244. "I'm in $244k debt but give $500/mo to my church"

This year we are launching a brand new series called the Rich Life Expert Series. I'm going to be inviting people who I trust to teach you an important skill or a habit or a mindset that's going to help you live a rich life. First on deck this January, nail your next interview with Michael Gendler. Michael is the co founder of Ultra Speaking, the fastest and most effective way to prepare for high stakes speaking situations. Think pitches, interviews, executive meetings, presentations, all all those things that we often freeze up around. He's worked with Fortune 100 execs, bestselling authors. Personally, when I met him and talked to him and we started going back and forth on how to prepare for an interview, I was very impressed. You can watch live one to one coaching as people go from rambling to compelling in real time. So if you have a high stakes approach that's coming up, landing a new job, starting your own business, appearing on tv or just wanting to be better at communication, you want to attend this? You can join us January 27th at 12pm Eastern to learn more. And you can register for free today to reserve your seat@iwt.com interview. That's iwt.com interview to lock in your spot. Previously on Money for Couples. You've mentioned a windfall.

It was $170,000.

How much of the money's left?

None of it.

What did you spend it on?

I spent $30,000 to furnish our house.

I got a air transplant.

We've already spent more than our budget on groceries, so every bit of money we're spending right now is borrowed.

Right now you spend $6,000 a year on charity and you're in $244,000 of debt.

Taking away that is like telling God I don't trust him. It feels wrong.

This was not easy. There was a lot of fights with money.

That was my moping for the first couple of weeks. I was just not living in reality.

Kids will go wild if they don't have certain const. Well, guess what? As adults, we're no different.

The way that I was looking at money before was so childish. It didn't mean anything to me.

We can't set up a financial system that requires us to be perfect because.

We would always fail.

Like, if we have kids, are we cool with our kids potentially feeling like fully abandoned and being just raised by nannies just so that I can have nice things?

Welcome back to part two of my conversation with Mike and Noelle. Last week we started to untangle this financial situation. One income, high debt, zero savings, which Noel only learned the severity of when they sat down to go over their numbers to prep for our conversation. Now they're both in panic mode about how to climb out from under a mountain of debt with a single income. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, I suggest you go back and listen to the full episode from last week. In our last conversation, we went line by line to cut their fixed costs. But despite acknowledging how dire their situation was, they weren't actually able to make any significant cuts. They had already gone over their budget for guilt free spending. Noel was reluctant to give up daily indulgences like face cream and a subscription to Glade plugins. And now, when we last left off, I encouraged Noelle to consider cutting back on her church tithing, something that is deeply personal to her as part of her sobriety. Now, as you know, I would never force anyone to cut back on something that is deeply meaningful to them. But the fact remains that they need to make some major changes and they need to do it now. Let's get back into it and see what she's decided to do about tithing.

If you choose to keep this, I won't fight you on it. It's your money. And anytime somebody comes on here and they go, I tithe or I give money, I go, are you sure you want to keep it? They go, yeah. I go, cool, we'll work around it.

We can work around it.

Okay. I think I've already, I. I literally went from 10% to 5%. So I've already cut that in half.

Right now you spend $6,000 a year on charity, and your income is $156,000. You're in $244,000 of debt.

So if you tell me, ramit, I.

Want to keep it at this amount, I will keep it. But if you tell me, ramit, I want to give of myself, I want.

To give some money. And I know that right now we're in a crisis. I can give 50 bucks. And as we make more money, I want that built in the plan that we are going to increase it to.

A hundred to five hundred to a thousand.

And eventually we will donate more than we ever would have donated.

We can build that too. You tell me.

I want to have that as an option. I want to talk to, like, someone I respect, like, in a spiritual way.

I respect that. All right, so you're going to keep.

That as an option. So we're going to keep 500.

You may change it later. I would love your update. We're at 82%. How do you want to get down to 60?

The subscriptions is not down yet.

Let me show you something. Just so you understand the scale of.

What we're talking about.

I'm going to drop all of your subscriptions $123 off. And I want you to look at this number.

It goes down 1%. Why are we talking about this?

Got it.

Okay.

What do you want to do?

I feel like that's why I want to do the Uber things. Because then that can, like, hopefully, you know, what I saw online was 3 to $700 a month just by driving on Saturday nights.

Should we, should we model that in? I think that would be pretty helpful.

Yeah.

300 bucks. Is that gross or net?

That is $300 a week. If you do it every week, let's imagine you don't do it one week. So you've got three weeks. It's $900 a month. Take home on the low end.

Okay, 900. Let's put it in. Watch what happens to the numbers. 76%. That's meaningful. I think you're starting to get pretty realistic. Would you like me to give you another framework to look at this through?

That'd be helpful. Yeah.

This is often what happens. Couples are just like, we don't know what to cut. Like, we cut to the bone. I get the sense there's not a lot of appreciation for the things you.

Spend because it's just, it's like, oh.

We'Ll just buy this, we'll buy that. All of the discretionary items I would be in if I were, if it were up to me. Right now, this says you spend 17%, but we know that's not true. It's more like 30%. So I would take that number down to something like five to seven. It's actually like recalibrating the entire family.

Structure and saying, hey, we're in a.

Crisis and for the next year we're going to buckle down. We are not eating out. We'll eat out once every, whatever, six weeks when there's a discount, whatever. But every time we do, we're going to appreciate it. It's going to be special for us. The money from guilt free spending would instead flow to savings and possibly paying off your debt faster.

Your savings has a problem.

It needs to be built. If you could put 2,000 bucks a month towards savings, that's really, that's really good.

Okay.

You wouldn't realize how important it is.

Until you absolutely need it.

It's kind of like you don't realize how important airbags are in a car until you really need it.

Right.

Let me just pause and get a quick check in from. From each of you. How are you feeling so far, Mike?

Overwhelmed. But it's nice to hear your opinion on. On our situation because I knew we were in dire, but hearing it from you makes it a little more real for me. Yeah. If we want what we want later on, we. We need to make some serious sacrifices now. Great.

That's what I want you to hear. Excellent. Noel, let me check in with you.

I think I also. I just feel overwhelmed. Maybe sad.

Sad because.

Because I thought I already cut it down to the bare minimum and cutting it down further feels like cutting off fingers.

I think that's really honest. But if I can be equally honest. Well, those roses behind you, are those real?

That. Yeah, those are budget. Those were $8. I budgeted that in asking my husband. I want him to buy me flowers every week because I think it's just like a romantic gesture that I would appreciate.

Okay.

And so I budgeted it in.

I don't mind that you plan for something small.

Even when you are in a crisis. We need small moments of joy. Always.

You never, ever, ever in your life saw me telling somebody, cut every single thing. Never get it. You tell me, okay, this is the one thing that I really enjoy. Fantastic.

But it probably has to be one, like one thing.

It can't be all the other stuff.

Not right now.

Oh, God.

This is the crux right here. If your mindset is that you've got to give up everything you love, even temporarily, it means you're going to suffer. And that means you've lost the game. Just to be very blunt, you will never succeed at something if you hate it. Let me give you a couple of reframes that you can use when you need to make big, uncomfortable changes with your money. First, sacrifice is not the same as suffering. Second, serious change is supposed to be hard. What's really going on here, in my opinion, is that both of them compare themselves to how they used to be. They're anchoring themselves around their old spending, the very spending that got them into this problem in the first place. Like they're basically saying, I used to spend 4, $500 a month on Glade plugins, now it's only 150. Or Mike saying, my credit card debt was worse in college than it is today. Why are we comparing ourselves to the very situation that got us in this problem? The real solution here is to anchor yourself to zero. You got to change those internal messages to I'm spending $150 on Glade plugins. I could be spending zero. I have credit card debt. I should have none. A couple with $244,000 in debt living on one income quite simply needs to anchor to zero. Listen, as I encourage them to look at this as a temporary sacrifice with a purpose, not as meaningless endless suffering.

I'm not surprised also to hear you saying sad because I think that's a really good comment because I think that the more you do this, the more it feels like going back to where.

You came from and not having enough. And that's scary.

And I think in some ways there.

Are like, you've been trying to escape that and spend more.

But I want you to recalibrate the way you look at it. I want you to conceptualize it differently.

If you think I'm going back, then you will always subconsciously fight against it and you will sabotage it. That's it. Simple as that. On the other hand, if you find a way to make it your mission, hey, I lived on less before. I can do it now.

I know that we're biding our time.

Until my income goes up. And we're going to do this in a healthy way. And we're actually going. We're not going to wait two more years. We're actually going to make huge progress on these debts now so that when I start earning an income, we are well positioned. You got to find a way for these changes to be pleasurable to you.

Otherwise you will forever resist and sabotage them. What's going through your head right now?

I. I just know that you're right. Like, I know that. I think the thing that I keep going back to is the tithing and then just like the guilt. And I need to talk to somebody about it. And like, what kind of volunteering could I do? I'm like literally just. I think my brain is. I'm just afraid and I want to figure out how to do it. And like, I don't want God to be thing I could. You know, even part of me feels guilty. I'm like, I should literally be willing to cut everything else.

Before that, let me say a couple things.

Number one, you don't. You don't have to set aside God. Nobody's asking you to do that. Yeah, I know your relationship with God, that's not for me to talk about or, or intercede. But I'm sure you will find the right solution for you. I know that for the two of you, especially based on the kind of life you have described, you want Costa Rica, kids in private schools.

That will simply never happen, ever.

If you don't make dramatic changes, you'll just be another high earning American couple that is constantly in debt and two months away from losing it all. Just a statistic. What a tragedy. Or you can make tough choices now, have a mission, have a real vision that the two of you work towards together and say, look, in two years, things are actually going to be way different.

And then we can loosen the reins a bit.

Instead of eating out once every six weeks, let's do it once a month.

Let's celebrate a couple more things. I would sell a lot of stuff in the house.

I would sell it and I would put that money immediately towards savings, which I think just my guess is there's probably like $5,000 worth of stuff that could be sold out. Might be making that up. You never talked about this with me. But just a guess, there's some amount.

Of money which also sends a signal we don't need fancy stuff right now.

This is not the life we live.

Because it's very hard to be sitting here scrimping and pinching when you have.

Like amazing, beautiful stuff.

It just doesn't, it doesn't send the.

Right signal to both of you.

But if you're like, we are in a rebuilding phase.

We got rid of everything fancy, we got used stuff.

And like, while it sucks, I can.

Actually deal with it.

Trust me, in 18 to 24 months.

When you have like more, much more money, you're going to be so methodical about what you buy. Guys. Two years in your early 30s goes by like this, but it can set you up for the rest of your life. Here's what I want to do. I want to talk to you again if you would be interested. And I would like to talk to you after you make changes. Because first I think you have some work to do together, maybe independently as well. In terms of tithing, in terms of where the money is going to go. Here's what I propose. We talk again at least a month from now. I want you to redo your csp.

I want you to change the way.

That you talk about money. The two of you should be talking together. You can read money for couples together. That would actually be a great way to start.

And you will be able to decide.

Together what changes do we want to make? I think that there's a big opportunity.

With earning some more money right now, Noel.

If you can do it with your.

Schoolwork, then the 900 bucks already made a huge dent. Turn that into 1100 12.

I mean, that's like a lot of money right now. A lot.

That can flow directly down to both savings and. And to debt payoff.

It's up to you how fast you want to pay it off.

Paying off that much in two years is quite aggressive.

That's part of the reason that you.

Are feeling the stress.

You have no money left over. But if you decide, oh, I want to actually, like, instead of paying it off in two years, let's pay it.

Off in four, and that will allow us to fill up our savings account.

You choose. Nobody's telling you you have to pay it off in two years.

It's not all or nothing.

I'd like to talk to you after you do this so that we can come back together and we can talk about, what changes did you make? What disagreements do you still have?

What confusions arose because things will arise.

As you make these changes. Gonna have some wrinkles. We'll figure it out, and then we can work through it together. How's that sound to both of you?

Sounds great.

Yeah, it sounds good.

Cool.

I would love that. I actually think you taking this, what we've talked about today, realizing, wow, we're.

In a crisis, but we also have control. We can make big changes in ways.

That we never thought possible, and we gotta do it together. I think that will empower you both to move faster and bigger than you ever thought. What was your take on what I just said?

I didn't even think about, like, this is a crisis. And I didn't. I didn't. I've been so nonchalant about all this. We need to take it serious.

That's a great realization. Honestly, just the fact that you're like, whoa, I realize this now is a crisis, will spur you into action.

I think there is a mixture of feelings. I think one feeling is, like, hope and relief and just trying to recognize that this is temporary and, like, it's okay because it is a crisis. It. Like, I didn't. I. Maybe I just. I. I'm so new to this, like, learning that this is a crisis to the point where I need to, like, cut things in that way. So, I mean, it's sad because I thought I could still, you know, just bare minimum, and still have some of the pleasantries and just realizing that, like, I could cut all of the pleasantries and there is, like, some security in that. I think in the long run by doing that, that.

That you could cut those things and still be okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's free. It's like, I actually don't need all this stuff. And trust me, these lessons that you.

Learn together are the same lessons that if one day you have children, you'll pass it on to them.

All right, let's plan on talking again.

I can't wait to speak to you and hear what changes you've made. Now, I don't do this very often.

But I thought it was important to give Mike and Noel some space before I speak to them again. This is for a couple of reasons. First, they are both just starting to understand the language of money and how it works. They don't have any savings. They have very high fixed costs and a lot of debt. They need time to absorb this information and putting it into practice. You can't learn a new skill in one sitting. You can't learn to play piano or how to kite board after taking one lesson. It needs time to breathe. Second, their emotions are very, very elevated. Right now, Noelle is feeling guilty and overwhelmed and sad. Mike literally did not understand they were in a crisis despite his obsession with checking his bank accounts. This is going to take a lot of time to process. It's very difficult for us psychologically to accept that our future is not going to be the future that we envisioned. And so what I need for them to do is to go from hot to cool. And that takes time. We're going to get right back into it and see what changes they've made right after this. If you want to have an amazing year, there is one simple thing that a lot of people overlook and that is setting up your infrastructure. Like, do you have a place to put your keys when you come home through the door? Do you have an extra bottle of laundry detergent so that when you run out next week, you don't have to sit there and go, what do I do? That same system of making sure that you have your logistics dialed in applies all the way up to do you have the right doctor? That's what I want to talk to you about today. One thing you can do to set up your infrastructure for your health is to make sure you get your health appointments booked fast using Zocdoc. Zocdoc is a free app and website that helps you find and book high quality in network doctors so you can find someone you love. They have over 150,000 doctors across all 50 states in 200 plus specialties including mental health, dental health, primary care, whatever you need. Just filter for doctors based on insurance, location ratings, even virtual care options, and Zocdoc appointments happen fast, usually within 24 to 72 hours. You can look through your options, book an appointment and you are done. If I needed to find a new doctor today, zocdoc is what I would use. Stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to zocdoc.com ramit to find, find and instantly book a doctor you love today. That's Z o c d o c.com ramit zocdoc.com ramit and I want to thank Zocdoc for sponsoring this message. Some of the best gifts that I've ever gotten are incredibly thoughtful gifts to solve a problem I didn't even know I had. For example, one of my favorite gifts was when my wife organized my iphotos for me. I have tens of thousands of photos. I just scroll through them. I don't know how to find anything. She came up with an amazing system and put it together for me. That's what I'm talking about today. Incredibly thoughtful gifts that you may not have even realized you needed. And I'm talking specifically about gifts that protect the people you love. So if you want another idea today, try getting them a Delete Me subscription. Delete Me is a subscription service that removes your personal data from the Internet. We're talking about things like your full name, email, phone number, address, even your parents names, all found and removed. They've been the leading expert in personal information removal for the last 15 years. They were recently named Wirecutter's number one data removal service. And I personally use and pay for Delete Me and I love it and I know you will too. Start this year smarter and safer with DeleteMe, you'll get 20% off all consumer plans. When you go to JoinDeleteMe.com Ramit and use promo code RAMIT at checkout, that's JoinDeleteMe.com Ramit code RAMIT for 20% off.

Welcome back. Nice to see you again. How's everybody doing? Good.

Really good. Yeah.

Cool. I am very excited to catch up. I have so many follow up questions since we last talked. First off, just overall, if you had to describe how you felt after we talked last time, what word would you use?

I think I was disappointed, like just a point by reality. Do you know what I mean?

Like what?

I just felt like, aw. I just realized like how childish I've been in my relationship with money and how like I haven't really had to think about these things and now like just coming to the realization of like it's not some endless thing And I have to accept that I'm in a rebuilding phase right now. And that means I really am restricted to the things that I need at the moment and be happy about the things I still have. Because I could, if it were, you know, your world, you would sell my furniture. So I should just be happy that I have that and stop. Yeah.

And then that feels very realistic. That's like a. You took it as an eye opener, an awakening.

Yeah.

That's cool. Okay. Mike, how about you?

I think Noel came around with this, but I got really peaceful about it because you. You know, we talked last time about my almost crippling anxiety with money and obsessing and I can't believe you pointed that out. But I mean, I can. I just. The fact that I was like, getting a rush out of paying off my credit cards and getting back in it, like, just. I would have never saw that.

Great. All right, I'm happy to hear both of your perspectives. Since we last talked, what else has changed for you, Noel?

Well, I think overall I'm feeling more comfortable with money. I think we are having money conversations more regularly where they're not like, stressful or like high energy. They're just kind of like, hey, how do we want to like a conversation we've had recently? Like, there has been a couple times where we've like, picked up a soda for the day and we're like, oh, let's put this in the grocery budget. And then feeling like, should that be in the grocery budget? Or is this like. And then just having conversations about how we want to treat it and if that's something we want to allow ourselves to do, or is this like a slippery slope and we're going to end up in trouble and not stick staying in our budget and like, having honest conversations about, like, what works for us.

Great. How about for you, Mike? What's changed?

I've just had. I've had to be really conscious because, I mean, I'm on the road all the time, so I've had to be packing my lunches. I've had to be taking, you know, drink. Taking two water bottles with me instead of one because I could be on the road for eight hours. Just stuff like that. And knowing that, like, I made a commitment for Noel and ours finances. And so it's like I've just not spending money today. So that's been an adjustment, but that's how I racked up $350 in 15 days in the month of August on gas station stuff. So it's definitely been an adjustment, but I've been, I've enjoyed it a lot, so. But I've, I've really just had to be conscious. Like really.

That's powerful. Before we dive into some questions I have, I do want to go over some of the homework that I asked you both to do. During our last conversation, I talked about cutting your fixed costs from 85% towards 60%. Building a six month rollover fund. Noel finding 1000 to 1.5k per month of income while in school and then potentially pausing tithing temporarily. Okay. So we talked about all of those things as homework. Let's go through each item and see where you stand. Okay, let's start off with fixed costs. What did you cut and did you approach the 60% target?

The fixed costs included the credit cards. So we did get it down to that number. And then we were like, okay, we have this big chunk of change afterwards, so let's reinsert it. So we kind of like started to reinsert it into. There we are. Had a conversation with his mom and asked if it was okay if we paid $200 for the time being. And then once we get his car and the credit cards paid off, then we can start, you know, upping that and just get her paid off really quickly. So we had gotten that number quite a bit down. And then savings grew significant, pretty more significantly.

So, okay, first of all, great job.

Great job.

I love it. The fact that you brought that fixed cost number down that you decided to put more towards debt, that's awesome. The fact that you had the conversation about paying off the debt. Amazing guilt free spending. How much did you each spend last month?

So it's hard because it's not, I wouldn't call any of it guilt free spending. It's like stuff that came up that was unexpected. I don't know what to do about when stuff comes up. Like I had school fees show up that were like several hundred dollars that like had to be an extra. And I'm like, I don't, I don't know what, what to do with that.

What else showed up?

A vet bill which we got out of. We that some of that stuff was okay because we actually have a doctor's savings account. We like made a Savings account for $700 a month put aside just for doctors.

Great.

And we went through like almost all of it, which is nuts.

Okay.

It just happened. It was a bad month when it comes to that kind of stuff. But like we never, I mean, we never like went out to eat. Like, we didn't Buy things, like, for fun. Did we like.

I will interject one thing. Noelle had my birthday. She. Yeah, she had her birthday this month. And her parent and my. My mom and her mom gave us some money, and we use that for a video game and flowers and.

But we only spent what they gave us.

Okay. Are they the flowers that I see behind the sunflowers?

No, those are. Those are like $6 sunflowers that.

They're nice.

Came out of groceries, officially.

Okay. All right.

But we're still. We're still within the grocery budget.

I love it. It doesn't matter. Whatever your number is. If you're hitting your number and you choose to get freaking fruit roll ups or granola snacks or organic eggs or flowers, it's totally up to you. That's awesome. Okay. And you took the birthday money and you spent it on a video game in flowers. Fine. All right. I totally. I totally understand. The rollover fund. How much is in it now?

3,300. Wow. Yeah. My, my. I had a good month this month. And so, you know, our budget is 10,800amonth, and we brought in 13,300. I think after our conversation with you, we both just understood what we have to do. And in order for me to not feel anxious about money, I have to have money in the bank.

It's just. It's worth noting that that account you're referring to is separate from the savings account that we have for like doctors and annual bills. So, like, that other savings account also has like almost a thousand in it too. So, like, we did really good in savings.

Very good. It is amazing how quickly you can build up savings when you truly attack it. Like we are going on pure offense. It's shocking. You can often put hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars in a single month. And. And then you go, wait a second. If we just do this for six months, like, we're golden.

And that is incredible.

What an incredible feeling. Okay. Love it. Let's keep going. Noel, your income. Did you bring in any extra money? And if so, from where?

So I did bring in 200 driving uber on a Saturday night, but I didn't get home until like 3 in the morning.

Okay.

And I was passed out for the next day. And since then, my work school schedule has gotten like, nuts. Nuts. Like, I'm working 10 hour days, seven days a week. It's like absurd. Um, so that has. I haven't done it again since. I'm waiting until my mock trial tournament this upcoming weekend is over before I kind of great try and return to that. Um, but also, Mike has signed up for. Is signing up for doing Uber too, in his free time.

So have you. Have you done it yet, Mike?

Not yet. I'm going to tackle that, actually. Probably after we get off the phone, now that I'm thinking about it, because in my career, it just. I don't know, I saw my wife being so willing to, like, do law school, and then this. I was like, okay, what can I do? And I was. And Uber just is. I mean, I can turn it on and turn it off no matter what. Like, wherever. Sometimes I'm in a different city for eight hours at a time and waiting for appointments for four hours. What can I do? I could sit at Starbucks spending a coffee and watching tv or go drive. So it just. It made a lot of sense for me to do that as well.

So that's such a powerful example where one partner says, like, I'm gonna push it. I'm gonna help contribute towards our goals. And then the other partner says, wait a minute, if they're doing that, then maybe I can do this. And it's this upward spiral, which is the best kind of spiral, and it is so rare.

So that's incredible.

The two of you are motivating each other, and you're going to be achieving your goals faster. I also love that as a team, you know that. Hey, sometimes I can't drive Uber. I got mock trial coming up. Okay, fine. That's totally fine. Not everything has to be a hundred percent all the time, but the concept of, like, we're a team, sometimes I might get injured, then you might pick up some of the slack, and vice versa. Incredible teamwork.

This is pretty amazing. Do you notice how differently they are talking about money now? They actually sound like a team. Take the Uber example. Noelle set a goal to earn $300 a week in additional income driving for Uber. Okay. She didn't achieve that goal.

That's okay.

Because Mike saw an opportunity to step in and join her in that goal. For so many parts of life, when you truly get honest about what you want and what it will take, a lot of times it's actually pretty achievable. There are rarely cases where there is simply no solution. Are things going to go perfectly? No, they never do. They had some unexpected medical bills. They didn't earn as much side income as they expected, but at least they got started. I don't mind a couple of mistakes. I do mind people just sitting there paralyzed. They're doing a good job. That's what we're seeing. Play out with Noel and Mike. If listening to Mike and Noel has you thinking we need a reset like this, then you don't actually have to figure out how to do it alone. I can help. In money coaching. I will help you get honest about your numbers, looking at them in black and white, and then I will help you build a plan that works for your real life. You don't have to do this alone. My personal philosophy when I'm hiring a coach is that I'm worth it. I'm worth paying to get help. I'm worth paying for to get better, better results. I'm worth paying for to know that somebody cares. If you're ready to make a change with your money and you want to do it fast, sign up@iwt.com money coaching.

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We talked about this at length. Tell me what decisions, if any, that you made.

Yeah, so we were originally at a thousand. Then right before we met you, we brought it down to 500. Since then we brought it down to 200.

How did you make that decision? That's a very difficult decision to make. Candidly, it's a very sticky topic. How did you decide to cut it from a thousand to five hundred? 200.

So the way I see it is like the way that I was looking at money before was so childish that I like wasn't. There was. It didn't mean anything to me. So like giving up money if it doesn't, if money doesn't mean anything to me, it doesn't mean anything to give it up. So I felt like there was like no value in my tithing anyways because I was just spending it on whatever. So I think now I think there's a little more value that we're really conscious with our budget and I'm making a point to give them still $200. That could be like really valuable and other things like I'd love to go to the movies occasionally or go out to eat and I don't do those things. Instead I, I give that. And so I feel like in the end it's like I'm actually spiritually doing more than I was before, even though I'm giving less.

Wow, Mike, where are you on this?

Noel has put a real emphasis on the tithing and I, I've just been so selfish with money that I just thought it was a good idea for us to give it away in some capacity. I've just been so, you know, I'm gonna hold on to it.

And kill.

Hold it. And it's. And that. That's a whole nother psychology thing. But I always wanted to give something, and I just kind of wanted to leave it up to her to. To. To be what. And. And that was. I don't know. That answer was incredible.

Yeah. So one thing that I noticed from your response is it sounds like you are respecting money a lot more.

Yeah, I think that's definitely the biggest. That's the lesson, the, like, overall lesson that I've gotten. And, like, I've grown up. You know, I'd mentioned that I was sober. I've been sober 10 years. I've grown up in a lot of ways. And this is just one way that I haven't. Because it. I've never been pushed to. And I think this is, like, what I needed to kind of push me and realize, like, oh, like, I really have actually not grown up in this area.

I really appreciate the honesty. Like, the candor is so refreshing. And it. Often when I'm talking to a couple or an individual about money, they might start a transformation with money. And often what I find is that they take those skills of transformation and they use it for other parts of life. It's very common that people who go through, I will teach you be rich, then go on to transform their relationship with health, with fitness. It's very common in your case. It's like you've built those skills in other parts of life to transform your life, and now you're doing it with money.

Doesn't matter to me. One way or another, it doesn't matter.

All I want is the transformation for you and to hear the way that you are respecting money, that is like, that's amazing. Money should be respected, it should be honored.

It should be treated carefully.

It allows us to have the beautiful flowers that you have and the books and the. It's those things that allow us to do what we do. So I am loving hearing this increasing respect for money.

So cool.

Okay, question. Which of the changes that you made.

Felt the most painful?

Well, I'll go. It's. For me, it's been. We made a real commitment because, you know, we went. We went really hard with you last time on the. On cutting the budget. What you would do helped us out way more than you probably even know about what you would do in this situation. So we. We got, like, really serious. We gave ourselves a budget of $600 of groceries a month. And we. We did this month will be. We spent 614. So. And the reason it's 14 is because I spent money on soda. So.

Okay, wait, hold on. Remind me, what was it before? Before 600.

What was it prior?

Like 1200 or something crazy, like literally.

Attention Americans who tell me you can't cut your grocery spending. Yes, you can. Wait, you got to tell us, Mike and Noel, what did you do to get it down to 600?

Well, you eat a lot of ramen?

I. Yeah, I eat ramen like every day.

That wasn't what I expected. Never mind.

That's his choice. That's his choice.

Yeah, but. But I'm also adding chicken breast and onions in it, so it's healthy for me. Like I said, when I'm on the road, I just won't spend money on food and I'll have to tough it out. Or Noel made me get granola bars for my car. So like, which is a great idea. And then like a two gallon jug of water in my car. So that's how I've been able.

Because he. Because you kept buying things and you'd be like, well, I don't have food, I didn't think to pack it. And I was like, we need to keep that in your car. So that'll never be an excuse again.

Nice.

It's true.

Isn't it amazing?

Like so much like we're talking hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month.

And in part, a lot of that happens from a little bit of pre planning. And you could spend a little bit for some convenience. You want the granola bars? They're already packed up. Okay, fine. We'll keep it in the little container. Fine. But just that alone means I'm not going to a restaurant. I'm not going to stop and get this. Which ends up inevitably being 10, 15 bucks each time. It is incredible what you can do when you have constraints.

That's what's amazing. Constraints.

We always think of him as like.

Ah, don't rule me, get away from me. But sometimes we actually need constraints and rules and limits.

As we all know with kids, kids will go wild if they don't have certain constraints. Well, guess what? As adults, we're no different. So it's really cool to see the creativity where you go, okay, we're going to cut our number down to 600 bucks. How are we going to do it? Oh, well, we're creative, we're smart, we can figure it out. And here we are. Noel, what did you do on the grocery front to be able to cut that spending?

Yeah, honestly, I'm just really price conscious when I'm at the Grocery store. I look at the prices of the things I'm buying, and if it feels high, I put it away. I usually, if I'm at the grocery store, won't spend more than about 30 to $35 per trip, and that should cover me for two to three days.

Like, what do you get?

I got, like, little, like, cheese snacks before. I got, like, a big thing of, like, pesto and tortellini. And that would feed me for a couple of days because I could, like, reheat it and eat it for a couple days.

Okay. Loving that. We talked about what changes felt the hardest. What changes actually felt easy for you.

So for me, I actually thought the groceries was the easy part for me. And the subscriptions weren't as bad as I expected. We have a. Yeah, we have access to watch still a lot of the things we wanted to watch before without paying for it. So that's actually really nice.

Yeah, we don't pay for one streaming service now, except for Rams on Prime, I guess.

Oh, they pay for Amazon Prime?

What, are you borrowing someone else's? Don't worry, I'm not gonna tell the ftc. Actually, maybe you shouldn't say. Whatever, don't say it. It's fine. Somehow they got access. I don't mind.

Okay. And I think, honestly, for me, the, like, just. Sorry.

Just.

Just circling back and coming back. The groceries was the easy part. The. The thing that was hardest, mentally, the thing that was very hardest, I think, was his mom. And the tithing, I should say. And then the thing that was after that, just realizing, like, I was moping around to. To in all reality, for the first couple weeks, like, about the fact that I can't. I really like, like, expensive face wash and expensive shampoo and conditioner.

Wait, like, which brand?

Like, I really like Olaplex and Drunk Elephant. And those are just like. Well, what is the more expensive Drunk Elephant is a brand of face wash. It's like $50 or how much? It's like. It's, like, expensive for a bottle of face wash. And then for the shampoo and conditioner for olaplex, it's like $50 for, like, this big of a bottle.

So you were putting on, like, Suave or something? Some. And then you're just like, oh, this disgusting shampoo. It doesn't even smell good. Is that what was going.

No, I was just moping around for when it's run out and, like, what am I gonna do? And. And I just felt like. I just got really sad about that. I think it Was easier than I thought. Like I said, in reality, I think everything so far has been a lot easier than I expected it to be. I think I just had to be more grateful for the things I already have, because I have a lot, you know.

So, gratitude, respect for money, incredibly powerful commonalities. I find, by the way, with a lot of people who are quite successful with money. Not all. I know some rich, cheap. A lot of them. Hey, if you're rich. Hold on. I need to just. Blanket announcement for America. There's a certain amount of money you have where you are not allowed to complain about prices anymore. Okay, I'm just. You heard it here first. You never heard anyone else say it. If you make a certain amount of money, we can debate over how much. You're just not allowed to complain. Oh, my God. Disneyland is so expensive. Oh, my God.

Mozzarella is.

So you're not allowed to complain about it anymore. You could run it in your head, but you are not allowed to talk about it anymore because you made a certain amount of money. It's over. All right, Enough off my soapbox, Noel. I love the gratitude. I love the respect. That's amazing. I actually think these values are going to go so far. So far as the two of you increase your earnings, your savings, your investments. It's like a whole new way to look at money.

Wow. Okay.

Beautiful. Mike, what did you notice about how Noel responded to these changes? You know, things like face wash and shampoo and cheese. What did you notice?

This was not easy. There was a lot of fights with money. The last, probably, maybe before we met you, the first time we had. There was. There was, like, weeks of, like, stress and us, like, arguing about this. But after we did it with you, she was just really disappointed. And I was just like, I. And it was interesting because I just had a different response as you heard. Like, I was just peaceful and I was ready to do this, and I. I like doing this kind of stuff. But then all of a sudden, one day, she just woke up and she's just like, man, we have. We have a great life. And, like, this is totally doable.

And where did that come from, Noel?

I don't know. I think it just. I needed. I needed a minute to process reality. And I think eventually I kind of just woke up to feeling. Yeah, like, everything's okay. Like, I'm safe. Everything's fine. Yeah, I have a great life.

Yeah.

My whole life wasn't taken away from me.

Yeah.

Like, we're not on, like, welfare. Like, it's okay.

There's a lot to appreciate, that's for sure. And, yeah, look, we all. If. If we feel like something is being taken away from us, it's natural ever since we were little kids, to. To resist it, to pull back, give me my snack back, don't take it away from me. But there's a time for that. There's a time for grieving. Naturally, we all feel that way. A small amount of people come out the other end and go, wait, Wait a second. Like, I'm actually pretty good. We're good. And we should take the time to appreciate what we have. Also, I will say, there's always a better tomorrow. I believe that. And that means, you know, build a rich life today and a richer life tomorrow, which means there is 100% a day where you will get that shampoo back, the one that you love. And trust me, when you get that shampoo, if you decide in the future to spend the money on that, you're going to appreciate it 10 times more. Like, I know what it takes to pay for this shampoo. I know what we went through. I could do it again if I have to. And we did it together, and here we are. And this shampoo smells great, so I love it. Okay, Mike, I want to ask you a question about paying bills. We talked about you feeling a rush, paying them at the last minute, juggling them around. Do you still feel that way?

Absolutely. I just don't do it. Wow. I just don't do it.

How do you stop Noel?

She's just able to structure it really well. And then with the literature that I read with you, with. Because I think I read. I certainly read your first book, and I listened to your Money with Couples, and just the way you. You know, you hammer. Automated. Automated. Automated. And so did Noelle, and she's like, you need to stop. Like, the only way you're gonna stop doing, like, getting this rush is if you just stop it. So, no, it irritates me every day, but I just don't do it. I wait for the credit cards to come out when they're supposed to and the savings to transfer when it's supposed to. And, no, it still bugs the hell out of me. But I just. I know. I know what we built is what we need to do. And so I just. I just kind of put in the back of my head, like, ugh, this is just what it is.

That's pretty impressive. That's really impressive. It reminds me of so many people have made major changes. You know, they were spending money a ton of money. And I go, you miss it? They go, yeah, I miss it every day. I go, how do you not do it? They go. They basically say in so many words, the same words you said. There is something bigger than me loving to spend money. There is something bigger, as you put it, than you needing to manually pay credit cards and get that rush.

Yep.

That rush is not going away. It's there. It's probably latent. It will decrease like a sugar addiction decreases, but it's not going away. It's just sitting there, you know, dormant, like one of those fish that sits in the desert. You know, you pour water on it, comes to life. Somehow you're like, how's this possible? I don't know. It just happens.

More importantly, though, what you've done is you've elevated.

You're playing a bigger game. Because we could spend most of our lives literally paying bills and getting this temporary rush.

It is meaningless, does nothing for us.

In fact, it keeps us small. And, Mike, I'm so happy that after our conversation, you said, like, yeah, I love it, but this isn't my destiny. I'm destined for something bigger than that. And together with Noel, we gotta elevate.

So well done.

Well done.

One of the most hilarious findings in the entire personal finance industry is that most people just don't plan basically more than a month ahead of time. And yet the personal finance industry refuses to acknowledge it. That's why they will show you yet another compound interest chart.

Hey, everybody, look.

If you start at age 22 and you compound for 85 years, you can buy a sandwich. Most people literally are not thinking beyond the next month with their money. This is also especially hilarious to me because of my own cultural upbringing. I've been literally planning for retirement since I was 14 years old. So imagine me looking around the world going, what the hell is going on here? But that's not how most people think. And that's quite evident when we look at Mike and Noel. Until just a month ago, they were only thinking about the days and weeks in front of them. Mike obsessively logging into his bank account to manually pay this month's bills. Ooh, I did it. I paid this month's bills. No regard to where they were actually doing financially, where they are going. Noel buying the most expensive mozzarella, thinking only as far as dinner that night. It's like trying to drive across the country, but only looking at the road 10ft ahead of you. That's not how you drive. But now Mike and Noel are starting to zoom out the fact that Mike automated his money is a huge step. It's getting them out of the weeds and building the infrastructure to be able to think long term. I'm curious how zooming out and seeing money through this new lens has affected their csp. Remember, Mike has a variable commission based income, which means his earnings look different month to month. And since they had zero in savings, they were extremely vulnerable to risk. If anything happened to Mike's job, they would have run out of money within days. That's why I encourage them to create a rollover account, which is essentially a buffer savings account where you set aside extra money during good months to cover expenses during leaner months. If you have variable income, I recommend that you build your way towards having six months of fixed costs in a rollover fund in addition to an emergency fund. That's going to allow you to stabilize your income and simulate a normal stable W2 income. We're going to take a look at their numbers right after this.

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Yeah.

All right, so you updated the CSP. I want to put it on screen. And I would love it if you can walk me through it. Did your investments up here change at all?

They went up a little bit because it took a couple weeks for to. To turn off my 401k.

Okay. And your savings are at zero, is that right?

Not. Not right now. When we wrote this, they were at zero because we had not transferred anything into savings. Mike, what is it at now? Do you have?

Well, our rollover, 3,300 plus that.

What's the other account?

I think it's 211.

All right. Up 3,511. I'll take that. Hey, that's pretty good. 3,500 bucks. We're heading in the right direction. Okay, well done. The round of applause on that. Okay, but do you also.

Because we have 10,000 and are checking as well. You want that, too?

Yeah, I count that. By the way, I'm going to get in big trouble right now because everyone's going to start attacking me. Ramit Sethi. It's supposed to be a true net worth. You need to count your checking. Yes, you do.

Okay.

Yes, you should count your checking. And if you make a lot of money. One reason people feel scarce about money is they still keep their checking account really small. Like, they try to maximize yield.

It's dumb.

If your monthly expenses are 15,000, put 20,000 or 25,000 in there.

It's okay.

You don't need to optimize every single thing. You will feel so much better. So considering that your fixed costs are $8,043 a month, makes perfect sense to me that you would put 12,000 in there. You know, of course, you may take you a little while to get there, but you'll get there. All right, so should you put 10,000 in your net worth? Yes. We can even just increase it up here and call it 39,800. Okay, cool. Total net worth, negative 188,031. Okay. I don't mind.

Still so bad.

It's still negative, but it's certainly trending in the right direction. All right, you dropped your 401k contribution.

Okay, let's see. Okay, so groceries is 600. So that's changed. Pets. So pets. I think before it was something crazy. So we got him up. We got him on his original food. That was reasonable.

You put that dog on a freaking diet. You're like, mom and dad are on a diet. You're on a Diet too. No more mozzarella cheese either. We're taking you straight to the dog. Kibbles and bits. All right. How much did you save per month on the dog?

So he's on a Purina dog food. He. I feel like he eats less of it though too than he did of the other food. So it's actually lasting quite a bit. We got an $80.

Hold that dog up. Let's see the dog. Let's just evaluate the dog. How healthy is he or she?

He's really healthy. Our vet always rants and rants.

Oh, what's his name?

Dulce.

Okay. Has a beautiful sheen to his coat. I think that cheaper food is doing him well. So you're, you're saving quite a bit. 256amonth on average without exceptional circumstances per month on your dog, is that right?

Yeah. And we actually spent the vet. We actually. That actually went towards medical bills. So I was still in our budget.

Great. Amazing. Another benefit of being forward looking is the vast majority of people, when something happens, like a unexpected expense, it cripples them. It's like taking a punch when you're out just walking and you're just like, what the hell? But when you are thoughtful, mindful, when you're following, I will teach you, be rich. You already plan for the unexpected. You can't know what it's going to be, but you know something is going.

To happen, so you plan a little bit extra.

You always add in a little buffer. And then when you get punched or when something happens. I don't know why I'm using this punching example. When something happens, you're well prepared for it and it does not knock you off track. Well done. All right, let's keep going. We see that tithing is down to 200. That's a big change. Subscription is down to 58. Very nice.

Yeah, that's my gym membership. That's Amazon Prime.

I got rid of my gym membership. But he wanted, he felt like it was. He really wanted to hold on to his, so we agreed that he would keep his.

Your fixed costs are 74%. That's in the right direction as well. The debt payments are at 2024. Is this higher or lower than it was last time?

I guess same.

It's about the same because savings went up.

Mm. Okay, let's take a look. So going down to investments. Investments are still at zero right now. In fact, you are currently investing $0. I don't love it. I don't love it because I like the factory to stay on even for 100 bucks a month. But I understand there are certain things you're prioritizing. We can talk about that.

Let's look at savings.

Savings are at 24% of take home pay. Okay. That's a lot. So you have annual bills and doctor bills at 362amonth. Okay. And your rollover fund is at $2,233. So you're being quite aggressive with that. That's one. And then guilt free spending is at 2% or $210. Okay, I have questions. First of all, is 2% realistic?

No, no. It was originally. It would have been if it was actually guilt free spending. But the problem is there is a buffer needed.

Yeah.

That we didn't really realize at the time. And since then I've. Every time we have things come up where you have to spend money, what I've done is just taken it out of the overflow savings budget and moved it into the extra budget, the miscellane it. Hopefully it's not going to stay here. But right now it's at 850. I'd like to keep. That's a lot high.

That's a little. Okay. 850 is not that big. It's 8%.

And then the overflow savings account went from like I think was initially it's down to 1 165. Because he had such a good month, we still were able to put away three over three grand.

Good.

But yeah, the average month. That's what it's at though I think.

Your rollover fund is pretty aggressive. You know, it's like. And when you have a great month.

Yeah.

Pump that thing up, fill it up. But you got to leave yourself a little bit of room for the unexpected.

The only reason we thought of that was just because of how variable his job is. And like. And you're like, he's performing better at work. And I'm like convinced that it's because he's not struck. He's not going into the job thinking like I need money, I need money, I need money. Which is obviously going to come across to people you're selling to. They're going to feel your energy, you're going to feel their energy. Right. And so when you're just like not thinking about money because money is okay. I feel like it makes you better able to be present. So like you've had a great month. And I think having a rollover account that's comfortable having money in our checking account so we never have to worry about making sure that there's enough in the checking account to cover all the bills. Like, I feel like we're just going to feel more relaxed. So that's just basically kind of like my mentality as far as being so aggressive with the overflow front because of the nature of his job and just how variable it can be.

Gotcha. What do you think, Mike?

I 100% agree. Let's. Yeah, I. Like I said, the fact that I'm still checking my bank account 10 times a day is my problem. And more psychology and probably more like you said, probably therapy thing.

Um.

But yes, knowing that, yeah, it's. It's been life changing actually. So for me, that's what I love to hear.

That's amazing. Okay, I have a question about your debt. If you stick to your current plan, how long until your debt is paid off?

Noel would know this.

I want to point out. Before Noel answers, I just want to point out Noel just grabbed her phone. She. She has the information handy. It's not like, oh, I don't know, she's pulling something up. Go ahead, Noel.

The last time I think I did the math, I feel like we were at like a year and a half. We could have done it quicker but with trying to do the savings as aggressively as we are, I think we just are like, it's because I remember you saying specifically, like you don't have to do it that quickly. Like it's okay if it's just like a little bit chill. So I think we made it a little bit chill. So the credit card payments are specifically. It's a weird number, but it's $1,661 a month is just automatically going towards credit card bills. Yeah. And so that. I think that's around a year and a half.

That sounds pretty good to me. How's that sound to you?

I feel good about it.

I stress about it as you know. But yeah, it's. And realistically it's really good.

Okay. We're all about realism here. Always. Like it took you a while to get into debt. It's going to take you a while to get out. But a year and a half or so does not seem extreme to me. To be debt free, Credit card debt free. That's quite impressive.

Well, and to have a savings and a rollover fund. I mean that, that I just don't. That that term changed my life like our life. I've been trying to. For some reason in my head, the way you said it, I was able to respond because I've had coaches, you know, like, one of my best friends is a top sales guy, and he's got me in the career, and he told me to do the same thing you did. But I don't know. I guess I was right to listen to this time.

I think that's probably true. We. We make changes when we are ready to hear them. I see it all the time. I've done it myself. People told me advice 10 years ago. I didn't listen. Now I'm ready. Good. Let's talk about investing. So right now you have $0 going towards investing. Now I understand why you're being very conscious of every dollar. It's being apportioned into places you want. Let me simply tell you my philosophy on investing, which is obviously you've heard, you know, start early, invest consistently. I'm not even talking about that. Imagine you ran a factory and you were like, creating a thousand widgets a day. And then you realize there's a shortage of some parts due to somebody imposing unnecessary tariffs, let's say. And you were like, we're shutting the entire factory down. Just shut it down. Well, now what happens when you shut it down? You got to lay everybody off. And that old guy George, who's the only guy who knows how to repair the COBOL programming thing, he's. He died. Now when you decide, oh, we're ready to finally restart the factory, it's incredibly difficult. You don't have the talent, you don't have the parts. You don't have any of it. If instead you had simply gone from a thousand widgets a day down to 50 widgets a day, you could have cut your costs a bit. You could have maybe laid some people off, but you still keep the factory running. That is exactly how I think about investing. Sometimes people can't invest $5,000 a month or $1,000 a month, but my question to them is, can you invest 50amonth? Because then you keep the factory running. And when you are able to, like when you pay off your credit card debt in 16, 18 months or so, then it is really easy to simply transfer that money over and turn up the factory. That is why I love to keep it running. What do you think of that?

I think that's good. I. It sounds like maybe we could do a hundred dollars a month. Obviously, we can do that. And maybe. Is it the best place to do it is in your matching program, right?

Like, because if you get a 401k match.

Yeah, I do, but I gotta. I gotta contribute 6%.

Oh, it has to be 6% to give 4%.

That's why I turned it off.

I understand. And there's no in between. You can't do like 2%.

I could do 2%. I just wouldn't get a map. Oh, yeah.

Well, I don't mind it. I don't mind it. There, there may be better options.

The other investments I have is in Vanguard. I. Oh, another question. Well, another question I just kind of asked is I also have a Roth that I haven't contributed to in years. That's just sitting in my Vanguard as well. That's just. It's grown, I don't know, 7% or something. But.

So you would, you would have to look, because there is a contribution limit based on your income to see if you're eligible for a Roth ira. It also depends on if you're filing single or. Or married. There's a little bit to look into. It's not hard. But a Roth IRA is an awesome, awesome account. And you can contribute 50 bucks a month. You contribute $583 a month, et cetera, et cetera. But if not, put in a 401k, that's fine. The point is just to get the $50 a month, keep the factory running. That's really the point of it. $50 a month. In the grand scheme, yeah, it will add up, but your real growth is going to come from 500 bucks a month, 1,000 bucks a month.

So where you put it at this.

Stage is almost not as important as simply having it go somewhere. If it were me, I would. If I had the opportunity to do a Roth IRA, which you can just search Roth IRA contribution limits, I would put the money in there. 50 bucks a month. You can do it through Vanguard super easy. You just open up a Roth ira, do it that way.

I already know what you're thinking right now. Bunch of commenters sitting there with Cheez its on their face going, ramit, you don't know what you're talking about. $50 a month won't get you anywhere as you start to gear up and write your angry comments. Let me just run the numbers for you. Start with $50, double it every year. Cap it at $2,000 a month. Stay consistent for 25 years. Assume average stock market returns of 7%. You end up with over $1 million. That's right. I love Cheez its too. But don't write me comments like that anymore unless you run a calculation yourself. This is the power of starting small and building the habit. And for Mike and Noel, that future is actually within reach. Within two Years, they're going to be a two income household. But the discipline has to start now. Investing is not just about how much you earn, although that certainly helps. It's about building the habits, building the skills to respect money, to stay consistent and to know that wealth is created over time. That's how they start living their rich life.

As you made these changes since the last time we talked, did you notice any childhood lessons coming up as you were engaging with money in a different way?

Yeah, that was my moping. That was my moping for the first couple weeks. It was because there was. Yeah, it was definitely like this fear of like suddenly everything around me is going to change. But my environment didn't change. Like I'm not in, you know, a tiny one bedroom apartment with cockroaches. Like, that's just not where we are right now. And so even if we're spending, like we're restricting how we're spending, like we still have a beautiful apartment. We still have, you know, a lot of what we want and everything we need. So it's just not the same. And so I kind of had to realize like, maybe I was afraid that it would be the same. And after a couple of weeks realizing this is not the same thing, I think I was able to be like, wow, that was, I was just not living in reality. And also that's when I kind of realized like, okay, I've just been really childish and this is a childish way to like think about things and that's okay. Like forgive myself for that too. Right? Like, you know, yeah.

What does childish mean to you?

The codependent maybe like dependent on other people to be okay. I think that's how I have been with money. Like I needed other people around to take care of me and that just puts me in a really bad spot. And it puts a weird strain on a marriage that. Right. Like, and then I get mad because you're not my dad and it's like, well, I kind of made you that way.

Like, that's a very powerful insight. Like you would hand control over and delegate authority and in many, in some ways co create this parent child dynamic. It's not quite that, but slightly that. And, and then inevitably people who do that resent it and they're like, I don't want to have to ask permission. Why do I feel this way? Why are you controlling the finances? And while true, there's often a co creative element in that. Very cool that you recognize that. Very cool. I love that. Mike, what about for you? Any childhood lessons? Come up as you were making these changes.

Yeah. I couldn't think of some on the spot but as Noel was talking, I, I find myself getting back into. I wouldn't say so much child, but like young adulthood. Bad, bad patterns that I've kind of lived my whole life with that I'm. I'm working to, to break anyways. But it is, you know, we did so well on this budget and we would have, we would have hit the 600 grocery budget but I let off the gas and, and that's very, very like me and 18 year old Mike kind of sense of these bad, like just lazy bad habits that, that I don't like but I just really gravitate towards.

So that's interesting. I heard Noel use a word that I think would be so appropriate here. I think you said something about forgiveness. Noel. You know the idea that like we're not perfect and actually we don't have to be perfect in order to succeed. Like we can't set up a financial system that requires us to be perfect if we're going to live a rich life because we would always fail. I'm not perfect. I exceed my spending. Sometimes I underspend on something.

So what do I do?

I recognize I'm a human. Sometimes I'm going to get tired. Sometimes I'm gonna just make a mistake or be impulsive. So what do I do? I build in a buffer. 15%. I give myself a little bit of grace once in a while. I go over it, but I'm abundant. I know next month I'll correct it and I make a plan for it. Maybe instead of going out to dinner, I'm gonna stay in that night, that kind of thing, right? And adjust it for as big or as small as you need to. But the thing is, we're running a marathon here. So you actually have to feel good about this. And you did kill it. You killed it the last month. And so it's just that little tweak, that little. What I'm looking at is like 95 success and 5%. You called it let off the gas.

No, I think it was just the one. I think there was just one thing you, you like let off on. And it wasn't like hundreds of dollars worth. It was maybe 30 bucks. What was was it was soda and I. And then we had a conversation where I was like, this could be a slippery slope. So we just want to identify that this is happening. Like we had a moment where we're like, we've been really good, let's go, let's buy ourselves a soda.

What kind of soda, by the way?

Diet.

Diet Dr. Yeah. Diet Dr. Pepper. And then. And then. And then I think after we had given each other permission to have it, I think what happened is every day afterwards, he would get one.

Yeah.

And then it was like. Okay, wait a minute.

Yeah. Okay.

So.

So.

Good catch.

That's a really good catch, guys. When you make changes like. Like you've made 360 degree changes and then, you know, you discover. Oh, my gosh. Like, it's surprisingly hard to make life changes and stick with it. So you gotta identify the wrinkles. And one of the wrinkles you discovered is, hey, what? We're gonna give ourself a little reward. But then like, oh, when we gave ourself that reward, like, I actually did it every single day. And that is a bit of a slippery slope. So what are we gonna do about it?

One, we could put some money aside.

Every month so we can get that. Two, we can just not do it. Three, we can have a specific day of the month where we go out and do.

Who knows? There's a million different solutions. But I love that you're talking about it.

Cause you're gonna encounter this for the.

Rest of your life.

It's natural stuff. I'm really happy to hear it. Honestly, I'm. I love it. I like hearing that y' all rewarded yourself too. I don't mind that. This is. We gotta live life. We can't be putting ourselves in a prison. You know, we gotta live life, but we gotta do it within our boundaries.

That's great.

Yeah, you're doing. You're doing all the right stuff. It's just like approaching it with love and not berating yourself too much. I can't believe I, an Indian guy, am telling people not to berate themselves. That's actually crazy to me. My identity is changing as we speak as well. Last time we talked, your visions of a rich life were a little different. Noel, you wanted savings and a Costa Rica home. Mike, you wanted security, travel, and raising kids. Have you had any conversations about your visions of a rich life?

Yeah, we. Okay, so first of all, I let go of something that wasn't on there, but was in our conversation was I was really attached and weird about private school. And like, there was like a. Maybe like a status thing attached to that that I was really attacked that I really just wanted to grip onto and, like, just realizing, like, okay, maybe we'll just. Instead, we'll be more thoughtful about the school district that we live in and Public schools. Acceptable.

Cool.

I think as of right now, like, we're not really, like, I think we liked the idea of the Costa Rica house or whatever. I think we've definitely both kind of been on the same page of like, we don't want it. If we buy a house, it will be in Costa Rica. We're not going to end up ever buying a house. House in the US unless, like, we're just come into a huge amount of money for whatever reason. And like, renting seems nice. Especially Denver area has like a ton of great rental houses, which, by the.

Way, you change our perspective on that, by the way. Well, well, you're both.

Most people just hate me when I. When I even suggest the idea of renting. I can't believe it. I met two people in America who are nice about it. What changed your mind?

The things that you want a house for, right, Is like, oh, I can customize it. But like, and we happen to live in a city that has so many rental properties available that you can really find a property no problem, that has a lot of the features you want. Maybe if we lived in like a smaller place, it might be different, but we just have an advantage of living in a place where like, we can still get pretty much everything customized to how, for the most part, to how we like it. So feel good about that. Like, the idea of the consistency of what it costs. Having talked to my mom who like, owns a home and like, how much she puts aside in savings and things that come up and how stressed she is when she has to replace a fence or her H vac or whatever. And there's always something. But I feel like a lot of, like what I wanted was. I think it was more attached to status than it was joy. And I think as I'm becoming more comfortable with myself, I think we're kind of reevaluating what that rich life actually looks like and whether it fits us and yeah, I think I'm becoming. Having lived with less and being like, I'm okay and I'm happy. I think it's making me reevaluate, like, what is actually important to me.

That's incredibly impressive, incredibly moving. What I often find what, what I found in my own life is when I was finally able to afford a bunch of fancy stuff. Some of it I just didn't care about anymore. Like, I had a little Casio watch when I was a kid. Now I don't wear a watch at all. I just, it's not for me. Some of my friends are watch Guys, not for me. Some of them, I tried it once and I just didn't care anymore. And then some of it, I'm like, oh, this is actually awesome. And I'm gonna go deeper on it, and I'm gonna, like, really learn the ins and outs of these areas of life that are really appealing to me. But it wouldn't have been what I expected. It's. It's really not. And I think that's cool. I like hearing you say, look, some of the stuff I thought, it's not for me. But you're giving yourself by closing those doors, you're giving yourself room to open up other doors that are meaningful for you and for both of you. That's amazing. What about for you, Mike? Your vision of a rich life and the two of you, what do you think about that?

Yeah, I think it's. I think it's been changing a lot. You know, Noel is still trying to figure out what she wants to do with her career. And, you know, when we. What you didn't mention when we first had the meeting with you, she got. Not only did she get mopey with, you know, not. Which is totally understandable, she also got pretty anxious about the money she's going to start earning when she graduates. So she started kind of changing her whole thought process on what she wants to practice. So we've had a lot of conversations about that.

Like, what do you mean?

Like, well, Noelle, did I explain this?

Yeah, okay, I forgot about that. You're right. Yeah. I went the whole other way at first because I was like, I want to hold on to this money. And so I'm just gonna make more jam it. No one's gonna tell me I can't and I'm gonna make myself a millionaire. But, like, the way you do that as a lawyer is you work 80 to 120 hour weeks and sure, you can end up with a lot of money. And then I kind of had an another come to Jesus moment where I was like, well, what. What am I gonna do with my kids? Like, if we have kids and like, he's worked all these hours and I'm working all these hours. Are. Are we cool with our kids potentially feeling, like, fully abandoned and being just raised by nannies or just so that I can have nice things, am I gonna end up really empty and sad? You know, when I get into my, like, 50s and 60s? So I think I realized that I would, and that wasn't actually what I wanted. So now I'm kind of readjusting and being like, you got. Gave myself a little whiplash just trying to, like, hold on to this idea of, like, having everything.

So we've been talking a lot about that, which is good. I think it's. I think it's great. We've just been having a lot more open dialogue about our future and. But now we both feel comfortable. At least for me, I feel more comfortable talking about it now that she knows where we are with finances. Before, it was almost like la la land, and now it's like, this is what it is. This is what we're doing. This is. We have a plan together. You said, when you rent, the most you'll ever pay is your rent. When you buy, when you have a mortgage, the least amount you'll ever pay is your mortgage. And that really hit me. And it totally makes sense how you talk about, you know, and invest the rest rather than putting your home like, that's how you build wealth. We're, like, just really connected with us. So, like, homeownership doesn't seem too big of a deal for us anymore.

That's cool. And if you decide down the road you're like, we want to buy, you always can. You always can.

Yeah.

Especially if you've been investing for five, 10 years, aggressively. 15 years. Those people are in an enviable position to be able to buy if they want to. They're just sitting on tons of, tons of money. But I think it's important. There's this beautiful, like a bamboo, you know, it's like, it's flexible, but it's firm. And we want to make a plan, a rough plan of our rich life, and we want to have some core values. Great. We always know that we can change down the road. Maybe we don't want to buy a house today. Maybe tomorrow we do. Cool.

What.

What will put us in a position to. If we change our mind, to be able to be in a good spot. Maybe we do want kids or don't want kids. Okay, well, maybe that will change, but what's our timeline, Et cetera, et cetera? There's so many things where we are focused on this season of life. We don't know what's going to happen in the next season. Let's think about it a bit and just make sure we set ourselves up for what may transpire.

Let me jump in here, because what Mike and Noel just shared is very powerful. They both realized that they were aiming for these arbitrary goals that didn't actually align with what they actually value. This is the power of a rich life. Vision and is why I get so excited when you create your own specific, unapologetic rich life vision. That's why I wrote my journal. Because it has a series of no numbers questions that will help you actually understand what you truly want. Not your friends, not your mom, just what you want in your rich life. And it will help you build the confidence to get it. Because so many people just arbitrarily aim for the things they think they want, usually based on what other people around them want. That's what Mike and Noel did. It's like the blind leading the blind. It's like someone whose favorite food is chick fil a trying to give me advice on the best Indian food. Why would I listen to you? We need to go deeper than just mindlessly absorbing what other people want. We get an amazing opportunity once to create our rich life vision and then use our money to live it. And I gotta say, fortunately, Mike and Noelle have started to do this. You notice their vision is about alignment. They want to be present for their future kids. They want to do work they care about. They want to stay grounded even when money gets tight. It's pretty powerful. When you really start to interrogate your own beliefs and you start to create your own unique way of living, you might be surprised. It can actually be a surprisingly hard realization. For example, it's hard to realize you've been living your life for something you don't actually care about. It can be deeply confusing, deeply unsettling. I love the honesty that they both shared about that. But that's just part of the process. Now they get to focus on what they really want. And the principle here, your future is bigger than your past. Now I want to talk about the future and how they can stick to the plan they've created.

Now that you have made a plan, talked about it, executed on it, and you are ironing out the wrinkles that have come up, what is going to keep you focused on making sure that you are successful with your plan? Noel, what comes to mind for you?

Well, honestly, having an app on my phone helps a lot. Like, that's really like the thing. Because you can check it. We use Monarch.

Oh, okay. Okay.

It's just like having that app on my phone just makes all the difference because it tells. You know what I mean? We can check it on a regular basis. It sends you notifications if you're breaking a budget in certain areas. We can look at it, you know, weekly at the end of the month, kind of see where we're at, adjust it. I just Feel like it makes it so that it's just easy and a regular part of. It's just really, now that we've set it up, it's just really easy to adjust and kind of look at from, from here.

So, Mike, what about for you?

The app definitely helps, but I think long term, based on, you know, what I was telling you before, you know, letting off the gas and stuff. I think for me, probably when we're able to pay off some debt and then being able to really be free of. Of investing in stuff that we do enjoy doing, I think is going to be kind of light of fire, probably under me even more because. Because debt for me is already a fire lit. Like, it just is. Like I can't stand it. It drives me crazy. So I, I want to work and put us in a great position. And now we have a plan. So that's. That's already motivating for me. But once that happens and we can start spending money affordably on stuff that we really do enjoy, I just, I think that's going to kind of reinvigorate me. That's my hope.

That's going to be awesome. Yeah, I know it. I know it's going to be awesome because of what you've gone through to get there. It was that much harder, that much work, that much collaboration between the two of you, that much follow through for months, months, sometimes years. That honestly, even to be able to splurge on diet Dr. Pepper or a shampoo or face wash. It's not the face wash. It's not the Dr. Pepper. It's the ability for you to buy it, knowing you really worked for it. And there's a deep appreciation. It doesn't matter if somebody's spending a dollar on a soft drink or a million dollars on a house. It doesn't matter. It's the ability, the appreciation that you did it because of a lot of hard work. What scares you about not following through? What are you worried might happen if nothing changes? What scares you?

I mean, I guess I could just put it all out there. I would be afraid to, you know, lose Noel. My car, my apartment, my dog. Like, that's. This is why I reached out, because internally I was like. I was like dying inside. I'm terrified of us, this, of our old situation not changing. That's why I'm so willing to do it. So I'm so happy that she was able to call me on my, you know, like on my. Buying drinks every day right in. In my mind, it's like, it's just a pop drink. But no, it's not like it's. It's not. It's not. So, no, I'm. I'm. I'm terrified to go back to what. What I. Because it was really just me on my own. It wasn't like Noel had nothing to do with it.

It.

She was just working her butt off in school while I was taking care of the finances. I am scared to be alone with this again. So I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it.

Noel, what kind of commitment have you thought about in terms of you stepping into and staying a core part of managing money as opposed to leaving it to Mike?

Seeing it for what it is helps a lot. Like seeing my behavior for what it is. Seeing my behavior, my prior behavior as avoidant, childish, codependent, and damaging to our marriage, specifically, like, seeing those things, I think is motivation enough to not, like, return to, like, doing that anymore. Especially now that we've set up a pretty simple system that doesn't require us daily to, like, spend hours talking, you know, it's not. It's not that deep. Once it's planned out like.

Well, I have to say just a few things that I really appreciate about the two of you. First of all, the two of you coming back, following up, showing these major changes that you've made, incredibly impressive. I just want you to know you. You need to be commended for what you've done. So well done. More impressive than the numerical changes and the debt payoff is the attitude that you're both bringing to these life changes. I truly wish that everyone I worked with approached it this way. Acceptance. You have accepted, hey, this is where we were. It was not a good place, and this is where we need to be. You have accepted that. We always have to be honest with ourselves and honest with the people around us if we want to live a real rich life. That is really hard to do, especially with money, because you can kind of kick the can down the road for 25, 30 years. I notice more appreciation and respect for money. I notice that you are not living your old stories exclusively. Like, Mike, you said, you know, hey, like, it still kind of drives me a little crazy that the credit card debt, the. The manual payoff and all that stuff, but there's a bigger vision here. Not living your old past. Same with you, Noel. Talking about, hey, I've had to realize I need to become more involved, more mature with money, very powerful. And then finally, just this idea that changing my relationship with money, even if I am not Spending on the things I used to. It doesn't have to feel like I'm chopping off my fingers or my arm. It's not fun. But instead it's like, oh, we have something bigger to work towards so we gotta find a way to enjoy it. That is incredibly empowering. Honestly. I want to see you two continue doing what you're doing. I want to see you rack up the wins. Rack them up, just like take them, appreciate them. Because the wins are going to come more and more and more. You have 3,000 bucks in savings. It's going to grow your investments, you're going to turn them on. 50 or 100 bucks, that's going to grow. Debt's going to start getting paid off and then you're going to have lots of cash.

Win, win, win.

In, in short, I want you to continue feeling good about money and actually feel better and better and better. And then when you go to buy the Diet Coke or the, the self care products like you may decide like, I actually don't want that anymore now that I can afford a million of them. It's not interesting or yeah, I'm going to do it within reason and man, this really feels good to be able to do it. That, that is my vision for you. I actually think you're totally on track to nail it. Mike and Noel, thank you so much and big, big, big congratulations. You are doing awesome.

This is one of the most impressive transformations I've seen. Not just because of what changed, but how quickly it happened. Five weeks ago, Mike and Noel came in with anxiety. No plan. They were overwhelmed. But they stuck with with the process. They got honest and things began to shift. They cut spending, they built a system, they made a plan to pay off every dollar of their debt. And they did it fast. They redefined what matters. Not just stuff, but shared values. They sacrificed, stayed accountable, they started respecting money together. All in all, very impressive. But the work is not over. They still need to keep pushing down fixed costs, including having hard conversations about things like tithing. Mike's anxiety is improving, but it needs ongoing support and both of them have to keep showing up. Especially when one of them starts playing a little loose with the plan. Because buying a soda should not derail anybody's future. I want to give a huge thanks to Mike and Noel for speaking with me not once, but twice. And more importantly, for doing the work. Now let's check out their follow ups to see what's changed since this conversation.

Hi Ramit and company. This is our updated video from a few months ago. A couple positive things, what Ramit taught us with the rollover fund and paying off debt aggressively, we have done both. We've been able to contribute a lot on the rollover funds. And as a result, I finally. I have a first month of not bringing in as much as we wanted or needed in our conscious spending plan. And there was no stress for either of us because we had enough money in our checking, and we were even still able to save money based on what we've been doing with our. Our money. So that's what I'll say.

Yeah.

And then I think as far as our spending goes, we have been generally within budget, but I do feel like we've. We've gone higher with our food budgets. Like, that's gone up a little bit. We don't, like, go shopping or, you know, order things on Amazon or do anything like that anymore. But there are, like, little things that we can improve. And so we're still kind of working on, like, just, like, the little things of making sure that we're women in the grocery store.

We're not.

We're, like, looking at what we're spending. And then I think there's been a couple gas station trips that we're trying to also kind of, like, step back, but other than that, I think we're doing really well. Thank you.