“We spend 113% of what we make—but we can’t find a fix”

If you're in the New York Tri State area, please listen up. I'm looking to coach more couples live in person on this podcast. If you and your partner want to be personally coached about a money disagreement that you have, I'd love to work with you whether you can't get on the same page with your spending. One of you has tons of debt. Maybe you're about to have a huge life change like a baby, a promotion, a career change and you are stuck on how to handle the financial side of it. And you live in the New York Tri state area. I want to hear from you. Please apply at iwt.com/apply. That's iwt.com/apply last week.

We are stuck. We stop dreaming.

Most days I'm just trying to survive.

Really is death by a thousand paper cuts.

I think big changes need to be made. I'm a little afraid to make them.

In part two of my conversation. What would be the word to describe this situation of your household?

Chaos. Chaos is too much stuff.

We have way too much stuff.

They have three young kids which command most of their spending.

This one is water, shoes, baby wipes.

Snacks for the kids, vitamins.

We took them to a little kiddie show.

We got some donuts, Dunkin Donuts, gymnastics.

Swimming lessons, all the extracurriculars.

It's obvious they need to make changes, but they are resisting. Couples like you do not spend $985 a month at Amazon, plus $563 a month at Target, plus $1,000 on groceries, plus 955 on kids activities, plus 648 miscellaneous. It doesn't happen. You'll notice that I'm dragging them along this process.

I don't see it as realistic.

You don't think chopping $200 off target is possible?

Regret is the word that comes to mind.

Deprivation is what it feels like each.

Step of the way. They are resisting me trying to negotiate. They're totally indecisive.

It feels like none of the small changes are going to make a big enough overall change. Feels like wasted effort.

I think any progress is better than no progress.

What would it look like 10 out of 10 for the two of you? If you had a healthy relationship with money and it was embedded in the fabric of your family, what would that look and feel like?

I have trouble seeing seeing that future, but I guess it would be, you know, I'm at a point, let's say with money, where I enjoy coming home and just experiencing life. I guess you could say instead of the kind of Coming home and surviving?

I'm not sure I could answer that. I don't know what that looks like.

Never seen it.

I've never seen it. I've never envisioned it. I've never seen it.

You've seen couples on this podcast, right?

I've seen that. I actually love the ones where you like the after story, you know, like the ones who are sitting on several million and just can't figure out yet how to spend it. Like, man, that's a problem I want to have. When we were dual income, I made sure that we maxed out when we could. We were doing very well.

How old were your kids then?

They didn't exist yet.

Oh, wow. I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

Oh, it has everything to do with it.

Dual income, no kids already is like an amazing advantageous opportunity for young people to be able to save a ton of money. It is the best time in terms of income versus expenses that you will ever have. Couples who plan to have children, many times they have not yet built the skill of creating a unified financial system. Okay? And they don't actually need to. They're just like, oh, life is pretty simple. Let's go out to pizza, we have so much money, it doesn't really matter, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, it's fine. The problem is kids come in and the minute they come in, they disrupt everything in every possible way. Now you're tired, stressed. Your system is being constantly stressed with all kinds of expenses you never planned for and you never built A unified rich life system. Something where you both know when there's a shared vision, then you don't have to be the cop and you don't have to be checking on your phone how much your partner spent because your partner knows they have the same vision because they co created it. Now here's what I want you to do. I want you to to talk with each other. I want you to zoom out of your day to day that you're in. And I want you two to create a vision for your children, for their activities, for how you want them to feel.

I would love for them to have free days. They. They need to have some free days, for sure. I would love for them to look forward to the activity that they do have. I want them to have skin in the game and ask for the one that they want and enjoy it.

I definitely would like to have them responsible for helping to get this place back on track, cleaner, more organized. I want them to have a say in the activities that they do choose.

I Would love for them to have a place to put their stuff.

I want them to be happy too. When they're. When they're here, I want them to take pride in their home. I want us to take pride in our home. I know it's not ideal, but.

It'S.

Our home for now.

And what would be the word you would use to describe the situation of your household? The physical situation?

Yes.

Is that how you want to feel at home?

No.

No, we don't want to feel like that. Wow, That's a powerful vision. What if, by, let's say, 7pm the house could be relatively clean? As clean as it can get with three kids. But clean clean, so you could walk around. You won't step on a Lego. Clean enough that you and your children would take pride in your living environment. What do you think?

That'd be awesome.

I would say if ever there was a dream, that's the current dream.

Okay. Beautiful. I love a relevant dream that we can work on now. Do you see a connection between all the stuff you buy for your kids and the chaos that is in your house?

Yes.

What's the connection? Can you just say it out loud for me?

There's too much stuff.

We have way too much stuff.

If you're enjoying these videos and you want to be the first to know when we drop a new one, make sure you hit that subscribe button right now. Do you both agree or you just saying that because you think I want to hear it?

Oh, no. We say it to each other on a daily basis.

We say it all the time.

Hold on. How do you both say it all the time and then you keep buying all this stuff on Amazon and Target?

Great question. I don't have an answer for you.

A lot of this. I mean, I really don't feel like I'm being delusional either. I don't feel like the stuff that I'm buying from Target and Amazon is. It's mostly consumables on my end.

It's almost like we see chaos on the CSP. Chaos in the house.

100%. That is absolutely accurate.

Deep relationship, deep connection. And I still notice that when I ask you both about it, you do give me some honest answers. But there's a lot of explanation. Those excuses are like quicksand. They will keep you stuck down in the weeds until you both decide. I am sick of my CSP being at 113 fixed cost. I'm sick of coming home and it looks like this and feels like this. I'm sick of feeling this way. And once you finally get there, which a lot of people it takes, in 20, 30, 40 years, maybe you will decide to make a serious set of changes. I'd like to help you get there now instead of 25 years from now. What do you think?

Yes, please.

All right, let's take a look. Savings are at 1%. So you're basically saving nothing and everything else. Your guilt free spending is negative 28%, which just shows again that you are deeply, deeply in the red. I mean, look, you actually listed it out, which is more than most do. Takeout is 500amonth.

Yeah, well, that includes not ex. I'm not excusing it. I'm telling you. What we threw in there was like not just Pizza Friday, but like anything that showed up as like a coffee, you know, like Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, which is not often, but it's there.

It's often enough to be $500 in a month.

Yeah, that's a lot.

$500 a month on takeout just doesn't make sense for a couple in your situation. That's it. Bottom Line stores, $186. Entertainment, that's $264. That's on top of $178 of subscriptions. You're losing thousands of dollars every month. What decisions that one or both of you make with your spending do you think has led to you being in this situation?

Probably buying stuff for the kids.

When he sees you come home with the. The new bike or the new beads or the new craft stuff. What. What is your kid's reaction?

He loves it.

He loves you. Don't you think he would love you if you still didn't buy him all this stuff?

Yeah.

Michelle, what do you think?

I think he feels like a hero. Daddy's the best. Thanks, Daddy. Love you. I think that's just how he's showing love. I think that's part of how he takes care of them in his eyes.

Is that how you show love, Brian? Seems to me it's true.

Probably, yeah.

Now, what if I said you can't spend a cent on your kids for the next year?

That'd be horrible. I wouldn't want that, you know?

Yes.

Because I want to give them. I want them to have the enjoyment and the activities that they enjoy doing that they want to do.

It really is death by a thousand paper cuts.

You don't stop a thousand paper cuts with a thousand band aids. You stop the knife at the source. By the way, how do you decide how much you spend on each kid for gifts we don't.

We don't. We don't.

Yes.

We just.

We just buy some stuff and try to even it out.

It never feels over the top. It really. It really doesn't.

You don't need a sunshade. You don't need a kid's bike. You don't need flip flops for the Ocean or even $3 beads. Now can you have them? Could you get them because you want them? Maybe. Maybe we could find out what you can afford. But until you really get honest about the difference between needs and wants, we are stuck here.

I would like to be able to exist outside of being mommy and daddy because I think we've gotten to the point where we've completely lost sight of the marriage and like, putting any sort of. Any fuel into that, and that fuel being money. I mean, if money existed for childcare, you know, we'd still be. We'd be able to enjoy some time without them, even if it. The childcare meant that we couldn't afford the restaurant. We'd sit in the car, hang out with the coffee we brought from home. That's fine. I would take. Would have a nice. A nice chat around the corner in the parking lot.

The money that you want to redo your family structure with finances has to come from the money that's going towards your kids. You know, last week, Michelle and Ryan were absolutely mystified where their money was going. But now we can see that a lot of it is going towards their kids. And did you notice their money psychology? They're both the hero of and they buy their kids something. When I asked what would happen if Ryan couldn't buy anything for his kids for a year, he said it would be horrible. And their lives are overflowing with stuff. It's all over their house. It's all over their csp. They call it chaos, and they can't seem to figure out how to stop it because they don't even truly realize what it's costing them. Hold that thought. We'll be right back. Now back to the show. Interestingly, almost every couple I speak to in credit card debt has. Has a problem saying no to their children. I'm going to try to get them to see exactly what this is costing them and what needs to change. You have to fundamentally cut. And I don't just mean cut with a little kitchen knife. I mean cut with whatever's a big knife. The knife that I don't even know the name of.

Machete.

Machete.

Yeah.

The real answer is that if you want to Restructure the way your family exists in a relationship with money and with each other. And you actually said you want less stuff, less activities, less. Guess what, it's a double win. You get less stuff and you actually have to pay less. But you guys have to change the way you see it. What's the first feeling that comes to mind when I say that?

Feel bad.

Feel bad. Exactly, Ryan.

Regret is the word that comes to mind, but I don't know if that's the right emotion for it.

Deprivation is what it feels like. I mean, me, I. It's funny for me to say that because, look, I didn't do any of that. I don't know, it feels. It feels wrong to take it away from them.

Until you both create a new vision, you will not really be able to move forward. For me, I look at it totally differently. I'm like, you're adding something, you're adding tons. Let me tell you what you're adding to them. If you were to pull them out of, I don't know, a bunch of this stuff, you are adding free time into their schedule. You are adding the ability for them to select out of two or three curated options that you have pre selected. I also see if you were to unify together and you were to say, hey, this is the kind of life we both want to live. We want to have healthy cash flow every month, we want to have a healthy savings account, we don't want to feel stressed anymore, we want to have a babysitter every so often, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So you two get unified. Then you go to the family and you say, look, we're going to make some changes in this family. Luckily, they're young. If they were 15 years old, you'd have a whole different problem on your hands. Okay, that's really hard at 7, 5, and 3. This is quite easy. If you two can get aligned and you say, look, we're going to have some changes. We need your help. You make it exciting. I need you to help empty the dishwasher, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, they start taking ownership. So you're giving them that. You're giving them responsibility, you're giving them pride. Meanwhile, mom and dad get time to be together, be unified, be happy, even just hold hands and go for a walk for 10 minutes, come back, feel rejuvenated, feel connected. Kids see the mom and dad smiling. Oh, it's so beautiful. So that is what I see. I don't see you taking away swim lessons. I See you giving them all of those things. What do you think?

I like that. I like. I like that. Like the involvement. I like the working togetherness. I like the partnership of it. Less of the. Less of the division.

And I think that's. I explained it away a lot as it's just temporary. But like the problem with it's just temporary is that at what point does it become permanent.

Correct.

And then you can't undo.

I'm gonna put the CSP up on screen. You told me you want them to have skin in the game. Free time, responsibility for getting the place on track, have a say in the activities, a place for things, take pride and on and on. And you've lost sight of the marriage. You have an opportunity to change where you spend your money, which affects where you spend your time, your love, your attention. Are you guys ready to take a look at the CSP and make some changes?

Yeah. We've got to basically cut everything in half. Ballpark, rent, utilities, insurance.

I've already optimized those.

Yeah, those. Those really aren't going anywhere. We have no debt. If we were to drop, let's say 200 from target, I'm not sure though.

That any of that is going to make a significant. Like if you zero out kid activities.

That'S where you see it goes from 113% to 101%.

Yeah, it's significant.

What did that tell you just now?

That's extremely impactful. You know, until. Until this, I really didn't notice.

I think we can drastically cut takeout. Scroll down.

I'll tell you what, let's stick with fixed costs for a second. I need you to get these numbers lower. Michelle, where are you? You seem a little down.

Yes. The day to day is chaos. But if I zoom out from that for a few minutes, you know, do I even need to continue the investments?

Okay, let me stop you right there. I understand that you probably have overwhelmed, but you're. You're overwhelming yourself.

Yes.

I want you to listen to me because I'm going to walk you through this step by step. Yes, it's probably true that you're over investing. Okay. And we can run those calculations and I can help you figure that out, but you need to attack the fire that is burning in your house right now before you go out to the back and prune the rose bushes. Okay. The fire that is burning is that you just cut off 100% of kid activities, which we all know is not going to happen. And you're still at 101% of fixed costs. We need to take it one step at a time.

What if we tried just dropping 200 from Target, 200 from Amazon could probably go more 200 from groceries.

I'll do it if you both agree.

Oh, yeah, I would. I'd agree in seeing it. Sure.

And that took your fixed cost number from 101% to 94%.

We could probably realistically trim more from Amazon.

Do you realistically think that Amazon could drop more than that?

Look at this. Couples like you who have an income like you do not spend $985 a month at Amazon, plus $563 a month at Target, plus $1,000 30 on groceries, plus 9.55on kids activities, plus 648 miscellaneous.

It doesn't happen the miscellaneous without looking at the detailed things. I mean, we could probably chop miscellaneous probably in. In half.

Okay, you want to do that? Your miscellaneous is $650?

Yes, if we drop to 325.

All right, 325 it is. Feel okay with that, Michelle?

No, because it doesn't. It's not impactful.

So shouldn't we at least. Well, hold on. Shouldn't we at least see, I mean, what do you want to do that is impactful? If you don't want to change 300 bucks a month off of this, what do you want to do? I'm willing to entertain anything I want to say.

It's an income problem. I don't want you to yell at me.

I mean, look at your income. Like, maybe it is an income problem, but the fact is you have one income right now and you have three young kids. So unless you're planning to go get a second income tomorrow, we got to work with what we got, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, you guys are back up to 105% because I added your kids activities back in.

Yeah, we were going back and forth. Should the kid activities be in fixed costs or should it be in guilt free spending? And then we ultimately were like, it doesn't matter because if something had to go, if tomorrow your income was gone.

It would be gone its activities. Okay, so technically, technically they should be in guilt free spending. Would you like to move them down there?

I mean, it's not going to, you know, whether it's 113% in fixed costs or you take that 10% and throw it down, it still exists.

Trying to think, how can we drop another 10% to get this down to 80 without touching rent, Morgan, utilities, insurance.

So like, just to show you what I'm thinking when he says that. Right. So he says, like, to drop it now to get it to 80, but then I'm thinking, but it's still 80.

So at least get to 80. Then we'll deal with it then.

Okay. All right.

What's up with this, you guys?

I know, I know.

I feel like you guys are playing small, and it's just. Honestly, it's wasting your own time. This is what happens when you let your spending get out of control. It becomes incredibly difficult to downsize because the human mind convinces you that everything you have accumulated is absolutely necessary. I mean, did you hear how glum both of them sounded? That's normal human nature. When you take something away from someone, you can see it when you take a little toy away from a baby, and you can see it when you talk about cutting just $200 per month from their target bill. Now, the best scenario is to never get into this situation in the first place. But if you are, come up with a new vision and cut mercilessly, do not prolong the pain. The next conversation with Michelle I find absolutely fascinating. Notice her psychological resistance to making changes. Okay, so, Michelle, I guess I need you to be constructive here because you're telling me all the reasons that this won't work, but you are winning, but you're ultimately losing. You're winning at us doing nothing, but you are losing at the ultimate battle here.

I'm. I'm really staring at the entire column, at that whole column of numbers and fixed costs. Like what. What can drop, aside from the kid activities?

Can I give you some feedback?

Yes, please.

You are thinking, first of all, you are thinking nothing will work. Okay? And that is the entire energy that you're communicating right now.

This is where the stress lies. It like, it feels like, no, none of the small changes are going to make a big enough overall change. And yet it's a bunch of small things that have added up to make it this bad to begin with.

Michelle, you have a lot of all or nothing thinking, right? Yes.

I don't. I don't see it actually getting to 60. Um, so it feels like wasted effort.

Like if I can't do it perfectly, I might as well not do it at all.

You know, it wasn't. It wasn't like this until the income dropped. So in my mind, because it's temporary, it's kind of the goal is to slow the burn until I can make money again.

Okay, well, slowing the burn, you could slow the burn at 63% or even 70%. You can't slow the burn at 90 or 100%. So you may have that belief, but 90% is not sustainable at all. And it puts you at immense risk because if Ryan loses his job, you two are done. I don't know. I see it as an opportunity here. It's like, okay, like, we can do this. We can get on our feet. We don't have any debt. We have reasonable price housing. For now, let's figure out how to really dig deep and build a healthy family culture without spending a lot of money. We could do it. And if we could do that, then when we start to earn more money, oh, my God, we are going to be in a phenomenal place. I don't know. That's how I think about it. I see it as a challenge. I see it as an opportunity. What do you think? You don't feel it? It's okay if you don't tell me the truth. You don't have to tell it. Just what I think. I want to hear what you think.

I don't know. I think because I haven't. I haven't felt. It hasn't felt catastrophic.

Now that's honest.

So I don't see a need to. To put out a fire. I don't.

I don't see that's honest.

Well, I don't feel the heat from it. I see it, but I don't feel the heat from it yet.

It's interesting that you were the one who approached me and you told me you worried constantly about money. You're always feeling bad. You know, you have these physical feelings about money, and yet when we are here actually making changes, you're the one who seems to be the most resistant.

I don't feel resistant to it.

You don't think you're being resistant to the process of cutting your spending?

No, I'm. It's. I don't see it as realistic. I would have to see it in practice during actual months. You know, is this actually doable? You know, it's very easy to say, let's chop 200 off target. I have to see in practice if it's actually possible.

You don't think chopping $200 off target is possible? Oh, $200 off. $763 a month for a family of five, not ten. Five.

No. I know these feel like such small changes. They feel so small. I think that's my biggest. I see the kid activities as being impactful. It's very hard for me to see like a couple of hundred here and there being impactful, which is why I'm kind of quiet and Watching because if.

I don't get to 60, then I'm a failure.

Right.

I'd rather not try and keep it at 113 because at least I can spend everything I want on the kids and I don't feel restricted and they could be happy and I can have some flexibility versus like 60 where I would have to crunch and give up everything and we still wouldn't hit it. Is that right?

Yeah, I think any progress is better than no progress. So. Although I think 60 would just be really, really, really hard. We can get it to 75. Way better than 113. Way better. Even if we get it to 80, that's way better than 113.

Ask her if she believes you.

Do you believe me? Do you believe me that if we can get it to 80, do you think 80 is doable?

I don't know.

Now back to Michelle and Ryan. Let's recalibrate. We're trying to create a new culture for our family around money. In order to do that, we have to make some difficult decisions. It's going to feel uncomfortable to us. We still probably need to make those decisions. Let's try. Here we are on fixed costs. What would you like to tackle next?

What if we move the kid activities to guilt free spending?

All right, so your kids activities are gone from your fixed costs. You're now at 90%.

Just more negative.

Well, again, this is good. We're, we'll deal with one problem at a time. Right now we're dealing with the fire. So you're at 90%. Go ahead. What do you want to change next?

Let's try to cut Amazon in half.

Right.

That was, what was the original 1185. So what if we drop that? Let's cut that down to 600.

Okay, done. You're at 85%. Now can I tell. Can I give you a couple hints?

Yeah.

Couples who are at 85% of fixed costs do not have $325 in miscellaneous expenses ever.

All right, so let's take that to 50.

You're at miscellaneous. 50 bucks. You're now at 81% fixed cost. Now I go back and I look at the groceries. 10, $30. Who buys the groceries?

Mostly me.

So Michelle, when you go to shop for groceries, you don't have an amount that you're targeting to spend, right?

No, always a list of what I'm getting and I stick to that. But never an amount.

What if you had an amount?

Lived it.

Maybe it's time to live it again.

Yeah.

Do you see what the resistance to this really is. I lived that lifestyle. I don't want to go back there because it feels bad because, you know, as you told me, you didn't have a good experience with family, that your. Your parents let you down, et cetera. So you want to do anything to avoid that. But the truth is, the very place you need to go to get your money under control is to set constraints for yourself.

Sucks, but true.

As we got to walk through the fire. That's what this is. So since you are the primary shopper for the family, I need you to tell me what number could you realistically go and get groceries for the family on? I want you to be really thoughtful with your answer.

A thousand is my go to. That's. That's really where, like, true. For being honest and realistic. Okay, a thousand is where I go to.

Okay, great. A thousand it is. But let's now talk about Target. Can't double up. Can't have 1500 bucks a month on groceries.

I'm just looking at some of the other. The other Target things, so. Snacks for the kids. So I'm looking at pretzels. Pretzels. Granola bars. More pretzels. They like pretzels. We could definitely cut some of that stuff out. They don't need one, two, three bags of pretzels bought on July 26th. Right.

Just out of curiosity, like, when was the last time you said to the kids, like, we don't. We're done with pretzels for the week. We're not getting any more. This is how much you have?

Never. Never.

Never.

We're out. All right, let me. Let me put more on the thing. Never. We've never. I've never said that.

Why is that?

Because we were out of snacks for. We're out of snacks. Part of it, and to be honest is, again, I shift back to survival, a little bit of mental sanity when they're screaming, I'm hungry, I want a snack. I'm hungry, I want a snack. But this, a lot of this, I'm going to call it junk food as a whole.

Ryan, look at me.

Can be cut.

You're spinning right now. Just a lot of this. I don't think you guys are truly hearing what I'm saying. What's the lesson right now? What are you hearing? You've never told your kids what. Out of pretzels for the week? Not once they're seven years old. What's the lesson?

They don't know how to go without.

Yes. And you don't know how to say no. Where do you think this goes 10 years from now?

Goes like this?

They're 17 years old. They're not just throwing a tantrum. They're now entitled, spoiled. And where do you think it goes when they're, let's say, 27 or 35. What do you think happens to them when it. As it relates to money?

They're grasshoppers.

Yeah. They're. They're financial disasters because that's the way they were brought up.

That's right. And it started with a bag of pretzels.

And it's not like they don't go without other snacks.

It's not like freaking chocolate chips, Greek yogurt. Like, what? That's nice. That's good.

No, it's the ch. Right? It's the. It's the pretzels. It's. They have other stuff.

It's. Yeah, it's that you don't say no.

No.

And more importantly, it's that the two of you aren't actually communicating about where you want your money to go. It's just going everywhere. It's not even about the csp. We can. We still need to finish this. But it's about the two of you deciding what are our boundaries, what is part of our rich life and what is not. Do you see how the CSP is not really the issue? The real issues are much, much deeper. Michelle feels like she has no real agency over her life. They both have an inability to say no. In fact, they've never told their kids no more snacks, and they have no real vision of money. It's just there to get spent. And with kids, you will spend every last cent you bring in unless you have a powerful, compelling vision.

I don't know. I feel like. Because the. The income now is way more significant than the income was when I was a kid, and yet I still have to be sort of the same way. I feel like back then, though, it wasn't that it was intentional. There was no choice. Just that's how it was, you know? And now. Now that has to be intentional. That's a very hard shift.

When you were a kid, Amazon did not exist. I can guarantee your parents were not spending $3,000 a month on random groceries.

No.

No way. But when I now ask you, you're like, oh, we absolutely need it. Like, we need these freaking chocolate chips. They are the backbone of our family, and they're not. And what I'm trying to get you to see is they're not. They're actually causing more trouble than you realize. Take all the Pretzels, you would have spent and you two could have gone on a nice date night. That's what I mean when I say rich life versus not rich life. Spend extravagantly on things you love, but cut costs mercilessly on the things you don't. Okay, so can we continue on target at $563 a month? There's no way. What do you want to do?

Can we drop it to half? 380?

Yeah.

You want to? Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, 380. All right. We're down to 79%. Guys. We're in the sevens. Good.

Better.

Good. Yeah. I'm skipping down to guilt free spending. Let's do kids activities. What do you want to do about. This is the hard one, right?

Yeah. I've said this before. Like, if we had. If we were forced to.

All I need is a number.

So it's one or the other. So you figure like 4,50 if they. If they drop to one activity.

Okay, so from $960 to $450.

Figure 450.

All right. Stores says $186. Huh.

That was like. What was that, like, random?

Yeah, that was like the random were.

Accounting for the stuff that didn't qualify in the other categories. So we gave it its own.

How do I say this? If you're trying to make massive financial progress, there is no more of that. It can't happen. But of course it's your money. You're going to do what you're going to do. But if it were me, I would never do it.

I think we could definitely drop that probably to at least, you know, a hundred.

You'll notice that I'm dragging them along this process. And at each step of the way, they are resisting me. They're trying to negotiate with me, and they're totally indecisive. And that is a big sign that they're not actually going to do this. Frankly, it's starting to get a little frustrating. Ryan and Michelle cannot afford novelty shopping. And families in this situation do not have hundreds of dollars they randomly spend on miscellaneous items. I know because I grew up in a family with immigrant parents and one income. It's time to get much more serious about their spending changes. Neither of you want to close doors. Have you noticed that?

Yeah, yeah.

There's all this, like, cajoling and negotiating. Well, we could take this away, but what about that? And like, guys, you're not in that position. And actually, that very attitude is what had led you to having all this chaos in the house. Definitive answers are just like, yes, or no black or white. Not like maybe not like, oh, we can figure it out. It's like, no, mom and I have decided that's not what we're doing. Or dad and I have decided that's not what we're doing. That's it. But you two have to be aligned with it in your own head and then with each other. And that's what you guys told me you wanted. You wanted simplicity and clarity. So that's what I'm trying to help you get.

Let's chop that to zero.

Great. Love hearing that. Thank you. Take that to zero. Beautiful entertainment at 264. What's this? I thought you all, you had some subscriptions.

That's again, it averages for the year. So that's probably like little day trips that we've done.

Oh, that's right.

Out of town. Take kids to a theme park here.

Okay, so what do you guys think of that now, knowing what we spent the last four hours talking about?

We can't do theme parks. Fortunately, there's no money.

Take it out.

Whoa. Okay, let's take it out. Let's see what happens. I like that. I feel bad, but yeah, well, I feel good. So if we're going to go with one of our feelings, let's go with 9. 0. Okay. Take out is at $490 a month. Somebody please change this number for me.

So what if we cut it to pizza once a month?

Okay.

And It's. And it's $30 for. For takeout.

That is reasonable. That is what I would expect for a couple who goes, we are in a rebuilding phase. Like, we need to chop it all down. We need to get healthy financial habits.

Plus, we're cutting out the McDonald's drive thru stuff.

I love this. Ryan, you are the man. I love this.

It wasn't just the pizza that was in there. But that means you realize that's cutting. Like that's none of the. No coffee runs on your break. That's no, because that was all takeout. Everything labeled with a Dunkin or a Starbucks. Pizza, McDonald's, all of it. That's all takeout in there. Remember that.

Good with that, Ryan, I have to be. Right now. I have to be.

Good answer. I'm taking this down to 30.

I love it.

I love how aggressive you guys are being now. This is amazing. Oh, wow. We got something. We got something going on here. Your guilt free spending right now is at 6%. Now, that's quite low. Okay. Usually I recommend 20 to 35%, but for a couple in your situation, I would recommend that number be lower. My kind of back of the napkin number would have said something like 10%. In your case, you're at 6. But you also spend $2,000 a month when you combine groceries, Amazon and Target. So that's part of your guilt free spending. So so far your CSP says you're at fixed cost of 79%, which is still high, but it's way better than 113. Your investments are at 14%, savings are at 1% and guilt free spending is at 6%. Okay, 6% guilt free spending is restrictive and it's hard, especially for a couple that's used to spending on whatever they want with essentially no constraints. Now, if you want to cut back on your guilt free spending, here's what I would do. I would pick your biggest two discretionary expenses. Usually this is eating out. And one other category. I would target cutting that spending by 50% within six months. All right? That way it gives you a gradual approach to sustainable change. In their case, I might target six weeks because there's actually a lot of urgency. Now, I like this gradual approach. 50% over time. Six weeks, six months, because you're not going from 100 to zero. You're reducing eating out, for example, by one to two times per week, stabilizing. Then do it again next week. So, Michelle, tell me how much you calculated you're going to have if you continue on your current path.

So that one, the 467 should by retirement be. I think it was about 2.2 for that one alone.

Okay, that's 2.2 million. So everyone knows?

Yes, sorry. So.