YFP 396: Managing Money Together: Strategies for Couples

Hey everybody Tim Alpercure and welcome to the YFP podcast where each week we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom. Today we're talking love and money. Now we all know that money can be one of the biggest stressors in a relationship but it doesn't have to be. In this episode Tim and I dive into the complexities of managing finances as a couple offering insights on how to navigate different financial styles whether you fully merge your finances keep them separate or find a middle ground. We discussed the importance of communication setting shared goals and even bringing in a third party to help guide the process. Before we get started I want to let you know that we're now publishing the podcast in video form on YouTube. If you want to watch this interview make sure to subscribe to the your financial pharmacist's YouTube channel where we'll publish new shows each week. All right let's jump into this week's episode of the YFP podcast. Tim Baker good to have you back on the show. Good to be back how's it going Tim? It's going well Valentine's Day right around the corner and so it's only fitting that we talk about love and money and let me let me just start Tim before we get into the weeds on this that we are coming from our experience and perspective and of course we're going to talk about a broader perspective hopefully in different options that people can consider as they're working with a significant other spouse or partner to manage your finances but inevitably we have a biased of what has worked for us right for Jess and I and for you and Shay and so we're going to try to broaden that perspective but I think it's important that we acknowledge that right up front and that there is no one right way when it comes to managing your finances with a partner or significant other or spouse and Tim I want to start by getting your take on a poll I recently posted on LinkedIn and I asked the following question for those that are working with someone else on their finances which of the following best describes your situation is everything merged or some things merged something separate or is everything separate and about half people said everything was merged 40% said some merge some separate and about 10% responded that nothing was merged and everything was just separate what are your thoughts on that does that match with what you hear typically from from clients and prospects I actually think that the half of everything merged seems really high to me like I didn't expect that at all and I think the 10% you know where nothing is in merge is merged seems pretty low to me interest I thought I thought that we would see more of an even like not an even distribution but the all merged is something I don't want to say I really come across but like I feel like the most common the most common is some merge some separate in my experience so I was a little bit surprised when I saw that poll that was the outcome because again I think most I think most and I think I think a lot of like our culture and just how like how we we operate these days of affects this right like we're getting married later you know I know I've talked about my wife being Brazilian like in her culture you you know you you live at home until you get married and I know that some some people here in the United States do that too right so like I think some of some of like we're just what's going on with our socio-economics like it's it's had to change this but I think by and large I probably see more of a hybrid model which I think we'll talk about here in this episode yeah I think you're point about you know timeline of when people get married or when they have a significant other spouse and that shifting is significant you know again speaking from my perspective or just and I we got married relatively young 24 and so we didn't neither of us had really a strong process of our own right so it kind of made sense and and we're in I guess what you're calling kind of that that we're a smaller group where everything is merged but that would have been very different I think if we got married at 30 or 35 right and we are doing things on our own for a while yeah I think very and I also like like divorce right to if you've experienced that like your your especially if there's money things that have come out like you know so I think if people have been in serious relationships and you know are not and then are in another serious relationship later like I think or or you know I know divorce to be traumatic or or just trauma with finances growing up I know you got where I'm just like things you know with your family business and things like that I think there's all paints part of how we how we look at this yeah so yeah I know there's some people that have gone through you know relationships it's like I'll never merge again you know our finances like it has to be separate now they're still working and trying the road the boat in the in the same direction so to speak but there has to be kind of a little bit of separation for them to feel comfortable and I I understand that and again it's not necessarily something I've had to deal with personally but I get where that where that can come from yeah and to be clear this is not a scientific Gallup vote right this was a hole I just put out there and like then I do think we had I'll go back and look I think there's 150 170 people are responded so it was a sizable group but certainly not representative of a larger group to me the other thing I wanted to just get your pulse on because you sit in front of prospective clients every day where you're having conversations in a very intimate way about their finances as they try to discover or learn more about our services see if they're good fit and as a part of that naturally you get a inside peak and everything that's going on you know financially and of course doing that confidentially is you aggregate some of those conversations what what are some of the trends that you are seeing you know is it what one person who's typically initiating this conversation and they're you know they're dragging someone along to be there is it maybe one person who's making all the decisions in the second person's not there at all or do you see more cases where it's really a shared decision making process to people present at the table yeah and and again probably not even distribution but all of those things Tim like and kick there's sometimes where and there I think there might be some gender dynamics to play and I don't want to like you know generalize or anything but like sometimes it's you know a lot of pharmacists female so it might be like hey I've been listening to you since like our P2 year on the podcast so they feel like they know me or know you but obviously I'm the one mean with them and then they might tell their husband will call husband Brian they might tell Brian that we're meeting with him you know like five minutes before we actually do and they don't know who I am from Adam right so you know there's some people that are that are both like in it and most of the time when I asked a question like hey like when you hire a financial planner like who is the decision maker who are the stakeholders like the overwoman answer it's like it's the two of us right we're gonna be we're gonna you know basically make this decision together now who takes point and who might be our main contact that can differ it's really really hard at least in where what what we do to work and this is one of the things that happens a lot and I'm I'm I'm sometimes unsure how to navigate where you know a person will book a meeting they say that I'm married but I'm looking for a financial planner just for me myself and I think again we look at the whole picture typically we're not looking at just like a project here and there we're looking at a whole list they kind of longitudinal relationship and sometimes it's hard if the if the partner isn't you represent it in that and I I would say at a minimum like I want I need we need to know like what the joint balance sheet is right we know that like retirement accounts they're always individualized you have an IRA in your name Tim right you know you know there's a 401k in you know she's name like that type of thing like those are not joint accounts but we want the joint we want the individual and the shared balance sheet there and then we also want like the shared goals right what are we and again you could have a goal of I want to do this than this and Jessica have a goal I want to do that and then we could have shared goals and I think those have to be in the plan or not really not doing you justice right so all of the things that you mention are are present right and I try to weed out people that are going to be less engaged because again like we want people that are engaged that take our advice for the most part you know we we feel like the advice that we give is in your best interest that is the client's financial plan but you know both partners are somewhat you know plugged into what's going on but yeah it can be all over the map right and you know it's just interesting to see how people approach and again people have I don't know if we talk about this but people have different money personalities and just how they they view money you know what how they're raising around money what is the vocabulary for money like all that kind of stuff and again some of that could just be inherent to how you know how they are it could be also like the environment in which they grew up in and I want to start there Tim because I think before we talk about strategies or ways that people may think about working on their finances together I think it's so important that we first just recognize and understand and reflect on how do we grow up around money and you know what I what I call kind of know thyself in terms of the money personality because when you bring two different money personalities together right even if you end up having accounts that are let's say completely separate or some combination of merge or separate and we'll talk about that more detail here a little bit inevitably there's going to be conversations where things start to overlap you mentioned kind of shared goals and visions and we all come with different money perspectives that shape our money personalities that we have today and what I have found and I'm making this on much easier than it is for the sake of just the time on the podcast. Just when I came from very different money personalities and it took us a while, I think to really be able to articulate that out loud and say, "Hey, these are the strengths that I bring to the table growing up in this environment." These are the weaknesses that I bring to the table growing up in this environment. I really felt like that took the pressure off some of the conversation that we can think about, "Hey, because we grew up in this environment and our family may be budgeted this way or my household growing up, everything was merged and I have vivid memories of how my parents did the budget and the conversations and how the small business was a part of that conversation." Of course, that shaped the perspective that I bring. Good and bad, right, perspective. I want to get your thoughts on that because my experience, my personal experience says the more we understand how we grew up around money and how that shapes a perspective. We have today the better chance we have to be able to come together and figure out what this plan looks like going forward. Can I put you on the hot seat, Tim? I'm interested to see. I view, again, working with you in just in the past, I view you guys as similar in terms of like money. If you don't mind, walk us through, maybe this would be a good way to talk a little bit about the money personalities and what those are. Where do you see you? What I think about many personalities, like the umbrella, and I've talked about this before, is you kind of have that person that is like open hand, like more of the spender, right? And underneath that, I think that's the spender, the risk taker. And then the other umbrella is the closed hands that people are just like saving our free to part with their dollars. And then the person that's kind of in the middle is the flyer, where they're kind of more like laissez-faire. Money is a thing. I don't necessarily worry about it too much. It's very easy going. And you're kind of like in the middle somewhere, right? So walk me through, if you don't mind, where would you say you kind of were and then where Jess was in those personalities? Yeah, and let me reference for people that are interested in learning more about what you're talking about. There's several assessments out there. But one that matches up with the terms that Tim's using, where I'm like, "saver, spender, flyer, risk taker," is called the five money personalities quiz. And we'll link to that in the show notes as well. I'll say that I think where we have similarities. Let's start there. Both grew up in households where the finances were merged. And we both grew up in households where I would say there was shared decision making, but one person who was clearly taking the lead with the finances. And so that's the similarities I think we're coming with. For better or for worse, I would say I grew up in a household that was very frugal. There was more of a scarcity mindset around money. And very much a focus on saving for the future, trying to do everything that we can to plan and prep for the future. Now, some of that I think comes from growing up in a small business. I have vivid memories. In conversations that my parents were having, I remember my mom talking to my, "Hey, how hard my dad is working in the business." We necessarily can't do A, B or C because we're trying to save up for this vacation our year or two years in the future. I remember my mom talking about, "Hey, we're able to go on this vacation that we maybe did once a year or once every other year, but it was paid for by coupons and clipping coupons." And I remember my mom kind of worked in the coupons that I've been room for. So those are core memories, I think of inside out, core memories. And I have carried those very much in to the way I have approached my, for better or for worse, I think the fragility has real benefits, but I have really struggled and have had to work hard to evolve and have had to have your help and the planning teams help and Jess's help to really get out of that future only mindset and that scarcity, fragility mindset to loosen the reins and ask some of the questions of like, "What's the so what if today and how do we find this balance, right, of living the rich life today?" And in the future, and I think on the flip side, Jess, I would say grew up in a family environment where there was some stress and fear and anxiety around the money, but I think there was more of an openness to the present moment and some of the experiences that are in front of us today. But on the flip side, there was some of that scarcity mindset towards the future as well, but there was definitely more of a present that I think she really brings that perspective today where I'm kind of balancing us out to think about tomorrow. She's really helping us focus in the present. Yeah, and I think I think, you know, sometimes I think people think that like if you have multiple personalities and a planning relationship, like so if you think about the security seeker, you know, someone who values stability, planning, long term financial security and the saver, you know, they have satisfaction, save and money, and minimize the expenses. Like that in this spectrum, I think goes a long way in a financial plan, but I think it's good to be counterbalanced by a spender. Yeah. So when you've used money as a tool for enjoyment, convenience, maybe some immediate gratification, Yolo, I've kind of talked about this with my own journey. Like I've kind of gone back and forth on this risk taker, right? That might be someone because again, like it's funny you say that because like growing up in my household, like if you ran a business, like you're a risk taker, you're not sure you're a risk taker, right? And maybe not so much, right? So the risk taker thrives on opportunity, adventure and potential for big financial rewards. And again, that flyers, you know, money's not on a central focus. They prioritize other values like relationships or passions. I think it's good to have, I think if you have all of one thing, if you have two savers or two people security seeker, you're a massive affortune, hopefully, but for the purpose of what, right? If you have someone that again, opens the hand, is spending or taking, you know, big swings and risking it all, you know, we want to avoid having to like, bad groceries in the future. So I think having, having that balance in a relationship is good. And I think this changes over time. Like I mentioned, you know, I grew up and again, my mom was a teacher, my dad made some more money. We, we, we were fine, right? But like my mom did the coupon thing and we screamed and we saved and went, if we did go out, it was, you know, we'd order a meal, no drinks. No drinks, no desserts, right? So like, and they put a lot of their money into the house and like where are the family spend time and, you know, growing up, I was in charge of like, you need to get to a certain age. I was, I was working like in Russia. I was never allowed to work on a school night. So I'd work on the weekends. I was, I worked at an Irish restaurant where I grew up. But it was like, hey, if you want to buy a car, like that's on you, pal. Like if you want insurance or gas, you know, if you want certain items that's on you. So I kind of, you know, fell in line with my mom who was a saver. But then I went into the army and 9/11 happened and it was kind of like yellow, right? Like it was, I don't really know if tomorrow is going to happen. So like that shaped more where I was more of a spender, right? And then I think I got positives and negatives from both things and, and, you know, I'm kind of where I am now, which is probably somewhere in the middle. I wouldn't say I'm a flyer because I kind of think of that as more, maybe like, you know, off. But I would say I look more to the long term. And Jay, as I've said on this, it's more like, bro, we have kids like, like this is the season. Yeah. This is the season. We have one shot of this like, and I've kind of come around to that too because, you know, I do think that because we're planning and we're doing the things that we do. And again, the numbers are confirmed by our plan. Like I feel more at ease and more comfortable spending money. Like, you know, especially if it's for those things that, you know, are for our family and experiences and things like that. But this is a hard thing too. And I like, so we talk about the person. I don't know if a lot of us just have the vocabulary, right? Our selves that have the conversation with ourselves about money versus having it with a person, you know, that you're in a relationship with. Like, we don't have the vocabulary ourselves. So how can we expect, especially if we come from different places to be able to, you know, have the conversation, have the vocabulary or ask the right questions? Because again, like, you know, growing up, like money was kind of a taboo thing. Like I never talked to my parents about how much money they made or how we, like, we never really taught. I know we would say that I think we knew that money was a scarce thing. But like, we didn't really talk openly about it. And I think that, you know, that not having those conversations is a big deal too. So I think that's why this is really important. This topic is really important. And it's at ProPro, we're doing this around, you know, Valentine's days because it's difficult for ourselves that I want to introduce in a completely, you know, new set of beliefs and that type of thing. So first of all, I need you to stop hitting on people that are bagging groceries because that was my first job. Sorry, my favorite job. Really? I loved it. I loved it. Like every time I go to the grocery store, I get the warm and fuzzy still. I don't know. So just something about like the methodical nature of it. And I felt like it taught me a ton of our communication skills dealing with people like my mom that show up with their box of coupons. And I'm like, oh my gosh, she's going to take forever, right? Not now you just scam like an app and it has all your coupons. - Yeah, I loved it and I'll give my boys a hard time everyone so I'll throw out a produce code off the top of my memory. - No way. - Presses them every time. - Yeah, it's awesome. - Well, you should impress them. They're getting too old for now. - So did you like it because it was kind of like Tetris too, like bagging. - Oh, yeah. - Like I can't stand how kids these days, right? Bag groceries. - Yeah. - So inefficient, so inefficient. But maybe we need to get you back back. I mean, the whole point of financial plan is hopefully to have to avoid that, Tim, so you don't have to. - I enjoy it. - I do like it. - But maybe, hey, no, hey, maybe that's a good kind of sunset job. I mean, I could see, I could see that being a cool dress where you're talking to people. - No, hey, oh, I liked it. - Well, mine, yeah. - So fun fact for the YP community. My IPMs, which is the items per minute. That's the KPI for the cashiers. My IPMs were top at the top supermarket in Western New York. So fun fact. - Well, quite deflects. But I think your point about emotional vocabulary is so important, right? Because my experience, Tim, tells me that when the emotional vocabulary isn't there, to be able to first identify yourself, where does some of these money scripts come from, to then be able to initiate a conversation, this comes out sideways, right? And I can think about some early experiences in our marriage where, you know, might lead to passive aggressiveness or, you know, internalizing, someone really is underneath that, which is the scarcity or the fear or the other things that has nothing or almost nothing to do with what actually is being spent. But it's activating an emotion that may be related to how we were brought up financially and being able to put a name to that, I think, is so important. So, let shift gears. We talked at the beginning about, in terms of managing, practically managing accounts and month to month finances, whether it's credit cards, checking accounts, you know, some partners, some couples aside to have everything separate, some decide to merge everything and then others do a little bit of both. And from a high level, what do you see as the pros and cons to those approaches and functionally? Like, what does that potentially look like? And I'm specifically thinking about the group that maybe you said is probably the largest group that has some merge and some separate. How does that practically work? - Yeah, so we divide these into three groups. We'll kind of go through the completely merged, the completely separate and then the hybrid. So, I think if we look at the completely merged, I think some of the pros for that group is simplicity and transparency, right? You know, when one hand is washed on the other type of thing. So you're managing one set of accounts to track expenses, it makes budgeted and saving a lot easier. You know, I think full visibility can foster, trust and reduce the chances of surprises. I think it's easier to kind of align your financial goals so it encourages more of a teamwork approach. You know, whether it's a big goal or even something that's less so. I think it promotes regular conversations like, hey, can you transfer that? You know, or can you, can you make sure that the money's there because this bill's coming out and it helps partners are on the same page? - I think it increases efficiency in money management. I know one of the things I was jealous about that you said where you're taking a lot of the, it was like, expenses that you always had, you know, we had to buy paper towels every three months or whatever and you're like automating that with, Amazon or whatever it is. Like in my house, I couldn't really do that because kind of shade takes care of that. So it's kind of how to cite out of mind for me, right? It could be with managing debt. You know, if you're again, everything is, if you have a shared credit card that, you know, kind of got out of whack or seeing it, you know, together. And even investments, again, most, most, most retirement and council are separate, but you know, you can have joint investments. I think it helps streamline things like the red head at stepchild of the financial plan, a state plan in that people often forget about if a partner becomes a capacitor, is it easier to find stuff? You know, and I think just easier during like life transition. So again, in the case of an emergency, a death, hopefully not, you know, the surviving partner has immediate access to all funds without any legal hurdles. I think the cons here are, and I think this is probably the big thing, is like loss of financial autonomy. So where, you know, like, hey, I was a grown up, I got my big boy job, big girl job. I've been kind of living on my own and all of a sudden, I'm getting married, and you want me to like combine everything, like that does, it feels restrictive. I don't like that. I feel controlled, and that can lead to conflicts and spending habits and things like that. I think it could be potential for like power and balances, is like if one partner earns significantly more and everything is joint, they might feel entitled to have more control or, you know, the tiebreaker, and I could create tension. The, I've definitely seen this, where the lower earning partner might feel guilty about spending. So they don't, they themselves don't feel like they're on the same level because, you know, they feel like that what they're bringing to the table is not equitable. It could be conflicts over spending priorities. So just, you know, the spender versus the saver can lead to frequent agreements, disagreements where, you know, if you have kind of your separate playgrounds, your separate accounts, that maybe that's less so. And then complications, again, in case of divorce or separation, you know, things, things like that, you know, and there's probably risk there too, like if one partner is less financially responsible, their actions can negatively impact both partners, credit scores and financial stability. So that's their margin. - That's their margin, right. - Yeah, if they're merged. So that would probably be the pros and cons for the merge. If they're separate, the pros for it being separate is, I think you maintain that financial independence, that a lot of people kind of establish for a number of years, maybe before they get married, like you said, you and Jess were really young when you got married, right? I was older. You know, it's simple as personal spending. So I think like if you have hobbies or gifts, or I just want to spontaneously buy a gift, I don't want her to see that on a credit card statement. I feel like this happens for us at Christmas, where I'm like, I'll see something on Amazon, but she sees everything that we buy. - Yeah. - So it's like, there's no surprise. So I'll just say like, don't look at the Amazon. - You gotta go take cash out, although that is a problem. Amazon. - Yeah, it's like why are you taking cash out? Like, you know, what do you buy it? - All your poker earnings. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's those are few and far between. It can reduce those power imbalances, so you're avoiding situation where one feels partner, one partner feels dominate. Easier in the case of divorce or separation, again, we don't plan for that. And again, potentially protects against financial and mismanagement. I know we've had people that we work with, Shays has experienced this. I had to a degree where a partner runs up a huge credit card bill, and if you're on that account, like you're on the hook. So cons for completely separation is increase complexity with man-engine shared expenses, right? So there's more coordination when you're split in household bills, who pays for what? Some people, and they can do this in either scenario, but they have some people that will live off of one income and everything the other income is cream. So that doesn't matter, but it could be there. There could be potential secrecy and mistrust. Sometimes we get scared of something that we don't understand or see, so that could be there. I think it takes more of a lift to have alignment and financial goals. It could be inequity and the lifestyle contributions of how are we doing this? 'Cause again, in this model, a lot of it is completely separate. So if I'm just paying for the lecture bill, but you're paying for the mortgage, like how does that work? - That's easy though. - Yeah, and more complicated and emergency is that type of thing. So that would be the second bucket. And then probably the most common that I see is some merge, some separate. So the pro here is you get the best of both worlds. You have some financial independence with the benefits of shared financial management. Couples can maintain autonomy over his personal spending while working together on joint goals. So you kind of have the Venn diagram, so to speak. You have, and I think that, again, I think, for the most part, the Venn diagram that shared shaded areas should be the biggest, and then you have the outlier of your own maybe accounts. Simplified share expenses, encourages healthy communication. So a couple still need to discuss and agree on contributions. Promotes transparency, but also allows you to have a little bit of space, reduce financial stress. I think the cons here is, again, you still have the potential for financial imbalance. There's still complexity in the money management. If you're, again, managing multiple accounts, I think that you still have a risk of, what's yours versus ours? And then how does that create a space or an arm's length in your marriage? And then I think less financial visibility and things like that. I think regardless of approach, no matter where, and I think more so than others, like it's clear communication, right? So sometimes you're clearly communicating by default. So if I have everything's like, shake and see, she knows that I can, I just spend $100 on a bottle of brown, right? And she's like, dude, what the heck? She's used to it right now. She's used to it. So I think clear communication regardless, I think regular check-ins, you know, schedule and periodic financial discussions. Again, sometimes that's with the help a fun financial planner. I'll see you guys later. think that you doing that as a couple is really important. I think clear agreements and set expectations of how things are gonna be split or whatever that looks like can prevent conflicts. I kind of think of our partnership charter like hey, if these things happen, this is what we're gonna do. I think those are important. And then just being flexible. I think the key to any financial plan is not the, you know, nothing is poured in concrete. Right, we need to have flexibility because things change, life changes, right? And it is, you know, I'm sure the listeners have heard this me say this, it's about planning. So that's for you, Corey, planning with an ING, not the plan, right? Because the plan, once we have it, something happens in the world and the plan goes out the, the out the door. So it's about the process of planning. - Tim, communication, and we're gonna come back to talking about the value, but third party. I know it's something Jess and I have benefited from tremendously. And so we'll talk about the role as, but in terms of couples and communication, you know, whether you've been married for 20 years, whether you're been together for 10 and you're not married, whether you're, you know, just started dating, I think there's a space for some of these conversations regardless of your situation. And we compile the list of 25 financial discussions for couples of people who want to download that guide, you're financialpharmacist.com/25. And I often joke with people like, hey, this is a third party list, right? So if you're wanting to start some of these conversations, you know, it's not me coming with the ammo. It's the, hey, I read about this. I heard about this on a podcast. We should have these conversations, which, you know, jokingly, but I think that speaks to some of the value of the third party. Hey, give me a visual on the Venn diagram because I do think for a lot of people that resonates. You talked about some merge, some separate. And in your opinion, you know, you want to see that center part to be the largest part, knowing everyone's situation is different. So, you know, that might be something like 70% merge, 15, 15, 60, 20, 20, right? Something along those lines, but there's, of course, variations of that. Like it is all the money coming into the central and then we're dividing the percentages or are we waiting it, you know, according to what we make. So, you know, if we're both contributing to the mortgage payment, but one person makes 70% of the household income, you know, we're contributing equally or is it weighted. Any more details you can share on that of what you've seen people do. What I think is best is everything comes into a joint account. So, like all of paychecks come into a joint account. And then I think if you do have like separate accounts, some dollar amount or some percentage of that can, you know, go to a, an individual account for you to do whatever you want with, right? I think what most people do, because again, I think it's, you know, the inertia of this is here. It's like, I think what most people do is, they get paid into their normal accounts and then they feed into a joint account. That's what Shane and I do. And I have always kind of complained about that. And I think you got to a point, because again, she's experienced things in her own life that I think, you know, we are a team and I have no, but like I think it's just more of a comfort thing for her. You know, but I don't even know what the percentage is. You know, essentially the way we do, and we kind of follow the no budget budget. And like we look at all of our expenses and basically she, she's the tracker, you know, I'm the financial planner, but she actually does all this. Like so she has a spreadsheet that she says, okay, you know, it's always now on daycare that's costing us $1 million a week. You know, we have this project coming up or whatever. And she basically says, this is how much money you need to put in every paycheck, right? And then I always push the envelope with like, okay, what are we saving for vacations? What are we saving for retirement? Like that's my role in all this. She kind of does the kind of like, what is it to run the household? And then we kind of talk about our goals or our major projects and I kind of shared with you how we kind of get up like get the priority of things. And then that's what we essentially do, right? So that works for us. Again, I think if it were up to me, I would be more of a hey into the joint and then maybe some money out to an individual. But the percentage is again very widely. Yeah. But I think that for us, it works because again, it allows me to kind of do some things that have been interested. I know she would roll her eyes at. And I'm just like, you know, she's like, you know, kind of not absent from that. But I look at it as as long as we're taking care of those short and medium term goals in terms of how we operate the household. And then I know that hey, we're maxing out retirement. That's not even hitting the paycheck or we're maxing out in HSA or an IRA. Like as long as and we're funding, you know, that trip that we're going on next and we calculated that's going to be $X amount of dollars. And typically what we just do is we just say, hey, this is what we're paying on, you know, spending all the occasions. We divide that by 12 or 24. We put that number in. And then the following we were just kind of checking. We like, hey, we had to like reach into our pocket a little bit more because Mickey Mouse is super expensive or not. And typically for things like that were continuing to push the envelope in terms of what we are saving. So having those sinking funds. And sometimes we'll have to, you know, they're not necessarily emergencies, but we'll have maybe we'll move some money around in our sinking funds that makes sense. So that's kind of what we do. I think a lot of clients, they do some version of that. And especially the hybrid clients where it's mainly like we have separate accounts and we put X amount of dollars in. And that's how we spend our bills. But I think there's levels to this in terms of like, what's comfortable again? Like I feel like if I had my brothers, like I would just have everything joined kind of like you and Jess. But you know, again, it's a little bit different dynamic I think in terms of where we come from. Yeah. And I want to make sure I recap to understand and so our audience can understand as well. So you guys have paychecks coming to individual accounts. Then you fund through shades kind of monthly process and tracking you fund the joint account. Shade's kind of boot down the ground month to month tracking. What do we need to be doing short term? And then together you're working on some of the prioritization of the goals and then you're pushing some of the conversation of the long term. Am I tracking? OK. Cool. And there's something there that you said. I want to make sure we don't brush by that. It is so important where I see a lot of stress and anxiety and frustration and arguments coming in is in the absence of understanding what those goals are, long term, short term, midterm, and whether or not we're on track to achieve those. That to me becomes a space where things get dynamic to say the least, right? Because when you talk about like, hey, we're going to see Mickey Mouse and we're planning for A/B or C and we've got a bucket and it's the Mickey Mouse bucket and we're planning for it or longer term things like retirement or in days gone by. Because we're buying the RV, right? Whenever other shared goals, if you know what they are and whether or not you're on track or are progress for them, to me that just alleviates so much of the financial stress and pressure that can come. It's in the absence of knowing that where I think that uncertainty causes the anxiety and the feelings of overwhelmed that can be the divide to getting on the same page. Yeah. I always joke around that. Shae is definitely more of, and again, I think culturally, like the idea of saving for retirement is very foreign to her. Because in Brazil, you kind of just work and then you have a pension. Like it's very different. So like trying to get her on board with that has been harder. And again, she looks at our young family and she knows that the time is now to really enjoy them and the experiences. And I keep joking around with her because I'm like one day you're gonna get to a certain age where you can start to see your retirement and you're gonna say, oh, Tim, you're so wise. For basically getting me to put max out my 401k or whatever it is. - Words that will not come out of Shae's mouth. - She will never come out of that. - But she will eventually wake up one day and might think that. So, but I take solace in the fact that, again, knowing the plan and knowing like, most people you ask, like, are you on track for retirement? They're like, I don't know. Like, there's a calculator when I sign into my 401k that tells me, which I think is very irresponsible if I can throw that out there. Because like, you know, Shae, like going through, I'm sharing all the emotional conversations that. But like, Zoe, our youngest is 10 months old and she just started going to daycare. We had a, a live in nanny and opair. And finally, I got to the point where we did the system work out. So we've gone through this emotional thing of, like, transitioning Zoe to the, to daycare and that invites an extra expense and sickness and all this stuff, right? And, and the emotional sides of that. And, you know, Shae will exasperate it through this process. Like, I wish I could just stay at home and like, just be with my baby. And I'm like, well, you can, it just means that we have to like make changes. Like, we have to tighten the belt a lot. And it's the same thing with retirement. Like, like, you can, a lot of us, if we're living off of beans and rice and our living expenses are low, like, you can retire, right? It's just maybe not a, like, the lifestyle that you are. - She thought it. - Yeah. But I think like, I know that we are, like, I know being more the long term planner. like that we're doing well, right? And that's not to say it's always gonna be. like that because things come in cycles and you know jobs changes and things like that. But where we're at and what we're doing, I feel really comfortable. And to be honest, like the rest of it, it really doesn't matter where it goes. Like we want to, we have the same values if we want to spend it on our family or right now it's on our house. So like I don't think twice about that because I trust in the plan. You know, I trust the process to take that adage. And if I didn't though, you know, it's the same thing we talk about like student loans or retirement plan and like unless you have the math, like you have, you have emotions related to money. But unless you have the math to confirm or deny that, you're kind of flying blind, right? So like I have the math and I know that what we're doing is, is going to set us up for the future. So I don't care if we spend money. Even though that's not necessarily my money personality, I don't care if we spend money today. So I think again, it goes back to having a plan in plan in because things consistently change. And if you don't have that, and I think again, a lot of tension and disagreement and, you know, and I think having, I think having these discussions one-on-one, but I think having them with an objective third party that knows your balance sheet and knows your goals is very, very powerful. And sometimes I can say speaking to this day, like, why are you like this or why do you think this way? And I'm asking the wrong accusatory question or says somebody that is a professional can and, you know, can ask some more neutral sound and questions to kind of get to, how does she think about money versus how do I think about money in a non-judgmental way? And again, that goes back to like, a lot of us don't have the vocabulary or know what questions to ask because we just, we're not raised like that. We don't know. Let's talk more about that in the value of a third party. I think we're dancing around it, but you're giving a really good example. You know, we talk about something like nest egg and retirement. And if Justin were here, I think she would say as much that for her, like, there's the numbers in the excel sheet and then there's the reality of the feelings, right? And when retirement is a question mark, is an unknown is a, I never think there's going to be enough. That very much informs how we feel today and how we act, whether or not that's based on reality. And so I think this is one example where having a third party involved can not only take us jointly through an exercise, you know, versus me punching numbers and saying, hey, look at the sheet, look at the sheet, look at the sheet, like, let's walk through this together and challenge the assumptions, but then also include the emotional piece of, hey, like I recognize that this says we're on track. And perhaps we're even over saving, which is a conversation we've talked about before on the show. All the while we're feeling the pressure today of, hey, I wish there was some more cash around to experience the things that we want to experience with the boys. Well, maybe there could be, right? Because of what we're doing for the future. So to me, that's just one, one example. And if you want to pick back off that or otherwise where you've seen having a third party, of course, we're biased in what we do in the planning work can be so valuable and helping partners work together. Yeah, we just signed on a new client recently that, you know, she's been listening to our podcasts forever and, you know, shout out. Yeah, much, much love for the support. And the big reason that she came, she finally booked an appointment with us was because she just recently found out that her grandparents are going to be leaving pretty sizeable amount of money to her parents. And she's kind of, and she's, she's kind of taking advice from like the family is like safe, safe, safe, like max that retirement. And they're feeling the tightness in like the day to day of having young kids in a family and things like that. And she's like, for what? Like so that I can pass on millions or hundreds of thousands of dollars to like, what's the, like why? Like I don't want to repeat that. Like I want that balance of I want to live a wealthy life today. And she kind of called you out of like that's kind of what you say. Live a wealthy life today, a wealthy life tomorrow. Like there's balance there. So if you're always just living a wealthy life tomorrow, what's the freaking point, right? What's the point of taking on this debt or earning this income or, or having a family? You want to make sure that, that you know, you got one crack at this. And I think if a hurrah was like, I'm, I'm maxing everything else out. And if I told like if I, if I, if I were to whisper like, I'm not going to do this anymore, like her family would think she's crazy. I'm like, well, they don't know you, right? They don't know like the, like it's just like, oh, like, you know, I should pay off my student loans as quick as possible where I should invest like this. It's kind of that water cooler. I should, I should, you know, I should get, I should claim so secure this way. Like that water cooler, like that, they don't know your balance sheet. They don't know your goals. They're trying to help you, especially Ken, but like, that's not advice. So and we've had clients that have done those things that I'm like, well, maybe we don't need to do that anymore or right now, right? Maybe when we, when we build a plan, we see that there's room there for you to take care of Tim and Jess in 2025 and maybe not so much Tim and Jess in 2065. Yeah. It's okay, right? But I think, I think sometimes having these conversations, whether they're to discovery means to see if, if like we're a good fit for from a, from a planner to a client perspective, or when I used to do what the planning team does a lot better than what I did, like the scripture plan meetings where there's a lot of emotion there in both of those meetings, probably more so in the scripture plan where we're talking about, you know, asking very pointed questions about like, like what are, what are the things that matter to you most? And I remember those meetings, there was tears, there was kind of the, the one partner like creating their neck at their other partner because they're saying something that had no idea that they felt or was a passion of theirs. Um, and I think that goes back to just not having the vocabulary or sometimes I always talk, I always tell the story of when I got out of the army, I was working in a, where I was working, uh, I worked for Sears came out. They had just merged. We're like, we're going to buy for retail supremacy. Sears who? I was like, yeah. Exactly. I was like, yeah, we're going to be Amazon and Walmart and all that. It's hilarious now, but I had a great interview with them and it was kind of more operational leadership and what I was experiencing in the army and, um, and it was, it was long hours. So I would, I would get up. I would leave my house at five o'clock and I would get there at 5 30, um, and then I would stay until probably 6 6 30 drive to 30 minutes home and it was dark both ways. But I don't ever remember, most days, I don't ever remember the drive. It was just like I was on autopilot when I got into my car and then when I, you know, basically part. And I think a lot of the times that's our life because we get so freaking busy, Tim, that we don't slow down and actually like, like reflect or ask ourselves these questions and I get that goes back to, if we go back to like the third party and again, I'm biased. Like if we're meeting with you regularly, either this is an annually or semi annually, um, obviously we do a lot of work on the front end of a plan. But even if we're just taking the time twice a year to kind of check in and actually you that dashboard and not just stare out the windshield for 30 minutes, you know, on your commute to it from, I think that, that action, um, and doing that with a partner to kind of tie it back to Valentine's Day is really, really powerful. And I think just because of the hustle and bustle and the distractions that we have, um, with technology or whatever else, it's hard for us to kind of slow down and say like, is this really what I want? Shay, is this really what you want? And I think like, you know, one of the things that Shay and I like to do when, so we do like a monthly date night and then we kind of do ad hoc stuff. Like we'll talk about, it's more of like dreams like like, where do we want to go next, right? So one of the exercises that we've done is, you know, we'll put, I'll make a list of all like the projects or things that I want to do. So whether it's buying RV or redo the kitchen or, you know, redo our backyard. So we kind of have this list and we both basically rank order the list in order, you know, basically what we want the most. And then I basically combine that and await it, await it, rank in and then we talk about that. Do you want to come up with a shared list first or do you have your own list? And then we come up with a shared list that we're both basically ranking and then what's come, what, what, what, what some of the things that have come out of that, where, you know, one of the things since we moved into our house in 2020, she's like, I hate this chandelier in the, in the front of the house. And, and I'm just, and I, I cannot care less about it. I, it's not something that I even notice, but she's like, I hate it. It's like this crystal thing. It gets dusty and cobwebby. I don't like it. Just get it done. And I'm like, what is it? What would it cost us to kind of get a new fixture in a place? She's like $1,500. I'm like, why are we even wasting anymore? And that's probably not the way, the right way to ask it because that sounds accusatory. But I'm like, what, what can we do just to make this go away? Like, you know, so, so those kind of get knocked off. But then some of the major projects like, hey, we're redoing our backyard. Like we both put that at the top of the top of the list and like, that's what we're attacking next, right? So then the next one, you know, we'll attack next or we maybe we'll do the, the, the rank in again. But I think like those are more of like the exciting, like nobody wants to talk about. All some people do. But like, like paying off debt is like, yeah, like it can kind of be a drag or some of these other more mundane parts of the financial plan. I think. Aligning things that in for us it's like You know having a green space that we really want and is inviting that you know We see our family, you know just enjoying was really important and we're not gonna move because of you know Where the market is the interest rates like we're gonna put the money in the house that we have and I think we're excited about that So like those are some of the discussions that we have and I think you know what you do is that you then plunk that into a financial planer And you say okay like how can we make this happen? Where are we where are we pulling this money from? How long is it gonna take for us to save? Do we use debt? Do we leverage what does that look like so? Yeah, Tim one thing you said that is so important and Jess and I experience is working with you and the rest of the planning team you said it is this what we want and A question that we have to come back to and one thing is I love about our process You know step one is we get organized we really can't do anything else until we have a good record and system of you know Where's everything at what's the balance sheet and do we have eyes on everything that's out there step two? Is what's the vision we call script your plan and and once we set that vision which I will Go on record by saying most financial planning firms and financial planners are making financial decisions without a vision And that is backwards. Yeah, sometimes even without like a balance sheet right like without a balance sheet You have a pulse. Let me sell you this insurance. Yes. Don't need yeah And the vision I always describe it the vision should be the window in which you're looking through in the other side is any financial decision or making How are we going to handle you know the debt? What are we looking at in terms of investing and saying for the future? Should we buy this investment property? What about this vacation? What about that right and that shared vision which you talked about is so important In terms of two people working together, but once we set that vision You know, this is not the strategic plan at your workplace where it sits on the shelf and becomes dusty like this comes back in the meetings Is a hey dimming to mingess in 2023 or whatever was last time we did this you guys said that tangibly these were the things that meant You were living your rich life with your family have we done them have we not hold the mirror up right you hold the mirror up Yeah, and when we think about how we measure the ROI right of the financial plan I know a topic you're passionate about sure there are X's and O's that we want to look at we're spending so much investing of time and money Working in the financial planner and what's the potential return on that if we didn't have that relationship? Yes, let's have that conversation, but what is it worth? To say this is the vision for rich life and we're actually going to make this happen and tracking whether or not We're achieving that like we all know when we look back in 30 or 40 years That is going to be what matters not did we get our nest egg to 3.9 versus 3.6 million dollars So that vision and having someone that can facilitate the conversations to get to that vision and then to hold that mirror back up and say How are we doing right now? I'm progressing and and I think it can be a little bit of tough love, you know a little bit of the stick of like Hey, you know, and if I'm talking to Mike self here It's like hey, Tim like nowhere in your script your plan meeting in your goal session Did you say that you had to lead the league and like bourbon purchases? If that's important then like that should be in the financial plan and we should we should you know We should account for that But if it's not then like what are we doing? You know, I know people can relate to like shop therapy and things like that you know that some of that things that goes on there But like most of the time people are like oh, I have to have like Do I don't have to have these things? But that's what we typically spend is empty calories. That's what we spend our our dollars on It's more of the and I'll shout out one of our clients. It's been working with us probably since 2018 I talked with her yesterday like one of the big things two major things That we've worked on I was so she Good amount of credit card debt large amounts of student loans didn't necessarily love her her job when she was working with us initially You know she what was uncovered in her script your plan when she had this passion for Horseback riding and I'm like you have to do this like this is obviously a passion when you talk about it You're glowing and she's like oh, but like credit card debt and I have to work more and and my student loans and You know you fast forward today, you know, she has she the loans are forgiven She's left that hospital system she's working in industry now. She loves their job of flexibility better money credit cards are gone She has pickles the horse she she moved from one part of Florida to another to be closer to like the National Questioning Center So like so like that was the big and then that was the big things and then when I talked to her yesterday, you know her her other big thing was she wanted to Do what African so far with her mom when she booked September early September right she's doing it and She was one of these people where I was talking about like seven figure pharmacists She's like here right in like that that's that's made up But we looked at her portfolio again This is not indicative of like future performance, but her IRAs that were managing grew a hundred thousand dollars year Rear and she's like oh Okay, like I'm now I'm starting to get it, but like super pumped up about like these trips and like the passion things like that So like we talk about ROI like we can see her net worth and her investments growing like that's that's that's happened But if you were to say like what are maybe some of the things that are better about the life plan that we've built out That's financial that's supported by the financial plan are these passions of like yeah this once in a lifetime trip the fact that she's You know making it happen with her you know her with with showing and horseback riding things like that so and again like I think this Can be harder with two like with two people to go back to the couples right and You know, I think the way that Shayette Shayne I do it in terms of rank ordering and and talking through things like that I think the help of a financial planner goes a long long way because there's different dynamics and different couples You know, there's some people that are a bulldozer some people that you know are more timid and I think bringing to light both Both partners contributions and viewpoints and what their passion are Is that's that's what's gonna like save the financial planning profession from the robots It's those types of engagements and That type of care and about about our clients and what we're doing. It's not Some of these other things right like like invest in or whatever those things are are gonna eventually be you know Everything's gonna be by robots, but I Think it's important again. It's it's really hard to do this by yourself. It's even harder to do it You know with a partner that has a different you know value structure and I think making sure that you're rowing that boat in the same direction Is it's vital or you you know you get it's passive aggressive or you know you better you bury things down deep and You know you hold on to them and it's not productive either Tim perhaps obvious, but I'd like to wrap up here And I think it needs to be said knowing that many of our listeners might be the nerd and their relationship right? And if one person is taking the lead and if that's you Which is very common that you might have one person kind of take the lead It's critical that the other person the other party is informed right delegation does not Equal uninformed and I think this is where something like a third party Can be a really valuable asset. This is where making sure you have periodic meetings You've talked about that earlier in the show Making sure you've got good systems and documents like legacy folders we've talked about that on the show before And it reminds me back to an episode four years ago We'll link it link to this episode in the show notes one I often reference back to With Michelle Cooper who wrote a book. I've still got Mia Widow's journey to love happiness and financial dependence and During the show she shared her personal story of After losing her husband to suicide and realizing shortly after is that that despite herself being an attorney and Working in the financial industry for years She was out of a loop of their family finances and was left to navigate everything while also getting the loss of her husband and You know again if one person's taking the lead and that function works great But what are the systems? What's the third party solution? What are the conversations that need to be happening to make sure that both people are informed in that process? Yeah, so important to him and like I said, you know, I think I think the best results are when you have two engaged parties most of the time That more or less take take our advice. I mean we do use tools that Can keep maybe an absent partner or a spotty partner up to speed Whether that's emails or Recap emails or things like that, but I think the goal here just ultimately You know when you're working as a couple on your money You want to the goal is to win most of the time and I think you know, you're never going to be perfect some people You know will will have bad months or make bad decisions um and and they feel despondent, but you know, I think I think it's really exciting And and can be very relieving, you know, especially when you have the plan in place to know like hey, we're okay So we can maybe do things that are outside of the comfort zone whether it's saving or spending Whatever respect you fall on and and again, obviously we're super biased because we believe in what we do and we've seen you know Great results from a lot of our clients um But you know, it's something that again we just don't do well because we are just not something we have the vocabulary for so I look I appreciate the topic um and like like we mentioned at the top like It's not a one-size-fits-all like like in theory There there's a lot of ways to kind of attack all the financial plan and how your Your finances are set up and I think it's trying to it's the same thing with the budget trying to find what works best for you um and running with that and then kind of iterating and and and making sure that you feel that all parties are kind of representing it, if you'll go about it. - Let me end Tim by putting it plug in for our services as good as our team just does this incredibly well. Shout out to our team of certified financial planners. If you're listening, thinking, "Hey, I'd like to learn more about what it would look like in working with one of YFB's "feel me certified financial planners." Whether you're a single, engaged, married partner, we'd love to have that conversation. Go to yourfinancialfarmistice.com. You'll see an option there to book a discovery call, Tim leads those discovery calls. Opportunity for us to learn more about your situation, learn more about our services and ultimately determine whether or not there's a good fit there. We'd love to have that conversation. And I think that we look at our process and our system as I talked about briefly in terms of making sure we have everything organized, scripting that plan, setting the vision. We just do this effectively. And I think that not only are we trying to move the net worth forward, that's an important part, but we're also looking at beyond the numbers, what does it look like to be living a rich life? And how do we get clear on that? And how do we develop a financial plan that could support living that rich life? So Tim really enjoyed the conversation and we'll catch everyone back here next week. Take care. - Thanks so much for joining us for this week's episode of the podcast. If you like what you heard, please do us a favor and leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help other pharmacists find the show. And finally, an important reminder that the content in this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. For more information on this, you can visit yourfinancialformerces.com/disclamer. Thanks so much for listening. Have a great rest of your week.