113. “I feel like the parent in our marriage. And I hate it”
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Before we start today's show, I have a really exciting announcement that I've been wanting to share for a long time. On January 1st, 2025, I'm releasing a new book called Money for Couples. For the last three years, you've heard me on this podcast speaking to different couples every single Tuesday. I've spoken to over 170 couples on this show about their money psychology, the money messages they heard from their family, the peculiar dynamics that they have around money and where they get stuck.

and how they can get on the same page. Well, behind the scenes, I've been working on the definitive book to help couples get on the same page with money, and that's what I wrote for you. It's coming out January 1st, and in the book, I'm going to share how to talk about money, including the exact words to use, when to talk about it, how to teach your kids about money, even the exact agenda and account setup that my wife and I use in our finances.

I'm going to show the tactics to make instant improvements, like how to set up your accounts to automatically work together and how to assess your financial health.

And finally, you're going to get a deeper understanding of money psychology in your relationship. And you're going to discover why you and your partner see money differently and how to get on the same page. Now, it's one thing to listen to couples or watch couples every single week. I love doing that for you. But it's a whole different thing to be able to have the book and to be able to work through it with your partner. Okay?

I'm so excited to get this book in your hands. You can pre-order it using the link IWT.com slash money for couples and stay tuned for a lot more on this book this year. Again, go to IWT.com slash money for couples to pre-order my new book about getting on the same financial page as your partner.

Um, what the hell is going on on this podcast that like 80% of the people who come on here go through massive screening, fill out applications, they never actually read my book. Is anyone else puzzled by this? Look, a lot of the questions that you ask me about money are answered directly in I Will Teach You To Be Rich. How do you pay off your student loans? How do you automate your finances? Where do you start investing and how do you handle big purchases?

I wrote this book as a six-week program so you can follow along on your own or with a partner. If you want to improve your finances, I recommend you get the I Will Teach You To Be Rich book. It has over 18,000 reviews on Amazon. Get it at iwt.com slash book. Acting took me some great places and then I came back.

home to New York and all of a sudden none of that fucking mattered. Like you were just another shithead serving steaks. Being a waiter actor sort of makes you feel like you're failing in life. I went from being someone respected in my field to just some schlub and that I think made me feel pretty diminished for a long time.

made my alcoholism that much worse. You know, I have a really hard time admitting that I'm worth saving my money for. There's tension because we always feel broke, even though we have tons of money. I feel sometimes like I don't have the tools necessary to live up to the expectations I promised I could meet. My reaction is to

Back away from all things money related because I'm scared. I'm scared of money, to be honest. I'd like you to meet Nicole, who's 41, and Matt, who's 37. They've been together for nine years, and you can tell in this conversation that they really love each other. But in their relationship, there's been alcoholism, family deaths, and career difficulties. And all of that has left lasting marks that make it hard for Nicole and Matt to be on the same page about money.

Nicole feels that Matt doesn't care, that she's always in the front seat pulling him along. And in fact, he will even admit that. But recently, he started making a lot more money. And he's realized that even though he's making more, he continues to struggle with his money psychology. Let's get into today's conversation. We share a budgeting tool together. You know, I mean, and the truth is that I use this budgeting tool and

He'll occasionally jump in and try to make sure that everything's in order. And I was kind of going through and making sure that everything was where it was supposed to be. I checked in on his budget piece and I saw that he had a credit card interest payment that got charged. And what happened when you saw that interest charge? I got pretty upset and I came to talk to him about it. Hey, what's going on? You told me that you paid your credit card off in full. What did you say to her?

I'm sorry, I'll fix it. And I did. But it doesn't mean that behavior that caused that to occur isn't a problem. The illustration there of kind of not being on the same page is that an interest charge, 35 bucks, whatever it is, all that stuff adds up. I've got future plans in mind that I want

this money to go toward, right? When these sort of things slip through the cracks, it makes me feel like we don't have our, we're not both looking at the same big vision. Is it about the $35? Like if you incurred a $35 interest charge every three months for the rest of your life, would you be able to afford that? Yeah, it's not about that. It's about the, it's like the principle of the thing. And it's about, you know, feeling like things are being kept for me. And so when you mentioned that you,

are the one who primarily logs into the budgeting app and then you check on his budget. When you check on it, what does that mean? I'll check in to see if it's updated. I'll check in to see if he's where he told me he is. You know, if the savings looks like what we've talked about and if, you know, the credit cards are paid off. I wasn't entirely surprised to see that. How would you characterize that relationship where you check in on his budget?

It's like a parent child. I hate it. You know, I hate it. I don't think that's a healthy relationship for partners. You know, it puts me in a position to have to feel like I'm, I'm the boss and I have to come in and like, you know, tell somebody else to be responsible. And like, it just doesn't, I don't know. It doesn't create a good environment between us. Right. How long have you two been together?

Nine years. And how long have you been what you would characterize as the parent when it comes to money? The whole time. Day one. Yeah. What? What do you mean day one? Like date one? No. Date two. Yeah, right. How did that come up on date two? Well, no, as soon as we started spending a lot of time together, I was living in Manhattan. I'm an actor and I've always been just getting by, just paying the rent and

Nicole had this great corporate job, a salary. That was something I was not familiar with. That was something that was astounding to me. And I have a really hard time getting out of this mindset of earn it, spend it. And I've also got...

I've got addiction issues. I'm a recovering alcoholic. I've got impulse issues. And that all adds up to how I spend my money. I just built bad habits, I think. And I never got a system in place to take control of that and to put away for my future. Just so I'm clear, are you in recovery?

Yeah. Okay. Five years. Oh, congratulations. Was your spending behavior different when you were not in recovery versus when you got into recovery? Well, I was spending a lot less money on booze.

But I don't think that that happens. That doesn't surprise me. Since COVID actually gave me an opportunity to get a job in tech, and now I'm earning a salary. And we always say that now we have a partnership. I would say the last year and a half or so has been more like a financial partnership instead of this

parent relationship. And I understand why Nicole was so upset about the credit card thing, because I spent so many years lying to myself, promising myself I would do better, but I never really did. And you know how an addict talks, oh, I'll be good for you. You know me, I'll be good next time. I'll be good. And it just felt a little bit like that.

when she noticed that discrepancy, that charge of interest. And it really didn't feel good. I was really excited that we were going to be able to talk to you because I need some guidance. I don't know how to... I always said I was never a numbers guy, but that's really just an excuse to be lazy, I think. Matt, you used to be an actor, right?

I'm still an actor. You're still an actor. Okay. So do you act, do you get paid for acting work that you do? Okay. And I assume that that is sporadic or like variable income. Is that fair? Okay. And then you have a full-time job, which is what freelance or is it W2? No, that's a, that's a full-time salary position. Stable income. Yeah.

I did a few things like making sure I take money out to put toward my 401k. I put aside a little bit of money in an emergency fund. But day to day, I'm not really changing. I just have simple tastes and like 10 times more money than I used to. So I'm doing spending maybe twice as much as I was, but earning a lot more. That spending hasn't really changed since then?

the addiction has stopped because I think the real difference is that he's got more money now and can sort of cover himself, right? He was in a position before where, you know, every paycheck, every dollar was like just making it to the next one. It's, is it one of those examples where

Somebody has bad habits with money and they start making a lot more and the habits don't really change at all. There's just more money to use the same habits with. I think so. Why are you paying off credit cards manually, Matt? I don't know. You're asking a six-year-old how the car operates. I don't even know how to set up an automatic pay. Like, honestly, it's, I have not given myself the time to think about how to do this properly because it's just,

I just like get it done, like taking my medicine and move on with my day. And I don't think about it again until I have to think about it. Okay, that's a fair answer. What I'm already hearing is,

certain behaviors that are more indicative of someone just starting out their career, someone in a career with really variable income, like an actor. They're always like, am I going to have enough to make it by this month? I got to borrow from here. But you're not in that situation anymore. I need refreshers because I don't,

emotionally invest in this stuff. I've really got to find a way to make it more meaningful to me, at least a little bit. My expenses are chaotic and erratic. And if I had set a specific amount to pay off each month, I don't think that I'm afraid I wouldn't have it or... Do you like money? My reaction is to back away from all things money related because I...

I'm scared. I'm scared of money, to be honest. Yeah. And so when you think about it, what does it feel like? It feels a little overwhelming to me, to be honest. Thinking about how I'm going to split up and what I need to survive and what I need to enjoy my life. And I would like to be making enough money that I don't have to think about it. Are you? Not yet. How much do you need to make more? I think if I could do about...

Nicole, back me up here. If you think my numbers are right, if I could double what I'm making. Okay. Hold on. I have a question for you. If you doubled your income, would you still be manually checking on your credit card every month? Tell the truth. Nicole's smiling. I don't know. I like to intervene and do it manually. I feel like I'm taking more control of it, maybe. I don't know. I do it too. Okay. You do it too. Why? You like the control?

Oh, yeah. You both like control? Yeah. No one's into control over money as much as I am. Oh, okay. You're like a 10 out of 10 controller. Yeah, yeah. Does it work for you? Yeah. I mean, define work. If work is like constant anxiety over money, even as a person who has money, then yes, it is working so good. Is there another definition of work that we might use? Like, what might my definition of money working for me mean?

Knowing that your money is going to the places where it needs to go and where you want it to go. Yeah. And then not worrying about it. Yeah. And just living the life that it gives you. Do you ever see a future where that's possible for you? I think it would take a lot of work. A lot of big, big anxiety tied up with that.

feeling like I have enough and feeling like I'm going to be able to, you know, like having enough now is going to translate into having enough down the road. Yeah. And is that independent of Matt? If Matt were not in the picture, would you still feel that way? Yes, absolutely. I think that it is amplified having a partner who, you know, I like, I don't know if we're going to get there again. Do you only talk about money when there's a problem?

I mean, for a long time, there were only problems. So... And from the beginning...

Nicole made it very clear from the beginning of the relationship. I want to partner, even if we're contributing 70, 30, contribute what, what you can toward our future toward paying for renovations for the house and trips. We love to travel. It's very important part of our lives. And she wasn't going to be in a relationship with someone who couldn't do it. And I thought I could, and I tried and I'm just not very good at,

keeping that promise, I guess. But I want to take a little bit of the onus off of her because she made it very clear from the beginning what she wanted. And finally, during COVID, you said, okay, like you lost your job. You got to find something else because you have to bring in some money. And then he did. Yes. Any lessons from that? The first lesson was like, why didn't you do this?

How many years ago? Because you always were capable of doing it. And what is the answer to your own question? Why didn't he do it? Can you answer that for me, please? Nicole? Because he wasn't ready. I don't know. Maybe there wasn't enough pain. Keep going.

And oh, I see. Yeah, because there were no consequences, right? Because he would fall short and I would pay for the thing and we'd get to still go on the trips and like do all the fun stuff and go out to dinner. And like, I'd be pissed about it, but apparently that wasn't enough. So that just becomes part of the relationship. You turn this into an episode of intervention. The enabler. I mean, pain, what we think of as pain,

is construed differently by different people. To have one partner a little pissed off once in a while is very acceptable to most people in a relationship, especially if you get to live a good life and travel and et cetera. And we have these sort of cultural examples of the Costanzas and this and that, like, oh, ha, ha, ha, ha. They're always sniping at each other. It's funny. But I think what's happened now is that

From what you two have told me, you've had this huge change in your relationship and the income and now you both have more money than ever before and the dynamics have changed, but there's still some remnants of those old behaviors and attitudes. And that's concerning. Right. Am I reading it right, Matt? Yeah. There are a couple clues I want to highlight.

First, it's always so funny how people have this deep belief about how they'll act one day in the future. And if you ask them even a single question, their entire belief structure often just crumbles. Matt's like, I need to double my income to not have to think about it. I'm like, if you tripled your income, would you still be logging into your credit cards manually? And then he sheepishly admits, yeah, he would. And that he likes control. Then Nicole goes, I like control.

I go, is it working? She goes, well, I feel constant anxiety over money, so I guess not. Honestly, I just love these answers. They are so real. Most people have very little insight into their own attitudes and behaviors. We think we know what makes us happy, but really, we often just mimetically chase what other people do, which is why so many people end up buying a house in the suburbs, or getting a fancy car, making a certain amount of money,

and still feeling empty inside. So whenever someone tells me, if I had $5 million, I would never, I just start going, in my head, I'm already thinking about something soothing, like my favorite hotel rooms around the world. You don't know what you would do with $5 million or $10 million. We don't know what we would do in different life circumstances. We often don't even know why we bought that thing last Thursday.

This podcast is about helping you understand why you do the things you do so you can live your rich life.

You know how many people's conscious spending plans I see every week? What's fascinating is the categories of spending, especially the ones where people spend way more than they think they do. For example, subscriptions. Let's take a look at some recent numbers on how much people spend on subscriptions. $100 a month on subscriptions. $205 a month. That's from someone spending 76% of their take home each month on fixed costs.

$211 a month, $147 a month, and $487 a month. This is literally thousands of dollars a year, and most of us have forgotten about all the subscriptions we are actually paying for.

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My team and I create tons of material every single day. Scripts, voiceovers, emails, all kinds of material that we need to be good and we need it to happen fast. And one of the things we use is Grammarly, especially their new AI tool. For example, every Saturday, we send out my podcast newsletter. I break down an anonymous person's conscious spending plan. And I like going really deep to break down the numbers and show you things you might have missed in your own finances.

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Living under a bridge. Thank you. Thank you. That's real, right? Have you ever said that before? Yes, many times. And where did you get that message from? What movie? What mom or friend said that to you? I don't know. We always feel broke, even though we have tons of money. Nobody ever knows. Nicole, did you grow up poor?

No, no, no. Middle class. Where did this come from? This need of like, oh my God, I'm going to end up in a van and I'm going to lose it. Where did it come from? You know, I think sort of seeing people I know and relatives get to their retirement and not be in the position that they thought they were going to be in or...

That they're on a very fixed income. So they can't do anything? They can't do anything. And these are folks who I had always thought of as really like having their shit together. And, you know, the travelers and the family who was always hosting and had the pool and had it all together. And, you know, now life looks very different. There was a moment when they had to sell their house when they couldn't afford the house anymore. And then sell the house and move to a new and much smaller place.

in an area that they didn't want to live in. And, you know, now they're waiting for sales at Walmart to make it to the next paycheck. And that was never the case. Do you think that they know what happened? They understand?

I don't know. It's very difficult for us to make the connection between what we do now, for example, in your 30s and 40s with what happens 25 years from now. It's very difficult. It's even harder to look back in your 60s and 70s. First of all, just mathematically, we don't understand compounding and things like that. But psychologically, it's really devastating to look back and admit,

oh my gosh, that pool actually cost me $500,000 when I add up all the expenses. It's really hard. We would never say that. Nobody who's seven years old would say, they would say, well, we loved it with our grandkids. I'm glad you took that lesson away, Nicole, but I wonder if there's a way to do it more positively, less fear-based. What would that look like if you were to say, instead of, I don't want to end up in a van,

What could you say instead that would be more constructive? I think I'm not in that same position and I am making conscious choices now so that I won't be in that position. Financially speaking. How does that feel? That feels really good. And that last piece, I mean, I don't think I'll get there without him. Yeah.

And if I can interject with something, I think that just by virtue of being the intelligent, careful and fantastic person you are, you're already on the trajectory not to end up that way. I'm not saying that things can't happen. I'm not saying that things are automatically going to go according to plan, but you don't have to try so hard. You already do it just by virtue of being true to yourself.

We've also had a series of deaths in the family where they were in, I'm not going to say dire straits, but complicated financial situations and having to be the ones who cleaned all that up really put it into perspective that we can't be like this when it's our time to go. We don't want to leave our loved ones with a bunch of bills to pay. The deaths in the family, were they unexpected?

Yeah, my uncle passed away. I was his caretaker for the last couple of years. I mean, spectacularly terrible with paperwork and with, you know, so we had to learn a lot really fast about how to manage a lot of this stuff. And

get a will put together and make sure that his home was in his name and not the name of his ex-partner of, you know, from 20 years ago. What did you learn from that process of your uncle passing away? And I'm sorry, he passed away. I think how much, there were a couple of things. I mean, how much people will just ignore the circumstances that are right in front of them.

Um, to, I mean, you know, my, my uncle going through this had a year and a half and probably a good portion of that. He was in good enough health that he could have taken care of a lot of these things and he just didn't want to talk about it. Didn't want to deal with it. And so, and, and seeing how each time he put these decisions off.

It was exponentially more difficult for us to get them taken care of down the road. Right. I'm curious what lessons you took away for yourself. That I don't want to be that kind of a burden for my nieces and my family. I also took away how much easier it is, frankly, to die when you have resources. Right.

Okay. Thank you for that. Matt, were you involved in Nicole's process with her uncle? Yes, very much so. You were? Okay. What lessons did you take away? Denial is a powerful thing. It can change a person from an intelligent business person to...

shell of a person just trying to get by without any real options in their life. It can force you into a corner until you have no freedom left. I think he was afraid to face a lot of things. Fear of facing his bad choices. Fear of facing the reality of the situation, of how much time he had wasted doing this or that instead of

making sure he had a better future, pretending things didn't exist. Like his sickness, he would constantly talk about how it was not a big deal. And it really was. And the same thing was true with his finances. Did you ever do any of those things in your own life, Matt? Oh, yeah. Oh, procrastinate? Yep. Okay. So you see the similarities between her uncle and your own decisions? Definitely. And does it change anything for you?

No, I don't think it does. First of all, all you freaks are going to die. It's going to happen. Why are we so afraid to talk about it? I already told my wife the several conditions under which I don't want to live anymore. For example, if I can't squat at least 225 for one rep, end it. I made my parents talk about a will, an appointing an executor. If you can't even discuss the fact that you're going to die, how are you going to live a rich life?

It's impossible. You're not even acknowledging basic biology, much less calculating how much money you need, how compound interest works, none of it. It's like sitting there asking an orangutan to run a nuclear reactor. They don't know what a button is. Whatever, you don't want to talk about your impending death. It's your life. Back to Nicole and Matt. Now let's get specific with their vision. Let's focus on Matt, who hasn't allowed himself the space to dream when it comes to his money.

And when I do that, it actually opens up a pretty interesting conversation. One of the worst feelings in life is feeling stuck.

You hear it sometimes with podcast couples here. They feel stuck around their money. I felt stuck in my business. I had made a bunch of decisions years ago and I woke up feeling trapped. So after thinking about it, feeling stuck, not sure what to do, I went to a CEO council that I'm a part of and I just laid it out. And after listening to me, they were like, oh, it's so obvious. You need to change this, move this person over here, change this resource allocation. Boom.

I wish I had done it years earlier. If you feel stuck in your career and you also wish you had a group of peers who could help you get unstuck,

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Elevate your style using Next Level Wardrobe at nextlevelwardrobe.com slash Ramit. That's nextlevelwardrobe.com slash Ramit. I wish there was more specificity around what he wants. Ask him. I'll listen. What do you want? What do you want the money to do for you? And like, where do you want to be? What do you want to do?

In some ways, I don't know how to be more specific than I already have. I want to be able to live to 110 in a nice retirement community with a pool. And I want to go to Japan every year for the rest of my life. And I want to eat at five-star restaurants with you and have a house full of dogs.

Yeah, that's great. I often feel like I'm in the driver's seat. You know, like I say, hey, you know, I want this. I want to be moving toward this goal. I want this kind of house. I want, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And a lot of times it feels like you just say, yeah, me too. I'll do that too. But when you are so concise and clear and your ideas are so good, what else can I say? Like,

Like what, I'm not going to have a competing idea to your great idea to get us this house. It was fantastic. I know that you feel like I'm not engaged enough, but just saying, yeah, okay. That means that I agree with you. So if we are both thinking the same thing, why would I have more input? I'm looking for like an improv. Yes. And I think, you know, sure. Okay. I'll keep that in mind. Nicole, can you tell him why you're looking for that? I think,

It goes back to feeling like we have this kind of parent-child relationship. And I don't want to feel like I'm just dragging you into doing the things that I want to do.

What do you want to feel like if you're right now you're dragging him? Like, uh, what, what are those things on a boat? You pull people on a boat with those. No, like a jet ski or whatever. As you can tell, I don't really do water sports. Yeah. That's the metaphor that you currently have. He's in the back. He's having the, he's having the time of his life. Yeah. He's like, Oh, he's got one of those sofas, you know, you're like flipping around. He's having a great time. You're in the boat. You're deciding, do I turn left? Do I turn right? Am I going too fast? I got to look behind me. Is the wake too big?

What's a different metaphor for what you would like instead of this boat? You know, those things that bachelorette parties ride on where, you know, everybody's in the back pedaling together. Like in Nashville? Like a bike bar. Yes. What do you think, Matt? You want to get on the bike bar in Nashville as a bachelorette? Look, look, even the... Then we're both having fun. Even the bike bar only goes in one direction.

I have a feeling, Matt, you seem like a pretty smart guy. I have a feeling you could have a really great idea that's actually better than Nicole's. From what I have observed, you've mentioned travel, dogs, Japan. Matt, take one of those that's meaningful to you. Which one would it be? Right now, Japan. Love it. Who plans your trips to Japan? We both do. All right. That's good. That's a great answer.

Matt, what would make your next trip to Japan magical? Not just nice, not even great, but truly magical. Well, we're going in August and we're going to be there during the Festival of the Dead. And I'm going to be lighting a candle for my brother who passed away in October. And it's going to be really special.

Sorry to hear about your brother. It's okay. That would make it really special. I love that. It sounds like you're planning to do that and honor him. Is this a trip centered around the memory of your brother? No, we just happened to go places where cool shit is happening. We were just in Lisbon and they were just doing Mardi Gras. And it's just, I don't know, we just go and it just happens to be the best time to be there.

I don't know how it happens. There's something special about that. So keep going on that for me. You're there. You have your brother's memory. You're honoring that. That alone is very special. And maybe there's a reason that you're ending up in Japan at that very specific time. What would make this trip memorable for you, magical for the two of you? It would be great to go away for...

three weeks without wondering about paying Nicole back for anything, because that has been the relationship pretty much so far. She puts out the money and I spend a few months paying her back. If we could just go with everything already paid for, that would be very satisfying. What would it feel like to you? It would feel, um, it would feel grown up every, every time I hit, um,

Every time I hit a milestone financially, I feel more grown up. I love that. Being a waiter sort of makes you feel, being a waiter actor sort of makes you feel like you're failing in life. I was 32 or 33 feeling like I was 21. And you felt like that because what? Because I was living...

Off tips, paycheck to paycheck, not setting anything aside, not planning anything financially. And you're not doing that anymore. No, not really. Have you internalized that? No, no. I have a really hard time admitting that I'm worth saving my money for and preparing a future for it. Being really poor for a really long time.

makes you, I don't know, makes some people, gives a fire to some people, puts a fire under their ass. For me, it made me feel like I was failing, made my alcoholism that much worse. And it's because of Nicole that I was able to stop drinking and start focusing on the things that are important. Wow. And I went to school and got my master's and I taught for years and acting took me some great places. And then I came back

home to New York. And all of a sudden, none of that fucking mattered. Like you were just another shithead serving steaks. And I remember coming back from grad school and then my fiance and I broke up and that was a terrible time in my life. And I didn't have anything, not even a chance to take a break and absorb that because I had to go back to work and start working my fingers to the bone right away, living in Manhattan, paying a lot of rent.

I went from being someone respected in my field to just some schlub and that I think made me feel pretty diminished for a long time. I just, I feel sometimes like I'm not, I don't have the tools necessary to live up to the expectations I promised I could meet. Still feel that way or no? I'm searching. No, I don't think so. Okay. I don't think so.

Nicole, I noticed you were also wiping away some tears hearing that from Matt. Can you tell us why? Hearing him talk about not feeling worthy, you know, wondering if I've contributed to that. It is huge to go from working, you know, in the service industry for your whole career to pivoting to sitting at a desk and being in tech and not just doing it, but being great at it.

which he has been. He doesn't give himself the credit. He doesn't take the time to really ingest kind of what an amazing transition he's made. You want to tell them? And what a huge deal it is. What you've done in the last three years. And I see this in you every time you apply yourself, whether it's your sobriety or making this career transition. It is, I've never seen anybody do work like that.

for themselves. I'm so proud of you. And I, you know, I hope I tell you that enough, but I'm so proud of you. It's not easy and it's not something that everybody could do. Thank you. I love hearing that. Matt, how do you receive that from Nicole? How does it strike you? I love her so much. And I, I appreciate her for that. She saved my life. She got me to stop drinking. She got me to believe in myself again. She got me to. But you did that. You know what I love about

hearing from the two of you is a lot of gratitude. I really, really love it. And it's very clear. It's evident. There's a very complex relationship you both have with money individually and together. And a lot of it is operating rationally from the situation you used to be in. Nicole making way more, Matt having sporadic income, Matt being an alcoholic.

all different dynamics, uncles passing away. It makes sense, but it's not serving you anymore. And I wonder if there's a way for us to change this dynamic to more align with where you both are in life. Yeah, I hope so. Matt? I hope so too, but I don't know what the answer to that is. I was going to say it's going to take trust from both of us. Mm-hmm.

Let's go back and forth, one by one. Toss the ball back to each other. Nicole went, now Matt. Any kind of reliable technique, any kind of system that I can use because I feel like I'm floundering sometimes. Matt, I overheard you in the screening video, you said that you love systems and techniques, I believe. Did that come from your acting background? Yeah, I was...

Before I went to grad school, I just sort of flew by the seat of my pants. And then when I went to school, we went to the Moscow Art Theater School and I learned Russian techniques. I learned the Meisner technique. Makes you director proof. It makes you budget proof. You can do anything anywhere because you know how to do it step by step. Okay, I love that. So you see the power of a system. I like that a lot. Makes my job easier. Do you have any systems that you currently use with your money? No. Okay.

Honest answer. So can you imagine what it would feel like to put in a couple of systems and they just work? I would love that. Okay. Maybe one of us has to give up some control. Matt? Making sure we stick within budgets instead of saying, ah, fuck it. Okay. What's it going to take doing more of? Putting more of what we're doing on autopilot because it works. Matt, what's it going to take more of?

What did Nicole just do that really moved you just a couple of minutes ago? She told me that she was proud of me. What was she doing there? Expressing her gratitude. Yeah. I think you could do more of that. Yeah. Yes, I do. I think that would be great. What's it going to take doing less of in order for you to both update your views on money, Nicole? I think for me, at least, I need to get out of the weeds and stop doing

checking balances every day and yeah by the way when was the last time you logged into your account on your phone how many hours ago before we got on the line how many hours uh one one okay very nice so you have to stop playing in the weeds that would be checking accounts every day and like updating your spreadsheet all the time maybe not that

Can you imagine a future? Yeah. I can. Yeah. It's called utopia. Matt, what would you have to do less of to update your view on money? Add to cart. Oh, really? Just like buying random impulsive stuff. Do less of emotional shopping. Thank you. So when you're feeling down for whatever reason, you'll have to replace that behavior with something else. Cool. It works.

All right. What are you noticing as we do this little exercise, doing more, doing less, updating your view of the way you think, talk and behave with money? What are you both noticing? It feels we can focus on behaviors, right? I can look at things that I'm doing right. I can look at things that I'm doing wrong or that I should be doing less of. It takes a lot of the heaviness out of it.

Really, what talking about this does is peeling the onion, getting down to the core. The issue is emotion. The issue is emotional, addictive behavior, whether that's shopping or whatever, and an emotional need to control the money. And once those things are addressed, it'll be easier for the other things to fall into place.

You know, the addictive behavior is something that Matt should talk about with his therapist. But what you noticed me doing there is helping them rewrite their story and doing it in a very, very specific way. Nicole admitted that she checked her accounts one hour ago. Matt talked about his specific behavior of impulsive buying.

Changing your behavior takes getting very, very specific in acknowledging what's happening. That's specific attitudes, specific behaviors, and then coming up with a plan for change. Cognitive behavioral therapy is really effective at this type of therapy. And change also involves some softer skills like gratitude and appreciating how far you've come.

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Let's take a look at the numbers and then let's talk about some techniques. How about that? You can start with assets and then tell me the number next to it. 500,000. All right. Next up, investments. Go ahead, Matt. $350,000. And that includes my 401k. And my 401k. Great. Okay. Both your 401ks. Fantastic. Next up, savings.

Savings, $20,000. And that includes probably $1,000 from me and $19,000 from Nicole. All right. And debt? Debt, $450,000. And that includes $92,000 in student loans from me. And the rest is the mortgage and miscellaneous credit card debt. How much credit card debt? We would have to look at the breakdown because I... Like ballpark?

10? No. From where? I mean, last month we had 10. When we wrote this, we had 10. Oh, no, no, no. There's no credit card debt. All the credit cards get paid monthly. So there might have been $10,000. Hold on, hold on. Nicole, Nicole, hold on. Sorry. I want you to see this, okay? Watch this, Nicole. Yeah. Okay. Matt, when you mentioned credit card debt, what does credit card debt mean to you?

How much money you have to pay off on your credit card. Okay. So if you guys spend $10,000 on your credit card one month, how much credit card debt do you have? I feel like this is a trap, but I'm going to say 10,000. Okay. And if you pay it off in full, does that change your answer? Yeah. How so? It goes back to zero. Okay. So if you have $10,000 and you pay it off every month, do you have credit card debt? I guess not. No. Okay. Nicole, what did you hear there? That, what? That's sort of like,

different understanding. Yeah. It seems like you have a different understanding of money and financial systems than Matt does. Would that be fair to say for both of you? You agree? Yeah. Matt? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's fair. So look, let's just acknowledge that and then let's build from the ground up. You're absolutely right. And I think part of the challenge is that sometimes when we talk through this stuff and I try to explain it from that place,

I get a lot of, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I know, I know, I know. And so then I don't want to over-explain if he's telling me he understands. Remember the questions I was asking, what are you going to do more of? What are you going to need to do less of? Can you use that tool right here, right now? Yes. So do more of meeting him where he's at. Great. And Matt, what about for you? I could spend more time

going through regular finance stuff so that I don't get caught up on a question about what debt means? Well, let's take acting as an example. Like, let's say I walk onto a set day one, they start rolling. I don't know anything. Right. And I'm like, Matt, I really want to get good at this. It's important to me. Where should I start? And you're going to give me some books, some classes, some videos, et cetera. And you're basically going to say, learn the basic language of acting.

Right. And if I'm serious, I'm going to do it. And if I say anything other than yes, I'm probably not serious. Fair. All right. That's what I'm asking you. You got to learn the basic language of personal finance. It's not that complicated. I'll give you some specific thing you can do to learn it. But that way, Nicole's going to meet you where you are and you're going to rise up as well. The two of you are going to be able to build this together.

That was extremely important and it happened so fast it was almost imperceptible. Did you catch it? Matt has a totally different understanding of money compared to Nicole. She's so far ahead that she doesn't realize where Matt is starting from. Imagine your friend invites you to go for a jog tomorrow, but you know that they run marathons for fun. And when you go out there running two miles ahead of you looking back, even if they're being supportive, you're still going to feel like you're a burden to them.

So we have to acknowledge where each person is and then work from there. There's nothing wrong with not knowing about money. Fine. I don't know about a lot of stuff, but it's really important to find out if Matt thinks it's important to learn, which he does, and then to help him understand what he has to do to take ownership. And Nicole needs to recalibrate everything, including the way she talks about money. All right, let's go back to the numbers. Your net worth is $420,000.

What do you both think about that? I think it's too low. Okay. Matt, what about you? I have no feelings about that. Okay. Good answer. Like, I don't know. It's a bunch of numbers. I have no idea if it's good or bad, whatever. It's there. Let's continue on here. Your gross monthly income is, Nicole? Gross monthly income is $22,000. That's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. Do you guys know how much you make together? Yeah.

So I hope you can understand why I have such a low tolerance for people like tracking the price of everything in a spreadsheet and arguing over this and that when they're making 264,000 plus. Do you see my point? Yeah. And the idea that you want to be able to go to Japan and like not worry about your money, Matt, how's that strike you in light of this number?

It's silly. Yeah, it's silly. It's almost like, gosh, is that all? That's all we want to do? We've been playing so small. So I'm pleased to see this number. I actually think it can be a revelation as to what is possible for the two of you. Your investments are at 20%. Whoa. Okay, you dropped in your 401k here. That's fine. That's great. This is really good. 20%. Is this both of you?

Like who's doing what? That's mine. This is you, Nicole. Wait a minute, Matt, you're only putting 300 bucks a month in why? I don't have a good answer for you. Okay. That's honest. Nicole, why is he only putting 300 bucks a month in? He was worried about if that was going to leave him enough money afterwards. So we started there. That's a, that's, that's waiter Matt talking.

Like this Matt makes $6,000 a month and takes home 4,000 and has a partner who makes 16,000 a month. So waiter Matt might be worried, but today's Matt says what Matt?

The more money I put in now into investments means the more money I will have later in life. Bingo. And it's huge. The compounding is huge. All right. I think you could probably afford to put a little bit more in here. And Nicole, honestly, you're putting in a lot. So if you want to keep it up, I love it. I'm never going to tell anyone to stop investing, but I can see your need for control manifested here in this cell.

I also got started late. So I'm trying to max out and catch up because I didn't really start saving for retirement. Until what age? Until I was 32. I'm so happy right now because there are so many people who are like throwing their phones into the ocean right now. They're so pissed at you, Nicole. They're like, this woman said she didn't start until she was 32.

I love that you're aggressive about investing. I don't mind it, but this is simply yet another manifestation of this strict desire for control and almost a scarcity-based approach to your money. What's going through your head, Matt? I don't know if it's just because I'm also a procrastinator, but I always feel like it's not a good time to judge how I want things to be. I look at

my finances right after my brother died were really fucked up. And so I was saying to myself, well, it's not really a good indicator of how my life is going to, my financial life is going to be with my new job because I was only six months in. Yeah. I know those things take time to be able to look back and, uh,

I can use things like that to have no idea. I can use it really well. That's old Matt. That's waiter Matt who was living in a very volatile situation. When you have a stable job with predictable income, there are certain ways that I'm going to encourage you to stop thinking about, stop talking about, and now we're going to adopt some new behaviors and ways of relating to our money. Part of that is...

You actually know, Matt, pretty much how much you're going to spend every month. You do. Yeah, you might have an extra dinner here or you might buy a little gadget over there. Fine. You can account for that. Over the course of, you can look back at three months, you can average it out. Hell, add 15% if you want. Be conservative. But you can then put the money aside and you can instruct your credit card by logging in and you can say every month, pay the balance in full.

Can you imagine, Matt, that you will have enough money every month to pay off your credit card without even thinking about it? Yeah. Great. Is there anything stopping you from making that change? I don't think so. Except stubbornness. Except... Well, I could fix that right now. Let's just do it. You want to log into your credit card right now? No. I know, but we're going to do it anyway. Do it.

What is it? Which credit card? Tell us, by the way, so we can judge as you log in. Okay, great. It's a Chase Sapphire. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I thought. All right, go ahead. Log in. Nicole, do you have any payments that you make manually every single month? Yeah. Like what? All of them? Oh, God. No, no, no. It's just the credit cards. Everything else is automated. Wow. But you love the control.

Like Matt, you know, the irony is people think they want more control in their money, but the more control they have, it's like someone, what do they say? A stopped pot, whatever. Don't watch pot. A watched pot. Like it's like, leave that fucking thing alone. It's cooking. That's what we want for your investments. Stop fiddling. Nicole, can you log into your credit card account, please? Yes. Okay. Do you want me to show it? Yeah. Can you? Okay. Yeah. Okay. Do it. Yeah. Let's do it. Oh, let me give you, hold on. Let me allow you to share.

If you're listening on audio, come watch this happen on YouTube. Okay. Okay. Okay. Oh my God. This is gold. All right. So let me just observe what I see here on screen. Hold on. So I got, we have a $7,000 balance on one credit card, $1,100 on another. That's my personal. Okay. And $2,000 on something else. Okay. All right. Okay. Go ahead. Make the automation. Okay. Okay.

Do I have to do it separately on all of them? I don't know. I haven't done this in like 10 years. Like I know I fucking set this up when I was like an infant. I was like, I'm never logging into this account again. I love it. Oh my God. This is like, oh my God, this is like a true joy for me. I'm seeing automation. Yes. Set up automatic payments. Yes. This is freaking me out a lot. Fuck. It's done. It's done. Great. Okay.

Amazing. First of all, can we get a round of applause? This is the first live automation change we've ever seen on this show. Show gets better and better every time. I can't believe it. This is the pinnacle. Forget Netflix. Okay, forget it. This is real drama here. First of all, you set up AutoPay, Nicole. Matt, you set up AutoPay, right? What does it mean for your day-to-day life that you just automated your credit cards? What do you get for the work that you just did?

You know, I think that it will keep me much more honest with myself because that fucking money's coming out. So I just have to make sure that the...

That the pipeline is filled. I've got to make sure that I've got the funds available for whatever I want to spend instead of saying, I'll figure it out later. That is true. But remember, you get paid a stable amount every month. It's not like you're out hustling for gigs anymore. Okay. If you do that, great, but that's extra. So it's less about your pipeline. That's old Matt talking. What is it instead? Freedom. So I'm,

shoveling money into this retirement account, just like hoping, not blindly, like I have a number in mind that it's going to be enough, but like everywhere you look, it's different. Yeah. Here, let's do it right now. Every year? Sure. All right. All right. Let's look. So how much do you have right now invested? $350,000. All right. And how much are you putting in every year? Say $35,000. Okay. Years to grow would be what?

24? I mean, I'd rather it was less. All right, 20. How about that? Okay. All right. Interest rate, seven. Okay. All right. $2.8 million. How does that feel? Low.

It feels like not enough. All right. Well, I bet you Matt's income is going to go up. Oh, yeah. Which means he's going to be investing and contributing more, which means you could potentially contribute more. So I want to be conservative here, Nicole. I want to say over the next 20 years, you can average out, what, $40,000 a year? $45,000? What do you think? I think $45,000 is safe. Love it. Yeah. All right.

Boom. 3.3 million. Pretty good. What do you think? That looks pretty good. All right. So you're going to have $3 million. Your expenses, your housing expense is going to be essentially gone. You're not going to be buying, you know, probably you won't have a car payment. You both seem quite reasonable. That's a lot of money every month. That's thousands that you are just like, what do I do with this money? Let's go. Let's get sushi. Let's travel, whatever.

For example, let me show you something. At 65 years old, that's $4.9 million. Did you just see what happened? That's a lot of money. That shit went crazy. We got to do that again because it's too dramatic. The punchline here is ridiculous. Okay. This is you at what? 61? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. How about we just wait literally five years, 66. Do nothing. You sit there.

$4.9 million. Let's just go up by two years now, just for kicks. What's going to happen? 4.9, 5.7. This shit is fast now. This is compounding. It all happens on the back end. You can't spend that money fast enough. Do you know how to spend $600,000 a year with no housing expense? Exactly. But you got to get there. I'll figure it out though. I bet you will. I bet you both will. You got to get there first.

Gosh, I really loved talking to Nicole and Matt. I loved the support that they showed each other. I love that Matt in particular took us through his journey, which was painful and fraught and also successful. Every emotion possible, he's gone through it. He took us through that journey with him. And for that, I'm very grateful.

Unfortunately, I never received follow-ups. It takes a lot to come on and show your numbers, and the questions I ask are challenging, and I understand that that can be uncomfortable. So I am hoping for the very best for the two of them, and although I'm disappointed I did not hear back from them, I do understand, and I still wish you both the best.

Thanks for listening to I Will Teach You To Be Rich. I'm Ramit Sethi. Please follow the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you haven't read I Will Teach You To Be Rich, my book, pick up a copy. You can get it at any bookstore or any library, and it will show you this specific tactic for how to build the I Will Teach You To Be Rich system into your personal finances.