“We have $2M…Why can’t we retire?”

I kind of wish I hadn't blown that money in the 90s. I'm hoping it lasts for 30 years.

That's the primary question, right? Will this money last for the rest of our lives?

Yeah. The biggest piece is the fear. I mean, I just sort of hope that when we have a plan that we know what we can spend on all these trips, that the fear will go away. But, Ramit, you're skeptical.

Your emotion is not going away from numbers on a spreadsheet. If that was going to happen, it would have happened about a million dollars ago. The only way you actually get to do this and enjoy it is if you learn to manage your fears. Rob, nothing else matters.

Adrian, why do you think we've avoided seeing a financial advisor who can answer our retirement questions?

I think because we already know the answers.

Welcome to part two of my conversation with Adrian and Rob. Adrian's 59. Rob is 62 years old, and they have one big question. Are we going to have enough? When I talk to people who are in their 50s and beyond, this is the single biggest question that they have. Like most people, Rob and Adrian believe their question is about dollars on a spreadsheet. But as we learned last week on part one of this conversation, Rob is incredibly fearful around money, even though he and Adrian have paid off tens of thousands of dollars of debt and they've built a sizable portfolio. Please note that he's been worried about running out of money for 15 years, but he has never run a detailed calculation and he's never hired a financial advisor. Why? On today's episode, I wanted to give him specific scenarios for for how their life might look depending on their financial choices. I asked our partner Facet to run several analyses taking into account their age, goals and spending. If you are looking for specific answers to your own financial scenarios via a financial advisor, especially if you're considering retirement or you have a large portfolio or an especially complex financial situation, go to facet.com ramit and no, they do not charge AUM. Now, let's get to today's conversation, where Rob and Adrian start off by discussing their vision for a rich life. They've been living in scarcity for so long that this is really hard for them.

I remember you coming to me recently and saying, oh, my gosh, we're making a lot less money. And I said, it's okay. We did it. This is what we've been doing our whole, you know, we've been saving for this moment when your business was not going to be working. And so now we've got this nest egg and supposedly if we only spend 4% of it, it's going to be okay. So I remember you asking me and I said, I thought it was going to be okay. I thought this is what we've been saving for, you know, this moment.

Tell Rob again your vision for a rich life.

What my vision is is that we have this one precious life to live and that we use our hearts to extend our generosity out into the world. And that we are people that create a better world for those around us through our charity, through our love. And that we also spoil ourselves and create freedom for ourselves and relaxation. And that whatever we feel confident that whatever we spend our money on, that we're allowed to, we're allowed to do that that creates a rich life for me.

I would say I can see how my fear had. I mean, because you're leading off with generosity, that I can see why my fear would hold us back. I'm down with it because we don't have to bequeath this money to anybody at the end and so we can give it away while we're alive. Being more relaxed is going to be the key to me being able to. To play ball with you on this and that. As long as I'm worried about this stuff that I won't be able to. To be more generous. Fear just stops me in my tracks around stuff like that.

Stay on the generosity. I love where you're going, Rob. Get deeper into her vision of generosity. What does she mean?

How do I know what she means? Okay, do you want to describe to me more a little bit about what you were specifically talking about? Heart felt generosity.

Right?

I would love it if we gave our. Our niece and nephew weddings are coming up that we gave more money than we actually said we were going to previously give to them for our. I would love to give more money to them for their weddings. I would love to tip extra when I go out to eat with people. I would love to also. I don't know, I mean, I really. If I had to dream, I could dream. I mean, I would love to create like, if I had the money, if we actually. If this is actually real, to create like a scholarship for some people that I know would love to take like coaching programs that I love and like, or to take like classes or things like that. I would love to create a. Be able to like, be that kind of gener. Have that kind of generosity in the world and also really, like, support causes that mean a lot to us, like, you know, environmental causes. And things like that, you know? Really? Definitely. And we do give money to charity, but like, to give a little extra more money to charity.

Let me pause you there, Adrian. I love what you're saying. You know what I haven't heard at all is any specifics. So you mentioned tipping. I don't know how much. You mentioned a scholarship. I don't know how much. Charity. I don't know how much.

Right.

If we're talking about an extra 2% tip, let's just say it and be done with it, because that's easy. Look at Rob's face right now. Rob's like, what the numbers are you talking about? Just tell me the number. I have the calculation open right now.

Fear was coming up as she was.

Describing all this stuff.

Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Create a plan.

This is very important. This is amazing. So, Adrian, you're painting this beautiful vision. I love it. It's powerful, it's compelling, and it's personal. That is a beautiful set of ingredients for a rich life. Rob. Rob did a great job. Rob, first, you were clouded by fear. It's like a cloud. That's what I see. Fear. It's a cloud, like a poisonous gas you can't see through. And you inhale. Look at me. And the toxin gets into you. It makes you unable to hear. It even makes you unable to see. It's a noxious green gas cloud around you. That's fear. That's how I see. But we cleared it away, and you were an excellent listener. So let's try to ground this a little bit. Let's start with the tipping. I love tipping. I love people who tip. I hate cheap tippers. What percentage do you have in mind in your rich life?

I had 25%.

Love it. So do we all agree from now on, you're going to tip 25%? Is that the new rule? Yeah. You sure? I don't want to pressure anybody. It's your money. It's not mine. Tell me if you're worried. This is the time to speak.

I'm not worried. I'm not. This is what I've been tipping mostly. So, yeah, it's fine.

All right, Adrian, how do you feel about that?

I feel good about it now that I know that I'm allowed to do it, too.

Totally. What. What do you learn from that example, Adrian, in describing your rich life?

I learned that Rob and I don't ask each other a lot of questions.

Correct. You two are not asking each other any questions. So it's like One person's just saying something, and then the ball just drops like dead. There's, like, dead silence here. And what I really want is for the two of you to get curious. Like, oh, my God. What do you mean by that? Wow. Wait, that's amazing. Hipping. Why only 25? Like, what if we did 30? How about at Christmas we do 50? You're almost one upping each other, or you're asking, are we thinking big enough? Or, like, I love the idea of two trips a year, but, like, how do you see us also being generous with our niece and nephew? I'm begging you two. It's like you're trying to cook a meal. I need you to get your hands in those ingredients and. And start moving things around. I need this to be tactile. What just happened is really common in many relationships. You have one person who dreams and the other who crosses their arms and plays the role of the dream crusher. The dream crusher says things like, what about X? Or, well, I don't know. Or, well, we might be able to do that. But if you watched my Netflix show How to Get Rich, you saw it with Sarah and Reggie, and thankfully, they were able to shift their role from dreamer and dream crusher to partners. If you find yourself in this dynamic, it's so common, I want you to zoom out, zoom way out, and recalibrate your relationship dynamic. Ask your partner, hey, what do you notice about this dynamic? Ask each other what roles you play today and what roles you would like to play today, tomorrow. That's how you recalibrate that dynamic. We'll be right back after this short break. Let's get back to Adrian and Rob. Adrian, why don't you ask Rob what his rich life is? And Rob now has the benefit of going second. So he has heard a lot of the work we've put in here, which is great. This is all an exercise. We're learning how to talk about this for the first time, so no worries.

Rob, what would you like your rich life to be? If you could dream about it, what would it be like?

I feel really happy about the generosity piece, giving good gifts and so on. The relaxed and happy part for me would entail a lot more massages. Maybe next year's trips would be fewer, longer, and really cut out some time for the two of us. What else do I want? Relaxed, happy, generous. Being able to discuss our finances in a way that reduces the fear would go a long way. Because what the thing that's striking to me is just how much by fear is impacting you. I mean, I just sort of hope that when we have a plan that we know what we can spend on all these trips, that that the fear will go away. But, Ramit, you're skeptical.

Your emotion is not going away from numbers on a spreadsheet. If that was going to happen, it would have happened about a million dollars ago. So I love where you're going with it, though. What do you think are three to five ways that you might be able to more effectively manage those fears?

Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that exercise that we did the other day that you walked me through, like the 10 minute exercise. Maybe we need a regular practice because that really helped me. But working together on some of these things, um, creating more body awareness and getting me out of my head, help. If you can help me get out of my head, I think that would be really helpful. Although I hate to put that on you because it's a lot to ask.

Of somebody, but maybe we can do it together. You can do it with me and I can do it with you.

Yeah.

Yeah, sure. How else will I reduce my fear? I mean, I think the quarterly money date, once we've got this plan laid out, will at least let me know that you're thinking about this stuff. What else here. How to get rid of fear. How to get rid of a lifelong fear. It's funny, as much as we talk, we don't talk about that specifically. We don't talk about our upbringing. We have talked about it, but not maybe enough or as targeted as maybe it needs to be. Because I feel like for us to be learning about this stuff on a podcast after we've spent 18 years working on this together, it means some things that we've not been saying for the 18 years. Probably we should practice saying somehow, you know, digging deeper into some of this stuff.

So I think I hear you saying, like, that we could have more conversations where we get more curious about each other.

What's the thing you could do to solve fear? You've so far given two. I need three.

Body awareness.

Okay.

Body awareness. Money meeting, having a financial plan. I mean, I feel like we both don't know if what we're spending is going to be all right.

All the stuff you talked about, the spinning, the ignoring childhood issues, not having the tools to communicate effectively with each other. What's the obvious one here?

You want me to say counsel?

Yeah.

Counseling.

I think it's obvious. But it's your rich life.

This is actually what we're doing this year.

We do have a class.

What? Our whole entire year is about amazing. This is counseling thing. So.

Wait, how did that. Hold on. Amazing. Great. I love to hear that.

Yeah.

It's not that I'm, like, shilling for therapists or whatever.

No, no, absolutely.

Can you tell me this whole, like, it's this year of, like, counseling. What is that about? That's so cool.

Well, we're just. We just. We hired a coach, actually, who's really cool, and someone from our community, and then we just create. Decided to commit to this, like, it's an emotional program that's on Zoom. It happens, like, you know, every other Tuesday where we get together with, like, a whole entire community of people and we talk about different issues, and then we also have private counseling as well on Zoom. So that's kind of what our year. This year was dedicated to. I was a little bit surprised when Rob said that we weren't doing anything that he wanted to do this year, because I feel like we're doing a lot together that we both. I thought. I thought we both decided on together, so.

Yeah, that's because in your relationship, the numbers eclipse everything else. You could go on an amazing vacation, and all you remember about it are the numbers. You can be doing all these amazing things, but the only true central focus in your relationship as it relates to your rich life is the numbers. And that will not change. No matter how much money you have. Your money's going to double. You know the Math Rule of 72. It's going to double. It will not change until you tackle the actual symptoms. I'm glad you're doing this coaching class. I think that's amazing.

Does the rule of 72, though? Does that apply even if you're not putting money into the market, though?

Totally irrelevant. To a more important point, Even when people are on the cusp of making a breakthrough, they will unconsciously fight to go right back to where they feel comfortable. Nobody turns on a dime and makes massive lifestyle changes overnight. It's two steps forward, one step back. That's normal. I want to say I wish they saw a therapist instead of a random coach, but I'm still glad that they are doing this. You're proving my point, which is that in your relationship, numbers eclipse everything else. Do you see what I mean? And it's hard. It's really. It's easier to ruminate and spin, but it's hard to be, like, what's actually going on in here? I love that you're starting to tackle it, but in my opinion, of all the Stuff you talked about relaxing, using your heart, helping the planet, getting to have fun and relax, massages, trips. The only way you actually get to do this and enjoy it is if you learn to manage your fears, Rob. Nothing else matters.

Part of it is a lack of vision, and part of it is fear.

I guess what I'm saying is, Rob, we can see that this is costing you a lot. Right. It's costing you trips. Most importantly, your fear is costing you the ability to connect with Adrian over a rich life vision, one that you've both worked incredibly hard for. I'm a little surprised that you're not attacking these fears with overwhelming force. Like, it is the number one thing to do. The if it were me and it was like, should I keep tracking my yellow pages and my apps and logging it? I'll be like, stop doing all of that and instead focus two hours a day on this.

I do think that this coaching program is going to help a lot this year, because that's the number one thing that she said to us was presence.

Great.

That was the first thing that came up for us, is to be working on that as well.

How did you decide how much you're going to spend on this coach, by the way?

I mean, we talked about it together.

Yeah.

It was. It was. Anyway, I was going to say it was. It's 30 grand for the year. But you don't care about the number.

Well, in this case, I do. 30 grand. All right. And 30. Yeah. Listen, if it helps you.

Yeah.

Together connect would be the best 30 grand you ever spent.

It's already been amazing, honestly.

Awesome. We'll open up their conscious spending plan right after this. Let's talk numbers. I'm going to go through their csp and if you want to follow along, you can download your own template of the conscious spending plan completely free@iwt.com CSP. Do you mind if we go ahead and look at your numbers?

Sure.

All right.

I'm excited to look at the numbers.

Rob's like, enough feelings. Take me to the csp. The promised land. All right. All right. So what was it like to do the CSB together?

Did we do it together? Did I show you it?

Here it is.

Oh, what? You literally gave her a printout and you said, here you go. So you prepared it, Rob, and then you showed it to Adrian for her approval, which Adrian, you approved all of it, correct?

Sure.

All right. So you guys didn't really do it together. All right, fine.

We didn't.

You all know what the instructions said, right? Do it Together. Why do you think you didn't do it together?

Because I'm not a rule follower. I don't know.

That's not a good answer. But there's no point getting into it right now. Just know that half of the value of the csp, for me at least, is in seeing how couples do it together or if they do it separately, as Rob and Adrian did, which actually explains so much back to their numbers. And please remember, she's 59 years old and he is 62.

Assets. 34,000 investments. 1,896,754.

Okay, 1,896,754. All right, next.

Savings. 58,788.

Okay, next. Debt. Zero. Great. Total net worth.

One million or. Yeah. 1,989,542.

Nice. All right, so just under $2 million net worth. What do you think about that?

I think it's good.

Cool. Rob, what do you think?

I think it's great. And I'm hoping It lasts for 30 years.

That's the primary question. Right. Will this money last for the rest of our lives?

Yeah.

And y' all thought if we come on the show, we'll get Ramit Sethi to give us an answer, yes or no, and then once we know, we'll hopefully feel better, right?

Yes.

Okay. Do you still believe that that's the actual question that you need help with?

I think that's one small piece of what we need help with.

If that were the question keeping you up at night. There are plenty of ways to get that question answered. Right. Like, you didn't have to wait to talk to me. What would be some of the other ways to get that question answered?

Rob went onto the Bogle Hat or Bogle Heads of Googleheads.

Yes.

And asked that question, and they said, yeah, should work out.

All right.

So, yeah, I mean, I've read a ton of financial blogs that talk about the. The 4% rule.

Why are you guys not spending money on solving your problems? I'm really confused. Like, this is a money problem. It's a math problem. It's like, let me pay someone to model this out for me. Just tell me the answer and tell me the variables. That's it. Right. This is a classic financial advisor problem. And you almost never hear me saying, like, get a financial advisor. But, like, this is the clearest use of a financial advisor ever.

Because we live in the middle of nowhere and we didn't know how to. Don't have a financial advisor nearby for one That's a bad answer.

That's a.

Because we've got Zoom.

Thank you. You don't even know where I am right now. What else? What is it really? Why are you posting on forums and not getting a financial advisor?

Why? To try to save money? Because I'm scared to spend the money.

Is that it?

I don't know why we haven't done that. We almost did it once. Paid somebody an hourly to take a look at our numbers. This was when we still had the house, probably five, six years ago. We're at a different place now, and it probably would be more beneficial now than back then. I mean, on some level, paying somebody an hourly to take a look at our numbers and project out what we're going to have in retirement and so on. It would be useful on some level now. And I don't know why we haven't done it. I don't have a good answer here.

We have a couple with literally millions of dollars. He's worried about money for the last 57 years, and he's agonized over his business for the last 15. His number one worry is, will we have enough? And yet he has not spent a single dollar trying to answer the question. This is what I mean when I say that the way you feel about money is highly uncorrelated with the amount in your bank. Guys, this is a problem. This is what happens when you read too many fire blogs and go way too deep into the world of frugality. You can't even imagine using your money to make your life better because you've only been taught to play small, to save, to cut back, to do it yourself. This is a problem that could be solved in, like, two weeks. And if you have millions of dollars, the amount you spend to get this answered will. Will literally be replaced by interest within a single month. The point of this podcast is to help you understand how complex our relationship with money can be. And Rob and Adrian are making my case for me. You can have millions of dollars, but if you don't look beneath the surface and ask the tougher questions, like what's all this money for? What stories do I believe? What is our rich life and how can we use our money to start living it? You will forever be stuck back to the conversation now where I press them on why they haven't taken action yet. 15 plus years you've been on this journey. You've accomplished a lot. You have $2 million of net worth, most of it liquid. It's very impressive. You have a question that has been plaguing you. I use that word intentionally. It's not a question that's just been on the back burner. It's a word that has plagued you. You ruminate, you worry, you agonize. It's caused odd fights. This has been almost 20 years, and you have an easy solution. You could knock this out by Friday. You could have had this answered at any point. It would have cost you less than 5,000 bucks, which you make an interest. Why? Why have you not done it?

I don't have a good answer. You want me to. I mean, if is you think my fear is stopping me from looking at this.

I don't know. If you don't know the answer to something, how. How might you find the answer to it? Is there anyone else on this call we might be able to ask?

Search for it on the Internet? Oh, okay. All right, Adrian, you tell me. Why haven't we done this?

Ask her again, but ask her in a way that actually invites her answer. I want you to really lean into this.

Okay, Adrian, why do you think we've avoided seeing a financial advisor who can answer our retirement questions?

I think because we already know the answers. We've been studying it for so long that I feel like we're pretty. That we probably know what they would say. I'd be open to it. I mean, I think it's a good idea, actually. I don't know why we haven't done it either. Actually, really good question. But I think also, too, there's just a level of trust, like around who to trust.

How. How can you talk about trust when you haven't talked to five financial advisors and interviewed them?

Right, exactly.

So you haven't even gotten to the trust part of it yet?

Yeah, I mean, I guess I just watched other financial advisors, I thought, seem like bull. Honestly.

Hey, me too. Me too. They. They gave you some report. They go, ah, that'll be 1.1 Aum, it's like you. Why? I don't need to pay that much for that.

Exactly.

However, I have seen a financial advisor myself. Did you know that? Yeah. Mr. Don't pay AUM. And most people don't need a financial advisor, which I believe I myself have hired a financial advisor. I paid him hourly. He charged a very healthy rate. I was happy to pay it. I said to him, I know this investing stuff. I know this personal finance stuff, but I want a second set of eyes on my asset allocation to make sure I haven't missed something. Here are my key questions. Come back, let me know what you find. And he did find some stuff. He said, overall, great. Couple of things. Consider this, wow, what did I do differently than what you have been doing?

What you did brilliantly is be a student and ask for advice.

Yes. Even a guy who has written a best selling book about money had to be humble enough to realize there are things I don't know. Totally agree. What else?

Rob, he took action.

Yes.

Why haven't we done it? That's the question. Inertia. Fear of what they might say that, you know, if they start recommending things we don't want to do, you know.

Did you avoid going to the doctor?

Not anymore. I used to.

I heard that. Look at, look at Adrian's face. Amazing, amazing, amazing. Stop doing that. I noticed that every time I ask you, you go, well, I used to, but now I'm better. I'm. Stop benchmarking yourself.

I just went to the heart doctor last month. I'm going to General.

He goes, I went to the heart doctor because I had a heart attack. Look how great I am. I went to the heart doctor. Only on this show do we laugh about someone having a heart attack. Rob, you didn't have a heart attack, right?

No, not at all.

Thank God. Because if so, that was going to make me look really, really bad.

That's a bad joke. Yeah, that would have been.

Yeah, that would be bad. Okay, I'm glad you went to the heart doctor. Adrian's face tells me. Adrian, do you want to care to comment?

I mean, it's his choice.

Great answer. That says everything we need to know. The reason I'm getting at this. You know what I'm getting at here? You know, a lot of men in particular, they don't go to see the doctor.

Right.

They're always, like putting off. I thought it was like a funny sitcom joke. And I realized, I started talking to them, I started looking into it. There's a lot of fear. What if the doctor tells me that I actually haven't been doing things right? That actually I'm sick, that actually I've got like 10 cavities.

Whatever.

You know, Rob, you've used the word fear a lot today, which I appreciate you being candid about. It clearly is a major issue. The fear that a financial advisor might tell you you haven't been doing it right all along, that's legit. That's the same as a lot of people saying, I don't want to hear what my doctor has to tell me. That's why I asked a question and why I'm amused at Adrian's response. I'm glad you're going to see the doctor. That's awesome. I also want to point out that the major re. The major difference between what I did and what you did is I took decisive action. That really is my wish for you is you could spend the literally the rest of your life ruminating and worrying. You half joked, Rob, but it wasn't really a joke that you've been worrying about money for 57 years. You don't have 57 more years. I don't want you to have to worry. Money's not something that has to worry you. You have $2 million. And yet for something as simple as spending three to five thousand dollars to get a definitive answer on the one thing that has been plaguing you, neither of you were decisive enough to do it for the last 15 years. If it were me, if I was 59, 62 years old, I would be in a rush to live my rich life. Especially because, as you know, life isn't linear. When it goes bad towards the end, it goes bad fast, and that's it. So I'm in a big rush.

If I'm you, I see the finiteness of life and, you know, liken it to a basketball game. We're in the fourth quarter now.