Episode #190: “Is our relationship going to end on air?”

Download the full transcript PDF.

[00:01:16] Ramit: On today’s episode–

[00:01:17] Justin: Is this going to be the end of my relationship on air?

[00:01:20] Ramit: Meet Justin and Maggie.

[00:01:22] Maggie: We’re freelancers. We’re really good at making money, not necessarily planning on how to spend it. I’m the responsible one right now.

[00:01:29] Ramit: And who’s he?

[00:01:30] Maggie: Maybe the irresponsible one.

[00:01:32] Ramit: Justin is 38. Maggie’s 34. They’ve been dating for a couple of years and Maggie does not want to combine finances with Justin.

[00:01:40] Maggie: I just want some similar priorities and some similar game plan.

[00:01:46] Ramit: Maggie spent her 20s traveling the world.

[00:01:49] Maggie: I was traveling for six years out of a backpack and working from my laptop. My goal was to make good money.

[00:01:54] Ramit: And now she’s focused on the future.

[00:01:56] Maggie: I want to save a bunch of money, and that’s the mindset I’m in.

[00:01:59] Ramit: Justin also loves to travel, and he wants a future with Maggie.

[00:02:02] Justin: I definitely put experiences and living life before anything else.

[00:02:07] Ramit: Now that Maggie is making life plans that might not include him, Justin feels hurt.

[00:02:14] Justin: I just really didn’t feel like there was a we or us, I was like, “Where do I fit in on this?”

[00:02:19] Ramit: Now that Maggie is making life plans that might not include him, Justin feels hurt.

[00:02:25] Maggie: I think it’s safe to say that we’re at a point where it’s like, if it doesn’t change, it’s not going to last.

[00:02:32] Ramit: Now let’s meet Justin and Maggie.

[00:02:34] I’ve got Justin and Maggie’s CSP in front of me getting ready for our conversation. Check out what I noticed.

[00:02:39] All right. Let’s take a look. Maggie and Justin. Maggie spent her 20s backpacking through different countries. She has big financial dreams. She wants stability. Justin grew up wealthy. He’s run his own business, but never really paid attention. Money comes, money goes. They started an LLC together for their YouTube channel on motorcycles. Justin wants to combine finances and their lives. Maggie doesn’t want to get caught up in the financial mess.

[00:03:06] On the flip side, he feels like he supported Maggie financially, and she’s not willing to reciprocate that. Trust is an issue. She doesn’t trust that he’ll get his financial life together. Wow. There’s a lot going on here.

[00:03:18] I’m looking now at their CSP. Looks like they have not combined their finances. That’s fine. Her net worth is 45,000. His net worth is negative 63,000. She has 1,000 bucks invested. He has 7,000. She has 16,000 saved. He has 1,000. And, wow, she has 15k of debt. He has 92k of debt. All right. Let’s go to the income.

[00:03:48] They make a pretty healthy income. 120 for her, 100 to 250k for him. That’s a lot of income. 267,000 a year? Let’s keep going. I got to say, there’s something fishy about these numbers. I wonder if there’s some mixing of business in here. I’ve seen this before where sometimes numbers don’t add up, and it’s usually one or both people are in a business and they’re counting some of their business expenses and things like that. So maybe that’s what’s going on here.

[00:04:17] Let’s keep going. 36% going towards guilt-free spending, which is 7,444. I doubt that that number is true. I think it just flowed down to the bottom. My guess is that they could probably put more towards debt and pay that off aggressively. My overall assessment. One, they make a lot of money. That part is good. Two, they have separate finances. That’s okay. I’d like to understand more.

[00:04:45] Three, there’s a bit of a disparity, not just in their spending, but certainly in their debt levels. And four, the way they treat money and they treat each other, there are little clues showing up here on the CSP, but it’s really probably going to come out when I talk to them. So I’m very interested to speak to them and see what’s going on here.

[Interview]

[00:05:07] Maggie: We are going to be moving next year and the question is, what can we afford? We’re freelancers. I don’t know anything about your situation. I just wanted to get on the same page.

[00:05:16] Ramit: First of all, do you talk about money?

[00:05:17] Justin: No. Money’s been a weird thing for me, but I was like, man, if I feel like I had somebody that I could tackle life with, this is her. But we just couldn’t get there. It didn’t happen. But finally it was like, hey, I’m going to put us on public display and we’re going to talk about all the things that most people never talk about.

[00:05:35] Ramit: Have you tried to talk about money in this relationship?

[00:05:38] Justin: Kind of.

[00:05:39] Maggie: Yeah.

[00:05:39] Ramit: How did it go?

[00:05:40] Maggie: I set up a spreadsheet that I’ve been working off of last year and I was like, “What are your fixed costs a month? What are our goals? Hey, put your numbers in here. Look at mine.”

[00:05:51] Ramit: Do you realize my question was how did you talk about money? And your answer was, I created a spreadsheet.

[00:05:57] Maggie: Yeah, exactly.

[00:05:58] Ramit: Anybody find that a little odd?

[00:06:00] Justin: Yeah.

[00:06:00] Ramit: Okay. That’s what we’re here today for. Yeah. Talking about money, especially first few conversations probably should not involve a spreadsheet. What was your reaction when you saw that spreadsheet, by the way?

[00:06:11] Justin: I was like, “Great, here we go.” I already hate doing money, and I feel like I have an overwhelming situation in general. And then on top of that it was just like, we never talked about really anything, debt, goals.

[00:06:25] Ramit: When you felt all these things overwhelm, and there’s complexity in your financial lives, what was your reaction with this spreadsheet? Did you fill it out?

[00:06:33] Justin: Yeah. For one month and then I stopped.

[00:06:36] Ramit: Now your finances are separate, correct?

[00:06:38] Justin: Kind of. We have a partnership with the YouTube channel.

[00:06:41] Ramit: Okay. So you have separate finances, but you have a joint venture and you make money through that, but you also make money independently.

[00:06:49] Justin: Yes.

[00:06:49] Ramit: Okay. I can see why it feels confusing, but it’s quite common. The good news is there are solutions for this situation. All right. So you both live together. How do you pay the rent or mortgage?

[00:07:02] Maggie: One of us manages the rent because we have three adults in our household. Justin currently is taking care of rent, so we send him rent, but I’m managing the bills. There was a period of time where I was managing the rent and Justin was managing the bills, and we weren’t able to get a number.

[00:07:21] Justin: I wasn’t every month being like, “Okay, it was $250 for all the things. We have to split it.” I just threw it on the credit card and stacked up a bunch of bills.

[00:07:30] Ramit: Oh. Why’d you do that?

[00:07:32] Justin: Honestly, it was just a set it and forget it and I screwed myself honestly.

[00:07:37] Ramit: Okay. What’s a time in the last six months where the two of you really disagreed about money?

[00:07:44] Justin: She doesn’t like the way I spend my money on sunglasses.

[00:07:47] Ramit: That’s it? I don’t think you guys flew across the country to talk about 100-dollar sunglasses.

[00:07:52] Maggie: I’m in the dark, I feel like about his financial situation, but I can do simple math in my head sometimes and I’m like, “This is not adding up that you spent $400 on sunglasses this month.” I think there’s certain things where I’m just like, I don’t spend money like that and I’m really on top of my expenses.

[00:08:08] Justin: The one thing that’s been contentious and difficult, and it’s a really complicated situation overall is that our roommate is Maggie’s best friend, and she had a brain tumor a few years ago and had it removed. But it’s the type of thing that eventually will come back.

[00:08:26] Maggie: It is coming back.

[00:08:27] Justin: Is coming back. And so she’s going on medication now, but more or less all the disposable income or whatever Maggie’s setting aside is going to taking care of her and her kids.

[00:08:40] Maggie: She’s two kids that live with us.

[00:08:41] Justin: It’s a tough situation to be in because I feel like that’s the priority and I’m not necessarily in that bubble.

[00:08:49] Ramit: Meaning Maggie’s friend and her children are the financial priority for Maggie and you feel your maybe second priority?

[00:08:59] Justin: Or not a priority at all in that regard.

[00:09:01] Ramit: Okay. And what is the financial resources that you’re putting behind your friend? Are you her caretaker?

[00:09:06] Maggie: Not right now. There’s things where I’ll plan trips with them and I’ll take care of everything.

[00:09:12] Ramit: And your friend, does she earn money?

[00:09:15] Maggie: Yes, she does. One of my goals for all of us is that financially we’re splitting a house between three adults. This is a chance for all of us to catch up on some finance things. But we weren’t necessarily on the same page with that as well.

[00:09:30] Ramit: Why not?

[00:09:30] Maggie: I had it as my goal.

[00:09:32] Ramit: Did you ever talk about that? Hey, it’s going to three of us splitting expenses, so this is a chance for us to pay off debt and get ahead.

[00:09:38] Justin: Honestly, her and Ashley talked way more about finances and getting ahead than Maggie and I did.

[00:09:43] Ramit: Have you ever talked about that?

[00:09:45] Justin: Maggie was trying to convince me why we should have another adult and two children living in her house and as part of that it should be because we get to save more money.

[00:09:53] Ramit: And your reaction was?

[00:09:54] Justin: Sure.

[00:09:55] Ramit: How would you characterize the dynamic of money in your household?

[00:09:59] Maggie: I’m the responsible one right now.

[00:10:01] Ramit: Okay. And who’s he?

[00:10:02] Maggie: Maybe the irresponsible one by default.

[00:10:05] Ramit: Okay. What do you think about that?

[00:10:08] Justin: Pretty accurate.

[00:10:09] Ramit: Oh, okay. That makes my job easier.

[00:10:12] Justin: There was a time though, in the beginning of our relationship where it was very flipped. I was paying all the bills and some, and I helped out considerably when it came to finances.

[00:10:25] Ramit: Were you making more?

[00:10:26] Justin: I was making a lot more.

[00:10:27] Ramit: You’re making more, so you were paying the majority of the bills. And when you say “and more”, what’s that? 

[00:10:32] Justin: So for the first year that we were together, Maggie was doing this influencer thing and I wanted to help her out, so I was like, how about I put you on payroll and you can help me with some stuff? I need to redo my website and maybe you can help me come up with some strategy for a business.

[00:10:51] Ramit: It kept me afloat. And at the time he was making money, he was paying another full-time employee and had an office and I didn’t know his situation. And I think right off the bat, I haven’t known exactly what his situation was. And that was where it started. And then a lot of that, it felt like was getting held over my head and I was like, “Okay, we need to move away from this dynamic. I don’t want that to be a part of our relationship.”

[00:11:15] Maggie: And I went and started finding work and found jobs and started holding my own and then I was like, “Okay, cool.” I still didn’t know what his situation was. I’m like, “You should be in a much better place now that I’m not such a strain on it.”

[00:11:29] Ramit: Did you say that?

[00:11:30] Justin: No.

[00:11:30] Maggie: Not necessarily.

[00:11:32] Ramit: Did you not talk about this stuff at all?

[00:11:34] Maggie: We talk about it. There was just a lot of struggle with relationship stuff that we were working through, and to have money tied into it, I think that’s also added to maybe the aversion to talk about it.

[00:11:47] Ramit: Who’s aversion?

[00:11:48] Justin: Both of us. Finance is always a tricky thing. It can cause a lot of trouble in a relationship. It’s sometimes subjective. Whether I’m spending $200 on a pair of glasses, for me that makes sense and that doesn’t make sense for somebody else.

[00:12:01] Ramit: It’s interesting you say that with the sunglass example. I agree. It might make sense for you. Your partner might think it doesn’t make sense, but it seems to me that you both don’t have a way of deciding if that’s a good decision or not. How would you decide right now if buying 200-dollar sunglasses is a good decision or not?

[00:12:23] Justin: I think that Maggie would feel much more confident in my choice of spending $200 on sunglasses if she knew that I had my finances handled.

[00:12:33] Ramit: Do you?

[00:12:34] Justin: Absolutely not. I shouldn’t have been buying 200-dollar sunglasses.

[00:12:37] Ramit: Okay. All right. So Maggie, your concern is probably warranted. But when you express the concern, how’s it received?

[00:12:47] Maggie: It just doesn’t come off right. I just know that there’s been a bit of a blind eye turn to them, it feels like, because it was happening when we split bills last year to the point where I was like, “How about I manage that? Because it seems like it’s a lot.”

[00:12:59] Anytime rent was paid, we asked, “What do we owe for bills?” And he’s like, “I need to take a look at it,” was the answer. And then it wouldn’t get taken a look at. And there’s a lot going on. No, we probably should have hounded him, but it got to the point where we hadn’t paid anything in a couple of months and I did say like, “I know this is stacking up and we can’t back pay. So let me manage that and you just handle the rent part because it’s a flat rate every month. We divide it three ways. We always know what it is. It’s all the same.”

[00:13:28] Ramit: And is that where you are now?

[00:13:29] Maggie: Yeah. That’s where we’re at now.

[00:13:31] Ramit: Any different opinion on what happened?

[00:13:34] Justin: They asked a couple of times and then what happened is later on when we started doing spreadsheets and looking at the bills, I was like, “I’ve been paying for the bills the whole time and it’s been going on my credit card and it’s stacked up a couple thousand dollars’ worth of bills at this point.”

[00:13:49] And then she was like, “Oh, well, we asked. And you never gave us an answer, so we’re not going to back pay you now and you’re going to have to take care of that. And then moving forward, we’ll switch over. I’ll take care of the utilities and then you can take the rent.”

[00:14:05] Ramit: Is that what happened? You did not get the back pay?

[00:14:07] Justin: No, I did not get the back pay.

[00:14:08] Ramit: Okay. Why is that?

[00:14:10] Maggie: It had just stacked up a lot. It hit a tipping point where it was like, I don’t even know where we stand on this because he had been managing it.

[00:14:20] Ramit: Justin, it sounds like you were probably not as forthcoming communicating about what’s owed every single month. I agree. He’s probably owed back pay. Even though it might be difficult, you can’t write a check all at once. I can understand that. Are you frustrated by the back pay still?

[00:14:36] Justin: It’s [Bleep]. It’s [Bleep].

[00:14:38] Maggie: How much is owed?

[00:14:40] Justin: That’s a great question. I didn’t need to go back and figure that out.

[00:14:43] Ramit: You mentioned you’re responsible in this dynamic and you called him irresponsible. What are we talking about?

[00:14:49] Maggie: Just being aware. I wouldn’t say I’m on top of everything, but I definitely have a lot more awareness, and that’s all it is. I’m setting aside my savings. I should be saving more, but I’m hitting what I set out to save every single month.

[00:15:03] Ramit: So is that what you want from Justin?

[00:15:06] Maggie: Yeah.

[00:15:06] Ramit: Have you told him that?

[00:15:08] Justin: No.

[00:15:09] Maggie: I don’t want him to be not going to Starbucks when he wants to, or not buying sunglasses he wants to. I just think he’s been doing that without consciously making a plan to pay off the debt that he’s got.

[00:15:19] Ramit: What if he doesn’t? Because some people are aware, but they choose to make different decisions than you might.

[00:15:24] Maggie: It’s not that he doesn’t get to do those things. I don’t want those things stripped away. I just want it to come after the, okay, I put the chunk that I need to towards debt. I have a plan for it. Because there’s things that we’ve discussed recently when I was like, eventually I want to build a mini farm and have an a-frame house on a piece of property in southern Utah.

[00:15:42] And he’s like, “Well, where do I fit into that plan?” I’m like, “This is my plan because I don’t know where you sit and I need to be met halfway to even think of a plan with you on this.” It’s my dream right now because I’m saving for it.

[00:15:54] Justin: She was like, “I just don’t trust you, and how can I put our names together on anything?”

[00:16:00] Ramit: You said that?

[00:16:02] Maggie: Different words but I don’t feel like I can trust that you’ve got things handled.

[00:16:07] Ramit: Why didn’t you trust him?

[00:16:09] Maggie: Because he seemed to be struggling quite a bit and I just didn’t know. I should have asked more.

[00:16:18] Ramit: Is the goal that the two of you stay together for the long term?

[00:16:24] Maggie: Yeah.

[00:16:25] Justin: I hope so.

[00:16:25] Ramit: Okay. And is the goal that you get married or no?

[00:16:29] Maggie: No.

[00:16:31] Ramit: No. Okay. Wait, that was interesting. She says no. What do you say?

[00:16:35] Justin: There’s a part of me that wants to get married, and we’ve had this conversation, and this is a step in the right direction of being able to be trusted enough for her to marry me one day.

[00:16:44] Ramit: I guess what I’m trying to understand is, what does your future together look like? Because maybe it involves marriage, maybe not. That’s fine. But when I hear about things like building a house in southern Utah and then Justin, you very pointedly say, “Where do I fit in?” And I hear this answer that is, well, this is my plan.

[00:17:04] Justin: As part of this farm conversation, honestly, it was pretty tough. I was pretty hurt because I just felt like she’s like, “I’m going off.” And she had property for her best friend that she was including on this land, and there wasn’t any conversation of me even having a room there, and definitely not being a part of helping build it.

[00:17:23] I just really didn’t feel like there was a we or us, or I was part of the conversation, and I brought it up. I was like, “Where do I fit in on this?” And she’s like, “Well, you don’t. I need to build something so I have some passive income.” And then she looked at me and said, “What’s yours? This is my dream. What’s yours?” And that was the like, damnit, this is why I like this girl so much.

[00:17:47] Because it really did light a fire under my [Bleep]. Following her dream of building a farm in Utah doesn’t need to be my dream. And so I can go over here and start doing something else. And I have my own ways of potentially making passive income.

[00:18:02] Ramit: Was that a satisfying answer to you?

[00:18:04] Maggie: Yeah. It wasn’t like I’m going to go live on this farm and homestead for 10 years, is not the plan. It was like, how do I pick a piece of land that’s in a corridor to national parks and I can short term rental it and we can be traveling wherever we want and stuff like that.

[00:18:17] Ramit: So it seems like the two of you have talked about it. It seems like you have a plan. What’s the problem?

[00:18:24] Maggie: I think the big one has been making plans together.

[00:18:28] Ramit: Hold on. But you both just spent five minutes telling me how you have concluded you’re going to make separate plans and you don’t need to be together. What am I missing?

[Narration]

[00:18:36] Ramit: A lot of double talk here. That’s okay. This is common in relationships. This is what a third party can help us point out, these murky alleyways that we tend to get stuck in in our relationship and how to shine a light and find our way out of them.

[00:18:52] Did you notice that they both started the episode by using jokes to avoid uncomfortable conversations? Out of respect for my guests, I don’t let them get away with that. My guests take a lot of time and preparation to see me. In this case, they flew across the country to be here, so I won’t let them use the usual evasion techniques to get out of a substantive conversation, even if they are employing them unconsciously. That’s why I’m going to occasionally bring them back on track, even if it feels a little uncomfortable.

[00:19:23] Now, Maggie sees herself as responsible and Justin as irresponsible. Justin is resentful that Maggie won’t reimburse him for those utility bills that he covered. They don’t talk about money. She’s making plans for building a farm in Utah without him. And they say the problem is making plans together.

[00:19:42] More after a short break from our sponsors.

[00:19:45] And now back to our conversation.

[Interview]

[00:19:47] Maggie: I’m very much a like, I’m not going to get involved. It’s a lot of extreme independence, but I’m like, I’m just going to handle my stuff. And I think I haven’t sat down and even thought about what I want for my partner. I want someone to meet me halfway. There’s been some contention in the last year where I said something about helping my friend out. I was like, “If she has to start chemo, I can pay her way. I’ve saved up enough to cover her expenses for three months.”

[00:20:14] And I got a weird reaction from him. He felt not prioritized and all this, and I just didn’t know where it was coming from. But now understanding he was really struggling financially. So that’s where he was expecting a partner to maybe help a little bit more. But I didn’t know that was the expectation. So we both haven’t been able to know what the other person expects of each other or haven’t openly talked about, I think, what we want from our partners financially. And that’s probably a big reason of why we’re here too.

[00:20:46] Ramit: Do you have anything that’s going to force you to make a decision coming up? Because you could go like this for years.

[00:20:53] Maggie: There’s multiple things going on. So my friend is going to start treatment in January and the first three months is going to be the most toughest. So I’m wanting to stay and chill on the travel, all of that, to be closer. And then the lease is going to be up, but we’re going to extend it month to month until the kids are done school so it’s not disrupting that.

[00:21:12] Ramit: Okay.

[00:21:13] Maggie: But then throughout that process, possibly Justin’s going to move and start setting up the next place.

[00:21:19] Ramit: Right now you live together, but you’re going to move somewhere on your own. And what are you going to do there?

[00:21:24] Justin: Sleep, eat, workout.

[00:21:25] Ramit: Mm-hmm. What else?

[00:21:27] Justin: Make money.

[00:21:29] Ramit: What’s going on right now? I feel like you guys are really good at talking, but you’re both avoiding talking about the reason that you’re here. So do you guys want to get real with me? Why are we here?

[00:21:40] Justin: I’m not expecting you to pay my debt, but there are couples who came together where one person was making $40,000 a year and the other made significantly more but they both worked on it together. And it wasn’t just about making a spreadsheet and helping her husband figure it out on his own. It was like, we’re going to do this together.

[00:22:00] And very much so, for me, a lot of this has been like, I feel like one foot’s out the door always. There’s this safety measure of like, “All right, if this relationship doesn’t work, then I’m out.” And then the other side of it too is like, I just feel like a lot of the weight on all these things, it’s like we just have to stand our own foot.

[00:22:23] Ramit: Are you guys together or not?

[00:22:25] Maggie: I think we’re getting more on the same page.

[00:22:27] Ramit: How can that be? He’s about to move out.

[00:22:29] Maggie: I told him I want to move into a situation that one of us can handle because then as soon as I move into the house, if I need to pay for everything, all our expenses, fixed costs, all of that, so that you can go aggressively tackle debt, we have a plan together and we have more resources.

[00:22:44] I’ve been planning and pushing towards something that I know I can manage so that I can help. I like giving. I like taking care of people that I care about, and sometimes I get pretty spread thin, but we’ll be able to tackle these things together next year. And that’s the ultimate goal.

[00:23:02] Ramit: What is the goal specifically?

[00:23:04] Maggie: That we can live in the same place and a place that’s well below our means so he can tackle debt and I can save like I want to save.

[00:23:10] Ramit: I do you agree with that. Your goal is to live together, live beneath your means so that you can pay off debt aggressively.

[00:23:19] Justin: My goal is to live with her. But as far as the debt and all that stuff, this is new for me. This is literally like opening up your book and getting all my numbers down on a piece of paper and then being like, holy [Bleep], I really need to get myself out of this situation.

[00:23:36] Ramit: So is that your plan, to pay off debt aggressively?

[00:23:39] Justin: Absolutely. 100%.

[00:23:39] Ramit: Okay.

[Narration]

[00:23:42] Ramit: More circular reasoning here, but I’m starting to see glimmers of what’s actually going on. Both of them pride themselves on their extreme independence. That’s their identity, but that identity becomes hard to reconcile with wanting to be together, especially when being together involves trade-offs. It’s almost like these identities are butting heads.

[00:24:04] I can understand why Maggie is frustrated about how Justin handles money, but I also find that this dynamic happens when one partner begins on a financial journey and the other doesn’t. This is really common. The person who’s starting their journey gets frustrated with their partner. Why aren’t you engaging? Why aren’t you doing this with me? Not realizing that a few years ago, they themselves were ignoring money.

[00:24:30] Now if you want to know how to recalibrate your relationship so that your partner also gets involved with money, I talk about this very specifically with word for word scripts in my new book, Money for Couples. You can get it at iwt.com/moneyforcouples. And now listen to this. Justin tells me about his financial journey growing up, and it’s something I have never heard before.

[Interview]

[00:24:55] Ramit: What do you remember your parents or family saying about money when you were young?

[00:24:59] Justin: We really didn’t talk about money, but I grew up with Ferraris in the garage and–

[00:25:03] Ramit: Really?

[00:25:04] Justin: Oh yeah.

[00:25:04] Ramit: Wow.

[00:25:05] Justin: Extreme wealth.

[00:25:06] Ramit: Mom or dad was the higher earner?

[00:25:08] Lauren: Dad.

[00:25:08] Ramit: Dad was the higher earner, like extreme higher earner.

[00:25:10] Justin: Extreme.

[00:25:11] Ramit: How much do you think he made?

[00:25:12] Justin: A million dollars a day.

[00:25:13] Ramit: A day?

[00:25:14] Justin: At one point. At one point, yeah.

[00:25:16] Ramit: What did he do?

[00:25:18] Justin: He managed a hedge fund and he had his own firm. And he also got in a lot of trouble. I grew up as having the dad of Wolf of Wall Street, but not a bad guy. I think that he was working in Wall Street at a time when it was the Wild Wild West, and when they started to put some rules down, they were making examples out of people. The government was going after his former partner, and they used my dad to take him down, and it didn’t quite go to my dad’s advantage.

[00:25:48] Ramit: What happened to him?

[00:25:50] Justin: He got incarcerated.

[00:25:50] Ramit: Oh, wow.

[00:25:51] Justin: So he got put in a minimum security prison and decided one day that he didn’t want to be there anymore. So my mom packed us up in a minivan and we went to Colorado, and my dad suddenly opens the door and gets in the minivan and then we drove out to San Diego and hopped on our sailboat and sailed across the South Pacific for three years as fugitives.

[00:26:17] Ramit: And then when you came back, because you’re here in the US now, did he get rearrested?

[00:26:22] Justin: Oh, he got arrested in New Zealand. We got busted there.

[00:26:25] Ramit: Just to share how different my childhood was, we also had a minivan, but when it opened up, my dad would’ve handed me a Spelling Bee book and said, why are you not reading this right now?

[00:26:35] Justin: Yeah. Mine was like, here’s how we’re going to be fugitives.

[00:26:39] Ramit: All right. How much money do you think your family had when you were growing up?

[00:26:44] Justin: Probably tens of millions

[00:26:45] Ramit: Does your dad still have a lot of money?

[00:26:47] Justin: The money that he had from his Wall Street days got squandered

[00:26:52] Ramit: What’s his financial status now?

[00:26:54] Justin: He’s got nothing.

[00:26:56] Ramit: Wow.

[00:26:56] Justin: Yeah.

[00:26:56] Ramit: What messages did you take away from going from extreme wealth to not having a lot?

[00:27:04] Justin: Yeah, right. I have a funny relationship with money. I don’t think I value it the same as most people. When I first got started in filmmaking, I was working for this guy, and one day he goes, “You grew up with money, didn’t you?” And I was like, “Yeah, how’d you know that? Because I’m not flaunting anything.” And he is like, “I can tell because you’re just not hungry like other people are.”

[00:27:27] And I was like, “What do you mean by that?” And he is like, “Well, people who grew up with no money will bend over backwards, and to me it just seems like you always have a fallback plan.” And I took that to heart and changed my work ethic quite a bit because of that.

[00:27:41] But the cool thing about growing up with money is that you’re not afraid to take risks. And that’s very true. I feel like a lot of the reason that I’ve gotten as far as I have in my career and doing the things that I do is because I’ll go all in. And I do believe in those lottery tickets. I believe that– yes, I’ve been reading your book, and if you have a steady paycheck and you’re just steady at putting away money, 30 years down the line you’ll have a million dollars. I know that’s true, but I also do know that sometimes if you take a big enough risk, a calculated risk, that the reward can be huge.

[00:28:19] Ramit: Okay. Maggie, what do you make of this story? What is your take hearing it?

[00:28:24] Maggie: It’s made for some really interesting adult problems with money for sure. With the money situation, it’s like it just comes and it flows through Justin.

[00:28:36] Justin: Like water?

[00:28:37] Maggie: Yeah, exactly. There’s not a lot of thought given to it because it’s like, even when it’s not an unlimited resource, it’s treated as such.

[00:28:47] Ramit: Do you mean that money comes, money goes? If you’re raised with millions and millions of dollars, it starts to become so abstract. You’re just like, whatever. If it’s not here today, there’ll be another way tomorrow.

[00:29:00] Maggie: Yeah. And I think for me, I would say money’s freedom. I think when you work hard and you make money, you can free up your time. If you manage your money well, you can live really well.

[00:29:10] Ramit: What does it mean to you, Justin?

[00:29:11] Justin: I just wish we didn’t rely on it. I live a Rich Life, but I’m not rich for sure. I definitely put experiences and living life before anything else.

[00:29:21] Ramit: Okay. Do you agree or disagree, Maggie?

[00:29:23] Maggie: I agree.

[00:29:24] Ramit: Okay. So you’re both on the same page on that.

[00:29:26] Maggie: Yeah.

[00:29:27] Ramit: Experiences above accumulation.

[00:29:31] Justin: Well, hold on. That’s shifted for you now.

[00:29:33] Maggie: I’ve had a really different perspective shift. Prior to the pandemic, I was traveling for six years out of a backpack and working from my laptop. My goal was to eventually figure out a way to be a six-figure hobo. I don’t want to be tied to any destination, but I want to make good money. And then on my 30th birthday, I was on the beach in Thailand with $5 to my name and I’m like, “I have not figured out the six-figure hobo thing, and I’m not saving. I’m not doing anything like that.” And that was when a big shift happened.

[00:29:58] Ramit: What has changed for you?

[00:30:00] Maggie: I’m prioritizing saving. It means a lot more what I leave for my friend’s kids. If anything were to happen to me, I’m crazy Aunt Maggie, and I think they’ll always be in my life. So leaving something for them, being able to have the time to spend with them, being able to save money. Not necessarily buy a farm, but I would like to do stuff like that. What’s the next financial goal that I could strive for and make happen? Have a retirement, which I’ve never thought about before.

[00:30:26] Ramit: So is it fair to say that both of you prioritize experiences in your 20s and now Maggie, you are much more conscious of things like retirement savings rate, etc., and Justin maybe not, and that’s causing conflict?

[00:30:41] Maggie: Yeah.

[00:30:42] Justin: Definitely. When Maggie and I got together, I was like sick. Now I have somebody who’s down to go to India. We won’t make any money, but we also will break even. So life experience, cha-ching. And I thought that that’s who I had by my side. And suddenly she was like, oh, no, no, no. Wait, hold on. I got to put a aside. I got to–

[00:31:02] Ramit: She’s like, what about the debt?

[00:31:02] Justin: 401K. Yeah. Right, right.

[00:31:05] Ramit: Fair enough. This happens when couples meet and then one partner changes, and it causes a lot of conflict. And there’s either a recalibration or a separation. Sounds like you’re both trying to recalibrate. What about things like retirement? What about if one of you gets sick or you want to leave money to the niece and nephew, etc.? How do you do that?

[00:31:25] Justin: Actually, finally having these open conversations about money has shifted our ability to talk about that and figure it out. One thing that has been a healthy part of this conversation, especially around finances, is that one thing we both agreed that we really would like to do in the future is sail around the world on a sailboat.

[00:31:46] Ramit: Okay.

[00:31:47] Maggie: And that’s way off.

[00:31:48] Justin: It’s something we’re working towards together to get there, but is a retirement plan. And so there is this like future that’s a ways out that we both decided that is what we both want to do. And as part of this conversation about finances, it’s been like, well, how much does a boat cost? How much are we going to need every month to be able to survive on it?

[00:32:09] So it’s opened up some conversations on like, what do we need to do to get to that point? What do we need to put aside, and do I need to hustle now? Do I need to give up on some of these other things?

[00:32:18] Ramit: How much do you need specifically?

[00:32:19] Justin: We don’t know yet.

[00:32:20] Maggie: We have to figure that out. What we’ve been good at is it’s like, cool, we want to do something, we can make money up here like that. And then all of a sudden it’s gone and we’re right back where we were before we started. I want it to be where it’s like, oh, you want to do Japan for your birthday?

[00:32:33] Let’s just talk about it six months out. And we already have funds. We already know that that’s a part of what we love doing together. I don’t want to stop travel. I don’t want to not be able to go to Japan. I want it to be something we work into our plan.

[00:32:45] Ramit: Do you think that you’re on track to be able to live that kind of life where you’re talking six months, 12 months, two years out?

[00:32:53] Maggie: I don’t think we’re on track right now, but I think that’s why we’re here, is that we’re having those conversations.

[00:32:58] Ramit: I’m glad you’re having the conversations. But there’s a lot more to making changes than having conversations. It seems like things have changed in the last month. That’s awesome. But what’s next? We can talk about things forever. We can spin, but we need to actually make some tangible financial changes.

[Narration]

[00:33:16] Ramit: If you enjoy these videos, you want to be the first to know when a new one drops, make sure you hit that Subscribe button right now. It really helps my team and me grow this channel. We’ll open up their conscious spending plan after the short break from our sponsors.

[00:33:29] Welcome back. Let’s keep going.

[Interview]

[00:33:31] Ramit: Let’s take a look at your CSP. So let’s see. Maggie, can you read off the word in bold and then the numbers next to them?

[00:33:40] Maggie: Put these out because we’re separate. So assets 42,800 and 21,000.

[00:33:48] Ramit: 21,000 for Justin.

[00:33:49] Maggie: Investments, 1,375 and 7,000 for Justin. Savings 16,657 for me and 1,313 for Justin. And debt, 15,389 for me and Justin has 92,950.

[00:34:08] Ramit: Okay, great. Total net worth for you, Maggie, is 45,000 and for you Justin is negative 63,000. Okay. What do you both think about these numbers?

[00:34:20] Maggie: I’d like to be in a different place at the end of next year.

[00:34:24] Justin: That sucks.

[00:34:25] Ramit: Okay, so both of you’re not happy with the numbers.

[00:34:27] Maggie: Yeah.

[00:34:28] Ramit: Okay. Let’s go on to the income. Justin, go ahead and read off both incomes, if you don’t mind.

[00:34:36] Justin: Okay. Gross monthly income for Maggie is $9,250 and for me it is 12,100 on average.

[00:34:45] Ramit: Okay, so total you two are making $21,350 a month.

[00:34:51] Justin: Yeah.

[00:34:52] Ramit: All right. 256,000. That’s a lot of money. And you live in Vegas? Would you agree that your income is impressive, especially if you were to look at it together?

[00:35:02] Justin: Yeah.

[00:35:02] Maggie: Yeah.

[00:35:02] Ramit: Okay, great. That’s kind of cool. So you’re at 21,350 gross. That’s 21,000 a month. And you’re at roughly 16,000 a month? All right. So your fixed costs are 73%. What do you think about that?

[00:35:20] Maggie: I’d like them to be lower. I’d like it to be closer to 50%.

[00:35:23] Ramit: The recommendation I typically give is 50 to 60%. With a high income and presumably low fixed expenses, that number should be probably towards the lower end of that range. So your rent, 14%. Your rent is quite low. That’s good.

[00:35:41] Justin: Because we have three people.

[00:35:43] Ramit: Fantastic. All right. No issue on the rent.

[00:35:46] Maggie: We put child support under Justin’s rent because we didn’t know where to put an extra 1,000.

[00:35:51] Ramit: That’s fine. So you pay an extra $1,000 a month on child support.

[00:35:55] Justin: Yeah.

[00:35:56] Ramit: Okay. Let’s see here. We have car payment and transportation. What? 3,000 bucks a month? What kind of car is this?

[Narration]

[00:36:05] Ramit: Okay, I’m going to summarize a few things here. As we discussed Maggie and Justin’s monthly car and transportation fixed costs, I discovered that they were co-mingling personal and business expenses in their CSP. This is a very common rookie mistake. We had to make some adjustments on the fly so that we could get a clearer picture of their numbers. Specifically, we changed Maggie’s total car payment to $1,100 and Justin’s to $1,700.

[Interview]

[00:36:33] Ramit: All right. We’re back at 70%. Let’s keep moving. Justin, you’re paying $718 a month towards debt. Let’s talk about your debt. You have a motorcycle loan, 21,000, that’s at 8%. And then you have a 19,000-dollar credit card payment. And then who’s got this business loan for $51,000? What is that for?

[00:36:53] Justin: That’s the EIDL on the relief loan during COVID.

[00:36:57] Ramit: Did you get waived or you have to pay it off?

[00:37:00] Justin: No. I have to pay.

[00:37:01] Ramit: Okay. And the credit card debt, what’s that for?

[00:37:04] Justin: Life.

[00:37:05] Ramit: Like what?

[00:37:06] Justin: A big reason that I’ve stacked up a lot of credit card debt is because my pay is so inconsistent. What happens for me is that I get a certain percentage that’s supposed to go to paying back my expenses. So I’ll go do something where I travel somewhere. I have to pay all that upfront. I put it on my credit card. And what’s happened this year especially is that I don’t know when my next paycheck is coming.

[00:37:29] So rather than take the 50% that was expenses and put that towards paying off my credit card right away, I’ve been choosing to pay off my credit card slowly and have just stacked up. And there’s probably a couple thousand of that back paid utilities.

[00:37:45] Ramit: All right. So you’re at 70% fixed cost. Just looking at the rest of it here. Groceries, 800; clothes, 300 bucks a month. What is this? Because you guys are influencers?

[00:37:54] Justin: I actually really don’t feel like I buy that much clothes, but she’s trying to average it out.

[00:37:57] Ramit: Maggie, you spend 100 bucks a month on clothes average?

[00:38:00] Maggie: Yeah, I think that’s accurate.

[00:38:02] Ramit: And then Justin, 200 bucks a month, which means 2,400 bucks a year.

[00:38:06] Justin: This year I spent more money than I have in a long time on sunglasses, and I bought two pairs.

[00:38:11] Ramit: I’ll make it 100 instead of 200. Okay. All right. Cool. So that’s 1,200 bucks a year. Fine. Phone, one person’s paying 390. Why?

[00:38:20] Justin: I pay for my daughter’s phone. I pay for her phone. I pay for my former employee’s phone, and I pay for my phone.

[00:38:26] Ramit: You’re a very generous guy, but you have $20,000 in credit card debt. Maybe it’s time to be generous towards yourself.

[00:38:34] Justin: Yeah.

[00:38:34] Ramit: Maggie, what do you say about you paying–

[00:38:37] Justin: She already agreed she will.

[00:38:38] Ramit: Great. So can we take this number and adjust it? Let’s say 80 and then you’re going to pay for your daughter, so you’re–

[00:38:45] Justin: Actually, I’m getting her mom to take it over.

[00:38:47] Ramit: Great. So let’s say–

[00:38:48] Justin: I’ll be on the one phone.

[00:38:49] Ramit: Okay. 80 bucks each. I think it’s quite reasonable. All right. So we’ve made a few little corrections here. I think that’s good. Just ironing out the details. Oh, subscriptions are 2,250. That’s 2,250. So of that therapy is 700 bucks. What’s the rest of the subscriptions?

[00:39:07] Maggie: Mine is 500 for a personal trainer that I’m ending this month. So it will be 360. And all our subscriptions except for maybe like Spotify and a Netflix subscription, at least on my end is all business stuff. Because we need the Adobe Creative–

[00:39:23] Ramit: That needs to not be in here. That needs to be in your business. So how much should I put here for personal?

[00:39:28] Justin: It’s still going to be a lot– 900.

[00:39:30] Ramit: Okay. Guys, what do you think I make of this so far?

[00:39:33] Justin: We have a lot–

[00:39:34] Maggie: So I just need to clean it up.

[00:39:35] Ramit: What we just did was pretty cool. We went down the list, we identified some stuff. There were some conceptual things to change. No problem. We were like, “Why are you paying this much for X, Y, Z?” You’re like, “Oh, it’s already in motion.” Great. And guess what? Look at your fixed cost number.

[00:39:53] Justin: It’s number down to 61%.

[00:39:54] Ramit: 61%. That’s really good.

[00:39:56] Justin: But Maggie’s got really good and mine didn’t really change very much.

[00:40:00] Ramit: Agreed. And we should talk about that. We should. But I just want to acknowledge that jointly that’s great. Now, the difference is Maggie’s is at 47 and, Justin, yours at 71. 71 is still too high. We need to fix that. But we’re on the right track. Let’s keep going. Investments are at 3% total. That’s 6% for Maggie and 1% for Justin. Justin, you’re putting away $90 a month for investments.

[00:40:30] Maggie: What is this?

[00:40:30] Justin: I was. I haven’t been.

[00:40:32] Ramit: Oh, and I noticed you have some crypto as well. $2,700 in crypto. Okay. You still contribute to that?

[00:40:41] Justin: No.

[00:40:41] Ramit: Maggie, you put 400 bucks a month away into what?

[00:40:44] Maggie: $100 a week is automatically getting dumped into an account. But I still have to manually, manually putting it in a Roth. I’ve also just been putting in savings for emergency fund.

[00:40:54] Ramit: Okay. So anybody doing any pre-tax investing like SEP-IRA, 401K, or anything?

[00:41:00] Justin: I have a SEP-IRA of–

[00:41:01] Ramit: [Inaudible].

[00:41:01] Justin: A few thousand dollars in there.

[00:41:03] Ramit: Oh, okay. You have 7,000 bucks in investments. That’s good.

[00:41:06] Maggie: Yeah, that’s part of it.

[00:41:08] Ramit: Okay. Maggie, I noticed that you have $1,375 in this.

[00:41:12] Maggie: That’s the Roth right now.

[00:41:14] Ramit: So that’s basically you started investing–

[00:41:17] Maggie: Two months ago. Yeah. Is automatically putting it in.

[00:41:19] Ramit: All right. Let’s take a look at your savings at 3%. Maggie’s putting away 500 bucks a month. Justin not putting anything away. Right? What’s that emergency fund? What is it for?

[00:41:29] Maggie: That’s the 16,000 I have in savings. So I wanted to start building up. It’s in a Capital One, 4% savings account that I just wanted it separate from all my finances. Not like, oh, I’m saving actually in a separate account. And I started doing that last year, but it hasn’t been automated.

[00:41:48] Ramit: Truthfully, when I look at people’s finances, the vast majority, including my own, just consistent automatic stuff, and it can grow bigger than most people ever think. It’s crazy. All right. And then guilt-free spending is at 33%. So that’s 40% for Maggie, that’s 2,700 bucks a month. And for Justin it’s 28% at 2,500. So what is that? Travel? Or is that just whatever’s left?

[00:42:14] Justin: Whatever’s left.

[00:42:15] Ramit: It feels a little sloppy. It’s hard to make sense of what’s going on. We did a little bit of work with the fixed costs, but it’s very unclear with your businesses. You’ve commingled stuff, and part of this is just a one sheeter so you can start to see what’s going on in our life. And what do we want to happen. Okay. So looking at this, what do you think are the major positive?

[00:42:42] Maggie: We make good money, and we can make more. We can pull gigs all the time, and we can do even better than that

[00:42:49] Ramit: Okay. So that’s the positive. I agree. What’s a negative?

[00:42:52] Maggie: I feel like I’m not saving enough. I still want to automate everything, and I’m still just getting those systems in place. I haven’t set up a 401K and tied that to my business accounts where that’s automatically going into.

[00:43:05] Ramit: What about for you, Justin? Positives and negatives.

[00:43:07] Justin: It was good to see how much I’m making.

[00:43:09] Ramit: Yeah. You didn’t know, right?

[00:43:11] Justin: Not really. I get a report every year from my accountant, so every year I’m like, “Whoa, that’s crazy. I can’t believe I made that much.”

[00:43:18] Ramit: The negatives?

[00:43:18] Justin: It sucks to see how much debt I’m in, and a lot of it’s laziness, honestly. A lot of what I’ve been reflecting on is just not necessarily being in the best place in my life and making smart decisions.

[00:43:31] Ramit: One thing I noticed when I asked both of you about positive and negatives, I didn’t hear anything about your finances together. It’s like I’m talking to two separate people.

[00:43:44] Justin: You are though, and that’s the truth of the matter. When we look at combined, it’s like, so what? It doesn’t matter. None of this is combined.

[00:43:54] Ramit: None of it’s combined, and there’s no intention of combining it, correct?

[00:43:58] Justin: Right.

[00:43:58] Ramit: Both of you agree?

[00:43:59] Maggie: Yeah.

[00:44:00] Ramit: So it’s almost like, what’s the point?

[00:44:01] Justin: Now at least we were having the conversation. And so some of these things that have been my responsibility can at least be reallocated, I guess.

[00:44:08] Maggie: I like looking at the combined column because I know together we can do some damage and achieve the goals that we want. I don’t see the debt as anything that isn’t tackle-able. I don’t think it’s something we can’t figure out together.

[00:44:26] It’s not a we. The two of you are not together. You live together. You don’t spend money together. You don’t talk about money together. You don’t have a vision together. So when you say we could, we can, yeah. I can play professional football theoretically. It’s not going to happen.

[00:44:49] Justin: Where the “we” comes into play a little bit more is because of this YouTube channel that we’ve been working on together. Right now we have over $120,000 in sponsorship pitches out.

[00:45:03] We’ve talked about it and Maggie’s like, “Look–” Because my issue is that I don’t have some consistent pay. So where the conversation has gone as a we is, okay, well, how about we take the money that we make from that sponsorship and we pay you a consistent salary. And that way next year you at least have something that’s somewhat consistent.

[00:45:28] Ramit: Let’s play that out. So you have the YouTube channel. Let’s say it grows modestly and some of those pitches come in, you get some money. How much are you getting paid?

[00:45:37] Justin: I get paid 80 grand.

[00:45:38] Ramit: And the rest is for expenses.

[00:45:40] Justin: And the rest is for expenses. Okay.

[00:45:42] Ramit: And then what happens if this happens 2, 3, 4 years? You keep getting paid 80k and then what happens to the two of you with your finances?

[00:45:51] Maggie: Right now our finances seem really separate, but like the financial decisions that we’re making for next year, as far as what’s affordable, I think we’re coming at it together and we’re talking about how much we do pay and how it’s managed.

[00:46:04] Ramit: So I just want to know from you, what do you need– and I hate to put you on the spot because I can see you have been taking charge of your own finances. And for me to ask you, what do you need from him feels like now you have to take on one more burden.

[00:46:19] Maggie: Yeah.

[00:46:19] Ramit: I hate that. And yet I am intentionally asking you that question because you two do not talk about money. Even though you think you do in the last month and it’s gotten better, you’re not talking about the bare minimum here.

[00:46:33] Maggie: I just want some similar priorities and some similar game plan, and him to manage his finances. I don’t want to feel like I have to take it on.

[00:46:43] Ramit: What do you hear when she says that, Justin?

[00:46:46] Justin: Making smarter decisions and being intentional, not just be like, “Ah, you know what? I’ll take a little bit of this and put it towards that.” And, “Oh, if I get my next big paycheck, I’ll just wipe this out.”

[00:46:59] Ramit: Isn’t that what’s happening with the YouTube channel? This idea of, let’s assume we’re going to make 120k, then we’re going to pay you 80k. But it’s not clear what happens going forward in the channel. It’s not clear. Why does one person get 80k?

[00:47:15] You’re not communicating about money for a variety of reasons, and each decision you make is one off. It’s totally episodic. This is not the way money works. Money actually effectively works when you make a consistent set of decisions and they build upon each other.

[00:47:32] So for example, when I hear your YouTube discussion, I go, “That’s just one of a million one-off decisions and you don’t even know it.” You think you’re doing the right thing, but you’re just doing the exact same thing over and over. Do you see that?

[00:47:45] Maggie: Yeah.

[00:47:45] Ramit: If I started a business with a business partner, do you think I would go, “Hey, let’s just assume we’re going to make 120k and then you should get 80k and then we’ll talk about it later.” Even though we have no evidence of ever effectively talking about money. No. The real question though is do you want your finances to be combined or not?[Narration]

[00:48:06] Ramit: We’ll be right back after this short break.

[00:48:09] Now back to the show.

[Interview]

[00:48:10] Justin: As far as us combining all this money, I don’t know what benefit we actually have. There are things that I do feel like it would be nice to know. The conversation we had the other day was like, well, here’s the thing. If this was flipped around and you were $90,000 in debt and I was making money, I would want to try to help you get out of that debt. And she was like, “Is that your expectation for me? Should I be helping you pay your debt?”

[00:48:42] Ramit: And is it?

[00:48:43] Justin: I don’t know. To some degree, yeah. I do wish I had a partner who was like, man, I feel bad for the situation you’re in and I want to help you out. But I also don’t want to put that burden on her.

[00:48:53] Ramit: Okay. Let’s do this. Let’s actually have an actual conversation. You two talk to each other. I’m going to listen.

[00:48:59] Justin: Being in a relationship with somebody that you really want to spend the rest of your life with, a lot of this, it’s give and take, and I feel like a lot of our relationship has been a lot of take on your side, and I’ve been a lot of give.

[00:49:16] And I think that for me, there have been some times where I wish it would flip a little bit. Maybe I wasn’t very open and honest about where I was financially and all that, but I don’t know. There’s part of me that hoped that you would ask, and you knew there were times when I was financially stressed out.

[00:49:36] You didn’t have a picture of what everything was going on. But he knew that I was trapped, and just like for Ashley, who I know has a medical condition and all that, but she always knew she had a backup. You were going to be there for her. I would like to figure out together how to really get out of this mess. I have actually been thinking about it.

[00:50:01] If this $120,000 comes through, I want to try to knock out that debt right away. And it would be nice to have you open to that and having discussions about that kind of stuff so that we can just move forward.

[00:50:15] Maggie: I’m not opposed to that at all. And I think I’d be willing to give more help, too, in other ways if we were able to come up with a plan and to see that this was a priority. Because it’s gotten to where it’s at because it hasn’t been a priority. But I see us getting on track for that, and I can help a lot more if I know that you are making it a priority. We both make good money. We both could help get out of this situation and start fresh.

[00:50:44] Ramit: How did that feel to have that conversation?

[00:50:47] Maggie: Good.

[00:50:48] Ramit: Good, hard.

[00:50:49] Maggie: I also don’t want to be the bad guy. I don’t want to be the one that’s like, don’t do this, don’t do that.

[00:50:55] Justin: Stop getting Starbucks.

[00:50:57] Ramit: I think that’s a pretty profound point. I think that in relationships, often there’s one person who knows about money more and the other doesn’t. And unfortunately, it often turns out that in a heterosexual relationship, it’s the woman who’s placed in the position of having to go, why are you doing that?

[00:51:17] This concept of a nag. I [Bleep] hate that word. And I hate that people get placed in the position of doing it. Because when I ask people who are in that dynamic, do you like this dynamic? They both go, no. But it’s deeper often because the other person is avoiding money. Like you avoid money, right, Justin? You don’t talk about it. You don’t effectively manage it. That causes you, Maggie, to be worried about it and then to chase him. And the more you chase him, the more he avoids it. And you’re in this terrible dynamic.

[00:51:53] Justin: And it breaks down the trust a lot. This is the common theme throughout all of this, has just been like, I don’t trust you.

[00:51:59] Ramit: Is he right?

[00:52:00] Maggie: Yeah.

[00:52:01] Ramit: He is?

[00:52:02] Maggie: Yeah. I feel like now that I’ve seen some numbers that it wasn’t off base.

[00:52:07] Ramit: Yeah, I wouldn’t trust him with money.

[00:52:10] Justin: You don’t want me managing your money?

[00:52:11] Ramit: No. But the thing is, you’re not saying that. You’re not being honest. Why are you not being honest about this? We’re actually having an honest discussion and you’re constantly trying to pivot to another topic using humor. He’s saying, “You don’t trust me.” An effective communicator would say, “You’re right. I don’t trust you.” You have $92,000 in debt, including credit cards, a business loan and a motorcycle loan. Why would I trust you with money? Of course, I want to trust you, but your behavior and financial mismanagement has made me not trust you. How come you’re not saying that?

[00:52:53] Maggie: Because I’ve said things about all of the different debts. It’s come up multiple times and I’ve brought it up, and I don’t want to be the nag.

[00:53:03] Ramit: I think acknowledging how you feel is the most honest thing you can do. And I think you’re actually causing yourself more pain and both of you, by dancing around the topic. If it were me in this relationship– first, I don’t understand if the two of you want to be married or if the two of you want to be together. Justin, you say you do. I hear that from you. Maggie, it’s very unclear from your end. And now I can understand why. It’s like, hey, I’m on my journey of being financially secure, and I don’t know if my partner wants to or can do it. That’s fair.

[00:53:45] Maggie: Yeah.

[00:53:46] Ramit: But I don’t think you’ve said that candidly to him, and I don’t think you’ve said to yourself, do I want to be with a partner who cannot be on the same journey I’m on?

[00:53:55] Maggie: Yeah.

[00:53:57] Ramit: What is your answer to that?

[00:53:58] Maggie: I think the answer’s no.

[00:54:02] Ramit: Okay. Have you told him?

[00:54:04] Maggie: I have not.

[00:54:05] Justin: I’ve safely assumed that one.

[00:54:08] Ramit: Let’s talk about it because one of the reasons that Justin has not managed his money is there’s no reason to. I had some overflow expenses that my partner didn’t pay me back for. Okay, I’ll put it on the credit card. I’ll resent it, which I understand that. I would resent it as well, but what’s the consequences? It sounds like you’re actually trying to create a boundary for yourself. I think this is the kind of partner I want. This is what I need. If you can do that, I’d love to be together. But if you can’t, what?

[00:54:44] Maggie: It’s not going to work.

[00:54:45] Ramit: Okay. Go ahead and have that conversation.

[00:54:46] Maggie: I think it’s safe to say that we’re at a point where it’s like, if the responsibility and finances doesn’t change, I don’t think we’re going to be able to build a life together that we want.

[00:54:56] Justin: That’s fair. And I totally get it. And I think that a big part of what we’ve been talking about is that this gives us a clean slate to move forward. You know what I mean? I think as part of these conversations that we’ve been having– you’re telling me, “Hey, if you don’t get your [Bleep] together, this is done.

[00:55:17] And that’s fair. I understand why entirely. And I’d like to work on this together. I’ve been wanting to talk about this together for a long time, so cool. I’m good with that. Part of what I’ve been hoping for in all this is actually some real commitment. And I would really like for this to actually be the thing where it’s like, hey, let’s talk about this because this is serious stuff. And then commit to taking care of each other.

[00:55:44] Maggie: We won’t be able to build what we both want from sailing around the world, all of this stuff, if we don’t develop good habits and open communication surrounding this stuff. And that’s what I’m asking for. Not so that we get to some aloof, whatever, not so we get married. I’m not promising that. I’m saying I think we should be doing this together. We should be doing finances together. And I’ve been really hesitant about that because I don’t know if I’ve had the trust that this is going anywhere.

[00:56:12] Justin: And the trust goes two ways. There’s a long period of time too for me where I just thought at some point you’re going to be like cha-ching and cash in your check and peace out.

[00:56:21] Maggie: No.

[00:56:22] Justin: I know.

[00:56:22] Ramit: There is one topic lurking beneath the surface that I feel, Justin, you’re dancing around, and I want you to have a space to talk about it. And that is the fact that you helped Maggie financially and that she did not pay you back. That is, to me, this gigantic elephant in the room. You have a lot of resentment around that it seems. Can you talk about that with her?

[00:56:50] Justin: The reality is I would never pay somebody this amount of money to do what you are doing. Not even just because you were doing too much or too little. It was just like, I just wouldn’t pay somebody consistently. But for me, the reason that I did it in large part really was because I did want for you to have the opportunity to be able to chase this dream, this thing that you were going for.

[00:57:13] What would make me feel good is the same courtesy, like, Justin, I know you’re in a financial crisis, and I want to help you, and I love you. Not just, I’ll set up the spreadsheet for you and you figure it out. It’s your problem. It would be nice to have some money going towards it or towards paying off my debt and getting clear of the situation so that we can start together on the same page. I’m going to be crawling out of this mess alone for [Bleep] ever.

[00:57:42] And for us to get to that start line together is pretty far at this point. Unless we do it together somehow. I get this situation with your best friend. It’s complicated, and I honestly feel for and I want to be as supportive as I can. But I also need for us to be able to get to that start line together so that we can tackle the future together.

[00:58:08] Maggie: We got to make enough money to get there.

[00:58:09] Justin: We got to make money to get there and that’s fine.

[00:58:11] Ramit: So that was pretty honest. I appreciate that. Do you have a reaction to that? To what he said.

[00:58:16] Maggie: I would’ve never taken support if I knew it was going to be held over my head. I’ve never been given clear direction on how to clear that debt ever. If it’s like, you want me to pay you back for everything and we can start fresh from there.

[00:58:31] Ramit: Okay. You never would’ve taken the support had you known it would be held over your head. Okay. Do you feel that he’s holding it over your head?

[00:58:41] Maggie: Yeah.

[00:58:42] Ramit: I’m not sure I interpreted the same way.

[00:58:44] Maggie: There’s something that I owe and I just haven’t been able to figure out how to repay it.

[00:58:50] Justin: It’s not money. It is just being in a relationship with somebody and loving them enough that you’re willing to put aside money to take care of them. And that’s very clear in one relationship in our life. And it’s completely not clear in the other one.

[00:59:05] Maggie: If I do that for us, if I commit to paying part of your debt off, are you going to feel like we’re doing this together? Is that going to quell some of these feelings that you have? Are you going to feel like I’m more invested?

[00:59:19] Justin: Yeah, but I feel like it’s forced.

[00:59:22] Maggie: It’s not forced.

[00:59:23] Justin: And this is the part that gets really tricky. Okay, so since we’ve been dating, I’ve been going to therapy a lot, and one thing I’ve learned is expressing needs, and I’m still learning that. So there’s needs and there’s expectations. And I’ve been trying to really eradicate a lot of these expectations, but one of those things is, it’s like a weird gray area where this is on me because I did give to her and wanted to do that for her. And should I expect the same treatment?

[00:59:53] Ramit: Fantastic point. I’m so glad you’re seeing a therapist because this is deep. Can I share some observations? You two both tell yourself certain stories. One of them is that your life is really complex. It’s not that complex. For me, I see two entrepreneurs. You got a couple of things over here and there, and you make a lot of money. All right. The question for me is, what do you both want?

[01:00:23] That’s it. Because the rest of it we can figure out. If we want to pay the debt off, that could be paid off. The way you talked about getting to zero debt is that’s our starting line. Did you notice that phrase you used, blank page, starting line? You can’t be living in this murky gray area until you pay off $92,000 of debt. It’s a horrible way to live, and that’s why you’ve been feeling this way.

[01:00:46] And from your perspective, Maggie, it’s like, well, you got yourself into this. You haven’t been paying attention. It’s cost you. I need you to step up and take care of this. And then we can talk about what’s next. So both of you are feeling hurt, you’re feeling separate. And what I’m hearing from you, Justin, is like, hey, I want to connect. I want us to come together.

[01:01:10] If I were to have had the conversation you both had, here’s what I would’ve said. I would’ve said, as Justin, “I really appreciate you pushing me to take charge of my money. I know I haven’t done it for a long time, and it’s cost me. And I’m in this situation because of my decisions. I’m going to make a plan to pay this debt off. I take responsibility for it.

[01:01:32] “But there are a couple things I need from you. One, I need your encouragement because this is new to me. And you’ve been doing it longer than I have. I might make mistakes. Two, I need you to pay me back for the extra amount that I paid the rent. We can talk about how to make it palatable and spread it out over several months, but that was thousands of dollars. And in order for me to get debt free, I need that money. And I think it’s fair.

[01:01:59] “Three, I would feel much better if like I helped you and I wanted to when you were in financial trouble, if we could talk about that and you could help me. Now, I don’t expect it. I hope that you feel comfortable. And if you say, no, it’s going to hurt, but I’ll accept it. But this is a conversation I want to have.” Those are the three things I would say. Justin, what do you think about that?

[01:02:25] Justin: Yeah, I wish I could speak that clearly.

[01:02:28] Ramit: It takes time, but the key thing that I did that you did not do was–

[01:02:35] Justin: Take the emotion out of it.

[01:02:36] Ramit: No, it was quite emotional. First, it was appreciating her. I appreciate you pushing me. I haven’t been great taking responsibility. How did that feel when I said that?

[01:02:47] Maggie: It was good. It was acknowledgement that I’ve been doing something.

[01:02:51] Ramit: Exactly. And she has. She’s been on her own journey, and now she’s encouraging you. Maybe she’s not doing it in the exact way you want it. These conversations are hard. That’s why you’re here. But just acknowledging her goes a long way. If Justin were to have said it that way, how would you respond, Maggie?

[01:03:08] Maggie: I feel like I’m pretty amenable to all those things.

[Narration]

[01:03:11] Ramit: I could see that Maggie and Justin were trying to have a real sincere conversation about money, and sometimes I like to step in and model how I might have that conversation because I find it really helpful to see how other people do it. And in my own personal life, I have had friends offer advice on how to have difficult conversations in my own personal and business life.

[01:03:36] Now I want to walk through Justin’s request again this time giving Maggie a chance to respond. And remember these two don’t talk about money, so I really want to take it step by step, letting them each build the skills to talk to each other about money. And I have to admit something.

[01:03:51] As I listen back to this, I found myself cringing at how direct I was, how blunt I was. Sometimes that’s welcome. I think I overdid it here. Truthfully, looking back, I wish I had slowed this down and been a lot gentler with each of them. They are both trying. And so Maggie and Justin, I apologize for being a little clunky with this part of our conversation together.

[Interview]

[01:04:16] Ramit: Let’s start with the easy one.

[01:04:17] Justin: Maggie, it has been really awesome to watch you really getting your [Bleep] together. It’s inspiring so much so that I was like, “Damn, she’s getting her [Bleep] together and I better too.”

[01:04:26] Ramit: So what do you say to that?

[01:04:27] Maggie: I’m glad I was able to do that. And the only reason I’ve even given pushes is because you said you were open to it. You have said that this is something that you want to tackle.

[01:04:37] Ramit: Maggie, why don’t you just take a compliment?

[01:04:39] Maggie: Okay.

[01:04:40] Ramit: Next, Justin said, “I would like to be paid back.”

[01:04:45] Maggie: I’m willing to do that.

[01:04:46] Ramit: Fantastic. You see how we’re taking the wins each step? One person’s going on a limb and saying something like, I appreciate you, or here’s what I need here. If you can deliver what your partner needs, tell them. Don’t get lost in your story. No. If he’s saying, I want this, and you can deliver it, do it. Finally, the most contentious part of all, the helping.

[01:05:09] Maggie: Yeah.

[01:05:10] Ramit: He’s got 92,000 minus the back pay. So 80 something thousand dollars he’s going to have to pay off. What is your thoughts?

[01:05:19] Maggie: What do you need me to do?

[01:05:21] Justin: It’d be nice to figure out if there’s some way that you can help me take that down a little bit faster, but I’m not expecting you to give. First of all, I don’t expect you to pay me back for that.

[01:05:31] Maggie: Okay.

[01:05:32] Justin: I would just really like for you to want to help me.

[01:05:36] Ramit: Let me pause. One suggestion I want to give to both of you is you both lose connection when you talk too much. In a more effective conversation you might say something like this, “I appreciate you asking what I need. I’m going to tell you the truth. What I need is help to pay this debt off faster, but I don’t have an exact number. Would it be okay if I go home, calculate out a plan, and then I come to you and we can look over my proposal together?”

[01:06:11] If I were you Maggie. I would’ve said, “Look, I want help you. I’m willing to, but right now I’m worried if I just pay money off it’s just good money after bad because you’ve gotten into debt before and I don’t see a plan.” Is that accurate? 

[01:06:25] Justin: That’s super.

[01:06:26] Maggie: Definitely accurate.

[01:06:27] Ramit: So these are the direct conversations. You’re not being rude. You’re actually being respectful when you just tell, here’s what I’m feeling. Here’s what I’m willing to do. This is what I need.

[01:06:38] Maggie: Yeah.

[01:06:39] Ramit: Justin, you’re being really honest when you say, “Look, I want some help.” The biggest question for the two of you is, do you truly want to be together? If you do, then there’s lots of give and take that can be done. Justin, you would have to take the responsibility of making a plan, of paying your debt off aggressively. If you wanted to do it, some of the things that I would look to see would be you selling one of your vehicles and putting that money directly into your debt.

[01:07:11] It would be cutting your subscriptions way down and your guilt-free spending, which is not even accurate at all. You’d be able to put an extra, at least $1,000 a month towards your debt. You could shave off months and months and months of your debt repayment. If you were to make that plan and you were to present it, I actually think it would be one of the most connective things you could possibly do.

[01:07:34] Justin: I think so too.

[01:07:35] Ramit: Yeah. And then Maggie, I think that you would have to be clear with yourself about what is it you’re looking for in a relationship. Because as you start to get into your late 30s and 40s, this is a very common pattern. People who are free spirits in their 20s and then they go, “Wait a second. I want to save.”

[01:07:54] And their partner is like, “Wait, I feel betrayed. You’re not the person that I initially met.” But can you still be adventurous and be a planful person? Yeah, I totally think you can. You’ll have to decide what is it exactly you’re looking for. Can Justin deliver that? What’s the kind of partner that I want? And if I were you, I would be really honest with him. Like, this is what I’m looking for. And then he does it or he doesn’t.

[01:08:23] Maggie: Yes.

[01:08:24] Ramit: And the two of you decide if this is the right call or not. In my book, I have this concept of a dreamer. A dreamer is someone where success is always one deal away, and dreamers don’t like the consistent saving, investing. It feels boring. They even use phrases like, “Oh, they have a boring 9-5. And it’s really hard with dreamers if you’re trying to build a stable, growing financial life.

[01:08:55] Justin, you described yourself as a dreamer. The dreamer has to endure real consequences. I think what’s really happening here is in a roundabout way, Maggie, you’re trying to create some boundaries for yourself. Justin, I think you’re hearing her loud and clear and you’re saying, “Okay, I’m going to try. I need a little help.” So to me, it’s very possible that the two of you do get aligned, but it’ll take a lot of work. What do you think?

[01:09:28] Justin: 100%. Honestly, we’ve actually had some really great heartfelt conversations over this last month that we never have had. And it felt good. It didn’t feel good right away, but then when we talked about it and got through it, I believed in us more than ever before.

[01:09:45] Ramit: Money can really bring couples together. Sometimes it’s hard. I think the way you’ve set your life up, you’re running against the wind. Right now your finances are set up separately. Every decision you make is by default made as an independent single person. That’s number one.

[01:10:06] In most relationships, at a certain point they will combine, and there are benefits to it. The first and biggest benefit is that the two of you start to think as a unit. The second thing is you can accomplish a lot together. You can see that your finances are actually quite healthy on a day-to-day basis if you combine them.

[01:10:26] But when we split them, Maggie, you’re at 47% fixed cost, which is actually below the typical range. And Justin, you’re at 71, which is way above it. So it looks healthy, but underneath it’s not healthy. The other ways that you’re running against the wind. You have all these business things that you’ve set up, which are overly complex. I would simplify it dramatically.

[01:10:52] The way I would think about it would be each of our businesses needs to make a certain amount of income for a household. One person commit to making 6,000, the other commits to making 8,000. I’m making the numbers up. Anything above that, you two put into a buffer for when times are slow or one of you sick or whatever. But you need to be able to run a household on this amount of income, and that is your commitment.

[01:11:15] That’s a really simple way of looking at the world. And you don’t have to run against the wind anymore. You just know every month this is what I need to deliver, and anything above, first, we’ll fill up a nice savings account and eventually we will make our life a little better.

[01:11:33] Truthfully, Justin, if I’m you, I think that the dreamer tendencies for you have not been serving your relationship. That is what I mean when I say the wind is against you. I hope you get a huge deal. But I’ve seen dreamers who get a huge payday, and what they do is they do the same thing they always do. It’s episodic.

[01:11:52] They take the money, they pay off all the debt, and now they have a little bit leftover and they’re like, “What’s next?” Bigger swing next time? And it’s like, no, you didn’t learn the lesson. You got lucky. You could keep doing this for the rest of your life. So what do you guys want to do? Imagine this ends right now. You go back home. Think about it. What happens if we stop talking right now?

[01:12:14] Maggie: I think some things will change, but I think we need a little bit more clear plan. We will sit down and make a plan.

[01:12:22] Ramit: You guys are literally sitting down right now with me. Do you not want to make a plan right now?

[01:12:27] Maggie: I want to make a right now.

[01:12:27] Ramit: Would you want to talk about making a plan?

[01:12:29] Maggie: Let’s do it.

[01:12:30] Justin: We’d like to figure out how much money we need to save to be able to live on a sailboat

[01:12:35] Ramit: No, that’s not going to happen. I’m telling you right now. You don’t have the money for it. You have $100,000 of debt. You have effectively less than $20,000 of savings between the two of you. There’s no sailboat in the next 10 years.

[01:12:47] Maggie: Yeah.

[01:12:48] Ramit: Part of making a plan is accepting reality. What’s the next question? What’s a real issue here? Why are we still dancing around it three hours into our conversation?

[01:12:56] Maggie: I want to know what your goals are.

[01:12:58] Justin: I have an opportunity potentially to have a pretty steady income next year. It’s not at all in the direction of my career though. It’s a total offshoot and it’s a result of all this influencer stuff. Another option is we see what happens with this YouTube thing and let’s just say that we’re lucky and all that comes through and I make $80,000. And I know I can make really good money if I work as a camera operator in Hollywood.

[01:13:25] Ramit: Right now your gross income says 12,100, right, per month? So is that the number even at–

[01:13:32] Justin: That’s the average.

[01:13:34] Ramit: That’s the average number. That’s fine. We’re just talking averages. At that number, hard for me to tell because I can’t tell your guilt-free spending, but at 12,000, your fixed costs are–

[01:13:46] Justin: 71%.

[01:13:47] Ramit: 71%.

[01:13:47] Justin: I know I can make more money.

[01:13:48] Ramit: Can you do it consistently?

[01:13:49] Justin: I’m good at making money.

[01:13:51] Ramit: Okay. I love that. I could tell both of you’re good at making money. That’s no question about that. Can you add a layer to your identity that says I’m good at managing money?

[01:14:01] Justin: I would love to, honestly. This is exhausting. When I started making money, instead of me taking on the responsibility of my own money, I was like, I’m just going to hire an accountant. And I just didn’t deal with the problem myself. I wasn’t responsible myself. So then when things started drying up a bit, then I was just upside down because I relied on other people and I didn’t have the skills.

[01:14:23] Ramit: Okay. And it sounds in order for this relationship to grow, you need to build those skills.

[01:14:28] Justin: 100%.

[01:14:29] Ramit: Okay. That’s a huge realization.

[01:14:31] Justin: Yeah.

[01:14:32] Ramit: All right. So if you were to say, I can consistently make $12,100 a month, I think you could put a lot of money towards your debt, much more than the minimum right now. We’ve also heard Maggie say she agrees with the back pay, so that’s going to contribute as well. Right there, that solves a lot of challenges. How you do it, that’s up to you. It seems like you know your way around earning money. So it’s not going to be that big of a problem. Everybody agree?

[01:15:05] Maggie: Yeah.

[01:15:05] Ramit: All right. What else do you need for a plan?

[01:15:08] Maggie: The reason we’re doing this now is because we’re young. So I can say I want to aggressively do this. I want to look at my numbers and say that I want to hit more. I want to make 10 to 12,000 a month next year.

[01:15:21] Ramit: Okay.

[01:15:22] Maggie: And that means saying no to a lot of things. I’d like to max up my Roth IRA for this year and by next year have my 401K set up and need to figure out what I could max that out at. But I think I want to at least be putting 1,500 a month towards investments.

[01:15:40] Ramit: All right. Let’s look. You have about 2,000 bucks right now invested, right, ballpark?

[01:15:44] Maggie: Yeah.

[01:15:45] Ramit: I’m going to say 18,000 a year for– how many years do you want this to grow?

[01:15:49] Maggie: 15.

[01:15:50] Ramit: 15. So conservatively, if we’re looking at this, you’ll have $489,000. How does that strike you?

[01:15:57] Maggie: I want to double that.

[01:15:58] Ramit: You can double it in a couple of ways. One, you can invest more, which I think you could. If you were to get really serious about investing, then you could. And if the two of you were to really get serious about money, with your incomes, you could invest a lot of money. I’m talking like 50,000-plus per year.

[01:16:20] Maggie: I would like to do that.

[01:16:21] Ramit: You’ve heard the couples on my show, right?

[01:16:22] Maggie: Yeah.

[01:16:23] Ramit: But you’re like, oh, boo hoo. Another wealthy couple, boo hoo. And they have millions of dollars. How’d you do it? Oh, we just focused on our income and then automatically invested a ton of money every single month, and just let it grow. I’m just going to say 22,000 here just for easy math.

[01:16:38] Maggie: Yeah.

[01:16:39] Ramit: That takes you to 597. Still not enough. But guess what? If you let it sit there for 20 years, you’re at 972,000. Time. Time is what matters. There’s lots of things you could do. Again, if it’s the two of you and you are like, we want to do it, you could invest a lot and still travel and still take big swings.

[01:16:58] What do you think? What are the steps in order to get there? The first step for me is that the two of you decide we want to do this together. It means that, hey, we’re committed. Here’s what the terms of our relationship are. Just like the terms of a business agreement. Be open about it. Write it down. Nothing wrong with that. I don’t think it’s weird. I think it’s cool. You got a business of the two of you together.

[01:17:19] So that’s one. Two is you got to set your finances up so that the wind is at your back. So it makes it easy. Automatically paying off debt every month should be automatic. Automatically saving and investing should be automatic. Just get out of the habit of this manual stuff. It’s one of the reasons you’re stuck.

[01:17:35] Maggie: Yes.

[01:17:35] Ramit: Three, regular monitoring and communication. Monitoring for both of you. Figure out a way to do it. If the spreadsheet’s not what you want, you want to use a different doc, use a different doc. But communication means every month we’re sitting and talking about money.

[01:17:50] Justin: As a relationship thing, we do these board meetings.

[01:17:53] Ramit: I love that you have a board meeting. That’s awesome. And for me, in a board meeting in a relationship, money is one key part of it. It’s like, what’s the state of our relationship? Are we good? Where are we going to travel to? You said this thing. It made me a little uncomfortable. But also let’s talk about our money.

[01:18:09] Maggie: Yeah.

[01:18:10] Ramit: Beautiful.

[01:18:10] Maggie: It’s been missing, but I think it something we could add to it.

[Narration]

[01:18:14] Ramit: I want to thank Maggie and Justin for sharing their story. It takes a lot of courage to talk about relationship and money issues in front of so many people.

[01:18:21] I noticed some themes in our conversations. Both of them have lots of stories about who they are, but those stories aren’t necessarily serving them anymore. For example, they both define themselves by their extreme independence. But deep down, they’re both yearning to feel more connected to each other. They both have past histories with money, especially Justin, with his dad, and those affect them even today. Most of all, they don’t have a shared vision for a Rich Life. In our conversation, there was lots of talking about random expenses, resentment about paid bills, and walking on eggshells about what each of them wants.

[01:19:03] But I have to say that watching them have these conversations, even with my clunky interjections, was a true joy. Let’s check in and watch their follow-up videos. Up first, let’s hear from Justin.

[01:19:15] Justin: My biggest surprise from our conversation, I think, was how divided we really were. We haven’t been really working towards anything together. And definitely part of what we uncovered it is just the truth and got to talk about things. And it has helped bring up a lot of stuff about our relationship and the power that we have together as a couple.

[01:19:43] Together we make a lot of money and we are much more powerful as a couple. And I think that even if you’re not married, still trying to figure out a way to combine some type of finance together makes you much more powerful as a team.

[01:20:01] My biggest changes so far are I’ve canceled a lot of subscriptions, and I’ve been really focused on like, whoa, okay. There are things in my finances that I don’t even know where this money’s going. I had a lot of things on auto pay that were on my credit cards, which have been stacking up.

[01:20:19] So I took all that stuff off of auto pay and I’m not adding more debt, which I think is really important. And I think overall Maggie and I have been able to start to have better conversations about making decisions. Like just today, we started talking about a car, and I feel like we’re way more on the same page about that. And it’s not a separate, this is for me, this is for you situation. It’s a, hey, how can we do this together? And I feel like that’s a big win.

[01:20:48] Ramit: And now let’s hear from Maggie’s follow-up.

[01:20:51] Maggie: One of my biggest takeaways is that together our finances look really good. We can be really successful, but we’re not there. There isn’t trust there, and that’s something that takes time building up and effort. So we have a lot of work ahead of us to get on the same page, to trust each other, and to start planning things financially together.

[01:21:13] So in order for us to do that, we really need to put the work in and start combining finances so that we can be as successful as we want to be and operating as a unit versus on these two separate planes with finances.

[01:21:30] It’s only been a couple days since our conversation, so we haven’t had time to really map out the game plan, but I have high hopes that we’re going to come up with a plan where we can handle our combined finances together and make decisions together moving forward.