255. “I’m 40 and work 2 jobs. How are we still broke?”

Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich talks to Gabriella, 36, and Chris, 40, a married couple from Pennsylvania with four kids and over a decade of financial struggle behind them. They both work multiple jobs. Chris travels all week as an electrician and picks up brewery shifts on weekends. Gabriella manages three income streams while running the household alone. And yet they have zero savings, $32,000 in credit card debt, and fixed costs sitting at 109% of their income.

But the numbers are only part of the story. What Ramit uncovers is a marriage where 95% of their relationship with money has never been spoken about out loud. Gabriella has been managing everything alone for years, silently building budgets Chris never looks at, covering purchases she didn't agree to, and slowly losing hope. Chris has been avoiding the conversation entirely. And underneath all of it is a secret neither of them mentioned in the application: they've been here before. They filed for bankruptcy. And now, with four kids, they're on the exact same trajectory again.

In this episode we uncover:

• The shocking CSP breakdown: 155% fixed costs on a $228K income
• The parent-child dynamic in their marriage and how it formed
• Why Mike admits he “coaxes” Tania into big purchases including a $23,000 tractor
• The moment Tania realises she’s been a money transcriptionist, not a money manager
• Why earning more money has never solved their problem and never will
• The role of Mike’s upbringing in his total avoidance of money conversations
• Ramit’s concept of “dreamer thinking” and how it’s kept them stuck for 20 years
• The follow-up: how things changed after the episode

Chapters:

(00:00:00) "I've never not worried about money in our marriage"
(00:07:10) Do you have trust issues around money?
(00:15:18) "What if you just stopped doing it all?"
(00:17:32) "95% of our relationship with money is in the shadows"
(00:22:17) Ramit reads the separation ultimatum from her application
(00:34:00) The power dynamic: who earns more, who leads?
(00:46:05) "So you all are broke"
(00:52:27) The bankruptcy reveal
(01:00:36) The Florida plan and why it won't fix anything
(01:03:31) Gabriella's new income changes everything
(01:05:57) "I'm too tired of being alone"
(01:58:09) Follow-ups

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If you or your partner get stressed spending $150 on dinner, or are covering up spending, I'd like to help. Apply to be coached for free on this podcast at iwt.com/apply

Calling LA couples: Apply to be coached for free on this podcast at https://iwt.com/apply

 

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Ramit: Gabriela, why'd you come on here?

[00:00:01] Gabriella: To save our marriage, I need him to make more money. I need him to really have a fire under his ass about what his career plans are.

[00:00:09] Chris: I'm a traveling electrician

[00:00:11] Ramit: and you have a side job as well.

[00:00:13] Chris: I'll pick up at a local brewery to make extra income.

[00:00:16] Gabriella: I begged him like, please do not pick up shifts in the weekends because you're not home all week.

[00:00:21] Ramit: You spend more than you make every single month. Your debt is growing faster than you can pay it off. This is how a lot of people go homeless.

[00:00:29] Gabriella: That fear is always with me.

[00:00:31] Ramit: Have a plan for us to save, manage our money.

[00:00:34] Gabriella: I feel like you gaslight me. You tell me it's gonna happen and tell me it's gonna be done and it doesn't happen.

[00:00:40] Ramit: This is not working for me. This whole dynamic.

[00:00:44] Gabriella: I'm too tired of being alone.

[00:00:48] Ramit: What if you and your spouse both worked multiple jobs, yet you still had zero savings and you were on the brink of financial ruin? That's what today's couple is facing. Chris is [00:01:00] 40 years old. Gabriela is 36. They've been married for 12 years and they have four children now.

[00:01:05] Ramit: They both work multiple jobs, yet they are drowning financially in their application. Gabriela wrote, we aren't able to make big life decisions because he's so focused on making quick money by working as a server on weekends on top of a high demand traveling job that I did not agree. He takes. He works 40 to 60 hours a week and is rarely home.

[00:01:30] Ramit: It drives me crazy because it keeps us in this cycle and he doesn't see the long game. I'm looking at their conscious spending plan, which we call the csp. If you want my help with your own csp, you can join my money coaching program at iwt.com/money. Coaching assets, $796,000. Investments, 99,000 savings, zero debt, $493,000 net [00:02:00] worth.

[00:02:00] Ramit: 402,000. Fixed costs, 109%. Investments, zero savings, zero guilt-free spending negative 9%. What do you notice? I mean, they're spending 109% of what they make every single month. That's it. That's the ball game. No amount of cutting back on laundry detergent can change this structural deficiency. Before we get into this, I wanna say something.

[00:02:31] Ramit: It takes a lot of courage to come on this show and share your financial struggles publicly. Chris and Gabrielle are putting themselves out there because they want help and they want to change. So when you leave comments about this couple, I want you to remember that my community roots for our guests, we don't tear them down.

[00:02:48] Ramit: We want them to succeed. So please share your thoughts, your own experiences, even your advice, but do it with respect. That is what makes my community different. Now let's get started with [00:03:00] Chris and Gabriela calling couples from la. I want to talk to you on the upcoming season of Money for Couples. I am excited to be recording episodes in person live in studio.

[00:03:13] Ramit: So if you are struggling with debt, retirement, supporting aging family members overspending, or talking to your partner about money, apply to the podcast right now. I've done some podcast episodes in person before. Honestly, I love them. So if you are LA based and you essentially want a free three hour coaching session with me, you can apply right now at iwt.com/apply.

[00:03:38] Ramit: Again to be on the podcast. It's iwt.com/apply. Gabriela, you mentioned you've been stuck in a financial rut for the last 12 years and in your application you said, I want to not worry about money all the time. We have four children and every decision we [00:04:00] make is restricted because we are always short on funds.

[00:04:04] Ramit: My husband keeps doing his own way and doesn't want to work as a team. Can you gimme a little bit more color when you say your husband does not seem to wanna work as a team?

[00:04:16] Gabriella: I try to share like all the budgets and. Give like some transparency into what's going in, what's going out, how much funds we have, and he is not actively working on those spreadsheets or using those, um, apps.

[00:04:35] Gabriella: It's, I feel like I'm always the one that's it, like doing the work when it comes to like, managing our finances. And then he'll make purchases that I'm not aware of. They'll make large purchases and that we didn't discuss. And then I feel like I have to, can now kind kind of scramble and pick up like, how are we going to fix this or make up the difference.

[00:04:57] Gabriella: And in his mind, he'll go and pick up [00:05:00] shifts at his second job, which, uh, and to make up for the whatever he spent money on.

[00:05:07] Chris: What's one of those large purchases that you made that she referred to? Probably front, front and center of mind is gonna be a, uh, treadmill. Um, even though we have a treadmill, but this all came to a head.

[00:05:17] Chris: Um, we went on our made makeup anniversary getaway. We hadn't been on a vacation in like 10 years, so

[00:05:24] Gabriella: that's our honeymoon.

[00:05:26] Chris: Our Yeah, exactly. So that's when I, I dropped the bomb on her and when I did it was, that was just kind of like the, you know, the, the last shoe to fall and she was, she was pretty upset and understandably so.

[00:05:37] Ramit: How much did the treadmill cost?

[00:05:39] Chris: Uh, just a little under two grand.

[00:05:42] Ramit: A little under. Can you just tell me the number? Um,

[00:05:46] Chris: all in it was like 1800.

[00:05:48] Ramit: Okay. Ga, Gabriela has been itching to talk You Go ahead Gabriela. What's your reaction to this?

[00:05:54] Gabriella: Um, it was a shock for me because I, we had a, a wonderful time [00:06:00] at our, uh, anniversary, uh, trip.

[00:06:02] Gabriella: So we were talking about our plans when we get home from our, um, Bailey Strip and we're sitting in the airport and he tells me, um, about this purchase that he made without telling me she, I was just devastated.

[00:06:19] Ramit: Gabriela. Do you think that there are trust issues between the two of you when it comes to money?

[00:06:25] Gabriella: Yes.

[00:06:25] Ramit: What kind?

[00:06:26] Gabriella: Not knowing what is being spent. Um, not knowing the debt that he is accumulating, because when we did the conscious spending plan together and we were looking at our debt that we had and our credit card balances, I did not know that he was using the credit cards again. So that was a surprise to me.

[00:06:47] Gabriella: I think those are like some of trust issues I have, but I think one of the other things of trust is every time I wanted to go out to eat with the kids mm-hmm. Or spend any money to do anything like activities, I [00:07:00] couldn't because there was no money in the account. Um, and just all our bills going out. And so I just wondered like, what, why would we be so short on money?

[00:07:10] Gabriella: When

[00:07:11] Ramit: can I ask you why didn't you ask him?

[00:07:13] Gabriella: I did a couple times and, um, it's always like, I call it his, um, iPhone calculations. He'll just like be like this, this is where the money went. And just, uh, and then gives me like, he pulled out his calculator and he'll give me like these like ballpark estimates of where the money went.

[00:07:34] Gabriella: Um,

[00:07:35] Ramit: and what do you feel when you get those explanations?

[00:07:37] Gabriella: I feel like let down, because I'm a, I don't feel like that's a responsible way to manage money and why he can't just use our budgeting or our shared platform like Rocket Money, which we have that account to really show me like that he is handling the finances.

[00:07:56] Gabriella: I did take a big step back when I got [00:08:00] laid off from my job in 2023 and because I was bringing in most of the income, I was kind of on top of everything doing our taxes, our budgeting investments, our retirement. And it was exhausting 'cause I just really wanted to be a mom and be present for the kids.

[00:08:18] Gabriella: And I've been working full time, um, for my previous employer for almost eight years. And I was like, I just want you to take a control of it. And so I stopped.

[00:08:29] Ramit: When you stepped back after being laid off from managing the family finances, did you have a conversation with Chris about who was gonna take control of the money?

[00:08:38] Gabriella: Yeah,

[00:08:39] Ramit: what happened?

[00:08:40] Gabriella: I basically said, you know, handle the taxes. You are my brother is our CPA, you can handle the retirement, uh, aspect of things. And then, um, we sat down and on Rocket Money, we went through our whole budgeting, we came up budget, and I was like, it's, it's an app. It's on your, under your name [00:09:00] and everything.

[00:09:00] Gabriella: You can go and handle it. Um, and then nothing really panned out.

[00:09:05] Ramit: Chris, would you agree that you have not taken to the tool that Gabriela is using?

[00:09:13] Chris: I'd say that's a fair, fair assessment.

[00:09:15] Ramit: Okay. And do you spend money that she doesn't know about?

[00:09:18] Chris: I think for a long time that was the case. I think recently, um, I've been a little bit more conscientious, but

[00:09:24] Ramit: like recently, like how recently?

[00:09:25] Ramit: Like two weeks.

[00:09:26] Chris: I'd say for a good bit of this year I've been a little

[00:09:29] Ramit: Other than $2,000 treadmill.

[00:09:31] Chris: Correct.

[00:09:33] Gabriella: There's other, other purchases that he makes though?

[00:09:36] Chris: No, I'm, I'm not disagreeing with you at all. I'm just saying, um, for the majority of the marriage that that was the case,

[00:09:43] Ramit: why not just say yes? Yes, I do spend money without her knowing.

[00:09:46] Ramit: Yeah. It's gonna be very difficult for either of you to make changes if you're not honest with me. And more importantly, honest with yourselves about what's going on. Like, I find it frequently, it's like, you know, it's the equivalent of somebody hiring somebody to come clean their house. They clean [00:10:00] beforehand and they're like, ah, we're actually do a pretty good job.

[00:10:02] Ramit: It's like, why are you doing that?

[00:10:03] Gabriella: Yes,

[00:10:04] Ramit: you're actually deceiving yourself. Just be honest. I'm not gonna judge you. If you're doing that, we'll work with it, but we gotta be honest about the state of the situation.

[00:10:12] Chris: Okay.

[00:10:13] Ramit: Okay. So how often do you actually talk about money?

[00:10:17] Chris: I think once a month, maybe, if we're lucky.

[00:10:20] Chris: Twice a month.

[00:10:20] Ramit: Okay. And gimme an example of the last time you talked about money, Chris, where you were not on the same page.

[00:10:27] Chris: I think when we put together the conscious spending plan, we were like, okay, we have an idea, you know, let's get after it. Let's, let's be cognizant of what's going on, and then we never check back in.

[00:10:38] Ramit: Okay. Is, is that a common sentiment where you'll kind of make some sort of discussion or resolution but then not really make it happen?

[00:10:47] Chris: Yes, a hundred percent.

[00:10:48] Ramit: Okay. Hearing yeses from both of you. Okay. Alright. That's interesting. Hey, why do you think that happens?

[00:10:53] Chris: It's easier to assume someone else has control or someone else is in the driver's seat, when really we're just kind of [00:11:00] ignoring the obvious, where it's just like we're in a situation, we don't know how to get ourselves out.

[00:11:04] Chris: So it's easier to just kind of like, that's the coping mechanism, you know, let's, let's just deal with it tomorrow and then tomorrow never comes.

[00:11:11] Ramit: Now I understand that Gabriela for a while took control of the finances, kind of paid things. Has there been a period, Chris, where you were in charge of the finances

[00:11:21] Chris: to the degree that she she has been in the past?

[00:11:24] Chris: No. And you know, I, I don't have a clear cut answer as to why could I have assumed that role that, you know, where Gabby was taking care of, you know, making sure the taxes were filed, making sure, you know, the tuition's paid for the kids, X, y, Z. Um, sure, I think I could have stepped up, but, um, you know, ultimately that, that never really, um, that never really happened.

[00:11:46] Ramit: Why

[00:11:47] Chris: for the longest I've kind of, um, inundated myself with work, whether, you know, this current role that I have where I travel a lot, uh, if I work on the weekends and then, you know, I end up coming home tired, then I don't wanna [00:12:00] deal with the minutia of, you know, finances or sitting down or budgeting or, I think that's probably one of the obvious answers that I just, you know, it seems like I don't have the bandwidth or that's something that we can kind of figure out later on.

[00:12:13] Chris: That's probably the best answer I can give you. I think the second runner up would be, um, just because we are, we've been so used to, um, not being on the same page, so it's just kind of like waiting for somebody to take the lead or waiting for somebody to have a clear cut, um, plan of attack, you know, for Gabby to, you know, maybe me thinking Gabby's gonna say, Hey, you know, this is how we're gonna handle this.

[00:12:36] Chris: You know, this is, this is our current financial. Um, position that we're in. This is the plan that I've concocted.

[00:12:42] Ramit: As you hear yourself saying these two reasons, what occurs to you?

[00:12:45] Chris: I think I could have done better to maybe done something about it. You know, maybe not wait for Gabby, maybe been a little bit more responsible with the finances.

[00:12:54] Ramit: Gabriela, what do you think

[00:12:55] Gabriella: Chris is avoiding talking about finances. Um, [00:13:00] and I feel like it's always an, there's always an excuse, whether it's because he is been traveling or he's working on the weekends, so he never has a time to sit down. Um, and then he does promise. Okay, yes, we will sit down and talk about it, or we'll, we'll do something about it.

[00:13:18] Gabriella: But then when it comes to that moment, it's, he's too tired for the last, like, few years, I mean, maybe more than that. I had put in the schedule at the end of the month, we would meet and do a monthly like, um, finance committee, but, and has he but ever been able to like, be proactive in being like, Hey, I saw that you have the committee scheduled.

[00:13:43] Gabriella: I'm ready, I'm prepared. I'm coming with my, you know, eager to look at what we can do and how this, you know, coming month we can do better. It's always me having to like, pull him in and be like, Hey, you know, and it's just food's super frustrating. It is exhausting that I feel like I'm the [00:14:00] only one taking initiative.

[00:14:01] Ramit: Can I ask you a question, Gabrielle? What if you just didn't?

[00:14:04] Gabriella: That's what I did and I just stopped doing it.

[00:14:07] Ramit: And what happened?

[00:14:08] Gabriella: Nothing was picked up on, like no initiation, no budget. We didn't submit our taxes. We haven't paid our taxes.

[00:14:16] Ramit: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:17] Gabriella: I have no idea what hole we're in.

[00:14:20] Ramit: Okay. So you stopped driving the family finances in terms of setting up meetings for taxes.

[00:14:28] Ramit: What else did you stop doing?

[00:14:29] Gabriella: The budget. Rocket money asking for us to meet monthly. Having these conversations, I've been avoiding looking at our bank account. Sometimes I just don't even bother tracking expenses.

[00:14:43] Ramit: And did you tell him you were gonna stop doing this or did you just stop?

[00:14:46] Gabriella: Yeah, I told him, I said, I don't have time to do this because I've also started my own business.

[00:14:52] Chris: And what was his response?

[00:14:54] Gabriella: He said he would do it.

[00:14:55] Chris: Did he?

[00:14:56] Gabriella: No.

[00:14:56] Ramit: Chris, what did he say?

[00:14:57] Chris: Uh, I don't think that's entirely true. I mean, [00:15:00] I will agree for the most part, but for example, in terms of the taxes, I found somebody, a local CPA, we didn't feel comfortable moving forward. So we just walked away. It didn't get filed.

[00:15:10] Chris: We missed the date. Um, we then turned to, you know, the accountant that we typically use, um, you know, that kind of got delayed, delayed, delayed up until like, I guess it's

[00:15:20] Ramit: not acceptable,

[00:15:21] Chris: right?

[00:15:22] Ramit: I mean, if somebody owns a number or they own a decision, life is gonna throw curve balls your way. So what, it's that person's job to drive it to a close and make sure it gets done.

[00:15:35] Ramit: Just saying like, oh, I didn't know this, or that person didn't do it the right way. Okay. That's life. That's what happens. The person who owns it has to see it to completion. What's your take on that, Chris?

[00:15:46] Chris: I'd say I probably dropped the ball on that. You know, I, I didn't adjust, I didn't pivot. Um, in terms of, you know, if, if that person didn't get it done, I should have been as, um, eager to find someone else that could get it done.

[00:15:59] Ramit: Have you [00:16:00] guys had this conversation before Chris where you said, Hey, I dropped the ball out. I take responsibility for that?

[00:16:04] Chris: I don't think I told her to her face or I, I didn't, I don't think I kind of owned up to it the way I'm doing now.

[00:16:11] Ramit: Have you owned up to it to yourself? 'cause I don't think you did as of 60 seconds ago.

[00:16:16] Ramit: Probably not. How much of your relationship with money do you feel is in the shadows? In the shadows means somebody might be thinking one thing, but the other person is thinking something different. You never really talked about it. Maybe one person's never even thought about it themselves.

[00:16:32] Chris: I would say, if not all of it, like 95% of it in the shadows.

[00:16:38] Chris: Okay. Gabriela?

[00:16:40] Gabriella: Yeah, I was gonna say 90% of it in the shadows. Mm-hmm.

[00:16:45] Ramit: When I first looked at Chris and Gabriela's situation, I thought it was gonna be pretty straightforward. One person ignores the money, the other person manages everything and they're exhausted. Classic, dynamic, but it's not that simple.

[00:16:57] Ramit: Chris just said that [00:17:00] 95% of their relationship with money is quote in the shadows. Then Gabriela agreed. Think about what that means. They've been married for 12 years, four kids, and almost everything about their money, where it goes, how much they have, what they owe exists in the dark. It's been 15 minutes.

[00:17:19] Ramit: I've been asking Chris basic questions and I'm not getting straight answers. Where did the money go? What did you spend it on? It's just deflections and vague responses. Meanwhile, Gabriela is building spreadsheets and budgets, but Chris won't look at them. So she's trying to manage their money while being completely in the dark about what he's actually spending.

[00:17:40] Ramit: Yeah, they're working hard, but they're actually working in opposite directions in the dark. No visibility into what the other person is doing. My job is to help them shine a light on what they are both doing, which I'm gonna get to right after this. Some of the best people I know with [00:18:00] money can naturally swing between.

[00:18:03] Ramit: What if things go right and what if things go wrong? Like if you only focus on things going right, you become delusional. You're a dreamer. If you focus on all the things that can go wrong, then you're just, uh, kind of a downer. Maybe you're a lawyer. Imagine you got hit by a bus tomorrow. Would your family be okay?

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[00:20:27] Ramit: That's join delete me.com/ramit code ramit for 20% off. Y'all want me to just make it easy for you? You know those really bright lights, people buy those flashlights that are like 10 lumen or whatever, it just shines a light on the whole neighborhood. Can we just do a little exercise for 60 seconds? What if I pulled out one of those flashlights and just shined the light on money in your relationship?

[00:20:52] Ramit: What would each of you say if there was a light shined on all the money issues in your relationship, what would you say? [00:21:00] What would you want your partner to hear? If you could just put everything out on the table,

[00:21:04] Gabriella: I really would love to just be. On the same page. We have the same ideas, we have the same goals.

[00:21:11] Gabriella: We, we have an amazing marriage and I don't see why we can't have amazing control in our finances. I don't feel like all the work that we've done together is where we should be at in our lives.

[00:21:27] Chris: Chris, what would you wanna say? Yeah, I mean, if there was a light shone and I had to put all the chips on the table, I think I can do better.

[00:21:36] Chris: I can do better in terms of being a little bit more mature in terms of how I handle, um, the money that we both share. What specifically could you be better about instead of having these emo emotional purchases? I think it's a matter of thinking long term, and I think I've suffered, or we've, she's suffered probably more than I have in terms of thinking long term of, [00:22:00] well, you know, this money could be going to our retirement, or this money could be going to, you know, a 5, 2, 9 for the kids.

[00:22:06] Chris: Or this money could be something, you know, a trip that we can all enjoy. I think I've been a little bit selfish in terms of some of the purchases I've made without her, uh, knowledge or without her consent.

[00:22:17] Ramit: Gabriela, your response was a bit defensive and it was like, I would love for us to be on the same page.

[00:22:23] Ramit: We have a great marriage, but I'd love for us to be, it's very like nice.

[00:22:26] Gabriella: Yeah.

[00:22:27] Ramit: Can I read from your application.

[00:22:30] Gabriella: For sure. I was rarely desperate in that application.

[00:22:34] Ramit: Has your financial situation dramatically improved since your application?

[00:22:38] Gabriella: Um, yes.

[00:22:39] Ramit: Tell me.

[00:22:40] Gabriella: I got a job with my brother for his, with his company and that's a full-time position, um, with a decent salary.

[00:22:49] Ramit: So let's update the CSP when we get to the numbers.

[00:22:51] Gabriella: Okay. Okay.

[00:22:52] Ramit: We'll do that.

[00:22:53] Gabriella: Yeah.

[00:22:53] Ramit: You wrote in your application, our eldest daughter is starting middle school and it makes me sad that we don't have a college fund or [00:23:00] savings to help pay for whatever she wants to pursue after high school. If things don't change before she enters high school in three years, I would want to separate.

[00:23:10] Ramit: Have you guys talked about this before?

[00:23:12] Gabriella: No.

[00:23:13] Ramit: Is it true?

[00:23:15] Gabriella: I wanted to, I was in Florida with my family and the kids and I was really frustrated about our financial situation and I just felt like if he didn't get like a wake up call about what to do with our finances, that would be an indicator of him like realizing what's at stake.

[00:23:38] Ramit: Chris, what's your

[00:23:39] Chris: take on this? Um, yeah, I mean, I'm looking forward to this being that wake up call that we can finally work towards something and might take full accountability in my habits and correcting my behavior. Um, so she doesn't have to feel that way anymore.

[00:23:55] Ramit: Okay. That's cool. I appreciate that, Gabriela.

[00:23:58] Ramit: I'm. Um, [00:24:00] struck by your language, the contrast between, I would love for us to get on the same page. That's like me telling my wife, I would love for us to eat a burrito on Saturday versus what's in the application.

[00:24:14] Gabriella: Yeah.

[00:24:14] Ramit: That's as serious as it gets.

[00:24:16] Gabriella: Yeah.

[00:24:18] Ramit: What I would expect to hear is something like, this is what I need in order for us to be a successful partnership.

[00:24:24] Ramit: This is what I expect. Have you ever said something like that before?

[00:24:28] Gabriella: I've definitely said I need this from him. I needed him to lead our family. I did not want to be the working time while our children were young.

[00:24:40] Chris: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:40] Gabriella: I needed him to be in control of our finances. Um, and I would be absolutely the one to help and to do and to do it together, but I wanted and needed him to lead.

[00:24:53] Gabriella: So I expressed that. But I don't know if I've done a good job of reiterating that my [00:25:00] whole dream was to be a mom and, um, be home with the kids. I never expected to have to work this much during these prime years.

[00:25:11] Ramit: When, when you had these discussions about you primarily staying home with children, Chris, did you agree?

[00:25:19] Chris: I think in good faith, um, I said yes. You know, I, I, I would do my damnedest to make that happen. But after career change, after pandemic, after getting laid off, after a move from a different state, you know, all these things that kind of came along the way. I'm making what I'm making and whether or not that is sufficient to provide, to be, you know, pay for private school tuition, times for to pay for the house, pay for X, Y, ZI can only do so much with, with where I'm, where, where I am and what I'm making.

[00:25:53] Ramit: Do you ever tell her that?

[00:25:54] Chris: Uh, I'm, I'm sure I've told her a couple times, but it's just kind of like a moot point because it's like, well, [00:26:00] I understand where your heart is at and I want to give that to you. Um, but I just can't

[00:26:05] Ramit: y'all ever look at any numbers when you were having these discussions?

[00:26:08] Chris: Probably right around the time we did our conscious spending plan.

[00:26:11] Chris: You know, just kinda like, this is what

[00:26:12] Ramit: we're, wait a minute, that's 10 years into your marriage.

[00:26:15] Chris: Yeah.

[00:26:16] Ramit: Four kids later in 10 years. Hey, maybe we should look at a couple of numbers.

[00:26:20] Chris: Yeah.

[00:26:21] Ramit: It's no surprise that you're not on the same page. There is no page.

[00:26:24] Chris: Yeah.

[00:26:25] Ramit: It's just whatever's in your head, whatever you feel, whatever he or she feels, everybody's operating on their own independent view on money.

[00:26:33] Ramit: And the fact that, like, Gabriela, you're like, I don't wanna work full time. I want to stay at home. But no one has ever actually calculated how much money you need to be able to do that.

[00:26:44] Gabriella: No, I mean, I have definitely calculated how much we need.

[00:26:49] Ramit: Okay. And then what happened?

[00:26:51] Gabriella: He'll just go default in saying like, he cannot make that much.

[00:26:55] Gabriella: And I, and or sometimes he'll say, it's not enough. Like, it's not enough for [00:27:00] you. And I think he ha has the potential to make so much more. And, um, I think where he's at right now, it's a, it's a shame. I feel like he could make a lot more than what he does.

[00:27:11] Ramit: Let me understand quickly what each of you does for a living.

[00:27:14] Ramit: Chris, what do you do?

[00:27:16] Chris: I'm a traveling electrician.

[00:27:17] Ramit: Cool. And you have a side job as well?

[00:27:19] Chris: Yeah, if I'm, if I'm home or if, you know, time allows it, I'll pick up at a local brewery and, you know, work there for a couple hours, um, to make extra income.

[00:27:29] Ramit: How many hours a week do you work at the brewery

[00:27:31] Chris: or a week maximum?

[00:27:32] Chris: I'd say about 10 hours. Additionally.

[00:27:34] Ramit: Okay. Gabrielle, why are you shaking your head?

[00:27:36] Gabriella: You, that's just recent, like the past couple weeks after I got this job and I begged him like, please do not pick up shifts in the weekends because you're not home all week. So I need him home during the weekends. But he was typically working a double shift on both Saturday and Sunday.

[00:27:53] Gabriella: So he would be gone from 10 and won't be back until 10 30.

[00:27:57] Ramit: So that's

[00:27:58] Chris: 24 [00:28:00] hours on the weekend versus 10. What? Mm-hmm. He just said Chris.

[00:28:06] Gabriella: Yeah,

[00:28:07] Chris: I think initially when I started working there I was probably working heavier hours, but I think as of late I've kind of toned down my hours since school started.

[00:28:16] Ramit: This is not working for me. This whole dynamic. And I suspect this is what's been going on for a long time, Chris. I feel like I'm trying to pull teeth to get the truth out of you. I just feel like you're not being honest with me. I'm looking for what got you into this situation where your wife applied and said, if things don't change, we're gonna separate.

[00:28:32] Ramit: That's what I'm looking for. I'm not looking for you to present yourself in the best possible light that doesn't actually do anything for anyone. If that's what you want, then you two should wrap up this call and go back to the way you were doing things.

[00:28:42] Chris: Yeah.

[00:28:43] Ramit: What are we doing here right now?

[00:28:44] Chris: I don't know, maybe ju just defaulting to how it's been maybe a defense mechanism.

[00:28:48] Chris: I don't know.

[00:28:49] Ramit: Yes. Why?

[00:28:51] Chris: Because for the first time I'm hearing myself kind of hear myself talk and it's, I'm, maybe I'm not liking the truth.

[00:28:57] Ramit: I don't like the truth.

[00:28:59] Chris: Yeah. [00:29:00]

[00:29:00] Ramit: I'm about this close to ending our conversation right now and I don't want to do that. You all went through a lot to get to talk to me. I want to help you.

[00:29:07] Chris: Yeah.

[00:29:07] Ramit: I can only imagine how frustrated Gabriela is if she ask these questions and gets the kind of answers you're giving me.

[00:29:13] Chris: Yeah.

[00:29:15] Ramit: Can we recenter here? I wanna stay. Yeah. I want to talk to you. Sure. Why did each of you come on this call?

[00:29:20] Chris: To have a plan for us to save, manage our money, um, get on a page, work with each other and be fully transparent.

[00:29:28] Ramit: Okay. I appreciate that. Gabriella, why'd you come on here

[00:29:32] Gabriella: to save our marriage? Because I was really getting at a frustrated point. I want us to be able to en enjoy our children, our family, each other, and not let money be the thing that. Breaks us

[00:29:49] Ramit: two different answers. Chris, you've heard of a lot of guys who one day they get divorced and they're like, I never saw this coming.

[00:29:56] Ramit: Why didn't you talk to me? You've heard that stuff, right?

[00:29:58] Chris: Yeah.

[00:29:58] Ramit: Every guy's heard that stuff. Sure. [00:30:00] This is it. She's screaming it, even though she's not physically screaming, she's screaming it to you. Listen, tell the truth even if it doesn't make you look great, because there's no way out of this unless you go through the fire and take responsibility by being honest right now, you haven't done that.

[00:30:19] Chris: Okay.

[00:30:20] Ramit: Kind of getting frustrated with Chris, when I ask a straightforward question and I get a response that circles and circles without ever landing, we can't make progress. If you can't talk plainly about what's happening, then you don't understand it, and if you don't understand it, you can't change it.

[00:30:41] Ramit: Gabriela said, she often asks a simple question and walks away more confused than before. When that happens repeatedly, year after year, it takes a real toll. You start to doubt your own perspective. Most people just stop asking questions because experience has taught them it's not gonna lead [00:31:00] anywhere, and I can feel that dynamic playing out between them after years of indirect answers and unresolved conversations.

[00:31:09] Ramit: Gabrielle is not even sure what to say. She hasn't developed the tools to speak clearly and to advocate for herself, and as long as that dynamic stays in place with Gabriela and Chris, both of them are gonna remain stuck no matter how many hours they work. My wish, one of my core wishes on this podcast for you is that you learn how to communicate directly, how to answer questions candidly, and most of all, how to simply state what you want,

[00:31:37] Ramit 4: what you need without deflection,

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[00:34:33] Ramit: All opinions are my own and not a guarantee of a similar outcome. Gabriela, what is your new full-time job?

[00:34:38] Gabriella: Director of Business Development and Operations.

[00:34:41] Ramit: And what kind of firm is this?

[00:34:42] Gabriella: It's an accounting firm.

[00:34:44] Ramit: Cool. Alright. When you got this new job, did it substantially raise your income?

[00:34:51] Gabriella: Yes.

[00:34:51] Ramit: What were you making before and what are you making now?

[00:34:53] Ramit: Gross income.

[00:34:54] Gabriella: So my gross income was around. Like monthly was [00:35:00] around 2000.

[00:35:01] Ramit: Mm-hmm. And now

[00:35:02] Gabriella: I haven't got paid yet, but the salary is 70,000 a year.

[00:35:07] Ramit: Okay. Yeah. That's a big jump.

[00:35:09] Gabriella: Yeah.

[00:35:09] Ramit: Wow. Okay, great. How would you each describe your relationship with money? Terrible, non-existent. Okay. And Gabriela,

[00:35:18] Gabriella: like, I'll avoid it when it's not going my way, but if I was, you know, con in control of it, I feel ambitious with it.

[00:35:28] Ramit: Wait, how can you be ambitious and avoidant with money?

[00:35:31] Gabriella: I guess when I was working full time, my salary was a six figure salary when I left. Um, so I had money, I had my 401k, I had investment, and then I got my payout. So I felt like I wanted to be more in control, um, because we, we had enough income. Um, and so I'm, I was doing investments and those things, but when we don't have as much money and it seems we're [00:36:00] stretched thin, then I avoid it.

[00:36:02] Ramit: You have an interesting interplay of the word I versus we, so it's like when I hear success, you're talking about, I, when I hear struggle with money, you're talking about we, what do you make of that?

[00:36:16] Gabriella: I do see myself as successful and maybe I, I feel like maybe that's been intimidating in the past.

[00:36:25] Ramit: Do you know if that's true or not?

[00:36:26] Ramit: Ask him.

[00:36:27] Gabriella: Chris, does that make you feel intimidated?

[00:36:29] Ramit: Maybe subconsciously, yeah. First time y'all ever had this conversation

[00:36:33] Chris: in front of a third party. Yeah.

[00:36:35] Gabriella: Yeah.

[00:36:35] Ramit: Oh, that's okay. Well most people don't talk about anything in front of a third party, so how about between the two of you?

[00:36:41] Gabriella: Yeah, I don't really think we've ever talked about how he must have felt when I was, you know, working full time in the past and making what I was making.

[00:36:50] Gabriella: And then I was always very concerned. I did vocalize it. I was like, I don't want you to feel like I am overpowering or not [00:37:00] allowing him to be able to take the lead. I want our children to see him as successful and, um, I don't want him to feel less than just because I was making more money when I make the money and my success, I always say that it's our success, it's our money.

[00:37:19] Gabriella: I've never put out any of that money into a separate account and nine times outta 10, I never spent that money on myself. It always was for the family or paying off debts.

[00:37:30] Ramit: Chris, what do you make of, this seems like a pretty, pretty big topic. Gender and relationships and power and identity.

[00:37:39] Chris: For almost a decade she was the primary breadwinner.

[00:37:44] Chris: Um, and maybe in the back of my mind that was kind of one of the reasons where I wouldn't behave the way that I was with money. You know, kind of the. Make myself feel better as opposed to trying to hit it, hit it head on, and have that conversation with her and say, Hey, like, [00:38:00] I understand your wants, your needs, your desires to be a stay-at-home mom, but you know, with your trajectory and with my trajectory, you know, I, I don't know, we can switch roles.

[00:38:10] Chris: Maybe that wasn't a reality. I was willing, willing to accept or at least own up to.

[00:38:15] Ramit: I didn't even hear you accept it there.

[00:38:16] Chris: Now I'm comfortable. I can, I can, I can own up and then say, Hey look, this is where I'm at. What we need to do, I feel is if we can get ahold of our finances and change my behavior, maybe I can give you that and work with what we have as opposed to just

[00:38:30] Ramit: you think that you, your income alone can provide for her to stay home with four children.

[00:38:37] Ramit: Is that what you're telling me?

[00:38:38] Chris: She's also a, a burst of doula where she can make her own schedule. So if with that income and with what I have, um, and if we make it to Florida with the proceeds of the house and have a fairly small mortgage, I feel if we work together, I, I can give her that where she doesn't have to work full time.

[00:38:56] Ramit: Okay. I'll tell you what, we're gonna look at the numbers and we'll see [00:39:00] how we can map it out. Now you mentioned moving to Florida. Uh, tell me a little bit about what this plan is. I believe this is in the next 12 months. Mm-hmm. Can you describe The plan

[00:39:12] Gabriella: is to list the house in March, um, and then hope to finish the kids out of school and move by June.

[00:39:20] Ramit: So you're gonna sell the house, you're gonna move to Florida, and then what are you gonna do about housing in Florida?

[00:39:24] Gabriella: We are gonna stay with family until we find a home.

[00:39:27] Ramit: Mm-hmm. Buy or rent,

[00:39:29] Gabriella: we want to purchase a, a next home.

[00:39:31] Ramit: Okay, got it. And how committed are you to this plan, like on a scale of one to 10?

[00:39:36] Gabriella: 10,

[00:39:37] Ramit: 11. Wow. So it's, it's going to happen.

[00:39:40] Chris: Yes. Yeah.

[00:39:41] Ramit: Okay, good. That's very helpful to know. And where are you with this plan to move to Florida?

[00:39:47] Chris: Gabby's, you know, working with her brother, so he works out of St. Pete. Um, so she's already secured employment. If we need to get a VOE, um, in order to secure a mortgage, we have that kind of wind up.

[00:39:58] Ramit: Okay.

[00:39:59] Chris: Um, my [00:40:00] job, as long as I'm close to an airport, I have a job. So. Great. That kind of ticks

[00:40:05] Ramit: two boxes. Okay. Right there. Have you calculated your numbers for how much you will make and how much you'll be able to buy when you go to Florida? I

[00:40:13] Gabriella: have, um, but I haven't incorporated the new salary.

[00:40:17] Ramit: Alright, cool.

[00:40:18] Ramit: We're gonna take a look at your conscious spending plan. Gabriela, can you read off the word in bold and the number in full next to it? For this entire box please?

[00:40:26] Gabriella: Assets 796,000 in $836. Investments $99,227 savings, zero debt 493,953

[00:40:43] Ramit: Total net worth

[00:40:44] Gabriella: 402,000 And, uh, $110.

[00:40:48] Ramit: Alright. What do you both think of those numbers?

[00:40:50] Gabriella: It's great. I just don't like that we have such a no savings.

[00:40:55] Ramit: Mm-hmm. Okay. Chris, what do you think about the numbers?

[00:40:59] Chris: The money that [00:41:00] we do owe? I, it'd be nice if it was a little, a little bit smaller than the number on the screen there. I feel like if that money can be applied the right way into the next house, I, I, I see a glimmer of hope.

[00:41:13] Chris: Light, light at the end of the tunnel. When I look at that, what do these numbers mean to you?

[00:41:17] Gabriella: Um, I see like a mountain to climb to pay off the debt.

[00:41:22] Chris: Okay.

[00:41:23] Gabriella: And I have a little fear if something bad were to happen or we don't have an emergency fund. Okay. So it makes me nervous.

[00:41:31] Chris: I look at what Gabriela was able to do with her previous employer and she was able to squirrel away, you know, almost a hundred thousand dollars in her 401k.

[00:41:41] Chris: And I look at the, our net worth and I, again, I see promise and I feel like if there's a plan in place moving forward, then I think we'll be okay.

[00:41:50] Ramit: You know what I hear when the two of you describe what these numbers mean to you? A lot of words, but there's no numerical rigor. There were almost no [00:42:00] numbers when you talked about it.

[00:42:02] Ramit: It was like a lot of just arbitrary feelings. Mm-hmm.

[00:42:05] Gabriella: Yeah.

[00:42:05] Ramit: I'm fixated on this. I can't believe that number's so low. I don't wanna dwell in the past, but there's hope at the end of the tunnel. It's like we're describing prose. Are we talking about Shakespeare right now or are we talking about five numbers?

[00:42:17] Gabriella: Yeah.

[00:42:18] Ramit: What do you make of that?

[00:42:19] Gabriella: I guess looking at it is like 60% of it is debt to our assets. And that's scary.

[00:42:26] Ramit: That was a very good analysis. Chris, what do you make of these numbers? I'll put 'em back up on screen for you.

[00:42:32] Chris: Our debt is higher than our net worth and it didn't need to be that way.

[00:42:36] Ramit: Okay. That's a good assessment.

[00:42:39] Ramit: A anybody asking questions like, we're 40 years old, roughly 40. Do we have enough for retirement?

[00:42:46] Gabriella: Nobody's asking those questions. And I've always been like, we need to start thinking about our retirement. Or why am I the only one thinking about our retirement?

[00:42:55] Ramit: Gabrielle, I I agree. You have, until now been the only one thinking.

[00:42:58] Ramit: But my question is [00:43:00] are, are you actually thinking about it? 'cause how come you didn't bring up anything about retirement?

[00:43:04] Gabriella: I think I look at that number and be like, that's okay for someone or for us at our age.

[00:43:10] Ramit: How do you know?

[00:43:11] Gabriella: Um, just based off of some of like, uh, what I've read, um, from, from your newsletters and your, your book.

[00:43:21] Ramit: My newsletter said $99,000 at age 40 is okay.

[00:43:27] Gabriella: No, didn't, it didn't say. Okay. But compared to the other people that you worked with, why? Um,

[00:43:35] Ramit: why would I compare myself to somebody else? There's no numerical rigor here.

[00:43:40] Gabriella: Yeah.

[00:43:41] Ramit: The thing about operating purely on feelings is that. It presents an argument that is unassailable, that nobody can argue with the way you feel, even though you might be completely wrong, be like, I feel this way.

[00:43:53] Ramit: That is why we have to do two things to live a rich life. Number one, we gotta know our numbers. Right [00:44:00] Now I can tell that the two of you don't even know your numbers. You don't know what these numbers mean at all. They're just numbers. And what you're doing is you're making up meaning. It's like I went into the Museum of Modern Art and I don't know what the hell I'm looking at.

[00:44:11] Ramit: And I'm like, this represents a fresh perspective on uh uh, cleanliness. That's why they only have three dots. And this like art docent, it's like, shut the fuck up. What are you talking about? You never studied any of this. Okay, now it's different. I don't need to be an art expert, but you actually need to be really good at your household finances.

[00:44:29] Ramit: You don't know your numbers. Second, you gotta master your money. Psychology. Yeah. To actually be able to understand why you behave the way you do with your money, why you feel the way you do. And I suspect that's not happening. We're gonna get to both of those things today. But right now, I just wanna point out to you that it's no surprise that you have not been on the same page with money.

[00:44:49] Ramit: 'cause you're not actually talking about numbers at all. It's just feelings which build up to resentment. And ultimately you're talking about something completely abstracted from these numbers. Okay, let's keep going. This [00:45:00] time I'm gonna ask Chris to read off the combined gross monthly income, Chris Gross Monthly Income.

[00:45:08] Ramit: $8,277. Great. That means that this is all prior to Gabriela getting her new job. But let's just stick with this for a second. That means that the two of you made a household income of $99,327. Who knew that

[00:45:24] Chris: prior to the CSP? Not me.

[00:45:26] Ramit: Gabriela knew it. Chris did not. Okay. Not bad. 50% right on target with my statistic.

[00:45:31] Ramit: Alright. And Chris, you didn't know, what, did you think you made

[00:45:34] Chris: 7,700 prior to doing the CSP

[00:45:38] Ramit: 7,700 a month? Correct. Which is 92,400, not far off. 7,000 bucks off. Alright. Alright. That's fine.

[00:45:48] Chris: I, I think that just goes back to the fact that you brought up that we weren't talking numbers and I don't think we ever speak, sit down and speak numbers and as straightforward as possible.

[00:45:59] Chris: At least I didn't. [00:46:00]

[00:46:00] Ramit: Why don't you do that?

[00:46:01] Chris: Uh, I think just avoiding,

[00:46:02] Ramit: yeah. Why? '

[00:46:04] Chris: cause then you have to kind of take accountability responsibility for your actions.

[00:46:09] Ramit: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And how does it feel when you have to do that?

[00:46:12] Chris: It kind of sucks if you don't have a good enough ex excuse or response.

[00:46:15] Ramit: It's a very interesting comment.

[00:46:18] Ramit: In my mind, taking responsibility is not about having excuses. Right. Actually, the excuse just doesn't matter.

[00:46:25] Chris: Yeah.

[00:46:25] Ramit: Somebody shows up a week in a row late while the train was late today and, and my hairdryer blew out yesterday and I'm just like, I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. You show up on time or you don't have a job.

[00:46:37] Ramit: It's simple as that.

[00:46:38] Gabriella: Yeah, no, that's, that's true. I agree. I actually just said this to my brother that the way I treat my work is completely different than my, my personal life or her life.

[00:46:52] Ramit: Why?

[00:46:53] Gabriella: I feel like maybe I feel in, in some type of control, there's like a framework, whereas in [00:47:00] my personal life, it's just chaos.

[00:47:03] Ramit: Very insightful,

[00:47:05] Gabriella: and so I shut down when there's chaos,

[00:47:08] Ramit: you know, at work it's, it's, it's a little bit more straightforward. First of all, there's levels of hierarchy. It's very clear who's in charge. There's accountability and accountability's not about excuses. It's about like, if this person's had to do it, they're fired.

[00:47:21] Ramit: They're gonna be fired. Yeah. That's not usually the same thing that happens in a relationship. Right,

[00:47:28] Chris: right.

[00:47:28] Ramit: I mean, there is that possibility if things go very, very wrong, but that's not usually the first, second, third thing that gets discussed. What I see is that some people, when there's no strict rules, they fall apart.

[00:47:43] Ramit: They need those strict rules. Chris, would you say that's true for you? Yes. And Gabriela, what about for you? I'm not so sure. What's your answer?

[00:47:52] Gabriella: Yes,

[00:47:53] Ramit: both.

[00:47:54] Gabriella: I, I thrive in structure.

[00:47:56] Ramit: Wow, okay. That's interesting. And [00:48:00] the two of you have no structure when it comes to your money.

[00:48:02] Gabriella: Right.

[00:48:03] Ramit: Well, no surprise, it's not particularly going well.

[00:48:06] Ramit: Let's keep going down the numbers. Alright, this is interesting. We're learning something here. The rest of the CSP at $99,000 a year, your fixed costs are Gabriela. What's that number?

[00:48:17] Gabriella: 109%.

[00:48:18] Ramit: Okay, so 109%. So y'all are broke?

[00:48:23] Gabriella: Mm-hmm.

[00:48:24] Ramit: You're spending more than you make every single month?

[00:48:26] Gabriella: Yep.

[00:48:27] Ramit: Where's the money coming from?

[00:48:28] Ramit: You put it on credit cards?

[00:48:29] Gabriella: Yes.

[00:48:30] Ramit: Oh, we're in trouble.

[00:48:32] Gabriella: Yeah.

[00:48:32] Ramit: Big trouble. It's sort of irrelevant to go down the rest of the CSP because we're gonna see investments are at zero. Savings are at zero. Guilt free spending is at negative 9%. So the rest of the CSP is is basically like inaccurate. You basically do whatever you want and then try to figure it out later.

[00:48:49] Ramit: You have debt of $493,000. Can you explain the debt?

[00:48:53] Gabriella: That is our, our mortgage. And then I have, uh, one student loan that's been outstanding.

[00:48:59] Ramit: Hold on. [00:49:00] How much is the mortgage for?

[00:49:01] Gabriella: 433,000.

[00:49:03] Ramit: Okay, great. And how about your student loan?

[00:49:05] Gabriella: The student loan is 26,000.

[00:49:08] Ramit: What else?

[00:49:08] Gabriella: I have two credit cards. The balance is 11,500.

[00:49:13] Ramit: Total.

[00:49:14] Gabriella: Total between the two.

[00:49:15] Ramit: Okay. What else?

[00:49:16] Gabriella: Chris took out a personal loan.

[00:49:19] Chris: Mm-hmm.

[00:49:19] Gabriella: One yearned and I think the balance is 13,247.

[00:49:24] Chris: Alright, what else?

[00:49:25] Gabriella: And then Chris', credit cards.

[00:49:28] Chris: Um, so the two credit cards that I use for travel, um, are, uh, 5,500. Um, that's at 29%.

[00:49:34] Ramit: Okay.

[00:49:35] Chris: And then smaller cards that I have, um, about four of them for a total of, uh, 2350

[00:49:42] Ramit: 2,350 bucks?

[00:49:44] Chris: Correct.

[00:49:45] Ramit: Okay. So I have questions. The credit card debt, what are y'all spending on that to get to that amount of debt?

[00:49:54] Gabriella: That is mostly like paying our bills, um, paying, [00:50:00] um, going out to eat, uh, paying for the Amtrak when we went to Florida. Some of the costs of when we went to be lease. So it's like some of those bigger spendings.

[00:50:11] Gabriella: When we don't have the enough in our budget, then we will put it on the credit card and say, we'll, we'll make more money or we'll pick up a shift and then we'll pay it off.

[00:50:21] Ramit: When you tell me what those things are for, what you spent on those credit cards and you hear yourself saying it out loud, Amtrak beliefs, et cetera, what do you make of that?

[00:50:31] Gabriella: That we shouldn't be spending money when we don't have it?

[00:50:36] Ramit: Yeah,

[00:50:37] Gabriella: I think it's, we want to go on vacations, we want to do nice things for the kids and the family. But we really don't, didn't have the money to do it.

[00:50:48] Ramit: So how did you decide to do it? What did you tell yourselves at the time?

[00:50:52] Gabriella: We will figure out a way to make more money or find another way of income for my [00:51:00] business.

[00:51:00] Gabriella: I was like, my business is gonna take off, or I'll be able to find more income or more business, um, and growing my business.

[00:51:08] Ramit: Does it work?

[00:51:09] Gabriella: No, it doesn't work because we can never anticipate when something else comes up, like an emergency situation. And then mm-hmm. We have to use our money towards that.

[00:51:19] Ramit: Why do you do it?

[00:51:20] Gabriella: I think it's to make me, uh, make us, I don't know, um, feel better about our situation, like masking the reality that what I would love for our lifestyle as a family is not happening. So I mask it with the, with spending it on these credit cards.

[00:51:41] Ramit: I appreciate the honesty. Chris, what about you? What do you tell yourself when you make these purchases and they go on credit cards knowing that you have over $30,000 of credit card debt?

[00:51:56] Chris: I think I tell myself that, you know, I work hard enough, I deserve it, [00:52:00] or, you know, just this last time and after that we'll fix it. Um, but I think at the moment it's just kind of like, like Gabriela said, you know, because in reality we can't afford it. Um, so we just put it on, on credit cards and kind of get a fix outta that.

[00:52:19] Chris: What does that mean? Fix, you know, kind of convince yourself or I convinced myself that I'm rewarding myself for working so hard. Um, and you know, tomorrow will come and I'll figure, I'll figure out a way to eliminate the debt and tomorrow just doesn't happen for me.

[00:52:34] Ramit: Mm-hmm. So what happens, like, let's just say, pretend we ended the call right now.

[00:52:40] Ramit: You all c carry on the way you've been doing. And fast forward for me what happens.

[00:52:46] Gabriella: What happens is sometimes, you know, the thought of withdrawing from my IRA

[00:52:55] Ramit: mm-hmm.

[00:52:55] Gabriella: To cup, to pay off the debts is always an option.

[00:52:59] Ramit: Let's say you did that, [00:53:00] you have $99,000 in there. So

[00:53:03] Gabriella: it was 160,000. We've withdrawn from it

[00:53:07] Ramit: what

[00:53:07] Gabriella: to pay for this.

[00:53:09] Gabriella: The credit cards

[00:53:10] Ramit: you've already taken out $60,000 to pay credit cards down

[00:53:14] Gabriella: 80,000.

[00:53:15] Ramit: Okay. So what happens if you keep this up?

[00:53:18] Gabriella: It just, we keep killing our, our retirement. We run outta money.

[00:53:24] Ramit: And then what?

[00:53:25] Gabriella: Then there's a lot at stake. I mean, our house would be like foreclosed.

[00:53:29] Ramit: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:29] Gabriella: Yeah. And we don't have a roof over our head.

[00:53:32] Gabriella: And

[00:53:32] Ramit: then what happens?

[00:53:33] Gabriella: I think we have to pull the kids out of tuition, out of private school, which is not something I wanna do.

[00:53:40] Ramit: How many of them?

[00:53:40] Gabriella: Four.

[00:53:41] Ramit: You have four kids in private school right now?

[00:53:44] Gabriella: Yeah.

[00:53:44] Ramit: Alright, so let's say that you might lose the house. Maybe they wouldn't be able to go to private school anymore and then what?

[00:53:50] Chris: I mean they'd go to public school and you know, there's a possibility the Florida move doesn't happen. House gets foreclosed on. And [00:54:00] then just the way that the market is right now, some rentals are even more expensive than owning your own house.

[00:54:05] Ramit: Y'all realize how close you are to being homeless.

[00:54:07] Gabriella: No,

[00:54:08] Ramit: I don't think it's entered the possibility for you.

[00:54:10] Ramit: Right. I know you have some family support, which is really helpful, but if we just take that away for a second. You spend more than you make every single month. Your debt is growing faster than you can pay it off, and you're not really paying much of it off anyway.

[00:54:27] Gabriella: Yeah.

[00:54:28] Ramit: You're, you're basically just decimating whatever future retirement you have and it's just going towards debt, which is growing anyway.

[00:54:34] Ramit: I mean, where does it end? This is how a lot of people go homeless.

[00:54:38] Gabriella: I mean, that fear is always with me because we've been in this situation in the past.

[00:54:45] Ramit: What do you mean?

[00:54:46] Gabriella: In our previous home, we ended up having to go through foreclosure.

[00:54:51] Ramit: What?

[00:54:52] Gabriella: Mm-hmm.

[00:54:53] Ramit: When was that? I didn't know that.

[00:54:55] Gabriella: Um, but we avoided it by, um, filing for [00:55:00] bankruptcy.

[00:55:00] Ramit: What you filed for bankruptcy. You just heard them reveal that they filed for bankruptcy years ago, and now they are right back on the same trajectory except this time with four kids. So what's really going on here? Well, have you noticed that Chris and Gabriela don't look at numbers? They talk about money entirely in feelings.

[00:55:22] Ramit: It's like they're rowing a boat in the middle of the ocean, and they're arguing about how they feel they should go left or right without actually stopping to look where they are. They don't review their spending. They don't track where the money goes, not even in a few key categories. A lot of this is just reaction, feeling stressed, feeling overwhelmed, feeling like they can't get ahead, and then making decisions based on those feelings instead of incorporating numbers as well.

[00:55:48] Ramit: Now, by only talking about feelings, that's why Gabriela and Chris take trips they can't afford. That's why they put 'em on credit cards. That's why they're not prioritizing debt pay down or building any savings because [00:56:00] without knowing their numbers, they have no financial structure. So everything just becomes reactive.

[00:56:04] Ramit: Money comes in, money goes out. They're just arguing about their feelings that are totally disconnected from their finances, and this is a real problem. They have zero savings. Their debt is growing. They're basically one unexpected expense away from being in a serious crisis, and they have children. This is a red alert.

[00:56:23] Ramit: The stakes are high, so I'm gonna push them to make some hard changes. Now, if you recognize yourself in this pattern. If you want help building financial structure, then you can join my money coaching program at iwt.com/money coaching. You do not have to do this alone. Once you filed for bankruptcy, what did you tell yourselves?

[00:56:45] Gabriella: We would never be in this situation again.

[00:56:48] Ramit: You know, not that many people find themselves in dire situations over and over six years apart, especially having a six figure job in between. What do you think is really going on here?

[00:56:59] Chris: I [00:57:00] think for me it's um, not getting a handle on my finances and kind of telling myself that it's gonna get better and it's gonna get better.

[00:57:07] Chris: And not changing behavior.

[00:57:08] Ramit: It's not gonna get better. It's gonna get worse.

[00:57:11] Chris: Yeah.

[00:57:11] Ramit: It's actually getting worse every single day. Yeah, I think that's probably a pretty honest answer though. Chris, uh, and Gabriela, what about you?

[00:57:18] Gabriella: I can't figure it out. At the end of 2023 when I was getting laid off, we sat down and had a conversation and what's the best thing to do?

[00:57:28] Gabriella: The conclusion was he was gonna go back to school while working full time and I was gonna take the payout and start my business. I didn't go back to school and get my certifications to become a birth doula.

[00:57:41] Ramit: Great. Like you made a lot of plans, you executed on them.

[00:57:45] Gabriella: Yeah.

[00:57:45] Ramit: What went wrong?

[00:57:46] Gabriella: I don't think the job that Chris ended up getting was the job that met what we were anticipating or our goals.

[00:57:54] Ramit: What was the number you expected Chris to make?

[00:57:56] Gabriella: I said. 80,000.

[00:57:59] Ramit: And then what [00:58:00] happened? What was the actual number in the job? Gross is 74 comes out to like 30, $31 an hour. You know, it's interesting 'cause you said the job that you took paid you 70 4K, but Gabriela, your plan was for him to make 80 k. That's not that far off.

[00:58:17] Gabriella: The problem is his overtime. Mm-hmm. He, it's not like he's making that just doing 40 hours a week. And so I can't do my business effectively when he's not home.

[00:58:30] Ramit: Yeah.

[00:58:30] Gabriella: Uh, who's gonna watch the kids? And so I've never been able to do that very well. So that's what makes it a little frustrating for me is, is that is the time he spends away, he's gone every week, almost sometimes five days out of the week.

[00:58:44] Ramit: That's tough. Especially with four kids.

[00:58:46] Gabriella: It's, it's incredibly tough.

[00:58:49] Ramit: Yep.

[00:58:49] Gabriella: And it wasn't what we had planned for. Um, we had a discussion and I told him, I don't agree with him taking on a traveling [00:59:00] job. And I said, if he does it, I can only handle it for a year. It's now been over a year.

[00:59:06] Ramit: What's the plan, Chris?

[00:59:08] Chris: I think that's kind of where Florida comes into play in terms of moving closer to family. You know, we have family that can kind of help out. Um, obviously it's, it's a little bit selfish to count on them to help us out week in, week out. That's not the idea. But I

[00:59:23] Ramit: think it, well, hold on. What, what is the idea, first of all, have you spoken to the family?

[00:59:26] Ramit: Are they willing to watch the kids?

[00:59:28] Gabriella: Yeah.

[00:59:28] Ramit: Okay, good.

[00:59:29] Gabriella: My parents are very aware of our situation. I'm, I'm very close with them.

[00:59:35] Ramit: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:36] Gabriella: Um, and they do think that is the best thing for us to move down to Florida. They see me struggling, they see my frustration, um, and they would love to help and, and they can help if we're closer.

[00:59:50] Ramit: Let's say that you moved to Florida, and let's say that family is super helpful with the kids. Chris, you still have your same job at that time. You're gonna be traveling. Sure. [01:00:00] Right. What does this move to Florida do for your finances?

[01:00:04] Chris: We'd take the equity, get the house that's secured. I'm personally looking to have as small of a mortgage payment as possible.

[01:00:11] Chris: We've already looked at schools down there. We'd be able to get a $8,000 per kid credit so they can continue to do their Catholic studies. If we can operate in a way that Gabby can be close to the kids, do her doula business, I'm making what I'm making, and we eliminate the debt that we can, then everything is now in our favor.

[01:00:34] Chris: That's what I'm, I'm hoping

[01:00:36] Ramit: that's not a plan, Chris, you're just, you're just saying words. What is different about being in Florida? Your mortgage is already $1,898. That's pretty low. Are you gonna get a lower mortgage in Florida? No. No. So what are we talking about here? I'm not hearing an actual plan. How does moving to Florida change your finances for the better?

[01:00:58] Gabriella: A lot of our move to [01:01:00] Florida is not really a financial move. It's more of a emotional move, I feel. Um, because we are in a really sweet spot. We have a 4,000 square foot home. It's beautiful. It's a five bedroom home. It's in Pennsylvania.

[01:01:17] Ramit: You have a 4,000 square foot home?

[01:01:20] Gabriella: Yes.

[01:01:20] Ramit: Does it feel a little weird to have a 4,000 square foot house and be in $32,500 of credit card debt?

[01:01:27] Gabriella: Yes.

[01:01:27] Ramit: And have $0 in savings with four children? Yes. Yes. Does that not seem a little like outlandish? Yes,

[01:01:35] Gabriella: it is, but we would never be able to have this house if it wasn't for my parents helping us with mortgaging.

[01:01:42] Ramit: I mean, just to ask the obvious question, why don't your parents just pay off the credit card debt?

[01:01:46] Ramit: Whoa. Look at Chris's. Look at Chris shaking his head. No, he came real quick with that. Chris, go ahead.

[01:01:52] Chris: Yeah, I think it's important for me to take full responsibility and move forward [01:02:00] with an understanding of our finances.

[01:02:02] Ramit: So is the answer the in-laws, is that really what we needed to get to Chris? You don't want to be embarrassed about what the in-laws think about needing to go ask for help.

[01:02:10] Ramit: Is that it?

[01:02:10] Chris: It's not a matter of being embarrassed, I think it's a matter of I made my bed and you know, we, we have to deal with this problem and if I'm not willing to change the, my behavior the way that I operate, then you know what's to say. This doesn't happen down the road.

[01:02:24] Ramit: Okay. I I like that. I appreciate that attitude.

[01:02:25] Ramit: That is actually really cool of you to say. I agree with that.

[01:02:28] Chris: Yeah.

[01:02:28] Ramit: Can I just point something out? Y'all are just gonna be in this exact same situation in Florida.

[01:02:33] Gabriella: Oh yeah. This is why I replied for this.

[01:02:36] Ramit: Oh.

[01:02:37] Gabriella: I just wanna be able to be in a better spot and not bring this to Florida with us.

[01:02:43] Ramit: Okay. Let's update the CSP with your new income.

[01:02:46] Ramit: 'cause that will make a positive difference. Your old income gross Gabriela was 2060 $3 per month. What is it now?

[01:02:55] Gabriella: 5,833.

[01:02:58] Ramit: Should I just put 5 8, 3, [01:03:00] 3 here? 'cause you're not making the 2063, right?

[01:03:02] Gabriella: Um, continue to work at the school.

[01:03:04] Ramit: Oh great. Okay. So 2063 plus 5 8 3 3.

[01:03:09] Gabriella: Right.

[01:03:10] Ramit: Okay. Nice. 78 96 gross. And then how much do we wanna put for net?

[01:03:16] Gabriella: Like take 30% off of that.

[01:03:18] Ramit: 55, 27. Holy shit. That really changes things considerably. Wow. Wow, wow. Do you guys see what just happened to your fixed cost number?

[01:03:27] Chris: It was almost half.

[01:03:29] Ramit: Yeah, it went from 109% to 66%. What the hell? That's pretty good.

[01:03:35] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:03:36] Ramit: Anyone wanna smile right now or would all just wanna be depressed as on this call?

[01:03:41] Gabriella: I don't wanna be depressed, I wanna be excited.

[01:03:44] Ramit: Y'all have been so you, you've been unhappy with money for so long that you actually don't know how to be happy with it anymore.

[01:03:49] Chris: That's true. I think

[01:03:50] Gabriella: this is true.

[01:03:51] Ramit: I see the possibility 66%, y'all have a great shot at fixing this, but if you can't see that you're in trouble,

[01:03:58] Gabriella: it just stinks that I [01:04:00] had to go back and do a full-time job on top of my business.

[01:04:04] Gabriella: And this is not calculated in the gross monthly income. Um, but I did bring in like around $2,000 a month, um, just on my doula business. Which is not, that's not in

[01:04:16] Ramit: here.

[01:04:16] Gabriella: No.

[01:04:17] Ramit: Why?

[01:04:18] Gabriella: Um, because it's, it's not stable.

[01:04:20] Ramit: All I care is about the annual, uh, annually. Do you make $24,000 per year roughly from the doula business?

[01:04:27] Gabriella: Yes. As I've, um, booked clients this c year, I'm booking at least two per month.

[01:04:33] Ramit: Okay. That's amazing. So you're telling me this why I love it. Hold on. I need to set, I need to set the right modeling for everybody. Yeah. Great. Super

[01:04:43] Gabriella: amazing. Love. Everybody

[01:04:44] Ramit: smile.

[01:04:45] Gabriella: I'm super excited 'cause this is what I'm passionate about and I'm

[01:04:49] Ramit: So why are you telling it to me as if like, somebody just killed my mom?

[01:04:52] Ramit: Why are you saying it like in that tone?

[01:04:54] Gabriella: Oh, I'm saying it because it takes a lot of work, you know. Oh, how, oh, and owning, okay. Your own [01:05:00] business. And I'm putting a lot of hours and time into it. Plus working 20 hours at the school. Yeah. And now that's a lot. Now we working 40 work, 40 hours for my brother.

[01:05:08] Ramit: It's too much. Right?

[01:05:09] Gabriella: It's way too much on top of the, my Chris is not home, so I'm also running everything for the kids on the, on the evenings and then on the weekends. He's not here either. 'cause he is at the restaurant working. It feels like I have to put in my time and energy into making more income.

[01:05:32] Gabriella: And I feel like Chris needs to really step up,

[01:05:37] Ramit: be specific. What do you need?

[01:05:39] Gabriella: I need him to make more money. I need him to really have a fire under his ass about what his career plans are. And I wanna visually see him doing something about it instead of on the weekends, wasting time, his precious time with our family.

[01:05:56] Gabriella: Or if it's about income, I would love to [01:06:00] see him doing something that's going to get him to advance in his career. I just don't see it. It's, it's a lot of word salad. And I, and I say this to him all the time, I was like, I feel like you gaslight me. You tell me it's gonna happen. You tell me it's gonna be done and it doesn't happen.

[01:06:20] Gabriella: And so then I have to come up and. Come up with a plan with my brother about getting this new job, which is why I probably wasn't super excited because I was like, okay, now my time is even more, it's gonna be dedicated to something else because we need the income.

[01:06:36] Ramit: Chris, it's pretty honest comment that, yeah, what's your reaction?

[01:06:40] Chris: This is the one spot where I'm gonna have to politely disagree with her in terms of having started a new career. And, you know, she was at her previous spot for almost a decade and she jumped the corporate ladder. So then I don't, I don't get that same kind of grace. I don't get that same kind of understanding.

[01:06:59] Chris: It's like I went [01:07:00] to school for a trade that's paying $20, I'm making almost $10 more than that. So what do you want me to do? These unrealistic expectations of, you know, having to take care of everything overnight is not realistic. I can agree to everything in terms of my mismanagement of my money. I can agree to all that.

[01:07:18] Chris: I take full responsibility. I'll take my, my share of the blame, but to expect that I'm gonna make this large sum of money overnight, I, I can't agree to that because I don't, I don't know what it's gonna take for me to, to get to that point. I can't give her a solid answer.

[01:07:33] Ramit: I'm not even getting a solid answer from you right now.

[01:07:35] Ramit: What did you hear her say?

[01:07:37] Chris: So Gabby is saying that she doesn't see me working towards making more or advancing my, my career.

[01:07:43] Ramit: What about all the other stuff she said? She said, I now have gotten this job and I work X hours at the school and I work y hours doing the birth doula and my husband is not home on the weekends.

[01:07:57] Ramit: She said all that stuff. What about that? [01:08:00]

[01:08:00] Chris: I agree with all that.

[01:08:00] Ramit: Hold on a second. I didn't hear you. Nor do I think she heard you validate any of that stuff. I mean, she's mom of four kids.

[01:08:09] Chris: Yeah.

[01:08:10] Ramit: And she's, and you're gone all week. Understandably so. 'cause you're working hard. I understand that. Mm-hmm. But I don't even think I heard you say like, Hey, that's gotta be really tough, you know?

[01:08:18] Ramit: And I, I really appreciate that you do that and now you got this job and that's really gonna help us out. That's validating. I didn't hear you do that. You jumped right into I don't agree. Why did you jump into disagreeing?

[01:08:31] Chris: I think she knows, but I mean, I have no, no qualms about telling her directly. I, I appreciate everything you do and I mean, I wanna work towards giving what you need from me.

[01:08:40] Ramit: Are y'all in therapy?

[01:08:41] Gabriella: No. No.

[01:08:42] Ramit: You ever gone?

[01:08:43] Gabriella: No.

[01:08:44] Ramit: Why?

[01:08:45] Gabriella: You know, I, I love Chris and I think we have a wonderful relationship. We get along really well. We laugh and I think we just avoid talking about these hard things because we both don't like to be [01:09:00] vulnerable.

[01:09:00] Ramit: I think a couple can be happy and have a loving marriage and still go to therapy.

[01:09:06] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:09:07] Ramit: I don't, you know, the old days like Yeah, in our parents' generation it was stigmatized. Like, what's wrong with you?

[01:09:12] Gabriella: Yeah,

[01:09:12] Ramit: my wife and I have gone to therapy many times.

[01:09:14] Gabriella: Mm-hmm.

[01:09:15] Ramit: You know, I love her. We have a great relationship. We wanna learn some skills. Might be a couple things that are irritating or a problem, but just from watching this dynamic of the way that the two of you communicate with each other, Gabriela, your inability to specifically ask for what you want, to really set boundaries as to what you need to be able to do that much work.

[01:09:35] Ramit: Every single week is really difficult. And you're a mom of four?

[01:09:39] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:09:40] Ramit: And we have a dad of four who's traveling all the time then picking up 24 hours of shifts on the weekend a lot and not communicating. There's not a lot of validation or like love between the two of you. When you're talking about these really serious topics.

[01:09:53] Ramit: It's one person in this corner and another person in this corner. It's actually impossible [01:10:00] for you to get out of this hole financially speaking, unless the two of you are totally aligned.

[01:10:05] Gabriella: Mm-hmm.

[01:10:06] Ramit: So if I could make a suggestion, it would be that I would really encourage you to see a therapist regularly, because right now you don't have any time to actually talk to each other.

[01:10:16] Ramit: Yeah. And money is just probably one of many topics to discuss. What do y'all think about that?

[01:10:21] Gabriella: No, I agree.

[01:10:23] Ramit: I'd be open to it. I mean, it's awesome that Gabriela, you've been able to now make almost $8,000 a month gross. That's incredible. It changes the entire financial picture of your family. Amazing. I think that the way you do it is unsustainable.

[01:10:39] Ramit: Like, you could maybe do this for a year and it would be brutal, but you could do it right if you know that there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

[01:10:45] Gabriella: Right.

[01:10:46] Ramit: But there is no light right now.

[01:10:48] Gabriella: Mm-hmm.

[01:10:49] Ramit: So if we can just look at the rest of the numbers here. Just take a look. With 66%, y'all have over $3,000 a month that [01:11:00] has flowed down to guilt-free spending.

[01:11:01] Ramit: What does that tell you?

[01:11:02] Gabriella: Well, first pay the debt debts off. We have some extra funds to pay that off, and that could be a huge release. Um, and then once that is paid off, then I would wanna start really contributing to the five, two nines. Especially for, um, our oldest daughter who is not getting younger.

[01:11:22] Gabriella: Um,

[01:11:23] Ramit: you know, who else is not getting any younger

[01:11:25] Gabriella: me.

[01:11:27] Ramit: Two of you.

[01:11:27] Gabriella: And the two of us? Yeah.

[01:11:29] Ramit: Is it possible that some of your instincts, the two of you have led you astray with your money?

[01:11:35] Gabriella: Yes.

[01:11:36] Ramit: Chris?

[01:11:37] Chris: Yeah.

[01:11:38] Ramit: I'm gonna try to reorient you as to where your instincts might be off. Okay. You, you, you ever know somebody who just gets in a bad relationship over and over again and you just wanna shake 'em?

[01:11:49] Gabriella: Mm-hmm.

[01:11:50] Ramit: And they're like, well, it's 'cause it was winter and it's 'cause I ate tomatoes that day. You're like, no, no, no, no. It's not that you have bad instincts, we're gonna fix 'em, but your instincts are leading you astray. [01:12:00] We're seeing an example of that right now. Right now, I go, you have $3,210 extra per month.

[01:12:06] Ramit: What would, what does that tell you? And your response is, pay off the debt faster, which I agree with. And then you jumped right into five 20 nines. Mm-hmm. I don't think the two of you have put yourself first in a long time.

[01:12:15] Gabriella: No, not at all.

[01:12:17] Ramit: Chris, what, what does it mean that you have over $3,000 a month extra after your fixed cost?

[01:12:24] Chris: There's some money that we can put away for, uh, retirement.

[01:12:27] Ramit: Agreed. What else?

[01:12:28] Chris: Probably don't help to work on the weekends.

[01:12:30] Ramit: Great. Great. In, yes.

[01:12:33] Gabriella: Yes. How does

[01:12:33] Ramit: that feel, Gabriela?

[01:12:35] Gabriella: Well, you, that's exactly why I took the job with my brother and this 70,000. I said, if I take this job, you're gonna stop working on the weekends.

[01:12:43] Ramit: Oh, you said that. And Chris, what did you respond?

[01:12:46] Chris: I think reluctantly. I said I'd, I'd eliminate one of the shifts. If that money is actual and it's tangible, then I think I wouldn't have any, any, a leg to stand on and justify my being away on the weekends.

[01:12:59] Ramit: It's interesting that [01:13:00] even with Gabby making now being the primary earner, making quite a bit of money that you said, I'm willing to give up one shift if I see the money in the account.

[01:13:13] Ramit: You are now making the most money in this relationship. Then Gabrielle, you, y'all need to have a real, honest, candid conversation about power dynamics and about what needs to happen for this family. This idea that was set 10 years ago that like, you'd like to stay at home.

[01:13:26] Ramit 4: Mm-hmm.

[01:13:27] Ramit: It's not happening. We need to stop.

[01:13:29] Ramit: Entertaining a dream that was created 10 years ago with no numerical rigor. And we need to say, look, in order for this family to survive, especially on the kind of credit card debt that we have run up, we need two incomes. I, Gabriela happened to be the person who can earn more. I'm doing that. Therefore, here's what I need.

[01:13:47] Ramit: I need you to be home on the weekends and take care of the kids. And I need to have two hours to myself just to do whatever I need to do. 'cause I'm grinding it out and I'll take two hours on Sunday. And you, I know you've been grinding it out as well, but [01:14:00] we need to work as a team. I just don't hear any of this clarity.

[01:14:03] Gabriella: Chris, how many times have I said these, this exact praise that Ramit just said,

[01:14:08] Chris: you brought it up a couple times. But I think what I'm gonna have to agree with Ramit in terms is like the power dynamic. I know it's something you've held near and dear to your heart, you know, not working full-time. But I mean, if, if you are gonna be making the vast majority of the income, if it requires me to stay home, then I mean, I'm prepared to do that once, once that's a regular thing.

[01:14:31] Ramit: Hold on. Too many words.

[01:14:32] Chris: Yeah.

[01:14:33] Ramit: What in the hell is happening, Chris?

[01:14:35] Chris: Yes.

[01:14:36] Ramit: Why are you overcomplicating this? I'm getting so frustrated. Just listening to you. Do you know what you are saying right now?

[01:14:43] Chris: Yeah.

[01:14:43] Ramit: What are you saying to her in one sentence?

[01:14:46] Chris: I am, I agree with you and I'm prepared to make that my reality.

[01:14:50] Chris: I mean, if

[01:14:51] Ramit: what Make what be specific.

[01:14:53] Chris: So if Gabby's the primary breadwinner and if she requires me to be home on the weekends and [01:15:00] she needs certain things from me to accommodate, I'm, I'm happy to do that.

[01:15:04] Ramit: You are not communicating effectively, Chris, because you were actually just agreeing with Gabriela and it was so frustrating the way that you were presenting it, that even I got frustrated and I do this for a living.

[01:15:15] Ramit: Do you see the problem that even when you are agreeing and you're saying like, yeah, I'm willing to stay home on the weekends, that it comes across like, you are disagreeing. That's a major problem.

[01:15:26] Chris: Didn't know that about myself.

[01:15:27] Ramit: Your lack of clarity is costing you a lot of connection in your relationship.

[01:15:31] Chris: Yeah.

[01:15:32] Ramit: Because most of the time you're actually disagreeing with Gabriela.

[01:15:34] Chris: I think it's because the way that I grew up and sometimes money being scarce or not around the ability to make additional income and it's guaranteed and it's quick, I think is a, is appealing to me.

[01:15:48] Ramit: What do you remember about your family saying about money when you were young?

[01:15:51] Chris: There wasn't a lot of structure. There wasn't a lot of organization. I just remember, um, you know, my, my parents split up. [01:16:00] I was in elementary school.

[01:16:01] Ramit: Mm-hmm.

[01:16:01] Chris: My father was a truck driver. He spent a lot of time on the road. So the fact of his being gone and, you know, my brother and I never wanted for anything, you know, if we wanted the latest and greatest gaming system, we had it.

[01:16:13] Chris: If, you know, whatever we. We had all the, you know, latest designer brands and all that, you know, shoes and whatever.

[01:16:21] Ramit: Wait, is this not quite similar to what your kids are experiencing now?

[01:16:26] Chris: Correct.

[01:16:26] Ramit: Dad's not around and they can buy nice stuff, et cetera. It's kind of the same, isn't it?

[01:16:32] Chris: Yeah.

[01:16:33] Ramit: So is that, is that what you intended?

[01:16:35] Ramit: Is that what you want?

[01:16:36] Chris: No, I'm hoping this is gonna help correct that, but I'm fully aware that I'm kind of repeating the cycle.

[01:16:43] Ramit: What did you envision in your life about money?

[01:16:47] Chris: Uh, I think the extent of my understanding and my relationship with money was as long as I'm willing to work for it.

[01:16:57] Ramit: Mm-hmm.

[01:16:58] Chris: I can attain it.

[01:16:59] Ramit: What about your [01:17:00] mom? What did she do?

[01:17:00] Chris: She was a house cleaner.

[01:17:02] Ramit: Wow. So truck driver, house cleaner. And it sounds like your family made pretty good money.

[01:17:09] Chris: Mm-hmm.

[01:17:10] Ramit: How are they doing now? Financially speaking?

[01:17:12] Chris: My dad's still a truck driver. His house is paid off. He bought his, ate his rig.

[01:17:16] Ramit: Mm-hmm.

[01:17:16] Chris: My mother, she refinanced a little bit ago, but I think she's got maybe three years left on her house.

[01:17:22] Chris: Um, so they're financially, they're in a good spot. My father makes, um, a good amount of money even still.

[01:17:28] Ramit: Mm.

[01:17:29] Chris: He doesn't carry a lot of debt. I don't think he has any credit cards.

[01:17:32] Ramit: Does he invest?

[01:17:33] Chris: I don't think so.

[01:17:34] Gabriella: They should be retired. But they're still working.

[01:17:37] Ramit: Are they working because they have to or want to?

[01:17:39] Chris: Both has to and wants to. They're, they're workaholics.

[01:17:41] Ramit: It's interesting, like considering that there are some. Messages about money that you are now bringing into this relationship such as, you know, hey, dad's away for most of the week. Mm-hmm. Kids are provided for. What do you think about the message that dad is still gonna be working and [01:18:00] traveling when he's in his seventies?

[01:18:03] Ramit: You think that's true for you? Because history would suggest it might be.

[01:18:07] Chris: If I can help it, I'm, I'm, I'm intending to, to change that. I don't,

[01:18:11] Ramit: that's an interesting answer. If I can change that, who else could change it?

[01:18:15] Chris: I mean, no one else but me, but I'm willing to put in the work so my kids don't have to experience what I experience as a kid.

[01:18:22] Ramit: Chris, regardless of what you even said, I'm willing to bet deep down the belief is like, I'll just keep working. What's the problem? I'll figure it out. I'll just keep working because that's exactly what your dad has done. How does that strike you, Chris?

[01:18:37] Chris: Yeah, I mean, I, I acknowledge it. I see it. I know I say I, I don't want history to, to repeat itself.

[01:18:42] Chris: Like I'm not in the driver's seat seat. Um, but I need to make a change and I need, I need to do it like yesterday.

[01:18:48] Ramit: Okay. Thank you very much for being honest. It's really interesting to hear about your mom and dad. Extremely impressive. Very evident how money messages are transmitted from generation to generation, you know, and [01:19:00] it's probable that without a change, um, some or maybe all of your kids will pick up some of these money messages for themselves.

[01:19:09] Ramit: Mm-hmm. Gabriela, what about you? What do you remember your family saying about money when you were younger?

[01:19:13] Gabriella: My parents also immigrated here. My dad came from a poor family, farming family, and my mom, um, they lost everything at gunpoint in Venezuela. Um, and then they, their family moved here.

[01:19:26] Chris: Growing up it was, my dad was working,

[01:19:30] Gabriella: he had his master's in business administration, so he was able to work the corporate ladder and my mom stayed

[01:19:35] Chris: home.

[01:19:36] Gabriella: Mm-hmm. But my mom also handled all of the finances and um, she was a natural accountant for the family. And I saw my parents have healthy conversations about money. They met weekly every Sunday night. My dad, you know, sit down with his spreadsheets, my mom. Then they would just do all these things and planning, savings, um, [01:20:00] retirement, um, saving for our vacations.

[01:20:03] Gabriella: Um, my mom built a whole, um, allowance system for us, so we did chores and stuff and the house, my parents always were telling us what to do or like how to manage our money.

[01:20:14] Ramit: How are they doing financially?

[01:20:16] Gabriella: Financially? They are very well, they're doing very well. They retired, they lives in Florida and I was 55 and up active community.

[01:20:25] Ramit: You talk to them about money.

[01:20:27] Gabriella: I talk to them all the time about money.

[01:20:29] Ramit: What do you say?

[01:20:29] Gabriella: When I got laid off at the post and I got this, um, payout, I grabbed your book and that's how I actually learned how to invest and I was excited about it. So I called my dad and I was like, I did not know that the money sitting in my IRA wasn't making any money.

[01:20:43] Gabriella: Mm-hmm. And I actually had to invest it. Um, but when I read your book, I learned how to do that and then he was like, oh, great. Let's sit down and do this together.

[01:20:51] Ramit: What about your family finances?

[01:20:53] Gabriella: I also talk very openly about our family finances because with the mortgage being held with them, [01:21:00] there's many times where we're not able to make that mortgage.

[01:21:03] Gabriella: So we've been actually for the past two years, only been paying the mortgage interest.

[01:21:08] Ramit: What do you mean you've only been paying the interest? It says that your mortgage is $1,898 per month. Are you telling me you have not been paying that?

[01:21:15] Gabriella: Yes.

[01:21:16] Ramit: How much is the interest that you've been paying?

[01:21:18] Gabriella: It's $998 and 17 cents a month.

[01:21:23] Ramit: So you've basically been paying like about half of what it says here?

[01:21:26] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:21:27] Ramit: Can I ask y'all, now that I've understood a little bit about your backgrounds, what do you think is going on? I want you to imagine that the two of you are floating above this conversation. You put on white lab coats your scientists, and you're about to analyze what is going on here.

[01:21:44] Chris: I think some of the money isn't being accounted for. Like I think on the CSP we put a certain value on groceries. We probably spend a lot more.

[01:21:53] Ramit: Okay. Gabriela.

[01:21:56] Gabriella: I was gonna put a lab. Come on. Okay. Um, [01:22:00] these people do not know where their money's going or someone is not, is hiding where, what they're doing. Um, because this doesn't make any sense and or they're just not taking money seriously.

[01:22:14] Ramit: I agree with all those. It doesn't make any sense.

[01:22:17] Gabriella: It doesn't. And I've tried to make sense of it and it, I can't, like I've beaten the spreadsheets, I've looked at it.

[01:22:25] Ramit: That's because the answer is not gonna be found in a spreadsheet.

[01:22:28] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:22:29] Ramit: Obviously there's money not being accounted for. That's obvious. Like thousands of dollars every month.

[01:22:35] Ramit: The fact is the two of you are not only not aligned, you are actually polar opposites. You're sneaking expenses in here. You're not using the same system with each other. Like teammates both want to win at the same goal.

[01:22:54] Gabriella: Exactly.

[01:22:55] Ramit: You two are actually fighting each other. Each of you [01:23:00] might be getting what you want, but you're certainly not achieving what a team would want to achieve.

[01:23:05] Ramit: I actually don't think you know what your team wants to achieve. Do you?

[01:23:09] Gabriella: We are in a, a lot of alignment. One was we wanna do more family vacation, and then the other one was to retire. Well, I, I wanna retire young

[01:23:20] Ramit: guys. You can't do either of those. I,

[01:23:24] Gabriella: yeah, we can't.

[01:23:26] Ramit: Can I just be very direct with you?

[01:23:28] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:23:29] Ramit: You cannot take vacations when you have $32,000 of credit card debt mere years after going bankrupt. You just can't. That's just not acceptable. You just cannot do that. You cannot retire early. You're 40 years old. You have $0 in savings. That's not going to happen at your current trajectory. Deep down, you know that you cannot afford vacations.

[01:23:51] Ramit: You know that, right?

[01:23:53] Gabriella: Right. I know that. And then it hurts. Yeah. It hurts to know that we're living our family time when the kids [01:24:00] are home and we can't do family vacations. I did not grow up like that. I mean, we went on family vacations once a year.

[01:24:08] Ramit: One of the best signs that someone is not going to get ahead with their money is trying to recapture how they grew up living without matching their socioeconomic status.

[01:24:19] Ramit: You do not have the same kind of money your parents had. You have way higher expenses. You have four kids. Your family did not have four kids, four kids in private school. Your family did not have that. Chris, deep down, do you know that you cannot afford vacations?

[01:24:35] Chris: I do.

[01:24:35] Ramit: Why'd you guys go to Belize? You couldn't afford that.

[01:24:38] Chris: Convincing myself with the points, with the miles, with the hotel. A lot of the yeses outweighed the fact that the reality that we probably shouldn't have gone on that trip.

[01:24:49] Ramit: I mean, look, y'all came to me because you want help. I can help you, I want to help you, but I can't help if the two of you continue to lie to yourselves, like [01:25:00] you're telling me, oh, you know, we're aligned.

[01:25:01] Ramit: We want to take vacations with the kids. That shouldn't even be the top five things you're discussing right now. That's just not practical. It's not real. And by avoiding what you actually need to do, you're just kicking the can down the road so that this pattern can repeat Going to Florida. I mean, maybe, maybe that's the right move, maybe not.

[01:25:21] Ramit: But is that really the solution to the problems here? I don't think so.

[01:25:26] Chris: Mm-hmm.

[01:25:27] Ramit: You're gonna end up in Florida just in the same situation you are today. But I don't hear any focus on like, where's the money going?

[01:25:34] Gabriella: Mm-hmm.

[01:25:35] Ramit: And how do we pay off our debt aggressively? And how do we figure out why we got into debt and never get there again?

[01:25:41] Ramit: I haven't heard that once.

[01:25:42] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:25:43] Ramit: Why am I bringing it up? How come no one on this call is bringing it up? I think the answer is that you wanna magically have the debt just sort of go away, not think about it, and just keep living life where you buy the kids a bunch of stuff, send them to private school, take vacations.

[01:25:57] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:25:58] Ramit: And not really change [01:26:00] anything substantive. Tell me if I'm wrong.

[01:26:02] Gabriella: No, you're not wrong. I mean, this is why, like another reason why I am, you know. Took the job with my brother is like, okay, now we can now pay aggressively on the debts. I have always been trying to like commit to paying off debts and not accumulating these debts.

[01:26:20] Gabriella: It's just really hard to do it with a partner who doesn't see the seriousness of it. I've been seeing these red flags for a while. There's a lot of stuff that's not necessary that you've purchased and I've, you know, I've brought this up to you before. I've gone to our storage units and I've opened up boxes and it's just packages and packages of things.

[01:26:44] Ramit: What's in there?

[01:26:45] Gabriella: It's like soccer jerseys and shoes mostly.

[01:26:49] Ramit: Chris, how many shoes you got? Probably 20 pairs. Gabriela, do you agree?

[01:26:54] Gabriella: I can't even, I couldn't even have the heart to count this ware of shoes, but I'll just see [01:27:00] like a new one or I'll find a box in the garage. I'll sometimes do the same thing for the kids and buy them Jordans when I'm just like going to the school closet and trying to get free clothes for the kids.

[01:27:11] Ramit: Chris, what's your response when she asks you what are these Jordans

[01:27:14] Chris: probably deflect? Maybe avoid the, avoid the question altogether.

[01:27:19] Ramit: It's pretty honest. Why do you buy 'em?

[01:27:21] Chris: I think just that behavior growing up as a kid and my parents kind of getting me whatever I wanted. I think for them it's just kind of like dad taking care of them and making sure they look, they look good.

[01:27:32] Ramit: What is it costing you? To continue this pattern that you learned when you were a kid

[01:27:38] Chris: costing us to be $32,000 in debt.

[01:27:41] Ramit: Yep. What else?

[01:27:43] Chris: Gabby's overdue. Patience with me and putting a strain on our relationship.

[01:27:48] Ramit: Mm-hmm. What else?

[01:27:49] Chris: Looking on the weekends.

[01:27:51] Ramit: Yep. What are the kids learning

[01:27:53] Chris: material goods over time and togetherness.

[01:27:57] Ramit: Yeah. Four kids gonna take that [01:28:00] same message to their families.

[01:28:02] Chris: Mm-hmm.

[01:28:03] Ramit: Oh, I, I just work hard, just grind. Grind myself to dust just so I can buy What? Shoes. That cannot be the purpose of your life. That's not even the most important thing to you as part of your rich life. This is why I asked, did you grow up poor but you didn't.

[01:28:21] Ramit: Your family made good money. It's just that your dad was absent a lot and he bought stuff and it replaced his time, and now you continue doing exactly the same thing. Your time is gone. You buy your kids 20 pairs of shoes in a storage room when you have $32,000 of credit card debt. What does it sound like when I say it out loud?

[01:28:41] Chris: That was pretty crazy.

[01:28:42] Ramit: I mean, look, y'all know what you should do. You don't need me to tell you, but I am curious if we just stopped talking right now, what do you think would happen?

[01:28:51] Chris: Think we'd have to come up with a plan and be realistic and fully transparent. I'd be prepared to not work on the weekends.

[01:28:58] Chris: I'd take a hard look at the [01:29:00] stuff that I have in the crawlspace. Collecting dust I would put on Facebook Marketplace, put on eBay.

[01:29:05] Ramit: And then what would you do with the money?

[01:29:06] Chris: Pay down the debt.

[01:29:07] Ramit: Gabriela, what about you? If we stopped talking right now, what would you do?

[01:29:11] Gabriella: Uh, continue doing what I was trying to do with selling items.

[01:29:16] Gabriella: And every time I do that, I pay down the debt. And then once the debt's paid off, I wanted to start contributing to the Roth. But with the immediate Florida move, I would just keep saving money to help with like a down payment and moving costs.

[01:29:33] Ramit: How much do you need for that?

[01:29:34] Gabriella: For the moving costs? Um, definitely around 20,000.

[01:29:38] Gabriella: Closing costs, 20,000. Um, so we need at least 50,000 for the move itself.

[01:29:44] Ramit 4: Mm-hmm.

[01:29:44] Gabriella: We're looking at different options for the house. Um, my parents are offering, depending on what we pick, to continue to roll over the mortgage into the new home so we can take the full equity of this house and put it down and then [01:30:00] just continue the, um, the $433,000 mortgage with my parents.

[01:30:04] Ramit: How much would you get for the house if you sold it today?

[01:30:08] Gabriella: It, well, we could sell it for eight 50.

[01:30:10] Ramit: You'd sell it for eight 50. And then your, uh, mortgage is 433. So minus expenses, et cetera. What do you clear? 400.

[01:30:17] Gabriella: 400,000? Yep.

[01:30:19] Ramit: That's pretty good. But you gotta have a down payment,

[01:30:22] Gabriella: right?

[01:30:22] Ramit: Do you need to buy.

[01:30:23] Gabriella: We don't need to buy.

[01:30:25] Gabriella: Um, I just have grown up with the mentality that when you rent, you're throwing away money.

[01:30:32] Ramit: Hold on. What's that? I smell horrible instincts. Oh yeah. Anytime you grow, anytime you say to yourself, I grew up thinking whatever you're about to say next, do the opposite. 'cause your history has not led you to the right place.

[01:30:50] Ramit: It's led you astray. Talk to me about that. No, you're throwing money away on rent. What does it mean?

[01:30:55] Gabriella: Yeah. And instead of them, you know, putting money towards, um, building [01:31:00] an equity in your home, um, you're just spending money. Every time we've taken out a mortgage, it's been less month, less per month for what we would get.

[01:31:10] Gabriella: Um, if we rented it would be a huge downsizing and we'd be spending more on rent.

[01:31:18] Ramit: Are you sure? Have you looked at the buy versus rent in the area you're going to in Florida?

[01:31:23] Gabriella: Yes.

[01:31:24] Ramit: You have?

[01:31:26] Gabriella: I did.

[01:31:27] Ramit: Let's look right now.

[01:31:28] Gabriella: Okay.

[01:31:29] Ramit: Just gimme a nearby city.

[01:31:30] Gabriella: Sarasota.

[01:31:31] Ramit: And what are we looking at? How many bedrooms?

[01:31:33] Gabriella: Um, we're looking at a four or five bedroom.

[01:31:36] Ramit: Hold on. Only in America do I talk to a couple. That went bankrupt a few years ago now has hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. They go Ramit, sayi. I need a five bedroom house. Craziest part is that both of your parents are immigrants. Just call them right now and say, how many five bedroom houses [01:32:00] exist in the country you were born in?

[01:32:02] Ramit: What would they say

[01:32:03] Chris: that Brian wants?

[01:32:04] Gabriella: Nothing.

[01:32:04] Ramit: Like the president lives in one. That's it.

[01:32:08] Gabriella: Yeah. I guess it's hard for me to accept again, because I grew up and my parents provided a four bedroom home in the same town that we are in right now. So

[01:32:17] Ramit: the reason that it is so difficult to accept is that in America we like to believe that each generation will do a little bit better, better have a little bit easier.

[01:32:26] Ramit: Yeah. And because of NIMBYs, sort of like your parents', uh, generation, my par, everybody who bought a house, the minute they buy a house, they go, I don't want anybody to develop any houses around me. So they've stopped more housing from being built. Now it's incredibly expensive. And so the very same house you grew up in, you could never afford it.

[01:32:46] Ramit: It's impossible for you. You realize how frustrating that is. I, it's so hard. Totally get it. Yeah. Like it doesn't feel good. And so your conclusion is we're gonna do it anyway.

[01:32:58] Gabriella: Yeah, you're right.

[01:32:59] Ramit: And [01:33:00] I have to encourage you not to do that. That is exactly what got you in this situation. Can you afford to buy a five bedroom house?

[01:33:07] Ramit: I don't know. I haven't looked at the listings, but. Almost certainly not with zero savings. Mm-hmm. It's just not possible. Can we really have a five bedroom house when we have $0 in savings today? Does that sound realistic?

[01:33:24] Gabriella: No.

[01:33:25] Ramit: Can we move to Florida in a matter of months, which is gonna cost us $50,000?

[01:33:33] Ramit: Where's the money coming from?

[01:33:34] Gabriella: Yeah, I think we were just banking on the sell of the house.

[01:33:39] Ramit: I think Chris and Gabriela believe that moving to Florida will solve their problems. And this is really common. A lot of couples believe that if they change their location, they get a fresh start, maybe they're closer to family, cheaper cost of living, that's gonna somehow reset their financial situation.

[01:33:55] Ramit: And actually, I wanna say I agree a lot of the time, I actually think moving [01:34:00] geographically can be one of the most powerful things you do. But as they say, wherever you go, there you are. And so the question I would ask is, what's gonna be different in Florida? Because if we're honest, they're gonna bring the same spending patterns to Florida, the same communication patterns, the same debt.

[01:34:21] Ramit: They're gonna still avoid looking at their actual numbers and operate primarily on feelings. The only difference is they'll be doing this in a different state. And here's what really concerns me. They haven't truly considered the numbers on this move yet. Another example of how they are focusing on feelings, but they are ignoring the numbers.

[01:34:40] Ramit: They're talking about selling their house for 850 k, clearing 400 K, using that to buy another house in Florida, but they also need at least $50,000 for moving costs in a down payment. Their mortgage payment will likely go up, not down. And what about the core issue? They don't have a system for their money, so okay, they could move to Florida, but [01:35:00] without addressing the root problem, they will end up in exactly the same situation.

[01:35:06] Ramit: If you are listening to this, you should always ask yourself for the important things in life, what is the real problem here? What is the root problem? Until you understand that you're just throwing darts randomly at the wall. If you need help on identifying the root problem, get in my money coaching program.

[01:35:25] Ramit: The point here is focus on the actual things that matter, not just the accoutrements around those things. For this couple, the question isn't, should we move to Florida? Maybe, maybe not. The real question is, are we willing to fundamentally change how we operate as a financial team? You cannot build a.

[01:35:48] Ramit: Serious, successful financial life. Just hoping one thing after another happens, right? I hope he gets a better job. I hope this doula thing works. I hope we [01:36:00] sell, blah, blah, blah. That's just hoping you already went bankrupt once. What I'm trying to get you to do is to actually develop a system and approach where we go, Hey, we're gonna live beneath our means.

[01:36:10] Ramit: We're gonna save and invest money every single month. That's gonna come first before freaking eating out and buying shoes and taking vacations. That's not who we are anymore. But the truth is, I can't change your identity. So you tell me what do you wanna do?

[01:36:26] Gabriella: I wanna change my identity

[01:36:28] Ramit: To what?

[01:36:29] Gabriella: To someone who is living within our means and accepting reality and driving to that so that we can ensure a better future.

[01:36:39] Ramit: Okay. What about you, Chris?

[01:36:42] Chris: Yeah, I wanna learn how to be frugal. Have a mindset of, you know, I think this is as severe and as dire as it gets. And I guess having gone through it and having had an escape route is kind of like, oh, well, you know, that was a close call. Um, that might not be [01:37:00] there next time.

[01:37:00] Ramit: That's exactly right. That's a really good way to look at it. Like we lucked out last time. Mm-hmm. We're out of lives.

[01:37:07] Chris: Yeah.

[01:37:08] Ramit: Like that's it. Yeah. And next time we end up in a much worse, perhaps desolate place.

[01:37:14] Chris: Yeah.

[01:37:14] Ramit: It's not like the two of you are bachelors, you have four kids. You have very heavy load to carry.

[01:37:22] Ramit: So here's what I'd like to do. I like to go back to the conscious spending plan. The two of you make $169,000 per year. Now

[01:37:30] Gabriella: that's a significant amount

[01:37:31] Ramit: when you hear that it's actually over 175, maybe 180 k when you factor in everything, what does a couple who makes 180 K do with their money?

[01:37:43] Gabriella: Are you saying invest it?

[01:37:44] Ramit: Mm-hmm.

[01:37:46] Gabriella: Make sure that it covers all the fixed costs so that there's a roof over our head and food on the table.

[01:37:55] Chris: What else, Chris? They're in, in control of how the money's being spent [01:38:00] constantly sitting at the table and talking to each other. Where are we with our spending? You know,

[01:38:05] Ramit: in my opinion, a couple that makes $180,000 a year does not have credit card debt.

[01:38:10] Ramit: That's simply unacceptable. That, uh, couple saves and invests aggressively because they're making a lot of money.

[01:38:17] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:38:18] Ramit: They are selective about what they buy. They do not just buy whatever's in front of 'em.

[01:38:24] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:38:24] Ramit: Because a couple that is making $180,000 has standards for themselves. They're very thoughtful about what they want.

[01:38:32] Ramit: If they can afford it, they get it. They don't apologize for it. But they're not just going wherever and just buying whatever's in front of them, that's not, not gonna happen. And a couple that makes $180,000 is aligned because in order to make 180 K, you probably have to be working one or two very good jobs.

[01:38:48] Ramit: And that means it's a lot of time, a lot of work. If they have four kids, they have to be communicating effectively, which means if they don't have the skills to do it, they buy the skills. How they go to therapy or they [01:39:00] get a communications coach.

[01:39:01] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:39:02] Ramit: How much of that rings true for you?

[01:39:04] Gabriella: A hundred percent.

[01:39:05] Ramit: Shall we make some changes on the CSP?

[01:39:08] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:39:08] Ramit: Alright. Alright. So you all told me what you wanna accomplish. I'm just the executor. You tell me what changes you wanna make on your conscious spending plan. Let me remind everybody listening and watching. Because of Gabriela's new income, their joint fixed costs are 66% and they have 34% left over or $3,210.

[01:39:29] Ramit: Alright, one at a time. Let's make a change. Gabriela. First.

[01:39:33] Gabriella: Maybe we add a thousand dollars more into our debt payments.

[01:39:37] Ramit: Okay, let's go to Chris. Now what do you wanna do

[01:39:40] Chris: the grocery stand? A little bit low. I'd probably do 2000 for the groceries to be a little bit more realistic.

[01:39:46] Ramit: Really? Who does

[01:39:47] Ramit 4: the grocery shopping?

[01:39:48] Chris: I do.

[01:39:49] Ramit: Really?

[01:39:50] Chris: Yeah. In my head I'm like, okay, well if we batch cook and if we do this and that, it could be closer to 1500. But,

[01:39:57] Ramit: okay. Chris, one of the main problems going on here is that [01:40:00] you lie to yourself.

[01:40:01] Chris: Yeah,

[01:40:02] Ramit: you gotta stop that. You can't fix this by doing this lying thing in your head. And that needs to be worked out in therapy.

[01:40:08] Ramit: I'm not joking. This is actually one of the biggest roadblocks to you all succeeding. You lie to yourself all the time.

[01:40:15] Chris: Mm-hmm.

[01:40:16] Ramit: You've lied to me multiple times on this show. I love it. I love getting lied to now I can get away with it. Getting lied to every day. You can't get away with lying to yourself.

[01:40:25] Chris: Yeah.

[01:40:25] Ramit: Stop it.

[01:40:26] Chris: Okay.

[01:40:26] Ramit: Okay. I know you have four kids. That's a lot of kids, but 2000 bucks a month for groceries when you go shopping, Chris, do you ever look at the prices?

[01:40:36] Chris: A thousand percent of the time, but I think my Achilles is because Costco is a little bit further away and given my schedule and it's a little bit harder to get to, you know, bulk shopping.

[01:40:47] Chris: Um, where our money could probably go a little bit further and, um, the, the realistic total would probably go down or be closer to 1500.

[01:40:54] Ramit: I'm just gonna go back to how my parents solved it. Y'all just need to figure it out.

[01:40:59] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:40:59] Ramit: Spending [01:41:00] 500 extra dollars a month. 'cause you can't find time. Well guess what?

[01:41:03] Ramit: Now you have the weekends free. Take a couple kids and enjoy.

[01:41:06] Gabriella: That's exactly what I said.

[01:41:07] Ramit: Great. Done. 1500 It is. Let's move on. Chris, what's your suggestion?

[01:41:11] Chris: Probably throw a little bit in, um, post-tax retirement.

[01:41:14] Ramit: Alright. How much?

[01:41:16] Chris: I'd say maybe anywhere between 500 or a thousand bucks.

[01:41:18] Ramit: Alright, let's just say a thousand bucks.

[01:41:20] Ramit: Fine. So watch what happens here. You're now at 11% for investments. That's pretty good. And you're down to 13% for guilt-free spending or $1,189 right. What do y'all think about that so far?

[01:41:34] Gabriella: I like that.

[01:41:35] Ramit: I like that too. How often you eat out,

[01:41:37] Gabriella: huh? The last time we ate out was for your birthday, your 40th birthday.

[01:41:41] Chris: Yeah. So that was September. But um, are we counting, like yesterday I brought take, take out food, carry out.

[01:41:47] Ramit: Uh, yeah. We're counting that. Hey everybody. Are we counting less than 24 hours ago? Yeah. We're counting that. Just gimme a number. How many times do you eat out per week?

[01:41:57] Chris: Not often. I mean, we don't, we make coffee at home.[01:42:00]

[01:42:00] Chris: It's more like, okay. I, I just landed from the airport. Do you feel like cooking? No. Okay. I'll bring, I'll bring takeout. We don't, we don't go out a lot.

[01:42:06] Gabriella: And the takeout is like between $70 to a hundred.

[01:42:11] Ramit: How often? That's like once every week.

[01:42:14] Gabriella: Maybe once every week.

[01:42:15] Ramit: I think you all have been spending a lot of money on stuff that you're not tracking.

[01:42:18] Ramit: Okay. It's impossible for me to give you specific feedback here because the numbers just aren't accurate. Yeah. Like you have 20 pairs of expensive shoes. You got all this stuff that's just being spent randomly.

[01:42:28] Chris: Mm-hmm.

[01:42:29] Ramit: Because it's not properly represented. The best I can tell you is like don't. Yeah. And more importantly here, here's what you have left right now, I just wanna show you something.

[01:42:39] Ramit: You have $1,189 a month total that you can spend. Oh. And there's one other thing. You're actually saving no money per month.

[01:42:48] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:42:49] Ramit: This is a major, major problem. You're this close. To losing everything. Yeah. It's only because you have these backstops. First you went bankrupt. Now you [01:43:00] have your parents who will backstop you.

[01:43:02] Ramit: Yeah. That you are leaning on them like a crutch instead of actually building your own ability.

[01:43:08] Chris: Mm-hmm.

[01:43:08] Ramit: Build a healthy financial life.

[01:43:10] Chris: Yeah.

[01:43:10] Ramit: So we've got a number of problems here. I want to talk about some of the debt. If we take your credit card debt, the high interest debt, if you pay $2,500 a month, you're paying that off in 16 months.

[01:43:24] Ramit: So like just under a year and a half, and you're gonna end up paying $6,700 in interest. But once you pay that debt off, it really frees things up. Like your student loan debt at $750 a month, you can pay that off in three years.

[01:43:40] Ramit 4: Mm-hmm.

[01:43:41] Ramit: You can see that it starts to really compound. First we knock this thing out, then we knock that thing out and each time we knock it out, we have a little bit of extra money to put somewhere else, like investing, et cetera.

[01:43:51] Ramit 4: Right.

[01:43:51] Ramit: That starts to build a cycle. Let me pause right there. What do you take away from that, Chris?

[01:43:57] Chris: If we start tackling the debt with some kind of a [01:44:00] structure.

[01:44:02] Ramit: Yep.

[01:44:02] Chris: More money becomes free and we're able to kind of have a little bit more freedom to really do what we want, but at the same time be strategic about how the debt is being eliminated.

[01:44:13] Chris: Not as opposed to like just. Shotgun blast in the dark hoping something gets hit.

[01:44:18] Ramit: That's exactly what you two have been doing so far. It's just like randomly like, let's do this. Let's hope that, but you're actually sabotaging yourself at the same time. 'cause you're spending more on the credit cards. Yeah, the credit cards need to be frozen and not used.

[01:44:29] Ramit: Again. That's, it's over. You're gonna have to figure out how much to put in savings. Y'all are. You need savings. It's very important.

[01:44:39] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:44:40] Ramit: Without savings, you're in grave risk. And even if you're able to save a thousand dollars a month for savings, didn't you tell me it would be at least $20,000 to move to Florida?

[01:44:49] Chris: Yeah.

[01:44:50] Ramit: The way I see it is you have two options. One is you could sell the house, no doubt. You could walk away with 400 K, you could pay off all of the debt, [01:45:00] wipe it, bank a bunch in savings, retain your high incomes and go to Florida. But in Florida it's gonna be very difficult for you to buy a house. So your option would be one you could rent and with your income you could swing it.

[01:45:20] Ramit: Two, you could buy, you might have to tap into your parents for help. But I see it as you two are just trading one place for another. Your financial situation wouldn't get better. It might actually get worse 'cause your expenses would go way up. Or you could stay here, make a plan and save that 50 thou 20, 30, $50,000 you would spend in moving costs down payment, all that stuff.

[01:45:44] Ramit: Put it towards this and commit that we're gonna stay here for like five years and we're not even thinking about moving until we have at least this much saved up and invested, et cetera. That's another option. It's totally up to you two, but I don't get a sense that until now you have discussed [01:46:00] these type of decisions with numbers.

[01:46:02] Ramit: Mm-hmm.

[01:46:02] Gabriella: 100%. And I think it was part of my fear of not being able to get what I, what we want for the family.

[01:46:13] Ramit: Mm-hmm.

[01:46:14] Gabriella: I wanna be close to my family and I'm tired. I'm too tired of being alone. And I guess I'm trying to force this move. And I know deep down in my heart that we need to stay here to fix our finances.

[01:46:33] Ramit: Of all the things we talked about today, this is the one that really reached you, has really gotten you

[01:46:39] Gabriella: the thought of like not being around family and raising the kids and all being together, and Chris continuing to work away from us. It's like I'm losing time.

[01:46:54] Ramit: Well, can I say this? If, if it is that important to you, you might be able to make it [01:47:00] happen, but probably not in the way that you thought.

[01:47:03] Ramit: You probably can't live in a five bedroom house that you own. You probably can't put all your kids in private school. Maybe you probably can't take all these vacations every year. You just can't. And you certainly cannot stay at home with the kids. That's just not realistic. If you wanted to, if this is the number one thing in your family, you might be able to make it happen, but it would probably require Chris getting a higher paying job.

[01:47:29] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:47:30] Ramit: The expenses have to come way down. You would have to both be aligned and have a ironclad vision together. You can't be arguing with each other, even trying to convince each other that day is over and you would probably not be able to do it next year.

[01:47:45] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:47:46] Ramit: So there's possibilities.

[01:47:49] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:47:49] Ramit: Again, there are variables, but right now you're not operating with real numbers.

[01:47:54] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:47:54] Ramit: And while I feel your desire to wanna get close to family, I'd actually love to help you [01:48:00] get there, but you have to be using real numbers and the debt that you have incurred is a weight against you being able to go back there.

[01:48:10] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:48:11] Ramit: What has surprised you most about our conversation today?

[01:48:15] Gabriella: Where I thought I was a little bit in more control of our finances.

[01:48:21] Gabriella: I have been pushing, forcing these things to happen without actually looking at the numbers.

[01:48:28] Ramit: Is Chris, your partner in the next chapter of your rich life that you wanna embark on?

[01:48:34] Gabriella: Absolutely. I don't wanna do this alone. I want him to be right there with me with a clear vision.

[01:48:42] Ramit: What do you need and expect from him?

[01:48:45] Gabriella: I need and expect for him to fit, drive into finding a higher income.

[01:48:51] Ramit: How much

[01:48:52] Gabriella: I want him to be making $150,000 at some point,

[01:48:57] Ramit: may, maybe he can, and I'm gonna ask [01:49:00] Chris what his takeaway is, but maybe he can't. Maybe he won't.

[01:49:04] Gabriella: Yeah.

[01:49:05] Ramit: How are you gonna handle that?

[01:49:06] Gabriella: I really don't know how I'm gonna handle it, because I feel like I've sacrificed a lot of the beginning parts of our marriage and motherhood, and I just want it to be his turn.

[01:49:20] Ramit: Okay. Chris, what surprised you most about

[01:49:22] Chris: today's conversation? What surprised me is just the fact of like something so simple as far as talking numbers never crossed my mind to just sit down and, and talk specifics. I feel like I missed that somehow. That, and then also just, I mean, I, I always knew, you know, I know how Gabriela is close to her family and how desperate she is to get there.

[01:49:46] Chris: I feel like we were at a point where, you know, I kind of had a career path. I'm starting this position, it's gonna take a little time to get to where I need to get to within the company. But I feel like the urgency or the, you know, maybe the [01:50:00] expectation is a little bit unrealistic on, on her part. Um, but it, it's not lost on me.

[01:50:05] Chris: I, I know what, I know what she wants. I just, I'm asking for a little bit of patience getting there. Um, and in exchange I am committed to making the changes I need to make, um, to lower the debt, to be aggressive about our conscious spending plan. Um, and, you know, drive towards something that we're both aligned in, which is living a debt-free life and towards financial freedom.

[01:50:31] Ramit: Can you all finish this sentence for me in full? Just say, I feel, and then tell me what you feel. Chris, you first please.

[01:50:38] Chris: I feel relieved.

[01:50:41] Ramit: Great. Gabriela. Gabriela,

[01:50:43] Gabriella: I feel disappointed.

[01:50:46] Ramit: Mm-hmm. Why is that?

[01:50:49] Gabriella: We've had plenty of time and I, we just lost a lot of time. I

[01:50:55] Ramit: think that's a pretty honest assessment.

[01:50:57] Ramit: Sometimes when you're trying to move forward, people end [01:51:00] up spending a lot of time looking backwards and it becomes very hard for them to go forwards because they're just stuck in the past. I'm gonna give you some really direct feedback. This is how I would handle it if I were you. So first off, um, immediately I would begin therapy.

[01:51:18] Ramit: Once a week I would read the book and I would start to implement every single step of it. Each of you would be responsible for at least two numbers in the family finances. I would. Become extremely aggressive about debt. The family mission is now to become debt free. Everything gets sold. Everything.

[01:51:40] Ramit: Because if you can find $7,500 of stuff to be sold and you put that directly towards the credit card debt, that shaves off months and months of payments, next we would be meeting every single week, each of us showing up, alternating. Who is in charge of the meeting? Chris, you gotta be there. You gotta show [01:52:00] up.

[01:52:00] Ramit: Doesn't matter. Find a time that works for both of you. The weekends need to be crystal clear about who is taking care of the kids. The other needs a little relief. Both of you work hard, it's time to settle that you need to be saving money. You need to be saving at least 10% of your money.

[01:52:15] Gabriella: Yeah,

[01:52:16] Ramit: so y'all gotta cut some expenses and or make some money.

[01:52:19] Ramit: I would raise my rates on my doula business immediately. Chris. I would look for a higher income job. It has to happen like in order for you to get where you wanna go, you cannot simply wait. You need that level of aggression with your career too. That's talking to your boss, finding out when. When are you getting the raise?

[01:52:37] Ramit: Be specific. And if they're not providing it to you, find somebody else who will. Debt's gotta be paid off. No more spending on credit cards. Build the savings account. As for the Florida thing, I mean, it's possible. If it were me, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it for at least a year because you just staying where you are with this low mortgage.

[01:52:58] Ramit: And fixing all this [01:53:00] financial stuff, you will. It's like repairing a wound and then when you go off into the forest, you're healed. That is an amazing way to go. Again, you don't, you're not obligated to do what I say. I'm just telling you what I would do.

[01:53:11] Chris: Mm-hmm.

[01:53:13] Ramit: I wanna thank Chris and Gabriela for being willing to have this conversation.

[01:53:16] Ramit: It's not easy to look at your money, your relationship and your relationship patterns that you've been caring for years. They are at a point where they finally have more options. There's more income, there's a clearer plan. There's a chance to really change their trajectory, but it requires reorienting the way they make decisions.

[01:53:39] Ramit: Can they slow down? Can they communicate clearly? Can they truly change the way they make life decisions together? And this is especially true with major life decisions like moving, in my opinion, this is an amazing opportunity to use this decision as a test for how they can make [01:54:00] major life choices in a healthier, more thoughtful way.

[01:54:04] Ramit: Let's take a look now at how things are going in their follow-up.

[01:54:09] Gabriella: So our biggest surprise from the conversation, well for me, was digging deep into kind of our past, how. Our relationship is outside of money and kind of the psychology of how we approach money. I wasn't expecting to go so in depth on that.

[01:54:31] Gabriella: And then the realization that where we, we were at for our retirement, uh, was pretty significantly low for what we are trying to achieve in our future.

[01:54:44] Ramit 4: I'd say I agree for the most part, our behavior patterns, how our past kind of led up to where we are in terms of finances, or at least for me, um, you know, with my father and my mother, the way that they would spend on material things and not [01:55:00] necessarily talk about, you know, how to save money or, you know, um, all that, but how I was falling into the same behavior pattern as my father.

[01:55:09] Ramit 4: Exactly. But the other biggest takeaway for me is after going down the numbers and then talking about Gabby's additional income, that would be, um, you know, soon how salvageable our situation, um, actually is how the CSP showed a reduction in debt to 66%, um, was a little bit more manageable.

[01:55:30] Gabriella: Um, for me, the biggest takeaway was to accept that our situation is different than what I grew up with.

[01:55:38] Gabriella: And to not dwell on the idea of being a stay at home mom, um, and that I. Need to help by working full-time or working with a higher income in order to really get us out of the financial situation that we're in. And that [01:56:00] I also can't just let go of tracking our expenses and our finances and just hope for the best.

[01:56:09] Gabriella: Um, and that I really need to work with Chris on tracking, um, where our money is going and having a clear picture and demand that like ask for exactly what I need from him so that we can succeed instead of, um, shutting down or letting go. And also maybe, um, nagging him or, you know, approaching it where he gets annoyed and, and avoids it as well.

[01:56:39] Ramit 4: For my biggest, um, or the things that I've committed to change, um, I have three. So one is kind of putting a stop to those purchases, like the treadmill or, you know, nice new pair of shoes that I can justify with whatever excuse. Um, so [01:57:00] doing away with those, um, whenever I travel my per diems, keeping a close eye on those.

[01:57:06] Ramit 4: Oh and no more working Saturdays. Which I just, I started today for now.

[01:57:13] Gabriella: Uh, what I've immediately committed to is, um, freezing my credit card use, um, working full-time with a excited and happy heart meeting Chris. Every week we decided to meet every week on Sunday evenings to review our spending and make sure we're on track with our conscious spending plan.

[01:57:40] Gabriella: We have also committed to reading the books again. Um, I will read this with Chris and they'll actually finish this one together. And the most important thing that I've committed to, and I've changed my

[01:57:52] Ramit 4: mindset is, um, being open to

[01:57:57] Gabriella: waiting a year to move to Florida. [01:58:00] Um, and with that move also being realistic on the house that we get there.

[01:58:07] Gabriella: Um, being and committing to something that's more economical, downsizing if we need to. Um, that is more in our budgets, using actual numbers and, um, that we can actually afford without getting us into, um, a similar situation that we found ourselves in the past.

[01:58:27] Ramit 4: So recapping while lawyer. Uh, I think, uh, for me, the biggest change that I've seen, and I think you may partially agree or fully agree, somewhat agree.

[01:58:39] Ramit 4: I think I've just kind of committed to letting go to materialistic things in terms of purchases and just kind of like justifying it. Um, but now seeing the bigger picture where we want to go, where we want to end up. Gabby had a lot to do with it, but the treadmill was gone. Um,

[01:58:57] Gabriella: I did own the treadmill [01:59:00] and he was happy to let it go.

[01:59:01] Ramit 4: I, I helped put it in the flatbed for the new owner along with, uh, other piece of workout equipment.

[01:59:08] Gabriella: So we sold that for $2,600.

[01:59:11] Ramit 4: Yeah. Made, made a little money back. Um, couple of items on eBay right now as we speak. Plenty to go, plenty to catalog and list. So I've just found it a lot easier to just kind of not even think about it and just, you know, mm-hmm.

[01:59:25] Ramit 4: Prioritize the future and kind of break the cycle of just, you know, mindlessly buying things that I just don't need. So that's kind of like my takeaway. I can be better at budgeting, not budgeting, but you know, we had our responsibilities of what we're gonna track. I can do better, um, with that. But going for the bigger picture, I think, um, is different from me.

[01:59:47] Ramit 4: So I'm committed to that. Leading into that, that's my takeaway. Thus far,

[01:59:52] Gabriella: I've been going crazy with selling things. Um. So I've like sold TVs, I've sold [02:00:00] furniture. I even sold a toilet. Um, still working, um, still acquiring new clients for my business. And every time I sign on a new client and I get paid, I pay myself and I pay off debt.

[02:00:19] Gabriella: Um, so we've done a pretty good job with paying off credit cards.

[02:00:23] Ramit: Paid off a couple so far.

[02:00:25] Gabriella: Yeah. Like two or three of yours?

[02:00:27] Ramit: Yeah.

[02:00:27] Gabriella: And, um, definitely working on getting mine below 60%. Um, trying to make more income where we can. Um, but we have decided that moving to Florida would still be a priority, even if it's maybe not the most financial, um, least smart thing to do.

[02:00:47] Gabriella: But because Chris, Chris is traveling is even gotten even more frequent. Um,

[02:00:54] Ramit 4: I have left the restaurant

[02:00:57] Gabriella: that took some time.

[02:00:59] Ramit 4: I did it. [02:01:00]

[02:01:00] Gabriella: You didn't, but not when you said you would.

[02:01:04] Ramit 4: I, I got rid of the Saturdays and then,

[02:01:07] Gabriella: yeah. You said you weren't gonna do the weekends at all.

[02:01:10] Ramit 4: I said I would

[02:01:10] Gabriella: once I started.

[02:01:11] Gabriella: Once you saw my first paycheck and you said first paycheck, I have to see it to believe it. And Matt came around and you still continued to work,

[02:01:20] Ramit 4: but,

[02:01:21] Gabriella: and then it was the Saturdays only, and then. Last week you decided to do it behind my back, but we still have to work on our marriage therapy.

[02:01:36] Ramit 4: But I'm done.

[02:01:36] Ramit 4: I'm done for good.

[02:01:37] Gabriella: Yeah, so I think we're still going to, to move in the summer. Um, we haven't bought a house yet, but we are going to list the home in a couple of weeks and we figure we've already talked to family. We can stay with them

[02:01:52] Ramit 4: during the summer and that should help with

[02:01:56] Gabriella: being able to save up money.

[02:01:58] Gabriella: I think we can still do better about tracking [02:02:00] expenses. I got Monarch for couples and I really enjoying it because I could put the conscious spending plan right on there and it has all of our accounts tied to it. So that's our update. We're doing better. Could do even better, but we're working on it and, um, we're excited.

[02:02:19] Ramit: Yep. Listen up. If you want my help with your specific money questions. There are only two ways to get it. First, you can apply to be on this podcast at iwt.com/apply. Or second, you can join my money coaching program instantly at iwt.com/money Coaching. In that program, you get access to live virtual events, monthly group coaching calls, live q and as, and an amazing huge community of other people like you.

[02:02:49] Ramit: Check it out at iwt.com/money coaching.