Episode #109: Where Are They Now? Netflix Reunion with Donnell and Monique

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[00:00:00] Ramit: What surprised you about the experience?

[00:00:01] Monique: That y’all actually were all in our business. 

[00:00:03] Donnell: Telling you guys out there in America, who’s listening to this man’s podcast, it was to the point where me and Monique wanted to throw hands. It was crazy. Crazy.

[00:00:14] Monique: What do you mean they need all of my account information? Well, they going to get what I give them because that’s none of their business. I was so difficult behind the scenes. I ignored everybody. I didn’t like you. I didn’t like production. I told them if I didn’t have– no, I think I blocked production at one point.

[00:00:30] Ramit: I wasn’t ready to give up on you.

[00:00:32] Donnell: Hmm. 

[00:00:33] Ramit: I don’t care if you’re trying to ignore me. I know these are uncomfortable conversations. I know you two specialize in ignoring this. That’s how you got into all this debt. But I wasn’t going to let you walk away.

[00:00:46] Donnell: Uh, are you pushing me to talk about this microwave? Is that what this is?

[00:00:52] Ramit: The fans want to know.

[Narration]

[00:00:54] Ramit: Welcome back to a special episode where I get to catch up with the guests from my Netflix show, How To Get Rich. Spoiler alert, if you haven’t already watched all eight episodes, go do that now because we’re going to share everything today, including behind the scenes items that never came out during the show. Today, we get to catch up with Monique and Donnell.

You might remember them because he was spending $600 a month on video games. They had $200,000 of student loan debt that they were ignoring, and they wanted to buy a house. You’re going to get to hear what has changed a year later after filming. So let’s get into it right now with Monique and Donnell.

[Interview]

[00:01:38] Ramit: Okay. Well, I just want to know, just starting from the beginning, what has changed since we last saw each other? Let’s go, uh, Donnell first and then Monique.

[00:01:50] Donnell: We still had some struggles, uh, because we went right in, real heavy, to pay off some debt and, uh, close some accounts. We were just hurt because we put a lot of money into closing stuff down and getting out of debt where we didn’t have anything to back us up. So I started a side hustle. Um, and luckily, with, uh, the tools that you gave us and the additional money that came in from that, we paid off all of our credit card debt.

[00:02:25] Ramit: Whoa. So you paid off $20,000 of credit card debt?

[00:02:30] Donnell: Yeah.

[00:02:30] Ramit: Damn. I’ll take the win on that. That’s amazing.

[00:02:33] Donnell: Basically, all our debt is good except for student loans. So combined, we have about, um, close to 85,000 left in student loan debt. Combined with the two of us.

[00:02:44] Monique: His side hustle has really been helping us out a lot, and big chunks of money.

[00:02:49] Ramit: How much are you making on the side hustle, Donnell?

[00:02:52] Donnell: Last year I made 200k alone.

[00:02:55] Ramit: What? What is the side hustle?

[00:02:58] Donnell: I’m a finder. Basically, um, I knew you were going to ask that.

[00:03:04] Ramit: Isn’t that a show? What is a finder?

[00:03:06] Donnell: No, no. Only show we’ve been on is yours. Oh, wait. First off, congratulations. 

[00:03:12] Ramit: Thank you. 

[00:03:14] Donnell: Um, much success. You’ve been helping a lot of people.

[00:03:17] Ramit: Thank you very much.

[00:03:18] Donnell: Um, but, uh, basically all I do is, um, for PA, Jersey, and Delaware, whatever money is in the treasury, um, older people, I find the people, connect them with the money, and I, uh, charge a fee. Um, and I wrote it. Yeah.

[00:03:34] Ramit: What’s the fee?

[00:03:35] Donnell: 10%.

[00:03:36] Ramit: And it’s called a finder?

[00:03:38] Donnell: Yeah. Either a finder, an asset locator, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I took a note from your book and I wrote an ebook to help people do it because I was so successful with it. So again, um, everything that came from your show, it took us to really branch out and figure out how to make this work,

[00:04:02] Ramit: Wow. Okay. So you made– did you say 200,000 last in the last year?

[00:04:06] Donnell: Yeah. And I have, um, literally, from January to now, I have about 260 something thousand coming to me. So I already made what I made last year, less in about six months.

[00:04:22] Ramit: Who’s paying for dinner next time we see each other? So can you remind me, when we were talking, how much student loan debt did both of you have?

[00:04:35] Monique: 10,000.

[00:04:38] Donnell: No. Student loan debt. I wish. That was a joke. Because I’m like, Iwish. 

[00:04:46] Ramit: Wasn’t it 200?

[00:04:47] Donnell: Yeah, yeah. I think.

[00:04:49] Monique: Yeah. A little bit less because I think I had maybe 85, 90, something like that on my own.

[00:04:58] Donnell: And I had 72.

[00:04:59] Ramit: Okay. So the two of those combined. All right. And now how much is it? 

[00:05:04] Donnell: It’s about 85,000 combined.

[00:05:06] Ramit: So you’ve paid off 70,000 or so in the last year. 

[00:05:09] Donnell: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:10] Ramit: Plus 20,000 from your credit card.

[00:05:13] Donnell: Yeah.

[00:05:13] Monique: We could just be holding that money, but we did the right thing and then paid it off.

[00:05:18] Ramit: Is this for real?

[00:05:19] Donnell: Yeah.

[00:05:20] Ramit: This is amazing.

[00:05:22] Donnell: Yeah.

[00:05:22] Ramit: Am I the only one smiling on this? Wait, this is my smile by the way. A lot of people are like, Ramit doesn’t smile. I’m like, this is my smile. This is crazy. This is amazing. I’m so proud of both of you.

[00:05:33] Monique: Thank you.

[00:05:34] Donnell: I appreciate it. Appreciate it.

[Narration]

[00:05:35] Ramit: I am speechless. This is almost hard to believe, but it’s quite amazing. They went from arguing over an old storage unit to paying off tens of thousands of dollars in debt and increasing their income. Amazing. 

[Interview]

[00:05:52] Ramit: Monique, I’m so curious, uh, what has changed since we last saw each other?

[00:05:59] Donnell: Not much. She’s having the space. Look at that.

[00:06:01] Ramit: I can see that. That’s amazing. 

[00:06:03] Monique: Um, honestly, being in this space, I think for me– I mean, the money stuff was nice. It was just the whole point of the show, but it was nice. But honestly, being introduced to this space has opened up a lot of doors, um, to help my business. While being here, I was able to be in their artisan cohort program. I think it’s a six-week program that helped with, uh, building your business. We got to do art shows. I’ve been able to be a part of vending events, and now I get to throw my own vending event.

[00:06:36] Ramit: Wow. That’s amazing. Do you remember that conversation we had when we were walking around there? And I remember we took the full tour. It was pretty cool. We chatted with a couple people, and then we were standing outside, and I think you mentioned something like, I’m not sure I belong here. Do you remember that conversation?

[00:06:53] Monique: Yeah, yeah.

[00:06:54] Ramit: What do you remember about it?

[00:06:56] Monique: The imposter syndrome part. And honestly, uh, I don’t remember what month I joined in. I think it was March. I didn’t come in until maybe May, and I didn’t even come in doing my own work. Somebody here was offering part-time work, so I was like, I’m going to use this as an opportunity to make myself comfortable being here. So it was just a way of me getting out of my way and saying, just watch the people. And now, I mean, everybody’s awesome. Everybody’s asking everybody, how can you do this? And everybody’s open to be helpful. I love it. It’s my favorite place to come.

[00:07:38] Ramit: I still remember that vividly. It’s one of my favorite parts of the entire experience doing this show. I remember we walked together, and then you were walking a little bit on your own, and I was just watching. And I remember that imposter syndrome conversation, and I remember vividly saying, you belong here. And so to see you a year later with that background, being there, watching you on Instagram, I’m so happy for you and for you as an artist and an entrepreneur. I think it’s amazing.

[00:08:09] Monique: Well, I truly appreciate you for it because this was a step that I probably would’ve kept looking at and thinking about it and then a year later, looking at it again and then thinking about it again. I think it forced me to jump and just not worry about the what ifs.

[00:08:25] Ramit: All right. Beautiful. Uh, Monique, I want to know about your finances. What’s going on? We heard from Donnell. What about for you?

[00:08:32] Monique: Here and there. It’s still good. I have my good months. Like now, I’m starting to ramp up. During the summer, it’s busier because of all the events that are happening, like weddings and graduations.

[00:08:44] Ramit: What’s a range that you make per month?

[00:08:47] Monique: Regularly, I make maybe between 35 to four a month. 

[00:08:53] Ramit: 4,000?

[00:08:55] Monique: Yeah. And then on good months is where it’s the 8,000.

[00:09:00] Ramit: Whoa. So that’s pretty cool. You’ve had more $8,000 months since we talked.

[00:09:06] Monique: Yes.

[00:09:07] Ramit: Amazing. Together as a household, you start making this money. How did you decide what to do with it?

[00:09:14] Donnell: Um, honestly, we really just looked at the initial conscious spending plan that you gave us, um, that we did, um, talking about homework, uh, because you definitely gave us a lot of homework. 

[00:09:27] Ramit: That’s right.

[00:09:27] Donnell: But, um, we just really took a stab at it and went over our credit report and looked at what we can pay down first. Initially. When we had the conversation in the restaurant. So we started with the small bills, and then worked our way up. It’s a huge relief off of our shoulders to be able to walk into a store or go online to Amazon and purchase what I want without, uh, fear of Monique.

[00:09:55] Ramit: Why are you opening up the door on Amazon? You know I got– how much did you spend on video games in the last 30 days? Tell me. Tell the truth.

[00:10:01] Donnell: Oh. Um, no, truthfully, I’ve only been getting free games. So no in-net purchases.

[00:10:08] Ramit: Seriously? You used to spend 600 bucks a month. I remember. I saw that scene. You saw it too. I know you saw that. Wait, so you spend nothing on video games?

[00:10:18] Donnell: Yeah. Nothing on video games.

[00:10:19] Monique: You’re not going to say nothing on video games. 

[00:10:21] Donnell: No. Nothing.

[00:10:22] Monique: In the past month–

Yeah. Tell me, Monique. 

[00:10:24] Monique: You spent nothing. But no, he’s done really good. Honestly, he’s been so caught up in working and doing a whole bunch of stuff that he doesn’t really have time to sit around and do as much, so there’s less purchases.

[00:10:38] Donnell: It is been really important to try and stay on track. It is hard. It’s really, really hard.

[00:10:43] Ramit: What’s the hardest part of it?

[00:10:45] Donnell: Um, knowing that I can do it now, but scaling back and making sure that things are in order because now, um, Dilly is in college, and we’re going topay for that.

[00:10:59] Ramit: Congrats. Okay. All right. How much is that costing per year? What, 19,000?

[00:11:04] Donnell: Yeah. 20.

[00:11:06] Ramit: Are you paying in full?

[00:11:08] Donnell: Yeah.

[00:11:08] Monique: Yeah. We don’t want her to be stuck with the loans like they were.

[Narration]

[00:11:11] Ramit: This is frustrating. Monique and Donnell have decided to pay $19,000 a year. A huge amount, which follows the invisible script in America that you should pay for your kids’ college. Maybe. Maybe not. But what really interests me is how much discussion did they have about all the issues around this 80,000-dollar decision? Did they talk about the cost of college? Did they talk about their options, including scholarships, financial aid, work study, internships? This single decision is one of the biggest financial decisions they will ever make. But as with many of us, we spend more time looking for the newest restaurant or watching random TV shows than really dialing in on these six-figure life decisions.

[Interview]

[00:12:09] Ramit: My theme for you was decisive. I wanted both of you to become more decisive. You remember me getting a little frustrated sometimes hearing the spinning and the– what do you remember about your, um, indecision? Can you think of any examples?

[00:12:28] Donnell: Um, it was the whole show. The whole entire thing. Um, but the– again, um, we’ll go to the storage unit. It was definitely that.

[00:12:43] Ramit: That. Okay. Tell me about the storage unit. What’s with up it? 

[00:12:48] Donnell: Can I clarify for folks? So I wasn’t holding on to used baby clothes.

[00:12:53] Ramit: You better tell the world right now because there’s lot of people on TikTok, on Instagram. Tell us your message, Donnell.

[00:13:01] Donnell: So I was a reseller. I was trying to make a couple of dollars, and it was all brand new stuff. It looked like it was trashy in there, how I took the camera view or whatever, but it was all brand new stuff.

[00:13:16] Ramit: You took that camera, by the way. You took that footage yourself. 

[00:13:19] Donnell: Yeah.

[00:13:20] Ramit: I just want to emphasize. It wasn’t some producer. You took your own footage, and then people are like, is that guy– are those used diapers in there? What’s going on in there?

[00:13:28] Donnell: That’s why I looked so bad, because I did it myself when we had a cameraperson. But you did the calculations on how much I was spending per year based off of what I was making, which was zero. I was just holding that stuff. And, um, the decisiveness in wanting to get rid of it because we went back and forth. A lot of people don’t know when the cameras weren’t there, Ramit was rough, and we gave him a hard time, folks. A really, really hard time.

[00:14:01] Monique: Everybody’s like, you guys, you made the decisions right away. I was like, they made us look good.

[00:14:06] Donnell: Right.

[00:14:07] Ramit: Okay. So tell everybody because I think they should know. Let’s tell them.

[00:14:10] Monique: Oh, no, we fought back on the bag. I fought back–

[00:14:15] Ramit: On bag, what did you say? Tell everyone.

[00:14:17] Monique: I’m returning it. This is my bag. I bought something nice for myself. You’re not going to make me return it.

[00:14:22] Ramit: You did push back a little bit. Fair enough. And I actually didn’t know if you took the bag back or not because I wasn’t there.

[00:14:30] Monique: I took it back, and I paid a bill with it.

[00:14:36] Ramit: Okay, nice.

[00:14:37] Monique: Paid off a credit card. 

[00:14:39] Ramit: How did it feel?

[00:14:39] Monique: Awful. No, it felt– because I knew that at the moment, it was a nice bag, and I do like bags, but eventually it would’ve just been collecting dust because I honestly had just gotten a couple new bags as gifts. So it wasn’t–

[00:14:54] Ramit: Production, do we know this? The secrets come out.

[00:14:59] Monique: But, um, I know that once everything gets situated and life is where it needs to be, buying a bag should just be, oh, I’m going to get this bag.

[00:15:07] Ramit: That’s right. That’s exactly right. Your tomorrow is going to be bigger than your today. Uh, Donnell, share some examples of how you pushed back when it came to my advice,

[00:15:21] Donnell: Oh man. Um, shoot. What? The, um, again, uh, are you pushing me to talk about this microwave? Is that what this is?

[00:15:35] Ramit: The fans want to know.

[00:15:36] Monique: That was a big conversation with the fans. It was a big conversation outside of the cameras. It was a big conversation.

[00:15:45] Ramit: Tell us about the microwave Donnell.

[00:15:47] Donnell: Um, so yeah, I purchased a microwave for $17. Um, brand new microwave. It’s an expensive microwave, and I wasn’t just going to give it up. And, um, we went back and forth. Um, a lot of– again, folks just don’t know. At the restaurant that day, we were going to walk out on Ramit. We were going to leave him there.

We were not going to finish the show. We were pissed. Um, but, uh, I mean, sometimes the truth stings, and you got to accept it and look at it from someone else’s perspective, um, even though– you may be in your own little bubble, but, um, in order to really, really progress, you got to be able to take advice from someone that has been able to do it or can show you how to do it.

Um, so that was hard. But, um, we gave the microwave to our daughter at her dorm, so it went to use, so her, her roommate, um, and, uh, we got, um, dropped down the storage unit. So now we’re using, instead of a 10 by 30, we’re in a 5 by 15. And it’s only to hold Monique’s, um, wood when she does projects and things like that.

[00:17:10] Ramit: How much does it cost per month?

[00:17:11] Donnell: Um, $98.

[00:17:13] Ramit: And who pays? Where does the money come from? Oh, Monique pays. I love this. What agreat–that’s a great answer. It’s a business expense, which tells me you’ve got your accounts better structured. Monique is stepping up, saying yes. That is awesome. What a great answer. Round of applause. That’s amazing.

[Narration]

[00:17:33] Ramit: Okay. Lots of insights and clues here, and most of them are positive. First, that last answer really made me happy, when Monique said that she pays for the storage unit out of her business. That simple answer actually tells me that they have done a ton of work into restructuring their finances. I also love that they’re open about how difficult of a time they gave me and the production team on the show. They say that they almost quit.

Personally, I was never going to give up on them, and I don’t mind if people push back on some of the things that I suggest because it means they’re engaged, and it shows that change is hard. The opposite of pushing back is to simply disengage, to just give up, to say, I’m not into this, and to vanish. That’s the worst of all. It means people are not willing to change. So I have to say, this is why I love being able to do these behind the scenes episodes from the Netflix show, because we film a ton, and we have to cut a lot. But I want you to know some of the things that happened behind the scenes that you never saw.

Now, I will say one thing that I’ve noticed on this call, which is that Donnell is what I call a believer. That’s a person who believes that success is just around the corner. They’ll often talk about the next big deal or the lottery ticket that they bought. You can tell this because he admits he used to be a reseller. Now he has this finder job, and believers find it really difficult to follow long-term plans because they’re not as exciting as the dream of a huge cash infusion. Those are the lessons. Overall, very positive.

[Interview]

[00:19:12] Ramit: What surprised you about the experience?

[00:19:14] Monique: That y’all actually were all in our business. Again, pushback. What do you mean they need all of my account information? Well, they going to get what I give them because that’s none of their business. I was so difficult behind the scenes. 

[00:19:29] Ramit: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:29] Monique: But, um, yeah. I mean, I didn’t think that you were actually going to come in and really look over things and go through it, nitpick and all of that. And you did. Every account was looked at, and highlighted, and talked about. So yeah, that surprised me. I think it was hard. Um, I think that a lot of– I got a lot of things out of it because I have social anxiety and regular, just generalized anxiety. And I think just the pressure of the show, I ignored everybody. I didn’t like you. I didn’t like production. I told them if I didn’t have– no, I think I blocked production at one point. Um, but I think that putting myself in this position made me stronger because I survived it.

[00:20:20] Ramit: I wasn’t ready to give up on you.

[00:20:22] Donnell: Hmm. 

[00:20:23] Ramit: I don’t care if you’re trying to ignore me. I know these are uncomfortable conversations. I know you two specialize in ignoring this. That’s how you got into all this debt. But I wasn’t going to let you walk away. Never. And so, um, one of the comments I saw a lot on social was people were surprised how invested I got. But I said, how could I not be? We sat down, and we ate together. I was in your house. We walked Next Fab together. We got to know each other over a long period of time.

How could I not be invested? And when we spent so much time talking about a microwave, and then I got mad at that Philly cheesesteak place, and I was like, how are we still talking about this when we have $200,000 of debt? How can we be focused on this tiny thing when your rich life is so much bigger?

[00:21:14] Monique: All of the anxiety and the fighting and everything, we hugged it out, and it was just like, I really– we had the time to sit and appreciate what you did for us, and I think that it was a big moment for me.

[00:21:29] Donnell: At that moment, I stopped looking at you as a figure, a businessman, as someone who’s just doing a job to an actual human being who actually, um, cared about our wellbeing. Um, how we looked at our finances, and you coming through and allowing us to be a part of, um, this journey that you took.

And, um, it was a huge moment for us, even when you left, and we were still there, um, we were still talking about it, and, um, it was just big because of everything that we went through from day one, from when you came to the house to that last day, um, of shooting, which, uh, telling you guys out there in America, who’s listening to this man’s podcast, it was to the point where me and Monique wanted to throw hands. It was crazy. Crazy.

But, um, again, the true stings. It really does. And one thing we can appreciate is that, um, you didn’t falter. You didn’t change what you said. You didn’t change what was behind what you said. You were like, listen, you guys really want to do something and actually come out of this hole. Listen. Um, and it’s hard to tell adults to listen.

[00:22:56] Monique: Our dream is still a house, but we want to make sure that we’re setting ourself up for success in buying a house. So renting is probably more expensive right now than buying the house but we don’t have to pay for repairs. We don’t have to pay for taxes and all that other stuff. So we want to make sure that when we go into our house, we can stay in our house. 

[00:23:19] Ramit: That’s phenomenal. That’s phenomenal. Our conversation about renting and owning really got America talking. Did you see that? It’s crazy.

[00:23:33] Monique: Some were upset. Some were like, I get what he’s saying. It’s a lot.

[00:23:37] Ramit: Yeah. I love that we’re talking about this. We should. It’s the biggest purchase we’ll ever make. And this idea that we should just blindly spend all of our money on a house because somebody tells us to, to me, it’s absolutely crazy. I’m glad that we were able to have that conversation. Funny enough, I actually think that was one of the easier conversations that we had because I think when it came to you, you wanted to get a house. You still want to get a house. I totally respect it. I want you to do the same. But it was so far off that we had other things we had to deal with first.

It’s like there was a fire with, um, the bags, and the storage unit, and the debt. We need to tackle that first and make a plan, even all the accounts, or we could even talk about the house. So I appreciate you coming on that journey with me, just methodically, step by step by step. Uh, speaking of that, how many accounts do you now have?

[00:24:32] Donnell: Um, three.

[00:24:34] Ramit: Are you serious?

[00:24:34] Donnell: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:36] Ramit: You went from 20 to three? What did that feel like?

[00:24:41] Donnell: Uh, that’s still strange to me.

[00:24:43] Monique: Yeah.

[00:24:45] Ramit: Uh, you know what’s strange to me? Twenty accounts. That’s strange. #bathroomfries. 

[00:24:53] Donnell: No. It is because, um, one, it works, um, having a joint account, um, and having, um, just the funds that need to go into that account that’s paying off something, um, that works. 

[00:25:11] Ramit: Okay. Monique, how about you? Um, there was a moment, I think we’re at that restaurant, and I had asked if you would consider combining accounts. And if I recall, you just point blank said no.

[00:25:24] Monique: Yeah. I will say that he has behaved, and I might be the problem child with the joint account. Just go around.

[00:25:31] Ramit: Tell me.

[00:25:32] Monique: Um, I will not have my debit card with me, and I’ll have the joint account, and I’ll spend something and forget to tell him that I spent it. And then he’s like, oh, well the money was supposed to be in there. And I was like, oh, I forgot. But then I fixed it. I transferred out because our accounts are all with the same credit union. It was easier to just everything around.

[00:25:55] Donnell: I’m extremely proud of our growth. Uh, that was huge. Like I said, you came in and you did something nobody was ever able to do. And that was to get her to do a joint account. I was like, all right, that’s your superpower right there. Um, but definitely our growth to be able to sit down and talk about money and not have any reservations, um, that’s huge. And it has played a huge part in where we are now.

[00:26:21] Ramit: It sounds like you two have become much more of a financial team.

[00:26:24] Donnell: We look at it now like, do I really need to pay $220 for a pair of sneakers, or can I actually put that up and have that money make money for me? Whereas, though, I can still get a pair of sneakers, but now I got 220 making me x amount of money per month. Yeah. 

[00:26:44] Ramit: Nice.

[00:26:44] Donnell: It’s just really, really– you had us to the point where we really had to look at how we were spending our money, how we were managing our money, and how we treated our money.

[00:26:55] Ramit:  Donnell, were you raised with the belief that making money has to be hard?

[00:27:01] Donnell:  Um, I wouldn’t say I was raised on the belief that making money has to be hard, but I was raised on the visual where if you made money, um, it wasn’t an easy thing.

[00:27:16] Ramit: Okay. Guess what? I’m teaching you a new way, which is that it actually can be easier than you think. In fact, it can be as easy as setting up automation once and then checking on it once a year. And you can make more money doing that than you would doing all kinds of crazy things that other people tried to do.

[00:27:37] Donnell: Yeah. When we hit our first million, then I’ll be happy.

[00:27:43] Ramit: Um, no, you’re not going to be happy when you hit a million. I’ll tell you that.

[00:27:46] Monique: If you’re not happy now, then you won’t be happy later. You don’t listen to the man? 

[00:27:49] Ramit: Thank you, Monique.

[00:27:50] Monique: You got to be happy with what you have now.

[00:27:52] Ramit: Monique, are you happy?

[00:27:54] Donnell: I am.

[00:27:54] Monique: Am I happy? Um, yeah. Because I know that it’ll get better if we just keep doing the same thing, not doing the same thing, but keep doing the work and–

[00:28:05] Ramit: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:06] Monique: Know your goals.

[00:28:08] Ramit: As you said just a minute ago, Monique, if you’re not happy now, you’re not going to be happy later, and the fact of the matter is, when you have a million dollars, if you continue this way of thinking, you’re going to get there, and you will get there. I can show you exactly the month and year you’re going to reach that. And you’ll say, well, we could have had 5 million. Well, what about 10 million? 

[00:28:27] Donnell: Hmm. 

[00:28:27] Ramit: And do you want to go the rest of your life feeling like that?

[00:28:30] Monique: No. We like, oh my God, we got a million. Or, oh my goodness. We have $200,000.

[00:28:35] Ramit: Hell yeah. Or, oh my God, we paid off $20,000 in credit card debt.

[00:28:39] Monique: Okay. We’ll start there.

[00:28:42] Ramit: I mean, honestly, the number of things I can count that you two should be celebrating, I can’t even fit them on two hands. The video games, um, storage unit, the number of accounts, the bag, the business, Next Fab. I mean, I could go on and on. I’m over here like, this is incredible.

[00:29:04] Donnell:  A lot of what, um, you were able to install and just break down to it throughout the process, um, we’ve taken it and we’ve been able to get this far.

[00:29:14] Monique: And it’s probably what millions of people– the place that they are. So if we could help somebody–

[00:29:19] Ramit: I have a lot of respect for that. It takes a lot of courage to show up, to open up your financials, which in America is one of the most taboo things you can do, and then to ask for help. Because in most of our life, especially as adults, we want to show up as competent, as winning. We know what’s going on. And when you have to ask for help, especially with a camera crew around, that’s not easy, but I really appreciate you did this. You did it for yourself, but you also have incidentally helped millions of people who can see themselves in the two of you.

[Narration]

[00:29:54] Ramit: After our call, Donnell sent me an email. Here’s what it said. “Monique said she didn’t think you believed us, so I enclosed the front page of our bank account.” I’m going to put that on screen here for our YouTube viewers. It shows their bank account with $176,052 in it. Quite amazing. I’m very proud of all the changes that Monique and Donnell made, and best of all, they did it together. 

Thanks for listening, and thanks for watching the show on Netflix. And one last thing. Each week, I share a new insight on money psychology on my private newsletter that I never share publicly. If you would like to get that, it’s free. You can sign up at iwt.com/podcastnewsletter. See you next time.

[00:30:41] Donnell: Every day I’m at work now, they’re like, Donnell, tell me how to get rich. I’m like, go buy the man’s book. That’s how. Go buy the man’s book.