This YouTube episode (Ramit Sethi) features an on-camera coaching-style interview with DJ and Adam about DJ’s persistent credit-card debt and how it affects their relationship—Adam says he won’t marry DJ until she manages/pay downs her debt. DJ is 33 and Adam 37; they live in rural New York. DJ carries retail-store cards (Express, Macy’s), said the debt has been recurring since college, and recently doubled her income from $45,000 (teacher) to $90,000 (accounting/sales role). The host probes behavioral causes (living beyond means, scarcity mindset) and practical levers (income increase, conscious spending plan).
Chapters
Big news. I have a Netflix show coming out. I would love for you to watch it. It's called how to Get Rich. And you can go onto your Netflix account right now, search for my name, and then click Add to list. That way you'll get notified the minute it goes live in April. Why don't you guys get married tomorrow?
I don't think that would be wise for my finances. And I'm sorry, that's, like, not a great sentence to say. Like, that feels like a dirty sentence.
I just don't really qu. Quite understand how you get from being, like, putting things on credit and living paycheck to paycheck. Do you have to shut down your life for a year?
What if you did?
There are things I would have to say no to for, like, years. Like, maybe two or three years of saying no to things.
And do you want to do that?
If it's the only way Adam's gonna marry me, then yeah.
It's like you have a bucket that has a hole in it, and it keeps going down. You keep refilling it, but it keeps going down. And you start feeling hopeless. But you try, and you keep going like this for a year, two years, five years. Paint the picture for me.
And then you never have anything to show for it. Because I have a scarcity complex, I think. I always think, what if I put too much on a credit card and then I don't have enough for something else?
Like what?
What if something happens?
You're paying thousands in interest and your boyfriend won't marry you. It's happening right now. Meet Adam and dj. Adam has told DJ that if you want to get married, you need to pay off your credit card debt. Now, it's possible for her to pay this off even quickly, especially since her income just doubled. But she struggles in paying it off. By the way, she's 33, he's 37. They live together in rural New York. I want you to pay attention in Today's episode to DJs explanations as I probe into why she hasn't paid down her debt yet. At times, she's going to act oblivious, as if she doesn't know how to manage money, but at other times, she knows the exact tactics to use directly from my book. So what's really going on here? Why hasn't she paid off her debt? Let's find out. I also want to invite you to check out the video version of this episode on YouTube. I've been hearing that a lot of you love seeing the numbers breakdown of the conscious spending Plan, which we put on screen for all of our YouTube episodes. So go over to YouTube, subscribe, search for my name, and you will be able to watch this full episode there. All right, let's get into it. I'm Ramit Sethi, and this is I Will Teach youh to Be Rich.
There's not really big disagreements anymore. It's more. I know what you're going to do, so I just let you do it. And it's not. I don't want to fight over it because generally speaking, it's your money, so you can spend it however you want to. We. You spent a lot for Christmas. We wildly overspent for our New Year's party, like by the thousands. Like, we shouldn't have done that, but it's okay. But when, when you overspend, I just. Just shut up. Because you're choosing how to spend your disposable income.
Yeah. I don't know that we necessarily fight or have disagreements about money. It is just that I kind of do what I do and he does what he does.
What is your relationship? Are you married?
Adam has told me that we can't get married unless we have the money to do it. And part of that has to do with my credit card debt.
How long has this been? How long have you had the debt?
Probably my whole life. I would want a new outfit every weekend to go out, so I would go to the mall and buy a new outfit.
Whose credit card was this, by the way? Was it yours? You got one when you went to college?
Yep.
Where'd you go to college? What area?
New York.
Oh. So what'd you get, a Chase Card?
No, I had like cards at stores. Express.
Express. Hold on. I already know bb.
I didn't have one of those. No, I didn't have one of those. I had Express and Macy's and Express got really bad. Crazy bad. I paid it off eventually. I think it was at like probably four grand at the time. I graduated college and I became an elementary school teacher in a really high cost of living area and I lived off credit cards. I decided to get a new job, a better paying job, and I've had a better paying job for about two years now. And as I work to pay it off, it just seemed like it comes back.
It seemed like. Or it seems like.
It seems like every time I get ahead, something happens and I just get behind again. It's been going up and down since I got a new job that pays me more money. I thought I'd be able to pay it off by now, and I just continue to like tread water. It goes down a little. It goes back up. It goes down a little. It goes back up.
Okay.
What do you think the problem is?
It's a choice whether I pay it off or not.
Why do you think you haven't done it already? It's been a long time.
I think part of it was that I couldn't before. I was making a lot less money, and I couldn't. I was. I wasn't making enough for rent and groceries. So it was hard. But I still, again, made the choice to live beyond my means, and that's something I've just kind of always done. So now that I have a better job and I live in a more low cost of living area, there's no excuse for me not to be doing it. But I just can't seem to find a reason why. If I keep accruing debt, whether it's taking vacations and putting this on a credit card or throwing. Giving gifts and putting something else on a credit card or just putting things on credit cards in general, no matter how much money I make, I don't know that I'll ever be able to get myself out of the hole.
Okay. What do you know? You've told me a lot about what you don't know. Tell me what you do know.
I do know that I make more money than I used to.
Tell me the difference. What's the numbers?
I made $45,000 as a teacher, and now I make $90,000 as an accountant executive. So I was able to double my salary by taking a calculated risk, spending a year working two jobs to get my foot in the door and then getting a promotion to get a new job.
Wow.
Congrats. That's amazing.
Thank you.
That's really cool. All right. Well done, 90K.
I used your graph that said you can go down.
Yep.
And as long as it's a risk, you end up up on the other side. So I did that.
Well, hold on, hold on, hold on. For everyone listening, that's not exactly what the graph said. Don't. Don't think that if you just go down, you come back up. Sometimes you go down and stay there. Everyone who's in crypto knows exactly what I'm talking about. Anyway, we'll get to that. Sometimes I worry about people taking away the wrong things from some of these episodes. You know how we all have a friend who goes through something bad and they take away completely the wrong lesson? Like they spend $5,000 on a vacation. They spend Months, getting friends together, planning out a trip, booking hotels. But when they get to the airport, they realize they don't have a visa to go to the other country. They lose all their vacation money. Their friends are stranded. And then you ask them, hey, what happened? And they tell you this very long story. And at the very end, they go, so. So the lesson is, never fly United. You're just like, what the hell? I think DJ used my dream job program, or at least the chart from it where I show you the curve of doing more before doing less. Meaning sometimes you have to work hard and put systems into place before you see the results. In her case, she doubled her salary, which is an outstanding result. And doubling that salary gives her a lot of power to. To be able to make financial changes transformative. How did it feel when you discovered that you doubled it?
I didn't even realize it until I was filling out the conscious vending plan that I doubled my salary. It feels amazing. But it's also scary because, okay, I've doubled my salary. Is that even enough to support the kind of lifestyle that I want?
What kind of lifestyle do you want?
I want to be able to travel. I want to have a home, something that belongs to me, and I want to be able to buy clothes, get my hair done whenever I want.
Do you think that somebody on your income should be able to afford that?
I think it depends on your values. Like, right now, I value going to get my hair done.
So you don't value saving right now? Am I hearing that right?
I value saving if I have a goal in mind.
And do you value paying off your credit card debt every single month?
If it's important to Adam, then I care.
Well, why don't you ask him?
Adam, is it important to you that I'm debt free?
You don't have to be debt free. I'm not debt free. I have a lot of debts. But it's important that you can manage your debts in a way that won't drag us both down one day.
What did you just take away from that answer?
He sees me being in debt as a risk.
Okay, so what was the question you.
Asked him if me being debt free is important to him?
