“We have $4,600 in credit card debt but we spend $600/month on GrubHub”

Well, first of all, I want to thank everyone for watching my Netflix show. It came out a little while ago. It's called how to Get Rich and it instantly hit the top 10 on Netflix, which blows my mind. This podcast also became one of the top five podcasts on all of Apple. So a big thank you to everyone who listens to the podcast, who watches it, and certainly those of you who watched the show. I thought it would be fun to do a little Q and a about the show now that it's all out there and you've had the chance to watch it. So I'm going to be doing a live Q and A on May 11th at 6:30pm Eastern. I'm going to put all the details in the show notes. Here's what I want you to do. First thing is to make sure you watch the show all the way through. Then submit your questions through the link in the show notes and finally come watch live on YouTube. I'll answer as many questions as I can about the show. Thanks again for watching how to Get Rich on Netflix.

We avoid talking about money so often and a lot of the money conversations that we're having are actually done in my head. I just kind of go into panic mode because I don't know exactly what he means. And then I just, I see the tension on his face.

Like I just need to continue to plow forward. I can't get excited because if I get excited and something happens and we're not prepared, it's just going to be that much more rushing.

I would say that we're not speaking the same language and we just don't see money the same way so we can't manage it together.

Jennifer, ask him, before today did you feel like you were in this alone.

Before today and knowing this number, did you feel like you were in this alone?

Yeah, it was hard because it's, if anything ever happened to me or if something happened to me, there would, there was nothing for you guys. And so I would just soldier on, keep moving forward because I didn't want something to happen and then for you guys to have nothing.

Today I'd like you to meet Jennifer and Andrew. Jennifer's 33, Andrew is 37 and they have trouble saving money. She's a doula and he's a police officer. Until recently she was a stay at home mom, but recently she started working and earning more. Now, as you listen to today's episode, I want you to notice certain phrases that they use. Phrases like we can't save money or when it Comes to Andrew, things like soldiering on, really creating the identity of the protector of the family. Someone who just blindly soldiers on. Listen in closely. I think you're going to find today's conversation fascinating. And of course, you can watch this entire episode on YouTube so you can see their body language and eye contact. Let's get to it.

We avoid talking about money so often, and a lot of the money conversations that we're having are actually done in my head. Like me sort of reading the room and reading body language and kind of being like, okay, I said something about this cost, and I saw him react this way, and so I'm just gonna back off and maybe not make that purchase or not talk about it again.

You feel exhausted sometimes talking about money or even thinking about money?

I do. I feel exhausted and I feel nervous for how he's going to react. And I'm trying to avoid discomfort because when we talk about money and then things go uncomfortable and weird, I have a really hard time kind of getting us back to, like, a copacetic, just sort of good place. And our conversations around money often are very tense. We just. It's like we're speaking different languages.

So because your conversations with money have been tense before, you remember that, and you can even see the signs when you bring it up. He gets a little tense. You get tense, therefore, you don't bring it up at all out loud, but you keep it going in your head. Is that correct?

Yeah.

Okay. Do you make forward progress with your joint finances using this strategy?

Not at all. Our general conversations around money are usually me trying to look ahead and look at sort of a big picture of what money is coming in. Andrew likes to look at things sort of in a smaller scale, like paycheck to paycheck. And that's been a big disagreement between us, and it's been Andrew shaking his head too long. Yeah.

How long? How long has it been a pattern for?

Couple months. Our entire marriage.

Oh, 11 years.

Our entire relationship.

My credit card. How much we can pay on my credit card or when it gets paid off is a big one. So me being like, I need to pay more on my credit card, and she. She'll be like, yeah, we'll pay more, but we can't do that now. I disagree because sometimes there are times we have the money and it's extra money, or I feel like it's extra money, but it's going to food or to maybe a Target purchase or something the kids need. And sometimes I feel like, for me, what I think is an Emergency, we need to just get this down. Doesn't become that until we've passed that point.

Okay, and Jennifer, when Andrew says, hey, we need to pay more towards this credit card, what's your reaction?

My reaction is to kind of go into sort of like a. Like a fear mode of just like, well, hold on, wait. What other big bills do we have coming up? What does he mean by that? How much more toward his credit card? What's the plan? We realizing now how vague we kind of are about these conversations and why?

What do you mean? Tell me what you just realized.

Well, as he's saying that, I'm like, oh, yeah, that makes sense to me. I don't know. The way he's saying it to you is making sense to me now.

Oh, no, I've become the guy. You know, what happens in couples, you know, they've been together a long time and someone's been saying the same thing for like, 10 years. And then Mr. Jackass Ramit Sethi rolls in. We've been talking less than 10 minutes, right? And I haven't said a word. I haven't said one single directive thing. And suddenly Jennifer's like, oh, I totally see what he's been saying. Andrew's like, mother fuck, this guy. Ramit, I've been saying this for a decade. Did I get that right?

Kind of. I think that the issue is that we don't often have an actual plan together. That we come together and say, I want to pay more on my credit card because this is the payoff plan and we need to pay this much per month, blah, blah, blah.

You never said that. You never had that conversation. Well, 11 years isn't that long. Maybe another 11 years, you guys can pull out a debt payment plan. Why do you think you haven't had a conversation like that before?

I think that we have. You know, coming into these conversations, Andrew would bring it up to me and say, you know, I want to do this much on my credit card, blah, blah, blah. And I just kind of go into panic mode because I don't know exactly what he means. And then I just. I see the tension on his face. I see the, like, his discomfort with the amount that's on his credit card. And then I kind of put it on myself as like, oh, shoot, maybe I messed up here. I need to fix this. We need to talk about it. And then we kind of just get into this weird cycle of, like, energy. It's almost like cats just, like, circling each other.

Like, yeah, 11 years is too long to not talk. About money in a healthy way. I'm willing to bet the substance of your money conversations is a lot of walking on eggshells, a lot of feeling each other's emotions, and less, hey, what is our goal for this conversation and how can we make it constructive? Jennifer and Andrew don't really know what the problem is when they talk about it. They lapse into very vague language, like, it's all about the communication. But when I press them, it's clear they don't really understand what's going on here, and that's actually okay. Most of us don't understand the root problem. That's often why we need somebody from the outside to come in and help us see what's really going on. What's interesting to me is that our minds create these compelling narratives that we then latch onto. We may tell ourselves, he always spends too much. She doesn't want to talk about finances. But when we dig deeper, those are often not reality. In other words, our mind is very good at creating narratives, but our mind doesn't always tell us the truth. One big clue is that their conversations often go in circles and they end up in the weeds. For example, they spent two hours doing the conscious spending plan, which really should take no longer than 30 minutes. I want to keep probing with them to see if they can realize what's really going on, because it's much more powerful if they. They get it instead of me coming and telling them what's going on.

I would say that we're not speaking the same language, and we just don't see money the same way, so we can't manage it together.

I am very analytical when it comes to money, and she is very. She sees it differently. It's more fluid, it's loose. She can look at money a month out, and I'm stuck looking at money like, this is this paycheck. This paycheck goes to this paycheck. My money constraint is very tight.

I think that's where some of the tension comes in, because when we're talking about money, it's like we're talking about it in different ways. He's looking at exactly what has come into his account that day from his paycheck. And I'm thinking, and I have a client that's going to pay me next week, and I know that for next month, I'm going projected to make this much, and I could make more. And that means we could actually take, you know, maybe we don't have to, like, pay this specific bill right now and, like, drain Our cause we can actually pay this bill in this chunk in this way, and we have this much for groceries. We don't have to worry. We're okay.

Are you seeing Andrew's face right now?

I was looking at you, so I wasn't.

Andrew, can you just. I mean, what's going through your mind right now? I see your face.

Oh, it's. It's the late fees. It's the higher interest rate. It's. We're going to end up spending more money because we didn't pay it off when it was due. It's the fact that, like, our credit's going to take a hit, so.

Which means what if your credit takes a hit?

It means we can't get a better credit card. We can't move. Like, if we need to. If we need to make a big purchase, we can't do that because our credit's shot. Like, our credit is already not good.

Okay. Andrew, did you grow up poor?

Upper middle class?

Upper middle class?

More than that.

What's that? I always love the partner.

Oh, I just. I mean, your mom had money.

Oh, okay, so you grew up wealthy, but you're saying upper middle class, is that right?

My mom made probably $120,000 a year.

In what year?

The 90s, early 2000s.

Okay, and in what city?

The Bay Area.

Okay, that's. I. I have to look at the exact terms, but okay, upper middle class to wealthy. Fine. And Jennifer, is there any other reason you kind of smiled? Do they own a yacht or something that we should know about?

Well, I mean, they just. They definitely had money. I mean, he never even had to take out a student loan to go to school like his. But I also understand too, there's some nuance there. She didn't always manage her money well. But they had money. They definitely had things.

We didn't talk about money. It was a lot of my mom waiting to pay bills until she got paid.

Why?

Making 120k, spending money on other things. It wasn't food. It was like there were a couple times where the power went out or.

Okay, hold on. Did she grow up poor? No, she also grew up. Something is missing from this puzzle. Okay. She grew up with money.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Now I gotta figure this out. So she grew up. She got a nice job, made 120k, which is great. And how come the power went out and she was trading stuff for food? Why?

She mismanaged money. So both me and her grew up in environments where we. We did not want. So if she needed something or we needed something without thinking about it. She would just pay for it. Or, like, her favorite place. She would travel a lot. So she's paying for big trips, not looking at accounts or like, oh, there's a new car. I'm going to buy that new car right now.

She spoiled. Was she the only kid or was she, like, spoiled?

She was very spoiled.

Ah, okay. Got it. So she was spoiled. So money was given to her, etc. How long was money given to her? Like, while she was making 120k, was her family still giving her money?

Yes.

Okay, starting to make more sense now. So they covered things arbitrarily, randomly. Got it. Was that the same for you?

Yes.

Do they still. Do you still get money from your family?

No.

No. That's. Why did it stop.

Because I married Jennifer.

Ah. And hold on.

Was that.

Did it stop because you said, okay, I'd like you to stop, or did they say, all right, we're done?

They said, all right, we're done. And me and Jennifer worked hard to get to a point where we didn't have to take money anymore.

Congratulations. That's awesome. That's really cool.

I remind him all the time how proud I am of us. I think we've come a really long way. We're talking about how vague and stuff we are now and the problems we've had, but we've come a really, really long way.

That's cool.

Andrew, what about you? How do you feel about that?

I don't think I've ever taken a moment to celebrate it.

But the fact is, you have created your own family unit. That takes autonomy, takes intention. I think that's really cool.

Thank you.

So many of us go through life never stopping and celebrating how far we've come. For most of us, money is just one series of transactional decisions after another. Pay that bill, repair the car, pick up Saran Wrap at Target. Should we buy a house? And it's no surprise that if we agonize over the price of Saran Wrap at Target, that we are probably stuck in the weeds and we are not zooming out and looking at the. The big picture. But the big picture is where you get the big wins. And it's not just life that does this to us. We do it. We actively choose to talk about tiny little expenses that are overall meaningless because it gives us a sense of comfort. It gives us a sense of control. And one of my entire goals with everything I do is to help you see that these $3 questions are ultimately meaningless. You could spend the rest of your life chasing $3 questions, and it will get you nowhere. Or you can totally reconceptualize the way you think about Money and ask $30,000 questions and start focusing on things that really matter. And there's one other thing when it comes to talking about the big picture versus $3 expenses. If you focus on $3 expenses, I can almost always guarantee you feel bad about money. And if you feel bad about money, how are you ever going to step back and appreciate it? So there are lots of ways to feel good about money. Part of it is understanding your numbers. You've got to know your numbers, your fixed expenses, all that. But you've also got to talk about money regularly, proactively, and positively. If you can do those two things at the same time, you are on very good track to having a healthy relationship with money. What'd you make at your first job?

$2,000 a month.

What? Really?

You made a thousand a month? Because our rent was 800 and I had 200 to try to pay for groceries and diapers and stuff.

Oh, even less than that. So $1,000 a month.

We started off our relationship essentially in survival mode. Neither of us was really making any money. I was living in a Buddhist monastery as a live in chef. So I was basically just working to live there. And he was a student. And his, you know, blessedly, his mother was able to pay for him to just go to college, so that was great. But his whole job was to be a student, so we were not making any money.

So that's how you started off your relationship. Were you married at the time?

No, we. We were engaged. So we had a baby.

Okay.

Really early in our relationship, A little premature baby at home. And he right away went and got that job and got. We had to get on food stamps and I had $200 to try to figure out gas, diapers, food, and we'd take that other 800, put it to rent. And we did that for a little while until he finally got a raise, which I think then got to about maybe that 2,000 you're thinking of?

Yeah.

Hold on. I have so many questions so I have to ask. You're on food stamps now. Did you think of going back to your family and asking for some sort of financial help?

They helped every now and then.

Yeah. My family, it was kind of normal for them.

Hold on, hold on. I want to hear from Andrew. So, Andrew, what do you mean now.

And then they would still, like, if things got really bad, I can call and be like, hey, we need Some help. And they would be like, okay, here's a little bit of money to get you through.

What does really bad mean and how much would they give you?

Really bad is we are short 600. So they give us 600. Or like, yeah, we have a bill we can't cover. So here's your bill. Money.

Okay. Who, who were you calling with?

My mom.

You were calling your mom. And what is her financial situation now?

She is in debt.

Wow. And did that come about from pure mismanagement?

Mismanagement. And she got sick, so. So she had to deal with all of that.

How is she now, health wise?

She passed recently, so not too, I guess she's doing a lot better.

That's, that's one way to look at it.

She's doing a lot better now.

I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah. Okay. When she passed, in terms of your own finances, did it affect your finances at all? Was there an inheritance or anything like that?

As it stands right now, she still owes money. So we are trying to figure out how we're going to cover that cost.

Jennifer, I want to go back to you now rewinding back to those early moments where you just had a baby and sometimes you couldn't cover your costs. You said that was normal for my family. What do you mean by that?

Well, I was thinking about your question. Like, did you go to ask for help from your family? For my family, like if I were to tell them, like, oh my God, we're really struggling, can't afford diapers, they probably would have been like a ha, like cute. That's how we do it. That's what life is. Blue collar family. It was just like, oh, this is how it is. This is how it is to have a baby. This is how it is to have life. I don't have much to give you.