47. “We make $500k. Why are we carrying a balance on our credit cards?”

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 he will say, well.

Why do you need someone to take care of you? You have your own money. Like are you trying to get someone to take care of you? Is that what you're doing? I don't know about this money. I've always been so confused as to like you make so much money and we have no money.

We both want to fix this. I love her, you know, I want to stay married. This is kind of the biggest catalyst to our relationship that we are now pulling apart that we need to fix.

We either need to fix this or it's not going to continue. There's no sense and arguing every day. This is mine. You owe me $2. You know, this, this. Oh, I. Oh, I didn't tell you about this or nothing is transparent. Oh, I won't share my credit card expenses with you. I just, I'm not okay with continuing on.

Today I'm speaking with Ashley and Charles and what a fascinating story they have. They're in their early 40s, they've been.

Married for six years and they have.

Five children from previous relationships. Now Ashley is going to tell you a story about how she went to the grocery store and she couldn't use her account because there was no money there. But together they earn over half a million dollars a year. Ashley just can't figure out where the money is going. Have you ever felt like your partner was hiding something from you? Something big? Well, what if you discover that there are lies in your relationship about money? What if you find out that your money is so confusing to the two of you that you just have no.

Idea what's going on?

Well, as I probe into their finances today, I find that their income is hard to understand because it's erratic and it involves investments and stock options and all kinds of confusing things. And as I mentioned, there are also lies about money.

What I'm going to do today is.

Try to help them simplify their money in the hopes that they can build trust together. And at the end of the episode, you're going to hear a follow up from this couple. After I helped them organize their conscious spending plan, you're going to hear what that was like for them. To download your own copy of the conscious spending plan, you can visit iwt.com Episode 47 that's iwt.com Episode 47.

All right, let's get started.

I'm Ramit Sethi, and this is I Will Teach youh to Be Rich.

I feel like ever since we've gotten married, we haven't been on the same page with finances and it's just gotten worse recently. I feel like we're more disconnected and everything is mine and yours now and we don't have a plan. About a month ago or two months ago, Charles gets a kso, which is like a commission check, and he gets it every three months. And since we've been disconnecting recently with our joint accounts, he had told me that he didn't receive the KSO checks anymore and that I didn't understand and that it was built into his salary. And the reality was is that he did receive it and it went into his own personal account and he didn't tell me about it until, I don't know, a couple weeks later. He told me the truth.

How'd you find out?

I just knew there was some my intuition that he had received it and he wasn't being honest. So I asked actually to look at his personal account and he never shows me his personal account. And he did this one time and the deposit was in there. So that's where I saw it.

And when you brought that up to him, what did he say?

He said that he needed it to pay his credit cards, the $8,000. So that was his reasoning for taking it. I've never. With the amount of money his salary that he makes, it doesn't really add up to me. So what he's putting into the joint, I don't know if he's putting. He says he's putting $1,800 into his own personal account, but it could be more. I don't know. My credit card bills had gotten beef. Uh, we went on a family trip. So I'd put all the airplane tickets on my credit card. And then also I was putting. I was reserving the hotels. Cause I tend to be the planner when we're traveling. Um, so my credit cards have gotten really big. So I was okay with that because I knew the commission check was coming. And so I thought that we could tackle it when the commission check came. And so that's what stressed me out, was that I couldn't pay my, my credit cards because there was no money.

Charles, tell me your perspective. What happened with the conditions? Why'd you hide it?

Because Ashley and I were in a fight, and we've been disagreeing on monies. And I've been accumulating a lot of this debt on my credit card that I wanted to get away from. That started to accumulate. That started to stress me out. And I wanted to pay for it. But she didn't think so because she wanted to pay for other expenses that she wanted to take on. I take the burden of the majority of their expenses on a day to day basis. I take on a lot of, say, the. What is it our Comcast bill?

Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. How much money do you make, Charles?

About $400,000.

Why are we talking about your Comcast bill?

Because you're asking about all these expenses.

Because they're going to Comcast is 100 bucks a month. Why are we talking about that? That's not why you're in the red.

It's 250.

Yeah, okay, 250. The two of you make $534,000. And the first expenses you're telling me about are your Comcast bill and cell phone bill. Do you already see.

This is just absurd. And it's a great example of how people cause themselves to get stuck with their money. If you make $500,000 a year and your first response about expenses is to start talking about your Comcast bill, you have a serious problem. From the look on Charles's face, I'm guessing he's never actually been called out for his money attitude, except obviously by his wife. You'll notice this pattern of thinking small happens again and again. Last week, I helped Gavin and Carolyn stop talking about password managers and start thinking about their rich life. Today, I'm telling Charles that he's not running out of money because of his Comcast bill. Guys, the key lesson here is to focus on the big wins. You're not in financial trouble because of your lattes. No matter who told you that you're in trouble. You're in trouble because of your housing costs or car costs, debt, including student loans and credit cards and sometimes health care. It's the big things that trap you, but it's also the big things that.

Can set you free.

If you focus on those five big wins in life, you don't ever have to worry about the price of coffee or your Comcast bill.

Charles sees money as his and mine, and I see money as ours. Like, when we got married, we didn't talk about things. You know, he has a lot of property, and I just. Just. And I may get an inheritance. So I just assume we just put it all together and share it all, because this is what my parents did, so that's kind of my role models. He did not want to do that and put things in trust behind my back, and we just never had a discussion about it. And now I'm in the picture, and I feel like I'm a burden. Like, he doesn't want to take care of me. And I'll say that. And he will say, well, why do you. Why do you need someone to take care of you? Like, are you trying to get someone to take care of you? Is that what you're doing? And that's. Yeah, when you're in a marriage, it's, I take care of you, you take care of me, and we work this out together. And I have come to terms with the premarital things.

We both consciously came in guarded to try and build something together. But by building, we became more enemies and allies. And now that we're here, we're still arguing. I think we're still in the mindset of our past relationships, where we felt we were beat down by our other partners. So I've been carrying all the debt in the family for a long period of time, which I'm okay with. We had some credit card debt that was piling up, and we got into a fight again, and I felt like I had the burden of all this debt under my name, and she didn't want to relieve me of any of that. Debt.

I.

So I said, why don't you transfer the Audi into your name? She said, no. So I had a little bit of resentment. And now that we're talking through this, I'm okay with caring. As long as we're focused on paying all this jointly, I'm okay with it.

That's the way to go.

And before, I was just resentful of the arguments and the, you know, the trust of, hey, we're going to pay this off together and we're going to agree to do this.

Okay? Because you kept saying, that's your car, that's your car. That's not my car, that's your car. And I feel like it's our car. Both cars are our car. If we were to get divorced, gets what the judge would say, both cars are our cars. We're both responsible for the debt and we're both responsible for the other one that we sell. It's just, it's, it's, it's us together. It's ours. It's not yours, it's not mine. It's.

Did you hear what I just said?

Yeah. That you're okay with it now, but I'm struggling.

Help me understand why you're struggling when I just agreed to do this together.

I, I've just been hearing this for so many years that I, I want to. I want to. I want it to happen.

Real question for you.

Do you know how often you're supposed.

To see your primary care physician? How about the dentist? How about a dermatologist? A lot of us just wait to get a text from the dental hygienist to know it's time to make an appointment. But your health is important and we talk about going from defense to offense with your money.

What about with your health?

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I don't really believe that I rent.

And I want you to know that you are not a failure if you choose to rent. In fact, I want more freedom right now than buying a 30 year mortgage. But if I'm spending thousands of dollars a month, I want to get some of the perks that homeowners get. And that is where BILT comes in. BILT is a loyalty program for renters. You pay your rent through BILT and you can earn points for it. Think about it. You're earning points for your biggest expense.

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I'm telling you I want the change and I want this to change.

I do too. That's why I'm here.

It's going to be tough to move forward if you're both constantly living in the past.

Yep.

I don't know if they really want to change. I don't know if it's too late. But I do know that they've never really talked about money in an honest way. I can tell that from just a few minutes of talking to them. Whenever I ask people if they want to change, they almost always say yes. That's because it's easy to say yes. It's easy to claim you want to change. But when people see what it actually takes, many of those same people vanish. I don't mind if someone looks at what it'll take and they consciously say, hey, I'm not going to do that. It's not worth it for me. But that almost never happens. It's much more common that someone will Tell me they want to change with their money and then they'll simply not do it. They'll do one rich life review, then they'll stop or they'll try talking about money and it will end up in a fight again. And they'll say, see, I knew it would never work. If you want to change something big like your money, your body, your psychology. Yeah, it's hard. The first time you try, you will fail. We have to expect that we will fail. It took a lifetime to get to where you are. It will probably take years, if not the rest of your life to truly change. I'm over people saying two minute abs. That's not how it works. Two minutes to financial freedom. It's bullshit. It will probably take you a lifetime to truly change. But what I try to do on these calls is to find out if they're honest about actually wanting to change. I don't think most people even know themselves in Ashley and Charles's case. To help them change, one thing I need to do is help them stop living in the past. I need to get them to focus on where they are today and where.

They want to go.

So to do that, I asked them to fill out a conscious spending plan before getting on this call with me. We're going to go through it together. By the way, to get your own copy of the conscious spending plan, go to iwt.com episode4. 7. Now listen to them describe how it felt to fill out the plan together.

So let's look at the numbers here. I had you go through a conscious spending plan before we got on this call.

Yeah.

Now what was it like to do this conscious spending plan together?

Well, I have spreadsheets and a budget. But she just kept saying no, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. I said, okay, just let's. It was a little uneasy during that exercise.

It was completely frustrating. Yeah. It was just the whole. It was very challenging because I don't know what's going on. I have spreadsheets. I don't know what's real, what's not real. I've never seen accounts.

Okay, so here I see gross monthly income of $35,000, which adds up to $420,000. Isn't that missing almost $100,000?

This was rough numbers, Ramit. We did not.

It's pretty rough. Wait, it's so rough that it's missing over $100,000.

This is just the. I don't know. We just came. We again, because nobody knows what's going on except for maybe Charles knows his numbers.

No, no, no.

Well, let's just do it right now. See, this is one of the things that couples often use to stay stuck.

Well, we got the money coming in.

Here and the RSUs and the KSOs and blah, blah, blah. Why don't we just start by putting it all out on the table? Then we could start chopping up things and moving them over here and there. Let's just put it all out on the table. What is your gross monthly income.

Sam?

No, your podcast player is not malfunctioning.

That silence is that they simply don't know the answer to the most basic of questions. How much do you make? They really don't know what an effective shield that must be to avoid ever having to talk about money. They make over $500,000 a year, and they're off by over $100,000. Now, part of that confusion comes from all the different ways they make money. Charles has a KSO, basically a bonus. He also has RSUs, or restricted stock units, which are company shares that vest over time. Just for fun, let's listen to that deafening silence when I ask them how much they make Again.

What is your gross monthly income?

Well, let's see. Okay, so we're missing some.

I'm bringing mine up just to make sure that I'm getting the exact number.

Let me go to my. So I'll look at my last paycheck and.

I'm going to skip ahead here, not to end your suffering, but to end mine. I spent so long working through basic numbers with them. Let me just skip to it and notice how confused they are about their own numbers and how confusing this must be to their partner.

I can give you my net paycheck, 9930, that I get paid 10 months out of the year.

Ashley, what do you do to get paid only 10 months a year?

I'm a school nurse.

Cool.

Okay, Charles, what do you got?

Take home. 4393 times two. That's take home.

Take home is 8786.

Yeah, and then every quarter I get a KSO. It's very varies on time to time based on it, so I would say.

5,900, 5,900 per quarter is 23,600 in addition.

That's correct.

Okay, fine. And is there some RSU you want to put in here too?

30,000 per year.

So $400,196. Does that sound right?

Yeah, that's.

When I talk to new business owners, I hear a lot of the same motivations. I want to make extra money. I want more freedom. I want flexibility. But I will tell you something that I've never heard.

I want to start a business so.

I can fill out a bunch of tax forms. That sounds like my hell. The good news is you don't need to be a tax expert to start your own business. Instead, you can use Gusto, this episode's sponsor. Gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. It's all in one. It's remote, friendly and it's incredibly easy to use so you can pay, hire onboard and support your team from anywhere. They offer automatic payroll tax filing, simple direct deposits, health benefits, workers comp 401k matches. You name it, they can help. Plus, it's quick and easy to switch to Gusto. Just transfer your existing data and get up and running fast with no hidden fees and no surprises. Try gusto today@gusto.com ramit and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll@gusto.com ramIt once more. Gusto.com ramit what comes to mind when I share these specific moments? Renewing your passport. Scheduling a dentist appointment. Replacing that light bulb that's been out for six months and you're not sure what's the right bulb. We all procrastinate on weird stuff and taxes are usually right at the top of that list. We wait until the last second that we get overwhelmed, we got to pull this paperwork and we're panicked because the deadline is approaching. That's why I recommend Gilt. Now that tax season's over, this is actually the best time to get ahead. If you run a business or you filed for a tax extension, one small move right now could save you thousands later. Gilt is not just another CPA firm. They helped one of my colleagues rethink his entire tax setup. Now he's saving more than he spends on tax prep. With G, you get a proactive year round strategy, not just a one time filing. Credits, deductions, business structure. It's handled and their tech platform makes it easy to stay organized. You'll also get access to Gilt's full tax library with guides on retirement plans, QBI and more. So if you've got a business or or you filed for an extension, this is the window to take control of your tax plan. Head to joingelt.com ramit to book a consultation and as a member of my community, you get to skip the waitlist. Again, that's joingelt.com ramit join G-E-L T.com ramit taxes don't have to be a task with Gelt. They can be a tool to build wealth.

So what's the take home on that?

Oh, gosh. Eliminate the RSUs, because I don't pull anything out of there.

I just want to know the take home. Just tell me the number.

25,636To date.

25,636 net per month.

That's about right. Yeah.

Do you guys see how already there's so much that you two have not talked about? Like you're giving me these numbers? So one of them's in 10 months, one of them's in a year, one of them's by month. It's very confusing. That's the whole point of the conscious spending plan, is you put it in the same format so you're all working from literally the same page.

Let me recap. Ashley's gross monthly income is $11,189. Charles's gross monthly income is $33,349. $27,000 of that is cash, and the remaining 5 to $6,000 is stock. @ this point, I don't know. Maybe I have all these numbers wrong. I don't know what the hell's going on anymore. I've been listening to them talk about decimal places and quarterly bonuses for so long, I have no idea anymore. Basically, they make a shitload of money. That's all you need to know. Now, most households won't have such a complex financial picture, but this is a great example of how couples let complications stop them from getting on the same page. Listen, I don't know shit about measuring a house, but I'm going to go out on a limb and and assume you can't measure half of your house in inches and then the other half in centimeters. You can't Compare annual incomes versus incomes from 10 months versus incomes from quarterly bonuses. You need to standardize everything. You can use my conscious spending plan on the podcast page iwt.com episode47 to do this. And now I want to highlight something interesting for you. A lot of you think if you just had transparency in your relationship, suddenly you'd feel better. Transparency. That's all I need. Transparency. Transparency is highly overrated. Yes, transparency is good. It's table stakes in a relationship. But a lot of you think it's going to magically solve your problems really well. Here we have a beautiful case study. Ashley just learned about 10,000amonth coming in that she didn't know about. So do you think it actually changed the way she feels about money? Now that it's more transparent? Let's find.

Out. I'd like to just show you something. So, currently you wrote that your gross monthly income is 35,000. In reality, it's.

$44,511. Wow. Why is our bank account always empty? Because I don't see that money go into our joint.

Account. I don't know where the money's.

Going. I don't know why $13,000 goes out the window one month for all of his credit cards. I don't.

Know. Why does seem curious.

Charles. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I spent money on furniture, on tires, on getting.

Cars. Can you. Can you show the KSOs what you get for.

KSO? That's what. That's what some of these are.

Here. So you got.

$13,000 and a KSL0 is take home. See.

That? So you got a $13,000 KSO check on April.

26Th. That. That goes into the E Trade.

Account. Okay, so why. What E Trade account are you referring to? And why isn't it going to ask? Because I feel like we're drowning in.

Money. This is not. This is cash in the E Trade.

Account. Why are you putting cash in an E Trade account? Why? If I.

Have. It's.

Not. It's not cash. Actually, it's not cash. It's.

Stuck. Charles, what is she really.

Asking? She thinks I'm taking this money and putting it somewhere else and hiding.

It. Are.

You? No. It's in the E Trade.

Account. I don't know about this money. I've always been so confused as to, like, you make so much money and we have no money. We have to take money from our brokerage account sometimes because we don't have any money in our joint.

Account. Charles, you got to stop looking at the screen, man. Your screen is not going to help you on this.

One. No, no, no. Because I want to show you where the money.

Is. Charles. What? Before we get into. You're showing your PNLs, and this is a handmade document in Google Docs financial statement. What do you think that Ashley's reaction is going to be to.

This? I don't know. Well, I.

Know. I could.

Tell. I never even met her. I know. Looking at her face. Okay, what do you think it's going to.

Be? I don't.

Know. Can you guess? You've been married five years. Do you think that this is going to actually address what she really wants to know? This is getting.

Frustrating. Charles is so focused on his spreadsheets and his weird P. Ls that he won't even look up at me. And he can't even bring himself to guess what his wife is really looking for. He keeps getting drawn into the weeds, not realizing that the weeds are the problem. When I press him, suddenly they both start to tell me the truth. The actual.

Truth. Can you guess? You've been married five years. Do you think that this is going to actually address what she really wants to.

Know? I don't know, actually. What are you.

Thinking? That's a good question, Charles. Keep.

Going. Yeah, I want to know what you're thinking because I want to show you where that money is going, that I'm not taking it.

Anywhere. But we have a brokerage account together, a joint account, and it's been sitting there doing nothing. That money, you're watching it grow. I don't see. See it grow. I had no idea you were putting that money into an E Trade account. And my heart.

Is. I didn't. I didn't set up that.

Account.

That. That's a company account that was set up by my.

Company. Can I. Can I just make an observation here? Just kind of point out what I'm seeing. Ashley is frustrated because you both make $530,000 plus, but you're in the red. You're having to draw from here and there. There's no communication. And she feels like there's money that's being hidden. And she does have a reason to feel that way. She did discover that you were putting money and secretly paying off credit card debt. Charles, you're saying, well, I have this money, but it's actually an rsu and it's actually not me creating the account its employer created. And I would rather see that money grow than take it out and pay taxes on it. Am I fairly representing both of your positions.

Here?

Yes. Okay, well, do you see how fucking crazy this is? What the hell is wrong with you.

Two? I feel like he wants to do his own deal, and he looks at it as his own money. And I'm sitting over here drowning, begging, like, oh, we don't have any money to go to the grocery.

Store. Charles, she makes a pretty valid point. She can't afford groceries, and you got this $13,000 every quarter or whatever it is, being squirreled away in some account that she doesn't even know about. It kind of feels a little unfair, wouldn't you say? Yeah, she doesn't have money to pay for apples. So what does all this compounding matter if your relationship breaks apart because you can't afford 20 bucks at the grocery store. It doesn't make sense to me. What's really going on, Charles? Why do you have all this money stuff going here and there and I don't understand it. Tell me. I want to know your.

Position. I want to retire early, and I want to save as much as money as possible to be able to retire in seven years. You know, my, my earning years are probably at the peak right now, and I want to take advantage of that as much as possible and save as much money as.

Possible. Got it. So you want to sprint as fast as you can, and I'm going to guess that you want to minimize your expenses for the next seven years. Am I reading that.

Right?

Yes. Okay. And so when you have to pay for skis or Comcast or whatever, how does that feel to.

You? A little bit of a burden, but a.

Necessity. You feel.

Resentful? A little bit.

Yeah. Ashley, did you know any of.

This? No, because I'll tell you why. He goes on extravagant trips with his friends. He goes to Vail and skis and spends a boatload of money. He's went on a ton of ski trips this, this winter. So I don't believe. I don't see him. I don't see him living the life of scrimping and.

Investing. You started using my recommended system, a joint account and two separate individual accounts with guilt free spending. I was happy to hear that. But it seems that you're not doing that anymore. What.

Happened? Charles has decided that he doesn't want to put money in the joint account anymore because.

What? Charles? Whenever anyone deviates from my plan, I always get to ask the question, why? Tell me.

Why. Okay. We got in a big fight about a year or so ago. I don't know how long it was. And out of that joint account, she liquidated all the.

Account.

What? So when she did that, it scared me to bejesus. Like, oh, wow. Like all that money is gone now. And I felt very unsafe in, you know, in her doing.

That. Why did you think she did.

That? If we got a divorce or got separated, she would take the money and kind of support herself and her.

Kids. Ashley, back up just a little bit. When we met, we had no money, we had no savings, we had nothing. And we built up a little bit of money, like $3,000. We got in a big fight and I told him to leave. And I did as a knee jerk reaction because I just gotten out of my divorce where I got financially very screwed big time. I ended up with a Lot of debt. And so I got scared and a knee jerk reaction. I took the $3,000 and put it in my account for about five hours, six hours. And then I put it back because we had a discussion. I knew it was wrong. And that was not a year ago. That was five years ago when we first moved into the house that we're living in now. So that's what.

Happened. Okay, so you both have things you've done in the past that have made your partner not trust.

You. Yes, but that was a long time ago. And I feel like I've proven to him we've had. We have. I don't even think we had that joint account. We've had a joint account. I've proven to them over and over and over again I've never taken any money. I've never done anything like that since. For five.

Years. Do you both want to create a joint.

Account? I do.

Charles. Yeah, sure. I.

Mean. Okay, so what's stopping the both of you from doing.

It? You know how well we have a joint.

Account. Okay, why'd you.

Stop? Because all this arguing that. We kept arguing back and.

Forth. It started with him taking that money. That's when he decided. I feel a little controlled. I feel like it's a control.

Piece.

Yeah. I want everything to be open and honest and transparent. Remy. But I want validation because so much money has been. I feel hidden. I want validation to see that that is that right.

Amount. Because, I mean, the fact is you two didn't even know how much you made. You were off by over $100,000. So there's a variety of reasons why you're not transparent. Some of that is just pure competence. You two don't know how to calculate your numbers. And some of it is history, deception and other reasons. Now transparency will be on the table. That's a.

Given. He doesn't want.

To. He'll do it. Charles, would you be open to being.

Transparent? Yes.

Done. I will make sure that it's transparent. For all the money you make, over half a million dollars, you don't even know how much you make. You don't know how much you spend. You come in here talking about Comcast, which is the least of your problems, and you have all this complexity of quarterly payments and 401ks and all this stuff being taken out. Think of what a sixth grader would understand when it comes to money. I'm talking one page. That's the level of simplicity the two of you need to start. How much do we have? The numbers are quite large. You have $694,000 of investments. Your savings, $20,000. That's way too low, but okay, at least it's got a few zeros in it. You have debt of $135,000. Don't worry, we're going to talk about that. The point is you have some of these basic numbers out here. I'd like for you to put them together using the conscious spending plan single page, and then you two can agree. Hey, oh, I didn't know we have 135,000. I thought it was less. Can we double click on that? Can we learn a little bit more? Let's make sure we both understand it correctly. One of the reasons that there's conflict is that you two don't know what you actually.

Have. I think that that comes from not the, not the desire to want to share. I feel like I'm in the dark. That's how I.

Feel. Charles seems relatively open, willing to share. I don't think his style was particularly good. The P and L and all that shit. Even I don't want to look at that. But he seems pretty open in terms of like, hey, look, here's my paycheck. Here's my credit card payments. I don't know. What do you think about that.

Ashley? I think I need validation. More like, yes, I hear an E Trade account, but what does that look like? Why can't you show me that.

Account? I've showed you the account. I will show you all the.

Accounts. Watch this, watch this, watch this. This is not the real question. Open up that E Trade account, Charles. Okay, Ashley, as he's opening it up, I'm going to talk to you for a second. So you've asked him, why won't you show me the E Trade account? I'm going to get him to show you that. Okay. How do you think that seeing this is going to make you.

Feel? Probably temporarily, probably better, but then tomorrow, you know, it could change. And then, I don't know, I feel like I'm in the dark about our future. You know, he. Initially, you asked us the question, how do you. How do you feel about money? And he's excited. And it's because he knows what's going on with everything. He sees that everything is making money. He sees. I don't see any of this. What I see is our joint account with zero dollar or a negative.

Amount. And so again, how do you think that this is going to make you feel when you get the exact thing that you asked.

For? I think it'll it will reassure me, but I want to be able for it to be us to be open about all these things in the future. I'm afraid it'll be a temporary thing, and then it will go away.

Like. Okay, let's see.

Charles.

Yeah. Go ahead and share your screen. All right. Talk us through what we see on screen.

Here. So these are the total assets that money is coming in. So every time that the assets come in, it's 221,000. We have a current account value of 7,000, potential benefit of 132,000 for 139. And then I have in this individual account is what I said. Every year I get to buy stock at a lower price, and it gets invested in here every time the additional stock comes in to my vesting period. It'll start jumping into the potential benefit as soon as I hit certain periods in my work career. So.

Every. Okay, okay, okay, okay. That's enough. Charles, all those words you just said, what do you think Ashley took away from.

That mumbo.

Jumbo? Exactly. Look at her face.

Charles.

What? I'm trying to keep.

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Off. I do this for a living. Even I don't know what the hell's going on right now. You just, just spurted a million numbers at me, Charles, you are not actually addressing what she really wants to know. What is she really.

Asking, Ashley? What are you, what are you looking.

For? Security and awareness of our money and feeling of our money instead of mine and.

Yours. Okay, well, I can show you these numbers every month and we can talk about it. I'm happy to do that. If you want to do that on a monthly or quarterly basis. I'm just saying that that money is there and it's growing. It's growing for us. And I can show you that the money's going there from the paycheck. I want to make you feel safe and secure as it relates to the money situation. And I get caught up in what Ramit had said earlier, that I do start spitting out numbers and, you know, it may sound like mumbo jumbo.

To you, but it is mumbo jumbo, Charles, because you're not actually addressing what she really wants to know. Which is.

What? Where the money is and that she's part of the decision making.

Process. Yeah. So how do you show that.

Charles? I don't know. I'm trying the best that I can to think how I explain. It would be best to explain.

It, but Maybe it's not about explaining, Charles. Maybe it's not about explaining. Let me ask my question again. Notice my use of words. How do you show her that you're doing this together? You stuck? Yeah. Okay, let me give you a hint. What was the thing that she is most frustrated about when it comes to her money? There's one specific moment. How does it.

Manifest?

Yeah. Is that the grocery.

Store? Yeah. There's no money in the.

Accounts. So you know what would go a long way in showing her that you're doing this.

Together? Jointly putting money into a joint account. The money is.

There. Yeah. And even saying. Let me give you an example, Ashley. I know it must be frustrating to go to the grocery store and not have enough money in the account to buy groceries. And it seems crazy. We're making over half a million dollars a year. Something's not working right if you go there and you feel like there's no money in the account. So I want to come to an agreement with you so that you never feel that way again, so that you feel safe. Let me pause right.

There. I'm already crying. It makes me. You haven't even said it. It makes me. Makes me feel. I don't ever. I don't want to feel that way ever again. And you saying taking that away sounds.

Amazing. Why are you.

Crying? I think it's. It's just. It's really hard. I feel. I don't want to say it's insecure, but I feel like a failure. I feel like when I can't buy food for the kids, I just. It's the worst feeling in the world. I feel like we are poor and we have no money, and I don't want that. I want to be able to have a wonderful life for our kids and. And be able to do something simple like go to the grocery store and buy groceries or pay a bill or buy them clothes or, you know, I can't even. I can't even venmo them money when they're out and about asking for food when they're not with us. But when they're with their friends, I can't even do that because there's no.

Cash. Okay, so, Charles, hearing this, what does it make you realize.

Anything? I feel terrible. I feel like there's mismanagement of funds, and I don't want her to feel that way and our kids to feel that way. Okay. I feel.

Horrible. So, Charles, when I spoke to Ashley that way, what did you notice about the way that I approached.

It? You were curious. Trying to Understand and.

Listening. Yeah. I'm sure she's talked about the grocery store example many times in the past. Right. And yet when you're listening, you can pick up on it in 15 minutes. People, especially the people you love, when they whisper something a great author said, treat it like a scream. If they say something once or twice, treat it like they're screaming it in your face. If your wife or your husband says, I don't like going to the grocery store and not knowing I have enough, that's a red flag, red alert. Let's fix it. I love you. Okay. And how do you want to fix that? I would like for the two of you to come up with a solution together. So I'm going to sit back and listen to.

You. Actually, I would like to create a joint budget monthly from that 90% of money that comes into our joint account on a monthly basis, and we stick to it. That would give adequate money to all our expenses and especially a food bill. And we don't have to have this conversation so that you don't ever have to feel that.

Way. That would be awesome. And I am down with talking about all this stuff together. I really would like that. I want to be on the same page with you. And if. If you think that I'm spending too much money at the market, then I want to have a conversation about it, you know? So it's just. I would love to. Love to do that. I want to know about it. It makes me feel secure if I know. If I know what's going.

On.

Great. Let's agree to sit down and create a budget that we both agree on and be open and transparent, like you.

Said. That was awesome. I love seeing the two of you unified. And I like that it's a simple example. Groceries. Let's start there. Simple. And then it can become increasingly more complex as you build those.

Skills. Sa. It's demoralizing to know that you make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and yet you can't pay your grocery bill now. Luckily, their income is so high that once Charles and Ashley shift their focus, they'll start to see things fall into place almost immediately. Surprisingly enough, once I open up the conversation around the joint account and shared expenses, you'll hear them start to agree and collaborate on a plan. This is the magic of a conscious spending plan. By getting everyone in one sheet, you can move past the mechanics and focus on where you want your money to.

Go. So let's just be hypothetical about this for a second. Not going to ask you to commit to changing anything about your joint setup. But if you were to create a joint account and each of you contributed to it, how would you decide how much you'd put in there? How would you decide how much money to put in a joint.

Account? I would like to put all of our account except for a decided amount of.

Money. Tell.

Me. Thousand dollars a month to spend on how we.

Choose. Great. That is your proposal, Charles, what's your.

Proposal?

90%. Wow. So one of you says $1,000, and the other says 90%, and then 10% is for fun.

Money.

Yeah. You're actually pretty close. Do you realize that? No, that's really.

Close. Did we disagree on something? Wait a.

Second. This is pretty amazing. I'm really happy to hear.

That.

Okay. Okay. That's cool. So let's come to a conclusion right now because you're. You know. Go ahead, have the discussion. One of you says 1000 each. One of you says 10% each. Talk about.

It. I propose 90 10. Would you be okay with.

That? Yes, I would be okay with that. I would feel like we were working together instead of working against each.

Other. Can I go above and beyond that and say we have to create a plan for that 90% on a monthly basis and stick to.

It? Absolutely. I would love to do that with you. That's what I really want. That's what I've been asking, is to work with you and be partners in this. And I would like to be. I would like to be a part of that plan and make some decisions as.

Well. Okay, great. Hey, round of applause for everybody here. Everybody give yourself a round of applause. I'm not kidding. It's sometimes important to do something a little theatrical, and that was cool. You just came to a huge conclusion. Let's take the.

Win. Yeah.

Absolutely. That's cool. You know, it started with this, like, we're up in the clouds. And Here we go. 90% joint. That's awesome. And 10% to yourself, also. Very cool. Okay, now I want to get a little bit more specific. So when we say 9010, what exactly does that.

Mean? Take home tax money that comes in from, like, I get paid from ADP, so I can easily do that. 9010.

Split. Okay.

Ashley? I. I don't have that option through my paycheck, so I would have to manually do.

It. Okay. So I would propose money goes. All the money goes in the joint account. And automatically, every first or second when the money comes in, 10% of that money goes to your personal or vice versa. 90% automatically transfers into.

The. So that's our money total. Not 10% of my own money. It's 10% of what we put in.

Together. Say that.

Again. So it's not 10% of what I'm putting in every month.

Correct? Yeah, it.

Is. It's. It's 10% of the total of what you're putting in and I'm putting.

In. So that would be. You're saying now that's going to be 20%. So that'll be 10 and.

10. Whatever amount of money we put in per month. Whatever that looks like. What. What is that number, Remy? I think we.

Have. So I'm going to propose you use simple math. I'm going to propose that for this exercise, Charles, you contribute 4,000amonth into the joint account. And for the example of math here, Ashley, you contribute 1,000 per.

Month. So that's a little bit. No, it would be. No, that's every 15.

Days. Oh, yeah, yeah. So it would be 8,000 per month for you. And I still don't understand why. I'm still confused why you're putting in the same amount per month as I am and I make.

$135,000. I don't think you heard. I don't think you heard what he.

Said. We're putting in an equal amount of money into the joint account, but you make way more.

Money. Are you guys ready to actually listen to me or do you want.

To just keep doing what you've been doing? Yes.

Sir. Okay. Because I don't need to be.

Here. Oh, please. You're helping.

Us. What simple math do you want to use for this monthly example? You know, one of your problems is that you both are. I noticed that both of you are covering up the real issues with layers of complexity. Is it 15 days or 30 days? Is it. I only get paid for 10 months. Is it gross? Is it net? It's too many variables. I'm just trying to simplify this down so we can actually get the logic and then we can apply it to the numbers. So for this exercise, every month Charles contributes $4,000 into the joint account. It's just a made up number. And Ashley contributes $1,000. So how do you want to split that.

Up? So it would be 90, 10. It would be. Both of us put in.

$5,000. No, you don't both put in.

$5,000. I mean total. Total, Right. I put in a thousand, he puts in 4, 5 total. So 90% of that would stay in the account. And 10% of that, which would be $500 would go into our personal.

Accounts. Okay, so that's your proposal. You take 10%, you split it in half, and each of you gets that same amount. Charles, I'm willing to bet you have a different.

Perspective. I'm okay with.

That.

Really?

Yeah.

Okay. I want to keep it.

Simple. Great. Love hearing that. I'm going to lock that in, and I'll take the win on that one, too. Let me just explain what happened so that you don't feel bamboozled. Okay. Typically, we talk about spending money proportionally. So if somebody makes more, they pay more towards the joint expenses. That's typically pretty fair. Well, also, you might apply that to how much percentage they take out. If charles is making four times the amount, Then his discretionary income might be four times higher than yours, Ashley. Okay, that would be fair, but I'm good with that. I'm sure you're good with that, Charles, But I think what Charles has generously just agreed to is, no, I'm actually totally cool doing 50 50. And what that means is it actually reduces the amount that Charles gets for his discretionary income, and it actually increases the amount that you get Ashley for for your discretionary income. Okay. So it's quite generous of Charles. And fair is just a word. Fair is what the two of you decide it is. Okay. I just want to point out I think Charles is pretty generous to offer that. I think it would be nice maybe to acknowledge that he's doing something quite.

Generous. Yeah. Thank you. I'm surprised. That's a nice surprise. Thank you for being.

Generous. You're.

Welcome. Awesome. Okay, great. So to simplify and Summarize, Charles contributes 4,000amonth. Ashley contributes $1,000 a month. You have $5,000 in your joint account, and you will each take 5% of that money, and it goes 5% to Ashley, 5% to Charles. Do we all agree in theory, yes. In theory, yes. Fine. That's all I.

Want.

Perfect. Okay, good. Perfect.

Perfect. Sa. Have you heard that phrase, don't let perfect be the enemy of good? That's what Ashley and Charles have been doing for years, and it's almost driving them to divorce. They're so obsessed with getting all their numbers perfect that they never even pulled out a sheet of paper and a crayon and just wrote down the important ones. And Charles, especially, is really living in the weeds. All these complicated factors preventing him from just saying, let's simplify things. How much do we make? How much do we spend? How do we want to contribute to our joint expenses? In my book, I Will Teach youh to Be Rich. I talk about the 85% principle. It's better to get 85% of the way there than to dream about getting 100% of the way there and actually do.

Nothing. I think we've established that you both have a vision. You both want transparency. You both want to be open. You have some desires that you should probably talk more about. Early retirement, et cetera. I'm looking at these expenses, and I just want to probe on a few things. So you have a $3,800 a month rent or mortgage, which is quite good. That's great. Very good. One of the best things I can see from a single individual or couple is underspending on their housing. And you two are doing an awesome job, so well.

Done. Thank.

You. I love seeing people make strategic decisions like that. You have a car payment of $475. Is that one.

Car? That's one car, yeah.

Okay. You have $10,000 of debt payments per month. What's.

This? No, this is credit.

Cards. So that's the credit cards that we're using for the.

Expenses. Oh, you pay it off every.

Month?

Yeah. Okay.

Fine. I don't. I.

Don'T. Ah. Shall we talk about.

This?

Yes. Yes. Because this.

Is. This.

Is. We had this conversation.

Before. Okay, tell.

Me. I was carrying a balance, and so I just. I finally took some savings that we had and I just paid it all off because I can't deal with.

Credit card debt no more of this. It's just bad money.

Management. I.

Know. Okay. You cannot be drawing from savings to pay off credit cards. And you're making $530,000. Makes no sense. Okay, so you made the mistake once. Fine. It's not going to destroy the two of you. In fact, what's better is that the two of you are now psychologically aligned. And structurally, you'll get your conscious spending plan all set up and get it all together. Now that you have 90% of your incomes going to joint, is paying this credit card bill every single month in full going to be a.

Problem? Not for me.

No. Not for either of you. You two are a team now.

Yes? Yeah. Not. Yes, it.

Should. Okay. What's up with this debt that says.

$135,000? That's our school.

Loans. Okay. You're going to need to add that to your conscious spending plan as a fixed cost. I would like to hear your initial gut take on how you want to start paying this debt off. Where does it come.

From? I would like to have it come from Considered a bill from the.

Joint.

Charles, I was just going to take my RSUs and then pay off that.

Debt. Not anymore. That's not how it works. Remember, you can't be doing all these sideband things. It's going to totally screw up your entire trust system.

Here. I hate debt. I want to get that off my. Okay. Off.

Our. You know, that's fine. Listen, if you hate. Like I said, some people really hate debt. But you have to respect the system. You cannot go around it because that is exactly what got you into this trouble here. I'm going to go and take this secret money and secretly pay it off and then not tell you about it. So what is a better way you want to pay off this debt.

Aggressively? I would prefer not to use the RSUs because we would have to pay capital gains, and I would rather make monthly payments if possible. Do you know what the monthly payments will.

Be? Yeah, I think it was calculated like 1200 or something like.

That. That's not that much for you.

Guys. That seems like a lot.

Right? Well, it seems like a lot because you don't know any of your numbers here. Let me zoom out and allow you to hear some different numbers. You two make $530,000 a year. You think paying 15,000 bucks a year is a lot? It's not. It's nothing. Come on. You have a lot of money. Listen, rich people like you two have a lot of money sitting under their couch cushions. 10,000 here, 50,000 over there. It's exactly. We already found all this money sitting around. There's a lot of money to be found in actually looking at what you are spending and how your money is flowing. And you could direct it to your debt. It's not.

Hard.

Yeah. Are you on board with me so far? Am I just speaking.

Crazy? No, no, no, no. I. I'm understanding what.

You. I don't know if he really gets it or not. But let me clarify what's going on here. Like a lot of people, Charles absolutely hates.

Debt. That's.

Fine. It's a stylistic choice with money that usually manifests itself by people paying off their debt early, even if it's not the mathematically correct decision. For example, if I had a 30 year mortgage with a 2.7% interest rate, I would never, ever pay it off early. That's because I know I can make around 8% in the stock market. So if I could, I would stretch that damn loan until I was sitting in a rocking chair and invest the difference so I could make.

More. Just.

Kidding. Indian People don't get rocking chairs.

Again. That's.

Fine. Some people don't mind debt. Other people hate it. Somebody like Charles would pay that debt off early just so he could feel.

Better. And that's.

Fine. You don't always have to make the mathematically correct decision. You want to make the right one for you. But the problem is virtually nobody actually runs the numbers. Instead, they let their feelings dictate what they do. I hate debt. I need to pay this off. Stop it. If those same people sat down and ran the numbers for five minutes, they might discover they're losing $75,000 by paying off their mortgage early. In Charles's case, he's also losing the trust of his wife by doing all this secret stuff on the side. It's like dealing with some emo teenager. All right, I don't know if this metaphor is making any sense at all, but basically, Charles, stop doing this.

Shit. Run the numbers. There's a lot of things that you've both agreed to simplifying your money. 90, 10. That is huge. Never worrying about how much you have at the grocery store. These are big, big moves. You want to get on the same page. You want your money to be working together. Simple as that. Let's just check this and move on to the next stuff because we have a lot more important stuff than you know. All this weird stuff about. Should we wait on the debt and this and that. No, put it in the fixed category. In your conscious pending plan, set up a number every month and it's drawn directly from your joint account, which is going to be loaded with cash. Okay. What's that smile on your face.

Ashley? I like hearing.

That. Simple. Let's get decisive. Yeah, I love the smile on both of your faces. And then you'll notice that the conscious spending plan automatically adds 15%. Did you see.

That? How'd that feel to see it was a large amount number? It was like something else on another layer on top of the.

Budget. That's.

Right. But it makes sense because, yeah.

It'S for you, it's $3,000, which is a considerable amount, but you spend a lot. And that 15% accounts for that anniversary dinner that you forgot to put in here. It accounts for that last minute trip that you had to take and you could not find a cheap flight. It accounts for all of those things. Or your car breaks down all of it. Also, let's not forget about the income. The two of you forgot your income was down by $10,000 per month. So that's a relief. Like, I said $10,000 here, $10,000 there. Starts to add up.

Right?

Yes. So you actually are in a fairly good position. Not fairly good. The two of you are fucking rich. What am I talking about? You make over half a million dollars a year. Let's not kid ourselves. Hey, do you two know that you're.

Rich?

No. Well, you are. You two make $530,000 a year. You are rich. You're wealthy. You better accept.

It. I.

Know you're not accepting.

It. It's hard to.

Accept.

Why? I feel it's. It could all go away. I'm trying to make sure that I.

Could. It can't really go away. I mean, you have hundreds of thousands of dollars invested and you have savings. Well, your savings is kind of not good, but your investments are quite large. Both of you have good incomes. So even if one of your incomes went away, you still have another.

Income. Nothing like spending valuable time convincing two wealthy people that they're actually wealthy. I'm like, what planet am I on right now? What am I doing.

Here? You guys want to go your whole life playing.

Defense? No. Absolutely.

Not. No. I know. I feel like that's where we've been playing.

Though. Sitting here arguing about Comcast. Such a waste of time. That's a $3 question. Literally, to the two of you, it's a $3.

Question. How do you get past that, Remy? I mean, how do you. It's just a whole different. So how do you shift? How do you make that.

Shift? What's that psychological.

Shift? What changes your money? Psychology is that the two of you do not have a rich life vision together. You want to create one right.

Now?

Sure.

Yes. All.

Right. What is your rich.

Life? I would like to live in three cities. So where we live now, Newport Beach, Keystone, Colorado, and New York.

City.

Okay. I'd like to rotate between all three of them based on what we are doing and how we want to visit our kids while they're in college or wherever they're living for us to visit them.

And. Okay, what about on a given week right now, not ten years from now. Now what is your rich life on a perfect.

Week? I don't know, because I'm constantly working. I feel I. I can't answer that right.

Now. So in other words, you want to wait for seven magical years, and at the end of those seven years, magically, you're going to be able to breathe and then figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life. How old will you be at that.

Time?

57. That sounds like a shitty plan to me. You want to be almost 60 and then deciding what do I want to do? You know anybody who's 60 years old? Yes. Some people in good health.

Right?

Yeah. Some people not so good.

Health.

Yes. I think we've all heard stories about people who had grand plans to hike this and that, and two weeks after they retire, they.

Die.

Yep. It has a.

Lot. Yeah. It doesn't sound like a great.

Plan. Okay, I guess I got a better answer for that then. I'd like to travel as much as we can afford with my wife and our.

Kids. Tell me more easy for us.

Is to get away every other week like we used to. Like the closest is about two hours we can drive to, or we can fly to for an hour somewhere to get to and spend quality time doing things that we love to.

Do.

And spending as much time and doing as much things with the kids as we possibly.

Can. Okay, so traveling twice a.

Month.

No. Perfect. All right, Ashley, your rich.

Life. My rich life is similar to Charles. I really love to travel. We love to play golf and see new places and try new restaurants. I'm a big food person, so I would love to be able to do those things without guilt. We have one kid in college. Go out and see him. So that would be my rich life.

Today. Not later, but bigger. What's bigger than every two weeks with the.

Kids? I want to be a professor when I retire my Act 2. I want to continue to be a life learner and have an income and make a difference in the world. I own a company, too, and I want to continue on with that. So be an online professor and run the business from home so we can do what he.

Said. Awesome. That sounds like a very rich.

Vision.

Wow. How are you feeling right now.

Ashley? I am feeling hopeful for the first time in a very long time, and I'm excited for the first time in a really long.

Time. Why is that? What happened here.

Today, I wasn't sure it was fixable. And what I've learned today is that we do want similar things, and we can work together, and it will no longer be yours and mine. It'll be we. And so I'm hopeful, very.

Hopeful. Charles, what about.

You? You know, I came in extremely nervous, a little afraid. But what it gave me is an ability to now feel that we can create that vision and strategy together. And the minuscule details that you talked about that were finding out are just meaningless, and they should go away pretty quickly. By aligning our vision and strategy and going through these exercises.

Together. How are both of you feeling right.

Now? A lot better than when I.

Started. Yeah, it feels nice to not be yelling and arguing over these things. How'd you turn that around in two hours? We've been working on it for five.

Years. What stood out to me most about Charles and Ashley is what a tragedy it is to allow yourselves to fight over money when you have more than enough. All because they were allowing this complication in their life. KSOs, RSUs, all this money to simply go unaddressed. And what I did with them is to simplify it. My role is not to get every last decimal place perfect. My role is to simply get them understanding the basics of their money. And here's what happened. I received a follow up from Charles and Ashley after I spoke with them. Here's what Ashley wrote Charles and I had a great conversation about this over sushi last night. I have regained hope after five years. We've been working on our CSP and completed the first tab with our actual numbers. It took us a little while to comb through everything. We did it without an argument. This is progress. They were also able to take their fixed costs from 86% to 63% just by getting a clear picture of where their money was going and then recategorizing appropriately. The Conscious Spending Plan is an amazing tool to get on the same page with your partner about money or if you're single, to finally understand where your money is going. To get your own copy of the plan for free, go to iwt.com Episode 47 thanks for listening to I Will Teach youh to Be.