270. “We’re sacrificing our retirement to pay for our kids’ college”

One of my early accomplishments with money was being able to invest consistently enough to have $100,000 in my portfolio. Once that happened, the money started really compounding and I could see it. I could even feel it. Now I want you to get to the point where you have invested $100,000 of money and you can watch that thing really start to snowball. I built a program to help you do exactly that. It's called The Road to $100K. It helps you know exactly when you will have $100K invested. It helps you accelerate that timeline and it shows you step by step what to do starting today. You can join us at iwt.com/100K. Holy shit. You are spending the most amount of money.

We pay for our kids' college.

If you say like, well, give yourselves more money and don't give money to the kids, that feels selfish.

Growing up in the Midwest, you just save money, then you die and you give it to your kids.

My anxiety increases because a budget has always been really hard for me. There's always this tension of, you know, we can't We didn't even go out to dinner this week.

I feel like this pressure, just like, I'm like, "Gosh, shit, here we go." You are now spending more than you make every month. That explains the savings.

How's that feel to you?

Scary.

That's why we're here. I just want someone to put their arm around me and say, "Son, this is what you're supposed to do." That person doesn't exist.

What if instead of following that feeling, I followed the numbers?

Yeah.

By connection, by conversation, and by a Rich Life vision.

In 20 years, I don't want them flying to California to have your kid tell them about money.

You know, in America, we do some pretty funny things with our money in the name of the kids. Extracurriculars, huge birthday parties, SUV when they are 2 months old, and college, of course, has to be fully funded. Now, I don't have a problem with any of those things. As long as they are intentional and as long as you ran the numbers. The problem, of course, is almost nobody does that. Most parents simply follow a script, and that script often costs them their own financial future. Today I'm talking to Mia and Jake. She's 40, he's 38. They've been married for 4 years. They have a blended family with 3 children, 2 from Mia's previous relationship and 1 child that they share together. And this idea of paying for their kids' college is causing resentment between them. Mia applied, and here's what she wrote. I don't think either of us realized how difficult it was going to be to create a stepfamily. Money is a real sticking point because my ex-husband does not contribute very much, and I want to provide my kids with what I can because we're able to. Okay, pretty complex situation. How would you reconcile this if you were sitting in my chair. Let me show you the numbers so you have a little bit more information. Assets: $443,000. Investments: $0. That's interesting. Savings: $13,900. Uh, low with 3 kids. Debt: $176,410. Total net worth: $280,490. Okay. Fixed costs at 50%. Very nice. Investments at 22%. I'm confused because their investments above are at zero. Not sure what to make of that. Savings at 25%, which is quite high. Guilt-free spending at 3%. I don't believe that. Honestly, I'm kind of confused by their numbers. They're very perplexing. So I need to talk to them to figure out what's going on. And I have a lot of questions. Let's get started with Mia and Jake. Mia, you wrote the application and in the application you wrote something I wanted to ask you about. You said our values are mostly aligned and we have a plan with our money, but when it comes to implementing it, I feel resentment from my husband that a big chunk of our money goes to support my two kids who are not his biological kids.

Yeah.

Is that an accurate reason for why you're here today?

I think that Jake and I really do agree on our values, like, like this is what we want to do, but in the implementation of it, The reality is that a big chunk of our money is going to make up for the fact that I didn't plan and save earlier when my two biological kids, our oldest kids, were younger. There's always this tension of like, well, I just, you know, we can't even go out to dinner this week, right? And I'm like, ooh, that's true. No, we can't. And then there's some guilt that I feel. And I don't think that there's any resentment about me or like our values, 'cause like we've agreed to it, but there's this like underlying tension that I'm afraid will get worse if we don't sort of come to a place where that underlying resentment is gone.

Yeah, I mean, I think that it's not resentment. I think it's just frustration would probably be the better term for it. You know, I'm making more money than I ever have. I've gotten my job that I've really been trying to get that's given us a lot more money. You know, my ideal life would be, you know, being able to go out to eat without thinking about it. You know, like that's kind of like my rich life is like being able to buy a few things here and there without being very stressed about things and not thinking about money, which I know is not a realistic thing. But I mean, just even walking around here, you know, just yesterday I was like, wow, these are the things we could buy with, you know, all the money that we're putting into school. But I don't resent Mia or anything in the kids or what they were doing. That's where they were at their time.

When you say walking around here yesterday, these are the things we could buy, what's an example of that?

I'm noticing a lot of my rich life revolves around our house and our idea of like making it a really great spot for us and the kids. And it's our forever home, hopefully. And that's ideas of maybe getting a hot tub or getting landscaping done. We put a fire pit in and I was like, oh, you know, if we just put like one of the kids' tuitions, you know, we'll be able to do it in a couple of months. So it's like that kind of thinking. Got it.

Did you have this conversation today or yesterday?

Yesterday. Yeah, yeah, just walking around.

I think the exact comment was, Man, if we just took the money that we were spending on college, in 8 months, we could do a hot tub and probably start on the landscaping. And I literally don't know what we were walking by.

Probably a landscaping hot tub store, so.

Yeah, there's one right outside. And what was your reaction to that when you heard that?

I think my general reaction is just to be quiet. Like, I think internal, like, I don't even think I said anything. I think I maybe laughed and was like, yeah.

Yeah.

How long have the two of you been married?

So just over 4 years.

4 years, yeah.

Okay, 4 years. And how many children total?

3.

3 kids, that's—

2 from my previous marriage, and then we have a daughter together.

How old is your daughter?

3.

3, okay, great.

And we're spending a fortune on her preschool right now too.

Really?

Yeah. Yes.

Oh, okay. And how about the 2 other children? How old are they?

14 and 11.

Ah, okay, that's good to know.

And can I just clarify one thing too?

Yeah.

It's one of these weird things. It's like, I know what's best for the kids and our family and in investing in their school. And it's like, I think it's the right thing to do, but I'm not sure. And that's kind of why we're here. It just like, we want to, you know, figure out the balance. The balance feels a little off. It feels off. Yeah, it's like we should—

The balance of what?

The money we're putting towards the kids versus the money we're putting towards the things that—

And like our savings is probably not where we want it either. We want more money in our savings too.

Okay, hold on. What's, what's off with the balance?

We're really emphasizing as much money as possible towards the kids between saving for college and the, our youngest preschool. And so like our daily spending or like sort of like our guilt-free spending is like really minimal and that doesn't feel sustainable, but also Like, if you say like, well, give yourselves more money and don't give money to the kids, that feels like selfish.

Yeah, you both agree? I would agree with that. Yeah.

Okay, that's interesting. Do the two of you make decisions about money?

You mean together?

Well, that kind of answers my question right there. No, do— yeah, let's start with together. Do you make decisions together about money?

I would say big picture, yes, although I'm not sure that we've always been doing that. It's not something we think about a lot.

Okay, you agree, Jake, or just—

Yeah, I would, I would agree that, um, it's been something that we haven't talked a bunch about. I've always enjoyed just like, we're just— we save a bunch of money, you die with a bunch of money, that's all, that's what happens.

Oh, um, you grew up in the Midwest?

Yes, yes, yes. Like I said, growing up in the Midwest, you just save money, then you die and you give it to your kids.

Yeah. How do the conversations about money and kids typically go?

I usually say something like, hey, we have to do the budget.

Okay.

And what is your reaction to that, Jake?

Just anxiety and anger, probably.

I feel anger too when I hear that word.

Yes, yes.

I probably, my anxiety increases because to be completely honest, like, that has, a budget has always been really hard for me. Like I, it's hard for me to like wrap my head around like what are the right buckets to think about? And so I'm trying to explain thinking like, here's my thinking, Jake, here's what I think we should do, but it's probably not making a lot of sense because I barely like understand it. I just know like money is going out and it's probably more than we should have going out. And then Jake's like, well, but what about this? And then, which is usually a super reasonable question, and I'm like, I don't know. And so then I get stressed and then he gets stressed and then—

Where do the kids come into this?

As in?

Like the primary question today is, are we sending too much towards our kids? And this is a source of potential conflict. Where do the kids come in?

I would say my default is, to treat that money as if it doesn't exist. Maybe like where the kids come in is if we— it's like, well, what if we spent a little more money here? And then my response to that is like, we don't have that.

Got it. So the, the kids' money is sacred, like it does not exist, it's a non-negotiable. Got it.

Yes.

Are you open to changing that?

I'm open to it.

Just imagine if Jake had said, I don't want to send a single cent to your kids. That would be incredibly complicated to unravel. But fortunately, they do seem to have similar values. So now the question becomes, with a blended family, how do we decide the right amount of help to give? And I'm starting to suspect they have only thought about help in terms of how big of a check they can write. But there are a lot of other ways you can help kids too. And Jake, what about you? Like when you mentioned like, hey, can we spend a little bit more eating out or doing XYZ? And she says, well, we can't. What's your reaction?

It's like confusion 'cause I'm making more money than I've ever made in my life. A little backstory, like when we first got together, we bought a huge house that was great. It hit everything on our, it's like 10 out of 10 wishlist perfect. Oh. I had a big truck trying to act really tough. You know, that tough guy, you know, 'cause that's what I need in 30 seconds.

Wait, I didn't know this.

Yeah, so yeah.

This is when you got married?

Yes.

It was like, so we're both, this is both of our second marriage.

Okay.

And I think we were both like so happy to have happiness. We were just like, let's just like spend, let's have everything that we'd ever—

I don't know how we survived.

So you bought a, how big is the house? Was the house?

It was like almost 4,000 square feet.

Holy shit.

Yeah. 3-car garage.

That's for 2 of you and a little baby?

Yes.

Half the time.

Babies need space.

Yes, yes.

4,000 square foot of space. Okay, so then you bought the truck. What kind of truck?

Uh, Toyota Tundra. And I didn't stop there. I got, uh, I spent $3,000 on rims because that's what you need at 35.

Totally. How much is a Tundra?

Uh, like $50,000, something like that. It was great.

Yeah. Okay, so then what else did you get?

I mean, I mean, like new furniture.

New furniture.

So you had the house, the truck, etc. Yeah, it sounds like this is in the past.

And then, yeah, and then we kind of started talking about finances, and we— that's what kind of got us into it. And then through conversations, we decided that, you know, the house is a money pit, and we didn't— I mean, not a money— it was just, we're probably house broke at that point.

Wow.

So we sold the house, um, $200,000 house, cheaper, same neighborhood. It feels so much more like us. It's fantastic. We sold my truck. We have one car that— we had two cars paid off, We had to get a bigger car just recently because the 14-year-old is very tough.

All of our kids are here now. But like how long to make the decision to sell the house? That's a huge decision.

It was a big decision, but I feel like we just looked at each other and we were like, we were so house broke.

Yeah.

And it just seemed like, why are we doing this? Because it wasn't like neither of us were attached to it. We were like, if there's something that we can change, like what can we change? And, To be like, credit to our parents, both of us were taught from a young age, like, do not go into debt other than for a house. So like, we didn't have other debt. So it was sort of like, okay, if we have money to play with, this is it. It's like the house.

What was the sign that you were house poor?

I mean, this was probably—

We were thinking about every penny.

Yeah, and we were—

That's when I was doing like the spreadsheet and it wasn't just like, it wasn't big idea numbers. It was like we spent, $12.37 at donut, getting donuts for the kids. Like, we cannot spend that. It was, yeah.

How would you describe money felt at that time?

It was horrible. It just felt like being strangled, right?

Wow. Well, like, we've even, like, we had a big house gym that we worked out in. It was lots of expensive things that I'd been collecting during COVID Sold all that, like, Planet Fitness is a bunch of weirdos, but it's still pretty good.

How did it feel to just sell all that stuff?

It felt great. Again, we got married, we were so happy to have happiness, spent all the money, and then it was like feeling like, okay, now we're making smart decisions. It was almost like we had an entire relationship in like 3 years.

Well, what I appreciate about this is I don't mind people making decisions about money even mistakes about money. We all make mistakes. I make them. We all make them. What I really appreciate is that you caught it and you took a dispassionate look at the numbers and you were like, this does not work. We got to make a change. If you actually build that skill of course correcting, you can actually go through life making a lot of mistakes because you're like, let me move fast knowing that if something goes wrong, I will correct it, learn from it, and I won't make that mistake again. So I'm willing to bet the two of you will never be house poor again. Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's what I love about Mia is how reflective and honest. And I think those conversations are what brought us together, both very reflective and honest. When we make a mistake, we need to fix it.

Yeah. Some of you are spending way too much time on TikTok. Stop listening to randos whose lives you do not want to copy. They're talking about all these 50 different supplements you have to take for sleep. Oh, before you go to sleep, you need to curve your arm in this way and do this. Stop it. Here are two things that have genuinely made my sleep better. Number one, setting an alarm and going to sleep at the same time. And second, sleeping on a firm mattress. The one we chose is from Leesa. Leesa has a lineup of beautifully crafted, high-quality mattresses. Whether you sleep on your side, your back, somewhere in between, they've got a mattress that's built for you. And from the first night, you're going to feel the difference. They use premium materials in every mattress, and they are designed for full body support. Every Leesa mattress is assembled in the US, and it comes with free shipping, easy returns, and a sleep trial of 120 nights. Plus, they have a helpful sleep quiz to figure out which mattress is the best fit for you in under 2 minutes. Go to leesa.com for 25% off mattresses, plus an extra $50 off with promo code Ramit. That's exclusive for my listeners. That's leesa.com, promo code Ramit. For 25% off mattresses, plus an extra $50 off. Support our show and let them know we sent you after checkout. Leesa.com, promo code Ramit Sethi. What is something big and scary that you have been putting off for months? For a lot of people, especially those who have started a family recently, it's getting a will. It's getting an estate plan set up. And instead of trying to figure it all out on your own, you can work with Trust and Will to get your estate planning handled right away. Trust and Will offers affordable attorney-designed estate plans online that you can create in as little as 30 minutes. Everything is state-specific. It's tailored to your needs regardless of what stage of life you're in. And we actually had one of my coworkers create a will using Trust and Will. Here's what she said. Getting started was incredibly easy. In less than an hour, I had a will, power of attorney, last will and testament, and HIPAA authorizations, all of which I downloaded. And if I wanted, I could have them checked by another attorney. Their platform makes it easy to keep these things organized and updated so your loved ones don't have to manage tons of paperwork down the line. Now, you can use an attorney for your estate plan, but that's not an option for everyone. If you know that you have loved ones that you need to protect, Trust and Will is worth considering. Go to trustandwill.com/ramitsethi to get 20% off. That's trustandwill.com/ramitsethi. To get 20% off. T-R-U-S-T-A-N-D-W-I-L-L.com/RamitSethi. You mentioned that when you had the house and you were house poor, it felt like you were being strangled. It felt horrible. Is it different now? Because you mentioned like you can't really go out to eat.

I think we took all the extra money and put it towards college.

Yeah, it's like that, like yanking the steering wheel this way, and now I'm like, I'm doing it.

It's like, we weren't saving any, like we're not saving enough for the kid is like to some extent maybe an overcorrection. But again, there's that whole tension about like, well, isn't that the right thing to be saving for?

Well, isn't a house the right thing to be buying?

Yeah, we don't know.

Fair point. Yeah, we don't know what the right answer is. I think that, you know, I keep having someone, I just want them to put their arm around me and say, son, this is what you're supposed to do. You know, it's like, So feel free to put your arm around me and tell me.

That's actually quite interesting. What if I told you that person doesn't exist?

That's what I expected.

Yeah.

Otherwise, otherwise, yeah.

It's not your dad. It's no, nobody is gonna be that person for you except you.

Right.

How would that strike you?

I know I say I want somebody to come and put their arm over me and tell me what to do, but I wanna be confident in the decisions that we're making. Okay. It'll make it easier to not spend that money or do this or make that decision knowing it's in the right spots and our money's work— you know that term money working for us? I hear people say that all the time too. I don't know what that means though.

Really?

Yeah, I'm serious.

What do you think it means?

Putting it into stock market. I don't know. I've just— yeah, I mean, my Midwest is probably showing right now. Just you save money and you put it away and hand it off the next group.

I wonder if part of it is that we get a pension, and so we've never had to think about like a 401k or like where does the 401k money go. Like, there was never any conversation about that. I want to understand the idea of a pension. Like, I get it conceptually, but on a day-to-day basis, like, should I be— should I be investing more? I don't know.

Who have you asked about this?

A person? No one. Okay. I'm asking you.

Okay, that's a fair answer.

And like with the pension, what we do, or little that we know about it, is that you get retirement is the top 3 years. So—

In average.

In average. So I've got 2 master's degrees. I'm now, I'm gonna be a principal next year. And that's, I just keep wanting to add income so that that top 3 years is as high as possible.

Okay.

When it comes to the money in your relationship, The tension is around how much, Mia, that you are sending towards your kids. Jake, what would you do with the money if you had more of it?

No judgment.

I don't know, my mind's going a lot of different ways. Like, I'd probably save it. I'd put it into savings somehow, try to collect interest, that kind of thing. Put some money into our house, like, uh, you know, the, the landscaping idea that we wanted to do. Our family really liked, we inherited a hot tub and that broke. That would be something I'd probably put it into. Those are kind of my ideas. And maybe a food service we talked about, like possibly something that, you know, health is really important to both of us. We both exercise regularly. And I think to have healthy food options consistently and not add it as a stress, because when we come home from work, just everybody's dumping their problems on us.

Have you all talked about these 3 things? Saving, house, food.

We've talked about it.

Any conclusions?

We do want to save for the house stuff. That's probably like the most conclusion. I agree that having some sort of like a food— probably, I think we probably agree on that. Like, if we could have like healthy food prepped and delivered to us, that would be amazing. But any food service is just like so much more than what we spend on groceries. It just doesn't seem to make sense.

Are you two aligned about money?

I would say most of things. The only thing I think that would cause any conflict on us would be vacation. I think is something that Mia wants to travel and I'm not. I, I feel like if we're putting all that money into school, it's like, I'd love to— I'd like to go sometimes, but it's not a need of mine.

This couple is very likable. I like talking to them, but I am noticing that because they are so compassionate with each other, it's difficult to get a straight answer out of them. I'm not even sure if they agree or disagree. And so much of what's happening here is being polite to each other. Polite's good, but sometimes I need somebody to say, I don't like that. No, this is what I want. That is what I'm pushing for here. It is now my personal mission to show Mia and Jake that they can be direct with each other. And be polite. Do y'all like feeling anxious about money?

No.

No.

Let's try that question again. Do you like feeling anxious about money?

No.

Both are saying no.

No.

Like, yes, very affirmatively. No, no. And yet the dynamic you've built allows you to both constantly feel anxious. Okay, let's, let's find out what the numbers say and then We'll talk about them. All right, what was it like putting the CSP together?

It was actually really nice because it gave me a concrete way to think about our big picture, which is nothing that I've ever been able to do before. Like, I had no idea. Like, if somebody asked, like, what's your net worth? I don't even know how to calculate that.

And consider how many years you kept a budget.

Yeah.

It's like, we're tracking this, we're tracking— and like you mentioned, like, should we be tracking the price of groceries or the price of soda?

Yeah.

It's unclear. Why do you think, looking back for the many years that you kept a budget, why do you think you were keeping that budget?

Because that was the number one thing I was taught about money is you balance your checkbook.

Right. And so since nobody balances their checkbook anymore or basically uses one, you adapted that for today and were using Excel or some tool. Using Excel.

Google Sheets.

Yeah.

Do you want to know what I was doing? Because it's pretty crazy.

I would love to.

Okay.

Tell me.

So I would, again, we spend on the credit cards because I get points for that, but we never don't pay them off. Great. Okay, so I would copy everything that was spent in the credit card statement, put it into an Excel spreadsheet. So I'm just copying and pasting it, and then line by line, one, make sure everything looked like there wasn't anything there that shouldn't be there. And then I would try to sort them into categories. Categories, I don't know why I came up with those categories, I just did. And then I would try over multiple months to track to see like, are we spending on clothes what we said we should spend? Are we spending on going out to eat what we should spend? But it was like, dupe, like I knew I was duplicating work, like it's already there, but that's what, so I—

But keep going, why do you think you were doing all this? What did it get you?

I think I felt like I was controlling our money.

Exactly.

Exactly.

This is a classic example. I'm actually really thankful that you're sharing this with everybody because there's so many people who go through the motions of playing money. They are playing money. They are moving things from here to there.

Why?

You know, like the concept of a paper pusher. Let me pick this piece of paper up, push it over there. Like, we all know that's useless, but we do it. And nobody forced you to, right? No one sat you down and said, like, you got to do this. No. If anything, it was echoes from your parents, maybe grandparents. It doesn't work. Like, if we actually took an honest look at it, we'd be like, what the fuck am I getting out of this? But we get a sense of control, and we like to feel like motion is productivity. Another great example of you correcting that and being like, hey, made a mistake, went down the wrong rabbit hole of a budget. We're gonna stop that. And you did. Amazing. Okay, let's take a look at the numbers. Mia, can you read the word in bold and the number next to it for this entire box, please?

Assets: $443,000. Investments: $0. Savings: $13,900. Debt: $176,410. Total net worth: $280,490.

Cool. What do you think of these numbers?

I feel like our net worth is low considering how much we both make. I don't understand the investments line. Okay. Um, again, like, we've got the pension, so I don't know if that should be higher.

Okay.

I feel amazing about the debt. I think that that's something that's It's our house. That's all.

That's all. Yeah. Mortgage debt. Yeah. What's the interest rate?

6%.

Yeah. Okay.

It's also a 15-year mortgage, so we're proud of that.

So we sold from a 30-year to a 15-year. That was something else. It actually paid off. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Net worth. I don't know what— I just don't know enough about net worth.

Yeah.

Obviously I want it to be higher, but I don't know, like, why.

Yeah. So that's a good answer. That's honest.

Yeah.

It's actually common. I would say most people feel that way. Do looking at these numbers make you feel anything?

I think the only thing I would feel would be guilt. And I think it'd be debt.

Like, wait, I think I could show you this glass of water and you'd feel guilt.

Yeah, I think so too.

That's a default baseline. Okay, so you feel guilt because—

I don't feel guilt. I said if I felt— if, if debt was way higher, I would feel guilt. That's the only feeling that I would have.

That's quite an interesting response though. Yes.

Mia?

How do you feel, if at all, looking at these numbers?

I'm proud that our net worth is something, right? Like, I'm proud that there's something there.

Yeah.

I'm proud of the decisions that we've made that have gotten us to have that. And I also feel, I do think guilt is a default, but guilty that it's like not more. Like, I wish I would've made some different decisions earlier in my life.

Cool. I appreciate that. Let's look at the income. Uh, Jake, what's the gross combined monthly income, please?

$18,862.

Cool. That means that your household income is $226,000 a year. Did you know that number?

Yes, we knew that.

You knew that?

I had never made that calculation of our gross. I knew our net.

Uh-huh. So you didn't know your— what did you think that you made as a household?

Ballpark? Um, I probably would have said like $200,000.

Okay, what do you think about that income?

I think it's great.

Yeah, no, it's great, and that's why it stresses me out. I don't know why we're like—

why are we counting pennies?

Jammed up.

Like, this is, this is funny. Like, people don't make enough money, they go, I'm stressed out. Then people make a ton of money, they go, I'm stressed out, cuz why don't I feel better about money?

Yeah.

How much do you need to make to not be stressed out, Jake?

Well, I know that it'd just be better problems, you know. I've Yeah, I've read The Subtle Art where it's just you want to have good problems. So these are pretty good problems to have.

But, but you're still stressed out, right?

Yes.

Maybe if you make $500K. Yes. Will you still be stressed?

If we kept our current assets? No, I wouldn't be stressed.

Oh, really? $500K is all you need to make? Just double?

I feel like you're leading the witness. I definitely— I'm sure I'd be stressed always.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's kind of funny when I talk to small business owners who are super frustrated by the vendors that they work with. 'Cause I'm like, "Y'all know you're the boss, right? You can fire them. You can make changes today." So if you don't like the platform that you are working with, move off of it. I've done it many times. If a CPA that you are working on goes dark on you after April, find somebody who's better. And that is where our partners at Gelt come in. Gelt is a modern CPA firm that helps your business take control of your tax strategy year-round. By working with Gelt, you get access to one dedicated tax strategist with real human expertise powered by cutting-edge technology that handles the rest. And right now they have two Q3 exclusive offers. Extension Rescue, where Gelt takes over your tax extension with fast onboarding and no stress, keeping you deadline safe. The Retirement Catch-Up, where Gelt models your prior year retirement contribution opportunities to maximize what's on the table before October 15th. This offer is included for all new clients this quarter. A great CPA is a year-round partner who stays in touch with you, and Gelt is taking on new clients now. Now is the time for business owners to get ahead, not in January. So find out if you qualify at joingelt.com/ramit. That's joingelt.com/ramit. If you're retiring soon, and you have a financial advisor, please listen up. Do you know how much you pay your advisor? Most people that I talk to do not know. I don't have anything against advisors per se. I do have something against paying a percentage and not even knowing how much you are paying. You can actually get quality financial help without hidden or obfuscated fees by switching to a flat fee only advisor from our friends at Facet. Facet charges a flat membership fee for financial planning, never a percentage of your assets. And you get access to a team of CFP professionals— always a CFP, always a fiduciary— who help you create a personalized financial plan that meets you where you are. They can help with big things like investments, moving across the country, saving for kids' college, traveling in retirement, estate planning, all of it. Your financial plan should match up with your rich life vision. And Fasset can help make that possible without the exorbitant fees. As of the date of this recording, Fasset is waiving the enrollment fee for new annual members. And for my audience, Fasset is offering $300 into your brokerage account if you invest and maintain $5,000 within your first 90 days. Head to fasset.com/Ramit to learn more about which membership option is best for you. Fasset is an SEC-registered investment advisor. I'm not a member of Fasset and have an incentive to endorse Fasset as I have an an ongoing fee-based contract for cash compensation based on this endorsement. All opinions are my own and not a guarantee of a similar outcome. Okay, let's look at the fixed costs. What's that number?

50%.

Okay, quite good. That's on the lower end of the 50 to 60%. That's exactly what I would expect to see for a high-income couple. When your income goes up, like disproportionately up, this number should come down because, you know, you can only spend so much on toothpaste.

Right.

So I think you're all doing a very nice job. I mean, look at that mortgage. $1,776. That's crazy. 9% of gross. Well done.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Especially considering you had a McMansion before.

Yes.

And you— this is amazing.

I'm very proud of that.

Yeah.

I'm—

that's my Ramit Sethi.

And the other mortgage was like $2,000. Way more.

Yeah. Wow. I think that's probably maybe one of my, our proudest money decisions is that we made that.

I love that. That's so cool. You all ever celebrate that, that you made that tough decision?

I think we do, actually. Like, we talk, we look at each other, I would say pretty regularly, I'm like, oh my God, I'm so happy we did this.

And it feels better. Like, it feels like home too. It's like that added bonus. It feels more like us too.

Yes. This is great energy. This is what, now that I see that you can do this and that you do celebrate and you have, I'm in my head, I'm going, cool, they can do that. So now I just need to transfer that. I would love that over to other parts of your money. I mean, this is very good. Okay, let's keep going. We have investments. What's that number?

22%. Okay.

So that is your pension, which is about $3,000 a month going to your pension.

Yep.

Okay. And I can see there's like a little bit of confusion on your part of like, What's happening with this pension? What does it mean? But overall, great. Savings. What's that number?

25%.

Okay. The bulk of this is kids' 529s. And then you have an emergency fund. Okay. Personally, I would have put the 529s under investments.

Okay.

But it's fine either way. It shows me where your priorities are. And then finally, let's go down to guilt-free spending. What's that number?

3%.

Do you only spend $364 a month?

No, that's not right.

Okay. How much do you spend? Like, you don't know?

I bet that's just like what was left. Probably. That is right. That's just—

So do you think that you're spending more than $364? That would be extremely lean.

Yes, of course we are.

How much do you think that you are spending every month on discretionary items, including eating out, coffee, vacations spread out over 12 months, etc.?

I bet it's closer to like $1,500, and even that probably is us being really strapped.

Like, let's not do that. Let's be— let's— how much are you realistically—

no, no, I think we're realistically spending probably $1,500 to $2,000 a month.

Let's say $2,000.

Okay.

When I do these numbers, I always want to be conservative.

Sure.

Because I never want to be surprised owing more money. If anything, I want extra money. At the end of the year, right?

Yep.

Cool. So at $2,000, then the question is, where's that money coming from? Yeah. I have a question. Your long-term emergency fund says $700 a month, but you have only $14,000 in savings.

Yeah.

You pulling money out of your savings occasionally?

Yes, we have been, which we want to stop doing.

Well, that's— this all makes sense.

Yes.

So you're spending more than the CSP is reporting.

Yeah.

It's not planned for, and then you pull out of savings.

Yes. Okay.

You know, your savings is about 2 months of expenses. Were you aware of that?

Yes. Okay.

How's that feel to you?

Scary.

That's why we're here.

That is why we're here.

All right.

I think us being here gives us hope, right? Like, I think if we had—

I don't know what kind of answer is that.

Because I would be more mad if I Didn't feel like, "I'm gonna talk with Ramit. He's gonna help me figure this out." Wow.

I think that with me, it kind of reminds me of how I treated girls when before, like when I was going through puberty, it like scared me. I didn't understand it. So I just avoid it. Okay. And I want it, like, I can't be mad. I don't understand it well enough. I think that that's kind of where I'm at. I just like—

This is a great analogy.

Yeah, it's, yes.

But wait, wait, what's the conclusion? 'Cause now you're married. Actually, you've been married twice.

Yeah, so I'm not afraid of girls anymore. Um, sort of.

Are you afraid of money?

Yeah, I think I'm confused by it, and I, I think there's a deep-seated fear of seeming dumb, and it's seeming like asking questions, you know. And I, I joke about, you know, not knowing what people say making their money work for them. I think that this is just like a, a knowing gap, and I'm— I want to get it fixed. So that's kind of where I'm at. So it's— I can't, I can't be mad that I don't— you know, it's like learning a new sport. You're not mad the first day. It's like I'm just trying to drink it in as much as I can right now.

And I think I'm just more scared than mad. The fear is bigger than the anger for me.

Mm-hmm.

I love Jake's analogy about being afraid to talk to women when he was growing up. I think a lot of men can really connect with that memory. But I also think that at a certain point, you have to face your fears. There is no way but straight through those fears to go and talk to somebody or apply for a job if you've been nervous about your career. You've got to face your fears with money and realize nobody else is coming to save me. And I was put on this earth not simply to save money in a savings account, but to live a rich life. Therefore, I'm going to start facing my fears. I'm going to learn how money works and I'm going to start feeling good about it. For me, I always naturally understood money, but things like fitness, I felt like I was the odd man out. Like everybody else learned it and I just don't get it. And so when I talk to people and they don't understand money, I have a lot of compassion. It's kind of complicated. You get a million different people telling you a million different things, and as long as you got a roof over your head, it kind of seems like it's fine. So I appreciate you being so honest about it. Mia, you said you feel fear. What's the fear of?

The fear is that if something happened, if there was a catastrophic event, yeah, we don't have money to deal with it.

If you had a fear of that, like let's say I had a fear of, um, slipping in the shower, okay, I might get one of those plastic mats. You have a fear of if something happened you won't have enough money. But your savings account is still $13,900. What's the difference?

I think in the moment that I want to go on a trip or I want to buy something, I'm just like, I'll deal with it later.

Yeah.

How often does that happen?

Oh, probably all the time, right? Because if I was really afraid, yeah, I wouldn't be doing that.

Yeah. How much do you think your relationship with money is problem-oriented where you talk about the problems, you agonize over the problems, you discuss the problems, versus solution-oriented, where you say, okay, that's the problem, here's what we are doing about it.

95% to 5%.

Yeah, 95% problem.

Problem.

Common. Really common. Just imagine with me for a second if we flipped it. Just flipped it. 95% solution-oriented, 5% problem. Oriented? What would that look and feel like to you?

That would feel like, like when you said that you liked that we celebrated our, the decision that we made about the house. To me, it would feel like having that 95% of the time, which sounds amazing.

So you'd celebrate more. What else would you do?

I would worry less. It like, and I could spend that energy doing something I enjoy.

Like what?

Hanging out with Jake, spending time with the kids. Like, I wouldn't be trapped to the spreadsheet.

Are you trapped now?

Yeah, I watch it all the time. It still doesn't make sense to me. And again, I'm just like paper pushing.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, I have a couple more questions about this. So you have preschool at $1,266 a month. How long will that last for?

Another 15 months.

One more school year. Yeah, one more school year.

Yeah, one more school year.

Yeah.

Okay. And then after that, then public school. Got it. Cool. We have a deposit into an account. What's that for?

That is a joint account that my ex-husband and I each put that much money in. And it's like savings for like when the kids need clothes, like for the sort of bigger expenses.

Got it.

Got it.

So that's kind of day to day. Versus the $529s that you are saving for.

Correct.

Okay, great. I mean, I love seeing this car payment at $398 a month. Amazing. Debt at $459.

That's what?

Treadmill.

That is a treadmill. That is done in 3 months.

Yes.

What is the interest rate on a treadmill?

It was 0%.

Oh, okay.

All right.

By the way, I noticed that something interesting, your preschool amount is not being accounted for in the total. So let's go ahead and adjust that right now.

Wow.

What just happened to your fixed cost number?

It's a big jump. 10% jump.

Yeah, jumped 10%. So let's recognize a couple of things. Number 1, childcare and preschool, very expensive. Yeah. Number 2, suddenly having that really high income and the low fixed cost, which was something I was like, great job. It's not so low anymore.

Right.

Now, preschool is temporary. And as you mentioned, public school after. So this number will go down.

Yeah.

But things are not so loose all of a sudden. What does it tell you?

It reinforces that we don't really know kind of what's going on.

Agree. That is true. And what does it imply for the rest of your money? If you just jump from 50% to 60%, What does it imply for the rest of how you're spending your money?

That shrinking?

Yeah, that shrinking.

I'm like feeling my hands get hot right now.

Yeah.

Like I feel like this pressure, just like, I'm like, ah, shit, here we go. Okay.

So here's how I think about it. I appreciate that. That's real.

Mm-hmm.

For me, I'm still like, we got a puzzle here.

Mm-hmm.

And we're gonna figure it out. Certainly you do not have a lack of money.

Mm-hmm.

Y'all make a lot of money. So, We got a puzzle. We just need to figure out which way the pieces all fit. So I'm not feeling hot hands at all right now.

Okay. I am— know you have that confidence and like you have, like you understand. And that's where it's like, I want that feeling where it's like where most of in life, there's a problem, we'll fix it.

Exactly.

All right.

We got to make some other adjustments. We have this deposit for your kids that was also not reflected. Look at the number now on your fixed costs. We're at 64%. So the financial picture has actually dramatically changed. Now I'm going to be a little more directive on my questions because at 50%, I really don't care what you're doing. You do whatever you want. But at 64%, I have questions. Utilities are $409. Why? That's a lot.

I would assume that our electric and gas are high. Because I basically run the washing machine 100% of the time and then the hot tub also.

Yeah.

What? How much does a hot tub cost? I truly do not know.

Well, just the electricity to run it, to heat the water.

How often do you get in the hot tub?

Well, it's broken right now.

Well, now it's broken.

Great.

It was so old it had a CD player on it, so.

But like, can I ask you, like when it broke, did you notice your utility bills going down?

I have not figured out how to disconnect it. We have not figured out. Like to, to stop. Yeah, that's basically— we're still paying for a broken hot tub to run.

Yes, fix that. Yes.

Okay.

All right, this number is unusually high.

Okay.

And at 64%, we don't have room for that. Yeah, debt payments at $459.

That all ends in 3 months.

Oh, okay, let's zero it out then just to see. Okay, so watch. So this, we zeroed it out and it brings us down to 60%.

Okay, nice.

Okay, I'm going to leave it at zero. Okay, groceries and gas are First of all, why'd you combine those two? It's a little odd combination.

Because it's what we put on the credit card.

Hmm?

Like it all goes on the credit card.

You should change that.

Okay.

Gas should go with your car. Car is everything related to the car. Okay? So gas, parking tickets, parking, all of it should go there.

Okay.

That way you just have a good sense. A lot of times people don't realize, oh, my car payment's $350, which mine used to be. And then when I netted out everything else, I added it all together, it was over $1,000 a month. Including parking and gas and everything. So we got to know these numbers. Know your numbers.

So move, so move the gas up to the car payment. Exactly. Okay.

Um, how much are you spending on groceries per month?

I do think we probably spend about $1,200 on groceries per month. Okay.

What are you buying for $1,200? I'm not the grocery Grinch. I'm just curious.

I think that's an area where we could really cut back. And I think that, um, it's so cyclical too, because when you add two grown children, like, the meals change, and, um, we're trying to be proactive. And when they— when the older kids are not with us, then we try and do leftovers or things like that. And then it's just trying to save money. But I definitely think that that's a spot. What do you think, Mia, that we could save?

Um, I agree that we can— we probably could cut back on that a little.

If you could bring this number down, your groceries, instead of $1,200, what would you bring it to?

I think we could realistically do $800. I think we do $200 a week.

You cut $400 off.

Yeah, I think we could.

I agree. That's pretty good.

Okay.

How do we do that though? Like, that's— what's the action steps? Like, you just— do you just pull out $800 and every time you go and then it's just— that's it?

Excellent question. When you start, most people in America do not shop to a number. They go to the grocery store and they're just like, that looks good. And when you are building the skill of sticking to a number, You can do that. You can literally pull out $200 a week in cash. Or a simpler way is to simply, you know, your number. Every week we're going to spend $200. Now, lifestyle is lifestyle. If you go in twice a week, fine, it's $100 each time. But you got to keep a note on your phone somewhere where you are tracking it over time. What I have found is that people who are effective at hitting their grocery number, they basically eat the same thing. A lot. Like, people who are hitting a number, especially when they need to hit a strict number, they basically come up with a meal plan and that's it. So that's number one. The second thing I've learned about patterns of successful people hitting a grocery number is one person is doing the shopping because they just know the numbers. They're connected. If another person goes and buys it, sometimes they have to, but they may not have that tacit knowledge that the primary person does.

Right.

So that's what I would do.

Okay.

That's really helpful. Thanks.

Cool. I'm going to take this down to $1,100. Still leaving your gas in here, which you can move later.

Okay.

And that brings you down to 57%. Honestly, you're in great territory. Great territory. It's a little higher than I would like considering your income, but 57% is within parameters. Subscriptions at $315. What's this for?

So that would be all of the different TV services. So like every single one, which I think we could totally—

Yeah, we could eliminate.

I don't care about that very much.

Yeah, same.

How much can you take it down to?

$200 at least.

Yeah, easy. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, great. I love that you say easy. Let's keep it easy.

Okay.

All right. $200. We don't need to cut to the bone on everything, right? You know what's interesting? Noticing that the two of you are very good at cutting costs. Like, I have not seen any resistance from you. It's uncommon. Most people, like, fight consciously and unconsciously. The two of you, no. You're like, yeah, we can cut that.

Yeah.

Like, what, what is that? Why is it so easy for you to cut costs?

For me, it's this: the greater good of our family. And I think that, like, financial stability would create such a safe environment in a household where we're comfortable moving forward.

And okay, What about you, Mia?

I agree with Jake, and I think I'm comfortable with it because it's just hypothetical. When push comes to shove and I'm actually like, there's a pair of shoes I want, I'm like, that's quite interesting.

Wow, very insightful both. We're going to tackle that as well. I think that you also might both be really comfortable with this because it's what you know. How long have you been told Gotta cut costs. Gotta— that's bad. Don't spend money.

Yeah, forever. Just what you know. That's my education on money is don't spend money you don't have.

Exactly. So to me, it's like me saying, like, drink a glass of water. Yeah, you've been drinking water, you know, for a long time.

Right.

It's quite striking how easy it is for Mia and Jake to cut costs. Most couples do not find it this easy. They resist at every turn, even if they're in severe debt. But I also suspect that there is something much deeper going on here, which is that for Mia and Jake, being good with money means not spending a lot at all. And so while I want to cut some of their costs because I think they are a bit out of their parameters, I also know that that alone is going to take them back to their comfort zone. Cut costs, shrink. I don't want to spend any money. That's not the path to a rich life for them. The path to a rich life— manage your costs, but also think critically about these major decisions like your investing, your 529s, and yes, even their guilt-free spending. Your pension, can we just talk about this for a minute?

I'd appreciate that.

All right, so your pension, I looked into it and I understand that you looked into it a bit as well before you came here. What have you learned about your pension?

When we retire, if we max out our pension, so if we wait till we're, whatever the rule is, right? Like there's a formula. I think—

Rule of 88, where it's the years taught plus how old you are, needs to hit 88.

So if we wait to that, then we get for the rest of our lives, every month, 80% of the average monthly income of our top 3 years.

Great. And when will you be able to retire based on that?

Between 55 and 60.

Yeah, I think it was— 54 even, 'cause we both have been in, going into that pension since 21, so.

Great. How do you feel about that? Good.

Good, it feels good. It feels good. It feels good. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just like this in the distance thing. I've never, it's, yeah.

I guess one question I have is I don't know if, you know, 20 years from now, 80% of what I make, if that's enough to live on. Like, I don't understand how to make the estimation of like how much will inflation go, like I don't, Well, I don't know the details of that, but I'm willing to bet a little bit that your pension indexes for inflation.

So usually a lot of different types of pensions and the like will account for inflation. They're not just going to pay you in today's dollars 20 years from now because it would be worth far less. You could look into that and literally you could just type in I-P-E-R-S inflation.

Yeah.

And I would not be surprised if it's like, yeah, we account for inflation, right, etc.

Got it.

Do you have a sense of how much you might make in the last 3 years average? Like, a ballpark is helpful.

Like, each year, you mean? Like, what our yearly income would be?

Yeah, like, what can we use to project?

Sure. I think it'd be safe to say 140.

Yeah, each.

Each.

Okay, we can make some rough estimations.. But in general, that's like quite amazing. Like very few people have pensions like this anymore. You know that?

That's what we've heard.

Yeah.

Everybody we talk to says that.

And the benefit of this, like, is back in the day, in our parents' time, a lot of people had pensions. So basically, like the two of you, they're kind of like, ah, I don't really think about investing. Like, it's taken care of. All I know is I need to put the X money in the pension and then they retire and then they just get a check every month. And by the time the two of you retire, your house will be paid off. Your expenses will be way lower. No more. You know, perhaps the food goes down. Certainly all the savings going to 529s, investing, all that stuff goes away and you're just like, oh wow, this is a lot of money. And we're 54, 55, which is quite young. Yeah, it's a great life. That was more typical in our parents' time. And then companies took that and they said, this is really expensive, especially because people are living longer. And also we can get away with just shifting it on the burden of people. Let's make them save for it. You are responsible for your 401 or your IRA, and like, we don't have to account for this for the rest of their lives, right? So cool, you're all living in the, um, the public system of getting a pension. It's awesome if you are in it. Awesome. Okay, saving $700 a month, how did you, uh, pick that number?

I think it was $1,000. I think we started with a round number, didn't we?

Yeah.

And then it was just like, that seemed like too much with what we were spending, and we just kind of went down to $700, I think.

I don't remember.

There's not like, it's, it's arbitrary.

It's arbitrary.

Okay, anything.

So I just want to point a couple things out. If, as we have made some adjustments, you'll notice that you are now spending more than you make every month.

That explains the savings.

Yeah, that's why your savings are being depleted, and that's why in part you feel Yeah. Scared about money and scarce and like it's bad news.

Mm-hmm.

Because it kind of is.

Yeah.

But we can make some changes. What are the other big numbers on the CSP that are kind of flashing bright red?

Well, the $529s is a lot.

Yeah, that's a big one. So tell me, what is the thinking behind the $2,700 a month going towards the kids' 529s.

When I was growing up, my parents told me what you want to avoid more than anything else is debt. And even though paying for school is a good investment, if you can avoid debt, do it. And they helped me so that I didn't have any debt coming out of college. So that's one is probably like, that's just in my mind, like something that was just always like a given. Like, if I can pay for my kids' college so that they don't have debt when they graduate college, I want to do that.

Because debt is bad.

Because debt is bad.

Anything else?

Like, the cost of college now, like, it's just so outrageous. If it was, you know, even like 15 years ago and they were taking out like a total of $60K for college, like, okay, Not ideal, but now it's like $100,000, $150,000. Like, that's so much debt. It just seems so big.

Okay, okay.

Is there any element of, this was done for me, so I want to do it for them?

Yeah, I think the reason I hesitate is because I'm just trying to like emotionally gauge, like, is it that? And I do think there's some like element of like pay it forward, right? Like, I was given that, like, this is what parents should do, like, Yeah, that's reasonable.

What if the two of you did not make $230,000+ a year? What if you made $75K a year? Would you still be saving for kids' 529s?

I think we would probably still— don't you think we'd still do some?

Yeah, I don't think we could, but I'd be doing everything I can. I think that my, my thing is it was done for me, and I want my kids to have that same advantage that I had, and that like, you will give it to you, but you got to go earn it after that kind of thing. And I know there's so many different avenues of making money, but like my way of thinking is safe and just go to school, get a job that pays, and that's all I was told. And so I think that that's just like anxiety telling me to like make sure my kids have that same opportunity that I had.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, no, this is like, the more you dig in, the more it's harder to defend and talk about, but I just don't know. It's just like this, an agreed upon truth that we've really not dove into.

Agreed upon truth being?

That we pay for our kids' college. We pay for our kids' college.

Got it. It's like a universal truth.

Yeah.

An axiom.

Yeah.

But it's like an agreed upon that we've never really dug into why.

Yeah.

And I think that that's, I think this is very eye-opening.

That's what I specialize in.

Yes.

And that is what I love. I don't mind if people take a quote universal truth that we have, like I should buy a house, and they end up buying a house. I don't mind that. But we've got to interrogate the logic.

Yeah.

There's a very simple message that many parents in America have, and that is, "I need to pay for my kids' college." Now, I think it's a very nice idea. I also think it is a bit simplistic. The idea that I simply need to take all the money I've got and hand it over to my kids. I don't know how much. I don't know where they're going to go. I haven't talked to them about it. But I will sacrifice heaven and earth so that they don't have to go into debt. It feels really good, but it lacks any analysis at all. This is not about loving your kids. It's about thinking critically about one of the biggest financial decisions in your life. And what I am begging everyone on this podcast and everyone who watches it to do is to go deeper, go beneath the surface of this very nice positive idea of helping kids and calculate how much, how are they gonna use it? What if we contributed this much, not that much? What if we gave them nothing? What if we give them a million? And really start to craft that decision as part of your rich life. Mia, can you tell me what your family said about money as you were growing up? What do you remember?

I just remember, do not spend. And I remember always feeling like, I always wanted to spend money. I was the kid who like, I got babysitting money, it did not go into savings. I wanted to spend it right away. And I felt, I always felt like I was doing something wrong. Spending money is wrong. Like my parents are so amazing. They're true minimalists. Like they don't need much stuff. They will eat the exact same meal for the rest of their lives.

You would like them.

Yeah. Interestingly, they also did take you to travel. And you've mentioned you would like to take your kids to travel. So a lot of similarities in how your parents raised you. Of course, the college thing, paying for you, you want to pay for them. Makes sense. Did you ever find yourself confronting any contradictions about money?

I feel like the only contradiction that we ever confronted was the fact that I didn't seem to be able to do what they were doing. Like, the contradiction was they do it, they're able to do it, it doesn't seem hard to them. And for me, I'm not able to do it, it seems very hard to me. Like, that was the contradiction.

Is it still hard?

Yeah.

Okay.

Are they still alive, still married?

Yep.

Cool. How are they with money now?

Exactly the same.

Really?

Incredibly responsible. I, I think maybe the only difference is that they're spending more on travel in their retirement than they did um, when we were kids, which I think makes sense.

Are they enjoying their money?

A thousand percent.

Wow, this is a very healthy relationship in general.

Yeah, maybe I wish that they could have explained to me how it felt easy to them. Like, what I saw was like, there were spreadsheets and there was money tracking I didn't see, and they didn't talk about maybe the choices that they made. Like, we could buy this, but I'm not buying it because we want to travel or whatever. Like, I didn't see any of that. They're super responsible with money. They were obviously making trade-offs.

They didn't tell you.

But they didn't tell me that. Okay.

Jake, anything that Mia's missing? Partners often know best.

I mean, they are, they're a unit and they are methodical and they, Everything she said is exactly correct. It just seems flawless. It seems flawless.

It seems easy. It's like they never make a mistake.

Like, we go over their house, I know exactly what meal we're gonna get every single time.

Oh, really?

Yeah, it's, yeah.

That's interesting.

Yeah, and it's like, they just, it's very systematic. I mean, it's like—

Do you have that with your food at home?

No.

No. No.

Do you have that with your savings? Like, how did you choose the number 700? Is it methodical?

No.

No, they have, They have a system where they're—

I don't know what it is.

Yeah, I don't know what it is, but they definitely have something.

But it's quite interesting, right? It's not that they are the perfect unit. It is that their behavior and attitudes are methodical.

Yes.

Yeah.

The clue is when you go over there, you know exactly what you're going to eat. That actually is a huge reveal.

Yeah.

That they have some type of system. It's not surface to you, but they have it. Just the same as if you ask me, What's my savings amount and savings rate? There's a reason for it, right? And the best part of all is you all can do that for your system.

And I think the part that I'm most envious about is how much they're willing to help their family and like help their kids, or, you know, Mia's brother, you know, or something. What are those, those kind of situations?

Wait, but you're helping your family a lot.

Yeah. And I think that maybe that's part of what the allure is to—

I do think that's something we both value.

I value helping out my kids when they're older.

Like when you talk about, I know consciously that like the idea of paying for college 100% doesn't necessarily need to be, like it doesn't have to be 100%, right? But like when you talk about lowering that, it like makes me feel a little, you know, like, ooh, I don't know if I can do that because I think there is, we both have this value of like, we take care of our family, like that should be, So what?

So what if when I suggest, which by the way, I have not even done today, but so what if I were to suggest instead of paying for 100% of college, you pay for 90 or 80 or 50?

Yeah.

And it makes you feel anxious and guilty. So what?

Well, that doesn't feel a lot better than feeling anxious. So if I was already feeling anxious about money and you say like, let's just trade the anxiety for guilt. That doesn't sound very good.

My point is that just because you feel guilt does not mean that you have to follow that feeling. So sometimes it's just the question is, so what? Oh, I feel guilty. And? Yeah, I'm going to feel guilty. That's how I was trained for generations. I'm going to acknowledge that feeling. I'm going to ask, why am I feeling guilty? Oh, because my invisible script is that I have to pay for 100% of college. I'm gonna write that down and I'm gonna turn the page and say, okay, I'm gonna set that aside for a minute. So what?

Yeah.

What if instead of following that feeling, I followed the decision? The one that's informed by numbers, by connection, by conversation, and by a rich life vision.

Can I just stop there for a second? Yeah. Because that feels like a really big like shift in my thinking. Looking is that idea of like, I don't think I realized how much I was letting feelings and not decisions impact the money picture. Like, I never thought of it that way, and I feel like that's exact— like, you just captured it. Like, I let the feelings instead of the decisions control what I'm doing.

Yeah, amazing. Well done. That takes a lot of introspection to make that connection. Feelings are valid, but in my experience, way too often— I'm talking over 95% of the time— people are making life-changing financial decisions through feelings alone. Feelings do not come first on this. We've got to start with the vision of a rich life and then the numbers, and then we can talk about the feelings. Great insight. Okay, Jake, what do you remember your family saying about money when you were a kid?

My parents were fantastic. They were so supportive, but just money was never discussed, like ever. I knew we were well off. I knew we got basically whatever we wanted, but it was just, it was never, I have to this day, no idea how much money we had or what they had, what they have currently. They're separated now. I have no idea.

Would you, you mentioned well off, would you say like upper middle class?

Well, yeah, I would say, I would say, Upper middle class, probably towards wealthy in Midwest, in the small town that we grew up in.

They help you with college?

Yes, yes.

They paid for the whole thing?

Yep, yeah. I didn't really try until about 25. Like, I think I was kind of a late bloomer, I joke about. I wasn't getting scholarships. It was just like getting into school. So they just blindly supported me and they got me. And I've had conversations with them that said, you know, We gave you that opportunity, but you took it and run with it and ran with it. And that was the—

Are they gonna give you money as part of an estate or inheritance?

Yes, I've talked a little bit about my, to my dad. It's a mythical number, I don't know.

He hasn't told you?

No, and I've discussed a little bit with him, but it's just the way they, I have no hard feeling. I just, it's just not a conversation we've had ever in 38 years, so.

What money messages do you think you are bringing from your childhood to this relationship?

I, I think I follow every pattern of the idea of just avoid it, shut the door, pretend it doesn't exist. Like, are we rich, are we poor? I just love to just, just ignore it. But I think that, that, that's something that's been really hard because I think there's, there's the fear and then the unknown. So it's just avoiding.

Okay, so avoiding. What about you, Mia?

Um, I think I watched my mom, you know, every weekend she would be on the computer doing the spreadsheet.

I think she kind of just like copied it.

Yeah. And I don't know what she was doing, but I have a spreadsheet.

It's really funny. It's just the same thing generation after generation. It's a little ironic, isn't it, that Jake's parents are going to give him some amount of money? It sounds like it could be somewhat large, and he's afraid of money. He doesn't know what to do with it. He doesn't want to pay attention to it. Doesn't want to pick up a book about it. He's playing defense. And yet at the same time, that is the exact same lesson they are passing on to their kids. These generational messages do not fade easily. If you do not fight to develop a new relationship with money, you're probably just passing on the one that your parents gave you. And frankly, although most parents try to do their very best, most parents didn't know what the hell they were doing with money. So I want you to do more. Your parents didn't have access to YouTube. They didn't have my book at their public library. They didn't have access to all this stuff for free. You do. What is your rich life vision together?

I think both of us agree that in our rich life, we don't have to track every penny. I think that would be like number one. For me, I would love to have that feeling I feel about the house, like I made the right decision. I'm doing the right things. That is what I want. And I think for both of us, like, that is what we want to feel.

Great, okay, what else is in your rich life?

I would add that I think after this, just in this conversation alone, it's changed to, I want to be confident in the decisions we're making. I think, you know, knowing we're doing this, and I love that the conversation about using data to make those decisions, like right now we're just using opinions and feelings, and that's something we hate at our work.

Yeah.

And it's like, well, if we're just going off opinions, we're going to go off of mine then.

You know?

Exactly.

I say that a lot.

Yes. And it's just like, yeah, and we, in our jobs, like we're always trying to use data to make decisions. And then—

I think the two of you have been playing not to lose money. I don't sense that the two of you are playing to win right now. It's like, let's just not make a mistake and let's just put the money for the 529s.

Yeah.

Is there anything about in the Rich Life, anything about we want to, get food delivery service 3 times a week. We want to travel. We want to take our kids or put them in this type of tutoring service. What else? Give me specifics.

1,000%, the landscaping and like the hot tub.

Yep.

How come you're saying that even though it's your thing?

I agree.

I think it is like, that's something that we constantly, we're talking about that lately. And I think it started with your book. That's what really, I'd never ever thought about what I was saving my money for. And I think that that's really kind of, driven me a little bit more about like where we're saving those money.

So you never—

I never had a thing.

You never had a vision?

No, I would be, I just want to save money. I don't want to spend money.

Playing not to lose.

Yeah, playing not to lose. I mean, that was my MO, 100%.

You know, in life, if you do not have a vision for your money, one will be created for you.

Right.

And that vision typically is, buy a big house, buy a big car, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then just fast forward until you die. Actually, exactly what you just said.

We hit pause and rewound, but then—

Yeah, you went back and so you unwound some of that, which was awesome, but still did not replace that with a new vision. It was just like, ah, save the money. And then Mia, your vision was first we need to have the house, et cetera. And then after unwind, it's like, well, I need to be doing these things that my parents taught me. And so how am I gonna do that? Take all the money and put it for my kids. $3,000 a month. The thing about this is it's actually like a very loving decision. It can be seen as a very rational decision. All those can be true, but I don't think you would be here if it weren't actually causing a problem. Right. And what is that problem in a sentence?

We don't have the money to do it.

It's making us take out of our savings.

Yeah.

So you agree we don't have the money?

Not the way we're spending now.

Okay.

I want to get back into the numbers, but before we do that, conceptually, what do you think needs to happen?

I think the number one thing is we can't spend— take— we cannot take money from savings anymore. Like, that is our last thing. And I think I'd almost like to put more money into savings because of the fear of, you know, I think we can—

where's the money going to come from?

Probably the 529s, I think, would be one. I think that we talked about those minimal things that we talked about.

Mia, what do you think conceptually needs to happen with your money?

We need to make a decision about the amount of money that we feel is right for college and then use that decision to then make the rest of the money work. Like right now it's just, it should be 100%, but should it? Like we've never actually questioned that in any way.

Yeah.

You never thought about the number itself. Whoa. Okay. I have to ask some questions.

Because it's that blind, like that, like you're supposed to do this. And it's like this ghost telling us that we have to do this.

Well said. It's a ghost.

Yeah.

Probably no one has even ever explicitly said you need to be funding 100% via $529. Nobody—

if somebody would have said it would have been a bajillion dollars, I'm like, all right, well, let's start saving. Exactly.

Put me to work. It's a Midwest work ethic.

It is the grind.

Set a goal and we can execute. In fact, you even asked me to do that for you today. Yes.

Yes.

Give me a plan and let me execute. I don't want to have to think about it. And you notice I listen, but I never accept that mantle because you two will have to think.

Yeah.

And then it will make it that much more likely that you will actually follow through.

Yeah.

I think Mia and Jake have this one invisible script that is so firmly rooted in the center of everything related to their money discussions that they just cannot see around it. Whenever they start talking about money, this looming ghost, as they called it, is standing right in front of the living room and it's saying, you gotta pay for your kids' college. In fact, you have to send them every last cent you've got. On the question of the amount that you were putting aside, which is $2,700 a month for 529s, do you know how much that will turn into for your kids?

Yes, it's like $98,000 for our oldest because we have the least amount of time. It's, um, because he'll be in college in 4 years, so that'll be like $100,000, about $100,000.

I think it was $98,000.

Okay, let's say $100,000. That's fine. And then how about for the others?

And then I think it's $130,000. And then for our youngest, who's 3, I think it's like— $150,000. No, I think it's more than that. I think it's like $170,000.

So, like, is that the right amount?

I have no idea.

Is it not amusing?

Ramit Sethi, I really thought about that.

Like, shocking that you are spending almost the most on this entire sheet. I'm just looking. Is there any number higher than that?

I don't think so.

Your pension? But aside from that, you are spending the most amount of money and you haven't asked yourself, is this the right amount?

No, we've never. And then we get the idea that like, well, if it just, it'll transfer over to the next kid or something. Like we just like justify without—

Of course. No wonder you feel guilty. You don't know even the basic numbers. And in many ways, I think you like feeling guilt because it's a familiar feeling. The minute you sold the house, which was a momentous move. Ah, what do we do next? Put it over here for $500K. It's like no time to stop and think and say, like, what is the right decision for us? Even though we made this huge life change.

Yeah.

Is $100K right or not? I don't know. Have you talked to your kids about college funding?

Yes, a little bit.

What does the 14-year-old say? What's the conversation been?

The conversation has been, we can help you with public university, but if there's something else that you want to do, you're going to have to, you know, do scholarships or loans. And I think I've talked with him too about, you know, you don't, as much as possible, you know, you don't want to have debt.

Can I suggest a reframe of that conversation? Because it feels like almost every conversation that people our age, that the parents who were lucky enough to talk to us, that's how they talked. So it's like, all right, gotta dust off this document. All right, here's what I can do for you. I could pay for this but not that, so you need to not do this. And it's just like a lecture. Meanwhile, you're actually telling them something amazing. Hey, Dad and I saved up this much money. We worked really hard. I want to tell you what it took for us. This is what we did. And then this happened. And we, as you know, education has been so amazing for us. We went to college, we teach, etc. And so when it comes time for you to get to college, we want to give you an amazing gift. And that gift is that we can fund $75,000. Now, that could be your first year. You could split it out over 4 years. At that point, you're an adult. It's gonna be up to you, but we are gonna teach you, and we trust that you will make the right decision. But we worked really hard, and we love you, and we trust you.

Mm-hmm.

What is the difference?

Well, one, it communicates the message of him being the decision maker.

Yes.

Um, also, it shows confidence.

Yes. Keep going. What else?

It makes him like a collaborator. And like, we're bringing him in, like he's collaborating. It's part, it's we're together and not like, stop whining, I'm paying for your college.

Totally.

Like, that's like the message.

Exactly. And what about the part about how you share what it took for you?

Yeah, that's totally different than what we got. Like, that's one of the things I said I wish my parents would've done is say, how did you do that?

Yes.

Yeah.

And I love that you caught that. Yes, notice that you were invisibly passing on the same message to them. Don't tell 'em how it happened. Because deep down, a lot of parents believe we gotta shield our kids from money. Wrong. You get the gift of talking about money in every function, at the grocery store, at a department store, and for college. You get the gift of talking to them about that. So flip that entire worldview. We don't get to protect them. No, that's not— they're not weak little fragile beings.

No.

They are strong. And of course, what this really, really, if you peel it all the way back, implies we need to get good about money so that we can share that with our kids. And guess what? It's totally okay to tell your kids. In fact, they love it when you admit mistakes. Hey, we don't actually know any of this shit. We had to fly across the country, meet this guy who lit us up, and that's why we came back and we started reading this book. Kids eat that up.

Yeah. Can I tell you like what I'm feeling right now?

Yes.

Like I had a way bigger emotional, positive emotional response to thinking about empowering my kids with money than I had, like when I thought about saving for college, there was no feeling associated with that. But the feeling of like, I want my kids to know how to do this, like that, that's what I want.

It's like everything we believe in, in education and like building kids up.

Empowering your kids.

Yes.

You can handle it and like, you're part of this.

And I don't know why I—

I'm just thinking about like, in 20 years, I don't want them, you know, flying to California to have your kid tell them about money. You know?

Yeah.

It's like—

That's amazing. It's funny when you mention that, actually, I felt my own heart beating faster.

Yeah.

It's very powerful what is happening right now, especially the fact that you are both teachers is like you're incredibly connected to this concept of teaching and empowering. Yeah. I love that. I'm a teacher as well, just in a different format. I actually think, Mia, based on what you told me, it would be more empowering for you to give $30K and teach.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

Than to give $120K.

Yeah.

So what does that open up?

My mind's just blown right now. I just like, you know, we always, a phrase that I do and I talk about in my school is that high expectation with high support. And I have low expectation with low support.

With low support.

Yeah. And like, do not look at that, and let's make decisions on feelings. It's like I am having the most cognitive dissonance I've had in 20— it's just like, yeah, I like— it's like this weird— you talk, keep talking, like, and this is maybe no longer— I'm not like sweat— my hands aren't sweating, it's like tingling feeling a little bit. Like, it's— that's, that's really interesting. I just—

yeah, it's, it's maybe like the first time that I've felt like hopeful about money.

Yeah, I would agree with that too.

We just weren't making decisions Correct.

No, we were doing— everything was feeling-based.

Invisible scripts, feelings.

Yeah.

And letting those guide everything.

Yeah.

Honestly, pretty amazing to watch this breakthrough. But what you're about to see makes this all the more magical, because at this moment, while we were talking, we stood up to take a quick break and I walked out of the room, but the cameras kept rolling. Take a look.

I think that, like, I need to figure out The hot tub, we disconnected.

But I think with the kids, we could say, like, guys, food, we want to have healthy food. So we're going to eat pretty much the same thing every week. If there's something that you want that's different, we're going to give you a budget, and you have that amount of money that you can spend to plan a different meal. But otherwise, we're going to just, like, every week it's going to be the same thing because we want to spend our money elsewhere.

Dude, and I think about the to the point where he said, like, I'm afraid of falling in the bath, but I'm not going to put a mat down.

The other thing that I'm realizing about—

we need to talk to the kids about money.

Well, yes, for sure. But I think, like, when he was talking about, like, having a different— about feelings and not decisions, like, I would just look at the budget and be like, we're spending too much. That was a feeling. So then I'm like, we just have to spend less. But then it was just like, how, where, what? There was no, like—

—chart.

There was no, like, I want this, so that's what I'm going to do. Even though, like, I knew that kind of, you know. But yeah, I don't want my kids. I want to teach them. And I love, like, how he's talking about, like, hey—

The way he phrased it, I was like, oh my God, this is actually so good. Yeah. I'm giving you this.

So it's a gift, and I'm so excited to be able to do it. Let's, let's, uh, you know, whenever you want to look at your account, we can pull it up and see how much is in there.

This is why I do this podcast, and it is why I am so proud that hundreds of thousands of people are here every single week to witness it. Well done. I am honored to watch this happen in front of Now let's get back to their numbers. The question is, what can we do to use our money to live our rich life?

Who would like to go first? I think I would like us to make a decision about, like, an amount of money that we want to give the kids. And it's not hypothetical. It's not— it's like, we're going to give you this much money. And then once we've made that decision and we know how much we have left each month, then we look at everything else. And figure out.

That sounds awesome. Do you have a sense of the number?

My gut right now is saying like $75,000. If that feels high, I'm open to that being lower.

Let's meet in the middle and go like $60,000. I think that that— because I was thinking $50,000. I think like, would that be something?

Maybe. Are you okay? Are you okay with $65,000? Yeah, let's do $65,000.

$65,000.

Okay, is that like a random— like, again, I feel like it doesn't matter if it's random because at least we decided.

Yes. Yeah. Great, great, great, great insight.

So do we get— I mean, would you then adjust and go back?

And it's like, yeah, what I'm going to try to do right now, so we know the age of your kids, 14, 11, and 3, and your ex is contributing some too.

That is true. Is that, um, their dad? It's a smaller amount, but $15,000 per kid. Oh, okay.

So he'll contribute $15,000 for the two kids, the older, older kids, And then you want to get a total of $65,000. Yep. Let's look at the rest of this. We ran some calculations and we'll speak broadly. It will change specifically as you dive into your own numbers. But in general, what we found is that you need to be saving— you want to guess? $2,300. Okay.

What do you think? Uh, $1,900.

Good. It's about $1,600. Okay. That's a lot less.

That's a lot less.

A lot less. About half.

Yes. Yeah.

And the reason that you can save less and still hit your numbers, one, you've lowered the amount, although you didn't really even know how much you were saving anyway. Right. But two, your oldest obviously needs more because they're going to be going to college in just a few years. Your youngest has almost decades. So that number is like way less that you need to be putting. So when we combine it all, it's about $1,600 a month. Again, the number will change depending on several variables. You should calculate this carefully at home. So let's put that in. $1,600. That's a lot. From $2,700 to $1,600. Yeah. Okay. So let's take a look at what's going on here. Right now we have 57% in fixed costs. We have your investments at 22%. That is your post-tax retirement. Well, that's your pension. Yeah. $1,600 a month going towards the kids, and then you've got $700 going towards your emergency fund, leaving you only 4% in guilt-free spending.

You know how you recommended like separating groceries and gas? Yeah. Can we just like do that? Yeah. Okay. How much is gas? Probably $200 a month. Yeah, $200.

I'm moving gas up here to $609.

And then I think we can get the groceries and gas. I think we can get groceries to $800. Yeah. All right, we put the subscriptions down already. What's this miscellaneous? I, I actually think that we don't—

we don't have that many to do that.

Like, I think we could, like, if miscellaneous was half of that. All right, because— okay, let's do that.

$600. Yeah. All right, you are down to 52% outstanding. Okay, very good. You've got 9% or $1,216.

I feel okay with that because in a year we won't have preschool and that will free up another—

Oh, let's look at it. I like it. Let's, let's zero that out and see what happens. Are you ready? Yeah. So this is, this is what the CSP is most powerful at, is projecting ahead. When you pay off debt like credit card debt, when you pay off a mortgage, when you don't have preschool anymore, it's like, let's just look at our crystal ball a few months in the future. Boom, here we go. You're at 52% fixed cost. I'm zeroing out your preschool. Whoa, down to 43%. That's extremely low. Going down now, y'all have— oh, 18% guilt-free spending, or $2,400. What do you think about that?

That seems like a lot. It feels really good. That's like, that's the the rich life, the idea of being able to spend.

Okay, now let's talk about it, because what do you want to do with that money?

I'd like to put more into savings, I think.

I would feel most comfortable if we had 6 months of, say, like liquid money.

Yeah, so that's about $30,000, $35,000, let's just say. So how much you want to put into savings? I'm putting $1,000.

At least $1,000. You're already—

you're putting $700 right now.

Should do like $1,200. Yeah. Okay.

$1,400, double it. Yeah. All right. I like that. $1,400 a month, which is great. Yeah, that feels really good. That now leaves you with $1,700 a month guilt-free spending. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Mm-hmm. What would you do with that guilt-free spending money?

I'm trying to decide if it's travel first or house first. You'd say house first. Probably house first. I'm okay with that.

Great. So let's do this. Let's call Instead of vacations, which it sounds like you're not prioritizing, let's call it house. And let's put, let's put $750 a month. Let's just see what happens. $750 a month.

That builds quick. Yeah.

So how long would you need for you to be able to get something for the house?

Well, let's say we just started with the hot tub. That's probably like 6 caps.

So that's like a year. A year. Are you cool with that?

Yep. Great answer.

Yep. Amazing answer. I just want to point something out to you. Most people, when I say like it'll take a year, sometimes it'll take 7 years to get what they want. And I go, are you okay with it? They go, that seems like a long time. I go, and? Right. So what? Right. Everybody should be looking— look, get tight on this shot. So what? Oh, it's going to take a long time. And you're going to be 7 years older anyway in 7 years. You might as well have a ton of money. Right. A year from now, that's nothing to be able to get this awesome hot tub and to have saved for it, no debt. Amazing. Great. Okay. $750 a month. That leaves you with $1,000 a month guilt-free eating out, random thing you saw on Amazon that you want to buy, but that's it. Yeah. And I personally would prefer you clear— leave a little bit of like, do not get to $1,025. Yeah. Right. Right. Clear it with room to spare.

Can you all agree to that? Yes. Yes. And I would love some, like, specific strategies for, like, to track, like, when people are doing that.

I'll tell you how to do it. Yeah. So the biggest thing that comes up here and surprises people is eating out. Eating out is a variable cost, and it's one of the very few numbers I suggest people track. Here's how you do it to make it even easier. You just— like I said, people who tend to be successful with grocery store shopping tend to basically buy the same thing all the time. Same thing with eating out. They go, okay, we are going to spend $400 a month eating out. Okay. Each time we eat out on average, this is how much we can spend. And so let's even reverse it one more. How many entrees do we get? Are we getting a drink or two or just none? You already know every month where you are going to go out to eat and what you're going to order.

It's that boring. I like that.

People like, they really do not like this. They're like, it takes all the fun out of it. I'm like, but it's actually really fun when you know that on Friday's pizza and like you're looking forward to it, you know, you get to think about it, you're talking about it, and then when you go there, you, you've, you get to experience it like 2 times. One is planning it, thinking about it, talking about, then 2 while you're there. Yeah. So yeah, you may not have as much serendipity, but didn't you both tell me you want to not have to worry? Yeah.

And that's the thing. And that's more than the other one.

Exactly. And now you have a plan and you can just execute it. Yeah, I love it. Good question. Great question. If we zoom out of these numbers, are you living your rich life? Often when we are fiddling with numbers, we're down in the weeds. And I always like to zoom out and be like, hey, does this actually feel good? If we execute on all this stuff, Flawlessly. Are we actually living our rich life, or did we just mechanic our way into moving numbers around in another way? So do you all like this as your rich life or not?

I absolutely do. And I think that having a plan, and I think that through this conversation, part of my rich life is not stress of pulling from savings. And I think that, that like, I've re— calibrated a little bit in a way of understanding it. And I'm like, now I'm trying so hard to not go straight to approaches and like, how am I gonna do this, this, this? But it's like, I'm already like planning afterwards, like what the app's gonna look like. And I think that that is gonna be helpful. Like knowing, we know exactly what day we're gonna go out to eat. And that is part of my rich life. And I've talked with Mia about those kinds of things.

Mia, how do you feel? Is this living your rich life?

Yeah, and I think especially because, I think I was confusing saving for college with preparing my kids for the future. Yeah. And those aren't the same thing.

Great insight. Great insight. If anything, dumping a bunch of money on kids, I mean, it helps them with avoiding some amount of debt, but it doesn't teach them much. Right. You both are examples of that. And so you changing the generational messages you received, you know, in general you received very good messages, which is nice. But because of the benefits your parents gave you, you can raise the bar on what you give your kids. That's amazing. What surprised you about our conversation today?

My biggest thing is how I'm perpetuating so much of what I had as my own childhood of money being— and how I've gone against every belief I have about using data, building capacity, trusting our kids, and how just because I was scared of something, I've been like the worst version of myself around money, I think is probably what I would describe it as. And I think that was very eye-opening today. And I think, like you said, is digging in. I'm starting to feel a little bit more comfortable digging in if there's an actual goal there.

Nice. Beautiful. Mia? I think my biggest surprise was that confusion between giving the kids money versus preparing them for money. Like, I did not think about it like that at all, and that feels so— that just like, I feel so much lighter.

Yeah, yeah, I can see that, that specifically. I think probably because of your professions and the way that you relate to your kids, like, that really connects. Yeah. And that's beautiful. Yeah, that's beautiful. What about resentment? When we began talking, there was a difference in how you looked at money. Do you think there will be resentment about money ongoing?

I don't feel like it, because I think that, like, I feel like a weight has been lifted off our chest of taking from the savings. And I think that if we're— if we follow our plan, which I know we will, like, once we get a clear plan and have steps to it, that we'll do it, um, that it's not going to be like all this hard work isn't for nothing. It's all this hard work is so that we're setting up for everybody to thrive and kind of do that as opposed to saving, setting up all this hard work so that it can just all go to this big lump of money that we don't even know, we haven't thought about.

Great.

I absolutely do not think that there'll be resentment. And I think one of the reasons is that we have a way to make a decision that we feel good about. And when we do that, there won't be resentment because we made the decision together. And that difference between letting feelings guiding our money instead of decisions guiding our money.

And that resentment or the resistance came from a lack of clarity and a lack of understanding. So I didn't want to dive in because it didn't make sense to me. And now I kind of like seeing you go through the numbers and I'm like, we can do that. Like that makes sense other than just clicking numbers on a keyboard. Totally.

There's a purpose behind it. Yeah. I have a lot of confidence in them. Mia and Jake were so open with the feedback that I gave them, so willing to engage that I think they're actually going to do an amazing job. For years they have been talking around making decisions, and I helped them immediately make some of the biggest decisions of their financial life. Watching them light up when they talk about getting their kids involved, that was when I knew this is gonna stick. So I cannot wait to hear what they end up doing. Let's take a look at their follow-ups.

Hey Ramit, it's Mia and Jake, and we just wanted to follow up with our homework.

Our biggest surprise, or for me at least, is the unwritten rules that I followed that were really guiding my past, and I wasn't really diving deep into them, so it was really fascinating to explore.

Yeah. My biggest surprise is how much better I felt even though we're saving less for college. And that's because we feel really aligned in the belief that we want to teach our kids about money, not just give them money.

My biggest takeaway is it doesn't matter how much money we have. I'm always gonna have to be concerned with money. I used to think that if I could just keep making more and more money, eventually I wouldn't have to worry about it, and all my problems would go away, but that's not the case. And I'm good with it because we have a purpose and a process now for that.

My biggest takeaway The biggest takeaway is that we are finally aligned in the way that we talk about money, and that is aligned in our values. So we just feel really connected, and it doesn't feel stressful anymore. We've made a few specific changes. So now that we know how we want to spend our money, it's been so much easier to go through our subscriptions and our just regular expenses and say, like, "Yes, we want to keep doing that. No, we don't want to do that." So it's probably like the biggest change that we've made so far is just really starting to audit our spending and say like, keep doing it, stop doing it.

And we have confidence in doing so, and that makes the biggest difference. So we just want to say thank you so much. We're so lucky that you guys took time to meet with us. Hey Ramit Sethi, it's Jake and Mia here. We just got back from vacation, and I actually enjoyed it because for the first time ever, I knew where our money where the money was coming from and how much money we had and how much money we could spend. So it really took a lot of the fear out of it.

Yeah, we've had two of our money meetings so far, and those are the first two conversations we've ever had as a couple about money that did not feel contentious. It actually felt like we were on the same team working forward, and it's allowed us to be super intentional with our money, which I think is one of the biggest shifts for us is, um, we're not necessarily spending less, we're just really investigating why we're spending what we're spending and then choosing to do it with much more intentionality.

Yeah, and I, and I've really realized how we have to be consistent, you know, we can't just miss, miss certain things. But, uh, it's definitely worth it because I'm no longer a grumpy old man on vacation. I'm still grumpy, but at least I know where the money's coming from. So we just want to thank you so much for everything.

Thank you so much, it was life-changing. Absolutely.

Thank you. If you want to know the exact month and year that you will have $100,000 in your investment portfolio, sign up for my new program, Road to $100K. I'll help you hit that number fast. Go to iwt.com/100k to sign up.