Q + A Coronavirus Money Questions

We'll teach you. Be rich. Tonight we are going to do a money Q and A. So if you've got questions about money, this is the time to ask them. And I'm going to answer as many as I can. Now, a couple of things that I just want to reflect on that have been going on. First of all today, a disastrous jobs report. Much, much worse than people thought and it will probably get even worse. I'm going to try to see if I can get somebody on with me so we can talk over the implications. But I want to share just a couple of things that I want you to know about. First of all, business owners, you should be speaking to your accountant right now. There are some time sensitive things that you can be doing as of tomorrow to get government loans that are going to be issued. And some of these loans are forgivable. That means it is free money. So there's a lot of confusion in the marketplace. I have emails coming in from a bunch of CEO friends and there's like the banks don't know what's going on. The guidance is changing every hour. But soon enough, like in the next 24 hours or over the weekend, there's going to be some clarity on this. So if you're a business owner, there will be some financial relief coming your way. Of course, unemployment is something that I want to talk about more in future episodes. You know, there's a great article that came out today in the New York Times. People talking about having to ask for unemployment or going to a food pantry for the first time in their lives. And remember, just two weeks ago, these folks had great jobs. So imagine the embarrassment or the humiliation that a lot of people feel for no cause of their own. And I just want to say that my heart goes out to people because, you know, if you're providing for a family or a partner or yourself and you have to ask for help, that's something that a lot of people in America, we're not used to. But I would also say that those options are there for you. So please do take advantage of unemployment and any other opportunities you have. Even a food pantry. I want to talk more about that as well in a future episode. Tonight, I want to answer money questions. So as you type those questions in the Instagram box, is that right, Cass? Yeah.

Please, please, please type them in the question box.

Here are some questions that will not be accepted tonight. Ramit, what brand is your sweater? Cass, you got any other unacceptable questions tonight?

One word question.

Oh, like, like, what would they say? I don't know, but invest. Three question marks. Yes, invest. What kind of answer do you want? Don't ask those questions. Okay, just click that big X. If that's your question, start off by asking. Go to the question box at the top right corner and click Click that big X. That'll get you to the express front of the line. Don't ask that question. I want to actually share a couple of my old money tweets as people are thinking about their questions tonight. One of them is about awkward money conversations. Boy, do I love these. I used to love just advising on these until I got married and then I realized, oh, I have to have these awkward money conversations myself.

That's right. Oh wait, let me do the zoom in. Stay there. Okay, got it.

A little slow on the pickup tonight. Love you, babe. So something I wrote a while ago is so many people are afraid of having a money conversation because it's awkward. How many people here have felt awkward having that money conversation? Maybe I make more. You make more. I really want you to be more generous. I want to change the arrangement we have of who picks up the check. Awkward. It's awkward to talk about how much credit card debt you have or how much you earn or an annoying money habit that irritates you, but I think it's actually more awkward to endure the years of resentment from not having that conversation. How many people, how many of Your parents go 30 years married and they did not have one conversation about money habits and they bottle it up or they hold it in, or they explode every two months, all because they were concerned about it being awkward? If there's one thing millennials love, it's to talk about how everything is awkward. Oh, it's so awkward to get on the phone. Also, I can't do that. Alright, so that's one topic we may touch on tonight. Awkward conversations. Don't worry, I won't judge you if you feel that way. Another topic that we might talk about is some general don'ts what you should not do with your money. These are in general. In general, don't carry a balance on your credit card. That might seem obvious, but it's not to a lot of people. Some people have even written me saying, isn't it true that your credit score goes up if you carry a balance? And I'm like, who fucking told you that? The Credit card industry Incorporated. Don't do that. Don't wait to invest. Don't borrow from a 401k. This is a classic mistake people do. Don't buy a house without Running the numbers. Lot of people are about to realize leverage goes on the works on the way up, but it also works on the way down. Don't put your head in the sand and wait for another day. Especially true in times like this. And finally, don't forget, use your money to create your rich life. It's not just about accumulating it in a bank account and counting it in Excel. It's actually about being able to use it. Also true. Especially at a time like this. So those are a couple things I've written in the past and maybe we'll talk about tonight. Let's see if we have any early questions on what people are asking about money. Cass.

Okay.

Cass, by the way, Cass, do you have any money questions?

No, not at this time. Wow. Wow. But I will have some for you.

She's. She's read I will teach you to be rich.

That's right.

No further financial questions for the rest of her life. What a great. What a great book. Oh my God.

So I know I got the expert. Okay, okay, first question. Thoughts on buying a house during this time? If I have a stable job.

No. Well, I should qualify if. Let me tell you the case for buying a house right now. And then let me tell you the multitude of cases against it. First of all, I should admit I have frequently been known to point out to people that buying a house is not always the best investment. Or a lot of people get mad at me because in America, real estate is religion. Oh, ramit. They're not building any more land. Do it for the tax deduction. Hahaha. Throwing your money on rent. They don't know what they're talking about. Okay, These clueless people just repeat these aphorisms without even understanding what it means. So I don't stand for that. Learn. Learn how to run a basic model. Jesus. Okay, so with that caveat, if you are telling me I have a stable job, I have 20% for a down payment saved up. I plan to stay here for a minimum of 10 years and I actually don't care if the price goes up or down because I'm not buying it as an investment. I'm buying it to live in. Then I would consider it. Oh, one more thing. You have a diversified portfolio already. This isn't your only purchase. If you don't have any of those things. If you are, like most Americans, going to make the biggest purchase of your life without ever writing six Excel cells and putting in some numbers or going to the New York Times buy versus Rent calculator and Then you're telling yourself it's magically going to go up. I would not buy. A couple of reasons. Number one, first off, I think cash is king right now. So if you have that down payment on a house, I would be conservative. And Again, rule number one, right now, build a one year emergency fund. Two, if you don't have that 20%, why are we even talking about this? You're not ready to buy a house. And number three, this is my personal belief. Everything else I said was facts. This is my personal belief is that prices will be going down. Why? Because. Did you see the unemployment claims? It's going to be very, very difficult for people to continue to pay their mortgage and or their rent. So again, if that doesn't matter to you, if you found a place you love or you're ready to buy, you've got that portfolio, you've got the 20% down, you're going to be there for 10 years minimum. Go ahead. The price in that case is sort of malleable. It doesn't really matter what it is today or if it even drops 25% in a year, doesn't really matter. But almost nobody is that disciplined. So that is the way that I would think about buying a house.

All right, next question. What is your advice on paying off student loans or debt during this time? Instead of saving more, I would pay the minimums.

I would call up my student loan companies. I would say I'm being affected because of COVID 19. What can you do to work with me? I don't want to pay any finance or interest charges. Oftentimes they will allow you to hold off on payments. I'm getting reports from my readers. They're allowing you to hold off on payments for months. In some cases I would hold off, I would conserve that cash. You know, you got a lot of people who, they're like, they hate debt so much that they're like, I'm gonna pay it all off. And then they. So they paid off their debt, now they have no savings. Maybe they lose their job or something like this happens. So where are they? They patted themselves on the back for five seconds because they're debt free, but they have nothing in savings. Guys, why is the phrase so prevalent? Cash is king. Because of times like this, you might very well lose your job. Prepare for it. So short. That was a very long answer. I get passionate about this stuff. These myths drive me crazy. If it were me, I would pay the minimum. Even if it's going to cost you slightly more in interest later because Cash in your pocket now is worth more than the possibility for cash later. Would call up the student loan company, see what you can do about that. And I would really focus on building that savings account up. If everything continues to go well, you can pay it off more aggressively later. But right now it's time to play. It's time to protect yourself with savings.

You had one of your students who recently called Chase, right?

Yeah, that was for his student loan. I think he got it put on credit card. Oh, credit card, that's different. But effectively, credit card companies, student loan companies, sometimes even landlords are putting some of their payments on hold for you or in some cases even waiving them, depending on your landlord.

All right, my pay was cut 20%. Should I decrease my 401k contributions? I have about 3 months saved and then it got cut off.

Yes, yes. Guys, this is very unlike me to be telling you hold off on your 401k contributions, but you only have 3 months of savings. Put the pieces together. Remember how a couple like 3 weeks ago I wrote this thing about panic is bad, but overreaction is good. And I was like, step number one, accept reality, make a plan and move. Your pay just got cut 20%. That means your company is moving. But it also means your job is at risk. The reason they cut your pay is they're bookings or their revenue just drop like a rock. So your job is at risk. Stop with the 401k funding right now. That's not going to provide housing for you in four months if you get laid off. So stop the funding, focus it on your savings again. When things get better, you can go back and fund it and hey, what, what's the, you know, you lost a few months of contributions, but at least you have liquidity. And that means cash savings you can access right away. I hope you guys are taking the message here. One year emergency fund. Go to my previous fireside chat. I talk about what to do, stressful times, and how to deal with your money during coronavirus. I give you a three part plan. Step number one is build that one year emergency fund.

Should I start a side biz now or wait until the economy improves?

And why start it? I would highly recommend starting it now. I already have a ton of earnable students who, who joined the program. They're starting it. Why now? Well, there's a couple of reasons. Number one, starting a business takes time. So it's going to take you time to get in there and figure it out. Do a little bit of customer research, find some paying clients and scale that up. So you might as well start now and then whenever the time comes, you're going to have your clients and it's always easier to go from 1 to 5 than 0 to 1. So if you have a chance to start at 0, start now. So way better. The second reason is that I want to remind people there are still a lot of people out there paying for things. And this is so important to remember. Amateurs out there believe that nobody's buying anything. But experienced entrepreneurs know that people have bought things for thousands of years in all kinds of socioeconomic classes. People are still paying for lesson plans for their kids. They're still paying for convenience. Some of them are still ordering luxury foods to be delivered. So there are lots of things people are paying for. Right now my entrepreneur friends are telling me as well as well as me that they are hiring for certain specific things they need. So I would not wait. If anything, I would start now and give yourself every advantage. Oh, and where can they go by the way, if they want to learn more? Iwt.com earn Put your email address in.

There does it make sense to use two different brokerages for investing?

I would prefer not, but many people have multiple brokerages, including me. So I'll give you a couple of examples why you may have worked somewhere where you have a 401k under some login, then you have some other random account over here, and then you have your main one over here. It happens. It's normal. What I did was I wanted to consolidate as much as possible so everything could be in one account and I was somewhat successful. The bulk of my personal wealth is in one brokerage account. Of course it's diversified into different investments and even different sub accounts like an ira, et cetera. But I still do have some kind of orphan accounts that are over here and over there. Luckily in any brokerage account you can actually add investments that you hold somewhere else so you can get one unified view. You can also use a tool like personal capital if you like to unify that view. But overall it does pay or I think it's helpful to have it in one place and you can do what's called an in kind transfer in and then the second word is kind. Like Ramit Sethi, you're so kind. Hahaha in kind transfer, which means you don't have to sell your investments, you just move them over, no fees. And if you're moving to a brokerage like I use Vanguard, you can have Vanguard assist you with the transfer. Or Schwab or whatever you use. They can help you do that.

My Roth IRA is decreasing rapidly.

Yeah, that's what happens in a global pandemic.

What are your suggestions? I have a suggestion.

Oh, cast the. Okay, cast.

Here I go.

Second author of I will teach you to be rich.

Co author of the next book, Love and Money.

Wow.

Okay. My suggestion is don't look. I actually have not looked at my accounts.

Yeah.

And I want to keep it that way for now.

Can I also tell them how I sometimes invite you over to look at my accounts?

Yeah. I don't. I look at it, but it stresses me out.

So here's what I do with Cas because, well, I think it's pretty funny. So I have, I've shown cat. I'm like, Cas, come check this out. When the market has been doing really well, I. I'm like, take a look. Look at the last few months. You know, you can see the green. And then when I remember it was like around October 2018, the market was doing horribly and I was like, cass, come check this out. And she like comes over the computer. I'm like, look at this. It's just like red, red, red, red, red, red, red. It's just like a lot of money lost. And she was like, are you kidding me? And I'm just like sitting back there like this. Because after a certain point, once you understand the market, especially if you're young, you know that the market over the long term will continue to return. And if you don't believe that or that sounds too far fetched, you should read the research out of my book. Read chapter five and six and three to be able to see where that comes from. At a certain point, money is. You can become less emotionally affected by. I'll give you an example. Think about if you go to the grocery store and the price of eggs costs like 30 cents more. Would it affect you emotionally today? No, probably not. But imagine that maybe when you were growing up, maybe your mom or dad was shopping and maybe eggs or milk was more expensive one day. That actually could have caused some serious distress. That's a real problem. You might have been on a fixed income or your parents were. That was all they had and suddenly now they have to choose between bread and peanut butter. Like that is no laughing matter. But as you have been reading, I will teach you. Be rich. Becoming more comfortable with money. That 30 cents doesn't really affect you. Now just elevate that number to $30 or $300 or whatever the number is. That is how At a certain point, it's not magic, it's math. And you can withstand losses that might seem incomprehensible. So that's why I do it. But the other reason, Cass, why do you think I do that when I have invited you to look at the good and the bad?

Well, because we're married. And you want me to see.

Yeah, I do it very intentionally. Not just for me to laugh and to, you know, have a joke, but I actually want you, and I've told you this since day one, I want you to know how money works in our household. And so we talk about it every month. And I want you to be comfortable with the mechanics, because one day, if I. If I'm not here, you have to be able to manage that. And so it's really important that we do this together. And you can see, when things are great, how do I react? I'm basically the same. When things are horrible, how do I react? I'm basically the same.

Yeah, right.

That kind of cool. If anyone has a mom or a dad who's just like, cool under pressure with something. You learn a lot watching someone. So in answer to the question about your Roth Iron man, you should remember that investment accounts go up and down. They're not a savings account. In exchange for you allowing that volatility that up and down, you are betting that over the long term your money will go up, especially if you've invested it properly, like I talk about in chapter seven. I will say that right now it's certainly gone quite a bit down. And for most people who have a typical portfolio, let's say a set 70, 30 portfolio or 80, 20. Yeah. You've certainly seen 20 to 30% decreases in your portfolio, depending how large. That can be a lot of money. So you have to decide what you want to do. And what we have seen through history is that again, over the long term, the American economy is very, very strong. So I would. I'll tell you what I'm doing. My money is in the market. I'm keeping it in there. I'm continuing to invest as usual and I'm even putting a little bit more in. So that is what I'm doing. I believe in staying the course, be steady, protect yourself with that one year emergency fund. But I would not pull my money out personally. In fact, I am not.

That's my answer, how to leverage forgivable small business loans.

We're going to talk about that on a future episode. I'm going to go into a little bit more detail.

Okay. That's a good question.

Yeah.

All right, next let's, while you're typing.

That out, I have a question that I once asked and Cas, I want to ask you this. What financial information do you wish was more commonly known? Think back to where what your level of financial knowledge was, let's say like 10 years ago and now. What do you wish you had known back then?

How easy it it is to invest.

And to automate back then. What was your, what was your feeling or your thinking?

Just put it in savings.

Put it. Why is that?

Because that's what I just knew to do. Yeah, like saving. Savings. Savings. But it wasn't. There were no details around the savings.

Like save.

Yes.

And did you save?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Sometimes. Not all the time.

Yeah.

And then I wish I would have known a bit more about myself and my money mindset because that was super helpful in our relationship. Like as we started talking about that more.

You want to share an example of a money mindset you had?

Yeah, it was very scarcity mindset. And so you think very abundantly and you're very, very generous. And we also grew up, there were some similarities, but also differences to how we grew up and how we think now. And so if I had realized that back then, then I think it would have been easier to have the conversations.

Nice. Okay, cool. Well, that's a question maybe, maybe some people will also weigh in on is what financial information do people wish others knew more. Okay, what other questions do we have?

All right, let's see. Okay. Do you have any suggestions for a young couple that is expecting to make a decent amount of money?

Yeah, that's an awesome position to be in. So that's, that's a very common constituent in the IWT community. And so my suggestion would be read the book together, especially right now. Build up that one year emergency fund. Make sure you're opening all your accounts, your investment accounts. So if you're going to make a pretty good living, you probably make a little bit too much for a Roth ira, perhaps. So you have other options. Make sure that you're contributing to a 401k, especially if you've got that match. Follow my ladder of investing. And also when you start off as a couple, boy, it's tough to say this in a situation that we are in right now where we're kind of stationary, but one of the things I always advise couples is you're both coming to this table with different money mindsets and different money histories and your parents spoke different languages about money. Why don't you two pick something fun that you want to do together and set up an automatic sub savings account for it. Now again, in this time, it's a little difficult to think about going on vacation to the Caribbean, you know, six months from now. We don't know if that's going to happen. It's unlikely actually. But take the principle and adapt it. Okay, 18 months from now, where do we want to go? Well, we got 18 months to save for this thing. Let's go big. Let's take a two week trip to Japan and let's, let's really like pick. You pick the hotel, I'll pick the place we eat. You know, really make it fun because money is about living a rich life. It's about moving outside the spreadsheet. And so when you can start your relationship by saying, what do we want to do that's fun that we would both love, money becomes a source of saying yes. Instead of, you spend too much on lemonade, you should make coffee at home. You, you, you. No, it's we. What can we do to together? So best of wishes to both of you.

Okay, just reading through the questions. If you have questions, type them in the question box. It's next to the comment area. All right. I want to invest $25,000. I'm not even sure where to start. Hold up your book.

Next question. 10$. It's less than $10 and people will spend the next five years just spinning. It drives me crazy. I really want to help you guys, but I put the best knowledge in it. Less than $10 book. Okay, please give me another question.

Sorry, this is a. I'm just reading. There's a lot of questions tonight. That's good. All right, all right. When is a good age to get a credit card? I think she has a 14 year old brother.

Oh, I love this. Okay, what a great question. And I hope that you're watching this with your. Is it brother? Brother. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Love it. So I started like really learning about money from my dad at 14 and at 14 and 15, you know, he was talking about compound interest and he opened up a Roth IRA for me. I think at 16 it was a custodial account because you're too young to open it up. So I had an E trade account and you know, he would like just talk to me about different money stuff. And my dad is like surprisingly sophisticated with money. Now we have a little few disagreements. You know, he tries to time the market sometimes. I'm like, dad, just forget that. Okay, Read the book. Okay, I cover the research in there, but he taught me a lot of pretty sophisticated concepts way back then. I think 14 or 15 is a great age. Get a credit card. You can get a secured credit card. You can have these little parental things on it where you get the monitoring. You can set a limit on it. Point being, work through it together, right? Show your brother. Okay, this is what you got. You know, you're going to put, you know, this is how much you can spend. Wow. We got the bill. Let's look at it. Oh, my God. If we did not pay it all off, how much would this $100 purchase cost us? Oh, my God. It would cost us $250 total over five years with interest. That's crazy. We should pay it off now. You know, just keeping it very simple. And then as your brother gets a little bit more sophisticated, you can talk about FICO scores and you can talk about other kinds of benefits of credit perks. Oh, wow. Did you know you get this because you spent, you get $20 back this year because you get 1% cash back. There's so many fun things to do. So I love the idea. Just make sure you monitor and talk it through with him. And I think that's great.

I'm 25, I have $70,000 in the bank. Should I keep saving up or start investing at 25?

Let's assume that this person, first of all, great job. 70k in the bank of 25. Well done. Even more than the amount, it's impressive that you have built the habits. So everybody pay very close attention to that. I don't know what income this person makes, but whether they make 50k or whether they make 300k, they have built the habits of saving. And as their income goes up, that habit is going to compound and their investments are going to compound even faster. So this is why I tell people, even investing $50 a month in your early 20s is awesome. Because soon you're going to have enough to do 500amonth and maybe even 5,000amonth, depending on your earnings one day. So the habits really matter. Well done. Let's assume that your one year emergency fund requires, I don't know, 40k. Great. Put that aside. Especially in a time like this. The rest, great, great. Invest. You can follow the program, you can open up your accounts in order. You're 25, you could probably put your money into a Roth IRA. You have a 401K, maybe at work, maybe it has a match. You know, there's an order to where your money Goes. You can find that on the ladder of investing and just go step by step by step. Yeah. Well done. You're positioned very well for the long term, no question.

Just tested your dishwasher utensils. Strip strategy and works.

That's right.

That's right, Diane.

Okay, why are you complimenting her? Babe, you should be the one taking the advice. I see how you load this thing. I wish we could cheer Cass on. Hey, can we get. Can we get some support from you here? Can everybody say, cass, do the dishwasher trick this week? Come on, let's get a little group, you know, like a group cheer going on. Babe, I think if there's peer pressure of like hundreds, maybe thousands of people, maybe I'll send this out to my email list. Oh, gosh. And I'll have them all email you.

Babe, your trick works. I know that.

Yeah.

I'll say it in front of everyone.

Well, how about you try doing it?

I do. Do it. Okay.

Love you, babe. All right. Okay. Thank you, Diane. I appreciate that.

All right. Oh, gosh, I accidentally clicked this. It's about buying a home. I think we talked about that though, so I'm gonna pass. Sorry. Okay.

Okay, next, while you're looking, I'm going to read something off.

Okay.

This is something I wrote about different ways, how people feel superior about their money. Oh, everybody loves to feel superior in their own way, don't they? So the fire, community, financial independence, retire early. They'll say, LOL. She only saves 35% of her income indexers. He pays 1% in fees. Hahahaha. People in debt. Yeah, I might have $2,000 in debt, but at least I don't have $20,000 in debt like that guy. And everyone says you spent what? That's ridiculous. You see, humans love feeling superior. They love it, we love it. And I think with money, you're not superior to anyone because your savings rate is higher than anyone. You're not superior to anyone because you have less credit card debt than anyone. I think that one of the things I learned after hearing over a million money stories from people is the sense of compassion, which I don't think I was born with. I had to learn it in my mid-20s. And, you know, people will come on here and they'll say, I have 70k in the bank. But that just as easily could have been, I'm 25 and I have $70,000 in credit card debt. Either way, let's just accept reality and let's make a plan. Either way, we can figure out a Way to move forward. But it kind of drives me a little nuts when I see people acting superior to others because their savings rate or because they know about some obscure investment. And I'm like, dude, two years ago, you were in the same boat as this person. So maybe we can all show a little bit of compassion for everybody when it comes to money.

Cass, what's the most you'll spend on a sweater?

I have an unlimited budget for sweaters.

That is true. I will vouch for that. But that's your. Was it your money dial?

That's my money dial. It's one of my money dials. And I don't look at cost. Like, if I love it, great, I will look at the price tag at the end, you know? But I walk in, I know the brands I like.

Yeah.

I'm looking for the best. It has to be exquisite. I don't want to buy something mediocre. And it has to fit in with the next level wardrobe system. Yeah. What I used to do is I would just go and buy whatever looked good, then it wouldn't match. I'm like, what do I do with any of this stuff? So. So there's a system now that you've taught me. Nlw.

Yep.

And yeah.

All right. I have a house listed for sale. What should I do with the proceeds? It's about 200K.

What have I said, like, 10 times today? One year emergency fund. If you have more, if you'd like to invest it, you probably should. Oftentimes. By the way, people who buy real estate don't invest in the market. It's almost like they're two different. They're in two different camps. You have the real estate investors and you have the indexers, and they don't really get along very well. The forums kind of make fun of each other. So, you know, I don't mind if you want to have a portfolio of indexes or target day funds and you want to have a house as an investment, hey, great. At least it's more diversified than putting 95% of your money in house. So build your emergency fund. Continue investing. I prefer target date funds or index funds. Over time, history has shown that they tend to outperform real estate. We could debate this all day long. Although I have the facts and that's what I would do with it.

This is interesting. How do you deal with friends that don't pay money owed via Venmo?

Oh, wow.

Dinners, for example, that kind of stopped.

For me in my mid-20s. Yeah.

I think that's like a 20s thing.

This person must be in their 20s.

Yeah.

So basically the answer is just suck it up for the next, like, four years. I assume you're like 25 or something. It will stop. Yeah, a lot of things will stop in your late 20s. Okay.

So if not, get new friends.

Yeah, we talked about that the other day. Right. Surrounding yourself. I mean, I wouldn't be afraid to have a conversation with someone. It's like, hey, man, pull them aside. Him, he, or her, she, and say, you know, hey, I just wanted to bring up something that's been on my mind. And, you know, your friendship is really important to me, and I've noticed that you haven't. The last time we went out to dinner, I was happy to pay. The time before, I was happy to pay. But one of the things that's important to me in a friendship is that there's some sense of give and take and that I'm happy to pay a few times. What I would hope, as a friend is that you would also be happy to pay some other times. And then they're going to act really bewildered and confused. And then basically, you didn't pay. You never pay. What do you guys think? Will that work? I don't know. Get a new friend.

How do we ask a distant family member who is furloughed if they need money without making them feel embarrassed?

Oh, my God. This is. Great question.

I feel like you could do a whole episode on helping.

On helping people with money.

Yeah.

I want to think about the exact wording because this is a very, very sensitive one. We will do a. We'll do something in detail about helping friends or family with money.

That's a really good idea.

Great question.

Yeah. All right, just scrolling through next. What's the best way to convince my family to adopt the principles in your book?

Shit, that's a great question.

We should do a full episode on family. Family matters. That's what we call it.

Wow. And then the theme has to be the family matters.

Days go by.

It's the da, da, da of the family. You guys like it? What do you think? What was the question?

Convincing family to adopt principles. I feel like it's the same as with a partner. Right. Maybe read the book.

Okay, so, yeah, like, first of all, it's like, I'm. I'm pretty good at this money stuff, and it's pretty hard for me to convince someone who does not want to, like, read this stuff to read it. Dude, we had someone with $17,000 who's been. Who's watching Me live? What should I do with my money? I'm like, read this fucking book. What are you talking about? It's been out for over 10 years. I just had a new edition. I can't even convince that person. So what makes you think you can convince your family? I'm the author. I've learned to be calm. I've learned that you can lead a horse to water. An uneducated, ignorant horse. That does not understand compound interest, that believes real estate is always the best investment, that thinks credit cards are evil, that does not even understand what a 401k is versus an IRA. You can try to drown that horse or your relative. You can show them how much money you've made. You can show them how comfortable you are. You. You can talk. You could show them your portfolio as you are drowning them, and they will still never listen. So what are our options, Cass? Do we. What? I don't know. What are we doing? I don't know. I lost my. I lost. I lost all hope. And then also. I'm not trying to say you should drown animals. Okay, people, let's just get that straight. PETA, don't write me. This is what you do. So the real answer is you can say to them, hey, like, I've been. I've been watching these videos. This guy's doing them every night. And he wrote this book on money that I bought, like, two years ago. And I used it. And, like, all my money is set up. Everything just goes where it needs to go. It's all automatic. And it lets me travel, it lets me do this, it lets me do that. If you want, I can send you a link to buy the book. And, like, I would highly recommend it. And that's it. That is as far as you really can take it. Because there are a lot of people who are not ready, and that's okay. I used to be pretty overbearing with that. And it would drive me crazy when people would complain about money, but they wouldn't actually do anything about it. But guess what? We're all like that. We all have something in our lives that were like, we say we should lose weight, or we say we should spend more time with our family, but if you look at your calendar, you're not actually doing it. You can't convince someone or trick someone into doing that. You have to let them come at their own pace. There are people on my list who have been talking about finding, starting a business for years. Earnable just launched. They didn't join. They've been there since 2012, sending the same emails every six months. That's okay. When they're ready, we will be there. But until then, all we can do is just let them know once or twice and then let them make their decision. I think that's a better answer than drowning a horse.

Yeah.

All right, let's do the last question.

What's the most you ever lost on a bet? Do you know who wrote this?

Is it Julie?

Yeah.

Okay, so I have a, I have a, I'd like to talk about my betting because I do a lot of large bets. First of all, I don't know how to gamble. I have no gambling. Like I don't have, I have an anti gambling addiction. I find no interest in it. I have no fun. I don't understand the math. So I sit down at these like poker tables in blackjack, I don't understand what is going on and I take like 20 bucks and I lose it in like two hands. I'm like, this sucks, I'm out of here. So fortunately I don't have an addictive personality with that. I have an addictive personality to yelling at trolls online. But that's a separate issue. However, I do like to play bets and I do mean large bets, bets with my friends, bets around statistics. My favorite one is when are we going to get married? So when I was in college I made a lot of very large bets like at the time, $5,000. And my, here's my basic thing, I'm like, look, we know the statistics of the age that men and women are married on average. Also if we get jobs from $5,000 is not going to be a big deal in like 10 years. So you know, I made all these bets and I won. I won a lot. I would win some. But I've been on a really horrible losing streak the last few years. And the problem is, you know, I set aside my sub savings account for these bets, right? And these are 10 year bets. So it's like, alright, just save a little bit every month at a certain point I had this nice chunk of change in my sub savings accounts called bets. I'm like, this is great, I'm going to make way more than this. Then it just started getting depleted. So my friend, who I used to think was my friend until she asked this question just now, she came, we made a bet in college about who's going to get married and statistically I said, you'll get married first because women tend to get married younger than men. Well, unfortunately I was proven wrong. And at our wedding. She came and there's a photo I may have posted somewhere. So I knew I had to pay her. And we had agreed that the loser has to present an Ed McMahon sized check at their wedding to the other person. So I had a $5,000 check. She didn't remember this. I didn't bring it up. We hadn't talked about this for like 10 years. But at my wedding I had this check printed up and I called the photographer and videographer and I, I handed it to her and she was like going crazy. I think she said I just peed my pants. So it was a special memory for all of us. And that was my $5,000 last bet. All right, what should you do after watching tonight? First of all, just do what I'm saying. I've said the Same answer like 10 times about the one year emergency fund, the investing and all that stuff. If you are spinning in your head about what to do with your money, get this book or get any book, just get my book. Tag a friend. For those of you wondering, like, how do I convince my friend or you know, I've got a partner, I want to get on the same page with my tag a friend tonight and tell them to come watch this. This will open up the space for you to have these conversations. And also I would love for you to go subscribe to my YouTube channel, YouTube.com ramit sethi. I post replays of all my Fireside Chat videos there. Thank you very much and I will see you tomorrow night.