245. "We make 6 figures. Why am I hiding fast food purchases?"

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I hide how much food I eat out. I will drive into a drive-through by a huge meal and eat it all. His therapist said she's shocked that he's still working with young children and cancer treatment. I was just feeling incredibly guilty. You wrote in your application that you feel like a pressure cooker about to explode. What if I get sick again? They said it was going to be gone the first time and he came back. What if I can't work for another year? This time, work won't pay for it. I actually find it so hard to stick to the budgets. I spent 200 euro on T-Moo. On what? Oh, ****, Remy. I'd love to have a plan to not feel so terrified. If the two of you continue on, the way that you have with your money, when something comes up in life, what do you think happens the next time and the time after that and the time after that? Oh, I will just collapse. Here's the scenario. Your partner is suddenly diagnosed with cancer. They have to step back from work and your household income predictably drops. On top of the fear and grief that you are both experiencing, would you know what to do financially? This is what grace and James have been navigating. They're 38 and 37 years old. They live in Ireland with their two children, a toddler and an infant. James has been going through cancer treatment while grace is on maternity leave. Their income has taken a hit. And like a lot of couples, they're trying to figure out how to make it all work. Now I know that a lot of people would avoid talking about money until they are forced to. But grace and James are doing it and they've let us look inside their real numbers. I'm opening up their conscious spending plan or their CSP. It breaks down their income, expenses, savings and exactly where their money is going. If you want my help with your own conscious spending plan, join my money coaching program at IWT.com/moneycoaching. Here's what I'm seeing in their numbers. Assets, 328,000. Investments, 79,000. Savings, 42,000. Debt, 230,000. Net worth, 219,000. Investments cost are at 48%, investments, 6%, savings at 40%, that's quite aggressive. That 40% savings rate tells me something is going on. Maybe they are in a rebuilding phase. Maybe they are trying to get ahead of what might be coming. It's not surprising to see a higher savings rate given that they've been going through cancer, reduced income and having a newborn. Now I want to hear from you. Have you ever been through a situation where your income dropped overnight? Maybe it was a health crisis, maybe it was a job loss. I want to hear from you in the comments. I want to know, what did you cut back on? And looking back, what do you wish you hadn't cut back on? I'll check out the comments later today. For now, let's get into it. Here is my conversation with Grace and James. If we just have an amazing 10 out of 10 conversation, what would you walk out of here with? How do we start with you, Grace? I think I really want a game plan for how to build back up what we're currently rattling down on. I feel like we've had a huge so many bumps in the road and we've done what we can, but I'd love to get that skyrocketing sort of like, okay, kind of a big release. I'd love to have a plan to look towards the future and not feel so terrified. I would love to kind of understand how I feel maybe a little bit more and why I feel like that. Okay. James, how about you? Very similar with the, especially the building back up with me personally to kind of really get my head and my, my heart back into finances, you know, it's been very much on Grace and Shorter since past while. And I want to be able to kind of help pick some of that burden away and get myself more financially later again. Great. All right. Well, I'm looking forward to this. I have a lot of questions. Grace, you wrote, "My husband has cancer and I'm on maternity leave with a four-month old. I feel like I'm forcing him to keep working because of our money situation. Can you tell me what you were feeling when you wrote that?" Oh, just the horrible guilt for me. So in Ireland, we get, I'm going off the conciseness, but in Ireland, we get six months paid maternity and then we get three months unpaid and then I get an extra three months. So in, in all in all, it turns out to be a year, but I have been off-sith and I have been unreduced hours because I just had a really rough pregnancy. So we had saved money, but not as much as I wanted and I really, I really felt a lot of pressure to like encourage James to keep working through his treatment. This therapist basically said she's shocked that he's still working with the child, young children and cancer treatment. And when he told me this, "Oh my God, is that like the worst wife in the world? Like, I wasn't supporting him through his treatment. I'm constantly looking at the numbers and I'm constantly like, okay, if you can keep working for another month or two, then we can put in another two thousand in savings and then that'll keep us going until January and then I don't know, so yeah, I was just feeling incredibly guilty. You still feel that way? Yeah. I do. Okay. James, if you're comfortable, would you mind sharing what you're dealing with from a health perspective? I got cancer first, three years ago, it was just a very simple mold that went funny, melanoma, they thought they had caught it all and then I found a lump in my arm of all places and it turned out, it metastasized and they had caught it. So, thankfully they caught it early again and surgery to remove the second site and then immunotherapy for over a year and organosis is looking good, though, which is fantastic. I actually finished my last treatment cycle two weeks ago. Really? Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you very much. That's awesome. How long have you been going through treatment? A year. Wow. Yeah. Okay. And how do you feel right now physically? Tired. It's going to take at least three months. They said to kind of fully leave my system and then there's a lot of side effects and everything to crop up and various stuff, so I'm still a bit to go, but I think the big, the big kind of mental hurdles out of the way. You know, so we are in a much better place than we were when we submitted to come on the show. I'm doing great. You can't be blessed in something really well. I'm very happy to hear that, very happy. How about mentally? How do you feel? I'm mentally much better. I've had a lot more mental space to kind of get my head around it and concentrate on getting better. I've been off work now for two, two months. My work, my work had given me two of the new year, then we'll reassess and that has helped a lot. And it's given me a lot of mental space to kind of heal and it's also given my mental space for other things to crop up finances for one and that. What led to the decision for you to stop working? Looking back, I don't recognize who I was. I wasn't, I was a zombie, I was a tired musk, I was grey, everyone just told me how grey I was. I wasn't really working. That's the thing. Like, so many people covering for me doing various aspects I was doing, the bare minimum. But you know, work gave me the option to keep working. Why? Just because I thought I'd be bored. Wait a minute. Hold on. Where's your accent from? Are you Irish? No. I might have weighed it into it. Where's the accent from? The England. Oh, okay. All right. - Am I in big trouble right now? I noticed, okay, I don't know. - No, I don't know. - Glory, everybody. Sorry. Okay, listen, the reason I'm asking is I would understand if some American, you know, born and raised in the US, all they know is work. That's our entire life. We go, what else am I gonna do? Of course I'm gonna work, but the UK excels at leisure. What's this? - It was money. If I take the year off, it would have to be done paid and we couldn't afford it. We were always planning to have in a second child, but our timeline massively accelerated. When the cancer came back, it was bluntly graceful. I might lose you, I want one more of you before you go. - I want just a little bit more of him. I want a little bit, just in case that he vanished from my life. So that was the first thought that popped into my head. If this has come back, I don't have enough of him. I don't know if that makes any sense, but I also, we knew that he would have to have treatment and we don't know about the fertility long-term effects either. It was basically, we try now and be pregnant and have a baby while you're undergoing treatment or we only have one child and that's it. It was really hard. But we got our beautiful second baby out of it. So she's just perfect. - Congratulations. It's beautiful. - Thank you. - It's beautiful and the treatment now, concluding, hopefully future health, it's a beautiful end to that chapter of your life. Beautiful. Grace, you mentioned that you still feel guilty about asking James to work. Tell me more about that. - Yeah, I feel like it made his treatment journey so much harder than it needed to be. He ended up having to go on to steroids for low cortisol and I ended up having to call the ambulance for him and he ended up having to go into hospital a few times. It probably because he was under so much pressure and he wasn't getting time to relax. And I think I was just expecting a lot of him but I was also caring for a new boy. And you know, when the newborn came along, I just feel like I asked a lot of him and I asked too much of him and it probably did cause him harm. - Do you talk about this? - Yeah. - Well, what's the conversation like? I'm gonna imagine Grace says, I feel like I'm asking too much. - Yeah. - And then what's your response James? - You know, I've never felt that. And I always tell her that she's never felt that. Like, you know, a lot of decisions I made around work and everything was based around my recovery. Like, I wanted to keep working 'cause it was a distraction and I thought I'd be bored and you know, it wasn't until I got to the very point where I couldn't, I was, I was probably causing work more harm than good. That I kind of said, and they were, 'cause I credit they were great and it actually turns out they can, they can't give me my full salary, but they are giving me three thirds of my salary. A lot of them off. - Two thirds. - Two thirds, sorry. - Wow. - Yeah. - Which they didn't have to do. - That's very generous of them. - Yeah. - Big shout out to all the companies out there. You know, we usually hear only bad things about companies, but it's quite amazing what great companies can do in tough times. - Yeah. - It's awesome. You wrote in your application, quote, "I'm constantly saving, but then I'll blow money on silly things in a (beep) life is hard moment." So what I wanna know is, what kind of things are you spending on in those moments? - Oh (beep) - It's really absolutely (beep) this morning, I spent 200 Euro on T-Moo. - On what? - Just like little things. It's all just small things. It's two o'clock in the morning, I'm feeding the child. The child's gone back to bed. I'm trying to go back to sleep. I'm on my phone and then an Instagram ad comes up and I buy skincare things for 60 euros, which doesn't even work like. - What's going through your head in those moments where you see these ads, you go on T-Moo and you buy. What's going through your head? - They've got me here. I do look like crap. I am exhausted. I don't take care of myself. This is one thing I can do to take care of myself. Look at me. Rub a blah, blah, blah, self care, blah, blah, blah, blah, six euros, here's it. Oh, I can just double click. Oh, it's done now. - What? - It's interesting the way you describe it. Like, you're dismissive of it. Like, the way you describe it is it's a con. But yet, you do it over and over. Why do you think? - I think I got a sick joy at a falling for it. Sometimes the stuff is lovely. So I'm like, maybe this time it'll be really nice the same as the other times. But other times it is a total scam. And when I look it up afterwards, I'm like, oh, why didn't I research into this more and find out that just read the comments and read the reviews and look it up on trust pilot. - Did you make these sort of, as you put it, mindless purchases before you had kids? - Yeah. - You did? - Yeah, you really need to stop. - How do money decisions get made in your relationship? - I'd probably make most of them. - You take the lead? - Definitely. - Oh, yeah. And before, before James got sick. - Like we would do weekly budgeting and stuff. Like every Sunday we would sit down together when the kids were asleep and we would kind of look over. We'd have kind of a set budget of what we would normally spend. And we'd go through the calendar. But then, mentally, I just couldn't take it and grace to kind of take it all. And she still does now. - Yeah. - Yeah. - All that seems very reasonable. By the way, much more advanced than most to sit down and talk about money every week. So that's great. The fact that, as you got sick James, you had to give up on participating in that. Also seems totally normal. And the fact that grace that you took the load on yourself seems like great partnership. - Yeah, I think we had a good system going into it because I had been doing a lot of the envelope system. And I just really liked watching the videos. And I was like, oh, I could do that. - Hold on, what videos did you like watching? Who watches envelope videos? What? - Stuff, it's addictive. - What are these videos? That's what I want to know. What are they? - It's people being like, I'm going through my budget for the weekend. It's like, I just love watching other people's money. Like, I love your show. - I know why you love my show. I get that. (beep) - But it did help because I set up a whole thinking fund system. So I have automatic money going to, so we have basically a year's work of the big bills. Always pretty much saved and that's automatic. So we had a good system going into it. So it wasn't like too much of a big deal to take it on James. Don't be worried about that. - I'm impressed with Grace's knowledge about money. She's obviously taken the time to be curious about personal finance and it shows when she talks about having an emergency fund or as she puts it, a year's worth of big bills saved up. But I'm struck by the way she describes her feelings around their financial situation. Remember, Grace said she feels guilty for, quote, forcing James to keep working because she was nervous about their financial situation. James isn't working anymore, but she still feels guilty. And now, even though she's worried about money, she'll go and mindlessly spend $200 on Timu at 2am. It's all a bit contradictory. Those mixed signals tell me there's something going on here, something deeper she has not worked through yet. And you can hear it in this one moment. She said, I might lose you. I want one more of you before you go. Can you imagine your partner saying that? Can you imagine feeling that way? There are a lot of layers to unpack here. We're not just talking about a savings rate. We're talking about mortality and love. And we don't even know what's gonna eventually happen. So listen as I gently probe Grace about this explosive line from her application. Grace, you wrote in your application that you feel like, quote, a pressure cooker about to explode. What do you mean by that? Having the sole responsibility of organizing the money and putting it where it needs to be, but it feels just a huge amount of pressure. And then just the thought of not having any money coming in with the maternity leave and then things are just a little bit complicated. And you know, I'm looking at all the small fine points and like hoping they all slot together. And if they don't then, oh, I don't know, I might explode. And I tend to get quite cross. And I think that's why I was putting a lot of pressure on James as well to kind of keep working as well. Because my systems don't work if the money's not there. If it's money's not coming in, everything could fall apart. When you would put the pressure on him as you put it, how would you do that? I think I would gently prompt. You were having surgery in September and you took the month leading up to it off. Oh, yeah. That really, really stressed me out because I was like, you are going to need a lot more time off than this. We can't have this. Because yes, we get sick leave here in Ireland. We get sick pay, but we only get a certain amount of it. And you're going to need a lot of it. And then we're not going to have the money. So I remember having this discussion with you about us. Do you let James know? Yeah. You tell him, we can't do this. Whatever. about that. Yeah, so I try and lay it out and say, oh, well, I'm worried about this. And then James was like, well, I need to take it off. So he took it off. And I said, okay. But then I would like hold on to it, hold on to it. And then like, it would burst out of me again a week later, being like, are you sure you can go back to work right now and work for another week? And what did that dynamic feel like when the two of you were having this in the thick of cancer tree? I was feeling so stressed. I was feeling like there was a baby on the way. I was, I knew I was going to start feeling sick really, really soon. So I was trying to do all of my overtime really early on. So I could like, do nights and do this before my sickness started. And I had to stop working. So there was such a time limit. And I just felt like, you know, you just needed to push through like, I was pushing through. And he wasn't. And James, how do you feel when Grace would share this with you and feel anxious and stressed out? Maybe like, you know, it was, I felt selfish because remember this time he was a toddler as well, you know, she was too. And so once even, you know, we were trying to, you know, raise her at the same time, and it's just so much, so much pressure. Yeah, she would ever now then she would explode like that and she'd come out and emit it. But then you between those, it was lots of little microaggressions, I guess, you could call them and that, you know, but for her, it was very, Grace is very practical and every sense. Like you should see our cup and so full of jam and pickles and hand tomatoes and stuff that she would, she would find farmers and you should go to the market, the veg market at the end of the day, wait until the very last where the farmer had, you know, whatever X amount left, haggling down by all spend a whole day chopping and then we'd have just those of cast off. So the idea was that if everyone tits up, we would have, you know, food. And then that was so stressful for me because I would, you know, I'd come back from treatment or I would be have a bad week or something and I would have to take the responsibility is parenting and work and everything because Grace was in this manic mode of we have to have, you know, 17,000 tins of tomorrow, just in case. This is a very good example. What do you make of this example now that you are looking back? I'm really ashamed actually. Okay, why? I think I was just trying to do something to control the situation and like try and preserve, you know, something for the future. The future was so uncertain that I just, I felt like I needed to at least feed my family. Yes. Wow. Layers of perception in your answer just now. I feel ashamed. I love the acknowledgement of how you feel. That's powerful. The need for control. I totally agree. Because if you look like going and waiting and haggling with the farmers and then then then and then finally this idea of at least I'm feeding my family. I can't fix what's going on with my husband's health. Work is work. I'm trying to get as many hours as I can in before I get sick. I'm pregnant. I got a little one. But what can I do? Feed my family. Yeah. And I would spend hours and hours and hours meal prepping and having food there and I don't know if it actually made any difference. He really did. He still does. He's still got loads left. When she was supposed to end the pregnancy and it was starting to get back to her and I was kind of having to be regardless of how I felt or how I was feeling. I had to look after the toddler. I had to feed grace and it just made life so much easier that I could just take a kind of a pre-made glass jar of peppers and tomato and stuff and throw it in with some rice and a bit chicken or something. Wait. Was it a good decision or not? I'm trying to figure it out now. I don't know. I think that we also could have just bought bought. It could have saved ourselves so much stress. Let me say this. First of all, do you know how much you have been through as a family? It's a lot. Have you grappled with that? Have you talked about that? People say it to me all the time and I'm like oh yeah. But you just have to do it. There's no other option. You just have to keep going. That's exactly what my mom said. I asked her how did you stay married for so long and how did you raise all these kids and her answer was there's no other choice. You just do it and I love that answer. I respect that answer and I think that maybe when we have that approach we also don't take time to pause and grapple with the enormity of what we have done. What we have accomplished, what we've gone through. Exactly. Grace, as I just saw you take a deep breath. I think that many of us are raised to like, what do they call it? Stiff upper lip. Look forward. Check the box and I agree. There's power in that. But there's also power in the softer side of saying like, hey, have we actually talked about what we went through? What did it mean to us as a family? Because trust me, two powerful things are going to come out of that. One, you're going to gain a deeper appreciation for each other. This tomato example is actually much deeper than either of you are letting on. There's something really beautiful and something really haunting about this example to me. The idea that Grace, you just want to feed your family. Yeah. Let them know you're going to be there and it doesn't matter that it took hours. It was irrational to spend that many hours, but you still did it. Yet there's something that perhaps is not that adaptive to your situation. The idea that you were a very, very busy pregnant mom and you were spending hours. Why? If you look at it that way, it doesn't make mathematical sense. So there's something beautiful. That's the first thing you're going to get out of is an understanding of what actually happened. Most of us never pause and look back so we just keep marching forward. The second thing it's going to do is the two of you talking about it is going to allow you to create stories for your family. Your kids need to know this story. They need to know it. Just the same way your parents passed down their stories, your kids need to know what the two of you did. And how can they learn if the two of you have not decided what happened? You have to feel for Grace and James. They have had a really tough few years and my heart goes out to them. One thing that makes it all a little bit more bearable is where they live. In Ireland, there are systems in place that help people when things go wrong, especially when somebody gets sick. Of course, it's not perfect, but it is a safety net that works. Like when James got cancer, they didn't have to worry about going bankrupt on top of everything else they were experiencing. Now compare that to what we deal with here in the US. In 2024, 31 million adults incurred medical debt, totaling $74 billion. And the American Journal of Public Health found that roughly two thirds of people that filed bankruptcy say that medical bills and illness-related income loss contributed to their bankruptcy. This is why I always shake my head when people tell me in my comments, stick to personal finance, don't bring politics into it. That's like me telling you, keep ingredients out of cooking. You cannot separate the two things just as you cannot separate money from politics. Politics is why your healthcare is so expensive. It's why millions of Americans couldn't even get health insurance before the ACA, also known as Obamacare. And it explains a lot of why people declare bankruptcy rather than the common belief that people bought too many luxury cars they couldn't afford. I want you to be able to know that if something horrific happens, like a car accident or a cancer diagnosis that you will be taken care of and you won't lose your house. That is where I stand politically and that is what I stand for. After this break, we're going to learn more about their individual relationships with money. 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 sponsors, Zockdock. They make it really easy. You don't even have to get on the phone to schedule an appointment. Zockdock lets you search and compare local in network doctors. 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See how 11 agents can fit into your workflows and help build experiences that your customers will actually love. 11labs.io/remethe. That's e-l-e-v-e-n-l-a-b-s.io/remethe. Now, are the two of you similar in the way you think about money or do you think about it differently? Wow. Okay, I already know the answer based on James's smile. James, go ahead. It's some senses I think we are quite, I think kind of big picture stuff. I think we're quite very similar. Just tell me the differences because neither of you believe you're similar. I can tell by your faces. Tell me, James. If she has fun money, whatever, she'll spend on little things. If I buy something, I'll probably buy something big maybe once a year. What's an example of a big thing once per year? My watch broke a year and a half ago and I finally replaced it. How much did it cost? 400 per year. Okay, all right. And Grace, how would you describe your relationship with money? Though I say first, I always put the maximum that I can think to save. I earn a little bit more than James, so I always have a little bit extra, so I think, oh, well, I confirmed the rest of it now. And when the stress goes up, whether through James's illness or having kids, does anything change in your relationship with money? I think I spend more. And I wouldn't really tell James too much about it. What do you mean? I suppose they do hide a little bit from him. Like what's an example of something you have hidden from him? I think I hide how much food I eat out when I'm out and about. I often get absolutely ravenous when I'm out doing jobs or I'm like taking the, taking the girls to events or whatever. I'll be so hungry and they'll both be asleep in the car and I will drive into a drive-through and buy a huge meal and eat it all on the way. But I know, I think I got a bit of a weird thrill out of heights, little small things. Do you take the bag and throw it outside before you go inside? Yeah, I do. How old are your kids? Our eldest is three and our youngest, well, we only have two, but she's six months. Six months. Okay. All right. All right. All right. What would you say the primary thing that changed financially speaking was when you had kids? Well, actually, it's childcare costs, but you're not under absolutely, that's the only rational number now. Well, they're nowhere near what it is in America, James. It's weird. Just say the number so everybody in the U.S. can get these. Go ahead. Oh, don't get angry at us. I'm sorry. It's going to happen. What is it? 355 per month. Okay. Americans go ahead. Roast them. A little bit of socialism for you. The government pay 25% of it. God, this country is so f***ing sometimes. I'm sorry, parents. I just want everybody to understand because I don't think people actually know how policy affects their actual finances. Things like childcare, the government can assist with those. They can subsidize them. Maternity and paternity leave. Taxes, yes. Many other countries charge equivalent or higher taxes. But imagine getting subsidized childcare, paternity and maternity leave, the ability to get healthcare and not have to worry about a $78,000 bill. And on and on. Of course, they're trade-offs. Of course, they're a trade-offs. But I just want everybody to understand when we're sitting here looking at these numbers, these numbers are not just picked out of thin air. They are the result of who we voted for, the result of our political systems, the result of what our culture will put up with. So anyway, I appreciate you all coming here. In fact, now that we're talking about it, why don't we take a look at the actual numbers? Yeah. All right. What was it like to do this conscious spending plan together? Oh, I loved us. Oh, I love us. All right. I know that James, what about for you? Jane got a weird look on his face like, oh, God. It was surprising how off I was. Okay. It was off. And normally I'd be able to tell you off that, what we make, what we spend there for. But I was quite be off. And then literally a year, a year away from it. And I was the numbers of change and I didn't know what. Wow. Now, can I ask you were you off because you forgot? And or were you off because the numbers have changed so dramatically in the last 12 months? A bit of both. Wage wise, I got that right. I thought we were making a lot less than we were. And then the savings, I didn't realize how much we were actually putting in. I didn't realize we had so much. Ah, sorry. Okay. Wow. Great. Yeah. Well, let's take a look. I think this is a great lesson for all of us is that knowing your numbers is a skill. And if you stop looking at your numbers, which in your case, it makes perfect sense why you did somebody gets sick. They have cancer. They're going through treatment. Of course, they're not going to be sitting there looking at their CSP every week. But it just simply shows us this is a skill. And the more remove we get, the more we lose touch with it. But we can also get back in touch. All right. Let's take a look. Okay. Let's see. James, can you read the word in bold and then the number in full next to it for this entire box, please? Yeah. So assets, 328,000, investments, 79,000 savings, 42,000 and debt, 238,000. The total net worth of 219,000. Great. What do you think about those numbers? Great. In my head, if I took three months off, we would be able to pay the mortgage and we would be at money and we'd be on the street. And obviously that has not come true. No. Hmm. What do you make of that now in retrospect? I think a lot of it was psychological for what was going through. You know, the idea is, it's that whole kind of be provider thing, even though I make a little bit less than that, it's still, they're still that kind of holdover being the man of the house type thing, you know. And we've always talked about how, because Grace's wages kind of set, she's hit her max really, because the HSE in Ireland is a set wage band, so she can't really go any higher without moving jobs or being promoted, whereas obviously I being in the private sector, I have a much more higher threshold that I can reach. And we always talked about before, while I was starting out, Grace was kind of up here already, that eventually I would catch up, which is kind of where I am now an eventually I would overtake the picker. So she would be able to kind of drop down to maybe part time or just bites and I'm calling everything and I'd be able to pick up the difference. And that's always kind of been in my mind a little bit. And I know in the grand scheme of things, like it's a year, less than a year that I'd be offering you, I'm going to work until for another 30 or years, whatever. But it still felt like some massive step back. It's quite perceptive. The idea that, first of all, congratulations for talking about. That is very rare. The fact that two people would look as objectively as possible at their careers and say, okay, here's where you are, here's where I am. Based on our trajectory, there'll be a certain point where we're going to intersect and then I'm probably going to make more. That's very forward looking. I wish everybody had those type of conversations. So well done. And then this is the hard part. You make a plan and then life gets in the way and something goes a lot. Family happens. Illness happens. Layoffs happen. Whatever. And I know because when I make a plan, I want that plan to happen. Like if I tell you I'm going to be somewhere at six, I'm going to be somewhere at six. And if somebody goes, let's actually switch it to 645, I'm like, it's annoying. And I've had to train myself like it's not the end of the world. But given my own plan fullness, I just want to follow the plan. And I see a bit of that in you, James. Even though when you look at the numbers, you realize it certainly did not put you on the street, not even close. Okay, I think there's such a valuable lesson. I'm really thankful that you're sharing with all of us. The idea that if I don't get this plan exactly right, I'm a failure. But what I can actually see from the two views, the two of you working as a team. And in any given time on a team, someone is stronger. Someone is less. Someone may be injured. Someone is picking up the slack. And it rotates. And that's, that's a team. And teams also are not only rated on how much money they make. And a lot of men look at themselves like that. It's not just that we absorb the lesson that we need to be providers. We actively encourage it. It's like if I'm not making money, who am I? There are lots of ways to contribute to a relationship beyond making the increase. criminal dollar. Grace, what did you think about those numbers when we first got pregnant? We had to stop. I was putting, well, we were both putting 500 euro into like a long-term savings or like a long-term investment fund. And we had to stop that. So we've haven't done that in like three years. And it's actually killing me now to have not to be doing that, but we just can't really afford it now. And I'm really glad we didn't because we didn't have enough to take it out then to cover this situation. But I would love for those to be higher. It's making me a little anxious. But I am really delighted. Like I didn't expect it to be that big either. Take a look. Investments are 79,000. Oh, gosh. Actually, that's including our pensions. So yeah, and then our savings is separate. Just say that word again for all the Americans who have never heard it again. Just say it wasn't sent pensions. All the boomers on the call, by the way, they're like, what are these guys talking about? I have a pension. My pension pays me 130 percent of my income. What are you talking about? Everybody has a pension. Oh, all right. Let's continue on. Grace, will you read off your combined gross monthly income? What's that number? 9,000. Okay. 9,000 bucks or 9,000 euros. I'll just call it dollars for you. Yeah. 9,000 bucks, which means that combined the two of you make $108,000 per year by show of hands. Who knew that number? Okay. Only Grace has her hand up. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you for continuing my statistic. 50 percent of people do not know their own household income. And James, you thought it was lower? Yep. Okay. Let me just for kicks. How much did you think it was? 85,000. It's actually 100 and 8,000. So now that you're making like tens of thousands more than you thought. Yeah. Do you feel any differently? No. This doesn't feel like enough. You know what? Let's change the name of this show. Forget money for couples. Let's just call it. Remake was right. That's it. That's what this entire show ends up becoming. Nobody knows their income. At least 50 percent don't. Then they go, if I made more money, I'd feel better than they make more money than they don't feel better and on and on and on. I'm telling my producer right now, we're going to switch to the name of this show. All right. 108,000. What do you think about that household income? To be honest, for me, it's more because I didn't include any of my overtime, which is normally an extra 10 to 15 K. Wow. Which is where all the savings comes from. That's great. Okay. So let's put let's put in that. So it's even more than that. And how do you feel about that overall household income? To be honest, really good. It's it's not a very common wage to get in Ireland at all. You make more than the average? The average is about 60,000. Okay. Wow. Great. And James, it sounds like you feel good about the income as well. Yeah. I mean, then you get the whole art. You feel so guilty because you look at it and you think, God, you know, we're doing so much. We're doing really well compared to so many people. And so you feel like you can't feel bad. You can't feel guilt about. You can't feel that I need X amount or Y amount, you know, because you should be you should count your lessons that what you have, you know? Well, I will say that's one of the reasons that I really love speaking to guests on this show that until now, all of this has felt like it has to be shrouded behind closed doors. You know, there are people making considerable incomes. And they're just like, why do we feel behind? Why can't we actually save as much as we thought we would making six figures? And until now you couldn't really talk to anyone about it because it's like, boohoo, wealthy people shut up. But I actually think that there are some legitimate questions. Sometimes people don't realize that their childcare costs are temporarily very high or they have not actually been automatically investing. And that's why they have no investments. So I'm grateful that we get the chance to talk about them. Do you have a question about the incomes? James, I believe your income was reduced. Is that reflected on the CSP? No, that's if I was in full wage. So can we update it to reflect what you currently make? Mine's the 35. So mine be. Probably two, 10. I'm going to pass. 2100. Yeah. Okay. 2100. You said a 3500 for gross. And then what would that take your net down to ballpark? One five probably. Yeah. All right. Let's say that. Okay. Wow. So quite a considerable difference. What just happened was your fixed cost jumped from 48% to 58%. So just for some context, your fixed costs originally were 48% which is at least for the US quite low. And it jumped to 58% because of the reduction in net income. Still not bad, not bad at all. Why don't we continue on and go down the rest of the numbers here? We're going to add something actually as of this month, I am making 280 euros a month. So I have gone from full maternity pay which was my 550 to zero. So it's three months unpaid currently. And then that we get the child allowance of 280 euros a month. So we are currently on zero money coming in from me for the next three months. And then what? And then it goes back up to two, five, 50. And then I go back to work. Just everybody knows when she says 550, the way we say it is 5,500 just where I meant. That's totally fine. All right. You have a temporary reduction to essentially zero for three months. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to, I'm not going to reflect that on the CSP, but I'm going to put a pin in that. And I'm also going to put a pin in the fact that you make approximately 10 to $15,000 more in over time, which they sort of equal out. Yeah. Yeah. Right. That's why I'm just going to their wash and it will just confuse things. So we just put them to the side. That's fair. Can you confirm that you will be going back and making the same wages after three months? Yeah. When I go back to work in April, I'll be working four days a week and then doing one or two overtime shifts which will get me back up to that. Great. That level. What I want to reflect for everybody listening and watching is when we are living this, we get caught in the weeds necessarily. It's like this thing is happening, but in June, it's going to be this and then it changes after two weeks. It's very, very detailed. That's how we have to live our lives. What the CSP allows us to do is to zoom up and focus on the key levers. Like in the grand scheme of things, having a three month reduction in wages for one person, even though it seems extreme, actually doesn't even need to be reflected on here because we have the over time. You can basically say it's a wash. We can get a little bit more precise, but in general it's a wash. That allows us to focus on the big picture. For so many of us, we immerse ourselves in the weeds and we get paralyzed. It is imperative that we zoom up and look at the big picture. You can just focus on the key levers, get 85% of the way there and in most cases, move on with your life. We're going to keep it as is. We're going to continue moving down that CSP. We got 58% on fixed costs. What's the percentage on investments? Can you read that number? Seven percent. And that is in addition to a pension. Yes. Okay. Seven percent or $380 a month. Savings. Whoa. What's that number? 49%. 49%. You American freaks complaining you can't save 4%. 49%. I'm coming back to that category. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Before I get to excited, what's this number under guilt free spending? Oh, yeah, minus 14%. Negative 14%. All right. So obviously the **** is all ****. No, it's not that. In general, I can see what your priorities are. And I love that. A CSP is the fingerprints of your life. If you looked at my CSP, you'd be like, this guy likes to travel. Like it's very clear. Okay. But what I can see here is you like to save money. It's very obvious. Even if the math isn't quite right, we'll fix that. I can see what is important to you. When you look at the CSP, what do you notice? Grace first then James. I think that it's off because I basically put all of my overtime into savings. And it's normally about 2000 a month extra. Why do you do that? Just out of curiosity because I want to, we're saving for a lot of things. We're saving for a renovation on the house. But I'm also really, really keen on saving for owning a house. There's always stuff that comes up. So I'm trying to make sure that we're saving into high yield savings and also an emergency fund. Sometimes people save money purely out of fear. It's what they were taught. They're afraid. All they know is frugality, which in their mind is seen as, I got to save and essentially hoard. And you can tell because when you ask them, why are you doing that? They just go like, well, yeah, you never know what could happen. And it just traces back to something their dad said when they were five. What you have told me is, look, I have plans. Forward looking. We're saving for the house. We're saving for this. We're saving for that. That's actually very important because what we do is determined by why we do it. And if your reason is, hey, I have key things that we are saving for. As I can see in your CSP, then it becomes more constructive. [BLANK_AUDIO] that's simply done reflexively out of fear. Under your savings category, you have vacations, 100 bucks a month, gifts 50, house renovation fund a thousand a month, long-term emergency fund 1000 a month, and sinking funds 558 per month, for a total of $2,708. Now it's quite interesting because you have 13 months of savings already. Were you aware of that? - Wow. - For good grace is proud laugh. Tell us grace, how do you feel right now? - That's so great. (laughing) - Did you know that? - Yeah. And I've actually stopped putting it into the long-term emergency fund, and I'm putting it into sinking funds now instead. Now that we've gone and got that year of savings, I want to start putting it into the investment again. - James, what do you think when you see this conscious spending plan? - I honestly don't know, I could believe it. I don't trust investments, I don't trust banks, I don't trust stocks. But at the same time, I was like, it's like I should feel good. And then like I get so annoyed at myself. I'm like, why am I not happy about this? This is incredible, you know? Why am I still so nervous about this? This is, you know, the fact that we could, I can go down to the third wage, increase enough their wage, and we're gonna be absolutely fine. - Yeah. - I mean, that's incredible. I can say that, honestly. Like, and yet, it still doesn't register really for me. - How connected do you feel to these numbers when you see them? - My whole wage goes straight into the joint account. Why do you need to cover my bills? And that pays for the kids school mortgage rates. - Wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm not asking about how the money flows. I'm asking how connected do you feel to these numbers? It doesn't feel like it's my money. - That's what I thought. What do you think was behind your answer where you started to give me all the money flows just now? - 'Cause literally, I get my paycheck, I move over X amount to my joint account and then that's it, it disappears. And then we have savings and we have thinking funds and we have roof over our head. - Yeah, and it's just like mechanized. It's like asking like, how do I feel about the way that a car turns on? - I don't know, I just get in there and turn the thing and it turns on, I don't feel anyway. It just works, it's a machine. Just to give you a point of comparison, when I see our numbers, I feel extremely connected to them. Not that I love looking at numbers, it's not that. It's that when many people see a spreadsheet or an investment portfolio, they see some zeros and sometimes they see their own failure. They will see things like I should have started early, et cetera. When I see it, I see the ability to take a trip. The ability to not have to look at prices if we eat out once in a while. I see the ability that if somebody in our family needs help, we can help them. It's much deeper than the numbers. It's about the kind of rich life that we want to create for ourselves. So if I can ask you just for a second, James, to put on those lenses of not the logistics and the money flow, I get that, but rather what the money has allowed you to do, what do you see? - If I look at the honesty we are and we are creating a life for our kids that I never had. I remember I filled the car up. Oh, we bought paid attention. I just paid it. Didn't have to look at the price. I had a full tank gas and I paid it because I didn't put a foot in it. And I got back in the car and I was just like, it kind of just struck me like, you know, that's, you know, I didn't look at how much that diesel was for that particular gas station. I just pulled in because I needed it. I didn't go down to the cheapest one, which was a bit further down the road, you know, just stood up to it stopped and I paid it and I drove off. - What do you feel like? - Freedom. - Freedom. What a beautiful example. Freedom is in the simplest of things. It's in filling up gas. It's in going to the grocery store and buying something because you can. It's rarely about the fanciest vacations and flying on first class. It's literally about being able to go to the restaurant and get a lemonade because your kid asks you for what? It's a beautiful example. James, this is part of what I want us to be able to do. Is, yeah, of course, we're going to analyze the numbers a little bit more, but actually to go way deeper beyond the math and to say, like, what does it mean? Grace, I see you reflecting on what you just heard James. What's going through your head right now? - I just, I'm just really proud of us. I'm just so glad that all the work that we've been doing and all the work that I've been doing to kind of automate and make sure that our family is safe and happy that it's working and you feel grace. That's so nice. - I love this and big kudos to you, Grace, for picking up the load when James had to focus on his own health and for you continuing. And I have to say on a personal level, one thing that really impresses me is that you made trade-offs. That's not easy. You said we're going to stop contributing to our investments, even though as you put it, it kills you. - Yeah. - That's what a leader does. You said, look, I have to take over this decision making right now. Well, it has been a sick, and he did it. So I think the two of you should be commended. That's true teamwork. This also, you know, what's interesting is maybe today is a chance for the two of you to really take a second, celebrate how far you've come, and then to reflect on the next chapter. - Yeah. - Yeah. - We can't stop bad things from happening. That's life. But what we can do is make a few smart decisions when things are going well so that when something unexpected happens, we can lean on our planning. In other words, we can plan for the worst when we are at our best. I have a friend. Just the other night, she got to note that her mom is sick. Her mom lives in a different country. She had to get on an international flight last minute. She booked the first ticket she could get her hands on. She didn't check 20 different prices to get the best deal. She just said, "I have to go now." And that is the level of focus I want you to be able to have in a crisis. To be able to say, "I don't care about anything else right now." My field of vision is narrowed to the one thing that matters getting on the next flight. Money is not my primary concern. I actually love this idea of money not being the primary determinant. I love it so much that I extended it to a personal money rule that I use for myself. Not just for bad things, but also for good things. So my personal money rule is that for the big important things in my life, I'm going to plan ahead so much that money is not going to be the first concern, the second concern, even the tenth concern. And that includes our wedding, our honeymoon, housing, and our health. Is this rule practical for most people? No! Is it right for me? Yes, that is the point of a rich life, which fits you like a bespoke coat. It is meant for you to live your rich life. And the more you turn that dial, the more your rich life is increasingly confusing, even bewildering to other people. Now, the simplest way to start applying this concept of freedom when something bad happens is to start aggressively building your emergency fund. So when something bad happens and it will happen at some point in your life, you will be ready and money will not be your first concern. Now, for James and Grace, they made a series of money decisions during their journey. These decisions were not arbitrary. They were shaped by what they saw growing up. And we're going to get into that right after this break. Whatever it is, stop wondering if you should get it checked out, go see someone right now. You can use our sponsors, Zachtock. Zachtock lets you search and compare local in network doctors. Whether you're looking for primary care, dentistry, eye care, or anything else, you can easily search by specialty or symptoms. And you can book in network appointments with more than 150,000 providers across all 50 states. You just look through the real appointment openings. Click what works for your schedule and book it instantly. Find and book the right doctor with Zachtock. Head to zachtock.com/remeth to get started and check that appointment off your to-do list. That's z-o-c-d-o-c.com/remeth. 11 agents is a platform for AI voice and chat agents that can actually listen, understand and resolve customer issues. They handle the simple stuff like looking up customer accounts, processing requests and they know when to hand off complex tasks to a person. My team and I actually use 11 Labs. And if I needed AI voice and chat agents, I would use 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/remethe. 11labs.io/remethe. That's E-L-E-V-E-N-L-A-B-S dot I-O/remethe. I do want to know a little bit about how you grew up with money. James, I'm very interested. Just from what you told me about your gas, I have my suspicions about how you grew up. But what do you remember your family saying about money when you were young? I've never really talked about it at all. We always had enough. As long as we had enough, we should grumble. You know, we had foods. mustn't grumble. That's very English. Is that right? Oh yeah, mustn't grumble. Yeah. It's a proper lip, you know, must grumble. And would you say, how would you describe socioeconomically where you middle class? How do you describe that? When in England, it doesn't matter how or you are, you always say, well, we're just about middle class. We're always just going to be, you know, your dollars. We never went hungry. We never, you know, we had crispises and stuff. We didn't have holidays. We didn't have anything new cars or anything like that. But it was always enough. OK, that's all interesting. But that doesn't answer my question. Trust me, we do the same thing in the US. Everybody lies about being middle class. I talked to people who have $5 million. They're like, well, we're just getting by. Well, we're comfortable. I go, shut the fuck up. Tell me what you are. You're rich. So now, looking back, how would you characterize your family socioeconomically? When I got my first proper job, I was making more money than my mom and dad combined. Wow. That explains a lot. That explains the feeling of freedom from filling up your tank in the car. That explains a lot. When you got your first job and you made that much, did you ever talk about money with your parents then? We talked about it more now. Now that they retire it, and my dad was in the home forces. So his pension's actually pretty good. What do they say to you now? What do you talk about? I worry that they don't have enough. I worry that they spend too much on our kids. I worry that they shouldn't be buying stuff for our kids. We can do that. I worry, when my mom asks me, what do I want for Christmas when I know if she's going to put it on a credit card, and I'm like, I don't need anything from you've had enough. And can they afford it? They must be able to. Lost the house. Wait, that's a bit dramatic. I suppose they must be able to buy toys. They're not homeless. I honestly don't know. I don't know. I know mom worked odd jobs part-time and everything, and her pension is very small. Do you ever feel good about money? I don't know how to answer that. I think that's the answer. I like to look at my account. And I know it won't be the negative. I like that I can take up a hobby if I want it. Honestly, I hate my biggest worries. I think if I like the money, I'd spend it all. I think if I got-- I think I have quite a bad habit if I was to really unleash myself and why I really wanted to do it all the time. Let me translate. Tell me if I got this right. I don't feel great about money. And that's actually a protective mechanism, because if I let myself uncaged, feel good about money, I would just spend it all. Yeah. OK. That's a very common feeling that people who are ultra frugal have. They'll use certain phrases like, I don't need to eat at a fancy restaurant. I'm perfectly fine with Taco Bell. Nothing wrong with Taco Bell. But what's really said beneath that phrase is, I'm worried that if I go to this nice restaurant or nice hotel that I might like it, and then I might find myself actually needing to eat there every single day for the rest of my life. It's obviously absurd to me what it shows is a lack of self-trust. I can eat at a nice restaurant a couple times a year. I can enjoy it. And then I can come home and say, that was nice. And I don't need to go back there for another six months. Like, I trust myself to make the right decisions and to indulge occasionally, knowing that I can afford it. But this idea of, like, let me keep myself caged because I'm a wild animal. And I'm wild. We can work on that. Yeah. Grace, am I getting this right? Yeah, 100%, 100%. But then when we say we're looking up a holiday or something, I always look at more expensive things than you do. Yeah, it's true. Why is that? I think you're a bit of a dreamer. I think you're constantly thinking, oh, well, when we have a million euro, when we win the lottery, we're going to do this. And when we do this, and I think you love the idea of thinking about having this money and what you would do. So you look up the expense of holiday, and I'll come back with the actual price because I'll do a little bit of research. And then you'd be like, well, obviously, we're just going to wait for it for a little while. Oh, wait a minute. That was my question. So he looks up the expensive things. And then where do you actually stay? Oh, we don't go. Oh, wow. OK, what the hell kind of story was that? I look up the expensive things, and then we don't go. What is that? Yeah. All right. Sorry. No, that's actually extremely insightful. And I think the characterization of potentially dreaming a bit-- I don't mind dreams, like I like them. I like saying, like, oh, wouldn't it be nice? I love that. But I like to go one step further, which is, hey, do you actually want to stay there? Because if you do, we could. We might not be able to do it this year, but we could put some money aside, and we know exactly mathematically how long it's going to be. It might take two and a half years. And then we could go there. We'll literally put it on the calendar right now. Do you want-- This is what I say to him. This is what I say. And then he, like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's great. We can't spend that. And do you know why? Do you know why he says that? No. Ask him. Why do you say that? Why do you-- Because it's a dream. We can't afford it, really. But we can't look at our savings. They said it was going to be gone the first time, and it came back. Or if it comes back again. What if I got work for another year, and this time work won't pay for it? Then you do the childcare, and I work. And it's all fine. I would mind not too much. Yeah. What I'm hearing is we're having fun. I love talking to the two of you. But I really love peeling the layers and going deeper. And beneath the jokes about the gas and the hotels, there's actually pain, the idea that look at what we've been through together. It has been hard. And what if we have to go through it again? What are we going to do? We did it once. I don't know if we can do it again. Let's acknowledge that. We don't have to fix it this very minute. But what I can tell is money is deeply emotional. We try to nibble around the edges. We try to ignore it. We use logistical answers. But actually, the logistics are fine. We can fix some things here and there. That's not what you're coming to me for. It's because there's something much deeper here, much deeper. Grace, can you tell me what you remember growing up? What did your family say about money when you were young? Both my parents come from really big families. They were a bit mid-class in the '50s in Ireland, which was very, very still quite poor compared to the rest of the world. My mom was a nurse. And she was what they called the laying hen. So she would be the one with consistent money coming in. And my dad started his own business. And it worked super hard all his life. But we were, to be honest, probably upper middle class. They did a huge amount of work. They bought the invested in properties. They were very smart with their money. But one of the things that always sticks out in my mind is my dad, he had a business at one time where he made automatic gates. And we had an automatic gate installed in our house. And that was seen to be really rich. And then my mom called me aside. And I think I was in primary school or something. She said, no, don't tell anyone we've got automatic gates because they think we're rich and we're not. Wow. When you remember this story from decades ago, why you remember this story in particular? I think she was a bit frightened about money. I remember coming home from Irish college one day and they had a hot tub in the house. They had a hot tub in the-- and I was like, where the hell did this come? And they were like, well, instead of buying a new car, we got a hot tub instead. And I was like, what? They're doing really, really well. But I always had the feeling that it was like a secrecy. that we couldn't tell anyone. - In what ways do they downplay? their success publicly. It would never show off. We'd never buy expensive cars or anything like that. It was all very practical. What a time I met them and I asked them, what do you do? What would they say? It's a very American question, by the way. Yeah. They would say, oh, sure, we're retired and enjoying it and we're traveling around the world now and having a great time. Okay. What are they going to do with the money when they pass? They're very generous with it. And I think it'll go to go to us. There's three of us in the family and they're going to spliss everything equally. And we had conversations about us and kind of forced, they don't want to splicing over anything and I'm like, that's fine. We're all quite successful, which is really brilliant. You know, it's kind of a striking example for everyone listening and watching that you can see parents who learn about money and talk about money between themselves. They tell their kids about money. Yeah. They have set you grace up with a very good financial education and they'll talk up and they'll say things. Hey, don't tell everyone at school, we're not rich. Well, you may have been rich or certainly upper middle class, but I can understand parents not wanting their kids to go and blab. You know, I understand. But it's not a surprise to me that siblings often turn out similarly with money. Not always, but they grow up with the same money messages. And to me, the big takeaway from this is, you better get good with money and you better talk to your kids about money because it's not an accident. If you want your kids to grow up, equip to deal with the world, you talk to them from the time they are three, four, five. Otherwise, some s***head selling whole life insurance is going to be taking over that role and you really don't want that. So let me ask the two of you, the two of you grew up quite differently with money. When was the first time you substantively talked about money in your relationship? Australia. Yeah. It was actually kind of a bit of a kind of a rough, that's kind of a really big fight because Grace went to Australia, but she when I met her, when I first met her, she'd already planned to move to Australia. And I was, I didn't really have, I was kind of working part-time, wasn't really making any money, living at home still. And then she left to know now for a few months, I was like, I can't let her go. So I quit everything and moved across follower. And to me, this is the first time that I traveled really ever and it was the other side of the world. Hold on, it's very romantic. What the hell is going on? I'm like, yo, this is a good story. Sorry, go on. We bought camp of land. We traveled down the west coast of Australia for six months and then Grace got a great dog for job. And I was doing odds and end. We had a small flat, which was dirt cheap because it was right next to the airport in the flight path. So, you know, the best alarm clock in the world is a bow in land and over your head in six in the morning. So I was making money, so I could enjoy Australia, whereas she was taking care to make money so she could save and then her plan was to maybe go back or stay. There was an ice cream shop around the corner that I really liked and if Grace was having a bad day, I'd get her some and she would just get so mad that I was spending money on ice cream. And I think that was the first time we talked about it and we hadn't talked about it. We hadn't talked about what our kind of idea and goals were when we were out there. And it was kind of a video I opened it for me because I remember that Grace was talking, she wasn't talking about what she wanted to do. The money she was making, it was what about the money's going to do for us. It was we. And I hadn't been thinking like that at all. Honestly, I'm very impressed. Actually shocked, pleasantly shocked because that story tells me so much and I really appreciate you sharing it with me. The idea that James, you had never really traveled before. You get on a plane you go across the world to chase a girl. The two of you living a very frugal life, living under flight path, just like we got to make it work. But what really strikes me is the way that you looked at money differently. I can just imagine James the way you grew up, like not thinking much further ahead. Most people, at least the ones I talked to in the US, they are literally thinking about that month, maybe next month, and that's it. And I'm begging people to think further ahead. Six months, a year, ultimately 20 years, because when you looked at far ahead, you can actually achieve amazing things. You can take the trips you want. You can buy the car you want. It's awesome. What's amazing is Grace was already doing that. Grace has been thinking about money, talking about money in her family since she was a kid. The fact that the two of you got in a fight about freaking ice cream cones is hilarious. This is a great example where sometimes the most substantive conversations can come from what seems like the most trivial purchase ice cream. And look at what happened. You built a life together as a team, starting way back with the freaking ice cream purchase. Now, I want to ask you to there's a reputation for people in Ireland. Let's just say the UK for feeling guilty about money. Oh, yeah. Is that true? Oh, 100%. 100%. Like you feel guilty about making it, spending it, talking about it. Yeah. So how are you two so open? How come you're so comfortable talking about it right now? I think it's because it clicked with me. I was in work one day and I had a meeting with one of these pension guys. And we have a system in Ireland. I didn't know about it really, called additional voluntary contribution. It's pension. It's kind of the only way you can save money with benefiting with tax. But I didn't really know anything about it. But I made a meeting. I had a amazing with this guy. I said, listen, I know nothing. Tell me about this. And he walked through if I did nothing, how much money I would have when I was 65, 70. I think on my contract, it says I have to work until I'm 70 before I get a pension. But it was something like 8,000 euros a year. And that number is stuck with me. And I was like, a bad cannot happen. A, I'm not working until I'm 70 because I can't be hauling patients around when I'm 70. So I need to retire earlier than that or do something different. And B, like, I can do something now. And he was like, right, if you start saving now, you can have this much or whatever. I think it was like a million. And I was like, well, okay, let's try. So I started learning all about it. And what I really started being annoyed about was no one else was talking about this. Everyone in work was like, what are you doing talking about pensions? Because I was like, no, you need to go and learn about this because you don't be getting 8,000 in a year. And everyone was like, oh, I'll deal with that when I'm 50. So it was really frustrating me that people were just weren't talking about money and especially women. Yes, we get a fabulous maternity leave, but it also affects our pension and all the sort of stuff. And as women, for me, I feel like it's, you have to have your own something, something to fall back on because we are in a more vulnerable position. It's certain times in our lives that we're having children and all that sort of stuff. So I started being sort of militant about it. You looked ahead, decades ahead. And you said, that's not going to be the future for me. I'm going to make changes right now. And you did. I love that. And it's reflected, by the way, in your CSP, I can see it with a 49% savings rate. It's obviously very clear. When you both think back to the messages that you grew up with around money, which of those messages do you think you bring to this relationship today? Yeah, I think. And credit cards and anything that isn't like the, this is actually the beer and end, we should never, ever, ever own. Like we don't, like our car, we just, we saved up. We bought it outright. And our old car is, God, it's 13 years old. Your lesson is you bring an aversion to debt to this relationship. Is that right? Yeah, I think so. Okay. What else? Yeah. Gifts, physical things as showing love. Ooh, that would explain the ice cream. Yeah, that you could not afford actually. Yeah. And I think it is one thing I actually spend my money on. It's, it toys for the kids. Because I remember Thunderbirds. There was a big toy island that every kid had to have and I couldn't have it. And instead, my mom made me one out of plasticine and, uh, I'm out of toilet roll and stuff and paid it in her fidget. And I, oh, I hate that. That's super kind of adorable and like sad at the same time. I kind of love it. Yeah. That's really beautiful. Do you have a bunch of toys in the house? Yeah. There everywhere. No credit card debt? No. I have a thinking fund for kids toys every week. There's about AC or if it goes into the thinking fund for like stuff they might need. 80 a week. I know. I'm not in touch with kids toys prices, but that seems like a lot. No, no, it's not just for toys. It's for like swimming lessons and trips away and things like that. Sorry. All right. Can you say no to your kids? No. Okay. Grout. You're both admitted. All right. All right. Grace, what messages do you bring from your childhood that you bring to this relationship with men. I think communication. I always saw my mom and dad have conversations about money and mom always did the books for dad's business. So they'd always just have them have the books out and mom would be talking about taxes and returns and it would just be like in the air like the conversations and they never thought about money it was always just a discussion or you know and I think that's what I've almost forced you into James because it was one of the things that is essential. It's essential to me in a relationship is to be honest and open about money and then I'm the one that tied and stuff I don't know. Well let me say that I really appreciate what you just said about your parents and I hope that the children of every guest that I speak to on here say the same decades from now that they will say my parents didn't fight about money but they talked about it. It was always a discussion it was always in the air that's actually what I want I don't want money to be hidden I don't want it to be a source of tension although sometimes it will be and that's okay I want it to be an important part of the family just like food. Just like respecting your elders just like studying and having fun money is one of those core parts of a family it has to be in the air and when we shine a light on it instead of hiding it then we can build a healthy relationship with it. I love that Grace didn't sit back and hope things would improve she learned how pensions work and then she made a decision that is going to have a huge impact on her future. That is what's known as having an internal locus of control and internal locus of control is the belief that you can control your future compare that to someone with an external locus of control who believes simply that life happens to them. So which one are you do you have an internal locus of control or an external locus of control to answer that question take a look at your own behavior with fitness food your relationships your career and money external or internal. It's quite an interesting question to think about this has actually been one of the biggest questions that I have come back to throughout my career we all know intuitively that if we eat better we will be healthier we know that if we save an invest we will be more secure. So why don't we do it this is the question I've been thinking about since the year 2000 one reason and it's a big one is that a lot of people don't actually believe that they can control anything around them. A lot of them have tried before or they've been told it's out of their hands or they have tried and it failed over and over and so they simply stop trying that can lead to an external locus of control and I think this is one of the most overlooked reasons that people stay stuck. These beliefs are shaped by a lifetime of experiences even multi generation a lot of you watching this right now had some great grandfather who something bad happened to and that story that myth or legend was almost passed down your family tree and today you think you cannot affect the way the world works because of what a great grandfather somebody you never met experienced 100 plus years ago. If you're listening to this and you're starting to realize oh my gosh I want to have an internal locus of control I want to take control of my money and make rapid changes that I can help inside my money coaching program I'm going to walk you through the exact systems that I use to take control of your money and start seeing real results. You can join the program at it dot com slash money coaching now grace believed she could make a difference in her own life she saw the lever she pulled it and she got results up next will take a closer look at the other changes grace and James are considering as they build their rich life. 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 sponsors. 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And book it instantly and what's great is their appointments happen fast usually within 24 to 72 hours no more waiting months and months to get the care that you need your health matters and taking care of yourself should not be complicated find and book the right doctor with that's zo c d o c dot com slash remete if the two of you continue on the way that you have with your money when something comes up in life what do you think happens after the next time and the time after that and the time after that what do you think will happen. I will just collapse I worry for us as a couple you know what it just becomes too much what if we can support the other one anymore. She sounds crazy but I don't think that would ever happen it does sound crazy I mean you have such a beautiful teamwork here yeah there's no doubt about it so obvious. But I also think the two of you are very good at putting your blinders on and moving forward and what a shame to live that way when you actually have all the ingredients for a true rich life. What I see in you versus what I see when I talk to other people who perhaps were not raised to save money who did not have a healthy education about money right they didn't have a lot of those role models and so I'm having a different conversation with them I'm actually trying to show them why it's important to save money at all. The two of you have the ingredients for greatness and in many ways we can see it on the CSP it's reflected wow what a savings rate it's incredible maybe the way that you talk about money and behave with money could could be tweaked a bit. I don't reflect the two of you went through an incredibly stressful situation I don't think anybody can give you feedback on how you did. Who the hell knows what it's like to have one kid on the way a young kid husband who's going through cancer treatments morning sickness like nobody. So what we can say is I think you handled it the best you could I think you've done a pretty phenomenal job. And I think that life is going to be stressful in other ways. And what I want to do is I want to equip you so that you can continue to get closer together not let these stressful situations tear you apart right how does that sound. That sounds grace wonderful. Okay awesome have the two of you talked about what your rich life vision is retiring early retiring early great any idea what age 50 50 OK all right so that's like about 12 or so years away what else grace what's in your rich life. I would love to be able to go on two or three holidays a year one back to the UK. And I would love to be able to bring your parents James on holidays somewhere because they haven't really haven't been on money. And I would love to be able to help my kids the way that I was helped you know financially going into college and stuff. Oh I really want to do the renovation on my house that would be so incredible. Oh my gosh I want to have my own craft room upstairs with the lights. I would love to probably go down to maybe two days two or three days a week working. And then the other two or three days work on my own businesses I love to create a community and hosting events cool. All right so here's what I'm what I'm hearing from both of you is. You you want to live a very rich life like these aren't all I don't know like when we're 70 maybe we want to take a trip. To the Grand Canyon no it's like we want to retire early want to renovate the house we want to travel three times a year this a lot. I love it right now how do you feel about money. Just nervous about if something like this is going to happen again are we going to be okay are we it going to be able to manage it because we actually we had a serious illness cover in addition to life insurance. How much did they pay you. 30,000 wow that's great it was really really amazing so that really saved saved our help us that's where a lot of the savings have come from. So when I think about your rich life I'm thinking first can we set things up so that you are safe and resilient. Yes we can get to the home renovations and the travel second yeah safety first how do you feel about that. want to know that if James gets sick again or grace for that matter, that the family is financially safe and wouldn't that feel good to know that you have the math that you both understand it and most importantly, you are both connected to it. Yes. It's like wipe away these blurry lenses, in fact, throw them away. We know that we're safe and now we have earned the right to talk about the next part of our rich life. Okay. I'm going to put the CSP up on screen and I would like to get your help to try to figure out what needs to happen in order for you both to be safe. Quick recap here. Your assets 328K, investment 79K, savings 42K and debt 230K, that's a total length worth of 219K. Income is 91,200. That will go up when you go back to work James. James, when is that happening? January 1st. Let's leave it for now but we can change it. Fix cost rate 58%, again things are a little bit different where you're living because of pensions and etc. I just do want to reflect on some of the numbers in this fixed cost because they're quite amazing. So your mortgage is $997. What the ****? 997? There's not even four digits in your credit for the right. It's insane. This is another one. I want to say it again just so people get even more pissed. Child care is $355. Again, there's only three digits in that number. This is insane. That's for 45 hours a week and they feed her and they include, yeah, it's unbelievable. I love it. I want easy childcare for all parents. Like how can you expect parents to have kids and to work if it's freaking thousands of dollars? Okay. Let's go on. I'm getting mad right now. All right. Car payment, $200. Debt payments, $200. What's that for? I'll ask my student. Oh, okay. Wait. How much is your student loan? The $20,000. All right. Fine. Groceries are $600 a month. Oh my God. I feel like I'm living in like 1985. What the ****? Phone is $30. What? Yes. For both of us. How is this possible? I call every year and I'm like, I want to move down to Tesco mobile, which is like the super, super budget. And they're like, oh, we can do that for blah, blah, blah. So it's just I'm currently paying 15 euros a month. I see so many CSPs. The thing about the CSP, I feel like some formula got messed up and every number has 1,0 dropped off of it. Like literally every number is missing a zero. This is crazy. 30 for phone should be 300 in the US. All right. So your investments, again, just to sum it up, you are doing 960, let's call a thousand bucks a month plus 300 a day. So roughly 1300 bucks a month for your investments on a salary of about 91,000 gross. 49% on savings and negative 14% on guilt-free spending. Obviously that doesn't work and you you mentioned that you feel stressed out about money. Yeah. You see why? Yeah. If you don't have any money to eat out or to do anything, but yet you are still buying all these toys. I know. Actually, the worst of both worlds. Yeah. By as well, just be honest about it. Yeah. And maybe Scott buying so many toys. I don't know. That's up to you. So what do we need to do in order to change these numbers? Because they actually need to be rationalized. We need to pick appropriate numbers. You can choose based on what you want for your rich life, but then you actually got a stick to them. If you want to change them later, you could change them six months from now. But one of the most important things is, hey, let's pick numbers together that match up with our vision. And then let's both agree to stick to them and after six months, we can reevaluate. How would you change these numbers based on what you said your rich life vision was? I think we're saving too much, definitely. I would like to save a thousand per month. Okay. You're doing that right now into your emergency fund. Keep in mind you already have 13 months of emergency fund. Yeah. So I'll stop the emergency fund and we'll just keep for the house maybe. Yeah. Okay. So let's drop. You're saying drop the long term emergency fund off. Yeah. Okay. Watch what happens. Your savings drop down to 31% and your guilt-free spending is now at 4% or $216 per month. I spend more than that. But it's a good directional change. So it's interesting because you do have 13 months of savings, which I think is great. When James, you got sick, I'm guessing you burned through your savings pretty quickly. Sorry for this question, but what's the likelihood of this happening again? In theory, it should. Okay. Because you've gone for a treatment, a surgery, scans the good, okay. But there is no obviously exact. Are you concerned financially speaking, health-wise obviously, but financially speaking are you concerned? We're not going to get that extra, we're not going to get that insurance pay out again. No. Because he's uninsurable now. Yeah. Can I say this? If I were in your situation, here's how I would approach this. I would say look, I think we've done an amazing job, especially Grace, done an amazing job of shepherding all this stuff while I had to focus on my health. We have 13 months of savings, that's incredible. But I'm in a high risk situation. Yeah. If I get sick again, we do not have the same benefits that we had last time. I think that we should save what two others might seem like an irrationally high amount of money. But for our high risk situation, it makes sense. What number should that be? I don't know. Let's talk about it. Okay. Let's settle on 18 months of savings. Yeah. Yeah. I think that sounds good. And once you have that, it's locked away and you know that that's your breaking case of emergency. But 18 months gives you time. You can adapt. You can cut your spending. You can extend it. You're not going to count on all these subsidies and things like that payouts. But it gives you time. What do you think about that? That's. I like that. Yeah. The point is we need to pick a number that's reasonable and we'll serve the needs financially speaking in case one of you gets sick. Yeah. Okay. I don't think I've recommended to anyone 18 months of savings. Like my own personal thing, I like to have a year and that's quite aggressive already. But 18 months in your situation, considering all the things we've talked about could make sense. Yeah. Okay. So if that is the case, then can we go back to the CSP and let's just take a look. We actually just took that emergency fund down to zero. What do you think? I would say we'll pause the renovation funds and move the long term saving fund into that. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So now we're back up to 31% for an emergency fund. We're putting $1,000 a month away. You have zero towards the renovation fund. Anything else? Vacations. It's only 100. You already make a difference to cut this. I don't really want to stop going on hold it. At $100 a month. Yeah. It's not really going to make sense. It's not going to make a difference. And you both told me you like vacations. Yeah. And like you've gone through a lot. I don't mind it. I think if you wanted to save $100 a month or other places you could do it from. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now that we have rationalized this a bit, you have 31% going to savings, which actually seems, I mean, it's a little high, but it's appropriate. You don't have enough in guilt-free spending. No, I don't. I understand that for the next three months, reduced income, but it's going to go back up. I'd like to just plan for real life. So tell me the numbers and I will adjust them here. So my route back to $3.5, sorry, how do you say it, American? $3,500. Yeah. And your net income will be what? $2.67. Okay. $2,673. Okay. Wow. Let's see what just happened. Fix costs are down to 48%. Amazing. A total reflection of your core values right here, which is like, we don't need a big old fancy house. We don't need a big old fancy cars. That's all quite modest, which I like. I really like that. Next up, investments are at 6%. Oh my God. Savings are at 26%. But all the way down to guilt-free spending. Look at Grace's face. Look at that big old smile. She goes, yes. Yeah. Okay. And James is smiling too. Guys, I love this. Yeah. So you're at 21% or $1,389. Now, what do you think about that number? That we always overspend on guilt-free stuff. And then in our heads, we said, well, we can only spend X amount and then we beat ourselves up because we spend over it. But now, looking at that, actually, what we have been spending has been reasonable for the amount of money we do make. And we shouldn't be being ourselves up because, I mean, we go out to dinner maybe once every other month and we have to take away probably every once in three months or so. I love the lies already. This is the favorite time of repeat satis life. Why don't we just discuss where you all have been spending? gilt free spending money. Yeah, let's do that. Go ahead, Grace. This September, I have it on my little spreadsheet. We spent 250 euros on dining out. Wait, can you just put this on screen? I'd like to look at it myself. Oh, great. Okay, hold on. Let me just describe what I see right now. So this is a nice looking spreadsheet and it's got some different categories scroll up a little bit if you don't mind. So we have cash flow, overview, bills, expenses. I can see at the bottom tabs we have August, September, October, November, 25, and on and on and on. Okay. Very good. Let's go down a little bit. What's nice? So I see the day it's due, the budget amount, for example, the mortgage $9.96 and then the actual, which is $9.96. That's great. And the expenses on the, in the orange is the, like every day, day to day, read out the kids one then. Oh God. The kids won. The budget was a hundred and I actually, we actually spent a thousand one hundred and thirty three. What the fuck? On what? Now, let me see. Let me see. Oh my God. Amazing. Stop right here. Stop right here. Okay. Everybody remember what James said about 45 seconds ago. He goes, "Whoa, we eat out what, once every three months or some BS." Okay. Look at this, September 3rd, dining out, off the bone lunch. I don't know what that is, but it sounds expensive. Next day, McDonald's, 525, that's quite modest, moving along, kids, what are these? I don't even know what any of these words are, knit, home, and dodees. What does that mean? So, it's just pacifiers and stuff just in there was, there was a head life in the, in the, in the crash. So, I just want you to be prepared. Okay. More words I don't know. I thought I spoke flu in English. All right. Moving along. We got Starbucks. This is all in the fourth. Dining out the next day, $20 and 90 cents for coffee. Next day, dining out, $20 at McDonald's, okay, and on and on, okay, you can take the stop screen for a second. Wait, I, hold on. Just look at this. Look at this. Look at row number 95. Hey, Moo. Like, this is the only, this is the only one I've seen where people put what they spent, but then they go in there and add comments that are like, aww, we're like, what does this? Everyone should do it. It's great. All right. Take this off screen, please. Okay. Yes. First of all, how the **** are you going to tell me you only eat out once every three weeks, or three months, or whatever? James? None of that is me. It's true. It's me. It's all me. Oh. Yeah. So we're, we're a team except when it comes to eating out. Yeah. All right. Do you have a, because you have this sort of well constructed budget, you know, it has all the stuff in it, but when we go to the actual discretionary stuff, you're behind not on many of the things. Yeah. Bills are fine. I can argue down bills, I can argue down everything, but when it comes to like sticking to the budget that was assessed, it's more of like a tracking expenses rather than like sticking to the actual budget. I don't know how to explain this. I'm not doing it very well. It's easy to track. It makes us feel like we are doing something. But the one thing you are not doing when it comes to changing your behavior is changing your behavior. Yeah. It's a distraction for us. We track it. We go through it. We tell ourselves we're looking for patterns. You know the pattern. It's very obvious from looking at it for five seconds. The real energy should be spent on saying what is the overall vision of our rich life, which we've done some element of today. How much do we want to apportion to different four key buckets? Okay. We've done that. Now, we know those numbers. We know what the finished puzzle looks like. How are we going to get there? That's where the energy should go. Tracking is irrelevant. Yeah. You should track a couple of discretionary things like eating out one of you should own that number and you can track it through your credit card, debit card, whatever. But the level of tracking here is actually not getting you what you want. It's getting you a distraction. How does it feel to hear that? I know this. I know this in my soul. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Okay. Great. I personally think that you are destined for something bigger than tracking 100 rows of expenses on a spreadsheet. I just do. There's got the stuff that the two of you have been through. The way that you have done it together. You've tackled really hard stuff and it would be a shame to focus your energy in this small of a way. I think it's the same thing that I was doing with the tomatoes. You know, it's the control. If I can just get it down on paper, then it can make sense of it. But actually, I know what's wrong. Yeah. Well, what do you think might be a different alternative to that approach that you've taken with the tomatoes and with the budgeting? Zooming out a little bit more and seeing a little bit more about the importance of us. Really. I enjoy process. I always have. I enjoy knitting. I enjoy spinning. I enjoy, you know, the meticulous details. I really like that. And I find that I can't do my knitting spinning, blah, blah, blah, blah, because I'm mining children. So instead, I will focus it on things that are for the family, like meticulously tracking the budget or making food for my family. But I don't need to be doing it in this way, putting in so much effort. I'd probably need to just relax a little bit. Wow. Do you think? One of the most profound things I've heard on this podcast, your level of self perception is really high. And you just mentioned something offhandedly, I probably don't need to, I think you said something like, work as hard or put the amount of time in. Yeah. Can you say it a different way? Would you be comfortable putting less work into this? I don't know why that's hard, because I love like, but yeah, I think I need to like put less work in to do, to do, wash them. Isn't that the key question that so many of us ask? If I stop doing this, if I delegate this, then what will I do? And on a deeper level, who am I? Yeah. Who am I if I'm not canning tomatoes for the family and tracking this detailed report that's available for the last three years of expenses? Who am I? Can you answer it for me, Grace? Who would you be? I'd just be probably just mom and wife. Yeah. You know, moms are not loved because they have the most extensive spreadsheet in the world. Wives are not loved because they track every single expense. That's not why they're loved. None of us are. Yeah. Part of getting to the next level of where you want to get is having a crystal clear vision of where you want to go. And both of you as a team working to get there, you already did the easy stuff. Then you got stronger. You had to because you had to go through tougher stuff, you went through illness, very difficult. Most of us cannot understand what that's like. You did it. And now to get to the next level, the level where you are safe as a family with 18 months of saving setup, where you are showing your children a healthy relationship with money. That probably requires not doing some of the same things you used to, and actually saying I choose not to because in order to get where we're going, that's not my future anymore. James, what's coming up for you as you hear this? What you've been talking about is just there's just been in the background for so long that we haven't been able to kind of express it. Sometimes I feel like she's so focused on the saving money, the kind of tomatoes, but you know, whenever you get to eat the tomatoes, you never get to spend the money, you never get to, it's a process and then once it's done, it's put on a shelf, it's put into savings, and then we're on to the next one. And so to be, who should be if she doesn't do that, you know, she'll still be, you know, the best moment, she'll still be my perfect wife, you know, that's not going to change. We'll just maybe have a bit more time together, even enjoy our rich life, as you say, and so I hope the big part of her not being able to take on all this is that I will be able to come back on board and that we can start being a team again now that I'm hopefully out of the end of this, that I can start taking on some of that burden and she can maybe relax a little bit. But let this team or I'll start pressure cooker and do that. You know, James, you were always a team, didn't stop because you got sick. Yeah. Not once have I heard either of you insult the other, haven't heard it. If anything, bending over backwards to support each other, and you don't have to do that. You were a team always. I think the way that the two of you talk about money reveals so much. The idea, James, that you, maybe deep down think that you've let down your partner, but of course you have not. You got sick. Now you're better. You put in a lot of work to make that happen. And now you can come back and you can participate in the numbers more than you were able to. Perfect. Amazing. Grace, the idea that you have to control everything, that you may not be a good mom or wife if you're not tracking numbers, reveals so much. What I love, what I'm seeing the two of you get is, hey, we've made this work. We've made it work. We're actually very grateful and we've been able to go through. But now perhaps there's a new way to look at our money together. Maybe it's not about going way down into the weeds. Maybe it's about coming up with a few key levers, those four key numbers, and like actually creating a vision for ourselves that lets us appreciate living. Let's go out. Let's actually go out as a family and go eat out once a week. Fine. We'll find a way to do it within our numbers, but that's important to us and trust me. When you go out to eat on Saturday with the whole family, you are going to really appreciate it. That's actually the best part of the whole thing. How do you feel? Do you feel confident that you could change the way you relate to money together? I think we can change the way we're going at it. I think we were going at it from a survival point of view and now that we are at this place, even though we're at a very sort of precarious place, but we both have jobs that we can go back to. We both can build a backup in no time really. Once I'm back doing overtime, that can go into fun stuff and go into the extra savings and you get bonuses as well, so that's extra money that we can do. We're actually fine and I think I just need to sit in it and enjoy the fact that we've sort of almost made it. Yes. No, you have made it. You have made it. You made it out of a cancer diagnosis. You still have money and savings in an interesting thing. If anything, when I look at it, I feel gratitude towards your employers, I feel gratitude towards the government. You never exactly. I feel gratitude towards that insurance payout and then you had the vision to choose to get that, a lot of gratitude. What you say was so beautiful, going from survival to the next chapter. What's the theme of the next chapter of your life as it relates to money? James, what would you say? Joyment. Enjoyment. I love that. What about you, Grace? I'd love to thrive. Thrive. Yeah. These are very positive, forward looking words, like nobody, look at my body language, nobody thrives like this, worried about how much, nobody thrives like that, right? They thrive, standing up straight, sitting up straight, leaning forward and saying, what is it we're going to do in this chapter of our life? We are so grateful we're here. Yeah. We're going to thrive. And I really want to enjoy our kids and see them grow and gosh, they're just incredible. You know, I can say when the two of you are talking right now, I can almost see the family stories being created. I can see them like a spider web. They're almost unraveling in front of me. It's the story when we first started talking today of Dad was sick and it was hard and he got better and we're happy. It's nice. It's a nice story, but this story is so much more detailed. It's the difficulty we had to go through. It's the fact that we didn't know what was going to happen. We had to stop working. Dad kept trying to work because he thought he would get bored, but actually maybe he was scared of just coming home. Who will I be if I'm not working? Mom over here going to the farmer's market, canning tomatoes because she was afraid, afraid of who she would be if she couldn't feed her family. And we were so grateful we had the help of our employers and our friends and our family. And once we got that final check from the doctors, we celebrated. How did we do it? We sat at home. We watched TV. We cried. We did it all. We went to Legoland. There you go. Amazing. Yeah. Exactly. These are the stories that your kids remember, but secretly, they're actually not for your kids. They're for you. Grace, before we wrap up, you mentioned that it'll be 2 a.m., 3 a.m., and you find yourself purchasing something off at Instagram. Yeah. Can you tell me what you might do to change that? That out of judgment, I'm not judging you for it, but now it seems to me you have a powerful vision that is perhaps more powerful than whatever item is offered on Instagram. What tools could you use to change the way that you relate to spending? I think I need to take my cards out of the back of my phone. Great. I love that. Very simple, but very powerful, great disconnect the Apple Pay from my phone as well. You want to do it right now? I do. I do. I do. I do. I want to do that right now. I'll leave there. She took the credit cards out of the back of her phone and I just have my license in there now. Okay. Great. That's gone. How does it feel to remove them? I feel like it's going to be hard to do the normal things that I'm doing. But maybe that needs to happen. That's good. Important things are always hard. Yeah. Goodbye. And what's it like for you watching this? I have a thought this would happen. They're gone. They're gone. All the cards are gone. I see that. She held it up to the screen. Well done. Let's do a round of applause because that's very impressive. Well done. Grace. Many of us find it silly to have to do something like this. You know, I have to remove cards for myself like I'm a grown adult. I should be able to control myself. But actually, once we accept that human nature is very responsive to even the smallest of barriers, then we learn how to deploy those barriers on purpose. As an example in the US, in California, a few years ago, they started charging like five cents for bags for grocery bags. The amount of grocery bag consumption went down dramatically, like huge. That's for a nickel. Using these barriers in our own life is incredibly powerful to, for example, make it a little harder to spend on things that you do not want to actually spend on. Very effective. And how about for the two of you, one thing that I heard is this feeling of guilt, this feeling of being behind with your money? What's a way that the two of you can change that relationship with money? I think having our meetings again. Yeah. Definitely. Meeting anything, you know, if you come home and there's a McDonald's cup in the thing, you'd be like, yeah, kids were tough finding something on the way home. Fine. I love that. I know. Honestly, always. I love that. It's not that wrong with getting McDonald's once in a while. There is nothing wrong with it. It's totally fine. There's no need for shame. In fact, you can actually build it into your plan. Yeah. That's the way to do it. Hey, once a month, maybe twice a month, I'm going to set some money aside for McDonald's. Fine. You can certainly afford it. I want you to live a full, rich life, and that involves eating out once in a while, yes. Getting something for the kids, yes. And building up a sizable savings just in case, also, yes. You can actually do all of those things with planning. Yeah. Yeah. What surprised you about today's conversation? I think that that control aspect, that surprised me that I thought I was going to be just a really mean woman making my sick husband's work out dare I, but actually it was really emotional. I just really appreciate that you saw me. You saw what was going on, and I didn't. You know, Grace, I saw a different story than you saw in your application. There were multiple references to making your husband work 15 minutes into talking. I didn't see any evidence of that. If anything, James himself said, "Well, what else, what I have done but work?" And so sometimes the way we see ourselves is not the way that others see us. And it is so rare that we get the chance to see ourselves reflected through somebody else. I'm gonna give his honest feedback. - Yeah. - And I think you were very open to it. I say all this because it really shows you the power of how you can craft your own story. Your story was that I'm a bad wife forcing my husband to work while he has cancer. That's not the story I heard. Meaning you have the power to shape your own story. Okay. Yeah. James, what about you? I'm surprised how easy it is to talk about it. My expectations for this is that it would be that we would beat around the bush and not be honest about it or we would hide things. But then once we kind of got into it, the idea of hiding and not being honest about it was just ridiculous. Like how are we ever going to get better if we don't talk about it, if we're not honest about it, honest with ourselves. And I think maybe that's something that we have been kind of holding back on. And it's purely because we just don't want to hurt the other one or don't want to burden the other person. But in some ways, we've actually come making it worse because we haven't been talking about it so openly. And so I'm just surprised how good it feels and how easy it is to actually talk about money so openly and even the stuff around money and how it affects us all. Amazing. I appreciate you for really showing up and being so open, being so honest. I feel. Oh poor. Great. Grace. I feel a huge sense of release. Amazing. And I really commend you for what you've been through, but how you have done it especially. Tough things like this illness can really cause fractures in relationships. Not only did I not see any of that, I actually see the way that the two of you showed up for each other. It's very, very impressive. And what an example you set for the many people that will watch this. Well, we're very lucky. We're so lucky that we have so much supports. Like, you know, the financial cost of a cancer diagnosis in the States is a totally different story. Yeah. What are the stories that you tell yourself? We all do it. We tell ourselves stories. In fact, we tell them so often that they start to feel like facts. I'm just not good with money. I need a big house to be successful. People like me don't wear things like that. You know, I once remember I was reading a financial forum and people were talking about when you have X million dollars, what are you going to do with the money? And there were hundreds of posts in this thread and I read them all. And I have to tell you, after reading them, the feeling that I got was disappointment. Almost every single respondent in that thread said the same thing. I would get a house. I would renovate my house. I might get a car. I was thinking, these are people from all over the country, all over the world. We're not talking about having $10,000 or $25,000. We're talking about millions of dollars. And everyone's answer, like something like 85% of the answers are all exactly the same. You independently decided that you just want a house. That's it. And I thought to myself, where is the creativity? Not one person said, you know what? I've always wanted to learn how to dance. I'm going to hire a dance instructor to come to my house and teach me how to dance. Not one person said, I've always wanted to learn how to act. I'm going to go to an acting class and I'm going to get really good at acting. Now, one person talked about hiring a chef to come and teach them how to cook. It was just a house. It was literally inanimate objects that they wanted. I don't find this cool. I think that each of us is different. I think that each of us has something that we would love to do. But a lot of times, we don't think people like us do it. I think that we think that's for rich people. I think that we tell ourselves all kinds of stories. And I've told myself stories too, that I'm just a skinny Indian guy, that I can't express my emotions, that experiences are better than things. And for a long time, I believe them. I never even thought to question them. Most of us never stop to ask, wait a second, is this even true? Like some of you believe you don't even like to eat lamb, but you never had Indian keema, you believe you don't like opera, but you've never seen an opera that you understood or one that connected with you. So that's what I want you to think about today. What is your story? What is your story? The story you've been telling yourself about health, about money, about relationships, about where you live, about anything. Take a second, think about those stories, write them down and interrogate them. Why do I believe this? Is it true? Who told me that? Keep going. Ask why? Ask again. Sometimes you'll get to the end of that chain and realize, I don't even believe this. I just picked it up somewhere and I never put it down. And on that note, let's now hear follow-ups from Grace and James. Hi, Remise. Just a little update. It's been about two, three weeks. And we've just got back from an amazing holiday in the forest up in Longford. And it was so much fun. We had a budget and we hadn't spent it all by the last day. So we just kind of went wild on the last day. It was lovely, actually, to like just have that guilt free spending and just be like, no, no, this is the money set aside for it. So that was really nice. We are also, James is taking the lead on the money meetings, which I'm really enjoying because it doesn't just fault me, which is nice. And also it allows me a little bit more space in my brain, which is lovely. We haven't really started the big savings. Well, we're not nothing's coming in. But we are kind of reducing down the silly spends. I'm finding it hard. So I need to realign now after the holiday and have a little plan in mind for what I actually want to spend my money on. But yeah, I think we have a meeting tomorrow now and we're just going to kind of lay out whatever is ahead of us. We're already planning next year's holiday, which is really exciting because we haven't got any sort of holiday in about three years. Well, apart from, you know, we've just, that's been our first one. So yeah, it's all, it's all looking positive. And I can't tell you how much better I'm feeling. So I hope James is feeling better as well. Thank you. He's tired after a holiday, but so yeah, thanks so much. Positive changes. Very positive changes. I feel from it. A big thing obviously going back involved with the finances again. So after the show, after the interview we did a, we did have a kind of catch-up. Grace showed me her went through going for the spreadsheet that we kind of been looking at. We set out some kind of big goals, main one being to get our, we figured out how much of our savings would have to use over the next two months while we're both on no pay and low pay. And then we kind of tried to figure out how much we would need to where our savings would go next year to kind of build that back up, that emergency fund back up. So we've got, and we've got our first kind of catch up tomorrow and then we'll meet once a week briefly just to, because we'll map out the month before and then we'll meet a week and see if something crops up another part you've got to go to or um we've got to go somewhere extra that might need a bit more fuel or whatever it is. I found being involved in the money more, the ability to just kind of cool grace up on some of her spending. I love him that she's being a lot more open with me now about it and because she knows something is ridiculous. Like she even says she comes at me with how ridiculous it is and you know and I have to, because I think before I'd be like you know she was in charge of the money which he thought was a good idea then great to go for it you know. And that is kind of definitely helped a lot and being more involved in the money has helped me a lot as well. I can feel a lot more secure in us as a family and as our finances. I'm a lot less worried. I feel like I'm getting a lot less worried about my lips still there obviously. But kind of seeing it all being more involved in it again is helping a lot with the kind of anxiety that I was feeling about it you know. We probably won't go completely bankrupt. If I get sick again you know, small things like that. And you know I'm trying a similar degree so I'm trying to be more involved with not worrying about it and be more involved with the family. Like trying to not spend money on things for the kids but more in stuff together as a family not just toys that they can play with and that'll end up throwing away or giving away or something. Trying to create more memories and more. All things together as a family. We've been through a lot a lot a lot and we'll come out the other side of it. It's time to enjoy it a little bit you know. So yeah so that's where I'm at. You know it's early days yet but we can stick with it. I think for being a much better cause moving forward. Thank you again for the time you just just need some analysis. to kind of listen in and because I think deep down we knew a lot of it. Sometimes we just need someone else to kind of point out. Some of them from the outside just to be like, yeah, you know, you're not crazy, you know. So, next again. I don't know, maybe we'll see each other again soon.