"We’re in our 40s and stuck in a cycle of stress and work"
In this YouTube coaching session, financial expert Ramit Sethi works with a married couple, Jay and Anna, who have a net worth of about $4 million and own multiple rental properties. The conversation explores why the couple feels stuck in a cycle of stress and work despite their wealth. Key topics include: delegating tasks they no longer enjoy (e.g., email newsletters), questioning whether owning several properties aligns with their vision of a "rich life," and the emotional and logistical costs of maintaining those assets. Ramit probes their inheritance preferences, revealing that most people would rather inherit cash and stocks than a house, and the couple realizes that keeping the house may become a burden for their children. The discussion shifts to deeper money psychology—how past upbringing, identity as a "fix‑it" person, and scarcity mindset keep them from spending and relaxing. Ramit suggests concrete steps: selling or downsizing properties, setting monthly discretionary spending budgets, establishing accountability mechanisms (therapy, weekly check‑ins), and committing to small, enjoyable activities (spa days, movie nights) to rewire their relationship with money. The session ends with the couple summarizing their takeaways, committing to specific actions, and Ramit promoting his coaching programs.
Chapters
I wish I could just go out and just enjoy the money with my kids.
It's just hard right now. You have like a $4 million net worth, so what's the problem?
I think I'm a worrier. I just worry a lot. Yeah, what if that— what if this happens? What if this happens?
We never have a true moment to just relax.
It's kind of ironic that making all this money has not made you both feel better about it. I think I'm just afraid of messing up This is a skill that I think, Anna, you have to build. The ability to actually unlock parts of you that allow you to feel more joy. I actually want you to do it for your kids too. This is the beginning of changing your relationship with money. Some people watching like, I never saw somebody struggle so much to go to a spa day. How much is enough? This is a question I ask my guests a lot, and I am shocked at how few people have actually thought it through. In my experience, less than 1% of people actually know what enough means. In my own personal life, I probably know definitely less than 10 people who know exactly what enough is. I think that's a tragedy. I actually think it's just kind of lame to spend your entire life working and agonizing and worrying about money, and you never even went the next logical step to say, how much is enough? In a way, it's such a pointless existence to just accumulate more and more blindly without actually thinking about the natural endpoint, which many of us actually get the gift of choosing. Today I'm speaking to Jay and Anna. They are both 41 years old. Now let's take a look at their conscious spending plan. If you want my help to build your own conscious spending plan and to take control of your money, you can join my money coaching program at iwt.com/moneycoaching. You will be shocked how far you get in 48 hours. Assets: $4.8 million. They're 41 years old. Investments: $1.25 million. Okay, they probably own real estate. Savings: $136,000. Debt: $2.28 million. So a total net worth of about $3.9 million. Okay, that's Very, very impressive. Fixed cost, 66%. That's kind of high for having that high of income. Investments at 3%, savings at 7%, and guilt-free spending at 24%. So they like to spend money. Okay, this is an interesting one. I'm looking forward to speaking to Jay and Anna. Now, something rare happened. You applied to speak to me. Yes. It's almost always the woman in a heterosexual relationship that applies. So I'm really curious what made you apply to speak to me today.
A lot of the stuff that I do is the quote unquote woman role, right? Like the finances and the outspokenness and stuff like that. The communication, right? I've always had a strong communication.
The wedding planning. You were the wedding planner?
No, I was not. I don't know about that one.
Wait, I was also. No, you really were. I was like, have you all ever heard of a groomzilla? Okay. All right. Okay, well, let's take a look at the application because you said something. That I wanted to ask you about. Jay, you wrote, we've worked and saved like crazy since we were 16, but it still feels like our foot is stuck on the gas and we don't know when we can cruise. What do you mean by that?
We've literally been nonstop. I mean, I started working when I was 13 years old, and, and, uh, she started working around 16 as well. And it's always just felt like I've literally never not had a job since I was of legal age. So when we got enough money, we started investing in real estate. And then not only did I have my quote-unquote 9-to-5, but then I was also landlording or fixing homes up and stuff like that. So we never have a true moment to just relax.
And do you want that?
I do. Okay, so that's my rich life.
Okay, got it, got it. Anna, what is your reaction hearing this?
Yeah, I mean, same thing, because like he says We don't stop. So I want to get to a point where it makes sense for us to just, you know what, we're good. Our finances are good. Our kids are taken care of. Let's just sit on the couch and watch a movie.
You want to do that?
Yeah.
So you both want to do that. So what's the problem?
I don't know when is— when to stop. He thinks we're kind of good, but at the same time, there's still a lot of things we could be doing better. And we have different mindsets, I guess, on some of the rental properties we have. He thinks if we sell them, we could be done. And I want to be able to continue doing what we're doing, work hard now, that way my kids can have what we didn't have growing up.
How have you tried to resolve it?
I mean, we've tried talking, but it just feels like it never gets anywhere, right? I'm kind of setting what I think is right, and she's setting what she thinks is right, and feels like we just talk and talk and just doesn't really get us anywhere.
Can you think of a time where the two of you were not on the same page about money?
Every time. I think that's something we're never on the same page about, right? She's, uh, she's definitely the saver and the putting things away, and, and I'm very much the spender, but I think I do it intelligently. It just seems like every extra penny that we have, she wants it to go to savings, and we've got more than enough in savings.
What do you think?
I don't agree because we have a lot of properties that kind of all have mortgages. So to me, I'd rather put, you know, that extra money towards the properties and not have to kind of stress about money and being able to pay things off and not lose them.
Are you stressed right now about money?
Yes, because we, like I said, we have property that I would like to be paid off, that when my kids take over, they don't have to worry about, you know, not being able to afford a house or the struggle we had coming up and and making money.
How many kids? 3. And how old?
We've got a 16-year-old girl, a 14-year-old girl, and an 11-year-old boy.
Okay, great. Do you talk to them about money?
Oh yeah. All the time.
You do? Wow. What do you say? That was quite a reaction.
I don't know, like how to do your day-to-day without having to live paycheck to paycheck. You know, don't live off credit cards. Just teaching them the value of money because we both didn't have that.
So, okay. And what part of the country, generally speaking, do you live in?
Nevada.
Nevada. Okay. Yeah. Got it. Okay. And what do you both do for a living?
I do retail.
And I'm a national account manager for a rental equipment company.
Got it. Okay. Let's go back to the time, any time recently where you were not on the same page with money. Think of a specific example.
Well, it seems like it happens every time around the same time of the month is when my credit card goes in, right? Whenever she sees the the large payment going in, like, I can't believe you spent this much this month. But then I've got a reminder that I use that credit card not just for personal stuff. I pay a lot of bills from that credit card. We've got a lot of medical stuff going into there, whether it be dentist or whatever the case may be. But that's always kind of a time where she pulls me aside and is like, hey, how did you manage to spend, you know, $6,000 this month? Or whatever the number is.
Anna, what's the number that when you saw it, you said, Oh my God, 10,000.
10,000. Yes. When I saw him making a credit card payment for 10,000, I was like, whoa, what was on there? He's like, oh, you know, all the little stuff just adds up. So, so yeah, every time that bank statement comes in, I'm like, let's see what you have.
And then what happens?
Happens again.
She pushes buttons until I, I kind of, I feel silly having to explain myself that I spent $20 here or $30 there. I mean, I get it, it adds up, but I feel like she doesn't trust me. I feel like she doesn't believe that I'm capable of keeping our family's finances in the green. And I've been doing it since we first moved in, what, I don't know, 18 years ago before we had kids.
Are your finances in the green?
For the most part, yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, do I spend more some months? Yes. But if you look at year over year, yeah, we're definitely in the green.
Okay. Anna, if you could wave a magic wand and you were totally in charge of the money, what would you do differently?
Maybe take away his credit card and some apps on his phone so that way he can't spend. And then use that money to pay off our rental properties and then try to relax and not have to worry so much about the mortgage payment every month for all the properties.
That's it. So you want to pay the mortgages off faster?
Correct.
I call BS on that because not even 2 weeks ago she's like, oh, if we do sell one of these properties that we have in California, we should look at buying an Aplex. Here in Nevada. So I know that when something is paid off, she's just gonna say, hey, let's go buy something else. So I'm always going to have mortgages, is what I've come to the realization of.
The smile tells me you kind of agree.
I'm working on that. I'm definitely working on— hopefully after you look at all our stuff, we can kind of come to an agreement of being able to not get any more properties and—
Be content?
Be content and just live our rich life because he loves to travel.
So you need my permission to live your rich life?
Yes, please give it to me.
No, it's just like the not knowing of making sure our finances are in order and his spending and the spending, right? We need to be able to control the spending to where if we don't have the rental properties, we can live off our W-2 income. Okay. Because we do compensate a lot for that too.
What's the thing about the shoes? Is there something about you buying shoes?
No, it's not even that me buying shoes. It's, I don't know, 7 months ago there was a sale at Nike and, and, uh, I think I bought like 10 pairs, but it was like $300 for all 10 pairs. So it's like Okay, yes, I have a lot of shoes, but it's not like I'm dropping thousands of dollars, and those shoes will last me maybe the next 2-3 years.
Okay, so what's the disagreement there?
But I guess she just likes throwing me— calling me out when I, when I spend money.
Oh, I see.
Yeah, yeah.
And what about cars?
That's, that's my, that's my vice. I'll, I'll be the first to, to admit that, right? I've spent a lot of money, uh, in my life. And again, we've been together a long time, so she's seen all the money How many cars do you have? I only have one that's mine. I've got a truck that's provided to me by my company, but I've spent in the past, right, a previous job, I bought a $100,000 plus truck. And then before that, a sports car. And I've been lucky enough to sell them for relatively what I purchased them for, but I've lost some money 'cause I do things to them.
And you know. What's your take on the cars?
We end up wasting a lot of money on, things that we don't need to, like all the modifications and stuff like that, and then he ends up selling it. So the current car that he has right now, I said, there's— you're not gonna sell that, like, no matter what.
You told him that? Yeah. Like, what do you put into a car? By the way, this is so hilarious to me because, like, I know you're not a car guy. Yeah, no, I'm not a car— or like, when I bought, you know, like, when my family bought a house when we were growing up, like, you buy the house and that's the house. Like, there is no renovation.
What's that?
Buy a car That's it. And then I find out people do modifications. They take it in, they get this after dealer, after fact, whatever it's called. And I'm like, what the fuck? You literally— this car isn't even the same vehicle anymore.
No, it's not.
What did you do to your truck?
Like, I did a paint protection film. Okay. Like a wrap on it, I guess you can call it. Um, that was like $8,000. And then I did— it was a Raptor, so I did some more suspension stuff to it.
Like what? Like made it higher?
No, it was already high. Just tweaked some of this. It already comes factory with, with like off-road. They're the ones that are for like, uh, Baja 500 and stuff like that. But my current car is a Toyota Supra, and, and I'm kind of afraid to say how much money I've spent into it, but let's just say I could have bought a second one.
Um, but yeah, how much did it cost, all the, all the modifications?
Probably about $50,000, $55,000.
$55,000 for modifying? How much does the car cost?
I got paid $55,000 for it.
Wow.
All right.
Hold on, I'm just trying to—
We can't all drive a Honda Accord for 20 years, man.
No.
I wish I could.
So when you have these conversations about money, about credit cards, about cars, what role does each of you play in that conversation?
She's very much the, the— I don't know what the correct word for it, but the authority of like, or the mom, right? Why did you do this? And why did you spend this there?
And what's your role?
I've got to explain myself and say, okay, I justify my purchases and why I did what I did.
Anna, what do you think?
I mean, he nailed it. It comes down to that. But then again, it's just like how surprised you were, right? It's like, do you really need to do all that on an already nice car?
Yeah.
So me trying to understand his, I guess, love for hobbies is probably another reason, because like, that money should not be spent.
We have some parent-child dynamic here, which is, why'd you do that? Did you need that? Are you sure? And then, but Mommy, I like to spend money on candy. I think that it's a little more nuanced than that, because when I ask her, do you like doing this? She says no. When I think about what he is spending his money on, for the most part, although some of it is a bit extravagant, they can almost certainly easily afford it. So there's something deeper going on here, and I want to find out what it is. Now, I don't know if he should or should not. I don't know. I have to take a look at the numbers because people spend their money in a lot of ways that I don't understand. But how do I know if they should or should not? Do they have enough? Maybe they're going into debt. That to me is, tells me more than just, I don't agree with it. How's that strike you?
Yeah, nah, I get it. Okay. I understand that.
Okay, well, we'll take a look at the numbers too. Actually, should we look at 'em now? Yeah, let's go. What was it like to do the conscious spending plan together?
Eye-opening and a little confusing just because we had numbers that we didn't know which bucket they should fall into.
Yep. Sorry, Anna, what was it like for you to do the CSP?
Uh, a little confused, um, how everything adds up so fast. So, ah, and then some of this stuff comes out of my paycheck, so I just wasn't sure on where to put it. So, okay, I hope it's accurate.
But all right, let's take a look here. Um, Anna, can you read off the word in bold and the number next to it in full for this entire box, please?
Assets, $4,876,000. Investments is $1,255,907. Savings is $136,978. Debt is $2,283,527.
Great. What's the total net worth?
$3,985,358.
All right. What do you think about those numbers?
I like all of them except the debt.
All right. What do you feel when you see those numbers?
A little anxious. Mm-hmm. But overall content.
Mm.
Okay, cool. Jay, what about you?
I feel proud. I mean, this is Anna's and my hard work the past you know, 30 years. It's a lot of hard work. I see the, you know, 18-hour days, the staying up till 3 o'clock in the morning renovating a property. I see a lot of that. And yeah, the debt is overwhelming, but it's all real estate debt. So I know that we're positive on all the properties we own. So if we had to tomorrow sell it, we couldn't be out of that debt.
Wow, pretty, pretty impressive. Let's not forget you're both 41 years old. That's incredibly impressive considering— I mean, it would be impressive at 70.
Thank you.
Thank you. Do you ever celebrate these numbers?
I don't know if we celebrate the numbers, but we do, you know, we'll take a vacation a year. I mean, we skipped it last year, but we'll try to take a nice vacation, right? We used to alternate with the kids when they were younger and they still wanted to hang out with us and then do a couple's vacation. And that was kind of how I celebrated, right? We got to relax for a week. I didn't answer my work phone and we weren't doing anything real estate related. But no, I don't think we've ever, to answer your question, sorry, I don't think we've ever said, hey, good job. Like, look, look where we're at. And that was kind of what was cool about doing the CSP together. It was like, wow, look, look where we've come.
We've never actually put our numbers on paper. So really?
Yeah, just worked and worked. Well, I think it's a good thing that you did because those numbers are big. I mean, by the end of today's conversation, it's very likely to be $4 million. Yeah, that's pretty incredible. And it actually allows you to really think about your life in a different way. But it's so common that most of us are just day to day. We got to do this, we got to pay this bill, we got to fix this thing, this dishwasher is broken. But we don't stop to look at what does it all add up to? And more importantly, what does it mean? $4 million at this age. What do we get? We've done all this work. What do we get from it? Let's keep going on the numbers though. Income. Jay, can you read me off your combined gross monthly income, please?
21,279.
That's per month. So per year, $255,000 a year. Did you both know that number?
Yes.
Good. Great. And then the net is $367,000 net. How can the net be higher than the gross?
Our rental properties.
Income. So you— okay, so you put that income straight into your net.
She added that because we were asked to put the rental properties because we didn't know where to put them.
Yeah.
So I'm not sure.
Let me jump in quickly and save you a bunch of back and forth about Anna's gross income and mortgage payments on multiple properties. The CSP is designed to be very simple. So when people have multiple streams of income at different tax rates, it can be challenging to categorize them here. But we know that it's impossible to have a gross income that is lower than a net income. So we're going to ballpark it. Anna had originally calculated her gross income as $4,518 and her net income as $18,375. We just know intuitively that that cannot be right. Doing some quick math around their mortgage payments led us to adjust her gross income to $10,500. And her net at approximately $8,000. She also double-counted their mortgage under fixed costs. So we brought that down, which lowered their fixed costs dramatically. And that makes sense. They are a high-income couple. So their original number of 66% fixed costs did not sit right with me. Now we know that it was a math error. I see a lot of comments from people wishing that we adjusted the CSP to include this and to include that. And I actually think a lot of those comments are pretty fair comments. If you decide that you want to tweak the conscious spending plan for your own needs, be my guest. However, I want to emphasize something. I designed the CSP to be simple, and I find that human nature, especially from weird freak optimizers, leads you to add in this line and that line and that line, and suddenly you have a super complicated spreadsheet that nobody actually understands. So I would rather take simplicity over complexity and even comprehensiveness any day of the week when it comes to something like the CSP. All right, let's get back into it. All right. Let's take a look at your fixed costs. Fixed costs now with some adjustments are 49%, which is lower than I typically recommend, 50 to 60%. But it actually makes sense because you all have a very high income. So of course your number should be lower than average. Most people do not make $243,000 net per year. So good, let's keep looking. Your investments are at 5%.
I don't agree with that. So I've got, uh, 7% for my 401s going into that. I also contribute $1,000 a month into Robinhood, um, and then I also contribute the $7,500 a year for the Roth IRA.
That should be here. So let's call it $585 a month, ballpark. So your number is now 8%, but it's actually higher than that because you have your 401. Correct. Cool. All right. Then savings at 10% or $2,100 a month. Agree?
Oh, yeah. That's— I think that's safe to say.
All right. Which leaves you with $6,000 per month. What do you think about that?
That's a big number, I'm not gonna lie. Again, what's tough for me to see is to see how much of that my credit cards every month is actual spending that I'm doing that's for me, right? Non-family related or non-real estate related.
Do you track it?
I do.
You check it on your credit card? Do you like look at it and analyze it?
So yeah, I'll look at my credit card every day to see what, what expenses are going in.
And do you do the same?
Yeah.
What do you think about him looking at this stuff every day?
I don't know. I mean, I guess it's good that way he can keep track of anything looks strange or something comes out.
So if that's the case, then do you trust his ability to spend correctly?
I trust his ability to know our finances, but at the end of the month, we don't really know how much we're bringing in or how much we're spending exactly because of everything that we're making. So if Jay can kind of see like, hey, this month I've spent way more than I should, and this month—
How much should he spend?
I don't know. That's the part I don't know.
You get to make the allowance. What is it?
Please, Mommy. I don't know. I don't know if there's a certain amount. I just, looking at our numbers, that does seem like a crazy amount of money, but it's like, Do you ever say no? No to Jay spending.
Okay. Besides that?
Yeah. I mean, I have kiddos, so I was asking for stuff. I'm like, no.
You say no?
Yeah. Or certain things like a bag of Takis or something like that. I say no, we can't eat that. So yeah, I mean, the word no is in my vocabulary.
Okay. And you use it?
Yeah.
And when you say you say no to Jay spending, I didn't catch you saying no. I caught you saying, should you spend that much? You shouldn't spend that much. But I didn't catch you saying no.
Oh, I guess you're right.
So I'll ask again. Do you say no?
No, I don't say no. I guess not to Jay, because like you said, I trust him. I know he's worked really hard with the life we've put together. Yeah. So I'm not like, don't don't spend the money or don't buy the car part or don't get into this hobby. But when the credit card statement comes in, I see that huge amount, like right now we're seeing with our numbers, that's when I'm just like, why? Why are we doing this every month when it comes to all the spending, you know? Let's kind of get a better control of our spending. Because it's true, it's a plastic. You're swiping it, swiping it. You're not really paying attention to the amount of money you're putting on that credit card.
Can you imagine a world where you do not have to track everything you spend? No. Mm-hmm. Because that would mean what?
Relax, be at peace with what we've done.
No, but you told me that's what you want. So clearly there's something else going on because you told me you want to relax. In fact, look at now when you said relax, you kind of sit back.
I'm just trying to relax.
It's like, this is, this is you relaxing. Let me show you. Hey everybody, I'm relaxed. Okay, great impersonation.
That was her.
Um, I noticed that you zeroed out my miscellaneous category in the spending.
That was me, yeah, uh, because I feel like I'm pretty confident in the stuff that we put in there. As far— the only thing that was— didn't have a bucket, I guess, was the credit cards that I said we spend and pay every month. I mean, we don't really have any subscriptions. I Besides, uh, Apple, we have the extra storage. Other than that, Netflix and stuff comes out of my phone bill.
Um, but like, you spent $6,000 a month on your credit card?
Yes, every month it seems like there's something. Uh, last month I had a, a tooth I had to get replaced, so I was like $2,000 there, right?
Where's that planned for in the CSP?
It's not.
It's not. That's what miscellaneous is for. Why do you mess with my numbers when they're designed for you?
To get a rile out of you, I guess. I don't know.
What the hell?
I know, I told him, I said, I don't think Ramit's gonna be happy with that.
Once in a while when someone changes something, I'll ask them why, and they have a very good reason. This happens like 3% of the time, and I'm like, I respect that. You deviated from my system, you adapted it, but you had a very, very good reason. Yeah. What I do mind is, hey, I think this number is big, zero.
Thank you.
And you actually need it for things like all the things that come up when you have a family and you have kids. Yes. And properties.
I don't know why I thought it was subscriptions. Now that I'm reading it here, it obviously is not.
I'm going to fix your miscellaneous.
Okay, let's just do it.
We have 57% fixed costs. Mm. Worse than it was before, but before was artificially low. So 57% is still within the 50 to 60% range. Y'all make so much money that I really think this number should be a little bit lower, but still, it's fine. I'm not sitting here— I don't lecture anybody who has less than 60% fixed costs and also has millions of dollars in their 40s. Okay. Any questions so far?
No.
All right. By the way, your savings are 11 months of fixed costs. Did you know that?
Yes.
Cool. What do you think of that?
I feel comfortable with that, right? Her biggest fear is, what if you lose your job or we lose you, right? Yeah. That makes me feel at ease that if something did happen to me, my family wouldn't be scrambling.
Yeah. 11 months is really good. I've been telling people 12 months is good, especially in turmoil economic times. I think it's great. Your savings are solid. Good work.
Thank you.
Thank you. I think we need to admit that the CSP is a little chaotic. And I'm not sure I did a great job of clarifying everything on the sheet. I think it's probably mostly accurate, but what I think is really important here is what it suggests about their finances. I think there's probably a lot of chaos. I think there's money here and there. I think the fact that they are not surprised that the money in their fixed costs dropped to like 50% is kind of indicative they don't really know their numbers carefully. That tells me they're not really connected to it. How can you feel good about money if you're not connected to it? I wonder if they like chaos. I wonder what other parts of their life reflect it, like constantly working but not being able to relax even for an afternoon. That kind of worldview shows up in a conscious spending plan, and it shows up in other parts of their money. And I want to dig into it more. I want to find out what's really going on here. One of my readers shared with me an account of somebody who can find other people's Instagram accounts with as little information as possible. For example, her record is finding someone based on 3 facts. He lived in Brooklyn, he had brown hair, and he went to her gym. They didn't even know the guy's name. They still figured out who he was. And this is another reason that I pay for and use DeleteMe. If this person can find somebody's account using just 3 pieces of information, Just imagine what scammers and data brokers can do to you. Delete.me is a subscription service that removes your personal data from the internet. We're talking about things like your full name, email, phone number, address, even your parents' names, all found and removed. They've been the leading expert in personal information removal for the last 15 years. They were recently named Wirecutter's number one data removal service, and I personally use and pay for Delete.me. And I love it, and I know you will too. You'll get 20% off all consumer plans when you go to joindelete.me.com/ramit and use promo code Ramit at checkout. That's joindelete.me.com/ramit, code Ramit for 20% off. My friend with a small business recently told me he uses over 20 different tools to optimize his business. 20. And I was like, why? He said, it just happened. And that is true. When you are an entrepreneur, when you run a business, you start with one tool, then you add another. Soon you've got a stack that's super complicated. A lot of times they don't even talk to each other. Candidly, I don't even want to think about how to log in to 20 different platforms, which is why I recommend starting with something like NetSuite early on. It makes building your systems easier right from the start. NetSuite is the number one AI cloud ERP trusted by over 43,000 businesses. It simplifies your business into a single platform, including your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM all in one place. Plus, it uses an AI-built system to automate your routines and deliver actionable insights, as well as cut costs. From software and IT services to healthcare, equipment manufacturing, financial services, and other great American industries, NetSuite delivers a customized solution for your business. If I'd had this system back when I was building IWT, it would have changed everything. If your revenues are at least in the 7 figures, get their free business guide, Demystifying AI, at netsuite.com/ramit. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com/ramit. Again, that's netsuite.com/ramit. Down to guilt-free spending, you'll have about $5,000 a month extra to spend every month. What do you think about that?
I like it. I guess it's just getting Anna to buy in on that, right? 'Cause she feels that we need to throw that extra $5,000 back in the savings.
You mean back to the mortgages, right? What are the mortgage rates at?
Our primary is at 5—
6.5.
6.5, yeah. The other ones are 2.75, 3.25. And we're trying to sell one right now that we did in a partnership. Me and one of my good friends did in Big Bear as an Airbnb. And that one, I believe, is at 7.25%. 7.25%.
If you had the money, would you pay the 2.75% fast?
No. I'd pay— I would pay— I'd probably focus it on our primary.
But let's say you paid that off. Would you then take the money and pay off the next one? No. No.
Well, I don't know.
So you pay off the primary and the 7% one is gone. So you have these low-interest ones. Would you pay them off early?
I don't think I'd pay that, the 2.75%, just because it's too low of a rate for me to put money towards that.
That's pretty helpful. It tells me how you treat debt. Some people, they just hate debt.
I mean, I do hate debt, but just—
You hate it, but not enough.
Mathematically, it doesn't make sense to put that money towards that.
You have to understand, most people do not get to the mathematical point. Literally, debt is just bad. It's like me having like roaches on me. Okay, it doesn't matter. Oh, they're actually not going to harm me. It's like, they're bad. Get it off. I'll put all my money. And I go, um, that debt, paying it off early is going to cost you like $385,000 in opportunity cost. They go, I don't give a fuck. Get rid of it. Okay, it's up to you. But you're telling me no, which tells me, um, you understand debt. Everybody has feelings about money, but you also are looking at the math side of it too. Okay, that's quite interesting. So because you understand debt and interest rates, what do you want to do with the money? I mean, we're looking at it here. You got $5,000 a month in guilt-free spending, so you can allocate it however you want. What do you want to do?
I'd probably put it in a separate savings account for the rental properties in case anything happens to Jay or I lose tenants. I'd want to be able to hold the properties because one of the properties that we have, the kids actually want to keep. With the families because they kind of grew up in it. So I would like to keep that property with the family, and then when they're older, if they want to move back to California, they'll have a home that they can raise their kids in.
Do you all think that you have enough money to do what you want to do?
On paper we do. Then this is where we go back and forth about the property she just talked about the kids wanting to keep. To me, it just— it's a messy situation, right? It's a very expensive house as far as it's worth a lot of money. Um, if we lose the tenants there now, it's the same mortgage as what we're paying at our new house now in Nevada. So if we had a 3-month vacancy, right, I'm paying 2 mortgages. Can I sustain it? Yes, but for how long, right? The, the weight of that doesn't— it wears on me, right? And then my biggest thing is if in a perfect world where Anna sees the kids wanting to keep this property, right, they're going to grow up, they're going to have their own families. To me, it's just going to create issues with the kids, right? There's going to be animosity because only one family is going to get it. So now we're getting— creating potential problems for our kids in the future, versus if we were to sell that property, we can A, pay off our primary residence now and have— be mortgage-free, B, pay a portion of it and invest the rest of the money, or I mean, really do whatever the heck we want to do. Buy the apex if she wants to buy an apex. Um, it just opens up way more possibilities by getting rid of that.
How have you gone about making this decision about whether to sell the property or not?
We've discussed it. No, yes, we have. We've discussed it. She's agreed to it twice and then went back and said no, never mind, it doesn't make sense. And then Before being asked to join you in your show, we were in the mentality that we were going to sell it. And then as of like 2 weeks ago, I think she went back again and said, oh no, never mind, I don't think it makes sense to sell.
Why is that? Uh, because my son, your 11-year-old, what do you say?
He just had a lot of memories there. And then it makes it harder to sell a home that he had memories and he wants to be able to keep within the family.
Mm. What do you say exactly?
I don't know, just, oh, I remember coming down the stairs and— or like, he'll watch certain videos on my phone and I love, I love this house, you know?
So, okay, so it's not just a financial decision for you. Okay, I can see why it is tough to make progress on it. Everything is kind of intertwined. You pull on one question, it unravels, then there's another one, then there's another one, and each of them is kind of difficult. Your son, the complexity, the not knowing how much you actually have left over every month, it's all just one thing after another, which stops you from seeing clarity on the situation. What do you think I'm seeing when I'm hearing this?
I don't know. What are you seeing?
You all have so many options on what you could do. The thing is, it, it seems to me you are under analysis paralysis. You could do this, you could do that. There's good reasons to do it and not to do it, and so you're stuck. How long have you been stuck talking about money and what you should do with it?
As long as I can remember, to be honest with you.
You feel good?
No, not at all.
It's kind of ironic that making all this money has not made you both feel better about it. What do you make of that?
It's tough, right? Because you would think getting the salaries that we get or owning all these properties would, would open more doors and kind of let you relax, but it's honestly a lot of pressure, right? Especially when you add your kids and family into the play. It's just you, you, you're not just doing things for yourself anymore, right? You're doing it for the team, and you don't want to leave it in a situation, right? Going back to selling the house, like, I love that my son has all these memories and, and that he wants to keep that house, but he's 11 years old. He doesn't know the magnitude of owning a house that size comes, right? Not even just the mortgage, but the upkeep, right? The maintenance. It's a lot of responsibilities for him to try to keep a house that he has memories in, right? And that's how I see it. I don't want it to come across that we're not thankful for, for everything that we've been able to do, because we are very thankful. But it's been a lot of hard work, and it's even more work to keep it afloat, right? To keep it going.
Hannah, wanna add anything?
It's a lot of stress, a lot of tough decisions to make for everybody. But that's why we keep just going in these circles, you know? And then like when the emotions, you know, with the kids, it just makes it not as easy as for me to just mathematically be like, yep, That's what we're doing.
Yeah. What do you remember about money growing up? What did your family say about it?
We never spoke about money. We came from a very low income, you know. We came— when we came to America, my parents didn't speak English, so it's not like they could get a job that they can make good money. So my dad did whatever he could to keep a house for us and food and Just basic jobs, landscaping, car washes, stuff like that.
So how old were you? 7. 7. And what country did you come from?
Middle East, Iraq.
Okay, 7 years old, it's like old enough to really notice and remember things. What were some of the first things that you noticed that surprised you?
We went back home, we didn't go to school, so coming here and just going to the schools here and just seeing kids in different clothing than you, and you're just like, wow. Yeah. How come I don't have that, you know? So, but my dad did everything he could to provide for us, so I'm grateful. But I think that's what makes it hard for us because I want to give my kids what we didn't have. So it's just, um, challenging coming from that kind of background. And then I think that's what's kind of hard for me to know when to stop because my dad never did.
He never stopped.
Till this day, he's 78, still works.
What does he say?
Nothing. He's thankful he still has his legs and his arms, and he's out there doing whatever he needs to do, so.
What do you say to him? You tell him to keep working?
I don't want him to work, but he says it keeps him young, so.
Mm-hmm.
He likes to go out there and just do physical work and stay young and still make Money. Yeah.
Do you remember them talking about money, your family?
No.
No fighting? What was it like? What's the culture of money in your family when you were young?
My mom raised all of us. I have— we have a big family, 4 sisters, 2 brothers. So small house. My mom cooked, we ate, school back home. I never saw the my mom actually talk about money with my dad or my dad with my mom. Not the way we discuss it, obviously. I think I wanna educate my kids on money because I feel like the world has changed so much and it's just so much harder to make it in life that being educated is gonna get you where you wanna go.
Yeah.
So I feel like my mom and dad gave us what, the basics, right? Like, hey, hard work. Go out there and do it.
Do you recognize how much you have accomplished, considering especially that you came to the US as a 7-year-old?
Oh yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. Like I said, I have to thank my mom and dad for that, because even though they didn't physically sit down and talk to me, I saw a lot of the things that my dad did for us. And, and then bringing us to America and have given us the opportunity for me to graduate. I graduated from SDSU all by myself, no student debt, and just saving, working hard, job after job after job, and putting money away. I think that I get that from my mom because she was the money handler. My dad worked. Here you go.
Is your mom still alive?
Yeah, they're both still alive.
What is her life like now?
She's good. Lives with my brother, um, my dad, grandkids.
Is she relaxed?
No, I think she still stresses on life.
Yeah, like her daughter.
Maybe she just told me that I need to stop working so much.
She tells you that all the time? Oh wow, all the time. Because it's notable to me that the way you described your childhood and growing up, like, it was quite rushed. I don't know if you caught that. And just like recounting and moving, moving through it, skipping over it. And I appreciate that you appreciate your parents because they did something that none of us will do. But I notice that among my friends who have immigrant parents, it's very tough for them to relax. It's very tough for them to feel a sense of ease, like And I can see that with you, even with your body language. You told me right at the beginning, I want to be able to relax, but I don't know if I believe it. I think maybe you like being stressed. I think it's maybe what you've known. And Jake says all the time, I wonder if you relaxed, if you would even know what to do.
I don't know.
And it doesn't surprise me that your mom hasn't relaxed either. If you never saw it modeled, how would you do it?
I don't know. I guess that's one thing I didn't learn. Yeah. Or haven't learned.
What is your relationship with money today? How would you describe it?
I just feel like not enough. I need to just keep going and make more money and be able to just— I don't know, it's hard. I think my relationship with money is hard because I don't— like I always say, they don't like spending it, just like saving it. And then saving it for the future, for the kids.
Is your future basically over and now it's about the money for the kids?
No. I mean, what I would like is once we know we're in— I don't know, I guess good— they're not good standing, but I would like to just spend time just traveling like Jay likes to do.
So you want to travel together?
Yes.
That's okay. Oh no, I want to travel by myself.
She's on her own. I didn't mean together, but you're telling me the two of you would like to travel? And do you both agree on that?
Yes.
Yeah. Okay. Can you tell me, is there a path from where you are today to that?
I want to say yes, there should be a path. I feel like we're pretty smart individuals that have done a lot in our lives to where once I figure out what it is about me having or being able to stop and just move forward and be able to relax and travel with Jay. I just haven't found that path yet.
Do you do a lot of all-or-nothing thinking? Like, it's either got to be perfect or I'm not going to do it at all? No. Okay.
I think I'm a worrier. I just worry a lot.
Yeah. You worry about money, you worry about your kids.
And if something could go— what if this happens? What if this happens? What if this happens? That's more my mindset.
Do you like worrying about money?
No, not at all. No? No.
No worrier ever says they like it.
No, I was going to say.
So if you were not a worrier about money, if you did not worry, who would you be?
That's tough because that's been me all my life, so it's hard to say what I would be.
Spoken like a true worrier. What you just said is exactly what every worrier says. They worry about money. It is part of their identity, so much so that when I asked them, who would you be if you were not a worrier, they don't know. And usually it's not only who they are today, it's who they observed in their parents.
Oh, for sure.
And Jay, what do you remember about money as a kid? What'd your family say?
Um, so similar story to Anna, uh, first generation here. A little bit shorter trip though, we came from Mexico. I moved here actually right around the same age as her, 7 years old. Money was always— looking back I felt like I was treated like something evil, right? Um, we had a couple family members that had money, and, and I just remember as a kid that they were always talked bad about, you know, they're stingy, or they're, you know, they, they never buy this or buy that, and they have all this money, right? And my mom was a house cleaner, my dad started as a landscaper and then start— got into pool construction. From 7 to about 13 years old It was all hand-me-down clothes from the people that my mom worked, uh, cleaned houses for. And it wasn't until about I turned 13, started middle school, where my dad started making better money when he started doing pool construction and, uh, was finally able to afford, you know, nice stuff, right? And I remember clearly because that's when, right, when you kind of start caring what you look like when you get into middle school. So always were living in a 2-bedroom apartment with my younger brother and my mom and dad. I mean, I never went hungry, we always had a roof over our head, but we never really had much, right? When my dad started making money, I think this is where my car vice came from. He started buying cars, right? He got a car for him and for my mom, and then they had the nice new cars. And, um, that was the first thing that we got as a family that was kind of a pride, right? Like, oh cool, we can, we can afford something nice now. But definitely never talked about savings. I was the one that kind of introduced them into a 401 and definitely not financially literate.
Do you like money?
I love money.
Wow. Yeah. Anna, do you like money? Yes. You love it?
I wouldn't say I love it, but—
Okay, well, let me, let me redefine that. I love what money can get me, right? Money can get me freedom. Money can get me experiences. So I love what money can bring.
Hmm. Did you catch that they're the same age and that they came to the US at basically the same age. What I don't think they mentioned is that they actually have the exact same birthday. This is quite amazing because growing up, even though they grew up in different countries, they grew up in kind of similar upbringings. Parents not talking about money. And yet the way they treat money is markedly different. And there are some gender issues here. We often see the person who is protective and fearful about money tends to be women. We often see people who spend more, invest more, tend to be men. Not always, but that's common when I speak to couples. It is striking to me that depending on how you grow up, you might react by being a spender or a saver, as they like to call it. But you can't predict which one will happen. In fact, when they talk about their kids, I would say it's hard to predict which of their children will spend money or hoard it, which of them will have a healthy relationship with money or not. And I'll be very curious if I end up speaking to their kids in, let's say, 20 years and see what their reaction to growing up with money in this family was. Part of my rich life is always learning from the best, which is why I subscribe to a bunch of newsletters. For example, Karthik Research's fashion newsletter, Will Gadara's Pre Meal newsletter and Phil Terry's Career newsletter. These newsletters are all full of great insights from totally different domains, which is why I don't filter them to my promotional folder. Instead, I use Superhuman Mail, which sends every important email straight to my primary inbox so I never miss it. Superhuman Mail is an AI-native email and calendar for busy professionals and teams. As part of the Superhuman Productivity Suite, Superhuman Mail AI keeps you one step ahead by automatically drafting replies, organizing priorities, and surfacing what matters most. Plus, they have everything you'd expect from a premium inbox tool: auto-archive to remove clutter, split inboxes to make sure you see the important emails, and auto-drafts to help draft and send emails so you don't drop the ball. My favorite part is that everything you do in your inbox is connected to a keyboard shortcut. I can get through tons of emails in minutes without my fingers ever having to leave the keyboard. The entire IWT team uses Superhuman Mail. They love it, I love it, and I think you're gonna love it too. Set it up once and stay in control. Sign up for Superhuman Mail today at superhuman.com/podcast. Whole life insurance versus term life insurance. Don't fall asleep, this is important. Whole life insurance is an expensive, larded up, policy that most of the time is just padding the pockets of the salesperson who sold it to you. Term life insurance, by contrast, is temporary adjustable coverage for a period of time to protect your loved ones if something tragic were to happen to you. If you have kids or dependents and you want to protect their future, term life insurance from Fabric by Gerber Life can be a great option. Fabric by Gerber Life is term life insurance you can get done today. It's made for busy parents like you. All online, on your schedule, right from your couch. You could be covered in under 10 minutes, often with no health exam required. If you've got kids, especially if you're young and healthy, now is a great time to lock in low rates. They have flexible, high-quality policies to fit your family's needs, all with a 30-day money-back guarantee. And even if you have life insurance through your employer, it may not be enough to protect your family, especially if you leave your job or you get let go. Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at meetfabric.com/Ramit. meetfabric.com/Ramit. And use my link so they know I sent you. meetfabric.com/Ramit. Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company, not available in certain states. Prices subject to underwriting and health questions. What is the rich life for each of you?
My rich life is waking up without an alarm clock, right? Waking up at whatever time I see fit with Anna, having breakfast, relaxing, not having to rush to take a kid here or there or a practice or go fix a toilet or an air conditioner and just having the ability to not have plans that day. Just go about the day wherever it takes us. Maybe go, go walk at a park or go on a vacation or whatever, you know, just spending time with her without having a backlog of duties.
Okay, it sounds like retirement.
It does. Yeah, you're right.
Okay, Anna, what about you? What's your rich life?
I don't know. I just— for me, is my kids. I definitely want to set them up Once that's taken care of, I would love to vacation, hopefully have grandkids one day, and just be able to just relax.
How long till you can do that?
I don't know.
I mean, what if I told you you could relax today if you wanted to?
I don't think I can.
Oh, you don't believe it? Because I mean, theoretically, if you sold all the properties and y'all just invested the money, you don't need to work again.
What about the kids?
You tell me, what about them?
They'd still be fine. I mean, this is something— I'm glad you're saying it because we've had this conversation and she just completely writes it off like that's ludicrous, right? And but you're right, we've got enough equity and the kids would be more than taken care of.
Do you believe that?
No, because everything just costs more money now. So, you know, my youngest is 11. He's like, oh, what 7 more years before he becomes an adult. So that's another 7 years of us making sure we do everything in our power to provide for him and the sisters. And then once, you know, they're adult, I would still like to contribute. College, buying a house, getting married. Yep. I want to be able to provide for them.
So then you should work for the rest of your life.
I don't think Jay wants that.
Don't let me into that one.
I think that's what Jay's been trying to convince me to know. What is the age that you do want to stop?
So what is it?
I don't know.
Okay, right now it's never. It is. If, if the goal is I want to provide for my kids, which means I want to pay for everything from now until they die, which is kind of what you're saying. You said you wanna Everything from now until he goes to college. If he goes to college, you're going to pay for college. If he gets married, you're going to pay for the wedding, pay for a house, probably pay for a car.
I would like to help.
If he says, I want to buy a $500,000 house, how much are you going to give him?
I don't know, 20% of their house, the down payment on the house.
Okay, they're going to buy, let's say, a million-dollar house, a $200K each, so that's $600K for that. Great. Weddings, each going to be $50K. Fair. $150K there. We're up to $750K. What else? Car. You're gonna buy them a car?
I don't know about all that. I want them to still be able to provide for themselves too. I don't want to do everything.
Okay, no car. College. You're gonna pay for the college, right?
Yes, if they want to go to college.
So each of them, let's say $150K. Fair. $450K. Now we're at a million. So let's say you have a check for a million bucks. And you put it aside for the kids. Now, are you ready to relax?
I mean, I want to say yes, but I know myself. Ah, I might want to still keep going until I know. I don't know. I guess I, I guess I don't know. I don't know realistically when I'll be content to just let it go.
And never, I'm telling you, you know how many people I talk to The answer is never.
So how do you change that?
That is a very good question. What do you think? Do you want to change?
Of course. Yes, of course I'd want to change.
Okay, paint the vision for me of the Anna in the future. The Anna who is—
describe her. Not worrying about everything.
What else?
Being able to go somewhere, buy something, and not look at the name tag or price tag.
Tell me what Anna does. Don't tell me what Anna doesn't.
Look at everything, worry about everything, check every account.
What does she wear? She wear the same things as today?
Yes, because she's pretty plain.
Okay. And, um, she drive the same thing she drives?
Yeah.
Okay. Does she visit the same places on trips that she visits today?
I mean, I would hope she would want to see other places in the world.
Where do you want to go?
There's a lot of places I would love to see.
It's kind of striking to me if we can just kind of just like zoom out for a second. Like, what I'm trying to do right now is try to understand, in your ideal world, what would you do? And have you noticed what's happening right here? What do you feel right now? Confused. Yeah, it's like no matter what I'm asking, there's almost like a, a shield up, and you're finding it very difficult. I'm asking you, what would you want to do? You're telling me what you wouldn't want to do. I'm asking, where would you want to go? And even that is like, I don't know, someplace. So let's, let's just all take a deep breath. There's no wrong answer here. If you told me I want to go to Cincinnati for my rich life, yeah, in my head I'm gonna go, what the fuck? But out loud I'm gonna say, that sounds amazing. There is no wrong answer. It can be as small or as big as you would want.
I think probably travel. I like traveling a lot. Where? Japan, Thailand, Greece.
Cool. What would you eat in these places?
Whatever authentic food they have.
Cool.
The main dish.
And day-to-day living, what would you do differently?
I don't know, I would like to go to the markets and get some good food and or some ingredients and go back home and teach the kids and some other recipes and just relax with them.
Nice. What about without them? Just the two of you?
Sit down on the couch and watch a movie.
Nice. Can you do that now? No.
How come? I'm falling asleep.
But if you did it, let's say, I don't know, the middle of the day, could you do it?
No way.
No? How come?
There's a thousand things I could be doing.
Oh, like what?
Kids, sports, running errands, managing the rental properties, fixing our house. There's always something to do. There's not enough hours in the day for me, I could tell you that. Hmm.
You like being busy?
Yes. Yeah, I do. And I don't.
Jay, what do you make of this?
I mean, she's being honest, and it sucks because I'm the same way, right? One of the reasons we moved to Nevada from California was to slow down life, right? Because we felt like it was high-paced in California, and we, we thought, hey, we go to Nevada, we get to save some money on taxes and also slow down things, you know, be in an area where the kids can be a little bit more self-sufficient. They can walk to and from school, and they're less reliant on us. And it just feels like— I mean, we came to the realization a few weeks ago, we're like, man, it doesn't matter where we live, it's, it's us, right?
Wow, you realize that?
I did, yeah. I was like, no matter what we do, we're always going to have something to do. And it's sad because when one of us finally does, you know, manage to just wear each other out and we sit down in the middle of the day, just take a breather, the other one will call the other one out like, what, what, why are you resting? You know, it sucks. It does, right? She's done it to me and I've done it to her. And it's like, I'll catch myself after I do it. I'm like, what the hell is wrong with you, man? Like, let her, let her relax. Like, we don't always have to be go, go, go. I mean, we were outside yesterday till what, 10:30 at night, the hanging string lights in the backyard to finish the project before we came down here with you.
It's just— did you like it?
I like the outcome of it.
Did you like doing it?
Um, I don't mind it. I mean, I've done this for so long that it's just the norm for me, right?
I used to like sending emails to my newsletter. I would log in, I would type the whole thing, I would send a test, I would check it on my own personal email, make sure every link worked. And then send it out and watch the responses come in and the metrics. I really loved it and I was good at it. Today I couldn't tell you how to do it. Somebody on my team does it. There's a QA process, there's software. I don't know what they're using. I also don't enjoy it as much, but I didn't know that until I delegated it, stepped away. What I do love is the responses. Like, you love seeing the lights up. I love seeing the email in other people's inboxes. I love seeing theirs, but I don't have any joy anymore in the mechanics of sending it out. When I share that example, does it connect with you at all?
100%. It does, because there's some projects that I've done that I'm like, man, I'm kind of over this, right?
Yeah.
This is not fun anymore. And she'll even notice, it's like, why, why are you doing it then? But then I know if I add in the cost of a contractor, now it's a project we can't do right now. And it's that way, the options that way.
Is, uh, part of your rich life having multiple properties?
It was early on. And now for me it's not.
Okay.
Anna, I, I'm not gonna lie, I enjoy the fast pace of just being able to just take care of properties and do all that stuff and the wealth that it's building. And like I said, I have the kids, so I would love to be able to keep them and teach my kids, right?
Do you like it?
One out of three, yeah.
The reason I ask is like the properties you bought obviously have done really well and have brought you to a place of serious wealth. But when I think about the rich life that you described, Jay, it's like not involving the properties very much at all. In fact, if anything, the properties are kind of opposite of what you've both mentioned— wanting to relax. People who own multiple properties usually do not relax.
Oh, I know.
Yeah. So that's why I'm asking. I don't have anything against owning multiple properties per se. It's just, is it a part of your rich life?
For me, it's not, right? And we've had this conversation recently because we had the most turnover that we've ever had in one of our properties, and it was stressful, right? We had a tenant that stopped paying his rent, right? So we had to work on— being in California, it's a tenant-friendly state, so it was tough trying to get him out. We got lucky with him. At the exact same time, we had another tenant that was moving out. So we had a lot of upfront costs getting the units cleaned out and ready for new tenants. We get good tenants for the most part, right? So it took us 3, 4 months of vacancy. And I don't want to be dealing with that when I'm truly retired, right? If I'm no longer working my W-2 job and we're only getting the income from the rental properties that's paying for it, it's going to be a lot tougher.
Why are you keeping these properties?
I'm okay with keeping our triplex because that pays for itself, and my rich life includes that because that's going to supplement. If we didn't have any of the other income coming in, that's going to pay for our—
okay, what about the rest?
Anna? I would like to keep it in the family for the kids to be able to have an option if they wanted to move back to California.
Would you rather give them that house or money?
Two out of the three bring up the house a lot, so I think So it's that house. Yeah, okay, that house.
I, I asked my readers on, um, social media one time, I was like, what would you rather inherit, a house in an uncertain location, maybe you have to split it with siblings, but a house, or a portfolio of cash and stocks? Like, 90-plus percent of them said stocks. But ironically, most parents think about passing along a house. What do you think of that?
No, I agree with the, with the outcome because Jay said the same thing. It's better we just sell these properties and put them in an index fund for them, and when they're older, let them do what they want to do with the money.
There's a lot of phantom costs. Yes. That come with owning a home, especially a home the size of the one that we keep talking about. I mean, it's a 4,200-square-foot house. I'm putting myself in my kids' shoes and I'm like, man, okay, cool, I got my house from when I was a child, but now it comes with all this extra work that I didn't really sign up for. Versus, hey, here's—
here's a million dollars or more, up to you what you want to do with it.
And kids, if you're watching this, that doesn't mean you automatically get the money. You still have to work and go to school.
That's right. Tell them. What do you think about that? There's all these phantom costs. There's property taxes that might adjust. And we're talking about not giving it to one kid. But 3, right, which has become incredibly complex, unfair. One kid can't afford it, the other one doesn't want to maintain the upkeep. I'm not trying to scare you.
Yeah, that's reality.
I'm just saying, like, these are very, very common. In fact, it's an easy way that, um, kids break up and stop talking to each other because their parents did not do effective planning. Yeah, what a tragedy for a couple who has millions and millions and millions of dollars and will have millions more to just be like, here's—
here.
But actually, you're not giving them a gift, you're giving them a curse. What do you think about that?
I mean, that part is scary because, like he says, especially if they're not, um, interested in learning the mechanics and the amount of money that you need to upkeep the property. That's the part that does kind of worry me.
3 out of 3 would have to And they have shown no indication. The only one who shows it is the young one who doesn't really know what it takes.
I mean, I don't know if Anna remembers this, but we've, we've straight up asked them what they say, like, hey, would you guys prefer my— and 2 out of the 3 said, I'll take the money, right? This has been an ongoing topic since we moved to Nevada and out of that house.
What do you think? And I mean, I don't want to pressure you because it's your house and you all decide, but it seems like this house among the other ones, what I feel a bit of is a sense of the tail wagging the dog. You bought this house and now this house has become the thing that is causing more work, it's causing more stress for the kids. It's— you're putting all this time and stuff into it for a future someday where the kid might have it, but then what about the other two? And I'm just like, so much energy being focused on this house instead of the rich life, which could be so many other things. What do you think?
I mean, I agree with you. I wish it was easy for me to just be like, yeah, let's sell all these properties and do it. But I just— I think, um, holding on a little bit longer and making sure kids are a little bit older. Like he says, I feel like they're at a stage right now where they don't really know cold I don't know, an adult. Like what, over the age of 18, 19?
So at 20 years old, you make a decision. That's 8 years from now. Mm-hmm. How do you feel about that? I don't mind if it's 20 or 25. I don't even mind if it's 30. What I mind is, in order for you to move forward, you have to start making some decisions. And even if you're wrong about some of them, you have to make decisions right now. It's— there are no decisions being made. It's just doing more of the same. Very common with immigrants. You both are taught from your parents, uh, just keep going, head down, just keep going. Oh, something's not working out? Double down, work harder. That's fine. That's why so many immigrants are successful. But at a certain point, it actually is nonsensical to do that in America, especially among top performers, rest can be seen as gluttonous. What are you up to today? What's your plan for the week? What's your productivity system? Like, for example, when people say to me, oh, you must be really busy, and I go, no, I'm actually pretty relaxed. And you can see it in their eyes, they're like confused. But Ramit Sethi is the CEO, I Will Teach You to Be Rich guy. He's on TV and he's just like, no, I'm actually not that busy. I don't feel proud about being busy. When I was a kid, we used to call my dad at work, and he would pick up the phone, and he would talk to us for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 40 minutes. I don't think he ever once said, "Okay, I have to go." If we called, he was there to talk. And that really inspired me that I can choose to not be busy, or I can choose to put the people in my life first, and not tell them how much stuff I have going on. In America, we get a lot of value not only from how busy we are, but how tired we are. Do you realize how absurd that is? How's it going? Oh, things are crazy. Oh, you must be exhausted.
Yeah, it's—
work is nuts. You're never gonna hear me say that. Even if things are incredibly busy, that is not how I identify myself. In fact, I actually think It speaks more to not being in control of what's going on around me than as a source of pride. I'm not impressed by the two of them telling me they can't find time to relax. I'm not dazzled by the idea that their dream is to one day relax. I've talked to too many couples who have a dream of traveling and relaxing and doing all these things when they're 60, and then one of them dies. What kind of life is it to wait when you're a multimillionaire to relax? You can't even watch a movie on a weekday. Surely there must be another way. There is more to life than being busy. And in fact, if it's up to me, it's not a point of pride. Stop bragging about how tired you are. There are so many similarities between personal finance and fitness. They both involve following a plan. They both involve being intentional and changing your internal psychology. And actually, I find that a lot of people, once they get good at money, they actually transfer that to their own personal fitness. Now, part of fitness is also what you eat, and to be able to have any tools that make this easier for you is a huge win in my book. So I'd like to introduce you to Factor, which lets you eat delicious, nutrient-dense meals without all the hassle. Factor is a meal service that delivers fully prepared, ready-to-eat meals directly to your door. And they have a lot of variety. They have over 100 rotating weekly meals, including high protein options, keto, GLP-1 friendly. They even have a Muscle Pro collection for strength and workout recovery. Factor meals include lean proteins, colorful veggies, and healthy fats. Plus, they are never frozen and they are ready to eat in under 2 minutes. This is an easy way to try introducing systems into your health, specifically the way you eat. And if I needed healthy ready-made meals, this is what I would use. Head to factor meals.com/ramit50off and use code RAMIT50OFF to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27th, 2026. See website for more details. It's nonsensical when I look at your CSP and I see a net worth of $4 million, and I hear you stringing up lights. $4 million at age 41.
Let me put it like that, it's—
it sounds bad.
It's absurd. It's actually doing yourselves and your kids a disservice. Why should they have to deal with parents who are tired because they were up till 10:30 or 11 stringing up lights when they could pay someone $1,500 to do this and not deal with it? And in fact, they would learn more effectively because they're parents would be showing them how to manage money. You're not showing them how to manage money. You're showing them how to be scared of it.
Yeah.
Hard work. That's great. They learned hard work. But if you want to succeed now at this income and wealth level, it's not only about hard work, it's about knowing when to delegate. It's about knowing that sometimes we don't actually need to even do this. But you're just operating on the old playbook. Work harder. What do you think?
I mean, when you put it that way, it opens your eyes. We could, um, hire somebody to do it, but at the same time, I mean, our son was actually out there with us doing it, so he was enjoying it. That's cool. For me, I think it's quality time too.
Okay, then let's put that example aside. How about all the other stuff? Fixing the AC and the dishwasher and this and the screening the tenants and all these millions of things that you're doing which don't allow you to even watch a movie I think I gave you grief last time you made me fix the air conditioner.
I was like, man, I could just call somebody, it's gonna cost me $100, and I happily pay that. And you're like, no, just give it a shot.
$100?
Probably. It's like a $99 service fee.
And you didn't do it?
She made me fix it myself.
I mean, it was an easy fix, but this identity thing is really interesting that the two of you are stuck in your identities. Like, you're a fix-it man, so you gotta fix everything. When do you get to graduate beyond that?
Well, it's not even that I'm a fix-it man. I just, I gauge my disagreements with her, right? Was it worth me to fight over a $100 charge to have someone come do it or just do it myself? I thought it'd be quicker for me to just fix it.
And you're going to do that for the rest of your life?
You're right.
It would have been faster for me to send out emails myself until I decided I have bigger and better things on this planet to do. I'm not meant to be an emailer.
So when do you When did you learn?
It took me a long time. I wish I had had somebody to tell to me straight, like I'm trying to do to you. Someone to say, you know, you're good at this and you could do this for the rest of your life and it will be incredibly rewarding for you. But how much are you leaving on the table? Because by forcing yourself to, to do this, you are playing small. By having to check my emails, it's very intoxicating because I'm good at it and I can click it and see the metrics, but I'm not learning how to go on YouTube I'm not giving myself room to start talking to other people on a podcast. I'm not writing another book. I'm not doing XYZ, which turned into a Netflix show. No, I'm sending emails. What is the equivalent for you?
The physical work. Yeah, doing all the physical work.
You're right though, it's, it's work that couple that has $4 million should not be doing. And by the way, I'm not trying to convince you of this. You told me We want to let off the gas.
Yeah.
So how do you do it?
I believe it's by selling some of the properties, not all.
Okay. So let's say you sell some number of the properties. Great. You make some money. What are you gonna do with the money?
I believe we should pay off, if not all, at least a large chunk of our current residence. We have a lot that we purchased in Mexico that's gonna be our retirement home that we haven't built yet. I'd love to be able to build that house.
All right. Pay off the house. You have this other thing in Mexico. What about you, Anna? What would you do if you want to take your foot off the gas and relax?
And I think everything Jay said, and just have a good cushion for each kid.
How much?
I don't— that I don't know.
You know, the amount of money you're talking about, you could end up handing over your tens of millions of dollars to your kids. Are you aware of that?
Let's do it.
Huh?
Let's do it.
I don't want to do that.
What the fuck? Who wants to burden their kids with tens of millions of dollars? They can't even Their parents can't even hire somebody to string up lights, and you're going to hand them $20 million each? Here, good luck. You're fucked. Your kids are fucked if that's what you do. Guys, you— is this for real? No. If you were to hand them the amount that we are talking about right now, considering you're only 40, so you're not going to hand them any substantial amount of money for at least 10 years, which means it's just compounding, compounding, compounding. And then they're going to see their parents, all they do is work. Their parents do not know how to effectively use money. I mean, you have a nice living situation, that's for sure. So they'll know how to buy a big house. But like, how do you travel and appreciate it? Do they know? Maybe not. How do you know when to delegate or when to do it yourself? Do they know? No, because their parents don't know. So you're going to hand them 3 million, 5 million, 8 million, $12 million. And what are they going to do with the money?
Spend it.
Yeah. Or be scared and say, I just need to save more. Maybe I need more. Maybe I need more. And by the time they're 60, what do they have? $150 million. And they go, I don't know if we can afford those Lunchables. Maybe if we save up a little bit more. What is this? I think that your kids are at an age and your wealth is at a level where the consequences of what you're doing today are actually kind of predictable, and they're not good. The amount of money we're talking about is a substantial amount. I'm not sure that you have internalized how much money you're going to have. So right now you have like a $4 million net worth. How much do you think you'll have around age 60?
Probably closer to 8, 10.
Probably more than that. A lot more than that. Well, let's not even talk about selling the properties. Let's just say at age 50, you will have $2.86 million. That's at age 50. Let's say 55, you'll have $4.3 million.
Is that just in our retirement fund?
Just investing, not even the properties, which will have, uh, appreciated. And at age 60, $6.3 million. That's just 60. And you know what happens as it gets bigger and faster. Yeah, you can't outrun the compounding. So what happens then? $6 million turns into $12 million, $12 turns into $24, $24 turns into $48.
That's why I wanted to come here, Ramit, because again, you've kind of seen a little bit when we have these conversations one-on-one at home.
It's—
you get stuck, you know. I've shown her the math for, you know, we're not FIRE, but what our FIRE number would be if we wanted to retire, and we've surpassed that now.
Yeah, you passed the number. Did it change how you felt?
No, no, no, because it's just a number. Oh, I don't know, I guess just being able to Let go.
And should we calculate what happens if you sell the properties? Please. Okay, let's run some calculations. Let's just sell them all just for simplicity's sake. Okay, I know that, you know, you're not gonna sell your primary residence stuff, but like, let's just see what happens. Keep it simple and then you all can adjust from there. The thing is, while we're running those calculations, $6 million is already a huge amount of money. $4 million is huge. $6 million is huge. $10 million is huge. Does it really matter at a certain point? No. Like, what is the difference?
It's more money than we need.
Yeah, in your lifestyle, from $4 million to $6 million, there is zero difference in lifestyle. Even $10 million, zero difference. So it's not about this, it's about this. And that's why in order to connect with this, which I suspect is a skill like you may not have learned, Most of us don't, especially when our parents immigrate. That's not talked about. It's like, work? What are you talking about, your feelings? Like, that's not a topic we talk about.
Very true.
But actually, at these levels of wealth, you have to connect here, because if you don't connect here, then you just keep running and running and running, which is what we've been doing. Yeah. I actually think that it would be more valuable for you to learn this skill than to make an extra $5 million and pass it to your kids. The amount they're going to get is already very large, whether it's in the form of a house or cash or equity. To be able to get this with their parents who have united over money, who have been like, hey, this is what we did in the first chapter of our life, and we worked. So you taught them that work ethic. We worked, and then this is what we did next. That is an incredibly valuable lesson. Most kids do not have the luxury of learning that. They see their parents work, and that's what they see. That's what you see from your parents, right? Your parents too. And it's good. I love work. But what about the next step? When do you earn the right to get to the next step?
You gotta work for a purpose, for sure. I agree with that.
So while we're pulling the numbers, Anna, how does it strike you?
That we're good, that we Could, like Jay's been saying, we can stop if we really wanted to, just sell the properties and enjoy life now.
But sell, sell one, sell all, you can choose what you want to do. You don't have to do it all at once. But to me, the dream of just like taking a nap, it's like so easy. Like, that's it. That if someone had said that to me, like, Ramit, your dream is to wake up one morning and not have to log in and do all this QA stuff. For your— that's it. And I would have been like, yeah, but that's so crazy. Like, I'm the only guy who can do it. And in their head, they would have realized, they would have seen ahead in a way that I could not see. Ramit, you could be connecting with people in person, you could be recording a TV show. But I was playing so small that I was stuck sending emails. And that's kind of the same thing I see here.
I guess that's, that's the part for Jay and I have to figure out how to learn. Yeah, like you're saying, I mean, it's hard.
We'll stick to it more than anything because we've come to that conclusion. You said, yeah, let's do it, and then your mind changed in a couple days.
Yeah, the mind changing is another example of scarcity. It's the idea that I don't think I got this right, I need to double back, what if I'm wrong, we should just stick with what we're doing, and you just go right back and retreat back to the thing that you knew.
Yep, you nailed it.
Yeah, it happens a lot.
You guys, uh, see a therapist? We do. That's good. You talk about this kind of stuff? No.
Ah, no, no, not the money stuff.
Could you? It seems like it's a very good opportunity to talk about this.
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's weird. I mean, like I said, having teenage kids, there's— when stuff is kind of going sideways, you, you hyperfocus on Yes, things that aren't money related, of course.
And this is indicative of, of so much. 3 kids, first of all, is a lot, and at that age, and there is natural chaos to it, and you can't predict and control everything. So okay, we'll accept that. Probably the lack of connection around money shows up in other ways. Like, you know, this classic kind of story, people, they're like, um, fighting over, for example, like physical intimacy but it's like not really about that. It's about something much deeper. So this is where we get the chance to talk once, but you and your therapist can talk much deeper. And money is a manifestation of other things, and those other things manifest in money, like the chaos and like all these numbers being over here and there and not being able to commit to a decision. Let's take a look at the numbers. If you sell it all and invest the money, age 50, you would have $7.2 million. And that means you could safely withdraw at 3%, like, this is pretty conservative, about $216,000 a year. Okay, let's keep going. 55, $10.2 million. Age 60, $14.5 million. And that's just 60. You see how it turns into tens of millions? 14 turns into 28, turns into 56, turns into over $100 million.
That's insane.
What's going through your head right now, Anna?
It's crazy. I mean, I wish— I wish— I don't know, could do that. It would be nice.
I wish we had control of our own properties. I wish that we as the homeowners could do what we wanted with our properties. That would So nice.
Ramit, wait. Bust out your magic wand that you have and just—
I wish I had one. Nobody listens to me. Just go ahead, Anna.
I wish, but it's like you said, it's like I just always go back and I'm okay, I got to do this. And then I'm just going back. I'm like, nope, I got to stick to this.
What do you get out of it?
I think it's fear.
Yes.
I think I'm just afraid of messing up.
Do you accept that you're wealthy?
Yes.
Wow. I mean, Jason asks me all the time. I feel like we are because, especially coming from my background, right? I feel like I'm able to do a lot more for my kids that I didn't have the opportunity to.
How about for you?
Uh, I'm not a spender, so I guess that's hard for me to say.
Should a couple that has $10+ million, should each of them be a spender or not?
No, I think you need to have a saver and a spender to balance each other out.
Oh, how about at $25 million? Do you need to have a saver?
Yes, because the spenders like to spend too much money because now they're at a different level.
Can you spend that much? Could the two of you, could the two of you spend, could the two of you spend $2.5 million per year?
There's no way. Even if I tried.
You sure?
I'm wearing a Costco shirt and, uh, $40 pants. It's like, it's not that— I'm not that big of a spender here.
All jokes aside.
Yeah.
I like saving, right? In our financial situation, I still have a savings number that I insist that we hit, and we do. Mm-hmm. But I don't define myself as being a saver anymore. I like to spend money. That's what I get after decades of investing and working hard and making the right decision and being lucky. That's what I get. I get to spend. And I actually created some rules for myself to make it easier. Like when I go out to a restaurant, I don't care how much anything costs. If I see it, I'm getting it. If I see 3 appetizers, I'm getting 3 of them. Can you see yourself ever getting to that?
I don't think so. Okay. I think vacations, yes, because I think Jay's gotten me a little bit more lenient because we do have a really good couple friend that we enjoy, uh, going to vacations. And I think that's probably where I can kind of relax.
It's interesting that to you relax is some kind of nirvana, like some kind of place where you are not the person you are. But I like the person that you are.
Thank you.
I, I don't think you need to be somebody else to be better. I actually think that it's within you to maybe like, uh, unlock parts of you that have been locked up. Because everybody can relax. Every— even your parents, they can relax. They may not know how, it may not be socially acceptable, they may have never seen it modeled, but they can if they were able to unlock it. And what I'm trying to do here is to show you, yeah, the math is easy, There's tens of millions of dollars. You all are going to have more money than you ever know what to do with. I'm trying to get you to maybe unlock part of this. I don't know if it's connecting.
Yeah, I'm not sure.
Can you work on it at least?
I mean, I would love to.
I mean, unless Ramit feels like moving to Vegas with us, being the mediator every time.
I think that working on it is a great— I think that's a great question. When my wife and I have had issues where one of us needed to improve on something, like, we were really clear, hey, you need to work on this. Like, you've got to get good at this because this isn't helping us go where we need to go. And, and that's hard to say because it kind of feels like mean and judgmental. It's also hard to hear because you're like, what do you mean I have to work on it? But with time and, and with practice and with the help of a therapist where you can bring these kinds of things up, That's great. Y'all are very accomplished. Obviously, this is a skill that I think, Anna, you have to build— the ability to actually unlock parts of you that allow you to feel more joy and to feel more pride and not to assign it to your kids. In fact, talking about your kids and how you want to give your kids this and your kids for weddings, and that's actually an escape that allows you to avoid unlocking part of you. I'm talking about you. And what I want to hear from you is something like, I would love to be able to get my hair done once a month, or my nails, or I'd like to be able to go out to this hobby event with my friends and pick up the check. Like, actually, you've been working so hard for this money and it needs to be used. You need to give the money the respect that it deserves. Right now it's languishing locked up in a bank. That's not respecting it. It needs to be used for your rich life. Jay, what is your reaction to what you're hearing?
I mean, you put it way more eloquently than I ever did. That's exactly what I tell her. It's the money is depreciating in the bank, right? And that's why I do kind of go overboard sometimes on the spending, because I know what I could buy today with that dollar is not going to be the same thing I could buy in next year.
Do you see how that might also be contributing to Anna feeling a little bit scarce about money?
I, I could see that, but it's always been an issue even before I got to the spending. I mean, I haven't always spent this much, right? But even before, we didn't have as much as we do now. She's, she's always been this way since she was 16, 17 years old, right?
Here's what I propose. I propose that the two of you actually get clarity on how much you have every month, and I think you should actually make a plan for what to do with that. If you have $5,000 a month, Anna, if you really wanna pay off one of the mortgages a little early, okay, take some of that and put it towards that. But also you've got to spend some of it on fun. And some of it has to be on just you. So for example, if you were to take $1,000 a month on just you, what would you do with it?
Maybe go to San Diego and hang out with my sisters.
Nice. What else?
Enjoy some nice dinner. I don't know, I think just that.
Just for me, can I jump in real quick here? Because so last year each of us opened our own separate savings account that we each put a little bit of money. Good. So she's had well over $1,000 to spend and she literally has spent zero.
Okay, this is a good example. Anna, when the money is there, I think the agreement that I think you should both come up with is that once that money is there, it has to be spent within A month. Now that's scary, because if it's like $1,000 a month, I mean, your answer was fly to San Diego and go to a restaurant. I'm like, uh, I don't think the Vegas to San Diego flight is even like $250. So you got dinner, what else? And you have to do this every month. My point is, it starts to become a skill that you have to build. Now, why am I forcing you to spend your money Kind of, because right now you're really good at accumulating it, but you're not good at spending it. You're not. And that's okay, it's just a skill you haven't developed. But I actually want you to do it for yourself. I want you to do it for the two of you, because you can see your husband is like really serious about this. I actually want you to do it for your kids too, especially your daughters who need to see their mom actually enjoying the money that she worked for. What do you think they would do if they saw that?
Oh, be happy.
They'd be happy for you, huh? It's okay. What's making you cry when we talk about your daughters seeing you enjoy your money?
I don't know. I just— I wish I could. I wish I could just do that, go out and just enjoy the money with my kids, especially my girls. But it's just hard.
It's hard.
It's not something I've learned to do. I don't know if it has to be from the way I was brought up with my mom, because I never saw her spend money.
Would you have liked to, to see her enjoy it?
Yes, I would.
I bet your daughters would say the same thing.
Yeah.
I actually bet your daughters would love it if they asked you, hey, Mom, can we go out to lunch? And you said, sorry, I have a massage appointment I'm going to get to, so can't do it today. Maybe next week. I bet they would love it. At one point I asked my parents, talking about their finances, and I was like, you know, gotta spend it, it's important, you worked hard, what are you doing with it? Like, and I put them on a travel plan, but the travel plan was they had to spend at least this much every month. And they were kind of resistant to it, probably like all of our parents, and I was like, what are you gonna do with the money? And they were like, we're gonna give it to you. Like, why do I want your money? All of us have been successful because they came here and taught us the value of hard work. So we want them to spend every last cent while they are alive. And you all are 40. You know your prime spending years? 40 to 60. 40 to 60. You're both mobile, healthy, Your kids, same for them. And who knows what happens after that? People get sick, people get injured, people have parents who they have to take care of and they can't travel. What a gift to actually be able to spend that money thoughtfully, responsibly, but extravagantly in those prime spending years. So I know it's hard. You didn't come here because I was going to ask you easy things. But it's really important. What do you think?
I mean, I would love to work on that.
That's a skill that can be worked on. Do you see how difficult it is for Anna to even dream about what she wants? Like, it's visceral and physical that she is struggling to come up with ideas. And I think this is striking, especially for everybody watching who initially started this video going, boohoo, multimillionaire couples, what a tough life. I want you to see that even when you have lots more money, it is very, very likely that you will also struggle with the mechanics and the psychology of money. Over and over, I show you couples that are in this situation, and what do you say? Oh, Ramit Sethi, so unrelatable. That's not the point. I want you to look deeper. Why am I bringing these couples on my show? I am showing you a crystal ball into your future. You're following my system. You've read my book. Your investments are automated. Soon enough, you're gonna have more money than you ever thought possible. Are you going to magically be in control of your money and your money psychology? No, not if you don't work on it. And that's what we see here. I actually really look forward to talking to you like in a year, hearing what you've done, what you've seen. It could be as small as we bought this little thing for our house. It makes life easier. And as big as some big, cool trip that you're going to take. You could do it if you make some changes. What do you think will happen to the two of you? It could be selling one house. It could be selling them all. It could be selling none. But the two of you agree on your plan. And if you make those changes, what do you think will happen to your relationship?
I believe it'll only bring us closer, right? Because there is a lot of stress kind of looming. Our primary residence and one of the, the homes that we keep talking about selling is just— it's— we're talking about close to $12,000 in mortgages between the two properties. That's just, you know, principal and interest. We're not talking about all the other phantom costs. So doing away with one of those, I think, would let her rest at ease a little bit more. Um, she's brought that up before, but I think she pushes back into her subconscious. But I think that alone, that would be a lot of weight off both of our shoulders.
Anna, do you want to make a decision about that right now?
No.
You want to look at the numbers more carefully? What's going through your head?
I don't know. I definitely don't want to make any decisions that, like you said, I haven't carefully thought about.
How long you been thinking about that one?
2 years. Over a year.
2 years. Maybe just a few more months. Like, do you feel nervous about making a decision?
Yes, because just like Jay says, I always live in the past. I always make a decision and then I'm like, I shouldn't have done that. Why did I do that? If I would have held on, if I would have done this.
Looking backwards, living in the past. What does it get you?
Keep staying in the past. Keep thinking like he says.
But what does it get you though? It must be something because you're doing it.
I don't know if it gets me anything positive, to be honest with you.
Because it gets you something. Yeah, to get you control. Does it get you feeling like, I'm smart because I see the angles of the things that I made a mistake on in the past?
Yeah, you're right.
Kind of like when I was writing those emails and sending them, it made me feel smart. Yeah, made me feel in control, but I was actually missing the bigger picture, the bigger opportunities.
Yeah, you're right.
I'm not going to tell you to stop living in the past. No one can change that quickly. But I would rather add something to your toolbox. What if you start living more in the future? The future right now, 40 to 60, that's the prime spending years. If you could spend a little bit more, relax a little bit more, live in your rich life, what would it be?
We do more things with my girls. Mm-hmm.
You got anything in mind?
Maybe take them to the spa. Oh, do like a spa day with them. I think they'd enjoy it.
I like that. What would you tell them?
Let's have fun.
Can we just do this right now? Do you want to text them?
Yeah, I would love that.
Really? Okay. Pull out your phone. Thank you. Tell me, what are you thinking of writing to them? This is a big moment.
Yeah, it is. Do you guys want to do a spa day with Mommy?
Okay, let's pump it up even more. If they saw that, they're gonna be like, who stole my mom's phone, right? Okay, this is such a great chance to tell them how much you love them, how lucky you are to have worked so hard that you can take them together.
She just read it. Okay, she put, yeah, sure.
What's she saying?
What's wrong, bro?
I was just gonna say, Ramit, I don't know how much you text teenage girls, but I was kind of waiting for that kind of response. At least you got bro and not bruh.
Yeah, that's a good start. What do you see, Anna?
She put, we'd love to, but what's wrong? Oh, sorry, I read it wrong. What's wrong though? Not bro. She does say bro a lot though.
What's wrong? Why do you think she's saying that?
I said I don't really—
yeah, it's new for you. It's almost like you're trying on a new outfit, even a new skin. It's new for you. And it's okay that she says what's wrong. There's nothing wrong. Nothing's wrong at all. In fact, everything is right. Money is right. The two of you are right. You worked hard. You get a chance to take your daughters out for a spa day. Nothing's wrong. I love you.
That's it. You want to read what she wrote? Yeah. The last text.
So you asked them, would you like to do a spa day with Mommy? She said, yeah, sure, we would love to. What's wrong though? Your response was, awesome, Mommy and Poppy work really hard and I would love to treat you and your other daughter to have some fun. And, uh, your daughter wrote, oh, okay, yeah, sounds good. Tell Ramit I said hi and I love him. It's a really cool way of connecting with your daughters differently. Really cool. I, I kind of love seeing how challenging that was for you. You did it. I'm really proud of you.
Thank you. I am too.
Thank you. This is the beginning of changing your relationship with money. It's funny because, you know, some people watching like, I never saw somebody struggle so much to go to a spa day. But actually, it's you taking the first step towards a new identity. First for yourself, next for the two of you. And the cool thing is you've been talking about this for a long time, but sometimes it's like, enough talking, we got to take one step. Do it, have fun, splurge, get the massage, and, uh, then the two of you can work on your rich life together. Now, Anna, you mentioned you want to work on improving your relationship. This was a great start. What's another way that you can commit to to keep really working on this?
I would say work less, but I know that's— that one's more challenging.
Okay, so it's not that. What's something you can win at? I don't know. I'll throw some ideas out. If I'm in both of your situations, I would A) agree to make a decision about the houses within 6 weeks. It's long enough that you can run some numbers, but short enough that that's it. This is the decision we're making. Boom. You can always revisit the decision a year from now. But if you decide to sell one house, you're going to sell one house.
Boom. So can I ask a question about that? So what— how do we hold accountability on that? Right? Because this, again, this is something that we've already agreed to do multiple times.
Well, I think you should agree to it here. And again, I'm suggesting 6 weeks. You might say 4 weeks, you might say 8 weeks. But you should make an agreement now. And I think that you should follow up with this in weekly therapy. This— you should talk about this. Probably the biggest decision you're making in your family right now.
100%.
Ultimately, it's really making the decision. Yeah, that's what matters. And you both got to feel good about it. Okay, so that's what I would say. The next thing I would do is I would work on some individual therapy as well as the couples therapy that you're doing. That is a way to commit to it. Hey, once a week I'm gonna go see an individual therapist about this very topic. That's a big commitment. That's powerful. And then third, I might say, once a month, the two of us are going to watch a movie together. Just that.
Middle of the day for sure, so you can stay up.
It's like really simple in the grand scheme of things, but it actually profoundly changes the way that you've treated money before. Those are my suggestions. You don't have to follow them. You could change them, skip them, whatever. But what do you all think? Make some commitments. Anna?
Um, going out, I think we could do 6 weeks, maybe pushing it on the rental properties, but I could try to work on that.
Let's pick a number.
It's a month and a half. You don't think you can make a decision in a month and a half?
Try that a different way. Try encouraging.
I believe you're a very intelligent person and I believe that a month and a half should— is sufficient time for you to be able to make, uh, a decision on whether or not we sell that property. What do you think?
Yes.
Great, great. I can tell it's, um, scary to even commit to making a decision. I want to encourage you, and you will discuss this probably with a therapist, that what scares you is probably the very thing you need to do. Like, starting to make definitive, decisive decisions is actually the thing that's going to get you out of this paralysis. It feels so good to make decisions. Feels really good. It's a skill. It's like, like you taught your kids to ride a bike. Oh, it's so scary. Oh my God, I can never do it. No, it feels really good to pedal. You're gonna do that too. Okay, so that's one. Other commitments?
I'm 100% with going out to the movies and watching a movie together.
Yeah.
Or even as simple as taking an afternoon and laying on the couch and watching the game or a movie there, right? We don't have to go somewhere. Just relaxing more. I'm okay with that.
Which day?
Friday usually works best.
Friday or Saturday.
Friday it is. There's nothing like a weekday movie. Feels very free. Okay, Friday. One of the next 4 Fridays, put on the calendar and honor it. And then what commitment do you want to make?
I'm going to commit to be a little bit more cognizant on the spending. I would love to be able to have you feel more comfortable spending a little bit more on yourself because you've earned it, you know. You do a lot for the family and you deserve it.
How much?
Ballpark it. I'm okay with $1,000 a month on something that's just for you, right? Nothing to do with the kids or the house or anything.
Great. How do you feel about that?
Yeah, it feels good.
Okay.
It's definitely gonna be a challenge, but yes.
Good. Can you commit to spending that?
That's the challenge part.
That's the challenge part.
Yeah.
Just to give you some ideas, because I— love talking about how to spend more money meaningfully. Okay, I wish more people asked me, but Anna can do several things. Anna can buy new clothes, uh, new workout accessories, uh, massage, any of that. Anna can also go and tip somebody $250 or write a check to a charity for $750. Anna can do whatever she wants. But she has to spend that $1,000 per month. What do you think? Can you make that commitment?
I don't think I can.
Okay, tell me a number you can.
$200, if that.
$200? That's fine with me. How do you feel about that?
Better than nothing.
It's a great start. Yeah. $200? Perfect. $200 for you, and you got to do the same. He goes, "No problem. I'll spend that in the next 15 minutes." Done and done. $200 for you. And I think you two should share with each other, not to be judged. There's no judgment whatsoever. They can spend it on the weirdest thing ever, and you say, that sounds awesome. I want you to get in the habit of talking about it, of being unapologetic about it.
I like it.
All right, what surprised you most about our conversation today?
I mean, I knew she had a problem with not spending money, but I didn't know it was this— that severe. It's crazy to know how much your upbringing truly has on, on your money and the way you spend it. Um, so it was a very eye-opening experience from day one to, to find things out about myself and Anna.
Good. Anna, what about you? What surprised you about the conversation?
How much of my traits are from my mom. A lot. Yeah.
And your mom did a great job. She did the best she could. Different circumstances. But if your mom imagined, uh, growing up in California and then Nevada and having properties and children and houses, and she probably would not do what she did in your circumstance. So you actually get the chance to rewrite that, and then your kids, they will rewrite what they see as well. It's cool. I think it's amazing opportunity, amazing insight. And how did you feel coming in here versus how do you feel now?
Um, I was super nervous. I'm very nervous, but I feel like I have better understanding of the reasons why I am the way I am with money.
Yeah, cool. It's a gift to be able to understand yourself more. Is really cool. Nice work. Thank you. Jay, how about you?
Same, definitely nervous, but, um, I feel good because now we've got a non-biased third party that's kind of hitting home the same things that I've been telling Anna for years. And I'm hoping that, that it hits home this time around, right? She understands that both of you have been really vulnerable, and I appreciate that.
I think we've opened up a lot of kind of like where you, uh, your beliefs about money come from. I'd like to encourage both of you, the journey that you are about to go on is actually going to take both of you to open up and to change. Because until now, both of you have basically worked, worked, worked. And, um, this is where I think another unbiased third party can help you construct a way to talk about this. I say this because you mentioned that once in a while when one of you relaxes, the other one will kind of half-jokingly go like, hey, what are you doing? Like, why are you chilling? Get up. And so you have these, uh, like bonds together that an identity of we work. That's what we do. We work. And it's going to take a lot of careful unraveling and then building something new. And it's going to be tough to do it on your own. That's why I'm so glad you came here. You need somebody outside and you're going to need somebody outside to help you keep doing it. So that's why I encourage you to see other folks, coaches, therapists, others. They'll help you get where you need to go. My wish for them actually has very little to do with the money side of it. My wish for them is to develop a skill, and that is the skill of being decisive. It actually sucks to go through life being indecisive. You take one step forward, two steps back. Even when you make a decision, you look back and ruminate over it. It's not a healthy place to be. And especially if you are a high performer, it stops you. It's almost like going through life with brakes on. You can't reach your full potential. What a waste. So I want them to become more decisive together. Not one, not the other, together. I want Anna to build the confidence of saying, this is what I think we should do, and for her to build a support system so that she can talk about that skill. It's gonna be hard. For Jay, I want him to be a good support system for Anna. I noticed that a couple of times he said stuff like, this is what I've been telling you. That's gotta stop. And for him to provide clarity to her and encouragement so that they can both start to effectively use their money. What do I think is going to happen? I think it's going to be really hard. I think that people who have spent their entire lives working hard, seeing exhaustion as an aspiration, I think that it is incredibly difficult and often nearly impossible to change. For me to say, I want you all to have a life of leisure, That'll be very difficult for them. It's difficult for Anna to even commit to spending $200 a month. But I do think there is hope. I do think that there has got to be a bigger tomorrow than today. And I don't just mean about money. I mean about showing their children how to use money effectively, how to connect with each other so they can actually spend some time together and watch TV on the couch. That is what a brighter tomorrow would be. That I have confidence they can do. And now let's check out their follow-ups.
Hi, Anna here. After meeting with Ramit Sethi and discussing our situation, my biggest surprise from our conversation was learning how much of my money habits and work ethics came from my parents. My need to save and not spend was definitely from my mom, and my continuing to always work was definitely from my dad. One thing that, uh, Ramit Sethi educated us on, on our finances, is that we are doing really good and we've put in a lot of hard work already for the past 20+ years. So my biggest takeaway is we are going to try to work less every day and be able to enjoy our time and money with the kids now and not focus so much on the future. So we are going to be doing a lot more, um, vacations with the kids and just more more relaxing time, definitely going to the movies with Jay at least once a week. Thank you.
Jay here, little recap after meeting with Ramit Sethi. Um, it was definitely a very eye-opening experience, uh, very emotional. And my biggest takeaway from it was definitely finding out that we're taken care of, right? Anna and I have worked our butts off since we were 16 years old, and And though we have a lot of good memories throughout our life together, it's always been go, go, go, right? We never get to enjoy moments because we're always moving on to the next thing and just working our butts off. So knowing that we've done all the right things in our 20s and 30s and now leading into our 40s, that we could finally kind of let go a little bit and put the car on cruise control was great to see and hear from somebody like Ramit Sethi. So my biggest takeaways are that I need to slow down, enjoy my family more, spend a little bit less in hopes that Anne and I can spend a little bit more. But we're definitely making a lot of changes already. We've already put one of our properties on the market, hopefully two here by next year. So implementing changes that Ramit Sethi told us to do and hoping that things get a little bit more relaxed moving forward.
Thank you. Listen up. If you want my help with your specific money questions, there are only two ways to get it. First, you can apply to be on this podcast at iwt.com/apply, or second, you can join my money coaching program instantly at iwt.com/moneycoaching. In that program, you get access to live virtual events, monthly group coaching calls, live Q&As, and an amazing, huge community of other people like you. Check it out at iwt.com/moneycoaching.
