3. “My husband is going broke, but he won’t let me help”

If you've recently discovered this podcast and you've wondered, how can I get Ramit to answer my specific money question? There are two ways to do it. Number one, you can apply to be on this podcast although we are already full for the rest of the year. Number two, you can join my Money Coaching membership in this program. We do a ton of cool stuff I want to make sure you know about it. We do a monthly live call with me where I cover some of my favorite money topics that I can't go into publicly in as much detail as and I break down our members conscious spending plans. Plus I answer your questions live. We also have tons of virtual events coming up that cover every aspect of living a rich life. For example, our new event Money for Aging Parents is coming up at the end of October that is included for all Money Coaching members. You get access to our library of all past calls like how to Find an Extra Thousand dollars a Month and how to do a Rich Life annual review. Plus we have a Money Coaching community group where you can see inspiration how other people are spending their money and get your own questions answered if you want to get help. If you want to meet amazing other people in Money Coaching and you want to build your rich life faster and bigger, you should check out Money Coaching today. Go to iwt.commoneycoaching to join right now. That's iwt.com moneycoaching.

When we look in the menu, I look to the right. When I book the hotels or cars or anything I click on sort by price.

Like a lot of people, Calvin has a problem. Spending money makes him feel anxious, makes him feel guilty and I wanted to hear his story to understand why. Where did this come from and how is it affecting his relationship with his partner Chantha?

Calvin has always wanted to be the man of the house and take care of everything until he came to me and says he keeps going negative after paying for everything.

Before we go deeper into this episode, what's your first guess? What do you think is going on here? Well, I'll give you a hint. Let's start way back in Calvin's childhood.

Take a listen.

I had to deal with all like phone calls, collection agencies, credit card or deferring payments and whatnot. Going to like payment plans and I did all that for my dad so I knew all that stuff.

Wow.

How old were you?

Elementary.

What? Hi, my name is Ramit Sethi and today I'm talking to Calvin and Chantha.

Now they've been together for three years.

And until recently Calvin has Insisted on paying for just about everything. The problem is he can't afford to. And he obsesses and agonizes over money. He feels anxious. He's always looking for the cheapest price. Now he's in his mid-30s, and together, Calvin and Chantha make over $250,000 a year. And they have over half a million dollars in savings. So why does he feel so bad about money? Let's find out the clues. We'll see what we can do together.

He's great. He wants to pay for everything. But the struggle is he obsesses and stresses out over everything also when it comes to money. And so I've always talked to him about contributing a percentage of our paychecks into a household expense and combining the household expenses. But Calvin has always wanted to keep. Keep a lot of things separate. And he's also wanting to, guess, be the man of the house and take care of everything. Right until he came to me and says he keeps going negative after paying for everything. Our expenses are pretty high.

I think I'm paying for too much stuff. And therefore, that's in. That, in turns, makes me worry about money, worry about the cost of everything. Always looking for the cheapest route or the most cheapest alternative. And I told her, I think that you may not feel that way because you're doing fine. Because obviously I'm in a negative. You must have extra money because. And you must feel okay, and I don't.

Yeah, I think Calvin's two years late on that. When we first moved in together, I had discussed this with him in the beginning because I didn't expect him to pay for everything. And I'm more than happy and more than willing to pay for my share. And I think him struggling and realizing that he cannot support the both of us, especially with the way I spend according to him. And so I think that I'm glad he finally realized it. I think if he had sat down with me and looked at the numbers and went through everything together from the beginning, when we first moved in, I don't think he would feel this much anxiety.

I realized it a little bit late. I'd taken about 120,000 a year.

Okay, I get that he wants to pay for everything, But Shanta also has money of her own. Let's find out what's going on with her.

Tell me how much you make total per year.

About 130,000 a year.

Did you catch that? Chanta actually makes more than Calvin does. Now, there's an obvious solution to this problem, and that Is for them to reallocate the way that they do their spending, for them to spend proportionally. So Calvin's spending will go down towards their joint account, and Chanta's will go up. That just makes sense. And actually, right before we recorded this episode, they made that change. But I still wanted to talk to them to find out what had led them to all this financial anxiety, Because I suspect there's something a lot deeper here.

We redid our math just a few months ago.

So would you say you contribute roughly the same amount that she does?

Yeah. Now we are.

Good. Okay.

It would be really easy to end the episode right here.

Okay.

We made a quick change in Excel. Boom, done. That's what so many people think money problems are. They think they are a math problem, but money problems are almost never a math problem. They're much, much deeper than that. There's something else going on psychologically, something that caused them to get to this point. And now we're gonna have to find out what those clues are. Let's start with the fact that Calvin felt he had to pay for everything. What do you think that is? Where do you think that comes from?

Originally, I told her, you don't have to give me anything. I'll just do what I can on my own. And eventually that didn't work. So then she started contributing a little bit, and now it's still not working out. So we went with this new route where we kind of put into a joint. An account to pay for joint expenses.

Before you were running into the red. How's it working for you now?

We just started in the beginning of March, Coming up in a few days here.

We'll.

We'll see how it goes. But it should be okay because we really calculated all everything out and to figure out. And then we came with an average amount that we would need to cover everything, including grocery shopping, potential dinings, and even gas. So it should be fine.

Okay, good.

She's right. I wanted to be the man in the house. I wanted to provide as much as I can, and also just wanted to see, like, how much I can do on my own in the event she doesn't want to work anymore or can't work anymore.

Let's unpack that. What does man of the house mean to you?

Basically taking care of everything financially, pretty much that, actually.

So pay for everything. And then what happens? Fast forward. Maybe you decide to start a family. What happens?

And then I won't be able to afford anything.

Yeah, that could become a problem. Yeah. Okay.

You guys came in here as if.

This was a math problem. This is not a math problem. And I'm really happy that you've both fixed up the allocation. That's awesome. But this has not been solved at all. We still have work to do because the real problem is not on the spreadsheet. In fact, put the spreadsheet away. The real issue here is way deeper. It's not going to be found in Excel.

The way they restructure their finances is good. It's probably going to help prevent Calvin from going into the red every month. So I'm really happy to hear that. But there's more here, emotionally. There's more behind how Calvin felt that he needed to provide for both of them, even though he couldn't do it financially. And the reason that I want to push on this is that if you just paper over a problem, if you don't really understand the causes, then it will come up again and again and again. And with money, especially money and relationships, we want to get to the root cause, want to fix it once and forever so that we can move forward and create our rich lives.

I feel like we value money very differently. I like every dollar counts to me. Where I think for Canada, sometimes it's how sometimes, like, convenience is more important or the luxury is more important. I look at the price tag revenue pretty much. I assess on whether or not it's worth it, whether or not I can do it myself, or we can find it cheaper elsewhere, or do we need it and we could walk there instead of getting a cab or something like that?

Okay, so let me give a few examples. You tell me if you would think about the price for this. When you go to buy a car, do you comparison shop for prices?

I do. Okay.

When you think about taking a vacation, do you comparison shop for locations or hotels?

Big time. Yeah.

Okay. And when you go to the grocery store, do you comparison shop for the type of spaghetti sauce or lettuce that you're gonna get?

I do, yeah.

So everything.

Yes, everything. Like organic. Do we need organic? When we go on vacation and stuff, we spend money. And it does bring me joy. It's the process of getting there. It's a lot of calculations and weighing out the cost and net value of things.

And if you spend an extra 500 bucks, you think it would give you more joy?

No.

Okay. And what do you think if I asked Chanta that same question, what do you think she would say?

I think she's the opposite of everything I say. She values. Like I said, she values more of the convenience, organic. Doesn't matter if it costs more, doesn't matter. Valet parking. I'm like, no, let's self park. That's self harp. Stuff like that.

Got it.

Complete opposite.

So let me understand. I want to know the advantages of this approach, because I think there are a lot of advantages of your approach. And then I want to know what your approach might be costing you. So let's start with what are some of the benefits of your approach?

Behaviors serve a purpose. There are biological behaviors, like we sleep when we're tired and we cry when we're sad. But then we have other types of behaviors, like comparing the price of everything. Now, they usually get us something. Some sense of comfort or status or saving money. But if you take them too far, they can start to cost us a lot. And that's what I'm trying to find out here. What does this cost him?

I like knowing that I gotten the best price possible. I don't like overpaying for anything because again, I just. I work very hard for my money and I not. She thinks we're well off. I don't think we're well off financially. And so I try and spend as little as I can or save as much as I can.

Keep in mind they make almost $300,000 per year.

That in turn makes me like, very, like, not materialistic. I don't shop for expensive clothing. I don't drive expensive cars. That's just out of the question for me.

You're not materialistic. What else?

Knowing that I got the best value or the best price that we can get something for, whether it be like a vacation or food or anything.

And what is the advantage of knowing that you got the best price?

I didn't overpay for anything.

And what's the advantage of that?

I didn't use more of my money unnecessarily or our money unnecessarily.

Okay, very good. All right. What are the disadvantages of your approach?

Oh, I know the disadvantage. Time consuming. I research and I ponder. I weigh out this versus that versus this versus that. It does take time. I know it does take time. What else? And then, yeah, time. And then just headache. And then we get into disagreements and stuff like that. So those are my disadvantages.

That's it. Just the word disagreements. Like you.

You called me to come talk about this.

Clearly there's.

We disagree and it becomes. It escalates.

Tell me more about that.

Because we disagree. Because we don't see eye to eye on it. And so she thinks it's she doesn't understand why. Why I. I'm out shopping for like, the cheapest one or like the. The best value to bargain. And I don't understand why she doesn't. Why it's not a priority to her.

Okay, Chanta, let me hear from you.

I think I'm reasonable. I save money, but I do live life. I think that's our difference. Calvin doesn't understand how to splurge on himself, and I do that a little bit more. Whether it's myself, my friends, my family. I definitely, like, splurge on gifts for people. We work hard to make money, so I feel like we should really enjoy it as well. But I don't think that we should spend everything that we. We make. As long as you are. You're saving and you have a balance. I believe more about having that balance.

Calvin, do you agree in having balance?

I do.

Okay, so that's good. You both agree on balance. Maybe you just don't agree what balance actually is.

That's exactly right.

I don't think I make enough for the way she wants to live. That's the thing.

What would you say this ranks in terms of the issues that you argue about? Is this the number one thing or is it in the top three?

It would be the top three.

Shanta, you agree with that?

Absolutely.

Top three. Okay. What happens if you both continue on the. The way that you've been going? You're three years into this relationship. It's somewhat early on. If you change nothing and you keep going on, what do you think happens?

I'm taking a detour here because I.

Understand their issues now. I want to see if they understand how serious this is.

A lot of people I talk to.

Initially write in with this huge problem, but when we start talking, they minimize it. They'll say, well, it's not really that bad, or, you know, we only fight once in a while, but overall things are pretty good.

Now that might be.

But a 4 out of 10 fight about the price of chicken wings can multiply and calcify and amplify. Especially after 40 years of marriage and 2 kids and a mortgage. That's why I'm doing something called future pacing right here when I ask them to imagine the future.

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Ramit.

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I think there will be a lot more disagreements and and arguments about it and overall we wouldn't be happy and it'll be hard to coordinate or plan anything or yeah, just make a plan for anything, whether it be buying something, going somewhere Doing something.

Yeah. On a scale of 1 to 10, how serious do you think it is today and how serious do you think it could become?

I think it could become very serious. Because when it. When we're talking in terms of having a family and stuff, like, I see her as no limits in expenses like we were to have a kid. No, we need to do this for the kid. We need to do this. We. I want this for the kid. No, I want only organic. I want only top shelf items. You know what? I don't trust the school system. I want them to go private school and all that stuff. That's all money and money that I don't have or I don't feel like I have, I'm gonna object to certain stuff and then, you know, it'll lead to me being a bad father or husband or whatnot.

I think you're right. I think that it is a nuisance right now. Maybe a little bit more than a nuisance, but I think that as you fast forward and as you're both thinking about a family, things become way more complicated financially and values wise. From what I hear so far, you don't have an effective joint philosophy. You have two individual philosophies which contradict each other. And so luckily you're relatively high income. You have low expenses. So you can kind of paper this up, right? Look at it. You have hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings. Do you know your savings rate?

I save on my own about 20% of my income.

They're very savvy with the technical aspects of money. They're spending less than 11% of their gross income on housing. That's extremely good. They know their numbers, they know their savings rates. That part I'm not concerned with. It's the other part, the what else part that's concerning. What are you going to do with this money? How do you know when you've won? What is the purpose of 10.5% spending on your housing? These are the questions that are not found in a spreadsheet. And they are much, much harder for people to grapple with. I decided to go back to Calvin's childhood, learn a little bit more about what he grew up with. Because I think it has a big, big hint about what's driving him today.

It was like, it was that my dad paid for everything. My mom, for a lot of many years of her adult life, she didn't work. And then eventually she did. And just. And even then I think she didn't pay for anything. She just saved her money. And that's just how. That's how it was. It didn't work out, though, because they were always in financial troubles.

Why did she go back to work?

Maybe it was to help out. My family did not make a lot of money, and my dad was very poor with managing money, Racking up credit card debts, collectors, calling bad credit scores, all that stuff. Writing checks that consistently, that was insufficient. My parents never had enough money right now.

Did they ever say anything to you that made you feel as a kid that you or your family didn't have enough?

Their English was very bad, so of course I had to deal with all, like, phone calls, collectors, collection agencies, credit card or even, like, deferring payments and whatnot. Going to, like, payment plans and stuff. I did all that for my dad, so I knew all that stuff.

Wow. How old were you?

Elementary.

What?

Yeah, I know. I saw Chanta. I don't know if she believes me sometimes, but I've been helping my family with their. With, like, financials since I was a little kid. And because of that, you know what? I never asked for any of my parents. I never participated in any extracurricular because I thought it would cost my dad money. I never got any toys. I never asked for anything. I didn't go to my prom, and I didn't do anything because that would involve money. I just didn't want to bug my parents about it.

That can't have been easy. To have to take on that adult role as an elementary school kid. That's unbelievable.

Suddenly a lot of Calvin's financial anxiety makes sense. He's been living with a worldview of scarcity since he was in elementary school. And he's been fixing money problems. Catch that word? Fix, Fixing. Not seeing money as joy, but as a problem to be fixed and managed.

Since he was a little kid.

So we can sit here and tell Calvin to spend more on organic cheese, but because of his lived experiences, he literally sees money differently than Chanta does.

You told me that when you were young. You said not enough. And then as you got older, going to prom and schools, it almost seems like you just didn't even ask. What'd you start to believe about money.

As you grew up? I don't want to be, like, not having to not have enough money for things.

Are your family still in the same financial situation?

They're better now because of me. I still help them monitor it and manage it till this day. Yeah, it's hard to explain. My dad's just really poor with it. He just. He'll write a check and sends it out. And then he goes to the ATM and withdraws whatever he needs to withdraw from cash. And then sees that the balance on there and thinks that's how much he has left, not realizing that there's two or three checks that's floating in the mail system that's going to potential to people that are going to be depositing it. Then he ends up insufficient fund. And I see it because I log into his account once in a while and I check and I don't know what's going on.

That's got to be frustrating and also something that you've been doing it for what, 30 plus years. Must be something you just learned to live with.

Yeah, we grew up in Hawaii. I came here when I was 17 in the year, in year 2000. And I got him into those credit debt payment plans and stuff like that to get him out of it. And he did. He actually, I made sure he was on track. And then eventually he got out of it. He got his credit, went back up and he was doing really well. And I think he's fallen off again. But now I got my sister, my younger sister to help out with managing. I just set up like direct payments and automatic payments for him and stuff like that. So it's when he writes those checks that he just doesn't understand that that writing a check, it means that's what the money's gonna be. He just doesn't realize that he. He's always, wait, I thought I saw my ATM receipt. I still had a thousand dollar in the account. I said, yeah, but what about the $5 check you wrote two days ago?

He questions their every purchase. He questions kind of their every move and decision. But I see why he had to. It's of a lot of responsibility for him to hold and he still continues to carry on that responsibility. It's just hard because I see it affecting us and our finances and how he questions a lot of the things that I buy as well. But I always try to remind him I'm not in the same financial position as his parents.

I think it's pretty cool that Chantha understands Calvin's childhood actually affects him. Now that understanding is that's not going to make their money problems disappear. But at least that understanding is a really great sign that the two of them can take this journey together. I will say, though, I'm not sure Calvin has actually connected his childhood with his financial behaviors of today. The anxiety, the constant comparing costs of everything and the stress that is putting on their relationship.

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When you think about your own relationship with money today, what role do you think that your family upbringing had in that relationship?

It makes me just never want to be in like in debt and be.

In that position because what.

I don't know, I just don't wonder because it just. It doesn't help me. It's going to cause a lot of problems. I don't like that. And that's why I don't feel good when I end the month, when I'm in the red.

What happens if you get into debt?

It's hard to get out.

Yeah.

What else?

I would have to work more to. To. To make the money.

What happened to your dad? As he got worse and worse with.

His money again, him and my mom began to argument financially here and there too. That's it, man. My dad, I don't think he cares. It seems like he cares, but I don't think he cares.

So how come you care?

Because I think it's gonna fall onto me in the event that anything happens. Because I'm the one. I'm the one that's the most successful financially on paper, the most successful in our family.

And you've been doing it for so long too. You've been helping them in so many ways.

Yeah.

Yeah. Did your parents look at the prices of stuff when you were a kid?

They do, but they don't. They don't. What do you call they? They don't weigh it out, how much it's worth and stuff.

Like they don't create Excel models to compare it.

Nothing. No, none of that stuff. And they just buy it and they don't think about it too much about it up until this day. They just buy unnecessary things they don't really need. They buy too much of things they. That they should be buying.

And when they do that, how does it make you feel?

It frustrates me. And I actually get into arguments with them too.

Yeah. And when Chanta buys valet parking, how does it make you feel?

I don't like it either.

Any connection between the two?

No.

The only connection is I just don't want to. I Don't want to spend the money for that because I don't think we need it.

I'm wearing a pretty nice shirt right now. I don't need it. I don't need it at all. I could have bought it at Target. Target has very nice clothes, but I decided I like it, so I bought it. What do you think about that? Is that unnecessary?

No, but if you can afford it, then that's fine.

Good. That's a great answer. Now, how do you know if you can afford valet parking? 15 bucks, let's say.

Yeah, and I've told Shanta. I told her when I pay my bills and I'm not in the red anymore, then maybe we can. We can figure if I'm in the red, we shouldn't be paying more for luxury.

Chantha, do you agree with that?

Yeah, I agree with that.

Okay. Okay, good.

We have a lot of zone, a big zone of agreement here. Still feeling out the zone of disagreement.

So do you both have any money rules that are important to you jointly?

We don't have any money rules yet. For example, I read your book. I follow you. You know, like, all about using your points for plane tickets, hotels, and I'm all about that. And Calvin is, too, but he micromanages how we spend our points, our free points. And so it's. I think if we come up with some good money rules, and it would be good for us to both follow, because in my mind, I see them as free points. It's okay how we spend it because they're free. But Calvin completely disagrees and has his own way of wanting to spend it.

I'm moving on from Calvin's childhood into their spending with money today. See, sometimes when people talk about their childhood, they instantly get it. They can connect how their upbringing is causing their financial issues today, but sometimes they need more time to make those connections. It needs to sit and settle. So let's shift into how Calvin and Chantha spend on vacations. Now.

Now.

Jointly come up with a money rule that would serve both of you.

Yeah.

What would be a rule that both of you could feel good about?

My general rule is no valet. We can walk. That's something that can come up, like, right away. Off the top of my head, of course.

You say it like it's a surprise. We all knew that's. That's a given.

I was kind of hoping for a.

Money rule that would give them permission to spend more here, but at least he's trying.

It runs deep inside you that you want to spend as little as Possible. I get that that's your natural inclination. And like we talked about, that can serve you in a lot of ways. You're probably never going to run out of money. But again, what do you think the downside of that is, Calvin?

Yeah, just time.

That's one. What else?

Like, you get really bad quality things.

Calvin, when you go on vacation, you want to stay at a Holiday Inn.

First of all, before I met her, yeah, I stay at Holiday Inn.

Okay, fair enough. First of all, I got nothing against Holiday Inn. I stayed there when I was a kid. It's a great family hotel. But, Calvin, can I point something out to you?

Yeah.

I don't think Calvin realizes just how wealthy he is. And I know for a fact that he does not realize how wealthy he will be.

You are going to be a multi millionaire. Did you know that?

No, that sounds great. I didn't know that.

You already are a multimillionaire. You don't even know it yet. You just need time. I already calculated how much you have and how much you're contributing. You are already a multimillionaire. You just need to let your investments sit and keep compounding. And the more you add, the more it's going to grow. Now, let me ask you this, Calvin. Let's say you're sitting on $3 million. Do you still want to stay at Holiday Inn?

No.

Okay, good. Let's say you're sitting on 500 grand, do you still want to stay a Holiday Inn?

Yeah.

Okay, a million.

No.

Wow. So at a million bucks, it changes from Holiday Inn to you're willing to stay somewhere else. Is that right?

Yeah.

You can afford more than a Holiday Inn right now. Do you know that you are rich?

No.

Yeah, because ever since you were an elementary school kid, you've been poor. So you have gotten a great job. You have a very good income. Combined with your girlfriend, Chantha, you have a very good household income. Your savings are quite good in terms of percentage per year, and your expenses are low. And yet, this is not a math problem. This is all psychology. And so it's funny, you even just said at a million dollars, you would switch away from a holiday. But a holiday inn costs 150 bucks a night. That's a decimal error. Do you see how it's not a math problem here, that there's something else going on? You're already rich and you're getting richer every day. But until you can internalize that, you will always hold on tightly to parking, hotels, salad burritos, whatever. And look, personally, I don't care if you want to go for a cheap burrito. And that's just not important to you. My car is 16 years old. It's not important to me. Still works. It's a great car. Honda, love it. But there are other things that I buy a really nice vacation. And there are even some things where I say I'm going to give myself no budget. I will spend anything because it's important to me and I, I can afford it. So, Calvin, hearing that, how does that strike you?

It feels good to hear that. But I think because you're looking in a, you're looking at it in a long term perspective. For me, it's down to the end of the month.

This is really common with people who have anxiety around money. They look at everything month to month and that is as far as they can look. It's kind of like driving in the fog where you can only see 50ft in front of you. Of course you're going to be nervous. Of course you're going to be going slow. Of course you're going to be worrying about all the things that can go wrong. You're only seeing 50ft in front of you. My job is to zoom out and show you the big picture. Your rich life, not just your rich month.

The funny thing though, even though you're living month to month, you've managed to accumulate six figures in savings.

That's no joke.

Yeah.

And yet you are obsess. Words that I heard today. Obsessing. You're talking about like $10 expenses. But you have over $200,000 in savings both independently and jointly. Do you know how much your money right now turns into by the time you're 65? If you just keep contributing the same amount? Any idea how much it turns into?

No.

Take a guess.

5 million.

It's a good guess. 3.6 million. But if you wanted to make it 5 million, it wouldn't be that hard. 5 million bucks. What do you think is going to change when you have $5 million?

I mean, I won't. Yeah, I wouldn't worry about those things anymore.

You think it's just magically overnight, you're just going to stop worrying about all financial items?

If it happens overnight, then yeah, magically overnight never happens.

If you got $5 million tomorrow, you know what you would be doing the night after?

What?

You'd be on Expedia comparing the prices of Holiday Inn and you'd be like, let's get a suite at Holiday Inn.

I don't think so.

Believe me. You Think you would magically change an entire lifetime of restricting yourself just because you have money in your bank account, but you already have hundreds of thousands of dollars and you still treat money like you're poor.

I think Calvin's very hard on himself and he's very modest as well. And I try to get him to celebrate even small wins and he. It's really hard for him to do that. And so hopefully coming from somebody else like you and not me, I feel like I'm his biggest cheerleader anyway. But coming from you, I hope he internalizes that and really starts appreciating what we have and worrying a lot less and having a lot less anxiety because I feel like a lot of the times it's what's in his mind that really hurts him.

One of the best ways to learn is by actually doing it. So let's try it right now. Let's dream a little.

I'd like you to take 30 seconds to think about what is on your bucket list, the things you want to do in the next 10 to 15 years. Big things.

I'd like to be able to travel and go to those multi country trips and do all the excursions and do all that stuff. Not to worry about what's it going to cost. The only other country I've been to is London once. That's it. I've never been anywhere else.

What's the place that comes to mind first if you could go anywhere?

I definitely want to go back to Southeast Asia. My aunt lives there right now in Cambodia and I've always wanted to. She donates a lot to the temples and I think a few temples now and she's retired there. But we've always talked about the schools and the teachers, teacher and so there's lots of just time I want to donate to either Teach English to help rebuild the school to do something good like that. Partnered with my aunt to help the community because that's where my family is from.

I want to go there too. We talked about it and we had some plans to eventually do that. Originally it was last year, but pandemic, we shut, we canceled it. We held off on booking 18 because we weren't sure how it was gonna happen.

So do you think you'll go when you can soon?

Maybe next year as right now? Yeah. I would still be the way I am and still probably like back up the cost for everything.

And he would probably stay with my aunt. Where I would want to go to the hotels because they're. They're so much cheaper. Our dollar Goes a long way there. And I would not want to stay with my aunt.

I wouldn't want to stay with her aunt. I would. I probably wouldn't pick the resort there. That's the equivalent to the Four Seasons or that's equivalent to the Ritz Carlton. I don't classify us as being that level. Let's say that's like a 10. We don't need to say a 10. We can stay at a. At a 7 or 8.

I love that you both are into going to Cambodia. I love it. I would like for you to both sit down, and I'd like you to talk about dreamtrip. When you first start conceiving this trip, you're not going to talk about cost. Then you're going to think about how much you can afford, and then you can go and plan it. I suspect that both of you may disagree on how much you can afford. Anybody have a sense of what number you think you're going to come up with?

Like 6,000.

Okay. Chanta.

Yeah, I was thinking 10,000.

Oh, you guys are in the range. Seriously. At least it wasn't 6,000 and 60,000. You guys are so close. Do you realize $4,000 out of $250,000 of income every year, that's like nothing.

That's awesome.

You guys are there. Calvin, let me ask you a question. If both of you said. If you said 6 and she says.

10, do you trust Chantha with anything?

Not. I don't trust it with making. I wouldn't trust it to, like, book a trip for me or something.

Why is that?

Because it's. It's going to be four Seasons, valet parking and room service left and right.

And what's gonna happen if she does that?

The premium package and stuff.

And what's gonna happen then?

This is called the so then what Technique. When people are worried about something with their money, I ask them, so then what? And I ask them again and again. And usually the very thing they fear is not that big of a deal at all.

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It's going to be a big deal.

At the end and what happens then?

We can't afford it. I'm answering this last question based on how I feel right now.

I totally get it and I totally respect you for being so honest.

He's almost there, but I just need to get Calvin a little more comfortable with the idea of spending, so I'm going to do an inversion exercise with him.

Let's rewind and this time I want you to answer every answer in the Opposite way. You just answered it. Just play for just 20 seconds with me. Watch. Do you trust Chanta?

Yes.

Would you trust her to book a trip for you?

Yes.

If she booked a trip for you.

Would it be at a beautiful hotel with beautiful room service and all that stuff?

Yes.

Could you afford it? Yes.

Okay.

How did that make you feel to.

Say.

Can we actually do this for real? Because first of all, you can afford it, and second of all, you have a trip coming up, so let's just play it out. I'm not going to tell you what to say. It's your money, both of your money. And it's your answer. But let's play it out. Calvin, do you trust Chanta to book a trip to Cambodia for you?

Yes.

Chantha, do you understand where Calvin is coming from when he's sometimes concerned about you booking a trip for him?

Yes.

Okay. Calvin, do you think that if Chanta booked a trip, it would be a memorable experience for both of you?

Yeah, I know.

Will.

Chantha, do you think you would ever regret going to Cambodia with Calvin?

No, I hope not.

Calvin, would you trust Chanta to handle all the airfare bookings for this trip?

Yeah, I would.

I think you should take a moment to really celebrate that, because that is absolutely amazing, what you just did. Shantha, what do you think?

I just want to go give him a hug and you a hug as well.

That simple answer you just gave me shows so much of what you've done in this conversation. Are you psychologically prepared to acknowledge that for a trip you take once every three years, the prices are basically irrelevant for you? Yeah, it's a big change.

It's a big trip, and then the experience is gonna be important. So, yeah, I have to trust Chanta with the. With all the booking and stuff.

I love it. I love everything you just said. You talked about experience. That's your money lens on this trip. And you trust her. What could be a better experience than starting out by saying, I trust you?

If you've enjoyed this episode, follow and subscribe to I Will Teach youh to Be Rich on whatever podcast platform you use. And please leave a rating and review. It really helps us, especially because we're so new to the game. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next week. Here's what you'll find next week on the I Will Teach youh to Be Rich podcast.

I feel like it's a huge weight that we're both carrying. Like, John wants a second kid. He's thinking about it, and I'm just like, no, like, we have have to pay this off. We need to make this into manageable amount and then we can do something else. It's like, I want to cry. Like, oh, my God. How come it's not getting any lower?