the one for your kids?
No, I'm doing $100 a month for them.
Not anymore.
Yeah. Okay.
That's gone. And then what's the rest of this? Some taxable account or something, Though the.
One that I told you, the brokerage and stuff like that, where it's automatically going.
You're going to read the book and you can decide where the money goes, whether it's pre tax or post tax. Probably pre tax, but that 280 bucks, I'm going to just take off of here. Okay. I hope you can start to invest, but right now we got other things to worry about. Okay.
Okay.
Savings goals at 12%.300amonth for vacation. No, sorry, guys. There's no more vacations for a long time, so I'm taking that off. Gifts? 120. No. No way. 1500 bucks a year for gifts? No, that's. What? For the kids.
Yeah.
Yeah. For Christmas, guys. Yeah, I know. I won't.
Literally, I would take one of those rabbits at the bottom of that tub, wrap it up in new wrapping paper here. Happy birthday. Merry Christmas, too. Here's a rabbit.
They won't even notice.
Exactly.
Yeah, that's true.
Long term emergency fund is currently at a hundred bucks. Yeah, Right. We need to move that number up. Let's just look where we are right now, right? Yeah. Great. Okay. I want to tell you why I'm getting a little bit more excited. We have more work to do. But look at this right now, you currently have a thousand dollars a month to spend left over after your key things. Now, the fact is you've actually been spending probably more than that on this random stuff you're ordering from Amazon, et cetera, et cetera. But we can put some controls around that. We're going to put 500 bucks a month towards your emergency fund and we're going to dramatically cut how much you're spending on guilt free spending. Okay, now we still have one major thing we need to do because we haven't even touched your debt right now. According to this, your debt is not being paid off at all. We know that can't be the case.
Yeah, I know.
So which partner is earning $2400 a month?
Me.
Yes, George, why are you earning $2400 a month?
Besides that. I still make the, the one that I'm doing on the side.
Where is that?
That's not there.
Should we add it or what?
That fluctuates.
We, we can, it's just, it's rough to estimate because we just started at the beginning of the year and I've been keeping, of course, a spreadsheet on it, and I can tell you roughly what we've been making.
Okay, tell me. I just want the average number. Six months is more than enough to make an average.
So in March, we did a thousand dollars. In April, we did 1100 in May, we did 1700 in June, so far it's been 1800.
Great, so you did between a thousand and 1800. Let's be conservative. Let's say 1100. I hope it's more. But let's be super conservative. How's that?
Yeah.
All right, so I'm gonna add that in here. But George, are you working full time?
No.
Why not?
We don't have our kids on childcare.
Ah, so you're staying home during certain times for child care.
I only work at night.
Okay, got it.
I'm. I'm third shift.
Yeah, got it. Okay, thank you. That helps me understand. So your third shift, so you're making 17 bucks an hour. You're working 38 hours a week. And then you're doing this thing on the side, which is bringing in 1100 bucks a month. Okay, that, that helps me understand that. So let me show you what I'm going to do here. I'm going to take this up from 2,400 to 3,3500 for. What do you think we should put for the net here? If it's 3, 500, what do you think?
27. I'm sorry.
Yeah, like 2800.
Yeah, maybe 27. You know, it's something in there. I. I might be getting it wrong. I'm sure I'm getting it wrong. I'm not sure which direction. Let's say 2700. Okay, watch this number over here. This is the number to watch. Right now, your fixed cost is 79. Holy.
Oh, wow.
Look at Fernie's face, everybody. Fernie, show us. George is like, what the fuck is happening right now? Fernie just took a big sigh of relief. That number dropped to 58%. George, let me explain, okay? I want you to know what's going on here. It's important for me. So this number is your fixed cost percentage. And we like to see that number between 50 to 60% higher than that. Really explains why people feel stressed out by their finances. Okay. And one of the key things that I observed in your CSP is you simply are not earning enough money for the expenses that you have. And we're not even really talking about the debt. Okay. $130,000 is a good household income. Very good. But you have expenses and you have a lot of debt. And so you need to be earning much more. Okay? And so right there, adding that side income that you're doing, George, actually makes a huge difference. So I'm super glad that you're doing that. If anything, I would say keep it up. And I'm just going to be kind of direct. Push it, push it. Because making. Right now we're putting 1100 as the average. I would really like that number to be 1500.
Okay?
If you make an extra 500 bucks, for example, and you put that directly towards your debt, and let's say this happens consistently, an extra 3, 4, 500 bucks a month on top of the 1100, that could shave off years from your debt payment. Years. So this money is very, very welcome right now. Okay. All right. Can I keep going? You know, your debt needs to be paid off, like, much, much, much more aggressively. So I'm gonna show you what happens. That number is going to go back up. I'm gonna show you 500amonth for debt takes you to 65%. Truthfully, 500amonth is not nearly enough to pay off your debt. It needs to be like, we're talking without looking at all this stuff. It's thousands a month, probably 2,000amonth. And if I did that, I'll show you what happens. Just, just to give you an example, you're at 87%. You're back. So we Got some serious problems here. What do you think about that?
Yeah, that's why it's very important for us to eliminate that. That, I mean, we're pushing it to keep it down.
Fernie, if you had three hours free per day, what would you do with the time?
I've never thought of that. Play with my kids.
Okay, I love that. What else? Let's talk about the financial part.
Oh man, that's a tough question. I've never really thought what I would do with three hours of free time. Not working on trying to figure out how to pay stuff, like my mind automatically goes like, well, I, I, I can take those three hours and go do some overtime or something to pay off more debt.
Truthfully, I don't mind that. Can you do it? Can you do it?
Yeah.
How much more can you make?
Maybe a thousand.
I can't be the one to tell you here what to do. This is not my place. What I can tell you is that currently there's no debt payoff plan. You don't know when your debt will be paid off. Because I think the way that you've operated, George, you've basically been checked out of the finances. And Fernie, you're just like, I can't.
Even look at this.
I'm just going to take whatever money we have and put it towards debt. I don't think right now it's worth making a debt payoff plan because I think your interest rates are probably all over the map and your balances and all kinds of stuff, it will be very confusing. But I would encourage you to create that debt payoff plan. You just go online, you can search ramit Debt Payoff Calculator, you can plug in your numbers and you can see when will your debt be paid off. So if it were me, and I were in your situation, I'm sitting down with my wife, I would put this CSP up like this and we would look at it and we would say, oh, okay, we need to be dramatically paying this debt off. We would have plugged the numbers into the debt payoff calculator and we would realize right now we probably need to be paying, I don't know, $2,000 a month towards debt payments. Well, right now that puts us at 87%. So we need to be making an extra $2,000 a month. I'm using sample numbers. You will have to figure these out on your own. How are we going to do $2,000 a month? Well, let's throw out every idea and we'll write them down on A piece of paper. It could be, I work more, you work more, and on and on and on. Well, and then we write down any potential problems. Well, we need another car, we'd need child care, blah, blah, blah.
But we don't stop there.
That's where most people stop. They see a problem, they just stop. They let a tiny problem stop them from making progress. No, you go, okay, so how do.
We get over that?
Oh, we can't do it this year.
But if we wait a year, we.
Can put our youngest in that child care program. They'll go for four days, not five. So we'll have to figure something out on the fourth day.
But that's okay.
We can figure that out. Then you see how we're starting to work it out together. That's it. Simple as that. We need to be decisive. We need to be making decisions. After you sit down, you make a plan. After you sell everything you can that doesn't need to be there, then you go, hey, wait a minute. We still have a lot of junk in our house. Just toys and stuff everywhere. That is also sending a signal to you every time you walk in the house. What signal is that sending, Fernie?
It stresses me out.
Yes, it stresses me out and I need to declutter. It's just a reminder that. That we have a bunch of stuff around. And trust me, when you. When you often get stressed out, what do you end up doing? You end up going and buying more stuff. Wrong.
Wrong.
We're not going to do that anymore.
I'm going to get rid of a lot of stuff. I'm already. As you were talking, I was thinking of everything that I could possibly just sell. Even if it's for cheap.
Yes.
$2.
Yes. And who can help you with this for any interesting. I notice you taking this all on yourself. I wonder.
I can help.
Yes.
George, why don't you just. Why don't you just tell her right now what part you want to take off? Don't make her tell you to do it. Why don't you just step up and do it?
I'll do the basement. Yeah, I'll do the basement.
Are we good? That's it.
Yeah. I'll add everything that it can be, so will get this sold.
Great.
I love that. That's what we're talking about, that type of conviction. Fernie, how does that feel?
Great. Yes, it really does.
The basement. We know it's going to be done because George just said he's going to do it. It's done. George, are you going to do that by what, a week from now?
If I can, yes.
I don't know what the word if means or try. That word doesn't exist to me. Can you tell me again?
Okay. Two weeks.
Great. Done. George, I think you don't hold yourself to a high standard sometimes. I think you give yourself a lot of slack. You use a lot of words. Have you noticed that? Try if I can. Do you. Do you find that you try to get away with as little as you can sometimes? Bernie, why are you smiling?
Spot on.
It's not going to work. If you want to change this, George, that's going to require a total revamp of the way you look at the world because you've actually gotten pretty far getting by without going over the top, without going above and beyond. And that's in a lot of ways because you had somebody else around you subsidizing or taking care of things. But the fact is, you'll go the rest of your life like this, and then the you two will be in extreme financial situation, not able to get out from it. In the same way, Fernie, that you're going to have to re. Look at the world and start to set actual boundaries and actually hold people to them, including George. In the same way that you're going to have to stop helping everybody else at your own expense. In the same way that you're going to have to go from fear to boldness. George, you're going to have to go from trying to get away with as much as possible to actually saying, I'm going to do this. Not for anybody else, not even for my wife, for me. Because like you told her 25 years ago, you deserve more.
You're lovable.
Actually, the same is true for you. You deserve more. And you're not even giving it to yourself. You're trying to get away with as little as possible when I'm trying to help you see how much you can actually achieve, the two of you.
Yeah, I know. It has to come from us. Yeah.
Good. I'm really glad to hear that. That's awesome.
I appreciate your honesty and I appreciate you calling out on everything, because that's what I needed to hear. That's what I need to make the changes that are necessary for me to break out of this cycle.
I really want you to be able to do this together. Honestly, there's nothing more fun and powerful and rewarding than two people, two partners, rowing in the same direction and starting to realize, oh, my God, we can get to where we want to go faster than we ever thought possible. But it can't be one person doing it. It just can't. Not at this scale.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you. I'm pulling for you. Keep me updated. Trust me, the community, my community is pulling for you as well. They want to see you make big changes.
Thank you. Have a great night.
This was a really hard conversation, and I want to thank Fernie and George for speaking with me so openly. I have some surprising follow ups for you, but first, let me tell you what I thought of today's conversation. Honestly, I left the conversation feeling unsatisfied. I have all the patients in the world for a couple that does not understand money. I frequently stay hours later than I am scheduled to because I feel we are right on the cusp of changing a dynamic around money. But what I don't have patience for is when someone refuses to engage their partner, especially when their partner is suffering, almost begging for help. I approached George from every angle. I gave him space. I gave him clarity. I gave him. I related to him directly. And he deflected every single time. And that's when I started to lose it. I honestly think as I reflected on this conversation, part of my discomfort and part of my irritation and even anger was seeing in him what I have seen in myself when I've disappointed my wife, when I know that I could have done better, but I just didn't. And looking back, I realized how easy it would have been for me to make the effort to. For me to help her take the.
Load off of her.
Maybe that's why I'm so frustrated with George, because I can see a little bit of myself in him. What's different here is that the stakes are really high. Fernie is crying. Their son's future is on the line, and he's still sitting here saying, it'll all work out. Can they change?
Yeah, of course.
Anyone can. But it's going to be incredibly difficult to undo 25 years of the same patterns. It'll take couples therapy and discipline. It will take commitment. And it will require George to fundamentally change the way he approaches money. And his wife, Fernie went from dropping out of high school to earning a master's degree when their son was born. She's gone through some tough times. I personally would just love for her life to be a little easier. It's about time, don't you think? My wish is that George reflects on this conversation and. And finds the strength to meet her there. Now let's check out their follow ups.
We have done some changes. The good thing about this is I'm not falling asleep. I'm listening to everything my wife has to say about finances. We're walking and talking.
Yeah. So we figured out that being at home, staying a kid, sitting, watching a spreadsheet was not the best thing. So a walk and just an overview of the month to come. Some positive changes that we have done. The mortgage, the interest rate. I'm talking to the lender to lower the interest rate.
The phone lines. We're moving forward on lowering our phone bill.
The other thing too is the car. We were able to do a refinance. We lower the APR and we lower the payment. That way we're gonna, we have a three year plan to do the. The 40k of the emergency fund. Of course that might change as soon as the. Our youngest goes to school. We'll be able to possibly shorten the time on that. But so far we've been able to save hundreds of dollars by just negotiating with our lenders. And I stopped the college fund. The college fund so we can put it more towards the emergency funds and readjust everything. And we're having better conversations. So we want to thank you all for the help. And it's, it's a work in progress.
I'm getting more involved.
So we recently refinanced the house. We went from 7% to 5%. We have also canceled all subscriptions, just kept Disney Plus. We also stopped the investment for the kids. We switched over. We're doing the emergency fund and we're doing 350bi weekly. So hopefully we can have that fully funded in the next three years. Fully funded. Hopefully sooner than that as things progress. We've been able to paid off two of the cards since my husband has been picking up more hours. I am doing, I guess one of my hobbies. I'm doing like crocheting. So I'm thinking of like maybe getting some money out of my fun crests. I've done little dolls and stuff. So I. And they're requesting it. So I might just do that as a side hustle. It brings me joy and it makes me a little money, so that'd be great. So far, the cost we were able to reduce also our phone bill. We changed carriers and we are saving $144 by doing that, which was great. We are having more casual conversations. No more spreadsheets. We take walks to be able to discuss. It helped us bring to light what we didn't like about how we approach finances and that that has helped us I guess, have a healthier relationship with finances. And we're looking forward to these changes and see in a year like the big leaps. But so far, we're moving in a great direction. So I want to thank you all.
