Episode 416: Diving Into Money For Couples by Ramit Sethi

Happy Winey Palooza Wednesday, everybody!

Happy Winey Palooza Wednesday! Welcome to our new room.

We are sitted? Seated?

Seated.

I'm tired. We are seated in our brand new front room, living room. What are we calling it?

Well, it used to be the playroom, but it's not the playroom anymore.

We emptied— we don't have any toys in here.

No toys.

We have no toys.

She repainted. We're sitting on a new couch.

Why don't you show them the couch?

Here's the couch.

New couch.

New couch.

We're on the opposite side of the room, so Seth just hung the sign.

Yep. I'm normally not right— normally we're right next to the window. We switched, we turned— she turned the room around, repainted, cleaned it up, got us a new couch, repainted. She did a fantastic job.

I cleaned and organized for hours and hours, days and days. I'm super proud of myself. You should be. And I had a vision. And I'm going to tell you that if you have a vision about anything, whatever that is— I have a vision about what I want to look like.

You look good.

Not that I don't look good. I'm not bashing myself.

You're not done.

I'm saying that if you have a vision, you can achieve the vision. So I had a vision of a peaceful, luxurious, zen type of room.

Zenner. It is more zen.

And I'm accomplishing that.

You are indeed.

So, ah, so I'm very tired. I'm trying to wake up, and I spent a very busy day dress shopping with Lily and her friends and my friends, and we had a great day, and we ended up coming home with two dresses. So we'll see what happens with that. Yeah, and I follow Matt and Abby Howard on social media, and I listen to their podcast. You're very loud.

Can you not do that right now?

I listened, I listened to the Unplanned podcast, and every week I see who do they have on. And, and I'm not going to tell you that I listen every week, but I listen most of the time. And so this, this, not this week, but last week they had on Ramit Sethi. Yep, I said it right.

You said it right.

And he's a financial expert. And so I see that they have a financial expert on, and I keep— and I'm like, I'm gonna just listen to my audiobook on the treadmill. I'm like, I'm not gonna listen to a financial expert. I start my audiobook and I'm like, no, damn it, Seth would want me to listen to the financial expert. I am going— I'm like, if Abby can do it, I can do it. Because Matt is more like Seth. So Matt is the, the guy in the couple is fascinated by money and money.

His undergraduate degree is in finance.

Yes, he likes finance. Seth is a financial planner, if you don't know that. And I was like, he would be so proud of me if I learned something. So, so I did it for Seth. I was like, I want to make my husband proud.

I did not know any of this was happening, just to be clear.

He didn't say a word. He knows that I like Matt and Abby.

Yes.

So it was a 2-hour podcast.

I'm impressed you got through.

And I listened to it. It took um, it wasn't one day on the treadmill. It took like two— it took like two days on the treadmill. But I did listen to it, and then I sent it to Seth and Max, and Seth listened to it, and then Seth ordered the book. Yes, show them the book.

This is his book, Money for Couples. Highly recommend it. We're reading it together. It's awesome.

So Seth and I are reading the book together.

Yes.

And I say go get the book. Um, all of us can get better with money, every single one of us.

Yes.

Is this— is this telling me that I'm doing the thumbs up? That's kind of cool. Did you see that? Put your thumb up. I don't know.

Or is somebody—

maybe someone else is giving me the thumbs up. So this week's topic is diving into Money for Couples by Ramit Sethi.

And we're gonna do a series, right? We're not gonna get through the whole book in one, one session.

I read 50 pages and I said, holy moly, I have a lot, I have a lot more pages to read. I'm gonna keep holding up the book so that you guys can see what we're, we're talking about Money for Couples. And the topic this week is about helping couples be better with money. And it's gonna be segments because I read 50 pages of the book and I was like, this is a lot in 50 pages. And I was like, if somebody is like me, they need little chunks and they need to, they need to understand pieces of it one thing at a time. We're not going to talk about the whole book one in one day, so I'm sure Seth and I will do this multiple times. And as I wrote this blog, there is a blog all about money for couples at winiepluza.com that I wrote. As I was writing it, I was getting so excited because I was like, Seth is gonna love this topic. I was like, sometimes I write and and Seth is like, yeah, it's fine. It's not gonna be fun to talk about, but it's a good blog. And sometimes he's like, oh, I can't wait to talk about this. And today he was like, I'm so excited 'cause I wanna talk about this.

And we're gonna help people and we're helping each other.

So Seth is really good at helping couples with money. He has couples in his office all the time to talk about money. He knows about the 4 different types of money that we're gonna talk about.

Money personalities.

He knows how to help couples. He knows how to help individuals. He helps people with college and finding money for college, and he's a financial expert. So I'm gonna start with when Seth started opening his businesses. Business one, I paid all of our bills when we got together, and I would, you know, we would put our money into our account and I would pay the bills, and I would talk to Seth about the bills because he's a financial planner, and I would write all the checks. I have really neat handwriting. —so I was much easier to read, right? So I did all that, but I would get so frustrated because when you open businesses, you open accounts, and it was getting complicated. And I would say, Seth, I need money. Like, Seth, I have to pay the mortgage, I need money. Seth, I need— or not the mortgage, was it the mortgage? Were we in the house? Car payments, whatever it was. I was like, I need more. Like, you got to put more money in. Like, I only have so much from my paycheck. We were living off of both of our checks, right? So after asking him, like, on a weekly, monthly, whatever basis, I was like, this is so frustrating. If he just does it, he knows how much money we need in the account. So I literally was so frustrated, I threw the checkbook. I think I flung it, right? Yes. And I was like, I'm done. Like, I'm done. And that was the start of the downward spiral of me with money. And I'm sorry about that. I know that this is my— this is not your fault. Do not take responsibility. This is my fault. Okay, I shut down that day. Yes, I was just getting so confused that I, I didn't seek to understand more. I just kind of like— and then it got more complicated. Like, he has how many businesses? 5? 7? What? We gotta see. Do you see how bad I am at this?

You're not bad, you just don't care.

I'm going to get— I do care, and I'm going to get better.

I do care. I'm excited about you caring.

So he has 7 businesses, which is very— even saying that is so overwhelming.

It's just— I said it, I was interviewed on a Millionaire University podcast yesterday and I said, you guys invest in real estate and play Monopoly with real estate, I'm just playing Monopoly with businesses. Accumulated— they're accumulating rental property, I'm just accumulating business.

So I'm gonna guess there's more than 7 accounts. Yes. Do you see how overwhelmed? Like, I, I am trying not to shut down. I'm going to get through this segment. Yes. So it just kept getting more complicated, and instead of getting curious and wanting to understand, I shut down and handed over everything to Seth financially.

Yeah.

Now Seth is the financial expert, so you would think— and I'm gonna, I'm going to tell you this is not true— You would think that Seth would handle the money. Now, according to Ramit, who is the financial expert that I am going to refer to, he says one person should never— Seth agrees with him— one person should never handle the finances.

Never handle 100%, right? I get hit by a bus, what are you gonna do tomorrow?

So, I mean, there's so many reasons. He had so many reasons. Like, even the fact that I was thinking about the fact that I'm so much more detail-oriented than Seth. Who knows what I would do to help our finances? Because I've done— I would love your help. Other than, other than working, I'm not doing anything to help our finances. Seth is doing the investing. Seth is doing all of it. Yes. So you would think that if you're married to a financial expert like I am, of course the financial expert would manage the money. And I am here to tell you that one person should not be handling the money.

We should be partners.

We should be a team. Seth and I are a wonderful parenting team, so I know that we're capable of being a wonderful financial team. Yes.

So we can generalize the scale, right? Yes. Your word.

Well, it's my word, and I use it all the time. So Ramit was speaking my language. Part of why I was so engaged in the episode is that he's very psychological.

Yeah, it wasn't just talking about numbers. It was— most of it was honestly talking about feelings and communication, which is your area expertise.

So as much as he's a financial expert, and when him and Matt started talking about compounding interest, I literally was like, 8th wonder of the world. I was like, oh God, don't start. Like, they were like, now everyone's gonna turn the podcast off because we're talking about compound interest. But he was talking about psychology and he used the word generalize, and I was like, he's even using my word that I use all the time. He's like, if you're confident in one area of your life you can take those skills and apply it to finances. So he's so right, and he says that multiple times all throughout his book. Yes. So he wants us— and Seth and I, I was gonna have Seth and I do this before the episode and I forgot. Um, he says to write 10 rules, like each person's 10 rules about money. Yep.

And like an example, we could do another episode where we share our rules, right, after we come up with them.

So we need to each— every person needs to come up with 10 rules about money. And like, one of his rules, Ramit's rules, is that he will buy any book that he wants. Any book.

One of his things is, I want unlimited books. He also wants to buy lots of— loves appetizers at restaurants, wants to always buy an appetizer because his parents didn't get them growing up. Yeah, he's renting his house So he wants to rent, he wants to fly on beautiful vacations, and owning a home isn't a priority for them at this point in their lives, him and his wife.

So your rules shouldn't drag you down and make you cringe. Your rules should make you excited. Yes. And then, and then you discuss them. Yes. And then you work on having a joint, um, belief— no, rich values. Yes. Having a rich life, what values does the couple have and what would make it a rich life for the couple? And a rich life is different for everybody. So he says, what is a rich life for you? And I was like, oh my God, when he said that, I was like, Seth and I have totally created a rich life. All I ever wanted was to be a stay-at-home mom. That's all I ever wanted to do. And I did do that for a while. And then Seth and I designed this job for me that I do do every day. You work? I do, I do. Um, you know, like, we're not talking about work with the kids in the house. No, I actually work every day.

You work on Winey Balooza every single day.

People don't know that, and I don't track my hours, so I can't report back to you how many hours I work. It's a lot. Um, I think it's a significant amount of work. It's not 40 hours a week. It's not— probably not 30 hours a week, but I work, and we designed a job that I can do around the kids. So I'm still a full-time stay-at-home mom, and to me, that is what rich looks like. So he says, define what rich looks like to you so that you can go after that. And he was saying that like, rich for you might be owning a house. He's like, rich for me is renting an apartment. And he lives in two cities. Yes, they have apartments in two cities. So, okay, I want to talk about housing because I was so happy when he taught me this. So Seth will be thrilled. Just this one fact that I listened to Ramit, he said that you should spend 28% or less. Yes, 28% or less of your income on your house, correct? And he said, before you buy a house, do the numbers. He's like, nobody does the numbers and nobody knows what the numbers are. And he's like, do the numbers before and don't be house poor, right?

It's not that your mortgage broker says we can get you a loan for that amount, it's should we actually spend that much? Because there are people who spend too much on a house and then they're like, well, we can't go out to dinner and we can't go on vacation, we can't do anything because we're spending half our money on the house.

Well, and I was conscious— Seth doesn't know this and, and I want to talk more about this, but I was conscious of the fact that as much as I would have spent more than Seth on a house, I wanted to be able to spoil my kids, take the vacations, get the nice cars. I didn't want to be like, okay, I got this huge house and now I can't spend any money. I didn't want that. So I did do the numbers, and I want to report that Seth and I are spending less than 28% on our house. Not because of me, because I feel in my heart of hearts that Seth— because of Seth, we underspent on our first house. Yes. And we underspent on our second house. Absolutely. And Seth gave me a number for our second house, and that number kept going down. And we spent, I think, less, way less than that number on this house.

Well, there were some situational factors in the purchase of our— this home.

No, no, I will explain after this because I don't want to get into the specific numbers, but I'm right, and it has nothing to do with what you're talking about. Okay, nothing to do with that. Okay, I am going to tell you that we underspent on our house. Yes. And I'm okay with that, which is huge. I mean, did I—

I think you have not been okay with that for the last 10 or 11 years, and that is awesome news for me.

So my plan was we had our starter house, and then we had Lily, our third child, and then we needed more space, so we moved. And the way that Seth strategically got me to agree to this house, which I love I love our house, is he said, this is just number 2, there will be a number 3, because we both had a vision of what our dream house would look like. So for— so my plan was to live here for maybe 7 years, I didn't really know, and then to move to another house. And I will tell you, nobody wanted to move except me. My kids didn't want to move. Seth didn't want to move. And I was like, well, I can make everybody move. You could. Seth would do it for me. I would. The kids don't have a choice. But I was like, I'm totally outvoted. And we're in a financially good place, partially because Seth is conservative.

So just because you could do something doesn't mean you should do something.

Yes. Yes, and I did sit down with Seth and do the numbers. I actually did do numbers with him, and when he explained things to me, it made more sense.

So we would not be spending under 28% of our income on a house if you went and bought the house that you wanted.

God, if I wanted to get the house that I wanted, um, it wouldn't be that bad, but it would be— it wouldn't be where we're at now, right? So, okay. Ramit says that we need to start having non-stressful conversations about money. Money for Couples is the book. Yes, start having— have a conversation about money. Make it pleasant, make it enjoyable. Start talking about your dreams with your money. Talk about what your plans are for the future or what you value. Make it a really light and fluffy conversation, all happy. And start building from that. And he said, and then make an appointment to do it again and keep the momentum going and keep having conversations that do not lead to fights about money, right?

Don't start off with, here's what we're gonna— we really need to cut back on X, Y, and Z and save a few bucks, because nobody likes those conversations.

Like, you don't start a conversation with, why did you go to Target today? And you don't start a conversation—

it's not, why did you go to Target? It's, what— I thought you were going for one thing. How did you spend a couple hundred dollars at Target?

Well, so Lily and I went to Target the other day for a bathing suit. I was very impressed by this. For Lily, for swim for school. We left Target with a bathing suit. And here is the best part. And Lily says to me at the register, "Mom, we came in here for a bathing suit and we're leaving with only a bathing suit." She's like, "Isn't that awesome?" Out of the mouths of the children.

That— I've— we've raised her right. This is because of you. Yes, I am taking full credit for that.

Okay, so let's talk about the 4 different money types because that's what I really wanted to get to. And I'm sorry that it took me 20 minutes to get to the 4 different types of money, but I want you to really think about which type you are because that's how we're gonna get better. Yes. So we're gonna start with me. I, I done— I blatantly am the avoider. So not a good type to be, people. The avoider does not want to talk about money. Um, I have tried, and Seth has tried to go slow with me, and I still tend to shut down and get overwhelmed and walk away. We've tried multiple times.

We're now going to improve that though. I'm, I'm in it.

I'm in it to win it. I, I am Ready to go? I am. My head is out of the sand. That's awesome. I literally handed over power to Seth.

I didn't ask for it. She just gave it.

Um, I think that the underlying issue, which Seth and I will work on, work on, is that I get so confused with all of his businesses. So the confusion is so overwhelming that I became an avoider. Yes. And if I avoid it, I don't have to feel confused. Yep. So it wasn't that we're in debt, and so like a lot of people—

yes, I think I don't even want to open the credit card statement. I don't want to know how much more interest.

I want to cry just thinking about that situation. I can see being an avoider because you're in so much debt that you don't even want to deal with it. Okay, you don't want to look, you don't want to know what you want, you don't want to know how much you spent that month, month and you don't want to know what you did at Starbucks or Target, or although he says those are $5 questions, $3 questions, and you want to focus on the $30,000 questions. As an example, he's like, don't focus on Starbucks, focus on investments or the house, the cars, the big things. The house was a big thing that he talked about. So the avoider does not want to talk about money. The avoider will do anything to get out of talking about money. The avoider will say things like, honey, you're so much better at money than me, you handle it. Yep, that sounds familiar. So the avoider is avoiding the money conversation. Yes. So this is me, but I'm gonna do better. Okay, Seth is the optimizer. Okay, and do you want to tell them about the optimizer?

Um, the optimizer is someone who would happily talk about money, who is looking at the numbers and trying to make them them as good as they possibly can.

Make as many spreadsheets as they can.

Love me Excel and Google Sheets, and that drives her crazy because that's not what she wants. Um, but that, that's, that's my personality type, is I'm always trying to make it grow more, always trying to optimize, always trying to make it better, always trying to get it set up.

So Seth is like, where can I invest our money? How much money did we spend today? Um, I think that he used to be like, where can we cut back? Yes.

I don't think you do that anymore. I— you— that never— me suggesting we spend less money honestly never went well, so I gave up and realized the solution was never going to be to try and get my wonderful wife to cut whatever I was trying to get her to cut. The solution is just go make more money, which we need to work on.

Um, yeah, I mean I got— yeah, okay.

We're gonna keep having these conversations and we're gonna report back, and you can watch our journey as we both improve. Because one of the things that Optimizer may do is they're always planning for the future, right? Sometimes I have been guilty of being so far ahead and thinking about the future that I forget that I don't choose— that I don't do the things to enjoy what we do have now. I'm not saying go spend it all, but like, relax, live a little, enjoy it, as opposed to just planning for someday in the future.

So a perfect example of an optimizer— my husband— is we're talking about the 4 different money types for everybody who's tuning in, um, is that Seth is saving for college. Seth has saved for Lily's bat mitzvah, that is this summer. Seth is a saver and a planner and an optimizer. Yep, it's gonna optimize our money. Yeah. And I am like, honey, let's take a trip. Let's take a trip this year. Let's book it. Let's plan it. Let's go. Let's enjoy our money. So I would say that Seth used to be more like futuristic. Yes. And he's gotten more able to enjoy his money. Yes. But in his defense, he has a lot to plan for. Yeah, you have 3 kids going to college. We have 3 kids going to college. Thank you. And I think that optimizers need us to help them enjoy the day and enjoy the money and enjoy the present. Yes. And not just be planning for the future. But being— but as much as— so being married to all of these types can be annoying. There's different strengths and weaknesses to each of them. Yep. And I can be annoying because I'm like, just handle the money. I mean, that's not fair for Seth to be alone handling the money. He has said to me, I feel alone in this. Yeah. Like, we don't feel a team with money, right? But we're gonna— yes, I mean, we're capable of it. Yes, we can totally change. We all can change. I don't care what money type you are, you can change whatever money type you are and get better with money. I'm telling you, if I can get better with money, you can get better with money. So what was I saying about Optimizer though? I wanted to say something about it.

I think we covered it.

Okay, I'm missing a key point, but that's okay. So I was going to say that as annoying as it is because they want to do spreadsheets and they want to plan for the future, it's also beneficial. Yes. So the Worrier, a lot of people are worriers about money and they're up at night worrying, what if I lose my job? What if the stock market crashes? Um, what if I lose my pension? Um, will I have enough money? Will I live too long that my money runs out? Um, they stay up at night worrying. They're constantly worrying and making worst-case scenarios in their head. Um, with worriers in general, I tended to talk to them about the worst-case scenario, and I would be like, okay, let's plan for it so that you can see how strong you are and that you get through it, are— can handle it. You can handle the worst-case scenario. So I definitely think worriers— I think that worriers think that worrying is responsible, and I think that they think that they're being in control and can handle their money better if they worry about it. They're like reframing it in their head to make it something positive, like, I'm so responsible because I worry about my money, but they're driving themselves crazy and they're driving their partners crazy and they're driving their kids crazy. So my advice is to think about what areas of your life that you're confident in and take those skills with you into money so that you become less of a worrier. Yes. And the last money type, the dreamer. The dreamer is not living in reality. The dreamer is always talking about the next thing that's going to make them money. They don't want to work 9 to 5. They usually have somebody supporting them, whether it's their family or their spouse. Somebody is making it possible for them to be a dreamer, and their head's in the clouds. They're very, um, big on like pyramid network marketing, network marketing, like I'm gonna get rich from this next thing.

And there's always the next thing.

I don't need to work all day, I've got another idea to make me money. And things don't tend to pan out. They just dream about it and always have some new idea about money, and it really drives their partner crazy. And it's not fair to their partner. So our advice is to come down from the clouds and get realistic with money. And if you need to, actually get a hardcore job, right? Gotta pay the bills. Gotta pay the bills. Gotta help with the bills. Don't expect your partner to do everything. And, and if you're the partner of a dreamer, Ramit says that you really have to draw some boundaries with them. Right? Yep. So what is your homework assignment? So Seth and I have identified our money types. Now it's your turn. Go identify what money type you are. Talk to your spouse or whoever your family is about what is rich to you. What would make you feel rich? What are you looking for, right?

It doesn't have to be the dollar amount in the bank account.

And have a positive conversation with your spouse about money. Just a dream. Just a small little start having good conversations about money. Just start somewhere and then make an appointment to do it again. So Seth and I need to do that. Yep. So our homework assignment is to have a money conversation. I'm looking forward to it. And Seth is so funny. I mean, you gotta love him. He comes to our money conversations with everything laid out to show me and my eyes usually glaze over in about 5 minutes.

I usually— less than 5. We're gonna do it differently this time. We're gonna have the just the let's dream about what we want to do together before we ever get to numbers, and then we're gonna go one account at a time so you're not looking at a ton at once so that it's not overwhelming.

Oh boy, I am determined. So Seth has made positive changes. He has become much better better at enjoying his money. Our money. Our money. Um, I think he's got— I think he's made improvements, and I think it's time for me to make improvements. What would you like to see start to change?

I'd like to have you be involved in the process and like to do it together. Yeah, in a positive, supportive way.

I feel like what couples should be doing— I feel like Seth and I do this a little bit every night, but I feel like Sunday nights need to be a powwow about the week, like what's coming up this week. Yeah, which— planning for the week, talking about what activity. Yeah, talking about the kids, talking about our life for the week, talking about maybe having a few minutes about money. Like, I feel like Sunday nights should really be a couple's coming together to talk about the week. Love it. I think that's a good time to add in the money conversation. Let's do it. It's like a Sunday night meeting.

I will happily meet with you.

And you can always go from a couples meeting to a family meeting if you want to then invite, involve the kids. But, um, I hope you will do your homework and report back to us. Let us know what money type you are. Let us know if you have a positive conversation with your spouse about money. I would love to know what rich means to you And I want to tell you that this Friday on the podcast is Mary Crocker, and she talks about women who have bad taste in men. She was so— she's so smart and savvy and good at this topic, and she's also hysterical. I laughed a lot. You're gonna love her. You're gonna learn from her. She's gonna make you better with men. Whether you're married or not. If you are not married, or if you have bad taste in other genders, if you listen, maybe better with romantic people, she's going to help you in no matter what situation you are. But I want to tell you a couple situations. If you are unhappily married, she can help you with your spouse. If you are not married and you feel like you've had bad taste, she's going to help you. Um, and she even enhanced our relationship.

She did. Okay, so I'm now gonna have to listen to it.

I'm gonna tell you something, and this is just one reason. There were other reasons. As she's telling me about different types of men and she's going through all of them, I don't think I could have loved my husband more. Ah, like she's talking about you know, the cheaters, the drug addicts, the, you know, she's going— whatever, she's going through all the stuff. And I was like, nope, he's not that, he's not that. I, I, I found a good one. So made me appreciate my husband. Thank you. That— I will definitely listen to that. I'm sure I learned a lot of stuff too. And, um, what else do we want to tell them, honey?

Go to whinypalooza.com, find Rebecca's Linktree that has all of her resources. Sign up for all of them, especially the email newsletter that is 3 times a week that is free. And make sure on all of them to like, comment, rate, review, share, and subscribe.

Thank you, honey. Um, I just totally was reading Jessica's text message, so I just missed everything Seth said. So it's the same. So in case he didn't tell you, please go join the Whiny Pooza Mom group on Facebook.

Oh, that's the one that you talk about. I talk about all the rest.

He loves— the newsletter is doing awesome, and I would love for you to subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. He's teaching me. I've learned a lot. See, he's taught me a lot about business, which makes me hopeful that I can get better with money. I know you can. So here I go.

And I can get better too.

So get this book with us so that you can read with us. Money for Couples. Get it, and we'll do segments with you. And thank you so Thank you so much for joining us and have a wonderful week.

Happy Winey Palooza.

Thank you for tuning in to the Winey Palooza podcast. If you like what you heard, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. While you are there, leave a review. I love to hear your feedback. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time. This show has been produced by Market Domination LLC. To discover how you can have your own show completely done for you and turn it into a real published book and become the authority in your marketplace, go to www.marketdominationllc.com.

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