241. “We invested our wedding money…in psychedelics”

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Lisa.com, promo code Rameet. I understand you all have $2,000 in psychedelic stocks. What the f**k is that? We took a couple thousand dollars from our wedding gifts, and we bought mushroom stocks. You've never been on shroom stocks on Reddit, I'm sure. No, I have not. I have not stumbled across that subreddit. I understand that we need to have an actual plan, but we're unsophisticated with money. If I have the money, for example, in my checking account, it will get spent until it gets replenished. Whoa. You all agree you have a high income? We don't feel like it. No, we don't feel like it. Do we really have to do this thing again? That's a high income. And don't pull that s**t on me. Not in San Francisco. I'm more self-aware. She's more critical of herself, which is just the behavior and the responsibility that she has and has been instilled with her. Let me ask you, Monica, do you recognize that? I hear you, but the honest answer is no. You can't go the next 17 years, 30 years, feeling horrible. You just can't. No one can run a marathon that long and hate what they're doing. You ever feel like no matter how much money you earn, it doesn't feel like it's enough? I recently did a live Money for Couples book tour, and today you're going to meet two couples in San Francisco who I promise will surprise you. One of them makes over $230,000 a year, but they still feel like they are barely keeping up. The other, let's just say that their investment choices actually left me speechless. Different incomes, different goals, completely different philosophies. But both of them are asking the same thing. How do we build a future together? And why does this feel so hard? We're going to start with Finn and Luna. They're at the very beginning of their financial journey. They want to educate themselves. And I have to tell you, they have some very peculiar choices that they have made about money. I'm looking at their conscious spending plan. And if you want my help with your CSP, especially as we start a new year, I want you to check out my money coaching, it is the greatest gift you can give yourself to live a rich life in 2026. You can join at iwt.com slash money coaching. Their assets, $20,000. Investments, $240,000. Savings, $60,000. Debt, zero. Great job. Total net worth, $320,000. And together they earn nearly $100,000 a year. Their fixed costs are at 67%, a little higher than I like to see. Investments are at zero for monthly contributions. You're going to hear Luna give a very interesting explanation in just a minute for that. Savings are at zero. I'm curious about that. Guilt-free spending is at 33%. That's especially high for a couple that doesn't really put money towards savings or investments. So obviously I have a lot of questions. What do you say we get into it? So I need your help to welcome our first couple. Please get on your feet and welcome Finn and Luna. Welcome, welcome, welcome. How are you doing? All right. Hello. Have a seat. Thank you. How's it going? Great. How are you feeling? Nervous. Nervous? Okay. I feel sick to my stomach. This crowd, can we give it up for Finn and Luna, please? So, Finn, you wrote in your application that since you both gave up your careers as caregivers and started your own business, quote, we have basically disagreed, about how we spend and where we should live and plan to buy a home every step of the way. Is that true? I would say that there is a lot of agreement with our spending. There was much more disagreement in the past. Okay. Let's go back to a specific disagreement that the two of you had. What would it be about? House? In the beginning, she says, cherry juice, which is a, is a, is a good example. What? Is an, an organic eater and drinker. Okay. We drink organic cherry juice every night. Okay. What is happening right now? What the hell is, I just want to know a disagreement. You guys can't tell me you disagree about cherry juice. Is this really happening? Organic foods. Okay. This is the, the, Luna? Yeah. So, it used to be more so, he was kind of against spending that extra money for organic food. Okay. For years. Okay. I have kind of convinced him of the benefit of it. Okay. Cherry juice was a big contentious one, just because. How much does cherry juice cost? I'm out of the market. It's expensive, man. It could be, you know, seven, eight dollars a bottle. Whereas, non-organic cherry juice is like two bucks. Okay. So, for drinking and everything. This is a big disagreement. I mean, it's not huge, not anymore. I'm a very frugal person. Oh, okay. So, I'm looking for the, the cheaper way to do things. I can ask another question. Was there a van that either of you was going to purchase? Oh. All right. Let's hear about that. Luna? So, basically, I had a windfall. My grandmother started an investment account for me, and eventually, I got it. And, it was enough to buy a van and convert it, or buy a converted van. Hold on. Can we talk real numbers? How much did you get? I got about $200,000, and part of it was in cash, and part of it was in stocks. Okay. So, $200,000, and you wanted to buy a van? With the cash portion. Okay. How much was the van? Oh, like a legit one, the one that I wanted, probably would have been like $80,000. Like, totally converted. How the fuck were we just talking about cherry juice, when there's an $80,000 van on the table? Okay. $80,000. What brand van? A Sprinter. Okay. And so, did you get it? No. How come? Well, he was pretty much convinced me that it would not be a financially sound investment, that it would lose its value pretty instantaneously. Well, hold on. A car is never an investment, except in rare cases. Well, I thought, you know, we could live out of it, and we could travel, so we wouldn't have to pay rent. Okay. I guess that's true. And so, in the long run, I was, you know, did super rough math, and I was like, "Well, if we don't pay rent for a couple of years, and we live out of this van, then it basically pays for itself." It pays for itself. And then I have a van. I tried that too, with a cashmere coat. I tried to say that with my wife. She didn't buy it. It pays for itself. So, you had an $80,000 van, out of $200,000. Right. That seems like a lot. Yeah. So, you had a $200,000 van, and you had a $200,000 van, and you had a $200,000 van, - Dream car's a Ford? - It currently is. - What the? - Dude, it's actually still in the bag. - Ford is never advertising with me, by the way. Every time I talk about them, I eviscerate them. Ford what? - It's a Ford Escape Hybrid. - Okay, well, how much did it cost, just out of curiosity? curiosity? I think it was about $38,000. Okay. Did you guys run any numbers before you bought it? We looked for a really good deal on the kind of car that we wanted. One of the major selling points was it has a panoramic sunroof. Okay. And I actually wanted a brand new car, but then again, Finn said we should just get a used one that's just a couple years old that's going to be just as good. Okay. That's probably good advice. Yeah. All right. So you got the car. I'm going to look at your numbers in a second. There's a conversation the two of you have been having about buying a house, right? What's the conversation? Right. So it's not actually a house that we want. I would like property or land so that we can have like a yoga retreat center because I also teach yoga. So yeah, it would be more than a house. It would be assortment. It would be more of an income as well. Okay. And you agree, Finn, or what's your take? You know, living in the Bay Area, I just feel like, you know, I don't think that it's realistic for us. You know, if we had a million dollars tomorrow, I would rather buy, let's say, a house in Florida for half of that and keep the other half invested. Okay. She is kind of in the dreamer category. Right. You know, and so that's. That's part of the reason why I got attracted to your material is because, you know, I understand that we need to have an actual plan. Yeah. But, you know, it's something that we're unsophisticated with money. Okay. I appreciate that. Would you agree that you are a dreamer? Yeah. Wow. Okay. Hold on. This is a rare moment, everybody. Give it up. Who now? Hold on. I am loving this. First of all, dreamers don't come in front of me. Like, seeing a dreamer is very rare. They don't come in the same room as I. And then they never, ever admit that they are a dreamer. I love that you're admitting it. So for everybody who's not familiar with a dreamer, a dreamer believes that success is one gig, one deal around the corner. They often fall into MLM schemes, scams. And. Is that true? Dude, and I talked her out of it because I saw it, you know, I saw it from a mile away. You know, I really want to support my wife in everything. Yeah. It was maybe the only time I've ever put my foot down about anything. Yeah. Okay. Besides the van. So great. But I love that you're honest about it. So here's the thing, though. It's difficult to be a. Well, for dreamers themselves, it's often great. Like, we can do this, we can do that. They kind of float from one thing to another. It's very difficult for the partner of a dreamer because the partner of a dreamer often just wants their partner to come up with a plan and be realistic. And sometimes dreamers are subsidized by others. What do I mean by subsidized? Maybe they have an inheritance. That's an example. Or they have a partner who earns money. You earn money, too. Totally acknowledge that. But often, if their partner left or was hit by a bus, the dreamer would very quickly have to adapt to reality in order to not live in the clouds, but to live in reality. So that is what a dreamer is. I love that we are getting to have this opportunity to talk, especially because. Us, too. Yeah. You can set yourself up for a future that is really, really positive, and you can still do the things you love. So I love this. What is the dynamic around spending money? Do the two of you spend money similarly? I would say that I'm more conservative with my money. Okay. And Luna? I am pretty free with my money. I like to buy gifts for him and people in my life. I'm pretty frugal when it comes to myself besides my supplements and my food intake. But as far as. I'm not really extravagant as far as clothes or handbags or shoes or anything like that. But it's more so. I bought him $250 pants. Those ones? These ones. Cool. Do you buy those shoes? Those are also $250. Do you live close to how much you make, you spend? Pretty much. Yeah. Okay. And is that regardless of how much you make? I suppose so. Yeah. I guess that's kind of how it's always been. It's just. I mean, now I feel blessed to have something to fall back on if something happened. But if I have the money, for example, in my checking account, then it will get spent until it gets replenished. Whoa. Okay. Let's take a look at your numbers. All right. So assets, $20K. That's cool. We're going to come back to that. Saving $60K. No debt. I love that. Gross annual income is just under $100K. Fixed cost of 67%. Investments at 0%. Now, that is quite interesting because you see 0% invested, but yet you have $240,000 invested. So that's roughly the $200K minus the Ford that you wasted, excuse me, purchased. Um, and then, uh, what else is in that investments? Oh, I, I bought Bitcoin. Okay. Yeah. So half of that is half. What? Yeah. How much? 160,000. 160,000 of 240 is Bitcoin. Yeah. And Hey, I mean, that's why I want to talk to you, man, because I've only ever heard you even say crypto out of your head one time. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I get it. What else? What else do you guys have in this investment account? So that's, um, you know, about a hundred of, or about 90 of her original stocks. Yeah. You know, we spent the other on the car and then some of that sitting in cash somewhere. Okay. Do you cash out any of the investments? Um, yes. How much? About a total of a hundred. Out of 200? Right. Why? I actually just am not really sure that stocks are. Super stable. And so I thought, you know, two in the hand is worth one in the bush. So I took it out just in case, like if it were to crash or something, then at least I would have half of it. Okay. Okay. Okay. I, I don't, I don't agree with that, but I understand it. So we'll talk about that, but I, I appreciate that the honesty, what else do you guys have in your investments? Oh yeah. I mean, I, I got some gold, gold. Uh, yeah, a little bit. That's how much, how much is that? Um, it's about 16, 2000, something like that. All right. Am I the only one who's like underwhelmed by what gold looks like? That's 1600 bucks of gold. I'm surprised as well. It's like, all right. And then, um, I understand you all have, um, $2,000 in psychedelic stocks. What the is that? Yeah, it's more like, um, it's more like four. What is it? We took a couple thousand dollars, um, from our wedding gifts and we bought, um, a couple thousand bucks worth of, um, um, mushroom stocks. You've never been on shrimp stocks on Reddit. I'm sure. No, I have not. I've not stumbled across that subreddit. Hold on. I have a friend who does a lot of drugs and, um, I, I told her, I don't know anything about drugs, like at all. I just, I missed it. And I was like, I was like, you know, I'm so glad I didn't really get into drugs. And she was like, why? And I was like, cause like I, I made money. Yeah. And I was like, that's a really fast way for someone who has a lot of money to lose it like drugs. And she looked at me like I was so stupid. She goes, how much do you think Coke is now? The last time I, I saw Coke anywhere was in RoboCop in 1987. Like I literally don't, I do you inject it? I don't know, even know how to take it. And I was like, like, I don't know, like $4,000 for a bank. She was like, she was like, she looked at me like I am the dumbest person. She goes, it's like $50. $50. And I was like, wow, capital markets are so efficient. Like it is amazing. Uh, we would never invest in cocaine. Only in SF. Okay. Can I just be a little bit directive with what I might suggest? Okay. Let's put those numbers back up on screen. So first of all, I want to say, I love that we are having this conversation. This conversation early, early. My suggestion is that you'll have a chance to have a very successful rich life together. In order to do that, you will need to understand the basic language of money. And that means that both of you will have to learn it so that when you say things like, Oh, we should put it in a savings account or an investment account, you both know what that is. I think that's going to be important. I also think, you know, little language like compound interest. What is that? Or, um, Luna, when you said, I want to pull it out. I would like you to read chapter six and to understand what's the implication. Right. Um, I actually, interestingly enough, I have a business degree from UC Santa Cruz and, um, yeah, they really didn't actually teach us practical anything. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. It is. And, and you're a yoga teacher, right? So, so imagine that someone who's just getting into health and wellness goes, Oh, I have, uh, shoulder ache. I'm going to go ask Luna for help. And you're like, well, there's physical therapists. There's to the outside. It just all looks the same to the outside. business all looks the same. But when you get into it, you realize, oh my gosh, personal finance is so different than business. So that's what I want to challenge you to do. I want the two of you to learn the language of money. I want the two of you to start talking about money regularly together. I know that, Finn, you wrote in your application, we've basically disagreed about how we spend, where we should live, and plan to buy a house every step of the way. I just gave in and stopped fighting about it. For now, it's kind of funny, but over 10, 20, 30 years, it's less funny. It's a wedge. I feel like when I talk about having a plan with money, or I talk about optimizing money, for example, it's met with, I'm stressing about money. It's misunderstood as I'm being unreasonable when I really just want to have a plan. Tell her that. After doing our conscious spending plan, as you know, um, I realized how out of touch I was with our real numbers. And, um, you know, I want to live our dreams together. And so I want us to understand that there's a difference between trying to live our dreams and actually designing a plan that we implement to bring us to those dreams. And I know that we can do it together. Could not have said it better myself. Okay. Read. Read the book, have the conversations, keep me updated. All right. Thank you so much for coming out here. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome to meet you. Thank you so much. Give it up for Finn and Luna. I really love this conversation. So please make sure you stick around until the end to see their follow-ups. I don't often get the chance to speak to people at the initial parts of their financial journey. A lot of times, by the time they get to me, they've read a little bit, they've learned a little bit. They have a bit of an understanding about the basics, but honestly, I've never had the chance to talk to people at the beginning. I also liked that this couple was different than some of the couples I speak to. Sometimes some of the couples I talk to are tracking 34,000 rows of data. Finn and Luna were different. They were in the clouds, which was quite fascinating. I'm also struck by the kind of lifestyle they have built. It's not just about money. It's about identity. They've spent years being alternative, being creative, living outside the box. And I actually want them to keep that. Stay creative. Preserve yourself. Stay creative. Stay creative. Stay creative. Preserve that. That is who they are. Mushroom stocks, gold coins, and all. But what I want them to do is to add a new layer on top of that, a new part of their identity, one that says we can still dream and we can plan. And truthfully, I wish that I had embraced that mindset in my own relationship earlier. Back then, I thought being good with money meant we agree on the percentage of our investment contributions. Okay, we probably should. But what I really needed to do was to close my mouth and listen to how my wife felt about money and what her invisible scripts were and what money means to her. In fact, I probably needed to figure out how to express my own feelings and not just what I thought. Had I done that, it would have saved us years of difficult conversations. And speaking of my relationship, up next, before we meet our next couple, you're going to meet my wife, Cassandra. I think you're going to be surprised because I broke one of our cardinal rules with money and she did not let it slide. She actually called me out on it. I'm going to take a wild guess. Maybe you've been putting off seeing a doctor for a while for some unexplained condition. Hey, why is my left eye blurry? Do I have toe fungus or is it just gross toenails? Whatever it is, stop wondering if you should get it checked out. Go see someone right now. You can use our sponsor ZocDoc. They make it really easy. 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If you're looking to improve your customer service experience, check out 11 Agents. If you run a business or handle customer operations across support, sales, or marketing, you can start with a demo at 11labs.io. See how 11 Agents can fit into your workflows and help build experiences that your customers will actually love. 11labs.io. That's E-L-E-V-E-N-L-A-B-S.io. Let's give it up. Okay, welcome. How does it feel to be on stage? It feels good. Hey, everyone. How's it going? Okay, I have a few questions for you about our relationship. And so I think, let's just start at the beginning. What is it like being married to an optimizer? Yes, being married to an optimizer. I would say that it took some time for us to get used to each other with our money dials and how we approached money. But now I can say it's a real strength that Rumi is an optimizer. And I do appreciate that he loves to run a compound interest calculator for fun. And he does love a good spreadsheet as well. And so that has been a really fun part of our journey to learn about. But there was one thing I was very surprised about. And I thought optimizers were really good at Excel. And Rumi does not know basic formulas. So I'm still waiting. She looked at my spreadsheet and she's like, I was so excited. I'm like, babe, look at this calculator. And she's like, who the f*** designed this thing? It's so ugly. She actually runs our family calculations. And you manage it, that part of it in an amazing way. So that when we talk about the numbers, you have them up. Yeah. I love a good spreadsheet. So I am like, boop, boop, boop. Okay, here we go. And it's all good. But it has definitely been a journey to get here. And even just, in fact, recently, we had a little hiccup. Do you want to share about that? Yeah. So we have our monthly money meetings. But you pointed out recently, very recently, you're like, hey, can I talk to you about something? I am responsible for the monthly money meetings. And you pointed out that I have been letting them slide. I haven't been scheduling them. And you made a very accurate, but it was tough for me to hear, point, which was, you would never miss a work meeting. So why would you miss this meeting, which is even more important than that? And that's real. That's real. And I appreciated the way that you brought it up, because you were very compassionate, but you were real. And I think I kind of got the gravity of it, because how can I be writing a book, and then I'm missing our own monthly money meeting? And I think that was the beginning. We kind of deconstructed it. And I was like, let's try to figure out why. And one of the big lessons was, we scheduled our meeting at like 6 or 8 p.m. I don't really schedule many work meetings at 8 p.m., because they would get skipped, because we're tired. So we moved it to a better time. We clarified what we're talking about. We streamlined all this stuff. And I think, that was a good wake-up call, and I really appreciated how you delivered that. So thanks. Thank you. I think it's a good lesson that you're always going to be working to tweak and improve things, and life is going to get in the way sometimes. Yeah. So you really have to fight to maintain focus on what's important. Okay. How did it feel when we started combining finances? Yeah. For me, it was very nerve-wracking, because we grew up very differently with money, and we saw things differently. And speaking of growing up with money. my mom and dad are in the audience. Are you there? Where are you? Can we see them? Mom and dad, can you stand up? Oh yeah, stand up so everyone can say hi. There they are. Give them a round of applause. Yeah, there's my mom and dad. They're great. But yeah, we grew up very differently with money. And so through a lot of conversations, easy and hard ones, we have improved our communication around that. And now we have a good system in place. Yeah. What do you wish you knew back then that you know now? Yeah, the biggest thing I would say is how much individual work we had to do on our money psychology. And I really did. I dove into books. I hired a money mindset coach. I did so many things. And because of that individual work, it really, really helped us lay a very strong foundation going forward. That is very true. You did a ton of work on your relationship with money. And there were things like you hired a coach. I didn't even know about that until a year or two later. And it showed up. It showed up in our conversations. And I know you also told me like, hey, I need you to work better on connecting with your feelings. The F word, feelings. My favorite thing. I've come to appreciate it. We have our wheel. We have our wheel. So this is on our fridge. Tell them what this is. Okay, this is the wheel of emotions. We got it from a therapist. And it's really helpful. I mean, you can take a picture of it. This is something I find especially men. Like there were words on here. I was like, huh? What does this mean? Or a word that I would never use in a conversation. But I think this is the kind of thing you encouraged me to learn. And we are doing it together. And it's been it's given us a new language together. Yeah, absolutely. And now because of all the work we put in individually and together, we have fun when we talk about money. And yeah, there's hard times and stuff. But overall, we're on the same path moving forward. All right. Thank you so much. I love you. Let's give it up. I hope that you seeing Cassandra talk about money shows you that this entire body of work is not just theoretical. I've lived it. We've lived it. We're living it right now. As I record this, I just finished a money meeting with my wife where we looked through our numbers and we discussed what's working. We made plans for our next meeting. I'm sharing this because I'm not lecturing you from the clouds. I'm actually doing this with you. That is why I have so much compassion for the guests on this show. Because if it's hard for Cassandra and me, I know how hard this is for you. So if money feels hard for you, if sometimes you feel stuck or like you're not aligned with your partner or even with yourself, my wish is that you give yourself a little grace. Yeah, sometimes it's hard. And yes, also can improve your relationship with money. So money feels good. Up next, I'm speaking to Monica and Antonio. They have a high income. They also have an invisible pressure to take care of their parents, which I think will resonate with a lot of you. If you grew up in an immigrant household, you already know what that kind of invisible pressure feels like. I'm now looking at their conscious spending plan. And if you want help with your own conscious spending plan, you can join my money coaching program at IWT.com slash money. Asset's $42,000. Investments, $200,000. Savings, $141,000. Debt, $25,000. For a total net worth of $359,480. They have a combined income of $235,000, which is very impressive, but they don't feel like it's enough. Not even close, actually. Let's get into it. I'd like for you to get on your feet and welcome Monica and Antonio. Yes. Welcome. How are you doing? Thank you for being here. Thank you. Have a seat. How are you doing? Good. Doing good. How are you feeling? Excited, but also nervous. Nervous? Yeah. We have the best community anywhere. And I'm so thankful that you all came out here and you are asking for help. In your application, you wrote, how do we structure our finances to be able to start saving for our future, but also to help our parents in the next? Five years. Can you tell me a little bit about the circumstances around helping your parents? Yes. So my parents immigrated to the US maybe 38 years ago from Mexico. They left their family, their friends, their country of origin, and decided to move for me and my sister and come to the US because things were not going well economically. But they had a comfortable life in Mexico. And they moved here with a small amount of savings. And so they were able to move and started their own business and figured out how to start. And they ultimately ended up owning a series of small businesses. But in 2008, all of their savings was gone overnight. They weren't really ever able to recoup from that. They've made, you know, they're able to pay their bills and take care of themselves. But ultimately, they mean a lot to me. They gave up their whole lives, what they thought was going to be their life for me and my sister and sacrificed that. And it is super important to me that they know that they're going to be taken care of. This was never their plan for them to not have the savings or retirement to lean on. Okay, I appreciate that. How do you feel when you think about the journey that your parents took? Really emotional. You know, it took a lot of courage to own a small business and then it not do so well and reinvent themselves and create another small business to give my sister and I a middle class life here in the US. And that meant everything to them. They wanted us to have the opportunities and to grow and to learn and be in a community that would support us and give us our bright future. Okay, okay. Thank you. What is your goal to help your parents? You mentioned something in the next five years. I don't know when they're going to be able to or how long they're going to be able to with their small business. They're in their 70s. And I imagine at some point, you know, health or otherwise, or their business is no longer profitable. They're going to need financial help. So I want to be prepared for that. I don't want to be reactive, but I also don't know what I need to do or where to go. Okay. Do you feel pressure to take care of them? I would say yes, but I also feel like it's an honor to take care of my parents. They came here for me and my sister. So yeah, there's definitely some pressure there. I think anyone who's close to their parents and certainly someone who's seen their parents come from a different country and understand even a sliver of how difficult that would have to be can understand the advantages that we got growing up here. Okay. I think I understand. Can I ask you, let me ask you first, Monica, and then I want to come to you, Antonio. What did you learn about money growing up in your household? That we couldn't afford a lot of things. How did you learn that? Because it's what I was told. Any phrases you remember specifically? Yeah, can't afford it. There was disagreements frequently regarding money in my household. Yeah. Among your parents? Yes, among my parents. Okay. And what did you feel about money as a kid? Stress. Ah, still feel that? Still feel that. Okay. Okay. Antonio, what do you remember about money as a kid? With my parents, there was a sense of people with money attained that money in a negative way or they had to, they stepped on people to get to where they were or it was a very kind of evil type of mentality around it. What does that mean, evil? That they did things that necessarily weren't right or righteous or the right way or they were, took advantage of people or stepped on people to kind of get in front of them or, you know, or take advantage in some other way. So the story that you were taught was if somebody has a lot of money, they did something wrong in order to get it. They had to take advantage. That's a less common one than we can't afford it, but it sticks with you, doesn't it? You still feel that way? Fortunately, I don't. I actually, I grew up in Arizona and then I actually went to San Diego for college. I played soccer and went to a very private school. Uh, where there was a lot of affluent students and, and, and people and families. And I, it opened my eyes up to a whole new world in terms of getting to know people and their identities and, and that money isn't evil and that money can do great things. And it just depends on the person and their identity and what they can do. So it really, it's, you know, getting out of Arizona was kind of like my ticket to explore the world. And, and it was, it was huge for me. That connects with me. I grew up going to public school and I don't know where I got this idea, but I had this idea that if you go to private school, you're an asshole and like, and sort of spoiled. And then I got to college and there were a lot of my classmates who had gone to private school, public school, whatever. That was not true. I changed my opinion in 48 hours of becoming a freshman. And at 17 or 18 years old, when you realize, oh my God, something I believed for the last 10 years, is actually totally untrue. It's kind of earth-shaking. So I appreciate that's the power of being surrounded by different people. Okay, how are your parents with money, Antonio? I came from a family of six, five boys, one girl. So it was more of a survive instead of nurture. So it was, you know, dad working a few jobs, mom staying at home, just constantly working, but then providing for us like we didn't know any different, like this was the good life. So it was seeing all those sacrifices that they made, but then knowing like, it's certain times you couldn't afford things or I played on club teams where I would have other people that would pay for tournaments and things like that that would kind of make up the difference because my family, we couldn't afford it, but the skill sets and being an athlete helped. How about now? How are they with money now? Well, it's a divided family now. So there was a divorce and there's some division in the family. So that causes, you know, things happen and you adjust. So my dad, we kind of, similar to her parents, are looking to help him and take care of him because of what he's done and throughout my life and our lives to help support him. He's a Vietnam vet and, you know, been through a lot of trauma and PTSD and all those other things. So there's a lot of things that come along with the sacrifices that he made, not only for our country, but for us, that, you know, we have an obligation and a duty. And I think Monica kind of downplays her stress and weight of responsibility because of all the sacrifices that her parents made. Like, I think she takes on a lot, a huge weight. It's been seen in her drive and her career to, you know, make it worth what her parents sacrificed. So there's a lot of, a weight there and pressure. You agree with that, Monica? Yeah. And what's great is their appointments happen fast, usually within 24 to 72 hours. I'll see you next time on ZocDoc. You sent these numbers! - It's high, it's high. - Okay, I mean, yes, it's high. If it's 68, we could probably bring it down, especially with a high income like that. I agree, it should be, I typically like to see 50 to 60%, especially with a high income. - We don't feel like it. - No, we don't feel like it. - Do we really have to do this thing again? Hold on. - Okay. - Gross annual income, $234,000. Yeah, that's a high income! And don't pull that on me. Come on! Okay, so you don't feel it. Is there a number that you would feel it? - Yeah. - What's the number? - I don't know, 40K a month? - 40K a month. Just, where'd that come from? - Just twice as much as what we thought. - God, one day I'm gonna encounter someone who just goes, "Yes, I have enough." Please, how many more decades will it take me to find that person? All right, so fixed cost is 68, investments at zero. That's interesting. Savings at 1%, guilt-free spending at 31%. What? What are y'all spending on? - A lot. - The answer is not behind you, trust me. What are you spending on? I don't mind spending on nice things. I like them, but I'm just curious. 31%, what are you spending on? - We have certain expenses that-- - Like? - Like there's healthcare, I mean, not healthcare, but like her, like working out, we take, we have certain investments towards, you know, trainers, health, organic, food-- - All right, self-care, fine, what else? Got real quiet in here all of a sudden. - We do have a kid, the 18-month-old. - Okay, I know childcare is a big expense under your fixed cost. - Childcare is-- - It's 1,900 bucks a month. - Correct. - That's a lot. - And that's not that expensive for San Diego. - Yeah, yeah. Okay, Antonio, you started contributing to retirement later in life. - Yes. - You're 12 years older than Monica, okay. So, and Monica, you recently scaled back hours at work. Have you changed your spending to reflect the hours that you've cut? - Honestly, no, and I didn't really realize that until maybe a month ago when we started combing through all of our finances. And I realized, oh, I never made that adjustment. - Yeah, that's common, that's common, that's very common. It's kinda like the NFL player who stops being in the NFL, but they don't change what they're eating or how they're spending. It's very common, and so at least you recognize it now. So you wanna buy a house. From looking at your numbers, what do you think? What's the answer? - I don't think we have enough saved. I think there's also some fears where the last five, six years, we had planned the whole, kind of a compound with the ADU, and that was like a dream. But then you look at the real estate market, you look at interest rates, and we have histories of being burned in real estate. Our parents has that history. - Both families, yeah. - Both families. - My parents, my parents. I even went through it in 2008 in terms of the crash and had a couple homes and went through that. So there's a bit of a fear in terms of not making, and then you have a child and we're raising a family. You don't wanna make that same mistake, and I think we've done so many things to improve our relationship as people in terms of going to therapy and these things in terms of changing behaviors, right? We love our parents, but there's certain behaviors that we wanna change to instill in our life as we go forward, and we wanna do that with the finances as well. And listening to you, it kind of brought up the point of like, well, maybe a house isn't the investment that we wanna go. Maybe there's other options and maybe there's other ways that are more secure and help us attain that rich life in the ways that we wanna experience it. - So I think that's probably true, especially because you live in a very high cost of living city, and I think because you're hyper aware of real estate, what's been the family history. But I guess I wanna kind of zoom out for a second. I wanna say the two of you, you know, parents have given you a lot in terms of knowledge. They've given you generational wealth, not maybe through money, but generational wealth through opportunities and through teaching you and introducing you to new ideas and people. So the first thing I just wanna recognize is that you are doing very well relative to most people in America, okay? Do you recognize that? - I'm more self-aware, she's more critical. She's more critical of herself with just the behavior and the responsibility that she has and has been instilled with her. - Let me ask you, Monica, do you recognize that? Can we put those numbers back up? - I hear you. But the honest answer is no. - Okay, fair answer. So you hear me. You can even see these numbers with a lot of zeros. There's a lot. Investments, 200,000. Gross monthly income, almost 20,000. But you're telling me you don't feel it here. - Right. - Okay, why do you think that is? - Because of the way that I grew up. - Probably. It's so interesting to me that such high earners can have such negative feelings about money. Remember, the way we feel about money is highly uncorrelated with the amount in our bank account. But now that we are starting to understand where they came from and how they watched their family struggle with money, starting to make more sense. They're setting these enormous goals for themselves, a property with an ADU, help for Antonio's father. Yet have you noticed that nowhere in this conversation have they talked about the things they would like to spend money on for themselves? I'm also concerned about their own future. They have $200,000 earmarked for retirement, but Antonio's 48 years old. I would like to see them focus on their own future as well as their parents. Otherwise, you know what's gonna happen? This cycle will continue for yet another generation. In fact, there's a very specific reason that Monica and Antonio feel behind. Even though they are earning way more than most Americans. Listen as I give them my perspective. I'm gonna take a wild guess. You can use our sponsor ZocDoc, they make it really easy. You just look through the real appointment openings, click what works for your schedule and book it instantly. Head to ZocDoc.com/ramit to get started and check that appointment off your to-do list. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C.com/ramit. - One of my friends recently had to call her phone provider to ask a simple question about her account. Instead, I recommend you use 11Agents by 11Labs and make their experience great from the very beginning. 11Agents is a platform for AI voice and chat agents that can actually listen, understand, and resolve customer issues. Their agents use the same AI tech as 11Labs, the company known for realistic voice and audio models in over 70 languages. So if you've ever heard an AI voice that sounds real and natural, there's a good chance it's from 11Labs. My team and I actually use 11Labs. And if I needed AI voice and chat agents, I would use 11Agents. If you're looking to improve your customer service experience, check out 11Agents. If you run a business or handle customer operations across support, sales, or marketing, you can start with a demo at 11Labs.io/ramith. See how 11Agents can fit into your workflows and help build experiences that your customers will actually love. 11Labs.io/ramith, that's E-L-E-V-E-N-L-A-B-S.io/ramith. - You grew up not having enough. Feeling stressed about money, right? And then both of your parents lost houses and have gone through a variety of different financial journeys. Yet, combined, the two of you make high income. Household income. What I notice, there's probably many reasons and definitely things to dig into with therapists. What I notice is that you have unconsciously set such a high bar. that you can actually never be successful by that standard. like looking at the numbers, you're quite successful. Yes, we can talk about your investments and guilt-free spending, we can do that. I'll give you some quick things right now. But if your standard is I need to buy a house with an ADU in California for my parents, like how many people can actually do that? Like we all know how expensive that is, don't we? That's an almost impossible standard. So by setting that, you're unconsciously recreating that feeling of not having enough. The same one that feels so familiar that you grew up with, now making $240,000 a year, you're still feeling it, simply because you're recreating that story. How does that strike you? - Never thought of it that way. - Tell me more. - Yeah, I guess I think my whole life I've probably expected this and was trying to set myself up mentally for what it was gonna take to get to that place. And it just feels like it's never enough. - Right, right. What a tragedy to have accomplished as much as the two of you have, and to never feel like it's enough. I think there's a very different way to look at it. First of all is just appreciating what your parents gave you, what you two have taken, and run with and accomplished. Huge, huge. Not many can say that. So that is the first thing. And if I'm you, I'm spending a lot more time in conversations about money, talking about look how far we've come, look where we came from. I mean, I was walking around San Francisco today, and I lived here in my 20s, early 30s, and I was walking around my old neighborhood and just like really taking it in with my wife. Look how far I came. Oh, I used to go to that coffee shop, and it felt good. To look at that and then to contrast it with where I am. I appreciate where I came from. I'd love for you to do the same. On the financial side, I'm gonna make a few more specific recommendations, okay? I think that if I'm looking at your spending, investing, et cetera, I think I would immediately take the guilt-free spending, and I would probably cut it in half. And one thing, and you know, going through your guilt-free spending, it was quite detailed. It was like, you really laid it out. But there's a 0% going to investments. So, you know, typically I say 20 to 35%. In your case, particularly since you started investing later in life, you can cut that quite a bit. 15% is a kind of good place to start. That still gives you, especially on your income, 15% is a lot. But all of that remainder of the money can go towards investments. You have a car payment. It's gonna be over in a couple of years, I think. 400 or so bucks a month. I would invest all of that directly. Don't get a new car. Keep that as long as you can. If you can do all of those things, you'll have over $2 million in retirement. It's a good start. It's a good start for investing aggressively later in life. By the way, I'm going for the most conservative look, which is Antonio, your retirement, 'cause you're a little older, okay? If you let that money sit, it will grow considerably. The house, realistically, in the next five years, you're not gonna buy a house with an ADU. That's okay. Sometimes the best thing we can do with a rich life is to be honest with ourselves and the people around us. You don't actually need to buy a house to achieve having your parents live with you all together. Might be a little tighter than you wanted, but if you can get creative about it, that would be my challenge for you. Basically, I wouldn't set a goal, if you want to live in California, of buying a house. Because you will forever feel behind. So find another way. Do you think that that's possible? - Yeah, that's fair. - Okay, okay. I think, above all, we need the two of you to focus on your financial future, to get aligned. There's a lot of family history. You want to honor your family. You want to take care of them. I totally respect that. I get it. But I also want you to have a plan, a plan so that you are both taken care of with your retirement, 'cause your time, the clock is ticking. And you got to feel good about it. You just can't. So do you think that you can find a way to prioritize yourselves, do it together, and to feel good about your journey? - Yeah, I do. - I definitely think so. - In the spirit of wanting you to change the way you feel about your journey. My team spoke to your parents, and I'd love for us to take a look. - We are very proud that you guys are already trying to, looking for an answer, looking for a plan, looking for a system that is going to get you where you want to go. And you guys are including us. I'm grateful, I'm proud. I think the torch has been passed. The values have been transferred. That alone is enough, more than enough. - Yeah. - We're very proud to make us feel really proud. - I love you both, and we're rooting for you. We're wishing you the best. - What do you see when you see your parents up there? - The people I love. The people who gave me the life that I have now. - Yeah. I think you've done an amazing job taking the torch, as your dad said, carrying it on. I want you two to put yourselves first, prioritize, you can still take care of your family, feel good along the way, and everyone else will be able to sense that feeling that the two of you have as a team, okay? Monica and Antonio, can we give it up for them? Thank you so much. - Monica and Antonio are doing so many things right. They've got strong careers, a great income, a deep commitment to their family, but they are also carrying this invisible burden. The pressure to make their parents' sacrifice is worth it. And that's when you can start to create unrealistic standards. Like feeling that if you cannot buy a house with an ADU in California, you failed. Let's be honest, for the vast majority of people, that is not realistic. That feeling of not enough does not come from their incomes. It comes from the expectations they have invisibly internalized, but never really talked about. Now, when it comes to money, a lot of people resort to going right back to the budget. We need a budget. We need to track a budget. You don't need a budget. What you actually need is a new story, a new way of looking at money, a new set of lenses to put on, and then the systems to bring that story to life. If the story in your head is I'm on my own, or I have to take care of everyone else, because if I don't, I lose control and everything falls apart, then no budget in the world will ever make you feel safe. Oh, it's easy. You can certainly create a budget, change some numbers. It can feel productive. I can knock it out in five seconds for you, but changing your story, that takes work. And that is where real meaningful change happens, especially for couples who are willing to rewrite their story together. If you're coming into the new year and you want to rewrite your story around money, if you want to stop feeling overwhelmed and behind, and you actually want to feel excited about money, even if you have debt, even if you're not sure about what to do next, I want you to check out my money coaching program. You'll get access to me, my team, and a whole community of people who are going to help you stick to your rich life goals. It's not negative, punitive budgeting. It's creating a rich life. And you can join at iwt.com/moneycoaching. A huge thank you to both couples who were brave enough to join me on stage in front of our live San Francisco audience, and to my amazing, beautiful wife, Cassandra, who makes me want to continue rewriting our story together every single day. We're going to get to their follow-ups in just a second. And I want you to watch until the end, because we reached out to these couples a full year after this was recorded. So make sure you stick around. First up, Finn and Luna. - I've realized that I am quite a bit of a dreamer. And so I'm taking steps to become more of a planner. And that includes listening to, "I Will Teach You To Be Rich," and then following along with the, "The Steps at the End of the Chapter." So I can see myself aligning my goals with my husband's goals, and we're able to agree a lot more and disagree a lot less just since starting to create our rich life. So thank you so much to Ramit, and thank you so much to his team, and we'll keep you updated in the future. Peace. - We have decided to do a study time every week with the book where we spend an hour. So we're going to start with reading the book and making a to-do list. So we're just going through the book and going step by step and figuring things out, and I can feel it coming together. And I'm so stoked to see what the next year of learning has in store for us. - And now let's hear from Monica and Antonio. - Since we last met, we reduced our everything else by 30 to 40%, fully funded for both Antonio and myself, and are in the works of fully funding Roth IRAs for this year. We were able to start saving about six to eight hundred dollars a month every month now our son's daycare costs will reduce by about 40 to 50 percent in two months so there's light at the end of the tunnel as far as daycare costs so we'll be able to start saving around 14 1500 monthly more more in addition to what we're saving still working on my money mindset still very much love my parents and hope to be able to help them in the future but putting ourselves first and we are in the process of looking for a financial advisor that works best for us and we've interviewed a couple so far and we have a few more to interview to help us decide what to do with the rest of our savings now let's hear from them a full year later and see what kind of progress they've made well it's been about a year since luna and i were on stage with ramit a lot has happened since i've been on stage with ramit and i've been on stage with ramit and i've been a lot has happened since i've been on stage with ramit and i've been on stage with ramit since then when we walked out that night we had nothing in place we had no system we never opened up an investment account we had no iras we never had a credit card ever and so it's a year later and we've got all that in place so you know we basically opened up a charles schwab investment account we took the money out of our banks and invested it into the s&p 500 we've got our conscious spending plan down to a perfect pie chart and then we send 10 of what we make for the month into our banks so that's our guilt-free spending and then we invest the rest into the s&p 500 we took our toes out of the crypto game we started to agree that building wealth should be boring and that was too much of a wild ride so we got out while we were on top and put that into the s&p 500 the best advice you know i could give anybody out there is to actually read the book and do the work and you will find yourself in a different life and it's a much safer better life for us and yeah we're very grateful for that night hello uh ramit and team want to give you an update as far as you know what's happened so since we met in january um we were on the hunt for a financial advisor um we were able to fully fund last year's roth iras and started contributing towards our retirement funds in a larger amount monthly i did get laid off back in july uh which has been a bit stressful but the same time we're able to fund our retirement funds and we're able to fund our retirement funds in the same time we had the i guess the safety of the the emergency funds to take some time and take some time off rethink where i wanted to go in terms of next direction next steps i think for me what's changed the most in the last year with antonio's layoff um and my father had some serious heart heart health issues this year um my view on what our savings should go to and view on what our savings should go to and my view on what our savings should go to and view on how our money has changed completely um i think you know i now see all of our savings as um freedom so i feel like it all worked out the way it was supposed to and now i don't have one single vision for our finances but realize that it's there for a reason and it's there to help us in times of need i don't feel as stressed about the needing to continue to save at a significant rate it's been really helpful to have that money available uh and you know thanks for all your help and advice and support uh it's definitely gave us that different perspective to kind of put those priorities in place and and and have that time and space for for family and our loved ones and i will be able to renegotiate my contract i will be increasing my hours more than likely next year so i'm in a good place to be able to do that and i love what i do for work and hopefully you know antonio will hear back from a few companies soon thanks guys take care if you want my help with your specific money questions you can apply to be on this podcast at iwt.com slash apply or you can become a member of my money coaching program instantly at iwt.com slash money coaching in money coaching you get access to monthly calls where i answer your questions directly on a private call and i get the chance to go much deeper on the concepts of money that have made a huge change in my life plus you'll get access to a community of other people like you who will inspire you and push you to live your rich life check out money coaching at iwt.com slash money coaching