Two couples take the stage with a shared question—but very different financial realities: When is “enough” actually enough to move forward?
Finn and Luna built a successful pet-sitting business and now sit on hundreds of thousands of dollars—but with no clear plan for investing, homeownership, or the future. Meanwhile, Monica and Antonio earn a strong income, are completely debt-free, and yet feel paralyzed by fear as they juggle parenting, aging parents, and the possibility of purchasing a larger home.
In this live episode, Ramit digs into the tension between optimism and realism, abundance and anxiety. Together, they confront inherited money stories, decision paralysis, and what it really takes to turn income into confidence—so money stops being the thing that holds them back.
In this episode we uncover:
Why having “hundreds of thousands of dollars” can still feel like total financial chaos without a system
The emotional whiplash of going from paycheck-to-paycheck to sudden abundance
How Finn and Luna’s optimism vs. realism split shows up in every conversation about housing, investing, and location
Why crypto success without understanding risk creates false confidence
The real reason Luna pulled money out of investments and parked it in cash
How not knowing basic investing terms keeps progress stalled
Finn’s fear that California homeownership is a ticking time bomb
Monica and Antonio’s decision paralysis despite high income and zero debt
How generational trauma, bankruptcies, and lost homes shaped Monica’s daily money anxiety
Why Antonio believes earning more is the solution
The financial and emotional toll of supporting aging parents while raising young children
The hidden cost of being “responsible for everyone” and never prioritizing your own future
The shift from reacting emotionally to money toward making deliberate, shared financial decisions
What changes when money stops being mysterious
Chapters:
(00:00:00) “I’m a dreamer”—and he just wants a real plan
(00:25:32) What happens when the optimizer stops optimizing at home?
(00:33:01) “They gave up everything for us”
(00:46:33) “We make great money—but it doesn’t feel like enough”
(00:57:52) “I set the bar so high I can never win”
(01:04:37) Where are they now? Both couples’ follow-ups
This episode is brought to you by:
Bilt | Join the loyalty program for renters at https://joinbilt.com/ramit
Shopify | Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at https://shopify.com/ramit
Fabric by Gerber Life | Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at https://meetfabric.com/ramit
Gelt | Book a tax consultation with Gelt at https://joingelt.com/ramit. As a member of my community, you can skip the waitlist
LMNT | Get a free 8-count Sample Pack with any LMNT order at https://drinklmnt.com/RAMIT
Masterclass | Get up to 50% off Masterclass during the holiday season at https://masterclass.com/ramit
Links Mentioned In This Episode:
If you want help with your finances, join my Money Coaching program at https://iwt.com/moneycoaching
Transcript
Download the full transcript PDF
[00:00:00] Ramit: I understand you all have $2,000 in psychedelic stocks. What the [Bleep] is that?
[00:00:06] Finn: We took a couple thousand dollars from our wedding gifts, and we bought mushroom stocks. You’ve never been on shroom stocks on Reddit?
[00:00:14] Ramit: No, I have not. I have not stumbled across that sub-Reddit.
[00:00:17] Finn: I understand that we need to have an actual plan, but we’re unsophisticated with money.
[00:00:24] Luna: If I have the money, for example, in my checking account, then get spent until it gets replenished.
[00:00:30] Ramit: Wow. Y’all agree you have a high income?
[00:00:33] Antonio: We don’t feel like it.
[00:00:34] Monica: No. we don’t feel like it.
[00:00:35] Ramit: That’s a high income. And don’t pull that [Bleep] on me. Not in San Francisco. Come on.
[00:00:41] Antonio: I’m more self-aware, she’s more critical of herself with just the behavior and the responsibility that she has and has been instilled with her.
[00:00:49] Ramit: Let me ask you, Monica. Do you recognize that?
[00:00:52] Monica: I hear you.
[00:00:53] Ramit: Mm-hmm.
[00:00:54] Monica: But the honest answer is no.
[00:00:58] Ramit: You can’t go the next 30 years feeling horrible. You just can’t. No one can run a marathon that long and hate what they’re doing.
[Narration]
[00:01:05] Ramit: You ever feel like no matter how much money you earn, it doesn’t feel like it’s enough? I recently did a live Money for Couples book tour and today you’re going to meet two couples in San Francisco, who I promise will surprise you. One of them makes over $230,000 a year, but they still feel like they are barely keeping up.
[00:01:25] The other, let’s just say that their investment choices actually left me speechless. Different incomes, different goals, completely different philosophies, but both of them are asking the same thing. How do we build a future together, and why does this feel so hard?
[00:01:44] We’re going to start with Finn and Luna. They’re at the very beginning of their financial journey. They want to educate themselves. And I have to tell you, they have some very peculiar choices that they have made about money.
[00:01:55] I’m looking at their conscious spending plan, and if you want my help with your CSP, especially as we start a new year, I want you to check out my money coaching program. It is the greatest gift you can give yourself to live a Rich Life in 2026. You can join at iwt.com/moneycoaching.
[00:02:14] Their assets, $20,000. Investments, 240,000. Savings, 60,000. Debt, zero. Great job. Total net worth, $320,000. And together they earn nearly $100,000 a year. Their fixed costs are at 67%, a little higher than I like to see. Investments are at zero for monthly contributions. You’re going to hear Luna give a very interesting explanation in just a minute for that. Savings are at zero. I’m curious about that. Guilt-free spending is at 33%. That’s especially high for a couple that doesn’t really put money towards savings or investments. So obviously I have a lot of questions. What do you say we get into it?
[Interview]
[00:02:52] Ramit: So I need your help to welcome our first couple. Please get on your feet and welcome Finn and Luna.
[Applause]
[00:03:02] Welcome, welcome, welcome. How you doing? All right. Hello. Have a seat. Thank you. How’s it going?
[00:03:14] Luna: Great.
[00:03:15] Ramit: How you feeling?
[00:03:15] Finn: Nervous.
[00:03:17] Ramit: Nervous. Okay.
[00:03:18] Finn: I feel sick to my stomach.
[00:03:22] Ramit: Can we give it up for Finn and Luna please? [Applause] So Finn, you wrote in your application that since you both gave up your careers as caregivers and started your own business, “We have basically disagreed about how we spend and where we should live and plan to buy a home every step of the way.” Is that true?
[00:03:51] Finn: I would say that there is a lot of agreement with our spending. There was much more disagreement in the past.
[00:04:00] Ramit: Okay. Let’s go back to a specific disagreement that the two of you had. What would it be about? House?
[00:04:08] Finn: In the beginning, she says cherry juice, which is a good example. She is an organic eater and drinker. We drink organic cherry juice every night.
[00:04:22] Ramit: Okay. What is happening right now? I just want to know a disagreement. You guys can’t tell me you disagree about cherry juice. Is this really happening?
[00:04:30] Finn: Organics foods.
[00:04:32] Ramit: Okay. Luna?
[00:04:36] Luna: Yeah. So it used be more so he was against spending that extra money for organic food over the years. I have convinced him of the benefit of it. Cherry juice was a big contentious one just because–
[00:04:51] Ramit: How much does cherry juice cost? I’m out of the market.
[00:04:54] Finn: It’s expensive. It could be 7, $8 a bottle.
[00:04:57] Luna: Whereas non-organic cherry juice is like two bucks.
[00:05:01] Ramit: Okay. This is a big disagreement.
[00:05:03] Luna: It’s not huge. Not anymore.
[00:05:04] Finn: I’m a very frugal person, so I’m looking for the cheaper way to do things.
[00:05:10] Ramit: Mm-hmm. Maybe I can ask another question. Was there a van that either of you was going to purchase? Oh, let’s hear about that. Luna?
[00:05:20] Luna: So basically I had a windfall. My grandmother started an investment account for me and eventually, I got it. And it was enough to buy a van and convert it or buy a converted van.
[00:05:38] Ramit: Can we talk real numbers? How much did you get?
[00:05:41] Luna: I got about $200,000, and part of it was in cash and part of it was in stocks.
[00:05:48] Ramit: So 200k, and you wanted to buy a van.
[00:05:50] Luna: With the cash portion?
[00:05:52] Ramit: Okay. How much was the van?
[00:05:54] Luna: A legit one, the one that I wanted probably would’ve been 80k, totally converted.
[00:06:01] Ramit: How the [Bleep] were we just talking about cherry juice where there’s an 80k van on the table? What is happening right now? Okay, 80k. What brand van?
[00:06:12] Luna: A Sprinter.
[00:06:14] Ramit: Okay. And so did you get it?
[00:06:17] Luna: No.
[00:06:17] Ramit: How come?
[00:06:19] Luna: He pretty much convinced me that it would not be a financially sound investment, that it would lose its value pretty instantaneously.
[00:06:27] Ramit: Hold on. A car is never an investment, except in rare cases.
[00:06:32] Luna: I thought we could live out of it and we could travel, so we wouldn’t have to pay rent.
[00:06:38] Ramit: Okay. I guess that’s true.
[00:06:40] Luna: And so in the long run, I did super rough math and I was like, “If we don’t pay rent for a couple of years and we live out of this van, then it basically pays for itself.
[00:06:51] Ramit: Pays for itself.
[00:06:57] Luna: And then I have a van.
[00:06:58] Ramit: I tried that too with a cashmere coat. I tried to say that with my wife. She didn’t buy it. It pays for itself. So you had a 80k van out of 200k.
[00:07:10] Finn: Right.
[00:07:11] Ramit: That seems like a lot, like out of a 200k, let’s call it inheritance, to spend almost half of it on a van. What do you think about that?
[00:07:20] Luna: It sounded a really good idea to me. We were working 100 hours a week, and while our living situation was paid for through that 100 hours of work a week, it was feeling like a lot, and I was ready to just call it quits and live in a van.
[00:07:40] Ramit: Okay.
[00:07:41] Luna: So it sounded good.
[00:07:41] Ramit: Finn, you said it won’t be a good investment, which I, agree with.
[00:07:45] Luna: Right.
[00:07:45] Ramit: All right. So what’s with the 200k now?
[00:07:52] Luna: The majority of it is still in stocks, and we did buy a car with it.
[00:07:59] Ramit: You did?
[00:07:59] Luna: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:00] Ramit: What kind of car?
[00:08:03] Finn: It’s my dream car. You don’t like Fords, but it’s a Ford Escape.
[00:08:07] Ramit: You bought a Ford?
[00:08:08] Luna: Ford Escape hybrid.
[00:08:09] Ramit: Your dream car’s a Ford?
[00:08:10] Finn: It currently is.
[00:08:11] Ramit: What the [Bleep]?
[00:08:13] Finn: Dude–
[00:08:13] Ramit: Ford is never advertising with me, by the way. Every time I talk about them, I eviscerate them. Ford what?
[00:08:20] Finn: It’s a Ford Escape hybrid.
[00:08:22] Ramit: Okay. How much did it cost, just out of curiosity?
[00:08:25] Finn: I think it was about $38,000.
[00:08:27] Ramit: Okay. Do you guys run any numbers before you bought it?
[00:08:29] Luna: We looked for a really good deal on the kind of car that we wanted. One of the major selling points was it has a panoramic sunroof, and I actually wanted a brand-new car. But then again, Finn said we should just get a used one that’s just a couple of years old that’s going to be just as good.
[00:08:50] Ramit: Okay. That probably good advice.
[00:08:52] Luna: Yeah.
[00:08:52] Ramit: All right. So you got the car. I’m going to look at your numbers in a second. There’s a conversation the two of you have been having about buying a house, right? What’s the conversation?
[00:09:02] Luna: Right. So it’s not actually a house that we want. I would like property or land so that we can have a yoga retreat center, because I also teach yoga. So yeah, it would be more than a house. It would be a source of income as well.
[00:09:20] Ramit: Okay. And do you agree, Finn, or what’s your take?
[00:09:25] Finn: Living in the Bay Area, I don’t think that it’s realistic for us. If we had a million dollars tomorrow, I would rather buy, let’s say a house in Florida for half of that and keep the other half invested. She in the dreamer category, and so that’s part of the reason why I got attracted to your material, is because I understand that we need to have an actual plan. But it’s something that– we’re unsophisticated with money.
[00:10:05] Ramit: Okay. I appreciate that. Would you agree that you are a dreamer?
[00:10:12] Luna: Yeah.
[00:10:13] Ramit: Wow. Okay, hold on. This is a rare moment, everybody. Give it up. [Applause]
[00:10:18] Luna: Luna. Woo.
[00:10:19] Ramit: Hold on. I am loving this. First of all, dreamers don’t come in front of me. Seeing a dreamer is very rare. They don’t come in the same room as I, and then they never, ever admit that they are a dreamer. I love that you’re admitting it. So for everybody who’s not familiar with a dreamer, a dreamer believes that success is one gig, one deal around the corner. They often fall into MLM schemes, scams. Is that true, MLM?
[00:10:54] Finn: I talked her out of it because I saw it from a mile away. I really want to support my wife in everything, but not– it was maybe the only time I’ve ever put my foot down about anything.
[00:11:08] Ramit: Okay.
[00:11:08] Luna: Besides the van.
[Laughter]
[00:11:09] Ramit: So great. But I love that you’re honest about it. So here’s the thing though. For dreamers themselves, it’s often great. We can do this. We can do that. They float from one thing to another. It’s very difficult for the partner of a dreamer because the partner of a dreamer often just wants their partner to come up with a plan and be realistic.
[00:11:34] And sometimes dreamers are subsidized by others. What do I mean by subsidized? Maybe they have an inheritance. That’s an example, or they have a partner who earns money. You earn money too. Totally acknowledge that. But often if their partner left or was hit by a bus, the dreamer would very quickly have to adapt to reality in order to not live in the clouds, but to live in reality.
[00:11:58] So that is what a dreamer is. I love that we are getting to have this opportunity to talk, especially because– yeah, you can set yourself up for a future that is really, really positive, and you can still do the things you love. So I love this. What is the dynamic around spending money? Do the two of you spend money similarly?
[00:12:18] Finn: I would say that I’m more conservative with my money.
[00:12:20] Ramit: Okay. Luna?
[00:12:22] Luna: Yeah, I am pretty free with my money. I like to buy gifts for him and people in my life. I’m pretty frugal when it comes to myself besides my supplements and my food intake. But I’m not really extravagant as far as clothes or handbags or shoes or anything like that. But it’s more so, I bought him $250 pants.
[00:12:52] Ramit: Those ones?
[00:12:53] Luna: These ones. Occasionally–
[00:12:58] Ramit: [Inaudible].
[00:12:58] Finn: Those are also $250. Those were also the–
[00:13:02] Ramit: Do you live close to how much you make you spend?
[00:13:08] Luna: Pretty much.
[00:13:09] Ramit: Okay. And is that regardless of how much you make?
[00:13:13] Luna: I suppose so, yeah. I guess that’s how it’s always been. Now I feel blessed to have something to fall back on if something happened. But if I have the money, for example, in my checking account, then it will get spent until it gets replenished.
[00:13:33] Ramit: Wow. Okay. All right. Let’s take a look at your numbers. All right. So assets, 20k. Investments, 240,000. That’s cool. We’re going to come back to that. Savings, 60k. No debt. I love that. Gross annual income is just under 100k. Fixed cost of 67%. Investments at 0%. Now that is quite interesting because you see 0% invested, but yet you have 240,000 invested. So that’s roughly the 200k minus the Ford that you wasted– excuse me, purchased. And then what else is in that investments?
[00:14:19] Finn: Oh, I bought Bitcoin.
[00:14:24] Ramit: Okay. How much?
[00:14:25] Finn: Half of that is–
[00:14:26] Ramit: What? How much?
[00:14:31] Finn: 160,000.
[00:14:34] Ramit: 160,000 of 240 is Bitcoin?
[00:14:38] Finn: Yeah. And hey, that’s why I want to talk to you, man, because I’ve only–
[00:14:42] Ramit: What the [Bleep] is going on right now?
[00:14:44] Finn: Say crypto out of your head one time and–
[00:14:46] Ramit: Okay, okay, okay, okay. I get it. What else? What else do you guys have in this investment account?
[00:14:52] Finn: So that’s about 100 or about 90 of her original stocks. We spent the other on the car, and then some of that sitting in cash somewhere. Okay. And then–
[00:15:04] Ramit: Did you cash out any of the investments?
[00:15:08] Luna: Yes.
[00:15:09] Ramit: How much?
[00:15:10] Luna: About a total of 100.
[00:15:15] Ramit: Out of 200?
[00:15:16] Luna: Right.
[00:15:16] Ramit: Why?
[00:15:18] Luna: I actually just am not really sure that stocks are super stable, and so I thought two in the hand is worth one in the bush, so I took it out just in case, like if it were to crash or something. Then at least I would have half of it.
[00:15:37] Ramit: Okay, okay. I don’t agree with that, but I understand it. So we’ll talk about that. But I appreciate the honesty. What else do you guys have in your investments?
[00:15:50] Finn: Oh yeah, I got some gold.
[00:15:53] Ramit: You have gold?
[00:15:54] Finn: Yeah, a little bit. That’s how much I have.
[00:15:56] Ramit: How much is that?
[00:15:58] Finn: It’s about 16, 2,000, something like that.
[00:16:03] Ramit: All right. Am I the only one who’s underwhelmed by what gold looks like?
[00:16:07] Finn: No, dude.
[00:16:08] Ramit: That’s 1,600 bucks of gold?
[00:16:09] Finn: I’m surprised as well. Yeah.
[00:16:11] Ramit: All right. And then I understand you all have $2,000 in psychedelic stocks. What the [Bleep] is that?
[00:16:20] Finn: Yeah, it’s more like four.
[00:16:22] Ramit: What is it?
[00:16:23] Finn: We took a couple thousand dollars from our wedding gifts and we bought mushroom stocks. You’ve never been on shroom stocks on Reddit. I’m sure.
[00:16:33] Ramit: No, I have not. I have not stumbled across that sub-Reddit. Hold on. I have a friend who does a lot of drugs and I told her, I don’t know anything about drugs at all. I missed it. And I was like, I’m so glad I didn’t really get into drugs. And she was like, why? And I was like, because I made money and that’s a really fast way for someone who has a lot of money to lose it, drugs. And she looked at me like I was so stupid.
[00:17:06] She goes, how much do you think coke is? Now, the last time I saw coke anywhere was in RoboCop in 1987. Do you inject it? I don’t know even how to take it And I was like, I don’t know, $4,000 for a bank. She looked at me like I am the dumbest person an, she goes, it’s like $50. And I was like, wow, capital markets are so efficient. This is amazing.
[00:17:36] Finn: We would never invest in cocaine.
[00:17:38] Ramit: Only in SF. Okay. Can I just be a little bit directive with what I might suggest? Okay. Let’s put those numbers back up on screen. So first of all, I want to say I love that we are having this conversation early. My suggestion is that you’ll have a chance to have a very successful Rich Life together.
[00:18:08] In order to do that, you’ll need to understand the basic language of money. And that means that both of you will have to learn it. So that when you say things like, oh, we should put it in a savings account or an investment account, you both know what that is. I think that’s going to be important. I also think little language like compound interest, what is that? Or Luna, when you said, “I want to pull it out because it feels safer. I’m worried.” I would like you to read Chapter 6 and to understand what’s the implication.
[00:18:37] Luna: Actually, interestingly enough, I have a business degree from UC Santa Cruz. And yeah, they really didn’t actually teach us practical anything. It’s crazy.
[00:18:49] Ramit: Yeah, it is. And you’re a yoga teacher. So imagine that someone who’s just getting into health and wellness goes, “Oh, I have a shoulder ache. I’m going to go ask Luna for help.” And you’re like, “There’s physical therapist.” To the outside, it just all looks the same. To the outside business, all looks the same, but when you get into it, you realize, oh my gosh, personal finance is so different than business.
[00:19:12] So that’s what I want to challenge you to do. I want the two of you to learn the language of money. I want the two of you to start talking about money regularly together. I know that, Finn, you wrote in your application, “We’ve basically disagreed about how we spend, where we should live, and planned to buy a house every step of the way. I just gave in and stopped fighting about it.” For now, it’s funny. But over 10, 20, 30 years, it’s less funny. It’s a wedge.
[00:19:44] Finn: I feel like when I talk about having a plan with money or I talk about optimizing money, for example, it’s met with, I’m stressing about money. It’s misunderstood as I’m being unreasonable when I really just want to have a plan. After doing our conscious spending plan, as you know, I realized how out of touch I was with our real numbers, and I want to live our dreams together.
[00:20:15] And so I want us to understand that there’s a difference between trying to live our dreams and actually designing a plan that we implement to bring us to those dreams. And I know that we can do it together.
[00:20:33] Ramit: Could not have said it better myself. Okay. Read the book. Have the conversations. Keep me updated. Thank you so much for coming out here.
[Applause]
[00:20:40] Finn: Thank you, buddy.
[00:20:41] Ramit: Awesome. Awesome to meet you. Thank you so much. Give it up for Finn and Luna.
[Applause]
[Narration]
[00:20:50] Ramit: I really loved this conversation, so please make sure you stick around until the end to see their follow-ups. I don’t often get the chance to speak to people at the initial parts of their financial journey. A lot of times by the time they get to me, they’ve read a little bit, they’ve learned a little bit, they have a bit of an understanding about the basics.
[00:21:08] But honestly, I love the chance to talk to people at the beginning. I also liked that this couple was different than some of the couples I speak to. Sometimes some of the couples I talk to are tracking 34,000 rows of data. Finn and Luna were different. They were in the clouds, which was quite fascinating.
[00:21:26] I’m also struck by the kind of lifestyle they have built. It’s not just about money. It’s about identity. They’ve spent years being alternative, being creative, living outside the box. I actually want them to keep that. Stay creative. Preserve that. That is who they are, mushroom stocks, gold coins, and all.
[00:21:45] But what I want them to do is to add a new layer on top of that, a new part of their identity, one that says, we can still dream, and we can plan. And truthfully, I wish that I had embraced that mindset in my own relationship earlier. Back then, I thought being good with money meant we agree on the percentage of our investment contributions.
[00:22:07] Okay, we probably should. But what I really needed to do was to close my mouth and listen to how my wife felt about money and what her invisible scripts were and what money means to her. In fact, I probably needed to figure out how to express my own feelings and not just what I thought. Had I done that, it would’ve saved us years of difficult conversations.
[00:22:31] And speaking of my relationship, up next, before we meet our next couple, you’re going to meet my wife Cassandra. I think you’re going to be surprised because I broke one of our cardinal rules with money, and she did not let it slide. She actually called me out on it.
[Applause]
[Interview]
[00:22:47] Ramit: Let’s give it up. Okay, welcome. How does it feel to be on stage?
[00:23:05] Cassandra: It feels good. Hey, everyone. How’s it going?
[00:23:09] Ramit: Okay, I have a few questions for you about our relationship. Let’s just start at the beginning. What is it like being married to an optimizer?
[00:23:23] Cassandra: Yes, being married to an optimizer, I would say that it took some time for us to get used to each other with our money dials and how we approached money. But now I can say it’s a real strength that Ramit is an optimizer, and I do appreciate that he loves to run a compound interest calculator for fun.
[00:23:46] And he does love a good spreadsheet as well. And so that has been a really fun part of our journey to learn about. But there was one thing I was very surprised about. I thought optimizers were really good at Excel, and Ramit does not know basic formulas, so I’m still waiting.
[00:24:08] Ramit: She looked at my spreadsheets and she’s like– I was so excited. I’m like, “Babe, look at this calculate.” And she’s like, “Who the fuck designed this thing? It’s so ugly.” She actually runs our family calculations, and you manage that part of it in an amazing way. So that when we talk about the numbers, you have them up.
[00:24:29] Cassandra: Yeah. I love a good spreadsheet, so I am like boop, boop, boop. Okay, here we go. And it’s all good. But it has definitely been a journey to get here. And even just in fact recently, we had a little hiccup. Do you want to share about that?
[00:24:41] Ramit: Yeah. So we have our monthly money meetings. But you pointed out recently, very recently, you’re like, “Hey, can I talk to you about something?” I am responsible for the monthly money meetings. And you pointed out that I have been letting them slide. I haven’t been scheduling them and sometimes they just don’t happen. And you made a very accurate, but it was tough for me to hear point, which was, “You would never miss a work meeting, so why would you miss this meeting? Which is even more important than that.”
[00:25:16] And that’s real. That’s real. And yeah, I appreciated the way that you brought it up because you were very compassionate, but you were real. And I think I got the gravity of it because how can I be writing a book and then I’m missing our own monthly money meeting?
[00:25:38] We deconstructed it and I was like, “Let’s try to figure out why.” And one of the big lessons was, we scheduled our meeting at 6:00 or 8:00 PM. I don’t really schedule many work meetings at 8:00 PM because they would get skipped because we’re tired. So we moved it to a better time. We clarified what we’re talking about. We streamlined all this stuff. And I think that was a good wake-up call, and I really appreciated how you delivered that.
[00:26:08] Cassandra: Yeah.
[00:26:08] Ramit: Yeah. So thanks. Thank you. I think it’s a good lesson that you’re always going to be working to tweak and improve things and life is going to get in the way sometimes.
[00:26:19] Cassandra: Yeah. So you really have to fight to maintain focus on what’s important.
[00:26:24] Ramit: Yeah, yeah. Okay. How did it feel when we started combining finances?
[00:26:29] Cassandra: Yeah. For me it was very nerve wracking because we grew up very differently with money, and we saw things differently. And speaking of growing up with money, my mom and dad are in the audience. Are you there? Where are you?
[00:26:46] Ramit: Can we see them? Mom and dad, can you stand up?
[00:26:48] Cassandra: Oh yeah. Stand up, so everyone could say hi.
[00:26:51] Ramit: There they are. Give them round of applause.
[00:26:55] Cassandra: Yeah. There’s my mom and dad. They’re great. But yeah, we grew up very differently with money. And so through a lot of conversations, easy and hard ones, we have improved our communication around that, and now we have a good system in place.
[00:27:11] Ramit: What do you wish you knew back then that you know now?
[00:27:18] Cassandra: Yeah, the biggest thing I would say is how much individual work we had to do on our money psychology. And I really did. I dove into books. I hired a money mindset coach. I did so many things. And because of that individual work, it really, really helped us lay a very strong foundation going forward.
[00:27:39] Ramit: That is very true. You did a ton of work on your relationship with money. You hired a coach. I didn’t even know about that until a year or two later. And it showed up. It showed up in our conversations. And I know you also told me like, hey, I need you to work better on connecting with your feelings.
[00:28:02] Cassandra: The f word, feelings. My favorite thing.
[00:28:06] Ramit: I’ve come to appreciate it. We have our wheel. We have our wheel.
[00:28:11] Cassandra: Oh, yeah. Oh.
[00:28:13] Ramit: So this is on our fridge.
[00:28:15] Cassandra: Tell them what this is.
[00:28:17] Ramit: Okay. This is the wheel of emotions. We got it from a therapist, and it’s really helpful. You could take a picture of it. This is something I find, especially men– there were words on here. I was like, “Huh? What does this mean?” Or a word that I would never use in a conversation. But I think this is the kind of thing you encouraged me to learn, and we are doing it together. And it’s given us a new language together.
[00:28:41] Cassandra: Yeah, absolutely. And now because of all the work we put in individually and together, we have fun when we talk about money. And yeah, there’s hard times and stuff, but overall we’re on the same path moving forward.
[00:28:52] Ramit: All right. Thank you so much. I love you. Let’s give it up.
[Narration]
[00:28:55] Ramit: I hope that you seeing Cassandra talk about money shows you that this entire body of work is not just theoretical. I’ve lived it. We’ve lived it. We’re living it right now. As I record this, I just finished a money meeting with my wife where we looked through our numbers, and we discussed what’s working. We made plans for our next meeting. I’m sharing this because I’m not lecturing you from the clouds. I’m actually doing this with you.
[00:29:21] That is why I have so much compassion for the guests on this show. Because if it’s hard for Cassandra and me, I know how hard this is for you. So if money feels hard for you, if sometimes you feel stuck or like you’re not aligned with your partner or even with yourself, my wish is that you give yourself a little grace. Yeah, sometimes it’s hard, and yes, you also can improve your relationship with money so money feels good.
[00:29:48] Up next, I’m speaking to Monica and Antonio. They have a high income. They also have an invisible pressure to take care of their parents, which I think will resonate with a lot of you. If you grew up in an immigrant household, you already know what that kind of invisible pressure feels like. I’m now looking at their conscious spending plan, and if you want help with your own conscious spending plan, you can join my Money Coaching program at iwt.com/moneycoaching.
[00:30:14] Assets, 42,000. Investments, 200,000. Savings, 141,000. Debt 25,000. For a total net worth of $359,480. They have a combined income of 235,000, which is very impressive. But they don’t feel like it’s enough. Not even close, actually. Let’s get into it.
[Interview]
[00:30:36] Ramit: I’d like for you to get on your feet and welcome Monica and Antonio. [Applause]
[00:30:43] Yes. Welcome. How you doing? Thank you for being here. Thank you. Have a seat.
[00:30:53] Monica: How are you doing?
[00:30:55] Antonio: Good.
[00:30:55] Monica: Doing good.
[00:30:56] Ramit: How you feeling?
[00:30:57] Monica: Excited, but also nervous.
[00:30:59] Ramit: Nervous?
[00:30:59] Monica: Yeah.
[00:31:00] Ramit: We had the best community anywhere, and I’m so thankful that y’all came out here and you are asking for help. In your application, you wrote, “How do we structure, our finances to be able to start saving for our future, but also to help our parents in the next five years?” Can you tell me a little bit about the circumstances around helping your parents?
[00:31:26] Monica: Yes. So my parents immigrated to the US maybe 38 years ago from Mexico. They left their family, their friends, their country of origin, and decided to move for me and my sister and come to the US because things were not going well economically. But they had a comfortable life in Mexico.
[00:31:47] And they moved here with a small amount of savings and started their own business and figured out how to start. And they ultimately ended up owning a series of small businesses. But in 2008, all of their savings was gone overnight. They weren’t really ever able to recoup from that. They’re able to pay their bills and take care of themselves, but ultimately they mean a lot to me.
[00:32:19] They gave up their whole lives, what they thought was going to be their life for me and my sister, and sacrificed that. And it is super important to me that they know that they’re going to be taken care of. This was never their plan, for them to not have the savings or retirement to lean on.
[00:32:39] Ramit: Okay, I appreciate that. How do you feel when you think about the journey that your parents took?
[00:32:47] Monica: Really emotional. It took a lot of courage to own a small business and then it not do so well and reinvent themselves and create another small business to give my sister and I a middle class life here in the US. And that meant everything to them. They wanted us to have the opportunities and to grow and to learn and be in a community that would support us and give us a bright future.
[00:33:16] Ramit: Okay, okay. Thank you. What is your goal to help your parents? You mentioned something in the next five years.
[00:33:24] Monica: I don’t know when they’re going to be able or how long they’re going to be able to continue with their small business. They’re in their 70s, and I imagine at some point health or otherwise, or their business is no longer profitable, they’re going to need financial help. So I want to be prepared for that. I don’t want to be reactive, but I also don’t know what I need to do or where to go.
[00:33:51] Ramit: Okay. Do you feel pressure to take care of them?
[00:33:55] Monica: I would say yes, but I also feel like it’s an honor to take care of my parents. They came here for me and my sister. So yeah, there’s definitely some pressure there.
[00:34:06] Ramit: I think anyone who’s close to their parents, and certainly someone who’s seen their parents come from a different country and understand even the sliver of how difficult that would have to be, can understand the advantages that we got growing up here. Okay, I think I understand. Let me ask you first, Monica, and then I want to come to you, Antonio. What did you learn about money growing up in your household?
[00:34:37] Monica: That we couldn’t afford a lot of things.
[00:34:39] Ramit: How did you learn that?
[00:34:41] Monica: Because it’s what I was told.
[00:34:44] Ramit: Any phrases you remember specifically?
[00:34:49] Monica: Yeah, can’t afford it. There was disagreements frequently regarding money in my household. Yeah.
[00:34:55] Ramit: Among your parents?
[00:34:57] Monica: Yes. Among my parents.
[00:34:58] Ramit: Okay. And what did you feel about money as a kid?
[00:35:02] Monica: Stress?
[00:35:03] Ramit: Ah. You still feel that?
[00:35:05] Monica: I still feel that.
[00:35:07] Ramit: Okay. Antonio, what do you remember about money as a kid?
[00:35:12] Antonio: With my parents, there was a sense of people with money attained that money in a negative way or they stepped on people to get to where they were, or it was a very evil type of mentality around it.
[00:35:30] Ramit: What does that mean?
[00:35:32] Antonio: That they did things that necessarily weren’t right or righteous or the right way, or they took advantage of people or stepped on people to get in front of them or take advantage in some other way.
[00:35:48] Ramit: So the story that you were taught was, if somebody has a lot of money, they did something wrong in order to get it. They had to take advantage. That’s a less common one than we can’t afford it, but it sticks with you, doesn’t it? you still feel that way?
[00:36:07] Antonio: Fortunately, I don’t. Actually, I grew up in Arizona, and then I actually went to San Diego for college. I played soccer and went to a private school where there was a lot of affluent students and people and families. And it opened my eyes up to a whole new world in terms of getting to know people and their identities and that money isn’t evil, and that money can do great things. And it just depends on the person and their identity and what they can do. So really, getting out of Arizona was like my ticket to explore the world, and it was huge for me.
[00:36:49] Ramit: Okay. That connects with me a lot. I grew up going to public school, and I don’t know where I got this idea but I had this idea that if you go to private school, you’re an [Bleep] and spoiled. And then I got to college and there were a lot of my classmates who had gone to private school, public school, whatever. That was not true.
[00:37:16] I changed my opinion in 48 hours of becoming a freshman. And at 17 or 18 years old when you realize, oh my god, something I believed for the last 10 years is actually totally untrue, it’s earth shaking. So I appreciate. That’s the power of being surrounded by different people. Okay. How are your parents with money, Antonio?
[00:37:41] Antonio: I came from a family of six, five boys, one girl. So it was more of a survive instead of nurture. So it was dad working a few jobs, mom staying at home, just constantly working, but then providing for us. We didn’t know any different. This was the good life. So it was seeing all those sacrifices that they made, but then knowing at certain times you couldn’t afford things.
[00:38:15] I played on club teams where I would have other people that would pay for tournaments and things like that that would make up the difference because my family, we couldn’t afford it. But the skill sets and being an athlete helped.
[00:38:30] Ramit: How about now? How are they with money now?
[00:38:35] Antonio: It’s a divided family now. So there was a divorce, and there’s some division in the family. Things happen, and you adjust. So my dad, similar to her parents, are looking to help him and take care of him because of what he’s done throughout my life and our lives to help support him. He’s a Vietnam vet and been through a lot of trauma and PTSD, and all those other things that come along with the sacrifices that he made, not only for our country, but for us.
[00:39:11] That we have an obligation and a duty. And I think Monica downplays her stress and weight of the responsibility, because of all the sacrifice that her parents made. I think she takes on a huge weight, and it’s been seen in her drive and her career to make it worth what her parents sacrificed. So there’s a lot of weight there and pressure.
[00:39:39] Ramit: Do you agree with that, Monica?
[00:39:41] Monica: Yeah. So we recently combine our households with my parents. They are doing it for me and my husband, for Antonio and I and our son, [Bleep]. Because they remember how stressful it was for them. And there was a lot of anxiety and worry in the household.
[00:40:08] Because they moved here and didn’t have anybody, they didn’t have anyone to rely on, and they want to be that for us. So I’m so grateful and thankful that they not only want to be a part of our lives, but intimately involved to help and support us in a way that they didn’t have. But yeah, we all lived together.
[00:40:29] Ramit: Okay, that’s cool. And you want to figure out how you can continue that and I think get a house with an ADU so that your parents can live in it. Is that right?
[00:40:42] Monica: Yeah, that is our long term or a longer-term goal, I think.
[00:40:48] Ramit: Okay. At some point you want to have a house with an ADU. Okay.
[Narration]
[00:40:52] Ramit: As I was hearing Monica and Antonio describe how they experienced money when they were young, the way that I was feeling was sad. I noticed a sad tone around money coming from them, but I could also feel it inside my own body. And I think I can understand why. If you grew up with immigrant parents, I’m willing to bet you probably didn’t talk about money as openly as we do on this show.
[00:41:18] But I also bet those quiet expectations were always there. They go something like this, “We came here for you, and one day you’ll take care of us.” In a lot of families, especially immigrant families, that idea just exists. It’s in the air. It may never be explicitly said, but it’s well understood by everybody.
[00:41:39] But Monica and Antonio are part of two cultures now. In one culture, that expectation is sacred. Anyone who grew up with immigrant parents knows what I’m talking about. In the other culture, money is something you talk about, plan for, even set boundaries around. This is cultural. It’s socioeconomic. It cuts across different groups of people with an invisible knife that nonetheless leaves real expectations. And that’s where things get really tricky because they’ve never had that conversation. It’s all been unspoken.
[00:42:18] Have you ever read some of these Reddit threads where an Indian kid or a Chinese kid will say, “Hey, I’m not sure. My parents expect me to do this, but I’m just not sure about it.” And 99% of the people in that comment thread would be like,”[Bleep] them. You need to take care of yourself.” And I’m like, “Have y’all ever met an immigrant family?” No? A lot of you think something is real only if it’s documented in SOP.
[00:42:40] Oh my, I cannot comply with your request because you did not properly format according to our standard operating procedure. Get a life you [ Bleep] corporate drone. That’s not how real life works. People go 50 years never talking about something, but their expectations are as real as the air around us. So you may not understand these expectations, but they are real for tens of millions of people around the world. Now listen, as Monica describes how she feels about money.
[Interview]
[00:43:08] Ramit: How would you describe your relationship with money in a word?
[00:43:11] Monica: Can I use two words?
[00:43:13] Ramit: Sure.
[00:43:15] Monica: Push, pull.
[00:43:16] Ramit: Oh, what does that mean?
[00:43:18] Monica: I think sometimes when I’m very conscientious and intentional with my money, I feel good and happy about it. But when I avoid or get overwhelmed, I get very anxious because I don’t know what’s going on in our financial picture.
[00:43:38] Ramit: It sounds pretty stressful to me. I haven’t heard a lot of joy in the way that you describe money. Is that fair?
[00:43:46] Monica: Yeah. I think there are moments of joy. I think the last six or eight months have just been a little bit more stressful financially for a lot of reasons. And so maybe that’s why it’s coming off that way, but yeah.
[00:44:00] Ramit: It’s okay. Things come in waves. They come in chapters. I don’t mind that. I think, from what you described, your parents had a tough time when they came here with money. Understandably so. Would you say you have a tough time financially speaking? Are you thriving? Are you just getting by? Are you failing with money? Which one?
[00:44:24] Monica: I would say I don’t think we’re failing. But I don’t think we’re surviving. For sure, we’re not surviving. So I feel like somewhere in between.
[00:44:34] Ramit: Getting by?
[00:44:34] Monica: Getting by.
[00:44:35] Ramit: Okay. Shall we take a look at the numbers.
[00:44:37] Monica: Sure.
[00:44:38] Ramit: Okay, let’s put them up. Assets of 42,000. Investments of 200,000. Savings of 141. Debt’s, 25. I think that’s a van you bought.
[00:44:49] Monica: Yes.
[00:44:50] Ramit: Is that right? Okay. Why do you say it like that?
[00:44:51] Antonio: Very aggressive, very manly van.
[00:44:55] Ramit: I love a good van. I drove a van for so many years. Any minivan drivers in the room? I feel like we have a disproportionate number of Honda minivan drivers in this room. Gross monthly income is 19k. That’s really good. Fixed costs at 68%. What do y’all think about that number? What do you guys think? You’re looking at it like it’s the first time looking at those numbers. What the hell? You sent these numbers.
[00:45:24] Monica: High. It’s high.
[00:45:26] Ramit: Okay. Yes, it’s high. If it’s 68, we could probably bring it down, especially with a high income like that. I agree. I typically like to see 50 to 60, especially with a high income. Y’all agree you have a high income?
[00:45:39] Antonio: We don’t feel like it.
[00:45:40] Monica: No, we don’t feel like it.
[00:45:41] Ramit: Do we really have to do this thing again? Hold on. Gross annual income, $234,000. Yeah, that’s it. That’s a high income. And don’t pull that [Bleep] on me. Not in San Francisco. Come on. Okay, so you don’t feel it. Is there a number that you would feel it?
[00:46:07] Monica: Yeah.
[00:46:09] Ramit: What’s the number?
[00:46:10] Monica: I don’t know. 40k a month.
[00:46:12] Ramit: 40k a month. Where’d that come from?
[00:46:16] Monica: Just twice as much as what we have.
[00:46:21] Ramit: God. One day I’m going to encounter someone who just goes, “Yes, I have enough.” Please. How many more decades will it take me to find that person? All right. So fixed cost is 68. Investments at zero. That’s interesting. Savings at 1%. Guilt-free spending at 31%. What? What are y’all spending on?
[00:46:45] Antonio: A lot.
[00:46:45] Ramit: The answer is not behind you. Trust me. What are you spending on? I don’t mind spending on nice things. I like them, but I’m just curious. 31%? What are you spending on?
[00:46:59] Antonio: We have certain expenses that is–
[00:47:01] Ramit: Like?
[00:47:01] Antonio: There’s healthcare. Not healthcare, but her working out. We have certain investments towards trainers, health, organic food.
[00:47:16] Ramit: All right. self-care.
[00:47:17] Antonio: Self-care.
[00:47:19] Ramit: What else? Got real quiet in here all of a sudden.
[00:47:22] Antonio: We do have a kid, the 18 month old.
[00:47:24] Ramit: Okay. I know childcare is a big expense under your fixed costs. It’s 1,900 bucks a month.
[00:47:30] Monica: Correct.
[00:47:30] Ramit: That’s a lot.
[00:47:31] Monica: And that’s not that expensive for San Diego?
[00:47:35] Ramit: Yeah, yeah. Okay. Antonio, you started contributing to retirement later in life. You’re 12 years older than Monica. And Monica, you recently scaled back hours at work. Have you changed your spending to reflect the hours that you’ve cut?
[00:47:56] Monica: Honestly, no. And I didn’t really realize that until maybe a month ago when we started combing through all of our finances and I realized, oh, I never made that adjustment.
[00:48:09] Ramit: Yeah, that’s common. That’s common. That’s very common. It’s like the NFL player who stops being in the NFL, but they don’t change what they’re eating or how they’re spending. It’s very common. And so at least you recognize it now. So you want to buy a house? From looking at your num numbers, what do you think? What’s the answer?
[00:48:31] Antonio: I don’t think we have enough saved. There’s also some fears where the last five, six years we had planned the whole a compound with the ADU, and that was a dream. But then you look at the real estate market, you look at interest rates, and we have histories of being burned in real estate. Her parents have that history.
[00:48:56] Ramit: Both families.
[00:48:56] Monica: Both families.
[00:48:58] Antonio: My parents. I even went through it in 2008 in terms of the crash and had a couple of homes and went through that. So there’s a bit of a fear in terms of not making– and then you have a child and we’re raising a family. It’s like, you don’t want to make that same mistake.
[00:49:12] And I think we’ve done so many things to improve our relationship as people in terms of going to therapy and these things in terms of changing behaviors. We love our parents, but there’s certain behaviors that we want to change to instill in our life as we go forward. And we want to do that with the finances as well.
[00:49:36] And listening to you, it brought up the point of like, maybe a house isn’t the investment that we want to go. Maybe there’s other options and maybe there’s other ways that are more secure and help us attain that Rich Life in the ways that we want to experience it.
[00:49:54] Ramit: I think that’s probably true, especially because you live in a very high cost of living city and I think because you’re hyper aware of real estate, what’s been the family history. But I guess I want to zoom out for a second. I want to say the two of you, parents have given you a lot in terms of knowledge.
[00:50:19] They’ve given you generational wealth, not maybe through money, but generational wealth through opportunities and through teaching you and introducing you to new ideas and people. So the first thing I just want to recognize is that you are doing very well relative to most people in America. Do you recognize that?
[00:50:41] Antonio: I’m more self-aware. She’s more critical of herself with just the behavior and the responsibility that she has and has been instilled with her.
[00:50:49] Ramit: Let me ask you, Monica. Do you recognize that? Can we put those numbers back up?
[00:50:56] Monica: I hear you.
[00:50:57] Ramit: Mm-hmm.
[00:50:59] Monica: But the honest answer is no.
[00:51:01] Ramit: Okay. Fair answer. So you hear me. You can even see these numbers with a lot of zeros. There’s a lot. Investments, 200,000. Gross monthly income, almost 20,000. But you’re telling me you don’t feel it here.
[00:51:18] Monica: Right.
[00:51:18] Ramit: Okay. Why do you think that is?
[00:51:23] Monica: Because of the way that I grew up.
[00:51:24] Ramit: Probably.
[Narration]
[00:51:26] Ramit: It’s so interesting to me that such high earners can have such negative feelings about money. Remember, the way we feel about money is highly uncorrelated with the amount in our bank account. But now that we are starting to understand where they came from and how they watched their family struggle with money, it’s starting to make more sense.
[00:51:46] They’re setting these enormous goals for themselves, a property with an ADU, help for Antonio’s father. Yet have you noticed that nowhere in this conversation have they talked about the things they would like to spend money on for themselves? I’m also concerned about their own future. They have $200,000 earmarked for retirement, but Antonio’s 48 years old. I would like to see them focus on their own future as well as their parents.
[00:52:11] Otherwise, you know what’s going to happen? This cycle will continue for yet another generation. In fact, there’s a very specific reason that Monica and Antonio feel behind, even though they are earning way more than most Americans. Listen, as I give them my perspective.
[Interview]
[00:52:28] Ramit: You grew up not having enough, feeling stressed about money. And then both of your parents lost houses and have gone through a variety of different financial journeys. Yet, combined the two of you make high income, household income. What I notice, there’s probably many reasons and definitely things to dig into with a therapist.
[00:52:58] What I notice is that you have unconsciously set such a high bar that you can actually never be successful by that standard. Looking at the numbers, you’re quite successful. Yes, we can talk about your investments and guilt-free spending. We can do that. I’ll give you some quick things right now. But if your standard is I need to buy a house with an ADU in California for my parents, how many people can actually do that?
[00:53:30] We all know how expensive that is, don’t we? That’s an almost impossible standard. So by setting that, you are unconsciously recreating that feeling of not having enough. The same one that feels so familiar that you grew up with, now making $240,000 a year, you’re still feeling it simply because you’re recreating that story. How does that strike you?
[00:53:58] Monica: Never thought of it that way.
[00:54:01] Ramit: Tell me more.
[00:54:02] Monica: Yeah, I think my whole life I’ve probably expected this and was trying to set myself up mentally for what it was going to take to get to that place. And it just feels like it’s never enough.
[00:54:20] Ramit: Right, right. What a tragedy to have accomplished as much as the two of you have and to never feel like it’s enough. I think there’s a very different way to look at it. First of all, is just appreciating what your parents gave you, what you two have taken and run with and accomplished. Huge, huge. Not many can say that. So that is the first thing.
[00:54:48] And if I’m you, I’m spending a lot more time in conversations about money, talking about, look how far we’ve come. Look where we came from. I was walking around San Francisco today, and I lived here in my 20s, early 30s, and I was walking around my old neighborhood and just really taking it in with my wife. Look how far I came. Oh, I used to go to that coffee shop. And it felt good to look at that and then to contrast it with where I am. I appreciate where I came from. I would love for you to do the same.
[00:55:19] On the financial side, I’m going to make a few more specific recommendations. If I’m looking at your spending, investing, etc., I think I would immediately take the guilt-free spending and I would probably cut it in half. And going through your guilt-free spending, it was quite detailed. You really laid it out. But there’s 0% going to investments.
[00:55:47] So typically I say 20 to 35%. In your case, particularly since you started investing later in life, you can cut that quite a bit. 15% is a good place to start. Especially on your income, 15% is a lot. But all of that remainder of the money can go towards investments. You have a car payment. It’s going to be over in a couple of years, I think. 400 or so bucks a month. I would invest all of that directly. Don’t get a new car. Keep that as long as you can. If you can do all of those things, you’ll have over $2 million in retirement. It’s a good start.
[00:56:27] It’s a good start for investing aggressively later in life. By the way, I’m going for the most conservative look, which is, Antonio, your retirement because you’re a little older. If you let that money sit, it will grow considerably. The house, realistically in the next five years, you’re not going to buy a house with an ADU. That’s okay.
[00:56:52] Sometimes the best thing we can do with a Rich Life is to be honest with ourselves and the people around us. You don’t actually need to buy a house to achieve having your parents live with you altogether. Might be a little tighter than you wanted, but if you can get creative about it, that would be my challenge for you. Basically, I wouldn’t set a goal, if you want to live in California, of buying a house with an ADU, because you’ll forever feel behind. So find another way. Do you think that that’s possible?
[00:57:23] Monica: Yeah, that’s fair.
[00:57:24] Ramit: Okay, okay. I think above all, we need the two of you to focus on your financial future, to get aligned. There’s a lot of family history. You want to honor your family. You want to take care of them. I totally respect that. I get it. But I also want you to have a plan, a plan, so that you are both taken care of with your retirement because the clock is ticking. And you got to feel good about it. You can’t go the next 17 years, 30 years feeling horrible. You just can’t. No one can run a marathon that long. And hate what they’re doing. So do you think that you can find a way to prioritize yourselves, do it together, and to feel good about your journey?
[00:58:09] Monica: Yeah, I do.
[00:58:10] Antonio: I definitely think so.
[00:58:10] Ramit: In the spirit of wanting you to change the way you feel about your journey, my team spoke to your parents, and I’d love for us to take a look.
[00:58:23] Monica’s Dad: We are very proud that you guys are already looking for an answer, looking for a plan, looking for a system that is going to get you where you want to go, and you guys are including us. I’m grateful. I’m proud. I think the torch has been passed, the values have been transferred. That alone is enough, more than enough. Make us feel really proud.
[00:58:52] Monica’s Mom: I love you both, and we’re rooting for you. We’re wishing you the best. [Applause].
[00:58:57] Ramit: What do you see when you see your parents up there?
[00:59:14] Monica: The people I love. The people who gave me the life that I have now.
[00:59:19] Ramit: Yeah. I think you’ve done an amazing job taking the torch, as your dad said, carrying it on. I want you two to put yourselves first, prioritize. You can still take care of your family, feel good along the way, and everyone else will be able to sense that feeling that the two of you have as a team. Monica and Antonio, can we give it up for them? Thank you so much. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much.
[Narration]
[00:59:50] Ramit: Monica and Antonio are doing so many things right. They’ve got strong careers, a great income, a deep commitment to their family, but they are also carrying this invisible burden, the pressure to make their parents’ sacrifices worth it. And that’s when you can start to create unrealistic standards, like feeling that if you cannot buy a house with an ADU in California, you failed.
[01:00:15] Let’s be honest. For the vast majority of people, that is not realistic. That feeling of not enough does not come from their incomes. It comes from the expectations they have invisibly internalized, but never really talked about. Now, when it comes to money, a lot of people resort to going right back to the budget. We need a budget. We need to track a budget.
[01:00:36] You don’t need a [Bleep] budget. What you actually need is a new story, a new way of looking at money, a new set of lenses to put on and then the systems to bring that story to life. If the story in your head is, I’m on my own, or I have to take care of everyone else, because if I don’t, I lose control and everything falls apart, then no budget in the world will ever make you feel safe.
[01:01:03] Oh, it’s easy. You can certainly create a budget, change some numbers. Ugh. It can feel productive. I can knock it out in five seconds for you. But changing your story, that takes work. And that is where real meaningful change happens, especially for couples who are willing to rewrite their story together.
[01:01:24] If you’re coming into the new year and you want to rewrite your story around money, if you want to stop feeling overwhelmed and behind, and you actually want to feel excited about money, even if you have debt, even if you’re not sure about what to do next, I want you to check out my Money Coaching program. You’ll get access to me, my team, and a whole community of people who are going to help you stick to your Rich Life goals. It’s not negative, punitive budgeting. It’s creating a Rich Life. And you can join at iwt.com/moneycoaching.
[01:01:57] A huge thank you to both couples who were brave enough to join me on stage in front of our live San Francisco audience, and to my amazing, beautiful wife, Cassandra, who makes me want to continue rewriting our story together every single day. We’re going to get to their follow ups in just a second, and I want you to watch until the end, because we reached out to these couples a full year after this was recorded, so make sure you stick around.
[01:02:22] First up, Finn and Luna.
[01:02:25] Luna: I’ve realized that I am quite a bit of a dreamer, and so I’m taking steps to become more of a planner, and that includes listening to, I Will Teach You to Be Rich, and then following along with the steps at the end of the chapter. So I can see myself aligning my goals with my husband’s goals, and we’re able to agree a lot more and disagree a lot less just since starting to create our Rich Life. So thank you so much to Ramit and thank you so much to his team, and we’ll keep you updated in the future. Peace.
[01:02:58] Finn: We have decided to do a study time every week with the book where we spend an hour of reading the book and making it to do list. So we’re just going through the book and going step by step and figuring things out, and I can feel it coming together, and I’m so stoked to see what the next year of learning has in store for us.
[01:03:22] Ramit: And now let’s hear from Monica and Antonio.
[01:03:25] Monica: Since we last met, we reduced our everything else by 30 to 40%. Fully funded for both Antonio and myself Roth IRAs for last year, and are in the works of fully funding Roth IRAs for this year. We were able to start saving about 600 to $800 a month every month now. Our son’s daycare costs will reduce by about 40 to 50% in two months. So there’s light at the end of the tunnel as far as daycare costs. So we’ll be able to start saving around 1400, $1,500 monthly.
[01:04:03] Antonio: More.
[01:04:04] Monica: More, yes.
[01:04:05] Antonio: In addition to what we’re saving.
[01:04:07] Monica: Still working on my money mindset. Still very much love my parents and hope to be able to help them in the future. But putting ourselves first, and we are in the process of looking for a financial advisor that works best for us. And we’ve interviewed a couple so far, and we have a few more to interview to help us decide what to do with the rest of our savings.
[01:04:33] Ramit: Now let’s hear from them a full year later and see what kind of progress they’ve made.
[01:04:39] Finn: Well, it’s been about a year since Luna and I were on stage with Ramit. A lot has happened since then. When we walked out that night, we had nothing in place. We had no system. We never opened up an investment account. We had no IRAs. We’ve never had a credit card ever. And so it’s a year later and we’ve got all that in place.
[01:05:00] We basically opened up the Charles Schwab investment account. We took the money out of our [Bleep] banks and invested it into the S&P 500. We’ve got our conscious spending plan down to a perfect pie chart.
[01:05:12] And then we send 10% of what we make for the month into our [Bleep] banks. So that’s our guilt-free spending. And then we invest the rest into the S&P 500. We took our toes out of the crypto game. We started to agree that building wealth shouldn’t be boring, and that was too much of a wild ride.
[01:05:30] So we got out while we were on top and put that into the S&P 500. So, yeah, the best advice I could give anybody out there is to actually read the book and do the work, and you’ll find yourself in a different life, and it’s a much safer, better life for us. Yeah, we’re very grateful for that night.
[01:05:50] Antonio: Hello, Ramit and team. We want to give you an update as far as you know what’s happened.
[01:05:56] Monica: So since we met in January, we were on the hunt for a financial advisor. We were able to fully fund last year’s Roth IRAs and started contributing towards our retirement funds in a larger amount monthly.
[01:06:13] Antonio: I did get laid off back in July, which has been a bit stressful, but the same time we had I guess the safety of the emergency fund to take some time off, rethink where I wanted to go in terms of next direction, next steps.
[01:06:29] Monica: I think for me, what’s changed the most in the last year with Antonio’s layoff, and my father had some serious heart health issues this year, my view on what our savings should go to and view on money has changed completely. I now see all of our savings as freedom.
[01:06:51] So I feel like it all worked out the way it was supposed to, and now I don’t have one single vision for our finances, but realize that it’s there for a reason and it’s there to help us in times of need. I don’t feel as stressed about the needing to continue to save at a significant rate. It’s been really helpful to have that money available.
[01:07:12] Antonio: Thanks for all your help and advice and support. It definitely gave us that different perspective to put those priorities in place and have that time and space for family and our loved ones.
[01:07:22] Monica: And I will be able to renegotiate my contract. I will be increasing my hours more than likely next year. So I’m in a good place to be able to do that, and I love what I do for work, and hopefully, Antonio will hear back from a few companies soon.
[01:07:42] Antonio: Thanks, guys. Take care.
