“I make 10x my husband’s income. Will we ever feel equal?”

I'm kind of the mom, and it's something I create. And do I have this tendency to not want him to take on any additional expenses. If I can see he needs, like, sneakers or he needs something, I help him pay his studio rent. When I help him with his fixed costs, you know, he's not in his 20s, and I want him to. I want us to be more equals.

In this way, it's understandable that Gina would want to feel like she was looked after.

Well, I think I have a bit of a martyr complex. I could end up feeling resentful.

It has already turned sometimes into little. Little bits of resentment. And because I'm not able to contribute in the same way or in similar ways, therefore, I just feel like I'm not enough. It feels like, you know, doesn't feel great. I don't know.

Sorry.

My head is, like, full of stuff. It tells me that I don't think enough of myself. I don't think big enough.

What would you do if you made.

10 times what your partner makes? I'm serious. Think about it. If you made 10 times more than they made, what would you pay for? How would it change the dynamic of your relationship?

Today we're going to explore that. Gina is 44.

James is 39. They rent in Brooklyn. They've been married for nine years, no children, and they keep their money separate. Now she makes more, but that's not her primary concern. She just wants James to be more engaged with money. One more thing. Sometimes I get comments about how I only feature people making a lot of money.

I got to tell you, I'm very proud of how diverse our guests are, from their socioeconomic status to their geography.

Occupations, sexuality, and incomes. As you listen today, you'll notice that Gina and James make a lot of. My suggestion for you is to use my D2C principle. Instead of disparagement, try curiosity. What would I do if I made that much? What if we had a 10x differential in income? Most of all, remember that when I speak to couples with a lot of money. This is a crystal ball into your future. If wealthy people worry about money, you will, too, unless you make a change.

I was actually away on a. On a work trip. I had a feeling that Gina was going to plan something big for a big birthday. I have next year.

Just.

We're having, like, a blowout year of travel this year, and it's great, and I'm excited, but for next year, we had talked about maybe raining a few things in, and I noticed on my American Airlines app that some flights had popped up. I know, and I'm not supposed to know that, but these. These flights have popped up. And I can see that Gina's planning something big and crazy, and I love her for it, But I want to be involved in conversations surrounding spending a lot of money on a holiday, even if I'm not the one spending the money, obviously.

Have you talked about this before? No, it's just coming up right now. Okay.

I didn't know you'd seen the flight.

Do you want to keep the location a secret?

I've seen where the flights are going to.

Yeah, well, where are they going now? I gotta know.

Trieste. And then. I haven't booked internal flights to Sicily. To an island off the coast of Sicily called Pantelleria.

Oh, wow. I haven't even heard of that. That's cool.

And I've said this to James before. Sometimes I feel like I'm. I'm kind of the mom. I'm kind of planning things. I'm kind of taking care of all the things and. And it's something I create and do. There are times when he. I help him pay his studio rent, when I help him with his fixed costs. You know, he's not in his 20s, and I want him to. I want us to be more equals in this way. I. I want to. I feel like there's such a. There's such a discrepancy. You know, I recently helped him pay off a credit card because it had been for a long time. But I just want to feel like. I want to feel like we're in it together and saving and investing together, and. But I'm aware some of it is a dynamic that I maybe create by being so.

But you are taking care of the money in the relationship, right?

Yes. Well, the bigger picture. Sense. Like James, we do split things proportionally. We do split our fixed costs, and we do. I'm. I don't take care of everything. Not at all. But if there were a emergency or something like that, I would be the one that would say, it's okay. I've got it. We've worked well. We have this. We can figure this out.

I mean, just to put a sense of scale, you make about 10 times what James makes. Right.

Okay.

If we're just speaking functionally for the majority of the expenses, even though it's proportional, which I appreciate, you're taking care of the savings, the investing the majority of the expenses, would that be fair? Does that make you feel like. Mom, is it the fact that you are paying more or is it the fact that you are the one thinking about it, doing the work to plan certain things and what account it comes from? What is it that makes you feel like, Quote Mom.

It's the second one. I think that James would like, want, intends to be involved, and he doesn't want to sit back and not be involved, but it just works out this way. Combination of factors, our incomes, and also maybe my, to my personality.

From my perspective, Gina likes to take things on, and she likes to take things on in a way that often I feel a bit left behind, I would say.

I think also I, I, I have this tendency to not want him to take on any additional expenses. Like, if he needs, if I can see he needs, like, sneakers or he needs something, I want to be the one to cover those things because is so much less impactful for me financially.

But does it create stress with you, Gina?

No, I think it's just the cumulative thing that I'm constantly keeping, feel like I'm keeping an eye literally on. Like, I know he needs new running sneakers. I know we need these groceries. I know we need this, like, a.

Moment having to make sure everything is running correctly.

I feel. Yeah. And it's not because James puts it on me, but it just feels like it's something I should take on because of our, you know, financial situation. And I don't want to not be with James. You know, I would want to be with him and have this situation, but I feel like I'm in it by myself.

And how many other examples could we come up with in the next 10 seconds? Go ahead.

Groceries is a big one. I love going to the grocery store.

Okay, what else? Groceries. What else? Give me, give me 10 seconds. Give me the lightning round.

Just any, Anything like shoes, sneakers, clothes, like things on Amazon. Just things we need. I'm always like, what else?

Who buys the paper towels?

I tend to what else?

Who pays the irregular expenses, the property tax, the thing that happens every quarter, every six months? Who pays that?

I do. The renters, insurance.

Okay, great. What else?

Just, like the everyday bits and pieces, like, things we, you know, we run out of laundry detergent. So for some reason I, I tend to notice that and get it. And also I like to be.

For some reason. What is the reason?

I'm not sure. I mean, we were out of certain things and, and I think maybe James had used them more recently than I had. I don't know. He just didn't notice that they were empty or. I'm not sure.

But I, it's so Interesting.

I did. I don't know. I texted him. I was like, did you notice we're out of the. Whatever.

It.

It's fine.

You're pretty mad. You're pretty mad.

I was like, I think you used it last.

What was.

Was just like some of the spray stuff or like the toilet stuff or whatever, you know.

James, have you ever ordered cleaning supplies?

I have, yeah.

When? Anyone think there's any clues going on right now?

No.

Am I the only one noticing them?

Yes.

I want to understand your account structure. Do you have a joint credit card?

We have no. Everything is separate.

Why? No joint part.

I know, I know you're big on merging accounts and whatnot. I. We just never have. And I think because there's such a discrepancy in like so much of the. All of the 401k and all this stuff was mine coming into it. And James had his credit card debt that he was, you know, had been working on until recently. I have my own. I like to zero them out every month.

Okay. And then guilt free spending, like the travel stuff. Where does that come from?

Me.

You. Okay. All right, can we just like. I'm gonna do something unusual. Can we just jump right into your CSP?

Sure.

Some quick background. Gina recently paid off $10,000 of James's credit card debt. She said that hopefully paying off this debt would unlock his ability to save more. Let's take a look at the numbers.

James, why don't you read under the net worth section. Why don't you read the word in bold and then the full number next to it.

Assets, $75,000. Investments, $470,857. Savings, $166,739. Debt, 9,000.

Total net worth.

Total net worth, $703,596.

All right. What do you think about that?

It's good.

What about you, Gina?

I'm 44 years old and I feel like it should be a lot bigger.

All right, let's look at the income, shall we?

This time.

Let's go, Gina. Gina, what is your combined GROSS Monthly income?

51,282.

All right, and will you just break it down for me? Your income per month.

46,282.

Uh huh. And James's 5,000. Yeah, yeah. You're an attorney.

Yes.

All right, awesome. Well, first of all, fantastic. 46 grand a month. I'll give you a round of applause for that. That's amazing. Well done.

We'll be right back after this short break. Now Back to the show.

Combined annual income is $615,384. Did you both know that?

I think we have a sense.

Yeah, that's a.

No, I think it's.

It was something with six digits in it like that.

No, I think because of the RSU numbers, it gets a bit conf. Like confusing in my head, but I know it's around. Around 600. Okay.

Around 600 is like. Yes, that's totally in the neighborhood. And James, did you know what your combined annual income was?

Not. Not exactly, no. I mean, I feel like when we do taxes and we look at the gross and then we look at how the numbers boil down, it's always just a bit of a whirlwind and it ends up being what it is. Which. Yeah, yeah. And for me, a lot of the time I have a sense that I'm a bit of a tax asset because, you know, I'm earning less. My work in the music industry has sometimes been based in a fixed position, like at a recording studio or a touring operation that has taken me away and been. Been a form of a regular paycheck. And it's also been project based like it is now, where it's up and down and it is hard to predict. And it's another reminder about how I'm on average not bringing in what I feel like is enough and therefore. Therefore not able to contribute.

And then.

Keep going, finish the sentence. And because I'm not able to contribute.

Therefore, and because I'm not able to contribute in the same way or in similar ways, therefore, I just feel like I'm not enough. It feels like, you know, doesn't feel great. The moments when I panic and the moments where I feel as a freelancer next to this person who is, you know, smashing the corporate ladder in, in my opinion and has done every, you know, ever since we met. There are many situations where I'm upset that I can't contribute more.

He hasn't been saving. He's kind of been, you know, meeting his fixed costs or not, you know, not trying to incur further debt, but just really treading water and so.

But what's problem though? Life goes on. Seems like you have a nice place, you're taking amazing trips. What's the problem here?

Everything seems to tick along nicely. But I. I think there's potentially a situation where Gina is striving and doing really well with managing our savings and our investments. And I'm often putting myself under pressure, I think, to get toward, you know, splitting things and sometimes I worry that living in this situation and living with the nice things that we do have, because I'm trying to always keep up and trying to be as much of a match as I can. I worry that I'm not allowing myself to do things like save and to do things that are more.

Not allowing yourself to save or not saving?

Just not saving.

Let's look at your fixed costs. Fixed costs are 24%. Okay, I. I'm seriously not going to sit here and critique your fixed costs at 24. That's amazing. Your rent is 3, 500 bucks. Quite modest for somebody making $615,000. Like, you could. You could be spending a lot more on that.

That.

I appreciate that you have a modest price place. Par payment. What is this, like your train tickets?

That's our. Yeah, Metro, Subway.

I love it. Groceries and supplements combined. $1,080. I love this. Do you eat at work, though, for free, Gina?

No, I don't. I work at probably the only huge tech company that does not give free.

Pathetic. All right, fine. Hair. Oh, Your subscriptions are 1734. Let me guess, Jim. What is this?

Yes, Jim. I have. I go to a Pilates one on one, and then I have a trainer. And then I. We also added in, like, Soho House and, like, those credit card annual fees.

This is a very New York couple right here. Soho House. I got the Pilates. I'm like, I recognize this. Okay, got it.

But we use them all. I go to Equinox, like, twice a day, you know, every day, all that stuff.

Yeah, you go twice a day?

No. Well, I mean, sometimes I'll go to a class and then go. But yeah, I use it.

Hold on.

Tell the world.

Tell the world what you do twice a day at the gym. Tell them they need to know. Some people think if. If they go twice a month, they're like, I did it. No, tell them what you do twice a day. Tell them.

I like, Equinox is the worst nightmare. I'm like, go way too much. Well, I'll go. Maybe I'll go do my trainer session and then I'll go to, like, a yoga class later on in the day or something like that.

Amazing. All right. And then you have a dog for, like, whatever. This is great. 24%. I have no comments. It's great.

You know, I kind of. I want to. I always think about doing something on the side. Besides, I hate to just rely on my job. You know, what if something happens? I'd like to have, like, some consulting or something. Whatever. I could do I don't know what that would look like, but that's something I also think about.

Can I just point out the reason I'm laughing is I love being able to show my audience what a true top performer looks like. So somebody making $50,000 a month who's like, yeah, I go to the gym twice a day. I'm an attorney. I think I should do something on the side. You know, I think I should just like. And by the way, I travel for three weeks at a time. Like, what? Everybody, listen. People like this exist. Okay? This is real.

I appreciate it because the numbers make.

No sense to the average person.

Yeah.

Are you motivated by money?

I'm motivated by wanting to be able to enjoy life and the world and experiences. And I'm motivated by not wanting to be backed into decisions because I don't have money to, like, forced into a decision I don't want to make because of money.

Yeah. You remind me of me a lot. I feel the same way. I never want to have to make a bad decision because of money.

That.

Yeah, I do. Like, nice things. That too. The money, per se. Like, I don't sit there and look at spreadsheets and stuff and feel great, but I do feel great when I can get the exact travel thing that I want. I love that. And take friends, family. I love that.

I love to be generous. Yeah. I love to feel like I can. Oh, I've got this. Let me treat. I can. Yeah.

All right, your investments. Let's just say for conservative numbers, you're doing 7,500 per month.

Fair. Yeah.

Investing like we're ballpark in here. All right, so you're investing 90,000 a year.

The last couple of months. I have not been hitting those numbers. Like the last two months, I would say, because as I mentioned, I do not like to put any carry anything on my credit cards. And why is.

Why at 615,000, why is it a decision between investing and credit card? Oh, that brings me to the last category. Let's just look at that, shall we? All right, I have a few questions about this. First of all, no savings, although you do have 166,000 in savings. Fine. It's fine.

Yeah, we didn't talk about it.

Let's just talk about this number at the end, which really captivated me. This is what we call our guilt free spending number. Typically, it's between 20 to 35%. However, here. What's this number? Gina, read that to me.

59%. 19,430 per month.

Is this true?

We didn't, I didn't sit down and crunch the numbers. But those, the fixed costs and everything else is true. So that would be what is left. There's a lot of expensive airplane tickets and hotels and things like that.

I got, I got to hear it. So first of all, no judgment. What are we talking about? God, I love this.

That is what a wealthy couple spending looks like. When was the last time you got to peer inside the conscious spending plan of a couple who makes $50,000 a month spending $19,000 a month on travel? Never. That's why I find this fascinating, don't you? Here's what I notice. I want to see if you notice it too. Do you notice how as your income goes up, your fixed cost percentage goes down? Often way down, because your income often grows faster than your fixed costs. This is because we all pretty much buy the same bread and the same toilet paper. Yeah, you can splurge on some fancy stuff, but in the grand scheme, that doesn't really move the needle. But a very high income is super linear compared to the expenses in your fixed costs. Do you also notice how if you make a high income, you can invest huge amounts of money every month and how you'll often find really high numbers for guilt free spending due to the savings in those fixed costs? These numbers are actually typical of a lot of people I know with high incomes and I'm sharing this to demystify how serious wealth is created. It's often with a high income. And this is good to know because if your goal is to have a lot of money, it's not magic, it's not a lottery ticket, it's not an insurance settlement.

It's.

It probably starts with a high income. And finding a high income is a skill you can learn. In fact, this week I'm opening up my earnable live program where I show you how to dramatically increase your income by starting a business, including a special live component so you can get coaching directly from me.

You don't even need a business idea.

To start because we'll show you how to find a profitable one.

You'll get access to our private community.

Our earnable program, and you'll also get live coaching calls with many me@iwt.com.

Now.

I want to know about their $19,000 a month trips.

What are we talking about? Like walk me through a recent trip you took. What level are we talking about here? What hotels? Let's start there.

I took a trip to Morocco last November and I stayed at La Ma for a couple.

Whoa.

Top three. Okay, very good. What else did you do there?

We. I. Well, I did a. I did a small group tour, which was kind of interesting, but I flew business class, you know, etc. Let's see what else. We did a big trip in. Over the holidays to Finland. We stayed up at the. In the Arctic Circle at this place called the Arctic Treehouse Lodge, which is very expensive. Over Santa season. We stayed at the Upper House in Hong Kong.

Very nice.

Which was nice. That was a surprise for James's birthday a few years ago.

So how's the math work out? Because I know how much all these places you're talking about cost, and I'm confused. Yeah, I mean, well, let's just make the math easy. $20,000 a month, that's $240,000 per year divided by five trips. Okay, $48,000 per trip. That actually seems quite reasonable.

Right?

I think that's. I think that seems right. Like, on average, you know, because sometimes we'll go away for like, three weeks and, you know, the total amount for that is Pro to 40 some thousand dollars.

Yeah. Well, just a guideline is like, you know, as. As, you know, for. For luxury trips, you can assume these days, $2,000 per person per night. So that's $4,000 a night. I mean, if you're going for a month, that's $120,000 right there. Wouldn't surprise me.

List.

My CSP looks sort of like this. What am I going to sit here and tell somebody making $615,000 a year?

Like, don't stay at this hotel?

No, but I do think there are.

A few things to go over, financially speaking.

And then I think more importantly, it's how the two of you become a team.

Yeah, right.

All right, well, where do you want to start? You want to talk about the numbers or you want to talk about the teamwork?

Let's do the numbers.

Okay.

We'll be right back after this short break. Now back to Gina and James.

Let's just say for easy math, 40 and 44 with a very high combined income. That's really good to know. You do invest $90,000 a year, which is really good. Let's just run some math. So you're investing about 14% of gross. I know people who make like, $150,000 who are investing more proportionally than you are. At $615,000, you're buying the same bread as everybody else. Right. So your expenses are low. Your income is super linear.

It's high.

Therefore, you should be able to afford to invest more. And we can see where the problem is, is that at 44, 40 and 44, you have $470,000 invested. Now, I understand you probably haven't been making this kind of income for a long time, et cetera, et cetera. When did you start making this income?

There were a few years, 2016 to 29, 2019, and then this from 2022, and then there was like a gap in between when it was about half where it is now.

Oh, well, that's kind of a long time.

All right.

So you probably should have more. Let me tell you why. Because you like to live the good life. If you want to continue living the good life, you need to be putting a lot of money away.

Okay?

The bad news is that you haven't been putting away as much as you could.

The good news, this is going to.

Kind of be surprising for people who listen is a very high income solves a lot of financial problems. Like, a lot. You can be kind of sloppy if you have a really high income. Okay, so like, if I were to tell you, find 50 grand more to invest per year wouldn't be that hard, would it?

No.

What I just said is heresy to.

Many people in the personal finance community.

But those same people have often never.

Earned a really high income. The fact is, a high income solves a lot of financial problems. If you haven't been investing since you were 25, a high income can help you add tons of money to your investments in just two to three years. A high income can buy back your.

Time and on and on.

I had a friend, for example, who didn't start seriously investing until he was 50, and he was very worried. I looked at his number forum. I showed him that if he truly prioritized investing like 30% of income for the next five years, he would be more than fine. That's only possible with a high income. Now, if you're listening to this, you're rolling your eyes, you're saying, duh, ramit. Oh, wow. A high income solves a lot of problems. Get curious, ask, what if, hey, what if I increased my income? What would I be able to do? Let me plug in the numbers to the CSP, which you can get@iwt.com CSP and then if you decide you want to increase your income, learn the skill. It's a skill. It's not just luck. Income doesn't just fall out of the sky. It's something you can get if you prioritize it, whether with my earnable program or on Your own. Now, of course, just as with any income level, you need to know what your rich life is, how you need to be investing. You need to keep an eye on your expenses, especially because people who like to spend a lot of money today want to keep spending a lot of money in retirement.

You can spend a lot on travel, but what I want to do is actually bring it back to your investment. So how long do you plan to work at this type of company?

Maybe in this line of work for another, you know, 10 years or something like that, probably.

All right, let's take a look at the numbers. That real back of the napkin stuff. But your current amount, current principal that you have investment for, let's just say 470,000. Okay, let's see what happens if you just continue the way you've been going for 10 years. All right, $2.2 million at 54 years old. What do you say, Gina?

I think I would feel like I wanted to continue working.

Yeah. I'm sure you're very good at your job and you probably love it. But also, if you're making this much money, I would like for you to have optionality. Let's play around with the numbers a little bit. Let's change these numbers. Let's add 50k as I talked about, and we're going to make this $140,000 a year. So instead of like 2.5, you end up with 2.9. It's actually not materially that big. Do you know why that is?

No. I thought it might be more different.

It's because it's only 10 years.

It's not that much time.

Yeah, yeah. The compounding takes a long time to kick in. I'm going to take you instead of 10 years, let's make it 15 years, 140k a year. Again, this is, I think, fairly conservative because your income's going to go way up. Right. And to find 50k a year for you, not that hard. Let's take a look.

Whoa.

5 million. Now, so this is you working 15 years and putting 140k a year. I mean, 5 million, pretty good. So you're talking about $200,000 safe withdrawal per year. Not enough. Not enough for. For both of you, right? No, like, you can't be 55 and being like, I can't stay at that hotel because of my freaking swr.

No, no, wait.

So we got it. We got to do something.

I think, you know, we're not factoring in that. I think James will continue to earn more. You know, he's kind of been building something.

And tell me.

I mean, I would like to be earning about three times what I'm earning by the time I'm Joan's age.

Hopefully 5 years to be making 15k a month instead of 5k a month.

Yeah, that's what. That's what I'm trying to build.

Why five years?

Because in. In my mind, and maybe this is something I know, I know Gina is good at calling me out on, but I perhaps don't put my rates up enough. And how I'm working and the clients I have and how the business is growing, that's maybe how long I think it would take.

And you don't put your rates up because what?

I'm scared of losing the business. All right.

Scarcity mentality, et cetera, et cetera. So would you say that that has been present in other parts of your life?

Yes.

Okay, so here we see a complete difference in worldview. Gina's like, I'm abundant. I'm gonna stay at the best hotels in the world and, like, do all this stuff. And, like, if I need more money.

I'll do a side business. Like, no problem. And Gina, you look at James like, why don't you just raise your rates?

Like, you're so great. I saw half your application is about.

How great James is.

Which James, you should know that.

So Gina's looking at you, James going, like, you're so great. Why don't you just raise your rates? Like, it would solve so many problems. And you're saying, I have these lenses.

On my eyes, Gina.

And the way I see the world is through scarcity.

And the way that that comes out is if I raise my rates, they'll leave. Then where will I be?

I'll be back in credit card debt. Then we're going to have more fights.

And on and on and on. Any of this sound familiar?

Before we hear his answer, I need.

A quick favor from you.

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It would be great to be able to be in a position where I can put, you know, 5k a month away in investments.

5K a month would be 33% of gross. That's pretty high. Okay, it's possible. If, you know, because you have a spouse who's a really high earner, your proportional expenses are relatively low, right? It's possible. But let's be conservative. Let's say 20% of gross, sort of same proportion I threw out just as a general benchmark. And that's 36,000 a year. I like it. All right, you know what? For easy math, I'm going to assume that that starts today. So that will be $176,000 instead of 140. 15 years, 7%. Let's take a look. 6 million bucks. That's a million extra dollars added on. That's pretty impressive. What do y' all think about it?

That's great. Yeah, I think that's great.

Awesome.

Yeah. 15 years. Not that long. 15 years, you're gonna be 15 years older and 50. It's like you're gonna blink your eyes. You're gonna be there. Fantastic. I also think, you know, that you could easily knock that number up to seven or eight if you wanted to. Basically, what I would do is any additional unexpected income that came in.