Episode 212. “He’s terrified of losing it all—so she’s losing him”



Vanessa (48) and George (59) have been married for five years and run two businesses together, but still keep their finances separate, leading to recurring tension, resentment, and financial instability.

Vanessa is a risk-tolerant entrepreneur who sees money as a tool for growth. George is nearing retirement, risk-averse, and clings to financial security. They split everything 50/50, even when Vanessa stopped drawing a paycheck from their business. Now, with $482K in debt and $28K in savings, George’s retirement is looming, making their financial foundation feel unstable. His fear-based money spirals derail productive conversations, while Vanessa feels alone, unsupported, and afraid their misalignment could threaten their future.

Can they learn to trust each other, merge their financial lives, and build a shared vision before retirement kicks in?

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Transcript 

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[00:00:00] Vanessa: How come you trust me with all of the business money, but it doesn’t seem like you feel the same way about our personal money?

[00:00:05] George: I think with the business is there is protection in place. With personal money, there’s not. That’s probably what it comes down to, security. I’m feeling secure about money.

[00:00:12] Vanessa: It’s like pulling teeth to get him to want to talk about this stuff as if I’m on my own.

[00:00:18] George: But there still is a bit of me that has that fear. I still have this anxiety about it.

[00:00:23] Vanessa: It did make me feel immediately distrusted. I hear panic. I hear a lot of fear.

[00:00:27] George: My fear is driving my decision making.

[00:00:30] Vanessa: I had left my last marriage with absolutely nothing. I had no money, nowhere to live, no vehicle.

[00:00:35] George: I get really, really uncomfortable with that.

[00:00:38] Vanessa: Asking for help is not something I’m good at.

[00:00:41] George: I don’t want to wait till I’m 70 to figure this out.

[00:00:42] Vanessa: I have to keep track of how much I owe him, and he doesn’t keep track of it. He says, “I don’t know how much you owe me.”

[00:00:45] Ramit: Vanessa–

[00:00:47] Vanessa: I feel like I have to do all the work.

[00:00:48] Ramit: Does it work?

[Narration]

[00:00:50] Ramit: I’m about to speak to Vanessa and George. Vanessa’s 48. George is 59. They own two businesses together, and they have been married for five years. But interestingly, they have not combined their personal finances. I’m looking at their conscious spending plan. You can also download your own template for free at iwt.com/csp.

[00:01:02] Looking at the numbers, they earn roughly $200,000 combined. Their assets are listed at $3.4 million. I’m curious to learn about that. What’s interesting is that their investments here are just $157,000, which in their late 40s and 50s, I would expect that number to be much higher, especially given their income.

[00:01:25] And their debt is $478,000. Fixed costs are 46%, quite low. Investments, 10%. Savings, 9%. Guilt-free spending, 35%. Honestly, I don’t have a lot of comments on their spending right now, although I am a little bit puzzled by their net worth number.

[00:01:46] What caught my eye about this couple was Vanessa’s application. First off, it’s four pages long, and I noticed that she goes off in a lot of tangents, but the words that she uses in her application are extremely emotionally charged. Listen as I read her some of the most vivid lines from her own application.

[Interview]

[00:02:07] Ramit: Vanessa, on your application you wrote, “George has emotional spiral attacks rooted in fear. I regularly have to talk him down off the edge. His white-knuckled, death grip on money makes feel super isolated and lonely. We co-own two businesses, but our differing views on money might drive us apart, which I do not want.” What do you hear as you hear me read back your own words to you?

[00:02:40] Vanessa: I hear panic. I hear a lot of fear.

[00:02:43] Ramit: And George, had you seen this application before?

[00:02:46] George: Yeah, but when it’s read out by you, it has a different impact for sure.

[00:02:50] Ramit: What kind of impact?

[00:02:51] George: Makes me realize that my behavior when it comes to money is something that I definitely want to work on. It’s like, oh, I’ve got some room to improve there. I need to grow in that area because that’s not a really comfortable place for my spouse and partner, my business partner and life partner to be. How can we grow? How can we build our  Rich Life when there’s that difference? I would hate to be her because if she’s on pins and needles all the time, it’s really hard to confide and grow in business and together.

[00:03:17] Ramit: Okay. That’s a pretty mature perspective on hearing those words. I appreciate that. Vanessa, you further wrote, “Due to cash flow issues in one of our companies, I wasn’t taking a wage for about eight months last year, but I was still paying 50% of our expenses. I racked up over $8,000 in credit card debt just to keep up. When I asked George to help pay it off, he asked if I’d be paying him back. When I said no, he was clearly not interested.” What do you make of that, Vanessa?

[00:03:50] Vanessa: I felt like the debt was incurred to maintain our life between the businesses and our living expenses, but that I was on my own to pay it back.

[00:03:58] Ramit: Okay. Let me get a full understanding of the financial situation here. So I understand you both co-own two businesses, is that correct?

[00:04:07] Vanessa: Yeah.

[00:04:08] George: Yes. We’re a Canadian-owned C corp, operating in Alaska in Skagway.

[00:04:13] Vanessa: It is a design brand. And the one product line that we’re best known for is our jewelry, which is made with wild fur that George traps on his trap line.

[00:04:20] Ramit: And George, are you a member of an indigenous– how do I say it correctly, tribe?

[00:04:26] George: Yeah. I’m a member of Teslin Tlingit Council, which is the First Nations within the territory of the Yukon. My great-grandfather found his wealth trapping, and he’s handed that down to me, and it’s a beautiful way of life being out on the land. And that’s what’s one of the foundations of the businesses is.

[00:04:41] Ramit: Okay, great. Do you two get along in business?

[00:04:44] George: Yes.

[00:04:45] Vanessa: Yeah.

[00:04:45] Ramit: And can you just clarify for me, how are each of the businesses doing, financially speaking?

[00:04:51] Vanessa: So the Canadian business is not currently profitable. We’ve experienced a lot of dumb things with the local government that’s had really negative impacts on the business’s performance. The revenue dropped 94% after the municipality did something stupid. So we’ve been trying to claw our way back from that.

[00:05:12] Ramit: Not profitable. That’s all I need to know.

[00:05:14] George: The Alaska company is doing fantastic. The magic was when both Vanessa and I showed up in the store. We launched a new product last year, so I feel really good about that store, but not willing to let The Whitehorse, the flagship store go neither.

[00:05:28] Ramit: All right. Profitable business, unprofitable business.

[00:05:31] Vanessa: And there’s 1,000 reasons. Like the Canadian company, we–

[00:05:36] Ramit: That’s okay. That’s okay. I don’t need to know all the reasons. I just need to know the status. Okay, so you two are married. You co-own two businesses together. Why do you keep your money separate?

[00:05:49] Vanessa: I don’t know. George, why do we keep our money separate?

[00:05:53] George: Recently we just opened some joint accounts. Not sure. I’d like to get to the root of that as well.

[00:06:00] Ramit: Wait, what? Nobody knows?

[00:06:03] Vanessa: Oh, know. I know.

[00:06:03] Ramit: Everybody sitting in this room? What? Okay, hold on. Wait, did you say you know, Vanessa?

[00:06:10] Vanessa: Yeah. I’ve asked George for a long time.

[00:06:12] Ramit: If you know, then just out of curiosity, how come you asked him in the way that you did? I read it as passive aggressive. I don’t know. George, you tell us.

[00:06:23] Vanessa: I think the reason that I’d handed it back to him, the hot potato, was that I am very clear on why I want to combine finances, and this is a tired topic, and I wanted him to say the words because I don’t feel like historically he’d really taken ownership for his fear-based relationship with the money situation in our marriage.

[00:06:46] Ramit: Okay. That, I appreciate. You know what, if we’re going to have a long conversation today, let’s be direct with each other. How about that?

[00:06:52] George: All right.

[00:06:53] Ramit: So George, would you be willing to pick up what Vanessa tossed out? She said you clearly have a reason why you have not combined finances. A minute ago, you said, I don’t know. Sounds like maybe you do know.

[00:07:09] George: It’s a tough one because there is really no good reason other than it’s rooted in probably some insecurities around money. This is where that thinking part comes in. It’s like, how do I attack that, and how do I think about that? Trust, possibly.

[00:07:21] Ramit: Can we take it back? When was the first time that the two of you talked about potentially combining money?

[00:07:26] Vanessa: I remember a conversation in the first year or two that we were dating. I was in the process of exiting my former marriage that was a long and expensive and dramatic divorce, and so George got to see how that was affecting me and it led us to having a conversation around prenups. He brought it up.

[00:07:45] But at that time, I had left my last marriage with absolutely nothing. I had no money, nowhere to live, no vehicle. Even my kids had stayed behind with my ex because I had to get out for safety reasons. And so George saw me with literally nothing. And so him asking me about the prenup, it made me feel a little uncomfortable because I wasn’t familiar with what that really entailed, but it did make me feel immediately distrusted.

[00:08:08] Ramit: Did you know that, George?

[00:08:10] George: Yeah, I think I was aware of all of those different things that were going on, for sure.

[00:08:14] Ramit: So it sounds like the first time you talked about money early on, there were some legitimate reasons to talk about money, prenups, not having anything. I totally get that. I really respect that the two of you talked about it openly early on. It’s awesome. What about once you got married? Did you have conversations about combining finances?

[00:08:38] Vanessa: We had several that really just made not a lot of progress. I would bring, not the, conversation up, but the idea within whatever conversation was already happening, whether it was about, oh, send me the money for the whatever repair or the renovation. I would see that as an opportunity to introduce this idea of like, well, this could be a lot simpler if we had just streamlined everything and we at least had a joint account just for running our life together. And that just would never, ever get any progress.

[00:09:07] Ramit: What would you say, George, when she brought it up?

[00:09:09] George: I felt like, oh, that’s your idea. And so I really struggled with it, going, “That’s your idea. This is what you want us to do as a couple.” But then when we started reading your book and I started listening to some of your podcasts, it was like, oh, actually I’m hearing it from another source.

[00:09:23] And that gave a neutral third party some direction for both of us to take. And I immediately started feeling better. Now, it hasn’t been instantaneous. We’re slowly, and we’re still working. When did we set up our joint accounts? Two weeks ago?

[00:09:37] Vanessa: A week ago. Yeah.

[00:09:37] George: A week ago.

[00:09:38] Ramit: So you guys are cleaning the house before the house cleaner comes. This happens all the time, by the way.

[Narration]

[00:09:43] Ramit: This is classic. People come on the show with huge financial challenges, 10 out of 10, and then like magic, the week before we talk, they suddenly open up a joint account or they pay off their loans. They figure it all out. This is exactly like cleaning your house before the house cleaner arrives. It actually makes no sense.

[00:10:04] It’s a way to often calm your own anxiety because you know that somebody is about to shine a light on how you’ve been living. It’s also a sign of avoidance. My guests know that their finances are going to be talked about, so they’re scrambling to tidy things up just enough to avoid the real conversation of how they got there in the first place.

[Interview]

[00:10:27] Ramit: I’m curious. Vanessa mentions to you, “Hey, it would be easier if we had a joint account.” And at the time she was your wife. And your response was, “That’s not my idea.” But then when you heard me, a random guy on the radio say like, “Hey, combining accounts is good,” why’d you trust me more than your wife?

[00:10:50] George: That’s a really good question. I think there’s a lot of fear-based thinking around money and security, and you hear all the stories, losing everything kind of thing, and it doesn’t matter if it’s in a relationship or not, it’s just that fear of losing everything and not being able to provide for yourself.

[00:11:07] And you watch other couples struggle with this and having to start over and being taken advantage of. And I think there’s just a lot of fear around what could happen to you. I’m not in a position where I’ve got huge savings, but what I do have, I feel like that’ll sustain me and my retirement. But now that I’m married, it’s like, okay, let’s take and build something else to sustain both of us. And I think it just took me a while to switch from that me mindset and my money to us and our money.

[00:11:38] Ramit: All right. I appreciate that. Vanessa, any reactions as you hear George describe the recent changes?

[00:11:45] Vanessa: What’s interesting is this scenario that I heard him mention as being the thing he’s afraid of is what he was literally watching me come out of. My ex-husband was abusive and toxic and narcissistic, and he controlled the money and was a whole situation. And I left there with just my few possessions. And he watched me get tricked out of all the money. And he was watching me experience this thing that he was afraid of.

[00:12:13] George: What she was going through was horrible, and I’d never want to go through that. I’d never want to put her through it.

[00:12:17] Ramit: Okay. That’s interesting. I’d never want to go through it. I’d never want to put her through it. And so your conclusion was, therefore I’m going to just keep things the way they were when I was single, when I, George, was single. I’m not going to combine income. I’m just going to freeze in time even though we’re married. Is that an accurate representation of basically what you did with your money?

[00:12:37] George: I think that is what I did with my money, yes.

[00:12:39] Ramit: Vanessa, what is it like for you building a business with your husband but not sharing your personal money?

[00:12:49] Vanessa: It seems a bit silly. We have so much money invested of our own personal money into both of them. And he obviously trusts me in that context. I’m just not clear on what’s taken so long for him to feel like he can maybe trust me a little bit now to have these brand new joint accounts, where the disparity comes from.

[00:13:11] Ramit: You ever ask him?

[00:13:12] Vanessa: No.

[00:13:14] Ramit: Can we do it right now?

[00:13:16] Vanessa: Yeah. Hey, George. How come you trust me with all of the business money but it doesn’t seem like you feel the same way about our personal money?

[00:13:24] George: I think with the businesses, there’s protections in place. With personal money, there’s not. That’s probably what it comes down to, security or feeling secure about money.

[00:13:32] Ramit: Did that answer your question, Vanessa?

[00:13:34] Vanessa: No.

[00:13:36] Ramit: Okay. I assume that happens a lot, right?

[00:13:39] Vanessa: Yeah. It’s a little bit tiring. This is usually the part where I go, “Okay, you’re not ready to talk about it. I’ll wait till another time.”

[00:13:45] Ramit: What do you do when you ask a question and don’t get a definitive answer? Do you double down? Do you yell? Do you leave? Do you change the subject? Do you say, “Okay?”

[00:13:54] Vanessa: I think I often will just give up and wait till another time.

[00:14:00] Ramit: Okay. How do you give up? What do you say?

[00:14:03] Vanessa: I don’t even say anything. I think I just let the conversation take a pause and then we just move on like I never brought it up.

[00:14:11] George: I usually exit, and then she follows me.

[00:14:13] Ramit: You leave the room and then, Vanessa, you follow? And what do you like, watch TV or something?

[00:14:19] Vanessa: Sometimes. He’ll usually go into the basement to sit by the wood stove.

[00:14:22] Ramit: First of all, this sounds very Canadian. The fact that I’m going to a wood stove. What do you do, Vanessa? Cuddle up and pretend it didn’t happen?

[00:14:31] Vanessa: If his reaction has been that strong where he feels like he just is shutting down and needs to walk away, if I follow him, I will usually follow up with something that’s gentle and to soothe any of his feelings of distress so that it’s not going to harm the relationship because I want to make sure that the conversations can happen in a safe way without it doing any damage to one another.

[00:14:55] Ramit: Understood. And can I just ask one final question? Do you ever bring it up and get a satisfactory answer?

[00:15:01] Vanessa: Sometimes.

[00:15:02] Ramit: Okay. That’s good.

[00:15:03] Vanessa: But with bigger stuff that requires more commitment, the setting up of the joint accounts definitely is a harder ask.

[Narration]

[00:15:11] Ramit: What we just saw is one of the most common dynamics that I see in couples, the chaser-avoider dynamic. Vanessa is obviously the chaser. She’s desperate for some kind of participation in their finances so that she doesn’t feel like she’s doing this alone. And she tries everything. She brings it up nicely. She picks a different time of day. She even changes her tone. But none of it works.

[00:15:34] George, the avoider, shuts it down. He actually physically leaves the room, and that dynamic is painfully familiar. The more she chases, the more he avoids. What’s happening here is not just miscommunication. It’s a cycle, and it’s been reinforced, concretized over the years.

[00:15:56] The important thing to understand is that this dynamic is co-created. Vanessa’s not chasing because she wants to. She’s chasing because she’s embedded in this dynamic with George. Think about it. Chasing gives her a sense of control, of meaning, even if the chasing doesn’t work.

[00:16:17] And George avoids, not just out of malice. He’s doing what he’s always done to manage discomfort. And guess what? She takes over, makes it all right. You can see this dynamic in play. If he can begin to see the toll that this takes on her and on their relationship, that could be the first real step towards breaking this pattern.

[00:16:39] We’re going to get right into that after the break.

[Interview]

[00:16:44] George: I think one thing that has shifted is Vanessa’s able to show me graphs of where our businesses are at, what they’re doing, able to show our personal life where they’re at, so I can see things. Whereas before it was like, I feel like we should do this. Whereas now if she shows me something that’s tangible, that makes more sense to me, which really helps me with my trust issues around money.

[00:17:04] Ramit: I appreciate that. I do have to ask a question though, George. Do you think it gets tiring for her to have to jump through 50 different hoops to find a way to convince her husband to do something?

[00:17:15] George: Yes, absolutely. It must be very frustrating.

[00:17:17] Ramit: Kind of feels to me like I would be going through my relationship, just trying to get through the day. There’s a million things that have to happen in a relationship, and with everything I have to fight a battle pushing a stone up a hill instead of it being easy and just blending, working beautifully with my partner. Do you see the difference?

[00:17:37] George: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:38] Ramit: Do you have that in one part of your relationship where it’s just easy, it’s fluid?

[00:17:43] Vanessa: Most of the rest of it. Just the way that we work together in our business. When we’re out on the sales floor together, we can just lob the conversations back and forth. I’ll talk about a product. He’ll talk about a product, and we know the pitch up, down, inside, out, and it’s just like cartwheels and high fives, and it’s just like a fine, well-oiled machine.

[00:18:02] Ramit: I like that. George, you agree with that?

[00:18:04] George: Absolutely. We’re dynamic.

[00:18:05] Ramit: That’s beautiful. It’s like you described a well-oiled machine. Sometimes I call it a ballet. It’s just everybody is doing their part and you know you have a teammate. You don’t even have to look. You know they’re right there doing exactly what you know they’re doing.

[00:18:20] That’s what we want to do with money, so that if there’s a question about spending, you already know 98% of the time what they’re going to say or do. You’ve already set up a bunch of guidelines so that there’s no question. And then once in a while, you’re not sure. You just talk. You check in, and it feels good. That’s where we’re going to get with money if everything goes well today. How’s that sound?

[00:18:44] George: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:45] Vanessa: Oh, that sounds–

[00:18:45] George: Awesome.

[00:18:46] Vanessa: I already feel less tired at the thought of that.

[00:18:49] Ramit: Yes, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and you know it because you already do it.

[Narration]

[00:18:53] Ramit: Vanessa and George clearly know how to communicate well in other areas of life, which is quite surprising given how they talk about money. George avoids. We haven’t yet gotten to the why, and I know there’s something deeper going on here. Maybe it’s out of fear. Maybe it’s ignorance. Maybe he avoids because he is embarrassed. He doesn’t understand money. But there’s always a reason that people avoid money. Listen, as I press him.

[Interview]

[00:19:21] Ramit: Can you think of a time you were scared or nervous of money since you’ve been married to Vanessa?

[00:19:26] George: Those come quite more frequently for me than her. The tariffs is a big scary thing to go through– those types of things. With Whitehorse store, when it took a downturn a few years ago, that was scary because we’re still growing the Alaska business. I’m still working halftime.

[00:19:42] So counting on my half-year wage to fund those businesses to keep them going. So those are times where I feel like I wish I had more support systems in place to understand this better. Because a lot of times I admit that sometimes it’s just understanding.

[00:19:56] Because there’s the fear-based thinking and then there’s actually what’s happening. So Vanessa said something to me recently that really helped calm me. And she talked about the money being like the tide. And she said, “Right now the tide’s out.”

[00:20:09] Ramit: Mm.

[00:20:10] George: And now it’s starting to come back in. In the last few months we’ve noticed a tide coming back in. So there is things that are changing and shifting. So it’s helped me to grapple with the, holy [Bleep], the tide’s out right now. We’re all going to die. I have to go back to work full time. I’m not going to be able to retire. I’m not going to have enough in retirement.

[00:20:24] Ramit: When was the last time you read a book on money?

[00:20:27] George: It would’ve been yours last year.

[00:20:29] Ramit: You read my book last year? Hey, that’s better than 95% of the people who come on this show. So already you’re ahead of the game. Out of curiosity, you’re, I believe, 59 years old. Correct?

[00:20:41] George: Yes.

[00:20:41] Ramit: And I’m assuming, correct me if I’m wrong, you’ve been worried about money for a long time. Would that be fair to say?

[00:20:47] George: Yes.

[00:20:48] Ramit: Okay. So at 58 years old, you read my book, and as you described it, you flipped around. Now, I don’t mind. I’m not here to berate you for not reading every word of my book. That’s not my purpose. But out of just out of genuine curiosity, you’re anxious and worried about money all the time. It’s affected your relationship. Here you have a book, whether it’s my book or somebody else’s book. How come you didn’t read the full thing?

[00:21:14] George: I think for me a lot of it is I trusted the wrong person with my money, from a financial advisor who took a lot of that percentage of that growth, thinking that, oh, somebody else is looking after it. They’re going to do that job for me.

[00:21:25] And then just being busy in life and not making time for that. So I’ve learned actually a lot just from conversations with Vanessa. And so she’s done a lot of research and reading, and then we share that together as a couple, and that’s where a lot of this knowledge and comfortability has come from. 

[00:21:26] Ramit: I’m not buying it because you said Vanessa has helped a lot, but Vanessa has been trying to get you to open up a joint account for five years, and it’s taken four years, 11 months to get it to happen. So she may be comfortable with money, but that’s her taking on all the load. If Vanessa wasn’t around, what would you be doing with your money?

[00:22:01] George: Probably the same thing, trusting somebody else that would look after me in retirement. I think I was at the point when I met Vanessa that I knew I needed to make changes with my money.

[00:22:11] Ramit: George, first of all, you mentioned a financial person, advisor type of person. What happened there?

[00:22:19] George: I attended a seminar through work, and started investing with an investment broker. So I trusted that everything would be fine for my retirement. Kept working away at it and went, “Oh, he’s got my back. This is what’s going to happen.” But then for some reason just didn’t take that upon myself. Didn’t worry too much.

[00:22:35] Vanessa: The first time I met this guy, I said, “He’s greasy, and I don’t like him.”

[00:22:39] Ramit: Oh, [Bleep] greasy. That’s a great insult by the way. We lost that a long time. In the 50s, you were greasy. Yes, I’m going to bring that back, Vanessa.

[00:22:48] Vanessa: You’re welcome.

[00:22:49] Ramit: Greasy little. All right. How much? What was the percentage? Hold on, let me guess. 1.35%. Higher. Oh.

[00:22:59] George: I don’t even know what it ended up settling when– probably around three or more.

[00:23:03] Vanessa: I was going to say, I think it’s around three.

[00:23:05] Ramit: 3%? I’m counting the number of red flags on my finger already.

[Narration]

[00:23:08] I just have to jump in here quickly because what the [Bleep]. A 3% advisor fee will absolutely cripple your portfolio. For example, let’s say that you start off with $100,000 and you invest a  $1,000 a month for 30 years at a 7% return, which you can get in a lot of index funds average, historically. You’ll have about $2 million.

[00:23:33] Ramit: Now let’s take the same scenario and assume that your financial advisor is charging 3%. That doesn’t sound like much, but in 30 years, instead of having $2 million, you would have just over $1 million. Do you see that this simple decision you made costs you a million dollars, 50%?

[00:23:56] That means by going with this advisor, you lost 50% of your money. That’s more than all the vacations, all the coffee, all the freaking celery you agonize for over the last 30 years cost you combined. Do not do this. Take control of your money, and stop delegating one of the most important decisions in your life to somebody else working out of a freaking ramshackle office, selling insurance and calzones in the same place. What the [Bleep]?

[00:24:22] No wonder George has trust issues around money. He got burned. I don’t even think he realizes how badly, but he knows it’s bad. Interestingly, Vanessa has also been burned in the past by her ex, but she has managed to rebuild. It’s quite interesting to me that some people can experience a hardship and give up. It’s almost learned helplessness. I can’t do anything about it. I’m out checking out.

[00:24:48] On the other hand, some people can undergo great, great adversity, and they approach it saying, “That’s never going to happen to me. I’m going to change. I’m going to make a big change in my life.” It’s totally unpredictable as to how people will react. I’ve never been able to find a pattern, but it is striking that two people can experience adversity and one of them can act in a totally different way than the other.

[00:25:12] Now, back to George and Vanessa. The question is, does George trust Vanessa? That’s where we’re headed next after I asked them about this sleazy financial advisor that charged them a crazy amount.

[Interview]

[00:25:23] Ramit: Vanessa, when you heard that George was paying a lot of money for an advisor like this, what was your reaction?

[00:25:31] Vanessa: I never liked him from the beginning. He gave me the ick from the go. By the time I had listened to your book, we started exploring. I asked him like, how much are you paying? I don’t know. Let’s find out. And of course it was not a straight question and answer email situation. By the time we found out– because George had looked at his statements, and it was never growing. This guy had your money for, what, 20 years? And it was close to the same amount that had been put in.

[00:25:59] Ramit: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:00] Vanessa: And it never grew. And so I thought, I don’t trust this guy. Find out what he’s charging. And when we found out, then George’s hair was on fire, and he was furious. And all of my internal Spidey senses were saying, “I told you so.” But I didn’t say that because that’s rude. But I was thinking it.

[00:26:15] Ramit: Okay. Did you think to yourself maybe George is not super savvy with money?

[00:26:20] Vanessa: No, I didn’t think that. I just thought that George trusted the wrong person.

[00:26:24] Ramit: Okay. George, do you think that Vanessa is savvy with money?

[00:26:29] George: Absolutely. We own a house on 1.3 acres in one of the more posh neighborhoods in our town, and that was paid for by her hard work, dedication, understanding how finances and business works.

[00:26:42] Ramit: And George, do you trust her with your money?

[00:26:44] George: Yes.

[00:26:46] Ramit: Okay, hold on. Vanessa, do you agree with that?

[00:26:49] Vanessa: In the business, he absolutely does. But in her personal life, there’s a block there, and I don’t know what it is.

[00:26:55] Ramit: I have a question. If she’s savvy with money, as you acknowledge, and you trust her, because she’s your wife, and you two co-run businesses, theoretically, wouldn’t you just agree to whatever she said about money, setting up accounts, putting money here and there?

[00:27:10] George: Yes, theoretically. I guess the part that scares me is I didn’t realize how volatile businesses were. And seeing the downturn in our business, that scares me.

[00:27:19] Ramit: What does that have to do with trusting her? If she’s the savvy one with money–

[00:27:23] George: When it comes to a business and watching the businesses and finances fluctuate with that business as we’re growing them, I get really, really uncomfortable with that.

[00:27:32] Ramit: I have a question. Have you two ever had a productive conversation around money?

[00:27:11] Vanessa: We have lots of other productive conversations. We can talk about all other money things till the cows come home. What should we do with this spend or with this project, or how much should it cost? We can do all of that stuff all day long. It’s the minutiae of the joint account and going back and forth.

[00:27:54] I have to keep track of how much I owe him, and he doesn’t keep track of it. And then he says, I don’t know how much you owe me.

[00:28:02] Ramit: Vanessa–

[00:28:03] Vanessa: I feel like I have to do all the work

[00:28:04] Ramit: Do you think that I’m agreeing with you right now or not? 

[00:27:40] Vanessa: I do.

[00:28:08] Ramit: Then is this not a moment where you reflect on it and say, “Wow, I never thought about it like that. George, would you be on board to do that?” Which might actually advance your relationship forward with money versus explaining over and over what’s going on?

[00:28:25] Vanessa: I think that’s just habit from what I’ve had to do in a lot of conversations with George.

[00:28:29] Ramit: Does it work?

[00:28:31] Vanessa: No.

[00:28:31] Ramit: It’s not working with me either. You guys can keep up the same old habits of over explaining to each other. Or you can start to say like, “Hey, let’s try to understand why each of us is in this position.” And sometimes, actually, there’s not a good understanding. And sometimes, honestly, it doesn’t really matter. Sometimes people do stuff because they don’t even know why and they just [Bleep] do it.

[00:28:53] If I have a chance to recalibrate this, it’s that over-explaining it is not going to get us anywhere. We just need to start deciding what’s our vision together. Are we both willing to do it? Great. If so, let’s make some changes. If not, let’s talk about what that looks like too. Okay.

[00:29:09] Right now, do we agree? It seems like Vanessa comes up with an idea for combining income, for example, George says no, and that’s the end of it until the next time Vanessa brings it up, but it never goes anywhere until two weeks ago. Is that accurate?

[00:29:26] Vanessa: Yes, that’s accurate.

[00:29:27] George: Yes.

[Narration]

[00:29:28] Ramit: Okay. It’s clear that Vanessa initiates conversations around money and that George avoids them until Vanessa just gives up. How many people are in a scenario exactly like this? How many of you want to talk about money with your partner, try to bring it up, but every time you do, they avoid it? Or worse, they get mad. They’ll say things like, “Why can’t we ever have a nice night out without you talking about money?”

[00:29:51] This is exactly why I wrote Money for Couples. Because seeing how difficult it is to actually talk about money constructively, it can be soul sucking. You’re not asking for the world. You just want your partner to be engaged. That is why I wrote exactly what to say, how to bring it up, even what to do if your partner storms off. You can get all of that in Money for Couples, my new book.

[00:30:16] Now, with George and Vanessa, I noticed that there was one moment where Vanessa approached him differently, and it really reinforced this dynamic. This moment was subtle, but it really matters. See if you can catch what changes in this next part of their story.

[00:30:31] We’re going to get into that conversation right after this.

[Interview]

[00:30:36] Ramit: In your application, Vanessa, you referred to going into credit card debt. From what I understand, one of the businesses was not doing particularly well, and so you didn’t pay yourself a salary for a certain number of months, and you got into credit card debt. How much credit card debt?

[00:30:55] Vanessa: I think it was 8,000.

[00:30:57] Ramit: Okay. And what happened after you got into $8,000 of credit card debt?

[00:31:02] Vanessa: I began just paying it down aggressively. But because the interest was high, I wanted to pay it off, and I wanted George’s help, and I knew he had cash in his savings. And I asked him to help me pay it off so that I wasn’t paying that interest.

[00:31:14] Ramit: Okay. Walk me through that conversation.

[00:31:17] Vanessa: It was evening time. I told him about the credit card balance, which he seemed surprised by. He asked me how it got that way, and I reminded him that it was because I had taken no wages and I still had our life to pay for, and I asked him to help me pay it off.

[00:31:35] I am pretty independent, and I don’t typically ask anybody for help. And so the fact that I was asking him for help was a real vulnerable moment for me.

[00:31:47] Ramit: How did you ask it? What words did you use?

[00:31:49] Vanessa: I was pretty direct. I said, “Can you help me pay off this credit card?”

[00:31:53] Ramit: Okay. What did he say?

[00:31:55] Vanessa: He was quiet for a moment. There was definitely a pause. And then he had said, “What would this look like? Would you be paying this back? Would this be a loan?” And I said, “No, I just need you to help me pay this off.” And he was quiet again, which to me, I read as a no.

[00:32:10] And then I let it sit for a little bit, and I re-approached it again later that evening. And I said, “I really need your help with this.” And he said, “If I needed the help, what would you do?” And I said, “I would just give you the [Bleep] money.”

[00:32:22] Then later on that night, I think he was feeling guilty, and he offered me the money. And I felt really conflicted because I didn’t want to take money from him feeling like he was being bullied into it, even though I needed the money. So then I didn’t know what to do.

[00:32:38] Ramit: So what did you do in the end?

[00:32:39] Vanessa: I ended up having to pay it more slowly, but I paid it off.

[00:32:43] Ramit: It’s very interesting. I’m struck by your retelling of the story. Do you see certain interpretations you made that may or may not have been accurate?

[00:32:53] Vanessa: Absolutely.

[00:32:54] Ramit: What are they?

[00:32:55] Vanessa: The one where I was projecting an assumption that he was offering the money out of guilt.

[00:33:00] Ramit: Correct. Who knows? Maybe he just thought about it and needed a few hours and then he was like, “Hey, I love you. Here’s the money.” So yes, that’s one. What else? When he’s silent–

[00:33:11] Vanessa: That it’s a no.

[00:33:12] Ramit: Right. Didn’t hear a no. Just heard silence. Maybe it’s a no. Or maybe it’s, I need time to think. Who knows? George, what do you think about those interpretations? Was she right or not?

[00:33:26] George: So I do remember her asking, and obviously, my wife, I want to help her. I just didn’t really know how. So do I go and take money out of a line of credit? Where do I find that money to help her pay that off? I like to have a big safety net. And now to grow the businesses, obviously I’ve had to use that.

[00:33:43] Ramit: Hold on. Did you say any of this to her?

[00:33:46] George: No.

[00:33:47] Ramit: What the [Bleep]?

[00:33:49] George: I know.

[00:33:50] Ramit: So you just were silent, leaving a huge vacuum and leaving her to come up with maybe the worst interpretation. George, I think your questions are totally legit. It’s the same questions I’d be thinking. Where would the money come from? What does it mean? What’s the effect going to be on my retirement, our retirement, and on and on and on? Lots of questions. All valid, but she didn’t know any of those.

[00:34:12] She just thought he means no, and she just left. And then what about later when you offered her the money? Were you feeling guilty? 

[00:33:33] George: No, I don’t think I was. I think I genuinely wanted to help. I just didn’t know how. So the solution now is obviously combining finances and then it’s not a question. It’s just this is our debt. This is our wealth. Instead of this is my debt, your wealth, my whatever.

[00:34:35] Ramit: Let’s pause for a second. Vanessa, I noticed you are crying a little bit. I want to check in with you. What’s going on?

[00:34:43] Vanessa: I know that George loves me, and I know that I’m not alone in stuff, but asking for help is not something I’m good at, and asking him to help me and him not telling me that his answer wasn’t a no or that he just needed some time– let me think about it– I have nothing to go on, it just reaffirmed to me that as alone as I’ve been in most things in my life, especially after my divorce, that, oh, yeah, it’s going to be here too.

[00:35:11] Ramit: Meaning you felt alone, and looking back, you still feel alone by the silence.

[00:35:17] Vanessa: Yeah. It certainly didn’t make me feel connected. 

[00:35:18] Ramit: George, you hear that word connected?

[00:35:21] George: Mm-hmm. I do.

[00:35:23] Ramit: That’s a word I don’t think a lot of men talk about. I certainly didn’t grow up hearing that word or thinking about it. It’s not like a male word. You know what I mean? Is it for you?

[00:35:34] George: Somewhat. I think that it’s an important part of the work I do, the relationship that I have is, that connection. Money’s a little bit different for me, I’m guessing.

[00:35:45] Ramit: Yeah. It’s interesting. So you’re maybe, what, connected to nature? Would that be accurate?

[00:35:52] George: Absolutely.

[00:35:53] Ramit: Okay. That’s where we differ. I’m not connected to– I’m like, “Nature, what’s that?” All right. But that’s actually powerful. We all have something that we are connected to, but in my day-to-day growing up, I didn’t use the word connected when it came to relationships. Certainly not intimate partners. I hear Vanessa using that word. Vanessa, how long have you been thinking of or using that word, connected?

[00:36:20] Vanessa: Oh, as far back as I can remember.

[00:36:23] Ramit: Yeah. I’ve started to use it, George, a lot, being connected. Now, there’s a lot of different things. There’s different ages, different cultures, different genders. There’s all kinds of forces that play here. But I’ve realized from a gender perspective, sometimes I tend to optimize a lot.

[00:36:41] I want to get the numbers right. Or I know folks who play the opposite game. They’re fearful. I think, George, you would probably describe your relationship with money a lot like that. And what I’m hearing from Vanessa, which I think is a really good thing, is sometimes connection is the first thing.

[00:36:58] The two of you might even make a bad financial purchase. Maybe you waste 500 bucks on something. But if the two of you are connected in the grand scheme, that $500, it’s not that big of a deal. But being connected is way more important.

[00:37:14] Vanessa: I 100% agree with it.

[00:37:15] Ramit: I know you agree, Vanessa. George, what about you?

[00:37:18] George: 100%. Because that’s huge.

[00:37:21] Ramit: Oh, I love it. Do you see how your responses, George, when Vanessa came to ask in a tough situation probably produced a disconnect, not a connection?

[00:37:31] George: Absolutely.

[00:37:32] Ramit: Okay. If you were to be able to change anything, you could go back in time, what would you have done differently?

[00:37:36] George: If I could go back and change those things, of course, I’m going to help you. Let’s sit down and figure this out.

[00:37:41] Ramit: Wow. Vanessa? 

[00:37:42] Vanessa: Just listening to that imaginary replay of the scenario, hearing George’s response, it’s like instant relief. It’s not a no. I’m not alone. You are going to help me. We’re a team. 

[00:38:00] Ramit: I really love that. You are a team. I really love that, George, because the way you answered honors your need to take some time and to think about it. I respect that. I would never ask you to, hey, write a check for 10 grand on the spot.

[00:38:08] But, “Hey, I love you. I know it takes a lot for you to ask for help, and of course, you know I want to find out a way for us to do this. Let’s sit down and figure it out.” Give each other a hug, go to sleep, and the next day when you’re fresh, wake up and talk about it. That’s the way you do it.

[00:38:26] George: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:28] Ramit: Beautiful. Okay. I like this. I like this. These are tools that you can use going forward, but a lot of it is just communicating what you’re actually feeling. George, do you see a therapist?

[00:38:38] George: Yes.

[00:38:39] Ramit: Great. Okay. Awesome. So these are things that will become much more available and comfortable for you. Fantastic. And Vanessa, how about for you? You see the same couple’s therapist?

[00:38:48] Vanessa: Yeah, we see the same couple’s therapist, and I’ve also been in one-on-one therapy for a decade.

[00:38:53] Ramit: Okay, great. Can I ask, Vanessa, some tougher financial questions now? So how’d you get into 8k of credit card debt?

[00:39:02] Vanessa: Just having to pay for just life stuff, the household bills and groceries and that sort of thing when my income had stopped from our one business.

[00:39:10] Ramit: How long did it take for you to accumulate that?

[00:39:12] Vanessa: Oh, it probably happened over the course of the eight months.

[00:39:15] Ramit: Why not bring it up with George after the first month?

[00:39:19] Vanessa: He was aware that I wasn’t getting an income.

[00:39:22] Ramit: Well, was he aware that you were accumulating credit card debt?

[00:39:26] Vanessa: No, no, we wouldn’t talk about that because we keep separate finances.

[00:39:30] Ramit: What’s that response that you just gave me?

[00:39:32] Vanessa: It’s like pulling teeth to get him to want to talk about this stuff as a us.

[00:39:37] Ramit: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:38] Vanessa: And so again, it was like I’m on my own. And so if I’m on my own and I have to rely just on me, if I’m getting myself in, I have to get myself out. And I don’t ask him because he’s not the one putting that money on that credit card. I have to pay my half of the bills, and so I have to be the one to pay it out.

[00:39:56] Ramit: Yeah. It’s got to be frustrating. It’s got to feel alone, like you said. And then by the time you bring it up, it’s a bigger problem than it would’ve been had you brought it up first month.

[00:40:05] Vanessa: Yeah.

[00:40:06] Ramit: You said, “We’re a team,” Vanessa. And it seems to me like when you two are in business, you’re a team. You get it. You’re both playing your part. That’s awesome. Again, I just want to remind you, that’s what I want for your personal finances, is for you two to be a team. And part of a team is having a healthy culture where you can bring these things up. You can talk about it, good and bad.

[00:40:24] If one of you needs time to think about it, that’s okay. You are comfortable enough to say that. “Hey, right now I need to process this, but tomorrow at 6:00, I’d love to pick it back up again.” And then of course there’s the structural part. Let’s make sure that we have our money combined. If we need to create some rules about a postnup, we can do that. But let’s really make sure our money is easier to visualize together. That’s where we’re going to go.” How does that sound to both of you?

[00:40:50] Vanessa: Oh, that sounds like such a relief.

[00:40:52] George: Amazing.

[00:40:52] Ramit: Okay, good. Conceptually, we’re there. Let’s try to figure out how we get there. What do you say we take a look at the numbers?

[00:40:59] Vanessa: Let’s do it.

[00:41:00] Ramit: All right. Who created the conscious spending plan?

[00:41:03] Vanessa: I was at the computer, but we were side by side, and we did it absolutely as a team together.

[00:41:08] Ramit: Oh, good. Okay. How did it feel to do it together?

[00:41:11] George: I loved it actually because I can see something in front of me. I’m not going on feeling and reactions. I’m going on math. I’m going on concrete numbers. I’m going on a plan. Give me a plan. Show me the numbers. I’m in. 

[00:41:24] Ramit: That’s pretty interesting. Vanessa, have you found George to be very plan-oriented?

[00:41:28] Vanessa: Absolutely. And he likes the concrete, which took me a long time to figure out that that’s what he needed.

[00:41:34] Ramit:  That’s interesting. I’m surprised right now. George, I did not expect you to have really enjoyed the CSP creation process, but I love that you did. And the fact that you’ve now twice said you love a good plan. You love seeing it concretely. I believe you. I totally believe you. So now I’m like, “Is that what we need to do here?” But then I go, “Wait a second. What the [Bleep]?” Look at this book. What about the plan in that one, George?

[00:42:02] George: That’s sitting over there under the coffee table.

[00:42:05] Ramit: All right. I’m going to put this thing up on screen. Let’s go.

[00:42:08] George: Okay.

[00:42:11] Ramit: Vanessa, can you read the word in bold and then the full number next to it, please.

[00:42:16] Vanessa: So that’s the assets, and we are 3.477 million.

[00:42:21] Ramit: Great.

[00:42:22] Vanessa: And then investments, 157,500. Savings is 30,187. And then the debt is 478,389.

[00:42:34] Ramit: Total net worth?

[00:42:36] Vanessa:  3.186 million.

[00:42:38] Ramit: Okay, great. How do you feel about those numbers?

[00:42:40] Vanessa: I love those numbers, especially because I came from nothing. I had to rebuild everything.

[00:42:46] Ramit: Great. George?

[00:42:48] George: So when Vanessa first showed those numbers to me, I was in disbelief. How could I be worth that? Because I look at my bank account, when I look at those types of things, I’m like, “No, no, no. There’s a disconnect here.”

[00:42:57] Ramit: Okay. Can we drill into those? What is $3.477 million worth of assets? What is that?

[00:43:05] George: So that’s house. That’s other assets that we have, like boats, cars, those types of things.

[00:43:10] Ramit: Wait, wait, wait. Give me the numbers. Break them down.

[00:43:12] George: I don’t know what they are. 

[00:43:14] Ramit: Why is that? Now I’m curious because just a second ago, George, you said, “I’m a chart guy. I’m a numbers guy.” This is a pretty big number, $3.47 million.

[00:43:26] George: It is a big number. Vanessa’s been handling that part.

[00:43:29] Ramit: What if Vanessa didn’t handle all this stuff?

[00:43:31] George: I guess I’d be either forced, a, to figure it out on my own. 

[00:43:35] Ramit: Or? 

[00:43:35] George: Just keep living life like it was going to be okay at some point, which is not where I’m at. I like the numbers. I like to have a plan. 

[00:43:44] Ramit: Pretty interesting moment.

[00:43:46] George: Yeah, I need to know those numbers better, obviously.

[00:43:49] Ramit: Okay. Vanessa, what are the assets?

[00:43:52] Vanessa: So we’ve got the house. We bought that for 525,000. George’s truck, he owns that outright. My car, I’ve got another 7,000 owing on it. We’ve got two snowmobiles, which is part of George’s trapline business. He’s got a family cabin. We have a holiday trailer that we use that’s our summer accommodations when we run our Alaska store.

[00:44:10] And then we’ve got the Canadian business and the US business. And so when we evaluated those, we just based it off of times three of last year’s revenue, which is within the range of industry standard for our two stores.

[00:44:21] Ramit: Three times revenue, not three times profit?

[00:44:24] Vanessa: If it’s profit, that’s obviously a different number.

[00:44:28] Ramit: For the purposes of today, I’m not a valuation expert, but I always like to be conservative always. Let’s just if we drop that down by half, that would take you down to about $2.3 million or so, ballpark. How would you feel about that?

[00:44:50] Vanessa: Cool.

[00:44:51] Ramit: Okay. Makes no difference to you. Two, three, whatever. All right, cool. Good to know. Investments are at 157,000. Is that both of you or predominantly one of you?

[00:45:00] Vanessa: No, that’s mostly George.

[00:45:01] Ramit: George, how’d you do that? That’s cool.

[00:45:04] George: RSPs and my investment broker. Now, I’ve taken that, and I’ve used some of that money for down payment on the house.

[00:45:11] Ramit: In the US, you can borrow against your 401(k), but the people who do it usually don’t pay themselves back.

[00:45:16] Vanessa: It’s forced. It happens when you do your taxes. They just take the minimum. You’re allowed to put on more, but you’re forced to repay it.

[00:45:23] Ramit: Wow. Very good. All right. Savings are at 30k. Fine. And then debt, what’s the debt? The house?

[00:45:30] Vanessa: The house and that little bit of balance left on my car.

[00:45:33] Ramit: All right. How much is a snowmobile cost?

[00:45:36] George: New, 20,000.

[00:45:39] Ramit: And the cabin, how much is that worth?

[00:45:44] Vanessa: Not very much.

[00:45:45] Ramit: Hold on. I just need to describe both of their faces because it’s so funny. They looked like some little kid just put a booger on their hand. It’s like, “Ah God. What are you going to do? Freaking kids.”

[00:45:56] Vanessa: It’s not like a bougie beach house situation. This is completely off grid, no power.

[00:46:02] George: But there is stuff there that are attached to that are mine specifically, that are non-family assets, like boat generators, that kind of stuff that we take out there with us and use out there.

[00:46:13] Ramit: Okay. By the way, this is in Canadian dollars. Correct?

[00:46:16] Vanessa: Mm-hmm.

[00:46:17] George: Yes.

[00:46:17] Ramit: Okay, so we should make note of that because right now it’s 72 cents to the dollar, if I’m getting that correct.

[00:46:25] Vanessa: That’s probably close. Yeah.

[00:46:26] Ramit: All right. Let’s continue with the income. George, what is the combined household income number that you see here per month?

[00:46:34] George:  16,800.

[00:46:36] Ramit: All right, so $201,600 per year. Who knew that?

[00:46:42] Vanessa: Both knew that.

[00:46:43] Ramit: George?

[00:46:44] George: I never gave it a whole bunch of thought. I knew roughly what I made.

[00:46:48] Ramit: How much did you think you made, by the way?

[00:46:50] George: Prior to retiring and taking on a new position, I knew exactly how much I made.

[00:46:56] Vanessa: You actually just found out that you make 20,000 more a year than you thought. 

[00:46:59] George: Yeah, I think so. 

00:47:01] Ramit: Theoretically then, if you find that out, that should solve all the money problems. Right?

[00:47:06] George: Should.

[00:47:06] Ramit: 20k extra. What are we doing here?

[00:47:08] Vanessa: Yeah. But you also think that we live paycheck to paycheck.

[00:47:12] Ramit: Do you?

[00:47:13] George: No, we’ve got plans. We invest some, and we’ve got some savings.

[00:47:16] Ramit: Okay, let’s continue looking down. Fixed costs are at 46%. That’s quite low. Very good. Since it’s so low, I really have no feedback at all. But just to take a quick note, your mortgage is 3,000 bucks. Your car payment is 1,397.

[00:47:33] Vanessa: Yeah, that’s with all of the fuel and everything. My car payment is 700.

[00:47:38] Ramit: All right. Groceries 1,100. Clothes are at 200. So what are we missing here? Nothing. I believe your numbers. I believe them. What I see is no childcare. I see no debt payments. I see a very high income, $201,000. Great. Very nice. No comments. 46%.

[00:47:58] What that tells me is you have margin to play with. You have extra money. So then my question as I work my way down the CSP is where did they choose to put their money? So let’s take a look. Your investments are at 10% combined. One is doing 14%. One is doing 7%. I would characterize that as fine. For an older couple who hasn’t particularly invested a lot in the past, I would say way under.

[00:48:25] Vanessa: I agree with that.

[00:48:26] Ramit: Room to dramatically boost that number up.

[Narration]

[00:48:29] Ramit: I want to jump in here to point something out. Vanessa and George have a high net worth on paper, but that’s quite misleading. Their investments are only $157,000, which is a red flag at their age. The bulk of their net worth comes from how they have valued their businesses. But valuations are very tricky, and they are rarely what you hope they will be.

[00:48:52] Even if they sold both businesses tomorrow, it’s questionable whether they would walk away with millions. Maybe realistically they might clear under a million dollars total. Now when you factor in 500k of debt, suddenly George’s anxiety about retirement makes a lot more sense.

[00:49:10] At their current rate of $1,400 a month in contributions, and with just six years until George turns 65, my investment calculator shows their portfolio would grow to just $352,000. That’s it. Now, there are a lot of variables. George will have a pension, but his fear of not having enough suddenly starts to make a little bit of sense. It’s not informed by the numbers. It’s just a feeling, but the feeling itself is valid. Now my job is to help them create a plan that they can feel good about. So let’s see if we can get them there. Let’s keep going.

[Interview]

[00:49:48] Ramit: Savings are at 9%. Fine. Your savings that you currently have is $30,000, which is about five months of spend. Okay. I don’t mind it. It could be a bit longer now. I’m recommending for Americans to build a 12-month emergency fund due to what’s going on with tariffs, etc., but okay. And then finally we see  guilt-free spending at 35%. That’s $4,900 a month. I’m not sure I believe that. You don’t spend 4,900 a month, right?

[00:50:15] Vanessa: No.

[00:50:15] Ramit: No. So where does the money go? 

[00:50:18] Vanessa: Where does the money go? We don’t have very many subscriptions. We’re not big shoppers. There’s a bit of travel that we’ve had to do, but historically, when we travel, it’s been go travel, put it on the card, then pay it off after, which has always been really uncomfortable for me, especially in those early years of getting back on my financial feet.

[00:50:37] Ramit: Where does the money go? 

[00:50:39] Vanessa: I think it just gets frittered away on impulsive things, like meals out.

[00:50:43] Ramit: What else? George?

[00:50:46] George: I spend a bit of money on the trapline, but as far as other big expenses go, we don’t spend a whole bunch of money. We’re not out eating in fancy restaurants all the time. We’re not flying down to Edmonton to go watch hockey games or anything like that.

[00:51:00] Ramit: What’s this trap thing, though? Isn’t this trapping thing part of the business?

[00:51:04] Vanessa: It is a sole proprietorship. It’s a complicated thing with having to maintain it and operate it in order to keep the possession of the right to trap on this property and having– we have to spend. It zeros out at the end of the day.

[00:51:21] George: It zeros out pretty much.

[00:51:23] Ramit: Guys, got it. What’s up with the over explanation?

[00:51:28] George: Is this a Canadian thing?

[00:51:29] Vanessa: It’s exhausting, but I feel like sometimes I have to package things in 100 different ways to find the one that’s going to land.

[00:51:36] George: Oh, I know one big expense. I bought a camper for myself. Vanessa calls it my fishing fort.

[00:51:41] Ramit: Are we not talking about the over explanation, which is way more important than the camper?

[00:51:46] George: Yeah.

[00:51:47] Ramit: What’s happening? Why do you over explain things?

[00:51:49] Vanessa: Hear me, participate, connect with me. Hear me, participate.

[00:51:54] Ramit: If I say 50 words, it’s obviously not enough. Let me say 500. Surely something in that entire paragraph has to get you. And George, why do you over explain?

[00:52:06] George: Because I don’t think I know my finances as well as I should.

[00:52:12] Ramit: Great answer. George, do you say, “I don’t know about money?” 

[00:52:17] George: Yes.

[00:52:18] Ramit: All right. The over-explaining is one piece of homework for the two of you because it’s almost like you come over for dinner to my house. I have candy canes and turkey and rotting chicken and fish. I have just too much [Bleep] on my kitchen table. I’m like, “Here you go. Dinner is served.”

[00:52:38] And you’re like, “What the [Bleep]? I just want a nice curated dinner with chicken and rice. That would be better than 800 different dishes. It’s the same thing with answering each other’s questions and talking about money. I really want you to be able to connect more concisely.

[00:52:56] All right. Back in the CSP. According to this, you have $4,900 a month for guilt-free spending, which is 35%. That’s a lot of money. How do you feel about seeing a number like $4,900 a month in discretionary spending?

[00:53:14] Vanessa: I want to see that going into investments. If there’s that much extra and we both don’t feel like we’re using it, then that to me reads a lot like it’s being wasted or spent unconsciously, and I’d rather have it turn into more for later.

[00:53:28] Ramit: Okay, got you. George, how about you?

[00:53:31] George: I think that’s a lot of money.

[00:53:33] Ramit: Okay. There’s no feeling in there?

[00:53:41] Vanessa: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:42] Ramit: Okay. You ever use the wheel of emotion? Have you guys ever done this? All right, you’re going to do it. Neither of you gave me a feeling. Did you notice that? [00:53:52] George: No.

[00:53:53] Vanessa: I noticed it with George.

[00:53:55] Ramit: Look at this feeling thing. Look at all these words. Let’s start with angry. Under angry, there’s all different kinds. There’s let down, humiliated, bitter. And then within those, there’s words like indignant, violated, furious. But then there’s also words like fearful. George, which of those words would you use to describe your feelings about your personal finances?

[00:54:18] George: I think there’s a little bit of fearfulness or frightened and a little bit overwhelmed would be the first two that really stand out for sure.

[00:54:26] Ramit: Anything else?

[00:54:28] George: Maybe nervous. Yeah.

[00:54:29] Ramit: Nervous. Okay, good. I like that. Vanessa, how about for you? What word stands out to you?

[00:54:33] Vanessa: When I look at the fearful one, I actually see some on that outer ring that do actually resonate for me inadequate, insignificant, excluded, inferior.

[00:54:45] Ramit: It’s powerful, isn’t it? It’s the first time I think I’ve really heard the two of you talk about feelings with money. I think part of the over explaining is just a way to stay away from how you’re actually feeling. If I can talk and talk and misdirect, then I don’t have to confront how I actually feel. I can stay surface level. I can bounce the ball back to my partner. Why doesn’t he do this?

[00:55:08] Or innocent doe, I don’t know how I feel. That would be you, George. And we’re actually not connecting on a deeper level. Vanessa, when you say I feel insignificant, inferior, gosh, if I’m you, George, I’m like, “Tell me where that comes from. I hate to hear my wife feeling that way.”

[00:55:26] And similarly, Vanessa, if I hear George saying, “I feel overwhelmed,” I say, “Look, hearing that hurts me. I want to know how do you feel overwhelmed.” And if you want to take some time and write it down, write it down. Let’s talk about it tomorrow. But I do want to talk about it with you. That’s how we start to connect.

[00:55:43] George: Mm-hmm.

[00:55:45] Ramit: What do y’all think about that little exercise? I learned that from my own therapist.

[00:55:49] Vanessa: That’s incredible. I’m going to print it out and put it on my fridge.

[00:55:52] Ramit: Definitely. Oh, I have one in my desk. My wife was tired of asking me like, “How do you feel about this?” I’m like, “Good.” I’m not allowed to use it. She asked me, “Your book’s in New York Times bestseller. How do you feel?” I’m like, “Good.” She’s like, “How else? Roll the wheel out?

[00:56:09] So emotions can be good. They can be bad. They can be stressful. There’s so many different ones. But learning that language of expressing them with each other is something you’re going to get really good at in therapy. Okay, cool. Back to the CSP, can I ask the question again? How do you feel realizing you have over $4,000 a month in discretionary income?

[00:56:31] Vanessa: I actually feel a lot of stuff. I feel disbelief. When I think about having actually spent that money, I feel an impending sense of doom and tremendous guilt and like a failure. If I don’t know where that money’s gone, I feel like I’ve failed.

[00:56:43] Ramit: Great. That’s honest. Thank you. George, how about you? How do you feel about having over $4,000 a month in discretionary income?

[00:56:51] George: I feel excited. If we get a plan, we could do some real good with it. So I’m optimistic. But there still is a bit of me that has that fear that leads to anxiety. Even though it looks really good and I’m excited, I still have this anxiety about it, and I need to really dig deep into that.

[00:57:10] Ramit: Good. You’re going to have that a lot. Can I give you a metaphor, George? If I’m not too familiar with the outdoors. Let’s say I come to the outdoors where it’s your backyard, you know it like the back of your hand. I come up there. I go on a tour with you. You’re going to, of course, take care of me.

[00:57:27] I’m still going to feel anxious. You’re going to say, “Ramit, it’s okay. I’ve done this a million times. We have all the right people with–” I’m going to be like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe you. And am I going to freeze to death? Is this going to happen? Is that going to happen?”

[00:57:40] And you are going to look at me like, “Why are you so worried? Don’t worry about all this stuff. Trust me.” Or, “You are capable, Ramit.” And probably what I need to do is overcome my fear, get some reps in, build my confidence. Because I have no confidence in going to the outdoors. Why would I? I haven’t done it very much. You see how that applies to your relationship with money?

[00:58:05] George: Absolutely. My fear is driving my decision making.

[00:58:08] Ramit: Yes, yes. And both of you have areas of life where you are very competent. So connecting to those feelings of competence. When I’m good, this is what I do. This is how I feel. These are the things that go through my head. And then writing down, when I talk about money solo or with my partner, I feel this. I feel that I avoid. I use these words. And then just looking at the two is going to be quite striking on paper.

[00:58:34] It’s like, oh my God. No wonder I’m competent at this. I operate completely differently. Then you translate the final step is what if I use those same principles with money? Well, we’d probably sit down regularly. We would make up a series of rules, like, we talk about money before 7:00 PM because we are alert and aware. But after 7:00 PM it’s like, we’re not talking about that. Make those rules up, and you’re going to find you’re going to be so much more successful. Okay. We have a lot more to talk about, but how are you feeling so far? I just want to check in with you. Vanessa?

[00:59:07] Vanessa: Good, good. Yeah.

[00:59:08] George: Yeah, better. Absolutely. It feels good to be able to put these things out there that sometimes you hold inside and you don’t know how to bring them out. I feel like I’m such a good communicator, but when it comes to money, that there’s something that just makes it really difficult. So this is really helping me deal with that. Oh, and one of our rules is we don’t go out this time of year at night without bear spray.

[00:59:29] Vanessa: That’s a rule.

[00:59:30] Ramit: Yeah, yeah. Okay. I love that rule. That’s great. Bear spray is a matter of last resort. If you have to pull out that bear spray, you’re in a danger zone. Okay?

[00:59:40] George: Yeah.

[00:59:40] Ramit: What is the equivalent for your money?

[00:59:44] George: Let me think about that for a sec.

[00:59:47] Ramit: Good answer, by the way. I love that answer. Think about it. Think about it. No need to rush. Think about it. Vanessa?

[00:59:53] Vanessa: I think I would want to sit with this one and actually discuss it with George after sitting with it for a while. Because I would want to make sure that we both agree that it’s something that’s emergency level.

[01:00:04] Ramit: Okay. For the purposes of the hypothetical, let’s take my family. What do you think is an equivalent to carry bear spray financially speaking? 

[01:00:12] George: Having that 12 months saved up.

[01:00:19] Ramit: Nice. We always have a large emergency fund. Yes. In case something happens, we know we can survive. That is a beautiful connection. These are the kind of things you can do. That will be awesome. And when you do this together, oh my God, it’s so fun because one person might say, “I really want to get a 12-month emergency fund.”

[01:00:41] And then the other person will say, “That’s so interesting. How come?” Tell me more. And the person will say, “I just feel this. I feel that.” You go, “Awesome.” And the person’s taking notes because it shows a lot of respect to write it down. And then the other person might say, “I love that. I also want an emergency fund.” Notice my agreeing. “I wonder if we could start with a three-month emergency fund. Could we start by getting it up to seven months? And I’d love to talk to you again and see where we are.”

[01:01:08] That’s a beautiful back and forth. And you both feel connected. You both accomplish something. You got the money rolling and automating. Now you are really building something together. That’s how you do it. Honestly, some of these answers are already inside of you because of who you are.

[01:01:25] You already know how to prepare for danger. So do the same with your money. You already know how to enjoy going out and doing what you both do with your business. So do the same with your money.

[01:01:36] Vanessa: Mm-hmm.

[01:01:37] Ramit: Okay, cool. Let’s keep going. George, I want to talk about retirement now. You’re 59 years old. What does retirement look like for you?

[01:01:45] George: One of the things I’ll never stop doing is being active and having an income. I always be active and having an income from other sources, but I want to choose some of those things. For example, there’s a canoe trip that’s going from one community to the other this summer. I’d love to be a part of that, is doing those meaningful things.

[01:02:02] For example, when we travel, I’m not a vacationer. I like traveling. I like to have a purpose there. Why are you here? What are you learning? Are you here for a specific focus? That’s what retirement looks like for me. I love youth. I love our land-based programs.

[01:02:15] I’d like to spend a lot of time in my retirement, being part of different canoe programs or land-based programs. Now, fortunately right now I have a job that I get to do many of those things, and that’s probably what’s keeping me walking through the doors, is that I love the work that I’m doing for those six months. But I also love my time in the summers with my own store.

[01:02:35] Ramit:  What about the financial part of retirement? Do you know how much you need?

[01:02:39] George: I actually don’t know how much I need. So Vanessa and I have calculated and have come up with some numbers on how we can take what we need to live by month and how much we need to have in savings and then be able to live off the interest of that.

[01:02:52] Ramit: Okay. Vanessa, what is that number?

[01:02:55] Vanessa: It depends on which retirement scenario we actually do. If we retire in Canada, we need a ton more money than if we retire to Mexico, which is another scenario that we talk about. Those are two very different financial scenarios.

[01:03:11] Ramit: When are you going to decide? Because George is 59 years old.

[01:03:14] Vanessa: I’m nowhere near ready to retire. I’m in the peak of my career, so I’ve got another 10 or 15 years of working. So the dream of retiring to Mexico, I don’t think is possible until I also retire with him 10 to 15 years from now.

[01:03:29] Ramit: Okay, so George is, let’s just say 70.

[01:03:32] Vanessa: Mm-hmm.

[01:03:34] Ramit: How do you feel about that, George?

[01:03:36] George: Old. That’s such a hard one because we don’t know what our health’s going to do.

[01:03:42] Ramit: Yeah.

[01:03:43] George: We don’t know because for me, I love being active. My fall after we closed the Skagway store, before we turned back to work, I went out and found wild rivers to go fly fishing on. Literally walking through the bush and willows up to my eyeballs, and getting out to the river to fly fish. That drives me. I love the fly fishing and the adventure, but that requires a tremendous amount of health.

[01:04:04] Ramit: Yeah.

[01:04:05] George: So I don’t want to wait till I’m 70 to get to do some of those things. That’s why I’m doing some of them now, and I think that’s important.

[01:04:11] Ramit: First of all, just hearing the way you describe the outdoor activities, it sounds awesome. It really sounds amazing. You definitely sound connected to the outdoors. I bet you there’s a bunch of people listening, they’re like, “Dude, this guy lives the life. Does he give tours?” Because everything, you’re just casually reeling, oh, I went canoeing. I went this. I went that. It’s like, sounds amazing. I think a lot of people would love to be able to do that.

[01:04:36] So I hear a lot of richness in what you do today and what you want to do in your retirement. And what I can do is try to help you figure out how to do that. Vanessa, I can hear you saying you’re at the peak of your career. You don’t have any immediate plans.

[01:04:53] So can I just tell you how I would approach this? I am not forcing either of you to put something in stone that says, “On this date, George has to retire.” That’s not how life works. If you like it, great. If you want to have options to maybe cut back on this or that, fantastic. I want you to have lots of options, but I want you to have planned for them.

[01:05:17] So if George, for example, starts disliking his current job, here’s what it would require. That’s what I want you to have as a playbook for retirement. And then you can keep it on your fridge or put it somewhere and review it every three to six months and just check in with yourself.

[01:05:37] Some of this is just a feeling. It’s like, ah, I’m over this. Or, I’m loving it. Let’s keep it going. This is great. But you got to have the numbers to back it up. Right now, George, your investments alone can’t sustain your retirement. There’s just not enough. I believe you have a pension. What is that? 2,500 a month?

[01:05:57] George: Yeah. That’s just bang on.

[01:05:59] Ramit: Okay, 2,500 a month. Plus the retirement, which would be a modest amount. What about the businesses? Have you thought about selling those at some point?

[01:06:08] Vanessa: Yes.

[01:06:09] George: Yeah. But we haven’t talked specifically what that looks like and what they would be worth.

[01:06:13] Ramit: Can I just ask it like a really weird question? What if you sold one of them today? I’m not saying you have to. I’m just asking what would happen.

[01:06:19] Vanessa: Yeah, if we sold the Alaska store, we could make money.

[01:06:22] Ramit: Like how much?

[01:06:22] Vanessa: Maybe 350,000, half a million.

[01:06:26] Ramit: Great. These are good things to consider. I’m not saying you have to sell tomorrow. In fact, I don’t even think you would. From the way that you two talk about it, you love it. But if I’m you and I’m creating a plan, I’m putting all different options on the table. Sell the house. Sell the snowmobiles. It’s all up to you.

[01:06:42] And then you just start to put the pieces together, like Tetris. Okay, what would allow us to do what? Right now it seems that the two of you have been so stuck playing small with things like setting accounts up for literally five years that you have not been talking about the important stuff, the vision. Y’all are not 23 years old. And so time is ticking. I want you to have a healthy, happy retirement; healthy, happy, continued work. And in order to do that, we have to make some big decisions.

[01:07:20] The fact that you have an extra, at least 3,500 a month, probably more, really tells me you could be investing a tremendous amount of money every month. And while I can’t run your numbers for you right now, there’s just too many uncertainties, honestly, to be able to put aside like 40, $50,000 a year in investments for the next 10 years, that is a lot of money. Would you consider doing that?

[01:07:43] Vanessa: Absolutely. Yes.

[01:07:44] George: Yes.

[01:07:45] Ramit: Candidly, from the way you talk about your spending, you probably wouldn’t even miss a lot of it, which is actually crazy, but cool. And I heard you. Vanessa, earlier, you were like, “I feel ashamed.” And actually, that’s so common. People will look back. They’ll be in their 40s or 50s, and they’ll look back, and they’ll be like, “I made all this money. I have very little to show for it.” And they feel so ashamed.

[01:08:03] And part of my job is just like, look, we all wish we were perfect personal finance people when we were 15 years old, but most of us are not. Let’s start today, and let’s get super aggressive. So in order to do that, what do you think are the three key steps you would have to take to come up with a really good plan? 

[01:08:20] Vanessa: I think we should probably start with agreeing on what it is we want.

[01:08:26] Ramit: That’s number one. What’s next?

[01:08:28] Vanessa: Decide on how much we’re going to start investing. Just start doing the thing.

[01:08:31] Ramit: Great. Start investing a certain amount. Great. What else?

[01:08:35] George: Understanding more about where those finances are going. Agreeing to and building those systems, and have fun doing it, which can be exciting. And then number three is that monthly investment with the safety plan in place. That would make me feel really good.

[01:08:51] Ramit: Okay. Honestly, can we all give each other a round of applause here? Because that was phenomenal, phenomenal. You identified the most important things. You identified things I didn’t even think of. You talk about, what is our  Rich Life? We got to start there. What are we working towards? And it’s okay if we don’t know all of it. It’s fine.

[01:09:10] But let’s at least get some rough sketches out, and let’s be unapologetic about it. If we want to go to Mexico, let’s write it down. Let’s paint the picture. What are we going to eat there? If we want to continue doing what we’re doing, how long? How will we know if it’s going well? How much does this business need to make?

[01:09:26] Because if it’s not making money, we’re going to cut it loose. Boom. We’re being decisive. I love that. Next up, it’s like, “Hey, we got to start investing aggressively and saving.” Each of you, it’s interesting, you both are aligned in that, Vanessa, you want to invest more. And George, you want to save more. To which I say, great. You can actually do both.

[01:09:46] And I really like what you said, George, about we got to have fun along the way. Money has not been fun for a long time in this relationship.

[01:09:54] George: Mm-hmm.

[01:09:56] Ramit: So if you were going to make it fun, what would you do?

[01:09:58] Vanessa: We love celebrating the milestones in our business, so there’s always a bottle of Prosecco involved, and some great snacks. And I think when we have done any sort of daydreaming and loose planning around our money goals, we’ll sit together. We’ll have the lights low. We make it really fun, and we decide when we’re going to do it, and we really honor that commitment to protect that time so that we do it together and really, really enjoy it.

[01:10:23] Ramit: Honestly, sounds amazing to me.

[01:10:25] George: I think the one thing that Vanessa has brought into my life when it comes to our  Rich Life is those celebrations. So this is a big, big, big birthday for me. Turning 60 is no joke. I don’t have a plan, but I know what I want to do. I learned to fly gliders at 16 years old.

[01:10:40] It was the craziest, scariest thing I’ve ever done, was to leave my tiny little home in the North, a town of 450 people, to go to Ontario to learn to fly gliders. And for my 60th birthday, I would love it if I’m sitting in a glider on my 60th birthday with my beautiful wife in the glider with me and us out flying around in a glider. And that’s how we celebrate my 60th. For her 50th, which is a couple years later–

[01:11:03] Vanessa: We’re going to go to Italy.

[01:11:05] George: Yeah.

[01:11:05] Ramit: Wow. You guys are really living this full  Rich Life. It’s so beautiful hearing it. I love seeing both of your faces as you talk about it too. It seems to me that with an income of $200,000 a year, with these businesses, with the investments, and certainly the guilt-free spending that’s there, you honestly are living an incredible life. You could live an even richer life. And in order to get there, you have to become decisive about money. Playing at the 3-dollar level just isn’t going to work anymore.

[01:11:37] So things like, let’s combine income, if one partner doesn’t feel comfortable, say that. And the other partner will say, “Okay, tell me why.” And it’s the other person’s job to answer. You got to be honest in order to live a  Rich Life, honest with yourself, honest with the people around you. If the answer is like, “You know what? I don’t know why I feel uncomfortable. I just feel uncomfortable.”

[01:11:56] Then the correct answer is, “Totally understand that. Let’s talk about it in therapy this week. And one way or another, we probably need to do this anyway, so we’ll talk about it. I want you to find a way to feel comfortable, but we have to do it. Our future is together.”

[01:12:14] George: Hmm.

[01:12:15] Ramit: Okay?

[01:12:15] Vanessa: I was imagining, if we sit down together and we create this plan of like, what do we want, and what are the increments of how we’re going to get there, that could be a lot of bottles of Prosecco. That could be a lot of little celebrations all the way along. And make it as fun as possible. So we’re super driven to get to the next achievement.

[01:12:32] Ramit: Check out my journal. I think I would recommend the two of you to use it together. You can each get a copy, and it’s fun because you’ll write down like, what’s my perfect day? What would our 50th and 60th birthday look like? And then you’ll surprise each other. It’s so fun. No numbers. And it creates this vision.

[01:12:50] Okay, speaking of numbers though, I do want to just go back into the CSP and take a look. So here we go. This is purely hypothetical, but I’d like you to tell me what to do with your money right now just so we can simulate what you might choose to do. Right now, if you notice, you have 35% in guilt-free spending. That’s 4,900 bucks a month. What might you do with that money?

[01:13:19] Vanessa: I want to put about 300 a month into my post-tax, and I want to put about 700 into my pre-tax.

[01:13:28] Ramit: Okay, cool. That took that number down by $1,000. Makes perfect sense. So you are now investing 17% combined, and you have 28%  guilt-free spending. Nice work. What you basically did was you redirected  $1,000 from  guilt-free spending to investments. Beautiful. George, your turn.

[01:13:50] George: I’ll match her on what she’s doing, so we grow that together.

[01:13:53] Ramit: Ooh. I love that. I’m going to put 1,000. Wow. Now we’re talking. So you are investing 24%. I love that. That’s great. That’s aggressive. I like that. And I want to point out you have 21% left in your guilt-free spending. That’s very good. George, didn’t you mention wanting to build up more of a savings?

[01:14:17] George: Yes. I think we initially started at three months, but I like to shoot for six months. Let’s go with that.

[01:14:24] Ramit: Well, I’ll tell you what, you’re already at five months. Did you know that?

[01:14:27] George: No. Let’s go for eight.

[01:14:30] Ramit: Hold on. I just want point out what just happened. This is so classic. So somebody would be like, “I really want to make this much money.” And then I like look at their numbers. It’s like, you actually already make that much money. And they’re like, “Oh, I still feel bad. I know. I need to make an extra 50 grand.” Just take a second and appreciate it. You wanted six months, and you have five months. That’s [Bleep] awesome. Celebrate. Round of applause. You did it.

[01:14:52] George: Yeah.

[01:14:52] Ramit: Five months. It’s so good. Now if you want to do eight, I don’t mind. We can easily make it happen. But notice that your reaction was instantaneous. It was just like, “Oh, I need more.” Yeah, it was panicky. And a measured response, especially for your  Rich Life is to say like, “Hey, let me go back and revisit, why did I want six months? I probably should have written down, where did I come up with that? Why? What does it mean to me? If that’s still true and I did six months, then great. I’m done.

[01:15:21] “I can take the money and put it elsewhere. If I’ve decided times have changed and I want to get eight months or nine months, also fine. But we want to talk about this with our partner. We want to be thoughtful and do it for a reason.”

[01:15:34] George: Awesome.

[01:15:36] Ramit: Okay. I am going to honor your request. Just to show you what I might do, I might take, let’s say 500 bucks a month from guilt-free spending, and I might add it to savings. Okay. Wow. I really like that because now your guilt-free spending is at 17%. I like that number for where you are. Typically, I recommend 20 to 35%. You are later in life. You haven’t been aggressive about saving or investing, so I actually think that number should be lower than 20.

[01:16:08] I think you should be investing and saving aggressively. If it were up to me, depending on how aggressive you decide to be with your retirement, I might take that number as low as 10%. Truthfully, it sounds like you’d be fine the way you describe what you spend your money on with 10%. You’d have 1,500 bucks a month to spend on things that you like to do.

[01:16:31] Vanessa: That’s a lot.

[01:16:33] Ramit: Okay. It’d be fine for you.

[01:16:34] Vanessa: Yeah.

[01:16:35] Ramit: Amazing. If I’m you, I’m going, we actually have $1,500 a month, and we’re going to spend it on things we love– eating out, whatever. Every month we are going to spend that. We have to. Knowing we are aggressively investing and saving other places. That’s a great life. And then as your business changes, as you make more, you can adjust that, but I love starting conservative. Get those gains in. Put that in now, and you can always dial it back later.

[01:17:05] George: Mm-hmm.

[01:17:06] Ramit: How’s that sound?

[01:17:07] George: Awesome.

[01:17:07] Vanessa: That’s really exciting. It sounds really doable.

[01:17:10] Ramit: Totally doable. Totally doable. Remember that you have a lot of time to compound, so I know that sometimes you’ll hear people talking about, oh, later in life. And it’s like, it’s too late to– is it too late? No, no. That money, putting it in now can compound still for 10, 15, 20 years. It can compound for a long time. And really, what is the alternative? To just not put it in?

[01:17:42] George: Hmm.

[01:17:42] Ramit: That’s like walking out with no bear spray. It’s like, what’s the alternative? You want to get mauled? No, we’re going to do it. That’s the way it works in our household.

[01:17:51] Vanessa: Yes.

[01:17:53] Ramit: Great. Before we wrap up, George, how can you be sure that your old habits around being fearful of money don’t pop up and derail your journey towards creating a  Rich Life together?

[01:18:08] George: Making sure that I’m communicating openly with Vanessa. Because I think there’s a lot of things that she’ll intuitively do to help keep me on track. But then also, most importantly, is to learn to listen to myself.

[01:18:24] Ramit: Wow.

[01:18:25] George: So when I react to something, I need to re-look at, why did I react in that way? Where’s that coming from? Because how the hell can I even communicate with Vanessa when I don’t even know where it’s coming from? So I think there’s a lot of personal growth for me around money and life for that matter. Where’s that place I’m reacting from? Once I understand that better.

[01:18:43] Ramit: I like that. I like that. It takes a lot of courage to say that. A lot of honesty. And I find that the older we get, the less likely we are to admit that we don’t know everything. So it’s quite refreshing to hear you say like, “Hey, I actually need to do some work.” I love that. I love your approach. Your attitude is like, “Yeah, I have work to do.” I like that you’re seeing a therapist. By the way, where’s the therapist cost in the CSP?

[01:19:08] Vanessa: Oh, it’s covered, 100% covered.

[01:19:12] Ramit: [Bleep] Canada. I love it. [Bleep] capitalist, goddamn monetized America. All right. Okay. That’s pretty cool. Everyone’s so jealous right now listening. That’s awesome. Good. Okay. Amazing. So I think leaning on your therapist and deciding how often are you going, so building this skillset is like one of the absolute best things you can do.

[01:19:38] It’ll be amazing. And maybe you create a couple of little guidelines for yourself, George. One of them could be, from now on, I am going to pause before I answer. And I’m never going to be silent Vanessa asked me something. Because that can be so devastating.

[01:19:54] Even if you’re like, “I don’t understand. I don’t know. This is something that’s making me uncomfortable.” Come up with a few words, put it in your wallet, and if you’re feeling– just pull out the card and look at it. It’s totally fine. Sometimes I literally pull out the wheel of emotion and I take a second to look at it. It sounds like silly, but it works.

[01:20:11] So come up with your own strategies, and your therapist can help, so that you can address and meet Vanessa where she is. You don’t always have to agree, but you definitely have to communicate.

[01:20:23] Vanessa: That sounds like a conversation I’m looking forward to having as long as fearful Frank shows back up.

[01:20:29] Ramit: Yeah. Really love that, honestly. It’s quite obvious to me how much you two love each other. It’s obvious. And couples, we don’t get a lot of chances to spend hours together with somebody else talking about pretty deep stuff. There’s so many different strategies we use, and all of those strategies just leave us disconnected. To see the two of you come back and reconnect is so awesome. It’s why I do this.

[01:20:56] Vanessa: He is my favorite person. He’s the only person I want to work this hard on anything with.

[01:21:00] Ramit: I love that. Here’s my homework for you both. Really think, how do I want to show up in this conversation? How do I want my partner to show up? And tell them, “Hey, normally when we talk about money, this is the dynamic. After talking to Ramit, I’ve realized I want to show up this way, and I’d love for you to show up that way.”

[01:21:18] George: Mm-hmm.

[01:21:19] Ramit: Each of you agreeing on the role you want to play, this is how we recalibrate our relationship. Talk about your money. Specifically talk about your vision. Write down all those big three or four things you want to get done. And then start with the most important one of all. What’s our vision?

[01:21:34] When you start there, you can make some quick wins right off the bat. Your accounts are already joint. Celebrate that. Have some Prosecco. You want to transfer some money to start saving a little bit more? Go ahead. Transfer the money. You know you have it. It’s just sitting around getting invisibly absorbed. Get those wins. Lock them in, and then you can start doing the big systemic changes over time.

[Narration]

[01:21:56] Ramit: Huge thank you to Vanessa and George for being so open today. This was a fun conversation, but more importantly, it’s a perfect example of how couples can have so much going right, successful businesses, strong partnership, but they can still get stuck when communication breaks down, especially around money.

[01:22:16] Vanessa over explains. George avoids. And yet they run two businesses side by side with ease. That contrast says a lot. It reminds me of something I read once. I’ll never forget it. A speaker at a conference was talking to someone in the audience who just wouldn’t stop talking about their problems. The speaker would ask them something, and they would talk, talk, talk, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, this happened. And then that happened.

[01:22:43] And the speaker listened and listened, and finally the speaker said, “I think you talk a lot so that you don’t have to sit with yourself and listen.” I thought, damn, that is it. That is such a pattern that I see when people have huge problems. They will often talk, talk, talk, talk, talk to distract themselves from the quiet reality of what the real problem is.

[01:23:10] We overcomplicate things to avoid confronting what we need to, because chaos gives us something to do. It gives us meaning. I got to work against that. And what about that? And they didn’t do this. He didn’t do that. And I think that’s part of what’s been going on here.

[01:23:25] Both of them caught in these decades long habits that feel familiar even when they’re exhausting and they’re not working. Changing that dynamic, of course, is very hard, but something shifted today. When I asked them to focus on just three key things, they did.

[01:23:40] They cut through the noise. They got clear. They started to sound like a team. And my hope is that they keep that momentum going. With the help of their therapist and each other, I’m confident that they can. Now check out their follow-ups.

[01:23:55] George: Hey, Ramit and team. It’s George calling. Just following up. Just talking about the interview that we did earlier–

[01:24:00] Vanessa:  As soon as Ramit understood what was going on, he was really able to be that neutral third party that I was looking for to really break through the ear blinders that George had on when it came to our conversations around money.

[01:24:14] George: One thing that I was really aware of is how closed I was, how shut down I was, and not able to talk about it. Not being able to articulate my feelings around money, and not being able to really express the amount of frustration and stress that I do have with money.

[01:24:31] Vanessa: Ramit was able to call us both out in a firm and loving kind of way that we were both over explaining things, and just to be super direct with one another and just get to the heart of the matter, which I’m now working on with my therapist in my one-on-one therapy and that George and I are going to work on together in our couples therapy.

[01:24:50] George: It’s allowed me to go, “Oh, I’m shutting down.” And being able to look at myself and go, “Well, why?” And I think that what it’s done is revealed the fact that I need to start talking about those things with Vanessa, coming up with more solid plans, but being open. And some of those things about opening up is saying that I don’t know,

[01:25:10] Vanessa:  The very first thing that happened, as soon as that call ended, George and I were immediately more connected. And we’ve been benefiting from that in every conversation, not just around money since then. So I think the biggest benefit for us is that it’s brought us closer together. We can be more honest and direct, and we are getting better at trusting each other around matters of money.

[01:25:30] George: I’m grateful for the opportunity. Thank you for some of the tools that you’ve given us.

[01:25:35] Vanessa: Our relationship is already better for it, and so are our finances. So big love. Thanks so much, everybody.