180. "We have $30k in cc debt but insist on sending our son to private school"
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I want to talk about IT everyday.

He does not want to talk about IT. SHE loves spread IT.

I'm not the easiest personal world. I do sometimes put that pressure on her.

What else do I need to do about five? She's an tomeo. And he would rather do anything but talk about money.

There is a chest ness of how many more people do I need to pay and get, doesn't?

They live a very luxurious lifestyle, but one that they describe as k oc, and they overspend on their sun money.

So I, why do we send kids to a sleep boy cap at cost thousand dollars that cost thirty thousand.

I want to know the ten, twenty years we are .

able to liver best life on paper. They are millionaire, but they're spending more than they make every month. And there's a huge secret .

to their wealth that they don't even realize that person very committed .

to living on what we actually know. We're super fAiling at that and now paying ridiculous interest that are fixed. K.

let's dive in with Olivia and alex is.

This episode sponsored by my partners that that is an S C C registered investment advisor. Investing involves serious risk and past performance is not a guarantee of future performance or success.

My opinions are included and should not be interpreted as a recommendation or research relearning any investment or investment strategy, legal or tax advice, the facet provided scenario disgust are based on inputs provided by alex is and Olivia, and are based on industry standard assumptions, the informations for illustrative and educational purposes only. I've got to live a elexa is csp in front of me? I'm getting ready for our conversation.

Check out what I noticed like is fifty five believe of fifty four years old? Let's take a look. Assets one point three million, okay, investments two point one million, savings one hundred twenty thousand and dead four hundred seven four thousand four total network three point one million.

It's really good to age fifty five. wow. okay. Let's look at the income growth.

Monthly income is seventeen thousand bucks or two hundred and four thousand dollars. That's very good fix. Cost A A percent.

That's too high. Uh, let's see, housing is twenty one percent. Groceries twelve hundred. That's fine. Oh okay.

Private school and tutor presumed ly for one of their kids at twenty five hundred books. Okay, that's a lot. Oh okay. And uh looks like eight hundred box for activities per month. Well, that'll do IT and then subscription, say four fifty, I bet it's more so right there of eighty eight percent.

Uh, in fact, just to prove the math out, if I zero out school and activities, lets see what happens to their fixed cost drops down to sixty five percent. So again, i'm not suggested we cancel all kids activities, but we can see where a considerable amount of expenses seek. Look at the rest, uh, investments at zero.

That's confusing because where did there two million dollars investments come? OK, IT says, comes out automatically seen in net income. I need to find out what's gone out with that savings at thirteen percent.

They have eight her book a month for vacations and a thousand dollars a month for renovations. I don't just looking at this. I don't think this couple only spends eight hundred box amount on vacation.

There's no way if you're spending twenty five hundred box amount on private school and tuder and then eight hundred doors amount on activities, there's no way you're only is spending eight hundred box amount on vacation. That's my guess. Let's see if i'm right.

Ohh okay, down to guilty spending. So they are spending more than they make. They're spending a thousand doors a month on eating out.

okay. So this is exactly what I thought. They're living a high life, which is fine if they can afford IT, but IT appears they can.

I eight hundred box amounts for random stuff. Eight hundred box is month for going to activities like top golf, and they are actually losing money every month or so. We got a problem here.

We have a couple who has three point one million dollars of net work, which is impressive. But on a cash flow basis, mean cash in, cash out every month, they are losing money. Now sometimes this can be OK.

I've had months where I have spent more than I made, but my networks continue to grow. However, this is quite advanced that you need to understand the different treat networks and cash flow and all kinds of stuff. Let's find out when I speak to them what their level of understanding of money is and what's going on. Now let's meet Olivia analysis. So when you think about money, just in general, money in your house, what do you .

feel confusion? Money so tight? And why do we send our kid to sleepy amp at cost ten thousand dollars?

Why do we send our kid to the school thousand? Why do we do these things of money is so tight? And I know the reason is he deserves everything we could possibly give him, and we want the best for him.

I wanted give him every possible opportunity to have the best life you can have into these are decisions. I, I understand that there are sacrifices for these decisions. His school was a dream when he was in high school, and we went and lifted all the schools in the area, and we brought him all this paperwork to my mom and said, I want to work to save so we can send him here one day.

And SHE said, I worked on my life sendoff. I have the money. I'll pay the difference in dom .

and honestly I can't imagine sending him anywhere else um because I I have some phobias about schools and safety so this school at this point of my life and some experience I have make me feel like it's a safe school.

Let's let's talk about your occupations just so I understand a little bit of history.

I've been an optical for thirty six years um twenty six years of that. I've been at the same company um big corporation. And um it's been great and a blessing in the past year has been very chAllenging. I've tried to work up the latter and get promoted in the past few years, and that didn't happen.

Got IT OK. Thank you for that. And Olivia, what about you?

I became an entrepreneur twenty five years ago, just celebrated my twenty university. And I own an event production company. I also do some commercial real state and some commercial real state and restaurant consulting also had a good income festival that we just recently sold. Uh, and I also was an investor in a small fast casual franchise restaurant that I have couple just I understand .

what's the income difference between the two of you who makes more is OK I live, you IT makes more money. And then has that been consistent throughout your relationship?

I've increased my inturning over the years, and so we were I probably made maybe twenty thirty percent more, and now I made one hundred and thirty hundred, fifty percent more.

Let's talk about communication around money. How are you talk about money in your relationship?

I want to talk about IT everyday.

I want to go to go to the dishes.

okay. So Olivia, you you've got the spread sheet you're eager to talk about in your dream world. What would you talk about every day for money?

I don't want to say about everyday, but I would love to like if we could tell like once a month, have like a money meeting, like plan and look at everything and see where we're at. Um I feel alone I feel alone when IT comes to money.

you tried to talk to her and what's her reaction?

Alex is is um the most wonderful wife, partner, mother, kind um but he can SHE shut down. When did stuff that he just once like that should get defensive or um set IT aside and then I get frustrated and then I shut down and that is all true is interesting that .

both alexius and Olivia agree .

that they're spending a lot of money on their sun and you might wonder why i'm not immediately telling them to cut back on the kids activities. Well, before I jump in and start talking about tactics, I need to understand the watch. One, parents over spending looks totally different than other parents, and there are different reasons, different motivators.

If I just come in and start telling them all the things they should change, especially things that are related to their identity, they will simply go like this. no. And as we just learned, Olivia is eager to talk about money while Alexis wants to bury her head in the sand.

So the chAllenge er is for me to understand why excess will engage with money and to give them some tools to talk about IT openly. Let us get in after a short break from our sponsors. As you get older and you build more financial security, no else builds up paperwork.

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I believe that my past you know growing up by a single mom, um my dad paid child support, I don't know, always came on time or not my business. But I know things were tight. And at the same age of thirteen, I was already buying my own cloth as buying my own car.

At sixteen, I was buying my brothers and sisters all their honor and Christmas present and all the stuff paying my mom and and I believe money was always needed from me. And then fast forward to other relationships I had before Olivia, I would have a big print out of my check register. I D write out all my bills. And if there was three thousand dollars in the account at person, I would go and do everybody gets shots and spend at all and you know and then, you know, go out for a night and be ten thousand dollars on a credit card that because that person had a great night, and I just like random stuff. So I have, I think, scars around money and none of that is present in my current relationship to but it's something for me.

ten thousand dollars in a night. That's a big deal. What did that feel like after that happened once, twice in different relationships? What did you start to feel towards money?

Like very secretive, definitely very protective. Like not wanting to talk about IT, not wanting to, I don't know, not necessarily share IT, because I have no problem like buying things and sharing things.

He had a secret credit card to secret bank count until recently.

Oh like how recently I mean.

I still don't have the passwords telling .

of IT that's that much of a secret um i've had a separate uh checking account .

check in account. Separate is one thing, secret is another. Which one was IT?

I didn't know about IT until the .

past and six months .

OK .

few hundred dollars, not not a lot, nothing to write home about.

Well, you are having your direct deposit of your paycheck going into there. I was looking at the statements wondering because we're spending more than we're making, and I was trying to dig in to figure out why and saw IT. And I said, I don't see your direct deposit coming in.

Where is IT like? I haven't seen IT in five months. And then you like, oh, it's in the other account.

What was the reason for having that separate account?

Lexis IT was going to be where I put money that I earn like I have a at t shop um i'm pursuing other avenues to possibly make income um such as notary, I have an at t shop digital marketing like what wherever ends up um but originally that that the the account is set up for has no problem separate counts.

I actually think everybody should have a separate account. They have access to its no questions ask money. There's a variety of reasons for that.

Um but secret that's a bit of a different issue. So I understand this was separate. Would you say that this was secret or not?

I don't feel like I was secret because I feel like the daily I went to the bank, I told us, go on to the bank. And IT was a few years ago.

I knew you were opening up a business account and had been working on some side hostile things, which I try to be very support of them. But but I didn't know that you were like having your paycheck instead of going into our family account, your paycheck going into some other account. And you know and I did also know about think was the capital of card. I didn't really.

really know about this cards do you think is going on a there's obviously this lack of communication around money.

closed off money. Also not being comfortable talking about IT in general, but maybe even specifically with the my my spread sheet person, this maybe judgment or or confusion about you spent that on that and we have no money but yet. Olivia spends that on that and we have no money like or I don't do this around the house because I pay for this and I I pay for people to help you do this.

But there is A. A level of time here and you earn this much there is that there is an inequality. And I don't think the inequality is of malays is because there's only genuinely love between us.

But there is A A, A righteous ness of I pay to get that done. You know, I don't, I don't have to do that. I pay. How many more people do I need to pay? So if you get this done, there's that IT doesn't feel good.

What is last time you talked about this .

openly right now? Okay.

how long you've together? seventeen? Maybe you just been busy for the last seventeen years. What do you think it's kind of interesting, right, couples to talk about. You know, you have a son.

You've obviously talking about so many things, so many intimate things year in your fifties, retirement is potentially round the corner at some point. Couples talk about a lot of stuff you just have to do in the course of being together, but not this. What do you make of analysis?

I have no idea right now. Just fighting the tears at the moment.

okay? OK do not to fight the tears if they're come, they're in and plenty of time together. But let me ask again, what do you make of the fact that you two have talked about surely so many things, but really not money.

not for a lack of her wanting to talk about money, because he like like you said, you could talk about IT every day. This is our one thing keeping us from. Having the tent ten, right?

Olivia, hearing what you heard lexis describes any, if that surprise you.

i'm not the easiest personal in the world. I can be a bear. I deeply, deeply love my wife. And I do think that sometimes I can. I work on not being of of of of, not being a my eager of, not judging, of being patient and having Grace in all parts of my life, most import, most importantly, with her.

What do you make of the fact that Alexis believes that you haven't truly talked about money in seventeen years?

We had there be fourteen years ago in the beginning of our relationship, which really helped us to be Better communicators. And we talked about money little with them. And look when, how do you live? You, you know how to be?

Richard Cameron, netflix, I went crazy, a matter I watched and then I made to watch the whole thing with me. I got the books. I got the journal.

I'd like, sometimes I bring you out like, come on, let's do a chapter and she's like, oh my god, I get launch to you. Like, I have to go. I have something I have to do.

You bring that out like the journal, which is really fun. You know, it's like the no numbers journal. It's not intimidating.

It's really beautifully created. You bring that out. Leave you what is your energy when you bring that journal out?

Hi, i'm going to grab the book in the journal while we go to dinner. Let's jump in, get on chapter. Do okay.

all right. And then Alexis, and then what's your energy when Olivia says, let's do chapt or two?

We never did chater one because I would find a reason not to do IT and that is something personal to you. Just I just a boy.

I know it's not personal. I don't take IT personally. Not at all. It's it's fine. So it's not i'm gona guess, alex, is it's not that you have studiously opened the book and said like this is not for me.

I really don't appreciate the structure that he chose for chapter three, but I much prefer the journal. It's so much more friendly. I'm guessing it's not that it's just money is this word? And I don't want to be near IT.

Is that am I reading that correctly? She's not in her head. yes. OK, yes. So I leave you.

You basically never gotten to chapter one of any of the book or any journal with election. Or what does that feel like for you, olive? You frustrating.

disappointing cycling. And then I definitely hold some resentment in the past few years, especially since my mom passed and I feel this responsibility, you know, my mother was my security blanket, no matter what, if I felt he was always to pick me up, pick us up SHE loved alex is like a second daughter. And now I don't want mess IT up.

I don't want to mess everything we've built. And so there's this added pressure. But I do know that in the past few years, these like patriarch roles that society plays on men and women and who makes more and who should be doing what you fall into that.

And I do I hate that I am sometimes physically limited and I also um I want things to be in order in place very then if a ten year old you know and things always feel chaotic and I do I do sometimes put that pressure on her like i'm making all this money. I've paid for the cleaning people. I've paid for the organization, company alike. What else do I need to do? So things .

are done. So called to say we paid for the cleaning lady, right?

I know, I know, I know I am under percent though that i'm doing that and that's not nice and that's mean and i'm sorry because I don't want you to feel that way. I love you. It's our life.

It's our money. We still everything together. I can't even do what I do .

if I don't have her. So Olivia here, describing the frustration resemble livy, also describing your need for order. I understand that I also love a nice, calm place with everything in this place.

I love order. And and then I hear that frustration, you know, there's laundry over there and I find myself saying these phrases, I made this much money. What do I need to do then, alex, is you spoke up just now.

You said, hey, IT sure would be nice if you said our money. We remember how part of what we're talking about is that alex is does not engage with money, but I just heard her engage with money loud, clear. What did SHE say? libya?

Um that he wishes that I would say that is her money.

Kay, I wants to respond .

that I am sorry that I do that. IT is our money. This is the life that we've built together.

And going forward, I will not do that. And if I do, please call me out so I can be Better. That's a pretty interesting .

moment to me. No, I spent fifteen minutes in. Alex is, talk about how you voice money.

But then, wow, alex is when you spoke up, I was like, shocked all on the second. Here he is speaking up, lad, and clear, advocating for what he wants. Olivia, I was a little surprise.

You can just barrow passed IT, but I wanted take that as an example because I wonder if there's a lot of communication happening that both of you are not contain about right there. That was really cool to see one person say hello and second, this is what I and then Olivia, with a little bit coaching to say, oh, oh, you're right. I know i've done that in the past.

That's not the right way for me to talk about money. It's our money. From now on, I will refer to IT as our money.

Thank you, bone. That's the way that we get people involved with money. As we hear there are whispers and we treat them like screams.

Have you noticed that we create narratives about our lives? We say i'm really busy or i'm just not good at money or I can't get fit. It's really easy to get caught up in the trap of the very story that you've created for yourself.

Olivia is telling herself my wife isn't interested in talking about money. And suddenly he interprets the world through that nit. Everything SHE sees becomes confirming evidence.

And any time there's an example that doesn't fit that narrative, SHE discards IT just like you just did. Now, like this is talking about money you just did. And I bet he actually does IT in lots of ways that neither of them is aware of.

Parents know what i'm talking about. Like if you start suddenly calling your kid shy, and then they start behaving in that way, suddenly everything they do is just another example of them being shy. They start to live up to the story you've created for them, even if they don't want to.

Now, this can happen for children. IT can happen for partners. IT can even happen for yourself, and IT happens all the time.

I think this is a huge moment for Olivia analysis. And you can tell, by the way, they speak to each other that there's a lot of love here. They respect each other.

So I see progress that just needs a little fine tune, but they're not out of the woods yet. We still do address their spending habits, especially the one around the sun. And I need them to understand this secret that's been driving their wealth.

I mentioned IT in the beginning of the episode. They don't even know what this secret is yet. Before we get back to the interview, I need a quick favor from you.

If you are enjoying the show, please hit the subscribe button. IT really helps me and IT helps my team. Alex is how do they feel to be acknowledge from .

Olivia is great. And interestingly enough, we had a conversation that was very much like that yesterday. I was about dishes being in the sink.

And like.

you know, he was a bear about IT. And unlike, you could just say, hey bab, can you get the dishes done? Now I know what you can do. Like, can I get in the habit of doing IT? And I can respond easier and feel safer responding that way.

Is IT true that the last time you you saw their face was fourteen years ago. Man, is, is IT maybe time to set another appointment after like these little things, like the things i'm just pointing out right here. This is what a great therapies can really, really dive into change, not only give you some tools, but also help you recognize those chAllenging parts of yourself and your partner and just help you build these bonds.

Okay, cool. I love this. Um Olivia, when you think of money in the family, this family, you use the word resentment um and you have described how you have wanted to talk about money, but Alexis avoidance talk about money. So what what have you done as a result?

I do try to create plans around money um i've also I have expressed in sometimes frustrated ways, but a lots of times in very valuable ways that I feel alone about money and scared and that I want her help mention your mom .

was your support system, but way was he your support system? You just sent .

me the right direction. My mother was physically very conservative responsible in my um late twenty years there early thirties I had racked up late twenty twenty and thirty thousand dollars with the debt credit card debt what not somebody suggested that I can background cy and I would just be able to wipe IT out and so I spoke to my mom who's really the best person I ever note and SHE said, but you spend the money I said, I did he said, okay, this is a question about character and you are as a person.

She's like, who are you onna be? When you look at yourself in the mirror, you gna be, what do you want to represent as a person? Because that's all we had as our character SHE SHE paid off my dead, and I took seven years for me to pay her back every penny. But IT was an incredible lesson, and was an incredible lesson who he is and who she's taught me to be.

What appreciate that sounds like shed a lot of wisdom to share, which you are now sharing with your son. A generational wealth, right there is not always about a check. It's about the lessons that our parents teach us and that we absorb, adapt and then pass on. Really beautiful. Your mom also helped out with money.

SHE helped us with the downpayment on our, the first told we ought together. 嗯嗯， SHE helped with his school. Then we are go to create a multi generation house.

So we purchase the house were living in right now. We purchased IT together. My grandmother, my mother and I prus all .

to live .

here and support and take care of each other um as my grandmother was getting older now nine eight SHE was the guiding force in helping us. Do this. And now here we are. We actually moved in. And a few weeks later, he was diagnosed with cancer, and about a month later, he died.

Really something special that you have this many generations who spent that much time together that does not happen that often. Like to learn a little bit more about your son. You mention that you don't want him to have any debt and that he deserves everything he can possibly get. Tell me your philosophy with money and your son, we wanted give him this .

great life in every experience we can. We wanted to understand the power and responsibility of money. We did not realize when we went to painty private school that then there's this pressure that all his friend, you know, we're probably one of the least financially wealthy families I member.

The first time he went to his best friends house, which is, you know, billions of dollars, six thousand were foot massive, you know, an acre with every game and toy there is. And he's like, can we just get one of those houses? And I like, well, doesn't work that way.

What did you say to him? exactly?

I said, we have a lovely house and everybody y's houses are going to be different, different sizes. And and, you know, glad you had fun here. But no, our houses, our house, and this is their house. And I remember recently I had three of three boys in the car and they were talking about money and who's worth more money and I am just a creature around um the value of a person is not their bank account and what kind of car they drive until i've just pretty keep having .

that conversation. Of all, many was over focus on the Price of let, but we genuinely ignore the true cost of where we live and how we live. The fact is you're probably not gone to move into a new neighbourhood full of fancy houses and still drive a twenty five old car you might be, you probably want, if your neighbor decorates their home in a certain way, chances are you're probably gonna wana do that too.

And if you don't believe me, just take a look at the people around you, your coal workers, your neighbors, look at when they're wearing, and then take a look in the mayor. Are you wearing something similar? Odds would suggest, yes, we are social animals.

We adopt the cultural morals of the people and the things around us. And it's important to remember that you yourself are not isolated from the cultural context in which you look. Your number of stoic statue that moves into a certain keeps the exact same habits and practices and things wrong.

You're not to remain a stoic statue when you move into a new place. You're gna aapt. A lot of the things around you that's human nature, and that's what we see here.

Alex and Olivia moved into expensive neighbor d but they afford IT maybe, but they didn't realize is that their kid would be influenced by the things around them, the cars that people drive the size of other people's holds. Kids do IT, adults do IT as well. So when you start to run your numbers, don't forget the thing that will never show up on your, which is the influence of the people around you. You also mention that you don't want him to have debt or student loans on a percent. No k why is that?

I don't mind student loans and I had student loans. I had to put myself their college so I don't mind that. But I do know that I want to make sure he we have his college paid for um the majority of IT. But I also don't think it's a bad thing for him to if he needed alone, if we couldn't do something, he could do that and learn that responsibility.

We talked about what schools you might pay for, what you would say, hey, that's out of our affordability.

right? I think that is out of my forwards ability but to me, my job is a parent is to just unconditionally love him and help him find his greatness it's support him in that direction and teach him him to be a kind and apathetic loving .

person is is IT to unconditionally pay for him as well?

No, but I would mean if I can make IT easier for him that that security blanket that I always had would be there. I'd love to able to do that.

OK. Alex is I didn't .

have that security blanket. However, anything that we can do and provide for him, of course, I would love that as long as he's a responsible human being. We have not thus far taking care any kind of prepaid college plan perham.

We we have um future and herds that was earmarked for him and that was our was our plane. We still have a little bit of time. But colleagues at the same time of real retirement age for .

do you see the relationship between the way that the two of you treat money today and your ability to provide for your son tomorrow?

Okay.

you do live, alex is.

I think I do. Yeah the .

decisions we make today are the ones that affect us tomorrow and for generations to come. Yeah to me, that's why I was so excited to get a chance to talk. You clearly love your son.

You clearly providing a lot for him. You want to provide even more. I love that sentiment. But in order to do that, the stakes are high because you actually need to connect over your money.

Now yes, 不是。

Like as you mentioned, that you have started to cut back on time at work. It's been a chAllenging year for you. Is is the intention that eventually maybe you leave your job and work from home or stay home?

I do believe my son in my wife thrive when i'm home more. However, financial video, ideally, yes, I would like to pave IT into part time or possibly leaving and starting my own business. Is there any .

thought about, you know, he's ten. You've got seven, eight years with him until he goes off to college.

Work for costco. O, I started there twenty six years ago. Thought I would always work there to the day I died, because the day I die, all my life insurance policies, my families taking care of.

Two years ago, I SAT on the jury. I was in jury duty school shooting. My life drastically changed. My, I have a little bit of P, T, S, D over IT.

But sitting in that jury room, I came home one night and told her I was ready to quit my job and he's so little, and I don't want to miss IT and I also want to be more present to guide them and help him with any obstacles he could have, mentally or emotionally. I I just want him to be safe. There's too many kids shooting schools and wanted know that IT signs to look for.

Another people are how to protect himself for. I just, I just want to be present. And so that has driven me a little more to want to be home, more. I see the finances when a concern that would be that tomorrow, and I think that everyone would be happier. I ideally gotta .

really difficult to have seen what you saw on the jury and then to have your own sun, especially in this environment where we hear horrible news every week.

IT goes important because I know, I see.

I look at the C. S. P. I see these big numbers.

And i'm always curious why, and this is why, for me, a spread chy is not enough numbers don't tell the story. You tell the story. The numbers just reflect your story.

So now, knowing what you saw on the jury, what too many parents have seen, I can understand why you are devoting a lot of money and a lot of tension towards schooling. So let's try to keep that right. Let's honor what you prioritize and will try to figure out what your rich life is and how we can use your money to live in.

So now we can look at the csp, and at least I can put on A A new set of lenses that I can understand IT Better with alex. And olive lenses will help me put myself in your shoes. So i'd like to pull up to c.

sp. I'd like to walk through IT with you. Um, what was that like doing? The C, S, P, I love you. I love.

I know I love you.

I know you love that you've been wanted, do for the last fifteen years. I know that. Alexis, what was that like for you?

IT was a very pretty .

friendship. OK say again, alex, let let us live. IT here you say that again.

IT is a very pretty spread chy.

We'll open up their conscious spending plan right after this this year. I'm proud of being in business for twenty years. Twenty years ago, I started this business in my college dorm.

U and I grew IT since then. And that is why you and so many other people have watched and read and listened to my material. I'm so thrill that you are here.

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I was in toko recently, and there is a bathtub in my hotel room. Now I don't take bats, but I figured i'm in japan. I really want to relax.

So I decided i'm GTA run this bath. But there's a problem. The bath was way back in this room, inside a bathroom.

IT was in the middle of nowhere. And the first thing I thought to myself is if I slip, i'm definitely dying. And no one's gone to discover my body for at least another twenty four hours.

This is the first thing that was run through my head. So as the bat is running, took like thirty minutes to felt this freaking bat. First, I brought my cell phone in there.

I'm like, okay, if I trip, at least I use my phone to call somebody. But then I didn't want to get my phone wet. There's no table in this.

So I put the phone back and I was like observing the hotel phone in here. That's another problem. As soon as you pick up the phone, IT starts ringing.

So I brought my ipad in to relax and read a book. Well, I was contemplating my early death as I stepped in this bathtub. The only thing I was thinking is this is literally the risk st thing i've done in the last five years.

If I slipped, it's over. Anyway, IT wasn't as relaxing as I thought, but IT raises the question, if that's the risky st thing i've done, I Better make sure I have proper life insurance IT called term life insurance. We need to talk about IT.

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But Alexis, i'm curious, you know, Olivia has been trying to get you to engage with money for a long time. The csp is really engaging with money, so a little pleasantly surprised. What made that achievable for you.

as I know how much I meant to her. Because I know that you know her reaching out to you and no, that opportunity be here was like he was aesthetic and I was like, okay, this is a sign that we get to do this and um this is our biggest obstacle and we get to overcome IT so he could sleep at night and we get to where we wanna be.

I love hearing that is very sweet, and i'm happy that I can be a reason for couples to come together. My vision for you is that you to create your own vision and work on IT together right? Let's let's put this beautiful thing up here and take a look right? Let's let's go through this um let's see Olivia, can you read off the word in bold and the full number .

next to IT assets one million, three hundred and fifty one thousand dollars investments two million one hundred and seventy nine thousand eighty seven dollars settings hundred and twenty thousand debt four hundred and seventy four thousand which gives us a total network about three million one hundred and seventy six thousand eighty seven dollars alright.

what do you think of that number?

I'm excited about and and proud of IT. You want to double IT.

you want to? Db IT.

because what I can be at six and have the house paid off. I know that we can feel really safe retiring in living a comfortable lifestyle.

right? I lex, is, what do you feel about those numbers?

I like to have the security to know that retirement would be easy at the same time to spend sending a child to college.

I will add something to that. One of my priorities is my health. I'm obvious I want to be here longer for my son and I also want to be more fit for my son so you know recently sold their feet wine festival, recently saw their restaurant and learning in my life because I said yes, yes, yes for many years and now i'm saying, no, no, no um I want to work the least amount of possible to make the most money of money as possible so I can focus on my health and the quality time I have with my wife in time.

Wow, beautiful. Now that's a vision.

And to me, there's nothing more fun than be getting to spend time with my wife, my son and my friends and family.

Okay, that's the kind of vision I can work with. I can make that work. And the same. We, okay, good. And we can use money to make that easier.

Yes, health and money.

those two can work together, fantastic time, quality time together. We can use money as appropriate to do that. Now we don't need money for IT, but can certain make IT easier and experience OK beautiful? Uh, let's keep going. A let's take a look at the incomes this time of what is your combined monthly income?

Seventeen thousand and fifty dollars. Okay.

so two hundred and four thousand dollars is what you make as a household per year. Did you know that election says, no, Olivia. Did you know that I did fifty percent? As usual, thank you very much for maintaining my statistics.

All right. And just so everybody knows alex is, you know, they are onna ask, how could you not know how much household income you make? I'm asking for them, not me. What's your you do that?

I mean, I guess I just never added IT up because I I do know how much they means.

I do know how much that's honest answer, that's honest. You you look at your paycheck is the same, you know probably every month and maybe a couple of exceptions, but most people don't add IT up. So anyway, alex, thank you for the onest. Y you've joined the large region of people who also don't know their household income.

I know. Now let's keep working analysts.

This is where the nervous become pretty interesting. Your fix cost are eighty eight percent. what? That's pretty high, right? Typically I recommend fifty to sixty percent. So do you know without going line by line, why your fixed costs are so high?

I think my sons .

schooling.

I think we spend a lot of money on on food. I think those are the the big ones.

Let let's look. So first of all, your mortgage is fine. It's nothing notable to twenty one percent.

No big deal. Your um hard payment is eleven hundred box fine. It's a little high, but fine.

You make two hundred thousand dollars. You have five hundred dolla month of debt payments. What what is this? Why do you have debt .

icilius even that worth of three .

million dollars and you have credit, or that this is a major problem? IT tells me that there is chaos in your financial life. That's why when you talked about, you know, you're busy.

I said, are you busy or are you chaotic? There's a difference and think, yeah and I don't mind busy but chaotic fanatic pulling your hair out. Some thing is always wrong that no, okay.

And we can work around that, especially when you have a network of three million dollars. There are things you can do. One of the central stories in amErica that we tell ourselves is, i'm busy.

How's IT going? Things are crazy. What do you do in next week? I look yet things are.

Can you imagine asking someone, hey, what are you doing today? And they just calmly lean back, take a sip of coffee and go just enjoying life. No, it's so boring. IT almost sounds like a movie.

And while I understand that people have careers and kids and commutes, and to do this, I have to tell you that I intentionally made a decision to never define myself by being busy in my family. My mantra is we fight force, simplicity. And to me, the opposite of chaos is simplicity.

So by creating that value, by articulating explicit IT means, I try to make my life as symbol as possible. And that extends to every part of my life, but is specifically includes how I treat money. I automate my bills in my investments.

Everything flows smoothly. Ly, we review our finances about once a month. My wife and I have not bought a house, in part because at this point in our lives, IT would be more complicated than renting. We fight or simplicity.

And with the time that I get back from this simple life, I get to do the things I love, spend time with my wife and my loved ones, travel, even just sit and watch T, V. IT is yet another narrative that we create for ourselves, that we always have to be productive, that even in our times of rest, we feel guilty because we are not doing something productive. No, maybe you love the idea of simplicity.

Maybe not your values are yours. But the real point here is to deeply question the stories that you've been told, the stories you repeat and the stories that you believe. Now remember, I told you there's a secret to lexus and Olivia's well, that they don't even realize we're about to dig into that. So let's get .

back to the conversation. Lot of our wealth is tied up in our uh retirement accounts, our investment accounts in our house OK.

So very .

committed to living on what we actually make. So .

you're not doing .

that 小 飞回来。

I'm very committed to flying, uh but that doesn't mean I can jump out of a plane and flap my arms. That's not works.

I get that were super fAiling at that, and now i'm paying. ridiculous.

What did you put on the credit cards that calls you to go into death?

Know what we throw .

on bed stuff random.

That one card.

I I looked at your credit card statement and yours one, there were some twenty five dollar charges here in there and i'm looking through the thing and i'm going this doesn't add up to a five thousand dollar baLance that you have on IT. Then I realize you Carried over a baLance of something like forty four hundred bucks from the prior month.

O yeah, we have cards that we've been Carrying over for like three years. Why I have one of when I make a large summer money and then I have a couple smaller ers and I get that love some money, I pay a budget stuff off and then .

IT bills again.

And at living within our means, i'm a footy. And even when I cook at home, you know, I can buy the regular mushrooms that has to be the, you know, king oyster mushrooms. I overspend on food I ever spent on going out there is a bunch of that that super adds up when we go on a trip, you know, we spend.

And then I let the cards sit there, not thinking, oh, we get this. This is and i'm going to pay that off and I I know i'm spending more than I made and I know that when i'm spending IT, but I shouldn't be spending IT and I still speed IT. I am like, oh, this is going to happen and that is going to happen and this is gonna en. You know, I had this year one of my intus streams is like twenty three thousand dollars less than it's supposed to be.

You didn't adjust your spending.

did not adjust my spending.

So let's talk about this. You are living kind of an extreme version of irregular income and that uncertainty is one thing, but you're not actually changing the sensitivity of your spending. You're you're actually live in the high life in awesome mushrooms regardless of what you make, and IT all comes back to a money type.

So in your case, Olivia is so interesting, because you have all these spread sheds, quite detailed with them, right, optimized to some extent. But I would propose you are also what I call a dreamer. A dreamer says, the next deal is right around the corner. It's gonna change everything for us. And the sound familiar .

yeah not .

so sure you both have a cohesive philosophy around money scattered. It's maybe we might describe IT even as chaotic and that's kind of what i'm seeing here. Good news.

We can change IT. We need the first acknowledge what's going on here. Let's keep looking at the csp.

So so I see long pool and home maintenance for three hundred um babysitting for four hundred private school and twitter is twenty five hundred a month. That's the school part. Uh his activities are eight hundred a month.

Subscriptions are four fifty a month. I think it's a lot higher than net is IT. It's got to be I you like to live the good life.

I don't have any problem with that. I like to live a very nice life myself, right? I can tell them I can spot IT.

okay. A somebody whose living a very nice life is probably not spending four hundred fifty thousand a mount on subscriptions. It's probably more than that, but maybe considerably more depending. Well, they are both just smiling and looking down.

I mean, I was the one that I was looking at stuff and like, oh, my god, I like three and something for conchas. And we also have like and netflix and this is and this and this and we can have to stop.

We need to be more systematic about IT. Rather than just like, oh my god, this is crazy. Let's chop IT all up. That doesn't less. That's just fleeing motivation.

We need to have a philosophy, what kind of family are we? What's important to us? And then we're going to do a lot of that.

And then naturally, we're going to do a lot less of this. That's what we're going to work towards, creating that rich life vision. Let's take a look at the rest of this. Investments are at least post taxes at zero investment, says zero. Are you investing anything pretax?

I'm not. He is how .

much you doing? Alex is a .

seven percent in my foo. Okay.

and then they match.

So you're putting about ten, eleven thousand and per year. Okay, got IT and i'll live. Ya what about your businesses? Have you been doing investing now? Wow, why is that?

Because my mom was my security like IT. And so a SHE had been saving to give that to me. So SHE love me with money. Let's talk .

about that. Because this, this starts to actually starts to tell a much bullier story. Do you know how much your inheritances was from your mom?

Better million.

okay. I have seven hundred and thirty six thousand. Is your number different?

No, that was that was in the inherits account. yeah. And I have been using IT. We've been spending around thirty thousand to forty thousand more than we're making. And so we've been i've been tapping .

into that per year. Yeah, alright, starting to tell the story. Look at this. If we look at the investments where you have two point one million, so about seven hundred thirty thousand of dollars of that came from an inheritance OK, that's important to know we're going to break down the rest of that right now, but that that is quite a big clue in the story.

Now Alexis, you've been working at costco for, I think you said over twenty years and your contributions to the a retirement, you ve been pretty ominous. And yet you have built a very large portfolio, which is quite amazing. You have made a considerable amount.

Your costco retirement plane has one point two million dollars in IT. You contributed one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Say no, okay, that's that's good.

I mean, that's great. Your employer contributed ninety thousand dollars. That's the great. But you know what the greatest part of all is the stock gain was nine hundred and eighty five thousand dollars. This is remarkable.

If anything, what this really tells you is if we actually calculated how much money you made per year, you would be highly compensated. So you know you mentioned you're an opt titian. Can I sounds like you're little frustrated with work.

understandable. You've been there a long time. It's Better. But if we look just at the numbers divided by the number of years that you were highly paid, now if you want to point out that I also noticed eighty six percent of your investments are in costco stock IT .

used to be a hundred percent.

used to be a hundred. Is anyone else freaked out by this? As much as I am.

I only have break down about because costco has been product for a few times in the press lately. But um yeah I they they made IT so that you can do one hundred percent. They did change IT about four years ago. You can have no more than fifty .

percent amazing that now that is a great company, honestly, because they are diversifying for you. So just so everybody knows sometimes you can make more money having your money in a winning stock. Like if you work at microsoft door, you know more recently, company like NVIDIA, you're making millions and and course people who are there like I want to arrive this rocketship.

The problem is that you have all of your financial and career capital in one company. So if NVIDIA or costco goes to a downturn, which every company does, not only do you lose potentially your retirement, you probably lose your job at the same time, which is financially devastating. So we never want to have an overwhelming percent of our money in one stock.

Even if IT seems to be going up and up and up, it's just not good risk management. Eighty six percent freezed me out. I have a philosopher of no more than ten percent of my network in one individual security on A I don't even get close to that right now, but eighty six percent.

Wow, that's a highly risky, alright. So some risk management work we can do here. But anyway, overall, I just want to say, yes, well, we have some rich management issues.

One point two million dollars, nice. The fact that most of IT came from the start gains, I would characterize as great, but also lucky. You'll see that .

I would all further .

categorize the inherited ants in your investment as lucky, nice, but lucky. So we are now talking about almost two million dollars in luck from your investments. And I want to now pull up your csp again. What is the number you have total in your investment?

Two million, one hundred and seventy nine thousand and eighty seven now.

right? So I have two point one million dollars. I would say two million dollars is luck.

Did you just hear what happened that the secret, the secret to alex is in Olivia's? Well, the factor they haven't realized until this very moment is that they are primarily wealthy because of luck. It's not diligent saving.

It's not some choice that they have made consistently over time. They pretty much got lucky, and that is dangerous. Luck is not a financial strategy. In fact, when we look at IT from this perspective that almost all of their games have been due to luck, to me, that's actually pretty dangerous. Let me recap t the key details one more time because we move through IT quickly and we throw a lot of numbers around.

Alex is contributed a small percentage come into a four k and over twenty six years that came out to about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars of contributions for employer matched your contributions adding another ninety cato, the four one. Kate, that's pretty. But what's insane is that that money put into that one stock, the two hundred and nine thousand dollars a joint contributions, turned into one point two million dollars.

Costco has performed very well. But to put things into perspective, if costco had not performed that will, their networks would not be close to what IT is. Now i'm thrill at their costco stock performed wealthy up.

However, we kid count on one stock performing well over time. That was luck. They benefit from IT, but that was luck. Similarly, the inheritance of about a million dollars of their network also was not due to their own savings.

Most of their network, with pure luck, we'll get back to alex and olive via after a quick break to support our sponsors. Can you never google yourself? Go head and try IT right now.

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Better fix the k quick.

You've gotten lucky. I'm happy for you, but that's not gonna get you to where you need to go if you didn't have the inheritance, if you didn't have a costco run up in stock, you would be in a very different financial position. You know, I talk to a lot of people, and for whatever reason, they just ended up on the bad side of luck.

Their dad lost their job when they were sixteen. Their family never recovered. Somebody in their family, he was an alcoholic, or they got sick.

And they just ended up on the bad side of you, ended up on the right side of luck. Financially speaking, however, luck is not a financial strategy. We gotta build a real strategy here, continuing down on your C.

S. P. I see no other investments. I see savings goals. You're saving eight hundred thousand amounts for vacations and a thousand doors amount for renovations.

And then then we got to the guilt free spending part. What is this? Can anyone explain these numbers to me?

Eating out one thousand dollars a month. Buying random stuff eight hundred thousand month. Going to activities eight hundred dollars.

So yeah, we all know that this is not accurate, right? Do we all agree there's more that's not counted here?

I hope statistically speaking.

nobody's numbers. Just add up to round numbers. Oh, eating out one thousand random stuff, eight hundred. It's never. So we know that these numbers are artificial.

And it's when it's artificial for your free spending, especially for people who are over spending, who have credit or that is always more, it's never less. okay? So you're spending more than you make every month.

This is a major problem. And I will say that I have had months or i've spent more than I made, my net worth continue to grow. My cash flow took a hit, but I kind of knew IT and I had a strategy of how long I would go into the red, right?

It's like it's not a sin to go into the red if you have a deep reserve and you know but that's quite most people should not be doing that. Why are you going into the red? Why are you spending more than you make .

when not being disciplined? We're not being disciplined to school.

We were prepared for the lucky maybe and we have this high number and not the skill set to properly navigate IT.

exactly. And you're kind of like, oh, my gosh, h, we found ourselves at three million, which is way more than I thought. And yet data data situations actually like we spending more than we make. So at the beginning of this call access, you said, i'm confused because we have millions of dollars, but we're having to cut cable at what do you make of the situation now it's chaotic.

If that's the right word, it's chaotic. I agree.

it's chaotic. Is IT confusing or does that make sense to you?

I think you're breaking IT down and it's starting to make sense. And maybe those for cheese A. Worth could we look at your .

fixed cost and could we look at your guilt free spending? And could we make some.

some cuts to and I think we have I mean, in gangway, like we have .

to I agree, Olivia, alex, I have some very specific goals. Alex is wants to work fewer hours so he can spend more time with her wife and son. They want to have enough money to retire comfortable ly, and they want to fund their son's college education.

I took their financial information, and with their permission, I shared IT, along with their goals with our partners at fast and fact, was able to provide more different financial scenario to help Olivia and Alice reach their goals. Let's listen IT. These were specifically geared around the life you told us you want IT.

So scenario one is you keep your current spending and you send your son to what will call a great college, great college, expensive, so you can keep up with your current spending, which is a negative cash flow of negative thirty to forty eight year. You can fully fund a high end private college, which should be about three hundred and forty two thousand dollars, and you can do this if you retire at the age of seventy and sixty nine. And Olivia just put up her arms in a big x sign saying, no.

And Olivia assume that is because you don't want to work till seventy and sixty? No, no, I do not. okay.

I lexus. How do you feel about that? no. Both said, no, okay, great.

Where are agrements on the same page? On the same page. This is great art. Let's talk about scenario too. In scenario too, you can retire at sixty three and sixty two while earning fifty percent of your income until sixty six and sixty five. In this scenario, you can cover four years of public in state school, but you'll have to reduce expenses by twelve hundred dollars. And he feels .

that feels possible.

No, I feel about that.

The area number three is you can see I retire at sixty three, sixty two, while earning fifty percent of your income until sixty six, sixty five. You can fully fund college at a higher tear private school. And you can do this if you reduce your basic expenses by sixteen hundred dollars.

I'm still spending more than I made in any of these scenario. I think you can tell me I needed to work harder and get another job making more money.

That's what overspenders always want. You making more money is not going to solve the problem. You've already told me you have health issues. Learning more is not going to solve the spending problem that you have.

If to control this spin right now, every extra dollar you make is likely to be spent, almost no point to earn more right now, you need to plug the leaky holes in your bucket before you go out and get more water. Let me give you scenario for the final scenario. In this case, alex is cuts back to fifty percent income in six months. A X sami retires at sixty three, full retirement at sixty five. You can fully your son's private college education, and you can do this if you reduce expenses by two thousand dollars .

per month done. How do I get get rid of them motivated .

by retirement? I can see IT. Alright, let's so hearing all of those, you can see that they vary, right? There's trade ffs, to make. There's private school, public school. There's years you retire and then there's a mount you cut your spending by which of these strike you as, yes, like I wanted do this and which of these are like I don't want to touch that.

I love number four of course right um because IT gets me where I want to be sooner and IT still gives some private college if that's and getting to .

four um should be a priority for a family as much as its scary. I miss her when she's not with this. I work my schedule around that most of time and I get to take him on the playday or I get to go see him at batting practice or a tennis clinic or at a birthday party or whatever. I get to have those experiences with getting to for um should be a priority for a family with having I missed her, I miss her not being with us OK.

I ve and then I had no idea that this was even a thing to present to us. Four options. Like, how do I know that we would have talked about finance a million years ago?

This right here is why I decided to partner with fast. So many people get stopped on planning for their futures because of these different variables, like what age they want to retire at, planning for paying for kids college tuition, or wanting to support a parent or loved one grow their own retirement.

Basic can give you specific simulations no matter what your personal variables are, to help you map out a plan so you can turn your dreams into a read. It's like walking into an empty house. It's hard to make sense of where things should go.

Where do you put the bed in the this and that? Sometimes you need somebody to paint a vision for you. Here are some options.

Now tell me what you want to do and then we can digg into that. That's that's why I was very pleased be able to have fast and prepare these for you. And I can see your eyes light up.

You starting be like all that one. But let's tweet IT this way. Kind of i'll tell you what out of these scenarios, the biggest take away for me is that it's very clear you need to cut your spending.

That part is Crystal clear. Regardless of what you choose, we have got to build the skill of properly managing your money. And so philosophically, what I might say is we or a family who is calm with money, not chaotic. That's the new money valley. That's the way I describe IT.

I get first .

step is probably for both of you to come together and to redo this with accurate numbers. We're going to treat this like a science experiment. We're going to get all the numbers out on paper, everything, and then we're not going to make a moral judge.

We're not bad people because of these numbers. We might lack the skills to properly spend, and we're gone to build those skills, right? We're onna create a new structure for our family when IT comes to money.

So suddenly doesn't IT start to become Crystal clear. You go, oh my god, we're going to go to this nice dinner or we're going to spend on this day. And you're like every second that spending today directly affects when SHE and we can retire and how much time we can spend with our son.

It's quite stark. And suddenly when you're making certain decision, you're going to be faced with five hundred seven in the next sixty days. Are we going to do this? You go all on the second.

Who are we again? Oh, we are a calm family. IT makes IT very clear what to do with the decisions.

Okay, let's talk about cutting some spending. Let's look at the fixed costs. Your debt payments are five hundred dollars a month. How much is on your credit card debt?

We've run thirty thousand.

And credit or debt thirty thousand. Think so. okay? That needs to be paid off in a family that has a network of three million dollars.

And income of two hundred or four thousand dollars is just unacceptable, right? That's my philosopher, is like we are a debt free family. Yes, so that can be paid off tomorrow.

why? How would you pay that off? Anybody have any ideas?

The one twenty, yeah.

the one twenty sitting here in cash would like to see you have a healthy emergency fun. Six months of expenses is great, but one hundred and twenty k when you have like roughly twenty k of credit card debt should be paid off tomorrow. Get rid of IT.

All right? That's cool. That's gonna save you five hundred box a month.

We're on our way. Let's let's give ourselves a round of a plus x. That's good. Are we're get there. 2， let's let me put up some other stuff up here.

You tell me, how can you shave another thousand dollars off of your monthly spend? OK good right now. IT says a thousand, thousand a month.

Is that accurate? IT more. Hence that's more. alright. It's fifteen hundred. So how much are you legitimately going to spend eating out for .

mother love to cut IT two thousand?

We should look at IT this way as how many times at a month, because we eat out for convenience, we got to go, or in a hurry, I got three business meanings, and I need to go get coffee. So how many times a month do you need that convenience for? What is for his food, my food? You are food on the go.

Let's say we do dinner out one time a week. That's that's big. First is not only it's three and i'll say for me, i'll try to keep to one time a week like lunch, breakfast. great. Do you .

see how by by talking about ahead of time, by planning IT, that should becomes something really fun for the family, but IT becomes something that the family looks forward to, not something that's done haphazardly because we're in a rush. Do you see how the chaos up here leads to all of these downstream negative effects? Just a little bit of forward planning and actually deciding what do we want our month to look like because our month turns into our year and our year turns into our decade and our decade turns into .

our retirement. Olivia, we were just talking about how we have to lay down a calendar with him, so he knows what his week looks like, and we don't even know what our week looks like sometimes. And so this, this is gonna be really good executive functioning skills for all.

There you go. You teaching him about money by learning about IT yourself, right? It's about, do you deeply understand and enjoy money yourself?

Are you a good model for that? Does your son not see you talking about money? Being grateful for money, spending money, meaningful ly making choices? And then are they involved that teaches them about money? How much is the cost every time you eat out between .

sixty and one hundred? Say.

a hundred, round up hundred, including tax tip, all of IT are okay. great. One hundred box. So you said you want to go out four times a month?

Yes, four hundred.

All right. Let's speak a five hundred. I don't want you to go from fifteen hundred to four hundred and one month they won't sustain OK OK.

So we have cut the C S. P. Down already by a thousand dollars.

But realistically, we've actually cut IT down by more than that because I think you are eating out more. What's on here? Okay, good. Um hey, can we just keep going because I think we're making a good progress buying random stuff.

What the hell is this? I thought a new relic was hundred about.

Well, i'll tell you why we have a libya's s grandmother, this with us. She's ninety eight. He had a stroke. She's been found with that liners. So we find, listen.

if you're going to pull out a ninety eight old stroke victim gramma, I is hard for me to argue against that. Find you in this one right granny, you believe the good life you deserve. The whatever the recent ers recreation, buying random stuff for eight hundred dollars a month in a family that been overspending by fifty thousand dollars a year OK IT just can happen. You're living like you make like half a million dollars here and you make two hundred and four thousand yeah .

sending .

a kid to private school plus all the accompanying activities like IT can be done. But the lifestyle living cannot be done on two hundred thousand dollars year and that is not a message that you need to go increase your income. I know that's what you're hearing, but that's not the message. The message is you actually have to cut your expenses.

It's not selling foot pictures online.

I wish I I freak wish and my foot spin out there for ten, fifteen years. I never got one offer. Where's everybody? Even when I posted about not getting foot offers, I only a couple of foot.

I did get a couple of foot offers. I'm gonna honest. They were from guys, and I don't think they were serious.

I think they were doing IT out of pity. Like, are I bro? I'll pay you twenty box, you know, for your pathetic foot pigs.

And then IT actually even felt worse. I was like, who wants to be the pathetic foot guy? Let's get back to this random stuff. Who's the one who's buying the random stuff?

Both.

both of you, okay, how do you want to solve this? We should .

make IT that when we purchase something that we discuss IT and make a decision about IT and understand how vitally important IT is or how an important is and is IT worth going against? The plan were trying to get to here.

I can imagine what would make me go against the plan, except a true emergency, you know, somebody getting ill, something really bad eating out. My son wanted a new toy that would not even enter the discussion. That's because a plan makes IT easy to say no.

IT should even enter the discussion. I think you probably both don't have guilt free spending money for each of you and then for the two of you. Is that correct? correct.

okay. So basically every decision you're making is just like it's an automatic. Yes, it's like, oh, we want this licious get IT.

yeah. And that's how you gotten into this position. So you have no constraints.

You have put no rules upon yourself. We throw under constraint. So let's let's do this. I'm gonna just make up a number here.

Let's say that a typically I recommend for guilt tory spending twenty to thirty five percent. You two are going to have to rerun your numbers because there's a lot of missing stuff. But let's just say typically a couple spending twenty to thirty five percent on guilt free spending.

In your case, you're getting closer retirement. You you want to continue living a very high life and you have fixed costs that are expensive such as your sun school. fine.

Maybe that means that you're guilt free. Spending probably needs to be twelve to fifteen percent, okay, twelve to fifteen percent of net pay. perfect.

So just to make an easy math example, just to show you what I mean, let's say that ends up being a thousand dollars a month. The way I would do IT is I might do. Alex is gets two hundred, Olivia gets two hundred.

And then the two of you, the family, gets six hundred a month in guilt free spending, twenty percent, twenty percent, sixty percent for the two of you. K, that's just the guideline. You two can decide how you want.

Imagine if you had that guideline. And then one of you, like, I wanna buy this thing to get a massage cool. That's your guilt free money.

Don't ask me, it's up to you. Go head. Do what you want. You have your money.

But if it's for the house and both of you have to agree, if it's for the family, both of you have to agree because it's coming out of that fund. But there's a limited finite pool. What do you all think?

I like you.

So can I just point out a couple things like for me, if I were me, I would really consider how much maintenance we need to do and how much we can pay for. For example, this sounds like you have some weekly stuff. Even making IT by weekly would save you thousands per year.

okay? So there's something to consider there. Eight hundred or amount of activities for ten years old is a lot of money.

You have to remember that eight hundred years among today is taking away from your ability to retire and from his ability to potentially go to a school you wanted send him to. So you need to make that decision for him. Remember, you have no constraint on your spending.

So you've sense ly pushed IT to the limit on everything. It's actually causing a lot of prob. You're lucky because you have this millions of dollars that's sitting there.

That's why i'm not pushing super harder on you to bring you down to fifty percent. But at eighty eight percent is an unhealthy percentage. So that number needs to come down.

I finally subscriptions at four fifty, which is actually proud. Ly, more immediate cut. I bring that down to like a hundred box.

And again, I would make IT special. These are the things we choose as a family. We are simplifying our life. Then home renovations, I wouldn't be doing that. Random stuff would be gone.

I would leave myself a couple hundred box a month, and we would discuss IT as a family, what are we are going to do, activities I would be strategic about that. I would bring that down to, you know, to winter box a month. But the fact is you're paying a lot of money for his private school.

That's where your guilt free spending money is going. We value that is important for safety, for his development. So we're gonna do that.

As a result, we are not going to do X, Y, Z, and it's a black or White decision we've made. You too. You too clearly have a lot of love for each other and obvious ous love for your son.

You have more control over your life than you think your son did not trip and fall into robotics spacebar. In tennis, you said yes, and you can also say no. Say no does not mean you love him less.

Say no actually means love. Love isn't about just blindly spending money. Now it's about time, right? It's about articulating your values. Your son is lucky to have both of you, and your son will, will be eternally grateful.

Just four years from now by chinese fourteen, to see all the changes his moms have made is going to be thankful to his moms. You're gna be thankful you're going to be much more relaxed, and your finances and health are gonna in a way Better position. That's a rich life.

I see such a bright light at the end of the tunnel for youtube, because doing IT together, you can make bigger changes faster than you ever said. And at the beginning of the call, you know, noticed a bit of the separation of not talking about money. But the more we talk, the more I see youtube coming together.

And with your son at the center of IT, obviously love for him, but you just have to create that vision for your family. And money has to become part of IT. And in a vision, it's not all about saying yes.

It's also about what we say no to thank you. You will live in relaxes for sharing your story with us today. I gave them some homework to do first things.

First, they need to take an honest look at their spending, and they need to redo the numbers in their csp. They made a lot of progress over the course of our conversation today. And if they are able to create a financial strategy that doesn't rely on luck unconfident, they can reach their goals. Let's take a look at Olivia power.

I thought you were going to tell me, um that I needed to work more. Uh, I didn't realize that I was a dreamer. I guess I am I was also taken back by this realization that we've had a lot of work with um my mom leave me me money even though I had always playing for that and kind of new shoes.

My savings he might blank. And with the luck we've had with lexis for one key in soccer punch, to me that without those two things we would not be in a very good situation seven years from one and becomes something more time. We have yet really serious about getting back um in every fit.

I think we live the slide store where we think we make a lot more than we do already. The works already paid off couple card, have more few more card to see a paid off the next week or two. Also exercise um committed to working together and really dumb into our expenses to see places were going to cut anyway. Just really grateful for opportunity can for the shake up in our life. We really needed that.

And now let's here .

from alex when her meat give us the for options that he had planned out with faster. I think IT was surprising to see that there's a plan as long as there's actionable steps to get there. As fascinated by IT, i'm still fascinated by IT.

I'm totally about what's behind your number four, which has me retiring in April. Mind you will have to get things in action. So maybe April really turned into mr. June, which is totally fine. The word luck came up, and it's so true that we are so lucky of how we meet the investments and how things happened.

And with that luck, we get to learn how to spend money or having discussions about money with our son, which is amazing, and explaining to him different things and opportunities that might present itself, seeing how we can cut our budget every month, our our lack of budget. The other two words that came up in our conversation that really stuck out from me, or chaos s, and we have a very, very fast peace life. And IT is chaotic sometimes, and because of that cares.

That's how we've treated our finances. So that tin, with the next word and calm, I would love, and I know Olivia now, is that a financial life? So that is one of the biggest ols I forward to is shifting out of chaos and having an exact plan, how we're going to get there in and peacefulness. And then.